inbox | eastbound

[downswing]

lan wangji
missives | encounters

Comments

[downswing]

Hurt unintended.

[weifinder]

Most are.

( a long... long pause. then, quietly: )

Have you given it final rites.

[downswing]

( Frosted: ) ...it?

[weifinder]

A body is no longer what it was when alive.

( and that one, he knows, was never the woman that lan zhan can't let go of. )

She's beyond its pains.

( she's not here. )

[downswing]

( The most tenderly murmured confession: )

...she will have rites.

[weifinder]

You have what you need?

( for those rites. for this... shock to his system that's persisted now for days.

at least he plans to give rites. to say farewell. )

[downswing]

I have done this more often than you glimpsed sunsets.

[weifinder]

Home, where the world knows better how to provide what's required.

( it's not the same here, and he's just. trying. to help. with this thing that he doesn't know how to help with. )

[downswing]

Do not feign interest.

[weifinder]

In your hurts, and the tending of your dead? You believe that's feigned?

[downswing]

( No. He cannot say that. )

It is not.

[weifinder]

You do not wish me near. Allow this, Lan Zhan. That you need not do all of this alone.

Is there anything you need for rites that you do not yet have?

[downswing]

I do not desire your absence.

[weifinder]

What is it you have desired?

[downswing]

Stillness. Silence.

[weifinder]

Ah.

( and he says nothing more, about what that implies of him, of expectations, of lacks. allows the quiet back in, cloying, and closes his eyes. )

[downswing]

You begrudge.

[weifinder]

( he sighs. )

I'm not sure that's it. But it feels like lack of trust, and that does... hurt.

( because what use is this if he can't be trusted to be silent company when it's wanted? he knows why and when he fills silences. just as he knows how not to.

does it matter? it's... who is it about? he's not sure. lan zhan? but he's given him time. he's tried patience. he's not allowed support.

and he's helpless, useless, before that. )

Perform the rites. You know who you're indulging the longer you hold off.

( c... lunk. setting down and walking away. )