Sunday Six

[extrapenguin]

The spaceship rental fic is so far more [words] than my drafts tend to be, but whatever, I have words outside of brackets.

Shen Wei's first memory was someone telling him his father had died.

His life had been a life of loss. His father to an illness, his mother to a landslide, his grandmother to old age, his world to the meteor, his brother to a villain, countless comrades to war, Kunlun to a wormhole, then his world again, this time to the unstoppable hands of time. As such, he had no knowledge of sustained, close bonds beyond the one love he felt for Zhao Yunlan. On occasions, he'd fantasized of parents, but he knew his desperate dreams of youth had little bearing on the real deal.

The world had played a cruel joke on him in more ways than one when it woke him up from the ground's embrace. One aspect of the joke was that, even if a *father* would forever be out of his grasp, it had given him a mentor.

Alas, Shen Wei was no more that simple youth, and had turned into a fugitive from the scrutinizing light. He was a soldier, a time traveler, a Dixingian – and no one must ever know. Not even the reasonably kind-hearted Professor Zhou who'd taught him the joy of discovery and eagerly led Shen Wei onto the path of science.

Thus the occasional fantasy of a loving father turned into fantasies of an accepting mentor; Shen Wei confessing his true concerns and Professor Zhou being able to advise him on Dixingian politics, on learning to stop charting exit routes from every room he entered, on learning to live in the loud-bright-fast modern era he'd woken up in. In his daydreams, Professor Zhou was nothing but accepting and had useful advice to give.

Fic will feature: Hallows, bureaucracy, Shen Wei having The Worst day and falling asleep on Zhao Yunlan's shoulder. This snippet will probably be from the latter half of the fic, after Bureaucracy, Part One, but before Bureaucracy, Part Two has fully kicked in.

Comments

[extrapenguin]

This is spaceship rental! They merely have a long trudge of bureaucracy in there, and Professor Zhou has reacted to a Thing they did in public and now wants to discuss it with Shen Wei.

There'll also be a bit where Dixingians become public knowledge, leading to lots of angst from Shen Wei, because a much too large percentage of people think Dixingians are monsters. He ends up wishing he could go hide from the evil world under the covers with Zhao Yunlan in the bed with him. (Don't worry, Zhao Yunlan will make it better with a cuddle!)

[rheasilvia]

Ooh, excellent! And of course there is a lot of bureacracy involved - crashing a rented spaceship will inevitably result in a blizzard of paperwork coming your way...

He ends up wishing he could go hide from the evil world under the covers with Zhao Yunlan in the bed with him.

That sounds like a lovely balm to the bureaucracy-stressed soul. :-) And I am not at all worried, Zhao Yunlan is an excellent cuddler and motivator!

[extrapenguin]

And of course there is a lot of bureacracy involved - crashing a rented spaceship will inevitably result in a blizzard of paperwork coming your way...
Not only that, but then the rental company comes and wants the spaceship *back*, and where is Zhao Yunlan supposed to place these Dixingians???? Long story short, Zhao Yunlan will also want to hide under the covers after enough running through the bureaucracy gauntlet.