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The shifting of the nails means that some nights and some days it feels like an integral part of his physical form is not quite right. As if parts of him have been misaligned. The damage and the pain he expected, the small shifts that left him unsure of the components that made up the physical weapon he had honed for all of his life, less so. Being an unfamiliar tenant in the flesh that he had never previously considered a prison left a bitter taste in the back of his throat stronger than the tang of blood.
He had thought himself prepared for the physical degradation. He had been injured before and put temporarily out of commission. He had adjusted to powerlessness on occasion – not well, but still done with the same ruthless practicality he applied to all things. He was chagrined to find himself wrong on this occasion. Being back at Four Seasons Manor simply made it more obvious. He thought it would be easy to adjust while on the road, and that it would only grow easier with time.
He was wrong so rarely, and each occasion had always ended in the worst possible manner. He had given himself three years, but the occasional slips in his control meant that a small accident could easily drop that number. He started keeping track of his surroundings with what senses he could, for reasons more than keeping up his awareness. Being on the road made it even more challenging. Perhaps an adjustment easier to make in a place I know well, he considered as they approached Four Seasons Manor. Less effort expended would be a boon.
The knowledge that the table was exactly three strides back from the counter he stood at meant even if his legs were slow to respond he could calculate the difference. Stumbling was for children learning and for venerable elders, neither of which he could afford to be taken as. The slowness that his conscious adjustments brought could be dragged into syrupy laziness. His familiarity with the Manor meant he could meander through without needing to react swiftly to a surprise. In a way, it was better that he was here rather than wandering. He could hide better here, curl up over the soft underbelly he hadn’t realized he still possessed.
Sometimes it was tempting to bare that soft underside in the open – to wave it like a flag. To declare to Lao Wen that not only had he covered his hands in blood and intentionally crippled himself but that he had also fundamentally shifted how he worked within his body. He had chosen weakness and death. That his physical form was decaying faster than he thought because he could no longer tell what his body needed.
I’ve destroyed what tells me I should care for my physical form and at the time where I find I want to treat it less like a weapon instead of more, he mused as he cleaned Baiyi. He knew how to care for a sword and how to read its indicators, it seemed he would need to learn the same for a body that no longer spoke to him in the ways he knew.
Let Lao Wen drag him out of bed in the morning. He need never know that previously Zishu would often wake completely within seconds and never would have been caught still waking up by anyone if he’d had the choice. It may have been an action taken out of necessity rather than choice, but the slow wake-up was beginning to grow on him. The downside of a sense never waking back as wide as it had been the previous day was made up for in the ridiculousness of Lao Wen’s attempts to urge him out of bed. Elaborate breakfasts, whining about abandonment, small inferences of Chengling slacking off – the endless creative babble was the background he used to build himself up to face the day, even as the words and their volume faltered. Not that he’d ever mention it – Lao Wen would be insufferable.
He thought he’d adjusted to it. Time was the master in all matters and he had wrangled his disobedient corporal form back into a form of obeisance. Then he’d forgotten to eat, and his body had given no indication of needing sustenance. Lao Wen had cooked breakfast, which he’d wandered away from; lunch which he’d tossed jokingly at Chengling, who had devoured like the endless pit any growing boy was; dinner that he had stared at for almost too long when he realized that faint smells didn’t rouse even a spark of interest from his stomach or mouth.
He glanced down at the wine gourd in his hand, rolling it back and forth. The small amount of taste he could eke out now seemed hardly worth it if he couldn’t satiate hunger or thirst. In a way, it was freeing. In a way it was terrifying. It would make several tortures exceedingly ineffective, a small voice from his days in Tian Chuang that he hadn’t managed to snuff out whispered in the back of his mind.
He pictured himself if his road had diverged from Wen Kexing and Chengling, and he had followed his initial plans after leaving Prince Jin. He had planned to drink his way through wandering, but would he have stopped eating and drinking at this point with no one there to mimic? Would he even have noticed until he passed out one day and could hardly manage to drag himself up? Perhaps he just shouldn't think more on it, he mused, he obviously was strongly biased in his judgment and hence wrong in this matter.
Although his stubbornness meant that he would likely have made his body wander anyways, even after collapse had let him know that his body not telling him its needs didn't change them, and driven himself right into an even earlier grave, literally starving himself to death. Not a horrible way to go all things considered. Going before most of his body failed because he couldn’t listen to the demands of his flesh. Perhaps he would have died still being able to see and hear, the senses he was keen to preserve as long as possible.
He’d thought himself adjusted, but evidently, more work was needed. He could imagine the hovering that would occur if Lao Wen discovered he truly couldn’t taste or hunger, let alone if he discovered that sometimes it felt as if his limbs would not obey when he ordered them to move. Adrenaline helped for now, but he had dropped his belt two times that morning because the feel of the fabric was so light across his palms and fingers. A loosely tied belt is a sign of indulgence anyway, he almost huffed out loud to himself as he swept closer to the courtyard at a crawl.
It wouldn’t do to let Lao Wen truly know how much he had destroyed himself quite yet. He came to a stop and watched Chengling’s repetitions as Lao Wen waved idly at him with a fan and pelted Chengling’s feet with walnut shells. He needed him to stay for Chengling if not for him, and his track record of running away from things he didn't like was spotty at best. And, the annoying whisper in his head added, it means you don't have to say it out loud more than once. Weakness had never come easy to his tongue in any instance, although he had an uncomfortable hunch it would slip out smoothly to Wen Kexing whether he wanted it to or not once he opened his mouth to speak it.
Lao Wen can find out when Wu Xi and Beiyuan arrive and not a second before, assuming his body didn't turn traitor even more and out him unintentionally. These were beautiful days, his dampening the atmosphere wouldn't change what was happening any more than Lao Wen attempting to cook up gourmet meals would miraculously return his taste.