voice | un: yiling laozu

[weifinder]

( at speaking volume, head pounding, he offers a just shy of chipper address to everyone on network, in their ragtag group and those tied into it peripherally, over the scattered memories empathy left him with: )

Had a moment or two in the formerly living Tavernus's head. The sorts of lingering regrets a person has, and all that. How a man, before he learned to drown in drink, finds himself in uniform taking reports from farmers who say "it cannot go on further" as their wives and children grow more frightened. Screams heard in the distance, and Tavernus tells the farmers to leave, to keep wrestling "it" from the ground and taking it "to the granaries." The same place he directs a frightened solider to bring a summoned legion, with a sigh.

( A cluck of his tongue. )

Years later, how a different regret slides in around the alcohol he's drowning himself in on the pleas of his brother, Narula. Begging him to stop, stop the drinking and whatever else he's indulging, to return to the Hand. Tavernus slurs his own feelings about that, how it was Narula and his Hand that led him to this path to try and forget, before he rouses himself to hasten Narula's exit. Still looking like the soldier he'd been once, back when the farmers were complaining about what they were harvesting and storing in the granaries.

( His tone shifts now, less in the cadence of one sharing a story, a memory, and more of one opening a conversation. Like there aren't echoes of a very different set of circumstances he finds in the words of another man's memories, and maybe he doesn't: maybe he's long since learned to let go. )

Strange crops all around. What lingers out of them that's here today, that Tavernus couldn't live with remembering?

Comments

[weifinder]

You've struggled with that since birth?

[companionsgrasp]

I- yes. [a pause] I remember having to keep to myself as much as possible when I was young. I didn't understand it then- but I didn't like the way people looked at me when I acted strange. What they considered strange.

I remember keeping a lot of secrets. [And trying not to talk to "himself" in front of other people. But he doesn't mention his demon to Wei Wuxian yet.]

[weifinder]

People are set in their considerations, but even the largest boulder is carved down by water. Did you find others who understood your abilities as you aged?

[companionsgrasp]

There aren't any others like me where I'm from.

[At least not exactly like him. He did meet a powerful psychic once. But he only knew her for one night.]

I'm doing good just to find people who accept me for who I am without wanting something from me, and without knowing about my unique circumstances.

[weifinder]

Knowledge here is part trade, part wresting away — by environment or circumstance, as a warning. As far as acceptance without expectation... there still are ones here, but they're not the kind so many seem used to, and boils down to simple things such as: don't get each other killed.

[companionsgrasp]

That seems reasonable. We're all stuck here together whether we like it or not. Best we try not to get each other killed. And if we're lucky, reach our goal together.