westwhere | sa-hareth | arrival (mingle log)

[ Mina greets him with a big grin and a wave of the brush she currently holds in her hand. Yes, she absolutely meant you, even if she doesn;t know you, Wei Wuxian. ]

Yeah- it's easy, just dip in the brown paint and paint over the pink skin. [ easy indeed! Because she is pink, Mina chose a darker color - she still finds it weird, but it's not terrible at least. ] I can't reach the back and it's starting to hurt my arm.

[ Unfortunately for Moran, Catra has equal life-long experience in disobedience. She throws her head back and laughs in his face, hard enough that she seems to have trouble catching her breath again: ]

Okay, okay, listen. [ She bends her head back down. ] If these people are gonna lump you all in with me? Not my problem. And if you want me to be responsible for you?

[ She holds up a hand in front of her, unsheathes her very long claws, which makes a metallic sound, and inspects them studiously where Moran can amply see. ] You'll do as I say.

... Are you sure your translation device is working properly, young lady?

[He'll deal with what looks like the physical impossibility of a human having fangs and claws later. Right now, what they do not need is a fight, or a reason to be thrown out.]

Either help me take care of this mess, or get back to your room. I did not give you a third option because there isn't one.

Once again, if you do not want to be lumped in with us, the front door is easily accessible. Please use it, and good luck to you out there.

Mina is eating some millet, watching the girl dig through her backpack. Are you okay there???

"What are ya missing?" she takes another spoonful of her food.

[ Catra keeps inspecting her claws as she actually weighs her options. The truth is, he's not wrong. In an unfamiliar place, it would hardly do to piss off her benefactors completely. She just can't help causing at least a little bit of trouble, her pride won't take it.

It's not as though she'll outright admit it, either. Instead, she groans and heaves a deep, dramatic sigh. ]

Whatever. Suit yourself if you wanna clean this mess up. I'm tired.

[ And she turns her back to him and all but saunters out the door, tail swishing lazily back and forth behind her. ]

[ There you are, minding your business in the freezing cold where you decidedly were not just a moment before, and then someone... talks to you? As if this is small talk time? How dare.

Deadeyed, she counters with a sarcastic drawl: ]

Thanks, I'll be sure to remember that. You know, in case I forget.

[Moran will ignore her long enough until she's out of the way. the thing with bratty teenagers is not to give them too much attention when they are in full brat mode, he has learned over the years, and to give them positive attention when necessary. So he'll ignore the drama and the sigh and not even watch her leave.

Once she has left, though, he will take a moment to sit down and rub at his eyes because, wow. This person looks like a hybrid between a human and an animal, which is a thing only in fairy tales, and now his brain is catching up with it and the biological impossibility is making him reel a bit.

Cleaning up the mess allows him to focus on something else for a while, at least. And when he's done he will inquire where the young lady's with the claw's room is, and he' will leave the now empty bucket with the washcloth right in front of her door.]

[ As for Catra, she too eats her millet without complaint. It seems un-poisoned and perfectly serviceable as sustenance, so, having grown up on fairly tasteless ration bars herself, she sees no reason not to. Not to mention she's hungry.

But when some high-pitched voice not far from her outright gushes at the food, she looks up.

For a moment, she stares. By Hordak, the girl is pink. And cheerful. And her hair is poofy. ]

What, are you some kind of princess or something?

( As if this whole thing hasn't been surreal and heart clenching enough, now there's.. pink.

This is probably the kindest surprise he's run into, next to finding Lan Zhan relatively okay and whole and here. Selfish, that.

Anyway, he steps in and closer, lifting his eyebrows as he tentatively reaches for the brush. )

Should probably try for introductions if I'm set to paint you. Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian. ( A pause. ) Your skin, it's always like this?

And here are the rest of the poor bastards who actually have to earn their living. Well, 'have to' was a slight exaggeration when it came to Mingyu. He could take alternative venues of taking what he needed as well, but for him personally a more or less honest living—at this point in time—was the path of least resistance. He always tried to keep clear of the law until he had leverage over them and remained on high alert that these people could even ward his powers with such potency. He would do anything to keep from feeling that helplessness again.

This, for him, was simply the path of least resistance.

One thing that rankled, however, was that there were... children underfoot.

Several teenagers, audibly, tangibly full of hormone driven decisions and beginner level existential pain Mingyu was busy avoiding because he hadn't even liked himself at sixteen. (Not that he liked himself any now, but that at least no longer had anything to do with age.)

One... younger. He'd seen the other child-servants around, the local children living their little lives running errands. They seemed well cared for, not that Mingyu was in any position to be absconding with the children even if they weren't, but it was nice to note that information and file it away, never waste energy on again. But there was one child in particular whose clothes looked ill-fitting on his bony frame, who tugged and pulled at the garb as he walked as though unused to the loose drape of them, stalking about the brothel like he owned the place, or the proprietor owed him money, or both. The few times Mingyu had passed by the boy speaking to someone or another, he never caught words but did catch the tone and it seemed condescension was the only method of communication the little monster knew.

For all those reasons, Mingyu figured him for a refugee like the rest of them, and he had yet to meet a misplaced soul that hadn't proved interesting in some small sense of the word, and that was why he opened his door when he saw the surly child skulking past.

Mingyu had just finished up some... work for the brothel, was freshly bathed with his hair toweled off and dressed in a loose robe sashed more loosely still around the waist. The tie slipped precariously practically with every breath he took, but he paid it no mind. (But no need to worry, nothing Klaus hadn't shown Five before breakfast on a Tuesday.) He leaned on his doorframe, beckoned the boy in.

"What are you, twelve?" he asked airily.

[ Mina has her mouth full of millet and ready to shove in another spoonful, when she hears Catra. To others, the way Catra looks might be unusual - not to Mina. Her world is full of people who look so different from each other, to the point it doesn't matter how someone looks at all.

So when she looks back at Catra, she doesn't even blink ]

What, no way! [ Mina has a friend who is rich, and she is absolutely a ~~very cute~~ princess, but Mina would never be like that. First of all, she isn't rich ] Do I look cute like one?! [ she grins wide ]

You sound annoying like one.

[ Yeah, sorry. Catra is not too hot on princesses. A bit prejudiced against them, even.

Tho technically, even if the girl isn't a princess, that doesn't preclude her being a rebel. But Catra refrains from asking, for now. She'll find out in due time.

Instead, she just glares and continues shoving millet into her mouth. ]

At that prompt, Mingyu stopped to listen, briefly shutting his eyes to hone in on the unfamiliar sounds of the jails. He could hear wind creaking through the crumbling stones, the distant shuffle of movement too indistinct to infer anything useful— And then movement that was closer, perhaps just the next hall over.

"That way," he directed, pointing. "Movement, something like chains. Might be more prisoners."

He paused, giving Lee Chang a slow once-over, knowing the man's answer to his next question would be particularly telling.

"Are we stopping for every sorry bastard along the way?"

Wonderful, an English woman. A perky English woman. Or, as Mingyu liked to call them, colonist Karens. He addressed Moran first in Chinese, because no rights for Karens. Besides, to be that excited in this situation— There was definitely something wrong with her.

"I'm Bai Mingyu, this is Lee Chang. We've gotten free of our cells. Are you two restrained?"

And then, to Winnie—

"Are you always this cheerful?"

[ Mina grins back at the man ] I'm Mina Ashido! Just Mina is fine. [ being called Ashido is fine, but people don't seem to use family names around here.

She turns to the mirror that she was using to paint herself, and tilts her head down to give Wuxian plenty of room while he pants her ] Hm! I was born like this.

it's because of my quirk. [ Mina sighs a little ] Looks like nobody ever saw someone who looks different, in this world. [ even though there are zombies, and apparently people find THAT normal ]

[ excuse you

Mina leaves the spoon inside her mouth while she places her hands on her hips, while pouting. ] I barely even said a word! [ and she totally says that with the spoon still in her mouth

if Mina is a princess, she isn't very elegant, no. ]

[ Yeah, see, the thing about the ears is, they're not just for show. Catra has an excellent sense of hearing, and smell too, so when she hears a clamor outside her door and catches a whiff of a vaguely-familiar scent, she goes to investigate.

She glares up at Moran. ]

Really? That's what you're going with?

"Mm, it's always about a superweapon, isn't it?" Mingyu comments mildly, taking the information in stride. There's a flicker of something dark and cold in his eyes that's there and gone with the next blink, a smile overtaking his expression like an old florescent light flickering to life.

"Just the cheese smuggling, mostly. Our neighbors get the weird cults and militias, mass suicides and all. But up here it's all cheese. One-off kidnappings. Systemic racism. Whatever." Mingyu shrugs, though there's an audible grind of his teeth.

"Sounds like this is the most boring thing to happen to you in a while," he points out instead, batting lazily at Archeval's sewing like a misbehaving cat as he speaks.

A boy you're dating. Seeing. Romantically involved with. You had him worried for a bit. He was about turning this brothel upside down trying to find you, found me first instead.

[ The memory makes Mingyu laugh quietly, though the sound comes out a little flat. He just... picks a spot and starts picking up under Moran's royal supervision. ]

I think the tea is still intact? [ he adds after a pause, glancing over at his modest tea collection and stove. ] I could put some on.

[ So, you know, you don't get bored supervising him as he cleans. Your Highness. ]

[ ... well. Eating with her mouth full makes her maybe slightly more sympathetic to Catra. Just a sliver. ]

You were all, [ and she puts her folded hands on her cheek and puts on a mocking, exaggerated tone ] "OHHH, this is SO YUMMY!" about the food.

“This place will be a death pit, even after we are gone,” he replied grimly, looking in the direction that Mingyu has indicated and slowly edging that way.

“Those that don’t escape will take the punishment for us. And everyone we free becomes another sword at our side.”

He sidled up to the door, spinning the bar a couple more times to ensure he knew it’s weight, before pressing himself to the stone.

“Besides,” he continued with a wry, dry tone, just above a hushed whisper. “We’re the sorry bastards. May as well collect a few more.”

Before Mingyu could reply, Lee Chang raises a hand to indicate silence, and then murmured, “Wait twenty seconds, then follow,” before he darted through the door. Immediately there were cries of Please! Please help us! and the unearthly guttural cry of one of the undead guards.

Lee Chang didn’t hesitate. He ran right up to the creature and with one smooth strike buried the hook of his rusted bar into it’s skull, pushing the creature down to the floor with his momentum, then wrenched the thing backwards with a horrific cracking noise as he took half the head off with it.

Archeval finishes up fixing that hem and then, with a dubious stare down at present company, dumps the entire garment over Mingyu's head for the other man to fold and put away. It was his work originally anyhow.

"Getting dumped onto a strange primitive planet with no resources, drugged to the gills, left to fight my own way over miles through hordes of living corpses, only to find myself stranded in a local brothel sewing up dresses and unmentionables for the employees? Boring, surely not, but I suppose it does sound like any old Taungsday," he reflects with a little snort. Did the translator have a blip just now, or does it simply not know what to do with that word? Who knows.

"And what of you, magician?" He picks up another garment, grateful that the pile is at least starting to dwindle. "What will you be going back to when we make it off this rock?"

[ The man who shares the lines of Beitang Moran's face in abstraction, who wears them better — he obscures more finely, too, though far from Lan Wangji to criticise a game of ill-played deception.

Powers that drain life force when overused — not merely deplete qi, for trickled, tense restitution. Does life force replenish itself, fairly and easily, without incentive? Does the man before him survive as a shell, hollowed further even for the accident of magic that Lan Wangji now witnessed? ]

Apologies. [ Soft, bartered. Taut, for how Wangji seeks access, words that will not hinder, accuse, perceive. ] Your constellations are unknown.

[ Aquarius, not Dragon or Rabbit, Rat, Rooster and Dog. No doubt, a different approximation of the same stars' twining, viewed from alternative vantage. All the same. ]

As is your power.

[ Anonymous, left without detail. Purposefully, though Lan Wangji cannot accuse, when Bichen sits a cavernous absence, searched every few hours at his hip and sash, as if she might yet incarnate in his keep again unknown to him.

The ask itself lacks courtesy. He knows: some abilities belong to the sect more than the person. Beitang Moran might prove unable to speak of that which is not his in more than name. ]

[He does look a little surprised to be found out - he did not expect it, but, indeed, he is going with that.]

You might manage to restore a little bit of goodwill if you go bring back the bucket. I would not waste it if I were you.

... I don't really have anyone like that?

[It's not even that he's being coy about it, it's just that his bond with Xunxian so transcends those words that it would never come to his mind to use them to describe whatever is between them.

The offer of tea makes Moran smile and nod.]

Tea would be lovely. I hope nothing too precious got taken or broken.

[Some people's treasures are not what is obvious, after all.]

sa-hareth | arrival (mingle log)

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