[PALACE GAME - LAN WANGJI RUN]

[laughitoff]

Everything is red. You are dying, somewhere far beyond pain, the very essence of yourself going to pieces. You’re shattering so badly you don’t know if you’ll ever find all of yourself again, if you’ll ever put yourself back together. There are teeth on you, ripping, tearing, devouring. There are teeth inside you, carving their way out, and those are worse.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

Everything is grey. You wake up in a prison cell, eyes wide, the ceiling flat and blank and unfamiliar above you. For a moment you simply think, no. You think, Please, wasn’t it over? Wasn’t it enough? You consider closing your eyes again and refusing to get up, until oblivion reclaims you. Even if you’re no longer dying, everything hurts.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

What is happening, then?

You–

–sit up.

Comments

[strikingchords]

[...Lan Wangji's eyes soften a bit; he touches the baby rabbit's ear with a light finger]

[laughitoff]

[Friendship, the urge to tease and banter. Familiarity, the feeling of looking back at someone who knows some of what you're going through and knowing some of what they're going through as well. A sense of agitated responsibility? You want to fix something with this person...]

[strikingchords]

[yanks his finger back and closes the book quietly.

right. he'll shift into a dragon, fly up to the ceiling, and get a Heresy use in by carving the stone into a loop he can tie some of the twine from the protective barrier through. he wants to create a sturdy system to suspend the lantern a comfortable distance above the desk, so it can't still be reached but can't be knocked over, with its light illuminating a larger circle below.]

[laughitoff]

[He can do that! The Orthodoxy pain reduces slightly. The living area is now somewhat better illuminated.]

[strikingchords]

[he restores his hand to its status quo of Orthodoxy Hurt by putting it on the skin book and deeply wishing for it to be bound instead in something tough and protective and nice that Wei Wuxian would like that would still generally be considered to be less weird and morbid than human skin]

[laughitoff]

[White dragonscale-stamped leather seems nice and classy!]

[strikingchords]

[pauses, surprised at that particular wrinkle (does Wei Wuxian like dragonscale for some reason?), but moves on o_o

he takes a last couple of minutes to add his own helpful notes to anything in Wei Wuxian's that he thinks could use it, provide the Q&A writeup of the rules of the palace he either tested or had answered for him so far so the Shadow has a copy filed with his notes as well, and leave a water bottle nicely out of the way with the cup of blood so Wei Wuxian at least has a choice to drink something else, christ.

THEN HE IS FINALLY BACK TO THE CAGE, I GUESS. in the interest of testing things he's going to try ringing the bell and also see whether or not the cage feelings change when the lock is set to "locked" versus "unlocked."]

[laughitoff]

[The desk looks very nice and tidy now.

The cage doesn't change feelings or form when unlocked! Just a control cage.]

[strikingchords]

[AND I ASSUME THE BELL DOESN'T DO ANYTHING MORE THAN USUAL WHEN RUN EITHER? ok

well. his circle to hold in any escapees is still up, so he's going to carefully try to open the door and reach in for the pouch...]

[laughitoff]

[The bell is just feeling its feelings.

The pouch is neutral in his hand. There's something long and hard inside; not an animal.]

[strikingchords]

[that's... really fucking weird, what

tries taking it out?]

[laughitoff]

[It stings his hand fiercely on contact!

It's Chenqing, who feels alive, as all spiritual weapons are, and very fussy about who gets to use her, as all spiritual weapons are.]

[strikingchords]

[oh hello. can't help examining her in a bit more detail and also seeing if he can sense anything more directly from her in this context; he's never had the opportunity before. does bow his head in respect first, though.]

Please forgive my impertinence. Wish only to help Wei Ying.

[why was he keeping a flute in a cage...?]

[laughitoff]

[The sting doesn't lessen, but it's just unpleasant, not unbearable >(

Whatever aspect of Wei Wuxian's soul is in Chenqing, it's powerful, choosy and prideful. Dangerous too, of course; she's a thing of resentment, made to control resentment.]

[strikingchords]

[...

what happens if he hooks the bell onto her tassel, too, out of curiosity?]

[laughitoff]

[The bell won't stay on. Yeet!]

[strikingchords]

[interesting.

can he tell where the sour smell is coming from? unless the flute was shitting in there somehow, this whole cage setup is still extremely weird to him.]

[laughitoff]

[It's coming from the corrosion on the bars, don't disrespect Chenqing like that.]

[strikingchords]

[HE WASN'T TRYING TO! IT'S NOT HIS FAULT THIS IS WEIRD!

carefully takes a second look at the corrosion, then. is it rust? something on the bars eating into them...?]

[laughitoff]

[Rust and some dark unidentifiable substance, unpleasant to the touch.]

[strikingchords]

[hmmmm.

he doesn't know quite what to do about this yet, but the pain in his hand tells him he needs to use Heresy again a couple of times before he can consider asking more questions...

scrapes a bit of the unidentifiable substance off and rubs it between the fingers of his right hand, then checks to see if Heresy will destroy whatever that bit of corrosive material is, too]

[laughitoff]

[It flakes away into ash.]

[strikingchords]

[...frowns...

he wants to do that to all of the corrosion but candidly he's pretty spooked by having almost destroyed the cage entirely earlier, so he's going to see if getting the cage as clean as possible with a handkerchief and some sword polish is effective before doing anything else. if it turns out the unidentified substance is somehow the same as the cage bars he doesn't want to destroy the whole thing by accident on a technicality >:|a

how does that work out, does it become clearer whether he could target the gunk with impunity? is it cleanable in general?]

[laughitoff]

[It's cleanable, but stubborn. It's going to take him several hours to clean it off this way.

Worryingly, he can probably also tell that once all the gunk and rust has been removed the bars will be in extremely bad shape.]

[strikingchords]

[all right. in that case, once he has that idea firmly in mind, he'll use Heresy to destroy his filthy handkerchief and the stuff on his hands, then use it again on the gunk and rust of the cage bars, focusing very clearly this time on targeting specifically those things and his guess of what the cage would look like if he finished that hours-long cleaning job. then he'll use Orthodoxy on the cage bars themselves to restore them to new.]