DIRECTED TO MERIDIAN, OPEN TO ALL.

[twohand]

[ In the midst of the Advocate's beginnings, perhaps a few world adventures in ( ignore pax's belated posting in that case ), there is a quiet presence that coalesces within the minds of all. An Advocate, dusk-skinned and thoughtful as he addresses all present. Even his voice is morose, a little saddened by what he has taken notice of — though that is mostly on behalf of Meridian. He cannot imagine what it must feel like, to look upon something familiar and have it not be exactly what they want. ]

They're dying. These worlds — they're already lost, they're torn up and left in pieces, they're dreams of what was; please don't make them suffer when you can bring them a gentle end. Even if you fight to restore them in the long run, choosing to save them now is torturous. It is asking someone with a terminal illness to fight on, when they ought to be given the ability to rest.

[ He sounds like he is pleading with the Meri, a call not to stand so firmly with their impossible desire to restore all that they make such a glaring mistake. ]

All things have a right to live, I agree. But, all those same things also should have a dignified end. I am only asking that you understand this, and choose to help us give what is left of these worlds the ending that I wish our worlds could have had.

This time, please... just this time. I am asking on their behalf, for all to choose a difficult thing — but, the thing that only we now have the power to do for them.

Comments

[wolfish]

Bit of a sweeping claim to make without having seeing them all, isn't it? Hasty, for that matter, to decide the lot of them can do no better than to be snuffed out.

[ There's nothing combative about it — an intellectual question. A discussion of differing interpretations of a whole book based on its first few chapters isn't worthy of heat. ]

So what's led you to conclude they must all deserve such an end?

[twohand]

They are being snuffed out though, that is what we were told. This isn't a matter of saving them, or not. It is a matter of choosing to ask them to carry on until they die, or allowing them peace that they may not have at the hands of whatever is devouring them.

[ He's not combative either, welcoming Yuri's mistaken interpretation and the opportunity to point out a correction. ]

If I must pick a reason to choose a deliberate end... it is for two reasons: because we are with these worlds no more than twelve hours, by my count. Were I able to live every hour of the rest of their time, fighting with them, I would choose to allow each one to fight until the end.

And the second reason is because — how many of them know what is coming? Are they prepared? Are they ready to stand against what is going to happen to them? I don't see any of them existing that way. They're just living, like nothing is going to happen, and they're already nearly gone.

[wolfish]

If you think the conclusion's inevitable, is dying by another's hand any more dignified than reaching that "natural" end? Especially if you view it as fleeting, if we're to assume that we know all there is to know about this, I'm not sure I'm seeing where we'd be helping here.

[ Yuri, for his part, has never trusted what they're given. Never will, for all that ignorance is purposefully maintained among them. Not to mention that disturbing little tidbit D turned up.

What if, in destroying these realms, they feed into that? ]

Were it me, I'd want every moment I was due. But I can't say what they want. Can either of us?

[twohand]

I don't think that the conclusion is inevitable. That is what is happening with this Oracle.

[ He shakes his head, utterly broken-hearted about the way that Meridians think. They're so concentrated on the living, that they forget how important death is. That dying well is not something everyone gets, certainly not their own worlds ( certainly not them, from what he remembers of his dream from the very first day he'd come to Kenos ). Certainly not with Oblivion hot on their heels. ]

These aren't your moments, though. You're not there with them, you're just getting a look at them and deciding they're worth more living until a bitter end. I know they're dying, I just want you to consider letting them die to hands that clearly care for them — and not being devoured by Oblivion. I don't want anyone to go to that, not again.

[wolfish]

...Where I come from, we believe the dead can't rest if they've got unfinished business. It might or might not surprise you that there's evidence to support that bit of superstition, though who of us can say how it is for all worlds?

[ The grim determination that the end is inevitable, that Oblivion only waits if they don't end these lives by their own hands, is something Yuri can't begin to connect with. It's clear this man genuinely believes it, but what if it's the opposite?

What if the act of killing is what brings that entropy? They don't even know whether their own worlds are truly gone — they're words without proof, without sight. Yuri is a man possessed of faith, but not in destruction. ]

You're right that these moments aren't mine and aren't yours. We don't know their will — and we can't know which choice would consign them to Oblivion. It's a hard sell for anyone who doesn't assume the same things as you, yeah? One man's mercy is another's murder.

[twohand]

[ A small laugh escapes him, at the description Yuri provides. ]

We had those as well, where I came from. Sometimes, even now, I think I might be one of them — I died before I arrived in Kenos, after all. Perhaps this is all just a long trial, to see what kind of afterlife we're going to have.

[ He doesn't fully believe in that, but it begs to be said. It'd be a little ironic to him, were that the case, but Tezcatlipoca's presence and role as an arbiter of the dead has him thinking of more than Meridian and Zenith's presence as "war, with a sole victor". ]

No, that is true. I knew when I came to ask Meridians to consider this that... it would be a hard sell. Still, I had to ask on behalf of those who we are making a choice for, one way or another. Whether we vote to preserve the world as-is, or release it... we're still choosing something for them. Neither of our factions are goodly, for doing that.

[wolfish]

[ It's a shame the lot of them are always cast into this without the opportunity to think, really. Yuri can't find it in him to see most Zenites as villains.

There are some choice exceptions, but many are people doing the best they have with the limited information they've got at the time, the same as Meridian. ]

I've got a few too many unrealized aspirations to fancy the thought that I died some inglorious death... No surprise, those involve home.

[ His words come with the air of a shrug. ]

Ideally, we wouldn't be making these calls at all, yet here we are. [ Not their circus, not their clowns. ] These Oracles do seem to have a penchant for toying with us... This one's shaping up to be worse than the last.