[open post for real]

[onthewillowsthere]

When the burning stopped he found himself alone. His memory of what happened is hazy -- aren't all his memories hazy? -- but he remembers the light and the fire, the way his hands and mouth were blazing, and even if he didn't remember the scorching on his blue tunic would tell a tale.

He remembers enough.

He can't seem to get warm now, despite the perfectly pleasant climate, and he builds a fire in one of the mansion's many sitting rooms with fireplaces, and then he huddles in front of it, his knees clasped to his chest.

Crowley couldn't make him Galahad again, but he doesn't feel like Damien any more. He remembers enough to know what he had wanted to escape -- whatever purpose it was that made him like this, capable of subsuming into flame or holding a brand-new weapon like a familiar part of his body -- but not enough to know why he's like this, and not enough to be the person Claudius is waiting for. He feels like stone, but a stone that has lost all the earth's heat.

If Crowley, who changed him in the first place, can't change him back, then can he be changed back? It seems to him from what Lan Wangji said that this is all there is now. He's incapable of being loved, incapable of knowing himself, incapable of the lit path that Lan Wangji exhorted him towards.

He stares into the fire, his fixed blue stare that might as well be a stranger's, and wishes he had been rendered in his own bonfire.

Comments

[protagonisthalo]

Well, it settles any question of the lad being a demon. Luo Binghe has never heard of a type of demon forged as a weapon, who generates fire unthinking. He doesn't care about this young man's wellbeing, but he needs something suitable to say, to maintain the trust between them. In casting for it, he thinks of the kinds of things Meng Mo said to him, when he used to indulge himself in the most dramatic spells of self-pity. The old demon was not the nurturing type, but he knew Luo Binghe's mind well enough by then to divert it.

"How you feel about the power, or what you have done, is immaterial. Learning to control it is the only useful path ahead, and it will lead to fewer regrets in the future. And that requires a cool head. It sounds as though the power manifested from your distress. And yet you continue to feed your inner turmoil with guilt and self-recrimination. Try to stanch it."

[onthewillowsthere]

This is... shockingly comforting. Luo Binghe seems so unimpressed with what has felt devastating to him, and his advice is so mundane it feels as if it should have been obvious, but-- it wasn't. He was too distressed to stop being distressed. He nods, his serious blue eyes fixed on Luo Binghe.

"And you will teach me?"

[protagonisthalo]

The nameless youth's instincts are correct. Awakening a dark power with devastating consequences is unimpressive and mundane to Luo Binghe, which is why this counsel is so simple for him to give. But he never learned meditation or equilibrium himself, and therefore could not pass it even along if he wanted to. "I may speak from my own experience, but I am no mentor. You would do well to find someone—or something—that calms you."

[onthewillowsthere]

"If I can do that, you will help me?" he presses, leaning forward.

[protagonisthalo]

"It is a way to help yourself." Luo Binghe's pity is starting to outweigh his disgust at the youth's pathetic state. He says it with less snap in his voice than he might.

[onthewillowsthere]

"So that I will not hurt anyone." He nods. "I don't want to do injury to anyone as I did to you."

[protagonisthalo]

It is hard to maintain his anger at the slight in the face of such sincere regret. The youth really has been nothing but accommodating since he had his memories taken—and now that Luo Binghe knows he asked for that, it shows a commendable desire to change for the better. "The injury you did to me no longer persists."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Thank you," he says -- he understands this to be a formality rather than a true fact, as the injury of course cannot be undone, but he appreciates it.

[protagonisthalo]

Hopefully that's settled the matter. Luo Binghe rises to his feet. "I believe our business here is concluded for now."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Thank you." He means it.

[protagonisthalo]

Luo Binghe is not given to guilt over his actions, but the youth's simple sincerity bleeds much of the satisfaction out of his deception. He nods in acknowledgement and leaves quickly, before he can be prevailed upon for more assistance.