Audio | UN: Wei Wuxian

[singlelogbridge]

[When Wei Wuxian’s voice sounds over the network, it’s almost unrecognizable for those who’ve only ever known him to be bright and cheerful, the sound of it quiet and somber instead.]

For what it's worth to others, I spoke with the former Sage about the fate of the people of this world. [He allows that statement to rest there for a moment before he continues.]

Like some of us, the Hivawei believe that death is not the end. They believe that life goes on in some form and those who pass are returned to the cycle. And they believe that everything, even death, has its time. [The Sage hadn’t come out and spelled it out, but the message had been clear. If it was their time to go and nothing could be done, then it was their time and they would accept it.]

He did not claim to speak for the people, and he suggested that we speak to the current Sage to decide if they should be informed. It’s…I thought it might be helpful to know.

That’s all.

[ooc: This is backdated to before it becomes public knowledge that the Hivawei leaders have been informed! Feel free to threadhop!]

Comments

text; un: jtd

[doooooog]

[ The post is one that sits close to Jake's chest. His own beliefs aligned with the Hivawei, if not always as cleanly as he liked to believe. That's the funny thing about modeling your life around something. It wasn't just born in you, you made a hundred daily decisions either in service of either connecting yourself to the cycle or distancing yourself from it.

Here on Ciraiwei, it was like two different forces had hold of each of his arms, stretching him taut in opposing directions. On the one hand, the people he cared about, desperate to undo the events they felt obligation to correct. On the other hand, his own sense of peace. Both sides felt pretty dang selfish and pretty dang incredible all at once. It's enough to make a stretchy dog even more twisted up than usual. ]

Already took care of that. The Sage bit, I mean. Cal and I found him (name's Grovin) in his hut a half day's flight out from here. We talked through his obligation to his people, he's agreed to advise Yerek to let everyone else know what's going on. We ferried him back to the village a few days back, he should be with the chief now.

[ That's the business taken care of. Jake considers saying nothing more. It wasn't really his style to wade into these things, preferring to sip his tea and listen to all the grown men slap fighting. But, welp, this was one area he did have something of to speak on. When on the Ximilia crew, do as the Ximilians do... ]

I dunno if this is what people want to hear right now, but I am almost positive Grovin won't be going anywhere. How many of the other tribes agree with him, I've got no clue. But if this was my planet? I'd be right there with him, man.

I'm hoping nobody's out there brainstorming ways to convince them otherwise if they decide this is the way they want to go. [ Jake is pretty confident those quiet rumblings were long since squashed, but it's worth reiterating all the same. ] 'Cuz what they're describing here, it's not a tragedy. It's not even death, dudes. It's just a different phase of life.

That's how I see it, and however this goes down, I hope you all can see it that way, too. For your own sakes, y'heard?

[ To say he's worried about everyone working themselves to the bone on this is an understatement. Jake drags a hand down his face, feeling a paralyzing need for levity. ]

anyway. freakin' woof. anybody know any good jokes or something?

text | un: lion cub

[heyciri]

It's death, in my eyes. Death is death is death. Only the living remember. The dead don't change. If they go on, good for them. Doesn't mean shit to me. I'm not dead yet.

But what they believe is what they believe. I don't have to share it. I don't. I really don't. And it's not right for me to decide for anyone else when they're ready to die. It's not an argument. It's not "this isn't what you really want." Maybe it's being so deep in grief or so at peace you don't feel like you need to fight. Maybe it's whatever it is. It's their choice. Face death how they want to. Face the certainty in the way they choose.

So if Grovin wants to stay, he stays. Even when we find any other way to face this. He gets to decide. I don't have to love it. I don't have to understand it. I have to accept it.

I'll hate it, but I'll have to accept it.

( like everyone who died for cintra, when it was hopeless before the numbers of nilfgaardians who spilled down over the hills around, who crashed like waves into the armies of her grandmother. like her grandmother herself. deciding how, and when, she'd die even as she was dying, as cintra was dying. ciri never saw that ending.

she just knew it was coming. )

[doooooog]

[ Jake squints at the username. The girl who made him a CD necklace, right? Funny running into her again here, like this. Jake scrapes a paw down his face. He'd been really hoping for a joke.

But that feeling passes quickly enough. She was in pain, that was obvious. Who wouldn't be? She was a fighter and she was a kid no matter how mature her essay was, it was still coming from a place of pain. If Jake had to guess, it probably wasn't even this pain. More likely something deeper, more chronic, more bound to however she understood herself to be.

Is that a condescending train of thought? Maybe a little. But it's compassionate, too. ]

i'm trying to see where you and i disagree, kiddo, but i can't. choosing to see something a certain way doesn't mean you'd choose the same thing for yourself.

accepting it's good. it's great, seriously. i'd just hate if someone had to carry all that pain around on my account, if I was the one making the choice. that's not a legacy i'd want to leave behind.

Text; un: raddude5000

[heroooic]

[ As hard as Finn was trying not to contemplate death any more than he had to here, lest he get so bogged down in the sadness, in the dread and hopelessness of it, his brother was all too committedly taking a whole hearted plunge into the deepest parts of it. Where Finn could not follow. They disagreed on this stuff sometimes; maybe with stakes that weren’t entire worlds, but certainly on the involvement, or the necessity (or lack therefore) of their actions. Finn couldn’t help his desire to want to save people; to help them at any cost. It drove him to act, often without thinking. Thinking made it harder to act.

He might not have gotten into it with him at all; might have just read the words and pushed them as far from his mind as he could, a willful act of ignorance. Only... ]

Dude, seriously? If it was your planet??

text; un: jtd

[doooooog]

[ This is why he doesn't wade into these things, Jake thinks. Finn wasn't even very far from him now, a few huts over. Doing this when they were so close to just talking felt strange. Tense, in a removed, eerie way. ]

it's a hypothetical, buddy.

[Text: Private]

[singlelogbridge]

Then I'm glad he knows.

As for what's to come, even if there's something that comes after, death is still painful for the living. No one should force someone to remain living if they choose not to, but that doesn't mean that the loss will not ache.

It doesn't mean that waking each day and realizing that something that was there the day before never will be again should be easy.

[doooooog]

[ He takes a beat, appreciating the sentiment and yet remaining torn over it. The man wasn't wrong. Not even a little. And yet, Jake still couldn't find fault in what he'd said.

Maybe that's arrogance? Or maybe there was a limit to how closely the two of them could see eye to eye. Jake wasn't sure. He's just a dog, after all. But this was on private, and this was Wei Wuxian, and he was not a teenager. The kid gloves could come off for this. ]

people leave for all sorts of reasons in life, man. it hurts every time, sometimes forever. but when i see people talking about what's about to happen as a waste or a tragedy, that's when my fur starts standing on end, man. there's been so much talk about the legacy of this place and these people and how they're gonna be remembered. i'd hate to be remembered as somebody who threw my life away.

[ And, a few seconds later: ]

not saying that's what you're saying man. sorry. this stuff's just getting to me a little. you too, i'm guessing.

text; un: tinuviel

[edraith]

Yes, indeed, it is as you say. The death of the body does not mean the death of the soul, and their spirits shall continue on. If that is what they choose, to remain with their home and step into another phase of their lives... who are we to stop them? Who are we to tell them they cannot?

I shall say a prayer to Elbereth, the lady of the stars, to watch over their spirits on their journey.

text; un: jtd

[doooooog]

[ That's a user name Jake doesn't know, which was always enough to ping his curiosity. But as Jake actually reads the words, that curiosity turns quickly to tail-wagging glee. Even in a planet whose traditions mirrored Jake's own, the old dog still longed for a kindred spirit among their number. ]

wow. did you just fire that off the dome? that was beautiful, man.

un: lion cub

[heyciri]

... The former sage?

( she feels like she's missing something here, but it also is part of what she was dreading to hear. not for lack of peoples who have faith in these sorts of things. but in knowing that some peoples will face death because it comes without personal intent, as circumstance strikes, and nothing will change that. they'll accept it. they won't fight. the conclusion is foregone to them, and they'll stand there until the end ensures they can't.

she sounds quiet, and sad, mostly because she isn't sad enough. just frustrated. just disconnected from the concept of grief over these people when she has so much of her own she's never faced, and these lives will never be hers to know. just uncertain what any of it means, or what they're meant to do when 'find the orb' is a problem of peoples as collateral damage and not just strategic hiding places. )

How...

( do you face that, that certainty of existence beyond death, and walk out the other side of it feeling okay? when you're set to survive? when this was never about you? she doesn't know. it's not what she's faced before, but it feels almost like it is, for the people murdered for having helped her, for having been kind when the world was geared toward casual cruelty. when the universes may well be. maybe all she can ask is about the other person, the other people, on this crew. start small. start. )

How are you?

[singlelogbridge]

[It's the unfamiliarity of the voice that prompts the answer, though he'll hardly be truthful with those he knows. Well, he won't be truthful with most of the people he knows anyway. In any regard, he has no desire to open himself for a stranger where anyone can see.

It doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate the kindness though.]

I'll be fine. It's the Hivawei who face this trial, not me.

Voice; private

[heroooic]

[ The cycles of death and rebirth that Wei Wuxian spoke of were familiar to Finn; it was almost comforting to hear it talked about so plainly. Something that Finn knew as a truth about the universe, not a question mark. He had no reason to believe things were any different in this world. When things died, eventually, they’d be reborn. Again and again and again.

But neither familiarity nor inevitability made the closeness of death (extinction) any easier to stomach. That all things died and would create some new cycle didn’t change that this version of the world would be gone, and all the beauty and life that it held. It was special, and unique and whatever followed it would never be exactly like it again…and that felt impossible to bear witness to.

So it’s the tone of Wei Wuxian’s voice that pulls Finn’s attention instead. The obvious somberness of it. The mourning in it. That was easier to contemplate and grasp. Not a cosmic question bigger than any of them could ever hope to grasp, but something smaller and more human. ]

Are you alright, Wei Wuxian?

Voice; private

[singlelogbridge]

[The second time the question has been asked, and he closes his eyes at the asking of it. He shouldn't have made this post now. He should have waited until he was more composed. He inhales quietly before responding.]

Are any of us alright now, Finn? [It's asked softly, without any bite.]

You don't need to worry about me. [He adds, gentler.]

audio; un: y.mikotoba

[softshoes]

It seems they've been informed. I'm relieved; the decision to tell them about this should be with one of their own, not us.

[He doesn't continue again immediately, taking the time to go back over every voice that's shared their thoughts thus far. It's... a lot to process. So much so, in fact, that Yujin doesn't check and doublecheck that he's made this a private message before he chimes in, himself.]

...I have lived with death for years, Wei Wuxian. Learning from death is my trade, and-- [His voice is steady and even, but even a man of his composure can't keep all the emotion out of it.] I've had the misfortune to find it elsewhere in my life, more often than I would like.

I don't wish for the Hivawei to die, nor for this world to disappear. But if we cannot work out a way to save them... if they don't wish to be saved at all... the knowledge we give these people is something precious. We fear death because it is an unknown. In knowing death, you'll have the choice of how to face it. How to spend your final hours.

Primum scire nocere, they tell us doctors. "First, know the harm."

[A pause.] I'm sorry to ramble. It's-- [he sighs, weary.] I wouldn't wish this responsibility upon any man. That's all.

audio | un: lion cub

[heyciri]

Primum scire nocere.

( which is a way to say, she heard this. and she agrees, with the sentiment, and the phrase in an unfamiliar tongue.

it's what she's argued the whole time and will keep arguing. leave people with choices. let the leaders guide them, whatever else happens, or doesn't. )

audio; un: jtd | private

[doooooog]

[ They weren't close friends, no, but the kids in their life were close (okay, maybe that was more onesided from the kid in Jake's life). And he just liked the guy. The dog would never admit it, but it was genuinely nice to hang around someone his age (wince) who had adult children (cringe) and who could get down with some jazz records.

The mention of death outside his work, that doesn't ping Jake as out of place. Yujin mentioned his wife's passing to him before, coinciding with the birth of his daughter. That was a lot of time to dull the grief. What Jake isn't expecting to hear is the more. ]

This one's getting to you too, huh bud?

[singlelogbridge]

[Loss, it seems, is a thread that weaves itself through the lives of the Orbers more closely than most. Or perhaps that's just how loss works. It's inevitable, isn't it? That everyone must eventually die. Maybe he isn't different, just a little premature. Even when he loses and loses and still loses more, he's just a little ahead of the game.]

Not everyone fears death, Doctor. [He says and he sounds tired, exhausted even. He doesn't know why that's what he chose to focus on and he quickly moves on.]

I'm sorry for your losses though. No matter how familiar death is, there is no adapting to it. Death has been a constant companion of mine for some time, and still, still this...[He lets out a sound almost like a soft laugh though it lacks any mirth.] It's heavy. All of this.

voice ↪ un: うちは 🔒

[blackfire]

Would you like company?

[singlelogbridge]

Yes. [He would have denied it from anyone else, but the moment the offer is made, Wei Wuxian realizes how much he needs it.

He sends a ping to his location—he's sitting beneath a towering plant, resting against its stem while the leaves form a canopy above him.]

voice; un: mccoy

[homeostatic]

Yerek and Bleicen know. The Chieftain doesn't sound ready to give up.

[singlelogbridge]

[The shaky exhale he lets out is audible, and there's a long pause before he says anything.]

Good. [A pause and then a switch to Private]

I've read so many books since I arrived on the Ximilia about the future sciences and I still don't know anything about something like this. I learned about asteroids and blackholes, and that stars are made up of different gases combined to create a burning ball of light. I've read about biology too, and physics. I've learned so much and this still...it feels impossible.

How do you save people from something like this? How can anyone?

audio; un: Sabriel.Abhorsen

[bindsthedead]

Everyone and everything has a time to die. But these are choices that must be made by the living, rather than the dead.

[And for better or worse, life always strives to continue.]

Private

Are you feeling all right?

Private

[singlelogbridge]

McCoy just told me the leaders are being informed. It's in their hands now whether they'll tell their people or not. [A decision that makes his stomach turn over on itself. He does not envy them.]

And I'm just tired. I'll be fine after a little sleep. [It's more than that, but he can't bring himself to vocalize the way Gwen's absence and the planet's impending doom have triggered an all consuming sense of loss in him that keeps threatening to pull him into a blackhole of grief.]

text; un: qinghe

[eschewings]

Wei-xiong.

It isn't the same.

[Private]

[singlelogbridge]

[Right for the throat, Huaisang. He closes his eyes and swallows before switching it to private.]

I know that Nie-xiong.

It's not so different though, is it? There's never anything I can do. [He doesn't feel responsible for this one at least, but the knowledge of what's to come and his inability to do anything about it aches all the same.]