"It will not." He agrees too easily, too readily, just as children coax their dreams into daylight. A whisper, and the liminal spaces between appetite, fantasy and reality converge, and it is a flux, to want, hot slide of a body reshaping itself around its certainty.
They will not fall here, Wei Ying says, and in his hand, Bichen pulses with the quiet, sealed ache of every monster that knows a maiden's taming. Will the sword yield to Wei Ying, this strange slip of nothing, more laughter and swelling pride than man? When his strength stirs, and the smoke of his spirits meets the mirror of Bichen's blade, will she allow him union? Half of Lan Wangji's soul in his sheath, the other in a body lessened through the many sword-cut attritions of starvation in the Burial Mounds, of harrowing neglect thereafter. Of course they must marry. Of course, one day, Bichen will let him draw her and not flay his hand.
Around them, the stench of rose and lily white thickens, cloying. Beneath it, reek of rust and metal, hard between his teeth, and wreaths of old, pervasive mould. An ancient house this, and its vast guests feel — ...weathered, too. Nearby, Wei Ying, dead man returned, is the liveliest creature.
Do not flee, Wangji means to say, and draws his head ribbon down, quickly, quickly, as if to dally now is to risk Wei Ying's withdrawal. Blink of an eye, and he could be gone. He could have been, as these men are, no more than phantasmagory. When he knots it around the sharp-edged cliff of Wei Ying's nearest wrist bone, it comes too loose at first, ungainly — product of its artless haste. Then, too tight, to compensate. Lan Wangji cannot bind it well on this night. It hangs, limply, begging Wei Ying's forgiveness, a sullen afterthought.
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"It will not." He agrees too easily, too readily, just as children coax their dreams into daylight. A whisper, and the liminal spaces between appetite, fantasy and reality converge, and it is a flux, to want, hot slide of a body reshaping itself around its certainty.
They will not fall here, Wei Ying says, and in his hand, Bichen pulses with the quiet, sealed ache of every monster that knows a maiden's taming. Will the sword yield to Wei Ying, this strange slip of nothing, more laughter and swelling pride than man? When his strength stirs, and the smoke of his spirits meets the mirror of Bichen's blade, will she allow him union? Half of Lan Wangji's soul in his sheath, the other in a body lessened through the many sword-cut attritions of starvation in the Burial Mounds, of harrowing neglect thereafter. Of course they must marry. Of course, one day, Bichen will let him draw her and not flay his hand.
Around them, the stench of rose and lily white thickens, cloying. Beneath it, reek of rust and metal, hard between his teeth, and wreaths of old, pervasive mould. An ancient house this, and its vast guests feel — ...weathered, too. Nearby, Wei Ying, dead man returned, is the liveliest creature.
Do not flee, Wangji means to say, and draws his head ribbon down, quickly, quickly, as if to dally now is to risk Wei Ying's withdrawal. Blink of an eye, and he could be gone. He could have been, as these men are, no more than phantasmagory. When he knots it around the sharp-edged cliff of Wei Ying's nearest wrist bone, it comes too loose at first, ungainly — product of its artless haste. Then, too tight, to compensate. Lan Wangji cannot bind it well on this night. It hangs, limply, begging Wei Ying's forgiveness, a sullen afterthought.
"Wear it in parting." A token to anchor him.