#priestl1es

[kallistcs]

For @priestl1es

Both the Google Translate-like voice and the complete, sensory-less blackness Shen Yuan was hanging in faded out for a swirling kaleidoscope of colours and a screaming unease.

Something was wrong.

Something was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrongwrong---

Shen Yuan flailed. In the middle of that flailing, he realized the sensation of something being wrong wasn't his opinion. Or feeling. Whatever. Which! was! frankly! a lot more unsettling than the sense of something being fucking wrong to begin with, thank you! Torn between fighting against that sensation of wrongness that wasn't his and trying to soothe it, smoothing out the wild, surging something that was starting to fucking hurt, Shen Yuan landed on the ground with a wet splat.

"Interesting," someone commented above them, while Shen Yuan was busy shuddering, hoping to fuck whatever he lay in was water, or, at worst, mud.

Wait. Them?

His legs were tangled with someone else's. Not whoever had spoken, because that man was already leaving, but there was someone else right beside him.

With a shuddering wheeze, Shen Yuan rolled over, braced himself, and opened his eyes.

[assortedsouls]

“Hold still. I mean it. Hold still.” / for xue meng from shizun chu wanning !

@priestl1es || blood on your sleeve meme

Xue Meng is trying not to squirm. He can't believe he managed to get injured. He needs to work harder, train more. This is unacceptable.

"You don't need to care for it, shizun, it's just a scratch. It's nothing," he says, cheeks a little pink from embarrassment at the wound that's definitely not just a scratch. "Watch out or you'll get blood on your robes." If that happens, he'll make sure the robes get washed. not by himself, of course. Xue Meng has no clue how you wash clothes.

[tragedicn]

"Being gentle doesn't come easy to you, does it?" / from jing beiyuan to shen zechuan!

eyes sliding over the edge of his bamboo fan to meet the other's gaze, "whatever do you mean?" words come light and lacking weight. he doesn't like how jing beiyuan seemed to look past his carefully crafted facade . . . something only xiao er could seem to do, to see and tear it down.

fanning himself softly, "that is as gentle as it comes," zechuan muses, eyes returning to the scene before him. well, gentle for him . . . zechuan plays the fragile beauty rather well, it's fooled a lot of those in the imperial courts — and he's gone so far to consume poison to maintain that look (albeit, he's promised xiao chiye he's stopped) — and all of those around . . . he plays the fragile and pitiful son of a traitor who's trying to regain the favor of zhongbo's people, trying to REDEEM himself.

he figures beiyuan seems to have figured out what he's up to in those brief minutes of exchange, that his saccharine words were laced with poison, to insert an IDEA in the poor victim's minds. sugared words hiding venom beneath it's false intentions.

"was there ever reason to be gentle?" he asks, fan snapping shut softly, deft fingers wrapping around the wooden frame and tapping the edge of it against the table, were there ever reason for shen zechuan to be GENTLE in a world that's been harsh to him? he's never learned when gentleness is . . . even with xiao chiye, gentle wasn't what he'd use to describe anything in their complex relationship

[roscvcins]

@priestl1es asked : " of all the parts that make that man, which one holds the soul ? " / punts little ghost king wei at bai feng jiu like a basketball - FRANKENSTEIN (ACCEPTING)

"...They say the lotuses at Taichen Palace in thirteenth heaven are, each blossom, a human heart." She says, a moment later, quiet.

Characteristically bright and ANIMATED features dim into something distant and quiet, like contemplation or remembrance - Feng Jiu is thinking of the dead man's soul she left in the care of the lord of the underworld, of the last fleeting moments of his life - the tremor of his fingers when they had curled into her back moments before the hot copper of blood stained the front of her robes when the blade had passed through his chest and did not touch her - cooling on her skin faster than his breath against her throat.

It has not been three centuries, since Qingti's death. It has not been three centuries since she was forced to contemplate that someone else had been ready to die for her.

"...It isn't something physical," She decides, finally, uncharacteritically serious - pulling back into herself in increments. Fingers gone slack around the wine jar tighten again - run across the groove of the neck, slow. The scent of peach blossoms still fragrant in the air. "...It's a will, a feeling that does not subside, a purpose one feels is greater than life." Feng Jiu looks at the lttle ghost king, then, tilting her head - something bright and curious softening her brow. "Why?" She reaches, then - half mischief, half gentleness, and her fingertip lands light, directly on their brow - "Are you wondering where you might find a soul?"