metanoia [mdzs]

a lullaby unsung, one last goodbye

There is anger, explosive and volatile, and it is a supernova of emotion that leaves him wanting to scream, to cry, to beg to the heavens, why, why, why—

It's almost pathetic, really.

How he is named Wei Wuxian, the founder of demonic cultivation, he who walks a cursed path. Yet at the core of it all, all he is someone forgotten, someone who loved and lost and is perhaps just foolish, giving and giving and giving his soul away, yet receiving nothing but pain and broken promises, time and again.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning and the entirety of the Jiangs and Wens - reduced to nothing but ash and buried wishes.

And then—

("Look out—!")

Shijie dies for him.

His robes are bloodied, hands died black with the colour of sin; a poisoning, murky tar that seeps into his very soul, draining him of any hope, any happiness.

The people he loves keep leaving him behind.

Why?

--

(in the end, he couldn't protect anyone.)

--

Then, eventually —finally— all that he is, all that he has become, it is laughed upon by the world, a world that is cruel and always without mercy.

It is a contempt he has always known he deserved, ever since he'd run as a coward, away from the soulless eyes of a child who'd seen him and understood what it meant to not belong; ever since he'd run from Lan Zhan's hatred, and from the broken pieces of a brotherhood that he had ruined, from a brother he had crushed.

And he wonders, if such was the price for cowardice for walking down this heretic path, for death to take and take and take, time and again, then—

Perhaps it would've been better if he had died a long time ago; on the streets, in Yunmeng Jiang, in the cave of Xuan Wu.

Would it have been better then?

Would the people I love still be alive?

Would I finally be given what they call 'mercy'?

He finds that he doesn't know, and doesn't even want to know, not anymore.

In the end, all that he feels, all that he is, is exhaustion.

He's just so, so tired.

(will it ever end?)

--

Awareness comes in waves; warmth on his face from the sunlight streaming in and the soft footsteps of someone approaching him.

The next time Wei Ying awakens, he finds himself wrapped in silk blankets, with the smell of incense permeating the air. For a moment, it brings him comfort, settling the unease in his heart despite the disorientation that same comfort brings, before even that is snatched away the moment those footsteps stop by his side.

He turns, and purple robes flood his vision, the colour of ho- of Lotus Pier, so achingly familiar. A face with Madam Yu's eyes staring down at him, with Uncle Jiang's quiet presence, with Shijie's warmth-

But those people do not exist anymore, long since turned into unspeakable ghosts and unfulfilled promises. And the person standing in front of him is the only one of them left.

Jiang Cheng.

And after awareness, it is emotion that comes next; a hurricane slamming into him like a tidal wave, overwhelming, as tears begin to fill his eyes. He stumbles out of bed, freeing himself from tangled sheets. The chill in the air leaves him shivering pathetically, trembling from the cold and the biting guilt.