un: absterge | video

[downswing]

( Dark and damp and Lan Wangji's pallor strained under moonlight. Behind him, flickers of broad, long temple columns — and the smoke smears of... ghosts, gathered. He seems short of breath, the silvered sheen of his sword half drawn from her scabbard, a spate of parchment papers littering the walls: active talismans. )

They have crowded their halls of the dead, to excess.

Here, the key withholds itself. Who hunts the other locations?

( And a pause, hesitant — whether to find his words or, absently, slap another talisman on the spirit that looms with a gaping maw behind him. ) Ke-Waihu stands safe?

( ooc: forwarded dated to the group's incursions in Ke-Waicai. Feel free to run into him in person, if you're also chasing the haunted temple key! )

Comments

[weifinder]

All of them.

[downswing]

( oh for — )

Bid them other sanctuary.

[weifinder]

One sleeps so far unending, the other sleeps in cloak and wakes periodically. They hardly share my pallet, Lan Zhan.

[downswing]

( The blandest: )

I am not unaware.

[weifinder]

You're hardly unaware of my nature, either.

[downswing]

You crave death.

[weifinder]

Uncalled for.

[downswing]

Resentment. Spirits.

You resonate. I speak falsehood?

[weifinder]

You speak misleadingly. I understand them, not crave them. I don't crave death. I don't crave a family full of dead elders. It's what the worlds delivered, unasked, several times over. And I'm hardly unique in that.

( said levelly, no heat, not even chill in his voice. too factual. these are the things which have happened. )

What was my justice, when I was younger and prideful enough to believe I had to hold it all on my own?

[downswing]

They spared you only lashed cruelty. Indignity. Violation. Scorn.

[weifinder]

Lan Zhan.

[downswing]

Am I mistaken? Were they kind?

[weifinder]

I speak also of the Dafan Mountain Wens!

( he cannot argue filial piety: they simply know what that is. )

Anyway, once we solve the sleeper's slumber, he'll do as he wishes. Once the scholar determines his course, I'll facilitate as I can. What would you have me say?

[downswing]

Nothing. Unto no man.

Your reasons are your own.

[weifinder]

( he breathes out in a sigh, one hand rubbing at his face. )

Then I'll find myself a woman to explain to, if it'll help solve things.

[downswing]

Will it?

[weifinder]

( a cluck of his tongue. )

Women tend to pin down whatever I've been missing, or trying not to see. Which as you didn't have the immense pleasure of a sister to keep you civil, let me tell you, it's an uncanny ability.

[downswing]

A sister.

( The wheels, turning. ) Mistress Wen.

[weifinder]

( said more softly, with depth of feeling, and an awareness of the loss it likewise contains. )

The second time I've been so blessed.

[downswing]

Are sisters so different a blessing to brothers?

1/2

[weifinder]

Both are precious beyond words. But they are different, yes. Even as generous and caring as your elder brother is, a sister is different still.

( we're just going to say nice things about zewi-jun, because nothing else is worth saying. he is generous. he is caring. he's kinda dumb. but none of that means his faith deserved the poor return of jin guangyao's self interested regards. )

[weifinder]

Shijie liked you, did you know that? She had kind things to say about your conduct after... this and that.

( clearing his throat, aiming for more lightness, a subtle jesting: )

Wen Qing is less impressed, you'll have to try harder with her.

[downswing]

Jiang Yanli cared for all. ( A hitch to his breath, the careful choice of recollection. Ever a game not to startle Wei Ying. ) A beautiful bride. Smiling beneath her veil. The Jin were overwhelmed.

[weifinder]

Her grace was more than our world merited. Too few understood how incredible she... was.

( a thickened note, but the swallow, the fondness, the need to move forward so that sixteen years of darkness and months flooded by light and threat of death to learn why she had died, what had set the stage for the tragedies that swept his carefully tended world off its cliffside into the roiling seas below... warmth wins. affection wins. loss is swallowed, not only for his sake, but for any others who listen. )

As they should have been. She was beautiful in her wedding reds. She and Jiang Cheng snuck into Yiling's small towns to show me. I've never seen anyone more radiant than she was in those robes.

( no failure to understand why, even if zixuan was still in the proving of his deserving her. he had, months and months later, given a good accounting of himself.

and he had died, and that was that, the crack felt to the marrow, the nicked artery, the beginning slide to a violent end for many. the invention of another, brief war. )

[downswing]

( Balm on open wound, to know at least this was shared: that Wei Ying tasted the brilliance of his sister in her bridal silks, draped in reds and gold and wonder. That trickles of family were still permitted to him. )

You will see your son in his nuptial reds. I pledge.