aefenglom | video; un: zewu-jun

Entry tags:

video; un: zewu-jun

Name: Lan Xichen
Date: forward-dated! 2/20
Format: video

[ Lan Xichen is resting on a rock beside what appears to be a calm lake. For those that frequent the Forge, they might recognize it as a nearby landmark one can pass on the route. He greets the network with a seated bow. ]

I apologize for the interruption, but I wonder if I might ask some questions to those who have time?

If you have a Bond, what prompted your decision to choose that person? I know Bonding is highly encouraged, but finding a suitable match might be complicated, and one cannot necessarily be trained in choosing a good partner. With only my own experience, I must assume not many other worlds have a custom like this. It's not the same as choosing to marry or finding a cultivation partner.

How do you know if you have made the right choice? Or, if you choose not to Bond at all, what are your feelings on such a connection?

I'm afraid I have based most of my judgments on the partnerships I know from my own life. Up until now, perhaps I have misunderstood the relationship that forms.

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[ Knowing and being presumably friends before the Bond makes sense. In a way, it would be enhancing the already existing relationships between them. But in a way, Lan Xichen almost feels like that is a trap. Didn't he make that kind of good-intentioned, reckless decision in the past? Creating a tighter relationship with his friends, turning their camaraderie into something public and official because he trusted that it would help strengthen the places where they needed some reinforcement? If they didn't always see eye-to-eye as friends, he had thought that at least they agreed enough to take a bigger step.

And that decision had only driven rifts further between them. Trying to be closer to those he trusted and cared for had ultimately been what helped tear them apart, and Bonding because of friendship now feels like it might be the same mistake all over again. Maybe this was the reason Nie Mingjue had refused him. Maybe he just knew better all along. ]

If it isn't the right choice, does that not make it the wrong choice? If, despite growing, you still manage to hurt someone and fail to truly understand them, then does that mean it was not helping them after all?

[Ordinarily, Myr would be willing to engage this conversation as the philosophical half-abstraction his own sense of Circle-bred politeness requires. He knows this man because of his Bonded (and ah, what a sore point thinking of that particular worthy is) and not much more than that. The safest course would be for Myr to discuss his own Andrastian-informed ethics on Bonding and the purpose of lives lived together, and not dig into the specifics of what would cause someone enough pain he reaches out to the world at large to help with his problem.

But Myr is tired, and hurting, and this Witch's words land far too close to his own unhealed wounds. So he sets the connection private for his next message and asks a clarifying question,]

Is this because you've hurt you're Bonded that you're asking, or because your Bonded has hurt you?

["You" is a treacherously flexible little pronoun.]

[When he notices the switch to a private connection, Lan Xichen draws a small breath. He's uneasy, faced by a question that has no good answer at all, and the truth is something that he can't so easily avoid as his Bonded. Even though he can't see the speaker, Lan Xichen lowers his gaze.]

I hurt him. But he also... [He lied. He betrayed him, not once, but repeatedly. And Lan Xichen is still mad. Still wounded after giving his friend so many chances to explain and compromise.]

[...Well. There it was.]

Did he hypnotize you, too?

[It's. A struggle to keep the venom out of his voice; he manages that, but cannot control the weary hurt.]

He hypnotized you?

[There's raw shock and dismay when he echoes that. Why is something of a mystery. By now Lan Xichen should know better. He should know how far Jin Guangyao is willing to go, but he even now wants to think he's better than that. In the temple, at the end of his life, hadn't Jin Guangyao even said he never wanted to hurt him? That he was only forced to make more drastic decisions because of the abuse and threat he was under by those around him. But in Aefenglom it was supposed to be different.]

What- are you badly hurt?

[His voice trembles. His Bonded once again just couldn't be contained and it is his fault.]

[Perhaps this is a topic that should've remained unbroached until Myr has some semblance of peace over the matter. Some...objectivity, such that he won't go around causing unnecessary hurt to innocents like Jin Guangyao's Bonded.

But the words are said and this is his to speak of now.]

Yes. I seem to have interfered with something he was planning. [His tone has evened out to something near-clinical.] I don't know everything he intended but--no, I'm not hurt from it.

[Not in a way he'd admit to.]

He had a light touch. I--think he wanted to keep me from danger, more than he wanted to hurt me.

[Lan Xichen had run off to the Wilde for a time to gain distance and clear his head, but he still doesn't feel calm about what transpired. He can't maintain a passive calm and he also can't seem to really hold onto righteous anger either. It would be easier, perhaps, if he could simply hate Jin Guangyao and cut ties with him. He had considered that during his time away.]

Yes, he- He would be defensive of his plans.

[There's a quiet chill in his voice. Lan Xichen had often thought his Bonded was clever and talented and he can't keep the deep disappointment out of his words.]

You think he wanted to keep you from danger? Forgive me for asking these questions, but could you tell me why you believe this was his intention?

Do you-- [Myr checks himself, considering what he knows and what he's been through. Harrowing as it was (is) it's likely only a sliver of what someone who'd Bonded the Naga felt to have been so-betrayed.]

I suppose it doesn't matter now what they were, but if you want what I've deduced, [he picks up,] I'd be--I'll tell you.

["Glad to talk of it," no, he would not be that, not when it twists his gut in knots to think of all that had come from his innocent trust.]

Because he said as much, after. Or--rather, intimated that he'd done something right by keeping me out of harm's way, when I confronted him about it. [Confronted. Yelled at him to go away. Same thing.

A breath out, and then lower,] I may be too generous to him still. I don't know.

[Does Lan Xichen believe him? Part of him does believe that Jin Guangyao would not try to harm him--probably. He had his chance before, in the temple, and he had stayed true to his word up until the end. He hadn't tried to harm Lan Xichen.

Now, though, he has gone too far.]

I'm sorry. I should have been able to prevent him from doing such things. Whether he meant to protect others or not, he certainly did not mean to protect everyone.

[And that intent to harm makes Lan Xichen angry, because he has a feeling he knows where it would lead.]

Truly, I do not know what to believe. I have tried, but he- his answers only frustrate me.

[Because within all the lies, Jin Guangyao has told the truth. And that hurts more than just being used. At least if his friend were truly malicious he could have a clear answer on what to do about him.]

[I should have been able to prevent him from doing such things is a sentiment sadly familiar to Myr. It is also a window of insight into these two men he's only known shallowly; it pulls him further from his own self-mutilating anger at Jin Guangyao.

No one, in the end, is truly alone and disconnected from the cares of others. Especially not in so small a group as the Mirrorbound.]

Don't, [the Faun says, softly,] please--don't take his guilt on yourself this way. I don't presume to know what's driven him to this point or what is between you two, but he surely chose the evils he committed. That's his to bear.

[A brief pause.] What do you want to believe?

[As his sworn brother, the older of the two, responsibility falls at least somewhat on him. Even if he's denounced that bond since then and even if Jin Guangyao is his own person, Lan Xichen still can't entirely shake the thought that if he had only intervened more that he could have redirected and maybe saved his friend. Saved many people, if he had been stronger.

He draws a shaking breath when Myr tells him not to assume that guilt, because he does feel guilty. Guilty for not stopping him, and guilty for loving him in spite of all of it. Who is really more twisted?]

He might bear it, but he is still my- [Something. What is he? Bonded, yes, but it's more than that.] He is close to me. I should have seen it.

[That one is true. Good job, Xichen. He has to think a moment before finding his answer.]

I believe that he did not mean you harm. If he did, he would surely have made some attempt to do worse. What he says is not false, it's... driven by fears and demons that others can't easily make sense of.

There are limits on what we can see and what we can do, even for those we love.

[Myr feels a hypocrite for saying as much; it's a lesson he's a long way from internalizing, still.] Especially if they're bound and determined to hide from us.

[He doesn't know for certain that's the case, but he's got certain intuitions in these matters. Certain insights into how one might not realize just how far astray one's Bonded had gone until things came to a disastrous head.]

I...would believe that too, given the face he presents to the world. [Given how rapidly the Naga moved to silence Myr, but not in any permanent way. Andraste's sainted name--can he be angry at no one for long on his own behalf?]

What is it you think you should believe about him? [Still working on intuition, here, to follow this thread where it leads.

If he cannot do anything about how he's been hurt--because he's given it over to his Witch in his own incapacity--at least he might help someone else.]

[Lan Xichen takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. Whether or not Myr is only saying it for his benefit, he takes the words to heart. Sometimes, even if you do your best, you really can't do everything. He still blames himself for many things, but he has to admit that when Jin Guangyao wants to, he can hide his true feelings away forever.

Maybe the problem was less in being able to see them or understand them, and more that Lan Xichen had not made his own clear?]

I believe... He did not mean you harm. It was wrong of him, and he should not have treated you that way. No matter his intentions, he does things sometimes that should not be allowed.

[It hurts to say that out loud. Each word comes out a bit more delicately, like he's too tender and has to guide it.]

But I should not believe that any of us are fully incapable of hurting those we love. Even if we try.

Nevertheless, this time please let me pay for what was done.

[Ah--those sound like words from a softer heart even than Myr's own. The Faun breathes out slowly at the realization, and squashes his own first instinct to turn aside any offer of restitution for what was done. He's been on the opposite side of this equation before; he isn't Niles, to nurse his grudge until it explodes into brutal retaliatory violence.

Still... It wouldn't satisfy justice for someone else to take on Jin Guangyao's sins without the Naga making any effort of his own to rectify things.]

Sometimes, I fear, we might find ourselves needing to do something a loved one is hurt by. Setting a broken soul to rights can hurt much as setting a broken bone does.

[He pauses, a moment, and searches for words.] I don't know you can assume his debt. [In part because Myr is adamant in the idea he wasn't harmed, not really.

(He can't look that in the face.)] In this instance--because, at least in my case, there's nothing left to pay for. I simply want him to stay away from me.

[L might have other plans. He doesn't know all of L's plans. He should probably worry about L's plans, but that's beyond him right now.] Though you might--he did--

[His voice wavers, grows quieter. His pretense of not being hurt suddenly feels awfully thin.] --I wasn't--he didn't hurt me directly, but there were others--who were hurt. Because of my inaction, or what I told the Circle, acting on his words.

[Maker's breath. He shouldn't have said that, nor put it on anyone else to solve.] Though that's--that is mine to fix.

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