Drip-Fed

Meditations on Necessity 9 – The Necessity of Acceptance

A centipede could not fly.A raven could never hold something in its hands.

A fly could not contemplate its own existence.

Matters of reality were etched into the texture and shape of every living being. Apexus considered himself privileged in this regard, an amorphous blob that had been allowed to grow into the shape he desired. Because he had this privilege and because of the limitations that past choices had gradually introduced to his body, he understood this matter well.

Every creature was itself.

An utterly redundant phrase, yet one that those of sufficient intellect often disregarded or rebelled against. There were reasons for this rebellion, viable paths that were not open to animals. A sapient individual could overcome many limitations of the flesh through power, be it societal or magical.

In the end, however, even that overcoming was part of what they, as creatures, were. A man may emulate a wolf, he may become a Druid to shapeshift into a wolf, he could live the rest of his days out as a wolf, yet he would never be a wolf in totality for that base would remain. The decision to be a wolf would be a daily one.

A wolf, meanwhile, was a wolf.

“Why would we pay into an empire that’s not ours?” one of the humans asked.

That was the question that summarised their experience talking to the locals. Yuzuki guided them from shop to shop, then let the party ask their own questions. The Yuki-Onna neither prevented them from asking about certain things nor did she prevent them from swerving into a different street. The sentiments shared by the people were too widespread to be faked.

“Why is it not yours?” Apexus asked. “You live in it.”

“It ain’t done nothing for us besides keep us down,” the female shopkeeper responded. “Taking taxes, making us live in poverty, it ain’t right!”

Apexus’ eyes drifted over the clean street and the city at large. It was no small feat of supply lines to maintain this place. Though the settlement had been erected mostly by human hands, that had been enabled by the strength of the surrounding empire and a demand for a supply hub in the first place. “Are you not free to leave?”

“We’re free to live next to knife ears.”

“And the taxes you pay are the same rate as everywhere else in the Sleeping Empire, are they not?”

The line of questioning annoyed the shopkeeper enough that she pressed her lips together until they were as white as the surrounding tundra. “Step away from my shop, stranger. I ain’t want to talk to you anymore.”

Apexus honoured the sudden request with a bowed head and stepped away, rejoining the rest of the group a couple steps away. “I believe that is enough of the street talk?” Yuzuki suggested.

“You have proven that these people have animosity for a state of reality,” Apexus agreed, his voice carrying far enough that a few others along the street could hear him and shoot him dirty glances. “Perhaps they were wronged at points throughout their history, I cannot ascertain the depth of it from these conversations alone. What I know is that they are behaving entitled to a freedom whose burdens they could not carry.”

“A wonderful way to put it,” Yuzuki agreed. “Though there is a better orator you are yet to meet.”

The Yuki-Onna’s eyes locked on an approaching boy. He was no older than ten, an unassuming youth waddling along the rock road in big clothes that protected him from the icy air. “I got something for you, sir,” he said the second he reached the party, extending his arm with the certainty of a seasoned messenger.

Apexus took a small piece of paper and scanned it quickly. The boy waited while the humanoid chimera considered the message within. It was an invitation, though it was extended only to him. After a few moments, the humanoid chimera rolled it up and handed it back to the boy. “I decline.”

“Thi– huh?” The boy blinked a couple of times. “You… decline?”

“Yes. Go along.”

The boy remained frozen for a couple of seconds. In his years of running errands for the rebel leaders, he had not encountered anyone outright declining an invitation. While he continued to reel from what had happened, Apexus led his party away.

They left the city premises. Yuzuki kept down her question until Apexus had ensured their privacy by leading them into the Mobile Estate. “Why didn’t you visit the rebel leader?” she asked. “I wanted you to see their best argument.”

Aclysia took it upon her to answer. “We have encountered these patterns before. Darling must consider it a waste of our time to hear out a viewpoint this clearly laid out in its supporters. A more skillful oration changes little about our response to it.”

Apexus nodded, Reysha continued. “Where I am at now…” The tiger woman kicked off her heavy boots, then sashayed into the room. “…is that you have demonstrated that these people are bitter fucking idiots, thinking they can rebel against a multi-Leaf empire with an isolated city in the middle of an ice field.” She locked eyes with Yuzuki. “What I don’t see is why we should kill a man pre-emptively because of that.”

“I, uh, also don’t get what that would really solve…?” Korith weighed in. “He’d just get replaced…”

“He cannot be replaced, not easily,” Yuzuki responded. “He is an adventurer. There may be a riot after his death, but that can be simply waited out.”

“Animosity will remain,” Apexus stated.

“To solve the animosity, we would either have to move these people wholesale or kill them to the last child.” Taking her seat on one of the cushions by the large couch, the Yuki-Onna let out a long sigh. “The Sleeping Empire does not wish to engage in either solution, though it may if unrest continues. Though a miniscule bother, a problem will be solved one way or another in due time. If we can pacify them for decades at a time, that at least allows them to live.”

“And to wallow,” Apexus added, his tone remaining neutral. It was an observation, devoid of his own emotion. The situation had no clean solution. “Yuzuki, I want your opinion as yourself – why do you want us to kill the rebel leader?”

“Because it is the pragmatic solution,” she answered without a hint of attachment. “The man alone is the threat, keeping his movement together and giving it the power to harm a garrison. But a garrison is all he might kill. If he does, the crackdown will be bloody, the animosity of the survivors that have tasted a small victory greater. We kill the man. We roll the dice. If no new leader manifests, then that gives the overseer time to attempt to sway the next generation. One day, they may be integrated.”

“How feasible is this line of thinking?” Apexus asked Aclysia.

“Though somewhat wishful, it has merit,” the angel answered. “If the situation has no clean solution, then it may be the best course of action to wait for a change in circumstances.”

“…Reysha, the choice is ultimately yours,” Apexus said.

The Nightblade hummed.