thenearshore | [Closed] It's not too late to find out who you are

After he's done ranting at Kija though, then he's suddenly ready to confront Zeno. That guy... he hides things in plain sight! Sneaking right up around Yoon so many times and never letting on...

So off Yoon goes, straight to Zeno's temple, ready to grab the guy by his ear and drag him somewhere to talk.

This week...

Zeno is out by the golden dragon statue, Kaya's Ryuuryuu, browsing the BBS on his phone. While he's alone, some of his outer cheerfulness, some of the obfuscation, is a little thinner. He's studying the little screen with a faint crease between his eyes. Browsing back through the anonymous posts to see if he can link them to his friend the guy who stabs people in the brain stem. From behind.

Footsteps make him look up, though, and he drops the phone in his pocket, face fluidly breaking into a wide, wide grin. Like nothing ever changed.

"Kiiiiiiiiid~"

"Don't you 'KIIID' me, you... you raucous, lying, sneaky golden beast!" Yoon does in fact reach for his ear and tries to drag him further into his own temple. "We need to talk!"

He has no idea what Zeno's been through this week, but he still knows better than to have this conversation in public. He's also assuming - perhaps incorrectly - that his particular coded insult will be a cue to Zeno that he remembers something.

No. It's a good assumption. Zeno entirely forgets to feign pain and distress at the ear pulling and goes along for a moment as he wonders if... perhaps, like Jae-Ha...

"Oh, not where Kaya can hear you...!" He starts to laugh. He dismisses the idea that he's regained something like Jae-Ha did. "Beast" isn't the most unusual insult. And he does sneak around Yoon quite a bit.

"Kaya, sweetheart!" he calls out. "Come here for a moment!"

Once they're inside... the lower level of Hebe's Temple is earthy and plain. Everything is spare and dark and damp, and now that he's had some time to reflect (admittedly, while stealing a kiss or two from his much-adored wife), he's realized how well it recreates the basic aesthetic from Kaya's little rundown cottage in the woods.

He works himself gently from Yoon's grasp. "Can't go disappearing without kissing Kaya good-bye," he says brightly. "Might not get a welcome back."

It doesn't take much for Zeno to worm out of Yoon's grasp once he mentions Kaya's name. He had no idea Zeno was her god, for one thing, so linking this random girl he met to a friend, a traveling companion, from his own world... that's surprising. But then he also says kiss her goodbye and Yoon lets go completely. If he'd never forgotten in the first place, maybe Zeno having a sweetheart wouldn't have shocked him. But of the several months' worth of memories he remembered with Zeno, one of them was learning he had a wife. Zeno was so distant in befriending Yona and the dragons initially... surely he wouldn't have gone through with kissing a young woman as reserved as Kaya without... but he's not sure he ever even knew Zeno's wife's name. After a moment of panicked analysis, he finds that the blight he gained when thinking about Kija's words... that doesn't return.

Mercifully.

So all he can do is wait in stunned silence as Zeno wanders off to find Kaya before returning to speak with Yoon.

Zeno tugs his scarf off his neck, and loops it like a veil over Kaya's head, blocking their profiles from Yoon-- but from the way he leans down toward her cheek, it's clear that a quick peck happens. He says something to her in a soft voice, before rebounding around in a whirl, nearly skipping to get behind Yoon, and nudge him up up up the stairs.

The second level of the temple is the opposite of the first. Every corner has some precious artifact, gold coins, jewel-encrusted vases, silk hangings spread over richly embroidered couches. More than a few of the items have a yellow or golden dragon motif, though they tend to be subtle, hidden in landscapes or in relief. Nothing quite as ornate as Zeno's crest.

Zeno is more interested in Yoon than of it, however. The room is little used; they live downstairs and he's pretty sure Kaya only comes up here to clean. Zeno doesn't even do that much.

But he gestures toward one of the low couches, one upholstered in silk brocade.

"Sit, sit already. What's the matter?"

Yoon gets the tiniest shade of pink on his cheeks while watching Zeno try - fail - to hide the fact that he just kissed his own shinki. It's not at all the kind of relationship he has with Ran, not even close, so it's just... weird. In that respect. But this is also Zeno, and it's weird to see him so openly affectionate. And now, from what he remembers of Zeno... he's starting to have a lot more questions. Like if Zeno remembers HIM. He could be much younger than Yoon remembers him and you'd never know the difference.

So when he gets the offer to sit, he doesn't take it.

"You're a god, so I can tell you this whether it makes any sense or not... but I woke up today and remembered who you were. Are. You pretend to be this carefree person my age, but you're not my age at all, are you?" That's just the tip of the iceberg of course. "You found me - while I was in a woods somewhere cooking, and you stayed traveling with me. And..."

Then there's the other memories - the ones about Zeno's powers. Never mind he survived them. Yoon remembers seeing him in those states of intense pain, sure now as he was when he first learned of Ran's powers that while there was the possibility of recovery, it didn't stop the initial damage from causing pain - the kind of pain someone like him would literally just pass out from feeling, ability to heal or not.

Zeno isn't sitting, either. Stretching his arms out over and bending them back behind his head. All of his limbs are full of energy-- the vitality of youth, he supposes. The thing that makes all young people believe in their immortality, with just an extra dash of the girl I like likes me back! sprinkled on top. Logically, Zeno knows those things shouldn't have such an effect on him -- immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be and the world wouldn't end if Kaya didn't like-like him -- but... youth. There are some things a seventeen-year-old won't be convinced of until they're no longer seventeen, and for Zeno, that day wasn't today.

"Seventeen isn't your age at all," Zeno agrees, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

Edited 2017-05-13 19:47 (UTC)

"LIAR!"

Yoon reaches out to snag his shirt collar and push their foreheads together. "At least Kija told me he knew me on accident! I'm telling you I remembered things shinki aren't supposed to remember and the LEAST you could do is answer me honestly!"

He grits his teeth and continues. "You're the gold dragon. Not a gold dragon, the only one. And the reason for that... I saw you get cut down by soldiers, and burned alive. I saw you survive things no one should have to."

Then he jostles Zeno again. "Why would I make something like that up?! HUH?! DON'T YOU LIE TO ME AGAIN! WHEN I CAN FINALLY TALK ABOUT MY PAST - BOTH OF OURS - AND NOT GET BLIGHTED FOR EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT!"

Ah, no, he's going to laugh.

Zeno presses his mouth shut for a second, trying to stop it, but he can't help the little slip of a giggle. It's just so cute, how much he cares... even knowing (apparently?) that Zeno will be all right in the end. 'No one should have to,' but that's exactly the reason Zeno does.

"Don't make Kaya come running up here," he says lightly, mostly to exorcise any remaining laughter on the words.

"You can't be too hard on Zeno for being surprised," he adds. "Zeno doesn't go around telling that to people. In fact, Zeno never has. Not once."

Well now he's just confused. "What do you mean you never told anyone... You told me. In the memories... Was it just a dream after all... No, but you ARE the gold dragon, aren't you?" He didn't deny that much...

Yoon's voice is definitely quieter and he lets Zeno's shirt go in his distress. How can Kija have told him something that blighted him but was true and now... oh... so if he didn't get blighted, it might not even be real. That would make sense. Some kind of weird guess and Zeno's just teasing him. Like he always does, that carefree smile on his face.

Zeno doesn't know him after all. That's what Yoon thinks.

"I am Zeno the Yellow Dragon," he confirms, eyes lowered and focused, the I-pronoun used to signify the seriousness of the statement. Hiryuu's golden crest glitters in the sunlight from the windows. "Zeno doesn't know about any dreams. Zeno just doesn't..."

His head tilts. He'd started slipping back into the happy state he maintained around the children, but this was serious, very serious. Yoon could talk about this memory, but if Zeno confirmed or denied or let slip an extra detail...? The rules of this heaven were being rewritten before their very eyes.

Finally, he sighs. "If I can say 'I love you' to my wife I should be able to say 'yes, exactly' to you, right?" He spares a glance upward, the traditional and habitual location of the heavens. Not daring them to prove him wrong, exactly, but mentally preparing himself for it. Gods don't understand humans. They say things and they do things and these things make perfect sense to them -- they are always just -- but back on Earth...

"If you say Zeno told you these things unprompted, Zeno would never dream of doubting your word," he says slowly, measured.

Then it breaks, and he starts to laugh.

"But what if now you remember something Zeno doesn't?!"

Okay, so they're getting somewhere... Zeno has confirmed what he knows, and at least believes what Yoon is saying. Zeno also confirming that his wife is a shinki too... it must be Kaya. Yoon is sure of it. The laugh doesn't make him feel warm and fuzzy though... he got a serious answer out of Zeno, so the laugh only makes him nervous.

"What do you mean I can remember something you don't? You're the god - your memories weren't tampered with." Or so he'd been told, he realizes. He closes his eyes and pushes his hands up against his temples as he tries to think about Zeno and not where Kija would fit into this picture. "I knew better than to trust gods - these old gods, they call themselves, right? I guess now I know why."

He doesn't like the implications of this conversation one bit. He'd thought Zeno was one of his traveling companions. Maybe not a friend, but someone he'd become close to in a way that ... parts of his life left blurry hadn't allowed to. He only knew that Zeno was special in that unclear way that only a few others were. Now Zeno was implying he didn't even remember all of that happening.

"If... If it's true I think I know things you don't, and you think you didn't tell me things about yourself... I could always try to forget again, I guess." It's a bitter suggestion from a bitter boy who'd thought he knew what was going on and all of a sudden definitely didn't. "You say I'm not the kind of companion you'd reveal your past to. So I guess that means I'm not, no matter what I think I remember."

Zeno is just going to stop everything now and hug him.

All right?

He wraps his arms around Yoon's shoulders and squeezes like a snake. Still giggling. Presses his cheek right up against Yoon's in a veritable upright snuggle. Stop fussing, you self-important mother hen!

"When you figure out the right way to slip 'by the way, Zeno is roughly two thou--'" He pauses. "Is it two thousand? Zeno can't remember... there was a festival, for the king who was the hundredth in the line... but was it the hundredth in my lord's line, or hundredth over all? If a king rules about twenty years... oh but at least two of those were assassinated, so less than that... and that other didn't die for almost sixty..."

He trails off. "Zeno doesn't even know how old he is! Zeno can't tell people something he doesn't know himself! Besides, people would... when they figure it out, they tend to..."

He laughs again, but more sharply.

Edited 2017-05-29 04:19 (UTC)

"It's not natural, what Zeno is."

Inhuman, undead, monstrous... His wife was young enough to be his granddaughter, and what if she hadn't been sick? Eventually, he would have been young enough to be her grandson. What if they'd had children? They would have grown up and gotten old and died while he was still eternally seventeen.

It made people nervous, back at the castle. He and Shuten used to be the same age, but when Shuten started getting lines around his eyes... then the others had left the castle, more years passed, and still...

"Powers like Zeno's shouldn't exist, and truthfully, Zeno is horrified and ashamed of them. Zeno never told Kaya what he was, either, not even after being married."

He squeezes harder, then, as punishment.

"Stop trying to convince yourself Zeno doesn't love you. Or Zeno won't let go, and you'll have to watch Kaya get kissed again."

First of all, why is he getting hugged? No one's hugged him! Not here, least of all the way Zeno is - that kind of reassurance that he's definitely trying to convey crossed with Zeno's trademark brand of ridiculous.

He goes completely still just from trying to process it all.

Two thousand years, give or take? Yeah, that sounded about right too. And a confirmation for Kaya being his wife. So that's something he can't mention around her. He'd willingly watch the two of them kiss a bunch of times if it got straight answers out of Zeno again. He knows that's not what Zeno was intending, but the point remains. It's not nearly so much a threat as Zeno thinks it is. He's the god, so of course it makes sense he'd remember loving his wife, and of course being the same person as when he was married, he wouldn't forget her.

"Love's kind of a strong word for someone you don't even know, isn't it?" That's his first reaction, but Yoon just sighs on the second one. "And you can hardly say you're not natural to the guy who's a shinki, you know." He closes his eyes at that. "I don't see why an immortal dragon is so strange in comparison. At least you can heal your wounds. My god just bleeds out and would die without anyone to help him. Now I know why you can act so careless and carefree at the same time. It's not like anything can hurt you. Not permanently."

Of course, he means physically. And if he weren't in such a confused state - and he's even taking Zeno's love in a completely platonic manner, knowing about Kaya - he might not have suggested nothing could hurt Zeno without accounting for the mental struggles of being immortal. He maintains that he's now - if not before - in a similar state.

"For all we know, shinki will stay with their gods as long as they need them, right? So doesn't that make us immortal too?"

"No. You can't live forever if you're already dead."

This is an important distinction for him. 'Immortal' is the inability to die, the opposite of mortal, that which will die. Having already died means they are very much not immortal.

"Zeno... I would be lying if I said I didn't hope, sometimes..." He closes his eyes. "Returning to heaven, completing the same journey as all who ever lived, reuniting with the souls gone on before, is what the gods robbed me of. This might be the next best thing, and it's the most precious of gifts! Not Kaya alone."

Another squeeze. To punctuate not just Kaya, silly child.

"From your lips to the gods' ears, yes! Stay here with Zeno." Let him have more time with these kids, since they're not going to finish growing up. Even if they have to start over, let him protect them as best he can, since he obviously failed to do it in their lifetimes.

He laughs a little. "It's exactly the same! Zeno has been the dragon gods' slave for two thousand years, and now Zeno must turn around and do the same thing as was done to me? To my brother's darling child? To my own dear wife?"

Needless to say, the concept of shinki doesn't sit well with him.

"But Zeno will say a hundred times, at least Zeno took up this burden by choice." Perhaps not a well-informed choice, but choice nevertheless.

Okay so clearly he's not convincing Zeno that they're both weirdoes now, even if they weren't before. He thinks he's pretty smart, but even he's not prepared to ask all of the questions that would confirm he's definitely dead in spite of being able to walk around. He hasn't thought much about what an afterlife alternative would have been compared to this, before or after arriving, and now he's pretty sure he can't think too hard about that sort of thing anyway. He still doesn't trust gods, but at least now... here's one he can trust to at least be sincere in his eagerness to spend time around him. It's weird to think this would automatically make them friends if Zeno doesn't remember things before, but stronger than acquaintances. That much he can handle.

"Well, I'm not staying here in your temple - I need to get back to Ran at some point today. Whenever we're done talking." At this rate he has no idea either how else this conversation can end except him literally walking away. "I guess I should ask... You don't want me telling Kaya? Just in case?" Ah, clarification.... "That we know each other, I mean. I don't know who your brother's darling child is, though." And thus can't - yet - promise not to tell them something or anything.

No, something is very definitely Abnormal.

Kija spends half the journey to Zeno's temple wondering why Yoon would assume that a stranger on the... that electric post place everyone used to shout at one another was him. One small logical leap later, ninety-eight percent of the rest of the journey is spent on trying to work out who sent that letter in the first place, if he had not (and he hadn't). Then, when Zeno's temple comes in sight, Kija remembers that he could just have - well, have blinked here, and he wonders why on earth he always forgets that he can do that. Possibly because it is ridiculous and there is nothing the matter with his legs.

Well, no matter. He didn't pass Yoon on the way, so he must still be at the temple.

Or maybe he left in another direction.

Dragon blood has its downsides sometimes: specifically, it is of no use at all when trying to locate the Princess. Or, for that matter, when it comes to locating Yoon. Still, Kija has absolutely no better ideas on where Yoon might be if not where he said he would be, so there seems no harm in settling down to wait for him to come back out. He considers taking a seat. He considers the possibility of bugs. On reflection, he decides he will stand.

Yoon leaves the temple eventually, a lot of thoughts swirling in his head. A lot of them also go right out the window when he catches sight of Kija. He stands there for a moment, panicked as he recalls what happened before and then tries to shove those reminders out of his immediate memories. He doesn't want to ever experience that kind of blight again, so with that in mind, he points at Kija - but sounds nervous even as he speaks.

"You have to promise me! You have to promise not to say anything weird if I tell you what's happened!" That's vague and even he knows it so he tries to clarify.

"I mean... don't say anything about my past, yeah? I remembered some things - and I'll tell you only so that more bad things don't happen! That's why I thought you brought it up first on the phone things, like you may have had some way of knowing that I can't know without getting blighted again." Ramble ramble, yes he's still very worried about that.

"Why would I say something weird?"

Nothing he says is weird, thank you.

He might even have pointed it out, if it were not for the fact that this is Yoon, and he still - well, there is still the matter of how they met to consider, or met again. Kija hopes he never stops feeling exactly as awful about that as he ought to and, regardless of whether or not his words make perfect sense, that still hardly means that Yoon would be the person to share them with. So he says nothing more along that particular line, he simply nods and looks chastened and hopes that this will be good enough.

"Of course not," he says instead. "Yoon, you have my word that I will never endanger you or anyone in such a way again." Once was once too often. "But you can tell me what is troubling you. I may still know something that can help."

He lets that first comment go. Of anyone to think he doesn't say weird things, Yoon is convinced Kija does. "Weird" being a blanket term for all of the things he said that triggered the blight as well as strange things said afterwards that made him more and more unsure of who Kija in his life - his old life - in a way he can actually think about it safely. This, he figures, is the only option he has - to center it on Zeno.

"I still don't know who you are and it has to stay that way, but- but... I know who Zeno is." Instinctively, he holds up both hands. "I don't even want to know if you know who I'm talking about! Outside of the Far Shore, I mean. Either way, I just... felt like you should know." He then points behind him. "Talk it over with Zeno if you really want to. That's the only option we have, I think."

"How?"

The question is out before he can stop himself.

The rest of it-- Yoon covers that, so quickly and so thoroughly that there is nothing to be done but let him speak. Oh, there are a million questions he could be asking (what does he know, where does that knowledge end: why Zeno and not the Princess?!) but if to so much as breathe them, if to say anything more than he has already incautiously let slip would be to hurt Yoon further than he already has done...

"You must not answer," he says quickly, "if I am asking too much."

Well, then he will simply have to ask someone else.

Kija looks back over his shoulder, back in the direction that Yoon has pointed: yes, the rest of it he will just have to get from Zeno, and hope that Zeno's answers (as Zeno's answers sometimes do!) are good for more than leaving him with more questions. He is struck once again by the simple unfairness of it all: by how this place, for no reason it has seen fit to disclose, has seen to alienate them from one another; that his own memories should only have widened the breach between them, and made matters so much worse.

"Very well," he says. "I understand. I am sorry, Yoon."

I know that hardly helps.

Now that so much of his own rage and stress over the matter had been let out like so much hot air, Yoon's mentality softens. He starts to feel like Kija really does think well of him. That maybe he doesn't have to push away so hard. There's just one problem. He's still afraid. Very afraid. But his mood is starting to improve on that subject.

"... That should be your last apology for what happened. If I can remember who Zeno is, then more things may come back to me too." Including, perhaps, his memories of Kija. Whatever they are. He keeps those thoughts vague, refusing to look at them too closely after what happened before.

"And, Kija... I think Zeno understands too. I'm glad you can ask him about it." Like Kija he realizes how deep he had to sink in with an emotional conversation before he got something 'real' instead of that breezy laughter, but it can happen. Now that he knows it can, he also knows he can look for it again. "At least, until we can talk more freely."

[Closed] It's not too late to find out who you are

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

2/2

Re: 2/2

no subject

1/2

2/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

2/3 whoops

3/3

1/3

2/3

3/3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject