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Post by Linyü on Sept 19, 2020 20:57:46 GMT -6
And then, unbidden, came the rest - the kind eyes, the worn lines around his mouth, the neat hair and the patient smile. All the things San didn’t have anymore; all the things he had never had.
The mouth moved, spoke a word -
He only realized what he had done when he felt the pain shooting through his hand.
The mirror, shattered; blood dripping down the cracked glass, seeping into the seam where the sink met the wall. He stayed there a long time, as the glass dug into the skin of his knuckles. Breathing. Breathe. A dozen fragmented reflections stared balefully back, but at least the ghost of his father was gone.
Eventually, he retracted his hand. Turned it over. Assessed the damage. Nothing he couldn’t have fixed, but it had been a foolish thing to do. Roku was sure to admonish him when the cat returned and saw what had happened.
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Post by Linyü on Sept 19, 2020 20:58:13 GMT -6
He could clean up the mess, he thought, but then - no, the mirror would still be broken. And he was tired, too tired to try to pretend.
Mechanically, he picked out the shards that had embedded themselves into the skin, and dropped them one by one into the trash bin next to the toilet. He looked down at his own filthy shirt, and decided against it, opting instead for one of the towels. They were a little worn, but clean, and he wrapped one around his hand, tying a loose knot at his palm.
It would have to do.
Lunch was in an hour, the man said. San knew he ought to make an effort to eat. Now that he was back on land… For a moment he allowed himself to take stock of how he felt, and he thought there may be some chance that he would take food better now.
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Post by Linyü on Sept 19, 2020 20:58:43 GMT -6
He knew there would be no recovering without eating again. And yet, he wanted nothing more than to collapse into the bed and…
And what?
There was no one and nothing to stop him, and he was so, so tired. Slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed, and ran his good hand over the expanse of the sheets. They were cool to the touch until he ran up against a part where a square of sunshine from the bedside window had warmed them.
His fingers curled back, as if wary of that warmth.
He collapsed into the bed after all. His body sprawled into that sunny square, as the bed was too small for him to occupy only one side of it. He stared up at the ceiling, which was white and strangely textured, a decorative choice that struck him as odd; yet another alien feature in this new place.
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Post by Linyü on Sept 19, 2020 20:59:08 GMT -6
He held that thought, focused on it; focused on the patterns in the rough, speckled-looking ceiling. He didn’t dare let his thoughts wander, not now.
There were so many things he wasn’t thinking about.
But then, that had always been the case, hadn’t it? Ever since he began… Ever since he had become ‘San’. Maybe even before that, though the trainers had kept him too busy and exhausted to have room for much else; and worry about his sister had taken up the rest.
His sister.
No.
Panic surged up wildly in his chest for a moment, panic and - something else. He smothered it with desperation, his breath hitching, catching. Something thrummed in his veins, worse than adrenaline - adrenaline he knew, adrenaline was familiar, adrenaline was something he harnessed. This -
Juu stood there, smiling at him - but no, it was Pan now. “Long time no see, stranger,” she said. “You’ve gotten taller, haven’t you?”
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Post by Linyü on Sept 19, 2020 21:01:22 GMT -6
And you look exactly the same, he thought, but didn’t say. Was exactly the same. Urgency drummed inside his head but even now he felt himself being drawn along into her rhythm, against his will. He stopped, breathing hard.
“You don’t have to do this, San,” she said softly. “Come back. I’ll talk to them. This was just a mistake. You’re young, and--”
“No,” he said.
She sighed; her smile was disappointed, as if she regretted what she was about to do. San tensed, fingers on his knife.
“Last chance,” she said. He could hear the warning in her voice, prickling like static over his skin. “Don’t be a fool, San.”
And then -
There was nothing to smash this time.
Desperately, he wished for sleep, but he knew it would not come. Not like this. With painstaking movements he forced himself upright again, and returned to the bathroom.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:21:29 GMT -6
Moments ago he had been too exhausted to clean up the glass, but now he sank slowly to his knees on the floor and picked up the debris piece by piece. It was slow, dull work, but the shards were too small to give him any grief, and the fact that he had to be careful of the sharpened edges gave his mind something to hold onto. There was a trash can next to the toilet. He filled it with every piece big enough for him to pick up by hand, first from the floor and then the ones that had fallen into the sink.
The smallest ones he left alone. There was nothing he could do about them. He breathed, counted to three, then walked to the door.
The man at the counter seemed surprised to see him back again so soon. A few other heads turned as he arrived in the lobby.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:21:42 GMT -6
None of them seemed alarmed - presumably the worst of it had come and gone with his arrival earlier - but it was an uncomfortable reminder that he was supposed to be laying low. He was conspicuous enough as it was without giving them more time to memorize his features, but the idea of being alone in that room felt like playing with fire. Already he had smashed a mirror and bloodied his hands. Evidently he needed more distraction than the quiet of a private room could provide.
There were still a few empty tables near the back of the main floor, and no one accosted him when he went to take a seat at the smallest, tucked away into a back corner.
It was a good vantage point. From that corner, he could monitor almost everything in the room, including the front entrance and the door to the stairs that led up to the private rooms.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:21:52 GMT -6
The darkness of it felt like a shelter, shielding him from further scrutiny, though wandering eyes could still find him if they chose to look.
For a time, he made a game of observing the people at the other tables, cataloguing what he could about them while evading notice. There, a man whose shift in weight betrayed the fact that he favored his right leg; here, a woman slipping breadrolls into her bag when no one was looking. Two drunks murmured in drunk conversation about their wives. A tall figure, almost more beast than man, made a pass at a smaller man with long pointed ears.
Most of the people in Xinzhou had been human. There were a few exceptions, though most populations of other races existed in the border provinces. In Ningjing, they were a rare sight, and generally those that resided in the capital served some sort of state role, though they never advanced very far in the ranks of government.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:22:04 GMT -6
There had been one such personage in a procession once, at some festival whose purpose he no longer recalled, and all around him there had been murmurings about the beast-men from the north. He remembered his own silent horror and revulsion as he stared at that furred visage, the uncanny way the hands moved, spilling forth from beneath his sleeves. The sense of it had dulled with time, but seeing them now still brought up a faint sense of unease.
That unease only reinforced the sense that he was far from home.
A movement at the periphery of his vision caught his attention. His faculties had not been dulled by the decline of his body as much as his strength; he had enough wits about him to surveil, at least. This, too, was grim knowledge: that if Xin agents found him here, he would be aware of his impending death even as he lacked the avenues to do anything to prevent it.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:22:57 GMT -6
But this time the movements resolved into a pattern he recognized, and the tension ebbed from the stiff line of his shoulders as quickly as it had come.
“Rei,” he murmured, so quietly that only her ears could hear.
She alighted on the chair opposite his, delicate wings fluttering to a stop before they folded along her back, blending into the fabric of her dress. She looked well, or at least no worse than he ever recalled her being, but her green eyes sought his own immediately, and with a sense of urgency that made San wonder if he had let down his guard too soon. He checked his surroundings once more, and found nothing, but Rei’s capabilities were beyond even his own, and if she thought that there was anything amiss…
But if that were the case, she would have said so sooner, or given him some other, clearer signal.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:24:11 GMT -6
Too late, he realized that her concern was for him, just as she shook her head, having guessed at his thoughts from the way he had looked at her.
The silence hung between them then. They had neither of them been much for conversation even in the past. San had been more talkative when he had been teaching her, but that had been out of necessity; and later, things became too complicated for easy conversation. As Watchful Ones, it had been natural to keep their exchanges to only what was necessary, nothing wasteful and nothing that might disturb old wounds.
Now he wondered if they had become trapped in the habit.
But even so, her presence made him feel a little easier. It would have shamed him to admit aloud, but he was glad she was there. And though she did not speak, neither did she seem inclined to leave.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:24:24 GMT -6
If she meant to stay, San would allow himself the small comfort of her presence as long as he could get away with it.
Eventually, something drove her to speak after all. “You’re awake,” she said. Her voice was paper soft, almost inaudible over the murmur of conversation around them. If he hadn’t been in the habit of listening for it, he might have thought he imagined the words.
He was chastising himself for being soft on her almost before the thought had fully formed in his mind, but then he remembered that there was no Hachi, no higher ups to reprimand him for it anymore. Almost gingerly, he allowed the corners of his mouth to tug up in the slightest of smiles. “Did I worry you?” he said.
“You were asleep a long time,” Rei replied. It wasn’t an admission, but she averted her gaze, and the finely furred ears atop her head fell against her hair.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:24:38 GMT -6
San’s smile faded. A long time, she’d said. Unspoken was the rest - that he had wasted away, that he had been sick even after he woke, though he never recalled her being around to see it. He didn’t doubt that she had kept an eye on him even so, somewhere out of sight. Unspoken were the circumstances behind their departure, and the discovery that had led to those circumstances.
Unspoken, too, was the shadow of a new ghost hanging over him.
“Did you…” San fell silent for a moment, his own gaze falling to the wood of the table, as though the grain of it might tell him some secret he didn’t yet know. “Did Roku mention anything to you?” he amended. If she didn’t know, then he had no desire to alarm her with the knowledge. In fact, he rather hoped Roku hadn’t told her after all.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:24:48 GMT -6
He was sure she had more than enough to be concerned with even without the possibility that San might become someone else entirely.
But fortune was seldom his to command, and his hopes were dashed at once by her response. “I didn’t talk to it. Him.” One of her ears twitched toward a sound that San didn’t catch. She seemed distracted, or maybe avoidant; for once he couldn’t be sure. “But I think I’ve seen him once.”
San hadn’t known until she said it just how much her words would shake him. Somehow it hadn’t seemed real. Roku had spoken no more on the matter, preoccupied with the more immediate tasks necessitated by their arrival; and after all, it had been San who had woken up today, hadn’t it? And he had already lost so much to sleep. It was easy, between all these distractions, to forget that there was a stranger residing in him now.
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Post by Linyü on Mar 10, 2021 21:28:54 GMT -6
Even the flashbacks had been a distraction, in their own way. Unpleasant though the memories had been, they had still been his.
But the thought that Rei might have encountered the other, that filled him with dread anew.
“I won’t talk to him,” said Rei, “if you don’t want me to.” She could still guess at his thoughts as easily as he could guess at hers. Easier, even; she was used to paying attention in a way that he wasn’t, the sort of habit formed so early that it had become instinct over time.
It saddened him to see it, the way so many things did, but there had never been much room for pity in their time as agents. Now he might be able to do something more for her, but he had no idea what, especially not when he was like this, emaciated and fighting his own thoughts as soon as he was left alone.
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