the dreaming [open]

[tuvishan]

Characters: Tu Vishan and you!
Date: May 11^th
Location: All over Keeliai.
Situation: Tu Vishan is attempting to reach out to the foreigner population, with... mixed results?
Warnings/Rating: Should be pretty tame. Will update if this changes.
Notes: This log is set at night, and characters are technically encountering him in their 'dreams'. He may or may not be exerting some subtle supernatural influence to make characters fall asleep, so if your character doesn't require sleep feel free to say he's done something to them. Technically, every creature in Tu Vishan would be sleeping during his little foray, so the streets are uncharacteristically empty.

This is not a predominantly plot-driven log. Tu Vishan is reaching out to people and may surrender plot details if the right questions are asked, but this is mostly part of his ongoing effort to become acquainted with people and the thread direction may stick solely to slice of life, depending on how your character chooses to direct it.

A character's 'dreamscape' should be shaped by their subconscious mind, so feel free to go wild with whatever you'd like. This includes details of their location and what their dream!selves might look like. Tu Vishan will appear to the characters as a young boy, between fourteen and sixteen years of age, and anyone he visits will have extremely peaceful dreams. It's considered a gift and a blessing to have been visited thusly by Tu Vishan, and one can expect good fortune in their futures if they are visited. Characters may also not remember perfect details of these dreams in the morning, or remember them at all. That much is up to you.





[The night is calm and still and on this night, Tu Vishan wanders.

He does not often take a form not his own, but there is a growing sense of unease in his shape, in his body, that he cannot escape. He knows it. He has felt his brethren sicken thus, and die. So for a time, when he can, he escapes. Like smoke, like a ghost, a breath, he escapes and he wanders.

The city is sleeping when he does so. He likes the cities at night, though the dimly flickering light of his shell is...

(Sad, he thinks)

--Inevitable.

He passes from house to house, between buildings and shadows. He listens.

'Keeliai' means 'Finality'. It is an irony he has never sought to correct. Instead, he stops at doors, on rooftops, in the empty rooms of old houses, and he thinks of all the lives scattered here. Small enough to be insignificant to him, but hardly that. He cannot so much as feel the patter of their movement across his back, but he is aware of each of them as a tiny heartbeat, an audible echo of life and hope.

When he finds a receptive mind, he will sometimes reach out and touch it gently. A calm, gentle reassurance. If they wish to speak with him, he is there.]

Comments

[imaginate]

Since I always seem to have the wrong flavour of ice cream in them? Yeah, I bet. Can you do something about that?

[Light, of course it is. He knows this stranger is well aware what he dreams of, and knows the shadows that hang over him.]

[tuvishan]

[Gently,]

Kyle.

[There is so much in the simple way he says his name. It is the same way a parent might, chiding, but in a way that stands independent from condescension or ridicule or judgement. He does not ask him to be serious.]

[imaginate]

[The voice resonates, deep within him; as though Asti has pulled strings on a harp. Kyle thinks of a planet, long ago and far away, reaching into it and feeling something old - so old. And he feels so, so small.

He waves his hand, and the area around them dissolves. It's a field (still empty, because Kyle, in his mind, is always alone), on Earth, cliffs brown and green. They are standing next to the sea, and below a statue of a man in a green and black uniform with a domino mask. The memorial plaque calls him a hero. There is a bench in its shadow and Kyle gestures to Asti to sit down.]

I'm listening.

[tuvishan]

[He does not sit. Instead, he studies the statue. And then he glances at Kyle.]

He is not your burden here.

[And then, instead of the statue there is a tree. A young willow, fresh and new with a smell like pure springtime.]

And you are not in his shadow now.

[imaginate]

[His eyes widen in shock, and his shoulders sink. It is so easy for them to say. But he wears Hal's ring, he took Hal's place. The burden will always be with him. And yet, part of him remembers Dream of Endless, looking at him from under an oak tree, the same deep eyes. Do not live in his shadow. You will be greater than him. Kyle can take it for a moment, can't he? It won't corrupt him. It's not selfish.

So he does, and turns towards Asti, expression pensive.]

Now, I'm listening.

[tuvishan]

[He sinks to the ground beside the willow. He prefers it here, to benches.]

You despair because you cannot leave. You think you should have solved this. You, who wields the most powerful weapon in the universe.

[imaginate]

[Kyle sits down as well, leaving some space between them. He draws up his knees, not too close to his chest to be defensive or withdrawn, and rests his elbows on them, twiddling his fingers. Resisting playing with his ring. He is a restless spirit by nature and he rarely restrains it.]

I'm needed elsewhere, but I'm beginning to think I might be needed here too. You're sick-- [A pause, and then quietly-] This shouldn't be beyond my power.

[tuvishan]

You are powerful, I will grant you.

[He tilts his head.]

You push yourself. Because it is expected. Do you find value in your own life, little brother, or in what you can do for others with it?

[imaginate]

My life is one to be laid down for others. [He looks at Asti.] You know this.

[tuvishan]

[His expression does not change, but the aura about him flickers a moment, briefly sad.]

I do.

[Though it pains him to say. This boy has a beautiful mind.]

Kyle. The threat that is here is not only a threat to this world, but a threat to all worlds. Stopping it here is perhaps the best chance of preventing the tragedies of this world from being repeated elsewhere. Does that knowledge make it easier to endure being here?

[imaginate]

[He nods.]

And you also know it is my duty to do what I can to stop it. [And then, more quietly-] Is it safe for you to tell me what it is?

[tuvishan]

It is an essence known as Malicant. A formless entity, older still than I. It inflicts chaos and death and pain where it walks. Take care that you do not speak that name aloud when you wake, unless you are in the Lady Emperor's palace. It will hear you, and come.

[imaginate]

[An entity, like Parallax. Like Ion. The whole thing suggests cannot be held and well, he's not willing to accept that just yet.]

The Enemy, then. How do we stop it?

[tuvishan]

I do not know. It has been in this world for a thousand years or more, by the reckoning of men. Nothing has stopped it.

[He reaches out to brush at the trailing willow branches.]

I do not know if it can be stopped. I hope for it.

[imaginate]

[Fiercely:] Nothing is invincible.

[He stops, and calms himself. Getting angry here is not going to help anybody or do anything to further the goal. So he closes his eyes briefly, lets it go. Breathes.]

[tuvishan]

Perhaps not. But all things have a right to life. Even if we perhaps wished otherwise.

[Between one moment and the next, he is at Kyle's side, one hand gently on his shoulder. He does not often resort to physical contact, but with it comes a sense of peace and gentle hope, warmth like the perfect summer's day. It's a little like eternity, comforting in its perpetuity, edged in alien thought and comprehension.]

[imaginate]

[It's there again, like waves on the shore. A distant hum, and he feels something else in it, too. An immense sadness, which he knows too well.]

Are you dying?

[tuvishan]

Yes.

[He withdraws his hand, folds them carefully in his lap.]

[imaginate]

[It's Kyle's turn to reach out and touch Asti's shoulder.]

Tell me what I can do.

[tuvishan]

There is nothing I would ask of you. Perhaps... visit me, sometimes. If you are not busy.

[A slight smile.]

[imaginate]

[He mirrors it.]

Is that why the Emperor keeps us in? So that you have company?

[tuvishan]

She does not keep you in. I keep-- other things out.

[His lips quirk downwards. He remembers too well the Jiangshi.]

Sometimes I am not strong enough.

[imaginate]

[Something Damian suggested to him, that a threshold had been reached.]

There were too many of them. [Then he too, looks down.] Does she have your well-being at heart?

[Can we trust her is really what he wants to know, but he plans to go to Eshai in person to determine that.]

[tuvishan]

She rescued me.

[It's a simple enough statement.]

Were it not for her - and she was but a girl at the time - I would have perished along with my brethren.

[imaginate]

[Kyle nods. It is enough.]

You are not alone, brother. [He knows the excruciating loneliness - the silence - that comes from being the last of one's kind.] If you are facing your life's blackest night — [he wants to scream, I am not a child, I have heard and felt the universe itself laughing, crying, singing, screaming, I have faced worse odds than this. Yet, he does not. Experience has tempered him.

He stands, and holds out his hand.] I will do what I can to help you face the future without fear.