attempt the impossible.

Send my muse a ‘Never have I ever [blank]’. If my muse has done it, they have to take a shot.

Wei Wuxian inhales almost imperceptibly, and gives himself just a second to look down into the liquid in his glass, to meet the eyes of what little he can see of his reflection. Just a second to allow the faces to cross his mind, with features very nearly lost to time, that blur away by the second. Just a second to try and hold on to them.

Send my muse a ‘Never have I ever [blank]’. If my muse has done it, they have to take a shot.

Send my muse a ‘Never have I ever [blank]’. If my muse has done it, they have to take a shot.

He falls silent, tilting his head just slightly. Has he ever been in love? Surely he’s been prone to fancy, if his constant chasing after girls in his youth was any indication. He’s found them pretty, or lively, felt a curiosity about them and wanted to get to know them, but love? He can’t say anything like it has grown out of those conversations and witticisms.

Send my muse a ‘Never have I ever [blank]’. If my muse has done it, they have to take a shot.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t spend long considering this one. His answer is a little bit of a cheat in that it doesn’t directly address the essence of the question, but it’s close enough. “It’s not as though I’m not grateful that I have a body again, but it’s not so unreasonable to want my old one back, right?” It’s still rather hard to adjust to the height difference; he’s suddenly lost two inches on Lan Zhan, and he’s even shorter than Wen Ning now.

Send my muse a ‘Never have I ever [blank]’. If my muse has done it, they have to take a shot.

This one he thinks over, expression vaguely confused like he’s trying to remember. In truth, though, he doesn’t have to think hard: his memory may be spotty, gaping holes looming over parts of it like portions of some colossal shadow, but this one is, for better or for worse, clear as day.

A blank face, a blank mind. Blood the same color as a vermilion mark. His own chest a bruise of pain, not physical but so tight that he can’t breathe around it, guilt weighting down his heart like a stone, warmed only by the anger under his ribs. His voice choked.

Can someone tell me… what I’m supposed to do now?

Send my muse a ‘Never have I ever [blank]’. If my muse has done it, they have to take a shot.

Wei Wuxian wrinkles his nose. Has anyone not at least told a white lie to someone’s face before? He can’t even begin to count the number of lies he’s told, from I showed Lan Zhan that book with good intentions! to I’m not Wei Wuxian… well, what is there to it but to drink? At the very least, he’s not upset by having to do that in the slightest.

Send me a △ and ask a really invasive question aimed at my character

8/10

Wei Wuxian goes for a smile, even a laugh, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “Jeez… I really have to answer?” He drops his hand, flicks his eyes up, hesitates just a second too long before he speaks again. The smile is still there; after all, he never stops smiling, does he? “This… well, the answer is probably the path that I ended up taking, although I wouldn’t be able to change it at all. Even thirteen years ago, many people told me I could turn around, but already, at that time, I didn’t think there was a way out, so I didn’t.” 

Come back to Gusu with me, says a memory, faint but always present. Come back to Gusu with me. He’d thought it was constricting, back then, thought that the one who said it wanted to drag him before the mingshi, have him repent like some kind of monk. Maybe that wasn’t it, but he can’t go back in time, can’t fix what he did or didn’t do.

“I’m sure that decision hurt a lot of people, more than it helped others. But I can’t take any of it back now.” There are lifeless, blank faces smeared with blood, with the mud of the Burial Mounds, the Nightless City, lighting up at the back of his eyes. He wishes he could, but he can’t.

There’s a commotion at market, and for once, the Jovial Contrarian isn’t the one causing it. Would that stop him from intervening? Of course not. As he wheels himself closer, the only thing on his mind is which side to take. 

The young man who started the conflict beckons him over and the Contrarian grins. It seems as if the decision is made.  The shopkeeper seems to pale as he approaches and seems to mutter something under his breath. Was that a “not you again?” Did he already argue with this shopkeep once before? The Contrarian can’t remember for the life of him, but he supposes it’s of little consequence. 

“I say! Selling tainted produce for full price? For shame! Not only will you leave this youth penniless but sick to his stomach as well? At least have the decency to spare him one of these cruel fates!” The Contrarian was officially enmeshed in the argument. He flashes a grin at his co-conspirator before resuming his tirade at the shopkeeper. 

It certainly seems as though he’s chosen well, for the man he’s picked out of the shoppers doesn’t need even a moment to collect his thoughts before he tears into the store’s policies, seamlessly taking up the argument right as Wei Wuxian was running out of steam. He grins back and crosses his arms, standing back a little to allow the man to say what he will since he seems to by and large be more interested in furthering the argument than Wuxian. 

The shopkeeper, however, seems to have had it up to here and with a roll of his eyes and a sharp shake of his head officially gives up, going to fetch someone to mark the yams down. Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows shoot up; that was fast, even in comparison to the meager time he’d spent arguing himself! What, did this man have a name around here or something? He hadn’t missed the vague mutter as the stranger had approached, but it must be quite the reputation if that was what could come out of it.

For now he ignores it, stuffing a couple of yams into a bag and beaming at the stranger who’d come to help him---or to argue, whichever one it was. Either way, he appreciated the discounted yams. “You really helped me out a lot there! How about I treat you to something to eat in return? I’ve saved some money here, anyway,” he says, gesturing to the stand. 

If he had thought the surface of the city morbid, then its underbelly is a nightmare. Winding narrow pathways filled with the scent of sewage wind back and forth, radiating outward like crooked, branching spokes on a wheel that lead to who-knows-where---it’s lucky that he has a good sense of direction, always has, so he hasn’t gotten lost yet. Rather, Wei Wuxian knows exactly what he’s here for this evening.

Word has reached his ear of a rather unsavory sort, a fighting ring that meets each night in the Sea of Crises in order to do what such rings do best. He’s never been interested in showing off by brawling, himself, but it’s a telling glimpse into what the city is really like---and he’s not about to give up a chance to see it.

Is it morbid interest? Almost definitely. A part of him says that he probably shouldn’t even look into it; there’s nothing to be gained from watching a troupe of denizens curb-stomp one another. Another part, though, a part that sounds like a year spent in Yiling, says that that’s precisely the sort of thing that he should be attending, watching over like it’s something he can nurture.

He shrugs to himself. There’s no use ruminating about these things now---although, he does allow himself to think rather lightheartedly, Lan Zhan would probably flip out if he saw something like a rat fighting ring. The Gusu Lan sect is just too upright for this sort of stuff!

With the soft echoing of his steps against stone, he finally emerges into the warehouse; it’s dim inside, lit like sight was an afterthought. There’s the musty scent of sweat and the iron of blood---must be something built up from the nightly activities, something that sinks in and can’t be scrubbed off or hosed away. A quirk of the mouth, whether satirical or not, makes its way into Wei Wuxian’s expression. 

He stands about, blending more-or-less into the shadows at the edge of the room, waiting. As he does, he catches someone’s eye: a woman, stern-faced, observant but unobtrusive like him in the gloom. She might well be seeking to be left to her own devices---she doesn’t seem like the overly-sociable type, anyway---but Wei Wuxian has never been one for liking to read the mood, and so he makes his way over, weaving around a couple of the denizens gearing up for the night’s events.

When Wen Ning is rapped on the head, it isn’t as if he feels pain, any longer, and yet it’s only human to react to impacts and blows before the body even processes any pain - so it is that Wen Ning says, mildly, “Ai,” before another human instinct, this time of startle, makes him blink even though he doesn’t need to.

“I - I would follow Young Master Wei anywhere,” is what he says, and it’s true, both because he would willingly follow him and because if he were summoned he would respond whether he desired to or not.

At the genuine question and the ensuing silence where Wen Ning realizes he’s meant to actually answer, he hesitates and thinks about it. What does he think about this place?

“I don’t u-understand it,” he says, simply. “Any of it.”

He was a simple fierce corpse, after all, only a little less simple because he could speak as he does now, but still a corpse.

Wen Ning is not much given to melancholy, if only because he understands that there is little point to it, anymore, but Wei Wuxian has asked, and so Wen Ning acquiesces. “I… want to be home.”

Home, of course, being a vague and nebulous term that he does not explain.

“I do not want to live under the water.”

As if suddenly aware he’s complaining, he stands up straight and would have blushed if he could. “Wh - what about you, Young Master Wei? Have you been alright?”

That was, after all, what was more important here, wasn’t that so?

At Wen Ning’s admission of his own lack of understanding, Wei Wuxian shrugs. “I’d like to see even someone from the Lan or Jin sect explain all of this,” he says, waving his hands around dismissively. “If any of them could, then my last name wouldn’t be Wei any more.” It’s simply not something that a cultivator would ever give thought to---as far as he knows, this is a first for them all. 

Although it leads him to wonder whether or not the sects have noticed them missing, and he feels himself smile in spite of himself at the sort of commotion that would stir up: the Yiling Patriarch and his fiercest corpse, disappearing into thin air? He can imagine Jiang Cheng’s face turning red at the spectacle.

His smile drops at the next words out of Wen Ning’s mouth, though. The Burial Mounds as we knew it are gone, too, his brain helpfully supplies, but he doesn’t say it aloud; Wen Ning knows it as well as he does that there’s nothing left on that hill but the cold graves it was meant to be composed of from the start. Instead, he sighs and laces his fingers casually behind his head. "Home... well, who knows? Maybe one day they’ll get tired of hosting us here and send us back. Although, aren’t you sick of having to tail me and Hanguang-jun all the time? The cultivational sects are all after us, too.”

For those I haven’t yet met: I’m Shin, an eighteen-year-old dude who’s in college and has really bad time management skills. I used to roleplay here before, but had to drop for a while due to school stuff---but now I’m back and (debatably) better than ever! And here’s the meat of the post: I can be found on Twitter at pelides, but I am currently on hiatus, and I don’t get notifications from Twitter at the moment. I can also be found on Discord at shin#9418, and I’m in the ADB server. And last, I do get Tumblr notifications, so if you need to get in touch, I’m just an IM or message away.