#after years of being known as Barely Great Sect

[whumpbby]

You know, that bit about "If you offend someone, make sure it's not Yunmeng Jiang and not their Leader specifically!" is just so fascinating to me.

Because - what happened?

What the hell happened to solidify the Jiang as the "find out" of Jianghu??

Like, sure, Sandu Sengshou "killed Yiling Laozu" so you probably don't want to mess with the guy - but a whole sect?? "Don't mess with them or they'll clap back" is a bit of a different fame than "he's torturing demonic cultivators!" - that former is an experience-based life advice.

So, what happened? Did JC punch someone square in the face during a sect conference? Called Sect Leader Yao for a duel and kicked his ass? Fucked up a bunch of trade representatives when they tried to take advantage of the fledgeling Jiang sect??? Took Jin Guangyao's hat and held it out of his reach????

And exactly how trigger-happy are the Jiang disciples to be known as the people you don't fuck with???

I need to know what the hell happened!

[mxtxfanatic]

We know that when Wei Wuxian donated his golden core to Jiang Wanyin it was as powerful as Lan Wangji’s. We also know that Lan Wangji spent a long time recovering from his injuries but 13 years later he was stronger than Jiang Wanyin and that’s why Jiang Wanyin’s wussy ass always backs down when they meet.

Why do you think there’s a lot of difference of power? JC Stans would say ‘it’s because he manages a sect all by himself’🤪🤪🤪. But to me it sounds like he’s a coward that doesn’t challenge himself and that’s why he goes for nameless ‘demonic cultivators’ because he knows he’ll win and not someone like Xue Yang.

What do you think?

And he even got so dependent on his whip that he was useless against Jin Guangyao, just like his mother.

Technically we never see an actual fight between Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng, as the one confrontation they have, Lan Wangji is decidedly not fighting back. So there’s no real way to tell where their power levels compare, BUT Jiang Cheng is explicitly said to not take on challenges he is not guaranteed to win, which is not Lan Wangji’s philosophy. I believe, based on what the text shows us, that Jiang Cheng simply stopped challenging himself after Wei Wuxian’s death, because 1) Wei Wuxian was the only one to challenge Jiang Cheng due to Madam Yu pushing her feelings of inferiority about Cangse Sanren onto her son, whereby Wei Wuxian’s death removed Jiang Cheng’s one “obstacle” and 2) his ego would not have been able to handle his one “win” in life against the man he could never beat being followed up by a loss to anyone else, not someone above him in status and definitely not anyone beneath him. And even that “win” was false, hence him continuing to hunt down weaker people who simply reminded him of Wei Wuxian in order to live out his fantasies of beating the latter “in honesty.”

Now with all that said, because Jiang Cheng is so egotistical and concerned with his reputation, he doesn’t make a good fighter regardless of his strength. His quick temper and impulsive actions are a detriment in any serious battle against an opponent who knows even the bare minimum of his insecurities, which he himself makes known throughout the entire cultivation world (as we see in Guanyin Temple). So I think Jiang Cheng’s battle prowess has way less to do with how powerful “his” golden core is or what weapon he favors but the fact that he can have all the power and cheats and privileges in the world and still be the great clans’ shittiest fighter based purely on how easy it is to weaponize his insecurities to his own detriment.

[firstjadeoflan]

Xichen don't look you'll be bored by the history of chicken nuggies, this is entirely an ask for Jingyi.

So. Chicken nuggies were first created by a guy named Colonel Sanders like a billion years ago, when this guy went "hm. y'know what could make chicken even better? NUGGET FORM." and because he was entirely right everyone agreed and that's how Kentucky Fried Chicken got founded. Where's Kentucky? Why did they serve chicken nuggies at a fried chicken place? Don't worry about it. OR do, I can't stop you... okay, good, other guy's probably gone now. That is not actually an accurate history of chicken nuggies I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't reading this. I don't know the details but he's blaming himself for the actions of someone he referred to as his best friend, actions that got people killed apparently, and he's convinced that everything he's ever done just hurts people. Which I assume is not the case, but you'd know him better than all of us. Got any examples of things he's done that didn't hurt people?

well. i don't honestly know exactly what happened between him and his friend, although they were sort of more than that? they were sworn brothers, and there was also another one of them. they were known as the Venerated Triad.

anyways, i do know he's done lots of good things! when the Wen forced us to burn the cloud recesses, he managed to save a lot of our scrolls and books, and he also convinced a lot of minor clans to help us with the sunshot campaign. during the campaign, he was either on the front lines, or rescuing people who'd gotten caught in the crossfire, apparently his name was like a ray of hope for most people (the exceptions being the Wen, they were pretty terrified when they heard he'd be there)

i wasn't alive at the time though, so i can't say from personal experience. i also realize that a lot of this won't make sense to most of you, sorry. i'm just really used to people knowing all this, although i guess i wouldn't know the history of this world

after the war, he was officially declared Sect Leader, and he's been pretty great, generally makes good decisions and keeps us out of conflicts. he was generally known for being kind and gentle, but after whatever happened at guanyin temple he's just been in seclusion, and barely ever leaves his room.

oh also he just got me sparky :D

[robininthelabyrinth]

for the prompts: NMJ/JC - Everyone with a functioning brain cell can see that JC just needs someone to tell him he’s doing a good job. And if WWX isn’t stepping up? Well, NMJ definitely will. (Preferably smut and/or fluff) Thank you! ❤️

Compliments - ao3

It started in anger, out of spite.

Traditionally, the world took this to be a bad thing, but in all honesty the vast majority of projects in the Nie sect were started that way �� they inherited fiery tempers and spiteful personalities from their ancestors along with their saber cultivation traditions – and it didn’t always turn out badly. There were any number of buildings, techniques, or technological innovations in the Unclean Realm that had started life as a furious fuck you to someone and only turned into something worthwhile about halfway through, once the person involved had calmed down enough to think about what they were doing, realize they were already committed, and then shrug and carry on forward because there was no point in stopping a charge midway.

What Nie Mingjue meant was: there was precedent.

He liked to think it started with Jiang Fengmian, but if Nie Mingjue was being honest with himself, it started back in the Unclean Realm when Nie Huaisang had told him, quite casually over dinner, that he thought that the female cultivator in his class was very pretty and that he’d be happy to marry her.

“Uh,” Nie Mingjue had said, very intelligently. “Huaisang, you’re seven.”

Nie Huaisang had not seen the problem. Instead, he explained very forthrightly that it was only right that he start thinking early on about his marriage, as getting married and having children would be his great contribution to the sect on account of being useless good-for-nothing unfit for anything else –

“Wait,” Nie Mingjue said. “Who told you that?!”

Nie Huaisang claimed he had deduced it.

Nie Mingjue claimed that Nie Huaisang was full of bullshit, and also that he wasn’t good-for-nothing even if he wasn’t good at saber, and anyway even if he was a total good-for-nothing he was still Nie Mingjue’s good-for-nothing and no one had better say a single damn word against him or Nie Mingjue would bite them.

“I meant stab them!” he explained, far too late; Nie Huaisang was already rolling around laughing to the point of tears. “I have a saber. I can stab people! I’m actually very scary, you know!”

Nie Huaisang hadn’t believed him one bit and had carried on, seemingly at peace and forgetting everything, but Nie Mingjue had gone seeking advice from all of his elders and counselors and the more dependable senior disciples of his sect, abruptly terrified that he was permanently damaging Nie Huaisang by raising him the wrong way or something. Didn’t children need encouragement at that age? Weren’t they all young and tender peaches liable to be bruised at the slightest glance or young sprouts that needed to be sheltered from the harsh wind lest they grow up crooked?

Everyone assured him that children were hardier than they appeared, flexible and capable of bouncing back from just about anything. He'd pressed, though, pointing out that even the most flexible wood would eventually form a crack in the face of a vicious hurricane, and in the end they'd admitted that it was better to avoid applying too much pressure at too young an age, that a child squeezed too hard or not hard enough might develop neuroses that would hinder them in the future.

They mostly tried not to look at him when they said that, presumably thinking to themselves that Nie Mingjue was little more than a child himself and had already been subject to the worst pressures possible, which would undoubtedly result in who knows what future issues, but he hadn’t paid that part any mind. As far as he was concerned, his life was already a loss – he had sworn to take revenge for his father, to make that ancient monster Wen Ruohan pay with his life for what he had done and furthermore he'd sworn to pay back the blood debt in full before any of that burden passed to Nie Huaisang.

Letting Nie Huaisang grow up happy – that was what mattered.

Letting him be insulted when Nie Mingjue wasn’t looking played no part in that plan. If Nie Huaisang were going to be insulted, let it be by outsiders who he wouldn’t need to care about! Within their Nie sect, at minimum, he should be doted upon and honored, or else those responsible would have to explain themselves to Nie Mingjue.

Those dark thoughts still lingering in his mind, he had gone to the Lotus Pier for a discussion conference, and that, perhaps, was where it really started.

Rumor had already made the entire cultivation world aware that Jiang Fengmian had found the orphaned son of Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze, and that he had taken him into his home as his ward, allowing him to become a Jiang sect disciple – treating him almost as one of the family, even. That much was known, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise when Jiang Fengmian proudly introduced him or even more proudly showed him off, praising him to the high heavens.

What did come as a surprise was how little he praised his own son standing beside him, despite them being only a few days apart in age. It was as if Jiang Fengmian had simply forgotten that such a creature existed, much less that he had himself contributed to its spawning, and the constant looks of hope – invariably crushed – the child sent him made it clear that the present situation had been going on for some time.

Fuck you, Nie Mingjue thought, seeing red, seeing instead Nie Huaisang in his failed saber classes, struggling so desperately to keep up with the rest even though his body wouldn’t allow for it, being told he was useless and a good-for-nothing and fit for nothing but marriage. Fuck you, Jiang Fengmian.

He couldn’t say that, of course.

So instead he said, “Excellent stance,” to the child, who'd received the courtesy name Wanyin but seemed to be universally called Jiang Cheng. “Do you know the others in the set?”

Jiang Cheng, staring at him, very slowly nodded, and demonstrated them.

“Absolutely perfect,” Nie Mingjue said loudly, drawing attention to himself with his over-loud voice that everyone would automatically forgive on account on him being both a Nie and a young man. “You can see how hard you’ve worked at it, and it has paid off handsomely. You are very lucky in your son, Sect Leader Jiang.”

“…thank you,” Jiang Fengmian said, a little bemused at being interrupted. He’d been talking yet again about Wei Wuxian’s brilliance at picking up the sword again after years of living on the streets without practice, even though at the moment the smiling boy's admittedly impressive skills were still largely wild and undisciplined.

Nie Mingjue nodded, and said: “When exactly did you say the opening festivities would be starting?”

Jiang Fengmian had clearly forgotten about that in his enthusiasm, so he quickly hurried back to the actual subject at hand and the discussion conference was started in earnest.

It was almost enough to allow Nie Mingjue to forget the matter and put it behind him.

Or, it would have been, if only Jiang Fengmian hadn’t continued to insert praise for Wei Wuxian at every possible instance – it was as if he were the man’s first-born son, rather than another person’s child.

Irritated beyond belief, Nie Mingjue started complimenting Jiang Cheng every time Jiang Fengmian said something nice about Wei Wuxian, and he made sure to keep his compliments accurate: he was a hard worker, dedicated and sincere, thoughtful, clever, not overly arrogant…

“Wei Wuxian came up with his own ideas for a sword style already,” Jiang Fengmian claimed at one point. “You can see him on the training ground now, practicing it – take a look!”

Nie Mingjue picked up a stone and flicked it over with his fingers, making Wei Wuxian jump half a chi into the air and nearly fall on his ass.

“Weak foundation, and he over-commits,” he analyzed dryly, because it was true, and because no one else was saying it. He didn't make it any harsher than it had to be: he had nothing against the boy himself, of course; it was only that he knew from experience that it was much easier to be the one being complimented than the one not. “He’s got his head so high in the clouds that his feet are barely touching the ground – the weakest fierce corpse would knock him flat as a pancake with a childish style like that. He’d be better off sticking with orthodox or he’ll end up in real trouble one day.”

“Sect Leader Nie, really,” Jiang Fengmian said disapprovingly. “He’s only nine.”

“Old enough to pick up bad habits,” Nie Mingjue retorted. “Your son’s the same age and he’s as steady as a rock. If Jiang Cheng keeps going as he is, he’ll have a strong enough base to outlast the fiercest storm.”

“A rock has no imagination,” Jiang Fengmian said, and was he actually arguing that his son was inferior? Out loud, in front of outsiders? Did the man have no shame? “Mingjue, you’re young, but you must know that my Jiang sect prizes freedom and creativity as the highest virtue –”

“Would you rather build a house using a firework or a foundation stone?” Nie Mingjue asked, doing his best not to outwardly bristle at the condescendingly intimate use of his name by someone who might be technically his elder but legally his equal. “Tell me, Fengmian, does your Jiang sect’s acclaimed ‘freedom’ only allow for people to be as fluid as the river and not as steady as the earth?”

Jiang Fengmian faltered, clearly not knowing how to answer that.

Nie Mingjue raised his hands in a sarcastic salute: “As the leader of a sect whose style is based on a grounded foundation, I would be very happy if you would educate me in your wisdom. No doubt my peers would benefit as well.”

Perhaps it was at that point that Jiang Fengmian realized that his words could be misinterpreted as an insult to all the sects whose styles were less free-flowing than the Jiang – just about all of them except for maybe the Lan and their subsidiary sects, given their preference for techniques modeled on the wind over the water – and moreover that this was a discussion conference, where every word was political, and that a great deal of people were glaring balefully at him. He hastily moved the conversation onwards, and left the subject of his sons for another day.

Later that evening, Madame Yu came over to where Nie Mingjue was nursing a bowl of very fine wine that he didn’t especially feel like consuming. Before he could start worrying about the Purple Spider’s intentions, she said, voice stiff, “Your words regarding my son are too kind. His skills are still inferior; he has a great deal of progress yet to be made.”

“He’s only nine,” Nie Mingjue said, feeling mortified that she’d noticed his little temper tantrum, which he had belatedly realized was probably extremely obvious. “Anyway, I wasn't lying. He has a good foundation; he’ll be a fearsome cultivator one day, there’s no doubt. I only said what I saw.”

“You didn’t comment about Wei Wuxian,” she said. “You must have noticed his genius.”

“Geniuses don’t need to be praised overmuch,” Nie Mingjue said. He himself had been termed a genius by his teachers, and he’d hated every single moment of it – couldn’t he just be good at things without having people fall all over themselves to compliment him? He’d enjoyed it at the start, but after a while it had started to wear on him; he was expected to be a genius in all things, and being simply ordinary was suddenly seen as failing. “It’s the ones that have to work hard that do, or else they’ll be discouraged…comparing someone to another person’s child works as a spur to a certain extent, but after a while it loses its potency as a tool.”

Your husband is a fucking idiot, he didn’t say. It’s his own son! How could he speak like that about him? Shouldn’t he be holding him in his palms like a gentle flame, protecting him from the wind and rain? How can he bear to scold his son when he hasn't shown that the scolding is meant for his benefit?

“Perhaps,” Madame Yu said, but it was clear on her face that she wasn’t about to start taking parenting advice from a half-grown sprout like Nie Mingjue. “Nevertheless, your words were kind.”

She swept away after that, much to his relief. He shook his head and daydreamed about a magic tool that would make this whole nightmarish experience go by that much quicker.

In the end, it went by at the same speed it always did. It could have ended there, but Nie Mingjue kept up the habit of blatantly complimenting Jiang Cheng in future sect conferences as well, if only because it clearly irritated Jiang Fengmian – less because Nie Mingjue was praising his son and more because it was so obviously meant as an indirect critique of Jiang Fengmian’s skills as a parent or sect leader, and moreover it reminded all the other sects of that unfortunate interchange and made them less inclined to listen to him – and of course, because, well, once you’ve started a charge, you had to finish it even if you came to your senses about halfway through.

He made sure to keep it proportionate, of course, since there was nothing worse than false praise. He didn’t really mean anything by it, other than the half-formed thought that someone ought to be doing it – that the boy should know that someone looked at him and Wei Wuxian and remembered to praise him first. Nie Mingjue praised Wei Wuxian too, of course, since the boy often deserved it; it was only that he made a particular point not to forget about Jiang Cheng, either.

(He also made sure the other sect leaders saw how well the technique could be used to fluster Jiang Fengmian, an intrusion into his personal life that could be masked in perfect politeness, and several of them picked up the same tact, though less consistently than Nie Mingjue – Sect Leaders Jin and Wen, naturally, always looking for a weakness, but interestingly enough also Lan Qiren, who was normally above such petty maneuvers. Possibly he was actually just complimenting Jiang Cheng because he sincerely approved of him.)

He didn’t think much of it.

Nie Mingjue didn’t think much of it during the other discussion conferences, or when he came to the Cloud Recesses to pick up Nie Huaisang, who had – amazingly – actually managed to pass this time, although the expression on Lan Qiren’s face suggested the pass might have more to do with the other sect leader’s desire to never see Nie Huaisang haunt his classroom ever again.

“You know what, don’t tell me. Tell me….hm…how did Jiang Wanyin do?” Nie Mingjue asked, hand over his eyes as if it could forestall the headache. “He’s a bright boy, and knows how to put his mind to something when he wants. Tell me about him instead, it’ll be less depressing.”

“He’s very bright,” Lan Qiren agreed. “Very thoughtful, and very thorough. He sometimes errs towards conservatism out of fear of giving the wrong answer, but that’s just a matter of confidence; his thinking is very good. He’s very clear-sighted as long as the matter is logical, rather than emotional.”

“No surprise,” Nie Mingjue grunted. “He’ll be a sect leader worthy of respect, in his time.”

When he’s rid of that father of his dragging him down, he thought ungraciously, and he saw Lan Qiren bob his head in a sharp nod of unspoken agreement.

“All right,” he said. “I’m adequately fortified now. Tell me about Huaisang.”

Lan Qiren gave him a look of profound sympathy.

It wasn’t until much later, during the Sunshot Campaign, that it was first called to his attention – by Jiang Cheng himself, oddly enough.

“Why do you keep doing that?” he hissed, having stayed behind after one of their meetings.

Nie Mingjue blinked at him. “Doing – what?”

“You – you said – about me…!”

Nie Mingjue tried to recall what he’d said during the meeting just now. “That you – were doing an excellent job while facing much higher level of obstacles than everyone else?” he hazarded, because he had said something like that. “Or was it the bit about how if any of them had needed to rebuild their sect and fight at the same time, we’d all be doomed because they couldn’t multitask for shit?”

Yeah, it was probably that one.

“I didn’t mean any offense by referencing what happened to your sect,” he said, hoping to explain. “It was only –”

“I didn’t take offense,” Jiang Cheng mumbled. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, but – it happened, everyone knows that it happened, not talking about it isn’t going to make it not have happened. That’s not what I meant…why do you keep saying such nice things about me?”

Nie Mingjue blinked at him. “Because they’re true?”

Jiang Cheng’s cheeks flushed red. “You’ve always said nice things about me. Ever since I was a little kid – every time you saw me, at the discussion conferences, or the Cloud Recesses, or even in your letters to my father…”

He had in fact done that.

“I just want to know why. Is it – my father’s not around, you can’t be doing it just to piss him off, even though I know that was part of it. Why me?”

Nie Mingjue coughed a little, having not realized that Jiang Cheng had noticed. Or possibly even overheard, in regards to the Cloud Recesses. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of the other person’s child,” he said, and Jiang Cheng nodded his head sharply, clearly thinking of Wei Wuxian. “You’re Huaisang’s.”

“Me?” Jiang Cheng seemed unduly vulnerable when he asked. “You compare him – to me?”

“It’s amazing he tolerated you at the Cloud Recesses,” Nie Mingjue said with a sigh. In fact, his brother had all but declared war on Jiang Cheng in absentia on account of all Nie Mingjue’s comments, only for his first letter home from the Cloud Recesses that year to be I see why you like him! He’s cute! A perfect match for you! because he’d apparently decided that Nie Mingjue had a crush on the boy.

Which he certainly hadn’t – at least not when he’d been that age, anyway. Jiang Cheng had grown up to embody every single one of the compliments Nie Mingjue had paid him when he’d been younger, especially with the maturity and natural aura of command that came to him after his personal tragedy.

“But why…you knew Wei Wuxian about as well as you knew me.”

Nie Mingjue snorted. “And that would have helped Huaisang how, exactly? If I wanted to compare him with someone who picked things up the first time they saw it, I wouldn’t need to go outside the Nie sect for that – I was also considered a genius when I was young. It’s no failing to be born without a vast and unending natural talent; Huaisang’s issue has always been his unwillingness to put in the effort.”

Jiang Cheng stared at him.

“Anyway, your father was so blinded by his adoration for Wei Wuxian that he overlooked your merits, which are different but no less impressive,” Nie Mingjue added. “As someone who was trying to figure out how to raise a child, it irritated me; I thought someone ought to make it clear to you that you were seen.”

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said, his voice strangely hoarse. “Yes, you – you succeeded.”

He paused for a moment, meeting Nie Mingjue’s eyes intently, and then abruptly said, “I’ll be leaving,” and dashed out.

Nie Mingjue wasn’t entirely sure if that meant he should stop or not. Jiang Cheng had said he wasn’t offended…anyway, it was a fixed habit by now. He’d been doing it for over half his life! He couldn’t stop that easily! It would be like trying to stop his temper, or a charge – there was nothing for it.

Jiang Cheng would just have to live with a few compliments.

“Wow, you’re an idiot,” Nie Huaisang said when he told him about the incident, months later while he was lying in bed, recovering from the disaster that had been the end of the war. “I’ll fix this.”

“Fix what?”

“I’m going to tell him you’re dying,” Nie Huaisang decided.

“You’re going to do what?!”

“Stay in bed, da-ge! Doctor’s orders!”

The Nie sect chief doctor was an extremely terrifying person. Nie Mingjue stayed in bed.

Some time later, Jiang Cheng stormed in, face pale.

“Huaisang’s a rotten liar and I’m going to be fine,” Nie Mingjue said at once.

Jiang Cheng stopped mid-storm, and abruptly deflated. “Really?”

“Really. I would’ve stopped him, but I’m stuck in bed for the moment.”

Jiang Cheng took a seat next to him. “That sounds serious. You shouldn’t underestimate war wounds, especially given your sect’s tendency towards qi deviations...”

“Compassionate as well,” Nie Mingjue teased. “I’ll have to add that to the rotation of compliments.”

Jiang Cheng flushed red. “You’re…planning on continuing?”

“For the rest of my life, however short it might be,” Nie Mingjue said, because he was an honest person, even when it was inconvenient. He was going to explain about the habit, and the concept of stopping mid-charge, but he didn’t manage to start before Jiang Cheng grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up into a kiss.

After that, he figured that maybe explaining that part of it wasn’t necessary. He might be slow on the uptake, but he wasn’t actually stupid.

[vrishchikawrites]

Hey, It's hundreds of years later, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are immortals. Immortals are known but they dont photograph well and aren't really in the media's eye. In 2010s some one discovers the documents detailing the shamelessness of the ancient Wangxian and Lan Yuan tells his parents what the mordern world has discovered.

This is the first time I'm ever giving a prompt. Sorry if I did it wrong. Let me know if I did it wrong and I'll try again.

'A recent archeological discovery declared a win for gays everywhere.'

Sizhui chuckles and clicks on the link, curious. It is always amusing to see modern people become so excited about such things. 'Gays' have existed for as long as 'hets' have existed, after all.

'As we have reported before, archeologists working at the Gusu Library site recently discovered a hidden chamber full of sacred, forbidden texts. Among these texts was the infamous Collection of Turmoil, which may have been used to kill Nie Mingjue, a Sect Leader from the Five Great Sects era.'

Sizhui frowns, wondering why his A'die let that happen. Hadn't they removed all harmful books from the library centuries ago?

'But archeologists also discovered something that probably didn't belong in the forbidden section, a record of correspondence between sects, all meticulously archived.

"We have letters with precise dates and summaries." Wang Chuhua, the leader of the GusuLan archeological team and a Cultivation History professor at Gusu University explains to us, "They give us fascinating insight into the period just after the Five Great Sects era. We tend to gloss over this time because nothing eventful happens. It is a period of gradual decline of bloodline-based Sects and the rise of Culvation Schools. But day-to-day events are interesting in their own way."

They're indeed interesting, as the team discovered very quickly.

"Our first reaction to those letters was shock. You see, people don't really understand the historical significance of the two people mentioned here. Hanguang-jun-"

Sizhui pauses, his eyes wide. He stares at the words for a moment before shaking his head sharply.

"Hanguang-jun and the Yiling Patriarch were both great Cultivators. They were admired and studied by the first Independent Cultivators. In fact, many used the fall of Yiling Patriarch as an example of why being independent from the Sects was a good idea."

For those who don't know, the Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian defected from his Sect to protect a small group of war prisoners. He was betrayed by his martial brother and thought to be killed. It is likely that he was forced to flee for his life and hid for thirteen years before being discovered again.

"It was common knowledge, even two hundred years later, that Hanguang-jun and the Yiling Patriarch were unfailingly loyal to each other. There are some romanticized tales of Lan Wangji being punished so severely for helping Wei Wuxian that he needed years to recover." Wang Chuhua elaborates, "But while we could speculate on the nature of their relationship, we didn't have any proof until we found the letters."

These letters are complaints from various Sect leaders and cultivators. Apparently, the two great cultivators weren't just friends, they were married. And by all accounts, they enjoyed their marriage very much.

"Oh yes, they were quite... shameless in their displays of affection." Wang Chuhua adds with a chuckle, "People often stumbled across them 'embracing' on open fields or in woodlands. There's one particularly interesting letter from an inn owner requesting compensation for loss of business. Apparently, the couple were so loud in during their lovemaking, they chased all other guests away."

Sizhui chokes and feels his face burn in embarrassment.

'These letters cover over sixty years, which means Hanguang-jun and the Yiling Patriarch continued to scandalize the Cultivation World for six decades. "They were scandalous but also highly respected. Lan Wangji, in particular, was well-known for his honesty and forthrightness. Wei Wuxian is still considered one of the most brilliant cultivators of all time. We still study some of his theories today, particularly pertaining to Ying Energy Cultivation. Back then, this branch of cultivation was considered unorthodox and highly controversial."

So, it is indeed a win for the gays everywhere. Two well-known, historically significant cultivators were clearly in a loving, passionate gay relationship. And their society accepted it wholeheartedly, even if there were a few complaints about their scandalous behavior.'

"Wholeheartedly is a strong word," Sizhui mutters faintly but he can feel a rush of amusement as his embarrassment fades away.

He quickly forwards the article to his Baba and Jingyi, knowing both of them would die laughing while reading it.

It takes Baba barely five minutes to respond. The text has about a million cry laughing emojis, his Baba's favorite. Needless to say, he is amused.

"thanks for the laugh, Sizhui!" His Baba replies, "Even Lan Zhan is laughing and you know how rare it is!"

'Not rare at all,' He thinks fondly, shaking his head in amusement. He can barely remember that time before Baba's resurrection, when A'die wore a bitter, brittle expression of grief even as he lived his life fully.

That expression is a distant memory. There's always a laugh or smile in his A'die's eyes these days.

Baba won't have it any other way.

[shanastoryteller]

Wen Qing says yes because all she can think of is the consequences if she doesn’t.

She probably should have spent some time considering what, exactly, the consequences of saying yes would be.

~

Wei Wuxian wants to go back to the banquet and shake Jin Zixun until the information they need falls out, but Wen Qing knows that’s a terrible idea, knows that he shouldn’t be helping her at all but he definitely shouldn’t stand in front of the whole cultivation world and threaten the Jin family for her. He asks one of the servants instead, something she wouldn’t have thought to do, but he insists that servants know everything and after a hefty bribe he’s telling them what they need to know and even turns a blind eye when they take a horse that’s been left unattended.

She’s skinny on a good day and she hasn’t seen a good day in a long time. Wei Wuxian didn’t used to be this thin, this breakable, but he is now, and she tells herself it’s a good thing because the one horse is easily able to carry both of them. He sits behind her even though he takes the reigns and she leans back into him because she’s been holding herself up for so long and she’s tired and he’s helping her, something no one has been willing to in – ever, really. She thinks she could almost count his ribs against her back and thinks if she’s alive tomorrow she’ll give him a lecture about eating properly without a golden core to nourish him.

They arrive just as a guard is raising a broken flag pole above his head to skewer A-Ning.

Wei Wuxian stops him, using a talisman to bind the man’s wrist to his own and jerking him away from her brother. Who is alive, and whole, and does not have a pole through his stomach. She’s crying when she holds him and Wei Wuxian stands between them and everyone else and looks at the guards and her people and says, “I have an idea. It’s a bad idea.”

“Your ideas usually are,” she says, but she’s still shaking at having her little brother back in her arms so it doesn’t come out as acerbic as she intended.

~

It is a terrible idea. She doesn’t have to agree to it.

She does.

They go to the nearest temple in Lanling because they need witnesses for this. The monks are confused and frightened but bear witness as she bows three times to Wei Wuxian and is bowed to three times in return.

She is exhausted and scared and is still unconvinced that she’ll live to see the sunrise, but Wei Wuxian had helped her when she hadn’t asked and saved her brother and wouldn’t let the guards stop them from leading her family from the work camp, so she marries him.

~

They go back to Koi Tower. It’s terrifying but Jiang disciples meet them and look askance at all the rest of them but don’t hesitate to obey Wei Wuxian. They surround them as they walk and if they have opinions about being told to guard traitorous Wen, they don’t voice them. Maybe the fact that they’re guarding Wei Wuxian too is enough.

They enter the banquet hall and everything is silent. She doesn’t know how to read the look on everyone’s faces and she doesn’t try. Instead she stands by Wei Wuxian’s side and does what she does best – she doesn’t flinch.

“Wei Wuxian!” Jin Guangshan shouts, appalled. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Sect Leader Jin,” he says, offhand, casual, as if having his hall filled with Wen is a perfectly ordinary occurrence. “You’re so good at throwing parties. I was hoping you would throw one for me.”

Jin Guangshan’s eyes narrow. “Why would we throw a party?”

“Well, it is my wedding day,” he says, and holds out his hand. Wen Qing places her hand in his, lets his other hand settle warm and proprietary at the small of her back. “My wife, Wen Qing. We were just married at the temple in Lanling. Feel free to question the monks if you don’t believe me.”

The silence breaks, everyone shouting now, and A-Yuan’s cry cuts through all of them.

She hadn’t known that Wei Wuxian had any experience with children, but he turns automatically, opening his arms, and Granny barely hesitates before placing A-Yuan into them. After all, if they can’t trust Wei Wuxian, they’re all dead anyway.

A-Yuan, astonishingly, quiets instantly as Wei Wuxian bounces him in his arms, settling his head on his shoulder and sticking his thumb in his mouth.

“You,” Wen Qing turns, sees Jiang Cheng looking between them, and she could probably read the look on his face but she doesn’t want to. “He’s your – you have a – was it when we, after Lotus Pier?”

She and Wei Wuxian glance at each other, and maybe this marriage will work out, because that one glance contains a whole conversation of things they can’t say. The timeline almost works. A-Yuan likely was conceived sometime around the fall of Lotus Pier. If there is a child, Wei Wuxian’s actions become more understandable, seem less like an act of war and something closer to what they really are, an act of love.

She could have, she supposes, laid with Wei Wuxian and gotten pregnant and bore a child in the years since they’ve seen each other. She didn’t, but the only ones who know that are either dead or just as desperate as she is for this to work.

Or. Well.

Jiang Yanli’s face is easier to look at, even as it does something complicated then smooths. She was there and awake while they all recovered with her and Wen Ning. She knows that she and Wei Wuxian didn’t have any sort of epic romance, or even a quick tryst, during that time. Wei Wuxian was so obsessively focused on helping his brother that the idea he’d have paused long enough for sex when he hadn’t for sleep or food is ridiculous. But Jiang Yanli meets her gaze then pointedly lowers her eyes and something like relief trickles down Wen Qing’s spine.

Wei Wuxian looks around the hall and if he hesitates over Lan Wangji, that’s a conversation for them to have later, if there is a later.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” Wei Wuxian says quietly, formally, and Jiang Cheng nearly flinches before catching himself. “Meet my son. Wei Yuan.” He lets that echo through the hall and then says, “I could not leave him, nor the woman who bore him, nor the family that raised him when I remained in ignorance.”

She lowers his gaze as if in shame, for having a child out of marriage, for keeping that child from his father, but mostly she can’t stand to see the look at Jiang Cheng’s face any longer.

~

There is intense debate among the clans. The Lan and surprisingly even the Nie vote against the Jin and agree for the Wen to be released to the custody of the Jiang rather than the Jin. What’s the difference between one great clan and the other, after all, and Jiang Cheng fights for this, fights for them, and Wen Qing knows he’s really fighting for Wei Wuxian. Their marriage makes things too complicated, like they’d hoped. A-Yuan makes things too complicated, and everyone in the hall mostly seems to want to go back to drinking. There is some poorly hidden sentiment that if Wei Wuxian wants a war bride he should be entitled to her, for his contribution to the war, perhaps, and Wen Qing hates these people. They do not call her and her family tribute but they imply it easily enough.

If the price of the lives of her family is her pride, that’s fine. She abandoned that a long time ago.

~

“You have been good for him,” Jiang Yanli tells her a month after they’ve moved into Lotus Pier, a month of being the wife to Wei Wuxian and the mother to the now Wei Yuan. She doesn’t do a particularly good job at either of these roles, she thinks, but Wei Wuxian makes a good husband and a good father and it was his idea but she can’t help but feel guilty, can’t help but think she stole for herself and her family what was meant for someone else.

Her sister in law’s words aren’t wrong, however. She doesn’t let Wei Wuxian drink so much anymore and forces him to eat. She’s there in his bed when he gasps awke from nightmares and when he can do nothing more but clutch his chest and weep. She gets the story of the Burial Mounds from him, eventually, and she doesn’t know how to heal that kind of trauma, but she holds him when he cries and thinks even if she can’t be a proper wife, she can do this, and she heals the damage demonic cultivation does to his meridians, and it seems like such little things, comparatively, but it helps.

She’s offers up the excuse that demonic cultivation makes using his sword difficult and people stop asking him to carry it. A-Ning sticks to Wei Wuxian’s side when she can’t, looking faintly sad whenever Wei Wuxian makes an unhealthy choice, which is even more effective than her scolding, although not as effective as getting A-Yuan to place his chubby hand on Wei Wuxian’s cheek and go, “Baba no.”

Without so many nightmares, with having people around he can talk to freely, with no one pestering him about his sword, Wei Wuxian shoulders all the responsibilities of first disciple and brother of the clan leader, something he apparently hadn’t been able to do before.

She knows what the rumors say. Those that had been against her and her family being set free, relatively speaking, are now patting themselves on the back. Clearly the fearsome Yiling Patriarch has been cowed by marriage. His bastard son, who he loved enough at first sight to legitimize, has softened his sharp edges.

Wen Qing knows that’s all bullshit and Jiang Yanli does too, but.

He is better.

Jiang Cheng can’t seem to decide between being relieved and grateful at having his brother back and resentful that it took Wen Qing to bring it about and – whatever his feelings about her are, and her marriage to his brother are, which she doesn’t know because she refuses to acknowledge them.  

“I’m glad,” she says quietly.

Her sister in law squeezes her hand, and Wen Qing squeezes back, and if this isn’t exactly the life she wanted, well. It’s a life. That’s more than she thought she’d have.

She has a loving husband and an adorable son and living, healthy family. There is nothing for her to complain about.

Just because it all feels stolen, just because it all feels like something she never should have been given, doesn’t make it less good, doesn’t make it less hers.

~

Wen Qing knows that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are in love with each other because she has two functioning eyes. She’s known that since she was a teenager in Cloud Recesses.

She had not wanted to come between them. She hadn’t planned on it. This all hadn’t even been her idea.

She’s guilty enough about it that she ignores her own feelings.

At first, she doesn’t have any, not really. Then it hadn’t been right.

She’s never felt greedy before. She doesn’t like it but she doesn’t know how to stop it.

~

They’ve been married for over a year the first time Wei Wuxian kisses her.

They’ve been married nearly two years the first time Wei Wuxian kisses Lan Wangji.

Something settles in her then, relief burrowing into her bones. Lan Wangji comes to her after, a combination of desirously happy and mortified, and bows to her and looks her in the eye when he tells her that he’s in love with her husband.

“I know,” she says kindly, “he’s easy to love.” She pauses, then says, “I do not mind. If it’s you.”

His lips part, and she holds the place that should be his, married to Wei Wuxian, but.

She can share, if he can. Even if it can’t be official, on paper, she and Wen Ning can bear witness to him and Wei Wuxian bowing to each other and maybe she’ll finally be able to breath when she can give back some of what she stole.

~

There are rumors about the three of them.

They don’t listen to them.

A-Yuan calls Lan Wangji his father and no one corrects him and that’s good enough for her, really.

It’s a good life, and it’s hers, and she’s glad of it.  

[drwcn]

ok but for fem!wwx au does lan zhan believe the rumours? and if so what does that mean for the whole 'i birthed him with my own body!' cause lan zhan did the maths and was like 'no it was just the once and this child is too old' but if he thinks he was just one in a line does he go back to bm after nightless city to rescue a kid he thinks is wei ying's but with another man? does he spend the three years in seclusion cursing every jin whose name he remembers as cowards only to step out, take one look at sizhui, and have an 'oh. i know why wei ying was so determined to save wen qionglin' moment???

Answer:  Haha, nah, Lan Wangji was fairly sure Sizhui wasn’t Wei Ying’s, for several reasons. One, Wen Yuan was born before the wen remnants even went to the Burial Mount. Lan Wangji saw the small child amongst the escape party that rainy night at the  concentration camp. Also, Wen Ning was several years younger than them, which would make it kind of weird if he were the dad. Before Wen Ning became the Ghost General, everyone just knew him as Wen Qing’s kid brother.  Lan Wangji, however, absolutely believed Jiang Yan to be Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s child even before Wei Wuxian was resurrected... 

《the midnight sun》 — 

[original], snippets [x] [x] [x] [x], other posts found under #lanyan or #midnight sun

midnight sun [snippet 7]

When Yan’er turned ten, Jiang Cheng decided it was time for her to accompany him to Cultivation Conferences. Most sect heirs began their training this way; Jiang Cheng still remembered his first time, trailing nervously in Jiang Fengmian’s wake. 

Heiresses, in comparison, were few and far between. Even head disciples were rarely girls. Jiang Wanyin had no children. His head disciple was his heiress, and his heiress was Jiang Yueqian (江月千). 

长烟一空 - when the smoke clears; 皓月千里 - the moon casts a thousand miles of light 浮光跃金 - which dances upon the water, golden 静影沉壁 - the shadow of the moon itself like jade underwater*

A jade underwater indeed.

“Shifu.”

Speaking of the devil, here she comes, walking measuredly down the long stairs of Jinlintai towards Jiang Cheng, the epitome of an obedient, filial disciple. It had only been a day and Jiang Yan already had the world fooled. Only Jiang Cheng knew how impossibly obstinate and utterly uncontrollable she was when her mind was fixed.

"Ah, Jiang-zongzhu, this is..." Spotting her, Lan Xichen glanced beyond his shoulder, the question dangling in the sentence he did not deem necessary to finish.

Unbeknownst to Lan Xichen, the child that made her way over was his niece by blood. Jiang Cheng was acutely aware that Yan'er actually resembled Lan Wangji a great deal, and despite having weighed the risks and gains against each other repeatedly before deciding to bring Jiang Yan along, now he was no longer so certain in his calculations. Lan Xichen was not a simple peasant; what if he detected a trace or a hint of her heritage between the furrow of her brows or the curve of her eyes? What if...

Jiang Cheng turned, raising an arm towards Jiang Yan, an introduction ready, but whatever words he had prepared in advance died on on his tongue when he laid eyes on the girl. Suddenly, he was no longer worried that others would suspect her to be Lan Wangji's child.

There was a red ribbon in her hair.

Yan'er stopped at a polite distance from the two older men and bowed in perfect form.

Jiang Cheng's heart stuttered violently in his chest at the sight of that red ribbon falling sideway over her small shoulder. If souls could travel, his would have left him in an instant. He stood in disincorporated panic, wrestling with the nauseating sensation of being ripped from his reality and tossed so far into the distant past that he felt whole again.

"Shifu, Lan-zongzhu." Yan'er greeted.

Shifu. Lan-zongzhu. In another world, another life, she would not need to be so formal. She could easily bound up to them, carefree, cooing jiujiu and bobo and ask to be bailed out from whatever trouble she caused.

Instead, he was only her shifu, and Lan Xichen, a stranger in her life. It would be laughable, if fate had not dealt them each such a wretched hand.

Jiang Cheng stepped towards her. “Where did you get this?” 

Jiang Yan looked up in surprise, her hand reaching up and making an aborted motion to touch the red ribbon in her hair.

“Qin-shenshen gave it to me. Is it not nice?” 

Qin Su. Jiang swallowed down a sigh of relief. Earlier, the Jin servants had sent word that Jin-fu'ren had baked treats for Jin Ling, and the boy had wasted no time dragging his favourite person - his Yan'er jiejie - to his aunt's place with him. Clearly, Qin Su had seized the opportunity to dote on the girl in place of the daughter she never had. Qin Su meant well. She couldn't have known. She's never even met Wei Wuxian.

In this state, Jiang Cheng could barely bring himself to look at his disciple, but he forced himself nonetheless to kneel and tuck an errant strand of baby hair behind her ear. “Very pretty.” 

Yan'er smiled.

Jiang Cheng could cry.

They'd been lucky thus far. Yunmeng's Jiang-xiao-guniang was born a taciturn girl who did not like to smile or laugh, not even when she was expected to for polite society. Whether she was happy or sad, one would be hard pressed to tell. Only in front of her master Jiang Cheng or her Jin Ling-didi did she elect to reveal the full expanse of her emotions. Yet, whenever Jiang Cheng bore witness to that smile as warm and incandescent as sunlight, he could not help but shudder somewhere deep. Recalling the radiant days of years gone by, he could still see - every time he closed his eyes - his er-shijie smiling at him in the very same fashion.

Aiyo, Jiang Cheng ~

So...they'd been very lucky thus far, that Yan'er was not so like her mother in that way, not so free and generous with her smiles. Or else this devastating secret —Wei Wuxian's only wish — would not be able to withstand the test of time.

"Very pretty, Yan'er." He reaffirmed. "Did you thank Jin-furen?"

"I did."

Jiang Cheng stood and turned back to face Lan Xichen, and realized they were being joined by two others: Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji. The latter of two stared directly down at Jiang Yan, visibly stricken and unblinking, as though he'd just seen a ghost. After all, he had often been on the receiving end of that signature smile once upon a time. It was probably not a smile he'd ever expected to see again in this life.

In hindsight, perhaps Jiang Cheng should have made Yan'er wear her uniform like all the other disciples instead of her favourite indigo robes.

“Ah, Wangji, shufu -” Lan Xichen was quick to react, sensing animosity brewing in the disquiet that stretched taut between his younger brother and his fellow sect master. "Jiang-zongzhu, perhaps you would introduce us?"

The First Jade smiled kindly down at Yan'er. She returned his kindness with a polite nod.

Lan Wangji finally dragged his gaze up to meet Jiang Cheng's, a rarity since their violent parting at Nevernight. The venerated Hanguang-jun had developed a habit of pretending that Jiang Wanyin of Lotus Pier did not exist at all. He probably preferred, dreamed of it even, if Jiang Cheng had been one to fall of the cliff that day. He probably hated himself for not shoving him into the molten abyss when he could to avenge the love of his life.

Love. What did Lan Wangji know of love? Jiang Cheng sneered inwardly. One did not compromise one's love and abandon her, ill and with child, to bleed out alone in a cave tainted by demonic spirits.

One did not watch idly as one's love and her people are reduced to ashes for the power and greed of men either....

Jiang Cheng buried the offending thought, too familiar with Wen Qing's ghost that still haunted him in his moments of weakness. Without breaking gaze, he laid a hand on the crown of Jiang Yan's head and said, "This is my first disciple, Jiang Yan, Jiang Yueqian."

"Yueqian greets Zewu-jun, Lan-lao-xiansheng, Hanguang-jun."

Jiang Cheng watched as the icy fire within Lan Wangji's eyes flicker, fizzle, and extinguish entirely. Jiang Cheng's vague silence had allowed him the space to make his assumptions, and he had assumed the most insane explanation.

Is it so difficult for you, wondered Jiang Cheng. To believe that she could be yours? So impossible, that you would choose to doubt Wei Wuxian instead?

Fine.

Hanguang-jun. The venerated Second Jade of Gusu. That's all you'll ever be. Yan'er will never call you Father.

Jiang Cheng decided he had spent enough time today making nice. "Zewu-jun, it's getting late. If nothing else, I will be taking my leave. The conference continues tomorrow. I will see you then. Yan'er, come."

Yan'er bowed again to the senior cultivators, perfectly well-mannered. A dash of surprise crossed those bright eyes, however, when Jiang Cheng took her hand to lead her away. She followed wordlessly, trusting him, and did not look back once at the Lans she left behind.

Now that Yan'er was out in society, there would surely be rumours. No matter. Rumours were nothing Jiang Wanyin could not withstand. How ironic, indeed, that this was to be his lot in life.

For the first time, Jiang Cheng felt he could understand his father.

Note:

The poem is from the Song dynasty, by poet 范仲淹 from his work 《岳阳楼记》

Jiang Cheng of course is also working off a lot of assumptions about Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's relationship. He has his reasons for hating and blaming Lan Wangji, but not all the blame is deserved.

[i-ship-therefore-i-am]

my kingdom come undone

I wrote a thing. Inspired by this post by @lanzhanshands about an AU where Lan Zhan is forced to kill Wei Wuxian. (Ugh, how DARE) 2500 words, wangxian

Warnings: self-harm, suicide, violence, death, blood

my kingdom come undone

if I am doomed to death, then at least I could be killed by you

Wei Ying has lost control.

The buildings themselves are starting to crumble, the very earth beneath their feet screaming with rage, as if to shake them all off, to free itself completely of the living. Cultivator or servant, old or young.

Even the Jiang clan is no longer being protected, just swarms and swarms of puppets lashing and tearing them all to pieces.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji barks, voice booming above the fray. There is no way he has not heard it, and yet there is no reaction, no pause in his playing, not the tiniest flicker.

There’s nothing in his eyes anymore, nothing left but the resentment, leaving them dull and flat and lifeless. His skin pale and deathly, the telltale black lines crawling up over his neck. It’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, that he’s not Wei Ying anymore. That his control is gone.

Lan Wangji’s greatest fear unfurling right in front of him.

Wei Ying is the eye of the storm, the relentless, rotting resentful energy is thicker and more violent the closer Lan Wangji comes, pressing through and grunting slightly at the impact against his chest, his thigh—the burning, mournful screech of it. He does not stop.

Does not dare stop.

Once close enough, he pulls Bichen free and attacks. “Wei Ying! Stop this now!”

They fight, Wei Ying with just his flute to counter and parry, slipping under and away from Lan Wangji’s strikes, and for a while it seems their same endless draw, but Lan Wangji knows himself to be the superior swordsman. Especially now.

He has been holding back.

“Wei Ying,” he tries one more time, ignoring the curl and burn of resentful energy whipping against his body. “Stop this.”

Please.

The spread of Wei Ying’s lips reveals blood-stained teeth, and when next his flute lifts to his lips, the shrill, shrieking note is for Lan Wangji.

Meant to kill.

He barely dodges and deflects the resentful energy made solid and lifts his sword with deadly intention. There is no more time to hold back.

Lan Wangji’s strike hits home, Bichen sliding relentlessly into Wei Ying’s chest, going all the way through, and Lan Wangji’s wrist is twisting on instinct, muscle memory of endless practice brutally finishing the move. Blood immediately gushes from Wei Ying’s mouth, his entire body jerking.

The dark energy pulses and screams with rage, the wind and dust picking up, stinging Lan Wangji’s eyes and cheeks.

They have seen Wei Ying pull an arrow straight from his chest and continue on as if nothing, but this time he will not. Wei Ying’s limbs are already twitching, muscles spasming erratically.

Yet his empty hand lifts, striking out, latching onto Lan Wangji’s wrist, the skin so cold and cracked against his own. It isn’t an attack though, but something much worse.

“Lan Zhan,” he breathes, soft and garbled, and for that tiny moment, his eyes are once again his own. So warm and full even as they are red-rimmed and pained.

Everything seems to freeze, everything else dropping away. For Lan Wangji there is nothing but Wei Ying.

He thinks there must be tears on his face, but he doesn’t care, hasn’t let it make him hesitate.

There is the slightest smile curving Wei Ying’s lips as he looks back at Lan Wangji, his face impossibly pale, blood gushing down to the ground. He nods once, as if to accept his fate, Lan Wangji’s judgment, and then his eyes drift shut, leaving him looking almost peaceful.

“Lan Zhan,” he mumbles one more time, a faint echo like a distant ghost.

He slumps, his fingers falling away from the back of Lan Wangji’s hand, but before Lan Wangji can even think to reach for him or pull back his sword, or save him, save him, save him—the world explodes, the Stygian Tiger Amulet shattering into countless pieces, a single name a piercing shriek in the wind.

Wei Wuxian! Wei WUXIAN!

Resentful energy bursts outwards, a solid, punishing wind, knocking people to the ground. Lan Wangji stumbles back, leaning hard into it, arm lifting.

Behind and around him, the puppets fall quickly, docile now without anyone to command them, cut down quickly by survivors or merely melting back into the ground with a mournful wail that shudders the earth.

Moorless. Uncontrolled. Their master dead.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

The blast knocked Lan Wangji back, far enough for Bichen to slide free of Wei Ying’s chest. When Lan Wangji recovers enough to look, Wei Ying is crumpled to the ground, boneless and ungainly.

His eyes are open again, now unfocused, inert.

Empty.

There is cheering, somewhere in the distance, which makes no sense, rattles irritatingly against Lan Wangji’s skin, but he can’t really focus on that, instead staring at the body at his feet, the slow drip of blood off the end of Bichen where he still holds it.

He’s waiting, maybe. To feel something?

Waiting for Wei Ying to rise and smile and do one more impossible thing?

But the stillness and the silence only grow and grow and grow and the waiting is now a writhing, furious thing, something cracking in half inside of him, withering and decaying.

No. No. No. No.

It slowly grows, the wail that wants to rip out of his throat. The furious rage at the world that led them to this. Every misstep, every wasted moment, every missed opportunity.

He wonders what his own eyes look like, if there is anything but emptiness to see. If he can possibly survive one more moment of the inescapable, sheering pain.

Lan Wangji does the only thing he can think to do to make it stop and lifts Bichen, the blood and metal catching the light.

“Wangji, no!”

But his brother’s voice is soft and distant where the blade is blessedly sharp and close to his neck. One quick motion is all it takes.

He falls to his knees, sword tumbling from numb fingers as he reaches for Wei Ying and death.  

Refusing to let Wei Ying again go where he cannot follow.

***

Xichen must flood his body with every fleck of spiritual power he has to keep his gaping neck together, to keep blood flowing in Lan Wangji’s body and not out. There are others too, maybe. Outnumbering him.

He does not want to be saved. Fights against it. Rages with what little strength he has.

“Wangji, stop it!”

He doesn’t want to.

But it is the one time Lan Wangji’s strength fails him. He has done, as always, what is necessary. Denying himself all else. He has always been strong. But not in this.

Even in this one final wish is he denied.

But there will be moments. Opportunities. No one can be watched at all times.

The first time he truly wakes, now in a bed in Cloud Recesses, there are small arms wrapped tight around his thigh, a child’s body curled trustingly against his.

A-Yuan.

Lan Wangji lifts his eyes to his brother, sitting calming nearby, but eyes sharp. He has played a dirty trick and knows it, watches to see what will come of it.

Lan Wangji squeezes his eyes shut, feeling tears streaming down his face, soaking into his hair and the bandage still wrapped around his neck.

He puts his hand down on the small child’s head and nods.

Perhaps living will be the true punishment deserved.

***

The scar is a rippled, monstrous thing. Bichen’s blade is sharp and efficient, but Lan Wangji’s fight against being saved has warped and stretched the wound, his refusal ripping it open time and again. It takes most of his voice with it.

He can speak, but his words are rough and incomplete, each syllable a painful struggle. He’s always had little use for words, now he will have even less. He saves whatever words he has all for A-Yuan, who never flinches at the bruising sound. Who never stares at the scar, who touches him freely without fear.

A constant reminder of the only other person ever to do so.

“Body?” is one of the first words Lan Wangji manages to force out to his brother.

He braces himself to hear of a callus punishment, Wei Ying’s body burned and cremains spread recklessly, giving his soul no place to find peace, no place to tether it.

“There was no body,” Xichen says.

Lan Wangji gives him a sharp look.

“The resentful energy…it seemed to rebound back. It devoured him.”

When he is able, Lan Wangji drags himself upright behind his guqin and sends his questions out into the ethos.

Are you there?

Are you at peace?

Do you hate me?

Inquiry has no answer for him, year after year, and he begins to understand that Wei Ying is not just gone from this world, but gone from existence.

Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.

***

Lan Wangji walks the world, first to share it with A-Yuan, to let him see things for himself and not as described in books and lectures through others’ agendas. To let him learn his own judgment and beliefs. And later to bring whatever justice and order he can to the forgotten, the people the sects either do not see or do not wish to see.

He wears the scar unflinchingly. Refusing to hide it from sight. Not proud, not embarrassed. Just another part of him.  

People learn not to call him a hero if they don’t wish a sword drawn against them.

They fear him now too.

As they should. He is a ghost. Just one more corpse at Wei Ying’s disposal. And perhaps this transformation is the Yiling Patriarch’s one last great feat.

***

When Wei Ying is born back into the world, Lan Wangji is there to stand by his side, to keep this world from destroying him yet again.

Lan Wangji had never known what to say to him before, how to speak to him, and now even less, so his silence seems right. Wei Ying never asks about the injury that took his voice, just gives him long looks, his eyes lingering on the scar. It is hard to know what he remembers and what he doesn’t.

Lan Wangji keeps him safe, helps him unravel the mystery of a sword ghost that becomes a blade that becomes a murder and spilled secrets of using the Yiling Patriarch as a scapegoat for power grabs and petty revenge. Of each manipulated step that dragged Lan Wangji’s blade into Wei Ying’s heart.

He stays by his side and keeps him safe, always knowing it is not his space to occupy. That he does not have the right to it. He is a shield and nothing more.

Meaning he does not deserve to feel anything like pain when Jin Guanyao holds Wei Ying by the throat, Bichen gleaming a mere inch from the throb of Wei Ying’s pulse in a failed attempt to free him. When Jin Guanyao laughs and strikes out mercilessly.

“I always knew it would end here again, Lan Wangji, with your sword buried deep in Master Wei’s chest. How I look forward to seeing that again.”

“Never,” Lan Wangji whispers and seals his spiritual power without daring to look at Wei Ying.

When it is done, each bitter truth dragged out and unfurled and Wei Ying finally free, Lan Wangji follows him out onto the road.

He stops at the first curve.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying asks, looking back to see why he hasn’t followed.

He unsheathes Bichen, closing the distance between them, watching for alarm in Wei Ying’s eyes, but there is only curiosity and trust.

It cuts worse than anything else.

Reaching out, Lan Zhan takes Wei Ying’s hands and carefully wraps them around Bichen’s hilt.

“Lan Zhan, what are you—”

Lifting the blade towards himself, Lan Wangji falls to his knees in front of him. Sizhui is grown and safe. Wei Ying is free. He has paid as much debt as he can without this.

Wei Ying looks between him and the blade, his face paling. “Lan Zhan, you can’t be serious.”

“Wei Ying,” he rasps, leaning towards the blade. Yearning for it. “Please.”

“No!” Wei Ying says, not dropping Bichen in the dirt, but swinging the blade away, tucked safely behind him. “Why would I—Do you really want to die this badly?”

He feels himself sway. “It is what I deserve.”

It’s what I did to you.

“No, it’s not,” he says hotly. “How could you ever deserve that!”

Lan Wangji lowers his face, staring down at the ground.  

“Lan Zhan. You think I—? I don’t blame you, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying drops to the dirt in front of him, his hands taking his. “Deep down, I always knew I could count on you to stop me if I went too far. I don’t remember much, I really don’t. But I don’t doubt that I needed to be stopped. That you did the right thing.”

Lan Wangji squeezes his eyes shut, throat burning from too many words, stretching him to his very limit. “I failed you.”

“No, Lan Zhan, no.”

There’s a long, protracted silence and Lan Wangji forces himself to just wait. He feels like he’s been waiting forever. Like this is all he has ever done.

Wei Ying’s fingers on his throat make him flinch, but if he wishes to strangle him instead, he will take that as well. But the fingers are gentle instead of rough. Far too gentle.

“Tell me how this happened, Lan Zhan,” he says, voice so soft.

Lan Wangji presses his lips together, shaking his head.

“If you will give me something, give me that.”

Everything inside him revolts against it. But what right does he have to deny Wei Ying anything? “I tried to follow you,” he says, each word a struggle, like he might soon feel blood on his tongue, his vocal chords screaming in agony. “But you are always going where I cannot follow.”

On his wrist, Wei Ying’s hand trembles. “Lan Zhan,” he says, voice nearly broken as his own. “Lan Zhan.”

He forces his eyes up, and Wei Ying is crying.

“It wasn’t fair to ask it of you. I see that now. I never thought…”

That killing him would be as good as killing himself?

“I didn’t know what I was asking of you.”

And then Wei Ying’s arms are wrapping around him, pulling him in close, relentlessly drawing him into the eye of his storm.

Lan Wangji grabs him back immediately, burying his face in his shoulder, so weak, so unable to resist. “Wei Ying,” he says in his garbled, bruised voice.

He is alive, he is alive, he is alive.

“I’m sorry,” Wei Ying says, over and over again. “I’m so sorry.”

Something inside Lan Wangji is cracking wide open, when he thought there was nothing solid left to begin with. Just ruins and shards.

Wei Ying does not stop, words endlessly tumbling. “You must know, you must know, that I cannot live in a world without you in it, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji’s body trembles, the soft roundness of longing he has denied himself for so long struggling to be free, to pour over the sharp edges.

“Stay. Stay. Stay,” he begs.

Slowly, Lan Wangji lifts his hand to the back of Wei Ying’s head, fingers burying in his hair.

He nods.

***

He dreams of it always. Waking sweating and crying, Wei Ying’s name ripping from his ruined throat. The phantom feel of dust in his eyes and blood slick on his hands.

Wei Ying is always there, gathering him close, lips pressing to his cheeks, his forehead, his throat. Arms and legs wrapped around him as he murmurs quietly to him in the dark, his bright heat burning everything else away.

“I love you, Lan Zhan. I love you. I’m here and I will never go where you cannot follow.”  

Each time Lan Zhan lets out a shuddering breath, and digs his fingers into Wei Ying’s back, pulling him impossibly close. Focuses on the steady thud of Wei Ying’s heart against his chest.

And chooses life all over again.

.fin.

[demonictales]

May I ask for headcanons with Wei ying, Jiang Cheng and Nie huiashang (if I spelled that right). Where reader was their one of their best friend and a Wen, but soon disappeared when the Wen clan started to take over the other sects. Boys then finding their friend, disabled from their golden core and imprisoned in a remote place where no one could have found them, because they rebelled against the clan leader. Could be more angsty if they lost their hearing or sight, because they were tortured.

oh, i’m excited how this one will turn out. here we go! my heart while writing this went →↑→↑←↑↓↑→↑←↓ also I know you said imprisioned but i got kinda carried away writing this. I'm so sorry okijd

TW: TORTURE, BLINDNESS

GUSU LAN CLAN LECTURES

First of all you were Wen Chao's cousin, unfortunately. However, you pretty much did as you wanted to because who could really control you, so of course you went along to the Lan Clan's lectures alongside Wen Qing and Wen Ning.

Of course you arrived in old fashioned Wen manner and interrupted the ceremony already breaking rules at the entrance. When no one else but Wei Wuxian spoke up. It did indeed amuse you the way he spoke up agains Wen Chao so you carefully watched him.

Excused for the day all three of you eventually went their own way. You had no idea what Wen Qing was up to or Wen Ning, so you eventually walked around the clan, exploring your new home for the few lectures to come. Eventually, in the back hill you bumped into Wei Wuxian who thought Wen Ning to use bow and arrow until that nearly backfired when Wen Qing's voice rang through the air.

"Let's say we are even now that you nearly killed Lady Wen. ---" You were joking obviously, but refering to the earlier incident.

He wasn't quite sure how to deal with you yet but it seemed you made quite the point. Eventually you walked along with him, leaving Wen Ning and Qing to their own.

Meeting Jiang Cheng once more you, indeed did apologize for interrupting his greetings earlier that day. You were quite different than most in the Wen Clan, you did apologize and show manners, though you weren't completely innocent.

As much as you did enjoy art and classics, you were also a little troublemaker, It was a healthy combination of mischief and manners that allowed you to walk the grey zone. So of course you soon bonded with Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huiasang.

You became great friends soon. You learned about Wei Wuxian's mischief, enjoyed his stories of bickering with Lan Zhan, came to know Nie Huiasang's grand taste and love for art and other not so lady like things, as well as his dislike for fighting and of course Jiang Cheng, he was rather complicated but you still enjoyed his presence. You could never quite tell what was on his mind but you knew for sure he deeply cared for his family. He was in fact, someone who seemed to long for his own little happy ending.

Meeting up in secret for a drinking which was strictly forbidden, you had lots of fun until the next morning when you were called for punishment. Even though you were a Wen, you could simply walk away but decided to stay and take the 50 hits. You had made friends for a lifetime during the lectures.

WEN CLAN LECTURES

You'd lie if you say you weren't excited to see your friends again, however, it weren't the best circumstances. You greatly disliked the way it had processed to far yet there they stood, all clans: Nie Clan, Jin Clan, Jiang Clang and eventually Hanguang Jun.

This wasn't much of a lecture, more of Wen Chao showing of his power due to the enormous power the Quishan Wen Clan had gathered. You weren't sure if you were embarrassed or disgusted by your cousin but either way, knowing Wei Wuxian's character you soon had something to laugh. And you were right.

Wen Chao made him recite the Wen Clan rules which ironicially, he didn't even know himself so you nearly busted a lung and earned an angry side eye from your cousin when Wei Wuxian recited the Lan Clan rules.

Of course this would not go without punishment, not for you not for Wei Wuxian and co.

Eventually you helped with the dung being spread, being trapped between Jin Zixuan, Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan. Fun times. Once more, you apologizes for his behaviour knowing your words could do nothing. The only thing this gave you was the title of Gentle Wen. An embarrassment to your family but in the cultivation world between your friends quite the praise.

You tried getting their swords back but with no luck. You only ended up being grounded in your own room with guards outside.

You weren't able to help your friends out and it did annoy you. It seemed as if you tried harder the more complicated it would get for you to get out of here. It did drive you insane.

When every visitor was suppossed to hunt the monster that roamed through the mountain you once again were by their side, refusing to speak nor act according to your cousin's order.

Which led to quite the argument between you, who stood on your friends side, and Wen Chao and his woman, who for the love of cultivation, wondered where she came from

Either way, you stood between him and Wang Lingjiao when she had ordered to use Mianmian as a sacrifice. You at this point who would believe you, matter of fact, you knew that he was just being abusive. Safe to say it did piss your cousin off and ended up in a fight, eventually were Wei Wuxian would get hurt.

Just like the rest, you got stuck in the cave alongside the rest of the cultivators. Proofing your loyalty to your friends once more. Not so much to the other clans.

This time you helped out Huaisang the most. The poor guy was frightened to death. He was such a soft boy. You felt bad about it and apologzied multiple times while staying by his side, doing your best to help him through the situation. At this point, if you were no traitor to the Wen Clan what else could you possibly be?

You followed Jiang Cheng's introductions to leave the cave through the water, Nie Huaisang by your side.

After all you had made it out word spread proufoundly about you and the Wen Clan. Some said you were a spy, working for the Wen Clan and earning sympathy, others said you were honest about your intentions, later was some encouring words by Nie Huaisang. You truly did appreciate his words.

The moment you stepped foot into Qishan, you were confined to you room until they needed you. They made use of your connections to Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang whenever they needed to. Tricky but smart.

WEN CHAOS HAVOC + SUNHOT CAMPAIGN

It was only when you dumb cousin started to wreak havoc among the clans that you started to see the situation clearly and did not want to have anything to do with it. After cloud recesse had been burned to nearly ashes you spoke up, you were against it. Precious memories were made there and now they had became ashes, quite literally.

If you had known about all the scheming you'd have told Lan Xichen right away, made sure nothing would happen to the Gusu Lan Clan. But being confined barely gave you any choices until one day you fought your way out, meeting your uncle, confronting him about it.

You knew that the Wen Clan was better than that, but the yin iron had taken up to much of his sanity, he instructed Wen Chao to take care of you.

Of course it pained you to see all the chaos and blood being she'd of cour once former friends familie's. There did not a day go by where you begged him to stop. You even tried going against him, but failed miserably.

Wang Lingjiao enjoyed her given power, using it to destroy every piece of hope you still had. Even bringing you along to Lotus Pier to watch the massacre of your closest friends parents.

Daily torture was on your agenda. Being wipped, being burned, being starved or simply kicked and punched by her minions. But you were to prideful to give in just so easily, especially when you head news of Jiang Cheng being captured.

Again, you tried your best to stop him but Wen Chao had enough of your antic and ordered Wen Zuhliu to end it but his woman had a better idea. Get rid of her golden core and blind her. It was her revenge for you spitting the hot soup right into her face, eventually burning her slightly. It was worth it.

You were left in pain, after you felt the power leave your body, the spiritual power who kept healing you in a very slow pace if you needed it but eventually had lost it. The worst was losing your sight, the light of day, not knowing if it was day or night, not being able to navigate on your own.

Treason, that was the reason. You could have had so much more if it wasn't for your weak heart. The words were spoken as hot iron was pushed into your eyes. Your screams were hunting the people who were present. Yet you had lost all of hope and strength in one night, being dumped somewhere on a mountain with nothing but the purpose to die.

After the sunshot campaign people had wondered what happened to you as you were nowhere to be found, yet they all agreed to not search and leave things as they were, the Qishan Wen Clan was extinguished.

PASSING YEARS

Years had passed and you had managed to get yourself back on your feet, even if it wasn't as safe anymore. You learned to live with your blindness.

Deep in the forest in an abandoned little hut. It was perfect for you. You secluded yourself from the world, living in peace. You remembered some tricks your old friend Wei Wuxian had once taught you, and even though your golden core was gone, little tricks like these did do. Obviously you had to renew them every now and then but it was no bother at all.

What you did not know was that the mountain, or rather the forest you lived in belonged to a clan, and possible night hunt had given up your days of silence and years being secluded.

Only when you heard footsteps that did not belong to anything on your small land, you ended up hiding in your small hut, a knife held firmly in your hands.

The voices you could make out seemed familiar but you stayed quiet, perhaps they'd leave.

Of course they did not leave and soon it seemed, three people were standing in your small front yard where chicken where quietly eating and living.

They surely were surprised that someone had managed to live on the mountain of the Jin Clan largest property. That did put you quite in panic. You knew they were your death sentence if they would find you, so you tried to sneak away, but of course Wei Wuxian was one step ahead of you.

" Where do you think you're going ?"

" Wei Wuxian? "

Your voice was hesitant yet filled with surprise but you could definitely make out his voice between a hundred people. A smile almost creeped upon your lips, soley depending on your hearing.

Your attire was still very much simple. A very out worn red hanfu, the logos of the Wen Clan faded but still slightly visible. It was Nie Huaisang that pointed this out. Of course he would notice such details, so he still was alive and breathing. You were deligthed to know this.

However, it was Jiang Cheng who put 1 and 1 together.

" Lady Y/N ? ---"

Silence filled by gasp of Nie Huaisang, as you nodded quietly.

"Guilty."

You were not sure how to feel, happy that you finally met the people you once called friends or scared knowing it could now mean your death.

"I'm glad to hear you are all still well. How have you been all these years? -----"

They would have expected anything but not to meet you. It were raw and mixed feelings. You know you owed Jiang Cheng your live for your family had taken his. You dared not to move your head his way and kept it strictly on the ground.

It was also Wei Wuxians family but it wasn't as deeply rooted.

Nie Huaisang was the first one to approach you, carefully. Asking what had happened to you. So until late night, you told them what happened to you, what your clan did to you, how you ended up here.

You also apologized again, falling to your knees, knowing you could not make up for the loses they had suffered. You started crying, begging for forgiveness.

They explained what had happened on their side, and also admitting they hoped they had not lost you but eventually gave up. You on the other hand did not blame them.

It was a bittersweet reunion after years of forming friendship, betrayal and chaos. Feeling pain and rejoycing again.

[ibijau]

How to Woo a Lan pt1 / On AO3

Jin Ling is determined to court Lan Sizhui, but can't seem to say two words to him without insulting him. He decides that what he needs is the help of someone who has already successfully seduced a Lan, and he knows something about Nie Huaisang that others don't.

It had been, to put it mildly, a bit of a wild year. Jin Ling had gone from being treated as a child by everyone who met him and being barely mature enough to be trusted alone on a Night Hunt, to having to behave like a full grown adult because he suddenly was the leader of a cut-throat sect that was half falling apart after the early death of its corrupt former leader.

Fifteen was never an easy age, but Jin Ling was pretty sure he had it a little rougher than most people.

Of course, it could have been worse. For one thing, he could have been dead. In fact, he had come pretty close to it a few times, most memorably when he was kidnapped and trapped in the Burial Mounds with other juniors, and when his beloved uncle Jin Guangyao had used him as a hostage and threatened to cut his throat open with a guqin string if he wasn’t allowed to run away after it was revealed he had murdered a number of people, like Jin Ling’s grandfather, and indirectly caused the death of others, like Jin Ling’s father. And then after that there had been a handful of other attempts on Jin Ling’s life once he had become sect leader, because he had older relatives who thought they’d be better at the job, or who other people thought would be easier to corrupt… but really, those attempts just hadn’t been very impressive.

Jin Ling had been raised by Jin Guangyao, so he knew a thing or two about avoiding poison. And he’d been raised by Jiang Cheng as well, so even at his age, there weren’t that many adults who could pose a threat to his life, should they directly attack him.

All in all, the murder attempts hadn’t been so bad. The paperwork and meetings, on the other hand, were the worst thing ever. There were so, so many letters to read, and to analyse, and to answer. And then there were Night Hunt reports. Tracking the progress of junior disciples. Bills. An astonishing number of bills, oftentime for things Jin Ling didn’t even understand, so he had to ask during meetings what the sect was spending money on this time. There was a forty percent chance that it was something frivolous he could cut off, and a fifty percent chance that it was just barely concealed corruption, but since there was the ten percent possibility of that bill being something actually useful, Jin Ling still had to investigate every single one, just in case.

With all this going on, Jin Ling was lucky when he could find an hour here and there to meditate, or work on his cultivation, or train Fairy. He had considered skipping sleep from time to time, but Jiang Cheng had heard about it, somehow, and rushed to Jinlin Tai to scream at him about being irresponsible with his health, as if he were any better. Everyone knew Sandu Shengshou ran on two hours of sleep, medical pills, and rage… but apparently Jin Ling wasn’t alone to do the same. Unfair.

Equally unfair was the fact that in the six months between Jin Guangyao’s death and Jin Ling’s fifteenth’s birthday, he had only gone on two night hunts.

The first was… not so bad. Jin Ling had been forced to have some other Jin disciples come along, which was boring, but then they’d all met up with some Lan and with Ouyang Zizhen, which had been pretty nice. Not quite as nice as it could have been if a certain person had been there, but not quite bad either, because Jin Ling had been able to chat with Ouyang Zizhen who was smarter than he looked, and to argue with Lan Jingyi who was fun to have a shouting match with.

And then, there had been that second Night Hunt. Jin Ling, still dealing with the aftermath of a slightly more efficient assassination attempt after which part of Jinlin Tai had really thought him dead for a good shichen and a half, had stumbled upon a man who had come to beg for the help of his sect and decided he’d help with that. He needed a break from his murderous cousins anyway.

So instead, he called the worst asshole he knew to help him deal with this, for fun.

And Lan Jingyi, for some reason known only to him, decided to let Wei Wuxian come as well.

That was the first problem, Jin Ling later decided. If Wei Wuxian hadn’t been there, things would have gone better. But he just didn’t really know where he stood with the man who had, technically, caused both of his parents to die and whom Jin Ling had, technically, tried to murder in return. The man who had also saved his life several times, without any hesitation.

Lan Jingyi knew that Jin Ling had mixed feelings about Wei Wuxian, who he hadn’t seen since the death of Jin Guangyao. So he had to have asked him to come along on purpose, because Lan Jingyi was a damn asshole and Jin Ling hated his guts, for all that he was probably his best friend at this point.

It wasn’t hard to be the best of something when you were almost the only one.

Anyway, Jin Ling should have guessed that Wei Wuxian would get involved in this, so it wasn’t such a surprise.

But then…

Then, when he arrived at the agreed meeting point, Jin Ling saw Lan Sizhui.

It had been six months, almost. In all that time, Jin Ling hadn’t once gotten any news from the older boy. He’d asked Lan Jingyi during that one Night Hunt, and then again when Lan Jingyi had needed to crash in Jinlin Tai some weeks later, in vain. All Lan Jingyi knew was that Lan Sizhui had gone away with Lan Wangji’s blessing, and that nobody could tell when he’d be back… or if he’d come back at all for that matter, which Jin Ling had found rather ominous. Sure, Lan Sizhui’s father figure had officially married another man, and not the best of men at that, but was it reason enough to run away? Did Lan Sizhui hate Wei Wuxian in particular, or did he have a problem with all cut sleeves? In the first case, it was understandable. In the second case, Jin Ling’s heart would be crushed forever and he would never know happiness again.

But Lan Sizhui was there, and standing next to Wei Wuxian when Jin Ling arrived, chatting with a peaceful yet happy expression and looking quite animated, at least by Lan standards. Jin Ling had the sensation that the two of them hadn’t met in a while, which Lan Sizhui personally confirmed later when Jin Ling had a talk to him as well.

Six months wasn’t such a long time, and yet it had felt an eternity. Lan Sizhui hadn’t grown during that time away, not exactly, but he had a new air of maturity to himself, a certain spark in his eyes that said he had seen more than most others his age. He was a little less willowy as well, his clothes fitting differently on him compared to before, hinting at more strength than he used to have. His smile, though, remained as gentle as ever.

Jin Ling almost cursed upon seeing him.

It seemed he hadn’t gotten over his stupid crush at all.

Thankfully, for most of this, Jin Ling was too busy with the actual Night Hunt to make too much of a fool of himself. It was a pretty weird situation, with a haunted room in which a thief had died, which then led to a story about a man who had killed multiple women in a very gruesome manner. Jin Ling thought they’d handled that pretty well, really. He even got to be a little cool when he volunteered to stay the night in that haunted room to check if the ghost had really been taken care of. 

Of course it hadn’t, and that was absolutely terrifying, but Jin Ling kept his cool and got to show off to all those Lan disciples in the morning when he recounted what had happened to him. He thought Lan Sizhui looked a little impressed, but that might just have been because he’d been so sure he’d solved the situation with Lan Jingyi the day before. And Jin Ling was also the one to realise the ghost they were dealing with must have been looking for a certain missing body part, which they needed to retrieve if they were to solve the case.

All things considered, Jin Ling thought he had done really great during this whole Night Hunt, and properly demonstrated to everyone, but especially a certain Lan in particular, what a great mature person he had become.

Of course Jin Ling had to ruin that.

It was just the sort of luck he had.

Jin Ling’s only defence was that he’d been exhausted at that point. They’d just spent five entire days looking for a tongue that had been cut off decades earlier, and although it would have been wise to get some sleep before all heading back to their respective sects… but they were young, they were victorious, and the only adult around to supervise them was Wei Wuxian who firmly believed that Lan juniors should be encouraged to misbehave. So of course they had all gathered at an inn, ordered plenty of food, more drink than reasonable (but that was because Wei Wuxian had to be bribed into silence) and had a bit of a party to celebrate their success.

Because Lan Sizhui had been the one to find the ghost’s tongue, everyone wanted to sit with him, it was only natural. Jin Ling had to glare and bare his teeth and elbow a few people so he could sit next to his friend, while Lan Jingyi easily found his place on the other side of Lan Sizhui by virtue of having known him basically since birth. A most unfair advantage, and one more reason to dislike Lan Jingyi, who was luckier than he had any right to be.

Lan Sizhui didn’t appear to notice how much attention was on him. Or if he did, he pretended it didn’t affect him. He just seemed happy to be spending time with everyone, and to no longer be searching around for that damn tongue. Lan Sizhui laughed at other’s jokes, blushed at their praise, made sure that everyone had enough to eat, and just generally behaved like the most perfect person the world had ever known, which he was. Jin Ling was so delighted to have him back around, and happy to see him so admired by everyone else, so of course he had to let it be known in the worst possible way.

“Of course it’s Lan Yuan who gets all the glory,” Jin Ling said at one point, while pouring himself some wine. “Isn’t it always like this? I’m sure some people must have been glad you disappeared for so long, leaving the rest of us a chance to do something. But now that you’re back, I expect it’ll all be about you, right?”

“What do you mean?” Lan Sizhui asked, his beautiful smile falling down.

Jin Ling frowned at the question. What he meant was that Lan Sizhui was, and by far, the best cultivator of their generation, so it was only natural for people to admire him. Sure some others might envy his great skill, but that was their problem, and now that Lan Sizhui was back in the Cloud Recesses, of course he’d gotten back his rightful place in the spotlight.

What else could he have meant?

“I’ve said what I said,” Jin Ling replied. “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

Sure Gusu Lan valued modesty, but someone as great as Lan Sizhui had to know how good he was at everything, so there was no need to be so humble.

“Shut up or I’ll punch you,” Lan Jingyi threatened, his tone vicious enough to catch the attention of Wei Wuxian who’d been mostly ignoring the juniors in favour of his own jars of wine. 

Even Jin Ling was startled. It was common enough for Lan Jingyi and him to argue. In fact, that was their main bonding activity, they were always bickering, but there was rarely any actual anger to it. If anything, Lan Jingyi usually seemed to enjoy that he had someone he could snap at who wouldn’t scold him for breaking sect rules. But that night, he suddenly looked earnestly furious, and it puzzled Jin Ling.

Must have been the wine, he figured. Those Lan just couldn’t handle alcohol.

“Don’t drink if you can’t deal with it,” Jin Ling said. “And don’t get angry at people just because they’re right.”

Lan Jingyi jumped to his feet, but before he could say anything more, Lan Sizhui grabbed him by the wrist and forced him to sit down away. He had to have put some strength into it, because Lan Jingyi immediately obeyed.

“Jingyi, that’s enough,” Lan Sizhui said, rather more dryly than Jin Ling was used to from him. “If that’s how Jin zongzhu feels, then that’s how it is. I hadn’t meant to be taking the spotlight in an undue manner, and I am sorry if I gave the impression I seek attention. In the future, when working with Jin zongzhu, I’ll be sure to keep my distance to avoid bothering him so much. I thought we’d work as a good team, but…”

Lan Sizhui stood up, fists clenched tight on either side of his body.

“If Jin zongzhu really hates working with me, then of course I’ll respect his choice. Now if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed now. I’ve had a pretty long day.”

He turned away and left the room, leaving behind him a suddenly heavy atmosphere. None of the juniors spoke for a good while, most of them staring at the door through which Lan Sizhui had left. Jin Ling in particular was flabbergasted, scrambling to understand what exactly had just happened there.

At his end of the table, Wei Wuxian snickered as he poured himself more wine.

“You really get your people’s skills from your uncle,” he said, not quite looking at Jin Ling, but quite obviously directed at him nonetheless. “And not the right one for that, might I add. That’s something for you to work on, I’d think.”

“I’m not hearing that from you!” Jin Ling complained. “You’re a weirdo who makes everyone uncomfortable!”

“And yet I caught myself a husband,” Wei Wuxian retorted, wiggling his eyebrows in a manner that should have been illegal around impressionable young people. “Clearly I can’t be so bad at dealing with people. I can give you some lessons, if you’d like? Could teach out to flirt even. Hanguang-Jun thinks I’m very good at it.”

All the juniors shivered in fear at the idea of flirting lessons from Wei Wuxian. Even Lan Jingyi threw Jin Ling a sympathetic glance, before remembering he had randomly decided to be furious at his friend and glaring at him.

“Who… who’d want lessons from you about anything?” Jin Ling exclaimed. Then, because he tried to be fair, he added: “Unless it’s about Night Hunting. You’re good at that, when you stop acting all goofy. But for everything else, you’re too weird! If Hanguang-Jun didn’t have such weird tastes to begin with…”

The Lan juniors exploded at the implication their personal hero Lan Wangji was anything less than perfect in all aspects.

“Watch it, Jin zongzhu!”

“Hanguang-Jun’s tastes are excellent for almost everything!”

“It wasn’t enough to be mean to Sizhui, now you have to also go after Hanguang-Jun?”

That last one puzzled Jin Ling, who blinked numbly, trying to understand at what point, exactly, he’d been mean to Lan Sizhui. Before he could ask about that, Wei Wuxian started cackling and thanked all the juniors present for approving of his marriage. This backfired when it turned out that the boys were, in fact, very supportive of the union, and had drunk just enough to not feel ashamed about it. Wei Wuxian, always so quick to tease others with great declarations of affection at a bad moment, completely collapsed under that unexpected wave of affection, which pushed the Lan juniors to be even more demonstrative, until everyone’s attention was on Wei Wuxian.

Jin Ling took his chance and left the table without being noticed, suddenly needing some fresh air. He couldn’t go very far, in case others started to worry, but he still left the inn and started walking up and down the street where it stood, trying to put some order in his thoughts.

He didn’t think that he had been rude to Lan Sizhui, of course. Or at least, he had certainly not intended to be. But between intentions and results there could be a world of difference, and it was true that Jin Ling was sometimes… he tried hard, he really did. He wanted to be as smooth as Jin Guangyao had been (though with less secrets), and he wanted to be as respected as Jiang Cheng was (though preferably without needing to resort on inspiring fear quite as much). But he had a tendency to sometimes say the wrong thing. 

More than sometimes. 

Things would be quite clear in his mind, and then he opened his mouth and said something that pissed off everyone. It didn’t usually matter too much, because he was Lanling Jin’s sect leader, meaning he had enough money and power that people wouldn’t dare get angry at him too openly. But it had always been more of a problem when it came to his personal life. He’d gotten in many fights with his various cousins over the years because they deemed him rude and proud. 

With juniors of other sects, he didn’t really get along all that well either, for the same reason, not until everything that happened in Yi city the year before… and even that had more to do with the people he’d met than with any personal improvement. Ouyang Zizhen was just the sort of person who got along with everyone, even with spoiled brats like Jin Ling. Lan Jingyi was an awful little pest, but he hadn’t been scared by Jin Ling’s status in the least, so they’d quickly found a way to co-exist, even if most people didn’t realise they’d become good friends. And as for Lan Sizhui… well, he was the most perfect person in the world, patient in spite of Jin Ling’s temper, kind to everyone, always striving to bring peace around him, always willing to see the best in others.

Jin Ling stumbled, and nearly fell face first into the dirt of the street.

Lan Sizhui had really looked upset when he’d left, so Jin Ling really must have said something wrong. The most perfect, most patient person in the world, and Jin Ling had managed to make him angry. That really wasn’t a good way to start courting someone.

And he wanted to court Lan Sizhui. Seeing him again after a few months had only made it clear to Jin Ling that this wasn’t just a crush, it was love. He was in love with Lan Sizhui, and determined to make him fall in love back… somehow.

What he needed was… what he needed…

Somewhere behind him, the inn’s door cracked open, just enough for Wei Wuxian to peek outside.

“Jin Ling, it’s getting late!” he shouted, uncaring that he might wake up the whole street. “Everyone’s going to bed and you should as well.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Don’t make me come get you,” Wei Wuxian warned. “Come, you’ll feel better in the morning. Just apologise to Sizhui at breakfast and he won’t hold it against you, he’s a good boy like that.”

Mortified at the idea that Wei Wuxian might try to drag him to bed like a petulant child, Jin Ling made his way back to the inn. He was annoyed though. He’d been on the verge of a great idea when Wei Wuxian had called for him, and now he’d lost it. Hopefully, he’d remember later.

Right then, he just went to sleep as ordered.

In the morning Jin Ling apologised to Lan Sizhui, though he still wasn’t sure what he’d said wrong, and Lan Sizhui apologised back for reacting so strongly to a little bit of criticism. Jin Ling hadn’t dared to say he hadn’t meant to criticise, because then he’d have had to explain he was trying to compliment Lan Sizhui, and everyone was there watching them, and it would have been too embarrassing.

The Lan then left to head back to Gusu, while Jin Ling had to return to Lanling to write a report on this situation they had solved.

The whole time he flew towards home, he couldn’t help but wondered if he hadn’t somehow managed to ruin his entire love life at the ripe age of fifteen, just because his mouth and his brain couldn’t get along.

[trilliastra]

[Xicheng AU. Entirely self-indulgent. I love Jiang Cheng and I want him to be happy with Lan Xichen.]

-

I.

When Lan Xichen arrives at the gates, he finds Lan Hao frowning and trying to hold a clearly distressed Jin Ling. The boy is squirming desperately in his hold, screaming and crying, and Lan Xichen sighs.

He isn’t the first child to cry because he misses home. Many, including the older disciples, have cried, had nightmares, tried to run back to their families. Gusu Lan isn’t the most welcoming Sect, their many rules leaving most feeling confined, suffocated and desperate for a way out. He did not consider the young Master Jin would be one of them, though.

The boy arrived dressed in gold, back straight and a glare on his face. He did not talk to others his age, frowned when another disciple tried to talk to him and got himself in more verbal altercations than Wei – than others ever had. And he is only seven.

The two week meeting was created to build intersect alliances, have the children meet earlier would only make their future connections stronger, establish their trust in each other before they began training and studying together as teenagers, holding the future of the Cultivation world on their backs.

Honestly, Lan Xichen did not even think Jin Ling would join – his status as future Sect Leader and nephew of the infamous Sandu Sengshou weighting heavily on his young shoulders.

“What happened?”

Lan Hao bows awkwardly as he still tries to hold the boy in his arms and answers, “he tried to run. Young Master Jin made it as far as Gusu before a disciple saw him.”

Oh, that was dangerous. Lan Xichen has no idea what both Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng would do to him if something happened to their nephew. “Young Master Jin,” he says, gesturing for Lan Hao to let the boy down. Jin Ling wipes his tears away, performs an awkward bow and then proceeds to glare at him. Lan Xichen smiles softly, impressed, “would you mind telling me why you did that?”

“I wanted to go home!” Jin Ling answers, still glaring. Lan Hao opens his mouth to berate him, but Lan Xichen stops him with a wave. “It is Jiujiu’s birthday and he said I’d be home by now.” He sniffles. “I wanted to see him.”

Lan Xichen’s heart breaks as he thinks about all the things, all the people Jin Ling lost even before he knew what loss truly is. And he thinks about the people that stayed, Madam Jin, Jin Guangyao, Jiang Cheng… it brings back memories of his own – snow, a boy without his mother, two brothers and an uncle trying to be a family, love and pain, tears.

“I believe,” the words come out of his mouth without his permission, but Lan Xichen finds that he doesn’t mind. A better world can only be built on kindness, on doing what one believes is right, “that can be arranged.” He unsheathes his sword, offers his hand for Jin Ling to take and smiles when the boy’s eyes light up.

-

“Do you miss your family when you’re away from home?” Jin Ling asks as they fly above the woods.

“Yes.”

“So, it doesn’t stop when you grow up?”

Lan Xichen chuckles. “I’m afraid not.” He says, holding Jin Ling tightly against his chest. Lan Hao insisted he would do it, he’d fly Jin Ling to Lotus Pier and bring him back as quickly as possible, and if it were another child Lan Xichen might have let him do it, but Jin Ling will be a Sect Leader, he is in danger just by existing, Lan Xichen would be careless to put his life in the hands of a disciple, no matter how strong or competent they might be. “You do not stop loving your family when you become older.”

Jin Ling hums in answer. “I did not want to leave.” He confesses, eventually, his cheeks red. “Jiujiu insisted, he said I should make friends, meet people I could trust for when I become Sect Leader.” Lan Xichen blinks, surprised. He did not think Jiang Cheng would say such words, did not think he would give this sort of advice, not after refusing Lan Xichen’s help the first time around, not after kicking Sect Leader Yao away when the man proposed a business deal. But, Lan Xichen realizes, that says more about them than about Jiang Cheng.

Lan Xichen has done nothing to earn this kind of trust.

“I do not want to become Sect Leader.” Jin Ling keeps talking. “I do not want to leave Jiujiu alone. I am all he has.” He covers his mouth with one hand, surprised, and blushing even harder. He probably didn’t mean to say it, but Lan Xichen smiles at the child’s kindness. It is good to know that the new generation is better than them.

It is good to know Jin Ling has inherited his mother’s heart.

-

A group of disciples are waiting for them in front of the gates of Lotus Pier. They all stare at him curiously, hands on their swords, but when Jin Ling jumps down, the Head Disciple smiles at him.

“What are you doing here?” She asks, kneeling in front of the boy.

“It’s Jiujiu’s birthday!” He shouts, smiling excitedly. He has never talked or smiled like that in Gusu Lan, would probably be scolded by one of the disciples if he did. Sometimes Lan Xichen wants to burn down their rules, dreams about starting anew, a fresh set of norms, a happier life. A utopia.

“He is in his office.” She says, and Jin Ling starts running immediately, golden robes flying behind him. “Sect Leader Lan,” she bows, Lan Xichen nods in return, “if you would follow me.”

“Oh, no.” He waves her off, smiling. He should give Jin Ling and his uncle some privacy. “Let them be,” he says, “but I wouldn’t say no to a glass of water.”

She blinks at him, surprised, but eventually laughs. “Of course.”

-

From his seat outside the throne room, Lan Xichen watches the lotus on the river, the children swimming freely.

He hasn’t been to Lotus Pier in a long time. Longer than ten years, most likely. All Intersect conferences are held on neutral ground and after – after everything, he always preferred to stay close to home. He knew his Uncle needed him, knew Wangji was on the verge of a breakdown, knew his little nephew needed stability. He knew, knew – all excuses, Lan Xichen realizes.

He is but a coward, afraid to face one of the Sects that suffered the most from Gusu’s neutrality, ashamed to face the man that endured it all alone, who rebuilt his house and even had the time to raise a wonderful boy by himself.

This could have been him; this could have been his own reality and Lan Xichen cannot bear that thought, cannot face a reality that could have been his own.

“Sect Leader Lan,” the Head Disciple calls, “Sect Leader Jiang would like to see you.” Lan Xichen nods, standing up. He follows her through the buildings, the smell of spring following him. It is going to rain, he notices, and realizes he might not be able to make it home tonight.

“Zewu-jun,” Jiang Cheng bows as Lan Xichen enters his office. Lan Xichen performs a bow of his own and smiles when he notices Jin Ling is perched on his uncle’s chair, eating from a bowl of soup almost desperately, “I apologize, he shouldn’t have – ”

He shakes his head. “There’s no need for apology. It was for a good cause.” Lan Xichen watches as Jiang Cheng’s ears turn pink and he risks a glance at his nephew. He tries to hold back a smile, but clearly fails when Jin Ling looks up and smiles as well.

“I – I do not know what to say.” Jiang Cheng confesses, clearly taken back by the gesture and perhaps, the words. He is not used to being on the receiving end of great gestures, Lan Xichen realizes, he is not used to being considered important for someone, even the nephew he single-handedly raised.

Lan Xichen feels his heart break and, horrifyingly, finds himself fighting back tears. Oh, this man deserves so much more than what he has.

“I am sorry.” Lan Xichen says, watches as Jiang Cheng’s eyes widen in surprise. “I should have done more for you and your people.”

Jiang Cheng opens his mouth, probably to deny it, but upon seeing Lan Xichen’s decisive stare, he only nods. “Thank you for your words.” He says, finally.

“Please, allow me to fix this.” Lan Xichen finds himself asking, begging. It is for his own peace of mind, but it is also for Jiang Cheng and for Jin Ling, for the people of Lotus Pier who have watched their home burn and fought hard to build it back.

“I do not know how you could.” Jiang Cheng points out.

Lan Xichen nods in agreement. “I do not know either, now, but –” Wangji isn’t the only stubborn one in the family, Lan Xichen just holds a position where he is not allowed to be like that, “I will find a way.” He promises, determined.

-

II.

He starts visiting Lotus Pier every other week. His uncle gives him worried glances and Wangji frowns every time Lan Xichen comes back. He is aware of his brother’s distaste for Jiang Cheng, does not blame him for it, but he refuses to hold it against the other man.

Anger and fear have a way of bringing out the worst in them. He cannot imagine how those emotions plus sorrow and the feeling of betrayal can do to someone.

Jiang Cheng stares at him confusedly every time he arrives, but he doesn’t send him away, only offers him a room, food and lets him roam around freely. Jin Ling is more welcoming and Lan Xichen finds himself indulging in the boy’s desires, bringing him toys and an occasional treat he buys during his trip.

He’s not doing much – one could say he’s doing nothing at all, but Jiang Cheng seems less worried when Lan Xichen is next to him to observe the disciples train, so he considers it a good thing.

It is only on his fourth visit that he notices the new disciples. Two boys, not much older than fifteen; they can barely hold their swords, they are so weak and green, but they want to learn, that much is clear, and they listen to every other Jiang Cheng or their Head Disciple – Jiang Daiyu – says, adapting just as quickly as the others.

He does not think much of it. Word goes around that the Yunmeng Jiang Sect is back to the way it was before it was destroyed and even though Jiang Cheng holds a reputation for being ruthless, he’s also known as a strong leader, protective of his people and his home.

Two months later, Lan Xichen notices another disciple. After that, it’s a new cook that makes Jin Ling’s favorite mooncakes. Another month and Jiang Cheng is helping his people build a new house for a family of five, the father is a farmer with bags under his eyes, but a serene look every time his children hug him.

And they don’t stop coming.

Yunmeng Jiang Sect is not only growing, it is thriving, and Lan Xichen has never seen their people look so happy.

“You have accomplished the impossible.” He tells Jiang Cheng one afternoon when they are parting ways. Jiang Cheng’s face turns red, and Lan Xichen has to hide a smile behind his own hand.

Jiang Cheng looks like he wants to deny it, but Lan Xichen is flying away before he can speak. He will leave him with that thought.

-

III.

“You must stop.” His uncle says after a year. Honestly, Lan Xichen is surprised it took him so long to speak up his thoughts. “It is not – appropriate.”

“I am simply helping a friend.” Lan Xichen answers. Out of the corner of his eye he notices Wangji flinch. His brother’s relationship with their uncle have been strained ever since the Sunshot Campaign, but it is not surprising that they agree on this matter. His uncle deems inappropriate to show preference towards a sect and Wangji thinks Jiang Cheng is responsible for Wei Wuxian’s fall.

Lan Xichen sighs. He is their Leader so they do not have any sort of power over him, but Lan Xichen would much rather not fight with his family.

He takes a sip of his tea, tries to sort out his thoughts. “Xichen –” his uncle starts, but Lan Xichen stops him by raising a hand.

“We abandoned him.” He finally says. “He lost his entire family and no one offered to help him, not without wanting something in return.” Lan Xichen explains. He came to realize this recently, but it is the greatest truth. The Jin Sect has an interest on Jin Ling, Sect Leader Yao wanted to trade his crops for the rice Yunmeng Jiang grows, smaller sects had sent letters and letters proposing marriage in exchange for sending supplies – Lan Xichen watched Jiang Cheng burn those letters with a huff while Jiang Daiyu cracked her knuckles, angrily.

“He chose his path.” Wangji offers. “They are all scared of him.”

“Rightfully so.” Lan Xichen comments. He’s seen what Jiang Cheng can do with his sword; he’s seen the full power of Zidian when a mercenary tried to kidnap Jin Ling. “But for the wrong reasons.”

Lan Xichen turns to his brother, waits for him to finish his tea. “He’s saving those people, Wangji.” His brother frowns. “He’s seeking the ones using resentful energy and he’s trying to save them.”

Wangji’s eyes widen immediately, but soon enough his expression goes from surprised to furious. “He’s looking for him,” there’s no need to ask who him is, “and killing them!”

“They are joining his sect, Wangji.” He tells his brother, then turns to his uncle. “I’ve seen it. The two boys who disappeared in the middle of the night after attempting to summon their mother’s spirit? They are training at Yunmeng Jiang, eating their food,” he adds, “playing with Jin Ling.”

Wangji stands up immediately, the cup he was holding falls on the ground, breaking in tiny pieces. He leaves the jingshi, angry, hurt, desolated, and Lan Xichen wants to follow him, wrap him up in a hug, but his brother is not five anymore and Lan Xichen cannot fight his battles for him, cannot heal the wounds caused by the loss of a loved one.

He closes his eyes. Lan Xichen did not want to have to choose between them, he’s been avoiding this conversation for that exact reason.

“Uncle –” it’s his uncle’s turn to raise his hand.

“I want to see it.” He says, finally, and Lan Xichen sighs. Jiang Cheng will absolutely hate this.

-

IV.

“I’m sorry.” Lan Xichen says, bowing deeply in front of Jiang Cheng. His uncle is now watching the Yunmeng Jiang disciples closely, walking amongst them – a judge deciding his sentence.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t answer, keeps his eyes on Lan Qiren, expectantly, as if waiting for his mentor’s approval. It makes Lan Xichen remember how young the man still is.

“Very well.” Lan Qiren says, finally, turning towards them. He stops in front of Jiang Cheng and nods. “Thank you for allowing me entrance in your home.”

Jiang Cheng only answer is to bow, eyes widening when Lan Qiren bows back. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

Lan Qiren does not smile, but his expression softens and he turns to Lan Xichen, waiting for his answer.

“We would love to.” Lan Xichen says and his uncle nods.

-

“Be careful.” Lan Qiren warns, later, when they’ve arrived home. “Do not let yourself get blinded by love.”

Lan Xichen takes a deep breath, heart skipping a beat. Of course, his uncle would notice, he is surprised Wangji hasn’t seen it yet, but again, his brother might have and that could be just one of the reasons why he is so angry.

“I won’t.” He vows.

-

V.

Lan Xichen is getting ready for his monthly visit to Lotus Pier when A-Yuan asks to join him. His nephew is almost twelve, bright eyes, strong golden core, big curiosity for all things, Lan Xichen isn’t exactly surprised by the request, but he doesn’t know how to answer without either hurting the boy or hurting Wangji.

In the end, his brother makes the decision for him. “I do not like him. I never will.” Wangji says, later that night. “But I respect what he is doing, and I respect you. If you trust him, then I trust him too.”

Lan Xichen swallows heavily, closes his fists to stop himself from reaching out and pulling his brother into a hug.

“But A-Yuan is my son, he – if anything –”

“Wangji,” Lan Xichen interrupts him, one hand on his shoulder, “he knows.”

Wangji’s eyes widen in surprise and he looks almost accusatory; Lan Xichen would feel hurt about the implications that he’d ever break his brother’s trust, but he supposes Wangji is entitled to his anger, he’s lost the love of his life, could not handle losing his son.

“He recognized him.” Xichen explains. They haven’t talked about it, exactly, but Jiang Cheng has made it clear he knows – “Your nephew looks well, I am sorry he had to suffer so much at such a young age.” – and if there’s something Jiang Cheng and Wangji have in common is this – A-Yuan, A-Ling.

Wangji nods, eyes softening, and the next morning A-Yuan meets him at the gates, excited to meet a new place.

-

“I don’t think Jin Ling likes him.” Lan Xichen comments, watching Jin Ling glare at A-Yuan when his nephew disarms him, Suihua flying away from Jin Ling’s hand. The sword is too heavy for Jin Ling to use it comfortably, but he insisted on fighting A-Yuan, three years his senior, with a real sword. He lost his balance many times, and even though it is obvious he has a good posture, is smart enough to understand A-Yuan’s style and respond accordingly, the sword is clearly still too heavy for him.

Jiang Cheng huffs out a laugh. “He is just annoyed.” He just his chin at them and Lan Xichen watches Jin Ling stand up, adjust his clothes and then promptly throw himself at A-Yuan, making both of them fall right into the lake. Lan Xichen jumps, startled; he is moving to help them when the two boys resurface, laughing breathlessly.

Jiang Cheng smiles knowingly and says, “A-Ling likes him.” He keeps smiling, watching his nephew – both his nephews? – splash water around, giggling happily.

Lan Xichen’s heart skips a beat; he cannot look away from Jiang Cheng’s smile, finds himself hypnotized by the way his entire expression softens, the lines around his eyes disappearing. He looks ten years younger and too much like the young man Lan Xichen first met, without worries, without the responsibility of an entire sect on his back.

Lan Xichen supposes he was like that too, younger, naïve. They cannot go back in time, but they can move forward. “I am in love with you.” Lan Xichen confesses, his voice barely a whisper, but Jiang Cheng hears it anyway, turning to him with wide eyes.

“What did you say?”

“I am in love with you.” Lan Xichen repeats, louder this time. When Jiang Cheng does not move, he reaches out for his hand, squeezes it tightly. “I do not expect an answer, I just thought you deserved to hear it.”

Jiang Cheng keeps blinking confusedly, frozen in place. Lan Xichen smiles again, takes a step back. He did not have any hope and Jiang Cheng’s reaction is enough answer to his unspoken question. They are not meant to be, but even though Lan Xichen does not have Jiang Cheng’s heart, he has his friendship, and he will make sure to treasure it.

“I should go.”

“No.” Jiang Cheng nearly shouts, holding him back. “You cannot expect me to answer immediately, this is – I never thought –”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t.” He stresses, frustrated. “I thought – this – this never crossed my mind. I always felt –” he huffs, angrily, and shakes his head, “why can’t I make sense?”

“Jiang Cheng,” Lan Xichen smiles fondly, “you do not have to –”

“I thought you were doing it out of pity,” Jiang Cheng confesses, looking away, “I know it is not who you are, and I am not proud to admit I doubted your words, but I never thought I deserved your friendship, or – or other feelings.”

Lan Xichen closes his eyes, takes a deep breath in an effort to hide his tears. This – this hurts so much, Jiang Cheng should know he deserves love, kindness, happiness. He should know he is more than just a Sect Leader, he’s more than his father’s son, Wei Wuxian’s brother. He is a brave, strong man, who refused to give up in the face of hardships, who made mistakes and is trying to make up for them; a man who is not perfect, who does not see himself as perfect, and keeps trying to get better, to be better, for his Sect, his people, and especially for his nephew.

Lan Xichen wants to say all that and more, but he knows Jiang Cheng will refute every word. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.”

Jiang Cheng smiles, sadly, “sometimes I wish so, too.” He squeezes Lan Xichen’s hand. “But Lan Xichen, Zewu-jun, Lan Huan – you are in love with me, and I am in love with you, so – I think that might be enough.”

Oh, Lan Xichen laughs, blissful. Yes, it is enough, he doesn’t say, but as he pulls Jiang Cheng into a hug, he whispers in his ear, “you will see. Someday. I will make sure of it.”

It is a new promise.

-

VI.

Lan Xichen is undressing when Jiang Cheng returns, slamming the door behind him with a groan. He mutters an apology when Lan Xichen raises an eyebrow, but otherwise does not say anything, only drops his sword on the nearest chair and begins undressing as well.

Bad days aren’t rare when you are a sect leader, but Jiang Cheng usually keeps those out of their bedroom, unless they are related to Lan Xichen himself, or worse: Jin Ling.

“Wanyin,” he tries, but Jiang Cheng ignores him, making him even more worried, “talk to me, please.” He reaches out for Jiang Cheng’s hand, sighs in relief when the other man accepts his touch.

“Jin Ling ran away from Carp Tower,” oh, oh, Jiang Cheng isn’t angry, he is worried, “apparently he got into a fight with other disciples, punched two in the face and then ran away before Jin Guangyao could scold him.” Lan Xichen holds back a laugh, it is so adorable how Jin Ling always comes back to Lotus Pier when he’s seeking comfort and Jiang Cheng, oh, his lovely husband, keeps trying to scold him and failing abysmally at being a stern uncle.

If Lan Xichen was one to gamble, he’d bet his sword the boy is now in his room, eating a delicious meal happily. Jin Ling is an incredible kid, smart, loyal, kind, but also spoiled rotten by both his uncles, and especially, by Jiang Cheng.

“He would not do it without motive.” Lan Xichen reasons, runs a hand over Jiang Cheng’s back softly, smiles when his husband leans into his touch.

“I know,” Jiang Cheng answers, “but he will be their leader one day, he cannot keep making enemies. He cannot be like me.”

Lan Xichen feels the words in his chest, heart breaking a little at the pained tone in Jiang Cheng’s voice. “There’s nothing wrong with you, and there’s nothing wrong with Jin Ling.” He asserts. “He is a boy still. Jin Ling is learning how to be himself and showing that he will not accept offenses or wrongdoings. He is showing his strength, Wanyin. You taught him that.”

Jiang Cheng takes a deep breath, leans into Lan Xichen’s shoulder. Lan Xichen loves being a source of comfort for his husband, adores being able to help him feel less heavy, with less darker thoughts.

“I love you,” Jiang Cheng says, later, his head resting on Lan Xichen’s chest, eyes closed, “you are my light.” Lan Xichen’s heart reacts in the same way it always does when he hears his husband repeat those words, it stops for a millisecond and then picks up speed, beating for Jiang Cheng, always for him.

“I love you,” Lan Xichen says back, “I will always love you.”

It is a promise and he always keeps his promises, especially the most important ones.

[baoshan-sanren]

Chapter 46

Emperor Wei WuXian And His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Birthday

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 Part 1 | Chapter 8 Part 2 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 Part 1 | Chapter 15 Part 2 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 Part 1 | Chapter 22 Part 2 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32 | Chapter 33 | Chapter 34 | Chapter 35 | Chapter 36 | Chapter 37 | Chapter 38 | Chapter 39 | Chapter 40 | Chapter 41 | Chapter 42 | Chapter 43 | Chapter 44 | Chapter 45

Despite his insistence on carefully contrived plans, and his aversion to impulsive action, Nie HuaiSang is more than capable of thinking on his feet.

He had known that this moment would come eventually. Some day, an attack, a carefully aimed arrow, a cup full of poison, something would slip past their barriers. Wei Ying may survive it, or he may not. This has been the indisputable truth of their existence, a truth universally acknowledged, although rarely ever discussed.

Nie HuaiSang’s flesh makes a pitiful shield, and a saber in his hand is equally as useless. His skill lies in other areas, and his task, regardless of danger the Emperor faces, is to protect the throne. Many arguments have been had between them on this subject, some so heated, it had seemed unlikely that their friendship could survive them.

HuaiSang has no loyalty to the Empire. Oh, he can praise and flatter, and speak flowery words of dedication and devotion with the best of them. But deep in his heart, he has always been a simple creature, with simple and straightforward priorities.

His Sect, his brother, Wei Ying, Jiang Cheng, these are things worth living for and dying for. Everything else, including the rest of the Empire, would always take the second place. It seemed inconceivable that he could turn away from Wei Ying in pain, Wei Ying dying, in order to protect some collection of insubstantial ideals, some flimsy peace between regions that have always yearned to fight, to protect some golden monstrosity of a seat that HuaiSang himself would never choose to occupy, not for all the silver and jade in the world.

It took a great deal of time, and many bitter arguments, to accept that some day, Wei Ying may die, but that the Empire must continue to exist in his absence. It had been even more difficult to accept that HuaiSang must be the one to bring this about. To accept that there will come a time when he must step away from Wei Ying, no matter the danger, no matter the consequences, and perform those duties that the Emperor cannot.

He has assumed this responsibility, regardless of personal misgivings. He knows what he must do.

And yet, nothing could have prepared him for the reality of the task.

There is a small, hand-picked contingent of the Nie Sect, whose only priority is preserving HuaiSang’s life. Most of the time, this protection is adequate, verging on excessive. After all, HuaiSang rarely moves far from his comfortable lodgings in the Emperor’s palace, nor has he left the Immortal Mountain in nearly three years. He has rarely ever needed their protection, as the majority of the dangers at court cannot be fought with a sword. Still, having failed in their duty mere days ago, this small contingent had sprung into action before HuaiSang had even fully comprehended the danger.

He finds himself practically carried off the dais, a wall of Nie Sect uniforms surrounding him from all sides. It is not clear how far they intend to carry him; HuaiSang has never bothered learning their contingency plans, nor has he expressed any interest in listening to the instructions Nie ZongHui had insisted on issuing at least a dozen times a year.

But he cannot leave the hall; not yet.

His heels, hanging nearly a handspan off the ground, kick out. At the same time, the sharp edge of his fan finds the unfortunate ear of a Sect member he does not recognize. He does not feel pity for the man, whose tight grip will probably leave bruises on HuaiSang’s upper arm. They release him, more out of surprise than any intention, and HuaiSang tugs his collar straight, feeling rumpled and off balance.

Now, he can see Wei Ying still standing on the dais, the black chest at his feet. He can see the dark coils of smoke wrapping around his body. The hall is a chaos of noise and confusion, cultivators who should be the best, the most skilled in the whole of the Empire, stumbling into each other, overtaken by panic. HuaiSang feels it too, a quivering unsteadiness beneath his breastbone, a fear that threatens to spill and incapacitate.

A hand latches around his arm again. This time his fan is precise, striking the bridge of the man’s nose.

“Enough,” he snaps, “I am not leaving.”

“Young Master,” Nie SuiLin says, “the Lieutenant General has ordered--“

“The Lieutenant General does not issue orders to His Majesty’s Most Favored Person,” HuaiSang bites out.

Back to Young Master already, is he? The Emperor is still standing on the dais, on his own two feet, but Nie SuiLin dares speak as if the Emperor is already dead.

He resists the urge to kick the man again, this time with more force. Irritation and fury coil in his chest, suffocating the fear, pushing it to the background. Nie SuiLin looks furious as well, but he will find his fury no match for HuaiSang’s.

HuaiSang has a million tasks to perform, each one more difficult than the last, and he does not have time for nonsense.

“You--“ he points his fan at the poor man whose nose he had bloodied, “Find the General. He is to lock down the Immortal Mountain. Guards at every gate, every entrance, every palace window, every crack in the wall where someone may slip out. Once the city and the Emperor’s palace are secure, I will need him in the banquet hall. You--“ he points at another, “take charge in here. Empty out the hall of everyone who is in the way--“

A blast of power propels him back into the wall of men, nearly knocking him down to the floor. The sound of the guqin drowns out the chaos of the hall, each note forceful enough to make his ears ring and his teeth ache. Through the wall of bodies, he can see the glow of spiritual energy battling the darkness, the familiar white of the Gusu Lan Sect in its midst. The black smoke roils and snaps, fighting to keeps its grip.  

His bones feel rattled. Every one of his muscles is vibrating with the sound. His hands are shaking.

Useless as he would be, the urge to join them, to do something, anything at all, is overwhelming.

Irritation sweeps through him again. No distractions; no self-pity; no fear. He needs to focus.

He snatches the collar of the man with the bloody nose, “Find the General! Go!”

A hand latches on to his arm again, and he whirls, ready to beat Nie SuiLin until the man is bloody as well. Jiang Chen grabs his wrist before the fan can land, his expression tight and exasperated.

Although he shouts directly into HuaiSang’s face, his voice is barely audible over the now combined harmonies of the guqin and the xiao, “We need to secure the hall!”

HuaiSang closes his eyes, just for a moment, for a space of a single breath, so he does not leap at Jiang Cheng’s throat. Instead, he tugs a nearby Nie Sect member close, and shouts the same order into his ear. He sends another to find Nie ZongHui, with orders to escort all the Sect Leaders to the banquet hall and keep them there. His mind is trying to move too quickly, thoughts overlapping, contingency plans unfolding, reforming, and being dismissed, all in the matter of shaky, half-taken breaths.

Secure the Immortal Mountain. Secure the palace and the throne. Protect the Emperor. The Jiang Sect will take control of the Imperial Guard. HuaiSang needs to reach Wei Ying’s personal study before anyone else. He needs to--

He latches on to Jiang Cheng’s sleeve, “The Wen Sect?”

“On their way.”

He is stalling, and Jiang Cheng knows this.  

HuaiSang need to go. He needs to go right now, before the other Sect Leaders have an opportunity to think, to consider their own contingency plans, to place the succession in peril.

Instead, he watches Lan WangJi’s break Wei Ying’s wrist. He watches Wei Ying release an object, its shape indistinguishable from the coils of black smoke. He watches Lan WangJi pull Wei Ying away from the dais, away from danger.

HuaiSang does not notice that his fingers had wrapped around Jing Cheng’s arm until they are pried off, with more gentleness than Jiang Cheng is ordinarily capable of displaying. Xiao XingChen had stepped up to Lan QiRen’s left shoulder, two more Fan Sect cultivators bracketing Lan XiChen. More join in, their power insignificant next to the Lan Sect, but the cursed object appears less powerful now, its prize removed from its grip.

HuaiSang cannot see the place where Lan WangJi has laid Wei Ying down on the marble floor. He does not know if Wei Ying is dead or alive. Only when Jiang Cheng’s hand grabs a fistful of his robes, does he realize that he has moved forward, intending to push his way to Wei Ying’s side.

“You have to go,” Jiang Cheng says.

“I know,” he snaps, jerking out of Jiang Cheng’s hold.

Stupid Wei Ying. Stupid Empire. He is not crying. His eyes are watering. His eyes are watering because he is furious, and surrounded by idiots. Incompetent idiots, who touch things without thinking, hop over rooftops looking for an arrow through their throat, and never consider their own safety first. 

Idiots who insist on preserving some stupid, pointless legacy HuaiSang could not care less about.

With a growl, he turns on his heel, and grabs Nie SuiLin by the front of his robes, “Come with me.”

[mechawaka]

Spring in Derdriu

A commission for @artsytardis​

Words: 11.7k

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Claude/Byleth

Rating: Teen

Mood music: Roses & Revolutions - Dancing in a Daydream

Summary: Five years after the war, Claude is the king of Almyra and Byleth is the queen of United Fodlan - but neither of them had the courage to propose at the Goddess Tower. When Byleth comes down with a sudden fever, they might have another chance.

---

They couldn’t possibly name Derdriu the new capital of United Fodlan, Lorenz had declared the very day after Byleth’s coronation. It would ‘imply things,’ he’d said, aghast that she would even suggest it.

Lo and behold, Ferdinand and Sylvain had expressed similar worries about Enbarr and Fhirdiad, respectively, and what ‘things’ their hosting would ‘imply.’

And Garreg Mach was also out of the question. Archbishop Seteth, recently crowned himself, wanted to keep the reformed Church of Seiros as far removed from political power as possible. Byleth couldn’t make her capital there, he’d insisted. The implications!

So which will it be? her newly appointed cabinet - four representatives from each geographical region, with twelve in total - had prodded, each sect adamant that theirs couldn’t possibly be the permanent home of the new government.

And Byleth, already exhausted despite only being in charge for a grand total of one moon, had replied:

All of them, then.

That day, United Fodlan’s migrating government, colloquially known as the Wandering Court, had been born. Byleth spent one season in each capital - spring in Derdriu, summer in Fhirdiad (on which she was insistent), and winter in Enbarr. In the fall, she and the entire cabinet gathered at neutral Garreg Mach to conduct any business which required everyone’s presence at once.

For five years, the system had worked perfectly. There had been some inevitable pushback at first, mostly from anti-Imperial factions who were upset that Byleth had adopted the old Empire’s ministerial structure, but they had gradually quieted down as the continental economy stabilized and flourished under its guidance.

Moreover, Byleth liked being on the road. She was raised in tents and on horseback, always moving between destinations, and the frequent travel helped soften long days of paperwork and political debate. 

It also let her document certain supply and infrastructure problems firsthand; to this day, Byleth fondly remembered a tiny village on the Rhodos Coast whose inhabitants had sent in an official request for a new bridge - and had been shocked senseless when the queen herself, in transit from Fhirdiad to Garreg Mach, had shown up to build it.

(Petra had put her personal stamp of approval on that one; you only rule what you can see and touch, she’d written of the event.)

Today, though - this season, this cursed spring - the system was not working.

Oh, it had started normally enough. Byleth, once settled in the palace at Derdriu, had taken up her usual duty of hearing the cases which had passed since her last time in residence and breaking any tied votes. 

It wasn’t until her ministers were tying up the season’s work that a heavy rain swelled the Airmid, causing flooding in four different territories and knocking out a siege-battered section of the Great Bridge of Myrddin. Suddenly, they were swamped with petitions: drowned fields, lost livestock, choked roads. All with less than a moon remaining before the court’s transition to Fhirdiad.

In short, Byleth hadn’t slept in almost forty-eight hours.

Her head was a splitting fissure of tectonic activity, rumbling in the background of every meeting, every hearing, and roaring to life at random intervals that left her gritting her teeth and glaring at Lorenz, wherever he was in the room.

Oh, we simply can’t stay in Derdriu permanently, she mocked him mentally as, again, a searing wave of pain spiked behind her drooping eyes. It would ruin everything, or whatever.

“- and with that in mind, the Merchants’ Association asked us to move the boundary twenty feet down the riverfront,” Marianne recited from an open ledger. She, like all the other ministers, was dressed in a smartly cut, floor-length robe of office that bore the seal of United Fodlan, with her hair gathered neatly at the back of her neck.

“Ministers Victor and Goneril voted in favor of the merchants, while Minister Gloucester and I voted in favor of the fisheries. How do you rule?” Marianne looked up from her record and across their round discussion table. Her eyes were bright and serious at first, but they creased with worry upon taking in Byleth’s pinched expression. 

“Are you feeling ill, Your Majesty?”

This garnered the other ministers’ attention as well. Ignatz pushed his glasses up his nose to study her better, staring in that perceptive, sympathetic way that said he’d already identified all the faults in her appearance. 

Hilda, who’d been twirling a quill pen between her fingers, glanced up and gave Byleth a detachedly brutal once-over, indicating with an arched, sculpted eyebrow that she disliked her findings.

Lorenz, meanwhile, simply regarded his queen with a dry, ‘I told you so’ stare.

“No, no. I’m fine,” Byleth asserted, avoiding everyone’s concerned faces, and especially Lorenz’s. He had warned her against overworking only a week prior, and here she was zoning out like a bored student. She’d get an earful from him later, no doubt, about a ruler’s responsibility to their subjects extending to self-care and time management.

“My apologies. Minister Edmund, please recount the case again.” Byleth pushed herself up, ignoring the pounding rhythm inside her brain. She often paced the length of the room for difficult petitions, anyway, and maybe movement would help ease the pain - but she took one step and the world went sideways.

She swayed dangerously on her feet, catching herself on the edge of the throne. Her legs were soft and wobbly as a dessert jelly; her vision swam with blots of darkness and intense color at random. 

In a hushed, grave voice, she whispered, “Oh, that’s not good.”

“Quite,” Lorenz agreed curtly, having materialized at her elbow to aid in stabilization. He turned to the others, lips pursed and demeanor supremely unamused. “I believe Her Majesty is finished hearing cases for the day. All in agreement?”

Byleth barely registered the other ministers’ responses; her ears were suddenly full of cotton, dampening all incoming sound. Even Lorenz’s voice, so close at her side, was fuzzy and jumbled. She could only nod and follow him out of the throne room, vaguely aware that Marianne had joined them.

When had her headache gotten this bad? It must have been a slow progression, she reasoned as the trio headed toward her chambers, building in intensity during the meeting. She vaguely recalled an old medical lecture of Manuela’s about blood vessels in the brain, and how moving suddenly after a stationary period could cause...something. Something bad, probably.

Not for the first time, nor even for the hundredth, she wished she’d paid closer attention to the other teachers’ seminars back at Garreg Mach.

Lorenz politely turned around while Marianne helped Byleth out of her heavy court mantle and into her gigantic bed, busying himself by preparing a teapot at the dresser.

“I’ll be fine by tomorrow,” Byleth professed as she collapsed onto her mattress, allowing Marianne’s white magic to flow over her in a soothing current. “We can re-convene at first light.”

With his back still turned, Lorenz scoffed. “I highly doubt that.”

“I’m sorry, but he’s right,” Marianne corroborated, ceasing her spell and pressing the back of one hand to Byleth’s forehead. “You have harvest fever; you’ll need to rest for at least a week to let it run its course.”

“A week?” Byleth demanded, sitting straight up again. “But I leave for Fhirdiad in two!”

Lorenz brought the teapot over on a wheeled cart, putting his hands on either side and warming it magically. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have taxed yourself to infirmity, hmm?”

At that, Byleth shot him an impotent - and, in all likelihood, given her state, pathetic - glare, but the mere action of tensing her forehead muscles worsened her headache and she fell back onto her pillows, defeated. He was right, damn him.

“Byleth,” he continued, exasperated, dropping all formality as he always did in the absence of prying ears. “Just rest. We designed this government to run in your absence - let us handle things from here.”

Marianne echoed the sentiment with a soft smile, pouring some strong-smelling medicinal tea from the pot. “We’ll see that Ordelia and Hrym are well cared for,” she said, holding out the teacup like a peace offering.

Byleth grudgingly took it.

---

Lorenz squinted down at Byleth’s sleeping form, sprawled and content amongst her blankets, and sighed. No one had ever prepared her for a life of leadership and politics, but she’d risen to the challenge admirably in the last five years. Perhaps too admirably, if situations like this were any judge.

Her problem, he’d decided long ago - and informed her whenever the chance presented itself - was moderation. Temperance. Byleth Eisner tackled every problem with a single-minded determination that, while remarkably efficient during the war, had tended to cause a variety of problems in peacetime.

In that regard, she was quite similar to him. To Claude. And speaking of Claude -

“We had two guards and a trio of footmen at our assembly today,” Marianne observed, keeping her eyes on the bed, but her message was clear.

“Indeed.” Lorenz tapped the heels of his polished boots restlessly against the floor. He could practically hear the wagging tongues from here; he could picture the story of their fainting monarch billowing out from the palace like blood in water, ripe for scenting - and there was one particular green-eyed shark always circling for a whiff.

He forced a long, resigned breath out through his nose, and said dismally, “I’ll direct the staff to prepare the guest wing at once.”

---

Thanks to whatever was in that tea, Byleth slept straight through the next few days. Even when she woke, she was groggy and mostly insensate to the world around her; she recalled Marianne’s visits to administer medicine or urge a few sips of water, but other than that - nothing. Only light and color and sound, all indistinct and running together.

The fever itself wasn’t so bad. She was being treated by the most studied healer in the region, and the rest was good for her, as much as she resisted the notion.

No, what had her itching for freedom, for an escape, had nothing to do with the sickness and everything to do with her own shoddy mental compartmentalization. Byleth had a single unbreakable rule, and it had kept her safe and stable for most of her life: don’t slow down.

Her friends - formerly students, and now United Fodlan’s new ministers - had always struggled to understand what went on in her head, and Byleth had to confess that it was often a confusing place for her, too. That was why she spent as little time there as possible. If she was solving governmental disputes or plotting a route through the Oghmas, she wasn’t thinking about her problems - and for someone that had attended the Jeralt Eisner school of “don’t confront your problems until they literally confront you first” coping strategy, that suited her just fine.

But these hours cooped up in her bedchamber were slow, and Lorenz had taken great strides to ensure that nary a tax report breached its threshold. And when there was no work to do, no roadblock for her mind to chew on, it drifted to contemplation, to nostalgia, and then, inevitably, to Claude.

What would he think of the stalemate between the merchants and the fisheries? That one was easy. He’d find a third option, something neither of the institutions had proposed but that benefited both, and dazzle them with its presentation. He’d find a way to spin the conflict so that it wasn’t about competing guilds, but about the betterment of the city as a whole.

She wondered if he looked different now compared to when she’d seen him last, at the Alliance Founding Day celebration the previous Horsebow. They only ever saw each other in formal wear these days, painted and decorated and utterly without privacy. Had he let his hair grow over the winter like she had? Was it curling near the base of his neck, thick and wild?

Oh, here we go, she thought, rolling her eyes and then squeezing them shut. This was why she kept herself preoccupied; any lapse in activity brought these sorts of ideas to the forefront, and they always turned to indulgent fantasy. Only Claude brought out that side of Byleth - and it made her so paradoxically angry, and afraid, and lonely.

Angry because she hadn’t intended to let him in; he was just there one day, snugly by her side, a few months after she’d joined the faculty at Garreg Mach (and she would always lament, at least a little, that Rhea hadn’t put her with the students instead). Even after he’d admitted his ulterior motives in getting close to her, Byleth never had the heart to be mad at him for it. He was so damn endearing.

Afraid because, as easily as he’d attached himself to her, he’d un-attached. Byleth could admit to herself, alone in her darkened bedroom, that most of her mental evasion strategies centered around one specific memory: that early morning conversation they’d had right before her coronation, in which Claude had spontaneously announced his departure from Fodlan.

(“There’s something I need to do,” he’d said up at the Goddess Tower, and she had been so sure he’d wanted to say more, but instead he’d just...left.)

Lonely because their friendship had never been the same after that. They were both so busy, now, and with so much responsibility - and she missed him. Missed their easy conversation and matching drive; missed the academic dissections of famous battles and the late nights spent comparing various cultures’ names for the constellations. 

Her remaining friends were certainly a balm, and she wouldn’t trade them for the world, but none of them were him. She’d never filled that spot at her side. Couldn’t fill it. Nothing and no one else fit there.

But she also couldn’t ask him back. He was the king of Almyra now, fulfilling everything he’d wanted and worked for and talked about with stars in his eyes - and Byleth could never begrudge him his lofty and admirable goals. Never. Instead, she’d had to accept the possibility that the grand arc of his ambitions no longer included her in its trajectory.

She sprawled out sideways on her bed, letting the warring emotions flood her body. Maybe this was good for her. Maybe, like the fever, she just needed to let them run their course. Maybe these were the natural consequences of escapism and denial.

And it wasn’t like she’d be able to get away from herself any time soon.

---

“Of all the - absolutely not,” Lorenz stated, planting himself in the center of the hall that led to Byleth’s bedroom. “There are procedures, Claude. Royal protocol. You know this!”

But Claude had already danced around him, utilizing that foot speed the mages never needed to master. “Come on, Lorenz, I’m not some Srengan diplomat - we’ve all seen each other covered in mud and guts. What’s a little illness between friends?”

To his credit, Lorenz didn’t ask how Claude had come by that knowledge. Nor were his protestations very vigorous, as if the man had foreseen this exact scenario - and for that, Claude was proud of him. 

That pride wouldn’t keep him from his goal, however. He’d saddled up his wyvern as soon as the words “queen” and “sick” had left his spymaster’s mouth.

“She’s not well. You’ll be interrupting her convalescence - Claude,” Lorenz said sternly, holding his friend by the elbow and fixing him with a soul-searching gaze. “She cannot receive visitors in this state. What’s gotten into you?”

For an instant, Claude’s happy-go-lucky mask slipped. He’d been too pushy, so much so that even Lorenz got a glimpse of the panic underneath - the cold terror that had driven him across the continent and still gripped his heart. He knew it wouldn’t let up until he could confirm Byleth’s condition.

But he was a consummate faker, and so the mask slotted deftly back into place. “Why don’t you go ask her, hmm? I’m sure she’ll be positively overjoyed.”

---

When Lorenz walked in, Byleth was still in the same position, all spread out and despondent. 

“How are you feeling, Your Majesty?” he asked pointedly, and his use of her title - coupled with his formal position near the door - should have clued her in to what he was really asking, but Byleth was far too addled for nuance.

She tilted her head in his direction and flatly, shamelessly said, “Fine.”

Lorenz’s disciplined expression soured a fraction. “Well, that is wonderful news -” his ironic lilt suggested that this news was anything but wonderful, “- because you have a visitor.”

He stepped back to clear the doorway, giving Byleth a look that said she deserved everything that was about to happen. “May I present King Khalid ibn Riegan of Almyra.”

Claude poked his head in much too casually for Lorenz’s theatrical introduction. “Byleth! I brought you some -”

He paused, staring at her depressed-starfish pose. Byleth, in the blink of an eye, sobered completely and experienced all the stages of grief in quick succession.

“- fruit,” Claude finished lamely. Behind him, Lorenz pinched the bridge of his nose.

---

“Claude,” Byleth intoned, dredging up her ‘serious teacher’ voice for the occasion. She’d bathed and changed her clothes since his impromptu arrival - Byleth had never possessed a single modest bone in her body, but, again, he just incomprehensibly brought it out in her - and now she sat on the edge of her bed while he occupied the bedside armchair.

“It was so nice of you to drop in,” she continued, folding her arms across her chest.

Claude laughed anxiously, holding a woven basket full of fruit in his lap half like a shield and half like an offering to an angry deity. “Okay, why do I get the feeling you’re mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you,” Byleth said icily. It wasn’t a lie; it was more like she was mad around him - mad at the space surrounding his stupid, handsome head - mad that he’d shown up, as if summoned, right when she was feeling so sorry for herself about him.

But that was far too complicated to explain, so instead she asked, “What’s your business in the city?”

He brightened a bit, perhaps relieved to divert the topic. “Thought I’d tour the Goldroad - see what travel is really like there outside the official inspection dates.”

Byleth cocked her head to the side, staring out her west-facing window. He referred to the winding trade route that now spanned the Throat, starting at the Locket and ending at a similarly sized fort across the border in Almyra - but that was over a day’s travel from Derdriu.

Following the path of her eyes, Claude went on quickly, “And, you know, I was in the area, so why not visit my very best friend?”

She wasn’t sure she’d classify a seventeen hour wyvern flight as ‘in the area.’ Byleth narrowed her eyes, looking from his rigid smile, to his posture, to the basket he carried, then back to his face, waiting for the actual answer.

“- All right,” he confessed, exhaling deeply. “My spies said you were sick, so I came to check on you - how are you still so good at that?”

She smiled despite herself and pointed at the basket, which he promptly handed over. Popping a dried date into her mouth, she asked coyly, “At what?”

Claude laughed heartily, reaching over to get one for himself, and that simple action propelled them effortlessly into a comfortable, familiar rhythm, dispelling their outer veneers of royalty. 

They traded stories about travel, about new friends, about insufferable opposition; Claude told her about one of his subordinate satraps - which served a similar function to Byleth’s ministers, but with more concentrated local authority - who had threatened to raise an army in his territory over the price of grain, and then panicked when Claude had called his bluff and negotiated a lower price.

(“Did he even have an army?” she asked, completely absorbed in the story and eating sour cherries by the handful.

Claude, with a wide, gleeful grin, replied, “Not a chance.”)

In return, Byleth told him about last year’s failed rebellion in eastern Faerghus, in which a group of Blaiddyd royalists had tried to rally the region’s former aristocracy under the banner of House Fraldarius - and how Felix himself had ridden out to personally disband them.

(“Oof. Embarrassing,” Claude commented, making a face like someone had punched him in the gut. “What did he say to make them listen?”

Byleth snorted and modulated her voice to match the prickly swordsman’s. “‘This is not happening. Leave.’”)

As the afternoon wore on, servants brought in tea service and then dinner - and Byleth’s temporary surge in vitality upon seeing her dear friend started to fade, replaced by the fever-aches she’d come to know so well. Her movements grew slower and her answers shorter, overcast by brain fog.

Claude watched this change in her with considerable worry, helping her back under her blankets after they’d finished eating and re-situating the pillows around her head.

“Oh, stop it,” she chided, swatting away his hands. “I’m not completely helpless.”

He backed off, smiling easily, but stayed within range to aid her again if needed. “I don’t know about that,” he teased. “You know what they say about people who catch colds in the summer.”

“It’s spring,” she insisted, wrinkling her nose, but he didn’t laugh. In fact, there were no traces of mirth left anywhere on his face.

Byleth sat up straighter. “Claude, it’s only harvest fever. Marianne said it should clear up in a few days.”

He dropped back into his chair, resting his elbows on his knees so he could bridge part of the gap. “But what if it’s not, though?”

A nearby Church of Seiros’s evening bells rang out across the palace grounds. The brassy sounds changed with each echo, reaching her bedchamber as ghostly distortions.

“What, you think Marianne got it wrong?” Byleth asked, pulling her blanket up subconsciously.

“No, just -” Claude ran a hand back through his hair, pushing it even further out of its usual style, “- what if it’s related to...whatever Sothis did to you after the siege?”

He’d spoken so quietly that Byleth had to lean forward and slow her own breath in order to hear it. The concern in his tone - the restraint in his clasped hands; the uncertainty in his eyes - made her take a second pass over everything.

She no longer saw a casual check-in made by a concerned friend. Claude had traveled here with speed and intent, and now she knew why; just like their parting words at Garreg Mach had stuck with her, her long and mysterious slumber had probably stuck with him.

(The realization, while illuminating, didn’t hit her as hard as it should have. She thought some version of that truth, formless and undefined, must have been swimming around in the back of her mind for a while. It explained so succinctly why Marianne had insisted on treating Byleth herself, and why Lorenz stood vigil so often outside her room, even though the two had comparably little free time.)

Now that she thought about it, the long-term consequences of merging with a goddess should probably be a bigger concern of hers, too.

“I haven’t heard Sothis’s voice, nor felt her presence, in six years,” Byleth explained calmly, striving for an affect that would put him at ease. “And I’ve been in perfect health, besides.”

Claude gave her a long, lingering look - one that took in not only her face, but her long, mint-green braid and her customary wardrobe, unchanged from her days at the monastery - as if he wanted to commit her current state to memory. Byleth returned it with a confused frown, ready to comment on the odd behavior, but then his usual smile returned in a flash.

“You’re right,” he acquiesced with a little shrug, standing and straightening his riding harness. “It’s probably nothing serious. A few days, you said?”

Byleth’s confusion skewed into suspicion. Claude never let anything go that easily. “Yeah,” she answered slowly, searching his face for signs of duplicity. “Marianne said I’m already over the worst of it.”

“That’s great,” Claude enthused in the exact manner he’d use to win over his enemies, and Byleth’s misgivings quadrupled. “You should get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He was out the door in a flourish of his royal half-cape, paying no mind to the official etiquette of departure. (Byleth didn’t care about such things, but Lorenz was surely fuming about it in the hall.)

She let herself fall, warily, back onto her bed, pondering what Claude could possibly be up to - because he was up to something. It was only after she’d started to drift off, her head nestled warmly in one of about a dozen pillows, that the implications of his parting words struck her.

---

Ignatz rushed down the administerial wing’s main corridor, clutching a stack of accounting ledgers in one arm and several sheaves of operational business licenses in the other. Sunlight was just starting to peek through the hall’s windows, painting slowly elongating bars of yellow on the opposite walls; nobody would be in their offices yet, but if he could deliver his cargo before breakfast, he’d be able to get a head start on his own day’s work -

Thus distracted, he pushed his slipping glasses back up the bridge of his nose - using an occupied hand. Fifty business licenses, previously sorted alphabetically and geographically, drifted to the ground in a fluttering cloud of failure.

“Oh, no,” Ignatz muttered, dropping to his knees and gathering up the papers as best as he could without dropping the ledgers. If he didn’t deliver his cargo before breakfast, that would delay all of his tasks by at least an hour, thereby pushing back tomorrow’s tasks as well, to say nothing of his meeting with the merchants’ guild - 

A head of shaggy brown hair and a pair of leather-gloved hands bent to organize the papers into a messy but holdable pile, then helped to situate it more snugly in Ignatz’s grasp.

In his haste and immeasurable relief, Ignatz threw a grateful, “Thanks, Claude!” over his shoulder as he resumed his flight down the corridor.

At the threshold of Hilda’s office, though, while balancing both stacks with one hand so he could turn the doorknob, he froze and shouted back the way he’d come, “Claude?!”

---

Instead of the usual morning sounds - like the rustling of Marianne’s skirts or the trundling of a breakfast cart - Byleth woke to singing. It originated somewhere to her right, winding and unhurried, and she knew this gentle melody; Claude had taught it to her during the war.

So he really was still here, then. He’d really stayed. 

She opened her eyes just a hair, hoping for a chance to observe him before he noticed that she was awake.

It was still early. All the curtains were tied back and the windows cracked, letting in pale, diffused light and a sea-salt breeze off the bay. Claude stood at her personal writing desk, which Marianne had turned into a makeshift apothecary, weighing a small pile of freshly ground coriander. He was dressed more casually today, having discarded his courtly attire and riding leathers in favor of a belted Almyran-style tunic; his hair was bound in a simple but flattering tie at the nape of his neck.

Byleth watched him work - watched him thoughtfully consider the ratio of coriander to ginger to water, his hand hovering over each as he deliberated. All the while he sang that soft tune, so beautifully laden with memory and affection. 

When he’d finally settled on a mixture, he reached into a pouch at his belt and uncorked a vial of honey, adding a spoonful to the mug. She tried her best to hold it in, but a tiny, breathless laugh escaped her; that rich wildflower honey was a signature of Claude’s home-brews - a sweetener to make his questionable concoctions more palatable.

He jumped and whirled at the sound, his cheeks darkening somewhat at being caught unawares, but Byleth just shook her head slowly, reassuringly, and hummed the next few bars of his song. At once, his embarrassment morphed into a wide, slanted smile, and he turned back to put the finishing touches on his creation.

“What are you still doing here?” Byleth asked, pushing herself up to a sitting position. Her hair must have been a mess, but she had to settle for a quick smooth-down.

Claude chuckled and sat on the edge of her bed, holding out the mug of steaming medicinal tea. “Really? No ‘Good morning, Claude, and thank you for taking such good care of me?’”

She took the cup and shot him a faux-scowl. “Who’s running your country, though?”

“Oh, it basically runs itself.” He waved a flippant hand, staring out a window in the direction of the Throat. “Our scholars say, ‘A king is a great ship’s rudder.’ It just so happens that my ‘great ship’ has a good heading right now.”

Byleth regarded him doubtfully. She knew this proverb, and its wisdom was definitely not intended to excuse literal flights of fancy.

“What?” he asked, rolling his head to the side playfully. “If anything happens, Nader knows where I am. Besides, aren’t you happy to see me?”

Her stern facade - only performative, anyway, since Claude never failed to disarm her - softened. “I’m always happy to see you,” she said quietly, hiding her vulnerability with a big sip from her mug. (It was delicious, of course, after being assembled so skillfully.)

The curious look he gave her in response lasted a little too long, probed a little too deep for comfort, so she followed it up with a nervous, “Where’s - where’s Marianne?”

Claude, ever-insightful, let the moment pass without remark. “She allowed me to perform her caretaking duties in exchange for a little, ah...discretion...on my part.”

That was easy to imagine. Her ministers had enough on their legislative plates without the obligatory fanfare that would accompany an ‘official’ royal visitation - so the last thing they needed was King Khalid, the former leader of the Alliance, showing his highly recognizable face all over Derdriu.

“We’re both locked up, then,” Byleth said plainly. That explained his wardrobe; a casual observer might think him no more than a member of the staff. As long as he didn’t linger in unfamiliar company, he could move freely about the palace.

“Yep.” Claude smiled contentedly, like he’d gotten the best possible end of this deal. (Byleth begged to disagree.)

In a comically professional, woefully unconvincing physician’s voice, he asked, “So, how are you feeling today, my liege?”

Byleth choked on a sip of her tea, cough-laughing and beating her chest to clear her airways. “Much better, doctor,” she spluttered, setting down her mug to prevent any spasm-related accidents. It was true; her head and body aches had been fading with each passing day, and the fever was low enough that she didn’t feel like a boiling crab leg anymore.

“Good, good,” he mused, looking far too pleased with himself. “Then what do you say to a bit of chess on the balcony?”

She gave her sternum a few more good thumps to really get all the spicy ginger out of her lungs, using the extra time to examine Claude more closely. He knew he couldn’t beat her at chess; what was this about? And was it related to - to whatever inscrutable scheme he was currently enacting?

“Sure,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t give up his plans if asked. (Not until the most dramatically poignant moment, anyway.) If she was going to figure it out on her own, she’d need more opportunities for candid observation, and chess should do nicely.

His face split into a grin immediately. “I saw a board in Lorenz’s office. Meet you back here after lunch?”

“Yeah, it’s a date,” she agreed lightly, and didn’t miss the way it tripped him up on the way out. 

---

“You’re still here,” Lorenz observed with the same sort of weary derision one might direct at a persistent rug stain. He stood in the doorway to his office, holding a tea tray and projecting an aura of disappointment.

Claude, who was currently inside said office and in the midst of burgling a marble chess board, hastily clicked all its pieces back down and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am! Very astute of you to notice.”

Lorenz’s eyes flicked pointedly from his uninvited guest to his now-askew board, then he calmly strode around both to reach his polished mahogany desk. “Well, then. Would you join me for tea, Your Majesty?”

The way he gestured to the opposite chair spoke clearly of interrogation, but Claude sat anyway. It wouldn’t be polite to steal a man’s gaming paraphernalia and refuse his company.

“Why, thank you, Minister,” he answered, exaggerating his friend’s formal air, “we are simply delighted by your invitation.”

Lorenz’s poker face had improved over the years, but Claude still caught the subtle tightening of a jaw and the slightest arch of a brow; dead giveaways that he’d still snap at a piece of bait like a Brigidian piranha. Good to know.

“All right,” Lorenz said, clipped, like he’d come to a decision at the end of a long internal debate. “What are you doing here, Claude?”

Claude blinked, taken aback by the suddenness of the question. “Uh, well, Marianne and I -”

“I quite understand the generous arrangement which Marianne has afforded you,” Lorenz cut in quickly, pouring out two cups of tea. He handed one over the desk with the gravitas of a commander handing down orders. “What, precisely, are you here to do?”

Faking affrontation would be a moot point here, Claude thought. Lorenz was chasing down a specific answer, and from the set of his brow, he’d probably figured out most of it.

And that was fair. Despite their rocky interactions, Lorenz was one of the few people that Claude would say he trusted, and he knew that Lorenz felt the same (even though he had a peculiar way of showing it).

However, while Lorenz looked confident in the answer to his question, Claude didn’t even know where to start. How could he sum up this whirlwind?

Should he begin with the primal fear of hearing that Byleth had collapsed? With the breakneck flight to Derdriu, imagining all the worst possibilities in his head? (The mild shock in her eyes as she toppled backward into the chasm; her ensuing five-year absence, silent and absolute.)

Or at the boundless relief - the sheer, joyful knowledge that she had not, in fact, been re-afflicted with Sothis’s ancient sleeping sickness?

Or, should he skip straight to the certainty that he wouldn’t survive another such scare, and the unwillingness to be apart from her for even a second more, political repercussions be damned? 

In the end, holding a steaming, fragrant cup of bergamot, Claude - in one of only a handful of occasions thus far in his life - couldn’t find the right words.

Luckily, Lorenz, who must have witnessed his friend’s rapid expression shifts, found one instead. Gently, and with more sympathy than expected, he asked, “Still?”

Ah, so he had figured it out.

Claude raised his teacup in a silent toast. “Still,” he confirmed, then downed it in one gulp.

“Hm.” Lorenz paused to serve out refills and scones, and Claude knew exactly what his friend was remembering.

(For five years during the war, Claude had periodically returned to Garreg Mach, even though everyone else had given up the search for Byleth. As the visits persisted in the face of increasing danger, one by one, and with varying levels of understanding and acceptance, his friends had all come to the same conclusion: their leader was in love with their former professor.)

“I can’t say that I’m surprised,” Lorenz said curtly, but not unkindly. “You have a plan, then? - Oh, what am I saying? Of course you do. The Master Tactician wouldn’t have shown up without a plan.”

Claude, who had been trying to decide if Lorenz was mocking him or not, visibly fumbled his cranberry scone at that final comment.

Instantaneously, Lorenz’s face went from invested concern to mortification. “Goddess above - you don’t have a plan.”

Claude didn’t have the heart to say that his “plans” often sprung from gut feelings like this; that, very often, he was building a bridge to his goals and walking it simultaneously, trusting that there would be another plank when he reached back for one.

In this particular instance, his bridge took the form of an impromptu and extended stay at the palace while he figured out the world’s most diplomatically sensitive marriage proposal. He wanted to tell Lorenz that, actually, he had several possible scaffolds in place, he just hadn’t chosen one yet - but Claude could see the foundational flaws in all of them, and still hovered at the juncture, unsure where to lay the next plank.

“- No, I don’t,” he finally admitted, steepling his fingers on the desk. “I’m taking suggestions, though, if you have any?”

Lorenz took a slow, calculated sip of his tea, giving Claude one of his patented ‘how did you manage to become the leader of anything’ looks. “Marianne assures me that Byleth will recover in a matter of days -”

“I know,” Claude interjected miserably. His timetable was tragically inadequate.

“- And, while your presence here is temporarily acceptable on the basis of friendship, it will become much harder to justify after the palace returns to its normal operations -”

“I know, Lorenz,” Claude said, letting his forehead fall onto the points of his fingers. The pain, he thought, was well-deserved. “Sheesh, you don’t have to rub my nose in it…”

Lorenz laughed softly. “Apologies. I’m simply savoring the moment; it isn’t often you need my strategic input.”

With his face downturned and concealed, Claude grimaced. He supposed he’d deserved that, too.

“But,” Lorenz went on, “I do have a suggestion. Given your limited available time and lack of direction, we should enlist outside support.”

Claude raised his head incredulously. “Your solution is to have more people laugh at me?”

“Yes. Hilda and Marianne, to be precise.” Lorenz smirked and crossed his legs. “And they won’t laugh - in fact, Hilda will be delighted.”

His tone of voice was too amused for the answer to be anything good, but Claude still asked cautiously, “Why?”

“Oh, because I owe her quite a bit of gold, naturally - I thought it would take you and Byleth far longer to act on your feelings, and my money was on her acting first.”

---

Byleth loved the balcony off her bedchamber. It was on the same side of the palace as the throne room, only higher, with a wider perspective of the canal below and a down-angle view of the opposite block. Sitting on it and looking out, with the stone railing acting as an artificial horizon, she really felt as if she were floating above Derdriu; the city sprawled off endlessly to her right, while its great network of canals spilled into the bay on her left, all set in miniature from this height.

A tangy sea breeze teased through her hair, rustling the many and vibrant plants - in pots, hanging from the roof, and mounted in window boxes - that scattered the area. They were in perfect health, she noticed, despite the rarity of her visits, and Byleth wondered if it was some palace staffer’s entire job to maintain luxurious spaces like these, even though some busy official might seldom use them. 

She privately resolved to appreciate the balcony more often.

It didn’t take long for Claude to come whistling through her chambers, bearing a chess board like a server delivering a high-end meal. He put it down on a small, circular table where Byleth’s own board was already set up, then carefully aligned their edges to create a double-long playing field.

(They’d invented this game early on at Garreg Mach after discovering that neither of them felt challenged enough by the base rules. It had gone through several name changes before they’d agreed to just keep the original; after all, if either of them ever mentioned the game to the other, they both understood which (clearly superior) version was being referenced.)

“So, you managed to get Lorenz to part with it,” Byleth commented as he arranged his pieces and sat down opposite her. “What’d it cost you?”

Claude made a face like he’d just licked a lemon. “Oh, nothing much. Just my reputation and dignity.” He laughed it off, but there was a distinct, hollow ring of truth to his words. “Anyway. Sixty-point game?”

She cocked her head, intrigued. Their special rules allowed for custom “armies” to be built from the standard chess units, each with an individual point cost. Byleth personally liked to run an army without pawns - high risk, high reward (usually reward).

“Not forty?” she asked mildly, picking out her standard array plus an extra frontline of knights. Claude would regret handing her such an aggressive opener. “Are you trying out a new strategy?”

He grinned and laid out his own army, which seemed to focus around his sovereigns - and, as usual, contained a robust line-and-a-half of pawns. What he sacrificed in speed, he made up for in defensive surface area.

“I am. I think you’ll really like this one,” he said, playing his first (highly predictable) move. 

That was the thing about Claude, though. Byleth thought his move was predictable right now, at the beginning, but he was a highly intelligent improviser. The long field between armies meant that most of the game was based on ranged path speculation. 

Was a cluster of pieces actually heading toward her left flank, or would it divert to threaten other units at the last second? She’d have to put a metaphorical shield in place for the first possibility, and a sword for the other - and with Claude, it was impossible to tell ahead of time which he would actually pick. 

But, despite the chaos his playstyle caused, its spontaneity was also what made him such a compelling opponent. The tactical element never got stale.

“It’s bound to be more exciting than your rook phalanx idea,” Byleth teased, starting her knights off on their long journey.

Claude gasped like she’d just insulted his mother. “Hey, that was not my fault - it was a good attack pattern in theory!”

She made a tiny sound of agreement to humor him, but remained privately unconvinced.

As usual, they lapsed into silence for the first phase of the game, each trying to dissect the other’s overall strategy. Of course, at this stage, it was largely conjecture; there would be many, many reactive and counter-reactive moves before any two units actually engaged.

The quiet was nice, though. Ships’ bells echoed in from the piers, mingling with street noise rabble and the shrill cries of bay gulls. There was no one to demand her ear or her time - a rare commodity. She could tell Claude enjoyed it, too, by his easy smiles and relaxed posture.

Why had they ever stopped doing this? It dawned on Byleth that it had been years since their last game.

“- Hey, Claude,” she said at the thirty-turn mark.

He didn’t look up from his spread. “Hm?” “What in the world are you doing?”

His green eyes, which had been bouncing between forward pawns, flicked up to her face. “Setting up my midgame?” he half-asked, gesturing to his formation like the answer was obvious. “Why, what are you doing?”

Byleth narrowed her eyes at the board. He’d split his pawns into two staggered ranks with his sovereigns in the middle, like some sort of sandwiched convoy, and the outer ring of mid-tier pieces looked to be guards.

“Your brilliant new strategy is to hand-deliver your king to my army?” she contended, tracing his column’s trek down the board with her hands, then opening them wide, fingers hooked, to mime the pieces being eaten by a sharp-toothed monster.

Claude laughed confidently. “You’ll see. The king and queen together are unstoppable.”

It was certainly an unconventional approach. By virtue of its novelty, it tripped Byleth up several times in the early game - one might even say, around turn sixty, that her opponent had the advantage. But the sheer speed and maneuverability of her knightly vanguard eventually prevailed, and by turn ninety, she had his entire escort block surrounded. 

“Multi-point threat,” Byleth declared, moving in on his rear line. “This was an interesting idea, but I do believe your king is in mortal peril.”

Claude, who’d been standing for the last dozen turns, paced to the other side of the table. (He loved to do that - to see the situation from all angles, like he would in a real conflict. Unfortunately, that expanded perspective could do little for him here.)

“No, I think - listen - he still has his queen.”

Byleth examined the setup again. “Uh-huh, he sure does,” she drawled, trying to understand how that might change their fates.

“I’m just saying,” he went on, crouching so that he could view the board at eye level. “Look how far they’ve already come. Look at all they’ve been through together - it’s not like a little opposition could stop them now, right?”

She crossed her arms, a bewildered smile tugging at her mouth. “Are you seriously trying to Nemesis me right now? My bishops have them both in four.”

Claude gave a frustrated sigh. “No, this isn’t a scheme - well,” he amended, scratching pensively at his chin scruff, “okay, it is a scheme, but -”

I knew it, she thought, vindicated, and grinned accordingly.

“Ugh, forget it.” Claude toppled his king. “You’re right, it was an ill-fated venture that clearly needs outside support.”

Byleth frowned. “What? I didn’t say that.”

He waved his arms like he was dispelling the entire conversation. “Never mind. We’ve still got plenty of light - how about another game?”

---

Later that night, after Byleth and most of the palace had retired, Hilda’s raucous laughter rang out through the entire administerial wing.

“You tried to tell her with chess?!”

She, Claude, Marianne, and Lorenz all sat around a table in one of the meeting rooms, passing around a bottle of strong Faerghan whiskey.

“No wonder she didn’t get it,” Hilda continued, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes (in a delicate manner that spared her makeup). “You know how Byleth is!”

Lorenz refilled his glass, nodding emphatically. “Agreed. Subtlety will get you nowhere in that arena, my friend.”

“I thought it was sweet,” Marianne disclosed quietly.

Claude propped his feet up on an unused chair and dipped his chin gratefully. “Thank you. I also thought it would be sweet. And successful.”

He took a long swig straight from the bottle, much to Hilda’s amusement. “But you were right, Lorenz, okay? So -” he slapped the tabletop in invitation, “- go on. Advise me.”

Perhaps sensing that their friend was already punishing himself enough, no one pushed the teasing any further. Lorenz and Hilda shared a look - one that said they’d already discussed the matter privately - and then everyone got straight down to business.

“First of all, we should discuss the legal ramifications of your union,” Lorenz said, indicating the palace walls. “It’s true that anti-Almyran sentiment has died down greatly since the war, especially here in Leicester, but I fear widespread confusion - how much power would the king of Almyra suddenly have over their territories? Their livelihoods?”

Claude recoiled from the intensity. “Whoa! She hasn’t even said yes - aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves, here?”

(In truth, he had the same worries about his own homeland; it wasn’t like xenophobia was exclusive to Fodlan. His current plan - if she agreed - was to introduce her presence like he’d introduced his own: aggressively and unapologetically, with hopes that the Almyran public would regard it with the same eventual respect.)

The other three gave him bland looks.

“You really, honestly think she’ll turn you down?” Hilda asked in angry disbelief.

Claude gritted his teeth. “I don’t know - I mean, that’s Byleth’s whole deal, right? Unbeatable strategist? You never know what she’s thinking?”

“Oh, Claude,” Marianne said, patting him on the arm. “You should have more confidence in yourself.”

Hilda snorted into her tumbler.

“- Regardless, I don’t want to discuss the politics without her. If she says yes,” Claude emphasized with a stern glance around the table. “I have to get to the actual question first, okay? Lorenz. Ideas. Go.”

The man in question raised his eyebrows. “All right - well, Leonie proposed to me during a horseback ride. She’d painted all of her mounted archery targets with one word each, and in order they spelled out a question...oh, it was very romantic,” he said, his tone warming as he spoke. He then promptly cleared his throat. “But, ah, Byleth isn’t in a physical state for riding, hmm?”

Hilda propped her elbows up on the table and cradled her chin in her hands, recounting dreamily, “Marianne took me deep into the forest at night and professed her love under the light of the full moon. How could I have ever said no to that?”

Marianne hid behind her glass, her face beet-red. “I don’t, uhm, think there are any full moons coming up soon, though,” she managed to squeak out.

“Yeah, you have to do something quick.” Hilda pointed at him with her glass. “Let’s see - we already know it can’t involve winning something, so that’s out.”

Claude laughed sarcastically into the bottle.

“A grand display would not be diplomatically feasible, either,” Lorenz added.

Yeah, that made sense, Claude thought. A single plant in the throne room had brought word of Byleth’s illness to him in under three days - and he wasn’t the only one with eyes here. 

“You should do something that’s meaningful to both of you,” Marianne suggested, her face returning to its usual pallid shade. “Something simple but significant. Byleth would appreciate that, I think.”

Simple but significant.

Claude swirled the idea around in his head at the same time he swirled the contents of his bottle. Significant he could do - had been doing - but simple was another story. Maybe that was his problem; maybe he just needed to go back to the basics.

“And don’t get her a ring,” Hilda said. “I never see her wearing jewelry unless the tailors insist.”

He chewed on all of that, taking slow, measured sips of whiskey. Something meaningful to both him and to Byleth - something memorable, but uncomplicated. No rings, he added mentally. That was fine; as an archer, he disliked having obstructions around his hands, anyway. (And while they were out here breaking traditions, who cared if it was one or one hundred?)

“Hey,” he began, doing some quick calculations around wyverns’ seasonal nesting habits. “How quickly could I get something down the Goldroad?”

Lorenz’s brows knit together. “From the capital to here, I presume, and with the use of your royal seal? Within the week. Why? What do you need?”

Claude grinned, luxuriating in the rush of a good plan coming together. “All right, listen to this -”

---

If she could’ve had her way, Byleth would have chosen to remain in those last days of her fever forever. Her symptoms were mild and unobtrusive, she didn’t have to do any paperwork, and Claude was there; simply put, it was the ideal situation.

They spent four whole days together playing games, mixing various drinks, going for (short and supervised) walks around the garden, and reminiscing about old times - but Marianne’s medicines were effective and all things, even good things, must end.

On the morning of the fifth day, she knew she was cured. Her mind was clear and her body strong, if a little feeble from the bed rest. Everyone else must have been on the same page, too, because Marianne came to greet her after breakfast in Claude’s stead.

“So that’s the end of the arrangement, then?” Byleth asked, trying to keep her voice even and normal.

Marianne smiled softly and pressed the back of her hand to Byleth’s forehead. “Yes. Claude will be returning home this evening, as I’m sure he has many decisions waiting for him there.”

That makes two of us, Byleth thought dejectedly.

“Your temperature is perfectly normal,” Marianne reported. “Do you have any lingering fatigue? Dizziness?”

“Nope. Nothing,” Byleth said, heaving a reluctant sigh. “I suppose I should head down to the audience chambers.”

She really, truly hadn’t meant to sound like a pouting toddler bound for punishment, but that was exactly how it had come out.

Marianne laughed. “Yes, you should - tomorrow.” To answer Byleth’s questioning stare, she pointed across the room. “I think you’ll be too busy today.”

Right on cue, something large impacted outside the windows with a dull, cracking thud. Without thinking, Byleth whirled, ready for some sort of threat - (her sword belt was hanging next to her bed, easily accessible for such emergencies) - but it was only Claude on the balcony.

Rather, it was his massive white wyvern, Sahar. She’d perched on the railing, her sharp claws gouging long scrapes in the stone, and he was mounted on her back.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for that!” he called, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Good morning! Care for a ride?”

Byleth burst out in surprised laughter, too endeared to be mad about the property damage. She looked back, confused and curious, but Marianne just shook her head.

“Go,” she said, gesturing outward. “Have fun. You have my official medical clearance.”

That was all the permission Byleth needed to throw open the doors and run out, barefoot and grinning, to leap at Sahar’s saddle. The seaside wind blasted her hair back and Claude opened his arms for her arrival, bracing in his stirrups to absorb the impact.

They’d performed this maneuver many times during the war; since Byleth preferred to do her fighting on foot, Claude would often sweep down to reposition her more quickly. Even after five years without practice, they executed the pick-up without a hitch: she landed knees-first at the front of the saddle and Claude anchored her, wrapping both arms around her midsection.

In combat, the move had been utilitarian - the fastest way to mount up. Right now, though, it felt more intimate; with no armor, no weapons, and no urgency, they were basically just hugging on wyvern-back.

Byleth quickly turned herself around, hoping he hadn’t seen the blush rising up her neck. 

“That eager to get out of there, huh?” he teased, helping her get situated.

She rolled her eyes and cinched a pair of flight straps around her waist. The fit was snugly familiar, securing her to both the saddle and her fellow rider.

“You know the answer to that,” she replied, glancing down the tall outer walls of the palace. A few people in the canal-side gardens had looked up at the spectacle; they were too far away to see much detail, but this was clearly the queen’s bedchamber. “This isn’t the most discreet escape, is it?”

Claude scoffed, turning his mount skyward with a nudge. “Oh, it’s fine. Not many Fodlanese know about the white wyvern thing. Besides,” he said mischievously, testing the knots on her straps, “didn’t Marianne tell you? Our arrangement is done.”

With that, they were off. Sahar spread her massive wings - leathery and smooth, delicate and powerful all at once - to catch the current, pushing herself off into it and raining stone chips and dust in her wake.

Byleth yelped at the sudden lurch, falling back against Claude, who gladly supported her while they gained rapid altitude in the midday sky. Sahar’s rhythmic wing beats took them high above the notice of anyone in the city, down the palace’s canal and out into the bay.

She watched it all fall away as they climbed. The great trade ships shrank to the sizes of beetles in their lanes; the flocks of gulls that chased them, to mere specks. The ocean itself became an undulating cobalt tapestry, shot through with threads of white and gray.

When they leveled off and the wind died down in their ears, Claude spoke, “Remember when I taught you to fly?”

A series of images flashed in her mind: wrangling a saddle onto an impatient wyvern; losing straps and buckles under flapping wings; falling before she could even take off - so, so much falling.

“I remember when you tried to, sure,” she said, cringing at the memories. Even Leonie, who never gave up on anything, had declared Byleth’s flying skills unsalvageable. “Why?”

Claude laughed a little too hard, like he was recalling the very same foibles. “Nah. You just needed more time - we couldn’t spare any in the war. But now?”

“Are you suggesting,” Byleth said, throwing him a flat look over her shoulder, “that I fall on my ass repeatedly in front of the entire court? It was bad enough when it was just jeering students.”

“No, no, my point is -” Claude directed her attention back to their view of the bay, “- you could come out here whenever you wanted. Get away from it all.”

So he’d noticed her restlessness. Well, of course he did, Byleth admonished herself. He’s Claude.

“That would be...nice,” she admitted, giving him a half-smile. “It’s different, isn’t it? Leading during peacetime?”

He relaxed his hold on the reins and let Sahar go where she would in the open sky; she took full advantage of the freedom, floating into various air currents and skirting low, wispy clouds.

“Yeah, it is.” Claude’s tone was sober and diminished. He prodded gently, “How have you really been, Bee?”

The nickname brought unexpected tears to her eyes; he hadn’t used it since they parted at Garreg Mach five years ago. She’d forgotten how fond and welcoming it sounded - how warm - coming from his mouth.

Byleth faced straight ahead, glad he couldn’t see her expression. It must have been just as regretful and conflicted as her mind.

“I never expected to be here,” she murmured, and in her heart she finished the thought: without you. Her voice barely carried over the wind, but she knew Claude had heard it; he scooted closer to her in the saddle, whether consciously or not. “Everyone around me is so certain of their place, and I’m...not.”

Her thoughts strayed to Edelgard and Dimitri, to their twin drives that - even misguided and corrupted as they were - strove for a better world at their roots. Byleth, who held no grand vision for the future, couldn’t help but feel unfit for the mantles they’d left behind.

(Truthfully, that was one of many reasons why Derdriu was her favorite capital, and spring her favorite season. Fhirdiad’s and Enbarr’s thrones still felt like someone else’s seats to her - someone else’s dreams.)

“I don’t think anyone expected to be where they are now,” Claude said, matching her volume. When Byleth shot him another ‘quit your bullshit’ look, he chuckled and corrected himself, “Okay. Maybe I did, but nobody else did.”

“Lorenz thought he’d be leading the Alliance, hitched to some noble lady. Hilda didn’t think she’d be doing anything.” Claude put up one finger for each example. “Marianne wanted to keep her head down. Ignatz thought he’d be barred from his passions.”

He rested his chin on the top of Byleth’s head. “Expectations and reality don’t always match up. Are you unhappy with where you are, Your Majesty?”

I’m exceedingly happy where I am, she thought, easing herself back to rest against him. And that’s the problem.

“No,” she answered simply. “I’m not.”

Claude, perhaps sensing the dishonesty in her words, hummed doubtfully. The sound rumbled deep in her chest. “Well - if you ever were unhappy, you know I’d help, right? No matter what it was.”

“I know,” she said, tilting her head to smile up at him. “And - I think you’re right.”

He shifted to accommodate her better, crossing his arms over her lap to grip the saddlehorn. “Oh? About expectations?”

“No, about flying.” She settled into their pseudo-embrace, resolving to enjoy it while it lasted. “I should learn.”

Claude made a small, happy noise in his throat. “I’ll teach you. It’ll be great.”

They drifted down the Edmund coastline in a comfortable quiet after that. If not for the Throat looming in the distance - a constant reminder of the hourglass hanging over their flight - Byleth would’ve been perfectly content. The longer they went, the more she wished he would just keep flying straight over the mountains - but the sun continued on its inexorable path through the heavens, and all things, even good things, must end.

Still, though, when he wheeled them around and began the journey back, Byleth thought she detected a resonant note of hesitation in him.

By the time they’d reached the bay of Derdriu, the sun hung low and the sky had turned to vibrant oranges and indigos; the frothy crests of waves, the metal fixtures on ships’ masts, and even the scaly tips of Sahar’s wings shone golden in the rich evening light. 

The palace’s white marble exterior reflected sunset-colors onto the streets and canal below. In any other instance, she’d find it beautiful, but right now it was no different than the Throat: an ominous, prohibitive barrier.

Claude guided Sahar to the balcony again, wincing as her claws ground fresh holes into the railing.

“- I’ll pay for that,” he reiterated sheepishly, then hopped down to offer Byleth a hand.

She took it, letting him assume her weight while she scrambled much less gracefully to the ground. The stone tiles, quickly cooling with the onset of night, chilled her bare feet on contact; she shivered, looking back wistfully at the evening sky. 

When she turned around again, Claude was watching her intently. Unreadably. 

“Did you enjoy the ride?” he asked.

“I did. Thank you.” She tried to match his tone, to hide her sadness - to appreciate the time they’d had together instead of mourning its conclusion. “I suppose you need to get going, then?”

“Mm, not quite yet,” he replied with a secretive smile, wrapping Sahar’s reins around her saddlehorn. He muttered a phrase to her in Almyran, to which the great wyvern nuzzled into his hand and took off in the direction of the aviary.

“Let’s get you warmed up, first.” He strode past her to the open balcony doors, jerking his head toward it encouragingly when she didn’t immediately follow. “Come on, it’s okay - I have time.”

Byleth trailed after him, instantly suspicious. He was using his ‘false sense of security’ voice again, like he had on the first night. “Claude, what are you planning?” she called out warily, stepping into her darkened bedchamber.

A spark struck in the hearth, setting the tinder inside ablaze and silhouetting Claude in a red-orange halo. “Why do I have to be planning something?” he countered, overly defensive, as he stoked the fire. “- You looked cold, is all.”

She gave him a skeptical once-over, then turned to grab a cloak from her wardrobe - and there on her dresser, shining in the firelight, was a lacquered ebony box the length of her arm.

It was decorated with glittering gold leaf along its edges, clearly meant to hold something valuable. Byleth whipped around to fix Claude with an accusing glare, but he just shrugged innocently and motioned for her to open it.

He had a long history of bequeathing strange gifts to his friends, always seeming to enjoy the reactions a little too much. Byleth wasn’t aware of any current holidays, though, either in Fodlan or Almyra.

She sighed and lifted the lid. “I swear, if this is another apron -” 

The breath caught in her throat. It most definitely was not an apron.

Nestled in a bed of burgundy velvet, only slightly smaller than the box itself, laid a porcelain-white wyvern egg dotted with flecks of pearlescent ivory. 

This time when she glanced back, it was in affectionate curiosity. “So this is why you were pushing flight training,” she said, gingerly touching the warm shell. “But - aren’t white wyverns only given to members of the royal family?”

Claude moved to stand next to her, drained of all his earlier mirth and bravado. In its place was a tense energy she hadn’t sensed in him since they’d last met at the Goddess Tower.

“Well, yeah, that’s the idea,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I was hoping you’d, uh, well - I wanted to ask you, since -”

He stopped and grunted, looking disgusted with himself. “Let me start over.”

Byleth nodded, absolutely baffled. What in Sothis’s name was he trying to say?

Claude ran a hand back through his hair and took a deep, steadying breath. “We both didn��t have the best experiences with family growing up. I mean, you had Jeralt and I had my mom, and they were great, but other than that it was…”

“Lonely,” she offered. They’d discussed their respective childhoods many times before - commiserated in the shared wounds of alienation and neglect.

Delicately, he took her hand and squeezed it. “Yeah. Lonely. And if I’m reading this correctly, so were the last five years, right?”

Byleth swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded again.

“Yeah,” Claude repeated softly. “For me, too. So, I thought - maybe neither of us has to be lonely anymore.”

His meaning dawned on her like a sunrise, blooming heat high in her cheeks. Her embarrassment fueled his, in turn, and they were left staring at one another in stunned silence; from an outside perspective, they must have looked - fittingly - like a pair of panicked deer.

“Claude,” she pronounced thickly, needing to verify her theory, “are you asking me to…?”

“Mhm,” he confirmed, a portion of his usual confidence flickering back to life in his smile. He tipped her chin upward with his index finger. “I want to be your family. I want you to be my family.”

Byleth had spent the first part of her life without adequate modes of expression. Before meeting Claude, she’d gotten by on curt gestures and a flat affect - and now, in the face of overwhelming emotion, she regressed right back to that state.

All she could do to communicate her answer was to jump and reach for him, just like she was leaping onto his wyvern - and, predictably, protectively, his arms closed around her. Anchored her.

Like always, she thought. A perfect catch.

“Woah - I’ll take that as a yes, then?” Claude asked, tentatively hopeful, laughing and stepping backward from the unexpected force.

Byleth buried her face in his shoulder and nodded, unable to speak; hot tears spilled from her eyes, soaking into Claude’s tunic collar, and her wrists trembled where they were clasped at his neck. Her heart had never beat, yet now it was overflowing, filling her chest with something happy and potent and home that she’d never dared to covet before.

In the glow of the hearth, to the crackling of logs and the faint rush of a sea breeze outside, Claude rocked them back and forth at a measured, soothing pace. He kissed her forehead, her temple, her cheekbone, wiping away her tears with his thumb and whispering in a shaky voice, “It’s okay, Bee. We’re going to be so happy, I promise. I promise.”

---Epilogue---

Lorenz understood the severity of the Airmid flooding - really, he did - but he did not understand why it needed to translate into a six-in-the-morning assembly. Anything the ministers discussed there could be handled just as easily, and with more lucidity, during their regular working hours.

Still, he trudged diligently up the stairs to the meeting rooms. If there were emergency measures to enact, then, by the goddess, he’d see them enacted. The peoples of Hrym and Ordelia had already suffered enough for several lifetimes.

He was just inside the threshold, blinking and stifling a yawn, when he saw them: Byleth and Claude, seated side by side at the head of the meeting table, the former digging into a plate of food and the latter grinning like a madman.

Lorenz’s yawn cut off abruptly; his jaw snapped shut with a click.

“You’re still here,” he grumbled, sliding into a chair on an empty side. “Somehow I doubt this is about the floods.”

Hilda and Marianne, who were sitting opposite him, giggled quietly together, their hands clasped on the tabletop. (Frankly, it made him jealous. Leonie hadn’t wanted to touch the office of royal minister with a ten-foot lance.)

“Nope,” Byleth said, pointing at Claude with her fork. “This is about the legality of our marriage.”

Hilda clapped frantically with excitement. “Congratulations! Ooh, this is going to be the biggest wedding ever - can you imagine the guest list? We’ll be curating it for months.”

“I think I’ll exclude my paternal cousins,” Claude mused. “Just to watch them squirm.”

Marianne nodded. “They deserve it.”

“Wait. Hold.” Lorenz slapped his daily ledger down on the table like a judge calling for order, and it worked just the same. The rabble died down, all eyes turning to him. “First of all: congratulations, you two. You’ve made me a marginally poorer man.”

Hilda snickered triumphantly.

“Second: this is going to be a legislative nightmare - and don’t you tell me differently, Claude von Riegan,” he added, holding up a finger when it looked like Claude would cut in. 

“I’ll abdicate,” Byleth suggested, stabbing into a sausage.

“No -!” all three ministers shouted in unison - even Marianne, who’d also half-stood from her chair, hands braced on the table.

(Meanwhile, Claude simply watched his new fiancee with moon-eyed adoration; Lorenz was sure he’d humor anything she said right now.)

“That - that won’t be necessary,” Lorenz said, clearing his throat and smoothing down his ascot. “I only mean that it will take time and collaboration. Claude, I insist that you stay another week while we draft something for you to take home. I’ll write to Nader.”

Byleth let out a rare exuberant gasp; beside her, Claude glanced down the table and gave Lorenz a sly, conspiratorial wink. 

“- Oh, try to act professionally about this, would you?” he insisted, but an infectious smile was already spreading across his own face. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author’s Notes

candidates for game names:

byleth: better chess (rejected - judgmental)

claude: long chess (rejected - misleading)

hilda: chess 2 (considered but ultimately rejected - legality)

lorenz: tactician’s chess (rejected - boring)

[sincerelystranger]

Author: Self-indulgent exploration of why WWX might have invented a spell that brought people back to life <3

----

“Ugh, life is really too annoying,” Wei Wuxian says, plopping down onto the floor of the cave, not even bothering to dry off.  

It’s one of the catch phrases Wei Wuxian has seemed to have grown fond of in his new life. Like most of his other catch phrases, it annoys the fuck out of Jiang Cheng.

“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng growls. He kicks around some dry grass and twigs on the cave floor and sets it on fire. “It’s your invention that brought you back – stop complaining about it.”

Wei Wuxian rolled closer to the fire, like the big annoying kid he was. “I didn’t know it would be used to bring me back,” he says petulantly, “I wouldn’t have invented it if I knew it would be used on me.”

For some reason, Wei Wuxian’s words irk Jiang Cheng. His words rake the coals of Jiang Cheng’s anger and make it burn fiercely in his stomach. “Keep talking shit and I’ll kill you myself,” Jiang Cheng growls, Zidian sparking dangerously on his hand.

Wei Wuxian glances up at him with one eye and promptly rolls back away from Jiang Cheng. “Mercy, great Sect leader. Mercy,” he begs monotonously.

Jiang Cheng lets out a deep sigh and closes his eyes. Patience, he chants to himself. Patience. If he kills Wei Wuxian in this cave, Hanguang-jun will be upset. Jiang Cheng hasn’t even gotten married yet – there will be no successor to the Yunmeng Jiang Sect if Hanguang-jun kills him.

Patience. He needs to have patience. He will not kill Wei Wuxian. The rain will probably let up soon…

“Who were you planning on bringing back, if not yourself?” Jiang Cheng asks after a few calming breaths.  

Wei Wuxian pushes up on his elbow and rests his head on his hand, looking like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Fucking annoying –

“Oh, I thought maybe I’d bring back Uncle,” he says easily. He slips a piece of dry grass between his lips and chews lazily, like he hasn’t just said something… horrible.

“Father?” Jiang Cheng asks faintly, “You invented this… for father?”

Jiang Cheng had thought that Wei Wuxian had invented that horrible array during his years in the Burial Mounds. Had thought that… well he wasn’t sure what he had thought but he had just assumed that the array had been a product of Wei Wuxian’s boredom in the cursed mountains. He hadn’t thought about why Wei Wuxian would create an array to bring back the dead – hadn’t thought about why Wei Wuxian would even think along those lines…

“Wouldn’t it have been kind of funny?” Wei Wuxian continues, thoughtlessly. Unaware of the affect his revelation is having on Jiang Cheng. “Imagine you having to call me father – well not me, I guess. My body. Wouldn’t that have been funny?”

Funny, he says, Jiang Cheng thinks faintly. He might really kill Wei Wuxian. Funny.

“Why would you want to bring back father?” Jiang Cheng asks, and he regrets it as soon as the question leaves his lips. He doesn’t want to know, actually. He doesn’t want to know how much Wei Wuxian was prepared to sacrifice for him. It’s better to live in ignorance, because if he doesn’t know, it can’t hurt him.

Wei Wuxian snorts as if Jiang Cheng just asked some funny. “Why wouldn’t I want to bring back uncle?” he asks. His face is turned to towards the fire and his eyes are closed. He looks so fucking peaceful – like he isn’t hurting Jiang Cheng with every word. But Wei Wuxian probably doesn’t know that he’s hurting Jiang Cheng – he’s never been good at knowing things like that.

“You were so young then,” Wei Wuxian says, a soft smile on his lips, “What business did you have rebuilding a sect.”

“So why didn’t you?” Jiang Cheng asks, his voice gruff with the tightness in his throat. “Why didn’t you bring father back?”

Wei Wuxian opens one eye to look at Jiang Cheng. Twirls the dry grass in his mouth nonchalantly. “Well,” he drawls, embarrassment finally appearing on his face, “at the time I thought that giving him my body might be more of a punishment than a gift.”

It’s maddening, to have such an idiotic brother, Jiang Cheng thinks desperately. How much more does he plan on hurting Jiang Cheng? How many more secrets will Jiang Cheng unknowingly walk into? 

(A punishment he says - a punishment. Because he had ripped out his golden core for Jiang Cheng. Because he had crawled out of the Burial Mounds, desperate and core-less and starving because he thought he could turn the tides on a hopeless war. He hadn’t killed himself because he thought his body was a curse and he had lived in it - oh god. He had lived in it for so long and Jiang Cheng hadn’t known anything and - )

“I’m sorry,” Wei Wuxian says softly, and it enrages Jiang Cheng. What right does Wei Wuxian have to apologize to him? What is he even apologizing for? “Thinking back on it now, I should have brought uncle back – it would have made everything better.”

Jiang Cheng slams his fist down onto the floor of the cave. He can’t stand this any longer. It’s too much. “Shut up,” he says – and he hopes he doesn’t sound as desperate as he feels, “shut up, shut up.”

Wei Wuxian sits up and takes the grass out of his mouth. He looks down at his hands like a kid getting scolded. It makes the anger inside Jiang Cheng burn hotter.

“You’re such an idiot,” Jiang Cheng says lowly, anger making his hands shake, “Why are you so convinced that your sacrifice will make anything better? Do you think of yourself so highly? That your life would change anything?” It’s mean and corrosive and everything he doesn’t want to say, but… it feels good, letting the anger out. Hurting someone who hurt him.

Wei Wuxian looks up at Jiang Cheng and smiles – and it’s something small and self-deprecating and it infuriates Jiang Cheng. “Don’t be so mean,” he says, obviously aiming for humor, “Or I’m going to tattle to Jin Ling – you know he hates it when you’re mean to me.”

Jiang Cheng stands then because he can’t bear to be in the same space as Wei Wuxian any longer. “Go ahead and tattle,” he barks, and it’s humiliating because it’s so childish. Being around Wei Wuxian always seems to take him back to the snot nosed kid he was 20 years ago. “I hope you die in this cave.”

He walks out of the cave and into the pouring rain. He’ll take his chances catching his death in the rain than having the spend one more minute in that cave with Wei Wuxian.

He barely makes it 20 steps before Wei Wuxian runs up behind him.

“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian says, and he’s laughing. “I’m sorry, Jiang Cheng. Let’s go back to the cave.”

Jiang Cheng shrugs Wei Wuxian’s arm off him, but Wei Wuxian just throws himself onto Jiang Cheng again.

“Come on,” Wei Wuxian pleas, but he’s still laughing, “I’m sorry, okay? I won’t act important ever again. Promise!”

He’s such an idiot! Jiang Cheng thinks helplessly. Wei Wuxian’s never been able to read when Jiang Cheng is hurt. Never been able to understand what Jiang Cheng is saying. He’s always apologizing for the wrong things and getting the wrong message....

… but he always runs after Jiang Cheng.

No matter what Jiang Cheng says, no matter what Jiang Cheng does. The one constant with Wei Wuxian is that Wei Wuxian will run after him.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what he needs to say so that Wei Wuxian will understand that Jiang Cheng will run after him too. That Jiang Cheng chased Wei Wuxian’s shadow for 16 years. That Wei Wuxian’s death never made anything better – would never make anything better.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he just turns back around.

“Fine,” he barks, “but if you annoy me one more time, I’m going to roast you over the fire.”

“Yes, yes,” Wei Wuxian laughs, and it’s still strange to Jiang Cheng how quickly Wei Wuxian can fall back into laughter. “I will not be annoying at all. The least annoying, actually! Wei Definitely Not Annoying Wuxian is my new name.”

“You’re already fucking it up.”

[robininthelabyrinth]

JC adopts stray/rouge cultivators after the war au to cope with the destruction of lotus pier. also i love your writing so much!!

Gratuitously Acquired - ao3

-

1

At first, he took anyone who would join, needing numbers – needing people. There were plenty of cultivators that wanted to be associated with a great sect. Plenty, too, that were barely more than criminals, wanting to use the smoke and ash of war to obscure the past, to cover up old crimes and wash themselves clean.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t in any position to refuse them. Soldiers were soldiers.

After the war ended, though…

Some he cast out. Others, even more despicable, he slaughtered for what they’d done.

A few –

“Yan Qiao.”

The female cultivator in question, who had been sneaking out of the still mostly ruined Lotus Pier at night in flagrant violation of curfew, froze in her tracks.

“Uh,” she said. “Sect Leader Jiang. Fancy finding you…here…now…at this time…”

Jiang Cheng looked at the basket of buns in her hands. “You’re stealing leftovers from our kitchens to feed orphans among the common people,” he said. “Again.”

She blushed. “No one wants them now that there’s better available, Sect Leader! Really, they’ll only go stale, and then rot – and I never stole when it was the army eating them!”

“That’s not the point,” Jiang Cheng said irritably. “Tell me, how in the name of heavens did you really get branded as a criminal? Distributed too many alms? Did too much charity?”

Yan Qiao coughed, turning red. “I told you before, Sect Leader. I killed a man.”

“He must have done something particularly heinous, then. You’re shitat killing.”

“Now I am. Sect Leader, if you don’t mind…”

“You’re one of the ones who wants my surname, right?” he interrupted. “Consider it granted.”

Yan Qiao – no, he supposed he’d better start thinking of her as Jiang Qiao – gaped at him. “But…Sect Leader!”

“I’ve barely granted it to anyone, so you’d better live up to it, you hear me?” Jiang Cheng said in his best threatening voice. He’d been assured by several people that it was really quite threatening, anyway. “I don’t want any excuses. Now go feed your damn orphans, and in the morning I want a report on how you think we can do it in a more structured manner. I can’t have you sneaking off every night anymore! Now that you’re a Jiang, you’re going to have work.”

-

2

When they were done with war and started firmly on rebuilding, the Jiang sect’s name was firmly reestablished as a Great Sect once more, it was the opportunists that came.

Smiling faces, sycophantic voices, cowards one and all – like beetles crawling out of the woodwork, not willing to risk their lives, but willing enough to beg for scraps and advantages later on when it seemed safe enough to do so.

Jiang Cheng wanted to chase them all away, but his sect was still weaker than he wanted to admit, still rebuilding, still more army than civilian operation. They had valiant soldiers by the dozen, but they needed more than that. They needed administrators, supervisors, artisans, smiths, merchants, laundry-women…

They needed workers. The ones they got – well, cowards they might be, but skills they had.

He still rejected most of the worst of them.

Most.

“Bo Zhou,” he said, inspecting the surprisingly flush list of taxes they’d collected that quarter, and the man in question turned to grin unrepentantly at him. “You’d tell me if you were a con artist in a previous life, right?”

“A previous life, Sect Leader?” Bo Zhou said. He was still grinning, but then, he was always grinning. He had a crooked leg and an even more crooked heart, and he’d probably steal candy from little children if he happened to have a hankering, but he was amazing at getting people to do what he wanted. Too amazing, really. “Why limit yourself? What about thislife?”

“…Bo Zhou. Tell me you aren’t a former con artist.”

“I may or may not have had a sideline selling snake oil and protective talismans before I became a cultivator,” Bo Zhou admitted cheerfully, and Jiang Cheng pinched the bridge of his nose – less out of actual irritation and more to keep from actually laughing. The only person he knew that was more shameless than Bo Zhou was Wei Wuxian; he couldn’t wait to introduce them once Wei Wuxian stopped skulking around in wine shops long enough to get back to doing his job as Jiang Cheng’s head disciple and right hand. “Who would’ve known that making all those fake talismans ended up making me pretty good at making actual talismans when I became a cultivator? Really, who could have called that?”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. “Who taught you how to cultivate, anyway? Can I – I don’t know – seek vengeance on behalf of the rest of the world or something?”

Bo Zhou rolled his eyes right back at him. Shameless! “Is this about the taxes? Just be happy I got them all!”

“I can’t just be happy! What if this money is stolen property?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sect Leader. They’re what we shouldbe getting, and from all the right people. You told me this was the right amount yourself!”

“Yes, but no one ever actually pays the full amount!” Jiang Cheng enjoyed the way Bo Zhou’s jaw dropped. “I just wanted to see if you could actually do it.”

“I’m hurt at your lack of trust.” Bo Zhou paused, considering. “Also a little impressed at you for keeping a straight enough face to trick me. Well done, Sect Leader.”

“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng said. “You too, Jiang Zhou.”

“It’s Bo…” He trailed off, comprehension arriving and speech departing, and this time he didn’t have a quick retort. He’d been nagging Jiang Cheng on and off for the Jiang surname for the last few weeks, more joking than anything else – he knew that Jiang Cheng hadn’t given his surname to the vast majority of the new people in his sect, only the very few he thought were worth it.

Jiang Cheng enjoyed the newly dubbed Jiang Zhou’s moment of speechlessness thoroughly, since he was moderately sure he wasn’t going to get another one anytime in the next – ever, possibly.

“You proved your worth and your trustworthiness,” he said, patting Jiang Zhou on the shoulder. It occurred to him that he should probably come up with a courtesy name for the man, although he wasn’t sure the man would want one. “Also, congratulations, you’re now the person in charge of tax collection. See if you can think up some new thoughts about supplementing our income, will you? We have so many costs, and I don’t want to rely on Lanling Jin more than I can help it, not like Gusu Lan…”

“Oh, really?” Jiang Zhou interrupted, abruptly excited. “I have so many ideas! How ethical do you want to be about this?”

Jiang Cheng paused. “…very?”

“Be reasonable, Sect Leader!”

“…moderately?” he tried, a little more desperately.

“I can work with moderately. I don’t suppose you’d accept ‘thin and barely plausible veneer’?”

“No.”

“Oh well. Moderately ethical it is!”

-

3

Most of the Jiang sect was slaughtered during the attack on the Lotus Pier. Disciples Jiang Cheng had grown up with his whole life, had expected to see by his side in the future, his friends, his family, even his petty childhood enemies – all gone.

Well, not all gone. There were some Jiang disciples that had been away from Lotus Pier at the time, whether on some errand or a night-hunt or other reasons; they rushed back to his side as soon as they could, of course, and formed the core of Jiang Cheng’s new Jiang sect. When he’d felt utterly alone, when even Wei Wuxian was missing, they had been there for him. They’d preserved their lives and then they’d promised them to him, and it wasn’t until they knelt before him that he really felt like a Sect Leader.

There was no way he could give any of them up now.

“Jiang Meimei, you can’t go,” he said, having completely abandoned all shame in favor of clutching at her robes as if he were a child. “I need you!”

“I’m not even a proper Jiang disciple!” she exclaimed, exasperated – or possibly just annoyed that her grand plan to sneak out in the middle of the night had been stymied by his ambush. “Just because my surname is still Jiang doesn’t mean I didn’t get kicked out, remember?”

“I thought you just left,” Jiang Cheng said, temporarily distracted. “No one ever really talked much about it, actually, but to the extent anyone did, they said that you’d decided that your inclinations were more suited to being a rogue cultivator. That you didn’t want to be weighed down by sect expectations –”

“Hah!” Jiang Meimei tossed her head. “As if it wouldn’t be better to be a roving sect cultivator than a rogue cultivator! I won’t deny that I had a fair bit of wanderlust in my youth –”

“You’re only ten years older than me, you’re not that old.”

“Shut up, brat.”

“You can’t tell me to shut up, I’m your sect leader.”

“You’re my baby cousin is what you are, and, again, I’m actually not part of the Jiang sect!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jiang Cheng argued. “You’ve been at my side during the entire Sunshot Campaign.”

“I wasn’t going to let my baby cousin get himself murdered, now was I?” Jiang Meimei sniffed. “But I’m still a rogue cultivator. They kicked me out when I wouldn’t accept a marriage, and I’m still firm on that.”

Jiang Cheng blinked. “Wait, you don’t want to be married? Really?” he asked, concerned. “But what about poor Liu Lingling? You shouldn’t be sleeping with her if you don’t intend to be serious about it! I’m pretty sure she’s just waiting for the current project you’re working on to finish to find a matchmaker to exchange birth characters –”

“They wanted me to marry a man,” Jiang Meimei clarified, but her habitual frown had eased considerably; she looked almost on the verge of a smile. “A-Cheng, you’re being dense again. You’re the Sect Leader of a Great Sect now. You know that that means you need to have alliances, marriage contacts with other sects, and that means using your subsidiary branches.”

“Jiang Meimei, you’re the one being dense,” Jiang Cheng said. “You think I’d force you into a marriage? I don’t have subsidiary branches. I barely have a sect, even after all this time. I’m not Wen Ruohan, handing out my surname to anyone who wants it – I only give it to the ones that matter, the ones I want to keep, and those of you that actually share my blood are even rarer, even more precious. How could I give you away?”

Jiang Meimei pursed her lips.

“I really do need you,” Jiang Cheng said quietly. “You weren’t part of the Jiang sect at all, not really, but you still came to help me – you were there from the beginning of the Sunshot Campaign, and you’ve never strayed, never left. You’re my right hand. I can’t do without you.”

Jiang Meimei turned her head away. “It’s not that I want to leave you,” she said. “But becoming a rogue cultivator was hard enough the first time. I couldn’t rely on any of the things that I had always had, everything always changing. I was young and angry then, I could handle it, but things are different now. I’m less flexible, less compromising, older, more tired – I can’t just walk out on a whim and just rough it anymore. I have a girl who, yes, I want to eventually marry; I want to have children. I need certainty. Are you going to give it to me?”

Jiang Cheng looked down at his hands. He’d known it was going to have to come to this, but he’d been dragging his feet, not wanting to succumb to a reality that already existed. Had existed for longer than he wanted to admit, as if simply denying it would mean that it wasn’t the truth.

Like a child.

“Yes,” he said, though it tore his heart out of his chest to do it. “I will. Jiang Meimei…will you take the position of Head Disciple?”

Wei Wuxian wasn’t coming back. Jiang Cheng had already cast him out of the sect, just like Jiang Meimei had been, except in Wei Wuxian’s case it had been something that Wei Wuxian himself had demanded. He was living in Yiling now, and by all reports was quite happy there with his little Wen sect family that he’d picked over Jiang Cheng and all his family.

He was never coming back.

It was time to move on.

“Yes,” she said, and shoved her pack into his chest. “Now go unpack that for me. Consider it payment for driving me to extreme measures!”

“I’m your sect leader, you know,” he grumbled. “Officially, now. You could show me some respect.”

“Would you rather pay for my wedding down the line?”

“I’m going, I’m going!” And then, as he scurried over away, he shouted over his shoulder: “As if I wouldn’t be paying for it anyway! You think my Head Disciple’s going to be married in anything other than top style? Better start planning…”

“Don’t rush me! Brat!”

-

4

Jin Ling wasn’t surnamed Jiang, but he was the most important person in all of the Lotus Pier – and Jiang Cheng wanted to make sure everyone knew it. It hadn’t been easy for him to get the chance to help care for Jin Ling, especially here, so far away from home; Jiang Cheng had expected to barely be allowed to visit, to have to cool his heels outside of Lanling City begging just for a glimpse of him. Being able to take him home to raise for half the year, even if it was due to the dangerous infighting amongst Lanling Jin, was more than he’d ever dreamed.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t clear that Jin Ling himself agreed.

“He’s still crying,” Jiang Cheng muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Surely he’s got to stop sometime? I mean, just – physically?”

“They say a boy resembles his mother’s brother,” Jiang Meimei said, echoing the gesture. “If he’s got your lungs and stamina, Sect Leader, we’re doomed.”

“I’m rethinking the whole having children thing,” Liu Lingling said blearily, having fallen asleep on her soon-to-be wife’s shoulder several times, only to be woken up by the next round of crying. “I need sleep.”

“Go get some, both of you,” Jiang Cheng ordered. When his cousin scowled at him, he scowled back. “I’m serious. If he keeps this up, we’re going to need to go into shifts. I can last a bit longer.”

“That’s a filthy lie.”

“It is not. Your sect leader has given you an order – get to it!”

It was a filthy lie.

Jiang Cheng opened his eyes when the crink in his neck grew too irritating to ignore, at which point he realized he’d been asleep – and, more importantly, that Jin Ling was somehow not crying.

He sat up with a start, suddenly terrified: had something happened to him? Had he been silenced forever? Had Jiang Cheng failed this one last duty he had to his sister?

“Shhh, little one,” someone was whispering, not far away. “Let me tell you the one about the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, yeah? You seem like someone who’d appreciate stars. It all started –”

Jiang Cheng went to go look.

A teenage girl was rocking Jin Ling in her arms and telling him a story in murmured tones, and Jin Ling was yawning and trying to gnaw on her shirt. She wasn’t even a cultivator, as far as Jiang Cheng could tell. Her clothing suggested some level of poverty, her accent the countryside – how’d she even end up here?

He wasn’t sure he cared.

Jiang Cheng didn’t want to disturb her, but he did anyway; a shift of his weight, a scuffling of his feet, and the floor creaked. The girl jumped, startled, but luckily Jin Ling was already most of the way asleep and just grumbled a little instead of starting to screech.

“How’d you do that?” Jiang Cheng asked, nodding at Jin Ling. “Make him stop crying.”

“My mother had seven kids after me,” the girl said, answering automatically. “And her sister had six. Someone had to learn to deal with all those babies, and it ended up being me. Think it’s just habit after this long.”

Jiang Cheng couldn’t handle one baby. He couldn’t even imagine.

That’s when the girl seemed to remember herself, and bit her lip. “Uh, sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “I heard him crying and I couldn’t resist...I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be here. It was an accident.”

“How did you get here?” Jiang Cheng asked, because accidental or not, a security breach was still a security breach. “And who are you, anyway?”

“My name’s A-Hua. I’m here to work in the kitchens, just got hired this morning; the fourth cook is my uncle’s wife’s cousin, she got me a job, said it was a good place to start – I was trying to find my way out so I could go to the servant’s quarters to get some sleep, but then I got lost…”

More likely she’d decided it was better to try to stay somewhere indoors than go out in the pouring rain to try to find her way to the right set of quarters, Jiang Cheng thought to himself. “Give me your hand.”

“Uh. What?”

He ignored her stare, took her hand and felt her pulse. There was a little bit of natural talent there, though not much; she might, if she tried hard enough, become a cultivator, but she’d never be more than a servant.

Unless, of course, she did something unusual to impress someone.

“Forget the kitchens,” Jiang Cheng told her. “You’re hired on a provisional basis to keep an eye on Jin Ling.”

The girl nodded, eyes wide as saucers. “Can you – do that?”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. “Yes, I can. What’s your surname? You can’t go around being called A-Hua, we have at least seven people that I know of that go by that name.”

The girl looked distressed.

She probably didn’t have a proper surname. Some people in the countryside didn’t.

But they really couldn’t go around shouting “A-Hua” every time Jin Ling was crying, which was basically all the time.

“Fine,” he said, giving in. “Do well, and I’ll consider letting you use mine. But only if you do well!”

-

5

Jiang Cheng was covered in mud thanks to a successful-but-at-what-cost night hunt and angry about it, stomping around the lotus pools on his way back to town, when he heard the familiar sounds of someone having a panic attack.

He slowed, involuntarily, and took a look: it was some teenager dressed in black, heaving miserably by a tree.

Jiang Meimei had once said that Jiang Cheng was a bit weak when it came to teenagers.

Jiang Cheng said that was nonsense.

Jiang Hua chimed in, quite loyally (if perhaps not with the best timing), and said he wasn’t.

Jiang Cheng yielded the argument at once to keep Jiang Meimei from laughing herself sick.

In view of that, he was better off ignoring the kid. After all, what was it to him that some kid was having a fit of anxiety right next the same old lotus pool that he used to have his own teenage fits of anxiety next to, under the shade of the same old tree that had sheltered him – one of the few places that remained untouched by the Wen sect’s aggression, one of the few places that was exactly the same?

Jiang Cheng groaned and walked over. “Okay, fine. What’s your problem?”

The kid looked up at him. He had dark circles under his eyes. “I think my heart’s about to explode.”

“That’s just the anxiety,” Jiang Cheng said, and sat down next to him. “What’s causing the anxiety? Don’t say that someone is better than you and your parents are disappointed in you.”

“What?” the kid blinked. “No, it’s not – it’s not that. I’m about to screw up the very first job I ever got.”

Jiang Cheng considered that. It was just different enough from his own issues that he didn’t suspect a plot, and yet close enough that he might actually be able to offer some expertise.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked reluctantly.

“Not to some mud-man,” the kid said, and – hey! It wasn’t that bad. He thought, anyway. Actually, it probably was that bad. “I just…I’m the only one left. I have to make something of myself!”

Jiang Cheng’s eye twitched. “What do you mean, you’re the only one left?”

The kid stuttered through his story. It wasn’t as bad as Jiang Cheng had initially feared, but it was still pretty bad – his small village had had bad harvests, and there had been starvation, a bad winter; the kid had been sent out to get help, but it had taken too long and he’d arrived back to find them all already gone. He’d been lost, but some traveling cultivator had agreed to take him on as a disciple provided he proved himself, had taught him all sorts of skills, cultivation and talisman-writing and music –

“Music?” Jiang Cheng asked. “Not the sword?”

“There was only the one,” the kid explained. “Obviously he kept it for himself.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t think much of that – surely this cultivator, whoever he ws, could have shared, just long enough to teach? – but he didn’t comment. It seemed fairly clear that the kid didn’t actually think very highly of his teacher, although he was very earnestly trying to be appropriately filial.

It was a little cute.

“…and I was supposed to wait here for someone when they came by here, some fancy rich person, and then get them to follow me, but it’s been ages and no one’s come by at all!” the kid wailed. “I’m such a screw up!”

“You don’t even know who you’re waiting for?” Jiang Cheng asked, and the kid shook his head. “How were you supposed to get them to follow you, then?”

The kid scratched his nose. “My master said that if I showed off some of my cultivation, they’d follow me right away.”

Jiang Cheng suppressed a smirk. “It must be very impressive cultivation, then.”

“…not really. I only know one trick,” the kid admitted. “But it’s not that hard, and it looks impressive – here, see, wait; give me a second, I just need to whistle –”

Zidian crackled to life on Jiang Cheng’s finger before the kid finished the first stanza.

“Stop that!” he cried out, leaping to his feet, and – startled – the kid stopped, blinking owlishly at him. “Is that what your master taught you?!”

“Yes?” the kid said. “Did I do it wrong?”

Jiang Cheng gnashed his teeth. “That’s demonic cultivation. Never do that, okay? Ever.”

“But then how am I supposed to get the fancy rich person to follow me, assuming he ever showed?”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes narrowed. If he hadn’t tripped over that branch and fallen into the mud – if he hadn’t taken an extra half-shichen to struggle out of the mire – if he’d walked by in all his usual finery, rich person that he was, and seen some kid practicing demonic cultivation…

He’d have given chase in a heartbeat.

More to the point, everyone knew he would. His reputation had been pretty much set in stone by this point.

“Let’s go find that master of yours,” he said. “Right now.”

Of course, that ended up leading Jiang Cheng straight into the bastard’s trap, which would have been a problem except that he’d taken the time to send someone to tell Jiang Qiao, who’d been waiting for him back in town, that he’d be a bit late and not to worry, just wait where she was.

She’d ignored his instructions and arrived just in time to knife the demonic cultivator – a human trafficker whose operations Jiang Cheng had shut down with extreme viciousness only a few months before – right in the belly, gutting him like a fish in a swift easy motion.

“I think I’m getting the hang of it again,” she said, smiling at the knife, and Jiang Cheng made a mental note to ask exactly how manymen she’d killed to get that criminal brand of hers, except the poor kid was sinking down to his knees with a horrified look and, shit, that horrible bastard, evil as he might have been, was probably the last person the kid had in this whole rotten world, wasn’t he?

“Does Jiang Hua still have those beginner manuals we dug up for her?” Jiang Cheng asked, and Jiang Qiao nodded. “Good. Tell her that starting today, Jiang Jianwen here’s her little brother. She’s been pining over raising someone ever since Jin Ling got to be too old to snuggle.”

The kid looked up with wide eyes.

“No, you don’t get a choice on the name,” Jiang Cheng told him. “Whatever name this piece of crap gave you, just forget it, you hear me? You can do better than him. But no more demonic cultivation!”

-

+1

“I wish I could visit the Lotus Pier,” Wei Wuxian mumbled, looking wistfully downriver. They were very close by, but he still didn’t dare, even though Jiang Cheng had grumpily extended an invitation through Jin Ling. So much had happened – he just didn’t know where to even start.

He didn’t want to get into all that messy history with Jiang Cheng.

He just wanted to visit, that’s all.

He missed Jiang Cheng, but he missed the Lotus Pier, too. The food, the places, the air…

“I just need a secret way in that even the sect leader doesn’t know about,” he sighed. He’d once known them all – but there was a different sect leader now, and a different Lotus Pier. He couldn’t risk it: Jiang Cheng might find out that he’d snuck in and feel hurt, thinking that Wei Wuxian was avoiding him, when he was just avoiding the conversation; that would just make everything worse.

Lan Wangji would have distracted him, but Lan Wangji himself had been distracted – some man in Jiang sect colors with a heavy limp and an excited sort of air had rushed over, shouting something about wanting to talk about tax policy and possibly also games of chance, and Lan Wangji had all but fled. It had been so funny that Wei Wuxian had nearly laughed himself sick.

“I know one,” someone said, and Wei Wuxian glanced over: it was a young man in Jiang sect disciple robes, little more than a teenager – only a few years older than Jin Ling, if he had to guess. He was smiling, ducking his head a little; he looked proud of himself. “I mean, if you really want. But only if you don’t mean any harm!”

How adorable, Wei Wuxian thought, and grinned at him. “I just want something spicy without having to go through the whole process of greeting people, is that a crime?”

“Not at all!” the kid exclaimed, beaming, and Wei Wuxian almost felt bad for conning him. Almost.

“Do you really know a secret way in?” he asked, pretending to be doubtful. “Really?”

Sure enough, the kid – Jiang Jianwen, apparently, he must be the kid of one of the ones that survived the massacre – was easily lured into insisting that he did know, and then to agreeing to act as guide.

And, moreover, it turned out he really did know his way inside, which made this the easiest infiltration ever.

Or so Wei Wuxian thought right up until he felt a knife point touch his ribs.

“Well done, Jianwen!” a young woman – also in Jiang colors – said, reaching out and ruffling Jiang Jianwen’s hair.

“Aw, it was nothing,” he said, just as bashful as he was when he’d been talking to Wei Wuxian. “I couldn’t have done it without shixiong luring off Lan-er-gongzi.”

Wait, that’d been part of this, too?

That was worrisome.

“Hardly nothing,” the older woman standing behind Wei Wuxian said. She had a certain sort of rock-hard steadiness that was more worrying than the knife she was holding on him – she was a powerful cultivator, familiar with killing and scarred with a criminal’s brand, and yet she seemed entirely at ease in a way that suggested a strong sense of righteousness, with no guilt or weak points he might exploit to make an easy out. “You successfully conned the Yiling Patriarch into following you right into a trap.”

Wei Wuxian wondered if he could deny it.

“I don’t know, shijie, that doesn’t seem that hard,” the first woman said. “Isn’t he the kind of person to run head-first into danger at the first instance?”

“Head-first into danger, and like his tail’s on fire away from dogs,” the older woman agreed, and – damnit. There was clearly no denying it; they actually knew him. Though from where, he had no idea. “A-Hua, Jiangwen, let’s go – we don’t want to be late for our meeting.”

“I don’t suppose I can convince you to tell me who we’re going to go see?” Wei Wuxian tried, putting on his most charming smile. “Or, perhaps, who you are, and what you have against me…?”

“Jiang Jianwen you know,” the woman said, rather unexpectedly. “I’m Jiang Qiao, and this is Jiang Hua. Our shixiong is Jiang Zhou – he’s the one that makes Lan-er-gongzi lose his wallet every time he’s forced to visit Yunmeng.”

Wei Wuxian was almost distracted with the tantalizing prospects of stories about Lan Wangji. Almost.

“You’re all surnamed Jiang?” he asked, surprised: he might have believed it for Jiang Jianwen, maybe, he was young enough to be the son of someone in the last generation. But Jiang Hua and Jiang Qiao looked absolutely nothing alike either to each other or to Jiang Cheng, and at least Jiang Qiao was old enough that he should’ve recognized her if she’d been a Jiang. There’d been a lot of people in the old Jiang sect, even if you limited it to those surnamed Jiang, but he’d been Head Disciple back then – he’d known almost all of them.

“We’re adopted,” Jiang Jianwen said. He looked very proud. “Sect Leader Jiang took us into the family as part of the branch lines.”

Wei Wuxian had never once in his life wanted to have the surname Jiang, not even when he’d been mocked for not having it. He’d never even thought about it. Not ever.

He felt a stab of envy at the word family, though.

“He gave you his surname?” he asked, and tried not to feel jealous when they all nodded. “Oh.”

It made sense, he tried to tell himself as they walked through the back streets of the Lotus Pier. The Jiang sect had been demolished, and Jiang Cheng practically the only survivor but for whoever happened by coincidence to not be at home – the Jiang sect would need branch family members, and adoption made sense. There was no reason to resent the idea of Jiang Cheng giving the name he had always treated as being so precious to a branded former criminal, to a con man, to a commoner from the countryside, to a –

“You were a what?” Wei Wuxian exclaimed.

“A demonic cultivator,” Jiang Jianwen said bashfully. “Not a very a good one, though.”

Wei Wuxian wanted to say something to that. He didn’t know what, but something.

“Enough chatter,” Jiang Qiao said. “We’re here.”

Jiang Hua opened the door and Wei Wuxian stepped inside.

Then he tried to step back out, only to be crowded in by the others.

“No, no, no,” he said. “No, I was willing to play along until now, but this is a step too far. You don’t understand! She’s going to eviscerate me!”

Jiang Meimei – older than the teenager he remembered her being when she left the sect, but still unmistakable – grinned with her teeth bared.

“Oh good,” she said. “At least your brain is still working. Now come on and have a seat, and we’re going to talk about how you’ve been treating my baby cousin recently…”

[vrishchikawrites]

Reverse transmigration wangxian where LWJ who cultivates to immortality found an old summoning array where mxy fails to summon wwx but the whole thing with JGY still got revealed. LWJ in his grief summons WWX in our modern world, and the rest is up to you :) Maybe get WWX some therapy and loving family and how different modern days people are

This one is a bit angsty and has vague descriptions of sex. Modern AU.

“The Tragedy of Wei Wuxian - The Man Behind the Legend”

Lan Wangji caresses the title of the book with a thumb, eyes tracing a name he has always held close to heart but hasn’t heard for a long time.

“We all know of Wei Ying, courtesy Wuxian as Yiling Laozu. He’s one of the first to cultivate successfully with ‘resentful’ energy. His theories and papers helped us develop a greater understanding of yin energy, Qi deviation, and resentful spirits. He was a visionary, a man ahead of his time, someone who thought outside the box and looked for solutions instead of sticking to the norm. He’s also the first known person to donate his Golden Core.”

Wangji looks away for a moment, remembering Wen Ning’s snarling face and Jiang Wanyin’s rage, denial, and guilt.

“But we don’t talk about what brought that great visionary down. Society, as it did with many great thinkers, turned against him. In his youth, Wei Wuxian was one of the most accomplished cultivators of his generation. No one knows exactly what happened for him to develop the so-called ‘Ghostly Path’. His loss of the Golden Core may have been a factor, but the actual circumstances are shrouded in mystery.

What follows after the War of the Five Great Clans, known as the Sunshot Campaign, is nothing short of a tragedy. Wei Wuxian saw injustice happening and decided to fight against it. Society tore him up for it. At that time, all actions against him were justified and considered righteous. Those actions don’t stand up to scrutiny under the modern lens. Like all great and radical thinkers, Wei Wuxian ideals made him the enemy and that led to this tragic death, along with the murder of innocent war prisoners he sought to protect. There are unconfirmed reports of there being a child among the Wens.”

Wangji’s eyes flicker over to a picture frame sitting on his desk, an image of Sizhui and Jingyi smiling up at him through the glossy image. They’re well, he knows. Last he heard from them, they were in South Korea and having a great time.

Sizhui must not know of this book or he would’ve called immediately, always so concerned about his a’die.

“It was later revealed that hunger for power and political maneuvering led to his death. When we study the historical records, it is obvious that the man was pushed into the corner and was forced to retaliate. Unfortunately, no one cared about his fate-”

“I did,” Wangji whispered to himself, thinking back on silver eyes in an indistinct face. He loved - still loves Wei Ying - but the physical aspects of him have long since faded from his memory. He sometimes remembers Wei Ying’s laugh. Sometimes, he dreams of his smile. He doesn’t recall what Wei Ying sounded like, only remembering his tone when he said ‘Lan Zhan.’

And yet, Lan Wangji hasn’t forgotten love.

He reads the book in silence, going through all 375 pages of it without pausing to eat or sleep. It tells the story of Wei Ying in stark, blunt terms. There are a few facts missing or erroneous. He wasn’t the adopted child of the Jiangs. There was certainly no unrequited love between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli.

There’s very little mention of him. According to this book, Lan Wangji is a mere footnote in Wei Wuxian’s life; a childhood acquaintance, a disapproving comrade, and later a man who unraveled the truth because he pursued justice.

“He was just 23 years old when he died,” Wangji lingers over that statement, “23-year-olds are barely adults. They hold the promise of a bright future. They have so much potential inside of them. At 23, some people graduate from college, some take up their first serious job. At 23, young people fall in love and maybe form a life-long bond. Wei Wuxian became a key player in a big conflict at 17, he donated his core at 17. At 17, we still have children in high school. Our seventeen-year-olds aren’t even allowed to drink or drive. Our seventeen-year-olds are still protected and sheltered by their parents.

That is perhaps the biggest tragedy of Wei Wuxian’s life. He was only allowed to live a carefree life for seven years, from the day he was taken off the streets to the day the YunmengJiang Sect was attacked. After that and until his death, his life was marked by war, strife, betrayal, and persecution.

A visionary, a hero, a brilliant mind, dead by what most would consider suicide.” Wangji’s breath hitches and he takes a moment to collect himself, the sentence ringing in his head.

“He deserved better.”

---

He deserved better, Wangji thinks as he walks sedately towards his library.

There had been a glimmer of hope, all those years ago when Mo Xuanyu attempted to resurrect Wei Ying, but when he failed to do so, Wangji felt something shatter in him.

Whatever Wei Ying had done had completely destroyed his soul. His precious, noble soul. One that was formed for justice and kindness.

He deserved better.

He knows what he must do.

---

An immortal’s Golden Core has immeasurable power. It is the result of several hundred years of Cultivation and diligence. Wangji is more powerful than most, having survived through war, strife, grief, and loss.

An immortal’s Golden Core can also be an ingredient.

‘Draw the talismans shown below in the blood of your heart. Pin them in eight directions, north, northwest, west, southwest, south, southeast, east, and northeast. Sit in the exact center of this circle and sacrifice half of your cultivation to the being you wish to summon.’’

Wangji’s heart and hands are steady as he draws the talismans from blood drawn directly from the artery. He pins them in all eight directions and sits down in the middle, his hands moving elegantly to summon his Qi. He breathes in and breathes out, sinking into meditation with habitual ease.

It will work.

It has to.

The room floods with Resentful Energy.

---

He deserves better.

Wangji feels torn apart in ways he has never experienced before. The ritual summoning carves something out of his chest and drags it away. His mouth floods with blood and his body weakens alarmingly.

But it doesn’t matter.

Wei Ying.

---

Wei Ying is more beautiful than Wangji remembers. He is bloodsoaked, covered in cuts and bruises, saturated with Resentful Energy, but he’s alive.

And he’s beautiful.

Wangji stumbles to his feet, shakily walking into the bathroom to fetch some warm water. He walks back, his arms feeling the weight of the bucket like they have never carried such weight before. With every step that he takes towards Wei Ying, his heartbeat spikes up a little. He doesn’t know if he chose the right time. He doesn’t know if Wei Ying’s spirit had shattered before his death and dying had just been the aftermath.

Maybe Wei Ying’s body is here and not his soul.

Wangji cannot bear thinking about it.

With weak, shaking hands and the taste of blood lingering in his mouth, he slowly reaches forward. Layer by layer, he removes Wei Ying’s clothes, his fingertips tingling because his beloved’s body is warm.

He deserves better.

With aching tenderness, he wipes Wei Ying clean, removes all blood, grime, and mud from his body.

Wei Ying doesn’t stir.

---

There’s a gentle touch against his cheek. It is strange enough to wake him up because few people dare touch Lan Wangji. Slender fingers tap once, twice, almost playfully and Wangji knows who it is even before he opens his eyes.

Like a sun emerging from the horizon, Wei Ying appears before him, his smile bright and questioning.

“Wei Ying,” He breathes and Wei Ying nods, eyes a sparkling silver. There is so much beauty in that face that he can’t help but reach forward. Ignoring Wei Ying’s surprise, he cups his face and leans forward pressing his forehead against his beloved’s.

Wei Ying is still for a long moment, but he moves eventually, setting hands on Wangji’s shoulder. He doesn’t push him away, just huffing in soft amusement.

“Wei Ying,” He whispers, closing his stinging eyes, “Forgive Wangji for his selfishness.” He says, “I summoned you.” I summoned you without asking, knowing you wouldn’t desire it.

Wei Ying huffs again and that’s when it strikes him.

He pulls back and looks at his beloved in concern, scanning his eyes, face, neck, and chest quickly, his heart racing.

Why wasn’t Wei Ying speaking?

---

“You’re right in suspecting that his spirit sustained some sort of injury even before he was… killed.” Lan Jingyi says softly, pulling away from the sleeping Wei Ying, “There’s nothing physically wrong with him, Hanguang-jun, please don’t worry! His spirit just needs a little bit of time to recover.”

Wangji nods gratefully as he watches Sizhui lean over Wei Ying, his expression full of wonder and desperate happiness. As Sizhui’s cultivation grew, he started remembering more things from his childhood. They have never spoken on the matter of Wei Ying, but Wangji knows his son remembers more than he did when he was a child.

“Now, please let me check you.”

He levels a sharp look at the younger man but Lan Jingyi is no longer the adoring and naive student Wangji taught all those years ago. He’s a strong, accomplished cultivator and an avid researcher.

Lan Jingyi ignores him cheerfully and checks his core, stepping into Wangji's personal space without a care.

He narrows his eyes at the steely glint in the boy's eyes.

"I know you love him, Hanguang-jun," Lan Jingyi says, "And love is worth a life." They're immortals, life has little meaning for people who have lived for centuries, "But I wonder if the Wei Wuxian that you so adore will be happy about you risking your life for him."

Wangji's eyes flicker towards Wei Ying, who looks exhausted even in his sleep. "He deserved better."

Lan Jingyi is silent for a moment before he speaks, "Sizhui and I read the book on our flight back. Everything was horrible, I'm not surprised that his spirit sustained so much damage. But it is almost entirely intact now. It shows how much he wants to live, Hanguang-jun."

It's a relief.

---

Wei Ying can't speak but his presence is still loud. He rests for a few weeks to recover from his injuries. During that time, Wangji spends most of his days moving from Wei Ying's bedside to the library and back again.

His beloved has an insatiable hunger for knowledge. He wants to know everything about the modern world.

Every morning, Wangji is confronted with a bright face with sparkling eyes waving a book or a scroll in his direction.

Wangji hasn't experienced such liveliness in centuries. The very air of his home glows with Wei Ying's vitality. Wei Ying's body recovers quickly and soon the man is out of bed and following Wangji around.

His heart feels too big for his chest.

By all appearances, Wei Ying is perfectly content. He walks around Cloud Recesses, visits Caiyi Town, and is happy to watch the sunset with Wangji every evening.

That had been Wangji's wish when he performed that summoning.

He wanted Wei Ying to have another chance to live free and happy.

Looking at him now, Wangji wants to reach out, cup that cheerful face, and pepper kisses all over it. He wants to kiss those fluttering eyelids, smooth cheeks, sharp jawline-

That soft, smiling mouth.

Wangji is an immortal. He has endless patience. He can wait for Wei Ying to come to him.

He must wait.

---

The modern world fascinates Wei Ying. His beloved looks at everything from tall buildings to food stalls with wide, stunned eyes. Cloud Recesses and Caiyi Town are still relatively untouched by the passage of time, but Wei Ying has free access to the internet and has learned how to use it within two months of his arrival.

Wangji doesn't restrain him.

He just watches as Wei Ying, his brilliant and enthusiastic love, learns to thrive in his new world.

His voice has still not returned but that doesn't seem to bother Wei Ying. He is delighted to learn that there's a way to communicate nonetheless.

He starts learning sign language and Lan Wangji, with patient and steady hands, practices with him.

---

Lan Sizhui follows Wei Ying around with quiet affection and aching tenderness. He's much older than Wei Ying now, but he remains their son in spirit. He treats Wei Ying like a senior, with respect and adoration.

His Wei Ying notices, of course. At first, he finds the situation quite strange but Wei Ying isn't stupid.

'Lan Zhan,' He asks, 'Who is Sizhui?'

Wangji brings his fingers up and replies, 'He's your a-Yuan. I went looking for you but found him instead.'

Wei Ying's eyes widen and he spins around, running out of the room to seek Sizhui.

Wangji follows sedately and when he finds his love and his son, they're embracing while crying tears of joy.

---

'Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan!'

Wangji huffs under his breath and carefully sets his brush down, tucking the scroll away before turning to meet bright silver eyes.

Wei Ying leans forward with an eager expression, 'Do you know where Suibian is?'

Wangji nods, 'In storage. I was able to retrieve it from the Jin Clan.'

'Can I have it?'

Wangji rises smoothly to his feet and leads Wei Ying to storage where both Suibian and Chenqing.

Wei Ying only glances at Chenqing for a moment before reaching for Suibian with a desperate expression.

Suibian, a blade that has remained sealed since Jiang Wanyin unsheathed it once, easily reveals itself again.

Wei Ying spins around eagerly and looks at him with pleading eyes.

As Wangji is able to deny Wei Ying nothing, he reaches for Bichen and they immediately head for the training grounds.

It has been a long time since Wangji has really used Bichen to its full capacity. With half of his core pulsing within Wei Ying, they're almost evenly matched.

Wangji has not fought in ages but Wei Ying is still a Cultivator. The spar is fast-paced and thrilling. Wangji acquaints himself with Wei Ying as his love becomes reacquainted with his sword.

Wei Wuxian had been one of the best swordsmen of his generation. He has lost none of his elegance and skill. Wangji presses him and Wei Ying laughs soundlessly, twirling around him in white GusuLan robes, bright and joyful.

He breaks Wangji's heart and mends it at the same time.

---

Wangji has missed Wei Ying for hundreds of years.

He can't resist the urge to touch. He keeps it chaste and respectful but his hands have a mind of their own in Wei Ying's vicinity.

When they're out and about, Wangji guides Wei Ying with a hand on his back. It becomes natural to grasp his love's elbow if he wants Wei Ying's attention.

His touches can easily be dismissed as gestures of friendship by most. But Wei Ying knows him.

'er-gege,' Wei Ying's smile is sweet, 'Wei Ying is cold.'

Wangji's eyes flicker over to the lit fire briefly before landing on his love, 'Are you feeling well?' He asks in concern, reaching forward to place the back of his hand on Wei Ying's forehead.

His beloved laughs and nods, leaning into the touch with a sly smile, 'I'm well, just cold.'

Wangji feels a stir in his chest at the intent look in Wei Ying's eyes. Hesitantly, he cups Wei Ying's cheek in silent question.

Wei Ying nuzzles his palm, his eyelids fluttering close gently.

Desperation and elation flood him and Wangji sucks in a sharp breath. He moves in a blur, lifting Wei Ying off his seat and placing him on his lap.

Wei Ying gasps and giggles, his tall, strong body seeming to almost shrink as he cuddles close. Wangji wraps both arms around his love and squeezes him tight, rocking them gently as he is assaulted with painful love.

"Wei Ying, Wei Ying, Wei Ying," He chants in Wei Ying's hair, holding him so close, it feels like there's no part of him not touching his love.

When Wei Ying turns to him with a smile in his eyes, Wangji doesn't hesitate to lean forward, bringing their lips together in a long-awaited kiss.

He presses Wei Ying back against the crook of his elbow and tastes his silent laugh on his tongue.

Wangji has never felt so blissful and complete.

---

Jingyi convinces Wei Ying to go to therapy.

Eager to learn and curious, Wei Ying agrees.

He returns from every session with a thoughtful expression.

Months pass but his voice is still lost.

---

They make love and Wei Ying mouths the words he wants to speak. He smiles, sobs, laughs, and pouts as Wangji takes him apart bit by bit.

Wangji has never known such pleasure. He loses himself, drowning in Wei Ying's scent and finding heaven in his body.

He enjoys feeling smooth skin. He sinks his fingers into Wei Ying's silken hair. He tastes the sharp edge of his jaw. He bites. He drives in and takes ownership of Wei Ying's pleasure.

He presses his mischievous sprite into their bed and doesn't hold back, centuries of love pouring out of him.

---

A combination of therapy and Wei Ying's natural approach to life makes his recovery quick. Within a year, he's well-adjusted and happy.

He laughs at almost everything. The first time they fly, the first time they visit an amusement park, the first time they go to an aquarium.

He laughs and Wangji starts noticing the color of his voice returning to it.

Wangji is grateful for what he has. He's grateful that Wei Ying is back, safe, and happy. He is grateful that Wei Ying is unharmed.

But he cannot lie to himself. He misses Wei Ying's voice.

---

"Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,"

Wangji almost misses it, as engrossed as he is. He presses in deep and feels a shiver of pleasure race down his spine. Wei Ying's fingers curl around Wangji's nape and his lips caress his ear.

"Lan Zhan,"

He stills.

Wangji takes a deep, bracing breath and pulls back a little, balancing on his arms to peer down at his lover.

Wei Ying is a vision. His cheeks flushed, his eyes wide and dark with passion, his lips bitten red from Wangji's kisses. His long hair is scattered and wild, a tangle of glossy strands across Wangji's pillow.

"Lan Zhan,"

Wei Ying's lips move and a voice accompanies that movement. It is slightly hoarse, somewhat weak, but it is still the voice he barely remembers.

Heat flares in him and he sinks deeper, pulling a sharp gasp from Wei Ying.

He spends the entire night filling their room with that precious voice.

---

Wei Ying doesn't ask questions. He doesn't ask why Wangji did what he did. He doesn't ask how he did it. His beloved has always been perspective and he understood Wangji's desperation from the moment he woke.

He reads the book that triggered it all and laughs, "Aiya, they make me out to be some sort of martyr for justice." He says fondly, for he is very fond of the modern world.

Sizhui is sitting at his feet, eyes closed in bliss as Wei Ying gently combs his hair, styling it into an intricate braid.

"They're not wrong, though." Jingyi can never sit straight and he has forgotten all of his Lan teachings over the years. He has his legs thrown over the arm of his chair and his head is dangling over another arm, his hair sweeping the floor as he nods.

Ridiculous.

"I never asked to be glorified in such a way." Wei Ying protests with a chuckle.

"Baba should be grateful no one knows about his resurrection." Sizhui pipes up, "At least, you don't have to deal with modern stans."

Wangji arches a brow at the word and Wei Ying laughs, already more accustomed to the Internet language than Wangji is. "Oh, heaven forbid!"

"But listen, you and Hanguang-jun have the greatest love story ever, you could write a book about it, Wei-quanbei!"

Wei Ying tilts his head to the side and Wangji urges him to consider it with a subtle nod. Wei Ying is happy but he's never content to be idle. The modern world doesn't need cultivation, but perhaps it can benefit from their stories.

---

‘Once you summon successfully, you belong to this being for all eternity as payment for the one wish they may grant. Half of your core will live within them. If they die, you die. If they live, you live. If they hurt, you hurt. If they become corrupt, you become corrupt.

You will sacrifice immortality, but not the eternal bond. Every time you are reincarnated into this world, you will be tethered to the being.

Beware.

Wangji tucks the scroll away, sealing it so that it is never discovered again.

He has no regrets.