#pls tolerate my bad writings so that i may finish a goddman fic in muh life pft

[yi-dashi-a]

//P-P-P-P-Post DnD drabbles? I suppose it is also a public transport drabble by extension. Yi parents fluff, the ‘it took me a long time to write this while i wrote all the events that came after instead’ edition.The incident that basically is lowkey responsible for Wuju’s death is entailed next time though! I am excite to post it, since it’s literally already written.

  For now, this. If you lack some context, as always check out the hobby project tag pft

Her roof had never felt so mottled with noticeable detail, but she figured that’s what happened when you stared at something for so long. She’d long gotten past the point of replaying the situation in her mind. Now she was just staring, hoping that sense would come if she just thought on it hard enough.

“Idiot…” the Mage found herself mumbling to the fixtures that lay over her head, “Idiot, idiot, idiot…”

Was she talking about him, or herself? It must have been her, because after all this consideration she didn’t have it in her heart to think of him poorly. Even if he’d near been unfaithful, though under other circumstances she might not have cared if he’d spirited off with another woman. He could have handled it all better, yet she knew him to be just a sad, human man with a weight tied to the scars of his back.

“He’d die before anything else…” She said to the wooden struts, “Why? There are other ways.”

The thought of someone being so low, so without hope, was almost something that started her tears up again. She couldn’t picture him in her mind like that. He was happy here. She was happy when he was here. Was it all a lie, then? Was she not as good at reading his features as she thought? She rolled over into her bedding, growing tired of the roof judging her. It all went around and around in circles in her mind, because she knew she was merely avoiding the questions that mattered.

He’s asking me to go with him. Are his ideas even sound?

But then she frowned. It wasn’t about him; the sad, stupid man. It was about her. She reconsidered the question.

Do I want to go with him, or do I not? Do I trust him when he tells me this is a cause worth dying for, or don’t I?

Of course it was still centered around the man, but it at least gave her some pause in her headache to rephrase things. Was it worth it for her? Was it worth it to pack up for a week or so and run off with the man? That then, almost in a way that surprised her, rephrased the question again.

How much is he worth to me? How much would my life suffer if he wasn’t here? if I did not disrupt my life for just a week or so?

She was so selfish and naive, or so she screamed at herself in that moment, but it was almost as if she had to be to get through this. The roof’s critical stare was back upon her once more, chastising her for her glassy eyes and pained expression. To think this was all but a consideration of worth, beyond all these emotions that boiled under her skin. He had asked for her arm and her leg.

Was it worth it to give it to him?

“He… is worth… everything.” She choked out the words, the woman who had left him just hours before now also in protest to her conclusions, “He is… just human, and I would suffer. I’d suffer more than now. I can scream at him when he’s safe.”

But as simply as answers came, so simply did the implications compound. The word everything was as intense as it was all encompassing, and she believed it without a doubt. Everything. She’d only barely tasted the woe that would wrack her form at the thought of him being stolen from her, and it was more bitter than she could stomach. She’d taken for granted everything, or so she’d tell herself as she flew about her quarters, almost tripping against wobbly legs.

It was a frenzy of different goals at play in her mind, and she was hardly present to complete them. But she’d made her mind up. She was changing clothes, wearing layers to transport them on her person. She was penning a letter without even realizing what she was scribbling to parchment. Something about the direness of the situation, how people would die without action, and how someone should investigate if she wasn’t back after a week or two.

Perhaps something about keeping her position as a mystic too, though it was but a postscript note. No one here had ever made an attempt to make the questions she’d answered difficult anyway. Not at least in a way she respected. Perhaps there were children to consider, but they weren’t exactly her friends. Truly she had made up her mind.

“And if he is not worth… everything.” She hissed through her strain to stay her weeping, “… I’ll know it after this ordeal. I’ll learn something of me. This is about me.”

She’d say it, though she wondered how much of it she’d believe. It wasn’t to matter though. She was already flying away from the school, not thinking to even pay it one last look or care.

As her adrenaline from her epiphany wore off however, she almost felt embarrassed for her previous night’s self as she approached the place the Wuju Master was staying. The lodging was clearly much more… derelict in the light of the day than it was under moonlight. And she’d spent the night crying, making love, and screaming within its overly rustic logs? She made an effort not to dwell on that too long, especially when she noted a familiar tanned arm hanging out a window with broken slats. In his hand was a long sort of pipe, and a puff of smoke exited from an unseen mouth.

“… I didn’t know you smoked, Chao.” She said, trying to offer it like a joke. She had to at least make it a joke to her. Suddenly she was thinking about all the millions of things she didn’t know about the man. To her surprise there was no jolt or reaction from his part though. He just seemed to poke his eyes out of the broken window, and on his sigh another puff exited his lips.

“Only when I need to calm down.” He replied softly, “Or when I feel like I have nothing to lose.”

“Nothing mind altering, I hope?”

“Oh no.” He managed to huff a laugh, “I am certainly not my great grandfather. My mind does not stomach the likes of poppies well. People report ghostly activities if I indulge. Never again after the first time. I make the effort to invest in things that are worse for me from across the sea. Tobacco, they call it. It’s the one comfort I am tolerated…”

“Well…” She all but bit through her lip, “I’m coming inside, regardless of what you are smoking.”

So she bustled along, past the keeper of the house who grumbled something at her about missing gemstones. She cared so little for his easily exploitable ways, and beyond a thick curtain she found the one who had stained permanent rashes down her cheeks. He’d made an effort to don undergarments at least, but his robes were still strewn upon the floor. The only source of light was through the window he basically hung out of, which made for an interesting effect when the embers of his pipe would catch any dimly lit part of his bare chest.

“… How are you, Chao?” Was the only thing she could conjure to open with, “Are you feeling any better?”

“How are you is the question that should be asked…” He mumbled out the window, “How I am isn’t the issue. I assume you don’t smoke, but…” So offhandedly did he offer her his pipe, though she immediately rose a hand and shook her head, “… Yes. I thought so. This is expensive, anyway. Not that I’m not of a mind to share.”

“… I think I’m okay though, thank you.” She replied, cocking her head to one side, “Though… please answer my questions too.”

“I don’t know, Huan.” He let out his latest breath of poison in the room as he turned to her, almost exclusively exhaling through his nose, “I’m not sure what happens after you tell your beloved you are to kill yourself without their help. That was a wholly unfair pronouncement on my part, not even considering all the other things I’ve said and done...”

“It’s only unfair if it wasn’t true, Chao.” She inched closer to him, as if she expected him to bite her from the other side of the room, “Though I would take that unfairness so long as it meant a soul wasn’t going to leave for the Stars.”

“It…” He paused, and she almost wanted to snap that dumb pipe in two for the amount of time he spent focused on it, “… It’s only true when I talk about it, if that makes sense. Only true when it enters my mind. I’d like to think I’m better than that… but I haven’t lied. I’m scared, confused, and you’ve heard my only idea.”

“I have, and…”

“And..?”

Was it spiteful that she left him hanging on a breath? That she waited to splutter on his pipe after he held it in for too long? Maybe it was doubt, despite all the thoughts she’d put into all this? No. It had to be just nerves.

I am scared and confused too.

“If you expect me to go anywhere with you as you are...” She began, bringing herself to his side, “... I will not be the kidnapped bride of a man with no robes.”

“Huan—” He wanted to jump into her embrace, but she made herself inaccessible to him with a firm hand on his chest. This time he was at least quick to take the gesture to heart, and his muscles notably laxed under her palm, “… Thank you. Thank you for even hearing me on this stupid idea.”

“If it’s a stupid idea, then I want no part in it.”

“W-Wait! No. I—”

“—Just collect yourself, Chao. Do so before I change my mind.”

“Okay.” Another quick puff, for good measure it seemed, “… By rite, this should work. Wuju Masters are old people. My Master is over three-hundred years old. If anyone respects old rites, then it will be he and those around him he has fostered in a village stuck in time. All I need to do is present you rightly, as if I’d kidnapped you from your home, and then… I am saved, and you can go home.”

“It surely cannot be this easy.” Though as if to comfort him against her assertions, she began to preen him again. She bundled up his hair as he spoke, combing it through her fingers and twisting it up into a self sustaining bun,

“It would not be under normal circumstances. It is not as if I have had to defeat an enemy army in order to spirit you away. That is why it’s perfect, and… and I respect your right to not keep to this plan once it’s through.”

“Put your clothes on, Chao.”

“Right!” Though the dumb man was just as absent from his mind as she was it seemed. He tried to thread his various limbs through cloth while still grasping his pipe, and it was only when she snatched it away from him did he even seem to notice, “… My horse is stabled not far from here. Do you need time to prepare?”

“Just take me now, Chao.” She said with a hint of ire, “No delays. I feel my mind could switch at any moment.”

“I love you, Huan…”

She didn’t respond, merely coddling the world in the warmth of her heart to ensure it wouldn’t lose its effect just yet.