[ Rat on a sinking ship, the child-thing flees faster than Lan Wangji's first blink can pass. A second later, his eye catches the arrow of white behind Jin Ling, low and thickly-furred, a companionship creature.
Dog, Wangji supposes, for all it seems too adept at reading its master's temperament to be a mutt or foundling. Even now, paws scratching hard road tile, it looks more the child's shadow. Raised with Jin Ling, perhaps. Bred, if not born, to serve him — another luxury of rank, a silvered spoon cradled on the corner of an heir's mouth.
And why does Jin Ling storm? No doubt, for Jiang Cheng's example. Conflict resolution is only ever tried and true, if it is at once vocal and fragile, a patchwork of fragmented violence. Jin Guangyao should have complemented that learning, taught the boy better. Did not.
He was not Lan Wangji's to fail, this much he accepted before. But his true guardians did their harm by his upbringing.
Wei Wuxian will only poison that well further.
Mercy corrodes at the last moment, enough that Wangji watches the sun-kissed gold stain of Jin Ling's back retreat, and still raises his voice past the permissible octave: ]
no subject
Dog, Wangji supposes, for all it seems too adept at reading its master's temperament to be a mutt or foundling. Even now, paws scratching hard road tile, it looks more the child's shadow. Raised with Jin Ling, perhaps. Bred, if not born, to serve him — another luxury of rank, a silvered spoon cradled on the corner of an heir's mouth.
And why does Jin Ling storm? No doubt, for Jiang Cheng's example. Conflict resolution is only ever tried and true, if it is at once vocal and fragile, a patchwork of fragmented violence. Jin Guangyao should have complemented that learning, taught the boy better. Did not.
He was not Lan Wangji's to fail, this much he accepted before. But his true guardians did their harm by his upbringing.
Wei Wuxian will only poison that well further.
Mercy corrodes at the last moment, enough that Wangji watches the sun-kissed gold stain of Jin Ling's back retreat, and still raises his voice past the permissible octave: ]
Stop.