[ Fear this, then. This feat of a moment, jade bead on a trembled string. Fear the hateful slips and turns of life as an eel, thrashing in shallow waters, ignorant of the blade to come. Fear the exhilarant anticipation — the moment between certainty and leap, suspense oiling the steel of slumbered limbs.
Fear the unknown, for it comes, and Lan Wangji's hands claw and clutch and ease, as if to catch it, the weight of its gossamer finality merely another shroud, the eighth veil. What will his son achieve in his absence? How will Wei Ying, staggered in his recovering step, prevail once more without allies? The ladies, the children? He owes. A lifetime of service and repentance, cut short.
And beside him, a miracle of stiff, strained independence, like ice shards to cut his hand on the fall. This man, and Lan Wangji's eyes narrow fleetingly, who sits as all fools do, but thinks himself above. ]
I pity you.
[ To have loved so little that no thought could ache, of the one person, possession, privilege lost. To hold oneself cold and indifferent like a burgeoning constellation in a wintered sky. ]
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Fear the unknown, for it comes, and Lan Wangji's hands claw and clutch and ease, as if to catch it, the weight of its gossamer finality merely another shroud, the eighth veil. What will his son achieve in his absence? How will Wei Ying, staggered in his recovering step, prevail once more without allies? The ladies, the children? He owes. A lifetime of service and repentance, cut short.
And beside him, a miracle of stiff, strained independence, like ice shards to cut his hand on the fall. This man, and Lan Wangji's eyes narrow fleetingly, who sits as all fools do, but thinks himself above. ]
I pity you.
[ To have loved so little that no thought could ache, of the one person, possession, privilege lost. To hold oneself cold and indifferent like a burgeoning constellation in a wintered sky. ]