eastbound | video | un: wei ying

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video | un: wei ying

( he starts this recording from the crows nest of the Queen or the Pariah, his pendant hooked around the mast so it records him, bow slung over his shoulder. the quiver at his back has one arrow, and he nods to the camera, indicating toward the overcast sky. )

Take care when shooting, if you do. The amulets the priests have given us draw on our energies significantly.

( that said, he unslings the bow, turning and pulling the arrow out of the quiver to string it in a smooth motion. wei wuxian pulls back, taking aim at the skies, at the concept of where the sun hides behind the muddied clouds. pulls the bow taunt as the wind teases his hair, whips it and his ribbon behind him, making this man with his serious, focussed expression an icon of what he was once: a warrior.

pulling back, the bow bending, bending, his arms steady, his gaze on that hidden light in the sky. calm and steady breathing, and a tension that is near palpable before he finally releases, the snap of the bowstring and the whistle of the arrow taking flight stabbing through the pendant's audio transmission. he watches, wind still tossing his hair to a mess around him. only when there's enough time that he's ostensibly watched where the arrow has come back down to the sea does he turn to the pendant again. he's breathing more heavily than one shot arrow explains. )

Two more things. One, the dead who boarded their deceased's ships within the heart of the crossing were acting in ways that sound familiar. They were decaying dead men who moved and spoke, some aware, some animal in awareness. A number had a dark, tar-like liquid stitching together their wounds. Feels like there's a mirror and its magics at the heart of this. Possibly a smaller one onboard the Pariah right now.

( he reslings the bow over his shoulder, and now, allows himself to smile a touch. )

The second, most important one is going to get loud. Most of you will want to cover your ears.

( his brief smile fades as he inhales, turning to the side, which would mean facing toward the prow of the ship, and cups his hands around his mouth. calls out in a strong, clear, carrying voice that's impossible to ignore over the pendants: )

Lan Zhan! I love you! The only marriage I ever wanted to mimic was my parents' marriage. Do you understand? I married you because I love you, not because you'd married me first! I want to walk every path in life side by side with you! Only you!

( ... and he's lowering his hands, panting a bit from that effort. )

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[It is a pity that Anduin did not heed the warning you gave him about those arrows when you did, Wei Wuxian...

The face he makes in response to that proclamation, though. It takes him a moment to wrap his head around the first part, when his head is still ringing with the latter.]

That was quite a lot of important information indeed, my friend...

( if only, Anduin, but don't worry, people can lecture you after, right?

He smiles, waving his hand at the pendant before he straightens, flicking a finger against the bow's arching curve over his shoulder. )

Glad you agree! It does push forward getting our eyes into the Pariah's bowels, ah? Now's as good a time as any, I think.

( The scraps of his dignity, like scintillas of ash scattered, should not weigh so heavy on his tongue, down his throat. Should not choke him.

He bides his time to breathe. To be. Then, in a rare rapprochement with his youth, he tugs the strings of spell that can weave Wei Ying's tongue silent. Anathema, to steal his voice, after death did so for sixteen years. He does not hesitate. )

Located aboard the Pariah and not its sister ship. You are certain?

( Let Wei Ying take a turn to write. )

( how long has it been? not long enough, really, to feel that familiar spell, to have his lips sealed, and so his eyebrows rise because he cannot pant like this, and so his breathing grows more and more audible through his nostrils.

Writing would be sensible, but he doesn't: he stares at the pendant with the kind of offended look a cat offers to a companion who has stolen away their napping spot in the sunlight.

Gestures toward the pendant, and speaks into the sealed silence of his lips, the mutterings emphatic and Lan Wangji invited to make of it as he will, since his will has made this. The pulse at Wei Wuxian's throat, the heaving of his lungs, grows more obvious in subtle degrees.

Stealing his voice is stealing his breath away, husband. Truly a message enough in itself. )

[When Xingchen replies, the sound of muffled laughter can still be heard for a moment, and it's obvious he's smiling even as he offers concern.]

You are paying attention to your own energies, yes?

I'm a master of monitoring my own energies, never fear! Not from this, at least. It'd be a waste to incapacitate myself when we have worse to come.

I trust your Hanguang-jun is never far, just to be safe.

[He laughs to himself a little before adopting a somewhat more serious tone.]

There is always worse to come, isn't there.

As suits him, yes.

( he smiles, but it's not one that says anything other than in his tone to the audio that his martial uncle hears. )

No, not always. Sometimes there's better, sometimes there's worse, but around here, when we travel? Count no blessings until we make our next citadel.

[The love proclamation is cute and all, and will even get a smile from Moran on his side but let's focus for a moment.]

Your conclusion is the same as mine. The aggresssve mermaids, the congregation of spirits, and the manipulating of human interests... that all sounds too familiar for those of us who have been here for a while.

A mirror would explain a lot... And we've already had one be transported on a ship. There was one on the ship where I woke up when I first got here.

Seems a likely way for a person to think they're finding vengeance against what took their last ship and crew to try and bring the same back in, ah?

If it's the same compulsion, it didn't end until the early mirror was broken... but the effects of a breaking, as Five and Miss Winnie have shown, or Zenobius and his tower. Still, if we can prevent the mermaids from similar ends as to what happened with the slave ship.

I recall there was some mention of that particular mirror being used to inhibit people's abilities? In addition to it's draw, such a we later saw at Zenobius's tower, and his, ah, appeasements.

[ Five was about to cut in before the extremely loud love confession, and honestly, he can't tell if he did it to mortify Lan Wangji or if they just had a fight. Times when he's convinced he's not the weird one and everyone's priorities are backwards. It's really a wonder he led with the relevant information. ]

That's one way to get everyone's attention.

[ Yes, everyone heard it, Lan Wangji. ...But back to the other thing. He had his suspicions already about what's been going on here, for different reasons. Now he has to have anxiety about someone being an idiot and breaking another mirror. ]

And what? You think if we can find the mirror, we won't have to worry about any more tar-zombies?

It took memories, as well. I remember one man who couldn't remember his own name for hours after being put in front of it.

But the effect was temporary. Things came back after a while.

( Hanguang-Jun is very far now.

Hanguang-Jun is under a rock.

Hanguang-Jun will never resurface.

Hanguang-Jun is below sea level.

Hanguang-Jun is going blublublu.

Oh look, Hanguang-Jun died now.

No, never mind, you can't look.

Just, ding-dong, Hanguang-Jun's dead. )

( There is a moment, crisp, when he seems to still anticipate the tender cadence of Wei Ying's voice. When he knows, but has yet to grasp mourning its absence.

He hesitates, on the cusp of yielding to remove the spell — )

Pace yourself. ( Soft. Sweetened. He has raised a child before. This is only that. ) Breathe slowly. Write.

( Coexist with restriction, until it becomes armour. )

The Pariah. It alone carries a lure?

( when you're married to someone with a whole brain and personality that isn't an invention of your own mind, it's a lot more complicated than your relationship experience, five. gosh! )

Clearing the air on certain things, you might say.

( his fleeting smile to address his confession, and he's still panting a bit. )

I think we might work to seal something about it, as long as no one goes smashing through it.

Because of decreased exposure, distance and lack of exposure are what saved the people onboard. The mermaids were enthralled along to their deaths, and not allowed to leave even after.

( those mirrors are cursed in very compelling ways. )

( bae you seriously left him for the mermaids )

( No. Wei Wuxian fixes his eyes on the pendant, the thin lines at their corners deepened with their narrowing. Once, this was the simple affront, the kind of ease of outrage he felt surface deep, caught up in the attention and acknowledgement that someone wishing so badly for his silence had to listen and care enough to silence him.

There are no other gestures, just that gaze, and the fingertips he presses to his lips. He does at least breathe deep, more air in and then out through his nostrils, so loud, so loud in his ears.

His energies are depleted from before that arrow shot, but not dangerously so. The warning he'd given is one he'd already taken to heart, used to working within his new limitations, finding the ways around the blockade against his own empty internal spaces.

Lan Zhan can wait for his answers. Wei Wuxian's eyes close, brow furrowing, and his finger runs from one corner of his mouth across his chapping lower lip, finding the other corner. Brute force was one way through, but every spell, every force, has more than one way to be unwoven. Even curses could be removed with both parties alive. )

( ...ah. The old folly. The greed of arrogance. Head tipped, mouth burdened by paternal patience: )

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Do not fight it. Recall Jin Guangyao.

( Mouth unstitched and bloodied, raw after Zewu-Jun's broken spell. Better not invite the retaliation of ancient spellcraft, deftly weaponised across several generations. )

What use? It disperses. ( As if it were mist or sickness, a natural inevitability disparate from Lan Wangji, who cast it. As if he sympathises. ) Write.

( No. Capitulation is an artform in itself, a timed message, meaningful in its delivery. He's knelt, he's apologised, he's swallowed words before, he's laughed it off.

His eyes remain closed. Part of it is knowing any of the others onboard the two ships can cut in to answer, that Wei Wuxian is not the source of answers or questions. Part of it is, indeed, basic stubbornness, but the fact it's reignited, that it can be aimed back at Lan Zhan, that he isn't folding. That it follows on confessing, unambiguously, that he loves him.

That he could at all is why he pushes back now. Wei Wuxian's eyes slit open, and blood begins to well at his lips. )

( He fights.

There is a sickness in Wei Ying that abhors patient wait or strategy. A slow decay of caution, like a candle's wick burned at both ends.

Last Wei Ying's mouth shone of his blood, he fell alone into a howling abyss. Now, Lan Wangji thinks — ceases to, for once acts expediently, and severs the string of qi that powers the spell to unwind it — when he next blinks, Wei Ying will grin.

Streams of exhaustion delapidate Lan Wangji's bones. He is slow, blanched. Bemused. )

...why? ( Hurt himself. Make a spectacle of this. Ruin an equilibrium that has done them no harm. )

( the release of pressure has his lips parting with a gasp, sucking in air and tasting blood on his tongue. his fingers touch to where his lips bleed, and he brushes it away, negligent for the pain, the mark of one more injury to heal.

the grin his husband predicts is not a grin, but a smile. wry, yes, and his gaze has yet to drift from the hold he's kept at the pendant, to where he now sees Lan Zhan, where it's not simply a voice and a connection of qi fed spell leaving his lips unmoved. they are tired, the both of them, exhausted in different an similar way. )

I love you.

( the monster of it, the inability to bow his head gracefully, to silence. )

I promised I wouldn't be silent before the ones I love again.

( that the compromises that he kept making for them without asking or consulting won't leave him standing alone on a cliffside, tears streaking down his face, every beautiful thing he'd fought for and held ground to ashes, dust, and hanging bodies treated with none of the dignity they deserved. )

Even if they're the ones wishing I was quiet. Answering your other question, I believe so. Haven't tried sending myself out to check yet. Too many dead around.

( The better man would continue their inspection of the ships. Would proceed with an empty conversation. Would not yield to petty taunt.

But he hears, he breathes around the weight on his lungs. )

This is how you wish to do this?

( Later, so it is known: how this began. Who instigated. )

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