gunah | (no subject)

[ I want to show you something is the only warning Shuyi gives before taking him by the hand. Even if he lets go before they arrive at their destination, she would drag him by the sleeves if need be. She seems breathless with excitement somehow though her steps are measured and careful, eyes trained on the darkened path through the forest to avoid winding roots to stumble over, errant pebbles here and there. After her initial invitation, she remains largely silent. All her attention is focused on getting to where they need to be and any question thrown her way would be responded with an absent hum if not ignored entirely.

It's only once they reach a narrow clearing that she lets out a laugh. The place is barely wider than the stretch of a man's arm, but the canopy opens clear to reveal the night sky. Head tilted up with a grin on her face, she points up for him to see the stars. ]

You know-- whenever I feel small, I think about how we were all stars once, you and I and all the rest. [ She drops her gaze to him. ] Maybe the same one. Do you believe that?

frightened under attack, fallen flat on my back, arms and legs I'm too scared to beg ( x )

[ The miles and miles of cracked earth and dried out grass feel familiar to her somehow, though not the heat bearing down heavy on their heads. Here the grass grow taller than men and she could run through them like a maze if only each contact doesn't leave her jumping back, startled, mistaking it for sharpened nails, the roughened skin of some strange alien creature. Hand over her eyes, she squints to make out the mountain looming in the distance like a beacon of hope and respite from the merciless sun. But when the breeze stirs, she shivers a little. Not from the cold.

The whistle is the only warning they get before the deluge of arrows tipped with fire and she finds herself shrieking in fear and ducking to the ground with arms over her head. All about, others are fleeing, brandishing weapons and fighting back as Shuyi looks on, heart pounding against her chest. Get up.

With a quick intake of breath, she jumps to her feet and puts two fingers in her mouth to whistle, catch the attention of the walking tree-barks with sharpened needles for fingers, as she runs about in circles. First a wide one to draw in as many of them as she could and spiraling in until the creatures form a broken circle about her. That's when, catching her breath all the while and staring in wide-eyed fear at them all, her veins begin to glow pale blue under her skin. She remembers to duck just as her palms nearly meet, between them a blinding white light that would sear itself into your eyes before it blasts out, scatters in a widening disc of brightness and heat that breaks the Koleska apart at the waist. Some slashed apart in half while those who still could tried to flee.

Only that's when the archers know to zero in on her, the tall grass about her now singed if not dissolved into invisible atoms, giving them a clear view. An arrow to the leg is all it takes to bring her down screaming and crying in pain. ]

[ In so many ways, he grew immune to certain sounds now, there was so much he heard and heard over again. Blood and death and blood. It blurred altogether.

Some sounds, however, he still found grating, and he told himself there were other reasons, like discretion, that he preferred to slice the girl's of the golden cat throats with his palm over their mouth. It was not that, he disliked the sound of their screaming. It was too much and too similar, and his mind no longer allowed that, if he was going to succeed.

Hates it, like he hates so much now with so little else, and this fight, just another paid mission given and followed through with the promise of some kind of retribution in the future, he went.

Could ignore everything else, except the sound of her screaming and when he moves to close in on her, it's only to silence her. Clamp her mouth shut and keep her silent and get it out of his head.

But he looks at her and he looks at her and can't. Hands won't listen and he's there first because he always moved too quick. Fast as light, as shadows, as things that take up spaces in those life-death-life moments that exist in between heart beats. ]

Get up. Move. [ It's a hiss. The others will be coming soon. Damnit, has to move them through this. ]

Out there in the tundra, we read many books on it that the old Garhla wrote, but they were so dull. Me? I'd rather think of it as flames-- no, warm embers inside you, still and calm.

[ It's just like her to start a conversation mid-sentence without context to help Hanna understand just what exactly she's talking about.

Seated crosslegged on the floor, Shuyi is barefeet with only a simple cotton dress on and loose black pants with hair twisted up in a messy bun. Her grin is barely concealed even as she bites her lower lip to keep from seeming too eager, because she is too eager to show her new friend this little stunt, if it can be called such considering there's really no possibility of danger to either of their persons. She reaches over to pat the space just in front of her, gesturing for Hanna to sit. ]

People think it's boring. Listen, I thought it's boring but it's not. Imagine-- [ Movement fluid and practiced, she brings her hands together to create a strange symbol using her fingers, both elbows resting on her thighs. ] Imagine whatever you like: a fireplace on a snowy day, cool breeze when the heat bears down.

[ Shuyi allows her grin to bloom at last. ]

Your mind is your most powerful tool.

[Hanna blinks quizzically at Shuyi, who begins a story like a Tarantino movie: smack at the end. Gotta work backwards, huh?

The symbol she doesn't recognize, which only makes her all the more curious]

Alright, I'll bite.

[She sits in front of Shuyi, shoulders sloped and relaxed. She has no idea what to expect, outside of probably something totally crazy.

In her mind's eye, Hanna brings up the image of the night sky in the middle of the summer, full of bright stars and a warm atmosphere. The grass is cool and prickly against her skin.]

[ There's a name for each of the one thousand and one symbols a human hand can make, though anyone who knows anything of Shuyi would know she wouldn't spare a moment trying to memorize them. As long as she knows its meaning. This one is for calmness. Balance. The taking on of any surplus and excess so that the world about her may come to peace.

She laughs when Hanna joins her, shifting her legs to sit a little closer, so she can reach out both hands to hold Hanna's loosely in hers. Then she closes her eyes, her voice softer when she speaks next, barely rising above the sound of her breathing. ]

You're warm. That is usual for you, I hope?

Yeah. It's a thing. I'll show you a trick later.

[Because she thinks lighting herself on fire wouldn't be very conducive to a relaxing imagination session.

She does wonder, though, what Shuyi is trying to do. She's not unfamiliar with illusions, as there are people in her world that can create them, but something tells her Shuyi isn't quite trying to do the same.

She'll find out soon enough, she figures.]

[ Shuyi has no skill with illusions, unless it's of the verbal kind, but then those are called something else. Something less magical. This is nothing of the sort.

If allowed, she would shift her hands so that she may press an index finger against the inside of Hanna's wrist and adjust the other woman's hands to do the same. This way they can hear each other's heartbeats, mismatched for now until Shuyi makes the conscious effort to match her company's. This is easy. As easy as breathing by now. Her own hand may be calloused, with layer upon layer of raised scars, more fitting for a stoneworker than a girl, but her grip is gentle and her humming reverberates through her entire body right down to the tips of her fingers.

The melody is strange but subdued, steady and changing in tune very slowly. It has no words. ]

[Hanna had always loved music. It had been her passion, once, before the world shredded her dreams.

The melody is low, rhythmic, something altogether foreign. The beat is strangely calming, perhaps because it reminds her of what she once was: a girl chasing after a rhythm to call her own.

Shuyi's skin doesn't seem suited for someone to work with such a calming technique, but Hanna makes no comment. She knows more than anyone how looks can deceive.

She continues to stay silent, not wanting to break Shuyi's concentration. She can manage to say quiet at least.]

[ Hanna isn't ailing or suffering from fatigue, unlike the people she commonly tries to help, but there's still some benefit in returning to a calmer state of mind.

Consciously and gradually, she slows her own heartbeat to the pace of one deep in slumber, the fingers placed on the other woman's wrist sending the signal (is it chemical or is it closer to magic?) for Hanna to follow suit. The exercise isn't foolproof even for someone of her own kind so she can't guarantee that it would work for Hanna, but that won't stop her from trying.

Her humming dissipates into silence without a clear end and when she opens her eyes and smiles, it's as if the tune still lingers in the air, just waiting to be recalled. ]

How do you feel?

[ Hanaguchi Avenue was a roar, but by now the sky is already beginning to shift from pitch black to deep blue and the crowd has receded to the occasional couple stumbling along, someone curled up against the sidewalk completely inebriated.

Shuyi has run out of credits to spend buying company too, only she never expected that someone like Johan, someone so polite and gentle and-- beautiful for lack of a better word, would choose to spend the last few hours before dawn by her side without any promise of reward. She could count on one hand the people she can go to should she lose everything: her title, her wealth, her chance at power. Now they are all dead or they are her sister, who would sooner serve her head on a plate than talk.

She is seated on the stone railing of a bridge that overlooks much of the city, legs dangling over the edge. Death would be certain from this height but she doesn't feel even a shred of fear. Only the exhilaration that comes with finding oneself free to choose to jump or to stay. ]

You never truly know another person. All of us are made of deep unfathomable wells and you can only imagine by what comes floating to the surface once a while. Isn't that sad?

[ War takes many forms. War is also a grand cliche of the worst of human conditions, which perhaps makes it apt that its form takes that of an overbearing man — what else could be more of a caricature than the sharp figure of a merciless man, the sort to keep his sister in a cage, to keep his brothers in line with the threat of being forgotten?

He goes by Wyatt, these days - a man of true leisure, but not of idleness. There's always a war threatening to break out somewhere in the world; it's only timing that decides how many he takes down with him, this time around.

He pushes a small cup forward to his companion, on this bright Saturday morning. The drink is clear and warm, like the tempered glass that surrounds them. ]

I wasn't certain what you'd like. Have a drink.

[ If asked, her stance on war is clear: she hates it with every fibre of her being. But time and time again she has consorted with what she despises in order to win the hand of the one she loves: peace. But peace is elusive, capricious. She never stays for long. War, on the other hand. War persists.

But to her eyes, Wyatt appears as a man, no more and no less, and she has never turned down a gift. Known or otherwise.

He gets a bright smile for his trouble. ]

I like everything I haven't tried. In principle. [ She twirls the glass about with the tips of her fingers. ] What is it?

[ This isn't the kind of seashore plastered on travel brochures.

The liquid sand is blackened, punctuated by gnarled mangrove roots reaching for the skies, gurgling mudfish blowing out pockmarks on its surface. On the horizon, three red suns rise so slowly it feels as if time has stopped. No one knows what names this world has been given by those who called it home. They are long dead and forgotten. What hope they had of finding these people to figure out their way back is lost. There is nothing left to do but wait.

But even here, there is beauty. The wind whistles through gaps in the mangrove thicket, the waves thrum as they crash against the rocks. ]

Do you hear that? It's a song for us.

[ Shuyi makes up the verses as she goes, singing in her own language as she composes a dance by treading upon the footsteps he left earlier. She has a voice for sweet lullabies and limbs that lack any sense of rhythm, even when she's the one making up the music. ]

Come, take my hand.

C'mon.

[ Take my hand, she says. As if it's easy.

Maybe to her it is. Looking out at the waves is like visiting a nightmarish work of art. The three suns paint the entire sky with bands of red, and maybe it'll be whatever approximates to sunrise soon.

But all Nathan can see is black sand. Inky, wet gurgles of life too stubborn to accept the end. From this angle, there's a halo of red shining through Shuyi's hair. Light cuts across the rise of her cheek and the spike of her lashes. Take my hand, she tells him, as if it's easy. What kinda life would it be, where it's as easy as saying it? ]

I'm not singing, [ he warns, though his voice is pitched a little quieter, softer than usual. His hands move out of their pockets, even if they don't reach back. ]

What's your song about?

[ It's testament to a coddled life, perhaps. Shuyi has always believed she could do whatever she puts her mind to. End wars, save the world, stay alive. As if it's easy. Isn't it? All one needs to do is stand up, take one step and then another.

She interrupts her song to laugh at him, reaching to grab his hand the first chance she gets. There are so many ways to dance and no way of doing it wrong. The steps are simple, see, one foot forward, another back, just a matter of placing oneself where someone else has tread before. The sand indents deeper and deeper under their feet until a wave rolls in to erase their mistakes. ]

Eagles. [ Here she tries to twirl him despite their incompatible difference in height. ]

Before they die, they take flight toward the sun, as high as they can soar. Then, they let themselves fall.

[ He makes all the noises of a man who is thoroughly out of his element. A little huff or an exhale that might be amused if it wasn't immediately followed by a strong noise of protest. Nathan's steps are off-balance and jerky, splashing spray across the bottom of his jeans. No grace, but still willing to be led along— half ducks his head, even, when she tries to spin him around.

Knock it off rises, then falls. He never does voice it. ]

I'll stay on the ground, thanks.

[ Dryly. He stops moving, pointedly. His hand still grabbed by hers. ]

Know anything more cheerful? [ As if that'll make him more amiable. ]

[ That makes two of them. This isn't as much a dance but a collection of missteps and stumbles, the point of which is only to assert their footsteps onto the otherwise desolate place. Soon, even that will be erased by the waves and no trace would be left of them. Just as it should be.

Shuyi is still laughing inbetween her humming. ]

You dislike cheerful, Nate.

[ She lets him go to twirl once on her own before taking slow steps to back into the ocean, the last place they could look. They have already spent days scouring the island for clues and archives and mementos of those who came before them, only to find that their end was nothing spectacular. Just a slow wasting away of life. Just time. She isn't yet sure how to accept that, so she won't speak of it. ]

Is this— [ She gestures all around with her arms. At the expanse. The great silence. The freedom to choose how it ends. ] —not what you have hoped for?

[ —I don't dislike— is the immediate thought. Nathan pushes that away, too, replacing it with a half-mumbled, ]

It's Nathan.

[ Only the 16th time he's said it.

His hands curl, then get shoved back into his pockets. His steps are slower than hers. Ambling, the imprint he leaves in the sand two sizes larger than hers. Boots, heavy, their tread caked with mud and wet sand. There was life here and now there isn't. Nathan's turning it over, chewing himself out about it. Did any of them get to choose, here? Beyond the remaining fragments of art and memory boxes, did any of them know?

He faces the ocean. Inhales deeply, in, out, the wind mussing his hair, before his eyes find Shuyi's face again. ]

I don't know. [ Honesty. It's not a look he wears with any great comfort. ] I don't know what I was expecting.

[ She only calls him Nate to hear him speak his own name. That is, to hear him speak.

The ocean is behind her now, the waves a force that push her back to the shore only to then pull her in, an uncertain friend. Even the wind soaks her hair, weighing down each strand to stick to her cheeks. She smiles when he meets her eyes. Above them, a lightning crosses the sky like the flash of a camera, and she looks up to wait for the thunderous sound to follow. ]

I can cast strobes to help someone find us.

[ It is blood and physics and nuclear reactions. It will hurt, but so does surviving. ]

Only if you want me to.

Don't.

[ Softly. Gently, even, before he turns his face away and only the ocean can catch it. So few things come quick to Nathan. Even less arrive with that certainty, no moment of thinking it through, second-guessing, weighing up the regrets. ]

Give me another minute. [ There's a shape to his tone. Something bare. Underneath it all, it sounds a lot like please.

He takes a few steps until he's closer. He's the one who reaches for her elbow, cold fingers crooking around its bend. ]

Eagles, you said?

[ Above, another flash. The sky rumbles its low, booming growl. ]

[ Shuyi closes her eyes to wait for another minute, another hour, or a day if that's what he needs. The world will wait. She truly believes this. How difficult it is to realize that one is no longer the protagonist of the story. That she could fall off the pages and none would remember. If the universe is an uncaring one, why do even the ocean swirl about her just enough to keep her from falling?

She only opens her eyes when he has her elbow, and she returns the move by wrapping her palm, rough as sandpaper, around his arm. Her other hand reaches for his shoulder. ]

I can tell you another story. Where the eagle doesn't die.

[ As if to say, it's up to us how this tale goes. Overhead, the sky begins to release the deluge. ]

[ Rain. Fine, thin beads of it, the little sting of wet needles against his scalp before the rest of it comes and it's just white noise. It's gonna turn the sand into thick sludge. Waves are gonna get colder, too.

Nathan smiles anyway. ]

Might like that better.

[ There's a lump in his throat. He swallows hard. Brings his other arm close, where the span of his hand curves just under her ribcage. ]

You wanna dance with me?

[ His question is moot. She has never turned down a dance even at her gloomiest, even if this close tangle of arms isn't the kind of dancing she's used to. More swaying than steps or jumps or twirls. But maybe a walk or a run is as much a dance as anything choreographed. Same as the sound of his voice is a song and her now made-up tune can be enough of a lullaby.

It is hard to rise above the sound of the rain's relentless assault, though she tries. After, she leans toward his ears to speak, this part she doesn't want him to mishear. ]

In this one, the eagles soar to find their way home. Up, up, beyond the sun.

[ It's hard to rise above the rain's assault, but somehow, he hears it. Nathan blinks down at her. Can only really make out color with this much rain, water-blurry shapes of features, the anchoring press of hand. Evidence of her breath as ribs expand and contract under his palm.

A jackknife of feeling hits Nathan's chest. I know, he thinks, tells himself. I know. It's not attraction, or even romance, or even the first-lit embers of intimacy. But it is a coil of something he recognizes, something so much more base and plain.

I'll follow you, he thinks fiercely. Wherever you wanna go, anywhere in this world. I'll follow you for as long as you let me.

His voice comes out low. Throaty, a rumble almost swallowed by the cacophony: ]

I do like that better.

[ Shuyi had loved the ephemeral. Frail, passing things that could only be grasped in a moment and a memory. Perhaps that was the idealism of youth, and now more than anything she wants things that last, mountains and worlds, great immortal creatures that would stay long after she's gone. She wants to be ephemeral, to be held in memory.

Times like these, she wishes she has powers to create, not break, and to heal, not hurt. She knows no other way to use her hands.

Still, she holds him closer so she can reach a palm out behind his back, as far from him as possible. The blue light that starts from the tip of her finger unfolds like a spider with eight then sixty-four then thousands then a billion legs reaching for the sky, unlucky raindrops combusting as small fireworks that in turn sets off its neighbors until the sky above them is set alight. It takes so little to spark a disaster. ]

That is enough, don't you think?

[ Blue eyes tip upward. The rain makes it hard to see, so his head follows the entire movement. Rivulets of water run down his temple, the hollow of his throat.

And then there's just light.

He looks at them for as long as he can. Until he feels like the combination of cold and illumination will have this moment embedded into his skin forever. To close his eyes, and see only this.

Nathan inhales. He exhales. He leans in closer— not to kiss but to smile, as if that curve is a secret he's not ready to share with the outside. ]

It's enough.

[ You're enough. ]

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gently makes au???

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an au or mish-mash or jamjar-setting or shuyi's ou, whatever you are feeling!

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