His heart, hear it, the beat seismic, the rumble of his chest like quaking, rotten slabs of wood on the deck of a vessel stormed. He quiets himself, one and two and breathing, and laughter rippling through the strained stream of controlled exhalations.
"You tease now." And defend his flank and gravitate, organically, movements slated to preserve strength now that its fount has thinned down to rivulets. Trees grow, with time, to reinforce themselves, to fill out the negative space that surrounds them in strategic bindings of bridge and bone, so they might build on and onwards, to the sky and beyond. So too, Wei Ying.
We shot the sun down —
Their shoulders knock and slip in peaceful congress. Beside him, Wei Ying emanates warmth, the musk of a body exercised and his natural, grievous restlessness. Neglected, Lan Wangji's borrowed sword is raised to sit flat and greedy in wait on his thighs.
"Thank you." For the indulgence. The game of it, when Wei Ying draws no further benefit from practising the sword, beyond stretching his bones. "I accept Wei Ying's surrender."
"Tease with purpose," he agrees, mild enough, lips curled up and remembering the lightness of when this was something else, some other test. Not Lan Zhan, with a sword to his throat. Not Lan Zhan, asking what they all did, why do you not carry your sword? Not Lan Zhan, handing to him Suibian, carved sheathe a heartache in his hands, blade beautiful, singing when pulled, and silenced again as the scars tightened their invisible lines across his heart.
Suibian was an easy way to feel a shift. The dead steel now, the sword that lay at his side, while he leans against Lan Zhan, let himself cool off in brisk air and watching the puff of clouds birthed with his exhalations, cannot make the same pleas. Cannot call out to him.
He's used to the silence. He's not used to it at all, and yet, like with all scabbed over things, the flesh beneath is not the same each time the scab comes pries free.
"Oh? Hah! So I'm the one who surrenders, ah, and you're the one who bleeds? Very strange," he says, smiling and summoning a look of mock outrage he aims at Lan Zhan, followed by the brush of his wrist against his forehead, smearing salt and water and effort below his hairline. "Very strange interpretation of first blood we have now, Lan Zhan."
Another tease, and what once would have been competitive in the way of bared teeth and glinting blood on bone has softened, steadied into something tempered.
"You're welcome." The considered pause after, and his own words, fingers stroking idly over the pommel of the borrowed sword, eyes slipping down to linger on the steel across Lan Zhan's thighs. "Thank you."
For accepting the offering of peace, for leaving Bichen in her sheath, for consenting to something that can draw them more as equals for greater than the five minutes he might last, and the wreck of himself to come after if he pushed further, drained himself fully, and failed to remember Lan Zhan would already know the truth when night fell and his exhaustion, his depletion, had nowhere else left to hide but at his side, disgruntled and in bed. Rather like a grumpy cat, he thinks, or the fat rabbits that...
Truly, where in the world were Lan Zhan's fat rabbits at present? A mystery. The chickens, at least, were oddly accounted for.
Mmmmm, he agrees studiously, as if he is kin and kind to the countless archivists and librarians of Gusu Lan, who study the histories of the sects and fuss forcibly over the overstated relevance of the dryness of hay served to steeds, and how it changed the tides of war. "Much changed in error in the sixteen years spent without the Patriarch to guide us."
Yielding and first blood have become matter of whim. The peanuts have grown stale and ill salted. The packaging of robes and the mani-folded press of sashes has weakened and wars with precedent. The cost of inn fares has surged, thrice the going rate Wei Ying could not have scrambled to afford across ten days of begged alms, in the last of his days. Villages and nations have all eroded, without the Yiling Patriarch to steer them.
...so says the amiable, subtle perch of Wangji's brow, considering as Wei Ying insults Lan Wangji's fair and just conquest, for what is victory if not winning the final and definitive awe of your adversary?
Sweat beading his forehead, prickling the back of his robes, and the pleasant, sugar-watered lethargy of bones finding their place again, after sudden exertion. Treacherously, he wants to never move again, Wei Ying content beside him.
Must. He does not ask, fingers knotting with Wei Ying's, tugging up. "Come. Again."
They have a day of this, of tricks old and methods new, of orbiting each other like stars unwilling to accept subordination, begging the equal binds of a constellation. "You have not earned your feeding."
Again, until Wei Ying remembers himself, until the sword is an instrument cast aside because he deems it slow, inefficient and unworthy — but not estranged. They have time: a day, theirs to waste. And if it is selfish to claim hours of solace in the midst of revolution, he has never been kind, seldom caring.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
"You tease now." And defend his flank and gravitate, organically, movements slated to preserve strength now that its fount has thinned down to rivulets. Trees grow, with time, to reinforce themselves, to fill out the negative space that surrounds them in strategic bindings of bridge and bone, so they might build on and onwards, to the sky and beyond. So too, Wei Ying.
We shot the sun down —
Their shoulders knock and slip in peaceful congress. Beside him, Wei Ying emanates warmth, the musk of a body exercised and his natural, grievous restlessness. Neglected, Lan Wangji's borrowed sword is raised to sit flat and greedy in wait on his thighs.
"Thank you." For the indulgence. The game of it, when Wei Ying draws no further benefit from practising the sword, beyond stretching his bones. "I accept Wei Ying's surrender."
no subject
Suibian was an easy way to feel a shift. The dead steel now, the sword that lay at his side, while he leans against Lan Zhan, let himself cool off in brisk air and watching the puff of clouds birthed with his exhalations, cannot make the same pleas. Cannot call out to him.
He's used to the silence. He's not used to it at all, and yet, like with all scabbed over things, the flesh beneath is not the same each time the scab comes pries free.
"Oh? Hah! So I'm the one who surrenders, ah, and you're the one who bleeds? Very strange," he says, smiling and summoning a look of mock outrage he aims at Lan Zhan, followed by the brush of his wrist against his forehead, smearing salt and water and effort below his hairline. "Very strange interpretation of first blood we have now, Lan Zhan."
Another tease, and what once would have been competitive in the way of bared teeth and glinting blood on bone has softened, steadied into something tempered.
"You're welcome." The considered pause after, and his own words, fingers stroking idly over the pommel of the borrowed sword, eyes slipping down to linger on the steel across Lan Zhan's thighs. "Thank you."
For accepting the offering of peace, for leaving Bichen in her sheath, for consenting to something that can draw them more as equals for greater than the five minutes he might last, and the wreck of himself to come after if he pushed further, drained himself fully, and failed to remember Lan Zhan would already know the truth when night fell and his exhaustion, his depletion, had nowhere else left to hide but at his side, disgruntled and in bed. Rather like a grumpy cat, he thinks, or the fat rabbits that...
Truly, where in the world were Lan Zhan's fat rabbits at present? A mystery. The chickens, at least, were oddly accounted for.
no subject
Yielding and first blood have become matter of whim. The peanuts have grown stale and ill salted. The packaging of robes and the mani-folded press of sashes has weakened and wars with precedent. The cost of inn fares has surged, thrice the going rate Wei Ying could not have scrambled to afford across ten days of begged alms, in the last of his days. Villages and nations have all eroded, without the Yiling Patriarch to steer them.
...so says the amiable, subtle perch of Wangji's brow, considering as Wei Ying insults Lan Wangji's fair and just conquest, for what is victory if not winning the final and definitive awe of your adversary?
Sweat beading his forehead, prickling the back of his robes, and the pleasant, sugar-watered lethargy of bones finding their place again, after sudden exertion. Treacherously, he wants to never move again, Wei Ying content beside him.
Must. He does not ask, fingers knotting with Wei Ying's, tugging up. "Come. Again."
They have a day of this, of tricks old and methods new, of orbiting each other like stars unwilling to accept subordination, begging the equal binds of a constellation. "You have not earned your feeding."
Again, until Wei Ying remembers himself, until the sword is an instrument cast aside because he deems it slow, inefficient and unworthy — but not estranged. They have time: a day, theirs to waste. And if it is selfish to claim hours of solace in the midst of revolution, he has never been kind, seldom caring.