"With permission and awareness? By all means," he said, glancing back her way before he focussed forward again, pressure at his knee indicating a slight shift in direction to their noble nag. He stretched out his sense of energies, feeling her magic as something akin to but unlike what he did; then it was washing over and through him, and the lifting of spirits was indeed artificial, but undeniable.
Whatever else he might have been feeling, now he was an odd sort of cheerful. His mind registered the disconnect even as his lips curled up into a smile. This was surely not a bad idea, right?
Immediately, he bit down on his tongue to keep himself from laughing at her admission. Keeping his shoulder steady as she caught her balance, he glanced back to her once again, this time beaming.
"Only way to improve is to continue practising. I'm sure Eleven will be happy to continue helping," he said, looking too particularly amused by his suggestion. Sounding far too upbeat, too. "As far as being close... don't worry, don't worry! See, over beyond that thatch of trees?" He lifts the hand not holding the reins to indicate where he meant, where a partial dome was visible under the waning light of the moon.
"That's located on the ancestral grounds. Another few minutes, two or so, we'll be right in the midst of it!"
Given the charm she had just used on him Lily elected not to read too much into the sunny note to his voice as he mentioned Eleven's willingness to help her practice, though she did duck her head, hiding a grin behind her hair at the suggestion, thankful that he couldn't see her from where she sat.
The moment was forgotten when he pulled her focus towards the shape of what she surmised was some sort of elaborate family tomb, silhouetted against the night sky. Even though it wasn't their first burial, and she had experienced far creepier since arriving in this daft world, she shivered a bit, frowning thoughtfully as she watched it grow larger on their approach.
Hopefully, the digging magic she had been working on would make the time they had to spend here brief. "Maybe I ought to cast the same charm on myself, you sound so pleased you could nearly pass for a career gravedigger."
Turning away from the ancestral grounds to look back towards the manor she listened intently for the sound of dogs while finding solace in the sight of the darkened windows.
He laughed, biting the sound off so it doesn't carry beyond his wrist, shoved into his mouth; he found the concept almost deliriously silly.
"Oh, I've been accused of it before, River Lily, and I'm certain I will be again."
Despite not dealing with bodies, Wei Wuxian had dealt with spirits, the resentful energies that were tantamount to taking over bodies in certain people's eyes.
The horse twitched as they went on, until Wei Wuxian coaxed it to a stop, keeping them hidden in the carefully tended landscape of trees only now trending toward a more cultivated wildness, as if the ancestral burial grounds need indicate some older, toothy thing.
"From here, we should continue on foot." Swinging a leg up and over the nag's head and neck, he hopped off, hitting the ground with a light ooph before he held his hands out to assist Lily down with equal quietness.
When he finally brought the horse to a halt she looked back to their destination, far larger on the moonlit horizon than it had been, and sighed in relief when Wei Wuxian announced it was time to go the rest on foot.
She kept quiet as she got off the horse, but it didn't mean she did it with any alacrity, sort of sliding to one side and letting herself fall until she could swing her leg around and catch herself, a hand grasping one of his for leverage. Sort of like jumping off a swing, for a person who might not have any idea how to sit on a swing and required professional assistance.
Back on her feet Lily lifted her wand but hesitated to illuminate it. She looked back over her shoulder at the dark manor before turning back to Wei Wuxian, lowering her wand and keeping it close to her body before she set the tip alight enough for them to see where they were stepping while they walked.
"Has anyone been talking about what's to be done with the witches from the masque?" Undeath was unsettling to Lily, and she knew others among them had more experience than she did. Past a few mentions of Inferi during lectures in school, she was fairly ignorant and was eager to listen to what others made of their increasingly grim situation.
He navigated the way forward, used to walking in less light, thankful for what she provided. His upbeat mood wasn't wearing off, which meant he stepped with the kind of stealthy cheer that only the slightly deranged managed while on a grave digging effort.
It also meant he smiled when he glanced back to her, waving his hand in a cheerfully dismissive motion.
"Oh, those poor women. I've worked some talismans to help with their skin and the burning sensation, but I believe they're fully haunted by it! Considering the terrible way they died, and how they wear it still, can't say I'm surprised. The greatest kindness," he said, turning forward again to pick his way forward and take them around to the side of the fencing surrounding the mausoleum they come upon in the shadows and moonlight, "Would be ending their forced existence. This isn't like those Eleven and Sizhui tried to, ah, protect through Unhalad's transformation. They retain some of themselves in there, but some is not the same as being free to think and choose, such as one might say Anurr himself is."
Still sounding so cheerful even when regretting the pain these witches endured as a matter of existing.
It wasn't the first time she had been around someone under the influence of the Cheering Charm, but it certainly was the first time she had discussed such somber topics with said person. Lily did her best to ignore the jovial patter of his voice and focus on the grave matter they discussed, but she found herself shaking her head after Wei Wuxian fell silent again, finding her footing before she spoke.
"And all they want is relief and vengeance? What's to be done with them?" She saw the right in handing them over to their people and she wanted to believe that the Attaryl would put their fallen members to rest mercifully, but the undead and whatever suffering they carried seemed to be almost trivial to those who dealt with them.
Lily's shoulders sank as she exhaled a deep sigh, frowning at the ground. "The very idea of giving them to Anurr," she shook her head as if to shoo off such an unsavory thought. "I hate that he's here. I keep picturing him rupturing out of some ghastly underground tunnel like a great," Lily made a face, searching for a suitable comparison. "Festering," another pause. "Rat king."
"..." He bit down on his tongue firmly to prevent himself from laughing, but the smile on his lips couldn't be disguised, his entirety too bouyant for him to do more than snort out some of that laughter when the dogs made noise in the distance. No concentrated barking, just one warning sound, and silence after.
"A rat king? Poor Haltham, once upon the lifetime he'd had before he became Anurr's face. I'd say he's more... witty than a rat. Rats deal with swarms, he calculates better, but yes, yes, festering and cold and oh, vengeance, my dear Lily the being that is Anurr loves vengeance. His most attractive quality," he said, and pressed his hand over his mouth to stifle the laughter that was dangerously close to slipping out yet again.
Once the moment passed, as the found the side gate to the ancestral burial grounds and their structures and beauty of sad, moon-touched statuary over memorial stones, he sighed. Cheerfully sighed.
"Oh, final rites, I say. Or have already done, my friend, I'm sorry if that surprises you. Those women had no freedom to look forward to, only enslavement under someone else's hand, and what is that? They've suffered enough over decades, may they rest, may their spirits be beyond Anurr's grasp and every other necromancer nearby. Oh, look, the door's open, how nice!"
He swanned right into the grounds, offering her a playful bow once he was in, and a truly mismatched grin for the present events and the confession to having just ended the vitality of three undead witches to a wizard. Witch. Whichever.
"Vengeance against absolutely everything from the sounds of it," Lily's lips twitched in a slight smirk at the jovial way Wei Wuxian spoke about such somber matters, trying not to feed into his barely suppressed laughter by looking too amused. The smile she was fighting off had a chance to bloom a moment later when he said he had already set the undead witches to rest, though the expression was all relief, rather than amused.
"Thank you for doing so, it's terrible to say it, but I don't think giving them back and trusting those witches to do the right thing would have gone well."
Her focus was pulled by the open gate, and as they passed through and into the burial grounds Lily spared a cautious glance around before catching his bow with a quiet, surprised laugh. "Charming, and already a fair bit easier than the hunting grounds." It was mad to think that she'd come to a point in life where digging a grave could be considered easy in any context, but things had already taken a mad turn months ago.
Taking another look around them she gave a satisfied nod, taking in the old, but still nicely appointed tombs dotting the ancestral grounds. "Right then, let's find a spot and further our careers."
"Do we really want to make this career move, my history is riddled enough with questions as it is," he remarks cheerfully, angling off from shadow to shadow toward the more central tombs, the ones with elaborate structures built to withstand more than the living could.
"We're looking for a name, a name for bones, bones that danced, bones gone cold, a place to warm absent marrow~"
At the point he realised he was murmur singing, he stopped, but kept moving, fingers tracing over tombs etched and standing thin and stark in the darkness. This cheer continues being unsettling in a way he can't be unsettled by, only logically aware is strange.
Weaving between, he peers at names, murmuring them instead of the song threatening to take new form. The dogs sound off in the distance, and he shoves his fist into his mouth to stifle the sudden, perverse urge to giggle. Not much further out, he cants his head, reads a name twice. This structure isn't the largest, but it's one of the three most notable.
"My dear Lily, I believe we may have found their chosen resting place."
"I'd say destiny was calling us, but all things considered that's a rather bleak call to get, isn't it?" Lily looked around them as she spoke before looking back to Wei Wuxian with a shrug.
Using her wand to light up the names on the tombs she looked over she absently listened to him singing to himself as he did the same. The Cheering Charm could be a bit unnerving in even the most normal of circumstances, but his high spirits certainly added a degree of absurdity to their situation.
It made things less creepy, anyway.
"Brilliant, well spotted." Holding her wand to light the way she trundled over to the tomb he stood by, leaning in to check the name before she straightened, nodding in approval.
"Might as well say dig here," she pulled her bag from the waist of her pants and reached in improbably far to retrieve the stone box carrying the remains meant to be interred here.
"You ought to use one of your talismans, I've figured out how to blast a more effective hole in the earth but it's not exactly quiet work."
"What, death? I think that's rather an inevitability, even the dead die twice, it seems. Or at least twice, maybe more. So messy, all the things here."
Aside from his cheerful commentary, he grinned, slipping the silence talisman out of his cleavage (he didn't have any, but he could still reach down his front to grab things out of the wrapping he wore there specifically to keep things), holding it jovially between two fingers. The urge to laugh had slackened again, but the glint in his eyes carried more mirth than it should when he flicked his fingers, sending the talisman to settle on the tomb's side, encasing them in a small space of outward silence.
"I'll remind you this dulls sound down to nothing, but not visuals, so I hope your new way isn't blasting with light involved, it'll be quite attractive for all the less pleasant reasons!"
"I meant, career gravedigging, but considering the idea of dying over and over again, I'd say that's far bleaker." Turning away politely when he reached into his clothing Lily looked back in time to recognize the talisman for what it was.
Holding her wand at the ready she watched the paper talisman fly across their shared space to attach to the side of the tomb before she gave him a nod.
"No light, but it might send a bit of dirt flying. Thankfully it's dark out, nobody will see it though you might want to take cover on the other side of the stone." She gave him a confident grin, looking down at the earth in front of her as she determined where she would aim her spell.
"I've been practicing, I can blow a pretty decent hole my first go - which is good I think it might be risky to try twice."
"Oh, everything's riskier the more often you do it, that's inevitable," he said, again too cheerful. Past that, he simply gestured for her to make her move, almost too interested and lackadaisical about it, if one ignored that he shifted to likewise keep some sense of their surroundings in mind.
His Cheer did not combat common sense, just made it hard to not likewise be Enthused while acting.
Chuckling again at his chipper delivery of the news that her odds grew each time she got away with something Lily shook her head at Wei Wuxian.
"This charm suits you a bit too well I think. Anyway, stand back my friend."
Readying herself she aimed her wand at the ground, moving it as she spoke. "Defodio!"
As her wand had sliced through the air in swift, precise motions the soil beneath her began to recede, as though it were being tunneled into by invisible hands, bits of dirt flying as the earth below shifted apart.
"It's distinctly odd!" He agreed, once again upbeat in delivery, only to clap his hands together when she set her magic to working by wand and word.
"Look! Look at the grave practically make itself! Is all your magic tied to the use of your magic stick?"
He watched with a keen eye, turning his head a touch every so often to continue watching the area, to listen for the hounds. One bark at a distance and he chuckled, a thin sound, before shifting his attention back to Lily. Far safer than dogs which horrified him and sent him laughing all at once, with the charm she'd put on him.
Giving a satisfied nod she looked back to Wei Wuxian, confused. "Stick? You mean my wand?"
Lifting the wand she glanced at it and considered before tilting her head from side to side. "Yes and no? When I was small and didn't have a wand I did magic without realizing that's what I was doing, but we're taught how to use the wand as a sort of channel for our magic in school, but there are other schools where students learn how to work their magic without one."
She shrugged thoughtfully." I've always wanted to learn how to work wandlessly, but for now - I suppose at least I've learned to dig a grave?"
lmf pretend this is a wrap with me, sobs into hands
Or end, as the case might be, but one burial in a series of them was paying respects to the dead who'd asked for these deeds performed, and so they did as they had promised, and it was good.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Whatever else he might have been feeling, now he was an odd sort of cheerful. His mind registered the disconnect even as his lips curled up into a smile. This was surely not a bad idea, right?
Immediately, he bit down on his tongue to keep himself from laughing at her admission. Keeping his shoulder steady as she caught her balance, he glanced back to her once again, this time beaming.
"Only way to improve is to continue practising. I'm sure Eleven will be happy to continue helping," he said, looking too particularly amused by his suggestion. Sounding far too upbeat, too. "As far as being close... don't worry, don't worry! See, over beyond that thatch of trees?" He lifts the hand not holding the reins to indicate where he meant, where a partial dome was visible under the waning light of the moon.
"That's located on the ancestral grounds. Another few minutes, two or so, we'll be right in the midst of it!"
Which, again, he sounded happy about.
no subject
The moment was forgotten when he pulled her focus towards the shape of what she surmised was some sort of elaborate family tomb, silhouetted against the night sky. Even though it wasn't their first burial, and she had experienced far creepier since arriving in this daft world, she shivered a bit, frowning thoughtfully as she watched it grow larger on their approach.
Hopefully, the digging magic she had been working on would make the time they had to spend here brief. "Maybe I ought to cast the same charm on myself, you sound so pleased you could nearly pass for a career gravedigger."
Turning away from the ancestral grounds to look back towards the manor she listened intently for the sound of dogs while finding solace in the sight of the darkened windows.
no subject
"Oh, I've been accused of it before, River Lily, and I'm certain I will be again."
Despite not dealing with bodies, Wei Wuxian had dealt with spirits, the resentful energies that were tantamount to taking over bodies in certain people's eyes.
The horse twitched as they went on, until Wei Wuxian coaxed it to a stop, keeping them hidden in the carefully tended landscape of trees only now trending toward a more cultivated wildness, as if the ancestral burial grounds need indicate some older, toothy thing.
"From here, we should continue on foot." Swinging a leg up and over the nag's head and neck, he hopped off, hitting the ground with a light ooph before he held his hands out to assist Lily down with equal quietness.
no subject
She kept quiet as she got off the horse, but it didn't mean she did it with any alacrity, sort of sliding to one side and letting herself fall until she could swing her leg around and catch herself, a hand grasping one of his for leverage. Sort of like jumping off a swing, for a person who might not have any idea how to sit on a swing and required professional assistance.
Back on her feet Lily lifted her wand but hesitated to illuminate it. She looked back over her shoulder at the dark manor before turning back to Wei Wuxian, lowering her wand and keeping it close to her body before she set the tip alight enough for them to see where they were stepping while they walked.
"Has anyone been talking about what's to be done with the witches from the masque?" Undeath was unsettling to Lily, and she knew others among them had more experience than she did. Past a few mentions of Inferi during lectures in school, she was fairly ignorant and was eager to listen to what others made of their increasingly grim situation.
no subject
It also meant he smiled when he glanced back to her, waving his hand in a cheerfully dismissive motion.
"Oh, those poor women. I've worked some talismans to help with their skin and the burning sensation, but I believe they're fully haunted by it! Considering the terrible way they died, and how they wear it still, can't say I'm surprised. The greatest kindness," he said, turning forward again to pick his way forward and take them around to the side of the fencing surrounding the mausoleum they come upon in the shadows and moonlight, "Would be ending their forced existence. This isn't like those Eleven and Sizhui tried to, ah, protect through Unhalad's transformation. They retain some of themselves in there, but some is not the same as being free to think and choose, such as one might say Anurr himself is."
Still sounding so cheerful even when regretting the pain these witches endured as a matter of existing.
no subject
"And all they want is relief and vengeance? What's to be done with them?" She saw the right in handing them over to their people and she wanted to believe that the Attaryl would put their fallen members to rest mercifully, but the undead and whatever suffering they carried seemed to be almost trivial to those who dealt with them.
Lily's shoulders sank as she exhaled a deep sigh, frowning at the ground. "The very idea of giving them to Anurr," she shook her head as if to shoo off such an unsavory thought. "I hate that he's here. I keep picturing him rupturing out of some ghastly underground tunnel like a great," Lily made a face, searching for a suitable comparison. "Festering," another pause. "Rat king."
It was the vilest thing she could think of.
no subject
"A rat king? Poor Haltham, once upon the lifetime he'd had before he became Anurr's face. I'd say he's more... witty than a rat. Rats deal with swarms, he calculates better, but yes, yes, festering and cold and oh, vengeance, my dear Lily the being that is Anurr loves vengeance. His most attractive quality," he said, and pressed his hand over his mouth to stifle the laughter that was dangerously close to slipping out yet again.
Once the moment passed, as the found the side gate to the ancestral burial grounds and their structures and beauty of sad, moon-touched statuary over memorial stones, he sighed. Cheerfully sighed.
"Oh, final rites, I say. Or have already done, my friend, I'm sorry if that surprises you. Those women had no freedom to look forward to, only enslavement under someone else's hand, and what is that? They've suffered enough over decades, may they rest, may their spirits be beyond Anurr's grasp and every other necromancer nearby. Oh, look, the door's open, how nice!"
He swanned right into the grounds, offering her a playful bow once he was in, and a truly mismatched grin for the present events and the confession to having just ended the vitality of three undead witches to a wizard. Witch. Whichever.
no subject
"Thank you for doing so, it's terrible to say it, but I don't think giving them back and trusting those witches to do the right thing would have gone well."
Her focus was pulled by the open gate, and as they passed through and into the burial grounds Lily spared a cautious glance around before catching his bow with a quiet, surprised laugh. "Charming, and already a fair bit easier than the hunting grounds." It was mad to think that she'd come to a point in life where digging a grave could be considered easy in any context, but things had already taken a mad turn months ago.
Taking another look around them she gave a satisfied nod, taking in the old, but still nicely appointed tombs dotting the ancestral grounds. "Right then, let's find a spot and further our careers."
no subject
"We're looking for a name, a name for bones, bones that danced, bones gone cold, a place to warm absent marrow~"
At the point he realised he was murmur singing, he stopped, but kept moving, fingers tracing over tombs etched and standing thin and stark in the darkness. This cheer continues being unsettling in a way he can't be unsettled by, only logically aware is strange.
Weaving between, he peers at names, murmuring them instead of the song threatening to take new form. The dogs sound off in the distance, and he shoves his fist into his mouth to stifle the sudden, perverse urge to giggle. Not much further out, he cants his head, reads a name twice. This structure isn't the largest, but it's one of the three most notable.
"My dear Lily, I believe we may have found their chosen resting place."
no subject
Using her wand to light up the names on the tombs she looked over she absently listened to him singing to himself as he did the same. The Cheering Charm could be a bit unnerving in even the most normal of circumstances, but his high spirits certainly added a degree of absurdity to their situation.
It made things less creepy, anyway.
"Brilliant, well spotted." Holding her wand to light the way she trundled over to the tomb he stood by, leaning in to check the name before she straightened, nodding in approval.
"Might as well say dig here," she pulled her bag from the waist of her pants and reached in improbably far to retrieve the stone box carrying the remains meant to be interred here.
"You ought to use one of your talismans, I've figured out how to blast a more effective hole in the earth but it's not exactly quiet work."
no subject
Aside from his cheerful commentary, he grinned, slipping the silence talisman out of his cleavage (he didn't have any, but he could still reach down his front to grab things out of the wrapping he wore there specifically to keep things), holding it jovially between two fingers. The urge to laugh had slackened again, but the glint in his eyes carried more mirth than it should when he flicked his fingers, sending the talisman to settle on the tomb's side, encasing them in a small space of outward silence.
"I'll remind you this dulls sound down to nothing, but not visuals, so I hope your new way isn't blasting with light involved, it'll be quite attractive for all the less pleasant reasons!"
no subject
Holding her wand at the ready she watched the paper talisman fly across their shared space to attach to the side of the tomb before she gave him a nod.
"No light, but it might send a bit of dirt flying. Thankfully it's dark out, nobody will see it though you might want to take cover on the other side of the stone." She gave him a confident grin, looking down at the earth in front of her as she determined where she would aim her spell.
"I've been practicing, I can blow a pretty decent hole my first go - which is good I think it might be risky to try twice."
no subject
His Cheer did not combat common sense, just made it hard to not likewise be Enthused while acting.
no subject
"This charm suits you a bit too well I think. Anyway, stand back my friend."
Readying herself she aimed her wand at the ground, moving it as she spoke. "Defodio!"
As her wand had sliced through the air in swift, precise motions the soil beneath her began to recede, as though it were being tunneled into by invisible hands, bits of dirt flying as the earth below shifted apart.
no subject
"Look! Look at the grave practically make itself! Is all your magic tied to the use of your magic stick?"
He watched with a keen eye, turning his head a touch every so often to continue watching the area, to listen for the hounds. One bark at a distance and he chuckled, a thin sound, before shifting his attention back to Lily. Far safer than dogs which horrified him and sent him laughing all at once, with the charm she'd put on him.
no subject
Lifting the wand she glanced at it and considered before tilting her head from side to side. "Yes and no? When I was small and didn't have a wand I did magic without realizing that's what I was doing, but we're taught how to use the wand as a sort of channel for our magic in school, but there are other schools where students learn how to work their magic without one."
She shrugged thoughtfully." I've always wanted to learn how to work wandlessly, but for now - I suppose at least I've learned to dig a grave?"
lmf pretend this is a wrap with me, sobs into hands
Or end, as the case might be, but one burial in a series of them was paying respects to the dead who'd asked for these deeds performed, and so they did as they had promised, and it was good.