acrookedpath | [pfsb]

[pfsb]

Wei Wuxian's notes have long been a haphazard disaster, and it has reached a point where he knows he's circling a revelation, missing only one or two key parts, and said parts are probably lying half-forgotten in a notebook he thought he'd reserved for another project entirely. In theory, he is trying to dig through everything to organize it a little better.

In theory.

In practice, however, Wei Wuxian is staring out the window with his chin in his hand, and he hasn't touched the papers scattered across his table for about two hours. He's too busy smiling an absolutely foolish smile at nothing in particular.

It has been a very good couple of days.

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He can appreciate the effort! Considering the chicken is more to his own taste, albeit far less spicy, he is marveling she tolerated it even briefly.

"There are desserts we could try as well," he offers, taking a sip of tea. "They are sweet, but not nearly as sweet or rich as milkshakes."

"I would be willing," she says. "We had a bargain."

Let it never be said that the Ninth House fails to pay its debts.

"Besides... perhaps I should... expand my tastes."

"Perhaps we should get two desserts, then," he says thoughtfully. "Let me see..."

He drums his fingers on the table, thinking, then brightens and waves down another waitrat. "Jian dui and tanghulu! I think you may like those -- the tanghulu has much more sugar, but only on the outside."

"All right," she says glumly.

"How do you cope with the intensity of your chili oil?" she asks. "I can manage at most one spoonful of shaken milk, but you and Gideon gulp them down."

"I have always enjoyed spicy food," he says with a shrug. "Not this spicy, perhaps, when I was very young, but it has never bothered me the way it may bother others. And I lived somewhere that did not shy away from flavor -- if I grew up in Gusu Lan, I doubt my tongue would survive this or a milkshake."

He gestures to the food before him.

That doesn't help; Gideon grew up on the same dusty, flavorless, loveless planet.

"Mm."

Sadly, Wei Wuxian's skill in translating Lan Zhan's monosyllablic responses does not carry over to Harrow's.

"But expanding your tastes does not have to mean you eat an entire jar of chili oil right away, or drink the biggest milkshake you can find with -- " He ladders a hand upward. "Whipped cream this high and twenty cherries on top. It can be a spoonful. It can be a little extra spice, not even the strongest chilis. And when you grow used to that, then you add a little more. And then more."

"Perhaps," she says, some little comforted.

"But what if... my reaction to the little more makes people hesitate to offer it again?"

...Are they still talking about food? Wei Wuxian isn't certain they are talking about food any longer.

"They may hesitate because they do not want to see you discomforted," he says, with a bit more caution than before. Just in case this isn't about food. "But if you make it plain that you are trying, and wish to try again -- then I hope they would be patient with you. And if they are not, that is their fault, not yours."

Harrow isn't sure, either. "I wish my reactions were not... inappropriate to the stimulus. It would be simpler."

How dare her body do anything she doesn't tell it to?

"Perhaps." Gentler. "But the body can be trained. It does not always have to react as it does now."

A squeak sounds near floor level: with less-than-perfect timing, the rat has returned with a tray of candied fruits and small balls of fried dough covered in sesame seeds. Quickly, he offers his thanks and adds the desserts to the array of food between them.

She regards them thoughtfully then reaches for one of the balls of dough. "Yes," she says, frowning at the dessert.

"Ah -- those have red bean paste in them, so you are not startled when you bite in," he offers helpfully.

(Hopefully he did not just turn this possibly-a-metaphor conversation into something unintentionally shameless.)

She bites it.

"It is sweet, but not offensively so," she says, after some thoughtful chewing.

"Yes. Much easier than a milkshake," he agrees. "Those are the jian dui, if you wish to order them again. These ones are the tanghulu."

He picks one of the small skewers of candied fruit off its plate and nudges the rest a little closer to Harrow.

"They may be the next step as you work toward something sweeter."

She watches them suspiciously, as if expecting them to launch themselves into her unsuspecting mouth.

"I had an experience I had marked my memory to tell you about," she says, reaching for the emergency topic shift lever. "In London Below."

"Oh?"

Color Wei Wuxian intrigued! He is always comfortable rolling with sudden topic shifts, especially when they involve strange new places with intriguing kinds of magic.

He slides a couple of fruits off the skewer to pop them in his mouth, listening avidly.

"Ingress and I encountered a revenant--or indeed, I believe it was a group of revenants, although only one was empowered enough to interact directly."

"The point being that they were using their 'resentful'--" Airquotes. "--energy to... play. Ingress spoke nostalgically of playing hide and seek among the catacombs and it seemed to have inspired a similar nostalgic desire to play with us. It was somewhat alarming in the event, but their intentions seemed benign."

"Huh." His eyebrows rise; he pulls the last piece of tanghulu of his skewer, but does not eat it just yet. "That is very interesting. Resentful energy by nature is not benign; this is more like an ordinary ghost, but even those are not... playful. If they were joyful enough to play, they would be joyful enough to move along to elsewhere, I would think. Even the most benign ghosts have a strand of negative emotion tying them to the world."

That is why Wei Wuxian can call upon them, stirring up the negative emotion until it overtakes their energy entirely.

"London Below is different," she offers. "A place for the forgotten and lost."

"However, I found the implications--thought-provoking. Is it possible that thanergy can be jacketed by other sufficiently strong emotions, rather than only painful or negative ones?"

"Does joy necessarily involve moving on from the living world?"

He chews thoughtfully on the last piece of tanghulu as she speaks.

"It seems to," he says once he's swallowed. Wei Wuxian has cleared most of the food from his plate, and has emptied his teacup; it seems as good a time as any to open the wine bottle. "Perhaps not if there is still a strand of something besides joy -- but if it is only joy, why would they feel the need to stay? Still, I wonder if you may be right: if other strong emotions could sheathe the thanergy properly, not just resentment or anger. Or not solely resentment and anger, at least."

"You seem happier than I have ever seen you," Harrow points out. "Do you feel any desire to move on?"

He pauses, the wine bottle halfway to his mouth. Slowly, he lowers it back to the table.

"No," he says, a little quieter. "But... even if I am happy, that does not mean I am free of grief, or anger. Though -- " He sighs, his mouth quirking into a small smile. "I confess that even if I were, I would want to stay for Lan Zhan. I would not want to leave him again."

She bites the other half of the ball of dough. "Then perhaps those feelings may be the fuel you need," she says simply.

"Perhaps."

He turns the wine bottle in his hands, then lifts it again for a proper drink.

Slower: "I am still not certain if it is only joy that makes me wish to stay. I am happy with Lan Zhan -- " Again, that small smile returns unbidden. "But I also know that he would be devastated if I left, after he lost me once before. And I do not wish to hurt him so."

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