aftr_stories | [MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

Something is wrong.

This may not very well be obvious, at first. The Storyteller is not present to put forth yet another diatribe, informative or apologetic, and the backdrop of guttering flame and sandy campfire is as present as ever...albeit briefly.

Those who tell their stories will start to notice something...odd taking place. Indeed, no matter how they intend to begin their tale, the land of Mu will immediately start to warp to accommodate it, or something utterly unlike it, until storytellers and listeners alike may find themselves in an exact recreation of a seemingly random memory, in the most stark and painstaking of detail. There is no altering the memory, nor is there any preventing it once it's begun to play - you will simply have to witness memories that are not your own this go around.

Furthermore, stories that take place in worlds other than LifeAftr will be, frankly, inevitable. Those memories, too, will be recreated, to be relived by the teller and lived by the listener.

It is time, once more, for you to tell a story...with a slight twist! This is, in fact, our first player plot, as provided by Dragon! The initial setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams.

Yet for this Storytelling only, people can imagine whatever stories they wish, from both their homes and their time on LifeAftr, as long as they don't mind the fact that others will be reliving those stories in the form of an impromptu memory share.

Even those who prefer not to voice their stories aloud are not safe this time around. If the memory is recalled in essence, Mu will shift to accommodate it in full.

There is, however, a benefit to this: those who venture memories to be relived will receive both a befuddled apology from the Storyteller, who will assert that this was most definitely not meant to happen (they're the Storyteller, not the Rememberer!), as well as a tired promise that the relived memories will be worth two offerings each, as if in compensation.

Not that it counts for much, probably.

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No matter how hard he searches her sparse words and patient expression, there doesn't seem to be anything beneath the surface, no judgment, no doubt, nothing intrusive that he needs to preempt and guard against. Just simple sympathy and curiosity, without skepticism.

Because skepticism wouldn't be that far-fetched, with what Shepard has to go on. Taako doesn't know why that's such a sticking point in his mind, or why he even cares whose side she winds up on. That's not even a real thing, he knows that.

But that doesn't mean he shudders any less when he remembers static. "Oh you know, big magic jellyfish with memory erasing powers," he says, immediately regretting the flippancy. "I know it wasn't, she--" he stumbles clumsily around the assigning and absolving of blame, "Obviously she had her reasons, I'm not-- It wasn't personal. But...shouldn't it have been?" His eyes are bright and haunted as he asks this, knowing it's petty and gripped tight by bitterness nonetheless.

Living the life she has, Shepard has no room for skepticism anymore. When her adventure started, the galaxy was known, for the most part, and the worst dangers that existed were other alien species and the Reapers were just a far flung myth spoken about by conspiracy theorists. But now the world is darker than before and she's seen the center of the galaxy and come back from it. There's not much left to surprise her anymore.

Though when Taako elaborates on the woman's methods she raises an eyebrow.

"Magic jellyfish, huh? Were they 9 feet tall and bright pink? Won't shut up about the Enkindlers?"

The only concept she has for any sort of jellyfish beyond that of the regular jellyfish is the hanar but she's pretty sure that is not at all what Taako is talking about. Still, she can't help a small joke about the aliens she knows back home.

Shepard is quiet. He seems haunted by what this may mean. What this woman did and what it means and what it meant in the context of everything they went through together. She sighs a bit.

"I don't think I'm the right person to answer that. That sounds like a question you'd need to ask her. Though you may not be satisfied with what she might say."

Shepard certainly doesn't know. But she shifts a bit on her feet, shakes her head and speaks again.

"All I can say is that when people are pushed into a corner, forced to choose between survival and the people they love, wonderful people can make horrible decisions. Choices that seem unforgivable when you stack them against everything else in the world but can feel like the only way to fix it all."

She knows that conflict intimately. There's an entire planet that has her to blame for its destruction in the pursuit of galactic survival.

"It does look like here, she loved you dearly. Whether or not that love faded, or turned into the weapon she'd use to harden her heart to doing what she might have thought she had to do, in the end she hurt you. And it makes sense to be conflicted about it."

Of course he wouldn't be satisfied, wouldn't allow himself to be. That's the cornerstone of his existence, putting his own well-being first--or it, it was. It was and wasn't entirely, and that's on Lucretia, so hypothetically, that carefully curated grudge wouldn't be entirely on him. So while he's apparently perfectly cool with asking near-strangers for an explanation, asking her doesn't seem nearly so fruitful. He wants for it not to have happened, and to be told he's in the right, and neither of those seems likely to result.

But Shepard is offering at least one of those things, at least to a degree; it's not any kind of emotional panacea but he sure doesn't mind being told his feelings make sense, because he wasn't going to come to a concrete conclusion about that on his own emotional feet, that's for sure. Unfortunately, the rest of what she offers up is less palatable.

Because what is that description of survival-based decision-making but a kind of mirror? And that's the last thing he wants. Does he really get to complain? It's all fun and games when it's him making the not-good-or-bad decision? It's not a new comparison, but that doesn't mean he has to like it this time around either.

"Yeah, I get that," he concedes quietly, though the way he worries at his lips makes it seem like he still doesn't. "That's not...I don't have that doubt." And he doesn't, really. You can't just run around the universe in a friendship-powered spaceship and have those kinds of doubts. It's not on brand, but even Taako gets it. But it's not like that makes the math here easier and you know what, he doesn't have to deal with this, actually.

"It's whatever, you know?" He gives a little one-shoulder shrug, almost mechanical, more like brushing off the feeling of bumping into a stranger on the street than anything else. Maybe she does know, even; he has no idea, because when has he ever bothered to find out much about people in a new plane? Hey, good idea. "Anyway, what's your whole deal? Like, I thought you were maybe in some kinda space army, what's with all the therapy talk? Is this like a hobby for you?"

Hey, when the going gets tough, the tough deflect. Technically this counts as showing interest in someone else's goings-on too, that's like, two birds with one stone. He gets to step back from an unsolveable tangle of feelings that he should probably not have involved her in in the first place, and he gets decent person points too.

"If it was really whatever, you wouldn't be standing here looking like your heart has split in two."

Perhaps too brash and bold to respond with, but it's more a statement to say that she knows it means more, no matter how you deflect. That being said, she takes the deflection and rolls with it easily, letting the conversation drift.

"You could say that, yeah. Had to solve a lot of problems back home, both war-related and social circle-related. I got used to this sort of thing."

Especially since so many people on her crew wouldn't help her save the world until she solved or helped resolve their emotional problems. She'd like to say at least one person out there heard her say "so the world is ending" and jumped on it to help her just because of that, but that's not reality in a Bioware game.

[MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

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