Once more with feeling/Logs/Small Group/In Denandsor/Nuwa and Crow (about revenge and life stories)

Once more, with feeling!
A few days after the liberation of Denandsor:
Nuwa: There's a knock at the door of the house Crow has claimed for himself.

Crow: Crow looked up, surprised that someone had been able to find him.

Crow: "Ummm, come in I suppose." He answered

Nuwa comes in, leaving her sandals outside. She is carrying the same small bag that she has always been using, though now that the circle is not constantly on the move anymore it is quite light.

Crow: "The Lady Nuwa. What a nice surprise. Go ahead, take a seat." He says, nodding at a nearby chair and table.

Crow: "Anything I can do for you?" He asks

Nuwa: She bows in greeting. "Invisible Crow Hunter. I hope you don't mind me visiting." She produces a small, paper-wrapped packet. "I have brought some tea for you. There are after all this time still gardens in Denandsor that have been cared for and produce such."

Nuwa: After presenting the gift to Crow she sits down as he indicated.

Crow: "Well I don't usually drink tea, but I'm grateful all the same. Might as well give it a try now. You want any?"

Nuwa: "I'll gladly accept."

Crow: "My grandmother used to always get me to make her tea when I was a boy, so I think I still know how to prepare it properly."

Crow: "The hot and cold running water here is definitely helpful too. Never seen a place with that kind of luxury, not in all my years." He says as he prepares it.

Nuwa nods. "One rarely forgets things like these."

Nuwa: "You previously lived in Marukan, didn't you?"

Crow: In a few minutes, he has two cups of steaming tea on the table, one for him and one for Nuwa.

Crow: "Yes I did, actually. I was practically born in the saddle."

Crow: "How about you?"

Nuwa: "Thank you." She accepts the tea, but waits until it has cooled down a little. "I grew up in the deep south-east at the monastery of the Winds' Wisdom."

Crow: Crow tries to drink the tea, but quickly winces when the hot liquid burns his tongue. He can walk in a desert for days without discomfort, but hot tea still hurts.

Nuwa: "I have come through Marukan in my journeys, but of course that was only as a traveler. How is it to actually live there, to grow up there?"

Crow: "Well, it's a lot like any other place, I suppose. Just with lots and lots of horses"

Crow: "I got a foal when I turned 5 and had to take care of it.

Crow: It was my friend for a long time.

Crow: "Otherwise, you do what everyone else does. You farm, you work, you eat, all that stuff."

Nuwa: "A great responsibility at that age."

Crow: "That's just how things worked. Horses are the lifeblood of the Marukan"

Crow: "They are an incredibly important part of our culture."

Nuwa nods. "Sadly Marukan has a less than agreeable neighbour now."

Crow: "Indeed. I know that all too well."

Crow: "The Mask is a plague on Creation, and he was tolerated for far too long

Nuwa: "So you have indicated a few days ago ... I can understand if you don't want to revisit what must have been a painful experience."

Crow: "What's there to talk about, really? It seems like nothing can be done in Creation unless there's some sort of trauma to balance it out."

Crow: "That is...well, the way it is."

Nuwa: "But not the way it has to be."

Crow: "So you would hope. But what about you, Nuwa? Do you go from door to door dropping off tea today?"

Nuwa: "I understand you have sworn revenge against one of those who did you ill?"

Crow: "Of course I did. That's justice."

Nuwa: "That is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. To prevent future misunderstandings."

Crow: "Oh?" He takes a sip

Nuwa tries her own tea now, nodding in appreciation at the taste.

Crow: "Not bad." He says, slightly surprised.

Nuwa: "But that is precisely the question, isn't it? Vengeance and justice are so easily thought to be the same."

Nuwa: "Why is it that you desire the death of a certain man, whom you have given such a vague description of?"

Crow: "Because he's killed my family, destroyed my home and everyone I know, and he's not going to stop."

Crow: "The world would be better off without him."

Nuwa cocks her head. "So that is your only intention, to save the world further suffering?"

Crow: "I would be lying if I said I wouldn't get some personal satisfaction from it."

Nuwa: "Why though? Why gain satisfaction from killing him? That does nothing to weigh in against that which he has done."

Crow: "It'll help me sleep at night, and it'll save a hell of a lot of lives too."

Nuwa: "Why do you think it will help you sleep better?"

Crow: "Because of the dreams, Nuwa." Crow says this last part quietly. "Because I still have dreams."

Nuwa: "Please pardon me my many questions, I seek to understand."

Nuwa: "Dreams?"

Crow: "Green fire, sticking to our house. The horses screaming...the hungry ghosts mindlessly rushing over the fence me and our neighbours built a few summers ago to keep coyotes out."

Nuwa: "Revisiting a painful memory. You hope that in killing him you can set those memories aside to plague you less?"

Crow: "So many people died that day, and I was the only one who survived."

Crow: "I owe something to those who didn't.

Crow: "My...my boy died." He looks down into his cup of tea.

Nuwa drinks of her own tea in sympathetic silence.

Crow: "I couldn't stop them, Nuwa. I tried, but I couldn't stop them. And then the rush of Exaltation came. But it was too late."

Nuwa: "What do you owe the dead, you feel?" She inquires finally.

Crow: "I owe it to them to put things right, to show that their deaths meant something."

Crow: "So many people die for nothing."

Nuwa: I know it doesn't mean much, Crow, but I am sorry."

Crow: "But not them."

Crow: "I understand your sympathy. I know you want me to not go through with it, but I can't stop now."

Crow: "I couldn't save my wife or my child, but that doesn't mean I can just let the man in black get away"

Nuwa smiles slightly. "Yes, you are right, I do have an opinion on that."

Crow: "You have an opinion on most things, don't you?" Crow chuckles sadly

Nuwa: "It's not an opinion as such, more something that I believe. Which is, that bad intentions have bad consequences."

Crow: "The Immaculates talked about that."

Crow: "About karma. But then, they were wrong about a great many things, weren't they?"

Nuwa: "To kill a man because you are certain that it will lessen the world's suffering, that it is the only way to accomplish that, and for no other reason, with no other emotion but compassion. That is not a bad thing."

Nuwa: "Yes, the Immaculates. Woefully misled about many things, but there are a few kernels of truth their religion has appropriated from others."

Crow: "People can do things for a great many reasons, Nuwa. Compassion, greed, lust, all at the same time."

Nuwa: "Indeed. And those emotions, those bad intentions, even when mixed with the good, even if they are unaware of it, lead to bad consequences. The reason why this world is so full of suffering."

Nuwa: "What I am saying is, that I would not want you to hurt yourself at the end of your chase."

Crow: "Well maybe I'm his karma." Crow said

Crow: "I'm tough, Lady. Tough like leather."

Nuwa: "If you are not certain that you're doing it only to help others avoid the same pain you felt, only to prevent him from doing further harm, then it would be best not to strike at all."

Crow: "Sorry, can't take that risk. I've been on his trail for too long, and worked too hard."

Nuwa: "What does that mean?"

Nuwa: " 'You have been on his trail for too long, and worked too hard.' "

Nuwa: "That your future choices exist to validate your past choices?"

Nuwa: "You should consider the paths before you, not look at those behind you."

Nuwa: "I am not asking you to abandon your quest."

Crow: "You'd be surprised, Nuwa. We're all looking at the paths behind us. That's what keeps us going."

Crow: "Our choices are like a big brick wall, with more and more blocks being stacked together"

Nuwa: "Merely to think about your reasons, your intentions."

Crow: "Why do we go on? Because of reactions to what we did before."

Crow: "I intend to kill that son of a bitch. My reason is because my boy and my wife died for no reason but that the Mask could reach a little farther. He pulled the trigger, he messed with the wrong man. I'm just the natural reaction."

Nuwa nods. "And keep considering them, questioning them."

Nuwa: "To accomplish what you said first, to prevent him from causing further damage in the world, to help Creation, you need not do it yourself."

Nuwa: "You could, for example, turn him over to the Circle's judgement."

Crow: Crow laughs. "Turn it over to them?

Crow: "Sure, then they can spend a couple hours debating what they're debating about"

Crow: "Then they can all start arguing. I think it would be a mercy to put a bullet in his head rather then force him to listen to all that jabbering"

Nuwa shrugs slightly. "Or you could ask those of us elected to promote Justice. Since that is what you said you desire. Or someone else you would trust to judge and execute with pure intentions."

Crow: "We'll all just have to wait and see then, won't we?"

Nuwa: "For the moment, as I said, it is merely something I'd like you to consider. When the end of your chase draws closer we might speak about it again."

Crow: "Now you Lady. I spoke to you about my past. It's your turn."

Crow: "What's your story?"

Nuwa smiles. "You said our choices are like a big brick wall, built block by block from past choices. I believe that to be one of the principle mistakes people make."

Nuwa: "In doing so we do not see the world, but only the brick wall we have built before our eyes."

Nuwa: "Thus prevented from seeing things as they truly are, it is extremely hard if not impossible to find the right thing to do."

Crow: "If you want to stretch a metaphor, I suppose."

Nuwa: "As I have been taught by my adoptive father and his friends and students, I make it my life's work to break down that wall of old choices, preconceptions, self-delusions and many other things."

Nuwa: "The sword is my instrument for focusing my mind to do that."

Crow: "Ah yes, the soul of Dynast is focused in his klaive and such."

Crow: Where'd you learn to use a sword? You're quite young for someone with so much assurance about you."

Nuwa: "It is a sort of meditation. Not that I disregard the more common forms, but this is one that works well for me."

Nuwa smiles, thinking back. "I was adopted by Wisdom of the East Wind when I was five. At his monastery as I grew up I learned from him and the others there, the ways of the Noble Path, of scholarship and philosophy, of martial arts and of gardening."

Nuwa: "The art of the sword proved to be the one I was most adept at."

Nuwa: "Ever since I understood it as a means of focusing my mind, I have worked to improve myself. That there are applications that can affect the outside world is more of a side effect."

Nuwa: "Since my Exaltation I have come to realize that more is asked of me than seeking my own enlightenment. As Exalted we have the power and thus the duty to guide and protect, to enable others to begin their own search for enlightenment without tyranny or deadly threats or chains of slavery holding them back."

Nuwa: "So, not being of the Zenith, I try to accomplish that with what means I have and hope to inspire by example rather than by oration."

Crow: "That's very noble of you, Nuwa."

Crow: "You seem so naive sometimes, though. Like you think that you can change the world just by believing in it hard enough."

Crow: "You remind me of my niece"

Nuwa: "Not just by believing, by acting according to that belief."

Crow: Crow nods.

Crow: "well, don't let anyone stop you, then."

Crow: "Although I act on my beliefs as well"

Nuwa: "Every human being has within them the potential to be a perfectly enlightened saint. So in a way, the difficulty is not in transmuting mud into gold but merely in cleaning away the mud so the gold can shine through."

Crow: "But what about those who refuse to wash themselves of it?"

Nuwa: She smiles self-deprecatingly. "I am not a master, like my teachers were. Even eager students are difficult for me to teach."

Nuwa: "I hope that one day I will understand that I am."

Crow: Crow can only nod. "I'm not much of a philosopher, unfortunately."

Nuwa: "Those who have trapped themselves too deeply in holes of their own digging ... Sometimes reincarnation is the only way I can see to help them." Nuwa's expression is sad. "That is my own failing though."

Crow: "Don't say that, Nuwa. Some people are just born bad and no one can help them."

Nuwa: "As I said, I believe that the same potential is within everyone."

Nuwa: Silently Nuwa finishes her tea.

Crow: "Then you'll be carrying a lot of weight, for a very long time."

Crow: "More then I do."

Nuwa: "I have the hope that the world can be changed for the better, that without tyrants, slavers and false prophets it will be easier for people to realize their better qualities."

Nuwa: "And that may be a lot to accomplish alone, but I have others with me, have I not? Dhiren and the other Exalted in our so-called Circle with similar aims."

Crow: "yes, it helps to have others with you."

Crow: Crow walks to the back of the house and comes out with a hat that looks almost identical to his own.

Crow: "Here, take this. For the tea." He says.

Nuwa stands and bows, receiving the hat. "Thank you for your gift and your hospitality. It was good to speak with you and not be subject to assassination attempts every minute or so."

Nuwa: "May circumstances continue to be this fortunate."

Nuwa: She bows again. "I will leave you to your studies again. A good day to you, Invisible Crow Hunter."

Crow: "Goodbye, Lady Nuwa." He responds.

Crow: With a small smile.

Nuwa: (aaand cut!)