Asch the Bloody (
bloodyashes) wrote in
starwardbestrewn2020-10-11 01:49 am
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accidentally the memory of a song
It isn't fair, you think.
It isn't fair that Jin Ling got to know his father, in this life, only for them to be parted like this, Jin Zixuan bleeding out on his son's shoulder. If the world was like it once was - if there were healing cultivators - he might survive, because the wound hasn't killed him yet.
(But you never did find Wen Qing, no matter how hard you searched. Not her, nor her brother, nor Wei Wuxian. The world now is just too large.)
It's only the third night hunt since Jin Ling returned from the far-off European school that his father's family insistently sent him to, and his father is dying. And you -
You can't do anything about about it. The creatures you run into on night hunts now are nothing like they were in the old world, either, and you're not a clever genius nor man bearing the core of the brightest cultivator in your generation.
You're just Jiang Cheng, fighting desperately to keep angry, violent machines that cultivation weapons were never meant to fight away from your nephew in his father's last moments. At least lightning is effective on them even if swords are not.
"Father," Jin Ling breathes behind you, like a prayer. You hear a wet cough, a wheezing breath.
And then your nephew begins to sing.
It isn't a song you've heard before, it isn't a language you've heard before, and it puts the hair on your arms and the back of your neck up like - (a flute you don't dare name aloud, in case it follows as the source of your misfortunes)
And it is every bit as powerful, though you can't be sure what it's doing. Even if you could spare the thought, you're busy fighting and can't afford to look back.
Until there's a blaze of golden light behind you, and then you have to risk looking just to see what the hell is going on.
For a terrifying moment, you think it actually is Wei Wuxian that has appeared, because who else would arrive so dramatically in a full ensemble of black and red, but the half a glance more you can spare is enough to see a face perhaps a year or two older than your nephew's and hair as crimson as the spill of fresh blood on white. And the voice behind you, cursing in - English? You're somewhere mostly sure that's English, but it's unmistakably cursing - and then, in perfectly clear Official Broadcast Mandarin, "You called me here, so let me help."
You risk another glance back, the enemies thinning - the strange boy is lifting Jin Zixuan from Jin Ling's shoulder, and the golden glow has dimmed and retreated to his hands alone. He bundles the grown man into his arms as easily as though he were a small child, and asks, "Which way out of here?"
Jin Ling must point, because after a breath you hear his voice, over footsteps - "Uncle!"
You're not a fool. You give them just enough of a head start that the weight of Jin Zixuan won't slow you down, and then you run.
It isn't fair that Jin Ling got to know his father, in this life, only for them to be parted like this, Jin Zixuan bleeding out on his son's shoulder. If the world was like it once was - if there were healing cultivators - he might survive, because the wound hasn't killed him yet.
(But you never did find Wen Qing, no matter how hard you searched. Not her, nor her brother, nor Wei Wuxian. The world now is just too large.)
It's only the third night hunt since Jin Ling returned from the far-off European school that his father's family insistently sent him to, and his father is dying. And you -
You can't do anything about about it. The creatures you run into on night hunts now are nothing like they were in the old world, either, and you're not a clever genius nor man bearing the core of the brightest cultivator in your generation.
You're just Jiang Cheng, fighting desperately to keep angry, violent machines that cultivation weapons were never meant to fight away from your nephew in his father's last moments. At least lightning is effective on them even if swords are not.
"Father," Jin Ling breathes behind you, like a prayer. You hear a wet cough, a wheezing breath.
And then your nephew begins to sing.
It isn't a song you've heard before, it isn't a language you've heard before, and it puts the hair on your arms and the back of your neck up like - (a flute you don't dare name aloud, in case it follows as the source of your misfortunes)
And it is every bit as powerful, though you can't be sure what it's doing. Even if you could spare the thought, you're busy fighting and can't afford to look back.
Until there's a blaze of golden light behind you, and then you have to risk looking just to see what the hell is going on.
For a terrifying moment, you think it actually is Wei Wuxian that has appeared, because who else would arrive so dramatically in a full ensemble of black and red, but the half a glance more you can spare is enough to see a face perhaps a year or two older than your nephew's and hair as crimson as the spill of fresh blood on white. And the voice behind you, cursing in - English? You're somewhere mostly sure that's English, but it's unmistakably cursing - and then, in perfectly clear Official Broadcast Mandarin, "You called me here, so let me help."
You risk another glance back, the enemies thinning - the strange boy is lifting Jin Zixuan from Jin Ling's shoulder, and the golden glow has dimmed and retreated to his hands alone. He bundles the grown man into his arms as easily as though he were a small child, and asks, "Which way out of here?"
Jin Ling must point, because after a breath you hear his voice, over footsteps - "Uncle!"
You're not a fool. You give them just enough of a head start that the weight of Jin Zixuan won't slow you down, and then you run.