CLOSED.

[laozu]

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.

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[wangxian]

[ is it not a difficult thing, to allow oneself to be attached to something so fragile? lan wangji, no matter his attempts to distance himself, had still been swarmed. he had still been taken as though a kite to earth, its string tugged sudden and sure and sharp. for one who was hoped to have no worldly fixations, what good had it done? a wish is only that. a hope is only that. and perhaps it will only ever be just that as for himself, the heart in his chest is soft. it is a hungry and anguishing thing. it is a thing that found within itself a capacity to raise lan yuan, lan sizhui. it is thing that nurtured him, that gave him such a name to begin with: to recollect. and, ah, that too: to long for.

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. ]

[sandu]

[ despite every evidence suggests, jiang cheng is not as cold a man as he makes himself out to be - the barbed words and actions only on the surface level of things, like a thin layer of ice forming over flowing stream beneath - like an abandoned hearth that still hides smouldering coals among the bed of ashes, ready to flare and burn up at a moment's notice. it's already a known thing to many of the cultivation world, how easily sect leader jiang is provoked to anger over any problems concerning his kith and kin, how readily he jumps into the fray for jin ling, even amidst all the threats and the harsh words. he is someone who has not a good word to say to anyone and especially not in their hearing, which always made him a poor choice to let loose near children.

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. ]

[wangxian]

[ it is hard to say what lan wangji is.

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. ]

[sandu]

[ there is no need for calling; the low voice carries in the wind, amidst the frozen creaking of metal, of rust and snow, and jiang cheng is as if a hound on a scent - there is no need for calling, as he makes his way to where lan wangji stands, hand cocked on his hip as he glances up, following the path made by the pale eyes until he too, sights the child sitting up on the window. ]

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. ]