A circle of fingers, burned like no brand on his wrist, located later in the faint lingering heat, the almost bruising that he's prone to when he knocks into things, cannot heal away as swiftly, mindlessly as he did in learning cultivation in his youth.
No, and he had only half heard the voice, the echo that was the sound of him and not the heart, but it's enough. It's always enough, and there are other things to hear, other ways to wind his music into Lan Zhan's, following his lead and overtaking it, handing it back once the crescendo builds and they're left in the aftermath, pressure of relief singing alive in his veins.
Voices for this area, the souls and energies and hatreds that had stirred to follow, that surrendered and rendered in their wake a temporary, fractured peace. This is more than he managed alone, day to day, or fought back nightly to keep the Wens safe. Safe in a living graveyard of hungry ghosts, and what a joy that'd been, when the living eeked out impossible progress over the dead.
The dead had their vengeances. Even now, sinking down to settle by Lan Zhan, who does not laugh but comments on a womb, on children, he feels the echo of the pain in all those ghosts. Were they good, bad, indifferent in living?
"What can I say? You already knew it was fruitful."
A wan smile, the brief lean of his shoulder against Lan Zhan's. Sizhui, and each child that follows; not just our Qingshan, our Qingbai, but every orphaned creature since. The living fruits, borne from a man, wombless, but with a heart that might as well have held each seed to its germination.
"A shame," he says, Chenqing laid across his legs, tassel tangling, brushing ground to dust at nothing that could be shaken off. "So few were meant to make it."
Their peace is purchased for the moment, the line toed in the sand. Spirits are not so endlessly resenting to ignore preservation even of their nothing, their loss of potential, their swallowed dreams. He lifts a hand, unblooded, and sketches the shape of the ward against the air. Inform. Renewing old lines, ones he carved into rock and dirt almost two decades ago, but ones he can start to reignite now. A shimmer of energy, and the tripwire nature of his belled line glows, then disappears, as insubstantial as dust motes in a sunbeam.
"This went better than the last time."
Which last time, and to what extent? He tucks into his robes, the cross of them over his chest, and pulls out a banded collection of talismans. Shows them to Lan Zhan, the writing bold as always, but tempered by something time had won from him, and given back again. Experience. Named, talismans of enduring, like and unlike the wards set within and to their backs, leaving them facing one front, and not many to guard against.
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No, and he had only half heard the voice, the echo that was the sound of him and not the heart, but it's enough. It's always enough, and there are other things to hear, other ways to wind his music into Lan Zhan's, following his lead and overtaking it, handing it back once the crescendo builds and they're left in the aftermath, pressure of relief singing alive in his veins.
Voices for this area, the souls and energies and hatreds that had stirred to follow, that surrendered and rendered in their wake a temporary, fractured peace. This is more than he managed alone, day to day, or fought back nightly to keep the Wens safe. Safe in a living graveyard of hungry ghosts, and what a joy that'd been, when the living eeked out impossible progress over the dead.
The dead had their vengeances. Even now, sinking down to settle by Lan Zhan, who does not laugh but comments on a womb, on children, he feels the echo of the pain in all those ghosts. Were they good, bad, indifferent in living?
"What can I say? You already knew it was fruitful."
A wan smile, the brief lean of his shoulder against Lan Zhan's. Sizhui, and each child that follows; not just our Qingshan, our Qingbai, but every orphaned creature since. The living fruits, borne from a man, wombless, but with a heart that might as well have held each seed to its germination.
"A shame," he says, Chenqing laid across his legs, tassel tangling, brushing ground to dust at nothing that could be shaken off. "So few were meant to make it."
Their peace is purchased for the moment, the line toed in the sand. Spirits are not so endlessly resenting to ignore preservation even of their nothing, their loss of potential, their swallowed dreams. He lifts a hand, unblooded, and sketches the shape of the ward against the air. Inform. Renewing old lines, ones he carved into rock and dirt almost two decades ago, but ones he can start to reignite now. A shimmer of energy, and the tripwire nature of his belled line glows, then disappears, as insubstantial as dust motes in a sunbeam.
"This went better than the last time."
Which last time, and to what extent? He tucks into his robes, the cross of them over his chest, and pulls out a banded collection of talismans. Shows them to Lan Zhan, the writing bold as always, but tempered by something time had won from him, and given back again. Experience. Named, talismans of enduring, like and unlike the wards set within and to their backs, leaving them facing one front, and not many to guard against.