Unscathed enough, says his cool refusal to grace that or the scratch itself with any attention, nose in the air. The man who pinned him right through to his own ship's mast with a concealed sword is tutting at him over a papercut. This doesn't even count as a real injury, and Li Lianhua would admit himself it was an unexpected, outsize retaliation, not some characteristic refusal of caution on his part. If he's a calf, he's in good company, and it's not like she came away from it with some kind of crushing victory either. She may have scraped a knuckle in the dirt herself, did he think about that? Should they both have banquets thrown in their wounded honor? Should they invite the emperor? There is no gratitude in this world.
And that's how he feels even before the unprecedented indignity of receiving a cuff on the backside like a horse being deliberately spooked to strand a traveler, a shock that is met with saucer eyes and not the swipe it deserves. Someone here is really something else and it is not the panther with a mouth full of haunted porch decor. Recovering all too quickly, he braces himself to defend his prize, ears back and jaws set, eyes narrowed to jade green slits. Li Lianhua didn't get his bones threatened for this, or have to be scruffed until the whites of his eyes showed. If his pride isn't welcome here, Li Lianhua can hunt down his own ghostly detritus at the neighbor's house, see how that goes. Or at the very least, make a more compelling offer than just sticking out his hand. Not his cat, remember?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2024-05-07 10:26 pm (UTC)And that's how he feels even before the unprecedented indignity of receiving a cuff on the backside like a horse being deliberately spooked to strand a traveler, a shock that is met with saucer eyes and not the swipe it deserves. Someone here is really something else and it is not the panther with a mouth full of haunted porch decor. Recovering all too quickly, he braces himself to defend his prize, ears back and jaws set, eyes narrowed to jade green slits. Li Lianhua didn't get his bones threatened for this, or have to be scruffed until the whites of his eyes showed. If his pride isn't welcome here, Li Lianhua can hunt down his own ghostly detritus at the neighbor's house, see how that goes. Or at the very least, make a more compelling offer than just sticking out his hand.
Not his cat, remember?