#tmariea writes

[tmariea]

You Cut Through All the Noise

Fandom: MDZS/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/The Untamed

Pairing: Xiyao

Characters: Lan Xichen, Jin Guangyao

Rating: G

Summary:

There are many things one cannot say to A-Yao. Xichen had tried once, saying, ‘The night is beautiful and I am here with you. That is all I need to celebrate.’ A-Yao had replied with precise and perfect courtesy, exactly as expected from one sect leader to another in response to a compliment. Scripted. Exactly what Xichen did not want him to be. So he said different words now - a holiday, or a successful night hunt, or the completion of a project - and tried to let his face and his actions say all the rest. --- A look into Zewu-jun's and Lianfang-zun's late night talks, featuring gifts, gossip, and quite a lot of yearning.

Read on AO3

This was written as part of the @xiyaogotcha4gaza for @eternal-brainrot's prompt: xiyao spending an evening together at jinlintai or cloud recesses drinking tea, gossiping, etc. just them being able to put down their burdens and perfectly crafted appearances for the evening in a way that they cannot with anyone else and having a silly side of themselves that they arent able to show to anyone else. laughing together!! lxc giggling!!! maybe lxc staying up past lan curfew despite getting sleepy because he wants to make his time with jgy last as long as possible. sleepy lxc being a bit sappy maybe? maybe the other ends up falling asleep in whoever's room they’re in and ending up staying the night there?

Well, tooth-rotting fluff with a side of serious yearning is my bread and butter, so it was a match made in heaven for me! I hope you enjoy!

Title from Bastille's 'The Anchor'

The door to Jin Guangyao’s rooms was unlocked, but his sworn brother was not in sight when Xichen pushed it open one-handed, keeping careful balance on the tray of tea, wine and cups in his other.  The sliding doors to the private garden beyond were open just a crack though, enough to give him hint of where A-Yao could be found, without letting in too much of the cooling night air.

A-Yao was indeed in the garden, settled at a small table beneath the pavilion with his back to Xichen.  He was wrapped in a thick, fur-lined cloak against the late-fall chill— much less severe than in Cloud Recesses, but always still enough to bother A-Yao.  Xichen took a private moment to feel the disappointment at a lost opportunity to ask A-Yao if he was cold and drape his own outer robe around his shoulders.  Then he stepped out of the door, and closed it audibly behind him.  A-Yao turned at the noise, a smile on his face which softened into a much more genuine one as he caught sight of who was at his door.

“Er-ge, good evening,” he said, and beckoned him over.  And then when he noticed the tray, “Oh, you are a guest, you should have allowed me to call for refreshments!”

Xichen stepped down from the porch and walked between the neatly groomed beds of peonies to join A-Yao at the pavilion.  “Gifts from Gusu,” he explained without remorse for his tray, setting it down on the table, and taking a seat at the side adjacent to A-Yao.  He turned the bottle of wine to display the label proclaiming it Emperor’s Smile.  The tea, too, was a blend native to the region.

A-Yao gave him a look which conveyed ‘that was not necessary,’ over the top of a current of genuine pleasure.  They’d had conversations to that end many times, until Xichen had finally offered to stop if it made him uncomfortable, and A-Yao had remained suspiciously silent.  Xichen had just smiled wide and accepted his win.  Even still, A-Yao gave him a demure look of thanks, perhaps for his own peace of mind.

Now, instead of more protests he asked, “What is the occasion?” and reached for the pot and cake of tea to begin brewing.

There are many things one cannot say to A-Yao.  Xichen had tried once, saying, ‘The night is beautiful and I am here with you.  That is all I need to celebrate.’  A-Yao had replied with precise and perfect courtesy, exactly as expected from one sect leader to another in response to a compliment.  Scripted.  Exactly what Xichen did not want him to be.  So he said different words now - a holiday, or a successful night hunt, or the completion of a project - and tried to let his face and actions say all the rest.  He thought he’d gotten better at that with practice.

Today he said, “The success of Jin Ling’s party,” as he peeled back the lid of the wine jar to pour A-Yao a cup.  It wasn’t even breaking a rule to say so - that was the reason he had come to Lanling today after all, and the party a testament to A-Yao’s organizational skills, as every event held here was these days.

“And why would er-ge find Jin Ling’s fourth birthday to be worthy of such celebration?” A-Yao asked with a look that Xichen chose to interpret as ‘I appreciate the sentiment but we both know you are making excuses.’

“It seems the other sect leaders are determined to fawn, why should I not do the same?”

“I find er-ge to be far less likely to travel with a herd, or turn a white fluffy tail and run at the slightest provocation.”

The thought of the other sect leaders bolting from the hall this afternoon as soon as Jin Ling had begun to wind himself up to a tantrum, contrasted with A-Yao’s perfectly serene face as he said it, startled Xichen into a burst of laughter.  

A-Yao’s smile grew until his dimples were showing, and as always, Xichen was consumed with a gripping temptation reach out and trace them with reverent fingertips.  Instead, he contented himself with taking the cup of tea held out to him, letting his fingers linger far longer than necessary against A-Yao’s before bringing the cup to his mouth to drink.

They spent the time while drinking their respective tea and wine talking about the party anyway.  A-Yao had witty things to say about every present Jin Ling had been given, never outright disrespectful, but only because his turns of phrase were so very clever that Xichen doubted the guests would have realized even if A-Yao had said it to their faces.  Oh, how he wished he could watch him say it to their faces.

When the teapot was nearly empty, Xichen set down his cup and said, “I hope A-Yao will forgive the presumption of one more gift.”

“Er-ge is far too generous!” A-Yao said, his voice admonishing but his dimples gave him away.  He shook his head and added, “You should be careful, lest someone take advantage of that nature of yours.  I should say no, if only to keep you on your toes.  What would you do then?”

Xichen hummed, pretending to think on it for a moment.  “I would be disappointed to not get to dote on A-Yao the way he deserves.”  And then, feeling bold in the way he rarely did outside of these nights where it seemed the world shrunk down to only the two of them, added with a confiding smile, “And then I would keep the gift for a different day.  But, I don’t think my A-Yao will refuse, will he?”

A-Yao opened his mouth and then closed it then, in an uncharacteristic lapse of control.  It was hard to tell in the golden lamplight, but Xichen could swear his cheeks colored as his eyes tracked to the side.  “No,” he said, and then cleared his throat.  “Your A-Yao will not.”

This time, it was Xichen’s turn to feel his ears heat as he realized what he had said.  To hopefully distract from that line of conversation - and the fact that he was loathe to take it back, and may even want to say it again immediately, my A-Yao - he reached into his qiankun sleeve and drew out a roll of silk mounted with a wooden frame at top and bottom.  He rolled it out in A-Yao’s direction, for his inspection.

Perhaps this boldness had been simmering in his blood for a while now.  He had painted Cloud Recesses for A-Yao many times before, as expected when it was his most common reference material.  This painting, though, depicted the small garden and stand of pines visible from the back porch of the Hanshi, with the lazy stream trickling between them.  It was not a sight that many people got to see, something only those in Xichen’s greatest confidences would recognize.  

A-Yao knew it immediately.  His eyes softened as they scanned the ink strokes on silk canvas, and then his lips parted just slightly again in surprise for the second time.  Xichen wanted to kiss them with a desire swirling deep in his belly.  Instead he contented himself with watching A-Yao raise a hand and use one elegant finger to trace in the air, never quite touching, the small black shape beneath the trees.  Just a silhouette, barely a curl of ink.

The last time that the two of them had met, they A-Yao had mentioned that he was considering getting a spiritual dog for Jin Ling.  ‘Terribly useful creatures, spiritual dogs,’ he had said, and then added, ‘shame though, I really do prefer cats.’  And so when A-Yao left, Xichen had painted, in almost a haze, his garden and into it placed a black cat.

This was another of the things that one could not say to A-Yao, that he knew the most intimate corners of Xichen’s life, that he belonged there, that his presence left ripples even when he was far away and gone.  So Xichen brought gifts, and painted, and treasured the moments they had together.  

And he thought that he could read some of it back in A-Yao’s clear gaze as he met his eyes unwaveringly and said, “It’s a beautiful work er-ge.  I will hang it in my study.”

“Thank you, A-Yao’s praise means much.”

Xichen felt a little thrill too, to read between the words and see that A-Yao intended to display openly all of the unsaid meanings between them.  And that the world would look, but never see.

If he let himself, he could fall into that gaze, into all of the unsaid words.  He could let it carry him forward, around the scant barrier of the corner of the table between them, until he could taste the unsaid words from A-Yao’s tongue.  He wondered if they would taste like wine.

To keep himself from doing that, he asked instead, “Has A-Yao made a decision on the spiritual dog for your venerable nephew?”

Xichen could feel the moment the tension between them broke, like a summer storm over the mountains, with A-Yao’s bright, surprised laugh at the thought of a venerable four year old.  Xichen tucked that laugh away into a corner of his heart, and let himself breathe out a long, steadying breath.  It wouldn’t do to dwell on the things he might wish from A-Yao, and forget the time they were granted.

“Ah, yes, I do think I will give one to him.  It will be a good exercise in responsibility, and a companion.”

Xichen knew that A-Yao worried about the way the other children in Jinlintai reacted to Jin Ling, influenced by the way their elders would tell them to keep a respectful distance in one breath and then turn around and gossip with the next.  It was a mixture liable to curdle with time.  He didn’t know if it was better in Lotus Pier, but he hoped so.  

“What are Jiang-zongzhu’s thoughts?” he asked, hoping to let A-Yao give voice to his delightfully sharp opinions on Jiang Wanyin’s parenting style, and varied emotional outbursts.

Instead, A-Yao raised his cup to take another sip of his wine, and from behind his sleeve told him coyly, “I haven’t said.”

“A-Yao, you wouldn’t!” Xichen knew he sounded delightfully scandalized.

“Er-ge, I don’t know what you could possibly mean!” A-Yao intoned in his best impression of Nie Huaisang.  “Jiang-zongzhu loves dogs, doesn’t he?  It should be a nice surprise.”

“A-Yao!” Xichen said again, losing the battle against his own laughter and unable to force anything else out.

“Such a nice surprise, in fact,” he continued, the dimples in his face deepening as he obviously fought to keep his voice steady, “that it might even lift his spirits in a trying time.  Perhaps if he were first to learn when we all must attend Yao-zongzhu’s daughter’s wedding next spring.”

“Oh no,” Xichen said faintly.

“It will only just serve as repayment for all the swear words Jiang-zongzhu was so kind as to teach our darling nephew the last time he was in Lotus Pier,” A-Yao said, holding onto his highest dignity, before he dissolved into giggles too.

The giggles were not dignified.  They rose and fell in pitch, interspersed with lower chuckles and higher peals.  Lan Xichen was not sure if another person alive beside himself had ever heard A-Yao laugh like this before, and he was so in love with him that sometimes it felt like his golden core was trying to claw its way out through his heart.  

Or maybe it was just that he couldn’t quite catch his breath without starting to laugh again.

It took a little while for the both of them to calm down well enough to speak normally, but when they did, A-Yao said, “Come, we still have a little time yet.”  He poured himself a final glass of wine, and stood to lead them to another set of cushions laid at the edge of the pavilion’s floor.  He set down his cup and picked up a small book which had been strategically placed next to his cushion, that Xichen hadn’t noticed until now. ��“This one had discovered a new book of poetry, if er-ge might be interested in finishing the night with a recitation?” he said, turning the cover so Xichen could see the title.

Xichen looked up at the stars and the moon overhead, framed by the dark silhouettes of trees along the garden wall.  It was getting on towards hai time, but he said anyway, “Please, go ahead.  I do not mind staying awake a while longer.”  He kept behind his teeth the words, ‘I would listen to you read beautiful words every day if I could.  And then I would want it to be your voice that lulls me to sleep each night.’

A-Yao gave him a skeptical look from the corner of his eye, but he opened the book and began to read.  He got through several poems, lovely and indicative of A-Yao’s well-read taste, before Xichen let his eyes drift closed.  Only to concentrate better on A-Yao’s voice against the background of the late night sounds of the garden.

“Tsk, er-ge you are so bad at this!” A-Yao scolded. 

Xichen blinked his eyes open again, and made the argument, “Every sect leader must be acquainted with spending more time on work than his sleeping hours would allow.  It is no hardship to spend the same on pleasure.”

“Oh yes, I am sure.  And how many of those hours has Lan-zongzhu spent by waking early instead?”

The rules said not to lie.  In absence of the waking brain power to come up with anything better, he remained silent.  A-Yao laughed at him, so fondly that Xichen had no choice but to return a rueful smile.

“Here, I’m not about to have you falling off the porch and hitting your head.  Lie down.”  He pulled off his plush, fur-lined robe and folded it into a pillow.  Instead of setting it on the porch beside them, he placed it in his own lap in invitation.

Any pleasantly polite response Xichen could make to that deserted him, and he felt suddenly more alert.  Ears blazing and with the sense that his words were distinctly clumsy on his tongue, he asked, “Will A-Yao not be cold?” in an exact mirror of his earlier desires that was not lost on him. “Here you should take my outer robe.”

A-Yao scowled up in his direction, but Xichen could tell that he wasn’t putting any real heat in it.  “I’m not so fragile as you think.”

No, A-Yao really wasn’t.  He had experienced things that many of the Jianghu, even after being through a war, could only imagine and come through it still steadfast.  Xichen also knew that he frequently worked through pain even now, for all that he so infrequently caught a glimpse of it beyond A-Yao’s perfectly crafted face.  The cold made it worse.  “Won’t you allow your er-ge to make sure you are comfortable, though?  It’s a lovely night out to me, much warmer than Gusu is at this time of year.”

A-Yao didn’t say anything in reply, but the edges of his lips did tilt just the tiniest measure further into a smile.  Xichen took it as permission to pull his arms from his loose outer robe and drape it over A-Yao’s shoulders instead.  It made him look just that much smaller, with his own gold colors still just peeking through but almost subsumed by swirling white and blue.  Xichen was absolutely going to do something embarrassing if he kept looking at the sight, like lick his lips.  Instead, he turned away and stretched himself out on his back at the edge of the platform, so he could lay his head in A-Yao’s lap.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could swear he saw A-Yao hug the robe to himself after pulling his arms through the too-long sleeves, but he could not be sure.  As a concession to all of the other things he wished to do or say, Xichen reached out to hold A-Yao’s forearm, the easiest part of him in reach, and give it a light squeeze before letting his eyes fall closed.

Xichen dozed for a while after that, with the feeling of the fall breeze cool on his face, but A-Yao warm beneath and beside him.  It was too late in the season for most insects, but the trees rustled in the distance, a calming, lulling sound.  Given half a chance, he would fall asleep here.

He had not quite done so when careful fingers brushed across his face in the ghost of a touch.  When he did not startle or pull away, it seemed A-Yao became bolder; the fingers began to massage at his temples, his forehead, at the tension at the tops of his cheekbones and around his eyes.  They worked around his ribbon, always careful not to touch.  Xichen gave a sigh of pleasure, and received a faint laugh from above him in reply.

Eventually, A-Yao must have been satisfied with his work, because he stopped massaging.  Instead, he just ran his fingers across Xichen’s brow in a rhythmic pattern.  He was so relaxed and content that it took him a moment to realized that A-Yao was tracing skin just beneath his ribbon, in constant parallel.  He would not touch without permission, Xichen knew, but he could, he could; it had always been A-Yao’s to touch, from the moment they met.  The sudden rush of wanting this inspired was so heady that Xichen stiffened just slightly.

Naturally, A-Yao noticed.  “There, you are er-ge, back with me?”

The game up, he didn’t have much choice but to open his eyes to the sight of A-Yao leaning over him slightly, silhouetted against the night sky.  One strand of hair hung over his shoulder, dark against blue over goldenrod robes, and his smile was far too soft and serene for his dimples.  He was the most beautiful thing Xichen had ever seen.  Instead of any of that, he said, “good evening,” in the warmest voice he could possibly muster, and was content to catch what might just be a tinge of pink in A-Yao’s cheeks.

“Alright, I think it might be time for Lan-zongzhu to retire for the night.”

Xichen did not miss the use of his title, the chance he had been given to ask, ‘but what of er-ge?’  He would play this game, but not with such obvious bait.  Instead, he tilted his head to look past the edge of the pavilion and judge the position of the moon in the sky.  “Yes, it is perhaps later than is proper for a Lan to still be awake, and seen wandering the halls or gardens of Jinlintai.”

A-Yao gave him such a withering look that Xichen nearly started giggling again.  He held it back with the help of years of practice keeping his face serene and neutral.  “Yes, quite.”  A-Yao’s voice was dry enough to cure a fish, and so obviously affected.

“Then, will this noble and filial san-di help his er-ge save some face, and let him spend the night here?”

A-Yao’s nose wrinkled up and his mouth tilted into a smile again.  “I think your face is plenty thick, er-ge!”

“Mn, one must not tell lies.”

A-Yao made a noise of disbelief, but his face softened even further as he reached out one finger to run it below Xichen’s ribbon again.  “Alright, you can stay.”

[jgydidnothingwrong]

Xiyao for the #xiyaoGotcha4Gaza done!!

[English version]

[Spanish version]

I can rant here, so I will:

This fic is very special to me. Is almost funny I did it in September because this is a depressive, mourning month in my life. I lost my dad years ago, he suffered an aneurysm the same day of my birthday and died days ago.

So this fic is about mourning.

But also, even so this fic doesn't have a happy ending, it was born thanks to a song, El hombre Pájaro. Robe Iniesta tends to come out every three years with an album and honestly, every time he does so, he forces me to live another year. I simply can't die when he's still alive, you know? So when last year this song came out I did my usual, hearing it until I was sick of it anf try to relate it to my ships (because if he's one of the things forcing me to stay in this shitty life, I can use his art to my hearts content... Usually, D18 fics that nobody reads or live permanently on a private file)

But this song is so Lan XiChen post canon, and for me, it's about grief and losing oneself so I started planning this fic.

So, when I read this prompt in the list, I was all "this is similar enough to what I'm trying to write". And took it as a signal to do it.

Also, this fic was thought to be made in spanish, so I'm just hoping the English version carry the same feeling.

Thanks to @tmariea for donating and sorry if it's not what you wanted 🙇🏻‍♀️

[daily-zuko]

Hi,I heard there are some Avatar The Last Airbender fans bashed Katara for being hostile towards Zuko when she has a valid reason to do so given what he did in Crossroads of destiny,do you validate Katara’s grudge and animosity towards Zuko?

Hello, Daily-Zuko here! 

Though I’m not sure what answer you’re looking for, I suppose I’ll do my best to respond in a nonjudgmental manner. You’ll have to forgive me – as a Zuko blog, my focus in this breakdown skews towards him, though I have tried to give sufficient attention to Katara as well. As this turned rather lengthy, the majority of the content lies under the cut. Thank you for the question.

I think my favorite part about Avatar: The Last Airbender is its nuance in exploring complicated character dynamics. There is no black & white morality; each character’s feelings are treated with as much delicacy and respect as they deserve. Every individual’s story is weaved together seamlessly to create a greater whole, and Katara and Zuko are no exception. Their character arcs run parallel in many ways during the show, finally colliding in the Season 2 finale. They have both struggled with grudges, rage, and resentment holding them back throughout the course of the series, and this culminates in the climactic turning point in The Crossroads of Destiny. 

Katara, after carrying the pain of losing her mother for so long, seemingly finds a kindred spirit in Zuko, and let’s go of her anger to extend a hand in trust. This is her attempting to move beyond her childhood trauma to start healing. Zuko’s rejection of her is a rejection of his own inner turmoil, but it unfortunately cements Katara’s toxic mindset of revenge. Regrettably, Zuko is not ready to accept a change of heart; this occurs just as he’s evaluating his own moral stance. This finale subjects both of them to their lowest point moving forward. 

To answer your question, I believe that the actions they both take in The Crossroads of Destiny – and beyond – are valid.

At the point in the narrative where Zuko attempts to join Team Avatar, Katara’s potential growth has been stunted from their previously aborted connection. Zuko’s mental scars from his mother were not a central theme to his character development, unlike Katara, so he was able to complete his metamorphosis and advance. Though to all appearances they share the same childhood experiences, in terms of character, they do not share the same Ghost. 

In the book Creating Character Arcs, by K.M. Weiland, the author outlines four distinct things to establish in order to successfully create a Positive Change Arc: a character’s Want, Need, Lie, and Ghost. Zuko’s want versus his need is rather obvious. The lie he believes is that his worth is tied to his father and his title. By capturing the Avatar, he will return home and become intrinsically complete. The ghost, in this instance, does not refer to any literal ghost; rather, the ghost is the incidental wound within a character’s past that causes the character to believe in the lie in the first place; in other words, the Agni Kai.

In contrast, Katara’s ghost is literal – the death of her mother. It haunts her and prevents her from understanding her truth: that continuing the cycle of war will not remedy her grief. This creates an opposing force for their conflict in The Crossroads of Destiny, as while Katara has yet to confront her own lie, she is presenting Zuko with his truth, and rushing him into the next phase of his archetypal growth. 

Zuko’s choice in this scene is necessary. His reaction to Katara’s unexpected offer of reconciliation is instinctive – primal. Though he has come to the point where he can question his way in life, he is not yet ready to have this outlook thrust upon him in this split second decision. He cannot confront his lie. Therefore, he rejects the truth, relapsing based on what all previous experiences tell him is correct. Only once he fulfills his want in succeeding does he realize that it is not what he wanted in the first place. 

Additionally, Katara is somewhat of an unfortunate bystander in Zuko’s next step on “The Hero’s Journey.” The Positive Change Arc quite commonly coincides with the much earlier interpretation of character development defined by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Though this path is generally a commentary on the main character’s quest, this is only because other characters are not usually as fleshed out. Zuko, as the deuteragonist, is an exception. In this stage, referred to as “Challenges and Temptations”, “Road of Trials”, “The Descent to the Abyss,” etc, Zuko needs to fall to the absolute bottom in order to die and be born anew, and he drags Katara with him. 

In this vein, Katara’s obsession with rage and revenge simmers within her, and is not addressed in detail until The Southern Raiders. It is something that was magnified by the perceived betrayal of someone she had faith in, but it was an underlying issue that colored several actions she took. This was, of course, exacerbated by the duplicity demonstrated by others throughout the series. 

During their stay at the Western Air Temple, Zuko doing all he can to show Katara his changed self even though she continually rebukes him is his only meaningful way to absolve and prove himself to her in spite of his previous violation of her trust. His acceptance into the party does not erase his past mistakes. Katara needed to shun him just as Zuko needed to show her, with his actions, that she is allowed to forgive and finally complete her own journey. It is a fragile balancing act the writers have coined in order to give these two the catharsis they deserve, and it is executed flawlessly.

.

.

.

tl;dr: Yes, Katara is valid, so is Zuko, this show is more complicated than that and implying that one character (on either side) is in the wrong somehow for their feelings does a disservice to the show’s excellent writing. 

Additional youtube content from people who articulate much better than I do:

The Importance of Mistakes, by Make Stuff

A four-part show analysis, from The Weight of Cinema

The Cycle of War, by Hello Future Me

And finally, thank you to my lovely beta @tmariea for constantly helping me put my thoughts in order.

[tmariea]

What If I Told It In My Dreams

Fandom: MDZS/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/The Untamed

Pairing: Xiyao

Characters: Lan Xichen, Jin Guangyao

Rating: M (There will be a second chapter of this, and this will Increase at that point)

Summary:

To the best of Lan Xichen's knowledge Jin Guangyao had not been a sleepwalker before the war. Not once while on the run had he woken to see his companion’s slight form - the same one now silhouetted in the faint moonlight from the open door of the Hanshi - wandering about their camps or rooms.

Jin Guangyao sleepwalks his way to the Hanshi, to his er-ge's bed, and straight into a love confession neither of them were expecting out of a mundane visit to the Cloud Recesses.

Read on AO3

This fic is result of meing being possessed by this post, and a very fun back-and-forth brainstorming conversation with @dumbbo-yyy. 'This will be fun and short and sweet!' I said, 'this will be good practice before getting into Xiyao prompts for the gotcha4gaza' I said. Well, most of these things are true, but hope you enjoy 5K words of silly and sweet goo before an eventual smutty chapter 2 to come - rating and tags will be adjusted accordingly at that point, but for now all you'll have to look out for is a flash of Lan Xichen's Horny Thoughts(TM).

When Lan Xichen woke in the middle of the night to the sound of the Hanshi’s door opening, his first reaction was to call Shuoyue to his hand.  He felt this was a reasonable reaction; everyone had been more on edge since the war, and to the best of his knowledge Jin Guangyao had not been a sleepwalker before it either.  Not once while on the run had he woken to see his companion’s slight form - the same one now silhouetted in the faint moonlight from the open door - wandering about their camps or rooms.

“A-Yao?” Xichen asked, his voice rather rougher with sleep and more confused than normal.  He sent Shuoyue back to her stand with a flick of his hand and his qi.  “Is something the matter?”

A-Yao didn’t reply.  Instead he crossed the room to where Xichen was still lying half propped up on one elbow.  He placed a hand on the bed so he could lean closer.  Xichen was very aware of the way the bed dipped to the side of him, the warmth of A-Yao so close, the way he could just barely feel A-Yao’s breath ghost over his face.  He scarcely dared to move.

Xichen was not ashamed to admit to himself, but perhaps he would be ashamed to admit out loud, that he had dreamed of this at least a few times before. A-Yao would seek him out some time in the evening, or even later at night when he should have been asleep.  He would breathe out, “Er-ge,” or if Xichen’s mind was feeling particularly forward, “Huan-ge,” and then climb into his lap or over him in bed and kiss him, every hot and lovely line of him pressed up against Xichen.  Things would inevitably progress from there and Xichen would wake up in desperate need of a good long while in meditation or an early morning dip in the cold springs, all the while reminding himself that the sound of A-Yao crying his name as he finished was not a thing he got to have.  Or sometimes, he would not need either of those things at all…

Despite certain similarities, that did not seem to be what was happening now.  All of his senses were far too sharp, for one, and he really wasn’t sure his mind would make up something quite like A-Yao saying, in a much more light and affectionate voice than usual, “Goodnight kiss for Zewu-jun,” just before kissing him right in the center of his forehead.

“A-Yao, what?” Xichen managed to force out around the sudden and all-consuming squeeze of his heart in his chest.  His skin was tingling where A-Yao had kissed, and a delighted, if also slightly confused, shiver ran down his spine.

Instead of replying, A-Yao said, “Goodnight kiss for er-ge,” and kissed the same spot again.  This time his hands also came up to cradle Xichen’s head, thumbs running back and forth across the place that his forehead ribbon would lay if he were not dressed for sleep.  That plunged Xichen into an entirely different kind of wanting, the kind where his ribbon was A-Yao’s to touch, his to keep.

It already was, but up until this moment Xichen had not been sure it was something A-Yao might even want, for all his own personal longings.

He’d barely had time to catalog, much less actually sort through, any of those feelings, before A-Yao straightened back up and turned to leave without another word. Xichen stood from the bed, feeling as ungainly as when he was young and still learning how to grow into his long limbs, and took a few large strides across the room to catch A-Yao with a hand on his upper arm before he could walk back out the door.  “Please, A-Yao, is something the matter?  You are acting… unlike yourself.”

When A-Yao didn’t turn to look at him, or make any other acknowledgment that he’d even heard, Xichen took his other arm and gently turned him himself.  A-Yao moved without any sort of resistance.  His eyes were open and looking forward, but they did not appear to be seeing.  

For one terrible moment of stomach-dropping terror, Xichen thought that somehow his younger sworn brother, his A-Yao, his heart, had been turned into a puppet.  He yanked at the collar of A-Yao’s under-shirt, pulling it down far enough to see that his neck was still unblemished in the moonlight.  It was impossible anyway, wasn’t it?  There should have been no remnants of Yin Iron anywhere near Gusu to trouble them.

“A-Yao, are you… asleep?” Xichen asked finally, as the last possible option.  This time, he did not expect an answer.  “Let me take you back to your rooms.”  He placed one hand at A-Yao’s back, between his shoulder blades, and took his hand with the other, to guide him down the short set of steps leading up to the Hanshi.  How he had managed to navigate up them without tripping or making noise the first time Xichen was not sure.

By the position of the moon in the sky, the shichen was zi.  Cloud Recesses should be quiet and mostly empty, but Xichen still took them along lesser used pathways behind buildings and through wooded gardens just in case.  A-Yao would not appreciate being seen in this state of undress.  

It did have the unfortunate side effect of giving Xichen plenty of time to think on his suddenly heightened awareness of A-Yao beside him, of every place they touched.  His hand between A-Yao’s shoulder blades, and the way he could either spread out his fingers to cover much of the span of his back, or how he could let it slip lower to rest at the curve of his waist.  The loose hair brushing across the back of his hand, soft and lovely and so tempting to run his fingers through.

A-Yao’s hands, Xichen was more acquainted with.  He had been so bold as to run his thumbs soothingly across them the first time that they met, after all, trying to communicate wordlessly that he deserved far more than the scorn heaped upon him by the young cultivators around him.  And then, when Xichen had been injured and weak with fever on the run from the Wens, those hands had tended his wounds with competence and gentleness.  Since, he had watched A-Yao’s hands on teacups and on swords, held forward to bow, and in controlled, elegant gestures as he explained some brilliant idea. This didn’t mean, though, that Xichen had any tolerance built up against the wanting inspired by A-Yao’s touch.  Right now his hand was limp and relaxed, but Xichen could imagine the sensation of those smaller fingers lacing through his own.  Could dream of A-Yao lifting their hands to his lips to kiss Xichen’s with a secretive smile on his face.  It was for the best for both of them, perhaps, that they were walking uninhabited paths of Cloud Recesses, as Xichen felt his ears flame at the idea.

Reaching the walled courtyard around the guest quarters was a relief from Xichen’s own mind, but did present a new problem: although Cloud Recess was back to it’s old quiet, isolated self, everyone felt more comfortable with an increased watch after the Sunshot Campaign.  The disciple at the gate looked alert for a Lan at this time of night.  Objectively a good thing, although it meant they would require another route in.  How A-Yao himself left without raising notice was a question he suspected he may never get an answer to.

“Apologies, A-Yao,” Xichen said, and hooked an arm beneath his legs to lift him.  The way his relaxed head and neck drooped backwards was too disconcerting, so Xichen arranged the man in his arms so that A-Yao’s head rested against his shoulder, and his arms draped around Xichen’s neck.  Then, he had to take a moment just for himself, to revel in the feeling of A-Yao pressed to his chest, the perfect comfort in that pressure and weight.  Xichen’s precious burden and his feelings secured, he jumped silently over the fence.

They landed alongside A-Yao’s pavilion, in the shadows between it and a tall pine tree.  In the courtyard, no one lingered outside of their rooms, although it seemed a few might still be awake by the diffuse light from behind window screens.  Xichen made sure to step carefully and stick to the shadows along the building, until he could slip through the door to A-Yao’s room.

Inside, he crept through the dark, aware that if he were to kick over a table all his caution would have been for not.  The bed itself, he could see as his eyes adjusted, was well rumpled, as if before A-Yao began his nighttime wanderings he had not been sleeping restfully.  Xichen didn’t have the hands to rearrange the bed neatly again, so on top of the blankets it would have to be.

Except, when he set A-Yao onto the bed and made to stand, he was stopped by the arms around his neck.  It seemed at some point that A-Yao had clasped his hands, and would not be so easily dislodged.

“Please, A-Yao, I need to return,” Xichen murmured to him.

A-Yao made a noise in his sleep, a displeased sounding one.  As if he had heard and understood.

Xichen contemplated his options.  Coaxing A-Yao’s arms away would be easy enough, or he could slip his head out from between them, but the thought was suddenly unconscionable.  A-Yao hadn’t been sleeping well here, and the dark circles beneath his eyes had not gone unnoticed either, so Xichen suspected he was not sleeping well at home either.  He could not bear to disturb him when it seemed, in a mirror of Xichen’s own wishes, A-Yao wanted him to stay.

He could lay down right here next to A-Yao and fall back asleep.  He was sure sleep would come to him very easily, even though it wasn’t his own bed, with the comforting warmth of A-Yao beside him.  But then, what explanation could be given for the sect leader having spent the night in his own guest quarters?  No, it had to be better to bring A-Yao back to the Hanshi after all.  The two of them had taken breakfast together before, or gone for walks in the early morning, on days when A-Yao was awake early enough to keep Lan hours.  Although Xichen now had a suspicion that it may be after nights when he had not slept at all.  That would do - he would just need to wake A-Yao in time in the morning and no one would be the wiser.

Back out through the door they went, then, and over the wall to retrace their steps through the gardens.  This time though, Xichen held A-Yao the whole way.  A-Yao had not released his arms, and so the thought of putting him down had barely even crossed Xichen’s mind before it was gone.  

They made better time that way, as he didn’t have to be as aware of all the hazards that A-Yao could not see and may trip over.  Before long, he was sliding open the door to the Hanshi, and then laying A-Yao down for a second time, on his own bed.  He immediately missed the weight and heat of him.

Xichen sat down beside A-Yao, leaning down so as to not tug on his own neck.  He ran a hand up and down A-Yao’s upper arm soothingly, and said, “I promise I will stay.  Will you let me go?”  A-Yao made another set of sleepy grumbling noises, which Xichen found unbearably cute, but then surprisingly released his grip.  He left his arms stretched out across the empty space of the bed, as if he was reaching for Xichen even still.

Xichen slid into the empty side of the bed, and carefully draped one of A-Yao’s outstretched arms across his own chest before he could get caught in thoughts of what they each would or would not do in the daylight, the lines of propriety he was choosing to cross in the shadowy, unreal time between dusk and dawn.  Some small, unnoticed tension leaked out of Xichen’s body at the weight.  A-Yao, for his part, made another noise and cuddled closer, his head shifting until it nearly touched Xichen’s, and the arm across Xichen’s chest tightening just enough to be holding rather than laying limply.

Xichen let out a shaky breath through the sudden squeeze in his heart, and turned his head so he could kiss A-Yao on the forehead in a mirror of the kiss that began this all.  “Goodnight, A-Yao,” he whispered into the small, warm space between them, such an intimacy that it seemed the words were swallowed by the silence of the house.

He wasn’t sure if he would be able to sleep, through the onslaught of feelings that A-Yao here in his bed like this caused in him, but Xichen was out almost the moment he closed his eyes.

Jin Guangyao startled awake sometime in the small hours before dawn to the sensation, of all things, that he was too warm.  That barely even happened in Lanling’s hot and stifling summers, much less when visiting Cloud Recesses.  Next he realized that he was in the wrong bed, and the source of the extra, unexpected heat was another person in it next to him.  In this moment perhaps more than any others, he was grateful for his body’s instinct to freeze and assess when startled, as he breathed through a jolt of fear.  

This was not the brothel.  

He was many years away from the risk of a patron finding their way to his bed uninvited. 

By the pervasive scent of sandalwood and pine, he was still in Cloud Recesses, and a quick assessment of himself showed he was unbound, uninjured, and still clothed.  His instincts had kept his bedmate from waking as he did - despite the way one of his arms was slung across a broad chest and his knees tucked up between his body and the person’s hip - which would afford Jin Guangyao the chance to carefully draw himself away and see who this person was, and then slip away with them none the wiser.

Even still he had to clench his jaw to help concentrate past the rapid, fearful beat of his heart as he gently leaned back from where their heads rested on the same pillow, only a cun away from Jin Guangyao pressing his forehead to their temple.  The man’s face came into focus, the serene sleeping features of Lan Xichen.

There had been fury waiting in the wings of Jin Guangyao’s heart, hidden behind the fear.  He was grateful to be lying down in the face of his sudden light-headedness as both feelings drained away.  

So then, what had brought him here?  He didn’t feel sick or in pain, at least no more than usual, so this was not a case of a sudden illness in the night and er-ge staying by his side at the healers.  Nor had he fallen asleep in the Hanshi; Jin Guangyao had a distinct memory of walking back to his own guest quarters after taking tea with er-ge last night.

That left one option.  More than once since the war, Jin Guangyao had fallen asleep in his own room and woken sometime later standing in a garden or colonnade or empty hall echoing with the silence of deep night.  He’d taken to locking his door, but had foolishly, hubristically, thought that here in Cloud Recesses he might have less to guard against.  He wasn’t even sure that had been a conscious thought, which was infinitely worse.

And where had that thought brought him?  To er-ge’s bed.  As if his sleeping mind knew what he wanted most, and discarded all of the barriers he put up against it in his waking life to bring him right here.

The last time they had slept like this had been when they were in hiding together.  Single rush mats or hard, small beds; threadbare blankets that left them both shivering horribly, it had only been… sensible to share.  Jin Guangyao didn’t think he’d had as good of a night’s sleep since.  Not in Nightless City under Wen Ruohan’s ever-paranoid eye, or in Jinlintai amongst it’s unique crowd of vipers.  He took all of those questions about the last time he’d felt safe enough to relax and sleep without worry and shoved them to the back of his mind.  He’d always known what it meant to do what was needed, that was no different.

This though, this was not needed.  It would not advance his reputation or his plans, may in fact actively harm them were anyone to find out and decide to gossip.  (He might be safe from the Lans.  Might.  Jin Guangyao knew better than to trust even rigid rules when pitted against human nature.)

And yet.

And yet.  He had shifted the blanket down off of his shoulder without thinking about it, and now he was the perfect temperature.  Warm and sinking into the bed, surprisingly soft for his expectations of the Lan clan.  Er-ge’s breathing was quiet and even, bringing Jin Guangyao’s into pace with it, and stilling much of the storm that was always stirring in his heart or mind.  If he let himself forget for a moment all of the reasons and admonishments, he could let his head fall forward, lean against er-ge’s temple the way it almost was when he woke.  He could linger here, in this quiet, timeless moment suffused with the smell of sandalwood incense and fir trees, and with a wanting so gentle it nearly didn’t hurt.  Just long enough to fill his heart with something that could sustain him for a little while when he needed to leave.  He could do this and still slip away before er-ge and the rest of Could Recesses woke.

He remembered dozing for some time, stretches of peace without thought interspersed with indulgent awareness of comfort, and soft robes beneath his curled hands.  And then, he was waking to the feeling of er-ge rising from bed, and cursing himself for letting his guard down a second time within the same night.

Something made Jin Guangyao stay still and keep his eyes closed.  He let himself lie sleepy and relaxed in er-ge’s bed, as he listened to him move about the room.  The sounds of rustling fabric as he dressed, a comb through his hair, and then his footsteps were returning to the side of the bed.

Lan Xichen leaned over and kissed his forehead, right where he painted his cinnabar dot.  With his lips still close enough to brush Jin Guangyao’s skin as he spoke, he said, “I will be back with breakfast momentarily, love.”

Jin Guangyao had years and years of iron control to draw on.  Years of holding himself still, and smiling, and subservient, or whatever other emotion another person expected of him.  Years of speaking with perfect care, always choosing the words that would show himself as a refined gentleman, that would only enhance his reputation.  All of it deserted him in an instant, as he opened his eyes and reached out to grasp at the sleeve of his er-ge’s robes.  He asked, “Do you mean it?”

Er-ge jerked just the tiniest bit in surprise, and some distant corner of Jin Guangyao’s mind wanted to smile at catching him, always so perfectly upright and graceful, off guard.  “Huh?  A-Yao did I wake you?  I am sorry.”

Jin Guangyao ignored that question in light of repeating his much more pressing one.  “Did you mean it?”

Now er-ge just sounded confused rather that surprised.  “Mean what?  That I will return with breakfast?  It really will just be a moment, but you can sleep longer if you wish.”

Merciful Guanyin, was he going to have to say it?  But no, he had years and years of practice keeping it behind his teeth, all the way back to when his er-ge was only Lan-zongzhu and there had been an impulse in his fingers to sign off every secret letter, “In case I never see you again, I fear I have fallen in love with you.”  It kept him from being able to say it now.  Instead, his hand flexed a little tighter in the fabric of er-ge’s sleeve, and he said, “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”  He’d intended it to come out a bit tart, a bit teasing, but the slowness of early morning diluted his tone down far too close to pleading.

Er-ge’s eyes softened, and he sat back down on the bed.  Jin Guangyao was hyper-aware of how their hips nearly brushed, the blanket between them pulling tight across his waist as it was caught beneath er-ge.

One of er-ge’s hands reached out, as if to touch Jin Guangyao’s face, but then stopped at the last moment.  Instead he laid it over the hand on his sleeve.  “Does A-Yao want me to mean it?” he asked.  He did a much better job at a teasing tone, but underneath was a steady earnestness, that promised if Jin Guangyao said no, he would step away and get breakfast.  They would eat and drink tea, perhaps walk the paths on the mountain, and the conversation would drift in other directions, never to find its way back again.  If that is what he wanted.

He did not want that vision, not at all.  He wanted his er-ge’s love, wanted to be able to love him in return.  Even if it did nothing to advance his plans, to advance his reputation.  He swallowed hard, and turned that iron control in a different direction, towards making himself speak.  “I want you to mean it.  Please, er-ge.  Please mean it.”

Er-ge’s face lit up, like he’d set off a firework beneath his skin.  “A-Yao, my A-Yao, my love.”

Jin Guangyao felt his cheeks heating, and resisted the nonsensical urge to say ‘you can’t say things like that!’  He was the one who had asked for it after all.  Instead, he ran his hand up from Xichen’s arm to his shoulder, and tugged lightly before ordering.  “Come back here, then, and kiss me.”

The way er-ge’s eyes darkened was very interesting; he cataloged that away for the future.  And then, he didn’t think anymore at all because a pair of soft, warm lips were pressing to his own.  Jin Guangyao let his eyes slip shut and wrapped his other hand around the back of er-ge’s neck.  

It kept him from going very far when he pulled back, and searched Jin Guangyao’s face.  He must have been satisfied with what he saw, because he smiled so brightly, and tipped forward again, this time to rest their foreheads together.  Even more than the kiss, the feeling of the metal cloud piece of er-ge’s ribbon against his skin made him gasp.  “My er-ge.  My Lan Xichen,” he tested out into the bare inches of space between him, his voice curling around the words possessively, and heard er-ge’s breath hitch.

And then er-ge was kissing him again, once, twice, three more times.  Each just that bit firmer than the last, enough to start to bring up the heat in Jin Guangyao’s blood, before he pulled back.  Jin Guangyao was just about to work himself up to a pout when er-ge asked, with a truly incandescent joy in audible in his voice, “Would A-Yao mind if breakfast was delayed?  I did not get the chance to properly appreciate holding you.”

Well, now, how was he supposed to complain about such a sweet request like that?  He found himself shaking his head, while the arms still around er-ge pulled him in closer in answer.

Er-ge planted one knee on the bed, so he was momentarily looming over Jin Guangyao, which he filed away for more exploration later given the swoop in his stomach.  Then er-ge swung his other leg up too, to the other side of Jin Guangyao, and tipped himself in an undignified sprawl onto the empty, opposite side of the bed.  The corners of his mouth were drawn up in delight and amusement, seemingly at his own antics, and his eyes crinkled up.  The near-laughter on his face carried over into his voice as he said, “Come here,” and reached out an arm to drag Jin Guangyao over on top of him, so he was laying with his back to er-ge’s chest.

And, oh.  Jin Guangyao breathed out and felt as if all of his muscles and bones had deserted him with how easily he relaxed into that hold.  He tipped his head back so it was pillowed on er-ge’s shoulder, and his eyes drifted back shut almost without his own accord.  His body reminding him with a vengeance that he’d had an interrupted night of sleep and this was still earlier morning than he preferred, and then throwing in, just for good measure, that he was now warm, comfortable, and safe.

“I’ve dreamed of doing this,” er-ge said, wrapping his arms across Jin Guangyao’s chest and belly, and pressing a kiss against his temple.  “I will be content for as long as you might want to still sleep.”

Jin Guangyao didn’t fully sleep again, but he did let himself drift as the sun slowly crept up over the windowsills and across the floor.  He could feel the rise and fall of er-ge’s breathing against his back, and a hand rubbing gently up and down over his side.  But, he wasn’t accustomed to lazing for particularly long, no matter how blissful the excuse.  Eventually he stretched a little to indicate that he was fully awake again, and reached out to take one of er-ge’s hands and lace their fingers together above his stomach.  He could feel er-ge’s delight in the sharp breath against his back.

“Good morning, A-Yao.”

“Mn, good morning,” Jin Guangyao said, and then asked one of the questions that had been on his mind.  “Er-ge, how did we end up here?”  He lifted his free hand to indicate the bed, the Hanshi, all of it.

“Do you have no memory of it?”

“I have a suspicion about what happened, but will er-ge tell it for me?”  Jin Guangyao hoped that he hadn’t made a fool of himself in some way, but there was a touch of anxiety swirling low in his gut over the answer.

“I am not sure what happened before this, but A-Yao came to the Hanshi last night while you were still asleep-” yes, just as Jin Guangyao had feared “-ostensibly to say goodnight, and to give me a… goodnight kiss.”

Oh dear.  If er-ge was stumbling over his words even after they had exchanged more kisses, he must have behaved egregiously.  He kept his body relaxed against er-ge’s chest with a force of will, and asked in a lighthearted tone, “Hopefully I have been able to provide better kisses while awake?”

Er-ge laughed lightly at himself, and shook his head.  “A-Yao only kissed my forehead.  But it was unexpected.  Before that, I wanted to believe that this is what we meant to each other, but I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want to show it,” Jin Guangyao whispered.  “It was…”  He thought of promises from sect leaders.  Of tower stairs.  Vicious rumor mills that had said things about him and Nie-zongzhu even when Nie Mingjue had never looked back at him with the same kind of heat he recognized in Lan Xichen’s eyes.  Rumors that were more than happy to look at all his accomplishments, his cultivation, his status and attribute them only to the bedroom at the slightest hint…  The way much of that was still there, would always still be there.  The way that this one wanting had never been meant to grow so large as to put at risk all the others.

“Mn,” er-ge hummed gently, and tightened his arms in a silent acknowledgment.  Jin Guangyao breathed out all the tension from his chest and his muscles at not having to say it out loud.

“So then,” he brought them back to the topic at hand.  “What occurred next?”

“I walked A-Yao back to his rooms, but we had to go over the wall to avoid the guard.”

“That seems like a flaw in your guard rotation, er-ge,” Jin Guangyao interrupted, with a hint of laughter in his voice.

“Ahem, well.”

He turned his head so he could glimpse er-ge’s thoroughly pink ears, and took advantage of the proximity to shift just a bit further and press a quick kiss to his lips.  “I’ll stop, I’ll stop.”  A part of his brain peeled off to consider modifications that could be made from his old Nie rosters to work for the Lan, but that was a concern firmly for later.

Er-ge stole another kiss before he continued, “When I tried to return you to bed, you ah, wouldn’t let go.  I decided it would be easier if I brought you back here.”

“Easier how?”

“We often take breakfast, or morning walks.  It would raise less questions.”

Jin Guangyao could admit that the logic was sound, even if it had given him a moment’s panic in the middle of the night.  Well, full story told it did not seem as if he had behaved too egregiously, and certainly couldn’t complain about the end result.  Even still, he sighed, and said, “Ah, it is as I had feared, then.”

“Does A-Yao find himself sleepwalking often?”

“Sometimes, recently.  More often when I am restless or have something on my mind.”

“And did you sleep well here?”  Xichen sounded just the slightest bit hesitant, and hopeful.  It was sweet, unbearably so.

In revenge for that feeling - or perhaps as a reward, he couldn’t quite decide - Jin Guangyao stretched luxuriously, letting one arm land in such a way that it curled around the back of er-ge’s neck.  “Hm, wonderfully,” he said, letting the words stretch lazily across his tongue.  It was the truth, too.  Even his intermittent dozing had left him feeling more rested than he had in days.

Er-ge nosed against Jin Guangyao’s neck, newly in reach, and said into the hollow behind his ear, “Well then, A-Yao will simply have to share my bed any time he is in Cloud Recesses.”

“Er-ge!”

“I had meant for sleeping, but A-Yao can of course share my bed in other ways if he would like.”

There were still things Jin Guangyao would need to think through - what they would be to each other, what they would appear to be to the world.  How this would fit with his other ambitions, or possibly even rewrite them.  But for now, for now he tilted his head to show more of his neck, flexed his hand against er-ge’s skin, and said, “Yes.”

[tmariea]

Sunflower Child

Fandom: MDZS/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/The Untamed

Characters: Lan Sizhui, Wen Ning, Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji

Rating: G

Summary:

Most young witches, the ones who live with their birth families, know that they are witches before their magic manifests. Most young witches don’t learn they are witches by turning their skin purple while trying to bake cupcakes for their best friend’s birthday. Lan Sizhui, as he is learning very quickly, is not most young witches.

Read on AO3

Written for this year's MDZS Secret Santa event!

Most young witches, the ones who live with their birth families, know that they are witches before their magic manifests.  Most have watched their parents, or siblings, or aunts and uncles doing magic, just another facet of daily life.  Many even have some rudimentary lessons when they’re young, so they know what and how to expect the day when their powers arrive.

Most young witches don’t learn they are witches by turning their skin purple while trying to bake cupcakes for their best friend’s birthday.

Lan Sizhui, as he is learning very quickly, is not most young witches.

He isn’t even the one who notices.  When Sizhui’s a-die — a man of very few facial expressions for all he is a man of strong emotions — freezes in the doorway, eyes wide, and calls, “Wei Ying!  I think you need to get down here!” that’s when Sizhui knows something is very wrong.  He freezes, mouth full of cupcake and frosting, and takes quick stock.  He doesn’t feel like he’s bleeding anywhere, he hasn’t knocked any of the glass bowls onto the floor and broken them, and the rabbits are visible through the door to the living room, perfectly safe and content in their pen.

Sizhui goes to put the cupcake down, and that’s when he notices his hand.  He lets out a loud yelp and jumps hard enough that his stool tips over backwards and spills him onto the ground with a thump.  A very small part of him, whichever part isn’t panicking at the moment, registers the sound of his baba coming down the stairs, and then beginning to laugh at him.

“Baba!  What?  I don’t know— how—? Baba it’s not funny!” Sizhui exclaims from the floor.  He doesn’t mean to sound sulky, but it’s kind of hard when he’s also maybe a little bit trying not to cry.

“No it is not,” a-die agrees, kneeling down to help him sit up, and then running fingers through his hair to check for lumps.

“No, ah, sorry A-Yuan, Lan Zhan.”  Baba stifles another round of giggles, by the way his ponytail shakes and his mouth is twitching around an attempt at a serious expression.  “Are you OK?  Does it hurt at all?”

Sizhui shakes his head, which has mercifully escaped injury by the feel of it.  He lifts his other hand and finds it just as purple, all the way up his arm, but bizarre appearances aside it doesn’t feel any different.  “What happened?” he asks, as if his fathers are any more likely to know.  And then, hesitantly, “Is it everywhere?”

“Mn,” a-die confirms, with a solemn nod.

Baba crouches down in front of him, takes his hands and gives them a little squeeze.  “It’ll be alright.  Who knew our little radish would grow into a little witch, huh?”

“A witch,” Sizhui repeats.  His voice sounds kind of far away and high pitched to his own ears.  He leans back against a-die’s shoulder, hoping maybe he can absorb some of his perpetually-calm exterior.

Sizhui knows about witches of course.  They’re not common, but there’s usually a couple in most towns, maybe a dozen or two in a larger city.  He thinks that a lot of them even do the same normal things as everyone else, just with magic.  And flying brooms.  He can’t picture himself on a flying broom, no definitely not.  That is something to freak out about later.  “H-how can I be a witch?  How did you not know?”

“Witchcraft runs in families,” a-die says from behind him, voice softer.

The adoption agency hadn’t had any information on Sizhui’s birth family.  He nods; it makes at least a little bit of sense.  “Then, I did this?  But how?  I don’t know any magic.”

“It doesn’t usually show up until you’re a teenager,” baba supplies, “and then can do some odd things if you don’t know what you’re doing.  I went to school with a couple of siblings who were witches for a little while; some of the things that happened around them were so funny!” 

Baba stands up suddenly, with a little, “oh!” and heads inexplicably towards the living room.  He returns with Bichen, and deposits her in Sizhui’s lap, before pulling out his phone and wandering away again.

Sizhui instinctively begins to run his fingers through Bichen’s white fur, feeling himself start to actually calm down.  His voice sounds less strange when he asks the next question on his mind, “If I don’t know magic, how do I undo it?  A-die, am I going to be stuck like this?  No one can see me like this!”

“I think your baba is working on that,” a-die replies.

As he trails off, they hear from the other room, “Wen Ning!  Hey it’s been forever, how are you and Wen Qing doing?” A pause, and then his voice starts to get closer again as the loop of his pacing takes him back across the house. “Do you still live in the area, or know any witches who do?  Yeah, my kid.  No, no, nothing serious!  But, I think he may need a crash course in magic.”  Baba arrives back in the kitchen just in time to give them a wink and a thumbs up.  “You’re the best, we’ll see you in a little while!”

Sizhui thinks he may disagree with the assessment that this is ‘nothing serious,’ but the rest sounds promising.  Wen Ning lives in Dafan, a small town about an hour’s drive away, so they settle Bichen back in her pen and all three pile into the car.  A-die drives, and baba sits in the back with Sizhui, like he used to do when Sizhui was six and would fall asleep on his lap on the way back from family functions.  The words ‘I’m not a kid anymore,’ are on Sizhui’s tongue, but he swallows them back down when baba takes his (purple) hand.  Which is still really weird, he’s not going to lie, but it’s not nearly so scary now that they’re going to see a witch his baba knows who can fix it.  The witch thing in general though, maybe it’s kind of cool but it’s also so much; he’s not sure what to feel about it yet.

It seems Sizhui is destined to repeat the whole little-kid-backseat-thing, because he falls asleep on baba’s shoulder not ten minutes into the drive, lulled by the motion of the car and the traditional music a-die always plays through the radio.  He wakes up to baba’s fingers carding through his hair, just as they hit Dafan.  It’s a small town, nestled at the base of the mountains.  Sizhui recognizes it from weekend markets his fathers have brought him to before, or hikes he’s taken nearby with classmates.

“There you are,” baba says, as Sizhui sits up to watch the traditional buildings of the town square slide past outside the window.  “I think the magic might make you tired at first, until you get a handle on it.  I always remember Wen Ning taking naps in the strangest places.”

“Ah,” Sizhui, replies simply, less comforted by that fact than slightly mortified by the possibility of falling asleep somewhere unintended.  He changes the subject as the car takes a turn onto a smaller street leading back towards the edge of town.  “Does he not live in Dafan?”

“Mn,” a-die confirms, “a few minutes out of town.”

The house that they pull up at is the only one along it’s stretch of road, on the last piece of flat ground before the land starts to rise up into foothills.  It’s built of dark brown wood, with a roof of curved black tiles and large windows divided into many tiny square panes.  All of that is secondary to the greenery bursting from the yard, and around the edges of the building.  Ivies crawl the walls, so thick in places that it would be hard to tell what the house looks like beneath, and flowers take up almost the whole fenced area at the front of the house in a riot of color doing it’s level best to overtake the path.

Baba doesn’t seem to be intimidated by the chaos, leading them up towards the porch and setting roses and lavender swaying as he passes.  Sizhui and his a-die follow at a more sedate pace.  The scent is just as much of a jumble, but to Sizhui’s surprise it’s not overwhelming.  Instead it smells as if someone bottled every scent memory he’s ever had of sun-drenched summers into one tiny patch of land.

The door to the house, which baba knocks on with two short, sharp raps, is a bright poppy red.  It opens not a minute later to reveal a person who Sizhui presumes is the witch they’re here to see.  He doesn’t get a good look though, before baba yanks him into a crushing hug with a cry of, “Wen Ning!”

“Wei Wuxian, hello,” the man says, slightly muffled from where his face is squashed into baba’s shirt.  It sounds resigned, and Sizhui can’t help but laugh quietly; his baba is known to inspire that feeling in people.

Once he’s released, the witch stands up and straightens out his oversized gray sweater and cardigan, which he’s wearing despite the August heat.  His long hair is only loosely pulled back from the front and out of his face, but the rest is left untied.  He looks like he might be about Sizhui’s fathers’ age, but his round face and the swathed-in-blankets impression of his clothing makes him seem younger.  He turns to Sizhui and his a-die, and bows.  Sizhui wonders if it isn’t in part a ploy to hide his expression, as he can see the corners of his mouth twitch just a bit as he takes in the magical mess Sizhui has made of himself.  He straightens and says, “I’m Wen Qionglin, local witch and apothecary for Dafan.  Most everyone calls me Wen Ning, though.”  His voice is a little slow and halting, and quiet, almost difficult to hear from where he stands on the porch.

A-die bows with the posture and formality as if he were greeting a great teacher.  “Lan Wangji, Wei Ying’s husband and father to Lan Sizhui.”  Sizhui does his best to copy his a-die’s bow.  “Thank you for helping on short notice.”

“I really appreciate it,” Sizhui adds, with feeling.  He figures there were probably witches who lived closer to them in Gusu, but there is something comforting about Wen Ning not being a complete stranger.  Or perhaps it’s result of the softness the man himself seems to exude.

“And I’m Wei Ying, which you still won’t call me after all these years!”

Wen Ning just gives a small smile and a sheepish duck of his head in response to that.  “Nice to meet you.  It’s no trouble to help Wei Wuxian’s” - baba just pouts - “family.  Come in, please.”

The three of them follow Wen Ning into the house.  Sizhui is immensely interested to see what a witch’s home looks like.  His first impression is that there are quite a lot of dark colored walls, the paint in the living room where Wen Ning settled them such a deep emerald to be almost black.  But there are enough windows, and light wood furniture upholstered in cream and dusty-red fabric, that it feels still strangely open and airy.  There are a handful of pictures on the walls, mostly Wen Ning with a tiny woman who looks a lot like him; Sizhui assumes this is the Wen Qing that baba had mentioned.  Every other inch of the walls are covered in shelves packed to the brim with plants, and some random stands and side tables besides.  There are leaves in every color of green, from the palest, almost-white to deep jewel greens, and even some in reds or deep purples.  One corner of the room has been given entirely over to the strangest citrus tree Sizhui has ever seen, bearing what looks like lemons, limes, oranges, and some very bizarre thing shaped like a hand, all at the same time.

Their host gestures for them to sit and disappears into the next room for a moment - presumably the kitchen - and returns with a tea set and a large wooden box.  He sets both on the low coffee table.  “Sorry, the tea selection may be a little overwhelming.  I’ve got most anything you might want in here,” Wen Ning pats the top of the box affectionately, “magical or non-magical both!  Oh, although most of the magical ones are medicinal, so ask me what they do first, or if they’ll interact with anything you already take.  They have the red labels.”

Sizhui and his baba lean over the box to start inspecting.  He actually reads the labels, while baba just starts grabbing things and smelling them.  A-die asks for a simple ginseng, which Wen Ning puts aside while the other two continue their search.

“Butterfly pea?” Sizhui asks, pulling out a small jar that looks full of dried blue and yellow flowers.

“Oh that’s a fun one,” Wen Ning replies, with a little smile playing around the edges of his mouth.  “It makes bright blue tea, but turns pink if you add lemon juice.”

“Ah, no thank you.” Sizhui doesn’t quite drop the jar as if it’s burning him, but it’s a near thing.

“I’ll have that one!” Baba exclaims, plucking the jar back up.

“Ba!” Sizhui groans, at the same time as his a-die says in his warning voice, “Wei Ying.”

Baba just sighs and puts the tea back, before handing over a different one that smells distinctly sharp and cinnamon-y.  Leave it to him to find a tea that is somehow also spicy.

Sizhui just watches as Wen Ning scoops out the leaves into individual strainer baskets over each cup, and pours.  He notices that the witch’s movements are a little stiff and stilted, like his voice, but he makes both cups without spilling any.  “I have a nice chamomile.”  He says once he’s done and waiting for the tea to steep.  “Something simple and familiar?”

Sizhui lets out a breath.  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Wen Ning makes two cups of the chamomile, and takes the second one for himself, before settling into an arm chair across from them.  “So you turned yourself purple,” he starts.

Sizhui thinks he might be blushing.  He is also very glad there aren’t any mirrors in his immediate eye-line, because he does not want to know what that looks like.  A-die makes a small gesture from next to him, not quite nudging, but a clear ‘mind your manners.’  “Yes, Apothecary Wen.  I’d never done anything, ah, magical before today.”

Wen Ning gives a small, jerky nod.  “Do you know what caused it?  What were you doing before?”

“Maybe?  I was baking.  It’s Jingyi’s - that’s my best friend - birthday tomorrow, so I made some cupcakes.  I was trying one when a-die noticed…” he trails off, looking at his purple fingertips. Blackberry cupcakes.  The exact same color as the frosting.

“Cooking mishaps are pretty common.  Qing-jie wouldn’t let me near the kitchen for a while.  Until I got more control over my magic.”

“You turned yourself purple before too?” Sizhui exclaims.  He’d definitely feel better if that was the case.

“Not that exactly.  I made a chicken soup once that crowed like a rooster when we tried to eat it, though.  That was really… disconcerting.  And some cookies that made Qing-jie breathe out sparkles all day.  That’s when she kicked me out.

“Magic, when it’s new and you don’t have anywhere to direct it, comes out in a lot of ways that are both weird and logical at the same time.  It likes to follow the path of what we put into it - ingredients, materials, sounds or words, gestures - and what meanings we focus on for them.  If that makes any sense?  Sorry, I haven’t really taught anyone before.”  Wen Ning had dropped his eyes to his lap partway through his explanation, but he raises them back up after he finishes speaking.

Sizhui risks a quick glance at his parents to see what they’re making of it.  A-die has a blank, polite look on his face, so he’s probably not sure.  Baba is nodding though.  Which, baba likes a puzzle, or those mystery stories where you have to put clues together.  “The frosting was this dark pink,” he muses, trying to think about it like a puzzle.  “I added a few drops of blue color because I didn’t think it looked enough like blackberry.  I was thinking it needed to be more purple!”

Wen Ning gives him two sharp nods and a smile.  “That’s probably it!”

“So, does that mean you know how to fix it?”

“I have some ideas.  Finish your tea, and then we’ll go out to the garden.”

Once all of the cups are drained, Wen Ning leads Sizhui - just the two of them, his fathers elected to stay in the house where it’s cool - through the kitchen and a room that was likely meant as a sun room but has been turned into a veritable tropical greenhouse instead.  After walking through the heat and humidity, the summer sun is nearly a relief.

Stepping outside, all Sizhui can do is stare.  Wen Ning had called this a garden.  And while he doesn’t think it’s quite large enough to be a farm, it stretches hundreds of feet back from the house until it hits a copse of trees just before the land begins to rise towards the foothills.

“This is…” Sizhui starts, and then backtracks on just saying an incredulous ‘this is a garden?’ since it feels somewhat rude.  “Do you take care of this all by yourself?”

“Mn.  Mostly.  I have an uncle that helps get things started in the spring.   Qing-jie will pitch in if she’s in town, too.”

“It’s amazing.  Is it all for your magic?”

Wen Ning shakes his head.  “Some.  I just eat the vegetables, and sell the extra at the town market,” he gestures towards a large patch where the red of ripening tomatoes stands out against a backdrop of trellised leaves, and winter squash vines sprawl over wide swaths of ground.  He tilts his head to another section next, a riot of color even more chaotic than the front garden, “The cut flowers too, and the teas.  I use a little magic on all of it though, to help it grow and keep the pests off.  But we need the herb garden.”

He leads Sizhui not immediately to the herb garden, but instead to a wooden cabinet nestled up against the house, protected by the eaves.  From inside he pulls a basket, a set of clippers, and two sets of gloves, and deposits all but his own gloves into Sizhui’s arms.  

Sizhui follows him out into the rows between sections of garden, through the warm afternoon full of the sound of buzzing insects.  It smells just as much like heaven out here as the front garden did, and there’s a breeze lightly stirring his hair and keeping it from sticking to the back of his neck.  By all rights, it should be a perfect, relaxing summer afternoon, but he’s starting to feel unsettled again.  “Apothecary Wen, you said you had ideas,” he starts.  He really shouldn’t doubt Wen Ning when he’s so kind as to help, but part of him had thought that a trained, adult witch could just wave a hand and he’d be back to normal.  “Is there not a spell in a book, or a potion recipe?”

Sizhui is more expressive of his a-die, he knows that.  But everyone is always complimenting him on his maturity, a calmness and steadiness beyond his years.  And it’s not quite that he tries to hide it when he’s scared or upset, but usually it’s only his fathers who can see it, his best friends every once in a while.  

Wen Ning gets it right away, stopping and turning back, placing a hand on Sizhui’s shoulder and bending down a little so they’re on the same eye level.  “No, but we will fix it, I promise.  I have recipes for a lot of common things, headaches and stomach aches and anxiety.  I also have a lot of tinctures and creams for psoriasis and acne and skin clarity, which we’ll draw on a lot of those ingredients and their properties today.  But magic does weird, unexpected things sometimes, so as witches we learn to be creative.”

Sizhui takes a deep breath and lets it out, and decides that it is comforting, if Wen Ning is used to getting creative with magic.  He’s even done a little bit of improvising himself before, playing around with tunes on his guqin or the piano, and they’ve come out OK.  Maybe magic will be the same.  He hopes.  “Alright.”

Wen Ning studies his face for a moment more.  Sizhui had noticed the witch looking at him slightly more than he might have expected while they were having their tea, but he’d figured it was the oddity of having a purple teenage boy on his couch.  But now it’s almost as if he’s looking for something.  Before Sizhui can start to feel uncomfortable, Wen Ning nods and straightens up again, then continues to walk through the garden.  This time, they walk side by side.  “Good.  Plus, I’m very good at magical skincare.  It’s my best seller,” Wen Ning says with a wink.  

It startles a laugh out of Sizhui, and decides he feels almost all the way better.

As soon as they step off the gravel path and into the main body of the garden itself, it’s clear that this is where Wen Ning is most in his element.  His soft face brightens up with excitement as he trails his fingers amongst the leaves and begins rattling off common names, scientific names, and properties.  Enough so that Sizhui begins to worry about remembering it all, before Wen Ning stops and says with an embarrassed air, “Most of this we don’t need today.  Just useful information, if you decide to shape your magic in similar ways.  We actually only need the mint, it’s good for focus and concentration, so it should help you channel your magic.”

There are a lot of things in that statement that Sizhui has questions about, but he starts with, “My magic?”

Wen Ning looks down, a sheepish expression crossing his face.  “Ah, sorry.  I’ll go through the ingredients and guide you, but undoing the effects when our magic does unexpected things is one of the first lessons a young witch does.”

Sizhui wonders if that’s something he would have known if he had grown up with other witches, with his birth family.  It causes a little pang in his stomach, part sadness part curiosity.  One that he’s not entirely unfamiliar with, for all that he loves his fathers and wouldn’t trade them for the world.  He shakes off the thought instead of letting it linger, and tells Wen Ning, “Alright, I’ll try.”

They pick the mint.  It’s in it’s own little patch, surrounded by a thin brick border inscribed with runes that Wen Ning explains, with a laugh, are to keep it from taking over the whole garden.  He points out some other plants as well that aren’t ready for harvest yet - fennel, red ginsing, licorice - which they’ll use dried from what’s stored in the house.  

Then they circle around to the other side of the garden, to collect rose hips.  There are roses in every color and size growing, red and pink and yellow and purple, solids and two-color, buds with loose, ruffly petals and ones with smooth petals packed tightly together.  The rose garden is a little more orderly than the rest of the cut flowers too, and Sizhui thinks it looks like it’s straight out of a magazine, but Wen Ning makes a frustrated little sigh as soon as they approach a large, trellised bush covered with pink roses.

“Is everything alright?”

Wen Ning waves off his concern.  “It’s just beetles.  I’m going to go get something for them, if you’ll pick some rose hips from this bush.  We’ll need 15.”

It doesn’t take long; the bush has plenty to harvest.  It also has plenty of the iridescent beetles about the size of a fingernail which had so upset Wen Ning.  He hasn’t come back yet with his beetle solution though, so Sizhui starts to walk down one of the paths through the roses while he waits.  His attention is drawn instead to the tall stalks of sunflowers past the roses.  Some are short enough to only be at eye level on him, others rise over a foot above his head.  He can’t resist reaching out to touch the center of one, where all the little seeds point outwards.  He has the faintest memory of looking up and up and up, all the way up to so many huge yellow flowers he could barely see the sky.  He’d reached for them, in the silent begging of a small child, until someone with a face he can’t remember had clipped a flower as big as his torso and placed it in his lap.

“Do you like sunflowers, Lan Sizhui?”

Sizhui jerks a little in surprise at Wen Ning’s sudden appearance, his thumb pressing roughly against the scratchy surface.  “They’re pretty.  And almost nostalgic?  I feel like I may have spent time around a lot of them when I was little.”  He turns around to see the witch smiling widely, at either him or the flowers, he’s not quite sure.

“I know the feeling,” Wen Ning replies.  “My popo loves them, grows even more than me.  So many that Qing-jie and I would play hide-and-seek among the stalks.  It makes sense though; they’re my family’s symbol.”  He steps up to the sunflower that Sizhui had been looking at, takes the clippers from the basket, and snips the flower from it’s stalk, before nestling it between the mint and the rose hips.

“Is it for the, for my uh…”

“No, just for you.  So you can take something nice with you, not just a memory of your magic doing things you didn’t want.”

“Thank you Apothecary Wen!” Sizhui bows, the basket swinging at his elbow as he does.

“You’re welcome, but it’s nothing.”  Wen Ning leads them back to the house, and Sizhui trails just a step behind, still brushing his hand lightly against the sunflower as he does.

Inside, they wave to Sizhui’s fathers - a-die has found a book on plants and herbs to read, and baba is sprawled across the couch and his lap, on his phone - and grab an orange off of the odd tree, for the peel according to Wen Ning.  Then they go into a room which would be a home office in anyone else’s house.  Instead it has been transformed with strings of drying herbs strung up across the whole ceiling, and open shelves full of big glass jars and metal tins against two of the walls.  The another is taken up by a long wooden workbench, the surface of which looks like it has been stained frequently over the years.  Wen Ning gestures for Sizhui to put the basked on the bench, and then begins collecting tools for their work.

“You mentioned something earlier about how I decide to shape my magic, what did you mean?” Sizhui asks, accepting a heavy mortar and pestle that Wen Ning passes him.

Wen Ning is quiet for a moment as he collects a few jars of dried herbs, a thoughtful look on his face.  “Remember I said magic comes out of ingredients, and thoughts.  Our thoughts and magic are the real catalyst, but the ingredients are like a framework to direct it.”  Sizhui nods; he does remember even if he’s not sure if he understands yet.  “I use things people do think of as ‘ingredients,’ herbs and flowers and stuff.  Which,” Wen Ning measures out a few spoonfuls of fennel seeds into the mortar and pestle, “you’ll need to grind that fine.  ‘Ingredients’ can be anything that might provide direction though.  Lots of people work with sigils and talismans.  I do sometimes, if I need something lasting - like the mint border.  People can speak spells, or move their bodies - I’ve seen magic like sign language and magic like dance.  You can do magic with sewing, or pottery - although that’s usually sewing or carving sigils into the cloth or clay - or with cooking, or music.”

“I play guqin,” Sizhui blurts at the thought of music. Although, maybe he shouldn’t play for a little while, until he learns some control.  That’s a sad thought, but then what could he do with it later?

Wen Ning nods.  “I can see if I remember anyone nearby who uses music.  Or I can ask around, if that’s something you want to try.”

Sizhui is surprised.  He’d thought maybe Wen Ning would be able to teach him magic.  But he tells himself that it’s not as if they’d talked about it.  He was only helping out in an emergency, not committing himself to being a teacher for however long it took to learn.  “OK, thank you,” he says, and changes the topic.  “So then, what do witches do?”

That startles a laugh out of Wen Ning.  He tilts his head to the side as he looks at Sizhui, long hair spilling over the front of his shoulder.  “For jobs?”

“Mn.”  The question of what having magic means for the rest of his life has been one of the bigger ones knocking around in Sizhui’s head all afternoon.  He doesn’t say it though; it’s the kind of question that usually causes an adult to say he’s really mature, when actually he’d rather they say something reassuring instead.

“Anything really.  You could probably guess, but there’s something about magic that matches up really nicely with creating. A lot of witches are artists.  Qing-jie is a doctor and a researcher.  She studies combining magical medicine with science to use in her practice.  Uncle Four is in construction.  He uses talismans to help balance loads more safely, or write fire and earthquake protection into the frame of buildings.  Some don’t use magic for a career, and want to just do it for fun.  You’ve got time though, to think about any of that, after you learn.  And after you’re not purple anymore.  That looks fine enough.”

Sizhui dumps the fennel into a clean glass jar Wen Ning brought out, and then they work on chopping and grinding the rest together.  The witch writes down all of the individual ingredients and the properties they’re trying to draw on for the tincture, too.  Which, Wen Ning says would be better than a cream or a lotion so Sizhui doesn’t have to worry about missing spots, which is a mortifying thought if there ever was one.

Once all of the ingredients are prepared, Wen Ning clears off the table and places only the jar and the list of ingredients in front of Sizhui.  “Now, to add the magic which will activate it.  Have you ever meditated before?”

He nods, “A-die does, and I join him sometimes.”

“That makes things easier.  Begin as if you’re meditating, and I’ll talk you through where to direct your focus.”

Sizhui pulls over a stool and gets comfortable, before starting to count his breaths.

Wen Ning’s voice, already soft and slow, becomes even more so as he instructs, “Good.  Focus on the center of your chest, just a little lower than your heart.  You know the feeling of warmth, or a good tightness, when you are very joyful or really love an activity that you’re doing?  That is what you’re looking for in that place.  That’s your golden core, where your magic lives.”

Sizhui pictures it behind his closed eyelids, a warm glowing ball in his chest.  He’d felt it earlier today, what he’d thought was only just happiness that his baking for his best friend had come out so well.  Maybe that’s how some of the magic had gotten mixed into it in the first place.  “I think I have it.”

“Now try to feel that warmth flow through your body.  Down into your stomach, and your legs, through your shoulders and arms to your hands.”

That part is less easy.  He holds his fists to that little knot in his chest, and tries to feel as if they are grabbing hold of some piece of it and dragging it through his veins, but he keeps loosing hold of it. He grabs the thread again and again in an imagined hand, until he makes a frustrated noise and sways in his seat.

“That’s OK,” Wen Ning says from somewhere that feels very far away.  “It’s a new skill.  Let’s take a break for a moment, and have something to eat.  I’ll be back in a minute.”

Sizhui hears footsteps retreating, and eases his eyes open against the late afternoon sunlight casting a pattern of panes through the window and onto the workbench.  He picks up the jar and tilts it side to side, looking at the way all the powders and pieces of what is supposed to be his cure shift together.  It smells pretty nice actually, if he pays attention to it.  He starts a little when the door opens and closes again, and he puts the jar down quickly.  “Sorry, I hope I didn’t disturb anything.”

“Not at all, it’s not a bad idea to interact more with your ingredients.  Here,” Wen Ning puts down a plate of small, round cookies and another pot of chamomile tea on the table, and sits on the other stool.  “Tell me about something other than magic, while we eat.  Try not to think about it at all for just a few minutes.”

So Sizhui talks about the rabbits while they clear the plate of the cookies - surprisingly light in texture and flavored with cardamom.  He even pulls out his phone and flips back to pictures of Bichen and Suibian when they were small.

“Is this you, Lan Sizhui,” the witch asks, about a picture where a nine-year-old Sizhui sits on the ground with both rabbits tucked together in his lap, and a radiant smile on his face.

“Mn, we’d only had them a few months, and it was the first time they sat in my lap.”

“You look like…” Wen Ning trails off, staring intently at the picture, and an odd quality to his voice.

“I look like what?”

He gives himself a little shake, and then says, “You look like you love them very much.  A-are you ready to try your magic again?”

“Yeah, alright.”  Sizhui puts his phone away, and closes his eyes again.  He does feel better for the snack, and it’s easy to find the knot in his chest again.  This time he forgoes trying to picture grabbing the magic, and instead thinks about the feeling of warmth from the first drink of tea and how it flows down his throat and to his stomach.  He thinks of what it would feel like if it kept spreading throughout his whole body.

“There, you’ve got it!” Wen Ning exclaims.  “Now, put your hand above the jar, and think about your ingredients, and what you need them to do.  Think about pushing your magic into them, and waking them up.  You can open your eyes and look at the list if it helps.”

Sizhui takes a deep breath, and opens his eyes.  He looks at the individual pieces of mint and fennel and orange peel, rose hips and licorice root and red ginseng, remembers the smell.  His fingertips feel tingly, the same way they might if his hand had fallen asleep, and then a red symbol blooms above the jar.  It’s gone quickly, but Sizhui thinks it looked like a stylized sunflower, with a spiral as the base of each petal that then unfurls away from the center of the flower.

There’s a loud noise, like something smacking against the wood of the table top, and the feeling of the magic flickers away.  “Ah, Apothecary Wen I’m so sorry!  I lost it.  Did I ruin it?  Are you OK?”

The last is said as he looks over to see that the sound was Wen Ning catching himself with a hand on the worktop.  “Tha-that’s Wen magic,” the witch stammers out.  He looks a little dazed, staring at Sizhui but in an unfocused sort of way.

“Wen magic?  What does that mean?”

“Each family has a magic signature, colors and patterns.  They’re unique.  Wen is a red sunflower, that red sunflower.”  Wen Ning holds a palm up then, the one that’s not still supporting him, and above it blooms the exact same symbol that Sizhui just made, without thinking, over the jar.  “Do you know anything about your birth parents?”

Sizhui shakes his head slowly, feeling confused and overwhelmed, and perhaps a little dizzy.  He wonders if that last one is the magic, he did fall off a chair the last time he used it.  “No, there were never any records.”

“What’s your given name?”

“Yuan, my given name is Lan Yuan.”

Wen Ning makes a punched out sound at that, and his eyes are starting to look a little wet.  “I-I think you m-might be my cousins’ son.  We weren’t very close; I didn’t think it was odd that we didn’t really have contact with them after they moved.  But you look so much like my cousin when he was your age, and the magic...  I have letters, and photos.  Let me- let me go get them.”

Sizhui follows when Wen Ning leaves the workroom.  He feels a little unsteady, and looks at his fathers without really seeing them.

“A-Yuan?” A-die asks in a questioning, concerned voice.  

This alerts baba, who jumps up from the couch, and comes to take Sizhui’s face in his hands.  “Is everything alright?  You’re still purple, did it not work?  Did something go wrong?  Where’s Wen Ning going?”

Sizhui glances at where the witch had just turned the corner into the hall, and shakes his head.  He takes his baba’s hand and leads him back to the couch, where he sits between his parents and says, “Apothecary Wen says I have Wen family magic.  He thinks my birth parents might be his cousins.”

This pulls a startled, “What?” out of both.

“When I did magic, it looked like a red sunflower.  He said that’s the Wen family symbol and color.  He’s gone to get pictures.  E-even if it’s true, you are still my parents, and I’m still your son!”  Sizhui blurts out, suddenly anxious.  They’ve talked about ways to try to find his birth family before, if he ever wanted to, but he hadn’t decided what he wanted to do yet, or when.  He wasn’t expecting to have an answer sprung on him like this.

“Ayah, of course you’ll always be our little radish!” Baba cries, flinging his arms around Sizhui and a-die, to squash them both together in a hug.

“We never doubted,” a-die reassures.  “A-Yuan shouldn’t doubt either.”

That’s how Wen Ning finds them when he comes back with what looks like a shoebox that’s been covered in nice paper.  He sets it on the table, and kneels down to flip through the papers inside.  “Ah, here!”  He hands over a postcard, covered in photos like what someone might send for a holiday card; the address is from Dafan.

Sizhui’s hands are shaking just a little bit when he takes it, and stares at what is probably his own birth announcement, and baby photos.  It reads ‘Wen Yuan, born January 12th,’ and dated 17 years ago.  There’s him wrapped in a blanket in the hospital, in a crib in what must have been his childhood home, held between a man and a woman that he doesn’t know.  Except, he’s looked at nearly the same face as the man’s in the mirror for years.  It’s a little older, and Sizhui’s nose is a little wider and flatter - like the woman’s - but the eyes and the mouth are so, so similar.  He brushes his fingertips lightly over the glossy paper, and blinks hard against the moisture in his eyes.

When he looks back up at Wen Ning, he’s offering him a letter this time, with a photo sticking out between the folds.  There’s a date on the back of the photo - his third birthday - and it shows him sitting between the same two people on a couch.  He has cake crumbs on his face, and is waving a paper butterfly on a stick with a big grin.  Sizhui remembers, ever so faintly, that paper butterfly.

From where he’s looking over Sizhui’s shoulder, baba says, “this looks so much like when we brought you home.”

The letter itself is addressed from Qishan this time.  Qishan was the city his fathers adopted him from, when he was four.  The first line reads ‘A-Yuan is still having some trouble getting settled into our new home, but his birthday party certainly helped that along.’

“We got that shortly after they moved, and didn’t hear much after,” Wen Ning clarifies, as if wanting to fill the silence.  As if not wanting to ask the question hanging in the air.

Sizhui swallows hard.  “I think you’re right.  I think this has to be me.  Do you-do you know what happened?”

Wen Ning looks down at that, his face clouding over.  “No.  But I can ask Popo, or some of my aunts and uncles, someone may be able to help us track down an answer.”

“OK, OK that would be.  Good.  Maybe not right away though, this is all a lot.”

A-die runs a hand up and down Sizhui’s back.

“That’s understandable,” Wen Ning replies

“Then, you said you and my birth father were cousins, that would make you my tang-shu?”

“I think that would be right, but,” Wen Ning’s smiling, but it looks a little shy, “I don’t have any nephews, if you wanted to call me shushu?”

“Yeah, alright, I can do that shushu.  And you should call me A-Yuan.” The tears break at that point, and Sizhui passes the picture and letter to a-die, at risk of ruining them.  “C-can I hug you?”

Wen Ning gives two sharp, enthusiastic nods, and stands.  Sizhui comes around the table, and throws his arms around him.  Wen Ning’s hug is much stronger than Sizhui might’ve guessed from his appearance, but like just about everything else he’s experienced with the witch, inherently comforting.

“All this time, we weren’t even far from each other, and never knew,” Sizhui mumbles into Wen Ning’s shoulder.

He lets himself cling for a moment, before he steps back to rub his eyes and then bows formally to Wen Ning.  “Shushu, will you teach me magic!” He had felt disappointed at the thought of going to a different teacher before, but now that he knows Wen Ning is his shushu, that he could learn magic from a member of his family the way witches have for hundreds of years…  “I know it’s asking a lot, and I don’t know if I’ll want to do magic like yours, or with music yet, but I want to learn your magic, our family’s magic!  Please.”

“I would love to!” Wen Ning tells him with a big grin, but then it twists up in amusement at one corner.  “But maybe you should hold off on deciding until we see if your tincture works.”

“Ah.”  Sizhui had almost forgotten all about it in this new excitement.  That’s a good idea though, he would really like to stop being purple.  And then maybe go home and curl up with Bichen and Suibian and a movie that has absolutely nothing at all to do with magic.

His newly minted witchcraft teacher returns to the workroom to fetch the tincture and Sizhui’s sunflower, and then shows them some old family photos while they wait for it to steep, from holidays or family reunions when he was a child.  It seems Sizhui's birth father had only attended a few of the larger functions so there's not many, but the resemblance is striking.  

“That picture of you with your rabbits really made me suspect.  But I didn’t think it was possible, I didn’t know—”  Wen Ning trails off, but Sizhui can guess the rest of the thought; he hadn’t know Sizhui had been adopted, hadn’t known he wasn’t living with his birth family anymore.  “There wasn’t anything else it could be though, when you had the family signature.  Which,” he pours a small cup from the kettle, and holds his hands around the bottom, just the faintest red light spilling between his fingers and the porcelain.  “This feels like we’ve got it right.  Give it a try.”

Sizhui takes the cup, and feels that some of the heat has been drained off, enough that he can drink all of it in one go without burning his mouth.  It tastes a little muddled up, with all of the things they added, but not bad.  That same heat that he’d felt when he called his magic spreads through him though, gentle and easy.  “Did it work?”  He jumps up from the couch again and goes to a mirror that he’d seen on the wall earlier.  Staring back at him is his normal self.  He tilts his head from side to side, and inspects his arms and legs; there’s not a hint of violet anywhere.  “It worked!  I did magic! Thank you shushu!”

Sizhui gives Wen Ning another bow, and his fathers stand to do the same.  Since that’s about all the excitement it seems anyone is up for in one day, they decide on a good time for more magic lessons, and prepare to make their goodbyes.  Wen Ning even suggests with an amused smile that with some training Sizhui might be able to come out here by himself on a broomstick, which is starting to sound more like a fun prospect than a scary one.  

He leads them out to the porch then, and bows Sizhui’s fathers.  “Thank you, for caring for A-Yuan so well.  He’s grown into a fine young man, and I look forward to teaching him.”  They bow back, and Sizhui does too, feeling his face flush under the praise, and feeling much better now that he won’t have to worry about what a purple blush looks like anymore.

A-die heads down to the car first, baba trailing a little behind.  Before Sizhui can follow, Wen Ning hands him the jar with his tincture.  “I don’t have any need of this,” he explains, “And we shouldn’t let any of your hard work today go to waste.  Any of it,” he adds again with a wink.  Sizhui hears his baba, who is still just barely in earshot, snort at that.

Sizhui imagines the look on Jingyi’s face when he eats the cupcake, and then sees the result.  “I’ll have to find a good use for it, then.”  When he gets down to the car, he turns back around to wave back, with the hand holding his sunflower.  “Thank you shushu, I’ll see you next week!”

[tmariea]

I may have spent a copious amount of time looking up burn types and how they heal and how burns scar for *cough* reasons, and have come to the conclusion that to get scarring as harsh and long-lasting as Zuko’s, the burn had to have been 3rd degree. Now, pretty much everywhere says burns like that just straight up never heal without skin grafts, and also have super high risk of infection and nasty fevers. I also have some serious doubts that his eye would have survived that kind of fire either, and hence I present to you a headcanon:

Iroh goes to Zuko’s side the moment Ozai leaves the arena and stays as the medics work on him and well into the night. He only leaves his unconscious nephew’s side to write a desperate letter. He’s never met Master Pakku of the Northern Water Tribe, only corresponded with him briefly before, but he is a member of the White Lotus and may be Zuko’s only hope. He tells of the young boy who was kinder than his family’s cruelty and always threw his whole heart into everything he ever cared about, and how he hopes that boy could right the world. He tells how that child tried to save lives and for it his father had caressed his face with a hand full of fire while he screamed. He tells how he is so afraid that his nephew will die of this wound, and begs Master Pakku to send a water bending healer to save his life, even if he is the Prince of the Fire Nation.

He doesn’t expect an answer, and is shocked to receive a curt ‘be ready,’ and a coded rendezvous point. It’s convenient that Ozai wants Zuko out of the Fire Nation as fast as possible, so it doesn’t seem suspicious when Iroh loads a fever-delirious Zuko onto the Wani and heads North.

Once they get close to the designated neutral island, Iroh plies the crew with drinks and trickery so that the healer (and water bending warrior Pakku has sent with her because he is Just Like That) can sneak aboard. It’s a twisted mercy that Zuko is unlikely to remember the Water Tribe woman who leans over him as anything more than a fever-dream. The healer isn’t able to save all of his vision or hearing, but she saves his eye and at least some, and is able to heal the burn enough that the rest should be able to heal on its own. Iroh feels like he could faint with relief when he touches his nephew’s forehead and feels that his fever has broken and he’s finally fallen into a restful sleep.

..................

(Yes I am at the moment planning to write something more concrete out for this)

[tmariea]

New Constellations

Written for the ATLA Big Bang 2020!! Hosted by @atla-bigbang

Rating: T

Type: Gen

Summary: "Every star in the sky is another sun somewhere out there, farther away than we could ever imagine."

When Zuko is banished from the Fire Nation, he leaves with a ship, an impossible task, and a newfound fear of his own element. As he's offered the chance to learn navigation by the stars and the myths that weave constellations into the sky, he has a chance too, to learn how to appreciate fire once more and how to look at the world in a different light.

Warnings: panic attacks, anxiety attacks, off-screen character death, grief, healing wounds

Much thanks to @cianidix and her amazing artwork, make sure to check it out!!  And to @vandrell for cheer reading and aiyah, constellayetion, and burnt_oranges over on AO3 for their dedicated beta work!!

Chapters: 1 of 2

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Three weeks out from the Western Air Temple, twenty one days of sailing away from the islands that Zuko had always called home, he woke in a cold sweat.  This wasn’t a rare occurrence these days.  These nights when he’d jolt awake in his hard metal ship’s cabin, face aching, feeling like he was tearing apart at the seams from dreams of Father’s hands, of Azula’s pleased laughter as she had watched Father read the proclamation of his banishment.

Zuko had gotten used to turning toward the wall and curling into himself, where he would tremble either until he dropped back into a fitful, exhausted sleep, or the rising sun would beat him to it.  Tonight something extra roiled in his stomach; maybe the fish they had eaten for dinner wasn’t agreeing with him.  He levered himself out of bed and stumbled toward the door.  A turn of the crank, and he was out into the dark hallway.  There were no windows here to cast light on his unsteady steps, and so he continued until he hit the wall, slumped into it, and turned right.

Why don’t you make a light for yourself, firebender?   The voice in his head sounded a lot like Father, and was just as demanding, just as disappointed.  His stomach gave another unsteady lurch, and he had to stop for a moment and hunch over in the corridor as he fought for control over his breath.  Finally, Zuko moved forward again, shuffling along with his shoulder to the wall until he came to the doorway out onto deck.

The door swinging forward was a visceral relief, as the cool night air hit his face.  Zuko slipped out and let it shut quietly behind him.  He didn’t even spare a thought for if any of the crew might be watching as he dashed to lean over the railing near the prow.  Here the wind chilled the sweat that had collected at the edges of his bandage, and his stomach finally settled as he breathed in the scent of salt air slowly.

He felt better out here in the cool and the dark, where no one could look at him, or if they did, where he couldn’t see the looks on their faces.  The stars trailed thick and bright down to the horizon to meet the water, broken here and there by the dark shape of a cloud.  This was better.  Looking at the stars didn’t hurt.

Wanting to be beneath the night sky, firebender?  When your fire is at its lowest?  Disgraceful.

There was a flash of cloying heat through his core as he started to tremble.  It started in his lungs and spread outward, his breath came raggedly with no chance of control this time.  That was right, wasn’t it - Zuko was a disgrace as a prince, a son, a firebender.  Disgraced dishonored no fire no home no hope.  He clung to the rail as he slipped down to his knees.  He pressed the right side of his forehead to the metal, feeling the cold from the point of contact, and the pulsing pain as his skin stretched.

The waves washed against the metal of the hull, the stars wheeled overhead, and some time later Uncle came to gather him up and bring him back to his cabin.  He didn’t even have the energy to answer Uncle’s questions, much less yell at the crew members who had undoubtedly alerted him.

He could still see the window from his bed, and the stars beyond.  Uncle stayed with him, a hand over his as he sat beside him in silence as the stars slowly faded into dawn, and Zuko finally dropped off to sleep

Zuko lost a few days to fever after the incident on deck, as his already strained and healing body was overwhelmed.  Only another week later, Uncle looked up at him over breakfast and suggested, “Prince Zuko, I believe it may be time to resume your fire bending training.”  He ran hot and cold all over again, but did his best to keep it off his face.  He knew, he knew, that he was supposed to be able to do this.  If he didn’t he was a failure.

If nothing else though, perhaps he could delay.  “I don’t think I should be firebendending with a big wad of flammable bandaging on my face.”

“I never knew you to be quite so concerned with safety nephew,” Iroh mused, with an expression that was far too knowing for Zuko’s liking.  He continued, “No matter, I agree that it might be too soon to run katas or practice sparing.  We will start with meditation.”

There was no good excuse Zuko could think of in response to that.  He managed a small nod, and then tuned out the rest as Uncle began to go on about needing a strong foundation in the basics.

Later that same day he found himself sitting across from Uncle in his quarters, posture ramrod straight like all his previous teachers had insisted on, hoping the tension in his back would prevent him from flinching.  He had to do this.

“I believe it will be best to return to the very basics.  For both you and me; it’s been some time since we practiced together,” Uncle spoke softly, already readying himself for meditation.

Zuko tried to think about the last time he meditated with Uncle Iroh.  It must have been before Uncle left for Ba Sing Se, when Zuko was just learning to meditate to a flame for the first time.  By the time he had returned, Zuko had been expected to have the skill and discipline to manage his own daily meditation.  The memory was still there, though, of the first time – together they sat cross-legged on the floor in a sitting room on the ground floor of the palace.  The doors were thrown open wide and the summer’s heat and the sound of whirring cicadas drifted on the wind.  Uncle had told him to feel the warmth on his skin, to hear the rhythms of the world around them but let them flow away.  Then he had held up a small flame in his hands and asked Zuko to breathe to its rise and fall –

Uncle’s next words drew him back to the present, “I would like you to make the flame, and I will walk us through a basic sequence.”

As he remembered, Zuko had forgotten to maintain the tension in his back.  So he was unprepared to catch himself as his eye widened and mouth contorted into a grimace.  “I’m not a child, Uncle.  I can meditate without your guidance,” he said with more vitriol than he truly intended.

Uncle Iroh didn’t rise to the bait, only held out a hand in an ‘after you’ gesture.

Zuko cupped his palms together, pressing the sides of his hands together tightly to stop them from shaking.  He couldn’t tell Uncle that he couldn’t do this, but it wasn’t as if it mattered; he would see for himself.  How can you call yourself worthy to be a Prince of the Fire Nation the voice in his head that sounded like Father sneered, and the rest of him could hardly help but agree.  It was as if every time he thought about his inner fire, about producing a flame – just a small one Zuko can you not even do that? – his mind skittered away, blank and unable to hold onto the intention.  The space above his palms remained cold and empty.

Finally Iroh let out a mighty sigh.  Zuko dropped his hands and looked up to see a frown on Uncle’s face.  “For today we will change places, then.”  He lifted a hand and a small fire flicked into existence, no larger than a candle flame and so tightly controlled that it barely wavered.

It didn’t matter.

Zuko felt heat roar from his head and down his arms, down through his stomach.  It was a sickly, scalding kind of heat that left tremors in its wake and tightened his lungs in its grasp.  He scrambled to his feet and stumbled backwards, not stopping until he hit the metal wall of the cabin.  It was cold and hard against his back, comforting and terrifying in equal measure; there was nowhere else he could go.  The rest of his senses caught up with his rabbiroo-quick heartbeat, and he focused immediately on Uncle’s face, searching for his reaction.

Uncle had put out the flame, and at first only looked shocked.  Then his expression contorted into worry – and why wouldn’t it?  A crowned prince who wouldn’t bend, who tried to run from his element?  But there was no anger.  Zuko watched and waited silently, waiting for the anger, but it never came.

Uncle Iroh broke the silence first.  “Prince Zuko, we need to talk about this.”

Zuko’s heart sped up again, and his limbs tensed to back away further, but he was out of space.  Instead he shook his head vehemently, before catching himself and snapping, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I believe that there is.”

He screwed his face up into the most impressive glare he could manage with only one eye and leveled it at Uncle Iroh, willing him to back down.  Uncle failed to look intimidated or impressed, only shifted slightly to make himself more comfortable.

There was a lump forming in Zuko’s throat.  He couldn’t do it, couldn’t, couldn’t let the words out that he was afraid and a failure and doomed to never reclaim his honor.  If he did they’d be real.  He swallowed hard, clenched his jaw until he was sure he wouldn’t start crying, and then tried one last time.  “Uncle, please.”

Uncle Iroh sighed, and Zuko couldn’t help but notice the way his shoulders slumped as he did.  “Alright.  Another day then.  But, Prince Zuko, when I say another day I do mean that.  I’ll leave you to collect yourself.  But will you join me on deck for tea in a little while?”

There was nothing Zuko could do but give a small, tight nod.  He watched as Uncle stood with a groan and a joking mumble about old joints, before he left the room.  He watched until the door closed and the latch spun shut, and then sank down the wall and let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

The night after the bandages came off, six weeks away from home, Zuko crept back out onto deck again.  This time, he didn’t have any bad dreams as excuse.  At least that meant that he felt less frayed at the edges than the last time, if only just.  It meant he could dart from the shadows near the door to the catapult platform, and finally out to the railing, hoping no crew would be the wiser to their addition to the night watch.

He settled himself into a cross-legged seat and turned his face up to the sky, a mirror from earlier in the afternoon.  He had come out to the deck after Uncle had told him he wouldn’t need to reapply the bandage to his eye.  He had wanted to feel the sun on his face, his whole face.

He hadn’t expected it to feel like he was burning again.

The sound of the wind and the waves was barely audible over the rumble of the engine, but he could feel the cool night air on his cheeks and imagine the spray.  Even during the daytime, he was accustomed to the breeze off the water cutting the warmth of the sun.  He had been unprepared for his healing wound to feel like it was suffused with unbearable heat.

After he had ducked inside, after Uncle had found him and sat quietly with him until his breathing evened out again, the ship’s medic had explained that burn wounds and scars were more susceptible to sunburn than the rest of his skin.  That was all, nothing more, it was perfectly normal.  Just like the fact that sounds from the left were muffled now and sight badly blurred, creating a dizzying distortion when he tried to use both eyes.  Just perfectly normal.

Zuko had spent the rest of the afternoon pacing his cabin like a caged tiger-dillo, resenting sunlight for the first time he could remember, and Uncle and the medic for not warning him before he went outside.

But here in the dark it was only coolness, and looking back towards the tower of the ship it wasn’t as if he would be able to make out details with two good eyes anyway.  Lately, the night sky had been so much kinder to him.

Zuko settled his hands on his knees and took a deep breath in and held it for a count of six seconds before letting it back out again.  He could still do meditation breathing exercises even if he couldn’t manage a flame.  He was only sometimes good at letting thoughts and sensations come and go, but tonight he sank into it with the relief of a moment to just stop thinking.

So much so that he didn’t notice that he had company until the light of a lantern fell on his face.

If asked later, Zuko did not jump, nor did he eye the lantern warily before reminding himself that the fire was contained behind glass.  Perfectly safe and separate.  The sailor holding the lantern looked really no different from the rest.  Standard issue armor, clean shaven face, dark hair in a top knot.  Zuko had been told names on his first day, but he didn’t remember any of them.  He could blame being delirious with fever and pain, but it sounded like too much effort to make excuses when he just didn’t care.

“Prince Zuko, I didn’t expect to meet you out here,” the sailor said, and gave a reasonably deep bow.  He did not shape the flame as he was holding an odd assortment of scrolls and books, a writing kit, and some kind of metal contraption under his arm, in addition to the lantern.

Zuko drew his back up as tall as he could make himself and tilted his chin up in a way that he hoped would appear as if he was looking down his nose at this interloper, despite the fact that he was still sitting in casual robes directly on the metal deck.  “State your business, sailor,” he said.

“I am ship’s Navigator Zhu Yan, sir.  I am here to confirm our course towards the Northern Air Temple.  My apologies if I disturbed you; I did not expect to find anyone else out here.”

Zhu Yan did not leave immediately as Zuko would have preferred, and it took him a moment to realize that the sailor was waiting for either another question or a dismissal.  “As you were.”

The man bowed again, and headed for a small table which was set up a short ways away and started unloading the contents of his arms.  Zuko considered going back to his meditation but the movement in the left side of his vision kept drawing his attention.  He had become unused to seeing anything from that side.  Now it was only just too blurred to be able to make out what Zhu Yan was doing through the night’s darkness, but the lantern light flashed off of something on the table as he moved it.

Thoughts of meditation abandoned, Zuko turned his head to see what was catching the light.  It was some kind of circular contraption made of metal that Zhu Yan set down before he flipped through several pages of a book on the table.  He then wrote something on a scroll before picking up the contraption again to look through it.

The next time he placed the contraption down, he glanced toward Zuko and called, “I would be happy to answer any questions you have, sir.”

Zuko could feel the heat in his cheeks; he wasn’t supposed to be caught staring like some commoner.  His traitor mouth didn’t seem to care, as he blurted out, “Why are you navigating at night?” and then twisted his lips into a tight frown before he could ask anything else.  Tsk tsk Zuzu that sounds like a stupid question.

Zhu Yan seemed to pay no mind as his face lifted into a smile, as if completing a pair of opposing theater masks.  “There are several navigational methods approved for use by the Fire Nation Navy,” he began, as if he was reciting a set of instructions verbatim, “I am trained foremost in celestial navigation.  I am proficient in navigating by the sun, but I prefer to navigate by the stars.”

A citizen of the Fire Nation who would eschew the sun for the stars?  Zuko’s first instinct told him it wasn’t supposed to be like that, and his second reminded him that he had been just the same lately.  He looked up at the sky, and felt a sting in his heart that with both eyes open the stars blurred into an indistinct curtain of darkness and faint light.  He closed his left eye and breathed out in resignation as the stars condensed back into their own focused points.

“Do you enjoy the stars as well, Prince Zuko?”

Zuko hardly knew how to name his strange mix of feelings on the matter, so he simply nodded.  He could tell that Zhu Yan watched him for a few minutes more, waiting for the next question that never came.  Eventually, the navigator turned back to his task, and Zuko watched until it seemed like he was engrossed enough to slip away without notice.

Uncle Iroh cornered Zuko over dinner the next evening again.  He was starting to get the feeling that he should start taking meals in his own quarters.  Currently Uncle was waiting expectantly after saying, “Navigator Zhu Yan said the two of you spoke last night.”

This was a fact.  This was not a question.  Thus, Zuko didn’t feel bad at all about leveling a stare at Uncle and waiting until he got the hell to his point.

Iroh sighed gustily, disappointed that Zuko hadn’t taken the bait, and said, “He’s offered to teach you navigation if that is something you might have an interest in.”

“Why would I have any interest in learning navigation?  I’m here to find and capture the Avatar, not become a naval officer.”

“It does the mind good to pursue different skills, Prince Zuko.  After all, the flower that draws no nutrients from the soil will never bloom.”

Zuko groaned and fought the urge to bury his head in his hands.  “I don’t particularly care.  I’m not interested.”

“I will let Navigator Zhu Yan know that is your decision,” Uncle said, and turned back to his dinner with the kind of nonchalance that left Zuko incredibly suspicious.  He set down his chopsticks and waited for the other sandal to drop.  Iroh took another bite of fish stew and chewed contentedly before continuing.  “Of course, if the Avatar has managed to hide himself for 112 years, I would suspect he has quite mastered the skill.”

This time, Zuko gave into the impulse to smack himself in the face.  He immediately bit down on his tongue to hold back a whimper as his still-tender scar protested the rough treatment.  “Fine,” he snapped.

“Wonderful!” Uncle exclaimed in that booming voice of his that he liked to use when he got his way.  “Zhu Yan has said you can start as soon as this evening if you wish.”

They did not start that night, because this was Zuko’s ship and he was the one who gave the orders of when he wanted things done.  They did start the following night, because Uncle had given him a silent disappointed look that morning.

Several hours after sunset, after most of the crew except the night watch were off duty for the night, Zuko walked out on deck to find that Zhu Yan had already set up at the small table from the last time, but now with the addition of an extra cushion.  He stood as he heard Zuko approaching and bowed with a smile.  “Prince Zuko, good evening!  I’m glad you were interested in learning more about navigation.  Shall we sit?”

Zuko nodded his permission and settled at the table, with his new teacher following across from him.  There was barely a beat of silence before Zhu Yan began.  “To start, we have several tools that are the most commonly used.  Of course, we do have our standard maps,” he patted a few piled scrolls, “and then the star chart maps as well.”

The star charts seemed to be in the large bound book that Zuko had noticed the last time they spoke.  Despite himself, he was curious about maps of the stars; he’d never seen anything like it before.  He scowled at Zhu Yan as he seemed to pick up on his interest and flipped through the book until he found a map.  He turned the book in Zuko’s direction and pushed it closer so he could see a page with an inked black circle filled with dots and connecting lines.  There was a pull of curiosity in Zuko’s chest that made him want to look up and see if he could see any of the patterns for himself, but he bit his tongue.

“Each map will show the constellations visible in the sky from a given place and a given time of year.  They travel across the sky each night like the sun does during the day, but they do move by the seasons as well.  The constellations we can see in the fall are different than the ones we can see in the spring, and so forth, which is why the book is quite large.”

Zhu Yan flipped through a few pages, showing the names of places and the times of year they corresponded to.  Zuko recognized that the maps had a certain kind of beauty, but each looked so much like the last, and so many of the beautiful things he’d known had proved useless.  He didn’t think he was dedicated enough to try to learn the difference between one map and another, when he still had doubts that it would help him find the Avatar.  Instead, he pointed to the device which had caught his attention the last time they spoke.  It was a brass circle, empty in the center except for four spokes and an arm attached to the center which could spin.  “What’s that?”

“That is an astrolabe.  With it we can measure the angle of a set of stars to the horizon, and use that to determine our current location and where we need to go.  I thought we might leave that for later, though, since it does require some calculations.”

“How would you navigate if not with the tool for it?” Zuko asked, scowling in confusion.

“When in familiar waters, you can navigate by knowing the stars and their place in the sky, without even needing to use astrolabes or mathematics, the same way people have navigated for generations before us.  I thought it might be more enjoyable to start there, by learning some of the stars and the constellations they belong to, since I find it easiest to know them by their stories.”

Zuko didn’t understand.  The way he had always been told, new instruments and technology was supposed to make a task better, make the Fire Nation better.  “Those tools must have been invented in the Fire Nation, right?”  From everything he’d been taught about other nations, they had nothing remotely advanced enough.

“Oh, yes, of course.”

“Then why would you want to use an old outdated method?” Zuko asked, tension building in his voice.

“It’s always worth keeping a good tradition alive, I think.  It connects us to our history and our ancestors.  I find our myths to be quite an enjoyable tradition, so I like to fall back on them when I can.”

“We made something better, so why would you want to go backwards?”  He’d always been taught that the Fire Nation was the smartest, most advanced nation in the world.  That it was their duty to bring their greatness, their prosperity, their advancements to everyone else.  What did it mean that even their own people chose to still follow old ways?

Of course you would ask these questions, it is only fitting for one without honor.

Zuko stared at his hands, clenching into fists so tight he could feel his nails digging in to try to ward off the drop in his stomach that the voice in his head always caused.  He nearly didn’t hear when Zhu Yan responded.

“I don’t see it as going backwards.  I find it valuable to learn both, and to learn the best situations to apply each.  Besides, while the astrolabe does provide greater mathematical accuracy, you can see at many ports of call that other sailors are still successful using only the star charts and stories.”

Other sailors.  If only the Fire Nation had this technology, Zhu Yan was implying that sailors from other nations could still be equal to them.  That couldn’t be true, it couldn’t.  Zuko leapt to his feet, refusing to follow that thought any further.  “Our progress is what makes the Fire Nation great!  How can you choose to ignore that?  I won’t learn it.”  He made sure not to look back at Zhu Yan’s expression as he stormed back to the inside of the ship.

The next time Uncle Iroh decided to press the issue of meditation, he arrived at the door to Zuko’s cabin with an unlit candle and a set of spark rocks.  The wash of shame that coursed through Zuko’s body was so intense he thought for a moment that he would be sick.  “I don’t need that.  Go away!” he shouted.

However, he wasn’t willing to slam the door in Uncle’s face, which left him to watch as Uncle came into the room anyway and set the candle and rocks down on the low table.

“Sit,” Iroh told him in a voice that brokered no argument.

Zuko sat stiffly on his knees, feeling hot and cold all at once at the memory of the last time they had tried.

“As your current firebending master, I don’t believe that is an acceptable answer.  Many soldiers who have been wounded in battle have found they needed to begin from the ground up.  I have even employed this method in the past with some of them personally.”

“I wasn’t wounded in battle,” Zuko snapped.  “I was taught a lesson because I’m a disgrace.”  That’s right, you have no claim to anything honorable soldiers do.

“Regardless of if you were on a battlefield or not, you were done harm by firebending.  If you are determined to regain your skills, I would like you to try this.”

Zuko nodded, tight lipped.  No matter how much he denied it, he still felt the bite of anxiety as Uncle picked up the spark rocks.  It must have shown in his face because Uncle said, “Take a breath, Prince Zuko.  This fire won’t be under anyone’s control.  The only fuel it has is the candle wick, and it cannot leave that.  It cannot hurt you.  Say it please.”

“The candle won’t hurt me,” Zuko repeated with as little feeling as possible, scowling at the ridiculous request.  He knew that.  He had been around candles and lanterns since, it was fine.  He did know that, so why was it so hard to feel it?

“It’s a start.”  Uncle struck the spark rocks.

Zuko bit the inside of his lip hard as the small flame came into being on the wick.  He had still flinched, but at least this time he hadn’t been sent reeling back into the wall.

Uncle’s smile was big, bigger than Zuko felt he deserved.  “Very good.  I want you to watch the flame as I walk us through the sequence, and we’ll go from there.  Do you think you can do that?”

“Yes, fine.”  Zuko readjusted his seat into a relaxed lotus position and took a big breath in, eyes on the natural flicker of the candle flame.  “Let’s start.”

Zuko paced up and down the hallway that led to the deck, tense with frustration.  Just the same as Uncle Iroh had been willing to hear no argument about meditation practice, he similarly had insisted that he did not give up on learning navigation.  Zuko didn’t want to continue.  He saw no point in learning from someone who disregarded the greatness of the Fire Nation.  That would not help him regain his honor.

He’d told Uncle as much, had thought that was a good argument.  Why should he listen to someone so dedicated to something old and outdated, something which should have been left behind?  Uncle had only said that meant they needed to reach a compromise.  He had also insisted on an apology.

Zuko pressed the heels of his hands into his forehead and tilted his head up towards the ceiling with a groan.  He did not want to apologize.  Why should he have to apologize for defending the greatness of their nation?  It wasn’t his fault the navigator had backwards ideas!  But Uncle would be upset with him if he didn’t, so he didn’t have much choice but to push open the door and head out onto the deck where Zhu Yan was seated at his normal table.

Zuko stopped a reasonable distance away, in case Zhu Yan was angry with him, and said, “Lieutenant.”

The man looked up from his work, the expression on his face made unreadable by the light and shadow from the lantern.  Zuko couldn’t decide if that was better or worse.  He swallowed against the sudden twisting in his stomach and bowed with the flame.  “General Iroh has suggested I should apologize for causing you offense and walking out on our lesson,” he said stiffly, words he’d been rehearsing in his head all evening.

“Thank you for your apology, but it is unnecessary Prince Zuko.  I’ve been called sentimental by plenty of men before.”

Zuko was sure he had said worse things than ‘sentimental,’ but there had been a small part of him that had worried how Zhu Yan would react, which was now breathing a quiet sigh of relief.  He barreled forward, “I’ll keep learning navigation, but only if you teach me the astrolabe and the calculations.”

“That I can do.  Would you like to sit?”

“Another night.”  He wasn’t sure that he was up for much more.  He waited for Zhu Yan to nod his acknowledgement before turning back toward the hold.

He did hold to his word and return the next night, and then a few nights a week after.  Zhu Yan was proficient in the new methods, proven as they successfully arrived at the Northern Air Temple, and then turned sights towards the Eastern.  The new methods also did prove to be a lot of numbers and memorization.  Even without the stories, Zuko still needed to memorize stars and constellations and charts.

Zhu Yan kept to his word about leaving it at that for a few weeks.  The first story happened to coincide with when Zuko was struggling to remember a particular constellation.  He could never remember the shape of the two triangles that came together at a point, almost like an hourglass, or how to find it in the sky.  He had nearly reached the point of giving up looking for it when Zhu Yan began, “When the world was young and spirits roamed the world freely, there was a spirit named Ezi.”

Zuko clenched his jaw against the sudden rush of irritation.  Even if he didn’t care about stupid spirit tales, at least if he said nothing it would get him out of searching skies and maps that were starting to blur even in his good eye.  He turned a page in the star chart book and did his best to look absorbed in it as Zhu Yan continued.

“Ezi lived beneath the earth and sea; she was the heart of the fires within the world, the heat that gave them life.  She watched over the swirling currents of molten stone, yellow like sulfur and orange like the sunset and deep red like a ripe chili pepper.  This was her artwork and her design, a dance and an ever-moving painting all in one.

“While Ezi thought her own works of art must be the most beautiful in the world, she still loved the stories she heard from the Earth whenever she drew new pieces of stone into herself and melted them into her grand work.  The Earth showed her the shapes of crystals and the outlines of plants and animals that had become marks in stone.  It also told her of other spirits, of Air, and especially the Ocean.  The Earth said that the Ocean had currents that danced just like hers.

“Ezi was overcome with jealousy and curiosity.  How could this Ocean create something comparable to her own work?  She begged the Earth for more stories, and it brought them with every new rock that she folded into herself.  She learned that the Ocean was so cool to the touch that creatures could live within it, could add colors she had never even known existed.  She listened to stories of grand structures of coral, which looked like stone but was a living creature.  She learned that the Ocean could even take images and reflect them back on its surface.  

“Soon, Ezi became obsessed with the Ocean, began to dream of things she had only ever known as fleeting shadows or whispered tales.  Soon, it was enough that she hardly had attention for her own dance, and she decided she had to see the Ocean for herself.  She begged the Earth to help her reach the Ocean, and the Earth drew her to a place where it grew thin and brittle.  

“Ezi sent her currents through the cracks until they met something like she had never felt before.  It was nearly freezing, and wet and unknown.  She rushed forward to catch a glimpse of where she had finally met the Ocean, but it only lasted a second.  As the temperature dropped, she felt all the bits of stone and metal slip from her grasp as her heat could only keep them warm enough to dance for so long.  It wasn’t enough.  Ezi gathered more currents and pushed further until she touched the water again, looked at the ocean floor for the briefest second.  This time, there was movement, a creature she recognized from prints in stone but this was more than just an image, and moved faster and more gracefully than her own currents.  

“Ezi knew then that she couldn’t stop.  Every time her warm currents met the cold ones of the Ocean they fell from her grasp, and every time she gathered more to push on for just one more look, for just one more chance to take in a different kind of masterpiece.  She kept working, kept moving up through the bits of Earth that solidified into a mountain under the water, until one day there was no more Ocean left around her.  Instead, for the first time, she met the air, and there learned that she could look down on the Ocean and its constant dance still.  To this day, Ezi still takes advantage of any chance to see more of the Ocean, and any time she finds a place where her currents can dance between, she leaves behind a new kind of artwork.”

“What’s the point of the story then?  Why should I care about some spirit that made a volcano however many years ago that’s supposed to be?  It’s not relevant to me,” Zuko snapped.

Zhu Yan’s face took on an expression like the owlcat that got the cream.  Zuko did not have a good feeling about that look.  “Well, I know you are good at finding the Ocean constellation, yes?  This story helps us remember that the constellation for Ezi can always be found beneath the Ocean.”

Zuko let out a frustrated growl, stood from the table and left without another word.

They fell into a routine as Zuko’s first summer away from home came to a close.  Zhu Yan continued to supervise Zuko as he worked on his measurements and calculations, ready to offer correction or advice.  Whenever he felt the silence had stretched too long (a far shorter period than Zuko would consider an unbearable silence), he would point out a new constellation and launch into another wild spirit tale of how men built the first boats from grand turtle shells, how great hunters and warriors had been immortalized in the sky, or how the spirit of justice dispensed her judgements from behind an impartial porcelain mask.  Zuko would keep his head in the maps, and when Zhu Yan would look back for his reaction once the story ended, he would resolutely scowl or roll his eyes to remind him that all of this was unworthy of a Fire Nation Prince and the advancement of their civilization.  Eventually, Zhu Yan stopped looking, and Zuko stopped having to pretend he hated the tales.

Sometimes, he even enjoyed them.

One evening Zhu Yan began, “Prince Zuko, have you ever heard the tale of how the constellation The Dragon came to be in the sky?”

Zuko looked up from his page of numbers to see Zhu Yan standing near the railing, eyes on the horizon, no doubt looking for the constellation which had prompted the question.  “I bet you’re going to tell me.”

“Ah, you know me too well.”  Zhu Yan turned around and leaned back on the railing so he could be heard over the waves against the hull of the ship and began, “When the world was young, dragons were tasked with the guardianship of fire, just as the badgermoles were to preside over earth, or sky bison the air.  For many generations they kept their elements only to themselves, until there was born a dragon named Druk.

“Druk was a curious and energetic dragon when he was young, always quick to ask questions or think of grand new games.  As he grew, his curiosity became cunning and a penchant for trickery.  Druk could be counted on to cajole any dragon into giving him the best parts of their hunt, or to sneak away with the best treasures, especially when they didn’t belong to him.  He could convince anyone of the wildest, most unlikely stories, and be counted upon to be laughing from an inconspicuous distance whenever there was trouble.

“But if there was one thing that Druk loved more than a good trick, it was humans.  He tired easily of dragons, who lived their long lives so slowly.  Humans, for all that their lives were simple when the race was young, lived with such urgency and bravery.  They had no wings or claws or teeth, but they built tools and took on the most improbable challenges.

“More often than not, Druk watched the humans fail.  Although they tried so hard, they were so fragile.  Other beasts would stalk them in the dark, they would fall easily to the cold or they would succumb to illness from raw food.  So Druk went to the elder dragons and petitioned that they should give some of their fire to humans.

“The council told him that humans were too young and too small to be trusted with such a great responsibility.  After all, fire requires control to wield without causing harm, and the elders did not believe the humans would be able to do this.  They forbade Druk from giving fire to humans, and warned that the consequences of every trick he’d ever played would come back on him doubled if he disobeyed them.

“Druk went away from the meeting, not defeated but scheming.  He thought for weeks, wondering how he could get out from under the watchful eyes of the elders, who had hardly let him out of their sight since.  Finally, he came upon the idea for a race.

“Not only was Druk confident that he was the cleverest dragon, he also believed he was the most nimble too.  He proposed the idea, as something to occupy himself with if he could not go to the humans anymore, then spent the next weeks leading up to the race planting a word here or there that the elders had gotten so old and slow.  How he doubted they could even get off the ground anymore.  If there is one truth about dragons, it is that they are vain, and so just as Druk had planned, every elder was lined up at the start on the day of the race.

“The dragons took to the sky with a mighty roar and rush of wind from their wings.  The elders were larger than Druk and he knew they could outfly him in time.  So instead he twisted and turned in the air, darting here and there, under and over wings and tails and long dragon bodies, all the while taunting the racers to follow him and beat him if they could.  When Druk was finished, all of the other racers had tied themselves into a grand knot of dragons that sunk clumsily to the ground.  Druk laughed as he sped across the finish line and beyond, finally free to grant his fire to humans so they could keep themselves safe and warm.

“Between his tricks and cleverness, Druk was able to stay with humans and teach them what he knew of fire.  He was amazed at the things they began to create – strong tools and bricks for their homes, delicious food, beautiful glass and pottery.  But as with all things, Druk’s luck came to an end.  When the dragons found him, they debated what his punishment should be, and decided that he should have to live as far from humans as possible.  And such, with the help of the spirits who had first entrusted dragons with fire, Druk was placed as a constellation in the sky.  When his judgement was passed down, he only laughed, for this was fit for his last and greatest trick.  Although he would be far apart from humans, he could still watch them from the sky for eternity.”

As per their silent agreement, Zhu Yan turned back towards the sea when he was finished with the story, leaving Zuko behind him staring at the constellation and imagining it dancing in the sky.  The picture stayed with him all through the rest of the lesson, and in his dreams, he saw dragons shaping metal and glass with their breath.  The next morning at meditation practice, Zuko was still absorbed in wishing he could have met the dragons.  He hardly noticed that Uncle Iroh had lit the candles with his own fire rather than the spark rocks, until the same moment that he realized he hadn’t flinched away.

By the time autumn had begun to march on towards winter, Zuko was gaining some level of confidence that he could identify most constellations in the sky, could measure them and do the calculations he needed to pinpoint his location on a map.  He had also heard more myths than he had thought possible for one person to keep in their head.  “Why do you care enough about all of these myths to have them memorized?” he asked one evening, when the sea air was a bit too cold, his eyes straining to focus in the lantern light, and his heart only too aware of how long they’d been far from home.

“Everyone loves a good story!” Zhu Yan looked toward Zuko for confirmation and sighed as he met the corresponding glare.  “But, in all seriousness, and if nothing else, this is the one for you to remember.”

“Another story?” Zuko groaned.  “Why is the answer to every question another story?  You’re just as bad as Uncle with tea or proverbs.”

“I promise it’s less of a story than something to think about.  So we know that Agni is the spirit associated with our sun, yes?  Well, every star in the sky is another sun somewhere out there, farther away than we could ever imagine.  Every one of them is Agni’s brother or sister or sibling.  The constellations and their stories are important to me because being under the stars is like being under the light of a thousand suns.”  Zhu Yan turned his face up to the sky as if to try to feel the light.  “Why wouldn’t we want to find a way to connect ourselves to that?”

Zuko didn’t have an answer, and for once, didn’t have a disparaging comment either.  The stars were suns far away?  Did this mean that when he liked being under the stars it didn’t mean he was a disgrace as a firebender?

Almost as if he could read his thoughts, Zhu Yan continued, “That’s one of the reasons I love the Fire Nation, and firebending.  Since firebending comes from the sun, when we bend we’re also as close as we can be to the stars.”

Zhu Yan fell uncharacteristically silent after that.  For the rest of the evening’s practice, hardly another word was spoken. Zuko found himself forgetting his earlier complaints, instead enraptured by the thought of light and heat and fire so far away he could barely see it.

After they packed up and parted for the evening, Zuko returned to his quarters with energy humming in his veins.  He sat himself cross legged in front of his meditation candles and took a deep, steadying breath inward.  Firebending came from the breath, Uncle always said.  And according to Zhu Yan, it also connected them to the sky.  How could that be so bad, to hold a piece of a star in his hands?

Zuko let out his breath and drew in a new one, trying to feed his inner fire.  It had been so long, he had almost forgotten the pleasant trickle of warmth along the skin of his hands.  Another, and he held his palms up in front of him, and watched as a tiny spark bloomed an inch above his skin and grew into a small, but real flickering flame.

[tmariea]

New Constellations (ch 2)

Chapter 2 of my ATLA Big Bang piece!!

Read Chapter 1 here

Chapter summary:  Turns out, even after Zuko's lost his ship, navigation skills still come in handy. The myths just might come in handy too. After all, there's more than one type of finding your way.

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Zuko hated everything about traveling as a fugitive in the Earth Kingdom, and having parted from Uncle made it even worse, although he’d never say it aloud.  He hated the plants that were all different from back home and made his head feel like it was full to bursting.  He hated that there wasn’t much food to forage for, and wasn’t much left after the winter and the army’s requisitions (stealing) to buy.

He hated the nights too; they weren’t mild like back home, but downright cold.  Worst of all, as the landscape grew more arid the further he traveled, and it only got colder at night despite the warm days.  While his breath of fire could manage the cold, it left him with a weariness sunk deep into his bones.

Uncle was probably sitting close to a nice, crackling fire, making tea.  Hopefully not with anything that could kill him this time, because Zuko just couldn’t always be there to tell him not to drink tea made of strange plants.  Unlike Zuko, Uncle Iroh had always been a proper firebender; he’d had no unnatural pull toward the nighttime.

This time, Zuko had little choice.  Traveling by the stars was the only way he knew how to navigate in this unknown place.  He had no compass or astrolabe, not even charcoal or good paper to write on for his calculations.  As much as he hated to admit it, the only thing he had left to his name were Zhu Yan’s stories and a map he had haggled with his last coin like his life depended on it.  He hardly even trusted the map.

For days now, Zuko had been heading northwest towards Ba Sing Se, ever since he left Lee’s village.  He knew that the Avatar needed to find an earthbending master next, and what better place to find one than the capital city of the Earth Kingdom?  Even if Zuko didn’t trust the map completely, the city was so large that, if it was even close to accurate, he wouldn’t miss it.

There was a desert in the way, though, and if Zuko couldn’t find enough provisions to last him the crossing, he’d never make it.  He looked up at the sky with a sigh, wishing the constellation stories had some more concrete answers to them, like “what to do when you are a broke, exiled Fire Nation Prince chasing the Avatar with several hundred miles of sand in your way?”  Instead of magical solutions written in the stars, he caught sight of the Lion Turtle constellation.

Zuko could almost hear Zhu Yan’s voice in his head telling the story: they were great islands that swam across every sea.  They swam until mortals no longer needed them to provide a safe home.  Some settled down, growing tired and weary and stony in their old age, and became the first stationary islands.  Some, though, were too young and restless, too eager to keep exploring, and those lion turtles swam off the edge of the world and into the sky.

“The world is round,” Zuko had told him flatly. “There is no edge.”

Zhu Yan had chuckled, lamented Zuko’s inability to simply enjoy a story, and then said, “The Lion Turtle is a tricky constellation.  Be careful when you choose to follow it—it’s been known to lead you where you need to go, but not always where you want to go.”

Zuko had scoffed at that, too.  While constellations weren’t static, he had learned well that they followed set patterns in the sky, by the night and the month and the season.  He knew all the calculations, knew that you could use a map and your instruments to know exactly where you would end up by following one constellation or another.  And yet tonight, with his head as empty of ideas as his stomach was of food, it felt as if there was hardly anything left but to chase a spirit tale.

Zuko closed his left eye so he could trace the curve of the strong, individual stars that made the Lion Turtle’s shell, the small cluster at its head, and the fuzz of tiny, far away lights just above its back that almost looked like an island forest obscured by morning fog.  He pulled on the ostrich-horse’s reins and turned her in a new direction.

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Zuko could feel the heat forming behind his eyes as he stormed away from the prison tower.  He hadn’t wanted Uncle to tell him he had another potential destiny as the descendant of an Avatar.  Now, more than ever, he felt torn between home and the position in his father’s regard he’d fought so hard to gain, and the part of him that had seen the wider world and found his old views childish and wanting.

Once he’d reached a reasonable distance from the building that he wouldn’t be easily spotted, Zuko found a flat spot obscured by an outcropping of stone and began to pace.  Everything about him was restless and wound tight these days.  Being home was supposed to be a relief, but it hadn’t felt anything like that at all.

The story about Sozin and Roku that Zuko had found had not been helpful.  Uncle had not been helpful.  He couldn’t ask Mai about any of this; she was loyal to Azula, and he couldn’t ask her to deal with his insecurities.  What prince of the Fire Nation, heir to the throne, doubts his country and his people?

He hadn’t heard that sneering voice in his head in a long time; not since he was first on his ship, frightened and set an impossible mission.  

Thinking of those early days on the ship reminded him of one other person in his life who had been a teacher.  Zhu Yan loved stories and history and tradition; maybe he would have some kind of insight.  Zuko pushed down a cringe of guilt that he hadn’t sought any of his original crew members from before the explosion, other than knowing that Zhao had requisitioned them to other ships for the ill-fated Invasion of the North.  The navy kept good records, he should be able to find that information easily now.

Zuko turned and headed towards the edge of the caldera instead of back to the palace.  The naval headquarters were down the other side of the mountain, near the shore.  His status should be enough to entitle him to the name and route of the ship Zhu Yan was stationed on.  Then he could send a hawk explaining his troubles and maybe get some real advice.  He chose not to acknowledge the fact that Zhu Yan had been just as known to answer a question with a cryptic story as Uncle was to do with a cryptic proverb.

He crested the lip of the stone formation and started down the switchbacks along the cliffside, pleased at the exertion after so many days of palanquin rides.  The crunch of his footsteps found a rhythm with the rush of the waves further in the distance and the gulls calling overhead.

It was even easy enough to walk around once Zuko reached the military base.  Wearing the nondescript clothing he usually did to visit the prison tower, he didn’t draw attention like he would in his royal robes.  Sailors were businesslike, and they had better things to do than to try to see the face under his hood when the guards had already let him through the gate.

Zuko made his way towards the building where naval records would be kept, and lowered his hood as he approached the door.  The man standing guard looked surprised to see him, but bowed and allowed him to pass.  Inside was a small open space between rows and rows of shelves, with another officer at a writing desk who stood as Zuko entered.

“Prince Zuko,” the man said, showing no reaction to the sudden appearance of a member of the royal family at his desk as he bowed.  “I am Corporal Iwao. How can I be of service?”

“Corporal, I am searching for a particular naval officer and the name of the ship he is currently serving on. A Lieutenant Zhu Yan.  He was stationed with the fleet under Commander Zhao at the North Pole, last I was aware.”  Zuko did his best to keep his disdain for Zhao off of his face.

“One moment, your highness,” Corporal Iwao told him and disappeared into the shelves with a bow.

He was gone for so long that by the time he returned, Zuko was sure he had memorized every inch of the small front area.  Corporal Iwao was carrying a large scroll which he set out on the desk and began to unroll.  Zuko tried to read the title at the top, hoping it would be the name of a ship he recognized.  The bottom dropped out of his stomach as he recognized the characters for “casualties.”

The man studiously ran his finger down the list until he reached the name ‘Zhu Yan – deceased’ so that Zuko could see for himself.  There were other characters which followed, detailing the campaign and date of death, but Zuko’s mind couldn’t absorb any of it.  

“My apologies your highness, but the officer in question was killed in action during the Siege of the North.  Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“No, thank you,” Zuko said.  He couldn’t feel the words on his lips, could hardly hear them as he spoke.

The walk back to the palace was one step and one step and one step, on and on, with hardly a thread of memory to connect each to the one before it.  Zuko pushed open doors and barely registered the pressure against his skin, heard the bustle around him as if he was underwater.  When he reached the hallway to his room, there was someone waiting for him just outside the door.  He knew he should be upset about it, but trying to reach for the emotion only opened a yawning hole in its place.

“Zuzu, there you are!  I was starting to get worried.  Where have you been?” Azula said ‘worried’ like it was foreign word, and her expression was disinterested as she examined her nails.

This wasn’t the first time that Zuko just stared at his sister, unsure how to handle what this next game of hers would be.  He didn’t even have space for normal thought, much less what it would take to keep up.  

“I went for a walk,” he finally said.

“Fairly long walk.  Someone less trusting than me might not believe that.”

He didn’t feel anything as she spoke.  Not even the parts of him that were always afraid of her.  “Please go.”

“Is it so wrong to let my brother know that I care?” she asked, and then finally looked up.  There must have been something in Zuko’s face that Azula wasn’t expecting, because surprise slipped out from beneath her perfect porcelain mask.  Zuko could count the number of times he’d seen that happen on one hand, and if he had any capacity for it he would feel rather pleased with himself.

Azula examined him for a moment more and Zuko let her, standing still, feeling like the ability to even move was an ocean away.  Finally, she let out a frustrated huff and turned to leave.

Zuko pushed open the final door, had only enough presence of mind to lock it behind him, and sank down onto his bed facing the open window.  As the sun traveled across the sky, and shadows grew longer and then overtook the world, Zuko stayed in one place, only silence in his mind.

The next time he moved was out to his balcony after night had fallen.  The air was heavy with humidity and heat, almost nothing like the cool sea breezes from the nights that he practiced navigation with Zhu Yan on deck.  Zuko sat with his back to the railing, arms around his knees, and that is when the tears came.  Silent and slow and unending, until every star above his head bled into one.

Zhu Yan had loved the Fire Nation.  But in all the time Zuko had known him, he had never spoken about loving the war.  He couldn’t remember either, if he had ever asked.  But without anyone ever asking, and in fact against all Zuko’s protests, he had always shared how much he loved the fires in the sky, and stories that had been thought inconsequential for generations.

He had died for another man’s vanity.  Zuko had seen first-hand the aftermath at the North Pole.  There had been nothing gained there, no greatness the Fire Nation brought with them to bestow on the rest of the world.

He’d never hear Zhu Yan tell a story again.

How many other battlefields had been the same?  He knew so many people now, too, with voices they would always miss.  Would it be easier to count which battlefields had not left behind such pointless loss?

He’d never see Zhu Yan smile for something so small as when Zuko would listen without complaint.

Zuko thought back on the history he had read, of how even the start of the war had been for pride and had left friends lost in its wake.

He’d never again stand together with Zhu Yan on a deck beneath the stars while the world stretched wide before them.  Never get the chance to voice that he had started to hope that someday the world could look so wondrous to him too.

He wondered if perhaps that was his answer.

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When Zuko left the Fire Nation palace after the Day of Black Sun, he was far more prepared than when he had left Uncle behind on the edges of the desert.  Tucked away in the basket of his war balloon, he had plenty of rations, as well as an astrolabe, maps and star charts that he had lifted from the palace.  Of the things Zuko had stolen in his life, these were marked firmly in the ‘do not regret’ category.

After a few hours of following the Avatar and his party at a safe distance, Zuko had a pretty good idea of where they were headed.  Which was a good thing because by sunset his slower balloon had fallen considerably behind.  He lost sight of them just after the last light left the sky.

Zuko checked that the fire in the furnace was still burning steadily and dug his navigation tools from his packs.  There wasn’t much space to lay out a map in the bottom of the basket, but he made do as best as he could and crouched in the tiny amount of space that was left to start plotting a course towards the Western Air Temple.

It was ironic, Zuko thought, that the constellation which he followed tonight, the one who would lead him west, back to the first air temple he’d ever set foot in, was Siming.  The stories described them as softly beautiful spirit, who lived in the golden clouds at sunset and gathered every drifting soul into their arms as the day came to a close and sheltered them until dawn when they would prepare to enter into life anew.  Their constellation resembled a coiled fishing net.  Zuko had never touched a fishing net in real life, or one woven by the spirits.  If he chose to believe the stories, Zhu Yan had touched the net from the legend now.

Zuko took a long breath in, felt his fire rise up in his chest and released another blast of it into the furnace that was keeping him aloft.  He did not know if this is truly what happened after death, that every lost soul was scooped into a fishing net in the sky at sunset.  But Zhu Yan had believed, so for tonight at least Zuko chose to believe that his mentor had gotten one brief night to rest among the constellations that he had loved.

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The sun was setting over the Western Air Temple.  Dusk always made Zuko feel just a bit hazy, like he wanted to go curl up and savor the last patch of light like a pygmy-puma, and it had slowed Aang’s firebending energy significantly.  They had just finished practice for the day and were sitting on a ledge of the temple, legs dangling down into open air, to watch the sunset.

Aang kicked his legs idly, languid little bits of breeze trailing off of his feet and making the mists below swirl.  “Hey, this is probably a bit of a sensitive question, so feel free to not answer, but how did you do it?  You know, keep firebending after...?”

“After what?” Zuko asked.

Aang wouldn’t meet his eyes, but waved a hand in the direction of his scar. Zuko’s back tensed and he drew in a breath to yell – He was a firebender, the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, how could he do any less?   How could Aang imply he was so dishonorable as to turn his back on his bending, on his nation and heritage, on the brilliant light they were tasked to bring to the rest of the world? – And let the breath back out, sat on the impulse like Uncle was always telling him to do.  Asked himself if those were his own thoughts, or just Ozai’s thoughts left in his head.

Which was probably even more the heart of what Uncle had wanted him to do.  Zuko sent up a silent prayer to the spirits to let him tell Uncle someday that he was sorry for learning the lesson too late.

He said to Aang, “Work, lots of it.  And not the kind of work you do by practicing firebending forms, but the kind of work that takes telling your heart over and over again that it doesn’t need to be afraid, even when it wants to be.”

“Wow,” Aang replied, “that’s pretty anticlimactic.  Sounds like you just had to have a lot of patience.” He had a mock frown on his face that Zuko had learned meant good-natured teasing.  So Zuko only elbowed him a little in the side while Aang dissolved into laughter.

“I have tons of patience! But, if you want something a little more exciting, just wait.”

“Okay. Whatever you say, Sifu Hotman.”

Zuko spared him an exaggerated eye roll as he turned back to watch the sun dip below the horizon and the sky grow steadily darker. Behind them he could hear the sounds of someone starting a fire and beginning to cook dinner, and some faint conversation. Beside him Aang was doing his level best to prove that he had plenty of patience, and only fidgeted a little.

Finally, when enough stars had come out, Zuko gestured overhead and said, “Every star up there is Agni’s brothers and sisters and siblings.  The whole sky is full of fire, fire that we can’t touch or feel.  But when we use the fire that Agni grants us, it’s as if we’re just a bit closer.”

“Wow,” Aang breathed out, looking suitably impressed.

“A good friend taught me all of the stories he knew.  Would you like to hear them?”

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Thank you all so much for reading!! And make sure to check out @cianidix ‘s fabulous artwork if you haven’t already!!!

[tmariea]

Correspondence

Rating: G

Paring: Bagginshield in mention

Summary: After Frodo comes to live with Bilbo, he writes a letter to Balin and The Company to tell of the news, and reminisce. This being the first draft, in which he perhaps does more reminiscing than he first intended.

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Being the first draft of a letter composed to Balin and The Company of the Lonely Mountain, composed in Bag End, The Shire in spring of 2980:

Hail Balin!

I hope this letter finds you well, and I apologize that it has been so long since my last.  Undoubtedly I have missed hearing from all of you in The Mountain.  I have had some trouble finding someone capable of carrying messages for such a long way, but I have recently met a fellow named Strider, a ranger who was travelling to Rivendell and promised to see my letter into the right hands.

Today I write to you with momentous news!  Momentous, and life altering for certain, but perhaps not entirely wondrous.  My Nephew, Frodo Baggins, has come to live in my care at Bag End.  I am very glad to have him here, and to have another soul to fill Bag End much the way it was intended.  But this comes at the loss of his parents, Drogo and Primula Baggins, my closest cousins.  I am very saddened by their passing; they were amongst the few family I had living close by that did not view my small adventure as a matter of scandal.  Frodo is saddened as well.  Sometimes I see the same grief in his eyes that I have seen in my own.

But, when he is not saddened, he is settling in well.  We had a grand time cleaning out one of the guest rooms and outfitting it to his liking.  He smiled so widely when I let him choose some books from the study to fill the small shelf in his room.  It was the first time he smiled like that since coming to live here.  I remember thinking I would never smile like that again too.  I enjoy trying new recipes for all of Frodo’s favorite foods (see!  I am quite amenable to company when it is not 13 dwarfs bent on cleaning out my larder!), and we have also been planting the new spring’s flowers alongside Hamfast Gamgee and his son Samwise.  Frodo and Sam seem to be mostly interested in rolling about in the dirt and crushing the flowers at this age, but we managed to plant some Forget-me-Not, Sweet Pea, Zinnia and Lavender.  Each of these are flowers that have some meaning for goodbyes, remembrance and peace; it would be similar to giving a gift of obsidian, green aventurine, and aragonite.

Otherwise, Frodo is doing his best to run me into the ground between dashing about Bag End with no consideration for fragile heirlooms, and making all kinds of mischief.  I feel far more respect for Glóin than I ever have before for raising Gimili, and that is even without Frodo having the ability to find his way into forges, armories, mines, and other dangerous places where fauntlings or dwarflings should not find themselves.  I’ve already had to smooth things over with Farmer Magot over an incident with Frodo, his cousins, and a good many mushrooms which did not belong to them.  If you could ply Glóin for advice on handling energetic youngsters, I would be much obliged.

Frodo asks after Gandalf quite frequently.  He was quite taken with the old wizard when he visited two years ago and of course showed off his fireworks.  He is convinced since Gandalf is a wizard and the two of us friends that I could summon him with a wave of my hand and then ‘poof’ there he would be on the front porch.  The way Frodo imagines it reminds me in a way of the arrival of the company, although all of you arrived with far less magical ‘poofs’ and far more falling into the front hallway!  But, at any rate, if you happen to see Gandalf before we do, would you mention that we miss him on this side of the world as well?  Truth is I haven’t heard of him, not even the barest rumor, since that visit two years ago.  I know well that he can take care of himself but that doesn’t stop a Hobbit from worrying!  I will give a letter for him to Strider as well, to be left at Rivendell for whenever he might pass through next.

Frodo asks for the story of our adventure quite often as well.  He wants to hear about how his Uncle fought a dragon.  As if it was not how his Uncle mostly snuck about and hid from a dragon while others did the fighting.  Telling it again and again makes me nostalgic for those days, and miss you all very dearly.  Balin it makes the grief so fresh.  I had thought it tempered by time and distance but it aches like an emptiness inside me.  I have lost whole evenings after putting Frodo to bed just staring into the fire.  Oh how I wish we had occasion to meet again!  Maybe we should make the trek to visit you in The Mountain.  Walking all that way would certainly use up some of Frodo’s endless stores of energy, and then all of you could keep him entertained for a time.  And how lovely it would be to introduce you all.

I wish beyond anything I have ever wished that I could introduce Frodo to Thorin and Fili and Kili.  Fili and Kili would think him great fun and enjoy teaching him how to get into even more trouble.  And Thorin… you know he loved Fili and Kili so much, loved being their Uncle and having a hand in how they grew.  One only had to watch the three of them together to know that Thorin would have made a wonderful father.  I can picture it so clearly in my mind’s eye, Thorin and I and Frodo sitting around a hearth while I tell stories and Thorin plays his harp and Frodo laughs.  So clearly that sometimes I have looked to my left only to be surprised that no one is there.  We talked about it once, you know, what things might be like once we had reclaimed The Mountain, what it might be like to have a home into which we could welcome a young Dwarf or Hobbit.  One quiet evening, when it was warm and the stars were bright, and we were hopeful.  It’s strange and somehow even more lonely to miss a time which never came to pass.

At any rate, in absence of a visit in person, I was wondering if you might be able to send a current drawing of The Company?  I did a sketch as soon as I returned to the Shire, and Frodo loves looking at it every chance he gets.  But since it was only from my own memory, I worry that I may not have captured every detail as faithfully as I would like.  And then I beg, if there are any drawings of Thorin, Fili, and Kili that could be copied, I would dearly love to have them as well. The last image I have in my head is of each of them lying on that horrible battlefield.  In doing my own drawing I had to fight so hard to keep their lifeless faces from tainting this memory.  More days than I like to admit I lose that fight.

That is the end of my requests for you then, except for one more, which is to send me news of how you all fare and what you have been doing in The Mountain as of late!  I have included some small gifts with my letter, if you could see that they make their way into the right hands.  There will be a new pastry recipe for Bombur, and I had to employ every skill at trickery I learned with you all to pry the secret from my great aunt’s cookbooks.  For Bofur are a few images of some of the new toys I have bought for Frodo; I did my best to guess at what the mechanisms might be.  Ori expressed some interest in Hobbit fashion, so I there are some sketches of the most fashionable Hobbits at this spring’s harvest dance.  If you would not mind, I have included some drawings to place on Thorin, Fili, and Kili’s tombs as well – Zinnia for Fili and Kili, and for Thorin the single blooming tea rose.  And finally for all of you, some sheet music for a song that everyone can sing and play together.  I hope this last gift will give you all an excuse to gather around a fire together once more.

Yours in eternal friendship and burglary – Bilbo Baggins, Bag End, The Shire

This draft will be discarded in favor of a new version with far less cross-outs, and absolutely no tear stains.  It will find itself into a locked drawer in Bilbo’s writing desk, to join Bilbo’s sketch of the company (when Frodo isn’t begging to see it) and a few other important pieces of correspondence.  When Balin’s reply arrives, Bilbo will read this draft once more before throwing it away for good.  In its place will be added the new letter, a sketch of ten smiling dwarfs – only slightly older and more weathered than Bilbo remembered – an image of Fili and Kili with their arms slung about each other’s shoulders, and one meticulous sketch of King Thorin Oakenshield, drawn only a year before The Company set out for the Shire and copied by Balin’s own hand.

[tmariea]

Alternate torture:

One fantasy, never wild

Leaves one feeling dead

[tmariea]

It sees her livid

So mature, logical, dead

It is waste here too

[tmariea]

War whispers sweet waste -

No gentle touches brother,

Crack limbs for riches

[tmariea]

This one I specifically deferred a day, to be able to publish it on the transgender day of visibility:

Shiver in sleep. Next,

A woman. Consume me wild

Fantasy embraced

[tmariea]

In light they sang of

Lofty dreaming. Heavy heart,

Trouble licks your lips

[tmariea]

Okayokayokay I just had a beaujester idea. So how Jester has been practicing her tattooing, and Beau knows she’s actually a really good artist (tusktooth smiley faces aside). So the next time they’ve got a free afternoon, Beau going to Jester and asking if she wants to practice some more tattoos. They talk and Jester sketches and come up with a really intricate geometric design.

Jester asks ‘so where do you want it?’ And beau replies ‘thigh I think.’ In her mind it’s the most convenient spot for something to heal while constantly having to fight. Which leads to a long portion of time with Jester staring nearly into Beau’s crotch and a just perfectly timed realization that Beau has Really Nice Legs. She keeps her head down on her work to hide the blush. At the same time Beau’s brain is doing several mental cartwheels about this position too, and Jester’s head down, and how strong her hands are holding Beau’s leg in place, and *conspicuous cough.*

They end up talking a lot too, to distract from their individual awkwardness and to pass the time, and the conversation eventually smooths out into something enjoyable and easy. And that’s a little bit heart-bursting itself, recognizing how much they can relax with each other even despite the circumstances.

Both walk away with a few new things to think about

[tmariea]

Melting Frost

Fandom: Critical Role

Pairing: Widomauk

Summary:  Mollymauk wakes from a restless sleep to find Caleb is cold on watch. Just so happens, Molly is warm.

Read on AO3

Mollymauk wakes in the dead of night with very little warning.  His heart is racing as he tries to remember what he may have dreamed of, and there is nothing.  Empty, empty, empty whispers in his head.  He takes a harsh breath in to feel it expand in his lungs, and tries to blink the blur of sleep from his eyes.

“What do you see?” Yasha always used to ask when he would begin mumbling about the emptiness, or worse, go silent and still.  Then she would make him list everything before his eyes and tell her how they made him feel, until he came upon something beautiful or interesting.  She kept a fair few of the flowers he pointed out from this exercise in her book.

Tonight, the first thing Molly notices is that the moon is dark in the sky.  He suspects that is part of the source of his discomfort.  Next, he sees what is left of their fire from earlier in the evening, now burned down to nearly embers.  It casts just enough light for his eyes to pick out the silhouettes of the trees around them, and the sleeping forms of their companions.  Fjord turns over, and Beau mumbles something in her sleep.

The only person sitting is Caleb on watch, and what faint glow of the fire remains shines on his beard and hair, making them seem a deeper red than usual.  Something beautiful and interesting, Molly thinks, and begins quietly moving to his feet.  Once standing, he picks his way carefully through the camp, making sure not to step on anyone’s bedroll or kick at the occasional pile of armor lying about.

Caleb looks up as Molly gets closer, and his blue eyes follow when he lowers himself to the ground.  “What are you doing awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Molly replies, and feels no need to elaborate.  If Caleb pries, he has a story in reserve about a dream of some magnificent adventure that’s worked him up so much he simply must be awake, complete with fantastical beasts and long-lost arcane magic and dashing lords and ladies to boot.  But Caleb isn’t Jester; he rarely pries.

True to expectations, he makes a small sound of acknowledgement, and turns his gaze back to the fire.

“How goes it out here?” Molly asks, feeling the silence scraping its sharp nails against the back of his throat.  Maybe it would have been better if Caleb had pried.

“Nothing dangerous has wandered past the string, only your typical forest creatures.”  Caleb shrugs, and then pauses for a long enough moment that Molly wonders if he is going to have to ask another question.  “It is getting cold.  I wish we had gathered more firewood.”

Molly feels almost no difference in the air, but he knows that Tieflings run warmer than humans.  He takes a look down at where his hands are resting against the ground, and can see that there is a light sheen of glittering frost.  It’s melted near the fire pit and beneath him, but otherwise it decorates the grass.  He’s always liked frost; it reminds him of the moon.

When he looks back up at Caleb though, it’s obvious that he is not enjoying the frost nearly as much.  His arms are curled around his torso and hands tucked beneath the lapels of his coat.  It’s barely perceptible, but he’s shivering.

“Well, then allow me to offer my humble services,” Molly says and gives a flourishing bow even though he is seated.  He sits up straighter and crosses his legs before him to form a seat before patting his knees.

Caleb raises an eyebrow that conveys his skepticism exceptionally.

“Look, I’m warmer than you, you’re cold, come on over here.  Then you can even call Frumpkin back from wherever he is off gallivanting to sit in your lap and be comfortable.”

Caleb murmurs something under his breath which Molly only half hears about not being sure he will be comfortable anyway, and eyes him for a second more.  But then a much more noticeable shiver shakes him, and he concedes by pushing himself to his knees and shuffling over.  

He sits in front of Molly’s folded legs rather than between them, and Molly decides this needs to be rectified immediately.  He stretches his legs out, one on either side, and wraps an arm around Caleb’s waist to pull him closer.

Caleb muffles a surprised noise behind his hand to try not to wake the others.  His back is tense where it presses against Molly’s chest, except for the tiny shakes of the cold.

“Shit, I know you’re fond of this coat, but it’s not doing anything for you,” Molly comments as he reaches his hands into the pockets where Caleb had immediately jammed his own.  He wraps his fingers around very cold ones, and hisses in sympathy before beginning to try to rub at them for friction.  “And what about some gloves, hm?  Your hot bread trick only works when we’re somewhere with a bakery.”

“I am fine, ja,” Caleb replies, and his tone has a note of defensiveness.

Molly backs off.  It’s miracle enough that Caleb hasn’t pulled away from him yet, he’s not about to test his luck.  Not when the shivers are starting to fade, and the muscles in Caleb’s back are starting to relax the smallest amount.  Instead he keeps rubbing at Caleb’s fingers until he feels them flex out some of the stiffness from the cold.

“There we are, any better?”

Caleb doesn’t say anything, but his fingers flex once more, and he shifts awkwardly here and there.  Molly isn’t sure if he’s trying to plot his escape, or just getting comfortable until he goes still again and allows the smallest amount of his weight to lean into Molly’s chest.  A few moments pass before another ounce of tension loosens from his frame.  That’s good enough.

Silence is easier for Molly to deal with when there’s another person to anchor him.  That doesn’t mean that it’s his favorite state to linger in.  Besides, he tells himself as he starts gently humming, Caleb probably appreciates a break from the crackle of the fire.  The tune is one he picked up during his time with the circus, to something Orna used to sing.  He knows he doesn’t have it perfectly right, and he doesn’t remember any of the words that went with it, but that’s alright.  He hums, and Caleb doesn’t speak.

Molly doesn’t mention it when the tremors stop, or when it feels as if he’s taken all of Caleb’s weight.  He only shifts slightly so that they are both supported better against the fallen tree trunk at his back.  He does twist his head around slightly to look though, when he’s sure that Caleb has fallen asleep on him.  Sure enough, his eyes are closed, and mouth hanging slightly open.

The firelight is not kind to Caleb’s face.  The exaggerated shadows pool beneath his eyes and in the too-thin hollows of his cheeks.  The stubble that’s been steadily growing back since Yasha last gave him a shave is darker, and the rest of him made to seem like an older man.  Although, his age has never been easy to pin down in the first place, with all the weight on his shoulders.

And yet despite appearances, when Molly risks brushing a finger across Caleb’s face to move a strand of hair that would surely tickle his nose and wake him, the pulse he just barely feels beneath Caleb’s temple is slow and calm.  It matches the motion of his breath in his chest, and Molly finds himself absorbed in the rise and fall for some time, forgetting his humming and his dreams and the darkness all together.

The longer Caleb sleeps peacefully makes Molly bold.  Bold enough to lightly press a kiss to the side of his hair.  Caleb doesn’t wake, but instead makes a small grumbling noise and turns until his head rests more comfortably in the crook of Molly’s neck.  Molly decides this means it’s safe enough to twine their fingers together in the pockets of the coat and give the lightest of squeeze.

Molly sighs to himself and basks in lovely tightness around his heart.  Affection is a wonderful feeling.  Or something more, but he can’t say he’s had enough experience to know on the subject.  Only that he wonders if he could some time convince Caleb to share a bedroll, so he can wrap his arms and legs and tail around the man and hide him from the world for a moment.

It’s really the best sort of luck Molly can hope for that the last watch of the evening is Yasha.  She doesn’t say anything about Caleb’s new sleeping arrangement when she rouses and comes to join them by the dying fire, only raises an eyebrow.  Molly raises and eyebrow back and a smile trickles across Yasha’s face.

She sits close beside them, and then scoots the rest of the way over so that her side is pressed against Molly’s.  “Dreams?” she asks.

“None.”

Yasha’s face tightens for a moment; she knows that is far, far worse.  She leans over to press a kiss beneath his right horn, the side of him not occupied by Caleb.  “Any better?”

“Yes, much,” he replies, and tilts his head just slightly in the opposite direction, to brush against Caleb’s crown.  Yasha nods, knowing exactly what he means; their language has always contained fewer words than most.

She settles back against the log, but still close enough to remain in contact, and pulls some thread and a small hook from one of her pockets.  She’s been working on making a hat for the colder weather for the past week, and Molly is grateful.  Yasha is very good at appearing so absorbed in a project that it seems she notices nothing around her.  Molly knows better, but still it will make it simpler when he inevitably wakes Caleb before the others, to give him the option to sneak back to his own bedroll.

But for now, he brushes his thumb across the back of Caleb’s hand, tilts his head so he can rest some of his weight against him, and picks up humming the same tune he’d left off before.