He presses his lips together, the cooling cup of tea forgotten in his hands. "Perhaps. But it came primarily from someone else's darkness," he answers after a moment. "And there were wardens among those controlling... domains." He's not sure what else to call them. "Clearly having some darkness in you that could be called forth by those monstrosities is not unique to inmates."
She shakes her head. "Of course not. But mine's keeping me here, so far. And- what was going on- what we did as Weaver- that was so literal. I feel like the answer has to be in there."
He's quiet again, thinking. He's not good at... emotions, or people in general outside of very limited (and not, he's finding, very useful) circumstances. It's a failing he's feeling acutely here, in a way he never has before. He's always been distant, even isolated, but he's never felt inadequate to the task before him. Still, he considers her words and his experiences.
"Do you feel what... Weaver did would have been justified had the world been as you perceived it at the time?" It's really the only aspect of it all that he can see to latch onto.
She's quiet a long moment, rolling her cup back and forth between her palms, staring into it as if she could potentially find the right angle to look into it for an answer.
"Maybe. I've- I've spent friendships for resources in real life. It's not the same, but it's not... not."
He tips his head slightly, lips pressed together as he considers her answer. "Leaders must often make terrible decisions in the defense of their people. Deciding whose lives to spend on what objectives is one of the worst, but it is also unavoidable." He's sent more men and women than he can count (that's a lie, he knows the exact number, remembers every face and name and history, how and when and where they died and to what end) to their death in pursuit of objectives that seemed worth the cost. Sometimes they were, often they weren't.
"But it is important to keep in mind what you're fighting for, not just what you're fighting against. And that there are some lines that should not be crossed, even in pursuit of the most noble goal. Even if they might seem like the best, or only viable option at the time."
"See... I can't really... think of an absolute line, considering what's at stake back home. And how little we know."
Though her hands tighten on the mug at the memory of Rags's hands working the soil, his face utterly empty. There'd been a line crossed, certainly.
"My friends here want me to focus on who I am outside of my responsibilities. Who I'd be if I didn't have any powers, or know the world's about to end."
He breathes out a long, slow breath. "But that is not who you are, and that is not the world you're from, or will return to." Because he doesn't doubt she will, anymore than he would turn his back on his world and his people and their needs.
"Perhaps... it would help to focus on who you are with your responsibilities, and who you wan to be. For yourself as well as for your people?" Or perhaps he's wrong, if everyone else feels differently. It's an unfamiliar thought to a man who's been the unquestioned and unquestioning arbiter of justice and freedom for his people almost his entire life.
"Who I am with my responsibilities is. Skitter." She sets the cup aside, because her tea is distinctly cold now and she's afraid she might break Shen Wei's delicate dish if she keeps it in her hands. "Which I guess is what they're getting at, but it's not like we'll ever get to lay that down, outside the Barge. I took up these responsibilities. It's not right to lay them down now.
"And planning for an after is just- I'm not Dinah, I can't see the future. I don't know what that after will look like, but it's never going to be less responsibility."
He dips his chin just a little in acknowledgment as he considers her words and her so very familiar situation.
"Back home I am Hei Pao Shi. I am responsible for my peoples' safety and well being, and have been since I was perhaps younger than you." He's not sure, of course, if he'd ever had any idea how old he and his didi actually were he'd lost track of it, of the passage of time entirely, in the chaos after the meteor fell and the war that followed. "I will always be Hei Pao Shi, I will always bear that duty and responsibility, and the choices I make in that capacity affect the lives of all my people, as well as many Haixingren as well. But I am not only Hei Pao Shi, no more than you are only Skitter. It... took me a great deal of time and-" He tucks his chin down a little, eyelashes sweeping down to shadow his eyes as he gazes into his cup- "And Zhao Yunlan's help to realize that.
"He looks back up at her, expression solemn. "We might never be able to relinquish our burdens, but I think it is important that we not let ourselves become only our duty, only our burdens."
"I can do that here. Mostly. Even with-" She waves vaguely, just meaning the Barge as it is, the things that it does. "This place is slow-paced and restful compared to home. Back home... before I died, I hadn't had an hour to be Taylor in weeks. Sleeping in my mask, an hour at a time if I was lucky."
It's painful to realize how very alike they are in so many ways, and to realize he very much does not want that life for her. He sets his cup gently down on the desk next to hers, then lowers his hands to his sides and twists his wrists in a graceful, sinuous motion that isn't strictly necessary, but has millennia of habit behind it. Power flickers in his palms for a fraction of a second and he's standing there in his mask and robes.
"I lived in this mask for years, the men and women I led-" Almost all older than him- "would not have recognized my face were I to set my mask and robes aside. Even after I awoke a century ago, I only set it aside to don another mask." Another twist of his wrist and he's back in his impeccable suit and wire-rimmed glasses. He reaches up and removes the glasses, that he very much doesn't need, and tucks them into his breast pocket. This is him. Not Hei Pao Shi, not Professor Shen, just Shen Wei, a very imperfect man.
She sits back, looking up at him with her lower lip caught in her teeth, and a grateful warmth in her eyes. He gets it. In a way she doesn't think even Kiryu does.
"Even when I'm making a conscious choice to do Taylor things here - to just goof off, or cook for myself, or like - I'm studying physics, a little. Trying to catch up some of what I missed in school. But I always feel like I should be using that time to make Skitter stronger, instead."
"I chose to study bioengineering because I thought it would help me understand our evolution and the source of our powers. I chose to teach because I hoped some day to be able to bring schools to my people," he admits. "I learned to cook because feeding myself was necessary in Haixing." He understands. He does.
"But I think-" He pauses, lips pressed together as he tries to find the right words. "Perhaps... I would have been stronger had I not isolated myself so much. Had I learned to... to accept help, and to lean on the strength of others rather than relying only on myself."
"I do that more at home. I'm in a team, we fight together - but they're not on par with me, for strength. Good support, but me and Bitch are the muscle and she's not as versatile as I am. And- and this is maybe ego, but maybe not- I'm better, tactically, than they are. Or just- I make better decisions. Tattletale's always focused on winning, being the cleverest, not necessarily succeeding. And Brian's- his focus is inward. Just the team matters. No one else has any leadership."
She nods, but with a shrug. Qualified yes. "Brian was the team leader until Bonesaw got him. Since then, it's me, but the handover hasn't been very smooth. Tattletale's smarter than me - she's smarter than anyone, it's her power - but she wants to be the power behind the scenes. And she has something else going on, I'm not really sure what. And she's a better planner than a leader. I'm good at-"
She breaks off, and exhales quietly with a sigh.
"I'm really good at knowing how to use people. Their strengths, their powers, their skills... all the tools they can be for me."
"That is perhaps the most valuable skill in a leader. Lord Ma Gui and High Chief Fu You were both particularly gifted in that capacity." And he'd learned much from them, as a boy and a man and eventually as the true leader of his people alongside them.
"But they were both also-" He pauses, trying to decide how to put it- "Very careful to remember that people were more than simply tools in their hands. It is part of what made them truly great and gifted leaders."
"I'm not good at accounting for the- not flaws or weakness, but- the soft parts. Where people need support, unless it's tactical.
"But I'm also not trying to win a war. It's lost. We lost that already. I'm just trying to make sure that after the dust settles, whatever people I have left will have what they need."
He ducks his head a little her answer, biting back a quiet huff of recognition. "Ma Gui was best at that, among us. I fear I've... never understood people well enough to have the same facility." He's always been better at looking out for the physical well-being and strength of those under him.
He considers for a moment, looking back up at her. "But I have always tried to only accept loyalty and service freely given. To compel another by warping their mind is an affront to the dignity of all, and a transgression that cannot be forgiven." He remembers all too well the horrors the Rebel Leader had perpetrated with his powers of mental compulsion, not just to his enemies, but to those who followed him.
She looks aside at that, face tight. Before a flush of shame can start, she pushes her body's reactions to her feelings out into the swarm. A few focused breaths, and her face is calm again, her eyes quiet. Rags wants her to stop doing that, stop presenting that mask, but she has to or she won't be able to say these things here, to Shen Wei.
"I've allowed that to happen," she says softly. "Before I came here. It's the power of a teammate of mine."
He watches silently as she gathers herself, recognizing the mask she conceals herself behind in much the same way he does, and aching to see it. She should not need to know how to do that so readily at her age... thinks the man who learned to do the same before he even reached puberty.
He reaches out to lay a hand on her shoulder as she finishes speaking, and squeezes just a little before letting it fall away. He's not good at physical contact that isn't violence, but he wants to offer her something, however brief.
"That was the power of the Dixingren who led the Rebellion in our world, many thousands of years ago," he tells her quietly. Solemnly. "He used it on allies as well as enemies, warping their minds so that they would follow him unquestioningly, obey any order, no matter how horrific. Believe anything he told them," he adds, quieter still, gaze dipping down for a moment as he remembers the lies his didi believed for so many thousands of years, and still struggles with at times. "No matter how unbelievable.
"I don't know if anyone ever knew whether he started down that path thinking it was best for his people and was warped by the power it gave him over the minds of others, or if he was a manipulative opportunist from the start. It is... a dangerous path to tread." And one of the only powers he has ever encountered among his people that he believes to be nothing but pure evil. One he wishes he had never acquired himself.
"Regent's father is Heartbreaker. His power is making people fall slavishly in love with him. Regent is one of... twenty or so children, and their mothers-" She meets Shen Wei's eyes, knowing he can draw the correct conclusion without her saying it.
"And all of Heartbreaker's kids have some variation on his power. Regent used to use it to get whatever he wanted. He experiences through the person he's controlling, like I do with my bugs. He can't really do more than one at a time, and it takes a few hours to establish control, so it's not something we- the team- used regularly. Until we captured Sophia. And then Shatterbird. He'll still have Shatterbird, when I get back, and I- I have to decide what I'll do about that."
Shen Wei's expression hardens. "And this is allowed to continue? No one stopped him?" It might not be directed at Taylor, but his tone is frosty with tightly controlled rage at the very idea that, in a world with the kind of powered beings she's told him of, no one has exercised that power to prevent this abuse.
And then he draws in a slow breath, blinks a couple of times, and almost visibly wills the rage away. "And why has your team made use of this ability at all?"
Her expression doesn't react to his rage, utterly mask-like. But she feels it, a cold front that's suddenly entered the space between them.
"Sophia was a hero, one who Brian and I both have violent history with. We used her to infiltrate their base when our boss wanted us to secure some information. When we were done with her, Regent made her expose her own prior behavior to the PRT, and she went to jail. Shatterbird is a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. We needed the additional firepower to defeat them, have a chance at stopping the end of the world. We failed," she added, tone flat. "But she's too dangerous to release."
He regards her solemnly for a long few seconds. "And can you not imprison her? Or execute her, should her crimes justify it?" He uses crimes very loosely here, with no particular regard for the legalities of a system which he knows is deeply corrupt. He trusts Taylor's assessment of her adversary, as he has trusted his own for millennia.
And of course that's only the first question, he'll follow up with the next after he hears her answer to this.
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"Do you feel what... Weaver did would have been justified had the world been as you perceived it at the time?" It's really the only aspect of it all that he can see to latch onto.
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"Maybe. I've- I've spent friendships for resources in real life. It's not the same, but it's not... not."
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"But it is important to keep in mind what you're fighting for, not just what you're fighting against. And that there are some lines that should not be crossed, even in pursuit of the most noble goal. Even if they might seem like the best, or only viable option at the time."
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Though her hands tighten on the mug at the memory of Rags's hands working the soil, his face utterly empty. There'd been a line crossed, certainly.
"My friends here want me to focus on who I am outside of my responsibilities. Who I'd be if I didn't have any powers, or know the world's about to end."
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"Perhaps... it would help to focus on who you are with your responsibilities, and who you wan to be. For yourself as well as for your people?" Or perhaps he's wrong, if everyone else feels differently. It's an unfamiliar thought to a man who's been the unquestioned and unquestioning arbiter of justice and freedom for his people almost his entire life.
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"And planning for an after is just- I'm not Dinah, I can't see the future. I don't know what that after will look like, but it's never going to be less responsibility."
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"Back home I am Hei Pao Shi. I am responsible for my peoples' safety and well being, and have been since I was perhaps younger than you." He's not sure, of course, if he'd ever had any idea how old he and his didi actually were he'd lost track of it, of the passage of time entirely, in the chaos after the meteor fell and the war that followed. "I will always be Hei Pao Shi, I will always bear that duty and responsibility, and the choices I make in that capacity affect the lives of all my people, as well as many Haixingren as well. But I am not only Hei Pao Shi, no more than you are only Skitter. It... took me a great deal of time and-" He tucks his chin down a little, eyelashes sweeping down to shadow his eyes as he gazes into his cup- "And Zhao Yunlan's help to realize that.
"He looks back up at her, expression solemn. "We might never be able to relinquish our burdens, but I think it is important that we not let ourselves become only our duty, only our burdens."
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"I lived in this mask for years, the men and women I led-" Almost all older than him- "would not have recognized my face were I to set my mask and robes aside. Even after I awoke a century ago, I only set it aside to don another mask." Another twist of his wrist and he's back in his impeccable suit and wire-rimmed glasses. He reaches up and removes the glasses, that he very much doesn't need, and tucks them into his breast pocket. This is him. Not Hei Pao Shi, not Professor Shen, just Shen Wei, a very imperfect man.
"It is... difficult, to let that go," he admits.
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"Even when I'm making a conscious choice to do Taylor things here - to just goof off, or cook for myself, or like - I'm studying physics, a little. Trying to catch up some of what I missed in school. But I always feel like I should be using that time to make Skitter stronger, instead."
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"But I think-" He pauses, lips pressed together as he tries to find the right words. "Perhaps... I would have been stronger had I not isolated myself so much. Had I learned to... to accept help, and to lean on the strength of others rather than relying only on myself."
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She breaks off, and exhales quietly with a sigh.
"I'm really good at knowing how to use people. Their strengths, their powers, their skills... all the tools they can be for me."
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"But they were both also-" He pauses, trying to decide how to put it- "Very careful to remember that people were more than simply tools in their hands. It is part of what made them truly great and gifted leaders."
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"But I'm also not trying to win a war. It's lost. We lost that already. I'm just trying to make sure that after the dust settles, whatever people I have left will have what they need."
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He considers for a moment, looking back up at her. "But I have always tried to only accept loyalty and service freely given. To compel another by warping their mind is an affront to the dignity of all, and a transgression that cannot be forgiven." He remembers all too well the horrors the Rebel Leader had perpetrated with his powers of mental compulsion, not just to his enemies, but to those who followed him.
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"I've allowed that to happen," she says softly. "Before I came here. It's the power of a teammate of mine."
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He reaches out to lay a hand on her shoulder as she finishes speaking, and squeezes just a little before letting it fall away. He's not good at physical contact that isn't violence, but he wants to offer her something, however brief.
"That was the power of the Dixingren who led the Rebellion in our world, many thousands of years ago," he tells her quietly. Solemnly. "He used it on allies as well as enemies, warping their minds so that they would follow him unquestioningly, obey any order, no matter how horrific. Believe anything he told them," he adds, quieter still, gaze dipping down for a moment as he remembers the lies his didi believed for so many thousands of years, and still struggles with at times. "No matter how unbelievable.
"I don't know if anyone ever knew whether he started down that path thinking it was best for his people and was warped by the power it gave him over the minds of others, or if he was a manipulative opportunist from the start. It is... a dangerous path to tread." And one of the only powers he has ever encountered among his people that he believes to be nothing but pure evil. One he wishes he had never acquired himself.
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"And all of Heartbreaker's kids have some variation on his power. Regent used to use it to get whatever he wanted. He experiences through the person he's controlling, like I do with my bugs. He can't really do more than one at a time, and it takes a few hours to establish control, so it's not something we- the team- used regularly. Until we captured Sophia. And then Shatterbird. He'll still have Shatterbird, when I get back, and I- I have to decide what I'll do about that."
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And then he draws in a slow breath, blinks a couple of times, and almost visibly wills the rage away. "And why has your team made use of this ability at all?"
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"Sophia was a hero, one who Brian and I both have violent history with. We used her to infiltrate their base when our boss wanted us to secure some information. When we were done with her, Regent made her expose her own prior behavior to the PRT, and she went to jail. Shatterbird is a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. We needed the additional firepower to defeat them, have a chance at stopping the end of the world. We failed," she added, tone flat. "But she's too dangerous to release."
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And of course that's only the first question, he'll follow up with the next after he hears her answer to this.
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