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 Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2024 5:06 pm
North End Park, Kaifeng had learned, was generally a good place for going on patrol. Plenty of good people, including Muri and Kerberos, hung out around here pretty regularly. Not all the time, which Kaifeng agreed sounded pretty silly and like a good way to get yourself made the victim of schemes and/or violence from certain malefactors, but regularly enough to be fairly reliable presence. Good people to chat with if things were quiet (and the fact that Muri seemed to want to get to know Helene better didn’t hurt).
The park was also big, which meant a lot of space for ne’er-do-wells to cause trouble. Not a lot of Chaos auras seemed to be out and about tonight, at least not in the direction that Kaifeng had headed. For a while, Kaifeng felt a Dark Mirror aura that about matched his own power level, but whoever it belonged to didn’t show themselves. Before too long, the aura grew dimmer and dimmer before finally disappearing—either the Mirror senshi had powered down or they’d simply left the area that Kaifeng’s senses covered. Looking around as he pressed ahead, some of the people around the shops and cafés outside the park seemed a bit sluggish. Maybe they’d had some energy drained?
But with most of them, it was too hard to tell if any odd behaviors were energy draining or just a consequence of it being evening time.
One thing that was fairly straightforward, though: another White Moon aura led Kaifeng toward the picnic tables, and right nearby, somebody lay curled up in the grass. Very strongly reminded of finding Selenga after his run-in with the sensory overload Mirror senshi last summer, Kaifeng approached carefully and quietly. As he got closer, he took stock of who he’d found: a Page wearing Ida colors and symbols like Leng-Leng’s, skinny and pale and looking fairly young, seeming like he might radiate didi energy when he was well enough.
Trying not to startle him or make too much noise, Kaifeng knelt beside the Page. “Hey,” he whispered, wanting to reach out and put a hand on the Page’s shoulder but holding off, just in case the lingering effects of whatever he’d gotten hit with made him sensitive to touch. “Didi…… My name’s Kaifeng. How are you feeling?”
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2024 4:49 am
Lanting mostly felt....dizzy. The aftereffects of the rude Mirror Senshi's magic were starting to wear off, he was pretty sure, but he still felt shitty and disoriented and off-balance, and frankly, part of him wanted to just....sit in the grass. And not move. For a long, long while.
Unfortunately, he probably couldn't do that, but he also wasn't eager to drag himself upright and home.
There was someone else kneeling next to him, and Lanting had to blink, for a moment, and shake his head a little, before he could focus enough to look at the man next to him. Tall, in red and purple, with symbols that Lanting sohuld probably know because he was a Knight and he should recognize other Knights but unfortunately for everyone, mostly himself, he was also sort of a failure at that kind of thing.
"Bad," he admitted, finally, in response to the question. It felt like the most honest possible answer. "Fought a Senshi who was stronger than me. Really stupid. Nasty magic."
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2024 8:24 pm
Kaifeng frowned sympathetically, settling in beside the young Page. Taking stock of what he said about what had happened and looking at how he behaved, Kaifeng began to picture in his mind what might have happened. The senshi’s nasty magic could have used a lot of potential effects to create this situation, but in addition to having worn the poor boy out, that magic seemed to have made him maybe a bit sensitive?
One specific face came to mind, in light of the Dark Mirror aura he’d felt while coming into the park. If she was behind this today, part of Kaifeng wished that he could have caught her with Huan-ge beside him. She hadn’t taken too well to the effects of Helene’s magic, and since he was more powerful now, Dark Mirror Lete would probably have liked it even less.
“Not the best idea, but the courage and nerve are commendable,” Kaifeng told the Page as gently as he could. He did need to learn to respect his own limits, but when he was already in such a bad state, Kaifeng didn’t have the heart to be harsh with him about it. “The senshi in question, though…… Were they taller than you, with wavy, kinda red grape-colored hair down to the floor? Lilac and bright green colored fuku? Nasty attitude and acts like it’s bullying to tell her not to drain energy?”
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2024 9:08 pm
This other Knight was, at least, not berating him for how foolish he'd been. Nor was he pretending that Lanting hadn't been stupid, which was also nice. Lanting didn't feel like he needed to be patronized; he'd made a mistake and he'd paid for it and that was that.
Also, Knight Gege apparently knew the Senshi he'd tangled with, so that was interesting. It sounded like she was the type to go out and cause lots and lots of problems on purpose.
"Yeah, that's totally her," Lanting said, nodding at the description, and then, very piteously, he said "she called me a Harry Potter cosplayer. Because of the wand. Like I got to choose my weapon." But lest his Knight Gege think otherwise, Lanting scooped up his little wand and held it close to his chest. "I like my wand, anyway, it's pretty."
He sat back on his heels, taking a deep breath.
"I think I'm starting to feel better now? The grass doesn't hurt anymore, at least." Eugh, his poor stockings--it was a good thing they were green because they were probably grass-stained all to hell.
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2024 10:03 pm
“Eugh,” Kaifeng let slip with a sigh, shaking his head at the confirmation that his new Page Didi had run afoul of the brat with the cauldron-shaped brooch. “That sounds exactly like the Dark Mirror meimei I’m thinking of, yeah. First time I ran into her, she basically told a really great dragon-looking senshi, who isn’t from Earth, to go back where he came from. Then, she tried to justify draining people’s energy by paraphrasing Marx out of context. She has drained and attacked my cousin’s husband—he’s an Ida Knight, like you. His name’s Selenga, if you run into him. And my zhiyin’s senshi magic made her feel bad about her actions for a while? But that one seems particularly allergic to learning lessons that upset her.”
Generally speaking, Kaifeng didn’t enjoy frowning about anybody in the way that he did about the Dark Mirror meimei in question. He didn’t like having reason to think that people didn’t care to learn better ways of being, or didn’t care about other people. Yes, he did know that people like that existed in the world……but actively dealing with somebody who certainly seemed to be one of them? It was discouraging. It was unpleasant.
Still, he didn’t want to let this young Ida Page get too down right now, so Kaifeng remained mostly upbeat. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, but she still shouldn’t have insulted your wand,” he agreed. “She talked trash about the folding fan that I had when I was a Page, too. It all comes off as very……‘I feel like I’m the worst, so I always act like I’m the best and then try to drag everybody else down too.’ At least, when she does it.”
Looking around the park for a moment didn’t reveal any obvious threats. Nothing popping up on Aura senses. Still, after a run-in with that Mirror-meimei, the young Page might not be safe on his own. “Would you be okay with me walking you home,” Kaifeng asked with a small smile. “After you squared up with Loudmouth Mirror-meimei, I’d feel better making sure you get home safe? But only if you’re okay with that.”
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2024 10:19 pm
Lanting winced a little, as Kaifeng described his encounters with this particular Dark Mirror. Yup, liked to cause lots of problems on purpose, totally unrepentant about it, kinda sucked all around, that....appeared to be an accurate assessment.
"Sucks that you've had to deal with her so much," Lanting said, "but it's kinda nice to know that my experiences aren't unique. Also, i'ss really cute? That you refer to your partner as zhiyin?" Like, obviously there was a romantic relationship there, Lanthing heard you about how there was technically a platonic explanation for that word no homo but also....no. Not the way Kaifeng said it. "But yeah, as a veteran of the Reddit comments, big 'I'm gonna fight you because I don't want to admit that I'm upset aobut sometihng else' energy."
He took a breath. Evaluated for a moment.
"Totally do want to take you up on that offer, yes. I think I'd feel better having someone else around." He made himself stand up, brushing off his dress and trying to ignore that there were indeed smeary grass stains on his shins. "I'm Lanting, by the way."
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2024 5:51 am
Oh, good! Kaifeng had hoped, when Lanting hadn’t reacted to being called “didi” by going “I don’t know what you’re saying to me,” that maybe he would recognize other Chinese terms. After Muri had reacted to the term zhiyin with “You know I’m Japanese, right,” Kaifeng had tried a bit to not just assume that others would necessarily recognize that term (though he did still sometimes use it with people whom he knew didn’t know what it meant). As he stood, joining Lanting on his feet, Kaifeng couldn’t help smiling and blushing about……well, everything wrapped up in the zhiyin discussion.
“Aiyah, it’s the most appropriate word I know for him,” he said brightly, fondly, blushing bright pink and grinning in the besotted way that he always tended to get when talking about Huan-ge with literally anybody. “Y’know, for basically all of my life? I tried going with different guys, different girls, different non-binary cuties? But nothing ever worked out, and most of them didn’t actually do anything wrong? So, after a while, it started to feel like ‘Okay, maybe I’m the problem. Maybe it’s just that there’s something wrong with me, or I’m not supposed to have that ultra kinda love you never walk away from, or something. Maybe I want it, sure, but that doesn’t mean that I’m supposed to have it’? But then it was like……”
Kaifeng sighed dreamily. “Helene-gege found me right when he first got to Earth. And he walked into my life, and it was like ‘Oh. There’s never been anything wrong with me. There wasn’t anything wrong with any of the people I tried with before, either. I was just looking for what I wanted with people who weren’t right for me personally, because that person was trapped on a moon of Saturn for a thousand years.’”
Which was equal parts depressing and uplifting, probably, now that Kaifeng had said it out loud and could actually think about that.
But hoping not to let things get too bogged down, he gestured out at the town around them. “So, Lanting of Ida,” he said brightly, “which way gets us to home?”
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