downswing: (十)
ʟᴀɴ ᴡᴀɴɢᴊɪ | 蓝忘机 ([personal profile] downswing) wrote in [community profile] westwhere 2023-05-23 11:12 pm (UTC)

(don't) hold your breath


They sink.

No. A petty, cheapened conclusion. Now, the truth: the room sinks, indifferent to their presence. At first, drenched and slowed, Lan Wangji's silks billowing in translucent pallor over the waters' lip, he does not startle.

By America's own admission, she stepped out of turn. A trap, however foolish and plain, would have coaxed one of them into its mouth, then snapped shut its jaws. It so happened to be the girl. Wrath or frustration would hardly benefit him. He breathes, and there is wet that stains his mouth and his cheeks, a rain of timid, then littering droplets.

He offers his hand, should America require a pillar, as the waters rush and flow. Then, the search for an exit. The first rule of entrapment: where there is a trick, the hunter must always make or create himself a passage of evacuation, to avoid his own doom.

First, turn left. Then right. A careful, joyless, lethargic rotation, encumbered by the burden of his fineries. Gaze slanted, he searches the walls, the architecture, the scant and scattered pieces of furniture. The ceiling, where they write — he nods up.

"...do you see...?" And tinny, creaking, stoking to crescendo from somewhere beside them — "And hear?"

Music.


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