prismatica | Video - Something borrowed

[The feed starts in the rather nondescript living room of one of the apartments new arrivals get directed to when they first make it here. Home decor hasn't yet been a priority since Moran has arrived, and even if it were, he would leave it entirely to his more savvy housemate.

Addressing a video feed is a bit weird, because he is just talking at a machine, but his face is nothing but pleasantly inquisitive. He knows how to hide discomfort.]

Greetings.

I am looking for someone who could possibly point me in the right direction. I wish to have a fan custom made.

It needs to look like this.

[He grabs a fan on the nearby table and opens it, and though trial and error for a few seconds, manages to angle it so the motif is visible.

The fan is dark green silk, with a delicate drawing of a lotus flower and clouds in white on it. After a few seconds, he turns it around to show that the reverse has exactly the same color, except the décoration there is Chinese characters, also written in white. A few more seconds and he closes it and puts it away.]

I need it to be exactly identical, except for the colors which need to be reversed. I would be very grateful if anyone knows of a maker who could accomplish this.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[His eyes go immediately to the fans, studying them for a moment before he waves someone over to take his order.

He seems like the sort of person who'd drink his tea black...and for the most part he does. It's how tea is drunk, back home, after all. But he's discovered the special joy that is a tea latte with sugar (lots and lots of sugar) and so that's what he gets.

As he's waiting, he reaches for the fans.]

May I?

[Moran has straight black tea himself, but he will raise an eyebrow - though not comment - at the decoction that is being served. He has little interest in food and drinks beyond enjoying a good wine with XunXian and good tea. Mostly, they are necessary for the body to keep going and he rarely pays attention to what he eats as long as it's prepared with a measure of skill and edible.

He has a moment of hesitation before he hands over the fans. The one he showed to the camera, the dark green one, is whole, and will open and close properly. The other one, the white one, is quite obviously broken in some places. And as one opens it, there are some dark drown stains on the white fabric obscuring the dark green design of the lotus flower on one sign, and the poem calligraphied on the other side.

Blood.]

[Just wait until it comes and he's spooning even more sugar into it.

He sees that hesitation. Even though he doesn't seem to acknowledge it, he makes sure to handle the fans, especially the broken one with care as he opens them one after the other.]

I'm not sure what sort of wood I can get around here. [But he's sure he can figure something out...if not, he's heard a thing or two about items that let them summon objects from their own worlds.

He sees the blood for sure, but doesn't comment on it.] What is it used for?

[i.e. is it used as a weapon?]

The white one is a weapon. The green one, mine, is just a regular fan.

[It is sturdy enough to use as a weapon is needed, but Moran isn't an expert with war fans, preferring the sword when he has to fight. He has never sued the fan for fighting himself.]

The person the white fan belongs to uses it as his primary weapon when he has to fight.

[He was confident he could do this to begin with, but hearing that it's a weapon reassures him even more. He's used to making weapons.]

Something sturdy then. [He held the white fan in his hand to test its weight.] But not too heavy. Is there anything I should know about their fighting style?

[...does it need to be able to withstand spiritual powers...? Was that a thing where Moran is from...?

Yes, it needs to be sturdy.

[So that it doesn't break again if another fight happens.

The next question is a bit more puzzling. You might to go into more details in your questioning, Chu Wanning.]

He doesn't do physical fighting if he can avoid it, really... but as far as I know, he can use it the way most people would use a war fan. I don't think he has any particular techniques he uses it for.

[That in itself is an answer. Surely if something were different about the way he fight it would be noteworthy enough to be noticeable.

Luckily, their Sect Master also uses a warfan so he has more experience with this subject than some.]

Will he need to fly on it?

[Look, this is an important question!]

[Okay, now that question brings a .... puzzled look.]

... I beg your pardon?

[Zodiac Land's fighting style does include some acrobatics and jumps that would probably look weird to most normal humans... but there is no actual flying of weapons in it, so that concept is something he has never even heard of.]

[...that's probably a 'no' then.]

It's rather common where I'm from. [Pause.] Of course, not everyone does it. [He doesn't, for one.]

You said you needed it done as quickly as possible. Is there a reason for that?

... There is.

As you can see, they are a pair. The circumstances in which XunXian's was broken were... unpleasant.

[That's the understatement of the century here.]

A lot of things are shaky right now but this... this will help make things a little more solid.

[For XunXian, and for Moran too. He needs those fans to be a pair. He can't be without XunXian, the green fan can't be without the white one.]

... How exactly does one fly on a weapon?

[XunXian...? Ah, that person he'd met through the app had also come from Zodiac Land...so this is his fan?

As for 'things are shaky'...being the sort of person who valued his own privacy he tried to respect it in others. Even if Moran had chosen not to answer at all he wouldn't have pushed. So he was trying not to make assumptions about why things are shaky and how it might be connected to the fact that he knows Su XunXian had been in unrequited love and Moran had admitted to breaking hearts.

He'll focus on the part where remaking the fan will help things.]

A cultivator can pour their spiritual energy into their weapon and make it leave the ground. By stepping onto it, and then using spiritual energy to control it, a cultivator can fly on it. They can also make the weapons grow larger to allow other people to ride along, but there's a limit to that.

A... cultivator?

[Images of peasants farming the land are called to mind, but somehow, Moran doesn't think this is what Chu Wanning is referring to. Not with talks of weapons and spiritual energy.]

I believe you might be using that word very differently from what I am accustomed to.

Video - Something borrowed

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