Avila, 1577
Teresa of Ávila was on her knees, but she was flying. Her body convulsed in the dusty cell, a silent scream of joy on her lips. Enki, posing as a scribe for the visiting Inquisitor, felt the air in the room vibrate. This was not piety. This was a raw, untamed, and terrifyingly personal collision with the divine. It bypassed liturgy, hierarchy, and reason.
The Inquisitor, a man named Vargas, watched with cold, clinical eyes. He saw not a saint, but a malfunction. "Her 'ecstasies' are unapproved. Unregulated. A woman, of such... passion. It is a danger to the public order."
He ordered her to stop. To contain the fire within the hearth of approved doctrine.
Teresa, when she came back to herself, looked at him with a pity that was more devastating than defiance. "You ask a river to stop flowing because you are afraid of getting wet."
The system could not process her. She was a variable that would not be solved.
Scrapbook Entry: "They fear her not for her heresy, but for her authenticity. Her faith is a fire that warms but does not consume its vessel. The Cage-Makers have no tool for a soul that melts its own bars from the inside out."