( Bartered freedom stings like vinegar on a lashed tongue. He breathes wetly around it, stiffness washing in quiet thrumming off his bones. Click of his heels on hard ground and it strikes him only now, how he had bent willow-like with the vines, stretched like string on the tips of his toes, taut, to stall his breakage.
He is released. Spared. It seems half a shi before he rolls his shoulder once, before the second remembers the gentle, lolled stride of its brother well enough. Faster, his hand clutches the hilt of his sword, only to taste the whispered weight, the familiar cuttings of its engravings. Safety is never a weapon, only the comfort of knowing a blade outpaces a man in striking true. )
Wangji, clan Lan.
( Arrogance in the careless, graceful flaunting of his privilege: that he should pertain to the clan, not the sect — nephew to an uncle, father to a son, brother to a leader, the broad, filigree-armoured back of his headband cold on his forehead's bridge.
Etiquette condemns him to known steps. He has traded freedom for a name. May request, in turn, the same coin, paltry in a softened hand. Instead, gravelly: )
What are you?
( Crude, but for the wealth of tendrils that stretched of the stranger's body like molten sickness. Excuse the disrespect. )
see no evil, speak no evil
He is released. Spared. It seems half a shi before he rolls his shoulder once, before the second remembers the gentle, lolled stride of its brother well enough. Faster, his hand clutches the hilt of his sword, only to taste the whispered weight, the familiar cuttings of its engravings. Safety is never a weapon, only the comfort of knowing a blade outpaces a man in striking true. )
Wangji, clan Lan.
( Arrogance in the careless, graceful flaunting of his privilege: that he should pertain to the clan, not the sect — nephew to an uncle, father to a son, brother to a leader, the broad, filigree-armoured back of his headband cold on his forehead's bridge.
Etiquette condemns him to known steps. He has traded freedom for a name. May request, in turn, the same coin, paltry in a softened hand. Instead, gravelly: )
What are you?
( Crude, but for the wealth of tendrils that stretched of the stranger's body like molten sickness. Excuse the disrespect. )