(no subject)

[downswing]

WHO: Lan Wangji, Wen Qing, Emilia + others to be added...
WHEN: mid/just post-revolution.
WHERE: Palace of the Doxe, broader Taravast.
WHAT: Revolution, spiritual inquisition, the undue instinct to take inspiration from one old, Machievallian man's quest for immortality.
WARNINGS: descriptions of carnage, some roughening up of spirits during interrogation.

NOTE: so far, this houses a few follow-up or pre-discussed catch-up logs, but definitely please PM if you'd like to do something \o/

Comments

[downswing]

Mistress.

( Courtesy slick and clammy on his tongue, he swallows wet against it. Breathes burning. Patience, with the knowing of it: that Wei Ying only cares for the martyrs of the heavens, for Jiang Yanli and Wen Qionglin and Lan Sizhui, whose coffers of kindness will never run emptied or dry. And that he loves too the worst plagues of the world, dark-eyed and haunting — Jiang Wanyin and Wei Ying's own maudlin pets, twined wisps of brittle shadow.

This ethical sundering of Wei Ying's affections leaves scant quarters for ambiguity. And where does Wen Qing fall? She knows herself — the syrupy beam of Wangji's gaze lands low — she took the blade. There is enough animal cruelty in her that she bares sharp teeth now and Lan Wangji concedes another step back — I hear you, in your silences — but hesitates to bear his throat.

Enough blood wets these rooms, slips under his feet. Let her quench her thirst elsehow. )

The Doxe's history will be written by his survivors. ( With diligent cruelty, for threat of violence and arson have their way of conscripting partisans to a cause Bonaccorso Spina might find — unflattering. At most, today, Wangji can hope to ease an elder's spirits; Bonaccorso's name is ripe for tarnish, oily and visceral. He will be — he is — anathema. ) As was that of the Wen.

( Wen Ruohan, defaced of his past glory, became a many-headed beast: mad or perverted or estranged from humanity. A fool or the face of brilliance. Cursed or sharply possessed of his senses, but lacking the dignity to tame them. A political starveling, or a tragic casualty of his own greed before powers he proved too weak to contain. Each scribe of renown wrote a different if sophisticated account of the Wen, when the ashes of their downfall had stilled safely cold — and each historian took his coin from a different sect master, keen to legitimise a skeletal claim to the looting of Nightless City. )

Is that all Sizhui should learn? ( Think. Best to have moderation, balance. Who can say what was right then, when the sun was shot from the skies, and what is wrong now, when they've buried Jin tyrants? The justice of battle does not excuse its means. At Nightless City, they fought bravely. They did not fight well. ) You know his people.

( Some might say, Wen Qing is that. )