Anekantavada [Day 0]

[Kannon]

It was only within the short hours of the night that a fire was lit in igloo-like structures erected inside one of the abandoned halls of the Eyrie. The fire would be unseen, and the night would obscure the smoke. Fire was a luxury, as Sadhu Trygve's cow wasn't producing burnable manure fast enough, and it had to be dried beforehand. Now, however, was the day when the fire's sweet scent and comforting warmth could spread.



All of them had gathered, the Sadhu, five other excavating monks, and Kova. Trygve had just finished his upright meditations and was about to prepare the meal. He would allow the monks to consume whatever Kova had hunted down, but for himself it was only the lichen soup, its bitterness broken with the cow's milk.

There was some muted excitement. Apparently one of the nuns had un-iced a pathway to a part of the monastery that had long been forgotten and only had the Harkonnen destruction revealed the old passage, though she was unsure what lay beyond as it wasn't all cleared.

[Kova]

Kova brings comes huffing to the preparation area with a plucked and field dressed bird. "Are you roasting or stewing? You need me to chop it up?"

After initially making eye contact with the monk in greeting with a nod, Kova began scanning the surroundings as was his nature. He liked to know where things are.

[Kannon]

"Follow your own guidance, Kova. I cannot advise on the matters of meat." Trygve smiled with apology.

They were safe, as safe as they coukd be on this planet. It were weeks since the last ornithopter had ventured into the area, and only during the day. And even if one did, it would need a very inquisitive pilot to notice that the Eyrie was no longer completely abandoned.

[Kova]

He nods, grabbing a cast iron pan to cook it in. He chops the bird into pieces and puts whatever meager seasoning he's scrounged up onto it while the pan heats up on the fire.

"How old do you think the wing they just found is?" he asks as he sets a couple parts of the bird into the pan gently.

Kova's eyes occasionally stop on Trygve, and he makes eye contact when speaking to him, but otherwise splits attention between not burning the food and a general awareness of his surroundings. He has a general sense of unease around him that's been there the entire time Trygve has known him, like he's just waiting for the next bad thing to happen and trying to be prepared for it.

[Kannon]

"Hard to say." The nun replied. "Maybe even thousands of years. It's running deep. I discovered it only because a floor had caved in."

"The monastery was founded very early into the history of pilgrimage to the planet." Trygve said peacefully, gently mixing his lichen soup in a small pot. The sadhu had never responded to Kova's unease in any other way than with compassion and calmness.

The pigmy cow chewed slowly on her own provision of lichen and moss, laying behind them. One of the monks leaned against it to share the warmth. It didn't mind.

[Kova]

"Makes me wonder if it's part of the original construction, or if there's even older stuff deeper in the mountain," Kova says, curious about it, as he continues to cook. "My brother would have been excited to find it too. I'm sure he would have talked my ear off after investigating if he got the chance."

Kova sighs, a bit weary, a bit nostalgic, but mostly heartbroken. And then he flipped the meat, turning it so it didn't cook unevenly and get anyone sick.

"I didn't notice any activity on the hunt today, unsurprisingly. Anyone here notice anything out of our new ordinary?"

[Kannon]

"Who can know. But if we eat and sleep there is the next day." The monk leaning against the cow said.

"Come with me to the tunnel tomorrow, Kova." The nun added. She otherwise shook her head. She would not know if Kova was expecting something.

"Your brother is this bird, Kova. And he is a girl on Poritrin. And he is a flea in the hair of a haji on IV Anbar. He is a prince on Balut and he is a whale you will see soon. He is this bird." Trygve said calmly.

[Kova]

"And he is also me. I'm not worried about what and who he has become. I understand the way of things, the transience of this life. His time as my brother has come and gone," Kova replies to Sadhu Trygve, turning the bird as it cooks. "But he is also my memories of him, something nobody else can see or feel, which are sharpened by being here in this place. I will be sad."

He turns to the nun and says. "I will come with. I can help with excavation as well if you would like an extra pair of hands."

He doesn't talk about it, but there's also the other part inside him that is not pleasant but always present. He knows that his rage and desire for vengeance won't advance this conversation in a meaningful way. He knows that the people he needs to have that conversation with would be here soon. Until then, he will do what he can to care for his people as best he can.

"You do need more protein Sadhu. We need to find you some beans or bread," Kova says, looking at the meat, knowing that it was useless to the sadhu.

[Kannon]

"Do you think the universe has no memories of him, Kova? His life was not your gift and his death is not your burden. Your sadness is not because of him. It is because of you. No-one is a custodian of your karma but you." They had had this conversation before. Trygve's religious doctrine was just not connecting with how Kova felt about the matter. "It is the same about me. I will have beans when I return to Veritas. I have milk now, and I am very grateful to the cow." He showed deference to his bovine friend and started slurping the lichen soup to make the point, adding a smile so that Kova would not worry so much. "I will meditate after the meal so that all nutrition within me is well-used."

"It will be quicker if you help." The nun nodded, having waited until the sadhu would finish saying his piece.

[Kova]

"Yeah. I've been listening. That's what I meant," Kova says to the Sadhu with a shrug, not worried about the crossed communication. He's used to it. In a lot of ways they don't speak the same language. They certainly use the same language, but their ideas and intentions are so vastly different that even some common words mean very different things in their lives.

"He's my memories, it's my feelings, it's my sadness. I'm going to feel it. Just like everything else I feel." The last part was said with an ownership that accepts that he doesn't take care of his Karma and he is fine accepting the repercussions of it.

"Maybe I'll do better in the future. Or maybe my end will come before I'm in a mental place to make that happen. All I can do is walk the path that I find best for me. But I do appreciate your words. One day, we'll move on from this life and we'll be part of the universe together anyway. We can share some metaphysical lichen stew while we are the universe together." He's clearly trying to lighten the mood a bit by tying to inject some humor, but he doesn't know how it will land because he sucks at humor.

Finally pulling the first of the bird meat from the fire, he puts it in a container for the monks and nuns to help themselves, taking a portion for himself. He offers the dish to the nun. "I got two birds today, a good hunt. I have the other packed in snow, so I won't have to go out tomorrow. I'll spend the day helping clear the tunnels."

[Kannon]

The sadhu sighed. His doctrine didn't allow for lengthy doctrinal debates as one's karma was indeed one's own. He only made those gentle reminders once in a while, checking if Kova would become more responsive to them. But his pain was to deep and the way he chose to act on it did not promise any escape from samsara. Humour was a good way to become quiet about it again, though, so Trygve smiled a bit and offered to share his soup with Kova.

The monks took to eating the bird very reluctantly, solving a moral puzzle what morsel would be religiously justified, and they erred on the side of caution, effectively undereating and thus making one bird sufficient for all of them. This strain of Buddhislam was actually conducive to Rabban's exploitative instincts as it was instinctively self-containing, non-aspirational, endorsing subsistence as a virtue. It was hard to say what was first, the religion or the conditions of the planet and policies of its overlords that reinforced it.

"Maybe we can rediscover the workshops of the old masters and restart their dedication to scripture." One of the monks allowed himself a bit of wishful thinking once the warmth of food nestled in his stomach.

[Kova]

"After every dark night, there is a morning," Kova says in response to the wishful thinking, seeing no reason to rain on a parade when hopeful thoughts tended to produce better results in dour situations. He even managed to say it in a more neutral tone rather than a sad or depressed manner. He is trying... it's just hard. But anything worth doing is worth the effort to do it.

"So, what would it mean if we have the good fortune of discovering the workshops? How well sealed and preserved have any findings been so far?"

[Kannon]

"Their tools and the manuscripts they were working on. Maybe even a library that was older and deeper and so it didn't burn. Whatever that can be started again with." The nun said. Her long slender fingers, now calloused, in a better life could indeed serve her well if she dedicated herself to becoming a copyist.

[Kova]

Kova didn't was certainly no historian or writer, and he couldn't care less about books and writing for enriching his life personally. But he also understands that any library or texts that they come across, or that they can write anew, are how the people of this world transmit their culture from generation to generation. It is knowledge that is useful to his people. He doesn't have to personally appreciate it to understand it's importance.

Tossing his bird bones into a bucket after finishing, he nods at her. "That would be good. We need that, to rebuild our people's understanding and knowledge for the future." Despite his apparent lack of disregard for his own karma, he apparently has no intent to disregard his people's karmic well being, though his ability to help with that is limited since he's long been a keeper of their economic well being and subsistence.

[Kannon]

"Lords pass. But if wisdom perishes along, we are all fish again, dark ocean as our sky." The nun agreed solemnly. Kova recalled her name - Leida.

Leida.jpg (39.29 KiB) Viewed 1213 times

[Kova]

Kova nodded at the wisdom, but also looked a bit forlorn at it. He'd heard it said many different ways, by many different community and family members, his whole life. The ways of their village, the ways of their faith, the ways of their existence here on Lankiveil... they all depended on the previous generation passing on that knowledge to the next. It was one of the things he struggled with, because his life as a would-be revolutionary left him with no time to do his part to help bring about the next generation, and it was honestly probably too late. If there was anything in his life that he considered a true personal failing... this was it. He had no sons or daughters to pass his knowledge on to, and if he were to somehow find a spouse and had children to pass knowledge on to, he may die of old age before they could understand the lessons. But if the opressors could not be dislodged... pretty soon there might be nobody and no reason to pass that knowledge on. But on the plus side, he didn't have a chance to pass his bitterness on either, which he considered a blessing. The internal struggle was not hard to see, he wore his emotions on his face most of the time.

"I hope to help give you all, and others of this world, the chance to prevent our wisdom from perishing. It's the best I think I can hope to do at this point. And I will put my whole being into it," he admits, the conflict mixing with a resolve he seems to bring to his attempts to care for the monks and nuns in his own way every day.

[Kannon]

The Sadhu observed his disquiet, holding back against addressing it before he could find the right words.

"Anekantavada. The many-sidedness. There is little to the world without our views of it. Your experience and commitment constitute it as much as Leida's, mine, or Rabban's. You do not have to put everything in that hope. You are here, you are now, you are among us. That alone makes the very idea of wisdom alive. We forget when we get old, we forget before we are born again. But the universe will keep looking upon itself through our senses and see the pearls of our lives embedded in it. Leida may be afraid we are all fish again but I am not. The fish will find the pearls."

Trygve then thought if it wasn't too difficult a message. Spiritual guidance was faught with misunderstandings, and he did want for Kova to retrieve a greater measure of peace. So in a truly ecumenical spirit, he quoted the OCB.

"Millennia ago humanity wrote this: a world is supported by four things - the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valour of the brave. And I am here now to tell it to you."

[Kova]

"I don't think I've said it aloud yet Sadhu Trygve. And I'm not afraid to admit it. Your words and wisdom do help me, more than I show. Unfortunately it takes longer to build or repair something broken than it takes to break it. And the Harkonnen happen to be really good at destroying things, and have broken much," Kova replies, looking around at the damage of the Eyrie. He then runs his hand through his rough knotted hair, yanking a tangle loose.

" I don't know what's going to happen today or tomorrow. I don't know when our our last conversation will occur. Perhaps this is it. I just wanted to let you know that our conversations have not been something that I dislike or regret. You should know you are appreciated."

Kova turns to cleaning up the cooking mess.

[Kannon]

Trygve bowed his head in humble obeisance, indicating that whatever his help, the winding path of Kova's soul to the unity with God was still superior to any of his teachings. "If the Harkonnen can discourage us from seeking moksha it is as if they were destroying us not once or twice, but every morning."

But it was indeed the time to prepare for the night so all the monks joined the effort of preparing themselves and the room so that they wouldn't freeze to death in their sleep...

/scene?

[Kova]

/scene