On Wilted Wings
"If she could not stand against him, what can we hope to do?"
The question seemed to be on the lips of every Aspirant in Bastion. The collective mourning of the Kyrian seemed to carry on the wind, the sound of quiet weeping only broken by the increasingly frequent ringing of the various Vesper bells scattered throughout the area.
The Archon was dead. King Anduin Wrynn, or rather the creature inhabiting his shell, had killed her. The entire realm of Bastion wept and the weight of the loss had come crashing down on the lesser Ascended and the mortals working in Bastion.
Onto the shoulders of Mun-Li and Sathix Solrevar.
As she stood in Elysian Hold she chanced a glance at her companion. Sathix looked flustered underneath that careful composure of his. Mun-Li understood. These Kyrian were stubborn even in the face of catastrophe. She turned back to the Ascended she had been speaking to, a woman named Oressa.
She thought for many moments before she spoke. This was a thin line she was about to tread, especially now.
"You know, I come from a land where for thousands of years we had to deal with a similar thing. You erase the memories of those who would become Ascended, so that they may be unburdened with past judgements to better perform their duties, yes?
In my home, Pandaria, we had to essentially erase our emotions. Our negative ones, anyway. To feel any strong negative emotion was to spell disaster, as doing so would awaken these creatures called the Sha. They were not so unlike the fragments of memories that Aspirants must face. Things like Pride...Anger...Fear."
Oressa nodded. Mun-Li had her rapt attention. Good.
"It became part of who we were as a people. As children, the thought of accidentally summoning the Sha was terrifying. As adults, the thought of it was ever present and oppressive. Eventually, a war that was not our doing ripped through our land and the Sha surfaced anyway. We were forced to fight them and face the worst parts of ourselves given physical form."
Oressa raised her eyebrows.
"You managed to defeat the personification of your collective negative emotions? Without something like the vespers?" She sounded skeptical.
Mun-Li nodded.
"We did. We all have to face what we try to banish eventually. The attack on the Archon...proves my point. Memories are lessons, Oressa. We must do well to remember them."
Oressa stared hard at Mun-Li for a long moment. It felt like eons passed.
Then, Oressa nodded.
