The staggering overload is not what starts the tears that flow unimpeded down the planes of his face, but it anchors them, his heart and body and soul feeling the pain of an ache that cannot be ignored, the influx of everything that cannot be solved, and he's a big brother who failed his family too, and some costs are so staggeringly high he cannot help but stagger underneath them. Every bone aches, his head pounds unceasing, and he's regulating breathing just barely enough to not break down in sobs. To play.
Lan Zhan, illusion, rises as Lan Zhan, one of three train-borne truths, arrives. He can guess which, but any of them have the same importance, have the same inscribed trust. His song only pauses when the illusion lashes out, and Wei Wuxian doesn't have the time to tell Lan Zhan no, not either Lan Zhan, and memories of a blade bright in blood and the incredibly efficiency of Lan Zhan's mercy, the ruthlessness of his attack, honed in his attraction to the heart of chaos itself; Wei Wuxian is there, flute redirecting the illusion's blade, stepping in close.
Giving Lan Zhan his back to guard, as he trusts so often for him to do.
"We can never make the world whole again," he says, reaching out to try and wipe the trail of blood off a face he knows far better than his own. "But we can take our pain, our memories, the love we carry, everything, and not let the same mistakes take even more from us. We can share burdens and realise even in the worst of it, we don't have to stand alone."
And he plays on, sorrow and pain and love and the improbability of hope, plays for the four Lan Zhan's he's known here, the two Wei Wuxian's, his two sons, the Wen Qing who left after his arrival, the spectre of his older sister, and the countless bubbling of worlds across universes, where each one is a gem cut to different facets, where each one had a different chance for a different outcome. Where not every story follows the same narrative, and they are not his worlds, no, but they are a shared warmth, they are a borrowed promise, and they are what linger in the music when the breath of a natural pause means he tries to pull the illusion in, giving the man who does not exist and now exists and will always exist in memory the kind of embrace Wei Wuxian had to relearn, painstakingly. To speak, beyond his shoulder, to the one he is borne of, to the brother who smiles at his sister, to the home that was haven now destroyed, to the crushing of a heart and soul and mind to madness, to everything lost, to feeling there is nothing, nothing that can be gained, nothing if we can't make the dead return to us.
"You don't have to bear your grief alone. If there are other worlds, let us save them; let us stop the force that swallows universes, let us protect the memory and truths of those we love and loved, as only we can. From our abyss, we will always find there is more than nothing to hold onto. We are here, and you do not need to be alone anymore. We can survive and strive together."
It is... comedic, seeing someone play flute like this, and for the moment, he doesn't try. He hums and still the melody lives on his lips, because it is the song, the music, that lives like this, and he knows what it is to surrender before a hallucination, a recollection, an outstretched hand of one you love. It's seeing them in everything, seeing the world you had before it was shattered reflected back at you for every surface, and finally, finally, being unable to turn away and facing why it shattered, discerning those impossible truths, because you lived, and someone had to.
Lan Zhan is not a jealous soul, by every marker Wei Wuxian counts. He is dedicated, he is warm, he is quiet, his thoughts run deep. He is loyal beyond reason, he is firm in his belief, he is a leader of cats herded in all their yowlings, he is a Light shone down on a world that clung to shadows.
A man like that stands at his back, and an illusion like that stands before him. It is Chaos, in the end, who needs to let him go.
So he lets go first, and he lifts his flute, and he plays for what may come. Love, and sorrow, and cycles of life and death. The brush of the wings of birds on takeoff, and a sister's smile. Not alone, not alone, not alone except by choice. Don't forget, don't forget, don't forget why she matters. Why any of them matter. She will not thank you for the cost. She will not thank you for the innocents who are dying.
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Lan Zhan, illusion, rises as Lan Zhan, one of three train-borne truths, arrives. He can guess which, but any of them have the same importance, have the same inscribed trust. His song only pauses when the illusion lashes out, and Wei Wuxian doesn't have the time to tell Lan Zhan no, not either Lan Zhan, and memories of a blade bright in blood and the incredibly efficiency of Lan Zhan's mercy, the ruthlessness of his attack, honed in his attraction to the heart of chaos itself; Wei Wuxian is there, flute redirecting the illusion's blade, stepping in close.
Giving Lan Zhan his back to guard, as he trusts so often for him to do.
"We can never make the world whole again," he says, reaching out to try and wipe the trail of blood off a face he knows far better than his own. "But we can take our pain, our memories, the love we carry, everything, and not let the same mistakes take even more from us. We can share burdens and realise even in the worst of it, we don't have to stand alone."
And he plays on, sorrow and pain and love and the improbability of hope, plays for the four Lan Zhan's he's known here, the two Wei Wuxian's, his two sons, the Wen Qing who left after his arrival, the spectre of his older sister, and the countless bubbling of worlds across universes, where each one is a gem cut to different facets, where each one had a different chance for a different outcome. Where not every story follows the same narrative, and they are not his worlds, no, but they are a shared warmth, they are a borrowed promise, and they are what linger in the music when the breath of a natural pause means he tries to pull the illusion in, giving the man who does not exist and now exists and will always exist in memory the kind of embrace Wei Wuxian had to relearn, painstakingly. To speak, beyond his shoulder, to the one he is borne of, to the brother who smiles at his sister, to the home that was haven now destroyed, to the crushing of a heart and soul and mind to madness, to everything lost, to feeling there is nothing, nothing that can be gained, nothing if we can't make the dead return to us.
"You don't have to bear your grief alone. If there are other worlds, let us save them; let us stop the force that swallows universes, let us protect the memory and truths of those we love and loved, as only we can. From our abyss, we will always find there is more than nothing to hold onto. We are here, and you do not need to be alone anymore. We can survive and strive together."
It is... comedic, seeing someone play flute like this, and for the moment, he doesn't try. He hums and still the melody lives on his lips, because it is the song, the music, that lives like this, and he knows what it is to surrender before a hallucination, a recollection, an outstretched hand of one you love. It's seeing them in everything, seeing the world you had before it was shattered reflected back at you for every surface, and finally, finally, being unable to turn away and facing why it shattered, discerning those impossible truths, because you lived, and someone had to.
Lan Zhan is not a jealous soul, by every marker Wei Wuxian counts. He is dedicated, he is warm, he is quiet, his thoughts run deep. He is loyal beyond reason, he is firm in his belief, he is a leader of cats herded in all their yowlings, he is a Light shone down on a world that clung to shadows.
A man like that stands at his back, and an illusion like that stands before him. It is Chaos, in the end, who needs to let him go.
So he lets go first, and he lifts his flute, and he plays for what may come. Love, and sorrow, and cycles of life and death. The brush of the wings of birds on takeoff, and a sister's smile. Not alone, not alone, not alone except by choice. Don't forget, don't forget, don't forget why she matters. Why any of them matter. She will not thank you for the cost. She will not thank you for the innocents who are dying.