Video| In all my dreams, it's never quite as it seems

[ushahin]

[When the video opens up, Ushahin is lying once again inside his bathtub. It's about five o' clock in the morning, so at least he's only waking up the resident of Hadriel up at the crack of dawn instead of the middle of the night this time. He's considerate that way.]

Does anyone else hear it? The music? It's so lovely.

[There is, of course, no music. What he's hearing is the tune he's caught from passing through someone's mind while they sleep. It's had quite the effect on him.]

Music makes everything quiet inside.

[He starts humming to himself, tapping his fingers to keep rhythm. If that tune sounds somewhat familiar, well, it might have been your mind he was tapping into.]

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[circumitus]

[Him being able to pull out her name isn't all that impressive in itself. It would only take a little digging and vigilance for someone to find that Rey has introduced herself over the network before. It's that she's pretty sure she keeps those other names she once held more closely guarded.]

Yes. Am just "Rey" now.

[Not Schmidt, not Safronov, not Stone or Sheridan or any of the women she has been over the last century.

[Just Rey.]

[ushahin]

Good. To know oneself is important. My first name is Ushahin. You may call me what you may.

[This is how Ushahin does introductions. Go inside someone's head, find out their memories and name, and then introduce himself later. Truth be told, it was hardly done in malice. He simply has no other way of really connecting to people.]

[circumitus]

"Ushahin" sounds more like a name than "Dreamspinner".

[Though not by much, so how serious one can say Rey is right now is debatable. It's a miracle people can even pronounce that.]

[ushahin]

It means something too, in the tongue of the Were, though I have found none here who knows how to speak it. Ushahin means "The Broken One."

[He doesn't bother to explain why. His face, with its shattered, mismatched features, is evident enough as to why he was given the title.]

[circumitus]

That's not very nice, singling you out like that. Everyone's broken in one way or another.

[Or in every which way, like Rey herself.]

Can guarantee there's not a single well put-together person in this place.

[ushahin]

It was a name given in love and so I continue to wear it proudly.

[The Were had been a very literal lot, naming things for what they appeared to be or do. His mother had been no exception. He grins at Rey's assertion.]

Indeed. I know it well. That is why I like it here. Those broken, lost, or full of madness are my specialty.

[circumitus]

Understood.

[Sort of. Not really. But she's leaving it at that either way.

[Although it can't be seen, her eyes narrow at Ushahin's phrasing there.] What do you mean by "specialty"?

[ushahin]

In my own world, I took in those that were broken down and fallen into madness, those that the world had treated cruelly and cast out. I kept them safe.

[He was not without his mercies despite his madness. There was a compassionate side only equaled by his eternal anger.]

[circumitus]

So you basically ran a boarding house for damaged people? How altruistic.

[Almost a little too merciful. But then, excessive kindness is something that Rey tends to take with some skepticism unless she knows enough about them.]

[ushahin]

It wasn't a house. It was a castle. But essentially yes.

[He only feels compassion towards those that come from similar circumstances as his own. Everyone else is fair game to having their minds pried into.]

[circumitus]

Castle. Okay.

[Same difference.]

And what did you do with them there?

[ushahin]

They were allowed to stay there, away from the world and its cruelties. Those that were fit to work were used as the castle's staff.

[He sounds sad as he speaks of his madlings. He'd had to abandon them all when the war had ended and all lay in ruins around him. They begged him not to go, but to stay had meant death. So he had given them one final blessing and fled, knowing his enemies would spare them.]

[circumitus]

Were you happy?

[The words slip out, despite how sad he sounds when he speaks of it. But it's the fact that he sounds so sad and nostalgic that makes her believe that he was.]

[ushahin]

I don't know if I've ever been truly happy, but that's as close to it as I've ever come. For a long time, it was like that. But nothing lasts forever.

[He'd done everything he could to keep his family and home together. It had all been for naught. The world would continue to move on, painting his side as the villains in the conflict.]

[circumitus]

No, suppose it doesn't. Have never known things to last.

[Having lived several lives as women who both are a part of her and yet not the same Rey she is now, it's easy to accept that every thread of life is a short and fleeting one.]

[ushahin]

Have you experienced the tragedy of loving and losing all around you?

[He supposes she has. Anyone who has the echoes of different people she does in her head must have experienced all the highs and lows that life can provide.]

[circumitus]

["Who hasn't?" she almost wants to say. Suffering seems like such a common path through life that no one can avoid it completely.

[Instead, she sighs and offers a more simple answer:]

Yes. Many times.

[Despite the subject matter, she sounds more detached when she says this. Undaunted by the pain of it anymore.]

[ushahin]

Then we are alike, you and I.

[He's experienced more tragedy than one man rightly deserves, but such is life. He can't change the past. All he can do is look to the future.]

[circumitus]

Have lived long enough to get used to it.

[Sort of. Suffering is just life. It's better to accept that that's how things are.]

[ushahin]

I suppose I should be used to it by now. But pain inside the mind is an injury that never quite heals right. It always ends up looking crooked in the end.

[He gestures to his face for a literal example. Or maybe that's just him, wracked with unending pain.]

[circumitus]

Am all too familiar with that as well. Almost fell into it -- became too crooked to mend.

[The scars on her face are evidence of that. Not that she typically bears them on the network for all to see.]

[ushahin]

Are you broken inside too, hmm?

[Most everyone here is to one extent or another. That's one of the reasons Ushahin likes being here. He's always found comfort in the minds of those that are too shattered to fix.]

[circumitus]

Used to.

Well, suppose it still is like that. Just have a better way of handling it these days.