Do not fall behind. What's ripped of him might pass for howled wind, or the wet of night-drenched leaves, filth yielding. Or laughter, choked. Who between them lessoned first in fall? ( Your hands might have cored the innards of grief and grave, come slick back to paint me, quickened alive. Tide took, and you did not stir. )
And now, Wei Ying dances. At distance from himself, the haunts of his gelid body, he allows himself this moment: to look upon a partner of the hunt as if one were a limpid-eyed babe, to bathe in the strength of him, snapped muscle and strained sinew, as he dispenses with the pull of land to itself, with the carousing lashes of brittle branches. At his feet, only ferns and serpents' shadows darken the path, and above them, Wei Ying in flight from him stings.
Keep the watch of him. If not for the old possession, than the tepid dues of night hunt, shared. The woman strikes in a staggered arc, barely to tease lines on Wei Ying's leg, on Lan Wangji's after, when she threatens landfall. He recedes. One step, the other. Knows his mind divided between the convulsive twists of her, the spearing of an armless, deep-fanged brother from high grass, and Wei Ying motion.
A shield bears the battering. Unflinched, he serves as nothing without bruises. In his hands, chords thin and spider, silvered andbiting, braid with the veins they break at first hard pull. At night, the back of his hand glistens dark. He weeps it, wretched, coagulating spill, qi already swift to strangle what skin sunders to free, willing.
Wei Ying's way in this — the talisman of lure, drawn hastily on his collar, again on his sleeve, knowing he lacks in the power to reinforce it. It tears tissue of his patience to shout out for Wei Ying's hearing, their own tongue, indifferent to the communicator.
A difficult, sordid betrayal, lye-blanched. "How many li of land do you require?"
In health his own, he would name his answer — a scrupulous, cruel assessment of his partner's abilities, fattened to flatter any pearl's sheen of negligence. Huntsmen always require more: time, weapons, resource, recourse. A margin of error earns itself in calculation.
/ s p a r k le s
And now, Wei Ying dances. At distance from himself, the haunts of his gelid body, he allows himself this moment: to look upon a partner of the hunt as if one were a limpid-eyed babe, to bathe in the strength of him, snapped muscle and strained sinew, as he dispenses with the pull of land to itself, with the carousing lashes of brittle branches. At his feet, only ferns and serpents' shadows darken the path, and above them, Wei Ying in flight from him stings.
Keep the watch of him. If not for the old possession, than the tepid dues of night hunt, shared. The woman strikes in a staggered arc, barely to tease lines on Wei Ying's leg, on Lan Wangji's after, when she threatens landfall. He recedes. One step, the other. Knows his mind divided between the convulsive twists of her, the spearing of an armless, deep-fanged brother from high grass, and Wei Ying motion.
A shield bears the battering. Unflinched, he serves as nothing without bruises. In his hands, chords thin and spider, silvered andbiting, braid with the veins they break at first hard pull. At night, the back of his hand glistens dark. He weeps it, wretched, coagulating spill, qi already swift to strangle what skin sunders to free, willing.
Wei Ying's way in this — the talisman of lure, drawn hastily on his collar, again on his sleeve, knowing he lacks in the power to reinforce it. It tears tissue of his patience to shout out for Wei Ying's hearing, their own tongue, indifferent to the communicator.
A difficult, sordid betrayal, lye-blanched. "How many li of land do you require?"
In health his own, he would name his answer — a scrupulous, cruel assessment of his partner's abilities, fattened to flatter any pearl's sheen of negligence. Huntsmen always require more: time, weapons, resource, recourse. A margin of error earns itself in calculation.