New Years Tradition

[grantuseyes]

Micolash is back in the Nexus again after a long period away, though that part's understandable, given the state he was in that time. He's no longer in a wheelchair nor hooked up to an IV, but his eyes are still bandaged tight behind his cage. He at least looks a little healthier in general and curiously well-dressed today. Clean pinstripe trousers, polished (but still untied) shoes, a fitted waistcoat, a new light blue ribbon tied at his throat, a clean white button-up with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

He has two things of note with him: a table with a lot of writing supplies and a cat. The cat is a handsome, plush creature, mostly white with patches of tabby orange. One such patch on its forehead looks a lot like an eye. Another on its back looks a lot like a skull. Markings are funny like that, huh? Said cat is always close to where Micolash is seated, curling around his ankles, napping under his chair, hopping up onto the table to lazily peruse. Sometimes it even perches on the top of Micolash's cage for an even BETTER vantage.

The table, meanwhile, looks to be loaded up with pencils, strips of paper and gilded envelopes. On the far end, opposite of where the scholar is seated, is a wax sealing kit as well.

"Ahem. Soooo," Micolash starts in that nasal drone of his. "This past weekend marked the celebration of a new year back in Yharnam. And while I am very much not there at this time? I thought it would be. Interesting to still observe at least one tradition we have. Namely, writing down a wish. Or wishes! You have for the coming year and seal them away, only to be read at the start of the next year. To see what did and did not come true. To see how much you've changed from one New Year celebration to the next."

He pauses, almost looking to be lost in thought for a time, staring sightlessly somewhere into the middle distance. Eventually, he adds, "...Do you have any taboos for these sorts of celebrations? Where you are from? Things that you avoid to not have the new year sullied? Or set into an...unfortunate pattern?"

Comments

[grantuseyes]

Micolash looks briefly, slightly, troubled at the line of reasoning this other man is presenting. All this talk of inward peering and introspection? Facing failures as they're intrinsically a part of you? My, my, that won't do. But as the end arrives, he feels better. Oh, this message is one he can understand and endorse! The scholar smiles and opens his arms.

"I am always at peace with myself and my actions and decisions! I feel no qualms towards things I have done or...the few. Fleeting. Mistakes I've made." That's a dirty word when it isn't immediately followed by stating what was learned from said mistake instead. He clears his throat before continuing. "There is nothing I feel sorry for. Nothing I've done that was not justified by learning."

[shardofwinter]

Reynard stares at the odd man for a full minute, his eyes going narrow, peering at him as though that gives him glimpse into something hidden. Then his lips twist into a wry smile.

"What a shame. That sounds so very dull. If you never feel any remorse, you never feel any regret or shame... then you haven't pushed yourself very far at all, have you? You've kept within the realm of comfort and familiarity. After all, those feelings are a marker. What a shame it would be if you'd never had such a marker. Or worse, you couldn't even see it."

[grantuseyes]

"A marker or a loose cobblestone? What good is feeling regret or shame? Good heavens, when have either of those helped anyone? A waste of valuable time and energy when one can be applying themselves! To feel condemned is pointless; far better to press onward and vow to learn from the issue, shouldn't you think? To faff about feeling sorry for yourself or ashamed of your actions is of no use to anyone."

Micolash, to his credit, remains affable as he goes on. This is more of a spirited (pun not intended, he doesn't know Rey's nature) debate on philosophy! Which is something the man has SCADS of experience doing. He's a college professor, of course. What else are you doing if not researching or debating findings or beliefs?

[shardofwinter]

"If there is no shame or regret, no consequence for failure then how are you to know it's failure at all? And if you can't know your own failures then how can you learn from them?" He waves a hand dismissively. "It is up to people how they react to regret or shame. Some might wallow, but others may be spurred on from it. Few men made great discoveries from being coddled or naïve."

[grantuseyes]

"Failure is consequence enough, isn't it? What you'd hoped to achieve or discover is no closer for it. Save an...eliminated variable. Lost time as well. If there is something I loathe, it is lost time on a project..." He trails off briefly, as if caught on his own thoughts and taken for a brief mental jaunt along with them, forgetting his conversation.

Micolash comes back to himself in a few seconds, however, breaking into a smile and a tired laugh. "When one studies the infinite so closely and attentively, one begins to see clearer how very. Very finite a single human is. So much to discover, to ascertain, to achieve. And only less than a solitary blink of an eye to do it in, cosmically speaking."

[shardofwinter]

The silences don't bother Reynard much. Being patient in Winter is an easy task. It's figuring out when people are finished talking that's the difficulty. "Humans are dangerous enough with the consequences and limited time they already have. To give them more time and less punishment would be ruinous."

But Micolash is right, humans are so very finite. They have to make the most of their time, so does he need to get what he needs sooner rather than later. "You're the one who knows about the thing that gave Adia her 'rune', aren't you?"

[grantuseyes]

He looks (well, gazes in the general direction) at Reynard with brief blankness before the expression becomes one of sudden recognition. "Adia! Yes, of course. I remember now. A carrier of the word 'M O O N'," something feels strange when Micolash says it as well. Like a chill, a wrinkle in reality, a human speaking in the voiceless tongue of something vast as he says the same in his more mundane language at the same time. "As spoken by the Great Ones. Who are hardly things," he continues with a downward quirk of his mouth's corners. "Please speak of Them with due respect, if you would."

[shardofwinter]

Perhaps it's just as well Micolash can't see. He won't notice Reynard's upper lip twitch upwards in a slight baring of teeth. The word skims over senses that no mortal has a right to disturb.

This place belongs to Winter.

No other being has the right to caress the veil of reality. Not with a peering eye. Not with an utterance.

It's difficult for Reynard to temper his reflexive bristling, but when he does speak he manages to keep his voice even and cool. "It is hard to know how much respect to give something I have never heard of before." Eager not to get an etiquette lesson, he hurries on to ask, "If they gave Adia this... rune... Does that mean they're watching the Nexus? That they're here?"

[grantuseyes]

"I wish that dearly to be the case, though no prayer to them has been answered. And...The Brain of Mensis is in no shape to be granting such. The one Adia contacted. Though the method seems roundabout?" Micolash crooks a finger to pluck at one of his iron bars next to the right side of his head.

"A Nightmare constructed by myself, a brief corridor that reaches back to the Frontier. A...signal may have fired, my mind and eyes alerting the Brain to my whereabouts and drew it towards us. Or it could have all been...a figment. A fragment. A residual presence from my mind after...communing with the Brain as...extensively as I have." That word seemed to have been selected mindfully: 'extensively'. The situational context of this communion was an unfortunate one.

"Does it concern you? To think the Great Ones are among us? It is a cause for rejoicing if They were, I assure you."

[shardofwinter]

An answer that's no answer at all. It could be that a 'Great One' was drawn to them, perhaps fleetingly. Or that this was residual power with no ominous other entity behind it.

"The things that humans rejoice over are usually cause for concern," he points out, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "Silence might not mean they're absent, but their gifts appearing might not mean they're here? I thought you were the one who knew about these things. You can't tell if they're here or not?"

[grantuseyes]

The shrug given in return probably isn't encouraging. "If They care to not make Their company known, then They care not to. They are observers; They are the vast presence beneath mirrored lakes and behind distant stars. They are dream builders, sea shapers. Though Formless Oedon is the most furtive of all, the others may...take measures to hide Themselves. In various ways."

Micolash sighs through his nose, then continues. "I am afraid that is your answer. I have not...felt nor seen evidence of Their arrival or Their care. The nature of the Dream we now stand in must mean one is present, but I know not whom. Nor Their Host, for that matter. It has been a fruitless search thus far. But who else could have made this all?"

Nothing supersedes the might of these Great Ones in the fractured mind of this particular madman. Enough that Micolash still insists the nature of the Nexus itself adheres to the logic he's always known. Adjustment periods to this place need not happen if one rejects its premise entirely for one you insist you've already figured out.

Micolash also seems to suddenly recall something, jolting as if startled, then raising a finger and adding, "Oh! But if...the how of Adia's blessing is the concern? Though it is not the case for the girl, humans have developed tools to transcribe these runes. To pass them amongst ourselves, the ones we have learned, the ones Caryll of Bergynwerth learned to write. A prodigy of Their language. Though I have not seen a toolkit for this process. All the same, it is. Not always necessary for a Great One to inject one into the mass of the human brain. We may do it ourselves in this...dawning epoch."

[shardofwinter]

Even less encouraging than the shrug is the description Micolash offers. It's like investigating the questionable characters a friend is getting involved with and hearing your worst suspicions confirmed. In all his time as a spirit he's skirted involvement with beings he suspects are like this. Entities so deeply Other that mortals could easily tear themselves apart trying to understand them. Reynard never avoided them for fear of going insane. He avoided them because nothing good comes from Ancient things like Winter clashing, and because he is nowhere near so powerful. Interfering would be gross misconduct for the part he plays.

Micolash offers him another answer, a more pleasing answer, but as much as Reynard would like to seize onto it wholeheartedly Winter is too sceptical and suspicious for such hopefulness. "Humans 'may' do it? Can you tell if it was given to her by a human? Can you tell the difference?"