[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]

[FOR THE RECORD HE WOULD HAVE ALSO MOVED THEM SO THEY WERE ALL INSIDE AND NOT CLIPPING THROUGH WALLS ANY MORE, WITH THAT ATTEMPT.

bends to pick up the piece of metal...?]

[laughitoff]

[THAT'S PROBABLY MORE COMFORTABLE FOR THEM! HE'S DOING GOOD!

The metal is tarnished, carved. There's a little mental itch on contact: This is a piece of the Treasure.]

[strikingchords]

[...

tucks it in a spirit-trapping pouch

there might be more to do here, but he will check out the temple first]

[laughitoff]

[There's a small temple down one of the side ways, where far fewer monsters linger. It's a rather dim and sombre building compared to the rest, but candles lit around the banner over the door still proclaim it clearly as THE HUNT.

When you step inside, it's lit by a few other candles, creating an eerie effect around the central statue. The god the statue portrays isn't any you recognize, some black and eldritch crossover between an octopus and a serpent, but the gold koi charm dangling from one of its tentacles winks even in the scant light.]

[strikingchords]

[he will go to the koi charm and take it down...]

[laughitoff]

[Your mouth is still tingling from the mysterious stranger's stolen kiss, and Lan Wangji looks absolutely indignant at being dragged into the shrubbery with you, but your attention's on neither of those things. They're on your sister and her former fiance, Jin Zixuan, who have just come into sight on the mountain path. She's as demure as ever, clearly upset; he's as arrogant in demeanor as ever.

I just knew Madam Jin would get them to take a stroll together, you fume.

"What quarrel do you have with Jin Zixuan?" Lan Wangji asks quietly. He's calmed down too, noticing your distraction.

Because he's an asshole? Because he's ignored or scorned his childhood betrothed at every turn? Because he thinks he's too good for everyone? Because he accused your sister of tricking him and made her cry, for trying to secretly bring him food and take care of him in her way, during the war? Heavens, you hate his stupid face. You don't regret punching it when you were younger, even if it did get you punished and sent home from Lan Zhan's sect. You don't regret punching it AGAIN when he tried to humiliate her in public for her kindness. Prick.

On the other side of the clearing, he's found a dead monster and he's giving her inane facts about it -- even as a low-level cultivator she knows what a Mesuring Snake does, does he think she's uneducated too? She's clearly confused at being dragged out here and lectured. Your sister's really too polite for her own good, sometimes.

"...If you come to our clan's hunting grounds, you can see a lot of rare monsters," he's telling her. "If you're free sometime next month, I can take you."

Who the hell wants to go to his clan's hunting grounds!?

"Many thanks for your invitation, but there's no need to go to such trouble," your sister answers quietly, as though she heard you.

Jin Zixuan's taken aback. "Why? You don't like watching hunts? Then why did you come to this one? Wait...do you not like them, or do you not like being with me?"

"It's not that..."

"Fine," he sneers.

Your sister's staring at the ground. You can see the upset set of her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"What're you sorry for? Think what you will. Either way, it wasn't me who wanted to invite you. So if you don't want to come, then forget about it."

Your sister's mouth quivers. "Please excuse me," she says, and turns to go.


The memory skips, blurs into static, and then resumes. A bit of time must have passed, because there's suddenly a lot more people in the clearing, most of them dressed in the same gold style of robes as Jin Zixuan.


You're turning to head back to the observation stands with your sister, when Jin Zixuan shouts, "Miss Jiang!"

You try to pull her away faster. "Let's go, quickly."

But he's insistent. "That's not it, Miss Jiang!"

He's being so loud you have to turn and acknowledge him, and everyone else is staring in your direction. The awkwardness in the air is thick enough to cut, and it only increases as he rushes up and shouts again:

"That wasn't it! It's not my mother -- I didn't invite you because of her! I'm not reluctant to be with you, not at all! It's me! It was all me! I was the one who wanted you to come!"

"...," everyone says.

He flushes so hard it looks like his head's going to pop off and staggers back a few steps to steady himself on a nearby tree. He looks up, then freezes at all the eyes on him. With a last, wordless shout, he bolts off into the woods.

There's silence in the clearing for a moment, and then his mother screams in outrage.

"You bonehead! What are you running away for! A-Li, let's talk back at the observation deck! I need to go catch him first!"

After witnessing this farce, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
]

[strikingchords]

[puts a hand to his mouth, remembering all of that...]

[laughitoff]

[It was a memorable day for him, wasn't it?

The unmoving ghost of Jin Zixuan has appeared, kneeling in front of the strange god's statue. There's a look of shock on his face, and a ragged hole punched straight through his chest.]

[strikingchords]

[...he's going to touch the weird statue to see if he gets anything off of it...]

[laughitoff]

[Just cool stone.]

[strikingchords]

[okay. he's going to disappear the statue with Heresy and use Orthodoxy to heal the ghost's wounds.

...

can he like, actually make him not a weird freeze frame, or is that just part of the deal...]

[laughitoff]

[The statue is gone, leaving a bare altar.

What is his intent here, exactly? To heal and bring him back to life? To heal and get him moving?]

[strikingchords]

[IS "BACK TO LIFE" AN OPTION??????

he doesn't want that, exactly, though. "a form where Wei Wuxian can remember him as he was in life," maybe. as kind of an idiot, not reduced to a man he killed.]

[laughitoff]

[Nothing has been presented as not being an option, with these powers.

Jin Zixuan's wounds close, though the huge rent in his robes remains. He also grows more solid, and his skin greys out like a fierce corpse's, as he blinks and his face twists into a bit of a scowl.]

[strikingchords]

[does Wei Wuxian's heart interpret a memorial to a dead person as 'Wen Ning,' basically

he guesses that tracks. bows to him in greeting, brusquely]

[laughitoff]

[bows back a bit jerkily, though it seems like the jerky is because of embarrassment and not because he's hampered by stiffness like Wen Ning is]

Hanguang-Jun.

[strikingchords]

[the embarrassment reminds him that Jin Zixuan, though inarguably an ass, is far from the worst person he knows who's died. softens slightly.]

Young master Jin.

[laughitoff]

[:T T: :T]

My...thanks.

[strikingchords]

I can return your life here, but only by destroying something else, first.

[laughitoff]

[He gets scowlier. Kind of clipped:]

You don't have to. I know I'm just a memory.

[strikingchords]

Not a fond one.

...

For Wei Ying.

[he'll remove the altar with Heresy, and then return Jin Zixuan to life properly with Orthodoxy, yeah

he owes Jiang Yanli that much]

[laughitoff]

[It actually doesn't quite work as intended? His robes repair, and he gets about as mobile as a living person can, but the grey cast to his skin doesn't disappear. He looks at his hands ruefully.]

Well...I guess we've got a history.

[strikingchords]

Would share his anger, in his place.

But, you are missed.

Can you help me?

[laughitoff]

Ah--yes. Yes. Here.

[He flusters a little--apparently he forgot he was supposed to do this--and yanks another piece of tarnished metal out of his sleeve, shoving it at Lan Wangji.]

[strikingchords]

[takes it, and tucks it away with the other]

My thanks, also.