pc: kaworu

[sacredpath]

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[sacredpath]

[it does feel warm. surprisingly familiar.

memories follow down the hall. a young child, being taught, reciting her prayers. tongue tripping over the words, reaching for older, more familiar but no longer remembered ones. her progress observed, recorded in notebooks, with harsh punishment for any failure, pain in the wound marked on her hand any time she reached for a feeling or memory she wasn't supposed to have. taught to hate an enemy. the selûnites, hated, serving their selfish goddess who set the night aflame only to spite the dark. shar's chosen ones, her champions, must be strong so they can destroy her enemies, defend her.

but beneath that, somewhere, flashes of other memories. learning a different story, long ago. to love selûne, to trust the way she lit up the dark, to love the creatures and people who were dear to her. selûne would need believers, champions, to defend the peace, as twisted shar worshippers were always determined to destroy it.

neither story is all that different. both goddesses insist on winning this battle. both goddesses use their followers as pieces on the board. but the people who told her the story of selûne treated her with much more kindness, so the memory of that story, of that magic, is warmer.]

[peripheries]

[He watches the child intently, as though seeing her experience a similar upbringing could soothe his bitterness over his own. Except it doesn't. There's no comfort in seeing memories of seeing another being treated like this. Eventually, he turns away and returns to the gentle light as though it's a beacon for lost souls. Being born knowing this light changes nothing in the world. Perhaps it might even make one ignorant about its harsh truths. But it would change one's world entirely to be raised with kindness and with others.

He thinks about the words he spoke to the First Child, "You and I are made of the same matter and appear to be children of men, made to live on this planet. But what is different... are the people we have come across, and how we have lived our lives up until now. You and I are very similar, but we are not the same."

He keeps trying to follow the light. Wherever it might take him. It's better than the dark.]

[sacredpath]

[he can keep following it, but the memory gets blurry here, fades. and shadowheart comes after him, tries to catch him by the sleeve.]

I wouldn't keep going deeper. There's not all that much, that way.

[peripheries]

[He does stop when she catches his sleeve. He looks around once more, as though the light might shine through the blur but there's nothing.]

Did you ever live in the light? Or is it an echo of what could have been?

[sacredpath]

[that's a good question, and it makes the wound on her hand throb.]

...I don't know. Maybe I did, once, but I can't remember anymore.

[peripheries]

Will you ever remember? Or do you have to go on without knowing the truth?

[He thinks he could understand struggling with that ambiguity.]

[sacredpath]

I don't know.

[it's not the kind of thing she could know the answer to. maybe she'll remember it someday, but maybe she won't.

anyway, gimme a memory back.]

[peripheries]

[Damn ambiguity sucks. Anyway, have a double memory but pretend they're one as though they flow together thematically - One and two]

[sacredpath]

[he would be such a good sharran it's crazy.

she is not a good sharran though, and even if the cat will die, she hates to see an animal hurt. she hates to see him toxic yaoi another boy into having to kill him.]

Do you still feel that way?

[she just wants to know if he's changed at all. he's seemed to change, over the past few weeks, from the boy who was so rigid in his way of seeing the world, a way of seeing that is obviously the fault of the circumstances he lived through. even in this memory, he's clearly trying, but the outcome is horrific.]

Are you glad he did it?

[peripheries]

Yes. I still believe that there's kindness in giving someone a merciful death. Yet people put their own fear of feeling guilt over showing that kindness. Though at least some people here have been able to do the right thing.

[Like Anders with Hawke. He shifts to put his hands in his pockets, scuffing his shoe on the floor.]

Yes. What I would have suffered at the hands of the committee would have been much worse. And I got to die knowing someone cared about me and I'd be remembered.

Though... now, more than ever, I wish our meeting had been different. If I could try again, I wouldn't do it the same way.

[sacredpath]

[that's true, from his perspective.]

You'll be remembered, but for him, your memory will always hurt.

[not that she thinks he should have died at the hands of these people who hurt him. but he should know, too.]

What would you do differently, if you could?

[peripheries]

Not all memories are pleasant. But what matters is that it doesn't fade.

[he'd never had much so he'll take what he can get. Even if the memory hurts at least it exists.]

I don't know exactly. But I'd approach him for my own reasons and not because the committee instructed me to watch him.

[sacredpath]

I don't know if I agree that that's all that matters. You're thinking about what you want, about what he can make you feel, but what about how you make him feel?

[doesn't that matter, too?]

[peripheries]

[No. Because Manga Shinji is the wooooorrrrsssstttt.

But no he actually lets his gaze connect with hers.]

I hope he comes to understand he did the right thing even if it was painful and will find comfort in knowing that truth.

[sacredpath]

I hope so, too.

[but he doesn't seem to get it.]

Do you even want to go back, then? Get another chance with him?

[peripheries]

I don't know. I'm still trying to understand what I want. At the time, I was happy knowing he cared for me at least a little.

[He laces his fingers together and shrugs a little.]

But I don't know if you can redo what has been done.

[sacredpath]

You can't. But you could experience something new.

[peripheries]

That's true. I just have to find what I want that to be.

[sacredpath]

Maybe it wouldn't have to be in the same place you left. No offense, but it seems terrible there.

[there are cute boys in every universe but most of them don't put children in boxes for their whole life.]

Not that mine is significantly improved...

[peripheries]

Yes. That's why this chance at a second life... I don't even know if I want that. I fulfilled my purpose by rejecting it.

[he looks up at her.]

Your world has many different paths. I've seen them. There's hope.

[sacredpath]

That's true. But it is still a world where cruel and terrible things happen to people who don't deserve it.

[there's not freedom from that just because there are choices.]

I rejected my purpose, and maybe that was meant to do, but it doesn't mean I have a sense of what the future ought to hold for me.