[ idly, half flirtatiously, but - gu yun lifts his hands, eventually, pressing his cold ones to her palms, before he pulls them up, up, and presses her fingertips gently to the acupuncture points at his forehead.
it feels like his head is going to crack open, but the immediate warmth from wrath's fingers helps. his forehead is as cold as the rest of him, and there's that brief moment where he tenses, not quite laying down. it takes him a second to ease all the way back into the pillows again, but he lets wrath eventually ease him backwards. he's too dizzy to sit up straight much longer, anyhow. ]
The more you take care of me like this, the more spoiled I'll become.
[ the great thing is that he doesn't even have to come up with a bullshit answer. all this sweetness, wrath spoiling him very nicely, means that whatever is triggering these sudden shares of memories kicks itself immediately into gear. ]
[ you are roughly eight years old, and you're standing in the middle of a military camp. there's snow on the ground, frosty cold, and a wind dances through the encampment, occasionally lifting your long hair. you stand perfectly still, your tiny little hands clenched into tiny little fists, your lower lip trembling, your eyes wet with unshed tears, chin jerked into the air.
a soldier in black iron armor walks past you - he looks down at you, and chuckles.
"Angered the Marquis again, huh?" and another soldier walks with him, laughing too.
"He angers the Marquis every day! What a rambunctious monkey. Still so proud, though, just like his father."
"Makes me glad I don't have one yet."
"Ha! With that face, you never will!"
their chatter fades as they walk past. you were punished for causing mischief, but even for that, you refuse to let anyone see you upset, even if you're freezing cold, even if your stomach gurgles. you would rather die than let anyone see you cry, rather die than let anyone know that you, wild, rambunctious, barely the height of a table gu shiliu was affected by getting in trouble.
as you're considering how you're going to exact your vengeance (maybe you'll sneak into your father's bed and prevent him from getting anywhere near your mother, he always gets crazy over that) there's a sudden thud - at your side, a guard wearing a giant suit of Heavy Armor (eight feet tall, heavy silver iron, a thing you've known your whole life) falls to the ground as if he's been felled, right at your feet. you jump, startled.
and then the noise happens again. thud.
thud. thud. thud.
all around you, the patrolling guards of the black iron camp begin to hit the ground, and before you have even a moment to figure out what's going on -- cacophony breaks out, as a hundred men dressed in the sleek silver of Light Armors come charging over the border of the camp - and the black crows of the black iron camp are already felled, frozen on the ground.
for a moment, you're confused. the black crows of the black iron camp wear black armor, and then you realize.
those soldiers aren't allies.
they're enemies.
you jolt and look at the face of the man in the heavy armor who fell at your feet- he's wide eyed, stunned, his mouth opening and closing, but he can't move. he won't move, as if he's been poisoned. as if --
there's a noise like a howl. arrows fly through the air - one hits the man in the heavy armor through the throat, sailing past your face. you gasp - blood spurts across your vision, and you stagger backwards, stunned. terror grips your heart, so fierce that you want to grab a weapon, and you stumble backwards, reaching over past the corpse of the man with the heavy armor, and grabbing for the sword --
another body falls, another, another. these men who you have walked among since you could even walk, your fathers soldiers - they're frozen to the spot, on the ground, and the men in light armor come with gleeful shouts and weapons blazing - blowing a man to smithereens with ziliujin - bashing another's head in with a sword handle.
you feel those tears, now and you grab the man with the heavy armor's sword and pull, pull, pull but you're too weak, too small, you can't rip it away, you're going to die here, you can't, you can't, where's your father, where's your mother -
the man who was chuckling and teasing you just a moment before the chaos forces himself up from where he's fallen. he's bleeding, dragging himself forward like a dying bird - he forces himself forward, drags himself across the snow, and drapes over you.
the weight of his body and the armor forces you to your knees; he manages to get his arm lifted and wraps one around your shoulder, as the men shriek and yell their way gleefully through the black iron camp - the guard takes his last shuddering breath as he holds onto you, the light leaving his eyes, and you watch trembling over his shoulder, as one by one, the great black crows of the iron camp are slaughtered in front of your wide eyes. the barbarians kick the corpses, howl like wolves as they win their victory, and then -
-there's a sharp burst of pain radiating out of your back.
it's an arrow. you're eight years old but you know what that is. it strikes you, and you have just enough time to gasp, your heart clenching in your chest - and then it seeps in.
it feels like your limbs are disappearing. like there's something leaking through your body, something that's not supposed to be there. you lose sensation in your fingertips, your hands, your legs, your back
and then the sounds in the world go mute, and your sight -- of that man who died protecting your body, fades.
but you're not unconscious. eight years old, and your consciousness swirls and clings and you realize i can't see.
i can't see--
and in the last moments of your consciousness, you hear something clearly, over the sound of the din of the battle. a voice, female. it's your mother. relief, faint, far away, confused, grabs you and you choke out a sob -
and then the cacophony of the world turns into an explosion as one, two, three, ten, twenty, thirty light armors held by thirty suicide barbarian soldiers explode, and turn the camp into ashes, and take your consciousness along with it.
when you wake up, a week later, you're alive. the armor and the body of the man who protected you kept you from being blown to pieces. your mother took shelter in a similar way, protected, and the marquis was in another part of camp when the attack happened.
but it doesn't matter.
because a week later, you're alive, but your entire world - sight and sound - is pitch black.
the last moment of memory is a taste - it's a bitter, medicinal one, bright and cold, burning fresh on your tongue - and the world starting to come back to you. the marquis stands over you, his face hardened, angry, furious, and your head suddenly aches, with a migraine that makes you cry out.
and as it fades, wrath might notice. the taste of that bitter medicine is the same as the smell that seems to cling to gu yun's body; that smell that seems especially strong, today. ]
okay. well, first of all, she gasps, at the end of it. she wheezes a bit, choking on how strong the memory is. she has to catch her breath, but she can't because she's furious. a child, he was just - he was so small, and the world turned to ash around him, and there was medicine and she can't think straight.
she doesn't move, but the cracks along her skin flash, and then glow brightly, snapping and popping. her hair sets alight at the ends, and - she just. has to take a second.]
Fuck. [which i think is what she said to xie lian too so good job, two for two.]
[ it seems to take gu yun a minute longer to come out of that memory. it's been so long since he's thought about it - really thought about it - and it's only a loud snap from the cracks in her skin that get him to return to the present. his hands had come up during the memory, grabbing onto hers at his temples, as if he could physically stop it from happening, and wrath will be able to feel every line of tension in his body from how close they're sitting.
it's not the sight of the past that bothers him. that's fine - it happened. his own experiences aren't an issue.
it's the part at the end.
slowly, gu yun takes a deep breath - in through his nose, out through his mouth - and the disorientation in his eyes flickers away into something calmer, shuttering any of his own reaction away, slamming it behind an iron door. ]
Sorry you had to see that. [ is what he says, eventually. ] I haven't thought about it in a long time.
[she says, with a deep breath. calm down. calm. she has to give herself a second, the fury rising up in her and threatening to extend past just her, to the outside world - she can't let that happen. it's overwhelming, and she holds her breath. focuses on her hands against his skin, redirects. you can't hurt him, so don't - so calm down, or you will.
smoke curls off her in waves.]
Don't - apologize. Don't apologize about that. [she says finally, pushing his hair back gently out of his face.] Hey. Jesus, no wonder you didn't want me to look you up.
[ gu yun's eyes flutter shut, again, and he leaves them that way. he needs a moment to sort his thoughts, sort through what wrath might have just learned.
... it doesn't matter. it's likely the avatars all knew - and, she could've found out, if she wanted. (but she didn't, and now she knows - can he hold onto nothing in this place?)
gu yun hates being vulnerable, hates it more than anything. none of that reflects on his face, though. he feels wrath's heat go up, up, up and doesn't even respond to it, either trusting or knowing, that it'll come back down, and eventually, it does.
the statement makes him snort, once. humorless. gu yun is still as tense as iron. ] There are things not worth knowing.
[ this is one of them. ] Ask me about my life all you like, and I'll tell you the parts that matter. I don't have anything to hide.
[ except the thing that's the most glaring of them all - his sight. his hearing.
there's a beat, and then, almost mechanically, gu yun adds: ] The medicine restores it. [ with side effects. like now, like the migraine that makes itself remembered with a wave of pain at the back of his head, a thudding, continual ice pick to his brain. ] I'm fine.
[ at the moment, he is. he can see and hear everything. that doesn't explain what will happen later. ]
[she moves her hands. presses the warmth to different parts of his face, his temple, the back of his skull, gentle and soothing.]
I think - I think for right now, I've seen way more than you wanted me to, so I won't ask. [she says, soft.] I'd like to talk about it later. But for right now I want to spoil you until the headache is gone. Okay?
[she doesn't have anything to soothe it, and she hates that. her boons only hurt. the cracks in her skin glow brightly, angrily.
a deep breath. she presses a kiss to his forehead.]
[ there's quiet, then, for a little while. the warmth from her touch seeps into his pressure points, helps to soothe some of that pounding, aching migraine. there's a reason why he was laying here in the dark - the further off he is from the memory that jolted him off of his guard, the harsher the pain comes back, a reminder that he shouldn't even be trying to think at all.
he's never had the luxury of being spoiled. not really. it was there, a path he could have taken, especially after the old marquis passed away, but gu yun never allowed himself a second of it. his own stubbornness led him down the path to become the person who he is today; knowing some of the things that hold him back are what makes it more obvious why he has that golden crown, glowing on the back of his hand.
slowly, slowly, some of the tension in his shoulders comes down. his lashes flutter, briefly, at the kiss, and the way the warmth radiates off of his always too cold skin. ]
...You can ask. [ he says, eventually, voice quiet. it's vulnerability, or vulnerability. a rock and a hard place. ] I'd rather do it now.
[ because ultimately, he knows himself. gu yun knows he'll wheedle out of it otherwise, and he doesn't - he doesn't want there to be any misconception, any confusion - but he's not nearly ready enough to return to this conversation and re-expose his vulnerabilities all over again. ]
[she shifts, first. pulls blankets up to warm his feet, and then lays down next to him, willing herself to calm. she's hot, maybe uncomfortably so, but at least it'll make him feel less like a corpse. she knows how that feels.]
I think... I think I get the gist of what happened. [she says finally.] What happens with the medicine? What does it do for you? What's the extent of the damage? Tell me what I need to be looking out for.
[because obviously now she's going to play support, the best she can.]
It's poison. [ he says this pretty much point blank, keeping his eyes closed. ] Most of the ingredients are poisonous. The formula restores the function to my nervous system and attacks the rest of my body. The first time I took it, it almost killed me, but I've built up a resistance to it, since.
[ which... that resistance comes with a faded timeline of how long it works, too. it started that he'd take a dose once a year. now, he's down to three weeks, at best, with the number ticking down every day. if you think about it, that means gu yun has been poisoning himself since he was eight years old. ]
Taking it gives me a severe migraine. [ see, now. his voice is still quiet, his eyes still closed, and if she still touches spots on his head, gu yun lets himself shift into them, just barely. ] Dizzy. Nauseous. I can barely think. I usually sleep it off, or drink until I can't feel it. It lasts a few hours.
...Normally, it doesn't also make me ill. I don't feel well - I assume it's likely a function of this place. [ he lifts a hand and waves it in the general direction of the base. ] If someone tried to poison me, in my normal life, I would survive it. Here, I don't think that's the case.
he does notice, because, it's gu yun, and he mutters a swear and reaches for the covers on the bed to reach over and pat out the fire before it's like. incinerating his entire bedside table.
while he's patting out the flames itself, that's when wrath gets her answer. ]
...Three weeks. Maybe less. And it wears off over time.
[ alright, alright. yeah, he was about four seconds from swooning over and fainting with how quickly the world around him started to spin, so. it's really only his pride that kept him up, and once wrath fusses at him, he does scooch to lay back down, leaning back into the pillows and closing his eyes to keep the dizziness and the nausea at bay.
gu yun didn't throw up on wrath when he was toleranceless, he'd like to keep that streak going. for a while, he's quiet, letting wrath stroke their fingers through his hair - it brings a gentle tingle to his scalp, to the wracking pain in his head, and he sighs.
...when she says that, though, he huffs a little laugh, opening an eye. ] Oh?
[ when he laughs, this time, it's quieter instead of his typical gremlin snickering, but just as warm. gu yun lets her cover his eyes again, the smile still remaining. ]
Well, it is a poison. Suppose I couldn't receive that as a little reward. [ instead of the black iron emblem! which is useless! ]
another inhale and exhale, deep and measured. he reaches up for the hand on his eyes with his own, fingers ice cold, and lifts it, briefly. ]
...What I told you the other day was true - I was in disguise as a fragrant master, but I didn't have to pretend.
[ he lifts his other hand, and... with careful, measured strokes, begins to spell something in her palm, speaking as he spells the letters. ]
T-H-E-R-E A-R-E W-A-Y-S.
[ gu yun won't be broken apart as his sight starts to leave him. it will leave him strongly disadvantaged, if too many people find out - but he's been coping with it for so long, it doesn't matter. he will survive. he always does. ]
Edited (hit enter too fast aaa) 2021-02-24 01:42 (UTC)
I kind of thought that might be the case. [she says, after a moment, biting her bottom lip. she has to take all this in stride so she doesn't get angry again. she can't control it very well anymore.
but she closes her eyes, and lets him spell into her hand. listens, in a sense, to what he's telling her. and she nods.
there's something about this that does it. he traces words against her palm and she thinks - there are always ways. there are ways to save people. there's always a third option.
she thinks, you won't get hurt, not because of me, and it kickstarts them both right into a memory. just until 4:34.
the echo of it - of her desperate, wild desire to reach for her brother, to get to him, to tell him she was there, she's here, she's here -- it leaves her gasping.]
[ magic is still a mostly new thing, for gu yun. when he sees the world through wrath's eyes, he sees hands that aren't marked by flames - doesn't feel the flicker of it up his skin - but perhaps what he feels is a lot worse.
when the memory finishes, gu yun releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding. his headache rewards him with a screaming jolt of pain, and he keeps his eyes shut, firmly tight, the hand that was spelling letters into her palm now grabbing onto it and holding for the sake of anchoring to reality. he's not an emotional person. he's not someone who reacts, someone who shares anything along the lines of vulnerability, and to be intimately buried into someone else's story is a lot.
so magic, magic is new. (it's not, really. not from experiencing other people's memories - the world outside of wrath's eyes looks a lot like molly's, actually, in more ways than he's really expecting.) but the feeling of poison in your back feels so familiar that he knows it, and maybe his containment hadn't been so literal, but - it was a containment all the same. having to reconnect yourself with the world, moment by moment. having to force yourself with every amount of spite you have in your body to be a functioning thing.
mollymauk said it to him, earlier, when gu yun ran into him in the hour of clarity before the migraine hit. it sticks with him now - he drums up the persona he puts on every day, shoves the pain aside, and says, clear as a bell, almost a command - ] Tell me you're here.
[ the hand stays. squeezing, tight. tell me you're here, in this plane, in this reality, right in this second, not caught up in a memory. ]
[by comparison wrath is someone who reacts, first, before anything else, and maybe that's why she works so well with fire. it's easy to burn. it's easy to lose your mind to emotion, even if you try to bury it with jokes and deflection, and she's had such a hard time with even that, lately. she's forgetting how to stay calm. and she'd forgotten, a little, what it was like to be trapped in that fucking umbrella, and so relieving it makes her furious, makes her want to set the room alight, makes her want to scream and feel, just because she can.
but he holds her hand, and he speaks, clear and bright, and it knocks her out of it.
she's here. not there, with her brother, her twin, her heart.]
Y - yeah. [she manages, opening her eyes. she shudders, horribly, feeling sick.]
feeling like he’s going to pass out from thinking too hard is at least keeping him from pondering those deeper questions, at least for now. it maybe keeps his usual panic response to someone feeling too much in his general vicinity muted, keeps him from saying something more immeasurably stupid to make it worse. there’s a brief moment where he’s reminded of the screaming nightmare he’d awoken chang geng from, the night before he left for the western frontier, and ...
he keeps her hand, and uses his other arm to reach out and catch the back of her neck. His fingers are cold as ever, especially like this - but he gives a gentle tug, to pull her closer into his chest. even like this, a part of him will always be the protector, the strong one, marquis with a spine made of steel.
they can just lay there, for a minute. that’s fine, too. ]
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no subject
[ idly, half flirtatiously, but - gu yun lifts his hands, eventually, pressing his cold ones to her palms, before he pulls them up, up, and presses her fingertips gently to the acupuncture points at his forehead.
it feels like his head is going to crack open, but the immediate warmth from wrath's fingers helps. his forehead is as cold as the rest of him, and there's that brief moment where he tenses, not quite laying down. it takes him a second to ease all the way back into the pillows again, but he lets wrath eventually ease him backwards. he's too dizzy to sit up straight much longer, anyhow. ]
The more you take care of me like this, the more spoiled I'll become.
no subject
she lets him do what he's going to do with her hands, and then eases next to him, though she stays sitting up. she's going to be his space heater.]
You're already very spoiled. [she agrees.] What's going on with you? Don't bullshit me.
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[ you are roughly eight years old, and you're standing in the middle of a military camp. there's snow on the ground, frosty cold, and a wind dances through the encampment, occasionally lifting your long hair. you stand perfectly still, your tiny little hands clenched into tiny little fists, your lower lip trembling, your eyes wet with unshed tears, chin jerked into the air.
a soldier in black iron armor walks past you - he looks down at you, and chuckles.
"Angered the Marquis again, huh?" and another soldier walks with him, laughing too.
"He angers the Marquis every day! What a rambunctious monkey. Still so proud, though, just like his father."
"Makes me glad I don't have one yet."
"Ha! With that face, you never will!"
their chatter fades as they walk past. you were punished for causing mischief, but even for that, you refuse to let anyone see you upset, even if you're freezing cold, even if your stomach gurgles. you would rather die than let anyone see you cry, rather die than let anyone know that you, wild, rambunctious, barely the height of a table gu shiliu was affected by getting in trouble.
as you're considering how you're going to exact your vengeance (maybe you'll sneak into your father's bed and prevent him from getting anywhere near your mother, he always gets crazy over that) there's a sudden thud - at your side, a guard wearing a giant suit of Heavy Armor (eight feet tall, heavy silver iron, a thing you've known your whole life) falls to the ground as if he's been felled, right at your feet. you jump, startled.
and then the noise happens again. thud.
thud. thud. thud.
all around you, the patrolling guards of the black iron camp begin to hit the ground, and before you have even a moment to figure out what's going on -- cacophony breaks out, as a hundred men dressed in the sleek silver of Light Armors come charging over the border of the camp - and the black crows of the black iron camp are already felled, frozen on the ground.
for a moment, you're confused. the black crows of the black iron camp wear black armor, and then you realize.
those soldiers aren't allies.
they're enemies.
you jolt and look at the face of the man in the heavy armor who fell at your feet- he's wide eyed, stunned, his mouth opening and closing, but he can't move. he won't move, as if he's been poisoned. as if --
there's a noise like a howl. arrows fly through the air - one hits the man in the heavy armor through the throat, sailing past your face. you gasp - blood spurts across your vision, and you stagger backwards, stunned. terror grips your heart, so fierce that you want to grab a weapon, and you stumble backwards, reaching over past the corpse of the man with the heavy armor, and grabbing for the sword --
another body falls, another, another. these men who you have walked among since you could even walk, your fathers soldiers - they're frozen to the spot, on the ground, and the men in light armor come with gleeful shouts and weapons blazing - blowing a man to smithereens with ziliujin - bashing another's head in with a sword handle.
you feel those tears, now and you grab the man with the heavy armor's sword and pull, pull, pull but you're too weak, too small, you can't rip it away, you're going to die here, you can't, you can't, where's your father, where's your mother -
the man who was chuckling and teasing you just a moment before the chaos forces himself up from where he's fallen. he's bleeding, dragging himself forward like a dying bird - he forces himself forward, drags himself across the snow, and drapes over you.
the weight of his body and the armor forces you to your knees; he manages to get his arm lifted and wraps one around your shoulder, as the men shriek and yell their way gleefully through the black iron camp - the guard takes his last shuddering breath as he holds onto you, the light leaving his eyes, and you watch trembling over his shoulder, as one by one, the great black crows of the iron camp are slaughtered in front of your wide eyes. the barbarians kick the corpses, howl like wolves as they win their victory, and then -
-there's a sharp burst of pain radiating out of your back.
it's an arrow. you're eight years old but you know what that is. it strikes you, and you have just enough time to gasp, your heart clenching in your chest - and then it seeps in.
it feels like your limbs are disappearing. like there's something leaking through your body, something that's not supposed to be there. you lose sensation in your fingertips, your hands, your legs, your back
and then the sounds in the world go mute, and your sight -- of that man who died protecting your body, fades.
but you're not unconscious. eight years old, and your consciousness swirls and clings and you realize i can't see.
i can't see--
and in the last moments of your consciousness, you hear something clearly, over the sound of the din of the battle. a voice, female. it's your mother. relief, faint, far away, confused, grabs you and you choke out a sob -
and then the cacophony of the world turns into an explosion as one, two, three, ten, twenty, thirty light armors held by thirty suicide barbarian soldiers explode, and turn the camp into ashes, and take your consciousness along with it.
when you wake up, a week later, you're alive. the armor and the body of the man who protected you kept you from being blown to pieces. your mother took shelter in a similar way, protected, and the marquis was in another part of camp when the attack happened.
but it doesn't matter.
because a week later, you're alive, but your entire world - sight and sound - is pitch black.
the last moment of memory is a taste - it's a bitter, medicinal one, bright and cold, burning fresh on your tongue - and the world starting to come back to you. the marquis stands over you, his face hardened, angry, furious, and your head suddenly aches, with a migraine that makes you cry out.
and as it fades, wrath might notice. the taste of that bitter medicine is the same as the smell that seems to cling to gu yun's body; that smell that seems especially strong, today. ]
no subject
okay. well, first of all, she gasps, at the end of it. she wheezes a bit, choking on how strong the memory is. she has to catch her breath, but she can't because she's furious. a child, he was just - he was so small, and the world turned to ash around him, and there was medicine and she can't think straight.
she doesn't move, but the cracks along her skin flash, and then glow brightly, snapping and popping. her hair sets alight at the ends, and - she just. has to take a second.]
Fuck. [which i think is what she said to xie lian too so good job, two for two.]
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it's not the sight of the past that bothers him. that's fine - it happened. his own experiences aren't an issue.
it's the part at the end.
slowly, gu yun takes a deep breath - in through his nose, out through his mouth - and the disorientation in his eyes flickers away into something calmer, shuttering any of his own reaction away, slamming it behind an iron door. ]
Sorry you had to see that. [ is what he says, eventually. ] I haven't thought about it in a long time.
no subject
[she says, with a deep breath. calm down. calm. she has to give herself a second, the fury rising up in her and threatening to extend past just her, to the outside world - she can't let that happen. it's overwhelming, and she holds her breath. focuses on her hands against his skin, redirects. you can't hurt him, so don't - so calm down, or you will.
smoke curls off her in waves.]
Don't - apologize. Don't apologize about that. [she says finally, pushing his hair back gently out of his face.] Hey. Jesus, no wonder you didn't want me to look you up.
no subject
... it doesn't matter. it's likely the avatars all knew - and, she could've found out, if she wanted. (but she didn't, and now she knows - can he hold onto nothing in this place?)
gu yun hates being vulnerable, hates it more than anything. none of that reflects on his face, though. he feels wrath's heat go up, up, up and doesn't even respond to it, either trusting or knowing, that it'll come back down, and eventually, it does.
the statement makes him snort, once. humorless. gu yun is still as tense as iron. ] There are things not worth knowing.
[ this is one of them. ] Ask me about my life all you like, and I'll tell you the parts that matter. I don't have anything to hide.
[ except the thing that's the most glaring of them all - his sight. his hearing.
there's a beat, and then, almost mechanically, gu yun adds: ] The medicine restores it. [ with side effects. like now, like the migraine that makes itself remembered with a wave of pain at the back of his head, a thudding, continual ice pick to his brain. ] I'm fine.
[ at the moment, he is. he can see and hear everything. that doesn't explain what will happen later. ]
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I think - I think for right now, I've seen way more than you wanted me to, so I won't ask. [she says, soft.] I'd like to talk about it later. But for right now I want to spoil you until the headache is gone. Okay?
[she doesn't have anything to soothe it, and she hates that. her boons only hurt. the cracks in her skin glow brightly, angrily.
a deep breath. she presses a kiss to his forehead.]
no subject
he's never had the luxury of being spoiled. not really. it was there, a path he could have taken, especially after the old marquis passed away, but gu yun never allowed himself a second of it. his own stubbornness led him down the path to become the person who he is today; knowing some of the things that hold him back are what makes it more obvious why he has that golden crown, glowing on the back of his hand.
slowly, slowly, some of the tension in his shoulders comes down. his lashes flutter, briefly, at the kiss, and the way the warmth radiates off of his always too cold skin. ]
...You can ask. [ he says, eventually, voice quiet. it's vulnerability, or vulnerability. a rock and a hard place. ] I'd rather do it now.
[ because ultimately, he knows himself. gu yun knows he'll wheedle out of it otherwise, and he doesn't - he doesn't want there to be any misconception, any confusion - but he's not nearly ready enough to return to this conversation and re-expose his vulnerabilities all over again. ]
no subject
I think... I think I get the gist of what happened. [she says finally.] What happens with the medicine? What does it do for you? What's the extent of the damage? Tell me what I need to be looking out for.
[because obviously now she's going to play support, the best she can.]
no subject
[ which... that resistance comes with a faded timeline of how long it works, too. it started that he'd take a dose once a year. now, he's down to three weeks, at best, with the number ticking down every day. if you think about it, that means gu yun has been poisoning himself since he was eight years old. ]
Taking it gives me a severe migraine. [ see, now. his voice is still quiet, his eyes still closed, and if she still touches spots on his head, gu yun lets himself shift into them, just barely. ] Dizzy. Nauseous. I can barely think. I usually sleep it off, or drink until I can't feel it. It lasts a few hours.
...Normally, it doesn't also make me ill. I don't feel well - I assume it's likely a function of this place. [ he lifts a hand and waves it in the general direction of the base. ] If someone tried to poison me, in my normal life, I would survive it. Here, I don't think that's the case.
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I think you're pretty nerfed, yeah. [she says, quietly.] Okay, so... how much of that medicine do you have now?
[she shifts, pulling him a little into her lap so that she can press her warm hands wherever she thinks it'll help.]
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gu yun's silent. longer, this time. ]
...I only had one dose. [ and. he took it. ]
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well, okay, so the bedside table bursts into flames. a little. just on the top. she doesn't seem to notice.]
And how long does the dose last for?
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he does notice, because, it's gu yun, and he mutters a swear and reaches for the covers on the bed to reach over and pat out the fire before it's like. incinerating his entire bedside table.
while he's patting out the flames itself, that's when wrath gets her answer. ]
...Three weeks. Maybe less. And it wears off over time.
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when they go out, though, she fusses at him. lay down.]
... Right. [she says, finally, stroking his hair back.] Okay, well. That gives me three weeks to come up with a solution.
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gu yun didn't throw up on wrath when he was toleranceless, he'd like to keep that streak going. for a while, he's quiet, letting wrath stroke their fingers through his hair - it brings a gentle tingle to his scalp, to the wracking pain in his head, and he sighs.
...when she says that, though, he huffs a little laugh, opening an eye. ] Oh?
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Don't oh. Yes. I'll figure something out.
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Well, it is a poison. Suppose I couldn't receive that as a little reward. [ instead of the black iron emblem! which is useless! ]
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I wouldn't worry too much about it. [she says, firmly. like she's decided something.] Tell me when it starts to get bad again.
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[ will he? we will see! (gy voice) i'm fine.
another inhale and exhale, deep and measured. he reaches up for the hand on his eyes with his own, fingers ice cold, and lifts it, briefly. ]
...What I told you the other day was true - I was in disguise as a fragrant master, but I didn't have to pretend.
[ he lifts his other hand, and... with careful, measured strokes, begins to spell something in her palm, speaking as he spells the letters. ]
T-H-E-R-E
A-R-E
W-A-Y-S.
[ gu yun won't be broken apart as his sight starts to leave him. it will leave him strongly disadvantaged, if too many people find out - but he's been coping with it for so long, it doesn't matter. he will survive. he always does. ]
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but she closes her eyes, and lets him spell into her hand. listens, in a sense, to what he's telling her. and she nods.
there's something about this that does it. he traces words against her palm and she thinks - there are always ways. there are ways to save people. there's always a third option.
she thinks, you won't get hurt, not because of me, and it kickstarts them both right into a memory. just until 4:34.
the echo of it - of her desperate, wild desire to reach for her brother, to get to him, to tell him she was there, she's here, she's here -- it leaves her gasping.]
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when the memory finishes, gu yun releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding. his headache rewards him with a screaming jolt of pain, and he keeps his eyes shut, firmly tight, the hand that was spelling letters into her palm now grabbing onto it and holding for the sake of anchoring to reality. he's not an emotional person. he's not someone who reacts, someone who shares anything along the lines of vulnerability, and to be intimately buried into someone else's story is a lot.
so magic, magic is new. (it's not, really. not from experiencing other people's memories - the world outside of wrath's eyes looks a lot like molly's, actually, in more ways than he's really expecting.) but the feeling of poison in your back feels so familiar that he knows it, and maybe his containment hadn't been so literal, but - it was a containment all the same. having to reconnect yourself with the world, moment by moment. having to force yourself with every amount of spite you have in your body to be a functioning thing.
mollymauk said it to him, earlier, when gu yun ran into him in the hour of clarity before the migraine hit. it sticks with him now - he drums up the persona he puts on every day, shoves the pain aside, and says, clear as a bell, almost a command - ] Tell me you're here.
[ the hand stays. squeezing, tight. tell me you're here, in this plane, in this reality, right in this second, not caught up in a memory. ]
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but he holds her hand, and he speaks, clear and bright, and it knocks her out of it.
she's here. not there, with her brother, her twin, her heart.]
Y - yeah. [she manages, opening her eyes. she shudders, horribly, feeling sick.]
... I'm here. I'm here.
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feeling like he’s going to pass out from thinking too hard is at least keeping him from pondering those deeper questions, at least for now. it maybe keeps his usual panic response to someone feeling too much in his general vicinity muted, keeps him from saying something more immeasurably stupid to make it worse. there’s a brief moment where he’s reminded of the screaming nightmare he’d awoken chang geng from, the night before he left for the western frontier, and ...
he keeps her hand, and uses his other arm to reach out and catch the back of her neck. His fingers are cold as ever, especially like this - but he gives a gentle tug, to pull her closer into his chest. even like this, a part of him will always be the protector, the strong one, marquis with a spine made of steel.
they can just lay there, for a minute. that’s fine, too. ]
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