test drive meme #1

[historiadores]

TDM #1

LA LLEGADA

The Museum of Art and History is the largest and oldest in Llave, and contains a grand collection spanning from the time the first humans landed on its shores to the modern day. The building encircles an open courtyard where an art installation sits amidst many of the plants important to the settlers of Llave. Behind the museum is a wide, shallow field of hard-packed dirt lined by large stones, the petroglyphs on their surface worn by time—the earliest known playing field in all of the Caribbean. And further out are the areas where excavations are ongoing, uncovering the pottery, jewelry and artifacts of the ancestors.

After awakening, things move quickly. The museum is closed, and the characters ushered into the courtyard to wait. Any needing emergency medical attention are kept in one of the air conditioned galleries until the paramedics arrive. A group of women with a military bearing take charge of the situation; identified as the Bajari Bara, they question the healthy and able. They cede authority only to the Prime Minister when she arrives. Two more of their group flank the nation's leader, though they step aside when she begins to walk among the new arrivals to speak with them.

Each side has many questions and few answers. Characters are informed they are in Llave. It's October 2020. And efforts will be made to return them to their homes. But how they came to be here and why remain mysteries…as does how they’ll find their way back.

A hurricane shelter nearby is activated for use by the recent arrivals. There, characters are provided with food and clothing, a cot and other basic supplies. No one is allowed out, but through the windows they can see the lush green of the their surroundings. At night, coquí sing them to sleep. Those taken to a hospital will remain there until they are discharged. Each patient is allowed one visitor to stay with them overnight.

Over the next several days, all characters undergo physical and mental evaluations; are provided with their first immunizations; have the next legal steps explained to them; and are taught about Llave. Every character, regardless of age, has a caseworker who checks in with them daily. None have been arrested, they are assured. But they must also complete the quarantine process. To enforce quarantine, at both the hospital and the shelter, the Bajari Bara guard every entrance and exit.

Welcome to Llave.

EL AREYTO

As luck would have it, around the time quarantine ends, all of Llave is in the midst of celebration. Today is the Day of Heroes, celebrated every last weekend in October, which this year happens to fall on the eve of All Saints’ Day. So when the new arrivals venture out for the first time, Nona, the capital, welcomes them with color and music.

The people of Llave have a special love for music and dance, and it shows. All day, groups gather to play, and many more to dance. The songs center around heroes of Llave with the chief of these being Nuna, a beloved figure who is said to have led her people here to freedom. Those performing wear traditional clothes: guayaberas, long circle skirts, palm hats and headwraps, all brightly colored.

From early morning, artisans have set up under tents tables laden with goods. Clothing, jewelry, musical instruments, paintings, and more made from leather and wood, seashells and fish scales, aluminum and copper. Many create right at the table. Most popular are those working on cemís: sculptural objects, said to house the spirits of ancestors. Many carry them as amulets especially on this the eve to the days of the dead.

The food is equally rich and one of the cooks takes an interest in the new arrivals. Those who eat his food find their mood changing depending on what they ate. The tostones he prepared while speaking of his childhood home in Santa Cecilia bring on feelings of joy and contentment. The alcapurrias fried while arguing with a customer about last night’s wrestling match cause those who eat them to feel irritated. And the casabe, a flatbread made of cassava, that he explains he learned to make from his wife who passed, induces a profound nostalgia for lost loves. His wife, recognizable from the photo he keeps on the wall, sits beside those most affected and comforts them until the melancholy passes.

More dead can be found. An old man in a fine guayabera recalls composing the lyrics to a particular song. He points out the man playing the congas and proudly says his great-grandson will soon outplay him. When characters look back to the old man, he’s gone. Those with a sense for it will recognize many dead walking among the living. These next few days honor and celebrate the departed, and the dead have seized the rare opportunity to join the festivities once more.

For those who prefer the sea, the impossibly blue waters of the Caribbean are just a short walk away. Cobblestone and concrete paths line La Bahía de Nona. On one of the larger rock outcroppings jutting into the bay sits a silver-white dog. If called, he will trot over. Up close, one can see his color is due to the sand and salt that has collected on its coat. Though he allows himself to be petted, he does not step off the rocks. A passerby comments that the dog has been waiting for his master to return. How long? The man shrugs. When he was a boy, the dog was keeping watch; now he’s forty-three, and the dog is still there.

EL TRAVIESO

Or perhaps the characters were more distracted by how clean the water was, how clear. Enough so that the sight of a bottle bobbing in the waves seems offensively out of place. Anyone who chooses to snag it out of the water will find it’s a corked bottle of rum, apparently empty.

From a nearby restaurant, someone yells and waves their hands—too late. By uncorking it, they have freed the bacoo. Immediately, everyone backs away. Two cross themselves.

Only one stays long enough to warn, “You have to trick it back into the bottle. It likes milk and bananas. Don’t ask it for anything.”

Turn around, and the bacoo is there.

Short and rugged with large eyes, long arms and legs, covered in unkempt hair and its fingers and toes ending in claws, the bacoo is a strange little creature. Stranger still, it can grant any wish—so long as it is kept appeased with a steady diet of milk and bananas.

A hungry bacoo will pelt walls with stones, move objects, keep its owner up at night, and otherwise wreak havoc until it is fed. A shapeshifter, they can be difficult to locate, much less trap. And a starving bacoo will turn vicious and its pranks malicious.

Best find a way to trick it into the bottle. Fast.

---

OOC NOTES

This TDM covers from mid-to-end of October. The first prompt lasts approximately two weeks; the second, a day. For now, all characters are restricted to Nona. Any attempting to leave will be gently, but firmly escorted back.

The TDM will also double as the first IC post of the game. Threads between any two or more characters who were all apped and approved will be considered game canon. As such, actions characters take in this TDM will impact the game once it opens. How characters behave will shape the inhabitants’ first impressions of them. Make it count.

Questions regarding this TDM can be asked below, while questions regarding the game at large should be directed to the FAQ.

Thank you for your interest and we hope to have you join!

NAVIGATION • IC COMM • OOC COMM • MEME COMM

Comments

[singlelogbridge]

[When Lan Wangji turns, he will find himself faced with what must appear like a memory to him.

Wei Wuxian is still playing, now standing across from a man with a stringed instrument that he doesn't know. It has a different sound from the guqin entirely, not quite so soothing, but he finds that he enjoys it immensely in its own way.

Though he has been here long enough to know that his wardrobe sticks out, he hasn't felt the need to change. Perhaps eventually he will try something else, spurred on by the sticky heat that reminds him of Yunmeng at the height of summer more than any insecurity, but for now he remains clad in familiar dark robes. As the song comes to an end, his eyes flutter open, and he offers his partner in song a playful bow and the twitch of a smile.

His music may not have the Lan healing abilities, but it soothes his soul all the same.

Tucking Chenqing back into his robes, he steps out of the small crowd that is now dispersing and coms to a full stop at the sight of familiar white robes and an even more familiar face.

Wei Wuxian's eyes widen first in surprise and then in something much worse when he remembers what Lan Wangji must know. He does not have the time to be glad of his friend's appearance as his stomach drops out and everything in him screams at him to do something. To run. (To fight, but no. he couldn't. Not even now.)

He doesn't. He only stands and stares with his heart beating against his ribcage so hard he thinks it might burst through.]

[quietroom]

[ It has been a year— technically, one year, two weeks, and four days— since Lan Wangji last saw Wei Wuxian, hanging over the edge of a cliff, begging him to let go. It's been a little less than that since Lan Wangji kneeled in front of his uncle, asking about right and wrong, and received 300 strokes of canes to his back. The wounds still sting, even if they've mostly faded to angry scars, not yet given the time and chance to fade.

Lan Wangji knows Wei Wuxian is dead. A body was never recovered, but he saw him fall. Saw his face, at the end, and knew he could do nothing. When he turns, when he sees Wei Wuxian, his eyes widen and lips part.

This must surely be a ghost. He stumbles forward, lips parting wordlessly, and thinks about the song he's played constantly, whenever he had the energy and could sit up, the questions he's asked and received no answer.

Now is his chance. Wei Ying is a ghost but that's okay, for now. He can talk to spirits. ] Wei Ying.

[singlelogbridge]

[He isn't yelling and for all that he looks shocked and something else Wei Wuxian can't place, he isn't looking at Wei Wuxian like he's the biggest disappointment of his life. It's startling enough to make him take a step forward rather than back, and then another, slowly closing the distance until they are standing in front of each other.

Does he not know?

Has he not heard what Wei Wuxian has done? Did he come to be in this place before it had happened? Would word have reached them in the Burial Mounds if the noble Hanguang-Jun had gone missing? He doesn't know. Maybe not.]

Lan Zhan. [It's strained, his entire body tense. What exactly is he supposed to say?]

[quietroom]

[ Hearing Wei Ying's voice makes Lan Zhan go remarkably still, careful and cautious. A ghost. This is a ghost. He repeats the mantra in his head, even as he stares at his dead friend.

He doesn't reach out and touch, although he wants to. But this is a ghost. Maybe a memory brought on by the food. He can't touch. So he clenches a hand behind his back, wishing he had Bichen in his hands. But that had seemed prudent to hide. ] Wei Ying. Are you well?

[singlelogbridge]

[Is he well. Were it anyone but Lan Wangji, he might think it was a joke. Still he smiles and it has the edges of something mad and awful in it. Shadows of despair. Is he well. The smile fades and he closes his eyes against a whisper in his ear. No, go away. Shut up.

Once he would have scoffed and said something to cut. Would have chided Lan Wangji for looking for weakness that he would never admit to.

That was before.]

I am not well, Lan Zhan.

[His voice shakes with it and he wants to laugh until he cries, cracks his smile a little wider open with it.]

I ruined it. You were right. [He knows Lan Wangji well enough to know there is no winner in this victory. However they disagreed on the subject, he knows Lan Wangji is not cruel. He did not want this.]

[quietroom]

[ A full-body flinch is Lan Zhan's answer to those words, hideously, horribly open for anyone to see, for Wei Ying to read his measure.

'I am not well, Lan Zhan'. He had hoped the afterlife might be kinder. ]

Where are you, Wei Ying? Can I— What can I do to help? [ He can't help here, not really, if Wei Ying is back home and he's here, in this place. But surely there is something he can do, even from afar. ] You never answered my song, did you not hear it?

[singlelogbridge]

[For the first time, something more than horror and pain reaches him, his brow furrowing as he digests the words. Lan Wangji's song? Does he means Clarity? Even stranger, asking where he is. He doesn't understand.]

Back home? [That must be it. Perhaps he thinks Wei Wuxian will have run by now. Or perhaps that he's gone to stir something up. It isn't far off. He would have. Had he remained there before being swept off to this mystery place. He'd have done something even if he doesn't know what.]

The Burial Mounds. And I told you Clarity wouldn't work. [He did not tell him why but he has no intentions of correcting that now.]

[quietroom]

[ The confusion is evident in Wei Ying's voice, and Lan Wangji frowns. He's a shade, of course, a figment of Lan Wangji's imagination brought on by food that tastes of memory and the stress of this new place.

But why a memory like this? Why not something earlier? He shakes his head, the expression on his face going from shock to consideration, barely evident. ] Not Clarity. Inquiry.

[ Clarity wouldn't work now. ] Do I need to go to the Burial Mounds to talk to you? I can't yet— at home. I couldn't.

[ 'I couldn't save you'. ]

[singlelogbridge]

[Whatever else Lan Wangji says is drowned out by the buzzing in his ears after that first answer. He knows how much Lan Wangji had wanted Clarity to work on him just as he knows it never would have. How could it with no core to filter through? There was nothing there for him to purify, but Inquiry he says.

Inquiry. It's a shame it is Lan Wangji speaking because he would have assumed he'd spoken in error otherwise.]

You. You played Inquiry for me?

[Even Lan Wangji must make mistakes. His friendship with Wei Wuxian was proof enough of that. He must have misspoken. It makes no sense otherwise.]

I know that it probably won't be long before that's warranted, but isn't that a bit preemptive, Lan Zhan?

[quietroom]

[ Preemptive. It almost makes him flinch, although he refrains. How Lan Wangji wishes that were the case, that his song had been futile because he hadn't seen Wei Ying fall from a cliff.

He shakes his head. Behind his back, his fingers clench into a tighter fist. ] I would never be preemptive. Not in such a matter.

[ He stares at Wei Ying, still puzzled, and slowly, he reaches out with his free hand, captures Wei Ying's wrist. It's solid and firm beneath his fingers. ] You're a ghost made flesh.

[ It's possible, he knows, but Wei Ying looks so alive. So close to how Lan Wangji last saw him. ] How?

[singlelogbridge]

[Sorry Lan Wangji, he's not going to be very good at answering any of your questions right now, and he snatches his wrist back, his face paling as he takes a step back. The confusion on his face has grown and there's something else there now too. Shock maybe. Or fear.]

Lan Zhan, what are you talking about?

I fucked up. I ruined it all. I killed—[His voice fails him and he lets out a soft sound of pain, shaking his head.]

I know the Jin will come for me no matter what they've said, but I'm not dead yet.

[His eyes bore into Lan Wangji's unflinching, watching for the slightest change in expression. He doesn't understand. Lan Wangji isn't making sense and it is scaring him.]

Why are you calling me a ghost?

[quietroom]

[ Some of the confusion evident on Wei Ying's face manages to sink in for Lan Wangji and his words—

Lan Wangji shakes his head. ] No. I let go. You fell. At Nightless City.

[ So many others had died, too. He doesn't mention those. ] The dead walk among us. I just ate something that reminded me.

[ 'Of you' but he doesn't add that. He looks away from Wei Ying, trying to parse together what he knows. Wei Ying's wrist, in the moment he held it, was solid. None of the ghosts here seem that solid and Lan Zhan is aware that he's awake and walking around, coherent. ] You should be a ghost. But you are not. Am I so cursed?

[singlelogbridge]

[Wei Wuxian lets out a horrible stuttered sound from the back of his throat that he hadn't meant to and takes another step back. Lan Wangji's words are beyond him but each one fills him with more dread. It should be nonsense, it is nonsense, and still the mention of Nightless City fills him with dread. What good can ever come of that place? Why would he have returned?]

There's a rule for this, isn't there? [Hysteria plays with his words now, slipping in every so often, his voice shaking.] Speak clearly. [He remembers. He's copied it enough times anyway.]

Hanguang-Jun, you speak of the dead here as if I should be among them, but then you tell me it's a curse if I am? [He'd thought Wei Wuxian dead and gone and seeing him now is such a burden as to be a curse? It hurts. He knows he deserves it but it still hurts. His breath comes quickly now, not so much to be panic, but enough to be noticed. Breath that a spirit wouldn't take.]

I haven't returned to Nightless City, Lan Zhan. Not since the end of the war.

[quietroom]

Wei Ying. Breathe. [ The hysteria evident in Wei Ying's voice shakes Lan Wangji to his core, and he stares at the ground for several quiet minutes. ]

After the Wen's surrendered themselves, the clans gathered to plan a siege on the Burial Mounds. You showed up, and fighting broke out. [ Lan Wangji has always been circumspect with words and this more delicate than anything he's encountered yet. How do you tell someone they fell off a cliff? And refused help? ] The fighting was brutal. You died, your body was never recovered.

[ How much more can he say? What can he say? This is so beyond anything he's done that he has no concept of what would be appropriate. ] For me, you have been dead a year.

[ And to see him now, it is a curse: remember how you couldn't save the person you loved. ]

[singlelogbridge]

[Breathe, he says. Like it's that fucking simple with the things coming out of his mouth. Wei Wuxian laughs and it sounds hollow, it sounds afraid.

He can't know these things if they haven't happened, but Lan Wangji sounds so sure and they feel—they feel plausible. He was going to fight. He knows it. He would have gone to fight them all knowing he couldn't win. That's the reason he would have gone, there'd never have been a plan to survive. This place has taken him out of his entire world into a land like none he's ever seen. Who's to say it didn't fuck with time too? Is it possible? Or is this fake? An illusion or hallucination. A nightmare come to life.

It's too much to take in. Every sentence drives a knife deeper into his chest.

(But his life has always been worth little and to lose it isn't so bad now, is it? There are larger concerns.)]

Planning a siege on who? [He demands now, pain and anger giving his voice power.] On Uncle Four and Granny Wen?

[Then, his words a gnarled curse in his mouth, broken on a near sob.] On a-Yuan?

Wen Ning and Wen Qing were already—[He breaks off with a choking sob, gathering himself immediately.]

If I died. [And he isn't sure what to do with that, how to begin to process it, so he ignores it, but—] What happened to them?

What happened to the Wen remnant? [The Jin would not have allowed them their freedom. If he wasn't there to protect them...]

[quietroom]

[ At the mention of a-Yuan, Lan Wangji inhales sharply and turns away, looking over his shoulder at Wei Ying. His friend? His once friend? What were they anymore? ] I will not discuss this here.

[ He doesn't know where to go. Once, that would have been frustrating, and well, it still is, but he finds it more tolerable now. Unexpected things thrown at him are easier to handle.

There has to be something out of the way, a bench to sit on and talk. Or for Wei Ying to sit, at least. From the sounds of it, the information Lan Wangji possess does not align with his own knowledge, and it's overwhelming. A slight grimace tugs at his lips. This is going terribly.

Lan Wangji only looks back once, to see if Wei Ying is following.

Eventually, he reaches the beach, and there do seem to be some benches available. His white ropes sweep through the sand, but he proceeds with little concern until he reaches one. ]

[singlelogbridge]

[After a weighted pause where he considers storming off or reaching out and forcing Lan Wangji to stay with a grip on his collar, he follows. He doesn't want to.

But he has to know.

When he stops in front of the bench Lan Wangji has found, there is something dark and misty curling around his sleeve and beginning to leek from his robe where Chenqing is tucked away.

There's a feeling in the pit of his stomach that feels like climbing the walls of the Jiang estate on that horrid night, knowing what they would find but somehow still hoping for something different. It feels like falling from the sky into the Burial Mounds, those last few moments of freedom before he hit the ground. His heartbeat is going too fast and his hands are trembling.

He can't keep the details straight but his mind whirls around everything Lan Wangji has said. They came for him. Or, no, he went to them and. Nightless City. He fought. He fell. Lan Wangji was there.

He was there?

His eyes seek Lan Wangji's out and the trembling in his hands goes still. This time when he speaks, it's a quiet terrified question.]

You fought me?

[If they fought for real, finally for real...if Lan Wangji raised Bichen to him, then truly he was lost. Truly, there was nothing in him worth saving.]

[quietroom]

[ A shake of his head, lips pressed firmly together, hiding the desire to flinch at that question. ] I defended.

[ He had said, upon that rooftop, that they would have a real fight. Lan Wangji had only defended against that, tried to stop him. The only reason why he'd been there was to protect Wei Ying. ] I was not there to fight you.

[ He couldn't. Wouldn't, even at the height of his despair and rage.

He grabs Wei Ying's elbow, guiding him to the bench. ] Calm yourself, Wei Ying. Do not lose control.

[ Clarity hadn't worked, and he still doesn't know why, so he resists the urge to summon his guqin. Is there something else that might work? ]

[singlelogbridge]

[It takes his legs out from under him. He hadn't thought that would be worse, but somehow it is and it's distracting enough he allows himself to be led to the bench, his knees giving out as he sits.

He raises his arms then, clutching at his head as the voices rise again and the resentful energy stirs. After his initial arrival they hadn't bothered him much at all except for the occasional quiet whisper, but now it's like being back in the Burial Mounds.

Do not lose control.

He did though. He lost it.

But he's not home now, he's on an island full of civilians, people doing the best for strangers who have appeared in their home. Innocents. It's enough to give him the strength to push the voices back, the resentful energy retreating again. When he opens his eyes, they're red rimmed and exhausted. What is he supposed to do with this? His shoulders slump and he closes his eyes.]

Wen Qing. Wen Ning. They were...they turned themselves in. Are they dead? [It's like peeking over that wall again. He already knows the answer but he can't not look.]

[quietroom]

[ Once Wei Ying sits, Lan Wangji lets go, although it takes eight measured heartbeats before he can force his fingers to uncurl and shift away. His hand goes behind his back, and how he wishes he had Bichen to grasp. ]

Yes. [ He cannot lie, not about this. Other questions about the Wen's he isn't sure how to handle, but that is one he cannot avoid.

Quietly, more directly than he's studied anyone since his arrival, he looks at Wei Ying, his tired, red-rimmed eyes and the defeated slump of his shoulders. Even after the war, he'd never seen Wei Ying so close to breaking. Not until the night he died.

Thinking of that night still makes his heart thud in his chest, the scars on his back scream in agony, betrayed by a slight grimace on his face. ]

Wei Ying. What is the last thing you remember?

[ It has to have been close to his death if he knows that Wen Qing and Wen Ning were turning themselves in. How close, though? How close to the edge is he?

But really, he asks more to give himself space to think, to consider his next steps. Lan Wangi's strength isn't plotting steps ahead, but he's studied enough strategy to know when to hold, when to retreat. They've both survived a war. He shouldn't say anything more. This Wei Ying doesn't need the bloodbath of Nightless City on his shoulders. ]

[singlelogbridge]

[The corpses of the Jiang clan stacked in neat little piles and laid out next to each other hadn't been a shock because he knew what the Wen went there to do, but peeking over that rooftop had still felt like a hand reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart until it bled. It isn't so bad this time, he's had more time to accept and process. Still, his heart bleeds.

Sweet, loyal, kind Wen Ning. Burned to ashes.

And Wen Qing. Wen Qing who Wei Wuxian had loved like a sister, who had been his rock, his closest companion in their isolation, who never took any of his shit but who cared for him fiercely in spite of everything. Gone so bravely, so stupidly to lay her neck down to try and spare his miserable existence.

The fight goes out of him, his shoulders slumping even further. Silent tears slip down his cheeks.]

Jin Zixuan. I didn't mean to. Wen Ning got me back to the Burial Mounds after, and then Wen Qing—she. [He closes his eyes and the tears continue.]

She paralyzed me. Told me they were going to go turn themselves in. I couldn't stop her, I couldn't-they said goodbye and she knocked me out.

[Wei Wuxian covers his face with his hands and shakes his head.]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[quietroom]

[ From the flowing sleeves of his outer robe, he produces a handkerchief, ready to press it into his hands when he lifts his head. ] Wei Ying. I know.

[ He doesn't know what happened there, doesn't have the complete story. But he knows Wei Ying wouldn't have deliberately killed Jin Zixuan. Knowing that Wen Qing knocked him out is a surprise, although it shouldn't be; Wei Ying wouldn't have let them go otherwise.

It's on the tip of his tongue to ask why Clarity wouldn't work. Was it just that he was too far gone? Too deep in the resentment and rage for Clarity to pierce? The power he'd used to push him back, in Nightless City, was intense, seemingly too much. ]

I regret I did not stand beside you then. [ His biggest regret. His only regret. He says it quietly, meant less for Wei Ying's ears, and more to remind himself. ]

[singlelogbridge]

[The regret in Lan Wangji's voice is audible and it's enough to get him to raise his head and look at his friend. Really look. For the first time since this conversation began, he sees Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian sees pain.

A hand rises of its own accord and catches at Lan Wangji's elbow, fingers curling around it gently, loosely enough Lan Wangji can retreat if the touch isn't welcome. He always did hate to be touched.

He doesn't know what happened that night. He doesn't know how he came to be at Nightless City or who he fought. He doesn't know how he died. (A fall, maybe. Lan Wangji had said something.) Wei Wuxian doesn't know anything about his last night on Earth, but he doesn't have to in order to know this one true thing.]

You did everything you could for me. You always did. Don't regret, Lan Zhan. [He pauses then and looks away.] I was lucky to call you zhiji.

[quietroom]

[ Wei Ying's touch, at this point, is always welcome, but it takes years of long-formed habit and careful training to keep from making a broken sound, keep his face from falling. He doesn't manage when Wei Ying calls him zhiji: a startled, broken sound escapes him before he can choke it back behind lips pressed into a firm line.

He looks away, but he can't look away for long because this is Wei Ying, dead for a year and still the brightest point in Lan Wangji's life. ] I still am.

[ He didn't do enough, and Lan Wangji knows that, now with the same surety of knowing what happened to the Wen at the hands of the Jin was wrong. As his fever cleared and back started to scar, he had studied the rules. He has two more years of it, in fact. He knows what he should have done, and he failed that.

That, more than anything, makes him straighten even more, although he doesn't pull away from Wei Ying's grip yet and instead presses the cloth into Wei Ying's free hand. ] Will you be able to control yourself here?

[ He doesn't mean it as judgment, and the moment the words slip out, he knows he should ask how he can help. But it's too late to take them back. ]

[singlelogbridge]

[It's easier to put his pain aside at the sight of Lan Wangji's. Years of practice and instinct have him closing it up in a box and sealing it shut, available to be pulled out later and poked and prodded to his liking but no longer a distraction in the here and now. The sound Lan Wangji makes has him snapping to attention, his hand taking the cloth instinctively though he pays it no mind, eyes entirely for Lan Wangji now even as the echoes of a past promise squeeze at his raw heart.]

Lan Zhan. [It's a breath whispered on the wind and his fingers squeeze in reassurance, hoping to convey any bit of comfort he can. He doesn't know the source of this grief or what happened that night, but it tears at his heart to see Lan Wangji in pain.

At the question, his gaze drops away, but his hand stays where it is at Lan Wangji's elbow and he doesn't tense. Another time, the question would have cut. Another time, it did, but not now. After all, Lan Wangji was right to ask, his failings have proven as much. With a slow nod, he squeezes the cloth in his hand to his chest.]

It's easier when I don't use demonic cultivation and I've had no reason to use it here. [Still, he'd been sure of himself before and he'd been wrong.]

...I know I've spent my life asking too much of others, but might I ask one more favor of you here in this place?