THE HORRORS OF OBLIVION | [@]MERIDIAN

[damnpire]

[D's communion into Meridian aligned minds is like a very polite knock at the door, except when the door is finally opened, a rush of icy wind blows in. No warmth or mirth can be found in the space of his mind, though it's a surprisingly gentle, dark void despite the chill. It's familiar for anyone who has had a communion with him, but probably kind of eerie for those who haven't.

It's also pretty quiet now actually.]

I made an attempt to Reincarnate the late Tribune. [He delivers this all very clinically, very factual.] It failed, but not because he hadn't been willing.

Something else had been inside him. [Can Nothing be something?] It had cleaned his soul out, if he had one at all, and left him as a husk. There was no soul to shift into another body.

It spoke through him. It said, "We never would have been able to Enter without the Choices that have been made."

[:wooper:]

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I couldn't bring myself to double-tap your inbox, so here I am

[sterngaze]

[Liem doesn't jump in in the middle of their conversation. Though he glances their way, he leaves their discussion between the two of them, until a little later, until her horror and rage have abated some. Then he reaches out, gently.]

Hayame. It is not damnation to be given a second chance at life.

;3;!!!

[warmare]

[It was perhaps wise, that he waited. That Hayame has been put back to rest by a few very annoyed nurses, and is genuinely tired when she receives...

Well, she is still doubtful. Non-believing. But at least she is half-asleep when she manages the attempt at snapping,]

This is not forcing breath into a man who swallowed water in a river, Liem-

[Right????]

[sterngaze]

I know that. It is not the same.

But it is also not like what has happened to us as Shard-Bearers.

[He knows well enough how unnatural their new lives are to her, how disturbing it is to her that "death" for a Shard-Bearer is not the end: For her enemies. For herself.]

We were not given a choice in becoming what we are. The spirits of the dead—the truly dead—are.

[warmare]

[Everything is painful. She's so tired. They keep trying to heal her and claiming it's not working, magic this, field that, and-

Ah. Her head hurts.]

I don't understand...

[What does he mean- choice?]

[sterngaze]

[Of course she doesn't understand. When would she have learned? Even most people in Liem's world did not know how resurrection magics worked, rare as they were. And for Hayame, whose only experience with such things is the shard-bearer's regeneration, of course it would be alien.]

Dee said his spell did not succeed because there was no soul to find, yes? When magic is cast to restore a body, or form a new one, the spell calls the departed soul and beckons it to return.

But it is an open hand, not a snare. Those who have found happiness in the afterlife may choose not to heed the call. I recall such things from my own country.

[Part of the reason for Taldor's civil conflict was because the Grand Prince's only male child had died as a boy, and had not heeded attempts to bring him back. Presumably his pure soul had been content in the celestial realms.]

[warmare]

[It takes her too long with her muddled head to decipher what it is Liem means by what he says. It would perhaps be some time even without her current state in hospital, just because she has so little understanding of how magic should be expected to work, but...

But...]

You mean... Cyrus must have chosen not to return... ?

[sterngaze]

[Oh, uh...]

Well... From what Dee said, not in this specific case. The magic cannot succeed if the soul is trapped and cannot return... or if it has been destroyed utterly.

It is worrying that Oblivion has begun to worm its way into Kenos in this way—but the soul is just as much a part of the world as any other thing would be. I always assumed that our afterlives had been devoured along with everything else. It is part of what makes our task so urgent.

[warmare]

[The hope born from her misinterpretation is snuffed out as quickly as it had been lit. There is no comfort to be found here from the possibility that Cyrus had been given an actual choice and simply declined, content to pass on to the gods or whatever afterlife existed her.]

Ah.

[Of course not. Her presence pulls away, like someone who had eagerly tried to rise giving up and falling back into bed.]

So he is still damned either way.

[He just... might not be in Liem's world?]

[sterngaze]

We knew this already, Hayame. Zenith’s leadership had him killed for a reason; perhaps Yima knew something like this would happen.

[She seems to know more than anyone else in Kenos. If anyone might anticipate the fate that had befallen Cyrus’s soul, he’d wager she could.]

But… not because of Dee’s magic.

[warmare]

Then why-

[She doesn't... He came to tell her that resurrection magic as he knew it was not some foul thing, to give her accidental, misunderstood hope that need be crushed right after birth, but-

But it was here, and here-]

Whether D's magic opened up the path for the shadow thing or not, it-

... Did he have a chance or not?

[sterngaze]

[The pause that follows her despairing question is contemplative, carrying the slight impression of a thoughtful frown with it.]

Not in this world, I think, [he says finally.] Not now. But if Oblivion swallowed the worlds we came from, then perhaps after we defeat it to return what was lost, the answer will be different.

[warmare]

[Not here. Not now.

Somewhere across the city, a centaur lays back down on her hospital cot, confined as the healers are forced to work slowly, healing spells weakened as a consequence of the anti-magic field her body had begun producing months ago.

Ah. She is so tired.]

Then we have to defeat it… even more.

Even if that chance and choice is never given to people in my world.

[At least… those magic ones had it. Supposedly.]