Chapter Text
The enormity of Yi’s responsibility in this matter looms over him like an angry giant; a gestalt colossus of innumerable problems, swarming and schooling over a hateful core:
The death of his species.
His only weapons are knowledge and practice. They are potent, larger than life to him, but they can only peel away one problem at a time. Sometimes he experiences a breakthrough, a harsh flash of inspiration that clears away four, or five, or six. Once, a dozen.
But there are always more.
Despite his pretentions to seeking knowledge and science, he knows it’s spite that fuels him. Pride, maybe; he would not let the story end this way. Not for him, not for her—not for them. Their people.
Hubris.
It drives him to go without sleep. He hasn’t seen his bed in days, doesn’t want to. Time is better spent working. Another round of simulations, another round of failures, another night spent troubleshooting in the dim of an empty lab. Better than dreaming of home.
The last meeting he had with his family still sits very poorly with him. He’s still scowling about it, tongue prying at the back of his teeth. Why can’t she—they understand? This, his, the council’s works, are all to save them. Save their lives and ensure that their civilization, their legacy, can continue! They rage against the dying of the light, unjustly snuffed before its time by some unseen hand. It’s not fair, none of this is fair, it’s all—
That feeling rings another, and another, rattling down into his depths like a chain.
He and Heng walked the Plum Festival, back when they were small. She held onto him like a lifeline as they drifted under strings of lantern light, little fingers fisted tight into his robe. She tugged, begged him to stop, to play a game at a stall and win her a goldfish. The man running the stall cheated, she cried. He ended up spending all of his allowance, but it was worth it to see her dry her tears.
Homesick grips his guts and turns them like a dial, and his forehead slams onto his workstation. A steady stream of gibberish spills into the command line. Sleep doesn’t take him, doesn’t want him now. All he can do is simmer.
He wasn’t quite sure how long he sat like that. Too tired, too heavy, too pissed, too something. At some point, it became morning, and lights inside his lab brightened to simulate day. Even that passed somewhere in his fugue; the thing that pulled him out of it was clumsy footsteps drawing near, a wide body blundering into some stacked boxes, and Kuafu’s familiar worried muttering.
Yi rose like a corpse from the dead, grinding the sleep out of his eyes with stiff knuckles.
“Oh, you’re awake! Council’s called a meeting.”
“Another one?”
“Yeah, deadlines are coming up, I guess… Yi?”
His eyes went hazy, unfocused. Yi pulled himself back from the brink. “Hm, yeah?” Kuafu looked a little more concerned than usual.
“C’mon, buddy. Let’s get you some caffeine.”
- - - - - - -
This meeting was like so many others; Yi was tempted to see if he could set a watch by it.
Jiequan says something inflammatory, Goumang snaps back, quick on the draw today. She almost looks as bad as he does, an angular pile of feather and fur nesting in the far rear of her seat. Yi doesn’t keep looking long enough to catch her eye.
Yanlao says something angry about the youth, Lady Ethereal is quick to mollify, and the meeting drags on for another few interminable minutes. It felt like someone was wedging his skull apart with an ax.
Brows pinch, teeth grind over mangled boba pearls. Kuafu seemed to think a good bubble tea could soothe any bad mood, but the sugar rots in his stomach, strips the flesh from his throat. A clawed fingertip toys with the end of the fat straw, stirring the bottom of his cup.
“As I was saying,” Eigong reasserts control with the ease of experience, continuing apace over the quieting rabble. There is the barest hint of irritation and reproach in her voice; this is no more pleasure for her than anyone else, and she is keen to have it over with. “Once we confirm viability of the dragon-snake population, we can move to scale testing of the water treatment systems…”
These are all things he knows; more than half of it is based on his work. He is ahead of this conversation by weeks, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Reports like these are important to keep their funding, old dynasties and noble families need to know about their return on investment.
He hates it.
Yi cast his eyes about the room in a desperate attempt to keep decorum by not falling asleep. He needs something, anything to latch onto.
Ji and Yanlao seemed to be competing for best statue impression.
Kuafu and Goumang look to be in the same position as he, and performing with some limited success; Kuafu paid rapt attention to his data slate, nodding and pretending he was paying attention. Goumang deters scrutiny with sheer radiating hostility, and seems to be working on her third pot of dark, bitter tea.
The Fengs… something irritates him about the Fengs.
They’re so close, so easy, like they belong together. Seems there’s nowhere Nuwa would rather be than on her brother’s knee, looking pretty as a picture despite the lack of an audience. Fuxi is none too bothered about sharing a seat; happy about it, even. There’s a soft smile on his face that widens just a little whenever his eyes drift from Eigong’s dry debrief to meet his sister’s.
"Yi."
It makes him sick. No—no, that’s not quite it. It twists him up inside, ties his guts in knots around his throat, tightening.
It was something in the way Nuwa perched coquettishly on Fuxi’s lap, her fingertips playing over his exposed collarbone. The way she leans into him so comfortably, so naturally, nearly seeming to melt into his chest.
The way his hand anchors to her hip, keeps her steady, riding up and down when he thought nobody was looking. The prideful swell of his chest under wandering fingertips, back straight and proper and distracting from his meandering hand.
“Yi.”
Their shared whispers and meaningful looks, and the sting of pink on their cheeks that rises past their decorum.
They bother him… or rather, it bothers him that they don’t, that they stoke some familiar longing that makes his seat feel so very empty.
“Sol Yi of the Tiendao Council.” There’s more than a touch of reproach in Eigong’s voice, and Yi is suddenly very aware of himself, and the uncomfortable tightness in his pants, and the awful, sinful stickiness coating him.
He tries to contain himself, musters whatever wit he still has about him to reply: “… yes, Eigong?”
“Is something the matter?” Her lips form a tight line, eyes hard and grim like the rest of her, and Yi follows her disapproving gaze down, down to… his mangled bubble tea.
Somewhere in his haze, claws had pierced plastic, and his tightening grip had squeezed its contents all over himself and his seat. Most of the council stifle giggles.
Jiequan and Goumang laugh openly.
Embarrassment stings his cheeks, pink rising through cream colored fur. “No—ah, sorry, Lady Eigong. I was careless, please continue…”
Nuwa’s giggles rang loudest of all as he mops up his mess, shame and sleepless nights eating at the backside of his face.