#ptternminds ( sarang. )

[stillresolved]

continued from here! / @ptternminds

BEFORE THE BLACK KNIGHT, BEFORE ALFRED AND MYUNGDAE, SHE WAS A CYNIC. Sort of. One too many times getting burned by well, everything ( there's her father, there's her mother, old before her time, there's Sarah Jane and her falling, falling, and falling and– ), makes you tougher. Warier of the world. Maybe even insistent in her isolation. If they can't reach you, they can't hurt you, can they?

That's how she used to think.

And then she met Myungdae and Alfred. Myungdae who refuses to keep complacent, keeps on seeking different, better answers than the ones given and Alfred who might not know everything, but gives blankets, opportunities, and coffee anyways. How could she keep away in the presence of such gentleness?

And how can she remain despondent when there are people to feed, people to help ( with their computers, never their health, god, she still gets queasy when Alfred and Myungdae have fresh wounds ) and dishes to wash? Once upon a time, her teacher, a Buddhist monk said that everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom do the dishes. 

Nell thinks she finally understands what he meant.

 "I...I don't know," she admits. Because it's a question she asks herself too often: at the end of the day, is this supposed to change anything? Because there will always be people who are abused by the systems, people who are hungry, people who need, deserve better lives. If no one gets left behind, then how can they possibly help everyone?

Does Jing think about that too? Beyond the feather light touch and smiles, does it, life, ever weigh down on her? Maybe Nell has thought too little of her for showing too little upfront. 

( Myungdae told her once that it was her sincerity that kept them afloat; sure, he might give purpose, and Alfred might have the means, but she made it mean something. If their heart was not in it, then what was the point of starting in the first place? Ironically, it's that sincerity that perhaps has made Nell blind in the first place because she could not understand why anyone would be anything but genuine. )

"I can't tell you; it just kinda...happened to me? One minute I was living my life in London and then, I was here and there were people who needed me. I didn't want to abandon them." So she didn't. "That was the first time in a while that I could breathe easy again." And maybe she is being too presumptuous here with Jing, just as she has been with everything else she knows about Jing, but she takes her hand. Lightly. She'll ask more about Jing from now on. Try to actually listen more too and read beyond the ethereal expressions. Nell smiles, if not a tad roguishly. "It's addictive once you get it. You won't want to ever go back to way things were before."

A sheepish laugh. "At least, that's what I think. Sounds kinda dumb, huh?"

[uroborosymphony]

               @ptternminds sent:

"There are eternal flames in Australia," Sarang twirls the wilted roses between her fingers. She'd picked them up somewhere hours ago, found an odd fascination with a bouquet thrown out for reaching what Sarang would describe only as another stage of another kind of beauty. "They say it's thousands of years old. I would have named it after you, had I discovered it first," the wilted roses, of course, are no match for the ancient beauty walking by her side. It's odd, how tranquil Sarang's soul becomes, when next to Calista, someone she met as enemy, as only equal opponent. But it's true. Her soul rests. "I suggest we visit," she introduces next, halting the Lamia in her step with a hand around her wrist. Her fingers tighten, an odd contrast in desperation, to the way she maintains her smile, trying to convince Calista, every day, to find a will to live in Sarang if nowhere else. "We could leave right now. Pretend to have never existed at all, and exist in peace there." ((😌💝))

Calista pauses her steps, feeling the warmth of Sarang's hand around her wrist. Her gaze drifts from Sarang's fingers to the wilted roses, their delicate petals curling in a final dance before they crumble to dust. There is a strong allure in Sarang's words, in the way she speaks of ancient yet eternal flames, forgotten places, and the offer of existing together forever. "You would have? Mm. I am not a thousand years old yet, Beloved," Calista speaks, her voice carrying the weight of time. Yet as the words leave her lips, she realizes... one day, she will be. This past January, she and Sarang marked her 600th year with a celebration in their cabin in the woodsd. If she does not find a way to die as she has long wished, a thousand years will come sooner than she dares imagine. Her eyes always soften when they meet Sarang's. Perhaps also, it is a way for Sarang to say she wishes Calista will reach her thousand years old, with her. "An eternal flame," she murmurs, her voice like the whisper of autumn leaves. "Now that I ponder it, after wandering the world and unraveling its secrets, it seems almost inconceivable that such a flame has escaped my notice." She gently laces her fingers with Sarang's, feeling the steady pulse of life beneath her touch. "To vanish, to dwell in peace in a foreign land... It is a dangerous temptation when speaking by you, Huntress," she says, a gentle smile playing upon her lips. "Could it truly be? To simply... exist there, unburdened by the shadows of our pasts?" Her gaze searches Sarang’s, as if seeking reassurance in those depths. "When my eyes meet yours, it is a siren’s call I find most difficult to resist." A silence falls between them, Calista’s thoughts swirling like the wind. How is it that in Sarang’s presence, the centuries seem less a burden. Never has she wished to live as she does now, standing beside this fierce, tender soul that is her lover's, hers, Sarang. Yet with that wish comes a fear—what is this yearning that stirs within her? This desire to cling to life, when for so long she simply wanted death? "If we go," she continues, her voice taking on the cadence of a time long past, each word carefully chosen, "if we forsake all that has come before, it can't be for a mere moment. It shall be for as long as the flames endure, for as long as your heart desires it." She hesitates, her gaze turning inward, questioning. "But I wonder... will I have the strength to embrace this newfound yearning? To live, truly live, when I never fully knew how to?"