I will, and even more reassuring, the donkey I've got my legs draped around has zero interest in flitting off any cliffs either. Also zero interest in crossing certain bridges.
( the cliffs are on notice FOREVER. FOR. EVER. his answer is swift at least, no delaying. )
Of course, what can I answer? Are you alright? Is something wrong? Did Xie Lian try to share his cooking again, because that one's a lost cause I have no answer for.
I spoke with Arha, thinking I could help settle his army's spirits if I just spoke to him about their... current state.
[Another sigh]
He didn't take it well, so I'm being held captive. Archeval knows where I am, and he's only waiting until tomorrow before he tries to come after me. Neither him or Hendrik are subtle men..
( he sounds... amused. not even in a dark way, but what kind of roundabout nonsense is this, and has he swept away the army? hm? has he, Lan Zhan, who sends their son to ask? )
( sounding... relieved? why, nothing's going to have happened to Lan Zhan in this time, but still. lingering in so many requests from the innocents slaughtered for nothing but the wish to inform is... tiring? tiring. it's good hearing his voice, little as it usually is. lan zhan is, above all things, still vibrantly alive. )
Tingling, but on the mend, Wen Qing threatened more needles but no long term damage, ah? You—how are you faring?
He's not wrong on either count, really. He's bought this city time. War is coming. Setting them up to compete like this is perhaps part of the lack of wisdom.
I've had a very interesting meeting with another of our group, Wrath, and he's agreed to take me along in search of a few tombs, including Hatisse's. If you'd like to come along I'd very much appreciate it, we can do what we need to do and see what there is to find out.
Bit of an upsetting turn of events - Eleven and Shen Qingqiu were sent to escort a cache of powerful magical weapons out of the city. They were intercepted by a group of people, one of which was the captain of Macaluso's guard, and managed to get themselves and the weapons back to the city. The soldiers they traveled with during the escort told them to get the weapons back to Rigarda.
Eleven and Shen Qingqiu are sure those weapons were headed to the undead, and given what you found out about Bonaccorso I suspect the same.
Suffice to say the weapons are now in the house, I've stashed them in the workroom in the box where we've stored the remains from the Stairs of Sighs. Nobody saw us enter the house or leave it thankfully, but - well, I thought you ought to know.
My, my, so Macaluso is more aware, or more ambitious, than people might have believed. No wonder he wasn't fond of my little illustration.
Forgive me, your magics are fascinating and endlessly flexible, do they do anything to suppress... energy? If all those weapons were left without any means of them being tracked I'll admit to being surprised, but moreover—what are any of the three of you planning to do about them?
( wrath has thought about reaching out since the post about the undead and what was to be done about them. it seems this is the only other individual within their group with enough experience with death who might have insight. adventuring into the tomb too was further evidence this was the path he needed to take as he seeks for a clear idea of what may ail vannozza.
he is still unaccustomed to sharing information readily, and this particular piece of information, he has attempted to keep between as few people as possible. especially after vannozza asked him to be quiet about it. the huntress' trip through the city still leaves its hollow mark upon him- another problem to be dealt with quickly at another time. he refuses to feel controlled again, to lose choice, to find his willpower shackled. to be bent to someone else's will ever again. )
I ask for your expertise and advice in a matter involving death if you have the time.
Mister Wrath, am I correct? As it stands, that's something I have too much time for, and the other is evading people wishing me to bless their confirmed pregnancies. You might appreciate the contrast.
( a necromancer sought out for... life. new life. created life of a very natural sort.
but he too is a man who still feels hollowed out, first by Anurr, then more lastingly the Huntress, and what drives him now is how to keep himself, in the face of such creatures as that. so that he is not the burden to those he cares for, so that he can at the least stand by them, not stand weakened and shivering before them, liable to careen off into retinues that call and cry. )
( no hesitation, he'll help even if he thinks one is a bit of a self-defeatist, but both matter, Eleven in particular. she has his flute, his sword arm, his... necromancy. dear goodness. )
( Suns love themselves. They shot one off Qishan and the skied bled before Wen Ruohan's fall yearned to break. He sees the red of Wei Ying's borrowed velvets, cut draped in weighted flow, before his feet dance the line of creaking, rain-soaked tile.
Endless spring, but night's chills creep. Wei Ying and his rooftops, spider and a shivered web. Stark shadow stabs Wei Ying's cheek like smear of condensed ink. Under coarse moonbeam, Lan Wangji does not beg permission to transgress with intrusion — to draw near — to grieve the last vestiges of privacy and present himself, milk-dappled and strange, footsteps asynchronous. Far beneath them, the night's second watch of patrol walks churned earth and drowns dark sound.
And he is swift, silent. Draws the blades he brings and tips them to sit beneath Wei Ying's chin — not Bichen, but a lesser set of narrow twins, old oak, crackled. Exercise swords, procured after their abandon in the guards' room.
A gift. Satisfaction. Now, next Lan Wangji begs to move and strikes as snakes do, Wei Ying may cut off his head, meeting him as equals do. )
Forgive me.
( A child's words, lacking in the formality of apology, the fissures of posture — ungainly — when a back breaks down in the rivulets of a bow. Sincere, for all of it.
There are words for children, and words for men, and there are words for beasts, also. He licks his lips and finds them raked by fangs. )
( Forgiveness is hard beneath his chin, close enough to touch, and Wei Wuxian lifts his eyebrows and his chin, baring his neck as an act of trust, a faith he doesn't question, even as he does not reach up, does not reach to accept a wooden sword. In his breast the memory of pride mewls, shakes wet, tattered fur and claws at the coals of certain ambitious self-knowings, but that fire stays banked until it does not, and he's awaiting that moment, the shift over. Calculated it, and finds himself in this moment hearing a statement, forgive me, when he finally brings the length of his fingers into play.
They brush the wood, not deterring the blade, not swaying it, but running along its fat edge, feeling smoothed wood and surface fractures, splinters threatening to find flesh. )
I had no idea, ( he says, a drawl with eyes in a lazy blink only staying half open after; ) you were so hard up, Lan Zhan.
( He's seated, and he would scramble were he to try and catch that bow, and he doesn't twitch into motion, still watching with his head canted and no sword accepted, perchance that it'd ever been an offer and not an ongoing, unmet demand. Lan Zhan is unfairly beautiful even in this, and it sparks something, cold as it burns, as his shoulders settle, when he toasts with a bottle of wine he doesn't particularly taste when it's on his tongue.
Alcohol, the provisioner of warmth that can't hate him any more or less than something with a mind, and only runs the risk of letting him remember dissatisfaction with himself, when it runs too deep, when sobriety runs too shallow. Lan Zhan's timely reminder of the escape within the ambrosia of cross-cultural discussion, that wine is wine is wine by any other name, and it quiets the thoughts, one way or another. A broad gesture now, bottle held like benediction, an outward sweep of his hand and then a tip of the bottle to Lan Zhan. )
You know I forgive you. I'll always forgive you.
( Not forget in the same easy way, but in the same learned one of social interactions and nuances, divorced from sense of grudge. He's only hated once, deeply. Borne one grudge, and eradicated the reason for its birthing; has wept in despair over what else he's raged against, and now here he is, with the wine, and his soulmate, and two swords that have seen better loving days, when oil was rubbed with rich, loving caress into their lengths, and instruction is all they sought, day after day, in the improving of their wielders. )
You were lauded as the reincarnation of a fertility goddess. The people here sought you for those blessings. Is it that they're needed? That these blessings are naturally few and far between? Did something happen to that goddess?
To some degree, belief is what you make of it, and in this, I'd guess the same. I don't believe that here any gods are shared universally or in exclusion of other gods; and people think of children as a future, as a continuation of bloodlines and family, as hope.
In no sense did I feel anyone who came to me was truly devout to the concept of the goddess I was supposedly a reincarnation from, but the idea of it, the fancy of it, people liked that. To believe it might be true. To have a different form of hope, perhaps, but it's not always kind, and it was not always well delivered.
Something is very wrong here. I found a map in Ellethia-Allayar of the city before whatever happened here happened - the lighthouse was over there, in the part of the city we've just come from on the map. I saw the ruins of it. I don't think there's supposed to be a lighthouse here.
The question being, my dear Xiao Lily, is who, and what, has placed it there, in that case? Is it an illusion, a construct, an array of some kind... presume dangerous, either way.
[Hello, hi, how are you???? Sorry he's getting straight to the point....sort of? Because he doesn't follow up with, 'I need you help' but only leaves that statement hanging for a moment there.]
Might I ask you a question about this place? [just kidding, she's gonna anyway.]
I know you've been with the group of outside travellers for a very long time, and that we are told we can leave only through the beacons but...it has been a while since I last heard from someone and you're friends with her I know and I am wondering if it is possible that she may have found a way to leave without the group and how would we know and oh this message ended up long. Sorry.
In each case where I've known the person who has arrived and then parted
from our company, I've seen no indication of their being killed here, or
taken prisoner in a lasting way. I don't believe we have confirmed answers,
but I suspect while the gates allow us to return to our homes by choice,
even the failure with the first gate's activation indicates that whatever
pulled us here may send us back as a... rebound? That'll do for a word.
Turn your gaze toward the path the Huntress takes, and I'll watch the Master of Beasts. I imagine we'll find that's much the same divide in the end, ah?
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