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 Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 1:10 am
The sky above the little house by the sea was streaked with a scarlet orange, gold and violet smeared through like the strokes of a brush across a canvas. They melted down, bled into the dabs of white cotton clouds low in the sky, a pale blue beginning to disappear just beyond the horizon. Dots of white had started to glow brightly in the rapidly growing darkness, blinking in and out of sight. A small breeze, not strong enough to cause discomfort, but just light enough to tease the world it flew past, ruffled the grass and tinkled the chimes on the little house. The scent of sea salt hung heavy in the air, sand drifting across the wooden porch and across the bare feet of a man who stood there, arms folded into the sleeves of his changsam.
He did not say much, lips pressed together in a contemplative silence, brows furrowed. Dark hair tumbled free over his shoulders and halfway down his back; he had not thought to cut it lately, so that it draped nearly past his waist now when it was not bound up. He was not wearing the covering over his eye, but he did not need to, not when it was just he and his wife within the confines of their humble little home.
Qián Jianyu could feel it coming.
He had wondered about it for quite some time now, but it had only been in the past twenty minutes that he had felt it himself. After all, he was growing older and there was always the possibility...but then again, not every Lunarian chose to go through with it, and some even stopped halfway through - a very painful process.
But he could taste the change in the air.
The magic of Lunaria as a whole had been growing stronger, the Priests and Soul Conduits becoming more acutely in tune with the voices of the dead that wafted through the air without any sort of tangible form. Lunaria's wars had grown to the point where the city had nearly been on the brink of destruction - but, like always, it had not sunk so low.
Not yet, at least. And Jianyu did not ever want to see Lunaria fall and crumble the way that others cities did, the way that other civilizations seemed to disappear and become crushed beneath the foot of distrust and antagonism. He had seen what had happened to the cities who could not keep their government stable, the ones who had been torn apart by war - and Lunaria, the place precious to many, himself included, was teetering on a cliff's edge.
But the wind was shifting - and the magic was heavy, thick, nearly tangible now, and Jianyu was starting to feel a tingling sensation shivering up and down his spine.
He closed his eyes.
It began by the tingling, as though crawling across his skin as an anticipatory measure, but then the magic collided with him with the force of a javelin, nearly knocking him from his feet. Waves of crackling, hot magic cascaded over him, and Jianyu felt it burning through his veins, searing up his neck and filling his mouth with the acrid taste of something blackened and burnt, mixed with spices and light.
Yue, still asleep in bed in their room, had not awoken when he had slipped from the warmth beside her to step outside.
He could not wake her now - she did not need to see.
Jianyu dropped to his knees on the porch with a clatter, fingers scrabbling uselessly across the wooden surface. Sweat poured down his face, sliding over his brow, drops sticking to his eyelashes and making it difficult to lift them - not that he would have tried, his eyes clenched tightly shut, breathing labored.
Goddess Lunaria, I can do this.
Overhead, the sky was turning an inky blackness, a velvety blue stretching from one end of his vision to the other as though surrounding him in a cocoon of nighttime. Out here, there were hardly any other houses, the unassuming little cottage the only one for a good mile.
It was, perhaps, a very good thing that they were alone, since Jianyu could not contain the scream of agony that ripped from his throat, echoing across the shadowy waters beneath the pale glow of the moonlight. His hand spasmed, the skin feeling as though it were on fire, rippling briefly and then stretching. He could feel the bones of his hand shifting, a loud cracking noise reverberating noisily as they snapped into place again. Magic shivered over Jianyu's prostrate body, doubling over with his arms wrapped around his stomach.
He had not wanted to wake Yue, but she would hear his pained sounds all the same - and would come down to see what the matter was. She was his wife, after all - she knew him better than anyone, and would stay by his side even if he insisted she not, insisted he could go through this on his own.
A drop of sweat slid down his cheek, Jianyu clenching his teeth so tightly he almost could not breathe.
Just hang on. Hang on for a few more hours. It will be all right.
Everything will be all right.
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Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 8:30 am
Training was taking its toll on Yue Lao. With the war approaching, looming, whatever the appropriate word was to indicate its unsettling nearness, she had been taking specific care to hone all her muscles, improve upon her weaknesses. That was what Yue Lao had always aimed to do: discover her weaknesses, and compensate for them by becoming stronger in those areas. She had once considered love a weakness, but it was love that moved her in the morning; she moved to wrap her arm around him in bed, to press her face against his body, but found he was not there-- and it was seconds later she heard his voice in the distance. The waking world, the one which she had only half-rejoined, until she heard him cry out in pain.
In seconds, the militant training kicked in: Yue swung her legs out of bed, grabbed her bindings and wound them around her chest, and pulled some kind of miscellaneous training pants out of the blankets where she had inevitably left them last night. She managed to slip the pants on while running, grabbing the small wash basin and some clean cloths while she was on her way out, the meteor hammer already slung over one shoulder, coiled as it usually was. If he was hurt, she would help; if he was fighting, she would equally help. The nature of their marriage was synchronization: in life, in combat, they moved in tandem. She had never thought that, even if she could love someone, she could achieve the kind of love her othermothers had.
But here she was, covered in water (because Yue is still Yue, how could she possibly run with a basin and not spill it all over herself) and blurry-eyed, half asleep. "The war better not have expanded to our home," she muttered darkly as she left the relative safety of their doorway, the cloths over her free shoulder, basin in one hand while her other automatically went up to loosen the ties on the meteor hammer.
However, as soon as she stepped onto the porch, she saw her husband laying there, clearly doubled over in pain. She dropped the meteor hammer as gently as she could (which was not incredibly gently, given her worry) and knelt next to him. His skin felt hot, like it was burning, and he smelled strange: the crackle of magic, the sear Yue Lao was familiar to only because of her close friendship with Sara. "And you didn't think to invite me to this, either?" Yue dabbed one of the cloths into the basin, which was only half-full by this point, and drew it across her husband's face, kissing the top of his head.
"Well, I'm crashing this party, and don't even think you can get me to leave." Yue Lao's brows were furrowed together. He wasn't sick. He was burning up, and that sound she'd heard on her way out... was that the cracking and shifting of bone? Was it possible...?
Yue Lao ran a hand through her husband's hair, and continued to try to ease the pain of what was happening, despite being a poor caretaker. She wished Sara was there, but... at the same time, she wasn't afraid, per se. She wanted to ease his pain. But the pain was part of the process, if it was true, so... All she could do was wait, hold him, try to cool his face. She slipped one hand under to find his hand, squeezing so that the healed, scarred flesh of her palms drew taut.
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:01 am
He should have known he would not be able to keep this from Yue. She was his wife, after all, and since he was unable to keep the agonized shouts of pain at bay, it was only natural that she would have heard him and coming running.
It was always like this, after all - Jianyu, so far, had never had any need to actually tell Yue what he was feeling, since she usually already knew or could sense it before he'd even opened his mouth to speak. And it was the same with her; Jianyu could read her moods, the way she carried herself, the tone of her voice. It was for those reasons, perhaps, that he had realized his feelings for her - because, unlike anyone else, Yue was an open book to him, when even she did not realize it at first.
He heard her footsteps coming closer, but he kept his eyes shut, rocking back and forth and biting so hard on his lower lip that he drew blood.
There was a loud clanking sound; Jianyu winced involuntarily at the sudden noise, feeling Yue's damp fingers (why were they wet?) run across his bare back and shoulders. He was only wearing a pair of training pants, after all, considering he had been asleep for several hours already when he had felt the crackle of magic.
"No," he managed to get out, turning his head with a great deal of effort to give Yue a forced smile, though his face was as pale as death and there was blood on his chin. "I thought I'd have a party to myself, after all."
Then he stopped talking abruptly, giving instead a feral snarl as more bone shifted, a cracking sound echoing horribly loud in the otherwise quiet night. Magic shivered up and down his spine, heavy and suppressing, twisting around the ki he could feel and burning through his veins.
Unintentionally, he jerked his hand away from hers when she held it.
"Don't," he said thickly, gasping for breath as his back tensed. "I can't - hold your hand - right now - "
This was mostly because he did not want to break her fingers, should he lose control.
The next few hours were agonizing. Jianyu drifted in and out of consciousness, feeling Yue stroking his sweat soaked hair away from his face and the dampness of a cold cloth pressed against his forehead at various times throughout the night. He had been in pain before, of course - the scar over his left eye was a blatant reminder, after all - but nothing like this. His entire body was changing, shifting, the transformation shivering powerful magic throughout his blood.
Dearest Goddess Lunaria, why must you make this so painful?
Eventually Jianyu lost consciousness entirely, sinking into a pit of blackness. It was not until nearly morning, the sky in that phase of pale, watery blue just before the sun fully rose, that his eyes opened again.
He was alone, lying on his own bed, the one he shared with his wife. At some point during the night he could vaguely remember a hazy memory of climbing the stairs, Yue supporting him so that he could lay down on something soft, instead of the hard wood of the front porch - but after that, there was nothing at all, nothing but a soft darkness.
It was quiet. Jianyu's eyes flickered, trying to drag himself out of his groggy state, one hand shifting on the coverings -
- one scaled hand.
His eyes flew open immediately, staring at the dark blue scales that traveled from his fingers up his wrist and halfway down his forearm. The Lunarians always had scales, of course, but they were only on specific parts of the body, mostly shoulders, hips, legs, and the face.
These were not the same.
And his head felt strangely heavier when he tried to lift it, his body aching. However, despite the pain, despite the oddness, Jianyu felt distinctly different - in a good way. The faint scent of magic was still in the air, and his skin felt warmer than usual, Jianyu pushing himself to his feet with slow movements.
Something moved behind him, heavy and scaled.
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Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:58 pm
When Yue Lao was an academy student, she had been notoriously selfish. Even as a Fighter, she struggled with this sometimes, but when she saw her husband in pain, she felt his suffering. And she wanted it to stop not only because it hurt her, but because the idea of his pain made her deeply upset. Especially when the thing that was causing him pain wasn't something she could punch in the face.
It was something no one could soothe or ease. When they were first friends, Yue could remember joking around with Jianyu, drinking with him, talking at the Ichi Koi. She could remember their fight with the grapes, she could remember the fever that had wracked him after he had been injured in the ambush. Every detail of his smile, his eyes, the way his emotions were just under the surface: she could remember all of these things, and she thought of them now, focused on them as Jianyu rocked back and forth and she approached him.
"From now on, you don't get to have parties to yourself," she told him, as sternly as she could. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth stern. Her eyes, however, were tender in a way they never had been for anyone but Jianyu. Her feelings weren't hurt when he jerked away; she understood enough about the pain that in pain, unintentional violence could hurt those around you. She had lashed out at others, and that had been a different kind of pain altogether.
So Yue Lao waited, kept him cool as she could, and didn't leave his side. The transformation was mesmerizing, and also a little nauseating. Thankfully, Yue Lao was not a soft wife, and she was used to battle-gore by now; it made it easier to bear. But no easier in that it was still her husband suffering, and she couldn't stop it.
At some point, they had managed to move him to bed, and Yue Lao had taken that opportunity to get some fresh water and food. She had a piece of thin bread in the corner of her mouth as she came back up the stairs of their home. She chewed on it lazily, trying not to yawn and drop her food. All said and done, the night had not gone easily, and Yue Lao was altogether unused to all of this. She hadn't ever lost sleep over someone else's pain. In fact, when she was really upset, she had slept more rather than less.
Still, it was for her best friend, and the one she loved.
Yue took a deep breath, steady and as even as she could around the bread, and entered the room with food in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other. It took a lot of strength and concentration not to drop everything when she noticed that her husband was now... scaly, to say the least.
It was pretty impressive, even if it looked like his claws could rip through her in two swipes.
"I have to say... that's a pretty hot look on you," she managed to mumble, around the bread, before swallowing what was left of it and placing the pitcher and food on their bedside before tentatively sitting on the bed next to her husband, reaching a hand out to stroke his new tail. "How are you feeling...?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:28 pm
He felt different.
It was, in a way, one of the oddest, most unusual feelings Qian Jianyu had ever felt in his entire life. For one thing, his head felt absurdly heavy, a weight that had not been there before now pressing against his temples and the top of his head. He lifted a hand, skimming his fingers over the new additions to his body, letting them brush over the ridges.
Horns.
It would take some getting used to, certainly. Jianyu had only seen one or two others like this once or twice in his life before, and he had never before thought about the consequences of how it would feel to be one himself. The possibility had not even entered his mind, and yet now -
Now it was here, and he did not know what to think.
He supposed he could get used to them, though it would take some difficulty in actually sleeping. Finding a way of laying comfortably while simultaneously trying to keep from skewering his wife in her sleep did not seem like an easy feat at the current moment, but at the very least he knew how to control those. The horns, after all, stayed in one place, fixed on the top of his head.
The other new addition to his body, however...
It was, by far, the strangest sensation. Every time he moved, he could feel the long, scaley tail move behind him, sliding across the ground. It was long, longer than he had expected it to be, and rippled with scales and smaller fins, a dark golden color.
Experimentally he tried moving it. Obediently his tail flicked to the left.
Odd. Very odd.
There were footsteps on the stairs now, and Yue stepped into the room, holding a pitcher of water in one hand and a plate of food in the other. She stopped abruptly, however, upon entering and stared at him, her eyes wide with shock.
Though it might also have been the fact that he was completely naked as well - admittedly, however, they had been married for almost three months now and had seen enough already, and Yue was probably far used to this.
He lifted a brow, slanting a glance her ways.
'It, ah," he said, as she came towards him, reaching out a hand. "It''s...weird."
He flicked his tail again, almost knocking over the bedside table in the process. As it was, the end caught on the edge of the blanket, dragging it towards him. Jianyu sighed, and took his seat on the bed once more, pulling his tail towards him and looking at his wife.
"...I wasn't expecting this," he said quietly, eyes moving over his new body, a slight frown on his face. "I don't...that is to say...it is..quite an unusual sensation."
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