Untamed/MDZS catch-all

[ze_uwu_jun]

WHO: The Untamed / MDZS cast and friends (enemies, etc)
WHERE: Anywhere, everywhere, including their assigned lodgings and around all towns
WHEN: February
WHAT: Catch-all because the emotions never end
WARNINGS: The Untamed / Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation / Mo Dao Zu Shi spoilers; canon-typical violence; event-typical violence. Will add more if it becomes necessary

ooc: Go forth and do the things as they come.

Comments

[secondjade]

He doesn’t correct the outburst.

There isn’t anything to correct. It’s something he’s already felt for a little while, even if he hadn’t one hundred percent acknowledge it. But it’s the role he slipped into, and it’s the role she’s clearly accepted. What more was there to say about it?

He’s not okay. Of course he’s not okay. But there’s a thread of relief in his expression as he glances over her. She’s alright.

He failed all of them, but not her. Not yet.

“Stay here.” Is what he says instead. No admonishment, no lecture. There was no point. She had learned the lesson of their recklessness in a far more painful way than he could ever have taught her.

He backs away, stepping on his sword again. One child is safe but he can’t abandon the other. He has to check, even if he already knows he is too late. Perhaps the other half can still be found...

But there’s nothing. The heartless are gone, and so is Lan Jingyi. The only thing that catches his eye is the fluttering pale blue of a headband, caught around the door mirror of the car, threatening to blow away. Carefully, he picks it up, folding it into his palm.

The grief has been a constant companion this week, and the guilt settles firmly alongside it. But he won’t make Miu wait further. He returns to the roof, more solemn than when he left.

“Home,” he instructs, standing on his sword and reaching towards her so she could climb on, too.

[blackwaterchild]

Miu takes a half-step forward when Wangji moves away, not wanting to be left on her own. But despite the small noise of protest, she says nothing further, watching him leave and telling herself it won’t be the last time she sees him.

She sits and quietly gets her limbs moving correctly to sheathe the sword at last and hold it to her, feeling—odd. She spends the time he’s gone—it seems to last forever and yet pass too quickly too—trying to figure it out.

‘Odd’ is the only way she can think to describe it. Off. She had seen so much death before, been ‘killed’ too often. She’d been the killer in her dreams, had felt the revulsion or the pleasure or anything else with it. But it had been easier then, when she could easily pull herself away from it, separate her feelings from their own.

What she’s killed hasn’t been human or beast. It hadn’t been Jingyi. That’s what she tells herself, but she curls her fingers around the sword and tries not to think of the look on Jingyi’s face as he fell or how she’d been so close and so useless. stupid. So stupid. Why has she agreed to this? Why hadn’t she tried harder to stop it?

When Wangji returns she scrambled to her feet with obvious relief. It’s not good news he brings with him, but she honestly hadn’t been expecting any or letting her get her hopes up. And while sword flying is still weird to her, she wordlessly climbs up and then clings to him again, pressing her face agains this chest. His grief washes over her in a wave and she shivers, remaining silent until they touch down again at.

“I’m sorry,” she finally murmured against his chest. “It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

[secondjade]

He lets her cling, on hand settled on her shoulder to keep her secure as they fly, but once they land he gives her a few seconds to mumble against him before gently dislodging her enough that he can see her face.

He doesn’t reassure her, doesn’t tell her that it isn’t her fault. He doesn’t know if that’s true or not, so he will not speak a lie.

Instead:

“Tell me what happened.”

[blackwaterchild]

She looks at him for a moment, not quite sure what to say or where to begin. But then she takes a deep breath and seems to ground herself, standing up a bit straighter. It’s easier if she can play a role; she’s not Miu, she’s not anyone with a specific name or face. She’s— she thinks of Sizhui and Xichen and decidedly does not think about Jingyi, and Wangji. She thinks of how she’s observed the Lans carrying and conducting themselves and lets that sort of stoic calmness and dedication wash over her.

Beneath the serene exterior, she knows firsthand how deeply the well of their feelings truly runs, but in the surface she’ll appear calm and collected, ready to dutifully report. It’s easier that way.

“...Jingyi messaged me and said we should do something about those monster things.” Okay, ‘monster things’ was not very Lan-like vocabulary but she’s working with what she’s got, alright? “That... we should do a ‘night hunt’? That they’d hurt Jin Ling and Sizhui, so... Something like revenge, I guess.”

Miu pauses for a moment, feeling the guilt welling up in her throat again before she forces herself to continue. “...He... he didn’t know that I can’t.... really fight. But I went anyway, because I wanted to help.” She clutches at her bag and thinks against telling him the main reason wasn’t even so much a desire to help, but a desire to relieve her boredom and satisfy her curiosity. “But I can, um...”

It feels a little weird to suddenly bring up the ability now, but— “if I apply my spirit power the right way, I can slow time for a little bit. So I could slow those monsters down for a bit, and it helped. Jingyi was doing really good, but there... there were too many of them. And they realized my ability was making it easier for Jingyi so they targeted me, and... Jingyi and I were going to escape then. But... it was a mistake. I don’t know, it happened so fast...” Miu trails off, looking down at the ground at last, her brow furrowed. Even though she’s not looking at his face, though, she’s still maintaining enough contact with him to try and feel his reaction from there.

If he blames her—well. She deserved it, didn’t she?