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 Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2024 2:43 am
Helene took int he room with curiosity and interest, absorbing the decorations and listening to Kaifeng's explanations. This place felt like a distillation of all of the pieces of Xingyi--his families, both of them; his time on Earth; the folk religions that had existed on Saturn and Murikabushi and had made something new when they came together.
And, as Kaifeng pointed out--Helene could see the connection between the two boddhistavas that Xingyi had chosen and the man who had built the room htey stood in.
"Xingyi venerated many gods--some from Murikabushi, some form Saturn, and some, it seems, from Earth." Helene exhaled. "Helenian traditions did not have gods, per se. Focused more on the cycle of the universe, on practicing proper restraint and learning anew in each life. On constantly improving to achieve the best version of oneself, over the refinement of many reincarnations."
Some would have said that Helene was perhaps due a new body and a new spoke on the wheel. Helene did not wish to dwell on such a possibility. His life was his, until such time as it ended, and he expected that ending to be quite far in the future.
"I never entirely understood, but...always tried to learn."
He wanted to linger, wanted to examine the paintings and statues, and try to glean what he could, but--the Code. That was far more important, and the purpose of this visit.
So he followed Kaifeng, to that tiny altar with the Code piece protected behind it.
"Always," he said, softly, and bent to give Kaifeng that promised kiss. For luck, and perhaps a little bit as a reminder that Kaifeng would not need to do this alone.
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Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2024 1:55 am
Even with the seriousness of the situation before him—spelled out clearly in everything from the meeting up on the moon, to the seriousness of the problems that Kaifeng and other Knights had had, to the sheer extent of the protections that Xingyi had put in place around their Wonder’s Code piece—Liánlí-Kaifeng smiled into the kiss when Helene gave it. He probably could have helped it, if he had wanted to, but……well.
Frankly, he didn’t want to help himself—at least, not in any ways that meant not enjoying the moment, or not enjoying the warmth and support of his zhiyin. It never stopped sweeping Kaifeng off his feet, all these little reminders of how stupid and wrong he’d been while on some adolescent bullshit about how romantic love was a total lie and nothing but useless garbage, just because he’d felt at the time like he would never have any in his life himself.
Still. The work needed to get done. The moment ended with Kaifeng disentangling himself from the kiss, brushing his fingers down Helene’s cheek as he pulled back. All business, he turned toward the shrine and knelt on one of the sitting pillows.
Sure enough, inside the little shrine, the Code Piece glowed—maybe not as much as it was supposed to do? Hard to judge, when Kaifeng didn’t rightly know how the Code Piece was supposed to look, but……all the same, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to force himself to focus. Getting into the right mindset for meditating, he tried to feel the Code Piece’s vibe, tried to reach out for it, opened himself up to the flow of the magic from the Code—
“Huanxi.…… Huanxi, please.……”
The scene Kaifeng looked down at struck him as a familiar one. How could it not? He’d seen this exact image not that long ago, painted on the puzzle-lock that had protected the white jade rendering of Helene’s symbol: Huan-ge, pale and sweaty with fever, lying sick in Xingyi-ge’s bed at the cottage. One of Kaifeng’s hands—Xingyi-ge’s hands, Liánlí-Kaifeng realized—reached for Huan-ge’s forehead, daubing the sweat with a cool, damp rag. All the while, Kaifeng struggled to keep that hand from shaking, and he couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or from sobriety.
The other hand, though, held fast to one of Huan-ge’s hands.
“I’m so sorry, just—please don’t—*please*, Huanxi……”
Trembling, Kaifeng didn’t feel well. His own head throbbed badly enough that Liánlí-Kaifeng would have given up and laid down; he couldn’t fathom how Xingyi-ge hadn’t just collapsed, with him feeling like this. Beads of sweat welled up on his brow, big as the tears that blurred his vision. His heart flailed erratically. His chest felt like a too-small room closing in around that heart and his lungs. Everything felt flushed—his chest, his face, his neck. But it wasn’t the familiar flush that came from Xingyi-ge getting knocked back by how much he loved Huan-ge, or from daring to hope that maybe Huan-ge would ever feel the same. No, this was something different, something Liánlí-Kaifeng only felt he recognized from having read about it.
The fever flush that came when somebody who drank like Xingyi-ge had stopped drinking.
Yet, even when Xingyi-ge should have been in bed himself, he instead knelt at Huan-ge’s bedside and murmured different snatches of prayers for health and healing. Different pleas for Huan-ge to please be okay, to please pull through this, to please, please, please, just wake up and be alright. Different apologies, because whatever had happened to Huan-ge—something about a weird plant? maybe? it was hard to make out what Xingyi-ge was saying, and he wasn’t feeling the specifics about the preceding incident clearly enough—but whatever had happened, it might not have happened if Xingyi-ge hadn’t been drunk.
“Huanxi, please, it……” Xingyi-ge shivered, deep and heavy. Hard enough that it hurt. “That piece, for Yúchén? The one I lied about……said my mother wrote it? But—but she didn’t. I……I did. And—Huanxi, please, it……” Clinging to that hand of Huan-ge’s that he held, Xingyi-ge pressed Huanxi’s knuckles to his lips. “It’s for *you*.… It’s always been for you—nobody else ever……”
Tears spilled over, out of Xingyi’s eyes. But the flush of withdrawal burned so hot that they felt almost like a cool balm. Only almost, though. The hand on Huan-ge’s forehead stabilized some as it moved the cloth off, then nudged some of Huan-ge’s messy hair aside. A deep breath and a shudder. A few shorter breaths, more ragged and labored. The fingers curled around Huan-ge’s hand clamped down more tightly, as if Xingyi felt like they might go too slack, and worse, them going slack might mean that he let Huanxi go.
“Please……” Xingyi’s chest ached as he forced another deep breath in. Still, he leaned in closer to Huan-ge. “I can’t imagine a life without joy in it, right? D’you remember that? It—it’s you.…… Huanxi, you—you *are* that joy.…… Please don’t…… Please don’t go…… I can’t… Without you, I can’t—”
A sob cut Xingyi-ge off, jerking on his lungs and fumbling out of his mouth. Shaking, he bent down and kissed Huanxi’s forehead.
Unbeknownst to Liánlí-Kaifeng, the Code Piece’s power reached out for Helene’s mind as well, putting him into the memory.
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Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2024 12:25 pm
Helene did not know what he had expected, from this. To be support for Kaifeng, mostly; to be by his side.
But not at all to be drawn into whatever memory grasped him.
Usually such things were not shared--a private experience for the Knight or Senshi--but here Helene was, seeing everything as Xingyi had seen it. And on the one hand, hearing those words from him was a confirmation, but on the other....
His chest hurt. A physical, deep ache, a reminder that they could have had so much more, and had not. He had it now, with Lianli, yes--and the knowledge of what could have been only made him more determined to preserve what he had.
Helene sank to his knees behind Kaifeng, wrapping his arms around his chest and burying his face in his hair. There were no words, not for something like this.
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Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2024 1:05 pm
Whatever was happening with him and his Wonder’s Code Piece, Kaifeng……didn’t fully understand? At least, not in any way that he could have put words on. He felt so much about the memory that rushed back to him, it almost drowned out his ability to feel what was happening with the magic here, the actual reason for the visit.
As the magical connection subsided and his primary awareness returned to reality, though, he felt as though something had been settled? Whether it truly had or not, Kaifeng supposed that remained to be seen. Anything could’ve happened tomorrow, or the day after, or a year from now. Predicting future events never really went well for anybody, much less so when uncontrollable magical forces got involved, so Kaifeng supposed he would need to roll with whatever came his way.
What came his way first—an unexpected warmth and weight on his back. Strong arms clinging to his chest. And Huan-ge’s face pressed into his hair—not quite nuzzling, the way that Kaifeng thought at first, but……still, close in a way that felt, perhaps, less for Kaifeng’s sake than for Helene’s.
Gently, Kaifeng rested his hands over Helene’s, the closest he could get to returning the embrace while Helene held him from behind. Several questions came to mind to ask, and later, Kaifeng would. But for now, he simply held on to his zhiyin and hummed softly, a song he’d been working on a cover of despite never playing the game that it was from.
Your blood like wine, I wanted in. Oh darling, get me drunk and make me feel.… There’s more to do and I still want to live.…
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