engineers: (shout out to all my aliens)
bixing the science king ([personal profile] engineers) wrote2023-02-20 01:17 pm
Entry tags:
onlythans: (💔 with the moves like jagger)

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-02-20 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[Ah, it's this guy. What an unreasonably perky missive from someone who JUST KILLED HIS DAUGHTER LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR BELLS AGO no he's not having a Time Of It™ at all, why would you think that.]

really
you're back to that already
onlythans: (💔 and take me away)

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-02-20 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
now tisn't that ever the truth

[but hey, why not, maybe a little drinking shenanigan or two is just what he needs right now, so.]

oh why not
if nothing else than to keep nav from having any more awkward revelations at inopportune times

i can be there in a half-bell

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onlythans: (💔 i put on a show now i'm naked)

week 2, tuesday

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-01 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
[It's lucky, maybe, that by the time Thancred and Lu Bixing find themselves tumbling into an unexpected memory hole together, Thancred's already been through the exercise a few times already. He knows what to expect when they hit the bottom — but more importantly, he's seen the nature of the memories that are called up and exposed for all to see.

He's not altogether surprised to see this one, grimly enough. Once he'd caught on to the nature of these little excursions, he'd known it was really only a matter of time.


|| There really is no place quite like Amh Araeng, the edge of the still-living world.

The skies burn too bright everywhere in Norvrandt — unnaturally bright, burning with the primordial Light that saturates the landscape and threatens to swallow up every last living thing below it — but nowhere quite so violently as in the already-barren deserts of Amh Araeng. What would otherwise have been sun-bleached dunes of rolling reddish sands appear almost alien with the way the roiling light-stricken skies wash them out below; the wooden shanties and railway trestles of the mining town they're leaving by Talos-pushed trolley have long since gone gray from overexposure to the unrelenting sun.

But they are on their way, the three of them standing on the open-air bed of the trolley car. Thancred is unmistakable in his gunbreaker whites; flanking him are two young women. One wears a hood pulled down over her features as if to protect her skin from the burning sun; the other's long blond hair waves gently in the breeze produced by the car's movement, her thick bangs framing a pair of too-bright, unnaturally blue eyes.

Their progress comes to a halt — literally and figuratively — when a man (enemy Thancred's memory automatically supplies) appears before them on the tracks, first blocking their way before outright derailing it altogether with a kick to the front of the trolley that sends the whole of it flying, spilling its three riders out ungracefully into the sand.

Ran'jit, Thancred's memory names him with unmistakable venom, and the two of them exchange barbs before eventually the other man turns his hooded eyes toward the blond girl struggling to her feet.

You will remain as you are, while I dispatch these villains, Ran'jit tells her.

I won't let you! the girl, his Minfilia, cries.

Her defiance rouses visible ire in the other man. You forget to whom you speak! he snaps at her. Who armed you? Trained you? Fought and killed a thousand sin eaters with you?! And when you were inevitably cut down and lay lifeless in my arms — who sought out your successor to carry on the futile struggle again and again?!

But then his Minfilia — his timid, shy, self-doubting Minfilia — does something she has never had the courage to do before. She pushes herself up, and she finds her resolve, and she snaps, I never asked to be saved! However much it hurts, and however hard it gets, it's my life, and I want to live it on my own terms!

He realizes then, as all his own anguish and guilt and loss comes crashing down on him, that none of them — none of them — have the right to take this from her. Not even if it means never seeing her predecessor again. Not even if it means death and oblivion at the end of all things.

Ran'jit moves to take her, and without even thinking, his body moves to place itself in the way. He bids her go and complete the mission they came here to do (I won't have you waste that newfound resolve on me, he tells her); he tells their redheaded companion to take custody of her and flee. And when Ran'jit seeks to pursue them again, once again he puts himself in the way.

Not another step! he snaps, gunblade drawn. Your fight is with me!

You think yourself her protector?! Ran'jit spits back. Hah! As if a whelp like you could be a better father to her than me!

And they fight, there on the barren red sands of Amh Araeng, beneath the unrelenting sun. And Ran'jit has the benefit of age, skill, and power; he summons the abilities of his own martial arts and that of his spirit dragon besides. It soon becomes clear that his guard is impenetrable, his defenses too quick and too prepared. There's no opening to be had, and soon he has Thancred cornered, targeted from all directions by an inescapable threat —

And Thancred vanishes.

Now, the memory turns to first-person — a view of Ran'jit that begins to white out at the edges, blood thudding like a drumbeat in the ears. The strain of maintaining his invisibility is palpable, putting undue demand on a body already pushed hard from battle — but his deception buys him his chance, and he makes his shot.

And after battle resumes, when he finds himself cornered yet again, he does it again.

By the third time he's forced to vanish, he knows it will be his last. He can feel the tightness in his chest, the way he's left to stagger instead of walk. This is going to kill him. He was already at his limit; with each and every step, he pushes himself past it.

His last shot lands true, and the battle ends, and Ran'jit prepares to make a wounded retreat — as Thancred digs his gunblade into the ground and collapses onto his back, gasping in his inability to draw in air, too spent to move.

You would have her suffer and die, Ran'jit snarls just before he flees the field of battle. I would spare her that fate!

That is not for you or anyone else to decide, Thancred hisses back. Not ever again. ||


His eyes are closed, by the time the memory ends. His arms are folded across his chest. And yet, for all that the vision was a brutal one in so many respects — Thancred almost seems to be smiling.]
onlythans: (💔 she's mine)

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-02 08:47 pm (UTC)(link)
No. Though 'twas very nearly the end of me.

[All too often, he muses privately, these memories have been personal things; cutting and damaging and terrible ones. And this one is, too, in its own way — certainly it was far from his finest hour.

But it's hard to regret the chance to see his girl again. It's been so long, and if he doesn't escape this place it might well be forever. But there she is, so much brighter and bolder and clearer than any internal memory of his could ever hope to reproduce.

'Tis hard to regret that, whatever the cost.]


He lived long enough to pose one final obstruction to a dear comrade of mine — the one that was wearing the hood for protection against the desert sun. I'm afraid she had the honor of putting an end to him once and for all.

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onlythans: (💔 i stepped in the room and)

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-07 10:43 pm (UTC)(link)
[Well, for one thing, area man is not — for what is probably the first time in like four weeks of Superhell minus the times when he was wearing a bathing suit to swim — wearing his gunbreaker whites with black bodysuit underneath. He is instead, regrettably, wearing this.

Lu Bixing will also find him sitting in one of the little rooms off the onsen itself, perched on one of the little beds, manspreading like crazy. There's a mandolin propped up against one of the walls, near enough to him that he could reach it without sliding over, and next to him on the cushion is his hellphone.]


Ah. That was fast.

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onlythans: (💔 and i'm just a nice guy)

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-11 12:07 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, there you are. Afternoon.

[He conspicuously does not say "good" afternoon because two people are dead, even if his full extent of interacting with said dead people was like, Childe hit on him once.]

I wasn't aware you were a woodworker.

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onlythans: (💔 and you wanna steer)

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-12 02:35 am (UTC)(link)
[Man, it has been A Day™, all right, and the past couple ones before this haven't been a walk in the figurative park either. He'd come to the underwater bar for the same reason as Lu Bixing, really — that and its proximity to the indoor beach and convenience store, where he otherwise spends far, far too much of his time.

He's just drinking beer of whatever quality he can get, at this point. This isn't a time for fancy tastes, it's a time for unwinding.]


Better now than I was a few bells ago.

[He slides onto a stool and/or into a chair next to LBX, fully ready to hunch over his beer and nurse it sullenly.]

...I owe you something of an apology, I suppose.

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onlythans: (💔 i don't need to try to control you)

w5, friday

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-18 12:11 am (UTC)(link)
[Hey, guess what! Thancred's actually being good for once and not even trying to be mobile after everything that yesterday decided to be. Which means he's still in the Home Biome, even though most of the other surrounding people have dispersed, and maybe it's a result of Lu Bixing's iron grip on the setting finally beginning to relax, or maybe it's that the biome itself has finally decided it's ready for a change of pace, but the setting shimmers, shifts, and changes.

Where Thancred had previously been sleeping on a wide, comfortable couch in the apartment, when the setting changes he's now stretched out on some sort of gazebo bench — fortunately, still with a thick cushion beneath him so he's not just lying on marble — in what appears to be some kind of outdoor study space on the campus of what is definitely some type of university. It's nighttime, and far off to the south, there sits a harbor with a massive statue erected in it, its urn magicked to perpetually pour water into the ocean below, like it's standing sentry over the port of whatever this strange place is.

Welcome to Sharlayan, Lu Bixing. Is this what you would've imagined, when trying to picture the place Thancred thinks of as home?]
onlythans: (💔 take me by the tongue)

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-18 12:44 am (UTC)(link)
[What's strange is that Thancred isn't unfamiliar to these sorts of quiet, understated kindnesses — it's just that he's usually the one extending them, not receiving them. He's the one with the coat offered up to someone in need of a little extra shelter, or comfort, or even just reassurance. He's been utterly spoiled for comfort these past few bells; it may well be more doting in the span of a single day than he's been recipient of otherwise in a year or more.

But battered and bruised and exhausted or not, there are some instincts that never quite quit, and he doesn't stay asleep when he's approached; he wouldn't live very long on missions in the field if he did. So he's awake enough to feel the coat drape over him, and to suss out who it is who's drawn near him even without really looking, and for a second he just...lets himself have it. This rare, fatherly kindness he doesn't deserve, that always reminds him in the strangest way of Louisoix Leveilleur.

It's when Bixing turns to go, though, that he realizes he needs to say something to show he's awake, because he's not staying to hover or monitor him otherwise.]


...Damned kind of you.

[Strange how being injured so badly makes it all the more pronounced, how badly he's craved these little kindnesses lately.]

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onlythans: (💔 i stepped in the room and)

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-23 04:29 am (UTC)(link)
[Indeed, here we are in the home biome, and today Thancred seems to have more than one tagalong visitor — Fairyfilia is still floating around with him, as she ever does, but it also appears that Ryn's cat Suran'dor has taken a shine to him today and is trotting along underfoot, sometimes rubbing at his heels and other times outright weaving in and out between his legs and just generally being an overall Cat Hazard™.

It's clear from the way Thancred moves, even without the cat nuisances, that the long exposure to the cold wasn't the best for his still-recovering complement of injuries; though he's good at downplaying it, he's clearly walking stiffly and deliberately, with all his muscles knotted up tight in reflexive response to the blistering cold.

He's grateful for the mug, in other words.]


Indeed. What a right mess that all was — I never thought I'd be so relieved to see hot lava again.
onlythans: (💔 take me by the tongue)

w6, sunday, post-execution

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-26 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
[I'm just going to assume that this is taking place after Thancred has gotten Rynlan settled and sleeping following the execution, so now he's just making his rounds checking on everyone as he is wont to do. He's walking a little more slowly than usual like he was doing something that overexerted his back a bit (he was), and he is conspicuously without Fairyfilia, who normally trails around with him these days but who at present is curiously absent.

Anyway, it's about time to check in on Bixing. Or subject himself to being checked on. Really it could go either way.

HELLO SIR WHERE ARE YOU TODAY.]
onlythans: (💔 'cause their girlfriends do)

[personal profile] onlythans 2023-03-26 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
[TRAGICALLY he's just an idiot with a bad habit of carrying his elf places when he should KNOW BETTER and not AGGRAVATE HIS OWN HEALING INJURIES but guess what! Tank Behavior!]

Sleeping, finally. It took a damned long time.

[Of note: he is not wearing his white gunbreaker's coat. Wonder where that could be.

On the upside, that means he's just in the black bodysuit that normally goes underneath it, which also unfortunately means there's quite the gunshow going on today. At least he's got sleeves, so it's not just nonexistent protection against the ice bar's chill.

He heads over, finding a place of his own nearby to sit and sinks down into it.]


He couldn't stand the quiet; it took a while before he was calm enough to drift off.

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