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

[ravkanwitch]

[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!]]

Comments

[lightbearinglord]

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."

[wickedwit]

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."

[lightbearinglord]

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."

[wickedwit]

"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.

[lightbearinglord]

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.

[wickedwit]

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

[lightbearinglord]

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."

[wickedwit]

"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.

[lightbearinglord]

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."

[wickedwit]

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."

[lightbearinglord]

"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.

[wickedwit]

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.

[lightbearinglord]

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.

[wickedwit]

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?”

[lightbearinglord]

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.

[wickedwit]

"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."

[lightbearinglord]

He is not the only one who has lost memories, Lan Wangji should point out. Aornis wiped herself neatly from everyone here, as best as he can tell. He has endured worse. He told Magnus as much, before he knew the cause for all his lost time, and it was true. He has endured worse, and he survived it. Despite all of that, tension coils tighter and tighter, up from the base of his spine. "My mind," he says, with the sharpness that shapes his voice whenever he is battling fear as quickly as it arrives. "I thought--"

What did he think? That he was losing his mind, or at least losing control of all the ways in which he's painstakingly ordered and controlled himself across the years? Finally, he tucks the flag away, so that he can bury his face in his hands instead.

[wickedwit]

"Thy mind has been thy fortress." He lays his hand upon Lan Wangji's arm, a gentling touch. "Through thy travails, its walls preserved thee. Of all men, thou know'st thine own mind better than most any I've met."

[lightbearinglord]

If his mind is a fortress, he can hardly stand the thought of some unseen invader slipping away into the night with pieces of its walls and all the little treasures it guards. Before he can think better of it, he drops one hand to take Claudius', gripping it tightly.

[wickedwit]

"Here, brother," Claudius murmurs. If it were Galahad, he would hold him and stroke his hair. After a moment's thought, he brushes back a long strand, as though it were misplaced. (It wasn't. It never is.) "Here. I am with thee." He returns the tight clasp of Lan Wangji's hand, with all his little strength.

[lightbearinglord]

There must still be something of the child in him, kneeling in wait on a precipice of feeling, sure that if remains still and patient enough, he will be rewarded by an absence of pain. There is Claudius, though, tucking back a lock of his hair and holding onto his hand. It doesn't matter that his grip is weaker. It's steady. "I know," he says on the tail end of a slow breath.

[wickedwit]

"Good. When fortresses fail us, we turn to our allies." He may not be a military man, but he knows strategy. He knows how sieges can stretch on, even against the best-defended of walls. He knows a well-timed arrival of allied forces can be what turns the tide. "I am here to help thee guard the gate. I can hold it, while thou look'st to thy losses. Even soldiers have a right to mourn."

[lightbearinglord]

For a moment, Lan Wangji grips Claudius' hand tighter still -- only a moment, because he is always wary of hurting him and even warier of frightening him. He touches his fingertips to his forehead ribbon and its embroidered cloud, the most familiar shape he could imagine, and then he lets that hand drop, too, to fold around Claudius', one hand in both of his. "After several years, I could no longer recall Wei Ying's face. But I remembered him as he was. I was the only one." There is no reason Aornis might take any of that from him, but she could. She has the ability, and it is apparently impossible to stop her. She has already taken, he suspects, dozens of small moments between himself and his husband. Anything that might lead him back to her.

[wickedwit]

A thought occurs to Claudius, that he had once while watching the photograph develop on a Polaroid picture. They had nothing like that in his time. In his time, if someone passed away, you remembered them by a portraits painted, letters written, a lock of hair pressed in a locket. It isn't a surprise to him that Lan Wangji forgot Wei Wuxian's face ... but he realizes what a precious image that is. "Thou shouldst have gone through enough," he says, soft. "Every new memory was a memory to cherish. And thou hast carried that memory of Wei Wuxian so long, no matter how others tried to defame it."

[lightbearinglord]

It still cuts through him, the simple kindness of Claudius' understanding. Lan Wangji's brother was gentle with him when he was in seclusion, but tried again and again to encourage him to forget Wei Wuxian, to move on, what with the Yiling Patriarch's true nature exposed so wholly to the world. Lan Wangji didn't want to forget.

Overcome again, he shuts his eyes. It's a few still-slow breaths before he finds the next words. "He forgets so much. I remember for him." He remembers the ludicrously spicy dish Wei Ying liked best at the Hunan restaurant in Caiyi, so that they can order it again if they ever return. He remembers to warm Wei Ying's house slippers in time for his return when he has been out, because Wei Ying gets cold easily in his new body. He remembers Jin Ling's birthday. He remembers the cold terror in Wei Ying's eyes the last time they saw each other, even as the fine details of his face have scattered into the mist of a dream.