tushanshu | [video]

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[The young girl had waited for some time. Watching. Listening. She noticed a certain trend among her fellow foreigners--one that she had yet to become a part of. And as the weeks past and she still had yet to join their ranks...]

[She didn't even bother attempting a smile as she turned the camera on.]

A lot of people have been talking about those letters.

But...what do you think it means if you didn't get one?

[It was almost a rhetorical question at this point; she might not have known for certain, but she could wager a guess.]

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[In Arno's case, it was a theory, more than anything else. And Midii seemed to be so capable that it felt like a reasonable assumption to have made. Admittedly, it was a guess, but even so. The thought had occurred there all the same.]

Perhaps they both are true, in part. [After all, it seems reasonable enough to him. She could have been lucky AND lacking in things to deliver warnings about. It felt quite possible, anyway.]

I...no I was not. ["Tight" is a good word for it.] I've learned the awful things my actions, and more than that, my failures, will produce at home. I know that being here means I am apart from it. a new person, but...I am still shaken, I suppose. What I learned was...heavy.

Something you wouldn't readily admit to a public network, I'm sure.

[Which was the only reason she didn't bother asking; because she didn't expect an answer.]

Do you think it made a difference? Getting to read that letter?

Well, actually...

[It's not something Arno's so much ASHAMED of in parts, as he has a hard time saying them for other reasons.]

Whatever I say of it...it makes things real, the part that I ruined. The rest...it can't be said for other reasons. Historical ones. The first...I let someone I cared for die. Again. It...

She's the third.

[Arno stops, shaking his head.]

If I retain ANY memories when I'm sent back from here, it will have. Otherwise...I don't really see the POINT of it, I guess.

It's probably better if you haven't heard from anyone, unless some people have been told things about their lives HERE. I admit that would have been more helpful.

[Not all of what he was saying made sense. Though she supposed it would have made sense to him, with proper context and the type of history that could fill in unspoken gaps. Names and instances past that Midii couldn't relate to. She's the Third. Third what, exactly? And how did they die? There was only so much she could say on that subject. It hardly felt right saying anything at all.]

[But with regards to the letters as a whole....]

That is...one thing I've noticed.

So far, none of the letters seem to have much to do with Keelai. I wonder why that is.

[Simply the third person that Arno had allowed to die. It was funny. He was an assassin for God's sake. He killed people all the time, but those deaths were different. The people who were dead because of things he'd DONE weren't the problem. The ones he'd failed to stop, though, those hit hard and marked his failures overall. At least the other context, of the revolution...he doubted one assassin might have ended THAT.

He was no Altair or Ezio, after all, despite the illusions he'd had at home. Some things were easier to let go than others, and maybe his priorities were off as to what was the more important, but, it was obvious nothing would change NOW.

Better that they keep the subject changed than go into all of that, anyway.]

That IS rather odd, thinking about it. I've heard of other worlds, where people know what has happened HERE but... If there is not much coming in from Keelai itself in future...

[Were they looking at a possible future with NO Keelai? That thought was horrible.]

What other worlds?

[That part was new to her, and piqued her interest far more than any immediate assumption of what a lack of mentioning Keelai could mean; in truth, there were still too many possibilities. Including one that might actually explain why she, of all people, had never gotten a letter.]

You mean, like Death and Dreaming?

[Arno would have found it weirder but for the fact that past and future had warped and shifted in front of him so many times before, and that he had, colloquially, seen some shit during his initiation. It was still weird, admittedly, but not as weird as he might have found it once.]

I mean like...This is going to sound odd, but alternate realities entirely. The ones where various things happened differently. Someone lives or dies who didn't in the world we come from. An event didn't happen or it did. It's...

[Suddenly, Arno's letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding as it occurs to him that maybe, maybe...]

And now I wonder about my own letter. If I can change one event from it...maybe..Can one force a change and incite others?

[Not an unfamiliar scenario; even in Keelai, there had been confirmed cases of the same person only...not. Subtle, but noted differences that confirmed they came from parallel worlds. Midii had never experienced such a thing personally--there had never been a single person who recognized any of the key elements of her world (he After Colony Calendar, Space Colonies at each of the five Lagrange points, mobile suits)--but she had never ruled out the possibility it could happen.]

[For all she knew, one day, she could find herself face-to-face with Nanashii. Hers or...another her's.]

It doesn't sound as odd as you think.

And...I don't know. I suppose it's possible. If you know something now that you otherwise wouldn't have...you might be able to change your own future.

Changing the future...

[It's a good idea, appealing, after all that's gone on. Arno considers it as something that he can do. And he HAS learnt, well, a fair bit of information.]

I do know what the future version of myself does and has done. It is already different that I am here, but perhaps there could be more change still. I'd have to go against what he's said. Luckily, there are enough ways to do it.

[And then, he's looking more philosophical, as he glances at Midii there.]

Do you suppose your world will have changed, at least you, while you are here, because you're here?

Edited 2015-10-09 01:55 (UTC)

[She shook her head, and for once, there was an absolute certainty to it.]

No.

It wouldn't have mattered whether I was alive, dead, or simply gone. Nothing about home would change.

I wonder, about mine. If I am important enough to make the big things happen. I used to think that it was possible. That I was... [Arno shrugs a bit.] I have a few Gifts most people don't.

I used to think they made me special, better on my own. It takes much more than though, that I don't have. I think...I am not all right with that, but I can accept it now. What I do mean though...is my personal world. Those that I care about, that sort of thing. That I might prevent the woman I love from dying, or stop people from making awful choices, or dealing with the repercussions of my own. Some of them...well it's not fair to a few people who've had to pick up after me.

If I could manage to change bits of THAT. I think it all that I could reasonably want now. Changing the world's impossible, right? For one person, I mean?

[It took a little longer for her to respond this time. She had to stop and think. Think of the people she had known. Both back home and in Keelai. Especially the people in Keelai.]

I think...that would depend upon the person.

[Impossible didn't seem so impossible anymore.]

[That was fair. It was one of those questions, wasn't it? Arno didn't quite expect snap answers on, and though he had his suspicions, he didn't quite know if he believed them entirely just yet. So, he nodded, patiently enough at that.]

That seems...fair, I think. This world has a way of making you reconsider.

And making you believe in things you would never have thought possible, either.

[Like magic. And now time travel.]

It's...a little scary sometimes. Realizing how much about the world you don't know.

There's a truth if I ever heard one.

Sentient turtles alone...

...It can be, yes. Wondering what might be next.

...frog princes?

[Somebody was vaguely familiar with certain childhood fairy tales. Not many, but enough for a weak attempt at a joke.]

Frog Princes?

[Not a story Arno knows personally, although, another comes to mind, and he smiles.]

I do know a story of a beast prince. My father used to tell it sometimes, when I was small. It was supposed to be about beautiful things not always being beautiful on the outside but I think there might be more to it than that now. Truth being below the surface, maybe? It'd be fitting.

Or, in the case of this, truth being something we have to be open to finding out?

[She knew exactly which story he spoke up the moment he uttered the words beast prince.]

You're talking about La Belle et la Bête.

I know that one too.

I am, yes. It's funny, how it seems to have so much more meaning than the surface, now. There's an irony in that, I'm sure.

Actually...I always thought that was the point.

Appearances are deceiving. Never judge by them alone.

[She would know.]

The physical level of it, yes, I understand that one enough. It just seems that there is...more to an appearance now. More layers of things that can be hidden, that sort of thing.

[Arno smiles there, shrugging a bit.]

Or appearances go deeper than I realized once, that sort of a thing.

[She mirrored his expression. Even chuckling a bit softly. It was...nice to talk about something familiar. Something from home.]

It's a good story, isn't it?

It is, yes.

[Arno smiles there, laughing himself.]

It's fascinating how we can use them to model the things in life that are not always so apparent before our eyes.

And tell them to children.

[Because that was one of her stronger memories. Not being the one she told the stories to...but telling them to her youngest brother, even when he was too little to remember.]

Also that. It's strange. At home, it was mostly the adults who the stories had reached so far. The rich in their salons. It doesn't seem right that way somehow, though they...could probably use the lessons too.

I did enjoy the bits that I was told, very much. It seems better that they're passed on, soon as they can be. And at the hands of someone who knows what he or she is doing too.

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