[ yin yu's smile is small, but grateful, in return, and he tips his head downwards in gratitude. ]
The feeling is mutual. [ jian yu, would you be proud of him? or would you be jealous? he thinks they might have gotten along. what a strange feeling, to feel remembered, to feel seen, to feel known. to have the chance to even build a camaraderie with someone, and to so of his own volition. it was slow, but it was his own.
to guy's second comment - which is very thoughtful and sweet, actually - he tips his glass, to offer to clink them together, then downs the rest of his drink and reaches for the bottle to top himself off, and... ]
[He'll extend his glass for that little toast, before leaning his head back against the bar and staring up at the ceiling.]
During the trial, I addressed you in a way that was shameful. You might not agree, but...
Rather than speaking to you as a friend that I know you are, I addressed you in a way I only ever did with those that served my family. A lord knows what words sway his servants into attention, whether good or bad. [With Peregynt, or with Vandesdelca, or the remnants of Hod that walked the mainlands. There was decorum that came out only in private, only with those that swore an oath to him.]
As much as I want to use concern as my excuse, it's not the way I want to be treating a friend, nor is it a way I would want to be treated were our positions reversed.
and then he just -- he doesn't quite laugh, but guy will easily see the flash of amusement on his face as he gets his drink poured. yin yu shakes his head, but he still politely accepts it: ] I appreciate and accept your apology, though there's nothing to really apologize for.
You brought me back from something I didn't want to fall into. It was exactly what I needed to hear, at that moment, and for that I am very grateful. [ which is very much true. but! he accepted the apology, so he bows his head, in warm gratitude.
as he leans back, he sips from his drink, and this time, yin yu's mouth twitches properly into a smile. ] Besides, I've told you something of my lord. He is no born noble - in fact, I was born into a higher standing than he was. Our relationship is a bit odd, in terms of that of a lord and retainer. The only nobles I ever speak to are him, Black Water Sinking Ships, who is... [ ......... ] not particularly noble, and Taizi Dianxia of Xian Le.
It was only out of the habit perhaps of emotion, more so than it was of position or standing, that made it so effective.
I'm glad, then. It still doesn't change my sentiment, though. What staff I have in my home now are there because I've hired them as workers, not retainers. I don't think I've spoken to someone that way in...
[...
He thinks of Van, of the last time he'd heard the righteous pleading and made a choice to refuse and correct the errant ways of a man who had been under his beck and call for years. It feels like yesterday... and, at the same time, like it happened so long ago that he can hardly remember.]
I do work for His Majesty the Emperor. But it isn't as a servant. It's under the vassalship of my father, now that His Majesty knows I wasn't part of those lost in the slaughter of the war. [He'd stayed hidden all those years for several reasons, but the remains of the scar that had turned that on its head were enough of a reminder of why he'd had to return.]
What remains of my father's estate is now part of His Majesty's affairs. Zygmunt Bizan Gardios's county, the Isle of Hod, completely disappeared during the war and sunk into the ocean, for reasons that many were never told. So while I've returned to my duties to His Majesty in my father's absence of my own volition, it is as a landless lord.
[ how complicated, indeed. ] Is that what you will return to you, when this is over?
[ a part of him knows that that question could be extended - with young master luke, but that future is so tentative that he's far too wise to say so. ]
Yeah. Too many people perished in my place for me to entertain anything else anymore. It's not the life I thought I'd go back to. But as the last of my bloodline... well, Gailardia Galan has a lot more to think over for his future than Guy Cecil ever did.
[His grip tightens against his glass.]
...But I won't let a failure on my part lead to my best friend losing his only shot at a second chance. So regardless of what I have to do... I'm not leaving without making sure Luke gets the wish that he earned.
[ 'gailardia galan'... so that's his real name? yin yu mouths it to himself, forming around the unfamiliar syllables. he gets what it means, to slip identities - he himself is far more often the 'xianxianyue officer' than he ever is yin yu, and that suits him just fine.
and besides, guy's resolve is just affirming of their real goals. saving that happy ending, for the people it matters for, for the innocent ones who didn't deserved to be involved at all. people like lady kanroji, somewhere, fast asleep. ]
Therein lies our ultimate goal. I'm with you; it would be unbecoming of the type that we are to leave such a thing unfinished no?
It really would. Asch's life hangs in the balance of that wish as well, though I don't know if it's something he desires. But being the reason he can't have another shot as well will probably put me on a few people's hit lists.
[Just. Kinda said a little too casually, as he swings his glass back again. The dumbass wasn't exactly subtle about announcing that he was dead in the projections from the mansion, so it doesn't feel wrong to share.
yin yu's brow furrows, briefly, and he looks down into his drink for a moment to let that resonate. truly, how many people were returned back just to play in this farce of a game? ] ...It seems an understatement to say things where you come from are quite complicated.
[...Ah. He gives an apologetic nod.] ...A lot happened within just a year's time. I don't think I could explain all of it even if I wanted to.
But part of Luke's wish at the temple was for Asch to have another chance at life along with him. If Asch would like to spend that life away from Auldrant, then he has every right. His past was robbed from him, as was any future he could have hoped for, so if he doesn't want to return home with me, then that's fine.
I just can't allow him to willingly walk back to his death unless that's truly what he wants. He has people who would gladly take him under their wing so that he can have a life again.
I can't force it on him. And who knows... maybe Luke's wish is being granted simply by Asch having this chance here, as demented as this place is. I just hope he isn't too caught up in his own pain to miss taking that chance, you know?
Mn. [ a soft noise of agreement, as he considers all of the factors, as he considers the type of person that he knows master asch to be. it's a lot to think about, and for a moment, he stay silent, reflective as ever, letting the heavy information settle about his shoulders like a cloak. ]
...I think this place will have inspired a change in all of us. There's no way to say if that's positive or negative - only time will tell.
[ he leans back a little further against the wall, feathers fluffing outwards to support him as he does. ] Do you think that he'll not return back to your world, then?
[That gets an easy shake of his head, though he looks far from pleased.]
I don't think so, no. As much as I want to take him back, I think there's too many bitter memories he would have to face, ones that don't have an easy resolution. Even if he determined to stand on his own, just like he had tried before, he'd likely still have to live every day being a shadow to his own replica.
Given that the fight that led to his eventual death was to try to settle their own identities between one another, as two separate instances of the boy known as Luke fon Fabre... who knows. I think Asch would rather die than put himself in that position again.
[ that makes perfect sense, and it's a choice well made. standing in someone else's shadow is... well. it's something that yin yu is inherently, unfortunately, very familiar with. ]
I do not think anyone would begrudge him for such a thing. I hope in that case that you're correct, Guy.
Yeah, well. I don't know if I want to be correct or not anymore.
We've been fighting since the day we got here. If I were still alive, he would probably have asked me to kill him at some point. So who knows if he's listened to me, or if he really is still on a suicide march.
It's not my responsibility. He hasn't been my master for almost a decade. As much as I want to make sure he has someone on his side, to make amends somehow... He still expects Guy as a servant, and I think part of me still expects Luke. The old Luke. [The one he wanted to murder.] To put that aside and just try to be Asch and Gailardia... I don't know if it will happen anymore. I can't give him the loyalty he wants without a reason of my own.
[He rubs at his face with one hand, grumbling.]
Wish I had more time to look for one outside of this stupid place.
[ pfft. yin yu huffs a soft, humorless laugh, raising his glass to that. this stupid place, indeed. ]
It's not as if you had much time to speak to each other over it. [ considering. ] ...Though, I don't think I would have, were I in your shoes: the fact that you may even want to speaks plenty of your character.
[ ...maybe. as ever, his thoughts drift unbidden to quan yizhen, and all of the things he left unsaid. if you asked him before all of this nightmare about yizhen, he would have run in the opposite direction -- he did, in fact, run in the opposite direction when he saw him last -- but...
he's done a lot of growing, lately.
yin yu falls quiet, for a moment lost in his own thoughts, looking down at the liquid in his glass. ]
Two months ago, I don't think I would have tried. But my choices at the temple made me realize some things about what I thought I valued, and how I was choosing to handle it.
...
[He catches that look, letting the silence stretch for a moment.]
I wouldn't say it's a matter of character, Yin Yu. Growth has to happen at some point, even if it's out of regrets or mistakes. Even if you haven't been able to voice just how you stand on the matter, or if your opportunity to fix it has long passed. [Time, or distance, or mortality. A lot of things could eliminate that window of chance.]
If you're putting effort into doing whatever you can to make amends for those regrets, unspoken or otherwise... even if it never reaches those that it was intended to reach, I want to believe that effort is what matters.
it's funny. he knows that he and guy are similar, in many ways, but the depth of it sometimes comes to surprise him. how rare, how pleasant, to not only bond with someone because of the circumstances of your life, but of your problems and troubles, too.
that's why it's easy to talk to him. that's why even after just one meeting, he'd found himself more comfortable around guy than he had almost anyone. even sometimes with flayn: there were things he would never tell her, would never want her to know, that he's only just now learning to accept, too.
maybe it's the gentle burn of the not great alcohol that makes him want to talk, but it's not. it's just-- it's having this kind of relationship with someone, born out of trust, born out of having a friend who just knows what it's like. not even jian yu ever really understood yin yu, or at least not the way he thought; that was half of their issue, in the end.
the silence remains, for just a little longer. when yin yu does speak, it's soft, and he turns his wrist so the liquid in his glass moves with it, fixated on it. his expression is hard to read, but, there's something deeply sad in his dark eyes. ] ...I never made the effort.
The thing that I regret most, I - [ go die! he'd said. he stops himself, closes his eyes briefly against the bitter tide of old memories that threatens to consume him, like it always does. grief and guilt follow him like a shadow, a ball and chain that yin yu has never freed himself from. ] ...I still don't know if I want to make amends or not.
[ but quan yizhen does. because he doesn't understand the severity. he can't, can he? he's a fool - and the excited way he'd screamed shixiong! when he realized that he'd finally, finally found yin yu -- that he'd been looking -- ] I don't know if I can, even now.
Part of him wants to pry, to ask Yin Yu what he means. But subtlety is skmething frustrating to grasp under the influence and buzz of the alcohol already in his system. So he has to take a second to think over how to respond - how he would want to be responded to, if their situations were reveresed.
Thankfully, he knows that's already happened, and it provides the best example he can think of.]
...You know, when Luke first came back to the manor after his kidnapping, I wasn't sure how to feel, either. The hatred didn't go anywhere, nor did what I wanted to do. Making amends for anything was the last thing on my mind. But the kid in front of me was different, and it kind of made me sick.
When he had learned how to talk again, I had asked him if it was hard not having his memory. All he told me was that "You can't move forward if you keep looking back." That he didn't need a past.
[He scoffs lightly, putting his glass down for a moment. For someone who had strived all his actions because of his past, that went about as well as expected.]
I hated that response at first. What could he know about that, right? He was just a kid who didn't know anything except for what he was fed by his family. As far as I was concerned, he still deserved to die.
[ well. luke is certainly wiser than the ghost that haunts yin yu, if that's anything to be reckoned with.
...but, the memory share week did have one memory related outcome that turned out well, for yin yu. it was a memory he'd shared from someone else, with a very important person. you must live your life fully, in the present moment, she had said, and when guy speaks, he can hear it in her voice, in the back of his head, a stirring of deep, bitter emotions and fondness mixing together like a vicegrip and squeezing around his heart.
learning to live by that adage has been one of the cruxes of his growth, here. sitting on this floor in this bar of an empty castle, he can let the fact that that growth is still something he's working for flood through him. ] ...someone said something like that to me once, too.
To escape the mistakes and the regrets you have made so simply feels an impossible task, doesn't it? [ it's an agreement, a quiet one. yin yu makes a quiet noise of his own, a darker, humorless laugh, and downs the rest of his drink. ] As if it were so easy to simply move on.
What was done was so catastrophic, it wouldn't even be fair of me to do so. And if that dummy even now refuses to believe I did any wrong, then as always, I have to be the one to know reality.
[ ...but quan yizhen...
( "shixiong!" )
quan yizhen did move on, and he was the victim in the first place.
[So Yin Yu had acted against someone else, then, and that someone had come back regardless.
...]
Maybe it's not a matter of forgetting versus ignoring, or accepting reality as one thing or another. Maybe it's just a matter of faith. In what a person is, or could be, or just having a chance at something different.
Sometimes reality has to be toppled over a little for that. And sometimes the simpler minded of men have an easier job of that.
You could call it idiotic. Or you could call it insightful. But that's an act of faith on its own.
[ that gets another huff of a laugh out of him. quan yizhen is an idiot. he's certainly not insightful.
...but, when it comes to matters of emotion, and matters of the heart, maybe he is smarter than yin yu could ever claim to be. yasusada reminds him of it, sometimes. that intensity, the feeling that someone just knows you beyond you're willing to be known.
that seems to be his only response, at least for now. but, after a long, thoughtful pause, yin yu sets his empty glass down, and reaches for the right sleeve of his newly slightly more modern turtleneck. his hand hesitates.
...but, he pushes it up. in contrast to the shining gold band on his left wrist, on the right is a dark tattoo. it's stark against his pale skin, and even more so with the faint gold coming from its match on the other side. ]
...The night before your duel, you told me the story of how you had become a retainer. Many things that you told me resonated with me, but I was - and have been -- too much of a coward to share the same.
This mark on my arm was not given to me by choice: it is known as a cursed shackle. It is, in essence, dual purposed. The first is to seal away my spiritual energy - anything that I cultivated in my lifetime is and has been inaccessible to me for three hundred years.
[ yin yu continues looking down at the mark as he talks. it feels like there's a weight on his chest that's being slowly pulled, up, up, up; he presses his thumb to the tattoo, to feel the veins underneath, the pulse of his heart, which flutters underneath his fingerprint. anxiety, guilt, an age old fear and bitterness.
you have to live in the present moment. ] ...but the second is to mark me as a banished god.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The feeling is mutual. [ jian yu, would you be proud of him? or would you be jealous? he thinks they might have gotten along. what a strange feeling, to feel remembered, to feel seen, to feel known. to have the chance to even build a camaraderie with someone, and to so of his own volition. it was slow, but it was his own.
to guy's second comment - which is very thoughtful and sweet, actually - he tips his glass, to offer to clink them together, then downs the rest of his drink and reaches for the bottle to top himself off, and... ]
...Oh? [ ?? ] Why?
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During the trial, I addressed you in a way that was shameful. You might not agree, but...
Rather than speaking to you as a friend that I know you are, I addressed you in a way I only ever did with those that served my family. A lord knows what words sway his servants into attention, whether good or bad. [With Peregynt, or with Vandesdelca, or the remnants of Hod that walked the mainlands. There was decorum that came out only in private, only with those that swore an oath to him.]
As much as I want to use concern as my excuse, it's not the way I want to be treating a friend, nor is it a way I would want to be treated were our positions reversed.
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yin yu blinks at him, surprised.
and then he just -- he doesn't quite laugh, but guy will easily see the flash of amusement on his face as he gets his drink poured. yin yu shakes his head, but he still politely accepts it: ] I appreciate and accept your apology, though there's nothing to really apologize for.
You brought me back from something I didn't want to fall into. It was exactly what I needed to hear, at that moment, and for that I am very grateful. [ which is very much true. but! he accepted the apology, so he bows his head, in warm gratitude.
as he leans back, he sips from his drink, and this time, yin yu's mouth twitches properly into a smile. ] Besides, I've told you something of my lord. He is no born noble - in fact, I was born into a higher standing than he was. Our relationship is a bit odd, in terms of that of a lord and retainer. The only nobles I ever speak to are him, Black Water Sinking Ships, who is... [ ......... ] not particularly noble, and Taizi Dianxia of Xian Le.
It was only out of the habit perhaps of emotion, more so than it was of position or standing, that made it so effective.
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[...
He thinks of Van, of the last time he'd heard the righteous pleading and made a choice to refuse and correct the errant ways of a man who had been under his beck and call for years. It feels like yesterday... and, at the same time, like it happened so long ago that he can hardly remember.]
Mm. It's been a while.
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yin yu tilts his head, looking at guy properly. ] You've moved on beyond your position, then?
[ he doesn't sound judgemental or anything. just a little curious. ]
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[hashtag it's complicated]
I do work for His Majesty the Emperor. But it isn't as a servant. It's under the vassalship of my father, now that His Majesty knows I wasn't part of those lost in the slaughter of the war. [He'd stayed hidden all those years for several reasons, but the remains of the scar that had turned that on its head were enough of a reminder of why he'd had to return.]
What remains of my father's estate is now part of His Majesty's affairs. Zygmunt Bizan Gardios's county, the Isle of Hod, completely disappeared during the war and sunk into the ocean, for reasons that many were never told. So while I've returned to my duties to His Majesty in my father's absence of my own volition, it is as a landless lord.
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[ how complicated, indeed. ] Is that what you will return to you, when this is over?
[ a part of him knows that that question could be extended - with young master luke, but that future is so tentative that he's far too wise to say so. ]
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Yeah. Too many people perished in my place for me to entertain anything else anymore. It's not the life I thought I'd go back to. But as the last of my bloodline... well, Gailardia Galan has a lot more to think over for his future than Guy Cecil ever did.
[His grip tightens against his glass.]
...But I won't let a failure on my part lead to my best friend losing his only shot at a second chance. So regardless of what I have to do... I'm not leaving without making sure Luke gets the wish that he earned.
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and besides, guy's resolve is just affirming of their real goals. saving that happy ending, for the people it matters for, for the innocent ones who didn't deserved to be involved at all. people like lady kanroji, somewhere, fast asleep. ]
Therein lies our ultimate goal. I'm with you; it would be unbecoming of the type that we are to leave such a thing unfinished no?
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[Just. Kinda said a little too casually, as he swings his glass back again. The dumbass wasn't exactly subtle about announcing that he was dead in the projections from the mansion, so it doesn't feel wrong to share.
The booze is helping, too, but eh.]
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Master Asch has passed on at home, for the two of you, as well?
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Asch was killed the same day that Luke died, two years ago.
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whoof.
yin yu's brow furrows, briefly, and he looks down into his drink for a moment to let that resonate. truly, how many people were returned back just to play in this farce of a game? ] ...It seems an understatement to say things where you come from are quite complicated.
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But part of Luke's wish at the temple was for Asch to have another chance at life along with him. If Asch would like to spend that life away from Auldrant, then he has every right. His past was robbed from him, as was any future he could have hoped for, so if he doesn't want to return home with me, then that's fine.
I just can't allow him to willingly walk back to his death unless that's truly what he wants. He has people who would gladly take him under their wing so that he can have a life again.
I can't force it on him. And who knows... maybe Luke's wish is being granted simply by Asch having this chance here, as demented as this place is. I just hope he isn't too caught up in his own pain to miss taking that chance, you know?
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...I think this place will have inspired a change in all of us. There's no way to say if that's positive or negative - only time will tell.
[ he leans back a little further against the wall, feathers fluffing outwards to support him as he does. ] Do you think that he'll not return back to your world, then?
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I don't think so, no. As much as I want to take him back, I think there's too many bitter memories he would have to face, ones that don't have an easy resolution. Even if he determined to stand on his own, just like he had tried before, he'd likely still have to live every day being a shadow to his own replica.
Given that the fight that led to his eventual death was to try to settle their own identities between one another, as two separate instances of the boy known as Luke fon Fabre... who knows. I think Asch would rather die than put himself in that position again.
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I do not think anyone would begrudge him for such a thing. I hope in that case that you're correct, Guy.
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Yeah, well. I don't know if I want to be correct or not anymore.
We've been fighting since the day we got here. If I were still alive, he would probably have asked me to kill him at some point. So who knows if he's listened to me, or if he really is still on a suicide march.
It's not my responsibility. He hasn't been my master for almost a decade. As much as I want to make sure he has someone on his side, to make amends somehow... He still expects Guy as a servant, and I think part of me still expects Luke. The old Luke. [The one he wanted to murder.] To put that aside and just try to be Asch and Gailardia... I don't know if it will happen anymore. I can't give him the loyalty he wants without a reason of my own.
[He rubs at his face with one hand, grumbling.]
Wish I had more time to look for one outside of this stupid place.
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It's not as if you had much time to speak to each other over it. [ considering. ] ...Though, I don't think I would have, were I in your shoes: the fact that you may even want to speaks plenty of your character.
[ ...maybe. as ever, his thoughts drift unbidden to quan yizhen, and all of the things he left unsaid. if you asked him before all of this nightmare about yizhen, he would have run in the opposite direction -- he did, in fact, run in the opposite direction when he saw him last -- but...
he's done a lot of growing, lately.
yin yu falls quiet, for a moment lost in his own thoughts, looking down at the liquid in his glass. ]
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...
[He catches that look, letting the silence stretch for a moment.]
I wouldn't say it's a matter of character, Yin Yu. Growth has to happen at some point, even if it's out of regrets or mistakes. Even if you haven't been able to voice just how you stand on the matter, or if your opportunity to fix it has long passed. [Time, or distance, or mortality. A lot of things could eliminate that window of chance.]
If you're putting effort into doing whatever you can to make amends for those regrets, unspoken or otherwise... even if it never reaches those that it was intended to reach, I want to believe that effort is what matters.
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it's funny. he knows that he and guy are similar, in many ways, but the depth of it sometimes comes to surprise him. how rare, how pleasant, to not only bond with someone because of the circumstances of your life, but of your problems and troubles, too.
that's why it's easy to talk to him. that's why even after just one meeting, he'd found himself more comfortable around guy than he had almost anyone. even sometimes with flayn: there were things he would never tell her, would never want her to know, that he's only just now learning to accept, too.
maybe it's the gentle burn of the not great alcohol that makes him want to talk, but it's not. it's just-- it's having this kind of relationship with someone, born out of trust, born out of having a friend who just knows what it's like. not even jian yu ever really understood yin yu, or at least not the way he thought; that was half of their issue, in the end.
the silence remains, for just a little longer. when yin yu does speak, it's soft, and he turns his wrist so the liquid in his glass moves with it, fixated on it. his expression is hard to read, but, there's something deeply sad in his dark eyes. ] ...I never made the effort.
The thing that I regret most, I - [ go die! he'd said. he stops himself, closes his eyes briefly against the bitter tide of old memories that threatens to consume him, like it always does. grief and guilt follow him like a shadow, a ball and chain that yin yu has never freed himself from. ] ...I still don't know if I want to make amends or not.
[ but quan yizhen does. because he doesn't understand the severity. he can't, can he? he's a fool - and the excited way he'd screamed shixiong! when he realized that he'd finally, finally found yin yu -- that he'd been looking -- ] I don't know if I can, even now.
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Part of him wants to pry, to ask Yin Yu what he means. But subtlety is skmething frustrating to grasp under the influence and buzz of the alcohol already in his system. So he has to take a second to think over how to respond - how he would want to be responded to, if their situations were reveresed.
Thankfully, he knows that's already happened, and it provides the best example he can think of.]
...You know, when Luke first came back to the manor after his kidnapping, I wasn't sure how to feel, either. The hatred didn't go anywhere, nor did what I wanted to do. Making amends for anything was the last thing on my mind. But the kid in front of me was different, and it kind of made me sick.
When he had learned how to talk again, I had asked him if it was hard not having his memory. All he told me was that "You can't move forward if you keep looking back." That he didn't need a past.
[He scoffs lightly, putting his glass down for a moment. For someone who had strived all his actions because of his past, that went about as well as expected.]
I hated that response at first. What could he know about that, right? He was just a kid who didn't know anything except for what he was fed by his family. As far as I was concerned, he still deserved to die.
But that answer still haunted me for a long time.
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...but, the memory share week did have one memory related outcome that turned out well, for yin yu. it was a memory he'd shared from someone else, with a very important person. you must live your life fully, in the present moment, she had said, and when guy speaks, he can hear it in her voice, in the back of his head, a stirring of deep, bitter emotions and fondness mixing together like a vicegrip and squeezing around his heart.
learning to live by that adage has been one of the cruxes of his growth, here. sitting on this floor in this bar of an empty castle, he can let the fact that that growth is still something he's working for flood through him. ] ...someone said something like that to me once, too.
To escape the mistakes and the regrets you have made so simply feels an impossible task, doesn't it? [ it's an agreement, a quiet one. yin yu makes a quiet noise of his own, a darker, humorless laugh, and downs the rest of his drink. ] As if it were so easy to simply move on.
What was done was so catastrophic, it wouldn't even be fair of me to do so. And if that dummy even now refuses to believe I did any wrong, then as always, I have to be the one to know reality.
[ ...but quan yizhen...
( "shixiong!" )
quan yizhen did move on, and he was the victim in the first place.
to be willfully obtuse; that must be nice. ]
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...]
Maybe it's not a matter of forgetting versus ignoring, or accepting reality as one thing or another. Maybe it's just a matter of faith. In what a person is, or could be, or just having a chance at something different.
Sometimes reality has to be toppled over a little for that. And sometimes the simpler minded of men have an easier job of that.
You could call it idiotic. Or you could call it insightful. But that's an act of faith on its own.
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...but, when it comes to matters of emotion, and matters of the heart, maybe he is smarter than yin yu could ever claim to be. yasusada reminds him of it, sometimes. that intensity, the feeling that someone just knows you beyond you're willing to be known.
that seems to be his only response, at least for now. but, after a long, thoughtful pause, yin yu sets his empty glass down, and reaches for the right sleeve of his newly slightly more modern turtleneck. his hand hesitates.
...but, he pushes it up. in contrast to the shining gold band on his left wrist, on the right is a dark tattoo. it's stark against his pale skin, and even more so with the faint gold coming from its match on the other side. ]
...The night before your duel, you told me the story of how you had become a retainer. Many things that you told me resonated with me, but I was - and have been -- too much of a coward to share the same.
This mark on my arm was not given to me by choice: it is known as a cursed shackle. It is, in essence, dual purposed. The first is to seal away my spiritual energy - anything that I cultivated in my lifetime is and has been inaccessible to me for three hundred years.
[ yin yu continues looking down at the mark as he talks. it feels like there's a weight on his chest that's being slowly pulled, up, up, up; he presses his thumb to the tattoo, to feel the veins underneath, the pulse of his heart, which flutters underneath his fingerprint. anxiety, guilt, an age old fear and bitterness.
you have to live in the present moment. ] ...but the second is to mark me as a banished god.
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