1st Log | OTA

[moonsounds]

WHO: Ruka & you!
WHERE: Around
WHAT: Ruka getting her bearings, picking up mask pieces, playing piano
WARNINGS: Ummm minor hand injuries


A. Bathhouse

Ruka couldn't say she was used to this-- she knows she used to live with a lot of other people once upon a time for a short while, but she had no memory of it, really. As such, she's not sure what to do about the fact she's living....above a bathhouse. With a bunch of guys. She's at least thankful the bathing areas are separate, as she spends quite a bit of time in the women's section, just meditating and thinking.

So Ruka can be found either in the bath by other women (or men sneaking in maybe), or by anyone coming in (or housemates) cleaning up the place or nervously greeting someone who comes in like they might be a customer.

B. Masks

It's incredibly unnerving to find these mask pieces hanging around. The features on them as disturbingly familiar, itching at her brain but unable to connect. A piece could be found anywhere-- Around the bathhouse, out in the streets, in any other location. Ruka, with her brow furrowed in concentration and unease, observes the piece before she'll take out the other connected pieces of the mask to pick up this new piece.

It's slippery, though, falling from her fingers and slicing along them. Ruka yelps in pain and withdraws, curling her fingers into a fist to stem the blood that pools there. The mouth of the mask she's collected starts laughing hysterically. Ruka stares passively down at her bloodied hand, sighing deeply.

C. Memories

When Ruka's not being terrorized by the mask pieces, she can be found sitting somewhere that she believes doesn't get much foot traffic (or at home at the bathhouse when she thinks she's alone) with her notebook, an old book opened up beside her. An old tape recorder might also be speaking from next to her, a little girl's voice speaking from it while Ruka takes notes and transcribing the conversation.

Comments

Masks

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess is on her way home from the market, leafy greens of produce bursting from a woven bag slung over a freckled shoulder. There's a lot to do at home, but not so much that she can't take a moment to pause, eyebrows furrowing at the sight of a young girl crouched over pieces of... something. Her attention's pulled much quicker to the bright red of blood seeping out from her curled fingers.

She sighs and sets the bag down nearby.

"It's not going to stop bleeding just by looking at it," Tess remarks, crouching down to join her. "Let me see it."

[moonsounds]

Ruka jumps ins urprise, looking at Tess wide-eyes for a moment before her brain catches up with what she’s asking.

“Oh—“ She holds her hand out, brow furrowing. It’s not a bad wound— shallow, but bleeding a lot and stingingly painful in the way shallow wounds tend to be. “Thank you, sorry… I didn’t know they’d be that sharp.”

She looks at the mask piece ruefully, shaking her head.

[dog_eat_dog]

There's a little tongue-clucking impatience on Tess's face for an instant, particularly as she looks Ruka dead in the eyes, but it's all in concern, mother-hen as it may be. She takes Ruka's hand and inspects it for any lost shards, and then rummages one-handed through her bag and produces a small roll of gauze.

Not too odd of a thing to carry with a career like hers.

"You're lucky it doesn't need stitches," she informs the girl. "Palm wounds are a pain to heal."

She presses the end of the gauze against the wound, firm but steady.

"What happened?" she asks, with a little elbow gesture at the mask as she maintains pressure.

[moonsounds]

Honestly, Ruka just considers herself lucky she managed to run into someone carrying an apparent first aid kit's worth of stuff with them. Maybe she should start carrying a first aid kit thing around...

She watches Tess with quiet curiosity. "Are they?" She asks, re: palm injuries being a pain. She hadn't thought about it, but now that Tess says it, Ruka can imagine how annoying it'd be to try to pick things up or hold things with bandages in the way.

"That's..." She looks at the mask pieces; next to it is some shards that have already been glued together to start forming the far left bit of the mask. "It's a mask. I don't know what kind, but...I keep finding the shards everywhere. I started to collect them, but they're... way sharper than I thought."

[dog_eat_dog]

"Mmhmm," Tess hums, rolling the bandage around the back of Ruka's hand. "It flexes a lot."

Her gaze flicks to the mask momentarily, her eyebrows dipping into a furrow. She's never seen anything quite like that here, and it fills her with an immediate curiosity.

"You think someone's leaving it around for you, like a breadcrumb trail?"

[moonsounds]

Makes sense to her. She hesitates a moment, feeling a bit silly now that she puts some thought into it.

"Masks are--were--considered something sacred where I was from. And my father was a mask-maker. So...I guess I just assumed it had to be for me." She looks at the mask again with a frown.

"The fact it laughs when I hurt myself is a bit new for the masks I know, though."

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess's frown matches Ruka's momentarily. She wraps the last curl of gauze and tucks it under itself to tie it off.

"Sounds cursed," she remarks.

c.

[lanclan]

There's a communal area in the apartment, a little table with some seats (cushions, scrounged from neighbours) where Xichen likes to sit and meditate. He tends to start early in the morning and stay there until breakfast, but sometimes his head is a hive of bees and he needs to settle it before bed too, like tonight, only ... he feels a little awkward starting it when his housemates are around. It's rude of him.

Instead, he takes the opportunity to speak to Ruka who is already holed up with a notebook and reading material.

"Good evening," he says warmly, pacing to a halt nearby. "I was going to meditate, but if you wouldn't mind the company ..."

[moonsounds]

"When I put on the mask... I turn into someone else... I don't know what's happe-"

The little girl's voice cuts off mid-sentence as Ruka fumbles with the recorder, nearly dropping it in her haste to pause it. She looks at Xichen with wide eyes, her heart pounding as she hugs the recorder to her chest.

"I- I didn't mean to disturb..." SHhe begins, clearly thinking he was here to tell her that the recorder playing was annoying or something, trailing off when she realizes he'd been asking her something too.

She blinks once, looks down at her recorder and notes and then back up at him, her face slowly turning pink. "...I don't mind. Sorry..." She sighs deeply, clearly more embarrassed at herself than anything, and rubs a hand over her face

[lanclan]

Brows going up as she fumbles with the voice-playing machine, he tilts his head.

"I can leave, if you would prefer? I don't want to bother you if you would prefer to be alone."

He knows, a little, how important her note-taking is to her.

[moonsounds]

She shakes her head quickly, "no, please." Ruka sits up straighter, setting the recorder down. "You just startled me. I was worried I was bothering you and you'd come out to scold me or something."

Not that Xichen really seemed the scolding type, but she didn't really want to assume either way. "If you don't mind me working here, then I don't mind you being here. I just won't play the recording."

[lanclan]

"You can play it if you wish, I will not repeat what I hear to others."

He sinks down into a sitting position, arranging his sleeves. Watching Ruka, Xichen offers a reassuring smile.

"Once we are both done, I can make us some tea before bed."

[moonsounds]

Ruka watches him for a moment, face passive and a hint of curiosity in her eyes. She rests a hand over the recorder, hesitating, as if worried he's not be honest. It isn't the telling people part that bothers her--she doesn't really care about that; she's way more worried about being a pain and him tolerating it for whatever reason.

But whatever. He said so, so she'll take him at his word.

The little girl's voice clicks back on a second later to finish out her sentence. "-pening. It's like I'm sleeping... And the voices come, slowly...."

A man's voice next, and Ruka frowns at the recording, brow furrowed a little as she continues to write. " When did this start? Yesterday?"

"I don't know... The mask? Daddy says you can turn into all kinds of different things. But he's different too. Daddy's a different person now. I can tell."

"I see..."

"Can I go home?"

"Soon. Very soon."

"Will Daddy get better too?"

"Yes, he'll be better soon. You can meet your mother soon, too."

"And my daddy?"

The recording stops there and Ruka curls her knees up to her chest, the only sound now the scratch of her pencil along the pages as she tries to write down what she remembers alongside the words.

But she can't help but peek curious looks at Xichen once in a while too. It doesn't feel awkward though, which surprises her. It's a sort of comfortable sharing of space.

[lanclan]

Xichen closes his eyes as he assumes a meditative position, able to hear the recording (spooky, he still thinks, hearing voices that belong to no one present, just like listening to ghosts). He finds the conversation off-putting, yet it isn't his place to comment and so he remains where he is, sitting in place as he deepens his breaths, the scratch of a pencil on a page turning into the same white noise as the sound of Hua Cheng pottering around from the kitchen to his bedroom. Cal is somewhere too, usually in his room; a floorboard creaks, on occasion. Ruka is there in the same place, unmoving, the soft sound of her breathing steady.

With an impassive expression that hints he really is meditating, Xichen maintains his posture and doesn't move either.

tape recorder!!!!

[downswing]

( He does not dawdle, does not lose his step. Drifts across the village only when the mind's haze poisons him, and he is a lost things, eyes dulled, bereft their light. The shifts of time curse and burden him, but bones know, bodies remember.

He has walked the path to his brother's fleeting abode already — retraces the steps and confronts, if not the ragged, burdened, heaving pillars of every sunken home of Yancai, then still the telltale looks of diffuse wonder, as sailors loiter close.

This was a public bathhouse, once. To look at the boisterous, threadbare-clad clientele, the... establishment has yet to learn its new purpose. He skids, then peels himself away, allowing another disappointed sailor to retreat — and nearly stumbles into the girl outside, the shriveled, scratchy sound of her strange... box, blaring, as she sketches on.

He suspects the root of it, then, back broken in an abrupt bow: )

Apologies. ( For the near collision. ) Your communication device yet speaks.

( Perhaps... shut it. )

[moonsounds]

[For a moment she just goes still, as if trying to decide whether fight or flight is going to win out. After a beat she mutters,] Oh. [and looks down at the recorder, pressing pause mid-sentence.] It's not the communication device we have. But... I'm sorry. I didn't expect anyone. I'll stop it.

[She rests her pencil against the page and looks at him a moment, contemplating. She looks him up and down once.]

...Are you from the Lan clan too?

[downswing]

( ...and is he? Two years divided, a world and ethical pillars apart. His mouth feels at once wet with the blood of an ugly, mean bite in the inner softness of his cheek, and perfectly arid.

He does not contest it, greeting lost in wisps of uncertainty between them. 'Hanguang-Jun' and 'Lan Wangji,' but of the clan? Perhaps, for the blood of it. And how would she know?

Her garments suggest none of the fashions of homeland. Her manner, for a disciple, would be suspiciously intimate. From a distance, she might know him for the wav moon's light of his spun silks, or his headband — but how would she have learned their meaning, if not by encountering another's example?

Then, carefully: )

You have encountered Sizhui. ( No. Warmer, fresher. ) Or my brother.

[moonsounds]

Both. You look a lot like your brother.

[She looks at her notebook, turning to a fresh page. She makes quick notes on his appearance.] Can I have your name?

[downswing]

You insult him. ( But said in the way of learned modesty, of habit. You flatter me and wound his dignity through comparison. Such truths need not earn voice, even as Lan Wangji concedes a second nod, the righting of his back a slow, staggered sequence of increments after. )

This one is Wangji, clan Lan. ( Of the blood, hardly the sect alone. She need not know so. It is... a lesser thing, for those languishing at the periphery of clan prejudices and sect desires.

Even now, callously, Lan Wangji gatekeeps his heritage. Words used sparingly double their potency. ) Brother shares your quarters' house.

( Stated, yet asked, all the same. It must be so, lest she also be... visiting, stranded at ominous gates. )

[moonsounds]

[Ruka pauses a moment and looks at him, eyeing for a hint that he might be actually angry at her or something. But she picks up, at least, that he doesn't mean it like, literally-literally.

She looks back at her notebook. Writes his name, makes another note. Protective of his brother. Fair enough, though Ruka doesn't have any siblings to compare it to.]

He does. He meditates early in the morning, and he makes really good tea. [A pause and, since he gave his name, it's only fair--]

My name is Minazuki Ruka. [She taps her pencil against the page] Are you the younger brother? [She assumes, but she'd rather get confirmation before writing it down]

[downswing]

( Minazuki Ruka. A strange appellation, not for the sequence of consonants and light, wispy sounds, but because she speaks with the studied indifference of a cultivator, yet does not brandish their blood's claim.

Minazuki Ruka. He tries the name on his tongue, lets it linger, mute. Straightens and casts his fist-bearing hand, a tight knot, to sit at the root of his back. The street is lively, squelching and splashing and agitated steps.

He does not shift away. )

He has told you much. ( A man of easy graces, of fast friends. His brother is a gem. )

c.

[vestments]

It's been a long time since Marc has had to share his space and it's not, precisely, a welcome change. Marc is a man that does not play especially well with others and seems to consider the concept of team work a personal insult (most of the time).

For the moment, all that it means is he's taken little effort to change his personal routine. He doesn't sleep often (even if he should) or with any degree of regularity, and when he does sleep, it's in short bursts here and there throughout the day — rarely night — meaning his encounters with his housemates thus far have been comparatively (gratefully? Lan Xichen had come to the swift conclusion he's 'argumentative and confrontational'—) few.

Today, he emerges in early evening, looking less dishevelled than he had upon arrival — any improvement is better than none — white shirt tucked into white trousers, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, (white) tie loose. He pauses in the doorway, gaze sliding from Ruka to the notebook to the tape recorder and back to her. A flicker of something approaching hesitancy, then—

"Please, don't let me interrupt."

[moonsounds]

While Ruka was used to being on her own, she was also used to living in a sanatorium, people around all the time. People coming and going didn't bother her, and she didn't mind if people talked to her or not.

She didn't even know the names of some of the people living with her, which was also fine. None of them seemed to mean any harm, which was all she really cared about aside from making sure she wasn't bothering anyone. So when Marc emerges, her eyes flick up and then to the recorder, reaching out to pause it mid-the little girl's voice saying, "When I put on the mask... I turn into someone else..."

Ruka sits up straighter and nods her head in greeting. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be playing it out loud, but this is the best place to work on it." More space and light, or something. "If you ever need the room, just let me know. It's nothing that can't wait, probably." It's already been waiting forever, so what's a little while more?

[vestments]

He catches the words on the recording between their words, his and Ruka's, and he doesn't respond to her, not straight away. His gaze shifts to the tape player, expression — frown — a mixture of questioning and contemplative.

It's not that Marc turns into someone else when he puts on his mask, it's that he wishes he'd turn into someone else. Years ago, when it was still him (Steven) and Marlene and Frenchie, he'd imagined that Moon Knight was someone else entirely, was the unemotional tool of Khonshu.

She's apologetic and Marc waves a hand dismissively, as if to say 'no, it's not a problem'.

"Don't worry about that." A breath of a pause. "I don't like to spend a lot of time inside." Mostly truth — Marc has never been a particularly still individual.

[moonsounds]

Ruka hesitates slightly, placing a hand over the recorder and sliding it a bit closer to herself. It's not a subtle move, Ruka unused to trying to hide things away like that, but her expression isn't angry or even wary, just concerned.

She looks at it and feels--Awkward. She feels like she should explain, or something. "I'm just... trying to recover some things." A pause and she adds, because it's not exactly a secret, "my memory, mostly. I... forget things."

She shrugs, glancing from the recording, to him, toward the door. "...Well, if you want to come go, I won't stop you. It seems a bit...strange outside though. So you should be careful."