[open-ish post!]

[ravkanwitch]

Nina's been wearing more modern clothing recently - especially after she figured out the solution to her bone knife dilemma, a holstered rigging that she can wear either on her upper arms or her legs. And after her encounter with The Darkling, she's been wearing them more blatantly and currently has them strapped to her upper arms, on top of her shirt.

She's found a couple of revolvers similar to what she was used to shooting with Jesper* and set up some empty bottles in a makeshift shooting range as far away from the mansion as she can. Yesterday, she sent both Janet and Laertes a note with the location and time, hoping they can easily find her.

Nina is frowning. She just fired a test bullet and it zipped right between two bottles.

*Instead of a Zemeni revolve with inlaid pearl, it's probably closest to a Colt Single Action revolver with six bullets, where you reload it with a cartridge rather than single bullets in the cylinder.

Comments

[protagonisthalo]

Luo Binghe has been looking all over this damned mansion for Nina. He's finally resorted to stalking the grounds, briefly passing by a greenhouse where he caught a glimpse of Shen Qingqiu's form through a glass. He paused for a moment there, his heart in his throat—caught between the pleasure of seeing him and the agony of not being able to approach—before tearing himself away, leaving half his heart behind. So by the time he finds Nina on the grounds, doing—something loud—he is agitated. Still, the sight of her already settles him a little. "Beloved Nina. Please tell me you are well—I cannot take any more torment."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina carefully puts the safety on the gun and holds it to her side, noticing how tormented he looks and the anguish in his voice. "Luo Binghe," she says, slightly alarmed. "Are you alright?"

[protagonisthalo]

"I don't know." He was wretched, and then Sagramore told him Shen Qingqiu might desire him after all. Now everything within him is simply too much, as though he is entirely without protection, and any small hurt presses intimately against the raw tissue of his heart. "Shen Qingqiu—we kissed. I kissed him." It almost shocks him to hear it out loud, as if he's not the one who said it, much less the one who was there.

[ravkanwitch]

"Oh," is all she says at first, carefully setting the revolver down. She remembers her own conversations with Shen Qingqiu; his initial denial that she was not one of Luo Binghe's wives, his prodding stubbornness that clearly she also found herself pinned by Luo Binghe's gaze, unable to move or think, when it was clearly his perspective he was describing. "How did he take it?"

[protagonisthalo]

His breath spasms in a way that might be a laugh or a sob. "He pushed me away. We fought. I said I didn't want to see him again, and he argued, and—" He runs a hand over his face. "I thought everything was ruined, but—I spoke to someone else who thought he just needed time. I don't know. I feel—I don't think I wanted to know how deeply I felt, but now I cannot stop feeling it."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina winces a little, in sympathy, though she's not surprised considering his emotional state when he found her. "Take a deep breath," she tells him, hoping that it will calm him down a little. "What exactly did he say to you?"

[protagonisthalo]

Because it's Nina, he listens to her, breathing in deeply and holding it for several counts before exhaling. It doesn't calm the agitation in his mind, but it forces his pulse to slow a little. He casts back, trying to remember the conversation. He was so upset at the time that it's hard to even think of it and stay clearheaded. "He pushed me back and said"—his voice wavers—"'Don't.' I said that, in that case, we should not see each other anymore, and he was angry—he said I hadn't the right to decide that. So then I was angry, and said it was cruel of him to expect me to stay by his side, and he accused me of—of only wanting him for one thing. And I said that—it was something the other Shen Qingqiu would say, the one who hurt me. That upset him—he went back on that, he said it wasn't true and that I deserved better—and Nina, he was nearly in tears. I couldn't stay angry at that. But I begged him not to make me stay by his side and hopelessly look upon what I want so badly it's driving me mad. He agreed, and we haven't spoken a word since."

[ravkanwitch]

“It sounds like if both of you were angry and he was nearly in tears,” Nina says carefully, “then he was having some very strong emotions of his own. I don’t think it’s hopeless. But maybe these strong emotions should be approached again when you’re on more… level terms with each other?”

She puts a comforting hand on his arm. “You know, it’s also okay to be upset.”

[protagonisthalo]

He understands what she means, but it's not okay. "I know I should give him some time. I'm not good at doing nothing, and I don't know how to just—feel upset, and not go out of my mind. At home I have a sword that helps."<sup>1

1</sup>It does not help.

[ravkanwitch]

If she’s going to be truly honest, Nina had been a little thrown off by the discussion with Shen Qingqiu about all of Luo Binghe’s wives as well as Janet and Laertes’ assessment of him — but at the end of the day, he is a dear friend in need. She can feel the weight of the talisman that he gave her sitting in her pocket. Wordlessly, she just places her arms around him and gives him a gentle hug.

[protagonisthalo]

Until she hugs him, Luo Binghe doesn't even realize that that's what he wanted—what he was looking for when he came to find her. That realization comes with a second: he didn't think of it because he's never had intimacy without sex. If he felt like this at his palace, he would go to one of his wives, and go through the entire process of seduction and satisfaction before he could simply be held in her arms. Perhaps that is why it's often easier to just lose himself in the mindless bloodlust and darkness that Xin Mo ignites in him. He wraps his arms tightly around Nina, leaning down to bury his face in her shoulder.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina makes her hug even tighter because despite all her failings and inconsistencies, Nina Zenik is a fantastic hugger, and Luo Binghe is welcome to stay there as long as he likes.

[protagonisthalo]

Luo Binghe will certainly take advantage of this. He embraces her for a long time, until his breathing evens out somewhat on its own, and he no longer has to slow it manually. "Thank you," he says when he pulls away. It feels woefully inadequate. "You have done so much for me—I ashamed to require yet more. When I am at home, my moods are more stable."¹

¹They're not. But at least the burden of dealing with them is spread out.

[ravkanwitch]

"What is your home like?" Nina asks, in an effort to at least temporarily take his mind off what happened with Shen Qingqiu.

[protagonisthalo]

Unfortunately, this makes him gloomy in a different way. He has not forgotten how fervently Janet spoke of loving Fillory. "It is a land of monsters. I suppose that's why I'm fit to rule it."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina silently curses her inability to not ask questions; sometimes even the most innocent ones manage to get her into trouble. "And some say I'm a monster as well," she says lightly, "but... you know who speaks the absolute highest of you and won't stand even a single negative word about you? Shen Qingqiu. I highly doubt one argument has changed that."

[protagonisthalo]

Claudius said as much as well. But it's nicer to hear it from someone he trusts. He already knows Shen Qingqiu is fond of him, he would have to be a fool not to know that, but it doesn't feel like enough. "...Did he say anything to you about me, then?"

[ravkanwitch]

"He thought I should feel so lucky to be your wife," she laughs a little; she's not sure how much of this she gleaned from Shen Qingqiu's mind but it feels like an opportunity to put this accidental discovery to use. "I told him I wasn't your wife, at which point he said that I should be pinned by your gaze, like he is."

[protagonisthalo]

This hits Luo Binghe so hard that his legs go a little weak. Shen Qingqiu has said the most improbably affectionate things to him already, things no one has ever said about Luo Binghe, but he is endlessly hungry for more. He wants to lie in bed with Shen Qingqiu and hear nothing but his words for days.

But he is being selfish and unfair to Nina. She has already tolerated him enough; he doesn't want to find out the limit of how much of him she can stand without pushing him away. He attempts to compose himself. "As always, your steadfast loyalty and kindness mean the world to me, dear Nina. Have you been well?" She did not answer this question earlier.

[ravkanwitch]

"It goes both ways. We would be nowhere without friendships and connections," Nina says brightly, both a reminder to Luo Binghe of their mutual friendship and also of his new decision to at least attempt to weave himself into the tapestry of the mansion a little more delicately. "I've been... better, recently. I just spent an hour firing revolvers with Janet and Laertes." She nods towards the revolver that she had just set down.

[protagonisthalo]

He gets the implication, and if it were coming from anyone but Nina, an indirect admonishment toward good behavior would trigger the exact opposite out of spite. But he recognizes the affection that accompanies it, and accepts it. Curiosity distracts him. "What is that?"

[ravkanwitch]

"Oh," she says, realization dawning. "It's a revolver. A gun. It fires out projectiles very rapidly. One of my friends, Jesper, had two of these as his weapons of choice. I much prefer using my abilities, myself."

[protagonisthalo]

"Oh, I see." Something like cultivation practice, then, or the equivalent. Some cultivators use their abilities in that way—to imbue objects with energy, and use them as projectiles. Luo Binghe finds it a bit crude. But thinking of weapons from other worlds reminds him—there was something else he meant to investigate, before he got so distracted by Shen Qingqiu. "Oh, Nina. Have you met someone here by the name of Shen Yuan? I met him as a child, on the day of the curse. He seemed pleasant enough—and I know I am not so easy to get along with as to value a friendly conversation cheaply."<sup>1

1</sup>Category is "things he would only admit to Nina."

[ravkanwitch]

"I've met many of the people in the mansion," she says, thinking through her mental list that she's kept, "but I don't believe I've met anyone by that name. Perhaps it was someone who went by a different name when they were younger?" Kaz Brekker was not always Kaz Brekker, after all. People have many reasons to change their names.

[protagonisthalo]

"It's possible," Luo Binghe acknowledges. There is another Shen here, of course, but Shen Yuan was clearly from such a different background. Luo Binghe knows the Shen Qingqiu he knows here was someone else in his youth—and may have come from a different country or region, where relations between men are frowned upon—but naturally he hails from Luo Binghe's world, or else how would his soul wind up in Shen Qingqiu? "I'll keep looking. It seems this mansion grows more crowded by the shichen.¹ I met another man on that day who I have not seen a whisper of before or since. I don't know his name—he gave me some cookies. Child me, I mean." Luo Binghe is not looking for him, though; it would be too humiliating.

¹Two hours.