come_sailaway | Treat those pesky feelings like a reading light [OTA]

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Treat those pesky feelings like a reading light [OTA]

Who: Natsuno Yuuki and YOU
When: September, before the beach event
Where: All around
What: Weird stuff from home, trashy movies as coping mechanism, looking for distractions and retail therapy.
Warnings: None yet, but discussion of canon events may contain death, violence and suicide. Will update as needed

Take a look, it's in a book (All around)

[Natsuno tries not to think about Sotoba. He always hated that miserable village, and now he's dead and Sotoba burned to the ground. Lately he has to try harder, ever since running into some familiar zombies, but his repression game is still going strong... until he visits the library one day and finds a copy of Shiki by Seishin Muroi.

Seishin Muroi, Sotoba's junior monk. Natsuno had all but forgotten about him, but apparently he was so involved with the shiki invasion he wrote the freaking book.

As it turns out though, the book doesn't seem to have anything to do with the demise of Sotoba. Apparently it's the story of Cain and Abel, except Abel is a zombie? No plot, just Cain's internal monologue? What the hell is this philosophical bullshit? Whether he's out on the deck, eating in the buffet, sprawled on a couch in Sand Dollars or sitting in the lounge, Natsuno always has the book with him, always wearing an incredulous frown as he reads. He may even flag someone down to ask their opinion - THAT'S how weirded out he is.]

Why would a book try to make me feel bad for someone who kills his brother and doesn't even know why?

[Or maybe you run into him after he tosses the book aside and asks:]

What's the dumbest twist ending you've ever seen?

To the late night, double feature, picture show (Pool deck)

[A seemingly empty package from sundries has brought on a steady stream of new and conflicting memories. Every day another memory worms into his mind, of things he didn't remember or remembered differently. Are these the memories of another Natsuno, or something that was taken from him and returned just now? He doesn't know and it's eating away at him.

Movies provide a brief but welcome distraction. Natsuno has a small collection, received in a much nicer package, and he's taken over the adult pool screen to play them. He's camped in a pool chair, watching movie after movie: Little Shop of Horrors, Young Frankenstein, Ginger Snaps, Chopping Mall, Leprechaun.

Care to join him? Or maybe you just want to tell him to knock it off.]

Don't feel those feelings, hold them in instead (All around)

[Movies end, and reading is too passive to distract him from the new memories and the tangled mess of emotion and existential dread. Natsuno has to find other ways to destress:

A. The arcade, where he moves from game to another, unable to focus on one for too long. He even tries the whack-a-mole, until he accidentally breaks the machine with a supernaturally-charged, frustrated blow. The claw machine gets smashed as well, on purpose this time, as he picks up a portable tetris.

B. The sports deck, where he sets up a ping-pong table against the rail and lines it up with various items from the shops for target practice. Maybe shooting things will make him feel better?

C. Do some retail therapy, which in Natsuno's case means picking up anything he can use as in improvised weapon. He has more than enough knives in his cabin, not to mention a gun and a flamethrower, but at this point it's become a weird coping mechanism. Catch him going back and forth from the cabins, picking up EpiPens from the infirmary, rocks from the spa and dumbbells from the gym, just to name a few.]

The wildcard option

[Got anything else in mind? Hit me! Available in

sillysymphony or sillysymphony#3435 @ discord for plotting]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He shakes his head. Natsuno's all but forgotten about the priest. After he died and came back, he asked someone else for help, and Seishin Muroi faded into the background with the rest.

Still, the question stirs something in the back on his head. Not his memories, but another Natsuno's, whose life he's been getting in bits and pieces due to a package from sundries: Tatsumi is dangling him by the neck over the ravine, telling him to choose between cooperation and a fall to certain death. "Sunako's probably fine, too... yes, Mr. Muroi will take care of that."

Natsuno can't be sure what kind of choices his timeline's Muroi made, how free he was to do them or even if he's the version who wrote the book. But somewhere, sometime, he took part in it.]

One of the shiki mentioned he'd help them, but... that's all I know.

Hmm...

[ Shi Qingxuan falls silent in thought and takes a long sip of his coffee. This is a much more sinister case than he had thought back when this conversation started. ]

Still...

[ There are a lot of ways to "help," and Shi Qingxuan doesn't know what the reality is here. But neither does the person he's talking to, and not knowing the reality of the situation has been the problem here from the start.

He feels a little bad prying into this kind of thing with someone who's most likely a victim himself, though. Even if it is to try to put the pieces together with him. ]

The shiki, if they're undead, what were they when they were still alive?

...human.

[He wonders if Shi Qingxuan will guess that "shiki" is just another way to say vampire. Unless the truth was forced out of him by a cross medallion or a spell gone wrong, Natsuno usually had to spell it out to passengers he wanted to be completely honest with.]

They wanted to make a settlement of undead. That village was small and secluded, so they moved in and started killing people.

[ This story only becomes more tragic the more Natsuno reveals. Shi Qingxuan's face pales, and his voice turns soft and regretful as he bows his head. Such a terrible event, no wonder he wanted answers from that book. ]

That's too cruel...

[ "I'm sorry," doesn't feel right to say, but the feeling lingers there unsaid. He goes quiet for a moment before speaking again. ]

There's no way to absolve someone of a crime like that. [ Not that he can't understand the shiki's desire to have their own settlement, but it doesn't make murder anymore just. ] It's possible the book was written to express the shiki's own remorse, but as the victim, you were still wronged. Their guilt after the fact doesn't change that.

[ If he doesn't feel bad for the ones who attacked his village without even knowing the reason—Shi Qingxuan can't say that's hard to understand. Real amends need to be made, but it doesn't seem like they ever were. And they almost certainly won't happen here, either. ]

[Natsuno shrugs. Is it cruel? Yes. But it can't be changed.]

...no, it doesn't.

[Both his expression and tone are flat, contrasting Shi Qingxuan's. There's no forgiving the shiki - even those who hated every moment of their existence and cried over their victims didn't stop killing.]

The living fought back eventually. So even if some shiki regretted it, they're dead anyway.

[As they should. Natsuno didn't wait for them to atone, he took action and helped light the spark that ended up burning the entire village.]

[ Shi Qingxuan nods slowly. Even if they were killed in the end, it doesn't sound like anything was ever resolved. The victims were still left without closure, and the shiki were killed. Whether that was the best possible ending, there's no way to say. ]

... Since that time, what have you been doing?

[ His voice remains gentle. Even with an ending like this, if Natsuno had been carrying a grudge, it should at least be satisfied now. ]

[Oh, he's been carrying a grudge, and it is very much not satisfied.]

I've been trapped here. [His demeanor is still calm - maybe too calm, a mask covering simmering rage and unresolved grief.] I died back in the village and woke up on the ship.

[Death was supposed to give him peace, but it didn't stick. And while Natsuno has made friends here, who value and support him a way no one has ever done back home, he still isn't over that grudge. It's often pushed back in favor of hating the captain and his games, but every time memories from Sotoba come up he's struck with it again, burning and bitter.]

[ .....

That isn't the answer he expected to receive. A gloomy feeling descends over him, and he takes another long sip of his coffee to hide it. In the end, isn't he among the undead himself now, a vengeful spirit?

There's something even more tragic in that. He didn't even get to continue to live, and he died in this same bloody feud. Even if he hadn't woken up here, what's to say he wouldn't have still continued to linger back at that village? ]

I'm sorry. I hadn't realized that was the case and asked something strange. So in that case, what is it that you'd like to do now?

[He shakes his head at the apology.]

It's fine.

[Natsuno doesn't go around advertising it, but he doesn't care if people know he's dead.]

I would like to stop the captain. [Kill, he wants is the captain dead and this reality torn to shreds, ideally after finding a way to make sure his friends are safe.] After that...

[Another shrug. Chances are their predicament doesn't have a happy ending. Thinking about what comes after feels like a painful false hope.]

Mh...

[ Yeah no, he knows Natsuno means kill. And he can't really hold that feeling against him, all things considered. ]

And then, after you wake up in another place after this?

[ "Another place," to Shi Qingxuan, meaning wherever his soul ends up waking up in his own world. There's a lot he can do here, too, but most likely what Natsuno needs for himself is in his own home. Though, ahem... ]

Ah, though there's still plenty to do here, too, before you reach that point. This is just in the future sometime. Of course taking care of that captain must come first, but without him maintaining this place, we'll all be free to leave, so there will be more after that.

[We'll all be free to leave, huh? At first, all Natsuno wanted was to go back to the quiet oblivion of death, but the people he met on the ship offered new perspectives and he started thinking - wouldn't it be nice to have that choice? Wouldn't it be nice if he allowed himself to feel hope again? What if he could be an immortal traveler like Lumine, or perhaps accept Rita's offer and go to her world?

If only that was possible. Natsuno is quiet for a long moment.]

You haven't around very long, right? How much do you know about our situation here?

Edited (SORRY hit send too early) 2022-09-17 19:31 (UTC)

Ha! Is it that obvious?

[ He isn't even bothered or embarrassed. He is new, and one can't expect him to know all the facts. ]

You're right. I've only been told a few things. For instance, the captain is responsible for this, and he's a cruel and sadistic type. Miss Friday was created by the captain, but doesn't have the same ill will. [ And she made the leis and put protection on them, but this isn't the place to say that.

Once he starts, he's counting off what he knows on his fingers like it's a grocery list. ]

I know that broken things don't stay broken, that the deceased don't remain such, that the most of the goods here are free, that there are multiple styles and means of magic at play here, and that while my ability to contact the outside world is suppressed, the rest of them seem to be in tact.

[ Now that he's said all that, he cups his coffee in his hands again. ]

But I don't know the finer details of our situation here, so if you have more to share, then I would be grateful for your advice.

[ Given the timing of his questions, Shi Qingxuan figures something he said must run contradictory to what Natsuno has learned. This wouldn't necessarily surprise him, given the different magics here. Rather, it makes it all the more important that he learns the reality of the situation. If this isn't a "break the spell, illusion goes away" situation, then what he just said really is a fatally flawed... ]

[He nods.] That's the gist of it.

[It'll make explaining things easier. Natsuno slips back into his usual stoicism as he speaks.]

The captain can't control who's brought here, grabbing people at random from different realities. The passengers here are just one version of themselves, taken from a specific point in time. We're not gone - there's another version of us that's still existing back home. [A pause.] Well, if they're still alive. People can come from the same place but remember different things, because they were taken from different times.

[Now for the hard part. Hope you're ready for the existential crisis...]

We can't "go back" because in a way, we never left. It would only mean the version of us that's on the ship stops existing. Crossing to a different reality is possible, but... it takes a toll on the mind. According to Friday, an immortal's experience makes it more bearable, but it's not perfect.

[ Ah...

There's the contradiction he was expecting. Though admittedly, not that kind of contradiction.

Shi Qingxuan blinks, then looks off, frowning thoughtfully. The way he feels about this is...nothing at all. In a way, it's rather relieving to know that his brother isn't tearing heaven and hell asunder trying to find him at this moment, and Ming Yi is still getting dragged out for his daily dose of fresh air. He had already speculated that if this place wasn't a locked territory pulling people in physically, then it's a shared nightmare pulling people in mentally. His new understanding can be summed up as "it's a little of column A and a little of column B."

Most people here probably would feel a lot more towards this revelation. But Shi Qingxuan has always been good at letting things go, and after such a short span of time, he's neither suffered through trials nor formed bonds of friendship and camaraderie that could cast a deep impression in his heart. Learning now that, when all is said and done, this version of himself will cease to exist and everything he does and experiences is ultimately a meaningless trifle...only makes it easier to let go—or try not to hold on, as the case may be. But for others here, after fighting and surviving alongside each other for half a year or more, this is a painful and cruel reality to grapple with...

After mulling it all over, Shi Qingxuan looks back to Natsuno again.

Although he feels nothing towards his own situation but a cool resignation, he can't help but feel a lot more towards the person sitting across from him and his own plight. There's no helping the original version of him back in his world, but Shi Qingxuan doesn't consider this version of Natsuno any less real or important. If he can help this one in front of him—that would still be good. ]

I wasn't expecting such a detailed and in-depth answer. You're really too reliable, you have my thanks. I don't think I would have guessed all on my own in a hundred years.

[ It also saves him from potentially shoving his foot in his mouth for lack of understanding again... ]

So it's an immortal's experience that makes crossing realities easier for the mind to bear, is it? That actually does have some sense to it...

[ Hm. Shi Qingxuan taps his fingers against his empty cup. ]

Would you still want to cross into another reality, even if it isn't the one you were originally from?

[Natsuno shrugs, trying to appear indifferent even though the question bothers him. For a few moments it's unclear whether he'll answer at all.]

I guess, [He finally admits, sourly.] It's not like I want to spend my life on this ship. But if crossing would drive me insane, what's the point to even think about it? I already figured I'll just go back to being dead.

[ Shi Qingxuan waits patiently, maybe tilting his own head to the side in askance at some point, but he waits until he receives an answer.

Once he receives it, he feels like he understands a bit more. ]

But it's not guaranteed to drive you insane, either? You had said that an immortal's experience makes the journey more tolerable, but that doesn't mean everyone else must lose their minds?

[ Before, he would have pointed out he's probably not dead in the sense of "at peace, awaiting reincarnation" even in his own world, but that's not really relevant now. ]

Anyway, have you given much thought before to what an immortal experience entails?

Maybe not guaranteed, but "maybe" is not enough to take chances. The captain knocks us out when we cross, probably because it's less entertaining if we all just go insane.

[That's the easy answer. The second one is harder, and there's another lull before he continues. Natsuno is truly interested in perspective, but he doesn't want to reveal too much about his real issue with immortality to a man he just met.]

I never thought about immortality, because I didn't think it's real. Compared to most people here, my life was pretty boring until the shiki came. [Which was less than a year ago, but when things got bad they got bad fast. Natsuno's second life was short and violent. The third... also violent, but already longer and less lonely.] I don't consider undead immortality something worth living, but I don't know other kinds. I met someone here who's been travels between worlds, but...

[He shrugs. That hope was crushed the moment he learned what "leaving" this ship entails.]

[ Well...Yeah, it probably wouldn't be any good if everyone lost their minds too quickly, but Shi Qingxuan isn't sure if such a sadistic type would mind that, either— Ah, whatever, who can guess at the motives of such a figure?

More importantly— Natsuno didn't believe immortality was real? Shi Qingxuan smacks his (own) thigh! ]

Well, you're in luck, because you now have a real immortal right here!

[ Although he said that so energetically and definitively just to break the tense atmosphere, his tone turns gentle and serious again as he continues. There are complicated feelings here Shi Qingxuan can only guess at, and he doesn't intend to make light of them... ]

I can't comment on what your experiences must have been like prior, but may I ask: What is the immortality of the undead like to you?

As far as I've seen myself, the immortality of a ghost might be different from that of myself, but not necessarily in the ways that matter here. The lives of ghosts aren't doomed to be lacking or unfulfilling; on the contrary, the opposite is usually much better for them.

[Natsuno straightens out of his disaffected slouch when, eyebrows raised at Shi Qingxuan's declaration of immortality. "You're in luck," huh? This guy is definitely different from Lumine or Pollux...]

Shiki aren't ghosts. [He's still not saying the V-word unprompted.] They're walking corpses who have to prey on the living just to keep existing, they're miserable and hated and were better off never rising in the first place. So what kind of immortal are you compared to that?

[ He really pissed him off, didn't he... Shi Qingxuan can't blame him. ]

Not the same kind. [ He says it again because even if there won't be repercussions, it still feels wrong to out himself. ] I apologize. "Ghost" is a term where I'm from to describe people who were once living humans but are now something else. You're still a ghost by that definition, but since shiki is the right term, we'll go with that.

[ There are, in fact, similar beings that Shi Qingxuan is more familiar with, but Natsuno doesn't look to fit the bill for that particular type of ghost.

He sets his cup before taking his folded fan from his belt and tapping its weight against his palm. ]

Rather than me, what is it that you want at the end here?

[Not the same kind. Nice deflection there, buddy - not that Natsuno can blame him, but it is pretty annoying to answer a question and not get a real answer in return.]

I told you, [He says grumpily, a classic moody teen] to stop the captain. To make my own damn choices for a change without some stupid higher power deciding for me.

[He never wanted to move to the village, but his parents only cared about themselves. He wanted to die for Tohru, only to revive as a monster. The shiki wanted him to join them, so he took them down with him, but instead of finally getting some peace he's stuck here to suffer the captain caprices.

He's so, so sick of having his choices taken away. His life and death are his to decide and no one else's.]

[ He thinks he's starting to understand what the drive is here. He doesn't even mind the grumpy attitude here; he had said the first part already, but not the second. As it is, things are starting to gain more clarity. ]

So it's like that. I hadn't realized that it was like that for you before, but that's fair enough. If that's what you want for yourself, then stopping the one whose taken away your power of choice here is a good goal.

[ ...yeah, he just rolls with it. ]

[He shrugs again, too proud to say something yeah it fucking is.]

You'd think everyone should want this for themselves. [He will never understand those who just shrug it off to enjoy the amenities, or wouldn't mind staying as long as the torment stopped.] What about you? I'm not going to pry about what you are, but will you talk about your meaning? How do you live out eternity?

[ This kid... Shi Qingxuan really wasn't expecting to be asked such a heavy question, and the surprise is evident on his face. ]

That's not an easy question to answer... Many people, no matter how long their lifespans, simply live day-to-day, you know.

[ ...It's actually nice that Natsuno didn't just assume he's frivolous person with no purpose. Shi Qingxuan is sure that if ten people were asked their option on that, nine would agree that he is. Shi Qingxuan wonders if shiki, like other ghosts he's more familiar with, only linger for a purpose, and once that purpose is gone, they fade away from this world...But given how this conversation has gone and Natsuno's own feelings on shiki, Shi Qingxuan is inclined to think this is more personal that that.

Humming in thought: ] I don't think I ever put something like that into words before... Now that you have me thinking about, though, then I'd say that what that gives my life meaning...is knowing that there's always something else out there. There's always something happening or that's fallen by the wayside, and if I can help out here and there, then that's what I want to do.

[ There's a small stab in his chest, remembering that everything he had done before and everything he was still working on, like every other aspect of his former life, now belongs to a realm he can never return to. It's actually a good thing "he" isn't really gone, so everything is still being taken care of...

He tugs at the end of his long ponytail unconsciously. ]

Since I won't be returning home, then I guess it's fine if I break some small rules and tell you more about myself. [ Which is maybe a better way to think of the situation. ] Back home, I was actually a pretty big god. I'm sure you can guess, but gods have a responsibility to help and protect humans, banishing evil and bringing order. That doesn't mean everyone cares for it; there are plenty of gods who just want to live their day-to-day and leave the most of the work for their subordinates to manage. Being a god means I have more abilities and means than a mortal, but even if I weren't a god, I don't think I'd be able to stay idle. Even here, you and I share a goal: What the captain is doing is wrong, and at the very least, I want to stop people from being dragged in and free the souls trapped in here.

[ There's an edge of indignation as he says this, finding this whole situation particularly evil. ]

Beyond that, though, I also want to help the people here at this moment. There's still something that comes after taking care of the captain that needs to be addressed.

[Another god, then. Natsuno doesn't seem surprised by the revelation, only nodding in affirmation - he's already met the Dioscuri, not to mention desensitized even before he spent six months on the Serena Eterna.]

So not all gods take their responsibility seriously. [Again, not surprising. The Dioscuri are committed, but Venti doesn't seem to do much of anything except drinking and singing.] ...help and protect others is a good purpose.

[His tone is still calm, but he means it. The ability and desire to extend kindness to everyone is something Natsuno greatly appreciates, especially because he himself lacks it.]

I'm not that kind.

[He wants to stop the captain so his friends will be safe - precious few, to be counted on one hand. Saving others along the way is nice, but unnecessary. He won't care if they were gone.]

Treat those pesky feelings like a reading light [OTA]

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cw: suicide mention

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