pulseof_life | Room 207, Monday Early Evening

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Room 207, Monday Early Evening

It was the sort of day where, while there was nothing really to do in her room, she had not particularly felt like leaving it and her one concession to being social was to leave her door open as she sat on her floor, back against the side of her bed and dug her paints out from her pockets.

They were not for painting pictures, she had no talent for that, but rather they were for repainting her beaded accessories as the colors tended to fade.

It wasn’t the most exciting of work to be engrossed in but it was pleasing all the same and Yeul had never been one to seek out excitement anyway.

Perhaps she’d fetch a cup of tea in a bit? Yeul mulled over that as she carefully recolored a blue bead.

[Door & post open!]

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"There are small settlements elsewhere," Yeul said, smiling slightly. "But I think the time for moving away from the pillar would have been back when it had all first happened and at that time, people could not do it because they had no idea of what was on the world they were forced to make a new home on."

She shook her head. "Before Cocoon fell, there was very little contact between it and the main land of Pulse. And the little contact there was between them was violent."

"I suppose fear does inspire most species to be conservative," Liara said, as she grabbed for the water cooler.

"They were sheltered people," Yeul said gently. "And they had lost their homes, their livelihoods, their government and their gods in a very short period of time. After all that, they found themselves stuck on a planet that they knew only from nightmare stories and ancient history. It is not surprising that they clung to what was left that was familiar."

"That is what I meant," Liara clarified, though at least it didn't sound like she had offended Yeul. "Fear, changed environments... that inspires conservatism. Care. It is based in old instincts."

Yeul was hard to offend.

"Perhaps so," she said agreeably. "I do not think anyone thought about it, which also bears that out."

"It would have seemed sensible to them, most likely on a level they could not put into words," Liara mused. "However, decisions taken in fear do not always work well in the long term."

“No,” Yeul said softly. “Not all of their decisions will turn out to be good ones.”

She was rather uniquely situated to know just how badly it could all turn out however.

“Right now, it works rather well for them. If someone brought up moving they would not be listened to.”

"You seem to have considered the idea," Liara mused.

She poured hot water into two mugs.

"I consider many things," Yeul said, smiling slightly.

It was the truth but not all of it.

"Might I ask a question? Another one, I mean."

"Of course," Liara said easily.

“What do you, and by extension your people, think of gods?”

Perhaps it was her conversation with Rapunzel that had her asking. Yeul examined the thought and decided it would serve as a reason as well as any.

"My people used to worship the Goddess Athame, who descended from the heavens to teach us," Liara said, neatly depositing a tea bag in each cup. "But of recent times..." Which was to say the past few thousand years or so... "We have broadened our perspective. We believe that there is a spirit in every thing. All is one. We are all part of a greater whole."

"And all have equal power?" she asked curiously. "Or, perhaps, more accurately: all have equal worth?"

Yeul paused then asked, "What happened to the Goddess Athame?"

"Essentially, yes," Liara said. "We are all aspects of the same collective, and thus we all contribute an equal amount."

She walked towards Yeul with cups in hand. "Nothing happened to her," she said. "In fact, out of all the religions practiced by my ancestors, hers is the strongest old one that still remains. But when we spread out across the galaxy, and we found out that we could meld with any species... well, it changes your concept of the self. I imagine our concept of god went with it."

"Concept of god," she echoed. "Not a reality?"

"When we talk about faith," Liara said, offering her a cup, "Aren't they the same thing?"

"Yes," she said, taking the cup with a smile. "Thank you. And no. I think it depends on the world."

"We see our deities as reflections of ourselves," Liara observed. "At least, that seems to have been the case with every species I have ever studied."

"Perhaps it's better that way," Yeul said thoughtfully. "Ours are not."

"How so?" Liara asked, sipping from her own cup.

"Our world is governed primarily beings known as the fal'Cie," she said, waiting for her tea to cool slightly. "They can be killed but in every other respect, they were our gods. Some still are," Yeul amended. "But the ones left have little interest in humanity so long as we avoid them. Once, however, they ruled Cocoon directly. It was on them that the bulk of humanity was entirely dependent on for food, for water, for light, and air. What else are they, in that case, other than gods?"

She shrugged slightly. "And even if the fal'Cie are disregarded, there is Etro, the Goddess, who watches all and who even the fal'Cie are lesser than."

"But then doesn't humanity mimick them now?" Liara said thoughtfully. "I would presume you learned, at least in part, how to tend to your food and water needs yourself..."

She'd think back on this conversation fifty years from now, when she found out Athame had in fact been one of many Protheans sent to Thessia to... elevate... the asari.

"Not mimick," she said, shaking her head. "The fal'Cie... provided for humanity but humanity had to know what to do with the light and water. How to use it, how to process it, that was up to us. But without them, the resources would not have existed within Cocoon."

"They built Cocoon? Or did they simply regulate it?"

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pulseof_life - 2012-11-15 13:21 (UTC) - Expand

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