Mockingbird, Mockingbird, Mockingbird

[blindwatchersees]

Who: Sheogorath, SQQ, Tarantulas, Jeff, Shouji, and you!
What: Assorted 'meetings of madness' across the island
When: Over the course of August
Where: Various
Warnings: Heavy discussions of identity, possibly discussion of fugue states, possible mentions of violence, unreality




Is that a sound you've heard? [Closed w/ SQQ]

It's as Shen Qingqiu is seeking solitude in the temple that he's visited by a strange sensation. It starts as a physical one, the faintest breeze dancing around the tip of one ear, but then it becomes a song- the erhu part of the Butterfly Lovers begins to play. The sound seems to tug at the end of his sleeve, the way that a narrative piece often seems to pull the listener along with it. Gently, gently, it implores him towards the door, and out into the daylight.


Is that a song you know? [Closed w/ Jeff]

At this point, Jeff's been given a good idea of what to look for when trying to identify Sheogorath. Of course, no one's account of the man is exactly the same, but there seem to be some common elements. He has a beard, and a walking stick, and his eyes are all sort of colors but always strange and piercing.

In the late afternoon, Jeff spots a man who is almost certainly Sheogorath, heading into the woods alone.

Perhaps he ought to follow, and try to catch up to the fellow?


One that was layered with the crackle of a radio? [Closed w/ Shouji]

It's getting late, about the time that businesses are starting to shutter for the evening, when that strange old man who fought off the Tristitia with Shouji a little while ago wanders into the Burger King, his cane making a soft tap tap tapping sound on the floor. He walks up to the counter, and stands there, not making a sound, as he looks around the place, a placid smile plastered across his face. He clearly wants something, but what?


What makes him call in the pouring rain? [w/ Tarantulas]

It's raining.

The drops are big and heavy, and they make a noticeable tapping sound against the window panes. Every so often, a gust of wind will rattle the glass. In the distance, there's a long, low rumble of thunder.

As Tarantulas works on whatever it is he's working on, his auditory sensors suddenly pick up on the sound of purring. Should he take a look around, he's likely to notice a large, gray cat in a little vest, perched atop a nearby shelf. It's staring at him with a familiar pair of eyes, their pupils fractal and ever transforming at their edges.


Is it a song of pride or an alarm of pain? [wildcard]

Anything you've been itching to say, or do, or think with the Madgod? Go crazy!

Comments

[xiaoxiuya]

He just sat down -- but he also thought he'd never hear an erhu again, unless perhaps they exist in one of the cultures on the other side of this world. That, plus the longing beauty of the familiar piece of music, is sufficient to get him back on his feet. Shen Qingqiu wanders back outside, shielding his oversensitive eyes with one hand from the sunlight as he looks around for the source of the music. Surely it must be coming from somewhere...?

[blindwatchersees]

The music guides him down the street, and into the woods. A butterfly flutters by- surely just a coincidence. Should Shen Qingqiu decide to follow, he will find himself walking up to a stream-fed pool full of crystal-clear water.

[xiaoxiuya]

A coincidence -- or a request to speak with him? A cultivator could have done this with equal subtlety. Shen Qingqiu follows the music, keeping an eye out for other butterflies. He finds the task oddly soothing; by the time he kneels next to the gently babbling pool, the pain in his head has slightly receded, and he can enjoy a moment of inner peace while he waits for his unknown host to join him.

[blindwatchersees]

The butterflies continue to congregate, their fluttering akin to the drifting of petals on a spring breeze, but no one in the semblance of a person appears. Instead, the cool water itself seems to bid him "drink."

[xiaoxiuya]

Shen Qingqiu laughs, bringing his hands together in an amused clap. "That's rather forward, don't you think? We haven't even been properly introduced. I'm afraid I'll need a name, before I can consider partaking. And a face, for preference."

[blindwatchersees]

The water does not reply. It’s a bit of a strange request, isn’t it, asking a pool that hasn’t spoken for a name and a face. Nevertheless, something does shift in the pool, and Shen Qingqiu catches sight of something reflected there that couldn’t possibly be there in the sky above: an airplane.

[xiaoxiuya]

"Oh, absolutely not." Shen Qingqiu smacks the water with his open palm, disrupting the false reflection. "I know *he* isn't here, because for one thing I'd be able to tell if he was! And for another "he* knows better than to play these silly games with me."

He crosses his arms, frowning sternly at the water like a baleful schoolmaster. "So? Shall we discuss this like equals, or shall I go? You can't fool *me* into thinking you're just a pool of water and a bit of song. I've studied magic for too long."

[blindwatchersees]

The water giggles.

"Are you saying I can't be those things, among other things? Who's to say I'm anything at all?" As the ripples settle and the reflection settles back into shape, it's Shen Yuan's face that stares back at Shen Qingqiu with distaste.

"What we are, what we aren't, we spend so much time thinking about those things. What we aren't now, what we never were, aren't they just as much of a foundation for ourselves, the way a wall has at least two sides? A pool of water, a bit of song, whether that's what I am or not, that's what I seem to you now."

[xiaoxiuya]

Shen Qingqiu recoils from the water as if evading a blow, sleeve-clad hand raising as if to block out the sight. "Don't show me things like that!" he objects. "What are you trying to do? How do you even know these things -- get out of my head!"

He turns away, rubbing at his temple. "The past is an old skin, better cast off and thrown away," he declares, nearly snarling with the defensiveness that rises in his chest like bile. "It's dead, it doesn't matter anymore. The future will come whether we will it or not; all we can affect is the present moment."

[blindwatchersees]

“And a print in the ground is not the foot that made it, but that foot was there, even if its owner never took another step. Things are tied to things, sometimes with connections that mean less than we pretend they do, sometimes with more of a connection than we could ever realize. A story can be told one way, and all the other ways it could have been told, though they were not told, exist in a null space of the never-there, its edges defined by what is.”

The water bursts into liquid butterflies, which rise up to form the illusion of a misty woman. She is tying up her hair and binding her chest.

“This is a story you know, I think.”

[xiaoxiuya]

Shen Qingqiu's first life had been filled with stories, and stories about stories, and commentary on stories, on and on until he find himself living inside one. He wasn't even terribly surprised, that first hour he spent in Shen Qingqiu's house, wearing his clothes and his very skin. He'd long since promised himself that, if he ever found himself in a situation like one of his stories, he wouldn't embarrass himself by letting his confusion show.

So that was fine. It was everything else that threw him for a loop.

"The Butterfly Lovers," he says, exerting himself to make his voice sound calm and even. "Zhu Yingtai begged her parents to let her attend school, in contravention of the traditions of the time, and on the road she met Liang Shanbo and fell in love with him. But the two couldn't be together; a wealthy magistrate demanded Zhu Yingtai's hand in marriage, and both her parents and Liang Shanbo were too poor to gainsay him. Liang Shanbo died of grief, and Zhu Yingtai threw herself into his open grave so they couldn't be separated. They were reborn as butterflies."

[blindwatchersees]

“It speaks to you, doesn’t it?” asks the spring.

“The being reborn. The presentation of oneself as someone else. The meeting a handsome, decisive man on the road.”

[xiaoxiuya]

Shen Qingqiu straight up verbally key-smashes. His face turns bright, bright red, and sputtering and stammering falls from his lips. His shocked, bewildered mouth.

"A-a-and what of it?" he finally manages to stammer out. "Doesn't everyone like to read about that sort of thing? It's a beautiful tale, that's why it's lasted so long. It doesn't mean anything." Oh Shen Qingqiu, there you go again...deliberately taking things too literally to cover up how deeply they sting...

[blindwatchersees]

“Oh, it’s a beautiful tale, to be sure. A story of defying what society tells you you must be, in order to seek happiness. Quite a wide range of people can identify with it. Some, more than others.”

The pool grins, somehow.

[xiaoxiuya]

"So what's your point?" Shen Qingqiu asks. And then, because he's not actual a complete idiot, he asks, "Are you trying to say, what, that I'd identify more with it than other people for some reason? Because I don't. I just think it's a cute story about two tragic people. There are millions of others out there just like it." He crosses his arms in a huff.

[blindwatchersees]

“Do you really not think you have more reason to identify with it? It’s alright, you can speak about it here. I know what you did. This isn’t your first face.”

[xiaoxiuya]

Shen Qingqiu's face turns pale. "What I..." He turns away, chewing on his lower lip. "I didn't want to," he finally says quietly. "It...shouldn't count when you don't want, shouldn't it? When something else is making you? I don't want it to count."

Are they even talking about the same thing? He's not sure. But he knows which of the things he's done weighs the heaviest on his own mind.

cw: references to suicide

[blindwatchersees]

“We often don’t get to choose what we become. What we do get to choose, however, is what we make of what we are. It isn’t always easy.”

Would you fling yourself into the grave in grief of a lost love? Is that something you would struggle with, or would you barely hesitate?

cw: discussion of suicide ideation

[xiaoxiuya]

Moving slowly, Shen Qingqiu settles himself back on the ground again, drawing his knees up to his chest. His robes hang around him in a great puddle of cloth, picking up spots of damp here and there from the riverbank. He'll look at them later and think they look like the stains left from great fallen tears.

"It's not," he says quietly. "It's not easy at all. I..." He laughs quietly. The sound is bitter.

"I thought about it, you know? Just...a couple times. Killing myself before the Abyss opened, so there'd be nobody to push Binghe inside. But then I thought...the System brought me here to replace the original goods, didn't it? Who's to say it wouldn't just replace me with someone else? But then I also thought, well. At least it wouldn't be me, but...the truth is, I just didn't want to die. Isn't that awful? I really sat down and decided that torturing a poor boy I was responsible for, who'd never done anything bad to anyone, was better than taking myself out of the picture."

[blindwatchersees]

The music tangibly unfolds into a swarm of butterflies, their wings strangely translucent, and the clearing is suddenly bathed in a dance of kaleidoscopic light.

“Once, there was a mer who thought so little of himself and the world, that through his trials learned his heart was full of love. And for a little while, he was content, through the inevitable damnation of his soul hung heavy over his head. A god came to him, and asked a favor of him: to care for its people. To torture them when they were foolish, to punish them when they were unmindful… and to love them in their imperfections. But to do that, the mer would have to disappear.”

“He accepted this, and became the scoundrel, the trickster, the tester, the Fourth Corner of the House of Troubles. He wept, he screamed, he ripped his clothes asunder and tore at himself. Still, he did not flee the person he had become, because the works he would allow by being a place for his people was so much greater than the ills his nature would cause him to inflict. At least, so he had to hope.”

[xiaoxiuya]

Shen Qingqiu watches, his mouth falling open in an expression of open awe and wonder that takes nearly an entire decade off his face. "And that was you, right? That's how you became this?"

He raises one of his hands, palm open. Hoping for one of those butterflies to alight and permit him a closer look. "You're beautiful," he sighs.

[blindwatchersees]

"That was someone. That was no one. That was another face, worn in another tale, and that tale followed into this one."

And indeed, a butterfly does land on Shen Qingqiu's hand, soft as a song.

[xiaoxiuya]

He coos over it softly, gently lifting it close to its face so he can examine its colorful, delicate wings. "Then we're the same," he says quietly. "At least in this. We both had to leave our old selves behind and become someone new."

He frowns slightly. He doesn't want to be bitter, it wouldn't do any good, but..."At least you had the chance to help people. I just made everything worse."

[blindwatchersees]

“But did you cause an earthquake when in the throes of panic?”

[xiaoxiuya]

"Did you?" Shen Qingqiu frowns, just for a moment, before sighing and shrugging his shoulders. "I don't really see why you should be blamed for that. Panic is...it's panic, isn't it? By definition it takes over your mind, your body, it stops you from behaving rationally. It's better avoided of course, but...I think what really matters is what you did afterwards. Once the panic was over. Did you try to fix things?"