[She's settled in front of a simpler gravestone, tracing worn letters with her fingers with an oddly tranquil expression, which only lifts slightly when she sees Xie Lian.]
Chijin, hi. I was just thinking. Paying respects, too, if I could. [A moment, as she reaches out for the odd little bubble. It's not the first one she's received this week, but she expects it to be her own memory by now. Or... whatever static and noise was left behind.]
[ the whole world is resting on your shoulders, and this time, it is literal.
you were once standing, but now you sit, your hands raised above you. it has been days, and your hands rest on the intricately carved leg of a statue. it is five meters tall, magnificent, the first true divine statue created for the crown prince who pleased the god, his highness taizi dianxia, the flower crowned martial god. his face is your face, carved in eminence and glory. it is the pride of xian le, that you hold in your hands, and you are holding it because the celestial pagoda that it holds up is crumbling down.
the pagoda is the centerpiece of xian le; the most massive, beautiful building in a beautiful kingdom, full of ancient treasures and beautiful things. full of the history of your family, and connected to every building on the holy martial avenue. if this building collapses, it will bring down residences full of people, the main streets, and the eminence of the royal family of xian le, barely holding on by a thread. you summoned the statue here, from its home in mt. taicang, where you always cultivate, and brought it to hold up the sky. but the symbolic crown prince had cracked, and now, the crown prince holds himself up with trembling hands and draining spiritual energy.
worshippers come by in throngs. you want to beg them to stop, to leave. each person who enters the pagoda to worship to the statue, to sing your praises, is in danger. a terrible earthquake, the drought, the infection - there were more reasons than ever to pray - and you cannot dare let them see for even a moment, that you will crack too. you haven't moved in days. sweat pours down your back, and you force yourself to meditate, to try and stay calm, to not waver even for a moment. you are seventeen years old, and you carry the entire world in your hands.
as the worshippers sing your praises, your mother comes to visit you, and you, for the first time in your young life, want to cry like a child in her arms.
but you don't.
you can't.
xian le is depending on you.
there is a moment when you nearly fade - when you feel your strength starting to fall, and when you look to your left, you see it. a tiny white flower, the shape of a dewdrop, placed among the foolish offerings left by a populace hoping to avoid the death that seemed to be haunting xian le. you remove one single shaking hand from the statue and take it, and grip it in your hand, as tight as you can, bringing it to your heart.
but the peace is broken, a moment later, because you smell blood. a man comes into your field of vision, screaming in agony and desperation. -- "why?! why?!"
to keep yourself from being attacked, you push at the man, who runs directly at you; he screams, and rolls backwards. it gives you enough time to realize that you know this person.
he is covered in blood. it's left a trail as he's crawled his way to the statue, seeping from his one remaining leg. (you are the one who amputated his leg. you had no choice. you had to-- it was the only way to stop it - )
"why," you ask, dumbfounded, horrified, "Why are you here?"
the man doesn't answer you. he crawls closer, and shoves his remaining leg in your face, reaching with trembling, bloody hands to lift his pant leg.
staring back at you is a horrifying, twisted face of a human being.
horror strikes you to your core.
it's the human face plague.
the man screams. "why did you cut off my leg?! it still relapsed! my leg's gone! give it back! give it back!"
he is screaming, spitting in your face, and you, panicked, summon up a spell to try and suppress the poison in the young man's veins. "Let me help you--" you start, even if your voice trembles, at first.
and you soothe this young man's pain while you hold the statue, and he looks grateful, but you have no time to answer. another voice cries, "Your highness, save me!"
"Your highness!" "Your highness save me!" they rise in pitch, agony, human suffering made real, surrounding you on all sides. "your highness, I've cut half of my face off! it's still not healed! why?! just what do we have to do to cure it?!" "your highness! look at me! look at what i've become!"
panic rises in your throat. you hold onto the statue and try to turn your face away, because you can't, you can't look any further, because you know the cure, you know the cure and all of these people are begging you for it but you can't, you can't -- every time you try to cast a spell to ease their pain, ten fall back, and ten more come forward, begging, pleading.
"your highness! me! help me too!" the statue starts to sway in your arms and you beg them to wait.
"no, i don't want to wait! i've waited for too long!"
"your highness, why would you treat him, but not me?!"
"how come when you treated him, his symptoms were as good as new, but mine aren't better? aren't you a god? why are you so unfair! i demand justice!"
you falter. your hands are trembling, "I'm not being unfair, this isn't on me, your symptoms are different--"
"if you're going to help, then help all the way. now you wanna drop everything, what exactly are you playing at? is it up to you?"
panic crawls up your throat, your heart beating fast, faster, "I'm not dropping anything! I just - just wait - "
"DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TO CURE THIS DISEASE?"
no, you think, you can't know, you can't. "I-"
"IF YOU KNOW, THEN WHY WON'T YOU TELL US?!"
you want to scream. your spiritual power holds the statue as your hands come free, and you grab your head - "I don't know anything!"
"YOU'RE LYING!" a voice accuses, "I ALREADY HEARD SOMEONE TALKING, YOU KNEW! I'VE SEEN THROUGH YOU! YOU WON'T TELL US BECAUSE YOU JUST WANT US TO KEEP BEGGING YOU LIKE THIS, SO YOU CAN STEAL OUR DONATION MONEY! YOU'RE A LIAR!"
"WHAT'S THE CURE?! TELL US! TELL US NOW!
someone grabs you around the throat, tightening, the oxygen in your lungs squeezed and squeezed. another hand grabs your shirt, your clothes, your sweat soaked robes, your hair, anything they can get their hands on, as the mob descends upon you. your vision is full of mutilated, bloody faces, begging, screaming, their intent nothing but murderous, and you, god of heaven, the crown prince who pleased the gods, glorious and beautiful, feel your heart cry the tiniest, tiniest
"save me--"
in the distance, you hear the victory horns of the enemy that xian le has been fighting, and in that moment, your spiritual power cracks -
and the entire statue comes down, because you can't hold it up any longer. ]
[ the mob screams in horror, as the crown prince statue begins to fall, and the celestial pagoda gives a horrible, wrenching groan, as it all begins to fall around your ears.
and you have to run, too -- you have to flee, flee the statue and the building as it collapses, as plague victims die at your feet. you run, and run, and run, past your own face on the golden statue as it falls, past fires and dying citizens of xian le, past the crumbling wreckage of your kingdom, of everything you have ever known, and everything you tried so, so hard to protect.
tears are streaming down your face until the world blurs, and you run desperately for the battlefield, running, running to check on the soldiers, to fix something, anything,
and the only clear thing you see is a figure, standing amongst the corpses of xian le soldiers, as far as the eye can see.
he looks up to you, wearing a white mask; the face half smiles, and half cries. his sleeves flutter in the wind, and he gives you a wave, almost carefree.
it is the same face that whispered the cure to the human face plague in your ear, months ago.
the only way to cure the human face plague is by killing someone else, xian le.
you feel more emotions than you've ever felt at once. despair is overrun by anger, and you throw yourself up to the top of the fortress walls over the battlefield and scream, "DON"T GO!"
you have jumped from higher places than this. your spiritual energy is utterly boundless, and in this moment, you have only one focus - the white no face, who stares at you now, half laughing, half crying, almost beckoning. you will find him. you will wring a true cure from his neck, and you think this as you jump effortlessly off of the tall wall with everything you have in you.
every time you have fallen, it was as if you have descended straight from the heavens. thousands of tales are told about the crown prince of xian le's descent at the spring festival parade, how he seemed to flutter down like a gift straight from above, about how he landed pleased and full of pride no matter the height. a hero. an image. a young god. a legend. beloved treasure of xian le.
but today, when your leg hits the ground, pain wracks from foot to hip like being stabbed through with a sword, and you crumple.
you, the pride of xian le, beloved treasure, young god, taizi dianxia, have fallen safely from the walls of xian le hundreds and thousands of times in glory.
today, when you fall, the bones in your leg shatter on impact, because you have nothing left. ]
It's a truly horrifying thing to witness. A boy so young, and so many people reliant on him, praying in agony, in anger. Every second seems worse than the last, and it could bring the heart to rot in one's chest for how tragic, how cruel the entire situation is. For the people. For the city. For their god.
And yet, Hikaru's expression barely moves, her mouth only slowly, carefully flattening with a serious expression, watching and remembering a memory that is not hers without turning away - feeling the pain of bones breaking with a sharp inhale for breath, but not budging. Her hands stay flat against her lap.
he feels bitter nostalgia rising in him, as he re-experiences his own failures through his own eyes, and as xie lian feels the memory start to fade - as he feels the crunch at his leg - he inhales, and exhales. slow, steady. once. twice. three times.
as hikaru says his name, xie lian slowly closes his eyes.
he puts it away. as he has done for the past eight hundred years, he inhales, exhales, and puts that back on a shelf. ]
...It is... one of my memories. I apologize, that you had to see that, meimei.
One person can't suffer so much for so long and have it be okay, no matter how kind a person they are.
[Her hands stay carefully in her lap.]
I know it's something that you might not regret, or might not feel badly about. You wanted what was best.
That doesn't make it alright for you to have done it alone, or for you to have to suffer. Even if it was better for you to take it than anyone else... that cruelty shouldn't have been put on you in the first place.
acting very oddly. xie lian's glad for it, kind of, if only because he would like to just ignore that the both of them saw that forever, but...
he pauses, bites the inside of his cheek, and responds to her. ] ...Mn. It is the responsibility of the royalty, to care for the people. Whether I wanted the best or otherwise - I lived with the consequences of what happened, and still do.
Yeah, I'm okay. [Plainly, very calmly.] A little... confused, I guess.
I feel like I should be... sadder. Angrier, maybe. For you. It's not that I'm not. I see this, and think about everything you felt, and my heart feels like it might just burst. But...
[Mmm. She takes a moment, and then shrugs very gently.]
Mn. Can we talk a little when we're done? I had a question I wanted to ask, if it's okay.
[She'll nod pleasantly, her own smile genuine as she reaches for where her sword has been laid out, carefully drawing it up and unaware of the distortion that she breaks with the tilt of her blade in the process.
it's not a painless memory, and the reminder of the wounds and the hand around her neck still get her to pause, to flinch very subtly. But otherwise she lets the moment pass, that same passive look on her face as she observes, her brows furrowing the more that goes on.
[ this lack of reaction from someone who is quite possibly the most emotional person xie lian has ever met sure is something!!!!
anyway. the thing that feels the most intrusive about these memories is the way they just seem to put you in that person's shoes. for xie lian, coming out of it, he can still feel the adrenaline that licks down his spine, can feel hikaru's despair, her courage, the way she was pushed to her limit -
...he exhales, in a whoosh of air, blinking at the space in front of him. ] Miss...
[Her smile grows a little. There's a genuine sense of pride there, of determination. She remembers that much, after all.]
Sorry. I know parts of it don't make a lot of sense. Rafaga wasn't a bad person. He even came to help me, in the future. All he wanted was Emeraude to be safe, and that got used against him.
I wish I remembered why I was so mad at him, but... I guess it was enough for the Mashin, to watch me fight.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Chijin, hi. I was just thinking. Paying respects, too, if I could. [A moment, as she reaches out for the odd little bubble. It's not the first one she's received this week, but she expects it to be her own memory by now. Or... whatever static and noise was left behind.]
1/2
unfortunately for the both of them, perhaps - the memory that appears doesn't belong to hikaru, and xie lian realizes it just a second too late. ]
haha i lied 2/3
you were once standing, but now you sit, your hands raised above you. it has been days, and your hands rest on the intricately carved leg of a statue. it is five meters tall, magnificent, the first true divine statue created for the crown prince who pleased the god, his highness taizi dianxia, the flower crowned martial god. his face is your face, carved in eminence and glory. it is the pride of xian le, that you hold in your hands, and you are holding it because the celestial pagoda that it holds up is crumbling down.
the pagoda is the centerpiece of xian le; the most massive, beautiful building in a beautiful kingdom, full of ancient treasures and beautiful things. full of the history of your family, and connected to every building on the holy martial avenue. if this building collapses, it will bring down residences full of people, the main streets, and the eminence of the royal family of xian le, barely holding on by a thread. you summoned the statue here, from its home in mt. taicang, where you always cultivate, and brought it to hold up the sky. but the symbolic crown prince had cracked, and now, the crown prince holds himself up with trembling hands and draining spiritual energy.
worshippers come by in throngs. you want to beg them to stop, to leave. each person who enters the pagoda to worship to the statue, to sing your praises, is in danger. a terrible earthquake, the drought, the infection - there were more reasons than ever to pray - and you cannot dare let them see for even a moment, that you will crack too. you haven't moved in days. sweat pours down your back, and you force yourself to meditate, to try and stay calm, to not waver even for a moment. you are seventeen years old, and you carry the entire world in your hands.
as the worshippers sing your praises, your mother comes to visit you, and you, for the first time in your young life, want to cry like a child in her arms.
but you don't.
you can't.
xian le is depending on you.
there is a moment when you nearly fade - when you feel your strength starting to fall, and when you look to your left, you see it. a tiny white flower, the shape of a dewdrop, placed among the foolish offerings left by a populace hoping to avoid the death that seemed to be haunting xian le. you remove one single shaking hand from the statue and take it, and grip it in your hand, as tight as you can, bringing it to your heart.
but the peace is broken, a moment later, because you smell blood. a man comes into your field of vision, screaming in agony and desperation. -- "why?! why?!"
to keep yourself from being attacked, you push at the man, who runs directly at you; he screams, and rolls backwards. it gives you enough time to realize that you know this person.
he is covered in blood. it's left a trail as he's crawled his way to the statue, seeping from his one remaining leg. (you are the one who amputated his leg. you had no choice. you had to-- it was the only way to stop it - )
"why," you ask, dumbfounded, horrified, "Why are you here?"
the man doesn't answer you. he crawls closer, and shoves his remaining leg in your face, reaching with trembling, bloody hands to lift his pant leg.
staring back at you is a horrifying, twisted face of a human being.
horror strikes you to your core.
it's the human face plague.
the man screams. "why did you cut off my leg?! it still relapsed! my leg's gone! give it back! give it back!"
he is screaming, spitting in your face, and you, panicked, summon up a spell to try and suppress the poison in the young man's veins. "Let me help you--" you start, even if your voice trembles, at first.
and you soothe this young man's pain while you hold the statue, and he looks grateful, but you have no time to answer. another voice cries, "Your highness, save me!"
"Your highness!" "Your highness save me!" they rise in pitch, agony, human suffering made real, surrounding you on all sides. "your highness, I've cut half of my face off! it's still not healed! why?! just what do we have to do to cure it?!" "your highness! look at me! look at what i've become!"
panic rises in your throat. you hold onto the statue and try to turn your face away, because you can't, you can't look any further, because you know the cure, you know the cure and all of these people are begging you for it but you can't, you can't -- every time you try to cast a spell to ease their pain, ten fall back, and ten more come forward, begging, pleading.
"your highness! me! help me too!" the statue starts to sway in your arms and you beg them to wait.
"no, i don't want to wait! i've waited for too long!"
"your highness, why would you treat him, but not me?!"
"how come when you treated him, his symptoms were as good as new, but mine aren't better? aren't you a god? why are you so unfair! i demand justice!"
you falter. your hands are trembling, "I'm not being unfair, this isn't on me, your symptoms are different--"
"if you're going to help, then help all the way. now you wanna drop everything, what exactly are you playing at? is it up to you?"
panic crawls up your throat, your heart beating fast, faster, "I'm not dropping anything! I just - just wait - "
"DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TO CURE THIS DISEASE?"
no, you think, you can't know, you can't. "I-"
"IF YOU KNOW, THEN WHY WON'T YOU TELL US?!"
you want to scream. your spiritual power holds the statue as your hands come free, and you grab your head - "I don't know anything!"
"YOU'RE LYING!" a voice accuses, "I ALREADY HEARD SOMEONE TALKING, YOU KNEW! I'VE SEEN THROUGH YOU! YOU WON'T TELL US BECAUSE YOU JUST WANT US TO KEEP BEGGING YOU LIKE THIS, SO YOU CAN STEAL OUR DONATION MONEY! YOU'RE A LIAR!"
"WHAT'S THE CURE?! TELL US! TELL US NOW!
someone grabs you around the throat, tightening, the oxygen in your lungs squeezed and squeezed. another hand grabs your shirt, your clothes, your sweat soaked robes, your hair, anything they can get their hands on, as the mob descends upon you. your vision is full of mutilated, bloody faces, begging, screaming, their intent nothing but murderous, and you, god of heaven, the crown prince who pleased the gods, glorious and beautiful, feel your heart cry the tiniest, tiniest
"save me--"
in the distance, you hear the victory horns of the enemy that xian le has been fighting, and in that moment, your spiritual power cracks -
and the entire statue comes down, because you can't hold it up any longer. ]
no subject
and you have to run, too -- you have to flee, flee the statue and the building as it collapses, as plague victims die at your feet. you run, and run, and run, past your own face on the golden statue as it falls, past fires and dying citizens of xian le, past the crumbling wreckage of your kingdom, of everything you have ever known, and everything you tried so, so hard to protect.
tears are streaming down your face until the world blurs, and you run desperately for the battlefield, running, running to check on the soldiers, to fix something, anything,
and the only clear thing you see is a figure, standing amongst the corpses of xian le soldiers, as far as the eye can see.
he looks up to you, wearing a white mask; the face half smiles, and half cries. his sleeves flutter in the wind, and he gives you a wave, almost carefree.
it is the same face that whispered the cure to the human face plague in your ear, months ago.
the only way to cure the human face plague is by killing someone else, xian le.
you feel more emotions than you've ever felt at once. despair is overrun by anger, and you throw yourself up to the top of the fortress walls over the battlefield and scream, "DON"T GO!"
you have jumped from higher places than this. your spiritual energy is utterly boundless, and in this moment, you have only one focus - the white no face, who stares at you now, half laughing, half crying, almost beckoning. you will find him. you will wring a true cure from his neck, and you think this as you jump effortlessly off of the tall wall with everything you have in you.
every time you have fallen, it was as if you have descended straight from the heavens. thousands of tales are told about the crown prince of xian le's descent at the spring festival parade, how he seemed to flutter down like a gift straight from above, about how he landed pleased and full of pride no matter the height. a hero. an image. a young god. a legend. beloved treasure of xian le.
but today, when your leg hits the ground, pain wracks from foot to hip like being stabbed through with a sword, and you crumple.
you, the pride of xian le, beloved treasure, young god, taizi dianxia, have fallen safely from the walls of xian le hundreds and thousands of times in glory.
today, when you fall, the bones in your leg shatter on impact, because you have nothing left. ]
no subject
It's a truly horrifying thing to witness. A boy so young, and so many people reliant on him, praying in agony, in anger. Every second seems worse than the last, and it could bring the heart to rot in one's chest for how tragic, how cruel the entire situation is. For the people. For the city. For their god.
And yet, Hikaru's expression barely moves, her mouth only slowly, carefully flattening with a serious expression, watching and remembering a memory that is not hers without turning away - feeling the pain of bones breaking with a sharp inhale for breath, but not budging. Her hands stay flat against her lap.
...
Slowly, she looks towards him.]
...Chijin? [Very calmly.] What was that?
no subject
he feels bitter nostalgia rising in him, as he re-experiences his own failures through his own eyes, and as xie lian feels the memory start to fade - as he feels the crunch at his leg - he inhales, and exhales. slow, steady. once. twice. three times.
as hikaru says his name, xie lian slowly closes his eyes.
he puts it away. as he has done for the past eight hundred years, he inhales, exhales, and puts that back on a shelf. ]
...It is... one of my memories. I apologize, that you had to see that, meimei.
no subject
She should... feel more than this, at something so sad. Shouldn't she?
...
Mm. Maybe not.]
You don't need to worry about it, Chijin.
You suffered a lot for their sake, didn't you? Did they ever really know what you went through?
no subject
...Mm, no. [ because most of them were dead, a voice whispers in the back of his mind. xie lian ignores it. ] ...That's alright, though.
[ because ultimately, his suffering was that - his own. he never blamed the people of xian le, for their terror. their fright.
there was only one person who deserved that blame. deserves it, wherever he is. ]
no subject
One person can't suffer so much for so long and have it be okay, no matter how kind a person they are.
[Her hands stay carefully in her lap.]
I know it's something that you might not regret, or might not feel badly about. You wanted what was best.
That doesn't make it alright for you to have done it alone, or for you to have to suffer. Even if it was better for you to take it than anyone else... that cruelty shouldn't have been put on you in the first place.
no subject
acting very oddly. xie lian's glad for it, kind of, if only because he would like to just ignore that the both of them saw that forever, but...
he pauses, bites the inside of his cheek, and responds to her. ] ...Mn. It is the responsibility of the royalty, to care for the people. Whether I wanted the best or otherwise - I lived with the consequences of what happened, and still do.
[ ... ] ...meimei. Are you feeling alright?
no subject
I feel like I should be... sadder. Angrier, maybe. For you. It's not that I'm not. I see this, and think about everything you felt, and my heart feels like it might just burst. But...
[Mmm. She takes a moment, and then shrugs very gently.]
Maybe I just need something to eat.
no subject
xie lian's danger senses twist like a knife. ]
....When did this start, meimei? Has it been like this since you woke up on Monday?
no subject
[She doesn't seem too concerned.]
I'm okay, I promise.
no subject
...then. Come, let's go get something to eat, shall we? I'm feeling a little hungry, too.
no subject
[She'll nod pleasantly, her own smile genuine as she reaches for where her sword has been laid out, carefully drawing it up and unaware of the distortion that she breaks with the tilt of her blade in the process.
it's not a painless memory, and the reminder of the wounds and the hand around her neck still get her to pause, to flinch very subtly. But otherwise she lets the moment pass, that same passive look on her face as she observes, her brows furrowing the more that goes on.
...]
Mmn. That must have been mine.
no subject
anyway. the thing that feels the most intrusive about these memories is the way they just seem to put you in that person's shoes. for xie lian, coming out of it, he can still feel the adrenaline that licks down his spine, can feel hikaru's despair, her courage, the way she was pushed to her limit -
...he exhales, in a whoosh of air, blinking at the space in front of him. ] Miss...
[ ... ] ...Meimei... [ wow. ]
no subject
[Her smile grows a little. There's a genuine sense of pride there, of determination. She remembers that much, after all.]
Sorry. I know parts of it don't make a lot of sense. Rafaga wasn't a bad person. He even came to help me, in the future. All he wanted was Emeraude to be safe, and that got used against him.
I wish I remembered why I was so mad at him, but... I guess it was enough for the Mashin, to watch me fight.