username: yiling laozu | video

[weifinder]

( a smile from the man on camera, and a wave of his fingers against the backdrop of an ice wall. )

To those who know me not at all, or less well than others of our number do, I'm Wei Wuxian.

( hands lifted, he offers a polite, perfunctory sort of bow, paired to the clasping of fingers over the other hand's set. they drop out of frame, and he looks a touch more serious, dark eyes fathomless. or maybe it's all in the lighting. (the lack of proper lighting. torchlight keeps him flickering in reds and oranges.) )

The king mentioned Irenia in passing, the dragon? She was thieved away from a lord of death our group knows of, and has run into several times. His name's Anurr, he's the, ah, very slightly less horrible option for being enslaved by death lords, and from Sa-Hareth. Trailing after us with his creatures or his shifting loyalties, never trust his kind voice, Eleven can tell you about that! Five, I'm sure, can tell you more, as can Xie Lian, or Xiao Xingchen. All members of our group, as it were. Anyway!

( he claps his hands, and grins. a little crinkling around his eyes makes him almost seem truly merry, instead of merrily dry. )

Irenia lured far enough west can be called back to Anurr's dubious graces. Far enough east, and with a different strong pull on her mind, maybe, maybe we can free her. Either way, I recommend we do one or the other, because space to crash a being who never asked to be used as she is is limited, and using the keep itself in poor taste, as it defends this world from hell. Apparently. Very exciting stuff!

( ball's in your court now, chaos crew! )

Comments

[weifinder]

Would you continue leaving your family at risk?

[somebadnews]

[ He doesn't have words for how much he hates it when his family is used against him. ]

What risk is that?

[weifinder]

You know. Do you want me to say it so you can hear it outside of your own mind?

[somebadnews]

I know what you think, but it's always nice to be vindicated.

1/2

[weifinder]

This will take a moment, bear with me.

2/2 | private

[weifinder]

Being afraid is not a sign of weakness. Accepting it, facing it, handling it, those are things we can do for ourselves. Accepting offers of help before we unleash powers to a lord of death, before our own great powers can be used against us, before we're fully destroyed, that's important, ah?

I've been there before, in slightly different ways. You've become more and more lost in fear and anger over the last two years, Lao Five. It has to be exhausting.

private

[somebadnews]

[ The sincerity, if nothing else, takes him by surprise. He wants to refute him, but he's aware that what he's carried around for damn near two years is not getting better with time. They're never far away from anguish for him to absorb, the only difference is that he's learned how to compartmentalize the effects so he hasn't had another incident like Taravast. Wrath has offered more than once to remove it under the right conditions, but he understands why he's continually put it off. Bad can always get worse.

He can't afford another mistake. ]

The last time someone tried to help me, I lost all memory of one of my siblings. [ He hadn't planned to admit that, but he's reminded any time someone asks for his trust. It still tortures him that he lost his chance to get his memories back when Mingyu was too afraid to meet with him and disappeared again. That he couldn't murder him for what he did. ]

None of you are subtle. I know you see me as a threat. I've traveled with you, fought with you, for two years, and your own husband still tried to start a campaign against me. So why would I agree to put my life in your hands?

[weifinder]

That's horrific.

( the memory loss. it's stated factually, yes, but it's something that wei wuxian's voice doesn't try to disguise how deeply... terrible he finds that. because memory for him, that's something he holds stronger than he likes for some things, and then in the same turn has nothing to hold regarding his own parents. lost to the mists of childhood, and the terrors that followed. )

Am I my husband to you? If you believe that I think as he does, Five, then I don't know why you'd agree. If you've learned anything of me in the last two years, do you think I'd lie idle on someone I perceive as a true threat? Do you think I would have worked in tandem with you, or been concerned for how you are? I'm asking.

[somebadnews]

[ Horrific is a good word for what was done to him, but there's too much pity attached to it to make him comfortable about mentioning it. He assumes Mingyu did it because he was afraid of him and how far he'd go if he thought his family was dead. That's what people do when they feel threatened.

There is a valid point to that. He can be dangerous all on his own, let alone when he's pushed like he has been. Wei Wuxian is different, but he's never known what it is that makes him that way. The Commission manipulated him, sometimes pretended to care, but he always knew where he stood. With him, he never has. ]

You're concerned. [ For how he is. Somehow those two things don't go together in a way he can resolve in his mind and he stews as he struggles with them. ] It's bad. I'm aware. I also can't risk removing it while we're on the verge of an apocalypse.

[ It would also be an inopportune time to lose his mind because of all of the suffering going on around them. That's exactly why Mingyu did what he did. There's a considerably long pause before he makes one concession. ]

...Once I was able to release what it'd collected. The shards from the broken mirror absorbed it when I went back for them in Taravast. If that's something you can replicate.

[weifinder]

( he listens, patient. wei wuxian is often more patient than people realise, even as he chooses when not to be patient just as surely. right now it's more important to listen. to hear. )

... We know the mirrors in their different ways can retain measures of their power, even less than whole. However, the way of it works... like a curse, of this lands. I specify, because curses work differently in my world.

( all slowly, thoughtfully stated. )

I may be able to. Not the exact same way, but drawing it out from you, into another vessel. It won't be pleasant. I don't know your inherited curse well enough to unmake it yet, so the lure, the call would remain, but dampening, siphon away what it brings to you, that... yes. Yes, for relief, to start.

[somebadnews]

[ It'd be quite the 180 turn to suddenly accept an offer after he's steadfastly refused him until now. One thing he won't mention, because it's not his place, is that Wrath wants the mirror inside him to deal with his own curse. He promised he would give it to him, when everything was more settled and he was certain he could afford to be incapacitated if something went wrong.

But relief is tempting. Even temporary. Something that works better than drowning it in alcohol, which is too difficult when he needs his mind sharp. The mirror shards haven't worked in the months it's been slowly building, so he's run out of ways to deal with it on his own. With the apocalypse feeling closer all the time, something has to give.

Still, he's careful about what he agrees to, even if he is halfway convinced his worry for him is genuine. There are ways to make sure he's not walking into a trap. ]

I have conditions.

[weifinder]

( If he knew the extent to which Five followed the same path Wei Wuxian had in his youth, trying to balm over the pains, the voices that never stopped, the ill fit of his place in a dangerous world where he was liability and in fear for those he loved at all times, and had no way to frame it, to solve it, to resolve it; that wine flowed down his throat inside and outside in unequal measures?

If.

But he has only guesses, from the times he's run into Five more pickled than not, and he's not one to chase after people's tails without reason. So he listens now, and nods, and says: )

I'm listening.

[somebadnews]

[ He's persuasive, he'll give him that. After all this time, Wei Wuxian probably knows what approaches would work and how easily he could have dismissed an offer anyone else would have jumped at long before now. A part of that comes from how much of magic and curses remain an unknown to him. It asks for faith he rarely has in others.

Either the timing is a coincidence, or he could tell that Five is just on the edge of what he can bear before his sanity starts to deteriorate. He's still skeptical that he'll be able to do as he says, but in either case, he takes precautions. ]

I want my sister there. [ Allison might object, but he's confident he can persuade her. ] Let her ask a few questions to add some guardrails on what you're promising, and I'll agree.

[weifinder]

Miss Allison? Of course.

( She's been a well meaning soul, even if she has sicced a bear on him historically. )

[somebadnews]

[ That sounded like consent to him. It still isn't entirely comfortable, but he'll have to give it some thought if he should include Wrath in his precautions. ]

Lan Wangji doesn't need to know. Or Moran, or anyone else.

[weifinder]

You would lie to your spouse?

( The rest he doesn't mind. This, however, is a different sort of line for him, after past transgressions in both directions, and thus he simply looks at Five. )

[somebadnews]

[ Never mind that he couldn't lie to Dolores if he tried. She always knows. ]

My spouse didn't plot to kill me.

[weifinder]

Neither did mine, so I repeat: you'd lie to your spouse?

[somebadnews]

[ He knows what he meant. ]

That’s really not the point. He wanted to murder me. I don’t want him there.

[weifinder]

He won't be. What I'm saying I won't do is keep him from knowing it's happened. I'll likewise inform him his presence isn't welcome at the time.

[somebadnews]

[ That is a terrible compromise. Why is it his business, unless he expects something to go wrong? ]

Do you tell him everything?

[weifinder]

I've learned to over the years.

( It's this thing called trusting your spouse, Five, you literally do the same thing with your manikin wife. )

[somebadnews]

[ He wonders why he didn’t ask for help. Now he assumes he’s tell him if he suddenly refuses, which he’s halfway tempted to.

There’s a long pause while he’s considering it. ]

I’d hate to be the one to come between you two.

[weifinder]

Why would you?

( looking faintly amused. )

Lan Zhan is a vinegar jar, but he's mine, and I'm his, by choice. Telling him what I'm up to isn't the same as letting him decide if it happens or not.

[somebadnews]

Of course it isn't. [ It just gives him an option that he doesn't need to have. ]

...I'll think about it.