#rgsojin

[rgxhreum-blog]

Hamartia (welcome back bb <3)

hamartia: what is their worst character flaw that they themselves don’t recognize?

i think that mimi can be rather inflexible when it comes to her beliefs. she has strong morals and sometimes she can have a bit of prejudice towards people with different points of view. she has a very rigid sense of right and wrong and that can make her judge people’s actions. 

[rgxlucas-blog]

I hate that I love you. I hate that I feel this way. I hate that I can’t really be with you. I hate it all. The reality of us.

But....

I love your smile. I love your ability to make any situation like its the best and even though I can’t have you now...I’ll always love you.

Sojin Evergreen and Lucas Westerly.

[rgcero-blog]

Jasper, Gorgonize, Enantiodromia, Noegenesis, Zugzwang, Yonderly.

prompt: Enantiodromia: What’s the most extreme personality shift they’ve gone through in their life?

during his first few months in the badlands, mikhail had been a naive little boy, and thought that his parents would save him eventually, and accept him for who he was, as they always have. yet his hope had been quickly robbed from him, and it can be argued that he grew up too quickly -- at first with blue, then with isana. the downhill spiral began when he had taken part in his first murder (one among many), and continued quickly. at one point, after his separation from blue and before finding the mentor that would teach both him and isana, he began to think of his body as nothing more than a tool that needed to be sharpened by all the horrible experiences he could survive -- and survive them all he did, until his naivety and kindness were buried under hatred and anger, and the latter emotions had fuelled his desire for revenge against those he thought conspired against him as a child. 

prompt: Gorgonize: What distracts them when they’re trying to get things done?

{ answered }

prompt: Jasper: What would they be like as a parent?

cero, already acting as a father figure for isana’s son, would be a good father, if not one prone to being a little over-protective at times. he would give his child(ren) freedom to do what they wished, but to the extent that they would not be hurt too badly. often, he is patient, and would care for them in ways that he believes his father should have cared for him.

prompt: Noegenesis: Are there any topics that they love to think about deeply?

he doesn’t like thinking about anything too deeply. it’s not that he doesn’t have the mental capacity to -- it’s simply because whatever he thinks about too deeply would turn from a simple concern into a troubling anxiety that will keep him from functioning effectively until it is resolved.

prompt: Yonderly: What kinds of things do they think about when they zone out?

when cero does find himself zoning out, his thoughts often revolve around his current concerns: are jun and isana alright, and when can he see them again? (he should prepare some gift or another for jun -- not that the boy will appreciate it if it’s too intricate.) will he be given the chance to fight in the war? (will he come back from it if he does? who will he get to kill?) will he be given another assignment? (will it finally be his parents who have a price on their heads?) is sojin happy? (can he make her happy?)

so on and so forth.

prompt: Zugzwang: What’s the trickiest problem they face in their life right now?

{ answered }

[rgcero-blog]

“Please, don’t leave.”

prompt: “Please don’t leave”

in hindsight, cero should have expected this to happen.

indiscriminate touches, split-second glances from across the room, along the hallway, heated kisses exchanged with the rustle of leaves and the rush of a waterfall providing a musical score to reciprocated passions. to cero all these were enshrined in memory, in fragments that begin with something mundane and end in something extraordinary.

it’s easy to forget, in these horribly brief moments, that the war is not raging on, and that he has an obligation to protect her in ways that don’t necessitate standing by her side.

“please don’t leave,” she says, hand over his heart like she’s ready to let him swear by his soul that he won’t.

they both know that he can’t.

“sojin…”

“i appointed you my personal bodyguard for a reason,” sojin points out, looking at him with eyes so warm and full of life and longing and everything he wishes he could see everyday. his heart beats against her palm and they’re side by side and his forehead is against hers like he wants her to hear every i don’t want to leave and i’m afraid i might never come back. it feels like something he’s done before and feels like something he wants to do for the rest of his life, without the grief and regret for things that haven’t even happened yet.

“i thought that was because you just can’t bear to be away from me.” his little quip hits too close to home. she says nothing, then, and closes her eyes and presses her skin against his own much more insistently. they are tangled limbs and heated skin and never-leave-my-side-please. “sojin, you know that —,”

“you have to?” sojin supplies; the pads of his fingers press against his chest, wanting to take possession of the organ that beats for her touch alone. “for what? the country? for me? you hold so much weight on your shoulders, mikhail. don’t let me be another burden.”

sojin has a nasty habit of making him remember that, once a upon a time, he had been anything other than a weapon. that maybe he can be human again, if she kept reminding him, if she kept coaxing out the side of him that could feel fear for his own life.

and he can’t answer for a long while, because he simply doesn’t know what to say.

“i promised you…” he begins, as if taking a cautious step on a balancing beam, “that i would live for you. and i intend to keep that promise. but i also can’t stand the thought of the enemy knocking at your door, and all i’m doing is holding it closed.”

sojin frowns because he’s right.

“c’mon,” he laughs lightly, cupping her cheek in his palm. her hand comes over his knuckles, fills the spaces of his fingers with her own. “you really think i’m gonna leave you alone after all…this?”

“just…promise to come back.”

cero kisses her instead to keep himself from lying.

—

for months, sojin finds that her hands feel empty. wrong. like a void has made a home in her palms, and no matter what she finds to keep herself busy, there’s a sudden chill she’s come to despise, and that every mention of the soldier who’s stayed by her side sends her into an anxious frenzy, unable to keep her mind straight, because it always strays towards the man whose scars she’s come to love.

for months, smiling becomes as much of a chore as it had been before he came along, wild-eyed and scarred on duuri soil, taken apart by the badlands and never quite being told how to put himself together again. what had come out of that hell hadn’t been the mikhail that was dragged into it — but who was she to know? all she relied on were his stories, often cut in the middle, only having a nightmarish beginning and a bitter end.

for months, sojin can’t seem to dream of much else but him; waking up has become a burden when her dreams give her mikhail, safe and alive and (generally) unscathed, grinning and smirking in that god-awful way that always makes her heart twist in on itself. at least there, when she asks him to stay, he does.

every time the casualties are brought in, she can never bring herself to look. what if one of them was him? how would she react, then, seeing a cloth draped over his beautiful face?

—

when his regiment is sent home to be replaced by another one, she waits at the gates, helps where she can as the steady stream of soldiers enter, bloody and bruised and broken and weeping.

she sees him last.

he doesn’t see her first.

he’s too busy helping a comrade to the nurses, one arm around his waist and the other in a sling.

only when he looks up does he see her.

forever comes to an end, but their reunion is not as cero had hoped. she doesn’t run to him, sobbing and grieving over an injury he’d heal from. instead, they meet halfway, because cero can’t seem to control the way her mere presence tugs him to her, like he is only the hapless soul at the end of an extremely short string.

“hey,” cero greets, raising his uninjured hand with a grin.

she presses a tearful smile to his mouth, and he cannot complain.

what a strange, shifting person you are, sojin thinks, thumb grazing over his marred cheek before her arms wrap around cero’s neck, pulling him down, feeling his endearing little laugh against her shoulder.

here, she could believe that mikhail was alive, was real, and was, indeed, holding her to him with the arm that remains unbroken. sojin pulls away out of concern, arms draped over his shoulders but keeping an excruciatingly small distance between them to make sure that his other arm isn’t hurt more than it already is.

the mikhail she was looking at now, full of adoration and longing, cultivated by a threat bigger than the both of them, was worlds away from the lofty cero she first met. and who was she, now, feeling bigger than she was whenever he looked at her like that? — high as the stars and brighter than the sun.

he leans towards her — her heart twisted again — but mikhail does not kiss her. yet sojin can feel his breath, hot and uneven and stuttering as if she’s taken it from his lungs. her palm finds itself along the curve of his jaw and she can feel the hint of a stubble at the steep curves of his face.

mikhail, for his part, had his hand splayed across her spine; the other, itching to join it. instead he kisses her, soft at first, as if the roughened man he’s become from wars he didn’t ask to fight in would damage her, somehow. but she kisses him back and she smells and tastes like something sweet, like memories, like the past and the future and like he’s done this so many times in the months he’s been gone. and already he’s longing to do it again, like it can never, ever be enough.

[rgxlucas-blog]

rekindling the cheshire’s smile

rgsojin

Lucas had to grow up at some point though. Playing with air marbles and wasting time being unhappy was a thing of the past. It was almost like the young man’s teenage years were robbed. He had grown from a happy, carefree, and fun teenager...into a sullen, concentrated prince. As the surviving eldest, he had to make sure that his brother grew up well, his parents weren’t struggling and his nation was doing okay. Of course, Tempestade was partially in ruins, but Lucas had to do what he could. And when he heard of a festival in Duur, he recalled the girl with the bright smile, who made him believe...that maybe parties weren’t so dull.

He headed to Duur, as a Tempestade royal, for the festival. When he arrived, he saw that he had made a decent decision. Everyone seemed to be at peace with each other. He made his way to the castle, his heart heavy. Would she even recognize him? He took a deep breath and made his way inside. He was wearing Tempestade colors, but he recalled in his head that she never liked his older flirtacious sullen brothers and yet, here he was, exactly the same. Like that had changed.

He could hear himself being announced, but his gaze was on her. She looked positively radiant and Lucas had no idea whether it was her or him or something else. He made his way over to her with a smirk. “Your highness, Princess Sojin~ how do you do~?” he asked, feigning ignorant innocence.

[rgcero-blog]

night light daze ₪ cero;sojin

rgsojin

a mere two years in duur have given him enough time to memorise all the ins-and-outs of the place -- particularly, where all the royals spent most of their time in. it  wasn’t hard for the boy who’s always had a knack for knowing where he was and where his feet were going to land next. and today his feet were bare, as he preferred them to be, all rough and scuffed by the earth and everything else. his limbs were nimble and light and silent, moving among the shadows in a night too alive to be asleep in.

granted, he would probably regret this in the morning, when he would start the day too early again, but for now the night was young, and should be enjoyed.

all too easily he found himself slipping upon a windowsill, eyes dancing with fire and a smirk now-visible as the mask had been placed in his pocket, not needed, not now. although he would probably give a lot of work for the staff later on, he slipped into the room, finally making a loud-enough sound with his feet hitting the floor. 

“you aren’t going to spend all night here, are you, princess?”

[rgcero-blog]

lumina ₪ cero;sojin

rgsojin​

it’s not often that cero takes the time to admire the world that’s fucked him over more times than he can count. then again, he hasn’t had much time to admire anything ever. there’s hard-wired caution laced deep in his bones. the badlands can do that to a person: tear them apart, expose their nerves, all live wire and electric, and never put them back together again. cero has spent most of his time outside it trying to correct that; not that he thinks he’s had any progress. apparently, his superiors believe the same, which is probably why they stuck him in escort duty. again.

cero, to his credit, isn’t complaining. he is stuck on something so dull, but that doesn’t mean that the person he’s escorting is any less the gem that she’s turned out to be. diamonds, however, are sharp, and cero knows better than to cut himself open.

so he does his job, even though it probably doesn’t look it. he sits comfortably, except his right foot is a little bit forward, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. his arms are crossed over his chest, eyes closed as if he’s asleep, and he’s remained immobile and unyielding for the past few hours of travel, and probably will continue to do the same for the next few days. the only indication that he’s alive is that he’s breathing. he is listening -- and he listens as well.

the thing about escort duty: it’s not fun if he doesn’t at the very least pretend that he’s relaxed. showing how alert he is is just going to make them both anxious, and that’s never a good thing to endure for long trips to all of the princess’ political destinations.

but silence has never suited him much, nor does inaction, so he cracks one eye open and tries to lighten the mood. this isn’t the first time they’ve done this, but he’s always left to wonder if it’s the last. 

“you feeling a little bored there, princess?” the grin on his face makes the mask over his mouth stretch a little. his tone remains as playful and light as ever, but his eyes always contradict his lighthearted jests. “you know, ‘escort’ can mean different responsibilities in a different context. just say the word.”