yiling_laozu | (no subject)

He's so tired. So heavy. He's been fighting the current for what feels like hours, yet the shore he can scarcely make out through the water in his eyes never draws closer.

Arm over arm. Kick. Kick. Breathe.

They're motions Wei Wuxian could make in his sleep. For the first time since he startled from slumber to the phantom slither of a whip, Wei Wuxian wonders if he'll die making them too. He should have ignored it, ignored her, but even in death Madam Yu is not a woman who will hear no.

Not even fully corporeal, her specter stands on the far shore, watching him struggle with disapproval in every hard line of her face. Despite his fatigue, Wei Wuxian shudders, words from long ago rising to his ears as if carried on the wind.

If you want to slack off and swim while the others train, swim then. Swim until I say you can stop. Zidian is waiting for you if you fail, boy.

In his youth, Wei Wuxian survived by making a game of it. He treated her torments and tests as trials to make himself stronger, more resilient, a better disciple for Yunmeng whether she wished it or not. He'd been younger then, stronger, and even when she whipped him Wei Wuxian still had a core.

Now he has nothing but the faint lights of home at his back and a growing sense of despair. If he stops now, he'll be lucky if Zidian is the worst thing to find him, for the current of the river is only growing stronger, threatening to sweep him away the moment he falters.

Surely he can stop soon. Surely, even at her angriest, Madam Yu wouldn't actually kill him.

Threaded | Flat

Lan Wangji has finally, mercifully, fallen asleep. The first couple of nights they'd attempted to soothe his mind with alcohol had led to drunken shenanigans including an unheated trip to their outdoor tub which Lan Wangji had thoroughly enjoyed in spite of Wei Ying's protests, a complete rearrangement of their kitchen which has resulted in a lost stirring spoon and their chicken coop now covered in intricate carvings.

Tonight has done much, much better. Up until to the point that Lan Wangji wakes up from a nightmare that he cannot recall but left him gasping and sweating and alone in bed. He stumbles from bed, startling the cats as he strides through the house, hair askew in a way it would normally never dare to find only dark corners and silence.

"Wei Ying!" he shouts as he throws open the front door, ears straining for any answer other than the soft sounds of Bunny shifting straw in her hutch and the odd cluck from their newly decorated coop.