He looks up, startled for a moment and then resigned. He'd half thought that perhaps xiao Jedao might use the library's translating devices, but this makes a great deal more sense, he supposes. Both for convenience and for the point of the exercise.
"Of course." He seems to say that a lot to xiao Jedao. He suppresses the urge to sigh and, rather than picking the paper up, simply recites from memory.
"To the Most Despised, Cowardly, and Execrable Leader of the Rebellion Forces-"
There follows, in a steady, controlled voice, a point by point recitation of the many and varied reasons Shen Wei is still angry with the man to this day, both in his own behalf and those of his twin and his people. He does not, at the end, apologize for adhering to the letter if the exercise while perhaps flaunting its spirit, though he feels perhaps he should, he simply sits, hands on his knees, expression mild and awaits xiao Jedao's critique
"I want you to think back to the time this was happening. See his face in your mind. The pain and the fear and the horrible trapped knowledge that you couldn't say shit about it -"
Shen Wei's eyes fly open immediately at the instruction, and for a fraction of a second there's something very like panic in the widening of his eyes before his expression smooths into perfect blankness.
He's silent for a moment, and perfectly still, breathing even and heartrate steady, before he murmurs, "I would rather not, thank you," in a perfectly even and utterly inflectionless voice.
Jedao watches him very, very closely. He tilts his head, considering.
"I still think you should do it," he says softly. "Because the truth is, he can't hurt you anymore. You're not trapped. So think about it, and read your letter again."
"That, perhaps," he points out with the same level, inflectionless voice, "Is part of the problem. I did yell at him, I did order he not touch didi. I... did lose my temper and give voice to my anger." And he was hoisted into the air like so much refuse and thrown from the top of the plateau, surviving only because of the passing healing power he had already picked up by then.
"And I have relived that moment over and over and over." He stops for a moment to breathe calmly through the boil of emotion he doesn't wish to acknowledge. "In every possible variation. That I somehow manifested a combat power I didn't Learn until years later and bested him. That I did not lose consciousness when I fell and managed to follow him and steal didi away. Even that I managed to murder him in his sleep, and save all our peoples so much pain and loss.
"I would very much rather not insert myself into that memory again."
"The point isn't what you could or couldn't have done. The point is that you're not a child anymore. What happened then couldn't have gone happily, but it can't happen now. So. Are you going to do what I told you to do, or not?"
Or is he going to tell Jedao - who is hurting him, who knows he's playing with fire, pressing hard on an old broken bone - that it's wrong of him to demand it. He doesn't have to go back there - but he has to get angry at someone.
Shen Wei opens his eyes and stares at him, blank and steady. "Do you think I don't know I'm no longer that child? Do you think I have any doubt that my anger was, and is, completely justified?" he demands flatly. "And do you think I am so naive as to not see what you are doing, in attempting to draw my ire to yourself?"
"I think that, for you, justified isn't enough. It doesn't matter what's justified, it doesn't even matter what you think at all, if it feels so unsafe you can't bear to touch it."
He narrows his eyes, jaw tight.
"And I've been as unsubtle as I dared. I would hope you're getting it."
His own eyes narrow as well, and if he had the capability yet, it would take all his focus not to swathe himself in the robes and mask of his office, to draw the Envoy's cold, detached distance around himself along with his cloak.
"Do you wish to to know what I feel when I'm forced to revisit that memory?" he asks, his voice, if anything, even flatter than before. "It's certainly anger. Anger that the stupidity and impulsive bravado of a child destroyed so many lives in little more than a moment. I was foolish enough to challenge a grown man with blood on his hands, as if there were anything I could do against him, and I lost my brother to misery and torture, and cursed the world to yet another war between Dixing and Haixing that need never have happened." And that didn't just kill himself and his twin, and countless others, but left Zhao Yunlan trapped, burning in eternal agony, in the Lantern.
He has a great deal of anger for that foolish child.
There's a temptation to break. Is that enough? It's anger. It's even, in a very quiet, very careful way, snapping at Jedao for pushing him. Jedao's whole plan was push Shen Wei to - any expression of anger, and then not punish him for it.
There's also the terrible urge to keep pushing, keep driving him, until he's sure - until his plan works, which makes his gut churn cold. He knows where his plans tend to go.
He's terrified, has been for - minutes, now, knowing he was riding a terrible line, that if he pushes too hard he could hurt Shen Wei horribly, that if he backs down too soon the walls will only be more entrenched. And terror makes him want to be ruthless, to clamp down on his own fear and see it through.
"I'm so fucking frustrated with you right now," Jedao admits quietly, voice rough but not harsh any longer, eyes unblinking.
"But I believe you. And if you've really convinced yourself that a man like that destroys any less when everyone bows to him, you are being stupid." Differently, perhaps, but not less.
He doesn't snap it. Just - leaves it there, the bald fact of the nature of evil.
Shen Wei doesn't blink, doesn't move, doesn't actually even breathe for a very long moment, and then some nameless tension goes out of him.
"I have never labored under the delusion that there was any possible good, or painless outcome to that encounter," he answers, almost gently. "But there could have been a better one. You see, he wanted me, wanted my strength, not didi's weakness. But I antagonized him, and showed myself impervious to his power, and so he cast me away and took my twin instead. If I had held my tongue, been cautious, he might have taken both of us, and I could have stolen us away. I could... perhaps I could even have rid the world of his poison before ever he set our peoples so far at odds that there was no bridging the gap for millennia."
"Or he might have thrown Shen Jiye off the cliff, an unneeded extra, once he knew you could be terrorized into submission. Made you believe that was your fault, like you believe everything else is, that you couldn't take care of anyone by yourself, no conviction or judgement, only fit to serve. And you'd have spent that whole life thinking if you'd only been brave that one time - he wanted your strength, after all, so maybe that would give you a little leverage, maybe he'd have backed off or made a different offer - but he wouldn't have. Or maybe a million other horrors. Shen Wei, it doesn't matter."
He comes around to the other side of the table, drags a chair over with an awful short screech to sit closer to him, lean his head on Shen Wei's shoulder.
"I'm not saying...you aren't entitled to your regret. But you're so stuck on - litigating it over and over, against yourself. Proving that you could have won somehow when you know, when you knew even then that you couldn't. You shouldn't have had to rid the world of his poison, it shouldn't have been your fucking job. You shouldn't have had to be so impossibly perfect at the most terrifying moment of your life up to that point, that you fixed all of history. You shouldn't have had to deal with that choice at all. But you did and it can't be changed, and you were so damn brave and principled and those are good things about you, and without them you wouldn't have rid the world of him. If you'd been the kind of person to knuckle under, or scheme and connive and wait -"
Like Jedao himself, too late to save so many of his own victims -
"You'd have just done that, while he painted your hands with blood and found new hooks to put in you. You get to be angry. You even get to be angry at yourself. Maybe we need to start there. Maybe you need to admit how angry you are at yourself to even start forgiving yourself. But you were a damn good kid, Shen Wei. I'm so proud of you for being brave no matter how bad it went or what could have happened. I'm proud of you and I forgive you."
He's crying, and there's no sound of it, just his steady, earnest voice, but Shen Wei can smell the salt on the air.
He stays very very still as xiao Jedao speaks, as he paints a picture of all the other possible, possibly worse, atrocities that might have spooled from that one chance meeting. Possibilities he'd never considered, perhaps never let himself consider, in his pain and loss and guilt for the atrocity that had occurred.
Slowly, his perfect posture eases, and as xiao Jedao leans into him, he slumps forward to brace himself on the table in front of him. Lets his head drop as his breath comes, at first, with the painful steadiness of iron-fisted control, and then a little faster, a little more raggedly, with hitches and shudders. It's not quite tears, not yet, but it's so very close, as he imagines the horror of didi's broken body at the base of that cliff, his blood on his hands for eternity, of being broken and twisted into the right hand of a monster and a madman, a weapon wielded with impunity.
There is something beyond horrifying to think that one moment, over ten thousand years ago, of a frightened child facing down a monster, was almost certainly doomed to echo across the millennia. That for all his anger, shame, and regret, it's very possible that xiao Jedao is right, and there had been no choice he could have made to change that.
Xiao Jedao's presence is a comforting weight at his back, and his last words, his absolution... there's no reason that they should loosen even one fraction of the chains of guilt and shame around his heart when none of this is his to forgive. And yet-
"I do not know that... that I can forgive myself," he almost whispers. He lifts a hand and lays it over his face, and his shoulders shake though no actual tears come.
"Maybe some days you can't and some days you can," Jedao says softly after a few moments, twisting around a little to get his arms around Shen Wei's chest, giving him an awkward, earnest side-hug. "It's like that for me. But I think you deserve forgiveness. You care so much, and you try so hard. And you always did. History had no damn right to demand the impossible, too."
Maybe, he thinks, as he leans almost imperceptibly into the curve of xiao Jedao's arms. "And yet, you know as well as I that history, unfortunately, cares little for what it demands of us," is what he says, though.
He sighs quietly as his breathing slowly evens out, at least somewhat, then murmurs, "You are a good man, Cho Jedao, and I am very fortunate to have you as my warden.
"There is no fair or unfair, no deserving or not, there is only what happens," he answers quietly, the sorrow, for once, unmistakable in his voice. "But," he starts, then pauses to swallow past the tightness in his throat, before he resumes in a choked whisper, "It was unfair. And impossible. And didi and I both... we both deserved better." As had so many people in the desolation and misery that the meteor had made of their entire world.
Shen Wei feels vaguely like he should feel condescended to, but he doesn't really, and he huffs quietly and reaches up to pat the back of one of Jedao's hands. He does feel... awkward enough that maybe he should end the embrace, and yet he finds he doesn't actually want to. Not yet.
"As did you," he answers. Even though he doesn't know all the details of xiao Jedao's history, he very much knows that much. He and his progenitor both did. He waits another beat then adds, a little hesitantly, but with the kind of quiet that's born of something like peace rather than pain, "If you make that request of the Admiral now, there is a power I would like to share with you."
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"Of course." He seems to say that a lot to xiao Jedao. He suppresses the urge to sigh and, rather than picking the paper up, simply recites from memory.
"To the Most Despised, Cowardly, and Execrable Leader of the Rebellion Forces-"
There follows, in a steady, controlled voice, a point by point recitation of the many and varied reasons Shen Wei is still angry with the man to this day, both in his own behalf and those of his twin and his people. He does not, at the end, apologize for adhering to the letter if the exercise while perhaps flaunting its spirit, though he feels perhaps he should, he simply sits, hands on his knees, expression mild and awaits xiao Jedao's critique
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"You're welcome," he murmurs, and closes his eyes with perfect trust and no hesitation.
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He's silent for a moment, and perfectly still, breathing even and heartrate steady, before he murmurs, "I would rather not, thank you," in a perfectly even and utterly inflectionless voice.
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"I still think you should do it," he says softly. "Because the truth is, he can't hurt you anymore. You're not trapped. So think about it, and read your letter again."
He waits a beat.
"Or if you can't yell at him, yell at me."
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"And I have relived that moment over and over and over." He stops for a moment to breathe calmly through the boil of emotion he doesn't wish to acknowledge. "In every possible variation. That I somehow manifested a combat power I didn't Learn until years later and bested him. That I did not lose consciousness when I fell and managed to follow him and steal didi away. Even that I managed to murder him in his sleep, and save all our peoples so much pain and loss.
"I would very much rather not insert myself into that memory again."
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Or is he going to tell Jedao - who is hurting him, who knows he's playing with fire, pressing hard on an old broken bone - that it's wrong of him to demand it. He doesn't have to go back there - but he has to get angry at someone.
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If he has a command, it's that one.
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He narrows his eyes, jaw tight.
"And I've been as unsubtle as I dared. I would hope you're getting it."
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"Do you wish to to know what I feel when I'm forced to revisit that memory?" he asks, his voice, if anything, even flatter than before. "It's certainly anger. Anger that the stupidity and impulsive bravado of a child destroyed so many lives in little more than a moment. I was foolish enough to challenge a grown man with blood on his hands, as if there were anything I could do against him, and I lost my brother to misery and torture, and cursed the world to yet another war between Dixing and Haixing that need never have happened." And that didn't just kill himself and his twin, and countless others, but left Zhao Yunlan trapped, burning in eternal agony, in the Lantern.
He has a great deal of anger for that foolish child.
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There's also the terrible urge to keep pushing, keep driving him, until he's sure - until his plan works, which makes his gut churn cold. He knows where his plans tend to go.
He's terrified, has been for - minutes, now, knowing he was riding a terrible line, that if he pushes too hard he could hurt Shen Wei horribly, that if he backs down too soon the walls will only be more entrenched. And terror makes him want to be ruthless, to clamp down on his own fear and see it through.
"I'm so fucking frustrated with you right now," Jedao admits quietly, voice rough but not harsh any longer, eyes unblinking.
"But I believe you. And if you've really convinced yourself that a man like that destroys any less when everyone bows to him, you are being stupid." Differently, perhaps, but not less.
He doesn't snap it. Just - leaves it there, the bald fact of the nature of evil.
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"I have never labored under the delusion that there was any possible good, or painless outcome to that encounter," he answers, almost gently. "But there could have been a better one. You see, he wanted me, wanted my strength, not didi's weakness. But I antagonized him, and showed myself impervious to his power, and so he cast me away and took my twin instead. If I had held my tongue, been cautious, he might have taken both of us, and I could have stolen us away. I could... perhaps I could even have rid the world of his poison before ever he set our peoples so far at odds that there was no bridging the gap for millennia."
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He comes around to the other side of the table, drags a chair over with an awful short screech to sit closer to him, lean his head on Shen Wei's shoulder.
"I'm not saying...you aren't entitled to your regret. But you're so stuck on - litigating it over and over, against yourself. Proving that you could have won somehow when you know, when you knew even then that you couldn't. You shouldn't have had to rid the world of his poison, it shouldn't have been your fucking job. You shouldn't have had to be so impossibly perfect at the most terrifying moment of your life up to that point, that you fixed all of history. You shouldn't have had to deal with that choice at all. But you did and it can't be changed, and you were so damn brave and principled and those are good things about you, and without them you wouldn't have rid the world of him. If you'd been the kind of person to knuckle under, or scheme and connive and wait -"
Like Jedao himself, too late to save so many of his own victims -
"You'd have just done that, while he painted your hands with blood and found new hooks to put in you. You get to be angry. You even get to be angry at yourself. Maybe we need to start there. Maybe you need to admit how angry you are at yourself to even start forgiving yourself. But you were a damn good kid, Shen Wei. I'm so proud of you for being brave no matter how bad it went or what could have happened. I'm proud of you and I forgive you."
He's crying, and there's no sound of it, just his steady, earnest voice, but Shen Wei can smell the salt on the air.
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Slowly, his perfect posture eases, and as xiao Jedao leans into him, he slumps forward to brace himself on the table in front of him. Lets his head drop as his breath comes, at first, with the painful steadiness of iron-fisted control, and then a little faster, a little more raggedly, with hitches and shudders. It's not quite tears, not yet, but it's so very close, as he imagines the horror of didi's broken body at the base of that cliff, his blood on his hands for eternity, of being broken and twisted into the right hand of a monster and a madman, a weapon wielded with impunity.
There is something beyond horrifying to think that one moment, over ten thousand years ago, of a frightened child facing down a monster, was almost certainly doomed to echo across the millennia. That for all his anger, shame, and regret, it's very possible that xiao Jedao is right, and there had been no choice he could have made to change that.
Xiao Jedao's presence is a comforting weight at his back, and his last words, his absolution... there's no reason that they should loosen even one fraction of the chains of guilt and shame around his heart when none of this is his to forgive. And yet-
"I do not know that... that I can forgive myself," he almost whispers. He lifts a hand and lays it over his face, and his shoulders shake though no actual tears come.
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He sighs quietly as his breathing slowly evens out, at least somewhat, then murmurs, "You are a good man, Cho Jedao, and I am very fortunate to have you as my warden.
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Jedao gives him an extra tight squeeze.
"You are a very good man, Shen Wei. And I'm very grateful I have you as my uncle. Now, pick one of those two things I just said for you to say."
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"As did you," he answers. Even though he doesn't know all the details of xiao Jedao's history, he very much knows that much. He and his progenitor both did. He waits another beat then adds, a little hesitantly, but with the kind of quiet that's born of something like peace rather than pain, "If you make that request of the Admiral now, there is a power I would like to share with you."
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