westwhere | (no subject)

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WHO: Lan Wangji, a triad of misfits, perhaps everyone ever — OPEN FOR BUSINESS ~~payments cash upfront~~
WHEN: first half of July
WHERE: canyons, mountain roads, encampment
WHAT: in which stone is struck (badly), ghosts are drawn into conversation (worse), and small children cry (inevitably)
WARNINGS: blood rains, talk of harpies, Lan Wangji
NOTE: happy to put up a starter for you, if you want to join in on this dubious fun, or feel free to bring your own! Lan Wangji is... drifting... between phantoms, investigations, watches and the stone canyon.

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[She sighs a little and looks away then, staring out at their surroundings and the blood rain.]

She died, unfortunately, during the birth. My father was beside himself for quite some time... He was more overprotective than most, maybe, but a good man, truly. I was quite sickly until my teen years; I almost never left our estate.

That might be why I enjoyed poems and stories so much. I could leave my home through them.

Edited 2021-07-21 23:24 (UTC)

[ Orphaned, then, in the care of a parent whose finest attempts may yet have fallen short of the mark. Like Wei Ying. Lan Sizhui. Brother, and therefore —

A father, deserting his daughter to the prejudices of a time, a place, a community. Bereft of foresight, perhaps. Of the inclination to unearth it.

Between the trailing pitter-patter of rains, he feels entranced, captive and traveller of another's journey. Cause, effect. He sees the course of Winnifred's life, and supposes it known, like stars dictating sea flows through passive influence. ]

You are of age to liberate yourself. [ A woman grown, even absent the care of a husband, the burden of a child at her breast. ] Need not choose to return.

[ They journey home, and yet, she need not take this step. ]

[Winnie sits back a little, looking skyward with a wistful expression.]

...That's true enough. I could stay here, do what I want, with no one to hold me back... [She shakes her head]

But I can't. I have to goo back and... I know I can't change things all by myself, but after everything I've been able to see and experience here... How can I not try? I have to try and change things, I have to fight for it.

[She says it with a certain conviction, a determination set in the way her fingers curl into her palm, fists tight against her skirts and she stares fiercely at the sky.] So as much as I can enjoy this place, I simply have to learn as much as I can to take it back with me.

[ He thinks, ages past: the countless accomplished female cultivators of the sect who gained no recognition, where only one rose to the highest rank. His exiled mother, reduced to the silver slivers of his father's attention and the tatters of her reputation. Mianmian, armed yet defenseless in the gaping maw of a gentlemen's conclave.

Who can yet fault a woman for seeking to improve her station? Blood will win what kindness did not, loosen the stronghold of convictions. She may hardly yet read, begs his pittance. A tragedy, to be born of beauty, crafted in the regard of the heavens. ]

To champion the liberation of women?

[ There are worse feats on this world, more wretched. She asks little. ]

[The best part about this all is that...it's not even truly a lie. Replace 'women' with 'soulless' and it's the same thing.]

Is it naïve? [She laughs under her breath and smiles at him, a little sad, a little soft.] But it doesn't matter. I may not win at all, and likely I won't see change in my lifetime, but even if I don't... Even if I fail, even if I end up dying for it... Maybe I can still inspire others in the future.

If I can inspire future movements, future improvements, then I won't consider it a failure at all.

Naivete is the beauty of children.

[ He corrects, and this time, the gentle exhilaration of rain waters cascading down around and beside them, as they breathe untouched, infuses him with a dangerous, syrupy arrogance. He feels himself protected, alive. In this moment, invulnerable, a judge of truths he hardly mastered —

And yet, he doles them out, hands bare where they spread silent on his knees, palms facing upward — in telltale, daring invitation for the skies to pour down their assessment of him in turn. To punish and find him wanting. ]

Visionaries perish easily. [ Ash in his mouth, known, remembered; he swallows, and sees Wei Ying fall. ] You die, others pay price of your legacy.

I wonder how I'm meant to take that... [She trails off, laughing a little. Does it make her a child? Childish? Sure, fine. She's realistic enough to acknowledge that it won't be easy or simple. There will be blood spilled--a lot of it, and mostly, probably, innocent blood at that. But don't the ends justify the means?

She watches him, quiet, with an air of that childlike curiosity.] So I just have to try very hard not to die. [She grins at him and then reaches out to pat consolingly at his arm]

Worry not, dear friend! I won't fall any time soon! That's not the way this story is going to end, I'll see to that. But if I don't do it, who will? Any other rebellions are so small, they can be brushed off so easily... But I have a very loud voice and the power to use it. I don't see why I shouldn't just because the outcome might be unfavorable.

[ Dear friend, and he stings, skin pebbled and the livened pulse that bruises his temple quickening — when he turns to see her, not for the first time, a beauty. Porcelain. And beneath her, doll skinned. And beneath that also —

Frail.

Frail, not in the way of women painted weak for the cut of their robes or the spread of their backs. Frail for her vagaries, her weakened voice, the glimpses of her translucent conviction. For being an age by which Lan Wangji had born the trials of war, but only now discovering her convictions.

It must tire, to be so fresh a friend to her own revelations. ]

...sleep. Spare strength for your battles. [ Countless, as they come, hastened. Some for the winning, many sketched out to cripple a man. ] I shall hold the watch.

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