#LXC is Valid and i accept no opinions otherwise

[wantonlywindswept]

for the damsel au, damsel!nmj, dragon!xichen, uhh knight?jiang cheng except it's mingxicheng

anon you answered like INSTANTLY and i both respect and appreciate that.

so when the nearby dragon lord that lives on top of the mountain you've settled at the base of says, 'excuse me can you please send your strongest warrior up here,' you don't just. you don't say no.

well, his people and his sect and his baby brother might say no, but nie mingjue doesn't.

and the thing is, the dragon hasn't demanded a sacrifice for centuries, it's not like it's been bathing in the blood of babies or something. there's safety in living near a creature so powerful, in an area where no monsters dare tread for fear of gaining its ire, and the towns already send gifts up the mountain in thanks. the tithes include foodstuffs, gold, shiny trinkets and artisan crafts, all gathered and taken up by the stone-faced guardian of the dragon's shine. the man in white brings their offerings to the dragon and returns with its thanks and the promise of further peaceful cohabitation.

so if the dragon wants a human sacrifice every once in a while, it's not that big of a deal, is it?

(his people and his sect and his baby brother say yes. nie mingjue ignores them.)

he turns up at the shrine in the dead of night, when there's no one awake to try to stop him from sacrificing himself. the golden-eyed guardian blinks at him when he asks if there is a certain way he should present himself. gives him a once over.

says, blandly, that the dragon would probably like it if he was shirtless.

and okay that's a little weird but who is nie mingjue to argue with the whims of ancient beasts?

so he heads up the mountain, bare-chested with his cloak draped over his shoulders, gold jewelry clinking at his ankles and wrists and neck: a possible appeasement, if the dragon decides he isn't worthy enough. it gets colder the higher up he goes, and he's shivering by the time he reaches the temple. there's no one there but there is a roaring fire in a brazier inside, and nie mingjue shuffles over, sinking to his knees, water dripping down his skin as the ice stuck in his hair melts.

it's warm, and the air's a little thin, and his brain's a little hazy, so it really isn't his fault that when the most handsome man he's ever seen walks into the room, the first words out of his mouth are, 'fuck you're pretty.'

the man drops the tray of tea he was carrying. he looks at nie mingjue on his knees by the fire and his pupils blow wide like a cat's, a flush pinking his cheeks as he stares fixedly at nie mingjue's bare chest.

'um.'

'i'm here for...' nie mingjue waves a hand vaguely. 'are you one of the dragon's, uh, followers? attendants?'

'something like that,' the vision in blue and white says distractedly. he walks forward, golden eyes gleaming, a pale hand reaching out to tilt nie mingjue's chin up. 'you're the strongest warrior from the human villages?'

'haven't been beaten yet,' nie mingjue replies with a shrug, leaning into the impossible heat of the man's touch. 'don't know why that matters, though. muscle isn't great for eating. not much fat.'

the man frowns.

'eating?'

and nie mingjue is going to say something, he really is, even with the man's incredibly distracting fingers on his skin, but then the door of the temple slams open with a howling gust of wind. it carries in freezing cold snow and a figure in heavy leather armor with a purple favor wrapped around his wrist, firelight glinting off the sword in his hand.

'get away from him!'

nie mingjue looks at the knight. looks up at the man next to him. isn't sure, exactly, which of them is being spoken to.

'i'm sorry,' the man says, looking alarmed, 'but i think there's been a mistake--'

the knight charges forward, and nie mingjue levers himself to his feet, and the man in blue moves--

and nie mingjue sways, still shivering, blinking down where the knight is suddenly pinned down by a very large claw, which is attached to a sinuous reptilian body that glitters blue and silver, which is definitely the dragon he was sent here to be a meal for, who is also apparently able to look like a human.

it's a little much to take in. nie mingjue's body decides that the best course of action is return to the ground, as quickly and gracelessly as possible.

he's expecting his nose to break against the cold marble. instead, a long tail wraps around his waist, coiling about his middle with that same blazing heat, keeping him upright.

'what did you do to him, you beast?!'

'i didn't do anything! he was already like this!'

nie mingjue pats the warm scales appreciatively.

'did you drug him so he would be easier to eat?!'

'what--eat? i'm not going to eat him! why would i eat him??'

'warm,' nie mingjue hums happily.

'you're telling me that you had no intention to hurt him at all?'

'that's exactly what i'm saying! i--i.... is he alright?'

nie mingjue closes his eyes, resting his cheek against the dragon's tail with a pleased sigh.

'he walked up here half-naked, he's probably freezing to death.'

'that--! he can't do that!'

'he can, but whatever, let me up, i'll help.'

'are you going to try to stab me again?'

'...probably not?'

'...acceptable.'

later, when nie mingjue is slightly more coherent, cocooned in a mound of finely-made blankets with only his face visible, the dragon (Lan Xichen) and the knight (Jiang Cheng) sit at the table near the bed drinking tea, and it finally occurs him to ask what he was summoned for, if not as sacrifice.

lan xichen's ears turn pink.

'i am not very...well-versed in using this form,' he says delicately. 'my abilities in combat are somewhat lacking.'

nie mingjue lifts an eyebrow. he does not care that he probably looks ridiculous.

'so you need me to kill something for you?'

'just so.'

'why not do it yourself?'

'the intruders are in the warrens within the mountain. my true form does not fit down there; i cannot fight them.'

'what are they, then?' jiang cheng asks. it seems that he has already decided that he will assist in the hunt, and while nie mingjue is a little confused why, he won't mind the support. 'goblins, illithids, reavers? it helps to know what we hunt.'

'spiders,' lan xichen admits.

nie mingjue's other eyebrow joins the first, high on his forehead.

'giant spiders?'

lan xichen shifts uncomfortably.

'cave spiders?'

'well...'

'...normal spiders.'

'their webs are everywhere!' lan xichen wails. 'there's so many of them, it's an infestation and they're creepy and skittery and they have too many legs--'

nie mingjue wishes he had a hand free to massage away the headache building behind his eyes.

jiang cheng, on the other hand, falls off his chair, howling with laughter.

it is the beginning of a very interesting--and delightfully fulfilling--relationship.

[amethystshipper]

I've seen some posts blaming Nie MingJue for beeing an asshole to JGY as the reason he became the rat he was, and I don't like to reblog posts just to add my completely different idea because that's douchy, so here is my opinion.

Now, NMJ is not a delicate flower, we all agree on that. He's loud and in your face and he doesn't back down when he thinks he's right, which is most of the time. However, unlike Sect Leader Yao for example, I don't believe he does it because he's an asshole, but he's just genuinely arriving at a conclusion based on his own life experiences, which he thinks are universal, and believes he's doing the right thing for everyone, not just himself. We see this in Fatal Journey, when he doesn't think to question the puppets that appeared out of nowhere and just blames it on the saber curse, unlike NHS. He's not an idiot, he ruled over Qinghe for quite a while, and iirc we're told he's a good tactician, he just never considers thinking from the point of view of evil people, because why would he? He's a good guy, he doesn't need to think of wicked tricks. And that's his biggest weakness, seeing everything in black and white. Not because he's a moron, but because he genuinly cannot understand why someone would voluntarily do bad things.

He also doesn't really question things that he already formed an opinion on. The Wens? Evil. LXC? Good. Demonic cultivation? Bad. LXC? Good. JGY? Rat. LXC? Trying his patience sometimes, but good. He believes in the blade curse because that's what happened to all previous generations, so why would he doubt it? I would have loved to see him live if for no other reason that I think his relationship with NHS would have changed after that, and the 2 of them together would be the perfect team.

My issue is, NMJ didn't just randomly throw JGY out on his ass. In his eyes, he comitted treason: he killed one of his own men, and he clearly planned to blame it on someone else. This was premeditated, not a heat-of-the-battle kind of thing. The general guy was an asshole, I'm not debating that, but we do have precedent that NMJ does not tolerate bad-mouthing other people in his sect, so why JGY didn't just go and tell him escapes me. The Nie might not have rules like the Lan, but that doesn't mean the Sect Leader is not gonna flatten you like a pancake if you're a bitch.

And also, are we forgetting that, when JGY gets caught, he tries to blame it on Xue Yang, because he already plotted with him??? Like, I'm pretty sure killing the guy was a personal bonus. He didn't need to do it, there was a battle outside, he could have simply said XY escaped during everything, or that the Wen managed to break him out. I'm curious if it's explained in the novel, because I don't remember from the show, if JGY was actively working with JGS at this point, and the whole thing was their plan? I don't really understand why he freed XY, and I assume the undercover plot was after he got kicked out by NMJ, cause what would have been the excuse otherwise? Was he going to pretend that the Wens took him captive? But no, because then he would have gone straight to Qishan, but in the timeline he went back to the brothel and then helped LXC. There are some characters whose timelines confuse me so much, XY especially, but that's a different post.

Tl;dr JGY was already plotting evily before NMJ threw him out after he killed one of his own men in front of him, he didn't just go ape-shit for no reason on poor JGY. Was he a dick to him afterwards? Yes, but he had reason to, and I stand by that. I firmly believe he only accepted the sworn brotherhood because he wanted to protect LXC. JGY had a very hard life, but like XY, his choices are his own.

I think one of the best thing about this show is that every character had a good and a bad side, depending who resonates with you more, you can find arguments for both sides of the coin for each of them, and they're all valid. But at the end of the day, in-universe, all of them made their own choices and have to live or die by them. (Except JGS, if I see someone stanning him you're blocked, wtf????)