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Post by Shinigami on Jul 22, 2008 14:27:44 GMT -5
"The future is not written in stone, little featherling. And even if it was, stone can be broken." It was a quote that she had read somewhere - she wasn't sure who had read it, but the text itself had been fascinating, and that particular line had stuck fast with her. "There exists a possibility that some events cannot be changed, that everything will lead to them no matter what. And there are some events that will happen no matter what is done to change them. Say a prophetess had a weak heart - she might go to as many doctors or magicians as she could find, but eventually entropy catches up with all living things to drain their energies. That prophetess may fight her death with everything that she has, putting it off until she is writhing in pain, but still alive despite everything, until finally her body gives out. Or she might choose a quiet, peaceful death for herself in sleep, with all of her affairs taken care of, and no pain at all. Everything dies, little featherling. The questions are merely when and how." It was nice to speak to someone who listened so intently to her, even if he did not understand everything. He understood more than most that she spoke to.
"I hunt the phantoms of the future, I think," she said softly, and her pale eyes went vague and distant with thought, turning glassier than normal. Her attention drifted away from him then, back to the book she had been studying so intently before he and his master arrived. "...as if this is as inevitable a quest as all of the future is malleable, though I have chosen to follow through with this path..." Then her gaze sharpened on the mix again, and a strange smile curled at her mouth. "Though maybe the future is laid down in an indelible path, and those who see the future are merely hastening it along."
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Post by The Jenn on Jul 22, 2008 15:05:29 GMT -5
Parzifal tried not to be more confused as she continued, but it was difficult. He still caught enough to be able to ask questions. "Most of what you're talking about as unchangeable revolves around death. So... what if something in the future had nothing to do with someone dying? Would it still be changeable? Are their any other immutable rules besides the fact that we all die eventually?" His vocabulary was quite good from his time serving Vren, but his pronunciation was thick and heavy due to his binding.
His ambitions were important to him, with his family inextricably intertwined. He wanted to be able to protect them. He wanted to be powerful enough to do this, which involved gaining one more form, if not two, and raising his rank. He was 'low to average' and had to fight for respect from a lot of Vren's visitors due to his speech. Because of its thickness, stupidity was an automatic assumption and it made him quietly angry every time he saw it in someone's eyes. He wasn't stupid, not at all. He just had difficulty speaking clearly when the words were complicated, or when he got excited or anxious. His tongue tripped over itself and the metal ring below. It was so... aggravating.
"I don't think the future is laid down. I used to, but... I'd always sort of wanted to fight it. We're all born with a certain rank, but we can change that. We can change our forms. Why can't we change our futures?"
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Post by Shinigami on Jul 22, 2008 15:45:52 GMT -5
"Death is a specific, permanent event. It cannot be altered once it has happened, and once a person has died, there is no way for them to return as they once were. Spirits may walk the earth and sing the songs of the deceased in their river of memories, and some have the ability to force those spirits back into their corpses until the corpses themselves collapse and rot away. Entropy is the force behind time itself, you see. Without entropy, without death, all of existence would be a single moment in time, shining perfect and unchanged, with no pain, or loss, or death. Where is the interest in that, though?" Her voice turned sing-song again as she quoted, "Who would fardles bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?"
"I can speak of something else, should you wish it." It was a concession not offered to many.
At the last statement of the mix, her eyes flared with satisfaction, and she nodded. "Good, featherling. Very good. A simple observation that leads to further deductions and the knowledge of the malleability of reality and possibility." Someone has been spending too much time with her dictionary.
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Post by The Jenn on Jul 22, 2008 22:00:33 GMT -5
She was really starting to lose him now. Parzi enjoyed the conversation and listening to her talk was very pleasant with the sing-song quality to her voice, but he'd begun to get lost in the convoluted sentences and he wasn't quite sure what point she was trying to make. He didn't know if the quote was her talking, some sort of song, a poem, or what. Again, the sound was nice, but he couldn't decipher its meaning, especially after such a short amount of time and at his age. This was all a blast of new information and new ideas to him.
"I... ah... thank you," he said with a hesitant smile, then shook his head and the smile became more noticeable. He was never one to be a shy conversationalist once he got going, just wary of starting due to his speech. He didn't want to agree with something he didn't understand, but he knew there was a compliment in there and it seemed genuine.
"I don't think I really get where you just went with that, but if you want to keep talking then I'd be happy to listen. You have a very pretty voice."
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Post by Shinigami on Jul 23, 2008 0:25:02 GMT -5
"The verbal meanderings of the mind are often thought to be the words of the insane," she stated complacently, for all that she was essentially saying that most people thought she was completely and utterly certifiable and should probably be sequestered away in an asylum for the rest of her life. But that was only a few people, and it wasn't like they mattered anyway.
Helen quirked an eyebrow at that comment. "Voice is a powerful thing. It can sway the downtrodden, cajole the unwilling to war, or soothe the most savage of politicians into accepting the donut they really didn't want. Or at least the words that the voice chooses to use are powerful, though I imagine that persuasive words spoken by one with an obnoxious voice would lose much of their power." And she's off on another tangent; at least this particular topic wasn't death. "What say you, of your voice? Have you ways that it can be used to your advantage?"
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Post by The Jenn on Jul 23, 2008 13:33:12 GMT -5
Parzi got the next bit easily enough - people thought she was crazy. That was okay. A lot of people would find his master insane if they were privy to some of his more esoteric experiments, but he personally thought the man was brilliant. He'd been watching him work for long enough to be able to appreciate some modicum of crazy.
"My voice 'loses much of its power," he replied to her question with a small grimace. "Some people take me for stupid. Others pity me. I don't need pity, though. It's because of my bindings, and they're a part of who I am. I'm not ashamed of them. I don't know if I'm supposed to be, but I'm not." They hadn't been with their natural Torquehelm mother for long enough to learn that shame, only the disadvantages that came with the bindings. Truthfully, he was ashamed of his voice, but not the bindings themselves.
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Post by Shinigami on Jul 23, 2008 16:30:32 GMT -5
"Once I was bound," she said thoughtfully. "And then I took them off, because they got in the way, and Mother screamed for an hour. Maybe it wasn't so long, I doubt he has that lung capacity." Helen shrugged. She didn't really see the point behind it all. "Free minds and hearts cannot be forced into servitude, if only within the depths of the mind and the heart." Absently, her golden tail twitched. The only Card with Torquehelm blood to be born with that gold, from what she'd heard. And she'd lost her wings, too. They'd been pretty, bright neon-green.
"Just because you cannot act as someone powerful, does not mean your voice has no power," she finally said as her mind finished its wanderings. "You have the power to appear as one who is underestimated. To slip within the guard of those who will watch themselves around those with sharper tongues." She came closer to him once more, slowly lowering her head until it was even with his. "Do you not know that a fog will be able to flit into places where the most powerful of sledgehammers will be daunted?"
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Post by The Jenn on Jul 24, 2008 12:35:24 GMT -5
To Parzi, bindings were a sensitive subject. His were 'fine', for all that they messed with his voice. At least they allowed him mostly free mobility and didn't hinder him in any other noticeable way beyond being careful not to catch the wires on things. His brother's were confining, but again not debilitating. They didn't help his mental state at all, but at least they didn't restrict him.
His sister's...
"I haven't had much chance to do anything with my power, except try to take care of my family," he said with a slightly grim note to his voice. "I'm working for our freedom right now, but I think it's probably a long time in coming, at least until we get older. I really have no idea what I'm able or not able to do in the world. I certainly want to try, though." He had ambitions, some of them quite strong. First and foremost, though, was taking care of Imre and Poe. He had to know that they were safe.
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Post by Shinigami on Jul 24, 2008 14:52:00 GMT -5
"Family is a noble goal," she said loftily. "My Mother sets his family before all others, be they related by blood or by the ties he has wrapped around their hearts, or they around his, threads of destiny and love just as strong as any drop of blood fleeing though another's veins. Is not protecting them a worthy use of what skills you have?" In her disjointed mind, and her own special way, she cared deeply about the members of her own family. Mother and Father, and all of her many siblings - related by blood or just by the caring hearts who took them in - her neice (was there just one of them, or had any of the others had children yet?). She might not actively care about them that much, not like Mother or Solo, but they were hers.
Helen stepped even closer, touching the tip of his beak so very gently with her nose. "What is your dream?"
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Post by The Jenn on Jul 24, 2008 14:59:37 GMT -5
Parzi tried not to twitch as she completely and utterly invaded his personal space, able to ignore it before now just because they were having such an interesting conversation. She wasn't a threat... she was just a little 'out there'. That was fine, though. He'd met lots of weird people working in his master's tower. Her question was too significant to ignore.
"I don't have any power right now, besides my brains and my family," he said quietly, looking her straight in the eye. "I want to be free. That's my dream. I want to be free to raise my rank and gain more respect for who I am, rather than just being brushed over as a nothing. I want to be more than nothing, for me and for my siblings. I need to be able to protect them. I want hands. I want all the forms I can get. I- I want a family of my own, someday, when I'm ready. But first, I need to be free to make it happen."
Nobody had ever asked him that before. It shook him up a little bit, that someone had actually bothered to ask.
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