milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

A healer is never missing, nor are they lost, they are precisely where they mean to be. As to revealing what Wen Qing has been up to is another matter. For now she sits at bar eating lotus root and pork soup. She now understands why Wei Wuxian was so insistent on growing lotus at the Burial Mounds.

She looks about for any familiar faces as she eats, certain she has missed much.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There is a man, a few barstools down, who looks nothing like Wei Wuxian.

Sure, he's black robes with red underneath, a bright red ribbon in his hair, but so were more than a few dozen young men in Yiling who thought they could earn a living pretending to be someone else.

Sure, he's exchanging books with Bar, and they're all about growing lotus.

Sure, he's got a very familiar expression, that one that's a particular mix of 'I didn't do it, it wasn't me' and a longing for something that he's decided somehow isn't allowed.

Sure, he's glanced over a couple dozen times, secure in how discrete he is being. He's not. But he thinks he is. It's... we'll call it adorable, okay?

But he doesn't look anything like Wei Wuxian, beyond that. Too short, too lean, hair's too light and too wavy... yup.

She just sits there and eats her soup, demure and posed. She's noticed his glances of course, and his body language is suggesting something but she doesn't quite know what. It's almost as if she expects him to scratch at his nose in thought, but that would be silly.

Totally silly, right?

Entirely silly, of course.

Wei Wuxian is, meanwhile, having a small crisis. He knows she'd want to be told. Wen Qing - well, the Wen Qing he remembers, with his stumbling, hole-ridden memory, always wanted to know the truth of things, no matter how ugly they might be. And he misses her - for all that he whined and bitched about needles and tonics and radishes, her pragmatic support and wry humor were one of the best things about that last stretch of life.

But he also remembers that shock of betrayal as his body slipped out of his control, when she decided for him who should be sacrificed, as if he were worth saving at that point.
(He wasn't, he could have told her, he tried to tell her, there was nothing worth saving at that point, he was only agony and rage and too-brittle-bones under a too-tight wrapping of skin.)
He remembers the fury that mounted when he watched Jin Guangshan spill (what he thought were) her ashes across the steps of Nightless City, her body forever lost to the winds, unable to think beyond the rage that beat like a wardrum in his brain.

He should tell her. He wants to tell her. He's not sure he can without crying. Or yelling. Or both.

Absent-mindedly, as he considers all of this, he rubs at his nose, an old ingrained habit that has made a home in a new body.

Her eyes pinch at the nose rub and she casually pulls a needle from her sleeve, watching closely from the corner of her eye.

The last confirmation.

The day Wei Wuxian can avoid a full-body flinch when he sees one of those needles will...

Well.

Probably be the day he doesn't get a needle stuck in him somewhere.

He realizes his mistake the second he's done it, blinking wide eyes at Wen Qing.

The needle disappears and she stands to offer him a very formal bow but she is smiling when she rises.

"Wei Wuxian. Your life is strange and full of surprises it seems. I am pleased to see you again."

Her posture and words are still firm with courtesy but not longer stiff with formality. Gaunt cheeks have filled out and she seems healthy and whole, if not happy.

She looks good. He bows in return, still wide-eyed, still an unending ball of emotions, but... she looks so good. So much happier than his last memory of her, or even from the months that came before.

"I promise I'm not possessing him, the little idiot just... thought to grab the scariest monster to fight his battles for him and... well." He waves a hand at himself, wryly, because really. While no one else may get his point, Wen Qing knows exactly how often his 'big scary Yiling Patriarch' reputation was backed by nothing more than stubbornness and radishes.

Cassian enters Milliways with a wince and a slight limp, he's been crouching too long keeping watch. As he makes his way to the counter, he stretches and stops when he smells Wen Qing's soup, which also makes him realize how hungry he is, "That smells delicious."

"It is surprisingly so. Well, surprising to me. Would you like some? My treat."

As she speaks she studies him, gauging if doctoring would be welcome or not.

He's not obviously hurt, mainly sore, "Thank you. What is it?"

"It is lotus root and pork soup. It is savory though I felt it was a little blnd before so I added some spice."

She continues to study how he moves to decide on which yoga stretches she might suggest to him.

"Spice can improve anything. I rely on it a lot in my cooking. What spices did you add?"

When the soup arrives, he takes a sniff of it before trying it and making a satisfied sound.

"I prefer spices that add some burn to the dish, but not overwhelm. If all I wanted to taste were peppers, I'd just eat peppers. Aside from that, I enjoy savory foods more than sweet ones. And some smokey hints as well."

"That balance is key to good cooking. I love what heat can add to a dish."

"Balance is important to a great many things in life I have found. I am Wen Qing, and I currently reside here."

Though with the return of her brother, new doors are opening to her life. Doors she thought gone.

"It is but not easy to find. I'm Cassian Andor and I live in the Galactic Empire." Balance is something Cassian rarely has in his life.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only