Zhao Yunlan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wildguardian) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thenearshore2018-10-29 10:46 am
wildguardian) wrote in thenearshore2018-10-29 10:46 am
Curiosity killed the... [open]
Who: Zhao Yunlan & OPEN
When: The second week of February
Where: Far Shore - the library, near Ebisu's temple, the Western District; Near Shore - the ruins of a burned-out department store
What: Exploring, unwisely.
Library
[Zhao Yunlan is becoming a regular sight at a corner table in the library; he's accumulating a stack of books, filling them with bookmarks, taking copious notes in a cheap black notebook, swearing at them and not putting them away again when he leaves.
Research! He hates it. He needs an assistant who will do it for him, but in the absence of that helpful whoever, he's stuck hitting the books himself. It's going to age him posthumously.
Hopefully, no one minds the fact that a largely useless pile of books keeps being renewed on the corner table, and filled with paper scrap bookmarks that have to be removed before they're put away.]
Ebisu's temple
[Since he's died young regardless, Zhao is seriously considering switching from lollipops to cigarettes. There's something enticing about the smell of burning tobacco, and, besides, importantly: smokers can take smoke breaks. As a non-smoker, he's having to find some other excuse to sneak outside and see the sun every once in a while during his workday.
His excuse today is picking flowers. He doesn't recognize the flowers sprouting from the grayish soil clinging to cracks in the temple's modern-looking concrete courtyard, but they're bright, colorful, and have a non-zero chance of brightening the day of the poor white-collar workers typing their fingers to the bone on either side of his temp desk. Fresh flowers, an important part of office feng shui: or something like that.
(He's considering bringing in a houseplant. Those also make great excuses to take a break.)
He nips off the stem of a bright red daisy-looking thing, considers it, and turns with a shameless grin. Whoops, there's somebody, has he been caught skiving off?]
Here! It goes with your eyes.
Western District
[It's late on the night of the 12th, and Zhao had been working his way back home to Bakugou's place after a long day doing accounting and a few drinks out afterwards, except, annoyingly, his stomach is killing him. All right, so he'd skipped breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, and: all right, the last time he ate something was yesterday when Bakugou'd made breakfast. But it's not like he ever gets more or less hungry no matter what he eats! He'd thought it was no big deal.
Apparently even dead men can get heartburn from strong liquor on an empty stomach, he reflects, and slumps down onto a comfortable rock at the edge of the road, indulging his solitude with a wince as he bends over and puts his head on his knees.
This is really embarrassing. He'll just give it a few minutes, and once he feels a bit better, he'll just drag himself back home to bed....]
Department Store
[Mysteries abound. These mysteries, though, don't look like they're going to be solved anytime soon. Zhao ducks under plastic disaster cleanup sheeting and looks around the dripping, ice-cold, smoke-blackened floor of the unlucky department store, and shakes his head. Any clues that might've once been here are long since gone. If the fire hadn't gotten them, the months of abandonment and subsequent investigation would've.
Maybe he can sneak in and pull the investigation files somehow. Shinki do tend to go unnoticed, so he's willing to bet he can shadow a cop into any police office he wants. Getting keys to get into their files might be a little trickier, of course....
Sighing, he turns to go, just in time to spot a pale, whitish, sheet-like thing that's not plastic lashing out towards his ankle across the debris-strewn concrete floor.
With a shout, he jumps back, landing in a puddle. Filthy water splashes everywhere, and the sheet rears up like it's been possessed by a cobra, striking out at him again. The edge of it brushes his hand as he scrambles out of the way, raising an instant, aching, purplish welt.
Well, fuck. He's just found his first ayakashi all on his own, he realizes, turns, and bolts for the stairs with a possessed sheet in hot pursuit.
This is making a lot of noise.
Hopefully someone's passing by.
Help?]
When: The second week of February
Where: Far Shore - the library, near Ebisu's temple, the Western District; Near Shore - the ruins of a burned-out department store
What: Exploring, unwisely.
Library
[Zhao Yunlan is becoming a regular sight at a corner table in the library; he's accumulating a stack of books, filling them with bookmarks, taking copious notes in a cheap black notebook, swearing at them and not putting them away again when he leaves.
Research! He hates it. He needs an assistant who will do it for him, but in the absence of that helpful whoever, he's stuck hitting the books himself. It's going to age him posthumously.
Hopefully, no one minds the fact that a largely useless pile of books keeps being renewed on the corner table, and filled with paper scrap bookmarks that have to be removed before they're put away.]
Ebisu's temple
[Since he's died young regardless, Zhao is seriously considering switching from lollipops to cigarettes. There's something enticing about the smell of burning tobacco, and, besides, importantly: smokers can take smoke breaks. As a non-smoker, he's having to find some other excuse to sneak outside and see the sun every once in a while during his workday.
His excuse today is picking flowers. He doesn't recognize the flowers sprouting from the grayish soil clinging to cracks in the temple's modern-looking concrete courtyard, but they're bright, colorful, and have a non-zero chance of brightening the day of the poor white-collar workers typing their fingers to the bone on either side of his temp desk. Fresh flowers, an important part of office feng shui: or something like that.
(He's considering bringing in a houseplant. Those also make great excuses to take a break.)
He nips off the stem of a bright red daisy-looking thing, considers it, and turns with a shameless grin. Whoops, there's somebody, has he been caught skiving off?]
Here! It goes with your eyes.
Western District
[It's late on the night of the 12th, and Zhao had been working his way back home to Bakugou's place after a long day doing accounting and a few drinks out afterwards, except, annoyingly, his stomach is killing him. All right, so he'd skipped breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, and: all right, the last time he ate something was yesterday when Bakugou'd made breakfast. But it's not like he ever gets more or less hungry no matter what he eats! He'd thought it was no big deal.
Apparently even dead men can get heartburn from strong liquor on an empty stomach, he reflects, and slumps down onto a comfortable rock at the edge of the road, indulging his solitude with a wince as he bends over and puts his head on his knees.
This is really embarrassing. He'll just give it a few minutes, and once he feels a bit better, he'll just drag himself back home to bed....]
Department Store
[Mysteries abound. These mysteries, though, don't look like they're going to be solved anytime soon. Zhao ducks under plastic disaster cleanup sheeting and looks around the dripping, ice-cold, smoke-blackened floor of the unlucky department store, and shakes his head. Any clues that might've once been here are long since gone. If the fire hadn't gotten them, the months of abandonment and subsequent investigation would've.
Maybe he can sneak in and pull the investigation files somehow. Shinki do tend to go unnoticed, so he's willing to bet he can shadow a cop into any police office he wants. Getting keys to get into their files might be a little trickier, of course....
Sighing, he turns to go, just in time to spot a pale, whitish, sheet-like thing that's not plastic lashing out towards his ankle across the debris-strewn concrete floor.
With a shout, he jumps back, landing in a puddle. Filthy water splashes everywhere, and the sheet rears up like it's been possessed by a cobra, striking out at him again. The edge of it brushes his hand as he scrambles out of the way, raising an instant, aching, purplish welt.
Well, fuck. He's just found his first ayakashi all on his own, he realizes, turns, and bolts for the stairs with a possessed sheet in hot pursuit.
This is making a lot of noise.
Hopefully someone's passing by.
Help?]
no subject
And, you know, she's doing all of this while still dressed in her full suit of armor.
It's a coincidence that she happens to be sharing a table with Zhao, though the growing pile of books does not go unnoticed by her.]
Have you... any need of assistance?
no subject
He glances up, blinks, and waves a hand at the pile of books.]
I wouldn't mind a hand. Aren't you busy, though?
no subject
For I am always willing to provide aid.
And truthfully, I find myself with more time than I know what to do with.
no subject
[He waves a hand.] Anything along those lines.
no subject
Might I ask the reason for you've taken on such interests?
Ah, apologies. 'Tis only to satisfy mine own curiosity.
no subject
[He casts her an easy grin, glancing briefly up from the page.]
It's fine to ask. Are you a shinki? Or a god?
no subject
[Agrias didn't much care for such a grandiose title. Though it did come with a number of useful benefits, that much she admitted.]
no subject
[That's not at all what it is -- Zhao's clear enough on the differences being a shinki has made to who he is, and while he doesn't have the inside perspective on being a god, he'd be surprised if it's any less of a change. Still, a bunch of the gods seem to get prickly about the idea that they're something more.
The shy ones and the religious ones, he'd guess, if he were guessing.]
But I guess none of this is going to be useful to you, then. Unless you want to pass the information your shinki's way.
no subject
A man.
Perhaps she would've felt better about all this had she not such strong misgivings regarding the Church.]
Nay, an informed approach can be the difference between victory or death. And I would have myself learn much of the ways of these lands.
As for mine shinki... 'Tis a complicated matter, that.
no subject
[He's keeping his tone light, but yeah -- that's something he's found himself thinking about, too. Maybe it's Nia's paranoia that's put it in his head, but the Heavens don't seem to be all that forthcoming.
And then there's what they'd done to Ebisu.]
What's complicated about your shinki? You don't have one of those soulless ones, do you?
no subject
[Otherwise you would all be having a big problem on your hands, 'cause she ain't letting anything happening to Ovelia.
Just saying.]
Nothing of the sort, though you yourself are a shinki...
Please understand, I wish to see no harm come to her.
no subject
[He's talked his own god through the challenges of picking up his childhood friend's soul as a shinki; he's painfully aware that some gods here do know the shinki they meet. It's not a subject he likes to dwell on.
After all, thinking about it inevitably raises the question: what if there's someone who knows him?
His smile is a quick and unfelt thing, and he quickly turns his attention back to the nearest book.]
Good luck with it.
no subject
[Were their circumstances different,Agrias would've gladly told him about her Zhao. And what a wonderful person she was.
But as things stood now, the path of caution was to be exercised instead.
She simply could not take the risk.]
Ah, back to these scriptures, then. Yes?
no subject
[He brightens deliberately, reaching for one of the mythology books he'd found. It's nothing too elaborate, but it has a few of what must be the human stories about the Roman gods; it's at least a guide to what mortals might be expecting out of 'Mars.']
no subject
'Tis shameful for me to admit, but mine own knowledge is limited at best.
Perhaps in trying to learn so much about these lands, I've neglected to learn about myself.
[It's a humbling realization to make. But for fortunately for her, she's in the right place to change that.]
no subject
[Don't mind him scrabbling around in his books until he comes up, looking triumphant, with a Beginner's Guide to Roman Mythology. It's illustrated. It's clearly aimed at the middle school market. At least it's informative; he passes it her way with an air of pride.]
no subject
[It may be aimed at a far younger audience, but Agrias is none the wiser, and she takes the book in hand, eager to learn more.
She spends a bit of time reading through the pages, absorbing all the information she can.]
'Tis cause for intrigue, these... Romans and their gods.
no subject
[He's been doing plenty of reading. Some of it feels like a reminder, but he doesn't think he'd known much about European history before, or at least hadn't paid much attention if he'd been supposed to learn it. He may have been a shitty student.]
no subject
'Twould seem that they were quite the enduring force.
no subject