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[consignation]

jiang wanyin

missives | encounters

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[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.