[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]

[


he might understand this

puts a hand on it, to check]

[laughitoff]

[It just feels like scar tissue.]

[strikingchords]

[breathes, then turns to the rock at the center instead]

[laughitoff]

[It's an empty raised platform.]

[strikingchords]

[does that change at all if he jumps up there?]

[laughitoff]

[No...it moves the light from Bichen in enough that it catches a weak gleam from another wall, where something's mostly embedded.]

[strikingchords]

[he's probably just going to make a round of the perimeter, but that embedded object can be one of the things he checks out]

[laughitoff]

[it's just the slightest bit still exposed, but it looks like silver.

A visual round of the perimeter reveals nothing else...]

[strikingchords]

[can he pry it out, then?]

[laughitoff]

[There's not enough exposed for him to simply pry out with his fingertips.]

[strikingchords]

[hhh. well.

considers using Bichen for this, but he'll see if he can crumble enough away to pry it out with Heresy again, in the end]

[laughitoff]

[Heresy turns some of the wall in that area to a fine white ash...

It exposes a crushed bell.]

[strikingchords]

[:(

rubs at it with his inner sleeve to try to clean it off a little]

[laughitoff]

[It shines once he has the ash off it, but it's in bad shape.]

[strikingchords]

[...

no, he can't leave it like this

cups it in his hands and uses Orthodoxy :(]

[laughitoff]

[Before he can use Orthodoxy, the touch of his hand activates a memory.

You are seventeen, and you have learned that your adoptive guardians -- your brother's parents -- are dead. You are running both from the knowledge and the danger of your invaded home, the breath hot and harsh in your lungs. Everything smells like smoke and scorched tar.

Jiang Cheng halts, doing a skidding turn, and starts going back the way you came. You startle and grab at him.

"What are you doing?! Don't go back!"

He shakes off your hand. "What're you saying? You're telling me not to go back? My parents' bodies are still in Lotus Pier. Am I to simply leave them there? Where else can I go, if not back!"

You tighten your grip. "What can you do if you go? They killed Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu. It's certain death for you!"

"Then so be it!" he screams. "Go fuck off if you're scared to die, but don't block my way!"

You try to pin him down; he dodges you and counterattacks, the two of you circling each other. "It's never too late to take revenge! Their bodies must be retrieved, but not right now!"

"If not now, then when? I've had enough of you! Fuck off!"

"They told me to look after you," you roar. "They want you well and safe!"

"Shut up!" Jiang Cheng screams back, shoving you off your feet. You fall back in shock, and he grabs you by the collar and shakes you, in a clear fury.

"Why!? Why!? Why!? Are you happy now!? Are you satisfied!?" You stare up at his reddened eyes, clawing at his wrists as he closes his hands around your neck and squeezes viciously.

"Jiang Cheng..." you choke out, and he slams you harder against the ground, your vision going spotty.

"Why did you have to save Lan Wangji!? Why did you have to meddle when you could've stayed out of it!? How many times have I told you not to stir up trouble!? Not to fight!? Do you like playing the hero so much!? Do you see what happens when you play hero!? Huh!? Are you happy now!? If Lan Wangji, Jin Zixuan and the rest die, then so be it! Let them die! What does it matter to us if they die!? What do they have to do with our family!? So why!? Why!? Go die, go and die, all of you, go and die! Die!"]

[strikingchords]

[his hand clenches into a fist around the bell, fuck]

[laughitoff]

[It can't get any more crushed than it already is.]

[strikingchords]

[he both does and doesn't want to crush it more. mostly he kind of wants to cry? slowly uncurls his fingers, one by one, and stares down at the ruined little gleam in his palm.





he can't decide what to do about this just now. it would not be fair to Wei Wuxian to react before even he has correctly identified how his reaction will take shape. pockets the bell and goes to check out that pool of acid in more detail]

[laughitoff]

[It is YUCKY and the corpse mud underneath is YUCKIER STILL. The only mercy here is that despite the acid smell it doesn't seem to be reacting like normal acid and digesting him.

Give me a little more detail on how he's investigating it?]

[strikingchords]

[IF IT'S NOT DIGESTING ANYTHING he's going to send Bichen to comb it meticulously by the tip for things that snag or show up better in the light, like he did when he was trying to investigate Biling Lake; if anything looks worth investigating more or any patterns emerge, he'll go investigate personally, up to and including reaching his hands into the muck]

[laughitoff]

[Bichen, when raked down across the very bottom of the muck layer, turns up two things:

- very tiny fragments of bright gold that sift up and wink through the mud.
- very tiny fragments of dull red that sift up and wink through the mud.

Neither of these are terribly identifiable. If he touches either of them they feel oddly like metal and oddly like pottery and oddly like heat and oddly like nothing at all. He can catch hints, little mental itches, that whatever objects they made up held memories, but they're too shattered to convey them in any detail.]

[strikingchords]

[...if he gathers piles of each, do they seem to be parts of any reconstructable shapes?]

[laughitoff]

[It's long and lonely work to gather enough of them to make anything recognizable, but I do not doubt he's going to take the time.

He can--after a long, painstaking time--figure out that they might roughly form a gold sphere, and a red star (like this.)]

[strikingchords]

[...oh...?

he's going to gather them up and put them in two separate pouches for now. huh.

...can he try to use Heresy to dry up/destroy the acid...?]