Wei Ying, Wei Wuxian to a world at large, Yiling Laozu to the tongue in cheek nod at a ghastly horror lurking in the background only recently revealed to be less horror and more horrifically sad than widely believed, laughs. Unfettered, and with a wide grin, and he says:
"You know what they say about my memory."
Not an ownership of it, not when words swirl and spill, just a trickle of them, to say, "I'm willing to ask, Lan Zhan, but it's either arrogance to say marry into nothing, or to ask to marry into your clan. Besides," he says, eyes falling to the red that binds, the vein between them, "This is a promise. Whatever the formalities, whatever the other ties, there's us. Relearning what it is to know each other. It's your clan," he says, eyes lifting, searching Lan Zhan's face for something he doesn't know he needs to see, but curious, looking nonetheless. "That binds like this. Yunmeng Jiang is fond of proposals... and my parents, I presume, were fond of eloping."
A crooked grin, and a squeeze of fingers, if that's whatever weave their tapestry takes in time. Eloping, but there are ties to bind them should they wish them: to Yunmeng, to Gusu, and the ones they care for in each. Even to the Jins, for the one he loves there, in all his bright, burning glory, some unholy mixture of the men who raised him and Jiang Yanli's underlying kindness, given reason to understand emotions far better than his senior generation.
Their sons, three and counting, are worn as pearls around his neck, warm weights of a family he hasn't had for years, and won't shed for a lifetime, not by choice. Whatever they are, whatever they aren't, they're still father to three, and more to the legions of pained and raging dead of this land, even now only catching a hint of less claustrophobic air.
no subject
"You know what they say about my memory."
Not an ownership of it, not when words swirl and spill, just a trickle of them, to say, "I'm willing to ask, Lan Zhan, but it's either arrogance to say marry into nothing, or to ask to marry into your clan. Besides," he says, eyes falling to the red that binds, the vein between them, "This is a promise. Whatever the formalities, whatever the other ties, there's us. Relearning what it is to know each other. It's your clan," he says, eyes lifting, searching Lan Zhan's face for something he doesn't know he needs to see, but curious, looking nonetheless. "That binds like this. Yunmeng Jiang is fond of proposals... and my parents, I presume, were fond of eloping."
A crooked grin, and a squeeze of fingers, if that's whatever weave their tapestry takes in time. Eloping, but there are ties to bind them should they wish them: to Yunmeng, to Gusu, and the ones they care for in each. Even to the Jins, for the one he loves there, in all his bright, burning glory, some unholy mixture of the men who raised him and Jiang Yanli's underlying kindness, given reason to understand emotions far better than his senior generation.
Their sons, three and counting, are worn as pearls around his neck, warm weights of a family he hasn't had for years, and won't shed for a lifetime, not by choice. Whatever they are, whatever they aren't, they're still father to three, and more to the legions of pained and raging dead of this land, even now only catching a hint of less claustrophobic air.