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[equivocations]

« Zewu-jun » TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION Lan Xichen ✦ The Untamed
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Hello, this is Lan Xichen. I apologize for being unable to immediately receive your correspondence, and will return your message as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

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[equivocations]

[ For a moment he freezes, slightly startled as he has been almost every time someone has initiated physical contact with him since he's been here. He supposes he will have to get used to it, at some point, considering how often it is starting to happen, but then, he is still struggling to allow himself to simply enjoy it. Still, it's only for a moment, and then his tail swishes happily in the breeze.

Laughter spills across the wind as he follows her down, and when he lands and approaches her again, this time he doesn't hesitate before he bumps his head playfully against her, nuzzling into her neck. He's mindful of his horns as he does so, though it causes the Jiang bell tangled amongst them to shift a little.

It would not be the first time he adapted his vegetarianism for the purpose of practicality - even recently, when he and Wangji were stuck in the forests of Wonderland in the place they were taken to before here - but he is very appreciative that he doesn't have to this time.

And that he has been able to figure out how many places deliver food here. ]

It is slightly undignified, but yes, I have. Tea would be lovely.

[famili]

( There's a give and take to this she's not as used to with those not her siblings, her husband, or her son, but she's adaptable enough, and practical enough, that in her usual form, she's been the one extending helping hands. In this one, she can't really fathom much more than trying to show affection as she can, and she's more playful about it now that she's not living in deep concern over her brothers.

She still doesn't expect his reciprocation on the ground, blinking once in her own surprise before her whiskers twitch in an amusement also seen in the flick of her ears. They're all rearranging their boundaries, she suspects. Even as the thought flits through her mind, there's the small sound and the glint that draws her eyes to his horns.

Is that...? )

Then give me a moment, let me set the water to boiling.

( Which ends up being carefully walking her front half through the back door, tail gently curling this way, then back the other, short movements while she busies herself using wind magic, manipulating the kettle of sorts to the sink and then setting it to boil with the slowest, most careful taps of one talon. Then her whiskers of all things curl around two small handled bowls, which she's found sturdier for this purpose, if not as aesthetically pleasing. She backs out with them in whiskers and manages to set them both on the table, next to a waiting, empty, saucepan.

Needs must. )

Though I'm starting to wonder if I should be expecting you over for pouring tea sometime.

( This is a tease, and her tone is light, head lifting again as the kettle inside audibly hisses and burbles toward full heat. She tips her head and lifts a paw to tap a talon against her own undecorated horns, indicating a why with another small, amused twitch of her tailtip. )

Should I be considering calling you Xichen sometime in the near future?

( She's not going to mistake people's bedroom affairs as being deeper ones of the heart, let alone here; she does think there's more a tendency toward that given the peoples involved, but men are less obligated toward certain presentations than women often find themselves facing. Not that she puts stock in it one way or another; even if she weren't a widow, even if she'd been before she was married, Yanli wasn't prudish, simply reserved.

As the only one in the present lot of them married for more than a matter of months, she's perhaps deriving more (slightly pained) amusement in seeing so many late bloomers discovering themselves.

So no, while she had... decided to mostly ignore what she'd seen, seeing Lan Xichen with a bell from her brother is enough of something worth teasing over for her to tease. If her brother showed up with his headribbon, then...

Then there'd be no end to the teasing, really. )

[equivocations]

[ He starts to offer to help, but, well. For one, he couldn't fit in there with her to help, and for another, she's clearly adapted to make the best use of her abilities and this form as possible.

There's a moment of confusion at her question, until she taps her own horns and he remembers - oh. Were he not a dragon right now, he's reasonably sure he would have started to redden. Particularly when he recalls the moment he'd thought he'd heard - or smelled - someone at the window, and that the only reason that his overactive protective instincts hadn't responded was because it seemed familiar. ]

You could consider calling me Xichen on the merit of the friendship I would like to have with you, regardless of my relationship with either of your brothers.

[ Of course his relationship with them is important to him, and of course it is one of the reasons that he is inclined to think highly of her - but what he knows of her efforts to tend to the wounded in the Sunshot Campaign and his interactions with her here have inclined him to think equally as high of her, and he suspects that she has most often had who she is defined by her relationships to her brothers, her parents, her husband. There is nothing wrong with that, of course - has he not been defined by his relationship with others as well, and taken pride in being who he was to them? But still, he cannot help but think that perhaps it would be nice, to have a friendship that was just theirs.

That is not what she meant by asking, though, and his whiskers twitch as he considers his response. ]

Wanyin and I have an understanding, which has recently had a new development. We have not yet discussed all that entails, though I will be having that conversation with him tomorrow after allowing some time for processing.

[ It's the most diplomatic way he can think of to say yes, I slept with your brother while we were a little out of our minds; he ditched me the next morning and left me on read, which I then had to look up on the internet to understand what that means, and I'm giving him one more day to respond as a courtesy before I politely knock on his door and let him know that he cannot get rid of me this easily. ]

We are not sect leaders here. No duties, no obligations, and adapting to this place has, by necessity, lended itself to becoming more comfortable with a certain level of intimacy with others. I would not want to assume such intimacy carries the same implications that it would were we back home, among those obligations.