[ Together, but their pacing staggered, and Lan Wangji — stilted for longer than he will admit later, the hour and its danger passed. He sways, nausea striking his nape and his back, the cloying stench of burning inundating the passageway, drowning him past where he can draw true breath.
Still, he waits — and he waits — and keeps vigil, dancing around his site on firefly-light steps, ever circling without stilling long enough to give the dead cause for chase. Let his scent not catch, let his shadow not deepen, let him wander as his thoughts do, wander and stray like ghosts.
A prediction of some merit: time within the corridors is but a fraction of that passed in the outside world. Wei Ying's wards honour his name, fast, breezy, reliable. Within heartbeats of the first alarm drawn, Lan Wangji comes alive — that same breath, Bichen, her pallor sinking up and twisting, manipulate no more elegantly than a shovel, carving out the shape of stones, like every knife that aims the negative space between vertebrae.
He feels the tumult of coming water in the vibration of dirt, feels the raw ache of it bearing down before it splints rock like heavy needle, thrusting down, first in rivulet, then in stream, then in disaster —
And they scream for it, the dead who wait, who waited their lifetime, who waited no further, for the white roil of water catching sulphur, bathing bones, releasing heat off old volcanic plaques. They recoil, run, and it is to Lan Wangji's shame, withdrawing beside them, that he does not understand at first, they run for the water.
So many dead, spirits, bones. So many unburied. The scratched out terror of each breath nearly prevents the next. He dashes out, limbs protesting, Bichen all but a stringing decoration — until he reaches the outside world with a gasp, his clothes tattered, his fingers all grime and his nails worn. A beggar, returned to the temple, exhausted by the last step he takes before Wei Ying in the great chamber, nearly destroyed.
When he speaks, first, sound eludes him. Then, a wheeze. At long last, coughed, the reckoning: ]
They are grateful. [ He wants to laugh. Can't. ] Grateful.
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Still, he waits — and he waits — and keeps vigil, dancing around his site on firefly-light steps, ever circling without stilling long enough to give the dead cause for chase. Let his scent not catch, let his shadow not deepen, let him wander as his thoughts do, wander and stray like ghosts.
A prediction of some merit: time within the corridors is but a fraction of that passed in the outside world. Wei Ying's wards honour his name, fast, breezy, reliable. Within heartbeats of the first alarm drawn, Lan Wangji comes alive — that same breath, Bichen, her pallor sinking up and twisting, manipulate no more elegantly than a shovel, carving out the shape of stones, like every knife that aims the negative space between vertebrae.
He feels the tumult of coming water in the vibration of dirt, feels the raw ache of it bearing down before it splints rock like heavy needle, thrusting down, first in rivulet, then in stream, then in disaster —
And they scream for it, the dead who wait, who waited their lifetime, who waited no further, for the white roil of water catching sulphur, bathing bones, releasing heat off old volcanic plaques. They recoil, run, and it is to Lan Wangji's shame, withdrawing beside them, that he does not understand at first, they run for the water.
So many dead, spirits, bones. So many unburied. The scratched out terror of each breath nearly prevents the next. He dashes out, limbs protesting, Bichen all but a stringing decoration — until he reaches the outside world with a gasp, his clothes tattered, his fingers all grime and his nails worn. A beggar, returned to the temple, exhausted by the last step he takes before Wei Ying in the great chamber, nearly destroyed.
When he speaks, first, sound eludes him. Then, a wheeze. At long last, coughed, the reckoning: ]
They are grateful. [ He wants to laugh. Can't. ] Grateful.