Tyler Tian Huang | 黄泰勒田 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
asmywitness) wrote2020-03-03 05:40 pm
asmywitness) wrote2020-03-03 05:40 pmEntry tags:
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[[Tyler screens his calls - anyone who tries to actually call him, he'll text back in reply.]]
asmywitness) wrote2020-03-03 05:40 pm
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And suddenly, in Tyler's mind, their whole dynamic shifts. Not enough to forgive him, never that, but. Just enough.
It takes a while longer to convince Isis of the fact, so she won't take it on herself to interfere; and a bit more still to steel himself to actually proceed.
Maybe an hour after his message, Solus gets a video call request.]
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He says nothing, merely waits for Tyler to say--rather sign--the first thing.]
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For once his camera isn't zipping about as it watches him, but Isis is there looking disgruntled on the kitchen counter Tyler's sitting at.]
I will not apologise for my discomfort at you knowingly overstepping my boundaries. [great start. At least he looks more apologetic when he continues.] But you are correct in that I... do tend to jump to conclusions. I've always been prone to snap decisions, especially under stress, and it's not something I've examined closely about myself in recent times. So, I'm sorry for berating you under those conditions.
[He straightens a little, back from remorseful to just uncomfortable.] I do not believe I was wrong in my earlier comments of you withholding information, but the way I phrased it made it a poor assessment. You're under no obligation to reveal personal information, just as I and anyone else is not, especially not if you're only doing so to, in your own words, arm me against you. What I said in anger wasn't wrong, as I saw it at the time, but it was a poor debate when I was - and still am, I will have to admit, to some extent - biased against any justification you put forward. But I should work on that.
I'm willing to try and listen now, if you're still willing to explain.
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At being given the floor, Solus hesitates a moment. Something contemplative crossing his features for a moment as he carefully considers how to proceed. With everything happening so quickly, with his obvious disconnect from Zodiark that he can't seem to ignore anymore, with his growing helplessness of being robbed of everything that kept him connected to his people, with Hythlodaeus showing up well before he deserves him...
Well, he's a bit of a mess. More than normal, and maybe in a sense, he's floundering when he's never truly done that before. And it's getting to him. Maybe, just maybe he sees something familiar, relatable, and pitiable in Tyler and that's why he tends to come back. It's not quite that he's trying to mess with him outright, it's more...
Breathing out a slow breath, he closes his eyes, re-centeres himself, then opens them once more. His expression more morose than angry now. The movements of his hands, while elegant and flamboyant, there's something slower to the movements, something somber.]
You are not wrong in that I withheld information about myself, merely wrong about the motive behind it. Well am I a proud sort, a man who loves his heritage, his people, his world...I would pay any price for them, and have done so for eons. The information I hold, the knowledge I purportedly lord over others is but their legacy and I am its keeper.
It is naught I can share too easily, nor that I would throw around like cheap gossip. Well have I over the ages had to keep much and more in secret. To ensure survival, to preserve myself and my own, but to likewise serve Him. I admit, that upon arriving here, I had acted much too rash, far too...foolish.
But, pray understand, for the first time in veritable millennia—I cannot hear Him. I cannot feel Him, and never have I been without my power. I knew not what to make of it, perhaps I still do not. I suppose I had acted in such a way to protect myself, at the time it felt prudent. After all, I had felt so...helpless. Relying on the only means I had at my disposal, but it was a fool's endeavor, I more than realize. Bad habits born of such servitude, of such necessity...
Truly regrettable. But if you genuinely are willing to listen—to understand—then I will impart to you such knowledge so that we might yet lay this needless animosity to rest.
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He's not going to forgive the man for what he did to harm Tyler, even if it was lashing out in blind panic, but he's coming closer to understanding it.]
While I don't - can't, probably - understand the sheer depths of your own loss, I do understand what it feels like to have that kind of character-defining power suddenly stripped from you, when you've gotten so used to it that it's difficult to remember what, or who, you were without it. And I do want to understand your perspective better.
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Now he is. And everything has been taken from him. Once again, he's lost everything that's defined him, merely in a different context now.]
I was never without it, for my people were the First People. We are like gods among mortals, but in my time, we were all there was. We were the average, the normal, we were not special. All were powerful, all were immortal. We knew naught but peace and prosperity, we did not fight, we did not harm one another, we did naught but learn of our world, and improve upon it for the sake of all.
For we wished for naught more than to learn, to teach, to grow—to create a world that all might get the chance to do the same. Unfettered by wanting, by woes, by pettiness.
That is, until we were faced with a crisis. Unprecedented, terrifying. Our civilization found itself perched upon a precipice, staring into oblivion. But through our prayers and our sacrifices, we would give rise to a being so magnificent, so powerful, that He would halt our annihilation and deliver us from our doom. Zodiark, a savior that would rewrite the laws of reality so that we might survive. One worthy of gratitude and reverence, yet not all would feel so.
There were others who found fault and fear in such an entity—but it was not He that should have been feared, rather they—due to their own ignorance and foolishness. Already had we lost more than three quarters of our world's population, and by His grace did those remaining survive so that we may start anew, yet such a chance was squandered, wasted, by these naysayers who would summon forth their own to shackle and bind Him.
[He pauses a moment, before he spells out her name:]
Hydaelyn. She is the Mother I had mentioned before. Through such an act, our people became divided for the first time, and with it so did we experience war. For our Gods fought, and fought, and fought—but in the end did Zodiark get laid low. So devastating was the final blow, that not only was He divided by ten and three reflections, but all of reality and everyone in it—save three.
I am one such survivor. When we three survivors looked upon our broken brethren, foolish, frail, fleeting...we knew deepest despair. They were ignorant of their loss, of their history, left with naught but the trace remembering of an achingly familiar world, the fleeting memories of a paradise lost.
Henceforth have I toiled to revive Zodiark—to save my people, to restore reality as it should be...regardless of what it might cost me to do so. And while my loyalty to my people, my love for them has greatly spurred me forward through these endless millennia, I know well that my tempering to Zodiark's will has had its own hand in such decisions. For there is no defying the will of a being so powerful, and while we could choose our course, how we went about such work—there is no avoiding what must needs be done to restore Him in the end.
I chose to teach the mortals of what they had lost, to give them the knowledge, that by rights, is theirs. For they are fragments of my people, shattered remnants of those I had once loved and cherished, but well did I leave them with their autonomy, never did I force their hand in what they did with such technologies.
It would be absurd to say it was not by design that these gifts were bestowed upon them with the knowledge they might wreak both havoc and chaos upon the land. For it was—but it would be an untruth to claim I did not hope desperately that they would choose another course. That they might defy such a calling that I could not. Never have they, and from what I have seen of man's history unfold, I fear they never will.
[He pauses a moment to let out a controlled breath, his gaze falling to the wayside a moment as he collects himself. Talking about such is...always an emotional endeavor, something made much harder now that his tempering doesn't force him to view his toils as...something less wretched than they are. Still, he finds himself viewing mortals as lesser, and how couldn't he? They are not complete beings, they are not as they should be.
No better than a shard of a priceless masterpiece broken apart by clumsy hands, never to be of the same value of its untouched and otherwise immaculate counterpart.]
I have committed a great measure of misdeeds by the measure of mortals, but in the end what I strive for is to save them, to give them back what had been taken from them. Ignorant though they are of such loss, such ignorance begets naught but endless misery and suffering.
[The irony being that he has had a hand in a great deal of that misery and suffering, even if somewhat indirectly. Some of it utterly directly.]
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He's not sure if it makes it better or worse that this is indeed consistent with everything Solus has told him in the past so far.]
Hythlodaeus was making implications about you during my conversation with him. He told me the name Emet-Selch, and something about letting you take a job. [His brow furrows, a small bit of distaste leaking through.] Phrasing it as though I should ask him more about it.
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Indeed, though Emet-Selch is not my name. It is my title.
[Which is true! The next word he spells out, much like the many before he had not the sign for, nor could he.]
Amaurot—our capital—had a governing body called the Convocation of Fourteen. When the seat of Emet-Selch became vacant, the former retiring from his long held office, Hythlodaeus was offered the position. Though one might note the smugness in which Hythlodaeus holds himself, incurable of such as he may be, it would be folly to not notice too his humbleness. Thus, he had turned the position down.
So then, the position fell to me, and I did not decline.
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What did the position entail, exactly? He seemed to phrase it as something you weren't ready for.
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Well was I ready for it, he but mourns that which I have suffered. He's a sentimental fool.
[These two idiots are just gonna go back and forth calling each other sensitive and sentimental...]
Emet-Selch is a position that is reserved for those whom have The Sight. Most Amaurotines have it to a degree, it is not rare in and of itself, but to the degree required for such a position is. Hythlodaeus and myself are uniquely talented in our ability to perceive others, for we can see their very souls. As thus, we have a born affinity with the Lifestream—though my people called it the underworld.
As such, my position dealt directly with the souls of all, to hold sway over the underworld, to guide those adamant souls of whom felt true satisfaction with their lives, those ready to return to whence they came. To make room for new life, so that those who come after might yet feel that similar satisfaction with their would-be life.
Any matter of the soul, both life or death, was my responsibility.
However, there was more to such a position, though all of the Convocation shared such burdens—for we guided our people as a group towards the best future for all.
[In short, he's the god of the underworld and death both.]
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He doesn't comment on it otherwise, reserves judgement. It just. Feels gross.]
I can see equivalencies there to religious pantheons of my own world. The Convocation sounds like a "first among equals" sort of situation.
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In a sense, I do suppose, though we were nary worshiped as religious pantheons are oft, and we should not be. Though we were highly regarded for our wisdom and ability, what we had to offer was not to garner praise nor recognition, but was purely for the betterment and duty for our people.
Our burdens were great, indeed, but it is the duty of the capable to carry the weight for those who cannot.
i s2fg i sent this hours ago
[Look he really wants to understand what the fuck with Zodiark]
omg its ok
As I said, a crisis came to my star. We knew not what the cause was, and still we do not. Mayhap we could, had we not been divided as we were, but we could endlessly whittle away the hours on what ifs and could haves.
A cacophonous keening from within the star itself rang out, as if the planet was sick and it was crying out. This sound distorted all living things within its earshot, disrupting our creation magics—which would bring about our greatest fears and anxieties into reality. Be it hellish beasts, endless fall of fiery rain—it mattered not.
It had first started in lands further out, eventually it spread and festered, affecting our neighbors, ere threatening to reach Amaurot as well. We devised a plan in order to save those who remained and the planet itself. Through our creation magics, we would give the star its own will. Bring forth a being that could write the laws of reality anew, and thus forestall our and the star's annihilation—through willful sacrifice of half our surviving number, we would achieve this, and we of the Convocation were the orchestrators of such.
Upon its success, Zodiark tempered all of the Convocation immediately, as is the wont of primals, though he would be the very first of their kind.
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He can't imagine having to be the one to make that call. Doesn't want to imagine how that compares to his own choosing of who to escape his durance with, sacrificing half of everyone left he cared about to god knows what kind of torment, for his own skin.
Jesus christ why does everything with Solus have to hit him so hard.]
That would have been your hand that struck down so many, then. [His form is still tense, but he's truly not being judgemental, or snide. If anything, he looks... sympathetic, almost. It's just a passing thought.] And then the rest of who remained summoned Hydaelyn, right?
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However, when he asks about Hydaelyn, he shakes his head.]
Nay. While Zodiark had indeed saved us and our world from the brink of annihilation, much the land had been destroyed, our water was poisoned, and so many species were lost. And so, we would call upon Zodiark again, and again half our number would be sacrificed so that us who remained may survive. May take up stewardship of the land and all the new life that Zodiark had granted us.
It was then, that a small fraction had grown to fear Zodiark, worry that His was a might too dangerous to leave unchecked. It was they who summoned Her, they who spoiled our chance to begin anew, to repair the world that had suffered such sorrow.
And by Her hand would the world we sacrificed so much for be broken further, and our people with it.
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I can see why they would think so. It cost three quarters of your people and most of the rest of life on your planet, by the sound of it, just to return it to a livable state. By your asking of him. If he was to turn and demand something of you in return, it would...
[Ah, but this is all ancient, ancient history. And Solus has already told him to some extent what he's done, the cost of Zodiark's demands - Tyler isn't saying anything new, it's just rehashing old scars. His hands ball into loose fists as he fumbles.]
I... sorry. It's all just a familiar narrative.
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If only a quarter of our remaining people would survive, it was a far better number than the alternative. They worried of further sacrifice, and in so doing they ensured the death of our people.
[His hands still for a moment, but then with motions closer to something gentle, than the pompous way he's taken to signing, he starts again.]
Would I be foolish to wager this familiarity is of a personal nature? Something to do with this Keeper of yours?
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But Solus didn't have any of that context, and while he was sure he'd be willing to drop the subject, Tyler feels more than a bit like he owes the man that much. At least after sharing something so painful even through a second-hand lens.
It takes a moment to give his hands one final stretch as he braces himself.]
...yes, actually. I'm familiar with the nature of tempering, if not your specifics. Your entire story, really, I can see heavy parallels with... with my own.
What I am is a creature known as a Changeling. And they don't... receive their powers by choice. We start as mundane humans, with no knowledge that outer realms of magic and the supernatural exist outside of common stories. Fairy tales. [Though a shudder runs through him even just making that charmingly benign sign.] Until a [he makes the same sign as before, the sweeping devil horns, before he fingerspells it as well:] - a Lord - takes an interest in us, and chooses to take us back to their realm. Arcadia. If they did not temper us in the taking, they do so there, when we are trapped in their private fiefdom, beyond the Hedge barricading their realm from reality.
[A moment's pause, a quiet breath, before he continues.]
Every Changeling's story is different. None are universal, save for three things. The taking, the torment, and the escape. Steven and I run parallel, in that we were held to higher regard than our fellow captives, but the resemblance ends there. When I was Taken, it was with six others, people I held dear to my heart. They were all part of a theatre troupe, casual as it was. And when our Keeper took us, he put them to work as actors again. For stories that... [His hands shake, just for a moment, but he forces them to still and continues.] That I was to write, for his entertainment.
I was... [Another fumble, briefer.] Taught, by him. To write to his standard. To never repeat a story, or bore him. To speak, and enunciate, so I could recite to his audience what I wrote for myself. My friends would play the role of the characters I wrote. Our Keeper had... a fondness for tragedies. Sacrifice, and blood. And so I wrote them. Stories where the only people I had left in the world were forced to murder, main and do horrific things to each other for the entertainment of a higher being.[He almost smiles, a self-loathing little twitch of his mouth.] The deaths were as true as any, but the nature of Arcadia meant we could cure them to no other loss. So the plays never stopped.
[He has to pause, resting his hands flat on the counter to take a deep, quiet, shaking breath. Isis actually hops forward, looking away from the camera to watch Tyler with concern, and it takes him more than a few seconds to lift one hand and give Isis a gentle pat.]
A Lord's tempering is... hypnotic. It's easy to drown in his favour. To give in and become his. Become of his kind. But it's not irrefutable. As my powers grew, I started to see the pattern of narratives in the wider world, and realised I could toy with reality as easily as I could my friends' fates. So before I lost myself completely, I made my attempts to escape. But that kind of magic is... fickle. It only worked on the third attempt, as all stories say it should. And so I tried to leave with three, but my-- [His hands stutter, and his jaw tightens for a moment.] ...one sacrificed himself, and only myself and one other escaped. We had spent unknown years within Arcadia's grasp, but when we left it had been less than one in the real world.
[...sorry Steven.]
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He had wagered right.
As Tyler explains, his expression is sympathetic, the sorrow of his features shifting only to direct such to Tyler, instead of himself as it had before. While the scale is almost laughably different, the core of it is the same: Tyler was made to kill those he cared about, those he had left. But not once, rather several times over. For the entertainment of this cruel being that delighted in such suffering.
For all the suffering he has endured, for all the suffering he has caused with his toiling under Zodiark's will, he can say for certain that his God does not delight in such. It is merely a necessity. But there is no surprise in him that such a creature would be of the fae, from what he can presume of what Tyler says, anyway. Such creatures, though he would hesitate to name them evil, while immortal lacked greater perspective of the world. They were utterly self-centered, and greatly childish, caring only for the eternal now, caring not about the past or the future, for such concepts were meaningless to them. Consequence was a far off notion to them, alien and nonsensical, for it held no true weight in their minds, in their reality.
Idly he wonders if much could be said the same for those of Tyler's world. From the impression he's been given, he would assume so.]
My condolences, such an experience sounds truly wretched. The fae existed in my world as well, and well do I know the games they would play with mortals. For they were ignorant to their true effect—their cruelty to existences such as theirs. Never to realize the full weight of their actions—though this is not to say aught of it is excusable. Merely that I am familiar with their kind, and their shortsighted wickedness.
[And he is not like them. He might be the slightest bit salty that Tyler thought he and them alike, though it shows not in his movements or expression. But it's fine, he supposes he cannot fully blame him, not when he knew so little, and only had the smallest traces of an idea of what Solus was up to before now.]
You should not have been made to suffer so.
[Even if he might play a role that would imply otherwise, Solus takes no true pleasure in the suffering of others, and the genuine look of empathy given to Tyler might imply as such.]
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It takes him more than a few seconds to calm down enough to feel comfortable looking directly into the camera again; but he hasn't actually wiped them away, he just sort of brute forced not crying.]
My earlier assessment of you reminding us of a Keeper isn't inaccurate, but it... takes a different angle now. For the ones who get kidnapped and tempered, and don't escape, eventually they become fully realised Lords themselves and perpetuate the cycle. While it's much of a muchness in the grand scheme, it does change what exactly I see you as.
[Still cruel, and manipulative, but pitiable for all of it.]
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He...would hesitate to say he cares for Tyler, but he does not hate him, hell, he doesn't even dislike him, despite everything. Pity. He pities him, as he does...all mortals. They are fragile beings, unable to take the strain that the eternal can, regardless of what resilience they might boast. All of it is but a moment of brilliance, of defiance, and then they're gone.
Theirs are truly tragic existences, and he despairs over them when left to contemplate their lot overlong.
Once Tyler regains himself, and speaks once more, Solus watches him with that gentle and understanding gaze. Nodding similarly.]
I suppose that is fair. Though I disagree that I am like those fae—I labor for a goal outside of my own amusement or entertainment. Naught that I do is for simple pleasures, or to perpetuate aught at all, quite contrary. I do not delight in this destruction.
[His mouth thins to a line, his own jaw tightening as he swallows a little thickly.]
If I could walk a path of lesser tragedy, one without bloodshed, I would not hesitate. I have searched for eons for another way, for any means that I could achieve my goals without the cost of countless lives. Time and again I have failed, but I must press on. For the sake of not only my people, but for the stability of my reality.
If this still makes me a fiend, then so be it, but I would not have you or any other think I do this out of some twisted joy or amusement. I labor to bring about a world that would end suffering. A world where there is no need of heroes.
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[He is listening, and he's doing his best to understand Solus's radically different worldview; but cynicism has always run strongly through him, even before his durance, and he can't help but think how fundamentally unachievable Solus's goal is. That whether it was Zodiark making him, or his own volition in trying to "fix" things, it's simply unattainable.
Or at the very least, incompatible with Tyler's own understanding of the world. Not that it'll make any positive headway in the conversation to bring it up, let alone attempt to debate the concept.]
I'm rather fed up with black and white stories of heroes and monsters, myself, so I do understand the sentiment in as much as that. [Which is, yes, bringing it up, but understating it (and deliberately misinterpreting it, to some extent) doesn't count. He's fairly certain Solus knows he understands the point.] But I think the sheer scale is going to be something that will remain difficult for people to come to terms with. It's one thing to say it of a friendship group or a single community, but millions of years, billions or even trillions of lives, that's... [His hands shift, fingers wring idly - a genuine moment of consideration as to how to describe it, not emotional hesitation.] ...willingly or not, to knowingly commit so many people to death, for the cause of something so... historically unattainable, is something that most mortals won't be able to think kindly towards, if they can even comprehend that magnitude of scale. Even knowing your story as much as you're willing to share, and actively working towards understanding your perspective, part of me still can't help but revile the idea.
[None of it is said with any revulsion on his face, though, no sharp flicks of his hands that come with his unconscious distaste or flared temper. His signs have remained calm and clear, particularly after his moment of intense thought partway through. He's sure Solus has already long since established what humans - mortals - think of his methods, but if part of this was supposed to be acknowledging their own biases then it bore repeating that he knew he would always be victim to his own.]
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Slowly, he shakes his head, looking a touch disappointed, but nothing horribly judgmental. Idly he wonders if he can truly get this through to Tyler, or if he will be like other mortals and fail to see the bigger picture.]
What I seek is not unattainable, for it was the very world I had once lived in. I know for an absolute fact such a reality can and has existed, viewed thus it can once more.
[His movements are slow and very deliberate, like someone speaking gently or cautiously. After all, he realizes his thoughts on the matter do clash greatly with the mortal view and understanding of the world, and this is a fragile thing. Little does he wish to break apart what has been barely been restored between he and Tyler. Something that will never quite be as good as it could have been if not for their terrible encounters in the first place...but better than it has been.]
I understand that what I seek to do seems cruel or unfair to mortals, and little would I do any of this if it were not necessary. However, in the grand scheme of things, beyond the individual deaths that might occur through each Rejoining me and mine invoke, one must truly look beyond that. Just as my people gave up seventy-five percent of their remaining lives so that a quarter could survive—for otherwise we would all perish—these deaths would ensure not only that further tragedy could not continue unabated...but that should there be rise of another crisis, that we would face true annihilation once more, it could be prevented.
As I stated, we still know not what caused our doom, and mortals are utterly incapable of even what our infants could achieve—I do not say this as a churlish insult, merely undeniable fact. With that in mind, we are no closer to figuring out the source of such an event, for all we could do ere the great sundering, was stop a symptom. Not the problem itself. Should reality continue as it is, all life could very well be eliminated.
The world, reality, all people left divided as they are cannot weather such a cataclysmic event, when they can barely survive the calamities we ascians bring in order to restore aught how it should be. For the momentary mass death we would have to cause, it would prevent further loss of life. It would bring far better security, far better preservation of life and existence as a whole.
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I would like to clarify first that I do, objectively understand that sacrifice is necessary in order to force a path towards peace or success. That it is required for your methodology to function at its most effective. That I have no concept of a literal universe being forcibly divided in a manner that can only worsen over time, and that you do, with all apparent sincerity [no offense solus but] believe that your means are your only option.
These are the facts as you have presented them to me, and I can understand them logically.
This does not mean that I am able to comprehend them emotionally. Killing six people very nearly broke me completely - I cannot bring myself to think of doing it to more, to condemn entire countries, worlds, to death, without the threat of guilt utterly consuming me. Few with anything even remotely similar to my experience would be able to, and fewer still would agree out of hand.
The way you talk about mortals... [His hands slow a little; his turn to be cautious, now.] You are fond of us - you genuinely care about us, at times - but there's a sense of... detachment, when you do. You quite obviously don't see us as being anywhere near the same level as yourself, but you talk about us almost like animals. I know I may be misinterpreting, so I apologise, but it gives the impression you don't see us as fully sentient, in a way. It makes it... difficult, to therefore gauge how much of humanity's traits require explaining, but the topic at hand necessitates a reminder, here: mortals, quite literally, cannot comprehend the scale of death that you work on. The grief of a single death can lay most people low enough as is, but our minds, in every sense of the word, are not equipped to handle it. We grieve, we rage, we pretend it didn't happen, because if we were to genuinely understand something even remotely close to that level of loss, we would go completely mad. There is an irreconcilable chasm between heart and mind that we cannot bridge, for our own sanity. And the few that do are not considered 'well'.
[Tyler has, and he knows he has underlying PTSD he should probably be working on.]
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