Two marriages, one lifetime. Perhaps he has strayed too far from the sect's well-trodden path, after all.
For an exhalation between Wei Ying's startle and his stirring, only stupor stretches long between them, like cold-water seas. Spumed with half-gasps and brittle, tenuous confusion. If he shifts their hands, he will propel hefts of drowning wave.
On his wrist, the sleek, slithered thing of Wei Ying's blood, turned coarse-weaved cotton, strangles the harsh crest of bone. He hesitates — detains his breath as if such a minor transgression might upend them — and sees it sink on his arm, loiter taut, bridge Wei Ying's wrist, mount it. A claim, by any other name, its teeth sharp.
What is this, then? Yiling Wei names no rites. Wei Ying, already a mimicry of the boy before who wore his name, only imitates what he has seen before him. In a cold cave, you were taken without consent. And the ribbon rattles red, the wind sings against its anger.
"It is custom," Lan Wangji starts with the amused patience of a sprawled cat beneath summer sun, an educator, "to ask first."
Never mind similar failings on his part, sixteen years aged into their maturity. To be married, but not wedded before living family, eloped to all fittings of purpose. Dishonour unto his name, but this shame he wears well, like cloth of ramie, nettling skin.
no subject
For an exhalation between Wei Ying's startle and his stirring, only stupor stretches long between them, like cold-water seas. Spumed with half-gasps and brittle, tenuous confusion. If he shifts their hands, he will propel hefts of drowning wave.
On his wrist, the sleek, slithered thing of Wei Ying's blood, turned coarse-weaved cotton, strangles the harsh crest of bone. He hesitates — detains his breath as if such a minor transgression might upend them — and sees it sink on his arm, loiter taut, bridge Wei Ying's wrist, mount it. A claim, by any other name, its teeth sharp.
What is this, then? Yiling Wei names no rites. Wei Ying, already a mimicry of the boy before who wore his name, only imitates what he has seen before him. In a cold cave, you were taken without consent. And the ribbon rattles red, the wind sings against its anger.
"It is custom," Lan Wangji starts with the amused patience of a sprawled cat beneath summer sun, an educator, "to ask first."
Never mind similar failings on his part, sixteen years aged into their maturity. To be married, but not wedded before living family, eloped to all fittings of purpose. Dishonour unto his name, but this shame he wears well, like cloth of ramie, nettling skin.
"Wei Ying's memory fails him."