westwhere | the tithe

the tithe

The Arc III finale stretches until 2 June — and it’s erupt to no good.

THE TITHE

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THIS HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE

The Ke-Waicai believers prepare for human sacrifice rites to prevent the eruption of the Ke-Sanwon volcano. They will lead tributes to the volcanic crater, which is lidded by the grounds of a decrepit haunted temple — known as the House of Ravens.

At the heart of the temple is a trodden dais that comprises four slowly receding plates. Numerous temple columns and deteriorating walls offer overnight hiding places, but beware the flinching statues and irritable large ravens. Meat, blood or shiny offerings can distract the birds.

■ Use the three previously gained keys to infiltrate the House of Ravens at night through forest pathways revealed by the Huntress.

■ Entrants to the House of Ravens are fully or partially depowered. Their ancestral curse is immediately lifted. Their strength is pulled into the Ke-Sanwon crater, which brims with raw magical power.

■ Hide on temple grounds until dawns, when the dais plates fully open to reveal a 10-metre entryway into the volcanic crater.

■ Overnight, characters are relentlessly tempted by mirages that only they witness: the eerie voice of a loved one might coax them to commit their greatest sin, or they could repeatedly relive memories that led them to such follies.

■ Characters guilty of drunkenness and gluttony feel deathly parched, starved and drawn to a lavish spread that is constantly far out — and ends up comprising raw corn and stale water, when they finally reach it. The lustful find their companions irresistible, or trail after a delectable beauty, who dissolves when touched. The wrathful mull violence, while the envious suspect their companions possess what they most desire. The proud are contemptuously incited to prove their superiority or independence, while the slothful give in to callous indifference towards their peers.

■ The stone statues that decorate the House of Ravens retaliate once visitors succumb to their sins: smaller sculptures throw stones or throttle nearby sinners, but only move when you do not look into their eyes. Larger 4m-tall statues exit the walls and give (slow) chase, retreating after 10-15 minutes. The statues stop attacking at dawns.

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LET THERE BE BLOOD

CONTENT WARNING: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF NPC PAIN, TRANSFORMATION

By dawns, the believers of Ke-Waicai have rallied their tributes — each crowned with wreaths of branches and crops — before the open dais. Roughly two hundred villagers attend the rites, along with eight powerful priests who use elemental magic.

■ A first sacrifice walks a long narrow plank that starts from the dais and goes a few metres into the mouth of the volcano. The plank shivers under from heat, but withstands weight.

■ During 15 minutes of exposure, the volcanic magic enshrouds the sacrifice, who painfully transforms into one of the animalistic tar creatures housed in the labyrinths of Ke-Sanwon.

■ Magically sensitive characters can feel this tribute now hosts volcanic magic, and that Ke-Sanwon’s power has slightly diminished.

■ The rites are interrupted by the significantly weaker, but wrathful Beastmaster, whose xenomorphic creatures attack the temple and seek his missing son

■ Characters should free the remaining tributes during the skirmish. They can be as nerfed as you need (if at all) during the rest of their stay in the House of Ravens.

■ The dais must stay open to access the volcano. You can take control of it and of the House by defeating the magically endowed priests, (literally) shouldering the head priest’s ancient white raven and holding its leash.

■ Pass the raven around and defend the bird’s current holder! Whoever carries the raven is often targeted by the village mob and the Beastmaster’s creatures.

■ The clashes last a few hours, until the Beastmaster and villagers exhaust their forces.

■ Diego Hargreeves, Xie Lian, Wrathion, Daenerys and Jon Snow apprehend the Beastmaster, slaying him, when he refuses to relinquish the Brotherhood. Decide who lands the killing blow. His last words: ”You’ve… seen this place. My animals… our dead… have more compassion than these living.”

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FIRE AND BRIMSTONE?

The volume of magical energy and tormented spirits inside the volcano weighs heavily on the fracturing dark water mirror that has prevented Ke-Sanwon’s eruption so far. It’s going to blow, unless you:

■ Throw more dark water in to fix the mirror fissure. You can get dark water from volcanic cracks, dried wells and creepy crop fields.

■ Use ice / cold magic and ol’ science to cool down the volcano and help the mirror heal. Or lend Moiraine and Magnus a hand as they work with cold magic, and protect them while they cast.

■ Help Wrath and Wei Wuxian exorcise the volcano’s ancient spirits. Many have lost consciousness, reduced to memory fragments and feelings of wrath, pain and resent.

■ Guide villagers to bring sea water. Anduin (on top of the dragon Wrathion) and the harpy Eda are flying in supplies. Viktor is coaxing shipments from his werewolf friends of Ke-Waiar. Large phoenixes are also up for grabs for deliveries. Ensure couriers can safely arrive and quickly discharge their water.

■ Several characters are set to each absorb some of the magical power contained within the volcano, developing aftereffects. They must walk the wobbly plank and stay exposed to the volcano magic for under 15 minutes to avoid transformation: the longer they linger, the more power they take in, feeling as if they are burning from within. Exit quickly and rest copiously after. Those who spend over 10 minutes exposed suffer intense fevers and require immediate medical assistance to cool down.

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WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE CIVILIANS?

Beyond the House of Ravens, assist villagers who want to safeguard their possessions or evacuate by sea.

■ The gradual spread of Ke-Sanwon’s magic infects some villagers with temporary animal traits. These effects dissipate within three-four hours.

■ Characters who remain in the villages may feel more irritable and resentful, overcome by the feelings of the volcanic spirits.

■ Coordinate water and supply deliveries with those at the House of Ravens.

■ The Hok-Shinn are divided in their response: some resort to daylight robbery to secure the funds for their own safe departure; citing security, the men of Sairen unsympathetically rally commoners into designated parts of the village, often splitting apart families that then need help finding relatives; alone, Weisi’s followers keep the peace, but are frequently overwhelmed by waves of panicked villagers, thugs and animal hybrids.

■ The magical spillage overwhelms the forest fox spirits, leaving some enraged and prone to attack. Others assume the shape of beautiful wo/men and ask escort into Ke-Waihu for shelter, without disclosing their fox natures. These ethereal strangers betray their origins with cold smiles, glimpses of fleetingly sharp teeth, a fondness for chicken, and… is that an extra set of ears? No harm befalls those who bring a fox into the village, though s/he may insist on now being your lawful spouse.

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THE AFTERMATH

With the clashes and Ke-Sanwon subdued, the villagers of Ke-Waicai request back their temple keys and white raven. They lead the party to the beacon of the House of Ravens — the beautifully carved and now-closed dais above the volcano.

■ Party companion Hatisse confirms the beacon can be revived within days.

■ She warns that an eruption was prevented by depleting the volcanic magic now, but that the threat could recur within five to 10 years.

■ All character curses (ancestral or individual) are lifted, and powers return completely.

■ Spend some downtime in the villages. Ke-Waicai offers the most luxurious, but frosty accommodations, while the werewolves of Ke-Waiar are tired, but thrilled hosts. Those who suffer from lycanthropy are now experiencing fewer and fewer ‘nocturnal episodes.’

■ In Ke-Waihu, villagers have now calmed and are grateful for help with reaping the fresh harvest and watering their crops, as well flows revive. Every other night, Hok-Shinn Weisi organises a bonfire with village musicians, hearty dances, fresh bread and ale. Villagers seek to marry off their… alluring spawn to their saviours.

■ Within days, Hatisse summons the party to the activated beacon: a pool of white energy, in which one must slowly descend. Characters who were dropped or AC swept in May enter the beacon first and are presumed returned to their home worlds. Characters set for a canon update follow in — but are spat back by the portal and return within minutes.

■ Inevitably, the remaining volatile magic of the volcano disrupts the beacon and ruins the dais. Happily for you, the Merchant will soon get in touch with your next ticket east.

QUESTIONS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Select your pleasure:

Wei Wuxian and his stale water throwing corn at the statues throwing things at them while staring down other statues, the night before;
He's just been handed off the raven and its leash, and now, he's the new target! Please uh. Help him...
Protect him from attack as he plays his flute to help exorcise the remnants of spirits beneath that cracking mirror!
In the aftermath, there's bonfires and stuff. There's also young people leaping over a bonfire. Hold his chicken leg, he's up next.
Wildcard!

Either put a preference for which scenario in your comment/subject line and I'll write us a starter, or feel free to leap in with a starter based on that scenario, or invent your own! Prose or action brackets both good.

At the zenith of his marital bliss, Lan Wangji may share with future generations once they are safely abed, soundly asleep and far too young to grasp the implications, Lan Wangji spends a night amid perennial and unquenchable hardness. He is possessed, in fact, of such vigorous and unyielding solidity, of such all-night endurance, of great bright moans that tear mother moon's mantle of diffused silence, of hungry holds and searching grasps and wrenching and coarse, combative friction, of such aggressive trysts —

That, by the third breathless, near catastrophic escape from iminent collision with the overgrown statue that pursues them, Lan Wangji is overwhelmed by the depth of his connubial possibilities. When marriage splinters and threatens a cleaving, by all means: take the wife by the hand to ghost-whispered temple grounds; allow him the lay of crackling, destitute lands, each of Wei Ying's smiles a crafted carving like scratches on vellum — and enjoy the intimacy of a jolly hunt, when two lesser statues and their gargantuan brother slip free of their walled imprisonment to toast Wei Ying's sinful cup of stale water in kind.

( He had to drink, had to drink, always must drink, oh, Wei Ying, choke on it. )

It's not that Lan Wangji is unimpressed, exactly, only that a whirlwind of pebbles erodes his footing. The broderie of scars that strains his back bemoans abrasion, when the great statue collects Wei Ying and Wangji in one hand and throws, and Wangji remembers, at the last heartless moment, to grit his teeth and bear through swivelling them, Wei Ying trapped in his arms, so Wangji touches the wall first. And there should be a polite, but firmly respected limit to the number of asphyxiations he can suffer in one evening, stone claws corseting his neck until fine welts rise like lily blooms and rashes.

Now, by the seventh such attempt, Lan Wangji knows to calmly stab Bichen back until her sharp silver gaze snags on the wall's tender erosions, where even rock is belly-soft, and he cuts a deep gutting, cuts and twists. The stone's spirit whistles, more than wails, releasing him.

Night is ink and dark long shadow that devours half the cursed prettiness of Wei Ying's pallor. Lan Wangji's mouth is chalk and dust and soot, and all things pressed, all desiccation. He rasps, catches Wei Ying's wrist, tugs so they might flee again:

"The water. Fresh?" Perhaps cloying with the spectre of Lan Wangji's iminent vinegar? "Chilled? Satisfactory?"

Was it worth it, you miniature hyena that scavenges the last drip-drip-drip of joy from Lan Wangji's liver and laughter and lungs?

Married in bruises, an old, familiar decoration of his years in service hither and yon. He's murmured his thanks in fast passing, each torqued moment of his husband's largess in qi becoming his escape from heavier blows against unyielding surfaces, the mutual test of endurance driving them both to the edge.

Is it better, he wonders, to murmur sweetly to one while he calls back, louder, voice rising high and falling low, breath forced out of lungs on each thrust back into unforgiving surface, "Tell me," and the words, "Have you seen a youth, wearing red?"

Passion comes in dedication to a cause, and his might be too liberal still, but for now, in the jogging run to outpace their stiff competition, he lifts the water in its satchel, the lie given to the wine that flows nowhere here after being touched, and smiles.

And drinks every last drop, water dripping out of his mouth, down the sides of it, framing his chin and finding their way down his neck to soak into his collar, a glistening trail to outline the extent of one man's thirst refusing quenching.

He finishes, managing not to choke on the length of it, that swallow without apparent end, and smacks his lips.

"Not at all," he says, smiling, admitting a truth, "But if it'd quench my thirst, I'd drink it dry ten times over."

Then throws himself flat to the ground, to avoid the toss of a stone the size of his head from the front, pushing off with his hands and rolling sideways while the statue erring just so rushes forward, heavy steps to join the three, no, now two, as one falls back, losing the urgent need of rushing.

"Years," it speaks, "From the small human's return," as if years tells a measurement in and of itself, when it does no such thing.

In this fleeting heartbeat, Wei Ying is a boy known, simple. Back to blinding sun, the silhouette of carefree madness, butterfly perched atop the fields of Cloud Recesses, span of his lent whites like thundered sails. How they thought he'd never drown (and he didn't, he burned, ashes unscattered). Now, as ever, Wei Ying drinks like a starveling, as if his skin's grown a hundred fervid mouths, and so he feasts each, tongue and teeth and the ripple splash of wet on his trembled throat, glistened by moonlight. The rumble of slate skies pondering storm is Yu Ziyuan's teeth, clenching in tomb grounds.

Two fingers would catch every droplet, see Wei Ying returned to form. Instead, Lan Wangji drips them in a slow, simmered dance to flow wisps of braided qi on the landing span of Wei Ying's caught wrist — an absent, token gifting. Because Wei Ying is so often restless and meteoric and alive, silvered mercury at their feet, slithered — because he cannot be entrapped, Lan Wangji takes advantage of his gasped respites. If thirst carves out such hegemony that Wei Ying drinks again without reprieve, knowing the price in wait of payment — then there must be an ache in him, bloody, vicious.

They have only sundered moments between them. Leaves pale with mildew and the thawed, transparent frost of early spring — Lan Wangji's step in the run to the heart of teh next temple opening skitters. He drags more than herds Wei Ying beside him. Come then, come.

"Do we woo while we escape?" So Lan Wangji might know if he runs from the statues, or — world shaking, another beastly creature comes — towards them.

"What better time?" Asked, the warmth of qi soaked as willingly as the water into his parched mouth, meridians buzzing with the boost, empty core passed through like any common crossroads, noteworthy only for its absence. He chooses to go, borrow on the lent energy that his husband parcels out now, pulling him forward as inexorably as the tides swallow the shores.

They, too, will be swallowed again. Swallowed like the heat kept underground, burrowed deep, and the craggy faces of etched stone they fight now.

"Almost nostalgic, isn't it?" He says with the kind of smile that says he knows it isn't, not for them, unless months back and the pillars of stone where the winds sighed as much as the ghosts did matters, if that structures tonight.

"Unlike some, at least these—" A grunt, and he lurches into Lan Zhan as elegantly as a sack of molded rice, spilling out of its burlap, "—speak."

In the way of stone, slow and ponderous where their movements are not, and there, feet come to stomp and kick and miss them in measured breadths of fingertips, coordinated more through chance than intent. His water, that stale, sad substance, falls, splatters, crushes under one stone sole.

A sad sound, wrenched from the depths of his chest. "Not the water-wine..."

Not... the cloudy, mildewy, greyed swill that hits the ground like dirt diluted, with morbid heft. The bones of its clay, the scattered filth.

He feels sickened by it, oily with viscera, stained by proximity to Wei Ying's want — by the knowing that there are cravings his soulmate nurtures that Lan Wangji cannot meet. What is the pledge between them? Malady, strain, war, famine. Together, they must bear each hardship, like two faces of one blade.

"Shhhhhhhhhhh, bear this," he murmurs and drums his fingers over Wei Ying's wrist again, pulses a squeeze, as if he reassures a child at his side. "I shall pour you three cups for each heartbeat of need."

He swears this on sun and moon, on the blood in his veins, on Bichen who sleeps fettered. And he steers them, first dripped and dragging, zigzagged between the ranks of pelting statues and the rain of stone, and so close, so very close to the large, stalking statue that peers down, frowns, but does not follow.

They land, sliding between stones, making home behind pale pillars, Wei Ying at times his blanket, his cushion, his load to bear, his shadow. He clings to Wei Ying as if he were a beating heart, or gold.

"Wei Ying. The dead." Around them, trembled. For all his qi has flickered to a candle flame of itself, he senses them, aggregated and raw. "Do they claim you?"

As the burial grounds did, as does any spirit with a semblance of dusted strength.

There's some element of bittersweetness that laces through him, tender and fragile and stronger than it appears. Between the pull at his wrist, Lan Zhan's words offering a cup that needs no filling, and the slipping, sliding, battered way they progress, stones whispering in their wake. Stones shouting as they grind back to hold their contents safe, as they find the small spaces and fill them with each other.

He grunts at impacts, breathless at times with it, but moving, always moving, gaunt and alive in the way of a fever bright beginning. It's in the purposeful stumbling that he answers the pledge, a hard press of lips to cheek in what should have been flirtatious whimsy, if they were young men, if they'd ever had something close to a dancing courtship that wasn't dripping crimson and shadow.

"You would drown me," he says, and they're away again anyway, twisting behind a pillar rising firm and hard at their backs, unrelenting. "Some thirsts aren't to be quenched."

Revenge, a hollow echo that had been properly addressed, then had become nothing but its sad mockery of purpose, of justice delivered to the unjust, ribs deprived of marrow around lungs desiccated of damp. Alcohol, burning lips and dry mouth and drier eyes, and he laughs, he laughs when he's asked, do they claim you?

"They always tried," he says, and laughs where it's mirthless, where his eyes are shades that pierce the dark, "They never could. Here, they breathe without lungs, scream without air. They don't seek me."

Not him, stronger than others, even pressed back from what should be his meagre strengths played to their ends and then pushed beyond, not him they seek, they curl around, they covet. They're not so starved as Yiling stood. There is choice here, and distraction, and more feast than one broken man dropped into their midst, clinging to anything that was life, and remaining.

His turn then to tug, to pull, to let long fingers with their altered callouses press into Lan Zhan's hand like so many abortive gestures of kindness he'd wanted to make once, had stopped himself from claiming, a further selfishness the world didn't owe. Here, to pull down, into the lower corridor of stone natural and crude, as a last of the small statues whisper-shouts, "Small child, red child, here, here, here, gone and come, come and gone."

Rocks tumble from overhead, shaking maidens in their shrieking tumbles down unfamiliar walls, certain of their ending places, resigned yet unwilling. Pull at Lan Zhan, chest to chest, and it's backward Wei Wuxian falls, the air driven from his lungs as they land and slide and tumble, down a sloping face into the vegetation and broken columns below.

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downswing - 2022-05-26 23:58 (UTC) - Expand

[Of course, he can exorcise, but Xue Yang has enough self-awareness to realise that if he allows himself to open up too much to all that resentment, it may not actually improve the situation. However, he hears the flute, hears the Yiling laozu, and he wants to witness that.

Jiangzai is already drawn when he lands near Wuxian, his back to the man. The sword's aura might be dark, but he uses it to what may be seen as good, at least under the current circumstances, blocking some debris.]

How can I help?

[He's not sure whether to expect an answer and he is aware that the question may seem so unusual coming from him that it may well be distrusted, but...

A volcano of badness is about to erupt and they are all caught right in it, morality is really irrelevant here.]

( There's a natural pause in his playing which allows him to speak, his eyes dark and cutting when they slide toward his back, to where Xue Yang stands. He will never have faith in what Xue Yang has made of himself, does not tolerate him so much as remain aware he exists for the purposes of not being allowed to die again here in unfortunate ways.

That he had at minimum spoken to his martial uncle remained the most important fact; anything they did with themselves was at that point their business, done in full knowledge.

And now, there is a volcano's worth of spiritual pressure, of fragmented souls that as far as he could tell from his run ins with Xue Yang had never been perfectly controlled, and not without a conduit of some sort. )

Deflect whatever comes free.

( He says, the resentful energies of fragmentary spirits clinging to him even now, coiled around him like so many small shadowed snakes curling into dragons, sliding past him to shoot skyward in spiraling coils. )

Don't let them feed.

[He doesn't respond in words, but his stance shifts, he moves his sword and he focuses on the energy that is his own, resentful as it may be, but different enough, familiar. He can wield it and he can discern it, deflecting the fragments of spirits escaping the volcano. Doing as he's been told.

Doing this as he listens to Chenqing playing, there is a part of him that finds it incredulous. More something he'd read about in a scroll recovered from Yiling than something he could be present for. It makes him smile for many reasons.]

So much pain...

[But should it bother him, isn't his own pain more present? As self-centred as his thinking may be, it helps him keep focus, rather than letting any outside soul feed on his energy. Helps him deflect, control. Exorcise.]

( wei wuxian is no creator of his practice, not in the way some believe: there is a dark irony that his survival was against the nightmare that (for his world, for his knowing) xue yang's great-forebearer created in his twisted consumption of lives after a cause that the wen patriarch fell into, open armed. power corrupts without temperance, without balance; so went the xue patriarch, the wen patriarch, two generations of jin patriarchs. so fell, in other ways, patriarchs of the lan, patriarchs of the jiang, patriarchs of the nie.

they are all flawed, and they are all wrong, and they are all right. not at the same times, or for the same reasons, he supposes.

but it's true, just as this is true. just as his song is a command so difficult to ignore, the pain of those spirits rising in their fragments, and then higher, gone, ordered into the departure that he's not sure has the cyclical flow they know. doesn't need it, perhaps, may be a crossroads for worlds in more than the gated way, but still.

the pain rises, ebbs, rises again, crescendos, and it is a pain of leveled cries, of heartache and grief and anger and hunger and thirst and confusion, in each fragmentation that flew close, until upward it rises, toward the skies and the mistaken though that absolution lies somewhere there, instead of the everywhere all around. )

[Letting pain flow, he's no stranger to that. Nourishing it, taking strength from it or suppressing it. Or, as in this case, passing it on, letting it rise, feeling all that rage and sorrow with screams of nothingness be released into who knows where, just not here.

Is this a good thing to do? He doesn't know and it doesn't concern him much either, although it may later, when talking to his daozhang, when wondering what makes a person worthy of whatever it is he's after. All vague, because his mind can't grasp it.

He understands the pain better, that resentment, and he looks up to where they've sent it, lost in emotions, perhaps not all of them his own, for several moments. Then he laughs, in the way that sounds only slightly broken, and he looks at Wei Wuxian.]

Such an honour, laozu.

[Honestly, Xie Lian has sort of lost track of how many fights he is in at that particular moment in time.

He's been weaving in and out of fighting the Beastmaster, but also trying to keep track of other beasties and people, and he's reacting purely on instinct, using his training to full advantage.

His robes are speckled with blood, and some of it is his, for once, but he doesn't let that - or the fact that pain is a lot more crippling right now - be a hindrance.

The arm that was aiming for Wei Wuxian's throat gets caught and breaks with a sickening crack as he bodily puts himself between him and the assailant.]

What do they all have against that bird?

Symbolism?

( He offers, and that's part of it, he figures, but it's power, and the bird for a house of ravens is sensible, even while he dances back, holding on to its lead line for now. The bird flaps its wings, caws, but settles down again after flapping off, perching heavily on his shoulder and imperiously pecking his head once.

His ribbon flutters past and he leaps into a break in the fighting, testing if now he can feel any more of his qi than earlier, when his limited body's worth was less than half effective, suppressed by environment before the platform yawned open in slow, aching increments. )

Wish their attention would be more flighty!

( And here, one of the beasts of the Beastmaster, lurching forward and snapping jaws. )

[Xie Lian almost instinctually goes to block that with his whole body before he remembers that with powers limited, that would probably be a very bad idea.

He's gotten way to used to being basically almost invulnerable, huh. How complacent of him.

Ruoyue isn't responding well either, so he'll grab a random piece of rope instead and use that to loop it around the beast's beck and pull back, tightening the thing as much as he can even though his muscles are screaming. He can at least circulate the little bit of qi he has left to increase his strength a bit.]

I haven't fought like this in... a while.

[ Eda is busy flying in some sea water, as you do, when she notices Wei Wuxian standing there, unshielded.

She flies over and lands in front of him, wings up and spread wide, like a barrier. ]

Need some help here?

( it's a pause for the moment, his reassessment of a living battlefield, as chaotic and flowing and alive as he is. eda is new, as in another factor to encounter, and he smiles without it meeting his eyes, tipping his head toward her and looking back. )

That water of yours—how precisely can you drop it?

Five isn't the life of the party, but nobody really expects him to be. It feels like they pulled together their celebration a little too quickly, considering how the villagers had a different attitude towards them up until they averted disaster. Aside from that, he's not exactly clear on what actually worked. They were throwing everything they had at the volcano and the Beastmaster, but he'd been so caught up in the chaos and trying to keep his siblings alive that he didn't keep track of which solution saved them from a horrible death.

His curse is finally lifted and the crisis is over, so he should be in a better mood and not so bothered by what he doesn't understand. Maybe once he's had time to reflect he'll be relieved. At the moment he's only passing through to take note of who survived. There's still family to check on before he can finally clean himself up, but he pauses when he sees Wei Wuxian honestly enjoying the festivities. The guy just doesn't stop. Apparently magic flute playing doesn't take as much out of him as he'd expect.

Well, he's at least one of the more reliable sources of information he could find. He approaches as the man seems ready to throw himself in with the kids playing with the bonfire, just curious enough to interrupt.

"I heard your flute." He was following his conversation with Wrath some days ago, so he has a general idea of what his plan was. They're lucky he's stuck around with how often they've had to rely on it. "How much do we have you to thank for this?"

There are complexities in honour and duty and justice and what it is to owe, what favours cost, what they weigh on various shoulders. Wei Wuxian walks light with all his, tests them with canines that never quite press deep enough for blood, except unwitting, teeth at Lan Zhan's throat.

Metaphorically speaking.

He blinks, not for Five as much for the bonfire, and smiles, shadows cast by the dancing lights turning his features both darker and more stark in flickering turns.

"Enough," he says, and it's an easy answer because it's a complete one in simplicity, "If any of us were accounting for such things. Ah, Five, how much nonsense did you ever get into when you were truly young, or was that always too frivolous, beyond you?"

For as long as he's known Wei Wuxian, it's not any easier to guess what he's thinking. Not that Five's admittedly poor social skills have greatly improved over the past year, but more often than not he's surprised when he takes a sharply personal turn to their conversation.

He looks back at the fire, quiet while he actually considers his answer. He doesn't really get many questions about his childhood. Mostly because there's an uncomfortable majority who still aren't able to see past what's in front of them. So since Wei Wuxian is one of the few who treat him like the adult he is, and because their doom is a little less eminent, he decides to give him a real answer.

"For a family of child soldiers, not as much as you'd think. Fun and games were reserved for a half hour every Saturday." The corner of his mouth turns up when he says it. He shrugs. "But I can teleport. There were a few nights when I'd sneak my siblings out to get donuts or something like that."

That was more than forty-five years ago. Moments he can remember clearly, and yet... Five won't give him long to take in his anecdote before he thinks of something else he'd like to know now that he has the chance.

"Lan Wangji told me he's older than he looks. Is it the same for you?"

"It is." He smiles, looking at the fire, watching the flames dance. Looks away.

"I'm somewhere close to my forties, or in them. Not sure, time is a little," he holds up a hand, wobbling it to either side. Saying this to Five might be more amusing than he really knows, but still, he has the sense that Five will understand when time gets wobbly.

His hand drops back down to his lap. Child soldiers as a concept is near meaningless; if it meant training, he'd been trained to kill since as long as he could remember, though he hadn't needed to put that into effect against humans for years and years beyond the start of training. If anything, it simply sounds ... normal.

(This is how they should know none of them are normal to people from more peaceful times or situations, and all of them are normal to each other, mutual outliers of their shared realities, mutual lodestones.)

"See, this teleporting to sneak out for donuts, that's fun! Very good, I'm glad you used your talents for such things." A pause, and a wry smile. "What's a donut?"

"Fried dough." He answers automatically, just because it's an easy question. "Pure sugar, basically. Stuff they weren't allowed to have, but I was, because it was quick energy."

His powers burn up a lot of calories. It was tested extensively in his early years, when he was obsessed with pushing past the limits of his abilities. Stuff like that was harder to find in the apocalypse, and he's still haunted by the memory of eating an expired Twinkie that made him so sick he thought he'd die in the most embarrassing way possible.

"He made you sound older." In case he thought he was going to shift the subject away too easily. He does know far too much about time to drop it. "Was it an accident?"

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weifinder - 2022-06-17 21:50 (UTC) - Expand

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somebadnews - 2022-06-18 20:07 (UTC) - Expand

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weifinder - 2022-06-19 02:01 (UTC) - Expand

The bonfires and celebrations are pleasant, even if the pushiness of the villagers is rather annoying, trying to marry their offspring to their saviors. (Wen Qing understands where they are coming from, but it's not something she enjoys. It even grows tiring watching the rest of their party fend off matches.)

Wen Qing wanders through the crowd, a cup of ale in hand, on her second now— not something she'd normally drink, but it serves a purpose, and it's better than many of the liquors she's encountered over the months. Will it get her drunk? Unlikely, but she won't hold that against the brewers. When she spots Wei Wuxian, she finishes off her second up and grabs a third, then wanders over to sit next to him, relaxed and in a more pleasant mood than she has been in weeks, matching the celebration.

"Don't think about it," she warns Wei Wuxian, noticing how he looks at the people leaping over the bonfires. "It's foolhardy." Only this is Wei Wuxian she's talking to, and her tone acknowledges the futility of it all.

He laughs, unrestrained, sitting back and resting his hands behind him to lean on them, legs crossed lazily in front of him.

"Playing with fire usually is," he says, no heat in his words, no nod to the Wens she's forever part of and apart from, no nod to Brother Sanwon who lies appeased for the time being, whatever time of reprieve bought until it comes up wanting again, trapped and tense beyond capacity. "Leaping this? You know I can manage that much."

Golden core resting in his brother's breast even now, pulsing to his brother's heartbeat. Sacrifice unknown is no less life altering than it is pointlessly stupid, to not ask and debate and to know his brother well enough to presume that break, too. He's seen Jiang Cheng in the aftermath of learning before, and his mind shies away now, as he gestures to the bonfire, to the youths who find courage in the rush and leap, arms flailing, hair flying.

"I'm rested enough for it at least."

The qinggong, not departed from him if less capable of the endurance that he once found as effortless as breathing. Such is the way of adaptation, but he's had years of it now, and some sense of slow healing of the heart too, since.

He leans in to her, eyes sparkling in the firelight, brows quirked, lips tugging upward at the corners, inviting.

"Wanna do it with me?"

She's far too sensible, but it's fun, it's necessary to ask, to have that answer, the presumed scoff and repetition of his own lacks, well noted, and appreciated for their truths. He wants to play, and so, he does: in a fragile way he returns to more and more as he can, breathers in this nightmare they march through.

To fire Wen Qing had been born and in fire she'd died. It had been a fitting end for her, she thinks, and if nothing else, on her own terms, there at the end. It would have been wise for her to avoid fire after that, but it's in her blood, the same as the medical knowledge handed down from her ancestors, the same as the desire to heal people. Wei Wuxian had been one of those people, and his brother, and she still doesn't know if it was the right thing to do, for either of them.

Wen Qing is too sensible, but even she falls to folly. Wei Wuxian's always been a terrible influence, and it amazes her sometimes how much she cares about him, how easily he became family. And after the months they've had here, something in her wants to let go. Ten days trapped in her room, prying scales from her skin, offering Hanguang-jun a blade to carve them out by the roots, and then burying skulls, fighting a volcano—

She extends her hand to Wei Wuxian, imperious; she could have been clan leader, had fates decided differently. "If we're going to, we need to do it now." It's a yes in the only way she knows how to say yes.

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the tithe

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statues ahoy

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3. first this and then they can go braid each other's hair

this is what they do at necromancy parties right

and then they tell jokes and/or ghost stories, same diff

someone will be laughing, chances are only one of them at a time

when they laugh together, things are likely getting scary

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aftermath

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