singlelogbridge | Inbox: Ximilia

[Some of it he knows or has inferred, that Peter was her best friend, someone she'd known almost her whole life. That she felt his death was on her shoulders. The details are new and he finds himself closing his eyes for a just a moment, the familiar pangs of guilt that wash over him tempered by the empathy he feels for her.

She'd killed him. Peter had done something to himself—he doesn't entirely understand what—and it had made him dangerous. So Gwen had stopped him without knowing who it was she fought. She'd killed him with her own hands. The weight of it takes his breath away for a moment as he opens his eyes again.]

I'm sorry. [He remembers Wen Ning's hand through Jin Zixuan's chest, not the same but not so different, and he knows it isn't enough.]

Join the club. There's a waitlist. 〈 a joke lacking in humor. an attempt at lightness that falls flat.

she can crack wise about venom, every shitty thing she witnesses, her deaths. she laughs to keep from crying. when it comes to peter, she has a scream lodged between her ribs that has never gone away.

peter wanted to hurt people. he succeeded. his aunt and uncle were destroyed by the loss of their boy. harry gave himself to hatred and vengeance. gwen split her life in half, and in so doing, lived no life.

even now, knowing, years past… little wonder she said yes to the orbs in her dream. (she fears, awake, she would have said the same.) 〉

[He swims closer to her, closing the distance between them, and refraining from reaching for her like he wants to. Instead, he floats there next to her, pain in his heart at the thought of the weight she carries in her own.]

You were acting to protect others. [He continues before she can respond.] I know it doesn't absolve you. I know.

I know that doesn't make it hurt less. [It does matter though.]

〈 she shakes her head. 〉 I don't need reassurances, Wei Wuxian. I'm not looking for absolution.

〈 she did not share to seek a solution; there isn't one. only how she chooses to live with the truth. 〉

Peter was responsible for his actions that night; I had that epiphany a couple years ago. And I was, am, responsible for mine.

〈 she was angry over something so stupid. she had wanted one night. she had wanted to enjoy her prom with her friends. she wanted to just be gwen again for one night.

instead, a long line of consequences stretch from their actions that night. for her dad. for the parkers. for harry. for her friends, and the city, too. for peter and for gwen.

she turns her face away. 〉

This has taken up too much time, 〈 she repeats. 〉 We need to stay moving.

[It was the wrong thing to say and he knows it even before she's withdrawn. There's nothing to be done for it now. Frustrated with himself and at a loss, he reaches for her hand. Before the Ximilia, no one had talked to him about their feelings like this. With Gwen, he feels privileged to be trusted, but it doesn't stop him from being absolutely worthless at knowing what to say.

He doesn't want her to hurt, but pain is part of life. Her aches and pains—like his own—deserve to be felt. What can he say then without reducing her feelings to something inconsequential, the way Newt had done to him?]

Alright. [Acquiescence, in penance more than agreement. He's not concerned with how long this trip takes them.]

Don’t!

〈 quick as a snakebite, they snatch back their hand. jagged slashes like enormous and uneven teeth cut the edge of their bell. all along their tentacles, bumps like spines sprout.

venom’s confusion is a part of her. craving contact, while abhorring the thought of touch in that moment. the sensations of that night linger. her skin crawls. too much. the stimulation is too much.

gwen inhales deeply—there’s no use crying over pinpricks, she thinks, her thumb and index finger tapping the beat, don’t fight the name if the name fits—and, by the time she gets to the chorus, she stops the change. when she speaks, however, she does so in plural. 〉

Don’t touch us.

〈 unable to escape, she pulls into herself. makes herself small.she drops her head, and her face disappears behind her massive bell. without another word, she takes to swimming—as well as she is able in a jellyfish’s shape, at least.

she keeps drumming on her fingers. 〉

[The shift from "me" to "us" isn't lost on him, and he nods after a moment and stays silent. If she doesn't want him near, he won't force anything. He's already messed this conversation up enough.

And so they continues on in silence, speaking only about the currents and the direction they're going as needed.]

〈 another current behind them—and something like four ramones later—gwen slows to a stop. wei wuxian is faster than she is, and she waits for him to turn. the prickly anxiety has faded; instead, she gets its twisted second cousin, shame. 〉

Look— 〈 tilting her head up, she groans quietly. her life too often feels like a constant apology tour. at this point, she is clearly the problem. 〉

I'm sorry about that back there. Venom kind of plays what I'm feeling back to me in stereo. So when I'm feeling anxious or helpless… 〈 she shrugs helplessly. 〉 Well, you saw. That's not an excuse, though.

["I'm" sorry, not "we're" sorry. His face blooms into a soft smile and he shakes his head, swimming across the feet between them until they're face to face. He'd spent two years allowing resentful energy to dictate his moods. He isn't one to point fingers.]

I'm sorry for being bad at this. [He chuckles quietly.] In case you haven't noticed, I'm not good at saying the right thing.

And I know what it's like for your emotions to be compromised by something else.

[A pause and then] Are you still feeling anxious? Is there...something I can do?

〈 a shake of her head. 〉 I'm fine.

〈 she is not thinking in plural so it is not a lie and no one can criticize her. 〉

You're okay. Even I don't know everything that will set me off. And I mean that literally, I met another me, and accidentally went Venom on her too so. 〈 please laugh. 〉

[He doesn't laugh but his lips twitch.]

Two Gwens at once? [He shakes his head, eyes comically wide.] Amazing and scary. [Pause.] What do you think it would be like to be around two of me?

〈 immediately, 〉 We'd never find Itachi again.

（ true that. ）

[His friends are so mean to him! He smiles though, glancing at her fondly.]

Hmm. Spiders could find him. [He pauses to look at her for a moment.]

Hey. What kind of creature are you? Are you something that exists on your world? I haven't read about sea creatures, only land animals.

〈 she and venom would be hiding with itachi too. but if believing otherwise makes wei wuxian happy… 〉

Getting into my government information now?

〈 she reaches for one of her tentacles. the spines long ago receded; it curls around her wrist. 〉

Pretty sure jellyfish exist in every world. Those with oceans, anyway. 〈 her expression turns wry. 〉 They're venomous.

[He snorts and nods, because of course they are.]

That beach in Taeum was my first time going to the ocean. I'm sure they exist in my world too. Seeing everything here though...I know we're here for an important mission, but it's hard not to be awed by the wonder of everything.

Edited 2022-08-30 22:22 (UTC)

〈 when he casts his gaze on their surroundings, gwen studies his face. she knew him to be a nerd; no one would devour a chemistry book like wei wuxian did and not be on the nerd scale. the theoretical, however, cannot compare to the experiential, and gwen finds herself enchanted by his childlike fascination. he treats everything new like seeing color for the first time: all bright joy and astonished curiosity. he inquires; he experiments; he pokes and prods until he gains understanding. he seems lit from within. he is vibrant.

which makes it harder to swallow whatever deal he made.

he killed himself, a voice reminds her. didn't try. he succeeded. her throat aches. 〉

Wei Wuxian? 〈 her voice sounds strange even to her ears. if that is not enough warning, her question makes it overt. 〉 Can I ask you something and get an honest answer? It's personal.

〈 gwen is painfully aware she is stepping onto a minefield. after she gets his assent, she still hesitates. spider-sense is quiet, but apprehension rings in her brain, and it is the more unnerving. 〉

Do you think the world's better off without you?

[His tentative agreement had him tensing up, but the moment the question is out, he feels most of the tension slipping away, replaced instead by something considering and a little melancholy. There is no anger in his expression and he doesn't go on the defense. He's quiet for a long time, his gaze flickering between her face and then back to the reach of ocean before them.]

That question...I don't know. I don't think of it that way at all. There's just...no place for me there. [If he hadn't taken his own life, he'd have been killed. There was no question about it. And if he'd somehow hidden away...where would he go? What would he do? Everything was lost. He didn't want to live through the grief of losing his third family. There was only so much one person could take.]

I told you how I died. I didn't tell you why. I didn't tell you the rest of it. [He sighs and wilts a bit, shaking his head.]

Telling you is the only way you'll understand, but...it's not a nice story, Gwen.

〈 she smiles wanly. 〉

I just told you I killed the boy who loved me. There aren't nice stories here.

[He searches her gaze for a long moment and then nods, pausing to figure out where to start.

And, well. He supposes there's really only one starting point.]

Cultivators develop golden cores. [He places a hand over his navel, his eyes gone far away.] The source of all their power, a glowing orb of golden light inside of them. The thing that makes them cultivators.

There was a war and I. I lost mine. I have no spiritual power. I'm not really a cultivator anymore. Not like Zewu-jun or Huaisang. I lost mine and I couldn't fight. Couldn't be anything. I became a mortal among gods. [His lips pull up with slight humor that doesn't reach his eyes.] And the war raged on. What was left of my family was at risk. My sister. My brother. All of my friends.

I couldn't stay useless. So I found another way. An alternative form of cultivation. The "Ghost Path." Demonic cultivation. I cultivated resentful energy instead of spiritual. The energy of the dead.

It was taboo. Known to be volatile and hard to control. Dangerous and hated. Heretical even. But it gave me the power I needed to fight again. It gave me the power to win the war, and all of the great sects rallied behind it. I made a weapon then using resentful energy. A tool to enhance my power.

And I won the war for them. For my family. For everyone I loved. [He pauses for a moment, his eyes far away.]

〈 quietly, she reaches for his hand, like he had for her. she squeezes his fingers in encouragement. 〉

[He squeezes back and fixes her with a faint smile.]

When the war was over, when the tyrant who had waged it was dead, they started to clean up after him. First his soldiers, then his aides and palace staff. Anyone directly connected. After that...anyone at all from his bloodline, no matter how far removed. It didn't matter if they'd fought in the war or not. It didn't matter if they were cultivators at all. The elderly, the sick. Women and children. All of them.

Some were shot down in the streets running for their lives. Others were taken to prison camps where they were experimented on, tortured, and murdered.

[He takes a deep breath and gently disentangles their hands.]

My best friend Wen Qing, she was one of them. She'd been separated from her brother. We tracked him down to one of those camps and I took them. All of them. I took all of those refugees who were left and I defected. I took them away. That's where I met a-Yuan. I took him out of that place.

[He sighs and shakes his head, chasing the memories away.]

Between that and my demonic cultivation, I became enemy number one. We wanted to live in peace, Gwen. That was all we wanted. [But that wasn't how it worked out in the end.]

We lived on a mountainside for two years before everything went wrong. Me and Wen Ning—Wen Qing's brother and my loyal friend—we were going to see my sister and her new son. We were ambushed on the way, and I...

Well, there's a reason demonic cultivation is taboo. I said it was hard to control, didn't I? [He swallows hard and remembers that day.] My sister's husband came to stop them, but I'd lost control. I killed him. Him and everyone else.

[He doesn't have the energy or desire to go into the details of everything else. Not now. So he only opens his eyes again and stares out into the water with a weary look on his face.]

Everything spiraled out of control after that. The Wen were executed. A-Yuan was saved and hidden away, I learned only a little bit ago, but everyone else was gone. They desecrated their bodies like they were criminals. I saw them all hanging from the walls...my family.

So I went to where the great sects were gathered. One against a couple thousand. They were going to come for me anyway.

And then my sister came to the battlefield. She came to find me. She came because she was worried about me. And she died there, saving me.

〈 it proves startling how many parallels they share. she knew they were similar: their sense of humor, their love of music, many of the ways they cope. but for each aspect they share, there is another they do not. like a variation on a piece. like discordant notes, jarring to the ear. 〉

And you just wanted it to stop, 〈 she remembers quietly.

a sentiment she is intimately familiar with—though she did not reach the extreme he did. 〉

Edited 2022-08-31 00:05 (UTC)

My sister was dead in my brother's arms. My brother wanted me dead. The sects had gathered there to plot how they would kill me.

I wanted peace. I wanted not to hurt anymore. I would have died that night no matter what, Gwen.

I had no reason to stay.

So, your deal with the orb…?

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