[he was just thinking how he should probably dust and sweep and do laundry...
but her questions promise to save him from such...uh, divine work. and what kind of a big brother would he be if he couldn't put everything aside for her?]
did you eat yet? shijie sent over more food, the kitchen's overflowing with it.
[No use running from it now. She emerges from her room and makes her way to the kitchen, fingers twisting together anxiously. She’s not sure if she could eat anything anyhow, not with the knots her stomach was in.
She stands around with that peculiar look one usually has when they have something to say, but have no clue how to go about it. After opening and closing her mouth a couple of times, she finally just settles with:]
[there's a note of reverence in his voice. the fact that other people get to taste her soup for themselves...well, he would've thought that he'd be a little jealous, but he doesn't feel that way at all. he's proud to share it.]
Oh and some dumplings and - Sae? [wei wuxian stops mid-menu after looking up at her. her expression is strained, she keeps twisting her hands together, and the cause could be large or small. just being back must be a lot. his voice softens when he continues, and he pats a seat for her.] Lan Zhan also made some tea if you'd rather start with that.
[She listens, jumping a little when he suddenly says her name. For a second she looks bewildered—oh, right, she’s a person, with a name, who physically existed in the world—and nods slowly.]
...He makes good tea. [She takes a seat and then stares down at her hands, gathering up the courage to just. Say it. Ask it. Get it out there, somehow—] You died.
[...Maybe not like that, but it’s blurted out anyhow.] ...Wangji-nii... Said that you’d died.
He really does. It's one of the reasons I keep him around. I should drink more of it. [and less alcohol?? he never said that. just more tea. he starts pouring a cup for the both of them when his hand jerks, spilling a little of it on the table instead.] Ah...he told you.
[he mops up the spilled liquid with his sleeve while wondering what brought the subject of his death up between them. it's not something lan zhan brings up casually in conversation. he barely has conversations at all.
wei wuxian slides a cup over and sits down across from her.]
He told you the truth. I died and then I was summoned back many years later.
[Wei Wuxian hardly needed to say it—the jerk of his hand and the spilled tea confirms it all.
She takes the cup and says nothing for a long moment, trying to figure out which question to start with. The warmth of the tea is comforting and she focuses on that, the stem that rises from the tea, the heat seeping into her fingers.]
[he's never really talked to anyone about this. either people already knew or it just didn't seem important to tell them. he doesn't focus on it. he has a new life.
but he waits for whatever she wants to say or ask next, taking a sip of tea as he does. it's really something...it would be even better with a drop of two or liquor.]
I wasn't killed. [he shakes his head. lan zhan might disagree with that, say that he was driven to a point of no return. but it is what it is. no physical hand pushed him.] I made choices that other people thought were wrong. They did things that I thought were wrong too. And when I used the power that they disagreed with, they started to hate me - they were mostly scared.
[a monster, a killer, a villain. how busy he must've been in-between trying to coax things to grow from cursed dirt.]
People that I cared about started getting hurt [he closes his eyes for a moment and can only see the color red, can only smell blood and ash.] So I thought it was better to just...
[The lack of details makes it a little confusing to follow, but she thinks she gets the gist of it. She thinks of Itsuki and seeing the body. People getting hurt because of the selfish decisions or her and her sister. If they hadn’t run, if they hadn’t thought they could escape... Everyone would have been able to live.
‘It’s all our fault,’ the words echoed in her head, spiraled. If she’d fought Yae, would Yae have stayed for her as surely as she had run with Yae?
Her fingers touch at the markings over her neck and she shudders, her voice sounding small, brittle, and hollow when she finally speaks again.]
...I was sacrificed.
[She hasn’t told anyone either, not sure how anyone would respond, not sure how much she could say. There were rules not to speak of the ritual to outsiders, but she was dead. The ritual had failed. They weren’t in their own worlds anymore. What did it matter now?]
The villagers— my father...hung me... And I died. But I came back too. [She pauses, staring a hole into the table] But it wasn’t as nicely as you. [That is, she didn’t come back alive and whole and sane like he appears to be now.]
[he forces himself to open his eyes slowly when she says those words, to keep his shock and emotion in check even with his breath caught in a gasp on his lips. from the outside, they don't seem to have much in common, a timid girl from one part of the world and this boisterous man from another. but he'd felt drawn to her from the start. she was different, maybe a little eerie to some people during those moments when she was confused and her kimono spattered with blood.
none of that bothered him. it was almost familiar. maybe what they do have in common is why.]
When you say it wasn't as nicely, what does that mean?
[his hand is casually stretched across the table. there if she wants it, but easily attributed to his sprawling ways if she doesn't.]
[She stares down at his hand a moment before slowly she reaches to take it, the weight of it in her own making her sigh a little. This was real, this was reality. This wasn’t some strange dream her half-mad mind had made up to cope or something.
It requires a little bit of backstory, her thumb rubbing lightly against his hand too sooth herself, focusing on the texture of his skin.] My village housed a... a pit, a gateway, the connected the world of the living to the world of the dead. The Hellish Abyss. Sacrifices were needed to appease it and create a seal to keep it from spilling over. But... they didn’t do it right... They sacrificed me, but not the proper way. So it... didn’t work...
[That doesn’t answer the question though and she blinks, taking a breath.] ...They threw my body in. But I was... too angry... I was too upset. I came back—wrong. Twisted. And... powerful. I commanded the whole of the abyss’s power to get back at everyone.
...I might’ve said...there was a massacre in my village. I wasn’t lying. But the person... was me. I killed everyone. I cursed the place, trapped them there... It was all me.
['the hellish abyss'? yeah, that's a pit filled with resentful energy if he ever heard of one.]
I spent three months in a cursed place. You grew up in one for years, with no one to fight for you and your sister. With people just willing to give you to it.
[how many men lived in her village? mothers? her own father. just letting this happen, the same way all the good men of his world watched women and children being murdered because that somehow cleansed the evil in the world. wei wuxian swallows hard before shaking his head to clear it.]
I died the way you came back. I was angry and twisted and hurt. I wanted revenge on all of them. All that power, it eats away at you. It corrupts.
[She’s quiet for a moment, not sure how to feel about any of it. His anger feels... good, in a way. No one had ever been angry over what they were supposed to do, except for Yae.]
...I grew up knowing. The ritual is always done with twins, and there was another pair. We thought, maybe... it wouldn’t have to be us, but...I knew. I was the one who’d have to die. That’s why... no one bothered much with me. It was always Yae. Yae who was supposed to the ‘Remaining.’
People don’t waste time loving the cattle they’re to slaughter either. [She’d used the comparison with Xichen before and he’d been horrified, but it was the only thing she could reasonably compare it to.]
I...wanted to do it. The other twins’ ritual failed, so we were to be next. Yae wanted to run way, and I... wanted whatever Yae wanted. But deep down, I... She was supposed to kill me. That’s how it works. The elder twin kills the younger. I wanted her to kill me.
[She blinks and shudders, touching at her throat again with her free hand. That wasn’t the mark she was supposed to have.] She was going to kill me, and I’d become a butterfly and protect the village. That’s how... it was supposed to go. But we ran, and I... fell. They captured me. I... I thought for sure, Yae would be back. She’d have to come back. She’d do the ritual with me and we’d be together and...
[Sae’s brow furrows and her shoulders hunch a little.] ...She never showed up. So I...died alone. I never saw Yae again.
[he's angrier about it than he can show, because he can tell that a part of sae is still attached to that life, wishes that things had gone the way they were "supposed" to. before he thought that she was sheltered and denied so many things, and he wanted her to live because of that. now that feeling is stronger than ever. sae's life here will be a happy one. it has to be.]
People aren't cattle.
[it's out before he can stop it, the words sharp. wei wuxian clenches his jaw to silence himself, not wanting to discourage her from speaking until she's finished.]
What do you think would have happened to Yae if she'd done it?
[Xichen had said much the same thing, though he didn’t know any of the details beyond a basic idea that Sae was a priestess in relative seclusion for her village.] ...People aren’t cattle... [She echoes him softly in agreement, nodding with a faint amusement.
The question makes her pause, though, since clearly she hadn’t really thought about it before.] Oh. Um... Hm... [Sae looks down at the table, considering.]
...Normally, the Remaining—the surviving twins—go one of three ways. The Remaining are considered like... Living deities left behind on earth, to guard the village and the human world. Some are able to live their lives normally, I guess. That’s what our father did— He was a Remaining too. He got married and had us and was an important figure in the village.
Some... just go insane. They’re locked in the storehouse for the rest of their lives, usually.
And some— [She cuts herself off suddenly, squeezing his hand tightly, her expression looking guilty. For a moment she doesn’t say anything before she speaks quietly.] Itsuki... was the Remaining from the ritual before ours’. The one that failed. He killed his brother, but it didn’t work. He loved Mutsuki too much... [She trails off and shakes her head.] His hair turned white and he tried to help us escape. But in the end, he... he killed himself. I found the body. Some go that way...
[If they’d simply stayed, if they’d done the ritual, then maybe Itsuki wouldn’t have... She shakes her head again.]
I think, if Yae had done it...I think our ritual would have worked. And I think... Maybe her and Itsuki might have gotten married. The two of them probably would have worked to abolish the ritual entirely, find a way to seal the abyss permanently...
[Sae is quiet for a moment, jealous Though she can’t say which of them she’s jealous of.] My father once told Yae that Remaining like them had to live for the sake of the village. I think Yae maybe would’ve taken that to heart in some way. She thought the ritual was terrible. [Sae’s tone suggests she doesn’t quite see it that way, but she still respects and bows to her sister’s decision on it anyhow.]
[he looks up when she squeezes his hand, listening extra closely to the parts of her story that follow. drawing conclusions that make him hurt for her even more. something to ask more about later, maybe.]
But you can't be sure. And even if it had worked, do you think she would've ever been happy again?
[he doesn't. he doesn't come right out and say as much, but the suggestion of it is probably there anyway.]
The ritual meant killing someone that she loved with her own hands. Maybe she would've lived on and gotten married, maybe she would've gone insane, but a part of her would've died with you. She might've come to hate the village and everyone in it. Maybe she would've found a way to unleash that power instead of you.
[there's no way of knowing any of this. there's only one part of it that he's sure of.]
Watching your sister die...the pain from it is worse than dying yourself.
[Sae winces a little, quickly shaking her head.] No! No, that’s— [She doesn’t truly know though, does she? Yae didn’t die but she had still lost her, and that pain was carried with her ever since.
But that was only because it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Because it hadn’t been done the right away. Right? She chews on her bottom lip, looking conflicted and uneasy.] But if it had been done the right way, she wouldn’t have become ‘less.’ if she’d killed me, my soul would join with hers’, in a way. We’d be together forever—truly. Not even... Not even the passage of time could change that.
But if we’d grown up, we would’ve grown apart... But with the ritual, we would’ve become one. She wouldn’t be alone, I’d be right there with her! [her voice has raised as she spoke, slightly tinged with hysteria, her breathing hard. She seems to realize how frantic she’d become however, because she flinches and shrinks in on herself, looking confused and a little sullen.]
...It... Things just got worse because we ran... [her voice sounds small, but she’s not even sure what she’s arguing for here. 17 years of never having to question this before was knocking up painfully with outsiders’ perspectives and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it besides get defensive. It was all she’d known, after all. If they’d managed to fully escape, everyone likely would have died anyhow when the Abyss rebelled.] What else were we supposed to do...?
[he gives her hand a squeeze when she starts getting frantic, and reaches his free hand out to slide down her hair.]
It's okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.
[wei wuxian can see how she struggles, and a lifetime of believing a certain way simply can't be changed in a matter of days or weeks. and honestly, even he doesn't have a clear answer for her question, because they should never have been faced with such cruel choices in the first place.]
I think your sister followed what her heart told her to do. And so did you, because you loved her so much. Sometimes the result of that is painful. But you did the best you could, with almost no one to help you, and neither of you are to blame. Even if you don't believe that now, I hope you'll still remember it. I hope you can live on with no regrets.
[She swallows hard before she gets up to move around the table, throwing her arms around him tightly. Her heart pounded in her chest, her head ached, the wound on her throat throbbed. She didn’t know if it was better or worse to not have an answer and to not have a direction to be pointed in.
Now, suddenly, she had all sorts of doors open to her and still her feet felt paralyzed to the spot with indecision.] I’m sorry... [Sae didn’t know what else to do but apologize. She’d started this conversation wanting to commiserate, and instead she feels like, somehow, she’s failed him.]
[wei wuxian's breath catches in a soft gasp when she hugs him. his eyes start to water immediately, because he can feel how tight it is. her sincerity, her own strength. very few have ever apologized for what happened to him. he never expected it. but it feels good to hear anyway, and he has to remind himself to be a little careful when he hugs her in return.]
I'm sorry this happened to us too. [a whispered voice. in the end, the perfect thing to say comes from her lips, and she's so far from having failed him. he smiles, even though his eyes are still damp.] But I promise to watch out for you from now on. Because I want you here, and I also don't want Yae mad at me.
It’s not right. [She murmurs. It’s not right that he died, and its’ not right that she wasn’t killed in the ‘proper’ way.] And it’s not fair.
[But she laughs a little at the mention of Yae getting mad at him and lifts her face to press a shy kiss to his cheek.] You could never disappoint me. I’ll watch out for you too. I don’t...I don’t have any of my abilities anymore form home, but I... I’ll do my best too.
After all, I’m sure Wangji-nii is even scarier than Yae if he gets mad.
[lan wangji would take a limb off of anyone who tried it. but not wanting to upset her is an incentive all its own. wei wuxian keeps his arms around her, keeps her on his side of the table.]
Lan Zhan is really something when he's angry. [that impish smile crosses his lips. he doesn't think that she ever has anything to fear from his husband-to-be.] He really must look scary, but all I can think is how proud I am. Lan Zhan only gets angry for good reasons. He's not petty.
[The entire second episode where he get real petty pass-agg at Jiang Cheng has something to say about that, Wei Wuxian. Alas, love truly is blind...
Se leans against him, using him like a prop to keep her up] He seems really strong. He played his instrument for me once. It’s sort of like the koto— I should play for you sometime. I learned how to play that. [one of the more acceptable feminine pursuits she was allowed to learn alongside Yae.]
Mm, though, I guess we’d have to find a koto first...
I really want to hear you play. We'll look for one tomorrow, or find someone to make one.
[it might be a little harder than poking a few holes in a piece of bamboo, but still. it they can manage it, and she's comfortable enough, maybe she can play at the wedding.]
I'm lucky to have two people who can play me a lullaby when I can't sleep.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[he was just thinking how he should probably dust and sweep and do laundry...
but her questions promise to save him from such...uh, divine work. and what kind of a big brother would he be if he couldn't put everything aside for her?]
did you eat yet? shijie sent over more food, the kitchen's overflowing with it.
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I haven’t. I’ll come out.
[No use running from it now. She emerges from her room and makes her way to the kitchen, fingers twisting together anxiously. She’s not sure if she could eat anything anyhow, not with the knots her stomach was in.
She stands around with that peculiar look one usually has when they have something to say, but have no clue how to go about it. After opening and closing her mouth a couple of times, she finally just settles with:]
What did she send?
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[there's a note of reverence in his voice. the fact that other people get to taste her soup for themselves...well, he would've thought that he'd be a little jealous, but he doesn't feel that way at all. he's proud to share it.]
Oh and some dumplings and - Sae? [wei wuxian stops mid-menu after looking up at her. her expression is strained, she keeps twisting her hands together, and the cause could be large or small. just being back must be a lot. his voice softens when he continues, and he pats a seat for her.] Lan Zhan also made some tea if you'd rather start with that.
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...He makes good tea. [She takes a seat and then stares down at her hands, gathering up the courage to just. Say it. Ask it. Get it out there, somehow—] You died.
[...Maybe not like that, but it’s blurted out anyhow.] ...Wangji-nii... Said that you’d died.
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He really does. It's one of the reasons I keep him around. I should drink more of it. [and less alcohol?? he never said that. just more tea. he starts pouring a cup for the both of them when his hand jerks, spilling a little of it on the table instead.] Ah...he told you.
[he mops up the spilled liquid with his sleeve while wondering what brought the subject of his death up between them. it's not something lan zhan brings up casually in conversation. he barely has conversations at all.
wei wuxian slides a cup over and sits down across from her.]
He told you the truth. I died and then I was summoned back many years later.
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She takes the cup and says nothing for a long moment, trying to figure out which question to start with. The warmth of the tea is comforting and she focuses on that, the stem that rises from the tea, the heat seeping into her fingers.]
Why... did you die? Were you killed?
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but he waits for whatever she wants to say or ask next, taking a sip of tea as he does. it's really something...it would be even better with a drop of two or liquor.]
I wasn't killed. [he shakes his head. lan zhan might disagree with that, say that he was driven to a point of no return. but it is what it is. no physical hand pushed him.] I made choices that other people thought were wrong. They did things that I thought were wrong too. And when I used the power that they disagreed with, they started to hate me - they were mostly scared.
[a monster, a killer, a villain. how busy he must've been in-between trying to coax things to grow from cursed dirt.]
People that I cared about started getting hurt [he closes his eyes for a moment and can only see the color red, can only smell blood and ash.] So I thought it was better to just...
[he trails off, shrugging his shoulders.]
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‘It’s all our fault,’ the words echoed in her head, spiraled. If she’d fought Yae, would Yae have stayed for her as surely as she had run with Yae?
Her fingers touch at the markings over her neck and she shudders, her voice sounding small, brittle, and hollow when she finally speaks again.]
...I was sacrificed.
[She hasn’t told anyone either, not sure how anyone would respond, not sure how much she could say. There were rules not to speak of the ritual to outsiders, but she was dead. The ritual had failed. They weren’t in their own worlds anymore. What did it matter now?]
The villagers— my father...hung me... And I died. But I came back too. [She pauses, staring a hole into the table] But it wasn’t as nicely as you. [That is, she didn’t come back alive and whole and sane like he appears to be now.]
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none of that bothered him. it was almost familiar. maybe what they do have in common is why.]
When you say it wasn't as nicely, what does that mean?
[his hand is casually stretched across the table. there if she wants it, but easily attributed to his sprawling ways if she doesn't.]
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It requires a little bit of backstory, her thumb rubbing lightly against his hand too sooth herself, focusing on the texture of his skin.] My village housed a... a pit, a gateway, the connected the world of the living to the world of the dead. The Hellish Abyss. Sacrifices were needed to appease it and create a seal to keep it from spilling over. But... they didn’t do it right... They sacrificed me, but not the proper way. So it... didn’t work...
[That doesn’t answer the question though and she blinks, taking a breath.] ...They threw my body in. But I was... too angry... I was too upset. I came back—wrong. Twisted. And... powerful. I commanded the whole of the abyss’s power to get back at everyone.
...I might’ve said...there was a massacre in my village. I wasn’t lying. But the person... was me. I killed everyone. I cursed the place, trapped them there... It was all me.
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['the hellish abyss'? yeah, that's a pit filled with resentful energy if he ever heard of one.]
I spent three months in a cursed place. You grew up in one for years, with no one to fight for you and your sister. With people just willing to give you to it.
[how many men lived in her village? mothers? her own father. just letting this happen, the same way all the good men of his world watched women and children being murdered because that somehow cleansed the evil in the world. wei wuxian swallows hard before shaking his head to clear it.]
I died the way you came back. I was angry and twisted and hurt. I wanted revenge on all of them. All that power, it eats away at you. It corrupts.
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...I grew up knowing. The ritual is always done with twins, and there was another pair. We thought, maybe... it wouldn’t have to be us, but...I knew. I was the one who’d have to die. That’s why... no one bothered much with me. It was always Yae. Yae who was supposed to the ‘Remaining.’
People don’t waste time loving the cattle they’re to slaughter either. [She’d used the comparison with Xichen before and he’d been horrified, but it was the only thing she could reasonably compare it to.]
I...wanted to do it. The other twins’ ritual failed, so we were to be next. Yae wanted to run way, and I... wanted whatever Yae wanted. But deep down, I... She was supposed to kill me. That’s how it works. The elder twin kills the younger. I wanted her to kill me.
[She blinks and shudders, touching at her throat again with her free hand. That wasn’t the mark she was supposed to have.] She was going to kill me, and I’d become a butterfly and protect the village. That’s how... it was supposed to go. But we ran, and I... fell. They captured me. I... I thought for sure, Yae would be back. She’d have to come back. She’d do the ritual with me and we’d be together and...
[Sae’s brow furrows and her shoulders hunch a little.] ...She never showed up. So I...died alone. I never saw Yae again.
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People aren't cattle.
[it's out before he can stop it, the words sharp. wei wuxian clenches his jaw to silence himself, not wanting to discourage her from speaking until she's finished.]
What do you think would have happened to Yae if she'd done it?
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The question makes her pause, though, since clearly she hadn’t really thought about it before.] Oh. Um... Hm... [Sae looks down at the table, considering.]
...Normally, the Remaining—the surviving twins—go one of three ways. The Remaining are considered like... Living deities left behind on earth, to guard the village and the human world. Some are able to live their lives normally, I guess. That’s what our father did— He was a Remaining too. He got married and had us and was an important figure in the village.
Some... just go insane. They’re locked in the storehouse for the rest of their lives, usually.
And some— [She cuts herself off suddenly, squeezing his hand tightly, her expression looking guilty. For a moment she doesn’t say anything before she speaks quietly.] Itsuki... was the Remaining from the ritual before ours’. The one that failed. He killed his brother, but it didn’t work. He loved Mutsuki too much... [She trails off and shakes her head.] His hair turned white and he tried to help us escape. But in the end, he... he killed himself. I found the body. Some go that way...
[If they’d simply stayed, if they’d done the ritual, then maybe Itsuki wouldn’t have... She shakes her head again.]
I think, if Yae had done it...I think our ritual would have worked. And I think... Maybe her and Itsuki might have gotten married. The two of them probably would have worked to abolish the ritual entirely, find a way to seal the abyss permanently...
[Sae is quiet for a moment, jealous Though she can’t say which of them she’s jealous of.] My father once told Yae that Remaining like them had to live for the sake of the village. I think Yae maybe would’ve taken that to heart in some way. She thought the ritual was terrible. [Sae’s tone suggests she doesn’t quite see it that way, but she still respects and bows to her sister’s decision on it anyhow.]
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But you can't be sure. And even if it had worked, do you think she would've ever been happy again?
[he doesn't. he doesn't come right out and say as much, but the suggestion of it is probably there anyway.]
The ritual meant killing someone that she loved with her own hands. Maybe she would've lived on and gotten married, maybe she would've gone insane, but a part of her would've died with you. She might've come to hate the village and everyone in it. Maybe she would've found a way to unleash that power instead of you.
[there's no way of knowing any of this. there's only one part of it that he's sure of.]
Watching your sister die...the pain from it is worse than dying yourself.
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But that was only because it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Because it hadn’t been done the right away. Right? She chews on her bottom lip, looking conflicted and uneasy.] But if it had been done the right way, she wouldn’t have become ‘less.’ if she’d killed me, my soul would join with hers’, in a way. We’d be together forever—truly. Not even... Not even the passage of time could change that.
But if we’d grown up, we would’ve grown apart... But with the ritual, we would’ve become one. She wouldn’t be alone, I’d be right there with her! [her voice has raised as she spoke, slightly tinged with hysteria, her breathing hard. She seems to realize how frantic she’d become however, because she flinches and shrinks in on herself, looking confused and a little sullen.]
...It... Things just got worse because we ran... [her voice sounds small, but she’s not even sure what she’s arguing for here. 17 years of never having to question this before was knocking up painfully with outsiders’ perspectives and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it besides get defensive. It was all she’d known, after all. If they’d managed to fully escape, everyone likely would have died anyhow when the Abyss rebelled.] What else were we supposed to do...?
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[he gives her hand a squeeze when she starts getting frantic, and reaches his free hand out to slide down her hair.]
It's okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.
[wei wuxian can see how she struggles, and a lifetime of believing a certain way simply can't be changed in a matter of days or weeks. and honestly, even he doesn't have a clear answer for her question, because they should never have been faced with such cruel choices in the first place.]
I think your sister followed what her heart told her to do. And so did you, because you loved her so much. Sometimes the result of that is painful. But you did the best you could, with almost no one to help you, and neither of you are to blame. Even if you don't believe that now, I hope you'll still remember it. I hope you can live on with no regrets.
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Now, suddenly, she had all sorts of doors open to her and still her feet felt paralyzed to the spot with indecision.] I’m sorry... [Sae didn’t know what else to do but apologize. She’d started this conversation wanting to commiserate, and instead she feels like, somehow, she’s failed him.]
I’m sorry all of this happened. To both of us.
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I'm sorry this happened to us too. [a whispered voice. in the end, the perfect thing to say comes from her lips, and she's so far from having failed him. he smiles, even though his eyes are still damp.] But I promise to watch out for you from now on. Because I want you here, and I also don't want Yae mad at me.
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[But she laughs a little at the mention of Yae getting mad at him and lifts her face to press a shy kiss to his cheek.] You could never disappoint me. I’ll watch out for you too. I don’t...I don’t have any of my abilities anymore form home, but I... I’ll do my best too.
After all, I’m sure Wangji-nii is even scarier than Yae if he gets mad.
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[lan wangji would take a limb off of anyone who tried it. but not wanting to upset her is an incentive all its own. wei wuxian keeps his arms around her, keeps her on his side of the table.]
Lan Zhan is really something when he's angry. [that impish smile crosses his lips. he doesn't think that she ever has anything to fear from his husband-to-be.] He really must look scary, but all I can think is how proud I am. Lan Zhan only gets angry for good reasons. He's not petty.
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Se leans against him, using him like a prop to keep her up] He seems really strong. He played his instrument for me once. It’s sort of like the koto— I should play for you sometime. I learned how to play that. [one of the more acceptable feminine pursuits she was allowed to learn alongside Yae.]
Mm, though, I guess we’d have to find a koto first...
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[it might be a little harder than poking a few holes in a piece of bamboo, but still. it they can manage it, and she's comfortable enough, maybe she can play at the wedding.]
I'm lucky to have two people who can play me a lullaby when I can't sleep.