Burial Mounds - Planting Lotus
Sep. 24th, 2020 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alongfallfromgraceWei Wuxian has always known he is a stubborn man.
He knew it when he tried to argue his way out of the Lan Clan's restrictions his first night in the Cloud Recesses, trying to save both his hide and his liquor.
He knew it when he spent days searching for a way to save Jiang Cheng from despair, and then spent more time convincing Wen Qing that a fifty percent chance was more than adequate.
He knew it as Wen Chao had his goons try to beat something besides lies and laughter from his throat, and he offered up a blood-soaked smile instead.
He knew it for three months, all alone and with so much dreadful company.
He knows it now, with a stack of notes from a place that does not exist, a cobbled-together hoe, and the start of a lotus pond.
It is back-breaking work - finding enough actual soil under the ashes to fill one of the old dried-up ponds, finding and boiling enough water to revive the desiccated dust, mixing both by hand until he has a thick, clinging mud that doesn't do much to remind him of home. Many wander by to see what he is up to now and to offer help, but he declared that he could do this. So he will.
He will, he tells each lotus seed as he plants it, whispering to each before gently tucking it under the wet grave-soil. He tells them to wake, and grow, and that he will be here to watch over them, and help them flourish. Yet another promise - a whole pack of them, all at once. Some day he'll learn to stop making those.
He knew it when he tried to argue his way out of the Lan Clan's restrictions his first night in the Cloud Recesses, trying to save both his hide and his liquor.
He knew it when he spent days searching for a way to save Jiang Cheng from despair, and then spent more time convincing Wen Qing that a fifty percent chance was more than adequate.
He knew it as Wen Chao had his goons try to beat something besides lies and laughter from his throat, and he offered up a blood-soaked smile instead.
He knew it for three months, all alone and with so much dreadful company.
He knows it now, with a stack of notes from a place that does not exist, a cobbled-together hoe, and the start of a lotus pond.
It is back-breaking work - finding enough actual soil under the ashes to fill one of the old dried-up ponds, finding and boiling enough water to revive the desiccated dust, mixing both by hand until he has a thick, clinging mud that doesn't do much to remind him of home. Many wander by to see what he is up to now and to offer help, but he declared that he could do this. So he will.
He will, he tells each lotus seed as he plants it, whispering to each before gently tucking it under the wet grave-soil. He tells them to wake, and grow, and that he will be here to watch over them, and help them flourish. Yet another promise - a whole pack of them, all at once. Some day he'll learn to stop making those.
