un: absterge

[downswing]

( 'lo, from the depths of the Mouse House, post-Unwinding: )

If... this were no dream. The child of the rains, bearing a vulpine mask. 'Hyang-Won' and his pale protector.

He is remembered? He did not appear as the other manifestations.

Though we have retrieves ourselves, we cannot abandon a child to nightmares.


( Guilt is strong among exorcists. )

Comments

good finally you coward

[consignation]

You appeal to the wrong side of me. Jin Ling is past the point of protected. He's a coveted thing.

[ a long, weighted pause. ]

Do you truly believe our duties are so black and white?

:' )

[downswing]

That day, if I did not follow in abyss — it was to impart his justice in the world.

(': → video

[consignation]

[ this time, jiang cheng doesn't flinch, doesn't miss a beat. ]

And yet neither of us challenged the fate of the Wen.

[ a video feed flickers on. look him in the eye, lan wangji. ]

Tell me you would have pled for her life with your own.

asdkf lmf video: yiling laozu

[weifinder]

Jiang Cheng. Lan Zhan.

The past is done. The present lingers. Gifting each other with cutting remarks over things you cannot change and can only speculate over helps nothing and no one.

but mooom he started it

[consignation]

The past will never be done for him. I thought you understood that when you married him.

time outs for all the cultivists!!!

[weifinder]

I married him after discussing the reality that we are neither of us the men we were in the past. Yearning for such would leave us forever disappointed.

[consignation]

The more I speak with him the more I think he's never stepped foot from the ledge where you left him, Wei Wuxian.

Even now.

[weifinder]

He has, brother, just as you have.

[consignation]

[ someone is PLAYING DIRTY. ]

Then why does he bring up that day with every breath?

[ he huffs. ]

What would you have me do?

[downswing]

Seize the impossible.

[weifinder]

Aren't you?

[downswing]

Is he this, to me?

[weifinder]

If he is, then the purpose is in the trying.

[downswing]

Seek him.

un: qishan; text

[silverneedles]

Is atonement so terrible, Sect Leader Jiang?

video, he faces you like the man he isn't

[consignation]

Lady Wen. Without atonement there can be no justice, I've paid for that lesson in flesh and bone.

I should just like to see the righteous remember that none of our hands our clean.

If he wants the high road, he should earn it.

video

[silverneedles]

And what would justice look like, now?

[downswing]

( Silence, stormed. Tenuous. He watches. Bides his time, counts seconds of breath. It scratches his throat, the lining of his lungs, bleeds him.

He hears — Jiang Cheng, poison. Wei Ying, thunderous. The howls of Wen Chao, rushed screams of villagers in Yiling. What is it siblings speak of, before they burn? )

Lying is forbidden.

( His gaze stays slanted low. )

[consignation]

[ jiang cheng's chin lifts. his throat tightens. ]

Then what are you, Hanguang-jun? What is your duty? What definition of justice do you claim to uphold?

[downswing]

( If it's a gasp, let it round, make gravity's pull, create orbit. If it's sound, let it burst. )

I am my father's son.

( Stain and wretch and nightmare. )

[consignation]

[ there is an eternity in this silence, poison-scorched throats and stone-interred hearts. ]

And perhaps I am mine. [ the words leave him hollow, far from himself, watching his own back as he walks away from everything he was and everything he thought he might be. ]

I will take in what you leave behind, son of Qingheng-jun.

[downswing]

Will you give me this child?

[consignation]

Only because you admitted who and what you are.

[ he sighs, picking up his sword. ]

Where are we meeting?

[weifinder]

No, Lan Zhan. By merit of deed and decision, you are not your father's son.

( though he could have been. so close, that breath that would have divided, would have made them lesser men, in different fetters, the world unsteady beneath their feet. )

[downswing]

I beg your leave.


( Kindly, someone excuse him from his conversation. )