audio | un: wei laozu

[weifinder]

Hey, hey, a little bird told me—truly little, only about the size of a bear or two—there are all these little bits of letters raining down with the rest of destruction, so help me figure something out:

Friends, fellow not-of-this-worlders, what did the loving letter bits you pick up say?

Comments

[downswing]

That suffices?

[weifinder]

I understand how people think, so in that sense, yes. The mermaids were more difficult, yeah? Different priority of thought, different way to think as a whole, but at least similar felt land...scapes I suppose?

[downswing]

What is it like? To control them.

[weifinder]

The mermaids? I don't know what the best words are, but it was strange. Their thoughts aren't like ours, they slip and slide and focus different, and their emotions do too. Managing less than a handful of them was difficult. I can imagine trying to handle more at once would have been even more so.

Usually resentful energy wants something. It has a goal, and you recognise what it is, we all learn about that, but the mermaids, beyond the mirror, it was hard to understand the feel of what they wanted. What they shouted for wasn't quite the same as with humans.

Still, I wish we'd had more time, and less burning and rescue happening. Or that I'd stayed conscious for longer... leaving them the way that mirror made them felt cruel.

[downswing]

( He wants his moment to taste, to know, to internalise. To classify and keep.

He takes it. )


Spirits. To feel and own them, as you feel and own them.

[weifinder]

( ah. for a long moment, no response. then: )

I'd prefer that not be a written conversation.

( he doesn't want it to have a visual permanence, of any kind. doesn't usually think on these things, remembering. not wanting to remember. )

[downswing]

It need not be one at all.

[weifinder]

( another, shorter pause, but one notable nonetheless. )

With you, I don't mind.

[downswing]

There is yet time.

Do not find obligation, where only interest lives.

[weifinder]

Once I would have considered it a protection, for myself, for others, to say nothing. I wasn't right, even if I also wasn't wrong entirely, but now?

[downswing]

Now, you are free.

[weifinder]

Mm, I am. Free and freely offering.

[downswing]

Until that time. You mean to have the letters.

[weifinder]

I do, as our companions have seen them. I'd like an opportunity to return them to their owners, but the one in reach at present isn't willing, and may not be for time yet.

[downswing]

Wei Ying. Why meddle?

[weifinder]

I might be just that incurably incapable of not, but I keep watch, and information is... useful.

[downswing]

Lend them peace.

[weifinder]

It is what I prefer.

[downswing]

Peace, without gain to you.

[weifinder]

What riches I must adorn myself with, in the tattered, bloody rags of other people's laments.

1/2

[downswing]

A history unearthed unpermitted is as a body bared.

[downswing]

Pretend no ignorance, your mind defiles.

[weifinder]

Black's been convenient for hiding the stains.

[downswing]

Why hide?

Master Moran and you are equal in method.

[weifinder]

Ah, are we? I'll... keep that in mind.