protagonisthalo | [closed post] aftermath

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[closed post] aftermath

More than anything, Luo Binghe wishes this weren't so familiar. He is well accustomed to people drawn in by his beauty and charm, who turn away when they see what he is truly like. It has happened with nearly all of his wives, except Liu Mingyan. (He would love to see Liu Mingyan right now; how she would laugh at the idea that barely a day of torment inflicted on an enemy has caused all this trouble.)

It is still hard to believe Shen Yuan will not someday reach his limit and discover something that repulses him. But so far, no matter how deep he digs into Luo Binghe's darkness, he only fills it with light. Luo Binghe wants that feeling now. He wants to bathe in Shen Yuan's love and forgiveness; to transform under the light of his smile into someone worth loving. (A dose of sharp pain as he remembers the wish he involuntarily expressed to Claudius under the truth spell: I want to be proven wrong. I want someone to see some good in me that I did not recognize, and show me what it is. Shen Yuan has not yet convinced him, but he has come closer than Luo Binghe thought possible.) He is looking for Shen Yuan, following the pull of the blood they share, but if he passes by anyone else he counts as a friend, he will want to see them too.

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"Did something happen to trigger it?" Nina asks, gently. Unless Luo Binghe did something new, which she thinks isn't likely since he's been trying to not ruffle any feathers... this must be over the blood parasites. It felt like that happened an age and a half ago. The two of them weren't even that close, then -- but it was a pivotal moment in their friendship.

"I don't know. I think he has been growing steadily closer to Claudius." And steadily closer to Luo Binghe, but apparently Luo Binghe does not inspire love in Sagramore.

If it were something more recent, Luo Binghe could understand better, but instead it is something he did before he even learned the rules of this place. Before he cared about anyone here. Since he spoke with Nina, he hasn't created unnecessary conflict again. But he cannot go back and erase his actions, and neither can he do anything to prevent their lingering shrapnel from coming down on him. For Luo Binghe, who cannot stand having important things out of his control, it is intolerable.

"But why now?" Nina asks, voicing his internal thoughts. What's the use of kindness, of openness, of friendship, if it's so easily taken away in such a small community? Taking away that friendship from Luo Binghe at this moment is only going to drive him towards feeling even more isolated. She shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't-- You're probably feeling more confused and lost than I am right now. I don't know if I'm helping anything."

"You are," Luo Binghe insists. He is pathetically grateful to her, perhaps his first friend; certainly the first friend he did not later marry. "You've always helped. But I feel..." He bites the inside of his lip. "I can't do anything about how I have treated Claudius in the past. I haven't touched him for more than six months." The day he was in Aleksander's body doesn't count—Claudius kissed him. "I have ignored him entirely when the mansion did not force us to interact. If my close companions may leave me at any time due to something I cannot change, what am I meant to do?"

"I know you come from a place where--" She hesitates, trying to say something akin to 'main character energy' but not quite finding the words. "--where you have a lot of control. But sometimes you lose control and that's... just how it is. It feels terrible, but sometimes you just have to let it happen and know that this time, you didn't do anything wrong."

Luo Binghe has spent his entire life scrabbling for power so that there won't be anything out of his control. This place is an intricate trap indeed. The very factors that prevent him from seizing power by force—the complex web of social connections here—have also been the greatest benefit. He would never have become friends with Nina if he had done what he still, sometimes, has the urge to do: to force everyone here to kneel to him, as Liu Mingyan had expected him to. "If I am unpracticed in mercy and friendship," he says morosely, "I am even more unpracticed in ceding control. I have begun to think none of the skills I've acquired through my experiences serve me here at all."

"It's tough to prepare for being dropped into a random mansion with a variety of people from different worlds," Nina says practically. "Do you know what I liked about you when we first met?"

"What?"

"You were kind. You complimented me, offered me food, and you didn't press me with too many questions. That's also part of who you are."

Luo Binghe looks away, his eyes burning. It is impossible to believe himself kind. He lives with himself. It's the grasping, scraping desperation of a poor orphan that Nina is describing, the need to make himself valuable to people who matter so he won't lose them. The compulsion to care for them with all his abilities, because his most beloved person died before he had the means to do so for her. The shadow of that child still walks in step with him. He wants to be the person Nina sees in him, but he has been here before, with over one hundred wives. All thought they knew him at one time or another. Their affection has never been enough to touch the rot at his core.

"You were kind to me. You didn't judge me, and tried to understand, even when I was in a dark and mercurial temper. I do not know if I would have been kind otherwise. I'm afraid to think how it could have been, if we'd met under different circumstances, and I failed to recognize the qualities that make you more precious to me than rare jade."

Nina pauses for a long moment, a soft smile hovering at one corner of her mouth at being called precious to him. "People aren't meant to be easy, especially when they're put into difficult situations. That's been true for a lot of people in my life." Herself included. Even Inej was prickly at times; the only exception was Jesper, who hid his anxiety and anger in easy quips and flirtatious smiles. "I don't know everything about your life but I know it was difficult. How we got here doesn't matter, but... you'll always have my friendship."

His throat tightens, and he blinks away the hard sting at the back of his eyes. "Cherished Nina. That means more to me than you could know."

"You should try," Nina tells him lightly, with a joking toss of her hair. "Boost my ego." She's not entirely joking; if Luo Binghe focuses on the good things -- like their friendship -- maybe he'll think about the negative things less.

He knows she is trying to distract him, and he lets her. Nina is unparalleled in pulling him out of a mood. "You are kind, witty, and talented. Exceptionally beautiful. But as for what your friendship means to me... You are not afraid of me, even though I have not hidden the dark depths of my heart from you. And I know it is because you recognize something of your own capacity for darkness, the righteous fury you direct toward those who have wronged you. The fires of retribution burn in you as they do in me—but you have the strength to resist their searing heat, to choose to forgive. And you have found joy in it. That is something I admire in you, and something I have found in no other companion."

This time, it's Nina's turn to feel the familiar pricking feeling behind her eyes. "I said to boost my ego, not make me cry," she scolds him, laughing all the same -- but as she considers his words, her expression sobers. "You're mostly right. I think this place has helped to heal me, but... if Jarl Brum ever finds his way here, I'm not sure my compassion would stretch that far. He's personally wronged me in so many ways."

Luo Binghe smiles without mirth. "That is also something I treasure about you."

"I met his daughter," Nina says suddenly. "In the convent I was staying in right before I was pulled here. Hanne was there for religious training but instead she was dressing up as a male soldier to teach herself how to ride and hunt... Also, she's a Grisha. A Heartrender, just like I was." She laughs a little, almost humorlessly. "Maybe it'd be just enough revenge if he ever found that out."

This cheers Luo Binghe. "That is satisfying indeed. But you know, Nina, if anyone who has hurt you ever showed up here, your compassion is not all they'd have to worry about."

"Oh?" Nina asks, raising an eyebrow. "What would you with to the man who trapped me, nearly enslaved me, and tried to kill me twice?" With anyone else, this would be close to flirting.

"There is an execution method known as lingchi," Luo Binghe says thoughtfully, "where you simply cut off pieces for as long as it takes for the person to die."

"Seems fitting for him," Nina says brightly.

"For Shen Qingqiu as well," Luo Binghe says, without directly admitting what he did to Shen Qingqiu. "May they both suffer in the darkest hells."

"If I had a beverage, I would raise a glass to that," Nina says solemnly. "But instead--" She just gives him another hug.

Luo Binghe hugs her in return. "Thank you."

"You'll be fine," Nina reassures him. "You'll always have myself and Shen Yuan."

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protagonisthalo - 2024-05-15 20:15 (UTC) - Expand

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