Female Showers - Day 19
Lust hadn't minded being ushered out of the dining hall in the least. She was still irritated over the fact that the woman from last night seemed so close to River. It was ridiculous to be jealous over such a thing, but Lust found herself unable to help it. She had precious few personal connections in this place, and in a strange way they were
( Read more... )
Yes, the Mandalorian War was real, it wasn't a figment of her scattered mind, trying to piece things together wrongly. It was also "ancient history" and "not very relevant". Of interest only to scholars. Which would explain why someone like RC 1136 wouldn't have heard of it, he'd been raised to fight in his own war, he didn't need to know about irrelevant, trivial history.
She tried to recall what Ashi and Alex had explained briefly, that not everyone was from the same piece of the universe - or even the same piece of reality.
Chusa knew that there couldn't have been a way for the Republic to sped decades growing Clones for a war that wasn't. There'd been no Seperatists... no breakaway systems.
Right?
Right?
Her own mind mocked her with it's emptiness.
She followed the nurses guidance to the showers, she didn't think she needed one, but she wasn't in the mood to fight them on a trivial point. She placed her clothes where indicated and unwrapped the bandage on her upper arm for inspection. The gash was held closed by black stitching, the wound now healed shut and no more than an angry, aching red line. It would join the collection of older, paler scars soon.
The scars she didn't see though, were the ones on her back. Still bright and livid, testemony to the forgotten, violent explosion of shrapnel that had nearly taken her life not so long ago, the body healed, but the new skin still unfaded.
Chusa picked the first available slot and turned on the water. With a soft curse, she then hastily turned on the second tap for the heated line.
She was really beginniing to hate the primitviness of this place.
Reply
That had been... most informative. Scholar Ling's mind was buzzing with new information, carefully taking it apart and comparing it with what she already knew. There were already discrepancies, flaws that she would have to file smooth... but there was certainly potential. A great deal of it, so much that could be done.
Now she wanted to speak with the woman she had seen before, the one with the interesting spirit. There, too, was somewhere she was needed, and her voice was as calm and polite as ever when she stood next to Chusa. Ling had just showered, but... she went through the motions again, deciding that the grime of such a common place might as well be thoroughly dealt with. "Did you watch, last night? Did you learn?"
Reply
"A few things, yes. About myself, about this place and what it can do to even those who are friends with each other."
Cemented that in stone really, no matter who you were allied with, come the night, those who were called by the intercom, became your enemy. And even though the morning's conversation with RC 1136 had thrown doubt on the truth of what memories hse possessed, she knew that no matter who she was, death wasn't a stranger... it might even be an old friend.
Reply
"However..." She looked at the other, musing quietly. "You had both the resolve and the skill of a warrior, so I must test you. To whom does the blame fall, for that young man's death? You looked at his end unfliching; can you also look at the truth behind that deed in the same manner?"
It was just like in the past, when she had another and was educating them along the Way. Perhaps, in time, this one could learn the intricacies... she had the beginnings, at least. A beginning was all that was truly needed.
Reply
"Mine? I'm the one who led him there, I could have picked a different route. His? He was drugged, or dazed and should have stayed in his room. Cid's? He knew the danger better than anyone, he didn't pull Cloud away. Vincent's fault? He was the one who slew him."
She wiped away the water that sheeted across her face. "Or the fault of the one who speaks from behind the protection of the comm system, who just sits back and laughs at the dying? Who brought us all here, to tamper with our minds and bodies?"
Chusa looked back over at where the staff was waiting.
"There's fault and blame to go around. Cloud for not being strong enough to live, Cid and myself for not defending him, Vincent for killing him. But the reason he died is over there." She nodded at the impassive faces watching them.
Reply
"However, you confuse my words. I asked to whom the blame fell... and on that, there is only one answer. Consider; if this 'Cloud' had been stronger, if he had not been lost, then would you and 'Cid' not have been able to fight Vincent together? With myself and that other man, would we not have been victorious? And if you had been successful in defending him... what then? Would not the night have repeated, over and over, until eventually another challenge was found to which his weakness would have been a fatal liability?"
"That is the lesson that you must learn, and quickly. You have skill, and you have something inside of you that intrigues me like little else has done in this place. However, you must not allow yourself to be lost in the weakness of others. Encourage their strength if you can... but if they refuse to be helped, then what have you gained? Is it not a weight around your neck, to be thus constrained? Are the failings of others not like heavy chains binding you? But strength can grant you true victory, and in true victory those chains shall be shattered, leaving you free from whatever this place might seek to inflict. Do you understand?"
Reply
But Sanzo had been willing to let her stand or fall on her own and leave her behind if she fell.
And then the last words that the woman spoke seemed to echo inside of her, like a very familiar old tune.
"...Is it not a weight around your neck, to be thus constrained? Are the failings of others not like heavy chains binding you? But strength can grant you true victory, and in true victory those chains shall be shattered..."
She staggered, her eyes unfocused and rapidly going blank.
She knew those words.
She knew them.
Her lips were moving on their own, almost soundlessly, but the words were spilling out.
"Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall..." her voice cracked and broke off suddenly and her hands rose up to her head as a violent tearing pain ripped through her mind. A group of people standing around her, soberly clad, the chant on their lips as they struggled to meet the harshest standard... not hers... but their own.
Her mind wanted to gray out, shut down, stop that line of thought now.
The knowledge that the nurses would get their hands on her if she fell kept her on her feet, sheer stubborn will forcing back the grayness, if not the pain.
Chusa took a very shaky step forward back into the spray, letting the water beat on her face.
That had been a memory.
She gripped at the taps for the shower and kept her feet.
She just... just needed a moment.
To make the pain stop.
Reply
"You can be free, if you have the strength to grab it. There are those who would wish for you to follow that path of 'peace,' to reject that freedom and beg for one's place. However..."
She held out her hand, but waited for the other woman to take it... or not. If she was not strong enough to struggle against whatever it was that was attempting to hold her back- the Scholar thought it was like seeing Wild Flower again, the two demons instead wrestling for control- then Ling would not drag her. But if she was... a faint smile appeared on Ling's delicate features.
"I can free you, if you are strong enough to earn such freedom. One application of the Dark Flame, and you shall see, all delusions and all lies burned away until nothing but the truth remains. It will burn, it will be agony, it will threaten to consume you. However, you are strong enough to withstand it... and you are destined for greater than this place, than to sit at the table and beg for what might be given."
She could feel it. Scholar Ling could feel the threads of destiny around this woman, her intuition and her knowledge of the Heavens telling her that this woman was meant to be great. Terrible perhaps, but great. And for those who could see it, Ling's shadow began to twist and contort; roiling with the discord of the Way of the Closed Fist and seething with anticipation. If only that woman could be freed, so very much could be done...
Reply
The words that she spoke though echoed in Chusa's thoughts. Dark Flame... will burn... consume... withstand it...
Burned. She'd been burned before. Though if she'd fallen or not... she didn't remember. Her breathing slowed and she she lifted her head enough to meet the dark regard of the woman who'd opend up something deep inside of her.
It had hurt, terribly. But she was still on her feet.
"I'll listen." Chusa's voice was thick and a bit cracked. I'll listen about your Dark Flame."
Nothing else had triggered so much.
Reply
Here she leaned forward, to whisper into the woman's ear. "Room F6, tonight. If you are truly willing to learn, then I will show it to you. Then you will see what you were meant to be."
With that, Ling offered a slight nod of the head- as from a master to a student- and turned to leave. Lunch was calling, and there was still so much to learn, and very little time to do it in... but she would throw all of that aside for the sake of awakening this woman. There was so much potential, Ling would be a fool to throw it aside.
Reply
Leave a comment