IC Inbox: Empatheias

[young_oldman]

[Your birds might get a little plump on bird seeds. Just saying.]

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[young_oldman]

[Three taps in and one ear-splitting shatter later, and Red might learn to keep his hands to himself!

There's no starting fracture. The entire crystal shell just completely breaks apart as if the cracks had always been there, so fine that they could not be seen by the naked eye, but numerous and deep enough that just a simple light touch was enough to send pieces spraying outwards and everywhere, evaporating into dust and nothingness.

The pen scratches against paper to finish a sentence that's a month old, and breath enters and exits a body that had been trapped in time. But the magic of the island had kept him safe and healthy, unchanged from the moment he'd been frozen in crystal. He completes the last bit of instructions for the Arehtei rituals and sets his pen down with a satisfied sigh.

And it's then, and only then, that he realises that something has gone terribly wrong. His head snaps up, and then the chair he's sitting on is pushed back sharply, leaving dust marks on the ground. A curtain is yanked open and light spills into the room, chasing shadows and revealing exactly how must dust has built up. His back to facing Red, his fingers trembles a moment before he brings his hand down to the table. A thick smudge of black on his fingertips confirms his suspicions and behind him his shadow explodes, a black stream that floods out and stretches across the floor. The sunlight turns cold, the colour around him bleaching as he pales. The air grows stifling, increasingly uncomfortable.

Just like the uncomfortable truth that he's been once again trapped in a moment. But how long more does he have left before he's run out of luck, and out of time?]

[gottacatch]

[ There's a foot that skids sharply back upon the ground, an arm going up high in front of his face with the hand above that (for the porring there), and Red's body doesn't exactly jump when the crystal shatters, but reacts just enough to be alert of a possible danger -- the same that turns out to be as nothing as the shards that he doesn't even register touching him.

He felt alarmed then -- and only then. Because as the man begins to find himself again, unstuck from the second that he had been in and realising it, it's more of a relief that grows rapidly inside Red, a quiet sort that the porrings might even feel under their bodies It doesn't think to go as Lu Meng stands, walks, pulls back on the curtains without acknowledging him; it just evolves, into words in the back of his throat, things he plans to say with the smile growing on his face--

and then all turning into nothing when the shadows cascade once more across the room.

The little thought that had been dancing in his mind that Lu Meng hadn't caught sight of him comes closer to the front of his mind, though it's no more important than the thought of whatever must be going inside the other man's mind now. If just a worry, or something deeper -- although those shadows always remind him of a harsher time, and he can't help but imagine it the latter.

But this wasn't them in the middle of the woods. He had something maybe a little better to offer than a fire and water, and unwelcome lies about ghosts. He had a better way to push past the chilling effects of the man's emotions than to bear through it, making himself known as he steps towards him but allows him to keep his space. Around him, the porrings won't feel the chill nor weight of the air; the shadows are refused the right beneath his feet, the colour brought to what it should be, as his own emotions take place. Not simply a calm, but something brighter than that, more hopeful, more joyous in a low-key way.

The same type of emotion there in his voice when he speaks up. ]

Everything's alright, Lu Meng! The people are fine, so's the centre... the island's still in one piece too! [ If the older man thinks to turn then, the outer presence of Red's emotions will spread a little farther in a moment of excitement, of eagerness to see his face, no matter the expression that might be on it. However, even so, those emotions don't attempt to force themselves closer to Lu Meng's person -- that will all depend on his own emotions, and how strongly they'll stay their ground, or eventually retreat. ]

I do have some bad news though... we sorta [ completely ] busted your door getting in, and it stinks in your kitchen, so we're gonna have to clean up everywhere. Before that though, these guys have really missed seeing you moving, so you're gonna need to get ready for how much they're gonna slobber you. Okay?