libraryofwinds: Feelings

[alainn_aislinn]

In the time before humanity followed us to Eire's island, the time before the tales are told and the time before they named us, the time before we met tellers of tales and artists and had our calling become clear; in the time before they named us Leanan Sidhe, the fairy mistress or fairy sweetheart; in the time before all this, the children of Dana had another name for us. In that time, there were children born, children who dabbled in the secrets of the universe as all children do, working to shift their universe to be as they wished it, but who could only master the most basics of the skill. They were pitied, these children, for generations, shifting to marry only their own, love those like them, bear more children who could only manage the basics of magic, things even humans could later manage should they study enough.

Then the pity faded. The children were named.

In the time before the humans named us, took us as their muses, we were called Truth Shapers. Deeper, darker than the telepathy all the children of Dana shared, we saw the things unsaid, unthought, the fluid field that flowed beneath thought, that influenced it, that reacted to it, that indicated if the thought was truth, or a lie even to the self. We saw the feelings.

The pity shifted to fear in some, for our power was not just to sense the feelings. We could share them, brush against them, speak truth to truth, and ultimately change the truths. We became the priests and priestesses, the conduits of Dana's will, the readers of the soul. They saw us as a link to gods that had abandoned them, parents, grandparents, siblings fled into the West. They thought we could see their echoes, and so did we. We saw them in their souls, and in our own, but at some point, the feelings of the gods left, edged out, banked in ice waiting to be melted into something new, but the heat of their creating fire was gone.

When the humans came, they brought it back, pulled us to their fire, the power of creation, the heat of the gods above, those that fled from this world, fled from us even. We felt them again, the loss of what we were, the loss of who we were--we found that in them, in the tellers of tales. We spoke to their souls, and they listened, and new worlds were created to remember the old and move them where they should have gone but for war and death and loss and pain. There was pain in the creation, birth pains and heartache, but the creation stood. Stands.

Emotion has power to shape everything. It hurts. It is frightening. It is always a risk, because creation is a risk. Feeling is a risk, but without it, nothing beautiful could ever be born.

I think it is worth the risk.

ooc: edited some

Comments

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

I don't...I am sorry.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

*sighs*

I wasn't pointing fingers or making specific statements.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

Weren't you?

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Seriously? Not everything I do is about you, all right?

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

...Right. Sorry...

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Danu, Byron...

I can't talk about this right now.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

Are you all right?

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

I'm...fine. I'll be fine. I am fine.

I'm very confused.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

But you don't want to talk about it?

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

...No.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

All right.

If you need me, I'll be in the library...

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

All right.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

Why?

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

To create.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

I create through destruction. Or I did, once. Emotions were a hindrance. They had no place in my existence.

If you are seeking advice, I would advise you to be rid of your own before you find that you are unwilling to release them.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

What did you create in the wake of the destruction? What value did it have, if you felt nothing for it?

Emotion...I am used to those of others. I do not know what to do with the wanting of something for myself.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

My kingdom, my empire. It held value because it was mine. Because I had taken the pieces of what had been destroyed and pieced them together into something that was entirely my own.

Can you have that which you want?

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there some emotion that had to be placed to give it value as yours? Possessiveness, even?

...I don't know.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

Possessiveness... I suppose. But it was not the same. One did not waste time mourning the loss of something that had been lost, nor idly want that which one could not have.

You don't know?

What is it you want?

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Did you feel nothing for your creation, then? Why make it?

I don't know if I can have it or not. I don't know...what he...

This is stupid. I shouldn't want anything. What I have is more than I have ever had before and I should just enjoy what it is.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

Because I could.

Perhaps you should not. But you do, and you do not even know if anything stands in your way of attaining it. What stops you from finding out?

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

But why? What did you gain from it?

Horrified embarassment and an inability to ask for what I want.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

Power. Worship. I was a god, it was what we did. While the lesser of my kind were tearing things apart simply because they knew no other way, I had a kingdom. I had the complete devotion of my followers. What I may have felt, then...

It was different. It was not personal, or individual.

... I do not understand.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

I know something about gods. My grandmother was a goddess of extraordinary power.

Feelings are always personal, to you, if not for them as individual.

*sighs* I am a muse. I inspire. I spark things in other people. I give them dreams, and hopes, and work to make their creative energy flow. What if what I ask for is something ... he does not want? Then I risk losing what is for what cannot be.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

We are not all alike.

Mine were not always. When I first became capable of experiencing emotions in the way that humans do, those emotions were not my own. They were the echo of someone else, and they never should have been capable of influencing me.

But if you do not ask then you lose that which you want solely because you feared asking. And if this creature is attached to you, I cannot imagine that a simple question would be enough to permanently shatter that attachment.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

No.

But were they? Capable, I mean.

I hardly even know what to ask, let alone how to ask it.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

They were. Or... I cannot tell, now, how much they truly did. Emotions have become mine and after several years it seems that it always must have been so, even though I know it was not. They never should have been mine.

But you know what you want?

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Why not?

...I know what I long for.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

Because they are of no use to me. I would not be rid of them only because the nature of emotions is to make one wish to keep them. I hold on to something useless simply because the idea of losing it hurts and I should not be capable of being hurt by these intangible things. It is a weakness.

There are days in which I believe that I would tear apart the universe to have that which I "long for", as you put it. And if I were what I once was I would not even have the capability to regret all that would be destroyed in the process.

I cannot understand allowing yourself to be stopped by the inability to form a question.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

What do you long for?

It is possibly too soon to ask any sort of question that might press.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

There is no point in giving voice to a desire that I know will not be fulfilled unless I am willing to return to my old habits of breaking things apart.

Is there anything to be lost by being patient, then?

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Perhaps just sharing it would help.

Only my sanity with the wanting of it.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

Not in any practical sense. And I am not inclined towards sharing.

I can make no comment upon the matter of sanity, except that perhaps having yours driven away would solve the problem in one way or another. I always wondered if that it how it worked, if people were comforted by their own insanity.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Have you ever tried?

....No. They are not.