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| Action Id: 2203 | Crisis: | Participants: Aleksei | |
| Status: Resolved | Submitted: May 16, 2018, 5:22 p.m. | Public: True | GM: Puffin |
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Action by Aleksei
Aleksei is praying to Limerance.
Despite his profession, Aleksei doesn't generally pray with the expectation of response; he knows that the gods generally don't reply because they don't want to risk their Dark Reflections taking action, and he respects that. When he prays, he often speaks to the gods, but he's content to hold one side of the conversation, and it's more to process his own thoughts on a subject. Like sending a letter home just to let the other person know you're thinking of them even if they can't send back a reply.
This, however, is different. Aleksei visits the shrine late at night in the rare hours when it's not full of the visiting faithful. He visits alone -- without even Peanut there to keep him company -- and kneels in front of the altar, which is another thing he rarely does. For a long time he just kneels there -- sits, eventually, when he sits back on his heels, his hands twisting together on his lap. It's a long time before he can find his voice to say anything, and when it comes at first, it's hesitant. Quiet.
"Skald says you're used to disappointment," he says. "I guess all the gods probably are, but. You know, I don't actually /like/ disappointing people. I mean -- I wasn't such a shit kid because I liked that look on my dad's face. I mean, getting under people's skin for a laugh is one thing, poking at tempers and stuff, that's fun. But the disappointment? No, I had to run away for ten years and become a priest to get rid of that feeling." His smile is taut across his face; it doesn't reach his eyes. "I've never honored you the way that I should. The Morgans are so good at Limerance, you know, they're so good at -- at duty and fidelity and oaths and -- all of it. Except me. When I was getting ready to take my vows, someone told me how it's better to never take an oath than to take one you don't believe in, and that was -- comforting? Kind of. Made me feel like less of a fuck-up. Like, oh, no, it's not that you suck at fidelity, Aleksei, you've just been -- waiting for the right moment."
He inhales a breath that's grown a bit ragged, his gaze cast down to his hands. "I meant it," he says, voice barely above a whisper. "I meant every word of my vows when I said them. I--" And then he hesitates, guilt etched clear into his features. "It was true. I didn't have any -- dependents. He's -- he's not my dependent. Lorelai didn't even want me in the picture--"
But then he stops. He's quiet for a long time, the silence dropping back down over the shrine like a blanket. Eventually, Aleksei draws in another breath, his voice a bit thick when he says, "I was cheating. At least a little. I was cheating the spirit of it. I thought -- it would be okay. I would be okay. I thought I was -- growing up. You know? I was finally growing up the way my dad always wanted me to. Except now Fort says that maybe that wasn't the only way to grow up. I just--" He swallows hard, the muscles in his throat working visibly. "I was tired of disappointing people. I thought it's what I had to do. I knew I had a choice, of course I had a choice, but I thought -- it was the one real path to be able to do what I wanted to do. To bring Skald back. To -- care for the shrine. I thought--"
It's all fits and starts, really. The prayer. Aleksei stalls once more, fingers twisted so tight in his lap. "I meant my vows when I took them, but I don't think I can keep -- going. Like this. I don't know if I can call it a mistake, but I -- I trapped myself. And I did it willingly, but I don't -- I don't think I knew just how much it would hurt. How much it would /chafe/. How I would just -- keep his shrine and look up at the open sky and want to be flying. How I would hear the call in my blood to be free, how the vows would eventually start to feel like--" He stops a bit more abruptly now, guilt washing his face. "I tell people that vows are a choice you make every day. That's what separates them from chains. From Writs or slavery. There's no worth in keeping an oath if you don't have any other option, right? If you're forced. We're meant to -- to choose it. We're meant to choose to live as best we can. As virtuously as we can manage. If I don't /choose/ to do it, it's worthless. It's supposed to be hard. It's /meant/ to be hard."
Aleksei's fingers untwist and he flattens them out on his thighs, knuckles pressing down into the leather. "You probably already know what I've done, but. I think -- you all see all of it up there. Skald says time works differently there, though. Not so -- linear. So. I wrote to Lorelai asking if I could choose again. Choose differently. If I could have Fitz here in Arx to raise. And if she says yes, I'll go to Aldwin and -- ask to be released from my vows. That I now have a dependent, one that was conceived before I took my vows, that I'm responsible for now. And it will be -- technically true. But it will still hurt. It will still -- disappoint you. /I'll/ still disappoint you. And if Lorelai says no, I -- I don't know. I think -- I'll have no good reason to ask Aldwin to release me, but I can't -- I can't. I can't stay like this. I can't stay here and be an -- /administrator/ and a /politician/ when I was meant to be out in the world /fighting/. I can't. But I'm--"
He swallows again, his throat tight now, and his words come thick now. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm going to disappoint you. I'm sorry that -- that I gave you an oath that I couldn't see through." He lifts a hand, dragging the heel across his cheeks where tears have dampened his skin. "I'm sorry I'm such a fucking disappointment. I just want my family. My freedom. I want to watch my son grow up. I want to fight -- the best way that I can. And I don't think this is the best way. I'm just -- I'm just /sorry/."
Aleksei has mostly held back the worst of the tears, but they still fall, and they're audible in his voice by the end, in the thick tension of it, the hiccup of his breath. He finally crumples forward, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes as his breath hitches and he finally just -- lets himself cry. There's no one else around, after all, except for maybe Limerance. It takes him a while to cry himself out, a few minutes really, and it leaves him empty, spent, and exhausted.
"I just wanted to say sorry," Aleksei whispers. His voice is hoarse by this point. "I'm so sorry. I'm not a real Morgan anyways, when you get rid down to it. Not in my blood. Guess I've got too much of my real father there." His smile is small and strained. "He wouldn't have made the vow to begin with, though. Probably can't. Anyways. I understand you probably can't answer. I get it."
He stays, though. For quite a while, even after he's done praying. Aleksei sits, and thinks, and lets the silence rest for a very long time before he finally leaves.
Result
Aleksei is almost to the door that leads out of the Shrine of Limerance when he hears a voice. It's a woman's voice, soft and gentle and wizened with age. "You young people. Always so dramatic." As Aleksei turns perhaps he would say something but there's an old woman looking very much like someone's grandmother, sitting on one of the benches at the Shrine and knitting.
Knitting?
She is knitting, and she pats the seat next to her expectantly. He did just confess to not liking to disappoint people, and so Aleksei sits, and he opens his mouth to say something and she pops a peppermint into it.
"There," she says, sounding satisfied. "Everything's better with a little peppermint. So serious you are, and you should be. Oaths are serious things. But did you ever stop to think he's the God of Love too? Have you ever loved anyone? I bet you have." She smiles at him, and it's the smile of a grandmother and a mother and an aunt and a cousin and a best friend and every woman who ever loved anyone at all.
"You think about that love. You're tearing at your heartstrings aren't you, because you want a family. You want love, but you swore an oath. If your beloved swore an oath to you, and they kept it but faithfully - and then you realized keeping it was killing them, would you hold them to it no matter what?" She answers before he can. "Of course you wouldn't. And it hurts him, to have people break their oaths or end them. But it hurts him to have them deny love too."
"Love lasts, young man. It lasts long past ourselves. You go to the Hall of Heroes you'll see - every one of those people loved something greater than themselves. Family, House, Ideals, Light, Humanity, Life itself. Every one of them. We're meant to live up to the ideals, or try. But they're ideals, and we fail. So be sorry, and let yourself feel it. But don't forget that you're still trying to serve him. You're still trying to live up to what he stands for. Fidelity and Love, young man. Fidelity and love. You go fight for what you love, however you need to. And be a little sad in the now, but don't let it ruin you. Have a cookie. I made them fresh."
And just like that, she's offering him a plate of cookies and he finds himself taking one, and they sit in silence together for a long time. Cookies and peppermint and a grandmother's wisdom. It's not a bad answer, after all.