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wife_material ([personal profile] wife_material) wrote2023-11-04 05:07 pm

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fragmentaryblue: (45)

[personal profile] fragmentaryblue 2025-04-06 05:35 am (UTC)(link)
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."
fragmentaryblue: (41)

[personal profile] fragmentaryblue 2025-04-20 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
"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."
fragmentaryblue: (31)

[personal profile] fragmentaryblue 2025-05-06 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
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."
fragmentaryblue: (25)

[personal profile] fragmentaryblue 2025-07-05 05:30 pm (UTC)(link)
His graciousness is noted, folded between her own records like a flower pressed between pages. Equally comforting is the seriousness with which he takes her. Yes, he could have gloated, and anyone else might have and been right to do so. But not him. Not for the first time, she appreciates the breadth of space that he gives her to exist in without threat or challenge.

So when he voices his own uncertainty about what role she expects him to play, she can't help but offer him the same.

"You're here to ask what you like. I have some expectations, but you've defied those before. It is one of the qualities I like about you." For better or for worse, though her presence here at this table implies it's been mostly for the better.

"I will admit that Why is the easier question to answer, though. Simple as it may be: This was the face I arrived with. If I were to remove it... Somehow I doubt I need to explain that discrepancy invites further scrutiny, or that scrutiny can be unwelcome when one is accustomed to blending in."