When I was little [ Carver explains softly, ] my grandma said the dead aren't really gone so long as we remember them. And if we honor them, if we leave altars, then they can find us again on Day of the Dead.
[ He honors them as best he can. The lost. His family. All of them. ]
[ Harold's never believed that, and he doesn't really believe that now. There's something about God in there that he can't quite credit. But he also won't belittle what someone else has decided about how to go on living, how to rationalize to themselves man's inhumanity to man, which is what all these tragedies usually boil down to.
He won't light any candles. The dead won't ever find him again. But instead: ]
That's what the Machine said, too, before she died. That what she'd learned from a lifetime of watching people die is that if even one person remembers us, maybe it isn't the end at all.
[ A pause. ]
It doesn't comfort me. It doesn't make up for their death. [ That feels impossible, an abdication of the magnitude of the event. ] But I've never really learned how to move on, have I, [ he muses. ]
I don’t think it makes up for their deaths, [ Carver replies softly. He won’t believe Leah’s dead but she is gone from him, as inevitably as Matthew and Pope are now. Maybe one day they’ll see each other again. It haunts him to have that in common with Harold’s machine, whatever the reason, but he believes this to be true and so he honors it however he can.
Death, often violent death, is inevitable in both their worlds. He watches Harold, feeling suddenly tired. ]
It is something, [ he agrees, quiet, respecting that tiredness that he can see drawn across his features. It's not enough for Harold, he can't possibly move on, has never been able to. He gets stuck in the loss and can't see his way out.
But remembering is something, and he can hardly forget, so at least there's that. ]
Thank you for returning my photograph, Mr. Carver. And for sharing yours.
[ Nathan always liked the attention. And it does mean something to Harold to imagine there's someone else, even if just one other person, here in Etraya that remembers Nathan once existed.
Maybe that's what the Machine and Root were really getting at.
It's the point in the conversation when Harold would normally make an excuse or say goodbye and then walk away, but now he hesitates. ] I did invite you bird watching. Would you like to observe the chocobos with me? They're awful, but they are from another world.
[ He's torn between distaste of their smelly loudness and fascination. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ He honors them as best he can. The lost. His family. All of them. ]
I'll light a candle for Nathan.
no subject
He won't light any candles. The dead won't ever find him again. But instead: ]
That's what the Machine said, too, before she died. That what she'd learned from a lifetime of watching people die is that if even one person remembers us, maybe it isn't the end at all.
[ A pause. ]
It doesn't comfort me. It doesn't make up for their death. [ That feels impossible, an abdication of the magnitude of the event. ] But I've never really learned how to move on, have I, [ he muses. ]
I still think they shouldn't have died at all.
no subject
Death, often violent death, is inevitable in both their worlds. He watches Harold, feeling suddenly tired. ]
But it’s something.
no subject
But remembering is something, and he can hardly forget, so at least there's that. ]
Thank you for returning my photograph, Mr. Carver. And for sharing yours.
no subject
[ He watches Harold a moment longer, sober and quiet, and then looks away. What else is there to say? ]
I'll light a candle for him, if you want.
maybe handwave the rest of this?
[ Nathan always liked the attention. And it does mean something to Harold to imagine there's someone else, even if just one other person, here in Etraya that remembers Nathan once existed.
Maybe that's what the Machine and Root were really getting at.
It's the point in the conversation when Harold would normally make an excuse or say goodbye and then walk away, but now he hesitates. ] I did invite you bird watching. Would you like to observe the chocobos with me? They're awful, but they are from another world.
[ He's torn between distaste of their smelly loudness and fascination. ]