[sidereal - the dreaming]

[laughitoff]

[for MDZS AU plot-related shenanigans]

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[strikingchords]

[he turns aside to check it out...?]

[laughitoff]

[it's a shard of milky white quartz stone that must have been a piece of a much larger rock. Lan Wangji can still see a thin sliver of some circular array drawn on its smooth side; a couple of characters for warding. he can feel Wei Wuxian's recognition]

A piece of boundary stone? It must have dropped through the holes...

[strikingchords]

[huh. he picks it up to examine it better.]

[laughitoff]

[he's very angry when he reached the habitable edge of the Burial Mounds at long last. it's far, far away from where he was originally thrown in. it's taken him -- he doesn't know anymore, he's stopped being able to track time in this perpetually twilit land, but it's been, at the least, several weeks. he's taken in so much resentment he feels less than human, carved out of blood and bone and rage that's only half-his. he destroys the stone holding this section of the Wen barrier with raw power, instead of taking the time to puzzle it out and pick it apart. he patches the barrier behind him as an afterthought; he doesn't really want uncontrolled corpses and ghouls leaking out and flooding Yiling.

improbably, impossibly, he's alive and free. so what should he do?

What do you think? he asks the ghoul-child walking at his side. it hisses, baring its sharp black teeth at him. he chuckles coldly. Yes, you have a point. I'm hungry too.

a small part of him knows where he should go; where he would have gone before. back to Jiang Cheng's side if he's still in the Yunmeng area, or to Meishan and Shijie if he's left to go to her. he would have done this if he'd only been gone for a week or two, perhaps.

but Jiang Cheng is an uncertainty, and it is likely he gave up on Wei Wuxian for dead. who would blame him? it's been so long, there were signs of their struggle and a great deal of Wei Wuxian's blood left at the mountain's foot, and Wei Wuxian was thrown somewhere that living cultivators don't think or dare to go. he would not have been found no matter where his brother looked, if his brother or any possible allies looked. the reasonableness of the logic is something to set against the bitterness in his heart.

he hopes Jiang Cheng has recovered. he hopes he is still alive. but it is the Wens, the Wen presence in his adopted hometown and homeland, in Jiang Sect's home and territory, that is the true certainty.

he supposes he will get supplies from the little village he sees below, and then start hunting tonight, instead.

[strikingchords]

[ah



he goes still again, his initial reaction a blank; it always takes Lan Wangji that heartbeat or two to process a shock.]

[laughitoff]

[Wei Wuxian withdraws instantly, pulling away hard, defensive]

[strikingchords]

[the tunnel goes nearly dark again in Lan Wangji's vision as the holes above disappear to his sight. he blinks against the sudden dimness, blinks again against the tightness in his throat that Wei Wuxian has pulled back too far to feel.

ah.

this explains several things, doesn't it.]

[laughitoff]

[ha ha, does it???

(he doesn't come back)]

[strikingchords]

[of course it does. of course he had to work out demonic cultivation here. Lan Wangji himself can see in these memories, in this nightmare, that even a powerful righteous cultivator alone would have a terrible time staving off the hunger of the dead. as Wei Wuxian once reasoned in Lan Qiren's classroom, it is a flood, and without some element of redirection it would be easy to be battered senseless. some of the less-damaging techniques Lan Wangji has investigated might have been enough alone, but of course Wei Wuxian reached for as much power as he could, after being made powerless.

of course he hid this when he returned. let alone showing weakness in front of another sect, Wei Wuxian would not want his brother to know that he had failed to rescue him when it was needed, or that Wei Wuxian was bitter somewhere at the failure. of course he was bitter.

of course Lan Wangji couldn't find him. he tried to come this way, but with Yunmeng to Yiling and beyond solidly in the Wens' hands, he ran into a patrol before he got more than a day's flight into the territory. he couldn't kill them all alone. the Wens were fighting to kill too; if Wei Wuxian had been captured here, he'd reasoned bleakly, he'd be dead, and Inquiry would be a safer bet to find him. he could only linger two more nights as close as he dared to Yiling before the Wens drove him back and he marked the area off as searched, with no little despair. he did not have the imagination to anticipate this specific torture, or Wei Wuxian's strategy to survive it.

he hates this. he hates this. he accepts it as fact and lets the acid shock of its reality trickle out in a breath between his teeth.

he has been standing here very still and silent for a noticeable space of time now.]

Wei Ying.

[laughitoff]

[wounded, hostile]

No.

[strikingchords]

No?

[laughitoff]

I don't want to talk about it! Don't touch things like that again!

[strikingchords]

...

Tell me if something changes.

[he starts walking again.]

[laughitoff]

[the tunnel begins to slope uphill]

[strikingchords]

[it is still mostly dark. if this is consistent with how he saw things before he is about to walk out into a wall of mist. cool,

(he misses Wei Wuxian's closer presence already)]

[laughitoff]

[Wei Wuxin only comes forward enough to influence his senses somewhat, this time, when he must; the light from the end of the tunnel seems dull, as does the sweet burned-meat stink of the smoke that's replaced the mist]

[strikingchords]

[he doesn't try to push him about it. he just sees what he can see what he emerges, then tries for higher ground unless something super jumps out at him (metaphorically or literally) right away]

[laughitoff]

[nothing does. Lan Wangj half-recognizes the cluster of burned-out shacks here, actually, though of course the fires had long died and they had collapsed further into ashes by the time he reached this place

Wei Wuxian's shock is also icy.]

[strikingchords]

[some of them survived, for Wen Ning to find in their future selves' time. there was more than enough for him to recognize this.

he stops dead for a good twenty seconds and stares at them when his brain puts together what he's half-receiving from Wei Wuxian and what his own eyes are trying to tell him more coherently. this is his fresh nightmare, too, for all that they've drawn apart enough that Wei Wuxian might not pick up his reaction.]

[laughitoff]

[the shock drains, to be replaced by a moment of pure blankness, as though Wei Wuxian has gone away altogether and left him alone in the dream]

[strikingchords]

[breathes. that's fine. he knows where he wants to go here, actually, even with the veneer of unfamiliar scenery laid over it.

he closes his eyes, orients himself along his memory of the Wen encampment layout - ah, yes, that would have been the path he followed to get here those times, southeast of here - and starts climbing the hill to the northeast, where a scrappy if stunted excuse for a forest had settled in back in his own memories. he deliberately doesn't look at these healthier versions of the trees until he gets to the biggest of them, set a little apart from the others.

his eyes try to trick him and tell him it's whole, but he focuses on it firmly enough that it relents and shows him its lightning-split hollow face instead. he starts digging a short way down the slope, in its lee.]

[laughitoff]

[the hard soil crumbles more easily now that it's laden with ash.]

[strikingchords]

[this is the second time this night he's used Bichen to help him dig a grave in a dream. maybe he should change out its blade for a shovel.

once he's carefully rearranged and shrouded the sad little corpses he's collected for maximum dignity, buried them, and marked the spot with a heavy stone, he kneels by the tree with his guqin and releases the little family from their spirit-trapping pouch. he plays.

This tree has sheltered children before. Will you rest here?]

[laughitoff]

[they go to hover over the strings, their entwined voices answering

Yes.

No recent deaths in this ground.

We can sleep...]

[strikingchords]

[Do you desire help?]