un: blushing beads of heft and beauty | audio | After Sizhui and Eleven question the miners

[paperbutterflies]

[ Sizhui hasn't spoken much over the network, but for those who know him, he sounds extremely subdued, though his words are clear and his voice calm. The execution has not happened yet, so. ]

This is Lan Sizhui. For those who might be curious, Eleven and I talked with the two miners that... were taken.

In short, their story started when they were snowed in - and iced in - for far too long inside the mine. They had not expected that, so there were no provisions. First one, then another of their number died of hunger, and then the two dead bodies reanimated and ... asked what they would give for the hunger to stop.

What they are becoming, they chose, under duress.

The two who had died first already became among Unhalad's soldiers. I do not know why the remaining six were asked to choose it, rather than waited out to be just taken. I don't think they know, either.

And if they remember what exactly was done to them after they agreed, they are not telling us.

I think this is more or less the information we found from them. Thank you for your attention.

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lmf lans holding passed out weis

[weifinder]

( He exhales in a long sort of sigh as he lets his arms settle around Sizhui in turn. He's still not the most practised, more used to being hugged than hugging, and both are remnants of his youth more than recent days, but he manages. There's no surprise and no shock leaving his hands held up, shy of touching. )

I know. ( Which is obvious, probably, but he strokes one hand over Sizhui's hair, like his shijie had done for him as a younger man. ) Right now, there's so much information and time we're lacking to make ourselves useful in the same ways here as we are back home. We'll find better ways we can help, but we're going to fail, too. What we learn from our mistakes and failures, how we don't repeat those, how we succeed later, it doesn't make right now feel better. But we don't stop here.

It happens more often than you'd think.

[paperbutterflies]

[ Little A-Yuan had been rather clingy, but then again, people had used to hold him all the time to prevent him from walking into danger early on,and it had stayed so until touch had become a cause for actual pain for another. Then he had learned to hold back, and then slowly begun to re-learn.

And yes, Wei Wuxian, Xian-gege, senior Wei, he has been one of those he had never hesitated to touch, and who'd touched in return. Holding his hand, picking him up, holding him away from things.

It is comforting.

He breathes out, sagging slightly. ]

I think it is that I feel like we didn't try much, though I know that I did, and I suspect others did, and probably still are trying.

But... of course we don't stop.

[weifinder]

( He makes himself a bulwark now, in a way he hasn't let himself be since Yunmeng Jiang burned, since the life he knew had been sacrificed on the pyre of the Wens. It's not a clan's disgrace to carry the actions of its main branch; he's never held it against the Dafan Wens, couldn't make it easy and simply let them suffer for being born to one clan, and not another.

Could not watch another child and mother shot down from behind by the Jin's archers, in the name of righteousness. He misses his juniors. He missed A-Yuan.

Having him back again was finding a part of his heart he'd left for dead still knew how to beat in time with the rest. )

No, we don't. We don't stop, and we don't give in. We feel everything we feel, whatever the emotion, but we don't let it be what stops us from going forward. We reflect, we learn, we get back up. It's not the falling that's the problem, and failure is not bad, it's instructive. It's staying down... it's giving in to the thought that this failure is the one we can't come back from, that's a problem.

( He doesn't know if there is a solution to the undead of this world. There's not one to theirs, but there is a way to bring back someone from possession; he knows that, had worked hard on it. Here, the process, the way they change... he doesn't know if it can be the same, but only in learning more can they find out, one way or another. )

[paperbutterflies]

[ Not giving up will not help the two men in there, and probably a number more who will get caught up in this until then, but...

They can't help if they give up, either, so it is indeed the only path they can take.

Instead of bringing any of that up, Sizhui nods, then says softly, ] and not giving up...

Not accepting failure as the only outcome, or an acceptable outcome...

Senior Wei, you are no longer alone in it.

[weifinder]

Mm.

( His smile now is aware, and warm, and considered: one might turn away the opinions of others in pursuing one's sense of innate justice, but to stand alone, to bear onward... )

Not allowing failure to stop us from wanting to try and find better ways. Together.

( That, the unity in standing together, is important for them all. He accepts it now, and offers it in turn, to this lost and rediscovered son he'd been mourning until, miraculous, he'd learned he was alive. One more blessing to lay at Lan Zhan's kindness. A somewhat possessive kindness, which, well, isn't surprising either. )