( Twice his own height — an easier feat, when sat on ground, possessed of vantage. He calls Bichen up, sliding, to a careful approximation, until he gazes into a brisk, slate horizon, at hail of ash and ground gravel, and a rising, swollen storm of pebbles and cloth tatters and — he grimaces — particles of meats from other demons, downed. )

You spoke in common tongue.

( He has, in other words, understood — and he brings up the zither, clmly, readied, the air that surrounds it crackling with the static electricity of sorcery coalescing, watching and waiting and biding its tenuous time, when its nature is to plunge.

Below, panting draws his eye — he does not think to say, Your fluids are dying.

It would be an unseemly thing, unkindly, deranged and wrong. The creature is — tormented, for once not by the great suffering and misfortune of having slid down Stephen Strange's trousers. There are worse fates on this world, Lan Wangji would share, were he a better man and not consigned to watching the sorcerer's cord for the telltale sign. There are worse fates, you might have dropped when his furried legs were bare.

But the creature serves its purpose as a bellweather of proximity. Teeth gritting — )

Now?