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Letters from a Lacuna
Nov. 4th, 2026 09:58 pmHAKKAI
Hakkai-Shei, my dearest, my hope and my joy. I have known myself by the true name of my heart only because you have allowed me to love you. I love you so much that I fit more gently into my own skin. I forgive my body its horrors because you have touched it; I forgive my past his horrors because he survived to hold you.
You are unconquerable. You are magnificent. Twice, you have made yourself anew, and I See the third you in your shadow. You are haunted by your own future, gentle and glorious, and one day you will be free.
I am cruel: I command you to have hope. The barge is my favorite cousin, and she will not relinquish me easily. For a week, for a month, for a year, do not deny that I may return to you. If not, when you are free, come find me. Only say my name and touch my hand, and I will follow you out of the wilderness of forgetting like the tides follow the moon. It will be a joy and a gift, the chance to fall in love with you all over again.
There is no power nor transformation that could prevent that; you are carved on my invisible bones with a knife of thorns and starlight.
All my love and all my soul,
Your Jedao-Shei
EVA
Eva,The vast majority of temporary disappearances have a span of one month or less. If my absence exceeds this limit, you have the option of pursuing the following steps:
1) Ask the Admiral to direct you or your proxy to the universe of one Shuos Jedao/Jedao Garach and his husband Fives Garach. (Jedao Garach is his current chosen name, but he was known as Shuos Jedao for the majority of his time on the barge and is likely how the Admiral knows him best.) Jedao Garach knows how to navigate our original universe far better than I do, has friends with a variety of universe-hopping mechanisms, and is extremely motivated to retrieve me.
2) I will most likely be returned to my previous moment, as a political prisoner in the Citadel of Eyes. If Shuos Iago or Vauhan Istradez are there, they are trustworthy. Tell Iago you went swimming with me faster than he did; tell Istradez I told you that I loved my wedding outfit. They will recognize that you genuinely know me from the barge and will assist you. If they are not present, more tradecraft will be required. Rely on Shuos Jedao for this, or Madelyn, if she promises not to crash the citadel.
3) Once you have access to me, use the following passphrase: “I know that your unborn brothers were carried into the dark.” By this I will know that you know secrets you could only have heard from me, and I will believe you that you are a friend I have forgotten. I will come with you.
4) No spaceship is needed. I am an alien, and my species are interdimensional travelers. Please remove and burn at least this portion of my letter, as this is something of a secret. My people have been enslaved to live as starship engines for a millennium, and their best chance at freedom is to maintain that secrecy now. Find me, say the passphrase, and when we come out of that universe, tell me what you need, and I will do it.
Whether or not this plan proves necessary, I am so sorry for the worry and trouble you are feeling now. I adore you; I am grateful for every moment we have been friends. You are my favorite wolf.
Burn brightly.
Love, Jedao
EDWIN
Edwin,Being your father is a greater gift than I could ever have imagined. I love you more than life, more than hope, more than sense. Every day I watch you becoming a better person than I am, and every day I learn that I can feel even more proud than I thought possible the day before.
By that love, I beg you to indulge an old man’s fear. I could not bear it, if your presence in the universe of the Hexarchate allowed any atom of your cosmic substance to be tainted by the monstrous spiritual-astronomical machinery of the High Calendar. The Stars are Wrong here, Always Wrong, and will be wrong for many generations of healing yet. I beg you to let me protect you in this one last way: I beg you to listen to me, when I ask you not to come here. I beg you to let others search for me. I beg you to trust the possibilities of the future.
I know this is the more difficult, more painful thing to ask. I am sorry. I hope you will forgive me.
I adore you for always, I adore you forever. You are my sunshine.
Love,
Dad
JOHN
John,
You best of all know how many things words fail to express; the joy and love and peace and wonder and kinship you have brought me are in good company among them. I am no poet. But for you, this attempt:
I danced with you in darkness bright as spring;
My too-dry heart found shelter in your rain,
Unshriveled, learned to bleed and rage and sing
Under the urging of your ghostly hand. Explain
The ancient newborn knot of us, the vein
Of ichor-ore adjoining how we blend
Your gentle palace, each old brick insane,
And miniscule, my drop of flame. Transcend
The chains of scale and time with me, my night-soft friend.
I cannot explain it clearer. That is how I think of you. That is how my soul will remember you even if my mind forgets.
I beg you not to search for me. I know this is a horrible thing to ask. I can only trust you, your respect and your kindness, and hope you will listen, and forgive me for it. I do not want to risk anything of your world tangling and spawning new horrors with anything of mine. I do not want them even to notice the scent of each other’s perfume, lingering in the same room where it passed by.
Love,
Jedao
MADDIE
Maddie, my heart-sister, the first person who ever flew with me,
Please at least wait a month. The barge loves me and will be trying to get me back. Please at least make a plan. While I do not want to stay in the Citadel of Eyes, I also don’t want it to crash and/or burn. I actually fail my senior ethics students if they crash the station in the fake disaster scenario.
Hug Edwin for me, and help Eva if you can. If I’m not back in a month, then you can think about looking for me. Please be careful; I know you’re basically a god, but you’re also a force of physics, and the Calendar changes physics. Don’t get stranded in an invariant wash because you got cocky. Yes, I know I’m a hypocrite, but I’m still your hypocrite.
Also please ask the Admiral for my Engine key while I’m gone. I don’t want some other skullfucker picking it up and you’re the only one left who both is keyed into the wards AND understands them all. I trust you.
Love,
Jedao
ELEVEN
Eleven,
You are even more indomitable and glorious than you know. I love you and I believe in you.
You are also a thousand years old, so if you can’t wait a month before you do anything especially insane, I am going to laugh at you about it when I get back.
And if I don’t come back you will just have to graduate to come find me and gut me for being such a horrendous hawkfucking optimist.
May the best man/men win!
Yours,
Jedao
ARTHUR
LETTERVARKER
LETTERGOJYO
LETTERSHEEHAN
LETTERZERXUS
LETTERULLA
LETTERUser Name/Nick: Ilse/Isabelle
User DW: If applicable.
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact:
Other Characters Currently In-Game: na
Character Name: Jedao Two
Series: Machineries of Empire
Age: Chronologically, he’s 2 years old, but he is the imperfect soulclone of a ~400 year old ghost of a man who died at 45. Although infused with an inconsistent scatter of Jedao prime’s memories, he instinctively assumed himself to be 17 when he awoke in Revenant gun, and his maturity through the book reflects this fairly well. It’s been a few years since then, since I’m taking him from after the Gamer’s End short story dated nebulously later, so he’s mentally 19.
From When?: Post-series, and post-Gamer’s End, but pre-Glass Cannon. I’d also like him to retain hazy, vague, dreamlike memories of coming to the barge during a past face replacement event - for him, it will have been a few months since then.
( Warnings for so much creepy shit, gore, gaslighting, and extremely complex non-consent situations. )
User DW: If applicable.
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact:
Other Characters Currently In-Game: na
Character Name: Jedao Two
Series: Machineries of Empire
Age: Chronologically, he’s 2 years old, but he is the imperfect soulclone of a ~400 year old ghost of a man who died at 45. Although infused with an inconsistent scatter of Jedao prime’s memories, he instinctively assumed himself to be 17 when he awoke in Revenant gun, and his maturity through the book reflects this fairly well. It’s been a few years since then, since I’m taking him from after the Gamer’s End short story dated nebulously later, so he’s mentally 19.
From When?: Post-series, and post-Gamer’s End, but pre-Glass Cannon. I’d also like him to retain hazy, vague, dreamlike memories of coming to the barge during a past face replacement event - for him, it will have been a few months since then.
( Warnings for so much creepy shit, gore, gaslighting, and extremely complex non-consent situations. )
Knight of Doors
Sep. 4th, 2020 07:23 pmWho: Jedao, Edwin, Arthur, John Doe, Xie Lian, Hakkai, Gojyo, Sebastian, Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan, Shen Jiye, Maddie, Sheehan, Godric, Eric, Saga, Idia, Florian, Eiffel, and Taylor
Where: Enclosure
When: all evening on 9/4
Jedao is sick and tired of putting off good things for disasters. Everybody is talking to each other again and mostly in one piece. They've all had a week to recover, and Jedao is not waiting for the next thing to come along and derail his party planning.
Everyone who counts as somehow in the 'family' orbit for the recently named Cho Edwin Buck, née Yellow, has been invited to a party in the Enclosure, since Xie Lian's room turned out to be small for the crowd. Jedao has set it up as a proper Andan Garden party, on a springy tapestry lawn of clover, moss, lavender, chamomile, and phlox, with elegant archways grown from saplings dripping with flowers and fruit and crystal-clear aquarium tables full of brightly colored fish, the water open to the air in the very center, adorned with lotus blossoms.
Sebastian has been over every place setting, and Hakkai, John Doe, and Shen Wei have all contributed a wide variety of delicious vegetarian food, although Shen Wei may have made the most dishes, from the effusively-long longevity noodles to glutinous rice balls with sweet fillings like red bean paste and peanut and sesame, to symbolize family unity, red hard-boiled eggs infused with ginger for good luck, sweet red bean soup, symbolizing love and joy, and instead of a whole steamed fish for family togetherness, elaborately cut fruit in the shapes of foxes, giant golden carp, birds, and more.
At the beginning of the gathering, Jedao and Hakkai escort Edwin up to Xie Lian, who waits at the head of the table with an elegant, beautiful scroll.
"公公," Jedao announces, addressing Xie Lian as his father-in-law in Mandarin, carefully pronouncing the tones, "We are so proud to present to you our son, Cho Edwin Buck, to join our family."
Xie Lian, after a bit of gentle doting, takes an ink brush and carefully adds the name into his family scroll.
[OOC: everyone can talk and eat and relax! People might play music later! There are groves among all the beautiful garden plants with beautiful surprises: delicate fountains, iridescent statutes, stained glass sculptures, hidden alcoves, and more. Playful and jewel-bright hummingbirds can be found darting among the flowers - as well as one chubby silver dragon. Enjoy the pretty scenery, good food, and company!]
Where: Enclosure
When: all evening on 9/4
Jedao is sick and tired of putting off good things for disasters. Everybody is talking to each other again and mostly in one piece. They've all had a week to recover, and Jedao is not waiting for the next thing to come along and derail his party planning.
Everyone who counts as somehow in the 'family' orbit for the recently named Cho Edwin Buck, née Yellow, has been invited to a party in the Enclosure, since Xie Lian's room turned out to be small for the crowd. Jedao has set it up as a proper Andan Garden party, on a springy tapestry lawn of clover, moss, lavender, chamomile, and phlox, with elegant archways grown from saplings dripping with flowers and fruit and crystal-clear aquarium tables full of brightly colored fish, the water open to the air in the very center, adorned with lotus blossoms.
Sebastian has been over every place setting, and Hakkai, John Doe, and Shen Wei have all contributed a wide variety of delicious vegetarian food, although Shen Wei may have made the most dishes, from the effusively-long longevity noodles to glutinous rice balls with sweet fillings like red bean paste and peanut and sesame, to symbolize family unity, red hard-boiled eggs infused with ginger for good luck, sweet red bean soup, symbolizing love and joy, and instead of a whole steamed fish for family togetherness, elaborately cut fruit in the shapes of foxes, giant golden carp, birds, and more.
At the beginning of the gathering, Jedao and Hakkai escort Edwin up to Xie Lian, who waits at the head of the table with an elegant, beautiful scroll.
"公公," Jedao announces, addressing Xie Lian as his father-in-law in Mandarin, carefully pronouncing the tones, "We are so proud to present to you our son, Cho Edwin Buck, to join our family."
Xie Lian, after a bit of gentle doting, takes an ink brush and carefully adds the name into his family scroll.
[OOC: everyone can talk and eat and relax! People might play music later! There are groves among all the beautiful garden plants with beautiful surprises: delicate fountains, iridescent statutes, stained glass sculptures, hidden alcoves, and more. Playful and jewel-bright hummingbirds can be found darting among the flowers - as well as one chubby silver dragon. Enjoy the pretty scenery, good food, and company!]
