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ximilialog2022-12-06 05:02 pm
- ! event log,
- ace attorney: yujin mikotoba,
- adventure time: finn mertens,
- altered carbon: takeshi kovacs,
- doom patrol: rita farr,
- fullmetal alchemist: edward elric,
- grishaverse: the darkling,
- gundam seed/destiny: yzak jule,
- marvel comics: gwen stacy,
- one piece: rosinante donquixote,
- original: clayton epps,
- pacific rim: newton geiszler,
- red vs blue: felix,
- star trek aos: leonard mccoy,
- the iliad: helen,
- the old guard: andromache,
- the old guard: yusuf al-kaysani,
- the witcher: yennefer of vengerberg,
- transformers: minimus ambus,
- wheel of time: rand al'thor,
- yakuza: zhao tianyou
STATION LOG.03
● ● ● S T A T I O N 3 . 0
1.0 For those of you who often cross through the sunlight room to break paths into other areas of the station, you may notice some changes in the optics around you. Where the trees had once reflected images of a lush foliage of a typical temperate planet during its warmest season, now a series of various conifers (firs, spruce, cedars, hemlocks, pines) in deep greens and soft, spiky, needle-like foliage takes its place, scattered across your field of vision in no particular pattern. Snowflakes glisten and glitter at the tips like miniature crystals, catching the simulated wintery sunlight above from a crisp, cloudless blue sky.
Follow the path into the trees and you’ll find that the room’s detritus is now covered in a fluffy white blanket of snow not yet trodden over: perfect for your footprints. It even feels just a little cooler, brisker — each breath you exhale coming out in a cloud of fog, and yet it never feels uncomfortable enough to require any sort of winter gear.
When you’ve cleared the patch of forest, on the far end of the room is a snow-covered meadow just waiting to be populated with snow angels and maybe a family of snow-people. Grab some twigs for arms and a handful of pebbles for facial features, and you’re set to spend a couple of hours playing in the snow. The rest of the sunlight room has become something of a winter wonderland: the shallow river beneath the bridge has frozen over into ice, shiny and clear, leading into a small pond perfect for sliding across even if you’re lacking skates.
The atmosphere in the room makes for a pleasant in-between to the rest of the station’s rooms, or simply a pleasant space to chill (heh) for a little while.
2.0 During the early days of the festive month, Viveca’s voice will broadcast across every Orber’s communications device, announcing the reappearance of a box to be left near the mess hall. The purpose, she explains, is for any Orber feeling the holiday spirit and wanting to spread a little joy and cheer by way of a surprise gift. Those who have been on the station last holiday season will be familiar enough with what might be becoming a new tradition.
Anyone is welcome, of course, to put in a gift request for another Orber on the station. The intention is to spread good cheer and encourage team-bonding, and honestly? It’s just a nice thing to do. Once in a while you might come across another fellow Orber on their way to the box, or you might find someone already there, inputting their request onto the box’s screen. Don’t peek (or do, we’re not your mother) or you might ruin the surprise!
3.0 This month’s supply drop arrives like Christmas itself is here. There are a lot of reds, golds, greens, and blues, and the scents are unmistakably festive.
It consists of decorations and a tree to be put somewhere and dressed with all of the trimmings. There is also a crate full of small bags of baking and cooking ingredients, as well as a modest array of equally quaint glass bottles filled with holiday-specific spices: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, to name a few. These will need to be taken to the kitchens, of course, for those who have a knack for baking.
4.0 And of course the simulation room will be decked out like a cozy cottage on Christmas morning, reusing a template from the Doctor and Clara and may be familiar to some of you from last year, with a fire crackling in the fireplace, the scents of cinnamon and clove in the air, as well as the distant sound of traditional holiday songs being played over an antique radio in one corner of the room. There is also a tree decorated in a variety of kitschy ornaments like Santa Claus on a T-Rex, and bears in tutus. There are also ornaments representing every orber present on the station, updated to match the newcomers while also leaving those who have come and gone in the past.
There are unmarked gift boxes within the room filled with toys and games such as plastic dinosaurs and robots that come to life when you wind them up. There is also no shortage of ridiculous squeaky alien toys, marshmallow launchers, and stuffed plushies. Of course, there are also boxes left under the tree for anyone who enters the simulation room with their name neatly printed on a tag containing an ugly Christmas sweater inside, one that can be worn as long as you’re here, and has been specially picked for you.
A week into December, you may be going about your business, holding fast to your daily routines or embracing the slight changes of the festive season. Perhaps you’re in the kitchen making breakfast, in the training room just finishing your morning workout, or taking a shower to get ready for the day … when suddenly, you hear it:
Olivia’s bright, sweet echo of a voice is all you hear before the power instantly cuts off on the station.
5.0 It's in that split second that the stovetops stop functioning, the water from your showerhead no longer flows, and the lights shuts off leaving you standing in complete darkness.
There’s the quiet hum of a backup power source being turned on, but it is only enough to keep the station’s most vital functions running, supplying oxygen into the too-quiet spaces — everything else is just gone. All you can do from here is to try your best to manage: take care of any produce in the kitchen so it won’t spoil; dry yourself off if you had been showering (and hope your hair isn’t full of unwashed shampoo); perhaps find someone else to navigate the hallways with … or bump into them if neither of you can see clearly.
The blackout will last for about a day and a half before, just as suddenly as the power went off, it comes back.
6.0 But the glitches don’t end here. Throughout the days that follow, you will notice that rooms lock unexpectedly; suddenly, you might be trapped in your room, or the laboratory, or the Ximusic room, unable to leave and unable to force the door to open as no powers will work on the station’s structures. Maybe you’ll accept your temporary fate and settle in for a long wait, maybe with someone else in the room as your companion. Or maybe you’ll try to alert others and hope that someone has some abilities that could be used to spring you free.
It also appears that Olivia has managed to affect the earpieces, too: messages that you send to others might disappear altogether, never making it to the recipient; or other messages might accidentally make it to someone else entirely.
7.0 For anyone using the simulation room, either for seasonal cheer or for any other purpose, you might suddenly find it changing around you. The room will turn dark for a moment before it focuses again into a room a few of you might be familiar with: it's the room where the orbs are currently being kept, in the North Wing.
The room, however, is devoid of any such things. Only a single figure can be seen, an older man seated in the middle of the room and sagging under his own weight. Behind him, there is a trail of blood left smeared across the floor.
His voice trails off. Next to him, a faint form shimmers from the air. She resembles splintered glass, reflecting pink and turquoise off her uneven, sharp edges. Her humanoid form takes a step forward and pauses by the man.
Her voice lacks the echo. Instead there is a sharper quality to the cadence of her speech, as if her programming lacks the same level of refinement that she has now.
Still in the simulation, her form suddenly turns to look at you, her glassy eyes completely empty.
Her sweet and echo-like voice drifts around you.
Her lips turn up into the ghost of a smile, and her glassy form seems to glimmer in other colours, too: gold, white, red, green, blue, orange, violet.
By contrast, the darkness around you suddenly feels suffocating as the scene starts to fade away ... and it only takes you seconds to realize that something else is fading away too: your oxygen. You feel light-headed, suddenly gasping for breath —
With precious few minutes left, you might try and scramble to the door and hope it hasn't been locked. Perhaps someone has been with you this entire time, which would be lucky. Or if you're alone, you might try and save your breath until you can try and contact someone over the network and hope that they — whoever it is that receives your message — can get to you in time.
Some time later, Viveca’s familiar voice sounds in your earpiece.
And also — those who have any kind of powers or magic, I’d appreciate you coming, too. Not to help with Olivia, but the orb. Degar… well. Let’s say the orbs are growing in power, the more of them there are. Please, if you can, help him with them.”
After the message ends, some may notice the door to the North Wing is already open ... and even if you don’t intend to help, maybe you want to go in and take a look around.
8.0 The room you first step into is long and rectangular, and without any furniture to clutter the space — those who have not been to the North Wing will recognise it as the same room in Olivia’s simulation. In the room, you’ll find a large sphere, crackling sharply with magical energy front and centre and surrounded by open circulation, perhaps for its own protection — the barrier of this object is so powerful that even those without any magical talent can feel it, almost like static electricity. A (slightly) closer look will yield several different colours of orbs, all swirling around each other in what looks like a frenzied dance.
If you choose to take a step closer, you’ll immediately sense it: there’s an awareness, a quiet whisper in your ear, or a chorus of indistinct words, reaching out to you.
The voices whisper in your ear, calling you by name; but if you go close enough to touch the sphere, you will be flung across the room, feeling the force of all that magic course through you like electric shocks.
9.0 The other rooms in the North Wing aren’t nearly as exciting: the next room appears to have nothing of note except for a set of chairs lined up along the sides of the room, and then one larger one in the middle — a mechanical armchair with several different wires running directly into it.
On both sides of this space you’ll find maintenance rooms directly adjacent: one for the station itself, and one for the AI. Both of these rooms are filled with advanced machinery and screens — and one thing to note is how … clean the one designated for station maintenance seems to be. Not a fleck of dust to be found anywhere. On the other hand, the AI maintenance room feels quieter, looks darker … but as soon as anyone walks in, they’ll find a little cleaning robot beeping at them angrily. Whoops, it seems as though you’ve located the robot’s home, so make sure to not trail in any dirt. (This room is also spotless.)
10.0 Connected to the station maintenance room is the power and life support, a room with a large engine at its back, and closed pods on its sides. Most of them have a blue, glowing stripe on them; only one has a red one. But no matter how you try to open any of them, they don’t budge.
On the other side, connected to AI maintenance, is the old team’s living quarters. You count twenty beds in the room, half of which are divided into bunk beds on either side of the room… and most of them still have some items near them: clothes, a few books written in a language that your translators can’t seem to decipher, a soft elephant toy, and a photograph of all twenty people — a diverse mixture of women and men, older and younger, of different races, and makes; a few droids among them. Most notably, in the corner are Degar and Viveca, caught in the picture smiling at each other.
Only one of the beds is still in use — Degar’s bed, obviously; and the bed next to his doesn’t seem to have seen much use but the wall above it is decorated with the picture frames some of the team will remember from the room in the mayor’s penthouse in E-23b.
11.0 The last place to explore within the North Wing is a hexagonally shaped room that matches the ones teleporting food and other essentials onto the station. Indeed, in the middle of this one is an almost identical platform, though what it connects to is a little unclear — in any case, it doesn’t seem to be powered up right now. At the end of the room is a circular cut-out and a heavy-duty latch, currently locked into place to seal whatever is beyond it. It’s a door, of course, but it isn’t just any door … for anyone wondering about exits on this station, you’ll realize now where it’d been all along. There’s a control panel on the wall next to it but it requires a passcode … unfortunate for anyone who wanted a scenic tour outside of the station itself.
Those arriving at the North Wing to lend a hand will find Viveca waiting there for them, standing quiet and still by the door. She directs those who have arrived to help her towards the AI maintenance room, and instructs those with powers to remain in the orb containment hall and wait for Degar.
Once Rosinante, Gwen, Jyn, Cassian, Minimus, Newt, Matt, Yelena, Natasha, Itachi, Ryunosuke, Kazuma and Felix have all made it to the AI maintenance room (this time without the little cleaning robot in attendance), Viveca shuts the door, and nods to Rosinante.
Rosinante is quick to understand her meaning, and silence falls upon them, providing them with privacy that no one past these walls can penetrate ... not even a former AI.
Her tone belies her frustration and her android eyes burn with anger. She pauses and takes a breath more out of habit than out of any real need.
She pauses … and gives a wry smile.
With that, she instructs everyone to grab a seat (and as such, there happen to be enough for everyone: simple soft-backed computer chairs) before they get to work.
12.0 Those helping Viveca with the code will also be provided with their own screens, and a briefing on what the station’s coding looks like (an ever-changing multitude of complex code filled with encrypted sections) as well as a look into what the possible anomalies within it might resemble — they are small glitches, a number changing here or there, a combination that switches to another when you blink, before it flicks back. There’s no knowing how long you’ll be watching it all, and you may find it tedious… or perhaps intriguing, trying to isolate where the changes happen, why, with what frequency, and if there is a pattern to where Olivia appears, or when.
Meanwhile, Viveca herself sits next to you, or perhaps stands to the side, her eyes flickering; she needs no wires to connect to the station, and you may run into her in the code, seeing the way she shifts through it faster than you might have thought possible, constantly reinforcing the encryption that protects the station's most vulnerable and essential functions.
13.0 Once an anomaly has been detected, it will be the turn of those who have volunteered to be sent into the station’s systems. Viveca equips those crew members with a complicated-looking headpiece full of wires over them and begins to hook it into their earpieces. Once the set-up is complete and you are connected, you will feel a tug inside your stomach similar to the effects of the teleportation pad — but rather than your physical body being taken anywhere, it is your mind.
You arrive within what appears to be a large, round room. On the walls, code flickers in an endless stream of numbers that continuously switch and change. When you finally move, you notice that the code has changed ever-so-slightly; this is where stealth is of the essence. After all, the quieter and steadier you are, the less the code changes and the less chance there is that Olivia might be alerted to your presence.
As you slowly move around the room, doorways appear, seeming to correspond to different areas of the station. If you watch them for long enough, you’ll begin to detect a pattern of certain numbers that match those rooms — or do they?
Walking through that door leads you into yet another round room, then another, and then another. Doorways continue to open, close, and disappear.
A combination of 22-9-22-5-3-1 flashes in the code. Viveca’s voice comes through as a whisper.
With a pleasant ‘Right this way!’ lacking the usual Degar-like flourish, those of you helping with the orbs will be led around the large spherical container in the middle of the room, smaller bulbs of brightly glowing light in several different colours hovering within. There are also thick bands of metal wrapping around the otherwise clear container like ribbon, reflecting that crackling energy back into the sphere itself, a continuous feedback loop of the orb’s own energy. The group of magic users and teammates with power abilities: Geralt, Rand, Wei Wuxian, Yennefer, Rita, Sabriel, Helen, Rodimus, Joe, Yzak, Dante, Aleksander, Ziggy, Bucky, Zhao, and Ed might feel the room buzzing with a powerful magic they may find frighteningly familiar — and foreign all the same.
For those of the group who have been granted access into the orb containment room the last time it’d been open for visitors, you might immediately recognize how different the space looks, but especially the way it feels. There is power here, heavy enough that it seems to weigh every last atom in your body down towards an unseen gravitational pull that you can’t quite locate and calls out to you with tantalizing whispers. It almost feels like you might suffocate if you stay too long, and it’s a wonder how Degar spends almost all of his time here.
Some of you might notice the orbs within the container start to crackle and pulse with brighter light as though reacting to the Commander’s words. His usual attire consisting of his hooded cloak picks up some of the light and then dims again the moment he takes a step forward — as though his movement momentarily breaks some kind of agreement he has between him and the orbs.
14.0 He begins to speak again, but this time there’s a different air in his tone, something tired and serious and sure of what he’s about to explain next. The matter of these orbs isn’t something he takes lightly, after all — and that includes his role as Commander of the Ximilia too.
He lets out a breath and lifts both of his gloved hands up before him in demonstration of something.
“The metal bands are temporary, by the way. They’re a safety measure I’ve installed to keep you guys from getting any of the possible physical recoil that might occur. The orbs might try and speak to you but do your best to ignore them, okay?”
He’ll direct you all to spread around before him, get into your most comfortable pose, before he does the countdown to removing the first containment spell.
It’s instant the way the force of the orbs’ power hits you. And for thirty agonizingly slow seconds, you may start to hear a chorus of whispers and murmurs that grow louder and more insistent the more they begin to realize they’re free, the more the old spells continue to fall away like dust and debris. In this time, you might start to feel the effects of the orbs, angry and maniacal and eager for their own brand of vengeance.
15.0 Second after agonizing second passes before a voice rises above the rest of the commotion; it’s Degar, his presence clear and like a balm amongst the horrible discord of the orb’s voices.
If you manage to shake yourself out from the torture of voices and visions and tricks of your mind, you refocus your efforts, thinking of your magic, your power, and your ability viewed as ‘unnatural’ in your world. It takes incredible concentration but if you manage to see through the blast of bright light that isn’t the orbs’ but your own, you might catch the way Degar’s ‘sponge-gloves’ have become a conduit for your power before it seems to run through him and directly into the container, rattling against the metallic bars that groan and buck in protest, almost not strong enough against the team’s powers combined; it’s truly impressive. Degar seems almost unbothered by it; if anything, he seems to know exactly how to handle this capacity of power, where to focus it, how to direct it towards creating a coating over the orb’s containment unit like you are the palette, and he is the paintbrush. His cape glows as bright as the orbs, and for a split second, you could swear his eyes do too.
Between wisps of swirling dark magic from Wei Wuxian and the Darkling, and the deep violet of Yennefer’s magic, to the unseen sources of power from those such as Rita and Joe and Bucky, you begin to notice that the noise from the orbs speaking to you grows quieter and quieter until something snaps into place with an audible crack, like a large tree being split in two, and then the pleasant peal of a bell. It dings once, like an oven announcing a finished roast.
And then there’s silence, save for your own beating heart, before the low hum of the station’s engines start to make themselves apparent again, your ears readjusting to all of the ambient sounds you’d become so accustomed to.
You did it.
He looks more exhausted than ever, but any voices of concern are simply met with a quick hand-wave and an excuse that a few hours of real proper sleep will spring him back, good as new. He needs to start removing the metal ribbing, make sure everything is tip-top shape, and starts off to do just that, removing the gloves (which now look … a little worse for wear, full of burns and holes) and goggles. But the deed is done, and you can feel it in the room. It feels lighter now, easier to breathe in a way that has nothing to do with the oxygen levels, and it’s thanks in part to you.
F Y I
• If you have questions about any of the prompts or the mission in general, please direct them HERE.
• If characters want to speak face to face with Viveca or Degar (or both of them), they can do so HERE, or of course through the usual reach the residents page.
• And finally, your soundtrack for this log: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
no subject
As if the story behind this man ran deeper, than what he appeared to be.
Months ago, he would have turned his eyes on Wuxian - to pry apart his secrets, trying to find the power that might be hidden underneath it all. To follow the flow of powers, of shadows and darkness.
But here, in the quiet of the snow covered sunlight room, he doesn't. All he can imagine, closing his eyes for a short second, is the celebrations in Shu Han before the empress rose to the throne. Her ambition as ruthless and cruel as she was, and still endlessly beautiful in its cruelty.
The rows of metal slabs, shackles set to raise their hands above their heads and their feet bolted to the last resting place so many of them would ever see.
The brief respite as fireworks rained down outside the stone walls, the joyous singing and the sounds of people celebrating as his people lay dying.]
You have dragons?
[Itachi had been one, had mentioned something about dragons in his world, but as the false sun burns with little heat above them, Aleksander can't remember what it was. He should know, the lessons his mother insisted on so harshly, but--]
If we can make snow and hearts and the overweight man who brings gifts, why not yours. I'd like to see dragons dancing. The food as well.
[Why not disappear inside someone else's idea of a nice time, when his own is so utterly beyond him now.]
Is that one of your good things, Wuxian?
no subject
He shakes his head and fixes Kirigan with an amused and warm smile.]
I'm afraid it's not quite as amazing as you're thinking. Whether or not we have dragons, hmm...[He trails off, silent for a while.] We did once. But it's been a long time since one was seen. The dragon dances I speak of are performed by dancers and performers.
It's a beauty in and of itself, but definitely not as grand as if it were performed by actual dragons. [What a sight that would be, he thinks.
He grows quiet then, wondering whether the new year is one of his good things or not.] Before I...[ A soft huff] The couple of years before I came here, I'm afraid my lunar new years weren't much to remember. I didn't live with my family and the land I lived on was difficult to work. We were often wanting for food and we were unwelcome in the cities. So you can imagine we didn't do much for any kind of celebration. [It's more than he's shared with Kirigan before, but it's common knowledge in his world.]
But...the memory before that time is a good one. So yes, it's one of my good things. [He decides, smile softening.]
no subject
What was common knowledge (foxes, weather patterns and thrones, all things that were known across their different worlds. War, as well. Strife and hunger, the urge for men to rule those they could subjugate.) But dragons, too, apparently.
But the plans to find a way to use this fades. Slipping away as he tunes back in to the soft sound of Wuxian talking about home. Famine, or something equally torturous in his past yet still talking so fondly of the celebration.]
Before coming here to Ximilia, I never thought that we might not be alone in the universe. [Looking at the ravages of war in his own country - in the neighbouring ones - had been enough] But it never does fail to amaze me how similar yet different our worlds are. We had dragons once, as well. And periods of hunger and backbreaking work.
[He never talks about himself, despite what many might think. He talks about Ravka, about Grisha and about the facts of growing up in a world where you are feared or you are killed. Sometimes both at once.
Listening to the luna new years of years ago, with Wuxian smiling softly at the memory, he looks back at him, toes curling in the cold snow.]
You could make it here, then. Make more good memories, even if we will lose them all in the end.
no subject
So few people I've spoken to here have spoken of dragons as real instead of myth. It's nice to know they're around in other worlds too. [As for the hunger and backbreaking work, well, he's sure those must occur everywhere in the universe.]
Hmm, maybe. I'm definitely considering it. Whether the memories we make here remain or fade are no concern to me either way. [His smile turns amused and just a little sheepish. It's less a secret and more something he prefers not to burden others with, but it feels foolish now to keep up the charade.] After the Ximilia, my life as Wei Wuxian will be over.
If my soul enters the reincarnation cycle unhindered, then I'll return to my world as someone new, but no one takes their memories of past lives with them into the next. [So whether the Ximilia takes his memories or not, they'll be gone.]
no subject
You will be dead. That is what you mean?
[He never listened to religion, not unless it benefitted the greater good. Not unless the appearance of compliance would suit his ambition - endless as they were, always working on several ploys at once, waiting for the pieces to fall in line.
There could have been ideas in distant places, about being born anew in to the world you left behind.]
Then why do this? Your regret, this place. If you will be dead before you see the end.
[Would he himself have done things differently, had he known it would end with his own demise? Would he have fought any less viciously for freedom for his people or to carve out a place for them?
It borders on the question he asked himself too many times - why do this, when the end is already written in stone? When nothing but misery awaits at the end? Why not give up, give in and return to Ravka - and Alina. And try again. Try a different way, while there was still a whisper of hope for them?]
no subject
Eventually he drops his gaze back to Kirigan, his eyes sharp and focused.]
I harmed a lot of people in my life. Some that I meant to. Many I did not. And some of them were people I loved.
I'm not here for me, I don't deserve a second chance. But they do. All of the people who got caught in the crossfire of my actions...I'm here for them.
no subject
He listens, holding the eye contact only for as long as it takes for the words to sink in. To hear something so similar to his own story, but from the mouth of someone else. Of mistakes made, and the suffering that might follow.
Of consequences large enough to inspire a wish as deep the one to undo a regret.
When Quxian falls quiet, Aleksander looks back to the snow. To the illusion of tranquility of this room, the snow falling gently from an impossible sky. The cold he can feel against his bare feet, seeping in to his bones and cooling whatever feverish fire that burned in his veins from the visions on the last mission.]
Penance. Your life, for the lives of those you loved.
[His own sacrifice wasn't that final, there was no comfort of death waiting for him at the end of all things. Just more of the same, until he grew old enough (desperate enough) to turn his powers on himself and perhaps that would allow him to rest.]
I made a mistake as well. [Was the Unsea a mistake? The lives of his people, lost as the Shadow Fold exploded across the valley and the ones who died later. From the inspired fear and the hatred that grew to a boiling frenzy in the aftermath.] I lost-- so many people.
[But he never stopped fighting. For a better future.
For the light.]
no subject
Not penance. There is no penance for me. This is only about them. [He refuses to pretend that trying to fix one of his mistakes will somehow cleanse him. Even if he succeeds, even if everyone lives, it still happened. All of that blood will always be on his hands.
But his eyes drift to Kirigan then and his expression softens.
He does not feel the triumphant glee of having won some truth from this man. All he feels is empathetic pain.]
I'm sorry. I wish it wasn't something we shared.
no subject
But looking back over his shoulder, at this stranger in the pale snow, it doesn't come. There's no sudden bolt of insight in to what Wuxian might have been through, or even the vague sense of superiority about his own life. His own choices.] nice, actually. That is a very kind thing for you to do.
[Kindness. Another weakness that was burned out of him a long time ago, and only Alina had ever made him wish for it to come back. When weakness was as much as curse as it was a blessing.]
Me as well. If only all we shared were the tales of dragons and of good things. But that is why we are here... to make it right this time around.
no subject
Make it right...[He repeats, contemplative.] I've never been a fan of the way people talk about fixing our regrets.
Even if I can achieve it, it won't ever absolve me. I only hope...I hope to give the people I hurt a second chance. That's all.
no subject
[Or back to the Making at the Heart of the World. The world beyond the one they walked in, it held many names but the concept seemed to exist in most worlds.] I talked to a space captain about this, once. That we can never actually go back to our own worlds after this. That reality is-- it's not a river. That is how I imagined it when I came here, time as a river. Flowing around us, a few strong enough to stay in place but most will be swept away by the current.
[He might as well be talking about himself, his voice floating in the weak sunlight and eternity exists behind his closed eyelids.]
But he told me that it was more like branches on a big tree. We were plucked from one branch, and all our choices in life, were on the branch behind us. The tree cannot be changed, it cannot be undone. But we can be placed on a different branch.
On the one where we made a different choice.
[Viveca had confirmed it, that they could never really go back. That every person he was destined to meet, would be someone new. Someone slightly different, from the ones he already knew.]
The people you will meet, are not the ones you left behind. And you will forget that you needed absolution.
no subject
There is no redemption that he wants. He does not deserve the freedom of forgetting, but perhaps for Kirigan...perhaps for him it's something that he needs.]
Someone else explained it to me in the same way. "Alternate universes."
But my regret will not save my life. I meant it when I said I won't return to anything. [He does not sound upset about it though. It's a choice he made by design after all. He doesn't want to live in that world as Wei Wuxian ever again.]
Kirigan...[He starts, quiet and eyes searching.] What happened? Your mistake. [He knows. He has known. But he wants to hear his side. He needs to hear it he thinks. Not that he has any idea if the man in front of him will actually tell it.]
no subject
But he stays silent, thinking.
Of regrets and lives not lived. About all the sprawling possibilities that lay ahead, shining and sparkling like precious jewels on the velvet-darkness of dreams.
The hope he had held in his heart since his first Cut, and the promise he made to all of Grisha as he laid dying on the banks of a frozen lake.]
Years ago- [the story not cemented in history books, the one even Alina hadn't thought to ask about] our king waged a war. And he was losing. [Fjerda had always been innovative, so clever in their various ways to kill people] I came forward to help. [a visit to the tent on the edge of the battle field. Revealing what he could do to the tsar, wisps of shadow rising from his hands and the room plunged into darkness]
I was the first Grisha to join the army openly. I offered to win the war for him, for a price. [Despite his Small Science and his control, it had been a struggle. To call up every piece of darkness and blind the whole opposing army. The screams of terror that followed him as he stepped forward, hands raised and death spilling from his fingertips.]
All I wanted was a place for my people. I asked for peace and a home. [The ruins of a palace and a people who feared them, is what he got.] I won the war, and the king gave us-- very little. After a time, he decided that I asked for too much.
[His own little piece of home, a hut in the middle of the woods] That I was too dangerous. He sent the army after me, terrorising my people in the process. So many people died, either from the soldiers or from starvation.
[His own youthful, naive idea that if he did this one thing, Grisha would be seen as worthy of more than altars after their inevitable demise. Crushed like all dreams were, under the heels of an ignorant child of a tsar and his grand ambitions.] One night, I was-- careless. I rode back home, and the soldiers followed me. They found my wife in our home, and they murdered her in front of me. She was a Healer, and she couldn't--
[In the years that came after, he never stopped hearing her scream for him] And I killed them all.
They didn't stop, the king would never stop coming for me. For us, and I made a mistake. [The snow-covered ground on the Ximilia glitters up at him, the cold a welcomed reminder that he's still here.] All I wanted was for them to stop, but I had no army to help us. No walls to hide behind and no provisions to make fleeing a possibility.
So, I tried to make my own. [Merzost, the true magic of his world. Unpredictable and unstable, and in his desperation, he had turned to it. He forgot the faces of the Grisha around him at the time, the features blurring over the many, many years since. Forgot their names and their stories as new ones took their place.
He had spent so long just breathing, barely living, to keep that promise he made as a child. Only the barest stirrings of hope in his heart, as the years kept coming. Existing in a haze of duty and honor, still building a place where they would be safe.] It killed a lot of people. And it didn't stop the king. [He hadn't felt human in years, until Alina stepped in to his tent and he felt it. Beating like a echo to his own heartbeat inside his chest.
That hers had been the face he'd seen in the Making.] I was alone for so long, fighting this war alone. I've buried too many friends...
[That, at least, was a positive. That he would not have to watch her die now. Because they would never meet, and he would yearn for the other half of his whole forever.]
Are you afraid, Wuxian?
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Of what?
A man whose story so fully mirrors his own that his heartbeat had tripped at the telling of it? (He fears himself but only because he breaks every precious thing that he holds in his hands. It's not something Kirigan can do to him.)
If he could perform Empathy on the living, he would do it now. He would place his hands at Kirigan's temples and show him the war. He would show him the Burial Mounds, thick and writhing with the dead who wanted to claim him. He would show him how he took those dead and forced them to obey, how he became their master, how he forged them into a weapon and won the war because he had no other choice, he would not lose what was left of his family.
And he would show him what happened after. The sects turning on him for the same power that had saved them. Their brutality against the innocent Wen and his defection to save them.
His failure.
The slaughter of the Wen.
The battle at Nightless City and the thousands of lives he claimed in his grief and rage.
There is nothing Kirigan can do to him that he hasn't already done to himself. What does he have to fear?]
I once protected people too. Innocent people. Targeted for the name they were born to.
[He goes silent then before raising his eyes to Kirigan's, an old tired fury flickering in his gaze.]
When I failed them, in my grief and my anger, I made a mistake too and thousands of lives bore the cost.
What do I have to fear from you?
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[At least, this was true in his own world. For him, and the station had dredged up long lost memories of being a boy, of being left trembling and sweating cold sweat under dusty furs as his mother left him alone to find another safe place to hide for a week.
For a day.
And how she took the only light with her.
He sees the endless expanse of Scorpion's bend, the nights never-ending and the pale light extinguished as the moons set. He sees this station, the people here hiding parts of themselves even when they leave so many traces behind against the cold metal walls. How easily darkness hides all the sins that do not dare show its face in the light.
His eyes find Wuxian's, in this bright place under the winter sun of a world neither of them know, seeing anger in that dark gaze and he knows that rage. The fury of knowing that every choice was a wrong one, and still being powerless to stop it.
Shadows spiral gently from his fingers, drawing dark clouds that hover over the palm of his hand.]
I-- there was no one like me. We have many Small Sciences in my world, different branches of manipulating the threads that bind us all to the Making. The power to heal illness. To change the earth under our feet. Rulers of thunder and water, and those who know the human body most intimately. Heartrenders.
[Wuxian's story, a mistake so large he would lay down his own life to change it. Would walk through every mission, chase down every orb, only to never see the fruits of his labor.]
But no one like me. I wanted-- all I wanted was a safe place for us. My regret is losing my wife. It is everything that came after, when my grief was large enough to tear a hole in the world and I almost lost everything to it. The Fold, they call it. The Unsea.
[The shadows mimic a shadowy curtain for a brief second, a miniature shadow sea against his pale skin, before he snorts.] Of course, that's not how history remembers it. They killed us and lied about it.
They are still lying about it to cover up their own cowardice. Their own betrayal. Because of fear. [He will have forever to rethink his choices] The fear that I might be as cruel as they are.
What do you have to fear from me? Nothing, Wuxian. You seem to know the cost of-- mistakes. Of watching as the people you care about die, and trying to stop it only makes everything worse.
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Instead, he lifts his own hands to his sides and allows resentful energy to spill from his veins. The black smoke like energy curls around his arms and body almost affectionately as he holds Kirigan's gaze.]
You say everyone fears the dark, but I say everyone fears death. And this—[He moves one hand in front of him and the energy weaves through his fingers] is not darkness, it is death.
I wasn't targeted because of a power I was born to like you were. I made a choice. I had to. It was all I had to protect everyone I loved. [He lets his hands fall back to his sides and the resentful energy slips back into his chest, his eyes closing for a moment as it finds its place nestled in the empty space inside of him that once held something bright and burning instead.]
But the cruelty of the sects, their brutality, doesn't excuse my mistake. It doesn't justify it. I don't want to be as cruel as they are, Kirigan. I just want the people I love to live.
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[It comes in a burst, an exhale of words as he watches the darkness slither around Wuxian. The soft tendrils of shadows that wrap around him, only to sink beneath his skin. Soaking back in to his heart, almost.
Could he say the same? That the cruelty visited on him and his people, would not be repaid tenfold. That he would not repay suffering with more of the same, to make sure his people would safe from harm.
From the slavers and the meat markets in Kerch, the labs in Shu Han and the shrill, piercing rumors of mechanical men with wings of sheets of gold from there. The witch trials and the burning of innocents in Fjerda.
When the whole world wanted you and your like dead, where do you turn in your most desperate hour?
But even his righteous fury fades away here, draining faster than he fuel it with memories of screams and bloody hands. They are all floating through space, protected only by thin metal walls and there is more nothing waiting for him.]
You are a better man than I, Wuxian. But I hope that with my regret, I might strive to be that as well. [A better man, the aspirations of youth] Mine is not death, even if it can be used for it. [the shadows in his hand elongate like fingers and it floats to Wuxian to brush over the back of his hand. Not unlike the feel of seaweed brushing against skin - cool and almost solid- before he lets it go.]
Everything casts a shadow, and I call to all of it. Even the shadows lurking in the hearts of men.
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He does not offer up an explanation for his own "shadows" outside of his naming them death. His animosity for Aleksander has cooled and his empathy risen, but he isn't foolish enough to trust him with anything that he might end up regretting. (It wouldn't tell him how to counter it, but it would be enough that he'd know when Wei Wuxian wouldn't be able to call on his resentful energy.)
He goes quiet for a long time, exhaling softly while keeping his gaze fixed onto Aleksander.]
What will happen? If you unmake the Fold. What will happen to your people?
[He wouldn't be leaving them to die. He couldn't. Something is missing.]
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It should be tinged with fear, laced through with doubts and second-guesses. But as Aleksander's eyes slip away to watch the false horizon again, to let the sunlight sink beneath his skin and let it warm him, he cannot find it.
It will come, as the visions from the orb fade and the eternity that waits for him recedes to a more bearable hum of knowledge, instead of this overwhelming and crushing weight of responsibility.
When what he desperately wants, still wars with what he has to do.
Wanting makes us weak.]
We will still be in hiding. [What had it been like, so many years ago?] So many of my people will be seeking sanctuary in the ruins that I got for us. We will still be starving and we will still be hunted, killed for what we are.
[The screams from pyres, the sounds of it carrying on the wind. Grisha hanging from every tree around small-minded hamlets and the executions he cannot prevent.]
But there has to be another way to save them. A better way.
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He doesn't know who Aleksander was before arriving on the Ximilia, but he can't be the same man he was before, that man who harmed Alina and Mal and brought so much harm to their world. He can't be.
And maybe he isn't a good man, Wei Wuxian wouldn't go so far. Men like Aleksander and men like him could never really be good, not after the mistakes they'd made. But he is a man Wei Wuxian understands. A man who has lost so much—too much—and been forced to continue losing no matter what he did to try and stop it.
Wei Wuxian's regret is not guaranteed to save the Dafan Wen. It might, if Lan Wangji decides to take that risk, if he gets there in time, but "might" is not a guarantee. Because saving the Wens could not undo his wrongs. (He doesn't know if there's another way for him. Even a year aboard the Ximilia hasn't led him to one.)
But he hopes with everything in him that Aleksander will find one for his people.]
Achieve the impossible. [Is what he eventually whispers, words that hold no meaning to Aleksander and all the meaning in the world to him. He opens his eyes again.]
My sect's motto. I did it too, more than once. And if I did, then why not you? What other choice do men like us have?
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Wanting will make you weak, boy.
Fear is a powerful ally, do not allow it to become your foe.
Suffering is cheap as clay and twice as common. What matters is what each man makes of it.
His mother seemed to have an endless amount of these mottoes. Words she choose to live by, and by extension, him as well. The drip of them grating like grains of sand in a tight glove but he had still listened. Quietly, head down and hands folded.
Too well, perhaps.
And he listens to Wuxian, to the words that sound more like a curse than a blessing. Like an order, to always beat yourself against the largest rock you can find, until one of you break.
It's for the best that Wuxian sits with his eyes closed, since Aleksander, for once, has no idea what expression might be on his face. Understanding? Some shade of it. Grief, for the both of them. Sorrow. The emotions that he is too unused to to hide all that well.
But he meets Wuxian's gaze, holding it as he exhales.]
When all you are faced with, are bad outcomes. Do men like us really have a choice? In Ravka, we are outnumbered. Outgunned. We are dying, but my solution didn't-- [looking away again, face turned to the sun and eyes closing for far longer than a blink.
Eternity blooms like poisoned flowers against the orange-tinged darkness behind his eyelids.] How, Wuxian, how did you do it?
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But there's no going back from it. He loses no matter what.
(His exhale is much quieter.)]
I failed those I swore to protect. I couldn't accomplish the impossible where it mattered. I don't know how to save your people or mine. [He laughs and it's a sad hollow sound.]
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When Luda died
When he was trapped and under water as a child
When he doomed a village just for the chance of sleeping in the same place for more than a week.
When the Shadow Fold tore his country in two, killing his own people. Merzost crawling through his veins like wildfire, calling for him to use it again. It never stopped, that calling.]
When I first got here... [he doesn't lose control of his shadows these days. The control as firm as his grip on the Second Army, but it feels as if he should. These emotions that never leave him alone, that boils inside of his heart.] I thought getting an orb for myself would fix it.
If I could just get one and make the right wish, then I could save them all.
[It had itched under his skin, to see the orbs used and watch as it all fell apart. The wishes twisted until the end was as messy and cruel as possible. Until he was distracted enough, drowning in the dream that never died, and she still turned away.] But- [but] it doesn't work like that. Does it. Not for men like us.
But we can try. [Religion is largely built on worshiping martyred Grisha, yet-] After Sedorum, I thought perhaps this was purgatory. That we would be here forever, always looking for more orbs. More chaos to rip us apart, one small piece at a time. I didn't know of a place like that, even as a concept before coming here.
It seems apt, though.
[Voice going dreamy again, even if his gaze is locked on Wuxian] That this would be where we stay forever. Redemption just out of reach. Always trying, and always falling short by so little.
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This could never be a place like that for me, this purgatory you're talking about. [He'd become acquainted with the concept back on Giva in talk of the afterlife.] It could only ever be a heaven I don't deserve. [Another form of the afterlife that had been foreign to him before.]
You talk about redemption but...I don't deserve that, Aleksander. And I don't want it. I accept that I can't change what I've done, even if I can create another world where it never happened. People deserve to be angry at me. Some of them deserve to hate me. Their anger is justified for the mistakes I made, even in defense of innocents.
I accept it. I move forward. That's all I can do, isn't it? There's no erasing those mistakes, and still....still I've found love here. People who know those mistakes and love me. Friends. Family. They don't matter any less than those I left behind.
[He offers the man a sorrowful smile.]
If I can change my regret and create a world where things turned out better, then I'll be glad, but in the meantime, I move forward here aboard an impossible ship on an impossible mission, and I still love. [Deserve, he has found, has very little to do with it.]
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The darkness of night spreading like a disease until it crawled under his skin. Walking until his flesh wanted to rip away from his bones- years, eons had passed there. Eternity of being trapped, alone, on an alien world, watching as time eroded everything down to dust.
And he had been there as the suns flared and crackled, burning out or exploding in cascades of bright sparks.]
All I ever wanted was for us to be safe.
[It sounds almost hollow, a hoarse whisper to Wuxian thread of hope. Of love.]
I don't deserve anything- [there was no fairness in the universe, no greater power that granted the willing or the deserving their dues. There was only power, and those willing to take it.
To use it for something better] but I want and wanting makes me so weak, but it doesn't stop me from wanting it. When my regret is undone, my people - my real people, will still be trapped in a world where it happened. They will suffer and I- [want, want, want] can't help them. But I can buy a better future for those I will meet when I get back.
And all it will cost me, is everything. [The one thing he had counted on, had longed and hoped for, for so long. To not be alone] You speak of the station, and we will both lose that as well. There's no time to make things right, and even if-- even if it happened, I would still lose. I would still long for something just out of reach.
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