( Wei Wuxian shivers, an unthought response to this revisitation of his hair, the cascade of it down around his shoulders, a waterfall that stills in its heavy warmth like a cowl worn, this nod to filial piety every one of them makes. Asked after his parents, and he wishes he had hands full of stories, that he had memories to spare, that he had anything tangible. Even the whisper of a memory he has from their younger years, the night Lan Zhan drank with him and the trouble that loomed more pressingly, large and indelible, that followed overshadows the confession, once.
He knows they're both orphaned of parents, held within the palms of different sects, to different reasons, respects, expectations. He's heard and understood his own place, too naturally gifted, too pernicious, too bright to hep but cast a shadow in comparison to those who excelled but not to the same degree. A crime of the heart, not of anything else. An accusation that meant the words he heard of his parents were in snippets of a mother's anger, her frustration, and a father's quiet, you look like them both, but especially her, years later agreed on by Lan Qiren, and it wasn't favourable.
His parents, and what he has in his head are the barkings of the dogs that chased him when they'd not returned, when the Night Hunt had sealed their fate and he'd not known the moment he went from beloved son to bereft orphan, and he never would. His second orphaning, he at least hadn't been alone. At least it had not been he who hurt most, and the machinations of it, the opening thrust of the war brewing for decades, had a way to be fought back against.
He swallows, tries for a smile, allows it to fade as he licks his lips. )
I wish I could. I wish I had their stories, Lan Zhan, more than the snippets the senior generation shared every so often, but even your uncle remembers more about my parents than I do. Or at least about my mother.
( Not happy memories, but frustrated ones out of Lan Qiren's own youth, and there's perhaps something to be said for his lineage and their tendency to drive second born sect heirs into distractions of whatever kinds. Perhaps. )
I don't remember what they look like. Sometimes I dream I remember the sound of their voices, but more often their laughter. They liked laughing, I think... and we traveled. I remember a donkey, and I think it must have been my father who led us both, with my mother at my side. But I don't know, not anymore.
( Not unusual, when a child loses parents before the age of five, when memory is less permanent for most, let alone someone who has learned compartmentalising as a matter of coping and persisting, of shutting out traumas, of striding forward, of making himself the accommodating one. The challenging, irritating, annoying, and yet outwardly unburdened one, enough to the point that it was the bone of contention as he swallowed and swallowed and swallowed the deaths he dealt, until one day, they swallowed him in turn.
Staring at Lan Zhan, red ribboned wrist, he swallows. Is swallowed in turn. )
Do you... of your mother, do you recall much of her now?
no subject
He knows they're both orphaned of parents, held within the palms of different sects, to different reasons, respects, expectations. He's heard and understood his own place, too naturally gifted, too pernicious, too bright to hep but cast a shadow in comparison to those who excelled but not to the same degree. A crime of the heart, not of anything else. An accusation that meant the words he heard of his parents were in snippets of a mother's anger, her frustration, and a father's quiet, you look like them both, but especially her, years later agreed on by Lan Qiren, and it wasn't favourable.
His parents, and what he has in his head are the barkings of the dogs that chased him when they'd not returned, when the Night Hunt had sealed their fate and he'd not known the moment he went from beloved son to bereft orphan, and he never would. His second orphaning, he at least hadn't been alone. At least it had not been he who hurt most, and the machinations of it, the opening thrust of the war brewing for decades, had a way to be fought back against.
He swallows, tries for a smile, allows it to fade as he licks his lips. )
I wish I could. I wish I had their stories, Lan Zhan, more than the snippets the senior generation shared every so often, but even your uncle remembers more about my parents than I do. Or at least about my mother.
( Not happy memories, but frustrated ones out of Lan Qiren's own youth, and there's perhaps something to be said for his lineage and their tendency to drive second born sect heirs into distractions of whatever kinds. Perhaps. )
I don't remember what they look like. Sometimes I dream I remember the sound of their voices, but more often their laughter. They liked laughing, I think... and we traveled. I remember a donkey, and I think it must have been my father who led us both, with my mother at my side. But I don't know, not anymore.
( Not unusual, when a child loses parents before the age of five, when memory is less permanent for most, let alone someone who has learned compartmentalising as a matter of coping and persisting, of shutting out traumas, of striding forward, of making himself the accommodating one. The challenging, irritating, annoying, and yet outwardly unburdened one, enough to the point that it was the bone of contention as he swallowed and swallowed and swallowed the deaths he dealt, until one day, they swallowed him in turn.
Staring at Lan Zhan, red ribboned wrist, he swallows. Is swallowed in turn. )
Do you... of your mother, do you recall much of her now?