westwhere | (no subject)

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WHO: Lan Wangji, a triad of misfits, perhaps everyone ever — OPEN FOR BUSINESS ~~payments cash upfront~~
WHEN: first half of July
WHERE: canyons, mountain roads, encampment
WHAT: in which stone is struck (badly), ghosts are drawn into conversation (worse), and small children cry (inevitably)
WARNINGS: blood rains, talk of harpies, Lan Wangji
NOTE: happy to put up a starter for you, if you want to join in on this dubious fun, or feel free to bring your own! Lan Wangji is... drifting... between phantoms, investigations, watches and the stone canyon.

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"This land reeks of burning," he concedes, and rises to initiate — the woman's hands heavy and round and full in his grasp, giving him anchor. He feels himself compelled to mimic her, as if she might join him in movement, in exhale, in wonder. As if she might stir, if only he persuades her to surrender the secrets of her breath.

And yet she holds his gaze, stone unflinching, ribs unrisen, the base, immutable wealth of her inflexibility a hard constant. Behind him, Archeval prowls and meanders, dragging the heat of his sword, the quiet fire of his impatience. As if his son waits — and more fool Lan Wangji, withholding his truths, the scant, scattered gravel of revelation permitted to him. To them. Lan Wangji has drawn Archeval into this matter, like lace spooled back to hand.

"They walk down a steep path. Abyssal." And softer, "He claims he will not fall."

And there is dread in Lan Wangji that fuels the sudden, inexplicable calm of him, a sea before ice, waiting the freeze. Nothing will come of his search, but he complies, setting to search the room, each wall — scratching skin and joint and palm, examining for weight and pressure points between rock cuttings. Hunting.

"Entrance points may withhold themselves."

"Well, it's worth a try." Archeval gives a sigh as he moves to join in once again, to make another slow circuit around the walls, the various carvings, while Wangji does the other half of the room. With other options exhausted, an unpalatable answer looms before them -- the thought that this might not be a problem they'll be able to solve with ingenuity alone, that Wangji's powers might not apply to this task and that the Force isn't always compatible with what they call 'magic' around here. But that would leave them at an impasse with nothing to show for their efforts, so...no sense just stopping before they're completely sure there's nothing to be found.

They probably should have brought torches or the like, but Wangji had been too frantic to slow down for that earlier, and now they're already here; at intervals Arche makes do with tossing his saber up into the air to keep it hovering there, casting an eerie purple glow over large swathes of the room. His black-core crystal makes a poor substitute for real lighting, but as Arche makes another circuit around squinting at nooks and crannies and carefully feeling for the sorts of mechanisms that hide in such ancient structures, he's increasingly starting to feel that going back for oil and torch and lantern would be a waste of time anyway. Much as it rankles to admit defeat--

"...I'm not sure this is something you and I are going to be able to solve," he sighs out at last, disgruntledly, about the time their mutual search of each half of the room has brought them standing close together again.

"There absolutely should be beings here, by all my senses and instincts, and yet there are not. If I had a better knowledge of the supernatural properties of this place, of this world in general... perhaps. But at this point I can only think something is going on here that we don't fully understand."

Creatures, absent where Archeval's strength betrays them. Where Lan Wangji's senses, his knowledge of the quartz stone, intuits they should lie. He hesitates, hand soft and mind emptied, thoughts liquefied and cold and moulding. A mind's temple, no different than this, and the Lady's hands wet before, and Lan Wangji's dripping with tension, crackling through pores like the breath of dust that washes over the walls.

He says nothing, unto no one. Retreats, and only finally remembers — vengeance, then. Let him lead with that, as Wei Ying's powers have woven before, wrenched from nothingness into being. Let him use, as he summons his zither with the pass of a hand and whispers it alive, the first ring of his music rousing a turbulence of sound in the small confinement. He must play with caution here, where waves of strength can fracture walls, where rock holds itself too brittle.

No matter. Play he will. And with the music, force and compelling spirits to answer, the hundreds of voices that fragmented off living bodies once, to combine in one voice here, whole. Qi language, rightfully exerted.

Eye-slanted and jaw stiff, it occurs to him, after a few exchanges, to translate for Archeval's pleasure:

"My son and his companion are unharmed. Not in this room." And without sparing a glance away from the state, hands drifting over the zither string. "The spirits here. If you have questions, name them."

...after, he might wish to explain just how Lan Inquiry performs its duties.

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