Cross Effects > Areas
Little Russia
YOLF:
Lubei
His eyes widened, transparent in sheer discomfort. Lubei's shoulders tensed, as though he was about to jolt forward to shield her smaller figure from prying eyes or unseen threats, but his arm seized in doubt in the space between them.
"I am not well-acquainted with anywhere outside your influence entirely," he said. If the demon didn't seem to serious, he would appear almost embarassed about it, eyes creased and pointed away so they would not meet hers for this admission. But shaking his head, he slammed his door behind him and crouched to Ivanna's side. Before she knew it, and before Lubei had any explanation to offer in his own expression, he was picking her up in his arms and rising, stalking away with light steps.
"I'll manage something."
It didn't take him long to find the nearest window and click it open before jumping away into the frigid air. As quickly as they rose, he landed on the brick streets behind the palace, veiled from the gusts of the day and the prying days of the seraph's populace. Checking for anyone around them, he headed away from the main streets without ever setting Ivanna down, trotting with inhuman speed. If any of her personal guard saw them, he did not stop, confident that they would not stop Ivanna.
Just like that, the scenery rushed and slipped away before Ivanna truly had any idea what her fixated friend wanted. Less used streets gave way to well-worn but solid roads, those roads to dirt paths, and the dirt paths to a sea of pine and spruce. Bringing her to the dead of the forest closest to her domain, he lept behind an ancient outcropping, and before he set her down, clenched his fist.
A dome of ice closed itself behind the terrain, isolating them from the outside. Lubei let out a breath he had long been holding and allowed her to sit, staring expectantly.
SINIB:
--- Quote from: YOLF on July 09, 2021, 12:35:22 AM ---Lubei
His eyes widened, transparent in sheer discomfort. Lubei's shoulders tensed, as though he was about to jolt forward to shield her smaller figure from prying eyes or unseen threats, but his arm seized in doubt in the space between them.
"I am not well-acquainted with anywhere outside your influence entirely," he said. If the demon didn't seem to serious, he would appear almost embarassed about it, eyes creased and pointed away so they would not meet hers for this admission. But shaking his head, he slammed his door behind him and crouched to Ivanna's side. Before she knew it, and before Lubei had any explanation to offer in his own expression, he was picking her up in his arms and rising, stalking away with light steps.
"I'll manage something."
It didn't take him long to find the nearest window and click it open before jumping away into the frigid air. As quickly as they rose, he landed on the brick streets behind the palace, veiled from the gusts of the day and the prying days of the seraph's populace. Checking for anyone around them, he headed away from the main streets without ever setting Ivanna down, trotting with inhuman speed. If any of her personal guard saw them, he did not stop, confident that they would not stop Ivanna.
Just like that, the scenery rushed and slipped away before Ivanna truly had any idea what her fixated friend wanted. Less used streets gave way to well-worn but solid roads, those roads to dirt paths, and the dirt paths to a sea of pine and spruce. Bringing her to the dead of the forest closest to her domain, he lept behind an ancient outcropping, and before he set her down, clenched his fist.
A dome of ice closed itself behind the terrain, isolating them from the outside. Lubei let out a breath he had long been holding and allowed her to sit, staring expectantly.
--- End quote ---
Ivanna
The divine loli squeaked as he picked her up and whisked her away into the frigid night. She placed her hand against his chest and wrapped the other one around his neck, simply holding tightly onto him, as if for dear life, until they arrived.
She hopped out of his arms and sat down with a single intoned chord, created small benches of ice for them to sit on.
Then, she just sat. She opened her mouth and squirmed in discomfort, but found herself unable to vocalize her worries, for simply thinking them was the gravest of heresies—let alone vocalize such worries.
So she sat. She looked up at him, and sat.
YOLF:
Lubei
Lubei stared and waited, because whatever was ailing Ivanna was hers to tell, not his to forcibly extract. He had done his part and brought them to, he hoped, privacy. So why wasn't she saying anything? The silence between two stretching into discomfort, Lubei found the bench she had made in his eyesight, and sat. He could still feel her gaze on him, and it was distressingly warm even as he was surrounded by ice.
"You had something to say." He inclined his head towards the seraph, but evaded her own loaded stare. The demon lord didn't need to read the turbulence behind her face to feel it in her aborted words, in the void that her confident dialogue ought to fill. Lubei continued, "What do you expect from me if you won't, Ivanna? Tell me what you need, if it is within my abilities to... aid. I am here right now to hear it."
SINIB:
--- Quote from: YOLF on July 17, 2021, 01:58:22 AM ---Lubei
Lubei stared and waited, because whatever was ailing Ivanna was hers to tell, not his to forcibly extract. He had done his part and brought them to, he hoped, privacy. So why wasn't she saying anything? The silence between two stretching into discomfort, Lubei found the bench she had made in his eyesight, and sat. He could still feel her gaze on him, and it was distressingly warm even as he was surrounded by ice.
"You had something to say." He inclined his head towards the seraph, but evaded her own loaded stare. The demon lord didn't need to read the turbulence behind her face to feel it in her aborted words, in the void that her confident dialogue ought to fill. Lubei continued, "What do you expect from me if you won't, Ivanna? Tell me what you need, if it is within my abilities to... aid. I am here right now to hear it."
--- End quote ---
Ivanna
"I did. I do. But I do not know if I should say it—no, that's wrong." She babbled away, squirming in her icey chair. "I know that it is wrong to say—even to think it is the greatest thoughtcrime possible..."
YOLF:
Lubei
His brow knit in cavernous depth. Lubei's eyes were filled with a churning frustration at the confession, setting off pinpricks in his throat, and a spill of familiar feelings in his chest. He didn't like the premise presented to him, the fear of it in Ivanna, and he thought in an instant to seize her to her feet and swear that he would not judge her. But another part of him held back. What if the idea or deed in question was as severe as she made it out to be, more severe than anything he would ever dare to support? How could promise such shallow support and disappoint her?
Even asking himself this made Lubei Sang scoff. He was no one to consider judging others, and yet... he cared enough to be unsettled at the thought that lack of discernment in those who had found a place in his mind would lead them to wrongful punishment. The demon lord could admit as much, and it was in tune with that reasoning that he heard the shrill call of his unbanishable companion. 'To know you are guilty does not exclude one from recognizing the errors of others.'
This time, he did not feel hurt from the advice. Lubei flattered his face, and said to Ivanna:
"Only you can judge whether something that you have kept to your own mind, and which you have kept from shaping your actions, is wrong. Good intentions may sometimes produce terrible results, and even without malice, someone must bear the karma. Can good results not come even from a mind that thinks of bad intentions, if what they do of their own will is not?"
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