"Are you familiar with the Kindred?" Jhin asked once they were safely in the garden, the chatter of the Spirit Blossom Festival fading into ambient noise. "Or do you celebrate the Taker and the Beast here? Or perhaps, the Wind and the Wave?"
Hwei had at least been paying enough attention in his lessons to recognize some of those as Spirits of Death. The subject concerned and bemused him all at once. "Quite the morbid topic for a festival, no?" His masters would have reprimanded him for saying even that much. It was bad luck to talk about Death on the best of days- much less today, when the door to the Spirit Realm was open. But Jhin had a way of making such indiscretions enticing.
The cool night air was a balm on his nerves. He hadn't realized how on edge he had felt inside. With the spirit realm so close, Hwei’s magic had responded in kind, surging beneath his skin like wasps thrashing in a paper hive. It had been nearly impossible to fulfill his role as heir, greeting smears of yellow and green and levity and discontent, each masked guest adding to a swirling cacophony of color and emotion. But out here, it was quiet. Out here, it was only himself and Jhin. Despite the ever present guidance of his masters in his mind, he answered the question. "Here, we honor the Sparrow and the Snake."
A shadow flicked through the tree's when he spoke those names, but when he turned, there was nothing there. Perhaps he was being foolish. Perhaps he wasn't.
Jhin's pleased hum pulled his attention back to the actor. "I'm quite partial to that iteration myself," he acknowledged, continuing to study the garden. "Snakes are a versatile symbol."
His words soothed Hwei's anxiety, and he relaxed. But now he had questions of his own. “Although, I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the... Spirits you named.” Jhin's assurance aside, he did not feel like risking naming 'the Kindred' as he had called them. Not again. Not tonight.
"Mmmm." Jhin continued to study the garden, not looking at Hwei. "They are indeed a spirit of Death, found in some form throughout Valoran. They take many forms, a rose and a bee, a sparrow and a serpent.” He said the last with a graceful nod. “But a lamb and a wolf is one of the more common forms." He studied the trees above Hwei's shoulder, where the wind rustled the blossoms. "... It is said that in the start of civilization, there was a pale man with dark hair who would meet all things at the moment of their death. But, as people are want to do, they shunned him, not understanding the beauty of his art. And so this lonely man took an axe and split himself in two, so he would never be alone again." Jhin delivered this story with a neutral expression, nothing in his melodic voice giving away any emotion.
But Hwei could feel the rush of emotion Jhin felt at this story, a heady mix of longing and understanding resonating with each syllable. It piqued his interest.
"And so, one became two. The Lamb and the Wolf. They compliment each other- The Lamb offering a merciful death to those who accept it, while the Wolf chases down those who would flee. They are separate, but never parted."
And so the strange mask Jhin had worn tonight finally made sense. It was of a white Lamb's face, its soft ears pulled back in an almost plaintive manner.
Jhin considered another point of the garden, studying it intently. Hwei didn't follow his gaze, afraid of what he would see. Afraid, yet thrilled, and unwilling to stop Jhin from speaking of these gods of Death so causally.
"...I had often considered myself alone in my purpose, Lukai Hwei," he murmured. "Cursed to present an art that no one would understand. But perhaps, Koyehn will be the axe I use to cleave myself." He extracted a Spirit mask from the darkness of his cape. With a graceful bow, he offered it to Hwei. "Perhaps I have found my Wolf."
...
Hwei thought back to this night when he found the golden lotus trap amongst the grey ashes of Koyehn. He thought of it when he set out in his boat, leaving his island and his people behind. The Wolf will chase down those who flee.
...
"And everywhere Lamb went, Wolf was sure to follow."
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(Artist's note: Basically; Jhin gets intense feelings for Hwei but is unable to process his feelings like a normal fucking person, so he decides he and Hwei are embodiments of death on a sacred mission.
However- while in this story Jhin uses the masks to assign the roles- in truth their roles are a lot fuzzier. While Jhin perceives himself to be a merciful bringer of death, shooting from a far and rational- in truth he's ravaged by a ceaseless hunger he cannot control, struggles to understand his own feelings despite feeling his emotions quite strongly. So he's subconciously dressed as the Wolf. Meanwhile- Hwei is able to direct and guide and explain the world and his emotions in a way Jhin struggles to, and can offer him a merciful death. So- it's ambiguous who's who. And this is because- as always- Jhin's logic is faulty. But that's for a different project XD.)
The cops very clearly planted evidence on him because they had to make an arrest because all eyes were on them and whoever actually did the deed was making them look stupid.
Why would the real killer hero have kept the weapon on his person and traveled two states over while carrying it and a manifesto in his bag, conveniently turning the crime into a federal matter? The same guy whose bag they found in a park, filled with monopoly money? Why did the police turn off their bodycams, take Luigi's stuff, drive a block away, turn their bodycams back on, go back into the restaurant, and then arrest him?
From the moment of his arrest, even left-of-center media has been presuming his guilt without examining anything (e.g. calling him "the killer" instead of "alleged" or "accused") and then when I say he didn't do it, the nearest person chimes in with some quip that tells me they think he did do it but should go free anyway. Don't get me wrong, I would have the same attitude if he had done it. But he didn't. It makes me feel like the only sane person in the world, even among my staunchly leftist friends.
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