I see her. ( Soft, penitent, chipped rusting. ) Wei Ying, I see her.
( I see you, the lines and edges of your hurt. A fresh brush is too stiff for rich, full strokes. The emaciated shapes of Wei Ying's lessened hope cannot paint a bright, broad future. Their horizon darkens, dims.
The dragon reaches, long arc of her shimmered neck flinched, strains and rubs her muzzle against the ice of Lan Wangji's spine, the long, escaped tendrils of Wei Ying's hair. Feet stuttering, burdened with the weight of Wei Ying ungainly against his body, his hip, he leans in return and brushes the back of his hand on her cheek, scratches between scales. Welcomes her. )
Be still. ( Why must you always fight? But if Wei Ying does not thrash and squirm and hurt, does he live? What a shameful, shamed, petty existence, defined between heartbeats of disaster. ) Wei Ying, what difference? Dead or living. She is. She breathes. Do not mourn the living.
( 'What might have been,' 'what can never be.' Sixteen years of grief have taught him the only constancy is the depths to which a man will lower himself into despair. Dead but risen is yet better than dead but gone. )
no subject
I see her. ( Soft, penitent, chipped rusting. ) Wei Ying, I see her.
( I see you, the lines and edges of your hurt. A fresh brush is too stiff for rich, full strokes. The emaciated shapes of Wei Ying's lessened hope cannot paint a bright, broad future. Their horizon darkens, dims.
The dragon reaches, long arc of her shimmered neck flinched, strains and rubs her muzzle against the ice of Lan Wangji's spine, the long, escaped tendrils of Wei Ying's hair. Feet stuttering, burdened with the weight of Wei Ying ungainly against his body, his hip, he leans in return and brushes the back of his hand on her cheek, scratches between scales. Welcomes her. )
Be still. ( Why must you always fight? But if Wei Ying does not thrash and squirm and hurt, does he live? What a shameful, shamed, petty existence, defined between heartbeats of disaster. ) Wei Ying, what difference? Dead or living. She is. She breathes. Do not mourn the living.
( 'What might have been,' 'what can never be.' Sixteen years of grief have taught him the only constancy is the depths to which a man will lower himself into despair. Dead but risen is yet better than dead but gone. )