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English
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Published:
2019-08-31
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1,080
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1/1
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Model Village

Summary:

Prequel, sorta, to 'A Square of planed wood'. Delves into the argument it references, between Nanaki and Bugenhagen, that ended with Nanaki leaving for Midgar, before the OG.

Notes:

This came out of me being unhappy with a certain ambiguity in 'A Square of planed wood'; I felt that on one level it read a bit too much like an edgy! take on the metaphysics of the OG rather than Nanaki lashing out, which was more the intention (I like to think of his visit to Midgar as the gap year from hell). I've always liked the spiritual side of FF7-- but Bugenhagen is dry, and irony is hard on the page. So once I'd seen that, I couldn't not read it as some 50s-kitchen-sink Nanaki-as-an-Angry-Young-Man nihilist lord-knows-what, which perhaps added something funny on a meta level... BUT I doubt anyone wants to read this particular jokey critical analysis so I'll shut up. Anyway, wrote a thing to expose the argument a bit, for completeness' sake.

Work Text:

He was sick of it all.

Nanaki was sick of people conversing on two legs, looking each other in the eye while he gained expertise on the variety and distribution of kneecaps (an average of 1.96 per human; Elder Hargo had a wooden shin). He was sick of books designed with thumbs in mind-- books designed for thumbs-- oh, every phrasing was odd, but he was sick of it, anyway. He was sick, sick, sick of being surrounded by flammable materials, and having to hold his tail so stiff it ached. Most of all, he was sick of the smells. Nobody made any effort in the canyon. They made art, in colours he couldn't perceive; they made music, across an absurdly narrow range of frequencies; they made elaborate dishes that he couldn't metabolise-- but the place always smelled the same. The canyon did not have a perfumier, which, going from the books he'd awkwardly forced open with his feet, was what he needed.

Bugenhagen was using his thumbs now, flipping through a book on the table, talking: something or other about the study of planet life and spirit energy. Nanaki ground his teeth.

"Does it really require its own word?" Nanaki said. He couldn't see the book; the tabletop was too high. "'Spirit energy', 'planet life'-- you mean physics. Science."

"Or, 'natural philosophy'," said Bugenhagen, mildly. He paused mid-page-turn. "You're right that it's constructed, but I find that operating within Shinra's taxonomical framework bounds my thought in ways I'm anxious to avoid. If you want to think in terms of thermodynamics, you can, but I don't think your ontology is intuitively superior."

Nanaki ignored him, pacing. "I think you're all pretending." He scraped his claws on a stone. It was too small; he'd had the same one since he was a child. They probably didn't even realise he needed a stone for his claws. "You're positioning yourselves as authorities on 'spirit energy' when it's just 'energy'."

"And what's that?" Bugenhagen looked at Nanaki over his dark glasses. "I don't believe you can separate the spiritual from the material so easily. I think, perhaps, you've been influenced by Shinra's paradigm. We don't deny that the stars are corporeal-- but what could be more spiritual than looking up at the starry night?"

"You're equivocating," said Nanaki.

"I don't think my conceptual categories are as finely delineated as yours, ho ho hooo!" Bugenhagen pushed his chair back and drifted over to the kettle. "Would you like some tea?"

"No."

"You are in a bad mood." Bugenhagen paused, kettle in hand. "What's the matter? Forgive me, I don't believe that theoretical differences are the root of it. At least, I'd hope not!" He chuckled. "You know, I've worked with people like that before. Very strong views about the kinds of fine distinctions that disappear within the memory of a decade. Amusing to watch-- but it's no way to live."

Nanaki growled.

"Oh dear, oh dear," said Bugenhagen. "I do think you should have some tea."

Nanaki said nothing. As the water ran, and the flame on the hob hissed, he scowled at the wooden walls-- carefully felled by another canyon elder; it had taken days; they could have bought planks from Corel, but people in the canyon liked making things by hand, for the sole purpose of acting superior about it. About how they, at least, were living sustainably. Easy to boast, thought Nanaki, when you didn't have any other, useful, work. The systems they were so proud of-- toys that couldn't be scaled, made by trained scientists with endless free time, behaving like they were saving the world while ignoring the real issues in Midgar and the other towns-- a waste. He'd lain awake late at night reading about the difficulties of coordinating medical records across Midgar's sectors. Now that was admirable work. He longed to see it: a large, diverse population, working on complex problems and solving them-- the ambition! The injuries they could cure these days, it was incredible. So much more worthwhile than this feedback loop of smug scientists, backpatting, bemoaning the state of the world and doing nothing to help, decorating their model village.

"Could you not work on something more useful?" said Nanaki, now, as the water boiled. "You could make more turbines, and sell them, to spread them into the towns, rather than only running a few here. If you were serious about helping the planet, that would be more efficient."

Bugenhagen shuddered. "'Useful'! 'Efficient'! I've had my life's fill of those words, I can assure you." The kettle whistled. He selected a small ceramic pot, then poured out his tea, humming to himself. Nanaki was about to retort when Bugenhagen continued, "And while I don't like to reduce things to questions of value... I think happiness is rather valuable, don't you?" He looked at Nanaki over his glasses, again. "There is definitely value in moving slowly, carefully, and deliberately. You hunt, yes?"

Nanaki waited.

"What happens if you bite the ankles of a dragon?" Bugenhagen sipped his tea. "No, our role is to put the tools in place and disseminate the knowledge. Beyond that, things fall where they will. We have to trust to fate, sometimes-- and, more to the point, I don't have the energy for anything more."

"So, you would prefer not to make the effort." Nanaki remembered his mother, nudging his shoulder with her chin, leaving to fight for the last time.

"I'm 128 years old," Bugenhagen reminded him. "No, my place is here, and my role is to research spirit energy--"

"This place is fake!" It burst out of him. "Spirit energy, spirit energy, spirit energy-- it's nothing to do with the planet, and you know it." He slashed his claws down the rock again; they sparked. "You all got bored of your office jobs, so you made your pretend little village together, and now you call yourselves scholars of spirit energy-- what does that even mean? You just want to keep up the fiction, because otherwise, what have you got left? A hobby project, that's what!" He remembered the time before the turbines had come to the canyon, before the final wave of Gi, when there had been others with fur and tails and he had read books with his mother. "I'm sick of it! I'm not a project! I want to meet some real people!"

"I rather hoped it wasn't time for that." Bugenhagen sighed, as Nanaki bounded away.