He doesn't get the reference, and looks between the pair of them, mildly perplexed.
"Thank you, didi," he murmurs after a moment, though his tone and the faint arch to his brows makes it clear he is well aware it must have been stress-baking. "Please-" He tips his head slightly- "Have a seat-" And then pads over to the space between the desk and the bed and sinks gracefully to his knees, leaving his didi and Taylor mei to choose between the bed and the heavy, straight-backed desk chair. "And tell me what it is I'm meant to be teaching."
"You told me to pick a nickname, and Saruman's a corrupted wizard in white. It's perfect."
If he's going to sit on the floor, so is Taylor, an arm propped over her knee and leaning against a leg of the bed. It's not like she's not used to it - Kiryu mostly doesn't have chairs.
"Is the language called Dixingren too? Or does it have its own name?"
"Saruman changes his name to the Many Colored, and while I do wear other things besides white, it's usually not all at one time."
He's been doing the stress baking a lot, but he also makes sure to bring some to his brother otherwise he wasn't sure if he would eat at all. He as well sits on the floor, making a slight face that his gege did not have proper kneeling pillows for his knees but wasn't going to make it as an issue as he unfolds the box to pull out the tea service and the tiny tarts in their little cups.
"...I suppose Dixingren is good enough. I know most people speak a dialect of Mandarin these days."
The conversation about... a corrupt wizard? Is still going completely over his head, though he does manage the shadow of a smile for the gentle bickering and the feeling of... of family, he thinks. This must be what family is like. It's one good thing in his life to cling to.
He's a little nonplused when they both join him on the floor, but he settles back on his heels, grateful at least for the thick, black rug over the stone floor.
"Yes," he sighs. "Dixingren is sufficient. I think it had another name when we were children, but by the time I awakened it was long forgotten, both the language and its name." He's often wondered just how his people became native speakers of Mandarin, when they were cut off from the world above for so many millennia, but it was one of many things he'd never found the time to look into before he'd run out of time entirely.
Casually he sets out small dishes for the tarts, pouring them both cups of the fragrant tea, all the while sending her equally bright clothing choices, but ones that fit her bugs.
"The smuggling groups led most of the push towards learning the surface languages, especially since there was no formal education system without guidance by the Dijun Palace. It was suppose to have been set up, but had been conveniently forgotten by those making the Treaty. Like the Regent."
There was also a small pot of honey butter to put on the tarts and small forks to eat them with that he set out as well. He then reached into his sleeve to pull out a worn book, the cover looking grayish orange to human eyes, but was actually a faded color of a sunset.
"Look, gege, a copy of 'The Romance of The Mountain God'. I was thinking we can use it to help meimei with the characters."
Shen Wei listens intently to the explanation, eyebrows creeping up in surprise at his brother's superior information on the matter.
"I tried repeatedly to institute formal schooling in Dixing," he confesses, gaze dropping to his hands where they rest on his knees, then shifting to look at the simple but elegant display his didi has laid out for them to share. "Of course it was never the right time, or there weren't sufficient resources to spare." One more way in which he failed his people.
His gaze snaps up again at his twin's next words, though, and he instantly snaps, "Absolutely not, didi. I'm sure there's something more... appropriate." Something that's not a fanciful, heavily fictionalized account of his own love life.
Taylor takes her cup of tea - and when she reaches out her arm for it, Jaws shows his ugly head along the back of her wrist - and settles, sitting cross-legged now. "Who was calling those shots?" she asks, leaning to get a look at the book, curious green bubbling up in her aura.
"The honey butter is safe for the gu if you want to give them a treat," he says, even as he flips the cover over and presents it to Shen Wei, letting him see that it wasn't The Romance but The Five Kingdoms, a much more serious historical myth instead. Little bubbles of lighter blues and pinks had appeared like glitter in his aura. "Gege, I would never give her that fir a first read. The metaphors alone are far more complex for anyone learning our tongue."
Placing the book down, he picks up his own cup and inhales a little of the steam - a mellow tea, one that brought to mind of sunshine and wood smoke. "The Regent mostly. He had so much control over the whole system... I swear he actually was hooked into the Throne the way he seemed to know everything."
The slashes of bright red embarrassment and the deeper red of nascent anger fade from Shen Wei's aura, and he sits back on his heels again, his shoulders loosening.
"The king has very little actual power, he's mostly an administrative drudge as well as a figurehead," he adds, faint hints of purple and green twisting amongst the sparking flashes of white and blue in his aura. "I never saw any indication the Regent was connected to the Throne in any way." Which doesn't mean it's impossible.
He looks back at the book and sighs quietly again. "I think there were children's books when we were very small." At a time when books were almost completely unknown to the world, but then, they hadn't been of the world, and he has vague memories of technological marvels that Earth has yet to begin to equal in the ten thousand years since the meteor had destroyed Dixing and its remnants of an advanced, spacefaring people. "They would be easier to teach from... but we will make do with what we have." And he reaches for his own tea cup, cradling it in his hands and inhaling the fragrant steam
"Isn't that what a regent is? A proxy-king while the actual king can't rule?" Taylor breaks the edge of crust off her tart, spreading it with the butter, and sets it on her knee. The empty spaces in her aura expand just a little as she releases her control off of all three gu on her person, letting them go enjoy their treat while she sips her tea.
"I think in the times before, the regent was someone who overlooked civil matters the king was too busy to handle," he said slowly, frowning a little. Bits and pieces of conversations from half-remembered people who drifted by the Sky Pillar. Murky green and orange appeared and spread out before the darker purple swallowed both. "The Throne though, it started going bad, taking away the life and everything of the king... I think that was when the Hallows disappeared."
When they started waking up, he didn't add, glancing over at Shen Wei. "I know they weren't just forgotten or lost, not the way he said they were. The Hallows were too... independent to be easily taken away like that. I could feel them at times even when I slept."
"They were already gone when I awoke, but the Regent's claims that they were lost and he had no idea what had happened to them-" He shakes his head- "I couldn't disprove them, I... I wouldn't have had any idea how to go about trying. And by the time I found my feet-" He sighs and lowers his gaze again- "Whatever evidence there might have been was long gone." The admission clearly pains him. "But the Regent's claims never rang true."
He takes a sip of his tea and turns his focus back to Taylor mei. "As for the Dijun throne, t is not simply a designation, or an ornamental seat, it is an artifact imbued with a great deal of dark energy. I believe it was initially designed to connect the monarch to his people, and to aid in fairly administering Dixing's laws with both justice and mercy. But during the time we slept it was somehow perverted from that purpose, whether by accident or design, and it now ties the king to it in sleepless servitude to administrative trivia until his life force is completely drained." He has little doubt as to whether it was accident or design, or as to who was the corrupting influence, but, as with the disappearance of the Hallows, he has never found any proof.
"And this Regent's left in charge while the king is made useless?" she asks, but it's not really a question. "Sounds like a fantastic way to be king while everyone thinks you aren't."
"He is a slippery devil playing all the sides against each other with a very healthy interest in the smugglers. I wouldn't put it past him if he had handed them the Hallows over the years; he's at least a couple centuries old."
Quite possibly older than that. He remembered during the brief moments of awareness of the man being talked about, of people exchanging things in the shadows of his prison.
"The Throne was made from a fragment of the ship, gege. Like the Hallows. And no one knows how it works completely without the ship or the creators' notes."
"He's done a great deal to make himself indispensable, including, no doubt, making himself the hub for all smuggling between Haixing and Dixing." He takes a long, slow, frustrated breath. "I should have taken more of an interest in Dixing affairs," he admits, "Instead of allowing myself to be shuffled above to search for the Hallows." But it had been so easy to accept, when what he most wanted had been to be above, searching for Kunlun as diligently as the Hallows themselves.
He reaches up, as if to adjust a mask or glasses he's no longer wearing, then drops his hand back to his knee again. "I remember the stories, a little, from when we were small. That the heart of the Throne was the Captain's command chair, and I've felt it... reaching out, sometimes, when I was near to it. But no-" He shakes his head- "So much was lost when the meteor destroyed Dixing. Not just technology, but the knowledge required to reproduce it, or to understand what little remained."
"That would be someone else to target, or a later one. The deal I want is pointed at the Hallows."
Because they did not work right. They did not seem right. Why would they need a human soul to burn now? They worked before, sealing him away and sending the human through time a couple times. Or maybe they didn't have the understanding of them? No matter, he wanted them working like they should which should also free Zhao Yunlan in the proc4ess.
"As didi said, we need the Hallows working properly first, to provide Dixing with light and to free Zhao Yunlan."
The deal he should have been working towards if he hadn't ruined everything. He looks down at his hands, feeling the burn of shame rising up his neck and pinking his ears, but chooses not to acknowledge it as he continues. "And... I am not sure that the knowledge we lost is something that should be handed to our people, and the world, as it is now. Even didi and I do not remember much of how the world was before the meteor, we were so young when it happened, and I hesitate to simply ask for the advanced knowledge of an ancient spacefaring people to simply be presented as a gift to people who have no memory of it and no context for it."
"That's all in how you ask for it, then, isn't it? I'd ask for a library of what was lost, arranged in the order it needs to be learned." She looks at Shen Wei, sitting a little straighter. "You're a teacher. You know how to put together a curriculum. This is fully within your wheelhouse, Shen ge, even if it takes a generation or two to teach it."
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"Thank you, didi," he murmurs after a moment, though his tone and the faint arch to his brows makes it clear he is well aware it must have been stress-baking. "Please-" He tips his head slightly- "Have a seat-" And then pads over to the space between the desk and the bed and sinks gracefully to his knees, leaving his didi and Taylor mei to choose between the bed and the heavy, straight-backed desk chair. "And tell me what it is I'm meant to be teaching."
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If he's going to sit on the floor, so is Taylor, an arm propped over her knee and leaning against a leg of the bed. It's not like she's not used to it - Kiryu mostly doesn't have chairs.
"Is the language called Dixingren too? Or does it have its own name?"
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He's been doing the stress baking a lot, but he also makes sure to bring some to his brother otherwise he wasn't sure if he would eat at all. He as well sits on the floor, making a slight face that his gege did not have proper kneeling pillows for his knees but wasn't going to make it as an issue as he unfolds the box to pull out the tea service and the tiny tarts in their little cups.
"...I suppose Dixingren is good enough. I know most people speak a dialect of Mandarin these days."
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He's a little nonplused when they both join him on the floor, but he settles back on his heels, grateful at least for the thick, black rug over the stone floor.
"Yes," he sighs. "Dixingren is sufficient. I think it had another name when we were children, but by the time I awakened it was long forgotten, both the language and its name." He's often wondered just how his people became native speakers of Mandarin, when they were cut off from the world above for so many millennia, but it was one of many things he'd never found the time to look into before he'd run out of time entirely.
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"All the more reason to teach me. And anyone else you can rope in."
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"The smuggling groups led most of the push towards learning the surface languages, especially since there was no formal education system without guidance by the Dijun Palace. It was suppose to have been set up, but had been conveniently forgotten by those making the Treaty. Like the Regent."
There was also a small pot of honey butter to put on the tarts and small forks to eat them with that he set out as well. He then reached into his sleeve to pull out a worn book, the cover looking grayish orange to human eyes, but was actually a faded color of a sunset.
"Look, gege, a copy of 'The Romance of The Mountain God'. I was thinking we can use it to help meimei with the characters."
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"I tried repeatedly to institute formal schooling in Dixing," he confesses, gaze dropping to his hands where they rest on his knees, then shifting to look at the simple but elegant display his didi has laid out for them to share. "Of course it was never the right time, or there weren't sufficient resources to spare." One more way in which he failed his people.
His gaze snaps up again at his twin's next words, though, and he instantly snaps, "Absolutely not, didi. I'm sure there's something more... appropriate." Something that's not a fanciful, heavily fictionalized account of his own love life.
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Placing the book down, he picks up his own cup and inhales a little of the steam - a mellow tea, one that brought to mind of sunshine and wood smoke. "The Regent mostly. He had so much control over the whole system... I swear he actually was hooked into the Throne the way he seemed to know everything."
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"The king has very little actual power, he's mostly an administrative drudge as well as a figurehead," he adds, faint hints of purple and green twisting amongst the sparking flashes of white and blue in his aura. "I never saw any indication the Regent was connected to the Throne in any way." Which doesn't mean it's impossible.
He looks back at the book and sighs quietly again. "I think there were children's books when we were very small." At a time when books were almost completely unknown to the world, but then, they hadn't been of the world, and he has vague memories of technological marvels that Earth has yet to begin to equal in the ten thousand years since the meteor had destroyed Dixing and its remnants of an advanced, spacefaring people. "They would be easier to teach from... but we will make do with what we have." And he reaches for his own tea cup, cradling it in his hands and inhaling the fragrant steam
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When they started waking up, he didn't add, glancing over at Shen Wei. "I know they weren't just forgotten or lost, not the way he said they were. The Hallows were too... independent to be easily taken away like that. I could feel them at times even when I slept."
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He takes a sip of his tea and turns his focus back to Taylor mei. "As for the Dijun throne, t is not simply a designation, or an ornamental seat, it is an artifact imbued with a great deal of dark energy. I believe it was initially designed to connect the monarch to his people, and to aid in fairly administering Dixing's laws with both justice and mercy. But during the time we slept it was somehow perverted from that purpose, whether by accident or design, and it now ties the king to it in sleepless servitude to administrative trivia until his life force is completely drained." He has little doubt as to whether it was accident or design, or as to who was the corrupting influence, but, as with the disappearance of the Hallows, he has never found any proof.
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Quite possibly older than that. He remembered during the brief moments of awareness of the man being talked about, of people exchanging things in the shadows of his prison.
"The Throne was made from a fragment of the ship, gege. Like the Hallows. And no one knows how it works completely without the ship or the creators' notes."
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He reaches up, as if to adjust a mask or glasses he's no longer wearing, then drops his hand back to his knee again. "I remember the stories, a little, from when we were small. That the heart of the Throne was the Captain's command chair, and I've felt it... reaching out, sometimes, when I was near to it. But no-" He shakes his head- "So much was lost when the meteor destroyed Dixing. Not just technology, but the knowledge required to reproduce it, or to understand what little remained."
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Because they did not work right. They did not seem right. Why would they need a human soul to burn now? They worked before, sealing him away and sending the human through time a couple times. Or maybe they didn't have the understanding of them? No matter, he wanted them working like they should which should also free Zhao Yunlan in the proc4ess.
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The deal he should have been working towards if he hadn't ruined everything. He looks down at his hands, feeling the burn of shame rising up his neck and pinking his ears, but chooses not to acknowledge it as he continues. "And... I am not sure that the knowledge we lost is something that should be handed to our people, and the world, as it is now. Even didi and I do not remember much of how the world was before the meteor, we were so young when it happened, and I hesitate to simply ask for the advanced knowledge of an ancient spacefaring people to simply be presented as a gift to people who have no memory of it and no context for it."
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