[ ... and in 40 minutes, pretty on the dot, Shang-chi will arrive at the training room. He's prepared, too: in a t-shirt and sweatpants, socks, and easily removed sneakers — they're his usual training clothes, worn now instead of at his usual training time in the late evening when most people have gone to bed. ]
（ he's going through kata with a bō when shang-chi arrives, his eyes closed. at that greeting, he lowers the butt of the staff to the floor and turns to face him, eyes that same vivid red shangi-chi will remember from his dreams when he opens them again. he doesn't reply to that greeting, simply cocks his head faintly to one side and throws the bō towards shang-chi — with the obvious intention it be caught. this leaves him without a weapon, but does he really seem troubled by that? neaux. ）
Shang-chi instinctively catches the bō with one hand, the feel of the staff a familiar weight in his grasp. His memories of the guy are admittedly steeped in some kind of child-like nostalgia, he can admit that, but when he looks at him and meets those eyes, the unmistakable feeling of familiarity is hard to quell.
This is definitely the same (young?) man he'd considered a kind of shīfù in his dreamscape. And seeing him again feels like a bit of a mindfuck, having to remind himself that the memories he'd acquired through the sleeping illness are absolutely not the same as the real memories he has of that time — no matter how convincing they seemed.
'Come', he says.
Shang-chi gets into his stance and begins his approach. ]
（ this time, there is no gentle tutelage. shang-chi was surrounded by combat as a child, and itachi clearly expects him to have kept it up in the intervening years. he is not quite merciless, but he is exacting, and it is in this fashion that the exhibition goes on for some time.
at some nebulous future point, whenever he seems satisfied with what he's learned, he calls a halt — and offers a short bow. ）
The sparring does help to expel most of the initial awkwardness and remind Shang-chi that whatever happened in that dreamscape hadn't actually happened to him in reality; when he was a kid, he never really had a teacher like Itachi (or Yamato), and his father never enlisted such powerful people like them.
He wipes his brow when they finish, feeling a little winded and like he'd just been tested — and he can only hope that if it was a test, that maybe he'd passed it. It makes no sense that he'd want to impress the other man but that's what happens when you share one hell of an important, formative memory. ]
（ he's about as good at conversation as a particularly animated rock, shang-chi, what did you expect? he can contribute to a conversation, but as for starting them?
let him escape. ）
'America'. （ the air quotes are obvious, though he doesn't so much as raise a hand. ） I've heard many others speak on such a place. Earth, correct?
[ Honestly? He doesn't expect much, so he's pretty happy to roll with whatever subjects Itachi continues with, for as long as he's interested to.
There's ... something about him that has Shang-chi wanting to know more. ]
Yeah, that's right. [ About 'Earth' and about the others. He's met a fair amount of people from some version of Earth, and America, on this station. ] It's across the globe from China, where I'm originally from.
（ he's been told the language he speaks is japanese, but he has little context outside of that. he has never heard of such a place, and it is not what he calls the language he knows. but the universe is a strange place, and more broad in scope than he ever could have imagined. ）
I ask, because I noticed architectural similarities between the vision of your childhood and my own home.
Pretty close, actually. Japan is an island and it's the East China Sea that separates the them.
[ Well, and Korea, but that might be adding an extra bit of information that might be hard to grasp without context and an Earth map. ]
But what you've said makes sense. China, Japan, they're all in close enough proximation that they ... borrow styles from each other. Language too. I speak Mandarin, which is one of the more common languages in China, but I can also speak Japanese.
（ a map would certainly be helpful, but at the very least he isn't a stranger to building a rough approximation of a place based on limited information in his head. he nods, accepting that. ）
What language do you consider yourself to be speaking now? I have been told I speak Japanese.
（ Don't Ask Rhys To Tell You What The Language Is Called In Universe Please God Don't Do That We Hates It PreciousTM ）
[ For a moment the question … confuses him. He isn’t even sure what he’s hearing, whether it’s Japanese, Mandarin, English, or any other language he might or might not be familiar with. All he knows is that he just … understands it. ]
This is one of those Ximilia things, isn’t it? [ By which he means, the communications devices in their heads. ] English.
I spent most of my teenage years and some of my adulthood in the United States, and it’s mostly an English-speaking country. Guess I kind of thought to default to it.
（ the technology of it all intrigues him — with the exception of a variety of dialects, like shinko and her strange creole, most of the people he has encountered in his life have spoken one tongue. that is not to say other languages do not exist — he would never be so presumptive — only that he has not had cause to encounter them.
it's an odd parallel, almost, to why the sage of six paths originally gifted chakra to humans. he had hoped they might learn to understand one another, to set aside warring hearts with the gentle art of ninshu. instead, chakra just became another tool for war.
even being able to speak beyond linguistic barriers has not truly improved their compatibility as people, nor the general cooperation of those aboard the ximilia. but it is something. ）
You must have left not long after the moment I saw in your memories, for it to be the language you first reach for.
（ he's fishing for information in that laconic way of his — not really expecting to get anything out of it, but curious for curiosity's own sake. he likes knowing things about others. all the better to twist the knife, if needs be. ）
It was another seven years. [ Shang-chi admits, not even missing a beat to respond, like in a way he trusts Itachi implicitly with his past, shadows and all; probably a stupid thing for him to do, but something about that childhood memory, reshaped with his presence, stops him from keeping too much about himself locked away.
Maybe he'd always wanted someone to be able to tell this stuff to rather than pretend it never happened. He isn't really even sure why and he certainly doesn't think about how it might come to bite him in the ass later. ]
I just — wanted to forget who I was and where I came from. So I concentrated on my English until it came naturally to me.
（ there are only so many reasons someone leaves their home and wishes to forget everything about their origin, and he is familiar with... more than one of them. ）
The thing I was training to do when we met, I did it.
[ Which, okay, makes no sense out of context, but is perfectly logical when you've shared a memory on another planet while collecting magical orbs that can undo ones regret. He's learned to take it in stride.
And yet the truth of his own life and his own actions has him feeling more uncomfortable than sharing a dreamscape with someone who was once a complete stranger. Shang-chi suddenly sounds a little uneasy, and — well, he looks it too. ]
After that, it was hard to think of going back home. So I moved to the States.
（ it follows, by his logic, that one trains in such things to learn to take lives, as in war or open conflict. but shang-chi's words are curious to him — because they imply that it was one specific life. he cants his head faintly to one side. ）
I see.
（ and then, perhaps because his memory of that small boy had impacted him so significantly — ）
Brave is not necessarily something you feel. It is more often something others determine of your actions.
（ it is easy to see things from the outside looking in. did shisui feel brave when he stepped off the cliff and fell to the river below? he has always held him to be older in his mind, but the truth is that he is six years older than shisui ever got to be. age has given him a different perspective on those last frantic moments.
acting brave is easier than being fearless, certainly. ）
You left everything you know behind. You sought out a different life than the one that shaped you. That is not insignificant. What you think of it matters less than how it appears.
[ Shang-chi's mouth quirks to one side, that dreamscape memory still fresh as ever in his mind. It'd been brief, and not a whole lot of words had been exchanged, but that quiet, steady tone imparts knowledge through some previous experience and it settles somewhere deep in his chest. ]
Guess I just never thought of it as anything but this act of selfishness, of abandonment. I should have gone back, and instead I ran as far as I could away from everything.
[ He exhales. ]
I've been calling myself Shaun for ten years. [ Names are sacred, his father said recently. They connect us not only to ourselves but to everyone who came before.
He didn't want that connection when he left. He couldn't have people digging into his past and figuring out who he was, or how to find his father. So an orphan called 'Shaun' seemed the most logical next step. ] Actually, almost everyone here knows me by that name.
It is easy to examine your own deeds uncharitably — you live in the worst of the thoughts that drove you to them. That is why it is of benefit to you to hear other opinions on your circumstance. There is more to reality than your perception of it.
（ guilt has a tendency to subsume all else, to swallow the light. extricating one's self from that impossible mire is a momentous ask — and it is never as simple as saying one is free of it. ）
'Shaun'. Would you prefer I call you that as well?
No. [He's almost surprised that this is his answer, but maybe after everything he'd gone through, and losing his dad in the end ...
Names are sacred, and they mean something, and maybe he's finally okay with facing the truth of where he came from rather than running away from it. ] Actually, it feels kind of ... nice, I guess, to be called by my real name.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
TEXT • AUDIO • VIDEO
no subject
[ Was there more to that? There could have been, but he pauses with Itachi's next message.
Is there a part of him that might want to prove how much he's learned since he was seven? Maybe. Other than that, sparring sounds ... well, fun. ]
yeah okay
sure
that sounds great
no subject
（ he just sort of casually assumes he'll be obeyed?? oop. ）
text ➝ action ;
forty minutes
[ ... and in 40 minutes, pretty on the dot, Shang-chi will arrive at the training room. He's prepared, too: in a t-shirt and sweatpants, socks, and easily removed sneakers — they're his usual training clothes, worn now instead of at his usual training time in the late evening when most people have gone to bed. ]
Uh. Hey.
no subject
Come.
（ no words, we spar like men!!! ）
no subject
Shang-chi instinctively catches the bō with one hand, the feel of the staff a familiar weight in his grasp. His memories of the guy are admittedly steeped in some kind of child-like nostalgia, he can admit that, but when he looks at him and meets those eyes, the unmistakable feeling of familiarity is hard to quell.
This is definitely the same (young?) man he'd considered a kind of shīfù in his dreamscape. And seeing him again feels like a bit of a mindfuck, having to remind himself that the memories he'd acquired through the sleeping illness are absolutely not the same as the real memories he has of that time — no matter how convincing they seemed.
'Come', he says.
Shang-chi gets into his stance and begins his approach. ]
no subject
at some nebulous future point, whenever he seems satisfied with what he's learned, he calls a halt — and offers a short bow. ）
Enough. Let us speak on other things.
no subject
[ This is weird, right? It's weird?
The sparring does help to expel most of the initial awkwardness and remind Shang-chi that whatever happened in that dreamscape hadn't actually happened to him in reality; when he was a kid, he never really had a teacher like Itachi (or Yamato), and his father never enlisted such powerful people like them.
He wipes his brow when they finish, feeling a little winded and like he'd just been tested — and he can only hope that if it was a test, that maybe he'd passed it. It makes no sense that he'd want to impress the other man but that's what happens when you share one hell of an important, formative memory. ]
no subject
What was your opinion on Christmas?
no subject
Christmas?
[ Well, he did suggest other things, so. ]
It was okay. Maybe a little too much, but I've seen stuff like it in America too.
no subject
let him escape. ）
'America'. （ the air quotes are obvious, though he doesn't so much as raise a hand. ） I've heard many others speak on such a place. Earth, correct?
no subject
There's ... something about him that has Shang-chi wanting to know more. ]
Yeah, that's right. [ About 'Earth' and about the others. He's met a fair amount of people from some version of Earth, and America, on this station. ] It's across the globe from China, where I'm originally from.
no subject
（ he's been told the language he speaks is japanese, but he has little context outside of that. he has never heard of such a place, and it is not what he calls the language he knows. but the universe is a strange place, and more broad in scope than he ever could have imagined. ）
I ask, because I noticed architectural similarities between the vision of your childhood and my own home.
no subject
[ Well, and Korea, but that might be adding an extra bit of information that might be hard to grasp without context and an Earth map. ]
But what you've said makes sense. China, Japan, they're all in close enough proximation that they ... borrow styles from each other. Language too. I speak Mandarin, which is one of the more common languages in China, but I can also speak Japanese.
no subject
What language do you consider yourself to be speaking now? I have been told I speak Japanese.
（ Don't Ask Rhys To Tell You What The Language Is Called In Universe Please God Don't Do That We Hates It PreciousTM ）
no subject
This is one of those Ximilia things, isn’t it? [ By which he means, the communications devices in their heads. ] English.
I spent most of my teenage years and some of my adulthood in the United States, and it’s mostly an English-speaking country. Guess I kind of thought to default to it.
no subject
it's an odd parallel, almost, to why the sage of six paths originally gifted chakra to humans. he had hoped they might learn to understand one another, to set aside warring hearts with the gentle art of ninshu. instead, chakra just became another tool for war.
even being able to speak beyond linguistic barriers has not truly improved their compatibility as people, nor the general cooperation of those aboard the ximilia. but it is something. ）
You must have left not long after the moment I saw in your memories, for it to be the language you first reach for.
（ he's fishing for information in that laconic way of his — not really expecting to get anything out of it, but curious for curiosity's own sake. he likes knowing things about others. all the better to twist the knife, if needs be. ）
no subject
Maybe he'd always wanted someone to be able to tell this stuff to rather than pretend it never happened. He isn't really even sure why and he certainly doesn't think about how it might come to bite him in the ass later. ]
I just — wanted to forget who I was and where I came from. So I concentrated on my English until it came naturally to me.
no subject
（ there are only so many reasons someone leaves their home and wishes to forget everything about their origin, and he is familiar with... more than one of them. ）
What happened?
no subject
[ Which, okay, makes no sense out of context, but is perfectly logical when you've shared a memory on another planet while collecting magical orbs that can undo ones regret. He's learned to take it in stride.
And yet the truth of his own life and his own actions has him feeling more uncomfortable than sharing a dreamscape with someone who was once a complete stranger. Shang-chi suddenly sounds a little uneasy, and — well, he looks it too. ]
After that, it was hard to think of going back home. So I moved to the States.
no subject
I see.
（ and then, perhaps because his memory of that small boy had impacted him so significantly — ）
It was brave of you to leave.
no subject
[ Brave? Admittedly, he thinks of it as cowardice.
And in some not-so-small capacity, it's a part of his regret, his reason for agreeing to join this crew and take part in these missions. ]
Still don't think I do.
cw: suicide mention
（ it is easy to see things from the outside looking in. did shisui feel brave when he stepped off the cliff and fell to the river below? he has always held him to be older in his mind, but the truth is that he is six years older than shisui ever got to be. age has given him a different perspective on those last frantic moments.
acting brave is easier than being fearless, certainly. ）
You left everything you know behind. You sought out a different life than the one that shaped you. That is not insignificant. What you think of it matters less than how it appears.
no subject
[ Shang-chi's mouth quirks to one side, that dreamscape memory still fresh as ever in his mind. It'd been brief, and not a whole lot of words had been exchanged, but that quiet, steady tone imparts knowledge through some previous experience and it settles somewhere deep in his chest. ]
Guess I just never thought of it as anything but this act of selfishness, of abandonment. I should have gone back, and instead I ran as far as I could away from everything.
[ He exhales. ]
I've been calling myself Shaun for ten years. [ Names are sacred, his father said recently. They connect us not only to ourselves but to everyone who came before.
He didn't want that connection when he left. He couldn't have people digging into his past and figuring out who he was, or how to find his father. So an orphan called 'Shaun' seemed the most logical next step. ] Actually, almost everyone here knows me by that name.
no subject
（ guilt has a tendency to subsume all else, to swallow the light. extricating one's self from that impossible mire is a momentous ask — and it is never as simple as saying one is free of it. ）
'Shaun'. Would you prefer I call you that as well?
no subject
No. [He's almost surprised that this is his answer, but maybe after everything he'd gone through, and losing his dad in the end ...
Names are sacred, and they mean something, and maybe he's finally okay with facing the truth of where he came from rather than running away from it. ] Actually, it feels kind of ... nice, I guess, to be called by my real name.
(no subject)