(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

[valeas]

( Where mortals accrue wealth in their never-ending acquisition of power, the realms that exist beyond them favor other forms of currency. In the underworld, nothing is more prized than blood and the magic that runs through it, though secrets and fears will suffice in a pinch. To show weakness of any kind is assured destruction. She tries to make herself untouchable. She buries her own hurts as best she can and readies herself to do her worst, for the Seven Circles surely will.

But what he asks of her is near impossible: her mind is never at ease and her gifts were dulled long ago. The truth of how and why hides somewhere in her bones, and the key to the lock forsaken. She is only ever left with the fading of a memory, and a sorrow she thought she'd killed.

In another life, these might have been her sisters. Would she have fought for them as she fought for the witches of Palermo, or would her fire burn them, too? It all began this way. With vengeance, yes — but also a burning desire to protect her kind from being slaughtered as Vittoria was. To give the fallen true justice and peace. Accountability for the guilty, no matter what it made her. Whatever the Attaryl were guilty of, and it was dreadful, this — there is no word for this.

She doesn't fully understand, but continues her attempts to push it all back. The sickened dread that twists her insides. The suspicions that roil, and an odd observation: that this should be the most he has said to her all in one go. She wants to turn and flee. She wants to yank his hands away from them.

She thinks she came too late, and this is not a story of forgiveness. ) I thought there was nothing left.

[downswing]

Only grief.

[ You know better. And, You are no child. His mouth stretches against the silhouettes of laughter. Sound claws its grave at the root of his throat. He cannot release it. Swallows down, in dappled gulps of acrid strain, against the tempting cruelty of childish hysteria. It is a simple thing, to break when others witness you and raise you.

The ticking of a distant clock, his heart beating. He trails fingers wet with cold and writes faint characters of release in the salt he begged off a maddened serving girl, who must have heeded him only to evade the looming threat of his eyes, his wandered step. Better a thick sickness attended and contained than a plague spreading. He has passed his salt not to encircle the bodies — crass, obvious, intrusive — but only to corset the wrists of these witch women and prevent the idle twitching of barely departed flesh, when the spirit is summoned close.

Given the opportunity for possession, victims of burning so often gravitate towards clawing their throats to ribbons. Enough of bloodshed here. All red debts have gone paid. ]

They could only assist Bonaccorso Spina through possession. [ Perhaps it is not he, but another Lan Wangji who speaks — softly, reverently, like any child who accepts and appreciates the demerits of a beloved toy he has taken to play. Who is paternally disappointed with its failures, but ultimately untroubled. As if his stakes in this were threadbare and few. ] They could not improve their rites to extend life, once his flesh was broken. Their knowledge is frail.

[ And rigid and wanting, and Wangji's teeth grit and snap, but release. He can compel spirits to answer him — not to speak those lies he would wish heard. ]