deuceoftears | TLV IC Inbox

Shen Wei settles at the table across from him with a dip of his chin and a murmur of thanks. He lifts the tea cup in his right hand before passing it to his left, inhales almost delicately, and then takes a small sip before setting the cup back down with an almost ritualistic air. Something about it clearly settles him, he looks more like himself when he looks up again, less like he's playing a role, though the change is almost indefinable.

"I wished to speak to you about-" He pauses, considering his phrasing- "About what course of action I should embark upon in order to facilitate my graduation." He's silent for a moment, lips pressed together in a way that makes it clear he's not done speaking, or at least possibly not done speaking, since he's debating if he should make the request he wants to. In the end, he finally adds, "I would also like to request the return of my full powers."

Jedao smiles over his tea.

"I'm saying yes, but I'd love to hear you tell me about why."

He'd been prepared to argue his case, to sweat on whatever xiao Jedao wished that he cod be trusted with they. In the face of Jedao's preemptive agreement he's left momentarily speechless. And when he does answer, the only word that come are low and rough, and ones he'd never meant to utter. "I an so tired of being only a small fraction of myself."

"You deserve to be your full self," Jedao agrees, with a warm smile. "I'll ask right now. What else?"

He breathes through the sharp spike of relief and gratitude, and blinks rapidly against an embarrassing rush of warmth behind his eyes.

"Thank you," he almost whispers, and takes another careful, ritualistic sip of tea while he recovers himself.

"I think that I need to work on being a... on being a person." Which is beyond vague, but it's the best he can manage right now when he thinks of changing himself. A person, not an office or an icon. "I think that is what you were trying to urge me towards, with your holiday gift," he adds in acknowledgment of the long ago list of challenges. "I will make a good faith effort at accomplishing the assignments going forward, but... I wound be grateful for any other suggestions you might offer."

"While you were asleep I started making you pins."

He passes over a little pin that says Ask me if I want a hug, and another that says I want to make friends I'm just shy. But he also sits back, looking at Shen Wei steadily.

"But also...we talked a little about anger, before you went into stasis. I know you have a lot of reasons not to - indulge anger. I don't like to indulge my anger either. But anger is part of being a person."

He looks down at the buttons and he can't quite keep the brief flicker of horror at actually wearing them if his face. But then he reaches out and takes them: he promised himself he would do whatever xiao Jedao suggested.

It's easier, though not easy, to address xiao Jedao's next observation. "I... I do not know how to be angry," he admits. "Not just angry. Not for myself." The cold anger of the Envoy, or the deep disappointment of Professor Shen are almost completely divorced from anything he considers himself.

"I did make them before you asked me for your abilities back," Jedao points out, smiling just a tiny bit. "If you can ask for things you'd like without them, so much the better."

He rubs his thumb on the edge of his saucer.

"Tell me more about that."

"There was never... time, and it was never safe. To be angry for myself. What would it accomplish?"

His eyes unfocus as he looks at Jedao without really seeing him, thinking back to the chaos and calamity of his childhood and youth. Of a barren cliff, two small boys and a man with blood on his hands. "The one time I gave in to anger... I lost everything." And it's been no better since. Given rein, it seems, his anger consumes him, and only burns those around him. Sometimes to ash.

Jedao nods. He understands, in his own way, the terrible consequences of rashness. He doesn't let himself act in anger, almost ever. And there are times he simply cannot afford to feel it. But he does feel it, does find - some ways, some times, where he can allow it, even if they're not what John would wish for him.

"What does it feel like, when...there's something you could have been angry about? If it can't be anger, what happens instead, for you? Inside. You can pick just one time to start with, if that's easier."

Shen Wei thinks of the cold stillness he feels every time he has to interact with the Regent. Not the low, steady thrum of righteous anger at the knowledge the man works only for his own interest rather than for the good of his people, or the almost tooth-grinding frustration that he can see no way to remove him without making matters worse, but the almost arctic chill at his core that's been there since he first awoke and the same man, younger then, but no less self-serving and conniving, had manipulated him into becoming, once again, both a figurehead and a bogeyman.

Of the tight ache, buried so deep he rarely has to acknowledge it, of facing Zhao Xinci's thinly veiled scorn, his insults so carefully couched in 'diplomatic' language. And oh, Heipaoshi could, and did, make his displeasure with his actions clear, but always equally diplomatically. Always on behalf of his people, with the power of his office behind him. The personal insults were swallowed down and buried away.

He does not think of his brief, erratic flash of anger and hurt at Zhao Yunlan, or the fear that had accompanied it.

"I... put it away," he answers, his voice achingly steady and tight. "Where it can do no harm."

Jedao nods.

"That makes sense," he agrees. He does something not dissimilar. "But what does it feel like?"

"Cold," he answers quietly. "Cold and tight and... still." Frozen.

"For me, sometimes, it feels like - glass."

A separation; a rigidity.

"And what happens, after you put it away?"

"Happens?" He just sounds perplexed. "Nothing happens, it's... put away. I don't think about it."

Jedao considers how to put what he means.

"The things you were angry about. Do they change? Do you do things about them, but calmly? Do you not? Do they change because of other forces? How so? It's probably different for different situations. You can speak on whatever examples come to mind."

"They just... are." He considers for a moment, then adds, "I could often ignore or sidestep the Regent's scheming and manipulations, or stand between my people and Zhao Xinci's bigotry and hatred. But I could not change them." Could not change the position they'd put him in, or the ways in which they'd impacted his life

"And...no one ever knew what you endured, or understood, or comforted you," Jedao adds, softly. "Is that right?"

He lifts his chin slightly. "No." At least he'd sped himself from answering of course not, or why would there have been? Though he does still add, "It was not necessary."

"It is necessary, if you're a person. You would never say that was acceptable about another person," Jedao points out.

The expression that flickers briefly across his face is complicated, sorrow and resignation, and possibly a shadow of wistfulness, all there and gone again in a heartbeat. "But I was never a person, zhizi," he murmurs. "Not to anyone, not even to myself. And so I... endured."

He dips his chin, gaze fixed on his teacup. "Until Kunlun, and after him."

"So you don't have any practice. But I hear you're a quick learner," Jedao points out, with soft warmth.

"But you don't let yourself be angry, even with him." It's not an accusation, just a quiet, inexorable observation.

His shoulders twitch slightly. "What purpose does anger serve?"

"It can have a few different purposes. But does everything about you need to serve a purpose?" Jedao counters, softly.

That look of faint resignation and sortie settles over his features again, and this time it lingers.

"It always has," he points out softly. "I... am trying. But, after so long, I do not know any other way to be. And-" He swallow before continuing- "I do not like the feeling of anger. I do not like the... the person it makes me." He's seen first hand how it consumed his didi warping him beyond all recognition, and he very much fears that for himself.

Re: Early morning after he awakens from his latest coma

Re: Early morning after he awakens from his latest coma

Re: Early morning after he awakens from his latest coma

Re: Early morning after he awakens from his latest coma

Re: Early morning after he awakens from his latest coma

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