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@bluestringpuppeteer
Bluestringpuppeteer
I wanted Him to know. I wanted to know, the sheer strength of my loyalty.
Affiliated RP blog for Legato Bluesummers from Trigun Maximum/98 (18+ likely trigger heavy)
// Application // Stats // Rules //
Credit for the icons goes to Evee and the lovely header image is by Inkksuna!
Charms collection under the cut!
“Oh,” Vash hadn’t expected Legato to notice. The sane thing to do would be to deflect like usual, but he runs dry on excuses. The air in the room seems stale, a blanket of air conditioner static.
Somehow, the thought of this being ‘something someone did to him’ itches. This isn’t something that ‘just happened’, the way someone might ‘just happen’ to be struck by lightning. Vash, both of them, had made choices that lead to this outcome. Just accepting the idea that you were an object acted on by a real person seems… kind of pathetic to Vash.
“He doesn’t have that kind of power,” Vash stares down at nothing in particular, “You don’t have to let him control your thoughts.”
A moment passes before Vash realizes he’s forgotten the preamble to his own speech. “I mean, you don’t have to just ‘keep living’, like a doll put back on the shelf. You can do something about it.”
He feels like such a hypocrite sometimes. But Legato wasn’t a plant. There was no way that the other Vash had gotten inside the little crevices of his mind like that. And anyway, he needs to hear it.
Legato blinks, a bit taken aback by Vash's response. That's... not what he'd expected to hear. He wasn't really sure what he'd expected, but that wasn't it.
Perhaps if someone else had told him this, he would have written it off as placating or... or something. Maybe it's not great that because it's Vash speaking he automatically gives what he says more weight, but the simple fact of the matter is he does. He can't help it. So he tilts his head slightly and smiles a little bit, quietly tucking that sentiment close in his aching chest.
"I've spent most of my life being little more than a doll on a shelf. It's... still novel, being more than that." He lets his hand slide away from Vash's wrist and into his hair, not hesitating to reach this time.
"I tried to do something, but I think I made things worse." And wasn't that a concept. A Last Run, made worse. As if it wasn't already bad enough.
It hits him, but not very hard, and Badou's still left grinning when he's retrieved it.
"Me? I don't deserve that, ya brat, sand is so irritating and it gets everywhere..."
But he's still amused. It would be entirely too easy for Legato to move everyone out of the way-- just yank them, chock it up to some road rage miracle or something.
"You'd come dig me out, right?" cue a cheeky little grin.
"You're telling me, the one who grew up surrounded by sand. I should think I'm immune to it by this point."
He's all but out the door, about to pull on his own helmet as he heads out, but pauses to glance back over his shoulder. A bland, possibly even sarcastic expression twists his face, but after a moment it gentles into fondness, if not quite a smile. Soft.
"Yes, I would." After all, Badou is his best friend.
"Now hurry up or I'll leave you behind."
Too damaged, he says, but she feels that that was all the more reason. She feels his head on hers and closes her eyes,
"There's always beauty in unexpected things. You can turn anything into something greater, no matter what it is." She holds his hand tight, squeezing in comfort,
"I believe that you have it in you, Legato. You're strong enough and you're so, so capable. You'll see. You'll see.."
You can turn anything into something greater, huh? Even something shattered like him? It's hard to see, hard to think about, but... She would know better than he would, wouldn't she? Tae is obviously good, and a higher being to boot so... that should count for more than his own doubts.
He sighs, feeling Tae's hair tickle his nose and cheeks.
"I am not sure, but I'll... try to trust you on this. It's just... hard to see."
He's quiet for a moment, letting the vibrant hum of her energy he can feel through her skin soothe him.
"Thank you, Tae," he says voice soft and small.
「𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔤 𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔤!」- Turmoil spilled forth --
Feathers bloomed as Legato launched headlong into the growing plume.
Thin whipping feathers flailed at the intrusion. They thrashed and slashed. Those feathers sliced easily through the lamp posts and wood. They carved at the very ground beneath the pair. They left deep lacerations all over, rending clothing and flesh alike. The oppressive aura of despair, coupled with the rolling waves of power, was enough to push nearly anything around to its knees.
Flickers of sensations and sights that did not belong to him ran through his head. Koi? The glare of light against the still water of a pond? The sea? Sand against the skyline, wings in glass cases, black and withering. Screaming. Feathers. Endless heat --
Get away get away get away get away get away get away get away get away --!!
Legato had been expecting a violent reaction. He'd been expecting pain, expecting an attack, expecting for Vash to wholeheartedly and purposefully hurt him to make him let go.
He had not been expecting this. He should have.
The two independent Plants were, after all, twins.
Feathers became impossibly thin and sharp blades and writhed, cutting deep into everything they touched. Ground, wood, metal, leather coat, shirt, pants, skin, muscle, bone, none of it mattered. None of it stood up to the razor sharp edges of the feathers that thrashed in an attempt to remove him, even as others caught at him, dug in under his skin and drew him close.
A dying Plant's mind was not completely unfamiliar to Legato. Their screams would resonate with his threads and he would always listen, when he could. There was no one else to hear and witness after all, so he must be the one to carry that weight, that reminder of what humans did. He never spoke of it, there was no reason to. That was his burden.
But this is different. Vash is simultaneously both less and more than any other Plant. More personal, for sure. There is some vague part of Legato's mind, somewhere in the back, that idly compares the two experiences.
Most of the rest of him, is busy screaming.
He tries his hardest to keep his own images held in his mind, but the sheer torrent of pain and trauma that pours into him from Vash's long, long life simply washes them away. Legato's will is strong, when he wants it to be. But here, now, in a situation he doesn't want to be in, with a being who hates him, with lives he's still struggling to care about on the line, with his own life drifting back to worthless in his own mind, he just doesn't have the willpower to push back nearly as much as he physically could.
Not here. Not now. Not for himself.
But he tries anyway.
Not that it helps at all. It never helps. Never.
A last run? Vash isn’t familiar with the terminology, but the implication is clear enough. It’s a sense-memory; his sisters overheating or starving at unskilled hands and taking whole human communities with them. Great warbling lights more visceral than any human scream.
“Me?” Vash stares, hollow-eyed. “I’ll live.”
How is he supposed to explain any of this to anyone? It’s probably his own fault, anyway. He walked into it. Now we’ll both drown, says the frog to the scorpion.
The light dappling the walls shifts in patterns, electric blues and shock yellows. God, he’s no good. Vash tamps down on whatever lever there is inside him and the glow fades until it’s barely noticeable.
Part of him wants to call the Other Vash sick or deranged, but he’s not sure there’s anything wrong with him that’s not wrong with Vash. Those dreams were both of their’s.
Vash stumbles into the kitchen and comes back with the rice heating pack he uses when his stump bothers him too much these days. He sits down on the floor and presses it to Legato’s knee. Really, he’d love to rest his head against Legato’s thigh, but he resists. After this, he’s got some balm in the cabinet that might help.
The play of light on the walls is soothing, calming. It reminds him of being at the aquarium, with the light refracting through the water. The yellow streaks are probably not good, but it's still kind of pretty in an abstract way.
He's zoning out a bit, watching the light on the walls. That's not exactly ideal, he really does need to focus.
Oh, the glow fades. It tugs his lips into a frown.
"Why'd you stop?" He asks, voice rough and quiet. The darkened house and the strained atmosphere seems to demand he keep his voice low, though he can't help the relieved groan at the press of heat to his knee. It helps soothe the ache that permeates past when it should have after he came back.
"We'll live, of course, it's all we can do. Just keep living through what others do to us." A sigh boils up from his chest and spills out, aching and heavy, and his fingers twitch to bury in Vash's hair. It's extremely tempting.
But he hesitates, and settles for wrapping them loosely around the blonde's wrist instead. At least he can feel the steady buzz and hum and click under Vash's skin.
"Is the glowing a bad sign or a good one? It's like watching light go through water. Pretty."
Legato looks awful too, and Vash starts fighting back waves of guilt for not having his shit together. What if he needed him? What happened?
You don’t have to be a genius to put two and two together.
“What did he do to you?” Vash cracks the door open further. It’s one thing if the other Vash does something to him, he can take it, for better or worse. Legato is a human, and humans are fragile. He has no idea if Other Vash could even do any of his tricks to a human, but it’s easy to imagine it destroying someone: not killing them but shattering their soul in a way nobody could put back together.
The tide of anger that follows nearly knocks him prone. Vash leans against the doorframe for balance. It’s… Vash doesn’t want to think about the past. If he starts thinking about Other Vash like that, he’s never going to be able to look at him without swallowing resentment ever again.
He steers Legato inside by the shoulder, kicks a pile of empty cans out of the way, and sits him down on the couch. In the dark it’s much easy to see the dim electric blue glow Vash casts on the walls. “Are you…?” He doesn’t even know what he means to ask. There’s no way he can tell Legato about what happened.
"Oh... is it that obvious?" Legato blinks, sways slightly, and rebalances. His knee is killing him, but at least it's mostly in one piece again. Small mercies of dying.
Then the full implications of the question catch up to him. Vash wouldn't know Legato got caught up with his Vash if he hadn't encountered him somehow, right?
"How do you -" A wince as he's tugged inside interrupts the thought, and there's an obvious limp to his right leg when Vash pulls him across the room, but he doesn't resist even a little. They're left staring at each other again, Legato slouching back into the couch because sitting up is just too much energy right now.
"I'm... okay. It was mostly my own fault, I shouldn't have tried anything. But he's... he's not here, and I'm sure he's having a Last Run. A very slow one, but he'll hit that threshold eventually. I tried to help. It was stupid." Trying to be helpful with Vash has never once worked out well. He doesn't know why he keeps trying, just that he feels like he has to.
"What did he do to you?" It's obvious something happened. This Vash wasn't in such a bad state before all this, though Legato hasn't seen him in a bit. It just... it seems entirely unlikely that all their states don't coincide.
「𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔤 𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔤!」- Fact and fiction melded into one. Increasingly difficult to distinguish. It did not help that Legato was the only one here. The only living vestige of the past.
His grip on the handle of his gun tightened impossibly more.
Vash moved forward. His eyes were sharp and dark and focused. Lost entirely in something very distant. He could still hear what the other had said to him last hissing in his ears - "You are still so similar to Master Knives - one might not even understand how the two of you could be brothers if not for the cruelty you both display towards humans... -- your rage! It is beautiful, Vash the Stampede! This is your true face! Despair and rage so unlike that saintly image you project! So like my master that it is a comfort to see!"
Feathers continued to grow and swell and bloom. The moonlight glinted off of his glasses, created a halo upon the wings that were deceptively soft-looking.
Yet there was something truly cold about everything now.
Vash raised the Colt again. His finger tightened on the trigger. He did not speak to Legato.
And then --
"Get ahold of yourself before you Last Run, you fucking idiot! I'm not a threat, I'm trying to help you!"
That voice was high and tight, sweat on the other man's brow as he struggled. - The frightened face of Monev the Gale flickered in his mind.
Monev, Emilio, Hoppard -- The three who had either cursed him or looked terrified upon their end. One who went on his own terms, barring Vash from saving him.
He hesitated.
His hand trembled, teeth grit tight enough to creak. They bit into the flesh of his lip, drawing blood. His finger was locked on the trigger, melded to it even more strongly than before.
Energy crackled, thin lines of power racing over his coat and skin alike. It seemed to heat the air itself, making everything buzz and quiver. An oppressive sense of grief and dread washed over the area - emotions projected outward into the air - a sensation as if someone was dying. As if someone had died.
His ears were ringing.
Vash bent over double. His hands clasped over his ears and he let out a noise that was more roar than scream.
"You have to... go!" he finally managed to grunt out.
Go? Go? Go where, go how!? Legato was standing as still as he could and still wobbling and unsteady, his knee was nothing more than shards of bone and torn flesh, how the fuck does Vash expect him to go anywhere!?
Stupid fucking moron, no one is going to escape him, least of all the psychic trapped with the monster he's revealed.
He makes a high-pitched noise in the back of his throat and lurches forward instead. Into the mass of feathers, letting his threads fall away behind him. They will no longer be needed where he is going.
Death is looming over him one way or another, so he may as well embrace it instead of trying to crawl away like a pathetic worm. Even if it means sharing in Vash's mind.
The likelihood of it helping in the least is obscenely low, but Legato fills his mind with things that calm him; the view of the sea from his bedroom window, the light glinting off the pond in the backyard, the soft nips of his fish against his fingertips. The view of endless miles of sand touching the infinite sky. Anything to make touching Vash's mind just a hair easier.
Then grabs tight and doesn't let go, threads abandoned when all he really needs is touch. Push it back, grab the power leaking from every inch of the Plant and push, just make it give an inch, just enough to get through.
He just needs enough for Vash to listen and to hear him and understand.
Words are hard, nigh impossible like this, so he doesn't bother. Wings in glass cases, turning black and withering into nothing, the pulse of power that comes with it, the agony in his head when they scream. Wings, feathers, the sea below, away away away, if the power won't fold back, he has to get away! An unstable warble of power, threads wrapping around it, evening it out again, smoothing the flow. Listen! Listen to me before you kill them!
@bluestringpuppeteer
It’s… Vash actually doesn’t know what time it is when the doorbell rings. He’s long since drawn all the curtains, triple checked the locks and prayed over them just in case. It’s not about what he’s keeping out— he has no idea— just that it’s key it works.
The living room floor is strewn with discarded bottles and empty pill bottles. Normally that kind of thing drives him crazy, but he hasn’t had the energy to pick any of it up, let alone get up any more than he has to.
Sometimes he talks to Rem, but it always ends up with him throwing up until there’s nothing left. The things inside him are the most contaminated.
It half wakes him up from his reverie. Vash opens the door a sliver to tell whoever it is to take a hike, but instead he stalls. “Oh.” Legato?
He spends a long moment cataloguing how this must look. The last time he shaved was… he doesn’t actually remember. Ditto for bathing, only that it was probably more recently. His hair is a mess. He hasn’t changed his clothes.
“Sorry,” Vash murmurs, “Did we…? You should come back later.” He doesn’t realize there’s blood running down from his nose.
Legato tells himself he just wants to check on Vash, hopeful that he didn't get caught up in his own Vash's ongoing meltdown. He doesn't want to admit that he's looking for his own comfort, too, especially if he's going to Vash for it. Admitting it seems like inviting trouble.
That doesn't stop him from leaning against the wall next to Vash's door, exhausted and full of the kind of aches that only come from being regenerated after a violent death. He hates that he's familiar with the sensation.
It takes a moment to blink Vash into focus, with him peering out through barely a crack in the door. They both look at each other, in various states of obvious hell. Legato can pass it off more easily for sure, so he levers himself up and peers at Vash with undisguised concern.
"Are you okay?" His voice is rough, and that's probably the most stupid question he could ask. Try again. "Do you... can I help?"
How, he has no idea. But he wants to. Somehow. And he doesn't want to be by himself until Badou gets home.
Vash opens his mouth to say something and whoa heyyyy. Legato is looking at him like one of those teenage girls with their first boyfriend. That’s weird. He feels weird seeing it. Maybe it’s just in his head, there’s been a lot of strange stuff going on recently. It’s probably just stress making him go crazy.
Uhh, anyway.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Vash fishes out his keys to lock the door behind him. “I’ll live, I used to always ride bitch with— uhh…” he laughs awkwardly. For a moment he wonders after other Vash’s Wolfwood. Did he do any better, or was it always fated to turn out like this?
“You ever notice how many holidays this city has? It’s crazy. I’m used to just Christmas and Easter.” He follows Legato back down to the bike and hops on behind him. It’s admittedly a lot easier without having to worry about the long coat getting sucked into a wheel.
The hesitation is slight but a bit odd; Legato glances up with his head tilted slightly, but Vash is already plowing onward and locking the door behind him. Not altogether surprising, that someone like him is so capable of taking what might have been a strangely awkward pause and barreling right through it. Legato shrugs to himself and heads for his bike. Clearly, it's not something to worry about.
The other pause, he's quite sure he knows the origin of. Still, he won't say anything about it. He doesn't know what this Vash's relationship is with his Wolfwood and... well, Wolfwood has never liked him. If he appeared, Legato is quite sure he'd be dropped immediately in favor of the assassin, and he hates that thought. So he decides not to think it, let alone say it.
"It's kind of nice that they have so many things to celebrate. And that it's for everyone, not just the rich. It's strange to get used to, but nice. There is a lot of gift giving involved in their celebrations." He settles on the bike and pulls his helmet on, though he's all too aware of Vash seated behind him. Its hard not to be, when he radiates so much energy.
How normal people can't feel him, Legato has no idea.
At least getting to the bonfire potluck won't take too long. It's a lot easier to weave through traffic on a bike than with a car.
She turns, hand still in his, but she turns to get a better look at him. With her free hand, she's moving her bangs away from her eyes. She wants to see Legato without anything blocking her view of him.
Tae doesn't smile, but her eyes hold so much warmth and kindness toward a man who thinks he can't fix what he's done. That maybe he's gone a little too far.
"You're already trying and you're getting somewhere, Bluebird." Now, she's wrapping her other hand over his and pats, "You acknowledge, you see, and you're trying to make the first steps. That's enough. Sometimes, you can't do everything on your own and that's why you have people you surround yourself with. People you can call friends to help you through the path you want to take." She does have to scoot closer so that they're both comfortable. She presses her forehead against his shoulder.
"As long as you're wanting to change for the better, I will always support you! You have my friendship!"
He tenses as she turns, wary of what he'll see on her face, the pity and dismissal he expects. But when he forces himself to look back, that's not at all what he sees. It's a relief, and he feels like he can breathe again.
He's not nearly ready for her to scoot right over in the grass and rest her head on his shoulder, and his ears promptly turn pink. It's more physical contact than he gets from pretty much everyone he knows, and Tae is just so... earnest.
It's nice. Easy to relax into.
"You think so...? I just... it doesn't feel possible. Like I'm too damaged to manage any of it." Carefully, cautiously, he tips his head to rest on hers.
True, Legato will probably have to drag him away, swinging like Spiderman on his streets, scruffing the info broker.
Badou huffs a laugh as well, mouth split in a wide smile.
"You mean no fuckin' rules? And also run over whoever? Not that I can disagree with the last one, but thank god."
He rolls his eyes and reaches for Badou's helmet to toss at him, just for being annoying. It serves him right for being a little shit, honestly.
Then again, Legato did invite the snark, so what does that say about himself? Eh, think about that later.
"I believe it is hard to have road rules when there are no roads to speak of. I would like to see you drive on nothing but sand dunes and not end up buried in one of them. It would serve you right if you did end up buried." A smirk curls his lips as he spins to head out the door.
"At least I decided to play nice and learn. I could just make everyone get out of my way and leave it at that."
"Why isn't my coat good enough for a ball?" There is nothing but dismayed bewilderment in his voice as he's tugged through racks of clothes, not understanding how this stranger had managed to talk him into coming inside with her after she'd seen him with the flyer for the ball.
His coat is nice, long and white and well-made, the one with the bluebells embroidered on the cuffs and the lapels. He'd been planning on just wearing that and not worrying about anything fancier, but he'd been accosted and shuffled off to a store full of far too many clothes.
If Elendira ever showed up, she was never allowed to meet this woman. Ever.
@goodnessknew
「𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔤 𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔤!」- Vash's heart was loud in his ears. Thin defensive feathers, matching Legato's own threads in their invisible thinness, whipped out in response to the threads that seeked him so curiously. The crackling heatwave of power that surrounded him was nearly something that could be tasted, raising the hairs on anyone's neck if they were within distance.
He could hardly control it.
This multi-layered defense mechanism.
"What happened to you?"
Blue eyes were filled with some strange and strained cross between pain and terror.
Feathers unfurled further. Along both of his arms, blooming from his back, at the tips of his fingers. They began to manifest along the gun itself. They were everywhere now.
His fingers were fused to the trigger and the handle. Power gone haywire, influenced by an unstable mind.
He physically could not put the weapon down.
Legato reached out. - In front of him flickered imaged he was certain were long-passed. Livio's gurgling hissed in his ears and the hole that he had left in the man in front of him -
The streetlamp above Legato exploded in a rain of glass and sparks.
No no no nononononononononono!
Vash's heart was thundering in his ears and against everything he had ever tried to believe and tell himself:
BANG
It was nearly instinctual, the way that shot Legato through the kneecap with a lethal sort of precision.
This was not good. The ozone taste of Vash's power rests heavy on Legato's tongue and vibrates in the air. His threads sing with it, plucked like harp strings only higher and sharper, whining audibly. They curled in tighter around him, a cocoon of invisible steel to attempt to shield himself from the feathers that whipped around them.
Legato has never seen anything like this. Dependent Plants don't react this way when they experience a Last Run (it's terrifying to realize that this is almost certainly what's happening to Vash now, in the middle of the city, surrounded by aercons that won't come back and echoes who will have no idea what erased their existence) and Legato doesn't know if he's powerful enough to stop Vash. Doesn't know if trying will only make things worse.
He opens his mouth, not even sure what he could possibly say to make the situation better, but the light above his head that had been whining higher and higher loses the fight against the pressure and power, and shatters. Legato flinches at the sudden sound and the rain of glass shards, threads whipping around him instinctively though they can do nothing against hot glass and sparks.
He's seen that face before. He knows those eyes. For all that he is, he's still human and the human sees the monster in the darkness, the creature that pretends to be human and hides it's sharpened teeth.
There is no possibility that Legato's reaction time will beat Vash's.
The crack of the Colt firing makes his ears ring and the fiery wash of pain whites out his vision. Legato topples immediately, the whole structure of his kneecap all but disintegrated by the sheer caliber of the bullet. A scream tears out of his throat but he snaps his teeth shut on it, trapping it with every other sound of pain he's tucked away in his chest. It turns into a ragged breath instead, a choked sound as he reaches into himself with his own threads to yank flesh back together, to try to pull slivers of bone out of tendons and muscles and piece them back together, to choke off nerves so they stop screaming at him.
Yes, he's very aware he's been shot, message received, thank you, but he'd much rather be functional right now than aware of the pain he's in.
Teeth grit, he levers himself unsteadily up onto his remaining leg, all too aware that any attempt to actually move is going to send him toppling again.
"Get ahold of yourself before you Last Run, you fucking idiot! I'm not a threat, I'm trying to help you!" His voice is high and tight with stress, nothing like the sinister purr he adopts when he's at his most deadly.
He doesn't strike back, threads still curling close as he wobbles on one leg and breathes in sharp bursts.
[A gentleman knows not to kiss and tell.]
Vash doesn’t receive an answer when he asks how far it is to walk, so he busies himself around the house. There’s a stack of books from the school library he sticks next to the door so he’ll remember to return them, his work boots to shine, all sorts of chores he’s been putting off and more he’s probably forgotten about. It’s… strangely domestic. Part of him is itching to leave this place behind already. Maybe he just isn’t the housekeeping type.
When the doorbell rings, he’s half-forgotten about it. Vash throws the door open, “Legato! Hullo!”
He looks down, “You can drive?”
It’s not that Vash doesn’t know how to drive. He doesn’t have one of the licenses you need here, but nobody had a license back home and they did fine. It’s more that driving is the most mindnumbingly boring task on God’s green earth and Vash would employ every trick in his repertoire to get out of it. He flutters his eyelashes at Legato just to start buttering him up.
Legato gives a small but genuine smile when Vash's cheerful greeting rings out from the open door, one that widens slightly when the Plant is so surprised at his driving ability. It's always amusing to surprise someone who knows him with the various skills he's picked up, both here and back home.
"I can. I did so frequently before, so I bought a new motorcycle as soon as I could afford one." He shrugs, a little self conscious, then catches the expression on Vash's face and the flutter of his eyelashes. The tips of his ears turn pink and he tips his head slightly so his bangs cover his eyes more.
"Ah... Are you ready? I do not have a sidecar, so if you want a ride you'll have to just ride behind me." He can't quite resist letting his threads settle against Vash's skin, looking for that reassuringly steady tick tick tick of his heartbeat under the pulse of his power. It's nice to feel, though perhaps not quite as nice as it was under his ear.
Legato breathed out in a long sigh, trying to ease the ache from his shoulders without using his powers to loosen the muscles himself. He'd been at this practice for some time now, and the strain was very much setting in. He was fit enough, but this was a very different way of moving and stretching then he was used to.
Breathe out, feet set, raise the weapon, breathe in, draw back. Arm straight, other elbow up, hand brushing his cheek. Aim slightly higher than the target. Breathe out, release.
The arrow skims against the brace on his forearm, and he thinks it flies true down the range-
Until it thuds into the wooden wall behind the target, several inches off from hitting the paper.
Legato scowls and lowers the bow, absently rolling his shoulder and digging his fingers into the muscle where it's starting to knot. He doesn't understand what he's doing wrong; he's sure he's positioned correctly and aimed right, but his actual aim is rather terrible. He hasn't managed to get many decent hits in yet, no matter that he's been practicing for a while now.
And this is only a small, light practice bow! There were many that were a lot bigger and harder to pull, with much greater power. Which won't matter in the least if he can't consistently hit the target.
Maybe it's time to stop for now. He is getting nowhere like this and only making his shoulders hurt worse. Besides, he can hear someone else approaching, and the last thing he wants is to give a bad impression to his classmates.
Even if most of them seem to be children. What is he even doing here?
"If you wish to use the range, I am on my way out," he calls as he steps downrange to pull out his arrows and take down the target before someone can see how terrible he is at this.
"It would be no imposition," Zhongli shook his head. "Though the methods may differ, it would not be the first time I have provided stability to volatile emotions. Such things have little effect upon me."
He had never been particularly sensitive. Since the moment his existence began, he had been cold as metal ore. Only time, experience, and instruction had granted him the ability to comprehend the softness and warmth of sun-touched soil-- and even now, emotions, feelings, though he knew their worth and weight, were things somewhat foreign to him.
Still... long enough he had spent overseeing the suppression of the wrath of fallen gods-- humanity's pain surely would prove a small burden in comparison.
He would not press further, though-- an offer was merely that.
"Indeed, there are many such places," he nodded his head. "The treasures that lie beneath the earth are vast and numerous. Over thousands of years, many have spent their lives unearthing them, but far more remain undiscovered."
Those secret places, deeper than the chasm's passages, tucked away beyond the gaze of mortals-- places known only to Zhongli himself, and to one other... though now he alone kept their secrets.
"The earth's depths provide a crucible for the elements-- while there may be similarities, the caverns are formed by the land beneath which they run. Thus, these caves are not the same as any from my homeworld, and the fire gems too-- they are unique to this world's power and elements."
Hopefully Zhongli wouldn't need to be a anchor for him, because that would mean that Legato is in a situation which requires an anchor. But, since that's pretty much impossible to avoid here, better to have someone willing and able to be that support.
But that's neither here nor there at the moment.
"I wish I had taken more time to explore where I'm from. Surely there were caverns there somewhere, with their own treasures in them-"
Abruptly, the tunnel spills out into a larger cave, the walls thick with burning gems as big as a man's fist and bigger. Legato's steps falter, taken aback by the sheer number of fire gems glittering in the stone all around them. It's absurd, ridiculous. He's never seen a gem of any kind nearly that size.
"What... How are they that big?" Legato sputters. It's a good thing Zhongli has been minding the ground for them as they walk, because otherwise Legato surely would have tripped over the uneven stone in his distraction.
