#oh dear......

(another) ralsei has shown up on tumblr!

unaware of the other ralseis and copies of their friends...

The punishment hall, Nie Huaisang thinks, is not as bad - or at least not while his brother is in charge. With their father at Nightless City, Nie Mingjue has the final say in anything that happens in the Unclean Realm and his final say is that Nie Huaisang will kneel on a cushion until he’s finally ready for saber practice.

Nie Huaisang is fine with this. The only thing kneeling will do is bruise his knees, but saber practice would give him bruises, cuts, sore muscles, and sweaty robes. And his punishment is to kneel inside the hall where he’ll be safe from any scary storms.

It’s not fun to be punished, but it’s still obviously better than saber practice!

Or at least it should be, but then nighttime falls, and Nie Huaisang is still not allowed to leave. It’s when a disciple brings him his dinner that he really starts to worry because he’s been made to kneel lots of times, but he’s always been let out before dark, and by the time his brother next comes in to check on him, he’s crying.

“Eat,” Nie Mingjue tells him, looking at the untouched bowls on the tray. “You’ll need your strength.”

Ok... I just finished my first full edit of this chapter but I’m going to let it sit for a bit and then come back to it because it still needs a little tweaking. But in the meantime here’s another snippet.

~~~~~

Rowan felt his frustration rise. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do to move past this and it was driving him to the end of his tether. He left her on the couch and went back to the kitchen, packing away the watermelon and tidying up the bench. In his frustration he was closing doors a little harder than he should, the sounds echoing. But he could feel a tightness building in his throat, a burning in his eyes. He needed to keep busy or he just might fall apart completely. 

His keys were on the kitchen counter where he had left them after bringing in the groceries and he grabbed them. They jingled as Rowan’s hand shook.

-Sanzu