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closed | the edge of my life

WHO: Celehar and Shepard
WHAT: Shepard braces, then goes to speak to Celehar
WHERE: Celehar's shelter
WHEN: A day or two after this conversation on The Ferryman's post
WARNINGS: Frank discussion of death and grief. May also eventually mention or vaguely describe asphyxiation (I will warn in the thread as well)

Allynbee Shepard was not given to hesitation. As a commander, she had to be direct and decisive, and off the battlefield, she generally preferred to be straightforward. It was why she alluded to her circumstances to the elf in messages. Still, she lingered before heading to Celehar's dwelling.

Having been dead was a fact; anyone who could access her dossier with Cerberus knew it - but talking about it felt vulnerable in a way that felt difficult to articulate, much less take seriously. It was just the truth. But being dead hadn't prepared her for anything this place had, and she suspected that it wouldn't prepare her going forward either.

She considered that Celehar might not believe her as she knocked on the door and tried to consider what she'd say if he didn't.

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The knocking only results in a momentary pause, long enough to wonder if perhaps Celehar has gone off to wander the dunes or found something else to occupy his time, but any concerns are laid to rest ere long by the shuffling of movement from beyond the door followed shortly thereafter by his appearance at it opening it with a momentary flicker of surprise at there being anyone outside of it at all. He certainly wasn't prepared for the company - his hair is still caught neatly in its braid, despite its usual tendency to turn into a nest of flyaways any time he so much as turns his head.

When his attention settles on Allynbee it is with understanding. He nods and steps to the side to allow her into the hut, makeshift as it might be as a living space. "Commander," he says.

"Forgive my being frank, but when we spoke, it seems you had some particular reason to distrust the Ferryman."

Greeted at the door, Allynbee gives Celehar a nod before entering the hut. She almost inquires about him and is beaten to the punch as the elf picks up the conversation where it left off.

"Okay," she blinks, smiling a little."Right to it then."

She took a breath then released it, her posture straightening a little more as her mind turned to the topic at hand. They were technically on the same side philosophically - she was sure of it. But she doubted her actions would make sense to anyone considering her beliefs.

"I don't distrust the Ferryman, but none of us have enough information to make decisions with full confidence."

Folding her arms, the commander's gaze flits over him thoughtfully. Celehar seemed reasonable, even if he was too willing to trust everyone's fate because of his faith in the Ferryman.

"Before I go further, I want to make sure this conversation stays between us."

A lack of inclination to small talk has always been one of the (many) reasons that the political maneuvering of the Capitol and a beneficed Prelacy never say well on his shoulders - Celehar acknowledges the startled accession with a slightly awkward clearing of the throat, but Allynbee has already started in on the heart of the issue, leaving him no cause to remedy the situation - so he turns his attention instead to listening, with a touch of a frown.

"I give my word that I will not break confidence regarding your personal matters," he says, meeting her eyes levelly. "If I consider it to be a danger to withhold it from the others, Commander, I must be clear that I will argue against holding such secrets. The facts of the matter such as being lost, for example - though not the details of it."

She meets his small frown with her own practiced professional neutrality. Allynbee never talked about herself much and avoided this level of vulnerability like the plague. However, something about the Ferryman - regardless of her faith in them - doesn’t feel right.

“I want to be really clear when I say this - resurrection is not simple or commonplace in the world that I’m from. It took two years and a lot of money - and I didn’t see anything like this place when -“

The commander blinks, clears her throat. She’s explained this before. It’s fine. It’s just a fact.

“W-when I was gone.”

There's a lot to process in that explanation, an effort which begins before she's even finished speaking, with a sharp pinning back of Celehar's long, elegant ears when Commander Shepherd says the word 'resurrection.' Celehar, in fact, has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from blurting out something entirely regrettable as it's brought up, but he manages that much. Worse, that it only spirals from there into topics that only alarm him all the more.

"You were resurrected." The implication is not lost on him, but he asks, horror layering his voice, as he reiterates the point as though to confirm. "The ritual which - you chose that?"

By the end, the horror is shifting to something - else, something more complicated. Anger, concern for her, layered with even more horror and a touch of wariness. Not a neutral concept to him at all, or an impossible one, but certainly not a pleasant one.

He flies through reactions and while she’s not sure what all of his body language is saying, she gets a pretty good idea when he repeats her. Allynbee blinks, unaccustomed to this kind of concern, especially not for her. The question visibly confuses her and her brows knit faintly with thought.

“No.” She thinks a little more and shrugs, gaze going to the floor, the wall - anywhere but Celehar’s face.

“I was a soldier with knowledge of an enemy no-one believed was coming. Our entire universe was in danger,” Allynbee shrugs, as if were as simple as breathing. “They needed me.”

The answer does not at all seem to comfort him, though given his reaction even before he asked the question, it's possible, perhaps even likely, that none of the possible answers to the question could have left him anything but further concerned and discomfited.

He remains silent for a moment, processing the answer through - he would call it anger, maybe, and the flood of adrenaline that floods through him. He keeps his hands still, lest he think about the results of such a terrible decision.

"Desperation can lead to acts of profanity," he says, in the end, chill and grim, "But doing so has consequences. For them, and for you." The unnamed revethavar, whose immortality and imprisonment had rendered it insane, hunting and killing in the wake of its impossible life. He still struggles not to think of that.

"I am sorry it was done to you, Commander. Regardless of the desperate circumstance."

It’s not a shock to Allynbee - all of her old friends and in one instance a lover, expressed shock and trepidation of all levels seeing her after her … well it wasn’t really an ‘alleged’ death, now was it? Even now some of it still stings - that they would follow her to their potential deaths to do something impossible but refused to believe the impossible had happened to her.

Blessedly, the conversation moves back to an emotion she can better articulate.

“I’m not a believer and as I understand it, neither were the scientists on the project.”

It’s as much of a protest as she’s willing to make. The whole thing was a foray into uncharted waters on so many fronts - but it worked. And with as poorly as some things went in her life, she wasn’t about to look a gift horse of that level in the mouth.

“I’m not sorry. I wasn’t in a state to be asked, there was no record about what my wishes were and in the end I got two more years to live. We saved millions. I couldn’t have asked for a better ‘consequence’.”

Edited (Fixed a typo and made another lol) 2025-04-17 18:19 (UTC)

Celehar visibly bites the inside of his cheek to modulate his reaction to that - atheism, clearly, being a bigger deal in his home than it might ever have been in Shepherd's, but he masters himself again after a moment. Regardless of his personal feelings on the easy way she says it, it is not the main thrust of the conversation, though that in itself is a similarly complicated topic, which has him struggling not to scowl.

"I - can understand the desperation that might have led to it," is what he manages to say, slightly clipped. "Especially if that was the outcome." There's an unspoken 'but' tailing the end of that sentence, but Celehar cuts off before he can give voice to it, instead taking a moment to try and resettle his expression.

"You mentioned a - relevant experience," he says in the end, refocusing on her face. "Would it be your death, then?"

His reaction to her lack of faith draws a tilt of the head, but she doesn't call attention to it. It's not her business to question why it bothers him, and it's not her way to explain why she - well, it's not that she doesn't believe. It's something that she never really considered. Allynbee knows he's trying to meet her with understanding and takes the cue to get to the crux of the conversation.

"Yes. I know this is just me conjecturing based on my own experience," she starts, expression pinching a little with thought. "But I can't help but feel like there's something wrong here."

Reflexively, she crosses her arms, gaze drifting to the floor.

"For everyone I knew, I was gone for two years, but to me, it was like I had just woken up from passing out. There was no strange land, no weird creatures, just...silence."

It's certainly a conundrum presented, one that helps Celehar shove the concern about atheism and the gods to the back of his mind, for now. (He'll worry at it later, particularly in context with the presence of the Ferryman, but it is not an argument he must have here and now - Allynbee is not denying their circumstances wholesale, simply questioning them. That is... easier to handle, much as it sparks in him a desire to argue.

He can, at least, make it a well-reasoned one.

"Do you believe you ought remember an experience held beyond your flesh? If - " He clears his throat, which does nothing to relieve the rasp of his voice, "If you were to be... restored, in the same fashion, from now. Would you remember any of this?"

"You make a good point."

She flashes Celehar a quick, embarrassed smile. For all her training, Allynbee was led fairly frequently by her gut, and this was no exception. She was never one for religion, but Celehar's question was shining a light on things she'd never put to words.

"For something as vivid as this, I assume it would feel like a dream. I wouldn't necessarily remember everything, but some ...inkling would still be there."

"Do you remember your dreams, Commander?" Celehar says, wryly. "I do not mean to discount what you say is true, even if it troubles me. But dreams, even important ones, often fade away from the substance and leave behind only the impression. I cannot persuade you not to find this place suspicious, if you are determined not to. But if the only way to escape it is what happened to you, then..." he makes a gesture, a turning of his palm. "What are we to do?"

"Touche." Allynbee agrees, though she waits for him to ask his question before explaining further.

"It's more than my experience, unique as it is. The...existence I come from, there are ways to control or otherwise manipulate a mind. Some species could use spores to control another lifeform, while others could introduce information to you by gazing into your eyes and willing it."

Her brows furrowed again.

"Honestly? It would be simpler to work under the assumption that we're all dead, but why all of this? It feels like some trial."

"If it were a maz-work," Celehar counters, "Why allow any not to take the Toll? Why let you slip into the darkness, then find you once more?" He frowns, closing his eyes and taking a moment to marshal his thoughts.

"If I may, Commander. I am - was - a Witness vel ama. I spoke to the souls of the dead." He opens his eyes again, meeting her gaze. "I Witnessed for a great many deaths, and... many die in pain. In confusion, and regret. The memories of their death cling to them, longer than the memories of their life."

Allynbee takes his argument in stride; he makes good points, and she does her best to consider them, despite the intensity of her gut feeling.

"I've met a lot of people who acted irrationally because they thought it was the best or right thing to do. Some needed a means to an end and were unconcerned about the cost. I'm not going to pretend to know the motivations of whatever is controlling this."

She meets his gaze, listening, and feels the beginnings of dread. Attempts to remember her second death have failed - it bothers her enough that she can't stop the question before it leaves her lips.

"Is it like that for you?"

It's a sensible question, but it still has Celehar's ears flicking lower, as he takes a breath. "I understand that the... particulars of one's passing may not always be clear. Sometimes death comes suddenly." Some peacefully, but he doesn't say that - it does not seem to be the case that many here have had deaths that were untroubled, and a sleeping death of age seems unlikely for a woman like Allynbee.

He takes a breath, then lets it out again. "The dead as I heard them were the lingering remnants of a soul left in the body for hours - weeks, at best. They did not exist as we do... there may be some - special circumstance, that causes us to take on this journey. But I do not doubt our passing."

Still he's stalling. Thou art a coward, Celehar, he thinks to himself, and finally says, "When I died, I had been trapped by a living-dead monster, the remnants of a man who had desperately sought power. A Revethavar. It tore apart my mind and it killed me, Commander." His voice is such a grim thing as he manages the words, his blue eyes going distant with the memory. "For as long as I endured its torment, I do not believe this to be more of the same."

Allynbee looks at Celehar, professional veneer cracking under the weight of the conversation and the way the elf speaks about his death. The horror of it breaks her heart a little and for a moment her mind goes to all she lost on the way to this moment.

“I’m sorry that happened to you.” Her voice is quiet, detached military s professionalism giving way to simple sincerity.

Her brows knit as she takes her own breath, looking at the floor between them as she tries to recall.

“I don’t have that clarity. Not this time around.” She folds her arms, eyes shutting as she tries to think. Her mind goes to London, the final push - the Crucible and then…

“In order to save my universe, every world I knew - I had to make a choice. So many species worked so hard to get me a chance at stopping the entities that threatened our existence.”

Allynbee’s voice tightens and she blows out a huff, shoulders slumping.

“I know what I did Celehar, but when I try to think of it -“

She unfolds her arms, a hand going up to rub at her temples.

“There’s nothing there.”

Celehar's mouth opens, then closes again, his expression pinching. It's easier to focus on her admission than face the sympathy over his death. He can't help but feel awkward about it, because - as horrible as it was, it's over now, isn't it? And he must simply continue on with that knowledge, as they all must.

Just as well that they don't truly need sleep, here. He would not be sleeping regardless, but the sleeplessness does not gnaw on him so fiercely here.

"Commander," he says. "I cannot say the reason for your memories to be foggy, but I admit it troubles me. But if you were fighting a force so grave a danger to so many..."

Allynbee hasn't quite internalized their lack of needs, and it shows in the exhaustion simmering under her expression.

"I made sure we won. The choice I made was to affect things afterward."

It's the only thing she can think of to cope. The truth was, the situation she left was more nebulous than she would have liked. The crucible had offered her a choice and she knows that she wouldn't have dared to leave the Reapers to their own devices. But...

"I hate not knowing."

Edited 2025-05-24 16:31 (UTC)

"I must sympathize," Celehar says, quiet as he can manage to be with his voice. He presses his lips together, but thinks over his next words carefully. "... I think that, too, is a reason we are here. Rather than cast to darkness. In my practice, we consider the ties that are made in death. These ties, the stathan, which are what we follow in Witnessing." He pauses, mulling over how to put it.

"I do not wonder that the stathan cling to the souls of the dead in their passing, if it was a violent or sudden death, or even one grieved before its time."

"How about someone grieved twice?"

It's not a joke, not really, but Allynbee can't help but succumb to the absurdity of such a sentence with a faint smile. She knows that Need mentioned that they no longer had the 'standard' biological needs, but having a body is grounding in the face of such surreal circumstances. For the millionth time, Allynbee sighs.

"I appreciate you listening at the very least."

"I hope that the truth of the situation will become apparent, one way or another. Despite the grim nature of our circumstance." He bows his head in acknowledgement, the corner of his mouth twitching at the joke. At least someone whose sense of humor is as grim as his own, when it occasionally rears its head - though he doesn't joke in turn this time.

"It is my Calling to listen, at the very least."

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