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un: heart-fluttering hummingbird | audio (forward-dated: 24 May)
...apologies. The blood in the northern halls will want more hands for the washing.
We made insufficient attempt.
...apologies. The blood in the northern halls will want more hands for the washing.
We made insufficient attempt.
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He just shows up with cleaning cloths and a bucket. Sure, he's a little pale and quiet, but the blood really does need to be cleaned up. ]
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Done early, blood scattered each way in thin rivulets, the work of needle-cut: silvered wire of the garrotte, crowned by the spun, orbital violence of Alina's wicked skill, light emaciated, capering and carousing until it tamed itself in military discipline, like a sword's swing. He did not ask, beholding it, the nature of her sorcery. Found a part of himself brimming like overfilled cups in answer, on the cusp of hope.
There will be glory in this girl's path. If not gladness or justice, then at least triumph.
After, they remove the bodies. After, he lingers, knelt on splintered, pale wood, reduced to scanter layers — his sleeves drawn, and his own pail and rags nearby. He does not lift his gaze when his son approaches, only shivers in the anxious greeting of prey caught in the wilderness of its poor decisions. Reaches out, finally, when he is joined, to lift Sizhui's thin, wiry, brave little hands, so much grown from when he last held them, and set them on Lan Wangji's own headband, urging the tug. ]
Remove it. [ A pause, then rasped: ] Stains.
[ He would not see this much of himself vivisected. ]
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Lessons that the scrolls that Shifu has taught them never covered, but he had to find out almost as soon as he left the Cloud Recesses on his own.
He understands. And yet... is it not wrong to understand so easily?
All of that is buried beneath the raw pain, of the story told, of the lives wasted. This, he doesn't know how to put away. He suspects it will fade in time, but it's showing no signs of that yet.
He does what he has been taught by example, by both men who raised him. He keeps moving. Doing what he thinks necessary.
His eyes flit to the man's face as the forehead ribbon is place in his hands, then he nods. ]
Yes, Hanguang-jun.
[ The care and reference with which he takes off the pale fabric are both habitual and heartfelt. He knows this means many things - and probably some that he can't correctly guess. But it all boils down to the need for action, and he will clean the stains thoroughly. A familiar task, though the stains are not always this kind.
With only the offensive edges wet, he holds it out with both hands in his father's direction. ]
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He feels himself parched and agonized, wrenched from himself, entrails savaged. Leans in, no better than the husks he divested of their last breath, and drips his mouth over the headband's cloud signet, Forgive him, ancestors, for what he has done.
Then straightens, only to turn and offer his left arm, pushed towards Sizhui's purpose. ]
Bind close to the shoulder.
[ The wrist is a typical contender, the ribbon easily removed by the dominant hand and returned to crown his head, or to be stored like ancient, golden treasures in night's time. No respite today, when they seek to cleanse the floors. Long, vicious work. Exhaustive. ]
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... and first carefully folds the ribbon to be able to warm it between his palms. Back home, it would not be an issue, but the bitter cold here makes wet fabric nearly go stiff immediately. For edges which would be hanging loose, it matters less. To bind it around Hanguang-jun's arm, he has to make sure it is soft enough to not break.
(He knows that the cold on its own would not be a problem, but... still.)
Then he deftly loops the fabric around the proffered arm, close to the shoulder as asked. Then smooths the knot out and lets the sleeve drop back down around it. His eyes helplessly rise to the unadorned forehead before dropping down to the blood stains.
Breathes out long. ]
They... chose to become this. Still... I would play for their soothing, once everything is cleaned.
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He chooses, in this moment, to know his son under the guise of that omnipotence. To string an arm across his shoulder and draw him in, marble-like and unyielding, until the pure territory of his forehead meets Sizhui's band, and they breathe together, Wangji's exhalations hastening and shallowing to match the pace of a younger, more agitated boy — a man, growing. A man, before his eyes.
His grip on Sizhui's nape tightens. Not yet, not yet. Give him a year more. ]
Despair chooses this for men.
cw: ideas of cannibalism
They tried to be decent people. They... when the first to died, they thought about... using their bodies to... keep on living. But they did not do it.
[ Would it have made a difference if they had? Could they have returned as ... more human than they ended up, if they had? ]
Is - is it always this difficult? When people try to be good and in the end, it only becomes worse?
[ Xiao Xingchen daozhang.
Senior Wei, too.
He doesn't think it makes any sense to ask what's the use of trying, because it still... matters. It just hurts. ]
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Now and then, he wishes the sect had taught Sizhui this much — to fear humanity, but not his own human nature. To weep, if he must, to stoke his joys. Discipline tightened indifference like a noose around the throats of children. How can they breathe, how could any of them fill their lungs?
Lan Wangji suspects, when he dips the child in further to set his dry mouth on Sizhui's head, his hair after, affection will singe him. Blame Wei Ying, if Sizhui must point to one man, for this deluge of physicality. Yiling inspires it. ]
Men who pursue the good of the many over their own leave behind greatness.
[ And children, to fulfill that glory, should they fail. ]
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It will probably sink in, later, that it's all right to hurt. It's too much, just now.
He lowers his head slightly. ]
If you will play for them, after all is clean, I will join you.
[ If Hanguang-jun won't, then Sizhui will play on his own. That's all right. ]
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Pure, trembled, dwindling under the strain of work a Lan assumes with the territory of teeth-chattering rivers and frozen banks. Blood stains more than it flatters Sizhui, his pallor cruelly chipped porcelain. He is not of ice, not carved, not standing. He is...
...warm, when Lan Wangji's elbow strikes Sizhui's in passing for the pail, dragging his cloth for another rinse, before brushing it aimlessly over the floor. It leaves behind the wet taint of dark, wet clamor, blood long expelled; like madmen, he has been striking the same territory again and again, hoping for a new result at each turn. ]
After all is clean. [ Let us postpone Sizhui's vivisection one heartbeat longer. They can both be so weak-willed. ] Your senior Wei will call our work poorly done.
[ Put more of the wrist in, the back, lean. The trick of toil isn't skill, Lan Wangji has learned through pained tribulation, but repetition. He lacks the sophistication of a man who has taken up the task so often he knows to abandon finesse.
But they are accomplices in this, ends of their mouths a curling filigree. Son, choose your ally well. ]
Do not give him satisfaction.
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[ Heart of a Wen, most people would say, is the heart of a cur - hungry, mean, rabid, only deserving to be kicked if not killed. Sizhui had not known, before, that this was his heart, too, he has always tried to do his best, to ease the dead look in Hanguang-jun's eyes, to make Zewu-jun proud of him, to ease Shifu's anger at things he at first did not understand, then understood but a little.
Now he knows, and understands, and tries even harder.
Before, it was not difficult that he is different from the man who raised him. After all, Hanguang-jun is different from Zewu-jun, and they are both different from Shifu. If he did well enough, that would not be a problem.
Now...
He has to never stray from the path of righteousness, and never fail it. Anything else, and he would not be worthy of all that he has been granted when he was taken in. The raising and training, but mostly, the love.
It is right to cleanse the blood.
It is also right to cleanse the souls. ]
Although... I do not know if Senior Wei would be satisfied to find fault with this. He will want to make sure it is done properly, as would you.
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Do not roll your eyes until they threaten to drop off like glass baubles, do not perch your brows in incredulity, do not sigh as if you speak for the mountain wind. Do not yield to the temptation of articulating and expressing frustration, for all he knows the truth of the sages — ]
Your senior Wei enjoys teasing.
[ ...there. The child, armed with the lesson of Lan Wangji's life, earned off his torture. Use this instrument well and never turn a soft, undefended cheek to that vicious beast Wei Ying without expecting it pinched.
Let it not be said, when Lan Wangji sets mind and back and the curl of his clawing hand back to the task of scavenging every last particle of red from the floors, that he has not done this one thing well. ]
Meet his words with reticence.
[ And preserve patience for when that approach is refuted. ]