middaeg | [semi-open] Lay me down let the only sound be the overflow

Who: Lan Xichen, cultivators, and friends!
When: Around mid-month
Where: Lakeside out beyond the Wall (near the forge)
What: swimming, sitting, sighing, and shedding
Warnings: F is for friends who do stuff together.

Everyone probably has their own reasons for being at the lake. For Lan Xichen, working in the forge tends to lead to overheating (especially when he's been fighting off certain stress levels) and the nearby water provides a good way to politely cool off. Maybe you met him on his way and decided to join in or maybe you were already there. After several days this becomes a regular pattern of work followed by an afternoon soak, so it's possibly just a nice diversion when things are a bit too much to handle.

Whether it is swimming, meditating, having a snack, or just enjoying the fresh air along the bank, there are plenty of ways to share time with friends. The only possible warning will come from Lan Xichen himself if it looks like an argument is brewing--he will intervene. He came explicitly for some quiet time, so if anyone starts a fight, they'll probably have a half-naked Lan there to break them up. Maybe that's your thing.

[ooc: This log is a free for all for swimming and lake side games. All our friends are invited to tag in and tag each other. Basically, make up whatever you would like as a starter and cut in wherever if people agree! Non-cultivator friends and 4th wallers also welcome. If you need a specific prompt added, poke me at

teaandreveries.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Momo's shown up to the lake largely for exercise purposes anyway, so when he sees someone else in the lake doing laps, once he finishes his next round of them he ends up heading over to inquire. It's not hard to tell who it is doing them, even from a distance, and Momo floats himself next to the other man with a cheery grin that shows one of his sharpened canines.]

Need someone to race against? You look pretty focused on it. [Momo did more surfing than lap swimming back home, but he's still a strong swimmer and has extremely powerful legs, so he figures he's still a good match for a situation like this.]

Momo!

[wei wuxian's welcoming grin reveals teeth that are a little more squarish, especially the front two. to be honest, they were always a little bit that shape to begin with, but it's definitely more noticeable lately. he gives a kick with his back legs, still surprised by just how far and easily he glides across the water thanks to the strength of them.]

Sounds fun! But we should bet to make it even more interesting. [he gathers his wet hair, tying his red ribbon around a bun of it.] Something like...the loser has to catch a fish with his mouth!

[Momo's going to assume that's the bunny teeth coming in, considering that sloppy call he got the other day. But he's been roasted enough for his own pointy canines that he doesn't even have a legitimate monster-ly reason for that he'll leave the bun teeth alone. For now.

The legs do remind him of something, though, and Momo narrows his eyes a bit with an amused little grin.] Not to sell myself short, but I've seen what puca legs can do and I'm pretty sure that's some kind of unfair advantage for you. At least make it a forfeit I'll actually be able to do without drowning, or I'll send my personal lake monster after you. If he doesn't send himself after you first.

[It's not going to stop him putting his all into it, because nothing really stops him from doing that, but if there's a high chance he's going to lose to monster biology then he might as well get something less likely to get him a lungful of water and put Yuki on the warpath.]

Me? Cheat?

[the innocent face that he pulls does absolutely nothing to help him. but okay, he also knows that he has an advantage here. so many laps would normally have him feeling pleasantly tired by now, but he feels like he could easily do more.]

What about a headstart? I'm too skinny and gamey to feed to your personal lake monster anyway. [the words don't even sound that strange to him, but then both of wei wuxian's siblings have show up and are well on their way to becoming fish. it's only a question of identity.] Who are they?

[as soon as he asks, it hits him: momo's personal monster. a protective one. wei wuxian's eyes widen.]

Did Yuki arrive?

[Momo just arches his brows jokingly at that first questioning tone, like he's not saying he'd cheat, but he's also not saying he wouldn't. When the topic shifts to the identity of his personal lake monster, though, Momo gets a bit sidetracked from the headstart suggestion, because he tends to get sidetracked from literally any other conversation topic when Yuki becomes the new conversation topic.

His smile is a touch less wholeheartedly sunny than usual when he answers.] With this last arrival group, yeah, so I don't know how long he'll be here. And, uh...he's a merrow, but instead of a fish tail in water, he gets tentacles. [He puts his thumbs together and wiggles his fingers to illustrate, because clearly he needs to. That is, before he clasps them together and gets something of a preoccupied pout on his face.] I think he's trying to avoid me a bit since he changed, though. Even though he should know it's okay...

[Re:vale are dreadful at communication, but Momo feels like one of the few things he's usually clear about is that he'll take Yuki as he is, however he is.]

[so it's joy with sadness as its shadow, just waiting for its moment to eclipse. it's waiting for him too, with jiang cheng and shijie, and other faces that wei wuxian was happy to see again. but right now his eyes soften on momo.]

It's still nice to see him, right? And if he does leave, I know it'll be no time at all before you're together again. Either you'll return to him, or the mirrors will get it right next time.

[a tender hope. but then his eyebrows almost lift off his face at the tentacles demonstration, expression caught somewhere between amused and guilty. not saying that nie huiasang showed him tentacle porn, but not saying that he didn't either.

it's a familiar story that he tells him. momo probably remembers how wei wuxian contacted him in drunken distress about his ears.]

Do you think he's in this lake? Maybe I could talk to him, monster to monster.

[The softer, more hopeful expression he gets at the suggestion it might not be so long until he sees Yuki again after this is ruined pretty quickly by that eyebrow raise. Because Momo knows exactly what that eyebrow raise is about considering he had a very similar thought when he first found out about the nature of Yuki's transformation, and thus he's scrunching his face up into an exaggeratedly huffy and suspicious look, in part to disguise his embarrassment and in part to silently imply say it, I dare you.

It relaxes at the question, as Momo shakes his head and casts a glance sidelong, as if looking to somewhere else around the city rather than in it.] I'm pretty sure he's in the area they carved out for people to go wild while everything's so weird this month, but it's a big place. I've been out there a couple of times myself and I've had trouble actually tracking him down. It'd be easier if he lured me in or something...but also, I don't want to drown. Even if he makes a really sexy siren.

[~~Siren~~ merrow problems.]

[that look. momo is most definitely on to him. which means...now it's okay to say it, right? they're already thinking the same thing and that's almost as bad. plus that daring look is like wei wuxian's personal siren's call; he almost can't resist it.

another time, maybe. as irreverent as wei wuxian can often be, he won't put his amusement before someone's genuine problem.]

Jiang Cheng is a merrow, and so is shijie. I'll ask them to keep an eye out for him. A guy with tentacles should be hard to miss, even among them. He can't avoid you forever, this is precious time you should be spending together!

[he swims around, putting his arm around momo's shoulders in a display of friendship and solidarity.

and without his pants, in danger of being a display in general.]

He just needs to realize how much you need him too.

[Momo would point out that Yuki can avoid people quite well when he wants to, but...well. He's always been hard to miss, and for better or worse, the Wilde Hunt area is open space. So it's probably a much harder ask that he'd be impossible to find out there, even if it is a big area to get lost in.

Perhaps thankfully, Momo gives minimal shits about nudity considering the drunken stripping photos he collects of certain older beefy juniors of his and his enjoyment of public baths when he gets the chance, so that secondary display doesn't get much of a reaction. The arm around his shoulders almost seems to make Momo shrink a bit, though, as if he shouldn't need it and he's not used to being on this end of it. It's a hard habit to break out of when you treat yourself like you're the one who should be throwing yourself under the bus for everyone else for close to a decade.]

You don't need to bother them about it...it's probably a personal thing. I don't want to intrude if he wants time to himself, I just wish he wasn't so hard to read sometimes. If I've done something to upset him, it'd be easier if he just told me, you know?

[Sometimes he does, but sometimes he gets standoffish and finds some incredibly roundabout way to express it instead, so Momo's first assumption in situations like this still tends to be "I did something wrong".]

[semi-open] Lay me down let the only sound be the overflow

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