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rhodos_meme2022-08-10 10:12 am
rhodosmods) wrote in rhodos_meme2022-08-10 10:12 am
Entry tags:
TDM #1
TDM #1: AUGUST
Jump to: Arrival · Sound and Light · Into the Fog · Waking Up to a Nightmare · The Bonfire
Summary · Questions
Summary · Questions
The buildings of the plaza are all medieval stone construction, but they all have modern awnings and glass fronts. Tables out front display tourist wares: little plastic statuettes, postcards, t-shirts. Among these, it's easy to identify Greek lettering, Greek gods, photos of Athens and Crete. Predominant among the souvenirs are items marked with the name Rhodos.
But there are no vendors selling their wares. Even if characters wander into the shops, they are all empty as if their owners just stepped away for a moment. Lights are on, and some of the larger and nicer shops even have the whirr of air conditioning. Food stands waft the aroma of freshly grilled kebabs, and a gelato cart is cold to the touch and the ice cream inside is frosty and delicious.
The plaza where you arrive is set on a slope, and the direction of the sea breeze and the faint sound of waves against a shore indicates pretty strongly that down-slope is the direction of the sea. But looking down the slope from the main plaza, you can see an open archway in a tall stone wall, and beyond it is nothing but mist. Despite the clear sunny day in the plaza, the mist is a dense fog with barely three feet of visibility. If you enter it, you can see your own arms in front of you, but nothing beyond that. The breeze has gone still and the waves no longer sound so much like waves--the sound is warped through the mist so that it almost sounds like sobbing. After about five minutes of determined walking across what feels like flat ground with no other landmarks, you find yourself back at the archway.
Housing can easily be scavenged. Doors are unlocked and the interiors are clean and welcoming, beds freshly made, as if it is a hotel that's been prepared for you rather than anyone's personal residence. And yet, once you've settled upon a place to live, you start to find little signs that you have lived here all along. The photographs on the wall (which weren't there when you first arrived) depict you and your family and friends, even if you came from a world without photography. Upon arrival, you have only the clothing you are wearing, but within a day the closet begins to fill with familiar outfits from home, and within the first week you may find up to five of your own possessions around your new residence.
Note: Wardrobe is limited to what you can reasonably fit inside a non-walk-in apartment closet, what your character would reasonably wear and possess in canon, or what can be scavenged around town. There are two very small clothing boutiques where you can find most basics and a few cute outfits. For starting possessions two may be weapons or magical items, but you may have an additional three mundane items. All other personal items can only be obtained through regains or events.
The first few days in your new home are relatively uneventful. The days are hot and sunny and the nights are warm beneath a dazzling starry sky.
After not quite a week, the noises of a spectacle will lead characters to a small gate in one of the outer walls with steps leading down into the outer moat. The fog surrounding the city walls has drawn back for just this one little area, revealing an open air theater butting up against the castle wall. A path leads away from the theater on either side, but if you walk into the mist on either side you will promptly find yourself walking out of the mist on the opposite side, as if you'd circumnavigated the entire moat in just a few steps. Behind the theater is another high stone wall. Centuries of weathering has added rough footholds and handholds, but it would be a dangerous climb without equipment. Trees grow from the top of the wall, sticking limbs out of the wall of mist and clawing roots into the stones at the top, loosening them so that they're ready to slip at a touch.
The play that is projected onto the wall features shadow puppets, colored lights, and canned soundtrack special effects like the clop of horses hooves or the burst of trumpets. There is no dialogue or narration, so the story can only be roughly pieced together: there is a king and a queen, then a betrayal that leads to the king's murder. Later, the king and the queen appear again, participating in a ritual which seems to involve human sacrifice, a war and a triumphal procession, and then another betrayal and the king is murdered again.
The story repeats three times every night before shutting itself off. The first performance starts at twilight, and each repetition lasts about twenty minutes. Characters who watch it repeatedly will get the sense that it's slightly different each time, but the whole thing is complicated and confusing without any narration or dialogue to provide context, so characters will struggle to pin down how it's different. A slide projector is set up at the top of the amphitheater, with a pair of old speakers on either side of it. If slides are removed from the projector, they show only blank, uncolored plastic. If something is placed in front of the projector light, the scene is projected onto that object. The projector can be turned off, unplugged, or smashed. No matter what is done to it, as soon as no one is actively watching it, it is restored to an undamaged status and resumes playing.
After watching an entire repetition of the performance, some characters may be overcome by a fit of weeping. Tears roll down your cheeks and you can't seem to catch your breath. Despair clutches at your heart, colored by your own personal sorrows, and the weeping can only be stopped by receiving an embrace.
Others may find that the performance inspires them to reminisce. No matter how secretive you might normally be, you find yourself turning to whoever is sitting near you and telling them a story from your past, something that makes you nostalgic or regretful.
After not quite a week, the noises of a spectacle will lead characters to a small gate in one of the outer walls with steps leading down into the outer moat. The fog surrounding the city walls has drawn back for just this one little area, revealing an open air theater butting up against the castle wall. A path leads away from the theater on either side, but if you walk into the mist on either side you will promptly find yourself walking out of the mist on the opposite side, as if you'd circumnavigated the entire moat in just a few steps. Behind the theater is another high stone wall. Centuries of weathering has added rough footholds and handholds, but it would be a dangerous climb without equipment. Trees grow from the top of the wall, sticking limbs out of the wall of mist and clawing roots into the stones at the top, loosening them so that they're ready to slip at a touch.
The story repeats three times every night before shutting itself off. The first performance starts at twilight, and each repetition lasts about twenty minutes. Characters who watch it repeatedly will get the sense that it's slightly different each time, but the whole thing is complicated and confusing without any narration or dialogue to provide context, so characters will struggle to pin down how it's different. A slide projector is set up at the top of the amphitheater, with a pair of old speakers on either side of it. If slides are removed from the projector, they show only blank, uncolored plastic. If something is placed in front of the projector light, the scene is projected onto that object. The projector can be turned off, unplugged, or smashed. No matter what is done to it, as soon as no one is actively watching it, it is restored to an undamaged status and resumes playing.
After watching an entire repetition of the performance, some characters may be overcome by a fit of weeping. Tears roll down your cheeks and you can't seem to catch your breath. Despair clutches at your heart, colored by your own personal sorrows, and the weeping can only be stopped by receiving an embrace.
Others may find that the performance inspires them to reminisce. No matter how secretive you might normally be, you find yourself turning to whoever is sitting near you and telling them a story from your past, something that makes you nostalgic or regretful.
CONTENT WARNING: Cruelty and violence against (monster) dogs
After the characters have been in Rhodos for about three weeks, a heavy fog rolls into town. Unlike the mist that surrounds the city, the fog smells of smoke. Visibility is reduced to a mere ten or fifteen feet.
The electricity goes out, and shops are no longer replenished. Food may still be scavenged, but the food in shops and restaurants will slowly rot and may run out. Battery operated items will continue to work as long as the batteries still have a charge. Running water inside the houses continues to work, but it is sluggish and smells stale, leaving an unpleasant film on the skin.
While out on the streets of the town, characters will begin to encounter the monster dogs of Rhodos. The sound of a dragging chain precedes them, and then the hazy outline of a dog comes into view. It's walking oddly, however, with a sort of staggering limp, and the sound of the chain is underlaid by a low, feral growl. Furless gray skin peels away in patches to reveal bloody muscle. The heavy iron collar around the neck is studded with long black screws, the ends of which pierce the skin of the neck. Hazy eyes are clouded with decomposition, and yet that doesn't seem to prevent the dog from making its way straight toward you.
The dogs are not very fast, nor very smart. They can be outpaced at a brisk walk, and they will lose track of any character who gets more than twenty feet away or behind a closed door. But they are vicious. If you get within a few feet, they will lunge at you and attempt to bite. If two or three of them manage to corner you in a blind alley, you could be in real trouble.
In addition to the dogs, characters will begin to catch glimpses of Manifestations, both their own or those of others. At first you might just catch a glimpse of them through a break in the fog, but after a day or two they can be spotted standing outside of apartment windows and staring in. In either case, they will not approach or attack characters unless you're foolish enough to get within six feet of them. Then, they will attack, and they will pursue at a fast walk until they lose track of you in the fog.
After the characters have been in Rhodos for about three weeks, a heavy fog rolls into town. Unlike the mist that surrounds the city, the fog smells of smoke. Visibility is reduced to a mere ten or fifteen feet.
The electricity goes out, and shops are no longer replenished. Food may still be scavenged, but the food in shops and restaurants will slowly rot and may run out. Battery operated items will continue to work as long as the batteries still have a charge. Running water inside the houses continues to work, but it is sluggish and smells stale, leaving an unpleasant film on the skin.
The dogs are not very fast, nor very smart. They can be outpaced at a brisk walk, and they will lose track of any character who gets more than twenty feet away or behind a closed door. But they are vicious. If you get within a few feet, they will lunge at you and attempt to bite. If two or three of them manage to corner you in a blind alley, you could be in real trouble.
In addition to the dogs, characters will begin to catch glimpses of Manifestations, both their own or those of others. At first you might just catch a glimpse of them through a break in the fog, but after a day or two they can be spotted standing outside of apartment windows and staring in. In either case, they will not approach or attack characters unless you're foolish enough to get within six feet of them. Then, they will attack, and they will pursue at a fast walk until they lose track of you in the fog.
CONTENT WARNING: Blood imagery
On the 28th, characters are awakened by the sound of their front doors being smashed in. It's your own smashing door that awakens you, but you can hear more distant sounds of destruction from the other apartments nearby.
As you scramble out of your bed, you find that the homey, quilted bedding has been soaked through with blood, and it's sagging in the middle with the outline of a human body. But before you have a chance to properly react to that horror, your Manifestation is coming through your bedroom door — more than one of them, if you were sharing that bed with anyone.
You will have to fight or dodge in order to get out of the room. Your Manifestation is out for your blood. You can do damage to it, creating deep wounds and heavy bruises, causing it to stagger and slow for a moment, but no matter how much damage you do it keeps coming for you. Sooner or later, you will need to run.
When you make it out into the streets, you'll find that the entire world has changed. Heavy darkness fills the city, and no stars are visible in the sky. A few lights glow despite the lack of electricity, but they only provide a sickly, red-tinted light. Streets are slick with something that looks like blood, and the stone walls in many places have been transformed into metal or grate. Through the grate, you can catch glimpses of black metal hooks and gory, dripping meat that looks human in origin.
There is no palatable food or water. Anything you have saved has rotted or changed unnaturally into what looks like rotting flesh or lumps of bile. Liquid has turned into blood or black water. The only mercy is that symptoms of hunger, thirst and fatigue stabilize after 24 hours and don't get any worse. Don't worry, it won't be the dehydration that kills you here.
Your Manifestation pursues you tirelessly, and the monster dogs are faster, smarter, and moving in packs. Your home is no longer safe, and staying on the streets is deadly.
On the 28th, characters are awakened by the sound of their front doors being smashed in. It's your own smashing door that awakens you, but you can hear more distant sounds of destruction from the other apartments nearby.
As you scramble out of your bed, you find that the homey, quilted bedding has been soaked through with blood, and it's sagging in the middle with the outline of a human body. But before you have a chance to properly react to that horror, your Manifestation is coming through your bedroom door — more than one of them, if you were sharing that bed with anyone.
You will have to fight or dodge in order to get out of the room. Your Manifestation is out for your blood. You can do damage to it, creating deep wounds and heavy bruises, causing it to stagger and slow for a moment, but no matter how much damage you do it keeps coming for you. Sooner or later, you will need to run.
There is no palatable food or water. Anything you have saved has rotted or changed unnaturally into what looks like rotting flesh or lumps of bile. Liquid has turned into blood or black water. The only mercy is that symptoms of hunger, thirst and fatigue stabilize after 24 hours and don't get any worse. Don't worry, it won't be the dehydration that kills you here.
Your Manifestation pursues you tirelessly, and the monster dogs are faster, smarter, and moving in packs. Your home is no longer safe, and staying on the streets is deadly.
CONTENT WARNING: Body horror, immolation
Sooner or later, you find your way to the bonfire in the middle of the fountain square. There is no longer water in the fountain. Instead, the whole thing towers with flame, fueled by a viscous black substance in the basin.
A tall man stands by the fountain, gazing into the flames as if he is supervising. His suit is true black, fathomless black, while his skin is a dark red-black like the newly formed crust upon a lava flow. His eyes are black pools reflecting the flames. He takes no interest in any approaching characters, and will not respond to any questions. The only thing that will draw his attention to you is an attempted attack. If you try it, your blow lands, but he doesn't seem to take any damage. His head turns toward you and he considers you for a moment, as if he finds it intriguing that you would attempt such a thing. Then he returns his attention to the fire.
The dogs and the Manifestations will not pursue you into the circle of light cast by the bonfire. You can find a sort of respite here.
Time passes. It feels like days, though there is no way to mark the passage of time. The Dark Figure continues to supervise the bonfire.
At last, your attention is drawn to a sort of commotion approaching down one of the main streets that feeds into the plaza. You hear a rattling of metal, and a sort of gibbering moan. The bonfire illuminates first upon a pale, faceless figure which seems to writhe as it approaches, hovering above the paving stones. As it grows closer, you see that the figure is lashed to a square metal frame and bound with strips of barbed wire. Veiled figures on either side bear it forward, and the Dark Figure turns to watch it approach.
The figure upon the frame has no face and no mouth with which to make its agonized moans, but it continues nonetheless. It has limbs but no hands or feet, each limb ending in smooth stumps.
If no one interferes, the Handmaidens carry the frame forward and place it upon the fire.
The Handmaidens can be attacked, and hurt. They cry out indignantly at any attack, and recoil. They will not fight back, but they also will not be discouraged from their task by anything less than persistent violence.
If the pale figure on the frame is rescued by the player characters, it flails and gibbers helplessly, continuing to moan. If the pale figure is consigned to the flames, it begins to scream, and continues screaming for several minutes until the flame finally overcomes it.
In either situation, you begin to cough. Blood spills from your mouth, dribbling down your chin and spattering upon your clothing. But then the droplets begin to slither into letters, forming words that spell out your deepest guilt, in the words you yourself would use to describe it. No attempt to wipe the words away or cover them will prevent their legibility. The blood shines through whatever covers it, catching the firelight so that those around you can clearly read the words.
The Dark Figure and his Handmaidens made their exit while you were coughing. You are left alone with the other Tourists around you, your guilt, and whatever remains of the pale figure upon the frame.
Sooner or later, you find your way to the bonfire in the middle of the fountain square. There is no longer water in the fountain. Instead, the whole thing towers with flame, fueled by a viscous black substance in the basin.
A tall man stands by the fountain, gazing into the flames as if he is supervising. His suit is true black, fathomless black, while his skin is a dark red-black like the newly formed crust upon a lava flow. His eyes are black pools reflecting the flames. He takes no interest in any approaching characters, and will not respond to any questions. The only thing that will draw his attention to you is an attempted attack. If you try it, your blow lands, but he doesn't seem to take any damage. His head turns toward you and he considers you for a moment, as if he finds it intriguing that you would attempt such a thing. Then he returns his attention to the fire.
The dogs and the Manifestations will not pursue you into the circle of light cast by the bonfire. You can find a sort of respite here.
At last, your attention is drawn to a sort of commotion approaching down one of the main streets that feeds into the plaza. You hear a rattling of metal, and a sort of gibbering moan. The bonfire illuminates first upon a pale, faceless figure which seems to writhe as it approaches, hovering above the paving stones. As it grows closer, you see that the figure is lashed to a square metal frame and bound with strips of barbed wire. Veiled figures on either side bear it forward, and the Dark Figure turns to watch it approach.
The figure upon the frame has no face and no mouth with which to make its agonized moans, but it continues nonetheless. It has limbs but no hands or feet, each limb ending in smooth stumps.
If no one interferes, the Handmaidens carry the frame forward and place it upon the fire.
The Handmaidens can be attacked, and hurt. They cry out indignantly at any attack, and recoil. They will not fight back, but they also will not be discouraged from their task by anything less than persistent violence.
If the pale figure on the frame is rescued by the player characters, it flails and gibbers helplessly, continuing to moan. If the pale figure is consigned to the flames, it begins to scream, and continues screaming for several minutes until the flame finally overcomes it.
In either situation, you begin to cough. Blood spills from your mouth, dribbling down your chin and spattering upon your clothing. But then the droplets begin to slither into letters, forming words that spell out your deepest guilt, in the words you yourself would use to describe it. No attempt to wipe the words away or cover them will prevent their legibility. The blood shines through whatever covers it, catching the firelight so that those around you can clearly read the words.
The Dark Figure and his Handmaidens made their exit while you were coughing. You are left alone with the other Tourists around you, your guilt, and whatever remains of the pale figure upon the frame.
Arrival: August 1
Sound and Light: August 5-20
Into the Fog: August 21-27
Waking Up to a Nightmare: August 28-30
The Bonfire: August 31
Welcome to Rhodos! Going forward, events will take place in two parts. The Normal World part of the event posted on the 5th of each month, and it will be a lighter event both in terms of length and thematic content. TDMs will be bi-monthly and will feature an event element or elements for the Normal World which in-game characters may also play with on their own log posts. The sections on Fog and Nightmare worlds for the TDM will generally be the same every month, allowing players to test drive those elements if they'd like, but not including spoilers for the second part of that month's event. The second part of the event will be posted on the 20th of each month, covering events occurring through both the Fog and Nightmare cycles.
Test drive memes are considered game canon.
This won't always be the case, but for the nerds among you who are enjoying this sometimes-accurate tour of Rhodes, all location images in this TDM and housing are accurate to Rhodes.
Lastly, we are in need of mods! We're most in need of help for processing apps and activity. If we aren't able to get some additional mods, we will have to place a cap on applications, and we're hoping we won't have to do that. If you're interested, please send us a message over on the mod contact page. We've gotten the mod volunteers we needed so we should be all clear to proceed without an applications cap. Thank you to everyone who showed interest!
Sound and Light: August 5-20
Into the Fog: August 21-27
Waking Up to a Nightmare: August 28-30
The Bonfire: August 31
Welcome to Rhodos! Going forward, events will take place in two parts. The Normal World part of the event posted on the 5th of each month, and it will be a lighter event both in terms of length and thematic content. TDMs will be bi-monthly and will feature an event element or elements for the Normal World which in-game characters may also play with on their own log posts. The sections on Fog and Nightmare worlds for the TDM will generally be the same every month, allowing players to test drive those elements if they'd like, but not including spoilers for the second part of that month's event. The second part of the event will be posted on the 20th of each month, covering events occurring through both the Fog and Nightmare cycles.
Test drive memes are considered game canon.
This won't always be the case, but for the nerds among you who are enjoying this sometimes-accurate tour of Rhodes, all location images in this TDM and housing are accurate to Rhodes.
no subject
I will never let anyone cut off your hand, left or right.
( this: murmured like an i love you. this: murmured like the sea at its kindest. this: the words of luxury because to speak from a place of protecting that which one cares about versus speaking from a place of employ or siege is more than all the gold or drugs in any world.
this.
wu yu breathes and it hurts but how lucky even that is because it tells him he is alive.
that he thought they would die is the truth. that he is devastated with relief to feel the heartbeat of this person holding him up is also undeniable. that he cannot trust this place even with his words and their self evident proof is a given. if wu yu were to lay down his guards of skepticism in a situation like this, he would go in too many directions, a single spool of thread torn down its center to reveal the impossibly thin warps and wefts that make one tenacious red line. he cannot do it.
what he can do: trust bu chonghua anyway.
he does.
the full bodied shiver runs its course and wu yu's collapsed weight on bu chonghua's back is merely a readjustment of how it already was, the hand with its unobtrusive ring blindly brushing the side of his face. if he were more coherent and less preoccupied with the mystery they find themselves in, wu yu might have used that same hand to turn the face of his ride, might kiss him on the mouth the way he teased with smoke and a few words what feels ages ago. only of course to find out eventually he wouldn't have been teaching him anything.
the quietly forced down swallow still tastes a little too much like blood. wu yu keeps his eyes shut against bu chonghua's skin to tamp down on the nausea and frowns a little at the scent of sea salt that vies for dominance the way a feeling of being lost does. )
...where...where are...going?
( words muddle, mute and soften since he does not lift his head. it's clear that bu chonghua has somewhere in mind, and wu yu would have asked earlier if he'd had a better sense of things to begin with. another soft breath bares its teeth in the form of trembling. he's still too close to drowned, too cold. but the body under him is as warm as a day in the sun. )
no subject
he doesn't ask him not to question. not to fight. not to trust the instincts rooted in his stomach like claws or an ancient forest through which no light penetrates. only to listen.
bu chonghua's whole body is alight with a thrum that betrays the weight at the bottom of his heart. ]
A place I made for us.
[ as if wu yu not being next to him had never occurred to him once, wet lash and wetter lung, cold fingers set at an agonizing and weakened crawl against dry skin. the rims of his eyes feel hot but his voice smooths against the junctures of how their bodies fit together, a rhythmic lull to guide lovers lost as sea back to shore. ]
It's not far from here.
[ and true to his word, it's a short trip up and incline and away from the sun-baked plaza, down a winding residential road towards a series of housing units. bu chonghua navigates well even though he's been here half a day, through a gate and under an archway, up a series of stone steps to a door that lets in to a much more modest apartment than he's used to, but he enters without a note of dismissal or rejection for it. it is indoors, stocked, and for now —
safe.
a light flips on to motley colors: cream and stone, accents of red and teal. not yet lived in, but not yet unclaimed by bu chonghua either. beneath the warm overhead light he heads for the bathroom, a flick of the switch using his elbow illuminating them both in the mirror. whatever wounds he sustained in the mine are fresh but attended to, lessened by some force he doesn't bring into question right now.
not when he kneels near the toilet, gingerly letting wu yu off of his back. ]
Sit. Let me look at you.
no subject
but if he had one other than to survive together in that flooded cavern, it may have simplified down to this: be with you.
remaining anxieties shaped as the drop of shark's voice yet haunt, but they are functionally set aside, moved to a lesser seat in favor of what is happening right now: this place that is not bu chonghua's nor wu yu's but maybe now is both because they are both here. he blinks, shivers, as if the seemingly mediterranean warmth could not quite penetrate the drowning cold. when bu chonghua lowers him, he makes himself smaller out of habit, leaning back before seamlessly relaxing in the same breath. it is not his intention to sit, but his legs ask it of him so he complies, one thin hand braced on wall or counter, whichever is closest.
a survey with this indoor light and less frenetic distrust as he carried outside, means wu yu has a better look at the captain too. he blinks, the slow brush of his eyelashes leaving one dark crescent on his upper cheek. for all his disorientation, his black gaze is sharp and knowing as he tries to make sense of anything he can see. the gross over simplification is straightforward enough: bu chonghua should be in a much worse state than this. wu yu had tried to not think of it because there was not much life in him left to waste on a worry he could not reform with his own hands; instead he had made him a promise, which in hindsight still feels like the right decision; because it is true, because it is perhaps the truest thing wu yu has ever or will ever do. )
You're...you really are...okay?
( above all, this is his question. there may not even much more for him to say of it, but the hand he reaches out briefly to touch bu chonghua's face is as ardent as the word. it does not linger; wu yu finds the longer he is 'awake' here the less his body wants to be, and it falls softly back to rest at his own side soon enough.
the ghost of the sea in his lungs finds itself kept at bay by something wu yu fails to understand or even clearly identify. adrenaline and bu chonghua keep him present. questions drive a nail into it at an uncomfortable angle. lack of answers does the same. the bathroom they occupy is much nicer than the last, is wu yu's dry thought.
he doesn't realize he's closed his eyes after all, lips parted over soft breaths.
nearly lethal wounds are now manageable, collapsed lung replaced with an overall shortness of breath that as often comes with exhaustion as anything else. open cuts are still a saturated white from being submerged so long, as if they are trying to camouflage with wu yu's old scars. the walk and the warmth outside mean that he is not sopping wet but the damp clings to him, as if reluctant to surrender him to this other fate. yet these wounds carried with him into this place may not be as bad as that time he had to leave the body of xie xing and hide alone on the edge of existence. or is it that bu chonghua is here? that he is not alone?
i made a place for us.
as though he did not question that they would be together. bu chonghua really is too good. and wu yu's mind travels him backwards to a cemetery and a quiet confession that broke his heart to give, because at the time he had said those words in complete recognition of bu chonghua's sunlight and so, his own lightlessness beneath the earth where the sea thieves in at the roots. at the time. )
no subject
this is where he needs to be. all other details can be dealt with later. ]
I'm okay. [ the easiest affirmation, free of pretense or obscurity. ] You will be too now that I have you.
[ those same details echo in bu chonghua's mind as if screaming at him: the wounds sustained in the mind being so severe that even the great heave and sigh of the risen water on the peripherals of his foggy thoughts left worry clinging to the very air in his lungs. there had been so much. too much. shots whizzing by, the whisper of blades, bombs whose impacts sent those wintry catacombs into freefall. debris, fire, smoke, snow. so much blood that he'd forgotten his own sense of taste. and finally...
he remembers that last exhausted breath before going under into the pitch black.
bu chonghua reaches out with both hands to hold wu yu's head steady, thumbing the chill from his cheeks. leaning up on his knee, height giving him an advantage when it comes to bridging distances, he captures his lips in a way that betrays his composure. there is such strength in it, such heat that it would seem like he could burst and pour every grace he has into him to ensure that he was kept safe and warm for the rest of his life. then, now, anywhere. here. especially here, in his new and yawning unknown.
in the back of his mind, they have emerged from the water to find an uphill battle, shrouded in fog. dense and mystifying.
but it doesn't matter. ]
I knew you would come.
[ he doesn't need to explain how or why. there isn't an explanation for how much he knows of wu yu, one of the few things bu chonghua doesn't question. each kiss is feverish in its softness, tongue plying chapped lips for the taste of water and blood, the darkness itself.
give these to me — souvenirs for those who have returned. ]
So I waited for you.
no subject
it is an easier to easiest thing to let his lips part, to gasp contrasting heat and brightness back as an echo of love. it is everything.
wu yu once opened his palm to a dream of a world beyond the hell flowers known as poppies, beyond the fields of the dying and the dead. when he thought that place had been lost to him, that hand closed. no one is more surprised or afraid or compelled to find those folded fingers holding onto someone else. the fact of not having been forsaken; the matter of having had to live as if he had been even so; the wonder to think he's breathed his last and find himself sharing one after the other with an individual shaped as close to inevitability as wu yu has ever known.
bu chonghua says 'so i waited for you' and wu yu kisses him a little harder for it. they aren't dead. they aren't safe. they are, at least, alive. they are, at least, together. and, not knowing what waits ahead of them, one might argue it does not matter. the battlement of wu yu is the dragon and bu chonghua is his home at any given moment, location negligible because the heart is a traveler.
he does not need to be told there are monsters; he knows better than most and the way his teeth catch onto bu chonghua's lower lip, the way his shivering fingers clutch life and loyalty into his husband's collar, well. there are only so many ways to say it: i refuse the loss of you.
that he is concerned of their whereabouts is true, that he can do little about it for the first few days will likely also be true; lesser wounds are still wounds, and wu yu will be as bad a patient as ever, consecrated to holding onto bu chonghua like a possessive cat, never quite out of sight even if they aren't touching. he trusts bu chonghua's insight as to this having nothing to do with shark, and yet the lack of answers fosters room for the narrowest percentile in which the acute mind of bu chonghua is wrong. unlikely. but wu yu can't help accounting for every possibility. and though he doesn't say any of it out loud, he thinks bu chonghua knows. he almost always does.
for now, it is enough to ignore the shivering in his lungs and the persisting throbbing of the injuries carried over, in favor of a love that rejects death in all its forms. he doesn't mind pinning it through with the knife of his own heart to make sure of it — the liminal yet often sought intersection of 'you' and 'me'; the place it will always be for the two of them. )