ravkanwitch | [[open post and announcement: no mourners, no funerals]]

[[open post and announcement: no mourners, no funerals]]

[cw: discussion of death!]

Nina knows that word of Shen Yuan's death has been slowly spreading. She tried to put out a general warning of danger right after it happened... but she's not sure how many people were warned by it. She wasn't in the right mind at the time, after all. This time, she's more careful and collected. With SecUnit's help, she's alerted and gathered everyone who's interested for an important announcement in the lobby of the mansion. Despite all appearances of bossiness and stubbornness - all quite true - Nina has never been in charge of anything so serious. Kaz, Zoya, and the King himself; she followed their lead. As people slowly begin to gather and she attempts to compose herself, she wonders why she decided to put herself up to this.

Deep breath, Zenik. Pretend that - well, that this is pretend. She's back in the orphanage as the official greeter, making an important announcement to all the other children. She's the governor of a small town, making sure that all the citizens are aware and prepared. It does have to be her, after all. She's playing a crucial role in everything. She also doesn't want anyone else to carry the emotional load.

"Hi," she tells everyone gathered, trying to paste on a somber but not-too-morose expression. "Thanks for coming. I'm sure some of you have heard part of this announcement already and I'm sorry that it took so long to pass this information onto everyone else... but there was an incident not too long ago. We're not sure what caused it, whether it was the house or whether it was an individual, but... Shen Yuan is dead." There's most likely a reaction at this point and Nina forges onwards as confidently as she can, pitching her voice above the hubbub.

"But there is a way that he can return. We're sure of it. We're just trying to figure out the details, which might take a while. If you want to know more about that, you can ask Magnus, but I'm not sure how much he can tell you. Also, if you encounter any signs of Shen Yuan's spirit, you can talk to--" Here she meets Aleksander's eyes almost instinctively; this line of conversation is something she's purposefully kept from him. "You can talk to myself. Or... to Lan Wangji. ...That's all. Thank you."

A confident start but slightly deflated by her last few sentences, Nina steps back and allows for conversation to happen. If anyone would like to speak to her, she's looking much less strained and grim than she has in a while.

[[Feel free to post a single comment reaction and/or start a thread with Nina in the comments!]]

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"Then why dost thou think he's here?" His tone is complicated -- he wants Nina to tell him something that he can hang his hopes on, something concrete, instead of all these vague non-answers.

She gives him a very subdued wry look. "He has a strong spirit. A loud one. I could-- read his mind, since he was technically already dead. I know he's here because I can sense something but... sometimes spirits are tied to a specific location. Maybe I haven't found the right one." She shakes her head a little. She's thought about this a lot over the past few days. Maybe she isn't getting enough sleep because a few times, she's found herself standing in the room where Shen Yuan died and she can't remember walking inside in the first place.

As for his other questions, she desperately wants to tell Sagramore. If there is someone she implicitly trusts at the mansion aside from Luo Binghe, it is Sagramore. But the way she grew up, where every secret was a life-threatening one... She's seen espionage in action. More importantly, she's seen Inej as the Wraith steal five words from the mouth of a man and bring those words back to Kaz, causing the immediate downfall of said man. I seems wrong to just say the information without knowing who's listening in, no matter how much she wants to.

With a start, Nina realizes something. She pats the pockets of her skirt and after a couple seconds of searching, triumphantly brings out a notebook and pen.

Sagramore looks relieved at the appearance of the notebook. He needs something like this -- he understands why Nina, careful Nina, with her life of danger and betrayal, is reluctant to share any specific information, but the idea that Shen Yuan might live and Sagramore can't know why, or what to do, or how realistic it is, whether he should believe it in any way-- it would have been too much. He nods.

Her handwriting isn't perfect; it's rather rushed and girlish. It takes a couple of minutes for her to write everything down but when she's done, she hands the piece of paper over.

Shen Yuan had told Magnus that he was growing some mushroom-herb bodies that he got from an air plane (?)... Not sure what that means, but Luo Binghe seemed to be familiar with what the bodies are. They have a very specific name. The growing conditions are strict but Magnus is supervising/helping and Luo Binghe is guarding the bodies. It will take a while but once one is ready, they need an array (cultivation term?) to guide Shen Yuan's spirit into it. Magnus took us to see the bodies. They exist and they're definitely growing.

Sagramore reaches for her pen, and writes in his heavy, blunt print,

Airplane is his best friend. It's a nickname. He visited when everyone came a few months ago, when Kaz was here.

Relief is flooding through him. Shen Yuan has moved between bodies before. Lan Wangji knows all about cultivation things. He trusts Magnus to know about growing some kind of plant body.

He hated his body. It was someone else's. Could he have done this on purpose to get a new one?

It seems too cruel to be possible, that Shen Yuan would do something like that without warning his friends and his lover, and Sagramore isn't sure he believes it, even as he's writing it. But it gives what happened some shape of meaning. Shen Yuan will get a new body, one that doesn't mean anything to anyone. It would mean it's just a waiting game. Everything will be fine, they just have to be patient and wait for Shen Yuan--

How long??

Nina shakes her head, pointing to both the question of if Shen Yuan could have done this on purpose and also the question of How long?. One, she's absolutely certain of and the second, she doesn't know.

Magnus says that he can speed up the process but he doesn't want to speed it up too much, she scribbles.

She can speak freely about the death itself, at least. There's not too much information to begin with. "I don't think it was purposeful," she tells him, frowning. "Magnus found a bullet but I didn't know much about it, so I think he brought it to Lan Wangji."

Why not???

I don't understand plants, Nina writes, a little helplessly. But I do understand the human body. The balance is so delicate that I don't think Magnus wants anything to go wrong. It's like doing anything important... You don't want to rush it.

"Fine," he says. He doesn't sound entirely satisfied, but he respects that Magnus knows more about plants than he does. And Shen Yuan will come back. He'll come back.

He hesitates. "Is Luo Binghe--"

Nina tries to hold back a wince or grimace but something makes it through. Is he -- holding it together? Barely. Mourning? Not really, because he more than anyone believed that there would be a way for Shen Yuan to come back and he never truly mourned him ... but also, yes, very much so.

"He's hopeful," is what she settles on, "but unsettled. He doesn't remember much about what happened."

A tight little nod. He won't ask Nina to take care of him -- it's not her job, and she needs to take care of herself, too, something Sagramore isn't confident she does all that often. If Sagramore feels guilty that Luo Binghe is alone that's his own fault. He can't offer any comfort: Luo Binghe hates him. Rightfully, he thinks, and then he thinks of Claudius weeping in the kitchen, of Laertes saying he was proud of Sagramore, of the growing certainty that Luo Binghe never saw him as a friend to begin with. Rightfully or not, he amends the words in his head.

"Thank thee," he says. And then, because there is someone right in front of him who he loves, who wouldn't recoil from his care, he asks, "And thee? Art thou caring for thyself? Art thou all right?"

"I'm doing okay," she says, though her voice wobbles just slightly, indicating that it might not be the entire truth. She looks good, if tired, but it's only because she's using her abilities to search for Shen Yuan's spirit every day. Any Grisha would be glowing at this point. She looks at him for a moment. "I'm sorry-- I'm sorry I didn't come and find you and tell you this news personally."

The unspoken sentence here is Luo Binghe needed me. Sagramore has Laertes and Claudius -- among other dear friends. At this moment, Luo Binghe only has Nina.

He nods again -- he understands the unspoken part. "It's all right," softly. "I know. When didst thou last eat?"

"Oh, right before lunch when I made a sandwich--" She frowns. No, she charred that sandwich when she was trying to toast it but brought it to Luo Binghe anyway because it had been her best attempt out of three. And then they were whisked away by Magnus to look at the bodies. Her stomach grumbles slightly. "I haven't eaten all day," she admits, sounding slightly ashamed.

"Let me make thee a supper and hot chocolate. Magnus can answer questions for a little while."

Nina hesitates for a moment, feeling like she should say no, that someone needs her. As she gazes around, she thinks that one could notice the overwhelming grief and clamor -- but she notices the relationships and the connections instead. They're all interconnected. That's why Shen Yuan's death stings so much.

She can step away for a while, so she nods.

Sagramore squeezes her hand, and draws her away towards the kitchen.

Nina follows him, finally letting her shoulders slump slightly. She didn't realize how tightly she had been tensing them. "How did you find out?" She asks, quietly.

"Claudius told us, and Galahad told him." It really does feel better to focus on Nina. "You found out from Luo Binghe?"

"SecUnit, actually." Nina still remembers how her heart had skipped a beat or two at those words, Shen Yuan's dead, as if a Heartrender had controlled it. "Magnus was already there, trying to heal him."

He makes a mental note to check on Magnus too -- this can't have been easy, especially coming so soon on the heels of Magnus' own near-death experience and his complicated feelings about that. "Is it-- canst thou sense anything because of thy science?"

"I can sense something, sometimes. But... for some reason, I can't talk to him. I think it's because he doesn't have a resting place yet and I haven't found the place his spirit is tied to." She frowns a little, concerned. "It might be in the room where-- where it happened, but every time I go there, I seem to lose my train of thought."

As he begins getting out the things he needs for hot chocolate and pancakes, Sagramore listens, frowning somewhat himself. "Lan Wangji knows something about spirits, and their resting-places-- could he help?"

Nina's expression falls and she's uncharacteristically silent for a long moment. "He could help," she finally says. With this, at least.

Her silence makes him turn around from the stove, where he's preparing a pan. "Did something happen?"

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