un: wei laozu | audio | day after the summit

[weifinder]

Passing along a few highlights of my conversation with Asgeirr, our resident scholar ghost possessing a cloak from, oh, Sa-Hareth, that may be worth noting.

The citadel has raised and lowered itself, by a mechanism he believed connected to its central clock, for ages. However, it was largely for defense in the past, and the dragons were their primary form of offense in that defending. The civilians were kept safe. At that time, there was also no blurred lines between the dead and living—you could determine who and what was dead, and who and what lived.

( a pause, and he adds: )

He suggested it might be a thrall to the territories, or a freezing of the person at moment of death. Or that it might be something affecting us, but while that's clearly true, I don't think it's that specifically targeted.

Comments

[weifinder]

He's claiming me as brother?

[downswing]

Arrogantly. Brazenly. To the world.

[weifinder]

( this is the silence of a man stricken




with something warm and hard and painful all at once. when he clears his throat, his voice only sounds a little hoarse. )

He is the Jiang Sect Leader, after all.

[downswing]

( Ah, but to be wind between two brotherly stones, grinding. External, extraneous. )

And he is the impossibility you seek.

[weifinder]

( another pause... and a sigh. )

Family, ( he says after that sigh ends, ) was. And then I found it in pieces anyway, just as I found myself.

[downswing]

If you wish him, claim him.

[weifinder]

Hahaha, ah, then I will.

[downswing]

You are not so cowardly and weak that rejection should stall progress.



( ...........lessons in non-conning your brother. )

[weifinder]

Lan Zhan.

Once, I told him, cut me out if it frees you. Shameless I may be, but I've never learned to stitch myself in where my own words were endings, chosen and knowing.

We were not alone in letting go, ah? Let's not think on it more. It's unpleasant.

[downswing]

Unpleasant.

[weifinder]

Yes.

Anyway, do you wonder if there's sand dragons? I do. We've sea dragons, air dragons, what kinds would be of the earth, or wood?

[downswing]

Dragons of vagaries, for my lover to battle.

[weifinder]

So no springtime dragons, ( said dryly ) that's for certain.

[downswing]

No. He is of autumn's fall.

[weifinder]

And winter's chill, so it sounds.

[downswing]

Do not malign his warmth.

[weifinder]

Oh, no, I've never needed to, that's been quite the task taken up by others. Usually it's the cold and cruel, but having met Anurr, please tell me I at least rank higher than him. Brisk and whatever else sounds appealing to someone who stands around in freezing water to heal.

[downswing]

He is that which prevents one day from stretching to three autumns.

[weifinder]

Ah, Lan Zhan... at what point do we stop drawing cake to satisfy hunger?

( though he sounds both touched and amused. see, he tells people this. lan zhan is poetry in education, yes, but in practice, as any gentleman should be. )

[downswing]

When you have paid for sixteen years of crumbs.

[weifinder]

I think that involves licking the plate clean, ahh?

[downswing]

Beggars eat off the ground.

[weifinder]

Would you like me to beg?

( over here, sounding curious, this conversation has verily derailed. )

[downswing]

At sword's end, when you've reclaimed Suibian.

[weifinder]

I never lost my little birdie, Lan Zhan, and I was never one for names—though I'm now very, very curious about your thoughts here—