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 Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2024 11:19 pm
Whatever it had been summoning him, Corvina found himself dumped on his hands and knees in……somewhere other than where he’d last been. Someplace with soft, green grass that did not immediately slither around his fingers and try to fix him to the spot. It was cooler than his asteroid had been, as well. Not cold, not even chilly. Comfortably mild in a way that the weather on Corvina’s world had been only rarely. The air around him had the closed-in, stifling feeling of humidity, but even that wasn’t anything like the world he’d been on only moments ago.
On Corvina’s own world, humidity had sometimes managed to literally choke people. Alys, one of the only friends he’d had in his life, had lost four of her miscellaneous sisters that way.
Trembling (and very glad that no one was here to see it), Corvina shifted back off his hands. He settled into a kneeling position and looked around.… A wide array of botanical life surrounded him, trees and flowering bushes. All of it had clearly been planted and arranged with great care. Nowhere near the level of skill and artistry that the horticulturalists on Corvina had had, but that wasn’t an entirely fair standard; the rest of the universe could never get on the same level as Corvinate horticulturalists. They lacked the Corvinate people’s close affiliation with flowers. One could hardly blame them for such inborn deficiencies.
Yet, none of the plants laughed at Corvina as he drank in their appearances. None of them lunged at him, whipping at him with their roots or trying to strangle him with their vines. Nobody told him in his mother’s voice that the expression on his face made him look like an even bigger idiot than his father. Clearly, he had left his own world for somewhere else entirely.
And, as Corvina stood and tried to find his way, there was an aura.
Nothing powerful. Nothing special. Nothing remarkable in any way—a senshi or a Knight who was, perhaps, just starting out in their journey. Nothing that Corvina particularly wanted to deal with, but he followed the energy signature anyway. Maybe whoever it was could give him more information about……wherever he had found himself.
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Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2024 1:00 am
It was getting into summer, now, and Lanting was glad that his uniform was light, breezy fabric. It made the starting-to-get-humid evenings way, way more bearable, which was good, because Lanting...wanted to be a better Knight. Wanted to prove that he wasn't some brainless, silly little failure. And anyway, there were monsters to kill and people to save, and Lanting wanted to do both.
The park that he was wandering wasn't far from his townhouse, and he was glad that so far, there were no Chaos nasties trying to ruin his or anybody else's night. Yeah, sure, he wanted to help people and stop evil, but sometimes it was also nice to have a night where he didn't have to do that.
Besides, there was someone nearby. On his own side, which was a positive. Maybe someone Lanting could talk to, or patrol with, since they were about on the same level. So he turned in that direction, until he spotted the person the aura probably belonged to, and.
Oh.
Oh wow.
"Hi," he said, and he knew his voice was a little squeaky--but what else was one supposed to feel, confronted with an absolutely massive Senshi with orchid skin and what looked like broken horns and--was that a tail??
Lanting was aware, generally, of nonhuman Senshi, like Kaifeng's ridiculously hot alien boyfriend, but....wow.
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Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2024 3:21 pm
As he got closer to the source of the other aura, Corvina recognized the colors, the symbols, and the general uniform style that marked an Ida Knight. An instinct deep inside him reared back at the mere thought of being around one of them again. For long enough that Corvina had stopped counting days, he hadn’t dealt with any actual Ida Knights. None of them had been able to come. Chaos had left Corvina alone with just his memories of the only two Ida Knights who’d ever mattered to him: the man he’d loved (and killed), and the cousin he’d failed (whom everyone but Alys and Varamyr had believed Corvina had killed).
The sleeves on this Ida Knight…… They looked so similar to his, but—but, no. No, they couldn’t be. Watching the little Page, Corvina felt his tail swishing agitatedly—but it was stupid. Plenty of sites on Ida had Code Pieces at them. Plenty of Ida Knights existed to keep those locations, and their respective Code Pieces, safe from harm. Probably plenty of Ida Knights had billowing green sleeves with slits up to their biceps and golden bracelets. Simply being an Ida Knight didn’t mean that anyone—certainly not the tiny, delicate-looking one in front of Corvina now—had anything to do with him. Grinding his teeth and telling himself to keep it together, Corvina fought to keep his breathing even.
Maybe he should just go.…… Corvinate custom dictated that he should at least fight the little Page, in order to help him grow as a Knight, but that hardly seemed a fair contest. He looked so slender, and his little wand looked so small. Everything about him seemed fragile. Fighting someone like Corvina would have been like throwing a child into an arena with seven vicious pit-raptors and only a dagger. Sure, Corvina had handled that fine, but whatever sort of person the Ida Page in front of him was, he clearly wasn’t Corvinate. His skin looked too pale, and he lacked both the tail and horns that marked out Corvina’s people.
Besides, everyone else was dead. Only Corvina himself had been left standing.
He was shifting to change direction and just leave when the Ida Page……said something. Sounded like a greeting. Well, now Corvina would have shamed his entire people by leaving, so with a swish of his own billowing sleeves, he turned back toward the Page—and stopped.
“You……” escaped Corvina’s mouth unbidden, softer than he usually spoke with anybody. Squinting didn’t help him understand what was happening any better. Nor did tilting his head help him answer why the Page’s face looked so familiar and yet so different.… Had Corvina even left his world? Or was this some new trick from the Chaos, trapping him with someone who both was and couldn’t be—“Zhiheng.…… You can’t be Zhiheng. I killed you!”
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Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2024 11:01 pm
Maybe Lanting shouldn't have bothered--the Senshi looked....busy, maybe, or distracted, and anyway, he was probably being rude, assuming someone wanted to talk just because they were out and powered up and--
Oh.
Oh no.
"I'm not Zhiheng," he said, very quickly, "but I am Lanting of Ida. I'm his--reincarnation, I guess?" The explanation came tumbling out, and he hoped that whatever grudge had made this Senshi kill Zhiheng, it wasn't somethingt hat would continue into this life, because Lanting was one hundred percent sure that this man could manhandle him however he wanted.
(really. however he wanted. lanting would let him--)
It was a little dizzying, to learn that a Senshi had killed him. Butt hen, apparently he'd murdered a fellow Knight, so maybe--
Maybe Zhiheng really had been kind of a terrible person.
Lanting took another look at the Senshi, as if he might recognize sometihng, but-- "I'm sorry, I don't know--"
two awful sickening cracks and then--
Oh. Oh no. It seemed...it seemed almost obvious. Or at least incredibly sensible. He had remembered Zhiheng breaking something, something that was attached to someone he'd called "little beast," and here was a Senshi with broken horns who had hated Zhiheng enough to kill him.
"....Did...your horns. Did Zhiheng break them?" His voice was gentle, and soft, and he couldn't help but feel an ache in his chest for this poor Senshi. How long had he ben suffering? How painful must that have been?
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2024 2:09 pm
Corvina didn’t know whether to fight, scream, or something else entirely.
Fighting tended to be the way of things in his life. He expected a fight. Maybe he hadn’t entirely meant to say what he’d said. Hadn’t meant to show weakness to a potential enemy, especially not when Corvina still didn’t know where he was, and his mouth had the acrid, dry feeling of hunger sticking to every surface, and nothing made any sense right now. But intentional or not, Corvina had said that thing about Zhiheng, and when the little Ida Knight spoke, Corvina raised an arm. He held out a hand like telling the Ida Knight to stay back.
His fingers itched to throw around his magic, especially hearing that the Knight before him was the new Lanting. That would’ve shut the little Knight up good, if he tried anything. Get him doubled over, coughing up windflower petals, and whatever skills and experience he was hiding in such a petite frame wouldn’t matter. But this new Lanting needed to make the first move toward violence or things could far too easily turn against Corvina. Just like dealing with the Chaos on his world: attacking it directly only ever made it get angry and creative. Charging into battle with the Chaos led to Corvina losing whatever precious little he’d ever managed to secure for himself. No matter how much a direct attack felt like the right choice, self-defense was smarter.
Except this new Lanting didn’t attack him, didn’t even move to do so.
That thing he did with his voice, too.…… Making it go all soft like that? It sounded like a trap waiting to ensnare Corvina—Chaos had tricks like that, and wiles, and it always found a way to make him the fool—but……maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. He couldn’t feel any Chaos around them, so at least if Corvina did find himself ensnared, it wouldn’t be one of his planet’s beloved plants finally finding a way to choke the life out of him and make it stick.…… And while he could’ve been hiding great skill and precision in such a compact frame, maybe this new Lanting needed somebody to protect him.
But what Lanting said, Corvina met with a bemused tilt of the head. “You only remember part of what happened?”
That conclusion made sense, with what Lanting had said, but……did memories work like that? Corvina had no experience with this sort of thing one way or the other, but for Zhiheng’s memories to torment the new Lanting and to only do so in part? It……
Well. It sounded perfectly like Zhiheng, if Corvina was honest. The man had been nothing if not inscrutable.
“It wasn’t…… However the situation sounded? Or looked? Or whatever? It was complicated,” Corvina told the new Lanting, slowly lowering the hand he’d thrown up. “Zhiheng had just lost one of his sworn brothers—Dunnottar of Lysithea—and then I showed up. I had a fresh kill for him. A dream-wild dragon had attacked one of my people’s cities, and I slew it, and I brought it to him, to pay him court. To prove myself worthy……”
Corvina pressed his lips together. He didn’t know why, but the words, which should have been so simple, felt like they’d gotten stuck in his throat.
“Zhiheng had dismissed my tributes before,” he managed to get out, voice dropping low. “But that’s what people always say when the offering isn’t good enough and they know you can do better. I hadn’t known about Dunnottar’s fall.” He hadn’t shed any tears over the loss either. Nor would he have done over that Mercury Knight who’d also been friendly with Zhiheng. But that wasn’t really important enough to mention, Corvina didn’t think. “I wouldn’t have come that night if I had known. Paying court to him when he was grieving someone who had been as a brother to him?” Corvina shook his head. “Not unforgivable, but deeply inappropriate.”
He huffed, bowing his head. “Breaking off someone’s horns was a grave insult among my people—fitting for the sin against him I had committed. That was when I killed him. Under the laws of Corvina, he had every right to do it. But……it hurt.…”
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2024 8:13 pm
Clearly, this poor Senshi was scared. Lanting could understand that--this was probably a lot for him, running into the reincarnation of someone that had been so cruel to him in the past.
"I guess it's what happens when we reincarnate," Lanjting said, softly. "I don't have all of his memories, just...little bits and pieces. I think I'm supposed to get more, the more I visit my Wonder? But I haven't been a Page for very long, and I can't go very often." It felt like excuses, like he was trying to hide from something he hadn't even done, but--it was the truth, also. "I go as often as I can, but I just get these...little flashes." Except for once, but that was complicated, and it felt complicated to try and explain it.
"So I didn't see anything, just heard....it sounded awful, and he was so cruel after, I..." Lanting exhaled. "I'm sorry. That he treated you that way. It isn't right, no matter what he was going through."
Though this was....another layer of confusion. Why would Zhiheng have mourned, if he'd killed Dunnottar himself? Had it been an accident? Had he regretted it, after? Had it somehow been a necessary evil? Lanting didn't know.
(Neither did Dunnottar, he thought, but that was neither here nor there. Dunnottar was not the person in front of him.)
"It sounds like he was cruel to you just because you came at the wrong time," Lanting said, "and that's not....it isn't right. He hurt you badly, and you lashed out. That makes perfect sense."
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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2024 2:21 am
Corvina stared at Lanting, understanding less and less the more words he heard Lanting say.
The words themselves all made sense. So did the little Page’s explanation of why he didn’t recall things that had transpired between Corvina and Zhiheng. Never having dealt with any kind of past life memories like that, Corvina had no idea what reincarnation entailed, but he supposed it tracked that the new person bearing any given starseed didn’t remember what the previous bearer of that starseed had done. They might’ve shared the starseed, but they were still different people. Corvina himself didn’t remember anything from the lives of any previous Sailors Corvina.
But Lanting himself didn’t make sense. The way he was talking didn’t make sense. Reacting to everything so easily and gently. Saying things about how Zhiheng hadn’t had the right to break off Corvina’s horns when he clearly had. Staring at him, trembling and uncertain, Corvina couldn’t decide whether to lower his hand all the way or raise it up again. Why was Lanting saying such things? Acting like Zhiheng had done something wrong? That……? Corvina had explained how Zhiheng had had every right to punish him, hadn’t he? Was something wrong with the new Lanting? Did he need someone to protect him even more than it seemed?
Or perhaps this really was a trap.
(Part of Corvina didn’t think he’d mind that. He should have minded it. Getting trapped, especially by someone as small and ostensibly non-combative as the new Lanting? It ought to have seemed like one of the worst things that could have possibly happened to Corvina. Trust never worked out well. Or almost never, anyway.)
“That’s not,” Corvina said without entirely meaning to, mouth seizing control of itself away from his brain. “It isn’t…… It wasn’t like that—Zhiheng didn’t—even if it hurt, and even if he didn’t want—that doesn’t mean—”
Breaths getting shallower, Corvina took a few fumbling steps backward. Making himself focus took all the effort he could muster. Really, getting trapped by this new Lanting didn’t sound like it would be so bad. But that had to be some aspect of whatever garbage trick this was. Shivering, he forced himself to gasp through the deepest breath he could. He closed his eyes. Swept his hand and billowing sleeves through the air before him in the arc he knew so well, like backhand slapping somebody. Magic would clear this illusion up right quick.
Except the magic didn’t come.
Corvina opened his eyes. Blinked down at his hand as he curled and uncurled his fingers. Another deep breath, another backhand swing through the air………and just as much nothing as he’d hit the first time. Like the magic that had once come so easily to him was blocked, somehow. As if he couldn’t muster enough power to use it.
“What the—what did—why wouldn’t it…… My magic—it’s supposed to—”
He tried to back up further. But this time, Corvina slipped. Wincing, he crashed to the soft grass and firm ground. Then, pale and unable to stop trembling, he stared in horror at his hand.
Voice cracking and tears stinging at the corners of his eyes, Corvina begged his useless, stupid hand, “Why won’t you work!”
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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2024 3:24 am
Lanting wasn’t sure if what he was saying was working. If Corvina was really going to listen to him, or if he would just make things worse, since that was usually what he did, Make Things Worse. And he really, really didn’t want to do that. For a lot of reasons. Like how this Senshi seemed really upset and potentially volatile, and also how he was really gorgeous and had apparently been courting Zhiheng and Lanting didn’t want to assume anything, not when he wanted so much to believe and assert that he was not Zhiheng, but—-
The thought was present, alright. Sue him, he wanted to make a good impression on the hottest man he’d ever laid eyes on in his life.
Which was a terrible thing to be thinking, when the poor Senshi was so clearly, desperately upset. So Lanting shoved that thought away, and shook his head.
“Maybe what you did wasn’t entirely okay,” Lanting acknowledged, because murder was bad, “but it’s understandable, after being pushed so long and so far, and being hurt like that—did he hurt you, often? Or was that….out of the norm?”
Not that it seemed like he was really getting through to Corvina, not if he was attempting to use magic, which the gesture he made suggested. Lanting winced, bracing himself for whatever it as coming—
And nothing did.
Corvina’s magic, it seemed, was not working. A lucky break for him, he supposed.
Still, the Senshi looked so upset—
Lanting couldn’t help himself. He dropped his wand and moved closer, extending an open hand, palm up.
“Hey, are you okay? Not too long ago, some of the other Knoghts lost access to their magic, and it was because the Code got messed up—your homeworld has Chaos on it, right? Could that be why your magic isn’t working?” Not that Lanting really understood all the details, but a planet was a Senshi’s power source, so if the Code getting jostled at the wrong place could screw things up for Knights, surely Chaos being all up in a planet’s business would make its Senshi’s life harder.
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Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2024 12:04 am
This new Lanting didn’t make any sense. Talking about how Corvina killing Zhiheng had been understandable actually, even though?? Corvina thought he’d done a good job explaining that Zhiheng had been perfectly within his rights to shame and humiliate Corvina like he’d done? That……
That just made sense, didn’t it? Ultimately, no matter what Corvina had wanted, Zhiheng had wanted Corvina to go away, and he’d made that very clear after Corvina had stormed up to his Wonder with another attempted offering for him right after he’d lost Dunnottar……and the new Lanting was talking as if Zhiheng had done literally anything wrong in that situation?
And then, after everything Corvina had said, the new Lanting was coming over to him, and ever so gently extending an open hand. Palm up. Not going for any attacks whatsoever, or……well, maybe he was going for that, actually? Playing the innocent in order to get Corvina’s guard down, or something like that? But……usually, when people did that, they didn’t put themselves at a genuine disadvantage in this way, right?
Looking more than slightly lost, and more than slightly sad, Corvina stared at Lanting’s hand for a moment. Then, he stared, wide-eyed up at Lanting (who was really very small, wasn’t he? He didn’t have that much of a height advantage over Corvina right now, despite Corvina having fallen into a seated position on the ground and Lanting being on his feet. So small, and really, he looked so delicate, like the sort of fine, off-world partner that people on Corvina’s world had written stories about winning over, once upon a time, not that thinking about those old tales made any of New Lanting’s behavior make any sense).
“What do you mean ‘the Code got messed up,’” Corvina asked, tilting his head. It wasn’t exactly the question he wanted to ask, but it was one more thing that didn’t make sense to him right now and it was the question that came out first. “Did—Chaos didn’t find a way to get to The Code, did it?” Corvina somewhat doubted it. He didn’t know much about how Knights worked, but Chaos managing to get at the Code would have been bad. “And……why? Why aren’t you trying to kill me?”
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Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 5:29 pm
Lanting waited. Corvina was clearly experiencing a pretty full spectrum of emotion right now, and he'd been alone for so long, and obviously Lanting was saying things that he maybe wasn't ready to hear.
So, he waited. Hand extended, offer open, and he stayed like that even when Corvina spoke. He shook his head, gently.
"No, not Chaos, something else--at least, that's what the Code told us. Something out in deep space that caused a nasty shockwave and threw a lot of things out of whack. But I was thinking, like...your planet is the source of your power, right? So Chaos being all over it...." It just made sense, even if the two things weren't exactly the same. "It made sense to me that it might make your magic not work as well."
He exhaled.
"I'm not trying to kill you because I don't want to. I don't want to kill anyone, actually, given the choice, but--why would I want to hurt you? You've never done anything to me."
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 5:19 pm
Well. Okay, now New Lanting was starting to say things that made sense. Not quite so much about not wanting to kill Corvina—unless Corvina really was meant to see this New Lanting in the same way as those delicate, dainty, off-world love interests from the old stories, who needed a Corvinate warrior to protect them—but the logic behind thinking that the Chaos on Corvina’s world could have been the cause of the trouble with his magic.…… Corvina nodded slowly, because that did make sense.
“That could be why,” he said, and then sighed. Shifting carefully, he sat more upright and folded his legs up crosswise (and okay, the fact that he and Lanting were really so close in height while Corvina was seated on the ground like this……well, it certainly was something that Corvina took note of). “Or perhaps there might be……unintended repercussions? After enduring a millennium of endless battle?” Most of Corvina’s mind said that this sounded fake because it had never happened to him before? But he’d also only endured a constant, never-ceasing war with Chaos that had poisoned his planet for a single period of a thousand years, so he supposed he lacked sufficient evidence.
None of which helped make any sense of the larger point: the hand still extended toward Corvina.
Looking up at Lanting and not entirely sure what he wanted to hear in response, Corvina asked, “What do you want to do with me, then?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 5:47 pm
Lanting nodded. Corvina’s proposed explanation also made sense; hard to bf uses for sure without cross-comparing, he supposed.
“Maybe you can ask some of the others like you? Senshi that lived on? There aren’t a lot, but enough that I’d bet you all could compare and contrast.” That seemed like the most logical thing.
Corvina’s question—well.
There were a lot of things Lanting would gladly do with him, though most of those were wildly inappropriate for voicing to someone you’d just met outside of Grindr. So he shoved the idea away, and instead went for the far more serious answer. The one he actually meant, genuinely, in his heart. He owed it to Corvina, he thought.
“I want to help you,” he said, “if you’ll let me. Give you somewhere to stay—there’s plenty of room in my home. Help you get adjusted to this new world. Make sure you’re fed and safe. You’re on a strange new world, but I’ve lived here my whole life.”
He bounced his extended hand, briefly.
“So, how about it? Come home with me?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 6:28 pm
Corvina nodded in return. He didn’t quite know what he felt or thought about the fact that other worlds’ senshi had survived as he had. It wasn’t a form of suffering that he would have wished on anyone.
But on the other hand, he supposed it spoke well of their strength and fortitude.…… He couldn’t help but wonder who all stood among the ranks of the long-survivors, or if he had ever known any of them (whether personally or by reputation). Had Pyrrhus made it? They hadn’t exactly been close, but Corvina had respected the senshi of nihility quite well. If anyone else had survived this long, Corvina would have bet on Pyrrhus and his skill as a warrior.
Everything else that Lanting was talking about, though.…… It sounded so strange, that anyone would just give someone all these things. Security. Food. A home around them. Was that just how things worked on Earth these days, he wondered, or was it unique to Lanting? Was he simply too good for his own good? If that was the case, then he probably did need someone around to protect him. Even as a Knight in his own right, Lanting could too easily get taken advantage of, going through life so generously. Someone needed to prevent that from happening.
Also, sleeping inside would have been nice. Having something decent to eat for the first time in too long.
Nodding silently, Corvina reached out and took Lanting’s hand.
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