For Wei Wuxian

[bring_balance]

The resentful energy of the dead, he animates the bodies to his will.

Ever since that night at East Hallow, Anakin has wondered, and he's been meaning to seek out Wei Wuxian. After what he witnessed, he has questions about how his ability to reach beyond the living Force. It makes him think of his dream the night he arrived in Darrow, and how they have persisted, even if he's not sure they could possible come to pass in this place.

Still, he must know.

It takes Anakin nearly an entire afternoon of meditation– something that has never come easily to him– but he finally knows where to find Wei Wuxian.

Somehow, it seems appropriate that it should be the graveyard where he finds him.

Comments

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian hums, considering that. "Avoiding them seems wise," he agrees, "Or at least, where they can be avoided. I have known some to avoid feeling their anger to the point that it consumed them," he says, bright face going distant as he thinks of his brother, lost to festering resentment.

"But the path I've chosen and the one you describe aren't quite the same. It isn't my hatred I use, it is others'. It's true that each time I am tempted - how much more powerful could I be if I use everything I hate to fuel me? But what came out on the other side of that would not be Wei Wuxian."

Lan Wangji has seen such a man. He knows his end, and Wei Wuxian fears it, even without ever having lived it. "Whoever that man is, I have no desire to become him."

[bring_balance]

Anakin had thought similarly after Dooku had died by his hand. Could he still be a Jedi? A husband? The Hero With No Fear? If he was a man who would take another's life, refuse to grant mercy, who was he? Perhaps Wei Wuxian is right, and he's someone else now.

"How do you do it?" Anakin asks, "Tap into someone else's hatred? Is it something that can be taught?"

He doesn't yet ask what he really wants to know: how far the other man's control of the dead extends.

[yiling_laozu]

"To anyone, yes," says Wei Wuxian, for he's never been a person who believed that power belonged only to the rich and monied clans, "But it requires a certain foundation, I think. In my world, cultivators train from a young age to develop their golden core, and this well of energy gives them the power they need to sense spirits, kind or otherwise. I do not think many in Darrow would know resentful energy if they encountered it, at least, not until it hurt them."

He's quiet for a moment. At home, Wei Wuxian is the frightening tale told to children at night, and he's very much enjoyed not being that in Darrow, but he's done what he has done. He has his reasons, and he won't apologize. Chin upturned, Wei Wuxian continues. "What I do is considered anathema to most cultivators. If we meet a fierce corpse or vengeful spirit, we are meant to subdue and suppress its energy. I choose to use it instead. I can feel its agony and its hatred, sometimes see it, sometimes I can taste it, and it's far too powerful to waste. Has Anakin-gonxi ever experienced this? Can you feel another being's heart?"

[bring_balance]

What Wei Wuxian says sounds almost familiar to Anakin. They may use different words, but it sounds a lot like he's speaking of the Force. Anger, fear and resentment... Jedi are meant to suppress those feelings, to overcome them. To do otherwise is a path to the Dark Side.

It's crossed Anakin's mind more than once that he should be worried that he's never been particularly good at holding those feelings back.

"Jedi are taught to harness the Force from a young age. It's the energy that binds all living things," Anakin begins, and almost as a demonstration he holds out one hand, reaching into the Force to guide a small pebble to his palm as he speaks. It levitates a few inches from his outstretched hand.

"We can sense another being's thoughts and feelings... their joy, pain, strength, hatred... it sounds as if our teachings of the ways of the Force are similar to what you call cultivation."

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian watches the pebble with interest. He can't see the threads of energy that have brought it there as he might with a cultivator, but he imagines he can feel them, tendrils of potential energy, always around them.

"They must be," he reasons. "Most can learn to cultivate, but it takes lifelong discipline that many are unwilling to give themselves to. I suppose I can't sense anyone's thoughts - not without performing Empathy - but hatred and fear, these I can feel."

He pulls a pebble to his own hand, the little rock surrounded by shifting red energy. "Anakin-gonxi, I enjoy talking about what so few will let me discuss, but I must ask. Are you here because you are merely curious about what I did in East Hallow?"

[bring_balance]

Anakin watches as Wei Wuxian guides the pebble to his own hand, frowning for a moment at the red energy surrounding it. At least until he's asked about the true motivation behind his visit tonight.

The pebble slowly descends into his palm and Anakin closes his hand around it.

"I confess, that while I'm curious about it, that's not the only reason for my visit," Anakin says, and he takes a breath, "We've spoken about using the resentful energy of the dead, but... could those abilities be used in another way? To... overcome death altogether?"