seventh fusion - audio

[beholdmydemons]

[Walter starts talking almost immediately after turning on the recording, sounding tired but as though his message was prepared ahead of time.]

You're the king of a country, and you hold a great contest - or a game. One man who comes to participate is very tall, and strong. Would you let him compete as any other, or bar him from the game to even those others' chances?

A man comes to a remote village, one that's remained as it is for a thousand years. He brings with him technology that would change life as the people know it, bringing them comfort and luxury. Should the village send that man away, or accept his gifts?

The person you love is gravely ill, doomed to sleep and never wake...you've tried every remedy you can imagine, and there's nothing left at your disposal. Would you tend to them for the rest of your life, or let them die naturally?

[He goes quiet, not sure what to follow that up with. The radio, playing tinnily in the background, switches to a holiday song that's been on at least five times already today.

...Yeah, that bears asking about. In just as tired a voice, but a much less rehearsed one:]

What the hell is Christmas?

[[ooc: canon update to end of first route split, complete!]]

Comments

[beholdmydemons]

[oooohhhh boy does he ever] Say it's customary to take up your father's trade when you're grown. So much so that not a thought's spared to doing anything but, and in a thousand years nothing's changed and men still while away their lives working to no end, nothing in their heads but living out the next day.

[His voice is dripping with bitterness.]

[ardent]

[...Oh.]

I...I don't know. I can't give a fair opinion on that.

[beholdmydemons]

[And just like that, Walter's momentum trips and falls on its face. He's quiet for a moment, prepared to keep going but blindsided by the sudden lack of resistance.]

...If the technology does cause disaster somehow...better to have failed and learned than to have never taken the chance, and remain safe but simple. [He sounds awkward, like he's not sure how forceful to be about that.] That's...that's what I think.

[ardent]

...Maybe, but is that really a decision that anyone has the right to make on their own? There's a difference between a choice like the one you referred to - something like taking up your family's line of work or not, despite it not being something you'd want to do - and something that might impact a lot of people who were living peacefully before a major change was made.

[beholdmydemons]

In...in the best of worlds, perhaps. In others, you'd not know the choice existed until someone came and showed you what could be.

[ardent]

Then I'd have to ask why that someone was showing that village what could be. New options aren't always for the best; even hopeful-seeming options aren't always for the best.

[beholdmydemons]

If "the best" deprives the people of knowledge and wisdom, is it really "the best" after all?

[ardent]

...That depends on whether there's a toll taken for that knowledge and wisdom.

[beholdmydemons]

Everything takes a toll. I'd expect the tolls taken for peace and blissful ignorance to be far worse.

[ardent]

...That's not something I can be fair about, either.

[beholdmydemons]

What do you mean when you speak of "being fair"? [You keep saying that. What does fairness even have to do with this.]

[ardent]

...It's kind of like how you wouldn't ask someone who had been viciously mauled by a dog to give you a fair and unbiased opinion about dogs in general.

[beholdmydemons]

What? [He almost snorts with laughter there, except it's more snort than laughter because he's not really amused at the moment.] Er...wouldn't someone who'd been that close to dogs know them better than others, though? If they bite...that's a fact of it.

[ardent]

Maybe it is, but that person would probably focus entirely on that fact of it and not all the other facts of it. Which is why it's unfair.

[beholdmydemons]

[O...h.] It'd still bear speaking of, though.

...Er, what do dogs have to do with anything, again?

[ardent]

...It was an example.

[beholdmydemons]

[.....

......oh]

So you've...been hurt by knowledge, before? [Or something. Walter can actually sympathize with that a little, though his stance isn't swayed by it.]

[ardent]

Something like that. It's more that I was in a situation where if things had stayed as they were and remained peaceful, then everything would have been all right. Accepting offers to change it - to receive something we wanted - led to a tragedy.

[beholdmydemons]

[Walter takes a moment to think about that. It's hard to not barrel ahead with what you believe, but...as much as "knowledge and wisdom" means always moving forwards, it also means letting people fight for their own choices. If unhindered, the best one will triumph on its own power - and trying to quash someone else's choice counts as "hindering". Best to keep to your own business.]

...You know your world better than I would. If...if that dog's a mad one, I'll take your word for it, and...try not to think of it as mine? [LOOK HE CAN ANALOGY TOO kind of awkwardly but still. He feels like he just learned something.]

[ardent]

I would appreciate that, yes!

[Oh my god Walter you may have just learned a thing

he's proud of you

...that said he's back to having all the subtlety of a rock, sorry man]

What sort of trade were you expected to go into, anyway?

[beholdmydemons]

[....Record scratch.]

E-er. [Wait, give him a moment to figure out how to phrase this. You're not exactly Flynn, here.] Tch...

...I'd...I'd have been a fisherman. No more, though - I was chosen for the Samurai. There'd be no returning to my home village even if I wished it.

[ardent]

[...you would have been a fi- ]

...You know, that actually explains a lot.

[beholdmydemons]

How so?! [look he's a little touchy about this]

[ardent]

You tried to eat my fish!

[...ISHIMARU, PLEASE.]

[beholdmydemons]

[......


....???]

W-what?