mooninthewater | Come Sail Away IC Inbox

They are personal. A bard would collect stories and with every tale is the human element—the experiences of every person who created or lived that story. They’re people I’m fond of and admire, back home. Both of us are travelers… when we encounter or know or befriend so many people through the journey, we touch lightly these stories and lives.

If I might be trying to tell you something, what do you think it is?

Then perhaps, that's another thing we have in common~. I heard so many stories in m own travels. I wouldn't say I'd "collect" them, but… it was nice, when my food would offer something in return for a memory someone was willing to share with me. I only wish I could savor them the same way you do.

And I'm still not so sure, Venti. You know I'm not very smart, it's still real hard for me to figure things out if they're not explicit.

[ . . .

he flicks mizuki’s forehead. just because. lightly but it’ll probably still be annoying because of course, he’s a pest.

guess what that’s for??? ] Mizuki. Could we have a re-do of that last sentence, maybe?

[ Mizuki makes a little disgruntled noise, followed by a brief pout and a sigh. He’s just being honest! He really does think that he’s not exactly very smart. But, whatever, if it makes Venti happy, then… ]

I’m still… not good at figuring out people’s intentions. I feel like I’m understanding things… wrong.

Better. [ a pleased hum, he leans in to kiss mizuki more happily as if in reward after annoying flick. ] Well, a little bit better I suppose. How about, then… if the fear is that you might understand ‘wrong’, nobody truly can understand one another completely at first blush anyway. That we talk to each other is building a bridge of understanding between one another. There isn’t necessarily a ‘wrong’, I think.

[ Cute. Mizuki quickly turns his head smth steal yet another kiss against Venti’s lips this time before he’s able to lean away again. ]

Oh, there can be “wrong”s, my love. That is how misunderstandings and arguments happen. [ He just had one with Ebalon, so he’d know that a little too fresh on his mind. ]

The hope about being wrong and misunderstandings and arguments is, then, that apologies and clarifications might exist. That we can still try to communicate. [ well, he’d believe this even if he knows about the fight with ebalon. … probably? ]

How about if you could guess what I might be trying to tell you… if you’re wrong, the penalty is a kiss. [ he taps mizuki’s mouth. ] And if you’re right… well, let’s say the prize is a mystery.

Oh, what a horrible penalty! Why must you torture me so, Venti~.

[ He giggles, but he does seriously ponder this. Less to find out what the reward might be and more because he does genuinely want to know how Venti thinks. This is sort of a psychology thing as far as he’s concerned, and he does like pondering things like that. ]

… Mmh… Maybe… dealing with… different kinds of loss? [ Loss of respect and power, loss of one’s self and path, loss of a friend… ] That was maybe… the impression I got, anyway?

That’s indeed part of it, so let’s count that as a win. [ though, he doesn’t quite give any indication of prize-giving just yet. ]

… I’m worried about how you deal with it, Mizuki.

… Oh. [ Okay, that checks out. ] This is about the… w-what happened at the beginning of this month? [ Beat. ] 'Cause, if that's it, I-I… don't think anyone would've handled any of that well.

[ It's one thing to lose someone like that. It's another to have their guts smattered against the supply closet or along Promenade. It's another to not just lose one person — which at the time you thought was forever — but two.

…

But he knows that maybe he's just a little defensive about this in particular. ]

I know that. I’m not expecting you to be… [ well… maybe… to be like him, venti, who might either dissociate out of his mind or transform into a lost loved one in the aching desperate wish to be close to them still. so like, he doesn’t handle it well at all either but in a different way. ] I know, but it hurts to see you like that. And that’s why I wanted to talk about it.

And we did talk about this before, didn’t we? [ before zombies, the diner, back when all they had was a warning. ] Actually… maybe even several times. … When I warned you about what it means to be long-lived.

[ it means suffering loss, the passing of loved ones again and again and again and again. ]

This was different.

[ Well, it’s true, he had braced himself for the bullshit that the Captain had prepared for them, and he had grieved Venti when he died, but… he took it a lot better then. Mostly because Venti came back the next day, but more than that: ]

It wasn’t something the Captain did. He “fixes” his “toys,” yet… Yuuki and Ebalon didn’t come back at first. I feared the worst because it wasn’t… it wasn’t like Gummy. She… she’s gone, but… at least she didn’t suffer like they did. I felt Ebalon’s death — I know he suffered. A-and he died the same way Yuuki did so I had just assumed she had taken them both away from me.

[ Incorrectly, but it’s not such a wild assumption to make. ]

And when she goes about bragging how the people she kills disappears for good and then-and then they… and they didn’t, I-I believed it.

…

I hate the thought of them suffering because of someone else’s selfishness.

[ fair enough, that made sense. that the anxiety comes from the sheer pain and mystery of their death and then the delay before revival, the uncertainty of what was even happening on the ship. ]

I too assumed that something terrible must have happened. [ he hadn’t exactly accused jinx but back then, even entertained the thought of—something had to change with her, even he steeled himself to consider more what he should do. ] But what worried me a lot was, I think, what you said… [ ‘What if I lose everyone I love again?? What if I can't do anything about it again…’ when those are questions he couldn’t definitively answer, ‘it won’t happen’. ]

When tragedy happens I worry that you could jump to conclusions, to look to culprits, to vengeance.

I worry about what this does to you.

Edited 2022-10-18 22:14 (UTC)

There was a lot that happened then. There was a lot that I needed to process and think about. Even now, there’s a lot that I need to consider.

But I didn’t react on my emotions. I listened to Clarke, and then, after finding out something happened to Ebalon — which at the time I thought he was killed rather than it being his own mistake — I sought you out. I was miserable and grieving and spoke what was on my mind, but…

I didn’t do anything.

[ His eyes flick away from Venti, to the water’s surface. ]

I don’t know if that’s good enough. Maybe it speaks to my lack of resilience as things pile up more and more like this, but…

…

I know that you get the brunt of my hostile words, so you probably don’t see it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not doing my best…

I know that you do. And I’m proud of you.

But I worry about you, almost constantly. [ his voice going quieter, his eyes closing. he looks just more tired. ] It’s not that I think you’re not resilient. I know that a lot happened and I wouldn’t blame anyone for being angry or fearful or vengeful. Even so, I fear that if people fall for that fear and rage and vengeance, it would only lead to more suffering and violence.

That when you get upset, you become wrathful and vengeful… [ … how does he put this. it probably comes down to that core part of mizuki that unnerves him, or maybe one of many, that he’d tried to close his eyes to or try not to think about. he seems about to say something else, then changes his mind. ]

Is that a part of yourself that you’re comfortable with?

[ He almost immediately answers Venti, but then decides that this is a question that he should probably think about for a moment. There is a lot that he’d change about himself without a second thought if he could. His inability to make decisions, for starters. His ability to pick up on how other people are feeling. His selfishness and all those yucky, jealous feelings…

But… this is just him now, isn’t it? Mizuki, who’s taken a liking to psychology, and who’s really good at cooking and video games, and who’s new goal is to make people happy, and will fight to keep the people he cares about. That’s who he is. This is who he is. And he doesn’t think he’s a bad person…

He really hopes he’s not. ]

I think I am.

…

Should I not be?

[ strangely, he's not actually sure if he's surprised by this or not. maybe he'd anticipated both answers. ]

You say that you'd like to be a hero who would bring everyone happiness. Someone who wants to make people smile.

Would violence and vengeance accomplish that?

Sometimes, things like that are necessary. Like, if Rhodes Island didn't push for the rights of Infected, and contribute in wars for their rights, many more people would die, on both sides. While I think that it's good to take the path that has the least amount of carnage, sometimes… results like that are unavoidable…

As for vengeance… [ No, it's probably not necessary. Yes, he probably could have gone without ever seeing those pirates again. Yes, it's a part of him that has a lot wrong with him. And yes, he knows it scares Venti. He stares at his hands that settle in his lap. ] I can't say it's a part of me… that I hate. Since it's… a part of me. And I don't want to… hate me. [ His hands close into fists. ]

Is it… bad? …I think that drive to not want to see things like that happen to other people is inherently a bad thing, though. If someone is lucid, yet still treats life as something other than precious, especially for selfish reasons, then there's no reason for anyone to believe their loved ones aren't in danger, too.

…

And it hurt to see Clarke like that. Maybe even more than I was hurt by everything…

... I can imagine.

I don't want to say so definitively what's good and bad, you know that of me. [ it's so damn noncommittal or nonjudgmental of him, or maybe it's just that unexplainable laissez faire again. ] And I'm glad that nobody did anything rash, even if everyone was rightfully upset. [ all things considered, if people really jumped the gun for vengeance and started some witch-hunt or something--of course that would be worse. he could be grateful this didn't happen, unless it might later?? hopefully not. ]

Now that we know a little more about what happened, do you think people like that exist on the ship? Someone... selfish and cruel who discards life. Someone worthy of vengeance and justified violence, then.

… Do you think my opinion on the matter has changed from knowing what I know now? I'm glad to know that she hadn't been the one to kill Ebalon, too, of course, but she still willingly took Yuuki's life. She threatened him, she continued to torture him to a point where he had gotten so fed up with it — that's no better than if she had shot him herself. And this is the same person who had left me death threats. The same person who told me that I'll never be good enough for you. Who went into a murderous fit because you didn't "pick her" — when you were grieving. Who threatened to kill Clarke because she fucked "her" thing. Who talks about you less as a person, more a thing to be had. [ Which royally pissed Mizuki off! He didn't think it would, and yet… ]

So, yes, I do think there's someone selfish and cruel who discards life. I think that if you and Fio weren't around, she would do what Jenny did to her group.

Fair, then. There are selfish and cruel and violent people here, there are people here that hold grudges for petty and needless reasons, people who harass others to the point that they’d willingly pull the pin on the bomb to be rid of it. People who give death threats, [ oddly, someone who threatens to eat evil-doers quite often and even offered to eat it out of venti, ] People who have tortured, who have beheaded, who have killed within and without a killing game. This will happen and continue to happen on this ship, surely. And she—

[ he remembers when he died and she’d comforted him even when she had no idea what had happened to him. remembered the bracelet she’d given—he wears it, the feathers on his wrist, every single day. the messy break ups, the messy everything because nothing can ever be so easy with her. her faith, when she’d never worshiped before. in the dizzying emptiness of prayer when the voices of his people had disappeared entirely, there are the lone wishes from her and clarke like small flames. when he died again and was useless and he just lay there in a box but he could feel that she was there. when he asked her about the world she wished she’d lived in, ]

Even still, I want to choose to believe in every single person here. The betterment of them, of everyone, of myself. To work to it even if the road is difficult and harder than pursuing vengeance. The answer surely wouldn’t be punishment. I don’t believe in that anymore.

… I believe there's still that chance for everyone here to be good, too, but the moment we let people believe their actions don't have consequences, is the moment that things will fall apart. Believing that people will be good isn't enough. If there's action that needs to taken, then sometimes there's just… no other way.

…

Like that god all those years ago that you helped fight against — do you think that just believing in him would have freed his people?

[ He doesn't mean to open that wound again, but it's important that he drives this point home. ]

I'm… I'm aware that there's not always going to be clean answers for everything. It's been hard for me to figure things out, and I'm doing my best to make my path down a kinder road. It's why I ask all the questions I do. It's why I'm trying to talk to you and Clarke and Ebalon when I'm stuck between my decisions. It's why I've been working on not being rash with my actions.

I know that… I-I still need work, but I hate feeling like… [ Like he's getting reprimanded so much for trying. Not necessarily by Venti, just in general. The only person that seemed to be on the same page as him is… Clarke. And even she's so distant sometimes. ]

Mm, it’s not just belief. It means work, more work than the cut of a weapon or the pull of a pin. And, about Decarabian…

I think of him very often. [ there is, actually, some amount of regret there on cold winter nights when he’s secreted in a wind domain and he thinks of his predecessor. ] I’m not sure if I told you this, but even he believed that he was protecting his people, from the never-ending winter outside and the wolf king god who cared little for people. The fact is, there was miscommunication even there. A god who hadn’t listened to his people and realized he was smothering them. Even he thought that he was doing the right thing for his country.

Miss Eula’s only crime was to exist and yet my country punishes her for it, for being born to that slaveowning family. Miss Rosaria could have been a criminal and thief for life, but someone extended a hand to her to welcome her to Mondstadt. And Kaedehara-san… after suffering that loss, he determined to use his blade never to slay, but to protect and save. If everyone wants punishments and consequences for every grudge and reaction, we’d never stop.

… Then what would you have recommended they had done differently? If they felt trapped, and he wouldn't listen, what was the right thing to do?

[ Because "there was miscommunication" isn't really an answer. If those people hadn't done what they did, would they ever be free? Mizuki knows for a fact that the Infected back home wouldn't be if Rhodes Island didn't fight for them. That the rebel group of Infected back home would take more innocent lives without them. He's willing to accept that this isn't Terra and that he's not obligated to do those things anymore, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to learn from not only his experiences, but everyone else's as well. ]

But, with all that said, is what you're really worried about… me taking judgement into my own hands? Because there's no need to. I won't do that.

What would I have done… I was a mere wisp and that was the era of the archon war, the gods’ war. If ‘righteousness’ existed back then, might made right. Gods killed one another, gods oppressed their people, gods were even killed by their people, not just him. I think by now it’s just… [ tiring. it’s tiring. it’s tiring to try to reason or help jinx, it’s tiring to know people hold grudges that he probably can’t defuse, it’s tiring to know that mizuki hurts and he wants to help and heal and he wonders if he can.

what is he worried about, about mizuki?

rather a lot. and maybe mostly about his mental, but he isn’t sure how exactly to say that. he just looks to him for a while, then wraps his arms around him in a hug. ]

… I’d appreciate that.

Edited 2022-10-19 16:17 (UTC)

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