pluviosa | SO BELOW

"I see. What do they do, if I may ask?" The ones he knows are extremely versatile, so he's curious about that, too.

"And yes, he is. He's the twin brother of one of the people on this ship, in fact - her name's Alisaie, she's a young Elezen woman who carries a rapier and tends to dress in red. The two of them were the youngest to be admitted to the Studium, which is a very prestigious place to study." He can't help the smile that creeps across his face. He's very proud of them, even if he hasn't known them as long as some of the others. "And he in particular is very good at arcanima - which relies on glyphs and written invocations, so he'd be more likely to know how to help you."

But he's not here. None of them save Alisaie are, and she doesn't even know him... "Unfortunately I... didn't even have formal schooling aside from reading, writing, and basic sums. Most of my training was extremely hands-on." And also usually a case of 'learn it or die'.

"Um, lots of things? Sealing things closed, sealing water out of things... setting things on fire or freezing them, immobilizing people, sealing spirits--" not thinking about that MOVING ON "--um, warding spaces against hostile forces. You know. Stuff."

Oh, he's from the same world as someone else here. Shang Beida files that information away. "They sound, um, very talented?" He isn't really that talented, himself, he's just... determined. Stubborn. Desperate.

"You have other talents, I'm sure!" He gestures vaguely at the other man's sword. "You look pretty good with that."

"Interesting." He nods in understanding. He gets it, he thinks. He's pretty sure, at least. "And they are. They're very important to me. All of the Scions are." For various reasons and in various ways.

He glances down at the sword and then back at Shang Beida. "I've trained with it long enough, I should be at least decent with it, heh." He gives the other man a little bow. "Fridtjof Djt-bidit, at your service." He lets a chuckle escape as he straightens up again. "I've also trained in healing, so if you ever need anything please stop by the clinic. Either me or Doctor Ratio should be there. Sometimes Aurelia as well. But I tend to be more of a combat medical professional, so if you're exploring something dangerous don't hesitate to call."

That out of the way, he nudges the vine ball he was trying to cut. "I'm trying to figure out if any of these plants have properties that are worth bringing back to the clinic. But I'm not eager to try eating some of these... I've seen enough people get sick or die from eating something they shouldn't have."

... His training was pretty brutal, to be fair. But that's... normal for him?

Shang Beida bows in return, automatically, hands clasping for a moment. He attempts to mouth that name—fa-ri-te-ya nope absolutely not—and grimaces. “I’m sorry, I don’t… think I can say that. Half those sounds don’t exist in my native language. I’m pretty sure I’d butcher it horribly, I don’t think you’d want to hear it.” Magical Mystery Language does an end run around some of his accent, but it doesn’t apply to words that aren’t in it. Like names.

“Anyway, um, I mostly try to avoid dangerous things, but thank you, I’ll keep that in mind?” He frowns at the vine ball. “I would not want to eat anything here that isn’t specifically being grown for consumption, honestly. My boyfriend found a like… really really old corpse, and it was… the person had had plants growing out of them while they were alive, and when the body was exposed to light they started growing again? And we don’t know… how the plants got in. So I, uh, don’t really trust any of the plants on the boat. I probably wouldn’t even eat the food if it wouldn’t give Casper an excuse to stop eating too.” He’s way more concerned about his boyfriend not eating than himself. He can cultivate, he’s fine.

"I'm not surprised. Hingan doesn't either, and your accent definitely sounds eastern Othardian to me." It's not a perfect match but it's close enough that the syllables sound similar. "I answer to basically anything as long as it's not insulting. Most people in my situation change their names anyway."

He might be a fool for keeping his forest name rather than taking a city name, but... it's an important part of his identity. There's a flicker of something sad in his eyes but he quickly banishes it. "Avoiding dangerous things is usually smart if you're not a fighter. And you're probably right - we have no idea what most of these things are. I've seen some familiar crops, but I'm used to the Wood providing what we need. ... But this is... unnatural in some way - it doesn't react like I expect." He drops the vine tangle and nudges it with his foot.

Plant... people... he's seen parasite plants before and heard of others, but... yeah, that's gross. "Well, I can tell you that I've been just fine eating things here. And if I don't eat I can't replenish my aether. If I can't replenish my aether, then I can't defend and heal people. That's what matters."

Honestly, points towards fictional if rabbit knight has a straight up China analogue in his world. That’s a very fictional worldbuilding thing.

“Sir… Bidit?” He hazards. “Is that anything?” He can say that part. He doesn’t want to be rude!

“Unnatural is definitely right. There was… an incident when… the Ship turned the lights on and everything grew and… it was bad. A bunch of people got trapped.” Casper is fine. He isn’t facedown in mud and insensate. He’s fine. Shang Beida shoves down his remembered terror, blinking hard.

“I mean, yeah, eating is. Sort of unavoidable for most people. I could just cultivate and practice inedia but eating is definitely easier even for me.” Wow sir knight here is selfless and righteous as hell. How does he keep finding these people? “You, um. Your focus is… helping people?”

The viera just chuckles. "Sure, though you can drop the 'ser'. I'm no temple knight, and considering relative ages you might be considered 'older' than me. I think for a hyur I'd be around... twenty summers? A little more?" The translation to other races' ages is fuzzy at best. "I'm a paladin, but I'm not a Sultansworn - those who are guards for the Sultana. I'm just a free paladin with the charge to protect people." And one person in particular, but that's self-inflicted.

"I've been trapped in plants before, but most of the ones I know don't grow all that quickly." Some do, but those tend to be seedkin - monsters that are related to plants rather than being actual plants. They tend to burn the same, though. "... And yes, I tend to try to help people. For some people it can be... difficult." Something dark flashes in his eyes, but then it's gone. "But I do my best to help everyone I can. I'm aware of my limits, don't worry about that. Heh."

Though he does have a question. "What do you mean by 'cultivate'."

“Your race is longer lived? How old are you actually? I’m, uh, older than I look, because I’m a cultivator. All things considered I’m like… eighty? I stopped really counting because it doesn’t matter much.” He’s just gonna go ahead and count his first life because why not. “Hyur is what my race would be called in your world?” Paladin… those are the super insanely righteous western knights, right? Sworn to goodness and holiness and shit? That’s mildly alarming.

“Well, be careful of plants and light on the lower decks. They grow very fast exposed to light.”

“Cultivation is, uh. I… absorb spiritual energy from my environment and purify it and add it to my core?” How the fuck does he explain xianxia conventions to a western fantasy rabbit man. “I can subsist on spiritual energy alone, I just usually don’t even at home because like. Food tastes good. I like eating. But here it’s easier to convince my— Casper that he should eat even if he can get by without it if I’m eating too.”

"Yes, we are. We tend to live three hundred summers or more." He smiles again at the questions. "You're still older than me. I'm about sixty five. And yes, hyur are the equivalent. There seem to be a lot of you on the ship, though viera tend to be rare outside of our settlements."

Exposed to light... hm. Could they be modified somehow? He'll have to check. But... oh! "Subsisting on spiritual energy alone and not eating - I've heard tales of sages in the mountains in Yanxia who have done similar. Usually geomancers - people who can read the future by the signs in the earth and water. I've never met one in person, but I've heard of them." There's enough people in Doma who talk about rumors for him to have heard of them.

"But yes, food does taste good. And it helps replenish your... whatever your equivalent to aether is. I'm not much of a chef myself - most of my recipes involve meat and we seem to be lacking that here. Not that I mind vegetables, but I prefer a more rounded diet."

"Where I'm from, the human world is all humans, and then the demon realm has... lots of different kinds of demons. And that's like... basically all the kinds of people there are." He sort of didn't include non-demon anything? Like, if something cultivates a human form, it's technically a demon? Look, shut up, he was on a deadline.

"Yeah, that sounds similar?" Points towards Yanxia being in Fantasy China, check. "As an immortal cultivator I no longer age, so that's why I look, yknow, like this." He gestures vaguely at himself and his baby face. He actually looks younger than he did when he died in his first life, though part of that is because he has the perfect jade skin of a cultivator. And because he has enough to eat and isn't subsisting on ramen and energy drinks.

"It helps replenish spiritual energy, yeah, it definitely takes practice to replace eating with practicing inedia, but I was... definitely glad I could when I first got here--the Ship didn't wake up and start serving food for like, four days. And I did not want to eat... random floor plants." It's sort of funny that the guy who looks like a rabbit prefers meat. He's not going to say anything he's not. "Yeah the meat selection is uh, lacking? And apparently... also plants. The meat tomatoes and meat squash are creepy."

"... That sounds a bit boring, to be quite frank. I've heard voidsent called 'demons' before and they do have their own world." Though the Thirteenth is... a strange case. "But not all of them are bad, just... very driven by hunger." He's not going to go into the whole... pile of issues there. "But huh. That makes sense." It's definitely what many people would think of as an 'adorable' face.

More nodding and thinking. "I showed up later, so I missed that part. I also would prefer to not eat random floor plants. That's one of the first things we learned in training - not to eat something if we weren't totally certain what it was." Meat tomatoes... meat squash... ugh. "At least I got brought with enough equipment for here. Not that I mind having a nice bed, but it's good to be prepared in case of emergency. We don't know if something will happen to them."

"The human and demon realms are like, sort of connected? It's pretty easy to cross between them." He would know. He commutes. Mostly via his king's portals, to be fair, but still. "And demons aren't all bad. They tend to be more... selfish and impulsive and violent than humans? But they're like, people." Either very grotesque or very very pretty people, mostly.

"Yeah, not eating things if you don't know what they are is. Probably a good rule of thumb. Especially back home when it might be a spiritual plant with-- weird effects." Like aphrodisiacs. "Definitely agree about being prepared for an emergency. I came with a bunch of emergency supplies on hand, but they're finite, so I'd really like to be able to find like, a source to replace at least some of it." He'd better not have too many qi deviations, for one thing, or he'll run out of bullshit xianxia medicines to deal with them. Which is both more important and more difficult to do anything about than the talisman paper. At least he can try to do something about the talisman paper.

"The Source and the Thirteenth are also connected - they're the easiest to make gates between. And I've known some good voidsent..." Sort of? It's complicated. 'Good' isn't so easily defined.

Spiritual... plant? You know what, he's not going to ask. "I was trained in the jungle so this isn't an entirely new setting for me. The... size of the ship is very different, though. Very... metallic, as well. Not something I'm used to." It feels more Garlean than anything else, but he'll keep his biases right here where he can bottle them up and totally not explode later.

"The... Source and the Thirteenth?" That sounds like some weird worldbuilding shit, he wants deets.

"I live on, uh, a mountain, with... bamboo and shit. Not very much like this. And a lot less metal. Half the walls at home are made of paper." And his king's palace is all stone and ice. And his protagonist son's is just stone, not that Bingmei spends much time there when he would much rather spirit his shizun away to an isolated cottage and dote on him and ignore politics. If Mobei-Jun wasn't such a loyal second in command, the power balance of the demon realm would be extremely precarious. "The ship is definitely fuckoff enormous. I mean I guess in my first life there were ships this size, but I was way too poor to go on fucking cruises, so it's not like I have direct experience." Wait, he hadn't mentioned the transmigration to this guy yet. Oops. Oh well, practically everyone knows at this point.

"... In a time long past, there was one world. That world was split, leaving one and thirteen shards, each connected to the 'source' world. Should an elemental imbalance sweep through one of the shards and destroy it, a devastating Calamity of the same element would happen on the Source. And it has, seven times." Technically eight, but one got undone and doesn't count. "So we call those shards the First through the Thirteenth, and I've been to both of those. The Thirteenth is also called the Void for its severe tilt towards the power of Darkness, and so those that emerge from it are called Voidsent. It's also the one with the thinnest barrier between itself and the Source, so tears appear occasionally." He's sat through this explanation enough that he knows it by heart, though it's not usually him who's the one that delivers the talk.

A mountain... yeah, that tracks. "Definitely sounds eastern Othardian to me. Doma has a specialty in papercraft, in fact. But yes, I'd also call it 'fuckoff enormous'." The swearing amuses him, but he's usually polite enough to keep it to himself. "'First life'? ... So you remember your past lives?" Isn't that usually not how the Aetherial Sea works? ... He probably doesn't have the Aetherial Sea.

That definitely doesn't not sound like a video game. "That sounds uh... complicated? Do all the shards know about each other?"

Right. "Uh. Well. Sort of? I was... in my first life I lived in a world of technology where magic didn't exist, and then I, uh. Died and was reborn into a... world that was... a fantasy novel in that world. As one of the characters in the book. Sorry, I'm aware that sounds insane."

"It is. And most don't - some of the people of the First know, and the Thirteenth and the Source have known of each other for a while - though most don't actually know why the Thirteenth is the way it is."

He goes silent for a few long moments and then huffs in amusement. "Honestly, that's... while it's difficult to imagine it's no less insane than doing something like 'fly to the edge of existence to defeat an extremely depressed bird-girl'."

Huh. So a sort of... small self-contained multiverse. Interesting. "The way it is being, uh, void-y?"

"...That sounds... dramatic. Was she... threateningly depressed?" He doesn't even know how to phrase that.

"Covered in darkness, yes. There are people who were behind the catastrophes, but... I think we might have at least taken out those who were actively working to do that? I hope?" He's not sure if he can deal with more surprise Ascians.

The nod he gives is quite firm indeed. "She was trying to... well, as she put it, 'sing the song of oblivion'. She and her sisters had visited many stars and found... basically a lot of dying civilizations. So she thought it would be more 'merciful' if things simply... ended." For the first time, he looks... a little sad? And nervous, perhaps, from the way his gaze keeps flicking away. "We found recreations of them out there. And we... we spoke to them. Learned their stories, their struggles."

He clenches his fists and takes a deep breath. It's a... a painful topic. "We... we had to get our Champion to her to fight. No matter what it took. No matter... what it cost. And we got them there. We did. Even though it cost... everything we had. The only reason we're still around is because of their quick thinking and what could rightly be called a miracle."

"...Oh." He is... not even sure what to say to that. Forget paladin-y righteousness, this guy sacrificed himself to save entire worlds.

Shang Qinghua sacrificed a lot of people to save himself.

The contrast makes him feel a little sick.

"I... I'm glad you got... a miracle?" He may look like, visibly guilty now. This guy is... so much better a person than he is.

"... I mean, me too. I didn't deserve it, but I got it." Heh. Who'd have thought that he'd be the hero type? He sure didn't.

The atmosphere here is getting uncomfortable. He didn't mean to... ah, well. "Y-you don't have to give me that look. I'm just... a person like you. I don't - I'm no one special." He knows that's a lie, he knows that just being blessed with the Echo makes him special. But there's no need to make himself seem... like that. "I left everything I knew to follow someone I had a -" 'Fascination with' isn't the right term. "Who I thought was a hero. They're a hero. Not... me."

"I'm just... I've never saved... anybody, much less worlds." When he tried to make things better, they got worse. The monsters in the Immortal Alliance Conference were so much more lethal than in the book, and he isn't even sure how many disciples died. (He doesn't want to know how many disciples died. Even if many of them were self-absorbed little idiots from Huan Hua that didn't know their sword from their arse, it wasn't their fault.) And arguably every catastrophe is his fault, like the sowers--how many people died of the plague in Jinlan? "I'm, um. Not good for very much."

Ugh, he's making the other guy uncomfortable, he needs to stop it. "Um. I. Um." Say the first stupid thing that pops into your head, Airplane, it can't be more awkward than this. "Are there are lot of other, like, animal people in your world?" Possibly offensive. Cool, at least that will be differently uncomfortable than this.

"I mean I never thought I'd do anything like that. I though I wasn't good for much either, given that I was just supposed to stay in the jungle for centuries." He shakes his head. It wasn't like... it wasn't like he was expecting any of this.

Anyway. "Uh... oh." Possibly offensive, but not a comparison he hasn't heard before. "Miqo'te are like... they have ears and tails like a cat. Hrothgar... they look like very big cats. Au Ra have horns and tails. Lalafell aren't like animals but they're very short - and very devious. Hyur are like you, Elezen are taller and have pointed ears, and Roegadyn are larger but similar, even if not in skin tone. Those are the peoples you see the most, but there are others - like the Lupin who are like canines or Kojin who are like turtles. There are many others - some of them are from across the ocean or from places far north."

He pauses and... ah. He did leave out something. "The Garleans... they have an eye in the middle of their forehead but are unable to use aether at all. Otherwise they look like any Hyur." His mouth twitches as he tries to suppress a frown.

"You did, though." All Airplane did was discover just what depths he would sink to to stay alive.

He blinks. "That's... a lot." Anime? MMO? Those don't not sound like player races. ...wait, he can ask a really stupid question and get a data point there. "...Are the women way smaller and more delicate in half of those?" He is fully aware of video game sexual dimorphism. ...his demons kinda have it, too. Like, look at Sha Hualing next to Luo Binghe, or even Zhuzhi-lang. (And that's not to speak of the bitching Cucumber-bro did about Bingmei's Heavenly Pillar--he feels retroactively guilty for all those wives and concubines having to deal with it. And he does, actually, feel kinda guilty for Cucumber-bro's problems there, not that he'd admit it. Anyway, the fans wanted wish fulfillment, and that meant the most impressive Heavenly Pillar ever conceived, because straight men think the only requirement for being good in bed is to have just the biggest possible fucking dick. Anyway.)

"... I wouldn't call them delicate, but some of the races have smaller women. In viera it's the opposite, actually. It's not a huge difference - a few ilms at most - but it's noticeable. ... Why?"

It's kind of an odd question, Shang Beida.

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Endwalker spoilers!

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