The null cone

[fermionprincess]

My good friends...

[Alessandra sits in front of the wall. Not just a wall - the wall of rememberance. So many names are written there, of White Chalice crew who departed this world.]

Were it not for your valiant efforts, would this very Champion still be able to recite these words, sit where she does? Somehow I find that most doubtful... yet, I cannot help but be overwhelmed by emotions of longing and melancholy.

I suppose...

I suppose I just miss you.

[Alessandra continues to drink her tea in relative peace, but her armored hand shakes while these words are uttered.]

[Yes, this is an invitation to remember and talk about dead characters.]

Comments

[curse_u_reflexes]

I think that's just... when things are good we wind up wishing the people we lost were there to see it.

[Mr. Herrera...]

... And when things are bad, knowing they're not around makes things harder.

[fermionprincess]

Such is the spirit of humanity, is it not? To constantly wish for what you do not have. Be it a thing of the future... or people of the past.

[gurrenbrigbonded]

Matthew walks up to a patch of wall where a scrap of red cloth that matches the one tied around his wrist is tucked into a crack in the wall.

"Departed, yet not gone." He says quietly and solemnly. "Not gone in our hearts, and not gone in other worlds than these."

[fermionprincess]

Well said. What matters most is to exist in humanity's collective memory, does it not? To create an image of yourself, even once the physical being is gone.

[gurrenbrigbonded]

"Aff, you could say so." Matthew says.

"In the oldest faiths of the civilizations of earth, there was no glory or pride awaiting people in the underworlds after death: no reward or praise awaiting those who were quiet and privately virtuous."

He nods to himself. "To those old civilizations, it was the legacy that you left behind after death that was true immortality. Grand and glorious achievements...and heroic deeds."

[fermionprincess]

Ohh? But would you not say, that living a virtuous if quiet life is creating a monument as well, a foundation on which the future may stand on?

[gurrenbrigbonded]

"Aff, " Matthew says after a moment's thought. "But people will be less likely to remember it, quiaff?"

[fermionprincess]

People as a whole, perhaps. Yet, should it matter if your actions were remembered by millions, or but a chosen group of friends and close companions?

[gurrenbrigbonded]

"Aff, aff." Matthew says with a nod. "There is merit in that...yet you must admit that a large population is statistically more likely to preserving your memory in both writing and Oral recitation."

[fermionprincess]

Such is the case. Which makes it all the more tragic that for so many immortalized here...

[Alessandra's eyes go down the list.]

Their noble efforts and sacrifice remain so unknown by the populace at large.

I shall not let them be forgotten.

[saikyocivrobo]

Reminiscing about old days... I didn't expect you to do that, Alessandra. You always struck me as someone who lives in the present first and foremost.

[fermionprincess]

What is the present built on, if not the endless effort of the past? I do not regret the events gone by, for you may no longer change them.

But, sir Werter...

It is still a human's nature to long after them.

[saikyocivrobo]

That is a very sane approach.

Ryo. Azrad. Old man Hadou. Shouko. Gregory. Felicita. Doctor Bian. Texotic. There's a lot of people here I knew. Side effect of being on White Chalice almost since the start of its journey; we've seen all of them come and go.

[fermionprincess]

I would not entirely declare them gone as of yet.

[saikyocivrobo]

Because their memories still live on within us and serve as inspiration?

[fermionprincess]

You seem to be reading my mind!

[saikyocivrobo]

Well, we've known each other for years, Alessandra. Also, overuse of Prometheus' power caused my latent psychic abilities to awaken.

[Said with a completely straight face.]

[fermionprincess]

[This face.]

[saikyocivrobo]

You're much harder to fool than in the past, Alessandra. Good job.

[turningyaponese]

[[Gainer stops by and spots Alessandra. Then spots Resnick's name.

He kind of groans, but shifts it into a sigh for subtlety. Still doesn't like him, but, not going to disrespect the dead.]]

Not the kind of place I'd usually find you.

[fermionprincess]

It could be that the assorted threats to the world and reality as a whole did put me in a contemplative mood.

It may happen to the best of us, sir Gainer.

[turningyaponese]

Yeah, I know. That's why I went back home for a while. What little of a home I have anyway, but... yeah. Everyone's still fine there, but they didn't know how I was doing.

You know... there's not many people on this wall I actually had anything to do with.

[fermionprincess]

It is a small blessing, to not personally know those who have perished. I would not blame one for receiving it.

[turningyaponese]

Uh... well that's one way of looking at it. I guess I shouldn't feel too bad that I don't know them then. You know... no mourning.

[fermionprincess]

They would rather not have us feel bad either way, would they?

[2000_skills]

[Staring at this wall. Not gonna cry, not gonna cry, notgonnacry, NOT GOING TO CRYYYYYY- crying, fuck]

[fermionprincess]

[Hey, another face willing to reminisce... wait, tears? What?]

S... sir Yusuke the Kamen Rider?!

[2000_skills]

[Wiping those away, straightening up, EMOTIONS MAN]

Sorry.

[fermionprincess]

I shall never blame a person for being so in touch with his or her own emotions!

Yet, I expected not for you to have such a strong personal bond with the individuals immortalized here. Thus my surprised reaction.

[2000_skills]

It's just how I am...even if I didn't really know them, every loss weighs on me.

[fermionprincess]

Such a kind soul... truly, Earth needs individuals more like yourself.

Would you like perhaps to commemorate together? Let us spin stories of the departed, so as to remember them yet closer.

[2000_skills]

I'd like that. I didn't know everyone as well as most of you guys, but I would like to hear about them.

[fermionprincess]

The individual most vivid in my mind is the one whose name started this monument of rememberance. Ryo Masaoka - it happened years ago, yet a memory of you remains fresh.

[zetahatsudo]

[Kamille doesn't go to the wall, typically. He pays his respects to the fallen once a month, at best, and strives to keep up the good fight.]

[There are two names on the wall that have particular significance to him, though. One can barely be called a name, "Four Murasame" having given no actual name to Kamille Bidan before dying to protect him. The other...]

They didn't want to have it up there. Nobody did, really. [Char's name is amongst the others.] I know. I know what he did was horrible. I worked to actively stop him. But that man... he was still someone who was incredibly close to me. He shared his dream with me, to find a promised land for the spacenoids, a place of peace.

I told him that I would find my own promised land, and in doing so, I promised to myself that I would carve out my own place in this world we live in; a place where me and mine could be happy. [He took a seat in front of the wall.] He was my brother, if not in blood, then in spirit. He fought with us long before he fought against us. I didn't want him to just be remembered as someone who tried to destroy the world, but as someone who was born, lived, and died fighting for his dream.

It was selfish of me. I outright told them I would carve the name in myself if I had to. [He chuckles rather morbidly.] That man... what would he think of me now, I wonder?

[fermionprincess]

Ah, rarely do we have the luxury of choosing our own kin - physically or metaphorically. Yours is the unquestionable right of remembering every person from your own unique perspective, be it compatible with the public opinion or not.

What would Char Aznable think of White Chalice as a whole, I wonder that as well. So many of the crew still seem to hold a grudge, if not without reason...

[zetahatsudo]

[Kamille is silent for a time, staring at the wall, at the name he personally etched in.] ... For all that he was my brother... [He remembers the battle at Axis vividly, how of Kamille and Amuro, it was the White Devil who was able to destroy Char's MS, and how near-ineffectual he had been.] I like to believe that he wishes for us to win. [All the gaffs that man had made, culminating to this...] He tried, in his own way, to support us. He was... bad at it, to be sure, but he wanted us to succeed.

He'd happily take their hate, if it meant that our dreams still amounted to the same thing. [He sighs.] At least, I like to believe that. For all that he was my brother, the man that was Casval Rem Deikun remains an enigma to me.

[fermionprincess]

You are not the only one for whom he was a mystery. I wonder what light shall future history paint him in.

[gift_of_magus]

...This is a memorial, then.

[fermionprincess]

So it is. For those who gave up their lives while helping the common cause of White Chalice - as you may see, there were many.

At least, many more than we all hoped for.

[gift_of_magus]

...There will be more before this is done.

[Oh yeah, there was that thing Al announced about the leaving and the never returning and all.]

I am not one of you. Will...will I have a place here?

[fermionprincess]

You are wlling to stand up to injustice, to stare the beast right in the eye and exclaim proudly, thy villainy ends here - at my hands!

Are you not? Then the answer should spring to one's mind by itself.

[gift_of_magus]

...I see.

[Man, Al wasn't kidding when she talked about how stupendously optimistic they all were.]