Despite knowing how important it is that Cat stays awake, it's not easy for Li Lianhua to take his own advice. While waiting for Cat to react to his taunting, his useless eyes drift shut and the cold curls like iron chains around his body, the unforgiving ground like a dungeon cot beneath him, the distant rhythmic clash of his young jailers sparring like dripping water...
Something shoved into his side has his eyes snap open with a flinch, and it's disorienting to find himself not quite blind yet. More disorienting still to realize where he is, where he's been this whole time since however long ago he crawled down here for... Oh. It's Cat, too small even in this shape, even next to a sickly fox, hiding his face against his ribs like a scared young boy. A tired young boy scared of pain and death and Li Lianhua could cry with grief, could draw a sword and leap in front of whatever injustice is responsible for this, but in the end all his rattling aching body can really do is to shift a little closer, bushy white tail curling around and over that smaller body.
Li Lianhua releases a stiffly careful sigh, the shivers making it sound more like a foxish laugh. Might as well, because what else is there when things hurt too much? "Last words are funny things, aren't they?" A wisp of a thought, rising up again from the fog in his mind. "Considered so precious, yet nobody wants to hear them. Least of all the ones they're meant for the most."
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Date: 2024-10-24 09:52 pm (UTC)Something shoved into his side has his eyes snap open with a flinch, and it's disorienting to find himself not quite blind yet. More disorienting still to realize where he is, where he's been this whole time since however long ago he crawled down here for... Oh. It's Cat, too small even in this shape, even next to a sickly fox, hiding his face against his ribs like a scared young boy. A tired young boy scared of pain and death and Li Lianhua could cry with grief, could draw a sword and leap in front of whatever injustice is responsible for this, but in the end all his rattling aching body can really do is to shift a little closer, bushy white tail curling around and over that smaller body.
Li Lianhua releases a stiffly careful sigh, the shivers making it sound more like a foxish laugh. Might as well, because what else is there when things hurt too much? "Last words are funny things, aren't they?" A wisp of a thought, rising up again from the fog in his mind. "Considered so precious, yet nobody wants to hear them. Least of all the ones they're meant for the most."