Who are they but ships in a stormed night, lights flickered in nebulous greeting? Before him, Wei Ying wears sixteen years' sorrows like bridal garment. Gratitude and apologies, the easy lacerations of courtesy ill set to stab. Wei Ying, a hapless executioner, mouth his blade, the wetted spread of Lan Wangji's forehead his first kill. Bite of it, like a feathered bird, squirming and living and wailing, rip the throat when the prey's blood yet runs warm.
All at once, Wei Ying dissolves, as the exorcism earlier, as the pains of whispered death that walk Lan Wangji's back. No man should reduce him, but the beast of Yiling catches and grinds him in its maws, spits out remains. There is nothing but blood and reckoning between them, stretches and spills, oil invading water.
Thank you, the starveling of a forlorn ghost, taunting his ear. Then, And I'm sorry. She dissipates.
Hurt reeks in him like the mould that spreads aggressive and web-like on each stone corner, like lichen. His throat cannot bear a swallow more. And still,"Drink my cup to him."
The funerary tokens fate denied him, for what man may mourn a traitor freely without incurring the wrath of the sects upon his clan? And in this, he would not have transgressed, might have pursued his own defection, so that he might wed and bed his grief without the law of tragic attractions whipping brother's limbs. Fate favoured him: long before the Yiling Patriarch surged to glory, the men of Gusu Lan had patroned their whites. Still, no mourning courtship of Wei Ying's peace, no body, no altar.
If Lan Wangji reaches out again, to trail fingers over Wei Ying's knuckles and know the slopes and mounts of them, it is to capture, at long last, the tattered remains. Snare. Snag. From the cavernous abyss, no voice in answer. You released my hand first. And so Wei Ying cannot be simply an extension of empty ground now, cannot sit immutable. Let stone bleed water.
"He was incandescent. Armed to change the world." Willing, able. A fount of idealism, brimming. As if Wei Ying was a creature sundered from his own experience, as if he did not live and breathe, as if he does not know. Remember him, Wangji's lips nearly tear and bleed, remember what you took.
His palm encompasses the back of Wei Ying's hand like snake bite. "I made of me a bowed-back bridge for his ghost's steps." Unasked, his ribs contorted, his spine a fertile field under white scarred stripes of a long gone whip. His choice. Wangji's alone. He heaves, "You raised me."
no subject
All at once, Wei Ying dissolves, as the exorcism earlier, as the pains of whispered death that walk Lan Wangji's back. No man should reduce him, but the beast of Yiling catches and grinds him in its maws, spits out remains. There is nothing but blood and reckoning between them, stretches and spills, oil invading water.
Thank you, the starveling of a forlorn ghost, taunting his ear. Then, And I'm sorry. She dissipates.
Hurt reeks in him like the mould that spreads aggressive and web-like on each stone corner, like lichen. His throat cannot bear a swallow more. And still,"Drink my cup to him."
The funerary tokens fate denied him, for what man may mourn a traitor freely without incurring the wrath of the sects upon his clan? And in this, he would not have transgressed, might have pursued his own defection, so that he might wed and bed his grief without the law of tragic attractions whipping brother's limbs. Fate favoured him: long before the Yiling Patriarch surged to glory, the men of Gusu Lan had patroned their whites. Still, no mourning courtship of Wei Ying's peace, no body, no altar.
If Lan Wangji reaches out again, to trail fingers over Wei Ying's knuckles and know the slopes and mounts of them, it is to capture, at long last, the tattered remains. Snare. Snag. From the cavernous abyss, no voice in answer. You released my hand first. And so Wei Ying cannot be simply an extension of empty ground now, cannot sit immutable. Let stone bleed water.
"He was incandescent. Armed to change the world." Willing, able. A fount of idealism, brimming. As if Wei Ying was a creature sundered from his own experience, as if he did not live and breathe, as if he does not know. Remember him, Wangji's lips nearly tear and bleed, remember what you took.
His palm encompasses the back of Wei Ying's hand like snake bite. "I made of me a bowed-back bridge for his ghost's steps." Unasked, his ribs contorted, his spine a fertile field under white scarred stripes of a long gone whip. His choice. Wangji's alone. He heaves, "You raised me."
And Wei Ying's choice, to save him.