⌜ 风. ⌟ ▌ ── SHI QINGXUAN KNEW paying a visit to Ling Wen was a bad idea the moment it came to mind. Quite possibly one of the worst she's had since reascending. She told herself as much while speaking with Xie Lian about the possibility of it, while the request was passed along, while waiting to hear back on the feasability of arrangements, while said arrangements were made, and while preparing herself to see Ling Wen again once all the details were settled. But she's never been one to listen to her own cautionary council. Leastwise when it involves personal matters.
She had the entire walk between her newly emergent palace in the Upper Courts and Ling Wen's current chambers to do right by her peace of mind and back out. Certainly nobody was making any attempt to convince her otherwise. Her cheery greeting to the two martial gods sent to escort her, both of whom she recognized and addressed accordingly, was met with blank stares and a curt directive not to stray. There was no chatter to distract her, only the jingle of accessories and tandem footsteps. Those she had considered friends could not care less about continuing to play nice. Without the rank, title, or influence she held as Wind Master-- more accurately, as the Water Tyrant's overindulged baby sister --there's no longer any need to curry goodwill with her. There's no interference in her decision because, ultimately, it means nothing to anyone uninvolved so long as she doesn't do anything spectacularly stupid.
Everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed. She would laugh about it if she could find where her voice had run off to. That's fine. She'll save her breath for when it's just her and Ling Wen.
But once the two of them are sat across from each other with a low table between them and simple silk screen providing a moderate amount of privacy, it's like Shi Qingxuan has forgotten how to speak at all. Her gaze refuses to linger on Ling Wen's face for too long ( she looks tired, though not nearly as haggard as she appeared before all... that ); she fiddles with the ends of her sleeves and clears her throat multiple times without saying anything afterwards. Though she'd taken great care to arrange her appearance on the higher end of presentable, she feels like a child playing dress-up. Not for the first time, Shi Qingxuan wonders if that is exactly how her brother and his friends saw her all this time. The thought sits bitter against the back of her throat. She has half a mind to spit it out alongside a slew of other accusations.
That's not why she's here. Or is it? She doesn't know. Seeing Ling Wen face to face does nothing to quell the steady stream of grief that's been leaking from her heart and polluting her every waking thought since her brother-- who she misses so terribly, who she has grown to despise, who she still does not know how to live without, whose arms she still wants to run crying into, who made her feel so beloved yet so small and broken and wretched-- her brother, Ling Wen's friend, a man she'd lived all her life beside without truly knowing--
"What was ge like when it was just the three of you?"
She's surprised by the calm of her voice, which she expected to fall to pieces the moment it shaped the word 'ge' out loud for the first time since she re-entered the heavens. Her eyes go wide as though Ling Wen was the first to speak, to ask such an absurdly personal question out of nowhere.
"What I mean is... well, I don't mean anything except that. I suppose you don't have to answer. However things were between the three of you isn't really my business. Except for the parts that are, ha!" She pauses, briefly sucks her lower lip between her teeth to hold back a bout of nervewracked prattle. "...I can't stop thinking about ge. There's nobody else I could talk with about him." She makes an expression like she's just bitten into an overripe pomelo. "General Pei doesn't count."
