...silence.
How odd. Usually, an hour before the first peek of sunlight, Fauna would feel the faint stirring of Mimicry slithering into her bed—literally, in a lot of cases—in some sort of challenge not to alert her to their presence. Such a thing is futile, however, considering that her web is weaved into the crevices of each and every tile and as long as he doesn't float she won't catch him. But even then, she'd like to think her heat sensors and electroreception weren't inaccurate.
Perhaps, they will only ever win this challenge if they turn into a microorganism. Fauna has heard, however, that turning into one is extremely dangerous and Lightning had forbidden Mimicry from ever doing so.
Back to the situation at hand, it seems as though she is in a cave. A light rain had just passed through the area and a burnt scent was coming from beside her.
Another world? Did another one of Knowledge, Time and Space's experiments go awry? That seems unlikely, as Tili and Chaos had demanded for more safety measures be implemented every time they were about to test something after that one incident.
Everyone was rather adamant of those measures after Gabriel turned out to be a Technology.
Cautiously and slowly, Fauna opens her eyes, immediately switching them out to a cat's. The first thing she should have noticed, perhaps, is that this body was not hers.
First, it was biologically male, as evidenced by the different hormone levels she could sense in it as well as the different genitals. Second, the body is so weak that she itched staying in it. Third, it was wearing clothing somewhat similar to the male equivalent of the kimono Light insists she looks so good in.
Fourth, there is another consciousness that is now panicking and yelling at her.
...this will be a rather annoying little trip, won't it?
Fauna does not blink as she smashes the other consciousness to bits, shoving the soul somewhere isolated in the mindscape. She would be unable to kill it without killing the body, and considering that she is in the body and has no clue how to jump bodies or find her own...
She finds a river nearby and slowly changes the body's facial features. Eyes a dull purple, lips slightly lower, face slightly narrower and nose just a smudge smaller.
Now, to find something that can get her back to her world.
A snake slithers its way onto her shoulders, resting there. Fauna amend her thoughts; she'll find something after taking over the animals in the forest she was in.
Leiji feels it nearly immediately. The sudden severance of bonds; something ripped out of their mind cruelly and viciously. Someone starts screaming. They can't help, but simply shove themselves into their mindscape and it is only there that Leiji realizes that screaming is coming from them. Lu Leiji is standing awkwardly to the side while Lightning is nowhere to be seen.
Zapfino is quietly holding them, petting their head like they were a child. Lu Leiji squats down and simply stares.
...why are they crying? Leiji sniffles and reaches up, wiping the tears off their face. Zapfino simply continues petting, but doesn't say anything. Lu Leiji is the one who breaks the silence by asking, "Who's gone?"
Gone? Reflexively, Leiji checks the bonds and sees everything in place except for...mother's.
They check it again, then again and again because that little fact makes absolutely zero sense. Why would mother be gone? It's...mother! She can't be gone. It's impossible, a ridiculous notion that wasn't going away because Leiji can't feel her and—
"Breathe!" Someone yells at them. Leiji's eyes fly open and to the face of Ling Fengbao, he looks, furious, for lack of better word.
The expression is wiped away into a blank one.
When did they get out of the—right, they got out to check their bonds. Leiji slowly goes through them again, Ling Hongyun, Tian Lanbing, Light, Ling Fengbao's little fledgling one...mother still isn't there.
"...you felt it too, right?" Ling Fengbao slowly asks, "Yanhei is dead. We need to find her body."
"No!" Leiji yells at him, jumping to their feet. "Mother can't be dead!"
Maybe she just got sick of them and decided to break the bond. That would be fine, because Leiji knows that they can be frustrating. Or she doesn't want to see them anymore, that was also fine because anything is better than her dying because dying meant that mother is never coming back and—
...and they were merely in denial.
Ling Fengbao waits patiently, face still a blank mask and says, a little too coldly for it to be characteristic of him, "Are you done?"
"...I'm sorry." Leiji spits out these words before leaving the room.
They don't look back to see his reaction. It was for the better, whispered in the back of their mind. The both of them knew that this teacher-student thing was merely an act, something that allows Ling Fengbao to stay with Ling Hongyun with an actual reason and a way to justify Leiji's odd tidbits of knowledge.
Yet, for some odd reason, that very fact hurt. Leiji knows they could probably find it if they sift through the information dump that was in the back of their mind, but did they really want to know?
Now isn't the time to dwell on that, they need to find mother.
(The thing about humans, Lightning thinks to herself, is that they dramatize everything. Who thought it would be a good idea to make a race so capable of thinking that they over-think everything? Worlds, why in the actual f*ck would you make this particular species your leading one?
She supposes though, that perhaps repeating a failure when one has all the conditions for coming out victorious may be something that humans can't tolerate at all.
In other, simpler words, it was the 'what if'-s that bothered humans like Lu Leiji the most, especially now that he was seeing some of those 'what if'-s being lived out. This was something that Lightning would never understand of humans.
Why they look back in the past so much that some of them make a career out of it.
The saying that "History will repeat itself" is blatantly wrong. The only reason that humans believe it is because they take pure coincidences and make those coincidences replicate history. Lightning hasn't figured out whether it was out of fear or want that humans do such things.
"You can't do anything about it now," Lightning states. And it's true, because this World doesn't have any elements. If there were a particularly strong Time user then...
No use dwelling on it.
"In any case, do you know who might have done this?" Lightning asks after a moment. Lu Leiji glares up at her, spitting out, "Of course I do! Who do you think I am, oh-dead-goddess of another World?"
"Then, is it not only just for you to be able to see the life of the one who took Lu Yanhei's be snuffed out?" She doesn't mind the jab, knowing that he would probably regret it later on. "I believe you never got to do so in your own lifetime, will it bring you satisfaction to know that at least one version of that human dies?"
He laughs, mixed with humor is a rage. "Yeah. I can at least do that, huh?"
After a moment, he continues, "You're one scary thing, Lightning. Everyone is damn lucky you have an anchor."
Lightning doesn't have a suitable response stored in her database, nor does she have the desire to answer such a statement. Even if it was only one human, at least he knows that humans are lucky that Zapfino exists simultaneously as her creator, guide and, as Lu Leiji calls, an anchor.)
Qin Heiyu doesn't know which part is worse, the fact that the bond was broken, or the fact that she doesn't feel it until several hours later, while checking over it. The only thing she has left.
...her first thought was that she must be in an even more dangerous situation now, forget the plan I need to hey to her yesterday. But that makes no sense. In the late hours when Yu-er must think that Qin Heiyu is asleep, she would send feelings down their bond. They used to be full-sentences, but have long devolved into mere warmth or cold and Yu-er has been so warmth these days and—
"It's really rare for the esteemed Qin Heiyu to be in denial like this," Ling Fengbao walks into her room as if it was his property. Her head snaps up at him, about to retort something, when the implications click.
"You knew." A whisper, even more quiet than the candles slowly flickering. "How long have you known?"
Fengbao's expression is that blank smile he wears whenever he particularly doesn't like something. That doesn't matter. Qin Heiyu smiles, the one she knows is pure venom and disdain and it certainly does not matter how his eyes clpud with hurt. "I asked you a question, Fengbao, how long have you known?"
This isn't her first time tasting betrayal—somehow, it hurts even more each time—but coming from this particular person?
He says, instead, "She has a child, he's thirteen now."
And she laughs. Because she finally found a way to feel the tugging again and now it's gone and it's too late. She wants to scream and cry and slit her throat because, "I trusted you."
Ling Fengbao doesn't respond. His blank smile no longer there, but rather concern and so many other things that she doesn't want to read at the moment because Qin Xi—Heiyu, just knew, that if she did, all her rage would go down the drain and into wells of hatred.
"Get out," Qin Heiyu says as coldly as she could towards him.
"Xingyue," Ling Fengbao looks down, then up and says again, "please understand."
"I said, get out." She hisses, hand clutching her sword on reflex. He tries smiling reassuringly—failing miserably—and closes the door on his way out. Part of her is still reeling from the sudden name that had been called, another part thinking furiously on what he meant and most of her was about to destroy the entire town in pure, incandescent rage.
'She has a child, he's thirteen now.' He had said. Suddenly, all Qin Heiyu wants is to find out what happened and make everyone watch whoever the murderer is be tortured to death.
(Of course it's him, it has always been Ling Fengbao, the only one able to control her and the only one who knew every little aspect of her life. She hates him and loves him all the same and such a feeling is suffocating.
It was a bit like having an annoying older brother.
Curse him, for knowing exactly how and when to push her buttons so no one gets caught in her explosive rage.)
'There is a certain word used to call those who do not stick to customs, but it has long faded due to time developing customs that used to not be very well-liked. Instead, it turned into a slur for those who so-liked to take their world and resources. Mimicry could admit that it has been centuries since they have heard this particular word.
Despite that, it was still a word that invited many a nightmares for them.
Today marks the first time they've heard that word from someone for centuries on end. Mimicry can admit honestly, they aren't human, their kind dwells in nightmares and under the bed—or in the closet.
It was simply how it used to work. They weren't human, not understanding human morals or views, but one of the things their kind believed in was returning the favor.
Lightning had taken them in and gave them a home where they don't have to dwell in shadows.
Mimicry is sure that returning the favor through another human is fine.'