westwhere | blood & sand

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blood & sand

Hi folks! Welcome to Eastbound’s last test drive meme and the second event of the Ephes Arc, stretching until 25 October. Applications next open over 20-25 October, with invitations required for new players (but not returning ones). Individual cast and game caps are off.

Test driving characters can use this space for both network and log prompts, as well as play both the newcomer and shared prompts. Enjoy!

BLOOD & SAND

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NEWCOMERS-ONLY PROMPTS

You wake to the creaky swaying of a large wooden cage, in the back of a cart. Balmy sun pinches your cracked, dried skin. Haziness and nausea assail you, your legs weak. Your supernatural powers are muted, due to recover within 48 hours. Several other carts trot by. You share your cage with a dozen others — largely farmers — and sacks of freshly harvested wheat, their bottoms stained dark.

The farmers point you towards a heap of rusted pendants that allow you to speak and glean local tongues, and access a network. They say you were recovered following an earthquake at a Hive — one of the agricultural clusters feeding the extravagant Senate-led city of Ephes. The Ephes army, the elite Hand, was patrolling nearby and is taking you to the citadel for healing.

■ Gather your bearings and distribute the scant water that Hand soldiers dole out — the earthquake, you hear, has dried the Hive wells.

■ You quickly learn why the Hand encaged all of you, as one of the Hive farmers starts to jerk, growl and shake, weeping black water as he strikes at anyone around him. Fend for yourself, before the Hand soldiers come to remove him!

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You arrive at the main gate of Ephes, where crowds vie for passage. Your carts are inspected, and an irritable woman enters each cage, checking each passenger — before taking you and a handful of others for ‘further customs investigations.’

In the back of an alley, she introduces herself as the sorceress Karsa — and says you are otherworlders brought into the realm of Akhuras by undead lieges of the Brotherhood, who seek to weaponise you in their wars. Her patron, the Merchant, leads otherworlders to ancient transport beacons that can deliver you home.

One beacon sleeps in Ephes, where the rest of Karsa’s party is scattered. The citadel has mysteriously accrued an elite, nearly supernaturally strong army that the undead lady Messalina seeks to borrow from the Senate, in her quest to free her undead companions from the Brotherhood. The Senate is yet to vote on her request.

The black water that has touched you, Karsa says, has previously been found where the undead rally. For now, Karsa gives you a little coin, passport papers identifying you under various civilian roles (player’s choice, but keep it Ancient Rome-themed) and an iron pin of an eye with a sun for a pupil to identify other party members.

SHARED PROMPTS

Decadent Ephes is overrun by rumours, after several Senators who intended to support undead lady Messalina were mysteriously assassinated at the banquet of prominent Senator Maximus Faustus — who, Karsa informs, is one of Messalina’s shapeshifting creatures. Messalina offers her protegees demonic hound escorts.

Hand army recruits protect official buildings, while the rich hire gladiators to watch their homes. Both move freely.

The Senate fears further retaliation against those who champion the dead. Senate leader Caius Justus distantly mourns the Senatorial murders from seclusion at the temple of the Chained God.

Civilians face increased tensions and whispers of curfews in the market. Crowds frequently quarrel over undead allegiances

Following an exercise in divination, priests of the city’s patron, the Chained God, spread word that the deity holds strong despite his Chaining, and he still wishes to destroy and rebirth the world.

Karsa informs the existing party that more otherworlders joined Ephes and wear iron pins depicting an eye with a sun for a pupil. She gives the party similar pins for identification purposes. Newcomers and old timers can recognise each other by their pins or engage over the network!

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THE PROSCRIPTIONS
OBJECTIVE: procure proscription lists.

You hear from the city crowds that partial target lists are circulating with the names of politicians targeted for bounties. Karsa tasks the team to recover the lists, which can be used as political currency. Find them by either:

■ Infiltrating a tavern run by the ruthless city gang of Livius Decimus and packed with unscrupulous bounty hunters, thugs and professional assassins.
A local ‘delicacy’ drink of wine and pickle juice is often inflicted on strangers. Brawls erupt randomly. Coax shady patrons to share target lists.

■ Visit the empty marketplaces just before dawns and raid the chained wooden submission boxes of news shouters, who receive anonymous tip-offs about fresh bounty lists. The boxes are pinned to the ground and tightly locked, but rusty from the cold seasons — allowing you to break them or pick their locks, while someone keeps watch. Tampering with a news shouter’s box is a jailable offence.

■ Turn in a finished thread to receive a clue!

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AT SEA
OBJECTIVE: investigate abandoned ships and rescue sailors.

One early morning (OOCly: Oct. 13), as you entertain sailors for gossip on the docks or fish breakfast, you witness the port authorities screaming for help as several small merchant ships appear abandoned at nearby sea for reasons unknown.

Lookouts spot no activity on board, while sailors organise rescues.

■ Row a small boat some 15-20 minutes to one of the merchant vessels. All merchant ships have roughly three hours afloat, as they slowly sink from numerous small erosion holes in their sides.

■ You find no crew on deck, and doorways to the cabins below are locked from within. Below deck, you find numerous sacks of wheat from the Ephes agricultural clusters, the Hives. A black liquid, thick and tar-like, is seeping out of the sacks — corroding the ship’s wood and creating leaking holes.

■ You find a handful of dazed sailors who claim a dark, slithering creature knocked them out. They were selected by Narula, leader of the elite Ephes army of the Hand, to transfer grain onto the vessels of the ‘merchant’ Matthias, much farther at sea. If you mention Matthias to Karsa later, she reveals he is a man (?) who potentially created the undead Brotherhood.

■ Seven sailors who did not know each other were chosen to man the ship. Eight men are in the room, meaning one ‘man’ is the assailing creature. You must decide who to release upstairs for evacuation.

■ Tips: the creature, disguised as a human sailor, has no pain receptors and isn’t afraid of typical dangers (fire, drowning). It does not bleed if hurt. It sometimes forgets to blink and increasingly, unwillingly, slowly morphs its features into yours, the longer it speaks with you. Lastly, the creature has a tattoo on its forearm identifying it as a soldier of the Hand.

■ Once found, the creature turns violent, dissolving into wisps of shadow and materialising once more to strike from behind you. The shadow creature cannot be outright killed — but you can lock it inside the ship.

■ Leave by small boat before the vessel sinks & claim a question if you saved sailors. Merchant vessels can be patched up, if successfully returned to port.

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THE RATTLING
OBJECTIVE: survive & explore the arena.

To stoke her popularity in Ephes, undead mistress Messalina organises a sumptuous gladiator game at the Colosseum (OOCly around Oct. 20), inviting plebes, patricians, politicians, soldiers — and you.

Gladiators may be hired (or coerced) to perform, while servants supply copious amounts of wines, oysters and honey pastries. A tiny mechanical golden mouse, passing by each seat, drops folded pieces of parchment with fortunes and riddles, ranging from teasing to morbid to philosophical or sweet. Pick up yours and make sense of it with your neighbour!

Politicians often interrupt the games to announce donations or make elaborate speeches. Toss peanuts to signal your discontent — or join in with your own speech.

■ The games start with matches between humans, but are building up to face-offs with reptilian demons, mounted rhinoceros and flying gargolyes whose voices thrall you frozen put.

■ During the games, you feel slight vibrations, and — if supernaturally sensitive — an undefined magical tension. By 15:00, this ramps up into earth tremors that worsen over 12 minutes — as columns and seats topple over, and the ground breaks in deep rifts, releasing black, chilled, tar-like water.

■ Crazed mobs rush for the exit, stampeding carelessly, while columns and decorations tumble down.

■ Dozens of the monsters brought to gladiate free themselves and hunt down spectators. Soldiers of the army of the Hand — disturbingly fast, strong and disciplined — intervene but it’s best you look after yourselves. Some spectators shout these Hand recruits practise some of the techniques performed by a recently missing gladiator — the Beast of Brenne.

■ Passing by the earthquake rifts, you see wisps of the tar-like liquid that gushes from them is gradually assuming the shadowy shape of humans. Stalking after you, they do not speak or bring you harm, but slowly steal your likeness and drain you of vigour and stamina. You get the sense that all they want is a shape. Encountering shadow creatures leaves you with a sense of bitter loneliness that only living company can soothe.

■ If you study the arena, you see the same black liquid is gathering around freshly downed corpses, slowly reanimating them. These newly-crafted undead struggle to walk and speak naturally and remember their lives, often unaware they died. Anguished, they beg help to escape, before inevitably succumbing to the instinct to harm you. Remind or convince them they are dead, and they withdraw.

■ The largest earthquake rift in the arena is overrun by the black liquid and by nearby undead. Within it, you notice a bloodless hand that seems to never sink — Enter a RNG draw to collect it and its clue.

■ As you gather your wits outside, you see followers of the Chained God rallying in the streets, comforting the traumatised crowd that all will be well now — for the Chained God’s destruction will be mercifully swift.

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THE QUIET HOUSE
OBJECTIVE: Explore the abandoned gladiator barracks.

NOTE: a Halloween special, this area is entirely opt-in and features several frights. Mind the warnings!

As chaos consumes the Colosseum, you notice the earthquake has destroyed a previously locked arena gate, revealing a decayed tunnel. The corridor leads inside a closed-off barrack whose doors and windows have been barred from the outside with wood planks and chains. Touch these restraints, and your unhurt hand leaves behind a fading blood print.

The barracks building is withered and clearly abandoned, with scarce furniture and a few weapons in a training room.

Several discarded torches stay alight on wall fixtures. Pre-prepared braziers have been filled with spirit-fending incense of sandalwood and sage. Explore for clues.

■ THE HALLWAYS ( cw: guilt haunting ): corridors flow into each other, often leading back where you started. You run into shifting wall engravings, some listing the name and ranks of Hand soldiers, or precepts such as GODS OF THE ARENA and BECOME AS STRONG / AS FAST, AS NIMBLE / AS GLADIATORS. A large portrait of Hand leader Narula is increasingly more scratched, every time you encounter it, while the painted man looks healthier, younger and stronger. Inevitably, you hear heavy steps — a deep-shadowed spectre, the Drillmaster, who starts to stalk you with slow persistence. Visible to you and your companions, the Drillmaster fluctuates between assuming the appearance of Narula and the distorted, monstrous figure of someone from your past, who heavily criticised or intimidated you. The corridor lighting changes depending on your proximity to the Drillmaster: green for safe passage, white to tread lightly, red to stop. You can make the Drillmaster disappear out of your way by facing or acknowledging whatever weakness (true or self-perceived) you have that has caused extensive criticism or self-doubt.

■ THE BATHS ( cw: doppelgangers): a long marble hall featuring a large swimming pool, now drained and filled with mould and debris. Steam overwhelms the room, except for a wall-length black mirror at the end of the hall. The more you look into the mirror, the more the black substance that covers it slips down, flooding the floors and also dripping from walls and the ceiling. As the mirror clears, you see your black-eyed reflection that suddenly screams out verbal abuse or plunges at you. Once you subdue the doppelganger (claim a clue), it dissolves into more black water, while the mirror shows scratched inscriptions of A RIGHTEOUS HAND SHAPES EACH OF ITS FINGERS.

■ THE DORMITORIES ( cw: membranous cocoons): hollow, empty, quiet, the dormitories sport strange membranous cocoons in the walls, from which shadowy hands reach out. You hear young wo/men, whimpering and murmuring that they aren’t afraid and want to change to make Brother Narula proud, before erupting into screams or laughter. Break the cocoons without getting trapped into their webs — only to find nothing inside, except stone dog tags, engraved with the names of Hand soldiers. On the floor, you find primitive tattoo needles and ink.

Luck strikes at sunset, when a previously barred door opens to release you from the house — back into Ephes.

NOTES:

■ QUESTIONS

■ NPC inbox (for test drivers)

■ Event title shamelessly pilfered from a gory gladiator show!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It goes against everything he knows to turn his back to the strange reflection of himself, like turning his back to a known enemy, but he's weak to the sound of Wen Kexing's voice. Even if it's a trick, it'll be worth at least a moment to see Wen Kexing standing in front of him.

"Lao Wen," he says helplessly, as he lifts his eyes. The last time he'd seen Kexing this bedraggled was after their fight with Ye Baiyi--when Zishu stood between him and Ye Baiyi. "What were you doing, falling into a bath?"

If this is a trick... Zishu takes a breath, his hand tightening on the hilt of the filthy sword he holds. If this is a trick, he's going to be selfish for just a moment longer.

"Battling myself," he says, pulling a face, "Apparently I fight dirty."

Which he knows, but it's an attempt at humour, his greedy gaze skipping over every inch of Zhou Zishu it can. The second one, the snarling one, is still behind him. Wen Kexing keeps one eye on it too, just in case it goes for what he thinks ( what he hopes ) is the real one.

"Don't listen to what it says, it's trying to get under your skin. And it's wrong, anyway. You're not a coward."

He swallows, reflexive.

"Is it really you?"

At the fights dirty comment, Zishu can't help but snort, reminded suddenly of when Wen Kexing's dirty fighting had landed him in the water as well. Kexing's gaze had been just as intent then as well.

"Is it you?" he retorts, finally meeting Wen Kexing's dark gaze with his own. He lifts the blade he's holding, still dripping with ichor, and balances it between his fingers the way he would with Baiyi. "Prove it."

He doesn't know how to prove it, is the thing. The copies of themselves are not someone else's poor attempt at impersonation. They are them, just perhaps crueller, more prone to turning all their hate inward. He looks on, helplessly, his palms spread wide so that Zhou Zishu can see he has no weapon.

"I don't know how, Ah-Xu." Frustrated, at his own ability, "I could tell you things that only I know but that won't help you, will it? That -" And he nods to the other Zhou Zishu, the angrier one, "That knows your secrets too, doesn't it?"

His gaze drops to the sword, "You could stab me, I'd let you? Then you'd know I wasn't anything else."

"Lao Wen," he admonishes reflexively, brow furrowing, and that's how he knows the person standing before him is really his Lao Wen. "When will you learn to care more for yourself?"

He lowers his blade, then, and walks forward, step after measured step to close the distance between them. Zishu stops when he's close enough that he has to lift his chin, tilts his head contemplatively. "Wen Kexing," he says quietly, "Where have you been?"

"Why should I? I have you to do it for me."

It's said on a laugh, tinged only a little with exhausted hysteria. There is a lot that Wen Kexing is good at, stuffing his emotions deep down in the dreary caverns of himself is not one of them, and it breaks through a little now. His fingers twitch, his shoulders loosen, a cluck of his tongue -.

"Ah, I know I don't do this but you're going to have to forgive me."

And heedless of whether Zhou Zishu might stab him or not, Wen Kexing is reaching for him, throwing his arms around the other man's back as if he can't help it. It's the first time he's ever initiated the embrace himself, something desperately greedy uncoiling behind his ribs. He hasn't seen him in so long, and no matter what anyone has told him about the passage of time outside this realm he has found it hard to believe that something terrible would not happen. But he's here, he's solid, he's alive.

"Ah-Xu."

Muffled, against his tense shoulder.

He really did intend to lash out, to test Wen Kexing's reflexes. He knows the way Lao Wen's fights almost as well as he knows himself, knows how Lao Wen'll respond and react. Their sparring is a dance, a conversation, and the truths they don't speak.

Wen Kexing wraps his arms around him, though, and Zishu goes still in surprise for a long, precious moment.

He's so weak to this man.

One of Zishu's arms comes up around Wen Kexing's shoulders, folding him in, the other resting on the curve of Wen Kexing's head. "Lao Wen," he sighs in response. "Lao Wen, Lao Wen."

"I thought I'd never see you again."

Which is presumably nonsensical, depending on how long Zhou Zishu has been here, wandering around. If what he knows is correct, it should only have been a few hours, a day or two at most, not months. If, when he pulls away to look at the other man, his eyes are wet, he hopes he'll do Wen Kexing the service of not mentioning it. It still takes him a moment to actually let go though, fingers clinging to the fabric of his robes before he takes a step away.

"We should deal with your friend there."

It is now almost fully formed, steady on it's feet. Wen Kexing's hadn't waited to attack, but if it's as similar to Zhou Zishu as his own was he knows the moment will come. Voice steady in a way he doesn't actually feel - "Do you want me to take care of it?"

He won't like it. It looks so much like his zhiji, jeering even as it is.

"It's only been a few days." Or so. Zishu isn't entirely sure, having spent half the cart ride swimming in and out of consciousness. "We've been separated longer before. I had no doubt I'd find you." Or that Wen Kexing would find him. His sticky zhiji tries so hard to run away, sometimes, and still always comes bouncing back like a child's toy on a string.

Zishu can't say he dislikes it.

He turns to examine this odd mirror of himself, shifting to put himself between the creature and Wen Kexing. "No," he says, and wishes he had Baiyi in hand. "This is clearly my problem."

"A few days wouldn't have been so bad," he muses, sliding his fan from his sleeve. If Zhou Zishu thinks he can handle his doppelganger then Wen Kexing isn't going to stop him. He'll just be here for backup, just in case. He finds himself glad, suddenly, that the only things to haunt him have been things he does not wish to see. He can't imagine what he might have had to do, were it Zhou Zishu this place chose to taunt him with.

Cheerfully, despite how tight his throat is, "Don't worry. You're far more handsome."

Laughing in the face of adversity, the Wen Kexing way.

And then, more seriously, "You just have to best it, it fades back to it's original form after that."

Original form? How does Wen Kexing know so much about these things Zhou Zishu's never seen? "Mm," he hums agreeably, though, trusting the suggestion. "Will it die?" The monsters outside don't. Not really, at least, which made things very frustrating and irritatingly complicated.

"I don't know if dying is the right word?"

Because while he's encountered it before, it is still something new.

"It stops being you, if that helps. Mine did. It just sort of, went back to the water it came from."

Unhelpful, but there are so many things these days he cannot control. The Zhou Zishu snarls something at them, and Wen Kexing feels a pang deep in his chest to know it might be something his believes. "Don't listen to it, either way. It's wrong."

His Lao Wen is so protective. It's very endearing, if obviously biased.

"That's enough."

Zishu rolls his shoulder and then darts forward, his wrist turning to twist the borrowed (stolen) blade over his fingers in a sweeping arc. He misses his sword, dammit.

The fight doesn't take long; even if it's technically him, or perhaps precisely because it is a mirror of himself, Zhou Zishu is utterly merciless as he cuts it down.

He forces himself to watch the fight. Zhou Zishu is effective at taking down his shadow self - far more so than Wen Kexing had been. His fight had been mean and ugly, leaving him dripping with bathwater even now. This is quick, clean, a solid kill that still has something clunk clumsily behind the cage of Wen Kexing's ribs. He watches the thing pretending to be his zhiji die, form flickering before it returns to the shape it had come from, and feels a little sick. It's that which spurns him closer, taking the other man's wrist without comment, feeling his pulse a little, some frantic energy fizzling through his own.

"You're all right? You're not hurt?"

He's awkward in his skin, months of Zhou Zishu's absense making Wen Kexing feel pitiful, somehow. He doesn't know how to act with all the constant yearning sitting solid in his throat.

"I'm not hurt," he says quietly, feeling the cool comfort of Wen Kexing's qi sliding through his veins.

If his fight was any cleaner than Wen Kexing's, it's because he finds it easy to be cruel to himself. Finds it easy to cut himself down. Zhou Zishu may not seek death any more, but he's never quite let go of how easily he thinks it'd be to let himself die. Or to kill himself--in the most literal way.

"Where can we go? Is there anyplace that's safe?"

"I have a place."

A room, in his benefactor's villa to be more precise. Wen Kexing hasn't used it much, choosing instead to sleep in the brothel offices but he hardly wants to find out what Zhou Zishu's feelings relating to that are. He lets go of his wrist with some reluctance, gaze sweeping over him again and then back to where the other one was.

"Let's get out of here before the place decides to unleash even more horrors on us."

He leads Zhou Zishu out of the barracks carefully, his grip on his fan heavy-handed and alert even as he takes an empty street. He's not taking any chances, not with the other man finally here, on edge and ready for a fight with every single step. Eventually he finds his voice again, clearing his throat.

"Was it just you, Ah-Xu? The boy isn't with you?"

"Chengling wasn't with me," he reaffirms. He expected nothing less, but it's still reassuring that Wen Kexing asks after the silly boy they're looking after. Raising. "He was following around after Cao Weining, last time I saw him." Because Wen Kexing was raising all sorts of hell, trying to make sure the day was absolutely perfect for his girl.

Zhou Zishu slides between an enterprising shadow creature and Wen Kexing, blocking the blow with his blade and grimacing when it comes down heavier than he'd expected. He twists around under the outstretched limb, kicking it away.

Edited 2023-10-17 14:41 (UTC)

"Good."

Not that Wen Kexing doesn't want to see him, he does. He has missed the boy just as much as he has missed the others ( though Zhou Zishu is always ahead in that regard, he truly can't be blamed for that. )

"This isn't the kind of place for him."

He reaches out, fingers wrapped in Zhou Zishu's sleeve to tug him into a narrower alley, ignoring the corpse in favour of pretending everything is perfectly fine. "You couldn't turn up when things were normal, oh no, my Ah-Xu arrives in the middle of a bloodbath. My robes are ruined."

He's whining for the sake of it, peering out into an empty street at the end of the road, glancing back every few steps like he can't help himself. "I have a lot to tell you, you'll have to be patient."

"A bloodbath, and Lao Wen has somehow found himself in the middle of it." He scolds Wen Kexing lightly, dabbing at some of the blood and mud on Wen Kexing's cheek with the sleeve of his free hand. "Can't leave things well alone, hm?"

It isn't as though he really has any room to talk; Wen Kexing found him in the middle of the chaos as well, after all. "Will there be wine?"

He blinks at him when Zhou Zishu rubs at his cheek, momentarily stilled. Eventually his laugh comes along with the flush, turning away. "You know me, Ah-Xu. I like to get myself involved."

The streets beyond the arena are empty, and he wonders who made it so. Maybe word got out quickly enough the damage is minimal. He feels a little guilty not lingering to check, not trying to figure out if any of his cohort are caught up in it, but - well. Zhou Zishu is here. And so Wen Kexing will do what he must to keep him safe.

"There'll be wine."

His residence isn't far. It needed to be near the taverns after all, and so Wen Kexing leads him into a building, taking the stairs quietly as he slips a key from his sleeve. He lets Zhou Zishu in first, forgetting to fret about the state of the rooms. They're not ... dirty, but it is a little like a whirlwind by the name of Kexing has torn through it, robes frown over a chair, missives lain in piles, a number of empty bottles that he sidesteps without glancing at in favour of finding one that's full.

"It's not like back home, but it does the job."

Is he nervous? Why is he nervous?

"Why are you nervous?" Zhou Zishu is both concerned and amused. "It's just me." Who is much less neat than Wen Kexing is, and usually leaves things piled up until Wen Kexing snaps at him to clean up. The only things Zishu keeps meticulously organized and well-maintained are usually his cosmetics and poisons.

The room is unusually messy for Wen Kexing, though, and Zhou Zishu trails his fingertips over the clear signs of life. Of Lao Wen having lived there. "You've been here much longer than you should have been," he notes. He'd seen Lao Wen just a few hours before he'd fallen unconscious and woken here, the younger man terrorizing anyone within reach to make sure Gu Xiang's wedding will go perfectly. Zishu had fled to his room with a stolen flask of wine; Kexing would have found him once he was done hovering to complain, anyway.

"Over two months now."

Which might explain some of his nerves, he thinks. He hands Zhou Zishu the wine, lingering a little closer than he might usually. He feels oddly starved for it, for the feeling of the other man's presence - putting distance between them doesn't bear thinking about.

"There's something about the magic of this place that makes it possible. Master Lan did not notice his brother's absense once, and he'd been here years. Time doesn't turn for the person left behind, or that's what I'd been told. I didn't believe it, but you - well, you don't seem all that angry so it must not have."

Though, sly, "Unless you were grateful for the peace?"

"I saw you less than two shichen ago." He shakes his head, taking the wine and tipping it back, not bothering to wipe the mouth of the bottle from where Wen Kexing must have drank as well. "Or at least before I was brought here."

Zishu finds a space to sit on the ground, propping his arm up on one knee as he tilts his head beside himself in clear invitation for Wen Kexing to join him. "I don't know Master Lan."

"He's a friend?"

Framed like a question because Wen Kexing is still not used to it at all, "The elder. Not the junior. Second Master Lan is the worst stick in the mud I have ever met but we keep ending up in the same place and it's a little funny, winding him up. Xichen is nice though, you'll like him. Though if he tells you tales you're not to listen to them."

He hesistates, for a moment, before he's taking the space beside Zhou Zishu and reaching for the wine, allowing himself a deep drink without breaking eye contact.

"Ah-Xu."

The corner of his mouth lifting, showing crooked teeth. He reaches out to touch again, as if to prove his presence.

"I thought I'd gone mad."

It's an odd feeling, for Zishu to find how much he doesn't particularly like that Wen Kexing has friends he doesn't know. This must be how Kexing felt when he met Beiyuan. On the other hand... On the other hand, he's glad that there's been someone here for his Lao Wen. Two months. Two months. Two months with Zishu or Gu Xiang, it's good there's been someone to help Wen Kexing remember who he is.

He makes small noises of acknowledgement as Wen Kexing talks, and he makes a mental note to meet both of these young Master Lans as soon as possible. "Mmm?" He hands the wine over when Wen Kexing calls for him, and holds still to let Kexing touch what he wants. "If you've gone mad, I'm gone mad with you."

blood & sand

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