Thrumming outside his skin, and breathing through it, in some sense of unfathomed loss and quiet, countryside exhalation. Not a finishing, but a hint of settling, of old lands giving birth to new avenues, trickles of qi like water brushing past them.
The damages here were deeper, heavier than they'd had a right to know. Than anyone had a right to realise, without being destroyed in the unveiling.
They breathe yet.
He swallows, and touch doesn't bring him back to himself, really, not until it's touch and words, and he looks to Lan Zhan as if surprised to find him there, to find his hand caught, to find himself catching Lan Zhan's hand in turn. Cold, and what of it? Snakes, and he startles into laughter, curls a hand and tugs on Lan Zhan. Tugs without moving further, leading nowhere.
"Snakes become dragons, you know. All the legends tell us so," he says, and his eyes lose some of their depth of cold, some of their glacial awareness, to turn warmer, a thawing to uncertain spring. "Besides, the cold never bothered you anyway."
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The damages here were deeper, heavier than they'd had a right to know. Than anyone had a right to realise, without being destroyed in the unveiling.
They breathe yet.
He swallows, and touch doesn't bring him back to himself, really, not until it's touch and words, and he looks to Lan Zhan as if surprised to find him there, to find his hand caught, to find himself catching Lan Zhan's hand in turn. Cold, and what of it? Snakes, and he startles into laughter, curls a hand and tugs on Lan Zhan. Tugs without moving further, leading nowhere.
"Snakes become dragons, you know. All the legends tell us so," he says, and his eyes lose some of their depth of cold, some of their glacial awareness, to turn warmer, a thawing to uncertain spring. "Besides, the cold never bothered you anyway."