Wei Wuxian offers no contradiction, though he doesn't agree: Lan Zhan has failed people, himself first and foremost, but has not stopped striving to not let such things happen again. He doesn't wish for Lan Zhan to carry any guilt when it comes to these things, but he will, these days, hold him as accountable as he once wouldn't have said a word over, too caught in the mire of his own lacking self worth and heartache for a world that proved as corruptible as he proved incapable of bending to public opinion or making himself vulnerable enough to ask those he cared for to help, to stand with him, instead of spare them from the decisions themselves.
None of them are perfect persons. Each has struggled. To a younger him, he would not have expected the degrees. To the man he is now, he admires them more for how they pick up and rebuild themselves even in the aftermath of life's harrowing trials and beautiful joyous moments.
Three months is not much time at all, all things told. He looks faintly quizzical when he's being asked his own arrival time; it's not affected, rather genuine, as over two years have passed since and there'd been nothing crystalline in the moment before his abduction to hold it strong in his mind.
"I think I was still traveling with Little Apple. Was I turned back toward Gusu yet? Or was I just considering it after traveling along the coasts?" His smile is wry, knowing, and he shakes his head, the almost apology that has no weight behind it, because in the end, it matters little. "Couldn't say I remember where exactly, but it was something like that."
Time where he presumed Sizhui and Wen Ning had made their efforts, and if not finished their cenotaph, then it was minimally well under way. Time where he knows Zewu-jun had been tucked away into the seclusion that was quiet echoing of thoughts to find a way through the understanding of the depths of betrayal he'd survived, even against his own in the moment inclinations.
Wei Wuxian understands that. Too well, perhaps, but it provides no kindness in answers here.
"This place preys upon what aches most in our hearts." Again a serious mien, his dark eyes swallowing light on this moon-full night as he observes Lan Xichen, not the world's wisest man, not the world's smartest man, but one of the genuinely kindest, one of the most loyal, one of the most willing to believe. Downfall in some stretches, saving grace in others. "Jin Guangyao was here, over a year and a half ago. He will stalk your dreams, your nightmares, your waking moments, as will every other regret and pain. It's the nature of the curses here, ge. You're not being granted the luxury of healing quietly."
Soft, his voice, when he says that much. Not presuming, stating factually, because these are hard truths that must be delivered, understood. He is not a man for gentleness in these truths, no, not when to pretend they aren't looming will do more damage than directing attention to what haunts the man before him.
"You do not stand alone. If nothing else, allow Lan Zhan to be at your side as you are at his."
The or else the suffering you'll face will be untenable goes unsaid. This place is no better at disguising their weakest points, their unhealed wounds, than a Lan is inclined to bathe first in a heated spring's waters to heal.
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None of them are perfect persons. Each has struggled. To a younger him, he would not have expected the degrees. To the man he is now, he admires them more for how they pick up and rebuild themselves even in the aftermath of life's harrowing trials and beautiful joyous moments.
Three months is not much time at all, all things told. He looks faintly quizzical when he's being asked his own arrival time; it's not affected, rather genuine, as over two years have passed since and there'd been nothing crystalline in the moment before his abduction to hold it strong in his mind.
"I think I was still traveling with Little Apple. Was I turned back toward Gusu yet? Or was I just considering it after traveling along the coasts?" His smile is wry, knowing, and he shakes his head, the almost apology that has no weight behind it, because in the end, it matters little. "Couldn't say I remember where exactly, but it was something like that."
Time where he presumed Sizhui and Wen Ning had made their efforts, and if not finished their cenotaph, then it was minimally well under way. Time where he knows Zewu-jun had been tucked away into the seclusion that was quiet echoing of thoughts to find a way through the understanding of the depths of betrayal he'd survived, even against his own in the moment inclinations.
Wei Wuxian understands that. Too well, perhaps, but it provides no kindness in answers here.
"This place preys upon what aches most in our hearts." Again a serious mien, his dark eyes swallowing light on this moon-full night as he observes Lan Xichen, not the world's wisest man, not the world's smartest man, but one of the genuinely kindest, one of the most loyal, one of the most willing to believe. Downfall in some stretches, saving grace in others. "Jin Guangyao was here, over a year and a half ago. He will stalk your dreams, your nightmares, your waking moments, as will every other regret and pain. It's the nature of the curses here, ge. You're not being granted the luxury of healing quietly."
Soft, his voice, when he says that much. Not presuming, stating factually, because these are hard truths that must be delivered, understood. He is not a man for gentleness in these truths, no, not when to pretend they aren't looming will do more damage than directing attention to what haunts the man before him.
"You do not stand alone. If nothing else, allow Lan Zhan to be at your side as you are at his."
The or else the suffering you'll face will be untenable goes unsaid. This place is no better at disguising their weakest points, their unhealed wounds, than a Lan is inclined to bathe first in a heated spring's waters to heal.