No. Not Wei Ying. Not master and monster and mother of his rabbit, shepherd of the dead who rally and lift the boat until, stoppered, it no longer floats as much as it is artificially carried, wet of stale waters grazing crackled, splintered wood-bone. )
One day, learn what every young man knows.
( Vanya — truly, Yelena is no longer allowed any claim over their children — recedes back into the qiankun pouch, and Lan Wangji absently taps its settling swell once, then again, until his silent urging eclipses the last of its shakes and rattles, and the paired rabbits within rest at ease. There, good girl. Beautiful.
Beneath, around, the boat quakes and riots, fire slowly giving way to pale, wintery ash, then to the gaunt denting that so often betrays infrastructural collapse. A wish, a prayer and a host of the dead are the only miracles still keeping their vessel within the parameters of structural integrity.
Only, the dead allied to Wei Ying have busied themselves with arresting the leak, and now the others, unsympathetic cadavers swarm them, plunging to unsaddle them, and Lan Wangji takes his sword by its hilt and finds himself swooning in kind over the boat's great lip, ignoring the last tickling of flame and instead crudely battering a slow-blinking dead thing with his blade. Its head cracks and creaks, like nothing of flesh ever should. )
Collect their glass. I shall distract them.
( ...by aggressively hitting them on their heads with his sword — a moment, he leans back to take purchase — an oar. Very sophisticated. )
no subject
( I've troubled you.
No. Not Wei Ying. Not master and monster and mother of his rabbit, shepherd of the dead who rally and lift the boat until, stoppered, it no longer floats as much as it is artificially carried, wet of stale waters grazing crackled, splintered wood-bone. )
One day, learn what every young man knows.
( Vanya — truly, Yelena is no longer allowed any claim over their children — recedes back into the qiankun pouch, and Lan Wangji absently taps its settling swell once, then again, until his silent urging eclipses the last of its shakes and rattles, and the paired rabbits within rest at ease. There, good girl. Beautiful.
Beneath, around, the boat quakes and riots, fire slowly giving way to pale, wintery ash, then to the gaunt denting that so often betrays infrastructural collapse. A wish, a prayer and a host of the dead are the only miracles still keeping their vessel within the parameters of structural integrity.
Only, the dead allied to Wei Ying have busied themselves with arresting the leak, and now the others, unsympathetic cadavers swarm them, plunging to unsaddle them, and Lan Wangji takes his sword by its hilt and finds himself swooning in kind over the boat's great lip, ignoring the last tickling of flame and instead crudely battering a slow-blinking dead thing with his blade. Its head cracks and creaks, like nothing of flesh ever should. )
Collect their glass. I shall distract them.
( ...by aggressively hitting them on their heads with his sword — a moment, he leans back to take purchase — an oar. Very sophisticated. )