wit beyond measure is

[reparo]

WHO: Hermione Granger & you
WHEN: The Drought / Ke-Waicai plot
WHERE: Multiple places!
WHAT: Multiple threads
WARNINGS: TBD


NOTE: this log is open for all to interract with, whether we have plans or not. Each starter is open to one character unless specified otherwise; I'd ask to please respect this so I don't bite off more than I can chew lose track of continuity.

If the starters below don't fit, PM/plurk/discord me and we can whip up some wildcard!

Comments

[downswing]

( Help proffered, as asked — but for the weight of the large bundle of stone that stirs him, neatly, to nearly tip over, for how he achieves each step after long, extended negotiation. Public existence incriminates them. He drifts down lone paths, the rumble of the rubble they displace like the maws of beasts, grinding.

None of the Beastmaster's creatures dart in their path. Small, if thanked comfort. He thinks, if he were to encounter one now, the pieces of Wei Ying and Sizhui's safety in hand, there would be no start, no end to his violence. Thinks, itch like thorns in his nails' beds, that he has hungered to unleash his aggression for a very long time now.

Give him an excuse. A reason. )

Name the route.

( Only, he remembers: Five's dwellings, the woman who wait in shadow, the ghosts. The teahouse. Hermione shares these quarters. He starts them, night warm-wet on his back, licking moisture.

One man, burdened by stone. His companion, by... he stifles the groan, with the discipline of any father who has raised a small child. )

What do you carry? ( Critically: why? )

[reparo]

[They're in the bag, hidden and secret, so if a villager finds her out at night, they won't be able to prove that she stole what the merchant considered invaluable artwork. They're in her bag, and it's not ideal that they're rolling about in there, with all the rest of the things Hermione has stashed inside, taking advantage of the enchantments that enlarge it on the inside, but - this will only be a last, small insult to their memory.

She notices that Lan Wangji is leading them to the teahouse, but she needs to make her way towards the forest, to where she agreed with Wen Qing to bury them. While it's still night.

So, she chooses to skip the part where she pretends she's innocent, to save time.]

He was collecting the skulls of beauties like objects, and had them displayed as art. It was disgusting. They deserved - [She pats the side of her bag.] peace.

[downswing]

( ...skulls, then, not sculptures, not... morbid accessories cut to the taste of a lesser man. True wretched ugliness, harrowing, and the white of bone blinding, thick beneath the searching hand. He does not reach for them, not for the tendrils of chasms and coiled smoke that silhouettes of spirit likely paint on their edges, not for the sketch of dark he spies, crossing bone territory — fractures, he expects. Fissures long.

And the girl, who wishes nothing but to placate spirits she cannot hear but that Wei Ying, mouth timid, would woo to peer their head. Lan Wangji cannot do for her what his soulmate might achieve, fast and willing.

But burial — here the nod, sharp jut, breathless — this, they can do. )

So earned. ( And so, they shall avenge the bones. ) The forests and village are both — ( Cursed. Permanently, extensively. To submerge the skulls into this filth would be no better than to bloody them. ) Compromised. Let us seek river water.

[reparo]

[She is glad for the lack of judgement for what was, essential, a crime. Maybe that's what their lives are right now, in this place. They make concessions for morally grey choices, because the world itself is quite morally ambiguous as well.

Assuming Ke-Waihu knows what it means to have morals.

She does know, of course, of the compromised village. The forest too, to an extent, though maybe they could've gone to a shrine perhaps. Nevertheless,] Someone's waiting for me. [She has an ally in this, who knows the rites - because Hermione may have done a lot of things in her life, but bury people? Deliver funeral rites? Not among them.

And she pauses, and glances at Wangji as they walk, and murmurs:] Wen Qing.

[downswing]

( There is a moment when he stares, absently and eyes white-wide, as if she speaks of pretty pale things and stitchwork and needles, and the tip of her talons, curved or flattened, according to the fashions.

As if he should be gently subtracted from this conversation, a victim of the intimacy between two feminine accomplices who have proven more prone in the past to flay him than confide in him. He is, perhaps, not unnaturally apprehensive.

Skittish, some might say.

Given to a strategic step back, which, pending confrontation, he would rush to defend as the organic answer to a breeze. Rubble, rolling, beats the drum of his surrender. )

Send her word. ( Consider haste in the matter. )

[reparo]

[She's not a bloody owl here, excuse you. They agreed on a meeting point, and they will keep it. She shakes her head.] No - it will raise suspicions. I'm meeting her where we agreed, and then we can find a place to pay them proper burial rites.

[She at least has the bonus of her bag hiding the skulls. Unless someone knew exactly how it worked, and what exactly to think of when rummaging through it, nobody will know. How would they know?]

But - thank you. Why the river?

[Since he's a cultivator too, right? If he suggested the river, as opposed to the forest or the village, there must be a reason. And Hermione might as well make efforts to bury the skulls properly and safely, or else this will all prove to be just a quest for personal, petty revenge against an arrogant merchant.]

[downswing]

( They yet keep pace, and though Lan Wangji's instinct curdles the shallow grave of a smile on his lips, he is — resigned to the shift, when the road leads to choice, and they steer, thoughtlessly, to the forest's side. Leaves rustle, lull him. He does not think of Wen Qing, who should not be alone — who lives wedded to loneliness. )

Still water remembers. Thoughts loiter. Bodies sink. ( In Sa-Hareth, a lake hosted a body whole. ) Running water marks renewal.

( It reeks of superstition, but there is an aftertaste of rota learning whenever he opens his mouth to speak the truths of the sect. At the end of a bloodied day, his certainty might be betrayed by details: too often, running waters flood, cause death to men and animals, foster disaster. Lake waters give fish and feeding, and solace to animals afflicted by discomfort.

Yet in all things, reputations persist. )

[reparo]

[At the end of the day, it is down to tradition. They're going based on the traditions of the cultivators after all, so if they believe running waters mark renewal, who is she to be cynical about it?

She drops the tension in her shoulders a little, and muses out loud,] We are meeting not far from the river, so we can change burial place.

[A beat.] I don't want to just toss them in the water and let the river carry them. There's no guarantee that that awful man won't find them in some way.

[downswing]

( Better for the river to gnaw and graze and hold them, like a mother in her arms or tucked back in her womb, better for waters to cleanse and erase the sins of greed and a man's false adoration.

Better, but he tastes her fear — knows, instinctively, that if she brokers objection now, it will not wilt like light, come sunset hour, after. That this man she dreads will fracture himself to lay claim to the skulls once more.

Breath leaves him, heavy. Measured. He does not say, You left him alive. There are truths that once stood as reproaches, that he cannot contort into different shapes. )

We may confront him. ( As thugs do, steel in hand. ) Champion our cause. Wei Ying is... persuasive.

( Terrifying in matters of haunting and the dead. )

[reparo]

[Her goal was to liberate the skulls, and lay some waste to his precious things, hit him where it hurts. But in her goal, she didn't have to exert violence on anyone. In and out, unseen, because the room is not guarded when the master is at home apparently.

She wonders now if she endangered any of the living servants in the house, but - it's late to return. Isn't it? The deed done, now the consequences follow.]

He'd deserve it. [In other words, she'll show them the way if that is what they want, but.] I think, we'll put them to rest. Figure out the rest, after.

[She is still adamant about meeting Wen Qing - they made a deal. Just because Lan Wangji was there when she apparated - and on that note.] What brings you out?