audio | un: xianxian of yunmeng jiang

[weifinder]

( water sloshes, Ouhrsson proclaims his bear-ish hello, and Wei Wuxian shrieks as a crack and the skidding of porcelain across stone begins this misadventure, while he scrambles to helpfully call for help in a very helpful and helpless way: )

Haaaaaaaahaaaahahahahahaaaa how is the bear?! The bear! The bear's back!?

( yes, we may be mid revolution. yes, someone wanted a quick bath to clean off all the blood, sweat, tears, and whatever else is plastering itself across a person. yes, this should have been straightforward.

but now to anyone not purely hearing over their closed magical network, a bear just shoved his tub into the hall and nudged it to the top of the stairs, at the bottom of which... the gathered unrestful groups of people are about to meet a very wet, very poorly clothed wei wuxian, considering the tub is already starting to slide down the stairs with surprising ease while he shrieks. )

Comments

[downswing]

Then, further irritated tosses down stairs can be arranged.

[weifinder]

I have no desire to recreate Jin Ling's paternal half-uncle's mental scars, thank you!

[downswing]

Only to wed a bear.

[weifinder]

Wait, what? When did we get on the topic of marriage?

[downswing]

Wei Ying.

1/2

[weifinder]

... Lan Zhan?

i lied, 2/3

[weifinder]

( look he was just naked in public and he's a bit grumpy and there's this absurdness about marrying a bear and—

gasp.

man in bathrobe stops dead in hall, but does not drop dead, we are fine, it is all good. )

end

[weifinder]

Previous engagement?! When!

[downswing]

( And now, the hour, burden and rasped silence of another man, stranded dead in a different hall, politely embracing cowardice as the gentleman's guide to ongoing mental survival. )

Seek seclusion. The bear may return.

[weifinder]

Lan Zhan!

( while another's ongoing mental survival is fraying at the seams. )

[downswing]

( Hissed: ) What difference, now? You have your excuse. Serve it. They will leave you be.

[weifinder]

I'm not looking for an excuse, I'm looking for an explanation! Where are you?

( bathrobe necromancer will go find bae in ongoing revolution, just you wait )

[downswing]

Otherwise engaged with a revolution.

[weifinder]

And apparently Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Laozu, Hanguang-jun.

[downswing]

( This is going so well, thank you, bear. )

Wei Ying. Later.

[weifinder]

Later today, Lan Zhan.

( not later forever, and he's still v tempted to barefoot walk to find your engaged ass, lan zhan )

[downswing]

Breathe.

[weifinder]

Haven't stopped. Tonight, Lan Zhan. Don't make yourself scarce.

[downswing]

Until you can raise a blade against me, do not presume to threaten.

[weifinder]

If it's a threat to track you down so we can talk, and you refuse to talk but over blades, then there's no point to this at all.

[downswing]

What point? ( Perhaps, only bitterness and ginseng, and stomachs roiling. ) The cold cave.

( Remember, two hands, one ribbon. A fastening, lacking alternative. ) Vows of duress create no obligation. Only formality. Excuses.

[weifinder]

( remembered: the qin, the cold waters of the cave, the moments before lan yi was a manifestation before them. how Bichen had stood first, thrown as a barrier, and then the clarity of the moment, where like recognised like, and he'd assumed that had been the significance, shielding, tying, but not tied in the way he's understanding, seeing, remembering now: )

Again.

( said, softer but no less implacable. )

A first time, unstated, and again. Not so much as a moon ago, Lan Zhan.

( tied and fled and oh, Lan Zhan, you being of habit and stark edges, what is it you do, what is it you have done? what is it that Wei Wuxian, unknowing, has done to you? )

[downswing]

Drunken hauntings do not bind you. ( But for the morning indiscretion of a clearing head, of red strewn in profligacy. ) My apologies.

[weifinder]

Lan Zhan, try asking.

( but; it's harder, his head is a violence of noise, and what in this that has slotted into place makes so many other things stark and cutting. so many others, depths of things he couldn't have predicted without knowing.

it is also past. and he may not like the way it reframes that past, or to know there are things he would have done differently, because of how he is. would have, and it doesn't matter, because that's the past. to move forward, and be better aware, but ah; sixteen years and more, and wei wuxian wakes to renewed bindings in a bed with ghosts whispering of haste. )

[downswing]

...this troubled you.


( And then they ask why he does not speak the sooner. )