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Living is falling. All of your life, you spend it falling in and out of love with the world around you. Famlial, romantic, and platonic. There is a certain level of devotion in continuing to live on when the world tells you it doesn’t want you around.
Some falling is more literal than others.
Wen Ning was already dying when he was thrown from the top of the cliff into the pool that was the grave of so many of his clan before him, their bodies rotting beneath the water’s surface. He wasn’t sure which was falling faster, him or the rain around him, but he knew they were both fast. And so very, painfully slow.
He knew it was going to hurt when he hit the bottom, that he’d be lucky if the only thing he got away with was some bruises. He was going to shatter. There were so many things hidden in that black water.
He hoped it was only black from the shadows of night, but he knew that it was red with his family’s blood. That he’d be soaked in it soon, too.
Living is falling, death is the landing.
The shattering of bones and hope.
Dreams nothing more than dust under broken fingers.
Living is falling.
He hadn’t expected someone to drop him again after he’d landed, falling all over again, but there Wei Ying was, pulling him from the viscera and piecing him back together.
Being in love is falling.
He wasn’t sure which would kill him first.
All that mattered was that he was there for the fall.
Living is falling.
Everything would be okay.