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This Kirin-written book may be relevant to current questions AND the coming quest; feed two birds with one hoof!
And research on memories could provide enlightenment on those gaps in our collective recollections.
[...]
After checking Honourshine's opinions, set your selections and get to gathering intel!
Since you were just talking about soulmates, you suggest starting with the Kirinese book A-Ni-Ma. You reason that even if it does not answer all of your questions, it might still provide some insight into the Empire's culture.
Honourshine: "I'm curious as well. Why don't we read together, like we used to?"
You nod, and take the book out from the shelf. You remember back when you were young, and how you started sharing your textbooks together, as per her suggestion. Not only would Honourshine's company motivate you to read along, but discussing every few pages helped you better understand what you'd learned — and it showed in your marks!
With that in mind, you make your way over to one of the reading tables by the far wall, and take a seat next to each other. Then, you open the book in front of you, huddle together, and begin to read...
The book opens with a note explaining that it was translated from Kirinese, and originally written by monks. According to them, the soul is the mind's essence of life, and the counterpart of the body's chi. It is comprised of two elements: hei, or darkness, which embodies selfishness and preservation; and bai, or light, which embodies selflessness and sacrifice.
Souls are known to originate from beyond the firmament in the form of stars. Upon a creature's conception, a soul travels from the beyond and binds itself to the body. Then, upon the latter's expiration, the soul returns to the beyond. This process may be repeated multiple times, known as reincarnation.
Because each soul is unique, it is possible to recognize a reincarnated soul between the end of its previous life and the start of its new one. However, souls change over the course of a lifetime, ever influenced by darkness and light, and thus are not easily recognizable for long after birth.
You remember Twilight Sparkle mentioning that most ponies cannot use Light and Dark magic without suffering terrible consequences. You consider that such spells may have a direct effect on the soul.
Honourshine: "What kind of effect, I wonder...?"
While souls are technically immortal, binding is only possible when a suitable body is found. Each body possesses a threshold of darkness and light which cannot be exceeded. When a soul is no longer able to reincarnate due to an excess of darkness or light, it becomes known as a black or white soul respectively, and retires among the stars.
If, by magical means, a black or white soul is bound to a body, then the creature will lose its chi and enter a state of neither alive nor dead, or undeath, in which the body no longer heals nor decays.
Honourshine: "Hm. Well, that sounds horrifying."
You nod. Yet, thinking back on it, could this kind of corruption be related to how Solar Flare and Empyrius both lived for so long? More questions...
Furthermore, four classes of souls are currently known to the Kirin: yin, found in most critters; eru, found in kirin (and ponies); san, found in demons and dragons; and sin, embodied within divine beings.
In addition to the threshold of darkness and light, a soul can only be bound to a body of matching class. However, in the event of multiple simultaneous conceptions, it is possible for a soul of greater class to divide itself into smaller fragments, called twin souls. Two or more creatures embodying fragments of the same greater soul are known as yan, or soulmates.
You and Honourshine briefly glance at each other.
Due to the timely nature of soul binding, soulmates are often born of the same birth, or from group procreative rituals. Soulmates may also be completely unrelated in location and even species, yet such cases are rarely found. Soulmates are generally characterized by complementary personalities, behavioural synchronicity, and perfect nonverbal communication...
Honourshine: "So... what are you thinking? Twins? Or very close parents?"
The clock on the wall indicates half past three.
Enter a comment
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Yes, that's a really great cheek squish.
(Not part of the command: Group procreative rituals (or rather activities) sounds like the most likley thing to me with us both having the same father but a different mother. Of course, until we have future evdiences this theory is just as likley as any other. )
(Also mot part of the command: I wonder what class of soul includes griffins, diamond dogs, hippogriffin and other sapient creatures. Are only euqines (Ponies, Zebras, Kirin...) eru or does it include all sapient species that aren't as powerful as dragons?)
This book has given us quite a few insights on what our relationship means... does Honourshine think it has more to tell us, or should we switch to one of the other books that caught our eye? Let's trust her instincts.
- Twins: we're twins born of the same mother. When our bodies were being created, we were bound from the same soul. (Simplest explanation?)
- "Very close parents": we aren't born of the same mother, but nevertheless were conceived... simultaneously, with what that entails. As for father, we could have the same (with the right conditions of "stamina" and "motility") or different (simplest explanation?).
- Happenstance (not mentioned by Honourshine): our parents weren't in the same place, but happened to conceive us at the same time.
We don't have the means to tell which it was without a witness or scrying. I'm not even sure how to assess the probabilities involved. Like Skywind said, we are clearly not identical twins, though that still doesn't eliminate the possibility of being fraternal twins.
It might make sense if Celestia and Luna, like us, fit this pattern, being sister-deities. (Reminds me of some hinted cosmology in Esquestria: House of the Sun, specifically the "HALF A GOD" stuff.) But then is there a relation between soul class and alicornhood (i.e. do Twilight and Cadance have ordinary souls)?
A very interesting system with two dimensions! Are hei and bai independent? Or does high hei mean low bai? Also, there is no moral stance in the narrative on whether ending the cycle of reincarnation is good or bad... or maybe we haven't read far enough.
We should be careful to note that the soul is not chi. Chi seems to be the body's vital force, while the soul is the mind's.
I'll continue my possibly misguided mapping of terms onto Chinese.
- chi气
- hei黑 (black)
- bai白 (white)
- yin阴 (yin and yang) or yi一 (one)
- eru may be related to "eros" (romantic love), or er二 (two), or the Lord of the Rings Eru.
- san三 (three)
- sin might be si四 (four) or literally "sin" or Latin sin.
- yan might be yang阳 (as in yin and yang)
It seems like reading only one book at a time is encouraged via roleplay/our relationship with Honourshine.
So finding out who we were in a past life is a remote possibility. Better file that knowledge away, in case it affects the narrative.