[ After, when he's shed the sour sweat and shallow wounding and foreign appetites of the hunter like a brittle snake's skin, when ground's filth and stale, powdered stone gathered on his limbs like an unguent, when he walks limping and adrift like the last gasps of a tempest — he infiltrates, more than enters Wen Qing's home in courtesy, half a glance scathing the... lovers who court enthusiastically in the dark-shrouded gardens, as he passes.
...they have shared little fortune in their homes of this village. Foolish, to think Wen Qing's dignity might have known succour. ( Praise to his ears, they stay snowy and devoid of flush, when the girl surprised in her passions rushes to lift herself from the garden bench, and the cloth of her cloth of her robes slips to receive the mound of a shoulder. )
He wears still Wei Ying's darks when he visits, coarse cottons tortured under every branch and pebble and ravine the woods could whip him with, while extending brief hospitality. The flutter of his pulse is a convulsive betrayal of a body vulnerable to the turn of seasons, the chill of the evening, the toll of the litany of cuts and bruises that line and braid rope around his wrists, his back. The lock of his qi has prevented murder when the hunting fevers took him — and recovery, when the days drew warm and sensible and long.
But the spell has broken. Late now, the hour deepened and leaves quivering in low hang like fingertips drumming, when light rain knocks them down. In the clench of his fist, a torn bundle of the widow's lace sleeps dry. Late in this, also — he anticipates the mistress Qing has by now long completed her treatment, or succumbed in its absence. No matter.
Floors creak to announce him, drip and drip and drip of his fresh wet sobbing down lacquer. He knocks, once, on the mouth's frame of the door to the mistress' quarters, long before she can show the white glint of her teeth. ]
Apologies for a visit delayed. [ A slow look at him might indicate he has been... otherwise engaged. ] How fares your wounding?
[ At the end of the day, what is one monstrous perversion to another? If she bears scales and injuries, and he an animal haunting, then at least they are together less than houses of their true selves. ]
4. / wildcard - within days of the Hunt!!!
...they have shared little fortune in their homes of this village. Foolish, to think Wen Qing's dignity might have known succour. ( Praise to his ears, they stay snowy and devoid of flush, when the girl surprised in her passions rushes to lift herself from the garden bench, and the cloth of her cloth of her robes slips to receive the mound of a shoulder. )
He wears still Wei Ying's darks when he visits, coarse cottons tortured under every branch and pebble and ravine the woods could whip him with, while extending brief hospitality. The flutter of his pulse is a convulsive betrayal of a body vulnerable to the turn of seasons, the chill of the evening, the toll of the litany of cuts and bruises that line and braid rope around his wrists, his back. The lock of his qi has prevented murder when the hunting fevers took him — and recovery, when the days drew warm and sensible and long.
But the spell has broken. Late now, the hour deepened and leaves quivering in low hang like fingertips drumming, when light rain knocks them down. In the clench of his fist, a torn bundle of the widow's lace sleeps dry. Late in this, also — he anticipates the mistress Qing has by now long completed her treatment, or succumbed in its absence. No matter.
Floors creak to announce him, drip and drip and drip of his fresh wet sobbing down lacquer. He knocks, once, on the mouth's frame of the door to the mistress' quarters, long before she can show the white glint of her teeth. ]
Apologies for a visit delayed. [ A slow look at him might indicate he has been... otherwise engaged. ] How fares your wounding?
[ At the end of the day, what is one monstrous perversion to another? If she bears scales and injuries, and he an animal haunting, then at least they are together less than houses of their true selves. ]