likefireinanaviary | Recent Entries

So what with all the shenanigans that's been going on I guess I'm finally doing a soft move over to here and trying to figure things out. Sharing things in this kind of medium isn't what I'm used to, so we'll see how this goes.

Just a heads up, over the next some weeks I'll be doing a lot of reposts from tumblr, mainly writing and art ones. I'll still be on there (also as

likefireinanaviary) for as long as I'm still interested. I'm also on AO3 as

saliencense and

iisforserene on twitter, where real life often gets in the way. Come chat!

[re-post from tumblr]

They cook together every night. Well, Jingyan cooks. Xiao Shu “helps” by stealing bits of food from over his shoulder. Jingyan doesn’t mind. Sometimes they make too much and they give them to the neighbors.

They do grocery shopping together too. Xiao Shu always tries to sneak a can of assam milk tea in their cart but he has a history of diabetes in his family and Jingyan always tries to put his foot down. This usually leads to an argument in the drinks aisle, which Xiao Shu of course always wins and the drink always stays. Jingyan doesn’t even like that stuff.

Xiao Shu’s a programmer and works from home most of the time, so every morning he gets to see Jingyan off to work. He likes to withhold Jingyan’s coffee thermos while demanding a goodbye kiss, which

Jingyan is happy to provide. Sometimes they’re a little too enthusiastic and Jingyan ends up a few minutes late for work, but Xiao Shu never lets him leave without reminding him to wear a seatbelt, and that he loves him.

It’s not the grand life of adventure and changing the world they dreamed about as children, but Jingyan has Xiao Shu and it is more than enough. He’s happy.

There’s a very nice man who lives alone in apartment 4C, the neighbors say. He’s a little odd and sometimes he talks to himself as if someone else is there and that’s a little unsettling, but his smile is kind and he would never hurt anyone and he makes the best coffee cake you have ever tasted. Sometimes an older man and a woman will visit him, and they are nice also, but they always look sad when they leave. Apparently they told Kate in 4A once that the man used to have a fiance, but he died in a car accident some years ago. And now he’s happy, just living like this.

Don’t worry, the neighbors all say. Sure he’s odd but he’s harmless, and he’s become one of their own, in a way. We’ll watch out for him.

-

EDIT: inspired subconsciously by the wonderfully wrenching Two Steps Away by Waldorph

[re-post from tumblr]

Tingsheng is humming to himself as he walks down the corridor. No one here punishes him or even scolds him when he does it, unlike in the palace, and his old habit has reasserted itself since he started living with Prince Jing.

Sir Su has come for a visit, and finally Tingsheng can present his answers to the questions Sir Su has set him last time.

He hopes he does well. Sir Su is gentle and kind and although he loves Prince Jing like the father he doesn’t remember having, Tingsheng will never forget the debt he owes to Sir Su and hopes to repay one day. But more than that, Tingsheng likes the way Sir Su always looks proud and a little wistful, when he thinks Tingsheng has said something particularly insightful.

As he gathers the books lent to him from his room and hurries toward the study where Prince Jing and Sir Su are playing wei qi, according to General Lie, Tingsheng considers how, of late, Prince Jing has been looking considerably happier and less tense.

Oh, he still looks worried more often than not, and strict with Tingsheng’s lessons, but more often than not Tingsheng has found the prince smiling after one of Sir Su’s visits. Tingsheng could have even sworn he once heard the prince gently rib General Lie about his crush on the flower girl in the market. Maybe after Sir Su leaves Tingsheng can take the opportunity to ask permission to visit Feiliu ge ge soon.

So absorbed in his excitement at the possibility of a playdate in his future, Tingsheng failed to notice the uncharacteristic lack of good-natured banter as he neared the study. In hindsight, it really should’ve been his first clue.

And thus, when he turned the corner, Tingsheng was confronted with the sight of His Royal Highness Prince Jing and Sir Su, locked in a heated embrace.

Horrified, Tingsheng’s eyes can’t help but take in the scene.

Prince Jing has pressed Sir Su up against the wall, with one hand pinning his wrists. One of Sir Su’s legs has wrapped itself around the prince. Prince Jing’s mouth is on Sir Su’s neck.

Belatedly, Tingsheng registers the sounds. Disturbing sounds. Sounds that are coming from Sir Su, hitched gasps and quiet whining noises as he shakes against Prince Jing.

Tingsheng stands there, frozen. His brain is screaming at his feet to move, to sneak away before he’s seen, but somehow they refuse to budge.

After a pause that feels like an eternity, Tingsheng finally reasserts some semblance of control over his limbs and gets his feet to obey. He turns to go except—oh god—in his rush he’s dropped the books in his hands. He flinches as they clatter, loudly, to the floor.

Prince Jing springs apart from Sir Su so quickly and puts such distance between them that a remote part of Tingsheng is impressed.

The three of them stare at each other, wordlessly.

Prince Jing clears his throat. “Ah, Tingsheng,” He says, doing an incredibly poor job at sounding normal, “Sir Su was just- we were just, um.”

He stutters to a stop and looks desperately at Sir Su. His face is crimson.

In contrast and in defiance of his currently disheveled state, Sir Su looks calm and even slightly amused.

He ignores the sputtering from the other side of the room. “Have you finished those books already?”

“Um, er, yes,” Tingsheng is uncomfortably aware that his face is probably just as red as Prince Jing’s. He bends and picks up the books hastily, unable to look either of them in the face.

“Thank you for lending them to me.” He all but shoves them at Sir Su and makes as dignified an exit as one is able when one is also half running out of the room.

Behind him, he thought he hears the faint sounds of laughter.

Well. That explains the mystery of why Prince Jing has been in such a good mood, lately. Tingsheng’s glad for the both of them, but for the sake of his poor eyes he really should start announcing himself before entering rooms.

[re-post from tumblr]

A Relena-centric canon compliant (maybe) snippet set immediately after Minister Darlian’s death, though probably all of the details in this are wrong.

-

She stays in St Gabriel’s after, at least for a little while, out of deference to her mother and the memory of her father. But soon everything becomes too much, the pitying stares and hushed whispers that quickly cut off when she nears, the concerned questions and the sympathy—dear god the sympathy—as she knew it would. And when her smiles in the mirror look like nothing more than screams and her thank yous rises up in her throat like bile, choking her, she leaves.

She stays just long enough to attend the memorial they hold for her father. People would later recall that her speech was moving and dignified. They would say she handled herself with grace. Relena remembers none of it.

Here’s what she does remember: her father’s beloved face in the framed photograph, the sound the handful of dirt made as it hits the coffin like rain, the hot rush of anger; anger at him for dying, for ripping away every certainty she had ever known. She could have gladly lived the rest of her life being his daughter, could have lived with the guilt of being a daughter who had failed to save her father, but with a few words and his last breath he had closed the door to that life forever.

She throws the final handful of dirt onto his grave and turns to her mother. Her mother who, like Relena, had remained dry-eyed throughout the ceremony. She looks decades older. She’s sure her mother knows what she’s planning, but she says nothing. What’s left to be said? Relena hugs her mother tight and stares at the words on the headstone.

Richard Thomas Darlian. Beloved husband and father.

She whispers her goodbye as she turns to leave, but what she really means was: I’m sorry.

She doesn’t have a destination at first, but she asks Pagan to track down Heero Yuy anyways, without any real hope of finding him. The reason she gives—although of course he doesn’t ask, would never ask—was that she wanted to see him so that she might draw strength from him to go on.

She doesn’t tell him this: she dreams every night not of her father’s death but of a boy soldier’s eyes and the cold barrel of his gun. She wakes up every morning with a scream locked tight in her throat and wished that he had fulfilled his promise to kill her.

Contrary to all her expectations, they do find him. But what greets her when she arrives at the school is a different boy from the one she remembered. Something had left an indelible mark and his back was just a little bit less straight, his eyes just a little bit less certain.

And he lets her live. Again.

She stands on the rooftop long after the door slammed closed and looks down at the gun that neither Heero nor the other boy-pilot had bothered to pick up and feels, for the first time since the funeral, something in her shift, settle.

Well, if she wasn’t meant to die this way then maybe she needs to do something worth dying for first.

She picks up the gun.

[re-post from tumblr]

Lin Shu dies at Meiling. That same year, when the seventh prince comes back from the East Sea, he brings home with him a new pet. Some say it’s a snake, others say it’s a fox spirit, but whatever it is, it never seems to leave the prince’s side.

Within a few weeks of his arrival in Jinling, rumors begin to spread about the strange creature that has attached itself to His Highness Prince Jing’s side. It’s fiercely protective, the rumors said, and would hiss loudly at anyone who gets too close, except Princess Nihuang, who is the only one aside from the prince allowed to pet it. It tried to take a bite out of the finger of the director of Xuan Jing Bureau once, the rumors said, and only director Xia Dong’s quick intervention had prevented an incident.

The prince calls his new friend Meichangsu, and would sometimes carry on a conversation with it as if it’s capable of comprehending. When asked, his only response is to smile quietly and say that the fox spirit named himself.

The emperor has never set eyes on this fox spirit. He has heard his ministers speak of it, of course, but as he has never seen it he assumes it is just a favored pet and that Jingyan leaves him in his own manor when he comes to court. He is wrong. What he doesn’t see is Meichangsu curling himself around Jingyan’s naval like a particularly furry belt. Meichangsu has never shown himself in the emperor’s presence, and he never will, not until it’s time.

What no one sees is the way Meichangsu gently headbutts Jingyan, greedy for the head scratches that he likes best, that his favorite spot to nap is curled around Jingyan’s collarbone, that he likes to give Jingyan tiny furry kisses, and that at night, he sleeps in a loose golden coil on the pillow next to Jingyan’s cheek.

When, in the following year, a well full of corpses was discovered and a contraband firework factory exploded in quick succession, the rumors start again. The fox spirit brings good luck to the formerly ill-favored prince, the people whispers. That it is an omen, a sign that Prince Jing is favored by the gods. Prince Jing says nothing at all.

-

and,

-

There is a fox that comes to Jingyan in his dreams, sometimes. It has nine tails and its eyes are sad as they look back at him, and no matter how much he tries Jingyan never catches up to it.

Sometimes he half wakes to the phantom memory of long fingers caressing his own, when he’s still mired in the wispy fog of sleep. He will not remember this in the morning.

Xiao Jingyan is beloved by the gods. It is a whisper in the hearts of the people, a devout wish not yet spoken aloud. There are those who do not yet fear it’s power, but they soon will.

[Re-post from tumblr]

In honor of halloween, here’s a brief vampire au snippet I wrote while traveling this weekend, enjoy!

(warnings for: blood, brief mention of cutting)

-

Mei Changu is getting thinner, day by day. Jingyan has offered several times, but Mei Changsu would only shake his head, smiling, and insists that he’s fine, your highness.

This has to stop.

And so, when Mei Changsu walked into the tunnel, it was to the sight of Jingyan, poised with a knife over his arm.

“What are you doing,” Mei Changus hisses, forgetting his usual impeccable manners in his outrage. In the wavering candlelight his cheeks look even gaunter than usual.

Jingyan meets his eyes, calm. “You can either drink or let it go to waste, it’s your choice.”

“Jingyan,” Mei Changsu sounds angry, but Jingyan allows himself a sliver of satisfaction that Mei Changus is calling him by his name, at last.

“It really would be better if you do it,” he muses, tone deliberately light, “it would heal faster than a cut.”

Mei Changsu looks torn. Already his pupils are dilating, red seeping into the irises.

Deliberately, Jingyan slides the knife down, just a little, just enough to make the thinnest of red lines appear on the skin.

“Stop,” Mei Changsu hisses out through gritted teeth. His nostrils are flared.

Jingyan waits.

Mei Changsu stands there for another moment, then abruptly crosses to Jingyan in five strides, taking the knife from his hand and tossing it away in one smooth movement. His other hand on Jingyan’s arm is cool like marble. Jingyan holds his breath.

Delicately, Mei Changsu closes his mouth over his wrist.

The sharp teeth puncturing his skin produce no pain. Instead, Jingyan feels his knees weaken with a mixture of blood loss and the euphoric rush of arousal. He sinks to the ground.

Mei changsu follows him down. His lips at Jingyan’s wrist are searing, a stark contrast to the cold fingers that hold his arm in their gentle grip. Every nerve of Jingyan’s body seems to be focused toward that spot, on the soft pressure of his mouth, gently sucking. On Mei Changsu’s tongue, occasionally darting out to lap at blood that’s trickled down.

He doesn’t realize he let out a moan until he hears it. It falls overly loud in the otherwise quiet room.

Immediately, Mei Changsu lets go with a—god—final swipe of his tongue, backing up and away from him. Bereft of the contact, Jingyan feels suddenly very cold.

“I apologize, your highness, I should have restrained myself.” Already Mei Changsu looks better, a faint flush settling becomingly over the normal pallor of his cheeks.

Jingyan forces himself to focus. “Are you sated?” He asks.

“It is more than enough, your highness has been overly generous.” Mei Changsu’s eyes, fixed on Jingyan’s face, do not look sated. They look hungry.

Jingyan can’t look away from his gaze. “Good,” he manages.

“I will bring some food.” Mei Changsu turns with unusual brusqueness and sweeps out of the tunnel.

Jingyan remains where he is and tries, without avail, to calm his racing heart.