video; man's greatest treasure (after the blood rains stop)

[reparo]

[The video isn't accidental this time, and focuses on Hermione - her face rosy-cheeked and smiling, actually smiling.


To the observant eye, one can tell she's in the old, dilapidated house that some people used during the final battle in Hatthevar as a sort of refuge. (It's the Macarena house.)]

Friends - ah, I've been thinking all day what I'd say to us all after a battle as final and difficult and hard as this one. I didn't get to say this to my friends back home, I didn't get the chance to say this to Harry, but...here goes.

Well done. You did your best, and you somehow saved the day. Look at this place. Look at this world! I know the beacons are being repaired, so it's still sometime before we leave but I think we could say we're leaving it better than we found it?

[Like it's hard. She lets out a tiny laugh.]

Also, I think - and I'm not taking any feedback on this - that I've earned myself this.

[The view focuses on the floor, where she is sitting currently, and specifically on a half-empty bottle of wine. Hermione gone wild.]

Comments

[reparo]

And I definitely stole the wine. From the train. It was after our conversation and - well, I thought I'd make sure there would be wine that we could open for a very different wedding.

[You know whose, poultry people.]

[weifinder]

( He smiles at that; ah yes, he can understand and remember when, reminded like this. )

Yes, well, don't know that any of us can be so exciting as dream people trying to become more nuanced than the dreams that bore them, but I do think there are other lovely ceremonies we can all witness.

( A pause, where he then quirks his brows upward and sends her a mischievous sort of look. )

Which means you and I simply will have to figure out crossing worlds for when you find someone worth walking your life's path with — I wouldn't want to miss that celebration!

[reparo]

Lan Wangji seems convinced that if anyone can find a way to cross the worlds again and find each other, it'd be us - and Emilia. And I want to - you know? I need to return to my time and place, yes, but the idea of never seeing some of you again fills me with dread.

[weifinder]

Oh yes, certainly including Emilia, she's likely to figure a way first, ah?

Even if our paths should not cross again, then we can know we've all weighed on each other's souls and been found more than enough and in good company while we did share the same path.

[reparo]

That sounds like a veritable toast, and yet here you are not toasting with me.

[weifinder]

( here he smiles, canting his head to the side. )

Are we drinking from bottles, cups, or bowls?

[reparo]

I will transfigure you whatever receptacle you want, Wei Wuxian.

[weifinder]

Oh? Now who can turn down that generosity! I'll be over before long, count on it!

[reparo]

I do. I am. You better be!

SOME TIME LATER...

[weifinder]

( he knocks, by which he really kicks the lower region of the door because his hands are full, but politely, just with his toe. twice. )

Miss Hermione! I come bearing gifts!

VERILY THE TIME IS LATER AND NOT NOW

[reparo]

[She has not finished the bottle, miraculously, and therefore is capable - this time - of wandering over in a hurried fashion to open the flimsy door. A brilliant grin splits her face, and she is buzzing, buzzing, buzzing - but in a controlled, tipsy-not-utterly-pissed, happy kind of way.]

My favourite grandmaster of cultivation. Welcome to what is soon to no longer be our safehouse.

[weifinder]

( With the door open, and Hermione visibly enjoying her alcohol without having fallen off into utter inebriation, Wei Wuxian smiles and holds out one of the gifts: a jar of wine. Even as he bows, all smiles and dark hair and nice clean robes. So nice and clean. )

I also have talismans for you to take with you, I'm sure we can go over those later. I was so curious if they'd work remotely as expected back in the logic and laws your world seems to have. Ah!

( There he goes, sweeping in politely after, and stepping off to the side. )

Are you defending your floors? I thought I heard something about them just being clean, I wasn't sure what that'd mean.

( Long live ancient fantasy China, where the concept of taking off your shoes was mostly for bed. Trust no floor to be that clean. )

[reparo]

Ah, wonderful - might finally understand the big deal about rice wine. [She shakes the jar a little, as if listening for it, and grins.] Is it rice wine? I'm assuming here.

[She waves her hand at him not to worry, and gestures to her own feet - beshoed.]

Keep them on, we're not in my home. The house is empty and therefore the floors are cold. Sit, sit. Bowls for this? Or cups?

[She did promise a transfiguration lesson, after all. And on that note, the gesture of talismans is finally registered and her expression softens.]

I made coins for Wrath in Alem, which were meant to act as a sort of quick and covert messaging system. I - I've been planning to give you one. And Lan Wangji. If you intend to - I don't know, do you intend to drink the memory potion? I am.

[weifinder]

Wasn't from what I could tell, but you'll understand, wine tends to be named and is less often you know... what's in it, if it's not apparent when you taste it. Could be rice, could be barley, could be fruits, could be anything!

Goes down smooth, and that's what matters!

( There's been some rough rough stuff to drink over the last few years. )

Cup sized bowls? Like lower teacups, with no handle?

( Lily and Hermione both have introduced him to the idea of teacups in their particular usages, so he has a baseline to compare.

Teacups of alcohol. It's all fair. Though as her own offer, her own bringing up of the memory potion hits, his shoulders relax, and his features settle into a softened, smiling version of his usual cheer. )

Miss Hermione, we'd both be honoured. Beyond honoured. The both of us... we want to remember. Everything.

( Which is not strictly... kind. It's painful. It hurts. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. It's bloody.

He wouldn't give up a moment of what he recalls of the last few years for all but the return of those who can never come back — and after resurrection becoming a reality he intimately participates in here? No. He wouldn't wish that on them either, not the horror of recalling their own deaths, not the binds that tie. )