Jiāng Chéng (zidian) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-03-26 22:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: jiang cheng, ₴ inactive: wei wuxian |
Log: Jiang Cheng & Wei Wuxian
But the fog not dissipating and the gloom in the sky not making way for morning sun made him late. He’d promised Yanli he would come by for breakfast on his day off from classes, but then he’d so easily been distracted by that crop, and that crop-- Ah- let’s fix that!
So he didn’t know Yanli had tried messaging him, to ask where he was. But he also didn’t see the shadowy figure on the edge of the forest, walking along slowly, watching.
His head lifted, briefly, as if he heard something, but instead saw Jiang Cheng’s purple robes marching with purpose up the hill, causing Wei Wuxian to groan in response.
Jiang Cheng wasn’t trying to make a habit of visiting the Burial Mounds without his sister, but the news of attacks and Wei Wuxian’s lack of response had been too worrying to ignore. Yanli was safer elsewhere. These beasts were apparently drawn to magic and the Burial Mounds had been drenched in dark magic long before Wei Wuxian came along. No doubt they would end up here, if what he’d heard was true.
And if not, when then he could just reprimand Wei Wuxian for ignoring all attempts to contact him.
It took him longer than he liked to spot a blur of Wei Wuxian’s clothes up on a hill, a ways from the waypoint crystal and the cave. The fog was going to make this hunt complicated, but it was still an uncomfortable relief to see his brother unharmed.
“Are you ignoring us on purpose or did you break your phone?” he called out dryly.
The words were barely out of his mouth when a twig cracked in the trees nearby and Jiang Cheng instantly fell into a battle form, sword half drawn.
“What? No?” Wei Wuxian stood, a little oblivious to it all. He brushed his hands off on his robes, the dirt being swept away before he reached into a pocket to pull out his phone. Oops. “Ah-- Is it really that late?” It was a question that didn’t need answering, as the time was there - as was the missed messages on his phone.
But it’s a good thing it was a rhetorical question, as he glanced up in time to see Jiang Cheng start to pull his sword. He tucked away his phone and pulled out his flute in much the same flourish, looking towards the noise in question. They were just shadows still, but moving fast and through the thick branches with relative ease. “Jiang Cheng, are these the monsters people have been talking about?”
“How should I know?” Jiang Cheng snapped. He’d been prepared for things to be awful when he arrived at the Burial Mounds and for a brief moment, he’d let himself be lulled into thinking that maybe this place wouldn’t always be cursed. Foolish. He started to step closer to his brother as the first of the creatures broke through the trees and made a rasping shriek. It was hideous and so obviously corrupted that he couldn’t help but grimace.
He unsheathed his sword completely in one smooth stroke. Unfortunately he was too focused on the vulture in front of them when one leapt at him from behind. He barely spun out of the way, the sound of claws ripping into the fabric at his back making him growl his annoyance. Splatters of blood left a trail behind the vulture.
“They’re fast,” he grumbled, unnecessarily. “If the rest is true, there may be fire or--” The earth rumbled beneath them, shifting and rocking. Jiang Cheng tried to stumble closer to Wei Wuxian, despite the unpredictability of the ground.
“Jiang Cheng--” Again, with the noises, Wei Wuxian vocalized his displeasure, and pulled out a Talisman and pushed it out towards the one that had lunged at Jiang Cheng. It worked, pushing the Vulture back, but only for a second. He had hoped that would be enough time to bring up his flute, but just as he started to play, and the dead started to move, Wei Wuxian was dislodged from his flute.
He stumbled with the force of the hit he took, combined with the moving earth below their feet. He ended up farther away from his brother, but grabbed for his flute again and swept it up in time for two of the Vultures to separate them, shrieking and rasping in a language he didn’t know.
Wei Wuxian whipped out another talisman and tossed it out, blasting another so he could try his song once again, causing the restless dead to start moving towards them all.
It took another second before he realized it was far too slow of a process, the dead would never make it to them as the Vultures started closing in. “Jiang Cheng?” He called out, hoping for some kind of vocal line between the two of them. A hope that he was still there.
It was still strange, fighting alongside Wei Wuxian again. Strange and like they’d never stopped, somehow. Jiang Cheng would never be Hanguang-Jun, moving in perfect harmony with his soulmate, but there was still something to show of many years training together, in how he moved smoothly to get out of the way of Wei Wuxian’s talisman and how he spun back towards his brother even with the ground shaking.
“I’m here,” he called out, slicing his sword at the creature that lunged back at him. It made an inhuman noise and fell backwards. A few more steps and Jiang Cheng could keep his back to Wei Wuxian and know it would be covered. It wasn’t even a question in his head. He didn’t have time to think about the fact that it wasn’t even a question in his head. There was another creature joining the fray and it came straight for Wei Wuxian’s back.
"No!" Jiang Cheng kicked into the air, pulling on his golden core – on Wei Wuxian’s golden core - to leap further than an average human. He hit the ground just in time to meet swinging claws with his sword, stopping them from plunging into Wei Wuxian’s back.
New plan in mind, Wei Wuxian tucked away his flute and yanked out another talisman. Just as he was flying one towards the vulture across from Jiang Cheng, a disorienting flurry of fireworks to it’s face -- he assumed that was it’s face -- Jiang Cheng was protecting him.
If it had been any other time, or less chaos, he might’ve given full pause and just blinked at his brother in surprise. It was a far cry to how they were months before, but he couldn’t let himself focus on it, the fight had already gotten away from him and his lack of sharp weapons.
Wei Wuxian dodged out of the way, and provided Jiang Cheng with another blast of force at the vulture closest to him. It was all he could do, though he went to watching the field, and figuring out a course of action that didn’t entirely rely on Jiang Cheng having to cut off heads. But they were still probably going to rely on cutting off heads. “Behind you!”
The blast of force knocked the vulture off Jiang Cheng’s blade and he used that freedom well. What had they said? Take off the head. That was easier than some of the complicated rituals necessary to handle monsters at home. He took a strong step to the side, hyper-aware of his brother and feeling like time slowed as the vulture started speaking in some strange language. It lost its head before the words fully-formed into anything dangerous.
The body collapsed to the ground just as Wei Wuxian’s warning knocked him back into the moment. Jiang Cheng spun away, clothes billowing under the swinging onslaught of claws. A burst of flame followed him and he had to brush wildly at his clothes to stop them from catching. The creature seemed to change its plan because it cocked its terrible head and aimed its next fire onslaught for Wei Wuxian. There was no doubt that his brother had a talisman to ward off such a thing, but his instincts didn’t care. He clenched his teeth and stepped in the way, back turned to the blast of flame and pushing out with the water totem to try and shield them both.
It was an unpracticed move and it only half-worked. Heat still seared his lower back and he cried out in pain.
“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian sounded angry now, a tone he didn’t take often, but such was the case when people he cared about were in trouble. Or put themselves in danger. He had a talisman between his two fingers, ready-- he didn’t know if he would have gotten it off in time, and Jiang Cheng was negating the need for it anyway, but that annoyance turned to worry in a flash.
In that flash, he changed the talisman, a protective barrier to a net. He sidestepped Jiang Cheng, and threw it out, wrapping around feathers effectively.
He wanted to reach for his brother, to check on him, to take up his sword for him, but he felt the pull on his chest, the empty spot that was reminding him he couldn’t. “I don’t want to turn you into a fierce corpse--” He wouldn’t, but hoped the threat would keep Jiang Cheng moving. “Can you finish it?”
Jiang Cheng had suffered a number of things at the hands of the Wen Clan; this was not his first burn. But it was his first in battle. He smelled the singed fabric and even some burnt hair. Seeing that Wei Wuxian had at least temporarily waylaid his attacker, he dropped to roll a few feet and put out any remaining flames.
The other vulture rushed forward, setting fire to bushes and making a racket. Jiang Cheng didn’t even need his brother’s pointed warning. But he did glare at him for it as he pushed back to his feet and drew even further on the totem, pulling water out of the air to slam the rushing vulture to the ground. If he just happened to put out the fire on Wei Wuxian’s precious Burial Mounds, it was a coincidence only.
“I can always finish it,” he growled. There would be no leaping now though, no pretty spinning. He moved forward with purpose but even still, the vulture making one last swipe at him with claws made him bite back a pained shout as he dodged. He artlessly kicked the vulture in the side, knocking it down, and then chopped at his neck with hardly any finesse at all.
With that vulture down and the other bound, but possibly not for long, Wei Wuxian rushed forward to Jiang Cheng, immediately looking for injury. He had seen the flames, he knew there was something under singed robes, and sure enough a few pieces of skin on his back were going to be trouble. It was probably worse under.
He hissed, not wanting to pull too much and make Jiang Cheng bat him away, even if that still might happen.
“Jiang Cheng- We should go. Let’s go to the Jingshi, from there I’ll get Yanli, and we can have your back looked at.” There was still the one left, but Wei Wuxian would have left it behind here to get Jiang Cheng out before he was hurt any further. He knew Lan Zhan would be able to help. His soulmate might frown, but he would never turn Wei Wuxian down when it came to helping family.
Jiang Cheng was entirely too stubborn to walk away with a monster still alive. Maybe if Wei Wuxian had been the one with the burn, he could’ve convinced himself it was better to go. But to leave now would leave the stain of weakness in his mind.
Unfortunately, the pain grew more intense by the second, every brush of air or shift of fabric making him hiss through clenched teeth. He stepped around his brother.
“We can’t leave it here. This place can’t afford corruption to--to--” He shook off a wave of dizziness and lifted his sword. The Vulture tried to scuttle backward but Jiang Cheng brought the sword down, cleaving off its head.
“...Fester,” he finished weakly. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell into a faint.
Wei Wuxian sighed heavily, knowing just how stubborn his brother was. Really, all of them were, but it wasn’t a time for self reflection, so he just let Jiang Cheng faint as he reached out to catch him, preventing his brother from landing too hard on the ground.
“Well, at least I can carry you a little easier now.” He hoisted Jiang Cheng up and huffed out an annoyed noise, glad his brother couldn’t see him struggle with how heavy he was, but determined to carry him to the Jingshi regardless.