Jema'grethy: Memory Cave

[voidtreckermods]

Passengers see a vision, an instance of someone's life, before just as suddenly - they find themselves inside a cave. It is light, a strange moss glowing on the walls and ceiling illuminates the cave nicely, and it is large enough for them to pace around in without trouble.

They're not alone. In the cave with them is another voidtrecker; maybe someone they know well, or maybe someone they've only seen in the aisles of the train. But they are together in this cave, and they will come to find out that it was one of their memories that the other witnessed. And them, one of yours.

The cave has no exit, at least not yet. They know that it will, eventually. When the time is right.

But for that time to come, they first must talk...

(OOC: Memories can be written either in this post or over here)

Comments

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou smiles in exactly the patient way he always did when teaching little Kouryuu something.

"Friiiiieeeends," he draws the word out helpfully.

[smithandwesson]

His eyebrow twitched slightly with that. His arms crossed as his fingers dug into the sleeves of his sweater.

"Absolute bumbling parasites!" As if saying that countered Koumyou's response in some way. "Idiots, assholes, and outright menaces that don't know how to leave things alone. I will gladly drop them in a heartbeat if they let me."

But they're stubborn and persistent for some reason; Genjo Sanzo really couldn't understand.

Friendship?

Nah, they had to be getting something out of it.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I know admitting attachment spells certain doom where we're from," Koumyou tells him with a slight huff, but even as he talks, the cheerful teasing nature of it slides away like melting snow. "But we're not there, are we?"

[smithandwesson]

No. They weren't in Shangri-La any longer. That was true.

But even still Genjo Sanzo feared getting too attached. Loss had been something that had been pretty much ingrained into him at this point. And long ago he had sworn off any attachment that may hinder him on his goals. After all, such things almost always resulted in pain regardless, so what was the point of holding onto such bonds?

Meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. Meet your father, kill your father.

Freeing onesself of one's earthly ties, wasn't that the fundamental premise of Buddhism? Was it not one of the few things Koumyou had managed to instill into him as a child?

He didn't want to feel that sensation of getting close only to lose again.

But all he could give was a moment of silence before he looked up at Koumyou with tired resignation. He didn't want to argue it. He knew putting up arguments with his master, the one priest who was just as stubborn as he was, was absolutely fruitless.

"Yeah. Sure. If you say so. Guess we're not there."

And in that way hadn't he already lost them as well?

[its_dad_sanzo]

That kind of resignation in Kouryuu is... disheartening, really. Koumyou huffs out a much quieter little sigh, but this one isn't nearly so lively as the last. If his cheerful teasing had already slid away like melting snow, all it's left now is the muck beneath it.

He's still so very bad at all of this.

Not that his face shows anything but his usual serenity, of course. Just a silent little stab of depression, and some of his own resignation.

"And we're still here," Koumyou notes, glancing around them, "without an exit. It would be nice if these sorts of places would at least leave written instructions, you know?"

[smithandwesson]

"You sound surprisingly bothered by that," Genjo states plainly, finally taking a moment to stand and look around the dark confines of their imprisoned chamber.

It wasn't that Genjo wasn't also worried about the situation. But it was also far from the first time he found himself trapped in an initially frustrating and inescapable situation. Reaching out to place the flat of his palm against the cool stone wall, he contemplated what was happening around them.

Right. The initial shock of the things Genjo saw in his dreams were starting to subside. And as disheartening as they had felt, he knew there had to be a reason behind receiving them.

After all, they had come to this world with a mission.

"This is a part of the memory cave system that we were briefed on, correct? If that's the case, perhaps there's more than simply those memories that need to be shuffled through."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I prefer knowing the rules when I play games," Koumyou says simply, as though that's his real problem with the situation and not that he has a sinking feeling he does know the rules. Or at least some of them.

Like how they've only really discussed his own dream that had thrust him into Genjo's point of view on a past memory, while both carefully side-stepping around what Genjo himself had surely seen in turn. They've even ventured off into side topics, like about Sai Tai Sai's history of stalking Sanzos, and Tenkai's grumpy sister practically being Genjo's auntie, and how relieved Koumyou is that his son has friends back on their world. Although he knows exactly how terrifying that can be, having watched all of his own die horribly.

He smokes in silence for a few moments, dread gnawing sharply in his gut and worming its way up his throat like bile.

"...So," he asks with a sigh, sounding distant to his own ears. "I saw you meet Sai Tai Sai. What did you see?"

He can guess, of course, with how fucked up Kouryuu had been upon first waking. But he could be wrong. Maybe his dear son saw some other horror in Koumyou's sordid past, and not one in which he himself had been present?

Doubtful, but let him hope for another half a second, here.

[smithandwesson]

The reaction Genjo had given in response was almost laughably predictable. His body seemed to tense, his eyes widening only slightly as the memories that were so familiar and yet so different flashed through his thoughts once more. His frown sank as he did his best to shrug his shoulders as nonchalantly as possible.

"Dunno," At least he was surprisingly good at keeping his tone neutral despite it all. "Some bullshit about an idiot getting himself killed off in a ridiculously avoidable and self-sacrificial way, I guess."

Hey, he at least has a right to be snarky about it, no?

[its_dad_sanzo]

That doesn't narrow it down as much as Genjo probably thinks, does it.

"Too bad you can't control the idiot in those visions, then," Koumyou remarks lightly, from behind the hand minding his cigarette at his lips, "being as your hindsight seems to have ridiculously easy solutions to present."

Koumyou's never had the 'demonic', almost lambent quality of stare that Genjo does, but the look from his open brown eyes is no less intense in this moment through the smoke. He's genuinely curious, if also secretly hurt; a knife's twist in a wound that will never heal.

"So, what would you have done, then?" he asks, "What would you do, if that boy of yours was in the place of young Kouryuu, and you were in the place of Koumyou Sanzo, in that moment? If you had raised him from an infant, promised to keep him safe when you sang him to sleep at night?"

[smithandwesson]

"I would have never even been in such a position to begin with," Genjo was quick to respond, almost bitingly. His expression was no less stern and fierce than it had been a second ago. He seemed almost like a carved stone with how controlled his emotions were as he spoke. His eyes met the serene and bitter brown gaze of his master with piercing violet. "When told of my forthcoming end, I would instead take that path into my own hands and defy what is expected of me. Not walk right into it with bitter compliance."

[its_dad_sanzo]

As quickly as the irritation had come to Koumyou, Genjo's response actually... banishes it. Like a wave drowning a fire. No talk of trying to counter the spell he'd watched kill a Sanzo before, for example. No macho posturing about being able to change the outcome of the actual encounter.

No, the young man's hindsight has taken a far more practical, and sensible path.

Just don't do what is expected. Of course. Foolish old man.

"I raised you to be far more sensible than I," Koumyou admits gently. "I'm glad."

He'd leave it at that, but the cave doesn't mysteriously vanish from around them, and so Koumyou sighs. "...When I saw you and the bear, I should have grabbed you. We could have left. We could have gone overseas, like he was always trying to get me to do with him. We could have gone anywhere, done anything, other than what I did instead which was... nothing."

Fucking nothing, except hope Tenkai had been wrong, or that it was somehow a different encounter with a bear. An idiot in denial.

"It didn't even occur to me," he admits. "Until literally just now. For all the rebelliousness I was known for growing up, I still conformed to the system I was raised in, I still moved on the tracks laid before me. A foolish old man, to the last."

Staying in the temple system, the only system he'd ever known, and not even noticing the opened cage door. Gaining rank had only really gilded the cage, it hadn't taught him he could leave it. He hadn't considered distant branches, open skies.

The tracks had gone in one direction, with only two outcomes. Die, or watch Kouryuu die. To simply leave the tracks altogether? Even with all the thinking he's done on that night, the idea's just never registered to him at all, even in hindsight.

"I really am sorry, Kouryuu. I wasn't raised to think freely, and I don't think I ever really learned."

[smithandwesson]

Genjo honestly did not expect that sort of response from his master. He had expected another argument, more resistance, just like the last time the subject had come up. He hadn't expected Koumyou to be so floored by such a simple concept.

"I see," Genjos shoulders dropped, and his head lowered, slowly folding his hands into his pockets as he tried his best to consider what he should say. "I suppose in the end; you always were fairly dense regarding what was in front of you."

If he couldn't find an argument against his master, he could at least rib him over it.

"The path you chose to follow is your own. The decisions you make are yours. And that goes very much the same with every person that is around you. I can't control the choices you decide to make on your own. But I can at least help guide you to look at things with a different perspective and learn to move forward from there," With that, he walked closer to Koumyou. The scripture around his shoulders radiates a soft violet light. "But you also can't control the fate and decisions others make either. You chose to put the most sacred thing you have on the line for me. And I have the right to resent how casually you were willing to toss something so precious away."

He looked up, his eyes once more meeting Koumyous, his expression, for the first time, far softer than he usually carried it.

"You wished to know what I would have done if the one I found ended up in a similar situation?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Yes," Koumyou meets Genjo's gaze, at least. There's a dread growing by the moment in his heart, worried what the answer might be. It won't leave him alone until he hears it, one way or the other. He's not even sure which of the answers is the one he's most dreading.

What sort of lessons has their terrible world imparted on him over the years, since Koumyou's death? Would he have stood by, like a younger Koumyou very well might have? Had, so many times before that night?

Or has he already surpassed him there, too? If he can even call it that, since one decision doesn't seem to have been particularly better than the other, in the end. Not to them both, at least, both preferring that the other had lived.

Perhaps Genjo is simply strong enough to honor little Kouryuu's wish, where Koumyou had not been? Koumyou knows for absolute certain that if the young boy's body had been the one to hit the floor that night, his own wouldn't have been more than a day or two behind.

As close as Genjo had come to following him, Koumyou himself wouldn't have endured it. Already too broken by that point in his life, that would have snapped him clean in two. The only consolation might have been that Ukoku would surely have joined them in the grave, getting what he'd always wanted from Koumyou after all, but at least not remaining to try to devour the world.

The softer expression on his son's face keeps Koumyou rooted quietly in place. Waiting, and wondering, and dreading.

[smithandwesson]

The look Koumyou had given him was filled with an intensity that he was not quite used to receiving. At least, it was not something he was used to from his master of all people. But Genjo Sanzo was resolved in his intent. He was looking up to meet Koumyous gaze with equal intensity but calmer. He was resolute in his path. Sure of the life he walked.

"I simply would have never placed him into it," That's all there was to it. It sounded simple, sure, but there was more than just that. "There were many times in our travels together that I nearly lost my life in front of him, and he in front of me. It is a path we've come to accept with the goals we're trying to reach. That isn't to say that our reactions to the other aren't strongly rooted. I almost made the same mistake as you at one point."

He'll never forget the pain he felt as Shuei speared him through intending to go for Goku. The instinct to sacrifice himself without thinking in hopes of saving the other, not realizing that doing such would bring just as horrid results.

"But the day I took him in, he was quite small. I thought him defenseless and vulnerable and not at all someone suited to the life I was living. Because of that, I had seriously considered giving him up to a place where he could live a normal and laid-back life. He wouldn't have to worry about the dangers a person with such power as I would bring with him. Go figure the brat's a stubborn one, though."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou considers that answer half cop-out, and half... he's not sure. Genjo's admitted he's been in similar situations. Not having it come down to one or the other having to die is a matter of luck, and Koumyou hopes his son's luck holds. It doesn't really answer what he'd do if it didn't, though.

The older monk lets out a deep sigh, and just... finds something else to focus on.

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, hm? I... had the opportunity to hand you off to a different life, when you were very, very tiny. There are always villages with room for babies, you know? But I couldn't do it."

Thankfully, someone had taken pity on him and shown him how to actually care for an infant.

[smithandwesson]

"I never could figure out why it was you didn't wish to let go of me," Genjo couldn't imagine it easy to raise an infant in a monastery, of all things, nonetheless with the position that Koumyuo held. Yes, Genjo had done the same thing himself, but he wasn't as stubborn and insistent as Goku was. He was just a baby, after all.

"I kept him because I knew he could handle himself. He chose to stay by my side, and I knew I didn't have to worry about him dying on me," He subconsciously clenched up a little with that, his hands folding within their hidden spot in his pockets. "Or if he was going to die, it was his own damn choice and fault."

What was it that Gojyo and Goku had uttered to him confidently when they first decided to take part in that infuriatingly long journey?

"The only side I'm on is my own. The only one I fight for is myself. I keep Goku around because I know he is strong enough to survive anything he may experience while following me," He sighed. "Well, he's also annoying to the point that I doubt he'd stop even if I broke both legs."