thenearshore | Things Are Getting Better All The Time

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Things Are Getting Better All The Time

Who: Kija; anyone who feels like tripping over him.
When: The morning of September 11.
Where: The Far Shore.
What: Kija is asked for haircare tips and adamantly refuses to get in a fight which happens anyway, then spends two weeks in a basement, then things get really weird. Then he ends up back in The Far Shore which might or might not be a relief, but to say he really isn't in any mood - or any condition - to deal with it would be something of an understatement.
Warnings: Potential spoilers for Akatsuki no Yona up to Chapter 147.

He feels like he's been hit by a train, and that's the first clue.

There are two ways Kija could approach this situation, namely lying, bloody and battered and face-down, somewhere he has no right to be lying. The first is to make no sudden movements and in fact remain absolutely still in the hope that it will hurt slightly less, and hope that whoever trips over him first is a doctor, or at the very least carrying herbs. The second, far more favorable route - especially if the Princess were to ask after him, or his brothers - is to declare that he is absolutely fine, that this is nothing he cannot walk off or, in a pinch, sleep off instead and most assuredly needs no help or any worry wasted over him and then work out how he plans to get to his feet. Except for the part, to be discreetly left unmentioned, where he feels like he has been hit by a train.

He should have no idea what a train is--

Except he does. Or he does now. Or he does again.

He is not at all clear on why he aches so badly, where he is or what is going on or why he cannot (and two-year-olds can reliably manage it!) cannot seem to make himself move, still less get to his feet: he knows what a train is. And chocolate and the Internet and supermarkets, where food is sealed away from sin in bags full of air, and zippers in clothing and - oh, why?! - bathing costumes, and shinki and sparkling water. Suddenly he's got half a headful of knowledge that he has absolutely no right to, or he has it again, and he understands that this is not good either and, this time, he most assuredly has better things to be doing and places to be. Suddenly, the headache seems all too explicable.

Whatever is happening to him now, Kija is absolutely certain of this: it is very definitely not the thing that was happening to him when he closed his eyes.

He wants to get up, he really does. He simply cannot seem to achieve it.

He may have to ask for help.

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[ Nanako had been flying overhead when she saw the figure on the ground, white robes dirtied and torn and bloody and alarm is the first thing she feels as she abruptly stops and drops into a dive. Landing beside him, she carefully reaches out and gently prods at one shoulder. It has been a while since she's seen him, but that doesn't matter, he's hurt! ]

Kija? Kija, are you alive?

[Ah.

[Yes, it is all making a horrible kind of sense.

[He drags his eyes open again: no, he should not know this child. Different worlds, and yet here they both are. Nothing, it would appear, has changed in the time he has been... been absent, and that does not make sense either. Surely a small girl should look at least a little older?

[She is worried. He needs to keep her from that.]

Nanako?

[It is a start.

[Yes, I am alive.]

Are you okay?

[ She crouches down beside him and gently reaches out to pat his head when he answers her, looking relieved. ]

Of course I'm okay. You're the one lying here on the ground, Kija. You're hurt. Hold still, kay?

[ With that, she closes her eyes, focusing as she calls on her power and letting it wash through him where her hand rested on his head, a warm wash of magic as she focused on fixing anywhere it hurt. ]

[How fortunate that she should ask him to do the one thing he can manage more than easily right now. Obediently, Kija stays exactly where he is and lets the child do... whatever it is she is doing. Whatever it is, it seems to have had some effect. Perhaps he should try sitting up. Would that be reassuring, or merely a gross breach of protocol?]

Thank you.

[That much, at least, is only polite.]

Where are we? Specifically.

You're in the park! [ She answers cheerfully. Although that prompts a glance around. ] Or maybe this is outside the park? I'm not sure, but I was flying over that a minute ago and then I saw you laying here. What happened, Kija? Was there a fight? You're really hurt.

[The child is far closer to the truth than she realizes: it makes him smile, because he does not know what else he should do. Unburden himself to a six-year-old?]

Not here. You must not worry, Nanako. I simply returned home.

[We are as safe here as we ever have been. So, less safe than a child should be. But safe enough.]

You fought back home? [ She casts him a worried look at that, but continues to do her best to heal him, letting that warm light flow through him where her hands rested against his chest. ] Your home must be pretty dangerous.

[ It's not long after Kija's return that Yona hears about it and immediately teleports herself over to his temple. She's been fretting for days now, the only consolation that he wasn't gone-gone being that his temple was still most definitely here and Luke still bore his Name.

Arriving outside his gate, she lets herself in, peering around the interior of his temple. ]

Kija? May I come in?

[Of course, he would not wish to stop her even if he were capable.

[The issue of whether or not he is capable even of standing is, Kija owns, troublesome. It is considerably less troublesome to be doing such thinking within the four walls of what, in this place, passes for home than outside in the streets, where his presence could only prove troubling in itself. If he concentrates on lying still and tries to ignore quite how badly he wants a bath (taps, they have taps here: there are compensations) then he feels as if it must surely be possible and he is merely being over-dramatic--

[Actually trying to rise from his bed is another matter entirely. It is not terribly appropriate to greet any young lady from the prone position, never mind the Princess! and yet that would rather appear to be the position she has found him in. Never mind, he can always correct that--]

It is quite all right, princess, please, do not trouble yourself--

[Ah-- nearly had it there. Why should this be so very tiring?

[He really should be trying rather harder.]

[ But the moment she hears his voice, she's in the door and headed in the direction it had come from, zeroing in on his location with single-minded determination.

Peeking her head in the doorway to find him still on his bed has her hurrying towards him, her expression one of mingled worry and relief. ]

Oh, Kija! You're back! I suppose it's a silly thing to be grateful for, but, oh, I'm glad to see you. [ And then she promptly throws her arms about him in a quick hug as she comes to kneel on the edge of his bed. ] Are you alright? Were you hurt?

I am sorry. I should not have left--

[The hug is startling, it is too intimate, it is nothing but welcome.

[It feels like such a long time, since they last were able to talk. It has been.

[Oh, what can he say to her of all that has happened since he last saw-- no since he last was here. How much can he share of their future? The logic of it seems undeniable: if a man were to know exactly what the consequences of his actions could be, would he still be so willing to risk them? He cannot - and never mind his own experiences - quite believe that to leave this place would mean being wiped clean of all one had learned there.

[He cannot even say, we must never go to Xing, and know it for good counsel. Too simplistic, and even now he is not sure if it is true, if they have made anything more of straying across the border than a terrible tangled mess.]

You must not worry, Princess. I will be quite all right.

[ She settles back after hugging him, still staying near enough that she's pressed up against his side, perched beside him on the bed as she takes in his face. And the injuries and bruises he still bears. It makes her heart clench and she reaches out, brushing her fingers against his cheek, sorrow glinting momentarily in her eyes. ]

You have been hurt. And badly. Did it happen here? Or...

[ Or had he returned to their land, their time, only to be brought back like this once more? She'd heard of that happening - had assumed that because his temple had remained that he would return to them soon, but she had not anticipated he would return looking like this.

She doesn't know what he's endured, but she remembers all too well the dangerous scenes she'd witnessed that had led to both Hak and Jae-Ha's deaths. Had Kija also been taken to there, perhaps? ]

[This

[is

[extremely

[distracting]

[and may possibly be worse than the pains of his various injuries. Pain Kija understands. The Princess's sheer physical proximity is something quite different and it is making it extraordinarily hard to concentrate on what is actually afoot. She is warm: she is gazing straight at him in naked concern and knowing that she would do that for anyone (truly, she is too good) is not actually making the bearing of it any easier why is she touching his face--]

[Focus.

[The least he can do is have the decency to pay attention.]

[The instinct is to fill in the gaps, all of them, and never mind that Kija is still not quite sure where, for the Princess, that gap would begin. A long time ago, he thinks, and longer still now... The impracticality of it is a good enough reason not to. She does not have all day. Focus, he reminds himself, on the question.]

There is no new danger here, Princess. I merely returned home for a time.

Home?

[ She echoes this with a moment of alarm, her eyes flitting over him once more, over what has healed and what will still be happening slowly.

She pales, staring at him, her eyes suddenly looking too-large in her face. ]

All this happened back home? Oh, Kija. I'm so sorry.

[ What has she dragged them all into? ]

Don't even bother asking.

Zeno's knees might be directly in Kija's line of vision. He tugs a bit at all the stained white clothes Kija drapes himself in, and he tries to lift Kija's shoulders and lower his own and Kija has an awful lot of dead weight and Zeno has never been very big nor very strong and Zeno gets maybe a step and a half before collapsing under Kija's weight.

He offers a weak giggle.

"A minute before Zeno tries that again, please... talk to me some."

Where have you been, to start off.

Or Zeno could show up. Zeno, looking neat and whole and not at all like he had spent the last two weeks in a cell, and what is that if not confirmation? Almost in spite of himself, Kija finds himself trying to think back to when he had last seen his brother dressed so. Even under the circumstances, Kija is glad to see him. Far better that he meet a friend than lie here hoping that whoever should pass this way next would happen to be a doctor, or at the very least carrying herbs...

It might have helped still further if Zeno were slightly bigger.

He cannot support his own weight, that is the problem: Zeno's attempt to help him up ends the only way it can do, and Kija yelps in surprise or shock or who even knows as Zeno's legs buckle beneath him, sending the both of them pitching forward. The fact that his fall is broken by Zeno's body is no comfort at all.

"I am sorry, Zeno. I doubt I can be much help to you right now."

Kija sighs. He really should move...

And still it is not happening. This is what comes of Zeno's good intentions, then: he's a foot or two further down the road, only instead of lying prone in the dust, he's sprawled half-over Zeno instead. He really should have tried a lot harder. For goodness' sake, Hakuryuu, move! Surely falling off Zeno should not be too much to-- there. He's breathing far too hard, and it takes two or three hard blinks to bring what little of the world (the sky, the clouds, tops of trees) he can see into focus, but at least Kija is now lying on his back staring up at nothing at all rather than draped across Zeno like the world's heaviest and least practical blanket.

"You... did not leave, too?"

"Was Zeno supposed to?"

He wishes he had, in some ways, but...

He presses a hand to Kija's forehead. Sick, infected, no...

Infected, maaaybe possibly in the near future, judging by some of those wounds...

"Wait," he says, and runs off.

Once out of Kija's sight, he finds a nice, easy to smash glass bottle and once it cuts up his nice, easy to slash arms, well, the rain will wash away the blood trail, he hopes.

His arms are scaly and golden up to the shoulders when he returns to Kija, and effortlessly lifts his upper body off the ground again.

Wait?

It seems a needless thing to say. If Kija could have risen and walked then none of this would be happening at all. Of course he can wait: it is all he is good for. Kija watches the clouds, his eyes half-closed; there is rain on his cheeks, a sensation that slips quick and effortless past refreshing and right into rather annoying, honestly. His clothes, already torn and stained, add 'wet' to their list of unappealing traits. Perhaps, he thinks (and his thoughts are slow, weary things, and almost as unwelcome as the rain) perhaps he is not far from wherever he is supposed to be, and Zeno has merely gone for help...

And then his friend is back, ray of sunshine that he is, kneeling by his side and, entirely effortlessly, lifting him into his arms. Zeno's brief absence becomes only too explicable, and all a glimpse at his arms (golden, mantled with smooth scale) is good for is confirming it.

"Zeno," Kija says. "You must not."

For does he not know exactly how Zeno would have managed that?

"Shh, don't injure your vocal cords like the rest of you!"

The blood is gone, the pain is gone, let him do this thing. Let him serve this purpose, for once.

"Besides, there's no other way! What happened to you?"

"I went home," Kija says.

He really is not sure what else he should be saying. Or if this is really the time or the place for it. He has certainly had conversations in rather more dignified positions. Right now he is talking to Zeno's back, and he has no idea if his friend can hear a word. Perhaps this should wait, at least until he's not draped over Zeno's shoulder like a bolt of cloth, and everything stops shifting so. At least until Zeno puts him back down.

Certainly he cannot exactly argue the necessity.

He tries to remember how much Zeno has seen. He thinks there must be a lot that Zeno hasn't...

Thinking would be easier, too, if the world were not lurching quite so much. Remembering would be. He is sure there are easier ways of getting round, in this world. Kija simply cannot seem to come up with any.

"What do you remember?"

"Lots of things," Zeno said brightly. "King Hiryuu had no poker face, for one thing. And he almost called himself an emperor before we convinced him being a king was more politic and less likely to get him dethroned again."

He paused to shift Kija's weight. He had the strength now, but Kija was still taller, still awkward to carry.

"Did you want something more specific?"

Hiryuu--?

The name still sends a thrill through Kija: the name and, with it, the knowledge (inspiring; unbearable) that Zeno speaks fondly of an old friend. Under any other circumstances this would be quite fascinating. He must ask Zeno to repeat himself when he is rather more upright, and Zeno is standing still, and hope that he does not simply chase the conversation down some back double that has him completely losing track of where he stood at the start... rather like he is doing right now, for example.

Now is really not a good time to be talking of this, or of anything. Hard to focus what with all the jolting, and the uncomfortable awareness that he really could do with a bath.

"The last thing," he manages, after a time. "The last thing you recall from home."

Oh.

"Hakuryuu and the others were sick in bed, until they weren't," he says brightly.

He doesn't want to admit he was... about to... considering...

We're nearly to Zeno's temple, now.

"Rest here before someone sees you and thinks you're in trouble," he adds. At least now that the scales and the attendant strength are starting to fade.

"It's quiet without Kaya, but maybe you want that right now!"

[ This is not what you expect to find when you're out on a run. D2 veers off path when he spots a person just lying prone on the ground, and shit he looks bad. At least he's breathing, and that's a small mercy. Also, he recognizes the guy. ]

Hey..! Are you conscious?

[Kija believes he is. Being awake enough to hear the query is its own answer, of course.

[What peculiar clothing this man wars.]

I... this is the Far Shore?

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Things Are Getting Better All The Time

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[1/2]

[I lied. 2/3]

[3/4, the lies just keep on coming.]

[4/4]

lmao Kija you poor darling

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