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[equivocations]

« Zewu-jun » TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION Lan Xichen ✦ The Untamed
RESIDENCE ✦ Residency
GEMBOND ✦ Amethyst

Hello, this is Lan Xichen. I apologize for being unable to immediately receive your correspondence, and will return your message as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

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Comments

{ text }

[hipshoots]

Hey. Figured I'd follow up on things. Natives are still tight lipped, but I did find out we're the first Cardinal Gems to show up in a thousand years. Have you heard similar?

[equivocations]

Hello! Yes, I have heard the same. There seem to be some speculative whispers around why now and what it means that more have shown up after so long, but so far they have stopped fairly quickly when they realize they are being overheard.

[hipshoots]

Yeah. I tried casually bringing it up a few times with different people, but I couldn't get anywhere when I asked what happened to those gembonded. Like did they find a way to get back to their homes or did they stay here their whole lives?

[equivocations]

I found the same. The few that were willing to talk to me about it said only that it was so long ago that they couldn't remember what happened. I thought I might begin to look for history books, although I suspect they might be heavily censured.

text

[zidianing]

Shouldn't...manna be produced by touch with people you are close to? There must be a way to produce it without needing to touch complete strangers.

[equivocations]

I agree. I have no desire for such intimate touch with complete strangers. My intention was to find those who might have common interests or be willing to strike up a friendship. I am out of my depth, here.

[ He is willing to admit that, because Wanyin is a fellow Sect leader who can perhaps understand that - but it is still a vast understatement of what he feels. ]

I do not believe it is even possible to produce it with complete strangers, at least not with any regularity. It requires at least some level of emotional connection and understanding.

[zidianing]

It must. And you are right. I suppose that such intimate connections need to start from somewhere. And it is an opportunity to get to meet other people.

text; after drinking with the disaster duo

[zidianing]

lanxichen

[equivocations]

Wanyin? Are you all right?

[zidianing]

xichen. yr nam is diffclt to write

[equivocations]

[ Oh dear. ]

You do not have to write it, then, you have found me. Would you like me to call you?

[ placeholder - wine and paint ]

[eternalgrief]

[ for me to leave open in a tab to remember to come write a start! ]

voice | during feral week

[famili]

( worrying is something she's good at regardless, though usually tempered with her faith in others; right now, having hugged her brother with a massive head and serpentine body in the form of a dragon out of legends and stories, she's worried and has few productive ways to handle it other than reaching out. which she does, systematically, and not for any lack of belief in their ability to handle things.

but some things are more than any one person can handle, and... he is her brother's husband's brother. even if she wasn't generally well inclined toward Lan Xichen and fond of him for his own sake, family ties, of all kinds, matter more than the world to her. )

Zewu-Jun? How are you faring? Have you been... how have you been feeling?

( are you experiencing any out of your own mind moments, please check yes or no )

[equivocations]

[ He is not yet in a place where he can truly feel much embarrassment over his behavior - he is still not quite himself, after all, although his mind is his own once again. Jiang Yanli's call sparks some of it, however, when it immediately brings to mind... well. There is a difference in finding himself feeling more playful and tactile, as a dragon, and the way he and Wanyin had behaved earlier.

Still, he answers it immediately, both not wanting to worry her and wanting to check on her as well. ]

I am all right, although currently in a form very different from what I am used to. [ Were she not family, or something close to it, he would have left it there - honest but vague - but for her, he volunteers a little more detail. ] I was similarly affected as some others who did not know themselves, but fortunately it did not last long.

And you? How are you faring?

[famili]

( Jiang Yanli would probably not be entirely surprised to learn she'd heard some of him in... A-Cheng's return message, but her worries on this subject focus around Zewu-Jun having recovered, and not lingering in that space. )

I feel a number of us are finding ourselves in that situation. ( the rest of it... ) I'm glad to hear you've had your mind clear, but... please take care of yourself, Zewu-jun. I feel this is all a cycling for those who're struggling to keep clear minded, and contact to ground does help where I'm not sure what else will.

( she can guess he knows this, since he mentioned having been in a state similar to Jiang Cheng, then resolving it; but she doesn't press. why would she? )

I'm concerned for everyone. I'm not ill, I haven't suffered any attacks by others or by my own mind, but I worry, and A-Cheng hasn't always been responding. A-Xian is mostly with Wangji, both of them, respectively, and I want to check in on our Nie-ergongzi's, and the youngest of your sect here—Lan Sizhui? Have you heard from him?

[equivocations]

Yes, it seems to work quite effectively to hold it at bay. This is another time where I am very grateful to have family and friends here.

[ As unfortunate as the circumstances were, he does not regret his and Wanyin's encounter, nor what it might have started, and he is not sure what he would have done without him. Or without Wangji, Wuxian, and Huaisang, who have helped him stay mostly himself. ]

I am concerned as well. [ It is something of a relief to compare notes with her, as he goes down the list as well. ] Wanyin was clear minded, when I last saw him, as was Sizhui. Huaisang seemed entirely his usual self, though I was unaware there was another in the city.

[ He will have to process that later - it has been a delight for him to meet those from other versions of their world and get to know them, but his relationship with Huaisang is... complicated, to say the least. He would not blame any version of Huaisang for wanting nothing to do with him. ]

Would you be opposed to meeting in person? I admit, I would like to see for myself that you are all right.

calling post dinner party night | take this nice and slow bri <3

[famili]

( She's been debating with herself over the evening, but it's mostly been a matter of steeling herself for tertiary truths she's been sussing out in small, heavily incomplete forms. Lan Xichen made her an offer, and she'd asked for him to hold onto that thought a month ago. Whatever span of years, at least sixteen of them, the growing to adulthood of her son, the changed landscape of their world; sixteen years is only a footnote in history, not in human lives.

But she has eyes, and she has ears, and it does not take someone as sensitive as she is to see there's more fundamentally not okay than she'd suspected. Having her brother-in-law live with her was natural, and right, and true; why wouldn't it be? She'd have made the offer to even those of her husband's family who she didn't find herself fond of, because it was the right thing to do, and she'd make the effort for him and her own conscience. Jin Guangyao is someone she genuinely likes, who she believes is in a similar position to hers: a body who cannot return home.

But she hadn't pressed him, and hadn't had a chance in the time between arranging for their family dinner with new friends to mention to all, ah, yes, my nephew's moved in so his fathers might have their privacy; an ancient guardian who is not fond of shirts has moved in because of the combined kindness of myself and my nephew; and my brother-in-law, Jin Guangyao, lives here too, because we're family, and there's nowhere I'd abandon him to, not having felt that loneliness after death, not knowing the unsettled nature of being at a loss in a world so very different in structure and movement than their own. )

Lan Xichen?

( Because she's not here to ask a Sect Leader, or the renown Zewu-Jun. She's here to ask the man her brother's courting, who she respects as a peer, and as a human being, who she cares about for his own sake; here to ask about things which he's promised to speak on because of whatever hurts have accumulated in his heart to leave him so sensitive to the weight of well intentioned lies. )

That conversation you'd said we might have before. I think it's time you let me help share that burden of knowing.

[equivocations]

[ What she asks him isn't a surprise - both because he has been ready for her to take him up on it since he first offered it to her, and because when she'd greeted him as Lan Xichen he'd expected it had to do with either this, or one of her brothers.

It has become... more complicated now, he supposes. There are more layers to everything with his and Wanyin's growing intimacy, and with Jin Guangyao's presence, but they have not changed his mind. He's not planning on holding anything back from her. ]

Of course. Shall I come to you, or would you like to come over?

[ He doesn't even consider having this conversation over these devices - as convenient as they are, this is not a subject that should be done without being in person. ]

[famili]

( Most conversations are meant to be held face to face, but for the sake of this one, and who's involved, it's especially important. As is... )

Please, in this case, let me come to you. Do you have time now?

text; beginning of the month sometime

[deferences]

Uncle, are you busy by chance? And if not, do you have time for me?

[silly to ask in such a manner, as his family has always made time for him, but it's only polite to do so after all and it feels rather presumptuous to assume such things.]

[equivocations]

[ Silly, perhaps, but seeing the text makes Lan Xichen pleased anyway. ]

I am not, and I most certainly have time for you. Would you like to speak in person, or over these devices?

[deferences]

[good, because reading that his uncle has time to speak to him – in-person, even! – delights him as well.]

This feels rather important, so if it isn't asking too much, could we speak face-to-face?

text; un: sandushengshou

[zidianing]

I've got things to go over in the shop tonight. Won't be home until very late.

text -> action

[equivocations]

Thank you for letting me know. I will take care of dinner.

[ And he does. An hour or so after the shop has closed up for the day, Lan Xichen picks up a meal from one of their frequented restaurants - rice for them both, stir fried pork and lotus root for Wanyin, tofu and lotus root for himself - and arrives at the shop with it. ]

Wanyin?

[zidianing]

[It's nice that Xichen is able to take care of dinner. Having those silent meals together is usually a nice end to his day but today...today had been trying. He cleans up the lanes, he cleans up the register. He sets up the bows as he always does but then does it again and again before pulling one down and going to shoot in the lanes himself. When Xichen enters, he'll hear the echoing thnk, thnk, thnk of the arrows hitting targets. Jiang Cheng doesn't hear him immediately, more focused on shooting down the lanes.]