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shalomniscient · 5 months ago

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every day, once a year, yelan takes a day off.

this is written directly into her contract with the tianquan. there are no exceptions, no special arrangements. on this singular day, yelan does not belong to the qixing; on this singular day, her leash and collar are abandoned, and she has free reign to do as she pleases.

what does she do? well, prepare for your anniversary, of course.

she hops out of bed, cleans up, tugs her jacket on and then slips out the door with the clink of her jade bracelet. it’s a clear day, and yelan tilts her head to the sky briefly, letting the golden sunrays warm her face almost like an embrace. you were never really a morning person, but the sun on your skin always suited you. she’d have to drag you out of bed to see it, but it was always well worth your grumbling in the end when you finally cave and offer her a smile which she would then steal with a kiss.

“ugh, yelan—“ you giggled, your hands on her chest gently pushing her back. your bracelet was cool against her skin, and the matching one on her own wrist hummed. she nosed along your jaw, pressing more and more kisses until she reached your neck. playfulness turned into something a little more heated, and her blood sang at the sigh she pulled from your lips. emerald eyes flicked up to you, teasing, challenging, and you managed a wry huff before tangling your fingers in her hair and tugging her back to properly kiss her again. it stung, beautifully, but yelan grinned all the way."

she shakes herself out of the memory, and steps into the busy street. liyue’s morning scene has always been crowded, and she blends into the throng with practiced ease. she follows the flow of the crowd down the wharf until she reaches the shop she’s looking for—a florist, tucked snugly between two other stores on the higher levels of the shopping district.

the owner, a midde-aged woman, looks up from tending to her orchids to smile at her. her eyes crease with familiarity at the sight of yelan as the spy steps into her store, fingers brushing the petals of a few flowers. the woman rounds the counter, and rummages in the storage for a few moments.

“the usual, i take it?” she asks, and yelan nods, leaning against the counter and tapping her fingers over the grainy wood. the shop hasn’t changed much, if at all, since she last came here with you.

you leaned down by a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, lips curving upward into a smile as you breathed in the soft, floral scent. yelan looked curiously over your shoulder, a hand casually resting on your hip. she asked if it was your favorite flower—you nodded, your other hand rising to just as casually cup her face from over your shoulder. “they’re quite pretty, aren’t they?” you hummed, and yelan took a moment to ponder the question. in the end, she said they were nowhere near as pretty as you, and took the light smack you delivered to her shoulder with an easy laugh.

the florist clears her throat, coaxing her out of the memory. yelan recieves the bouquet—white chrysanthemums—with a smile, settling it in the crook of her arm. the woman’s expression is measured, but there’s a slight waver to her tone when she speaks. if yelan really had to name it, it sounds close to… pity.

“yelan—“ she begins, but she only flashes the woman a signature grin, before slipping out the door as quickly as she came. she has other things to get, after all, and the clock is always ticking.

(or maybe her clock stopped ticking a long time ago and all this is just extra. maybe it cracked when the rocks fell and the earth buried—)

she dissolves back into the crowd as she heads to her next destination: wanmin restaurant. she can smell the chili in the air as she makes her way down the street again, a sharpness only wanmin seems to be able to make. when she gets there, xiangling is boisterously calling out orders while her father toils away in the kitchen, with guoba tirelessly maintaining the roaring fire for his wok. when she sees her, xiangling’s grin only widens, and she waves her over enthusiastically.

“miss yelan! welcome, welcome,” the young chef says cheerily. “here for another batch of dried chillies?”

yelan chuckles, shaking her head. “no, not this time. i’m here for a few rice buns. with a sweet filling, preferably.”

“ooh,” xiangling coos, nodding. “are you planning to go on an expedition? rice buns are both portable and satiating.”

“you could say that,” yelan says vaguely. the little chef is right, in a way, since she’ll have to hike a little to get to your spot—but really, it’s because rice buns have always been a comfort food of sorts for you.

“how can you not like them?” you asked defensively as you trudged along with her behind the group. there was a slight smear of filling on the corner of your lip, and your expression scrunched up a little more as she wiped it off. her jade bracelet was cool against your heated cheeks. yelan only shook her head, teasingly remarking that spice was a much greater wake-up call than sweets. you huffed at that, taking another bite of your rice bun. “not all of us are masochists, lan’er,” you grumbled, and yelan laughed softly. her nimble fingers encircled your wrist, tugging you closer so she could take a quick bite of your bun. it was sweet, sweeter than she’d like, but maybe that was because you were there. and somehow, that made it good.

yelan pulls herself out of yet another memory when xiangling deposits the bag of warm rice buns into her hands. they’re freshly steamed, and the scent of warm buns fill her senses. she thanks the chef, and disappears much the same way she came before the young lady can get even so much as a word in. in the back of her mind, she can almost hear you chastise her for it.

(she always hears you in the back of her mind. if not, where else—)

there’s only one thing left on her list, and it’s incense. it’s late in the morning now, so the crowds have thinned out—and without her cover, yelan takes to back alleys and rooftops instead. she sighs, relieved almost, as she slips into the shimmering, reflective cover of hydro, darting like a minnow between buildings like rocks, barely a blur in the eyes of anyone nearby. the secrecy isn’t strictly necessary for what she’s doing now, but she’s been so used to being unseen that being in the open feels… unsafe.

it doesn’t take her that long to reach wangsheng funeral parlor. the young lady running the parlor isn’t in today—instead, it’s her ‘assistant’, the elegant man shrouded in such thick mystery that neither her nor ningguang has been able to pierce. he greets her with a solemn expression, no doubt because director hu has told him the reason for her visit. “incense?” he asks again anyway to confirm, his voice low and soft. yelan nods absently, her nose stinging slightly from the intense scent permeating the parlor.

she watches as the man disappears into the back of the parlor for a moment, before he reappears with a delicately wrapped packet of incense sticks. she slides a pouch of mora his way, which he takes wordlessly. she tucks the packet into her little pocket dimension, then turns on her heel to leave. just as she exits the door, he calls out to her.

“safe travels.”

she doesn’t deign him with a response.

her feet take her out and away from the city, down the familiar path to the bleeding wound in the earth—the chasm. the land goes from valleys to large, curling momuments of rock, carved by the force of a falling star. she feels that familiar tug in her chest, the voice that calls to her, that tells her to forsake the surface as her ancestor once did. she listened to it, once. and—

“go,” you whispered, pushing her away. half of you was buried under rock, and she could only see one of your eyes; the other was forced shut by the blood that trickled down your face. yelan nearly screamed herself hoarse, but you grabbed her face and kissed her. it tasted like salt, and her heart lurched at the wrongness. your kisses had always been sweet. you slipped your bracelet onto her wrist, then pushed her again, and then the earth heaved and groaned, and it was the last she ever saw of you—

she turns her head and rips herself out of the memory and the temptation; she has other, more important places to be today. she has other days to chase down her demons. she skirts the side of the chasm, slowly ascending to the top. she passes by the memorial to the millelith, and leaves a rice bun and a few sticks of incense as an offering. they too, deserve to be remembered after all.

(she wonders if anyone else comes out here to remember them. she wonders who will come when she’s gone for—)

it takes her a while, but eventually, she reaches the highest point in the chasm. the sun has traveled across the sky by this point, the afternoon heat mellowing out into a slightly cooler evening warmth. the sky is alive with shades of gold when she finally stops, drawing to a halt right before a smooth stone, standing upright from the earth like a silent vigil. she kneels before it, producing three sticks on incense and inserting them into the censer before the stone and lighting them. she sets a rice bun on the plate by the stone, and saves one for herself. the bouquet of white chrysanthemums, she lays on top of the stone.

yelan takes a bite of her rice bun, letting the sweetness settle on her tongue, as the floral scent mixes with the incense, filling her lungs and settling on her shoulders. she tilts her head to the sun, and the warmth feels almost like an embrace. and when she closes her eyes, the wind in her hair feels almost like a caress. when she opens them again, she lets them rest on the stone—the headstone, and she offers it a smile.

sitting on the edge of the cliff, your legs swinging, you smiled at her, nearly blindingly bright like the golden hour. your pinkies were twined together, your shoulders flush with hers. there was a bouquet of white chrysanthemums on your lap, and just a few crumbs on the corner of your lips. your voice carried in the wind when you spoke.

“happy anniversary, yelan.”

“happy anniversary, sweetheart,” she whispers. the wind carries her voice as well, and she hopes you hear it, wherever you are now. one day, she’ll join you, but for now she takes another bite of her rice bun and breathes in the scent of incense and chrysanthemums.

#sev.scribbles #yelan x reader #i hate tenses. im so bad at them. if they r jank dont tel me #‘woah two fics in a day whats happening’ absolutely nothing. im just bored in class #KSBXISMDUDKD i should be paying attentiom but like. idk. im on a roll #watch me not write anything for the next like month lolololol #law of equivalent exchange or whatever #anyway. yelan enjoyers hope y’all like this silly little piece #tried to cram as much foreshadowing into this bad boy as much as possible #did i succeed ??? who knows. not me !!#but lowkey i kinda like this one. it’s not very prose-y i think but it was fun to write #mainly bcos the challenge was trying to build up the conclusion without giving it away immediately yk #mayhaps might write more yelan after this. love that masochist bottom (whaled for her)

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