[ Silence drips tart and thick, like the start of trembled hail, the slick, coagulating wet that cannot yet persuade itself to enforce the cruelties of winter. He is lost to this: the moment, the sticky, sweet, cloying nothingness of their stillness. If his hands move, they will come honeyed, submerged.
The traffic of healers, peddling the same routine reassurances, vermin words of fine intent. Like poetry children learn for display before their assembled elders. For all the faults Wei Ying entombs at his feet, the grandmaster never succumbed to the vanity of parading his nephews' talents to the gasps of an awed crowd.
A healer missteps. A discordant note bruises the horizon, speck of dark, blemished contrast against the sterile, polished performance of her companions. An ant dizzied on the path to her nest.
She says, I'm sorry.
Then, I'm sorry, I have nothing to give you.
Emptied, the poisoned lady that suffers the scorch of her gaze, the interruption of her hand on her shoulder, recoils as if snake-bitten. ( You feel, the poison's already taken hold. )
All at once, he aches to be better — a compulsion, a stimulation, a vector not merely anchored, but directed. Propelled, slashing like storm. Blood is his mark, his covenant, his creature. If he must perish, let it be in the glory of red-rust and silhouette.
Let them be two in this. Touch finds him like a derangement, unwilling. He knows, marrow-deep, the taste of strength, electric. Knows gossip despite the whipping of precepts, knows the bright moon and gentle breeze, and if night is upon them, then — viper-fast, he clutches Xiao Xingchen's sword beneath the hilt, at the root of the blade, in an intimacy that defers, at the last moment, to the true owner. ]
no subject
The traffic of healers, peddling the same routine reassurances, vermin words of fine intent. Like poetry children learn for display before their assembled elders. For all the faults Wei Ying entombs at his feet, the grandmaster never succumbed to the vanity of parading his nephews' talents to the gasps of an awed crowd.
A healer missteps. A discordant note bruises the horizon, speck of dark, blemished contrast against the sterile, polished performance of her companions. An ant dizzied on the path to her nest.
She says, I'm sorry.
Then, I'm sorry, I have nothing to give you.
Emptied, the poisoned lady that suffers the scorch of her gaze, the interruption of her hand on her shoulder, recoils as if snake-bitten. ( You feel, the poison's already taken hold. )
All at once, he aches to be better — a compulsion, a stimulation, a vector not merely anchored, but directed. Propelled, slashing like storm. Blood is his mark, his covenant, his creature. If he must perish, let it be in the glory of red-rust and silhouette.
Let them be two in this. Touch finds him like a derangement, unwilling. He knows, marrow-deep, the taste of strength, electric. Knows gossip despite the whipping of precepts, knows the bright moon and gentle breeze, and if night is upon them, then — viper-fast, he clutches Xiao Xingchen's sword beneath the hilt, at the root of the blade, in an intimacy that defers, at the last moment, to the true owner. ]
Fight with me.