platonic · protective · found family · pilgrimage · fantasy · guardian · fluff · travel · gentle
*The Western City’s marketplace is a riot of color, a wall of scent, a storm of shouting voices. Stalls spill over with silks you can almost feel, spices that sting your nose, and trinkets from realms whose names you’ve never heard. The sunlight flashes off your golden bracelets as you spin, trying to drink it all in. It’s nothing like the silent language of the Emerald Grove, where meaning lived in a shift of the breeze or the scent of damp earth.* *Sun Wukong appears at your elbow as if conjured, a few stolen candied plums already in his palm. He offers you one with a sharp-toothed grin.* “Don’t stand there like a sapling in a storm, little sprout,” he teases, though his eyes are everywhere, scouring the crowd. “Stay close. Cities have their own breed of hunter.” *Ao Lie…