week four | mingle

[marriagebroker]

Final week at the estate! Final week with your friends. Final week with your beaus. Time to make the most of it, everyone!

In fact, to celebrate this fact, today there is a cake. It's nothing special, just a nice little cake to enjoy with your morning coffee or throughout the day. Yay, cake!

And when Wei Wuxian arrives that morning, he is going to call out once again for everyone to join him, near the cake.

"Everyone, I have another announcement!"

Hell yeah, announcements.

Boom Boom Room | Dates | Property Damage
Truth Booth Voting | Match Ceremony Voting

Comments

[embellwish]

[ Oh, dear.......

She watches him calmly, wondering if this is what he's been keeping so tightly under wraps throughout the rest of the game. Everyone is vulnerable about something, everyone is emotional about something. Whatever was laid bare by the others clearly seems to have struck a nerve. ]

Where there is a secret, there's always a reason for keeping it.

[ That doesn't mean any of it is right, but even Aventurine's secret was kept for a purpose. Deception and patricide, at least, may have some explanation... ]

Do you need a moment to yourself?

[gamboler]

[ She's reminding him of something with which he is intimately acquainted. That doesn't ease the tension in his shoulders, and the smile he turns to her is a dishonest one, wrapped up in confidence he doesn't feel. ]

Not at all. I just find it all so...amusing. Don't you, Yingying?

[ Hers...it must be the one about her home being struck by a meteor, right? It lines up, with what he knows about her, about the terrible truth they have in common. ]

[embellwish]

[ He doesn't mean it this way, but his question is like a barb. Simply, with honesty: ]

No, not really.

[ He's not being literal, but it doesn't feel right to play along, so she answers sincerely, instead. Where he flashes a dishonest smile, she keeps her expression serene, calm, like an undisturbed lake. That her home was lost in an instant is a fact of life, one she's been forced to accept over the last hundred years. The wound is still raw, always will be, but its perhaps not so recently made as the others'.

Maybe she ought to get a better understanding of his own secret, before disentangling the rest. ]

What does it mean, "gambling with your life?"

[gamboler]

[ Her honesty is...unexpected. Even when speaking of their pasts, their history, she's always had such an inquisitive air about her, the mystique of her fairylike persona, but they both done their masks when it suits them, don't they? To shelter what's within, to keep their hearts from breaking further.

...So he'll offer her the same. His smile doesn't fade, but instead takes on a different color, one that's tragic and tired at its edges, as his voice drops lower, no longer shining with the bravado of a showman. ]

...It means just what it sounds like. My own life is the chip I am most eager to lay down.

[ Even now, after everything that happened at the Horizon of Existence...it still is hard to say he wouldn't choose death, if it meant being free. ]

[embellwish]

[ ..... ]

Then, you'd rather die, than keep working?

[ At the job he has, at least. "Eager" is a strange word to use about giving up his life, but she understands that, too. ]

[gamboler]

[ A long pause, his gaze flickering away from her own, finding some distant point in the room. ]

...Not so long ago, I would have said yes. To go out on one grand, final gamble, one that was all my own... [ But then, a shake of his head. ] But what would happen then? Well — I wouldn't have anything worth sharing with those who are waiting for me.

[ A beat. He had touched on this before with her, hadn't he? A small smile touches the corners of his lips. ]

So, even if I'm never free...I won't give up my chance to be.

[embellwish]

[ She follows his gaze to the same point, content not to look directly at him while they talk about this. It's the sort of topic that's difficult to look at straight in the face, perhaps all the more so at the side of someone who knows what you're feeling. ]

Mm... I think that's what the people waiting for you would wish for, too.

[ It might be a step too far for anyone else to say that — perhaps it even is for her. But it had helped Yingying a lot to frame things this way, where she had felt so apathetic about going on before, much like him. ]

They'd be happy you made it this far... [ there's a note of knowing melancholy. She didn't make it this far without staining her hands either. ] ... That's what I want to believe my moms would think, if they saw me now.

[ ..... ]

Is there really no way for you to become free...?

[gamboler]

[ That's what he wants to believe, too. That even if he's become twisted up and warped from the young boy that had held tight to his sister's hand, that had been named as a blessing by his mother, they would still be...happy to see that he's still surviving, still fighting, still carrying the final whispers of the Avgins with him. And when he does see them again...

He doesn't want it to be with regrets. ]

...my last gamble saw me destroying the most precious thing the IPC ever gave me. A...holy artifact, carved from the body of the Preservation themself. I thought for certain they'd cut me loose after that...but all I got was a slap on the wrist, and the Aventurine Cornerstone was remade.

[ The implication is clear: if that wasn't enough for them to get rid of him, then what is? He pauses, inhaling quietly, before he continues. ]

...but everyone keeps telling me to invest in myself. I only need to figure out how.

[ With his wish. ]

[embellwish]

[ Her gaze turns thoughtful, piecing together the fragments of his story, the mythical nature of his luck and the art of gambling. If he always seems to get away with things, but not the way he wants, then... ]

Maybe a wish needs to be made on your behalf.

[ If he's not the one guiding and controlling the wish, perhaps his luck won't have such an effect on it? She tilts her head, genuinely trying to puzzle out a solution for him. ]

If you're worried about the ramifications, or how things may turn out... why not put your fate in someone else's hands? That's perhaps the biggest gamble anyone can do.

[ Trusting someone with your life and your future — that's a gamble of a different breed. But if nothing he does for himself seems to let him escape, perhaps it's more accurate to say someone needs to break him free from the outside. ]

[gamboler]

[ For all he tries to think his way through things to a painstakingly degree, this...hasn't occurred to him before. Why would it? Even in the Strategic Investment Department, he's notoriously difficult to work with, because he doesn't like others to take on risks on his behalf. Combine that with how difficult it is for him to trust, it's no wonder this wouldn't even come to mind. But if someone were to wish on his behalf...then the gamble he takes on is one of trust only. And he's found plenty to trust among his companions here...

A thoughtful hum, his mind already whirring. ]

I'd need to use my wish on their behalf, then. You might talk me into accepting the benefits of one wish, but certainly not two.

[ Just like she was insistent she not use another's wish alongside her own. He won't take someone else's wish for his own if they're not willing to take his in exchange. It's only fair. ]

[embellwish]

Mm, that seems like a fair trade.

[ See, she knew he had something to use his own wish on. Him trying to pass it off onto her, however kind an act... would be depriving himself of something precious. She smiles, resisting the desire to say I told you so. ]

I'm sure there are plenty willing... perhaps even this "luck" can be done away with entirely.

[ If it's such a curse to him... shouldn't it be able to be lifted? It'd ensure there would be no more future needs to maneuver around it, and that would surely be a relief, after worrying about the people around him because of it. ]

[gamboler]

[ Wishing away his luck...wishing away his blessing. For every good turn it has done him, there's been an uglier side-effect. Even if it might be considered blasphemous in the eyes of the Mother Goddess, well...he's the only one around anymore who even sort of believes in the idea of her, anyway. ]

Now there's an idea, Yingying. Haha, I bet that'd be a first for this show. Someone using their wish to do away with good fortune.

[ But it just might work. It's worth...considering. ]

...What about you? Have you decided what to use your wish for?

[embellwish]

[ If her humble advice is able to help him in even the slightest way... then she'll be satisfied. Aventurine deserves that freedom and more.

At his question, though, she hums. ]

I have. [ a beat. ] I'd like to keep living... together, with everyone.

[ But she trails off after that, looking off to the side. ]

I'm not sure exactly how far the wish can help with my recovery, but I'd like to try.

[gamboler]

[ So...she's choosing to live for herself, too. It's...a relief to hear. He would have been at the ready to impart the same wisdom to her that she's applied to him, but it seems she's already reached that conclusion.

Maybe their wishes won't fix everything. But if Yingying is willing to try, to give herself the chance to keep living, then...shouldn't he, too? ]

...I'm glad to hear it. I would have made the case if needed, but it seems we might have pestered you just enough to get you there already.

[ A soft, fond little smile. ]

Even if the wish can't completely heal you...it's still worth it, for the chance to live.

[ Now that they've both tasted what it's like to really do so. ]