westwhere | no man's sea

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no man's sea

Avast ye — sprawling til 18 June is part I of the Storm at Sea travel arc, which doubles as a test drive. Participants don’t need an invite to reserve or apply over 10-17 June.

Try to label if you’re a test drive tourist or an old timer — and don’t hesitate to leave an OOC note to opt out of random NPC piraaaaaaaargh interaction. Test drivers can post both log and network prompts. Have fun!

NO MAN’S SEA

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AHOY! SCALLYWAGS

Departing Ke-Waihu, the existing party joins paranoid pirate king, turned stalwart saint Samuel Vane — the feared Quicksilver Sam — aboard the Pariah.

Test drivers awaken anguishing at sea, floating on rafts, or on minuscule patches of deserted land. They are collected by two pirates and the recalcitrant sorceress Karsa — who supplies translation and communication devices. She explains the newcomers were summoned into the land of Akhuras by warring undead factions. Karsa’s master, the elusive Merchant, ferries newcomers east to beacons hoped to return them home. He has secured them passage on the pirate vessel Queen Zanyra of ’Wet Rope’ Caladan Kreil, an associate of Quicksilver Sam.

The Pariah and Zanyra meet at sea, a day’s travel away from Ke-Waihu:

■ Characters overhear that Quicksilver Sam seeks to reach the haunted Crossing Seas and ‘settle an old score.’ Long-term ally Caladan Kreil supports his cause.

■ The two vessels make daily supply and crew exchanges by rowboat. The Pariah’s passengers must give the passcode: flaunted like gold to board the Queen Zanyra. Staff of the Queen Zanyra must speak the words before the blind man to access the Pariah. Forget your passcode and fall at the mercy of whoever patrols the decks!

■ Tasks await all passengers: diligently clean and polish decks, climb tall masts to sew torn sails, banish a preposterous number of seagulls, fish, read post or… dubious novels to sailors, count loot, guard the decks, clean cannons or serve as boat lure for shark fishing. Medics and cooks can practise their natural trades, while musicians and entertainers should amuse the crew.

■ By all means, grab thematic garments from crew coffers. Also available: daggers, swords and rare pistols.

■ Characters may notice both ship crews are spirited, but grow weary when Quicksilver Sam fitfully orders his five on-call priests to carry out protection rites, or to ‘exorcise’ evil from random staff — through ineffective bitter potions, shrill chants and requests to sit in unusual luck-incurring poses, or to commit some mundane, repetitive task. Let’s bore the devil away.

■ Treat senior crew with respect: some pirates are equally drunk on rum and fleetingly authority and reward perceived slights with a 24h-stay in the brig. These fine accommodations fit two and annul powers while there. No dinner.

■ Sleep where you can: hammocks and rotting mattresses can be found in great common halls beneath decks. The sick and women (naturally, ill omens at sea) can share the four private cabins of each ship. Sumeragi Subaru has his own cabin aboard the Pariah.

■ Each night, expect drinking beneath the halls and a pirate’s greatest hobby: gambling. Conmen might lure you into an ‘innocent game’ that sinks you deep into debt, winning your valuables, favours, or kidney!

■ Ladies are afforded a wide, begrudging berth and some authority over the crew.

■ Accommodations: fresh potions are readily available to ward off sea sickness, and magically resilient oranges are on hand to counter scurvy. As woe would have it, the long-serving Mr. Ishmael has passed, and his earthly remains have been retained aboard the Pariah for Kaneki Ken. Viktor receives a leashed emotional support albatross — a large, loud but docile bird that flies above him counter-current to balance him, whenever the ship’s sway threatens his footing.

OBJECTIVES

■ Discover why good Quicksilver Sam is intent on his haunted travels. The captain declines audiences, but try to get information from the two crews.

■ Please share the information gained via network…!

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THAT SON OF A BISCUIT EATER

Trouble starts to brew, within days at sea:

■ Be on the lookout while on watch duty: on a handful of occasions, new faces appear aboard. They fail to offer the passcode — and attempt to injure characters, throw them overboard, or to enter the captains’ lodgings. Sound the alarm or seize intruders!

■ After interrogating an infiltrator, Caladan Kreil sends word that the assailants hail from the Concord, a war vessel of the Dawns’ Reach Trade Company that is pursuing the pirate ships at distance under the command of Maximilian Hawk. A credit to his name, Wet Rope Caladan has the spy hanged.

■ Prepare to get drafted for double watch duty, as both Caladan Kreil and Quicksilver Sam bolster defences. Tensions escalate, with pirate crew questioning the loyalties of newer recruits.

■ A few days later, at dawns, the silent, swift and massive Concord approaches close enough to fire its cannons at both ships and send vicious militia to climb aboard. Defend your ship!

■ The Concord withdraws by midday, after lightly damaging its opponents. Help with repairs and enjoy some rum — you’ve survived your first sea scuffle!

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MOLLYWICK

Just short of entering the Crossing, where the seas are dark and highly opaque, the Queen Zanyra and Pariah encounter a stretch of vibrant, lushly forested land.

■ Both vessels send crew over for a few hours, with captains urging quick incursions. Pair up to collect berries, scant mushrooms and sweet water. Curiously, no animals are found.

■ Veteran sailors say this is the Neverflight isle of myth, where sea kings have buried their treasures. Pirates share legendary coordinates of long lost loot, archived as riddles or poems. Grab a shovel and a-digging you go!

■ …ah, but don’t linger too long. What pranksters your sailor friends are. Within hours of the island’s appearance, the earth beneath your feet crumbles and quakes, and the land starts to sink. Evacuate or call for help to get out of here — as the great white whale Mollywick submerges in the waters with the Neverflight island it carries on its back. Hopefully, you don’t go under with them.

■ If you’ve threaded out a treasure dig, drop a line to receive some especially deplorable loot. You deserve it.

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THE CROSSING

The Pariah and Queen Zanyra — frequently chained together to avoid separation — creep into the Crossing : a stretch of eerily silent waters, dark and volatile.

■

■ Slowly, a thick, nearly impregnable fog dawns during the day, covering the sun and leaving the skies a desolate slate. Dreadful storms spark at night.

■ Strange, talking carps jump on board, offering to tell you your future. Caution: they only make bad luck readings (request yours) that turn true. They appear wherever their target flees and are exceptionally annoying, until either the moon rises, or you apply the superstitious cure of throwing salt on them.

■ Nightmares haunt you — your own, or glimpsed memories of ships crashing, sinking, falling to storm. Note: only your character suffers these memories/nightmares, but everyone else can experience their exhausted grumpiness, come morning.

■ Be wary, when pairing to cross over to the other pirate ship: you may find another rowboat beside yours, its sailor begging for an oar or ladle. If you give him one, he shovels water into your boat with inhuman speed — desert your vessel and swim quickly to a pirate ship, before undead hands pull you into the sea.

■ While alone on deck, characters might hear sweet, coaxing voices that urge them to walk the plank into the water. Break your brethren from this spell, or watch them fall into the arms of man-eating mermaids.

■ Now and then, the ships are shaken by long, whips of something lashing from the depths.

■ Pirates become increasingly skittish and on edge. Priests perform countless protection rites and exorcisms on both ships.

■ At night, a handful of undead men climb aboard. They lack awareness and are in a clear state of discomposure, looking to catch the living and drown them. With toothless, rotting mouths, some rasp, This is kinder.

■ As you officially enter the Crossing, beams of light erupt in the horizon, showing the distant silhouettes of several ghost ships.

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NOTES

TEST DRIVE QUESTIONS

OLD-TIMER QUESTIONS

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( Between them, the night's culprit slackens — the same stillness as before now softened within him. He collapses into himself, molten, back and shoulders sagged, as if defeat is a print of physicality, and he has tattered his bones with submission.

Lan Wangji prepares, at first, to escort him. But then, there is a jitter to the man, a sudden animalistic exhalation, as if fear prepares to propel him for a final dash — and perhaps it is Wangji who retaliates prematurely, who should know better, but who simply surrenders himself to instinct stoked to the cusp of paranoia, and slaps his hand once on the man's back to cascade on the length of his spine and its pressure points. Qi blooms across the infiltrator's bones, drives him down to fold into himself — fleetingly succumbed to a wheezing, funerary catatonia.

On reflex, Lan Wangji intercedes to capture him on one arm, before he shatters down on the deck. He remembers, sheepishly, to gaze up where rain's dancing slow footsteps yonder, where Emilia had perhaps hoped for better than the abrupt finale Lan Wangji has whispered to their negotiations. )

He intended flight. ( A rookie error, all but saddling them with dead weight they must now carry. He does not apologise for the inexcusable. )

( Did he, Lan Wangji.

Did he.

Initial knee jerk reaction of !! aside, Emilia makes a dash toward the man so that she may capture his other arm, sliding it over her shoulders. She sheathes her dagger and ... ruffles the man's head, so that more of his disheveled hair can fall down his face. It partially conceals half of his features, at least. )

Quick. We must move. And whatever you do, act natural.

( 🎶 Don't be suspicious 🎶

... It occurs to her rather immediately who she speaks to. )

( ...perhaps this did not evolve precisely as planned. One arm fettered over his shoulder, the second yoking Emilia, the man appears — deep in his cups, and it strikes Lan Wangji as an element of last-moment thespian brilliance to gently droop his lids down, until he appears to gaze blearily at the floor.

When he hums his approval towards Emilia — Naturally. — the wind howls its laughter, and rain chases long punitive lines of lashing on his nape.

It's a slow drag after, encumbered by stumbles: nails like teeth on hard floor, the catch of the man's wet boots a squelching, wheezing altercation. At midday on deck, they would be an imposition. Come night time, with slow rain on their backs, they are a note of discordance most sailors appear content to tolerate, until they conspire towards drawing attention.

It's inevitable, when they snag the eye of a man on watch. When he trots forward, and nods at their... drunken companion with speculative caution. "Wass with'im?"

Helplessness does not suit Lan Wangji. Lies, less. His eyes cast down, and he allows Emilia precedence in their farce. )

( Oh, he smells.

Emilia breathes in through her mouth for most of the journey, particularly when the ship eases him toward her in answer to the lapping waves. She only brings herself to a stop when one of the sailors on duty inevitably stumbles upon them and demands an explanation, heart deciding it might want to travel to her throat.

Acting had never come naturally to her, failing to convince Antonio when she attempted to deceive him. But if her time in the underworld taught her anything, it was to craft a mask and conceal that which can be used against you. To use someone's prepossessions against them in turn.

And so she lets the seemingly drunken scene speak for itself with unflinching confidence, careful not to over-explain. Stamps down any traces of alarm like she might a bug. )

Played a game he lost rather poorly. Couldn't bring himself to his feet by the end of it.

( More wind and waves and rain, their captive lolling his head to the other side until it's all but resting on Lan Wangji's shoulders. The sailor snorts, coming closer still. He eyes Emilia, however, which she'd been banking on, and takes these steps back again. A woman must be given wide berth.

These things happen, he says. Least he isn't owing him the coin. Something something lad's done for the night to which Emilia nods. )

( A game of sleight of hands and folly, but her metaphor is no lie, and so the cut of Lan Wangji's gaze, lifting, is glass unscratched and clean. It strikes him, for the first time, that Hanguang-Jun is negligible here: mere muscle to ferry weight that he recalls, at the last moment, to shift leaned on his back for fairer distribution. Emilia is a force that slivers of inconvenience should not stifle.

Before them, one of the sailors stands especially tall, thin, muscled like rope. Sturdy. If it's to come to this, swing a blade round and aim for the joints, the wrists, the ankles, the bridges of delicate connection that so often suffer strain in bodies deprived of classical proportion. Farther out, a stodgier fellow gives their captive a hesitant glance — for him, better a beating, and a toppling over, and perhaps knotting him in the sails.

Violence does not visit them. In the end, Lan Wangji, Emilia and their... friend are waved forward, steered to the great halls, "Leave'im to his rest." Only, they cannot cage themselves below deck, not with a burden and the mightier chance of recognition from a veteran sailor who knows the names and faces of the crew aboard both ships —

When Lan Wangji drags the infiltrator again, the man's knees nearly give, he folds inward like brittle parchment, and the buckles of his shoes lash the deck in sordid staccato. He hisses, behind himself: )

Air. For fast awakening.

( And affords himself one long, quiet exhalation when the sailors who watch them nod on, and Emilia and he may retire to the other end of the trembled ship. To her, under his breath: )

They keep boats bound close.

( Her fingers twitch as she makes her own assessment. Considers the positioning of every sailor, glances quick to their feet. A flick of her wrist and black thread may spool into the air, wrap around their ankles. Lock them in place until she, they, decide what comes next.

All unnecessary, though her guard remains.

It can't be that easy, so whispers her unease.

She takes her leave once they are given the opening, allowing no moment of double take. Emilia's gaze gives their surroundings a methodical sweep, lingers on their interloper's frame. Lan Wangji's voice is low but discernible from where she stands close. Her own voice is whisper-light, but decisive. )

I can float him down.

( The bare bones of a plan forming, so long as they continue to move quickly. )

( This man is deceptively small, punitively lean. His edges snag and tear on Lan Wangji's skin, and he hisses long, when a careless swerve leads to a blunt, twitching prod of their captive's elbow in Wangji's stomach. Not of his design — no vigor left in him even to tremble. Yet Lan Wangji, steering the body, groaning when the next long tumble of the sea spears him with the unfathomable, swinging burden of the beast he carries —

Gently begrudges him.

The wet of the deck is a babe's earnest slobber, shallow but oft-wrenched between wind, heaving, and gasps of the wood stretched out on the planks. Lan Wangji nearly slips — then, with a grunt that does him little credit, wrangles the man until he is better balanced on Lan Wangji's side, leaving Emilia to manoeuvre herself free. Float this ox, she says. So be it. )

You will want shielding. ( Night veils them, but braziers wink scattered at patient distances on the rail. A body afloat will draw the eye of any sailor tasked with catching threats at distance. ) A diversion.

( And can Lan Wangji deliver? The guqin suits empty, vast spaces that do not threaten collapse. The sword glistens, draws the eye. Murder will satisfy the hour's discretion, but strand them amid scrutiny, come the morrow.

But then, he is not the greatest terror on any deck he walks. )

Emilia. The heart of the deck. Cast flame.

( He can certainly spread it and let the sailors accrue. )

( It would be easier to simply allow the capture of this ox.

To withhold mercy he would no doubt withhold from them if roles were reversed. A growing frustration with flickering beacons and postponed ambitions facilitates this temptation: not her world. Not her fight. Not her enemy. What could they really do to her, if she willed otherwise?

In a heartbeat she could bend this world's magic to her own and learn all its truths, the price her soul and the free will of mortals she was taught to respect. She would not have to compromise, would not have to swallow the bile, or spin any tales. Tolerate anything. She could simply make them.

She could raze it all down, and show them why she was once the most feared.

And she would be no better than the monster that came for her twin and fellow witches, gorging on their stars. Lan Wangji is tired of the kill. Emilia could dirty her hands in his stead. It would be far from the first time, now. Yet.

Yet she keeps that darkness away once more, keeps it from her expression entirely, Lan Wangji's request fulfilled. The evidence comes in the shouting that follows not soon after:

"Fire on deck. Fire on deck!" )

Leave him to me. ( This man, this ox, this complication. She will fulfill their unspoken agreement, no blood shed tonight. )

( For a moment, the world trembles.

Then, wood crackles — a railing, torn and splintered and sundering, while bursts of flame erupt on deck, and Lan Wangji hears the thunderous rumble of Emilia's instruction. Heeds it. Abandons the man at Emilia's side and stabs the night like lightning or knife's blade on oiled surface, feet skidding.

The spark of flame must spread. Bichen, steady and quick-drawn, serves him as the foot of a torch, while he straps tatters of abandoned sail cloth, stranded on the deck for its holes, then drenches it in the oils of braziers — in fire, after.

Then, he dallies, hastens to deliver Emilia's truer, stronger flame from one edge of the deck to the next, until he's traversed it seamlessly, and the pirates who see the shadow of him — nothing unto the nothing of the deck's inked dark, barely needle-stabbed by rain — do not give chase. Instead, the fire: it flickers, blooms. They scream. Strange, how, victims of hazard, men devolve into their animal skins in the hour when wit would best serve them.

He dissipates before they may think to wonder if the white of him, at distance, were a man's silks or the absent sky's stars, scattered. When he rejoins Emilia, breath laboured like the droning of a metronome, the crew has already been diverted to the twin, opposite half of the deck.

He does not think, We may have ruined their vessel, their one means of wealth. Does not apologise. )

How... ( Perhaps, aggrieved by strain, even Hanguang-Jun can succumb to exhaustion. ) What... help... yet required?

( She is alone when Lan Wangji returns to her.

Half as breathless, her own tongue stayed for apology. Fingers reddened by her hastened work with rope, and her urgency. She gives a slow shake of her head, gaze drawn to the diversion they've created. Attempts to focus on the flame itself, to help contain it even from this distance. )

He's on his way.

( Emilia could spare details, the steps of her haphazard plan, plan formed in the moment to send the man back where he belongs. But that is not the language Lan Wangji speaks. She cuts through the superfluous, and delivers him the heart of the matter: he is no longer on-board. Alive.

She moves to stand beside Lan Wangji, culprits of a different kind. )

Did they suspect? ( Already, she thinks of tracks they might need to cover. )

( On his way. Two recourses: alive, or culled from inconvenience.

He wishes himself the better man, the one who would not incriminate Emilia of murder. He wishes her the better woman, the one who would not incur stained hands. Red riots on her skin like benison. Blooms from the arid depths of her heart, as it does from Wei Ying's. Blood and its letting suit them.

It's a misaligned thing, to peer through the horizon and see ink spatters on mahogany wood, a young disciple's negligence with his instruments of calligraphy. In a sea blacker than rot, Lan Wangji cannot glimpse a boat.

He's on his way. There must be one. What is it, this flicker of nothing like seeds anchored to the dandelion's head, this young sliver of hope? He tires of faith. It exhausts him to deny or extend it. Trapped on the railing, sustaining both vertical and lateral inertia, his hands clench.

He will not fall. He will not wander. When waters next crest, he thinks he spies a pale silhouette aboard a distant boat. )

That we perpetuate only our gains among them, guests in their opened home? ( This ship. The villages before them. Taravast. The canyon. The frozen Sa-Hareth. ) They never suspect.

( The steps to this dance he must know by heart. Wangji, of ruthless meaning and fewer words, and those who understand and misunderstand alike, rebuking in offense. But Emilia knows that if they could wear their misdeeds on the outside, the honorable Lan's robes would not be so white.

Knows that she looks at him not from below, but at eye level, always. Her spine as straight. The only difference is clear sight: she owns these choices, aware of the dreadful things she will do in the pursuit of her twin's justice, and to secure herself a way home.

She looks to him. His meaning. And lets it exist where it must. )

We are not their guests. We are a transaction.

( Quicksilver did not ask for coin, no. But he asked for protection. He wanted brute force and talents. When the time comes and they have reached the heart of the wretched Crossing, it will be them alongside these sailors, risking life for what little they can save, for what ruin they can unmake.

Again. )

Did you pay steeply?

( You did not pay. Hand wavering, neither did Lan Wangji. The railing crackles, tears. Wet rot and strength of a man rebuilt from memory of graces, divorced from etiquettes.

Sumeragi Subaru paid the coin of their passage. Others sustain their worth on deck. For how he sniffs and prowls by masts and sails' cloth, Wei Ying too chases phantasms to bind, to break, to marry, to take for children. Unsophisticated, Sizhui accepts every exorcism he can complete kindly. Xie Lian, no doubt, breaks his morning meal with ghosts. )

Were you shortchanged?

( The high-pitched moaning of a grey, unseen sea bird thrills and excruciates him. His skin pebbles, back bowed like a spattered arc of wave spumes. And behind him —

'Fire stalled?'

'Aaaaaaaaaaye, siiiiiiir!'

— Emilia's madness of skill, deployed at Lan Wangji's own instruction. )

( Emilia does not deign to give an answer to either of his questions. What does he know of what she has and has not payed? Only one who is a shadow at her back would know, and an answer is justification, of which he will find none. He scrabbles for a foothold, for some righteousness to a deed done.

She will not be the step upon which he wrongly climbs, will not affirm his posturing.

Has gained very little by letting this man live, in fact, if only for a truth. )

You faltered.

( It is not an accusation, but she, too, is not always understood. )

( There was a perch under powdered snow, his mother took her rest on it. He remembers, distantly, what it means to be a creature of broken balance — to inhabit steps larger than your scattered life and tremble in your footing.

He was a child, then. He faltered, now.

In a remote land, the hot currents of laughter desiccate him. Smile dies a fraught brittle death at the edge of his torn mouth. There was a shape to it, to him, like perdition. )

When, in particular?

( He has wavered so often, to such feats of ruin — in the strength of his character and that of his arm, if not his allegiance. The moment of suspension, like a gasped breath, defines him. )

( She holds her tongue. Looks away and into the darkened waters, briefly.

Exhales. Sometimes she half-expects flame and smoke to follow her breath, but it does not. And still. This ancient, rumbling power awoke inside of her in Taravast. Grows more ravenous the more it feeds. She holds it at bay, and worries for the day she is not able to. It serves well like a blast of cold water.

Discipline, then. And silence. Perhaps too much silence, until she thinks to speak again. )

I tire as well, Lan Wangji.

( Not often, but she does. )

Have I offended?

( No. He breathes. He is. He has, through the fetters and binds that wrap leathery to shape his body, waged insult, if not war. There is a scratch to his movements, the steel of his sharp edges ever stabbing, when he means to embrace. He knows this, of himself — that the qualities that create warm kindness in others coagulate glacially around his core.

Dusk swallowed the ship, like the angry, mean mouth of an elder, absorbing spoonfuls of congee — bitterly, with grudging stubbornness, knowing they live and thrive against reason, at the expense of their caretakers' patience — but refusing to let go.

She has tired, Emilia says. What right have they to fatigue? He has born this conversation with so many, and at each turn waits the death of a thousand cuts of strategic, self-preserving indifference.

He watches her — too tense. Too lone. Too strong. Strain is the destroyer of form. Misplaced pressure, turning surfaces round beneath weight, brittle. He hesitates. )

My presence angers you. I may extricate it.

No.

( He has not offended. But it is striking to her how this keeps happening. How they start their given tasks a cohesive unit, succeed in their intentions, and end at such different points in the horizon. East and West. He is not a warm man. She is not a soft woman. Not any longer. All that light. All those dreams.

They died in the bloodied chamber alongside Vittoria.

Perhaps this was the only possible end, and she feels that much sillier for the attempt. Attempt to what, exactly? Connect. Express that her own soul wearies at the death and destruction that plagues them, for all that she remains committed to the fight. To her justice.

Emilia could make another attempt now. Explain she is always angry, whether she leaves it on simmer or she lets it out. But then she would only confirm his suspicions, the ones that scare her in the dark of the night, the kind of dark that does not kill. Celestia has assured her she is not La Prima. Wrath has suggested her family meddled in affairs they should not have, and she is left to pick up the pieces. And still she fears it. Fears she is the villain of this story, and she simply doesn't know it.

So she nods. That he may be granted the leave that he wishes, that she can tend to this wound in the silence. )

( No, and so he lingers close, stray cat and vagabond, a wisp of white for night chasms to howl at. He has startled her — bites down on his tongue, and what parts of him do not wilt will weather — if not from her preconceived notions of her person, than from the myriad reflections of herself she'd thought she'd peeled from mirrors, sooner than fairytales.

When he lingers, it's a fruitless concession, born of inertia. Hasty, the silhouette of his fingers barely casts shadow, under a flat, half-absent moon's light. He does not see the pregnant roundness of her, basking in the heavens. Does not see himself in waters so cored of vitality, they barely stir.

Emilia preceded him by the railing. The man she blessed with the longevity of his sad, cursed life does not turn to wave. )

Do not look long in waters dark. ( She may not love what gazes back — a face distorted, possessed, greyed. What can a cursed sea give her? A bleak, nameless thing crawls its way up his throat into meagre sound. ) They say river ghosts wait to drown their successors.

( He speaks beyond himself, to excess. Without cause or reason. )

( Oh. They are both sticking around, huh?

Emilia does avert her gaze, an instinct driven by how disquieted she remains from her experience with the mermaid. How close she was to walking the plank. Draws her eyes up toward the moon instead, briefly. Was it even true that she was a true daughter of the moon? Or was that another lie Nonna fed her? )

My friend Claudia —

( The only one she'd ever had, really, prior to Allison befriending her. )

She was entrusted with the task of preparing the bodies of the deceased, back in the island we grew up in. Our version of death rites. She never encountered a ghost, I don't think, though she loved to tell tales when we were younger.

( Share stories of how the mummies came to be. It would make Emilia squirm, and Vittoria — it's hard to think of it now, but Vittoria would always lean forward with a hungry gleam in her eye. Demanding to know more. )

( Claudia, the death-rite cleanser. Perhaps this is what they lack among them, a pair of hands honest and worn and true, and their binding to coax bones to settlement, skins to stretch and easing, limbs to posture — to gift back the dead their dignity of cosmetic presentation. Of what has this realm not stripped its cadavers? Rest, peace, the integrity of their natures, whipped to the marrow by instincts of consumption — in Sa-Hareth, howling hunger and the winding cold, thereafter the bleakness of sorcery misplaced.

It feels, to him, a world unmerciful. As if survival at all cost, unto eternity, suffocated and supplanted the petty pleasures of courtesy, of kindness. As if the bright light of the world unfurled and within it sleep dust motes.

Her friend, Emilia says, and Lan Wangji spears her with a gaze that wants itself emptied of assumption, but lands dark, cold and distracted. No starlight here to glitter sumptuous on the sea's span like broderie. Nothing to interrupt the vivid, gut-gripping understanding that, in looking, he stares. )

The dead are as children. ( And him, having raised a son. ) More sentiment than reason. More hurt, inexplicable. Do not fear them.

( Pity them. They have that yet to give. )

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