Between Chapter 27 and Chapter 28

[we_bring_hell]

Observe Harrowhark Nonagesimus, flopped full-length on a sofa in Milliways, moaning into a cushion. She looks like a heap of coal-filthy laundry, like a bad black snake trying to wriggle into a crack in the fabric of reality and never return.

(When I release you from my service, Nav, you will know about it.)

She fucked up.

(It's just me. Go back to sleep.)

She fucked up so bad.

(Never work with children, Griddle. Their prefrontal cortexes aren't developed.)

She wants to die. For one golden moment she had done something right. Something worthy of what she's been given.

(Death first to vultures and scavengers.

It was good. You were good.)

She is a dullard. An imbecile. A fool. She had screamed herself hoarse upbraiding herself, then left Griddle with that viper Septimus to go do--what? Nothing useful. Nothing to bring back the flower of the Fourth. All she'd done is give Dulcinea Septimus more time to thieve the loyalty of her cavalier.

She wants to die, but she isn't allowed to die, not until she has redeemed the deaths of two hundred (and two!) children. Not until she's sold her poor mortgaged soul to the Emperor and the Corse of the Locked Tomb and renewed the Ninth. All of their hopes ride on her, and she is sinking under them, and the golden eyes of Gideon Nav are all their eyes; the eyes that can't believe that God and chance have entrusted their fate and their fidelity to this failure.

(Harrow, I hate you. I never stopped hating you. I will always hate you and you will always hate me.)

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[lightamidchaos]

He steps through what he has by now come to think of as a strange sort of portal talisman, passing from Cold Pond Cave into the inn with ease.

Lan Wangji will never, never be able to take this for granted. Will never cease being grateful for the impossibility of this place, of Wei Ying's presence, of his own welcome found.

He glances around the room, but does not see Wei Ying, at least not yet. (He is, perhaps, a little earlier than he should be, he realizes. He will have to be careful; will need to practice patience, no matter how difficult it may be these days.) He does, however, see a familiar figure... and cannot fail to notice the evident signs of distress.

A frown creases his forehead, just above the ribbon, and he crosses the room.

"Reverend Daughter?"

[we_bring_hell]

Time passes, and then:

"Hanguang-jun," she says, with all the dignity it's possible to muster with your face in a pillow.

She rolls into her side, facing into the couch, hiding behind her in shoulder and curling around her stomach like she's wounded.

[lightamidchaos]

"You are unwell."

He is not certain of what has happened, or why she is like this in a public room in an inn, but he is positive that it can be nothing good.

He takes a careful look, as well as he can. She does not seem to have spit blood, and she has no visible wounds, but the way she is curling around herself he half fears she is on the verge of going into qi deviation.

It is that thought which decides him. There is a low table in front of the couch, and he takes a seat at it, across from her, then sweeps his guqin out into place before him.

As he strikes the first notes of Cleansing, trying to soothe and calm, he looks up at her, to watch for any effect.

[we_bring_hell]

"I'm--" but trying to say the words all right brings her dangerously close to tears.

She tips over when the music begins anyway, her shoulders shaking as she weeps silently into the couch cushions.

[lightamidchaos]

"Mn."

He moves seamlessly from the end of Cleansing into Tranquility and continues to play, focusing with spiritual energy through the music, offering whatever peace he can.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is deeply mortified; she hasn't cried in front of another human being since before her parents died.

(If she had ever been told that Milliways has private rooms available this would all be happening very differently.)

But no matter how her soul twists and squirms within her the tears won't stop. Dimly, she is thankful Lan Wangji doesn't even attempt to speak to her.

When she finally dries up, she sighs wearily and tugs her veil up over her ruined face paint, still coiled into the sofa.

[lightamidchaos]

He is seemingly absorbed in the music, in the act of playing, but he glances up again as she stirs.

He says nothing, not yet. His fingers continue to move across the strings with ease, sending forth sound.

It is not overly loud, although he could fill the room if he so chose. Instead, he has kept it low and somehow almost private, constrained to the immediate area, rather than a performance for an audience other than this.

[we_bring_hell]

She sits up by degrees, keeping her feet tucked up on the couch and under her robe. The veil covers most of her face, but the white greasepaint has worn off of her fierce black brows.

She sits and listens, unwilling to interrupt the music with words.

[lightamidchaos]

Still continuing the current variation on Tranquility, he says, simply,

"Meditation may help. If you can."

[we_bring_hell]

She inclines her head. "Thank you," she whispers.

She unwinds one of her bone bangles and begins to count the rosary of the Locked Tomb, closing her eyes against the world.

"I pray the Tomb is shut forever..." She submerges herself into the familiar rhythm of the prayer that has been written into her bones since she was decanted.

[lightamidchaos]

As her fingers move through the rosary, he shifts the tempo of the music slightly, just enough so that it forms an accompaniment in time with her steady recitation.

(The disciples of the Lan are skilled in musical cultivation.

The Twin Jades are without peer.)

He continues to play, allowing one melody to flow into the next without interruption, intending to do so as long as her meditation continues, until she is steadier.

[we_bring_hell]

When she reaches the end, she does it again.

When she finishes the second recitation, she exhales, settling herself, and raises a hand to him. "Can you please wait here?" she says in a rusty voice. "It will not be as long as the last time, I promise."

[lightamidchaos]

"I will wait."

Said without hesitation. He lifts his hands from the guqin, bringing the music to a close, then places one hand on the strings to still them.

[we_bring_hell]

She rises from the couch and approaches the bar. After a brief discussion she gets a jar of cold cream and some black fabric.

When she returns, she returns the towel and cold cream to the bar, and leaves her robe with it. She is wearing a high-collared black shirt and trousers, with a black niqab that swathes her head and covers most of her face. The mailslot of visible skin is cleaned of its smeared paint, revealing pallid brown skin around her vivid black eyes.

She settles back onto the couch in same legs-up pose, knees to her chest. "The Bar can create facepaint, but it is not blessed by the priesthood of the Locked Tomb," she explains.

[lightamidchaos]

He has remained seated, with the guqin on the table in front of him.

"Mn."

It makes as much sense as any temple's requirements or sect's rules - and considering that there are 3,000 rules carved on the Wall of Discipline at Gusu Lan, he is certainly in no position to judge.

"Do you wish me to resume playing?"

[we_bring_hell]

She tilts her head towards him. "If it pleases you. I have found it... calming."

[lightamidchaos]

"That is its purpose."

Lightly, softly, he begins to play a more relaxed version of the previous song, one that can flow beneath words rather than over them, if she wishes to speak further.

[we_bring_hell]

She sighs, "In this way, at least, the arts of Gusu Lan surpass ours indeed."

"How long have you studied your instrument? I'm sorry, I didn't record the name."

[lightamidchaos]

"It is a guqin," he tells her.

"Since I was very young."

He's not actually certain when he first began, but he knows it was earlier than the usual disciples' training - for him and Xichen both.

"Maybe fifteen years. Or more."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods slowly, absorbing the information. "It must be nice to have a skill that brings no harm to anyone."

[lightamidchaos]

He looks a little uncomfortable at that.

Lying is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses.

"It can."

The same gentle melody keeps rippling forth as he talks.

"Not this. But there are techniques."

[we_bring_hell]

Her eyes widen. "Ah. I should not have assumed."

"I wonder if the Seventh House has pursued such things," she says heavily.

They have! But the danse macabre has never crossed Harrow's radar.

[lightamidchaos]

"It is fine," he reassures her.

"Reverend Daughter. You are troubled."

[we_bring_hell]

"Indeed," she says levelly. "But your art has helped. I am under control again."

[lightamidchaos]

It is not hard to read that tone of voice, especially given how private he himself is.

"Mn."

After a moment, during which the melodic line rises and falls again in the flow from one variation to another, he adds,

"I will play for as long as you like."