[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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[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."

[acrookedpath]

The care Lan Zhan takes with his words -- ah, but Wei Wuxian is sorry for having teased him in the past. It may be a small thing, in the middle of so many bigger, more awful things, but it must still ache for him to know the Ninth loves another.

He nods. "I know you will be careful when you do," he says. "And -- I will see if she is willing to speak more of the haunting. I do not know if this is a spirit two cultivators alone can suppress."

[lightamidchaos]

He nods back, even as warmth rushes through him on hearing Wei Ying's statement of trust.

"I will," he confirms. "Clarity may help. It is helping Chifeng-zun, I hear."

Something else occurs to him, and he adds,

"By the sea, if possible. She said secrets like this should be spoken in salt water."

[acrookedpath]

He frowns slightly when Lan Zhan mentions the leader of Qinghe Nie -- what has happened, to require someone to play Clarity for him? -- but lets it pass unremarked. There are more pressing matters; he can ask another time.

"I will have to ask Madam Bar for another set of robes, then," he says in a weak stab at humor. "If I am to go wading every time we speak of this."

[lightamidchaos]

"Mn."

He glances across the room at his own robes, still drying over the privacy screen, then back at Wei Ying.

"Possibly. Yes."

[acrookedpath]

"Lan Qiren will not be too hard on you? Maybe you can say you fell in the spring by accident. Or you could ask Madam Bar for new robes until those are repaired."

He gestures to the damp, ruined robes.

[lightamidchaos]

"It will be fine. I have a spare set."

He strokes his thumb over Wei Ying's wrist, absently reassuring.

"I doubt Shufu will notice."

[acrookedpath]

He doesn't expect the touch to make his arms prickle as they do, as if his skin had been scoured by the blinding rage and left too sensitive.

"Good." Quietly. "Then that is one less thing I'll worry about."

[lightamidchaos]

"Do not worry."

Not about him, at any rate.

[acrookedpath]

"Lan Zhan," he says with a gentle laugh, "will you ask the sun not to rise next?"

He turns his hand enough to give Lan Zhan's a quick squeeze, then reclaims it so he can finish off the last of the steamed buns.

[lightamidchaos]

"If necessary."

He pours another cup of tea for Wei Ying, then sets the teapot aside and reaches for the bag he had brought back up from the inlet.

[acrookedpath]

He snorts an extremely undignified laugh, and -- without quite realizing -- the look he gives Lan Zhan is full of fondness.

As the other man fetches the bag, Wei Wuxian perks up, recognizing the sack Madam Bar gave them yesterday. "Is that -- ? Did you retrieve everything?"

[lightamidchaos]

"I did not check, but I expect so."

He opens the bag and takes out, one after the other: a water stained scroll (placed there at some nebulous time after it had been left to dry on the rock), a black strip of cloth, a silver ring, and gemstones of jade and sapphire.

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian pulls a rueful, resigned face at the sight of the scroll. "Ah, Lan Zhan," he sighs as he picks it up, "I hope you are prepared to smuggle bottle after bottle of chili oil from Madam Bar when she begins feeding me weak broth."

He unrolls the scroll a little to see how much the ink has smudged. It's not as bad as he feared: just a few blurry characters here and there amid the water staining. Still. He rolls it back up to set aside.

His hand hovers over the strip of black cloth a moment before he can bring himself to pick it up.