[The patriarch, in all his glory, doesn’t look even a handful of years older than Bi’an himself— though maybe that sense of nearness has more to do with the silhouette Wei Wuxian casts: layers of red and black, long hair loosely tied back, away from a beautiful jawline and half-lidded eyes.
(If Xie Bi’an were more desperate, more ill with irreplaceable loss, he might have mistaken Wei Wuxian for Fan Wujiu.)]
He’ll remember everything...?
[Asking question after question makes him feel naive in a way he only vaguely remembers from his own childhood: something in his head still runs on instinct and propriety, he knows he should be thanking Wei Wuxian for his mercy and generosity.
Instead he doesn’t hesitate to tuck himself into the space beside a man he barely knows, still wondering about the beautiful teeth of that woman from moments before.
Is that what Wujiu will become?
Would he forgive him for that, too?
Sick, hisses the knot in his stomach, and he realizes he hasn’t eaten in two days now. What travel hasn’t done, his tether to the dead has.]
[ fan wujiu will be fan wujiu, because the spirit is a continuation at all times. one only had the spirit they were created with, which wandered the world until the afterlife opened its doors or it was destroyed. from what wei wuxian had heard, fan wujiu's spirit had escaped both fates - hence, why he had requested that xie bi'an bring the umbrella that had been in fan wujiu's presence when he had mysteriously drowned.
with the general's son tucked under his arm now, he's a jovial presence, for such a vilified patriarch. he leads the way from where he holds audience, deeper into the bowels of his territory, patting xie bi'an's shoulder as he practically sings his explanations and words. anything to keep someone entranced, he's so much like a songbird, adoring attention, commanding the room with his brassy personality. ]
He's this way, this way. Don't mind the others, they have minds enough to know you are my guest, [ he refers to the creeping, elongated corpses that slip through shadow; the squat, round forms of toddlers who had barely begun to lose their baby fat, their teeth as sharp as the adult women who flowed like serpents through the halls, hands hidden below the folds of their clothes, sweeping the lesser corpses aside - heralding the arrival of yiling's master and the master's guest.
they enter a smaller chamber, candlelit and host to two forms - the slender-shouldered wen ning, who stands with hair unbound and arms softly crossed in study of the still, soul-emptied body of the drowned fan wujiu. the body of xie bi'an's dearest one covered in talismans, a dark veil covering his eyes - his pallor mirroring the ashen, dead tone of the ghost general who stands at his side. ] Wen Ning, [ wei wuxian introduces him to xie bi'an, ] a very dear friend of mine. He helped me spirit Fan from his shallow grave to this place. We've been preparing him for his soul, which -- you have in your possession. The umbrella, please?
[And oh, it feels wrong and so right, strolling between the living and the dead.
Back home, they say Xie An’s heir has gone mad. The curse of something once beloved that won’t smile anymore: pity preceded their avoidance, but the moment the local populace realized his charming nature had gone grey along with the hair at his temples, he might as well have become a ghost. It’s not difficult to see, knowing that, why Yiling’s patriarch is so reviled and feared. It’s easier to stomach the sweetness of incense and gentle mourning of laid gifts, rather than the harshness of cheeks stained slick with salt from howling tears, the hollow, sunken skin of a corpse, echoing the concept of mortal impermanence.
So, maybe he has gone mad. To look at shapes in the dark that don’t quite sit right and feel no twinge of apprehension. Maybe Wei Wuxian has gone mad, too.
But then, if that’s the case, Xie Bi’an supposes they couldn’t be in better company.
He only flinches when he sees Fan Wujiu’s corpse. When he’s asked to relinquish the one thing he’s clung to for so long, that he’s well and truly forgotten he’s been holding onto it altogether— that his fingers, nails longer now, bite into its sides of their own volition, rejecting the request.]
You said I should be the first one he sees.
[Bi’an reiterates it, maybe because he’s stalling— maybe also because he doesn’t know how to let go, worrying on some level that Wei Wuxian will steal him away.]
[ Xie Bi'an clings to the umbrella as though it will be enough to replace his old companion, as if it will soothe his aches and his growing madness in the way that madness is never soothed - only fed. The umbrella is a sad thing, limp from his clutching, tattered at one edge, all in black the way the Xie family's heir has been adorned in white. The juxtaposition between light and dark, yin and yang, does niot escape Wei Wuxian - he wears the mantle of darkness, after all. As intimately wound around his fingertips as an overzealous lover might be. Those same fingers, he gestures with, crooking one towards Xie Bi'an. ]
It's a little late in the game to begin mistrusting me, young master. I promised you that, indeed; I don't intend to break my most solemn promise. If you'll pass me the umbrella and stand in front of him, I'll be able to do just that. Pretend like you're about to see your bride's face for the very first time!
[ Without the umbrella, the entire movement falls apart; even standing there, in the middle of a space that crawls and swarms with the insidious, seductive lure of evil and of the dead, he can sense the fluttering thing that is encaged within. Fan Wujiu, or what was left of him apart from th corpse, is tucked away within the umbrella that he had with him when he had perished under that bridge. ]
[It isn’t mistrust, it is fear: Xie Bi’an never knew betrayal until recently, after all; its sting is still fresh. As long as he has Wujiu, the rest doesn’t matter. As long as he has Wujiu, he’ll grant Yiling’s patriarch his every wish, no matter how unreasonable or farfetched— paint the stars into his hair each morning, and tuck the sun between his fingers at dusk to sleep by.
Walk barefoot through these halls like one of the dead, though he knows already that’s not where his usefulness lies.]
Be gentle. [He urges softly, sweetly, letting broken weight drift into Wei Wuxian’s hands, their fingertips touching with devoted pressure as he folds the patriarch's grip into place.
The rest is all bodily movement. Steps just beside Wen Ning (handsome. striking even in death. had it been a wedding, too, when he was revived?) and lets sleepless, red-lined eyes fall only on Fan Wujiu's shrouded form, obscured for ceremony or modesty, or perhaps just to save Xie An's heir the pain of a second viewing.
How the world never saw value in him, Xie Bi’an never understood.]
[ the umbrella is laid tenderly in his hands, broken and battered by weather and struggle and Xie Bi'an's nervous, grief-stricken hands. he holds it to his eye level for a moment, studious and confident in his observations. Wen Ning, his tender-hearted friend, moves back in time with Wei Wuxian as he steps to the back of the standing corpse. The body of Xie Bi'an's handsome friend had been twisted in death, waterlogged and ill-cared for by those who had sought to bury him quickly, to hide the truth of his manner of death with water and sloppily-applied rouge.
behind Fan Wujiu, listening to Xie Bi'an's soft pleas and apologies, he presses the flat of his hand to the broken umbrella; red, electric-hot energy gathers in his palm and sparks forth from his eyes. a delicate, sinister glow that heralds his particular branch of cultivation. as he draws his hand upwards and the umbrella downwards, he draws the glow of a soul from it. the tendrils of sticky soul cling to the umbrella, reluctant to part with the last place that it could be safe, be found by its dearest companion, be left alone in his hands. in one sweep, he feels the echoes of Fan Wujiu's thoughts and emotions towards the one standing in front of his corpse.
he cups the soul in his hand, passing the umbrella into Wen Ning's awaiting arms and presses it between his palms ( nobody but he is aware that souls have the consistency of bao ) before he cups it, red light sparking frightful and sickly from the outer corners of his eyes as he feeds it slowly into the root of Fan Wujiu's spine. silently, he watches it sink in, watches it sit at the surface of his body - before it begins to spread and return to the deceased limbs.
with a finger held to his lips, he peers over Fan Wujiu's shoulder - he'll be silent now, standing at the ready with Wen Ning in case Fan Wujiu's first instinct is to lash out. it usually is, the dead he resurrects haven't normally died a peaceful death. ]
[ It wasn’t the river that bloodied him, or the rains, or the rush of flooded banks peeling silt from stone. So when Fan Wujiu wakes— wrong as it is to wake at all, away from the battered cage of that umbrella— it’s with a guttural, voiceless growl: lurching forward, joints snapping as though realigning with the roll of his shoulders, veil peeling back only far enough to cover one eye— the other brilliant gold and every inch as predatory as the rest of him.
Xie catches him. In the way he wished he’d been able to before, when Wujiu needed him most (thinking it was all fine, aside from the heavy patter of rain outside) slender arms tucking in beneath Fan Wujiu’s shoulders, one hand cradling the back of his neck, tangled in soft fabric and coarse hair. A loving embrace, even as sharp nails sink in, as teeth bury themselves across the slope of his shoulder, a few inches from his throat, growling, snarling. Wheezing through once-flooded lungs that still need time to clear.
Xie Bi’an pulls the veil away. Shushes him sweetly, voice like a songbird. He feels no pain.] Oh, I missed you. I missed you.
It’s all right now.
I missed you so much, you fool.
[Hours later, Wujiu’s face is fixed in a steep frown.]
It wasn’t really a wedding. [He insists, countering Xie Bi'an's reverent description of their reunion, and punctuating it with a low tch. His throat is still hoarse, but the only sign of it is that when he growls, the reverberation effortlessly carries. Even if it was a wedding, he concludes, he doesn’t like ceremony. That sort of thing fits Xie more.] So we don’t need a feast.
[The fact that offered hospitality might serve as a means for conversation and easy instruction on acclimating to undeath, predictably, eludes him. (There's also the fact that Xie hasn't eaten in so long, he looks thin as a rail, and in desperate need of hot tea and warm food— but to Fan Wujiu it feels like only hours. Only minutes, since they last saw each other, and he's currently entranced by the deadened color of his own hands, flexing and curling his fingers in alternating patterns)]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
(If Xie Bi’an were more desperate, more ill with irreplaceable loss, he might have mistaken Wei Wuxian for Fan Wujiu.)]
He’ll remember everything...?
[Asking question after question makes him feel naive in a way he only vaguely remembers from his own childhood: something in his head still runs on instinct and propriety, he knows he should be thanking Wei Wuxian for his mercy and generosity.
Instead he doesn’t hesitate to tuck himself into the space beside a man he barely knows, still wondering about the beautiful teeth of that woman from moments before.
Is that what Wujiu will become?
Would he forgive him for that, too?
Sick, hisses the knot in his stomach, and he realizes he hasn’t eaten in two days now. What travel hasn’t done, his tether to the dead has.]
no subject
[ fan wujiu will be fan wujiu, because the spirit is a continuation at all times. one only had the spirit they were created with, which wandered the world until the afterlife opened its doors or it was destroyed. from what wei wuxian had heard, fan wujiu's spirit had escaped both fates - hence, why he had requested that xie bi'an bring the umbrella that had been in fan wujiu's presence when he had mysteriously drowned.
with the general's son tucked under his arm now, he's a jovial presence, for such a vilified patriarch. he leads the way from where he holds audience, deeper into the bowels of his territory, patting xie bi'an's shoulder as he practically sings his explanations and words. anything to keep someone entranced, he's so much like a songbird, adoring attention, commanding the room with his brassy personality. ]
He's this way, this way. Don't mind the others, they have minds enough to know you are my guest, [ he refers to the creeping, elongated corpses that slip through shadow; the squat, round forms of toddlers who had barely begun to lose their baby fat, their teeth as sharp as the adult women who flowed like serpents through the halls, hands hidden below the folds of their clothes, sweeping the lesser corpses aside - heralding the arrival of yiling's master and the master's guest.
they enter a smaller chamber, candlelit and host to two forms - the slender-shouldered wen ning, who stands with hair unbound and arms softly crossed in study of the still, soul-emptied body of the drowned fan wujiu. the body of xie bi'an's dearest one covered in talismans, a dark veil covering his eyes - his pallor mirroring the ashen, dead tone of the ghost general who stands at his side. ] Wen Ning, [ wei wuxian introduces him to xie bi'an, ] a very dear friend of mine. He helped me spirit Fan from his shallow grave to this place. We've been preparing him for his soul, which -- you have in your possession. The umbrella, please?
no subject
Back home, they say Xie An’s heir has gone mad. The curse of something once beloved that won’t smile anymore: pity preceded their avoidance, but the moment the local populace realized his charming nature had gone grey along with the hair at his temples, he might as well have become a ghost. It’s not difficult to see, knowing that, why Yiling’s patriarch is so reviled and feared. It’s easier to stomach the sweetness of incense and gentle mourning of laid gifts, rather than the harshness of cheeks stained slick with salt from howling tears, the hollow, sunken skin of a corpse, echoing the concept of mortal impermanence.
So, maybe he has gone mad. To look at shapes in the dark that don’t quite sit right and feel no twinge of apprehension. Maybe Wei Wuxian has gone mad, too.
But then, if that’s the case, Xie Bi’an supposes they couldn’t be in better company.
He only flinches when he sees Fan Wujiu’s corpse. When he’s asked to relinquish the one thing he’s clung to for so long, that he’s well and truly forgotten he’s been holding onto it altogether— that his fingers, nails longer now, bite into its sides of their own volition, rejecting the request.]
You said I should be the first one he sees.
[Bi’an reiterates it, maybe because he’s stalling— maybe also because he doesn’t know how to let go, worrying on some level that Wei Wuxian will steal him away.]
no subject
It's a little late in the game to begin mistrusting me, young master. I promised you that, indeed; I don't intend to break my most solemn promise. If you'll pass me the umbrella and stand in front of him, I'll be able to do just that. Pretend like you're about to see your bride's face for the very first time!
[ Without the umbrella, the entire movement falls apart; even standing there, in the middle of a space that crawls and swarms with the insidious, seductive lure of evil and of the dead, he can sense the fluttering thing that is encaged within. Fan Wujiu, or what was left of him apart from th corpse, is tucked away within the umbrella that he had with him when he had perished under that bridge. ]
no subject
Walk barefoot through these halls like one of the dead, though he knows already that’s not where his usefulness lies.]
Be gentle. [He urges softly, sweetly, letting broken weight drift into Wei Wuxian’s hands, their fingertips touching with devoted pressure as he folds the patriarch's grip into place.
The rest is all bodily movement. Steps just beside Wen Ning (handsome. striking even in death. had it been a wedding, too, when he was revived?) and lets sleepless, red-lined eyes fall only on Fan Wujiu's shrouded form, obscured for ceremony or modesty, or perhaps just to save Xie An's heir the pain of a second viewing.
How the world never saw value in him, Xie Bi’an never understood.]
I’m here, Wujiu. I know I’m late— but I’m here.
no subject
behind Fan Wujiu, listening to Xie Bi'an's soft pleas and apologies, he presses the flat of his hand to the broken umbrella; red, electric-hot energy gathers in his palm and sparks forth from his eyes. a delicate, sinister glow that heralds his particular branch of cultivation. as he draws his hand upwards and the umbrella downwards, he draws the glow of a soul from it. the tendrils of sticky soul cling to the umbrella, reluctant to part with the last place that it could be safe, be found by its dearest companion, be left alone in his hands. in one sweep, he feels the echoes of Fan Wujiu's thoughts and emotions towards the one standing in front of his corpse.
he cups the soul in his hand, passing the umbrella into Wen Ning's awaiting arms and presses it between his palms ( nobody but he is aware that souls have the consistency of bao ) before he cups it, red light sparking frightful and sickly from the outer corners of his eyes as he feeds it slowly into the root of Fan Wujiu's spine. silently, he watches it sink in, watches it sit at the surface of his body - before it begins to spread and return to the deceased limbs.
with a finger held to his lips, he peers over Fan Wujiu's shoulder - he'll be silent now, standing at the ready with Wen Ning in case Fan Wujiu's first instinct is to lash out. it usually is, the dead he resurrects haven't normally died a peaceful death. ]
no subject
Xie catches him. In the way he wished he’d been able to before, when Wujiu needed him most (thinking it was all fine, aside from the heavy patter of rain outside) slender arms tucking in beneath Fan Wujiu’s shoulders, one hand cradling the back of his neck, tangled in soft fabric and coarse hair. A loving embrace, even as sharp nails sink in, as teeth bury themselves across the slope of his shoulder, a few inches from his throat, growling, snarling. Wheezing through once-flooded lungs that still need time to clear.
Xie Bi’an pulls the veil away. Shushes him sweetly, voice like a songbird. He feels no pain.] Oh, I missed you. I missed you.
It’s all right now.
I missed you so much, you fool.
[Hours later, Wujiu’s face is fixed in a steep frown.]
It wasn’t really a wedding. [He insists, countering Xie Bi'an's reverent description of their reunion, and punctuating it with a low tch. His throat is still hoarse, but the only sign of it is that when he growls, the reverberation effortlessly carries. Even if it was a wedding, he concludes, he doesn’t like ceremony. That sort of thing fits Xie more.] So we don’t need a feast.
[The fact that offered hospitality might serve as a means for conversation and easy instruction on acclimating to undeath, predictably, eludes him. (There's also the fact that Xie hasn't eaten in so long, he looks thin as a rail, and in desperate need of hot tea and warm food— but to Fan Wujiu it feels like only hours. Only minutes, since they last saw each other, and he's currently entranced by the deadened color of his own hands, flexing and curling his fingers in alternating patterns)]