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Aug. 1st, 2022 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightmooongentlebreeze[Spam]
[Oh, good, this again.
Xiao Xingchen doesn't immediately see very much to be concerned about. He didn't want to be on the barge. He doesn't want to be here. He expects to miss people who have been kind to him, but they're better off without him to trouble them. The only thing he regrets consciously is the loss of the tablets he carved for Song Lan and A'Qing. Hopefully he'll be allowed to begin again.
All this he tells himself. All this he theoretically believes. But even a few months in the quiet, easy camaraderie on the barge eroded him a bit. He misses the whisk the admiral granted him and the staffs at the gym, though there's nothing wrong with practicing in silence on the barge. Hard, busy work keeps him from breaking down, but without the easy chatter in between, it's less effective, leaving him simply inside his head and also tired. He got to rely on his system of knots and beads on the walls, though they matter much less without freedom to wander.
It's a subdued Xiao Xingchen who files obediently from shift to shift to yard to cabin. Artificially wearied hands are a bit less reliable to guide him. He moves more slowly. He's still a ghost who rightly ought to be finished, but he's a much more nervous one than before.
And then it gets worse.]
[Oh, good, this again.
Xiao Xingchen doesn't immediately see very much to be concerned about. He didn't want to be on the barge. He doesn't want to be here. He expects to miss people who have been kind to him, but they're better off without him to trouble them. The only thing he regrets consciously is the loss of the tablets he carved for Song Lan and A'Qing. Hopefully he'll be allowed to begin again.
All this he tells himself. All this he theoretically believes. But even a few months in the quiet, easy camaraderie on the barge eroded him a bit. He misses the whisk the admiral granted him and the staffs at the gym, though there's nothing wrong with practicing in silence on the barge. Hard, busy work keeps him from breaking down, but without the easy chatter in between, it's less effective, leaving him simply inside his head and also tired. He got to rely on his system of knots and beads on the walls, though they matter much less without freedom to wander.
It's a subdued Xiao Xingchen who files obediently from shift to shift to yard to cabin. Artificially wearied hands are a bit less reliable to guide him. He moves more slowly. He's still a ghost who rightly ought to be finished, but he's a much more nervous one than before.
And then it gets worse.]
