[ At least, until Lan Wangji has completed his petty rituals, and is at liberty to resume this conversation.
He is not as Wei Ying, an animal easily contented to retire for the evening without licking away his hurts, righting the many-headed wrongs of his violated presentation. Luck money and talismans come neatly packaged, for all the humility of the folded paper they bear within. So too, the human body, the chief cultivator: only a man married to rites, bereft of particular merit or creativity, raised to rank by popular agreement that he is of least prickling convictions — showered in lace and finery and the regalia passed down by dubious predecessors, now gradually entertained, for no reason beyond the tolerance of the heavens, as divine. Lan Wangji wakes each day mortal, saunters out of the jingshi a man above men. A product of the Sunshot campaign's legacy.
The guan, first, spider legs of silver absconded between tresses and binds, gently wrestled. His layers, silk and cotton and filigree of glittered thread. His boots, a quick dismissal. Then the modesty screen, splash of his bathing water, the incense stick to mind his wounds and his trailing ankle, to remember the practicalities of healing his own indiscretions. Poorly done, if he is but one, and three mouths — four, the rabbit's joined — depend on him. The athleticism of his golden core will only keep warm and alive if he factors in a certain, inevitable lability of recuperation.
No matter. He returns cleansed, ensconced in his the lesser layers consigned to sleep, with the afterthought of consideration — an ewer, heavy and lukewarm only through the grace of talisman work, scryed in salt and suds (more expenditure) and he discharges it alongside two of the inn's bathing cloths, on Wei Ying's half of this great debate, their sleeping arrangement.
There is a larger accommodation, mere steps away, he conveys with the idle, slow rise and fall of his brows, to an inattentive audience of three. One, he rescues from the swarming, cradling the rabbit in his arms despite its unambiguous heft and lying down on his... side of the cumbersomely smaller, narrower wood and stone slate. The sigh that tortures his lungs does so with the love and care of Zewu-Jun, who has warned him, time and time again, against the dangers (a multitude) of pinning his fate to that of men who are possessed of finer hair than sensibilities.
Not for the first time, tickling the periphery of Wangji's cheek as he settles down, Wei Ying's glistens, raven-feathered and smooth. Irritating. And compounded, when the rabbit nuzzles, viciously pleased when Wangji resumes his strokes and the subtle drain of his energy for healing — Wei Ying brought their new visitor into their lives. Wei Ying and jade rabbits. ]
We return tomorrow. [ A pause, weighed and bartered between the tell-tale pleasantries of his hand on stunted fur. ] The rabbit, also. [ And another breath, hard laboured. Listen. ] We do not surrender him.
[ But what better bait for their own prey, than the life denied to them? Men that defied death to trail after this one creature, desiccated, will not forfeit it when it presents itself so freely before them once more. This much is plain.
And yet, another complication, lingered like sugared thread between them: ]
We will need a time reference for the outside. We lost a day.
[ An hour's incursion in dark depths, and a spring day's passage, from sunrise to sundown, in the waiting world. They cannot afford to lose track in their journey. ]
no subject
[ At least, until Lan Wangji has completed his petty rituals, and is at liberty to resume this conversation.
He is not as Wei Ying, an animal easily contented to retire for the evening without licking away his hurts, righting the many-headed wrongs of his violated presentation. Luck money and talismans come neatly packaged, for all the humility of the folded paper they bear within. So too, the human body, the chief cultivator: only a man married to rites, bereft of particular merit or creativity, raised to rank by popular agreement that he is of least prickling convictions — showered in lace and finery and the regalia passed down by dubious predecessors, now gradually entertained, for no reason beyond the tolerance of the heavens, as divine. Lan Wangji wakes each day mortal, saunters out of the jingshi a man above men. A product of the Sunshot campaign's legacy.
The guan, first, spider legs of silver absconded between tresses and binds, gently wrestled. His layers, silk and cotton and filigree of glittered thread. His boots, a quick dismissal. Then the modesty screen, splash of his bathing water, the incense stick to mind his wounds and his trailing ankle, to remember the practicalities of healing his own indiscretions. Poorly done, if he is but one, and three mouths — four, the rabbit's joined — depend on him. The athleticism of his golden core will only keep warm and alive if he factors in a certain, inevitable lability of recuperation.
No matter. He returns cleansed, ensconced in his the lesser layers consigned to sleep, with the afterthought of consideration — an ewer, heavy and lukewarm only through the grace of talisman work, scryed in salt and suds (more expenditure) and he discharges it alongside two of the inn's bathing cloths, on Wei Ying's half of this great debate, their sleeping arrangement.
There is a larger accommodation, mere steps away, he conveys with the idle, slow rise and fall of his brows, to an inattentive audience of three. One, he rescues from the swarming, cradling the rabbit in his arms despite its unambiguous heft and lying down on his... side of the cumbersomely smaller, narrower wood and stone slate. The sigh that tortures his lungs does so with the love and care of Zewu-Jun, who has warned him, time and time again, against the dangers (a multitude) of pinning his fate to that of men who are possessed of finer hair than sensibilities.
Not for the first time, tickling the periphery of Wangji's cheek as he settles down, Wei Ying's glistens, raven-feathered and smooth. Irritating. And compounded, when the rabbit nuzzles, viciously pleased when Wangji resumes his strokes and the subtle drain of his energy for healing — Wei Ying brought their new visitor into their lives. Wei Ying and jade rabbits. ]
We return tomorrow. [ A pause, weighed and bartered between the tell-tale pleasantries of his hand on stunted fur. ] The rabbit, also. [ And another breath, hard laboured. Listen. ] We do not surrender him.
[ But what better bait for their own prey, than the life denied to them? Men that defied death to trail after this one creature, desiccated, will not forfeit it when it presents itself so freely before them once more. This much is plain.
And yet, another complication, lingered like sugared thread between them: ]
We will need a time reference for the outside. We lost a day.
[ An hour's incursion in dark depths, and a spring day's passage, from sunrise to sundown, in the waiting world. They cannot afford to lose track in their journey. ]