( He meets Xiao Xingchen a boy, reduced to the tight, dangly fit of bones yet to grow to their breadth, of flesh soft, calluses unearned. His chest has yet to beat with pledges of justice, let alone the embers of the Wen's brand.
Lan Wangji's tired image, in the scarcity of years that preceded Wei Ying, he supposes. This is the flesh he wears now, known and read in how the slow learning of the guqin has failed to flay and strip his fingers. It will come, with time.
He encounters Xiao Xingchen before that. White on the pallor of hard-breathing sand, heat of an absent sun braising each pebble underfoot. He hesitates — intends to approach Xiao Xingchen and offer his arm, but recognises the quiet reediness of his younger, fourteen-year-old voice will confuse a man deprived already of a critical sense. Only, back to him, Xiao Xingchen hardly behaves so — seems to wander less adrift than measured, searching land and the forgotten calligraphy of the island's forefathers, as if he can.
Perhaps.
Perceive it. )
...daozhang. ( Startled into stupour, helplessly arrested in place — he knows, before Xiao Xingchen turns to face him, what he will stare into. ) We are not as we should be.
the stranding
Lan Wangji's tired image, in the scarcity of years that preceded Wei Ying, he supposes. This is the flesh he wears now, known and read in how the slow learning of the guqin has failed to flay and strip his fingers. It will come, with time.
He encounters Xiao Xingchen before that. White on the pallor of hard-breathing sand, heat of an absent sun braising each pebble underfoot. He hesitates — intends to approach Xiao Xingchen and offer his arm, but recognises the quiet reediness of his younger, fourteen-year-old voice will confuse a man deprived already of a critical sense. Only, back to him, Xiao Xingchen hardly behaves so — seems to wander less adrift than measured, searching land and the forgotten calligraphy of the island's forefathers, as if he can.
Perhaps.
Perceive it. )
...daozhang. ( Startled into stupour, helplessly arrested in place — he knows, before Xiao Xingchen turns to face him, what he will stare into. ) We are not as we should be.