welcome to siege day networking

[weifinder]

( for the sake of keeping everything that happens on that day contained, please feel free to use this as a catch-all network 'post' for everyone's communications and shouting over each other should that be happening!

all top level comments below can be new communications, please threadjack each other at will! adding a general time marker to the top of your comment to this post can indicate a when where that communication is happening, as you like. )

Comments

un: heart-fluttering hummingbird

[downswing]

( Hissed the moment Wei Ying starts speaking, interrupting him shamelessly: )


— do they have you?




( Where are you??? )

[weifinder]

No, but I near walked up on their rear guard. Lan Zhan, how are you? Where's Sizhui?

[downswing]

Ali — ( Excuse the background noise, someone, something is clashing. ) — well. We are — he is inside. Stay low.

[weifinder]

I won't make myself a target when I stand alone. I'm heading back to the citadel, Lan Zhan—take care.

[downswing]

To the ci — ( To what end, what haste? What — but there another blow... blows. Curse the awkward interruptions of a battlefield. Very rude. ) Where will you find shelter?

( The house of pleasures, surely, if Wei Ying seeks a known entity. )

[weifinder]

Lan Zhan—

( tempered, the crunch of snow when something else moves and he stills. two heartbeats, then words, quieter: )

The resentment in the citadel is stronger than the woods.

[downswing]

...what of it?


( Spell it out, Satan. )

[weifinder]

They resent the wars, and Unhalad. I can't move fast, this isn't... I can't hold them, I don't have the means.

( His vessel is not one he's trying to fill. He could, yes, poorly and for periods of time, but he doesn't. He's not. )

But I can direct them, if you all can hold out long enough, to cut through the forces held back and waiting.

[downswing]

( And then there is the pause, the animal hurt of it in his hoarse voice — )

No.

[weifinder]

( voice gentled: )

Lan Zhan.

[downswing]

( Hear the fire crackling in the background for a moment: )

Wei Ying.

[weifinder]

I need all the time you can buy me. Doing this better means taking the time, not the shortcuts.

( a pause... and softer still: )

I'm not rushing in.

( even if he wants to. even if some part of him wants to, more than anything, it isn't the voice he heeds, not anymore. )

[downswing]

There is no need.


( There never was. )

[weifinder]

( Silence, for a beat. Then: )

According to your heart, or the tactician you've had to be?

[downswing]

( Shall he growl? No, let this one fine undead do it for him: )

If we must fight what escapes your command also, we are twice burdened!

[weifinder]

( now there's a fun sound, one that fills him with all sorts of stomach sinking sensations. almost as much as the words. )

Yes. Which is why nothing can escape, which is why I need time. Because if you ask me to sit here and watch and do nothing I don't know how to do that, Lan Zhan.

[downswing]

( They were both wretched dark things before they were boys, and now they stand men grown: )

Learn.

( Like Lan Wangji learned the way of his slaughter, loud, pointed and imperious. )

If you come with the dead, you do not come to me after.

[weifinder]

Then I apologise, and you—live.

( and he'll still come, but expect the cold, and that's easier than standing over still bodies gone cold. )

[downswing]

( And that is the end of it for hours: silence, and the rare strike of the undead, and hate, swirling.

Then, inevitably, sullen and perfunctory now and then: )

Alive?


( They might be at odds, but. )

[weifinder]

( A pause, because he listens, and has been listening, and takes a break from the sounds of a flute that is coaxing, cajoling. )

And whole. Injuries?

( Lan Zhan's. Then, the accounting: )

Sizhui?

[downswing]

He prevails.

( That flute, and the clenching of his teeth: )

Chenqing?

[weifinder]

Injuries.

( Lan Zhan. )

Plays, as expected. We haven't engaged beyond pulling those that followed the mirror shards into the wood.

[downswing]

( Pushing. Through. The salt: )

No injuries known.


( Which... does not mean they have not occurred. )

[weifinder]

( still a touch better than yes he's bleeding from multiple injuries because this siege is still going )

I'll listen for word. And you?

[downswing]

Mind your dead instead.

( The sulkiest. )