meme . // nonverbal .
[ love ] for your muse to touch mine as a show of affection or reassurance @hecollectsbutterflies
Sizhui plucks confidently at a string, letting the note linger sustained in the silence of the room, fading away to a maudlin silence. Another, lower this time, dissolving pensively to quiet. There’s a solitude revealed in the solicitude of the way he strikes each note. Like a longing blighted with apprehension, colored by an ineffable restlessness that mars the quiet that claims it.
Two perfectly-committed san that precede the melody proper, which his pupil begins with a stately rhythm that he establishes with an unblemished conviction before he begins to introduce his own surprisingly appurtenant attempts at rubato.
His right hand strikes with a dauntless confidence, his left slides to each note with an evenness that surprises Lan Zhan enough that he notes the press of Sizhui’s thumb to the strings, and is satisfied to discover the strength he’d once struggled to gain, now exhibited with a wondrous grace.
He plays with a precision that comes from practice, from inexhaustible habitude. But the delicacy, the elegance with which he plays is incomparable for any student his age. Evocative, with a sophistication that infers a maturity beyond the years of a young man who has never known hardship since he was accepted into the creche of GusuLan.
Lan Zhan wonders how much he remembers of those years outside the confines of Cloud Recesses.
And yet, how far he’s come—! Lan Zhan cannot claim responsibility for the whole of his tutelage, but the pride he feels at his immense progress in spite of his difficult beginnings, exemplified in the song he plays with the facility of true aptitude.
Encouragement is in order. He knows this. But for how eager he is to divulge in it, he wonders how out of place his enthusiasm might appear to be. There’s a fine balance between indulgence and inspiritment, and he hardly has the confidence to attempt it. But he does, for the boy’s sake. So he lays his hand upon Sizhui’s shoulder, heavy and warm, strong and certain.
“You did well,” he commends him, patting his shoulder. The words are simple, but his commitment of them are poignantly-meant. He smiles down at him with the soft benevolence in which he has always looked upon him, and with which he will always look upon him. Because he will always be a bower to the boy he found in the split of a tree. “Do you think you’re ready to play for the masters now?”
