westwhere | i've spent all of the love i've saved { open }

( ...a man, distinctly ill at ease with notions of:

1. domestic service

2. the chuckling and laughing trill of women orbiting him like misplaced satellites, moths to the flame of his inadequacy

3. cosmetics, start to bitter, green-brewed end.

And yet, here Lan Wangji is, adrift in his borrowed robes, coarse and ill-fitting linens meant to endure the toil of harvesting peace and prosperity at the inn. He woke to carry water, advanced his morning with paltry tasks of transporting kitchen wares, improved it with calligraphy and now, head bowed where Allison and he loom over a parade of merrymaking women, he —

...is pouring washing water to bathe their hair. The room's drenched with excess heat from braziers, fragrances spilling in wild, cloying wafts. Thrice already, Wei Ying has warned Wangji possesses perhaps too... strong a hand for this service. The woman who's just interrupted the rolling susurrus of her gossip to cast him a frightened, owlish glance, seems to agree that the roots of her hair might not be made for raking. He pulls at the locks in hand all the same, neglecting shallow hisses and waving Allison forward to pour down her cleansing salts, while his victim suffers the agony of attention from a handsome man.

It startles him, when the sea of murmurs resumes, when the women rally in taunts and teasing of the would-be bride, when they neglect their attendants as if Allison and he were invisible, inconsequential — )

...you have shorn your hair.

( This to Allison, tongue slack, clumsy. And they say he has no social graces. )

I needed a change.

[Which is really the lightest way of explaining her Traumatic Haircut. Not that it's wrong, exactly. She did need a change. But it's one thing to head to a salon and get things done by a professional.

It's another to hack your hair off after trying and failing to rumor yourself while dealing with the loss of your daughter, quickly becoming more and more permanent by the moment. She's stuck in that shock-filled space between rage and despair, trying to keep herself teetering between the two with an emotion that feels a bit more like an even keel.

She tips the party guest's head back gently, starting to work the shampoo into her hair with smooth, comforting circles.]

I think I like it. For now, anyway.

( ...a change. One she approves of. He dallies, struck by the impossible understanding that he faces beauty contorted, knowingly besmirched. That some part, alien and deranged, of Alison Hargreeves thought this an improvement on the natural grace of her carefully manicured curls.

Below, even the woman suffering their combined ministrations settles evenly under Allison's hands, only to squint when she overhears the epiphany. To trust oneself to a stylist who willingly performs this to her hair is —

Gently, Lan Wangji draws both hands shackled to his back, stepping aside. You're on your own, madam. )

It is... ( Coarse. Distressing. A beacon of aesthetic despair. ) New.

( So sayeth his uncle, speak plainly, speak kindly, speak the truth, or hold your tongue. Let it not be said that Lan Wangji is forever the only one among them bereft of a teaspoon of social aptitude. )

You entered the beacon. Reunited with your husband?

( The same she has previously intimated might perhaps wait for her. )

[Yes, it is new, but there's not much she can do about it now. Wigs and extensions aren't so much a thing here in undead land. But it also is something that she feels suits her for the moment, if nothing else.

At the mention of Ray, however, she grits her teeth and swallows the flare of anger she's been trying to smother.]

No.

[That's all she really wants to say about that.]

( There are animals who lick their wounds, those who run, who hide, who seek shelter.

Then, there are those who show the white of their fangs and growl.

The tension of her jaw thickens, locked in. He sees her, in the way he might glimpse a blade that approaches, before he should parry. Dances the line between moments, when the trill of anticipation is destined to become its danger.

And breathes out, retreating a step back to allow her better access to the woman, when whatever assails Allison does not erupt. )

Condolences. ( From a man widowed sixteen years, at that. ) Lend hope your hand, until the next turn.

I'm a little tired of hope, honestly.

[She manages to keep her tone even, but there's definitely an edge of hostility there. Wrath has been suiting her more lately, and it's certainly a lot more comfortable than despair.]

It's not really done me very much good.

( 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.

Not all of them.

[She hasn't even really had a chance to fully grieve Luther yet, but she can't help but be relieved that they had managed to make things right before he died. Even if it wasn't a perfect apology, she knows that Luther forgave her. That might have been more than she deserved.

And then there's Claire. Her heart sinks further and she doesn't want to talk about this anymore.]

Hope only really seems to get people killed.

Or restitute them.

( Perhaps he is unsuited to this, a man of his frozen, stiff mouth, his clothes of mourning. His manner bereft the warmth and ease of disposition that so often charm empathy and union. Behind his back, bound, his hands knot and tangle, spine straightening beneath the silent call to mind and right and his composure.

One of the bride's attendants — her friends? — mouth quickly in his direction with an air of concern spattered by indignation, to see him regally but soundly indifferent and Allison — aggrieved. This is their day, they pay handsomely to feast, the servants should not be ruining it.

Round of his shoulder rattled by a shrug, Lan Wangji seals his apathy. )

You are a woman of strength and sense. ( This much, time and frequent response to Five's... outbursts has proven. ) I need not persuade you.

Edited 2022-12-21 19:16 (UTC)

No, you don't.

[Her voice was curt, because she really doesn't want to stay on this topic. So she changes it, and since they're in a room full of brides:]

I talked to the person you wanted me to. Your husband's family. He didn't seem pleased that you sent me.

( Ah, but to be a fly on every wall Jiang Cheng has skillfully drenched in vinegar. To bask in the solar brilliance of his volcanic rage. To thrive thunderously in the creative storm of his choice expletives.

Truly, an experience unmatched that one should not wish upon their deepest, darkest enemies: Jiang Cheng in fine battle form. )

...apologies. ( Instinctive, between gritting teeth. When he bows, it's a graceless thing, bird bones slow to a rustic, absent space in the interstices between the women's seats. ) Jiang Wanyin is — ...troubled. Fault is my own.

( For considering, nay, attempting diplomacy and negotiation. For thrusting Allison in the midst of bloodless quarrels. )

I beg your patience.

Of course.

[It's not personal to her, so it's easy to be patient. She's just not sure what the next step should be.]

Is it like a Romeo and Juliet kind of situation?

[A beat when she remembers he might not understand that reference.]

Warring families or something?

( 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.

[Thrived. Sure. Let's go with that.

Lan Wangji's words about the other man hit home a little more than they should. Because Allison is in a similar state. She has no means of trying to get to her family here. All she has his her rage, and she doesn't know what else to do with it but burn. It keeps her warm, but what does it destroy in the process.]

Sometimes you don't know what else to do. The anger needs to go somewhere, even if it's useless.

( Forgive him: the stuttered breath, the sharpening of features. How his hands weep their tension behind his back, clutching, tearing sightlessly the skin rounding his nails. He is no child, besieged by emotion.

In the white calling space of a banal cage, he isn't alone in this room. Allison Hargreeves feels too large, as if she steals the air from his lungs. Suffocating. )

Will you say so to his victims?

( To those rained upon by this wrath that must go somewhere. The edge of his voice is rusted, heavy. )

To those eviscerated by misplaced hurt? It is not the sickness of one.

[The change in his body language is all it takes to see that she's misspoken, that she didn't fully understand the situation. That this person doesn't make the people around him pay with sharp words but actual death.]

I didn't know.

[She can admit that much.]

I'm not saying what he did is right. I'm just saying that I understand how that feels.

( And like garden snow, come dew and morning, the start of his agitation wanes. He recedes within himself, imperfectly appeased, yet brittle. The twitch of his mouth's corner threatening to deepen.

She did not know. At times, accidents stoke conversation. Not all comments are needling, prickling, entering below skin. This is no court of Jinlintai, he is not brought before nobles for dissection.

And yet. )

You possess an excess of empathy. ( Sayeth the stone. )

Not always.

[It comes in waves and depends how much trauma's been placed at her door, but sometimes it is an old muscle that she can manage to work.]

But anger I understand. Sometimes it's really hard not to take it out on everything around you.

( There is an edge to experience, to sympathy and commiseration that betrays itself within heartbeats. She speaks, and he listens, and he hears the tinny notes of that compassion —

And he shields himself from outburst, from speaking his true mind. Nods, pleasantly, as if it costs him nothing to advocate for Jiang Cheng's fury. It comes with casualties, with dead things and feuds and years of silence.

It comes with the corner of Lan Wangji's mouth frosted, gaze sharp. )

Is that what you practise?

No. At least, not unless it becomes too much. I'm only human.

[Though is she human? She never got that answer out of her father and Reggie definitely wasn't human, but that's a problem for another day.]

i've spent all of the love i've saved { open }

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