Chapter 289: Dreams of Loss
‘Since I imagine you cannot read as you are now, I will be reading a technique to you. Is that alright?’ Su ShouFan asked.
Mercury sent a mental nod in reply, simply excited to get on with things. There was really not exactly a whole lot to keep him busy, so he had plenty of time to spend on this.
‘Good,’ the old master said, placing her single arm behind her back. ‘Follow me, if you would?’
Mercury mentally tethered himself to her. There was, of course, a chance she would try to kill him. But functioned as a mini lie-detector and he sensed no animosity from the woman. Instead, she seemed to be picking him up in the middle of the night for a decent reason, or so he hoped.
Sticking to her, she dragged him along like a balloon. But he endured that much without any trouble. It was the exhaustion that wore on him, but he bore that much without complaint, too. Su ShouFan took him along with her a few layers up the mountain, then past an arch and into a cave. Mercury mostly noticed the change as the moonlight stopped scorching his mind as much.
It must have been almost pitch-black in the cave, but neither the sighless woman nor the non-physical blob that remained of Mercury were particularly bothered by that. Instead, Su ShouFan took a moment to sit down on the coarse ground. Thin mats had been layered across the stone, but they did little against its hardness.
For a long moment, she took a deep, centering, breath folding her arm in her lap. She sat serenely. ‘Sit,’ she told Mercury, too.
Mercury would have stared at her for a long moment, but he didn’t exactly have a face. So, instead, he tried to follow along with the sentiment of the request, rather than the latter of it. She seemed to have taken a meditative pose, so Mercury did that, too.
He let his mind relax, let his focus settle in a gentle place, not too bothered by the worldly distractions around him. Instead of expanding his mana, he simply let it rest in his core. He remained still and tried his best to be comfortable. Almost naturally, he began to float a little higher, but he didn’t fight that.
‘Good,’ Su ShouFan praised. ‘Now, try to feel your qi. Don’t meddle with it for now - simply allow yourself to note its location.’
By now, Mercury would have loved to breathe to help him relax, but he couldn’t exactly do that, so he just tried to follow the advice. His qi was a blend of all his resources. It sat somewhere between them, in between his magic, strength and health.
Gently following the familiar threads of power that wove through his body, he looked for their intersection. Mana flowed along veins, stamina outward from a central point, and health suffused him, ebbing inward more than anything.
It was odd seeing them intersect like this, trying to find his qi when he needed to fuse them manually, but now that he knew what he was looking for, he did find some. Where his mana mingled with his physical energies, there were wisps of qi that appeared, and quickly dissipated again.
Not centralised or regenerating, but it was most certainly there. He had his origin qi, too, of course, but for now, he kept it simple and just found where it occurred.
‘Now that you’ve found it, gather those wisps,’ his temporary teacher directed.
Mercury did as asked. When the wisps appeared, he gently nudged them with his mind, holding onto them instead of letting them dissipate. He gathered them, bit by tiny bit, and collected them in his mental grip.
It was a little odd, grasping them with just his thoughts. He didn’t solidify his mind, he didn’t resonate anything, it was just an extension of what he could already do. Like mana manipulation, it was an inherent quality of thinking things in this world.
So, with soft commands and beckoning, Mercury slowly drew the wisps under his command. They were dragged in by his will, like a tiny array of ghosts clouding his mind. They were even a little sticky, like pieces of tape lightly attached to him. Hard to get where you wanted them to go, but easy to keep around.
‘Good,’ Su ShouFan directed. ‘Now, encase a thought with each wisp. I know it may sound ridiculous, but qi is inherently malleable, alive. It is uniquely suited to this - you don’t even have to encode it. The stamina can simply reproduce the sound afterwards, and the mana stores the information.’
Huh. That was surprising. Mercury had never really thought of what each magic was good at, he supposed. Stamina was an inherently physical force - it was suited to moving things, to making changes, to do things a body might do. It liked to link itself to cells, or mimic their structure.
Mana, comparatively, was more esoteric. It was good at shifting temperatures, interacting with energy on a more basic scale. It could provide elemental effects more easily, and while usable for greater strength and speed, that was a more troublesome effect to gain from it.
And in between those two was qi. A fusion of their traits, it should take to this kind of job almost easily. Mercury thought about it, and nodded. With his tired mind, it was a little harder to focus, but just because his Skills were sealed, it didn’t make him helpless. He’d used pseudo-telepathy before, he knew how to encode his meaning. So creating a thought wasn’t too troublesome for him.
Wrapping the qi around it took significantly longer. The wisps were patchy and ethereal. They would move and create holes, like wrapping paper that squirmed in your hands. So it took him some effort - until he figured out how to just cage them in.
Forming a sphere with his rijn around the qi forced it into a spherical shape, and then it was easy to plant a thought in its middle. Like a seed into ripe soil. The thought sunk in deep, and the qi closed around it, forming a bubble.
Mercury, perhaps, would have tilted his head if he had one, but as it was, in a dark space with only his thoughts, he simply examined the bubble curiously. It bent a little when he mentally poked it, but otherwise seemed almost inert, if more responsive to his thoughts now.
‘Would you send it over?’ Su ShouFan asked.
Could he? Just as he had the thought, Mercury directed the bubble, and found that the i clung to the thought placed inside. And since the thought was his, Mercury could easily sling it around. It was responsive, and easy to handle.
With a single thought, he sent it towards ShouFan.
The qi-bubble accelerated at a monstrous pace, shooting through the air with brutal swiftness. Mercury’s mana followed after it, like a tether to help him control it, and as the thought arrived, that feeler let him momentarily “see” Su ShouFan.
‘Ow!’ she instantly replied, recoiling back. Her nose bled. As if something had smacked into it at high speed. Mercury mentally apologized, but that didn’t reach the woman. Instead, all he could do was watch the qi-bubble pop as it slammed into her nose like a bullet.
Whoops.
[You have acquired the Skill through a specific action.]
Su ShouFan spent a moment digesting the info he had sent her. It took a while before her voice reached his mind again. ‘Mercury… I think you may need to work on slowing down a little. You just shoved half a novel into my head all at once. I am bleeding from my mouth.’
Oh. Double whoops. First, he somehow almost gave the poor woman a concussion with his thoughts, then he also sent too much. Was his mind really so different from that of other people? Well, in a way, it’d be strange if it wasn’t at this point. But really, was the gap so big?
‘Please try to send over something more… manageable, this time?’
Mercury thought he could do that, probably. An entirely reasonable, human thoughts, that people could understand. Really, he should just make the stamina reproduce his voice like a whisper. But then, what should he say.
Thinking about it for a moment, Mercury coalesced his intent down to a simple string of noise that could easily be parsed by almost anyone - though his Skill was doing a lot of the heavy lifting, there. Still, he could do this. He could communicate this way, and speak his mind.
Once again, he wrapped that thought in a bubble of qi, which then solidified, hovering around his head. If he wanted to, as an attack, he could probably stuff these things full of information, prepare a bunch of them, then sling a whole array of info at someone to fry their brain.
… He didn’t do that, though. Instead, he just made a nice, neat, normal-sized thought package that would communicate a simple line. ‘It’s nice being able to talk again.’
With Su ShouFan’s reply came the sensation of a soft smile. ‘Communication is important,’ she sent. ‘This is a basic art I teach to many cultivators who cannot otherwise hear or speak.’
And it was still distinctly different from normal speaking. Well, he could certainly make it mimic normal speech patterns, but he could also incorporate images rather easily, and connect ideas. It was a little bit more insightful into another’s psyche than normal talk.
‘Thank you for teaching me,’ Mercury said, making sure to send the thought gracefully and gently, so as to not actually give his newest teacher a concussion.
‘You’re very welcome,’ Su ShouFan said. ‘Thank you for not giving me a concussion.’
Ah. He must’ve sent that along. Whoopsies. He would probably need a little bit of practice to make it a purely auditory form of communication, or to remove his sentiment from the messages he sent. But ah well, nothing that couldn’t be solved. At the very least, he could talk again!
Still not move, really, or take care of himself. But that’d come. One step of rehabilitation at a time.
Step might’ve been inaccurate, but he could live with it.
‘How are you feeling?’ Su ShouFan asked him, with a tinge of worry coating her thoughts.
Mercury took a moment before he replied. He felt… exhausted. His mind was weary, and he wanted to take a nap. At the same time, he wanted to use this chance to talk to the people he cared about again. It was an odd dilemma, and he told her as much.
His newest teacher seemed rather amused at that. ‘You should sleep if you’re tired,’ she chided him. Which was rather sensible.
So, with a little bit of effort, Mercury attached himself to her shoulder, and allowed the blind woman to carry him back to his home. He couldn’t really tell where she was carrying him with his own senses, but there was a pretty good indicator - namely, that it felt like he was getting warmer.
As if, step by step, he was approaching some great conflagration. By which, of course, he meant Zyl. So when he felt at a comfortable temperature, and Su ShouFan politely told him that he was home again, Mercury detached his tether, returning to floating around harmlessly.
‘I will be leaving you for tonight, Mercury,’ the peak master said. ‘Tomorrow we can return to more training. I will come pick you up in the morning. Rest well.’
‘I shall,’ Mercury replied.
Then, she left. It was an odd feeling, knowing that someone wasn’t there but not really having any way to verify. Sure, he could have thrown a thought in her rough direction, but she could also just dodge those.
Ah well. He’d just endure it. He didn’t particularly feel like sleeping quite yet, so Mercury spent some more time just thinking. About what it was to lose something. That was, after all, the proper lesson here. How to cope and how to heal, in different ways. How to find alternative solutions to problems that let him participate in communities.
He sighed softly to himself - though it was less of a noise and more the sentiment of one - and then he resigned himself to the quiet. He thought for a long while, and drifted into a soft meditation, until sleep eventually claimed him.
- - -
Mercury found himself in a grassy meadow underneath a silver sun.
A patchwork sky stitched together a myriad of colours, and simple decorations filled the place. Wrought-iron lamps and benches, small streams of icy cold water, a paper-thin imitation of a real world, and all of it alive.
His garden had grown since his last visit. Kim had been hard at work, and trees now dotted the landscape, giving room for hanging chains and more lanterns. The grass was less uniform now, with plots carved into it to grow fruits and vegetables, as well as different kinds of shrubbery and some flowers poking through the grass.
In between the long stalks sat long shadows, stretching limberly under the sky. Further out, there were the steel city and the graveyard. Stars glittered high above, and the whole place was vibrant, if muted.
When Mercury beheld this world of his, he felt happy at how he’d made it grow. He’d fed it with threads of reality, made it more real himself, and crafted it bit by bit, even when he originally had very little idea of what he was doing. Now, this place was strong and independent, and could even host guests permanently.
Guests like his teacher. Old Uunrahzil rested in the shade of a great tree, taller than any of the others. It was Arber’s avatar, a pale tree with glitteringly green leaves. It stretched its boughs high into the sky, leaving Whisperstar to dance through them.
The ancient one that had taught Mercury so much stirred at his arrival. Uunrahzil was old, and titanic. They had grown since Mercury’s last encounter, shifted and changed into something more than what had been before. A puzzle piece turned into a fragment, perhaps a half-dozen connected bits.
Still not enough to craft even the frame for the full picture, and yet so distinctly more than before. Mercury looked on them in awe as they rose, carved from stony veins and glittering light. Their body wove itself into a wavering shape, shifting and twisting underneath the light.
‘Who art thou?’ they asked.
The thought rumbled through the world, protective and careful. There was a great weight behind it, a crushing sense of immensity that made Mercury feel small and fragile, even when he knew he wasn’t. That he was on the verge of cracking and splintering into a thousand pieces.
But that was strange, wasn’t it? Why would Uunrahzil be hostile? ‘Do you not recognize me, mine tri’ht?’ Mercury asked.
Instantly, the weight froze. Old Uunrahzil did not instantly believe him, but they did hesitate, and gave a closer look. Curiosity spilled over Mercury like a wave, and it felt a lot like facing down a great tide, but he braved it easily.
‘You are he,’ old Uunrahzil thought with some surprise. It was a quiet, resigned sort of surprise. ‘But what has reduced you so, young Yr’enzel?’
Mercury smiled in amusement at that. ‘I asked for it, old Uunrahzil. This is to learn more of loss.’
‘Loss?’ the ancient one asked. ‘Art thou not finished with thine journey through it? We spoke of it a little on your last visit, did we not?’
‘We did. And I have embraced it further. To learn what it means to survive and to move past it. To learn to live again, rebuild from nothing. Today, I learnt to speak.’
Old Uunrahzil radiated a hint of confusion. ‘You rebuild again?’ they asked. Mercury read interest, but also some amount of doubt for this method. Why restart, after all? Why tear it all down and begin from nothing?
‘I do,’ Mercury explained. ‘I reduce myself to gain perspective. I gain perspective to understand. Old Uunrahzil, is there anything more valuable than that?’
‘And what have you found thus far?’ the old Dreamweaver asked.
Mercury would have smiled, had he the faculties for it. Instead, he just radiated a faint sense of happiness. ‘I have found I do not like to lose,’ he thought. ‘It seems like an obvious observation in hindsight, but there are many things I am fine losing. Things that aren’t a bother anymore. But losing my voice has been disquieting. So I wanted it back quite a lot.’
For a while, Uunrahzil remained quiet, the boughs of the tree slowly moving above. Shadows danced through the leaves, casting tiny pinpricks of light down when the wind hit the tree just right. The ancient one underneath it considered things for a long while. ‘You believe loss is part of desire?’ Uunrahzil asked, curiously.
‘In part, yes,’ Mercury agreed. ‘It is why impermanence can give value to things. Why creation seems more important when there is a deadline. Losing something, knowing you won’t have it forever, makes people want to use it. Finding a way to handle loss, ways to do what you want to do despite your disadvantages is a powerful desire.’
‘Hmm,’ old Uunrahzil hummed thoughtfully. They had not considered that much before.
After all, they were hardly a thing of desire. Old Uunrahzil was familiar with loss, with that old friend, and the reminder set a pang of pain through their heart. But it also did ignite their desire, as Mercury said.
The old dreamweaver did not desire for much, usually. They wished to teach, to weave, to hold the ywe - the grand work of their people - in their memory, and hopefully recreate it. But usually, that desire was muted. They were passive, calm. It was rare that they did things.
But they had begun to want things more strongly. In this dream that they now had, this half-real sanctuary, they felt almost at home. It was something precious to protect, housing things that couldn’t be anywhere else. Old Dreamweaver did not want to lose it, just as they had not wanted to lose the sanctuary of their people of old.
This was a glimpse at that past. A dream-sanctuary to share ideas, to learn. Old Uunrahzil wanted to keep that dream alive, to spin it into existence once more. They had lost so much, and Yr’enzel, their student, had given so much back to them again.
‘Ah,’ they thought. ‘In that way, this one, too, has begun once more, haven’t we?’
Mercury sent a soft affirmation, but otherwise remained quiet, leaving old Uunrahzil to their thoughts, simply observing the emotions that slowly spilled off them, like leaves drifting down a languid river. Desire born from loss… the idea slowly began to make sense in their minds, slowly clicked into place.
They understood how it may come about. But they did not yet understand why desire mattered. ‘Why must one want?’ they asked out loud, the thought reaching Mercury in a blink.
The question seemed antithetical to the mopaaw. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘Why must one desire for anything?’ old Uunrahzil asked. ‘What is want at its most base state? Does a tree want to grow, a fungus wish to spread? Do we need wishes to have purpose?’
Mercury took a while to reply to that. His thoughts reached out to the grass, combing through it with imaginary fingers. He stared into the patchwork sky, thinking things over, as clouds of glittering ice drifted past him in the sky.
What was desire? Why did he want things at all?
‘To be happy,’ Mercury said. ‘I think desire is what leads one to happiness. You desire something. You get something. You cherish it.’ The thoughts came slowly at first, then faster. ‘I want more, old Uunrahzil. I’ve found so much to cherish, but I want more. More time with Zyl, more magic, more freedom, more adventure. I want to see more places, meet more people, learn more. Because it’s fun. It brings me happiness.’
Old Uunrahzil hummed gently. ‘Happiness… This one may agree. To find fulfillment one must want something. That want can be one of stability, too, I suppose. You can desire for things to stay the same, and have that wish granted day by day.’
‘What do you want, old Uunrahzil?’ Mercury asked. The question was tinged with a little bit of overeagerness; He knew it was pushy, maybe even a little invasive, but he wanted to know.
Old Dreamweaver gave a hum of amusement at the cat’s worries, then brushed them off. ‘This one wishes to live, young Mercury,’ they replied. ‘That is the most selfish answer I can give. There is more, of course. I want my legacy to be remembered. I wish to help others find their potential, to be kind. I wish to spin dreams into a shape that makes them sanctuary. I wish for things to be done properly, ideas to be exchanged, learning to be shared.’
It was a surprisingly simple answer, but Mercury had known it for a while. Old Uunrahzil wanted many things from their old life, from when there were more of their species and they weren’t the last one, barely surviving. Mercury’s memories had breathed new life into them in many ways, but they were still in danger of being forgotten, almost.
Of course, that wouldn’t happen. Mercury most certainly wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon, but it also wasn’t surprising that his old teacher wanted a stronger legacy. To want to live, to cling to life, was there a more pure desire than that?
Mercury wondered if it was pointless to want to live - it all ended at some point anyway, right? And sometimes, things were painful, too. But then, if he wasn’t alive, he could never feel happy again. He wanted to feel fulfilled, to grow some more.
For him, that meant going to places and seeing and doing things. Fixing problems he encountered, learning from people he met, and admiring the sights he saw. That was all he really needed, and he wanted more of it.
Was that greedy? Maybe. For some meanings of the word. It was both a selfish and a humble desire, but it was what he clung to as his meaning. After all, there was no one else he would let dictate the purpose of his life, so he had to find his own, and perhaps that was it.
Old Uunrahzil’s purpose was to weave, a patient force of creation that wanted to create spaces for sharing and learning. Mercury’s purpose was to see, etch every single moment into that mind of his and recall it. The two matched, in a way, where they could help each other.
In that simple overlap of utility, was that the most primitive way of friendship? An aligned goal?
It felt odd to break things down so much. Like something was getting lost in translation, but that was fine. Mercury didn’t need a perfect mental model of the purpose of his life, after all. It was just a thought exercise, on why wanting something was important. And he had found the answer to that.
He wanted to want things so he could want to live.
What an odd, circular answer he arrived at. He gave a small snort at it, then a bit of bubbling laughter. ‘I’m glad,’ he thought, ‘that the world has people like you, old Uunrahzil. I hope we can recreate your sanctuary. It won’t be the same, but it might serve the same purpose, and that may be enough.’
‘Not maybe,’ old Uunrahzil corrected with a hint of contentment. ‘It will be enough. I do not want the past back, Mercury. I want to face our future. To restore and heal, rather than recreate. When a page is burnt, a new one must be written, and that is all there is to it.’
The sunlight filtered through the leaves once more, sending small beams of light dancing through the air. Mercury watched them with a twinkle of excitement. He’d lost a lot, but at the same time, he would gain even more. He was practicing. Learning and growing.
And when he was done, he’d hopefully be able to appreciate what he had even more.