[pfsb] ritual aftermath

[lightamidchaos]

He takes Wei Ying from the ritual and back to the room upstairs as quickly as he can, half-wild with worry that he tries to hide.

The other man is unsteady on his feet, dizzy from the vast amounts of resentful energy that had crashed down on them all by the lake. Add to that Harrow's own power, the shock of seeing Jiang Yanli's ghost inhabiting one of the skeletons Harrow had animated, and--

He could curse himself for a fool, and will, later. Right now, there are more important matters.

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[lightamidchaos]

"A secret."

Someone must be told. Why not you, why not now?

"The vault. In the dark. When the resentful energy surged. You saw it?"

He is not entirely certain how much Wei Ying was aware of, at the very end.

[acrookedpath]

"I saw the coffin. And the ice." The furrow deepens between his eyebrows. "Was there more?"

By the end, he wasn't aware of much beyond the paper in his hands, the vortex of resentful energy, and his slowly-losing battle to stay conscious.

[lightamidchaos]

"Mn."

There is no possible way that he knows of to explain the look on Harrow's face as she had stared at the tomb, and so he does not even try.

"The coffin." A beat of silence falls. "The Tomb."

[acrookedpath]

The weight he places upon that last word --

Wei Wuxian straightens up as the realization hits.

"The Locked Tomb. The one she prays to?"

[lightamidchaos]

He nods.

"She was still in the ocean. When I returned."

Come a little closer, Hanguang-jun.

"I do not know if she would have spoken of it, otherwise."

[acrookedpath]

That explains the tide line on Lan Zhan's robes, he thinks distantly.

"She was able to drag the entire Tomb to the inn?" Stunned. "Something that vengeful -- and that's what her people worship," he realizes. "What she has pledged her life to. She faced that every day and she still lives?"

Three months of exposure in the Burial Mounds nearly killed him. Would have killed him, had he not learned his crafty tricks. And the Ninth has stood before her Tomb for seventeen years.

[lightamidchaos]

"What they guard," he corrects, very quietly. "What they are supposed to guard. So that what lies inside might remain suppressed."

He feels increasingly hollow inside, as the slow-growing realization of just what Harrow's actions as a child may mean for her now continues to spread through him in the cold light of morning.

[acrookedpath]

" -- right, right," he realizes. "I pray the rock is never rolled away. You are right, Lan Zhan. I think I will need another three pots of tea before my mind is clear again."

Ruefully, he scoops up the last bite of his congee.

[lightamidchaos]

"Mn."

He draws a long, slow breath.

"But it was."

[acrookedpath]

He blinks, mouth still full of congee.

"Hnh?"

[lightamidchaos]

"The rock."

Very, very quietly - almost unconsciously so, as if to keep the secret from being overheard by anyone else.

"Was rolled away. Harrow opened the Tomb."

[acrookedpath]

Breathing would be a good idea at some point, he decides. In Milliways, unfortunately, being dead does not eliminate the need for air.

Wei Wuian manages to swallow his food. It sticks unpleasantly to his gullet the whole way down, and his spoon clatters as he drops it back into the bowl.

"When?" He's gone pale. "Not when we were -- is that why the resentful energy -- ?"

[lightamidchaos]

He shakes his head.

"No. Not then. Years ago."

"She was twelve."

A child, still.

[acrookedpath]

Twelve years old, and she loosed -- that. Broke whatever spiritual chains bound the Tomb closed and let it free into the world. How could she have survived? How could anyone from her world have survived, even a world full of powerful necromancers? Were they able to catch it and suppress it again? It can't be the reason why the Ninth House has fallen into disrepair, that was happening before Harrow's birth, that's why, with her parents --

He tries to yank back on the reins of his racing thoughts, staring down at his empty bowl, the spoon stained red with bits of chili oil.

"She should not be alive," he whispers. "No one should. Lan Zhan, that energy -- it was worse than the Burial Mounds. Far worse. How did she survive it?"

[lightamidchaos]

"I do not know. It still sleeps; maybe that is how."

Worse than the Burial Mounds.

His mind fills with the worst of his imagined visions of Wei Ying during the three months he was missing, and superimposes the tomb in front of Demon-Subdue Cave.

He closes his eyes, trying to keep from reacting. It will not help Wei Ying in any way if he cannot keep himself together while telling this, and Wei Ying needs to know.

The thought helps. He opens his eyes again and looks back at Wei Ying.

"It is a corpse, a sleeping corpse. She said her god, her world's god, fought it, but could not destroy it, and sealed it in the tomb. Her House was created to guard the tomb. And you know what her parents did."

Try as he might, he cannot keep his voice from flattening.

"She wanted to know why. What - what was worth that. And she opened the tomb. To find out."

[acrookedpath]

He swallows, hard enough to send his throat bobbing, and rubs a hand across his face. "All right," he says. "If it still sleeps -- she must not have broken all of its chains. Maybe."

Which, in all honesty, makes it worse. If it's still partially subdued and still that violent --

"But she did open a tomb she swore to keep locked. What happened?"

[lightamidchaos]

His jaw sets in tight lines.

"Her parents killed themselves. For their failure. Instead of working to repair the Tomb or suppress the corpse again."

"She--"

A long, long beat of silence hangs in the air as he tries to figure out how to say this.

"It haunts her, Wei Ying. She sees the corpse - a woman, she said it was, a beautiful woman - she sees it where it cannot be. Hears things that are not real. And she loves it. She would not hear me speak of suppressing it, or of strengthening her to resist."

He makes no apology for having offered to do so. Not in this.

[acrookedpath]

If his thoughts were racing before, Wei Wuxian cannot think at all now for the black cloud whirling in his head.

Abandoned to a resentful spirit. As if her parents had not done enough to their own child. If she already had the souls of two hundred dead inside her chest, why not one more, was that it? They left her to fend for herself against that, after she loosened its chains enough that it may not have obliterated her world but it certainly seems on the verge of obliterating her mind. All for the misplaced curiosity of a twelve-year-old who only wished to understand.

It is good, he thinks savagely, that they are already dead.

He doesn't say a word -- he can't -- but his hands have curled into shaking fists against the table.

[lightamidchaos]

Wei Ying's flute is lying on the shelf out of reach (and is not Chenqing, in any case), but it does not matter. Alarm shoots through him with the force of an arrow as the other man clenches his fists.

"Wei Ying."

Lan Wangji places his own hands over Wei Ying's wrists, holding them in a loose grasp, trying to help him focus.

[acrookedpath]

The touch brings him back to himself, an anchor point outside the black cloud. He lowers his head; breathes in, out; tries to loosen his clenched fingers. They give way with agonizing slowness -- but finally, his palms are flat on the table, wrists still held lightly in Lan Zhan's grasp.

"They abandoned her to be destroyed by a vengeful spirit." Low, and still furious.

[lightamidchaos]

"Yes."

He is equally angry, but his anger is a colder thing. He keeps his hands where they are, his hold anchoring without restraint.

"They murdered their House, save for the elders, for Harrow and one other. They lay the burden of that slaughter on her shoulders as a child."

One no older than A-Yuan, from what Harrow had said.

"And then they killed themselves, and would have killed her, save that they failed in that."

[acrookedpath]

"They should be glad they are dead," he mutters aloud before he can stop himself. He does not look at Lan Zhan.

[lightamidchaos]

He squeezes Wei Ying's wrists, gently, a silent encouragement to maintain balance, but does not argue with him. Not about this.

[acrookedpath]

He closes his eyes. The pressure at his wrists continues to tether him, like a rope tossed to a floundering swimmer. He calms his breathing, little by little, and gently but firmly pushes the black cloud down into his chest, where he can press it small and lock it tight.

"Does she realize she's haunted?" he asks. His voice is calmer, if still brittle, and he can finally raise his eyes to Lan Zhan. "You said she refused help, when you offered."

[lightamidchaos]

He sighs.

"She knows. She ... feels guilty, for liking her cavalier. When she also cares for the ghost. I think it is why she did not wish to hear it, when I suggested suppression."

Lan Wangji says this as carefully as he can. If Wei Ying likes Harrow-- well, better for him to know that his affections will not be returned.

"It does not matter. I will offer to help again. Clearly, so that there will not be any misunderstandings."