#once wwx hope chests jgy so jgy achieves his true pan-canon final form of a daoine sidhe

[tanoraqui]

[previous]

They go to Lotus Pier, of course. It’s close, it’s safe, there’s soup and shock blankets ready, and there are plenty here who couldn’t make the trip into the endorheic Undersea proper. Lotus Pier is a town in the mortal world, not the Summerlands, but its inhabitants are mostly fisherfolk and others who make their living on the lakes. They know better than to ask questions of strangers after sundown, especially on a night like All Hallows’ Eve

Wei Wuxian sneaks away as soon as everyone stops fussing over him, which does take some time. He does stop to look, though, out over the lake. He might even sit on the edge of a pier, dangle his feet in the nearly-winter water.

Jiang Cheng finds him, with accusation and resignation. “You’re leaving.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going back, to fight Blind Michael.”

It almost feels good to hear it said aloud, in a sickening, cathartic way. “Yeah.”

Jiang Cheng’s voice could not be more full of scorn. “Why do you always need to play the hero?”

Because I was a lost and forgotten child, too, once, in much better circumstances, and someone found me. Because he’s a monster, and needs to be stopped. Because if I don’t, I might miss him. 

Because here’s one last story: once upon a time in Faerie, there was a race who could neutralize the magic of others. Who could tears spells to pieces and end a glamour with a touch. Unsurprisingly (though not justly) they were feared and hated, huted and killed. But it’s harder than one may think to completely exterminate a people - people are stubborn like that. Bits and pieces slipped through, cousins and merlins and even the occasional fullblood

Until one day there was a born a changeling child with that particular, rare quirk of changelings where instead of weak with the power in their blood, they are strong, stronger than can be imagined or contained

This boy’s parents were killed - for their blood and powers or simply because they were in someone’s way, or perhaps even by natural accidents and illness; history doesn’t say. He grew up more on the streets than not, at first protected by the instinctive glamours of childhood, and then by his powers as they grew. Until rumors started to flicker around him and he was found by a great faerie lord, taken in and offered home and family in exchange for loyal service. 

This is, of course, the story of Wen Zhuliu, infamous knight of King Wen Ruohan of Golden Sun, who could tear the magic from a faerie’s blood with a single touch of skin to skin. Their pointed ears would stay, their colored hair, their hind’s legs or stony skin or what not. But never again would they spin an illusion, slip through shadows, shift from one form to another or borrow power from blood or a hundred other necessary marvels.

As such this is also the story of how the heir to the Duchy of Lotus Lakes came to be lying unconscious on a mortal hilltop, undergoing experimental surgery from the best Daoine Sidhe bloodworking healer in a century, with the help and bloody donation of the only Docchas Sidhe anyone had seen since his mother stopped her dancing. Wei Wuxian didn’t know what he was doing, Wen Qing hypothetically knew what she was doing, and likely neither of them would be able to recreate it, for several reasons. But a the start, they had one crippled Merrow and one 3/4 Merrow, 1/4 Docchas Side, and at the end, they had one Merrow exhausted and unconscious but restored to full magical health, and one....about 99% Docchas Sidhe, 1% of his father’s blood still clinging to the edges

(that saved him, later, when a Wen archer managed to clip him with elfshot. He still had something left to burn out)

(he didn’t think to mourn it in the heat of battle, and barely did later - it turns out that chronic iron poisoning is a thing, if you spend three months surrounded and pierced by it yet somehow survive, but not a thing that can be survived by any but the mostly bloodymindedly enduring race in Faerie. There was never any turning back.)

“Because someone has to,” Wei Wuxian says, and gets to his feet, tucks them back into shoes. Almost as an aferthought, he adds, “Hey, can I borrow your knife?”

“My knife,” Jiang Cheng says almost blankly.

“Your knife.”

the Duke of Lotus Lakes wears a knife at his hip, as well as a trident on his back and a ring with the power of a whipping electric eel. Unlike the others, it’s neither heirloom nor pride of office, but it is finely wrought silver, hilt and blade alike, and given to him by his father for his tenth birthday.

"Here,” he snarls, draws it and just barely shoves it forward hilt- rather than point-first. “Bring it back or don’t come back yourself.” And he stalks away.

Wei Wuxian learned a great deal from the Night Haunts, and from his own subsequent bloody adventures, and (no offense, Toby) he doesn’t have any mortal drag on his ability to stride into Faerie lands. He doesn’t need to consult any Firstborns to take the Blood Road that is his birthright. 

Blind Michael is as tall as the sky and as seductive as an undertow and as cruel as nothing found in nature, because it takes a mind and will to be truly cruel. Wei Wuxian already sent his candle away (it got Wen Ning home, and that was what mattered), but he did leave his iron-tipped trident behind

It’s not a fair fight. On one side, an immortal, nigh-unkillable warrior, veteran of countless battles, trained by the most bloodthirsty race in Faerie and fueled by the fire of absolute certainty in his rightness. On the other, a bully who’s spent the last several centuries (millennia?) intimidating children. 

...Seriously, it’s over pretty fast. Knife and trident slide in together and pierce the rotten heart; get fucked, Michael. Acacia’s land, now.

I’d love to say “Wei Wuxian goes home”, but, well. That’s a messy question, isn’t it? He can’t stay for longer than a bit of blood-borrowed transformation will allow.

. . .

Epilogue, a few months later:

Nie Huaisang, barging into Jin Guangyao’s office with Wei Wuxian in favor-owing tow, sing-song and utterly guileless because this is a Nie Huaisang who...knows guile, but only as a toy; has never had to wield it as a weapon: San-ge! I have the best birthday present for you!