It was a good thing that it seemed like everyone magical was active at night, so he had something to fill his time with. While it had only been a few days, he’d been able to get out quite a lot, and meet lots of new people, and see all kinds of fascinating things. So, there was that.
He’d started cleaning the house, too, to fill his hours; Kiyoshi and Yuki had said he didn’t need to pay for his space there, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t change their minds. He was a burden on them, after all, and he didn’t provide anything practical, really, but cleaning was—he could clean! He wasn’t very good at it, at knowing exactly what to do, but he could take a dust cloth and wipe things down, or do a load of dishes, or fold laundry.
With so many people in the house, surely those would be useful skills. Surely he could provide something and be of use for—for something. And he was awake anyway, so he might as well fill his time with something.
Because Xiulan did not sleep well. There was comfort, in being able to lock the door to his room, but that didn’t stop the nightmares.
He hadn’t seen what had become of his family. Of his home. Of everything and everyone he’d ever loved. But that didn’t stop his kind from conjuring up vivid, violent visions of bloody executions, of what the last moments of his parents and brothers must have looked like.
And even knowing that everyone who’d held him prisoner after was surely long dead, because Tianyian people didn’t live for more than two or three centuries, didn’t stop them from coming back in his dreams. From still being there, waiting to drag him back.
Sleep was not a refuge. So Xiulan didn’t sleep much. A few hours here or there, always interrupted, always jolted awake. But Earth had coffee and tea and a million ways to stay awake, and he supposed he would have to make use of them, because the prospect of more of…that sounded somehow less restful than just not sleeping at all.
He would have to find more things to fill his time with eventually, he supposed. There were books to read, if he could start to learn the language—but he’d probably have to ask someone to teach him, and that sounded like a burden, and—maybe he ought to give up on that idea.
Maybe he could learn how to cook, or bake, but then he would take up more resources and make a mess and….
Xiulan sighed, curling up on the couch with his cup of tea. He’d have to find something to fill his time. Given the choice, he would probably have liked to just curl up and go back to sleep and forget about all of this, but that….wasn’t an option. So he would just have to finish his tea, clean things up enough that hopefully no one noticed he was awake, and go back to fighting with modern English grammar.
But first, a warm drink and some time to settle his mind.
[wc: 541words]
