[Yona can talk again! Yaaaay. Wherever Hua Cheng happens to be on Monday, Yona will eventually come across him. She starts to raise her hand in a wave, but learning from previous experience, spots one of those bubbles filled with dark fog and pulls her hand back to avoid popping it.
Unfortunately, one drifts just in front of her foot as she's stepping forward, and she pops it under her foot.
It's very late at night, and they can hear rain coming from outside. It's strange, Yona thinks - watching this not-much-younger version of herself, with much longer hair, panicking over the body of a man in ornate robes who has just been stabbed, looking between him and a person Hua Cheng will recognize as Soo-won. He has blood on his cheek, and he's carrying a blood-stained sword.
"S-Soo-won... Quickly, call a doctor!" "King Il will not wake again." There's the soft splat of a drop of blood hitting the ground from the tip of his sword, and then: "I killed him."
The Yona of several months ago shakes her head.
"What are you talking about? Y-you aren't someone who could do this..." "You don't know how I have lived for this day."
(Ignore the opening theme and the little aside with Hak, Yona didn't see that part.)
"Wh-why? My father cared for you since you were a child..." "You're right. I loved King Il, too."
Soo-won explains, then - how his father, Yona's uncle, had been passed over when their grandfather chose a successor. How people doubted Il, but his father had wanted to protect him. How King Il had, after ascending to the throne -
Killed his own brother.
"No... my uncle died in an accident..." "That's the official story. But King Il stabbed my father to death with a sword."
The long-haired Yona stares at Soo-won in shock.
"Do you understand? King Il, who was thought to hate weapons and avoid conflict, killed my father with a sword."
She doesn't want to believe it. Then, she didn't want to believe it - and even now, looking back on this memory, she wishes it wasn't true. But it is - Soo-won says it, it's the truth, and watching, Yona murmurs it herself even as the girl she was denies it.
The Yona of the past flinches at her reflection in the steel of Soo-won's sword.
"I have avenged my father, and to honor his final wish, I will become King of Kouka."
Tears fill her eyes, and she looks down at the corpse in her lap. Soo-won admits he hadn't expected her to be here; she admits she had come to tell her father that she couldn't ever forget Soo-won himself.
And then, from behind here, there's the sound of a door opening. A man in dark robes enters, accompanied by soldiers - "Everything is ready." - and glances briefly at Yona before turning his attention to Soo-won - "Did Princess Yona see you?"
Soo-won doesn't speak, but he doesn't have to for this man to know.
"That will make things quick." A flick of his gaze towards Yona, and: "Kill her, Lord Soo-won. Silence the princess."
Yona stares at him, disbelieving, and whispers his name.
His gaze hardens, and he raises his sword.
She struggles to her feet, tries to back away - falls, and knocks over a lantern. The candle spills out and catches a tapestry on fire, and in the ensuing chaos and rush to put it out before someone notices, Yona flees for the door, dazed and confused and wishing so badly that this wasn't real.
She hears footsteps behind her as she runs, and then -
Then, something wraps itself around her ankle and yanks back. She lands hard on the ground of a courtyard, and soon finds herself surrounded by soldiers with the same sorts of weapons her father was said to abhor. The same sorts of weapons her father was said to have killed her uncle with.
"Prepare yourself, Princess. This is for the Kingdom of Kouka."
She turns her head towards where she had been running from, where Soo-won is now standing, accompanied by more soldiers and that man in dark robes. Her vision blurry with tears, she calls out for him -
"Soo-won!"
...and the soldier raises his sword, taking aim at her neck.
(Memshare ends at timestamp 8:02.)
Haha! Wow that's awful give her a few moments, she hates reliving that.]
[ It's actually good to hear her voice, even if their fight on Saturday spoke just as loudly - and Hua Cheng turns to greet it. There's a cloud of bubbles - only a few, but enough - that he's avoiding, like he's trying to outpace them without running, so he's careful much like her in her movements.
And then, the bubble pops, and the world shifts, just so.
Disorienting as it is, it gives way to the memory. And there's no stopping it, once it's started, so there's no attempt to intervene. Hua Cheng knows better, from collecting memories with his butterflies and replaying them - you can't stop the past.
(But he's always hated being an outside observer, for situations that he wish he could have stopped.)
He circles the scene as it plays out, recognizing Soo-won instantly. Understanding what's happened, what's happening. Perhaps many in the Realm would be shocked to see this, to hear the coldness in his voice, the blood on his blade. The blood on his hands, in reality. But he can't really say he is. Not with all the reminders of the Heavens that he's seen traces of in the young man since first meeting him.
But he doesn't want to see Yona's face in this scene. He can already see the one of now, reliving every second of a betrayal that clearly rocked her to her core. (The only reason he isn't vaguely considering Soo-won's neck being snapped is because they seem better off, now.)
Each step of the memory, he shifts, keeping an eye on Soo-won and his apparent retainer. (Where is Yin Yu, he wonders absently - perhaps tending to Ghost City in his stead, until he can return with news of the things that he and Dianxia faced in the Realm.) But as it ends, his steps bring him to the true Yona.
There aren't any words of comfort, as he waits for her to steady herself, watching as the scene fades. ]
It takes a little while, but after a few agonizingly long moments, Yona lets out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. That's... when she realized that these bubbles were showing people's memories, she'd started trying to avoid them.
[ Hua Cheng keeps his gaze forward, for a long time, as if seeing through where the memory once stood in front of them. Where Soo-won once was. He lets out a low, soft noise, in response to her question in that voice, so different from the anger behind even her very first kick.
But so very much like that crying little girl, that seems like it wasn't even that long ago. ]
All of it. [ Gently, but honestly. ] My condolences.
[ For the loss, for the betrayal, for the lies being cast off from her life to reveal an ugly truth beneath. ]
We don't have to talk about it, Yona. So long as Soo-won is no threat to you here.
[Do they have to talk about it if he is a threat to her here?
Yona takes a breath.]
...he isn't. There's more at stake here than the things that are between the two of us, and he knows that. He's not the kind of person who would put us all at risk just because of a grudge he held against my father.
[...]
Besides, I don't think he remembers it. I didn't, either, until recently.
[ A long silence, to consider that. Hua Cheng might go to Soo-won to discuss theories, strategy, their innate curiosity about the worlds they've seen.
But Hua Cheng does not trust Soo-won implicitly. There is too much of him that is like the Heavens, for him to put full faith in him - even with Yona's certainty of where his focus lies. He believes it, of course. So many have set aside their norms for the sake of getting out of the Realm.
Still. ]
Funny, how the Realm does that sort of thing, isn't it.
...maybe it thought I needed to forget about it, for the sake of fixing the problems with the nova here.
[Or maybe it was just a coincidence or a deliberate choice by a very rude writer.]
But I'm not... it makes me angry, remembering what he did. Angry, and sad, and... a lot of things. But I know our first priority has to be getting out of this situation.
[ Even without more to go off of, there's the knowledge that there's more to this. But he doesn't press, because, well - what would be the point? She's already been made to lose the memory, then remember it again, then relive it. ]
So you're using your anger wisely. [ Because he won't ever judge her for that. ] Once we reach the end, whatever's left between the two of you... you can resolve it then.
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dawnblushed) wrote2020-10-11 02:46 pm
w4, monday
[Yona can talk again! Yaaaay. Wherever Hua Cheng happens to be on Monday, Yona will eventually come across him. She starts to raise her hand in a wave, but learning from previous experience, spots one of those bubbles filled with dark fog and pulls her hand back to avoid popping it.
Unfortunately, one drifts just in front of her foot as she's stepping forward, and she pops it under her foot.
A moment later, they find themselves in a castle.
It's very late at night, and they can hear rain coming from outside. It's strange, Yona thinks - watching this not-much-younger version of herself, with much longer hair, panicking over the body of a man in ornate robes who has just been stabbed, looking between him and a person Hua Cheng will recognize as Soo-won. He has blood on his cheek, and he's carrying a blood-stained sword.
"S-Soo-won... Quickly, call a doctor!"
"King Il will not wake again." There's the soft splat of a drop of blood hitting the ground from the tip of his sword, and then: "I killed him."
The Yona of several months ago shakes her head.
"What are you talking about? Y-you aren't someone who could do this..."
"You don't know how I have lived for this day."
(Ignore the opening theme and the little aside with Hak, Yona didn't see that part.)
"Wh-why? My father cared for you since you were a child..."
"You're right. I loved King Il, too."
Soo-won explains, then - how his father, Yona's uncle, had been passed over when their grandfather chose a successor. How people doubted Il, but his father had wanted to protect him. How King Il had, after ascending to the throne -
Killed his own brother.
"No... my uncle died in an accident..."
"That's the official story. But King Il stabbed my father to death with a sword."
The long-haired Yona stares at Soo-won in shock.
"Do you understand? King Il, who was thought to hate weapons and avoid conflict, killed my father with a sword."
She doesn't want to believe it. Then, she didn't want to believe it - and even now, looking back on this memory, she wishes it wasn't true. But it is - Soo-won says it, it's the truth, and watching, Yona murmurs it herself even as the girl she was denies it.
The Yona of the past flinches at her reflection in the steel of Soo-won's sword.
"I have avenged my father, and to honor his final wish, I will become King of Kouka."
Tears fill her eyes, and she looks down at the corpse in her lap. Soo-won admits he hadn't expected her to be here; she admits she had come to tell her father that she couldn't ever forget Soo-won himself.
And then, from behind here, there's the sound of a door opening. A man in dark robes enters, accompanied by soldiers - "Everything is ready." - and glances briefly at Yona before turning his attention to Soo-won - "Did Princess Yona see you?"
Soo-won doesn't speak, but he doesn't have to for this man to know.
"That will make things quick." A flick of his gaze towards Yona, and: "Kill her, Lord Soo-won. Silence the princess."
Yona stares at him, disbelieving, and whispers his name.
His gaze hardens, and he raises his sword.
She struggles to her feet, tries to back away - falls, and knocks over a lantern. The candle spills out and catches a tapestry on fire, and in the ensuing chaos and rush to put it out before someone notices, Yona flees for the door, dazed and confused and wishing so badly that this wasn't real.
She hears footsteps behind her as she runs, and then -
Then, something wraps itself around her ankle and yanks back. She lands hard on the ground of a courtyard, and soon finds herself surrounded by soldiers with the same sorts of weapons her father was said to abhor. The same sorts of weapons her father was said to have killed her uncle with.
"Prepare yourself, Princess. This is for the Kingdom of Kouka."
She turns her head towards where she had been running from, where Soo-won is now standing, accompanied by more soldiers and that man in dark robes. Her vision blurry with tears, she calls out for him -
"Soo-won!"
...and the soldier raises his sword, taking aim at her neck.
(Memshare ends at timestamp 8:02.)
Haha! Wow that's awful give her a few moments, she hates reliving that.]
no subject
And then, the bubble pops, and the world shifts, just so.
Disorienting as it is, it gives way to the memory. And there's no stopping it, once it's started, so there's no attempt to intervene. Hua Cheng knows better, from collecting memories with his butterflies and replaying them - you can't stop the past.
(But he's always hated being an outside observer, for situations that he wish he could have stopped.)
He circles the scene as it plays out, recognizing Soo-won instantly. Understanding what's happened, what's happening. Perhaps many in the Realm would be shocked to see this, to hear the coldness in his voice, the blood on his blade. The blood on his hands, in reality. But he can't really say he is. Not with all the reminders of the Heavens that he's seen traces of in the young man since first meeting him.
But he doesn't want to see Yona's face in this scene. He can already see the one of now, reliving every second of a betrayal that clearly rocked her to her core. (The only reason he isn't vaguely considering Soo-won's neck being snapped is because they seem better off, now.)
Each step of the memory, he shifts, keeping an eye on Soo-won and his apparent retainer. (Where is Yin Yu, he wonders absently - perhaps tending to Ghost City in his stead, until he can return with news of the things that he and Dianxia faced in the Realm.) But as it ends, his steps bring him to the true Yona.
There aren't any words of comfort, as he waits for her to steady herself, watching as the scene fades. ]
no subject
It takes a little while, but after a few agonizingly long moments, Yona lets out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. That's... when she realized that these bubbles were showing people's memories, she'd started trying to avoid them.
Memories like this are exactly why.]
...how much of that did you see?
[Her voice is small.]
no subject
But so very much like that crying little girl, that seems like it wasn't even that long ago. ]
All of it. [ Gently, but honestly. ] My condolences.
[ For the loss, for the betrayal, for the lies being cast off from her life to reveal an ugly truth beneath. ]
We don't have to talk about it, Yona. So long as Soo-won is no threat to you here.
no subject
Yona takes a breath.]
...he isn't. There's more at stake here than the things that are between the two of us, and he knows that. He's not the kind of person who would put us all at risk just because of a grudge he held against my father.
[...]
Besides, I don't think he remembers it. I didn't, either, until recently.
no subject
But Hua Cheng does not trust Soo-won implicitly. There is too much of him that is like the Heavens, for him to put full faith in him - even with Yona's certainty of where his focus lies. He believes it, of course. So many have set aside their norms for the sake of getting out of the Realm.
Still. ]
Funny, how the Realm does that sort of thing, isn't it.
no subject
[Or maybe it was just a coincidence
or a deliberate choice by a very rude writer.]But I'm not... it makes me angry, remembering what he did. Angry, and sad, and... a lot of things. But I know our first priority has to be getting out of this situation.
no subject
So you're using your anger wisely. [ Because he won't ever judge her for that. ] Once we reach the end, whatever's left between the two of you... you can resolve it then.
no subject
[That's putting it mildly, but it's fine.]
...I don't know what I'll do once this is over. I thought, once, that I wanted to kill him... but now I'm not so sure.