(The way senioritis is a REAL thing. Nobody told me it would be this bad. Here's an update, though, ima work on Penacony after I get my volunteer hours in)

"I heard about what happened at the Shackling Prison. It's a relief that you and Mr. Dan Heng made it out alright."

Caelus and Yanqing had met up at Central Starskiff Haven, lingering near Yun's restaurant which had remained closed ever since him and his sister had gone missing.

Caelus had planned on running around the Luofu in search of y/n and her brother all day—it would be an easy task thanks to waypoints—but he'd been called by Yanqing to meet up instead.

While he could just, you know, ignore him—why would Caelus listen to some little kid anyways—the young man ended up heading over to meet him anyways. Who knows! If he was done training March 7th with Yunli, he could lend a hand in the search party.

"It's only thanks to the guards that we were able to hold out long enough for the Cloud Knights to come get us," Caelus sighed, "Actually, I'm kinda curious, did you see anything out of the ordinary. A riot like that doesn't just happen out of nowhere."

"Well... I had planned on taking Miss March and Yunli to Stargazer Navalia so we could see the Skysplitter up close, but we encountered some suspicious looking foxians carrying official identities..." Yanqing recalled, "Since they were acting strange, we followed them for a bit, and it turned out that they were actually borisin disguised as foxians."

"Were they trying to help Hoolay escape too?"

"Yeah, they seemed to be trying to secure a swift escape method for afterwards. It's because we managed to stop them that Hoolay and those borisin are still on the ship."

Caelus frowned, "Hey... didn't y/n attack a foxian and go on a rant about ripping her skin off or something?"

"Yeah, she did. Do you think that maybe the foxian was a borisin?" Yanqing questioned, "It'd make sense if that were the case—y/n being able to notice so easily, I mean."

"And we didn't believe her..." Caelus murmured, "We thought she was crazy and look what happened."

"There's no use dwelling on the past, Mr. Caelus. All we can do now is focus on how we'll respond to the situation," the young lieutenant reminded the trailblazer .

"Mm, well, what about the wardance? You've got responsibilities as a lieutenant and as the ring master."

The boy's brows furrowed a little, "That's true, but my duties as a lieutenant take priority. Obviously there's someone behind the scenes who orchestrated the prison break—likely with the intent to spread chaos. If we fail to stop them, what honor will be left for us to uphold?"

There was the sound of light clapping which drew the duo's attention to a familiar foxian later who sat nearby,"Well said. You may be tiny in stature, but your ambition matches that of the Yaoqing's warriors."

The young lieutenant almost pouted at the comment, "Hey, what significance does my height hold here?"

"Oh! Y/n's lady General friend!" Caelus chimed, "What brings you here? If you're looking for y/n, she's... uh..."

"I actually suggested to Yanqing that we find a place to have a decent meal. A hunter must be well fed before the hunt." Feixiao hummed with a small nod to which the trailblazer practically beamed.

"I like how you think, Miss Feixiao! You're absolutely correct!" Caelus agreed with an eager nod of his head.

"You still have a good appetite despite our current predicament—you truly are the Merlin's Claw..." Yanqing murmured, "Please, finish your meal quickly so that we can return to work, General Feixiao."

"How quick the meal is finished isn't up to me. Dig in, take some time to nourish your body. Considering all that's happening, you need to properly feed yourself." Feixiao hummed.

"Huh? But we have no clue on where the Borisin are hiding. There isn't time to sit down and eat—" Yanqing began only for Caelus to sit right down and begin stuffing his face, "Mr. Caelus?"

"Take a chill pill, she's right." Caelus pointed out, "They're not gonna be rushing anywhere right now—especially with the Luofu on high alert. You should spare a little time to eat, at least. Otherwise you'll drop like a rock when you run into the Borisin."

Yanqing looked back and forth between Feixiao before caving and finally joining them to eat a bit. As anxious as he was, the General and the big back were right: he did need to keep up his strength for what was to come.

So, at the very least, he could spend a little while properly eating at an appropriate pace to avoid stomach aches and indigestion.

However, while those three were enjoying the food, Jing Yuan, Dan Heng and Lingsha took a trip to the Shackling Prison to investigate in hopes of figuring out who was aiding the borisin—after all, there was no logical answer to explain how the hell those mutts managed to execute such a plan to release Hoolay all on their own.

As they ventured deeper and deeper into the prison to see what clues they could gather, a glint of gold caught Dan Heng's eye and he spotted those strange shards from before. The ones y/n had left as a trail after she seemingly ran out of fluff to take out of Mimi—or rather reached her limit in how much she was willing to take from her beloved plush.

He wandered over to it, picking up the shard with a small frown. What even was this thing? The blood had long dried, but telling from the shape...

"Dan Heng, did you find something?" Jing Yuan inquired as him and Lingsha joined him.

"Yeah, but I don't think it's connected to the borisin." Dan Heng murmured as he held it out so the General and Cauldron Master could see, "This is actually something y/n left behind so we could catch up to the borisin."

Lingsha frowned, "Hold on a moment, may I...?" Dan Heng nodded and gave her the golden shard, watching silently as she observed it carefully before giving it a small sniff. "Huh, that's strange..." "What's strange?"

"This is a scale—actually, it has a faint scent similar to one that'd be present during molting," Lingsha murmured, "I could see this belonging to one of the vidyadhara assassins, but there's too many holes in that theory. Why would they have something like this on them—I doubt one so young would be working as an assassin."

"Could they be a Pearlkeeper, perhaps?" "It's possible..."

As Lingsha and Dan Heng exchanged theories and discussed possibilities, Jing Yuan glanced at the scale. Huh. He'd seen something similar when he found y/n knocked out in the garden after Yanqing had tied her up and left her there.

Most were hidden beneath her clothes—Jing Yuan wasn't nearly insane enough to move her clothes to investigate them further without permission—but from the few he'd seen, they were pretty much identical to the one Lingsha held.

'Molting, she said? Hm...' Jing Yuan stood there pondering, then a light bulb went off in his head. Around the same time one did in Dan Heng's mind, telling from how the trailblazer glanced at Jing Yuan with an 'oh 💩' look.

They didn't say a word to the one another, Jing Yuan spotting a *not very dead* assassin on the ground and giving them a swift, sneaky kick. The assassin groaned, and Lingsha was immediately on high alert as Jing Yuan gave her an innocent look, "Seems as though one of the assassins hasn't been killed. Shall we ask him some questions?"

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⋆　　　。　　 ⋆。　 ඞ 。　 . • . . ⁎ 。　. 　。　.　　⋆. 　　。 .　 .　　 . ⋆. 。. ⁎ 。•　 　ﾟ　　。

"Say, Yun, ever cooked a borisin before?"
"Uh... no?"

Y/n was leisurely lounging with an unbothered expression as Yun sat close to her side—Jiaoqiu staying close as well. He'd seemingly started praying as soon as y/n started running her mouth again, wonder why that is.

"I cooked one once when I was younger." y/n loudly proclaimed, as a few of their captors' ears perked up, "First, I hacked off its limbs and burned the nubs so they couldn't grow back for long. Then, I skinned it alive and kept its fur as a blanket while I cooked the body over a fire that started in a crashed star skiff."

Yun's fluffy little ears pinned back as he gave his sister a mortified look, and Jiaoqiu gave her a look that was just begging her to shut the hell up. To be fair, the Borisin were already sick and tired of her yapping, but they'd been terrorizing her brother and Jiaoqiu ever since they'd decided to hide out in Exalting Sanctum.

'Qingzu is usually on break at this time... if I can find her and tell her what's happening, maybe I can get Yun out of here at the very least. No... they'll panic and kill Jiaoqiu if Yun sneaks away,' y/n thought, her contemplating halting when she spotted one of the Borisin staring at her out the corner of his eye.

He flinched a little with a soft eek when he realized he'd been spotted and immediately looked away. Oh? Had she frightened him? That's funny.

"Say! Jiaoqiu, do you have any cooking stories? Mine seem to be frightening the little whelps over there," y/n hummed, "Yun could perhaps learn a thing or two from you, yeah? He's quite the chef himself."

"I'm a healer, not a—" "Sure you are, get to talking."

'I'm not sure if I want to slap her or just cry.' Jiaoqiu gave y/n a blank look while the young woman beamed back at him, 'Are all women on the Luofu this crazy?' "Well... an essential part of recovering from ailments and injuries is food. What you feed your body has much more of an effect than you'd expect."

"Like... providing important nutrients?" Yun inquired meekly and Jiaoqiu gave him a smile. "That's right. Not only that, but also helping strengthen the immune system and even contributing to tissue repair."

"My mother made a lot of tasty meals when I was sick, and I always seemed to recover faster when I had them in comparison to when I didn't," Yun murmured before glancing at y/n, "You know what I'm talking about, right?"

"It was a soup, wasn't it?" "Uh-huh." "And there was something on the side... I'm sorry, I don't quite remember." "That's alright."

As Yun rambled about the recipe, that startled borisin from earlier had scooted over a bit to listen curiously—in fact, a couple had gathered around to listen to Yun yap about food. Hell, even Mok Tok was listening when Jiaoqiu began to share some knowledge on cooking and healing. All the food talk had y/n kind of hungry, too... she really wanted to try that hot pot he'd mentioned.

But that goddamn MEAT RIDER had to ruin the fun food talk yapping about, "Can I just boil your tongue in this hot pot? I know you're trying to buy time until someone comes to your rescue!"

"♀🐶, we're trying to talk about food here!" y/n snapped, "Stop whining about stalling, it doesn't mean 💩 because the mutt—!" Yun and Jiaoqiu were quick to cover her mouth to shut her up again.

"For the love of— y/n, please shut up..!" Yun whispered before laughing nervously, "Aha... ahahaa... forgive my sister, she's, uh— she has a condition! Yeah! A hereditary condition! She gets awfully chatty when she has to take a 💩! And since she's running her mouth now, she really needs to 💩!" Yun gave Jiaoqiu a nervous smile, clearly on the verge of tears, "You're a healer, yeah? So you know this condition, hm?"

Jiaoqiu blanched a little before swiftly recovering, "I'm familiar with it. It's quite common among..." he gave y/n a once over before looking back at Mok Tok, "War veterans."

Y/n jolted, 'WHAT?!'

"Any minute now, my sister won't be able to hold it, so I request that you allow her time to take a bathroom break!" Yun declared.

"A bathroom break?!" both Mok Tok and y/n demanded, the woman's voice muffled by her brother's hand, "You must think I'm a fool! You're just trying to get away!"

"If you're worried about her running off, keep me here! My sister would never abandon me!" Yun declared.

Y/n glanced up at him curiously before relaxing and gently moving his hand away, "But, if you don't want me to take a bathroom break, I can just take a dump right on you."

The trailblazer took a little step forward and Mok Tok recoiled, fur standing on end, "Gah! Stay away from me, you harlot!" "What the hell did you just call me?!"

Before y/n could curb stomp some respect into him, Hoolay decided to pop in—now disguised as a foxian *but let's be real, the disguise ain't fooling anyone with a brain* "If you insist on being so loud, I might just rip out your throat right now."

Yun let out a little squeak, retreating behind Jiaoqiu while y/n backed up to hide the boy from sight. Alright, the fun was over.

Hoolay carefully observed Jiaoqiu's guarded yet equally defiant look, "He's awfully composed isn't he? But that's only a temporary effect of the medicine, and it will wear off soon, right?" it was Mok Tok's turn to be the target of the disguised Wardhead's menacing stare, the sudden scrutiny causing the glazer to shrink back a little.

"Lord Hoolay—"

Hoolay didn't wait for an answer, looking back at Jiaoqiu and going right back to being a 💩head. "You pathetic foxians. For thousands of years, we allowed you to live and granted you civilization—yet in the end, you betrayed us for the freedom the Xianzhou people promised."

Oh, not this yapping again.

"But it's alright. As long as you catch the scent of your masters, you obediently return to us... no matter how far you run."

'How dare he spout this nonsense around my brother, piece of trash—' y/n wanted to kill this dude, but she wasn't nearly stupid enough to try it. Not yet, at least. Telling from the look on Jiaoqiu's face, he was having similar thoughts, so the h/c haired idiot opted to cut him some slack and shut up.

She tuned out the conversation—let's be real, she'd be tempted to talk 💩 if she actually listened—and glanced around instead. Telling from the time, Qingzu was probably preparing to head back to the Seat of Divine Foresight. The sooner y/n relayed the information to her, the better. But how?

She assumed the borisin had spies everywhere, and she doubted she could inconspicuously snatch Qingzu's attention and tell her everything, so how else could she get the message to her?

Suddenly, the fabric of her sleeve snagged on something and she looked down to see the golden patches that had developed on her skin. The arm that had been popped off earlier had regrown with more of the golden markings, this time nearly covering her skin.

'What is this 💩 anyways? It's pissing me off,' y/n thought a small frown. She didn't spend much time worrying over it as Jiaoqiu successfully finished manipulating the mess out of Hoolay, the giant of a beast pointing at Jiaoqiu with a, "Alright, since you're so confident that the Cloud Knights will close the ports, I'll give you a chance to see it for yourself. Go to the ports, come back, and tell me what you saw."

The pink haired foxian was reasonably flabbergasted, ears shooting up in alarm as he gawked at Hoolay, "Wait, what—?"

"But my Lord-!" Mok Tok began only to be fixed with a cold glare from Hoolay. "Would an alpha wolf ever listen to a cub, Mok Tok?"

🤮🤮🤮

Anyways.

Mok Tok immediately looked away (WEAK 🍑) "N-No, I've never heard anything— I mean, I wasn't trying to defy your will, my Lord; I will always... always follow your orders with question."

"I'm offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity, Jiaoqiu." Hoolay continued, "You will come back, because foxians like you always obediently return to their masters, no matter how far they run."

♀🐶, what?

"My brother has to 💩," y/n announced, "Send him too. Otherwise, people will notice the smell."

Yun gave his sister a devastated look to which she shrugged innocently. "Ah— she's got it worse than me! Send her!" "Yun gets really bad stomach aches if he ignores it too long, though. Send him." "My sister won't be able to sit still, just send her!" "My brother stinks." "I do not—!"

Jiaoqiu and Mok Tok looked equally pissed off at the two persisted with their back and forth banter before Hoolay finally snapped, "Damn it, send all three!"

"My lord, all three?! But—!" "But what?" "...nothing."

And so, all three of them were put out of the little hiding spot. Jiaoqiu glanced at the pair of siblings as they were giving each other pointed side eyes before heaving a sigh, "So..."

Y/n immediately loudly proclaimed, "Alright, I'm gonna take Yun to go take a 💩! You head to the port and we'll meet you there, yeah?"

"Oh—" Jiaoqiu hesitated, noting how y/n's left eye was very aggressively twitching, much to his and Yun's confusion. He began to turn his head to look in that direction only for the woman to practically teleport over to him and seize his face in her hands, "What the?!"

"Eyes. Lots of them." with that, she snatched up her puzzled brother and dragged him off to the bathroom while a frazzled Jiaoqiu was left behind.

Despite her startling delivery, Jiaoqiu did get the message. He figured that it was suspicious how Hoolay simply allowed the three of them to walk right out—they could make a run for it together, in theory... though it was dangerous. Asking for help was a risky move as well.

He opted to continue to the port and see what information he could get along the way—while also hoping y/n and Yun wouldn't make a run for it and leave him for dead.

On the other end, with the two siblings, y/n had hidden in the bathroom with her brother, brows furrowed.

"You're not planning on leaving Mr. Jiaoqiu, are you?" Yun asked. A few short moments passed before he gave his sister a flabbergasted look, "Y/n?!"

"Damn it, if you'll just let me get you to safety, I'll make sure nothing happens to him! I swear!" y/n bit back in a hushed voice, "Come on, Yun, just let me make sure you're safe."

Yun shook his head in refusal, "Not if you're leaving Mr. Jiaoqiu. That's absolutely out of the question!"

"Ughhhh, 🚚, why am I the only one around here who can be 🚚ing selfish?" y/n groaned before shaking her head, "Whatever, fine, but you have to listen to me. Every single thing I tell you to do. Got it?"

Yun began to nod, only to freeze and pin his ears back when his gaze landed on something behind y/n.

She looked back, and tensed at the sight of one of the borisin disguised as a foxian, likely there to make sure they weren't trying to escape.

The borisin in disguise sneered, "Don't even think about making a run for it, otherwise we'll kill this runt—" she began reaching out for Yun, only for y/n to grab her by the wrist. The borisin's snarling tone quickly shifted into a blood curdling scream and y/n immediately retracted her hand as the creature began writhing and clawing at herself.

Yun covered his ears and hid behind his sister while the flabbergasted trailblazer watched the borisin scream and make a ruckus, stumbling into another stall before the screaming died down.

They pair sat there in silence before y/n hesitantly got up to investigate, peeking into the stall and finding a clump of fur and flesh on the ground. No sign of the borisin.

"Y-Y/n? What happened?" Yun called hesitantly.

Y/n carefully picked up the little blob, and poked it. A mouth appeared and the screams started right back up again, prompting her to chuck it into the toilet and flush it— the screams devolving into gurgles as the blob was washed away.

"It's nothing, let's just go."

The pair hurried back to the port as requested, meeting up with Jiaoqiu who looked relieved to see them, "Ha, for a second I thought you'd run