[Chris arrives only a couple minutes earlier than their planned time and it works out for the best, really. The architecture of the building reminds him vaguely of Ix's house back home, but more. The lines and design of it are beautiful and he has a moment where he wishes Amnos were here to give his more professional opinion, but it's a thought he buries away quickly. He was, ultimately, here on business.
He arrives in something closer to his original clothing rather than the leather jacket and jeans he usually wore. A tunic, vest, and cloak all in darker colors with small, silver, embellishments make up the majority of his outfit with understated breeches and his usual travelling boots finishing his look. The jet raven's skull rests visibly against his chest, but it's all he's brought with him, as directed. Even his usual polearm is left at home, he doubted it would be necessary for whatever this discussion might entail.
Chris knocks on the door at 1, poised to offer a formal bow in greeting to his host when the door opens.]
[Huaisang opens the door with a smile, dressed in his traditional robes as he prefers for his tea ceremonies. In most things, he is happy to cast aside tradition and decency, but this is one of the things he holds sacred, and he does not know his guest well enough to be comfortable performing the tea ceremony in Fashion rather than Tradition.
He offers his own formal bow, though his is shallow, just the slightest bend of the waist and his arms brought up in a hoop in front of him, as though he's hugging an invisible pillar. There are few who outrank him back home, and not many more who outrank him here, so Huaisang feels comfortable in assuming that strangers cannot match his rank.] Nie Huaisang of Qinghe greets you. Please come in.
[Chris straightens when his bow is met, but he nods to the formal introduction. Titles it was, then.]
Lord Chris Sonom of Melvaunt and Cleric of the Raven Queen. Your greeting is most welcome and honored, Nie Huaisang of Qinghe.
[There was a reason he didn't use his title beyond there being little use for it and no context here to measure it: it was simply long. However, if they were meeting on a formal level, then needs must.
He enters as directed, but goes no further until he can follow where his host leads.]
Your home is lovely, there's little back home which matches the style save aspects of Dwarven and Elven culture.
Oh, thank you. Please just call me Huaisang. [Huaisang's not about to let the man know how many of his own titles he skipped. The formality has been done and now they can brush most of that aside.]
I don't know anything about what Dwarven or Elven cultures are. But I suppose you wouldn't know the styles of the Jin or Lan. [Huaisang smiles warmly, gesturing for his guest to come with him and then leading the way back to his tea room and indicating one of the seats, then taking the opposite one for himself. He's already laid out his tea set, and a heavy iron kettle hangs from a hook just beside the table. Opening his tea chest and turning it toward his guest, Huaisang indicates the paper packets within.] Black, Green, and White teas. Some of them have flower petals or fruits added for flavors.
You'd be right. [He's not heard the names of either, nor the cultural expectations here, but he could play the diplomat he was meant to be and tread with respect.
He settles in where he's expected and looks over the options on offer, but there's little pause before he takes the white tea offered. Black was most common back home, but he'd grown fond of the more delicate flavors most white blends in Honestea offered.]
My thanks. If I might ask, are formal tea ceremonies often used for discussion of official business or meetings where you're from?
Yes, all the time. [Huaisang waits for his guest to smell and approve the white tea, then he sets the rest of the chest aside and reaches for the packet so that he can open it an begin his preparation.] Very few meetings or business are conducted without tea. Sometimes, instead, it's alcohol, but alcohol is more reserved for celebrations. For business you want a clear head.
[Drawing a sigil on the kettle in silvery light, Huaisang heats the water inside the iron kettle with a simple spell.]
[His eyes cast to the silver light, it and the sigil are unfamiliar to him, but that's what he's come to expect with other magic users here. There might be similarities in structure or means, but each person's magic was distinctly different. It was fascinating.]
Your magic is lovely, such light would be associated to radiant magics where I come from. Things attributed to a holy or inherently good source.
His small smile ticks up higher at one corner as his gaze returns to his host.]
A'course, small talk is also expected, but this is your home. If you'd rather it cut, I'll not complain.
Please, speak freely. I'm interested in everything you have to say.
We would also consider the spiritual energy to be a holy thing, in a way. Spiritual energy is in all things, and in the way of following the Path one cultivates that energy in oneself and draws upon the ambient energy in order to strengthen oneself.
[Beginning his tea preparation, Huaisang makes the extra effort to let spiritual energy flow through the water as he pours it, guiding the energy and spinning it within the pot and around the cups, charging and strengthening as he plays with it.] We call it cultivation because it is akin to gardening. One nurtures and grows the energy, and then one can enjoy the fruits of one's work. For me, that's mostly small charms to heat water or remove stains.
[It sounds almost like how druids see magic, the inherent life and energy in all things. Still, this is definitely different. Chris watches with fascination as the magic flows and the delicate precision applied to it's use.]
A garden of magical skill. Useful ones, those.
Then, if you grow it and train it as you might a garden, does that mean there's little involved in books or faith or song? Back home, those methods along with powers of nature and inherited skill of bloodlines are causation for the magic in the world.
There are books and song. I'm not sure what you mean by 'faith'. The books help to preserve philosophy and techniques, while the songs are ... a medium. In the way that the tea is an medium, or the braids in my hair. They may serve as a conduit to sharpen and focus and solidify one's intent, but none of that is needed.
[Huaisang shrugs, continuing to take his time with the tea ceremony until he finally sets down a perfect cup in front of Chris, then one for himself.]
So they...function bit like a casting focus, a way to channel rather than power the magic itself. Fascinating.
[He reaches for the cup, pausing as he moves to pick it up.] For faith, I simply meant prayer. My magic comes from a god I pray to.
[He brings the cup up to breathe in the steam and smell and it's almost cleansing, the delicate scent and heat. Certainly, it puts a bit of ease in him, especially as he takes a sip.]
That's fantastic, thank you. Doubt I've had better made tea.
[Which was not flattery. He'd had plenty of tea, it was a staple of the household, but none so perfectly made.]
[He takes another sip to cover for the flicker of doubt he quickly buries. That one was complicated and unfit for polite, new, company]
Perhaps. I’d love to hear more of what you paint and if your magic works through that as well, but maybe I should ask what it is about necromancy magic that’s got your interest first.
The magic is strengthened by concentration and focus. It doesn't improve my painting and I don't imbue my paintings with any magic, but the practice does help to strengthen my golden core, since I've taught myself a technique that lets me meditate and paint at the same time.
[As for the necromancy, well. Huaisang draws himself up a little, eyes on the table rather than his guest.] My brother was murdered.
At home. He actually showed up here, once. Or a version of him did. [Huaisang frowns and looks away, looking more conflicted than one should over reuniting with his dead brother.]
This place contains different versions of people, from time to time. Sometimes one will hear that another of oneself had been here before, same and yet different, and it's nothing that you remember. [Not something that Huaisang has himself experienced, but it's frequent enough.] Time and death are easy barriers for this place to cross, it would seem.
[He's heard of the different versions of people, of people leaving and coming back without memory of being here and some with entirely different experiences. It's nothing he's experienced himself, either personally or from those he was close to, but it lived in the back of his mind as a possibility. He couldn't imagine...if someone he loved who was lost showed up here for any amount of time...]
That couldn't have been an easy time to bear. This place makes a mockery of death that ought be my duty to set right, but they've stripped me of some power that might help and others seem weaker. If you're hoping I can bring him back to you here...?
I expect nothing here, no. As you said, this place makes a mockery of death. And other things.
The version of him who came here ... he was like a mockery of my brother. I can genuinely say that I hope to never encounter that man again.
From what I understand, if we are able to return to our worlds--which seems unlikely, to be honest--we retain no memory of it. My experiences here have given me the theory that we are only flawed copies of our selves from home, and that if we leave here ... well, the copy is ... dissolved, I suppose. Into whatever ether created us. It is the only thing I can think of that explains how there can be different versions of a person, and those versions never seem to remember being here before, and time and space and death mean nothing. We are just a mimicry of the true image, like a stamp upon paper.
[He didn't mean to get so deep into existential theory, especially with someone he's only just met.]
But if there is any chance of retaining the memory, if my self from home can ever look into his reflection in a pool of water and suddenly gasp with knowledge and certainty...
My brother's body and spirit have been preserved. I have the ability to do that much, at least.
[Chris gives him his rapt attention throughout, mind racing with the thoughts. He knew Jon had some sort of similar theory, something to do with computers, like copies of a picture you might make in your phone or...a program, as limited as Chris' understanding of that concept is. The way Huaisang has put it makes more sense and has implications better thought over while not in new company, probably. But his aim in remembering...that strikes close to something Chris had been thinking for some time and told nearly no one about.]
There's merit to your thought, and I know some who'd argue evidence, though I'm no expert in either theory. I do think there might be...echoes. Thoughts and ideas we might think or do here that might travel on to us back home, whether the real us or otherwise. I've some experience with it myself, the couple times I've been returned home, once while still physically here and another gone completely. I've no proof it's not coincidence and no viable way to replicate it, but I think it's solid enough to say 'maybe.'
I know there's ways back home for people to etch memory into stone with magic and ways to use items to record thoughts and emotions, but trying to get those from here to there is still a sticking point. If I'd even the ability to move objects between planes, I'd have better thought to the problem, but as it is, I suspect it's lucky enough my Lady of Ravens can still see and hear me.
[And what does that mean, if they truly are just copies? Was that why he couldn't commune with her? Perhaps she only heard his voice as a faint echo in the Strings that surrounded her, a frayed piece off the one truly attached to him.]
[Huaisang blinks repeatedly at the last part, staring at him in shock and hope.] A deity? Outside of this realm, and she can hear you from within it?
[He instantly has so many more questions. He'd been so fixated on how to do the necromancy part of it that he'd given little enough thought as to how to move the knowledge between realms once he got it. A problem to be solved later, once the first insurmountable obstacle had been resolved.
It's also, honestly, a relief to hear someone speak of a deity or demigod as something real and tactile rather than the distant 'faith' of hoping in something that would never respond that so many people took as their religion. Huaisang feels adrift in this culture in so many ways, with the local Duplicity culture no more strange to him than the Modern Earth culture that so many of the LIERs come from, and it's a relief every time he comes across something in someone else's culture that he can understand and recognize.]
[That hope sticks in him more than the rest. He hadn't even considered someone else might benefit from knowing about it. Jon had expressed surprise that Chris still had access to his magic, but that had been so long ago now, he'd nearly forgotten.]
She...can. Mostly. I pray to her each morning and my magic's yet to fail me beyond what the city's stripped of me, the fact I can access it means I still have some connection to her. The fact I can change out my spells as I need in my prayers means she hears me, but any attempts to Commune directly with her as I might back home have been answered with harsh static in my mind, like something's blocking me.
[He shakes his head.] Even if she can't fully hear me or see me, she's still with me and I've hope in that. That's why I haven't let myself fall to thinking there's no chance of leaving. Perhaps we're only dissolved when we go...but maybe we aren't. Maybe there's more science and magic at work here than we've a mind to comprehend.
[Huaisang listens with wide-eyed interest. It is vastly different from the systems of magic that he knows, to be sure. In his world, if one is fortunate and skilled enough, one might become a god through magical mastery. There are some gods who were never humans, who were born from the very primordial forces, but there is not so much difference between them and the gods who had once been human. It is only a degree of power, nothing more. To have magic that is specifically given to a human from a god... Huaisang doesn't know anything like it. But it is still a source for hope.]
How fascinating. I... I hope that is true, after all. I would like very much to go home one day, and perhaps to take some of my lovers with me. It makes me sad to think of losing my memories of this place.
[There's a small flicker of thoughtful solemnity for that. He had people he cared about, but few he might take with him. Most had others they would go with, including the one man Chris might beg to consider not retuning home. Which would be fine, as long as he was safe, it wouldn't matter. Chris had friends, people like Crais, who couldn't return home or death would await them, for them at least, he hopes they find a way.]
I understand. Even if I couldn't take anyone with me for one reason or another, I'd not like to forget them as I did the times I've been forced away from here. Their impact on my soul might travel, but the memories would be sweeter.
I get the feeling there's something to my magic you were hoping would help in this, but I admit I've not yet thought of it or seen it for myself. What thought am I missing here to consider?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Would you prefer to switch to action or take this to a log?
Ought I to bring anything in particular?
Either is fine!
[Huaisang will send along the address to his home so that his guest will be able to find the way.]
((open log here if you prefer that option))
Action!
He arrives in something closer to his original clothing rather than the leather jacket and jeans he usually wore. A tunic, vest, and cloak all in darker colors with small, silver, embellishments make up the majority of his outfit with understated breeches and his usual travelling boots finishing his look. The jet raven's skull rests visibly against his chest, but it's all he's brought with him, as directed. Even his usual polearm is left at home, he doubted it would be necessary for whatever this discussion might entail.
Chris knocks on the door at 1, poised to offer a formal bow in greeting to his host when the door opens.]
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He offers his own formal bow, though his is shallow, just the slightest bend of the waist and his arms brought up in a hoop in front of him, as though he's hugging an invisible pillar. There are few who outrank him back home, and not many more who outrank him here, so Huaisang feels comfortable in assuming that strangers cannot match his rank.] Nie Huaisang of Qinghe greets you. Please come in.
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Lord Chris Sonom of Melvaunt and Cleric of the Raven Queen. Your greeting is most welcome and honored, Nie Huaisang of Qinghe.
[There was a reason he didn't use his title beyond there being little use for it and no context here to measure it: it was simply long. However, if they were meeting on a formal level, then needs must.
He enters as directed, but goes no further until he can follow where his host leads.]
Your home is lovely, there's little back home which matches the style save aspects of Dwarven and Elven culture.
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I don't know anything about what Dwarven or Elven cultures are. But I suppose you wouldn't know the styles of the Jin or Lan. [Huaisang smiles warmly, gesturing for his guest to come with him and then leading the way back to his tea room and indicating one of the seats, then taking the opposite one for himself. He's already laid out his tea set, and a heavy iron kettle hangs from a hook just beside the table. Opening his tea chest and turning it toward his guest, Huaisang indicates the paper packets within.] Black, Green, and White teas. Some of them have flower petals or fruits added for flavors.
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He settles in where he's expected and looks over the options on offer, but there's little pause before he takes the white tea offered. Black was most common back home, but he'd grown fond of the more delicate flavors most white blends in Honestea offered.]
My thanks. If I might ask, are formal tea ceremonies often used for discussion of official business or meetings where you're from?
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[Drawing a sigil on the kettle in silvery light, Huaisang heats the water inside the iron kettle with a simple spell.]
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That makes sense plenty.
[His eyes cast to the silver light, it and the sigil are unfamiliar to him, but that's what he's come to expect with other magic users here. There might be similarities in structure or means, but each person's magic was distinctly different. It was fascinating.]
Your magic is lovely, such light would be associated to radiant magics where I come from. Things attributed to a holy or inherently good source.
His small smile ticks up higher at one corner as his gaze returns to his host.]
A'course, small talk is also expected, but this is your home. If you'd rather it cut, I'll not complain.
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We would also consider the spiritual energy to be a holy thing, in a way. Spiritual energy is in all things, and in the way of following the Path one cultivates that energy in oneself and draws upon the ambient energy in order to strengthen oneself.
[Beginning his tea preparation, Huaisang makes the extra effort to let spiritual energy flow through the water as he pours it, guiding the energy and spinning it within the pot and around the cups, charging and strengthening as he plays with it.] We call it cultivation because it is akin to gardening. One nurtures and grows the energy, and then one can enjoy the fruits of one's work. For me, that's mostly small charms to heat water or remove stains.
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A garden of magical skill. Useful ones, those.
Then, if you grow it and train it as you might a garden, does that mean there's little involved in books or faith or song? Back home, those methods along with powers of nature and inherited skill of bloodlines are causation for the magic in the world.
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[Huaisang shrugs, continuing to take his time with the tea ceremony until he finally sets down a perfect cup in front of Chris, then one for himself.]
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[He reaches for the cup, pausing as he moves to pick it up.] For faith, I simply meant prayer. My magic comes from a god I pray to.
[He brings the cup up to breathe in the steam and smell and it's almost cleansing, the delicate scent and heat. Certainly, it puts a bit of ease in him, especially as he takes a sip.]
That's fantastic, thank you. Doubt I've had better made tea.
[Which was not flattery. He'd had plenty of tea, it was a staple of the household, but none so perfectly made.]
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Your god provides you with power? That is a rare gift. You must be exceptional indeed to have the favor of a god.
[Huaisang sips his own tea, eyes closing briefly with bliss.]
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Perhaps. I’d love to hear more of what you paint and if your magic works through that as well, but maybe I should ask what it is about necromancy magic that’s got your interest first.
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[As for the necromancy, well. Huaisang draws himself up a little, eyes on the table rather than his guest.] My brother was murdered.
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I’m sorry. I’ve known that pain and carry it as well.
[Rhyt had been resurrected, but that didn’t erase the months of agony and scar on his soul of his twin’s body in his arms.]
Did this happen here or at home?
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This place contains different versions of people, from time to time. Sometimes one will hear that another of oneself had been here before, same and yet different, and it's nothing that you remember. [Not something that Huaisang has himself experienced, but it's frequent enough.] Time and death are easy barriers for this place to cross, it would seem.
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That couldn't have been an easy time to bear. This place makes a mockery of death that ought be my duty to set right, but they've stripped me of some power that might help and others seem weaker. If you're hoping I can bring him back to you here...?
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The version of him who came here ... he was like a mockery of my brother. I can genuinely say that I hope to never encounter that man again.
From what I understand, if we are able to return to our worlds--which seems unlikely, to be honest--we retain no memory of it. My experiences here have given me the theory that we are only flawed copies of our selves from home, and that if we leave here ... well, the copy is ... dissolved, I suppose. Into whatever ether created us. It is the only thing I can think of that explains how there can be different versions of a person, and those versions never seem to remember being here before, and time and space and death mean nothing. We are just a mimicry of the true image, like a stamp upon paper.
[He didn't mean to get so deep into existential theory, especially with someone he's only just met.]
But if there is any chance of retaining the memory, if my self from home can ever look into his reflection in a pool of water and suddenly gasp with knowledge and certainty...
My brother's body and spirit have been preserved. I have the ability to do that much, at least.
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There's merit to your thought, and I know some who'd argue evidence, though I'm no expert in either theory. I do think there might be...echoes. Thoughts and ideas we might think or do here that might travel on to us back home, whether the real us or otherwise. I've some experience with it myself, the couple times I've been returned home, once while still physically here and another gone completely. I've no proof it's not coincidence and no viable way to replicate it, but I think it's solid enough to say 'maybe.'
I know there's ways back home for people to etch memory into stone with magic and ways to use items to record thoughts and emotions, but trying to get those from here to there is still a sticking point. If I'd even the ability to move objects between planes, I'd have better thought to the problem, but as it is, I suspect it's lucky enough my Lady of Ravens can still see and hear me.
[And what does that mean, if they truly are just copies? Was that why he couldn't commune with her? Perhaps she only heard his voice as a faint echo in the Strings that surrounded her, a frayed piece off the one truly attached to him.]
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[He instantly has so many more questions. He'd been so fixated on how to do the necromancy part of it that he'd given little enough thought as to how to move the knowledge between realms once he got it. A problem to be solved later, once the first insurmountable obstacle had been resolved.
It's also, honestly, a relief to hear someone speak of a deity or demigod as something real and tactile rather than the distant 'faith' of hoping in something that would never respond that so many people took as their religion. Huaisang feels adrift in this culture in so many ways, with the local Duplicity culture no more strange to him than the Modern Earth culture that so many of the LIERs come from, and it's a relief every time he comes across something in someone else's culture that he can understand and recognize.]
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She...can. Mostly. I pray to her each morning and my magic's yet to fail me beyond what the city's stripped of me, the fact I can access it means I still have some connection to her. The fact I can change out my spells as I need in my prayers means she hears me, but any attempts to Commune directly with her as I might back home have been answered with harsh static in my mind, like something's blocking me.
[He shakes his head.] Even if she can't fully hear me or see me, she's still with me and I've hope in that. That's why I haven't let myself fall to thinking there's no chance of leaving. Perhaps we're only dissolved when we go...but maybe we aren't. Maybe there's more science and magic at work here than we've a mind to comprehend.
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How fascinating. I... I hope that is true, after all. I would like very much to go home one day, and perhaps to take some of my lovers with me. It makes me sad to think of losing my memories of this place.
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I understand. Even if I couldn't take anyone with me for one reason or another, I'd not like to forget them as I did the times I've been forced away from here. Their impact on my soul might travel, but the memories would be sweeter.
I get the feeling there's something to my magic you were hoping would help in this, but I admit I've not yet thought of it or seen it for myself. What thought am I missing here to consider?
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