<P> Tangram <Eiji/Xun>

[shibrogane]

The next time she came to the Pantheon, she knew where she was going and she knew exactly who she'd find, and it was a sensation that had become quite unfamiliar in the twenty-odd years she'd been away from home. That didn't mean it was unwelcome; just passing strange, and she promised herself she'd get used to it, just like she got used to everything. She liked having a grandfather who didn't think she was broken, that was all, and she didn't think she should have to explain that, not even to herself--

"So what am I doing, thinking about it," she mumbled under her breath, stopping before the door with the beautifully-articulated tree. Would it be rude to let herself in, here? Maybe presumptuous, even. Gods could be fickle, or so the stories said. Zeus in particular seemed to have a lot of problems with presumptuous mortals, but then, she thought her grandfather would have been more equivalent to, um... She thought about it, but there wasn't much dragon tradition or lifewater tradition in the Greek pantheon, so she dropped it. Poseidon was really such an amalgam of god traditions anyway, she couldn't in good conscience call her grandfather his equivalent-- Or would it be offensive to Xun Jiang to wait outside the door when he'd invited her to come back whenever?

She just didn't want to presume.

Her problem was solved, however, when the elfin Aoide to her grandfather opened the door and let her in; she flushed red at being caught waffling, bowed and apologized, and then picked her way along the path she remembered from before to find Xun Jiang. When she did, she pulled her bag to her front, hands cradling the rotund object inside protectively. It was about the size of her head, and as she extricated it from the green canvas, she said, "I brought my pearl to show you." She'd brought stories, too, but those were all in her head, and she didn't need paper to remember them. All of the scrolls were old and valuable, and if she were to give them to Xun Jiang, it would have to be at her own place, where a surprise rain shower wouldn't hurt them. "If you have time to hear silly stories, I can tell you about the ryuko, too."  

[A Wandering Esper]

If Xun Jiang had known the saga of Eiji and his door, then he might have been amused. As quietly as possible, of course, as to not offend his lovely granddaughter. She was welcome anytime, of course, and the day she would finally try to come in on her own, she would find that the door would gently push open behind her touch, in spite of not having a handle. The door did not open for just anyone, of course.

The Dragon King had been busy talking to Lindita when Eiji arrived, and the demoness bowed and politely excused herself to carry out her task - he hoped that Lindita might be able to find Glyph. Forge did not seem to be calling out for an host, even now, and to be honest, Ti Lung was starting to grow a little worried. Through, he had no idea how long it had taken him to recover...

But that was neither here or there. "Hello, Eiji." He smiled, then led her toward the swings to that they could sit. "Your pearl..." It was... much bigger than he had expected it to be. When Eiji had spoken of a pearl, he had imagined something hand-sized, or at least easily kept on one's person. The ryuko's pearl was very different than he had imagined on that aspect. He was tempted to ask to touch it, but had no idea if it would be considered rude or not. So, Xun Jiang stayed his curiosity, for now. "I doubt they are silly, and yes, I definitively have time to listen to stories." He found it all interesting. These people - his people, his mortal descendants - and he wished to know as much as he possibly could about them before presenting himself to them in truth.  

[shibrogane]

She settled herself in one of the swings, mildly embarrassed; she was thirty-nine years old precisely, for all she looked a fresh-faced seventeen, and she was surely too old to sit there! But it was comfortable enough, and she didn't want to make anyone angry with a complaint. Not that she thought Xun Jiang would be easily angered, not after his seeming patience with her sudden arrival on two separate occasions. It was nice, to not be considered an interruption. She smiled at her pearl, ghosting a hand over its smooth surface.

(Well; not quite smooth. She had gnawed on it a few times as a baby, and there were still small tooth-marks on the outside layer.)

"It gets smaller," she said, almost defensively, when she saw the way he looked at her pearl. "I just like it this size." To prove it, she let the pearl shrink; when it fit in the palm of her hand and was about the size of a magic eight ball, she closed her fingers around it to let it know that it was fine the way it was, now. "A ryuko's pearl is their life," she said to him, solemnly. "It is the source of all their mana and if they lose it, they will get very sick. If it breaks, they will die." She traced small circles over the iridescent surface with the pad of her index finger, careful not to score the surface with a nail. "We come into the world with it--it forms with us inside our mother's womb. Sometimes, the pearl doesn't grow, and that's a sign to keep a careful eye on the baby because it's probably inside them. They usually die, if that happens. We're hardier than mortals, but we're not immune to harm like that."

She stared at the pink sheen of her pearl, and then hesitantly held it out to Xun, fingers cupped so she wouldn't drop it. "You can hold it if you're careful," she said.  

[A Wandering Esper]

Xun Jiang did not seem to share Eiji's idea of being too old for swings - he sat in the one facing her without a second thought, tail curling loosely around one of the vines that kept it held to the large branch overhead.

Really, the idea of being too old for something was a silly one, when you were, for the most part, ageless.

The pearl seemed to become more and more maddeningly familiar the more he looked at it, but no true memory came. By now, Ti Lung knew better than to hope that it would. Eiji's explanation of the pearl and what it represented did feel the gap somewhat, and he could puzzle out some thing from there. Perhaps the first ryuko had come into being from pearls like these, only pearls that he had himself enchanted... He listened intently, not saying a word and obviously very interested in what Eiji had to say. "Life is a fragile thing..." It always was. He hoped the case Eiji spoke of where rare.

And they were not ageless, he assumed - else there might be individuals that would have remembered the him from before much more directly - and why would have Eiji been left to grasp at straws, then ?

The pearl was the source of a ryuko's life and power, which meant the two were linked. Perhaps it meant that Eiji's pearl did not have as much mana as it should have, and that was what kept her from transforming. It gave him ideas, things to think about, as he could not quite leap into action right there and then even if he had wished it.

Xun Jiang only took the pearl when she willingly handed it over - supporting it with the uttermost care with both hands. It was smooth under his touch (apparently he had not found any teeth marks yet), and heavier than he had expected. "Do you always have to keep your pearl near you ?" Or could it be kept to safety, as long as the ryuko came close to it ? This was more curiosity than anything else. He had the feeling these pearls were not as fragile as one might believe.

His curiosity satisfied, the pearl was carefully handed back to it's owner. Eiji had seemed nervous about letting it go, and he could certainly understand. After all, he had moved his own gem from the location Illisia had put it, to somewhere where it might not be so easily seen, or harmed.  

[shibrogane]

She leaned forward even as she let Xun Jiang take the offered pearl. Just because she handed it over willingly didn't mean that she exactly welcomed it leaving her grasp. "I can be almost twenty miles away," she says, "before I start feeling unwell." She accepted the pearl back into her hands, pressing a small secretive kiss to the crest of it before tucking the pearl into her robelike top. It ought to have been visible; except Eiji had used what magic she had to vanish it.

That done, she bit the end of her braid--nervous habit, really--and glanced up at Xun Jiang. "Grandfather, is it true there's really an entire pantheon of Gods coming into being?" She'd tell a ryuko story soon, she assured herself--but she was sure it'd sound silly, especially to a god. Even if the God doesn't really remember his past…  

[A Wandering Esper]

The pearl vanished, but the Dragon King did not question it. It made sense that she would have a way to keep her pearl on her person, and yet have it be undetectable. Twenty miles was not that much, when one thought about it. "I will keep that in mind." He nodded.

"Yes, there is. My brothers-" At least a few of them - "and the other gods as well. They are reborn here, from gems and... a sacrifice. A mortal must bear the gem, until the god is reborn through them." He saw no need to hide it. Eiji would figure out that much soon enough - she was a smart girl. "But we are not reborn into the whole of our powers... As you already have noticed." It was a growing irritation, that he felt like he was stagnating. There had been steady improvement, and then... Nothing, nothing at all, as if he had hit a wall face-first.

At least his irritation now came from the present, and not the past. That was an improvement. "Only a few have attained their former glory... Tien Lung being one of them." This was almost a question in itself - how much did she - and the ryuko - know of his brothers, of the other gods ? How had they regarded them ?  

[shibrogane]

Eiji listened closely, viewing his words through her own instinctive understanding of mythology, things gleaned from her studies over twenty years in the field. "It follows the Campbell myth cycle," she said, leaning forward slightly, interest in her lavender-blue eyes. The lilt at the end of her words made them a question; but she wondered if it was a reference Xun Jiang would understand. "You can't obtain something great without giving something equally so great in return," she explained. "To save the world, you sacrifice your innocence, or something like that. It's also called the Hero's Journey."

But probably he wasn't interested in hearing about things like that. Eiji eased back on her swing, brushed her toes through the grass beneath them. "Tien Lung?" She tipped her head to the side, and said, "Oh. The one who shields." Obviously their own progenitor headed their pantheon, but there were ryuko who looked to the Worldshield first. Eiji didn't so much have a 'patron' dragon king as she had an obligation to somehow become normal… "Sometimes we look to other Dragon Kings," she said. "I never have, so I don't know very much about it."  

[A Wandering Esper]

The what ? No matter how Eiji seemed convinced that the god had little interest in her knowledge, it was far from the case. "That sounds accurate." He had to admit. But then, most of what mortals considered myth had at least a base of truth to it.

Never had ? But then, he figured that she had spent so much time trying to figure out what was 'wrong' with her - and how to 'fix' it. It was frustrating, to know this and yet to also know there was nothing he could do about it.

"I would like to know more about you. And the Ryuko." Oh, did he ever. His tail was wagging back and forth, betraying his interest. It looked more like it should have belonged to an overly excited puppy rather than a god.