He'd made a guess about this once before and the immediate denial had not been convincing--because there were enough pieces out there to put together what's implied.]
A tool is rarely evil in itself, though many of its uses might be. But remaining totally ignorant of those uses out of fear doesn't prevent them, in my experience.
Have you asked Baba Yaga about taking her creatures from her? [Because that's the real trespass here, in a pious shrike's reckoning: Not asking the local deity for permission.]
[The idiom's a bit of politesse, he's well aware, but still an opening.]
I suspect you're training an ability to control minds.
To declare my own biases in the matter: I have been in thrall to another's will. My mother has an effort-gift of persuasion she's used to hurt my children.
[To kill his son--her grandson--but that is a little much to share, even in the interest of eliciting information in turn.]
I have, therefore, a vested interest in you learning to use your own gift rightly. Knowing more will help with that.
My cup overflows with people with a "vested interest" in me doing what they think I should be doing, when they tell me I should do it and how they tell me to do it, or else.
Do you think I'm an idiot? Are you under the impression that I'm somehow not aware of what I'm doing and the cost to everyone else should I make even the smallest of mistakes? Do you think I have not been told relentlessly and at length how much harm I can do? How much harm I've already done and will do?
I already know. I have always known, ever since it was explained to me what I am, and what awaits me.
[It is not, by far, the first time someone's gone silent on Illarion only to break that silence in full fury.
He waits patiently through the intervening interval, attending to a few small matters that require little thought. He wraps up the last of these when his Relic pings with a new message--picks it up, and reads the response through Iskierka's eyes.
Oh, little one.]
No.
I think you are all too aware and it's crushing you. [QED, as they say in the Empire.]
Whether or not you believe it, you deserve a say in all of this. The opportunity to make mistakes without condemnation and to discover what a person with your nature is and can be.
But I can't help you in that way either without knowing what you are and who else affects you.
Ignorance in those matters did nearly get me (justifiably) shot.
[And that's the tamed version, subject to rewrite and walking away and rewrite and reconsidering and more. What would it have been without an hour's filter?]
It was not justified. Mr. Valentine means well, but he knows what I become, and his dearest friends are my victims. He seems to believe that by acting thus he can prevent it, but he is fourteen years too late. His counterpart in my time still sleeps, content to leave me to my fate.
Objectively it is better for you to make whatever assumptions you'd like about my nature. Those that find out tend to make encouraging noises about choices and then disappear, or threaten to kill me if I misstep. As if they could.
[Much less coherent, certainly. But that, too, Illarion has been subject to.]
Unjustifiably shot then. It remains that it would have been much less likely if I and Mr. Valentine had known more about each other.
[The added information on Sephiroth's self-appointed guardian and not-father is tucked away, but not followed. Not now. Vincent's failings, perceived or actual, are aside from the point.]
Objectively, it is not. I'd assumed you were like one of my own people, with a part of you outside the realm of the visible. Until we witnessed you rip yourself in half and survive it because, I can only assume, my instructions on summoning an Omen were very incomplete.
This is also something I'd like to avoid, in the future.
Well I am now but not like that, I'm pretty certain if I tore myself in half I'd be in hospital at the least, picking myself out of a crater courtesy of Thirteen's resurrection at worst.
It does indeed take him a couple hours to arrive; he's utterly silent when airborne but paid for it in raw swiftness or the ability to ride thermals well. At least it gets him his evening cardio, and the trip back might even be enough between the two to get him to actually sleep for more than a couple hours.
He's alone this time. Vincent's been more elusive lately, tending to whatever matters he had to handle, and Sephiroth hadn't asked him to come via relic. He's armed as he had been before but that's no surprise; there's a circle or two of a clearer spot to come down, and he's a good thirty feet off the ground when the wings disappear. Dropping that distance is effortless, gravity's hold nebulous and associative at best. He might have well been stepping off a low stair for all that it doesn't jar anything.
No wings means risking no eyes. The not-omen, so recently forged, is not immediately visible, at least not to normal sight.
Mindful of how his blacks blend into the night, Illarion's picked a place to wait where the inconstant light of moon and stars catches in his white hair. He does not bother straining his ears for Sephiroth's approach, nor employs Iskierka's eyes; his other, stranger senses will be more reliable in the dark and hush.
Especially when the youth he's waiting for presents a much bigger cross-section to those senses than he would to the ordinary eye.
"Over here," he calls, as Sephiroth touches ground; lifts a hand to draw attention to himself.
The same viper's pupils that made countless people nervous back on Gaia serve him well enough at night, and even if there hadn't been some manner of lighting for the spirits to enjoy, spotting Illarion would have only taken a few more moments. but beckoned it's even easier and the teen heads in his direction, expression guarded, a certain tenseness to his stance that suggests he expects a fight, if not a physical one.
"You wished to see me?" .... "So to speak."
When the guard hound does make his appearance, in a boiling of black smoke up from the shadows, he doesn't likewise approach, attention turned outward and not towards Sephiroth and Illarion. There's an obviousness to the way he moves, rustling leaves, the occasional snap of twig, that suggests an effort to be noticed in the slow, wide patrol he sets to. A guard dog does little good if nobody knows it's there, after all.
"So to speak," the shrike echoes, with a hint of laughter beneath his tone. He has noticed the tension in the youth; perhaps a little levity will ease it.
Perhaps not. But no harm in trying--and what he plans to lead with, besides, is not an obvious continuation of their earlier scuffle.
"You'd said you were studying engineering, yes? You're well-versed in geometry now, I'd assume."
That's .. not what he's expecting, and combined with the thread of laughter he's sure had been there, he's suddenly uncertain for entirely different reasons.
"Not extremely. Most of my education here has been catching up to where I should be at my age, such things are a waste at Shinra." No point in learning complex math when he'd never need it. "I'm told I'm doing well with only a semester working on it."
Mmm. That's unfortunate, and lowers Illarion's already subterranean opinion of Sephiroth's creators. But of course, a weapon didn't need such things, and so on and so forth in all the justification that would pave Shinra's path down to Hell.
"It's sufficient if you understand there are three dimensions to space, as you're experiencing it--but that there could be more than three. Does that make sense?"
"Yes, though Kuma Lisa teaches there is another to the physical world, time." Which also makes sense as it could be perceived and moved through, just not backwards without sufficient speed.
In fact.. "Mrs Wolf says there are ten, and could be as many as twenty six dimensions of space, just we humanoids are limited to the first four in most realities." It's not something studied, but told to a young class as an interesting fact.
That recitation gets an approving nod from Illarion, though his lips quirk wryly at humanoid. Even the spirits here saw "humanlike" as default--it makes him wonder at the vicissitudes of Generation's dream, that he's been in two worlds now where most humans saw themselves as first-and-only.
Or maybe he's been missed by whichever of the Fox's sisters preferred nonhumans.
Though it's hardly relevant here. "Very good. She's largely right on that, but my people are an exception to that rule.
"This is not something we speak of widely; I offer it to you in trust, as part of my explanation." He has faith it won't go farther than Sephiroth, it's clear.
Sephiroth had taken it as some evidence that non-humanoids might be able to perceive more than those, as opposed to the dominance of humanity throughout the universe. But it did indeed seem like it was mostly humans here.. or beings in a humanlike shape and humanlike size.
"..I don't keep dangerous secrets, no matter who asks them, if it seems wise to tell another," he says slowly, vaguely aware of the occasional commercial in amongst his telenovelas that warn of adults asking kids to keep secrets. "But if it is not, then I will abide."
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 05:30 pm (UTC)He'd made a guess about this once before and the immediate denial had not been convincing--because there were enough pieces out there to put together what's implied.]
A tool is rarely evil in itself, though many of its uses might be. But remaining totally ignorant of those uses out of fear doesn't prevent them, in my experience.
Have you asked Baba Yaga about taking her creatures from her? [Because that's the real trespass here, in a pious shrike's reckoning: Not asking the local deity for permission.]
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 05:34 pm (UTC)[And it's part of what he was. He could no more escape it than he could rewrite his genetics. If it was evil, what did that make him?]
.. Yes. She's important for [Containment.] making sure nothing goes awry.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 05:46 pm (UTC)[He does have many of his own biases when it comes to this particular tool, having been victim of it in more ways than one.
But he can maintain dispassion about it.]
Good.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 05:52 pm (UTC)[Idle curiosity tended to backfire. And Illarion would certainly join the many others who learned to avoid him after what he was became clear.]
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 08:28 pm (UTC)[The idiom's a bit of politesse, he's well aware, but still an opening.]
I suspect you're training an ability to control minds.
To declare my own biases in the matter: I have been in thrall to another's will. My mother has an effort-gift of persuasion she's used to hurt my children.
[To kill his son--her grandson--but that is a little much to share, even in the interest of eliciting information in turn.]
I have, therefore, a vested interest in you learning to use your own gift rightly. Knowing more will help with that.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 08:30 pm (UTC)It will still take messages of course, that's what it's designed to do, but it's well over an hour before there's anything from Sephiroth.]
EVENTUALLY: text. GET OUT THAT TEXT TO SPEECH APP
Date: 2024-09-08 08:43 pm (UTC)Do you think I'm an idiot? Are you under the impression that I'm somehow not aware of what I'm doing and the cost to everyone else should I make even the smallest of mistakes? Do you think I have not been told relentlessly and at length how much harm I can do? How much harm I've already done and will do?
I already know. I have always known, ever since it was explained to me what I am, and what awaits me.
Add to the chorus.
text;
Date: 2024-09-08 08:57 pm (UTC)He waits patiently through the intervening interval, attending to a few small matters that require little thought. He wraps up the last of these when his Relic pings with a new message--picks it up, and reads the response through Iskierka's eyes.
Oh, little one.]
No.
I think you are all too aware and it's crushing you. [QED, as they say in the Empire.]
Whether or not you believe it, you deserve a say in all of this. The opportunity to make mistakes without condemnation and to discover what a person with your nature is and can be.
But I can't help you in that way either without knowing what you are and who else affects you.
Ignorance in those matters did nearly get me (justifiably) shot.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 09:17 pm (UTC)It was not justified. Mr. Valentine means well, but he knows what I become, and his dearest friends are my victims. He seems to believe that by acting thus he can prevent it, but he is fourteen years too late. His counterpart in my time still sleeps, content to leave me to my fate.
Objectively it is better for you to make whatever assumptions you'd like about my nature. Those that find out tend to make encouraging noises about choices and then disappear, or threaten to kill me if I misstep. As if they could.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 10:21 pm (UTC)Unjustifiably shot then. It remains that it would have been much less likely if I and Mr. Valentine had known more about each other.
[The added information on Sephiroth's self-appointed guardian and not-father is tucked away, but not followed. Not now. Vincent's failings, perceived or actual, are aside from the point.]
Objectively, it is not. I'd assumed you were like one of my own people, with a part of you outside the realm of the visible. Until we witnessed you rip yourself in half and survive it because, I can only assume, my instructions on summoning an Omen were very incomplete.
This is also something I'd like to avoid, in the future.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 10:24 pm (UTC)Well I am now but not like that, I'm pretty certain if I tore myself in half I'd be in hospital at the least, picking myself out of a crater courtesy of Thirteen's resurrection at worst.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 10:28 pm (UTC)Are you free to continue this conversation in person?
There is something I need to explain.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 10:45 pm (UTC)[He describes the location.]
Is that close enough?
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 11:22 pm (UTC)Swift flight, and safe.
[He'll be at the park well before Sephiroth arrives, to scout it and speak with any curious spirits to send them on their ways.]
no subject
Date: 2024-09-08 11:33 pm (UTC)He's alone this time. Vincent's been more elusive lately, tending to whatever matters he had to handle, and Sephiroth hadn't asked him to come via relic. He's armed as he had been before but that's no surprise; there's a circle or two of a clearer spot to come down, and he's a good thirty feet off the ground when the wings disappear. Dropping that distance is effortless, gravity's hold nebulous and associative at best. He might have well been stepping off a low stair for all that it doesn't jar anything.
No wings means risking no eyes. The not-omen, so recently forged, is not immediately visible, at least not to normal sight.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-09 12:58 am (UTC)Especially when the youth he's waiting for presents a much bigger cross-section to those senses than he would to the ordinary eye.
"Over here," he calls, as Sephiroth touches ground; lifts a hand to draw attention to himself.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-09 01:04 am (UTC)"You wished to see me?" .... "So to speak."
When the guard hound does make his appearance, in a boiling of black smoke up from the shadows, he doesn't likewise approach, attention turned outward and not towards Sephiroth and Illarion. There's an obviousness to the way he moves, rustling leaves, the occasional snap of twig, that suggests an effort to be noticed in the slow, wide patrol he sets to. A guard dog does little good if nobody knows it's there, after all.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-09 02:42 am (UTC)Perhaps not. But no harm in trying--and what he plans to lead with, besides, is not an obvious continuation of their earlier scuffle.
"You'd said you were studying engineering, yes? You're well-versed in geometry now, I'd assume."
A tiny sneak tag
Date: 2024-09-09 03:13 am (UTC)"Not extremely. Most of my education here has been catching up to where I should be at my age, such things are a waste at Shinra." No point in learning complex math when he'd never need it. "I'm told I'm doing well with only a semester working on it."
sneaky bedtime tags! me too
Date: 2024-09-09 03:20 am (UTC)"It's sufficient if you understand there are three dimensions to space, as you're experiencing it--but that there could be more than three. Does that make sense?"
no subject
Date: 2024-09-09 09:27 am (UTC)In fact.. "Mrs Wolf says there are ten, and could be as many as twenty six dimensions of space, just we humanoids are limited to the first four in most realities." It's not something studied, but told to a young class as an interesting fact.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-09 12:14 pm (UTC)Or maybe he's been missed by whichever of the Fox's sisters preferred nonhumans.
Though it's hardly relevant here. "Very good. She's largely right on that, but my people are an exception to that rule.
"This is not something we speak of widely; I offer it to you in trust, as part of my explanation." He has faith it won't go farther than Sephiroth, it's clear.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-09 12:59 pm (UTC)"..I don't keep dangerous secrets, no matter who asks them, if it seems wise to tell another," he says slowly, vaguely aware of the occasional commercial in amongst his telenovelas that warn of adults asking kids to keep secrets. "But if it is not, then I will abide."
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