[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]

[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.]

[laughitoff]

[When he uses Heresy on the cage bars, they change to half-rotted bone (though the rust and gunk are also successfully cleared.)

When he uses Orthodoxy the bone restores itself.]

[strikingchords]

[...huh.

examines the bone cage; does it feel different than the metal did? weaker, stronger, different feelings?]

[laughitoff]

[Feels about the same! It's still representing the same thing but he's left it in better shape.]

[strikingchords]

[UNSURE... IF... ACCURATE? HE'S NOT SURE HE TRUSTS BONE AS A CAGE MATERIAL OVER METAL, frankly, if "put whatever Chenqing represents in a cage" is even a great way to handle this. but it's better if it's not corroding, hm. he could try to use his remaining Orthodoxy again to change it back, or try to change it into another form, but he's not sure if he wants to do that yet either.

...he'll put Chenqing back in the pouch and back in the cage for now...

again just for now, he's going to hang the bell over the cage lock, so it will sound if something tries to rattle the lock and get out >:|a]

[laughitoff]

[This all seems legit!

What now?]

[strikingchords]

[lets his fingers linger on the bell, feeling that gratitude and loss; what do you want, little chiming thing? he doesn't know how to reassure Wei Wuxian that he could still have a family after all of this. it's as much about him being willing to accept one as it is about the people around him.

he'll go look at the bed, since he hasn't yet, he guesses]

[laughitoff]

[The bed is a poor affair indeed. You can’t imagine sleeping on this thing and not waking up in pain.

The pillow turns out to be a rolled-up robe, ragged and grey. There seems to be something in one of the deep pockets of the sleeves.

The blankets are clumped with black and white animal fur. One is as thin and ragged as the pillow, the other is newer, good quality and warm. There’s a weird little carving on the rock underneath the blankets, half-covered but obvious. It looks like two stick figures kissing, but someone's made an attempt to scribble it over with some dark substance that looks like charcoal.

The food tray on the foot of the bed is much neater than everything else, but…odd. There's a milkshake from the diner (someone's drawn a cute caramel design of a flower on top); a cup of pale, almost leafless tea that smells somewhat like alcohol; a bowl of appetizing meat, vegetables and fishcakes. However, these are next to a plate heaped with gobbets of fresh raw meat and bone, and a little dipping bowl for sauce that holds two human-sized eyeballs.

There's also a mussed prison uniform shoved to one side. The stripes on it flicker between Basilisk-green and black, with an occasional, rare touch of Phoenix-red.]

[strikingchords]

[.......huffs at all of this

he'll immediately unroll that "pillow" and check the pockets first, yeah]

[laughitoff]

[The thing in the sleeve is a small animal skeleton! A rat, to be precise.

At the touch of his bare hand it comes to life and starts to struggle and try to get away and out.]

[strikingchords]

[IS THIS THE THING THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO IN THE SMALL ANIMAL CAGE????????

he's going to go with his original plan and try to emotionshare calm with it, regardless]

[laughitoff]

[It does not calm. He feels a surge of immense anxiety, only briefly pushed back by the use of his power and then resuming again.]

[strikingchords]

[hm. HE IS PRETTY GOOD AT HOLDING ONTO SMALL ANIMALS, AT LEAST. not letting it go even if it bites him >(

if he tucks it in against his body, continues trying to push calm at it, and retrieves the bell to put on it, does that do anything, or does the bell just have nothing to do with calming small animals down in this context after all]

[laughitoff]

[The bell has absolutely nothing to do with calming small animals. His power is the only thing that's keeping this at HIGH BUT CONSTANT LEVEL rather than CONTINUALLY RISING LEVEL.]

[strikingchords]

[well okay! it was an idea! he'll leave it where he had it originally on the bars then and return to the bed.

time to try TOUCHING OTHER THINGS to see if anything here feels calming,]

[laughitoff]

[The blankets feel like comfort; the fur feels like nostalgia; the carving feels like desire overwritten with massive feelings of inadequacy; the food tray feels neutral unless he's running his hands all over the food and drinks. The uniform feels like a sense of uncertain identity, not quite settled? Is he part of this group or isn't he? It doesn't seem super bad, just...a nagging worry.

With a cool nat 20 he's able to power through touching all this on top of the anxiety without adverse effects, though it's really starting to feel like a strain!]