A minute's passed with them in the same space and Xerxes Break has yet to kick him out.
It was a promising start. They'd parted on bad terms, but Wang Yi finds it difficult to recall the exact details of their last fight. He remembers heated words and the look in Break's eyes, but everything afterwards is a blur, let alone any flash of emotions he'd experienced in the incident. (Or maybe he doesn't want to recall.)
There was guilt, yes—but he's never stopped feeling that, so it was nothing new.
Standing a good distance away from wherever Break is, one hand on his hip (only because his sword is missing and he doesn't know where else to put it) while the other hangs at his side, Wang Yi looks relaxed, if a bit aloof.
"Hmm."
"Well for starters, you still look the same after 10 years."
❝ Do you ever get the feeling... that you're not sure where you're supposed to be? ❞
A seagull's call punctuates this unguarded question for him as it glides effortlessly above them on the docks. The waves slosh steadily beneath the boards—back and forth, a little like he's churned this feeling around before asking it, because he knows it'd earn him a strange look. Yihai, to his credit, doesn't look at him strangely so much as he appears confused. His crew is hard at work moving supplies onto their ship behind him. They depart at day break; Zhilan will be working, so he's come to bid his friend a safe voyage.
❝ You mean, ❞ Yihai purses his lips; the cogs in his mind are turning. ❝ Like leavin' the oven on? ❞
And somehow Zhilan still huffs in a mixture of surprise and amusement at how off the mark that is.
❝ No, not like that. I'm sure my apartment would be up in smoke had I done so. I left early this morning. ❞
Yihai grins, putting his attention back on the waves. His amusement lies with Zhilan's face-value approach to everything said to him.
❝ I'm just pullin' your leg. ❞ His expression smooths out, then. Controlled now that he's read the air, and unusually thoughtful for a guy whose default approach to life is to breeze through it without a care in the world. ❝ ... You thinking about home? ❞
Home.
The golden fields of Qingce village are not the first image to spring to mind. It's something fuzzier. More distant, that Zhilan knows he misses and yet cannot recall both at once.
As he wordlessly furrows his brow in response, Yihai gets the idea there's a bigger picture here that he's not privy to.
❝ That not it either? ❞
Zhilan shakes his head. Under his feet, a rogue wave laps harshly against a piling of the dock. A ripple that doesn't blend in with the rest of the waves; an alien thought that disrupts the ones he's so carefully examined.
❝ ... I'm not sure. Maybe it's that. ❞ His shoulders sink, not fully committed to shrugging. The frown he wears pulls a little deeper. ❝ I just don't know where I'm needed. ❞
He jumps slightly when an elbow ribs at him. Yihai's got this look on him like the answer is obvious.
❝ You're needed lots a' places. Everyone's tryin' to get a piece of that genius pie. ❞
Zhilan fights back a smile, forcing his lips into this wobbly, chagrinned line. Like a brushstroke he might make were he to hold his ink brush in the wrong hand.
❝ Yihai, really— ❞
❝ What you should be askin' is: where do you want to be? ❞
The muscles in Zhilan's face let go, struck by the question like an arrow. The vision (not Qingce, yet someplace still within the definition of 'home') bends. It doesn't get clearer, but the longing for it surges so high it aches.
Sensing his accuracy, Yihai nods once in a knowing gesture, only to turn and drop a reassuring hand on Zhilan's shoulder blade as he's called to help a crewmate with a particularly large crate.
❝ That's where you're needed most. You'll know it once you get there. ❞
.
..
...
He gazes into an unkempt garden through wrought iron gates. There are glaze lilies and forget-me-nots, silk flowers and yellow roses, greeting him as he pushes silently past the fence and into the manor, as though they've stayed behind to welcome him despite spring's end.
Memories are swimming back in rapid succession. A picnic on a blanket beneath that tree, a book pulled into a weeping lover's lap, and as he moves into the manor's saloon he remembers drying a sopping head of alabaster hair with a soft towel, terrycloth still warm from the wash. Though there is nothing in his arms, the sense that something, someone, should be held within them overwhelms him in this space, like the weight that should be there is so close he could reach for it. It is quiet despite all that happens inside him; he hears his own pulse over his steps, measures his breath as a name, well-loved and plenty said before, takes shape on his lips.
And standing at the end of the hall, waiting before the door to his office is a person, the culmination of those feelings he'd had in the harbor: where he's needed, where he wants to be.
❝ Xerxes..! ❞
Where he's home.
His home.
Zhilan rushes forth without looking back.
@schleckermaul — homecoming.
What caused you to start writing? What was your key point?
reading and writing have always been hobbies of mine, so when i learned i could write as the fictional characters i love? with other people!? i was so down!
i don't remember what keyed me in on it, though? i used to play pretend (it was just LARPing, lbr) on the playground until i was around 11, so maybe it kinda clicked in my mind that writing was the natural next step? no clue.
Do you tell your friends / family that you write?
KINDA... i tell people i write with a community online and create "collaborative stories," but i never refer to it as rp or go in-depth unless i know that person's also done it before / is in similar fandom spaces.
Are you happy with how your favorite canon muse was portrayed in canon?
sure, i don't have any major complaints about his writing! it's consistent and fun to compare how differences in the localization shift the tone of certain character/rship-building scenes, while still managing to keep the spirit of his character intact. my only "issue" is that they could've put more time into expanding his character arc in the third act (but the same can be said for every character... a fumble all around tbh).
Have you ever written a canon muse that you first thought of ‘meh’ when they appeared in their canon show/movie/book?
NOPE! can't do it. if i'm not weird about that fictional character from the start, it's very unlikely i'll ever put the effort into forcing myself to write them. i need that click! that spark!
How do you create an OC? What are your steps for developing an OC?
i haven't developed an oc in yearssss so i'm the last person anyone should be asking. uh... (1) be a preteen, (2) develop an insane normal fictional crush, and (3) make an oc to ship them with. bam.
Who was your first OC?
i made my first in-depth oc when i was a wee 9 year old... she started out as a self-insert sonic oc that i obviously had to ship with sonic and shadow bc, duh. i also forced my cousins to make ocs so we could roleplay together lol.
i had more before that one but they were basically just vague roles i slipped into when playing pretend with my friends.
Is there any fandom you regret exploring?
can i say all of them njgnjg i think every fandom out there has its subset of annoying fans who'll make you reconsider ever interacting with anyone you haven't personally vetted lol, even if briefly. for example -- just bc of its infamy -- i never interact with sonic fans outside my circle; i've seen way too many pointless debates and shitty opinions to risk venturing out there again...
In what fandom did you start?
i am SO glad sonic was the first because the ones after it are infinitely more embarrassing.
What are your favorite ships on here (feel free to tag?)
OOO good question!!! i'll start by saying i've been rooting for break/zhilan since day 1 -- love those goobers!! other than that, i enjoy seeing any ship get together on here, like lloyd/zelos, vash/wolfwood (both iterations), nicolette/wang yi... if you're shipping with someone just now i'm hooting 'n hollering whenever they interact.
Have you ever developed a ship based on writing with a certain other character / mun?
nope, not yet! it's not that i'm against developing ships after noticing chemistry betwen muses -- far from it! -- it's just never gotten to the point where i wrote one.
What’s something you find weird on here?
i can't think of anything in particular, so... tumblr's commitment to making their layout as annoying as unoriginal and bloated as possible.
What people make you happy when you see them on the dash?
commence the taggening... you (duh), @kleinstar, @moraypower, @hollowfaith, @cladinivcry, @ultimatelifefcrm, @innerbeast, @nicawlette, @twohundredpower, @spiderstaff, @lalaluuz, ... i can't keep tagging people i'll go on forever...
Sal didn't plan on returning any of Ismael's texts or calls; besides one small reply, just so she didn't think he was laying dead in a ditch somewhere. 'I'm fine. I just need to be alone for awhile. I can't tell you everything yet.' Maybe he shouldn't have said anything, but he felt like sending that was the best he could do for now.
At the moment he was sitting by himself in front of a convenience store. Trying to process everything that had happened, and what his next steps would be. What was he supposed to do now?
[ 🌱 ] Once the witch had finally visited her new place of residence, she noticed that, although it was quite comfortable and homey, it was missing something in particular that was quite important to her; plants. Also, an unfortunate circumstance, she had used all of her allotted magic for the day and was unable to create a plant to decorate her home with.
With that in mind, Willow had been wandering around the shopping district, peeking carefully in to each storefront in hopes of finding something nice enough to decorate her new home with-- she was sure her only roommate wouldn't mind!
It was then she spotted it; a small florist with a lovely prayer plant right in the window-- one of her favorites! Hmm, she usually didn't carry any money around her person... so hopefully there was some way to work out a trade?
"Oh, you would be so happy sitting on my windowsill, wouldn't you?"
Oz does not stay in the residence that the strangers just... left him at. There wasn't anything for him there. And there wasn't anything implying he was trapped there. Which is good. A gilded cage is, at the end of the day, still a cage. There was the strange device now in his hands to focus on. It's so... Sleek. Shiny. He has absolutely no idea what it is. But it doesn't seem dangerous to mess around with, at least. Small mercies.
After some fiddling around, he manages to pull up some sort of image — he stares at it for a long moment, unblinking, before it clicks. A map. The device came with a map of the strange new area he's found himself in. Current location: Fibonacci Ward. He skims through each of the districts in a counter-clockwise order as he walks aimlessly around.
There. In the district to the east of his current location. He knows this place. He remembers the courtyard — how painfully beautiful it was in that dream the Core showed him. The last time he ever saw it. Rainsworth Manor... What was it doing here? How?
His feet begin taking him in that direction before he could convince himself that it's probably some sort of trap. What's the worst that could happen, anyways? He's already dead. Maybe this is another dream. Certainly a weird one, if so. He walks for hours, almost in a daze, dazzled by the glamor of the city around him so unlike anything he's seen the last time he was in a big city. Perhaps he could've found some mode of transportation, but...
It felt best this way, in order to take in all the new strange and wonderful and horrible sights.
Eventually, he makes his way to the front door step. Marches right up there and raps his knuckles rhythmically against the door without missing a single beat. Three times. He hums to himself as he waits, taking a step back to peer around curiously.
Kyrie left the house after sunset's first color shifts, calmed by the beautiful pink to the sky peeking out from gaps in the clouds. In their hands they held together a yellow candle in an open glass jar and a matchbook. The expectation of being alone fell apart immediately — another individual had beaten them to their backyard haven — but their hesitation only lasted a moment. It was their house, after all! They had the right to be there.
"Good evening," they said very simply to Break as they continued forward. Their goal was just below the tree, safely beside where the carnations had died off for the season. Kneeling down with little care as to what the bare ground might do to their slacks, they set down the candle and pulled out a match.
"Ismael did really well with this little garden, didn't she?" Despite the cold weather the winter blossoms still flowered, including the moth orchids planted for Kyrie's sake.
"I saw you there, this time."
("Not gonna startle me again.") The empath mumbles, putting out a cigarette on the concrete wall. It was almost done anyway, and they hand no desire to blow errant smoke at the other.
"Can I, uh, did you... need something? Am I in your way or whatever?"
