(no subject)

[we_bring_hell]

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.

Comments

[acrookedpath]

He mirrors the smile, breathing out an impossibly quiet laugh.

"Yes," he says. "I would be honored to hear."

[we_bring_hell]

"Sometimes I would swear," she says, "these Mountain Goats were necromancers."

She clicks backwards two songs on the same disc to play a song that begins:

If you really want to conjure up a ghost, cultivate a space for the things that hurt you most.

[acrookedpath]

Where the previous song's familiarity pierced him like a blade, this song -- quieter, slower, softer -- settles next to him like an old friend, gently nudging him in the side as it offers a bottle of wine. Wei Wuxian listens as if it were a meditation melody. He lets his breathing slow; folds his hands in his lap with both palms raised.

It is a short song, but by the time it ends, he feels... better. As if the music washed away a thin layer of grime that still clung to him.

Rake the sands until they surface.
Don't let anybody call them ugly.

He stays silent a moment after the last chord fades, then picks up the cold mug of tea and rises to his feet. Wei Wuxian clasps his hands, the cup tucked behind them, and bows with a greater formality than he's shown the Ninth in the past.

"Thank you," he murmurs. "I wish you luck, Ninth."

[we_bring_hell]

"I wish you peace," she says in return, still seated on the floor, legs curled beneath her, but lowering her head to the coverlet in courtesy.

"And please call me Harrow, if you wish." If she is not the only one of the Ninth here, after all.

Nine is for the Tomb, and all that was lost.

"Try to get some rest before Lan Wangji comes," she adds. "Or he will be furious with me."

[acrookedpath]

And finally, at that, Wei Wuxian breaks into a genuine grin.

"And food," he agrees. "I will never hear the end of it. For both our sakes then, Harrow, I will go take care of myself."

With a final wave good-bye, he takes his leave.

[we_bring_hell]

O corse of the Locked Tomb, the cold death to anyone who looks at me in pity
the heat death to anyone who looks at me in amusement

His easy humor always dazzles her; it reminds her of Gideon. They are like mirror-images, she thinks; he combining Gideon's irreverence and ebullience and her own deep wounds, Lan Wangji combining her bloody-minded composure with Gideon's inner light and longing to protect and to serve.

She hesitates, picking a new song to accompany her, and goes back to the first song on the disc. There are parts of it she doesn't understand; but there are parts of it she certainly does.

Cold cream. She peels off the smeared make-up, regards the face her mother gave her once again, then covers it over again to reveal the one she had first. This face she recognizes better than the other.

Alabaster first, then ebony, then the details.

Crawl 'til dawn
On my hands and knees
God damn these vampires
For what they've done to me

The difference between a victim and a monster is that a monster does not forgive, she thinks. A monster works with what she is given, makes her pain into weapons, when the world would be happier to see her simply crawl into the darkness and sob her life away.

She intends to walk upright. Let them fear her. The skull in the mirror nods approval.

The quick death to anyone who looks at me in fear.

And peace to anyone who looks at me in love. Exactly as I am.