[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

[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?"

[acrookedpath]

"She is the Ninth," he says, "but Lan Zhan, you are always so formal! What changed?"

He's still grinning, but an odd, tight knot has formed under his breastbone. Not only has Lan Zhan refrained from attacking the Ninth, but they have become friends? Good friends, it seems, for how quickly Lan Zhan dispensed with her title. And within only a few days!

[lightamidchaos]

"She asked," he says, stiffly.

"I played for her."

[acrookedpath]

His eyebrows rise; the grin slips for a moment.

"You did?"

The doll is eyeing Lan Zhan now, too, as much as a faceless paper doll can eye anyone.

[lightamidchaos]

"She wanted to know. About cultivation with the guqin. And later, when she was ... upset."

The wariness in the way both Wei Ying and the talisman are looking at him presses down on him like a weight.

"Wei Ying. I did not -- "

[acrookedpath]

He still has some food, and hasn't even touched his tea yet; Wei Wuxian picks up his cup, as if he could gather his thoughts in the same action, and drinks deep.

(He should have asked Lan Zhan for some wine instead.)

"Not even after -- " He stops. He will need to tread carefully, he thinks, and meets Lan Zhan's eye. "What did you see, when you played for her?"

[lightamidchaos]

He knows what Wei Ying means, what he must mean.

"No. Not then, not later. I did not."

She is like me. Doesn't that bother you?

He holds the other man's gaze with his own.

"The resentful energy she carries. She asked, too, if I saw it. And told me to ask you why. To say that she gave you permission."

[acrookedpath]

He closes his eyes; his shoulders sag, a little, and the paper doll leans against the teapot.

For a moment, all Wei Wuxian can do is toy with the edge of a paper stack near his dinner. He runs his thumbnail up and down, fanning his notes, letting them settle back into place. Repeats this a few more times.

He said he would not hurt her, he reminds himself, and he does not lie.

"However it happened," he says, low, "it was not her fault. It was done to her, Lan Zhan. Before she was born."

Another scrape of his thumbnail over the paper stack.

"There are two hundred resentful souls at her heart. Like a core. A massacre done by her parents, that made her a necromancer."

[lightamidchaos]

He stares at Wei Ying in utter shock.

"They--"

Two hundred souls. A massacre, to give Harrow her power, a path forced on her before her birth.

"... I did not see that," he manages, finally. "Only the energy. Not what caused it."

[acrookedpath]

He forces himself to stop scraping at his notes and look up at Lan Zhan.

"I'm not sure I would have seen it either," he says. "But the first time we met, I was playing the flute outside -- trying to seek out resentful energy. And then..."

He opens his hand, like a flower unfolding. There's no humor to his smile.

"I could sense all of them, as she walked by. All at once."

[lightamidchaos]

He shakes his head, still almost disbelieving. Except, of course, that he cannot disbelieve it; no wonder she could not bring herself to confess it. As horrifying as it is, someone did this, Harrow's parents did this, and she--

You may not wish to share your gifts with a black nun once you know what I am.

He closes his eyes, then shakes his head again and opens his eyes to look back at Wei Ying.

"It does not matter," he says. "It does not ... change things."

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian nods, very serious, eyes very dark.

"I did not know she kept it secret," he says, quietly, "and I blurted it aloud to her, very rudely. Do not talk about it with her unless she asks, Lan Zhan. And do not tell anyone else."

[lightamidchaos]

"I will not."

Without hesitation.

[acrookedpath]

"Good."

He's silent, for a moment -- and then the darkness lifts, the seriousness banished by another quick, teasing grin.

"I am glad it will not change anything between you and Harrow!"

[lightamidchaos]

He feels his jaw tighten.

Wei Ying is teasing him. He knows this. And yet--

You like Mianmian?

Why am I even talking to you about this.

"Ridiculous," he grits out, between clenched teeth.

[acrookedpath]

He laughs. "Ah, Lan Zhan, I am only teasing," he says, and reaches across the table to poke him with the butt of his chopsticks. "I'm glad you two are getting along!"

Truly, he is. It's what he hoped for when Lan Zhan first told him he'd spoken to the Ninth. Which, oddly, does nothing to release the queasy knot in his chest; if anything, it seems to be pulling tighter.

Maybe more food will help: he digs back into his dinner and tries to banish the thoughts from his mind.

[lightamidchaos]

Lan Wangji slants a suspicious look at him.

"Mn."

But it seems that the teasing has stopped, at least for now, and he can feel his tension relax. It is one thing for Wei Ying to tease him, and something entirely different for him to tease on this subject.

You should not flirt unless you mean it.

But that, of course, is not something he can explain.

Instead, he reaches for the teapot and refills Wei Ying's tea.

[acrookedpath]

He murmurs a cheerful thank you, takes a sip, then dives back into his food.

In the window above, the sky explodes in a silent, dazzling array, like millions of lanterns flaring brighter and guttering out in an instant. In the window looking over the lake, the sun draws lower to the horizon, darkening the grass and painting the water in streaks of orange.

"Do you still wish to explore the forest with me?" asks Wei Wuxian once he's polished off his last bite. "I can return my notes to my room before we go."