a heavy rain falls

[foxable]

WHO: Fox and OPEN
WHEN: Catch-all for July
WHERE: On the Journey to Taravast
WHAT: Tattoos, magic, chatting - whatever your heart desires
WARNINGS: will add if they come up



Fox spends a lot of his time bothering Karsa, trying to learn as much as he can from her despite her tightened guard. The magic here is different, and it's taking a frustratingly long time to parse it, but he's starting to at least be able to grasp the edges of it. She shows him what runes to use for the spell he offered, and that tiny clue is what he clutches as he works into the night.

He has a bad habit of not watching where he's walking, lost in thought as he scribbles in a little notebook that he bought before they left Sa-Hareth. It isn't ideal. It's too small, his thoughts too big - the almost seem to tumble off the pages as he hastily scribbles. But then he also nearly walks off the edge of the narrow stairs... Hopefully someone is around to catch him.

He's more subdued than he was, before the siege, though when he realizes he's being watched he does his best to keep up his usual cheerful demeanor. This had all felt a little like a game, at first. A dangerous game, but still a game. A puzzle for him to figure out how to solve, one in a long line of many. Now, he's not so sure.

Now, he's worried that neither this world or himself will come out the same now that he's in it.

[ ooc: feel free to make your own prompts, or hit me up and ask me to write you one in particular! ]

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[descendency]

"I've learned the hard way that it's not a good thing when you get quiet," Mingyu pointed out with a weary shake of his head. Then he put his arm around Fox's shoulders to pull him in, kissing where the pebble hit in apology.

"...I guess I can't really relate. Nothing's stopped feeling surreal to me since you went away." Lifting a troubled gaze skyward, Mingyu let out his breath in a slow, measured exhale.

"Everything is and isn't happening to me, all the time. You're here and you're not. I'm me and I'm not."

[foxable]

He leaned into the arm, looking at his hands rather than at Mingyu as he felt the kiss brush his brow.

But there it was, again. The wall he could not quite cross. Here and not here. It was more true than Mingyu realised, he thought. But in the same breath utterly wrong.

"I'm here," He murmured, trying and failing to make it sound certain. Then he sighed. "It's-- I guess at first I thought-- This was an experiment. A failed experiment, but an experiment. That I had done something, messed up somewhere, ripped open time and space and pulled us both here. But it wasn't me. It's whatever magic these - hell, I don't even know exactly where it stems from. The warlords, maybe, but I think something beyond even them. Something else brought us here. And we are here. We're here, and--"

He hesitated, his brow furrowing, before he sat up a little straighter again and ran a hand through his hair.

"... I've got two paths in front of me. Yeah? The first is one or both of us don't survive this, which isn't something I even want to think about. But the second--" He hesitated, his voice trailing off.

[descendency]

"You've lost me," Mingyu informed softly, smiling as he felt them falling into an old pattern. Fox lived so much in his own mind, it often caught him off guard to remember that others did not live there too and had to be taken for the entire journey between his leaps of logic. It was something of which Mingyu had always been immensely fond, and in spite of the situation it eased some of the tension in him now.

"I wasn't aware we were boxed into two singular paths, to start. And we're surviving this," he added, giving Fox an affirming squeeze. "Or no one is."

Was it a joke?

Well, Mingyu was smiling as he said it at least.

[foxable]

The fact that Fox gave him a smile in return meant that he definitely took it as a joke. Please no murder, babe.

"Sorry, sorry." It was an old apology. He'd made it a hundred thousand times. The world would be a much easier place if people just innately understood what he was thinking when he wanted them too, but no, words would have to suffice.

"And I mean - not two paths exactly, but- if we do get to where we're going, if we do find the magic that can send us all home..." He trailed off, wet his lips, then forced himself to continue. "It was just a thought experiment, before. You know? None of this felt real so the end goal didn't feel real either. But I have to be prepared. I have to know what I'm going to do, when we're face with the kind of power that can send us to different worlds - to different times." He paused again, not quite able to look at Mingyu directly. "It's - I don't know what I'm supposed to do, when we get there. I know what I should do. But I'm not sure I'm strong enough to do it."

[descendency]

Mingyu's grip tightened, and the ambient temperature of his mood plummeted several degrees.

"I don't know what it is you think you should be doing, but you're absolutely not leaving me," Mingyu asserted before he could stop himself, before he could stop to consider his words, to take more care with his planning. He didn't know how not to show his hand with Fox, it seemed.

Perhaps that was the best.

"Whatever has to happen, we'll work it out then. I can't— I won't—"

He sucked in a breath, tight and shallow.

"The next time I lose you will take the last of me."

[foxable]

"You're not going to lose me," Fox said gently, turning to look at Mingyu and then reaching up to brush the bangs that threatened to fall into the man's eyes. "You know the last thing I want to do is hurt you like that again."

There was a pause, and then he let his hand drop, seeking out Mingyu's and giving it a squeeze.

"That's what I need to figure out. Because I don't think... I don't think we really can go home." His voice dropped to something far more quiet. "I don't think either of us want to just - go back to how things were before. I don't want to let you go back to that, and I'm pretty sure if I step back into my previous life I'll completely ruin the timeline just by knowing what I know. But I--" He hesitated, then murmured:

"What if I could fix it, Mingyu? Make it so we did have a home to return to again? Together."

[descendency]

"Stop," Mingyu murmured softly, though his voice was firm as he spoke, the light in his eyes hard and brooking no argument. "Fix what, Huli? You always, always do this."

Sighing wearily, he cupped Fox's face in his hands, drawing him in for a slow, lingering kiss before he went on. Fox tended to listen a little better after his breath was kissed away. Not a lot better, but better.

"You try to fix things that can't be fixed, look for perfect solutions in an imperfect world. You get so far ahead of yourself, you can't see the trees for the forest."

Mingyu took in another tight breath, stroking Fox's cheeks with his thumbs.

"So stop, okay? Don't. For me. Don't try to fix this. We'll find another way, and we'll do it together, and we're not going to worry about anything being fixed. We're just gonna find a way to keep going."

[foxable]

The kiss helped. It always did. Mostly because it forced him to focus in on a singular, fixed point, and tied his wandering thoughts to a post. He let out a sigh when Mingyu pulled away again, his eyes dropping into his lap even as he felt the brush of thumbs on his cheek.

"That's what I'm trying to do," he mumbled. "Find a way to keep going. Find it, not just... let zombie warlords or space invasions or whatever else is next decide it for us."

He couldn't speak for that little part of him that still whispered that it was possible. That with magical that powerful, he could remake the world if he wanted. Or at least pull a timeline off away from the others and make it their own.

[descendency]

"Then let's just keep doing it," Mingyu whispered back, stroking his fingers over Fox's hair and down his back.

"Don't get caught up in it. Don't worry about fixing the whole thing. We'll take it as we go, and every time the path diverges, we'll stay on the one that keeps us together. Okay? Whatever else happens, happens."

[foxable]

He made a low noise of discontentment, raising a hand to rub at his face.

"I can't ignore it if I can see it, you know? I won't just - I refuse to just take one of the paths offered anymore. That's what-- So much of the mess is--" His words kept running into roadblocks, catching in his throat, and he clicked his tongue to try to free them.

"What if there's no path out where we are still together?" he asked finally.

[descendency]

"Then I'll make one," Mingyu replied without thought, without hesitation. That was the difference between them, he supposed. Fox was always looking ahead, at the big picture. Mingyu only saw this. Fox, right before him.

"No matter what, I'll keep us together. Everything else is just details."

[foxable]

Fox looked at Mingyu for a long moment, then breathed out and looked away again.

"... Yeah," he agreed quietly, after a silence that was a little too long to be comfortable.

He picked up a stick and poked the fire unhelpfully, having never gotten very good at tending them since usually he would just magically make one if he needed. But he'd been trying to get used to using other things instead of his magic, here. He wasn't sure why.

Maybe it felt like he was saving it up for something.

"... So you don't think about it at all?" He asked softly, watching an ember jump from the flames next to his foot. He put it out with the toe of his shoe.

[descendency]

"Think about what?" Mingyu asked, sliding an arm around Fox's waist and leaning in. He kissed Fox's temple, trying to put comfort back into the spaces between their words.

[foxable]

"About where we're going. About- about whether we'll go home, or--"

He cut off, frowning, leaning a little into Mingyu's embrace.

"... About whether or not maybe we should just find a way to live here."