( A... Romeo and...? But then, she elucidates, and it's a clear and tremulous thing, this knowing that whatever conflict scavenges his bloodline, his relations, his family is commonplace. That others have lived its like and perhaps thrived in wake of it. Surely. )

He is a man who once burned bright to avenge ashes.

( Abyssally sundered, a man tattered, torn and lost. Adrift. And Lan Wangji remembers the colours of him, vivid ink stains before the Wen war darkened them stale, before conflict skinned, flayed and tore him to dregs. )

All he is left with is fire, now they have dispersed. ( Poetry, like powdered snow, only known and appreciated in its whole. She has not been privy to earlier chapters. No matter. )

And flame, unpurposed, burns all.