ximilialog | [open] my soul is the color of ice and snow

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[open] my soul is the color of ice and snow

CHARACTERS: lan xichen and YOU
LOCATION: around the ship
DATE: all after february 21st
CONTENT: simulation of cloud recess with totally not real rabbits that wear headbands, magical healing music, and a bit of sad time drinking. everything is about poorly coping.
WARNINGS: will update as i go, post-mission sadness ahead

time on the back hills (pets are forbidden)

[for an afternoon, those wishing to step into the simulation room will find it occupied and the scene before them as they step through the doors a pathway that leads them through a compound in the mountains. here winter turns to spring, blossoms bloom on trees still surrounded by sporadic piles of snow.

xichens them at the head of the path that leads them down past a waterfall and a pool, winding through the compound.] Come. Let me show you something.

[once on the way, xichen leads the two them through winding pathways and down a narrow path through a thick tree-line until they emerge on a grassy hill that is seems empty and covered in small patches of snow. the only notable thing there is a large rabbit-hutch standing under a tree, providing shade for the sunny field. xichen makes his way to the hutch, where he's left a basket full of vegetables -- carrots, lettuce, beets.

anyone approaching will soon realise that some of the white puffs of snow are not snow at all, but white rabbits of various sizes. some of them, surprisingly, wear a similar headband to the one xichen wears across his forehead.] Join me? [xichen calls over his shoulder, motioning them closer to the hutch.] They're friendly and easily won over, but I must warn you, they have a poor sense of boundaries. [he tips his head toward the basket of food, bribes for the rabbits.]

I used to take my nephew to this place after a difficult time. [he says after a while, in lieu of explanation for why he's created this particular vision for them all. rabbits are great for stress, you see. and that he equates some of you as needing the same soothing as a toddler once did.]

the song of clarity

[in the sunlight room, soft chords can be heard by anyone who passes through or wishes a moment of calm. xichen settles in a shady spot with his guqin, newly acquired and not quite tuned in the way he'd like. not that anyone unfamiliar could tell.

he sends a quick message to the network before he begins playing, a warning and also an invitation.] I am playing a song of Clarity the sunlight room, for those interested. If you have been feeling anxious or ill-at-ease, or unable to rest, the music is infused with Qi and will help ease your mind. I will play for anyone who needs it.

[the music floats through the room, the notes of the qin accompanied by sounds pulled forth by pale blue energy as he strikes each chord so it seems like he is accompanying himself with his flute. he has rested enough, slept most of the days since their return, that his energy levels are returning to their pre-mission state. not normal, no, but good enough that he can play. it helps too, serves as a distraction from the way things ended in scorpion's bend where the left a man to his seclusion.

that is a future xichen knows well, though he is pushing those exact thoughts out as he plays.

company is welcome and xichen plays the song all the way through regardless of when company joins him. as it comes to a close, he opens his eyes and looks at his companion.] Do you feel alright?

late nights musings and moping

[as it was for many, the mission was not an easy one for xichen. the conclusion, knowing that ford is left alone and the orb acted for its own entertainment leaves a hole in xichen's heart.

it makes anger boil in his chest, leaves him tossing and turning after exhaustion fades away. so instead of resting, he wanders the halls of the ship in the night. sometimes he is found on the observation deck, looking out at the stars with the corners of his lips pulled downward in a frown and brows creased in muted anger.

other times, deep in the night, he wanders to the kitchens and brews himself a cup of tea as he bends himself over a book that he is not truly reading. if pulled from his reading, he looks up at whatever poor soul enters the kitchen at this hour.] Would you like a cup? [there's still a good amount of tea in the pot next to him, a special blend from braccia for those who may recognize it. after a moment, he speaks again.] Or something stronger?

wild card!

[ooc: feel free to throw some variation of these my way or let me know if you'd like something else at grimm#9436 on discord or on plurk!]

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Seclusion. [xichen says after a moment and then realizes it means nothing in this world.] A punishment, of sorts, which involves isolation for a period of time.

My father spent most of his life in such a state. [and xichen thought he would be one to live by his sect's ideals, to do better. instead it was not a lover that foiled him, that lead to ruin, but a friend but the result was the same.] It begs the question if we should strive to better ourselves. [and yet he truly believes that he should, that they should.

that this is what the purpose of this is.] Ah, we should toast to something then as we drink it? As it is alcohol.

How long?

[His mother has chosen her own seclusion, withdrawing from the world until she was all but forgotten. Until the legacy of her ancestors were nothing more than stories used to scare children with, until she was nothing but a myth. She made no ties, she held nothing of the world.

And why should they? When all lives were nothing but dust.

Dying today or in fifty years, the result will always be the same. Little lives led without any concept of how fragile and pointless their lives really were.]

Is that what you're doing here, bettering yourself?

[Holding out his glass-] Why not. A toast to another successful mission.

However long it takes to be forgiven. [for the world to forgive him, for him to forgive himself.]

[a pauses.] Repenting is bettering oneself. So in a sense, yes. [not for his own sake, no, but for the sake of others.]

To success. [xichen raises his cup as well, offering a somewhat tired smile before he drinks and manages to burn off only some of the alcohol.] Ah. Stronger than I expected.

[To ask about what this man might repent, what sins he might have committed that would lead to his isolation and want to better himself, is on the tip of his tongue. Tasting like stale lake-water and the grimy dirt of the desert.

Instead of voicing them, the Darkling nods, draining his own glass with a quiet to success.]

You can go back to drinking your tea, if that is more to your liking. I intend to find a tiny bit of oblivion at the bottom of this bottle.

If you are willing to share another glass or two, I would rather join you in that than return to the tea. [ more honest, coupled with a wry smile that is then tinged with sadness. the oblivious of alcohol is easier than thoughts of solitude, of a lifetime or beyond if immortality is within reach through his own cultivation.]

[Pushing the bottle close in lieu of answering, the Darkling rolls his own near-empty glass between his fingers.]

Why do you need to be forgiven.

[ xichen dips his head in thanks, takes the bottle to refill his own glass. he sets the bottle down and then he considers the answer for a moment gaze set on the clear liquid in his cup. ]

I could say it is because my ignorance ruined the lives of countless innocents and of the people I cared for.

[ he lifts the cup to his lips, takes a sip. ] But that is painting myself kindly and absolving myself. [ and even so, ruined does not cover it. the lives of the dead are not ruined, after all. ]

In short, it would be lying. There is no reason to lie.

[There's something... familiar about sitting in the quiet kitchen in the middle of the night with nothing to do and nowhere to be. He must have known it, once, years ago. The quiet.

How even the air seems to stand still, waiting for dawn to break.

Except it never would, not out here in space. Not on this station.]

Are you not kind, then?

My sect's precepts forbid lying. [ not speaking around the truth, not finding another precept that supersedes it. ]

Some would say foolishly so and tell me that that allows me to wash my hands of it all. [ but they're wrong in that too. ]

[Nudging the bottle towards Xichen again, after filling his own glass.]

But you disagree.

[Strange concepts like pride or kindness, are almost lost to him. Washed away with time and betrayal, with every grave dug in to the unforgiving dirt of Ravka and with every Grisha scream echoing through the dark streets across the land.]

Is this your way of making amends?

[ xichen takes the bottle, fills his own drink again but this time just swirls the liquid around the small cup. ] The people I wished to protect and was responsible for still died.

[ kind or not, he was fooled and foolish. ] If all this does not turn out to be a divine lesson in the end.

They don't have to stay dead.

[There was the deal they all made, the dotted line signed before they even had a chance to read the contract and it sent them hurtling through space to help something not quite benign.

But

There was perhaps, another option. One that had started growing in his mind as the mission in Scorpion's Bend came to a close. After watching the gruelling consequences of striking a deal with an orb, after watching is fail over and over.

Because they were weak and selfish in their wanting.

Unlike him.]

What gods have you found out here?

Only if we remember our lessons here. [ and if they don't, then they will repeat the mistakes they made in another way.

it hinges on something xichen does not think they can guarantee. ] Not gods. Only Orbs, Viveca and Degar. [ and xichen does not wholly trust them to not have their own purpose. ]

We won't.

[And wasn't that just another kick in the teeth, to learn this truth from Viveca on a dark night. Months ago, and he was still unable to reconcile this fact with everything they were going through.

That it will all be for nothing, because the memories made here would melt like snow in the summer sun.] We won't remember any of this once we go home.

They are as close to being gods as any saint ever was. [He drains the glass before leaning back in the chair.]

We won't? [ xichen echoes, slowly repeating the words. he had hoped and to know that is not possible, well, that is a blow. ] Then there is a good chance we will make the same mistakes again, if not in the same exact way.

[ then all this may not amount to what many hope, if one were to be realistic.

xichen hasn't given himself fully to that, not yet. ] Are the saints your gods?

Viveca told me about another crew- a team, if you will. Like ours, only they stopped. Or were stopped.

[She hadn't mentioned the specifics and he knows well enough to try and assume what might have happened. Why the orbers who came before them were sent home.]

They returned to their own worlds, and- a number of them don't remember the station. Nor do they remember what they went through here. Degar seemed to think a few might remember, but he wasn't sure.

[Information that had been 'above the commanders paygrade', as if that didn't smell like a lie from a mile away. Instead of commenting on that, the Darkling pours another glass of kvas and offers the bottle to Xichen.]

The saints are people like me, but unlike me, they died horrible deaths at the hands of the people they saved. With time, those murders became stories, and then they became myths.

Were stopped? [ xichen repeats it, worry coloring his features. he understands that this task will not be easy. ] Did she hint as to what stopped them?

[ and all that information offered, xichen reaches for the bottle. he pours some into his own cup. ] Someone who has left shared with me, that if we succeed, our actions create new timelines when we return home. If we do not remember anything, it is unclear if that really matters.

[ somewhere out there, there will still be a world where his actions lead to mingjue's death and the deaths of so many innocent men, women, and children. he downs his drink, burning off most of it but letting some burn into his system. ] People like you? [ mere men? more?

that is unclear. xichen nods at that, though, he understands well what it means to be more myth than man. the story of zewu-jun, of lan xichen, of the first jade of lan is one of a just and kind man who's judgement is near divine. that is why the sects look to him, even if in the end that divine judgement and trust leads them all astray as he was lead astray. ] The reality behind myths is often gruesome and disappointing. I am sorry for your saints then.

No. Maybe they failed, or maybe they couldn't work as a team. She never did tell me what happened and the commander was equally as- uninformative.

[That in itself was suspicious, but the total lack of information was information. Whatever might haven happened to those who came before, it was nothing good. But that the station choose to not lie, was another piece of the puzzle as well.

The tiny smile that had been on the Darkling's face, leaves, dropping from his face like it was never there in the first place, and he lifts his eyes from the glasses to Xichen's.] Someone mentioned this to me as well. That we can never go home.

[A terrible price to pay, that all of this was futile and his world was still going to burn on a pyre of Grisha and all would be lost there. He might be able to live on, on a different branch on the wast and convoluted tree of time and timelines and infinite alternate realities, but his world, the world he has spent his life protecting - the one that he sacrificed everything for- would be lost.]

Yes, people like me. [To explain, he holds out his hand, fingers crooked and the shadows along the walls of the bright kitchen lengthens and elongates. They creep along the floor, swarming over the empty chairs and across the white tables. The darkness grows until they're cocooned in a circle of flickering lights as his shadows press down around them. A dome of darkness that slowly drowns out all the lights.] Grisha.

You are correct, but most people in my world refuse to see this simple truth - that we are what they made us, and what they made us, was terrifying..

[ more reason to be wary, then. ] Yes, not to the home we know.

[ for some that is a better thing, for others not so much.

what xichen worries in his own case that in stopping some things, he will not stop others. that the war will still unfold, that some deaths will still play out but there will be no motivation to bring about what will ultimately bring his brother peace and happiness. if it means wangji's heart remains broken, xichen isn't sure he can restore his own name.

his thoughts are caught off by the answer, by shadows creeping along the walls and draw closer still. xichen tenses, eyes narrowing as the shadows moves in around them, a cocoon of darkness drawing near and the lights flicker.

perhaps he is not as unnerved as he is expected to be.

he may look young still, golden core keeping him nearly frozen in time, but he has seen more terrifying sights than this. his gaze follows the edge of the darkness, evaluating with a sharp focus. ]

Is it resentful energy? What you control? Or the shadows themselves? [ he does not sense resentful energy here, the clinging trace of death and anger. yet, that could be the station's doing and those watching them.

if they are shadows, well, as pale blue light emanates from xichen's own palm and energy swirls around it then they should recede. shadows, dangerous as they can be, concern xichen less than necromancers amongst them able to pull resentful energy from the corners of the station. ]

Do they fear you for this? [ if they'd been made terrifying. ] You. Grisha. You are the... magic users of your world?

[Not the home we knew covered a lot of sins. It his the truth he was starting to hate with every fiber in him, the reality that what they did here would not matter.

Not to them.

There was no such thing as going back, and picking up the pieces after having a regret undone. He eyes Xichen and the pale blue light in the palm of his hand.]

From talking to others, I think that we will not go home at all. The people we will meet, are pale imitations of the ones we left behind.

[A whole timeline erased, every bright and burning person on it snuffed out of existence as if they had never been there at all.]

I am a Shadow Summoner, and I control the shadows. [All of them] They fear me- they fear us because they can never have what we have. It cannot be stolen nor borrowed nor pulled out of us. And they imagine all the ways we could use it to hurt them, and they invent machines and laboratories and clever little inventions that hurts us first. That hurts us that much more.

[His voice low and calm, as if he's talking about the weather and not the systemic annihilation of his people. His eyes are fixed on the light.]

You can Summon light- but why is it blue?

If we meet people from our own worlds, you mean? [ xichen raises a brow at that. he had been wondering something similar.

he listens to the other man's words, to the evenness with which he speaks. clinical, detached but xichen knows what calm and even can hide. his own approach i always that, to hide between a tempered tone and gentle smile.

it is a mask he's crafted over a lifetime. ] It cannot be learned?

You are lucky it cannot be destroyed or taken. [ he thinks back to the war, to a man capable of doing just that but he had been one of them. a cultivator aligned to a sect that wished to wipe the others form existence, lead by a man who could manipulate resentful energy and raise the dead.

he looks at his hand. ] It's qi. An energy that flows through everything. I am a Cultivator, I can manipulate to it light a room, to soothe the mind, or silence a crowd. [ or anything he wants, really, but there are lines he will not cross. ] Passing through my golden core, it manifests as blue.

Not quite. [Dipping his finger in the kvas, he draws a tree on the table between them - a strong trunk and branches spiraling out.] This is your life. You were born, you made choices and every choice led to a new branch being created.

[He draws more branches, tiny and intersecting, trying to make sense of the stories mentioned to him months ago - the truth he's dreading to face] You are here because you regret one of these branches - big or small, you wish it away.

[He wipes his dry fingers over a central one, leaving the rest of the branching branch in place. It floats disconnected next to the tree.] You cannot go back, because there is no branch to walk upon. We will land on another branch, dropped in to another life that was not the one we left behind. [He points to a random branch further up in the tree and after a beat, he wipes everything away except for the base.]

Or we start over. It depends on the regret, I presume.

[Shaking his head, the Darkling looks away from his tree.] What I can do, is something I was born with. It cannot be learned. [But can yours? He doesn't add, watching the blue light in Xichen's hand]

That sounds like the will of the Making at the Heart of the World. A thread that binds us to all things, and Grisha are able to feel it, to manipulate it and bend it to our will.

[Hand reaching out, he lets it hover just outside the ball of light.] May I?

Ah. I had suspected as much. [ lan xichen says after watching the other man draw the tree, to carve out branches in the surface of the table before the alcohol takes them away.

the tree begins to evaporate, as will their memories of the time spent here with one another. ] We start anew, if we feel changing our regret is still worth it after all we see here.

[ but then there's the matter of what the other man can do, what his power manifests as. that has xichen curious. ]

No? And do you inherently know what to do with it? [ xichen shifts his hand and the light dances, spiraling between his fingers. as the darkling reaches for it, he raises a brow but does not withdraw his hand. ]

That is what qi is to cultivators. A thread the connects everything, that we can harness in ways that those without a golden core cannot.

Edited 2022-07-02 02:34 (UTC)

Do you not want to undo your regret?

[What a foreign concept. The Darkling has already sacrificed too much, has already done too much, to back down from this and go back to a world where Alina despises him. To a world where he has lost her, and the promise of her Sun.

A world where the Fold still slashes across the world, uncontrollable and wild.

His eyebrow twitches up, as he drains another glass.]

If we know or not, depends on the Grisha. Some know, some need to learn just what they are. We all need to train, to hone the skill that comes so easily to most of us. Precision, strength, inventiveness.

And, of course, the theory about the Small Science.

[When the light isn't pulled away from him, the Darkling lets two of his curled fingers move through the blue light. A slow stroking motion, before he looks away, gaze finding Xichen's from across the table.]

What is your golden core capable of?

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[open] my soul is the color of ice and snow

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