clara "why are you booing me i'm right" oswald (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
makemeasong) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
westwhere2023-02-19 10:57 am
makemeasong) wrote in westwhere2023-02-19 10:57 am
makemeasong) wrote in westwhere2023-02-19 10:57 am
waterrrrr
( White of their white thunderous, roiling, glistened. Less peace than absence, a sterile hell. No, that is what sleeps beneath our floor boards, that is what waits.
Here, in the forest's cradle, only the dissonance of steps either weighted and strong, or airily skidding. Their breaths clumsily spelling out betrayal in condensation. The animal stench of blood and soot, and the strange gravel of saltpetre that the watch towers line in their cannons to retaliate against fresh flame from enemy catapults. They reek of their despair, the futility of Alem's dwindling defences. Its starvation.
Throughout this, the defenceless suffer. Even the royal-born unspared, the prince Haiva — the man, crippled by years of sickness — begging relief. A fraction of Lan Wangji wished to lend himself to the hunt to resolve his plight. The remainder merely keeps his eye trained on the chasm of white nothing at the woods' periphery, thickets drowned under the evening's snow. Rare berries line the land like pox marks. He has foraged too little, his purse starved.
And then there is his ward, his companion. Clara, who never earnestly complains of a given task or circumstance, but is still frail and small despite herself, betrayed by her bones. Who all but cursed Lan Wangji's wraith-like resignation to the ebb and tide of another war. He haunts her like a scavenging bird, never far from her shadow, while their path deepens in the woods, ever silent to excuse her from the displeasure of his company —
Until they hear it, blood-curdling susurration. Not yet within reach, but close. So very... close. Invisibly so. Perhaps the river... buried beneath snow? Then, they must take caution, as they near a ravine, with their footsteps. )
Running water. To the north.
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She's always brimming with questions, wanting to talk to him, and yet always so puzzled by him. He's maybe not so unlike the Doctor, except the Doctor says a lot of words without saying much at all, sometimes. But she's slowly learning more in the time she spends with her reluctant friend.
When he speaks, it pulls her out of her thoughts and she stops to listen. Nodding, she moves with him and says aloud what probably doesn't need to be said. ]
Be careful. I don't wanna have to drag an injured man through the forest.
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( Be careful. It stings. Then, sweetly, it flatters. He startles in his step, murmurs behind myself: )
At ease. ( Scratchy, when his blade's whispers a crown of branches aside, and he can see, at last, see the heartache of the frozen shore and how ice takes root in flimsy filigree, and their steps are likely to slip and sink between silken, clammy mud and snow. ) I bear no wounding.
( Healed, within hours of the One-Armed Man's retrieval of his bludgeoned, tattered, bruised up person. He remembers: Wei Ying's insufferable objections, the wave of public indignation, his saviour's own reluctance. He has been... doubted in more ways than he cared to itemise, to consider.
No matter. Now, they face the ravine, the trip down, the scattered sheets of ice dwarfed by the possibility of sinking. He frowns down, knowing — as Clara must know — that the only way to study the site for flowers is to come near, to peer in. )
Do you trust yourself to descend? ( She is... untried, after all. Too often challenged, here, for a woman of what he suspects is little preparation. )
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She nods, looking at him. ]
I'll be alright. Besides, I'm not going all the way back now.
[ She might as well prove she can brave all extreme types of weather. Carefully, maybe with. more care than he thought she'd take, Clara judges her steps, isn't running with abandon. Here, she has to break the tension. ]
Other than your family, who do you think you go on these adventures with the most?
[ Maybe he doesn't, that's a possibility, too. She'd want to try and keep her family away from it all, as much as she could. ]
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We warm your clothes after.
( Talismans, clandestine stretches of threadbare parchment lining his purse, steadfast and ready. He does not presume her cooperation: foreign magic too often invades, wars with one's balance. If she permits, and only then.
They start down, the shoreline slanted, abrupt and harsh. Beneath his foot, snow disintegrates, shifts tectonically to pour down into the wail of running waters. On instinct, he holds a hand out to balance himself — and offers the other to Clara, before a fresh trickle of snow weeps down from the crown of branches above, carrying a powdered glaze into the waters.
The susurration maddens him, keeps him alert. Better, distracted: )
I often travel alone. ( 'He who goes where the chaos is.' He remembers, a moniker too plain, too long. For well past a decade, devastating. What it means to be the ghost that haunts a forest before its dead, a village before its sins. ) You accompany the Doctor?
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Out there, in space, all over time.
[ Not here, so much. She isn't sure what he's been doing, but she's seen him less than when she first arrived. She's noticed he doesn't grab her hand as often and ask her to help. Because it's dangerous? Because he's spread thin? Because she said something that was better kept to herself, back in Serthica? Clara hasn't asked. ]
I don't know if he's ever been stuck one place so long.
[ Her foot slips, not far, just enough to tighten her grip on Wangji's hand for four beats of her heart until she's steady enough to keep going. ]
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( He yet loathes touch, shrivels beneath it — nearly withdraws, before remembering, he offered, and it is required to keep Clara's balance, to retain them bound.
He follows, distinctly careful, staying himself only when his toes kiss the rim of the river, mournfully invasive. When the water's sagging the leathers of his boots, softening them, burdened.
Not plunging in is a matter of restraint. The discipline of Cloud Recesses holds. )
An animal caged.
( And how the bars shackle him, how they must crowd in. He sees it in Wei Ying at times, the restlessness of a wild thing, tamed by necessity. There are men not made to thrive at times of stillness.
He thinks, to tell her such a thing would ruin her with the understanding that that which they doubtlessly strive to achieve, the very peace all men yearn for — will devour the one she holds dear. No matter. There are moments eternal for life to disappoint her.
His gaze cuts the river's spread, searching for petals. He blinks away confusion. )
Do you see them? ( Perhaps they must go deeper still, submerge themselves. )
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When they're at the water and she sees nothing, Clara frowns a little. She moves closer, listening to tiny pops of sound at the snow and thin ice along the shallows beneath her feet.
Tucking hair behind her ear, she kneels down on the bank where it's still mostly snowy and leans in, peering down into the water. Reaching out she disturbs the glass-like surface with her fingertips, breaking the ice so she can see unobstructed. ]
There. Maybe the water's higher than normal, I can't reach it without getting in.
[ Or, perhaps it's a water flower. Whatever the case, she realizes she's going in. She's considering whether or not she should remove her boots and finally settles on yes, not wanting them to fill with water and weigh her down. ]
You can warm me up after this?
[ Just to be sure. Because she feels like she'll be a meat popsicle when she surfaces. She isn't doubting, but looking for reassurance. ]
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All day long.
( This, nodding in faint reassurance: the quality of base heating talismans resists doubt of question. If it is simple warmth she requires — this, he may provide.
But then, the sheet of ice crackles and glistens and concedes to her step, like fissures crowning the pale cheek of a mirror's spread. If she plunges in, small and thing and her bones yet rattling, it will be to ruin. She will return dressed, drenched in her weight in hard waters. Heaving.
He sees her fate with forlorn eyes, with distant, listless certainty that to allow her now is to condemn them both, later. At least, she cannot toil alone and extend the time of her submersion. Gentle, in ways beloved by his rabbits and by Hermione, when her temper wants easing: )
Do you accept company? ( There, with a nod. In the utter cold. )
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But here, right now, with hypothermia on the docket if she can't get out of the water fast enough, she realizes it would be stupid to say no. ]
Teamwork, as they say, makes the dream work.
[ She grins, already able to anticipate the silence that will follow such a statement. It's why she likes him. Once she's ready, she stands at the edge of the water, trying to psych herself up for her ice bath. ]
Ready?
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( And yet, their hands bounds, he plunges — shivered, when the waters rope and drag him, whip his hips and his flank and call him down, to lick long tongues across the scars that line his back, white, ancient.
It strikes him, pushing himself down despite the body's instinct to float and mind's to elude, that this is home-like. The closest kindness to Cloud Recesses, where cold streams spell the leisure of the wounded, the strained, those touched by the whips of discipline.
In the end, deeper. Sinking still, his silks all mist around him, floating — and with him, as he deepens down, the hungry, darkened silhouette of a curious creature he thinks, at first, to be Clara — until he knows his companion close, in hand. Then, he suspects a fish, perhaps a fox that's followed them in —
Only for his blood to curdle, when its face draws close, and it is a woman, yes, ever women who suffer, ever women who bar his path. Women who appear between blinks, and now this ghost is gone. He comes up, breaking water, droplets dragging down his cheek, trickling off his lashes — until Clara joins him. )
You beheld her?
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Not until she's coming back up does she see a glimpse, a flash. Why are there always ghosts; this planet is so haunted that she wonders if it isn't a ghost itself, reliving hauntings, dragging others in to witness. But the thought is gone as quickly as the woman in her peripheral, and Clara breaks the surface, gasping with a deep breath.
Still clutching Wangji's hand, she finally lets go to push hair out of her face, nodding. ]
I saw her. I saw her right when I—
[ Pulling her other hand from the water, she shows him the flower, managing just a little smile, still unnerved, eyes still darting around to catch another glimpse. And her lips are faintly blue, cold, soaked, not in any worse shape than Wangji. ]
A warning?
[ Who was she? A guardian? An omen? Too late now, she's already pulled the maiden veil. ]
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( The girl. The girl, first, hurry.
He remembers himself with shameful lethargy, ,flower slack in his clammy hands, fingers nearly letting it slip. His bag swells with waters, opens under the flimsy untangling of quiet fingertips; he eases the offering inside.
And did he not say, the girl? (Which, only, which of them?)
Shifting, his sleeves nearly sweeping aside the waters, he calls Clara close, draws her in, then clumsily starts the push ashore — ice sculpting scratches on their limbs, tickling the backs of their legs, beneath silks and linens. )
The dead only care for their grievance. She warns for her sake.
( Or re-enacts whatever terrors or grudges pursued her into death. But then, that is the ugliness of exorcism, and Clara need not hear it. )
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Only after she's managed to claw her way onto shore with Wangji does she feel marginally safer, crawling on her hands and knees with her soaked clothing. And only now, does she try to speak again. ]
Warnings are supposed to happen before the thing happens that's bad. That's why it's called a warning.
[ It isn't the time to argue semantics, but here she is anyway. Freezing and questioning. ]
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( They're brought to shore like dregs and rags, torn on the shoreline's strip, the rustle of ice shards stark and tinny, when the weight of their bodies, thrown, crushes pieces beneath. Powdered snow sticks to his wet lips, his fingertips, lingered heat of his flesh prolific to attract it.
In his belly, a yet young, strong core thrums awake like purring, prioritising the routing of his energies to keep him lively, strong. No such mercy for Clara, a wretch of shivering besides him. He turns, unambiguously slow, limbs folded half beneath his body, failing to latch on ground and tether, to purchase —
Then wet strip of parchment is threadbare, nearly fighting for transparency in the slate, sullen day's wintered sun — distantly, he remembers to lend it power, waking the heating talisman and slipping it tenderly onto Clara's back. It cannot bubble or miraculously dispel her chills, but will bide her time, warmed. )
When selfless. Perhaps she warns for her own purpose. ( Softly, then: ) She wished the waters or flowers untouched.
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At Wangji's words, Clara looks down at the flower in her hand. ]
What do we do? What—[ Now is when she remembers Wangji's unique set of skills. ]—can you still see her? What am I supposed to do now, I've already got the flower in my hand.
[ Is something going to happen to her now? If she'd known, maybe she wouldn't have volunteered to go out on this little scavenger hunt. ]
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( He knows, before confirming: the old way, to fade and disperse and make a trickling, dissolving nuisance of oneself, leaving but thought and nuisance. Such is how ghosts behave, and he has been accused before, that an exorcist is as a blade, seeing in all things that which earns stabbing. That he serves but one purpose and reduces all streams of investigation to the narrow tunnel of that which is known.
He cannot quarrel with that interpretation. There are less kindly things yet said between the world and Lan Wangji. Now, struggling to drift unto both teeth, teeth chattering on instinct while he drags a crystalline rope of snow behind him — he feels only the fit of logic unspoken, of truths righteously assumed.
The flower is not his own to claim, to decide upon. Perhaps that too is its own mercy. He turns his head to spy Clara and beneath the blinding white sun, hardly sees. )
Will you relinquish it to him? The prince.
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[ She wants to know; for once she wants to be in on what someone else is thinking. And if she's honest with herself, she doesn't want to say what Wangji may perceive to be the wrong thing. She isn't even sure why she cares.
Water drips from her hair, her eyelashes, and she looks at the flower in her hand, wondering if she's been tricked, somehow, by thinking she should do this thing she thought might be helpful. ]
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( And would Lan Wangji?
The stormed roiling in his stomach speaks of rejection, of disaster. Of turning his back on a man of whose nature they know far too little, and late. They say the royal house culled sirens, they see the prince and his brother indifferent to talk of executing their sister, their flesh, their blood. There is little to love in the higher echelons of Alem. More to dread.
And Lan Wangji has so very tired of fear in these lands.
He lifts himself slow, with the finality of a man resigned to loathing every part of the moment and its indignity. Aware that, holding his hand out now, he will receive either the clumsy offering of Clara's hand, or the trifling one of her flower. They must return, hastening. )
It is not my gift to bear.
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No. Tell me an actual answer. For once, I want someone or something on this planet to tell me something I don't have to decipher. Please, just tell me what you would do, Wangji.
[ She isn't trying to be funny, in fact she looks like she might cry. ]
I'm not asking you to tell me what to do. I just want to know what you actually think. For once. [ then, softer: ]
Please.
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Please. Take position in the rift between better men and worsened sects.
Please. Do not relinquish Wei Ying's hand.
How often has he been positioned before choices that carve his bones to shape him a different, trembled man? How often has indecision failed him?
Dappled light rains on him, diffuse, flat and grey. He barely drags himself through winter's dregs, but must trawl Clara's coal-burning need beside him. It feels an unkindness, weight his shoulder prove too fragile to bear. His feet crush injured branches in slow wake.
They course the forests. Soon, the mountain's very tips. Beyond them, the fortress whole. And the man who commissioned their service. )
I would inquire if the prince fears water. ( Stormed, sickly, feverish, cold. Their dead within. ) And those who wait.
( And on the foundations of that answer, raise the house of his decision, whole. ) Then decide.
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Thank you.
[ She will, more than likely, ask the question. And then what? Does she walk out if she has a bad vibe. She tries to tell herself she's been in more confusing situations with the Doctor so that she can keep going. ]
I've gotta stop volunteering. I never know what the hell I'm doing, if it's the right thing or not.
[ A new feeling. It's why she was so eager to barter and make trades, sometimes even take what was needed. She was good at it, knew what the goal was, and could help others. But these things where she goes off and inevitably someone has to save her? This is the first time she's thought maybe she should take a back seat. ]
We're almost done, I think. Light at the end of the tunnel, that. [ She nods toward the fortress, hoping she's right in the sense that they can make their way back to where the others are. ]