#ngl bacu might have been slightly jealous but we'll just let that slide to spare him

[exorcieyes]

bacunawa’s opinion on your muse (accepting) // @jyargal (Dorje)

"What is he to you.” It’s out of the blue. “Dorje."

Zhenyi has slowed in her dancing, and she peers at him through her fan --- a shadow in the wildflowers, or an omen, maybe, except in the way that he isn’t. "Is this jealousy, Isagani?"  

His mouth opens. Purses. "No."

"Do you think poorly of him?"

“He has… aided me,” Bacunawa says, like he's just reached some invisible middle ground. “And he has cared for you. What I feel is… not aversion.”

The bells on her dress settle. He hears the slow chimes, and then sees: standing there knee-deep in the grass, washed in moonlight, smoke, his steady, imperishable affections. Zhenyi pads down the field barefooted and waves out the incense in her hand. “He speaks fondly of you.’”

"So he tells me.”

Dorje comes to mind. Towering horns. A laugh. ‘My friend.’ There’s a smile in her eyes and he clears his throat. 

“What I want to know,” Bacunawa continues, “is why.”

Zhenyi has put away her fan and bushel of incense, and is now in front of him, a late-night apparition. Curiously, she is pressing little secrets along his elbow. “Because you are a demon.”

“I am his enemy --- and subject to reprisal,” he affirms. “I would not question it.” 

"He is without enemies. Dorje would hurt no one, and he is not you."

No, Bacunawa supposes. He isn’t.

Crickets chirp. She continues drawing the world’s smallest line on his elbow, and all of Bacunawa’s half-formed sentences run away from him. Perhaps he can blame it on the late hour and no other reason, except he’s come to terms that the smell of her hair has the same effect. "He is kind... And loyal. As are you," he confesses, unnaturally. "I am certain there are those who will exploit it."

"But you will not." Her head lifts. She does not ask.  

"No," he tells her, firmly. "I will not."