you’re the key that got lost

[lancifolium]

WHO: Lily Evans & You
WHEN: Early to middle August
WHERE: Taravast baby!
WHAT: A catch-all! Exploring, drinking, courting, cups of tea, etc.
WARNINGS: None as of yet, will update as needed

(starters in comments, feel free to reach out if you don’t see anything that suits your character via pm or on plurk and I'll write you a start. also, if action is more your thing i’m good to match format.)

Comments

xue yang serving nancy from the craft realness

[lancifolium]

It was a terribly morbid comment, but Xue Yang had not - at least so far - given Lily reason to think anything other than he had a rather dark sense of humor. Instead of admonishing him for making such a dreadful comment, Lily narrowed her eyes, watching him as she tilted her head.

"With tongues, it's always hard to...say." Raising her eyebrows at him, she smirked and looked down, fishing a shopping list out of her sleeve.

"A few things, I'm collecting ingredients so that I can get back to potion-making. I couldn't find some things in the other districts so I thought I'd check here."

Lily held out the scrap of paper for him to look over. It was a brief list, mostly containing parts of other magical creatures.

[thesuspense]

The joke got a laugh out of him, being very much to his sense of humour, then he tilted his head, considering her words. Potions, it wasn't as if that concept was entirely novel, he'd certainly experimented with plenty of things, created corpse powder and an antidote to it that his taste-buds can tolerate well. However, this was a lot more than that and it wasn't as if he was unwilling to learn.

So he looked at the list, then gestured in the direction he'd come from. "Store over there seemed to have a lot of dead animals. Creatures. Stuff like that." Which he had been intrigued by, there was always something intriguing about death. "What do your potions do, jiejie?"

[lancifolium]

"Shall we try our luck seeking out lionfish spine and some billywig sting slime then?" Even as she asked she took a few steps towards the shop he had pointed out, obviously intrigued. The term he used to address her caught her attention, and she returned her gaze to his face, tilting her head to the side.

"This one, hopefully, will be for healing," she wasn't certain what components she would be able to come across in Taravast, so she thought it wisest to seek out the basics first, and healing would always be essential. "Jiejie?" Lily added after a moment. "What's that?"

[thesuspense]

"That's you," he said in a voice and with an eyeroll that very much got the point across that he felt it should have been self-evident. But then he caught on and realised there was a language barrier, rather than just her being thick, so he did translate. "It means big sister."

Which, yes, maybe she was younger? Or his age. He honestly couldn't tell. But she seemed to react to him in a way that made him settle on this. Besides, women were more likely to give him candy if they thought he was younger. Same with men, honestly.

[lancifolium]

Tilting her head to the side Lily considered the term and gave him a smile and a little nod of approval. It certainly suited the cheeky little boy image he maintained so effortlessly, though she didn't care for the eyeroll in her direction.

"If I'm big sister what do I call you?" To her, he seemed like he was older, but not by that much. Squinting through the window at the shop they approached, Lily pulled her little shopping list from her pocket. Lionfish spines would be a wonderful find.

[thesuspense]

"You can say Yangyang." Xue Yang shrugged his shoulders, deciding to simply suggest that one, as it was what the Yiling Laozu said and, frankly, he didn't foresee her addressing him around Xingchen. Not that it mattered overly much anyway, not a big enough give-away and his secret could not stay one much longer as it was. "Jiejie, are you only going to buy boring things?"

Clearly he was not happy with that, but rather than whining, he tries to go for cutely charming instead. "Should there not be treats also?"

[lancifolium]

"Lionfish spines are not boring." They were in fact a very important ingredient in one of the healing potions she knew how to make, something she hoped very much she would get to brew and share with those in their group who needed it.

She didn't expect that objection to be enough to satisfy him, and the mention of treats along with the shift in his demeanor that came on with the suggestion proved her point. "You make a very good point Yangyang, we ought to have lionfish spines and bonbons, and spun sugar flowers," Lily produced a few gold pieces from a concealed pocket in her gown, handing it off to the shopkeeper in exchange for a small glass bottle of the spines she sought.

"Where do you want to get treats from? It's your turn to lead the way."

[thesuspense]

"Aish, who cares about those fish? Maybe their spines aren't boring for them, but anyone else?" What did they matter to him, is what he was really complaining about, in a distinctly child-like way, shaking his head at her strange interest in something so obviously dull. However, he perked up at the mention of spun sugar flowers and bonbons, because that was a much better way of keeping his interest.

"I walked past a store I haven't been to yet before. I was going to get money from one of the ladies who like me more than their husband, but I'd much rather get treats with you, jiejie, so I won't have to worry about protecting my virtue."

A difficult feat indeed. "Let's go. It was on the right somewhere." He touched her arm just lightly as he nudged her along, clearly eager. She had a lot more money than he had at his disposal right now.

[lancifolium]

To her credit, she didn't snicker when he expressed the desire to protect his virtue. Lily didn't know Xue Yang well enough to make assumptions about his character, but she felt certain nobody as cheeky as he was made an especially big deal about their virtue.

"Well, if it's for such a good reason," Lily let him lead her towards the shop he had in mind, lifting her mask to study the front windows when they reached it. "You've certainly got fancy taste Yangyang," she pushed her hair back, studying the spun sugar flowers in the window. "But they are lovely." Lily straightened up giving him a quick nod before she strode past and into the shop, hoping she would not regret agreeing to buy them both sweets.

[thesuspense]

"Sweets are no good when they aren't well made and sweet enough." Quite the connoisseur when it came to sweets, Xue Yang also saw no reason to hold back with his opinion. If people made sweets that weren't good, he felt it was his right to let them know. He deserved good, did he not, since he wanted it?

Quite satisfied with how this was going, he followed her into the store, stepping up right next to her and - more importantly - looking at what was on display, his eyes wide and his lips slightly parted, tongue licking them. His want was very obvious, he clearly felt no need to hold back. "How much are we going to buy, jiejie?"

Apparently it was 'we' now, even though he'd made it obvious that he was expecting her to pay.