[pfsb]

[acrookedpath]

The latest idea that struck Wei Wuxian mid-lunch: if he combined one of the theoretical energy talismans with a paper doll, would that allow him to search the grounds for resentful energy without having to blanket the whole inn with talismans?

It seems like a sound idea! It won't replace the planned night hunt with Lan Zhan -- nor would he want it to -- but if he succeeds, it will be a fun experiment.

First, though: combining a paper doll with a simpler talisman. Which brings us to Wei Wuxian at a table underneath the Observation Window, not an inch left uncovered by his notes, scribbling onto a tiny cutout with a ballpoint pen Bar gave him. (What an invention!) He completes the last character with a flourish and waves his hand over the doll; it springs to its "feet," and, grinning, he directs it toward the empty cup perched precariously on a corner of the table.

Comments

[lightamidchaos]

"It is not fine."

He shoves back his chair and rises to his feet.

[acrookedpath]

He didn't expect this level of vehemence over so small a slight.

"Lan Zhan -- " Half-rising from his chair, he catches Lan Zhan by the arm in an effort to halt his path.

[lightamidchaos]

The hand on his arm stops him. He turns to look at Wei Ying.

"She has no right," he says, biting off each word, short and sharp.

[acrookedpath]

"She has not attacked me."

Quieter.

"She has not denounced me for all to hear, or prevented me from moving freely. All she has done is made assumptions I have heard a thousand times before. She was unkind, Lan Zhan, but that is all."

[lightamidchaos]

He closes his eyes, hoping it will hide his thoughts.

A thousand times before. Including his own, once.

Wei Ying is not wrong. He knows it. And still--

"You deserve better."

He opens his eyes again and looks at the other man.

"If you truly wish, then I will not act now. But if she persists, you will tell me. Promise me, Wei Ying."

[acrookedpath]

His mouth quirks up into a tiny smile. "I promise, Lan Zhan," he says, no louder.

She has no right. The fierceness to his words, as if raising a sword against an army, all for this? All for him?

He loosens his grip on Lan Zhan's arm, and tries to firm up his smile. "Now, let us get our own tea. I'm sure whatever she sent over was horrid."

[lightamidchaos]

He nods.

"One moment."

With one last flat glance in Moiraine's direction, he turns away and crosses the room to make a request of Bar-guniang.

He returns very soon afterward, carrying a tray with tea for them both, a bowl of rice to share, and dishes of mapo tofu and shuizhu. As with breakfast, a bottle of chili oil is present.

[acrookedpath]

The strength of the shuizhu's spice tickles his nose from half a meter away, and all at once, Wei Wuxian is ravenous. Eagerly, he clears a bigger space on the table for their food and seizes upon both the dish and the chili oil.

Midway through opening the bottle, a realization strikes him.

"Lan Zhan! You are older than me now!" Hastily, he shoves one of the cups across the table and picks up the teapot. "I have forgotten myself."

[lightamidchaos]

He had been setting out the rest of the contents of the tray, planning to pour their tea next, quietly content in being able to care for Wei Ying in these small ways.

The cheerful observation freezes him in place.

He is older than Wei Ying, now. Three years older. And more years will come, in which he will move alone through the world that had once been theirs, keeping their vow for both of them while Wei Ying -- does what? Explores the limits of a strange inn? How long will it be before that is no longer enough, before he comes to regard this place as a prison?

Lan Wangji does not know, but he fears the answer.

"Mn," he manages. It's literally all he can say.

[acrookedpath]

"Does that mean I'm forgiven?" he laughs as he finishes pouring Lan Zhan's tea. Moving on to his own cup, "You have seen me be much ruder, I suppose. It will be fine."

Instead of drinking his tea straight away, he goes back to attacking the chili oil bottle, with all intent to smother his dinner just as he did his breakfast.

[lightamidchaos]

"There is nothing to forgive."

He leaves the tea where it is for the moment and instead turns his attention to putting rice in a bowl, which he sets in front of Wei Ying before preparing his own.

[acrookedpath]

You know what goes well with rice, Lan Zhan? More chili oil.

Pretty soon, the sinus-clearing sting of Wei Wuxian's dinner can probably be smelled from three tables away. He shovels the food into his mouth without decorum, slowing down only when he realizes he's threatening to spatter oil on his papers by accident. Next time, he tells himself, he'll remember to ask for lunch before he gets too absorbed in his work.

(Knowing Wei Wuxian, he'll forget this thought in the next five minutes.)

[lightamidchaos]

It will forever be a mystery to him how Wei Ying can eat as he does without searing the ability to taste anything away forever.

He shakes his head very slightly at the thought and begins his own meal - in silence, as the precepts require.

[acrookedpath]

Maybe he has! Maybe that's why he can keep eating the equivalent of a raging bonfire so cheerily.

"I have another talisman to show you, Lan Zhan," he eventually says once he's polished off half his food. Leaning over, he starts to dig through one of the more haphazard piles of paper.

[lightamidchaos]

He makes an encouraging noise, even as he reaches out to make sure that another stack of papers doesn't get knocked over in the process.

[acrookedpath]

After a few tries (and thanks to Lan Zhan holding the stack in place), he wiggles out a slip of paper printed with a dense array of characters.

"Here," he says, slapping it flat between them and gesturing to it with his chopsticks. "It's more complete than the others, but it's still so limited! Spiritual energy only, and in no more than a one-meter radius. I suppose if this is to be a stepping stone to the energy talisman, the radius doesn't matter, but -- " A small noise of frustration. "Do you have any ideas?"

[lightamidchaos]

He sets his own bowl aside and turns the talisman slightly to get a better look.

"Too large might have interference."

He looks up at Wei Ying.

"More than one? As with your spirit flags? To enhance the effect?"

[acrookedpath]

He sulks, as exaggerated as a child wheedling for sweets. "I thought I might have to do that," he grumps. "I wanted to confine it to a single talisman. But it may simply be too complex to manage. I thought in addition to a stepping stone, I might try to combine it with a paper doll to create a sort of..."

He mimes walking with his fingers.

"Moving lantern, I suppose, that could illuminate energy in a wide radius. Which goes in an entirely different direction from the original idea of the energy talisman, I know."

Some days -- especially when he consciously tries to distract himself, as he has done so often since his arrival at the inn -- it feels like his mind is sprinting kilometers ahead of him, dragging him behind like a pack fallen from a galloping horse. The best he can do is let the ideas go where they may.

[lightamidchaos]

He glances at the now-quiet paper doll lying to one side on the table, then back at the talisman, then at Wei Ying.

"If anyone can, you will."

He looks at the papers again.

"Does it work? To combine with the doll, like that?"

[acrookedpath]

A tiny smile lifts his lips, completely involuntary. He picks up the paper doll. A spark of red lights the characters printed down its chest, and Wei Wuxian sets it loose on the table again.

"I did succeed in combining it with a basic levitation talisman just before you arrived," he says as the doll walks over to investigate the teapot. "Not well -- the cup barely levitated, and only for an instant -- but it's a start. I think I could work up to more complex talismans easily enough, but if the energy talisman has to be an array..."

He sighs, disgruntled.

[lightamidchaos]

He glances at the doll, then back at the talisman.

"Is the limit in the paper and ink? Or in what it can reveal as drawn?"

He knows a reasonable amount about talismans for a cultivator, of course, but Lan Wangji is well aware that Wei Ying's skill in this has far surpassed anyone else's.

[acrookedpath]

"I'm beginning to worry it might be the latter." Absently, he eats another bite of his dinner, eyes on the paper doll. "Madam Bar gave me a pen -- it allows you to write very fine and very precise, even on a small piece of paper. I have to test it more. But I think if I truly want it to work, I will need to figure out a new way to draw the entire talisman."

[lightamidchaos]

"If you drew the symbols for energy around instead of inside...?" he tries, then shakes his head.

"I do not know."

He frowns at the talisman, then looks up from it and at Wei Ying.

"You said, before, the Reverend Daughter -- Harrow," he corrects himself, remembering.

"--that her necromancy gave you ideas. Could it help?"

[acrookedpath]

"It might," he muses. "I'll have to -- "

Wait.

Wait a minute.

He looks up at Lan Zhan, and slowly, an impish grin slides across his face.

"Lan Zhan," he says. "Harrow? She is no longer the Reverend Daughter to you?"

[lightamidchaos]

Lan Wangji blinks.

"Is she not that to you?"