#bonelessdraws

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family photo! fanart for @doodledrawsthings 's DWBI au

(Shennong is behind the camera)

(Goumang thinks they're being "silly" and "overly sentimental about an existence that is, in the end, merely transient")

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Silly little doodle and then some not so silly thoughts about siblings continued under the cut. It gets sad. Be warned!!

Yi is three years old when his parents give him another gift he doesn't like: a "sister". Heng is bald, wrinkly, and quite frankly not much to look at. But when he pokes her tiny little hand it curls soft and warm against his finger, so he decide sshe might be alright after all. She seems smarter than most babies, so maybe she can help with your experiments when she's a little bigger. Maybe.

First impressions are lasting impressions. Yi know she's growing quickly- he's the one who tracks her height on the wall, after all- but even if it looks like she might grow taller than him, he'll always be three years older than her. When he's young, he thinks this means he knows what's best on just about everything.

The explosion recalibrates his world.

The thought that haunts him isn't "I died." It's "I almost killed her."

So he moves away to learn more, ignoring her watery smile as she sends him off. If Yi doesn't know everything and can't figure it out on his own, then he just has to go somewhere that will teach him what he's missing. Easy.

At Kunlun, he realizes half the things he thought he knew were flat out wrong, and the other half were rudimentary truths at best. Lesser students drop out, slinking back home in shame. Yi devours everything they teach him and more, and still finds time to pick out souvenirs to send back home. He's an older brother, after all. It wouldn't do for him to set a bad example.

As the years fly by, he sees Heng grow up through letters and video messages. It's lonely sometimes, but his work on the Eternal Cauldron project is a matter of civilizational life or death, so he throws himself into his projects. After so many years away, his lab is more of a comfort than his childhood home will ever be. Still, he makes an effort to go back and visit when he can.

All his thoughts grind to a halt when she refuses to come with him. It goes against the fundamental truth of his world: she's his baby sister, so he needs to protect her and tell her what's right and wrong. He has all the answers. He's spent years working on them. She just needs to listen.

Why won't she listen?

A three-year gap stretches over a lifetime. For the very first time, he looks at Heng and sees a stranger. He says as much.

If he could go back- if he could change that conversation- if he could have said anything else—

He wakes up in a world without that three-year gap.

An impossible, five hundred year expanse severs his past from his present. This is the new truth of his life- sharper and surer than even the executioner's blade. For a time, he tries to re-calaculate the gap.

Five hundred and three. A little less, depending on rounding error. Conversely, she might even have been a little older than his memories are now when she—

The thought refuses to go away.

It doesn't seem like it should be possible for little sisters to die. For there to be a world afterwards.

When he was younger, he'd confidently asked Heng "What would you do without me?"

He finds he doesn't have an answer, faced with the other side of the question.

He finds he doesn't know much of anything at all.

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Day 10: Death

something something the lingering void that is left behind by death.

clothing designs faintly inspired by mak/doodledrawsthings' DWBI au (but not set in the au on account of Yi being. Y'know.)

Done with a fountain pen and very roughly touched up in IbisPaintX because I accidently smeared the ink and then I crumpled the paper (oopsies!)

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@angryshortstacks dont ever say I dont love you (andreil per my dear friend's request)

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i enjoyed the wedding ending. also, i wanted to see him in a dress. learn to draw and make your dreams come true-

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there is nothing i love more than a character who is just kind of Horrible

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Day 17: Immortality

You can live forever in a picture.

Shennong told Shuanshuan a myth once, about a man who painted dragons but left the pupils blank so they didn't come to life. It was a nice story, thought Shuanshuan- the idea that if you just painted someone well enough, carefully enough, you could bring them back to life.

But a story is just a story, and anyhow, despite Shuanshuan's best attempts in the years that followed, he found he could never get Yi's eyes quite right. That much was lost to him.