( He can be caught off guard, when it comes to Lan Zhan; now, he frowns, letting the laughter shake him in a way warm and cold simultaneously, his lips a thinned line of determination with each move, eyes more valuable than hearing when quarry flies on silent wings.
When poison courses in the veins of someone who is more important to him than himself, who has demanded he place himself as important, who is one of the two reasons here that Wei Wuxian tries and does not let the siren's song of brutality in power drag him back, moment by horrific moment, to the thin, shadow eyed man of Yiling. The power at his fingertips, and none of the passion of arrogance, the assumption of control, that had made him stumble toward his ending.
He won't stumble here. Won't allow it of either of them, and if that means he damns himself to true demonic cultivation, if he summons Lan Zhan's soul back to bind into a healed and healing body, if he's cursed for it; so be it. For Lan Zhan, for Sizhui, he can do no less. He can bear their resentment, but not their loss.
Yet, loquats. That laughter, and a memory, faint and warm and smelling of water and algae and the sweet burst of loquat on his tongue, the thick, heavy weight of its seeds, and Lan Zhan, standing with his brother, catching a loquat tossed at his head. )
I know, ( he says, and he sweeps to the side with Chenqing at hand, plays a hard two notes that cause the stumbling wreckage of a once-upon-a-woman yawning out from behind a tree too thin to have been proper cover for any but a twig. She, or whatever she has become, tries to right herself, and he feels the brush of air and looks skyward: there. Flash of feathers, white, against the inky dark of the reaching trees.
Fend off the walking dead, the viciousness of compelled animals, and to chase these birds, silent predators. Preserve the ones who save. ) You were just so stubborn. I couldn't leave you alone.
( I can't, now. I did, once, and thought it the better course; I know better, now.
The twice-lived stumbles forward, bearing broken, cracked teeth, a dagger tied to an arm, and strikes out in a rush of stumbling feet. )
There!
( The corpse with eyes that saw, and the bird, and it's two directions to fight toward, but in their wordless synchrony he only plays to the music he has learned for here and learned from Yiling and learned from the aches of loss and cold solemnity of coaxing control. The owl is unconcerned.
The woman-who-is-not breaks pattern, again, leaving her undead throat bared. )
v
When poison courses in the veins of someone who is more important to him than himself, who has demanded he place himself as important, who is one of the two reasons here that Wei Wuxian tries and does not let the siren's song of brutality in power drag him back, moment by horrific moment, to the thin, shadow eyed man of Yiling. The power at his fingertips, and none of the passion of arrogance, the assumption of control, that had made him stumble toward his ending.
He won't stumble here. Won't allow it of either of them, and if that means he damns himself to true demonic cultivation, if he summons Lan Zhan's soul back to bind into a healed and healing body, if he's cursed for it; so be it. For Lan Zhan, for Sizhui, he can do no less. He can bear their resentment, but not their loss.
Yet, loquats. That laughter, and a memory, faint and warm and smelling of water and algae and the sweet burst of loquat on his tongue, the thick, heavy weight of its seeds, and Lan Zhan, standing with his brother, catching a loquat tossed at his head. )
I know, ( he says, and he sweeps to the side with Chenqing at hand, plays a hard two notes that cause the stumbling wreckage of a once-upon-a-woman yawning out from behind a tree too thin to have been proper cover for any but a twig. She, or whatever she has become, tries to right herself, and he feels the brush of air and looks skyward: there. Flash of feathers, white, against the inky dark of the reaching trees.
Fend off the walking dead, the viciousness of compelled animals, and to chase these birds, silent predators. Preserve the ones who save. ) You were just so stubborn. I couldn't leave you alone.
( I can't, now. I did, once, and thought it the better course; I know better, now.
The twice-lived stumbles forward, bearing broken, cracked teeth, a dagger tied to an arm, and strikes out in a rush of stumbling feet. )
There!
( The corpse with eyes that saw, and the bird, and it's two directions to fight toward, but in their wordless synchrony he only plays to the music he has learned for here and learned from Yiling and learned from the aches of loss and cold solemnity of coaxing control. The owl is unconcerned.
The woman-who-is-not breaks pattern, again, leaving her undead throat bared. )