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meadowlarklogs2019-04-21 07:05 pm
laozu) wrote in meadowlarklogs2019-04-21 07:05 pm
CLOSED.
WHO: Ancient China Wuxia Crew ( Wei Wuxian laozu, Lan Wangji wangxian & Jiang Cheng sandu )
WHERE: Various locations.
WHEN: Various times.
WHAT: A catch-all log for literally everything so we don't spam.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Sexual content, discussions of suicide/suicidal ideation, physical violence, difficulties in communication, etc.
laozu, Lan Wangji wangxian & Jiang Cheng sandu )WHERE: Various locations.
WHEN: Various times.
WHAT: A catch-all log for literally everything so we don't spam.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Sexual content, discussions of suicide/suicidal ideation, physical violence, difficulties in communication, etc.
LWJ & JC : rescue mission
A child. [ said flatly, with hardly any inflection, jiang cheng does not look entirely impressed with the missive they have received. ]
Wandered out to play, got separated, presumably needing to be found before sunset.
[ what kind of irresponsible parents were they to have let this happen? but jiang cheng does not voice his thoughts out loud, instead giving a glance sideways at the other man. despite what happened the other day ( and the resulting hangover the day after that ) he seem to have recovered well; there is barely a change in complexion or expression that would tell anyone else the tale unless they were privy to it. ]
Hanguang-Jun, [ he calls, once, to make sure that he is still paying attention. it is still so hard to tell with lan wangji. ] Are you ready to depart?
no subject
without full context or full understanding, it is difficult to say who remains at fault and who remains innocent. it is difficult to proclaim one way or another what the circumstances were, what they are now. for lan wangji himself, his concerns are not on that. his concerns are upon the conditions as he scans the briefing. he is a diligent student, precise and learned, and so the information is no longer new to him when jiang cheng speaks it plainly. instead, lan wangji looks upon the drifts. he watches the wind rise and set, move the powdered surface of the snows like the faces of ponds. it ripples outward, like the afterimage of the pages that he's read. but, still he thinks that there had once been an occasion similar to this. he thinks of the ash and the dirt and the dust. he thinks of the scent of illness, cradled close within his arms. lan sizhui, wei ying's a'yuan.
he'd hidden in the aftermath, tucked himself within the body of a tree. a small and fragile thing, he'd followed lan wangji diligently. it did not matter if he did not recall who lan wangji was. it did not matter that he did not recall much at all once the fever broke. it did not matter at all.
no. no, perhaps it was a mercy for him.
and yet, jiang cheng cuts through to him. he calls lan wangji by title, impersonal and expected. he turns his head, his shorn hair kept neat beneath the hood. it is no replacement for what is lost, what should still adorn him. but, it is tolerable enough. ]
Mn, [ he hums, as he always does. in alley, his voice carries, trapped by high and sturdy walls. from here, he knows there are occupied residences, locked industrial buildings. he knows, too, that there is— ] It is likely he sought tighter spaces.
[ a young boy. his gaze flits from jiang cheng, casts over toward what he's thought of in the interim. ] The train yard?
[ open to civilians, easy to access. small, cramped places to hide. ]
no subject
as callous as the thought seem to be, jiang cheng holds no fond memories of one, from personal reasons or otherwise, past or present. he remembers how jin ling had been - small in his arms, newly born and unhappy with the stiffness of his hold; jiang cheng doesn't know how to hold a baby - he doesn't know his own strength, and his hands ( battle-calloused and rough ) seem too much against the small bundle of warmth his sister hands over to him with more confidence than he himself feels. the only saving grace had been is that jiang cheng has been a hair's breadth better than the child's own father, who looked as if he would faint the first time he held his son.
the child barely weighs a thing, barely more than the rich clothes that the jin sect have already prepared for swaddling clothes, and something in his chest jumps and burns to see the golden yellow, the delicate embroidery of sparks amidst snow glinting and catching the light. they had cloths prepared, as well - he knows the deft handiwork of his sister better than anyone else, but they had all burned, burned in the wreckage along with everything else. his sister's child, wrapped in the gold and silver of the lanling instead of the nine petaled lotus, instead of the delicate purple and lilac.
( rulan, he calls experimentally, hesitant as the baby's face twists - there is a faint pause, a thought that disperses before it could form, about the frivolity of the name, before he calls again, gently, a'ling. )
perhaps it's a mercy, too, that he does not remember; all that a'ling has now is the stilted recollection doled out by his uncle, by a few who still survive - there aren't as many questions now as there used to, and jiang cheng thinks to himself that it's better that way. it is better this way, to not know so much. he has too much of his own that if you were to cut him, it will be black ink and mud, poison of old festering wounds that would pour out instead of living blood. a ghost, held together by the patchwork reminder of what's past. he does not want that fate for his only remaining family.
his gaze focuses back on the other beside him, suddenly sharp and present, and he scowls, striking out before the other. ]
We will start there.
no subject
what an odd and untamed thing it is. as he thinks of him here, lan sizhui, he thinks of him as a little one. he thinks of the nights he would spend telling him to rest. he thinks of teaching him to hold the calligraphy brush. he thinks of all the instances he listened to lan wangji play the guqin, his eyes fixed and awed and intent. lan yuan, their lan sizhui — a blossoming leader, seated amid the rabbit den — yes, it is no question that the heart does as it so chooses to begin with. were it not for that night up on dafan mountain, were he not to have played that song, lan wangji does not wonder still what he would be doing. he does not wonder still that, perhaps eventually, his clever lan sizhui would find out.
and still, he is not there. he is not within the cloud recesses. there is no chances of spotting him, a bright figure in lan wangji's periphery. there is only jiang cheng and the cold and the skew of his sentences. they come biting as always and lan wangji finds himself unruffled by the bluster and the ache that tips itself as though an arrowhead, an archer to an indistinct target.
instead, he only nods and follows after. the train yard is not a distant walk and the snows, though they have shifted, give hint to something smaller than they having passed through here.
he need not ask if jiang cheng sees it. he is aware that jiang cheng more than likely does. ]
no subject
maybe in time, he would have learned otherwise. maybe if things had gone a different path, he would have learned to be tender, learned to be anything else but what he is now, a crackling, splitting image of his mother, but the river had twisted and turned in a treacherous, tumultuous way long ago; all the people he'd ever known fallen by the wayside, broken and burnt by fire and water and mud. this is all he knows how to be, now; this is how he has always been taught, and you can't teach an old dog any more new tricks.
the snow falls, though it has softened to mere flecks in the air that lands fleetingly in their path - it's a good thing too, for the trail that lay in front of them would be so easily covered by a single gust of wind - a fragile, fleeting thing much like the one whom they are attempting to find. the weather, though softened, is still a harsh thing for a child like this.
jiang cheng wonders, fleetingly, of that wen child, the one raised in amongst their rickety, threadbare houses and barren fields. but it's only for a moment; that too, is in the past - surely he is nothing more than dried bones now.
their path, following the faint trail, turns into the train yard; here, it is less easier to see - the wind blows stronger here, diverting the track into many directions, many possibilities. ]
I will go this way. [ after a short deliberation, jiang cheng turns to the other, indicating the stretch of trains halted, frozen in the yard, the little sheds and piles of equipment that dot the area. it is a big area to cover for just the two of them, so they should split up. ]
no subject
it is hard to say, after thirteen years of solitude and thirteen years of mourning. it is hard to say what could have been or what would have been. even before that, even before the nightless city, even before the tortoise cave, even before the burning of the cloud recesses ( his fingers then, cut raw and bloodied — wangji, so strong and so dutiful, the only thing that kept him standing ) — what could he have been? what could he have been, were his mother to have survived? what could he have been, if his father had kept closer to he and lan xichen's sides? and no matter the attempts, no matter the good intentions, no matter the meddling — there was much that could not be freed from blood and ancestry. even lan qiren, in all his teachings, could not keep lan wangji from meeting the edge of a whip and even lan wangji, in these quiet moments, thinks he'd have greeted it regardless.
such is fate. such is the fate of all things, ordained under heaven, the spools spun tighter with each passing century. and such is fate here, in this desolate place, with its lack of greenery. humans here still mingle, but there is much about its face that reads somber and strange. there is much underneath, that lan wangji cannot brush palms against and cannot read. but, these are things that are neither here nor there for now. these are things that occupy him late afternoons, left to the quiet of his own thoughts. these are things that concern him, when the concern does not rest upon a child who has wandered their way into the cold.
and these are things, like with wei wuxian's a'yuan that are kept to himself. these are the things that lan wangji does not speak of, but carries deeply. these things, like the press of powder beneath feet, and the half-caught notes of wei ying's voice in the mornings when dream thin soft and slowly.
were it another life, perhaps, jiang cheng and lan wangji may have worked well together. they might have carried through such jobs with sharp efficiency, but there is tension now. it brews in ways lan wangji is not aware of as they part with lan wangji's confirming "mn." it is not something he may focus upon for long, as the yard is not ( for its part ) too full. there are empty cars that have gone to slumber, empty tracks that have not yet been cleared. and no matter how lan wangji scans, there is little doubt where the child has gone regardless of faded imprints across snow.
it may be a time, but jiang cheng is certain to hear him eventually. his voice, low as it can be, carries. ]
You are safe, [ he says. and yet, there is no scold in it. it is stern, but soft. assuring, in the way a father's hand upon one's shoulder should always be. ] Remain there.
[ off to the right, toward the empty building. up upon the second floor, a child sits with his legs dangling out the window. he's flushed red with cold and upset, but otherwise in one piece. he just seems to protest: I can't move! I can't! I can't get down!
lan wangji needn't call for jiang cheng in light of that. ]
no subject
What the hell is he doing there? [ it is not meant for him. the spiteful venom in his voice, the acrid annoyance rolls off his tongue as easily as if he were simply talking about the weather, but his brows frown and draw down over his expression like storm shutters.
taking a step back, he casts a gaze around - there is a door, but it is frozen shut, the metal frozen and coated with a layer of thick ice and pile of snow as high as his shoulders lay in front of it, hard as a rock; it is clear that this is perhaps why he could not get back down, could not free himself save by the one open exit there exist - but it is too high for a child, not without injury. ]