Heaven's BBS | Video

[tadanokusuriuri]

From: The Medicine Seller
Posted: June 19th

[The camera shows a view of what appears to be one of the old, abandoned shrines that litter certain areas of the Far Shore. The post comes in the evening, as shown by the golden, slanting quality of the light filtering in through the trees.]

[The Medicine Seller is sitting on the roots of an old tree near an abandoned torii gate, with his legs politely crossed and his hands folded in his lap. His expression betrays nothing at all -- there's no hint of his usual small, secretive smile, but there's no fear, either, or sadness, or anger. There's just... nothing.]

I am afraid it would seem... that Hyacinthus, known to some as "Donut", no longer walks among us.

[One slim hand rises to brush against his sternum through the layers of clothes that he wears, against the spot where his name was before.]

And I am without a name.

[Which does put him in a position he hasn't been in before, until this point:]

[He has a choice, perhaps.]

I wish, if possible, to serve a god who hunts often for Ayakashi. If any such god should wish to name me before the Heavens choose on my behalf... the matter can be discussed.

[He bows politely to the camera, before the feed cuts out.]

Comments

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[rev13_3]

Who killed your god?

[tadanokusuriuri]

I am... unsure that he was "killed."

But he's no longer here.

[rev13_3]

Driven away, then? Gods can be chased off?

[tadanokusuriuri]

That also seems unlikely.

My god was flighty and childish, and difficult to predict. He could be tearful and irrational. But he was not a coward, or easily moved once his mind was set on anything.

[rev13_3]

Have you considered that he may have simply abandoned you?

[tadanokusuriuri]

It's unlikely.

He had no other shinki to rely on. And... his temple is gone.

[The thought actually does bother him a little, though, if only because he and Donut had so much trouble understanding each other sometimes.]

[rev13_3]

You think you were so important that your GOD couldn't function without you?

[tadanokusuriuri]

You didn't know him, I take it.

[Seriously, Donut's a little helpless.]

Regardless, I expect that if he were to choose to revoke my name, he would have at least informed me of his decision.

[rev13_3]

What have you done to earn that kind of consideration? You mourn him by calling him flighty and childish, and instead of searching for him you're whoring yourself out to another fake god. To ANY fake god.

You deserve your abandonment.

[tadanokusuriuri]

Ah. It's your intention to be insulting, then.

[Too bad he actually doesn't feel all that affronted?]

If you wish to waste your own time searching for something that isn't here, I beg you not to feel any concern that I would stop you. But nothing will come of that, and without a god's help, destroying ayakashi would be... troublesome. I don't intend to put myself willingly at that disadvantage for honor's sake when my former god has either disappeared from this place or revoked my name willingly.

[rev13_3]

Faithless trash.

[tadanokusuriuri]

Does it frighten you?

To know there may be nothing you can do, if your god vanishes.

[rev13_3]

You should not say such things about her glory. She is perfection, unending. Do not compare her to your cowardly master.

[tadanokusuriuri]

[Ah, so that's it.]

It troubles you, too, then, to think that one's master may be imperfect, as my lord was.

But you are mistaken about him. He was imperfect, and he was courageous, and he was good.

In all of that, he sufficed.

[rev13_3]

A god cannot be imperfect. The thing you worshiped was false and has been destroyed, and now you are alone, and desperate.

That's what happens when you kneel before false gods.

[tadanokusuriuri]

And you know your god to be true and perfect... because she is yours.

Is that right?

[rev13_3]

I know my god to be true and perfect because she is true and perfect, radiant of all good things, and it's my honor and privilege to be permitted to kneel at her feet.

[tadanokusuriuri]

I see.

So you imagine others to be as pitiful, bereft of your god. What you have feels less fragile, when you believe others to be "faithless" or "desperate" or "false."

[rev13_3]

I imagine you to be pitiable because you are here, begging faceless strangers to take you in after your pathetic excuse for a god abandoned you. You do not search for him, you do not mourn his absence, you do not even speak of him as a man should speak of his redeemer.

You ARE faithless and desperate, and your god false and undeserving of the title.

[tadanokusuriuri]

And you, in your blindness of faith, are quite right to revel in your superiority.

I understand completely.

[rev13_3]

You understand nothing. Without a true god to guide you, you never will.

[tadanokusuriuri]

Oh?

Should I offer myself to yours, then, I wonder?