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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.
un: deft hand of little deaths [Voice]
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[It's what he's good at, finding scraps. And cleaning up.]
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> Action
[Carrying the required item, with crushed snow inside the pail.
There are small indents in Xie Lian's palms, traces of his nails when he held his fists tight to stop them from shaking as he fought the urge to simply attack, before he very quickly left the vicinity. His hands are not shaking anymore now that he kneels down to start scrubbing.
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He owes, he decides, in substitute of greeting — he owes, and he will repay in silks or trinkets of practicality here, in inks or a comb. For this, the help Xie Lian ever offers without request for compensation. For the hands he purposed to the work of furthering Wei Ying's comfort.
They meet in a reddened room, reeking of plaster and gelid lye. Lan Wangji already knelt, dragging his cloth and rags over the diluted coatings of the floor, as if he cast a brush unto paints. ]
Apologies. You must toil, each time we meet.
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[Blood doesn't bother him either, quite obviously, and he kneels down as well to start scrubbing.]
You had to behead them, didn't you? There's nothing else that stops them, I have heard.
[So of course there's a lot of blood.]
What did you do with the bodies?
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[ Beheading, no — but cutting, fine and clean, in many parts. Lacerations born of the silvered wire, of Alina's treacherously beautiful skill. Later, when his hand no longer trembles on the cleansing rag, when he has done with the tenuous task of repelling the dregs of filth from his floors, he must ask the nature of her ability. Sorcery, past definition, the reshaping of light whole.
No need to trouble this poor man with the graphic detail of their earlier arrangement. That deed that needed doing has finalised, detail unto whole, blood spilled. What comes now is mere cleansing. ]
The forest. For burial or burning.
[ He has heard word that the remains are sought for cremation, to reunite the dead with the warmth they seem to hunt down during their brief re-animation. ]
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It's probably best to cremate them and disperse the ashes. Make sure they aren't all together in one place, so nothing can come back.
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He stills enough to stare at the man, to give the rag in his hands a long, perfunctory squeeze and kneading over the bucket. To wrestle it to form again, flat and pressed within every cavity of the floor underfoot.
Apply: the bridge of his palm, the strength of his wrist, a long lean. He makes attempt. Wei Ying would still not approve of it. ]
No doubt, they had families.
[ Families that might benefit of the comforts of witnessing the bodies before their last departure. ]
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[Xie Lian works small area by small area, first scrubbing with the wet rag to dislodge the particles, then wetting the rag some more to rinse. They'll probably need to just dunk the whole place in water at the end to rinse it off.]
If there's ashes, and they're still all together, they could come back as a ghost.
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[ Chenqing. The Stygian amulet. Ever a fount to spill rivulets of strength, dark, heady and claw-thin, spanning lifeless limbs. Alone, spirits seldom return to the same vessel, not when the vessel has been vanquished, chipped and torn. Exorcism severs link and belonging. Crude, the destruction of the possessed shell tatters even the last call point of nostalgia.
Spirits bond with sentiment. It is known. Wei Ying lived and lied and breathed and fell for that knowledge. Ghosts, mind — and what of them? Let them people this house, let them ruin it. What will more voices do, but thicken the fold? Are they so sickened by wanderers that they cannot feed one mouth further?
In grief, ghosts kept Lan Wangji's vigil. Let them come, then. He learns after Xie Lian's manner, the patterns and strokes and the push of his hand, scrubbing without fervour, imitating the points when he should rinse in time with Xie Lian. Repeat. Apply himself. ]
You fear ghosts?
[ Most men entertain superstition, though few walk the wanderer's road. ]
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No, I don't fear them. Not any more than I fear people. Actually, I might fear people more than ghosts.
... But it's a thankless existence, and unless one has a goal, a will, it's hard to maintain any kind of conscience as a ghost. These people suffered enough. They don't deserve that.
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The sluggish, trickled drag of life between feats of surviving the chills or the mine's work, raising children to worship mounds of salt. Ingratiating oneself before visiting merchants, fearing half of the land and the forests, and culminating, at the end of one's day, in eerie, shuddered encounters with local undead.
He would not wish himself existence here, not even for the price of peace. Wei Ying might disapprove, but Lan Wangji knows himself, his heart's appetites for beauty. Cloud Recesses was cold, and — he pushes on the cloth, lashing the flood — they still carved room out for the arts, for pleasure. For life, without —
...he pauses, eyes needle point when they prick Xie Lian's profile, measure him. ]
How many ghosts have you acquainted?
[ Unnatural for a man to keep the company of dead, lest he is a necromancer, an exorcist. Even wandering cultivators, let alone hermits, limit their exposure to well-defined, counted night hunts. ]
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[Xie Lian goes back to his scrubbing, a bit more vigorously. The wood groans a bit as he does, and he eases the pressure just a little.]
After all these years, I've sort of lost count.
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There was execution here, and you asked nothing of its turbulence. The air shifts around, more than with him, as if Xie Lian is —
And there is a frailty in Lan Wangji at odds with the murky glass of their frowning window panes, the constant glare-down of greyed skies. With how he moves, serpentine, snaking two fingers of one hand to tape the span of Xie Lian's wrist, when it next bares and turns itself on the cleaning cloth, to take his...
...pulse. ]
I do not understand you.
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I'm not a ghost, if that's what you're wondering. Nor am I dead.
... I can't die, actually.
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He is not a ghost. Lan Wangji's touch withdraws, and he yearns, inexorably, for ablution, pinching at the cleansing cloth on the ground to wet his hand. Swept blood weeps out, pinked and soft. He swallows hard, dry, around the reminder.
On this day, he has released two ghosts already. He need not discover a third. ]
All men must die.
[ Only spirits persist until they exhaust themselves, like a candle burned at both ends. Only demons, making of passing men their home, one swapped for the next. Only memories, and those soured. ]
You did not cultivate immortality.
[ By own admission, own terrible mouth. ]
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[Let him tell you a little story, Wangji.]
A long time ago, in the country of Xianle, there was a demon ghost on Yinian bridge. A young man came along and fought the demon ghost, and he killed it, freeing the people from it. And this fight was witnessed by the heavens, and so the young man ascended.
[Another smile.]
Does that answer your question?
[Which you actually did not ask, by the way.]
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Not a ghost. Unable to die. Called unto ascension — but... perhaps having yet to attain it. Reconsidered, at the last moment? Did he, or did his betters? Did he renounce his title? Was he, perhaps, cast out?
The possibilities peel away in layers of mute, threadbare understanding. He feels like a child, collecting glistened stone from the river bank, thinking it wept pearls — when the truth likely lies distant from his hands. They withdraw from the man, tenderly apologetic. He has overstepped here, assumed, scarred with presumption. Pulse, but not his beat to taste and take, not Lan Wangji's to measure. ]
What are you?
[ An itch, under his skin, poison of his blood. If he calls the guqin now, any dead would be compelled to give him righteous answer. But this man is not dead — the riddle replays itself. ]
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But he's going to keep scrubbing while he answers, because that blood won't clean itself.]
When I first ascended, they called me 花冠武神, the Flower Crown Martial God.
... Many things happened after that, but I was banished from the Heavens. Twice. So I spent most of my time as a God in the Mortal Realm, alongside humans. Actually, I ascended again for the third time not that long ago.
I don't know that I would still call myself a Martial God, or that anyone else would, really. It's not really that important either. But I do count as a Heavenly official.