#chaoticroses-24

[robininthelabyrinth]

Ahhh I love all of your writing. Everything always gives the impression of a fleshed out world behind it and it makes me happy to read them (no matter how heartbreaking some of them are) . For the prompt (or maybe I'd like to hear your thoughts on how this would play out): Jiang Fengmian time travels back in time. What happens when you force someone who is determined to keep the status quo into a position with unlimited power to destroy the norm?

Jiang Fengmian closed his eyes forever, and then opened them up again.

This might suggest, to a reasonable person, that he had not closed them forever, and for a moment he let himself believe that he had been merely injured and that he was now in recovery, his home restored around him as he slept – but he knew at once that that wasn’t the case.

For one thing, his golden core had been melted in that final battle, and yet it thrummed beneath his belly, strong as ever.

For another, if he was in recovery, he wouldn’t be lying in his wife’s bed, watching the sun creep up through the window instead of staring at the gorgeous woman herself, naked and fast asleep on the pillow next to him.

This would normally be the time when he crept out of bed to gather his clothing and make his way back to his own chambers – while he was technically the master of the Lotus Pier, he’d never presumed himself welcome in his wife’s bed beyond the nights they spent together. He’d barely assumed he was welcome beyond the technical acts itself, but his pride did not allow him to slink back to his rooms after having put to stud. He’d made a point of going to sleep soon after so that she couldn’t ask him to leave.

It had never occurred to him that she might want him to stay.

It had never occurred to him that she might grant him equal control over Zidian, either. It was an ancestral weapon from her maternal family, passed to whichever child showed the most aptitude for it – Jiang Cheng seemed likely, if only because Jiang Yanli was so very much not the sort to enjoy wielding weaponry – and there was no reason at all for her to share mastery of it with him.

No reason, except –

Except if she thought of him as her partner in truth, rather than merely in name.

Jiang Fengmian did not rise from the bed and collect his clothing, even as the sun crept closer and closer to the edge of the bed. Instead, he turned and pressed his lips to his wife’s shoulder.

And then, because he could, he pressed another kiss there, and another a little further up, on her neck.

She groaned, shifting her weight a little – but not pulling away. “I don’t have to get up for another shichen, you know,” she grumbled, voice rough with sleep. There was no heat to her scolding.

Jiang Fengmian’s wife, he knew, was not hesitant in applying the force of her vicious, poisonous tongue to those that even mildly irritated her.

For her, merely scolding was virtually permission.

No – encouragement.

“So we have plenty of time,” he replied, and leaned over to kiss her.

Later, she will ask him what on earth had gotten into him – the last time they’d gone to bed together for two days in a row had probably been back when they were trying to conceive Jiang Cheng, and he’d never before made any attempt to play around in the morning hours – and he would explain, laying out for her the dreadful future that lay ahead of them both, the fate of the sect they shared between them…the unknown fate of their children, which death had robbed him of ever knowing.

He would tell her, when she demanded an answer, that did not know how he had returned, only that he had.

He would confirm to her that he was certain that it was not merely a dream, but reality.

He would agree with her that they could not remain passive in the face of this information.

He would concede that they needed to start making preparations at once – to shore up their defenses, to put in place protections, to need to reach out for help, for allies. They would need to convince the Lan sect, which in their love for peace would undoubtedly refuse to believe him – perhaps allowing it to burn would end up being a cruel necessity – although the Nie sect would take no convincing at all.

Jiang Fengmian might have died before a war had started, though he was sure it would start; he did not know how it ended, but he was certain that the Nie sect would be pivotal one way or another.

(Nie Mingjue had longed to avenge his father’s death at Wen Ruohan’s hands for years, dedicating his life to the cause.  Jiang Fengmian wondered if Jiang Cheng would do the same for him, and felt guilty when he realized he did not know. Something he would need to try to fix in this life, if it wasn’t too late.)

Yu Ziyuan, never one to wait to see how the wind turned and even less patient when the matter pertained to her children, would demand that they act at once.

Jiang Fengmian would agree.

He would never willingly allow harm to come to his sect or to his family – but he was not a man born for decisive action, always too open to seeing things from multiple perspectives, empathizing too much with those who didn’t need it. He preferred that things remain calm and friendly, peaceful and nice, and he would rather adapt himself to the circumstances than invest the energy needed to change the minds of others.

He was not the sort of person who could change the history of the world, even if he knew what it was.

Luckily for him, he had a partner that would find it no difficulty at all.

[robininthelabyrinth]

The entire fic is amazing but *snorts* the ljy being raised by lqr part from the jyl inquiry fic is the only explanation I'll accept for the most un-lan lan to ever lan. Where else would ljy learn to be loud other than the one person with the jurisdiction to yell at the disciples (and him) for breaking the rules? The idea of lqr being like "I know how to raise children I raised the twin jades into some sort of functional adults." And then he gets the disaster that is ljy just made my day.

The twin jades were the children LQR raised when he was younger and more sure of himself. LJY is the child he raises when the Sunshot Campaign and Wei Wuxian (or rather, LWJ’s reaction to WWX) have led him to question everything he ever knew.

the twin jades are secretly delighted by this