audio | un: yiling patriarch

[weifinder]

We've just heard from our friend Haltham about the fighting between Unhalad and Anurr forces nearby, so here's a question for everyone, brought up originally by our companions who got themselves drugged and fight-happy against the second living: what actions do you think we should or shouldn't take?

In Haltham's encouraging words, think wisely. Whatever we're doing or not doing has an effect by merit of choice. Also, a reminder that we still need to not end up in either's hands or revealing our location, given the reason we were summoned here has not changed, and our deaths can be a benefit to either side. Our lives benefit ourselves and our rescuers and the peoples here, by keeping us out of warlord hands.

( He's not opening up with his thoughts because he doesn't want it as a discussion against his take, but as people offering their thoughts after he asks the question. )

Comments

[weifinder]

Requiring different coaxing, yes. I deal with the dead, not the half, and not the possessed, generally speaking. Though I suppose I have with that last, just not in these ways.

[downswing]

Fright would reduce your control.

[weifinder]

Panic is a problem I'm working on.

( They live with a dog. If this does any wonders for his nerves, he's trying to be upbeat about it. )

[downswing]

( Breathing and breathing and breathing — and silence. )


...how are you best assisted?

[weifinder]

( An answering pause, the start of words, the trailing off of them. )

I don't know.

( And that's the most honest thing he can say. Exposure isn't helping. Leaving and coming back just carries its own dread. Staying at the farm is tense if he's not at Lan Zhan's side, and second to that, with guilt, at their son's. )

[downswing]

Lend me half your burden, for safe-keeping.

[weifinder]

( Another pause... and a sigh that turns into a soft laugh. )

I'll lend you half mine, if you'll lend me half yours.

[downswing]

I have no burdens.

[weifinder]

Is that so? Then lend half your future burdens, ah?

[downswing]

A quarter. As I do not know what I lend.

[weifinder]

Are my shoulders so narrow?

[downswing]

And the bones, brittle.

[weifinder]

If you were that afraid I'd break, why did you let me go?

[downswing]

( The choice was never his own, unlike the silence. )


...Wei Ying. The captives. What do you wish done?

[weifinder]

Lan Zhan.

( Softer, and said with a sigh. What you don't say is still heard. And they'd both made choices, and stuck by them.

It's unsettling, on one level, but lingering on it does nothing, because he can't help feeling it's also deserved. )

Extract under cover, free to return to their homes, leave trail away while Unhalad and Anurr forces entangle themselves.

[downswing]

You laid us at odds, despite agreeing.

[weifinder]

If we don't question and assess what we're doing, how, and why, then what did I learn between our youth and now?

[downswing]

How to stand with righteousness.

[weifinder]

( Said softly: )

And how to fall alone.

( With a sigh, sounding tired. )

Lan Zhan, I've lived through what it is to rush in and do the just thing without a plan, backup, or a way forward. If nothing else, we need to be wise enough to pause to think how to do these things.

[downswing]

Apologies. I push Wei Ying to discipline me, as if I were a child.

[weifinder]

You're a just and righteous man, Lan Zhan.

( They have no positive reputation, have an assumed negative, and their backing is only trying to get them out of the way, not support them in anything beyond not allowing them to die. They're at many disadvantages. He's even more specifically seen how that goes, and he's not going to lose everyone again. He refuses. )

What worries me is what isn't here, for anyone. No clans, no standing, no backing.

[downswing]

Your flute. My sword.

[weifinder]

Two bulwarks against an unfamiliar world. I couldn't ask for better.

...a shi after Jiang Cheng's contribution

[downswing]

...Wei Ying. A matter I neglected.

( A pause. )

Jiang Wanyin is among us.




( No shi — )

LAN WANGJI

[weifinder]

... Lan Zhan, how long have you known?