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[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 月亮 ] Yue Liang

The twins #7 - First Words. 

The first time Yue Liang talks to the boy he had been watching, it was a mistake. He had done nothing more to gain the boys attention since that time that he had accidentally dropped his book out the window, and subsequently had it returned to him with a note from the stable- hand. 

[ Yue Liang - sixteen / seventeen ]

From there, Yue Liang pretended as though their routines kept matching by mistake. His sleep schedule was usually messed up, staying up all night till the morning broke, but now he purposely stayed up there until on his windowsill until he at least saw the boy before turning to bed, even if he had long ago stopped reading. 

The boy stayed non-the wiser that Yue Liang was even watching him. He appeared from the back of the castle, whistling as he headed towards the stables, sometimes stopping in the shed alongside it to grab extra hay and sometimes heading straight in. Yue Liang pulls his knees further up towards his chest as he watches, one quiet morning where it’s warmer than it normally is, as the boy appears shirtless, his growing muscles shifting and rippling underneath his tanned skin. Yue Liang shouldn’t even be able to see him that well from up here, and so he thanks his slightly better- than- normal eyesight he had over other people. 

Yue Liang still wasn’t prepared, wasn’t knowledgeable, about what the hell was happening to him. He wasn’t used to this kind of attraction, because although it wasn’t present often usually it was cute girl he noticed - but this time it was another boy, a strong, well defined, tanned boy who liked to whistle and smiled lots, who always talked to the horses kindly. It scared him a little, actually it scared him a whole lot, but he wasn’t scared enough to stop. 

Then, it happened. Yue Liang was sitting on his windowsill, enjoying the quiet approach of the morning, the sun just beginning to appear above the horizon and waking the world with its golden rays, the birds singing its welcome. Above him, higher than he can see, the sky was still dark, the last couple of stars winking out their goodbyes until they’re all gone. 

Suddenly, “HI!” and Yue Liang is so shocked he nearly falls, which is unprecedented because he’s never fallen from this spot once in his life, and has to clutch to the windowsill to stop himself. He snaps his head down, trying to find who had shouted to who and curse the two in his head, when suddenly he finds the boy he had been watching for so long staring back up at him, one hand raised and waving at him. 

On one hand, Yue Liang should be angry at being spoken to so disrespectfully - he was a prince - and on the other hand, he was shocked that the boy had even seen him up here. 

Silently, Yue Liang raises his hand and waves back down to the boy, not wanting to raise his own voice to speak when he rarely speaks at an even space to start with. 

“I see you up there every morning,” the boy - ‘H’ apparently, but Yue Liang was yet to figure out what that stands for, says, before adding, “Aren’t you afraid of falling, your highness?” 

‘What a stupid question.’ Yue Liang thinks, pursing his lips - but still, shakes his head obviously enough for ‘H’ to see even meters and meters below him. 

“I suppose you must have good balance then,” H calls, “That must be why you ride so well. Star misses you, she isn’t ridden nearly enough.” Star, being Yue Liang’s horse, her name being given by Yue Liang when he was very young and didn’t know any better; now, he regrets the name, but to him she really was his little star, even if he would never say that aloud. 

Getting no response from Yue Liang, not that he had waited long enough to even get a response, ‘H’ calls, “Did you get your book?” 

Wondering faintly why this boy was even still talking to him - even though Yue Liang was quietly intrigued, and a little giddy, that H was talking to him - Yue Liang nods again so that the boy below him could see. 

And oh, oh, what a wide smile ‘H’ gives him, all teeth and dimples that Yue Liang could see from here. He’s so pretty, so so pretty, and Yue Liang ignores how his heart thunders in favor for sighing and closing his book on his lap, dropping it onto the stairs behind him with a ‘thud’ before stretching his legs out from being folded under him to now hang off of the edge of the wide windowsill. 

“Good! I had hoped it was yours when I found it under your window, your highness. I am glad it found its way back to it’s owner!” H calls to him, continuing the conversation. 

Yue Liang pauses, wondering if he should finally open his mouth and speak to thank the boy properly, when another voice comes from the other end of the back lawns, out of Yue Liang’s line of sight. 

“Who are you calling too at this hour!?” the voice calls, sounding angry, “Shut up and come help with the horses! you’re going to wake the whole castle up!” 

H’s head whips towards the voice, seeming to recognize the voice and the person speaking to him because he ducks into a low bow and calls back, “Ah! sorry! I’m coming!” before turning his head back up towards Yue Liang, flashing a smile as he says, 

“I have to go! it was a pleasure talking to you, your highness!” 

Before Yue Liang can reply, H is off across the lawn and out of his sight. Once he’s gone, Yue Liang feels himself visible deflate, an odd cold feeling going through his chest. As nervous as ‘talking’ to the boy had made him, and even though Yue Liang hadn’t actually opened his mouth, he had kind of enjoyed that interaction. 

Sighing to himself, Yue Liang twists his legs back over the ledge and hops down onto the staircase. Ignoring his book in favor for wanting to get to his bed, Yue Liang’s mind wanders as he slowly traipses downstairs, the cold stone against the sole of his feet making him shiver slightly. H’s smile had been so wide, so warm, his dimples big enough that Yue Liang could press a kiss against them and - 

Feeling his cheeks flush, reaching all the way to his ears and down his neck, Yue Liang snaps himself out of it and resolutely refuses to let himself think about H any further as he finally reaches his bedroom and pads across the floor to his bed. It doesn’t work, and his mind is still focuses on the warm, sun- laden tone of H’s voice as he clambers up on his bed and pushes under the cover only to bury his face in the pillow, biting back the giddy feeling in his chest.

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 太阳 ] Tai Yang

The twins #6 - A moment of Red. 

Cool surrounds her, a gentle swirl of current against her hips, her legs, her ribcage. Tai Yang tips her head back and feels the wind sigh through her golden hair, hears it brush through the canopy of leaves above her, feels it push through the lush green sea behind her and tickle against her shoulders. Somewhere a bird calls and another answers, a horse whinnies, and the river burbles sweetly to her. 

[ Tai Yang - Sixteen / Seventeen. ] 

Then, a gasp, the sound of something dropping - a sound out of the norm. Tai Yang’s eyes snap open, clarity springing to her, and she wheels around in the water, reaching for her sword nearby as her eyes fall on the intruder, the ene - 

oh. 

A girl stares back at her, just as wide eyed as Tai Yang is sure she is. Her chest is heaving from the surprise, and as a wind gust comes through and pushes some of her ruby locks into her eyes the girl reaches up and tucks it behind her ear. 

“I-” the girl starts, and Tai Yang doesn’t miss the way her eye dip down, quick but not quick enough for Tai Yang to not notice, before looking back up as her cheeks begin to turn pink. 

“I am so sorry Princess!” the redhead blurts, twirling around, “I did not mean to intrude - I saw nothing, I swear.” 

An obvious lie. Tai Yang, feeling her own cheeks tingling as her own flush reaches her ears, slowly sinks back down in the water. She hadn’t spared a second thought when initially hearing the intruder about how she was dressed, but now that she sees it wasn’t someone here to try and kill her and instead was a maid from the castle, she can’t help but curse her foolish-ness; her clothes were right there for gods sake, she could have at least grabbed her riding cape to hide her modesty. 

“It is alright,” Tai Yang tells her, while her heart was still almost pounding of her chest, “Please, turn around, what did you come to tell me?” She’s confident she’s hidden by the rocks alongside the river, her body submerged in the water up to her collarbones. There was no reason for the girl to be here other than she must have a message, and although Tai Yang was already mourning the loss of her free time, of her private moment, she knew it wouldn’t last.

“I- nothing, princess,” the maid tells her, still not turned around. “If you will pardon my actions, I was simply coming to do the same as you are. I did not know you also knew of this spot.” 

Oh - oh. Tai Yang’s eyebrows furrow. She wasn’t the type to judge what staff did in their free time, hell - even if they were currently meant to be working Tai Yang could recognize when someone was overworked and felt as though they needed a moment. Except she had never seen this maid here before, and Tai Yang had been coming here since she was fifteen and accidently stumbled upon it while hunting. 

“What is your name?” Tai Yang asks, leaning further against the rocks. 

“Xia, princess.” 

Tai Yang’s eyebrows raise a little, but it doesn’t matter because Xia still hasn’t turned around, meaning she can’t currently see Tai Yang. 

“Well, Xia,” Tai Yang replies, feeling heated despite the cool water she was currently sitting in. “Please, do not let my presence stop you. If you will give me a moment, I was due to leave anyway.” 

Xia finally turns around, but instead of her agreeing to what Tai Yang had said the golden haired girl is met with Xia looking at her incredulously, her eyes wide as she waved her hands (open palmed) towards Tai Yang. 

“N- no!” Xia replies, “I couldn’t, princess. I will give my leave, I have chores to complete anyway. Goodbye!” 

Before Tai Yang can say anything, Xia is picking up the wicker basket she had dropped and was hurrying back through the trees. They were far enough away from the castle, the stream hidden in the forest that lined along the back of the castle, but it was still impressive that Xia had carried that basket all the way from the castle to here; what she had been carrying in it Tai Yang wasn’t sure, but she assures it was clothes. 

“Never- mind then.” Tai Yang says to herself as she turns back around in the river, pressing her back against the rocks. In her minds eye she’s replaying the moment Xia saw her, the flush that had spread across her cheeks, the wideness of her forest- green eyes, and pink of her lips as she had held them in a silent ‘O’ from her surprise. 

Groaning, Tai Yang pushes her head under the water. 

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 月亮 ] Yue Liang

The Twins #5 - As time passes.

Yue Liang sometimes mourns the boy he was on the night of their Eighteenth birthday, misses the innocent boy he was. It had been years ago, two by now, and Yue Liang hadn’t forgotten the betrayal of that night from their uncle -

-  He hadn’t seen it coming, in fact no one had, and in the same night Tai Yang had had her crown stolen, their Aunt had been taken from this world.

It had hurt, of course it had hurt. 

Yue Liang threw himself into his spell- work from that night, harder than he ever had before. He had lost his tutor, had lost his greatest teacher, and although the master that his father had found for him years ago tried his best to calm Yue Liang, tried his best to encourage Yue Lang to learn only when he was clear-minded and free, Yue Liang knew that was no longer the case. 

Weeks went by without anyone seeing him. He hid in his tower, working through the day and through the night, perfecting his spells until his nose bled and his vision swam. He passed out more times than he can remember from over- extrusion, from lack of eating and not enough sleep. 

For a while, that’s all his life was. 

Then, something shifts. He had been furious, initially, at his sister for stepping down, for seeming to not give a shit that her crown had been stolen from her; but then, he sees it for what it really was one night when he catches her sneaking towards the training guards from his windowsill high in the tower - a waiting game. 

No one had forgotten, no one had forgiven, and neither would he. 

He keeps practicing, keeps training, except now he pretends alongside it. He allows himself moments of leisure, of life, and even though his sister was the clearly more outgoing person, he no longer hides himself in his tower all the time and begrudgingly agrees to come along when he’s required to be somewhere as a prince - and his sister as a princess. 

It wouldn’t happen immediately, it might not even happen within the next few years - but it would happen, and that’s all that matters. 

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 太阳 ] Tai Yang

The Twins #4 - That Night. 

Screaming, screaming, so loud that it echoes around the high- ceilings of the ballroom and rings in Tai Yang’s ears. She’s frozen, staring at the podium, body already aching from the position she’s holding herself in. Yue Liang is safe, he’s safe, hidden behind her skirts, away from the barrel of the gun pointed at them. The redheaded girl, whimpering, is hiding herself against Tai Yang’s other side, and Tai Yang wishes she could say something as she pushes the girl away, motioning for to hide in the crowd. 

“How beautiful you are tonight, Tai Yang,” Their Uncle, their Uncle, standing on  the podium. His wife, their Aunt, the previous Queen, regal and beautiful in her own right standing held with her back against him; but she never dips her chin, holds it high, even as her curls fall loose around her face, even as her chest heaves to hide her discomfort. 

“I am sorry it had to end as such, but you should have known the night would never as such. You were destined to become Queen, that I accept, however I fear I must step in as the maker of my own destiny.” 

Tai Yang feels rage, boiling hot and white in her veins, bubbling uncomfortably up from her chest to her throat. However she keeps her voice steady, her chin tilted high as she replies, 

“I will do as you ask. I only wish that you bring no harm to those around us, your wife, my brother, the townsfolk, everyone here does not deserve to be brought to harm because of your actions.” 

Their Uncle tilts his head to the side, smiling sinisterly, his eyes glinting behind his half-glasses. Still, he doesn’t move the gun from where it’s still pointed at Tai Yang and her brother. 

“Then come,” He says, “I will take your crown with no blood shed if you desire peace. Come.” 

Tai Yang feels the burden of the golden metal upon her head, feels the heaviness of the cold metal and the way it matches the heaviness in her heart. Slowly, she begins walking forwards, even as she feels Yue Liang grasp at her skirt, even as she wraps her arm around him further, her body held to the side to protect him. The room is stark silent, not a single sound coming from the crowd, and now it’s the silence that screams in Tai Yang’s ears. 

The walk to the podium was not long, was not tedious, just flat shining marble underneath her heeled shoes; except as she walked a thousand different thoughts raced through her hair. She mourned the loss of her title, mourned the loss of a ‘normal’ life as a leader, mourned the loss of seeing this kingdom grow and flourish, mourned the lost of the friendships and the relationships that were just barely starting to grow - 

mourned the happiness of herself and her brother. 

At the podium stairs, Tai Yang stepped up the first, then the second, and dipped, pausing. Above her her Uncle stood tall, empowered, the stink of Alcohol coming off of him and making her nauseous. It would be so easy, if it were just him, for Tai Yang to disarm him, but then she looks up and makes eye- contact with her Aunt’s eyes begging for Tai Yang to not to do anything rash, and Tai Yang forgets it. 

“Yes,” He says as he reaches forwards with his gun hand, pulling the crown from her head in one smooth motion. Tai Yang ignores the twist in her heart, in her head, as he takes the crown and places it on his head and it looks so wrong, wrong, wrong. 

“Yes,” He says again, purring, “Everything is nearly as its’ meant to be, nearly perfect, there is only one final thing-” 

Before Tai Yang can say anything, before she even recognizes the wounded shout from behind her, from her brother, their Uncle lifts the gun and shoots. 

Tai Yang’s world slows, almost to the point of freezing, heart pounding so loudly in her ears that it’s all she can hear as she stares at the burst of red spit from her Aunt’s mouth to the floor below. Behind her, a scream, a scream that Tai Yang doesn’t react to as her Uncle pulls his arm away from his wife, from the twins’ Aunt, and she falls heavily to the floor with a thump. 

“Auntie!” The voice screams from behind her, along with a body pressing against her from behind, and this time Tai Yang does react. She whirls around, grabbing Yue Liang as he tries to push past her, his eyes wide and staring at their Aunt on the floor, his mouth wide, his expression stricken. Yue Liang pays her no mind as he continues to try and get past Tai Yang, tries to get to their aunt, but Tai Yang holds onto him, holds on with all her might, because as strong as she knows her brothers magicks are, she knows they’re powerless in this moment. 

They have nothing. 

Above her, their Uncle is cackling, laughing loudly as he stands over his dead wife and the two forms of his brothers children stricken on the steps before him; and in that second Tai Yang knows, she knows, she knows - 

This was always how it was going to end. 

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 月亮 ] Yue Liang

[ 太阳 ] Tai Yang

The Twins #3 - Heritage

This day was always to come, and yet nothing prepared Yue Liang for the sheer and unprecedented amount of townspeople, honored guests, and far- away travelers all turning to look at him and his sister as their names were announced and the grand hall doors were swung open to expose them. It was their Eighteenth birthday, and although Tai Yang had been borne minutes before and would be the inheritor of the throne held from her by their Aunt for so many years, Yue Liang was also to walk beside her. 

A ball in his throat, Yue Liang straightened his shoulders as best as he could and held his breath as he started into the hall beside Tai Yang. She looked confident, comfortable, her chin held high and her eyes forward, her body draped in a long golden silk dress that dipped low between her breasts, with an attached golden sash across her back that dips at her spine, the long train connecting to her wrist; in her hair were little golden strands, shining against her sunshine hair that had been brushed and clipped and curled to perfection. On her forehead her mark stood out proudly, her hair pulled out of the way, with minimal makeup on her face to make them shine, her body shiny and glittering with the special balm the handmaids had put on her. 

Next to her, Yue Liang knows his own clothes are just as impressive, but he also knows she eclipses him. He wears his own ‘dress’ of sorts, sewn in the way of a tunic that stops at his thighs and splits on one side, showing his skin-tight black shirt underneath that exposes the skin on his arm on the split side, and on the side of the tunic with a full arm and a draped sleeve the skin-tight shirt has a long sleeve; underneath are some silk black quarter trousers, with silver embroidery to match the tunic along the side. His fringe had also been pinned back from his forehead, which was making him the most uncomfortable, to expose his half-moon mark on his forehead, minimal makeup also on his face to highlight how it shone. 

Between them, they both held symbols of their status, Yue Liang with a night orchid, full and heavy in his palms; Tai Yang with a golden lotus, bright and extravagant. 

The walk to the main stage was long, with many many people staring, but somehow Yue Liang manages. He doesn’t stumble, doesn’t trip, even as they traipse up the four stairs to the podium and take their seats; she in the main throne, golden and bright, and his beside her, silver and shining. Along the way their Aunt, the stand in Queen for eighteen years before the twins were old enough to take their place, came forwards and offered them both a kiss on the cheek, smiling fondly at them even as her eyes shone with unshed tears. 

In the moment between the music lulls, prompting everyone to be seated, and their Aunt stepping forward from between where she is standing on the podium steps, Yue Liang glances a final time towards his sister and finds her looking at him already so that she can give him a warm smile - her last as a princess. 

and the last moment of them happy.

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 月亮 ] Yue Liang

The twins #2: Heart

There was a boy Yue Liang liked to watch from the top of his tower in the early hours of the morning, the birds not yet to begin their birdsong as the sky slowly turns from a pale blue to periwinkle. The boy wakes before the majority of the castle, coming from the back entrances and walking down a worn stone path to the stables. He never looked up to see who may be watching, or perhaps he doesn’t even know that Yue Liang could see him from all the way up here, but he whistles a little song as he goes and Yue Liang had quickly taken the song as his own. 

Yue Liang watches as the boy pushes open the doors of the stables, not able to hear him from all the way up here. The boy goes inside and Yue Liang looses sight, but he can hear the sounds of the horses within waking up for their own days, presumably being woken and fed with the hay Yue Liang knows the boy collects from the towns farms and pulls it all back on a cart by himself, his shirt discarded and tied around his waist. 

Attraction was strange thing. Yue Liang was aware of the pleasures of the flesh, he often succumbed to them himself, alone, in the tower at night where no one could hear whose names he uttered as he painted himself in white; yet this was new, unexpected. He had only ever considered woman, always to shy to do anything about the attraction, but in his eighteenth year something shifted and he found his eyes also shifting to the same sex. 

 The books said he was curious. Yue Liang would agree. 

The boy appears again with a horse in tow. It’s Yue Liang’s horse, as black as night with a white nose, and as the boy walks he murmurs something low to her and gently strokes her neck. Yue Liang is not fond of horse riding, it was a skill his sister was better at, but he was proficient; and seeing the boy take such care with his horse made Yue Liang feel warm inside. 

In his distracted state, Yue Liang’s book slips, and before he could do anything or catch it, it slips from his lap and falls into the air. Yue Liang watches in mute horror, eyes widening, as the book falls the hundred of feet from his bedroom to the grass below, the ‘thud’ it makes loud enough to reach his own ears. 

Heart pounding in his throat, Yue Liang continues to stare in mute horror at his book lying on the grass below him. He would have to go down and get it, he had been in the middle of reading a enrapturing chapter, and he had to know what would happen; but then, if he went down to get it, it meant he had to go down into the castle where the servants would undoubtedly be awake before the sun to prepare for the day. 

He could use his magic, but it was too far, he had never been able to manipulate something so far away. 

Frustrated, and torn. Yue Liang soon decides to leave the book where it was. If it was still there tonight, once everyone was asleep again, he would retrieve it. For now, he needed to sleep after staying awake for the whole night, and so Yue Liang swung his legs over to the inside of the tower and pushed himself onto the stairs below him. Traipsing down the stairs, mourning the loss of his book, Yue Liang pushed aside the curtain hiding the stairs and padded across the room to his poster bed, clambering up onto the mattress and slumping down underneath the cover after closing the black curtains around it to block out the sun. Sleep claimed him quick, and as he slept he dreamt of a low whistle, the warm, gentle, hands of another. 

-

When Yue Liang slowly pushed open the door of his room that night, determined to find food after his stomach had growled him awake, he gets only a few steps out onto the landing of the towers steps before his bare foot hits something heavy and hard.

Biting back a curse, Yue Liang casts the flame he has conjured in his palm downwards. His surprise is palpable, despite his non-speaking nature, when he flame exposes the very tomb that had fallen from his lap earlier this morning, sitting on the stone landing with a note tucked into the front cover. 

It shouldn’t be here. The only people who would have known for sure that it was his book would be his sister, Tai Yang, and she wouldn’t have bothered to leave it out here with a note. He briefly considers one of the castle hands, but if one of them found it then they surely would have assumed it came from the castles library and taken it back there; so who, who, had returned it here? 

With his heartbeat pounding in his ears, Yue Liang bends and picks up the book, all thoughts of finding food gone from his mind. Stepping back into his room, Yue Liang lets the door fall shut behind him as he pads over to his bed, climbing up onto it and sitting with his legs bent underneath him and the book lying on his thick black bed covers in front of him. 

Not realizing he was holding his breath, Yue Liang reaches out and pulls the note from the book. He opens it with shaking hands, peering at the black- ink writing. It was obviously written by someone who had never been taught how to write formal letters, because the lettering was scraggly and hard to read; but Yue Laing got there in the end. 

‘I found this book on the grass underneath your tower, so I assumed this was yours. I hope now you can get back to reading. -H’ [ Haoyu - but Yue Liang doesn’t know that yet. ] 

Tracing the letter ‘H’ with his thumb, Yue Laing feels warmth blossom in his chest. He lets himself slump sideways on the bed, holding the letter to his chest as he closes his eyes. Despite not meeting the boy in question, Yue Liang felt as though he could feel the warmth of the boys words through the ink, and so who was to blame him when his other hand slipped south. 

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 月亮 ] Yue Liang 

[ 太阳 ] Tai Yang

The Twins #1: A beginning

It wasn’t often Yue Liang had visitors in his room high in one of the castle’s towers, the spine reaching far into the sky. Not many dared come, citing that it was too cold, with an open balcony to be able to see the myriad of stars that appear when the moon is high - shining her pale light on everything below. 

It was quiet up here, because of that, just as Yue Liang liked. With the absence of others, and he himself prone to going hours without speaking, there wasn’t much that interrupted the quiet sounds of the sleeping city below them, the great expanse of the forest behind them. Yue Liang often found himself in the highest point of the tower, the tiny open staircase leading here hidden behind a dark curtain, sitting on the windowsill on what others would call a precarious position; but he had yet to fall. 

This morn, the periwinkle sky slowly giving away to pinks and yellows, the sun threatening to break over the horizon, Yue Liang was sitting on the same windowsill not having slept and instead reading one of the large tombs by the moonlight; one pale, bare, leg hanging out the window, the cool wind whispering over his ankle. 

He hears her before he sees her, her footsteps loud against the stone staircase leading up here. He should have known she wouldn’t have left him alone so close to sunrise; as many others liked to say, as soon as the sun had risen, she was awake. 

A soft rapt to his door sounds, meeting his ears. Yue Liang glances up from his tomb across his room, all visible from up here as it was all an ‘open’ room, to where his door was. With the room being circular, but not so large, all of Yue Liang’s things were strewn everywhere; his postered bed pushed up against the window facing the forest, books overflowing from the many bookcases around his room, some left in piles on the floor. His dresser hid the beginning of the stairs, placed horizontally against the first step, with the curtain hung from the corner to a peg on the wall; the only flaw is that if one knew to look up, they would find him.

Not bothering to wait for his reply, she wouldn’t have gotten one anyhow, she calls, “Yue Liang, I’m coming in.” the door creaks as she turns the doorknob and pushes it open, the iron of the hinges old and worn. Yue Liang feels a burst of yellow when he sees her step into the room, closing the door behind her, and he didn’t even to say anything or call out because as soon as she saw his room was ‘empty’ she looked right up to where he was sitting. 

“Yue Liang,” His sister, Tai Yang, says as a grin breaks out across her face, her eyes warm and soft like they always were when she looked at him. “Have you been up all night?” 

Yue Liang doesn’t bother reply, just shrugs his shoulders. His hair is pinned back off his forehead with a ornate silver pin Tai Yang had gotten him, his face open and bare, a privilege only his sister got to see; and so he found his sister searching his face for ‘something’, meeting his eyes. He had reason to be self conscious of others seeing his face, his mismatched eyes (one misty white and one onyx black) left most unsettled, the symbol of the moon in its current phase shining on his forehead as the moon still hung just above the horizon. 

“Come down, get dressed,” Tai Yang tells him warmly. It’s then when he notices she’s wearing her everyday garb, the yellow blouse and breastplate and her worn cotton quarter trousers, her feet bare. “We have many things to do today but first, breakfast.” 

Yue Liang rolls his eyes at her, but he’s already in motion before he even finishes the motions. Marking his page by dog-earing it, Yue Liang places it on the windowsill and swings his legs back over to the inside, sliding off the ledge to land softly on the topmost step. He pads downwards slowly, drawing his half-cloak around him; not that it would do much, he was always cold, cool to the touch. He didn’t even really need to get dressed, already in his quarter pants and his skin- tight black top that’s tucked into his trousers and covers him all the way to under his chin and his wrists; his half- cloak pulled over the top. When he finally pushes through the curtain at the bottom of the stairs, Yue Liang unties the cloak to pull on his own white blouse before pulling it back over him, ready to go - he would stay bare-foot too. 

“Come.” his sister says to him, wrapping her arm over his shoulder and pulling him towards the door. They walk in silence down the towers stairs; well, Yue Liang walks in silence, whereas Tai Yang babbles on about this and that. Of course Yue Liang listens to all of it, of course. Despite his standoffish, introverted, nature that seems to make others uncomfortable or think that he wasn’t listening to them; he loves his sister, and he listens to everything she says. 

Just as they’re about to push through the door at the bottom of the stairs, which would take them into the main household where everyone was already bustling around and starting their day, Tai Yang stops him and stands in front of him. Behind her, through the window, the sun had just broken over the horizon, and the golden circle shines from behind Tai Yang’s head, seeming to encompass her in a golden crown. 

“Here,” she says and reaches up to gently undo the clip in Yue Liang’s hair, letting his fringe fall over his forehead and eyes, before tucking the clip in his pocket. Once she was done she straightens, giving him a smile as big and warm as the sun behind her, and says, “Now, we’re ready. Let’s go, brother.” 

Together, Tai Yang’s arm wrapped over his shoulder, they enter into the main hall,

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 森 ]  Faen

Backstory # 1 - The Forest

Sunlight dapples through the overarching branches above, the morning- sun bringing humidity and heat that rises from the mossy forest floor below into the air. A brief breeze sighs through the trees, stirring through the leaves and the bright cloth dotted around the tribe- lands. 

Faen wakes to birdsong, the gentle background of their tribe turning from a hum barely noticed during their sleep to words, phrases and laughter as Faen comes into consciousness. Stretching in their sizeable cot made weaved together by bendable branches and leaves, moss for comfort, and crude hemp rope for added stability; hung by a strong branch above them. Their whole ‘house’ was built around the strongest tree in the tribe-area, set just below their parents house, but still a space of their own. 

As Faen sat up, yawning, familiar foot-steps met their ears, coming towards them at a running pace. Rolling their eyes, Faen knew exactly who was coming to greet them at this early hour, and is wholly prepared for the intrusion when their second self burst through the vine-and-leaf covering of Faen’s door. 

Their second self, Haemir, had the same darker skin tone as themselves, yet where he had rich tree-sap colored hair, Faen has inky black like the color of the charcoal. Haemir had the same colored markings as the other of-age elves in the tribe, a bold block on the chin just under the lips, and a circular dot below the bridge of the nose; the only difference is that where Faen’s are white, marking them as someone borne from the tribe leaders, Haemir’s are red. Despite the perceived difference in color and rank, to the tribe it meant nothing, they were all one and equal. 

“Haemir,” Faen greets in Elvish, untucking their legs out from underneath themselves and stepping out from their bed. One usually slept in small clothes, simple bindings of cloth for the chest and crude shorts, yet Faen found no shy-ness in the appearance of their body in front of their second-self; no one in the tribe did. 

“How nice of you to come barging through my door this early in the morn.” 

Haemir, who had been bent over, panting, presumably catching his breath because of the long run from wherever he had been to here. Faen knew it was partly for show. Seeming to catch his breath, Haemir lifts his head and shoots them a grin and a wink, replying, 

“I did not see you at the morning hunt, I returned as soon as possible to see what ailed you; yet here you are with seemingly nothing wrong.” 

Raising an eyebrow, Faen asks, “Were you this distracted the whole hunt? waiting for me to appear? I doubt Ahir would have been happy about that.” 

“Pah,” Haemir spits, “Ahir was not bothered, he was pre-occupied. I am not such a poor hunter that I cannot focus on two things at once.” 

“I know,” Faen replies, slightly condescending as they step towards Haemir, pulling his wrist until Haemir stands properly and then begins tugging him towards the door with a grin, “Come, we have chores.” 

Haemir groans, “Chores, how I loathe them.” but follows them out the door non-the-less. 

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 兔子 ] Tuzi

Backstory # 3 - First Heat

Having being orphaned from a young age, there was still certain aspects to being a human- rabbit hybrid that he had apparently never gotten a chance to learn. It was no ones fault, he was fifteen when his traumatic background happened, and hadn’t been taught that as a hybrid he was technically to go through two different kinds of pubescent years.

Having being orphaned from a young age, there was still certain aspects to being a human- rabbit hybrid that he had apparently never gotten a chance to learn. It was no ones fault, he was fifteen when his traumatic background happened, and hadn’t been taught that as a hybrid he was technically to go through two different kinds of pubescent years. The human years weren’t easy, but manageable. He experienced his body transitioning from boy to teenager, growing taller as his limbs grew longer, body catching up slightly latter; his voice dropped, became deeper, slightly lilted and husky in a way that drove his suitors wild. He dealt with the nightly emissions, with the embarrassment of growing hard in his trousers if the wind so much as blew the wrong way, or someone pretty walked past. He learnt how to take himself in hand just like any other boy, and in a place such as an orphanage he became proficient in being as quiet as possible, and tactfully ignoring the sounds of his roommates doing the same.

Then eighteen hit, and he had to deal with a whole new side of puberty.

Spring came along with warm weather, the sun often in the sky earlier than normal and staying far later than winter, the trees springing to abundance with fruit and the animals flocking together to create children of their own. He observed all of this the same as he did in his other seventeen years, a brief acknowledgement of the new season, before continuing on with his life.

This spring, however, he knew something was different the moment he awoke on the first day of spring. His body surged with an uncontrollable heat, flushing his cheeks, his nose, his throat, and his chest. He groaned, kicking away the blankets that were tangled around his waist, sweat making his skin slick and shiny, making him sticky. The next thing he became aware of, in a moment of horror when he finally opened his eyes, rubbing at them with his fist, was there was arousal pooling in his lower abdomen, and that his cock was so hard it was currently aching, straining, and leaking against his sleep underwear.

With the quickness of a teenage boy who had been in this situation before, who didn’t want to be caught achingly hard and embarrassed, he hopped out of bed and used the oversized sleep shirt he had stolen long ago to hurry towards the bathroom, feeling dizzy and hot and uncomfortable.

A cold shower did not help, and as much as he was no longer embarrassed of his body he was embarrassed of this. Taking himself in hand did nothing, only caused the slow throbbing just above his tail to become stronger and come faster.

He had a moment, staring down at the tiled floor of the shower stall he was in, the flimsy shower curtain being the only thing that was giving a modicum of privacy in the moment, where he suddenly realized that this was nothing like typical human puberty and he had absolutely no idea of how to deal with it.

There was no one he could ask, no one he trusted. He had his sworn brother, his best friend, sure, but he was a simple human boy and not someone who would understand what was happening to a hybrid. He wouldn’t ask a guard, or any of the staff, he didn’t trust any of them and once again there was no one else in this orphanage like him who would understand.

Tapping his foot as he thinks, he realizes what he needs. Books, he needed books. He knew of one in the capitol library that had lengthy descriptions of all the races, including his, but when he had first read the book he had apparently skipped over the section that could possibly help him here as it hadn’t been applicable – that or he just didn’t remember reading it. Another small fact of the matter is that he had stolen that book many moons ago, finding the information on his species invaluable seeing as there was no one around to teach him that information themselves.

Thank the gods he had remembered to quickly grabbed trousers in his mad dash from the shared bedrooms, pulling it on with speed after drying himself and tucking his cock into the waistband, hissing at the contact his fingertips bring and the way it makes his body erupt into tingles. There was nothing he could do about it right now, not with the lack of privacy in this orphanage, not even with the heat still circulating through his body despite the cold shower he had just subjected himself too.

On the way back to the shared bedroom, his skin sweaty once more and making him wince as it sticks together, he somehow encountered no one else and was able to quickly reach his bed and reach under the mattress, pulling the book he needed from it’s hidden place. With a hasty look around, he shoved it underneath his oversized shirt and quickly excited the shared room, using his rabbit legs to quicken his pace. He knew a quiet, hidden, place, he had found it not soon after being captured and bought here, and it was there he hastened to.

The only other person who knew about this place was his sworn brother, his best friend, but he hadn’t seen him all morning. For once, he hoped that his best friend was not already there, because explaining himself and his symptoms would be beyond any kind of embarrassment he could endure.

The hidden place in question was the attic. Despite the orphanage being filled of tweens and teens alike who liked to do nothing else with their time but explore, this place had so far been missed. He was sure it was because the door itself was hidden behind a large bookcase, one that only a few would surely be able to push out of the way and barred with wood before being locked with a great iron key. He had stolen the iron key not long into his second year here and removed the wood when he knew the third floor would be deserted, right around when it was time to come together for lunch – including the teachers – meaning that everyone would be downstairs. The wooden planks against the door had taken longer to figure out how to remove quietly, but eventually he had managed, and now he (and his best friend) had a quiet and secure place to hide.

After checking the third floor was deserted, he made quick work of pushing aside the bookcase just far enough to open the door, then repeating the process to pull the bookcase back into place (the door opened inwards instead of outwards) before shutting the door with a quiet click. Next was the short spiral staircase, and before long he was stepping into the half-dark room, humid already from the morning sun with the window being covered, his eyes quickly getting used to the near darkness and allowing him to easily see the small mattress he and his best friend had hidden up here.

He walks quickly to the mattress, not having to be quiet despite how the floorboards creaked as there was a hallow space between the floor of the attic and the ceilings of the masters rooms below, and flops down on it, wincing at the feeling of his trousers sliding against his cock at the action. The trip up here had been uncomfortable with him still aroused as such, and now, in this private room, he doesn’t pause before reaching down to untie the drawstrings at the front of his trousers so that they hang loose, letting his cock sit more comfortably against his abdomen in the gap of his trousers but not making any move to touch. He was half scared too, not knowing what was going on still, and did not want to make it worse.

Impatiently, he flips open the book to  the most crinkles and obviously dog-eared page and begins reading. It was the page that started the section on human- rabbit hybrids and continued for only two more, one of the smallest sections of this otherwise massive tome. Eyes skimming the page, past habitat and diet and nutrition, the history of human-rabbit hybrids and how they came to be, he found the section he was looking for,

‘Puberty in Rabbit Hybrids and Mating.’

Beginning reading, the further he went the more he felt a pit grow in his abdomen, his eyes widening as they moved across the page as quickly as he could. Despite this, the heat in his body on grew hotter, the throbbing in his lower back growing stronger despite the clinical descriptions.

‘Human- rabbit hybrids as they reach maturity, around the ages of seventeen or eighteen, will begin to experience a second-type of puberty to match their animal architype. As a result, rabbit hybrids will experience the same afflictions and heat-symptoms as rabbits; this will include, but not be constrained too, heat throughout the body, peaked and continuing arousal, the need to nest or find somewhere quiet,  followed by the need to breed, or be bred. Of course, as  a human, rabbit hybrids may find some parts of heats harder to deal with, as human male hybrids would not be capable of pregnancy as an example or a human female hybrids would have to be extra careful to prevent unwanted pregnancy , nor would the human- rabbit hybrid be able to continue with their regular lives for the following weeks as their animal architype makes it impossible to have full coherency, fulfill basic human needs without assistance, and sometimes even speech or non-heat related thoughts.

Depending on the human- rabbit hybrid, ones heat may last between one to two weeks. In those weeks, it is suggested that the human- rabbit hybrid finds somewhere quiet and peaceful to nest, away from any loudness or unpleasant situations. It is also suggested that the human- rabbit hybrid has a partner, or finds a partner, to assist with any and all needs during this heat. If a partner is unable to be found, then the human- rabbit hybrids heat will have to be dealt with by oneself which, although not impossible or harmful, can often be more tiring than usual.’

Eyes wide he dropped the book, letting it thump onto the mattress below him as the words he read circulated throughout his head. Heat, he was going through heat because of his damn animal archetype. All throughout his life he had had no qualms being a human- rabbit hybrid, despite the sometimes ostracization and what had happened to his family, he had quickly gotten used to his animal appendages – had even found them helpful, many times, to be able to move so quickly and silently; but this, this was beyond something he ever thought he would have to experience.

A bead of sweat slides down his temple as he stares, blank eyed, at the floor beyond his crossed legs. He had no idea how he was going to possibly hide his disappearance; the Orphanage staff would soon notice him missing and seeing as he was yet to turn eighteen they would hunt high and low for him – and, not to mention, in his absence he was somehow supposed to deal with this heat?

Feeling a tinge of panic in his chest, he’s quick to try and calm himself, calm his already too-fast heat back to the same pace it had been in his heat-altered state. Quickly, he realized that if he was going to do anything, tell anyone, than first he would have to try and tone his symptoms down a little – and there was only one way he knew of doing that.

Flopping down onto his back on the slightly dusty mattress with a huff, his ears flopping so that one lays straight on the mattress and the other over his shoulder, he tries to pretend like he wasn’t about to do this as he reaches downwards. The descent is easy, his trousers had already been open after all to create space for his still aching cock, and the first touch of his long digits to the heated flesh of his cock makes him whine aloud before he can quieten the sound.

“Fuck.” He whines as he wraps his fingers properly around himself. Even just the lightest of tugs, the smallest brush of his fingers, makes electricity spark down his spine, makes him feel like he was on fire. Not sure of how soundproof this room was he has the brief thought of needing to be quiet, but the firmer he wrapped his hand around his cock and the faster his strokes became the more he found it impossible to keep completely quiet.

Little whimpers escaped his lips as arousal pooled in his abdomen, as he swipes his thumb over the head of his cock and collects the copious amount of pre-cum beading there. Embarrassingly so he realizes he also feels wet at his entrance, a place he had only explored a few times while jerking off before, and feels his cheeks burn bright red. It shouldn’t be that surprising, if he was going through heat then his body surely had to make easy passage into his body somehow, but he really didn’t think that it would make him feel that wet there too, like he was going to leak through his trousers there too.

In the early afternoon heat from the sun trickling through the bordered up window, his sleep shirt long discarded, he pushes his fingers into the waistband of his trousers and impatiently pushes them down to his thighs. He feels electrified, body oversensitive wherever he brushes with his free hand. He positively whines when his free hand finds his ears, pushing through the fur there, and his first orgasm breaks over him embarrassingly quickly, painting his abdomen with white.

It helped for maybe ten minutes. The fire in his body lessening with the orgasm only to come back stronger, surging around his body. He was flushed, cheeks, neck, chest and nose pink, eyes stinging with unshed tears that clung to his white lashes and made him misty eyed. Worst of all his cock was still achingly hard, hadn’t gone down at all since his first orgasm, twitching and still weekly leaking pre-cum into the mess of cum already on his abdomen.

He quickly lost track of time, focused on making himself cum over and over again in the hopes that it would satiate him, would make the urge to breed or be bred lessen. It didn’t, at all, no matter how much he managed to orgasm. By the tenth he was so oversensitive that any kind of touch to his body would make him shudder and shake against the mattress, but it also took longer for each orgasm to break over him, and so he experimented with his body in the privacy of the attic. He had been holding off from touching himself there, but after the twelfth orgasm took him almost twenty minutes to get too, he groaned and rolled onto knees, moaning at the sensation of his pink and oversensitive nipples against the mattress, sliding his fingers where he was wet and plaint.

His tail, too, turned out to be more sensitive than his ears, the feeling probably heightened in his heat state. He soon finds that he could make himself cum just by thrusting two fingers shallowly inside of him, the other hand brushing through the fur of his tail and trailing around the base, and that is how he quickly races to his thirteenth and fourteenth.

As dusk breaks he lays in a pool of his own mess, watching through half-lidded eyes as the light through the bordered window turned baby blue and lilac. After so many orgasms he was too tired to continue for now, his body seeming to be taking a small rest. His last five orgasms had been dry, wrecking through his body to the point of almost-pain, but he knew eventually it would come back at full force.

The problem he faced now was the hunger clawing at his stomach alongside the weak- heat, but he was far too tired to move, he doesn’t even think he could stand if he tried. Alongside that, how was he possibly going to make it downstairs in this state, with his heat symptoms still present and his cock still half-chubbed, his clothing wrinkled and covered in mess from where he had half-shoved them off of his body. In the quiet, and because he was alone, he pouts into the mattress, still half propped up onto his knees.

That was when he heard footsteps approach the hidden door. He ignores them, at first, assuming it was one of the staff or another of the orphans, but then he hears them pause. His ears twitch to life, standing tall and cocked towards the staircase, now hearing the scrape of the bookcase against the wooden floor after a small pause.

There’s only one other person in the Orphanage who knew of this room, so he knew who it was. Still, a brief moment of panic seized him, not wanting to be caught with his ass up in the air, so slick that it was obvious what he had been doing, his abdomen and mattress further proof. As quickly as he can with his limbs feeling so heavy, protesting any and all movement to the point where he had to force them, he uses his shirt to clean the mess on the mattress and his stomach, rolling into his back – hissing at the brief flare of pleasure-pain it brings when his tail brushes across the mattress – and roughly yanks his pants up so that he’s at least covered.

He knows he still looks like a mess, flushed and his hair sex- mused, his naked torso shining with sweat. As he hears the person close the hidden door behind him and begin ascending the stairs, he takes a breath in to try and calm himself and realizes in a moment of horror that the room up here positively reeks of his heat- scent and sex.

“Hello?” the person calls just before they appear through the doorway, “Tuzi?”

“Y-yeah,” he replies, wincing at his voice cracks, “I’m up here.”

At the door, his sworn- brother, his best friend, Amiel, appears. For a second he thinks that Amiel won’t notice anything wrong, will just think he’s resting, but then he sees the small start Amiel does and the way his gaze flicks all over Tuzi body and he realizes there’s no way he could hide it.

“What’s wrong?” Amiel asks, striding hurriedly into the room. Of course, he wouldn’t realize that Tuzi wasn’t in any danger, that nothing bad had happened. Amiel had probably never encountered a human- hybrid heat, being solely a human himself, and so of course his mind went straight to danger. Tuzi watches as he takes in a deep breath and scrunches his nose, smelling the faint scent of sex – it was so much stronger for Tuzi apparently.

“Why does it smell like you’ve had a women in here?” Amiel asks, raising his eyebrow at him and winking, before adding, “Or a man. You know I do not judge your preferences.”

He’s too weak to reach out and punch Amiel, but still, he chuckles and shakes his head. He can feel heat rising in his cheeks again, because he’s going to have to somehow explain this, it was just going to be absolutely mortifying to do so.

The book, still lying by the bed, caught his eye, and Tuzi realized that he had an easier way out of explaining this. Mutely he motions towards the book, it was still opened to the pages he had been reading, and pushes it more towards Amiel.

“Read this.” He says, lying back against the mattress and putting his forearm over his eyes. He doesn’t want to look at Amiel as he reads, doesn’t want to see it as Amiel figures out what was happening to him.

He hears Amiel pick up the book, the gentle creak of the bound leather and the rustle of the page. Still covering his eyes, Tuzi / Turou clears his throat and adds,

“You don’t need to change pages. Just read that page, the part starting with – fuck,” his cheeks are downright burning, probably bright red, “- the part that says Puberty in Rabbit Hybrids and Mating.”

With his heightened hearing, he hears Amiel’s quiet ‘oh’ before he starts reading. The next fifteen minutes are quite possible the worst fifteen minutes of his life, knowing that Amiel was now privy to his species secrets, that Amiel now knew what was happening to Tuzi while Tuzi lay right there.

A quiet sigh and the thump of the book back onto the wooden floor signals Amiel finishing reading. Tuzi kept lying there, an arm over his eyes as he desperately tried to ignore the heat in his cheeks, the heat he can feel slowly beginning to surge through his body again, his abdomen feeling tight. He knows he’s twitching in his trousers and hopes that Amiel doesn’t see it.

“So, you are going through a heat? A second puberty?” Amiel finally asks, voice hushed and quiet. Tuzi appreciates the gentle way Amiel approaches the conversation, even if it was unnecessary here seeing as there’s no way anyone could overhear them.

“Yes,” Tuzi replies, “I had no idea about it either till this morn when I woke up feeling heated. I never had a chance to learn about this naturally. I just happened to steal that books moons ago, I had just never thought to read that passage before.”

Amiel hums, non-commental, and thankfully what next comes out of his mouth is not the teasing that Tuzi thought he would be getting,

“So, you need privacy for a while?” Amiel asks, “I can come up with a story to explain your absence to the staff, and I’ll gather some provisions as well if you wish to make it more comfortable up here.”

A surge of gratitude for Amiel surged through him, enough to make Tuzi lower his arm and prop himself up on his elbows to look at his best friend. Immediately Amiel is meeting his gaze, looking more concerned than anything, but Tuzi still feels slightly embarrassed at being so openly is this state in front of someone who wasn’t going to be a sexual partner.

“Food, as well, please,” Tuzi replies, “I know it will be hard, but it is impossible for me to join everyone else in this state, not to mention embarrassing.” As though on cue, Tuzi’s stomach decides to growl as soon as he’s finished talking.

Amiel’s gaze flickers downwards towards it before he catches himself and looks back up, a nervous grin on his lips as he had obviously seen more than he wanted too,

“Perhaps some food some first, then.” Amiel laughs.

Tuzi fights back the heat in his cheeks and grins back, chuckling and reaching up to rub the back of his head as he replies, “Yeah, some food first would be great.”

Amiel nods, already straightening up from his cross legged position and brushing off the non-existent dust from his trousers, so that he’s now standing beside the bed. Looking up at him, Tuzi notes now from in this position the height Amiel has over him makes his stomach doing a little flip, but he refuses to acknowledge it.

“I will be back,” Amiel tells him, turning away from him, but just as Tuzi thinks he’s actually leaving and is going to give his goodbye, Amiel turns back and says, “- and, perhaps, some blankets, so that you can cover yourself more when you hear me coming.”

Tuzi had been a fool to think Amiel wouldn’t tease him at least a little bit. For a second the words don’t register, Tuzi just nodding mindlessly in response, mouth opening to reply when the words click in his head and he instead gapes and grabs a pillow, throwing it boldly at Amiel as he groans, “Amiel! Get out!”

Infuriatingly, Amiel side steps the pillow, cackling, and retreats from the room to go and get the things that Tuzi asked for. Tuzi sighs and settles back onto his bed, face burning hot and bright red as she shoves into the other pillow on the bed. Despite all of Amiel’s understanding, Tuzi was most definitely never going to live this down.

[lightnxngrabbit]

The Lightning and the Rabbit

[ 兔子 ] Tuzi

[ 雷 ] Ikazuchi 

[ 森 ] Faen ( currently in a campaign ) 

[ 月亮 ] Yue Liang [ 太阳 ] Tai Yang  - The Twins

DND centric blog for my characters / OCS - written by Kat / Kynn. I’ll be posting backstories, character lore, head- canons and session notes of my characters and DND sessions on here as a safekeeping measure. Feel free to follow ! 

[ Please do not steal my characters/ content ] 

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 兔子 ] Tuzi

Backstory #2

It had been five days since the accident, five days since he had escaped into the dense underbrush after kneeling on that grass for three days and three nights, long enough that he was dizzy from hunger and his lips cracked and bled from thirst. He stayed there, every night, the sounds of the forest behind him and the sounds of the town – which was not located so far away – a mere background for the horrors going on in his mind. On the first day he was empty, the scene of him waking to the loud ruckus and stepping out to see the horrifying scene before him; on the second day he could still hear his mothers screaming voice telling him to run, her small form knelt in front of his dead father surely no match for the townspeople; on the third day he begged for it, called out to each and every deity he had ever heard others worship, begged to be taken from this earth so that he could rejoin his parents and save himself from this pain – but it never came.

It had been five days since the accident, five days since he had escaped into the dense underbrush after kneeling on that grass for three days and three nights, long enough that he was dizzy from hunger and his lips cracked and bled from thirst. He stayed there, every night, the sounds of the forest behind him and the sounds of the town – which was not located so far away – a mere background for the horrors going on in his mind. On the first day he was empty, the scene of him waking to the loud ruckus and stepping out to see the horrifying scene before him; on the second day he could still hear his mothers screaming voice telling him to run, her small form knelt in front of his dead father surely no match for the townspeople; on the third day he begged for it, called out to each and every deity he had ever heard others worship, begged to be taken from this earth so that he could rejoin his parents and save himself from this pain – but it never came.

On the forth morning, he moved. If the gods wouldn’t give him death, he would find it himself. It was with that mindset that he slowly rose to his feet, his legs shaky and weak underneath him from lack of food and water. There was a river nearby, a strong one with dark water that turned to white in some areas as it rushed over the sharp rocks underneath. He had always been warned to stay away from that river, and although he had grown adapt in swimming in other places, that river had stayed out of bounds due to the current.

If the threw himself in the water there, let himself be dashed to pieces against the rocks, then he could leave this uncaring world and join his parents once more.

With no provisions, no tools, just the clothing he had worn to bed the night before the accident on his back, not even his shoes, he turned and began walking along the edge of the forest. It was quicker this way, rather than having to navigate logs and branches even though they had once been nothing to him, because he was still too weak to move fast either way. His path had him walking alongside an old dirt road at some point, placed in the middle of a wide field before it bent towards the town he and his family had been living beside for so long, the town where the people who had taken his parents life lived. When it had first happened, he had been filled with indescribable rage, but now he was empty. He had no energy to kill.

The journey was slow. The river, usually a few hours journey, turned into a full two day journey in which he labored through every step, the town slowly sinking into the horizon behind him. He knew with his trajectory he would end up nearer the capitol, a sprawling city with stone walls and dark roofs, where the Lord of the rejoin lived. He had been there a few times since birth with his mother, joining her while she taught at the university there, or read in the large extensive library. The people in that town seemed welcoming to hybrids, but so had the small town they had lived next too for so long – and look how that had turned out.

He blames his lack of awareness, numbness spreading through his body, his mind still replaying the same scene over and over again, the people surrounding his house, the great bloodstain in the rain, the smoldering heap of wood that had been the house he had grown up in, that he didn’t hear the cart come up behind him. Usually, it was unheard of that he wouldn’t hear something like that coming. Being a half human half rabbit hybrid, he had sensitive hearing, meaning he could hear danger from a mile away, but with all his senses dulled and his stomach in knots, his mind turbulent and his throat aching, there was no way to prepare himself for what came next.

“OI! I found another one!”

He turns too late. He gets the briefest glimpse or a large man, face as burly as his body with thick eyebrows and small eyes, before his arms are forced behind him and he’s shoved to the ground, muscles screaming and threatening to snap as he’s pinned to the ground by the brute force of the strange man. Immediately he tries to fight, mouth opening to try and beg, to plead, for them to let him continue his journey to kill himself, but he was so dehydrated that only a husk came out of his mouth, nowhere near the words he knew he was capable of speaking.

“A bunny, huh?” another voice says from further away, “put ‘im in the hold, ‘e’ll go straight ‘t the orphanage. No point in tryna’ sell ‘em, no one ‘ill buy a hybrid like ‘im.”

Spent, hardly even having managed to put up a struggle in his weakened state, he’s pulled from the grass and forced upright. When he’s turned, the sight of a large caravan pulled by two horses, a seat in the front for the drivers and the back for storage, came into view. The man in the front had a cruel face, as much as a brute as the first, but he could sense a sort of smart wickedness coming from this new man as he is shoved to start walking towards the caravan.

“How old are you, kid?” the man who has a grip on his arms asks, “fourteen? You look barely a day over it.”

‘fifteen’ his mind supplies, but still, he couldn’t speak. His muddled mind was still trying to come up with an escape route, but he was too slow and too disorientated from what had happened. The large field he had been walking across meant he must have been spotted a mile away, and it was a heavily trafficked road usually, so these men must be either from the capitol or were heading there.

Stupid. He was so stupid. First he couldn’t even protect his own family, now he was caught when he was so close to causing his own death and joining his parents where he belonged. He was worthless.

Unbidden, hot tears leaked from his eyes, the last of the water he had left in his system. The salt water streaked down his cheeks, catching in the corner of his chapped lips, and dripping off his chin as he’s marched the last couple of meters to the caravan and taken around the back of it.

As the canvas is pushed aside, it takes a second for him to realize what he was seeing. In the back were four other children, all varying ages, and races. He sees two human children, barely five and six respectively, a small elf girl with dark skin and glittering eyes, and a teenaged Tiefling boy who was the closest to his age. He doesn’t speak to any of them as he’s pushed up the small ladder and forced onto his rear in the next available spot, arms still bound behind him in what he now realizes were iron cuffs.

The canvas is tied back up behind him, leaving the space dark. Even with his enhanced vision he doesn’t make any attempt to continue examining his surroundings, just hangs his head and lets his ears flop over the crown of his head, eyes closed as he lets himself feel the crushing realization that he was caught, trapped. In his chest his heart throbbed painfully, beating against his ribcage as a mixture of guilt and shame pooled in his abdomen.

He really couldn’t do anything right.

                                                             -  [ 兔子 ] - 

The journey was quick, they hadn’t been far from the capitol. He feels the road turn from packed dirt to stone as they begin the slight ascend upwards across the bridge, hears it as the caravan wheels creak and clack against the stone. They wind through the city, taking many lefts and rights that all get jumbled with everything else in his head. There was no way he could track where they were going even if he had wanted too, but he did realize belatedly that the caravan stayed on a path keeping them in the lower districts of the capitol, not quite the slums but also not near where the wealthy lived.

Around him, the city sounds made him finch. He may have been completely exhausted in mind, body, and soul, but that didn’t mean his animalistic side was just turned off. Every shout, every yell, every curse made his ears twitch and remind him of that attack, thinking that it was the townspeople coming for him again. However, he couldn’t do anything about it, he couldn’t even cover his ears, and he wished alongside death that he could at least mutilate himself, harm his ears so that he wouldn’t have to hear anything ever again.

Whispering catches his ears next and he realizes, belatedly, that it’s the two humans – a boy and a girl – whispering and whimpering to each other, their accents thick and not something he could easily make sense of. The more he listened he found that the elf girl was whispering to herself too in an unknown language, and it was when he realized it sounded more like a hum or a song that she was praying.

‘No one is listening,’ he thinks to himself, ‘I asked for death, and no one listened. Why would they save you now?’

Finally, the cart comes to a stop and the caravan creaks and shakes as the two men driving hop off and come around the back, throwing the canvas aside. He hissed, the light bright against his eyes that had gotten used to the dark, but before he could clear his eyes properly he was hoisted up by strong hands and forced out again, thrown roughly onto the stone below him. Without his hands to catch himself, and his legs weak, he let out a cry as the stone bit into his skin, marking his chin enough to bleed and scuffing his knees. Lying there he shook, no longer able to cry,  a shell of the strong person he used to be who would have been  stronger than this, blinking and gasping as he tried to get his breath back.

Before he could he’s hoisted up again, and with his vision no longer blurry a tall house came looming into view above him. It was huge, easily three stories, with a main building and two wings on either side. Despite it’s tallness, it’s wood-and-stone walls and it’s dark roof, he could see it was far from a nice building. There was ivy creeping up the left side of the building, the paint on the window frames cracked and peeling, some of the window panes even broken, and the sorry excuse for a small garden to the left was all dried up with a weather worn tree sat in the middle.

“Welcome to your new home,” one of the men was saying as he stood there, held up by force on his shaking legs and numbness in his veins, no will to fight or flee left in him and instead only emptiness, all his self-preservation used up those four days ago leaving him a shell of a boy who only wished for death so that he could live alongside his parents once more.

“____ Orphanage.”

[lightnxngrabbit]

[ 兔子 ] Tuzi

Backstory #1

Life near a forest was simple. The sounds of the morning, of the birds as they roused from slumber; The sounds of midday, where the sun crested high in the sky and the forest around him seemed to sigh; The sounds of night, the gentle croaking of frogs and chirping of crickets before they settled in for the night - were all sounds that he knew better than himself. He had grown up in this forest under the tutelage of his father, learnt the difference between the poisonous black / blue berries that would bring a quick death and the purple / pink berries that would quell one's worries and help lull a person to sleep. He had learnt how to heal, how to poison, how to cure something as simple as stomachache or a headache or bring down even the most fearful beast. Alongside this were his arcane skills, given to him by birth on his fathers side, which furthered to aid his ever- growing world of knowledge.

Life near a forest was simple. The sounds of the morning, of the birds as they roused from slumber; The sounds of midday, where the sun crested high in the sky and the forest around him seemed to sigh; The sounds of night, the gentle croaking of frogs and chirping of crickets before they settled in for the night - were all sounds that he knew better than himself. He had grown up in this forest under the tutelage of his father, learnt the difference between the poisonous black / blue berries that would bring a quick death and the purple / pink berries that would quell one's worries and help lull a person to sleep. 

 His mother was the source of knowledge in the family. As a scholar and a professor, herself, his mother was how he learnt the ways of the outside world; how he learnt of all the different races of people, their rich histories, their language; how he learnt about currency, and how it drove some to act out the most heinous acts; how he learnt the positions of the heavens above him, a way to get home when it was dark; and how he too became so well spoken, persuasive well beyond his years, quick tongued and witted to match. 

 Fighting was something he never learnt, not while still in the forest. He never had too, instead focusing on traps and many other ways to do what he needed. In the end, it was that one skill he lacked that brought upon the downfall of his family. 

 It was raining that morning, the soft pitter patter of raindrops sounding against the heavy leaves of the oak tree their house was hidden under. He awoke to shouting, tucked away in his small room with creaking wood walls and an earthen floor that carried the scent of nature. To start the shouting was muddled, much like his sleep- addled brain, but the more he came into consciousness the more he understood and the more his heart started trying to escape up his throat. 

 ‘Unnatural!’ ‘Unsightly!’ ‘Disgusting!’ ‘Half-bloods!’ 

 Bile bit at the back of his throat, his heart pounding against his ribcage as he tore away his bedsheets and ran from his room, throwing open his door. There was nothing amiss in the family room, nor the small accompanying kitchen, but their front door was thrown wide open which was something his parents had always warned him never to do, the voices coming clearer now from outside. He continued onwards, his tongue sticking in his mouth, cold-sweat breaking out against his fair skin and quickly found that nothing could have prepared him for the sight before him. 

 His father, lying on the grass like he had been lain there but instead of peaceful his face was locked into an expression of shock, a great smear of red coloring the clothes on his body and his face, bloodied fingerprints against the white pallor of his cheeks and downwards on to his jawline and neck. The world around him slowed as he stared, remembering how only one night ago his father had praised him for learning a new and complicated trap system. 

 Suddenly, a tingle went up his spine. A warning. He tore his gaze away from his father to find his mothers form, kneeling in front of his father, her body half turned to him and in the cloudy lowlight he could see how wide her eyes were, like the eyes of a prey surrounded by predator, matching blood smears on her cheeks and seeping from her hairline. As though from a long way away, her voice reached him, her expression morphing into one of worry and fear. 

 “RUN! TUZI!”

 Two wars raged inside of him. His inherent animalistic urge to run, as partially a prey species, and his humanistic urge to stay and fight. In the end, it was the actions of the crowd around him that spurred him into movement. One of the nearby humans reaches out to grab him, murder tinged fingertips brushing just barely against his skin, and the recoil from being touched by someone who had committed such an act lead to him turning and running before his mind could catch up. 

 He’s not sure how long he ran, how far he ran, but eventually it was dark again and he collapsed, chest heaving and lungs aching, breath catching in his throat, under the shade of a great tree. He spent the night there, curled up against the rough bark, but sleep did not come; instead, all he could see was the lifeless form of his father, the bloodied form of his mother, in front of his unblinking eyes. He was sure he was crying, he could feel the wetness on his cheeks, like how he knew he was hungry from the way starvation clawed at his stomach and threatened to take his life; but still, he didn’t move. 

 It was his fault; this was his fault. If he had been quicker, if he had known some form of sword skills, he would have been able to protect his family - he should have died instead. 

 It was daylight by the time he decided to move, to go back and see for himself if what had happened was really true, if he was truly alone, because grief had turned his mind to mush and blurred everything from the day together; had it really happened? He had no idea, but that slightest glimmer of hope had him running back through the forest until his lungs burned again, taking no care to be silent like his father had once taught him to be. 

 By the time the forest was clearing, the familiar surrounding trees and small wash-house coming into view, he had almost convinced himself it hadn’t happened. When he stepped through the last break of trees, he expected to hear his mothers singing, hear his fathers familiar baritone, smell the strew they were having for dinner and the gentle smoke of wood burning in the outside fire. 

 Instead, there was nothing. His house was no longer a house. Instead, it was now a pile of smoldering wood planks, set on fire and then left to be doused by the heavy pour of rain that was now breaking through the leaves above him, the sky as dark and as thunderous as his own mind. He was aware he was trembling as he fell to his knees on the ground below him, the wet fur of his ears slicking and matching his hair as they sank from their upright position, as he stared at the great bloodstain being washed away from the green in front of the house. 

 He was alone. He was alone, and it was all his fault.