Cross Effects > Areas
Little Russia
YOLF:
Lubei
His feet followed, but the response wallowed in his throat. It was reckless to share so much. There was no point in making this about himself when he was just returning her kindness. It was undeserved to lament these stray feelings.
Yet beneath the cover of familiar gales, Lubei found himself speaking. "In the depths of my land, the cold brings only death, yet ice is our greatest guardian, and the foundations of our city. We despise fire, for it targets our weakness, but heat is the greatest commodity of all."
He had attained dominion of frost, ruling implacable over the icy wastes, untouched and comforted by Winter as its king on the Earth. Yet he feared the frozen land ordained by the Heavens, to which his soul was destined. "It's... complex."
SINIB:
Ivanna
"Come now Lubei." Ivanna chided him with a laugh. "It could hardly be more complex than my love of the cold. You've witnessed how I fight. My element is fire, and I use it to clense that which is abhorrent to God. I burn until not even the ashes remain. Hadn't you already been wondering why I was in charge of a fridged paradise such as this one, when I could shift the weather and climate with but a simple song?"
"You long for that which is difficult to obtain-Lubei. But it's also frightening. Unsettling to experience new things." Ivanna reached up and wrapped her small hand around his thumb. "If you ever need an ear, I will be by your side."
YOLF:
Lubei
It wasn't the same! There was naught to condemn in seeking relief after a duty that your heart wasn't into, to distance yourself from the means and in being apart from your actions. That was not the same as denying them. Ivanna's business with an annoying responsibility was her own. One could move for duty, but find no joy in the deeds. Lubei's protests were foolish. He might have questions, but he knew what conscience demanded. Some piece of him, deep inside, was fracturing, and he was almost ready to understand why.
The angel's grip on his thumb tugged him back to reality. His eyes rested on her with a mumbling growl. "Remorse binds me, and my pride rakes against it," he said, as the softness of familiar feathers rubbed against his neck. He wished it was easier. "Thank you."
SINIB:
--- Quote from: YOLF on December 17, 2020, 09:45:04 PM ---Lubei
It wasn't the same! There was naught to condemn in seeking relief after a duty that your heart wasn't into, to distance yourself from the means and in being apart from your actions. That was not the same as denying them. Ivanna's business with an annoying responsibility was her own. One could move for duty, but find no joy in the deeds. Lubei's protests were foolish. He might have questions, but he knew what conscience demanded. Some piece of him, deep inside, was fracturing, and he was almost ready to understand why.
The angel's grip on his thumb tugged him back to reality. His eyes rested on her with a mumbling growl. "Remorse binds me, and my pride rakes against it," he said, as the softness of familiar feathers rubbed against his neck. He wished it was easier. "Thank you."
--- End quote ---
Ivanna
"No problem." Ivanna replied with a simple expression. "Let us walk."
YOLF:
Lubei
Deep in the halls of the Seraph of Little Russia, Lubei's nails drummed on an ornate desk as he attempted to glare understanding out of the pages spread out before him. Curled in frustration, his shoulders strained to keep him sitting straight, but discipline spoke just a little higher. It wasn't as if he was working in an office beneath another's judging awareness, or onlooking colleagues that would dare to scold him for sloppiness. This room had been given him as a guest and an ally, to use for an indefinite time, and he had to share it with no one.
Just as he refused to loosen his poise in private, however, he made no attempt to customize the surroundings. The same high walls with the same paintings, the floor with the same carpeting and furniture, the same grave carvings around the windows as had been provided to him were as visible as before the demon settled in for merely temporary rest. The only addition were books. An increasingly large stack of books made its home on his desk. Most of them related to the history of the Nexus. One was a collection of apparently local folklore. Another dealt with contemporary economic theory. Two of the thinnest were fiction of a sinfully brainless sort, and they were the most untouched.
He rubbed an uncomfortably warm palm on his temple. It seemed to Lubei that any amount of his laboring in this place only produced more issues to worry about. Nothing could be as simple as charity, or conquest and construction by any other name. Demon clan politics and heavy handed vengeance claims were almost preferrable. But most importantly, it didn't matter what he preferred, because he was no closer to knowing how to go back. Every answer he found in these pages only buried that goal further in the future.
But the worst was that he couldn't get that encounter out of his head. He couldn't get Mai away from his thoughts, nor the questions she made him ask, as omnipresent as the bird that haunted him. Lubei had searched for her, after, but their paths had not crossed again. What would he even do if he found her? It was plain they weren't compatible, or at the least they would only engage in mutual punishment through barbed words if they shared the same air. But Lubei still wanted to speak to her again. He couldn't bear the thought of how she planned to continue to live, though he had no rightful say in it.
"Perhaps Ivanna could..." His muffled words died under his tongue as he rose from the chair and slammed shut the book in his hands. It wasn't pride that kept him from asking the angel for help. This wasn't business. But just requesting to hear the thoughts of a friend on a personal complication should be no large burden.
He threw on his coat over his azure tunic and moved in search of the petite ruler.
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