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[mannerless]

hit me with starters, image prompts, texts - anything goes.

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[mannerless]

Believe what you want, I suppose. I doubt I can change your mind.

[downswing]

To walk free of past life's burden.

You think yourself unworthy?

[mannerless]

I haven't yet decided.

There are the times when I'm recognized, cursed for the loss of a life that I never took, or one that I took grudgingly in self-defense. It frustrates me, at the time. I feel like I don't deserve it, not after this long.

But then I consider all that I have done.

( the wens' sacrifice. jin zixuan. shijie. jin ling left parentless, jiang cheng left alone in this world as well. promises repeated time and time again and then broken as if they were nothing. all that lan zhan endured in wei ying's name and absence. )

I'm not sure it makes any real difference what I think, regardless.

[downswing]

You, who 'know what is right from what is wrong.'

[mannerless]

I've come to realize that right and wrong have very little to do with what a person deserves.

[downswing]

And yet you have worn Wen colours for a lifetime.

[mannerless]

It was a bit less controversial than wearing Jiang's purples and blues under Madam Yu's critical eye. She left Jiang Cheng unharrassed for a month once I made the switch.

I always assumed I'd switch colors again one day, if I ever found reason enough. Appeasing senseless prejudice was never quite reason enough.

[downswing]

They suit you now.

[mannerless]

They're hardly so controversial now, anyway. Sixteen years is an awfully long time to criminalize the color red.

[downswing]

White does poorly by you. Gold insults. Purple is discarded. Nie grey does not suit.

Red will do.

[mannerless]

Red and black, anyway. I'm not sure I'm suited for red on the outside as well. But regardless, I'm glad you approve.

In exchange, I'm compelled to inform you that now that no one has died and no further mourning is required, your blue robes aren't so terrible either (if you even still have them). Nie Huaisang was struck thoroughly dumb by your elegance in them, and while that's neither difficult to achieve nor a personal goal of yours, well. He wasn't wrong.

[downswing]

Cloud Recesses burned. Half the gentry followed.

You think there is nothing to mourn?

[mannerless]

Right. That was careless. I shamefully retract all of that, aside from perhaps the compliments.

Those too, if they offend.

[downswing]

See them. Next you come.

The altars. That will be your apology.

[mannerless]

The altars it is, then.

The altars, then the library for the disciplines, then perhaps your doorstep if it can at all be considered evening by that point.

[downswing]

We host still. You are not a stray dog.

[mannerless]

Your doorstep so as to knock, Lan Zhan, I don't plan to sit there. It would be awfully inconvenient to read disciplines and have my hands prepared for calligraphy on your stoop.

[downswing]

Enter as you wish.

[mannerless]

So generous!

Would you like to see how I filled the unbearably long hour before you mercifully broke your silence?

[downswing]

Do not count seconds.

( For the inevitability of their next... dispute. )

Show me.

[mannerless]

( first comes a picture of a rectangular slip of talisman paper, full to the edges with an inked swarm of bunnies, each wearing a lan headband. some feast on carrots, others climb over one another or sniff at the air, while still more nap huddled together as he has often seen them do. )

I thought, what with the unfathomable length of your disciplinary tome, that we might like a bookmark to hold our place.

Which I suppose also carries the bold assumption that we'll be reading more than once, but there it is.

[downswing]

( ...ah. Pre... tty. Rabbits. )


They are at ease.

[mannerless]

Of course they are, they know no concept of hunger or fear. No predator dares threaten the rabbits of Hanguang-Jun.

[downswing]

Wei Ying knows no hunger, fear or predator. You are not at ease.

[mannerless]

Ah, but that was not always so. These things echo for quite a while after they're gone.

Perhaps in a few more months, I too will be at ease. You'll find me sprawled amongst the rabbits munching a carrot. Perhaps I'll wear white that day, then we'll see if you can tell which rabbit is me.

Oh, but the headbands will give me away. And I don't dare remove theirs - I'm neither family nor spouse, what indignity that would be!

( do you see what happens when you ignore this man for more than an hour? nonsense, is what. )