2023-03-30: Spiral Nemesis
- Log: Spiral Nemesis
- Cast: Citan Uzuki, Fei Fong Wong
- Where: Sin
- Date: March 30, 2023
- Summary: Fei catches up to Citan after their separate routes took them through the depths of Sin. However, what Fei saw in there had left him shaken.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
They had made a temporary encampment with the city in the distance.
Much of what they had endured on their trek inwards hadn't been real in the traditional sense of the word, a definition that is by Citan's consideration becoming ever more frayed the further they explore the depths of Sin. Pyreflies carry the memories of Spira, as he had learned years ago, and so all the impressions of Spira are made real here, in this place where they dwell thickly. Shaped perhaps by the recollections of two men who loved the city of Zanarkand dearly, it is no mistake that the memories of that city -- and elements of others from Zeboim and Spira's shared past -- carry so much weight.
The city they had traveled in before had been fragmented, as if recalled imperfectly and by far too many minds. The city before them appears, at least from here, to be a coherent whole.
But there had also been the great vessel, and the meaning of that remains a mystery.
Worn from their foray thus far, they had opted to stop here and regroup before heading onwards.
It might have been the sense of finality hanging in the air. It might have been pure practicality, after a gauntlet like that one. It might have well been both of these things.
He is at this moment alone, watching over the campsite while others rest or scout ahead. For now, his gaze remains in the none-too-distant shape of 'Zanarkand'.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei did not react well to seeing the phrase You shall be as gods repeating on a computer console. Perhaps most people wouldn't really, but he reacted REAL bad--by snapping and rying to break the consoles with his bear hands.
Fortunately he was with pals! And his pals calmed him downn but Fei really wanted to check in with Citan before moving on ahead. There are some things he's only really comfortable talking to Citan about--after all, he's known him longer than anyone else and even when his whole town turned against him--Citan stuck by with him. He trusts 'Doc' down to the bone even after learning that he had some skeletons in his own closet (though, to be fair, he finds the story of how he met Yui to be super romantic).
Fei looks worn out as all heck but he still manages a smile upon seeing Citan, jogging on over to him.
"Hey Doc..." Fei says. His breathing is still a little accelerated and his chest is pounding just a bit faster than normal. "Glad I caught up with you!"
He looks out to 'Zanarkand'. His hands twitch and fingeres curl inward.
"Looks like we're almost done yeah?"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
It was best, also, for them to not get ahead of the others. With no sign of their passage before them, it could only be assumed that they had come through first.
And there from behind comes confirmation of that fact. "Fei!" Citan calls out, turning towards the young man. "...I trust the others are not far behind? It appears that we had 'pulled ahead', you might say, in spite of the challenges we faced. If you are looking for Leon, I believe he is scouting and should be back shortly."
As for Lily, some rest was required after her exertions -- he had insisted, all considering.
Looking Fei over, he follows the direction of his gaze. "I believe we are coming to the end of this," he answers. "Though... I suspect we have quite an effort before us before we can consider ourselves 'done'."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"yeah, nah, they're around, I just rushed up cause I saw you and was hoping--"
Fei rubs at his neck awkwardly before remembering he's been seeing XANTIA to do that and he sort of snaps his hand away as if catching himself in a real bad habit. He instead shoves his hand into his pocket and adds, "ACtually, I was... I mean I rushed forward because I was hoping to talk to you in confidence for a minute. Is that okay?"
He feels a bit guilty about it but he doesn't really want to worry the others any more than he already has even if he's sure Xantia in particular would really understand his feelings right now.
"Something um... happened when I saw---er, you saw it right too?--the terminal that was...saying that weird junk about becoming gods?"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
He had rushed ahead because...
This gives Citan pause for a moment -- but only a moment. It isn't as if they (Lily and Leon, especially) had not left signs of their passage. If their paths through Sin had converged at any point, then... why, of course.
"In confidence? Why, yes, you may." With Lily resting and Leon away, and the others further afield, there may be no better time to have a moment to speak to one another.
Where their paths might have converged, though, becomes only too clear.
"...So you saw those as well." He can but shake his head. "I do not know what it means. A memory of some event that happened in Spira, long ago?" Yet there was something that did not appear to quite align. The nature of the craft, the make of those screens... it was possible for something to seem at once ancient and highly advanced. And those words had been written in the script of many tongues, not Zeboim alone. Folding his arms over his chest, he considers Fei again.
"Did those words...?"
He does not finish the question. Instead, he frowns, furrowing his brow as he regards Fei now more critically than before.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong closes his eyes for a moment, thinking about how to put what he's feeling into words, what happened into words. He isn't exactly the most educated guy but it feels like sometimes what he wants to say just escapes his head before it can escape his mouth.
"...Yeah, I had a reaction to it. I don't...It wasn't like Id, I think. I just... I got real scared Doc. Being honest, I'm still feeling real anxious about it." He frowns. "...Least, it's not just..."
5rHe trails off, he really is having trouble putting this into words. He presses his hands to his forehead in frustration. "Mrrggh...."
He exhales and is quiet for a moment. And then another moment.
But when he does speak up again it's softly, "I wanted to destroy it and run away simultaneously. We probably would've gotten here at the same time if I wasn't freaking out."
He lowers his head. "...But what I didn't tell 'em is... I don't know, Doc. I'm scared. I'm scared that my head'n'heart is being ruled more by these...past visions, lives--whatever... Then it is by me. Like...the more I see, the more it's ruling me."
He brings his hands down his face. IT'd be comical if he wasn't largely holding it together thanks to his loved ones being hearty and hale.
"I don't know why I'd resonate with something on the moon neither." He admits.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Citan, perhaps being aware of this -- that what he wants to say somethings isn't something he can put into words -- doesn't rush him. He waits, patient as ever.
And when Fei confirms he had a reaction to it, he nods. "It was an unnerving thing to see. I believe Lily and Leon were also affected by it. I am left wondering what it means, as well. As for you..."
Well, it goes without saying, perhaps, that it might affect him more strongly than most. 'Fei' is an artifice of a persona -- of that, Citan is certain. Id, as a personality, is certainly the more deeply rooted -- the older. What that means in practical terms is that 'Fei', as a personality, is more akin to a child in nature -- and thus, the world is far newer to him than it is to others of his age, and thus it more strongly affects him. What had unsettled them must have profoundly rattled Fei... to say nothing of his own particularities.
'Fei' is unstable, but so is Id.
...Though, there remains much he does not know about Id.
"Do not force yourself, Fei," Citan cautions, frowning when it seems as if even the effort of recalling how he had been affected is rattling him. "Here, perhaps you should care to have a seat...?"
The seat in question is little more than a larger piece of the scattered rubble, recalling at once the temples but also the ruins of the Zanarkand-like cities. Still, it might suffice.
"...I see. So, it had affected you so strongly..."
Was it 'Fei' who was scared? Or had it been Id? Or...
"And... what you see and feel is making you feel so strongly?" He seeks confirmation alone, proceeding cautiously before asking, "Is there anything else that you feel when you recall these things?"
Terror, fury... it makes him think of one and one alone.
'Fei' is a fragile artifice, easily cast aside when what lurks within is prompted to stir. If he had remained in Lahan, perhaps he could have lived a peaceful life. But...
"I do not think it originated here. Perhaps... it is some memory from ancient Zeboim," Citan says, though he knows that is not correct. It had been different -- older, perhaps, and certainly alien. But from where -- and when -- had it hailed? A passing exchange with another star-faring civilization? The Veruni are not the only ones to set foot on Filgaia.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei frowns. "Lily and Leon too?" He's surprised by that, frankly, maybe he should talk to them about it. In a way it's a bit of a relief it isn't just him. But it didn't seem to...hit Elly particularly? Maybe she just toughed it out better, he thinks, or maybe...
Fei makes his way to the closest thing they're going to find to a chair inside of Sin. Frankly, with everything that is going on maybe it's a good idea to not remind him that he's inside the belly of a giant whale powered by dead souls. The nice thing about his current panic attack is that it's preventing him from having a panic attack about that particular fact right now. He WAS being optimistic about their odds here but now? Maybe now e's not so sure.
"Yeah... I got nervous the moment I saw those cables, but when I saw that text I really..."
Is there anything elseh e recalls feeling. Fei rubs at his face. "...Anger... Despair... Id didn't taunt me at all or anything, not that I remember..." He frowns. While he thinks Anger is accurate, he's not sure it's the most accurate way he could put it. "It felt like... You know, when Yevon was going around blaming the Al Bhed for Sin, and like the Crusaders for trying to stop it in the first place? When I heard about that, it felt like that. That kind of anger."
"Like a lie that could not stand. But I don't even know what it means." He admits. He has this strange urge to look for Ethius. Maybe he is hoping Ethius will set fire to it or something.
"...Yeah, you know, that makes sense. They had New Kasim City near Zanarkand too, right? So it'd make sense."
It's not correct, but it does fit the puzzle pieces in Fei's head even if you have to sort of force the fourth side a fair bit.
Fei isn't as smart as Doc.
"T'be honest, I sort of felt like--maybe people'd prefer me if I wasn't... I mean, I don't think they'd ever say it, and I know it's not true, but maybe it'd be better if I just was some kind of version of me that remembered everything even if it meant I didn't exist anymore."
"...Maybe that's what's happening."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Either they will succeed or... they will not. Citan had come in here knowing that. It is not possible to deny fate, whatever theirs may turn out to be.
A part of him even wonders what might come to be if they do fail here. Certainly, he can envision what the immediate outcome for Spira would be, but after that, what would happen? It is no longer possible to raise a Final Aeon, thus Sin will remain, eternally. And then...?
Perhaps all of Spira will be reduced to becoming one with Sin, after a fashion.
He sits, himself, shortly after Fei makes himself as comfortable as he can.
The cables made him nervous. "Hmm," Citan muses, frowning as if in thought.
He felt anger. Despair.
Likely, they were not 'his' own.
"Righteous anger," Citan says, though he regards Fei curiously. "As if... a great wrong had been committed, perhaps? An injustice," he continues, following the thread that Fei begins when he speaks of a similar incident -- a similar feeling -- spurred from this very same land, "that must be corrected, whatever the cost. ...I am not unfamiliar with such sentiments. Did Bart ever speak to you of his past? I do not doubt it is a similar feeling that drives him. Yet, I wonder what it is about those words that provoked such a feeling in you..."
He smiles, though, when Fei speaks of New Kasim City, reminded when Citan speaks of the ruins in Spira. It seems almost fond, as if only Fei could have been prompted thus. No, it would be incorrect to say that 'Fei' was smart, at least when compared to those who had the benefit of structured learning and had not started over in a rural village in the middle of nowhere.
Still, if 'intelligence' alone could solve everything... well, Citan's own circumstances would be a great deal more simple. Once he had thought so. Now, he knows it isn't so.
That smile fades when Fei continues, however.
"..."
There are platitudes that others might speak at a moment such as this.
"...So that is... how you were feeling. I see. ...I cannot answer that for you, whether 'another you' would be preferable to 'who you are now'. I am not certain anyone but yourself can answer that for you," he continues, shaking his head. "That is... something that we all must determine ourselves, one way or another. Your circumstances are unique, that I will not deny. Yet... I believe that every person struggles with such things to an extent. 'Who am I', 'who have I been', 'what shall I become'..."
He sighs, at length. "To be conscious and to think is, to an extent, to suffer so. The philosophers have said, 'it is not possible to step into the same stream twice' and so it is with our selves. We are not today who we were yesterday, and so shall it continue. ...Ah, but my apologies," he says, shaking his head and smiling at Fei apologetically. "It appears that I have ended up in an unfortunately philosophic mood, myself..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei's eyes widen as Citan hits the nail on the head. "Yeah," Fei says. "Like that." Then he gets this sheepish look in his eye. "Er, to be honest... We didn't actually get a chance to talk all that much. He kind of...pointed me in a direction--not really since the Yggdrasil Alliance drifted away from one another."
"...But, when we did talk--he did say something to me. Now that I think about it, you weren't there at the time. He told me that I wasn't the kind of guy who could turn away from people in need."
Sometimes it feels more like curse than compliment but however you take it--the sentiment has certainly stuck with Fei even to this day. For all they interacted past that, it was that moment that will never leave him.
"I don't know why those words made me feel that way, but--I think, yeah, I'm sure Bart gets the same feelings himself sometimes. But I don't really know too much of his story."
Maybe he should talk to Bart again.
Fei does kind of still think that way about intelligence. INCORRECTLY. But he idolizes Citan in a lot of ways. Sure, he knows he's not perfect--nobody's perfect!--but it isn't just his learning that Fei admires.
He's smart, but he also seems emotionally intelligent to him. He has a family that is still healthy and doing well--well for Filgaia at least. And he was able to meet someone from an opposing nation, fall in love, have a family--he knows that couldn't have been easy...But he was able to escape Solaris's reach.
It is probably easy for Citan to imagine why Fei might appreciate that sort of story even more these days.
He trusts 'Doc' more than he trusts himself but also more than he trusts just about anyone. When he had lost everything, he still had him. He knows there was more to it than he probably expected at the time but... He still appreciates it. He has to.
And he DOES seem smart, and more than that he seems to KNOW WHAT HE'S DOING. And Fei, who constantly feels like he's barely treading water--he has to admire that. He has to.
When Citan calls it righteous anger--he wonders. Maybe it is Id. There are things that really get Id going but he was silent then...Was it really coming from him, or some other half remembered identity?
Nevertheless, he had to go to Citan for this because the question is so profound and frightening--there's nobody else he could go to. Xantia is struggling with this herself, Emeralda is still young, Elly is so kind--but Citan--if anyone--would know what to do.
Unfortunately for Fei, Citan is also honest. Maybe Doc can help him, but ultimately it's a choice that must come from Fei. Even if he'd rather someone else make that choice.
He is quiet as he listens to him. Strangely, the lack of answer doesn't bother him as much as he thought it would. It isn't REALLY, a lack of answer, it isn't what he was looking for certainly--but it is...
A way of looking at it. It does, funnily enough, remind him of Bart. It is not possible to step into the same stream twice. When Citan looks at Fei, he'll see his eyes wide in rapt attention at his words.
When he apologizes, Fei blushes awkwardly and says, "N-no, I mean... I know Xantia worries about it too so--I know it's not just me. But thinking of it as just like--a little different from everyone else, it doesn't seem quite as big...?"
He smiles. "I'm glad you're treating it...seriously instead of just giving me the answer I'd want to hear to make me feel better, you know?"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"He did not? ...Well, then I shall not speak of such things without his leave," Citan replies, shaking his head. "I have mentioned that Sigurd and I are old friends, I believe. ...That, and only that, is the reason why I know. Perhaps our paths might cross again." He smiles, a touch apologetically. "I have, er... borrowed Heimdall longer than they intended to loan it, I am certain!"
Sigurd has quite frankly likely given up on ever seeing that Gear back again at this point. He knows how his friend tends to operate.
"...He did? Hmm... well, I do believe that is true. Is that not how you made friends in Lahan? I seem to recall that you lent the other villagers as much of a helping hand as you could. Even now... they have not forgotten that side of you. ...Yui has told me that their bitter feelings towards you had shifted in Shevat, as the years went by and as they learned the truth of what happened that day..."
It isn't 'forgiveness', precisely -- not from all of them -- as she had put it. But neither is it they blame him still. It is simply that wounds heal, even if there may always be a scar. That sometimes, the only way forward is to carry on. To live.
Not hatred. Not forgiveness. It is complicated -- it is not a neat and easy answer. But people are always complicated in this way, each of them a universe unto themselves.
And Fei, perhaps, is this most of all. He is the Contact, endlessly reincarnating after a single moment's communion with God...
And it is difficult to know what is truly in his divided heart.
He regards Fei with a touch of curiosity, as if to wonder after that reaction from him. "Indeed, and I would say as much to her." Undeterred, he keeps going: "Again, we are all the products of our circumstances. What happens to us shapes us, as does how we react. Or how other people react, for that matter: no person is an island. We cannot but interact with other people and be changed for the interaction. So, you see, parts of us are always being added and discarded. It is not very different at all. Only the precise means is unusual, not the outcome."
"...Perhaps it is all a bit much to take in, immediately. Yet... if it has made you feel better, then, that is sufficient, I should think." He pauses, shifting to try to gaze past Fei, as if sighting someone on the road. "...Ah, and it seems that the others were not very far behind, indeed! Well, we should go and reconvene, Fei!"
After all, they will likely need to catch their breath and get a brief rest themselves before they all head on towards the end.