Held in hands, and he watches Lan Zhan's face. Hears him, and knows they don't always speak of the same things, but they can, at times, understand the divides.

Imperfect, those understandings, the nascent selves they became independently, and then in what stumbling, etched heartbreak endured from two vastly different perspectives, from two different understanding and knowledges found within themselves and the world.

He settles the crown into the lap made by his legs as he kneels, not supplicant. It's not his mood, banked to embers, nor the binding true in the ribbon, the umbilicus connecting them both. Wei Ying would not choose to abandon without himself being the collateral cost.

He asked, and did not press, and stripped himself and the world together.

Here, he strips voice to murmur, knowing Lan Zhan can hear, even if he decides not to.

"I hear you. Your words for your fears, or the feeling of your beliefs. Will you hear mine, before deciding you know them, ah?" A pause, lingering, and velvet clad steel of an extended response:

"Because you don't know."