( That moment, extended and unavoidable, when your soulmate squirms pathetically against you in hard war won against a blanket, and you must tame the seedlings of your smile, you must not give surrender.

Wei Ying settles, and then there's the ached pulse of strangeness in Wangji's hand, cold and sterile. Eerily glistened, like serpent's hide, like winter wet. He knows, instinctively, as Wei Ying directs him — as Lethe blinks balefully and tips her head, and there is connection, the scale's energy prickles and stings — )

A draw. ( Possibly, probably, realised. Magnetic. Absently, he remembers to round his arm against Wei Ying and perch the blankets back atop his arms and shoulders. Warm, be warm, death sleeps everywhere, be safe. )

You are certain it is to death? ( And not the creature's nature, its profound native sorcery? There are so many irregularities to the winged creatures' form, perhaps the scale is merely attracted, like unto like? ) It is of dragon. It would call to dragons.

( But he knows the lie, even as he stitches reason, knows the formidable ache of certainty, proven. )