"In the corridors of stone, tar bound life," he murmurs it like river water, fighting, fleeing, shallow. Soft. There was a sickly, cloying coagulation to the creatures, a constant transience from one sodden state to the next. Left to their own devices, the winged things could not stand alone. "It brokered their form."
Yet here, their gaze cautious over the well's rim, they see only the natural impurities of water unfiltered, of greyed sediment and white debris. No serpentine, wispy trace of weighted dark. No wet converted.
Shame of your flesh, to not attempt study. Lan Wangji, why do you yet own hands? They feel out the mouth of the well, deepen their hold. Then, with a tired sweep of motion, he makes for the pail, calling it close on its string, until he brokers purchase of the chain, trying it for security. For what weight — his weight — it might yet carry.
"You need not come." This, as he starts to bridge the distance, leg ungainly when he swings it over the stone collar, seeking a step on the thrashing bucket. It may well be that he exceeds the limit of what the well can accept as its pail's burden. "Only keep the watch."
no subject
Yet here, their gaze cautious over the well's rim, they see only the natural impurities of water unfiltered, of greyed sediment and white debris. No serpentine, wispy trace of weighted dark. No wet converted.
Shame of your flesh, to not attempt study. Lan Wangji, why do you yet own hands? They feel out the mouth of the well, deepen their hold. Then, with a tired sweep of motion, he makes for the pail, calling it close on its string, until he brokers purchase of the chain, trying it for security. For what weight — his weight — it might yet carry.
"You need not come." This, as he starts to bridge the distance, leg ungainly when he swings it over the stone collar, seeking a step on the thrashing bucket. It may well be that he exceeds the limit of what the well can accept as its pail's burden. "Only keep the watch."