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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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[The best part about this all is that...it's not even truly a lie. Replace 'women' with 'soulless' and it's the same thing.]

Is it naïve? [She laughs under her breath and smiles at him, a little sad, a little soft.] But it doesn't matter. I may not win at all, and likely I won't see change in my lifetime, but even if I don't... Even if I fail, even if I end up dying for it... Maybe I can still inspire others in the future.

If I can inspire future movements, future improvements, then I won't consider it a failure at all.

Naivete is the beauty of children.

[ He corrects, and this time, the gentle exhilaration of rain waters cascading down around and beside them, as they breathe untouched, infuses him with a dangerous, syrupy arrogance. He feels himself protected, alive. In this moment, invulnerable, a judge of truths he hardly mastered —

And yet, he doles them out, hands bare where they spread silent on his knees, palms facing upward — in telltale, daring invitation for the skies to pour down their assessment of him in turn. To punish and find him wanting. ]

Visionaries perish easily. [ Ash in his mouth, known, remembered; he swallows, and sees Wei Ying fall. ] You die, others pay price of your legacy.

I wonder how I'm meant to take that... [She trails off, laughing a little. Does it make her a child? Childish? Sure, fine. She's realistic enough to acknowledge that it won't be easy or simple. There will be blood spilled--a lot of it, and mostly, probably, innocent blood at that. But don't the ends justify the means?

She watches him, quiet, with an air of that childlike curiosity.] So I just have to try very hard not to die. [She grins at him and then reaches out to pat consolingly at his arm]

Worry not, dear friend! I won't fall any time soon! That's not the way this story is going to end, I'll see to that. But if I don't do it, who will? Any other rebellions are so small, they can be brushed off so easily... But I have a very loud voice and the power to use it. I don't see why I shouldn't just because the outcome might be unfavorable.

[ Dear friend, and he stings, skin pebbled and the livened pulse that bruises his temple quickening — when he turns to see her, not for the first time, a beauty. Porcelain. And beneath her, doll skinned. And beneath that also —

Frail.

Frail, not in the way of women painted weak for the cut of their robes or the spread of their backs. Frail for her vagaries, her weakened voice, the glimpses of her translucent conviction. For being an age by which Lan Wangji had born the trials of war, but only now discovering her convictions.

It must tire, to be so fresh a friend to her own revelations. ]

...sleep. Spare strength for your battles. [ Countless, as they come, hastened. Some for the winning, many sketched out to cripple a man. ] I shall hold the watch.

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