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.
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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.