There is the caress of a bird-bone finger on his ribbon, weight so ephemeral he thinks, pettily, to deny it dip — to resist against it, his body so often a fortress against Wei Ying's evils, now turned jail.
But then, Wei Ying's eyes glisten dark like the backbone of a candle's wick just as flame consumes it, and austerity invites a farce of forms. In Wangji's hands, the ribbon is a learned instrument, snake-charmed — he weaponises it neatly, taking advantage of Wei Ying's exposed finger to wrap each end of silk around where root meets knuckle, then cross them over, and bring the headband up to bind the sharp hills of Wei Ying's wrist. Once, around bone. Twice, like a cascading moan, unfinished.
He knots it down — a rustic arrangement, to complement the sea that hurls insults at their ship, the timed cadence of the Pariah's creaks and wooden screeches that swallow them like maws unhinged. A vessel is a loud thing, an organism breathing. It does not sleep.
"Chase off the spirits of this ship, and you win the rest," he gives with his gift, and there's a moment of blessed pale nothing, when he knows all too clearly he has won a hand — that Wei Ying will have anticipated easy concessions or greed or rejection, but not playful bargain, not a game.
"If I complete first, you yield the match."
Lovers are flimsy creatures, scared of the shadow of predictability. And where is Wei Ying, if he is not entertained?
Preoccupied, as experience would have it, by the mysteries he applies himself to, at heart bent toward the protections of his and his own. So utterly has he been destroyed in their eradication, so slow the rebuilding, but still with new learnings, new hopes, new dreams to protect.
A whole world, now two, to find a way though, reliant on skills and not the difference of his youth's strength. He is himself, and he is the thousand creaking groans of the ship, the sea, the people, the rats, the supplies, the skulking shadows, and this moment, precious and powerful.
Each crossing, wrapping down his arm a tightness in his chest and lower dipping, until he smiles, laughing low and deep as Lan Zhan sets the task at hand. The challenge, and there they stood with the Wens pulled before the archer's targets; there they stood in the woods of Phoenix Mountain, where the bartering of twinned souls found steady footing underground before he had it ripped away on the callous words of a petty, jealous man; there he was made and unmade in a time where his secrets were the stitching of his soul, and then, it had been simple. It had been ferocious, and he had lost his sister even as she stood before him and defended him, and that, perhaps, is part of what he doesn't forgive a dead man for.
Not that it is his right anymore than it is his wrong. It simply was.
Like this. Like a step forward, and a ribbon-wrapped hand wrapping companionably around Lan Zhan's upper arm, the hold that so often his husband had employed for him, to stop, to steady, to claim.
Companionable now, with a smile.
"Whatever they ask, Lan Zhan? Oh, the chaos we'll sow." His free hand, reaching forward, fingers touching the door's handle, the pulse of what awaits beyond the quietude borrowed from its intended occupant. "Accepted. On your mark."
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But then, Wei Ying's eyes glisten dark like the backbone of a candle's wick just as flame consumes it, and austerity invites a farce of forms. In Wangji's hands, the ribbon is a learned instrument, snake-charmed — he weaponises it neatly, taking advantage of Wei Ying's exposed finger to wrap each end of silk around where root meets knuckle, then cross them over, and bring the headband up to bind the sharp hills of Wei Ying's wrist. Once, around bone. Twice, like a cascading moan, unfinished.
He knots it down — a rustic arrangement, to complement the sea that hurls insults at their ship, the timed cadence of the Pariah's creaks and wooden screeches that swallow them like maws unhinged. A vessel is a loud thing, an organism breathing. It does not sleep.
"Chase off the spirits of this ship, and you win the rest," he gives with his gift, and there's a moment of blessed pale nothing, when he knows all too clearly he has won a hand — that Wei Ying will have anticipated easy concessions or greed or rejection, but not playful bargain, not a game.
"If I complete first, you yield the match."
Lovers are flimsy creatures, scared of the shadow of predictability. And where is Wei Ying, if he is not entertained?
you bet he did (did we already haytumblr)
A whole world, now two, to find a way though, reliant on skills and not the difference of his youth's strength. He is himself, and he is the thousand creaking groans of the ship, the sea, the people, the rats, the supplies, the skulking shadows, and this moment, precious and powerful.
Each crossing, wrapping down his arm a tightness in his chest and lower dipping, until he smiles, laughing low and deep as Lan Zhan sets the task at hand. The challenge, and there they stood with the Wens pulled before the archer's targets; there they stood in the woods of Phoenix Mountain, where the bartering of twinned souls found steady footing underground before he had it ripped away on the callous words of a petty, jealous man; there he was made and unmade in a time where his secrets were the stitching of his soul, and then, it had been simple. It had been ferocious, and he had lost his sister even as she stood before him and defended him, and that, perhaps, is part of what he doesn't forgive a dead man for.
Not that it is his right anymore than it is his wrong. It simply was.
Like this. Like a step forward, and a ribbon-wrapped hand wrapping companionably around Lan Zhan's upper arm, the hold that so often his husband had employed for him, to stop, to steady, to claim.
Companionable now, with a smile.
"Whatever they ask, Lan Zhan? Oh, the chaos we'll sow." His free hand, reaching forward, fingers touching the door's handle, the pulse of what awaits beyond the quietude borrowed from its intended occupant. "Accepted. On your mark."
Get set.
Go.