consignation | eastbound inbox

Jiang Cheng, I've retrieved the feathers and left Wen Qing to the decoction of the medicine for antidote—you will be taking it, as soon as she's done. Have you heard anything else, any murmurs from the people around him; do you know how many have been poisoned in addition?

( EXCUSE the water sloshing in the background, this man has carved himself a fresh life in pipelines: )

Mistress Wen lingered in the banquet halls. Secure her.

( 'Greetings, fair brother-in-cliff-law, how art thou,' etc etc etc )

We cannot return in time.

( In the beautiful period after the Huntress has dashed through the city, calling the dead and necromancers in her service: )

Jiang Wanyin. I beg patience.

( Peer at the most splendiferous visage of Lan Wangji, second Jade of Lan, in full, dripping local regalia.

How did he fall into the waters? Irrelevant. How many mermaids perished on the coast, so he could escort himself to safety? Dead fish-girls tell no tales. How many crabs are lining the ends of his suit? Eight, but that's again inconsequential. What is the mop of violently green weed on his head? A sartorial statement.

...and what about the two small, stubborn turtles that are somehow peering from the inside of his suit, raising their heads to look out through Lan Wangji's helmet visor? Landscape. )

Jiang Wanyin. ( Squeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkk of the suit. Drip-drip. Squelch. The turtles click and cluck. ) I entrust you to collar Wei Ying for half a shichen. ( The turtles squeal. ) I require. ( His soul's salvation. A turtle chomps on his hair. The other brays tragically, while climbing his chin. ) A moment's reprieve.

( To address the infestation. )

( pray tell, where does one go searching for Jiang Cheng, when one knows one is trapped in a rather ambitiously tall tower with all of one's traveling companions, and also, Jiang Cheng.

too many things they still need to talk on, but this one predates most, and for that, can be easier to speak. which is why he shows up, with a bowl of soup with chunks of chicken and vegetables and suspicious looking other probably vegetables in it, and is slid onto the table before Jiang Cheng with a look of sheepish awareness that they both of them are horrific when it comes to cooking in anything other than the roasted sense.

both of them roast meat and each other just fine. he doesn't seat himself because he's half prepared to, potentially, dodge backward from being grabbed, or dodge forward into being grabbed. he hasn't decided. )

Jiang Cheng! Did you know I've apparently been married twice and never knew it?

( WAY TO JUMP RIGHT IN )

Three times, recently.

[Sent sometime after this conversation, but pretend it was much more timely and that life hadn't eaten me alive, apologies!

Despite her matchmaking in Taravast, she's not sure how to broach the conversation, exactly, but she's willing to try all the same.]

If you have a moment, I've been asked to mediate a proposal between yours and Lan Wangji's families.

[How big a hornet's nest is she stepping in? Unclear. But that may be why she's reaching out over the devices first.]

江
晚
吟

三
毒
圣
手

江
宗
主

|

曾经沧海难为水，除却巫山不是云。

Pained though I come with hungering hands, I beg you do not wish them bloodied.

To sunder heavens with red wet offence of family thrust against family.

I beg bowed-back:

Do not make of me a young heart, foolhardy. A reckless appetite, untamed. A core languished, mourning.

Do not make of me my nature, clawing. My vices, voracious. My weakness, listless.

Do not make of me a thief, and grant me your brother, fondly. Your clansman, willing. Your first disciple, without regret.

I beg, do not kneel me, lessened, to shadow. Make of my dust and ashes the better man.

I beg your wisdom before my folly. Your alms before my greed. Your mercy before my strain.

I beg in betrothal 魏无羡, born 婴, fallen 夷陵老祖.

Starved, I beg crumbs from your hands.

|

蓝
忘
机

( In Eidris, where gilded mouldings battle fungal drip, there is the exhilaration of bated breath, of magic and wait and wonder. Here, he greets Jiang Cheng under ceilings that stretch like bloated ribcages and groan, and he feels himself gently torn apart, flesh from bone, masticated and spewed before his brother-in-law in humble pour. Parts of him do not recognise the whole.

Wine of the land glimmers dark, overtly fermented. When Lan Wangji pulls his sleeve back, wrist over fold, it spills like viscera in native glasses fashioned too tall, as if their throats want chokehold. He hesitates, lingers over the half-pour, considers the gains of performative generosity against the costs of splintered aesthetic and decides, in the end, Jiang Wanyin may wet his lips and beg mouthfuls further.

It scratches him, honest back bowed and the stiffness of his wrists making tension learned, lax — anticipation like paralysis, like poison. Then, finally, sliding the glass onward towards Jiang Cheng over the lacquered low table, before binding his hands in the traditional bow — lower than rank commands of a chief cultivator, low enough to appease uncle during fit-spells of frenzy: )

I thank your gift, of which I am unworthy.

( When one's shared charge has been put through the emotional grinder, one learns to delegate responsibilities. )

Your brother thirsts.

Allison Hargreeves claims to have petitioned you. Step of the etiquettes.

Now, choose bride price.

( WHAT DO YOU MEAN HER NEGOTIATIONS FAILED, SUCH DETAILS. )

Ah-Cheng, when were you going to tell me what you and Lan Zhan got up to when I was... anyway! I had no idea you were so passionate! No, I did know, just didn't suspect the extent of your passions or what nights they'd sweep you into come spring!

( yeah he's. trying to figure out if lan zhan was giving him guff or if his bro and his now-husband-apparently-secretly-then-husband got around to banging wrathfully to keep themselves sane in their grief over the years??? )

Sect Leader Jiang, a request.

[ Is it fair to ask him? He's in the same plight they all are, resources few and far between in a world with no claims on any of them. Would rites even reach their deceased loved ones?

It doesn't matter. Lan Wangji reminded her, and she has been remiss. ]

Lan Sizhui's parents have no tablets. Do you know a fair carver?