( It seems a strained thing, unfitting between them, that he should remind her. They lack — intimacy, in most things. Lan Wangji's demeanour is too crisp. Allison's guarded. The hour is misshappen, a woman and her wet locks between them, and the saccharine hum of a ballad she sings to give her peace from her two absent-minded attendants.
Lan Wangji is not unaware that where many pieces fit, his and Allison's edges jut. Stab. Pull apart.
And yet: )
Your brother yet stands. Your family.
( ...the brother lost, the sister before him. The chickens. He remembers them, more notches of cinnabar in the ledger of debts fate owes Allison Hargreeves.
Perhaps there is cruelty in hope, in the absence of culling. In bearing witness to all that which can be lost, torn or forsaken. )
no subject
( It seems a strained thing, unfitting between them, that he should remind her. They lack — intimacy, in most things. Lan Wangji's demeanour is too crisp. Allison's guarded. The hour is misshappen, a woman and her wet locks between them, and the saccharine hum of a ballad she sings to give her peace from her two absent-minded attendants.
Lan Wangji is not unaware that where many pieces fit, his and Allison's edges jut. Stab. Pull apart.
And yet: )
Your brother yet stands. Your family.
( ...the brother lost, the sister before him. The chickens. He remembers them, more notches of cinnabar in the ledger of debts fate owes Allison Hargreeves.
Perhaps there is cruelty in hope, in the absence of culling. In bearing witness to all that which can be lost, torn or forsaken. )
It cannot be as simple as renunciation.