Though Shine chose the people, the team was not agreed about doing this.

The half of it that had been in Beacon had already promised to not argue with her--and so far they were sticking to it, begrudgingly.

Except Tai and the other half of the team who had made no such promise yet.

Qrow was the most sure this idea was a terrible one, and he could be pretty convincing. The more he talked, the less Raven wanted to do this.

"You're all not strong enough to resist that many," he kept saying. "It's crazy, and taking any of the Maidens with you is even crazier. What else are you going to do, take the Relics?"

"If you'd let me think--" Shine didn't want to listen to this. "--I'd be grateful."

"Listen--" Winter tried to get Qrow to shut up. "--we've already decided. And it's a whole kingdom. It sounds like they won't live long if we don't act immediately. Are you serious about just abandoning them?"

"You think I like this?" Qrow almost bit her head off, but it sounded more like he was freaking out than angry. "I don't want to! But it's a suicide mission!"

He rubbed his knuckles.

"What happened to your hand?" Yang asked him.

"Nothing." Qrow put it behind his back.

"After Weiss and Meridian left," Libby hissed to Yang, "he punched the wall real hard. I think he was angry about Vacuo. We all are. Cussed up a storm, too."

"Oh." Yang understood the feeling.

"Likstar," Qrow appealed to her more directly, "do you not understand how these things work? On top of that, Salem might just be waiting for you to walk in."

"Nothing about that changes our responsibility," Shine insisted. "We did this. We need to make it right."

"You can't blame yourself," Qrow said. "We left to protect it. We knew it was a long shot, but staying wouldn't have made it any better. We'd just have been caught too... And now you're going to play right into her hands."

"It's nice to hear you think about that," Shine said. "But it's not that simple."

"Really? Because usually you'd say it was," Qrow said. "You're supposed to be smarter than this."

"Thanks," Shine said.

Qrow looked like he was going to scream. But after a moment of probably mentally counting to ten, he said tightly, "What will you do if it's tougher than you thought?"

"Qrow, if my own demons have not ended me yet, I'm not that worried about this world's," Shine said. "If it does work on us, though, you can say I told you so."

"There won't be anyone left to say that to." Qrow sounded miserable. "All those people...it's probably too late for them. What if you just walked in and they're already dead? Then it really was for nothing, and you'd be risking your lives anyway."

"Ultimately, that makes no difference," Shine insisted. "You have no faith."

"What is there to have faith in?" Qrow said.

"Well..." Shine tilted her head. "You're not drunk."

"What?" Qrow couldn't believe she just said that.

"I just noticed--after getting news like that, usually we could expect that," Shine said. "And this was pretty bad news. But you didn't even try. Isn't that miraculous?"

"How is that miraculous?" Qrow thought she was crazy. "I didn't have time to think about something like that--" He stopped suddenly.

Winter gave Shine a surprised look.

Shine was smirking way too smugly.

"We've been praying about that," she said. "And you didn't think it would ever happen, did you? Now, if that can change, why not anything else?"

"Those two things are not the same," Qrow said.

"Oh, Qrow, " Shine sighed. "You still don't know how much the same they really are. You guys are so blinded by outward appearances of these things, but it's what they do to us inside that matters."

"By the way, Sunshine, about the Relics," Wally said, "kind of worried about having Oscar close to them. Should we really take them in? The Apathy might go right for them."

"Yeah, I know," Shine said. "In fact, I'm not sure both of us should even go into the kingdom."

"Seriously?" Wally said. "You want to separate at a time like this."

"I'm thinking of the possibility that we could get caught," Shine said, just as if she hadn't just told Qrow not to worry about it. "You're so fast they couldn't land a hit on you if we needed help. I can't be sure how much they'd affect us. They're not like the other Grimm exactly. I've struggled with fear and apathy before, which worries me--but then I also know what it feels like. That could up my chances or hurt them. You, on the other hand, don't have those problems. If we did get stuck, you could get us out."

"But I also could fight them a lot faster," Wally said.

"We don't need speed," Shine said. "They're slow and weak. We need resistance. Once we get close, all of us could probably kill them easily. It's possible we could tag team this. That's where you and Raven come in. Between the two of you, we could switch places. That way if our Aura gets too low, we could rest. Salem won't expect us to do anything that intelligent or complex. There's a good chance she'd not even catch on if we did it."

"Oh, I kinda like this plan." Wally grinned. "Yeah, tag team."

"Are you serious?" Qrow spoke again.

"At least she's listening to your concerns," Winter said. "What do you expect? They'd never leave people to die like that. They're better than us."

"This isn't dropping a bomb on people, this is risking something that's already confirmed to be a bad idea," Qrow argued.

"You could try having a little faith." Winter frowned. "It seems to work out for them."

"What did they do in Beacon?" Qrow wondered.

"It's going to be fine, Uncle Qrow," Ruby tried to help. "It's all right. Between Oscar and me, we've got the plague thing handled."

Oscar laughed nervously. Ruby's confidence in him still felt misplaced, but it was nice that someone wasn't just saying it was because he was Ozpin--who didn't like this plan, unsurprisingly.

"Oscar?" Qrow glanced at him. "What happened, Ruby?"

"You should have seen it." Ruby pumped her fist. "The Grimm were so gross, but Oscar just made them bow to his will. And I lasered them like it was nothing! I've got way better control now. I can just about do it on command." Her eyes flickered.

Winter stepped back slightly.

"Sorry." Ruby blinked. "Right, I need to be careful. I keep forgetting."

"It was pretty amazing," Oscar offered shyly.

"I'd say we make a pretty good team," Ruby said cheerfully.

"Team?" Qrow suddenly had a new concern. "Ruby...did something happen on that train ride?"

"Oh, that part was horrible." Ruby waved her hand. "But I did learn something. I can help with the curse. Isn't that great? I just need to stick close to Oscar while we're doing stuff Ozpin doesn't like."

Winter tilted her head. "That's good."

"Good?" Qrow looked at her like she was crazy. "No, this is not good. Ruby, you shouldn't be taking on that kind of responsibility with Oscar."

"Why not?" Ruby said, confused.

"Because that's bad." Qrow shook his head. "Very bad. Just stay away at least by 20 feet."

"I could still use my eyes at 20 feet," Ruby said. "But I can't have conversations at that distance."

"Yeah, exactly," Qrow said.

"You're acting weird," Ruby said. "You sound like Dad."

She glanced at Mercury. "I hope I don't have to get started on that other thing till after this..."

"Speaking of which, is he going to accompany us or not?" Winter mused.

Mercury had no desire to do this, and neither did Emerald. Shine hadn't picked them either, so they thought it'd be fine...except that meant they'd be stuck guarding the Relics, and Mercury didn't want to do that either.

Ruby and Oscar walked away from Qrow.

"This is not good." Qrow shook his head. "She's too young for this."

"For saving a kingdom?" Winter asked.

"No, boys, that's what that is," Qrow scowled. "I knew there was something up with Pine. Why did I ever let her go on the trip?"

Winter thought it was humorous that that was his big concern.

"I think, put against imminent peril, that's a distant second."

"Winter," Weiss interrupted, "are you really going to join us?"

"I don't know if you should go," Winter said. "But I think my mind is made up."

"No, I told Meridian I would go," Weiss said. "I have to."

"Because of that?" Winter narrowed her eyes.

"Yeah, I owe him big time," Weiss said. "I half considered just sneaking away in Mistral once the darkness lifted, but I'm glad Miss Likstar was already planning to intervene, because I don't know how long that would have taken."

"Sneaking away?" Winter said sharply. "Are you mad? With a total stranger?"

"He's not a stranger. Remember he and Hamish literally helped save me?" Weiss gestured. "It's the least I could do."

She tugged her ponytail. "Besides..."

"Besides what?" Winter said.

"Nothing, nevermind. I just think you'd be safer if you stayed away," Weiss said. "Do you have to come? Aren't Raven and Vara already a bad enough risk?"

"I assure you I will not be cowed." Winter perhaps still didn't fully grasp how scary the Apathy was. 

"Right..." Weiss said. "I think Shine is going to split us into groups, but I don't think we'll be in the same one--similar powers and all--so just be careful." She sighed and walked back to Meridian and Hamish--yes, he'd finally found them while they were at Haven.

Winter frowned.

"That right there, that's also boys," Qrow said helpfully.

"I'm sure Weiss would know better than--" Winter broke off. "Forget about it. This is a serious situation."

Qrow realized he shouldn't be talking to her, period. Wow, he really was the worst at self control. Couldn't go two hours without going back on his resolution.

[Good thing New Year's resolutions don't exist in Remnant.]

Winter saw Vara smirking at her in the same moment and flushed. She really had hoped she'd forget about that stupid conversation once they had a real problem to focus on.

She was going to change the subject, but Qrow walked away with zero warning before she could. Strange...

"Theo, tell me you're not really taking this lightly," Qrow said to him.

"You do what you gotta," Theo said. "You'd do it if your family was in danger."

"My entire family is going to be endangered," Qrow said. "And I'm benched."

"Well, you know, with Apathy, I can't blame them." Theo never spared his feelings. "But hey, did I tell you yet that Oscar and I are related?"

"What?" Qrow thought he was joshing.

But then Theo told him the whole story--which didn't take that much time.

"Right." Ruby heard and started telling her team and JNPR. "Oscar and Theo are cousins! Oscar's Aunt Em was Henry's sister. Isn't it weird?"

"That is...bizarre," Jaune said blankly.

"That's awesome!" Nora said. "What if we were related secretly too? I mean, I don't know anything about my extended family. It's possible!"

"Nora, you look nothing alike," Ren said.

"That doesn't prove anything," Nora said. "Theo doesn't know his real family either. Who knows?"

"It's highly unlikely," Pyrrha said. "But it's a small world. Oscar, isn't it nice that you have more family?"

"Yeah, one more." Oscar looked nervous. "Though I'm not sure I want to be related to Theodore. He's..."

They all looked at him. He had his boomerang out.

"Eccentric?" Pyrrha said.

"Sure, let's go with that," Oscar muttered.

"Hey, you can't pick your family," Jaune said.

"Yeah," Ruby said. "I'm related to Raven after all, and she's a Bandit. It could be worse."

"She's less scary than he is," Oscar said.

"I think it's funny." Yang had no mercy for Oscar, since her family was just as weird or worse. "Hey, maybe you can have a reunion after all this, go over scrapbooks..."

"You know, if I survive the Apathy," Theo was saying to Qrow, "I want to dig out my family files and see if I can find anything about Oscar. If it was under my nose the whole time, I'm going to kick myself in the head."

"I feel sorry for Oscar," Qrow said, "related to a loon like you."

"Coming from the actual bird? I wouldn't talk," Theo said.

"Boys, boys, you're both loons," Vara interrupted. "We need to get going. The only thing worse than facing Apathy is doing it when it's dark."

It was already late afternoon.

"Okay," Shine called everyone. "Everyone who's not going with us in the first wave, your job is protecting those stupid Relics. But if the Grimm get too bad, come join us. Or at least get close. The desert will help you ward them off, and the Apathy at least don't attract other Grimm, if nothing else. We're stronger together. If we don't come back before dark, you might want to look for us. Check the edge of the country to see if anything changes. If you see a lot of smoke, you'll know what's probably going on. Everyone else, we'll split into groups once we get there. I'm going to take Yang to the edge, then send her back once Raven brings the rest of you. Anyone wanting to come with me, hop in."

She opened the doorway.

"Be careful, honey," Wally said. "I'll be checking for trouble, but call us if you need help."

"Pray for us," Shine said. "And remember the music thing. It might keep the Grimm away from you longer."

"Let's go already." Libby jumped through the door, and Meridian, Weiss, and Hamish ran after her.

Shine jumped then.

Raven opened a door a second later, and everyone else ran through it.

Winter did look back for a second, like she wanted to say something, but then she just went through.

"All that, and I can't do anything," Tai said.

"We have a job," Glynda said harshly. "Two Relics here is enough of a problem. I say we all guard different directions."

She assembled some kind of barrier around them. 

"Qrow, you have patrol," she added.

"And I can circle the kingdom," Wally said. "I just hope a sandstorm doesn't blow up."

"Why not just get rid of it like before?" Emerald said.

"Good idea," Wally agreed.

* * *

Shine took them right to the very edge of Vacuo's oasis.

Yang looked around.

"All right, back you go," Shine told her.

"Are you sure about this?" Yang asked. "I could still help."

"Yang, they need more people guarding those Relics and for backup," Shine said. "You may have to help soon enough. Make the most of your break."

"We'll be okay," Ruby assured her.

Yang reluctantly went back.

Raven looked upward.

"I feel like I have better control than before," she said. "But I could fall at any time."

"Kip and Penny will stay within range of you," Shine said. "Your job is to scout out of the entrance for that Apathy. From all I heard, that should be probably 50 feet in the air at least, if not more. Penny, you're probably not going to be affected at all, so I want you to keep track of Kip and Raven's moods, and if you see anyone else go down, get them out of the kingdom and to the oasis, that should be the best location to wait till we can move them."

"Aye aye," Penny said. "But what about my father?"

"We know he's probably at the school." Shine shielded her eyes. "Unfortunately that's going to take us the longest to get to, almost, from here. We'll let you know what we find, but I need you in the air. Scan for any opening into the tunnels that you can see from up there. There was the one Tai and Raven came out of and the one I found Winter and Qrow in. You know where they were."

"Okay," Penny agreed.

"Everyone else, on the ground." Shine turned to them. "Stay together, watch each other. Since we know the symptoms now, it'll be hard for it to slip by."

"Watch their eyes," Weiss spoke up. "We didn't notice it before, but our pupils got smaller the longer we were affected."

"High emotion makes your pupils bigger," Shine said. "So that makes sense. If any get too tired to move at all, signal one of the flying people as soon as you can and get out. Other than that, my best tip to you is pray and sing. That always helps me, and the Apathy will not like anything that boosts people's spirits. If you find someone we know while you're looking around, you can try to move them, but judge the situation realistically. If they're too far gone, you might just exhaust yourself trying. Finding the Apathy is our main objective. Everyone clear on this?"

"And when we find them, killing them however we can," Jaune clarified.

Shine stared at the kingdom. "I can feel something is different. Listen, you can't hear a single thing."

True, no yelling, no sounds of fighting, or vendors selling stuff, no rattle of wagons...nothing.

"One last thing--it's possible the Apathy don't have the whole kingdom under their control yet. If you find an area they're not in, let us know," Shine finished. "God be with you all. All right, teams, let's each take one direction."

"I know my way around the south side," Libby said. "Let's start there."

"With you, then," Meridian said. "And the plan is to move anyone we can to the oasis?"

"That's the plan," Pyrrha confirmed.

Jaune was going with Meridian to enhance his Semblance--but Pyrrha wasn't.

Shine had probably separated them on purpose after what happened before.

Pyrrha, Nora, Ruby, and Oscar were going the other way.

Shine was going to take the Maiden and Theo with her, because they need to keep them out of range of the Silver Eyes.

The flying people took to the air, one in each direction the others would be going.

Theo was going straight to Shade if he could, right across the center of the kingdom, and the other teen group was going around the west side.

They broke off and started hurrying.

 No immediate change was noticed.

Since they'd not brought the Relics with them, the Apathy wouldn't likely zero in on any targets immediately, unless they wanted magic, but Salem had known the Maidens weren't here, so that seemed unlikely.

It was more worrying that nothing seemed different--except that it was dead quiet.

It was hot even so, hot and languid, which couldn't be helping anything.

It took a while to find anyone, since people had moved to the shade when they began to feel tired, but finally Ruby ran ahead and reported that she'd found the camp.

Much less than before, as so many people had left it, but there were still a lot of tents out.

The Happy Huntresses were all over the place, in the shade, or out of it in some cases, lying around.

Ruby and Oscar had seen it before, but Nora and Pyrrha found it incredibly unsettling.

"Are they still alive?" Nora asked in a hushed voice.

Ruby lifted someone's wrist.

"They're still breathing," she said in relief. "But they're really hot."

The person blinked at her woozily and then slumped again.

"We should move anyone who isn't waking up into the tents for now," Pyrrha said. "We can't do that much for them, but they'll die of dehydration soon."

They spread out and tried to find people who needed it the most.

Unfortunately, they found that some people it was too late for. The sun had fried them.

Pyrrha almost threw up when that happened.

Nora, who'd seen more death on the road than Pyrrha had, handled it better.

"We were too late for them," she said, trying to help, "but it could be so much worse. So far it's only been about half of them. Most of these people we can still save. We have to focus on that."

"I...I know." Pyrrha swallowed. "Of course."

The smell was awful, though.

They had no time to bury anyone either.

"Pyrrha," Nora said, as they were looking for more survivors, "I know you have this great faith now...but I don't understand--why didn't God tell us this was happening sooner? Even a day ago, we could have been in time."

"I don't know," Pyrrha said. "I feel like yesterday we had too many things going on our end going on. Even if we'd wanted to leave, we couldn't have. The extra worry wouldn't have helped anything... Even if we'd known, we'd still have had to finish our mission to get the Relic first. I'm sorry."

"I guess that's true," Nora said somberly. "I'm just tired of people dying because of us."

"It wasn't because of us exactly," Pyrrha said. "This fight has gone on for centuries... We can't keep blaming ourselves for it."

"It feels like it's our fault," Nora said.

"It's everyone's fault," Pyrrha said.

https://youtu.be/b990QXdKGIs

[AMV "We didn't start the fire" by ThusKindlySheScatters]

"Yeah...and after this, what's going to happen?" Nora asked. "Did they tell you their plan?"

"Not in detail," Pyrrha said. "But I think we have to face Salem. I think it's all that's left to do. And if we can stop her, it'll finally be over."

"I hope so," Nora sighed.

"You're not afraid?" Pyrrha said.

"Of Salem? I guess so," Nora said. "But I'm more afraid to see this, over and over and over again..."

Oscar and Ruby had gone the other way. Oscar was trying really hard not to cry.

"I've seen this so many times," Ozpin remarked. "Death and more death. But never so silently waiting to die... In a strange way, it's like Salem's ultimate mockery to us, that people would just give up even fighting her and accept their inevitable demise."

Oz, this isn't real, Oscar said. The Apathy isn't what we really want. It's sucking our will out of us.

"At some level, Oscar, I think all Grimm do show a side of humanity that is, unfortunately, natural to us. Apathy is still a part of our flaws."

Oz, you're not helping, Oscar said. Your experience would be useful here if you have any suggestions.

"Remember that Miss Likstar said to not spend too much time on this," Ozpin said. "But if you're seeing a large amount of people that are...far gone, it might mean the Apathy are under us more. I don't know."

"Oscar!" Ruby called. "Over here."

Oscar ran over. She was next to one tent.

"I found Robyn," Ruby said.

Robyn was lying at the foot of one cot.

"Is she dead?" Oscar gulped.

"No," Ruby said. She shook her. "She's not dead, but she won't wake up."

Oscar poked Robyn with his spear.

She sat up sharply. "Ow...?" Then she blinked. "Pine? Rose?... What are you doing here?"

"Are you okay?" Ruby asked.

Robyn's pupils were not dilated hardly at all.

"Fine," she said, like she was in a trance. "Just tired... I guess everyone is..."

"I was hoping that would work longer," Oscar said sadly.

"Can we heal them?" Ruby wondered.

"I don't know if Apathy is something you just heal," Oscar said.

"Robyn." Ruby shook her. "Talk to us. Do you know how long everyone's been feeling tired?"

"I don't know... A long time..." Robyn said weakly. "Can I go back to sleep now?"

"No, Robyn, listen, this isn't natural," Ruby said. "It's something called Apathy. It's a Grimm attack. You have to try to fight it."

"Fight what?" Robyn half closed her eyes.

"The sleepiness feeling." Ruby smacked her in an effort to wake her.

Robyn opened her eyes again.

"It's a Grimm. It's inside your head," Ruby insisted. "Try to wake up. Try to remember."

"Inside my head?" Robyn said. "Grimm don't get inside your head."

"This one does," Ruby said. "I've seen it! Please, try."

Robyn rubbed her face slowly. "Feels pretty convincing... I don't know if you're making this up or not, but all I know is everyone started sleeping a lot more a couple days ago... Not sure when it really started. But it doesn't really matter..."

Ruby shook her some more. "It does matter! The music stands, what happened to them?"

"Oh...those... We put them away," Robyn said, sleepily.

"Where?" Ruby tugged her arm. "Get up, show us."

"I don't want to..." Robyn said.

Oscar tugged her other arm. "Come on," he said. "You have to fight the Apathy, Robyn. Think of your Huntresses, they're all going to die."

Robyn blinked, then slowly she looked up. "Die?"

"Yes, they will die if you don't show us right now!" Ruby said.

"That seems a little dramatic," Robyn said.

"Joanna will beat you up," Oscar said, "if you let her die."

Robyn smiled faintly. "She would... I don't know where the speakers went. Elm was moving them..."

"Where is she?" Ruby asked.

"Somewhere..." Robyn looked around very slowly.

They had quite a time of it getting her to even leave the tent, but by prodding her on, they woke her up a little more, and she very slowly led them to a different tent, and they did find the Ace Ops there.

It seemed that Elm might have lasted the longest against the Apathy, probably due to her higher Aura. She was the only one who'd answer them, Harriet and Marrow were asleep and only shoved at them when they tried to wake them up.

It took a lot of prodding to get Elm to get up, but finally she did, and she showed them where the speakers had been shoved under some tarps.

To Oscar's frustration, some of the parts for them were missing.

"This stupid kingdom!" he said angrily. "Always stealing things."

"Okay, let's not panic," Ruby said. "There has to be somewhere else we can find parts. The market, I know there's an electronic shop there. I'll go get some."

"Don't go alone," Oscar said.

"I'll take Pyrrha. Maybe she can help me move stuff," Ruby said. "Oscar, we have to get it playing. They don't have much longer."

"When did you guys last eat or drink?" Oscar asked them.

"I don't know. Yesterday maybe..." Elm said.

"Ruby, what about that water Pyrrha has?" Oscar said. "I bet it would reduce the effects."

"We don't have enough for all these people," Ruby said.

"I mean just for them." Oscar jabbed at Elm and Robyn. "If they could take over here, we could find the Apathy."

"Oh, good idea." Ruby smiled. "Okay, I'll tell her that."

She dashed around to find Pyrrha.

* * *

Shine, Theo, Vara, and Winter found the same thing.

Shine wasn't used to war scenes like this, so much death.

She seemed unusually pale.

Theo was a lot more used to seeing death, and he told them to just stick to the middle of the road while he took a closer look.

He reported that about 10% of the citizens he found were dead already.

"But this area is a lot more exposed." He tried to put a good spin on it. "They got more sun. In the shady area, there'll be more survivors. The rest of them are either in a coma, which is about 40% I'd say, or are really loopy. I didn't find anyone who was still alert. I can't be sure I saw everyone either, since I can't just search every house or hovel or shop, but from what I did see, that's about it."

"And whoever is still alert, we could assume the Apathy are probably not in that area directly," Shine said, trying to stay calm.

"Are you all right there?" Vara said.

Shine put a hand to her stomach. "I usually arrive before people die, not afterward," she said. "I know we've had casualties in the kingdoms due to the plagues, but I didn't see them up close. And I tried not to think about it, because it's bound to happen in Grimm attacks. Nothing we could do would prevent it, but...there's something so awful about the way this is happening."

"So you're not completely impervious to fear," Vara said, as usual, way too bluntly. "I thought you were like a machine."

"Vara!" Winter snapped at her sharply.

"What?" Vara said.

"Are you going to be all right?" Winter asked Shine more gently.

"I knew it could happen," Shine said. "I've always been able to deal with things if I have to... It's not like death never happens in my world, Winter. I'm just not on the front lines. But I think I can manage."

"How much experience have you had with it?" Theo looked at Winter. "And don't bulls--- me. I need to know how likely one of you is to go into shock."

"To be perfectly honest, the most death I have seen up close was the Bandit Camp after Salem ravaged it," Winter said. "I was a high ranking officer, and we've not been at war since I joined the military. I've seen some Grimm attacks, but I spend most of my time in Atlas. But I don't think I will go into shock over this. I expected it."

"So two novices and Vara, who's been off the field for 13 years," Theo said. "Great to know I'm the senior officer here."

"Theo, if they weren't tough b-----s they wouldn't have made it this far," Vara said. "Give it a rest."

"Look, no matter how tough you are, the first time you see mass destruction is always a shock," Theo said. "Just let us know if you start feeling weird about it."

"The only plus side to this is that the Apathy will make any shock we have less," Shine said. "In fact, my lack of shock could be a bad sign, so if I start acting like I don't care, let me know."

She looked upward. "I don't understand why such things happen."

"Who, you? Miss I-Have-All-The-Answers, you're actually saying that?" Vara was stunned.

"Vara, I have questions too. I've always admitted that," Shine said.

"But...if you don't get it, why do you still...believe?" Vara was confused.

"Because anything you stop believing because of a few things you don't understand, it's not worth believing it," Shine said. "I can't understand higher math, but I still believe it exists, and it works. I just can't work it. And the people who have lived through war and retained their faith seem to have found some answers. Until I walk their path, who am I to say it doesn't work? The best advice I've gotten about handling these matters is from one of my personal heroes of faith--used to say that her family would tell her that we need to let God carry matters that are too heavy for us. She applied that to the cruelty she saw in prison camp, that though she didn't know all of the reasons it happened, she accepted that God knew. Her sister told her to tell the world that 'no pit is so deep that He is not deeper still.' "

"And that works for you?" Theo said skeptically.

"'For in this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,' " [John 16:33]  Shine quoted. "That's what the Master said. And, 'You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but the end is not yet.' [Matthew 24:6]  And in another place one servant said, 'My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul'. [Psalm 131:1] Who am I to complain? The Lord himself had trouble."

"I'd still complain," Vara said. "Because this didn't have to happen."

"Does blaming God make you feel less helpless?" Shine asked. "I'm not sure what you expect that to accomplish. Even if it was His fault, it won't induce Him to change His mind next time if you take that tone. And if it is not His fault, why should He fix it? Is He obligated to fix our mistakes? I could blame God, but I want to get out of this. I must believe He is on our side. And since He's helped before, how faithless would I be to just give up because I do not understand this? Please, stop speaking doubtful things. I need to focus. You want me at full capacity, right?"

"Leave her alone," Winter told Vara. "Whatever keeps us safe is good, isn't it?"

"Fine," Vara wavered. "Do your thing. Just don't expect me to be happy about it."

https://youtu.be/skX_7yUFa98

["Doubt"-- 21 Pilots]