Unaware of his looming fate of worried aunties tipping more millet into his bowl, he hums without wondering at much of anything, even the comment to breathe. Warmth washes over him in gentled waves that prickle into harshness, but in the way of good things. That he coughs when he breathes in too sharply is no indication of failing lungs; the inverse of the same cough when breathing in too fast, too deep, of chilled air.
The traced characters linger in his mind, and when Lan Zhan is tending to his bed he snorts and whines, a drawn out drawl of, "Lan Zhan, how'm I going to find anything later, ah?"
No longer a burr stuck on his friend's back, he's a sprawl of limbs stretching long, an arched back and a cat's stretch and sigh, more awake in the moment than he had been in the latest hour of his doorside vigilance. Lan Zhan settles, and the guqin familiar to them both, but more familiar always to Lan Zhan, fills their space with cutting lines and forgiving curves, beautiful and deadly, in the hands of this man. The music its own cutting melody, and he shivers, rolling onto his side and fixing his eyes on the hands and deft fingers moving across strings. Callouses that match, on those fine boned fingers.
"I wonder," he says, and he rolls, resting on his back with his arms crossing over his chest. Fingers tapping steady against the material over his arms, and he sighs, long, long exhalation. "I trust enough of them share a purpose. I trust the youngest ones are, for the most part, those who benefit from guidance and watching, but are old enough not to tumble into holes the rest of us didn't happen to see in time. Unlikely," he adds, lips turning up into a smile that remembers, "To get lost in crowds."
To hug legs, bawling, finding the prettiest person around to cling to their presumed sympathy, separated from the familiar through the mutual faults of childish distractibility and adult preoccupation.
"I trust that none of us are going to submit before any one leader, so working in this roundabout way of miniature conferences of opinions and misunderstandings is going to continue on. Do I trust our companions, wholly?"
He turns his head, regards Lan Zhan with clear eyes, darker than the midnight they've since left behind. Cleansing for him now is a sort of considered discomfort, but he doesn't fight it, doesn't evade as he might have. What stains and lingers here may well have different holds.
"To that degree, I only trust you and our son." Not his dead and strange martial uncle, not the brother he doesn't yet know he has here, not the youths he defends, not the one who'd hauled him back and left him healing in the bowels of the brothel's servant quarters. "You?"
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The traced characters linger in his mind, and when Lan Zhan is tending to his bed he snorts and whines, a drawn out drawl of, "Lan Zhan, how'm I going to find anything later, ah?"
No longer a burr stuck on his friend's back, he's a sprawl of limbs stretching long, an arched back and a cat's stretch and sigh, more awake in the moment than he had been in the latest hour of his doorside vigilance. Lan Zhan settles, and the guqin familiar to them both, but more familiar always to Lan Zhan, fills their space with cutting lines and forgiving curves, beautiful and deadly, in the hands of this man. The music its own cutting melody, and he shivers, rolling onto his side and fixing his eyes on the hands and deft fingers moving across strings. Callouses that match, on those fine boned fingers.
"I wonder," he says, and he rolls, resting on his back with his arms crossing over his chest. Fingers tapping steady against the material over his arms, and he sighs, long, long exhalation. "I trust enough of them share a purpose. I trust the youngest ones are, for the most part, those who benefit from guidance and watching, but are old enough not to tumble into holes the rest of us didn't happen to see in time. Unlikely," he adds, lips turning up into a smile that remembers, "To get lost in crowds."
To hug legs, bawling, finding the prettiest person around to cling to their presumed sympathy, separated from the familiar through the mutual faults of childish distractibility and adult preoccupation.
"I trust that none of us are going to submit before any one leader, so working in this roundabout way of miniature conferences of opinions and misunderstandings is going to continue on. Do I trust our companions, wholly?"
He turns his head, regards Lan Zhan with clear eyes, darker than the midnight they've since left behind. Cleansing for him now is a sort of considered discomfort, but he doesn't fight it, doesn't evade as he might have. What stains and lingers here may well have different holds.
"To that degree, I only trust you and our son." Not his dead and strange martial uncle, not the brother he doesn't yet know he has here, not the youths he defends, not the one who'd hauled him back and left him healing in the bowels of the brothel's servant quarters. "You?"