gu yun's coming into the kitchen area this late evening to fetch a drink of the nonalcoholic variety. when he spots vlad, in here just... baking away, he glances at his back for a long moment before peering around him. ]
[ he's going back to his original task, now, opening the fridge to get a drink - and briefly turning his hand, a reminder of that golden pride crown. ] If I make a decision, I stand by it. I don't particularly care for deception, either.
[ He does spot the pride crown on his hand though, and there is a bit of kinship there...and understanding. He can see how someone would be too proud to partake in deception.
I mean, that's not Vlad, despite also being pride, but. He can see it. ]
Suppose presenting was the problem in general. [ snrk ] It had come up before, during the trial itself, though. How very generous of you to be the one to take the heat.
You angered plenty of people. Myself included, though I'd say it was annoyed more than anything else.
[ :T
he passes him the bottle of whatever he's drinking to top off, though, so. ] I wasn't planning on outing you if you lied about your power, for the record. I doubt any of us [ prides, anyway ] would have.
You also made the fatal mistake of not backing off of something you should have.
[ poor guy. gu yun examines his drink, idle. ] But, you put yourself in melon fields and under plum trees just by speaking, sometimes. That is to say - in situations that cause unnecessary suspicion.
Why didn't you back off, after Fukuda's theory about Wrath?
I did. Like I said, I clarified myself against the attacks I was receiving from every direction, and then I backed off. Hardly said or did anything through that trial.
Very well, allow me to clarify myself further then. I said something they didn't like because they impulsively set the elevator on fire, and in return they cursed me to be unable to speak.
[ the way he's holding himself, it's like he's daring gu yun to tell him he was in the wrong here. ]
So, the root problem in both cases is what came out of your mouth...
...In all seriousness, there's a time and a place. Sometimes less is more - especially in that case, where Wrath wasn't even there to defend themselves, so it was a moot point anyway.
Excuse me? The root problem in the first case was Wrath's impulsive violence!
I'll allow that it was perhaps rude of me to say that about Wrath in the trial when they weren't present, but I will not accept the blame for reacting reasonably to Wrath's own actions!
In a high tension situation like that, it's putting gasoline on a fire. Anyone will take any excuse to accuse anyone of anything - and that works on both sides.
[ both whoever says the thing is affected, and the person who says it. he points this out neutrally. ]
Not to mention, they had just fallen out of an elevator after being trapped in it. It may have been an overreaction, but they were likely stressed already.
You just pointed it out to me - they weren't there to defend themselves.
[ JUST SAYIN!!! ]
There are times not to say things, is ultimately, the point of what I'm saying. Think what you like, and express what you like, but there will always be consequences.
[ he is not a morning person, but he's....coping. he's here, sipping away at some coffee, looking absently and almost hatefully into the distance while he's still waking up. ]
gu yun's of a similar mindset - he doesn't drink coffee, but, he makes quick work of a tea kettle. it's a quiet, peaceful morning, all things considered.
too bad memshare doesn't think so!
--
the memory begins with an ear piercing shriek of an alarm, and the feeling of you kicking a door in. you're dressed in fine silk, your hair loose around your shoulders - the clothes of shen shiliu, the layabout of yanhui town, a troublemaking, half-blind half-deaf who seems to do nothing but give his older brother headaches.
your 'older brother' has just risen from where he was working, face buried in a suit of heavy iron armor, and he turns to look at you, immediately reaching for the sword that hangs on its hip and lifting it -
you raise your hand. ] It's me.
[ and the sword lowers. the man who stands before you is shen yi, not your older brother - a general of the black iron camp, your closest friend, your subordinate. and you, you are not the layabout shen shiliu.
shen yi lowers his voice. "The barbarians came sooner than we thought?"
you make a noise, affirmative, and push past him, moving for the inner chamber - with a flick of your hand, you find the false joint on the bed in the room, and it splits in half, revealing a wooden board underneath. as you push it aside, you see it; your own iron armor awaits you, shined to a flawless black the color of ink. you reach into a chamber in the armor and find your fingers curling around the black iron tiger emblem that denotes your rank, your status, your importance, and pull it up, as you lift the armor free from where it awaited you.
today, your back is more like an iron spear than a strengthless noble. you speak. ] Ji Ping.
[ a cold wind blows through the house, and your second in command immediately drops to one knee. Your subordinate is present. ]
Let's take advantage of their confusion, and conveniently haul in the net. I'll entrust His Highness the Fourth Prince to you. [ and you, instinctively, think back to three years beforehand, when you scooped up a little boy from the jaws of a wolf - chang geng, your ward, the fourth prince.
there is no one else you would trust with such an important task. ] Escort him out of town, first.
[ shen yi rises, the gaze under his brow is fierce, just as fierce as yours. Roger, he says.
you nod, and turn back to the armor itself, pressing your hand to a golden box at its back. the armor opens with a hiss of steam; purple liquid seeps through the visible pipes, the veins at the back.
the two of you are the heads of the black crows; general shen yi and marshal gu, the marquis of order, the most feared men in great liang. the two of you have defeated armies together. this is the moment you've been waiting for. you will not lose this town to a group of barbarians.
[ well.. he is Pride, after all, ] I am. [ like why lie, ] My title is that of the Marquis of Order - I am the commander of the Black Iron Camp of the army of Great Liang, which covers our and and air forces.
[ like. all of them. whew.
anyway! this is one of many times he's had to explain this now, but gu yun still feels odd doing so, sometimes - it's so normal at home that it's wild to think anyone wouldn't know it. ]
...As for the liquid, it's called ziliujin. It's a natural resource that can be found underground, and burned to produce power, usually in combination with steam, though it is an incredibly rare, precious thing to have. [ so... fantasy oil, kinda. ]
I'm not familiar with the Great Liang--but it sounds quite grand, an entire country, perhaps? My, if you commanded such a wide swath of forces, you must have been quite powerful indeed.
Especially with the power of this...ziliujin. No doubt with its rarity, you were deemed one of the special few who deserved to have it on hand, hmm?
It's not so much about me having it on hand. It's the army itself. The distribution of ziliujin falls into the hand of the emperor - His Majesty is the one who decides what is done with it.
[ fantasy oil, and all that. gu yun's a pretty (ha) prideful guy, but, his pride comes heavily with the love of his country and his camp, too, so. filial piety bleeds into his bones, and he's not about to consider himself above the emperor.] I was undercover, waiting for an invasion I expected to come. If I'd been without, I may have been in deep shit.
[ A man with great power who also gets his hands dirty in the day to day hard work? Sure, they were already both on Pride to begin with, but Vlad is truly sensing a KINDRED SPIRIT here. ]
[ he hums, almost a little playfully, as if trying to decide to tell the story or not, before ultimately: ]
The Fourth Prince had been missing for some time. His mother, a former princess of the barbarian tribes to the north, committed treason against the Emperor and the nation, and the emperor loved her enough not to have her executed - only exiled. She fled with the fourth prince when he was a baby to avoid any further punishments, and disappeared over the border - but not long after, we got news that she returned to a tiny town called Yanhui, not far from where my men are stationed. We'd been attempting to track him and the princess down for years - eventually, I was able to locate the prince, who had no idea of his origins or his story, only that his mother had been impossibly cruel to him throughout his life, and that instead of returning home, the princess chose to stay in Great Liang and attempt to coordinate a coup. The tribes were planning to invade my nation through Yanhui town, and meet back up with the princess as well as the Fourth Prince, and they snuck in on a large airship, disguised as soldiers from Great Liang, then launched a brutal invasion of the town.
[ i just need you to know this plot is very confusing as to "what is icly known" and "what is not icly known" SO I DID LOTS OF REREADING FOR THIS IM SORRY IF ITS UNCLEAR ]
I'd been undercover in Yanhui for a year or so, watching over His Highness as his yifu and keeping an eye on the princess's plans. The princess must have known we were there, once the barbarians invaded, though - sensing her imminent capture, she committed suicide before we were able to capture her and return her to the capital for interrogation. We couldn't risk losing the Fourth Prince in the process, so we had to bide for time, until we were able to act and prevent such an invasion from getting any further off the ground.
Waiting turned out to be key, anyhow. The invasion was led by their Wolf Prince, a wanted figure with aggressive tendencies towards Great Liang. My men and I were able to capture the wolf prince, bring him in for questioning, and bring His Highness back to the capital and his remaining family as originally planned.
[ ...wow. the complexities of war and politics! This is a hell of a lot to absorb and Vlad isn't sure he fully gets it, but he thinks he's got the gist. ]
I'd say so. [ he smiles at that, waving a hand! this is a backtag and he has two hands. ] We were able to capture two birds with one stone, so to speak, and I no longer had to pretend to be a layabout and live with my second in command.
trying to remember if he said something insulting ]
... I came to have a drink, actually, the same as you. [ with a little laugh, he goes behind the bar to fetch himself a drink. ] You did just resurrect yourself. Is that worth such a sour expression?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
week 0 post trial!
gu yun's coming into the kitchen area this late evening to fetch a drink of the nonalcoholic variety. when he spots vlad, in here just... baking away, he glances at his back for a long moment before peering around him. ]
What are you doing?
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What does it look like I'm doing?
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[ don't know what that is?? that's okay. the deadpan sass of that probably makes it clear it's sarcastic. ] Don't snap at me, I didn't vote for you.
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It's not like I'd be able to tell even if you did.
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[ he's going back to his original task, now, opening the fridge to get a drink - and briefly turning his hand, a reminder of that golden pride crown. ] If I make a decision, I stand by it. I don't particularly care for deception, either.
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[ He does spot the pride crown on his hand though, and there is a bit of kinship there...and understanding. He can see how someone would be too proud to partake in deception.
I mean, that's not Vlad, despite also being pride, but. He can see it. ]
...how can I trust you?
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I'd put it on the honor of the Black Iron Camp. [ mm. there. he comes out with a cold tea of some kind. ] My men.
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[ he's still not certain, but, well, you can never really be certain, can you? But as far as Vlad can tell right now...he seems trustworthy enough. ]
Very well. I'll take you at your word. For now.
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[ just out of curiosity. gu yun shuts the door and fiddles around in the cabinets, looking for a glass. ]
Seems you attracted ire for your - you said, what. Marketing?
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But yes. Marketing--the way I presented myself. It appears people didn't appreciate it.
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Suppose presenting was the problem in general. [ snrk ] It had come up before, during the trial itself, though. How very generous of you to be the one to take the heat.
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Obviously, it backfired.
week 1, saturday
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he takes a drink of his. ] Second place again.
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[ :T
he passes him the bottle of whatever he's drinking to top off, though, so. ] I wasn't planning on outing you if you lied about your power, for the record. I doubt any of us [ prides, anyway ] would have.
You also made the fatal mistake of not backing off of something you should have.
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[ he chugs the rest of his glass and begins pouring another ]
Surely that's not enough to vote me for execution!
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[ rip. he sips at his own drink, watching. ] I wonder if it was the same people.
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[ he finishes pouring his drink in silence, and then-- ]
I even specifically tried to stay out of the way this time to avoid this!
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[ poor guy. gu yun examines his drink, idle. ] But, you put yourself in melon fields and under plum trees just by speaking, sometimes. That is to say - in situations that cause unnecessary suspicion.
Why didn't you back off, after Fukuda's theory about Wrath?
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[ He sniffs and drinks. ]
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[ bud. ]
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[ the way he's holding himself, it's like he's daring gu yun to tell him he was in the wrong here. ]
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So, the root problem in both cases is what came out of your mouth...
...In all seriousness, there's a time and a place. Sometimes less is more - especially in that case, where Wrath wasn't even there to defend themselves, so it was a moot point anyway.
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I'll allow that it was perhaps rude of me to say that about Wrath in the trial when they weren't present, but I will not accept the blame for reacting reasonably to Wrath's own actions!
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[ both whoever says the thing is affected, and the person who says it. he points this out neutrally. ]
Not to mention, they had just fallen out of an elevator after being trapped in it. It may have been an overreaction, but they were likely stressed already.
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[ JUST SAYIN!!! ]
There are times not to say things, is ultimately, the point of what I'm saying. Think what you like, and express what you like, but there will always be consequences.
[ he takes a sip of his drink. ]
w2... tuesday!
are you a morning person. a morning ghost. where are you, my good dude. ]
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gu yun's of a similar mindset - he doesn't drink coffee, but, he makes quick work of a tea kettle. it's a quiet, peaceful morning, all things considered.
too bad memshare doesn't think so!
--
the memory begins with an ear piercing shriek of an alarm, and the feeling of you kicking a door in. you're dressed in fine silk, your hair loose around your shoulders - the clothes of shen shiliu, the layabout of yanhui town, a troublemaking, half-blind half-deaf who seems to do nothing but give his older brother headaches.
your 'older brother' has just risen from where he was working, face buried in a suit of heavy iron armor, and he turns to look at you, immediately reaching for the sword that hangs on its hip and lifting it -
you raise your hand. ] It's me.
[ and the sword lowers. the man who stands before you is shen yi, not your older brother - a general of the black iron camp, your closest friend, your subordinate. and you, you are not the layabout shen shiliu.
shen yi lowers his voice. "The barbarians came sooner than we thought?"
you make a noise, affirmative, and push past him, moving for the inner chamber - with a flick of your hand, you find the false joint on the bed in the room, and it splits in half, revealing a wooden board underneath. as you push it aside, you see it; your own iron armor awaits you, shined to a flawless black the color of ink. you reach into a chamber in the armor and find your fingers curling around the black iron tiger emblem that denotes your rank, your status, your importance, and pull it up, as you lift the armor free from where it awaited you.
today, your back is more like an iron spear than a strengthless noble. you speak. ] Ji Ping.
[ a cold wind blows through the house, and your second in command immediately drops to one knee. Your subordinate is present. ]
Let's take advantage of their confusion, and conveniently haul in the net. I'll entrust His Highness the Fourth Prince to you. [ and you, instinctively, think back to three years beforehand, when you scooped up a little boy from the jaws of a wolf - chang geng, your ward, the fourth prince.
there is no one else you would trust with such an important task. ] Escort him out of town, first.
[ shen yi rises, the gaze under his brow is fierce, just as fierce as yours. Roger, he says.
you nod, and turn back to the armor itself, pressing your hand to a golden box at its back. the armor opens with a hiss of steam; purple liquid seeps through the visible pipes, the veins at the back.
the two of you are the heads of the black crows; general shen yi and marshal gu, the marquis of order, the most feared men in great liang. the two of you have defeated armies together. this is the moment you've been waiting for. you will not lose this town to a group of barbarians.
you will not lose the prince. ]
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Goodness, you certainly weren't lying about being a military man. You must have been quite powerful.
What was that...purple liquid running through the armor?
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[ like. all of them. whew.
anyway! this is one of many times he's had to explain this now, but gu yun still feels odd doing so, sometimes - it's so normal at home that it's wild to think anyone wouldn't know it. ]
...As for the liquid, it's called ziliujin. It's a natural resource that can be found underground, and burned to produce power, usually in combination with steam, though it is an incredibly rare, precious thing to have. [ so... fantasy oil, kinda. ]
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Especially with the power of this...ziliujin. No doubt with its rarity, you were deemed one of the special few who deserved to have it on hand, hmm?
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[ fantasy oil, and all that. gu yun's a pretty (ha) prideful guy, but, his pride comes heavily with the love of his country and his camp, too, so. filial piety bleeds into his bones, and he's not about to consider himself above the emperor.] I was undercover, waiting for an invasion I expected to come. If I'd been without, I may have been in deep shit.
[ lol ]
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[ A man with great power who also gets his hands dirty in the day to day hard work? Sure, they were already both on Pride to begin with, but Vlad is truly sensing a KINDRED SPIRIT here. ]
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The Fourth Prince had been missing for some time. His mother, a former princess of the barbarian tribes to the north, committed treason against the Emperor and the nation, and the emperor loved her enough not to have her executed - only exiled. She fled with the fourth prince when he was a baby to avoid any further punishments, and disappeared over the border - but not long after, we got news that she returned to a tiny town called Yanhui, not far from where my men are stationed. We'd been attempting to track him and the princess down for years - eventually, I was able to locate the prince, who had no idea of his origins or his story, only that his mother had been impossibly cruel to him throughout his life, and that instead of returning home, the princess chose to stay in Great Liang and attempt to coordinate a coup. The tribes were planning to invade my nation through Yanhui town, and meet back up with the princess as well as the Fourth Prince, and they snuck in on a large airship, disguised as soldiers from Great Liang, then launched a brutal invasion of the town.
[ i just need you to know this plot is very confusing as to "what is icly known" and "what is not icly known" SO I DID LOTS OF REREADING FOR THIS IM SORRY IF ITS UNCLEAR ]
I'd been undercover in Yanhui for a year or so, watching over His Highness as his yifu and keeping an eye on the princess's plans. The princess must have known we were there, once the barbarians invaded, though - sensing her imminent capture, she committed suicide before we were able to capture her and return her to the capital for interrogation. We couldn't risk losing the Fourth Prince in the process, so we had to bide for time, until we were able to act and prevent such an invasion from getting any further off the ground.
Waiting turned out to be key, anyhow. The invasion was led by their Wolf Prince, a wanted figure with aggressive tendencies towards Great Liang. My men and I were able to capture the wolf prince, bring him in for questioning, and bring His Highness back to the capital and his remaining family as originally planned.
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Well...all's well that ends well, I suppose.
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I'd say so. [ he smiles at that, waving a hand! this is a backtag and he has two hands. ] We were able to capture two birds with one stone, so to speak, and I no longer had to pretend to be a layabout and live with my second in command.
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week 7, thursday
And then he'll notice Gu Yun showing up and groan. ]
Ugh, wonderful. What, did you track me down here to lob more insults at me?
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trying to remember if he said something insulting ]
... I came to have a drink, actually, the same as you. [ with a little laugh, he goes behind the bar to fetch himself a drink. ] You did just resurrect yourself. Is that worth such a sour expression?
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he's laughing, though! teasing. ]
Besides the benefit of just being alive? I'm sure Mahito could just take you out again, if you really wanted.
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