( Hissed, as if by happenstance the venom of the hour has coiled and curdled in Lan Wangji's belly and commands expulsion. And what had this child asked? Is there alternative to slaughter? A naive investigation, hoped to produce a conclusion of kindness. As if Lan Wangji might have chosen to severe bone and scrape meats and witness the slow, sword-kissed bleed-out of a woman's shape in his arms — for sport.
And she does not die well, this second time. Gravelly, breath leaves her in heaves, and Lan Wangji might, but does not pronounce that a slit throat requires her to compensate the depth of inhalations with an open, hungering mouth — and it is the stranger's wit and his parchment that stitches her lips shut and bides her obedience. Unwittingly, he accelerates her death. Is this, then, your alternative?
Inert, her feet slip in candle oils Lan Wangji had not known downturned. She slides, he captures her, lifts her once more — withers, when her claws graze his sleeves in pure lethargy. Mere heartbeats until her next stirring, but not yet, not yet. Seas live and ebb and tide in the pulse that beats his temples. Volcanoes erupt. A world ends.
It is unnecessary to feed it innumerable casualties. )
Flee the room.
( If this young man can, as worms do, untangle himself and slither loose. If he can recover his wits long enough to achieve his escape. )
no subject
( Hissed, as if by happenstance the venom of the hour has coiled and curdled in Lan Wangji's belly and commands expulsion. And what had this child asked? Is there alternative to slaughter? A naive investigation, hoped to produce a conclusion of kindness. As if Lan Wangji might have chosen to severe bone and scrape meats and witness the slow, sword-kissed bleed-out of a woman's shape in his arms — for sport.
And she does not die well, this second time. Gravelly, breath leaves her in heaves, and Lan Wangji might, but does not pronounce that a slit throat requires her to compensate the depth of inhalations with an open, hungering mouth — and it is the stranger's wit and his parchment that stitches her lips shut and bides her obedience. Unwittingly, he accelerates her death. Is this, then, your alternative?
Inert, her feet slip in candle oils Lan Wangji had not known downturned. She slides, he captures her, lifts her once more — withers, when her claws graze his sleeves in pure lethargy. Mere heartbeats until her next stirring, but not yet, not yet. Seas live and ebb and tide in the pulse that beats his temples. Volcanoes erupt. A world ends.
It is unnecessary to feed it innumerable casualties. )
Flee the room.
( If this young man can, as worms do, untangle himself and slither loose. If he can recover his wits long enough to achieve his escape. )