CWP Application
Apr. 3rd, 2012 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forherprinceCHARACTER INFO
Name: Lan Fan
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Canon Point: End of chapter 108 as she, Ling and May leave to return to Xing
Reference: FMA wiki
Age: 16 (estimated)
Gender: Female
Suitability: While Lan Fan is still young (and still a virgin), she is no stranger to adult concepts. She has been trained as a bodyguard from a young age and exposed to the most violent aspects of life in Xing. She has not been a child for a long time and is extremely mature with developed sense of cause and effect that most people her age have not yet developed. While she has not expressly been exposed to sexual situations she is not without knowledge of what sex is, its purpose, its consequences or its place in society. As a retainer for the Yao Clan’s royal family she has first-hand knowledge of the Xingese Harem and the role sex plays in her culture. She is in a place to understand the nature of the setting, what is expected, and fully capable of making informed decisions regarding it. This doesn’t mean it will be easy, only that she is capable. Added difficulty will be at play due to social standards regarding sexual relations outside of wedlock and also her own view of her gender. In her position as a retainer she becomes genderless behind her mask and garbed in her uniform and armor. To be in the position she is in she has had to reject many social norms that would be in place for a girl her age in order to be taken seriously and be given her position in the first place. She likely has come to the conclusion that she is likely not to marry due to this (and the physical deformity of missing a limb certainly would not help this, no matter how wonderful her automail is). The setting will force her to acknowledge that yes, she is still a woman and present her with situations that she likely has assumed she would never actually experience as a retainer. Bottom line, no matter what, Lan Fan is a survivor and her determination to live to protect her prince will drive her to make do with and persevere in any situation, whether it is crossing a ruthless desert, severing her own limb in a moment of desperation, or making do in a perverted Maharajah’s country-wide peep show.
Appearance: Lan Fan will be aged up by 2-3 years (her canon age is not stated, it is generally assumed she is roughly the same age as Ling). She is a petite, though athletic, woman. She will not have gained any height, but her form would have become just a hint more womanly, barely enough for anyone but her to notice (which she will because it will be just enough to change in her center of gravity). Lan Fan is approximately 5’3”, Asian in appearance with dark brown eyes and black hair that falls to her shoulder blades when down but is usually worn in a high top knot with bangs and loose strands framing her face. The most notable aspect of her appearance is her left arm, which is a fully-functional mechanical prosthetic limb known as automail. She regularly wears black hooded clothing that covers her entire body save open-fingered gloves as well as a mask adorning the yin symbol that covers her entire face.
Background: FMA wiki
Personality:
The fundamental character point for Lan Fan is her sense of duty and discipline. Her family has served the Imperial Yao family for generations and from a young age the importance of that role has been instilled in her, and she has taken it wholly to heart. It is not a matter of appearances—their duty consists of one of the most important and most dangerous jobs in both serving and more importantly, protecting the royal Yao family—particularly given that the royal heir is under constant threat of assassination by rival clans. Failure does not merely result in losing face, it potentially results in the injury or death of the heir.
Lan Fan takes her role as retainer with deadly seriousness, prepared to follow any order given by Ling and also to make any sacrifice to ensure his safety. This is brought into crystal clarity in canon when she cuts off her own injured arm in order to create a diversion to save both herself and Ling from Wrath after Ling refused to leave her behind to save himself, despite the necessity of his survival for their clan. Her conviction to serving and protecting Ling is staggering. After the ordeal with Wrath, as soon as she’d received medical treatment for the dismemberment, not even an hour out of the surgery she inquired about automail, as she would be useless to her prince with only one arm. Later, after the news of Ling’s body being taken over by the homunculus Greed this determination only increases—considering something has befallen the prince now and she blames herself for not being strong enough to have been there to protect him from it—and when informed of the one year recovery time after the prosthetic surgery (which… is actually several years, however Edward Elric did it in one) she announces that she will do it in six months. She made good on that word, returning as soon as she was remotely physically able to, refusing to be deterred by any pain or discomfort the new limb caused in order to fulfill her duty to Ling.
In dealing with other people Lan Fan is standoffish. She would prefer to avoid interacting with others as much as possible—in general it is better that her existence isn’t noticed simply because it makes her job easier—and when she does there is an obvious air of disdain. This is due to two factors: first, she absolutely does not trust strangers and second, she doesn’t seem particularly fond of foreigners at all. The first point is not difficult to see: with the role that has in life in Xing she cannot afford to trust anyone. There are far too many threats to the royal family to afford trust—especially not to strangers. The second point is mostly due to culture clash. Considering her role in life and the tiered society she comes from there are very clear and understood ways for people to act—particularly toward royalty. Lan Fan’s (and her grandfather Fu’s) initial disdainful reactions to the Amestrians come from their treatment of Ling and stem from a very clear thought of ‘these people do not now their place’ (which is fairly clear in the very first chapter where they interact with the Elric brothers and… state as much). The grating against what, for her, is an accepted norm causes a negative reaction and results in what could be interpreted as a sense of superiority when dealing with, what to her, are backward foreigners.
This changes by a degree throughout the manga—particularly after the loss of her arm—because at that point the people she was interacting with proved themselves worthy of her gratitude and respect in the way they found her medical help. After this event, while no less private, that air of superiority and brashness falls away (though this may be partially due to her perceived failure in losing her arm) only leaving the conviction in serving her prince. During this recovery time the man to which she feels the most gratitude and humility is Doctor Knox, the man who initially treated her injury and watched over her in his own home during the first days of her recovery with absolutely no gain for himself. It was also Dr. Knox’s recount of his experience during and after the Ishvalan civil war that truly impact her in what is happening not only in Amestris but in her own country as well, so much that his words come back to her repeatedly: “This is one old geezer who doesn’t like the sight of children trying to kill each other.” The experience combined with the loss of her grandfather at the Promised Day bring enough of a change in Lan Fan that she goes so far as to make a request of Ling, something completely unheard of (which can most certainly be deducted from the look on Ling’s face when she utters the statement) and asks that he not punish the other 49 clans when he assumes the throne as Emperor—because she, just like Dr. Knox, is tired of seeing people kill each other.
Coming away from the heavier aspects of Lan Fan’s personality and her role as an imperial retainer, when she is unmasked she is quite easily flustered and shy—particularly in regards to Ling, suggesting that there is more than simple devotion and loyalty to her lord there. Besides unwilling to share personal and emotional thoughts it would also appear she might be incapable of it with the way she blushes furiously and becomes tongue-tied whenever something remotely rattles her. The manner in which we see this occur is mostly in regards to Ling—whether it is in reaction to him, to things others have said or done in regards to him, or thoughts to what he will think about a given situation. She is very aware of this and it is one of the reasons she prefers to keep her face covered with her yin mask—she doesn’t have to worry about the blush on her face giving away the fluster that she is able to hide in her posture. Aside from this, she can also be a hot-head, best depicted in early canon when she loses her temper while fighting Edward Elric after he begins to insult Ling. Her disciplined manner and training go out the window as she angrily attacks with strong, obvious and easy to read attacks. She threatens the Elrics several times outside of a fight when any insult is made to Ling as well—generally offering some kind of warning attack to deter any bad-mouthing (including one thrown kunai and later a blade being driven down through the ceiling of a moving train…).
In regards to the setting itself, Lan Fan will be utterly outraged. First and foremost, she has been taken away from her role as retainer again, leaving Ling completely unprotected after her grandfather’s death (of course he has May Chang and the panda with him, but that will not be of much comfort because it is her responsibility to protect him and she will not trust anyone else to do it in her stead). Second, it is placing her in a nefarious position as a young unmarried woman from a time period and culture in which sex out of wedlock is a matter of extreme dishonor. Aside from that, in her role as a retainer she has not acted as a woman might and it will be almost foreign for her to pull herself out of an almost genderless position to confront it. She will reject what she is told as the guaranteed way home with ferocity, that distain she displayed to foreigners in early canon returning in full force as she is suddenly caught in a land of degenerative heathens, while searching any way she can for a way back without debasing herself and rising through the ranks to gain enough favor to be sent back. However, once enough time passes and she becomes desperate in her worry for Ling and disgusted with her uselessness this may change. She is a woman who had enough conviction to sever her own arm in order to protect and serve her prince. If dishonoring herself in the setting is the only way that she can return to his side then she will do it, if begrudgingly.
All that said, there is a Ling Yao on reserve. And with Ling present a good portion of the above paragraph may not apply. She will still carry her outrage over the situation and her conflict as a woman being placed in it—but the drive to return to her world will be significantly less. They still need to return for the future of their clan and for that of Xing as a whole—but Lan Fan’s first duty is to her Prince. If he is present with her then her sense of purpose is with her as well and will lack the desperation to scramble to find the way back—or fall to the setting’s demands. However, the setting itself will provide a new layer of confusion with Ling as well. It is clear in canon that her loyalty and dedication to Ling goes a step beyond professional—but with the constraints of their society and their standings in it such a thing doesn’t matter. It is a dead end, so much that anything more has never truly flitted through her mind because it’s impossible to carry out. But in CWP, with the nature of the setting itself combined with a lack of any sort of Xingese structure to hold them to pre-determined constraints… that impossibility may not be so impossible.
Regardless, Lan Fan is likely to be in the slave caste for a very, very long time…
Character Powers/Abilities/Skills: Lan Fan is a master in Xingese martial arts, capable of hand-to-hand combat and skilled with a variety of weapons, most notably kunai, senbon and a variety of bombs—with a penchant for grenades—but in reality she is able to use quite literally anything as a weapon. Aside from her physical prowess in fighting she is also capable of movements one would expect in wire-fu, bounding well over 10-15 feet into the air and covering distances at impossible speeds. She is trained to read the ‘dragon’s pulse’, or the flow of chi through the earth and through others. As such, she is able to sense the chi flow from other people (provided they are not trained in how to suppress it), creating a bit of a head start in combat as it makes predicting an opponent’s moves much easier. For the purposes of the game both Lan Fan’s ‘wire-fu’ abilities as well as the ability to read the dragon’s pulse will be capped.
SAMPLES
First Person Sample:
[The visage of a masked and hooded… person… comes across the mirror—the mask itself looking rather daunting in and of itself. All that is visible past the mask is said person’s eyes and the hint of the mouth through an opening in the mask itself. The eyes seem to be caught in a heated glare at the mirror. There is a bit of a shift as a hand comes up to prod the mirror a bit barbarically as if to test whether it’s working.]
[There is a long pause, as if the person is having a bit of an internal battle over something—and a moment later the hood is being pulled back, hands (one of which appears to be in some kind of gauntlet (because it couldn’t possibly be a metal arm, right?) lift to the ties holding the mask in place, and begrudgingly the mask is removed to reveal… a fairly cute girl (who saw that coming?). She is still all but glaring into the mirror, her face completely flushed in what was probably embarrassment despite how angry she looked. With the mask gone she instead reached to pull her collar up to partially obscure at least her mouth.]
…
[And just when it seems she is finally going to speak, a very loud, very distinct and completely unmistakable growl is heard. Her eyes go wide for a moment before her expression flattens out even more while her face goes even redder.]
Forget it.
[And her hand darts out for the mirror, the other already lifting her mask again, and a second later she has slammed it down flat on whatever surface it was propped… and that’s that.]
Third Person Sample:
Lan Fan was precariously perched atop the edge of a building, quite literally as far out of reach of anyone as she could possibly go. It felt as though she was being baked alive under her dark clothing and beneath her hood and mask, sweat beading and rolling down her neck and back—and yet the heat from the outside paled to the hot anger that pickled through every inch of her skin as she scowled down at the surroundings. She held her shoulder tightly while there were no witnesses, the ever-constant ache aggravated and enflamed from the short battle she’d met with only a few hours earlier.
So many things were wrong, her mind reeled with it all even as she seethed. The disorientation of suddenly finding herself alone in the desert—but not the desert that it should have been—and immediately being attacked by a demon. By all rights she had thought that somehow the horrors of the Promised Day had not been over after all, but the demon did not house multiple souls, the ground was not writhing with tortured life force. In fact it seemed the polar opposite of facing down a homunculus, instead of a signature concentration of chi this being seemed to house almost none—as did the woman who had come to her aid. But now? Now she was aware that there seemed to be none at all in this land—she could barely find the dragon’s pulse at all, as if it was deluded somehow. Like trying to feel with digits that had become they were nearly frostbitten—or trying to pick up the faint smell of perfume after one’s sense of smell was smothered in pepper. It was there—she just couldn’t completely sense it. She had found herself unarmed save for her automail, reaching for hidden weapon after hidden weapon to defend against her assailant only to find them gone, and to find her sense of balance off to the point that any true precision in her attacks was lost. She swallowed an angry ‘keh’ remembering how she had to be saved.
But the worst of it—the worst of it was being separated from the prince. Her heated questions in his regard had fallen on deaf ears even after her ‘help’ had been requested. Her ’help’. Her stomach turned, a fresh wave of anger spiking down her spine where the last hadn’t fully dissipated. There weren’t words for the outrage and she had barely held back from striking out at the woman who had delivered the information. How could she be grateful for being saved when somehow these people were responsible for bringing her here? For ripping her away from her duty? For leaving Ling completely unguarded? And then to ask such a thing of her!? She shook where she was crouched, gripping her shoulder even harder and wishing for nothing less than to tear into something or someone to ease the anger.
She heard a noise, someone approaching the roof of the building she’d retreated to and glared back toward the sound, the fact that she had been unable to feel them coming before they were so close bringing a snarl to the back of her throat—and she moved quick, over the side of the building, spring-boarding off the overhangs of the next building to reach the ground, trying to account for the slight change in her center only to fail and lose her balance when she reached the ground, stumbling enough to be forced to catch herself on the ground with her flesh hand. She darted off down the alleyways, intent to find another private place to attempt to sort out what was happening.
Name: Lan Fan
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Canon Point: End of chapter 108 as she, Ling and May leave to return to Xing
Reference: FMA wiki
Age: 16 (estimated)
Gender: Female
Suitability: While Lan Fan is still young (and still a virgin), she is no stranger to adult concepts. She has been trained as a bodyguard from a young age and exposed to the most violent aspects of life in Xing. She has not been a child for a long time and is extremely mature with developed sense of cause and effect that most people her age have not yet developed. While she has not expressly been exposed to sexual situations she is not without knowledge of what sex is, its purpose, its consequences or its place in society. As a retainer for the Yao Clan’s royal family she has first-hand knowledge of the Xingese Harem and the role sex plays in her culture. She is in a place to understand the nature of the setting, what is expected, and fully capable of making informed decisions regarding it. This doesn’t mean it will be easy, only that she is capable. Added difficulty will be at play due to social standards regarding sexual relations outside of wedlock and also her own view of her gender. In her position as a retainer she becomes genderless behind her mask and garbed in her uniform and armor. To be in the position she is in she has had to reject many social norms that would be in place for a girl her age in order to be taken seriously and be given her position in the first place. She likely has come to the conclusion that she is likely not to marry due to this (and the physical deformity of missing a limb certainly would not help this, no matter how wonderful her automail is). The setting will force her to acknowledge that yes, she is still a woman and present her with situations that she likely has assumed she would never actually experience as a retainer. Bottom line, no matter what, Lan Fan is a survivor and her determination to live to protect her prince will drive her to make do with and persevere in any situation, whether it is crossing a ruthless desert, severing her own limb in a moment of desperation, or making do in a perverted Maharajah’s country-wide peep show.
Appearance: Lan Fan will be aged up by 2-3 years (her canon age is not stated, it is generally assumed she is roughly the same age as Ling). She is a petite, though athletic, woman. She will not have gained any height, but her form would have become just a hint more womanly, barely enough for anyone but her to notice (which she will because it will be just enough to change in her center of gravity). Lan Fan is approximately 5’3”, Asian in appearance with dark brown eyes and black hair that falls to her shoulder blades when down but is usually worn in a high top knot with bangs and loose strands framing her face. The most notable aspect of her appearance is her left arm, which is a fully-functional mechanical prosthetic limb known as automail. She regularly wears black hooded clothing that covers her entire body save open-fingered gloves as well as a mask adorning the yin symbol that covers her entire face.
Background: FMA wiki
Personality:
The fundamental character point for Lan Fan is her sense of duty and discipline. Her family has served the Imperial Yao family for generations and from a young age the importance of that role has been instilled in her, and she has taken it wholly to heart. It is not a matter of appearances—their duty consists of one of the most important and most dangerous jobs in both serving and more importantly, protecting the royal Yao family—particularly given that the royal heir is under constant threat of assassination by rival clans. Failure does not merely result in losing face, it potentially results in the injury or death of the heir.
Lan Fan takes her role as retainer with deadly seriousness, prepared to follow any order given by Ling and also to make any sacrifice to ensure his safety. This is brought into crystal clarity in canon when she cuts off her own injured arm in order to create a diversion to save both herself and Ling from Wrath after Ling refused to leave her behind to save himself, despite the necessity of his survival for their clan. Her conviction to serving and protecting Ling is staggering. After the ordeal with Wrath, as soon as she’d received medical treatment for the dismemberment, not even an hour out of the surgery she inquired about automail, as she would be useless to her prince with only one arm. Later, after the news of Ling’s body being taken over by the homunculus Greed this determination only increases—considering something has befallen the prince now and she blames herself for not being strong enough to have been there to protect him from it—and when informed of the one year recovery time after the prosthetic surgery (which… is actually several years, however Edward Elric did it in one) she announces that she will do it in six months. She made good on that word, returning as soon as she was remotely physically able to, refusing to be deterred by any pain or discomfort the new limb caused in order to fulfill her duty to Ling.
In dealing with other people Lan Fan is standoffish. She would prefer to avoid interacting with others as much as possible—in general it is better that her existence isn’t noticed simply because it makes her job easier—and when she does there is an obvious air of disdain. This is due to two factors: first, she absolutely does not trust strangers and second, she doesn’t seem particularly fond of foreigners at all. The first point is not difficult to see: with the role that has in life in Xing she cannot afford to trust anyone. There are far too many threats to the royal family to afford trust—especially not to strangers. The second point is mostly due to culture clash. Considering her role in life and the tiered society she comes from there are very clear and understood ways for people to act—particularly toward royalty. Lan Fan’s (and her grandfather Fu’s) initial disdainful reactions to the Amestrians come from their treatment of Ling and stem from a very clear thought of ‘these people do not now their place’ (which is fairly clear in the very first chapter where they interact with the Elric brothers and… state as much). The grating against what, for her, is an accepted norm causes a negative reaction and results in what could be interpreted as a sense of superiority when dealing with, what to her, are backward foreigners.
This changes by a degree throughout the manga—particularly after the loss of her arm—because at that point the people she was interacting with proved themselves worthy of her gratitude and respect in the way they found her medical help. After this event, while no less private, that air of superiority and brashness falls away (though this may be partially due to her perceived failure in losing her arm) only leaving the conviction in serving her prince. During this recovery time the man to which she feels the most gratitude and humility is Doctor Knox, the man who initially treated her injury and watched over her in his own home during the first days of her recovery with absolutely no gain for himself. It was also Dr. Knox’s recount of his experience during and after the Ishvalan civil war that truly impact her in what is happening not only in Amestris but in her own country as well, so much that his words come back to her repeatedly: “This is one old geezer who doesn’t like the sight of children trying to kill each other.” The experience combined with the loss of her grandfather at the Promised Day bring enough of a change in Lan Fan that she goes so far as to make a request of Ling, something completely unheard of (which can most certainly be deducted from the look on Ling’s face when she utters the statement) and asks that he not punish the other 49 clans when he assumes the throne as Emperor—because she, just like Dr. Knox, is tired of seeing people kill each other.
Coming away from the heavier aspects of Lan Fan’s personality and her role as an imperial retainer, when she is unmasked she is quite easily flustered and shy—particularly in regards to Ling, suggesting that there is more than simple devotion and loyalty to her lord there. Besides unwilling to share personal and emotional thoughts it would also appear she might be incapable of it with the way she blushes furiously and becomes tongue-tied whenever something remotely rattles her. The manner in which we see this occur is mostly in regards to Ling—whether it is in reaction to him, to things others have said or done in regards to him, or thoughts to what he will think about a given situation. She is very aware of this and it is one of the reasons she prefers to keep her face covered with her yin mask—she doesn’t have to worry about the blush on her face giving away the fluster that she is able to hide in her posture. Aside from this, she can also be a hot-head, best depicted in early canon when she loses her temper while fighting Edward Elric after he begins to insult Ling. Her disciplined manner and training go out the window as she angrily attacks with strong, obvious and easy to read attacks. She threatens the Elrics several times outside of a fight when any insult is made to Ling as well—generally offering some kind of warning attack to deter any bad-mouthing (including one thrown kunai and later a blade being driven down through the ceiling of a moving train…).
In regards to the setting itself, Lan Fan will be utterly outraged. First and foremost, she has been taken away from her role as retainer again, leaving Ling completely unprotected after her grandfather’s death (of course he has May Chang and the panda with him, but that will not be of much comfort because it is her responsibility to protect him and she will not trust anyone else to do it in her stead). Second, it is placing her in a nefarious position as a young unmarried woman from a time period and culture in which sex out of wedlock is a matter of extreme dishonor. Aside from that, in her role as a retainer she has not acted as a woman might and it will be almost foreign for her to pull herself out of an almost genderless position to confront it. She will reject what she is told as the guaranteed way home with ferocity, that distain she displayed to foreigners in early canon returning in full force as she is suddenly caught in a land of degenerative heathens, while searching any way she can for a way back without debasing herself and rising through the ranks to gain enough favor to be sent back. However, once enough time passes and she becomes desperate in her worry for Ling and disgusted with her uselessness this may change. She is a woman who had enough conviction to sever her own arm in order to protect and serve her prince. If dishonoring herself in the setting is the only way that she can return to his side then she will do it, if begrudgingly.
All that said, there is a Ling Yao on reserve. And with Ling present a good portion of the above paragraph may not apply. She will still carry her outrage over the situation and her conflict as a woman being placed in it—but the drive to return to her world will be significantly less. They still need to return for the future of their clan and for that of Xing as a whole—but Lan Fan’s first duty is to her Prince. If he is present with her then her sense of purpose is with her as well and will lack the desperation to scramble to find the way back—or fall to the setting’s demands. However, the setting itself will provide a new layer of confusion with Ling as well. It is clear in canon that her loyalty and dedication to Ling goes a step beyond professional—but with the constraints of their society and their standings in it such a thing doesn’t matter. It is a dead end, so much that anything more has never truly flitted through her mind because it’s impossible to carry out. But in CWP, with the nature of the setting itself combined with a lack of any sort of Xingese structure to hold them to pre-determined constraints… that impossibility may not be so impossible.
Regardless, Lan Fan is likely to be in the slave caste for a very, very long time…
Character Powers/Abilities/Skills: Lan Fan is a master in Xingese martial arts, capable of hand-to-hand combat and skilled with a variety of weapons, most notably kunai, senbon and a variety of bombs—with a penchant for grenades—but in reality she is able to use quite literally anything as a weapon. Aside from her physical prowess in fighting she is also capable of movements one would expect in wire-fu, bounding well over 10-15 feet into the air and covering distances at impossible speeds. She is trained to read the ‘dragon’s pulse’, or the flow of chi through the earth and through others. As such, she is able to sense the chi flow from other people (provided they are not trained in how to suppress it), creating a bit of a head start in combat as it makes predicting an opponent’s moves much easier. For the purposes of the game both Lan Fan’s ‘wire-fu’ abilities as well as the ability to read the dragon’s pulse will be capped.
SAMPLES
First Person Sample:
[The visage of a masked and hooded… person… comes across the mirror—the mask itself looking rather daunting in and of itself. All that is visible past the mask is said person’s eyes and the hint of the mouth through an opening in the mask itself. The eyes seem to be caught in a heated glare at the mirror. There is a bit of a shift as a hand comes up to prod the mirror a bit barbarically as if to test whether it’s working.]
[There is a long pause, as if the person is having a bit of an internal battle over something—and a moment later the hood is being pulled back, hands (one of which appears to be in some kind of gauntlet (because it couldn’t possibly be a metal arm, right?) lift to the ties holding the mask in place, and begrudgingly the mask is removed to reveal… a fairly cute girl (who saw that coming?). She is still all but glaring into the mirror, her face completely flushed in what was probably embarrassment despite how angry she looked. With the mask gone she instead reached to pull her collar up to partially obscure at least her mouth.]
…
[And just when it seems she is finally going to speak, a very loud, very distinct and completely unmistakable growl is heard. Her eyes go wide for a moment before her expression flattens out even more while her face goes even redder.]
Forget it.
[And her hand darts out for the mirror, the other already lifting her mask again, and a second later she has slammed it down flat on whatever surface it was propped… and that’s that.]
Third Person Sample:
Lan Fan was precariously perched atop the edge of a building, quite literally as far out of reach of anyone as she could possibly go. It felt as though she was being baked alive under her dark clothing and beneath her hood and mask, sweat beading and rolling down her neck and back—and yet the heat from the outside paled to the hot anger that pickled through every inch of her skin as she scowled down at the surroundings. She held her shoulder tightly while there were no witnesses, the ever-constant ache aggravated and enflamed from the short battle she’d met with only a few hours earlier.
So many things were wrong, her mind reeled with it all even as she seethed. The disorientation of suddenly finding herself alone in the desert—but not the desert that it should have been—and immediately being attacked by a demon. By all rights she had thought that somehow the horrors of the Promised Day had not been over after all, but the demon did not house multiple souls, the ground was not writhing with tortured life force. In fact it seemed the polar opposite of facing down a homunculus, instead of a signature concentration of chi this being seemed to house almost none—as did the woman who had come to her aid. But now? Now she was aware that there seemed to be none at all in this land—she could barely find the dragon’s pulse at all, as if it was deluded somehow. Like trying to feel with digits that had become they were nearly frostbitten—or trying to pick up the faint smell of perfume after one’s sense of smell was smothered in pepper. It was there—she just couldn’t completely sense it. She had found herself unarmed save for her automail, reaching for hidden weapon after hidden weapon to defend against her assailant only to find them gone, and to find her sense of balance off to the point that any true precision in her attacks was lost. She swallowed an angry ‘keh’ remembering how she had to be saved.
But the worst of it—the worst of it was being separated from the prince. Her heated questions in his regard had fallen on deaf ears even after her ‘help’ had been requested. Her ’help’. Her stomach turned, a fresh wave of anger spiking down her spine where the last hadn’t fully dissipated. There weren’t words for the outrage and she had barely held back from striking out at the woman who had delivered the information. How could she be grateful for being saved when somehow these people were responsible for bringing her here? For ripping her away from her duty? For leaving Ling completely unguarded? And then to ask such a thing of her!? She shook where she was crouched, gripping her shoulder even harder and wishing for nothing less than to tear into something or someone to ease the anger.
She heard a noise, someone approaching the roof of the building she’d retreated to and glared back toward the sound, the fact that she had been unable to feel them coming before they were so close bringing a snarl to the back of her throat—and she moved quick, over the side of the building, spring-boarding off the overhangs of the next building to reach the ground, trying to account for the slight change in her center only to fail and lose her balance when she reached the ground, stumbling enough to be forced to catch herself on the ground with her flesh hand. She darted off down the alleyways, intent to find another private place to attempt to sort out what was happening.
