( Wei Ying, Yiling Patriarch, reduced to dust and ash and the dappled marks of his step on barren ground, to the long drifting wander, like moth light under a waxing moon. There is indignity in this — the burdening of a man crafted and condemned to greatness, with purpose that spits on the flushed, thin cheek of his legacy.
What face would Wei Ying have shown, were he the first son of a sect and adorned in the filigrees of true stature? Born, if not to Jiang Fengmian and his lady unloved, than to a dynasty of red, in his veins red, that might join the river blues and yield for the sake of Lotus Pier, a purple most palatable? A welcome addition to the Sunshot campaign, command settling arrogant on his shoulders like the hungry dusting of first snow, and Wei Ying entitled to spearhead a vanguard. A bartered spouse of Gusu Lan, sooner than a gift Lan Wangji has stolen thrice in the night, frail-handed?
What might their lives have been, but for the accident of Wei Ying's parentage? Foolish, to think. They have as they have, as the heavens bless upon them. Their grounds and their waters and the choked interstices between them, where purpose dilates into their legend. )
Thank you. ( His fingers snag and hook and cinch, and the fractured line of Wei Ying's wrist is sharp bone beneath his palm, unbreaking. He raises himself. )
And I am sorry. Wangji has failed you. ( The guqin, the man. What difference? ) I serve you no better than silver thread and gossamer.
( Offering scant use, less protection. He cannot coax coin to their hands, cannot whisper the dead willing in the ways of Wei Ying and master Wrath, cannot even perform the petty parlour tricks of his heritage. Death drowns him. He becomes Wei Ying's shadow and breathes. )
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What face would Wei Ying have shown, were he the first son of a sect and adorned in the filigrees of true stature? Born, if not to Jiang Fengmian and his lady unloved, than to a dynasty of red, in his veins red, that might join the river blues and yield for the sake of Lotus Pier, a purple most palatable? A welcome addition to the Sunshot campaign, command settling arrogant on his shoulders like the hungry dusting of first snow, and Wei Ying entitled to spearhead a vanguard. A bartered spouse of Gusu Lan, sooner than a gift Lan Wangji has stolen thrice in the night, frail-handed?
What might their lives have been, but for the accident of Wei Ying's parentage? Foolish, to think. They have as they have, as the heavens bless upon them. Their grounds and their waters and the choked interstices between them, where purpose dilates into their legend. )
Thank you. ( His fingers snag and hook and cinch, and the fractured line of Wei Ying's wrist is sharp bone beneath his palm, unbreaking. He raises himself. )
And I am sorry. Wangji has failed you. ( The guqin, the man. What difference? ) I serve you no better than silver thread and gossamer.
( Offering scant use, less protection. He cannot coax coin to their hands, cannot whisper the dead willing in the ways of Wei Ying and master Wrath, cannot even perform the petty parlour tricks of his heritage. Death drowns him. He becomes Wei Ying's shadow and breathes. )