[The suggestion about her father gets a genuine smile in turn, suggesting this isn't totally off-base.]
Hey, dares are a great traditional reason for tattoos. But if you're in a position one day where they're not a hindrance to your work ... I don't know. I guess it always felt like a way to affirm my bod is mine. To do things just because I want to.
[Which, on a less pleasant note:]
Speaking of, or not really, but ... I've been purposely private with my thoughts about anchor removal, but we may be reaching a point where that's not tenable. [Given the Ness of it all.] But I just wanted to say: Other div heads will know first. If I change my mind about saying something more publicly than I have. Don't want to blindside you.
[ Yseult's first nod is slow and shallow, understanding and--if not quite agreement, the sense that it's an idea she's turning over. It's not difficult to imagine the idea might be a complicated one for a woman in her line of work.
Voluntary amputations are another matter. This nod is brisk. ]
The warning is appreciated. Do you have a sense of what you might say?
Still workshopping that. My personal position hasn't changed; I think I'm more useful with both arms. Yeah, I could vanish again, but I could also get shot with an arrow the next time the Venatori attack. Or I could catch a particularly nasty flu, who knows. The anchor's a risk, but we all run a lot of those. If the war ends and I'm still here, maybe I'll revisit the question, but that's a lot of bridges to cross.
But for everyone else... I'm not comfortable telling people they can or can't make that decision. It's their own life. But I'm, uh, let's go with "alarmed" that Ness felt she had to make it look like an accident. Doing it that way added risk that I don't think was actually necessary. And her complications also illustrate that removing the arm puts you at risk too, if not the same way that keeping it does.
All that said, I don't want to like, single Ness out. People who knew Wysteria know how breezy she could be about risk, and how hard Tony leaving hit her. But if people are coming along later and reading her notes, they may not have that context.
Wysteria's anchor had also progressed to a point that was causing harm, or so the report suggested. [ speaking of context. ] That anchors remain the only method of closing rifts and rifters still more common than natives with anchors is also a factor. It's a rare and powerful ability that's being given up.
[ There's a pause, revealed in the subtle shifting of her jaw and press of her mouth after a second as a moment of hesitation, before Yseult decides to be completely frank. ]
Other than rare exceptions, removing the anchor is a selfish choice. It's personal stability over an essential tool we can't create more of. We can't stop them and they won't want to hear it, but they should think about that. The idea of vanishing one day may be terrible but everyone here is risking the same.
Look, my threshold for forbidding it is high. Higher than "I think it's selfish to do what you're doing," though I agree with you that it is that. But I also haven't spoken up before now because I know my position carries weight. Because I didn't want exactly the kind of "accidents" we've just seen as a workaround. I wondered if discouragement would read as prohibition in a way that caused more problems. I think that math has shifted, considering.
Ironically, same reason as mine: Didn't want to set an example. Tried to talk her out of that, but I wasn't willing to blow up her spot among more than the div heads and short of an order she wasn't listening. Not that it mattered in the end, I don't know that anyone bought that it was an accident, especially. I should have ... well. If wishes were horses, as we said back home.
She sounds strangely intent on discarding an arm for someone who hasn't been here very long. [ compared to, say, the folks with years' long relationships at risk. ]
Yeah. I don't know her well enough to be sure whether it's a particular terror of vanishing separate from dying some other way, or a misguided way to show commitment to Riftwatch. Or maybe a third thing, always possible, but those are my two best guesses.
Before it happened, she wouldn't have been my bet.
Fuck, yeah, she was totally who I was going to put my money on. Guess no one would take the bet.
It is a little sobering to essentially be told something that's happened to me personally is a fate worse than death, but I don't know, maybe I just need two girlfriends who are taller than me to pose dramatically with.
Yeah, I plan to. I am in something of a limited club, having that experience.
I should probably think of something a bit more diplomatic than "I didn't believe in an afterlife for my individual consciousness to begin with, so oblivion was always my expectation," though. Not quite rallying the troops material.
[Her smile lingers, genuine at that laugh but fading to something a bit more abstracted with the question.]
For me it was like ... I went to bed here, the way I always did. And then I was coming through a rift again with about a year's worth of new memories from home. There was no. [She pauses to think.] When you're asleep, you sort of have a sense in your body that time has passed, right? Even if you don't remember any dreams, it feels like you were out for some amount of time, even if you don't instantly know how much.
It wasn't like that. It felt subjectively like I'd jumped forward in time, just abruptly. Really disorienting, though I imagine maybe worse if I didn't have any new home memories. It was weird enough the mismatch of like ... it felt like a year of life where I'm from, but it was longer than that here, that I was gone. But even then, it was and wasn't like all that happened to me, since I suddenly got my Thedas memories back too.
[Granitefell is its own set of complications, but it's not a comparison without some merit.]
I know it freaks out some of the other rifters when I talk about it, but I think the whole experience really solidified my feelings that I'm a different person than the Cosima back on Earth whose memories I have. She doesn't remember being to Thedas because she never has been. I ... remember her not remembering, if that makes sense.
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Hey, dares are a great traditional reason for tattoos. But if you're in a position one day where they're not a hindrance to your work ... I don't know. I guess it always felt like a way to affirm my bod is mine. To do things just because I want to.
[Which, on a less pleasant note:]
Speaking of, or not really, but ... I've been purposely private with my thoughts about anchor removal, but we may be reaching a point where that's not tenable. [Given the Ness of it all.] But I just wanted to say: Other div heads will know first. If I change my mind about saying something more publicly than I have. Don't want to blindside you.
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Voluntary amputations are another matter. This nod is brisk. ]
The warning is appreciated. Do you have a sense of what you might say?
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But for everyone else... I'm not comfortable telling people they can or can't make that decision. It's their own life. But I'm, uh, let's go with "alarmed" that Ness felt she had to make it look like an accident. Doing it that way added risk that I don't think was actually necessary. And her complications also illustrate that removing the arm puts you at risk too, if not the same way that keeping it does.
All that said, I don't want to like, single Ness out. People who knew Wysteria know how breezy she could be about risk, and how hard Tony leaving hit her. But if people are coming along later and reading her notes, they may not have that context.
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[ There's a pause, revealed in the subtle shifting of her jaw and press of her mouth after a second as a moment of hesitation, before Yseult decides to be completely frank. ]
Other than rare exceptions, removing the anchor is a selfish choice. It's personal stability over an essential tool we can't create more of. We can't stop them and they won't want to hear it, but they should think about that. The idea of vanishing one day may be terrible but everyone here is risking the same.
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[She exhales, a huff of breath.]
Look, my threshold for forbidding it is high. Higher than "I think it's selfish to do what you're doing," though I agree with you that it is that. But I also haven't spoken up before now because I know my position carries weight. Because I didn't want exactly the kind of "accidents" we've just seen as a workaround. I wondered if discouragement would read as prohibition in a way that caused more problems. I think that math has shifted, considering.
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Before it happened, she wouldn't have been my bet.
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Fuck, yeah, she was totally who I was going to put my money on. Guess no one would take the bet.
It is a little sobering to essentially be told something that's happened to me personally is a fate worse than death, but I don't know, maybe I just need two girlfriends who are taller than me to pose dramatically with.
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I imagine that would change anyone's outlook on existence. [ is dry again, before her tone returns to seriousness. ]
You might include that in your statement. It could help to remind people you had that experience.
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I should probably think of something a bit more diplomatic than "I didn't believe in an afterlife for my individual consciousness to begin with, so oblivion was always my expectation," though. Not quite rallying the troops material.
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No, not quite. But they've never seemed a very religious group anyway.
What is it like, to vanish and then return?
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For me it was like ... I went to bed here, the way I always did. And then I was coming through a rift again with about a year's worth of new memories from home. There was no. [She pauses to think.] When you're asleep, you sort of have a sense in your body that time has passed, right? Even if you don't remember any dreams, it feels like you were out for some amount of time, even if you don't instantly know how much.
It wasn't like that. It felt subjectively like I'd jumped forward in time, just abruptly. Really disorienting, though I imagine maybe worse if I didn't have any new home memories. It was weird enough the mismatch of like ... it felt like a year of life where I'm from, but it was longer than that here, that I was gone. But even then, it was and wasn't like all that happened to me, since I suddenly got my Thedas memories back too.
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The new memories sound a bit like after Granitefell. The memories that came after they changed things. They've never felt as real.
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[Granitefell is its own set of complications, but it's not a comparison without some merit.]
I know it freaks out some of the other rifters when I talk about it, but I think the whole experience really solidified my feelings that I'm a different person than the Cosima back on Earth whose memories I have. She doesn't remember being to Thedas because she never has been. I ... remember her not remembering, if that makes sense.