Chapter Text
“Just sayin’, Yao Yao,” Feixiao’s voice rings back, as Yao Guang sits in the cushions of her reserved table and stares into the streets of Planarcadia, “for someone who actively streamed her arrival to Planarcadia and has done more or less whatever she wants there, you are oddly nervous for some… girl.”
“ ‘Some girl’, who just so happens to be an Emanator of-”
“Urgh, so you to get into that mess. Whole damn universe and you pick the one Lan is sure to murder on the spot should they meet. It’s like ya want things to be complicated for ya!”
Yao Guang bites her lip. Of course, she knows that.
Which just makes all the worse just how much she continues to like her!
Feixiao had poked fun at her plenty of it, but none the worse of Yao Guang herself had questioned in her mind what she was even thinking. It was one thing to get into something in Planarcadia, the land of the whimsical where she was in a mission as ambassador to play in the Games – her eventual lack of actual participation as a Supplicant notwithstanding –, and then there was a whole different thing to get into a friendship with an Avatar of the Ambrosial Arbor, debilitated and in recovery as she was after the fight against Fullwish and her crew.
And then there was falling for her!!
She had tried not to, really. The sole idea was the exact sort of thing that would make The Laughter support it from its Aeon zenith; a warlord in the name of The Hunt, and an Emanator of the Abundance working as an arbitrator of the Elation, together in a mission. She is almost sure Evanescia has mentioned a plot like that happening in that comic of the Express she likes so much -
She’ll have to ask her later.
When she arrives.
Because Yao Guang, in all her wisdom, invited her into what’s a date in all but name.
“… lloooooo? Alliance to Yao Guang? Hellooooooooo?” She blinks. She suddenly realizes the white noise of Feixiao’s rambling voice had gone silent a few seconds earlier. “Seriously, she got you that bad?”
“I… got stuck in time for a few minutes. In case you’ve forgotten that can happen in the time we haven’t been together.” She did not, and Feixiao absolutely knows that the way she scoffs on the phone. Yao Guang, blush burning bright in her ears, clears her throat. “Bold words from miss “Madam Yukong came to visit today, Yao-Yao!”.”
“I- But she did! And you know she never does! I think she knew Jing Yuan was gone doing heavens know what. Anyways- don’t change the topic like that! Shouldn’t yer date have arrived already?”
“It’s not a date.” She looks up to one of the walls in the restaurant she had picked. “… Sort of? I… may have arrived too early…”
“… At what time did ya invite her?”
“… 7:00 PM.”
“… Yao Guang. Ya called me at 6:40.”
“So what with that?”
“And ya said you arrived an hour before that.”
“Since when are you against making the most out of our time? I’ll tell Jing Yuan you are not allowed to poke fun at him for sleeping in anymore.”
“So that’s what it is, hm? Making the most out of your time with her?”
“It’s not that-“ Except she just said it was exactly that. Why did she even call Feixiao again? “You know what? I’ll take to call her, actually. Have fun with Madame Yukong!”
“Hey, don’t you dare-! NO, you know what! Fine! I’ll make use of the time of the year, alright! Go get her, tiger!”
“Shut up!” she answers, but the call is already over.
Yao Guang leans back on her seat and drops a heavy sigh.
A server comes by to offer her a drink or two; she accepts, one, easy in alcohol if only to gather some courage, and as she waits for it, she looks at the hour again.
7:08PM, and no sight of Evanescia everywhere.
A message arrives just past half seven, when Yao Guang is about to ask Feixiao what to do when getting stood up.
Know I’m late. U busy?
She wasn’t, of course, and Yao Guang has half a mind to wait a bit before answering, to tease. A bit late? She has downed three drinks by now! Thoughts are getting just slightly fussy, and she is a bit ashamed, and a bit embarrassed too, and most of all, she is absolutely embarrassed.
She is, because she does none of what she thinks she could do, and instead answers immediately.
What’s wrong?
She doesn’t like that she can feel her care in the words she has chosen.
She also doesn’t like how her heart flutters when she sees Evanescia typing immediately.
Nothing! Everything’s fine. I just…. Can you come over? I’d like to explain irl.
Yao Guang is already standing up.
Where you at?
❀
She told herself on the way over, far more times than necessary, that she was not worried. Evanescia was perfectly capable of handling herself; she had in fact lived longer than most, and survived things that would leave most people considerably… less alive, Yao Guang included. A single text was no cause for alarm. The fact it was a poor excuse as to why she hadn’t arrived where Yao Guang had invited her was a mere bonus. She said she was going to explain.
… She was simply being an extremely considerate friend, indeed. A responsible one, who checked in when asked. Evanescia was still recovering from healing those affected by Shuhu. The state of alarm in Planarcadia certainly didn’t help. Yao Guang was simply being logical in her worry.
Yao Guang arrives at the “World’s End” Tavern fifteen minutes later, and she is convinced that not only Evanescia is down sick with something horrible, but that all the Masked Fools will die by it too.
The reception hall is bristling with activity, as it was to be expected. The orange lanterns above Yao Guang’s head, decorations of the Abundance Tree here and there, vines of it going up the walls and hiding the night outside. It must be easy to lose track of the passage of time in a place like this: the lights, the people, the song of their laughter and the lack of understanding how the time outside runs and runs…
She goes straight to the new bartenders.
“Hello. Has any of you seen-?”
“Madam Yaoooo! Tell me my fortune for today!”
“-Evanescia?”
“Owww, no game planning?” Sparkle, or the one Yao Guang understands as the first Masked Fools, passes her arm around her doppelganger’s saddened shoulders and smirks at Yao Guang, looking at her from head to toe. “I’d expect ya to be more willing to have some fun!”
“No, thank you. Think you can play plenty with…” yourself, she wants to say, but she is suddenly conscious it may sound as an insult. Both Sparkle and Sparxie lift each a different eyebrow at her. It’s almost a bit… eerie. “Have you seen Evanescia?”
“Have we?” Sparxie asks, turning to Sparkle.
“Dunno. We have?” She answers, turning back to Yao Guang with a tilted head.
“… Have you?”
“Maybe, we have!”
“… Where?”
“Good question! Maybe follow it up with a when!”
“And then comes a who?”
“Evanescia!”
“But you gotta answer the other two things first!”
“Who car-?!” Yao Guang takes a deep breath, and breaks a smile at the duo. She is not about to let two Masked Fools make her run out of patience. It takes way more to challenge her. “In order: Evanescia told me she is here, in the Tavern, and asked me to come now. Has any of you, either Sparkle or Sparxie, seen her?”
Sparkle counts with her fingers from one to three.
“… Hey, but you answered the ‘who’ question first-!”
“I haven’t seen her here, though,” Sparxie adds in, serving herself a drink of what Yao Guang can almost swear by Lan is straight up oil. “Hand to the heart. ‘s been a busy day, all things considered!”
“Which is weird, because she did sign up for one of our rooms, no?”
“Yes, but her reserved hour ended… a few hours ago, actually!” Sparxie shakes her glass at Yao Guang who, as calmly and respectfully as she can, moves her dress so it won’t get dirt with what is definitely oil. “You! Go find her! She owes us money!”
“Half the Fools do, Sparxie!”
“But whose side ya on, Sparks?”
“Whichever can actually pay us!” Sparkle looks at Yao Guang from head to toe, and smirks. “And I got my eyes set on one that can-“
“I’ll pay for the hours she has been there, if you just tell me where she is?”
“Oh! Room 8, going up our stairs.” Sparkle leans down to catch something from under the desk, and brings up two glasses, a rich wine Yao Guang had not seen ever since she arrived at Planarcadia, and a bag of sugar. Before she can even ask, she serves in one glass some of the wine, empties the bag of sugar into it, and a key falls within the sugar. “Use this one to open it!”
… There is… so much, she wants to ask…
But she wants to see Evanescia more.
First things first. She leans for the key-
“Good luck!” Sparkle and Sparxie hit their glasses. “Cheers!”
Before they can think to offer her any of those mixes, she picks the key, nods her gratitude, and walks off.
… Did some of it fall in my clothes, anyways…?
❀
She counts the doors in the floor above the Tavern, though admittedly there is not much to count: rooms from 1 to 3, and then 6 and 7 don’t even have a door, one quick look inside immediately letting her know they are not usable as they are. Room 4 is… busy, if the moans and growls she hears from inside when she walks by is anything to go by, and though the music and voices from the tavern under grow mutated and distant through the wooden floor, the same could be said about room 5, side by side.
Therefore, she can only walk the hall until the end, where room 8, that which seems to be the biggest, awaits.
She stands in front of it, and suddenly conscious of herself, takes a look down; the white shirt and blue navel she had picked for her d- outing with Evanescia is still clean and decent enough to be presented. Those are not uncomfortable clothes, not at all, but the pressure in her guts does not relent, and she realizes all of sudden she wishes she had simply used her normal dress.
Evanescia is going to take one look at her, and now immediately she actually thought of their date enough to think of a new attire-
You are oddly nervous for some girl.
… urgh.
Yao Guang breathes in, clears her throat, and knocks the door before her courage can abandon her.
At first, there is nothing, and she wonders if she should’ve sent Evanescia another message to check if Sparkle was telling the truth. Then there is shuffling, and a growl, and she wonders, again, if this room is occupied in the same way the others were, and the raw embarrassment of such an incident almost makes her turn around and –
The door opens, and Yao Guang’s first coherent, real thought, is that Evanescia looks terrible.
The second, immediately on its heels and less shareable, was that she also looked wonderful.
She stood leaning in the door in what… appeared to be a silk robe she hadn’t managed to tie properly, her hair loose and escaping whatever ponytail it had previously been in, cheeks flushed a deep and lovely rose that had absolutely nothing to do with the small attempt at cosmetics. She looked like she was running a fever. And she looked tired, in a way that didn’t quite make sense with her dilated, energetic eyes, and the way she took deep, segmented breaths.
“You came,” Evanescia says, and her voice is slightly lower than usual, softer. Yao Guang gulps down as her gaze goes up and down her clothes before meeting Yao Guang’s gaze one more time with a smile.
“You asked.” And that damned Fool didn’t make it easy, let me tell ya. “What happened? Are you ill? You should sit down.”
Evanescia blinks at her, and something shifts in her expression – amusement? Relief? Both? Anything of the sorts, hovering just beneath that smile that makes her squint her eyes and tilt her head just a bit. “Come in, first of all.”
The room is insanely warm.
Too warm, in fact – Yao Guang takes a single step in, Evanescia hurrying to close the door behind, and she notices immediately that the room is slightly bigger than a normal hotel room, the bed in the middle of it, heat a thick, almost visible haze, the scent heavy of Sakura blooms in the closed room.
“Can I offer you some water…?”
“No, no, just-“ Yao Guang turns to catch Evanescia in her arms, and hurries her to the bed, sitting her in the corner of the bed, and leaning in between her legs. “Is everything fine, really?”
Evanescia blinks, a bit confused, at Yao Guang, and it’s so… so cute, Yao Guang has the decency to worry that the one who is sick is her, because this woman has done absolutely nothing worth driving her this crazy and yet here, she is, feeling a blush burning up her face, in her knees for none other than her friend, the Emanator of-
“I am, really. I just need some rest… I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to our date. I tried.”
“I know.” Yao Guang smiles, biting her lip. “I’d say you could’ve tried better with the ponytail, though.”
“I did! You’re welcome to give it a few tries to do my hair, tell me how good it goes for you.”
I’d be happy to, she wants to answer, the words burning in her lips… but another point connects.
And then a second with a third, and with the delicacy of a brick to the face, everything connects.
Feixiao’s voice repeats in her mind, “that time of the year!”
The blush, and the warmth of the room…, the slightly dilated pupils, and that gaze Evanescia is throwing at her, dark and luminous and fixed on Yao Guang with an attention that felt focused. Her breathing, slow and deliberate, as if keeping count.
… Oh, Yao Guang thinks.
Then, as Evanescia’s fingers bury in her arms, again. Oh.
“Nescia?”
“Yes?”
“… Are you, perhaps…?”
Evanescia’s mouth curves, brief and wry, nails almost pressing on Yao Guang’s skin. “Perhaps…?”
“… Are you in,,,?” Yao Guang motions with her free arm around the room, “this?”
“Eloquently put, Miss General.” Evanescia chuckles, a ragged, husky sound that sends a warm tickle down Yao Guang’s stomach, Evanescia’s other hand burying nails on her shoulder. “… Yes. I think I may… … it’s been… many years I hadn’t…” she shakes her head. “It may be the incident with Shuhu. I’m still recovering…, and this body hasn’t adapted again to this moment of the year.”
Yao Guang nods, a part of her completely, absolutely conscious of what is happening to her and the situation she is finding herself in, and the other scrambling to add two plus two together. She remembers the date of the year, and that time where Feixiao takes a short work leave –
“I apologize for it ruining our evening-“
“No need to.” Yao Guang says, more firmly than intended. She clears her throat as Evanescia arches an eyebrow: “Don’t apologize. I’m happy you called me.” She looked around the room, carefully taking stock. “What do you need?”
Evanescia looks at her. The silence that follows lasts slightly longer than what is strictly conversational, and it has a quality to it – warm, intentional, and a little nervous, helpless – that Yao Guang catalogues as the fact that her talkative friend is definitely not feeling well.
“You,” she says, finally, “actually.”
Yao Guang nods. “And I’m here. What else?”
“… Yao Guang. I’m about to go into heat.”
“I know. So, what can I do?”
Another short, barely noticeable pause follows. Evanescia presses her lips together in a way that Yao Guang sort of sees and catalogues as her debating with herself whether she wants to answer the first thing she thought of or not, right under the mental inventory of available resources she is running.
“Water,” Evanescia continued, then, letting go of Yao Guang’s body and falling backwards into the bed. “Maybe something to eat? I haven’t been able to…” She motions at herself as Yao Guang stands up, staring down at her and meeting her intense gaze, “concentrate on a lot of practical things.”
Yao Guang nods, and turns. “I’ll handle it. That’s why I’m here.”
Behind her, Evanescia chuckles. “Yes. That is exactly why.”
What follows was, in Yao Guang’s personal assessment, an excellent demonstration of efficient crisis management. A masterclass of strategy, if she so dares say herself!
She managed to… find water – she hopes it is, it’s hard to ever know with the Masked Fools twins -, and coaxed them into making the service of the Tavern prepare something light and easily digestible as a repayment for messing up her jeans with oil – really, why did they have oil?!. Coming back, she took to see the room’s temperature controls, found them way too high for her liking, and lowered them by several degrees.
There were blankets in the closet of the room, and she set them within Evanescia’s reach, remembering those times where Feixiao would collect stuff into her bed. Maybe I can ask her, Yao Guang thinks, and then she figures the way she is going to laugh at her face, and decides that maybe no, she doesn’t want to ask her. She drew the curtains, too, shielding the room from the oppressive, ever constant light of Planarcadia, and left the whole place in darkness.
Through all of this, Evanescia followed her with her gaze from the bed. With the room plunged into darkness, her clear eyes spark like stars in the night, unabashedly seeking Yao Guang’s gaze; she manages to hold it in spite of the wild beating of her heart.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said, her voice rumbling in Yao Guang’s chest.
“I know,” she answered, nervous hands moving to organize the items on her bedside table into a more logical arrangement. Water within her reach. A small plate of some bread, and that grapefruit jam she likes, and Evanescia’s own phone, completely charged.
“Yao Guang.”
“Hmhm?”
“I mean it. If this is-“ Her voice dips, just slightly. “If this is uncomfortable for you…”
“It isn’t.” It came too fast. She didn’t look up. Yao Guang sat at the corner of the bed, her back turned towards Evanescia, and busied herself playing with the corner of her jacket. “You are my friend, and you need help. After all you did for Planarcadia, I can’t just leave you alone.”
A silence stretches for a second, then another.
Then, softly: “Won’t you come lay with me, then?”
Yao Guang looks over her shoulder, and immediately recognizes her action as the tactical error it was.
Evanescia was watching her from the pillows. Lying back against the bed, her hair spread loose around her, the smile softening her expression into something unguarded and absolutely genuine and- and Yao Guang managed to look for exactly one second before she looked at the closed window, her cheeks burning.
“I do not wish to-“
“Yao Guang. Come here.”
“There is a couch Sparkle offered me for the trouble. I can just-“
“If you don’t want to lay here, just say it.”
“It’s not that.”
“Come, then.”
There are- so many reasons why Yao Guang should say no. Evanescia is going into heat. She could need something and Yao Guang will surely fall asleep, or maybe she won’t, she’ll barely rest at all because the sole idea of sharing bed with Evanescia, warm and comfortable and unguarded, makes her heart throb in her throat and her ribs close off around her lungs.
She clears her throat. There is a clear, obvious and preferable choice, and yet-
“I want you to sleep comfortably,” she finds herself saying, which is not what she should say.
“I won’t,” Evanescia said, with the ease of someone reporting the weather forecast, as if completely unaware of the weight of her gaze on Yao Guang’s shoulders. “Not if I’m alone. It helps, you know? Having… someone close. The warmth. The companionship.”
And it made complete, absolute sense.
Yao Guang runs the mental list, one last time: there is about the best hotel she can find in Planarcadia, of all places, reserved for as long as Evanescia needs it, her favorite food and sweet treats to last for days, and everything she can think of is taken care of.
Well, almost. She still is left to wonder why Evanescia wants her help in particular.
Then again, if she really does…?
“Are you sure?”
“Yao Guang,” Evanescia says. “Just – stay close. If you want.”
Really, how was she supposed to say no to such a cute face?
Yao Guang looked at her. At the genuine exhaustion in her face, and the effort it probably takes to simply stay calm and composed and still making it very easy for Yao Guang to say no if she wanted to. How she tried so hard to not look like she was asking for something she wanted so badly.
“Move over.”
Evanescia smiles.
As they move, Evanescia settles under the blankets Yao Guang had handed her closer. She chooses instead to lay down on top of the covers – she takes off her jacket, kicks off her shoes, and still as dressed as she can be, rests on her side and turns her back on Evanescia, setting her gaze on the wall to the side and focusing on her breathing, slow and rhythmic.
Besides her, she feels the warmth radiating from Evanescia’s skin. Her breathing, slowing out to match her own. Could sense the tension leaving her body as she sighs, accommodating the pillow she now shares with Yao Guang and the blankets she alone uses.
What any good friend does, Yao Guang told herself, closing her eyes.
Evanescia moves, then.
She shifts closer, and the scent of her, warm and faintly floral, fills Yao Guang’s lungs and makes it impossible to focus on anything else.
“Yao Guang,” she murmurs, close to Yao Guang’s ear, and she fights back a shiver.
“Hm?”
“Come closer.”
Then there are arms around her waist, and Evanescia’s warm hand is pressing Yao Guang into her back with a swift motion.
There is not much she can do, or wants to do to resist. Laying on her back, she lets Evanescia cuddle into her shoulder, her shaky breathing straight against Yao Guang’s jaw, her face right in-between two fox ears tickling in the skin of her cheeks. Her skin is warm to the point of tickling her own, on the verge of scorching, and with the blankets she settles like a heavy weight above her chest.
Yao Guang has never felt more comfortable than this.
“Is this OK?”
“Yes,” she answers, gaze fixed on the ceiling. “As if I could say no to you.”
Evanescia giggles in her ear, and it tickles, and a cold shiver runs down Yao Guang’s spine.
“I will keep that in mind, Miss General.”
She doesn’t dignify her with an answer.
Instead, she rests one of her arms across Evanescia’s shoulder blade, closes her eyes, and hopelessly tries to tell her heart to calm down and let her sleep.
Two weeks, at worst maybe three. She can survive it. She absolutely can! Nothing the Seer Strategist can't take.