[sidereal - the dreaming]

[laughitoff]

[for MDZS AU plot-related shenanigans]

Comments

[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?]

[laughitoff]

[Please.]

[strikingchords]

[he begins playing Rest again. there's enough time for them to leave one more message behind before they fade away.]

[laughitoff]

[Do you desire help?]

[strikingchords]

[pauses, very surprised

Yes.]

[laughitoff]

[Open the door at the place where he fell...]

[strikingchords]

[...

Thank you. Sleep well.

he plays the last bars.]

[laughitoff]

[they fade away with the ending of the notes. there is silence.]

[strikingchords]

[he stares at the grave for a little while, then stands and lays a hand on the tree. thanks again, tree.]

[laughitoff]

[Wei Wuxian watches, with his hands folded into his sleeves and his thoughts dulled and red, as Granny and A-Yuan play their game of hide-and-seek, slowly in deference to Granny's arthritic knees. there are few places in the Burial Mounds where a child can play freely, safely, properly. they contrive to do their best. A-Yuan is sensitive enough to have caught some of the atmosphere of fear and despairing terror that pervades their little home, but they do their best to distract him, to continue on with him as though life is still the semblance of normalcy it had reached just a few months ago. why hurt him more? he's already condemned to death, just like the rest of them.

Wei Wuxian doesn't have to ward the little hill with its copse of scraggling trees. Wei Wuxian is stretching himself thinner and scraping himself rawer by the day, trying to build the shields strong enough to withstand the inevitable invasion, trying still to keep them all safe, trying to find a way out for the Wens if not himself, trying, trying, trying. he should not be sparing strength for this sentimentality. he does it anyway, his own indulgence.

Granny meets his eyes for a moment, while she makes the rounds of the trees, and they both try to smile at each other and fail before just nodding. A-Yuan is laughing, the only laughter that's been heard in the Burial Mounds these last days: ah, to be a child again, with any trust that the adults will make it right for you.

he is going to die. he knows that even as he bends himself to preserve the rest of them. he welcomes it at this point, not so deep down. but perhaps--]

[strikingchords]

[flinches, the barest twitch, closing his eyes]

[laughitoff]

[Wei Wuxian is back, clawing at him, trying to wrench him away from the tree and away from the hill, bright with rage]

[strikingchords]

[yeah Lan Wangji's completely unguarded against that, caught up in his own memories; he stumbles back from the tree and almost trips but for his long-practiced balance and control, jerked near-physically down the hillside]

[laughitoff]

Get away, get away, get away, get lost, GET LOST!

[a howling in his head, Wei Wuxian choked with furious grief all the way through]

[strikingchords]

[against the cacaphony of Wei Wuxian's emotions Lan Wangji's self-contained knife-blade of grief just-- doesn't show up; Wei Wuxian would have to be looking for it to feel its stiletto presence through Lan Wangji's gut, and he's obviously not. Lan Wangji actually goes to his knees for a moment at the onslaught in his head, blank and tense enough against his shaking that he's achieved a tremble in his hands from the other direction entirely.]

[laughitoff]

[it's another few seconds of agony before Wei Wuxian recollects himself and retreats once more, panting in the back of Lan Wangji's mind, trying to set the newfound knowledge that Lan Wangji did rescue A-Yuan against that suddenly undammed river of pain]

[strikingchords]

[Lan Wangji doesn't follow him; he just looks silently at the ground between the dirt-stained fingers of his outstretched gravedigger's hands, numb and cold as a man bled out]

[laughitoff]

[THEY'RE FINE

EVERYONE'S FINE HERE]

[strikingchords]

[sure seems like it. it's easy enough to pick up the path back to the cliff from here.

Lan Wangji gets up again and shakes the ash off his dirt-resistant Lan mourning robes and keeps steadily walking down the hill without a word.]

[laughitoff]

[it's a very long walk.]

[strikingchords]

[he heads back to the beautiful lush valley that he knows is an illusion with a coffin in it in truth. he ignores the scenery and goes straight to the cliff. this, at least, he assumes is close enough to reality. he's seen and heard enough references to falling through all of this.

he puts a hand on it. he tilts his head up to see how it apparently continues up forever, with no discernable end to its face. he traces an array into the rock with a torn fingertip, leaving the faintest blood trail behind.]

Open.

[laughitoff]

[there is a wrench in his gut, and he is on top of the cliff instead of at its base, with the view of the actual Burial Mounds below. it's bare and rocky up here, the sky still reddish-grayish. round old bloodstains pit the edge right by his feet]

[strikingchords]

[there's a crystal chrysanthemum, strange and perfect and out of place, at the cliff edge on the other side of the bloodstains. Lan Wangji's eyes track across them before he rests his eyes on it; it has a faint glow that doesn't seem to belong to the surroundings.]

There.

[laughitoff]

[Wei Wuxian doesn't answer, though he sees it too.]