that the blood you bleed; open

[equivocations]

WHO: Lan Xichen + open

WHAT: event aftermath, dealing with having a temporary ceramic arm, and possible info sharing around it

WHEN: running from the end of the camping event through now

WHERE: the gym, the hotel lobby, the guest level, his room

NOTES: likely discussion of violence, limb loss, and nonconsensual medical procedures - I'll match either brackets or prose in replies!

When they'd been told that those injured would be taken away for medical attention, Lan Xichen had anticipated that may not mean anything good. He hadn't expected... this. After waking up in his quarters back at the hotel, there'd been very little pain. That alone would have been something of a marvel, considering the fact that within the last day his left arm had been completely torn off and replaced with one made of ceramic, but then there is the ceramic arm itself.

He can't figure out how it's attached. He can feel its weight, a solid presence that feels every bit like an arm should - except that it is completely nonresponsive. Even if its joints were articulated, he couldn't get it to move at all. It is... disconcerting, in a way he has no words to express, how it feels simultaneously as though he has no arm at all and one that is completely foreign.

In an attempt to learn more, he can be found in the gym - not making use of the equipment, but standing in front of one of the mirrors in the changing area or the dance studio. He is dressed, for the most part, in a long blue skirt and a long-sleeved blue overcoat, but the coat itself is loose, and currently pulled down enough on the left side to completely expose his shoulder and the upper part of the ceramic arm. His fingers smooth over the lines where it's joined to his skin, gaze split between the arm itself and its reflection in the mirror. His focus is intent enough that it may take him a moment to realize someone else has come into the room, but when he does he'll pull the fabric somewhat awkwardly back up over his shoulder.

"My apologies. I needed a reflective surface larger than what is available in my room."

He may also be found in the hotel lobby, walking among the shops set up by the traveling merchants. His long sleeves hide the ceramic arm, but it's still tucked immobile at his side as he walks. The claim of the spiritual properties of the items for sale is certainly not unheard of for him - but neither is the knowledge that claims such as these are not always truthful, and he has no access to his own spiritual power to be able to test it.

Still, he is curious, and when he spots someone else looking, he approaches them.

"Have you purchased anything?"

Or maybe he's in the hallway of the guest rooms, making his way back to his room with a tray of food balanced in one arm. Something jostles him - stepping out of the way of an opening door, perhaps, or moving to the side to accommodate a staff member or another guest - and he adjusts instinctively, intending to bring up his other arm to steady his load.

Only, of course, he cannot, and he realizes it too late to completely correct the imbalance. The tray doesn't quite slip from his grasp, but one or two dishes tumble from it before he can catch them.

At any time, for those who might go looking for him, he can be found in his room, both during the week that he has the ceramic arm and the time shortly after, when he wakes up in his room to find a flesh and bone replacement in its stead. He has taken to leaving his door unlocked when he's in the room, so he doesn't need to get up from his meditations to open it, and should anyone knock he'll call for them to enter.

Comments

[sadflutenoises]

It hardly seems fair, two against one, and under two such heavy gazes, it's hard not to feel rather small. Have they practiced that? Or is it just something Lans are born with?

"I-" he tries, before glancing down, "mm."

It'd been a split-second decision, in the moment, and he couldn't guarantee if he'd had to do it over, he wouldn't do the same thing. He outlines what he saw, and what happened, at least, when Lan Xichen had still been in the room, and the code he'd seen them use to get there, though they'd activated a card, like the talisman-esque ones used to lock and unlock their rooms here.

"They weren't paying such close attention, so I got to explore the room a bit more," he explained, "Zewu Jun wasn't the only person they were trying to fix, March was there too."

He puts up his hands as a defensive gesture, already sure he knows Lan Zhan's response to the man will be unfavorable, as it was in the ruins, "I know, I know, but hear me out!"

He swallows back a bit of nervous energy, "they were doing something with his head, he seemed... like he was fighting it? They even mentioned that it'd come to blows with them in the past before. I think... they're controlling him, somehow? There's something in the back of his head..."

There were an awful lot of words he didn't know, but it was definitely the same sort of technology and magic that this world used for its other devices, he thought. He pats a similar spot on the back of his head, to indicate where he'd seen it.

"After they fixed it in place, he woke up," Wei Wuxian seems a bit hesitant to mention, but, "it was like he knew exactly where I was hiding, right away. I got away, but it was a near thing, and I think... no, I'm pretty sure, they saw me."

[billowing]

Great, so not only had he stayed to watch Mad March whom Lan Wangji had explicitly told him to stay away from, and stayed to listen to a lot of words he didn't know and couldn't even repeat, but then Mad March had woken up and seen him.

And as far as Lan Wangji was concerned, Mad March didn't actually like him, and was only using him to get into more trouble, or was using him to cause turmoil to the Lans, as hurting Wei Ying would be the easiest way to upset both Lan Wangji, and upsetting Lan Wangji was a guaranteed way to upset Lan Xichen.

He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself down, except that he is grappling with the idea that he is about to marry the most dangerous man in the Universe, but only really to himself.

"Is that everything," he asks, mouth tight.

[equivocations]

He's quiet as he listens, giving his full attention to Wuxian - though he does not have to look at Wangji to know what expression is on his brother's face.

His mind files away what Wuxian relays of the process of reattaching his arm and then neatly sidesteps it, refocusing on the information about Mad March without a second thought.

"If they can control him, who is to say they will stop there?"

Mad March seems to have his own sort of abilities. Are there not many among them who have abilities or skills that the Queen would find beneficial when put to her use? Everything he's heard of Mad March implies he is mostly devoid of emotion - is that what awaits them? Drained of their emotions, and then put to whatever use they can be?

Questions they have no answers to. Questions they may not get answers to unless they continue to take risks, and he is still unsure it's worth it.

The chill he feels when Wuxian says that he's pretty sure they saw him tells him that he knows what his heart has decided, but - he cannot afford to always listen to his heart.

"If they know you were there, they will not let it pass."

[sadflutenoises]

His new information didn't receive quite the reaction he'd been hoping for. It was dangerous, sure, but if they didn't take opportunities when they came, who knows how long they would be here, at their captor's mercy? Lan Xichen had been the one to warn him that things didn't always go to plan, and in his split-second decision, it'd seemed a more than acceptable risk.

"I... mm, that's all," he can't quite meet either of the Lan's intense stares, and he can't help feeling like Zidian's whip-crack would be preferable to this disappointed silence.

Zewu Jun had a point, but Wei Wuxian can't help wanting to make his own, that it was a good thing to know about the potential dangers. If they were controlling March, who might be next? But also, what if they could free him? Wouldn't he be a valued ally? Someone with so much inside knowledge, and at least, when he'd talked to Wei Wuxian, he'd been completely free in sharing it.

"They only saw a scrap of paper," he insists. Even if they knew it was his ability, they didn't necessarily know it was him that had used it. The teas with different abilities were passed around so much, it was at least possible it wasn't him. The excuse was as thin as... well, paper.

"We don't know that for sure..." his voice seems to hold less conviction with each passing word.

[billowing]

Wei Ying has died once. He has come back more recently than he has come back for Lan Wangji. Why does he forget these things and pretend they don't matter?

The fact that Wei Ying is even trying to talk himself out of this one is almost enough to send his husband into qi deviation. He's really thinking he should go sit in isolation right now, because he has a lot of thoughts to sift through and most of them revolve around Wei Ying and his love of trouble.

Even if they could free March, who's to know that he would help them at all? Why would his loyalties lie with them, when it could easily be to himself, when he could just leave the premises? He'd said he'd wanted Lan Wangji ripped into pieces, was that not strong enough of a statement?

Last time he tried to dissuade Wei Ying, it only led to more trouble, and led Wangji to step aside and let them both make the biggest mistake they'd ever made.

It was careless, he wants to say. Foolish. We are supposed to be a team, he wants to say. We are supposed to make decisions together, you're supposed to communicate to us.

Instead, all he says is: "And if they had destroyed the scrap of paper?"

[equivocations]

His gaze flicks back and forth between them, from the way Wuxian deflates at the reception of the information he worked hard in getting, to the way Wangji fights to contain himself when faced with another reminder of the fact that his heart lives in a man who will fight for everyone's safety but his own.

"I'm sorry, Wuxian, I don't mean to imply that what you learned isn't valuable or that it doesn't present another possible avenue to obtain more."

It's only - well. His brother may still believe him to be better at dealing with people, and he may be slowly coming to the realization that secluding himself from the world back home was not the best route, but he isn't ready for this.

How can he even consider the idea that he is fit to tell someone who they should trust and who they should not? Who is he to say that Mad March could not have ever been one of them, that his motivations now are nothing more than what he presents to everyone else? Who is he to weigh in on what level of risk is acceptable, on the manner of things that must be done despite a personal dislike of them, when he -

His hands lock behind his back.

"The level of danger that Wangji or I would consider acceptable for you to be in is, I suspect, much lower than what you would consider acceptable for yourself. But we could not have known it would be Mad March there. Perhaps - we could use this time to discuss how it should be approached moving forward."

[sadflutenoises]

He's pretty sure the last time he saw Lan Zhan this angry was shortly after he'd returned from the burial mounds. It's not a pleasant memory, nor a pleasant thought, and even if he still couldn't bring himself to talk about why he'd taken that path, he could at least try to fix what he'd damaged in taking this one.

"Lan Zhan..." he didn't have the heart to give a detailed answer to Lan Zhan's question. If he was lucky, he'd just be unconscious, for the time it took to gather up the broken pieces of his soul and return them. If he wasn't lucky, and any of those pieces were lost or too damaged, then a part of him would be too.

It was difficult, he'd come to find out, to show affection or care for those around him in ways that weren't based solely on what he could give them. He loved the Jiangs dearly, but so much of him was tied up in what he could be for them, how he could pay back the impossible debt he owed for everything they'd done. Among the Wens, it was much the same. What could he do? How could he provide? What could he give of himself to prove he wasn't the danger the rest of the world saw him as?

Lan Zhan and had never asked anything of him, and maybe that's why he felt the need, all the more, to prove he was worth it. To prove he was useful, needed, that he could help save them if he just tried harder. Should he have lied? Made up a reason for why he'd stayed?

"Oh- no, no, don't be sorry! I wasn't-" the last thing he wanted was for either of them to feel like they were the ones who needed to apologize. It's hard to meet their eyes, though he can't help his from nervously flicking to Lan Wangji every so often, as if it might change so easily.

"Mm, I can't change what's happened," there's always going to be danger, unless they all decide to just sit back and accept their fates here, "but if you have suggestions, I'll listen."

[billowing]

He knows his brother is just trying to be diplomatic - that's why he's elected to hold his tongue and let the elder jade do most of the talking. If it hadn't have been Mad March, things would have been worse - and if there had been no one down there, what even was the point? Surely those others - The Walrus, the Carpenter - those who were reprogramming March, would not be more generous than the rabbit?

They were lucky this time, but luck isn't something that can be predicted. It isn't a calculated risk because there's nothing to be calculated - they don't know enough about how Wonderland works, how the Hotel works, how teas work, to be taking such risks. Hadn't they already agreed on sending Wei Ying down with Xichen? Hadn't they already formulated a full plan? How can he make it so that his suggestion isn't, "follow the agreed-upon plan"?

"The most important thing we lack is a way for all of us to communicate," he says, finally. He knows it's a tall ask, but is it really any worse than what they're currently doing?

[equivocations]

Nothing ever goes to plan. It doesn't matter how carefully you create one - there will always be something unexpected, something that will require deviation or will prompt a previously unaccounted for choice to be made. In the past, Lan Xichen has always trusted those he strategized with to respond as necessary, to deviate from the plan and act accordingly.

He isn't certain that he does, now. And he's equally uncertain if it's because he no longer trusts his own judgment, or because of the conversion he already had with Wangji, that Wuxian does not consider his own safety as he should.

It's clear that Wuxian considers the risk acceptable, and equally clear that Wangji does not. And he wants to say something, to try to reconcile the difference, but - it isn't something that will be resolved in one conversation.

He lets it drop as well, turning over his Empathy in his hands at the question Wangji proposes.

"Is there something that could be created? An invention similar to these but under our control, or a talisman that can prevent our words from being read as we can prevent our conversations from being heard? We may not currently have access to our spiritual power, but they do seem to return in short bursts. Perhaps, if we were prepared..."

[sadflutenoises]

Wei Wuxian didn't have the finely tuned emotional sense the twin jades seemed to have around one another, but the topic had shifted, so that was settled, wasn't it? Focusing on what they could do from here was much more productive, he thought.

Communication had been their biggest stumbling block in the race for information and checking in with their allies. They could hardly trust the Empathy they were given, as he was just as sure the queen and her minions could listen in on them as much as her spirits listened in on what was happening within the hotel. It was difficult, when they were being watched at every turn. If he'd full use of his talismans instead of just his papermen, he might be able to come up with something. But even that would be limited to those he could get them to, let alone what sort of duration he could get out of them.

With his full focus on it, surely he could craft some communication tools, or at least, draft out the ideas, should any of them come upon his powers.

"I'm sure I could, if I had the means to activate them," he offers, huffing out a sigh. He could bleed his finger dry and still not get the talisman paper to so much as twitch with power.

"I can put some theories to paper, in the mean time," he offers, "but we might want to consider something more mundane, for now. Even children can put together coded messages. Is there a way we can compile what we know so far? It would be dangerous to have a copy floating around, but more dangerous still to continue in ignorance, don't you think?"

[billowing]

They will possibly need their cores back - or powers of some sort back - for any of this to work. He still doesn't understand how they have managed to separate the usage of powers from the use of their cores. Just what other sort of things are these captors capable of, that they can manipulate energy so minutely, so expertly.

In the meantime, this will be enough to get Wei Ying working on something, to give Lan Wangji a little more peace of mind when they go out on these missions and have to separate.

The problem after that is that the hotel still seems to be a few steps ahead of all of them, anticipating their moves, watching their every step. Which means that having a paper copy of anything floating around anywhere is probably not the best idea. But he's also a Lan - he could recite all 3,000 rules from memory, all Buddhist scriptures, and many other texts besides.

"If they have our memories, we will have to design one we've never considered previously." Otherwise, it would be easy to pick out. Simple ciphers just won't do. They can think of something, but "for now, no writing."