the air sticks to his lungs, thickens his windpipe and chokes the soldier as he trudges blindly forward. feet drag through the grass, his boots long since worn thin and weakened through the mindless surge forwards. geshu lin has been awake for weeks, now. he thinks it's been weeks. it feels like months - maybe even years - that he's been walking for. that he's been lost in an unrecognisable mimicry of the place he used to call home - the very ground he'd given his life to protect for just a little while longer.
or, so he thought.
the soldier doesn't notice the increasing signs of civilisation, doesn't notice the children in out skirting villages and settlements as they watch an exhausted man walk despite the blood clinging to his clothes and skin. he doesn't notice the blisters forming on the soles of his feet or the cuts and scrapes pulling at old scars. geshu lin almost doesn't notice when he draws face to face with golden eyes and teal hair.
almost.
jiyan stands taller now, he thinks. jiyan has a weight to his steps now, he thinks. jiyan is stood in front of him again, he realises.
"...jiyan?" the soldier's voice comes in a rasp - something that tears at his throat and barely reaches its way towards the intended target. dull eyes shine with something unreadable as hand draped with tangled and torn bandages reaches out towards the doctor - towards the only thing the general finds he can still recognise. knees buckle beneath him, malnutrition and dehydration coiling around the resonator and pulling him down, down, down until he's prostrate before the other man. "why... why have you come here...?" -> @qiloong :)
