[ we're just jumping into it, here - somehow, you're in the memory fuckhouse, and there's a memory playing over the glass, vibrant and loud. if you can, watch the videoclips to go with it because the voice acting does really make it so much better.
The ship is deathly quiet.
You have good hearing - so much that sometimes it hurts to stand in the middle of a crowd of people. You have never heard this ship, or any of the Xianzhou ships, fall this silent. A bad omen.
You have a good sense of smell, too. You could smell the borisin that crept their way onto the ship like vermin, digging their claws into the metal and peeling it away to release their leader. There was not much you could do. You told Feixiao. You led the young ones, too young, the children with swords and no dreams of anything but serving in battle - you led them to the right conclusion, and you hate yourself for it, but what don't you hate yourself for? That doesn't matter. What does matter is you've laid the groundwork. They will do the rest. Your General, and the future you both want.
Ah, right. Your good sense of smell. You can't smell anything other than blood. It's a good thing you lost most of your taste a long time ago. You imagine the taste of iron would be unbearable, here on the ground in this back alley.
You can't breathe right. It hurts so badly - you've never been very good at suppressing pain, and it blares like the loudest of alarms in your heart. You're a healer, you know what the body's limits are, and you know you're stretching them. You know you don't have long.
You look up at the hulking beast in front of you. He looks a little like you - not you, but your species. He's not. Hoolay is a borisin, but somehow, they've managed to all hide their true visages. He grins down at you, teeth and claws stained red with blood. The blood on his claws is yours, but you don't want to think about why his teeth are stained.
"Secrets are a weapon that a hunter cannot live without," Hoolay is saying. "Those who have no secrets are no more than prey, cut open and waiting for death."
You drag in a breath. Choke on it a little.
"What you’re saying is, in your eyes, I am not more than prey that has exhausted all of its secrets, and is simply awaiting its death?" You ask, staring down at the floor rather than Hoolay. Already, there's darkness curling at the edges of your sight, and you know that isn't because you're dying. A side effect.
"Do you think you have some other escape route? Jiaoqiu, I have already peeled back your disguises and defenses layer by layer. I know all the secrets that you and your general have buried so deep," Hoolay growls, voice amused. He thinks he knows. You told him nothing that would hurt your people. You told him things that could sound like secrets, but weren't. That is what you're good for - a clever tongue, quick to lie and persuade. It's all you're good for.
Well. There's one other thing.
"But you have told me all of your secrets too, Warhead," You murmur, eyes still on the floor. Not out of any sense of submissiveness. You simply don't want the borisin to be the last thing you see.
Hoolay laughs. "But you will never have a chance to use them. You will be buried with them right here. Although, you are a fortunate one... After all, you will avoid having to see the tragic future that awaits your general. I'm sure she understands her fate far better than you ever will. One day on the battlefield, she will be overpowered by her ever-intensifying Moon Rage, and finally be torn apart by her own fury and transformation."
He talks too much, you think. But that's alright. That's what you want. You want time. The longer he is here, gloating over you, the longer your General has time to come up with a plan.
"Not even your God can save her from this fate. Although... THEY can lead her to liberation. And the only way to save her is here, in my hands."
Another bloody grin. You huff, and cough, just a little.
"Are you the healer or am I? Are you really that certain of your own judgement?" You ask, idly. Your voice is starting to fail you. It feels like gravel, like trying to enunciate around marbles in your mouth. Gingerly, you rest a hand on your torso, where the worst of the claw wounds are, and turn your head a little, looking out over the wall. Past Hoolay. To the sky, to the world outside this alley, to the sister-ship of your people. You look at the sky.
"I must leave, foxian," Hoolay says, shifting his weight. "But before I go, you know what I must do, don't you?"
And weakly, you reply: "Drink bloodwine... I hear it is a borisin custom to kill prisoners and drink their blood before battle to stir up their madness."
"You really did put hard work into researching us. It is a shame that this is where your journey ends."
And he moves forward. You flinch, knowing what's coming, but it's okay, it's alright, this is your plan. He's right, you did do your research. You knew, since telling Moze to run in the prison, that this might be the outcome, and you are at peace. It's going to hurt, though.
And it does. Hoolay rips into you. Tears flesh from your neck, your torso, like a wild animal. Frenzied, with razor sharp teeth and claws that dig into your arms to keep you still, to stop you from reflexively trying to get away. You can't help yourself - it hurts, you're being mauled, and you cry out, voice ragged and raw, breaking on your screams. Nobody can hear you. Nobody comes to help you.
Hoolay eats and drinks his fill, and tosses you to the ground, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He must figure there's no point to killing you outright, or perhaps he doesn't even realize you're still alive. He's driven mad by the smell of blood, the taste of blood, and he lets out a roar of laughter before bounding off towards battle - towards Feixiao, your General.
You are left alone, in an alleyway full of bodies.
Clinically, you know you're seconds from death. You can almost see the autopsy report. Bite wounds that extend over a large area, from the patient's neck to his chest. Fractured clavicle. Toxins in the wounds caused flesh to decay and atrophy. Disturbed blood circulation, massive internal bleeding, neurological atrophy, optic neuropathy. Damage to the liver and kidney, impaired lymphatic and immune system. The only part of that report that was Hoolay's fault are the bites, though. The rest was your own doing.
You smile, weakly, opening your eyes to look at the sky one more time.
Enjoy the taste of my fresh blood... Hoolay. Unfortunately, I am not a man without secrets. I still have one little secret hidden up my sleeve.
Your vision is nearly gone. The sky is a smear of pristine blue.
Tumbledust... I drank it a while ago, and the poison is already flowing through my veins. Sooner or later, you will begin to feel the effects. If the most lethal poison known to this world is able to save innocent lives... then it can also be called a great medicine.
You close your eyes for the last time.
I will do my best to cure you... Feixiao, I kept my promise. At the cost of this insignificant life. Bring victory to the Yaoqing.
[ ...ah. this is somehow very different to how he was imagining this scene from the brief explanation jiaoqiu gave him before. he'd thought dying to a "wolf" meant a typical unintelligent monster, a brutal but fast attack that would be over quickly.
seeing how quiet and how drawn out it all was in reality, and how there was no one there with him when he died... ]
...Wasn't picturing that scene quite right in my head before.
[ he was very vague about it on purpose, to be fair.
silence, for a moment, as he watches himself slowly bleed out in an alleyway. after a moment, he glances in fidelio's direction - not directly at him, just in his direction. ]
I suppose I didn't do it justice. [ a little wryly. ]
His name is Hoolay. A celebrated war general among the borisin.
[ his jaw works. ]
The borisin enslave our kind - foxians. We captured Hoolay years and years ago to keep him prisoner, but he escaped the prison when we came to transfer him between ships. There weren't very many witnesses to it - only me, Moze, and Miss Xueyi, who died in the chaos.
Moze escaped, to tell the others, leaving me as prisoner. [ a beat. ] I told him to do this, for the record.
[ ...he thinks this is a pretty good example of why sometimes you need to just execute a person instead of leaving them alive with any chance of coming back, but this doesn't really seem like the time to point that out.
more importantly... ]
That kind of shite really does happen in pretty much every world, seems like. One group always comes up with some reason to oppress another.
It does, doesn't it. [ ... ] I grew up in a relatively safe place. Our ship is a haven for our kind. But General Feixiao was a slave until she found our way to us.
[ he glances at fidelio. ]
There's always oppression, but there are always those willing to fight against it.
He was. He leads his own ship, and takes care of the people there. General Feixiao is the Arbiter General of the Xianzhou Yaoqing - my home, where the population is mostly foxians such as myself.
But we are all the same people, under the same banner. [ ... ] The paripus are far more scattered and less organized, so I'm led to believe.
Yeah, we live all over the place. Riots break out in the cities sometimes, but they don't usually amount to much. Rarely organised efforts, anyway, and the majority tribes always did their damnedest to make sure we didn't have the resources to mount any sort of large-scale opposition.
[ which was part of what had made louis so appealing.
the mirrors flicker, and a different memory starts to play (because this is somehow all i have that really depicts just how much life fucking sucks for the paripus). ]
watching basilio in pain, especially when he's so small - that's one thing. the other is to watch fidelio, just as small, grit his teeth and run, try to take care of someone when he's still the age that needed taking care of himself. jiaoqiu lets out a shaky breath as it finishes, and then looks at him, frowning.
it's not pity. it's empathy, on his face. care. ]
Ah, Fidelio. [ ... ] I know this means nothing, really, but I do so wish I could have met you and your brother earlier in your lives.
[ it fucks him up a little every time too, even though it's nothing new, nothing he hasn't been remembering every day for more than a decade. it makes the fear and guilt and hopelessness all feel fresh again every time it replays, and reminds him that he's just as powerless to keep basilio safe now in this place as he was then. ]
Well, if that meeting was happenin' in our world, you would've been havin' a dead miserable time of it yourself already without worrying about a couple of kids.
[ he's not going to hug fidelio because he thinks they are both not really huggy people in general, but he knows that a little bit of touch has been so grounding for him over the past few weeks. so - carefully, he rests a hand on fidelio's shoulder. ]
Even so, I am of the strong belief that nobody should need to go alone. [ even if he is a hypocrite about it sometimes, but that's because he doesn't always think of himself as a person. ]
I'm sure that being here hasn't made things easier, necessarily. Last week must have been awful.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
w3, MONDAY
and then the room is silent. ]
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seeing how quiet and how drawn out it all was in reality, and how there was no one there with him when he died... ]
...Wasn't picturing that scene quite right in my head before.
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silence, for a moment, as he watches himself slowly bleed out in an alleyway. after a moment, he glances in fidelio's direction - not directly at him, just in his direction. ]
I suppose I didn't do it justice. [ a little wryly. ]
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[ ... ]
Sorry, for whatever that's worth. Pretty awful way to go.
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Thank you. [ genuinely. ] I'd do it again, if I needed to, but I can't deny I'd prefer something a little more peaceful.
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...Who was that, anyway? Not the sort of wolf I was expecting.
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[ his jaw works. ]
The borisin enslave our kind - foxians. We captured Hoolay years and years ago to keep him prisoner, but he escaped the prison when we came to transfer him between ships. There weren't very many witnesses to it - only me, Moze, and Miss Xueyi, who died in the chaos.
Moze escaped, to tell the others, leaving me as prisoner. [ a beat. ] I told him to do this, for the record.
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[ ...he thinks this is a pretty good example of why sometimes you need to just execute a person instead of leaving them alive with any chance of coming back, but this doesn't really seem like the time to point that out.
more importantly... ]
That kind of shite really does happen in pretty much every world, seems like. One group always comes up with some reason to oppress another.
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It does, doesn't it. [ ... ] I grew up in a relatively safe place. Our ship is a haven for our kind. But General Feixiao was a slave until she found our way to us.
[ he glances at fidelio. ]
There's always oppression, but there are always those willing to fight against it.
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he nods. ]
Jing Yuan was one of them, yeah?
[ he remembers jiaoqiu saying his people were depending on him, though he didn't have much context at the time. ]
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But we are all the same people, under the same banner. [ ... ] The paripus are far more scattered and less organized, so I'm led to believe.
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[ which was part of what had made louis so appealing.
the mirrors flicker, and a different memory starts to play (because this is somehow all i have that really depicts just how much life fucking sucks for the paripus). ]
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watching basilio in pain, especially when he's so small - that's one thing. the other is to watch fidelio, just as small, grit his teeth and run, try to take care of someone when he's still the age that needed taking care of himself. jiaoqiu lets out a shaky breath as it finishes, and then looks at him, frowning.
it's not pity. it's empathy, on his face. care. ]
Ah, Fidelio. [ ... ] I know this means nothing, really, but I do so wish I could have met you and your brother earlier in your lives.
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Well, if that meeting was happenin' in our world, you would've been havin' a dead miserable time of it yourself already without worrying about a couple of kids.
[ ... ]
But yeah. Might've been nice.
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Even so, I am of the strong belief that nobody should need to go alone. [ even if he is a hypocrite about it sometimes, but that's because he doesn't always think of himself as a person. ]
I'm sure that being here hasn't made things easier, necessarily. Last week must have been awful.