With all the force of what is true, is there nothing I can do?

[jin-xuandi.livejournal.com]

Once he'd slept off all the booze he'd had at Lex's bar, Sima Yi stubbornly resisted the urge to go back for another round - back in his universe, he'd spent about the last three weeks drinking just to numb the pain until he could compartmentalize it and get back to his job, but this was something different. This was the first time he could ever remember feeling truly lost, and to say it was unnerving was putting it mildly.

Instead of giving in to the urge to anesthetize all the confusion, pain, and fear, though, he'd decided to take control in whatever small ways he could - and so he'd found his way to the library, to begin the monumental task of catching up on the eighteen hundred years of history he'd missed between when he'd died, and the era most of the people on the ship seemed to be from.

There were things Stacy had refused to let him see - namely, the three hundred years of Chinese history after when he'd been taken from - but sources on the west, and on times after that, she didn't seem to have a problem with. Currently, he was catching up on the history of the steam engine, which he'd had a vague interest in back home, but was a lot more interested in now; steam power had been little more than a curiosity in his time - and the fact that it had taken over a milennium since then to try to repurpose it for something useful was dumbfounding in retrospect. Even Zhuge Liang had to have overlooked it, extraordinary as his insights into engineering as well as battle tactics were, or there would have been records of its use before then. Resting his forehead on his palm, he muttered, "History has made fools of us all, Kongming."

Comments

[not-prncss-tldr.livejournal.com]

Lafiel came often enough to the library. She could be found poring over books on strategy, etiquette and diplomacy, making up for time lost. All previous Abh emperors had decades more experience in these kinds of things and she sorely felt the lack.

She looked over at another table and saw a rather short (by lander standards) and proud looking man facepalming. Her sensitive ears picked up his complaint.

Deciding to try this 'compassion' thing out, she approached the man. "Do not feel bad about it. Events are unpredictable."

[jin-xuandi.livejournal.com]

He opened one eye to stare back at her; he was seconds from spitting something along the lines of, 'Do you really think I need you to tell me that?' before he recalled that treading a little more lightly around those from different times and worlds was probably in his best interests - at least, while he wasn't so clear on their customs.

Even if the platitudes Lafiel seemed to regard as some kind of insightful statement irritated him, he was going to try to be as diplomatic as possible. "Still, human nature never seems to change - and in retrospect, it's clear what should have been blindingly obvious all along," he replies, managing a half-abashed smile.