乙巳 005: 小暑

[singlemilletgrain]

[video broadcast]

[Is it time for another Yanese festival? Shu bows to the video feed with her usual greeting.]

Hello, Corsairs. We are in the midst of difficult times, once more. I am glad that our aims have succeeded thus far, but it seems as if the fighting will become more pitched shortly.

Perhaps some levity is in order. In Yanese culture... [here we go again] the middle of the seventh month of the Lunar Year is called the Hungry Ghost Festival. The correct word would be preta or 餓鬼. It isn't the best translation, but there is a folk belief that the spirits of the ancestors return during this time and need to be honored, then escorted back to the afterlife. Normally, this is a very solemn affair, but of course, as ancestral veneration is not a part of your cultures, we can focus on the merriment.

Please join me this evening. We will make paper lanterns and paper boats and escort them down the river to the beyond.

If that is not to your liking... [there is a faint twinkle in her eyes] Perhaps we may share some ghost stories.

[action, by a River Somewhere That Is Definitely a Real River in this setting]

[The days are long in the summer. When the first rays of the sun begin to glimmer golden red as it descends below the horizon, Shu appears with quite a large number of candles, folding paper, and calligraphy pens.]

We guide the souls of the ancestors back to the beyond. The flowing water is the barrier between life and death. The river escorts them. We honor them with a few words and we write our hopes for them upon these lanterns.

The ancestors, of course, do not have to be your actual ancestors.

[action, for Turtles]
[It is high time that they keep their appointment and hear embarrassing stories about Donnie when he was a wee turtlekin share a meal together. Having some experience now with Raph's bottomless pit of an appetite and his, ah... completely undiscerning palate, Shu has thought long and hard about how best to improve his experience with food. The feast she has prepared is slightly different: instead of being set out family style, she plans to bring out one dish at a time so as to guide the direction of the meal more closely.

Of course, he is equally as likely to just inhale everything as he is to learn anything, but one can only try one's best.

She leaves the door unlocked for them. They are welcome to come in and out whenever they please, even if she has never actually said this.]

Comments

[singlemilletgrain]

Regretfully, these are very much normal candles. The meaning is symbolic, and the warmth of the yellow light, perhaps, a little more soothing to the soul. The sun has just set, and the fragile dusk is broken by the occasional gleams of the flames. Shu, too, holds one in her hands.

"Of course, Link."

And she knows from the few stories he has told that there are many friends to guide down the river.

"Those who pass before us are the honored dead, family or friend."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link nods, shoulders dropping slightly in relief. That's good. He wouldn't feel right, if he couldn't acknowledge the souls of his friends.

He begins by writing out the Champions - first Mipha, then Daruk, then Urbosa, then Revali. Then his mother, and his father, and his little sister. But then he frowns, because...there's still so many people. There's his fellow knights in arms, the castle staff, the ordinary villagers of Castle Town...there's all the people whose names he can't even remember, but that he still has enough fragmented recovered memories to know that they existed.

But he already has seven candles. He can't get enough for everyone to have one...

[singlemilletgrain]

A hand lightly on his shoulder, as Shu understands his quandary.

(...More practically, she didn't bring that many candles.)

"The candle is the guiding light. Some set only a single candle for their ancestors to follow, for when we all place our lanterns into the river, it creates an illuminated path for the souls. It is enough to hold them in your heart. Or if you wish, you may write many names on the same lantern. Or - a boat for each soul."

She has plenty of folding paper.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link hums, thinking about it. A boat for each soul would be...a lot of boats. But he can do lots of names on one lantern.

He gives Shu a nod of thanks, before starting to write. The lantern soon ends up covered in every name that Link can remember. There's still plenty that he doesn't remember, though - or never knew in the first place. For those, he has to just write things like "Kitchen staff" or "Castle Town shopkeepers."

When he's finally done, he gathers up all his lanterns, and looks at Shu. What happens now? Is there something else he needs to do?

[singlemilletgrain]

Shu blinks a bit when she returns to check on his progress. There is enough ink that she has a minor concern the light may not shine through clearly enough. But she strikes a match, holds it gently to the candle, and shakes it out. The dusk has creeped over the land and their faces are illuminated now solely by the soft glow.

"Say whatever is in your heart. No need to do so out loud. But when you are ready, place the lantern in the river and have it join the procession."

A few others have already set their lanterns and boats out.

[newmemorywhodis]

Saying what was in Link's heart...wasn't something he was very good at. He was much better at doing, at finding ways to express himself through his actions.

So Shu will just see him look at his lanterns, silently. As he thinks about how much he misses those who are gone - and how much he wishes he remembered more of them. And then moves to carefully place each one into the river.

Afterwards though, he comes back to Shu. Looks at her. He's been thinking a lot about the people he's lost, but...she must have lost people too. Does she have a lantern?

[singlemilletgrain]

Shu appears to be praying, though her mouth moves silently and her eyes are only half-lidded. She intones an entreaty to Amitabha, ruler of immortality, each time a boat is placed into the water, and though she may have specific cause not to believe in the folk gods of Yan, it does not diminish the meaning behind the words.

She exchanges a puzzled glance with Link for a moment or two before she picks up on his meaning. One does a bit of mind-reading when one communicates with Link.

"...Myself?" Her smile is a bit distant. "I had not thought to make one yet - at least, not before all of you have had the opportunity."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link had nodded, after she says, 'Myself'. Yes, he wanted to know if she needed one to.

"...You want help?" He asks, after thinking a moment. He's sent his lanterns off already, after all. He's had his moment. But maybe now, he could help Shu?

[singlemilletgrain]

She smiles, still, but the expression flickers briefly. The distance hides distinct melancholy.

"...Thank you. If you offer, I will not refuse."

She sets down anything else she is carrying by the river's edge and picks up one of the folded lanterns. There is hesitation as she adjusts its shape, beholding it briefly.

"I am afraid..." She seems to have trouble finishing this sentence. "Well. Perhaps this is best, after all. ...May I tell you about someone?"

[newmemorywhodis]

There's no hesitation to Link's answer.

"Yes."

Link is, obviously, not the best talker. Communication really isn't his strong suit. But he is undoubtedly a very good listener. He's never too busy to stop and listen to someone who wants to talk to him, and he always give his full attention.

Whatever Shu wants to tell him, Link is here.

[singlemilletgrain]

"Thank you."

And a long pause.

"...Do you remember what I told you about me?"

And it is good that Link offered to listen, for he is the only one here she could possibly talk to about this. The truth of her existence is hard to describe and hard to understand. She does not think she could bear to explain all of those semantics on this night, of all nights.

[newmemorywhodis]

There's a long silence from Link. Not because he doesn't remember. But because he does.

"...You said I would forget you if you die."

Which may or may not be the part Shu is referring to. But tonight - during this ceremony remembering those who have been lost - it's what Link thinks off.

Especially since he knows there are people that should to be on his lantern, who he still didn't remember. The idea that one day he could forget Shu as well was...upsetting.

[singlemilletgrain]

"Yes."

She is glad that he has the intuition to know immediately of what she is speaking.

"I, Shu, am an illusion. But this fragment who named herself Shu... as she modeled herself after humanity, so, too did the others. And so the twelve of us... if I call us siblings, please forgive my terminology. But we are siblings in truth."

She holds the lantern steady and draws a Yanese character in beautiful calligraphy.

"My sister Jie was killed, you see. Several decades ago. And even we siblings, close as we are, cannot escape our own natures. And so..." The lantern trembles with the softest of palpitations. Shu's face is concentrated upon it - it is the face of one trying to remember...

[newmemorywhodis]

For a moment, there's a flash of a distress on his face. From Link - someone who is generally blank-faced even at the best of times, and whose feelings have to be divined from subtle micro-expressions, it's an unusual display of emotion.

"I'm sorry," he says. Even though it's not enough. Nothing he could say ever could be.

But he understands, all too well, just what a terrible fate it is to be unable to remember your own family.

"...I forgot my sister," he says.

[singlemilletgrain]

The face she turns towards him is not one of surprise, but of calm understanding. The atmosphere seems charged with a strange energy, underscored by the bobbing candles continuing to recede into the distance. Shu bends down and hands Link another lantern from her pile of odds and ends.

"Tell me about her. What you remember. And I shall tell you about Jie. In speaking, they will be closer to us. And perhaps... we will remember more."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link takes the lantern, and looks at it. It looks just like the one he already inscribed with his sisters name.

"Her name was Aryll. Zelda helped me remember." He hadn't realised he had a sister, not until Zelda told him. If not for her help, he might never have remembered. "She liked birds."

[singlemilletgrain]

She nods, encouraging him to go on.

"A lovely name. Do you remember if she was she older? Younger?" Link has a protective energy she would associate with older siblings, though his... gremlin hoarding ways are a little chaotic. "Did she look like you?"

[newmemorywhodis]

"Younger." So really, Shu was right on the money there. And then he pauses, bringing up what memories he did have of Aryll. Did she look like him?

"...Yes?" He says after a moment. "She had...hair like mine. With a headband. Big smile."

That last one maybe wasn't so much like him.

He glances sidelong at Shu. "Was Jie...younger?" Did terms like younger and older even apply to Shu and her siblings?

[singlemilletgrain]

"Jie was older."

She interprets his brief hesitation correctly with a faintly amused chuckle.

"...I am in the middle, actually." Her great secret. "But I am older than six, so I am still a big sister. Our ages are determined by when we first gained consciousness, you see. Jie was -- " She pauses. "She was..." Her expression becomes pained.

"I think... she was fourth."

But she does not remember. Shu sighs after a long moment. "...Every year, I remember a little less."

[newmemorywhodis]

"Could you...write it down?"

Link had found written records helpful. In fact he'd managed to learn quite a bit about himself just from shamelessly reading Zelda's 100 year old diary.

[singlemilletgrain]

She shakes her head slowly.

"She has ceased to exist across time. There never was a being named Jie, you see. Any written record has also changed to reflect this. And will change. All that remains is... her impact. You see, as I mastered agricultural techniques, Jie became a great scholar, a teacher of literary craft. Much of Yan is literate because of her endless devotion."

Her smile is proud.

"And so, even if one day, I, too, cannot remember -- at least, she lives on in that way."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link falls silent, and thinks about this. It's like a kind of puzzle; how to try and help Jie be remembered, even when she has...ceased to exist?

"...What about a story?" he says. If her impact still lives on... "Not history. Legends."

It wouldn't be the same, of course. But it was at least one small way for her memory to live on.