![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
un : deft hand of little deaths (voice)
So, I talked to An- to Haltham.
[Is it a good idea to use Anurr's name on the network? Probably not, so let's stick to the other one. Most people know who this refers to anyway.]
Now, I'm not saying we should do what he asked because well, these people are still people, and they were enslaved a long time, and it feels only fair that they should be able to choose what they want to do with themselves.
But he says he might be able to help with their pain.
Except he also said that he doesn't know yet how.
.... That's not very helpful, is it? Sorry.
[Is it a good idea to use Anurr's name on the network? Probably not, so let's stick to the other one. Most people know who this refers to anyway.]
Now, I'm not saying we should do what he asked because well, these people are still people, and they were enslaved a long time, and it feels only fair that they should be able to choose what they want to do with themselves.
But he says he might be able to help with their pain.
Except he also said that he doesn't know yet how.
.... That's not very helpful, is it? Sorry.
no subject
( It was a very literal feeling he spoke of, a coldness that was inherent in the spirit animating whatever flesh container it was housed within.
The rocking of the boat has a certain naturalness to it for his sake, but he spies the moment Xie Lian is overbalanced backward, and he lurches to catch his arm and pull him toward his chest. The two of them topple over in a tangle of limbs the other direction, into the bottom of the gondola. Water splashes up the sides and sloshes high enough to catch them in its spray, but between the gondolier and their steadying by stick and spread legs, no one goes overboard.
For now.
Wei Wuxian, however, wheezes, patting at Xie Lian's back. )
You're uninjured?
no subject
[He's honestly so used to being around very powerful ghosts, Anurr basically registers as one of them.
Ah, but then the saving happens, and the falling in a tangle of limbs, and Xie Lian immediately tries to get up very quickly.]
I'm sorry! I'm fine! Are you alright?
... These things tend to happen around me.
no subject
( It's a driving force, and that says something, is what he's trying to point out.
And then they're aches and wheezes and a hand waved at Xie Lian, not trying to get up himself: )
's fine! Fine.
( while the gondolier lifts pole and begins to take them where Wei Wuxian first queried, fairly certain they're drunk. )
no subject
[He kind of always figured that those who are related share the same type of energy... Maybe it's not as widespread knowledge as he thought. From what he knows, a god and their minor gods share the same type of qi, so it would work the same for ghosts, and then these undead feel a bit like ghosts... He is not quite learned enough in the intricacies of this. It's just a thing he sort of took for granted as fact.
He's going to help Wei Wuxian sit up and vaguely dust him off.]
What about the ones here? How many did you save, and what does their energy feel like?
no subject
( It's not a yin condition, which yes, would be normal for spirits; losing yang energy to the life they lost, until they're overwhelmingly yin. But this wasn't an energy alignment of the same kind, though given they have a dedicated gondolier, he avoids talking too directly as they take their own seats post being randomly dusted. He returns the favour, patting Xie Lian's shoulder free of dirt that may or may not exist.
Wei Wuxian flips his hair back over his shoulder, leaning his hands forward, between his legs and resting on the bench he sat on. )
Three, and yin as you'd imagined, but they burn with heat. Might be part of why they're still here.
no subject
[Which is... wretched, really. Maybe there is nothing to be done for them, but if there is a way to get through to them...]
... Sometimes I wish I had had more time to study cultivation before I ascended. There's still so many things I know nothing about.
no subject
( why are they talking about this in public. he smiles, then laughs. )
Sometimes we're talking about things like we're reviewing plays, ah? Better for lighter topics, such as how pleasant the winds are on the canals, when they're, ah, blowing in from the sea.
no subject
Lighter topics it could be, but Xie Lian can't help himself.]
Do you also think I'm too naive, Wei-gongzi, to prefer to judge a man by his action and not by whether or not death refused to stick to him?
no subject
( he can't say that, can't believe it. it's what he prefers to do, and he, he's a man who fits that bill, isn't he? )
I think that when we cease to make decisions based on our observations and facts uncovered, we stop thinking, and start letting ourselves be lead to conclusions by those who have not ceased thinking like the rest have.
no subject
But it's not because he's technically a dead person that it's wrong. I just figured it didn't hurt to ask him what he had in mind. It turns out it's not that helpful, though.
[But well, it's not the first time a crowd has misunderstood him, and it probably won't be the last.]
If it turns out giving them their last rites and laying them to rest if the best for them, I'm not going to go against it.
no subject
( He shrugs, but that's not... anything to answer these days. )
Mm, soon. I don't imagine you'll take any more pleasure out of the learning than I have.
( Because it's not long before they're at the address he asks for, and he takes them on narrow alleyway tours to get to the outwardly decrepit house with its twelve grandfatherly grumpy ghosts and three witches and its wards and arrays and the dampening effect of its quiet and looming sense of disquiet. He navigates them inside, sweeping gestures, and smiles grimly. )
Shoes at the door, please. Our resident ghosts are displeased by tracked dirt and mud.
( His boots are left there, and socked feet continue forward on the surprisingly clean floors, kept that way between his efforts, Lily's efforts, and those few others who've come by. A gesture to a door with extra seals on it, in the coolest part of the house, next to the canals. )
They're restive for them, and you don't smell of smoke. Please don't disturb the talismans on them, they're helping soothe the burns as much as one can, when it's not entirely a physical thing.
no subject
And he nods his understanding about the talismans. Whatever helps these people is a good thing.
But of course once he sees them he understands better what he was told. There's a shiver down his own spine. Once, he feels, he almost ended up in that state, the only difference being that he was not able to die, instead of dying and being brought back. Once he has known suffering so bad that it almost turned him into the very thing that put him in that state.
Once, he only had revenge on the mind, because he'd been so badly hurt lashing out felt like the only way. His heart can swell with compassion at that, even though it seems obvious none of these people can recover the way he did.]
Hi. Can you understand me?
no subject
no subject
Xie Lian's kindness doesn't come from naivete, no matter what others think. It was tempered in flamed and blood. And sometimes, the greatest kindness you can do to someone is to help them finish what is needed.]
We'll find a way to stop the pain. Promise.
[It will, most probably, mean laying them to rest, but at least they have tried. This man here has tried to soothe their pain to the best of his abilities, and others have looked for solutions. Even Xie Lian, however useless that solution ended up being.
He turns to Wei Wuxian.]
Thank you for what you did for them. There's not much else to be done. You were right, I don't think they can understand what going to Anurr entails, exactly.
no subject
Nor does he, with them. Whatever cold he brings, whatever he does to the spirits that inhabit the bodies of those under his control... it won't solve this.
( A hand, pressed over one witch's head, the burnt remnants of scalp, the tufts of remaining hair. )
I'm sorry we couldn't do more.
( But death, in a final resting, in sundering spirit from flesh and sending it on, doing what he can to separate it from the pain... that is the only thing he can see here that is kindness. That is not continuing to make use of their suffering, their death, their capabilities, with no end in sight, only greed, only pain, only the endlessness of that haunting. )
no subject
[Xie Lian sighs and stands up.]
Is there anything I can do to help?
no subject
Not now. Just think to their better reincarnation in their next life, if such a thing is part of this world's workings.
no subject
[If that's the only thing he can do.]