A Blade and an Arrow

I Have Faith In What I Feel

Mu Qing hops down from his mane, amusingly observing the carving tools and a bunch of papers filled with the same words over and over again scatter around the grass. He walks around it, almost stepping on a used brush with an already dried ink and shakes his head.

He picks it up, randomly snatches a paper to wrap it around the bristles and sighs to himself, mutely kneeling down to fix the papers in a pile as not to litter more. "I can't believe I arrived to such disgusting place."

"You've only just arrived and now you're judging me."

He snorts, rolling his eyes and dumps the papers beside the man sitting cross-legged on the blanket sprawled on the grass. "It's not my fault you're so messy." He glances at the large bow on his lap as he puts his hands on his hips. "What are all these anyway? What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, love?" Feng Xin looks up, a sloppy grin plastered on his face before he brushes the bow with his hand. Mu Qing quirks a brow upon seeing the unfinished carving of the words he saw written on the papers. "It doesn't look like much. I'm not sure what I'm doing either."

"Clearly." Mu Qing removes the sheathed saber from his waist belt, uncaringly throwing it infront of them as he sits beside his beloved. "What's this for anyway?"

"Something to remind me of you?" Feng Xin shrugs, lifting up his bow, stretching his arms and mimics his usual stance when he shoots an arrow as he pulls the string taut with his finger. "You already fill my mind every second of the day but - I don't know. I don't really know what I'm doing." He snorts, Mu Qing rolls his eyes with a faint smile. "But here, when I shoot, I could see the words in my line of vision-" He softly traces the words, measured straight facing his eyes without having to tilt his head either up or down. "Then I could also imagine you were there with me."

Goodness, this wasn't good for Mu Qing's weak heart.

"Hm. What made you do this in the first place anyway?" The silverette questions as the archer resumes carving the final characters in the bow, even humming to himself.

"You?" Feng Xin answers in an as-a-matter-of-fact tone, as if the answer should have been obvious enough even for a child. Grinning wider once he was finished and showed the latter his work. "If you tell me it's weird I'm hitting you with this."

"It's not - It's not really!" Mu Qing laughs, covering half his face with his hand when Feng Xin frowns, laughs even harder when he earned a roll of eyes.

"Be nice."

"It's okay, I guess." Mu Qing replies, staring at the words in wonder and interest. "But what's so special about this anyway? Why these?"

"Because it just sounds right."

"Doesn't even make sense to me."

"I don't care what makes sense to you. I care what sounds right to me." Feng Xin pats the silverette's cheek, smiling. "It's my bow."

"Whatever. Sap."

"You should do the same with the hilt of your saber!" Feng Xin drops the bow, hastily reaching out for the said blade and Mu Qing kicks it farther away from them. "Hey!"

"I'm not carving such nonsense to my perfectly good zhanmadao." Mu Qing scowls, crossing his arms as he glares at the carvings. "Besides, what does that even mean?"

Feng Xin pouts at the blade, seemingly sad for a moment before he turns back to the silverette. "I thought you were supposed to be smart?"

Mu Qing vaguely thinks that it wasn't fair when Feng Xin's acting all lovey dovey in the worst way possible. Humphing, he uncrosses his arms. "I'm not, idiot."