deernet | 002 // text; username: grollschwert

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002 // text; username: grollschwert

cw: chronic illness, ruminations on death

Fun one for you tonight.

[this message comes in the middle of the night, when no one in their right mind should be awake. but that's never stopped anna. she can't sleep, and if flynn and ruby and everybody are right then she has to at least try not to keep this stuff inside her at all times. sorrow's silence we needn't bear, or whatever.]

You know a girl. Her body is breaking down and her meds are failing her.
She has years left. Maybe months, if it gets worse.
But something happens, and she gets access to amazing new technology. Things that prevent her body from attacking itself.
Things that stop her timer from ticking faster than everyone else's.
Great, right?
You get to know her better. You entertain her little crush on you. Maybe you like her back a little and maybe things aren't gonna be so bad.

But one day, you do something.
Something that sets off a chain of events that you couldn't have predicted. Not in a million years.
Small things collide into medium things collide into big huge massive things.
And after the butterfly version of you is done flapping its wings, she doesn't have access to that technology anymore.
She's back on the timer.

She doesn't know you did anything.
She never finds out.
You can't bring yourself to tell her, and she wouldn't believe it if you did.

She barely recognizes you anymore, by the end of it.
Her family finds your name on her phone and invites you to pay respects.

Do you still go to her funeral?

Did you kill her?

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Forgive me for that. [There's rueful amusement in his tone.] My skills at counseling soldiers on this sort of quandary, they have grown rust over the years.

[The Unearthed had needed none of them.] But, I am hearing this. I do not give you advice I have always followed; I, too, might blame myself.

Because it is better that somehow, I could take the blame for her death through my actions, than there was nothing whatever I could have done to save her.

[Though he has a very different example in mind, and must be silent for a too-long moment himself to let fade the dim spike of grief it brings.]

You spoke to him as well? [His voice is warmer at the thought.] I am glad so many did; he did seem to. Moon Presence, I think--she seems kindly disposed toward us, though distant. I do not know if she desires visitors, but I trust she listens, when we entreat.

Edited (fixes a piratical verb, yarr) 2021-11-17 06:44 (UTC)

[it's better to blame herself than accept that there was nothing she could've done. mm. that's a heavy thought, and it would be even if it weren't the middle of the night. it distracts her; she sounds distant as she replies to the easier part of what he's just said.]

Would love to hold some kind of audience or something with her. To see what's on her mind. If they're all just... people, but bigger. You know?

[she sits in that assumption for a bit, then comes out with it.]

You really think it's as easy as me not handling that I couldn't have done anything?

[He takes silent note of her distraction; not unexpected, given the course and weight of their discussion. The contour of the pattern suggests he should feel the same way--and he does, a little. He thinks. If the moment of remembering Nadya was an indication.

Easy enough to act as if.]

I think of all of them, she is one of the closest to people as we know them. Bigger, wilder, with ambitions that are beyond our grasp, but people.

If you should talk to her, I would like to hear of it.

[Then...

He takes a breath in and lets it out, a deliberate sigh.]

I think nothing in grief is ever easy, and there are many parts to our griefs. But assuming fault where it cannot be ours, this is one part.

To be a part of the universe is to be acted upon as well as to act. And yet most thinking creatures, we find helplessness worse than pain.

Especially when we know we are capable of saving worlds. Why must one life be so much harder?

[it's a good thing this is over voice and not in person. it means she can hide how much she's looking away, up at the moon, thinking about what the Presence must want and how she's hovering there, overseeing everyone always. whether she thinks she's stuck here, too. and while she's looking away, she's listening, processing. hoping that it can get through her stupid, thick head enough to matter later on.]

I spent so much time getting acted upon. [she'll use his words.] Never acting. Until one day, everything changed for me, and I could finally do something about it. Like, dude, I traveled through time on purpose. I didn't think there was anything left that could hold me back.

[she only comes to voice this conclusion because it's late, she's tired, and it's harder to put up the thinnest veneer of resistance than it is to just say it outright. she might not remember it in the morning. it's hard to know.]

I guess I just got too used to that. I forgot there really were things I couldn't change. Things that were stronger than me. Like whatever brought me here.

[This a very vulnerable thing, a thing that resonates with the dim and nearly dead spark of Illarion's soul. He rolls the Omni over in his hands, flat side to round, and considers taking the conversation private for both their sakes.

It feels like cowardice to do it now, when she's bared so much of her heart and he's remained a cipher.

He doesn't. Not until after he's offered as much.]

I also began this way. It was not for many years that I learned to be one who acted--and then, much as you say, I believed I was capable of anything, that my life was all my own to control.

The reminder that it was not was very cruel. [The little box his mother's courier thought was empty; the talons and feathers she'd left him of Sasha.] It was much easier to blame myself, for years.

Some days, I think I still do.

Mm.

[she's giving too much away. when other people start opening up to her, especially people who have been quiet the whole time? she knows she's screwed up. let strangers in too close. she must be in a bad way. but no shit, amaranth, you knew that already.]

But the urge goes away after long enough, you're saying? It's only been... maybe a year.

[He makes a mental note of her response.

Nothing more. While curiosity pries at him to keep asking and see what else he might discover, it isn't his role. A Warlord would be excused the unkindness; a Disciple could not be.]

It blunts with time, like the grief it is part of. If you let it--it is a habit, and any habit you practice, stays sharp.

As for your timeline, I do not know enough to say, and even did I--these things are personal, unique. It will take as long for you as it takes, though it can be eased along.

[she pushes her hair out of her face and works her eyepatch off with one hand, letting the night air wash over her. her glass eye glitters in the pale light, silver and gold veins across a darkened surface. she can't see it, but knows it well enough by now to imagine what it looks like.]

And this is the part where you tell me that the best way to ease it along is to get out there and start talking about it. Don't carry it all. [we are all our hands and holders, right?]

Still don't know how much good tonight'll do me in the light of day. Meeting a whole lot of people who get my worst side as their first impression.

[He's actually startled into a laugh by that. A horrified laugh.]

Queen and Throne, no! You know none of us from Loneliness, why would-- [Oh. Oh dear.] --Did someone put you up to this?

Or--I should say more kindly, did someone recommend this, in all worry for you?

[she laughs alongside him, just as a reaction. maybe she said something wrong? sure sounds like she did. but then she lets him explain, and she exhales instead of laughing.]

I mean, someone probably would've asked me to do this eventually if I kept running my fuckin' mouth about how sad I was. But no, these are just... late night thoughts that my brain can't shut up about. At least this time I put my name to them.

Mmm. Speaking as an observer, it has not gone too poorly, has it? We have a very kind bunch of strangers, here.

[It's not what he would have recommended, but it's certainly a custom for their odd little community.

So maybe he ought to update his recommendations.]

But, no; while it is well to share your burdens with those who are close to you--which is, I may add, something I was very poor at--I would never say you must give these things to everyone who asks why you are sad. Some of these things, they are between you and your gods, or whatever part of the universe guides you; others are between you and the woman you mourn. No matter what anyone might ask, it is yours to say how and when you share them.

If these private things are so tangled up within you that they cut and strangle you, but you cannot take them to your friends--mm. If you were one of my people I would say speak to the Volkhv, the Priest, but I do not know who untangles such things in this place. [Maybe they all take turns doing it, and what an alien thought that is.]

Confession, huh?

[she's familiar with the idea. das Bußsakrament was something she did a handful of times in earnest before she started just going through the motions every Lent, and she hasn't even set foot inside a church for over a decade now.]

Don't know if I'm eager to lay all this down at the feet of a priest in a religion that might not even want me to exist. [still. she doesn't discount it, and she knows a minister.] And keeping everything inside until it explodes out like this in the middle of the night probably isn't... super healthy, even if it's all my choice. ['cause she makes some bad choices.]

That's just how that habit stays sharp, right? [using his words again.] You teach it to cut through you from inside and it gets real good at doing exactly that.

Confession, yes. If there remain wicked deeds to be confessed--but she is also help for the other ways one might become wrong with the universe.

[A priest in a religion that might not even want me to exist. He makes a note of that.

And then he laughs quietly at her use of his words.]

Yes, this is so. Which is why we must learn to deprive it of its chances. One way is to share, another to confess, another to sit with grief and regret and listen to what they tell you without using them to wound yourself anew.

This, the Volkhv is likewise good for.

But who would wish that you do not exist?

Oh, like. Don't worry about that, dude, I'm just gay. It's a whole thing with some religions where I'm from.

[totally got her kicked out of her house at 19 for it, but, like, whatever.]

If you've got one that offers a lot of the same benefits but isn't gonna try to damn me to Hell for kissing other girls, or hit me with any of that "hate the sin love the sinner" bullshit, then, like. [her hand idly waves. she's not wild about religion even if it does accept her, but.] I guess I'm listening.

Ahhh. [No more than a breath of a sound. He'd been concerned it had something to do with the Disciples here; this is less immediately threatening but...far sadder.] I have heard of this thing now and again. But the universe does not care who you might bed so long as you do honor to your line.

Though, I am sorry to say, I am only a zhrets; I could not perform the adoption if you wished to be one of us. [Leaving entirely aside that he's probably the only shrike here and had no line of his own to adopt anyone into.

And then, with a faint note of amusement,] And we are all going to Hell, regardless. This may also be a problem, yes?

Edited (fixin a cultural note there) 2021-12-02 04:52 (UTC)

Oh, for real? That's how it works in your religion? [not judgmental at all. she seems more surprised that there's no concept of a good place where he's from. there's probably some religions that don't have a bad place, but this is new.]

Maybe we are all going to Hell. Maybe some of us have already been. Maybe this is Hell. [she's joking, though, moving past it quickly.] I don't know. Never cared much about it for myself. I know it helps out other people, but, like. [the way she says this next part isn't as heavy as the other times she's brought up her dead friend.] I know where Lil's body is. She's not going anywhere.

Yes, though if you are thinking of the hell of endless torment for sinners they believe in who follow the Slain God, it is not this. Navia is no worse than Trench and better than being trapped forever in one's corpse.

So I had certainly thought yes, we might already be in Hell, but the ocean does not stink enough for that. [Also a joke.]

Her soul is with her body still, then? [He actually sounds distressed at the thought.]

[and not for the first time tonight, the question gives her pause. her own glibness betrays her once again. maybe... it isn't.]

Other souls were floating free in the universe for our bodies to just get filled with them. [there's the sound of her sitting up, and her mumbling sounds like she's trying to think through a complicated math problem.] It wasn't an apocalypse, but maybe it didn't have to be. Maybe that's just the easiest way to find a lot of souls. If they're strong enough to survive...

Goddammit, dude. [her attention is back to the call now and even if she's sounding more animated, it's hard to tell whether it's a good thing.] Her soul could just be waiting to hitch a ride in another vessel like me.

[He has enough practice with asking disquieting questions--intentionally or not--that he should be a mage at it by now.

He tucks the mumbled commentary away for later, whether to ask questions of it directly or compare it with the rest of what she's explained to her other respondents. No information was useless.]

I take it, this is not ordinary birth you speak of--but she would become someone's second soul, as you have two?

[Is that a good thing?]

She... might.

[it's hard to think about, because she doesn't really want to imagine the soul of lillian already intertwined with labrys getting thrust inside a third, unsuspecting, unrelated person. it still wouldn't be lillian, in the end. just like how she isn't A2. her voice calms down a little, gets more of a somber tone to it again.]

Third soul, if the other one is still resonating somewhere deep down in a way that she... somehow stopped being able to feel. I don't know if that's what she would want. [a pause, as her hand curls against her chest.] I don't know if I'd wish this on anyone new.

Mmm. So it was not also forgetting you, but losing touch with her other soul? Or, these were part of the same thing?

I understand why you would not. [Wish it on another person.] It sounds, that as much as you have gained from it, you have also lost something to that other part within you. A sense of your own wholeness, perhaps?

Though this is all--these are not things I am familiar with, so I only speculate. There are very few cases, on Nephele, where one might end up with another being as part of her self. [And none of them ended well.

Certainly his own stint with Eyes' will in place of his own hadn't.]

[no, he's. not entirely wrong. and again, he's a brand new person to her no matter how much it feels otherwise right now, but she's vulnerable, she's tearing at wounds. she can afford to let a little more go.]

It's just... like, you aren't totally wrong. I just haven't heard from her in a while. [saying it is one of the hardest things she's done in some time, but even she can't bring it to the natural fear lying underneath the statement.] But I know I didn't forget anyone or anything like the others did, so it's different. From what happened to Lillian.

I know I'm more complete, like as a person, when A2 is living inside me. But I know I'm different from a lot of other people. And I know how long it took me to feel that way.

[They're far off into territory beyond both his practical experience as a necromancer and theological understanding as a mere zhrets. Souls were, on Nephele, and they departed on death to Navia and returned from it on rebirth. Occupying a body that already had its own soul wasn't something anyone had ever observed them to do.

Though what she describes doesn't sound all that alien to him. Isn't, really, from a certain angle.]

Ahh. As when you have found a very dear friend or lover--you did not know, before you met her, that she belonged in your life; but when she is gone, it is like missing a limb.

[He understands that.] I am sorry. To feel that loss for someone outside you, knowing that time and distance and death were always going to separate her from you--it seems it would be worse, when it is a part of you that you believed could not be stolen in that way.

[Uncertainty intensified every fear, every pain.]

[the way he describes it sends a pang of want through her entire body, and without realizing it comes through on the call, she sighs wistfully.]

That's exactly what she is.

[someone she loved. loves. someone she wants to protect, to give a better ending to, to usher into a better life than the one either of them came from. christ. it was love the whole time.]

Goddammit. I need to stop having these revelations. Can't believe how obvious all of this is to literally everyone else but me.

[He doesn't laugh at her realization; that would come across as unkind, however he meant it. But there is a hint of a smile in his voice as he replies,]

This is what an outside perspective is for, no? To see what is inside you that you are too close to recognize.

There is no shame in this. If we were meant to be perfect and all-knowing in ourselves, Generation would not have thought up more than one of us.

002 // text; username: grollschwert

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