Room 618 at the Arms Hotel, Friday Early Evening

[firstofitskind]

His relationship with Verity might be intact, if a little fragile, but there was still some shit going on in his head that Liam needed to figure out. And there was really only one person on the island who had a chance in hell of helping with that.

So it was that he was knocking on Ghanima's door at the hotel, box of pastries from J,GoB in hand, to ask for her assistance.

[ooc: that he went to her for help is okay to mention, but details of their conversation NFB, please!]

Comments

[firstofitskind]

Liam put the ice pack down on the table for a moment so he could press his thumb into the palm of his other hand, rubbing it back and forth gently.

"Worked well enough for them for about eight million years," he said with a wan smile. "At least," he shrugged, "until they realized they were dying off."

[atreideslioness]

"Suppressing your survival instincts will do that," Ghanima said dryly. "Shocking."

"How tempting it is to raise high walls and keep out change. To rot in your own self-satisfied comfort. There is a great difference between spannungsbogen and doing nothing at all, though it is easy to fool yourself that you are doing one, and not the other."

She raised an eyebrow at Liam. "If I catch you doing that, I will help Beau thump you senseless, to see if that shakes some sense back into you."

[firstofitskind]

Another shrug. "It's hard, sometimes," he admitted. "Knowing when I'm allowed to be angry and when I shouldn't be. For example."

Yes, he was more or less equating showing an emotion and feeling an emotion.

[atreideslioness]

"There are differences between showing an emotion, acting on an emotion, and feeling an emotion," Ghanima said kindly. "The three do not always walk hand-in-hand."

"It is..." she screwed up her nose in concentration, trying to find the right words in English, for Fremen concepts. "Have you ever used a bow? The act of firing a bow is the steps of choosing to act on your emotions."

"The bow is always a bow. It is always your feelings. They do not go away unless you destroy the bow, which is silly, because nothing is ever completely destroyed, only transformed. Nocking an arrow, that can be seen as showing your feelings. It can be done discreetly, so only you see it, around just a few, or publicly, so even the target sees it happen. The action to pull the bow taut and release the arrow? That is action on your feelings."

"Spannungsbogen is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing -- or the feeling -- and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing. It is the span of the bow, how far back you draw it before releasing your arrow. Will your arrow strike true? Will it strike deep or shallow? It is your discipline, your choices, which decide if you will achieve your aim with this emotion, or if you shall miss the mark. Or if you even fire at all."

[firstofitskind]

“I guess that... makes sense,” Liam said slowly, trying to piece that all together. No one had ever explained it to him quite that way before. Or at all, really. The closest he’d ever had to a mentor had been Da’an, who always had plenty to say about the dangers of giving in to the urges of emotion, but very little about what to actually do about them.

[atreideslioness]

There had been a hundred tiny microexpressions, a thousand small catches to his voice, and it was starting to add up to something that the Truthsayer in Ghanima most assuredly Did Not Like.

Though she might get to kill someone depending on his answer, which would make her feel better.

"Liam, if this is too bold a question, forgive me. But which species had the raising of you?"

[firstofitskind]

“Uh,” Liam frowned, trying to parse that question. “I was born in DC, if that’s what you mean?”

[atreideslioness]

"Not quite, dear one," she replied. "Preborn like us don't usually need formal schooling, but they often foist it on us anyway. Who taught you about your shaqarava? Who taught Liam the history of the Humans and Kimera and Taelons, aside from the memories within you?"

[firstofitskind]

“Oh,” Liam said quietly. He was silent for a few moments more, and then: “Nobody, really.” There had been Da’an, and Lili, and Augur, who’d all tried to answer questions in those first few months, but had never actively taught anything... “I was,” he stopped, took a deep breath, and then started again. “I grew into the body you’re looking at in a matter of minutes.”

[atreideslioness]

Ghanima just sort of...blinked at him.

"Now why didn't we try that?" she asked aloud rhetorically. "Leto and I can control our bodies on a cellular level, at least enough to heal or cease aging, and yet for all the experience I have to draw upon, it never occurred to me to try and speed it up. It would have made dealing with things like tall counters and getting people to take me seriously so much easier. No one takes you seriously when you have a lisp from losing your baby teeth."

[firstofitskind]

“I wouldn’t know,” Liam said, with a rueful little grin. “I was created for a purpose, and I wouldn’t have been able to fulfill that purpose if I was a child.”

[atreideslioness]

"We are generally all created for a purpose. The reason behind Leto and I is... unpleasant. But this was done to you? Without your consent?" Ghanima looked genuinely angry, though not at him. "You are a person, not a piece of pottery, Liam."

[firstofitskind]

“Not,” he frowned. “Not in the way that you’re thinking. But I was given- instructions? I guess. As to what I was meant to do. And being a child was never part of that.” He looked over at her, curious. “So what’s the reason behind you and your brother, then?”

[atreideslioness]

"Preventing the stagnation of humanity, and thus their destruction," she said dryly. "A universe of infinite surprises, that is what we work towards."

"Precognition runs in our family, as does the habit of being messiahs. We know the only path that will prevent the utter extinction of all human life. Leto has begun to make his sacrifices. I continue to delay the rest of mine, as being a broodmare is not conducive to continuing to teach." Ghanima made a face. "At least my never-husband has calmed down and become much more tolerable over the last few years."

[firstofitskind]

Liam supposed he ought to have been... more surprised than he was, by this particular revelation. Although he did make one hell of a face, one that practically mirrored Ghanima’s own, at the word ‘broodmare’.

“Hopefully you two are more successful than I was,” he said drily.

[atreideslioness]

"It is a fragile golden path, but if anyone can navigate it towards a successful end, it's Leto," Ghanima said, her unshakable trust in her twin evident. "My father could have managed it, but in the end he was a coward and could not do what needed to be done."

Paul Atreides had had enough of blood and walked away; leaving his sister and children to drown in it.

"You must have been at least partially successful in your attempt, otherwise you would not be here."

[firstofitskind]

"The Taelons had an ancient enemy, a species called the Jaridians. Pretty much their polar opposites: Taelons were cold and analytical, and the Jaridians were passionate. So much so that they too were dying, literally burning from the inside out, most of them before they'd had a chance to reproduce.

They'd been the same species once, until the shaqarava caused a rift between them. Millions of years of divergent evolution and warfare meant a Joining alone wouldn't solve the problem. Humanity was the missing piece, the link that would allow their two species to become one again, and I... my energy was the catalyst that would make it all possible."

[atreideslioness]

"Maybe I need to sit them down and give them the bow speech," she teased. "Feelings are meant to be felt, but actions should be decided upon."

[firstofitskind]

"You'd have to go back a few years," Liam said, shaking his head. "The healing chamber we found should have worked, but by the time we managed to convince what was left of both species that we had a solution, it was too late. I gave myself over to it, let it consume me... for nothing. They died anyway."

And at peace with his destiny or not, being burned alive in a suddenly-active volcano had not been a good time.

[atreideslioness]

"'Consume' you?" Liam, you are not improving her opinion of your world.

"...I think...you may also wish to speak with my brother, next time he is in town. He has undergone a rather drastic transformation as well recently, and if you can withstand his initial brattiness--" said with the fondness of a twin sister, truly, "--I think the two of you would have a lot in common."

[firstofitskind]

Liam’s world was kind of a mess, it was true.

“I left behind my physical form,” he explained, “and joined a sort of universal consciousness.” It was a very fancy way of saying he’d died, yes. “Human physicists would call it the infinite order, but the Kimera called it Shahariah. I remained there until the collective will of the universe set me free.”

So... a few things in common with Leto, probably, yeah.

[atreideslioness]

"If I thought conquering your universe would have any hope of improving it, I'd do it," she sighed. "You and the Jedi."

That was a joke. Mostly. Kinda. (not)

[firstofitskind]

“The Jedi?” Liam frowned, confused. He remembered what she’d said of them the first time they’d spoken, but wasn’t entirely sure of the connection.

[atreideslioness]

"They also subscribe to an 'emotions and attachments are bad' philosophy, and have a rival sect that feels emotions are power," she sighed. "It's caused me to have some... traumatized. Students. Over the years."

[firstofitskind]

“Well, if nothing else, I know that neither side was ‘right’,” Liam pointed out. That they were both dead was kind of a big clue.

But knowing that on an intellectual level was different than actually being able to apply that lesson.