Lately, one of Kaifeng’s primary interests in exploring his Wonder was looking for any maps that Xingyi-ge might have made. He’d done quite a bit of looking on his own and some with Helene, but so far, no signs of maps had shown up in any of the rooms that Kaifeng had checked in the tower. As he and Selenga teleported in, Kaifeng heaved a sigh and went to crouch by the riverside.
“I’m going to get this fixed up so it’s less clogged, and stagnant, and gross, Leng-Leng,” he said, voice somewhat pensive and somewhat wistful as he reached for the long stick that he always used for prodding at the algal bloom. “I really want to get this mess cleaned up like I’ve been able to do for other places around here, y’know? In all the memories I’ve gotten back that have had the river, it’s been bright, and clear, and flowing. Huan-ge had a good idea about trying to find the source? But that’s what we need the maps for.”
Still crouching, Kaifeng looked up at his cousin(-in-law). “If it were just me, I probably wouldn’t think twice about following the river to wherever it goes and letting whatever happens, happen? But I’ve gotten back other memories about, like? Xingyi needing to bury someone who left the Saturnian capital, wandered into the woods without proper guidance, and wasn’t heard from again until someone else found their body. Apparently, there’s another settlement along the river? Some place called Asshai, which had its own Knight? But……”
Kaifeng shrugged. He meant to push himself back up to standing with an emphatic declaration about working together to find a map, but little chittering sounds distracted him. Glancing toward the bridge that went over the river, Kaifeng cooed. “Awww, hello, xiao-hei-bā,” he warmly greeted the death’s-head spider as it skittered over to him. Ignoring Selenga entirely, the spider came right to Kaifeng’s hand, and made happy little clicking sounds as it crawled onto Kaifeng’s shoulder.
Glancing back to Selenga, he smiled. “Life’s been coming back here ever since I got to Squire,” Kaifeng explained. “Some of the babies look creepy, but they’re really very sweet, I promise.”
genovianprince
Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2024 6:44 am
Selenga stood next to Kaifeng and awkwardly reached out to pat Kaifeng's shoulder as he vented about the river. He needed to explore his own Wonder more—see what he could do to help restore life. But in the here and now, he was with his cousin-in-law and trying to help him.
"Yes, let's not just start walking down the ri—iver," he said, stuttering a bit when the spider came up. He swallowed, removing hs hand and remaining very tense as he watched the spider.
"Say that all you want," he said uneasily. "I don't want to get close."
Kaifeng had expected that Selenga might not be comfortable with some of the babies that called his Wonder home, but he hadn’t quite expected the reaction to be that intense. Frowning sympathetically, he reached into his subspace pocket.
“You might not want to watch this, Leng-Leng,” he said gently, without judgment. It was fair that Selenga didn’t like some of the creatures that lived here. “I’m going to give xiao-hei-bā a little treat to distract her. That way, she can be happy and you can be comfortable. But spider treats aren’t exactly flavored cookies shaped like bones.”
To say the least, honestly. The shop back in town where Liánlí got everything for Táotáo generally had various kinds of dead insects in stock as food for fish, snake, and spider-lovers who needed to feed their more carnivorous pet-children. Last time he’d gone, he’d picked up a sizable container of those morsels, specifically to keep in his subspace so he could feed the little guys at his wonder. Even if Selenga was uncomfortable with Kaifeng-the-Wonder’s precious little denizens, Kaifeng-the-Knight loved them and he wanted to be good to them when he visited.
The spider on his shoulder chittered eagerly as Kaifeng set one of the dead crickets on the grass. Offering her his hand again, he helped her down. As she spun her silk around the cricket to carry it away for later, Kaifeng gently skritched her abdomen, over the marking that looked like a little skull.
“You’re a good girl, xiao-hei-bā,” he told her warmly, “and I’m very proud of you.”
It was true. Frankly, Kaifeng was proud of everything that lived at his Wonder. Once he’d put the container of treats away, he stood and motioned for Selenga to follow him down the river a bit. Mostly, it was to put some distance between Selenga and the little spider, but Kaifeng had another purpose in mind. Namely, he hoped to distract Selenga somewhat with some of the other beings who lived here.
Fortunately, an opportunity presented itself just a few paces away from xiao-hei-bā: a long, pink wiggly boi, slithering through the grass by the riverside. Little antler-looking guys protruded from the creature’s head-area, too sensitive to be used for anything dangerous (as far as Kaifeng could tell, the “antlers” functioned more as sensory organs than anything). Along its back sat several clumps of wiggly tendrils that undulated without much apparent rhyme, reason, or ostensible purpose beyond looking adorable.
“Awww, I love these guys,” Kaifeng cooed, crouching down again and motioning for Selenga to follow him. “This one’s pink, but some of the others I’ve seen have been red or purple, too. I’ve been calling them ‘tiny dancers.’ You know, like Elton John?” To illustrate his point, Kaifeng sang softly, “Hold me closer, tiny dancer. Count the headlights on the highway.…” Switching back to speaking, he explained, “It’s ‘cause the tendrils on their backs look like they’re dancing.”
genovianprince
Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2024 9:24 am
Selenga hummed, closing his eyes and letting Kaifeng get the spider thing to shoo. He couldn't do bugs, he just couldn't. Bugs, snakes, all sorts of creepy crawlies just sent him reeling. He didn't want any part of it.
Once the spider had disappeared, Selenga followed Kaifeng with a little hum. "Oh, it's..." He looked closer at it, before moving back again—not dramatically, but still backwards. "It's another... bug?"
Man, Kaifeng made this difficult. The bug thing was a little bit cute if you looked at it a certain way, but mostly the thing just gave him Bad Vibes and he didn't want to get too near this thing, either. "I'm glad you like them so much, though now I'm starting to be afraid for whatever is going to start showing up on my own Wonder."
……Aw, no, Selenga didn’t like the tiny dancers, either. Kaifeng didn’t let himself wilt too much externally, not wanting to make his cousin-in-law feel bad about how he had boundaries and different tastes from Kaifeng’s. It stung a bit, but in fairness, maybe Kaifeng had gotten used to Huan-ge being as excited as he was about life returning to his Wonder. Not wanting to dwell on it and risk making Selenga feel worse, Kaifeng gave him a warm smile, then extended a hand to help him up.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about your wonder, personally,” he said, in a voice that he hoped gave Selenga something pleasant to focus on as he led them toward the tower. “Your river isn’t all clogged up and messy like mine. It’s got the right look for fresh water, where it’s not so clear that everything is dead—meaning that nobody can feed on anything—but also not so clogged up that the algae suffocates everything else. Maybe there’s something tied to a Knight’s power level, since I didn’t notice any of these little guys until I got to Squire? But it might also be that the little guys who come back need to have things they can survive on, like how some of my Wonder’s friends have been eating the algal bloom in the river.”
Since his first trip up here, Kaifeng had done a lot of reading about water purity, water quality, and how to clean up a mess like what time had made out of his own river. He still wasn’t entirely sure how much of what he’d learned about Terran systems of cleaning the water would apply on Saturn? But that was why he hoped to find a map. Huan-ge had had the right idea about going to look for the water source, and investigating that was likely the best bet for figuring out the real, central issue at hand.
Heading up the stairs, Kaifeng added, “I bet your wonder will have, like? Little crabs with golden shells, or lobsters whose shells look like flower petals, or something like that. And probably some cute, fuzzy friends when you get more powerful and more resources spring up there. Little bunnies with patterns on their fur to help them camouflage themselves among the flowers, maybe?”
genovianprince
Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2024 10:13 am
Selenga took Kaifeng's hand and stood, brushing dirt off his knees. "Tied to our power level sounds... well, sound," he mused as he followed Kaifeng around. "I suppose we'll start finding out soon enough. Hopefully. I'd like to be a Squire before you become a full Knight, you know."
He smiled a little, grasping the railing as they made their way up the stairs. "Flower bunnies sounds adorable," he gushed a little, beaming. "Oh, that would be lovely. Maybe butterflies to pollinate...? Bees of some kind? As long as they stay away from me, of course. If I weren't so worried about the crabs being extinct, I might see how a Selengan River Crab tastes fried up. Assuming I'll have crabs. Crayfish, maybe..."
There they were. This kind of conversation, Kaifeng found much nicer than the kind that made Selenga feel all out-of-sorts and uncomfortable, especially considering that both of their Wonders were the subjects of discussion. Kaifeng loved his Wonder, and he wanted for other people—especially the people he cared about—to love it, too. Anything that put Selenga at odds with his own Wonder, likewise, sounded terribly upsetting and Kaifeng didn’t want to put anything like that on any other Knight’s shoulders.
“Yeah, that’s the spirit,” he said brightly, grinning at Selenga and leading them past the floor where they’d found the first of Xingyi’s miscellaneous junk rooms, behind the puzzle lock with the portrait of his mother. “Both the believing in yourself and thinking about what beautiful creatures might call your Wonder home, someday. I’m sure the butterflies who might come back at Selenga will be gorgeous. Just like I’m sure you’ll be a Squire before I’m a full Knight. And who knows, maybe you’ll get enough crabs or crayfish someday that it won’t hurt their survival chances to taste one or two of them……”
Kaifeng trailed off as they came to the next landing, though. Not for any bad reasons—in fact, the reason made him break out in a megawatt grin. “Xiao-Qióngxiān,” he called out.
Waiting for them at the next floor sat a rabbit. Fairly large by rabbit standards and black as midnight, she peered down the stairs at Selenga and Kaifeng, tilting her little head and her matching silver antlers. Looking like a qilin’s antlers—even a little bit like Huan-ge’s—they curled back over the top of her head and her long, lop ears. The way she fluttered her (as far as Kaifeng had seen) non-functional bat wings as Kaifeng and Selenga got closer looked like a puppy wagging its tail when excited to see people.
As they got up close enough, Kaifeng crouched down again and let the rabbit sniff his hand before gently skritching the back of her neck. “This little baby isn’t one of the creatures my Wonder’s brought back,” he explained, smiling at Selenga. “You remember that wispy friend that came and found me after we had that intense talk in the park? Back around Starfest? I guess I must have nurtured them enough because a couple visits back, she turned into Xuánqīng Qióngxiān right here. ‘Xuánqīng’ with the characters for ‘deep black,’ ‘qióng’ with the character for ‘fine jade,’ and ‘xiān’ like the Taoist immortals.”
Curious about the New Person, Xuánqīng Qióngxiān hopped closer to Selenga and started sniffing.
genovianprince
Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2024 12:37 pm
Selenga nodded along, humming lightly as they traipsed through the tower, memories flashing over his mind in little bits and pieces. He did like it here, quite a bit, even if he vastly preferred staying away from all the bugs. The rabbit, however, was a much more welcome surprise—he perked up a little when he saw her, and stayed very still—not out of fear, like the bugs, but out of respect for the creature in front of him. He didn't want to startle her.
"Yes, I recall the wisp," he answered, tilting his head and looking over the rabbit. She looked so lovely... He wanted to pet her so badly it hurt.
"A good, strong name for her," he said, crouching down to offer his hand to Xiao-Qiongxian to sniff. He hoped she'd like him enough to let him pet her—he'd seen Kaifeng pet her, of course, but that didn't mean very much in terms of his own trustworthiness.
Fortunately for Selenga, Xuánqīng Qióngxiān was neither startled by his approach nor put off by any aspect of his presence with Her Person. After a moment of sniffing at Selenga’s hand, she briefly allowed him to pet her—but only briefly. Something lit up in her eyes and after allowing Selenga a few pets, she started off down a corridor branching off to the left. She only paused to look back at Kaifeng and Selenga like “Well, are you going to follow me or not?”
Kaifeng’s initial reaction to seeing Xiao-Qióngxiān scamper off was confusion, but when she glanced back at him and Selenga, it all made sense. “Ohhhhh,” Kaifeng said softly. “She’s got something to show us, I think? So, shall we follow?”
Following the space-jackalope would lead them to one of the many assorted rooms within the tower. Much like the junk room that Selenga had helped Kaifeng unlock before—the room where they’d found Yuchen, Xingyi’s violin—the room had a sliding puzzle attached to it. This one sat on the door itself, though, and from an initial glance at the tiles that made it up, Kaifeng felt certain that this puzzle was a landscape and not a portrait.
“Ha, good thing you came with me today,” he said good naturedly. “Best hand I know at solving puzzles.” Humming pensively, Kaifeng leaned in a bit closer to get a better look. What he picked out on one of the center tiles made him perk up. Pointing to it, Kaifeng said, “Hey, doesn’t this look a bit like the bridges at your Wonder?”
genovianprince
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 4:12 pm
Selenga felt honored to have had the chance to pet her soft fur for the brief moment he got, before they followed after her.
He blushed a bit and chuckled awkwardly at the comment from Kaifeng. "You're too kind," he said, then paused, looking at the puzzle intently.
It did. He'd stared at his Wonder so long he'd memorized it, now, and began quickly whipping the pieces across the board, sliding the tiles at an intense speed as things slowly clicked into place, the picture being formed.
"I wonder why something that looks like mine is here," he muttered at one point where he got briefly stuck, trying to give his brain a moment to breathe.
Kaifeng hummed pensively, looking down at the puzzle as Selenga slid the tiles around like a wizard and pieced together a picture. The landscape view of what sure looked a lot like Selenga the Wonder made Kaifeng furrow his brow, but even though he was thinking along the same lines as Selenga the Knight’s question, hearing it said aloud made Kaifeng feel………well.
Not inclined to argue, exactly? Because he rather enjoyed this new rapport he got to have with Selenga, where neither of them were the stupid assholes they’d been as teenagers and so they didn’t argue quite as much. But offering an opinion that maybe didn’t align with the feeling he was getting like Selenga thought that his Wonder shouldn’t matter to people. (If he did feel that way, then Kaifeng really hoped it didn’t indicate Selenga also feeling as though he shouldn’t matter to people.)
“Well, Qí Yáolán-lǎojiàng indicated that he recognized me as the new Kaifeng, and that he had less-than-ideal experiences with Xingyi,” Kaifeng pointed out, gently ruffling a hand up and down Xiao-Qióngxiān’s back, through her very soft fur while he left Selenga space to work. “And he didn’t really say much about his wife, aside from mentioning that he had one, that she was also a Knight, and that she wasn’t buried at Selenga?
“But……y’know, Xingyi didn’t have blood siblings? But he did have these two—they weren’t quite adoptive siblings, but they also weren’t very much like cousins, even though he called their parents his ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’? I think the story there is that Auntie had been like, romantic best friends with Xingyi’s mother, but Auntie had some high-society Saturnian noble marriage and Xingyi’s mother was low-born, so her marrying some scruffy-looking smuggler from a big deal crime family on Murikabushi? Some people thought even that was marrying up. Either way, Xingyi’s kinda-foster-siblings were both Knights, one guy and one girl……”
Kaifeng shrugged. “Maybe his kinda-foster-sister was Qí Yáolán’s wife? So having a landscape of something important to her would make sense? Even if she wasn’t, maybe Xingyi just didn’t hate Qí Yáolán as much as Qí Yáolán disliked him? Or maybe he just thought the landscape at Selenga was beautiful and didn’t care that he and Qí Yáolán didn’t get along?”
genovianprince
Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2024 3:47 pm
Selenga listened with half an ear as he focused on the puzzle—he really ought to have expected some kind of answer from Kaifeng for his idle question, but he somehow hadn't. And here Kaifeng went, rambling away. He chuckled a bit, mostly to himself—if someone had told him when he was fifteen that this was where he'd be, listening to Lianli ramble on while helping him solve a silly little puzzle, he wouldn't have believed them.
"Maybe. I might ask the next time I go," he said mildly, trying to contain his excitement as he slid the last few tiles into the correct arrangement. "This is so beautiful. I don't say that just because it's mine, either."
Kaifeng hummed in agreement, nodding down at the puzzle, now that Selenga had completed it. “I wonder if Xingyi-ge painted it himself,” he said. “His usual favorite subject was actually Huan-ge—he has a whole ton of portraits in his studio at the cottage—but since he was a painter……? Maybe he did?”
Not that that could hold Kaifeng’s interest for too long right now. As soon as the final tiles clicked into place, the lock followed suit, tumblers turning over loud enough to hear out in the corridor. Beside him, Xiao-Qióngshān shivered with what certainly felt like excitement, only shifting away from Kaifeng to rub up against Selenga’s leg as Kaifeng opened the door before them. Aww, that was sweet. Kaifeng liked it when beings he cared about got along.
The room in which Selenga and Kaifeng found themselves didn’t look like any of the studies or book-hoards that Kaifeng had previously unlocked in the tower. Instead of shelves to the ceiling and miscellaneous old trinkets, rows upon rows of wooden racks went from the entrance all the way to the back wall. All over the floor lay scattered white husks that Kaifeng couldn’t identify. They seemed like they might have come from worms, given the long conical shape to them, but not knowing very much about entomology anything, Kaifeng willingly accepted that his guess might have been wrong.
The lighting in here didn’t help, either. The window built into the stone hid behind a dark curtain that let in some of the light, but not very much. Why Xingyi-ge could have needed the room darker when Saturn already lived in perpetual twilight, Kaifeng couldn’t quite imagine. Without any such ideas, he decided to take a closer look at the racks.
“Huh,” he said softly, stepping carefully as he walked between them. On closer inspection, he found little cubby-hole boxes.… Some contained assorted twigs or desiccated leaves. Others, more of the white, worm-looking husks. In several, Kaifeng spotted egg-shaped things and since there were so many, he didn’t think much of pulling one of them out to get a closer look. Furrowing his brow, Kaifeng frowned down at the egg; whatever it was, it was covered in soft, delicate white thread and had a hole on one end.
Turning the egg over in his fingers, Kaifeng let the thought slip, “……Silk? Is this silk thread? It feels like silk thread……”
genovianprince
Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2024 4:20 am
Selenga felt quite proud of himself as the locks clicked and Kaifeng opened the door. Excellent. Man, that felt really good. Xiao-Qiongshan nearly startled him when she rubbed against his leg, and he squatted to give her a quick pat before following Kaifeng.
He tilted his head at all the things in here—the worm husks, the cubbies—and hummed.
"Silk thread? So, this was a breeding ground for silk worms, maybe, to make thread from?"
CW: explicit discussion of silk farming, which involves animal cruelty and killing innocent animals in a pretty nasty way.
The Helene dialogue in this orange shade was written by Song!
“Yeah, I’d guess so? But that’s also what I’m confused about.” Kaifeng frowned pensively at the little hole at the bottom of the cocoon. “Not that I’ve ever done any of this, personally? But Huang Zhiming’s family used to be involved in sericulture before they left Chengdu for the States. He told me, San-di, and Qiang-er about how it used to work before I got out of Boston.”
Which, on consideration, was probably best not to detail too explicitly for Selenga. He’d been under a lot of stress recently, and the normal process of harvesting silk was extremely unpleasant to say the least. Telling someone so sensitive about how one’s grandfather’s family got the money to leave Sichuan Province for the States primarily through running a farm where they boiled thousands upon untold thousands of silkworms in their cocoons, killing them before they could become silk moths, just so the thread would remain unbroken? That would only upset Selenga and for no reason.
Instead, Kaifeng tilted the cocoon so Selenga could see the hole in the bottom. “You don’t normally see those when things are set up for sericulture,” he explained. “The cocoon is one of the biggest sources of silk, and the way most people harvest it doesn’t allow for the little holes. They break up the threads and allegedly make for lower quality fabric. It’s not unheard of, but—”
Kaifeng cut himself off abruptly as a memory slammed into him—
The room around him didn’t change, except that living worms now covered the racks. Some bone-white and others a jaundiced shade, clearly preparing to cocoon themselves. A hand he recognized as Kaifeng’s came into view. Not Liánlí’s hand, but still, a Kaifeng’s hand. He turned toward his companion—not Selenga, but Huan-ge, albeit currently powered up as Sailor Helene—and for a moment, it seemed like Xingyi Kurogane’s hand might reach for his face, or perhaps to brush some of Helene’s hair behind his ear.
Instead, with a flutter of delicate wings, some little friend flew over. Abandoning the path toward Helene’s face, Xingyi-Kaifeng turned his hand over so the moth could land on his knuckles. It seemed a bit big compared to the moths Liánlí-Kaifeng was familiar with, but the little sweetheart was nothing but gentle as it nuzzled at Xingyi-Kaifeng’s hand. Cooing softly, Xingyi brushed the back of one finger down the silk-moth’s thorax. A very light touch, as if he feared somehow harming the creature by being too firm with it. Then, he came closer to Helene and held up his hand, offering him a chance to pet the moth.
Although Helene didn’t hesitate, he took great care in stroking the moth’s thorax. The moth chittered pleasantly, fluttering its wings.
“That’s good,” Xingyi explained. “They do that when they like someone. For example, none of them have ever done it when Asshai’s come to visit. They really don’t like him.”
“Mn,” Helene said with a nod, seeming very much like he wanted to say something else. Based on what little Liánlí-Kaifeng had heard about this Knight called Asshai in other memories, he could imagine a lot of potential shade that Huan-ge could’ve thrown about him.
“At least my moths can still flutter their wings,” Xingyi-Kaifeng said softly, looking away from Helene, dropping his gaze to the moth on his hand. “A lot of the moths that people in this universe breed for silk farming, they can’t fly anymore. Some of them, their wings don’t work, purely vestigial; the ones they allow to live to maturity can only crawl. Others, they got bred to have huge bodies—bigger cocoons mean more silk, of course people want them big—and if people allow them to live long enough, they get too heavy for their wings to carry them anywhere.”
“‘If people allow them to live’ to maturity,” Helene repeated. Although his face didn’t shift that much, Liánlí-Kaifeng had studied Huan-ge’s microexpressions ever since he’d arrived on Earth. Anyone else might have seen the same expression that Helene always wore. But to Liánlí-Kaifeng, this memory-image of his zhiyin looked perfectly stricken. “Do they not……”
Helene trailed off in the face of Xingyi-Kaifeng shaking his head.
“The moths here have spinnerets, so they can create silk as adults,” he said, angling his hand and pointing so Helene could see them. “But most silk-moths can’t. They only make silk at all when they cocoon themselves in it. When the time comes, they dig themselves out and it leaves a hole in the bottom of the chrysalis—but that snaps the silk, doesn’t it. Unraveling it, people can’t predict how long any of the strands will be. They say that it makes the silk lower quality.”
Disdain dripped off of Xingyi-Kaifeng’s words, leaving no room for interpretation about how stupid he found that idea.
“…So the moths are killed before they leave the cocoon, then.” There was an edge of disdain in Helene's voice that matched Xingyi’s. “A terrible, short existence, solely to fuel a desire for a luxury good that could be done without.”
Xingyi nodded. Whatever grief he’d carried about the fate of most silkworms, it was powerful enough that Liánlí-Kaifeng felt like his own heart was breaking.
“The most common method is boiling them,” he said, barely above a whisper. “People raise these beautiful, peaceful creatures. Nurture them with the white mulberry leaves they love so much. They let them feel safe—can’t upset them too much, it might hurt the quality—and then, right when they’re working hard to transform? To become the fullest versions of themselves? The same people who showed them so much kindness throw them into pots of boiling water. Dozens of them at a time, if not hundreds. All so they can make better silk.”
Xingyi-Kaifeng sighed. “Nothing says that I have to make the burial shrouds myself, for people who need them. But the Knight of Kaifeng is supposed to care for these souls, to help them find rest. Adding more death and more pain to the balance of energies here, even if most people don’t think that pain matters? I don’t think that sounds helpful. If I harvest the silk myself, I can ensure that it’s not done at the cost of the moths’ lives.”
Down on his hand, the moth fluttered its wings again, and Xingyi bent to press a gentle kiss to the top of its head.
“Silk-moths don’t hurt anyone else to survive,” he went on. “They eat mulberry leaves, but out in the wild, they help fertilize the soil and carry pollen around in exchange. Maybe their lives aren’t the most important ones in this universe, but……” His breath hitched, and his voice quivered as he said, “Huanxi, why should they have to give their lives for our fancy fabric? Shouldn’t they be allowed to have their simple, beautiful dreams?”
—Liánlí-Kaifeng gasped as the memory faded out, leaving him in the same room but with Selenga and Xiao-Qióngxiān nearby him.
“Xingyi-ge,” he whispered, looking down at the cocoon in his hands. “……He did harvest the silk. He just did it in a way that—”
Before he could unthinkingly say too much and upset Selenga, Kaifeng cut himself off abruptly. Did…… He could have sworn that he heard the sound of fluttering wings. Looking up at all the empty candle-holders and unlit lamps, he didn’t see anything—until a fluffy white moth flew down and landed on the back of his hand.
