( 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.
No, luckily, but we should resolve to never allow him to cook again. It is worse than anything I managed in the Burial Mounds and my herb supply would not withstand another round of food poisoning. It is about a-Ning.
( the first part of this is easy, and amusing, and also mildly perplexing: xie lian taken at his word is a god who also fails utterly to cook, but cannot, well, kill himself. all of that is more fun than the thought of talking to Wen Wing about Wen Ning, given the utter extent of his failure there, no matter that the decision to leave had not been the one he wanted them to make. Or that he'd been rendered unable to move to allow for it.
Memories are not always pleasant things to remember. )
We can see what we can refill your herb supply with, I don't know what is or isn't the same. Did you want the salves I did have to look at?
Ah, ah, who... well, yes! Wen Ning. What were you wanting to ask?
[ this is not just easy but familiar, discussion of mundane things in a world slightly mad. herbs and food have always been on her mind, and it's a comforting fallback. ]
Some of the herbs I've gathered have been identifiable. Others require experimentation when we settle.
[ her actual question takes some time to formulate because thinking about her brother hurts in so many ways. at least a-Yuan's alive and seemingly had a happy child. ]
Hanguang-jun has informed me a-Yuan knows of a-Ning, and a-Yuan mentioned his name. Stories from you?
( a sinking sensation, the fall of a cliffside into the embrace of nothing, never hitting the ground, never ceasing in the fall, until one day, one day, the voice of another man's anger layers over him as the floor beneath him catches him at last, cold and rich with the choking scent of drying blood.
he suspected this conversation might have headed his way, one day. he'd turned a blind eye toward it, hoping it'd be further and further out. it seems it no longer is, and his fist tightens around this particular crystal. )
I don't think this is a conversation I can have like this.
[ it's a conversation she needs to have, even though she feels torn between wanting to know and wanting to hide from the knowledge. she's never been one to run, though, even if the burial mounds had ultimately only been a short escape from reality. ]
[ And she does, searching through the camp until she finds Wei Wuxian, appearing at his side as quietly as she can, grateful it's a small camp, and that they can go somewhere else to deal with this conversation. ]
[ This isn't a topic she'll easily drop, considering that it involves her brother.
Finding somewhere away from camp isn't too difficult, although they're left with fewer places to sit. Pick between a fallen log or a comfortable rock, Wei Wuxian. ]
( He's walked that one log bridge often enough, it's no surprise he selects the felled tree. There's a good span of available space, and he untucks two small stand-ins for cups, tinned metal that they are, offering one to her. )
Your last memory, ( he asks, uncapping the flask to pour for them both, ) would you tell me what it was, before here?
[ She contemplates refusing the drink, at first; this feels like a conversation best had when she's sober, even if Wei Wuxian feels differently. Until he asks that, and then she drinks, deeply. ]
The Jin's separating all of us, after we turned ourselves in. I don't know what they did with any of them, although I was told I'd be burned.
( This is why the alcohol. Neither of them are Lan light, for whatever blessing or curse that was, but... )
As far as I know... you were. They said your brother was, too. The rest...
( He trails off. She can ask, and he will tell, but he doesn't want to walk those roads in painful memories until he has to, for someone else's sake. For his own, he ignores them. Survives like that. )
Wen Ning wasn't killed. They spent years trying to find a way to control your brother, and ended up failing in the end, leaving him wrapped in chains and with a muddled mind before I pulled the nails out. Jin Guangshan supposedly asked for it, but I know it was Jin Guangyao who manipulated it all, and failed to control what the thought he could, after I was gone. I found him sixteen years later, playing for assistance when I'd tracked the juniors to Dafan Mountain—same statue was causing problems again. Someone had undone the seal.
( He pours her another cup, and drinks of his own. )
[ Her shoulders shake as she swallows back a sob, listening to him, and lets him pour another cup. She wills her hand not to tremble and manages that much, at least. ]
After you were gone?
[ Easier to ask about that, and not Wen Ning, not yet. She had hoped that, once she and Wen Ning had turned themselves over, Wei Wuxian would have gotten out of this, somehow. ]
[ Her hand does tremble at that, and she sets down the cup to look at him. ]
You tried dying? You weren't the one to raise a-Yuan.
[ Everything she's gleaned has been in snippets, things she's been able to put together. a-Yuan raised by Hanguang-jun. Wen Ning alive, but trapped for years. All of them older than what she remembers. ]
( He goes quiet, and drinks his second cup before he responds. He's not overtly trying for mirth, but he smiles, because that soften things, and he thinks they need softening to some degree when talking to her not for taking away from their impact, but for taking away their impact on him. )
I thought they'd murdered all of you. A-Yuan included. Shijie—she died, at the same time they were throwing your ashes to the wind. They never intended for peace, Wen Qing. They murdered everyone, and then they called for my blood before the last of the bodies had cooled, and I was too late to do anything about it. You weren't wrong, you know? Even if we'd found the one who cast that curse, and he was there, I learned by now, who would have believed it? Who would have considered that it wasn't Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, who was out for blood and the unrest of the righteous world, when they scrambled and maimed and killed of their own volition chasing after the tiger seal in those moments before I destroyed it.
( He doesn't say anything about Jiang Cheng. He feels like saying his shijie died indicates enough of... that moment, Jiang Cheng's grieving outrage, and the stone under his feet, under Lan Zhan's chest, that shuddered at Sandu's strike.
He'd preferred dying, to being the death and ruin of the last two people he believed mattered to him in that world, A-Yuan unknown and feverish in Yiling, away from them all. )
[ It's only been a few months for her, and there hasn't been time to process any of it here; or rather, she has deliberately avoided thinking too deeply about it.
She fiddles with the hem of her robes, for the first time since she was a child, then smoothes it down, and reaches for her cup again, finishing it off. ]
You were supposed to find him. And live, somehow. I had hoped that turning ourselves over would be the end of it. The knife would be gone, and the Wen's dismantled, nothing to fear from us. [ It had been a foolish hope, but it had made the walk to Carp Tower that much easier. ] How long were you... dead? Gone?
( He offers a hollow, aching smile. No need to say, 'it would have been easier to find him if I'd been told he was there.' Tell him how, pin it to him where he lay immobile on his stone bed, hay spilling off and down like the hopes they'd held for all that time?
He pours her another drink. )
Sixteen years. Sixteen years, before someone contrived to convince a deeply unhappy man to sacrifice himself to bring back the vengeance of a family murderer.
( A dry, tired smile. Oh yes, what a reputation he'd been given, and what a siren's call that had been to the tormented, unravelling Mo Xuanyu. )
[ Sixteen years, and a-Yuan a Lan, and— her eyes widen and she picks up her cup, drinking deeply. ]
So a-Ning was under Jin Guangyao's control for sixteen years.
[ She led him to his death, or what should have been his death, and instead doomed him to torture. Her words haunt her: they were doomed long before they ventured to the Burial Mounds. ]
And you came back. Hanguang-jun is fond of you, still.
( he automatically fills her cup again, once it empties. )
Imperfectly. From what I can tell, he got away, couldn't be found. The... ones trying to use people inundated with resentment like that had low success.
( this doesn't make it better, and he knows, but... it's what she should hear. he doesn't get to decide against it. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
un: qishan
Wei Wuxian. A question for you.
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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.
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It is about a-Ning.
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Memories are not always pleasant things to remember. )
We can see what we can refill your herb supply with, I don't know what is or isn't the same. Did you want the salves I did have to look at?
Ah, ah, who... well, yes! Wen Ning. What were you wanting to ask?
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Some of the herbs I've gathered have been identifiable. Others require experimentation when we settle.
[ her actual question takes some time to formulate because thinking about her brother hurts in so many ways. at least a-Yuan's alive and seemingly had a happy child. ]
Hanguang-jun has informed me a-Yuan knows of a-Ning, and a-Yuan mentioned his name. Stories from you?
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he suspected this conversation might have headed his way, one day. he'd turned a blind eye toward it, hoping it'd be further and further out. it seems it no longer is, and his fist tightens around this particular crystal. )
I don't think this is a conversation I can have like this.
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[ it's a conversation she needs to have, even though she feels torn between wanting to know and wanting to hide from the knowledge. she's never been one to run, though, even if the burial mounds had ultimately only been a short escape from reality. ]
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I have the wine!
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[ And she does, searching through the camp until she finds Wei Wuxian, appearing at his side as quietly as she can, grateful it's a small camp, and that they can go somewhere else to deal with this conversation. ]
Wei Wuxian. Did you really find wine?
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I could whine instead, but I thought this might go down more easily.
( His whining, by purpose, tended to annoy people more than leave them feeling particularly enlightened. )
Where to?
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[ This isn't a topic she'll easily drop, considering that it involves her brother.
Finding somewhere away from camp isn't too difficult, although they're left with fewer places to sit. Pick between a fallen log or a comfortable rock, Wei Wuxian. ]
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( He's walked that one log bridge often enough, it's no surprise he selects the felled tree. There's a good span of available space, and he untucks two small stand-ins for cups, tinned metal that they are, offering one to her. )
Your last memory, ( he asks, uncapping the flask to pour for them both, ) would you tell me what it was, before here?
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The Jin's separating all of us, after we turned ourselves in. I don't know what they did with any of them, although I was told I'd be burned.
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As far as I know... you were. They said your brother was, too. The rest...
( He trails off. She can ask, and he will tell, but he doesn't want to walk those roads in painful memories until he has to, for someone else's sake. For his own, he ignores them. Survives like that. )
Wen Ning wasn't killed. They spent years trying to find a way to control your brother, and ended up failing in the end, leaving him wrapped in chains and with a muddled mind before I pulled the nails out. Jin Guangshan supposedly asked for it, but I know it was Jin Guangyao who manipulated it all, and failed to control what the thought he could, after I was gone. I found him sixteen years later, playing for assistance when I'd tracked the juniors to Dafan Mountain—same statue was causing problems again. Someone had undone the seal.
( He pours her another cup, and drinks of his own. )
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After you were gone?
[ Easier to ask about that, and not Wen Ning, not yet. She had hoped that, once she and Wen Ning had turned themselves over, Wei Wuxian would have gotten out of this, somehow. ]
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( He's been filled in on some details, but the rest are summaries offered in snippets. Nothing concrete. Nothing to sink his teeth into. )
Lan Zhan... he found a-Yuan. He took him into the Lans, raised him as his own. Lan Sizhui.
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You tried dying? You weren't the one to raise a-Yuan.
[ Everything she's gleaned has been in snippets, things she's been able to put together. a-Yuan raised by Hanguang-jun. Wen Ning alive, but trapped for years. All of them older than what she remembers. ]
Sect Leader Jiang didn't take you in?
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I thought they'd murdered all of you. A-Yuan included. Shijie—she died, at the same time they were throwing your ashes to the wind. They never intended for peace, Wen Qing. They murdered everyone, and then they called for my blood before the last of the bodies had cooled, and I was too late to do anything about it. You weren't wrong, you know? Even if we'd found the one who cast that curse, and he was there, I learned by now, who would have believed it? Who would have considered that it wasn't Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, who was out for blood and the unrest of the righteous world, when they scrambled and maimed and killed of their own volition chasing after the tiger seal in those moments before I destroyed it.
( He doesn't say anything about Jiang Cheng. He feels like saying his shijie died indicates enough of... that moment, Jiang Cheng's grieving outrage, and the stone under his feet, under Lan Zhan's chest, that shuddered at Sandu's strike.
He'd preferred dying, to being the death and ruin of the last two people he believed mattered to him in that world, A-Yuan unknown and feverish in Yiling, away from them all. )
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She fiddles with the hem of her robes, for the first time since she was a child, then smoothes it down, and reaches for her cup again, finishing it off. ]
You were supposed to find him. And live, somehow. I had hoped that turning ourselves over would be the end of it. The knife would be gone, and the Wen's dismantled, nothing to fear from us. [ It had been a foolish hope, but it had made the walk to Carp Tower that much easier. ] How long were you... dead? Gone?
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He pours her another drink. )
Sixteen years. Sixteen years, before someone contrived to convince a deeply unhappy man to sacrifice himself to bring back the vengeance of a family murderer.
( A dry, tired smile. Oh yes, what a reputation he'd been given, and what a siren's call that had been to the tormented, unravelling Mo Xuanyu. )
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So a-Ning was under Jin Guangyao's control for sixteen years.
[ She led him to his death, or what should have been his death, and instead doomed him to torture. Her words haunt her: they were doomed long before they ventured to the Burial Mounds. ]
And you came back. Hanguang-jun is fond of you, still.
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Imperfectly. From what I can tell, he got away, couldn't be found. The... ones trying to use people inundated with resentment like that had low success.
( this doesn't make it better, and he knows, but... it's what she should hear. he doesn't get to decide against it. )
Haah, much to my surprise, yes.
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Anything else I should know? Who knows about your core?
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