#awayinthewind

[shanastoryteller]

Happy Birthday grandma! How about BFF WWX LXC and NMJ? Or female!MXY? Your choice🌻🌻🌻🌻🎉🎉🎉🎉

Ps. Made it?!?!

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Lan Xichen arrives to his brother and Xuanyu in the middle of an argument.

They’re surrounded by corpses, Xue Yang inexplicably among them, and the missing Xiao Xingchen is standing there huddled against Song Lan’s side, looking strangely small, while a blind girl stands on his other side.

Sizhui and Jingyi are staying several steps back in an attempt not to get caught in the couple’s argument.

He almost regrets leaving A-Yao behind with the rest of the disciples. It had made sense at the time, with the low but present chance that they’d run into trouble, but now he wishes he could be the one dealing with their siblings instead of him.

“-not just going to – XICHEN-GE! GET DOWN HERE!”

The disciples, who’d demanded to come along, cringe away and even send him sympathetic looks.

She only calls him Xichen-ge when she wants something. He’s pretty sure A-Yao taught her that.

He descends, jumping off his sword, and frowning when he gets a closer look at her. She has wounds around her waist and shoulder even though they seemed to have stopped bleeding and there’s a variety of colorful bruises on the bits of skin he can see on her, which means there’s even more hiding beneath her robes. “You’re injured.”

“It’s nothing,” she says dismissively. Wangji’s eyebrow twitches. “I want Song Lan, Xiao Xingchen, and A-Qing to accompany us to Koi Tower.”

He assumes A-Qing is the blind girl. “Ah.”

“It’s not proper,” Wangji says, enough irritation bleeding though that this is clearly not the first time he’s said that.

She sends him a scathing look. “We can’t send them back to Cloud Recesses, Lan Qiren will eat them alive, and we can’t leave them alone. Look at them! Look around! They need help.”

“Ah, Madame Lan,” Song Lan says tentatively, “you’ve already done-”

“Shut up,” she says and his mouth snaps shut. Lan Xichen stares. He’s encountered Song Lan many times and has never seen him act like this. “Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? You deserve rest, all three of you, and while I would hardly call the Jin restful, it’s at least better than having to watch you back on the road.” She frowns. “Also, what’s with Madame Lan? I told you to call me Xuanyu. If you fight an army of the undead together, you don’t have to use titles. It’s a rule, or something.”

Wangji’s eyes narrow and Song Lan smiles at Xuanyu before he catches sight of Wangji’s expression and then his lips thin out into a straight line.

Lan Xichen can already feel a headache building.

She’s only been missing for a few hours. How did any of this even happen?

If he wants to find out, then he’s going to have to give in to her. She won’t tell him anything otherwise, he assumes, because A-Yao definitely wouldn’t. Besides, he has no reason to deny her. She is Madame Lan and Lady Jin and she’s more than entitled to add people to their traveling party and to invite wandering cultivators to Koi Tower.

“The rest of our party is nearby,” he says finally. “We’re happy for you to join us.”

His brother glares at him, but what does he expect him to do? She’s Wangji's wife.