#a headache. Not that it’s unreasonable to cry when someone dies obviously and not that I haven’t cried when people died but I cried

[yes-im-youtube-kids]

uh. Is it bad that the three times I’ve ever cried the hardest are

Watching the last episode of my favorite Star Trek

Listening to the Ithaca Saga from Epic

Watching 2x6 of Good Omens

like. I’ve cried less when family members died. is that messed up or is it just me being neurodivergent

[moth-and-raven]

CHAPTER FOUR

The rest of the day passes in a haze. Loud cheers met Nadia’s announcement and Portia slipped into the rush just in time to board the carriage, tear-stained but determined to fight through it.

I must have been imagining things. I don’t want to think poorly of Julian, but I have to face facts: people will do and say anything to keep themselves off the gallows. He’s smart. He’s charismatic. He knows I’m working with the Palace. I can’t help but think he was just trying to endear himself to me, taking advantage of how obviously attracted to him I am. I can’t blame him for that. It’s my own fault for chasing what was a pathetic pipe dream from the start.

I retreat to my room after we return to the palace. It’s not unreasonable, considering I haven’t slept much in the past few days. From my bed, I watch spots of sunlight creep across the ceiling until I fall asleep. At least it’s dreamless this time.

Portia comes to get me for dinner in the late evening, when the sky’s turned purple. She’s itching with curiosity, peeking at me from the corner of her eye the whole way to the dining hall. Before we enter, she clears her throat.

“So, um.”

“It was nothing.” If I keep telling myself that, maybe it’ll hurt less. “Did you—?”

“Safe and sound. At least as much as he can be.”

“How long had it been since—?”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth just like he does. “Ten years, give or take. The last time I saw him was right after his apprenticeship. He came back to Nevivon for a few months while he was figuring out what else to do. I was only sixteen, so he must’ve been… twenty-five?”

The same age I am now. I didn’t realize he was that much older than me, though I suppose it makes sense. He’s lived quite a life. Yet more reason for him to see nothing of interest in me.

Portia pushes on: “What will you say to—?”

“I’m not telling her anything.” I shake my head and look away. “I don’t have anything to tell her anyway.”

That’s not a lie. I may know more about him now, but nothing pertinent.

“She’ll ask.”

“I know.”

I must not be doing as good of a job hiding my sadness as I thought I was, because Portia rests her hand on my shoulder and squeezes gently. I don’t have it in me to say that whatever she’s imagining isn’t true.

I can’t do this.

“Could you tell Nadia that I—” Humiliated, I choke on my tears. “I'm— I’ll be in the library.”

I’m already around the corner by the time she agrees. I don't know what I’m going to do there, but at least I’ll be alone. Again.

I may not remember beyond the last three years, but I know in my heart that I’ve never been loved like I am in my dreams. I probably never will be. With all the beautiful people out there, who would choose me, the fat twenty-five-year-old virgin so gullible she falls for every man who looks at her twice? What could I possibly offer someone like him?

Nothing.

Painful, empty nothing.

I end up at the library eventually. At least I can navigate the palace better than I could the South End. My tears have almost stopped before I feel the metal arc of the crescent moon still hanging around my neck and break apart again. I manage to reach an armchair, nestled in an alcove near a half-flight of stairs, and curl up in it as best I can to weather the storm.

I’m so ugly when I cry. Thank god no one can see it. No one ever should.

When the waves settle and my breath doesn’t feel so foreign in my lungs, I press my palms to my eyes and sigh heavily. I have a headache now, as I always do after I cry like that. I know I should be hungry, but I’m not. I don’t know what I am.

But I made a promise. To Nadia and to Julian. Even if I never see him again, I’ll help him as much as I can. And with all of his research, all the palace staff who knew both him and Lucio, all the magic echoes swirling around waiting for someone to hear them, I think I can help him a lot.

------

I was always more comfortable at night. I sleep a little bit, curled up in the armchair, but it’s not very comfortable and I wake up sore. I’m glad I came to the library, though: Julian’s desk is a mess of torn papers and marked-up books, underlines and strikethroughs and question marks in the margins, and I have so little time to piece it all together. If I hadn’t slept yesterday away… yesterday. I shouldn’t be thinking about yesterday. It was nothing. It is nothing.

He’ll be nothing if I can’t figure this out.

Portia brings me something to eat in the very early hours, right before dawn. Without saying a word, she draws up another chair and starts sorting through things too. She can read his handwriting much more easily than I can.

And Count Lucio’s name shows up. And again, and again. Lucio’s temperature rising. Lucio says wine tastes metallic. Alchemical fluid in Lucio’s prosthetic turned red, wouldn’t survive replacement. Observations in clipped clinical speech, but scrawled with ever-increasing desperation. Lucio spitting up blood. Lucio not sleeping, complaining of bad dreams. Lucio too weak to eat, still alive.

Notes on the dissection of a beetle, a cross-section of a human brain, a map of the palace with large red Xs over half the rooms in the east wing. Peeking over my shoulder, Portia points at them.

“That’s the Count’s Suite. He had the whole wing, actually. No one goes up there anymore.”

I straighten up, my joints crackling from the hours I've spent hunched over. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Nadia had the whole thing blocked off. It’s really dirty, from the— all the ash and stuff. And people say it’s haunted.”

“By Lucio?”

“I guess. One of the other housekeepers swears they saw the ghost of a weird guy at the top of the stairs once. That it looked right at them with spooky red eyes. I think they’re full of shit, but maybe it’s worth a look?”

There could be a thousand things worth a look. If I had more time… “I don’t know. I have a couple spells that might be able to pin down a ghost, but I’ve never actually tried them.”

“If it is Lucio, though, wouldn’t he be able to say who killed him?”

“Hm. That’s true. Is the wing locked?”

Portia grins and fishes in her pocket. “Not if you have keys.”

The main staircase is close to the library. I feel the air get colder as we approach, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck start to stand up even before Portia unlocks the corridor that leads to Lucio’s bedroom. It’s eerily quiet, all gray and black, luxury gone to ruin in the wake of a disaster. I’ve seen reproductions of burned-out buildings that look like this, after heavy battles. It crosses my mind that destruction of that caliber had taken extremely powerful magic to accomplish, not the actions of a single man weakened by pressure and long hours in the midst of a plague. Julian can’t even do magic. He said as much during our long conversation at the Raven. I can’t imagine anything else that would do this much damage without bringing the entire palace down.

Interesting.

Cinders crunch underfoot. Charred paintings watch us pass. A primal fear creeps along just behind us, whispering then asking then screaming at us to flee. I can feel my heart in my throat and adrenaline in my blood, every sense heightened. Tattered curtains move at the corner of my eye: I’m terrified to look and even more terrified not to.

But I can tell without bringing magic to my hand that there’s nothing here. At least nothing that wants to make itself known. There’s just a spark of pure rage somewhere deep inside the wing, but it doesn’t want to be seen. No ghosts, no goats, no ghost goats. No spooky red eyes. Just soot and smoke stains and three years of neglect. The fear lurking in the back of my mind isn’t supernatural, just the normal human mistrust of the dark and abandoned.

We go all the way to the end of the suite to no avail. Part of me thinks I should stay, but I’m getting tired now and the idea of sleeping in these rooms isn’t appealing. Portia takes my sigh as an admission of defeat and pats my arm. It was a distant hope anyway.

Near the end of the corridor as we leave, a small glimmer catches my attention. If I hadn’t been looking that way to start with, I never would’ve noticed it.

“Hey Portia, what’s in there?”

She lifts up the lantern and peers into the room. “Bath chamber, I think.”

We see it at the same time, as the light catches the red gleam again: falling from the sink are drops of blood. More of it trickles across the floor. The walls are stained from it, up to the window.

“What the fuck?”

My sentiments exactly. What is this? It can’t be actual blood, can it? This is the top floor of the palace. Is it bubbling up through the plumbing?

“Nadia’s gonna want to know about this,” Portia says in a small voice.

“Wait. Let me check it out first.”

She turns to look at me, pale in the lantern’s glow. “This is way beyond whatever my brother might have done. It could infect the whole palace!”

“Do you think it’s infectious?”

Portia frowns. “Did you… Were you in Vesuvia back then? During the Plague?”

There’s no point in lying. “No.”

“Neither was I, but I heard about it. Before I left Nevivon, some sailors docked and told everyone what they’d seen. People died so quickly, there wasn’t space to keep their bodies. And they were all red, their eyes and their fingertips, everywhere you could see veins.” She shudders. “I can’t believe Ilya worked with it and… and…”

She must’ve been so scared, knowing that he could die any day.

“You know that big ugly crematorium out in the bay?” she asks.

“The Lazaret.” Everyone knows about that. You can see it from shore, a jagged silhouette reminding everyone of the toll the Plague took on the city. I don’t like looking at it: it makes my heart ache.

“Yeah. Even with that, there were too many bodies. So many people… There was a rumor that the Palace stored the extra ones, until they could be burned.”

“Where would they have been able to keep them?”

“Dunno. But there’s a huge tunnel system under here, all the way down into the cliffs. And the dungeon’s really big.”

I’d wondered how Julian could escape the prison cells, when the only way out was through the palace itself. Tunnels would explain that, I suppose. “So do you think there’s still something tainting the water?”

Her eyes are wide in the dark. “There might be. Kinda like here, no one’s been in the dungeons for ages. Probably since then.”

I frown. It’s unlikely, but I can’t deny the evidence right in front of me. I take another step into the washroom and trace the flow towards the wall. Some of the stones are loose now, after years of water damage. There’s more than enough room for it all to drain away between them.

Weak dawn sunlight floods the horizon as I stand up and glance out the window. I can see most of the city from here, out across the harbor to the Lazaret and down through the South End and directly into the lush gardens below.

And beyond the gardens, flowing from the palace along the channel of an aqueduct, is a stream of blood red.

------

Nadia scowls at the dripping red water, then summons her bodyguard to her side and dispatches them with a whispered order. Both Portia and I follow her out of the wing, but Portia splits off at the base of the stairs to see to her duties while Nadia invites me into the dining hall for breakfast.

A massive, gaudy painting hangs over the table, eyeing us as we pick over the array of egg dishes and sliced fruit. It depicts a celebration scene, I think, presided over by a muscular blond man with his arms spread wide over a crowd of adoring citizens. Nadia notices me looking at it and chuckles.

“Admiring my late husband’s art sense, are you, Reyja?”

I don’t want to offend her, but I think Count Lucio should’ve stuck to partying. “It’s, um, very vibrant.”

“That was typical of him,” she laughs. “Ostentatious to a fault.”

People don’t talk about Lucio much, unless they’re cursing his name for all the damage he did to the city with his warmongering and overspending. I’m trying to solve his murder, but now that I think of it, I don’t know much about the man himself. “What was he like?”

Nadia grimaces. “Much as you’ve heard, I expect. Loud, brash, insolent. Committed to his life of luxury. I would not have married him, had I been sober when he proposed.”

She must catch my surprise, because she fixes me in her dark eyes and raises a brow as if daring me to judge her.

Of course I won’t. “How did you two meet?”

“He was visiting Prakra,” she says. “To present himself to Empress Nasrin, my mother, as the Count of Vesuvia. He had been in power for some time by then, as I recall. I believe he told me that he’d first come to this city nearly twenty years before, on a mercenary contract.”

“He wasn’t from here?”

“No. He was of the Southern tribes.”

That’s confusing. “How did he get to be Count?”

“The former Count grew quite fond of him. Lucio was named his heir shortly after he arrived, and took the throne shortly after that. He spoke often of the battle in which he lost his arm—” She points at the painting. Lucio’s left arm shines, gilded in gold leaf. “—the same in which Spada was killed.”

Lucio may have been bloodthirsty, especially fond of the fights to the death at the coliseum Vesuvia used to be famous for, but everyone knew his roots as a successful mercenary. Even in his forties, when he died, he was strong and virile.

Which was why his death came as such a shock. Who would’ve thought such a man would die in his bed, ravished by sickness and weak enough to fall to an unskilled assassin?

“What about the Plague?” I ask quietly. People talk about Lucio a little bit, but no one discusses the Plague at all, as if the mere mention of it will cause its return.

Nadia nods. “It appeared nearly overnight, five years ago. No one had seen its like before. To my knowledge, nothing like it has been seen since, either.”

“Do we know where it came from?”

“I’m afraid not. Little is known of it, save that it killed thirty thousand of my people in two years.”

Her people. Nadia may have been Prakran by birth, but this was her city now.

“I had been visiting my sisters when it struck,” Nadia continues, gaze unfocused as she looks back through her memories. “As such, I was forbidden from returning until we were certain it had passed.”

I remember the parade that welcomed her back, but I didn’t realize she’d been gone that long. It’s been less than a year: she must be so busy, trying to pull Vesuvia together again. No wonder the search for her husband’s murderer hadn’t been her top priority until now. “I’m sorry.”

She tilts her head, looking at me. “Understand this, Reyja: if the Plague has not truly left the city, and what you and dear Portia discovered today is proof of that, then the search for Doctor Devorak must be set aside. I am eager to see justice done, but one man’s life, when weighed against the lives of thousands, will not tip the scales. I hope I may rely upon your services regardless of that outcome.”

Her visit to the shop feels very far away. I’m attached to this now, however big it gets. “I’ll be here.”

“Thank you. I have sent Yazakh to fetch an expert on the Plague from their estate. I hope they will return soon, but in the meantime, I urge you to rest. We may have much to consider in the coming days.”

I take a small pastry with me when I leave the table and make my way back to my room. I don’t doubt that she’s right, but even with this additional set of problems, I can’t keep my mind away from Julian. Thoughts of him cloud my head as I lay down for a nap and they’re still there when I wake up. My stomach isn’t happy with me, swirling with guilt and humiliation and anxiety, but I don’t know what to do about it.

The expert still hasn’t arrived when I go up to Lucio’s suite to check. I pass the library on the way back and my fingers fly to the silver moon pendant still around my neck, following the divot Julian’s own nerves wore in the metal. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to look through his notes while I wait, if I can concentrate enough to get anything useful out of them.

I can’t.

When the sun sets again, I give up. Another day gone, and I’ve only discovered more things to do. I need something to focus on, something with a solution, something… something that might distract me from the fact that I’m no closer to clearing Julian’s name.

I can follow that water, if nothing else. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but maybe I can learn where it’s going. And I can get out of the palace, maybe work off some of this nervous energy. And I won’t be surrounded by pieces of him, distracting me from my mission. It’ll be perfect.

---------------

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[razberryyum]

The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 12

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed)

[covers MDZS chapters 51 and 52]

WangXian meter: 🐰+🐰+🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰+🐰🐰🐰

There is so much to love about this scene, least of which is Wei Ying being in peak cuteness mode as he physically prepared himself to recite the Wen sect rules, only to immediately switch to troll mode by reciting the Gusu Lan sect rules instead. No matter how many times I’ve watched this scene, I laugh out loud and love it every time. Even though Lan Zhan was as stoic as ever, he had to be just a little proud of Wei Ying for the stunt he pulled. All that time spent at Cloud Recesses copying the rules obviously paid off in more ways than one. I also thought it was adorable how Nie Huaisang was the first person to recognize the Gusu Lan rules: if Big Bro Nie Mingjue was around, I’m sure he would’ve been a teeny bit proud of the fact that his little brother was able to retain all that arguably useful information he learned at Cloud Recesses. I say arguably because, let’s be honest, those visiting sect students probably broke like 90% of those rules as soon as they left the grounds of Cloud Recesses since they really don’t apply to their own sect’s way of living, so really, how useful ARE those 3000+ rules in ones’ life? I’m not even entirely convinced they actually help strengthen one’s moral fortitude since if someone was an immoral person to begin with, vacationing at Cloud Recesses for a few months and being forced to memorize a bunch of stuffy rules probably won’t change anything and might in fact have the opposite effect due to annoyance. That’s an aspect of the whole learning experience at Cloud Recesses that I always found a little odd: every sect has their own sect of house rules, why force visiting students to memorize theirs until they can recite it forwards and backwards. In the novel, Wei Ying’s initial indignation at having to copy them was pretty valid; good thing he ended up marrying into the Lan family anyway otherwise that really would’ve been a lot of effort pointlessly exerted.

When I first watched this episode, I was kind of impressed by how upstanding the Wen sect’s rules seemed to be: since they were set up to be the big bad sect in the show, I wasn’t expecting much in terms of moral standards. Too bad most of Wen Mao’s descendants strayed away from following them, or even remembering them, as Wen Chao would soon show. I did find it curious that he would even know the Gusu Lan sect rules enough to recognize them; it’s rather strange that he didn’t automatically assume Wei Ying was reciting his own Yunmeng Jiang sect rules since that would have been a pretty logical guess. Which begs the question, when did he even learn the Gusu Lan rules? I know that’s a question that no answer was ever provided for, and I’m sure Team CQL didn’t even think anyone would ever care enough to ask since the more important take-away point of that scene was Wei Ying adorably using the Gusu Lan sect rules as a means to slap Wen Chao in the face. And it was a pretty effective slap, even the usually disdainful Jin Zixuan was amused by his tactic. I’m sure both Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan were impressed as well but were simply too worried about the repercussions to enjoy the moment.  

I actually rejoiced a little when Wen Chao generously doled out his punishment to both JZX and Lan Zhan as well, instead of only singling out Wei Ying, since that of course instantly translated to me as more Wei Ying and Lan Zhan bonding time.  Sure, JZX had to be the third wheel this time, but the upside to that was that yet another person got to witness Wei Ying’s preoccupation with Lan Zhan.

JZX’s reaction to Wei Ying’s insistence on chatting up a very unresponsive Lan Zhan was hilarious. He must’ve been wondering, what the heck is up with this guy and his obsession with Lan Wangji?  I think even if JZX had asked Wei Ying that question directly, Wei Ying wouldn’t have even been able to explain himself. At that point in time, I don’t believe he even understood why he couldn’t leave Lan Zhan alone, only that he couldn’t and didn’t want to.

And of course likewise, neither could Lan Zhan leave Wei Ying alone, especially when he’s in danger, even though he really did all he could to resist responding to Wei Ying’s numerous attempts at interacting with him. It really was a great risk; I can only imagine the stress and turmoil Lan Zhan was feeling. Having just seen his home partially destroyed by the Wens (although in the novel/donghua it was worse since it wasn’t just partial), he must’ve been deathly afraid of getting Wei Ying involved lest harm befell him as well, and yet as soon as he was threatened, Lan Zhan immediately forgot all his concerns and defended Wei Ying.

I love that all his carefully maintained stoicism dissipated completely because of Wei Ying: not only did he valiantly defy and threaten Wen Chao, but then he also blatantly showed his concern on his face…

…and through his gestures since he couldn’t stop holding on to Wei Ying.

Wen Chao’s monologue took a good minute or two and yet the entire time, Lan Zhan never let go. In front of so many people he continued to unabashedly support Wei Ying. Like he just completely forgot everything other than protecting Wei Ying. It was beautiful.

I really wish Wen Chao had thrown Lan Zhan in the dungeon with Wei Ying as well, especially since he even threatened to. Not sure why Team CQL held back from that; the whole dung field scene was created just for the drama anyway, would’ve been lovely if they had gone the extra distance and WangXianed up the dungeon scene as well since that was also just a figment of their imagination. Not to mention, considering Lan Zhan did also fight back against Wen Chao, it would’ve made sense for him to also face the same punishment as Wei Ying. Wei Ying could’ve still been thrown into the doggy cell while Lan Zhan into the cell next to him, and then he would’ve had to spend the entire time listening to Wei Ying getting tortured by the puppy and just be worried sick until Wen Qing finally showed up with her needles. Darn it. Such a shame Team CQL passed up such a good Lan Zhan angsting opportunity.

Although I probably shouldn’t even complain since there was already a good amount of WangXian moments already, Wei Ying’s piggyback offer alone made up for the lack of a dungeon bonding scene.

Even though Lan Zhan declined his offer, just thinking about how he proceeded to hold on dearly to this memory because it was precious to him, and then to bring it up again a decade and a half later in order to return the favor, just makes me want to cry all over again for this sweet romantic man.  

Wei Wuxian is Cool AF

I mean, that’s usually a given, but still, I always get a happy chill down my spine when I see him being all threatening like that. It’s like seeing the prelude to the Yiling Patriarch. Seeing Wei Ying boldly come to his rescue like that probably helped spur Lan Zhan into action to defend him.

Wen Ning is a Sweetheart

I believe that even if Wei Ying hadn’t saved his life, if their only encounter was that moment on Cloud Recesses when Wei Ying taught him to properly pull back on his bow and aim, Wen Ning would have still done everything he did for Wei Ying because that’s just the type of angel he is. For that one minor act of kindness, Wen Ning would have no doubt done all he can to help Wei Ying whenever he could; so far saving his life, Wen Ning would’ve died for him. I’m just so happy that he got a second chance at life, and at least in the drama his condition was a step up from zombie. The fact that he’s been there all along during the course of Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s relationship and witnessed most of their major events together, especially during Wei Ying’s second lifetime, makes him even more endearing to me because he was always so supportive. I’m so glad that he is beloved by the juniors later on because he really deserves all the love he can get.

Poor Jiang Cheng

I felt bad for Jiang Cheng in this episode: here he is pining after his crush, looking forward to seeing her again while wrestling with his feelings as he tried to decided if he should give her the gift he’s been holding onto all this time, and yet when they finally have a one-on-one moment, all Wen Qing is concerned about is Wei Ying. I know that’s understandable under the circumstances since she did see Wen Chao drag Wei Ying away, but when I first watched this episode and thought Team CQL was aiming for the love triangle angle, I really thought this moment would be later utilized to plague Jiang Cheng to stir up his jealousy even more. I really cannot say enough how glad I am they never went in that direction.

Full Moon Rising

I guess it’s not unreasonable that werewolves exist in that world, since demons and otherworldly beasts do too—I mean, that’s what they were hunting at Phoenix Mountain after all—but man do I wish they would’ve just stuck with a normal puppy for this whole dungeon scenario cuz Mr. Wolfman just looked so damn fake and awful. Sometimes, Team CQL makes such bad technical choices that I actually have to rub my temples to stave off the headaches I get from them. I don’t understand why they didn’t just bring in a Doberman or mastiff or some other ferocious-looking black dog for that scene. I know it probably would have cost a little more to have a trained dog that can fake attack on command, but they could have easily gotten away with using camera tricks to feign an attack on Wei Ying. Every time I see that fake-ass stuffed dog I can’t help groaning a little. No amount of drool could make that thing look remotely real.  Really, bless Xiao Zhan for selling the crap out of that scene and also the make-up department for doing a pretty stellar job with his blood and injuries, I would’ve felt nothing but embarrassment otherwise. But Wei Ying looked distressed and hurt enough that my heart always ends up aching a little at the sight of his horrible condition. I wanted to personally hurt Wen Chao for putting him through that ordeal.  

Despite my criticism of the dungeon scene, I still liked it in general because in addition giving us the Wen’s siblings separate acts of aid to Wei Ying, it also provided us with this moment where Wei Ying selflessly saves the medicine for Lan Zhan despite his own serious injuries. That really is just so completely sweet…my only lament is that Lan Zhan never even really finds out what he did. He would’ve been so touched. 

Questions I Still Have

Honestly I question the practicality and effectiveness of the whole hostage situation with each sect’s heirs and prized pupils, but I’m going to hold off on delving into that until probably the next episode since the choice Wen Chao makes at the Xuanwu cave really sets off my logic alarm.

Overall Episode Rating: 8 Lil Apples out of 10

Disclaimer: The Untamed would not be possible without Mo Dao Zu Shi and Mo Xiang Tong Xiu-laozi.  I mean no disrespect whatsoever with my humble comparisons between the novel and the live action, even when I sometimes favor the changes in the show. All hail MDZS and MXTX-laozi always and forever!