poorlittlesange: (but er-ge it's a secret lair for a reaso)
金光瑶 | 𝕛𝕚𝕟 𝕘𝕦𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕪𝕒𝕠 ([personal profile] poorlittlesange) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2022-10-07 02:32 pm

i once knew a man who learned such a thing | october catch-all

Who: Jin Guangyao + select closed prompts + OTA
What: Settling in; an encounter with a draugr; trying to locate some much needed chill; continuing a TDM thread.
When: /waves hands, throughout the month.
Where: Willful Machine, along a nondescript thoroughfare and by the canals; the Pale Sanctuary in Cassandra; the Boardwalk
Notes: If you're keen on threading something, hit me up on plurk @ ragweed and we can figure something out.

Content Warnings: Blood, gore. Allusions to memories of a murder victim. Frank discussion of a child's murder (his son).



I. Cleaning house. (OTA)
The siheyuan has good bones. Whoever built it understood the importance of craftsmanship, though whether there is any prosperous energy in Trench for a south-facing house to welcome is anyone's guess. But someone had lived here before, once; there are height marks scratched into the wood of a door frame, seven of them, one for each birthday celebrated by a child. When Jin Guangyao first notices the marks while affixing spirit-repelling talismans to the walls in auspicious locations, he very deliberately does not think of his son.

With the talismans in place within the courtyard and the rooms themselves, he steps outside and onto the thoroughfare sidewalk to affix a few of them to the gate. Trailing behind him is his omen, a lean steppe fox whose winter coat has already begun to come in.

II. Second Death at the Canals. (Closed to Sasuke)
OOC note: Timing of this event is sometime after JGY snags himself an address, and finishes up his conversation with Mike Enslin (see below).

It is late in the evening, well after what passes for dusk in Trench, when the screams rip through the air near the canals. What follows is an immediate mad scramble of bodies and limbs of all shapes to escape the scene unfolding by the water's edge, where a draugr has pinned a man in pale gold robes to the ground by his throat.

Right now, only two things separate Jin Guangyao from death: the first is the blade of his spiritual sword, Hensheng, which he has thrust through the draugr's throat and embedded in what passes for its spine, and which in combination with his faltering spiritual power serves only to keep the monster's still-gnashing jaws from descending upon him. The other is his omen, who has transformed herself into the menacing shape of a large huli jing, and is harrying the draugr with ear-splitting fox-bark screams and yodels that keep the thing distracted, but not deterred. Every so often it swipes ineffectually out at her with the hand not at its quarry's throat, before she lunges away.

The draugr has taken much from Jin Guangyao over the course of the last month to the point where his outrage and fury over the theft of his memories is only overwhelmed by the sheer terror he experiences when the monster at last manifests itself and forces him to look at its face (and forces him to remember a face he wishes he could forget, dead but still seeing him, still hating him, still suspecting his every decision, hesitation or sideways glance--)

Ichor from the gaping throat wound above him splatters down towards him. Jin Guangyao jerks his face away and grits his teeth, and twists beneath the monster's bulk to edge a foot against its stomach--not because he thinks that he has the power to actually kick the thing away, but because any barrier he can put between the draugr's teeth and himself is better than nothing. Still, this is a grim situation, and his eyes dart about himself in terror and outrage as he desperately tries to come up with an escape plan.

III. Exploring near the Pale Sanctuary. (OTA)

The pale, bloated tree at the heart of the Pale Sanctuary does not look like it should be a place of spiritual tranquility. Jin Guangyao stands slightly out of its shadow and considers it in silence, being sure always to keep his expression as inoffensive and absent of any outside judgment as possible. The thing alarms him, there's just no getting around it, and hearing the murmurs among the nearby Disciples regarding just who this entire district was named for strikes him as doubly inauspicious. No one in the cultivation world would think to name a place of spiritual sanctuary and healing after the Yiling Patriarch, surely.

He doesn't venture near the door that leads down into the sanctuary itself--that's a big 'nope, no thank you, not interested' at least for the moment--and instead takes his time walking the circumference of the tree, being sure to give it as wide a berth as possible as he looks it over in detail, committing what he sees to memory.

IV. Encounter on the Boardwalk. (Closed to Mike Enslin)
[continued from here!]

'Napkin guy.' That's a new one. It's much better than his last nickname. Jin Guangyao's expression softens by a hair's breadth of a margin, and though he doesn't smile--that particular mask wouldn't be appropriate, not now--he makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. Then, "Thank you," the stranger says, and Jin Guangyao bends his head in wordless acknowledgement of the courtesy.

As for the rest--

"Yes," he replies. He looks away from Mike to allow him the courtesy of tidying himself without a scrutinizing audience. There is so very much else happening on the boardwalk to draw the eye anyway; the masks, the lights, the myriad of different beings and bodies that are as alien to him as that tape recorder, if more frightening. When one being makes sustained eye contact with him for too long, Jin Guangyao is quick to avert his gaze in as non-threatening a manner as he can manage, and turns his attention back to Mike.

"Xiansheng, please forgive this one's lapse in manners. I am called Jin Guangyao." Just in case the stranger felt so inclined to actually refer to him as 'napkin guy,' henceforth.
chenqing_player: (dark cultivator)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2022-10-17 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
The laughter that leaves his lips is full of bitterness and dark amusement. There is irony in so much of what this man says. Wei Wuxian can't help the breath of amusement that escaped him. He feels some of that darkness well inside of him that has been kept at bay for such a long time. It still lingers there in the depths of his soul and is only fed by the darkblood that runs through his body. A blood of this world that can be dangerous all on its own.

"Ruin me? Do you really think my life can be any further ruined?" There is a quivering in the rocks beneath their feet. His ability to control his surroundings far stronger then it was a year ago when he first discovered he could move things with his mind. A year of training himself and his abilities. But even he knows that without the calming force that is Lan Wangji, he can lose himself to the corruption this place encourages. He can't let himself get too worked up over this man.

"Do you think you have any power over me at all? Do you really believe you can force me into telling you anything?"
chenqing_player: (Hate you so much right now)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2022-10-17 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
"What good would that do? No one truly dies in this place. You'll only come back and nothing will be gained at all. Death is pointless. Killing gains no one anything. A lesson that you should learn."

Wei Wuxian doesn't kill. Not anymore. It is the one thing he has vowed as each of his experiences in all of these worlds has shaped him. He barely sees any reason to even fight any more. THe fact that he has gotten this worked up is going to bother him later when he has had a chance to cool down.

"But what you need to understand is I know what lies in your future. We aren't from the same time. Possibly not even the same place. And you should remember that should anyone else we know arrives."

Because it is important. Anyone that is dead on their world can come to this place.