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Post by Linyü on Jun 12, 2020 17:48:10 GMT -6
After everything that had... happened at the mansion, San almost relished the idea of letting Seveth take over for a few days. But that wasn't how it happened; they had fallen into a pattern of alternating, and the next time he awoke, it was still only a day later. ... He supposed it wouldn't have really helped. He wasn't aware of time passing when Seveth was in control. What he needed was time and distance, and now he needed twice as much of it, since he wasn't even present half the time. Time wasn't something he could magically create, but at least he could distract himself. He had plenty of practice, all these long years. He threw himself into any work he could find, and on this occasion, that necessitated a trip to the quest board. Rei elected to come along. After having encountered other Harachiu in the city, San no longer tried to stop her. 1
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Post by Linyü on Jun 12, 2020 17:59:50 GMT -6
At first he had done it because he hadn't been sure whether it was safe for her to be wandering around in the open in broad daylight. There had been no Harachiu back in Xinzhou, except for the ones that the Watchful Ones had... confiscated. That was where Rei had come from too, when he first met her.
But here they were known, if a little rare. Many of them lived with people. It wasn't, as he had learned, so unusual to be seen in the company of one. And if there was no real danger, then there was no reason to forbid her. He had no wish to restrict how she lived; if there was no danger, he wouldn't refuse her anything.
... But he felt that she chose to accompany him for reasons other than her own curiosity, or merely to stretch her legs after having been housebound for some time.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 12, 2020 18:05:10 GMT -6
She had been with him there, in the mansion. And ever since then, he had noticed her observing him. She did it in her own quiet, unobtrusive way; if it weren't for the fact that he had trained her himself and worked with her for so long, even San might not have noticed.
She wasn't with him all hours of the day. The two of them understood implicitly the value of giving space. But they knew each other too well to effectively have such secrets anymore; he was unsettled, and she knew it. And so she was monitoring him.
He wouldn't refuse her this either. But it felt... He couldn't put it into words.
He drove the thought from his mind as they approached the board, and tried to force himself to believe that this was just a regular outing. It wasn't so unusual for the two of them to go out together for a job these days.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 12, 2020 21:55:35 GMT -6
It was easy to go through the motions. Approach the board, look at all the job postings on it. There weren't many this month. Maybe things were slowing down. He didn't know the city well enough to have many guesses as to why. Rei drifted up to peer over his shoulder. He said, "Do you want to choose?"
Rei didn't answer, but flitted closer to the board, perusing the offerings one by one. Eventually she selected a request written on stationery with faint impressions of moth wings on it.
San smiled. "You chose this because you like the paper, didn't you?" he said. Rei stayed silent, and San's smile faded a little. "... We aren't Watchful anymore. It's alright for you to have things you like," he said gently.
Rei studied him for a moment, and San smiled at her again, trying for a reassuring expression.
She looked away. "It's alright for you too," she said.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 12, 2020 22:14:45 GMT -6
She spoke quietly--- she always did. San was used to it. But just this once, he felt as though he might not have heard her correctly.
... But no. He knew what she had said. It was only the strangeness of it that had given him pause.
He thought of the other girls he had known, in his time with the Watchful Ones. His sister would have protested it, and Juu would have teased him. ... No, perhaps Shi would only have brushed it off. It always took him a moment to remember who she had been... after. But still, neither of them would have said such a thing to him. No one he knew would have said it.
No one save for Rei.
'It's alright for you too,' she'd said. He knew she meant well. In a sense, it was probably even true. Technically, it wasn't just her that was free, now that they had left.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 12, 2020 22:20:24 GMT -6
... And yet. And yet her words rang false to him, even coming from her. She wasn't wrong, but... his hands clenched and unclenched, and he knew without having to look where every callous was, how the handle of a blade fit, how blood felt underneath the fingernails he kept trimmed short. He thought of how their quiet little apartment felt like a cage, even at night, even when he should be resting; how he had to work himself to exhaustion in the park, away from prying eyes, until he was too exhausted for any thoughts to haunt his dreams.
Maybe it was hypocrisy. He knew he wasn't the only one that was haunted. But he was the one whose hands were stained, the one who had chosen to...
"San."
Rei's voice brought him out of his thoughts. She looked at the paper, and then at him, a wordless question in the slight cant of her head.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 12, 2020 22:30:12 GMT -6
He smiled again, but from the way she looked back at him, it probably hadn't been convincing. He would need to work on that. She was harder to fool than most, since she knew him well, but even so... It had been happening more often lately than he would have liked.
"I'm fine," he said.
She said nothing in response, and hovered over the paper in his hands. "What does it say?" she said.
"... We need to catch moths in the park," said San, reading over the request. A simple enough task, with little danger, though not one in which he expected Rei to be able to assist him. "You can come with me and watch, if you like."
Rei nodded, and together they departed the board, making off in the direction of the park. San walked slowly, pacing himself so that she could follow him without straining herself, though in truth Rei's stamina in flight was good enough that he didn't really need to.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 12, 2020 23:03:07 GMT -6
Still, taking an evening stroll wasn't a bad thing. Now that he had been outside for a bit, with Rei at his side, San felt... better. The air was pleasantly cool on his skin, and he could hear the chirping of crickets in the distance. Neither of them spoke, but somehow he was glad she was there. It was a little easier not to dwell on unpleasant things when she was with him.
When they came to the park, Rei made a soft, almost inaudible gasp. San followed her gaze, and found himself looking at a clearing filled with dancing motes of light. 'Glow moths', so the letter had called them; he had deliberately left out the detail of their glow when he told her about the request, hoping to surprise her. Maybe that wasn't the thing that a trusted partner ought to have done, but seeing her reaction made it worthwhile.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 12, 2020 23:23:15 GMT -6
They stood there for a moment, with Rei watching the moths, and San watching her. He was smiling again, almost in spite of himself.
In all the time he had known her, Rei had been quiet, withdrawn. At first she had been silent almost to the point of catatonia, but as San taught her the smallest, simplest parts of being a scout, she had come out of it little by little, like a tiny flower unfurling in the morning sun. The metaphor felt a little more apt now, knowing as he did where she and her kin came from.
That had been a long time ago, but even so, he felt gratified whenever something made her happy. Watching the moths, her eyes wide with wonder, she looked like any girl might, if they were only quiet and a little shy. When he compared that to the Rei that he had met in the warrens, he felt a slow, steady warmth in his chest.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 13, 2020 20:13:30 GMT -6
"Do you want to see one up close?" he said softly. Rei looked back at him, a hint of confusion clouding her features as her eyes dropped to his empty hands. San smiled. "Watch," he said.
Slowly, San made his way into the swarm of glow moths, walking soundlessly on the grass. The movements still didn't come as easily to him as he would have liked, but he had been training himself back up, and the glow moths weren't so cautious as he had feared. Once he was among them, he merely stood there and waited.
He could sense Rei staring at him, but he merely raised his fingers to his lips, then went back to standing still. It took some time, but eventually one moth landed on him, and then another. He reached a hand out to the one on his shoulder, coaxing it gently until it walked onto his fingers.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 13, 2020 20:21:30 GMT -6
Glancing back at Rei, he beckoned her forward with a hand. She knew from the way he moved to approach slowly, fluttering towards him until she could rest on his shoulder. Carefully, he held the glow moth up. "See?" he said. The moth was pulsing with a gentle light, which wavered as it cleaned its antennae; its thin, powdery wings were folded along its back. Up close, they could see that the wings were translucent, with a faint iridescent pattern on them.
And then, as though it had had enough, the moth flew away. He could feel rather than see Rei tense up beside him, and he laughed a little, low and quiet. "It's alright. I'll catch more."
"... How?" she said. San knew she didn't mean how he had done it; she had watched, and she knew. What she meant was how he had learned. Surely the Watchful Ones didn't teach something like this, she must have thought.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 13, 2020 21:33:03 GMT -6
And she was right; they didn't. San held himself still, but he spoke in a low voice as he waited for another moth to approach. "We used to catch butterflies by the river when I was young. Sometimes we could even catch dragonflies if we were lucky. You had to be really fast to get them, and if you made any noise, they'd fly away." By contrast, the glow moths were easy to trick. Another one landed on his sleeve, and San coaxed this one into a small jar instead. "Here," he said, presenting it to Rei. "For you."
She took it from him, peering through the glass at the insect trapped within. While she did, he caught more, luring them to him with a little water poured into the palm of his hand. It wasn't fast work, but it kept his mind occupied, since he had to focus on not startling the moths.
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Jun 14, 2020 6:36:24 GMT -6
Looks like you haven't been able to catch any glowmoths yet, but keep trying!
[Nothing happens.]
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Post by Linyü on Jun 19, 2020 12:03:43 GMT -6
In the end, they were thwarted by a lack of containers to hold the moths that he had caught. San eyed the small collection of jars a little ruefully. He wondered how many they wanted; the request hadn't been particularly specific about it. Perhaps this would be enough. At any rate, there was no way to know until they turned them in, and San would have to come back with more jars if he wanted to catch any more.
"We're done for today," he said to Rei. The sky was still a few shades away from true, deep night, but it was summer, and the hour was already late. San himself would have preferred to stay out and train, but he could do that closer to the apartment, and Rei ought to at least rest if she could. They were all of them working in the daylight hours now, since they had come here.
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Post by Linyü on Jun 19, 2020 12:08:28 GMT -6
It shouldn't have felt like a transition, and yet somehow it did. Apparently San had spent too much time as a nocturnal thing. Occasionally their assignments had taken place in daylight, and a lot of the groundwork had to be done during the hours when normal folk would be awake, but that kind of casual information gathering wasn't their primary focus. At night, they had more freedom to act. At night, they could proceed with their own engagements. As ghosts who didn't really exist anywhere on a known record anymore, that had been the only existence allowed to them.
Having a fixed schedule again still felt alien, but now it was no longer practical to work only by night. For example, there would be no bringing in these glow moths until the morning, when the establishment that had requested them were open again for visitors. "Let's go," he said to Rei.
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