just_muse_me 15.1.2 {RP with bulletcarnage}

[kandescence]

"If you're going through hell, keep going." - Winston ChurchillKanda awoke to stillness, the near-silent whisper of falling snow. It coated his bare shoulders and his hair, which fell loose and limp and already wet over his cheeks and back

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[kandescence]

When Kanda had stopped for the night it was because he'd had to: not counting his few minutes' worth of unconsciousness, he'd been on his feet for well over twenty-four hours, fighting in the battle in Edo, then in the Ark, searching the abandoned city there, crawling on hands and knees through the tiny rock crevice, wandering fruitlessly through the ancient ruins, and then finally walking across this scorched earth until his skin throbbed from the heat of the sun and his feet had moved passed painful to just plain numb.

He'd built the fire out of an equal measure of necessity: as hot as the landscape had been in the day, it was cold when the sun had set, and with his clothes in the tatters they were, Kanda had no other way to keep warm. The cool breeze had seemed a balm at first, but he quickly realized that if he was going to have to stop for the night-and he knew that he was-then he was going to need some way to stave off the cold.

The place he'd picked for his impromptu camp was in the lee of a low gnarled tree of a sort that he'd never seen before. It had rough gray bark and pale squat leaves not quite as fine as evergreen needles, and its trunk was split so that a full half of it grew along the ground for several feet before sending up a tuft of twisted branches. It's angles were, in fact, surprisingly like one might achieve in a bonsai tree after years of careful pruning, only this tree had grown this way without encouragement and not in miniature.

Were he any less exhausted, Kanda might have been able to take some pleasure from that resemblance. As it was, his primary thought was that the branches provided an alternative to sleeping on the ground, which he'd seen during the day to serve as habitat for no few snakes (a sizable one of which had ended up as his dinner after his nearly stepping on the damn thing had necessitated killing it before it struck him and did god only knew what kind of damage), scorpions, and spiny plants similar to ones he'd only ever seen in pictures.

So he'd settled himself into the arms of the tree with the fire built as close as safely possible, fallen branches fueling it. He hadn't so much slept as dozed, his senses still alert to his surroundings-he'd roused himself fully before the approaching figure had stepped within the ring of firelight, but he was also in a very bad mood, and seeing that the person who'd stumbled upon him was none other than the pale young man from earlier that day did little to improve his mood.

He stared back at him across the fire, watching the light of the flames dance in his strange red eyes. He still wasn't convinced that the guy wasn't actually just a moron, and he was no more convinced that he was pleased to be running into him a second time, especially not when he opened by asking a question like that. Kanda huffed a little tch of his own before answering, "What exactly do you think 'giving up' would look like in this place-sitting around and waiting for death from exposure or starvation?"

Leaning back against the tree once more, he closed his eyes again to resume his rest, trusting his instincts to tell him if the stranger became a threat. "That's not what I'm doing," he said simply.