voidtreckernet | video | orchestra one, immediately post platform

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video | orchestra one, immediately post platform

( Lan Jingyi, appearing briefly on ICP, soaked from head to toe, actively dripping water with his hair and ribbon plastered down either side of his face, his, er, nightgown likewise... plastered... against him... and it's white, this is a wet shirt contest and no one told anyone who showed up on platform, they all just suffered together. )

Look, if anyone's trying to find me and is confused why I'm not in my tiny short bed cabin, I'm staying in the "inn" carriage the next week.

( that's it, that's him wanting to inform the ones who'd probably want to know but being in a less than happy mood to track everyone down so doing it in the most broadreaching, effective way the train's got going for it. )

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He saw down next to Jingyi, taking some food himself and eating it slowly, watching Jingyi. He's worried about him but for now this is the best he can do, give him food and company.

Let him talk when he needed to.

"Not exactly... I am not fast in this form but I can transform quickly and... Sometimes I can make it that I can not be grabbed, if I am trying to escape... I can more through people and things trying to hold me in place..."

It had happened as a child and it had happened again when Tidus had tried to stop him diving off the cliff after Lord Gyousou.

"Move through people? Without causing injury to yourself?" He presumed the obvious was that the ones moved through also weren't injured. Taiki couldn't, not with what else they'd spoken about.

"Does that mean moving through restraints like ropes or the same? Kind of sounds like a useful thing to work on, so it's more dependable than sometimes, as long as it doesn't injure you."

"I've never been injured by it..." And neither had anyone else. "I don't know. I can't do it all the time. It's usually only..."

He looked up at him. "If I am doing something for Lord Gyousou, if he is in danger, if I need to reach him. Sometimes I can do things that should be impossible."

"Hmm... Do you think it's something you could train in?"

He cocked his head to the side, examining Taiki's face. "It'd make you even more deliberate in your actions when you're moving to help your Lord Gyousou, in the future. Or to at least get him back out of danger, since you shouldn't be in direct danger either, and if he is, you're only going to end up heartbroken faster."

"I..." He blinked. "I guess so..."

Train in the impossible. It would not be easy. Not for the first time he wished he could speak to other kirin, to Keiki more. To Enki or Renrin. He would not wish them to be on this train apart from their kingdoms but there was still so much he did not know.

He knew some of the things he could do were impossible, wrong, against everything he knew about kirin. But others. Like this, like moving through things. Was that something other kirin could do?

What else was a kirin capable of in defence of their king?

"You are right though. I lack... Most kirin have shirei, demons we bound to work with us in defence of our kirin. They are our defence and our kings defence. I don't have shirei and so I must find other ways to keep Lord Gyousou safe."

Jingyi paused, lifting both eyebrows in a slow, incredulous way.

"Other kirin bind demons into the service of themselves and their kings? How often does that go horrifically wrong? I know you might not know, but I'm absolutely betting it happens."

All oddities and massive differences between their three worlds aside, demons are at least familiar territory, and creatures that powerful and that self-aware are dangerous, always. Bound or not, there will be some way to break the binding; more that he believes in no absolutes with safety, long trained out of them.

"It can be very dangerous." He nodded. "It's not easy... If your power isn't interesting enough they might just run away but if you have power for them to be interested in then your will must be strong, I only ever bound one and it took me over an entire day, staring at it until it backed down."

Most were not that difficult, Gohran had been a special case. But it was no easy feat and he was very painfully aware of how having demons in his service could go horrifically wrong.

He laughed, shaking his head. "Xiao Ki, you stared down a demon. In context of my world, that's both hilarious and unbelievable."

But it made him think, and thinking meant his tail lifted and the tip fell over to the right, then twitched over into an arcing fall to the left, lazy and following his thoughtful moment flop by flop.

"Who're you unofficially bonded with on train?"

"Yes..." He just nodded. It had been somewhat unbelievable in his own world as well. For him to have bound Gohran, a demon more powerful than any kirin should be able to bind.

He tilted his head at the question. "Bonded with... Um Xion I guess. If you mean the strange bonds we gained when our memories were shared." Before Jingyi had been part of the train though, so perhaps that was not what he meant.

"More like who's fighting on your behalf when you're facing trouble you're not able to run away from?"

He had no idea what the strange bond thing was otherwise, shared memories? Sounded like a hassle more than anything else, similar to his feeling on the training caverns of the underwater but not quite world they'd been to not long after his arrival.

"Ah..." He looked embarrassed at his misunderstanding but pressed on bravely.

"Inigo and Tidus... They always make sure I am safe."

It was something that worried him, since he doesn't like the thought of them fighting, but he can only be grateful to them for sticking with him and protecting him even so.

"Good." Mostly because it meant they were a set that watched out for each other, and as someone who'd believed in the value of teamwork and covering each other from a very young age, while also being firmly his own person, it was good, and what all three of them should have.

"Add me to your collective number, in that case. For whatever. It's what I'm trained for, anyway."

It was a good thing that they had, looking after each other, watching each others backs and though Taiki couldn't protect them the way they protected him he sought to be supportive to them in other ways.

He blinked at Jingyi, smiling sadly even as his heart swelled with gratitude. He had quickly considered Jingyi a friend since meeting him only a couple of months ago but to hear him say such made him almost overwhelmed.

"Thank you, Shuǐlóng."

He nodded, leaning forward across the table to pat at his friend's hand.

"So why do you look so sad?"

He shook his head. "It's just... I don't like to think of any of you fighting, or being in danger. Especially not on my behalf."

Violence was always wrong and he would always feel bad about it.

"It's a reality," he said in turn, not unkindly. "You can regret the need for fighting, but please don't regret our need to fight for you, or anyone else we care about. The worlds aren't kind."

None of them, because kindness is a social condition, not a force of nature. Nature itself is beyond concepts of cruelty or kindness in his experience, as one strongly tied into and linked to elements himself.

"It's up to us to be the kindness and fairness and justice we can be for each other."

"The world's aren't kind." It was true. But he had a kirin heart and kirin hearts broke at cruelty. It was how they were made, their people first in their mind. Beings of kindness and compassion, to temper strong willed kings who had to make hard decisions.

A world couldn't run on a kirin's kindness and so every kirin lived with this heartbreak.

"That's why it is good the worlds have people like you, Shuǐlóng. To be the kindness and justice."

Another pat to Taiki's hand, and he smiled.

"To be loud and overly direct about everything too. The Xiao Ki's are there to remind people there's a cost we shouldn't be dismissive about" Or something like that, because peace as an ideal was always the goal, but handling it as a pleading process was complicated. "Anyway, thanks for bringing all this." The food, and the drink, such as it is, and the point of them both sitting at the table before conversation meandered as it did. There's enough of an ache at having watched Wen Sizhui leave, but it wasn't foreign, wasn't unexpected.

One more frustration in a series of them. He admitted to himself he didn't particular want to be one of the ones who remained. He's not fond of being there when others have left... but no one's from his specific world or one akin to it as it stands.

He can't really lose what was never there, and so he takes a bite of whatever's cooled down, not tasting a thing, and swallowed and nodded his head to Taiki in thanks.

He smiled back, Lan Jingyi was very direct but sometimes that was necessary, it was refreshing. To have things in the open.

And it was true, his own job was to remind people of the cost. It was what a kirin did. Reminded the king of his people, kept their needs firstmost in his hand.

He smiled softly. "It's alright... I know you wouldn't be up to cooking and... It was a way I could help."

He couldn't bring Wen Sizhui back. Couldn't ease the pain in Lan Jingyi's heart.

"It's not just Sizhui going home," he said after a moment, taking a bite of whatever was in front of him. He still wouldn't taste much of it, but he had manners, and he knew gratitude, so eat he would. Jingyi liked eating enough to not deprive himself even when he didn't feel much up for it in the great scheme of things.

"I didn't... so, I've never been around no dragons before. Not in my lifetime." A partial explanation, that it was a collection of factors. Loss of a friend, an inevitability he knew of in the first place; the problem with Elidibus, underlining how little control he had over even being made use of by fellow passengers; poor sleep compounding more over time, no great outlet, cooped up like they all are, and general cultural fatigue.

"There's not enough I know what to do."

Taiki listens as Lan Jingyi speaks. It must be hard, to be the only dragon around, to have no one else who shared his way of life, his culture. Even worse that so many looked like those he knew from home, but different in many ways.

"It must be hard, to be alone. Especially when not alone. Physically I mean."

"We're all alone," he said, lifting his shoulders a touch. "To different degrees."

Being alone, in the sense that Taiki said, wasn't unique. He didn't linger in what felt off to him, but right here and now, he allowed himself to reflect on it more than he usually did.

"Hard or not, you get through it. There's nothing else to do."

It was true. They were all alone. Some less so or more so but they were all parted from their worlds, from the people they should be with. To be here on this train.

"Yes. We will get through it, surviving like this... It's possible and though we can't be dragons, we can still be your friends, Shuǐlóng. We can't replace them, but we can help."

It's what friends were for.

"That's what friends are for," he said, stating the obvious, but offering a crooked sort of grin back to Taiki. "None of us can be exactly what we each want. I guess we all manage to be what we each need, regardless."

You Can't Always Get What You Want began playing muffled from the ICP.

He smiled back. "Yes. We do."

He tilted his head at the music and then glanced at Lan Jingyi. Had he done that?

video | orchestra one, immediately post platform

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