deercountry | Settling In Whilst Unsettled (June Catch-all)

Varre might have been satisfied with the house he'd found in Lumenwood, but so far as Shen Yuan was concerned it needed a lot more work before it'd be livable. The fact that Shen Yuan himself had never been more than an indifferent housekeeper at best (and had, in fact, dumped all such tasks onto Luo Binghe as soon as the protagonist offered) wasn't going to stop him: he refused to live in squalor. And more importantly, so did Xiu Ya.

Finding the sword on the beach had also been unexpected. He'd always been clear on the fact that Xiu Ya had chosen the original Shen Qingqiu, not him, and he'd assumed the System had fixed things somehow so he could use sword glares and flying and all that cool stuff. But never once had it occured to him that Xiu Ya might have actual feelings about that...a fact that made him feel pretty shitty, and also anxiously grateful for that fact that the sword didn't seem to have a grudge against him for essentially replacing its chosen master and subjugating it (however accidentally!). Xiu Ya was no Xin Mo or even a Xuan Su, he didn't think it was actually capable of eating his soul or anything fatal like that, but it still wasn't something he wanted to piss off. He had enough problems, what with trying to adjust to a new world while roommates with a religious fanatic with pretentions to the medical profession (if Varre had ever actually been to med school, Shen Yuan would be greatly surprised) and having some of the worst anxiety dreams he'd ever had in his life about...certain people he'd left behind...while also trying to figure out how to apply white wash to a building without getting it all over himself.

Yes. He was trying to whitewash the house. At least the interior, the shopkeeper he'd found had sworn up and down that it'd make the house smell nicer and stay more sanitary, but so far Shen Yuan was just making a bigger mess than he'd started with. And Varre had taken off somewhere, so he couldn't even push his creepy roommate for help...if some kind-hearted stranger wanted to come along and distract him from his work, he'd be grateful.

No really, come distract him. Please.

Trying to keep anything permanently clean and fresh-smelling in Lumenwood is a bit silly, in Palamedes' opinion (one which almost all of his fellow blood ministers share, for obvious reasons). The district is just always a little gross, despite the flowers, and depending on how high one's tolerance is for choking down blood mist every time they step outside. Palamedes has fashioned himself a sort of scarf-mask for this, to mitigate the unpleasant air and maybe possibly reduce his already high risk of corruption, sticking his hands into blood all day long.

So it is be-scarfed and on his way to a lamp out of Lumenwood that he comes across Varre's creepy house with all the roses. He's not as familiar with plants as a person could be, being from a rock with no atmosphere, but he has a keen sense for more blood in one place, and so a bunch of plants that seem to... enjoy the blood mist, as it were, catch his attention.

He's wandered up to the door and knocked before really thinking about what he'll say. 'The flowers might be dangerous to keep on your doorstep, actually?' 'Have you considered Lumenflowers to balance it out?' 'Damn, they are big flowers, huh?'

Maybe not the last one.

When the door opens and he can see a glimpse of way too much whitewash in the room beyond, what his brain whirs around and settles on is, "I think you spilled something." Helpful. Ahem. "I was going to ask about the- these flowers, but do you need help?"

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting when he opened the door -- somebody looking for Varre's dubious assistance, maybe? -- but an offer of help wasn't it. He almost said 'no thank you' reflexively, before Xiu Ya suddenly threw its own yuan into the ring. It wasn't pleased at all with the mess he'd made, even though he'd done his best to keep her out of it, and it thought he should do ahead and accept the help if it was sincerely meant.

Shen Yuan sighes, leaning against the door. His clothes and hair are spattered with whitewash, despite his best efforts, and the bags under his eyes are very dark. "Look, do you really mean that, or are you just offering to help to be polite or something?" he asked briskly. "Because I could use some help honestly, but frankly if you don't really mean it I'd prefer you just say so, because I don't have the time or energy to deal with anything else right now."

He winces as Xiu Ya immediately starts chewing him out in his head. It doesn't matter that the sword doesn't really think in words, her intentions are coming through very loud and clear and he doesn't approve of his "rudeness."

Oh, yeah, this is a whole mess and a half, huh. Palamedes doesn't know the first thing about whitewash or how to apply it - he's only ever lived in a space bunker before coming here and moving into a different, smaller bunker - but he thinks he knows how to clean up a mess. Probably. He raises an eyebrow, first at the blunt dressing down of his offer to help and then at the face this stranger makes, seemingly unrelated as it is to the first part. Delayed, at least.

Mysterious.

"I only knock on doors to waste people's time, of course," he says, then, "I'm being polite and offering to help at the same time, actually. It's way more efficient."

Another glance, at the... spots of whitewash all over... ah.

"At least let me lend a hand with something while you... put on a smock? Do you have a smock?"

Ah, a smartass. How nice to meet one of his own people in this far-away world. Shen Yuan opens the door the rest of the way and stands aside, saying, "Go ahead and come in, then. I'm not above admitting when I've gotten in over my head."

That's one big advantage Xiu Ya has over the System: he's allowed, no, encouraged to ask for help. It's useful if a little infantilizing; he has the impression the sword thinks of him as some kind of unfinished block of metal that needs to be hammered into shape by an expert.

The first floor of the house has what Shen Yuan had immediately dubbed an "open floor plan;" a large, open space, with a hearth and cupboards at one end and a narrow staircase at the other, leading up to the second floor where he actually lived. He'd at least been sensible enough to pin a cheap, secondhand sheet up in front of the hearth -- he has no desire to find out what burning whitewash smells like -- and move the chairs that came with the house into the backyard. The heavy table where Varre performed his [shudder] amputations was too bulky for Shen Yuan, with his baby cultivator strength, to move outside as well, but he pushed it up against a section of wall that he's most left untouched. Xiu Ya hangs from a hook on the wall, a silvery sword wrapped up in a green sash that's been beaming discontent into Shen Yuan's mind for the last hour and a half. He ignores her; people who don't have hands don't get to have an opinion on his progress.

"My name's Shen Yuan, by the way," he says as the stranger comes inside and takes a look around. "I don't own a smock."

Edited ((Varre is terrible)) 2022-06-14 10:49 (UTC)

"You should probably own a smock," Palamedes says, as he takes a look around. Here's the first problem: he also doesn't have a smock, but then, he wasn't planning on whitewashing a house today. He figures if he must ruin his own clothes, he'll ruin the innermost (grey) shirt and not his (grey) overpiece or his (grey) cloak or his other (slightly darker grey) outer cloak, the one that's blood-resistant.

He moves to shrug off these myriad outer layers and perhaps leave them on the table, away from the whitewash adventure.

"I'm Palamedes, and I hope you intend to paint everything exactly the same, because I'm not much of an artist."

And. There is a sword on the wall all by its lonesome, and it seems- well, it seems? Most swords don't even have a 'seems,' in his experience. He has to ask.

"Is your sword— okay?"

"No," Shen Yuan answers automatically, before giving Palamedes a double-take. He looks over at Xiu Ya -- still quietly hanging on her hook, though now her emotional output feels more like a bemused glance back at him -- and then looks back at Palamedes, eyes narrowed.

"What do you think is the matter with my sword?" he demands.

Palamedes watches what is definitely some kind of exchange between sword and wielder, here, not unlike a silent conversation with a lot of gratuitous eyebrow movement he might have with Camilla, if she weren't still in the sea. There's undoubtedly a vibe in the air, although he hasn't ever talked to a sword, so-

"You, I think," he says, and holds up his hands in a placating gesture as if to say yes, yes, that's rude to say, he knows, hold on. "I'm good at - energy sensing, spiritual and so on, and the energy in here is off. The sword was my first guess, but since you've all but confirmed it outright, it's my last guess now, too."

Did you argue with your sword, buddy. Did you.

"Ugh."

If there were any chairs left in the room, this would be the perfect time to dramatically drop into one of them. But since there aren't, he leans against the table instead, glowering.

Are you calling his vibes rancid, sir? How dare you. How dare.

"It's not my doing," he says defensively. "Swords like Xiu Ya are supposed to choose their wielders, but a god fucked around and now we're stuck finding out. She was "reassigned" to me," he explains with an eye-roll, since he can't expect people from other universes to understand memes. "But we're not under that specific god's thumb anymore, so I don't know why she insists on sticking around." Xiu Ya's spiritual presence practically flutters with irritation, impatience, and a tangle of emotions that remind Shen Yuan of somebody's interfering auntie cornering them at New Years to ask why they haven't yet found a girlfriend. So annoying.

"See? She does that whenever I even come close to suggesting she find someone else. I don't get it."

"She's a sword," Palamedes says, like, obviously she can't get up and walk to the town square to take out a personal ad. "You're trying to foist her off on someone else because you're inconvenienced-" he holds up a hand, "Just what it sounds like, anyway- and that's not how relationships work."

Relationships, in the same breath he says 'she's a sword,' well, both can be true. Be nicer to this sword, my dude.

"How in tune are you with her energy signature? Can she speak through this 'assignment' of yours?"

"I'm not saying I want to leave her in a ditch or anything," Shen Yuan snaps -- whines, honestly, though that's a little more self-aware than he's willing to be -- "I just -- I don’t know how to be the kind of person she needs."

He scrubs his hands clean on the edge of his robe before leaning over to take her down off the wall. "She can't talk. Air -- None of the sages ever wrote anything about spiritual swords talking. But she's...I could never feel her spiritual presence this easily before. It's almost like she's alive."

Heh, 'almost.' Good one, Shen Yuan. You clown.

Oh boy, he's always wanted to play relationship counselor to a guy and a sword. It would have helped if she could talk - or if interacting with her energy more directly had something of a similar effect? Maybe he'll ask, but touching a lady sword that's completely aware without permission from the lady sword seems incredibly rude.

"Does it matter? 'Almost,' I mean. Even if she were a possessed sword, she's still trying to have this relationship with you." And Palamedes strongly believes in Spirit Rights, so like, that's a semantic difference he doesn't even need to clarify! She's aware, which is enough.

"What is 'the kind of person she needs'?" A beat. "You do know how to use a sword...?"

"Of course I do!" Shen Yuan snaps, only to grimace as the stranger's expression of skepticism perfectly mirrored Xiu Ya's flutterings of outraged denial. "I do!" he says again, directly addressing his sword. "You were there, damn it, remember when we defeated Elder One-Arm? I kicked his ass!"

He growls, more than a little frustrated, before explaining to the stranger, "There was, the god wanted me to impersonate someone, so it downloaded -- it made sure I could do all the same things he could do, to keep up appearances. I've got all the skills of a master cultivator, I just can't -- I don't know -- here, you try talking to her!" And he shoves Xiu Ya into the stranger's hands.

[ooc: Sorry to throw a curveball at you, I had one of those moments of "oh man you know what would be cool???" at like 2am. Would you perhaps be up for a psychic conversation with my OC? XD]

[ooc: absolutely. talk swordly to him, I'm into it.]

"It's not a problem if you don't," Palamedes says, in the background, underneath the protesting and one-sided bickering. "I don't know the first thing about swords unless someone printed it in a book."

Not that anyone would learn swordfighting out of a book, that's silly. In any case, he's just standing here waiting for the, ah- squabble? Lover's quarrel, practically?- ends, and so he startles when Shen Yuan shoves the sword at him, fumbling to clutch it in both arms lest he drop it embarrassingly. "What do you mean, 'it downloaded,' how did you learn to— oh?"

Oh, because the sword energy does feel different when it's in his hands, and he looks down. Now, objects he's talked to have never talked back, but this one is literally self-aware, so, "Hello?"

Sorry, Shen Yuan, you're way less interesting now if he can talk to a sword, hold on a second.

Ah?

A spiritual presence flutters at the edge's of Palamedes' mind, like a courty lady adjusting her silken sleeves and shawl into a more comfortable configuration.

What manner of power could this be? This venerable one thought she knew of all the configurations whereby a human's qi is shaped, and yet this young man's spiritual veins are wholly new to me. Still, a voice sighed, Familiar or no, this venerable one must express her gratitude for your intercession, dear traveller. This one's servant and his many shortcomings have vexed this venerable one considerably ever since we arrived in this world.

Shen Yuan raises an eyebrow as Palamedes goes a bit slackjawed over his sword. "You okay over there?" he asks.

Edited 2022-07-02 06:16 (UTC)

Palamedes glances up and over at Shen Yuan, brow furrowed in semi-concentration, and waves a hand at him. He says, "Wait a minute; throw some paint around, or something. Find a smock."

And then turns his attention back to the sword. He's absolutely never tried to push his psychometry into the realm of projecting whole sentences, mentally, so Shen Yuan at least gets to hear one half of this conversation, as he continues to speak out loud.

"I'm a necromancer," hm, "Lady... Xiu Ya? Is that what you'd like to be called?" He knows nothing about swords other than sometimes people call them things, but like, things that mean 'big smashy,' usually. If 'Xiu Ya' means 'big smashy' and not a name, that's probably not ideal. Anyway, "I'm pretty good at handling spirits, when they're up for it. Can I..."

He glances at Shen Yuan again, like hm, shortcomings, this poor dude and his lack of smock and also any amount of chill. Ahem, sword, "Can I help you with anything?"

Such a polite young man, the sword murmurs in approval. 'Lady' Xiu Ya will do just fine.

"Wait, you mean it actually worked?" Shen Yuan's own mouth drops open, before he leans closer, demanding, "What's she saying?"

Ah! Xiu Ya proclaims her dismay. So uncouth! Gentle necromancer, this venerable one begs you: since I cannot do it myself, kindly remind my servant that this is no way for a cultivator to behave.

Edited 2022-07-03 10:38 (UTC)

"That you have bad manners and you eavesdrop too much," Palamedes answers Shen Yuan almost at the same time Xiu Ya responds through spiritual energy, half-turning away with the sword held defensively close. Don't lean into the lady's space like that, it's untoward.

A beat, then he adds, "Hm, revision: she says 'this is no way for a cultivator to behave,' but I think my version covered that, too. I'm perfectly happy to serve as medium and middleman for you two, but don't crowd me. Please."

And to the lovely lady, "Is that alright? I can relay whatever you like."

"Are...are you ganging up on me?" Shen Yuan asked, too shocked to be offended. It didn't last. "Are you seriously ganging up on me with my own sword?"

Oh? Xiu Ya snapped back, offended in her own right. Is this not the man who just said this venerable one would be better off finding another partner? How bold he must be, to care about this one's opinion now!

Shen Yuan's face turns bright red when Palamedes relays that particular message.

"Well...fine!" he finally snaps. "That's just fine!" He leans back against the edge of the table, somehow giving the impression of having flounced despite being dressed down to a single layer. "Go on then, your highness," he says ungraciously. "Impart your wisdom to this lowly one."

Xiu Ya is far too refined to groan, but she would very much like to. Must you be so childish? she pondered -- and then, in a diffident tone that sounded completely unlike anything she'd said so far, Is it so incredible that this venerable one might wish to help you?

It was clear that Shen Yuan had no idea what to say to this. "Well...yeah," he finally answered. "I know I'm not your person. You didn't choose me."

Not in the traditional way, Xiu Ya acknowledged. But our bond is true nonetheless. Else how would this blade have followed you to this world?

Settling In Whilst Unsettled (June Catch-all)

Palamedes thread (Varre's house, closed to SexPal and Varre without PM)

i am late, it's mega wedding weekend for my brother, wheeze

No problem, congrats to your brother!

ty!! i am back in the saddle now yahoo

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