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[consignation]

jiang wanyin

missives | encounters

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press X for DELETE JIANG CHENG

[downswing]

( 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. )

[consignation]

[ 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. ]

[downswing]

( 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.