To wgp@topica.com From Jeffrey Sean Huo Subject [wgp] Visions of the past Date Sat, 03 Mar 2001 161941 -0800 Message-ID <0.1600017349.1251037659-212058698-983665181@topica.com> Reply-To wgp@topica.com At 0139 PM 3/3/01 -0800, Kylinn wrote >jeffshuo@umich.edu writes >> Kylinn wrote >> >> >"Pearl's brother was a Stargazer," >> >Stalks mentions. >> >> ["So was my wife,"] Zhouting says, >> quietly. ["Before I killed her."] > >Stalks looks at him in shock. "Why?!" Zhouting pauses to collect his thoughts. ["Akashics live many lives in succession,"] he begins. ["We remember each turning of the wheel when we Awaken...each life, one after another, and in this way we can achieve greater enlightenment over the course of centuries, and bring ourselves closer to the Way."] ["I remember many lives now, stretching back far into the mists of time...but I have been married but once. Once, long ago."] He pauses, as if gathering strength. ["She was beautiful."] Those three words are said with a power, a conviction, a wonder, a sorrow, which conveys her beauty in a way the more flowery prose of a Fianna Galliard could never hope to match. ["She was kind. She was gentle. And we were happy together."] He pauses again, this time longer. ["Not all branches of the Brotherhood forbid marriage. Certainly marriage to a Stargazer was not out of line then."] ["I was young, but powerful in the Sphere of Mind and Prime..I had many Arts and much mastery. I could erase memories, rewrite emotions, plant subliminal commands, if I desired. Without trace or damage. I could rewrite personalities and motivations like a pencil on paper, such was my skill then."] But I would never use those arts against another's will."] He pauses again...and within his mind, the calm exterior began to ripple with grief and sorrow, long repressed... ["I *should* have!"] he says, for the very first time his voice betraying the perfect calm that has characterized it to date. In his mind he fights a battle of wills against himself to control the emotions raging just under the surface...when he gets enough of a grip, he continues with his tale ["I had enemies from other lifetimes --we are not the only Magi who remember. The Chakaravanti --the Euthantos-- do as well. Our two orders have fought a war that was centuries old a millenia ago. Brothers were slain, reborn, remembered previous wrongs and avenged them."] ["Eventually, we Akashics realized the futility of such cycles of vengence, and pulled away from the struggle...the Chakaravanti did not."] ["But He...He was beyond even the darkness of the Chakaravanti... He had become Hei Long Shen --Nephrandus. Even His own Tradition tried to kill him --and failed."] ["I could feel His dark taint from a long distance --He whom I will not name, so that his memory might disappear from the very record of Man-- He, his acolytes, and his Naraka, six-armed creatures of darkness... driven was he to exact vengence upon all his enemies, from lifetime to lifetime --he was obviously quite mad. And I knew he would come for me, among others."] ["Many had tried to kill him, to stop his madness, including many of his own Tradition...and all had failed. Having dispatched his enemies among his own Tradition on that side of the Roof of Heaven --the Himalayas-- he now came over to wreak havok on our side. I would be his first victim."] ["I intended to be his last. Ever."] ["It had been for that I had prepared sixty-five seasons."] He pauses again, to collect his thoughts... having opened a storm of memories... ["Sun Tzu writes that a warrior prepared to fight must also be prepared to die; only in accepting death can one fight without hesitation. A warrior who fights without desire to preserve himself can focus on victory and victory alone. Such is the wisdom of the Akashics. Such dedication is how we have endured where the Wu Lung and others have perished,"] he says without pride or boasting, only as a fact. ["One can choose to flee from their Destiny...or to accept it. It was my Destiny to face Him; I intended to make sure I would be the last to do so."] ["In his own homeland he could hide with ease. Noone --Akashic or Chakaravanti alike-- could find him when he did not seek to be found. But he could not hide in my homeland, which was as alien to him as it was famliar to me. I knew my Avatar would draw Him to me, and so I came to Tibet to prepare to meet him, soon after my Awakening in that lifetime. With me I brought a powerful Talisman, with which I could imprison his Avatar for all time. I would be the first to meet Him as soon as He appeared... and I would destroy Him."] ["Among the Brothers here I trained and prepared...and among the Stargazers, for whom Tibet was their ancestral home."] ["Much did I learn from the Stargazers, not only of combat, but of meditation, control, patience and wisdom. Much did I learn of the secrets whispered from the Heavens, and shared from spirits."] Zhouting pauses once more, as if to collect his Will for the last push. His voice remains calm, but it is clearly taking an awesome effort to do so... ["Her name,"] he says, ["her name best translates to 'Laughter-Like-Dancing-Stars',"] in a tone that clearly says he thinks the translation does no justice to the true beauty of the name, or the Lady, ["her name was "Falls-From-Heaven".] ["Quite literally, 'Falls-From-Heaven' is how we met,"] he says, probably with a gentle smile...perhaps a tear. ["She was practicing her Balance on a rope streched across the temple courtyard...she slipped...she fell on me."] ["As she had been in Crinos form, I suffered a massive concussion and several broken bones,"] he says, perhaps wistfully. ["I probably would have died if not for the prompt work of several healers...really was my fault. I should have looked at where I was walking, but such overhead practice was so common one took it for granted."] ["When I awoke several days later, she was by my bedside...I guess she felt a resonsibility to care for me..."] ["I swear,"] he says with wonder, ["when I saw her smile when I first awoke...I thought that I had in fact died and achieved the final Paradise."] ["We were married two seasons later."] He pauses again. ["My years with her are as close to Paradise as I have ever gotten, before or since."] ["And in her arms all the Paradise I should ever desire."] Another pause. ["I didn't told her about Him and my Destiny...there was no reason. It could have been seasons...lifetimes before He came again...perhaps never. Perhaps one of His dark Patrons would have taken him to Gilgul without His ever reemerging."] ["But after many years, He did come."] Now Zhouting begins to quietly lose his composure...the very barest tones of sorrow inject themselves into his calm delivery...of sadness, of regret, anger, loathing. ["It was a simple plan I had worked out; it was nonsensical for me to wait for Him to come to me; better I go to meet Him in some isolated valley far from any innocents, and there I would die, and if I could, take Him with me. Such was Karma. And when the day came, I told her everything, and prepared to make my goodbyes..."] ["But while others accepted, she refused! She refused to let me go die alone --she insisted she would join me; perhaps together we might survive; or, failing that, we would die together. For she did not wish to survive me."] ["But I didn't *want* her to die with me! There was no reason for her to die with me! She was young still, and had so much to live for --it was *I* who had to die, not her!"] ["We argued, we yelled. But she refused to be swayed. We would set forth to face Death together in the morning, and that would be that."] He pauses, visibly trembling now. ["I had one more chance, one more card to play. Powerful was I in Mind; I could have easily put her into a deep sleep so that she could not follow --far better, I could have erased her love for me, replaced it with a hatred, so that she would consciously abandon me, and thus have no guilt over doing so...and live. I could do it without a trace, I could do it without side effect, and there would be nothing she could do about it."] ["She knew I could have done that --she just *always* knew, she could always read me like a scroll-- and she begged me not to do it. She knew there was no way she could stop me from doing so... but she pleaded with me not to do that to her."] ["And I listened. And I kept my word."] Zhouting makes a quiet sob. ["I argued with her each and every day we were on the trail, desparately trying to change her mind, to dissuade her, to get her to turn back! But she would not be budged! Every argument, every plea, she would just smile, or wink, or kiss me quietly and leave it at that! At any point I could have acted --at any point I could have reached into her Mind and *made* her go back, made her forget I ever existed --but for sake of her word I did not...I did not do so because she asked me not to."] ["And on the ninth day, we met Him, and that was the End."] ["I could have --should have-- gone against her wishes --saved her! But I didn't --and in doing so *I* killed her!"] [" I killed her! "] he says, brokenly. ["And now all Garou are gone from this Earth, and even her Spirit is probably lost to me now."] ["I've watched the stars / Burn Bright and Sure / And then with a flash disappear / and instead I endure. "] Zhouting sobs quietly. >> -Zhouting > >Stalks Hidden >You'd better have a damn good reason! -Zhouting I don't, and I deserve to die.