@･ﾟ✧ yoo taeyang Once again, Kun swims out into the night, the embodiment of greed slowly wrapping its body around the wharf for the second time that evening.
Above him stood merchants still muttering over their lost wealth, begrudgingly returning to their ships empty handed and sailing back out to sea. Kun's instinct was to follow after them, but he knew better than to succumb to such destructive tendencies when their boats were light and empty. They simply had nothing else left for him to steal.
It was a bit of a disappointment, and Kun had considered retreating back into his cave when he spotted a lone human at the edge of the wharf, peering into the absolute darkness of the night sea in a seemingly uncomfortable position.
Curious, the dragon approached him slowly, diving further down and resurfacing quietly under the dock, where he watched the human's arm dangle aimlessly in front of him, as if he were chasing the ripples in the water. Upon even closer inspection, he noticed the man reeked of alcohol, just enough to be a little over tipsy.
It was terribly familiar — the undeniable scent of intoxication. Kun had grown quite used to it in the time he spent with the drunkards and bards of the warring galleons, pouring decades-old fermented liquid onto each other's head like a bunch of sailors gone mad. And for a week, the smell of alcohol stayed in the floorboards, and seemingly had the crew in a daze for hours until the captain had everyone scrub it clean a day later. The then young Kun, who had grown intolerant of the scent, dove off the ship in favor of swimming beside it instead — much to the horror of drunken crewmen who had mistaken him for a leviathan. But little did they know that their dragon would soon outgrow the verh creature they so feared.
But this one, despite his drunken stupor, seemed unlike any other intoxicated human he's ever met.
He seemed rather adamant about checking the floorboards, as if he would find gold in them if be stared hard enough. Kun observed him silently as the man meandered about inspecting the entire length of the wharf. And it was then that Kun caught a glimpse of something shiny as he moved — probably an accessory of sorts — and once again, instinct urged him forward faster than he could realize it. A roar ripples the water around him, and a heavy tail comes up to curl over and around the end of the dock, the wooden boards splintering under the force of its grip.
A greedy maw snaps in the human's direction, but not in a way that wanted to intentionally harm the smaller creature. It wasn't flesh he sought after, anyway.
Instead, Kun chose to nip the human by the back of his collar, as if grabbing an insolent cub by the scruff.
Purely spurred on by the seemingly wealthy sound of the man's pockets, the dragon chuffs impatiently, shaking him around like a rag doll in hopes of getting something to fall out.
It was odd enough of a situation to see a dragon more interested in a human's trinkets than the human themselves, and Kun hoped there were no passers-by to witness the commotion.
@･ﾟ✧ ten chittaphon [] screams into the void
an attempt was made pt.37389737383838
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A blinking red light mocks Kun as he stood before his broken reflection in the mirror.
His body ached all over, his old wounds ripped open. If he hadn't bled to death in that arena, he surely would have now. His master had long since disappeared behind velvet doors to celebrate his victory — of which he shared none with those who had won it for him.
Kun, who had somehow survived the battle against a literal death machine, was left to tend to his own injuries inside a cage too small for his size. Breathing was a struggle, and he wanted nothing more than to tear down the rusty old thing and make a run for it.
And so he did.
Keeping silent was not an issue, not with how his master was too busy mingling with other trainers while his champions slowly bled to death in claustrophobic crates outside his home. But Kun had already decided that no money was worth taking his last breath under his wing.
He tore endlessly at the bars of his prison, like a rabid animal desperate for escape, biting and clawing until the crate had finally collapsed under his fists.
Kun immediately made a beeline for the Overworld lift, occasionally running through alleyways to evade arena-goers. Judging from the ever-rising noises of the main street, it was only a matter of time before the official night hour would settle in — which meant he had about seven minutes to get there before the lift closed, and Kun wasn't willing to wait another three days for the damn thing to be open.
He sprinted through the city in record speed, ignoring the burning pain coursing through his entire body, managing to catch the transporter with only a minute left to spare.
It was only half full when the doors had finally closed, hissing terribly as they sealed shut. But the lift was still a spacious thing, and Kun didn't have to look around to know that people were burning holes into the back of his head.
He was aware of what he was, and he was sure the rest of them were, too. Kun had the arena's insignia on him at all times, engraved into the glowing red tag piercing on his left ear. And though he would have loved to have it removed, he was bound to the label by law — after the Underground had invested into the arena, they were given a tagging system that practically shoved a fighter's threat level in everyone's face.
Green meant you were the least of everyone's problems, and orange meant you were already getting there. Red, on the other hand, was like having an incredibly vague bounty on your head — you weren't exactly a criminal by the rules of the arena, but being outside of it was always a different story.
Kun had been tagged red early in his life, and no matter how hard he tried to believe that he didn't deserve a rank this deadly, his temper always said otherwise. He was extremely violent for a reason, but not for any good reasons either. It was difficult to accept when he knew that he wasn't always like this — he knew the orphanage had raised him right — but Kun could not, for the life of him, remember where it had started to go downhill. Memories of desperation, hunger, illness, and death vaguely flashed across his vision, but the pieces were never complete enough to paint the picture. They never were, and perhaps it was for the best.
When the lift finally reached the surface, Kun steered clear of the doors, letting the crowd shuffle around him and out the half-open exit in an oddly hurried manner he could only assume was induced by fear.
It was only then, as he stepped out into the cold night air of the city he was born in, did he realize just how tired he was.
Freshly torn wounds continued to bleed into his clothes, and Kun knew he couldn't walk around looking like he had just killed a man, unless he wanted to be locked inside another cage and potentially sent back down to the Underground.
And so, Kun ever so quietly took to the back alleys in search of respite, peering over wilted hedges and vandalized walls for any place he could rest in for the night.
In the midst of his wandering, he realized he had arrived behind the Old Moon District, where the streets were less flashy neon and more tame and traditional, in a sense that all the establishments lining the street weren't completely overrun with New World technology.
After checking the surrounding area for surveillance cameras and finding none, Kun chooses a random wall to hop over, landing in looked to be an outdoor storage area. Crates of baking ingredients were stacked high atop one another, and a burst of aromatics assualts his senses as he curled up in the corner behind a tower of tightly secured lavender-colored boxes. Once comfortable enough, Kun pressed his hands against his wounds once more, tearing the loose cloth from his spare training clothes, before haphazardly bandaging himself and hoping for the best. He could only pray that his self-healing could do the rest.
He refused to die, not after all he had been through.
And besides, after being damned to the Underground for most of his life, Kun was looking forward to feeling the sun on his skin again.
. . . impatient footsteps echo across the dock, followed by the sound of hissed whispers and two other sets of footsteps scurrying along behind the owner of the first. The lantern light flickers orange against pale, almost white hair as the owner of those hurried footsteps kneels at the edge of the dock, peering down into the dark waters below.
Those crates are well and truly gone. The lantern's light cannot penetrate the waves that lap rhythmic against rotting wood, a dock falling so into disrepair that one might assume that was what caused the wares to collapse into the water below. But he isn't so convinced; those crates were not stacked precarious, and the dock scarcely seemed the worse for wear. No, it is as though something had pulled the gold and jewels into the darkness beneath the wharf.
The thought is disconcerting, and slowly, Taeyang gets to his feet and takes a step back. He bumps into a body behind him and turns, his hand flying to the pistol at his hip.
His assistant—to call him that is generous; he's more of a cabin boy, though he earns better wages—raises his hands in silent surrender, and the clench of Taeyang's jaw is all that gives away his anger as he steps around the shorter man and glides over the boards. "Secure the rest," he calls over his shoulder. He would do it himself, but he is set on getting to the bottom of his disappearing treasure.
What better place to seek it out than at the local tavern?
———————————————————————
The tavern is not useful.
Taeyang leaves the building with no more information than he had started with, but with alcohol pleasantly warming his belly. The merchant is not quite drunk, but he is far from sober. He makes his way back to the dock and finds it empty, surviving goods salvaged from the rotting planks and moved—presumably—to a safer location.
Since he is alone, with no one to question him, Taeyang kneels down on the planks to get a better look at the rotting wood, seeking out anything that seems out of the ordinary.
@･ﾟ✧ kang yeosang Once upon a time, a newborn god was brought into the universe.
Born from an affair between the Goddess of War and the God of the Moon, the child was a peculiar amalgamation of celestial power — thus, leading to the creation of a new deity they soon called 'The Hunt'.
After news of the affair had spread throughout the pantheon like wildfire, the God of the Moon returned to his palace in the sky in an act of shame, leaving behind a new mother and her child to fend for themselves against Celestia and the rest of the Tianzhou Pantheon.
So in the first sixteen years of Kun's life, he had quickly learned that the council and the pantheon had no place for him, and home was nowhere else but in the warmth of his mother's embrace.
But perhaps, somewhere in the middle of it all, he was wrong — as Kun soon discovered the same comforting source of warmth in someone else.
They met one fateful day as Kun laid motionless in the courtyard, beaten and bruised and wishing for death to finally take him. A head of flaxen hair suddenly loomed over him in concern, calling out to him in a voice that rang pleasantly in his ears.
On that day, Kun was promptly healed and brought back onto his feet, and when he met eyes with the young sun god, it felt like staring into an endless sea of gold and sunlight. And to this day, he still remembers the warmth of the sun god's hands as they helped him up. The same hands that led him through the hallways of the pantheon, into the great library of the Solis Empire, and to all the hidden nooks the young sun god escaped to whenever Celestia scolded him a little too harshly. It was a warmth Kun could get used to — yet little did he know it would be the same warmth he would soon grow to resent.
With each century that passed, Yeosang grew more distant and dismissive, and Kun could only watch as his closest friend slowly disappeared from his life. And it didn't take long before the warmth in Yeosang's eyes disappeared as well, eventually replaced with the same disdain the rest of the pantheon had for the God of The Hunt.
And for a while, Kun sat tirelessly at the palace doorstep, asking for what he had done wrong. Yet there was always no reply.
But when the golden doors opened for him one day, he was met with the sun god's cold and lifeless stare, and Celestia's even colder gaze right behind him.
And on that day, Kun had bowed before them to ask forgiveness for sins he had never committed, prepared to leave and never show his face there again as long as they gave him an answer. But yet again, there was no reply, no words spoken, no explanations given.
When Kun had refused to leave, the sun god had the warriors forcibly throw him down the steps of the palace before the entire empire, much to the joy of the primordial standing behind him.
It was the fall that finally snapped Kun out of his desperation to reconcile with his friend. And at the bottom of the steps, an abandoned deity rose to his feet, undeniably hurt and his heart completely shattered.
He gazed up at the golden doors one last time, eyes blinded by sunlight and tears. Distraught and humiliated, Kun retreated into the woods, finding comfort in the darkness that embraced him as he wept to himself on the damp forest floor.
Shortly after the events at the empire, Kun quietly abandoned the pantheon, gathered his people in the night, and moved deep into the heart of the forest where they would now call home. The land immediately morphed at the arrival of The Hunt, the soil grew dark, the canopies grew thicker, and the flowers began to glow like little stars in between them all — a forest of eternal night, as many called it. And despite the darkness, the forest was suddenly teeming with wildlife, as if the heavens had left the hunters a little gift for their struggles.
A temple was promptly built in the darkest corner, where light barely reached and bramble grew endlessly at its feet. Kun was the first to disappear behind its doors, and for a while, the people of The Hunt lived in peace and quiet away from everyone else.
In that time, Kun had spent most of it his wounds, and attempting to put pieces of himself back together, but to no avail.
Eventually, the memory of his last few encounters with the pantheon and the empire finally drove him mad — and soon enough, Kun found himself tumbling head first into the abyss.
No one remembers how Kun came to be so cold and violent, but many supposed it was only a matter of time before his war bloodline caught up to him. And without the moon's gentle influence, Kun soon followed a path of destruction.
The pale blue eyes he once shared with his father ever so slowly turned a deep red, like a tranquil ocean suddenly filled with blood. His mother, ever proud of him for growing in her image, pulled him further in her direction, eager to raise another child with bloodlust that could rival hers. And even as the universe gave him one last chance to return to the grace of the moon — in the end, Kun chose chaos, much to the delight of his war goddess mother, with centuries of festering wrath brewing underneath.
And so, in the darkness of his bramble-plagued temple, Kun sits upon a throne of death, another captive sun warrior trembling in his arms as he dragged his claws gently over supple flesh. Kun had recently grown a new obsession with keeping his prey alive, long enough to cherish their warmth before he succumbed to his own hunger. And everytime a lost soul haopened to wander into his forest, Kun just couldn't resist.
Lately, the empire's warriors were treading too close to his forest, blissfully unaware of the hungry beast trailing behind them until it was too late.
But none of his prisoners had the same warmth he had longed for. They were devoid of everything that reminded him of home, of comfort, and of peace — and therefore, were nothing more than prey to sink his teeth into.
It takes a quick second to give even the strongest of sun warriors a forgiving death, and Kun watches golden blood run down his fingers in shimmering rivers. But as beautiful as it was, their blood was incredibly bitter, like drinking from a rotting corpse. The Hunt's disappointment comes swiftly in the form of a sickening crack, and soon enough, another lifeless body joins the carnage on the floor. Kun stares at the pile of gore without much thought, about to call for his next victim, when an aggressive knock at his door stops him from doing so.
@･ﾟ✧ jung jaehyun [] sorry for the late reply qvq it's a little long, but no need to mirror.
To say Kun was suspicious of the Luofu's call would be an understatement.
Ever since his rebirth within the depths of the shackling prison, he had quickly learned that he was no longer welcome there — courtesy of his past self who had greatly offended the entire population of vidyadhara on the Luofu.
Kun was banished promptly, and was sent off in a starskiff bound for the continent of Fanghu. And his arrival was no smooth landing either, coming into contact with the earth in a blazing crash that he swore could have killed him if he hadn't encased himself in water. But with his waterskin now empty, Kun was left lost and vulnerable in a land he had never seen before.
Fortunately, bearing the memories of a past life who loved to read books proved to be very useful in times like these. A memory suddenly pops into his head, a vivid image of the former High Elder visiting Fanghu on a boat, and marveling at the waterscape and islands that made up most of the continent. As someone blessed by the hydro abilities of the Azure Dragon, Kun could understand why his past self greatly adored the tranquil beaches, vast seas and winding rivers of Fanghu. It was the perfect home for him — compared to the heavily industrialized Luofu.
And now that he's finally settled into his new home, the Luofu suddenly decides they want him to visit?
Suspicious.
But knowing the ever-spreading situation of mara-stricken people on the Luofu tugged at Kun's heart. He was a healer, not born but raised as one according to the skills of the past high elder, saving people was one of the things he was trained to be exceptionally good at. And as he stepped onto a guarded starskiff headed for his homeland, Kun couldn't help but weigh out his options.
"Fine," he gives, reclining gracefully in his seat behind the other healers who had stubbornly decided to accompany him. "But you— all of you— need to behave. The last thing we want is someone on our team getting struck with mara. We cannot let the disease of the Abundance spread to Fanghu."
Kun shoots Jaehyun a reassuring look, but the worry was still evident in the way the high elder's shoulders hunched uncomfortably despite the soft cushions of his seat.
The starskiff suddenly whirs to life just as Kun was about to speak again, and he decides to remain silent as they took to the skies. He supposed it could wait, it was information he could share later when they landed, anyway. For now, the entire healer troupe sat in silence, and it eerily reminds Kun of the day he sat inside the shackling prison awaiting his sentence.
jaehyun watched the starkski disappearing into the clouds but he still waited another couple of breaths. you would never know what those cunning creatures of the loufu plot — especially the healer's branch guild under the care of that fox — jaehyun never bothered to learn their name. and why should he? he had no intention of returning to that land.
well, kun might do.
"are we going?" he turned to his master, features controteted in disgust as he approached the elder.
even if jaehyun loathed the thought of steppimg his foot again on that land, he would never let his master go alone. he was already suspicious of the edict. it wasn't that the great alliance couldn't afford a miraculous healer that they would take back their own words.
hypocrites. but dangerous as well.
the master opened his mouth, an obvious answer about to fall off his mouth. jaehyun quickly held both his palms up.
"no. I won't take a no from you. I'm coming with you and that's final."
@･ﾟ✧ yoo taeyang [] there was an attempt to write a starter qvq.
A dark and foggy night greets the shores of a quiet seaside town, and beneath its pitch black sky glimmered the lanterns of countless ships pulling into the merchant's wharf — latecomers bearing the last of their haul, traders with decrepit old boats long due repair, and the occasional wealthy man looking to have their stolen artifacts appraised by a supposedly wealthier man who lived just a few rocky steps above the busy dockyard.
Like a sea of light breaking through the fog, the wharf itself gave off the impression of a giant floating lantern in the middle of a vast ocean, a seemingly irresistible attraction to many creatures that lurked in its depths.
Such was the curious figure of a great water dragon waiting underneath, whose body was gently curled around the wooden pilings that held up the dock. A deep rumble sounded from its throat as it poked its nose out from the water, lured by the scent of treasure piled high up rickety boards, just waiting to fall into the sea.
Troubled by the amount of merchants moving about on the wharf, the dragon grumbles before retreating its snout back into the water, patiently waiting for any of the wealthy men on the boardwalk to neglect their valuables for just a brief moment. And so it waited for what felt like several hours, until the merchants began to move further away from the dockyard to begin bartering.
Kun, who had been rather patient up until that point, finally approached the very end of the wharf, where a few crates of lesser wealth remained, glimmering under the lanterns like a mountain of polished gold. Ever so carefully, Kun drags the first few crates into the water with his tail, snatching up any fallen jewelry with the points of his teeth. Once satisfied with his haul, the dragon retreated to a cave down in the dark depths, adding yet another wave of golden coins and miscellaneous trinkets into his newfound hoard.
And in the middle of it all, the great dragon heals and slumbers, tail and claws buried in someone else's wealth. Kun's night becomes a peaceful one, despite the sudden commotion of angry merchants back at the surface.
