in the desert you can't remember your name [open/narrative]
Who: Jin Tian and potentially others
What: Jin being introspective in a desert
Where: The desert zone
When: Any time between Dec 27th and Jan 4th
Warnings: abuse triggers; references to sex; tl;dr; waxing philosophical
Cross slash. Thrust. Pole block. Up slash.
The scythe is hot in his hands, and the blade catches the false sun, flashing and glinting and casting sunbursts onto the sand. His sandaled feet hiss against the grains as he moves automatically through the pattern, with the ease of centuries of practice. It's all memorization and skill.
Blade block. Down slash moving into an up slash.
It's a combination of styles and stances, a marriage of every martial art he has encountered; everything from kendo to tai chi, from kalaripayattu to fencing. He has adapted them all for his scythe and his quick, inhuman movements. It took two centuries to formulate an actual system.
Spinning strike. Spin to cross slash.
He always feels most at home in deserts. Aside from volcanoes, which are hard to get into and harder to get out of, they are the closest the Earth ever comes to a sun-like environment. The sun, the heat, the dryness...he loves the dunes and the rock flats, the plateaus and cacti, the canyons, the lakebeds, the wind, the sandstorms. He's feeling more physically healthy than he has in months; he's been eating and sleeping. He's shirtless and still wearing his typical scarf, the better to absorb sunlight.
He's healthy, but his mind is still in turmoil. Too much has happened. Too much, ever since summer. Even out here, he can't stay focused, his mind a blur, his thoughts scattered. AM. Skyfire. The rift. Alex. Mistletoe. The star-eater machine. Ladon. Kimiko. Hypatia. Asphodel. Nifraim. Home.
Slash. Block. Thrust. Block. Slash. Slash. Slash.
Finally he overcompensates on a cross slash, and the momentum makes him stumble to one knee, the scythe almost flying out of his hand. He crouches on the top of a dune, panting, and finally sits down. He sets the scythe at his side. He draws his knees to his chest and drapes his arms over them, staring out across the dunes. The wind plucks little tendrils of sand from the tops of the dunes, keeping the desert moving, always moving.
He feels better; he really does. Much better than he did a week ago, tired, sick, not sleeping or eating. The sun and warmth, the end of the snow, the time spent alone to think and calm down, Alex's assistance with his dreams, all of that has helped immensely. His wrist is finally starting to heal, though it's still bandaged. But he still has nightmares every night; nightmare about Nifraim, about the destruction of his star, about what is happening on Earth without him, about Prague, about a needle in his neck and being weak and helpless and in pain, crawling across the volcanic landscape while AM's laughter echoed through him. He still spends most of his days hating that he hasn't made it home yet after almost a year. He worries. He worries about Earth, about his friends here, about AM and SHODAN, about star-eaters and their machines finding this place. He worries about Ladon, and how he can never tell what Ladon wants or what he's going to do.
Ladon. That's one of the main reasons he's out here. It's not just because of what happened in his apartment; it's everything. Wistala is simple; Ridley is somewhat simpler now; Ladon is impossible. He wants one thing and then another; he hates Jin, then he doesn't. He seems to be oblivious to how it's supposed to work, to how he's supposed to be Jin's superior; then he's dominating. Ladon's teeth on his neck, Ladon holding him down, Ladon hurting him, Ladon's fingers on his skin...
Jin almost liked it at first. Almost wanted it. Felt--briefly, thanks to the haze of the mistletoe--like an equal. That is new, wholly new from a dragon and unusual for the situation. In the past, with humans, the rare few times he indulged, that kind of equality was almost unheard of. Give and take. Dominant and submissive. So foreign to a dragon, but so easy for him to slip into. He has always been inferior. Lesser. Ever since Isalvarion, and Nifraim.
His injured, shackled wrist is burning from the strain, and he touches the bandages lightly. It'll heal. It'll all heal. Everything always does, eventually. Alex was right; he has all the time in the world.
He gets back to his feet, picks up his scythe and returns to his drills.
What: Jin being introspective in a desert
Where: The desert zone
When: Any time between Dec 27th and Jan 4th
Warnings: abuse triggers; references to sex; tl;dr; waxing philosophical
Cross slash. Thrust. Pole block. Up slash.
The scythe is hot in his hands, and the blade catches the false sun, flashing and glinting and casting sunbursts onto the sand. His sandaled feet hiss against the grains as he moves automatically through the pattern, with the ease of centuries of practice. It's all memorization and skill.
Blade block. Down slash moving into an up slash.
It's a combination of styles and stances, a marriage of every martial art he has encountered; everything from kendo to tai chi, from kalaripayattu to fencing. He has adapted them all for his scythe and his quick, inhuman movements. It took two centuries to formulate an actual system.
Spinning strike. Spin to cross slash.
He always feels most at home in deserts. Aside from volcanoes, which are hard to get into and harder to get out of, they are the closest the Earth ever comes to a sun-like environment. The sun, the heat, the dryness...he loves the dunes and the rock flats, the plateaus and cacti, the canyons, the lakebeds, the wind, the sandstorms. He's feeling more physically healthy than he has in months; he's been eating and sleeping. He's shirtless and still wearing his typical scarf, the better to absorb sunlight.
He's healthy, but his mind is still in turmoil. Too much has happened. Too much, ever since summer. Even out here, he can't stay focused, his mind a blur, his thoughts scattered. AM. Skyfire. The rift. Alex. Mistletoe. The star-eater machine. Ladon. Kimiko. Hypatia. Asphodel. Nifraim. Home.
Slash. Block. Thrust. Block. Slash. Slash. Slash.
Finally he overcompensates on a cross slash, and the momentum makes him stumble to one knee, the scythe almost flying out of his hand. He crouches on the top of a dune, panting, and finally sits down. He sets the scythe at his side. He draws his knees to his chest and drapes his arms over them, staring out across the dunes. The wind plucks little tendrils of sand from the tops of the dunes, keeping the desert moving, always moving.
He feels better; he really does. Much better than he did a week ago, tired, sick, not sleeping or eating. The sun and warmth, the end of the snow, the time spent alone to think and calm down, Alex's assistance with his dreams, all of that has helped immensely. His wrist is finally starting to heal, though it's still bandaged. But he still has nightmares every night; nightmare about Nifraim, about the destruction of his star, about what is happening on Earth without him, about Prague, about a needle in his neck and being weak and helpless and in pain, crawling across the volcanic landscape while AM's laughter echoed through him. He still spends most of his days hating that he hasn't made it home yet after almost a year. He worries. He worries about Earth, about his friends here, about AM and SHODAN, about star-eaters and their machines finding this place. He worries about Ladon, and how he can never tell what Ladon wants or what he's going to do.
Ladon. That's one of the main reasons he's out here. It's not just because of what happened in his apartment; it's everything. Wistala is simple; Ridley is somewhat simpler now; Ladon is impossible. He wants one thing and then another; he hates Jin, then he doesn't. He seems to be oblivious to how it's supposed to work, to how he's supposed to be Jin's superior; then he's dominating. Ladon's teeth on his neck, Ladon holding him down, Ladon hurting him, Ladon's fingers on his skin...
Jin almost liked it at first. Almost wanted it. Felt--briefly, thanks to the haze of the mistletoe--like an equal. That is new, wholly new from a dragon and unusual for the situation. In the past, with humans, the rare few times he indulged, that kind of equality was almost unheard of. Give and take. Dominant and submissive. So foreign to a dragon, but so easy for him to slip into. He has always been inferior. Lesser. Ever since Isalvarion, and Nifraim.
His injured, shackled wrist is burning from the strain, and he touches the bandages lightly. It'll heal. It'll all heal. Everything always does, eventually. Alex was right; he has all the time in the world.
He gets back to his feet, picks up his scythe and returns to his drills.