2022-02-19: Every Shadow Just Reveals Darker Shadows
- Log: Every Shadow Just Reveals Darker Shadows
- Cast: Citan Uzuki, Billy Lee Black
- Where: Aphel Aura - Residential District
- Date: February 19, 2022
- Summary: Billy's mood of late has not gone unnoticed by Citan. He decides to interrogate this further and thus asks Billy to meet with him in one of the few places within Shevat where privacy might be expected.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
If there is one thing that is true regarding Shevat, it is that it is a nation not well-endowed with space to grow. One can see it for themselves as they walk about the city of Aphel Aura: even what passes for 'outside land' is utilized, with plantlife growing wherever it can be grown over the stone surfaces and laundry drying in the ever-present wind, this high in the sky.
Within, it's no less true. Shevat cannot afford to take everyone who suffers below into its embrace simply because it lacks the space. There is precious little privacy to be had.
Perhaps it's why a place like this -- the very bottom of one of the great towers that comprises Aphel Aura's ring -- stands out.
It isn't being used for storage. It isn't, by the looks of it, being used for anything. A great hole, as if delivered by an artillery shell, mars one wall. There are toys in this space, but they look old, aged enough that they seem almost as if they would come apart if they were touched.
Once upon a time, this was a child's room. Now it is damaged and empty, filled with dust and its contents left alone to suffer the ravages of time.
But this room isn't empty: here stands one man, regarding the broken wall as if in meditation, his arms over his chest.
Citan Uzuki had asked Billy to come and meet with him once he arrived back in Shevat, but he had given him very strange directions for the meeting place.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy doesn't know Shevat yet - not that well, not the way his father ran off like a man possessed the second he had run of the place. Part of him knows that getting here was the realization of a longtime dream for his father, and the new energy in Jessie's steps since then has been...he cannot deny it, good to see. But it is re-isolating, in its way, to know that the father who had had nothing to do but follow him around and occasionally meddle for what seemed like years, suddenly has new purpose now that Billy's world has fully disintegrated around him.
Even Prim likes Dad more. Like a tiny kick in his shins.
He comes to the location Citan called him to, dressed in full regalia as he still does. It's not a delusional thing; what is left of the Order has been quietly reorganized, Billy's position honored, but...well. It's not a thing without complexity, either. He opens the door, steps into the quiet.
"...a child's room," he says, low. He's seen visions of such tragedy before. He steps toward the wall, hand running around the rim. "Artillery shell...none of this is recent. This room could've been this way for generations."
He looks to Citan, frowning. "Why here?"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
It has been true -- Jessie has seemed far more like his former self, and less like the man he had seemed down upon the surface. Perhaps it is due to a particular rebalancing of the scales in his old friend's life: wrongs have been righted, and at long last what had been out of reach is now well in his grasp.
They have not yet fully deciphered the data locked deep within Maria's Gear, that parting gift from her own father. But it should only be a matter of time.
Yet, all is not entirely well. And at times, one must lend a hand, or at least make the attempt.
"...Yes," Citan says, his back still to Billy as the young man enters the room. "This room remains much as it has for the past five hundred years. Back then, Shevat and Solaris made war with one another. Most who had taken part are long since dead," he continues, a statement that would be strange in any other context except that of Shevat's eternal queen and her council, "but the scars still remain. ...Here, and in Solaris."
He is silent for a moment, then finally unfolds his arms and turns to face Billy.
"Do you understand the intention behind leaving the room in this state, Billy?" he asks him, returning his question with a question. "Do you know why it has not been repaired and converted into space that Shevat would desperately need?"
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
"Five hundred," Billy murmurs, running his hand over the long-smooth wall again. "That's not leaving it abandoned, that's...preservation."
He listens. Thinking. Leaving a room like this, a tragedy beyond description, untouched. No, more than untouched, maintained. Preserved. Here, in a place where space has been at an increasingly desperate premium for centuries.
"Once I would have told you that the Lord's Word says that our past is a treasure to be held close. That what has come before may guide what comes after."
He turns, meeting Citan's gaze. "But much of that book was codes designed to smuggle information. Secrets, instructions."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
It's preservation.
"Yes," Citan says, silent as he waits for Billy to think it through, to give the context of the question its proper consideration. And when he does answer...
Citan smiles, but it is a thin, brittle smile.
"Whether or not that had been its intent... there is wisdom to be found in that text. This place remains to remind Shevat of its past."
He remains silent for a moment yet, sweeping the room with his gaze.
"...But not for the sake of a 'grudge'. Shevat and Solaris fought, yes, but it was the people who suffered the wounds of that war. That is what Queen Zephyr has said 'must not be forgotten'... it is far too easy for such things to slip the mind."
When one thinks of forests, they forget about the trees.
But he's not finished. He fidgets a moment with his glasses. "Even so... though it is meant for remembrance, no one else will be coming down to this place. It is only rarely visited. Thus, this is a rare space where one can speak privately in Shevat."
He looks over at Billy and regards him for a long silent moment, then, as if studying him. "What you were saying just then... about your holy book." Citan shakes his head. "I must admit, I am not a religious man, myself. But... regardless of the source, to have one's convictions tested thus..."
He lapses again into silence, as if to encourage the younger man to speak.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
"The human cost," Billy summarizes, and turns back to look out the massive hole, to the city beyond, and the sky beyond that, thinking on the meaning and the weight of the heavens.
He doesn't really turn until Citan addresses the elephant in the room, a breath leaving him and his eyes turning to the ground. He turns, to be heard. "Father told me then...that what I had done had brought peace to the people I had hunted. That it was release for them from an indescribable, inescapable pain. I...hope that's true. But murders aside...how am I to look beyond?"
He turns more fully, posture growing more rigid with stress. "Every time I turn around, it seems I am exposed to more hypocrisy. Holy scripture written to beguile the innocent. Holy men running rings of assassins just as Stone did! Whole bodies of clergy dancing on the bones of their own law!"
He stops, catching his voice rising, and puts his hand to his chest, taking deep breaths. "How...is a man supposed to believe in anything, when belief is the enemy's most powerful weapon?"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Citan remains silent, watching, listening as Billy unburdens himself, speaking of the weight that has dogged him since the unwelcome revelations of the past year.
It is a terrible thing when what one believes in is proven to be false. And when one has nothing left in which to believe, then what? Into this void -- as Citan knows well -- it is all too easy for terrible things to sink their hooks into, take root, and fester.
He is silent, still, when Billy catches his breath at last -- when he asks one final question.
"If you wonder whether your father was saying was true or if it was meant to console... then allow me to confirm it. The life of a 'Wels' is an unkind one. At times, to end an existence... that, too, can be a mercy."
But that is merely a drop in a bucket: by no means does it contain the whole of what pains Billy now.
"Belief is a force like any other," he says at last. "It is neither wholely good nor wholely bad. In that respect, you could compare it to technology: what matters instead is who wields it, and to what end." He shakes his head. "But this does not get at the heart of the matter for you. 'What is the value of faith'? Is that not what you are wondering? ...Unfortunately, I cannot answer that for you," Citan says, exhaling a weighty sigh.
"Instead... all that I can give you is this: you are not alone. Nor are you the first to have your belief tested. ...Look around you, at your allies. I am not saying this to belittle your pain, Billy," he says, regarding the other man steadily at this point, "but rather, to say that there are others that understand, who have experienced such things. Even now, they are likely working to discover their own answer to the same question as you."
He has not explicitly included himself. But neither has he excluded himself.
And again he shakes his head. "I am sorry," he repeats. "I cannot tell you your answer."
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
To end a life can be mercy...yes. Father had said that every one of the Wels had had a smile on their faces. That he couldn't confirm. But how many of them had been fighting not to live, but to feed? To sustain the twisted appetite whatever they had become demanded of them? Gain some measure of peace?
"...yes," Billy finally says, of the whole matter. "I don't know exactly what happens to those people, but...knowing what they do, what they become...yes."
As to the rest...His gaze dips down and to the side, uncomfortable. "Faith should bring people together. Should hold them up when their sorrows are high. Which God, whose God, I don't know that I care anymore, but...to save those who fear they are beyond saving..."
He doesn't quite finish the thought. He knuckles at his eye, half-consciously. "...I cannot rest easy knowing that that need is being pointed at peoples' throats," he says.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
On the matter of the Wels, Citan says nothing more. He simply nods, bowing then his head as if to signify his agreement on this front.
There are many things worse than death in this world.
And beyond it.
"Yes," Citan responds, turning his attention out towards that gap in the wall, that break that marked just one terrible moment in a single battle in a years-long war. "That would, without question, be the ideal role of faith. To guide, to console..."
He is not a religious man, as he had told Billy. But that lack of faith on his part does not mean that he does not appreciate its meaning for others.
"To grant atonement."
And there are still those who would use such a power -- such a force -- for their own gains.
"What is it that you intend, then?"
It would be asking much to ask Billy to somehow right all the wrongs they continue to see tracing one world to the next. It would be much to ask even an entire group to attempt such a feat. Yet, to stand back and do nothing...
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
To grant atonement. To be the one who tells you, there is something righteous that will fight for you.
To be the one who tells you, you are righteous, and have done enough. Maybe to place oneself in such a hand is weakness, but is it so wrong to yearn for such assurance? Does desiring it make you so lowly a person to deserve such an evil as Stone's upon your world?
Billy's teeth grit and it sounds like they're about to explode out of his head from the force. Several seconds like that, his eyes set on the horizon, his jaw locked.
"...I cannot let them mock the people they are supposed to protect," he says, low. "Every new hypocrite makes my stomach twist tighter. I cannot ignore it." ...His fingers curl, involuntarily. "There's so much. But...I was a hunter of monsters before. I know...that sometimes you can only save what is in your reach."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
There are those who would say they invited it upon themselves -- that they opened the door to someone using their faith. But everyone has to believe in something. And everyone has to trust that they are not being misled in their belief. To do otherwise would be no less than anti-human. So if not the ones who are misled, then it is clear which are the ones at fault.
No doubt, Billy is realizing it too, even if he is still at war within himself.
"All those who are misled and used... it is no different than the inhabitants of this room," Citan remarks, his gaze turning from Billy and focusing on the horizon. "Even if they had known, it would not have stopped them."
...Even if he knows, it does not stop him. He exhales a breath and narrows his eyes, his gaze remaining on that distant point unwavering.
"That is true. There is a limit to what we are able to accomplish. One person can achieve only so much. But... if that is so, Billy... who or what are you going to attempt to save?"
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Even if they had known, it wouldn't have stopped them. A strange thought, but...perhaps true. So many who simply don't know what to do with themselves, without that guiding light...
"I wish I knew," he says, quietly. "Lunging at every shadow just reveals darker shadows, it seems..." He places his hand to his chest, eyes drifting downward. "Solaris took people desperate for salvation - seeking the sanctuary of God, and turned them into monsters. Yevon's cursed immortal sham of a clergy, whatever blackness the Blue Master undertook...I detest them all. But only one was I forced to abet with my own hands."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Billy... wishes he knew. Lunging at shadows revealed only deeper shadow.
And there was only one amongst the darkness which which he was forced to content with.
"There are no shadows without light. ...A platitude, perhaps, but I believe there is truth to be had there," Citan says, his gaze still on the edge of heaven. "This world is not yet pitch-black. There is still light for those willing to seek it."
He does not turn the statements directly upon Billy, does not hand down unto him a directive, though the sentiment is likely clear enough.
"There may come a time when you may need to choose what it is that you will do, Billy. Perhaps in the end we all dance to the whims of fate. But you may be able to find for yourself your course and cling to it."
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
"There is still beauty worth protecting," Billy murmurs. What happens next is internal, as he mulls over that. The world is not yet pitch-black. There is still light...and no small amount of it trapped in the shadows cast by these evil men.
Ultimately he huffs a breath, nodding. "Yes. For now...I can only hold the resolution to fight. I can hardly spend all my time turning the world upside down for signs of Solaris. I don't...want to end up like Dad. So I'll follow along, for now. And look for places where I can help people."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"Yes," Citan agrees. "This world is filled with both light and shadow. So long as there is still hope..."
He trails off, but his sentiment can be understood. As long as there is hope, then it is worth protecting and fighting for.
"I hope that, in time, you will possess more than that," Citan tells him. "But it is well to know your limits... and understand who depends upon you. Nevertheless, you are not alone in this, Billy. Remember that."
Sometimes one must walk before they can hope to run. Billy must start from first principles and then discover for himself what he believes in.
What he must do.
He unfolds his arms at last and turns towards Billy.
"Now, perhaps we might return to the 'streets' of Aphel Aura. If I am not mistaken, your sister is visiting with my daughter today, after all..."