( They lack: in licks and slips of time, in weapons and resources. In heartbeats — for how much of the crowds milling and mastered by chaos encompasses the dead? He has seen necromancers rile dregs of flesh and bone and sand and rouse creatures, incompetent relative to Wei Ying's more sophisticated creations, but still adrift on the streets.
Above all, they want for reinforcement. Coarsely, their — merchant benefactor sends his contingent, but Lan Wangji has not withstood the ebb and tide of war and massacre prior to think one slim, strange faction lacking the lay of the dead and the hours to learn it can buttress conquest. His whites flutter in stale wind, silks and gossamer drenched in thickened, crusting red and road filth spattered by a downed carriage, when it swerved and the masses descended upon it.
The people are ravenous now, rabid. Like ill-trained dogs of hunt, bred purely for scent and kill, atrocities of education that abide only instinct, ignoring instruction — they stop only past slaughter. Crowds cannot be contained when they reshape as hordes. This, Lan Wangji has learned, the metal of blood bound to that of powdered aluminum, explosives raw and shrieking at his back.
He does not think, when he encounters the elder injured — a beggar of the streets, for the rags he wears, casualty less of the mob than of circumstance: when the carriage fell, and its wheels broke and rolled, the axes found stay in the flesh of an unwitting target. Lan Wangji does not carry him — the old man's injured leg, protected by a heavy limp, does not permit it. An arm slung over his shoulder, the elder lends half his weight, and Wangji directs them to crawl the distance to where haste and slim resourcing have birthed an emergency encampment: a store repurposed from a merchnat who has taken up rebellion over the sale of confections. The door screams the rust of its hinges, when Lan Wangji pushes it open, slips the old man on the pretty golden bench left for the waiting of the children, and turns to the healer of the day — the Merchant's fresh-faced addition who must have spent hours riddling wounds already, who does not need another case more. One unaffiliated even with their assignment.
The line of Lan Wangji's shoulders sharpens with tension. He breathes, expecting accusations, rushed reminders of what he should be completing — )
Apologies. There was...
( They have no time, no men, no disposition. Instructions of a different nature, the better, more expedient tasks to tackle. And yet, the elder whimpers and turns wet, resigned eyes to gaze emptily through the window, where the people assemble once more — and what was Lan Wangji to do with him, but this? )
wildcard | the streets
Above all, they want for reinforcement. Coarsely, their — merchant benefactor sends his contingent, but Lan Wangji has not withstood the ebb and tide of war and massacre prior to think one slim, strange faction lacking the lay of the dead and the hours to learn it can buttress conquest. His whites flutter in stale wind, silks and gossamer drenched in thickened, crusting red and road filth spattered by a downed carriage, when it swerved and the masses descended upon it.
The people are ravenous now, rabid. Like ill-trained dogs of hunt, bred purely for scent and kill, atrocities of education that abide only instinct, ignoring instruction — they stop only past slaughter. Crowds cannot be contained when they reshape as hordes. This, Lan Wangji has learned, the metal of blood bound to that of powdered aluminum, explosives raw and shrieking at his back.
He does not think, when he encounters the elder injured — a beggar of the streets, for the rags he wears, casualty less of the mob than of circumstance: when the carriage fell, and its wheels broke and rolled, the axes found stay in the flesh of an unwitting target. Lan Wangji does not carry him — the old man's injured leg, protected by a heavy limp, does not permit it. An arm slung over his shoulder, the elder lends half his weight, and Wangji directs them to crawl the distance to where haste and slim resourcing have birthed an emergency encampment: a store repurposed from a merchnat who has taken up rebellion over the sale of confections. The door screams the rust of its hinges, when Lan Wangji pushes it open, slips the old man on the pretty golden bench left for the waiting of the children, and turns to the healer of the day — the Merchant's fresh-faced addition who must have spent hours riddling wounds already, who does not need another case more. One unaffiliated even with their assignment.
The line of Lan Wangji's shoulders sharpens with tension. He breathes, expecting accusations, rushed reminders of what he should be completing — )
Apologies. There was...
( They have no time, no men, no disposition. Instructions of a different nature, the better, more expedient tasks to tackle. And yet, the elder whimpers and turns wet, resigned eyes to gaze emptily through the window, where the people assemble once more — and what was Lan Wangji to do with him, but this? )
He was. He is.