#r.drabbles

[perpetualcynicism]

“Ngh,” grumbles Xiao, his eyelids closed, still half asleep. He leans forwards and snakes his arms around your waist, burying his head into the crook of your neck. “What’re you doing?” he mumbles against your skin. His hair is slightly ticklish.  

“Nothing,” you reply softly. You tilt your head so it rests beside his. “Sorry for waking you.”

“‘S okay.” His arms tighten around your waist, drawing you closer still. After a brief pause, he begins peppering a slow, sleepy trail of kisses to your skin which traces up from your neck to behind your ear. Your heartbeat quickens at the sudden, somewhat uncharacteristic show of affection. 

“Xiao?” you ask in quiet voice, hardly daring to move lest you break this rare spell. 

“Mm?” He does not pause in bestowing his silent tokens of affection. 

“Are you alright?”

“Mm.”

Well, if he’s doing this completely of his own accord, then you’re hardly about to complain. It’s just… not often you see him like this, you suppose. You close your eyes and place your hands over his, stroking his knuckles with your thumbs. He begins to mumble something which you don’t understand between kisses. It takes you a moment to place, but you think he’s speaking… Chinese?

“我亲爱的,” Xiao says. He presses his lips to the crook of your neck. “我的心。我的小羽毛。我的世界。我会保护你。” You don’t know what it means, but something inside you flushes nonetheless. The way he says it sounds like a confession, almost sacred.

A few minutes later, the grip around your torso relaxes. His head falls forwards onto your shoulder, and his muttering is replaced with soft breathing. You stay utterly still, feeling like a little drop of something infinitely precious has just fallen into your hands, the likes of which can never be replicated. You close your palms around it and silently commit the moment to memory. Then you draw his arms back up around you and, leaning back against him, drift off.

[perpetualcynicism]

For most days of the year, the Grove of Epiphany is graced with pleasant temperatures and clear moonlit skies, forming the ideal atmosphere for quiet study. However, on occasion, Aquila’s fickleness reaches even this sheltered abode, and the foliage receives a more than ample watering at the expense of its citizens. 

Today is one of the worse days. Early in the morning, a collection of grey clouds gathered stealthily in the sky above the Sacred Tree and, without warning, broke their contents over the unsuspecting residents of the Grove. The onslaught has continued through to what would now be considered afternoon. Sheets of cold rain lash against the greenery as if holding a personal grudge. Thunder growls in the distance. 

Outdoor lectures have been hastily relocated or cancelled due to the downpour. Students hurry past each other in search of shelter, holding books or clothing above their heads to protect themselves from the rain. 

Anaxa is no exception to those seeking to avoid the worst of the storm. He walks with brisk steps along the muddied paths in the direction of his office. His timetable has not been too greatly affected by the weather save for one suspended lecture, which gives him the time to sort through some sources on ancient alchemy which he has not yet had the opportunity to read. 

As he turns around another bend, something catches his eye. He hesitates. Sheltering beneath the branches of a tree by the roadside is a familiar silhouette. 

You are sitting on the grass with your limbs drawn up close to your chest. Your clothes are soaked through and your unruly hair plastered to your skin, yet you are staring into space, seemingly at peace with your surroundings. Anaxa stops by the tree and looks down at you, crossing his arms.

“What in Amphoreus do you think you are doing?”

Startled out of your thoughts by his voice, you glance up. Your expression eases when you recognise him. “Ah, it’s you, Anaxagoras. I thought my intentions would be rather obvious. I am seeking shelter from the rain, like everybody else.”

“You would call this shelter?” He gestures towards the patchwork of branches you’re sitting beneath. The canopy is not thick enough to completely ward off the rain, and drops slip down from the leaves and onto your head. 

“I said I was seeking shelter, not that I had found it,” you rectify. Anaxa clicks his tongue. “But, please, do not concern yourself: I have sat out many storms in a similar manner.”

The sight of you sitting there like a bedraggled wet cat is simply too exasperating. Anaxa fixes you with a look of utter unamusement. “Come,” he says. It’s an order, not an offer. “With me, to my office, before you get yourself a cold.”

You blink. “Are you certain?”

“Would you rather stay here and freeze to death?” he remarks sardonically.  

“I suppose not.”

Anaxa holds out his hand to you. You take it, and he pulls you to your feet. Raindrops hang like beads on the ends of your eyelashes and the tips of your hair. He turns away from you and marches briskly through the downpour back to his office, with you tagging some sorry, dripping paces behind him.

When you arrive, Anaxa steps in through the door first. You make to follow, but he moves to block the doorway, preventing you from entering, and fixes you with a sharp glare. “You are not entering my office like that.” A puddle is already forming at your feet. You look down at it and then shrug, as if to say, Fair enough. “Wait there.”

He disappears into his office. Shortly thereafter, he emerges again and tosses you a towel. You catch it and set to work drying first your hair, and then the rest of yourself. Once deeming your state satisfactory, Anaxa permits you to enter. 

“Don’t touch anything. And change out of your clothes,” he says. “A dry location won’t do you any good if your clothing is keeping you wet.”

“Have you anything else I could wear?” 

He sighs out sharply. What a bother this all is. “I will find something.”

Thankfully, owing to his own tendency of enclosing himself here for days while researching, the office serves decently enough as a living space, and for that reason contains a small wardrobe which houses a decent selection of garments. Anaxa searches for something appropriate (for you are certainly not borrowing his dromas onesie; that is a step too far). He settles on a dark tunic. It is not in your size, but if you want to complain, that is not his problem. 

You do not complain, and accept the clothes gratefully. Anaxa turns his back to you as you change. He does not have to guess why you were forced to shelter under a tree: evidently nobody in the Grove was willing to take you into their own accomodation. This is sensible enough, considering you are not officially part of the Grove and thus do not count as anybody’s direct responsibility. However, Anaxa knows that the true reason for your dismissal lies not in the factual recognition that you are not their responsibility, but rather a certain sentimental factor which prevents them from engaging with one whom they would otherwise have no qualms about helping. 

He hears you sneeze behind him. You walk back over, now clothed in his tunic, and place yourself down cross-legged in the middle of the floor. As expected, the size of the tunic is off, but it does not not suit you. 

“I am rather afraid,” you announce, slightly nasally, “that I indeed would seem to be catching a cold.”

Anaxa kneads his brow in exasperation. “What did you expect to happen, you daft fool?” 

“I admit to misjudging the strength of my body’s resistance,” you reply with dignity. “So I must thank you again for taking me in. It was kind and not necessary of you.”

“Hmph. Think little of it. I simply do not want my most engaging conversational partner perishing prematurely through their own folly.” His response comes out more barbed than even he expected; but if you take any offence, you give no indication of it.  

Over the next few days, your cold steadily worsens. You stay in Anaxa’s office, slowly accumulating a makeshift nest of blankets around yourself as you drift in and out of sleep, murmuring incomprehensibly to yourself about justice, knowledge and death. Anaxa checks in on you if he finds the spare minute between teaching and conducting research. When he takes your temperature, the result is so startling that he has to call Hyacine to determine whether it is truly a cold you have contracted or something more serious. 

“From what I can tell, it really is just a cold,” she concludes at the end of her inspection. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t get more serious. Keep a close eye on them and let me know if anything gets worse. In the meanwhile, you can give them this medication to help with headaches, and make sure to keep them well-hydrated, as well as avoiding any foods which might agitate their sore throat.”

The voices must have roused you from your partial slumber, because once Hyacine is gone, you stir from within the depths of your cocoon. 

“Are you busy at the moment, Anaxagoras?” you croak out. 

Anaxa casts a glance in your direction, pausing in penning a detailed list of the various recommended treatments Hyacine has given him. “Not at the moment, no. Why?”

“I am afraid that I am terribly bored, lying here all day.”

“And this matter concerns me because…?”

“I was hoping that we could converse.”

He scoffs. “Considering the state of your throat? Absolutely not.”

Disappointment creases your brow. “Then… perhaps you could read something to me instead?”

“Read something to you?” Anaxa repeats, sceptical. “Such as what?”

“Whatever you think would take my best interest. You know the Library of Philia’s contents far better than I do.”

Anaxa is silent for a while. A long list of texts he is certain would intrigue you flit through his mind. On the Duality of Cerces, Foundations of Erythrokeramism’s Theory of Consciousness… 

“I’m unable to do that,” he eventually says.

“Oh. For what reason?”

“Whatever ‘takes your best interest’ is sure to do with philosophy, and whatever is to do with philosophy is sure to get you talking, which is precisely what this alternative was raised to avoid in the first place.”

“You do have a point, yes,” you admit with a frown. “Furthermore, considering that—”

“However,” Anaxa continues, cutting you off before you can foolishly exhaust your voice even further, “that does not mean I cannot read to you on principle.” His eyes pass over his desk, where any number of scrolls lie at any given point, courtesy of his students’ peculiar research topics. One in particular catches his attention. Anaxa crosses over to the desk and picks it up. “Is A Slate Guide to Grove Flora sufficiently unremarkable to keep you quiet?”

The expression which passes over your face is difficult to decipher. You seem at once both infinitely grateful and terribly disappointed. It’s good enough for Anaxa. Before you can make any further comment, he clears his throat and begins to read: “Ever dreaming of distant flora but trapped by the black tide? The Veil Greenhouse, jointly developed by…”

Even this text, however, proves enough to stimulate your curiosity. You croak questions and comment on the narration until Anaxa has to snap at you to be quiet for your own good. The only benefit is that you tire yourself out so much that you fall asleep again afterwards, attested to by your finally growing silent. Anaxa places aside the scroll with a sigh and falls to silent observation of you. There is a sickly flush in your skin brought about by the illness, and your eyebags are more pronounced than usual despite your increased hours of sleep. The sight of you so subdued and vulnerable irks him in a way he cannot describe. 

After a few moments, Anaxa stands up and approaches you with quiet footsteps. He takes your temperature with his hand before pulling back with a frown. Still hot. 

“Stubborn old fool,” he mutters under his breath, though there is no true bite to his words. He pushes a stray strand of hair from your clammy forehead. “Just come in next time it rains. If your condition doesn’t improve soon, I will have to start cancelling classes. I would rather not have to do that, so you had better come to your senses.”

You mumble something unintelligible in your slumber. Anaxa clicks his tongue, raps you lightly on the head, and returns to penning the list. 

A few more days pass in a similar manner: you stir now and then, trying to make conversation which Anaxa swiftly shuts down, and he reads the odd passage to you when time permits. By the end of a week or so, under Hyacine’s continued guidance, your temperature begins to fall, and eventually you are well enough to return to your usual habits of milling about the Grove’s campus and interrogating unwitting passersby. Anaxa allows himself to let go of a tension he was not even aware he had been holding onto once he sees you back to your normal self, in conversation with one of his students. 

The next time it rains, you do not seek his permission: Anaxa finds you already seated on the floor of his office when he enters. You spend the time absorbed in animated discussion which continues long after the rain has stopped. 

[perpetualcynicism]

“Shikanoin-sama, I am trying to pray. I would be very grateful if I were able to do so in peace.”

“Sorry, sorry. Of course.” A pause. “It’s just that you look so… yummy.”

You withhold a sigh. In a controlled manner, you say, “Shikanoin-sama, please refrain from having thoughts of cannibalism while inside the shrine.”

“Ah, it’s not cannibalism, though,” he points out. “I’m not human, remember?” The statement is accompanied by a flick of his ears.

“Please refrain from having thoughts of eating me while in the shrine,” you rectify evenly. The exasperation you feel does not leak out into your tone.

You can almost hear the kitsune’s pout forming on his face. “…Not even a bite? One little bite? One tiny little bite?” He leans over and pinches his thumb and forefinger together beside your head for demonstration, in case the original message was unclear. 

You reply, “I cannot stop you, Shikanoin-sama. However, if you do so, I will need to ask you to leave.”

“Aw…” His footsteps retreat somewhere behind you. When there is silence, you breathe out and empty your mind, refocusing on your prayer. 

O-Inari-sama…

You feel a soft puff of air on the back of your neck. The hairs on your nape prickle and stand on end; you suppress the shudder that arises. 

You crack your eyes open to cast Shikanoin a stern look. He is standing a few paces away, looking around the shrine’s interior in an exaggerated display of distraction. When he meets your eye, he pulls a surprised face. “What are you looking at me for?” he asks in a tone of complete innocence. “It must have been the wind. It’s very breezy in here, you know.” 

You purse your lips and shut your eyes, thinking, Inari give me strength. 

Just as you have settled back into focus, you feel it again, this time tickling the outer shell of your ear. With a curt sigh, you straighten your back, turning to face him. “Shikanoin-sama, I am afraid must ask you to leave.”

He pulls back from your side. “What? But that wasn’t even biting!”

“Now,” you enunciate, before adding, “Please.”

“Alright, alright, I’m going,” the kitsune grumbles. He walks backwards out of the shrine, taking slow and deliberate steps. His hands are held out in front of him, his four tails bowed down behind him, as if that is sufficient to convince you of his sincerity. “See? Oh—but before I do go, tell me—are all miko this stingy?”

The urge to return a piece of his tormenting behaviour is irresistible. You allow a drip of sardonicism to enter your voice. “No, only me,” you say without looking at him. “So it is a pity that I am the one you ended up bound to, isn’t it?”

You cannot be certain how your remark is received, so you steal a glance in his direction. To your mild surprise, the kitsune is smiling as he steps outside of the doors.

Once certain you are alone, you decide it best to start the prayer anew. You bow twice, then clap your hands. Pressing your palms together, you mumble, “O-Inari-sama, I do not know why you have sent your messenger to me, nor how I ought to respond to his behaviour. I will admit he does not align with what I expected of a divine spirit, but… I trust there is a reason for this. Please grant me the patience and strength of will to accept his wisdom, and if nothing else, please allow me to retain my privacy in his presence. You are the one who understands most deeply its importance to me.”

You linger in silence for a moment longer. A draft of wind brushes past and rustles the sakura growing outside the shrine. It is breezy here with the spring wind ushering in, you must admit. You bow deeply in front of the altar once more before making your way to the exit.

[perpetualcynicism]

heyy there, for the impromptu drabble event...

image: A crane and a koi fish staring at each other through the water

oxymoron: antiquated youth

restriction: not editing a word... orrrr... use more dialogue than descriptions? you chose!

you're so right btw, xiao's tag is a graveyard rn -holds xiao gently-

There is a little fish pond somewhere in Liyue, where Xiao goes to see somebody from time to time. 

He steps over the moss-covered stones which surround the dwelling. Where he expects to find a mottled koi circling within, he instead finds a person, unclothed, sitting half-submerged beneath the water. 

It has been a long time since Xiao saw your human form; the last must have been during the Cataclysm, when you suffered a terrible injury which stripped you of near all your power, not to mention your life. Ever since, you have resided in this pond, where he has visited you. 

“Xiao,” you greet amicably from the pool. 

He returns the greeting, then, gesturing towards your body, asks, “What is the reason for…?”

You glance down at yourself. “Oh. Do you mean my form?”

“Mn.”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “I simply felt like wearing it today. Thanks to the herbs you bring me, I feel my strength beginning to recover enough to change my form as I once used to. And, since you often appear to me in a humanoid shape, I thought I may try to do the same.”

You suddenly fix him with an unwavering, black stare. For all your physical appearance of a human, it seems you have yet to adopt the characteristics of one. Blinking is one such characteristic. Clothing is another.

“Tell me, Xiao—what do you think? Does this form appeal to you? I myself think it quite good.”

He is briefly caught-off guard. “Yes, I… it appeals to me.”

You smile. “I shall wear it more often, then. I hear that the other adepti have also begun to adopt human shapes more frequently, as you do. Is this true?”

“It is true.”

“Perhaps there is an underlying appeal in it which I do not yet understand.” A brief pause. “And what of your own forms, Xiao? It has been some time since you came to me in your true shape. Do you dislike it?”

“Dislike…? No. But it has become habitual for me to appear this way.”

“May I see it? Your other one?”

“Very well,” he says, and in the next moment a crane, not a human, stands beside the pool. You shift closer, reaching out towards him. 

“Would you allow me to…?”

Xiao bends his neck forwards by way of reply. He closes his eyes and lets your touch roam across his beak; your webbed fingers, cold and sparkling with the water from the pool, to smooth through the softer feathers of his neck. 

You remove your hands, and he draws his neck back. 

“You have a very beautiful form, Xiao. Both of them.”

“…Thank you.”

“Hm. You appear so young, too—but so much time has passed, hasn’t it? Or I think it has passed. It is difficult to keep track of its passage when I have been in the water for so long.” You look at him and ask with vulnerable earnesty, “Are we old, Xiao, or still young?”

“I… perhaps it’s possible we are both,” he replies. “You also appear as young.”

“I see. Is that a good thing?”

“I don’t know.”

You sigh deeply and lean back into the water, so that only your face remains above the waves. 

“Is something wrong?” Xiao queries.

“Ah, nothing much. I grow tired, is all; maintaining this form for prolonged periods of time requires strength I have yet to fully regain. It astonishes me how you manage to maintain yours for so long without turning back.”

“It comes with practice.”

“I see. I will have to practice more, then. Oh, Xiao?”

“Hm?”

“Perhaps next time you come, we can walk together. I have not walked for so long.”

Your voice fades as you speak, and your form shrinks back to a long-whiskered koi, mottled white, red, black, and gold, hovering in the water. Xiao cranes his neck down and gently touches the tip of his beak to the top of the fish’s head. 

“Next time, we will walk together,” he says.  

[perpetualcynicism]

Hello! here regarding the impromptu drabble event~

Image: Sailing to the moon in a silver boat Oxymoron: Bittersweet

the spice~~ no emotive words<3

this sounds like a lovely exercise! im also just very happy to see new xiao fics lmfao

Lightning whips its tongues against the surface of the turbulent ocean and thunder snarls like a beast in your ears. You are lashed and lashed upon by sheets of rain with drops so heavy that they bruise you as they slam into your skin. 

Fingers slipping down the boards of the tilted deck, you manage to hook your elbow around a railing as a wave heaves the ship sideways. The wooden panels squeal and groan under the assault; the ship teeters in place, bent almost horizontal over the ocean, before rising again. 

In a slim parting between the clouds, the moon hangs fat and full, throwing its indifferent light onto the sea like a white lamp shining behind the parting of a flapping curtain. 

Caught on another wave, the bow of the ship rears dangerously upwards; for a brief moment, under a flash of lightning which casts the vessel in silver, it seems that you have set a course to the heavens and are sailing straight into the moon. 

The wave passes, leaving a deep groove in its wake. What follows is inevitable. You clutch onto the splintering woodworks and whisper a prayer to Rex Lapis as the bow dips downwards, and, with a final protesting groan, the ship plunges headfirst into the black abyss. The instant you hit the freezing water, you are unconscious. 

When you awaken, you find yourself lying on a sandy bank illuminated by moonlight. It is quiet. You turn your head in the sand and cast your eyes around the space. In the distance, you catch sight of the sea—or at least, you think it to be the sea—off whose steel-like surface the moon is reflected as a glinting coin. The murmur of waves which reaches your ears is peaceful; nothing like the terrible roars which cast your ship astray. 

The ship! you remember in a sudden flash. Where has it gone? You draw yourself upright and survey your surroundings with keener attention, but you see no indication of the vessel: there is no wreck, nor any pieces of wood scattered in the sand to suggest you have been washed ashore. At a similar moment, it comes to your realisation that you are uninjured. Where you should be bruised and bleeding, your skin is unblemished.

Finding yourself in such a strange place, so far removed from the disaster which struck, there is only one explanation which seems plausible to you.

“Am I dead?” you speak aloud into the silence. 

The nighttime cold from the sand begins to chill your feet, and you know you cannot be dead. 

But if you are not dead, what are you? Where are you?

It is here that you perceive you are not alone. A figure stands some metres away on the bank, donned in a mask which covers his face completely. The only feature you can distinguish for certain is a pair of luminescent green streaks in the place where his eyes would be. 

Perhaps you ought to retreat from such a figure. Instead, you approach him. 

“It is you who brought me here?” you say. Your voice is swallowed by the noiseless murmuring ocean. The figure remains silent and unmoving; yet somehow, you sense that his answer is yes. 

“What of the others?” you ask the masked figure. “My brother was aboard that ship, my father—”

The figure shakes his head once. You sink to your knees in the moonlit sand. The loss drives a wedge into your heart which throbs with a heavy, persistent ache. 

“Why am I here?” you implore the figure, your voice lower than a whisper. “Why did you bring me to this place?” 

Here, the figure at least speaks. He says, “You were the only one to survive the fall into the water. I was not able to save the others.”

His voice, not muffled whatsoever by the mask, does not resemble what you would imagine the voice of such a figure to sound like. Its tone is low, and he speaks with gentleness, as if passing on condolences to you. 

You turn tear-streaked eyes up to face him. “What am I to do?” you ask the kind, masked stranger. 

He lays a gloved hand upon your forehead. “Wake,” he commands softly, “and do not worry. You will see them again. They are waiting for you, in the moon.”

Your eyelids flutter open. Warm, golden sunlight spills in through the paper shutters outside your bedroom. With a grumble, you rub your groggy eyes and sit up beneath the blankets. 

It has been some years since the unfortunate accident which claimed your family and your ship. The loss of your relatives is one which still burdens you, but its weight has eased with time. 

Every now and then, you relive the strange experiences of that night in dreams. The particulars shift, but two details invariably remain the same each time: that flash of lightning which set your ship’s course for the moon, and the voice of the masked stranger releasing you from the strange, silver shores. 

In the moments before rising, you lie in bed and wonder whether, when it is time for you to join your father and brother in the lunar palace, he will be there also to guide you into the glimmering immortality found in death, as he guides you into waking.

(If he is to be there, you think death is not so terrible. What is there in it to be so, if you need no longer walk the path to the moon alone?)

[perpetualcynicism]

Hi, R!

This is for the Impromptu Drabble Event.

image: A single paper lantern hanging on a wooden post, rattling in the wind

oxymoron: the profound / the mundane

restriction: do not use adverbs.

In the breaking hours of morning, on the threshold of sunrise when the earth is still cold as a stone, only one sound disturbs the silence which cradles the world. A quiet rattling, almost a whisper. Wind on paper on wood. 

A lone figure winds down the gravel path. His pace is slow, deliberate. His eyes are trained on the lantern in the distance, which emits a pallid, warm glow as it knocks against that worn post. This far out from the main cities of Liyue, it is the one light source around. 

It is such a fragile thing. A gust too strong, and it will collapse in on itself. A night too cold and the light will die. It is so futile, he thinks, to suppose that a single lantern can ward off the dark, the demons. Yet there it hangs in silent defiance, as it does night after night, proving him wrong.

He winds down the gravel path, nudged forth by the breeze, towards the fragile light which has been set down as an impossible beacon for him. Impossible, because that place which it marks is one he never imagined he would belong in.

(Just beyond that lantern lies home. There is somebody waiting for him, just beyond that lantern, for no other reason than that they are willing to wait. How silly is that? How selfless?)

Another gust batters the stubborn thing. It knocks against the wood, swinging horizontal on the top of the post. He braces himself, prepared for the light to snuff out. After a moment, it swings back. Still weak, but still flickering, defying every doubt he dares to doubt. 

Glowing or not, the lantern is there; perhaps that alone is enough. 

[perpetualcynicism]

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜: (𝟸), 𝙰 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎.

When you step off your starskiff at Central Starskiff Haven, there is a familiar face waiting at the docks. You thank the driver and sidle up to who most may call the General of the Xianzhou Luofu; the famed Divine Foresight; but most importantly, the one you know as your childhood friend. Jing Yuan greets you with a smile and an easygoing call of your name as you approach him. 

“It feels like centuries since I saw you last,” you say as you begin your walk down the street. It has not been, but you could almost mistake it for such. So much has happened to the both of you since you last came by. “How have you been? Eating well? Sleeping well?” You cannot help your concern. It is something you learned long ago, that Jing Yuan will not share his troubles unless specifically asked—and from what you have heard, there is good reason for you to worry about him. You raise a hand to rest your thumb on his cheekbone, just below a dark ring underneath his eyelid. “You look underslept.”

“In those regards,” Jing Yuan returns, lowering your hand from his face, “I could return the same questions to you. For all your usual radiance, you look thinner than when I last saw you. Are you taking care of yourself?”

Here is another tactic of his you know too well. You are not to be directed away from the topic of your enquiry. “I asked you first, Jing Yuan.”

“I have been well.”

“Really?”

Jing Yuan raises his eyebrows. “Do you doubt my word?”

“Have you given me your word?” you press, unable to keep your lip from curling at the wonderful familiarity of this banter.

“I give you my word.”

You nod at this, and your smile, along with the banter, fades away as you sigh. All this time, you have been trying to ignore the slight limp in Jing Yuan’s gait as he walks beside you, the slight strain in his voice as he speaks. You wonder whether he has noticed the new slump in your posture. Knowing him, he probably has.

With playful greetings made, there is now space for vulnerability. When you meet his eye, he knows what it means. You fall into an embrace through wordless understanding. His arms come around your upper and lower back, holding you securely but gently to him. You hold his waist and rest your cheek on his chest to listen to his heartbeat. It’s the same embrace you have shared for centuries. The one where he makes you feel safe, and you allow him to shake when he needs it. (And really, you know, he needs it more than he would like to admit.) He is taller, now, so that his chin rests on your head and not your shoulder, but it is still the same. You feel him relax against you, just slightly. Just enough for you to know nothing has changed. 

(It has been too long since you were last on the Luofu.)

Quietly, you tell him, “I heard about Phantylia, you know. I was worried sick about you. I would have come sooner, but all the routes here were closed off until recently and I was swamped over with work, and…”

“It’s of little matter,” he reassures you. His thumbs draw circles in your back, warm and soothing in their gentle pressure. “Please, do not concern yourself with it.”

“Are you healing alright?”

You hear the smile in his voice. “Much better now that you are here.”

“I see your flattery hasn’t changed,” you say. You tighten your grip around his waist. He understands and obliges, folding you closer. Here, you can let yourself go fully. Leaning into him, you smile wistfully, “And neither have your embraces. Sometimes I think those are the only things that haven’t changed.”

“Should I take that as a compliment, or an insult?”

“No, no! That’s not what I meant. It’s not an insult.” As you frantically take back your comment, Jing Yuan chuckles. Even after all the years you have lived and all you have seen, there remains a kind of honest innocence to you which never fails to endear him. (He will never let you know how much he fears the thought of you losing it.) “It’s just that when I look at you, I can’t get the image of that pint-sized, too-eager sword-wielding child who kept interrupting me when I tried to read in peace out of my head. I know logically that you’re the General, but seeing you act the part is another matter entirely. Frightening, sometimes, even.”

He says, “I apologise for worrying you.”

You sigh and ease yourself away from the embrace. There is a crease in your brow which Jing Yuan wishes to smooth away. “The trouble is, I don’t even know whether you should apologise or not. One one hand, you’re simply doing your job. On the other, you’re being so horribly careless with your life that I want to say an apology isn’t enough.”

“How long do I have with you to make it up to you, in that case?” he asks, and you recognise that this conversation is one to have at a later point. Perhaps when you are not so exposed to the attention of onlookers. There are already people staring, as tends to happen when they see a seemingly-nobody walking side by side with the one and only General. You do not wish to excite their attention any further. 

“Not long,” you reply. The conversation moves along. “Only a week or so, and then I’m off again.”

“Where to?”

“The Xianzhou Yuque.”

“The busy life of a scholar, I see.”

“Says the General of the entire Luofu,” you point out. “You can’t get much higher than that.”

“I may be at the top of the authority chain, but it is people like you who keep the Luofu alive.” He pauses for a moment, enough time for the compliment to warm you, and muses, “Only a week, you say?” He clicks his tongue. “I will have to spoil you as much as possible over the coming days.”

“Shouldn’t you be doing boring General… reports, and whatever else, instead of greeting me here and ‘spoiling me as much as possible’?” you ask. He almost looks offended. 

“You mean to imply I would prioritise paperwork over my dearest friend?“

You roll your eyes at his melodrama. It is a melodrama you will admit to having missed. “Well, thank you for coming to greet me. I appreciate it.”

“Of course.”

��By the way,” you say after a minute or so of walking in silence, “who manages your paperwork?“

Jing Yuan sounds amused. “Why do you wish to know?”

“I would like to speak with them. They ought to give you more of a break. You really do look exhausted.”

“Qingzu is lenient enough as it is,” he replies. “I’d be loath to trouble her further. Besides, now that you are here, I find myself inexplicably motivated to finish every last page.”

“And when I’m not here?”

For a moment, Jing Yuan purses his lips and is silent. Then, a fraction more quietly, he says, “I get by.”

Ah. “I hope you have some company with you,” you say.

“Company? Why?”

“You’re a lonelier man than you let on.”

He closes his eyes and smiles. “Perhaps.” He pauses again, in thought. “Tell me, how long have we known each other for?” 

You try to remember. “Around… seven centuries, I think? Maybe longer, actually. Eight.”

“Eight? That’s almost an entire lifetime.”

“Practically an entire lifetime for me,” you say. You are of similar ages, but you are somewhat of a century or half younger. (When you first met, it seemed like so much bigger a gap.)

“You haven’t tired of me yet?” Jing Yuan asks, accompanying his question with a playful bumping together of your shoulders. 

“There’s a reason I’m spending my free week on the Luofu, isn’t there?”

“Ah, yes, of course.” He taps his chin in prolonged and performative thought. “It’s for the street performances, isn’t it?”

You roll your eyes again. “Yes, Jing Yuan, it’s for the street performances.“

He places a hand over his chest. “How cruel. You could at least attempt to pretend it was for my sake.”

“But then you would see right through me.”

“If I was not too absorbed looking right at you, then certainly,” he agrees. Well, it is not quite an agreement. A flirt? But you know Jing Yuan to be a flatterer regardless of who he speaks with. You have your suspicions, of course—not that he makes any attempt to hide it from you—but it can be difficult to gauge the depth of his remarks. Is he trying to court you? Is he trying to distract you? Change the subject of a conversation? One is just as likely as the other. 

You shake your head and sigh. “You know,” you say, “over seven hundred years, and yet I still can’t figure you out. You were so much more straightforward when you were younger.”

He tips his head to one side. It reminds you of the little critters he so fondly keeps in his hair. “In what way?”

“You know. Saying what you think, a little brash, mostly annoying…” Jing Yuan pouts. You relent, smirking, before the humour wanes. “These days… Sometimes, I can’t tell what you’re thinking. You ask after me principally to divert my asking after you, you call me a ‘friend’—but a ‘dearest’ one—and then you speak as if we’re partners. And worst of all, you know I overthink these things, so I can only conclude you’re doing it intentionally to play with me.”

This time, when Jing Yuan frowns, it appears to stem from real consideration. “You dislike my behaviour?”

“Dislike? No, not necessarily. But I do sometimes wonder what your real goal is.”

He takes this into account as you walk. “I have been acting out of the assumption that you are comfortable in our current relationship,” he admits. “I do not wish to overstep any eight-hundred-year-old boundaries. Though, I will not pretend I have not tried testing them from time to time.” He turns to you. “Are you?”

“Sorry?” 

There is a gravity to his expression which you know only appears when he is being earnest, and his eyes are trained on you in a way that you know he is giving your answer his full attention. “Are you comfortable, as our relationship currently stands?”

You consider saying ‘yes’. Then, just as the word is about to leave your mouth, you change your mind. “Perhaps I would be, if you let me know what it is.”

“I see,” he muses slowly. “I have not been sufficiently clear in expressing how I feel for you. Allow me to clarify.”

Your walking slows to a halt. He lifts your chin, but before he can do anything, you rise on your toes and get there first. You savour the brief surprise which crosses his face as, for a rare moment, Jing Yuan is caught off-guard. His reaction confirms what you were suspecting. Hoping. 

“That’s what you were going to do, right?” you say. The question is performative, because your hypothesis has already been proven right.

Jing Yuan’s momentary shock melts warmly into a smile. “Precisely,” he replies. “Perhaps you have ‘figured me out’ more than you think.” He cradles your face in his hands and dips down to return your wordless confession, one left centuries waiting. It feels natural, not forced as you worried a lifelong-friendship-turned-romance may be. 

The kiss you share is momentary, but warm and safe, as everything is with Jing Yuan. 

The sound of clicking cameras and chatter breaks the warmth. You jump backwards and hasten to collect yourself while, with a chuckle and a sigh, Jing Yuan waves away the gaping onlookers who have gathered. After some light verbal prodding, they reluctantly disperse. You do not miss the wide-eyed states they shoot over their backs towards you as they leave.

“That’s going to go all around the Luofu now,” you sigh, rubbing your brow in embarrassment and guilt. “I’m so sorry. I forgot we were in public.”

“An apology? What for? I certainly don’t mind being seen in public with you.”

It is comfort, but the breach of your security still hangs open. “Is it not… harmful for your reputation, or anything?”

“There are no vows of chastity to be taken when becoming General,” Jing Yuan tells you with a teasing lilt to his voice. “If there were, I would not have accepted the job.”

You scoff incredulously. “You’re joking, right?” He is silent. You stare at him. “…Right?”

Jing Yuan shrugs.

You run a hand through your hair. “Aeons. Eight hundred years.”

“To impart a little secret,” he says, a twinkle dancing in his eyes, “I have been wanting to do that for almost a lifetime.”

“And myself,” you reply, “practically a full one.”

He offers you his arm. You take it. The breach is closed, and you continue your stroll through Central Starskiff Haven side by side. “A week, you say?” Jing Yuan says, half to himself. “So little time, and so much to do. Tell me, where would you like to go first?”

“I’ve been considering visiting Aurum Alley. I haven’t been there since it was renovated.”

“Done. Anywhere else?”

“I heard there was a literature showing in Exalting Sanctum.”

“Aha. So that is your real reason for coming here.”

“Oh, no. My cunning ruse revealed.”

“Haha. Anywhere else?”

“Are your private quarters on offer?”

“You wish to do something in my private quarters?”

“No, not like that! Aeons, Jing Yuan, I need to unpack my bags! Remember you told me I could use them last time?”

“I see. In another eight hundred years, then?”

“Remind me why I put up with you for almost my entire life?”

“In which manner would you like me to remind you?”

“There’s no way I can win this, is there?”

He smiles. “No.”

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

[perpetualcynicism]

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜: (𝟷), 𝙿𝚒𝚐𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚜.

Xiao dislikes it when fountains are designed so that they spray a little on the people who pass by. Unfortunately, this is one of those fountains—specifically, one of those modern, big flat rectangles on the floor with water spurts coming out of it and benches surrounding it. He thinks that fountains should be designed to contain the water they give out, but whoever designed this one clearly doesn’t feel the same way. Currently, long squirts are being shot in through the air in little arcs. They splatter when they land, and when they land close enough, he gets sprayed.

Pshhhhh. Pshhhhh.

He doesn’t quite know why he’s sitting at a fountain he doesn’t like. Well, that’s sort of a lie: he comes here to feed the pigeons, and he feeds the pigeons to clear his mind, so he does know why. He just doesn’t know why he comes to this one particularly. Force of habit, he supposes as he throws some grain to the birds from a brown paper bag.

He checks his watch for no reason in particular. It’s quarter past four. He’s been here for ten minutes, then. 

He tosses another handful of seeds onto the pavement and watches as the pigeons flock in a cloud of eager wings towards the grain. There’s a beautiful simplicity, he thinks, in this sort of thing. 

A toddler runs towards the flock with a squeal of excitement. The pigeons are driven away with a flurry: the toddler, satisfied, returns to her mother. It takes a few seconds before the pigeons land again to continue pecking at Xiao’s offerings. 

The fountain changes into one large, continuous stream of water in the middle. Pshhhhhhhhhhh. Xiao feels the spray drumming lightly (and annoyingly) on his back. 

A shadow passes over the pavement in front of him. He glances up to see a half-stranger take a seat a couple of metres or so away from him on the fountain’s bench. He says ‘half-stranger’ because he’s seen you around before, here and there, feeding the birds in your own time, enough that he recognises your face and you recognise his. Usually, Xiao would be bothered by somebody disturbing him or sitting this close to him, but somehow, he doesn’t mind it today. Perhaps because the pigeons aren’t afraid of you: that’s always a good thing.

Your eyes rest on the birds with an absentminded expression. He doesn’t know you well, but the line of your shoulders seems fallen today, your face a little melancholy. You might be tired, he supposes, or maybe you’ve had a bad day. Xiao only realises he’s been looking at you when you raise your eyes briefly to meet his before returning to your staring. Solemn as they may be at the moment, your eyes always have this kind of spark to them. It’s strangely enticing. 

A pigeon pecks at his shoelace impatiently. Xiao blinks and looks down at the bird. It cocks its head at him, expectant, and he notices he’s been holding a handful of grain for a little while without throwing it. He indulges the pigeon, whose fellow city birds join it in picking at the feed on the pavement. 

In the corner of his eye, he sees you lean forwards on your elbows and breathe a long sigh. You rest your cheek in your palm, eyes downturned. Bad day, then, probably. He wonders whether he should attempt to make conversation with you, but quickly decides against it. Xiao is hardly one for small talk: if anything, he’s convinced starting a conversation will most likely to drive you away. When he has bad days, Xiao prefers to be left alone, so he decides to extend the same courtesy to you. Still, he keeps you in the corner of his eye.

The fountain’s pattern changes into short vertical jets of water. They splash onto the tiles in regular bursts. Pshh. Pause. Pshh. Pause. Pshh. A few droplets land on him each time. He sighs, but doesn’t move away. 

It’s around half past four, now. You pull out your phone for a moment, then slip it back in your pocket before you’ve looked at the screen. He wonders what you’re looking for—or looking to avoid. None of his business, anyhow. He doesn’t really know why he’s thinking about it anyway. 

He considers offering you a handful of birdseed from the paper bag. Maybe the birds will take your mind off whatever it is that’s bothering you, he reasons. Xiao takes a breath and lifts the bag to hold it out to you—but he hesitates and brings it back in, shaking his head at himself for trying. A stranger handing him bird seed would definitely seem weirder than starting a conversation. He keeps feeding the pigeons alone. 

It’s quarter to, now. Xiao reaches into the paper bag and finds it empty: only a few odd seeds cling to his fingers when he pulls his hand out. He frowns. Usually the bag lasts him longer. Maybe it’s because he’s been thinking about other things this time. 

He glances over at you again. You meet his eye and he wonders whether you’ve noticed the brief looks from the corner of his eye he’s been shooting you for the last half hour or so. You raise your eyebrows at him and make that awkward half-smile that people make when they mean to say, Hi, I sort of know you but not enough to actually say hello like we’re friends. Then you look away with widening eyes and another quirk of your eyebrows: the expression which roughly means something’s gone badly and letting somebody know by making this expression makes me feel a little better because you can relate to the feeling. 

Because he can relate to the feeling, Xiao acknowledges the ‘nonverbal hello’ and the ‘that went badly’ expressions by raising his own eyebrows briefly: I know what you mean. You open your mouth and look like you’re about to speak for a moment, in the second between the fountain sprays. He listens eagerly.

Pshh. Another few flecks land on his back. You close your mouth and pull away, and Xiao can’t deny feeling a little disappointed. You stand up with a sigh, swing your bag around your shoulders, and walk away without meeting his eye. You still look quite dejected as you leave; he wonders whether he should have offered you some bird seed. 

Once you’ve turned the corner out of sight, Xiao brings his eyes back to the pigeons still milling around in front of him. He tells them that he doesn’t have anything left for them, but the pigeons unsurprisingly don’t react. 

A few minutes later, the fountains fall silent. They turn off at five in winter, so that’s what time it must be now. One last spray lands on his back and they’re finished. Xiao crumples the paper bag into a ball and stuffs it in his pocket. Then he stands up, ignoring the upset hooting of pigeons behind him, and makes his own way home. 

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

[perpetualcynicism]

“Would you hate me more,” he asks, “if I had saved you, or if I hadn’t?”

He speaks to your shadow, the one faced away from him. The one lingering in the corner of his eye, pushing perpetually at the edges of his mind. A hazy imprint of where and who a person used to be, growing blurrier with time. He reaches closer and tries to feel something coming from it, anything, whether it be resentfulness, forgiveness, disappointment, pride. 

The shadow in his mind’s eye does not reply.

He does not like being lost like this. Lost in what to think and how to feel. Stuck on a question which will never be answered. He is a man who works with evidence, not rhetoricals.

Save the world, you had always told him, not individuals. Not even me. 

He lived by your words. And yet, when the time had come and he made his choice as you told him to—the world, not you—he wonders, was that fear in the last flash of your eyes? Betrayal that he’d done as you advised? If you’d had the time to tell him, would you have taken it back? Placed yourself, just the once, over everybody else? 

Archons, how he’d wished you’d taken it back. The choice would have been so easy, then: he would have rushed over with little hesitation and let everybody else crumble, just a little bit, just the once. You, not the world, in a heartbeat. It was always so effortless to stumble on the pass of justice into selfishness and desire, so tempting. There is a reason so few heroes exist in real life. But what was one little blunder, if it meant saving what the world was to him?

But then he thinks about how you would have looked at him. With disgust? Betrayal that he’d abandoned what you’d advised? How dare you, he imagines you would have said and refused to fall into his shaking embrace. How dare you place me over the many others? 

But in the end, it is still only human to want to live.

The shadow still lingers. Regret weaves hungry needles through his brain, and doubt pushes them in further until his head is a web of grieved confusion. What your voice was and what his is push and heave over right and wrong and want. By your standards, he did the right thing, he thinks, but by his own, all he did was fail to uphold them: why save the world when it is empty?

You provide him no answer. You only hover there, out of reach, out of sight, and he fancies that you’re judging him: but is it with less or more hate than if you were still here? 

[perpetualcynicism]

It was on impulse one night that Cyno decided he wanted to kiss you.

Not like the usual kisses you shared as partners, no. He wanted this to be something more; a token of his love to be remembered in days to come.

You were enjoying an after-dark walk through Sumeru City as you often did, hands twined together in contented silence while you drifted through the empty streets. In the day, the city was a bustling hub of students and workers, but by night, it was like a ghost town.

This was when he turned to look at you; nothing unusual. However, when he did this time, for reasons unbeknownst to him, he couldn’t tear his eyes away and was struck by how much he adored you—so suddenly and forcefully that he stopped in his tracks. 

You turned to him to ask if he was alright, and he tried to articulate a yes, but all he could think about was kissing you and letting you understand the depths of his feelings. So, he told you as much.

“If you don’t mind, I would like to kiss you right now.”

You blinked, dumbfounded by his straightforwardness. Heat rose to your face. “Um. I-I mean, sure.” The darkened shade of your cheeks was endearing, he thought. “By ‘right now’, do you mean now ‘now’, or…?”

Cyno nodded. “Yes. That would be preferable.”

Your jaw took a second to work again. When it did, you found yourself chuckling. You gestured forwards with your hand, accepting his request. “Alright, then. Go ahead.”

“You’re certain?”

“Mhm.”

He dipped his head, as though this answer satisfied him. The night breeze tugged at the edges of his hood as he stepped closer, and closer again, until his face was mere inches from your own. Your pupils were dilated, he noticed, as his own no doubt were.

There, Cyno tilted his head, studying you in the moonlight. His eyes were almost analytical in the way they examined your features; he left no detail unrecognised. The moon’s pale glow flushed your skin with silver and sent shadows dancing across the planes of your face, dark and mesmerising. 

Gods, you were stunning.

Drawing in a shaking breath, he raised a hand to cup your cheek. His thumb grazed back and forth over your cheekbone, palm hovering above your skin. His heartbeat was a drum in his throat. 

In truth, Cyno was nervous. With this gesture, he wanted you to know everything he felt for you, like the way he cared for you so much, so badly that it made his heart pull. He wanted to cherish you like nobody ever had before or would again, for no other reason than you deserved it.

And somehow, he was supposed to convey this all in one simple action.

Well, he thought, exhaling the nerves knotting in his chest and feeling them unwind. He had to at least try, no? 

Cyno dipped forwards and brushed his lips against yours in barely a whisper of contact. He heard your breath hitch, and continued, eyelids fluttering shut as he lost himself in you.

In the softest of kisses, he gently covered your lips with his and, lingering there, trembling fingers cradling your cheek, poured into the contact every inch of care, every drop of love he held for you, unbridled and blooming with adoration. He leaned in so your noses nudged together, eyelashes tickling your skin, tilting your chin upwards and kissing you deeper, lips moving in gentle tugs against your own, giving even more of himself to you, at once both passionate and so tender he was barely there at all, because he was so completely yours; all yours, and nobody else’s. 

When he pulled away, it was only by a fraction. Your foreheads rested together, and his fringe tickled your brow. He ran his thumb down the side of your cheek, stroking up and down and up again. His finger pad was calloused, but his touch was soft. His eyes searched yours fondly, the colour of rubies, devotion burning within them like sunsets were captured in his gaze. His lips still hovered above your own, trembling shared breaths warm on each other’s skin.

“I love you,” he whispered into the space between, softer than a breath of wind.

Even if he hadn’t said it, you’d have known.