[[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

[wickedwit]

"While thou art at it, do remind him to rely upon his friends or allies, and take more rest," Claudius says, tongue firmly in cheek. "If I see him again and he still has that weary, bearing-the-weight-of-the-world-alone look about him, I'm giving him a soporific. I'm not above slipping it in his drink¹." That said, his fingers flicker through the signs, A-O-R-N-I-S. "Thou shouldst also repeat what Shen Yuan said of growing his homunculus. I still don't know whether I'll be allowed in on that particular project, though Shen Yuan's assent will certainly help."

¹ He should be above it but honestly, it's unclear whether this part is still tongue-in-cheek.

[lightbearinglord]

So Lan Wangji is not the only one who is worried for Magnus. His mind continues to return to the overwhelming tension he felt in Magnus' body at Nina's meeting, how Magnus promised he would tell Lan Wangji if he were not well, and how badly he wants to believe him. Dutifully, he recreates Claudius' signs, A-O-R-N-I-S in turn. It almost comes to him to ask why Claudius would not be allowed to assist with the plants, but -- of course. Luo Binghe. "I will," he agrees. "I would rather Magnus share that burden."

[wickedwit]

"There are so many here willing to share it with him," Claudius says, with another sigh. "And we'll share our burdens, as well. Know'st thou, when I was Elsinore, I would've advocated for absolute secrecy in this matter. Call up a council of trusted advisors and decide what convenient half-truth to share with the crowd, something that will accomplish our aims without giving too much away. But I trust a truly extraordinary number of people here. Thou must understand how rare trust was in my old life. I think I will tell Sagramore and Laertes, too, all we learned when I deliver Sagramore his message. Sagramore is well-connected, and Laertes is committed and honest." And he hopes it will ease some of the fears that had the couple fleeing the house and running to the woods. But it's the sort of decision Laertes and Sagramore would make, the sort of impulse they'd take and pour their whole hearts into. Claudius wants to see the home they'll make. It just won't have to be a hiding-place anymore.

[lightbearinglord]

Sagramore does know everyone. Lan Wangji is fond thinking of it and of him, and of the hope he has that this news will bring him and Laertes a measure of peace. He trusts a surprising number of people here, too; it is not so much that his previous life was plagued with mistrust, but that he kept himself at a remove. He worked and walked alone for long, long years. He spoke with his brother, and trusted Lan Xichen, but he could not speak with him of the thing he carried closest to his heart. Marrying Wei Ying began to break down his walls. Coming here has done a considerable amount of additional work. "This killer is only one woman," he says, "and she can trust none of us. We discovered her because we trusted one another."

[wickedwit]

"As always, thou art most eloquent on the point," Claudius says, and he isn't even teasing. The simplicity of Lan Wangji's speech, the clarity of its purpose, always has an effect on Claudius. We discovered her because we trusted one another. Claudius can hold on to that statement like a cherished jewel, worn over his heart. And just as true, she can trust none of us. Claudius spent a long time struggling to trust anyone here, and it happened as he slowly began to share his intentions and found his friends accepted his past and understood his sin. Aornis likely never came to that point, always able to reset the interaction the moment she revealed anything she didn't want.

Wryly, Claudius thinks he's rather glad he doesn't have that power. He would have stalled so many friendships out of fear, taking away the memories of his worst moments and confessions, and he wouldn't have Lan Wangji -- or much of anyone -- to trust.

[lightbearinglord]

Indulgent, especially fond in the wake of how kind Claudius has just been to him, Lan Wangji lets this particular accusation stand without protest. It is only the truth. He accepted a drink from a smiling stranger, and now he sits here with a brother, someone he has trusted with more of himself than he could have ever imagined revealing when they met. How long would he have kept going in circles, losing large swaths of his days to Aornis' power, if he had not found that note, been pleased to recognize the hand in which it was written, and read it with eagerness to learn its contents?

As for the rest of the mansion: he considers the residents. Claudius will tell Galahad; he will tell Wei Ying. That much is obvious. Telling Sagramore will take care of a significant portion of the population. "Young master Morozova was shaken," he recalls. "He should know."

[wickedwit]

"I can hardly blame him," Claudius says, with the sympathy of someone who was shaken for days himself. "Aleksander was once a general. He was ready to done with that life, the way I was ready to be done with politics. A death among our numbers is rather rattling."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji meets Claudius' eyes, well aware of how vacant Claudius has been of late. Claudius was performing his own life without any of the wit, humor, and zeal that characterize him; Lan Wangji was wandering through his own days, fogged and afraid of something he could barely remember. He has, now, just a little hope. It is only a little, but it's something. "It is," he agrees. He has taken lives. He speaks with and suppresses the dead. He is married to a man whose dearest friend is an unsmiling corpse. And yet the sudden death of someone he barely tolerated was almost too much to bear. "Do you feel better able to face it now?"

[wickedwit]

Claudius laughs, full of fondness. "When first thou asked'st that question of me, thou called'st me little Claudius." The first, but not the last. The last was when he was sitting in his room, in grief over Laurel, afraid to watch Galahad slowly die afterward. Perhaps that's why his fears have been able to settle. Laurel was only a side of Galahad, but losing him was not unlike losing a spirit that lived in Galahad's body. Now he sees flickers of Laurel in Galahad, all the time. It seems right that Shen Yuan, a spirit to begin with, should be able to come back in another body entirely. It will take time, but it also took time for Galahad to decide who to be while emerging from melancholia. (As Galahad will later remind him -- people are good at finding patterns, making meaning out meaningnessness. This was a senseless death. But it no longer feels like the end of everything, like the final scene of a tragedy.)

Claudius nods. "Ay. Dost thou, Wangji?"

[lightbearinglord]

Perhaps he'll grow more accustomed to that informal use of his name one day, or perhaps not -- Lan Wangji still wakes up astonished to find Wei Ying's hair tickling his throat, and it has been nearly two years since they wed. He likes it, in any case, the faint surprise and the accompanying affection for his friend. "I do," he says warmly. "And you are still on the little side."

[wickedwit]

"Thou and Crowley art uncommonly tall," Claudius says with a laugh, brightening as he always does at Lan Wangji's flashes of humor. Like the sun, flashing through a bank of steadily rolling clouds. "Come. Let us leave this room together. Take care not to hit thy head upon the doorframe, as we go."

[lightbearinglord]

Crowley could be considerably taller if he did not have such abysmal posture, Lan Wangji thinks, with a welcome dip into irritable fondness at the thought of that very demon. He stands, though, the prospect of abandoning this room an enticing one, and affixes his qin in its place across his back. "I attempted to teach Crowley the art of calligraphy recently," he says, as he follows Claudius out of the room and leaves whatever remains of Shen Yuan's ghost behind, just for now.

[wickedwit]

"Oh, did you?" Claudius casts a grin back at him, falling in step with Lan Wangji once they're in the hallway (so they walk side by side, as equals.) "You must tell me everything."

[lightbearinglord]

"He deliberately misinterpreted most of my instructions, claimed his eyesight was too poor for writing, and made it through only three of the eight basic strokes before becoming bored." Lan Wangji delivers this information in his typically indifferent manner, but not without some suppressed amusement. "To alleviate his boredom, I demonstrated a character with thirty-nine strokes and successfully goaded him into copying it in its entirety."

[wickedwit]

Claudius laughs, able to imagine the exchange clearly, with Crowley sprawling boredly on one side of the table and Lan Wangji sitting upright at the other. "Of course. If thou makest something too easy for him, he will make things difficult for thee. But if thou makest it difficult, he will make it easy. He's contrary by nature."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn," Lan Wangji agrees, recalling Crowley throwing down his glasses and, after months of acquaintanceship, finally revealing his eyes solely in an effort to call Lan Wangji's bluff. "Thereafter, he fetched the young master Grantaire for a mysterious errand." Presumably, the plans for Grantaire and Laertes to dress in rabbit costumes and dance erotically with swords are meant to be a secret.

[wickedwit]

"I'm glad of it," Claudius says, eyes still bright but with a softness to his smile. "Whatever mysteries those two could concoct will surely be pleasant to solve." Playful secrets, enjoyable challenges, all the things Claudius enjoys ... like his own secret plans with Magnus to surprise Lan Wangji, and the mystery posed to him by Tress. Speaking of, he asks, "Didst thou know that Lady Tress has another name? Has she told thee?"

[lightbearinglord]

At this point, it is likely becoming obvious that Lan Wangji is directing them upstairs and toward the little room adjacent to his quarters that houses the rabbits. They could do with a visit. More pertinently, he and Claudius could both do with one. "No," he says, with understated but genuine surprise. "Not in the way I have more than one name, then."

[wickedwit]

"In a certain sense, perhaps," Claudius says, taking a deliberate turn to these lighter mysteries. He thinks he recognizes these steps, for all that the mansion's hallways like to twist sometimes. "Like thy courtesy name, Tress was the second name given to her. A name of distinction -- the distinction being her hair. Does that translate? Tress?" he asks in English. "Tresse?" in French. "Treccia?" Italian. "It doesn't translate into Danish or Norwegian, I'm afraid."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji pauses, only for a half-step, to give Claudius a look of bemusement. "It sounded as if you were asking me to braid your hair." He resumes walking. "翠丝," he tries, but that will presumably make its way to Claudius' ears only as Tress' name. "Is that the meaning of her name?" Tress' hair is impressive. It's a sensible moniker if so.

[wickedwit]

"Ay, e'en so. A tress, a lock, a braid. Were my hair as long as Tress's, I would have thee braid it," Claudius promises, as though such promises need to be made.

[lightbearinglord]

"Grow it longer and I will." With that, Lan Wangji ushers Claudius into the rabbits' room, where they are bundled into sleeping balls of white and brown fur pressed together in a corner of their hutch. The room remains reasonably spare, but has gained a few floor cushions as well as a chest that contains their ever-growing collection of toys as whittled by Wei Wuxian.

[wickedwit]

Claudius's heart seizes with the same crushing fondness it always does, when he sees his rabbits. Even when he was in a daze, unable to connect his body, he'd sometimes come to sit by their cage, and he'd feel the slight flicker in his chest. "The children are looking well," he says, keeping his voice to a teasing whisper. "And so well-appointed with entertainments. They must be small patrons of the arts, with their taste for wooden sculpture."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji can feel some of his own lingering tension drifting away. The rabbits are so small, and their hearts are simple. They know nothing of Shen Yuan's death or of Aornis' power. "They also like to bite the things they love," he says, allowing himself another flicker of humor, and then he kneels by the hutch and carefully unlatches the door. "Danding," he says, low and soft. "Xiaoxue. Xiao shushu is here."

[wickedwit]

Claudius laughs with sharp delight (but low and soft as a man can) then takes a sprawling seat on the floor, so he can be on a level with Lan Wangji and the others. Xiao shushu or not, he can always make himself a little smaller for the sake of his rabbits. "Ay, here to see my two sweet sirs."