#[j]in[g]uangyao

[roscvcins]

once you're stripped clean, what's at your core?

behind the mask

you aren’t slick about whatever you think you’re hiding. glass shatters in your midst, blood spills, children scream. like some of your friends, your personality of choice is entirely artificial. the difference between you and them is that you can get away with it. you’re unknown, perhaps even to yourself, and your goals are complex and unknown. anyone stupid enough to fall for you is setting themselves up to be frustrated and confused, owing to your being ultimately unknowable. i hope you can find an identity that makes you comfortable.

tagged by : @h3artf3ltint3nt tagging : YOU if you wanna do it!!

[roscvcins]

He SMILES, aimlessly, reflexively, because that is all he ever seems to do. Whether it's the cold or the constant state he's been in since he had been dragged from the temple remains UNKNOWN - he doesn't care. All that he knows is that he...feels nothing, and that is perhaps fitting, because he IS nothing.

"...Here we are." Repeats, and his voice is hoarse, though it sounds the same - familiarly gentle, familiarly exasperated. Like the one that had cut and cursed and screamed is a different man. The confession is soft, tinged with that smile, despite what he says. "...I think I'd rather prefer it if you'd have had your way, Huaisang."

He no longer dreams of the saber, the dark confinement of a closed coffin so many feet beneath the earth, the blazing eyes of his personal ghost - in TERROR. Rather there is a tendril of longing - a sigh of melancholy, when he once again condenses into the waking world.

“…Is your brother finally…at rest?” He asks, conversationally, though he knows Nie Huaisang will likely not like to hear the question.

the bars of the jail cell are cold, seeping away all the heat from huaisang’s fingers wherever they meet steel. with his weak cultivation, it took most of his focus to regulate his body enough not to shiver, and he’d only just entered the prison. in his heart there was a sliver of pity for jin guangyao, though quickly quelled — at least for huaisang, the chill was temporary. at least for huaisang, leaving this place was an option.

but it was true, after all, what they said: you reap what you sow.

jin guangyao, for his sin, (for there was only one crime he’d committed that truly mattered in huaisang’s eyes,) did not deserve his sympathy.

“so, here we are.” nie huaisang taps his fan against his hand, an uncharacteristic coolness to his voice. “tell me, san-ge,” nie huaisang leans forward, lips curving mockingly around the once-affectionate moniker, “in the end, was it worth it?”

@roscvcins, for jin guangyao. call.

[kuroosukii]

Jin Guangyao

[roscvcins]

WHICH PRIVATE EXPRESSION OF LOVE DO YOU MOST REPRESENT?

Watching somebody brush their teeth

it’s intimacy in unusual places. seeing their bare shoulder as they step out of the shower and ask you to pass them a towel. kissing with morning breath. they see you when you ugly cry, and get cut off in traffic, and take out your anger on a text book. you see them with the flu, talking in their sleep, exhausted from a day of work. you go to buy the groceries together: orange juice, eggs, a loaf of bread. none of it is mundane, not when you’re with them. you buy toothbrushes together in complementary colours and they sit together in your bathroom, perfect beside each other. you catch their eye in the mirror and for the first time, everything feels alright.

tagged by : @h3artf3ltint3nt tagging : you!!!

[roscvcins]

@meihuasmight asked : ☁ - send me ‘☁’ to be locked inside with my muse on a rainy day (ACCEPTING)

"...While it's certainly DOABLE, I don't recommend returning to Q.inghe in the storm." As usual, the moment it became INCONVENIENT, his father is nowhere to be seen, likely already on his way to his less savory pursuits. M.adame J.in, on the other hand, had given him particular looks before she left - which is to say, the arrangements are left entirely to him, and if there are unsatisfactory, he ALONE will have consequences later.

He knows the Q.inghe delegation has never been particularly comfortable in L.anling - N.ie M.ingjue having a vocal distaste for all things FALSE and therefore no love or tolerance for the gilded halls with their rotting secrets. "Your rooms have been prepared." Far away from the central sect dwellings that they might be able to avoid characters they wish to. A smile sits on his face.

[roscvcins]

He remains standing still, for a long time, brawling with silence. Even so few words have given his hands a tremor, and he folds them surreptitiously into his sleeves. It is still longer before he trusts himself to speak again. "...I'm not who I USED TO BE, Kexin."

In many more ways than one. Though he held onto the things that were important to him - he was marred before he had even gone to Qishan. What he did for Wen Ruohan will haunt him - and what he is doing for his father feels familiar and practiced in a way that terrifies him, as does the distinct feeling - that THIS SHOULDN'T BE WHO HE BECOMES.

But he chose this path he walks. What happens, if he steps off? "What I'm trying to say is - things aren't the same anymore. Don't let me too close." You'll regret it.

Kexin is admittedly rather surprised. Meng Yao is always so calm and collected, always offering a smile. He doesn't often show these emotions. Not that she thinks he shouldn't, but it does make her think that something is very much bothering him. And she wants desperately to help him. "A-Yao," she says softly. "I know that others are cruel and that society can be dreadful, but you have just as much right to make choices as the rest of us. Just as much of a right to be standing here. No matter what they say," she comments. "You're kind and brave and intelligent, and extremely capable. That already makes you a better person than them. And as far as rules go, some are useless or just unfair. Even if you break some of them, you're still you. You wouldn't actively bring harm to others whereas other members of the gentry wouldn't think twice so long as it got them what they wanted. So why do you think it dangerous? Did someone say something cruel? Or hurt you in any way?" she asks, furrowing her brows.

@roscvcins

[roscvcins]

@h3artf3ltint3nt asked : “  i  really  don’t  want  to  fight.  ” (some angst?)

His gaze is on her face, and he holds out his hand, palm up - the facade of calm pulled over his own expression despite the drums that start in his ears, the way he feels he can heartly breathe for how his heart begins to squeeze. "And I hardly think I'm your match."

Even so impressed with his "POTENTIAL" - W.en R.uohan agreed that M.eng Y.ao wasn't best suited to soldiering. Still, with what tasks he was put to in the F.ire P.alace, it is inescapable that he must venture out on the sect leader's whims - and to such an end, W.en R.uohan provided an adequate escort. Vicious as they agreed he was, entertaining as he knew it was for W.en R.uohan to watch him survive by his own blade - there were agendas the sect leader hoped to achieve through his hand.

"Kexin," He begins, slow, pleading and cautious - still very quiet - she has a chance to go, escape unscathed and unnoticed. If she stays to fight him and the others are alerted, he had little way to ensure her safety. "You could pretend you never saw me here."

[roscvcins]

@h3artf3ltint3nt asked : ☁ (had to send cause it's actually rainy here) - send me ‘☁’ to be locked inside with my muse on a rainy day (ACCEPTING)

"...Another book?" A smile as he looks up from the strings of his qin. He was loathe to admit it in his younger years for one reason or another, and he rarely had the luxury of choosing anyway - but for the most part, he LIKES being inside. A book occupies his time in a more leisurely manner than MOST things he had to do outside.

Hands Kexin another book, in this manner - a light little recording of a cultivator's travels around the continent - and returns to the strings, and the score at hand. In an hour or two perhaps he will have to find another task to complete, but for now the rain keeps everyone out of doors and his previous managements will do.

[roscvcins]

"人生在世不称意呀 - 失眠或失恋。" It's only AWAY from the eyes of others that he feels like more than a pretty doll that his father has positioned to be displayed upon a shelf - like out here with the breeze gentle in his hair and the sun light upon his face, the exterior THAWS, and he can be a person made of flesh and blood. Half a smile hangs upon lips characteristically, in contrast to how he leans now LAZILY against the railing, rigid manners forgotten, cup of turbid wine half raised, as if in a moment it might rain down upon the street below - "只劝你来把个盏，侃呀么侃大山。"

@yishuns liked for a lyric starter !

[roscvcins]

@frexiasought asked : "I'm a nice person but I'm about to start throwing rocks at people." zhao xiang to j.gy! // frexiasought

PREPARED as he is with the mask of polite friendliness welded to his face - the way she phrases her frustration startles a GENUINE laugh out of him. The mental picture is - well, absurd to say the least. Her, standing in front of the lauded cultivation society that has recently won a war - and throwing rocks at them. It's unspeakably absurd, and yet - an unspeakably DELIGHTFUL notion. He wishes he was in a position to throw rocks at people - a few particular people.

Unfortunately, he can't have people throwing rocks at his conference. The conference he's running. Sort of.

So instead, he motions for her to step aside with him. The mirth is still alight in his eyes, softening his already inviting demeanor. "...Zhao Guniang, perhaps instead of throwing rocks at people, you might be willing to tell ME what's got you in a mood to do so?"

[roscvcins]

@h3artf3ltint3nt asked : 🌅 (for A-Yao & Kexin?) - SEND “🌅” FOR A MOODBOARD OF OUR MUSES! (accepting!)

[roscvcins]

"I hope things have been...WELL. Since I left." He can imagine it in his mind's eye - though he's not so arrogant as to think the U.nclean Realm would FALL APART without him. Still - he worries for things he no longer has a right to worry about, the budget, the year's taxes, unfinished work he left on his desk that will now NEVER be finished. Unspoken, but - he worries for the people too. The post war world is FAR MORE COMPLICATED than it had been during the war.

@cuckoo-among-beasts liked for a starter !

[roscvcins]

@h3artf3ltint3nt asked : [ 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 ] - DESPERATION (ACCEPTING)

[ 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 ] : receiver comforts crying sender.

A weak ache pulses in his middle from freshly emptying his stomach in the woods on the way to Q.inghe. He presses it down. He presses it all down. How is grief supposed to look like? A face, he has a face for everyone, every occasion, but in a world WITHOUT N.ie M.ingjue it all fades to uncertainty. He should be panicking.

But he's numb to the idea that he doesn't know, like he exists within the confines of a glass bauble. He doesn't know what to wear on his face when grief OBLITERATES, is a gash that tears him clean down the center like a piece of paper, a knife he has pushed through himself. That bloody gash is the only thing that feels REAL, metallic, unhealing, eternal. And a reminder -

HE MADE THE WRONG CHOICE.

"...Here." He offers his arm to Kexing in a dream-like state, seeing her with glassy eyes and yet seeming to pass through her at once. His hand is cold, but he gently pats her back, and lets her cry.

[roscvcins]

@frexiasought asked : you've changed quite a bit since i saw you last. zhao xiang to j.gy! // frexiasought - ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS (ACCEPTING)

Has he? Sometimes he wonders this himself. He wears a different face, a different name, a different way of life, perhaps - but underneath it all he does not think he's ever really ESCAPED. He is the same as he has always been - as he will perhaps always be - AFRAID.

"...For the better, I hope, Zhao Guaniang." A smile. It is not as tired as he feels, having greeted guests from morning to now. "I'm glad to see you again."

[roscvcins]

@dcstinyscdgc asked : [ LAZY ]: sender concedes to receiver's requests for a piggy-back ride home because they don't want to walk anymore, and carries them the rest of the distance home. (nie.yao) - REASONS TO CARRY SOMEONE

The ONE THING he thinks he might never get used to in Q.inghe is the temperature. When the trees change colors, when the frost begins to touch the window sills in the morning, when he asks for another blanket, and then another - the slow arrival of winter here is different than it is in L.anling. He finds himself not particularly wanting to leave his blanket, content to stay inside all day the moment the weather changes even a little - the cold, crisp air drawing a particular laziness out of him.

Of course, it isn't as if he used to be able to be lazy anyway. At L.anling there was no N.ie M.ingjue who would indulge his whims when he said, halfway through a turn of the grounds, that he was too cold and tired to keep walking. The only one who might have listened back home was his mother, and he never wanted to trouble her. Troubling M.ingjue, however - he felt little qualms about, climbing on without protest when offered and tucking his hands into the pocket of warmth when he holds on to M.ingjue's shoulders.

He's WARM, and M.eng Y.ao finds himself happily pressed up against his back like he might press himself to a rock exposed to the sun for many hours in the summer. A pleased sigh, eyes half closed. "...N.ie M.ingjue," He says, voice half muffled as he turns to rest his cheek against the other's shoulder, "Did you know you're a REALLY good husband?"

[roscvcins]

@dcstinyscdgc asked : “  killing  me  will  not  end  this.  ”  (bUT ALSO FOR M.INGJUE AT A-YAO)

The string SNAPS - and the wrong song ceases reverberating, the metallic thread slicing his finger. Like awakening from a dream, he looks up. A snapped string and drawn blood - he finds himself musing, an almost terrifying hilarity bubbling in his chest - WHAT AN OMEN. "I..." don't know what you're talking about, M.eng Y.ao should say.

But his voice is trembling and he's still LOOKING at M.ingjue when his eyes start to sting and why does he feel RELIEF? The flick of his wrist is sharp when he summons Hensheng, unlike how he had played previously, mechanical and detached - and he does only what he thinks to in that moment, slashing through the rest of the strings to a cacophony of sound.

LET THERE BE OMENS.

"...Killing ME won't end it either, you should know." In the face of certain death, he's calmer than he expected to be. Maybe it is only this moment that he feels CLARITY for the last few months of encounters with M.ingjue. Past the anxiety - there is this. The notion that it can't get ANY WORSE. The notion that he's faintly relieved - that it will be M.ingjue, that if one of them is walking out of this room it won't be him. A strange honesty takes over him. "...You already made yourself a threat to my father."