consignation | eastbound inbox

[ No one will believe him, Jiang Cheng realizes with steady, muted horror. He could regale the cultivation world over with this tale, and not one soul would believe he stood witness to Hanguang-jun, gleaming jade of Gusu, patiently suffering the defilement of turtles while pleading with Jiang Wanyin for a boon.

That is the play here, he is certain. Lan Wangji does not come to him head low, humbled, in an hour of need. This, too, is an act of aggression.

Jiang Cheng watches, watches Wangji's hand dip low, watches it cup his own chest in a lover's grasp.

He would be a poor lover with that unenthused grip. Wei Wuxian deserves better. ]

...I see that you have consented to the consumption. Never mind.

[ There are too many questions to ask, too much to be explained. At the rate which Wangji speaks, even the turtles will have died of old age before Jiang Cheng can begin to understand. He lets it go. The years have taught him, if anything, to choose his battles. ]

Where is my brother? [ Brother, Jiang Cheng speaks, feverishly possessive even in this moment. My brother. ]

( Wherever your brother drowned in the waters of Yu Ziyuan's womb.

But there are words a man of honour does not speak, stranded with a turtle that circulates enticingly on his chest and only stopsintermittently to bray in ways startling and unspeakable.

It should not be enjoying itself so. No living being, collapsed upon Hanguang-Jun, should be enjoying itself so. )

Jiang Wanyin.

( Choose your next proprietary absorption of another man's soulmate and/or chew toy wisely. While Lan Wangji... stops remains defiled by gravity and the second turtle that slips down his cheek, connecting with the helmet visor in a dashing sprawl and futilely opening, then closing its mouth to snap and chew at Jiang Cheng through the visor glass.

Yes, this turtle is pledging sword and fire to Lotus Pier. Yes, it will remember Jiang Cheng by blurred sight and haunt him and his descendants, whole. )

Wei Ying roams since dawns, undaunted.

( But perhaps it is unclear what the source of their communal rectal distress requires constant vigilance. )

Waters attract him. The cliffs.

[ Audacious behavior from the turtle considering it makes excellent soup. Jiang Cheng, too, will remember. Though Jiang Cheng's lips thin at the mention of cliffs, he does not deign to reply to it directly. ]

Trouble always attracts him. Are you not his constant companion? [ As in, have you failed to notice? How? Trouble is all Wei Wuxian lives and breathes. Please refer to cliff incident #1. ] He can handle most trouble on his own, especially considering he's usually the cause.

[ You, though, Wangji. This is a low point for you, Jiang Cheng can tell. He can only imagine the look on Zewu-jun's face to behold his beloved younger brother in such a sodden, beturtled state. ]

...Right now you appear more in need of assistance.

( There is a moment in a man's life, aggrieved, besieged, beturtled, when he must come to term with the firm-handed inevitability of his disadvantage.

This existential crisis finds Lan Wangji sighing through the expiry of his dignity, while the turtle plastered to his visor sloooooooooowly drips down, leaving an unseemly trail of... tongue slobber in its wake. )

I am not Jiang Wanyin's burden. ( Some might call this diplomacy. Other, the back of the Gusu Lan hand. )

Your — ( The turtle squeals aggressively. Its fellow seems to be navigating its way back up Wangji's suit, until its head also starts to peer on the southern edge of the visor, and it's crawling up............

...towards the nether region of its sibling. Well, then. ) The man who served as your first disciple thanks Yunmeng's care.

( Unnecessarily. And still. )

[ Sometimes, Wangji talks and Jiang Cheng just pretends that he didn't. They went 16 years without exchanging words, it's a simple matter to recall those times. Just Lan Wangji staring him down, visibly stewing, while some over-eager sect junior breathlessly tries to translate the passive-aggression into some generous diplomatic read of the situation. The turtles even look a bit like the two juniors always following Wangji around... ]

Stay where you are. I'm coming to find you.

[ He has no rightly clue where Wangji is, but nothing a little overhead sword flight view won't fix. He's aware there is a nonzero amount of logistical issues with sword flight in this current environment, but he'll... figure it out. He's a sect leader. He's dealt with more nightmarish issues than a little indignity.

He is, after all, related to Wei Wuxian.

Sighing, he heads off to find one of those hideous protective contraptions of his own. ]

( He is no child, not possessed of the instinct to flatten himself in bracken on high ground and let the breeze swirl and roil above him, let it carry granules of dissolved salt in his wounds and sweeten his sweat, while his heart tempers itself, its gallop of wild, sorrel horses curbed. He is no fox. He does not fear Jiang Cheng, only the charcoal silhouette of him, above, beyond and advancing.

Blink, when he is only a red-tipped arrow stabbing the sun, and blitzing above Wangji, and Jiang Cheng might be missed in passing. Only, I'm coming to find you.

A strange, mild flattery, to live the privileges of Wei Ying, hunted and chased, coveted. Adrift, Lan Wangji is never sought. Under the pale brush strokes of withered clouds, Jiang Cheng is only one man, and this man did not request assistance — kindness and curiosity both compel Wangji to serve it, slim withered scrap of parchment warm between clenched fingertips — and the alarm talisman is shot. It erupts high above, barely lent the qi to well up in fistfuls of azure fireworks. Enough for Jiang Cheng to locate him.

No footsteps of fall, he thinks, when Jiang Cheng descends the sword. No thud, no disgrace of inelegant flight. Were this a lesser man, of trembled skill, so much more of Jiang Cheng's faults would be palatable. Helmed, Lan Wangji meets his gaze. It is the most that can be asked of him. )

We may postpone bows of greetings.

( Mutual misery dictates that innocent ears should be spared the squeaks and squeals of two red garments, contorted in mockeries of courtesy forms that Lotus Pier never did learn to perform, with their back rightfully bent. There is an arrogance to Lotus Pier's graceful nonchalance, as if to bow and recognise a better is an act of privilege and not of self-reflection of all the minute but tallied demerits of your cultivation or your virtue — as if to admit a superior is not to take ownership of one's part in the subordination.

On Wangji's visor, now recovered at altitude, both of his turtles sprawl like angry wet lichen, squirming. One snaps, when Jiang Cheng falls within its vantage, as if glass does not prevent escalations, does not lessen the efforts of the sundered creatures on each side. )

Jiang Wanyin. We are not the men of sixteen years passed. You need not seek me to find your brother.

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