[Today, there is no softness... at least not on the outside. It never goes away, really, because Xu Shu's heart is gentle and kind and he wants to help the land change for the better. Protecting others and guiding them? Most of his desires focus around these ideals. Even during his wilder youth, when he'd made many mistakes in anger, that had been why.]
[That past is better put behind him but now Xu Shu is accepting that it cannot be. Shan Fu is a part of him whether he likes it or not. What did he always tell himself? 'I'm not running from my past, I just want to change myself.' It may be that the change he's sought has been the wrong kind this entire time. Mitsuhide, Tenkai, Daud and Cassie... all have filled his head in different ways and he has no real set idea anymore of what he needs to be in the future, but for now? For this time, this place, this moment?]
[It's time to put on an 'old face,' to do something he's not done in absolute years and draw on the parts of himself he doesn't like. Shan Fu. Still Xu Shu, but with more heat and temper and a willingness to fix things with steel. Anyone who knows him knows that Xu Shu is talented with a sword but they do not, in truth, know the extent of it. Not at all. Hood up so only his lips are visible, sat cross-legged with his sword across his lap and a roaring fire before him, he waits right in the centre of a forest clearing. It seems like an oddly exposed place to be but there are reasons for it.]
WARRING FACES
[That past is better put behind him but now Xu Shu is accepting that it cannot be. Shan Fu is a part of him whether he likes it or not. What did he always tell himself? 'I'm not running from my past, I just want to change myself.' It may be that the change he's sought has been the wrong kind this entire time. Mitsuhide, Tenkai, Daud and Cassie... all have filled his head in different ways and he has no real set idea anymore of what he needs to be in the future, but for now? For this time, this place, this moment?]
[It's time to put on an 'old face,' to do something he's not done in absolute years and draw on the parts of himself he doesn't like. Shan Fu. Still Xu Shu, but with more heat and temper and a willingness to fix things with steel. Anyone who knows him knows that Xu Shu is talented with a sword but they do not, in truth, know the extent of it. Not at all. Hood up so only his lips are visible, sat cross-legged with his sword across his lap and a roaring fire before him, he waits right in the centre of a forest clearing. It seems like an oddly exposed place to be but there are reasons for it.]
['I'll be where the rabbits once were.']