we_bring_hell | (no subject)

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Harrowhark is in the bar, wearing the style of facepaint known as the Vanitas, with no lower teeth and sharp angular edges. It's good to be back in her makeup, even if the consecration was a greater undertaking than anticipated.

Although she is formally painted from the neck up, she is wearing some of the more informal clothes her room had supplied; soft trousers and a hoodie all in black. She is not wearing gloves today, because her palms are wrapped in bandages, but it is the kind of wound she is used to dealing with and it is healing quickly. The pinpricks of pain around her lips are worse, if only because it's been a very long time since she underwent the ritual of the Sewn Tongue.

She is diagramming spirals on paper, working in ink rather than blood right now. She can't spare any blood currently. She has refreshments to share, if you like faintly cucumber-flavored water and very bland, crumbly biscuits.

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"Good. I am glad. -- But I repeat myself," he goes on with a small laugh, and fiddles with the handle of the mug. "Please forgive me. Madam Bar has given me some very strong tea, and I hope it will finish clearing my mind a little more. It would probably help if I drank it, wouldn't it?"

Suiting action to words, he downs a mouthful.

She studies him briefly. "Are you sure you are well? I am sorry the ritual ran out of control."

He shakes his head, waving a hand dismissively. "Only tired," he says again. "And I should be the one apologizing, Ninth. I was not able to fulfill my part of the ritual as you asked."

As much as Lan Zhan insisted Wei Wuxian was not to blame, it still pricks at him, as if he cannot stop prodding a bruise on his arm. He should have done better. He should have succeeded in the help he offered.

"I am sorry."

"By no means," she says. "The ritual did not run as anticipated, and you completed the majority of what I requested."

She frowns. "Two of the spirit manifestations didn't originate with me. Did you recognize them?"

The exhausted good humor fades to a blank mask.

It is right that she should be curious. She did not expect them to manifest any more than Wei Wuxian himself, and she has no reason whatsoever to recognize them. Of course she would ask for clarity. He should provide it, he thinks distantly, in case she needs his help again. In case they reappear.

"Yes." Quiet enough that one would have to strain to hear. "My shijie -- my sister. Her husband."

"I see," she says, in an equally low voice. "It was distressing, I imagine. I apologize."

Briskly: "I believe the key mistake was in using constructs to play the roles of the Houses--they were vulnerable to possession, especially once I was in the throes of the rite. Combined with some other unforeseen factors, the Ennumeration went beyond its normal boundaries."

The quick shift toward the technicalities of the ritual grasps Wei Wuxian by the collar, gently steering him away from the yawning pit of his worst thoughts. He nods, unable to meet the Ninth's eye right away, as he gulps down more tea to loosen the knot in his throat.

"What were the other factors?" he asks. "I know Lan Zhan worried that Inquiry may have been one of them."

"I agree I may have underestimated the impact of his music," she says. "For one who does not consider himself a necromancer, his power over spirits is remarkable."

He exhales, and the barest smile finds its way back to his mouth. "It is more what one does with the spirits that draws the line between ordinary cultivation and necromancy," he says. "Necromancy is... an alliance, I suppose. A closer association. Cultivation holds the spirits at a greater distance, even when one communicates with them."

She nods. "I have also discovered that the inlet itself connects to a liminal space. All in all, there were several intensifying factors in play, and perhaps too many changes to the ritual as I have performed it before."

She shakes her head. "I had intended to merely invoke the Locked Tomb through sacred geometry, not whatever... channeling of it we accomplished."

"Yes."

He treads a bit more cautiously, now, both hands wrapping around the mug.

"The resentful energy of your Tomb was... enormous. I spent three months lost in a space with resentful energy so thick it could kill within days, and that was but a fraction of what I felt yesterday. I worried if I drew any to myself, I might disrupt the ritual, but apparently I could not fight through it by willpower alone, either."

His mouth twists wryly at the last.

"Mm. The energy of the Tomb is potent," she says, "but I suppose I am not sensitive to the resentment and revenant power it holds in the same way you are. By legend its fury is undying, hence why it must not wake."

"I did not intend for you to be exposed to it."

He nods.

Hesitant, then: "Lan Zhan... told me a little more of your Tomb. And the spirit inside."

"Yes?" she says blandly. "Is this perhaps a conversation we should have in private?"

"If you want to have it at all." He scrapes a thumbnail along the side of the mug. "It is more that -- I wished you to know I know, and that I will keep it as I have kept your other secrets."

He still isn't sure how to approach the haunting, after all. If he does not have a plan, then he is only dredging up cruel memories the Ninth carries.

"But if you do wish to discuss it -- in private, yes." Remembering, then, "Or salt water, Lan Zhan said."

"Unless we get deeply into particulars, I think we can avoid bathing," she says grimly. "Let us adjourn to my room."

He dips his head in a nod. "That is for the best," he says, with a faint, wry smile, "unless I am to fetch a whole new set of robes from Madam Bar."

Mug in hand, he rises to follow the Ninth.

"You do know," she says, on the walk to Room 99, "that they make garments particularly for bathing. I wore one last night."

Room 99 is spartan; sufficient to her needs. There is a single painting on the wall, painstakingly straight. It seems to be a mounted jigsaw puzzle of a tower at sunset. The room, like any room long inhabited by Harrowhark Nonagesimus, smells of ink, incense, harsh lye soap, and the coppery smell of blood.

There is a skeleton on a stand in the corner and a large scrolltop desk that is nothing like a raven. There are also two white, crisp beds; the one perpendicular to the other has never been slept in, and the other one has apparently never been made. There is also a set of dusty free weights in one corner for some reason.

There is one other chair in addition to the one at the desk, and Harrow gestures towards it as they enter. She sits at the desk and toys with a pair of ivory compasses. Well. Probably not ivory, when you think about it.

Swimming garments that aren't just loose trousers? Interesting! He will have to investigate later.

(Much later, probably, considering the importance of the matters at hand.)

He sinks into the proffered chair and takes another long gulp of his tea. The incense, ink, and blood is -- not exactly soothing, but familiar. It smells like Demon-Subdue Cave. It is a place of study, the beating heart of all knowledge and protection.

"I suppose I should say what Lan Zhan told me, to make sure I have it right," he says, still with care. "That you opened the Tomb when you were young; that your parents, rather than assist in suppressing the spirit inside, killed themselves. And that you are haunted by the spirit even now. Yes?"

"Broadly," she says; the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in hearing the secrets at her core spoken so flatly, but she clings to her composure.

"She sleeps. The Tomb still holds her, as far as I know; I only entered it. I have seen and heard things that others could not sense. I have often wondered," she lets out a little breath, "if I am mad. But if not, yes, she has accompanied me. It has faded in time. Lately it has been stronger than it has in a long time."

Wei Wuxian nods, studying her closely over his tea.

"I am glad the suppression held, and she still sleeps," he says. "But her accompanying you, and you seeing and hearing things others don't, makes me think a piece of her escaped. I know our necromancy is not the same. But if you were from my world, we would determine it a haunting and try to help."

A small, humorless twitch of a smile.

"Lan Zhan also told me you do not wish for help, though."

"I do not," she says, as calm and cold as she can make herself.

"Indeed, I will put it to you this way, Wei Wuxian--I will consider your exorcism when you go to Moiraine Sedai to cleanse the stain of Shadow on your soul."

In the little time he's been awake, Wei Wuxian has pondered what Lan Zhan told him. The Ninth is haunted, and knows it to be so; despite this, she has made no effort to seek help. She is not in distress.

(She is in love.)

Her declaration puts a hand into his guts and squeezes, hard enough to drive the air from him. He readjusts his grip on the mug. Nods.

"I understand," he says, low.

"Do you?" she says, as hard and cold as he's ever seen her. Harrowhark Nonagesimus's tongue has a cruel edge when she chooses to wield it; she has felt safe leaving it sheathed at Milliways, for the most part. "I hope so."

"I did not share this information--information no one outside of the Ninth knows, information no one knows in full, information which would sign the death warrant of me and my entire House in the hands of any other necromancer--I did not share it to ask for help. I do not need help; not with this."

"I shared it with Lan Wangji in the hope that he would see me for what I am and make his decisions in full comprehension. I would not have affection gained under false circumstances. Fool that I am, it would hurt my pride."

"It is unfortunate in the extreme that it seems to have only furthered his musunderstanding."

Edited 2020-09-17 18:16 (UTC)

He lets out another breath, a slow deflating. His face does not change: calm, serious, unaffected by the venom she spits.

"Lan Zhan and I were raised to be cultivators from a very young age," he says, just as calm. "Everything we learn affects how we react to ghosts, spirits, and the dead. Even me, who chose a different path. And Lan Zhan especially -- " He huffs a small laugh, and rueful as it is, it carries more fondness than he realizes. "He always wishes to solve every problem he encounters. Even when it is a problem not in need of solving. Or even a problem at all."

He shakes his head.

"I am sorry. For him, and for my own misinterpretation."