out you go, shoo

[groundrules]

READY TO ROLL OUT

That awkward moment when even a brothel won’t have you.

Characters will end their sojourn at the House of Dew early morning, helmed by Haltham (and his murderous goat, chomping on his prosthetic wooden hand for splinter nutrients). Courtesans and attendants will send the group away with parting gifts: a few sacs of grains, handfuls of spice, a small barrel of brew, several of water, thin blankets and four fat chickens.

The decrepit farm stands an hour’s walk east of Sa-Hareth, bordering the forest at the foot of the mountain. ...and it has not wanted for company. Monstrously overgrown wolves prowl the region, with some of the pack settled inside the farm. The wolves are halfway between dead and living, instantly aggressive, sharper, faster, smarter and blue-eyed beyond natural expectation. The wolves are drawn to heat and fire-bearers. They can be slain, or pushed back into the forest. If the brawl drags on, the wolves may receive reinforcements. Distantly, characters can observe silhouettes of pale-eyed, humanoid creatures in the forest, covered in animal skins. They seem to speak to the wolves, though it is unclear if they soothe or set them to attack.

Once an elaborate woodsmen’s station, the 'farm' is a generous, sprawling outpost built, home to now-barren inner garden. The farm spreads across kitchens, bathing rooms, hefty storage barns, a handful of isolated rest halls and broader communal areas. A study room has been crammed with accountancy tomes, papers and other books, many torn alongside glass shards on the floor. A shakily furnished barn was coarsely repurposed for banquets. Set up, inspect, repurpose. There’s enough dust and mildew to go around, and several walls and roof stretches will need reinforcements. “Ah,” characters say innocently, “Surely the cold will keep away vermin —” You have rats. Large, uncuddly, distinctly violent, prone to swarming once the sun’s downed. Enjoy that first night. Haltham will provide some base construction supplies over a few deliveries, along with a personal gift: a herding dog, to watch over two fluffy sheep. Flex those green thumbs: many moons ago, enchantments were set in place to warm the garden to a tolerable level that will allow the expedited harvest of an arctic patch. These spells will need to be activated and periodically recharged every few days by characters donating recoverable amounts of magic or physical stamina, by touching a nearby rune. But, hey: potatoes, turnips, kale, mmmmmmmmm, a balanced diet.

“Never open your doors at night,” Haltham says on parting. Lend him an ear — and, once the moon rises, hear the forest whispers. Some voices will beg rescue from the cold, others will tease and taunt, a few will imitate enemies or kin. Some will even disrupt dreams. The voices will seek to lure characters out of their shelter. Those who heed will find themselves compelled to walk into the forest, entranced and ignorant of the cold that slowly envelops them. They will be vulnerable to the elements, tundra predators and the woodland creatures, growing increasingly feral. Those who survive the night in the forest will wake to find themselves floating in a chilled, but strangely not-yet frozen lake in the morning. They can have faint recollections, as if they themselves lived any of the following events: a friend taking a dark path, the loss of a dear skill, years in a coffin, a close friend parted, a beloved reunion, a lost brother, a tender romance and rare bliss in poverty. At the bottom of the lake, they may spot the still corpse of an undead that feels too heavy for anyone to lift. His arm has a tattooed red sleeve. During the day, characters who visit the forest will find it eerily silent, with some trees showing signs of scratches and lingering rope. The lake can still be found, but entering it during daytime will not allow characters to experience foreign memories.

Karsa will reconfigure everyone’s quartz pieces to translate outside of the House of Dew and communicate in a private channel. Still nothing like individual inboxes at this time! Up to player discretion if Karsa had the time and humour to change their usernames, or stranded them to their House of Dew identities a little longer. Characters will also be able to access a secondary local fishermen’s network and listen in on their schedules, local gossip and daily weather updates. Woodsmen, tradesmen and miners will be surprised to see anyone inhabiting the farm, with some men pulling away, calling the place cursed.

Comments

[weifinder]

panic at the wolf farm disco: for five

Wei Wuxian was a mess once wolves manifested, having already been repeatedly failing to tamp down that fear or sticking even closer than usual to the people he trusted could be faster than the teeth of wolves... summarily his son, and Lan Zhan. The problem being once it was a matter of handling the situation, he was fumbling for Chenqing and barely managing to play to no avail, the wolves not influenced as he was trying to play to the dead, not to the possessed.

Which would be something fascinating to reflect on later, but in the heat of his ongoing panic, and his one means of defense (where, oh where is a sword, or a bow and a bundle of arrows?!) had him turning and bolting in a blind panic. Between the cold and everything else, he wasn't calling out for Lan Zhan, despite having his name firmly frozen in the forefront of his mind. No, he simply ran, and ran right into one of their ragtag band, clinging to the young man he almost bowled over.

Meaning Five, shorter than him by more than a head, now had a rail thin necromancer holding onto him, eyes wide and red at the corners, fear all but palpable, squeaking out a, "Save me!" as one of the wolves who'd slunk around the rest of the active fighting group broke off after them both.

night terrors

His music felt stifled, contained to the larger room he settled down in at night, playing a counterpoint to the winds and the voices that hissed and called and cried and cajoled from outside. Those who wandered in, either to test those voices or caught up in their calls, would find the music lessened the urge, left them more sure of themselves in the relative safety of the sprawling farmhold.

Other nights, he works on scraps of paper, painting talismans with brushes he starts making himself from requests of the hunters hauling in furred creatures; every so often, he holds a completed one out to whomever companions nearby. "Here, take this," with explanations following as he waits for their hand.

Yet other nights he sits under layered cloaks and blanket, back to the wall by the largest door, hands tucked under his armpits and a clawing at the door, but the voices and their draw muffled. He shivers periodically, chatting first to what looks like himself, but then proves to be the old ghost of the neatly folded cloak sitting next to him, who likewise lifts his ghostly head and gestures for whomever he sees to join them. Come, talk with an old man (hah) and a ghost, they've got all night.

wildcard potentials

Wei Wuxian travels to the citadel regularly to sell what he's making or what others have made; he's avoiding the dog that lives on the farm something fierce; he has so far avoided walking the woods at night, but so far doesn't mean always, and all it takes is one person of theirs walking out without responding to send him crashing out into the cold at their heels, looking to bring them back or keep the possessed creatures of the wood from having their way.

It doesn't mean he succeeds, and the waters grow deep with memories, but he can try, and he can fail, and he can try again.

[downswing]

It takes a village to raise a child, four to bury a Patriarch. A man alone, and he named, to attend to the dregs and splinters of Wei Wuxian's husk, come mao shi and the wakefulness that stirs inside Lan Wangji like a guest misconstruing the lack of aggressive objection for hospitality.

He haunts the house, in the early mornings: in Cloud Recesses, the rites of security would be observed by greener attendants, learning their scattered blood wards with practice. Here, Lan Wangji substitutes them, rights runes in shallow calligraphy, finger slicking with night's frost to scry characters on each door he passes, inking in condensation. He tries every window for opening, every door for violence, stokes flame in the toothless mouth of a brass hearth, so his companions might greet the sun unwebbed in chills.

After, he rescues their strays: the dog, curled and shivered in an isolated room, lent his blanket. The cat, consigned to rare truce, a half moon of docile warmth against the hound's prominent ribs. He fills their bowls, strokes the silent, grateful arc of their spines.

Then, Wei Ying by the front door, drenched in his darks and his coarse cottons, a pool of limbs and cloying resentment — hands claw-curled with cold, Chenqing inert, mouth a temple desecrated in the absence of laughter. Five of the morning, in the footsteps of a sleepless night, Wei Ying must surely sleep in the bed of all his demons that call him, so close to the doors. Wangji's will not be the selfishness that stirs him, only draws his hands beneath Wei Ying's arms to catch grasp of him —

...and starts very gently to drag Wei Ying around on hard floor, the way of the kitchen fire, as if he were a collapsed and weathered sack of dried rice, irresponsibly heavy. No need to raise or carry him, or afford him the dignity of waking. This will do.

[weifinder]

A man who had listened to voices the night through, hardened to begging and pleading, too aware of the way of the restless undead in seeking any pathway into the mind. He sleeps as their clawings taper off, as the fervency in voices turns to angering despair, and by the time light touches the skies to turn them a different sort of browning grey, he's barely sunk into his own exhaustion. One more night, they live.

Wangji's tenderness toward the emptied sack of him dragged across floors slowly shining under his lacking weight is commented on by the ghost, left at the wall.

"So young, yet so weak in the mornings." Ancient as he is, incorporeal, he shakes his head, withdrawing with a wan, knowing smile of a man who has nothing left to lose beyond his lingering presence outside of confinement. Freedom, and it's through this haze that Wei Wuxian stirs, feeling no danger as he becomes the rags for polishing the floor, because no killing intent is leveled his way, no demands, just inexorable progress.

He mutters, stirring as his hair catches and drags, just long enough to still find its way to being trapped there, where his back not lifted beyond his arms catches and pulls, and the cold recedes enough he feels it as a difference. "'ssafe?"

His brow furrows, eyes barely slitting open. There's white, there's hair dark as his own, pale skin, and a ribbon. Not his son, whose face he still is not used to, but an older, more familiar one. His eyes slip closed again.

Wherever he's getting dragged, it's not in a rush. That's reassuring. Lan Zhan wouldn't be slow in anything that required speed, and thus he starts trying to sleep deeper as he's hauled (gently, polishingly) to the kitchen fires.

[downswing]

"Safe," he confirms, and ferries the timber weight of Wei Ying, dead to the world, until he is lifted to spill like black well water over the stone slate beside the kitchens' hearth fire. 

There's an itch, his blood's poison, You've replenished your flesh — but words refuse themselves, like maidens withdrawing the privilege of their spring-tide presence from unambitious suitors. No aches, no surprises, only the minor miracle of  rationed, but regular feeding. Healthy, wholesome exercise. Fright and flight, but contained, the enemy external and known. Playfully, Wei Ying has been bartering the dregs of his physical safety and his sustenance, but not had to compromise on his mind's provisions, of late. 

Improvement is only testament to evolution. For how often he breaks Wei Ying's falls, Wangji serves the finest-tuned of his weight tellers.

Absently, he allows Wei Ying his sleep among detritus — catches a look of him again, the gaunt strain of dark energy, rippling like claws' marks raking beneath the stretch of idle skin. Chenqing's work. Resentment, forged and reshaped by a crass hand, the toxic filigree of its spread catching root. Better to curtail now, than cleanse later. 

One knee, then its brother. He sits beside Wei Ying on the floor, summons his guqin and performs, unwitnessed, the fledgling notes of Absterge. Hard, tenuous practice. Once upon a time, his life's pride, neatly setting out to extinguish the last of Wei Ying's qualms. 

Lan Wangji has worked before, to barren end. Startles to find himself rehearsing futility once more, like the borrowed lines of poetry a crowing elder forces on the recital of a precocious nephew. 

In the end, Wei Ying betrays himself with the natural stutters of a man shrugging off sleep in discomfort. Regret shrouds, but Wangji does not let him ease back into cold rest. 

"Wei Ying. Go to your bed. Sizhui shouldn't find you so." If a child's peace must be bought with toil, let the trade complete itself discreetly.

[weifinder]

He isn't settled as he stirs, lifting his head with his cheek patterned in folds of cloth and grained wood, eyes drier than when the closed. He grumbles something unintelligible, pushes himself up proper to lift his arms and arch his back in a stretch with another, high pitched groan, eyes closing as his brow furrows and the deliciousness of bloodflow stirring to action and developing cricks twinging a warning.

"Sizhui?" He lifts his brows, lowering his arms as he looks to Lan Zhan, lips pulling into a lopsided grin. His eyes are still sleep-tired, his voice heavier from the same. "Sleeping near a hearth? He'd understand, I think."

No core, long nights, everything of that nature. Wei Wuxian doesn't chase any of those he cares for away, these days, but he does hold himself to what acts of protection he can manage, and he's tiring himself out between that and his insufficient sleep before trekking to town over the course of the days passing. Looking down again, running one hand over his mussed hair, he asks in a quiet voice:

"Lan Zhan... is the, ah. The dog still sleeping?"

Can he escape without crossing paths with the beast?

[downswing]

"Sleeping." A ruin of stubborn, matting fur and cold-drenched curls, so often bereft at their feet. Lan Wangji stumbles on it — him — often, feels his step dislocate the negative space where the dog hasn't spread in vast, homely majesty. The creature means no ill, a constant and reliable flurry of animal anxieties: where do his humans live? And his two sheep? And his feeding? And has he seen the one door closed? The other opened? Was that wind, howling, or the hissed return of ancient shadows and wolves, hungry in their wake?

The dog tires himself fastidiously, religiously. Last they crossed dark and beady eyes, Wangji barely flitted beside him, passing the gardens. There are at least three rooms raised as strong sentinel between them, haunted, keeping their own vigil. Three, but he knows the acrid aftertaste of Wei Ying's paranoia, like oversteeped, burning tea leaf — reduced to two, for good measure, then the one, when he tips his head to squint. Then nothing, because what is one, if not abbreviation?

Better, to forego the mental mathematics. He comes to stand before Wei Ying, knelt and soft like every courtesan of the house of pleasures they've only just deserted, spatters of early-morning pallor deep on his cheeks, drawing the dark of his lids and the callused quality of his under-eyes, gaunt. He turns, back to Wei Ying and curbing, reaching with the calm of every father who has picked up his son countless turns on his back, to grasp Wei Ying's legs and knot them by Wangji's flanks. "And cannot reach heights."

There will be an hour, late into his own night, when he will wonder how it was Lan Wangji, Hanguang-Jun, chief cultivator offered himself willingly to serve as chariot. May Uncle never hear of it.

[weifinder]

He blames being sleep soft still for why he didn't scramble away before his legs were grasped, and he's half attached to Lan Zhan with even less ceremony than the last time he'd been carried on his back. He's more awake in that moment, the warm flush of embarrassment over how he still asks after the dog, and will again tomorrow, and avoids or races through to not deal with the animal that has not personally done anything to him... yet. Then the manner of being carried again with no need, on Lan Zhan's back when he'd wanted to forget the first time, the ages ago offer, that it feels different and squirmingly uncomfortable to be taken care of and not be a child leaping into his Shijie's arms.

Save me!

"Lan Zhan, you don't—" He didn't what? Have to? That was an obvious given, they both knew it. "I can walk!"

He says, but he doesn't fight it enough to get away, and after pressing his hands against Lan Zhan's back, he frowns to himself. Lightens that touch, until his fingertips are the only contact points. "The dog's tall."

Lan Zhan is far from diminutive, but he's not a tree, spanning taller than the rooftops of even the larger buildings around. If the dog jumps, the dog will still get to Wei Wuxian, so why carry him at all? Couldn't they walk side by side so he can try to hide behind Lan Zhan at a moment's glance?

[somebadnews]

Five really shouldn't have been out here. He's seen enough evidence to believe that all those warnings they were given aren't only rumors, and his curiosity doesn't warrant the risk without further research. Ask him, and he'll have at least a dozen logical answers to what could have led him in this direction, and not one of them will be that he's been hearing voices coming from the woods at night. And it certainly won't be that he was looking for people to rescue. What happens now can therefore be summed up as an ill-timed coincidence while he was getting some fresh air, like anyone is entitled to do. Taking in all the eerie sights and sounds their new home has to offer.

At first he doesn't recognize the man, or his terror, because all he sees is a body suddenly lunging at him. It should be embarrassing how he manages to all but tackle him, but it's not long after that he picks up on his desperation as he clings to him like he's his only lifeline. The experience immediately reminds him of that possessed woman in the jail, and he might have had the same violent reaction if he didn't finally make a connection when he hears his voice. Wuxian. Who is obviously in a full blown panic and won't be of any use against whatever is following him. Great.

Since when do people run to him for protection?

His smaller frame pushes against his tangled limbs, and he tries to focus on being irritated as he maneuvers to get a good look behind him. By the time he does the wolf is practically on top of them.

"Oh shit." No time for questions. Wuxian doesn't really have a choice in coming along for the ride as Five pulls him into the jump, disappearing with him into a ripple of blue light that briefly illuminates the wolf that was seconds away from striking.

They materialize as far away as he could manage with two people, which happens to be the roof of the creaky old barn. It shudders slightly at their landing, and he takes a moment to get his footing. A cold wind whips past, and he mildly regrets not immediately going inside.

"Steady." Five says it as more of a command than a reassurance. They teleported to one of the only flat surfaces up here, so there's really nowhere to go. And no way for anything to reach them. He'll get a better look at what's out there once he's satisfied that Wuxian won't slide right off after he went through the trouble of saving him. (People tend to get nauseous when he jumps with them, so he hopes he takes some initiative and throws up over the side if he needs to.)

"Well." He sighs, trying to dispel some of the adrenaline that sent his heart rate soaring. It's only then that he actually regards Wuxian, a disapproving look firmly in place as he pulls him off and checks for any obvious injuries. "That was stupid."

[weifinder]

His knees want to give out, and the nausea that comes with the sudden portaling is intense in a way he can't differentiate from the nausea of his terror at first. Then he feels it, latching on to the sensation that locks him so firmly in his physical body that the terror in his mind can't solely have its way with him.

He manages to stand, having more trouble letting go of Five because of the claws his hands have turned into, clinging to the smaller framed young man, not leaning into him, but certainly holding on.

"Oh," he says after a moment, letting himself be pulled off but wide eyes still stuck in place, pupils blown, staring past Five and off the roof to where the wolves and the rest of their compatriots continue to fight. "That was fast."

The portaling, but his voice is smaller and he's still clearly not okay. His fingers twitch, and he reaches for the flute shoved into his waistband, clutching at it white knuckled when he finds it, breathing too hard.

"These, they're, ah, the wolves." He swallows. "They're... toothy." Swallows again, still clinging to that nauseated feeling. It's so grounding, familiar, and: he blinks.

"And only half dead."

[somebadnews]

Five would like to tell him not to get used to it, but who the hell knows at this point? He's stuck his neck out more than once for this group, and he can't entirely justify why. Leaving them to their own devices just seems to lead to things like this. It's a wonder they've survived this long.

At least Wuxian has proven his usefulness in other areas, enough to somewhat forgive how shaken he seems now. They've seen worse than the wolves at this point, by Five's estimation, so he figures there's something more to it that has him so terrified. It puts him in an awkward position. He isn't a person people cling to, and he doesn't really know how to handle someone in this situation.

When thankfully lets go, he just shakes his head and follows his gaze, surveying the scene from this vantage point. They don't look so threatening at a distance, but they are a lot closer than he'd like them to be. Maybe it wasn't a matter of looking for trouble, so much as trying to push them back.

Toothy. Well, he can't disagree.

"They must be thrilled to have all of us under one roof," he says mostly to himself. Why they're bothering to fix up the farm when they should keep moving to somewhere less targeted... Whatever, nobody asked him. As much as he'd hate for it to lose the charm his sister finds in it, it's clearly been marked.

When he looks back at him, the man still looks like he's halfway to hyperventilating and he narrows his eyes. They should probably stay up here for a minute.

"How can you tell?" He's not quite familiar with the difference between half dead and undead. The flute he's inexplicably clinging to gets his attention, and he nods to it. "Is that supposed to do something?"

[weifinder]

His fingers reflexively clutch Chenqing harder, and he swallows, pulling his flute close to his chest and his legs in, making himself smaller. "It's a focus," he says, breaking up what he speaks on as he tries to get his breathing under control. Little by little, he stops inhaling so quick and shallow, though his eyes don't leave the forms of the wolves being fought around the area.

"Focus for music, music to guide the dead. Control them. Guide and control them. Bid them? All of that." Music as a means for how he commanded the dead, really, and while likely not the only way (as it wasn't, it was just the most direct for the purpose of focus), his explanation right now wasn't going to get better.

It takes him longer to drag his mind back to the other question, the how for his ability to tell. "I can feel it," he said after a longer pause. "The, ah, wolves, the wolves... feel similar to the Anurr. Only less. Not all dead, not... not all possessed? Two different things. Similar, but different."

Possession required a different approach than dealing with the undead, so half-living creates under possession did not respond like a possessed dead body. Or even a not-possessed dead body, such as it was.

[somebadnews]

Music that controls the dead. Huh. He has no reason to doubt him after being the witness to his other ability, but now he's trying to remember hearing flute playing before. Even when he's trying to keep up his notes, there's a lot he misses when he doesn't ask them directly.

With a number of them having some kind of power of the dead, he wonders at what that means. If they're of greater interest. His stomach turns slightly thinking of his idiot brother left unsupervised somewhere. (All of them, really, but Klaus is a particular concern.)

He doesn't dwell on it when Wuxian keeps going. For someone so familiar with the dead, he sure does look traumatized. Possibly because that ability failed to work.

"I'm not following." Five moves in front of him, trying to block his view from the wolves beneath them. The roof creaks again as he shifts his weight, and he ignores it to focus on him. "The undead here are possessed by Anurr, but you thought you could control them... Is that what you were doing out there?"

[weifinder]

The break in his line of sight helps, even if he visibly flinches whenever the wolves make noise. Thankfully, for him at least, they aren't half as noisy as dogs in a frenzy, but the growls and yips and crunch of paws through snow is enough to keep his spine shivering.

Keeping his eyes on Five's, he lets his voice and attention be an anchor for himself. It doesn't put his breathing to rights immediately, but it lets him calm down more than he had been, and he tries to let his twitching fingers loosen their grip on Chenqing, to little avail.

"Ah, yes, and no. Didn't think they'd—didn't think they'd be like that, but their eyes, the feel of them, something was off. I thought they'd be dead, but they're not quite. I don't... I don't know that it's the same exactly as the Anurr. They're cold, both are cold, but the wolves..."

His gaze starts to drift, and he eyes narrow, senses expanding in his loose focus on what he feels from the wolves.

"... If I had to say, there's... less. Less of something, within them."

[scrapgege]

The first time he's offered a talisman, Xie Lian blinks and smiles gratefully.

"Thank you! I can't believe I didn't even think of making any. With how many ghosts and spirits there are around, surely, those would help a bit."

As it happens, he was poised himself to paint the picture to put on his little altar, but he can probably used some of the extra scraps of paper....

"I haven't done this in a while. Let's see."

He picks up a piece of paper, but instead of a brush and ink, he just holds it between his two fingers and focuses his spiritual power, what little of it he has access to, and the characters just appear on the paper, bleeding out into existence.

"Okay, good, this still works. And I guess I can paint them if needed. Here."

He holds out his own talisman to the young man.

[weifinder]

Wei Wuxian watches this process with widening eyes, then claps his hands together, breaking into a smile. He doesn't accept it back straight away, given the clap, but then stuffs the rest of his under and arm and happily accepts the one the other young man made, all but sparkling in interest.

"How'd you do that!" He looks down at the talisman, studying its strokes and design. "Was that all from qi? I haven't heard of a strokeless technique before, talk about convenient when it comes to materials, when you've enough energy to spare. Is this common where you're from, is it something only you do?"

[scrapgege]

"Ah, yes. I've... always done them this way, I think. Other people can do it too, it's not relaly a special ability."

Well, not people, gods, really, but you know, same difference.

"I"m a bit limited in how much power I can spare, but those are not too hungry, so that works. We'll still need paper, though."

He turns back to his bit of paper and starts the portrait he'd been planning to make. It's mor eof a sketch with flowy lines, because he only has one color, but still distinctive enough. A tall man with a slightly arrogant bearing, long hair, one of his eyes covered by an eyepatch, a scimitar in one hand and a butterfly hovering over his other one, palm up.

[weifinder]

"Then how do you do it?" He turns the talisman over, running his eyes and fingers over both sides in turn. The comment about power is noted, though he says nothing on it, and only snorts out and smiles at the mention of paper.

Then he leans in, watching what this man begins painting, the lines flowing across the paper. "Who are they?"

[scrapgege]

"I juts focus my spiritual power and envision the shape I want and then channel it into the paper."

That... probably explains nothing, but that's the best way he can think of to explain it anyway.

Xie Lian's cheeks color a bit at that question.

"Ha... the altar needed a portrait, and I... he's a very powerful spirit."

[bearshermark]

Unable to go out into town without a hulking shadow, Eleven entrusts the remains of his coin to Wei Wuxian to purchase what supplies he can with it. When he isn't busy with the upkeep of the property, Eleven continues to compile the supplies they've put together so far toward the goal of putting together the packs they're hoping to distribute once they've finished.

So when Wei Wuxian returns from a trip into the city, Eleven glances up from the floor amid a pile of work-in-progress packs with a smile.

"Find any reasonable prices?"

[weifinder]

He sets his own carry rucksack down with a grin, waving one hand before him. "It's harder, given the change in weather and the ports closing again, but yeah. Some! Even some kind of hardtack, which is either a last resort on rations or our future foundation for some cabin we're building in other woods."

Kneeling, he sets to opening the rucksack and carefully pulling out its contents. "Packs should just about be done. Got some cheaper damaged linen, I'll need to boil it but once we've cut it into strips gotten it as clean as we can, we'll have bandages to use going forward."

Which were multifunctional at heart, and a concern because even with Eleven's healing magic, and the different skills their rag tag group has, they needed to be prepared for more than the easy solution.

[bearshermark]

Eleven nods, leaning forward with interest. Hardtack and bandages will certainly complement their existing supplies well. He leaves the linen to Wei Wuxian to boil, but begins to divide the 'food' evenly among the packs alongside modest lengths of cordage and waterskins.

"Any luck with the fishing line and hooks?" He didn't expect they would be expensive items, given most waters other than the ocean were mostly frozen, but if they were travelling east, the weather would warm and they'd have greater use for it. But neither was he a merchant to tell how valuable any given thing could be.

[weifinder]

"Gutline, and straight hooks I figured you could bend and give a point and barb, ah?" He continued fishing out supplies, until a rolled up bundle in what appeared to be old sealskin was pulled out and handed over. Inside, two long bundles of catgut (made from sheep intestine), because unlike the silk or horsehair, it was far less expensive.

The small lengths of metal had a basic loop already made at one end, and came to a decent point at the other, but nothing beyond that. Further inspection would show they were partly rusted or oxidized large sewing needles, not quite as heavy duty as an awl.

Again, cost was everything. He'd found these less expensive in a bundle than the fishing hooks available in market the last week.

"Think you can make these work?" He knew he could, but if he was spending time making the trek back and forth, it would be a better task for someone else to handle.

[bearshermark]

Eleven examined the catgut and bits of metal with a thoughtful hum.

"You really are thrifty," he observed with an admiring half-laugh. He wouldn't have thought to look for less than he'd been after, but the alternatives were smart.

Eleven briefly tested the strength of the line, then turned a straight hook between his fingers. It would take a fair bit of tedious work to do, but it was certainly possible with effort.

"Yes, I can do it. So long as we aren't catching oversized fish, it should work well enough for our needs. Thank you."

hi im here to ruin everything

[consignation]

These have been some of the best in Jiang Cheng's recent memories. There are downsides, of course. He worries of home, of what the Jiang sect will do without him. (And, apparently, the illustrious Hanguang-jun of all people.) He knows Jin Ling won't do well in his absence, but there is at least Jin Guangyao to care for him.

The thing he feels worst about, however, is that he doesn't feel worse about it all.

Having the physical distance from the cultivation world, from his role and obligations and all the politics contained therein, has left him feeling able to breathe for the first time since he can remember. Since he was a child. Their position is tenuous, the threats difficult to even properly identify, never mind mitigate, but there are no particular eyes on him to solve the problems they face. There are no expectations, no legacy to desperately uphold, no sect to lead.

There is only his own self, and he finally has time to sit and think.

The farm life could not be more simple. It also proves backbreaking, and Jiang Cheng can't help but think of Wei Wuxian and his horrible radishes, and the quiet little life he made for himself for a time. Did he, too, know this peace?

It feels harder and harder to fault him for choosing that escape, and Jiang Cheng feels perilously close to admitting to himself that his anger for the man came from the same place it always did. Jealousy. That Wei Wuxian always had what he wanted, did what he struggled to seemingly without effort, and was always everything Jiang Cheng wished he could be.

Lately, Jiang Cheng has busied himself with caring for the farm's dog, making sure it eats right and gets its exercise and gets its herding done without traumatizing the scant few animals they have to herd. He goes on runs with the dog, who he's taken to calling Zongzi, regularly, and today he's having trouble finding the beast.

"Zongzi!" he calls, walking along the perimeter of the farm, a scowl on his face. "Zongzi, where are you? Zongzi, come here!"

He stops to listen for an answer.

DOGE TREES PATRIARCH, NEWS FROM ELEVEN

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The answer comes like this: a cry, an octave higher than it should be, of an oddly familiar voice going, "Save me! Lan Zhan!"

Wei Wuxian, upon discovery, is in a tree, the snow upon it fallen from higher branches to the ground, the dog in question circling the base and leaping up to place concerned paws on the lower trunk, wuffing up at Wei Wuxian, who only cringes and holds tighter to the trunk. Snow has decorated his heavy cloak, and clumps of it fall from higher or from himself to thud softly to the snowy ground below. Zongzi only seems concerned when one smacks it on the nose, going back to four paws in the snow and shaking its head with a low whine.

Hearing Jiang Cheng, Zongzi turns, letting out two sharp barks as a call, before returning to safeguarding the human up a tree.

Wei Wuxian, not feeling safe, continues to stare wide eyed with horror down at the vicious beast now every so often leaping up and nipping at the air below him.

"Go away!"