middleofsomewhere | Wings of Wonder: NPC Interactions and Investigations

"Well aren't you an impressive looking one," Wei Wuxian says, one of those who've wandered by this statue with its horns and the niggling feeling of it. His brow furrows, and he smiles, because better to greet things with a smile until he learns he's facing something that takes bearing teeth as a sign of outright aggression.

What he does do is, well, bow to the statue, in the way that is common for himself and his people. Fisted hand placed into the centre of his palm, and a bow of his head to the crouched stone. Is it the source of the energy? It's one likelihood, and politeness has yet to land him in worse situations than brazen overtures.

"Hope you don't mind, but, nice to meet you. I'm Wei Wuxian," and if he's talking to a statue, this is not the worst mental health day he's had in the past. He settles his hands over the open stone palms, crouched down similarly to the figure.

No words come to Wei Wuxian, but as he settles his hands over those of the statues, there is a warmth that comes to his palms; reaching over them, a light prickling sensation following it (but, with a few firmer pricklings), but a warmth too. The impression of hands clasping over both of his, if with some unfortunate handwear by whoever was doing it.

The light prickling emerges again, to the spot at is chest where he placed his fist. A warmth with it, energy. Each of these gestures have energy around them.

Energy, albeit a kind that doesn't settle easily against him. He cants his head a touch to the side, sussing out what he feels, and giving the statue an even more curious look.

"Huh. Nice to meet you, too. All this energy, were you wanting any in return? Can't say I've had luck in this place so far," he says, though he leaves his one hand in place, and only reaches out toward the statue to mimic the location on chest where his fist had been, now on statue. "I'm willing to try, either way. Maybe you can help with that?"

Who knows, maybe the statue was a passive system response, like some cultivation item or treasure. Maybe it was actively aware. The choice in its energy expression, prickling and so oddly similar to waking with numbness shedding from a limb held in odd position for too long, is more welcoming for the warmth it also holds. Pain is too familiar to make a particular impact, on just this level.

Edited 2021-09-12 07:02 (UTC)

As the hand leaves the statue's, so does the prickling leave that one, the warmth left behind as warmth generally sticks to a person. However, as the fist comes to the chest - clothed in robes, hard, but there is a space there to place it -, the sensation returns after a few seconds of his offer.

It wraps around the fist with some warmth, tingling as before; then reaches higher, up to his wrist, then his arm, but stopping just halfway before coming to the elbow.

There is nothing more for a few moments, until the horns around its head pulsate once, glowing, a soft colour.

Then, nothing again. Perhaps the statue is waiting...

What kind of person would he be to make an offer and not follow through on it? This whole process is fascinating, has his mind cataloguing and considering. The retreat and return of warmth, in sensible enough ways; and how it moves up his arm, like being clasped around his forearm by one he hasn't met in some time.

Or by a stranger, he supposes, blinking and nearly missing the pulse at the horns. His lips quirk at that, and he nods in turn, carefully letting some of his qi flow through him and to his hand, placed against the statue's chest. He offers it outward, guided to the statue, but the way of this world doesn't mean that happens easily, or without effect.

"I've got a smaller supply than some of the people here," he says, by way of explanation and apology and warning all at once, "But if you don't mind smaller doses, I have enough to spare."

The close contact to the other allows the qi to flow better than it would, without touch. There is no pushback Wei Wuxian suffers, so long as he keeps it concentrated to the statue; any that wanders out into the air may firm, like forces pushing back where they come out.

No extra energy than what Wei Wuxian offers is seeked, and when there has been some small amount granted - about ten or twenty seconds, depending on how much is transferred at once - there is a push, a wall that's put up to end any more being granted.

The chest glows as the horns had, and from the small flowers with a vanilla-esque scent to them around the statue, the smell wafts upward, intentionally (what unintentional effects that has, is for unknown forces to decide).

All sensations withdraw from Wei Wuxian - the energy, the reaching out - as if a person drawing back. Wei Wuxian may think to draw back his fist, but whether he does or not, light colouring shows at the chest: two colours, energy, one that Wei Wuxian may be able to sense - or touch his fingers against the surface and know - is his; the other, possibly the statues, which is more prickly to feel.

They move against each other, bumping, perhaps attempting to meld. Either way, a process is happening here.

The changes as they happen are fascinating, as is the push, a firm but polite way to end the energy flow. When the sensations withdraw, he starts to pull his hand back as well, a return on politeness he doesn't think on before acting on. Still, with the scent of the flowers wafting up, his eyes flick down, and he remains crouching.

"Kind of you," he says, though if it's for the visuals, the flowers, or the stop to energy accepted, he doesn't clarify. Instead he reaches out once more to brush his fingers against those energies playing across the chest of the statue, with a quiet apology for the impropriety (it matters, on some level, to him with a non-soul-stealing statue so far), just to verify what he thought he felt.

One is his energy, and the touch and general sense of it remains his. The other one, reminiscent of how the foreign energy and its warmth have been.

"Are you finding a way for them to work together?" Either that or playing some kind of chess game against themselves, seeking and prodding to find a way to either win out, or coexist, or consume each other. Truly, who is he to say yet, other than to watch and consider the novelty of it all?

Different energies makes sense, of course. Some compatible, some not; each world has its own energy source, and the SCA couldn't work on a scale to make that compatible across all forms. Could this living stone manage something more akin to it?

... Or was it going to blow up in his face? Sure, that'd be interesting too, if harder to explain to his family.

Are you finding a way for them to work together? There is a pulsing, a press for where his fingers are, light in the prickling sensation, but not so stone. Whether a yes or no, it's an answer, for Wei Wuxian to translate as the two energies continue to mix, to do their dance. Testing, searching, exploring.

However, it make take some time. Whether Wei Wuxian wants to linger or to check on others, there won't be an immediate result.

Why not take ten minutes or so to check on the others, Wei Wuxian? Or, you can linger. You'll know when the statue is done, for there will be an energy, wherever he is on the island, to his chest, the shape of a fist; to his hands, warming them.

There is no prickling (except very, very lightly), no strange uncomfortable sensations. A qi pretending to be his.

Which might be questionable. Or exciting? Why not both.

Wei Wuxian is... unhelpfully, inclined to do just that checking in on the rest. Not that he leaves without saying, "I'll be back, thank you. I'll see how people's plans have come along," because if anyone needs plans, it's all of them honestly.

Also because the logistics are still in the works for the Northern and Western Islands, while South and East are yet more directions to work with.

He makes it back around to the statute after that seeing if he could help with particular plans elsewhere, cued in by the warm at his chest, at his hands. Questionable? Always. Exciting? Likewise. If he could hate his own curiosity, he wouldn't be himself, just aware that it can be a downfall of his when he's crouching again before the statue.

"You made them work together, that's incredible! Is it something you can keep doing, will this stay like this?"

He ponders, and then reaches into his sleeve to take hold of a talisman. Barrier breaking, but all it is can be activated without any external use. What does require qi outside of himself is how he flicks and guides it away from them both, the talisman activating some five seconds later, paper burning up to turn into fiery, flittering butterflies. They don't go much of anywhere, limited by the world, but they're there.

Answering is no easy feat when you're a statue that can't speak, but there may be more to the silence of activity or prompt that follows. Bu a few sparks eventually emerge in the air where the talisman had been used, as some imitation of the butterflies appear. Coloured in golden whites instead of fiery red, warm like the sun, with the tiny flaps of their wings like a light breeze.

Some amount of Wei Wuxian's type of qi starts slowly being mingled in with it, except - unfortunately, it evaporates it, making the butterflies lose their shape like the ripples on the surface of a lake.

The energy disappears. Nothing follows for a few seconds, until the previous warmth takes Wei Wuxian by the hands, a light tug sensation given - one that tickles - to lead them over to the statue's hands.

Time to teach a statue two warm bursts for yes, one warm burst for no. Or, as what happens when he watches the talisman, noting the way that similar and different butterflies of light emerge.

Then they're gone, just as abruptly, with his own qi mingling in. He hums, thinking over that, before the statue reclaims his attention.

"Closer, and clearly you can imitate what I'm doing," he says, but he doesn't fail to return and crouch down again, pressing his oddly tickled hands down onto the statue's open palms once more.

"I'm starting to wonder if we need to join energies each time for things to take form here. We should have some way of trying to speak when I don't hear you unless you want me to start playing for you. Music carries emotion better for me," he says, watching the statue with curious eyes. "One bloom of warmth for a no, two blooms in succession for yes?"

Wei Wuxian's answer doesn't come exactly in the way instructed; there's a warmth given to both hands, light, and then - he will feel another type of sensation. One of an energy in his mind, over a mental link. Led in at their hands, but an energy trying not to mingle, and energy attempting to imitate his own.

It's not too comfortable, and it's exhausted around the edges. But through emotion, the statue can speak. Feelings - fortunately, feelings are easy to translate.

Experiment. Complicated. Time. But there too lingers a worry, a concern, and the discomfort finds place to grow when, so does emotion. Worry. Home.

The islands, everything - this is what home means.

The colour red isn't visual, but Wei's mind may feel in the pieces. The sound of flapping wings. A pain. Disagreeable energies seeping in where they shouldn't. Filling up one's body, clouding the mind.

The experiences are shared, but only the knowledge; there's no pain forced here, only the unfortunate discomfort that still comes with the link. One that presses more as the concentration taken to imitate Wei Wuxian's energy wanes.

A few seconds of exhaustion, a pause of someone who wants to continue to speak, but draws back on the link.

He'd mutter about a serviceable idea being useless if he wasn't more impressed by the press of emotions when they eventually come, let alone the associations that tie in with it all. He frowns, closing his eyes to better focus, and while red isn't the colour in specific, red is the colour of hurt, and pain, and things wrong, just as it's the sign of passion, of fire, of other things in his lifetime.

A preferred colour for him even now, tied into his hair, and visible nowhere else.

Concern for a home, and a hurt alongside it. He almost wishes he could share that pain, and some sense of that emotion might transfer back; pain is not something that stops him, embraced and endured and accepted as it is. However, as his eyes open, as the energy from the statue wanes, he considers its features.

"We're here to help with that pain. The red one?" He pauses, considers. "I wonder if it came from below... but the islands, North, West, South. The flying things, they help bring these bad energies here?"

To be fair, he doesn't expect to have answers in words, but it's one way for him to voice things in return, and to try, to some extent, to again offer from what energy he has to the statue. Not much, he's too aware of his limits, but something else offered freely.

He may not receive answers for words, but for this time, he receives an answer by his idea: a warmth under his palms. Once. Twice. Then gently, or just tiredly, is shared another feeling in his mind: something trying to seep in, to confuse, to rattle minds. Thrashing, trying to consume.

A memory, one that eases way, and a small beat of gratitude is given before apology. A memory; it's easier to recall than to formulate impressions, and that's what the statue does: it shows to Wei Wuxian a memory, one that can't weave and imitate his energy as it would prefer, but still, it does its best to polish it.

So there's a discomfort, a shudder to go through his body, like a force attempting to take a seat in place of where Wei Wuxian's existence sits, cramped in a tight space.

But for it:

The land awakens its eyes, the span of its vision entirety, everywhere. Enshala has called from the South. Danger, watch out. A red sky, coming with the wings of many, carrying this new sky with them. You attempt to grant Enshala power, but the connection snaps.

Mamali, Omerka. You try to call them. Inji, Rosha. You call, but the East does not reply. You know the storm is coming for you, and there is panic in your heart. But you must not waver. This is your home. You must protect it, you must warn your heart to the West.

Shrinlo, you call out, linked to the heart amongst the trees of steel, mountains of stone. Shrinlo, call the people. Watch out. Beware. Danger. You cannot linger for details you do not know, cutting the communication, gathering yourself.

The red storm draws nearer, and before it even reaches, you feel its tendrils. Claws, attempting to dig in.

You will not let it. You will fight back.

The imagery dies away, fading to the darkness of one's mind usually is. The whisper of an apology left with it. Even with the energy given, there is the weariness, a struggle remembered in the memories, an exhaustion attempted to keep down.

The two blooming warmths, and oh, well then. It's with the memory that follows where Wei Wuxian considers that perhaps he's getting a little too used to this without the use of mind-endangering Empathy, but that in such a sense, he has the experience of being along for other's memory rides, or for Chaos's continued spill of them in his nightmares.

So he stills himself beneath the weight of this memory too, and the names, the information that is more about the lack that had been, the steps taken to preserve, to fight, to hold on. To come out of the memory and the apology that feels more than follows, and he looks to the statue, to the defender of a people with their own connections across these floating islands, and says:

"If we find them, can we help them reconnect, while we address what the red storm brought to these islands? What's lingered, and what continues to do harm."

The feeling, underneath it, of compassion, understanding, and resolve: not fierce, like it once had been, but steady, that forward we go, into this unknown, to resolve what we might. To salvage and save what can be saved.

"Can those like you help with the mind swaying, if we can get those suffering from it to you?"

Perhaps the animals, he thinks, and delayed, belated: the people.

Two pulses, once. Two pulses, twice. Emotions backs them each time, quietly so, aligned with belief. The flutter of appreciation for the emotions that cross the quiet line, but none that are made particularly prominent; more of a result of their current connection than anything.

But the statue directs with feeling, Wei Wuxian's attentions to the broken bridge beside them. A rather magnificent width, enough to fit a small army across.

Too bad about the broken parts, circular in nature, mostly. But it's not to the state of the bridge that Wei Wuxian's attention is drawn to it, except for the next implication given.

Community. More.

--of ones like them.

It's a fruitless gesture to squeeze stone hands, but he does, regardless, because it's a means of reassurance familiar to him. He's reminded as soon as he does that he is not, thankfully, obscenely strong, and that stone doesn't give to hands of flesh without reason or enough force applied.

"More of those like you across the broken bridge, to the East?" He glances that direction, along the pockmarked bridge, and nods once, thoughtfully. "Then we'll do what we can to get to them, and to make contact with... their names. Enshala, to the South. Shrinlo, to the West. Is there another to the North?"

This is a course of action to be explored and taken, when otherwise he would have had what? They have all the better intentions in the world, but before people who cannot know that, and the damages they will not be aware they're generating before hitting some breaking point.

Is there another to the North? One pulse for no. Very lightly, there is an impression given, though how intelligible it is - perhaps from exhaustion - it is, is for Wei Wuxian to decide.

But there is a haze of white to the right, a haze of white from below. Left. One comes in at the centre. And then one comes in from above, late.

Exhaustion makes it difficult to understand, and it's by the second haze that he thinks: perhaps, he has a sense of it. This grounding presence, defending islands, connected to each other, yes. One to the right. One below. To the left. To the centre.

The one from above, that, that makes less sense to him.

"I don't know that I understand. Is there meant for one of you to eventually guard the North?"

A pause, for any attempted answer from this exhausted defender.

Two pulses from their hands. It's an easier means of communication than pressing energies together, at the very least. And quicker to understand.

"So eventually, but not yet. North was the only island that had no one to defend it like however you and the rest like you can?"

He doesn't plan to ask much more. Conversing with the rest is going to help, and he shifts his gaze, looking East.

"Is there a way to the East that might assist with your energies, once we've reached out to those Forever Ones?"

Another two pulses in agreement, once, twice. For both questions, and then a brush of gratitude mingles in the air around Wei Wuxian. Perhaps later, some day, they will be able to speak better. But for now, Hemla wishes to convey as they can, what they can.

And at this time, their gratitude is endless, to know that their people on the islands will have aid.

"Got it. To some extent at least, I'll see about going East with some of the rest for the purpose of seeking out the four you named that direction." He gives stone hands a squeeze of reassurance he's not sure this one can feel, and smiles.

"We're a bunch of misfits, but we do more good in the scheme of things than ill. Whatever guidance you and yours are willing to offer will be welcomed with open arms."

Wings of Wonder: NPC Interactions and Investigations

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