the_leaky_pen | WIP Wednesday: Nie bros and soulmarks

Running a bit late, but it's still Wednesday and I do have WIP to share!

"What about you, dage?" Nie Mei asks after a while.

"Hm?"

"You're gonna take me to Lotus Pier to find my soulmate, but what about you?"

Nie Mingjue pulls up the left sleeve on his traditional formal robes and stares thoughtfully at the mark on his forearm. Watch where you're going, damn it! This is a hospital. A messy horizontal scrawl.

He really had thought it might happen this year, when Father had started qi deviating. Overcome with worry in the sect hospital near the Unclean Realm, more than once he'd lifted his head and realized he'd lost track of where he was headed and who was around him.

But no staff member or worried relative had snapped at him about it, and at the time he'd had bigger things to worry about. And now…

"I'm not in a hurry to spend any more time in hospitals, didi," he says.

Nie Mei grimaces. "Yeah, me neither."