Now all of this amuses him now, where it had baffled and annoyed him before: he claimed Lan Zhan as a soulmate an age past, and it's been the sort of slow rebuilding of understanding to feel that yes, they can see, know, learn each other again, even as much changed men from their youth.

He can't hold on to grudges any better now than he did then, not the least of it being because Lan Zhan, foolish and stubborn and everything else, is one of the most important people in his life.

"Obscure clan-based rituals involving the tying of a ribbon around a wrist." Without any other context, it sounds even more silly, but he's not here to give the best accounting of something he found...

"There was an ancestor's spirit, an assassination technique of the clan, and a whole bunch of rabbits involved. Not strictly in that order."