eastbound | un: wide open-winged queen of butterflies

Entry tags:

un: wide open-winged queen of butterflies | audio

[So. Xingchen has been out of the House of Dew for the past two or three days. He hadn't told anyone where he was going. In hindsight, this was probably not the greatest idea. And when he makes his graceless appearance over the network, it's accompanied by the ever-present dubious background noise of the House. Also, to anyone who has spoken with him before, he sounds tired. Tired, and a little...unsettled.

Mostly tired, though. He's probably fine.]

If I may offer my unsolicited opinion, I would suggest no one of our number attends any meetings regarding Anurr, or if you must, please stay vigilant or go with a companion. While none of Anurr's followers who spoke with me seemed to wish any ill-intent upon my person, they still follow a man who kills people.

[...Okay, maybe that's not the best way to start things. Or maybe it's perfect, as much as Xingchen doesn't want to use fear-mongering to influence others, as long as it keeps them safe and out of trouble.]

What I should say is that this conflict between Unhalad and Anurr is not our own. However, I can understand if anyone feels it is personal as Unhalad wished to consume us when we arrived. I know I prefer to remain among the living. But if we do end up dragged into the struggle - and I hope we can leave the city without that coming to pass - I will tell you what I've been told by some of Anurr's followers. Of course, this is just one side of the story. It could be, and probably is, extremely biased and I have no way of verifying it. But they seem to follow Anurr because of his, ah, restraint to kill just anyone. He will ask for a willing sacrifice, and a small one, at that, unlike Unhalad. It is easy to compare these two lords and fall into step with Anurr's side, but the lesser of two evils is still evil to some extent.

[He pauses here, not quite wanting to bring up this next point, but this doesn't seem like a secret that should be kept.]

During their meetings, Anurr's followers drink some concoction. It almost feels like if you were to get drunk impossibly fast, but with the side effects of added strength and heightened senses. I cannot stress enough how much I think we should all avoid this drink unless we have no other choice.

[His voice softens here, shame coloring his words.]

If you have heard news of some of Unhalad's corpses showing up within the past few nights with an arm missing...I'm afraid I am to blame. Please avoid this drink.

[Well. This is a pleasant message. Xingchen clears his throat and tries to brighten up.]

I think we have been joined by some new comrades. Those who arrived on the ship? This is not my best introduction, but I am Xiao Xingchen. I hope you are all safe and staying warm. If we stick together, I believe we will make it through.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ ... wait wait wait wait ]

Xiao Xingchen daozhang?

[ ... uh... ]

Are you all right?

My name is Lan Sizhui.

[Ah. Right. It's been some time since someone recognized his name - and since he's properly introduced himself - but he shakes off the surprise quickly enough.]

Lan-gongzi. I'm...better now, thank you for your concern.

Are you back - where everyone is staying? Do you need anything?

It must have been a very unpleasant experience.

Yes, I'm back, just...resting up.

In the moment it was almost exactly like night-hunting. It was when the effects of the drink started to wear off that things started to feel wrong. But I'm okay now, if chastened.

If... I can bring you anything...

And it is still different from night-hunting. Do... any of us night hunt, here?

Oh, I don't...

[Need anything is what he's about to say, but this young man sounds pretty concerned. He can meet him halfway, perhaps.]

Well, maybe if I could ask for a moment of your company? I admit there's some comfort in speaking with someone from home.

The corpses here aren't the same as what we're familiar with, but I had spent some time taking care of them in the salt mines when I was collecting salt for funds. I think that's the closest to a night-hunt as anything else.

Of course, daozhang, just tell me where to find you? Or I can ask someone who has been here longer. I'm pretty sure walking into the wrong room will not be a great idea...

And about the night hunting, that makes sense. Do you go often to the salt mines? I could help!

Xiao-daozhang, did you make it back alright?

I probably should have told you not to drink this, since you're human.

I did. And you? Everything became pretty hectic for a time there. I don't really know when we were separated.

Please do not worry about me. My cultivation base is not so weak and I assume you're of a similar vein.

I'm fine! I just... lost my clothes, somehow.

...Oh. Have you found them?

[Important questions.]

No... I don't think I will, either. They're probably gone.

Then new clothes are in order, if you have not already found some. It's much too cold to be exposed, even for a short amount of time.

Someone kindly lent me some, and I'm sure I can find something to make robes out of. I don't need much.

The cold doesn't really bother me, so it's fine.

I understand your sentiments as I am often of the same mind. But the cold here can be ruthless. I beg you to not take any chances if you can avoid them.

You don't need to worry, daozhang. It won't kill me.

Daozhang, did you become mixed up with Anurr's crowd?

They made you fight by their side?

Ah...one might say curiosity drew me in. They cannot be blamed entirely, either. I did drink by my own volition. They just failed to mention the exact side effects one might experience.

Which I am sure they knew perfectly well.

Did they want you to join their cause?

No one is without fault, here.

I think they would take anyone who showed interest, really.-

Interesting. They're trying to recruit people then. And they're doing it pretty openly. You didn't see them of course but there were flyers in town.

How bold of them. They do not seem to be all that afraid of garnering Unhalad's anger. I wonder if they want to.

That is of course a possibility. someone striking out in anger is more likely to miss. Plus, they seem to have the locals' support.

[ He's trying to follow this. Apparently he'd been too distracted to hear about a meeting, or he might have tried to spy on it. Now he's glad someone in their group could relay that to them. Except... what. ]

You're saying they drugged you to help mutilate some corpses?

[Xingchen doesn't answer immediately, mulling over that question.]

...You know, I suppose it does boil down to that. But I drank by my own choice, so I am partially to blame. And then we all got swept up in the experience.

[ That's one way to put it. Must have been some party. ]

Did they say anything about a next meeting?

[He hums, thinking this over.]

I don't remember any specific times mentioned, but I was given a pin of some kind and told to ask for a miner named...Grim?

[...That doesn't sound right. He whispers a few more variations of that name under his breath, but then finally arrives at - ]

No, it was Gorm. Gorm the miner. I don't know if he's the leader, but he clearly holds some importance among the group.

[ Gorm the miner. That strikes him as odd enough that he almost doesn't need to write it down to remember. ]

What, do they treat it like a secret society or something? [ Where you have to flash a pin. Whatever it is, apparently this guy got a free membership. Or maybe what he went through was some sort of initiation.

And apparently Five is going to keep asking questions as long as he keeps answering them. He's found most people are surprisingly willing to share. ]

Do you plan on going?

I've been informed that there are posters around the city advertising such meetings, but I can't see them.

[For reasons that are obvious to him and maybe to this other person, but there's no need to go into specifics right now.]

So it isn't so secret that only a select few and their trusted confidants know of it, but it is possible there are certain...tiers within. Perhaps this Gorm is a powerful officer within the movement, above those who come in because they've heard whispers in the streets or have seen those posters.

I have no intention of finding Gorm the miner in the future, nor do I intend to go to another meeting.

[ It takes him a minute. Five has been around long enough to recognize most in their group, even if he hasn't spoken to them directly, so he places him after going through his list. -- Does he feel any differently that this happened to a blind person? Well, he feels something anyway. How does that even work?

He doesn't have as good of an excuse for missing the posters. Now he'll be looking for them. ]

I guess I don't blame you. [ He actually want to get his hands on that pin, but... refrains from asking where other people can hear. Sighing. ] Well, it wasn't a terrible idea. Spying on the enemy. They obviously weren't threatened enough to be cautious.

I feel like I'm going to need a history lesson to catch up, and I will warn you right now, I think I slept or escaped from every history class I had to take. When I was still taking them, anyway. Not the point.

But I really need to know about this - ah - concoction you're talking about. This drink. So - the side effects were inebriation, strength, heightened sense, and-- uh -- wait did you say you cut off their arms??? I mean I get that they are zombies but??

I don't know the history very well, either, as I haven't been here long, but I think the dismemberment has ties to a story that has been going around as of late. In the story, a man named Arne wanted to marry a chieftan's daughter, but he had to prove himself and ended up chained to a tree for some time and remained there even when a bear attacked him, resulting in the loss of his arm. Arne is somehow related to this Anurr who has won over some of the population. I wonder if they aren't the same person somehow.

As for the drink, it didn't give me the feeling of inebriation so much, but I did experience those other traits. I didn't quite feel like myself, though, and...I was less patient and didn't really care.

Gross? What a gross story?? Who ties a guy up to a tree? That's like some Brothers Grimm fairy tale bullshit right there.

.. Oh. So less inebriation and more loss of inhibition and empathy? Well that's...

That's not good.

Um.

You didn't happen to get a sample, did you?

Edited 2021-05-11 14:53 (UTC)

[Quietly - ]

I thought it was kind of romantic...

[But he shakes his head, even if this other person won't be able to see, and continues answering.]

Why would I have gotten a sample?

Edited 2021-05-13 12:43 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't generally consider torture romantic. [ A little dryly. ]

Ah, well, it was a long shot. If you aren't used to someone trying to slip potions into your drink.

I was just thinking that if you had a sample maybe I could figure out what they'd put in it to do that to you. In the mean time, um, can I gently recommend not taking drinks from strangers?

( sounding... very surprised, but a voice that can be recognised: )

Shishu? You really are shishu?!

( to be fair. this is the first instance he's had of anyone he knew was definitively dead, who wasn't himself the not-definitively dead, being alive here. and he has yet to run into timeline differences to make that make sense either, but he remembers this man's voice from the market. )

[...Um.

Well.

This is happening, apparently.

Xingchen is absolutely unprepared to speak to the Yiling Patriarch - assuming this device has identified the other person correctly...he's still not sure how these things work - but he's been thrown into this fire, so to speak, so he better get used to it.

To be called shishu, though, as if they're familiar... But he's never met Wei Wuxian. Is the other man so bold as to assume such a relationship?

More upsetting is the fact that Xingchen can recognize that voice. They've been in the market together. He was practically hand-in-hand with the Yiling Patriarch and had no idea. But how...how can this be? Wei Wuxian is dead. Unless he really did manage to bring himself back from whatever depths his soul ended up in, just a few years later than anyone expected...

But Xingchen says none of this, just lets the short message wash over him for a time. And then, finally - ]

...Wei Wuxian.

[He keeps himself calm, not accusatory, but not necessarily warm, either. What else is he supposed to say, after all?]

( It... it's him?

He has to pause, less to meet the one he's been greeted with, more to rearrange his thoughts. Xiao Xingchen was alive. He wasn't trying to cause himself harm, his soul was whole, intact. How?

But more than that, looking to his own name here, the joke he'd plastered onto this quartz because he'd considered it to be a joke, thinking it was just he and Lan Wangji here: ah, but this martial uncle of his, he never knew anything but the same slander that the world knew, believed, swallowed, delighted in. That's sobering, and so his silence stretches longer. )

Ah, yeah. It's me. Hah, you... I hadn't seen you for years, I didn't realise...

( It doesn't occur to him that there's more going on here than the certainly also true reality that he 'died' the Yiling Patriarch before Xiao Xingchen himself had passed. That, alone, would not have been something welcomed, and one day's meeting is not enough to carry the familiarity of voice across the silent years inbetween. )

There's been no lingering effects from this ritual that you've noticed?

[He frowns at this answer, though his expression is not visible. What does Wei Wuxian mean, he hadn't seen him for years? There's no way they could have ever crossed paths since Wei Wuxian died before Xingchen ever descended the mountain. There's no way Wei Wuxian could have found the mountain at all to ascend it, even in secret. It just doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense.

So he simply files that away for now. He'll have to meditate on it later. Otherwise, this conversation is one about information, information that has nothing to do with demonic cultivation, and therefore shouldn't be helpful to Wei Wuxian in the future with regards to that topic.

Though now that he thinks about it, there are so many corpses. He shudders to think if the Yiling Patriarch is responsible for any of them.]

The effects lasted for a few days on my person. Heightened senses and strength, but also...a disregard for others' feelings. They did fade away.

[If only his memories could do the same.]

( By now he's already used the dead, dear blind not-dead uncle, but no one's talking about that, and he has no concept of just how deep Xiao Xingchen's confusion can possibly be. )

Of those others there at the time, were they part of an established group, or new to it as you were? Taking people, making them careless about others, and pointing them toward a task is...

( He trails off. In spite of what the world says, he never did that; and the one time Wen Ning had been wrested out of control had been heartbreaking to them both.

Manipulations of this nature are concerning. This war, colder as it's been, is getting warm again, ah? )

No other lingering effects you can trace?

( ...ah. Another reckoning. He should not hesitate. And yet: )

Master. May the moon shine bright and the breeze gentle. Wangji of sect Lan greets you.

[...Oh. How long has it been since Xingchen has heard any form of that address? A couple years or so, realistically. A lifetime ago. It feels like yesterday.

He lets this greeting wash over him, takes a moment to remember what it was like when his future was bright and everything was good. When he was unabashedly happy.

It's nice, for this moment, but also lonely. There should be an accompanying epithet, just like there always used to be. But no more...no more.

Still, when he answers, his voice is noticeably softer.]

Hanguang-jun honors this one.

This struggle is ours.

We cannot ignore the hurts of the people.

[Aaand we're moving briskly on.]

I agree if we are able to help the people, then we should. Does that mean we have to align ourselves with a side in the process, however?

( Perhaps an inkling of steel: )

Shall we instead let another man rise on a rooftop, while we watch on?

[This conversation is going south rather quickly.]

One does not have to pick a side to carry out justice where it is due, Hanguang-jun. Can we not simply insert ourselves where we are needed most?

Where chaos rises, we are needed.

I do not disagree.

[Have they talked themselves in a circle? Because it feels like they've talked themselves in a circle.]

Then, we are needed here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

un: wide open-winged queen of butterflies | audio

un: blushing beads of heft and beauty

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

un: deft hand of little deaths [Voice]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

un: dappled pearl of the parted seas [voice]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

un: first blush of tender youth

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

un: silhouette among silk spreads

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

un: yiling patriarch (sobs)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

un: heart-fluttering hummingbird

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject