[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

[laughitoff]

[Not immediately, at least? It crouches in place and vibrates.]

[strikingchords]

[goes peep at it with deep concern and bonks their noses gently together again before slipping out of the cage; he needs to think of a way to give it some reassurance that it won't chew through and doesn't require him to be right in there cuddling it...

he'll start by hopping back over to the bed and testing whether touching the foods (including the.... questionable ones) has any effects]

[laughitoff]

[The milkshake feels like affection.

The pale booze tea feels like craving; addiction.

The appetizing meal feels like friendship and a little bit like security.

The raw meat feels like guilt.

The eyeballs -- a bright unnatural blue -- feel like grief.]

[strikingchords]

[HMMMM.

he won't go all in on "feed the rat" till he tests that too, so he'll grab a bite sized piece and ferry it back through the bars, offering it to the rat with a sympathetic mrrrp noise :( he'll even take a tiny encouraging nibble himself if the rat hesitates...]

[laughitoff]

[A tiny bite sized piece of what?]

[strikingchords]

[I WAS TRYING TO EDIT NOOOOOO

the appetizing meal!]

[laughitoff]

[It nibbles it, but like.

It has no stomach.]

[strikingchords]

[mmmh. nuzzles the rat encouragingly.

at least one interpretation of "imagine the ideal" that suggests itself here is "try to GIVE the rat a stomach" but that SUPER isn't how cultivation interacts with the dead, even if he can tell that "Orthodoxy" isn't really the same thing,,,

he'll try giving it a little spiritual energy as they cuddle and he thinks about it, to see how it accepts that]

[laughitoff]

[It just kind of...eats it too? That reaction was a bit like a yao's or a ghost's; the way they suck down yang energy...

It gets a little bit bigger.]

[strikingchords]

[IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE BIGGER.

he'll give it a last purring headbutt for now and ferry the bite back to the plate; no point wasting it

by the way. is the fur on the blankets rat fur, perchance?]

[laughitoff]

[It's bunny fur.]

[strikingchords]

[PEEPS INVOLUNTARILY





STICKS HIS HEAD UNDER THE BED JUST IN CASE]

[laughitoff]

[It's a rock flat against the floor. There is nowhere to put his head underneath.

Searching around the living area floor does not reveal other rat parts, either.]

[strikingchords]

[it's cool that you assumed he was being productive when that was mostly him having a Moment about bunnies. noted, though.

for now he's going to return to human shape, fold the blankets and "pillow" nicely for the moment, and go looking at the blood pool for something to be heretical about.

THE BARRIER IS BACK IN PLACE but he'll go to the edge of the pool to investigate those flashes inside again. if he bites his thumb and draws one of the attraction talismans Wei Wuxian pioneered all those years ago on a rock above the waterline (bloodline?), will whatever is in there show itself?]

[laughitoff]

[A hollow fragment-face forms from them at the water's surface, right under the talisman.]

[strikingchords]

[hesitates... does this feel like more of the huli jing's doing? the Burial Mounds dead?]

[laughitoff]

[Yes.

The hollow sockets of its eyes move back and forth, round and round, taking in the pool. It scowls when it notices the barrier is restored.]

[strikingchords]

[Lan Wangji places his hand on the evil-summoning talisman and crumbles the underlying rock with Heresy, letting the gravel fall into the pool; he doesn't need it now]

Huli Jing.

[laughitoff]

cultivator.

[strikingchords]

...

This is not a place for you.

[laughitoff]

oh? but it was GIVEN to us

[strikingchords]

Outside the cavern has long been your domain.

But, however the start. Wei Ying did not survive here as a walking corpse.

He lived. The Wens lived. They were grateful until their last breath. The Burial Mound sheltered A-Yuan for days, until my arrival.

Wen Qionglin regained his senses here.

Where you swim, more than anywhere else, death is not the end of sympathy.

[laughitoff]

what IS your POINT

[strikingchords]

You do not deserve to represent the Burial Mound here.

You say Wei Ying gave himself to you. Yet, instead. He came close to death and found what it did not make impossible.

You can't keep up.

[laughitoff]

[It lunges out of the pool, a tangle of hands and jaws, and smashes against the barrier in front of Lan Wangji's face.

The barrier shakes, but holds.]