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“A-Xian? A-Xian, A-Xian, come down, won't you Get up off Get up off the roof?” Yanli called, and Wuxian dragged at himself, trying to get the strength to sit up, to move. Shijie was calling him, he needed to… he needed to move, didn’t he? “You're scaring us, And all of us, Some of us love you, A-Xian, it's not much but there's proof.”
Shijie was calling him. He needed to move, but he was so exhausted, and the darkness was crawling through his heart.
“You crazy assed Cultivator, Remember your virtue, Redemption lies plainly in truth,” he heard, the voice piercing him straight to his empty core, and he coiled on himself, the hard tile under his body unyielding in it’s ridges and cool condemnation.
“Just humor us, Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian come down. Won’t you get up off… get up off the roof?” His brother called, his temper clearly fraying. “Wei Wuxian! Wei Wuxian! Wei Ying… Come down, won’t you? Get up off… get up off the roof?”
“The self is not so weightless, nor whole and unbroken,” A new voice added, clear and deep and Wuxian wanted to go to the other, but he couldn’t, trapped by darkness and pain. “Remember the pact of our youth.”
They weren’t close though, and it ached how he craved this voice, the one this voice belonged to, calling his name. It continued, when he expected it to stop, when he expected someone else to berate him, to call to him.
“Where you go, I’m going. So jump and I’m jumping, since there is no me without you,” the voice breathed, so much more eloquent than usual. “Soldier on, Wei Ying. Wei Ying… come down. Won’t you get up off… Get up off the roof?”
The screaming drowned out everything, the pain pushing into every bit of his body as he tried so very hard to get up, to keep fighting. Gone were the cold and unyielding tiles, replaced with stone, equally unyielding but sharper somehow.
“Loath the way they light candles in Gusu, but love the sweet air of the votives,” a gentle voice whispered through the pain, and he wanted to cry out to her, to be held close by this motherly figure… but he couldn’t. “Hurt and grieve, but don’t suffer alone. Engage with the pain as a motive…”
Come back to us, she meant, but he didn’t know if he could.
“Today of all days, See,” anger suffused the words, but there was care there as well. “How the most dangerous thing is to love. How you will heal and you’ll rise above,” she continued, not kind, but fierce and gone again through the pain.
The sun rose and fell, but he could not follow it’s movements as he struggled…
“Wei Wuxian! Wei Wuxian, Wei Wuxian,” they called voices blending, anger and brightness. “Jump now! You are absent of cuase, or excuse!”
“So self-indulgent, and self-referential. No Sect could ever want you!” Words that felt true from one who had despised him…
“You crave the applause, yet hate the attention, then miss it! Your act is a ruse!” The teachers words came with scorn and derision, and once they would have pricked at his pride, even as they made his spirit bleed.
Now he felt only pain as the words came again and again.
“It is empty, A-Xian. So end it all now,” they whispered, and he recoiled because… was this really… was it how they saw him? “It’s a pointless resistance, for you.”
“Wei Ying… Wei Ying, just put down the bottle. Don’t listen to what you’ve consumed,” the deep voice cut through, just momentarily, before the pain redoubled, the screaming trying to drown it out. “It’s cahos… Confusion… and wholly unworthy of feeding, and it’s wholly untrue.”
“You may feel no purpose, nor a point for existing. It’s all just conjecture and gloom,” Rage suffused his brother’s words, but that was always how Jiang Cheng expressed himself. “And… there may not be meaning, so find one and seize it! Do not waste your self on this roof!”
“Hear those bells ring deep in the soul, chiming away for a moment,” a laughing voice whispered, encouraging and how could he not try for it? “Feel your breath course frankly below, see life as a worthy oponent!”
“Today of all days, see…” the whisper came, through the voices screaming in pain and rage. “How the most dangerous thing is to love. How you will heal, and you’ll rise above. Crowned by an overture bold and beyond. Ah, it’s more courageous to overcome!”
“You want the Acclaim! The mother of mothers!” they screamed, the cacophony almost drowning out the other voices. “It’s not worth it, A-Xian…”
“More poignant than fame, or the taste of another!” they shouted while another whispered, “Don’t listen, Wei Wuxian…”
“But be real and just jump, you dense motherfucker!” their patience was gone as they shouted and from inside a half remembered mothers voice… “You’re worth more, A-Ying…”
“You will not be more than a rat in the gutter!” they screamed, feeling as he pulled away, the dense earth below him unable to hold him down now. “… so much more than a rat…”
“You want my opinion,” and no…
“No one asked your opinion…” he managed to growl back.
“My opinion you’ve got. You asked for my council!” they insisted, riotous and unruly in his spirit and head.
“No one asked for your thoughts!” he replied, coughing up blood as he struggled, and struggled to his knees then his feet, ignoring as they continued to try to drag him down.
“I give you my thoughts, be done with this now and jump off the roof!” there was no roof but the roof of the world below his feet, and the voices blended in harmony, one begging him to come back to the world below, and one begging him to jump to his dark fate. “Can you hear me, Wei Ying? I’m talking to you…”
“I'm talking to you…
“I'm talking to you…
“I'm talking to you…
“Wei Wuxian come down…
“Wei Ying… come down…
“Throw yourself into the unknown, with pace and fury defiant,” she encouraged as Wuxian opened his eyes to the darkness and the light. “Clothe yourself in beauty untold, and see life as a means to triumph. Today of all days… see…
“How the most dangerous thing is to love. How you will heal and you’ll rise above.”
“Crowned by an overture bold and beyond… Ahh, it’s more courageous to overcome?” he answered, his heart free despite the broken wings weighing it down. She had helped him, and he owed her even as she smiled and faded back to her own mountain home.
He didn’t know how much was real, as the darkness swirled through him where once there was light, as the Burial Mounds tried to conquer him and were conquered instead, but it was time to come down and get up off the roof. His mind was his own, his heart was his own, and in trying to destroy him, it had given itself over to his care.