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 Posted: Sun Sep 26, 2010 5:09 am
 
This is a private role play between Miao Yin [Venexia] and Jing Liu [hellotea].
Setting:
Liu meets a new rival (friend?) in Miao after demonstrating yet another act of klutziness.
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Posted: Sun Sep 26, 2010 5:44 am
hi look at me scaring you with my ugly title
and my huge first post, do not feel inclined to write
a lot just because i wrote a complete waste of time...
(i don't write this much all the time ven it's just cause ily...)
_______
Jing Liu stumbled down the brightly lit streets of the Imperial city, closing his eyes (which he really probably shouldn't have been doing) and blowing out his cheeks in a silent sigh. It was an hour too early for him to have had to wake up, and the boy disliked the early hours unless it was for a recreational activity - like tai chi, in which you had to get up early to greet the morning rays. Blinking, he tried to remember how long it had been since he'd last gone through an entire tai chi ritual and winced in realizing it had been quite a while. Well, Liu didn't blame himself - he blamed the Academy, which now took up an entirely too large amount of his time.
The Academy. Liu couldn't quite fathom at the moment was his thoughts on the huge community was. With an abundance of students (people everywhere), the boy was usually too encompassed in trying to walk around without getting stomped on or ambushed by classmates to care too much about socializing. He'd learned how to have a proper conversation and break the ice, but that was it - it seemed that no matter how much Liu was to be introduced to 'society', he still wouldn't ever be as socially natural as a child who had grown up in the Imperial City. And truthfully, the boy was fine with that. Liu disliked crowds, and he much preferred walking like this (alone and free) to herding about in groups of people. What was the point? Were they scared of walking alone? He couldn't imagine at all, and the boy shook his head with a smile.
As he neared the familiar lantern-lit entrance of the morning market, Liu settled into a jog, looking to and fro from the tiny stalls and finally coming to a stop before an old Lunarian with a comical length of a beard. "Good morning, Mr. Shu." Liu bowed in respect and when the old man nodded at him, he continued. "Do you have any flour this morning?" He smiled hopefully.
The old man nodded again (the silent type, huh), and heaved a medium-sized bag of flour onto the stall table.
Liu grinned before rummaging through his pockets and coming up with a few coins before placing them on the table. "Thank you, Mr. Shu!" He said, bowing once again, grabbing the bag of flour, and speeding off. His mother had requested some dumplings, and knowing how long it took to make the dumpling skin and wrap the meat within, Liu had set off early in the morning to collect his ingredients. It was well-known within the community that Mr. Shu was (though a very boring and silent old man) in possession of the best quality of flour ever. So. If you wanted good flour, you got it from the old man. Feeling the comfortable weight of the flour in his hands, Liu walked down the streets of the City cheerfully, keen on getting home and getting to work on the dumplings before his mother awoke. He must have not been paying attention (or maybe it was just you know ... his clumsiness kickin' in...) and he didn't quite notice the other soul walking in front of him.
Slam.
Liu gaped as he bumped into the other person and dropped most of his bag of flour. Then he stifled a giggle at the other person's face. "Oh dear, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Then he paled as he remembered that all of his ingredients for the morning's breakfast had fallen onto the other person's face.
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Posted: Sun Sep 26, 2010 10:51 am
O O C :
FFFF. I wrote way too much. sdksdl sorry for my
LONG, GOD-AWFUL RAMBLES. OTL. You don't have to write
this much... sdjskdsjdks sorry. My next post will [hopefully]
not be complete and utter crap.
For Miao, the Academy couldn’t take up enough time. He arrived there early, and he stayed there late. Time that was not spent on opera dutifully orbited around the facility. Miao needed few things in life, but the Academy was one of them. And though there was no school this morning, there was still plenty to be learned. He had been up when the vendors rose, and one of the first patrons as they reopened at sunrise. If the early bird catches the worm, the early pupil must then catch the finest books, no? That was, at least, how Miao saw it. Oh, sure, sleep was still etched in his body, and the blood in his veins was close and sluggish at best – but it was enough. He was the only one browsing the stall; he could afford to take his time. And, furthermore, it wasn’t as if he had much of anywhere to be afterwards. There would be meals to be made, yes, chores to do, certainly, and evening rehearsals, definitely; but all of that could – and would – wait. For now, Miao let himself be filled with the smell of dust and dried ink. For now, there were only books. For now, everything was fine.
After careful deliberation – unrolling and re-rolling of scrolls, feeling the thickness of the parchment, comparing the length and the price, skimming through passages – the boy decided on a simple one. Some thing were elegant in their many details, others revealed beauty in the simplest of lines. Miaoyin was never picky – at least not when it came to texts – about which beauty he encountered. The words themselves, of course, would always be the purest beauty; the body they came in was less important. Not to mention, he thought secretly, the plainer it looked, the less likely his aunties were to pry and poke and inspect it. That was another good thing about the morning market: his aunts only went shopping at noon. (When the sunlight was in the “perfect” position to “highlight” their “beautiful” cheekbones, and glimmer perfectly in the canvas of their dark eyes – or however they had described it.)
”Good morning, Miss Lee!” The youth forced his happiest tones from his throat, his sleepy muscles pulling back in a smile. They would be sore all morning, he was sure of that. The lady - who was neither ancient nor young, rather she was on the cusp of the two, making her ugly and exquisite all at once – did not return his cheery nature. She never did. (Not a morning person, he figured. Then again, few people were nowadays – their minds heavy with midnight battles.) Miss Lee, he had come to notice, was not a very loud person. She said what needed to be said, and didn’t dare waste her tongue on extra books. The bookseller obviously knew the power of even the smallest articles – and these powers she kept for herself; unless, of course, you were willing to fork over enough coins to buy a tome or two. One day, the boy fancied, in a cyclone of silly fantasies and dreams, perhaps he’d open up a bookstore. It would be, he thought, a nice way to write his epilogue.
She said nothing to him this morning, rather she arched a single brow expectantly, and counted the coins he dropped on the table. Their conversations had become shorter and shorter over the years. Miaoyin had long since memorized every price, and Miss Lee had lost interest in speaking to him from the moment he had waltzed in.
He tucked the scroll into his robe as he turned to leave. Partly to protect it, and mostly to keep it hidden from his family; their fingers would be dipped in oils and powders by the time he got home, and maintaining top quality was a necessity. These dialogues of ancient wisdom, sacred cultures, and the quietest quotations, were all his and his alone. He had them stashed away in his room, and only took them out when the rest of his chaotic world was still – the supporting actors all tightly wrapped in their own bedtime fairytales. He – and perhaps Miss Lee – were the only ones who would ever, ever know these secrets. He liked that.
The crooked steps were wet from last night’s rain, and Miao stepped out carefully, his steps slow, his eyes on his feet. His hands clutched his new purchase, nestled behind cloth and heart – one stupid step and it could be soaked, ruined, a waste of money.
He, however, did not make the stupid step.
Miaoyin would never quiet be sure of how it happened, but in an instant he felt a hard thwack at his head and he could hear the heart-wrenching moan of breaking stitches. He winced. His hands too afraid to move, though they ached to comfort his sore cheek; and as he stood, silent and still, a cloud came over him.
His face, already pale, was transformed into that of a ghost.
He opened his mouth, slowly, but the flour halted his tongue. “Feh! Ah – “
It was, he would later reflect, much like his masks of finer powder, the ones he donned for shows. Flour was not so different from his make up, however, it lacked a certain element, mainly, the prestige. His fingers brushed against his skin sharply – revealing a trail flesh under the mask of flour. And he could feel the anger boil within him, though his features were too tired to express it.
”… The mountains are high and the emperor is far away.”
His words, he liked to think, packed a certain punch that his body would never be able to recreate.
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Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 6:00 am
dude ven your writing is hawt
why wouldn't i want more of it? DD|
________
Liu was probably either insanely mean to feel like laughing at the boy in front of him (uhh or underneath him) or maybe the situation really was just too funny. Either way, the lone chuckle that fell from his mouth was something he hoped the other kid hadn't heard, because judging from his looks, he appeared to be mildly angry. Now, traditionally, Liu edged away from angry people - this was usually because he didn't want to make them more infuriated with him. But this - this boy, he really made Liu want to crack up, and maybe it was the fact that the flour on his face looked surprisingly natural or something similar to that, but Liu thought he took it too seriously. The guy hadn't even tried to stand up, he'd just sort of ... sat there. And stared.
Looking somewhere else from his face - now that Liu took a closer look, with the obscene amount of flour piled atop it and the piercing ruby eyes, this boy was most likely around his age and they had the same build. Both were frail and small and looked rather weak. He tried to think back on his muddled days at the Academy - had he ever seen him before? Liu thought not. He'd never encountered a Lunarian with ruby eyes before, and in fact, they were rather fascinating. The boy's eyes, that's what he meant. Because the stare that mimicked those of a fish had gotten rather boring, and when the Lunarian finally opened his mouth and said something, Liu felt the urge to smile again.
That is, until he heard what he said. ”… The mountains are high and the emperor is far away.” Liu blinked and tried to understand what that meant, before realizing it was a riddle. Oh dear~ was this person someone who spoke in riddles? Because it was well-known among all that Liu could solve them (oh yes he could solve them), but he found the effort intensely irritating. What was the point in talking in riddles? Was the idea that you would actually gain some wisdom from trying to understand them? In his opinion, it actually killed a conversation. Not to mention that riddles wasted time, and made the person who spoke them sound overly-confident and like an arse.
Liu tried to guess what the riddle meant (well, it was only appropriate since he had knocked the boy over and well really....) Sadly, he failed. Though Liu tended to excel in mind games and strategy revolving puzzles, riddles were not his forte, to say the least. He gave up within a few seconds and then turned his head over the boy to see how he was faring. He didn't look wounded, not at all; he just seemed to be slightly shocked (Liu couldn't fathom why) and distressed over something. Well, that wasn't much to be worried about - after all, the Chinese boy had once broken a girl's leg because he'd stumbled onto her, and now that - that had posed a problem. Perhaps if he helped this boy clean up as quickly as possible, he could go back to the market and purchase some more flour for his missing batch of ingredients.
Seeing as he still couldn't investigate as to what the riddle implied (though he thought it was something negative), Liu shrugged. So he went decided to be stupid and blurted out the only thing he said when he heard one that spoke in riddles. "Could you not speak in riddles?"
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