Hmmm... [ Red's brow knits. Would she live happily ever after? Now he has to think harder, further into the girl's character - but Red wonders if he didn't miss an important clue in the story. ]
Well... maybe? [ Again, he can't help but be influenced by the question being the correct answer. ] She wanted to be carefree - that was the reason she got lost in the first place...
[ But the influence lessens in the brief silence he uses to continue to think. It wasn't what he thought of Lhumtso, that she would want to pack a bag together and go exploring. What he thought was... ]
I think that... she'd be happier back home. Sure she had fun when she was dancing, but she was scared most of the time, and she got scared after that too. She always wanted to go back home.
[ There's still a knot like he might be understanding the story wrong, his lips almost apologetic in their curl for that reason. But all the same. ] But it's not wrong if she wants to, is it? Not everyone wants to go exploring... and all Lhumtso thought she was going to be doing if she was the butterfly was flying around all day. It didn't really sound like she wanted to be in a place where something was gonna try and eat her in her sleep.
[ There is no right or wrong. The story's ending tells her more about Red than it does about Lhumtso or the butterfly or the story at all. Every tale is always about the teller and the listener. She nods slowly as the boy explains, grinning occasionally in what might be pride, hearing him speak so freely, no matter that he still sounds hesitant. That will come with time. ]
It will always be difficult to forget a forest so magical or to forget a night when one barely escapes death. [ Those are the moments that stay with you forever. ] But Lhumtso does come home and she find happiness there. One or two nightmares may come each year, but that is to be expected. Many years later, she remembers only enough of the monkeys to tell the tale to her grandchildren, but she forgets the fear rattling her bones that night she escaped the monkeys and the scars on her feet fade until even she can't find them anymore.
[ Shuyi sighs, leaning back against the tree now that her story is over. ]
[ Does it please him? Red feels his own shoulders relaxing with the end, a more reflective time now here (despite what had just been, reflecting on Lhumtso's feelings). ]
It was nice. I liked she was happy. [ Which mattered in the story: her finding her happiness, though the events clung to her through life now and then. Yet there's a clear 'but' in his words, one that Red doesn't even intentionally mean to make obvious when it eventually comes. ]
But doesn't it make you wonder what else was in there? Those kinds of stories always leave you thinking about the forest and what else there was. They do me, anyway.
[ Shuyi notes how he relaxes. There are certain kinds of people who wouldn't be satisfied with a story that simple. But why would the butterfly help her? How could she possibly have outrun the monkeys? How can animals talk? But sometimes a tale must be taken just as they are, a tale, there for anyone to take a lesson from, no matter that the conclusions resulting for it may contradict each other.
She thinks that Lhumtso would be unhappy back in her mundane village, dreaming of dancing monkeys and blue butterflies until her old age. Safe but forever wanting for more. ]
I think the forest is where one can find anything one's heart could desire. This forest at least. That's what it means, I think.
[ It's lacking for Red too, but from his perspective it's Lhumtso's story: a person who wanted something she didn't actually understand. The only times she appeared happy to him was when she thought she had seen her grandmother and during the dance, but that being more free than what life already granted made her scared.
Stories always had something fantastical about it to tell a lesson. Once Red realised that (or took it as such), it was easier to dismiss helpful creatures and flying away hammocks as just part of lessons for Lhumtso.
It's why Shuyi's interpretation makes him look curious. ]
Really? [ So if Lhumtso kept going would she've...? Wait. He pauses his thoughts, adjusting them, and then it makes more sense. ] So Lhumtso found what she really wanted because of the forest.
[ A person who wanted something she didn't actually understand. Perhaps that's why this story stays with her and why she sees so much of herself in Lhumtso, though she-- she wouldn't go home. The forest holds so much magic. But until now, she has yet to find what she really wants. Should she have gone home earlier, before it was too late? ]
I think, she did. She found that all she wanted was to be home.
[ Even if what she wants isn't in the forest. This is an escapist tale. She can dream, can't she? ]
But-- if she had continued on, I think she would have found a way to become a butterfly herself.
[ This time, there's no second-guessing present on Red's face. He's still curious though, mouth askew with a curl at the edges, brow in. The story is like a fun puzzle, and the sort he can follow. ]
But what's a butterfly in the story? Isn't it a warning? [ The butterfly led Lhumtso to the forest, led her back to her way home. ] Doesn't the butterfly normally turn out to be a person who went too far in the first place? They were Lhumtso before Lhumtso showed up, but they didn't figure out what they wanted so the forest changed them.
[ At Red's side Charizard follows none of this, but he can see his trainer is feeling very sure about himself, so he's going to add a plus one with a short growl that makes Red look at him and grin, nodding. ]
[ Shuyi laughs in amusement, both at Red's enthusiasm at picking the story apart like a puzzle then putting the pieces together to make an artwork of his own creation. And isn't that the point of telling a story? There are always two tales resulting from such an exchange: one as told by the speaker and another as heard and understood by the listener. She's glad to see him taking such an interest, clasping her hands in front of her in an almost clap. ]
They say the price of getting what one wants is getting what one once wanted.
[ A similar saying to you only want what you don't have. ]
Perhaps butterflies are everyone who were never brave enough to get what they want.
[ Here the sayings lose Red some, briefly, where his mind overcomplicates as he tries to keep longer with a puzzle of deciphering a story with meaning (he loves puzzles, but it doesn't mean he's any good at them).
But what Shuyi says is similar to what he had, he decides, and that leads him to wonder. ]
Do you think they have to be butterflies forever? [ Actually, saying that. ] I wonder if the monkeys know they're monkeys too? And why a hammock?
[ He asks the last one filled with humour. Because really - a hammock? ]
A hammock-- [ She stops, trying to figure this out in her head before trying to gesture with her hands: two wings, placing her thumbs together and spreading her fingers out, swinging her hands slowly from side to side. ] It looks like a bird with its wings spread out.
[ Right?
She has a thought that perhaps the birds he knows as different. Nothing like eagles that soar slowly through sky without flapping their wings much at all, just swinging through the sky like she pictures hammocks would, buoyed by the winds. ]
The question is: do the monkeys know they sometimes seem like people? Do we know if we sometimes look like butterflies?
[ Or maybe it's because the amount of hammocks he's seen in life are so little. But it's not as interesting as her next line of thinking. Except, he can't follow it quite so seriously, a light laugh slipping into his upcoming words, the humour staying throughout. ]
I don't know, is it hard to tell? Doesn't a butterfly have wings? [ So why wouldn't you notice? Still his mouth pinch into his cheeks, but this time much more pleasantly. ] If a monkey's anything like a mankey, you wouldn't miss them turning into a person.
[ Shuyi laughs at his comment about the hammocks. Sometimes she's lulled into thinking that they have all come from the same world, judging from the many similarities they can find between them and helped with the translators that make communicating to easy. And then suddenly she remembers that there are other worlds out there. Strange places with hammocks that don't look at all like the ones she knows. ]
I think one sees what one wishes to see, at times. [ She corrects herself: ] Most times.
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no subject
Well... maybe? [ Again, he can't help but be influenced by the question being the correct answer. ] She wanted to be carefree - that was the reason she got lost in the first place...
[ But the influence lessens in the brief silence he uses to continue to think. It wasn't what he thought of Lhumtso, that she would want to pack a bag together and go exploring. What he thought was... ]
I think that... she'd be happier back home. Sure she had fun when she was dancing, but she was scared most of the time, and she got scared after that too. She always wanted to go back home.
[ There's still a knot like he might be understanding the story wrong, his lips almost apologetic in their curl for that reason. But all the same. ] But it's not wrong if she wants to, is it? Not everyone wants to go exploring... and all Lhumtso thought she was going to be doing if she was the butterfly was flying around all day. It didn't really sound like she wanted to be in a place where something was gonna try and eat her in her sleep.
[ Ah...ha... ]
no subject
It will always be difficult to forget a forest so magical or to forget a night when one barely escapes death. [ Those are the moments that stay with you forever. ] But Lhumtso does come home and she find happiness there. One or two nightmares may come each year, but that is to be expected. Many years later, she remembers only enough of the monkeys to tell the tale to her grandchildren, but she forgets the fear rattling her bones that night she escaped the monkeys and the scars on her feet fade until even she can't find them anymore.
[ Shuyi sighs, leaning back against the tree now that her story is over. ]
Does that ending please you?
no subject
It was nice. I liked she was happy. [ Which mattered in the story: her finding her happiness, though the events clung to her through life now and then. Yet there's a clear 'but' in his words, one that Red doesn't even intentionally mean to make obvious when it eventually comes. ]
But doesn't it make you wonder what else was in there? Those kinds of stories always leave you thinking about the forest and what else there was. They do me, anyway.
no subject
She thinks that Lhumtso would be unhappy back in her mundane village, dreaming of dancing monkeys and blue butterflies until her old age. Safe but forever wanting for more. ]
I think the forest is where one can find anything one's heart could desire. This forest at least. That's what it means, I think.
no subject
Stories always had something fantastical about it to tell a lesson. Once Red realised that (or took it as such), it was easier to dismiss helpful creatures and flying away hammocks as just part of lessons for Lhumtso.
It's why Shuyi's interpretation makes him look curious. ]
Really? [ So if Lhumtso kept going would she've...? Wait. He pauses his thoughts, adjusting them, and then it makes more sense. ] So Lhumtso found what she really wanted because of the forest.
no subject
I think, she did. She found that all she wanted was to be home.
[ Even if what she wants isn't in the forest. This is an escapist tale. She can dream, can't she? ]
But-- if she had continued on, I think she would have found a way to become a butterfly herself.
no subject
But what's a butterfly in the story? Isn't it a warning? [ The butterfly led Lhumtso to the forest, led her back to her way home. ] Doesn't the butterfly normally turn out to be a person who went too far in the first place? They were Lhumtso before Lhumtso showed up, but they didn't figure out what they wanted so the forest changed them.
[ At Red's side Charizard follows none of this, but he can see his trainer is feeling very sure about himself, so he's going to add a plus one with a short growl that makes Red look at him and grin, nodding. ]
no subject
They say the price of getting what one wants is getting what one once wanted.
[ A similar saying to you only want what you don't have. ]
Perhaps butterflies are everyone who were never brave enough to get what they want.
no subject
But what Shuyi says is similar to what he had, he decides, and that leads him to wonder. ]
Do you think they have to be butterflies forever? [ Actually, saying that. ] I wonder if the monkeys know they're monkeys too? And why a hammock?
[ He asks the last one filled with humour. Because really - a hammock? ]
no subject
[ Right?
She has a thought that perhaps the birds he knows as different. Nothing like eagles that soar slowly through sky without flapping their wings much at all, just swinging through the sky like she pictures hammocks would, buoyed by the winds. ]
The question is: do the monkeys know they sometimes seem like people? Do we know if we sometimes look like butterflies?
no subject
Hmm... I think our hammocks look different...
[ Or maybe it's because the amount of hammocks he's seen in life are so little. But it's not as interesting as her next line of thinking. Except, he can't follow it quite so seriously, a light laugh slipping into his upcoming words, the humour staying throughout. ]
I don't know, is it hard to tell? Doesn't a butterfly have wings? [ So why wouldn't you notice? Still his mouth pinch into his cheeks, but this time much more pleasantly. ] If a monkey's anything like a mankey, you wouldn't miss them turning into a person.
no subject
I think one sees what one wishes to see, at times. [ She corrects herself: ] Most times.