( Wei Wuxian brings his bound hand up, letting his lips come to rest against the ribbon, the bracing sensation of his knuckles beneath. Refusals, and he can think of none of them, studying his husband from the corner of one questing eye. It simmers, the suspicion of it, and Lethe presses gentle inquiry and then a sense of scoffing disregard, projecting contentment as Lan Zhan obliges her seeking with the deft cleverness of his calloused fingers.
To think for any moment he could hold brief, passing jealousy of a dragon, and the dead, sets Wei Wuxian into startled inhalation, and the long, low laughing exhalation after. To be silly, by all means.
To feel there's a sense of allowance in it, if only for himself. )
She claims herself. If she wishes, then I would. If she seeks rest, then I will do as I can.
( A lifetime of divide between the young man who'd bound spirits to yin iron and forged from it a means to survive and control and demand what revenge had asked for, then what a war had cried after, what had been the reason for jealousy and fear from all those who looked upon him and his gifts covetously. His downfall, in each step taken alone, error of his ways the self-sacrificing foolishness of heroes, worlds over.
That man had lost everything, watched it slip between his fingers, and slipped himself through his soulmate's at the hope he'd spare him, spare his broken brother, having to choose. Wrong in that, too.
Wrong to hold what doesn't want to be held, and he'd known that, resurrected out of the abyss into the jest of another man's life, wearing his own face. Being his own self, in spite of the costs. )
A man can demand as he likes, and it doesn't make him right. He can ask, and he can assist. Or command for cessation, when a life hangs in balance.
( His demand in the temple, his cutting through resentments to save his nephew, to prevent Wen Ning's possession from leading to something total, impossible to return from.
That he pauses, one step out of alignment, then looks to his husband with furrowed brow of genuine surprise, is a different sort of discord. )
Wait, don't you claim me?
( Sadly, he remains unaware that Lethe is any particular sex. Completely... unaware. All hail ta. )
( This man, who has forged and tamed Yin iron whole, who sundered sect politics, who created new pathways of cultivation.
This man, who grew lotus flower in barren muck, who found a child to raise from ether, who created a clan.
This man, who sequestered his welfare amid threats to banish disrepute and reveal decades of conspiracy.
This man, who has here kept them whole and hale, alive and tremulously bartering their path home.
...this man, Lan Wangji decides between extensive, painstaking blinks, is a fool. Just as politely, he abandons Lethe without her indulgences — bear with it, beautiful girl, serpentine darling, already threatening him with scowls and petty glares and another choice nudge, for she is a conqueror of the skies and he only a peasant who owes her obeisance — and drifts to catch his husband's ribbon-bound wrist. To hold it up in pained, pointed, staring illustration, until one of the matrons left of Wei Ying in the interminable queue, takes this time to mutter, 'Ain't even gold, that.'
Truer than the sophisticated, studied artifice of Jin filigree, deeper than the thunderous cleaving of Nie, more intrusive than the deceptive artfulness of Yunmeng. Heart and soul and the emblem of the clan crowning the bindings of the sect, anointing Wei Ying's claim. )
You recognise no claim?
( There are deserts complaining of more humidity than his voice. )
( He gives his husband an exasperated, if fond, stare. )
With the number of times you keep tying my wrist, I'm concerned you don't.
( ... Lethe, exhaling in a sharper snort, returns to nuzzling at Lan Zhan's side. A dragon of white does not mind a lack of gold, unlike the matron, who laments that these days, people settle for so little, and not even one grand romantic gesture in the world.
Wei Wuxian studies his husband's face, brows lifted, lips quirking up in a slow smile. His eyes hold concern, for the one he studies, and for the family they build day to day, going forward. Lethe shakes her head, a shiver that runs up her neck and the hidden spores of her fungal demise, and it is a miracle of nature they don't shed and spread, coating them both, coating the depressed locals that trail along with them further along.
My cabbages, one man laments, holding up his wares in their wilting state. My cabbages! )
( Not a beat lost, no sun's heat, no crescendo. Only the gentle, tremulous perk of his brows and Wei Ying, ambivalent before him, a show of strength pillared by uncertainty. Lan Wangji thinks, not for the first time, he loves this man.
Thinks — distant collision of plagued cabbages rolling into each other, while their owner stumbles to give them catch — he fails so proficiently at expressing the twists and turns and high-oxygen burn of his affection.
Waiting in the yawn of the seeping, settling silence is clarity: that his uncle would name his youngest nephew's indulgence profanity. Then, childish conviction — he has kissed his soulmate under the watchful eyes of dozens of strangers, already. What difference, when he drags Wei Ying's bound hand close, passes his mouth reverently over the insignia his house, his clan, his people have dedicated to brothers of the blood and lovers true? )
No claim, past the first. ( They married, under duress, unilaterally. They married, and the vow held. ) When my heart overfills, I burden Wei Ying to carry it.
( And so, hours, if not — but they work, tirelessly, to inure the habit — days of loaned wear, until Wei Ying's wrist ripens red and proud around the sliver of silk that corsets it. )
( He points out, brows still quirked, no glance for the plight of man nor cabbages collecting themselves around other people's feet. Lethe is the presence unignorable in his mind, curious and nudging, then patient in her consideration of man and man, all too caught up in trappings that no dragon would concern themselves with.
She cannot know herself dead, only knows of a pain her bond feels with regards to her life, but she does know this: humans create for themselves the agonies of their affections. Dragons simply strive to pursue, to fight, to sort, and move forward. Lust or affection, anger or peace, they embody them all fully in each lived moment. Heartbeat or none.
Wei Wuxian knows a different certainty of his husband's peculiar with-holdings, and he sighs into a smile, shivers when Lan Zhan's lips meet ribbon and metal anchor of his clan's symbolism, for his rank within it, his purity of bloodline. A moot point by now, he supposes. Two men adopt children as willingly as their hearts accept them, and know neither continue a bloodline, only a family line.
The far more important one, in his estimations. )
For longer, and gladly. That's no burden, Lan Zhan. It's precious. A gift.
( His voice softened, the cantankerous complaints of others behind them in this moment, until Lethe's idly flex of wings stirs them back to grumbling acquiescence. Gratitude sent as pulse of emotion to her, met with acknowledged dismissal, and a snort from her worn out lungs. )
When you say such things, how am I to resist?
( Resist what, he doesn't name, but the warmth melds with heat in his gaze, and he stares at his husband as if he would kiss him, or fight him, or laugh with him and tug on his sleeve and murmur sweet nonsense with the serious gaze of a man who's forgotten what sweet nonsense words were, when they were meant, not idly spun for ease of interaction.
Shiver of exhaustion and want that can't bring themselves to rights, and he shifts in closer, holds to Lan Zhan's hand. )
One of these days, ( he says instead of so many other things, as they move forward, as Lethe is their rear and forward guard at once, with the reach of her neck; ) you will finally sleep in with me. Or pretend to.
( Pale, breezy, wintered. The light playfulness of a parent, toying with the affectionate exasperation of a wilful child. Once, he might have marked every day in increments of proximity to Wei Ying's milestones — a name day, one of assumption as patriarch of Yiling, one of conquest in Nightless City. His death day. Later, his rebirth. Later still, the cleansing of his name.
For a man whose personal possessions crowd in his greedy hands, he owns much of Lan Wangji's year, his past two decades. A pauper in belongings, his wealth stretching in time.
What are days here, counted? Not even a dulling of a dragon's scale, Lethe's own losses and tarnish insignificant. Have they kept tally of their maturity, between blood spilled, lives lost, fates wandered? Let Wei Ying name when he claims another year to his addition. Lan Wangji, more indifferent to the cost of weathering flesh, need not accuse a man yet completely mortal, absent the instruments to achieve immortality — of age. )
Then. Until chen shi.
( A fine waste of morning's pale, feverish light, and still far sooner than the indelicate wu shi when Wei Ying might stir himself to a natural awakening, left to his devices. )
( The seasons might be indication enough if he chooses to use those, but it's off and odd, in ways, and he doesn't register time passing here in the manner he does for the world they know. Too many regions, with their own climates and challenges, and he sighs, reaches one hand back to press against Lethe's hand, leaves the bound one to find Lan Zhan, coax from him anything to hold, while neatly sidestepping a cabbage kicked errantly and sent spinning between them all. )
Si shi. If it's to be for my name day, some unknowing time. And the once, you stingy husband.
( Still earlier than his late risings, on heels of his late nights, all blend and blended together in some half-chosen decision to forever wish to wake in light.
His voice carries nothing of rancour, and the light that dances in his eyes might not be lasting, but it tries. Fireflies to blink out as stars have already done, galaxies away, and he to hold his hands and succour the darkness where it curls, cold, and waits for the turning of cycles to be reborn again. )
( He has not laughed in so long, his mouth neglects the forms. Breaks, twists, realigns itself. A scoff exits him like a breeze, and Lethe imitates him, more to set him her righteous example.
He leans back, chasing comfort in the dregs of the dragon's staunchly lent strength, in how her tail absently starts and turns and captures his waist to give him balance. This, he knows, is the bond Wei Ying and she share, the kernel of care his husband's affection has won him from the beast.
Like a child, he chooses to depend on it. Sensing the shift in tension, Lethe snorts again. )
Si shi, and you may as well claim the day. ( Wastefully, like spoiled things and cats and children. Oh, but Wei Ying meets all these marks and more. ) The day of my birth is comes close to three moons' swells after Wei Ying's own.
( ...or precedes it, by nine such tides. But better to make the game one that can be won. Children, Lan Wangji has learned, are easily frustrated by odds they cannot defeat. )
A sennight from now. We will call Wei Ying's name day. Peace allowing, he may rest.
I'd claim the day, ( he says, as easy and breezing as if he were a spring's exhalation across a blooming meadow, flowers stirred to dipping heads and dancing shivers. lethe lends her support, but does not lend her indulgence to this: she exhales sharply enough to stir the loose hair at the sides of wei wuxian's face. some sly strands even catch in his beard, temporarily misbehaving. much like him, only more tractable as a whole. ) if I can get away with it. What of you? You're technically younger than I am, aren't you? More well lived, ( that same artful, deliberate ease, a nonchalance perhaps neither of them feel, and an ache that apologises to lethe and his husband unequally ) but younger? Or should I be calling you gege.
( amusement to the twist of his lips, and the faint awareness that it hardly matter to him either way. they move, lethe sinuous and space-filling in ways he knows but renders strange in their current environs. they're too close, and not close enough. had it ever mattered before, in the roads passing through village and city, with the calls of the living drowning out the demands of the dead while light hung in the skies. it's darker here, by nature and intent of design, and he sighs. steps forward, holding onto his husband, onto the dragon who breathes without the need for breath. )
Three moons after, yours. What would you wish for your name day, Lan Zhan?
( rest feels so far from possible, for he who sleeps to find nightmares and sightless eyes waiting, seeing through him and into the altered landscape of his mind. lan zhan sleeps well, but wei wuxian does not know if he necessarily rests so well; they share beds, and yet he cannot be sure, in their side by side slumber. just feels glad when his nightmares strike opportune, lan zhan left undisturbed, or only the light of day to greet him. he lifts a shoulder, trying to free the strands of hair caught upon his face from their hold, largely unsuccessful. )
( This is his part, then. Unbidden, ornamental. To drift his hand up to his lover's cheek and know the affection better earned than the status, and exorcise away each hair, each sliver of dishevelment that mars Wei Ying. One by one by one. Carefully, as if he does not attend to a former first disciple, an instrument of Nie Mingjue's war, a conqueror of Nightless City, a patriarch of a sect fresh-born, a revenant, death-made-man.
You could not tell it, for the fresh, revived softness of Wei Ying's cheek. Mo Xuanyu has spared you a wealth of weathering, years of physical maturity. At least this, that they have sixteen name days as a running advantage, to race towards the solution that will name the Yiling Patriarch a once and forever immortal.
It will happen, somehow, with or without a core. Certain miracles require Wangji's conviction to prove immutable. He does not ask for this now, with milling men and an exasperated dragon nudging their backs and flanks with its great, wet nose, so they might kindly move on and not stagger the queue. )
My son's laughter.
( Pretty, crystalline, moderate, restrained. Warm, for all of it, because diligence is the root and discipline the virtue, but blood too will tell, and he is Wen, he is Yiling. They could not amputate his vitality, for all Lan Wangji served him as model of indifference.
He aches, one day, to confess the sin of his failures. How he was present in body, but not sound of mind, never the father Lan Sizhui required until the midday of Lan Wangji's grief, until years on. Not today. He shudders, softens. )
( He shifts forward, only stumbling for the ache of it, and the ease of which he smiles when Lan Zhan coaxes hair by hair away from his face. There's no need to, nothing demands this, and because of that he wishes to lean closer, to still, to bask in a moment of inconsequence that carries his heart, buoyant, unexpected. )
I will.
( Under rabbits, even if he has to draw them himself, or find those with the skill of hands to show him how to craft them from rags, or find the delicate beauty of cloth dolls in their cotton softness to present to his son, their son, the one Lan Zhan claims. To bring joy to him, for sheer absurdity, because that is laughter delivered, and laughter Wei Wuxian knows how to coax from most mouths, let alone the generous one of Lan Sizhui. A-Yuan. Wen Yuan.
The failures of either as guardians, he can only know his own. Not suspect beyond his own understanding of the meaning of those scars across his husband's back, the ways a clan cares for its own, what parenting is and isn't in his eyes, his understanding. What it matters, in this time, where the sins of the parents are what the children forgive, not what they're burdened by.
Lethe behind them, steps before them, and he smiles, simmering into something not quite content, but easier than he had been, the distress compartmentalised and held for viewing later, when he might act. )
If you're not swift, I might bury you in their fluffy grace too!
( That's not a might. That's a promise, mischief acknowledged. )
( The dragon, despondent. His husband, mind merrily at play. The foreground of the customs points — crowded, sullied, slow. Tanned leathers and slate and tinny voices, and all earth, absent shine.
He suspects, even against a deeper, stronger sky, Wei Ying would have shone bright. Does not speak the words, does not presume. There is affection, and then there is arrogance, and here in the slippery territory of fawning over the man who has claimed the tatters of your heart and promises to stitch them whole lies the risk. )
Mark your words.
( He can be this, smile easily sketched, hidden when they pass under rusted eaves and lattices of pipework, when they're suffocating for the dozens of people around them, when Wei Ying's — their — dragon attempts but fails to create them a sheltered distance from the nearest man.
They'll head to whatever place this wretched world has named their 'home,' and he will pretend not to anticipate the disaster of Wei Ying's next ambitious attempt to locate, lure, tame and weaponise an army of beautiful, well-fattened, kindly rabbits. Pretend, but never succeed. )
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no subject
To think for any moment he could hold brief, passing jealousy of a dragon, and the dead, sets Wei Wuxian into startled inhalation, and the long, low laughing exhalation after. To be silly, by all means.
To feel there's a sense of allowance in it, if only for himself. )
She claims herself. If she wishes, then I would. If she seeks rest, then I will do as I can.
( A lifetime of divide between the young man who'd bound spirits to yin iron and forged from it a means to survive and control and demand what revenge had asked for, then what a war had cried after, what had been the reason for jealousy and fear from all those who looked upon him and his gifts covetously. His downfall, in each step taken alone, error of his ways the self-sacrificing foolishness of heroes, worlds over.
That man had lost everything, watched it slip between his fingers, and slipped himself through his soulmate's at the hope he'd spare him, spare his broken brother, having to choose. Wrong in that, too.
Wrong to hold what doesn't want to be held, and he'd known that, resurrected out of the abyss into the jest of another man's life, wearing his own face. Being his own self, in spite of the costs. )
A man can demand as he likes, and it doesn't make him right. He can ask, and he can assist. Or command for cessation, when a life hangs in balance.
( His demand in the temple, his cutting through resentments to save his nephew, to prevent Wen Ning's possession from leading to something total, impossible to return from.
That he pauses, one step out of alignment, then looks to his husband with furrowed brow of genuine surprise, is a different sort of discord. )
Wait, don't you claim me?
( Sadly, he remains unaware that Lethe is any particular sex. Completely... unaware. All hail ta. )
no subject
( This man, who has forged and tamed Yin iron whole, who sundered sect politics, who created new pathways of cultivation.
This man, who grew lotus flower in barren muck, who found a child to raise from ether, who created a clan.
This man, who sequestered his welfare amid threats to banish disrepute and reveal decades of conspiracy.
This man, who has here kept them whole and hale, alive and tremulously bartering their path home.
...this man, Lan Wangji decides between extensive, painstaking blinks, is a fool. Just as politely, he abandons Lethe without her indulgences — bear with it, beautiful girl, serpentine darling, already threatening him with scowls and petty glares and another choice nudge, for she is a conqueror of the skies and he only a peasant who owes her obeisance — and drifts to catch his husband's ribbon-bound wrist. To hold it up in pained, pointed, staring illustration, until one of the matrons left of Wei Ying in the interminable queue, takes this time to mutter, 'Ain't even gold, that.'
Truer than the sophisticated, studied artifice of Jin filigree, deeper than the thunderous cleaving of Nie, more intrusive than the deceptive artfulness of Yunmeng. Heart and soul and the emblem of the clan crowning the bindings of the sect, anointing Wei Ying's claim. )
You recognise no claim?
( There are deserts complaining of more humidity than his voice. )
no subject
With the number of times you keep tying my wrist, I'm concerned you don't.
( ... Lethe, exhaling in a sharper snort, returns to nuzzling at Lan Zhan's side. A dragon of white does not mind a lack of gold, unlike the matron, who laments that these days, people settle for so little, and not even one grand romantic gesture in the world.
Wei Wuxian studies his husband's face, brows lifted, lips quirking up in a slow smile. His eyes hold concern, for the one he studies, and for the family they build day to day, going forward. Lethe shakes her head, a shiver that runs up her neck and the hidden spores of her fungal demise, and it is a miracle of nature they don't shed and spread, coating them both, coating the depressed locals that trail along with them further along.
My cabbages, one man laments, holding up his wares in their wilting state. My cabbages! )
Has my memory for good things ever been so poor?
no subject
What name does the song bear?
( Not a beat lost, no sun's heat, no crescendo. Only the gentle, tremulous perk of his brows and Wei Ying, ambivalent before him, a show of strength pillared by uncertainty. Lan Wangji thinks, not for the first time, he loves this man.
Thinks — distant collision of plagued cabbages rolling into each other, while their owner stumbles to give them catch — he fails so proficiently at expressing the twists and turns and high-oxygen burn of his affection.
Waiting in the yawn of the seeping, settling silence is clarity: that his uncle would name his youngest nephew's indulgence profanity. Then, childish conviction — he has kissed his soulmate under the watchful eyes of dozens of strangers, already. What difference, when he drags Wei Ying's bound hand close, passes his mouth reverently over the insignia his house, his clan, his people have dedicated to brothers of the blood and lovers true? )
No claim, past the first. ( They married, under duress, unilaterally. They married, and the vow held. ) When my heart overfills, I burden Wei Ying to carry it.
( And so, hours, if not — but they work, tirelessly, to inure the habit — days of loaned wear, until Wei Ying's wrist ripens red and proud around the sliver of silk that corsets it. )
Bear it, half a shi more.
no subject
( He points out, brows still quirked, no glance for the plight of man nor cabbages collecting themselves around other people's feet. Lethe is the presence unignorable in his mind, curious and nudging, then patient in her consideration of man and man, all too caught up in trappings that no dragon would concern themselves with.
She cannot know herself dead, only knows of a pain her bond feels with regards to her life, but she does know this: humans create for themselves the agonies of their affections. Dragons simply strive to pursue, to fight, to sort, and move forward. Lust or affection, anger or peace, they embody them all fully in each lived moment. Heartbeat or none.
Wei Wuxian knows a different certainty of his husband's peculiar with-holdings, and he sighs into a smile, shivers when Lan Zhan's lips meet ribbon and metal anchor of his clan's symbolism, for his rank within it, his purity of bloodline. A moot point by now, he supposes. Two men adopt children as willingly as their hearts accept them, and know neither continue a bloodline, only a family line.
The far more important one, in his estimations. )
For longer, and gladly. That's no burden, Lan Zhan. It's precious. A gift.
( His voice softened, the cantankerous complaints of others behind them in this moment, until Lethe's idly flex of wings stirs them back to grumbling acquiescence. Gratitude sent as pulse of emotion to her, met with acknowledged dismissal, and a snort from her worn out lungs. )
When you say such things, how am I to resist?
( Resist what, he doesn't name, but the warmth melds with heat in his gaze, and he stares at his husband as if he would kiss him, or fight him, or laugh with him and tug on his sleeve and murmur sweet nonsense with the serious gaze of a man who's forgotten what sweet nonsense words were, when they were meant, not idly spun for ease of interaction.
Shiver of exhaustion and want that can't bring themselves to rights, and he shifts in closer, holds to Lan Zhan's hand. )
One of these days, ( he says instead of so many other things, as they move forward, as Lethe is their rear and forward guard at once, with the reach of her neck; ) you will finally sleep in with me. Or pretend to.
no subject
When do you anticipate a name day?
( Pale, breezy, wintered. The light playfulness of a parent, toying with the affectionate exasperation of a wilful child. Once, he might have marked every day in increments of proximity to Wei Ying's milestones — a name day, one of assumption as patriarch of Yiling, one of conquest in Nightless City. His death day. Later, his rebirth. Later still, the cleansing of his name.
For a man whose personal possessions crowd in his greedy hands, he owns much of Lan Wangji's year, his past two decades. A pauper in belongings, his wealth stretching in time.
What are days here, counted? Not even a dulling of a dragon's scale, Lethe's own losses and tarnish insignificant. Have they kept tally of their maturity, between blood spilled, lives lost, fates wandered? Let Wei Ying name when he claims another year to his addition. Lan Wangji, more indifferent to the cost of weathering flesh, need not accuse a man yet completely mortal, absent the instruments to achieve immortality — of age. )
Then. Until chen shi.
( A fine waste of morning's pale, feverish light, and still far sooner than the indelicate wu shi when Wei Ying might stir himself to a natural awakening, left to his devices. )
no subject
( The seasons might be indication enough if he chooses to use those, but it's off and odd, in ways, and he doesn't register time passing here in the manner he does for the world they know. Too many regions, with their own climates and challenges, and he sighs, reaches one hand back to press against Lethe's hand, leaves the bound one to find Lan Zhan, coax from him anything to hold, while neatly sidestepping a cabbage kicked errantly and sent spinning between them all. )
Si shi. If it's to be for my name day, some unknowing time. And the once, you stingy husband.
( Still earlier than his late risings, on heels of his late nights, all blend and blended together in some half-chosen decision to forever wish to wake in light.
His voice carries nothing of rancour, and the light that dances in his eyes might not be lasting, but it tries. Fireflies to blink out as stars have already done, galaxies away, and he to hold his hands and succour the darkness where it curls, cold, and waits for the turning of cycles to be reborn again. )
no subject
( He has not laughed in so long, his mouth neglects the forms. Breaks, twists, realigns itself. A scoff exits him like a breeze, and Lethe imitates him, more to set him her righteous example.
He leans back, chasing comfort in the dregs of the dragon's staunchly lent strength, in how her tail absently starts and turns and captures his waist to give him balance. This, he knows, is the bond Wei Ying and she share, the kernel of care his husband's affection has won him from the beast.
Like a child, he chooses to depend on it. Sensing the shift in tension, Lethe snorts again. )
Si shi, and you may as well claim the day. ( Wastefully, like spoiled things and cats and children. Oh, but Wei Ying meets all these marks and more. ) The day of my birth is comes close to three moons' swells after Wei Ying's own.
( ...or precedes it, by nine such tides. But better to make the game one that can be won. Children, Lan Wangji has learned, are easily frustrated by odds they cannot defeat. )
A sennight from now. We will call Wei Ying's name day. Peace allowing, he may rest.
( Peace, in fact, does not allow. )
no subject
( amusement to the twist of his lips, and the faint awareness that it hardly matter to him either way. they move, lethe sinuous and space-filling in ways he knows but renders strange in their current environs. they're too close, and not close enough. had it ever mattered before, in the roads passing through village and city, with the calls of the living drowning out the demands of the dead while light hung in the skies. it's darker here, by nature and intent of design, and he sighs. steps forward, holding onto his husband, onto the dragon who breathes without the need for breath. )
Three moons after, yours. What would you wish for your name day, Lan Zhan?
( rest feels so far from possible, for he who sleeps to find nightmares and sightless eyes waiting, seeing through him and into the altered landscape of his mind. lan zhan sleeps well, but wei wuxian does not know if he necessarily rests so well; they share beds, and yet he cannot be sure, in their side by side slumber. just feels glad when his nightmares strike opportune, lan zhan left undisturbed, or only the light of day to greet him. he lifts a shoulder, trying to free the strands of hair caught upon his face from their hold, largely unsuccessful. )
no subject
( This is his part, then. Unbidden, ornamental. To drift his hand up to his lover's cheek and know the affection better earned than the status, and exorcise away each hair, each sliver of dishevelment that mars Wei Ying. One by one by one. Carefully, as if he does not attend to a former first disciple, an instrument of Nie Mingjue's war, a conqueror of Nightless City, a patriarch of a sect fresh-born, a revenant, death-made-man.
You could not tell it, for the fresh, revived softness of Wei Ying's cheek. Mo Xuanyu has spared you a wealth of weathering, years of physical maturity. At least this, that they have sixteen name days as a running advantage, to race towards the solution that will name the Yiling Patriarch a once and forever immortal.
It will happen, somehow, with or without a core. Certain miracles require Wangji's conviction to prove immutable. He does not ask for this now, with milling men and an exasperated dragon nudging their backs and flanks with its great, wet nose, so they might kindly move on and not stagger the queue. )
My son's laughter.
( Pretty, crystalline, moderate, restrained. Warm, for all of it, because diligence is the root and discipline the virtue, but blood too will tell, and he is Wen, he is Yiling. They could not amputate his vitality, for all Lan Wangji served him as model of indifference.
He aches, one day, to confess the sin of his failures. How he was present in body, but not sound of mind, never the father Lan Sizhui required until the midday of Lan Wangji's grief, until years on. Not today. He shudders, softens. )
Bury him under rabbits.
no subject
( He shifts forward, only stumbling for the ache of it, and the ease of which he smiles when Lan Zhan coaxes hair by hair away from his face. There's no need to, nothing demands this, and because of that he wishes to lean closer, to still, to bask in a moment of inconsequence that carries his heart, buoyant, unexpected. )
I will.
( Under rabbits, even if he has to draw them himself, or find those with the skill of hands to show him how to craft them from rags, or find the delicate beauty of cloth dolls in their cotton softness to present to his son, their son, the one Lan Zhan claims. To bring joy to him, for sheer absurdity, because that is laughter delivered, and laughter Wei Wuxian knows how to coax from most mouths, let alone the generous one of Lan Sizhui. A-Yuan. Wen Yuan.
The failures of either as guardians, he can only know his own. Not suspect beyond his own understanding of the meaning of those scars across his husband's back, the ways a clan cares for its own, what parenting is and isn't in his eyes, his understanding. What it matters, in this time, where the sins of the parents are what the children forgive, not what they're burdened by.
Lethe behind them, steps before them, and he smiles, simmering into something not quite content, but easier than he had been, the distress compartmentalised and held for viewing later, when he might act. )
If you're not swift, I might bury you in their fluffy grace too!
( That's not a might. That's a promise, mischief acknowledged. )
no subject
( The dragon, despondent. His husband, mind merrily at play. The foreground of the customs points — crowded, sullied, slow. Tanned leathers and slate and tinny voices, and all earth, absent shine.
He suspects, even against a deeper, stronger sky, Wei Ying would have shone bright. Does not speak the words, does not presume. There is affection, and then there is arrogance, and here in the slippery territory of fawning over the man who has claimed the tatters of your heart and promises to stitch them whole lies the risk. )
Mark your words.
( He can be this, smile easily sketched, hidden when they pass under rusted eaves and lattices of pipework, when they're suffocating for the dozens of people around them, when Wei Ying's — their — dragon attempts but fails to create them a sheltered distance from the nearest man.
They'll head to whatever place this wretched world has named their 'home,' and he will pretend not to anticipate the disaster of Wei Ying's next ambitious attempt to locate, lure, tame and weaponise an army of beautiful, well-fattened, kindly rabbits. Pretend, but never succeed. )