[ They've slept on worse, in beggars' travel beds and tattered inns and ruins. They've slept beside bodies, and Wei Ying among bones. They've slept under Jin Guangyao's roof, absorbing the sweet, cloying scent of his fermenting, poisoned machinations.
They need not settle only for their worst encounters. There are beds in Cloud Recesses better equipped to welcome them — and their companion, the lone and shivered swell of the rabbit that spans Wangji's side, curled without self-preservation, finding the nook of his flank and the perch of his hip, snatched and pale and the cage of its furred body, matted. It yearns for the roiling, calm sorcery at Wangji's fingertips, the healing he doles out between cautious strokes, aware, distantly, that some creatures yearn for qi to their own demerit — that just as the resent that haunted Wei Ying's core despised and expelled his energy, others bask in it without control and measure.
And then there lies Qingshan, a perfect tyrant, condemning Wei Ying to a fraction of the slate's land he might claim, if nothing else, than for having happened upon their makeshift bed first. He nestles, then stretches out, settles his breathing; behind him, sketched in pallor under the very dead and dying of the brazier light, Wangji allows himself this one indulgence, to reach in and nuzzle at his second son's nape, and take in the sweet, milky scent of children. He is beautiful, harmless yet, innocent before he's learned the sword that will spell his path as much as it did that of his fathers, inexorably. Let him stay so, only a little while longer.
Wei Ying's gaze finds him too readily, too soon. Even here, before a man who knew him before he knew himself, Lan Wangji can allow himself only so much indulgence. Exhibitionism ill suits his kind and his clan. And the inn's room rises white and soulless, wind rearing its noxious head to carry in the quiet, questioning shivers of midnight. The eye of fireside flame blinks, long and idle, but sputters on. ]
Better, come morning.
[ His ankle, a needles' cushion of pulsing hurts. Earlier, he supplied it enough of his qi that the wound should be a petty inconvenience in the morning, but no disadvantage in combat. This much, he still recalls: never be so spartan that you make a nuisance of your person. Never let censorship reduce your use — or hurt, or old wonder, or that heinous, dogged thing, bitter vengeance. It lives in him, stoked; warms him better than flame, keeps his hand on the rabbit's back firm, undaunted. ]
What words is he owed? [ The creature, monster, the distantly inherited pain of Yunmeng, uncle removed to Wangji's true son. ] Jiang Wanyin.
[ Better than 'Jiang Cheng', courtesy the noose that steals breath, ransoms it for slivers of well-invested resent. He remembers: Yunmeng, north or south or lake water, calling — Jiang Cheng's territory. By right, the matter falls under his stewardship. And though no lesser gentleman would ask a written report of the chief cultivator, protocol entitles the lord of a realm to understanding the plagues that storm his province.
All the same. All the same, and Wangji's lower lip catches under half-dead bite, teeth combing for blood that never yields to him. Not even this is his. Not even petty pain. ]
You wish him in attendance?
[ Of all the sicknesses, the fleas, the parasites. To think Lan Wangji should expose another son to the sickness of Jiang Cheng. A gift, as any of the others Wei Ying has ever asked of him: humble. Cruel. He is hollowed at times, by these reminders — that every man in Wei Ying's life occupies a place of privilege, where Lan Wangji's steadfastness writes a foregone conclusion. ]
no subject
They need not settle only for their worst encounters. There are beds in Cloud Recesses better equipped to welcome them — and their companion, the lone and shivered swell of the rabbit that spans Wangji's side, curled without self-preservation, finding the nook of his flank and the perch of his hip, snatched and pale and the cage of its furred body, matted. It yearns for the roiling, calm sorcery at Wangji's fingertips, the healing he doles out between cautious strokes, aware, distantly, that some creatures yearn for qi to their own demerit — that just as the resent that haunted Wei Ying's core despised and expelled his energy, others bask in it without control and measure.
And then there lies Qingshan, a perfect tyrant, condemning Wei Ying to a fraction of the slate's land he might claim, if nothing else, than for having happened upon their makeshift bed first. He nestles, then stretches out, settles his breathing; behind him, sketched in pallor under the very dead and dying of the brazier light, Wangji allows himself this one indulgence, to reach in and nuzzle at his second son's nape, and take in the sweet, milky scent of children. He is beautiful, harmless yet, innocent before he's learned the sword that will spell his path as much as it did that of his fathers, inexorably. Let him stay so, only a little while longer.
Wei Ying's gaze finds him too readily, too soon. Even here, before a man who knew him before he knew himself, Lan Wangji can allow himself only so much indulgence. Exhibitionism ill suits his kind and his clan. And the inn's room rises white and soulless, wind rearing its noxious head to carry in the quiet, questioning shivers of midnight. The eye of fireside flame blinks, long and idle, but sputters on. ]
Better, come morning.
[ His ankle, a needles' cushion of pulsing hurts. Earlier, he supplied it enough of his qi that the wound should be a petty inconvenience in the morning, but no disadvantage in combat. This much, he still recalls: never be so spartan that you make a nuisance of your person. Never let censorship reduce your use — or hurt, or old wonder, or that heinous, dogged thing, bitter vengeance. It lives in him, stoked; warms him better than flame, keeps his hand on the rabbit's back firm, undaunted. ]
What words is he owed? [ The creature, monster, the distantly inherited pain of Yunmeng, uncle removed to Wangji's true son. ] Jiang Wanyin.
[ Better than 'Jiang Cheng', courtesy the noose that steals breath, ransoms it for slivers of well-invested resent. He remembers: Yunmeng, north or south or lake water, calling — Jiang Cheng's territory. By right, the matter falls under his stewardship. And though no lesser gentleman would ask a written report of the chief cultivator, protocol entitles the lord of a realm to understanding the plagues that storm his province.
All the same. All the same, and Wangji's lower lip catches under half-dead bite, teeth combing for blood that never yields to him. Not even this is his. Not even petty pain. ]
You wish him in attendance?
[ Of all the sicknesses, the fleas, the parasites. To think Lan Wangji should expose another son to the sickness of Jiang Cheng. A gift, as any of the others Wei Ying has ever asked of him: humble. Cruel. He is hollowed at times, by these reminders — that every man in Wei Ying's life occupies a place of privilege, where Lan Wangji's steadfastness writes a foregone conclusion. ]
Your brother excels at war.
[ Not exorcism. ]