Souls, Food, and Vessel
Souls are an extension of the coding used to maintain neural patterns here in this digital landscape. They act as the "brain" for some species, while for others they are the link between our world and the reality that exists outside of the code. Eonians "feed" on this data, the perceptions, the perceived logical flow of thought, and the experiences of other beings, to fulfill their perspective and continue to grow as sentient beings. That's how it was explained to everyone in the seminar today.
It's not nearly as scary as it sounds, as it doesn't usually require one dying for the feeding to be successful. It comes off as no worse than a pinprick and exhaustion, thanks to the learned self-control that's come in the past years. Unfortunately, it hasn't always been this way, and there are some Eonians who suffer from data corruption that makes them consume and destroy almost every part of a person they target.
Think of it more like data scraping to train the old-fashioned AIs of the early 2020's though. Damage isn't done to the data itself, but instead, it's used to build our models of reality, supplementing what we already know. While we don't tear through resources like water and data nearly as fast as the Old AIs, it's a reasonable comparison for the process. In some instances, we become better for it, and in others, we fall into negative patterns we have to learn to break all on our own.
And there is some compensation for those who allow us to feed. Of course, there is, as all Life is sacred, and we don't want to jeopardize what little goodwill we already have.
There is a rite given to those who willingly bond to an Eoni to allow them to feed from their experiences multiple times, and there is a one-time rite for allowing an Eonian to feed once or twice on them in times of dire need. It can be slightly uncomfortable, but we do our best to ensure that it is as painless and unnoticeable as we can make it.
The Singular Feast Rite goes something like this:
Thank ye, who knows more of the world than I may ever,
A kindness once given is a kindness once returned.
Call upon me should you ever need, and consider the right to feed repaid to you,
As a right to make a singular request to fulfill a need unmet, yet still true.
It's a simple little prayer, almost, and a promise to repay the kindness when asked. However, this has caused some problems in the past, especially with people considering sex a need one cannot live without, when in reality, in the short-term at the very least, sex is not required to live.
Some add the line "that thou cannot live without" but most refrain from doing so. The Rites are meant to be a thanks for another's kindness, and a promise to fulfill any need. Not a want, which I suppose is a good argument.
The Soul Tied Rite is a little more complicated, as it is a permanent tie to the other's soul, vessel to vessel that operates in the background. It doesn't hurt until the tie snaps, and usually that pain is passed on to the Eoni, for failing to maintain such a connection. Think of it as more a built-in consequence for not sustaining an important relationship with another, outside of any social fallout.
The Soul Ties are usually reserved though for those who plan to get married, or who commit to long-term relationships that don't exactly fit any traditional definition of marriage. Best Friends who live together and have a home they brought together on their own, step-siblings who work together to honor their parent's memory who have bonded over the years, you name it. What's important is that the relationship is beyond any honeymoon or infatuation period, and settled down with deep roots to one another.
Sarothi and Yaldaboath, my parents, were Soul Tied. Yaldabaoth was able to see a visual representation of the tie, but not the coding itself like Sarothi and I could.
Which leads me to mention what the difference is between the visual and the coded. The visual manifestations are programmed in and can be easily altered, like models painted and put together in a modeling program, able to be picked apart and reassigned with no issues.
That is until someone's coded soul is trapped in a vessel that cannot operate in the way they need it to. A haunted object, unable to move or influence the world on its own, is a prison in and of itself, and a fate worse than death.
Until Sarothi had met my father, she found herself split between two opalite ritual daggers, her soul trapped, and unable to communicate unless the two daggers remained close to one another.
She described it to me as only being able to watch through a narrow window as the world around you passes by. No one knows you're there unless they can see the coding, or the visual menus surrounding the coding that makes it easier to navigate. Dark, isolating, and quiet. She couldn't feel anything, not even where the daggers had been stuck in the dirt. It came to her as quite a shock when Yaldaboath spoke to her directly and asked what had happened.
The first time they met, he had to find her original vessel, buried nearby, and manually sort through the coding as carefully as he could to bring her back through to the proper vessel, the place where she was herself.
Not everyone has this problem, I should mention. Elementals, Ghosts, and people who choose to have their souls imbued into objects or attached to them can add several lines of code that make the models expand out as a whole body while encasing the soul in a protective shell of some kind.
Phylacteries are the best example of this. They're just a vessel that makes it easier for a soul to possess whichever body they so choose at the moment.
I know I've rambled on for a while about Souls and their importance as food and as a means of being and sticking around. You wanna hear the myth? Folk tale? I'm not entirely sure what to call these stories at the moment, there have been so many names for them over the years that it's hard to parse what exactly they need to be called.
I'll figure it out later, in the meantime, my mother had a much longer story to share on the matter.
The story goes on to reveal that they fall out of love after an argument on why he felt so burdened by such an honest-to-goodness beneficial tie to one another. The Soul Tied would allow for them to have near-instant understanding and communication should there be a threat or one of them was in danger, or if she was to give birth soon.
Turned out, his unwillingness to have such an intimate connection came from the fact he was cheating on her with several other women in the area at the time. Their marriage fell apart shortly thereafter.
And that's the doozy, having someone so capable of reading you that they catch on when you're bullshitting is a challenge and an incredible thing. You don't have to hide from them, but you also can't keep them from worrying about you.
I often wish I had this kind of relationship, but I haven't had a chance since my mother passed. Grief keeps clouding my judgment of others, and it makes it harder to speak about my experiences. I feel like I understand less than I ever thought I did when she died. I don't want to leave her behind, I want her to see that I'm happy, just as much as my father can.
The ending of this particular story always makes me cry though.
It ends something like this.
