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| | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | Lamar found himself in a room, waiting. The wait was somewhat short - soon enough an individual wearing a long grey coat walked in, and for a long time, stood. Looking at him, completely silent. | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
Lamar took in a long look himself, before moving around to give him the full panoramic view with a wry smirk.
| | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | “So.”
The voice sounds like gravel wrapped around silk, both rumbling and smooth.
“You are what Inanna took from me.”
He inspects further.
“The results of her deceits.” | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
The reply was slightly flippant in tone, but there was a tense undercurrent. Golem had years of life, experience and power over his child, and if things went dangerously south it would likely be one-sided.
“Oh, I don’t know, I imagine you enjoyed it enough at the time. But yes. Hello, my sire. Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?” | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | The man cocks his head to one side, in a manner almost reminiscent of a predatory bird. Something about him was almost not completely human.
“Less, perhaps, than you might think. I wonder - Lamar was it - if you really know what you think you know? I am looking to see if I have someone who is more a son, or who is more his mother. I am looking to see if you know who you are or if you are merely one of many masks. Do you know the answer, in a hall of mirrors, to “which one is real?” I know the answer for myself. Do you?”
Widely speaking the reputation of ‘Golem’ or at least the scuttlebut was as a man of few words and possibly few thoughts. Perhaps slow. | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
“It doesn’t matter how many copies are out there. Doesn’t matter how perfect a facsimile they are. No matter how many sets of these eyes are looking at me, there’s only one set I’m looking out of.”
Lamar indicated his own eyes.
“I’m me. Plenty of Inanna in me, all the rest is you, not going to quibble over exact amounts. Not going to claim any particular knowledge, the man who says he knows everything usually knows nothing. Shy of an omniscience power anyway.” | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | Golem:
“You can admit you don’t know. One better, then, than your mother.”
He paces for a second.
“As for myself, I know not my father, I know not my mother, I know not my age, and I know not who I was, nor for how long. I merely know who I am, in the here, in the now. I have no chains to others save those I choose to put upon myself, and those choices are few.”
He seems to,be waiting to see if Lamar can comprehend where he is going with this. | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
"I can certainly appreciate being unfettered. Can't say I am, currently, and can't say all my bonds are there by my choice and will. By saying you do not know now, you're begging the question if you once knew, if there was an event of severance with your past, by choice or by incident." | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | Golem
“Perhaps. Perhaps. What it does mean is that my book is written one page at a time. I am episode four of Star Wars before one through three existed. If there was such an incident neither I nor anyone who wishes to tell knows. More important is what you are. It is somewhat of a surprise you exist, as there has never been an indication that is .. possible… before.” | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
"Given an origin species several billion strong would hint at a few possibilities, as would denying association with that species. If you have a genetic sequence, I'd be far from the only person here to have had theirs manipulated at origin. Or there's Inanna's power, providing memetics if genetics weren't an option. Getting hung up on the scope of the possible when confronted with something actual, someone tangible, seems a bit like using only one page when many may be needed." | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | Golem
“Indeed Lamar. That is my point. You exist. You are not in thrall. You are your own person. Do you, I wonder, see the significance?” | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
"I am not in thrall that I know of, given Inanna. She did, after all, shape how I was raised, for good or ill. But yes, your point is well taken. A great many of my peers here had a far worse relationship with their sires or guardians. Some effectively condemned to thralldom, if they went along with it or not, and that's just from what I've been able to establish from what little they consciously or unconsciously reveal. So, it does indeed beg the question. Why go to all the trouble of seeking you out as a father, only to leave me with a high degree of autonomy or a very convincing illusion thereof?" | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | “Because she is something they actually fear. Mainly because she doesn’t fear them, or truly anything. She is something like me, only she falls on the other side of the line. A free agent who belongs to no one and acts as she chooses. Smart - and amoral. But, in her own way, ethical. And she wants a child that is like her. And that is something she will never get by having a brainwashed slave. The others don’t interfere both because she use useful, and is a grenade, with the pin almost pulled.” | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
“Beings too powerful to be curtailed, either by their own side or the opposition, subject only to their own morality, the ethics they choose to follow. Certainly an exclusive club. She wanted a child. What of you? Ever have any thoughts of progeny?” | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | Golem:
“That was not part of the equation. A child is an inevitable responsibility - a tie that cannot properly be denied once it has come into awareness. A variable in the equation of your actions becomes a constant. Do you comprehend?” | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
A brief nod.
"A value that always needs to be accounted for, and which others can potentially take into account to your detriment. Sun Tzu's lesson on formlessness no longer can be applied. Ironic, given the protean nature of our respective abilities." | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | “Things can only change until they cannot. Yet I will not, I think, be your master. I would not.”
He pauses and almost smirks slightly.
“It would also require opposing those whom it would be painful to oppose. So there is that.” | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
“That opens up a whole bevy of questions. Master in what sense, exactly, from academic to owner? In what way can opposition become too painful, and is it worse to oppose friends than enemies?” | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | “In any sense, Lamar. I am not a master. I rule only myself and no other. I would not purposely place myself in opposition to the strong willed people surrounding you. They may be still within the system, yet I do not think it rules them. I am in opposition to Alchemy, to Inanna, to Nyx - because while I do not wish to play the game, I would also not see the game board shattered.” | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
"Maybe the sense Henley intended in Invictus, 'I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul'. Recognising the difference between 'I do not wish to play' and 'I do not want anyone to be able to play', the passive over the assertive, though being able to not be on the board is a powerful privilege afforded to very few. So, what happened back then? Between you and my mother? Was there always opposition, was she always firmly in those two's camp?" | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | “Inanna always was, and is, only in her own camp. I met her in a …”
He pauses.
“In all honesty, Lamar, I do not rambler how I met her. At all. Which troubles me.” | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
"I can understand why that would be a concern. What memories do you have of her in general, and where do they fit in the chronology?" | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | “She …”
He pauses a long time.
“She came like Water and like the wind she goes. Into this Universe, and Why not knowing, Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing: And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.”
“How does one define that which defies definition, and which she herself, I think, could not give a proper answer?” | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 Moderator | Moderator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 27,597 | Lamar
"Start at realities and work up, would be one way to define her. Human enough and female enough to have a passably human most of the time child. Defying definition is in itself a trait, capriciousness, arbitrariness. She's clever, or gives an appearance of cleverness indistinguishable from the real thing."
Lamar paused, grimacing. "...Huh. Hadn't thought about it, but I suppose I am the main authority on her, having spent most of my life directly in her company. But proximity means less perspective, and that's the angle I think I need." | | | | Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 Arssanguinus Moderator | OP Arssanguinus Moderator Joined: Sep 2000 Posts: 61,243 Likes: 3 | Golem
“Lamar, she played roles. She had no identity. That was her identity. She was - she is - whatever she needs to be at the moment. A complete social and emotional chameleon. You were probably her most consistent “role” of her life. I could not know what she was because I am not in all honesty sure that she does herself.” | | |
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