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audio | un: chengmei

Those dead people-- They talk a lot. Always the same talk. [From the sound of it, he finds said talk pretty tedious.] Restless dead. Arha won't shut up. I think his woman is being a-- [The sound cuts out as something that sounds like a paper wrapper is rustled loudly right by the stone] Pissed him off. Someone did. So they talk abo--

[A sudden pause, and then there are some quiet sounds, much like a piece of hard candy would make when pushed into a mouth and moved around by a tongue.]

...it's not sweet.

[This, in fact, is way more alarming news than whatever else he may have been about to tell.]

Why isn't it sweet? What is this useless place?! Why can't I taste?!

[That went from zero to a hundred on the barely interested to intense anger scale, and then the voice starts getting quieter, as if its owner has just up and walked away.]

Daozhang? Daozhang! I need you~ Where is-- Ah, right.

[With that, the voice becomes louder again, evidently having decided this thing might still be useful after all. Together with the stone, he also pick up on his long abandoned train of thought.]

Ah! Right, right, I forgot to say~! They want to kill you. Dunno why. Loooots of blah blah.

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You'll just have to be surprised.

( so dryly stated, though he is indeed heading out, downwards, to the edges, fully dressed again and cleaned up from the running around enough to not look a total mess. )

Shame.

[Whatever he means by that, but here he is, getting up from where he'd squatted near the ground and looking at him. It's a peculiar experience, and not one he can suppress as easily as when it was just a voice.

He knows he's dead. He's not even surprised at having died. Being here, that's the shock that he hasn't actually registered yet, but his resilience pushes him to move past it. It's different actually looking at the Yiling Patriarch, something that makes it both feel more real and surreal. Still, he finally just shakes his head, blinks and tries to focus on the present.]

How are you, laozu? Less bothered by bears, at least.

( Xue Yang is, unfortunately, actually here. It's more of a headache because in Wei Wuxian's experience, he's someone who doesn't truly learn the whys of not doing something that fits his fancy, or why Xiao Xingchen had chosen soul destruction as the cost of everything Xue Yang happily led him to do, as if lies being used to twist a good man's deeds to horror made the system a joke, and not the manipulator. )

The bear's found warmer reception with Master Su, as it is.

( ... It is a little more strange to be staring at someone who knows they're dead, is actually dead, and is resurrected in the form of walking death here; Wei Wuxian steps forward, expression difficult to read. )

Let's have a look at you, then.

[He spreads out his arms as if presenting himself, indeed specifically moving the arm that had not been attached when coming here. With a vague movement of his head, indicating their surroundings, he gives some explanation.]

They put me back together.

[No holes, arm there, but no life either. Not entirely, at least. Fierce corpse of some kind, he supposes.]

What do you think, laozu? Feel free to touch.

( His eyes give Xue Yang a cursory once over, and then he steps closer, taking the invitation with a hum and capturing one of Xue Yang's warms to place his fingers to his pulse. It's a trickle of qi he slides into Xue Yang's system, getting a sense for what he feels.

... No really, what does he feel. We don't know. We have to ask. ASSUMED: a familiar but altered system far more like that of someone missing soul, and filled with resentment, than a usual person out and around. Doing living things.

Anyway Xue Yang's getting felt up via pulse, that's happening. )

Impressive. A nod to Anurr.

[While Xue Yang still does not entirely understand what has happened to him ~~it shall be asked about in detail at some point~~, he knows how this feels and his reaction isn't unlike as if, for whatever strange reason, he had been felt up by Wei Wuxian physically.

He raises his eyebrows a little, obviously suggestive, as is his quiet laugh.]

Ah, laozu. This has been helpful already. I know some things still work.

Mm. Your tongue, for one.

( Is the upbeat sound paired with little more than a grim not-smile, as Wei Wuxian steps back, considering. )

How is your ability to scent?

In some ways it does.

[Just tasting, that's not the way he wants it to be. Are undead supposed to just live without sweets? How is that fair? What justice is that?]

I can scent. Soap, not bear, on you. And blood everywhere.

( Undead aren't supposed to really live at all, mind, but since this is an undead party, Wei Wuxian looks pointedly thoughtful. One other thing of note to him was Anurr had been in conflict with Unhalad: whose hunger was great.

He wonders if it would have been different if Arche and Unhalad had somehow put Xue Yang in all his parts together again, but Anurr did have... hm. )

Anurr didn't mention if you'd have any difficulties with heat, did he?

( There might be multiple things happening, but it can also be that too new to come back, taste wasn't yet reconnected to the ability to smell, thus leaving it dampened and deadened. Or it was Anurr's cost, he who had not appreciated the hunger of Unhalad. Or he was too frozen with his heart not open. /cue Madonna )

Didn't mention much at all. He doesn't seem big on talking, does he?

[Maybe he'd have to talk to him again, he has a few things to ask and a lot to ascertain, but he needs to think this through. The dead, by and large, are as unreliable as the living, unless handled right.]

Have you talked to him? Anurr.

[The way he speaks makes it seem as if he has.]

What do you know of him?

From before or after he'd been running around as Haltham? He's the vengeance of the cold and the mountain for all I'd say, to be dramatic.

( The way undeath operates here is particularly... hm. )

Anurr isn't one person, from what I can tell, but the sum of all who've turned to him. Those who are his burn with cold and more awareness than Unhalad's did, more coherent. You're not his, at present; you're too much yourself if he's not puppetting you as surely as he is his current bodyform.

( Wei Wuxian doesn't sound terribly bothered by any of this, but it has been months, and he's shown categorical differences between what spirits are drawing attention (not the normal people filled with their normal resentments, in the citadel) and the whole concept and conceit of themselves. )

That he came along with all of you... ( Means yes, Wei Wuxian has Suspicions about Anurr's desire to be here, and Arha, oh, Arha, he must look tasty indeed. Anyway, he doesn't particularly feel like talking to Anurr prior to now, not since it was all veneers peeled back, as there are too many deathlords around and Arche sort of consumed the competition. )

[As he listens, Xue Yang is quiet, his expression more serious than usual, actual focus in his eyes that isn't mostly that spark of nothing good and a too wide smile. He is trying to understand, for obvious reasons, beyond simple professional interest. With all that Wei Wuxian is saying, he has a lot of questions to ask himself.

Not just himself, potentially.]

Maybe I should get to know Anurr better, then.

[If he is to understand himself and if he is to grow beyond that.]

Laozu, you are helpful as ever. [He bows his head in what might be a mocking gesture, but perhaps it is just difficult for him to seem sincere.] How fortunate to be here with you.

( Mocking or not, Wei Wuxian doesn't care about the performance of niceties, not from Xue Yang of all people. His look is generally disaffected, his body posture relaxed; his eyes are watching, but nothing of him is surprising, just noting. )

That's your business, but I'd think it wouldn't hurt to know the being that raised you.

( ... in the second living death sense, not the... parental sense. Unless Xue Yang is about to have a very wild association with Anurr. )

Yangyang. With regards to my martial uncle—remember why it is you came to me asking for help fixing his soul. Give him your name. Let him take it and weigh it against what truth you tell him; but if you continue the lie of your crafting, the one you killed Song Lan, A-Qing, and the people of Yi City for, I will do that telling for you.

( He holds up a hand, palm facing Xue Yang. He entirely doubts he'll be listening at all. Some things need saying for the knowledge of what's been said. )

We won't escape our own accountings. How poorly they go, and how we face the fallout, is something we'll inevitably learn.

( It's coming for you eventually, Xue Yang, but he'll give you a chance to do one decent thing in your second life before his martial uncle ends up dead. )

[Wei Wuxian's words are followed by a myriad of emotions being reflected on his face, most of them entirely too complex for him to have true awareness of them. Sadness, loss, perhaps even guilt that he can't process. His chest feels tight in that painful way and with his eyes that little bit too wide, it keeps him from proving whether the undead can cry or not.]

Isn't he better off like this?

[And why shouldn't he have those moments again, of Xingchen caring for who he thinks him to be? What harm does it do that Xingchen feels the way he does around him, compared to the harm it might do if he knew? He fears little, but while it is selfish not to want to lose, he is terrified of the disgust on his face, of the sword cutting Xingchen's face, of his body being cold and lifeless again, not only out of that selfishness.

At some point, maybe long ago by now, he has stopped wanting to hurt Xingchen. However, all he has ever been is pain and death, and he has woven it around them both too well. Just as planned.]

Fuck off! Why tell him?! [The anger is an easier emotion to cling to, but his grip isn't firm even so. The cursing has no bite behind it, hus face already having fallen again.

He wants comfort, so he wants Xingchen. Where else has he ever known it?]

He'll hurt.

( Yes, lying to people he cares about, and twisted as everything about Xue Yang is, he won't deny the man cares about Xiao Xingchen (and something shifted, from caring to break him to caring he didn't break but would somehow change to laugh at the same absurdities of having things like respect for human life or common decency) and they'd all collapsed, under that desperate, haunted and sad madness.

He doesn't feel pity for Xue Yang, not beyond the awareness of this man digging his own graves and never once thinking that might not be as hilarious as it sounds. )

He'll hurt. So tell me, Yangyang, will he hurt more or less if he doesn't hear it from you first?

( No negotiation. Xiao Xingchen will be told, and this is the only grace Wei Wuxian will offer his murderer.

Tell him first, or else. )

[His face is blank for a moment, then he frowns and finally lifts his shoulders in a gesture indicating a lot of insecure ignorance.]

Good question.

[Would he be more likely to believe it directly from him? Maybe. Is that a good thing? Who knows?

He can try and make a plan. They tend to work better than he ends up wanting them to.]

I'll simply make sure he slices my throat, not his own. Makes more sense anyway. Silly daozhang.

( Not silly, horribly broken, but he's sighing internally with the exhaustion of a man who has so much other shit to deal with, and now he's worried about this nutcase. What it does to the stability of a man he drove to seeking his own death in a way that fully shattered his soul.

So worried over souls these days. )

... Best have me come with when you tell him. I won't object if he does, mind.

( But he won't want his martial uncle alone for that either, and shitty as it is, they don't have A-Qing or Song Lan around. )

Let's see, shall we?

[Xue Yang has his own thoughts on what's best here, but that's not what can happen, unless he could separate Xiao Xingchen from everyone else, unless he could find a way to keep him to himself. That seems like the best way to avoid pain.

But he does accept that it seems unlikely that he can make that happen, so he'll think about it.

Think about when he's ready for the last time Xingchen will smile at him. At who he thinks him to be.

Does it feel better, the thought that Xingchen may live this time? Be whole? Maybe.

That he'll move on? Even the thought makes him sneer, so he lowers his head and shakes it slightly, trying to push back on whatever it is he feels. A complex mix of emotions, none of which feel good.]

As long as he lives.

We will.

( See, that is. This isn't something he's comfortable with not following through on, not for the sake of people he cared about, not for the sake of the injustice he's seen play out in other people's memories, in the confusion of their own unstable minds. )

As long as he lives, even without you.

( Which is the greater point: )

His living has to matter more than what you want for yourself. You tell him the truth. He gets to decide everything beyond that. Understood?

( Take the gamble, because the only way this goes down with anything approaching good will on Xue Yang's side is by Xue Yang owning up to it without the cracked derangement of a man laughing over his best, terrible joke, having destroyed all another man believes in, and telling him he'd done it willingly, not questioning assumptions about what was true. )

When he knows, his living is the only thing that matters to me that I could still want for myself. What else could I get then? His living. That's all.

[He scoffs, rolling his eyes at everything being said, because it is easy to act derisive and difficult to truly let the meaning of it all sink in. Borrowed time, he already knew that, but even more limited now. All he wants is to touch and to feel and to not be alone, be with him.

For a while longer then. Just one more laugh for him. Just one more night against a warm body, until it's lost to him]

When I start hurting someone, I don't stop. So, yes. You best be there.

[He does know himself that well.]

Edited 2021-08-03 21:35 (UTC)

( ... Maybe he should just tell Lan Zhan right now. Is the repeated death going to be better. He thinks maybe it is, but at the same time, Xingchen. Handling affairs of two dead men who aren't dead, and one who is only having a passing familiarity with sanity, is giving him a headache enough as it is.

Staring at Xue Yang, his expression is... flat. )

Then I will be. You have two weeks.

( Because they need a resolution on this nonsense before they're too deep into Taravast, and early on, ah, that's when the meltdowns will be acceptable. In whatever unknown roles they'll be taking on there. )

[It's met with an equally flat, but much less justified look, not that he cares.

Then he just huffs, rolls his eyes, does everything that might be expected from a child, and then turns on the spot, walking off while accompanying it with a rude gesture over his shoulder.]

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