(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]

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. ]