Did you know there's a teahouse in Stellari just west of the academy that boasts a private balcony for rent?
From there you can see the airship docks, watch the dirigibles move back and forth, lazy sky whales moored against wood and concrete piers. You can hear the clamour of the street below if you lean out over the railing, but sound travels better up than down in that corner of the city.
[So do these messages, or for that matter, the woods. Understandably not her house, as there may be. Cat. But no doubt all of that is beside the point, which seems to be not just discretion, but also a game of pretend. Of course he understands that doesn't make it any less serious; only time and participation will tell if there is something real to turn his attention to or the more customary nonsense.
It's been a long time since he lamented having no Alliance to make use of her, and the streak will remain unbroken. Just about the polar opposite of Wu Yan¹. Just about the most yan a person can manage, actually.]
And when will I be needing one of those? If you had to guess.
[Messages can be saved and read again (save for the ones that destroy themselves), and what she wants to impart is for his knowledge only. That she gives him the option of hearing it implies more friendliness on her part than she'll say.]
For the next hour, if you're so inclined.
Come, or don't; but I won't wait longer than that.
[Well maybe it would benefit her to say, instead. Under other circumstances, Di Feisheng wouldn't hesitate to point out how issuing summons to him is likewise not an option open to the general public.
Not to mention what a courtesy an acknowledging text is, which he wouldn't bother to point out regardless of circumstance, but that too ought to stand out as a testament to the strength of diplomacy.]
I'll be there.
Courtesy doesn't extend to hurrying enough to draw notice, though he's never one to dawdle anyway. He is curious if the hour is only for travel time, or if she intends to be so brief; he has his doubts to her abilities there. But that, too, is wuxing. The possibility that this will relate to the current secret-based ordeal is forefront in his mind, but he isn't so inefficient with his mental energy as to speculate, when he'll find out for sure soon enough.
True to his word and hers, he is taking his seat on the reserved balcony within the allotted hour, gracing her with only a look of curiosity for greeting, arms (empty of weapons, normal, but diplomatically charged) on the table with an expectant air.
When he arrives, the table has already been set--two places and tea enough for the both of them. Blue sips thoughtfully from one of the cups, gaze shifting from the aforementioned lazy blimps to meet his look of curious greeting. Any other day, she might have smugly observed the ease at which he allowed himself to be summoned--but today she offers only a wan smile.
"Kind of you to join me."
She means it, genuinely. He could have decided it wasn't worth his time, and she wouldn't have pressed; but she would have been worse off for it. He must have at least an inkling of what this discussion might entail--of what it might mean to her, to have him seated across from her with the willingness to listen. And perhaps to understand that even this much is difficult, for her.
Or maybe he already knows what she's about to say. Maybe Li Lianhua has already prepped him with the specifics of what she confessed to him, and he's only here to corroborate the details. It is a pretty fantastical thing to believe, invites a healthy degree of skepticism. And Li Lianhua is a known liar, after all.
She closes her eyes against the thoughts crowding her head, more densely packed than the market streets below them. It won't make this any easier on her, to speculate about the man sitting across the table from her, already present and waiting. With resignation, she opens her eyes again and sets the cup of tea down on the table.
"If there's anything you'd like with your tea, tell me now and I'll have it ordered. If not, then I have a story for you."
Kindness, like many things, isn't precisely what he's for, but the chances that he wouldn't have bothered were always low. Their association is built on hearing her out, from the start. He didn't know it meant anything at the time, and the scope is still undefined, despite their negotiation and Cat's helpful delivery of intel. But she's human enough to need things, whatever else she is, and however theatrically she chooses to posit it.
"You know I'm not here for tea." Though he dutifully keeps to his role as guest and tries it anyway, assessing her while the cup hides an expression he isn't quite making. It doesn't look like she's feeling especially theatrical today, is the thing. A phoenix lacking some color. Even with only an inkling as to why, he knows it's lucky they struck such a deal that gives her such a good target for sharing secrets, even as he, quite privately, feels a little too-familiar judgment for what he feels sure is her reluctance. Stubbornness has been wrongfully applied, in all likelihood. If only he knew the extent to which she did not successfully take the beifeng baiyang poem to heart. It is a testament, yet again, to the diplomacy, how little of that creeps into his voice and manner. Since when do stories require the type of discretion usually reserved for espionaged intel. "I'm listening."
"You could humor me a little," she chides him, though she lacks the vibrancy for a proper ribbing. He likely knows a stalling tactic when he sees one--or perhaps his people were too mindful to try it, boring as she remembers them being. At least he indulges her in a sip of tea while she gathers her thoughts up like wildflowers in her hands, even as she lacks a vase to put them in.
"I would begin--traditionally--by laying the foundation of my story with Once Upon a Time. But time has not flown traditionally, and my tale could be both distant or recent by different measures. Instead, I will simply say, that this tale begins on a beach--with a daring young knight and his gentle lady. They find a likeness in each other, in their solitude and in their innocence. Their kingdoms will be at war one day, but that day has not yet dawned. Thus... he invites her home."
Her hand encircles around her cup, but she doesn't lift it to her lips. She only inspects the surface of the liquid with far more intention than she's given to his face. The words shake free a little easier, when she speaks them into a teacup, couched in a fairy-tale. "It is... a pleasant dwelling. Their needs are attended to--food and shelter, and most importantly the company kept. He brushes her hair for her and makes a mess of it, though there's kindness in the trying. A third joins their number, wild-eyed and curious, too feral for knighthood but no less enchanting. I hear, as the story goes, that he prefers wolves to spiders."
He can understand and identify stalling quite well, and his people were never boring, thanks in no small part to his skill at humoring, actually. As to being chided for the perceived lack, this is just bird chirps to him, habitual and unactionable; humoring her is a substantial part of their bargain and she knows it. Di Feisheng does so with only the ghost of an eyeroll for her talking of kingdoms and knights and dark-eyed attention for everything else. It is probably just as well that she's reciting her story mostly to her tea and not inspecting his reactions too closely.
The humoring phase is much shorter than the interest phase, anyway. There's clearly more to it than nonsense, where she is taking pains to tell him the too-mutable function of time in it all and the identifying details. The pieces are easy to put together, and he appreciates that; maybe Li Lianhua would only have needed a poem or some tree sap smeared on the door or something, but he's bedridden by his own informational breadcrumbs and not here to gauge Di Feisheng's trail following abilities at this time.
It's the significance that he's caught up on. What he wouldn't mind some help with understanding is why this is such an ordeal for her, why it has to be a story at all, if she isn't having fun. Being cagey is one thing at which so much of their social ecosystem excels, is just common sense and an eye to self preservation. But maybe the gemstones of the soul (he can feel the eyeroll trapped in the muscles of his face even more strongly, thinking this) are easier to come by than he originally imagined and of just as little application as the real sort. Face-changing and identity-obscuring abilities could give poisons a run for their money, after all. He takes a moment to digest and sit with this knowledge while he works out how to feel about it besides the busy-ness of rewriting a few mental records. There isn't any scrutiny for her until he's done so, which may as well have come with a 'ding' of completion to go with looking her way expectantly.
"You made more sense, as a child." So she lives in some kind of disguise. He can only assume she prefers it now, or the dissolution would be too costly somehow. Or she hasn't any especial faith in the solidity of this realm's boundaries, which is very fair; he can't say he would either, if his circumstances hadn't been so thoroughly changed by his own hand. "Are you afraid of being recognized? Captured?"
At some point in the silence after she speaks, Blue's eyes do lift to regard Di Feisheng with something like anticipation, waiting for judgment or at least comment, searching for a hint as to the content of his thoughts. When he does finally voice them, he graces her with such a trivial complaint that a smirk pulls unconsciously at her lips, a very mild humor that she hides behind a sip of her tea. Not relief quite yet, but a start; and her breath comes a fraction easier than it did a few moments ago.
The questions are expected, and true to his nature he jumps directly to the most strategic ones. The concern would be touching, if she thought it was meant that way, and meant for her. But she doubts it.
"Aren't we captured already?" What is this place but a prison? But she knows he doesn't mean that, and she doesn't want to waste his time (at this moment).
She all but shrugs her next words from her shoulders, less of a burden than the ones she offered before. "I'm not worried. There are those who would like to kill me if they found me here, but I'll deal with them if they come."
It isn't concern, but it isn't not concern. Certainly if she had confessed to a true fear of being hunted down in her new identity and strange land (hardly the prison she implied), he would be the first (and undoubtedly best, in his mind) to offer strategic insights. It isn't concern, because she has seemed unconcerned, and she knows her own business best, but there had been something in it anyway; the dawning light of more awful empathy, obscured by the brightness of curiosity. It would have been a very understandable reason for what she's apparently been doing all this time.
But beyond that, he can't say he understands, if that's what she's looking at him for. Why such a thing weighs on her, if she isn't too on edge about the potential of being captured. Why it's a secret that could threaten her life. He hasn't registered any strain to her breathing, but the sense of being lightened he can read just fine, and that's good, though his noting of it isn't at the forefront.
She doesn't want to waste her time or his, but she's still digging at the hidden parts of something like a stone in wet sand, and whether despite his nature or due to it he is drawn back into the 'story,' tea cooling and forgotten.
"I'm sure you will." He won't even gloat for having been right to suspect her of not being what she claims, instead tipping his head like he's conceding a match rather than taking one. The graciousness isn't even performative. "But then, why? Or am I here to ask how?"
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text; un: epiphyte: backdated to February event
From there you can see the airship docks, watch the dirigibles move back and forth, lazy sky whales moored against wood and concrete piers. You can hear the clamour of the street below if you lean out over the railing, but sound travels better up than down in that corner of the city.
It makes for a discreet place to talk.
no subject
It's been a long time since he lamented having no Alliance to make use of her, and the streak will remain unbroken. Just about the polar opposite of Wu Yan¹.
Just about the most yan a person can manage, actually.]And when will I be needing one of those? If you had to guess.
¹無顏
no subject
For the next hour, if you're so inclined.
Come, or don't; but I won't wait longer than that.
text, to action
Not to mention what a courtesy an acknowledging text is, which he wouldn't bother to point out regardless of circumstance, but that too ought to stand out as a testament to the strength of diplomacy.]
I'll be there.
Courtesy doesn't extend to hurrying enough to draw notice, though he's never one to dawdle anyway. He is curious if the hour is only for travel time, or if she intends to be so brief; he has his doubts to her abilities there.
But that, too, is wuxing.The possibility that this will relate to the current secret-based ordeal is forefront in his mind, but he isn't so inefficient with his mental energy as to speculate, when he'll find out for sure soon enough.True to his word and hers, he is taking his seat on the reserved balcony within the allotted hour, gracing her with only a look of curiosity for greeting, arms (empty of weapons, normal, but diplomatically charged) on the table with an expectant air.
no subject
"Kind of you to join me."
She means it, genuinely. He could have decided it wasn't worth his time, and she wouldn't have pressed; but she would have been worse off for it. He must have at least an inkling of what this discussion might entail--of what it might mean to her, to have him seated across from her with the willingness to listen. And perhaps to understand that even this much is difficult, for her.
Or maybe he already knows what she's about to say. Maybe Li Lianhua has already prepped him with the specifics of what she confessed to him, and he's only here to corroborate the details. It is a pretty fantastical thing to believe, invites a healthy degree of skepticism. And Li Lianhua is a known liar, after all.
She closes her eyes against the thoughts crowding her head, more densely packed than the market streets below them. It won't make this any easier on her, to speculate about the man sitting across the table from her, already present and waiting. With resignation, she opens her eyes again and sets the cup of tea down on the table.
"If there's anything you'd like with your tea, tell me now and I'll have it ordered. If not, then I have a story for you."
no subject
"You know I'm not here for tea." Though he dutifully keeps to his role as guest and tries it anyway, assessing her while the cup hides an expression he isn't quite making. It doesn't look like she's feeling especially theatrical today, is the thing. A phoenix lacking some color. Even with only an inkling as to why, he knows it's lucky they struck such a deal that gives her such a good target for sharing secrets, even as he, quite privately, feels a little too-familiar judgment for what he feels sure is her reluctance. Stubbornness has been wrongfully applied, in all likelihood.
If only he knew the extent to which she did not successfully take the beifeng baiyang poem to heart.It is a testament, yet again, to the diplomacy, how little of that creeps into his voice and manner. Since when do stories require the type of discretion usually reserved for espionaged intel. "I'm listening."no subject
"I would begin--traditionally--by laying the foundation of my story with Once Upon a Time. But time has not flown traditionally, and my tale could be both distant or recent by different measures. Instead, I will simply say, that this tale begins on a beach--with a daring young knight and his gentle lady. They find a likeness in each other, in their solitude and in their innocence. Their kingdoms will be at war one day, but that day has not yet dawned. Thus... he invites her home."
Her hand encircles around her cup, but she doesn't lift it to her lips. She only inspects the surface of the liquid with far more intention than she's given to his face. The words shake free a little easier, when she speaks them into a teacup, couched in a fairy-tale. "It is... a pleasant dwelling. Their needs are attended to--food and shelter, and most importantly the company kept. He brushes her hair for her and makes a mess of it, though there's kindness in the trying. A third joins their number, wild-eyed and curious, too feral for knighthood but no less enchanting. I hear, as the story goes, that he prefers wolves to spiders."
no subject
The humoring phase is much shorter than the interest phase, anyway. There's clearly more to it than nonsense, where she is taking pains to tell him the too-mutable function of time in it all and the identifying details. The pieces are easy to put together, and he appreciates that; maybe Li Lianhua would only have needed a poem or some tree sap smeared on the door or something, but he's bedridden by his own informational breadcrumbs and not here to gauge Di Feisheng's trail following abilities at this time.
It's the significance that he's caught up on. What he wouldn't mind some help with understanding is why this is such an ordeal for her, why it has to be a story at all, if she isn't having fun. Being cagey is one thing at which so much of their social ecosystem excels, is just common sense and an eye to self preservation. But maybe the gemstones of the soul (he can feel the eyeroll trapped in the muscles of his face even more strongly, thinking this) are easier to come by than he originally imagined and of just as little application as the real sort. Face-changing and identity-obscuring abilities could give poisons a run for their money, after all. He takes a moment to digest and sit with this knowledge while he works out how to feel about it besides the busy-ness of rewriting a few mental records. There isn't any scrutiny for her until he's done so, which may as well have come with a 'ding' of completion to go with looking her way expectantly.
"You made more sense, as a child." So she lives in some kind of disguise. He can only assume she prefers it now, or the dissolution would be too costly somehow. Or she hasn't any especial faith in the solidity of this realm's boundaries, which is very fair; he can't say he would either, if his circumstances hadn't been so thoroughly changed by his own hand. "Are you afraid of being recognized? Captured?"
no subject
The questions are expected, and true to his nature he jumps directly to the most strategic ones. The concern would be touching, if she thought it was meant that way, and meant for her. But she doubts it.
"Aren't we captured already?" What is this place but a prison? But she knows he doesn't mean that, and she doesn't want to waste his time (at this moment).
She all but shrugs her next words from her shoulders, less of a burden than the ones she offered before. "I'm not worried. There are those who would like to kill me if they found me here, but I'll deal with them if they come."
no subject
But beyond that, he can't say he understands, if that's what she's looking at him for. Why such a thing weighs on her, if she isn't too on edge about the potential of being captured. Why it's a secret that could threaten her life. He hasn't registered any strain to her breathing, but the sense of being lightened he can read just fine, and that's good, though his noting of it isn't at the forefront.
She doesn't want to waste her time or his, but she's still digging at the hidden parts of something like a stone in wet sand, and whether despite his nature or due to it he is drawn back into the 'story,' tea cooling and forgotten.
"I'm sure you will." He won't even gloat for having been right to suspect her of not being what she claims, instead tipping his head like he's conceding a match rather than taking one. The graciousness isn't even performative. "But then, why? Or am I here to ask how?"