He turns his head, listens to her actively in a way animals might sometimes
manage, tracking the warbling melody of spoken sounds, looking for
patterns, looking to understand. He understands too well, his heart
registering tiny points of pressure, pain, needle-like claws sinking in.
Knowing she must miss Wen Ning, that she must miss everyone, and he'd had
nothing to offer her but certainty of an end for all but two of the Wens.
Erasure of both, just in different ways, and the rediscovery of Wen Ning,
the only hope for any future generation to carry the Wen name.
Not that he feels legacies remain tied to names. Not that he thinks clans
are the way all should be summarised, that values don't reach further in
their ways, that there are bonds which Lan Sizhui will carry forward that
have nothing to do with being a child of only one clan, but of being a man
who remembers he's a child of several, and carries forward himself in the
best of all potentials, stronger one day than his forefathers, and
infinitely more precious for the love he's been granted, at a distance or
in close proximity.
His ears twitch forward as she speaks, then angle back, an act of partial
contrition, partial grief. Only to have his head thud against the ground
when her hand returns to petting and she runs it over the skin of his
stomach, that light covering of fur shorter and softer than what covers his
back and sides. If a fox could look scandalised, he does a strikingly close
rendition of the emotion, staring at her wide eyed. I am going to die.
This is my death warrant, signed and sealed!
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He turns his head, listens to her actively in a way animals might sometimes manage, tracking the warbling melody of spoken sounds, looking for patterns, looking to understand. He understands too well, his heart registering tiny points of pressure, pain, needle-like claws sinking in. Knowing she must miss Wen Ning, that she must miss everyone, and he'd had nothing to offer her but certainty of an end for all but two of the Wens. Erasure of both, just in different ways, and the rediscovery of Wen Ning, the only hope for any future generation to carry the Wen name.
Not that he feels legacies remain tied to names. Not that he thinks clans are the way all should be summarised, that values don't reach further in their ways, that there are bonds which Lan Sizhui will carry forward that have nothing to do with being a child of only one clan, but of being a man who remembers he's a child of several, and carries forward himself in the best of all potentials, stronger one day than his forefathers, and infinitely more precious for the love he's been granted, at a distance or in close proximity.
His ears twitch forward as she speaks, then angle back, an act of partial contrition, partial grief. Only to have his head thud against the ground when her hand returns to petting and she runs it over the skin of his stomach, that light covering of fur shorter and softer than what covers his back and sides. If a fox could look scandalised, he does a strikingly close rendition of the emotion, staring at her wide eyed. I am going to die. This is my death warrant, signed and sealed!