onerous | (no subject)

The observations of others would indicate that my world would be considered a place both of the past and of differing technologies and magics.

I'm engaged in research efforts through to the mid afternoon, if you wanted to meet today. Otherwise tomorrow morning is of equal ease for this one.

Magic? That sounds exciting at least.

It might be a bit selfish, but I'd like to meet sooner rather than later. If you're not too tired from your researching, I'd like to meet today.

hat are you researching, if I can ask?

Exciting, yes, but not as convenient as some simple things found here.

Today is fine. My research is presently at my own schedule.

Ah, yes, certainly. At the moment I'm researching the gods and goddesses and creatures of lore for Lunatia. It strikes me as worth learning more about considering the claim that we're god-sent to have ended up in this place.

Oh. That actually sounds really interesting.

I'm not sure I believe it was gods or goddesses or things like that that brought us here, or maybe I just don't want to think there's people that powerful here, but I'm sure it will help us out if we learn more.

I'm not sure if I could be much help, but if you need help, I'd be interested. I like researching.

I will never turn down assistance with researching. The more eyes we have looking into various topics, the more chances we have that one or several will notice what another may miss. Be it truth and fact, or theories and mythologies... it tells us something of these people and the possibilities in their world. Important to understand as our time here continues on.

What mythologies and superstitions and the like people believe in can tell us a lot.

I suppose I'm better at researching the more supernatural side of things. If there are any ghosts around, I can be useful there.

Yes, they can. Trying to understand where the Prismals comes from and why and how they think to me seems like it'd logically reflect in those origins, too.

Ah! Ghosts are not a strength of mine, though I've dealt with negative energy manifestations. There may well be ghosts around given the age of this city and the turbulence of the lives here.

Negative energy manifestations? [She's interested despite herself. She knows what the difference might be on some level, but she's interested in his explanation of it]

It wouldn't surprise me if there were, but I haven't actively gone looking either. Once you get the attention of the other side, it's hard to shake it.

High yin energy concentrations. Can be either a spirit, a ghost, or a demonic presence. Usually has some level of awareness, and may be banished by sufficient yang energy, righteous cultivation energy, or more powerful demonic energy.

Ah... It would be less than desired to find yourself tracked down by all those not of the living. It's not so much the case where I'm from, but also, there are not spirits who linger so much within cultivation sects.

Like some kind of purification ritual? It sounds like the work of priests and the like. It's interesting, and different from what I'm used to working with.

I want to know more about what you mean by 'cultivation,' but I feel like I'm keeping you from your work too much. When we meet, if you don't mind, will you tell me more?

Similar enough in principle, though we don't require rituals in the way you may be thinking.

[ He's fairly sure Luo Binghe might be able to look at something sideways with enough Intent behind it to send things fleeing, but it's an unsettled thought over a person he's presently locked in a complicated set of emotions. ]

Ask, and I'll answer as I can. Until we meet, Miss Yuri.

[ IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING...

He has the limiter tucked away into his sleeve when he sets out to meet Yuri, considering if he'll need to do much modification in the process. Things better to wait on considering until he's met her, but as he nears where they'd planned on meeting, it's still the primary thought buzzing around in his head. ]

[It's a little nerve-wracking, really. Probably it shouldn't be, because what's there to get anxious about? If it works, great, if not, what really changes?

Maybe it's because she very rarely allows herself to hope for anything.

So when he arrives he'll find her standing stock still, except for the way she anxiously wrings her hands. She starts a bit and her gaze focuses instantly on him when he approaches, not recognizing him a moment before she realizes] Oh, are you...?

[ He inclines his head to her when she speaks, straightening again as he introduces himself. ]

Shen Qingqiu. You are Miss Yuri?

[ It's an obvious sort of assumption, but better to ask than to find out it's actually her friend or someone else who he's mistaken. Stranger things happen here! Truly they do! ]

Are you ready to try this?

Yes, pleased to finally meet you. [She bows a little, to be polite, before straightening. Her gaze falls to the bracelet and she takes a breath, looking a bit apprehensive.]

As ready as I'll ever be. [A pause and she adds, a bit belatedly since it's only just now really occurred to her to press about it:] What can I give you in return for this? I'd feel bad if I didn't pay you back in some way.

You'd suggested you might be willing to do some research?

[ He unlatches the bracelet (or anklet, given it worked both ways), offering it out for her to give him her arm in turn. ]

Then assistance in the Library would be greatly appreciated. Nothing uncomfortable attracting attention one would not wish to have.

[ He offers a small smile, a nod toward the concerns she'd stated with the spirits and ghosts of this place. ]

[Another pause and she blinks at him, making a soft 'ah' noise] That didn't seem like it would be enough. [To pay him back, she means.] But if it's fine, then that's what I can settle with. I look forward to it.

[She's also looking forward to this if the way her breath slightly catches in excitement as she extends her right arm, watching him and the bracelet with rapt attention.]

[ As a man who really loves delegation... trust him, that's more than enough! He's not been shy about making sure to moonlace more than needed for basic functions, and off the top of his head there's nothing he needs or wants outside of more eyes on paper, so...

... welcome to Shen Qingqiu's diabolical lack of a plan for a temporary research assistant? Very devious! More than enough! ]

I look forward to working with you.

[ Then with an approximate lack of anything like pomp or circumstance, he deftly loops the inhibitor around her arm and clicks it closed. It's a little bit big, sitting more like a bangle, but if he adjusts the hinge, he can be sure that it won't slide right off her hand... yes, just a small adjustment would see that done. ]

One small adjustment—

[ However, in the process of measuring that space with his fingers, he's brushing against her skin as he hums to himself... and unhooks the inhibitor. ]

[She holds her breath, trying to steel her mind from what might come. Normally-- Normally it's okay. If she's prepared for a touch, often her ability ill be quiet and behave itself, which is something of a relief.

But she's too eager and excited, drops her guard too quickly, so when he goes to make his adjustment--

The mitori ability sees that as a fine time to kick in and immediately latch onto the worst recent memory he has. Yuri cringes and makes a sharp noise of protest, but it does little to stop it from happening once it's going.

Sorry Shen Qingqiu]

[ The memory is darkness and smoke and remnants of fire and the thick, cloying scent of fresh and drying blood. He's kneeling on the roof of Obscuria, in the wreckage and aftermath of the long battle against the Glow-pumped up Barbarus and Janus's personal army of bodyguards, but there's no one around, just Shen Qingqiu and the man he's dragged into his lap, the man whose eyes are dull and whose lips froth with bubbles of blood and who has gashes large enough for Shen Qingqiu's hand to fall inside on his chest, between the layers of black fabric that have frayed and become partly engrained in the bloody, raw lacerations. It's a miracle no artery has been hit, but the blood won't stop flowing, already in the handsome, beautiful young man's hair, matted and thick, painted across his face, turning his black suit and black over-robe glittering and beautiful and wet with blood. There's blood on Shen Qingqiu too, smeared across his face, across his torn-up, ripped up shirt, across the pristine chest that lies beneath. He's speaking, pleading and pleading and telling this man, telling Luo Binghe he cannto die, he has to live, and he's kissing his forehead and the blood-red mark that glows so faintly there, kissing an unseeing eye as the lids slide lower, kissing bloody lips and finding that the one he kisses rallies his effort, what little life he has left, and clings to Shen Qingqiu, kisses him back with a horrible, sad desperation as Shen Qingqiu cries tears he doesn't even know are falling, leaving trails through the blood on Binghe's face, falling down between them as their lips meet and he's trying not to let his breath hitch in a sob as he says, please, please, please each time he remembers to come up for air.

It doesn't last long, it lasts for ages, it's until Binghe loses strength in his arms to hold around Shen Qingqiu's shoulders, and all there is in that moment is the silent tears that stream unchecked and unnoticed down Shen Qingqiu's face as he cradles Luo Binghe close, runs a hand over his hair, says nothing, can't speak, because that's the death rattle and as quick as an eye can blink Luo Binghe is here as a weak and pitiful pale thing and then he is dead. He is covered in his hearts blood, his life's blood, he is covered in Shen Qingqiu's tears, there is blood smeared on Shen Qingqiu's lips and acorss Luo Binghe's slack mouth and there is no breath in his lungs and that is not the end. That is not the end, because the crystals start crawling across his body, growing over Luo Binghe's skin and clothes and the blood and his matted hair, trying to grow over Shen Qingqiu's hands and fracturing as he moves, until he's forced to set Luo Binghe down as the crystal growths rage and build like a tide that crests and spills over the rest of him, encasing Luo Binghe in light, in light, in light, countless reflected, refracted colours of imperfect, smooth crystal, and the small, animal sound it pulls from Shen Qingqiu's gut is almost soft enough to be ignored, to be forgotten, as he holds trembling fingers out and presses them against the crystal that has grown over Luo Binghe's cheek.

It is his worst recent memory. It is his worst memory in years. It's the memory he revists in broken fragments most nights, even now, with Binghe alive, breathing, moving, speaking, functioning again.

And when he's living it again, not fully unexpected, because he had taken her fears and thoughts on her powers to heart, he swallows against a thick throat and ignores the tears that have gathered on his lashes, a fresh plunge into that deep grief and his own helplessness in the face of it not welcome, but accepted, acknowledged, and set aside. ]

[Automatically she makes to jerk her hand away the second the vision ends, her vision swimming briefly. It takes her brain a few seconds to parse away what him and what's herself, what feels are his, thoughts and pains, trying to dissect them from her own.]

I'm sorry.

[She gasps out, automatic but no less genuine, and her eyes wide with panic that he might get belatedly angry and lash out at her.]

I'm so sorry, I-- [She looks down at the bracelet, wishing it all could have waited just a few seconds long, then it hopefully, maybe, wouldn't have been a worry at all.

She can still taste blood on her lips and the sting of tears in her eyes, though none gather in her own; even in the face off all of that raw emotion Yuri can't form tears.]

Miss Yuri.

[ He calmly handles the bracelet, manipulating its metal with nothing more than his spiritual energy. He's not used to doing such things, so he needs to concentrate more than he would if this were a task done often, but it's a good focus. It tears his thoughts away from the explosion of grief that the reliving of that memory has brought right back to the forefront. Aside from a gloss to his black eyes, and the deliberate, steady way he breathes, it's hard to say he was even affected.

(He's affected. To the marrow of his bones, he's affected, but none of him leaps to blaming her. That pain wouldn't exist if it weren't for other people's choices, and her ability is just that: a memory, not a cause.) ]

You'd informed me of your abilities before. What just happened wasn't unexpected, just unpleasant. For both of us.

[ He won't talk about it unless she asks something, but he won't lay blame on her for what he knew might happen. Abilities like that are dangerous for various reasons, the unpredictability being part of it, but isn't that why he's here? Why he brought the damn inhibitor along? She doesn't deserve his anger. She deserves his understanding.

There. He examines what he's done with the inhibitor, looks at it from three different angles, then gives a small nod of his head and unclasps the mechanism, offering it out again. ]

This should be a better fit.

[Yuri goes so still she might as well be a statue when he says her name. She's prepared for a lot of things here--to be scolded, or turned away, or rejected or anything but... Well, this.

She opens and closes her mouth a couple of times, slowly turning her gaze downward to look at the bracelet again as he offers it out once more. It shouldn't activate again so soon after it's just been used on him, but her hand is still trembling when she offers her wrist out again.

For a long moment, Yuri says nothing, really not sure what to say or how to respond. People had been above and beyond (in her opinion) accepting of her peculiarities.]

...You're...a really kind person...

[ He's just had his own versions of worse emotionally than a young woman with powers that aren't fully in her control. Blaming her would be simplistic and easy, and while he can be both when in pursuit of the laid back life he'd love to live but keeps failing to achieve... he isn't here. He has some standards! Or a moral code? Something like that!

He clicks the bracelet in place around her arm, and truly, it does fit that wee bit better that makes it seem more accessory-like, less limiter like.

His hands drop away after checking it's latched properly, but he doesn't break the silence. He leaves that to her. When she does, he gives a small shake of his head, and an equally small smile. ]

You're a person who deserves kindness. To offer none would be crass. How does it feel?

[She holds her arm close to her, her free hand cradling the wrist with the bracelet as she looks it over. Her heart feels strange and in this moment he reminds her so much of Hisoka, her mentor from home, that she's very glad she can't cry or else things might've gotten more awkward.]

It's...Warm... [??? Yuri?

She blinks and snaps her head up, her ears and cheeks turning pink] Ah, that was-- An odd thing to say. I'm sorry. I mean... It fits fine. I think... I think it'll really work. Can I, um...

...Can I touch you again, to make sure?

[ Warm? Sure, he finds that a strange response, but he also isn't her. It makes sense to her, and that's enough, right?

She seems to be caught up in mild embarrassment at it, and so he opts to not draw attention to what she'd said. Or even to worry over accepting the apology that isn't needed.

Instead, he holds out his hand, palm up, so she can test its effectiveness. He has faith it does work, given how total it'd been for him and so many varied other powers in the Lightless, but he'd also like to know. ]

Of course.

Edited 2019-08-04 20:19 (UTC)

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