A Heart-Throbbing Exodus? [Action/Locked to Ted and Koishi.]

[satori_komeiji]

Who: Ted, Satori, and possibly Koishi
What: Ted wants Satori to leave her subarchway.
Where: Chireiden
When: December 5th
Warnings: Spontaneous hugs, being stared at and an excessive amount of grump.

Satori took her time to wait for her guest, the one who would make a passionate plea to force her to leave the underground, to leave her sub-archway. Ted had told her that archways and the like would soon take the lives of their hosts, that they were death-traps. Satori didn't believe him at all, not until he produced proof that wasn't hearsay. If someone else could confirm such a thing, perhaps, she'd consider it. And even then, her reluctance outplayed her curiosity. This was her home, after all.

Anticipating his arrival, she'd already prepared some tea and a few light snacks as birds nested amongst the windowsills, or an errant cat or two had curled up on a nearby couch. Other than that, her pets had left her be, for now, sensing that she was feeling some sort of discontent. Scribbles had taken a seat in her lap, trying to calm her down some, a rough and furry ball of warmth. A couple rooms now sported a couple modern conveniences, such as a set of speakers, a small television and a reasonably priced computer. That hadn't replaced her writing desk any, but it helped increase her appreciation of the new kinds of music she was exposed to, lately. Never too old to appreciate metal or jazz. A couple rooms now sported a couple modern conveniences, such as a set of speakers, a small television and a reasonably priced computer. That hadn't replaced her writing desk any, but it helped increase her appreciation of the new kinds of music she was exposed to, lately. Never too old to appreciate metal or jazz. She'd even bought a little music player at Koishi's insistence. And despite or possibly in spite of these distractions, Satori was still roughly the same as always.

Comments

You think you know longpoasts. I'll /show/ you longpoasts.

[youfool]

Ted, due to David's shield, thought his mind perfectly protected from Satori's usual. Just as well; he suspected his thoughts were just noise, anyway. His mouth could bake his half-baked thoughts.

Satori's eye, however, is another matter, looking at him in a numinous, judging way. He internally recoiled, for a moment, before breathing and accepting. Let it look. Let it see him. Much more, let it see the emptiness of this world. With luck, it'd come to see just how false it was.

The first thing he did, before she'd spoken a single syllable, was produce a notepad and start scribbling. What is he doing? Taking notes. On what? The things Satori says. Is that not a bit rude, taking dictation while conversing? He'd admit that it was, but gravity might permit it. What purpose the stenography, then? Collecting evidence. Evidence of what?

"Corruption," he said, putting down the pen and meeting her eyes again. "I see I wasn't entirely clear when I said this place would kill you. I did not mean suddenly, like a gunshot, where there's drastic delineation between life and death. I meant gradually, like a disease, which leads to death while diminishing along the way." He joined his hands together, looking away and back again. "It's my contention that these places can't help but reduce the ones who live in them, making them as false and faint as they are. Of course, spiritual things like this are notoriously difficult to prove, and I'd hardly wish to prove one's perishing anyway. But I remember the way you used to speak to me, Satori. You spoke solidity. But if I can't prove it, I can do the next best thing: gather evidence. I'll see if this place diminishes as much as I fear, and keep track. Every time you utter something false or vague or empty or vain or...you know the rest of the adjectives, heh. Well, I'll make a comparison. Forgive my bad manners, but I can't afford to give you any quarter in this. Please, continue."

So far, his notes ran like this.

You've seen I'm capable of kindness and compassion towards others. (He has, has he? There's the case for her sister, but that's kin, and wholly natural. Her job? Ah, but she is paid for that; it's simply her duty to protect as best she can. Personally? He laughed. He enjoys talking to her and weathering her abuse, but even an optimist like him notes that she is, after all, a little abusive. He'll remain agnostic on the question.)

You fear loss more than anyone (He does, but Ted didn't know himself that well to know how great the extent, or why. And even if he did, why attribute that to honesty? There's no psychic link he could see between the two. Did not everyone fear loss? Is that not why he's here?)

Does a photograph or a reconstruction of your home make it any less 'where I lived'?" (Yes, for the obvious reason that she has not lived in either, until now. A copy of a thing is not the thing. She might make the case for having the same essence, like a book, but...wait, he needn't argue the point. He stopped writing and checked her immediately.)

"Stop. Koishi has already told me that you both know this place is false. There's no need for these rhetorical intimations. Unless she was mistaken, or you've changed your mind?" A disturbing thought, if she once knew the truth and then abandoned it.

He made no reply when she told him what, precisely, Koishi had to give. He was stunned by sorrow. She had, in a terrible sense, given up something for nothing. A meaningful abstraction for a meaningless form. It seemed like selling one's soul. And with the best of intentions.

Yet he was stoic, or trying to be. Ted resolved to show no pity. Kindness was truly the most sinister of all killers. Of all the virtues, that one was the one trying his patience. He would not let it drag him down into weakness.

The rest seemed, at best, a mysterious aside, and at worst a complete non-sequitur. What had Justice or the Dream Docks, which he supposed was her reference, to do with anything? Was she trying to cast doubt and darkness wherever she could until he gave up the whole thing? No, she couldn't have fallen so low.

He made no reply; had it any relevance, he'd leave her with the onus of providing it.

Living in a memory is hardly cruel or deadly (Almost begging the question. One could hardly call that 'living'. This particular line upset him. She used the 'f' word.)

"Do you take much care to be fashionable, Satori?" It almost came out like a growl. He knew she wasn't base enough for that. She couldn't be; she was too old. She had seen many fashions come and go; how could she ever be stupid enough to grant them any dignity?

Finally, he addressed her last mistake. "I don't doubt your existence, Satori. It's continuation, yes, but not the thing itself. Genessia seems to have made it sturdier than ever, actually. Koishi told me quite a bit about Youkai, and the conditions they require. Among them--for your particular type, anyway--a sort of shared, mountain-monster mythology. Supposedly, if that goes, so do you.

Now, I can't claim to know what's in the heads of everyone here. But I very much doubt it's anything like the number or the consistency of Gensokyo. They came from different worlds entirely, so unless your aspect is truly universal, I doubt you'd last. Yet here you are, seemingly untroubled by a smaller, less agreeably superstitious world. Your existence, present circumstances aside--oh, how I wish it cast aside!--seems well spoken for."

And now her last question: what is he saving her from? Looks like Ted will be repeating himself a lot today.

"Yourself? Not quite. How easy I'd have it were I like everyone else, and merely liked you and left you alone with naught but drowsy benevolence. But I love you, and so am not satisfied with so little. Thus, I'm against you and for you all at once." He chuckled, getting it in his head to poke fun at her way of talking. "A thorny rose indeed. Yet I think you understand that dual dance."

"Your memory becoming a nightmare? No; if it did that I might start to believe. That, arguably, is the strongest argument against it. Reality, as known by anyone who's ever known trouble, rarely consents to please us. Yet these archways do so continually. Even Adachi's nightmare was congenial to him. When is truth ever so comfortable?"

"Your sins? There's only one who can save you from those. You know full well what I want to save you from: death. The vanity and oblivion that takes and continues to take people away from me, which I'm sure follows these lies unfailingly."

And when he thought about how miserable Old Hell was, and how serious he was, he tried to change. He thought of the ending to Something Wicked This Way Comes; the way the father had to make angelic merriment with his son to save a boy from the jaws of death. Was there much reason to be glum? Might he not try and recapture the gaiety and foolish happiness that, in better days, came so naturally to him? He revived the smile he had so often, and made fun.

"Well, your soliloquies are just as fatuous and gassy as ever. But I can't quite decide who that favors; is that Old Hell's doing, or something you've yet kept?"