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un: absterge | video, might as well get a show with your wake-up
( The stage, set: pale dawns drowning fair maiden Emilia's boudoir, mid-invasion. The lady, aghast, but bravely holding back (onto?) Wrath — one of three gentlemen drenched in chimney soot for their orgy visit.
RIP: four porcelain bowls shattered on the floor, a wall stabbed with dining cutlery, a decapitated statue, inked parchment (protective, silent) littered on the balcony and ceiling spreads. A table broke its back to sweeten Jiang Cheng's fall. The man himself lies sprawled or scratching (unclear). Chimney bricks are still coughing down into the fireplace.
In the midst of the chaos, a dishevelled Lan Wangji — perched precipitously on the back of a chair — calls for silence. A heartbeat later, he sets the communicator closer to the balcony, so that everyone who neglected to turn off their device overnight can bask in the shouting and screaming of anti-Macaluso protesters outside.
Enjoy a minute of that. Violence is good for the ears. )
The lady's quarters — ( ...quite. ) ...lack vantage. What stokes their anger?
( And then, an awkward pause later: )
Morning's greetings.backdated to the first day of protests. Enjoy your 5:10am wake-up call, in between the ruckus of Jiang Cheng, Lan Wangji and Wrath slipping down the wrong chimney into Emilia's quarters, and Macaludo's protesters raising a storm. Just. Enjoy that. )
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he'd hoped for a backup plan, but looks like he's got roof duty for the duration. It's fine, he'll sleep when he's dead. ]
Noted.
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You have made your qualm my own.
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however later the following night, the sound of a xiao, drifting from the rooftop, infused with powerful healing spiritual energy, might be disturbing to a sensitive person's sleep. ]
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And he hunts. Night groans wide and dark around him, its maws incomprehensibly feral. They grind, teeth blunt, and he feels himself the morsel, drifting indelibly between labour of leisure and chase of duty, knowing qi scattered, intent wasted. Sorcery compels and enshrouds him, familiar.
Musical mending, as the healers of Gusu Lan practise it — the prowess of Cloud Recesses, alchemically injected as the substance set to fill the form of mistress Wen's abilities. He knows it, like itch beneath skin, claws ribboning flesh.
And then, rooftops scouted, talismans screaming with proximity to the source of magical burst, he finds him: Wen Kexing, frail under the bloodied eye of an abortive moon, half misted. A poor target, when Lan Wangji breaks his land in a fleeting crouch to bide his footing on oiled tile, before he rises securely.
Tense, on the unsheathing: Bichen's blade reveals herself like teeth of winter pallor in a hag's strained grin. A comfortable, if tenuous weight: Wangji weighs, then directs her, first at Wen Kexing's xiao — humble greetings, and fond recollection of Zewu-Jun's — then at the narrow, trembled line of his throat.
Short of touch. Short of intent. Tension slicks Wangji's hand like sleet. Like carnage, taste of iron distant. This is not his cause to defend, not his territory. He owes no blood shed. And yet: ]
Crawl back.
[ If the healing were sufficient, it would be played to its intended. Wen Kexing plays to his own futility. Cowards earn no right of audience. ]
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Thus he's startled by the intrusion, still more by the sword at his throat. Just what has he done to annoy the man, other than play music too late at night? Just sleep, idiot, and bathe in the spiritual healing; it's no one's problem but his own, that he's cast a wide net.
He pulls the xiao from his lips. ]
Not a music lover?
[ Ordinarily he's welcome the opportunity to spar, to physically work out his myriad frustrations. But his spiritual energy is, as noted, depleted. So he just leans backwards, to dodge the sword and roll out of the way. ]
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Instinct teases him, coaxes the fledgling glimpses of momentum — he dips, leaning to preserve the spread of his physical distance to Wen Kexing, but remembers himself (his wayward, roof-challenged balance) at the last moment. Withdraws, bones and posture stirred, night's whispered wind crawling in latent, sparked shivers that lick his back.
The xiao stalls. Brother might have defended the play. Stark, crepuscular differences in comfort, artistry, strategy. In how the xiao fails to extend Wen Kexing's arm in the proprietary, soul-bound way of Gusu Lan predilection. It sits a splintered instrument, a part independent of the whole.
It strikes him a romantic folly, to pity the flute. He bides Wen Kexing's time to reassemble himself standing, then: ]
You seek that which you waste.
[ Wen Kexing requires, no doubt, more than is freely available to him. And yet. ]
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[ He stands. Balanced perfectly on the rooftop's apex, he brushes his long hair back and rearranges his clothes, tucking the xiao into his lapels. ]
Saving your words as if they were gold pieces, don't you ever worry about being misunderstood? Tsk, tsk! "You seek what you waste," what is that supposed to mean? Wasting music, can't I play under the stars for my own sake? Wasting energy, isn't it my own to squander also? I'm not hurting anybody, so why are you chasing me with a sword, this seems unjust! Or do you harbor some kind of ill intent or improper feelings towards me?
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Like every crow or craven, Wen Kexing withdraws and casts his first concerns the way of his vanity, shielding his body from harm, then his shadow from unrighteous shape. The xiao's lacquered hide glistens, doling a parting wink, then crawls back, burrowed in his robes.
In a bounty of dark, Lan Wangji's gaze scatter, seeing only flimsy morsels of presentation. The truth evades him, his blade Bichen drawing a scattered arc, then settling rigid at his side.
He says —
Intends nothing.
— says, after: ]
Who hurts?
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Who hurts, isn't that me?
[ Raising his eyes and his voice, he recites: ]
Standing alone at the edge of the sky, I weep for distant places!
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He does not flinch with the passing shiver, does not surrender posture. On white wings, birds soar and scatter in rash indication that the scalding current of chimneys, stoked, has called close creatures that begrudge the spring chills. Here, leaves evergreen, he is told they know nothing of winter.
Here, barely the scandal of five layers enshrouding him, menacing one man and the smear of his broken shape on an idle rooftop, Lan Wangji knows nothing of himself. ( And what would Wei Ying say? Do not befriend evil, but also, pass the wine. )
He tips his head, yields the one truth: ]
Your eyes come dry.
[ Extrapolated, for he cannot see the abyss of them, dark. But Wen Kexing's cheeks haven't been ploughed by fresh, trembled waters — that much, natural pallor and licks of moonlight reveal him. ]
You fled a man unscratched by wounding.
[ The one who hurts is not Wen Kexing.
The one who weeks is not Wen Kexing.
The one who lies is — ]