“Why would you do that?” The voice emanated from a bright light that descended from a circular entrance in the ceiling. The room was marbled with aspects of gold. The Light reached parity with whom it was speaking and redoubled. “Well, why would you interfere with them?” The subject to which the question was posed froze. “Um, sorry, sir. I thought that was our job. Do well to those that are of our flock.”

  The Light, which now gave the form of a young man with curls of straw hair, floated next to the other. “You’re new, I can forgive it, so long as you can forgive yourself for this.” The second man turned to look at the first as his hovering stopped with him sitting next to him. “Forgive—forgive, what?” He bristled at the touch of the other, such a physical contact was rare here. “You have, through this action—through helping—destroyed the fragile balance of nature.”

  “I don’t understand, how is that so wrong?” He tore free, gently, of the arm that was placed around him. “It is not your job, you didn’t have the right to, you were not given the authorization to—that, that is what you did wrong. Not the action itself, but by jumping the gun on it.” The previously light-bathed man took his previous form once more. The second drew back, recoiling in the closest thing to fear that he could internalize.

  “Bu-but why must I have permission? I am a supervisor, a guardian over this woman! Is it not my duty, my sacred duty, to help and save her?”

  Abating, the Light withdrew. “You are a guardian, yes. A miracle worker, no.”

  “How do I guard without working miracles? Am I to watch her suffer?” The Light approached him once more, though he did not sit this time. “Because you do not see everything, you see with sight only a step above that of a mortal man.”

  “Is that not enough? What more could I have to see? She suffers. I cannot watch her suffer, it causes me just as much pain.” The second man had risen to meet the eyes of the first, slight puddles of tears welling in his bright blue eyes. “She only suffers now, that is what you can’t see. But that suffering would’ve led to her expressing that grief in such a uniquely beautiful way; so beautiful, that it would transcend her and lead to the uplifting of so many others who suffer as she did. They would heal from that, she would heal from that. All would be better for her tragedy in that relatively brief moment. That is what you don’t see.”

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  The second man dropped, the weight of his naivety falling with him. He could no longer meet the eyes of the being of light, the embarrassment was too much. His gaze did not leave the ground as the man levitated once more. “Rise, young one.” And he did, he had to. Not because he wanted to, but because his entire body was filled with the impulse too against his will.

  “H—how, how do I repair this? Have I truly fouled up His plan?” Those blue eyes stayed on the floor. “No, you have not. Merely set it back, only by four months. Though she will get over the feeling much sooner.” Those made his eyes look into the ball of light. “So, I made things better for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, I didn’t follow the plan, that’s why you’re here?”

  “Yes.” the Light repeated.

  “What happens now?”

  “You will ask me for forgiveness.”

  “Will I receive it?”

  “Yes.”

  That response seemed to come from an entity on a wholly different plane than who he was speaking to before. He felt something settle inside him. Unlike the impulse to rise, words were not forced out of him. Those had to come from him, and they did. And he was forgiven. He felt an embrace, one so warm and filling that he could not express anything like it. He did not just hear that he was forgiven, he felt it in every fiber of his being.

  When he opened his eyes, the Light was gone, and he was once again alone in the room. The console in front of him showed the same woman he had been watching over. She was on her knees, hands clasped. Although this time, he only listened to her. He didn’t move to help, or even to speak to her. He only sat by the console, and watched and prayed likewise.