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!]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Claudius records that, too, in case they have the same conversation again — he can rely on Lan Wamgi, at least, to come to the same conclusion. Claudius knows what happens when he’s afraid, how he spirals and grasps at straws, but Lan Wangji has always steadied him.

Here is a plan. And unlike every other plan (— a thought —) this one will work.

“Magnus,” he says, speaks aloud the thought. “We never found who targeted Magnus, did we? Dost thou think … ?” Someone who can perfectly cover their tracks, erase any memory of their involvement … it still feels like there’s a piece missing. Another move available in their game with Aornis. But there are connections in the gaps now, in the mysteries unsolved. “Ask Shen Yuan what happened, how she killed him. She may have used similar methods.”

Although Lan Wangji's demeanor was already serious, it becomes solemn anew. If Aornis attacked Magnus as well, it is almost a relief; it means, then, that there is one person only at this mansion with such ill intent. He nods grimly, a curt little gesture, and returns his attention to the qin: How were you killed?

The longest pause yet follows. Lan Wangji might almost believe Shen Yuan's spirit had fled if he did not know better. When the answer comes, the notes are softer, the strings plucked with less sure, brash intent.

Claudius will certainly see the hard set to Lan Wangji's expression as the music dies out, the cold glint to his eyes. He translates, carefully. "Shen Yuan was shot with the gun whose bullet Magnus gave me. It should not have killed him. His killer can manipulate coincidence. Everything turned to her favor. Luo Binghe's sword suffered a backlash of demonic qi. The poison that once blocked Shen Yuan's qi returned and he could not heal. A song from his childhood happened to play."

Claudius raises both eyebrows. "A rather fearsome power," he remarks. He finishes writing the last line, somehow the strangest of them all. He'd been teasing the spirit of Shen Yuan about plot contrivances (teasing because being too serious would make it terrifying) but there's a contrived perfection to that many layered coincidences. He can almost admire it, the strategy of it -- there's no better way to outmaneuver Luo Binghe than by removing his ability to make everything go his way.

Fearsome indeed. Lan Wangji doesn't much like to think of how it might be used against him, or against Wei Ying, or against Claudius -- against any of the people here. Death is cruel enough without its architect laughing in the background.

He has questions of his own. He sets his fingers to the qin strings and plays. His response comes without hesitation, one low note, a yes. Lan Wangji has gone colder still when he makes eye contact with Claudius. "That person is also the one who attacked Magnus."

Claudius taps his pen as he turns over the implications. It's as Lan Wangji thought, "It's almost a relief. I said we had two mysteries, but if we go all the way back to Dark when Magnus was attacked, we had three. But if all three lead us to the same culprit, then there's only one person we need fear. Fearsome powers or no, at least we don't need to contend with multiple fronts." Or fear the mansion itself. In some ways, suspecting some accident of mansion magic had injured Magnus or killed Shen Yuan felt like suspecting an old and trusted friend. It's like Kade said -- this world has its own nature, but it also shaped itself to Claudius's desires and beliefs. He and this bizarre place have been together nine months now, learning and growing from each other, long enough to bear a child. Would he have to stop trusting it now? Would it be his fault, if the mansion grew violent?

Lan Wangji nods. His face remains icy, set in a slow unfurling of anger on Magnus' behalf, but one untrustworthy and evil person is an easier challenge than a mansion of horrors or an entire small world constructed for torment like the hall of artifacts on the opposite side of Jin Guangyao's mirror. He has never known of any one person so powerful that they cannot be stopped, somehow, by something. "Mn."

There is also a question he promised Magnus he would ask. For Claudius' benefit, again, he speaks aloud before he plays it on the qin. "I will ask Shen Yuan whether he knew he would be targeted." He had those seeds planted, ready. If there is a way to anticipate Aornis' malevolence, Lan Wangji wants to know.

This is another quick answer, identical to the last: yes. Lan Wangji pauses, the ghost of a frown tugging at his mouth. "He knew. How?" He plays the question as he asks it.

The subsequent jumble takes him a moment; to listen, to interpret, to reshape into words for Claudius. "He anticipated some attack, but not by the woman who killed him. She toyed with him and mocked Luo Binghe, but took the memory each time. It happened several times. Shen Yuan wanted a failsafe in case of a threat, because he believed the narrative of this place would demand one. It came sooner than he expected it to."

If Claudius had any doubt -- and he had none -- that Lan Wangji secured the right spirit, it would be immediately dispelled. "That does sound like Shen Yuan," he says. "Know'st thou, he believed it a narrative inevitability that I would end up in Luo Binghe's harem. Shen Yuan ..." With an extravagant roll of eyes, Claudius casts his gaze up to the ceiling. "You've always had your moments of something like insight, even if the path there was crooked."

At that, Lan Wangji's carefully frosty expression truly has no choice but to crack into subtle disgust. "You would not be in that harem for long before I intervened," he says promptly. It bleeds some of the tension from him, though, only a little -- Claudius sharing a ridiculous anecdote, the expressive roll of his eyes. He could not demand that Claudius come back to himself in the days since Shen Yuan's death, knowing very well the stifling effects of loss and fear. He has hardly felt like himself, either. But he has missed his friend.

Breaking the tension at a crime scene is also the duty of a detective's amanuensis. "Thou art a true friend to me," Claudius says with a short but sincere smile. Sighing, he says, "Well, Shen Yuan wasn't wrong to anticipate danger, even if he was blind to the danger in front of him." To be fair, so was Claudius. The ink spilled on trying to assess the threat of the jurisfictional agency coming here are a testament to that. "So she'd toyed with Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe before this? Ask him -- did she ever express a motive for her actions? Is there something she wants to achieve?"

Evidently, they were all blind to the danger, but without knowing what memories were stolen from them, there is no way to know whether they were foolish or merely at a disadvantage. Lan Wangji brushes the thought aside for the moment. Claudius has all of this in writing. It will be different this time.

He puts his hands back to his qin, which is as awake as it has ever been beneath his fingertips. He plays. What does your killer want? He listens attentively as Shen Yuan's answer thrums out from the strings, to the way the air and the qi in the room bends around the sound to create meaning. And then his gaze flicks back to Claudius, features set all over again in something cold enough to burn.

"She hurt Magnus because her abilities do not work on him. She told Shen Yuan she would, then took that memory, too. She wants nothing. There is nothing she hopes to accomplish. She wants only to make the people here miserable."

Edited 2024-06-13 14:18 (UTC)

And it's the most terrifying and sobering thing for Claudius to hear. He can joke with death in the room, can learn not to be daunted at the threat of death's finality, now that it's a puzzle to solve. He can let himself look wistfully forward to someday asking Shen Yuan how it felt to be compelled to answer Lan Wangji's every question, and listen to Claudius's teasing without being able to respond. But this ...

This isn't something Claudius knows how to deal with. Games of strategy work because of agreed-upon goals. A king caught in checkmate (he thinks wryly) can't escape it simply by moving off the board. Even then, if it's simply a matter of learning what ruleset his opponent plays by, Claudius can usually take those rules and extrapolate the optimal moves. Because he assumes his opponent has the same motives he does. They both want to win, want to accomplish something for themselves.

You can reason with an opponent like that, even if your goals necessitate conflict. That's the thinking that's always carried Claudius through negotiations abroad. There must be a way we can both get what we want here begins so many backroom compromises. Without it, what way is there forward? What can you say to someone who wants nothing more than your misery?

For a long moment, Claudius doesn't even move his pen to write. "Well," he says, shortly, when he does. "That is a problem."

Lan Wangji, similarly frozen, watches the delicate movements of Claudius' pen. People are capable of great evil. He knows that. People are capable of great evil, because people are capable of great yearning: for revenge, for power, for love, for comfort. The dead, raging and disconsolate, harbor their resentment because there was something they once wanted, and that desire lingers past death.

If Aornis wants nothing but misery, there is only one way that this battle can end. Lan Wangji has fought more battles than he could name, and yet the prospect of this one makes him instantly weary. This is an opponent who can invade his mind, who can twist reality around her victims. Claudius' notes described only a human woman. She wore her mask well.

He nods. For Claudius' sake, he gathers his resolve. "We will find her."

"We will," Claudius says with assurance -- the same easy, unbacked assurance he showed when Lan Wangji embraced him after that first attack, and Claudius boldly said we'll find something. That was a promise he really had no right making, when he hadn't the first idea where to start looking. But here they are, anyway, by chance as much as skill and planning, with the answer they'd sought. Games are always as much chance as skill, which means that after making his best moves, Claudius can only recklessly hope.

Besides, Claudius thinks, in Shen Yuan's memory, the narrative demands it.

Silently, Lan Wangji talks himself through a careful inhale and then a deliberate exhale. They will find her, because the alternative is unthinkable.

"Do you have further questions for Shen Yuan's spirit?" he asks, once he has mastered himself again.

“Ask whether there is anything he would have me to say to Galahad, or Sagramore.”

If Lan Wangji is a little surprised, he doesn't show it, nor does the surprise itself last long. He only nods again. He will take these one at a time, so that Shen Yuan has his best chance of communicating without confusion. He begins: What would you have Claudius say to Galahad?

It becomes shortly apparent that he was correct to save his surprise. He lets the silence stand, finding the words, and then says, "Shen Yuan is proud of Galahad, for his progress with meditation and his new sword. His spirit sits with Galahad while he draws. At those times, he finds the peace that is meant to come with death."

"He will be glad to hear it," Claudius says, voice filling again with warmth after the chill of the shock they'd received. He starts another page, and waits with the air of a ritual, ready to record the next message from the dead to the living.

Lan Wangji stays quiet himself. This is not the appropriate time to sort through his own feelings on these matters. The next question is nearly the same, the only alteration the notes of Sagramore's name. What would you have Claudius say to Sagramore?

There comes a quick, short response, followed by a silence, and then, before Lan Wangji can decide it is done, a hasty addition. Not even Lan Wangji can restrain the entirety of his reaction as he listens, though it's a reaction complex enough to be subtle; just a softening around the eyes, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. "He loves Sagramore. He misses him. He is sorry. He is still keeping track."

Every word Claudius writes is precise, but these are even moreso. There's unknown meaning in them, reserved for Sagramore, and Claudius hopes they bring Sagramore some solace. Sagramore can neither love nor grief half-heartedly. "I'll let him know," Claudius says, briskly matter-of-fact. "That's the last of my questions."

"If more come to you, this can be repeated." It is not usual practice to summon a spirit for multiple rounds of Inquiry, but there is nothing that is usual about this situation. Lan Wangji sits, statue-still, absorbing the morass of information they have acquired, and then pulls Wangji's wrappings from his sleeve and begins bundling the qin away. He has done exactly this so many thousands of times, in precisely the same way, that the task needs to occupy no longer than a moment, but he takes it more slowly today.

Edited 2024-06-14 16:04 (UTC)

A ritual, Claudius thinks, like his own rituals and Galahad's, worth lingering on because it stays the same in a world of many variables. The ground still feels like it's shifting under Claudius, like he can't trust any of the skills or instincts that let him understand people and anticipate their actions. But with the familiarity of ritual, he can at least anticipate the next moment. He tidies up his own tools, his notebook, his pen, folds them both into hidden pockets.

With that same precision, Lan Wangji takes the spirit attraction flag and folds it up. Before he returns it to his qiankun pouch, he lingers with his fingertips to the black cloth. Wei Ying made this, and Lan Wangji forgot he had it at all. Once, for thirteen years, Wei Ying was dead. Lan Wangji kept everything. He kept every talisman, the flower thrown to him from a window in Yunmeng, the Cloud Recesses rules a laughing fifteen-year-old Wei Ying carelessly copied over and over under Lan Wangji's frustrated supervision.

When he looks to Claudius, there are too many things he wants to say. That he is rarely afraid, but he is now; that he could have done this alone, but he is grateful for Claudius' insight; that more than anything, he is grateful for Claudius' company. None of those words seem able to make their way out. "Claudius," he says, and then stops.

Claudius’s fingers instinctually flicker through the signs he’s made so many times, how are you feeling — he doesn’t expect Lan Wangji to read his hands, but perhaps his intent gaze will speak for him. “My friend,” he says, “how dost thou?”

Lan Wangji knows very little, relatively speaking, of the sign language Magnus began teaching him, but he knows enough. He knows Magnus' name, Claudius' and Galahad's, a handful of simple phrases, and some of the alphabet. He knows enough to feel the question twice over when Claudius points to him. He knows, arguably, the answer to this question, or at least an answer that skirts something much larger. It's only that he's trained himself to such perfect stillness, not even his hands want to speak, and certainly not his face.

"Overwhelmed." He says it instead of signing it, but he does say it.

"Thou hast learned much." Claudius glances down at his watch, the silver seconds ticking onward, the symbol of shared time -- then back at Lan Wangji's dark eyes. "And lost much."

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