(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

[somebadnews]

[ Five lets go of some of the tension he was holding when Lan Wangji doesn't question his resolve. While he's told him about the mistake that resulted in his embarrassing age regression, he doesn't want to get into his unique ability to reshape history. The risks are obviously high, but when the alternative is causing another apocalypse everything suddenly sounds a lot more reasonable.

So why is he staying here, trying to explain and defend his reputation against someone who will never really be able to understand? He doesn't have an answer for that, any more than he does for why Lan Wangji reminds him of his own loyalties.

A father and a companion, and yet whenever he runs into him he's almost always alone.

Maybe there is one common thread between them. Of course it would be the one he pulls at, and it has Five studying him closer than he has any of the surrounding corpses. The things they do for those they care about. ]

...You do this so they don't have to?

[downswing]

( Strange, how lightning strikes and branches splinter, how earth sunders and fresh founts are born, and Five glistens with the sudden, pale and frail understanding that coalesces between them. How they might have been enemies before this, on a whim, or passing strangers — but the animal, incomprehensible instinct to possess and protect jealously, without restraint, boils both their blood.

What will you do for those you love? Affection is but currency, each man a merchant. More knowing than some, Lan Wangji admits, in his hands rattles gold. )

I did not win a war so my son could bloody himself in another.

( To see the winter of Sizhui's robes rusted and time reversed, and his silks like autumn, earth-dirtied. To see scars accrue on Sizhui's face or his arms, or worse still, liquified as invisible aches that skin does not mark, but the eye records in stiff, disjointed movement. ) Or my companion should burden his brow.

( He does this so they need not think to have to. So that whatever sheen of carnage must veil them in this world, it should not wrap wet-tight around Sizhui and Wei Ying once more. Spare them. Think nothing of them. Do not see them. )

You, also.

( No question, only the steel of conviction, surer than his blade. )

[somebadnews]

[ That's not exactly a revelation; he practically said as much when he saw him in the tower. Before that. For some reason he felt the need to say what he recognizes in him. That Lan Wangji accepts his reasons without question is one reason they've been able to stay more or less aligned.

The biggest difference is that Lan Wangji is still young. He has a life to return to when the killing is no longer needed, whereas Five exists outside of time, and he doesn't know where he'd fit in if he wasn't constantly chasing the apocalypse. But that day isn't today, and a room full of corpses isn't the place to offer his advice.

The air shifts, and Five sighs when he breathes it in, letting his shoulders drop as he takes one more look around. ]

Next time let me know if you need a hand.