#yksha

[closedcoffins]

at first it was a feeling, merely faint, that left him restless, keeping an eye out. then he saw him, and it took much restraint not to approach immediately. [ so unlike the conqueror of demons to seek company. ] for a while he observed, felt the faint hum of a karmic burden lessened by ... time ? repentance ? rebirth ? when at last xiao finds him outside of city walls, it takes but a moment to call upon the winds and find himself in closer range, ever vigilant to keep enough distance to keep the karma at bay. is it cruel, say, to disturb one who has found life anew and is free of his oath ? ❛   menogias ...   ❜ the name slips ere he can stop himself. do you know i have mourned you for centuries ? pull yourself together. ❛   be careful, the sun will soon set, and guyun is no place to be at night.   ❜ a thousand queries are locked behind his lips, the only remnant of his brief loss of composure the flicker of hesitancy in eyes of amber.

Alatus?

He knows the name for a fraction of a second before it is lost to him, flashes of a life interrupting his vision before there is nothing at all, not even an afterimage. He shakes his head minutely as though willing the fleeting thoughts away before turning to face the voice that has interrupted the relative peace ( yet relative unease ) of his wandering.

Almost immediately he is struck with a powerful sense of familiarity, though he tries not to dwell on it long lest it make his head ache like other things that bring familiarity have been known to do.

"Is that so?" he asks, voice relatively even despite a small, lingering feeling of distress that even someone of his disposition cannot rid himself of. "I wouldn't have guessed that. It feels like a very peaceful place. Something about it brings me solace."

Such a sentiment could never be anything but a lie, but Menogias could not explain the truth if he was asked to elaborate. What sort of madman, after all, subjects himself to the feeling of wariness and distress that a given place brings with such leisure that he might as well be taking an evening stroll? Immediately determining that he is that sort of madman, he then supposes it would just be improper to say something like that. Even devoid of his memory as he is, he has heard enough from the people of Liyue to know that Guyun should not rightfully be one of the ghosts in his forgotten past. It is a place of legends that have died and faded.

And yet...

"Have we met before?" Menogias asks, unable to quiet the nagging voices that tell him to ask, to pry further. The unsettling truth of the matter is that the stranger---the Adeptus?---had known his name, and either that fact or the aching familiarity is what renders him unable to keep from asking. "You just feel familiar to me."

[fuxian]

        “  you have to keep this a secret.  you can’t let any of the other adepti know,  especially  not cloud retainer;  this stays between the two of us,  alright?  i don’t want them to tell me no when i bring all of this back.  ”

     「 @yksha​​​​​​​​​​​​   ❤ ‘d    for a starter. 」

[sonnetos]

the sun has not yet risen when venti wakes, the morning stars still gleaming above them as they step out to the inn terrace. there’s a strange sense of deja vu in his wake, a familiar ache of disappointment resting in his stomach as he once again wakes in his room alone. funny how things haven’t really changed -- & yet everything has, hasn’t it? at the very least venti understands why they feel this way. 

only took him a few hundred centuries. 

❛    there you are --    ❜  their voice is soft & light, an almost playful melodic air to them as they approach the yaksha standing by the railing.  ❛   i’d hoped you hadn’t gone off too far.    ❜  when he meets xiao’s side venti contemplates reaching out, pulling the other toward him like he had the previous evening. but ultimately he decides against it, unsure if such gestures would be welcomed. they settle for placing a hand on the other’s back, touch warm & gentle as they cast xiao a weary smile.  ❛    glad to know i haven’t scared you off yet.    ❜  he says with a laugh. 

@yksha​  //  the aftermath 

[seai]

kinu: so anyways like i was saying xiao: shut up. kinu: can you let me FINISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ahlite-a]

@yksha​​ : “you should lay down.”     /     accepting.

Lumine hasn’t slept in a long time.  Usually, she’s never sure — if she’s tired of not.  How long it’s been.  But she knows it has to have been days, at least, because she’s tired and she can feel it the way she only ever can when she’s skating close to the kind of exhaustion that has her passing out or getting sloppy.  Knows it too, because the emptynothing that lives perpetual in her bones has sharpened to anger, to irritability.  They keep remembering Dainsleif telling them to wait and wishing they had not been so deep in shock and mourning they hadn’t been able to argue.  Patience worn thin, hands shaking and curling with the effort it takes not to snap, not to go to far, not to be cruel to enemy and friend alike.

Hands curling to trembling fists as she stumbles, exhaustion tugging at her leaden limbs / her useless fucking limbs, and Xiao — with her, hunting beside her, said she clearly couldn’t be alone and she’d wanted to bite — catches her.  Hands curling to fists because it’s all he can do not to shove them away, teeth gritting, standing with a muttered, “It’s fine.”  Tactile girl but the touch hurts, makes them feel anxious, trapped.  She hasn’t slept in too long and she can barely stay upright but if she rests she’ll be giving up / she’ll be letting Aether down / she’ll have bad dreams where Aether gets even farther from them.  Or worse.  Ever since the dandelion, they’re worse.

The emptycarvedoutnothing that lives perpetual in her bones has sharpened to a hateful anxiety, a sense that if she rests she’s failing.  So when Xiao says, “you should lay down,” that anger grits her teeth for her, and she spins on her heel to face him with a growl, eyes sparking bright white for a moment / barely that.  Energy spills from her, felt more than seen, that collar around their power straining.  Lumine is not often angry.  Aether always tempered when she was.

Her eyes flicker back to gold, the emptycold sharpened to something burning, something screaming.  “I said it’s fine.”  The tension in their body needs to be let out or she’ll turn to shrapnel / is always shrapnel, nobody ever sees it so it doesn’t matter.  “I’m sick of waiting around.”  The dandelion and Dainsleif advising that she be patient.  The endless searches for everyone else’s happy ending and hers a knotted thread, no right direction to follow.

She feels anxious empty sharp, needs to do something, anything, anything.  Anything that might bring her even a little closer.  What she doesn’t need is rest.  WHAT SHE DOESN’T NEED IS TO WAIT.

Later, once exhaustion finally forces him to collapse, to sleep, he’ll wake whole and sorry and apologize.  She’ll feel like a fool, like a monster, a creature sustained wholly on the bonds she makes, risking those very same bonds.  She’ll be afraid that he won’t care for her anymore, and worse that he will protect her still.  But now, they’re angry, emptycoldsharp.  Empty and so tired and so desperately sad.

“I’m so sick,” they whisper, “of being told to rest.” 

[fuxian]

          @yksha​​ :     “  i am alive and some days i think that must be enough for me  ”   ;   prompt.

        there is much more that she wants to say,  so much so that it nearly bursts from her the excitement of a river held dormant by dams;  life is much more than surviving,  much more than simply allowing things to pass.  she is of rebirth and second chances and sparking embers and to be met with such passive notions stirs a flame to inspire color into their routine days.

        and yet she must admit that life has not always been kind,  not to her and certainly not to xiao.  guizhong is an archon of privilege,  blessed by celestia to have waded through tepid waters and fortunate to have escaped hardship by simply hiding from war.  her story pales to theirs and is almost luxurious if she dare say it.  existence is burdensome and though she’s unaware of the details,  meeting them,  a bloodied live-wire who startled when she so much as looked at them,  it was easy to see just how stark their backgrounds were.

        and so she hums instead,  smile even and admittedly as excited as the day they’d first met when she pats his head;  it’s grown to be a habit that she can’t quite shake but he hasn’t seemed to mind so far.  leaning back,  guizhong swings her feet and the hammock moves easily with them as she does,  learning as much from them as she hopes they do her.  the breeze on her face allows her to just be.  it would be inconsiderate to force him to do anything but that.

        “  seeing you safe and well whenever i have the opportunity to is enough for me,  too.  ”     ━━━  eyes finally meet their gaze and they’re speckled with love,  fingers carding through their hair yet again,  perhaps a bit more playfully this time when she does so with the intention to muss it up.  she’s overjoyed when they no longer flinch like she remembers they might have before.       “  anything that makes you happy makes  me  happy.  so if this is what you find comfort in,  then who am i to say any different?  besides,  sometimes that’s all you can be.  ”

[sonnetos]

𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄

semi closed reincarnation verse with @yksha​  |  verse tag​

okay so i realized that i should probably make a proper info post about reincarnation verse since it’s something sam & i have plotted a lot in but haven’t really??? made a clear outline to what’s going on to anyone who follows us! this verse is semi closed so it’s mostly reserved for mains and/or people who’ve specifically plotted with me or sam in the verse. otherwise i will default to my standalone modern verse when interacting with others. 

okay so unlike any of my other modern verses, reprise verse directly follows the canon timeline & any threads written in the canon setting. the catch is that several thousand years have passed since then & the setting is modern teyvat. 

the original barbatos & alatus died over a millennia ago. at the moment we haven’t really figured out the exact terms of how or why they died only that they were together & had died in dihua marsh. ( if you’d like to read this part sam wrote something last night ). but now they have been reborn era. 

venti was reborn with all his memories in tact. he remembers it all down to how he died. however xiao has little to no memories retained when they meet each other again. the only memories he’s retained come in flashes in dreams, making it very difficult to garner an idea of what the situation is. 

i’ll let sam go more into details about xiao’s end of everything since he’s their muse. but i’ll at least say that they’re a tattoo artist living in modern liyue. venti in this verse is a traveling performer who’s been with a touring broadway company across teyvat for some time. however when he meets xiao again while staying in liyue to do a couple weeks of performances, venti drops everything. he goes as far as to quit his job & move to stay in liyue permanently. he picks up a job as a waiter and/or food delivery guy in liyue.

there’s a lot of pre-established relationship stuff at this time because at the moment canon verse xi/aoven are still slow burning it up. but the beginning of reincarnation verse is under the assumption that sometime before they died they were romantically involved in some capacity. at the very least they’d made their feelings for each other known. 

& while venti has never fallen out of love with xiao & has dropped literally everything for him, he still makes no move to actually tell xiao the truth. nor does he actively seek him out for a long time. it takes several “fated” encounters for venti to close the gap & try to reconnect with xiao. but because this version of xiao doesn’t have his memories, they’re a lot more light & less tormented than the xiao venti remembers. & venti chooses to never directly tell xiao about their past out of love & a desire to keep xiao happy & free of karmic debt. 

instead he chooses to try to start again. & this ends up coming very easy to both of them as they are wholeheartedly each other’s soulmate. even with xiao’s lack of memories he’s naturally drawn to venti & vice versa. 

eventually at some point after becoming a couple a second time xiao does remember their past. venti does not outright admit to already knowing but there’s a certain point (plotted out) where xiao suffers a break following the recollection of his past debt & venti sings the old liyue song that he had played for xiao when he saved him in dihua marsh. xiao does not begrudge venti for not telling him the truth, understanding that he must have been in a great deal of pain through all of it. 

& together they finally get to have the happy & free life together that they could never have as barbatos & alatus. it takes a few thousand years but they do get their happy ending even if there’s a bit of conflict & pain in the beginning. but the wait is worth the sweet end that is the peace & joy they find in each other. 

[sonnetos]

@yksha​:    his muscles feel heavy, almost stiff, and yet ... there is a warmth behind him, something tickling his neck. when did he fall asleep? it dawns on him then: venti's arms are wrapped around him, light yet warm, as though shielding him from whatever demons usually find him in his sleep. curled up, he must have drifted away, the faint memory of a hum close to his ear. xiao yawns, brows knitted in silent embarrassment. ❛ how long did i sleep ? ❜ the movie they were watching seems to have ended.

the man in his arms shifts slightly, bringing venti back into the present as their eyes flutter open. xiao yawns & a bleary eyed smile appears on the former archon’s face. it has been a long time since he’s been able to see them like this, innumerable amount of years at this point. even in the old days it was a rare sight. so now more than ever venti wants to cherish this moment. he only wishes he could see that sleepy expression of xiao’s he’s always been so fond of. he wonders if that looks the same as well. 

❛   good morning, sleepy head.    ❜  a beat & venti swoops down to press a kiss to the other’s cheek. he’s a bit bolder in this life he realizes -- he hadn’t thought that entirely possible but it is. well in their defense this is a date...maybe, possibly.  ❛    you slept through almost the entire movie. understandable really, it certainly wasn’t an award winning film. though i’m sorry to see not even my company could tempt you away from the realm of sleep.    ❜   a giggle, a flash of something, a memory -- 

“ tell me xiao, is my company that boring? i’m afraid i’ve lost my touch. ”

venti moves to pull xiao closer to his chest, feigning sleep as his head crashes onto the other’s shoulder.  ❛    tell me, songbird do you feel well rested?    ❜  they ask into xiao’s shoulder. ❛    because i am strongly debating going back to sleep or getting up & pouring myself another glass of wine. would you care to help me decide?    ❜