( He is angry, on the way down. At those hollow, resentment filled paper men, at a mother's rage, at a child who is not human but looks half bred to it, and his hand against the rabbit-boy's back, his underweight burden, step by step soothed and murmured to as distraction for the anger that would otherwise rear its ugly head.
Qingshan sees him, and he starts to redirect the anger, smiles at his son, and tentatively sends his limited qi into the child he carries. It's not easy, and what he finds instead of the forced union of two different energies is this: he can coax the child's energy, that of the yao he'd named him before, into circulating and healing himself. It's fascinating, enough to fully distract him from his anger, so that he spends his time following along after husband and son with an innocent healing in hushed and pained little noises in his arms, and his own growing exhaustion. He's long past it, simply ignoring it, as the innkeep offers her silence purchased, and he summons up smiles and niceties that call on an extra portion of vegetables sent up with the milk, fresh, uncooked, all the more for the gentleman's pleasures. What they aim to do, she surely does not want to know.
The donkey waits on for now; another inn, another stables. If this one even had such, and Wei Wuxian realises he had not looked.
He's taken to cleaning this older child, with limbs that reveal a finer patterning of skin to fur, where some burns prove to be flesh that was not the child's own, but another's. Most, as it turns out, superficial, skin reddened and fur burnt away without blisters or puss or any indication of the truly terrible burns. Rope marks reveal themselves around ankles, and the anger flares again, giving him energy to continue in his tired ministrations, his response to Lan Zhan's broken silence slow. A beat, then two. Turning his head, swallowing against a dry throat and dry mouth. )
Been healing.
( The child, that is. His eyes drop, to Lan Zhan's ankle, the lift of his brows and the blink of his eyes slower than words. Lifts his eyes to rake them upward, concern at war, again, with anger, and both with creeping exhaustion. )
Stock.
( Take stock, of injuries and all else. He pauses, a minute shake of his head. )
Yourself, in what condition?
( He strokes a hand through the fur of the rabbit-child, earns the kick of a leg, the twitch of a nose rabbit soft. Those dark eyes, still living in a world of shock, and then he leans his head down, murmurs. You are here, they do not have you. And the child curls up, tucks himself at Wei Wuxian's side on the smaller of two platforms, the one less meant for sleeping than resting as one cits and contemplated their day. )
The greed, of some people.
( He says, and the rabbit boy shivers, shudders, seems to grow smaller. Quivers, and under the strokes of Wei Wuxian's hand, does shift in eye-frightening ways; a scalded rabbit of gargantuan proportions nosing against his side, then, fingers resolved into toes and paws, and Wei Wuxian can only stare down. )
Qingshan forgives you. ( He says, as if distracted. ) He loves you best.
( The indulgent father, and the bright father, and the fright of a father, but in the exciting ways. Wei Wuxian wants to simply lay down as he is now, curled around the rabbit child (rabbit? or child? so much more rabbit right now, is he fully so?), welcoming Qingshan in his overtired needs. But no, now is not yet time for rest. )
no subject
Qingshan sees him, and he starts to redirect the anger, smiles at his son, and tentatively sends his limited qi into the child he carries. It's not easy, and what he finds instead of the forced union of two different energies is this: he can coax the child's energy, that of the yao he'd named him before, into circulating and healing himself. It's fascinating, enough to fully distract him from his anger, so that he spends his time following along after husband and son with an innocent healing in hushed and pained little noises in his arms, and his own growing exhaustion. He's long past it, simply ignoring it, as the innkeep offers her silence purchased, and he summons up smiles and niceties that call on an extra portion of vegetables sent up with the milk, fresh, uncooked, all the more for the gentleman's pleasures. What they aim to do, she surely does not want to know.
The donkey waits on for now; another inn, another stables. If this one even had such, and Wei Wuxian realises he had not looked.
He's taken to cleaning this older child, with limbs that reveal a finer patterning of skin to fur, where some burns prove to be flesh that was not the child's own, but another's. Most, as it turns out, superficial, skin reddened and fur burnt away without blisters or puss or any indication of the truly terrible burns. Rope marks reveal themselves around ankles, and the anger flares again, giving him energy to continue in his tired ministrations, his response to Lan Zhan's broken silence slow. A beat, then two. Turning his head, swallowing against a dry throat and dry mouth. )
Been healing.
( The child, that is. His eyes drop, to Lan Zhan's ankle, the lift of his brows and the blink of his eyes slower than words. Lifts his eyes to rake them upward, concern at war, again, with anger, and both with creeping exhaustion. )
Stock.
( Take stock, of injuries and all else. He pauses, a minute shake of his head. )
Yourself, in what condition?
( He strokes a hand through the fur of the rabbit-child, earns the kick of a leg, the twitch of a nose rabbit soft. Those dark eyes, still living in a world of shock, and then he leans his head down, murmurs. You are here, they do not have you. And the child curls up, tucks himself at Wei Wuxian's side on the smaller of two platforms, the one less meant for sleeping than resting as one cits and contemplated their day. )
The greed, of some people.
( He says, and the rabbit boy shivers, shudders, seems to grow smaller. Quivers, and under the strokes of Wei Wuxian's hand, does shift in eye-frightening ways; a scalded rabbit of gargantuan proportions nosing against his side, then, fingers resolved into toes and paws, and Wei Wuxian can only stare down. )
Qingshan forgives you. ( He says, as if distracted. ) He loves you best.
( The indulgent father, and the bright father, and the fright of a father, but in the exciting ways. Wei Wuxian wants to simply lay down as he is now, curled around the rabbit child (rabbit? or child? so much more rabbit right now, is he fully so?), welcoming Qingshan in his overtired needs. But no, now is not yet time for rest. )