the desire to save the world still remains in my heart

[silverneedles]

WHO: Wen Qing and others
WHEN: December/Travel Arc
WHERE: The inn and various surroundings
WHAT: catch-all/open starters for the event
WARNINGS: just event warnings, will update as needed


Wen Qing will be around the inn, mostly staying where it's warm, helping people with massages, acupuncture, teas, etc.

Open starters below.

Comments

ice skating (for xie yun)

[silverneedles]

Ice skating should be easy, shouldn't it? Just glide around the ice on two thin blades; she's a cultivator, she has a good sense of balance, she's flown on a sword before, so this is nothing.

Except it's nothing like flying on a sword and her inner balance does nothing to help her as she puts on the skating shoes provided, carefully clomping her way to the edge of the lake. (Don't look down; there are things that lurk, far more dangerous than any ice skates.)

Someone goes whizzing past her, laughing merrily, and Wen Qing reconsiders this foolishness. What in the world is she thinking, attempting this? She stands at the edge of the ice, reconsidering everything. If it had been Wen Ning, she'd tell him to rethink it, and go back inside where it was warm, and maybe she should do that—

But she's here. It can't hurt, can it? (It can.) She takes a tentative step forward, one foot on the ice.

western wing (open)

[silverneedles]

The chanting in the western wing rouses Wen Qing's curiosity, since chanting rarely means anything good. None of the staff seem particularly fussed about the chanting, and when she inquires about it, the only response she gets is a shrug and, "They pay, that's all that matters."

The afternoon finds her carrying a tray into the western wing, although she makes a quick stop to rearrange the snacks on the tray into a more pleasing formation and brings some warm, herbal teas meant to help the throat along with her, figuring someone would need it.

There's a clear spot for the tray just inside the rooms, and she sets it there, then goes to find one of the guests to inform him of the snacks and offer the tea. Only a few of them seem to be chanting, sitting in a small circle and staring upward as they chant. The others are laying out items in a pattern, and she approaches one, studying the design she's laying out.

direwolves (open)

[silverneedles]

[ an actual starter coming tomorrow; don't reply to this ]

bridal party (open)

[silverneedles]

[ an actual starter coming tomorrow ]

wooooooolveeeeeees

[downswing]

( He smuggles the creature in with morning dew, when the peering sun's glare is white-bright in dull diffusion. When shapes and steps and silhouettes converge: here, banks of freshly powdered snow. There, ice thick and scratch-marred, bridging waters. Within hand's reach of the gardens, a graveyard of roses, thorns stabbing translucent frost.

Farther on, Lan Wangji slinking close, silks dishevelled, tangling between his stiff feet.

And in his hands, the shivered, blind, days-old dire wolf plainly rescued from its parents' den, before the villagers befell it. He has heard the stories: that the huntsmen sought to cull wolves, that they were slaughtered in kind. That much of the violence of the past few nights has not gone unprovoked.

He gave chase. Caught. Held. Returns, now, with his offering.

He startles to see Wen Qing about the garden, having seemingly anticipated, somehow, that if the morning were young enough, the hour so wretched, the previous nights so turbulent — he might intercede, unseen. In his hands, the cub whimpers, quivering. He brings it to his chest, where the red chilled on the wolf's belly suggests it has lain in the blood of its sires. )

It cannot be glimpsed.

( By the inn keepers. Wei Ying. And she knows, doesn't she? What it means to be hunted young. )