( The right, to Wei Ying's left — an acceptable division, between shelves upon shelves in luxuriant display, and Lan Wangji tasked with tall inventory. First, the nuts, then the herbs, then the dried dusts and caked syrups, oils finely aged to a point of thickening at the heart of things. And vinegars, ruthlessly astringent, calling to him when he opens his flasks and the bite of them stings.
The wines, after: sweet, cloying. Perhaps tainted with herbs and honeys so thoroughly overwhelming that even Lan Wangji steps back, dissuaded from his inspection. He turns, nearly ready to tell Wei Ying that the pantry is luxuriantly supplied — nearly opulently so, for the tastes of ascetics — only to still in his step, nose catching a whiff of foul wrongness.
Earthy, thick, a heady, gutting scent. Blood, with inevitability, but — hand sweeping through the shelves, he peels back the tattered rags of a modesty cloth to reveal a large bowl, wide and low and spanning a stretch he would deign fitting for a laundry basket, filled to the rim with a disgusting soup of marinating guts and the remains of chickens, feathers yet tarred in blood. A fresh spilling.
His freed hand jumps to his mouth, to cover it and his nose from the instinct to gag. )
Claw marks. ( He hisses out, before stumbling a spate of steps back and permitting Wei Ying to either assume control of their probe, or walk him back. Yes, claw marks, deep running, utterly feline —
And just as he moves, behind him, something dark and small darts by across the shelves. )
no subject
( The right, to Wei Ying's left — an acceptable division, between shelves upon shelves in luxuriant display, and Lan Wangji tasked with tall inventory. First, the nuts, then the herbs, then the dried dusts and caked syrups, oils finely aged to a point of thickening at the heart of things. And vinegars, ruthlessly astringent, calling to him when he opens his flasks and the bite of them stings.
The wines, after: sweet, cloying. Perhaps tainted with herbs and honeys so thoroughly overwhelming that even Lan Wangji steps back, dissuaded from his inspection. He turns, nearly ready to tell Wei Ying that the pantry is luxuriantly supplied — nearly opulently so, for the tastes of ascetics — only to still in his step, nose catching a whiff of foul wrongness.
Earthy, thick, a heady, gutting scent. Blood, with inevitability, but — hand sweeping through the shelves, he peels back the tattered rags of a modesty cloth to reveal a large bowl, wide and low and spanning a stretch he would deign fitting for a laundry basket, filled to the rim with a disgusting soup of marinating guts and the remains of chickens, feathers yet tarred in blood. A fresh spilling.
His freed hand jumps to his mouth, to cover it and his nose from the instinct to gag. )
Claw marks. ( He hisses out, before stumbling a spate of steps back and permitting Wei Ying to either assume control of their probe, or walk him back. Yes, claw marks, deep running, utterly feline —
And just as he moves, behind him, something dark and small darts by across the shelves. )