forum the house across the river // O/O // Closed

Started July 25, 2021 by @MarDeColores this is not it kids

tune

Iro frowned, folding his arms across his chest. Small gods? Jin spoke of them as if he should know who they were, but not even the deepest recesses of his memory contained anything resembling the "small gods". Maybe it was a cultural thing.

"I'm not aware of any gods, honestly," he muttered in response. Talk of gods, he found, was mostly prevalent outside of Darchester. His home did not recognize a theistic religion as its primary one, and while he was certainly not ignorant to the concept of deities, the lack of available information in his home city made acquiring knowledge on the nations surrounding them rather difficult. He was going to rely pretty heavily on Jin for any information about this land.

He, too, however, had noticed the small gathering of villagers before them, and cast a side glance at Jin. Something was up about this guy.

Way to go, Captain Obvious, he snickered to himself. A man who could resurrect himself and scare bandits away with flowers was certainly someone interesting. And, based on the general village reaction, it seemed to be a good kind of interesting.

"Ah, figures." Jin glanced at Iro. Given that he had mentioned towns Jin didn't really know, he was from somewhere else. So he obviously wouldn't know about the small gods. "Yeah, we're here to help you. At least, I am. Whenever you need, I will beat some people up for you." He smirked at the thought.
"What's your name?" The same woman who spoke up the first time. All the villager's focus was on him, despite Iro being right there.
"Jin. Are you going to ask him that?" He nodded at Iro, feeling a little desperate to get the attention less focused on him.
"Jin? As in 'flower'?" The woman's eyes widened. "The prophecy…"
"'There will be a child of the flowers who carries the will of the small gods with them.'" Another villager spoke up. "He must be that child!"
"No, I'm not. I'm just being funny. It's not my real name." Jin exclaimed, waving his hands at the villagers.
"Then what's your real name?" The woman fired back, hands on her hips. Jin glanced at Iro, wondering if he could just sprint out of there to avoid all the questions.
"I…" His real name was Hune Uyaki, translating to 'rose wind'. It also had to do with flowers, plus there was the whole thing where he was slightly famous. And also presumed dead. "I don't remember."

Iro, too, seemed to be aware that most of the attention was focused on Jin. It didn't bother him; given that his significant other was probably the most (in?)famous man in Darchester, he was, admittedly, used to being sidelined, and took no offense from it.

Besides, a familiar little boy had caught his attention. He was sitting on his mother's shoulders and waving at him in excitement, his already wide grin growing wider the moment he realized he had Iro's attention. Iro smiled and waved back. This was more than enough for him.

It did become clear to him, though, that Jin was becoming incredibly averse to all the attention, even more so now that a prophecy had been mentioned. He returned each desperate glance his way with an uncertain look of his own, unsure of what he could do to help. But, he'd do his best.

"With all due respect, ma'am, I don't know if it's a good idea to press him for answers right this second," he butted in, placing an arm in front of Jin to separate him from the crowd. "The man just got stabbed through the back. I'd imagine the whole ordeal would leave someone rather exhausted, yeah? He needs rest and attention of the more medicinal variety."

"He did?" The woman's eyes widened. Apparently, she hadn't been watching the fight. Jin didn't know how she missed it, but here they were.
"He did," Another villager confirmed.
"I did!" Jin nodded, pointing at the woman. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go back to my house and eat something. Goodbye." He gave them all a brief wave, then turned and started walking back towards his house. No one tried to stop him, probably because they had listened to Iro's words. Thank the gods. All that attention was pushing him into the past, when he was sharing that attention with Rusi and Muna. Simply thinking about them was almost enough to push him right over the edge, but he managed to hang on. Just barely. Ever since he'd crawled out of that makeshift grave, Jin had been feeling as though he was balancing on a thin line between sanity and insanity. He couldn't control himself, he couldn't stop himself from doing his first instinct instead of thinking over the options. Today, he decided. Today he was going to return to the site of his death and try to find a clue. Any clue. Something that might explain what was happening to him.
Jin blinked, realizing that he'd stopped walking at some point. All this was too much. He needed breakfast before he could start thinking about all this.

Iro pushed past the crowd and went after Jin, snagging his travel pack and slinging it onto his back as he passed it by. When he caught up, his jog slowed back down into a walk.

"A blow like that would've killed anyone," he remarked. "And, yet, here you are, like nothing happened. You're not even limping."

He stopped in his tracks right when Jin did, and he eyed the man curiously. He seemed to be dealing with some thoughts of his own, but Iro saw no harm in attempting to get some answers.

"You mentioned to the crowd that your name wasn't actually Jin. That, you surviving getting stabbed, and you scared those bandits away with just flowers… who are you, really? Was that prophecy actually talking about you?"

"I've had worse," Jin said, laughing and absentmindedly running his fingers over his throat. There was a scar there, appearing as though he'd had it forever. In reality, it had only been a few days– a week, at most– since Rusi Uyel slit his throat. "Who am I, really? I'm just an orphan who got good enough at killing to rise to the top of the world." Jin started walking again, twirling a strand of his waist-length hair around his finger as he did. The secret of who he really was was starting to pain him. Maybe… Iro didn't appear to be from around here, so he'd probably never even heard of him. Jin could just tell him, just to get it off his chest. And then he could fully become Jin. He could finally lay Hune Uyaki to rest. "My name was Hune Uyaki. My parents probably named me because of the prophecy, but everyone was doing it those days. Who wouldn't want to be the grand savior of the gods? I'm don't, and I'm not. It's just a misunderstanding. Some game the small gods are playing to make themselves feel clever." Jin nodded along with his words, trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince Iro. "They choose favorites sometimes. It doesn't mean anything." He glanced over at Iro. "Do you have anything to eat? There's a pomegranate tree near my house, but I've eaten that for the last few days and I'm tired of it."

Jin was quite right, Iro hardly recognized a thing he was talking about. It was certainly intriguing, though. Prophecies, the 'small gods', it almost sounded like a story he would have been read as a child, yet here he was witnessing it for himself.

"Oh! Yes, I've got food," he replied, pulling his travel pack in front of him and shuffling through its contents.

"I have oranges, tart apples, bread… what else… oh, sausage… and some pastries, if you're one for sweets."

He pulled out a smaller satchel from his pack that contained all the foods he had previously listed, handing it to Jin so he could take what he wanted from it.

It had occurred to him that Jin chose not to say why exactly he changed his name, but he didn't bother pressing for any more answers. Jin had shared what he wanted to, and while it would have definitely given Iro more insight into the fellow, it likely wasn't much his business.

"Well, what's the plan for the rest of the day? I— oh, shoot," he groaned, rubbing his face with a hand. It had completely slipped his mind to ask some of the villagers for directions to Edenborough.

"I, hah, got distracted by the bandits. I meant to ask for directions when I got to the village."

He sighed in defeat, casting a glance back the way they came. "Well, no point turning back now. Good thing my mission isn't urgent."

"Ooh, yes." Jin accepted the satchel and sifted through it. He'd had enough fruit for a while, so he grabbed some sausage and bread. "I'm coming back for some of that pastry," He warned, handing the satchel back to Iro. "Oh, right. Sorry. We can go back later." Jin put the bread into his mouth and used his free hand to open the door to his house. Before he ate, he needed to do something. Before he lost his will to do it. He still had the sword from the bandits, which eliminated the need to find a sharp thing. Jin set down his breakfast on the nearest clean-looking surface and grabbed a handful of his hair. A couple of seconds later, his hair was falling messily down around his shoulders and he had a big handful of wavy white hair. "There we go. A fresh start." Jin stared at the hair for a second, then tossed it into the nearest corner. He had been planning on staying here, but… the way the villagers looked at him made him uneasy. Maybe finding a different place, farther away, would be better. Yeah, it would be. Jin grabbed the bread and took a big bite. Oh, he'd missed this sort of stuff.

Iro slung the satchel over his shoulder, chuckling to himself. A love for dessert spread further than home, it seemed.

He leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms, and watched as Jin took the sword he'd acquired earlier and cut his hair to shoulder length. He blinked, raising an eyebrow in surprise. That was a lot of hair he'd chosen to chop off. He could respect someone willing to approach changes in life with confidence — if not confidence, then determination.

While Jin ate, Iro turned his attention towards the house itself. It felt… empty. Ominously empty. There was a bed and a fireplace, but not much to really make a house a home. It, in a way, was almost sad to look at.

"Well," he breathed, briefly glancing outside before turning his attention back to Jin, "what do we do now? Those bandits are done for, but we just left that village. Is there anywhere else to go?"

Jin finished the bread and moved on to the sausage. "I dunno. I think I'm going to go somewhere else." He tilted his head to the side slightly. "I could go with you to that place you were trying to find." The place where Iro was going probably wouldn't know anything about the prophecy, which meant that he could just relax. "Do you have a map? I could try and see if I know where you are on it." Even though he'd cut his hair and changed his name, word of the strange white-haired man who could rise from the dead would eventually reach Muna and Rusi. They would definitely come to investigate, and then he would be done for. Leaving this area for good didn't seem like such a bad idea. In fact, it seemed like a very good idea.

Iro nodded, pulling his map out from his travel pack and unfolding it. He pointed at a bundle of land off to the west of the continent, "That's Darchester, where I came from. Big city with a decent population, but pretty isolated from the rest of the world. I'm looking for Edenborough, which is riiiiight…"

He drew his finger across the map, resting it on top of a smaller patch of land bordering the coast, some distance away but otherwise mostly east of Darchester. "Here. It's no large society, but that makes it a good spot to establish diplomatic relations. Nobody would expect it, which would make it easier to stay under the radar for the time being."

He pursed his lips, scanning the rest of the map in a vain attempt to pinpoint his location. "Given that all I had to do was walk east, I'm a little concerned I ended up getting lost anyway, hah. You wouldn't happen to recognize anything here, would you?"

Jin stared at the map, eyebrows drawing together. "You're really bad at this, you know." He tapped a spot on the map south of both of the locations. "We're here. Around here, at least. Generally in this area." Before he'd come to this area, he had studied maps of the surrounding land. They had been different than this map– more detailed on the specific area, but he could remember enough of them. "So you would have to go all the way up here to get to Edenborough." He giggled, tracing a straight line between the two points. "How in the world did you manage to get all the way out here?" Jin shook his head and went back to eating. "It's a miracle."

Iro broke off into laughter. It really was an absurd concept, but he didn't think he could explain himself if he tried.

"I don't know, man," he managed, "I-I just— I don't get out much. Navigation isn't exactly something I'm good at."

While Jin continued to eat, Iro studied the trail Jin had pointed out to him. He sat down in the grass, pulling out a quill and ink and marking the directions to Edenborough from where he was now. Hopefully he wouldn't forget again.

"Alright, so… when we get to Edenborough, I gotta find the head honcho there and talk to them. Did you, uhm, have something you needed to do there, or are you coming with me just for the sake of it?"

"Obviously," Jin snickered, finishing off the last of the sausage. "What kind of pastries do you have?" He asked, eyeing Iro's satchel. At the man's question, he shifted his gaze to Iro's face. "I have nothing I need to do. I'm coming for the fun of it." He shrugged. Maybe once he got there, he would leave again. Maybe he would stay there. It all depended on the situation. "What are you talking to the 'head honcho' about? Or is that a secret I'm not allowed to know?" Jin raised an eyebrow, half of his attention already focusing on finding something to tie his hair back. He couldn't wear it loose anymore, not with the length it was at. It directly contradicted his clothing, but he would have to make do with it until he could find something else to wear. At least once they left the areas he knew, he could stop worrying about it so much. Then again, he could always pretend to be newly rich. His clothes were a bit dirty and blood-stained for that, though. Never mind that idea. Back to the stolen clothes excuse.

Iro tossed Jin the satchel. "Muffins, cream-filled donuts, and a signature dessert from home. I forget what they call it, but it's a little patch of dough filled with berries and chocolate. One thing I do happen to like about home is that I have yet to find better dessert."

He continued making marks on his map, adding more specific details to certain locations and jotting notes for both himself and the Brigade Council for when he returned.

"Oh, it's, hah, really boring stuff," Iro snickered. "Politics, diplomacy, all that jazz. My job is to represent my boss, the Director, and secure an alliance with the government body over at Edenborough. We're trying to establish strong foreign relationships so we pose a political threat to the ruling body, the Three Chosen, back home."

He seemed to realize he was about to go into tangent mode, so he cut himself short, not wanting to bore Jin too much with his work. "Long story short, Darchester's ruling body is rife with corruption — kind of an oligarchy going on — and because nobody has the power to rival their leadership, the Director's trying to acquire that power. If we can get foreign support, that means expanding our influence and having potential backup if things go south."

Iro waved a hand dismissively. "But you probably don't care about any of that, you sound like you've got enough problems of your own."

"Oh, I'll try that mystery dessert." Jin poked around the satchel, then brought out something that appeared to be what Iro had just described. "Oh, I see." He nodded along with Iro's explanation, though half the words the man was saying were flying right over his head. He'd never concerned himself much with politics and power. It didn't even matter that much in Kito, since everyone and no one had power at the exact same time. He just made sure the other groups of people didn't kill his group of people, and that was that. Nice and simple. "This is really good," Jin added, waving the remaining pastry at Iro. "I don't care, but I'd rather focus on that than my own problems." He laughed and stuffed the rest of the pastry in his mouth. Seriously, it was so good. It was a shame he'd probably never get to eat it again. Maybe that was for the best, actually. He'd probably never eat anything else again if it was easy to get.

Iro grinned. "Hell yeah it's good. It's my favorite dessert."

He laughed alongside Jin. Sometimes he wished he didn't care either; he truly believed he was on the right mission, but the whole ordeal frequently left him more stressed than he could handle. He didn't like having the weight of a nation on his shoulders.

But he wasn't bearing the burden alone, and sometimes he wondered if that was the only thing keeping him going.

Iro rolled up the map, shoving it into his travel pack and tying it shut. "That's that."

He sat up, slinging his pack onto his back, and faced Jin with a new determination.

"Well, I'm ready when you are. If your directions are accurate, we should probably be able to get there before noon."

"You have good taste." Jin gave him a thumbs-up and brushed his hands off on his jacket. "I'm ready. I don't need any of this stuff." He waved a vague hand at the mess in the house. Jin hadn't found anything to tie his hair back anywhere in the small area that he'd searched, which made him a little angry. He did have something… Jin grabbed his wrist and pressed his lips together. He couldn't use that. He couldn't… but he would if he didn't find anything else. Jin let out a breath. He really had to let the past go. It was just a ribbon. It wasn't doing any good wrapped around his wrist. With a slightly angry breath, Jin reached under his jacket sleeve and unwound a long, expensive-looking silver ribbon from his wrist. Both ends were embroidered with sprigs of lavender. Jin spent a moment staring at it, running his fingers over the embroidery. It really was beautiful. He shook his head slightly and quickly tied his hair back in a low ponytail. "Okay, off we go!" Jin clapped his hands and headed towards the door. "Let the adventure begin!" He opened the door rather violently, slamming it open with excessive force. Whatever. It wasn't his house anymore.

Iro couldn't help but notice the hesitancy with which Jin decided to use the ribbon around his wrist as a hair tie. He didn't consider it his place to inquire, but it did make him wonder what the ribbon meant to him.

Jin's change in demeaor confirmed that there would be no room for questions, and Iro was content with that. He readjusted himself, then followed suit as Jin made his way out of the house The slam of the door made him flinch, yet he was better this time about remembering where he was.

"You're sure you didn't want to take anything with you? Wasn't that your house?" he inquired as they walked, casting one last farewell glance at the house behind them.

"It wasn't. I just borrowed it for a few days." Jin shrugged in a carefree way. "It'll just go to the next wandering soul who passes by. Maybe they'll stay. Maybe they won't. Maybe the living will chase them away to far-off lands as well." He sighed softly, unconsciously reaching up and playing with the ribbon. Jin didn't know where that last sentence had come from. He wasn't usually so poetic. But the more he thought about it, the more it rang true. He really was being chased by the living. The ones who'd survived. He was just a ghost. A ghost who was afraid of those who were still alive. Ah, he needed to stop thinking like this. These sort of things made his heart ache with something choking. Something that filled his chest with a void that just kept taking. Jin quickly brushed the ribbon back over his shoulder. "Why don't you lead the way? Being with the map and all. And I'll be useless once we leave this area." He grinned at Iro, pushing all the troubles he could out of his head.

Iro pulled the map back out, glancing at it and gauging their position relative to the map.

"Based on what you said, we're still on the right track," he mumbled, more to himself than to Jin. He rolled the map back up, but kept it in his hands as opposed to putting it away.

His gaze drifted for a moment, taking in the scenery around him. The natural world was quite beautiful. Maybe, if he could, he'd take a plant or two and bring it home; he'd wanted to expand his garden a little more past native flora.

He gripped the straps of his travel pack, briefly indulging in his thoughts. Well, if these two were going to see the trip through together, he might as well get to know his new companion.

"If you're not from here, then, what brought you to this place to begin with? Where did you come from?"

(btw, I'm going on a trip for the rest of the week and probably won't be able to respond until I'm back. :)
Jin nodded, glad that they were going the right way. Seeing as how Iro had gotten lost the first time, he probably should have been leading. But he didn't feel like it, and Iro had directions now. He would do fine. "Eh?" Jin glanced over at Iro. "Oh. I came from one of the cities by the coast." He didn't say its name. It would bring up too many memories. "I…" The reason he'd come here in the first place was because of the war between his city and another. And the reason he'd been left here was because he'd been betrayed. Someone– he didn't know who– had framed him, turned everyone against him. That seemed like a little much to tell someone he'd just met. "I came here because I needed a change of scenery. Home was getting too boring for my tastes." He let out a light-hearted laugh and glanced around. "This place sure is more interesting."

(alrighty! safe travels :D)

Iro laughed alongside Jin, content with his answer. "Ah, the coast. I've always wanted to live near the ocean, to be honest. My home's got mountains for miles; it's kind of geographically secluded from other places, which, naturally, leads to social seclusion. I'd imagine a more open city gives way to actually being able to interact with the outside world."

He shrugged. "But I can agree with you on that; this place is certainly different. I'm almost a little sad to leave so quickly, but business is business. At least it'll make for a good story."

He tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. "You mentioned the 'small gods' earlier. I, well… are they figures I should be familiar with? I'm not sure if their influence will carry to Edenborough, but they sound important."

(Thank you!)
"Mountains… I've never been. Are they pretty?" Jin asked, frowning in curiosity. There were mountains visible from where he'd lived, but he'd never gone near them. They were always lurking on the horizon, far out of reach. "I think the place could've benefited from a little seclusion. There was always too much interaction with the outside world. The place down the river and down the coast are constantly coming in and messing with us. I never got to relax!" Jin glanced over at Iro at his question, wondering how exactly he should explain those annoyances. "Well… they're… they're these… little gods. They're smaller than an average god… I guess. Though I've never seen another god. I've heard Sol, from up in Opria, is basically the sun." Jin paused. "And they're apparently 7 feet tall on a bad day, so they're big both literally and figuratively. But the small gods… there's a lot of them. And they all have their own little things they look after. Lavender, for example," Jin reached up and grabbed the end of his hair ribbon, holding it out so Iro could look at it, "presides over healing. Sage is protection, yellow roses friendship…" He trailed off. He'd just described the two small gods that Muna and Rusi had liked the most. He hadn't meant to do that. He really wished he hadn't done that. They'd all gotten hair ribbons with the symbol of their favorite small god on them for the flower festival one year. Oh, why had he done that…
"Anyway, they're just little beings and they have little shrines in all the cities and some people pray to them and some don't and they just sort of live here and sometimes they pick people they like and mess them up for their own amusement but that's fine and hardly ever happens!" Jin spit out in one breath, gasping once he'd finished the long sentence.

"Mmm.. depends on what you find pretty," Iro replied. "If you find pretty in feeling small, standing at the base of the mountain's probably the best feeling you'll get. But, personally, I like the sights on top. When you finally get to scale one, and you look at all the land below that'cha had to climb to get there?"

He exhaled, sounding exhilerated just from imagining it all. "That's the good stuff, lemme tell you."

At Jin's explaination, he nodded curiously. "Oh, that's interesting. Gods aren't big where I come from, so excuse my ignorance, hah. They believe instead that there's forces in the universe at work that live in harmony with us. But, to be honest," he admitted quietly, "I'd always felt there was a little more to it. Some of those forces always felt too smart to act the way they do, almost like someone was behind it all, y'know?"

But as Jin continued, he noticed there was a certain energy to his words that felt… off. His brow furrowed, and he came to a stop, now facing Jin with a new curiosity, accompanied by worry.

"Are you… okay?"