Livia Cascade, fic responses #2
More prompts, following on from the first post.
If you have anything else you'd like from me, please comment here, as my prompts post is now buried in the backlog. :)
Hypocrisy/Mourning/Miracles are pretty safe (mainly headspace). Rosamund/Impinging/Choices are a little obscure but still full of spoilers for what was up with Rosamund this event - if you'd rather not stonewall that you may wish to avoid.
Hypocrisy, requested by nyeti
I can’t remember who told me first, of the several who gave me the news. After that advice you and Cora gave - you know how important it is to be there. Why would you risk your life like that? You selfish, hypocritical idiot.
I offer Cora sympathy when I find her. I am still angry with you. She is not. She knows why you did it - tells me your visionary had gone to battle as well, that you went to make sure that she survived even if you did not. After that, I’m less angry, and more sad. For the missed opportunities. For Cora.
I am angry with your visionary too, because she is why you died, until I have spent most of Saturday with her, talking through what she saw, and what she could/could not be and who she is/was/might be. Thank you for saving her.
Still, I think you could have done this better. By not dying, for one. If I run into you in the Labyrinth, Alan, I am going to kick you in the shins.
Miracles, requested by nyeti
The first time we saw someone emerge from a vision with their soul changed, it seemed like a miracle.
After the fifth time, I am used to it.
The changes are of great significance to those whose souls bear them. They give them greater purpose, examples to live up to, indications of their path.
But I would no longer call them miracles. I’ve seen too many.
Mourning, requested by nyeti
After people die, their souls pass on to the Labyrinth. The body that’s left is a shell that once housed them - that was their tool to work with the world and with others, to shape their path, to perturb the Net, but it was not *them*. We do not put bodies in tombs. Some of us return them to the land with magic, others burn them. They are gone. We remember what they were, continue their works, and honour them with that.
But while they still live, while they still draw breath, while they have a last chance to say goodbye - then we mourn. Then we speak, give them thanks and give them words we may have felt but not yet said, because there will now be no better time. Then we let them speak, let them tie together their last connections so that their mark on the Net may be felt even when they are gone. Then we mark their soul, so that those they meet next may know who they were.
Then we sing, as they ask, and they are gone.
Goodbye, Lucia.
Impression of Rosamund Holt, requested by athenegenia
This could have started very badly - I knew your original guide, counted him as a friend, and was angry when I heard he’d gone to battle and died. Died protecting you, no less, when you took the field. Whatever your family ask of you, the Empire has also asked something of you - for once, could you not wait?
I don’t hate you. How could I? I know how duty pulls people to war. And I don’t hate visionaries - you are all virtuous people to have come to the Gatekeepers’ attention, and I want to know more about you, and who you were. So far, you have all trusted me with your past, and I respect that trust that you place in me.
Impinging, requested by athenegenia
Insights always take a little time to work out. This one more than usual. Nothing I recognise straight away, but the geometries are wrong.
There is what I would expect, having seen your soul already - the points and parameters I’d mapped out before the vision. And then something else, overlaid at an angle and hard to understand, much like a trick picture of something impossible to build. What is that?
Wait. Overlaid, yes, but connected, at several points near the origin. And that’s not a trick picture; if I turn it in my mind and ignore the initial referent, and imagine a different set of physical constraints, it makes sense…
Oh dear. I put together some of the things you’ve mentioned when recounting your vision, and this all makes a horrible amount of sense.
Choices, requested by athenegenia
So, you know what’s happened to you. (Not “what’s wrong”.) And you know how it could be averted, or changed, or restored to before. (Not “fixed”.)
The question is, what do you want to do?
Cyrus, bless him, was sure enough of your answer to go and put a team together. You didn’t have an answer then. We meet in the Hub, and you are still unsure, and I ask you for the reasons why and why not - and you face me and Asher, in turn, giving us reasons for each side.
I’m a little surprised that nobody’s asked me why, as someone who’d call themselves Lucidian at least in part, I’m not arguing for you to remove this. It’s your soul. Anyone imposing their will on you to force you would be denying you your own power to change your destiny. You won’t just tread the same paths again - both the soul and the world change with time and action, and even if even if the traveller fording a river stays the same, the river itself is different. Your choice either way will require courage.
Next summit, perhaps, we will see what choice you made.
If you have anything else you'd like from me, please comment here, as my prompts post is now buried in the backlog. :)
Hypocrisy/Mourning/Miracles are pretty safe (mainly headspace). Rosamund/Impinging/Choices are a little obscure but still full of spoilers for what was up with Rosamund this event - if you'd rather not stonewall that you may wish to avoid.
Hypocrisy, requested by nyeti
I can’t remember who told me first, of the several who gave me the news. After that advice you and Cora gave - you know how important it is to be there. Why would you risk your life like that? You selfish, hypocritical idiot.
I offer Cora sympathy when I find her. I am still angry with you. She is not. She knows why you did it - tells me your visionary had gone to battle as well, that you went to make sure that she survived even if you did not. After that, I’m less angry, and more sad. For the missed opportunities. For Cora.
I am angry with your visionary too, because she is why you died, until I have spent most of Saturday with her, talking through what she saw, and what she could/could not be and who she is/was/might be. Thank you for saving her.
Still, I think you could have done this better. By not dying, for one. If I run into you in the Labyrinth, Alan, I am going to kick you in the shins.
Miracles, requested by nyeti
The first time we saw someone emerge from a vision with their soul changed, it seemed like a miracle.
After the fifth time, I am used to it.
The changes are of great significance to those whose souls bear them. They give them greater purpose, examples to live up to, indications of their path.
But I would no longer call them miracles. I’ve seen too many.
Mourning, requested by nyeti
After people die, their souls pass on to the Labyrinth. The body that’s left is a shell that once housed them - that was their tool to work with the world and with others, to shape their path, to perturb the Net, but it was not *them*. We do not put bodies in tombs. Some of us return them to the land with magic, others burn them. They are gone. We remember what they were, continue their works, and honour them with that.
But while they still live, while they still draw breath, while they have a last chance to say goodbye - then we mourn. Then we speak, give them thanks and give them words we may have felt but not yet said, because there will now be no better time. Then we let them speak, let them tie together their last connections so that their mark on the Net may be felt even when they are gone. Then we mark their soul, so that those they meet next may know who they were.
Then we sing, as they ask, and they are gone.
Goodbye, Lucia.
Impression of Rosamund Holt, requested by athenegenia
This could have started very badly - I knew your original guide, counted him as a friend, and was angry when I heard he’d gone to battle and died. Died protecting you, no less, when you took the field. Whatever your family ask of you, the Empire has also asked something of you - for once, could you not wait?
I don’t hate you. How could I? I know how duty pulls people to war. And I don’t hate visionaries - you are all virtuous people to have come to the Gatekeepers’ attention, and I want to know more about you, and who you were. So far, you have all trusted me with your past, and I respect that trust that you place in me.
Impinging, requested by athenegenia
Insights always take a little time to work out. This one more than usual. Nothing I recognise straight away, but the geometries are wrong.
There is what I would expect, having seen your soul already - the points and parameters I’d mapped out before the vision. And then something else, overlaid at an angle and hard to understand, much like a trick picture of something impossible to build. What is that?
Wait. Overlaid, yes, but connected, at several points near the origin. And that’s not a trick picture; if I turn it in my mind and ignore the initial referent, and imagine a different set of physical constraints, it makes sense…
Oh dear. I put together some of the things you’ve mentioned when recounting your vision, and this all makes a horrible amount of sense.
Choices, requested by athenegenia
So, you know what’s happened to you. (Not “what’s wrong”.) And you know how it could be averted, or changed, or restored to before. (Not “fixed”.)
The question is, what do you want to do?
Cyrus, bless him, was sure enough of your answer to go and put a team together. You didn’t have an answer then. We meet in the Hub, and you are still unsure, and I ask you for the reasons why and why not - and you face me and Asher, in turn, giving us reasons for each side.
I’m a little surprised that nobody’s asked me why, as someone who’d call themselves Lucidian at least in part, I’m not arguing for you to remove this. It’s your soul. Anyone imposing their will on you to force you would be denying you your own power to change your destiny. You won’t just tread the same paths again - both the soul and the world change with time and action, and even if even if the traveller fording a river stays the same, the river itself is different. Your choice either way will require courage.
Next summit, perhaps, we will see what choice you made.