it plays without question of him, responds to the touch of his hands. it hums and echoes through the bone and sinew of him, makes peace with the air it distills within its stretch. like him, it too had been a constancy. it had waited and obeyed, it had yielded and been restrung— and still, it plays as lan wangji focuses his attention upon the strings. it does not make itself a vessel for words as it once did, does not call to itself the blues of spiritual fragments. there is nothing, but himself and wangji's steady weight upon his lap.
it speaks anyway, he knows. it speaks, as his mother had once spoken to him. it teases at the idea of all that could have been, wraps its edges neatly about its span. it stabilizes what is factual and true, like the persistence of an itch about the raw perimeter of a wound. and he remembers, the many moons where he could only think of playing at all. left to listen to the xiao, his brother's tenderness pulled against his disappointment. and it was not for him, lan wangji knows. it was not cast against his shoulders as though the hotter tongue of lashes. it was for what choices were made, what choices were inevitable for lan wangji to make. it was for all that lan xichen could not do because of his position.
and like that sound then, wangji carries under lan wangji's hands a tune that conveys perhaps more than most would perceive it could from one such as him. one such as him, his back straight and his eyes focused beneath the dark sweep of their lashes— it is a distraction as much as it is means to center his thoughts, to soothe the thoughts of those who keep beside him regardless of his state. he knows, now he knows, all of what must be done and what it is they all must do. he had understood it, even when they were deceived. he had understood it, when sleep would not come and fatigue had crested dark against their skin.
and now, it is with his thoughts cleared and his heart decided, that he waits for opportunity to voice what must now be and what may be within the walls of this room this world too had allotted. for all their efforts, it is all that lan wangji could weigh against what there is and what there was and what indeed still could be. no matter the steep of its cost, he had promised wei wuxian one thing. he had promised wei wuxian many things.
and he had intended to keep true to his shared promises. ]
( & all: wade in past the tide. )
it plays without question of him, responds to the touch of his hands. it hums and echoes through the bone and sinew of him, makes peace with the air it distills within its stretch. like him, it too had been a constancy. it had waited and obeyed, it had yielded and been restrung— and still, it plays as lan wangji focuses his attention upon the strings. it does not make itself a vessel for words as it once did, does not call to itself the blues of spiritual fragments. there is nothing, but himself and wangji's steady weight upon his lap.
it speaks anyway, he knows. it speaks, as his mother had once spoken to him. it teases at the idea of all that could have been, wraps its edges neatly about its span. it stabilizes what is factual and true, like the persistence of an itch about the raw perimeter of a wound. and he remembers, the many moons where he could only think of playing at all. left to listen to the xiao, his brother's tenderness pulled against his disappointment. and it was not for him, lan wangji knows. it was not cast against his shoulders as though the hotter tongue of lashes. it was for what choices were made, what choices were inevitable for lan wangji to make. it was for all that lan xichen could not do because of his position.
and like that sound then, wangji carries under lan wangji's hands a tune that conveys perhaps more than most would perceive it could from one such as him. one such as him, his back straight and his eyes focused beneath the dark sweep of their lashes— it is a distraction as much as it is means to center his thoughts, to soothe the thoughts of those who keep beside him regardless of his state. he knows, now he knows, all of what must be done and what it is they all must do. he had understood it, even when they were deceived. he had understood it, when sleep would not come and fatigue had crested dark against their skin.
and now, it is with his thoughts cleared and his heart decided, that he waits for opportunity to voice what must now be and what may be within the walls of this room this world too had allotted. for all their efforts, it is all that lan wangji could weigh against what there is and what there was and what indeed still could be. no matter the steep of its cost, he had promised wei wuxian one thing. he had promised wei wuxian many things.
and he had intended to keep true to his shared promises. ]