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[OOM] Blood on on the Snow
Nov. 7th, 2020 10:29 amPain rose and ebbed like the tide, and Lan Zhan was still no closer to the shore of consciousness than he'd been hours ago.
The last lash he'd been able to count, staring at a middle point between this uncle's towering form and the floor, was seventeen. At the fifth, he'd felt his vision began to blur, and by twelve he'd lost the strength kneel upright, falling forwards to put weight he couldn't bear on his legs on to his arms.
Seventeen had come with a distraction. His brother's voice, lifted in protest. Finally, he came. Finally, he argued. Finally, he pleaded clemency and mercy. Finally, he acted like they were family instead of like Sect. Wasn't this enough, he asked - always seeking compromise, even where there could be none. Where a stand meant more.
Too little too late; his uncle repudiated Lan Xichen. No one is above the rules: not even the Twin Jades of Lan. But Lan Zhan had done the same, and damned Wei Wuxian to fall. He should have done differently. He should have stood beside him.
After that it was just pain. Voices were a dull roll in the background. He could only hear the crack of the whip and his own breathing. Then, there was a gap. It stretched onward. Vibrations echoed through the floor as those who had taken turns weilding the whip.
Lan Zhan found the strength to push himself up, to get his brow off the cold, wet planks beneath him. Finaly, there were hands o him, grabbing his arms. They held him still, and then they hold him up. There is an ongoing argument -- but then there is nothing. He has only one thought: Survive. He has to, not for Lan Xichen's request, but for A-Yuan.
It is two weeks later when Lan Zhan has a semi-coherent thought again, and again, it is about A-Yuan. He must retrieve him. To do that, he must get rid of the woman -- the healer -- sitting next to his bed, grinding medicine for salve.
"My brother," he says, and she drops her mortar and pestle, sucking in a hard breath. "Bring me my brother."
She blurts an affirmative, and then breaks Rule 71: No running in Cloud Recesses.
That's when Lan Zhan begins the labor of getting himself upright in his own bed. His vision whites out once, twice, but an indeterminable amount of time later, he is upright. Predictably, he is naked. The whip had crossed him from back to buttocks as it bend and finally broke him down.
The strength to rise comes at a high cost. Pain is ever present, sizzling in his skin with every breath, bursting into white-hot agony when he moves wrong. But move he must, pulling one of his white winter robes and pulling it one only to abandon it. His skin is bandaged, but his shoulders can barely stand the weight of it. He picks a lighter robe, and then endures the mantle of stinging pain here it rests on his shoulders.
The first halting footsteps Lan Zhan takes are as unsteady as a fawn, but he still takes them. One after the other. Step after step, plank after plan, until his feet touch the gravel of the courtyard. Eventually it gives way to rough mountain grasses against his feet, one of the few places he does not hurt.
This is the way he makes it to the copse of bamboo behind the jingshi. It stays chill, but as the trees begin to change, he knows he is being welcomed to where needs to be. The unnatural animals of the wood sense blood, though-- and they dog his steps. They do not deter him from his path, and he keeps walking all the way to the heather.
There, he drops, with the bar in sight, warm light shining out the back windows like salvation.
The last lash he'd been able to count, staring at a middle point between this uncle's towering form and the floor, was seventeen. At the fifth, he'd felt his vision began to blur, and by twelve he'd lost the strength kneel upright, falling forwards to put weight he couldn't bear on his legs on to his arms.
Seventeen had come with a distraction. His brother's voice, lifted in protest. Finally, he came. Finally, he argued. Finally, he pleaded clemency and mercy. Finally, he acted like they were family instead of like Sect. Wasn't this enough, he asked - always seeking compromise, even where there could be none. Where a stand meant more.
Too little too late; his uncle repudiated Lan Xichen. No one is above the rules: not even the Twin Jades of Lan. But Lan Zhan had done the same, and damned Wei Wuxian to fall. He should have done differently. He should have stood beside him.
After that it was just pain. Voices were a dull roll in the background. He could only hear the crack of the whip and his own breathing. Then, there was a gap. It stretched onward. Vibrations echoed through the floor as those who had taken turns weilding the whip.
Lan Zhan found the strength to push himself up, to get his brow off the cold, wet planks beneath him. Finaly, there were hands o him, grabbing his arms. They held him still, and then they hold him up. There is an ongoing argument -- but then there is nothing. He has only one thought: Survive. He has to, not for Lan Xichen's request, but for A-Yuan.
It is two weeks later when Lan Zhan has a semi-coherent thought again, and again, it is about A-Yuan. He must retrieve him. To do that, he must get rid of the woman -- the healer -- sitting next to his bed, grinding medicine for salve.
"My brother," he says, and she drops her mortar and pestle, sucking in a hard breath. "Bring me my brother."
She blurts an affirmative, and then breaks Rule 71: No running in Cloud Recesses.
That's when Lan Zhan begins the labor of getting himself upright in his own bed. His vision whites out once, twice, but an indeterminable amount of time later, he is upright. Predictably, he is naked. The whip had crossed him from back to buttocks as it bend and finally broke him down.
The strength to rise comes at a high cost. Pain is ever present, sizzling in his skin with every breath, bursting into white-hot agony when he moves wrong. But move he must, pulling one of his white winter robes and pulling it one only to abandon it. His skin is bandaged, but his shoulders can barely stand the weight of it. He picks a lighter robe, and then endures the mantle of stinging pain here it rests on his shoulders.
The first halting footsteps Lan Zhan takes are as unsteady as a fawn, but he still takes them. One after the other. Step after step, plank after plan, until his feet touch the gravel of the courtyard. Eventually it gives way to rough mountain grasses against his feet, one of the few places he does not hurt.
This is the way he makes it to the copse of bamboo behind the jingshi. It stays chill, but as the trees begin to change, he knows he is being welcomed to where needs to be. The unnatural animals of the wood sense blood, though-- and they dog his steps. They do not deter him from his path, and he keeps walking all the way to the heather.
There, he drops, with the bar in sight, warm light shining out the back windows like salvation.
