inbox | eastbound

[downswing]

lan wangji
missives | encounters

Comments

[valeas]

( ALL SHE CAN SEE IS FEATHERS. FEATHERS AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE. Oh, that's some aggressive flapping in the background— )

By the goddess. Assistance to you, not the chickens! I don't believe the chickens need any assistance!

( At least where being beautifully rotund is concerned. Nonna Maria would be sharpening her favored knife as they speak. )

[downswing]

( One of the chickens launches in a one-performer bleating of an infamous Taravast opera.

Indifferent, Lan Wangji only says: )

...'mmmwell.

[valeas]

( Signore Rooster, this is not even a Wendy's. )

Does Wei Wuxian know where you are?

( Should she be speaking to Lan Wangji's beloved instead? )

[downswing]

( Ah, but behold his sudden joy: )

Hiding. ( So well, he is hiding so well. ) Hide also.

[valeas]

( Emilia's not turned so cynical that she can't appreciate the joy of him. She was softer and full of light, once. She dreamed of things other than retribution and the memory of a darkened chamber she's never fully left. Now she can't imagine feeling something so unspoiled. )

I can help you better hide. I've had practice.

( Hiding. She squints a bit in her effort to better assess his surroundings. )

[downswing]

...where? We hide. ( Forever hiding. ) We lose... will lose... ourselves?

[valeas]

( Why does that question knock the wind right out of her? Remember, something screams inside her head, but it reaches her ears too dully. )

Far too many are in search of and care for you, Lan Wangji. You needn't worry.

[downswing]

( Something strikes him. Wei Ying's, 'We all want to be found.' )

Will... look for you. Will. I will. Shall.

[valeas]

( Emilia almost smiles. )

And I you, Lan Wangji.

( She may not actually succeed in a literal sense this time, but let the record show that she will try finding him and his rotund chickens. )

[downswing]

( Here, he seems intent to laugh — it comes out, instead, like a quiet exhalation. )

...mmm. Mother-like.

[valeas]

( Maiden, Mother, Crone. It means something. )

Protector.

( That was her first impression of him, she thinks. He says so very little, but he was quick to draw his sword at his own risk.

Actions, not words, Wrath would say. )

[downswing]

You... ( He blinks and stirs and blinks again. Recovers himself. ) You are.

[valeas]

I don't know about that.

( A statement perhaps undermined by the narrowing of her gaze in concern. ) What do you feel?

[downswing]

Lasssssssitude. Warm. ( Silence. Then, strained: ) Unanchored. Afffraid.

[valeas]

( Steady, she tells herself. Steady. )

Show me your surroundings, Lan Wangji. I'll do my best to identify them.

[downswing]

( To his shame — his stubbornness — he does not oblige her. Thinks, even husked and reduced and shallowed, he knows the game of her concern, names it: )

Afraid of... haaa... of. Unmooring. Free. Mind too... thoughts. When they... they whirrrrrl. When they, free. I do not know them. Whose they are.