Jiāshu

Posted on Sun Feb 6th, 2022 @ 4:36am by Daiyu & Alden Loxley

Mission: Li Shen's Bazaar
Location: Fortune's Echo - Alden's Cabin
Timeline: Nov 2nd - 8hrs from Li Shen's

His cabin was functionally tidy - safe enough if any crazy manoeuvres were necessary - but definitely the messy, lived-in feel of a place of comfort and sanctuary. A worn and well-used guitar on the wall, a fold-down 'sofa' beneath a vast battered paper map of the Verse, some travel posters in the friendly old-style, books, clothes and the occasional souvenir scattered about. His bed was neatly made with a homemade, country-style patchwork quilt covering it in its entirety.

Alden had climbed down the entry ladder, handed Daiyu a mug of hot chocolate as she took a seat on that sofa and then sat down beside her. Close enough to be overtly supportive, separate enough so as not to imply any inappropriate intimacy.

"Mei mei," Alden said, with a gentle seriousness. "Can you tell me about what She said about Jiāshu?"

The smell of the hot mug made Daiyu drift away on the scent alone. A faint smile stretched her scarred lips into something macabre and endearing. But then the question made her pause with an abruptness that sloshed a drop over the mug's rim onto the sofa.

"No family," Daiyu said, using the English form of the word. "I...I don't know any family." The mug started to tremble in her quivering hand. "She is angry."

At Daiyu's reaction to the mug, Alden's grin was overt and warm with a simple happiness. He didn't know what had happened to her, though the guesses he'd made rose plenty of fury up from the depths of his own heart, but there was no face he'd met yet that didn't improve with the smallest of smiles.

"You don't, but She does?" He risked, poking that emotional bear as gently as he dared. Long fingers gently wrapped about Daiyu's own, steadying both her hand and the heated ceramic vessel within it. "What's She angry about, Daiyu?" All the killing? Verse knew, he weren't happy 'bout that either.

Daiyu lowered her head as if she wasn't going to say anything, but then snapped back up to look Alden in the eye. "She was angry," Daiyu said with terror, "that we left."

That direct lock of a gaze hit Alden right in the heart muscle and he internally flinched, but kept that inner reaction to himself. He wasn't proud of leaving either, but he wasn't sure that was the point Daiyu was making.

"Me, I was sad," he admitted openly. "But there was nothing we could do. We needed to be sure we were safe and report in the situation." He sighed, feeling the weighty uselessness of his own presence in this unhappy tale. "So many ghosts..." Alden said on an exhale. Then he asked Daiyu outright.

"What did She want to do?"

"Stay."

The look Daiyu fixed on Alden slowly shifted. Like the turning of leaves in the fall, her expression changed. Horror slid ever so gently into lust.

"Stay..."

This time the word came out low and sweet on a sultry breath. Her eye contact remained fixed on Alden, though her glance darted between his hands and his face in a measuring consideration of...something.

Before anything happened, though, Daiyu's dark eyes blinked away the wave of growing desire, with tears replacing the lurid look that had briefly shown there.

"She is sorry," Daiyu whimpered. "She cannot stop her, but..." Biting her lip, Daiyu fell back into sullen silence once more.

There it was again - that sense of a screen changing channels - and as swiftly as Daiyu shifted, she reverted back. Alden stayed still, unmoving in physical stance though his emotions skipped a beat. This kinda thing he had witnessed before, not to this level maybe, but present nonetheless in his wife to an extent. Different personas perhaps, or... worse. He dismissed that internal shiver and refocused.

"No need to be sorry," Alden said, gently. "And I wouldn't leave you there. But we can find you someone for Her to talk to. Maybe that'll help?"

"Talking isn't safe," Daiyu whimpered. "Talking and feeling and thinking and..." Her voice fell to a whisper. "...remembering." And then she shook her head back and forth. "She doesn't want to remember. I won't make her. If she remembers..."

The headshaking stopped abruptly as it started. Daiyu's almond eyes parted open and stared at Alden unblinking. Scarred lips spread into a teasing smirk before a tongue flicked out like a snake sampling the scent of its prey.

"What do you want from me?" Daiyu asked softly. Her hand slithered up Alden's arm from the wrist to his elbow, squeezed his bicep, and then teased the lobe of his ear. "I can do anything for you, Captain."

If she remembers, what...? What happens? was the burning question in Alden's mind. "Sometimes talking's safe," he started to explain, ready with an offer of ensuring said protected conversational place once they reached their destination. "And sometimes remembering is the only way to fix stuff like this. Remembering ain't always easy though, I understand that wellanuff."

Then it was back - the unsettling version of Daiyu - back with a vengeance to disturb, upset and rattle his conscience along with his comfort.

Alden allowed the young woman's touch, conscious as he always was of two very particular problems. His lack of any idea how old Daiyu herself was and his certainty of that internal instability. She switched, clear as day, from friend to fancy, and he couldn't in good conscience allow that to happen.

"I want you to trust me," Alden said, placing his hand over hers and giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. "I want you to talk to me. Then I can get to know you better." He allowed his dark blue gaze to meet hers and held that eye contact as he continued. "I want us to be friends, shipmates and confidantes," he explained. "I don't want a girlfriend right now, I still miss my wife. Do you understand?"

"Wife?"

Though her inflection indicated it was a question, the glistening shine to Daiyu's saline eyes suggested she knew the meaning all too well.

"She was a wife," Daiyu whispered. "She... Wo de tiān a!" She grabbed both sides of her head and started shaking it faster than seemed possible. "Go! No, no, no, no! GO!"

Alden's hands continued to rest on Daiyu's, his aim to exercise just enough strength by which to protect the young woman from herself. To prevent her hurting herself. "Easy, Daiyu," he said. "Easy. I'm not going anywhere right now."

"Her husband left," Daiyu whimpered. "Xing zhuan! Why won't you wake up!" Her voice spiked in pitch and her eyes were shut tight. "Hé wo shuōhuà, wo de àirén!" Speak to me, my love.

Daiyu's face fell into her hands which she rested atop her folded knees to hide her weeping.

Oh... Ta Ma Duh... Well, that had taken a moment, but now that the penny had dropped, Alden internally cursed his own self for his slowness. She was a wife...

"Daiyu," he said, softer now as he wrapped a long arm about the young woman's shoulders in a comradely, big brother type of hug. "I understand." A soft pause. "You don't have to talk about it - him - but when you do, know that I'm here and I'll listen." They had something more in common than he'd realised and that stung Alden as much as his own familiar pain. "It's okay to cry," he told her gently. "Nothing's ever forgotten."

"Why should she cry?!" Daiyu shouted. "Tears are gone. Life is gone. There is only pain, and then only if she remembers."

Well, that was something Alden could certainly identify with. Pain. When he allowed himself to remember. He didn't ask her not to shout, but allowed Daiyu that moment of release, one of many she clearly needed to endure in safety and companionship.

"Crying is a release," he said. "Like blood flowing to clean infection from a wound. Pain inside your head is just as much an injury as a cut or a gunshot wound or a broken bone. Sometimes we can fix these things ourselves. Sometimes we need help from others. Life doesn't have to be gone forever. Life can continue, different, difficult, but not lost."

"I don't know," Daiyu whimpered. Even as she did so, a look of sordid, sinister delight sprouted from her dark eyes and spread across her face. "Blood flows," she whispered, "from more than wounds." She reached for Alden and gripped him tight enough for her fingernails to dig deep. "Let me show you," she whispered.

Yī dà tuó dà biàn! Internally cursed Alden. He'd flipped that Daiyu-switch again - really should be more careful with his turn of phrase.... "Ow!" He complained, not pulling his arm away for fear of damaging himself, but reaching out with his free hand to hold Daiyu's elbow in a steady grip. "I'm good," he said through a tense expression, yet with a calm tone. "Thanks. Please let go."

"You're hurting me," Daiyu said, though the timbre of her voice was all pleasure and no pain. Her tongue flicked over her scarred lips in savory anticipation.

Alden instantly let go, though he didn't recoil any distance from Daiyu, he did hold his hands up in a defensive surrender gesture. "I ain't looking to hurt ya," he said for clarity. "But I am here to help. I figure your particular situation is kinda way above my skillset, but for the record, I ain't gonna give up and I am gonna be here for you." All of you, Alden considered. "Mebbe we find you some more useful help, huh? But til then, we can talk or we can hug, but we can't be doing any of that husband and wife gymnastics, y'understand?"

The sordid, leering look in her eye didn't go away quickly, but in a moment she looked utterly vacant. Were her eyes not opened, she might have fallen asleep.

It was like Daiyu (or whatever her name or names really were) had her personality on a slider switch, summoned up in a variety pack by the words and actions of those around her. Alden was starting to notice tiny details - the blood thing for one - but he had far more questions than answers and figured that was likely to remain the case for some time yet. Some part of this young woman was related to whatever the hells had happened on Ghost - or somewhere like it - and that scent of Reaver-adjacent activity was definitely not lost on Loxley. She'd been a wife once, she'd been at a monastery with plants and monks of possibly dubious morals and she'd been abandoned in an escape pod. That wasn't much to go on, but Daiyu definitely seemed to be spending life being passed around some.

"How about we get something to eat?" He suggested, figuring they needed a break. "Enough talking for now. I'll make us some eggs."

Still and silent, Daiyu just stared at first, but then she nodded. Eggs did sound good.