kenoscomm | DIRECTED TO MERIDIAN, OPEN TO ALL.

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DIRECTED TO MERIDIAN, OPEN TO ALL.

[ 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.

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Have these worlds told you they don't wish to fight then? Or has someone else told you all of this?

They deserve a chance to fight for their lives.

[ Dimitri is a wall of conviction; that pleading will find no grip here. ]

They deserve a chance to live, for however long they have. It isn't our place to tell them to die. Nor is it yours.

[ Sorry Drizzt, you are like catnip for devils. ]

A kinder eradication, perhaps, than simply winking out of existence to feed whatever it is that lurks in the dark?

[ Raphael has already selected them to mostly die out, but the more he sees those worlds being nearly swallowed, the more he thinks it might be torture for them.

What fun it is, to have such a choice be presented to him! ]

It does sound simply torturous, doesn't it?

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?

How many worlds have you seen in your lifetime? Have you seen a struggling world recover?

[ His presence over communion is older than his face would suggest. Soft as his tone is, gentle as his presence is, the weight of experience resides behind these qualities. ]

I have seen many, and I have observed this. How can we deem them incapable of the same?

[ Tokyo had been a dwindling world, yet its people did not wish to quietly die out. They fought fiercely for every moment. And in the end, they had their path to recovery. To survival.

Can they rob any world of their choice? ]

No more than these worlds have told you that they wish to be fought for.

[ Sorrowful, but gently resolute. ]

I am looking at these worlds with my own eyes, Alice. They're beautiful, and nostalgic... but they're in shambles. They're fragments of what they were. Like shattered bone, and there's nothing there to put back together.

What they deserve is to not die in terror, because they are going to die.

[ That is a fact. ]

Did you not listen to the Advocate's request? It is not "save them" or "do they deserve to have a chance", it is "will you show compassion in the face of adversity".

[ why the hell do you have to be so sensible you freaking devil ]

I don't want to give them to Oblivion, the way our worlds went. We're being asked to show dying things compassion, not force them to carry on until their very, very bitter end. It's not like any of us are staying with them to accompany them.

No; it's you who hasn't listened. "Do they deserve a chance" is precisely the question that was asked. Does this world have value.

More than that, it is not up to me to choose their fate. That is up to them. You would make yourself the executioner of a dozen worlds - for what? Because you think it a kindness? You stain your hands with their blood and deny them even the slightest chance. That is not mercy.

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.

I know of many. My world was part of a rich multiverse of planes, demiplanes, alternate realms, planetary bodies, life-and-afterlife... I watched my own world grow sick and die, once. It changed everything as we knew it, and even after it recovered it was never the same world that I knew.

[ The Spellplague was a horrific period of time; gods died, the world struggled and shifted on a castastrophic, apocalyptic level. ]

But, it was a whole world. These are not. It's not about whether this world is capable, not to the Advocate. It's about whether we ask it to suffer for a chance that won't come, or whether we can stomach giving them a gentler passing than what we experienced at the hands of Oblivion. I don't want to give them to Oblivion's hunger.

Yet as battered at they are they still fight to live. You would have us execute them then in the name of mercy? While they strive to try to exist?

[He is sorrowful and gently resolute. She is a stalwart flame in this moment.]

If they wish to fight then I will fight for them. Until I hear from the worlds themselves in whatever way they wish to tell me that they want to end then I won't be the one who ends them.

[She pauses a moment, her flames dimming some. Her tone is soft for now.]

You may mean well, Drizzt, but you do not speak for them. Concentrate on helping where you can.

Edited 2024-03-23 22:56 (UTC)

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?

The chance that the Oracle is speaking of is the chance we are given, not them. The chance to do what is difficult but kind in this battle, so as to not force them to experience the consequences of what is a short-sighted decision!

[ How can Dimitri not see it? ]

They don't know what is coming. They aren't ready, they're just living their normal lives, and you cannot look at them and say 'they have a choice' when they do not have all of the information available. Have you looked any of them in the eye and told them what is coming? Have you prepared them for Oblivion's hunger? Are they rallied? Armed? Prepared? If not, you are not giving them a choice.

You are being careless with their inevitable end. And that is... it's horrendous of you to choose an ending of pain and confusion for them.

[ Raphael is aware that Drizzt is not really speaking to him in this — asking a Devil to show Compassion is akin to asking a fish to breathe air. ]

Correct! Even moreso, have they been told of their fates?

[ He considers it. It's obvious in communion. Raphael thinks to give them this tidbit of knowledge, and then... simply let them languish with it? If Devils could not stand to it, or even the gods of their world... What hope was there for these worlds? ]

Perhaps I will tell them. See what they do with such knowledge, hm?

[ And then let them live? It's almost funny. (To him and only him) ]

You all keep calling me an executioner — that isn't what this is! We are not choosing for them to live or die, we are choosing how they die!

[ How can Meridian be so callous with people's lives? ]

It's as though, in the effort of your trying to restore what is gone... you've forgotten that sometimes, people need helping dying too. They're going to be alone, Alice. They're going to die alone, and scared... because we're not going to be there. We'll choose to give them a chance that doesn't exist, and they'll be in pain because of it.

And yet they live.

[ There's a mental shake of Dimitri's head. ]

No; you're wrong. I cannot accept the idea of some sort of cosmic mercy killing. It's atrocious. Obscene. This is simply the same logic that Zenith claims - that they are already dead and that we should therefore give up.

I wonder whether that's the true nature of this test... My brother and I traveled dimensions, and many worlds were no larger than these. They aren't abnormal to my experience, even in the sense that they are some sort of dream.

[ Subaru feels he senses this, having been trapped in dreams for years before all of this. At first, it had made him question whether he'd awoken at all.

Yet he'd never felt pain so keenly in dreams. ]

What if we don't know the truth of what this is? Will you stand by your decision, even then?

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.

An uninformed choice is not a choice at all. We are responsible for the last days of these people, even though I hate that!

[ And as far as he's aware, nobody has been letting anyone in these little fragmentary worlds know about what's coming for them. That's not giving them a choice, that's leaving them in the dark and expecting them to meet their fate blind. ]

Raphael, don't do that. We are given twelve hours to spend among these worlds and their people. Were we given enough time to stand with them until the end and help them... of course I would vote to give them all that they deserve.

...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.

You ask me to show mercy?

[ He asks it, and there is Weight in that question.

Raphael can see what Drizzt means, that he would fight and stand against Oblivion were he able to, even if it meant his life. Raphael is immortal in a way that even a drow like Drizzt is not. He can see further. That fighting this off once is only once. This is eternal, unending, relentless in a way that even Asmodeus himself could not be, for the Archdevil Prime was still a thinking being, and not a universal force. Even the gods would have difficulty with this thing.

Not without a plan.

But though there is the winding gears of a Savant's mind working through it, like he's thinking of it — because Raphael does want to bring his world back, if only to continue with his plan, and lead the Nine Hells (girl, no...) He truly has no qualms with Zenith.

If it were to look more likely, the Devil would even choose otherwise, to preserve his place in the world. He would indeed ask for the shard of his father, to consume, and steal his power. He has a plan.

But for now... ]

My fellow compatriots seem to disagree with what is the merciful choice, however.

What to do... what to do...? [ The sound of his thoughts is like a cacophony, wide and vast, nothing like a human's. ]

Should I go with my... [ A flicker of amusement, that very nearly bubbles to bursting, ] heart?

It's not fair. Choosing to make them face their end, just because you see more value in their living until a tortuous end than helping them experience a good death... how can you look at yourself and think you're doing what is right?

[ It's horrifying, to hear the arguments from Meridian. To hear that "because they are alive they must remain alive", to hear that living must mean they suffer at the end. ]

Were I able to fight in each world, to be at their sides and face the same agony they will face... I would choose the same as you. I value their lives, sir. I value their beauty and the wonder of their unique worlds. But, we are there for twelve hours. And then we have to watch them die, one way or another. It's not Zenith guiding me. It's just compassion, and Meridian seems to have none. Just a desire to watch something sick ail and die horribly, solely so they can claim that the ignorant were given "a choice".

[ He thought they were both Advocates; gentle, humane, capable of thinking about people as more than just what value they have while alive. But, noncombative as he is, he continues to ask questions — because he needs to understand Dimitri. ]

— do the dead have no value to you?

I believe that it is.

[ Much as he doesn't like it, even as he advocates (hah) for such a difficult choice. He knew asking it of Meridians was going to be arduous, because the entire focus of their faction was to restore what is gone. And some of them believed, more than that, that Zenith was simply lying about the reality of things — that the worlds were just hidden away, or missing. That they weren't even gone at all. It's horrifying, to see how quickly the minds of the Meridians break down to believe that only life has value. ]

And I think that I must, now. I do not ever make a decision lightly, nor simply based on blind faith. I know that asking Meridian to vote for death in any capacity is revolting to them — but, I ask anyways, because I have to hope that in this moment, compassion will rule over all else. And that compassion can be extended to the dying and dead, because they're real too. They're real, and they need to be treated gently and protected just as the living are.

[ 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.

Edited 2024-03-23 23:39 (UTC)

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