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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Polyphonic

Chapter 3 ao3 (alt: tumblr pt 1, pt 2)

Lan Qiren wanted to speak to Wei Wuxian about everything they needed to do, but it would have to wait: the moment they arrived, they were immediately swept up into the political mess that Jin Zixun’s ill-fated ambush had caused.

Jin Guangshan was there in the blink of an eye, despite normally taking his time in seeing anyone, and Lan Qiren didn’t like the way he started making excuses for his nephew’s behavior from the very start. It was to a certain degree understandable, as everyone would first incline towards defending their family, but the haste with which Jin Guangshan sought to sweep it all under the rug was disconcerting, and Lan Qiren thought it was almost suggestive of some level of premeditation. Even more distasteful, however, was how he sought to twist the entire event into being yet another reason Wei Wuxian ought to surrender the Stygian Tiger Seal to the Jin sect: for his own good, of course, in order to avoid being made into a target on account of the disdain of the cultivation world –

“Sect Leader Jin, your words are in poor taste,” Lan Qiren said sharply.

He could hear Jiang Cheng, who ought to be defending Wei Wuxian and was trying his stuttering best to do so, starting to waver; the boy had a pleasant rippling melody by nature, forced into a fierce allegro by his parents’ endless disputes and his later tragedies, and the weak foundation meant that he was too easily buffeted by uncertainty and doubt, as Jin Guangshan undoubtedly knew.

“Let us not speak in abstraction,” he continued. “It was your sect, your nephew, who launched this particular ambush. You ought to be making a formal apology to Wei Wuxian and thinking of reparations to repair the injury to your sect’s reputation, not acting like a thief complaining to the magistrate that his victim failed to hand over his property quickly enough to prevent violence!”

Jin Guangshan’s eyes narrowed in irritation, though he fought to keep the expression off his face as if it could disguise the swell of bitter rotten music that accompanied him wherever he went. “Teacher Lan,” he said, striving for composed and charming but mostly coming off as stiff and wooden. “Come now, I must be misunderstanding you. Surely you are not accusing me of being a thief.”

Historically, as Jin Guangshan well knew, this was when Lan Qiren backed down, mindful of his position as interim sect leader – his sect granted him much of the responsibility but not the full measure of power that typically accorded with the title, and he was conscious, always, that his role was to ensure there was something preserved for his nephews to inherit.

Perhaps Jin Guangshan had forgotten that Lan Qiren was no longer interim sect leader.

“I am describing the facts as I see them,” he said icily, straightening his back and levelling his best teacher’s glare, refined by years of troublesome students. “And they are this: by the agreement of the cultivation world and through his own powers, Wei Wuxian was inviolate and unbothered as long as he remained in the Burial Mounds. Despite this, he willingly chose to emerge in response to an invitation issued by your sect, only to be attacked by your sect – and when he comes to you for justice, rather than grant it to him, you suggest that he hand over his most prized possession to prevent any similar attacks in the future. Unfamiliarity may require me to consult my sect’s texts to be sure, Sect Leader Jin, but only to determine if I should be calling it extortion, blackmail, or outright thievery!”

“Teacher Lan!” one of the smaller sect leaders gasped, even as Jin Guangshan went utterly florid with rage. “You’re not suggesting that Jin-gongzi was involved in the ambush!”

Lan Qiren had been Jin Zixuan’s teacher and knew him well – he had been a shy, introverted boy whose awkwardness came off as aloofness, and would never have done anything like this. Even less so would Lan Qiren suspect such a thing of the man who had been steadied by war and responsibility into an adult with a firm moral foundation.

“No,” he said, and met Jin Guangshan’s eyes directly. “I believe Jin-gongzi’s invitation to have been wholly sincere.”

For a moment, Lan Qiren thought Jin Guangshan was actually going to strike him, his aura lashing out violently like a clash of cymbals, discordant and biting, and he braced himself, but in the last moment etiquette prevailed and Jin Guangshan refrained, although his fists were clenched so tightly that his veins stood out from the backs of his hands.

That was when Wei Wuxian opened his mouth.

Lan Qiren silenced him with the muting spell before he could get out a single syllable.

Jiang Cheng sent him a thankful glance and cleared his throat. “This is a serious matter,” he said. “It requires a full investigation; we won’t be able to solve it all talking now. Both Wei Wuxian and Teacher Lan have traveled a long way – I have no doubt that they need some time to rest and refresh themselves.”

A convenient way to stop anyone from starting a fight, and implicitly excusing Lan Qiren’s rudeness as a mere symptom of exhaustion, resolving the whole thing without losing any more face for anyone. The Jiang sect’s boy was picking up this whole politics business quite well, the poor child.

“I concur,” Jin Guangshan said, recovering a little of his poise. “There are rooms ready for you both.”

Lan Qiren inclined his head as well. “An excellent idea,” he said, and then, because he could now, added, “We can discuss reparations for the ambush later.”

“And what about the curse?” Jin Zixun hissed, clearly done with holding his tongue the way everyone had been so obviously instructing him with their eyes. “Am I to simply suffer while that criminal walks free and unharmed?”

“When I said there would be an investigation, I meant it!” Jiang Cheng snapped. “I doubt your curse is so advanced that it can’t wait another day, and if it is, then you should have brought it up earlier!”

“Why you –“

“Sect Leader Jiang has spoken,” Jin Zixuan interrupted, his voice hard. “Zixun, don’t forget that you must also answer to me as to what you did to my guest in my name without my permission. I think it might benefit you to ‘rest and refresh’ as well. One of the servants can take you to see a doctor.”

Jin Guangshan seemed on the verge of objecting, but Jin Zixuan seemed not to get the hint, already turning his face away.

“In the meantime,” he said, saluting politely, “Sect Leader Jiang, Wei-gongzi, would you come with me? A-Li is waiting to see you both.”

Lan Qiren allowed himself to be whisked off in a different direction to settle down, which in all honesty he did need to do. He hadn’t flown such a distance in years, had been in better health when he’d done so, and he had been tired even before all this excitement; some rest would do wonders for him, even if it did make him feel a bit like he’d become a doddering old man or an invalid. Before he could settle down, though, he heard a sound approaching – a little uneven, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow – and despite the fact that Jin Guangyao had never been anything but polite to him, he felt his back tense up at the reminder of why he was here in the first place.

“Honored teacher,” Jin Guangyao said, smiling and saluting deeply – more than he should, really, given that Lan Qiren was neither a sect leader nor had ever been his teacher. “Welcome to Jinlin Tower. I regret that your arrival was marred by such unpleasantness, and hope that the remainder of your visit is calmer.”

It’s not Jin Guangyao’s fault that Lan Xichen likes him, Lan Qiren reminded himself. Your suspicions, and your family’s terrible luck at love, are your own burdens to bear. They should not be put onto others.

He nodded to Jin Guangyao.

“It would be good to see a peaceable resolution to today’s events,” he said neutrally. “I appreciate that you have come to check on me personally. It is truly going above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Your nephew is my sworn brother, Teacher Lan. How could I fail to honor you as my elder?” Jin Guangyao said smoothly. “Let me know if there’s anything we can do to make you more comfortable.”

“A bath before dinner would be nice. Has my nephew arrived yet?” Lan Qiren privately hoped that he hadn’t, and was relieved when Jin Guangyao shook his head, confirming it. “Let me know when he does.”

“Of course,” Jin Guangyao said, and saluted again. “I’ll inform the servants; a bath will be made ready for you by afternoon.”

The moment Jin Guangyao left the room, Lan Qiren traced the pattern along the hem of his robes that shook off the dust of the road, returning them to being as clean and pristine as always – not a long-term solution to laundry, but very effective in the short-run, and one that he’d only refrained from doing earlier in order to drive home the point regarding how he had also been victimized by Jin Zixun’s ambush.

It was a profound relief to be clean again.

Once he could no longer hear Jin Guangyao’s familiar chords, he relaxed, which unfortunately these days meant coughing. He rubbed his chest when he was done, sighing, and settled down with his guqin to start playing a little, hoping to ease his nerves. Lan Xichen would be on his way already, he knew, and would probably move even faster once he got word regarding Lan Qiren’s presence. He’d made rather a lot of trouble for his nephew…

The door slammed open, and only years of experience with troublesome children, along with the warning echo of a song free and clear, full of shining righteousness, allowed Lan Qiren to remain unmoved by the cacophonous crash.

“So I have questions,” Wei Wuxian said. “Many, many questions, and I’m going to want answers to…uh, are you all right?”

Lan Qiren ignored Wei Wuxian’s rush, finishing the stanza he was playing and letting his hands still over the guqin. “Sit, and I will answer your questions to the best of my ability.”

Wei Wuxian closed the door behind him and put up a talisman for privacy, like the ones they used to use during the war, before coming to sit across the table from Lan Qiren. He was frowning. “Honored Teacher Lan, your lips are red,” he said cautiously. “Were you coughing up blood just now?”

“An old injury from the war,” Lan Qiren said, unable to resist recalling the memory of Wen Xu’s wild smirk as he’d deliberately smashed his ribs into pieces, grinding his palm against Lan Qiren’s chest to force the broken pieces to pierce his lungs. Nie Mingjue had executed Wen Xu only a few months later, a matter that had greatly eased his nightmares…truly Lan Qiren had to get to the bottom of this mystery as soon as possible; once Lan Xichen’s name was cleared, he could focus on trying to devise a solution to cleanse Nie Mingjue of the spiritual poison. “It can be aggravated by excess choler. Do not concern yourself about it.”

Wei Wuxian looked like he was concerning himself about it. “But you nearly –” Lan Qiren glared until he dropped the volume of his voice significantly. “You nearly got into a fight with dozens of cultivators back at the Qiongqi Path on my behalf! Wouldn’t that have aggravated it even worse than just getting angry?”

“Much worse,” Lan Qiren agreed peaceably. “My talents in battle are not especially notable, although better with the guqin than the sword. Regardless, the effort expended would almost certainly result in a severe backlash later.”

Wei Wuxian gaped at him. “Then why did you do it?”

“Was there an alternative?”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth opened and closed a few more times.

“How are your shijie and shizi?” Lan Qiren asked when it appeared that Wei Wuxian was not going to force any words out of his mouth any time soon. He folded his hands together in an appropriate manner – he, at least, knew his etiquette, and would continue to model it in the hope that Wei Wuxian might one day catch a hint. “Well, I trust?”

“Uh, yeah, they’re great. Jin Ling is perfect, shijie is wonderful, the peacock doesn’t deserve either of them, though he’s gotten better, I guess,” Wei Wuxian said, then shook his head as if to clear it. “And I wouldn’t have been able to see either of them if not for you.”

Personally, Lan Qiren didn’t think one Jin Zixun and any number of his friends would actually be able to stop Wei Wuxian, preplanned ambush or no, so he just hummed noncommittally. “You said you had questions?”

“Yeah, and now I have even more,” Wei Wuxian grumbled, but he seemed to settle down a little. “Let’s start with the fact that you said you needed help on a musical issue, but that it is also somehow an attempted murder. What’s that about?”

Lan Qiren grimaced. “Serve tea,” he instructed Wei Wuxian, and waited until he was midway through the process – and thus not staring straight at Lan Qiren – to start talking. “I have reason to believe that Nie Mingjue has been poisoned with spiritual poison.”

Wei Wuxian nearly spilled the tea, but managed to stop himself in time. “Chifeng-zun? Impossible!” Then he frowned. “I’d heard his temper was getting far worse, of late. Just mentions of it in passing…you think it’s because of that?”

“It may be. The Nie sect is prone to encountering qi deviations; a spiritual poison, especially one that specifically targets choleric feelings such as irritation and rage, would be particularly insidious when aimed against them. Should he die, everyone might be inclined to assume that the cause was hereditary rather than external.”

“A perfect murder. What type of poison?” Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows went up. “Wait – you think – musical poison?”

“My sect is renowned for using musical cultivation as healing techniques,” Lan Qiren pointed out, not sure why it seemed to come as such a shock to Wei Wuxian. “Antidotes grow alongside poisons, and all that can heal can also hurt – anyway, isn’t what you do a type of musical cultivation as well?”

“Good point,” Wei Wuxian said ruefully. “All right, that makes sense. That definitely seems like a real problem…but why do you need my help?”

“My health is poor, and I do not know what such an investigation will require,” Lan Qiren said. “And I cannot ask anyone in my sect to assist me.”

“Why not?”

“Because the primary suspect,” Lan Qiren said heavily, “is Xichen.”

Wei Wuxian stared.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few long moments of blank gawping. “Please forgive me, honored teacher, but I think I misheard you. Are you saying that you think Zewu-jun is poisoning Chifeng-zun?”

“I hope dearly that he is not, of course,” Lan Qiren said. “In fact, part of the reason for my desire to investigate privately is to assist in clearing him of suspicion –”

“No, no, hold on, don’t move on just yet,” Wei Wuxian said, holding up his hands. “You think Zewu-jun – Lan Xichen! – might be capable of poisoning his sworn brother and, as far as I know, best friend? Your nephew?”

“Yes.”

“You really think he’s capable of something like that?”

“I have done my best to raise him to be the sort of man who would not be,” Lan Qiren said, and thought suddenly of his own brother – their father had treasured him, cared for him, valued him above all else. Would he have ever imagined that he would do what he had done and end up living out his life in seclusion, only to die pointlessly at the hands of the Wen sect? “And yet, who’s to say?”

“Uh, me? All the cultivation world? It’s Zewu-jun! He’s one of the most upright people I’ve ever met! You might as well suspect Lan Zhan – you don’t, do you?”

“No,” Lan Qiren said. He appreciated the righteous crescendo in Wei Wuxian’s voice, particularly when Lan Wangji was mentioned – unfortunate as it might be to find that Lan Wangji’s seemingly hopeless affection might actually be requited, since it remained a terrible idea – but it was a little inconvenient at the moment. “But equally I cannot burden him with the duty to suspect his brother. It would only hurt him.”

Wei Wuxian quieted down at that. “I can see that,” he said, grimacing. “But…why would you suspect Zewu-jun?”

“The evidence is – suggestive.” Lan Qiren shook his head. “To be clear, while I will of course value the truth above all else, I am not looking for evidence of Lan Xichen’s guilt. I am hoping to exculpate him.”

Wei Wuxian leaned forward, now frowning in earnest. “All right,” he said. “I still don’t really believe it, but other people might, and that’s bad enough. Even unfounded rumors can make for real trouble. Tell me what you know about it.”

“My nephew has been helping Nie Mingjue to ease the symptoms of his familial tendency towards qi deviations by playing him one of the strongest and most secret Lan sect healing songs,” Lan Qiren explained. “The spiritual poison I have observed in Nie Mingjue’s body is precisely a variation on that healing song – only instead of the pure version, which is designed to calm and heal disrupted qi, it is intermixed with another song that deliberately encourages spiritual turmoil.”

“All right. I suppose playing for Chifeng-zun gives Zewu-jun opportunity, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only one who could’ve applied the poison song.”

“The Song of Turmoil is a rare import, hidden away in one of sect’s forbidden books. Only very few people have access to that part of our collection.”

Wei Wuxian arched his eyebrows. “And yet you can immediately recognize it?”

“I enjoy studying obscure musical texts as an aid in composition,” Lan Qiren said, mild censure in his voice. “Would you dare claim you do not do the same?”

“…fine, fine, good point.” Wei Wuxian waved his hand. “Okay, fine…still, I’m not convinced. Even if the only source of the song is the Lan sect’s library, there was a lot of chaos these past few years. Someone else could have picked it up, couldn’t they?”

“It’s possible,” Lan Qiren admitted. “Unfortunately, the tune had the same starts and stops that are characteristic of Xichen’s playing.”

As a musical cultivator, even Wei Wuxian had to concede that the unique quirks of playing style were difficult, although not impossible, to replicate, and moreover that one would have to wonder why anyone else would bother doing so, especially in a spiritual poison they presumably hoped would go entirely undetected. He rubbed his forehead, clearly thinking it over. “So, wait, are you saying you heard this musical poison getting played? Were you affected by it? Why didn’t you interrupt in order to stop it or to find out who was responsible?”

Lan Qiren shook his head. “I did not hear the playing, only the effects.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “I don’t understand. If you didn’t hear it get played, how do you know that the playing had Zewu-jun’s idiosyncratic characteristics?”

“I’m very familiar with how Xichen plays. How would I not notice it? Even if I only heard it intermixed with Nie Mingjue’s own base tone, the sound is distinctive enough to recognize.”

Wei Wuxian was staring at him, looking blank again. A moment later his brow furrowed as if he’d just had a thought that seemed strange to him. He said, “Honored teacher, a question. When I said I wasn’t the one who cast the curse on Jin Zixun, you said that the person who cast it played the guqin, not the flute. I’d been wondering…how did you know that?”

“The curse has the sound of a breaking guqin string, which does not accord with Jin Zixun’s own music,” Lan Qiren explained. “The person who cast it was moderately powerful and very well-trained, although this represents an overreach on their part. I think it is likely that they incurred a backlash due to the casting –”

“You just heard it?” Wei Wuxian interrupted. It was rather rude, but Lan Qiren supposed he’d signed up for that. “You just looked at him and heard the curse that had been placed on him?”

Lan Qiren nodded.

“You can hear what people’s spiritual energy sounds like?” Wei Wuxian was growing pale.

“Not spiritual energy directly,” Lan Qiren said, a little puzzled by what seemed like an outsized reaction. Not only was Wei Wuxian’s face pale, his fists clenched, but his song, normally so free and clear, had become suppressed, tense, tightly strung. “More in the nature of the sound of a person’s spirit itself. Your Ghost General, for instance; he has a very gentle melody, very soft, but the underlying base is harsh, jagged, thick with resentment, less playing than dying – he needs to learn to marry those two parts of his spirit together, or else he’ll have trouble finding peace. That’s why I offered to take him as a student.”

“What about me?” Wei Wuxian asked. He was almost vibrating with the need to know. “What about my music? Has it – changed?”

“It’s gotten a little more sober, which is not uncommon with tragedy,” Lan Qiren said, and felt as though he were on the edge of some terrible revelation. “But no, fundamentally you remain the same person you always were.”

Wei Wuxian exhaled, hard. A trill of relief.

“Something happened that made you think it would change,” Lan Qiren deduced, reaching up to stroke his beard thoughtfully. He watched as Wei Wuxian’s eyes flickered one way, then another. “Wei Wuxian.”

Wei Wuxian looked at him.

“Are you unwilling to return to orthodox cultivation – or unable?”

There was a world of difference between the two: one was arrogance, relentless and unrestrained, looking down at the truths the cultivators of the world and their ancestors had worked so hard to unearth, the other merely a depressing practicality – who wouldn’t choose to cultivate something if the alternative was nothing at all?

And yet…how could it be?

And why would Wei Wuxian be so terrified of letting others discover it?

“That’s none of your business,” Wei Wuxian said, teeth set in a bitter smile that was more of a grimace than anything else. “I agreed to help you, Honored Teacher, but my business is my own.”

“But –”

“Another question,” Wei Wuxian said. “Different subject: I know you don’t lie, and earlier you said…what you said. So tell me, what Lan sect girl has her heart so set on me that you decided to come tell me in person that I wasn’t allowed marry her?”

Lan Qiren blinked. “I only meant to advise you that it was a poor match for you both; it was not meant as an insult to you,” he objected, a little offended. “If you and Wangji insist, I will not stand in your way.”

He shook his head and sighed a little, regretful; he would not pursue the matter Wei Wuxian was hiding any further. He wanted to help, curiosity itching at him, but Wei Wuxian was right – it was none of his business.

“As long as your reliance on demonic cultivation does not impede your assistance in my investigation, I will not bring it up again,” he concluded. “How do you propose we begin?”

“…Lan Zhan?”

Lan Qiren frowned. “I already explained to you why I do not wish to involve Wangji, and that I do not suspect him. Why would we start with him?”

“Not for the investigation,” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, his face bright red. “About the – marriage!”

#mdzs #lan qiren #wei wuxian #jin guangshan #jin zixuan #jin guangyao #my fic #my fics #polyphonic

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drwcn · 3 years

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continuing on the fem!lwj thought experiment. previous posts are here → [x] [x].

俗话说的好，寡妇门前是非多。Translation: as the old saying goes, troubles are aplenty upon the doorstep of the widow. Which really, is more of a reflection of society's bullshit than of widow's character because a) in a society where women aren't allowed means to financially support themselves, when their husbands kick the bucket, they'd have to rely on other men in their lives to survive. If these men aren't their immediate family like son, father, or brother, then they incite gossip/scorn from others; and b) fuck the fuckbois who try and take advantage of widows who they deem easy prey and fuck the busybodies who go around sniffing out a widow's secrets.

Previously, I threw out the idea of Badass Rogue Cultivator Lan Wangji, going where the trouble is, helping people, a literal beacon of light, the renowned but mysterious Hanguang Sanren, accompanied by her sole disciple/son Sizhui — but now, consider this. For the first couple of years after she left Cloud Recesses, in order to avoid detection and to heal from her discipline lashes, Lan Wangji camouflaged herself and Sizhui and straight up became a peasant. A young, widowed peasant with "limited" means and a young son.

(here are some nice peasant aesthetics bc we don't really get those: [x] - the hair of this one; [x] [x] the outfit style of this one; [x] - a variation of a headscarf of this one.)

Lan Wangji found a mid-sized village and a small abandoned house with a modest yard that looked like it hadn't been inhabited for some time. The reason was rather obvious - the place was a haunted. But luckily it was an entry level ghost (and I mean really entry level, like this ghost isn't even getting paid, probably a ghost intern) and a short exorcism later, it was perfectly safe to settle down in. A-Yuan wasn't even fazed; boy grew up in the Burial Mount where ghosts probably read him bedtime stories.

LWJ: 阿苑，从今往后，如果有人问起你我的事，你该怎么回答? A-Yuan：嗯。。。阿爹死了，就剩下我和阿娘了。 LWJ：好，好孩子。

LWJ: A-Yuan, from now on, if someone asks about me and you, what should you tell them? A-Yuan: Hm...a-die died, only a-niang and I are left. LWJ: Good, good lad.

Literally the next day, the local Aunties™ arrived to sus her out. Early that morning, they had seen steam coming out of the chimney and thought it was local boys causing mischief again but was surprised to find a young woman and a small child. The fact that the young woman was the prettiest thing in a 500 mile radius was not lost on the village Aunties. Lan Wangji introduced herself as Qiu Er-Niang 邱二娘 (Qiu being her mother's last name, and #-niang being a fairly non-classy, peasant-esque way of referring to women) and A-Yuan as Jiang蒋 Yuan (not the same Jiang as Yunmeng Jiang but pronounced the same and still a very common last name, a nod to WWX without it being very explicit). She spun a very simple story of how her village was devastated by bad harvest and disease and that her family, including her husband, had all perished. She was not much of a liar, but the injuries she carried on her back was fresh, so she did appear genuinely fragile and gaunt.

The Aunties were suspicious but could not find a flaw in her story. One of them was nice enough to give her some rice and flour. Not that Lan Wangji really needed it; Lan Xichen had made sure she had plenty of funds for the road, which she was initially reluctant to accept. Leaving Cloud Recesses, she wanted no part of her clan in her new life, but her brother had convinced her after he reiterated and stressed on A-Yuan's needs as a growing boy.

Second day into her new life as a peasant, Lan Wangji realized her problem. For the first time in her life, she had noisy af neighbours who were all up in her busy. Pushing aside the obvious need to hide her cultivation, she could not be blatant with her finances either. The villagers saw a sickly widow with a child; they'd expect to see her struggle with food, with clothing, with keeping it all together. If she strolled up to the nearest town and bought all the things she needed...that would be way too suspicious. Besides, she'd have to do something to make a show of "earning" her living, at least for a little while. She did not plan to stay in this village forever. Once she was fully recovered, once Gusu Lan Sect's initial searching frenzy passed and they exhausted their means, she could leave and be free. For now...she'll just have to play her part.

One of the Aunties of the village told her that one of the richer households being to a landlord of some kind was looking for female staff to do the cleaning and washing and cloth-fending. The Auntie pulled some strings with the women working there and got her hired. Lan Second Jade of Gusu never washed a single sock in her life Wangji found herself faced with Laundry Duty, Jealous Landlady and Co-Workers, and Lecherous Overlord.

Fuckboi #25: How pretty you are, sweet thing. Poor you, working with those slender hands. If you marry me, you wouldn't have to slave away for money. I'll take care of you.

LWJ: *silently contemplating how to slit the man from nape to navel*

A couple times a week, Lan Wangji worked, and during her free time, she taught A-Yuan to read and write and began his training with the sword. Beyond that, Lan Wangji put every second of her free time not taking care of A-Yuan and not playing Farmer McPeasant into cultivation. For the first time in her life, her days were simple. There was nothing to distract her, no other bullshit or duty to family or clan to restrict her against her will. She left the headband in Jingshi, and Jingshi in the past.

And when the night is dark and A-Yuan is asleep, Lan Wangji seals the house with a barrier talisman and goes into the forest to play Inquiry.

Wei Ying never answers, but soon the village starts a rumour of a Lady Ghost haunting the woods with her song.

#cql #the untamed #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wangxian #corie fics #cql ficlet #lmao more of this bullshit #might write one or two more things before i call it quits #lwj fic #f!lwj

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wangxianficrecs · 3 years

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Fic Finder

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1. Hi, I'm looking for an Untamed fic, maybe you'll be able to help. It's a canon divergence AU in which WWX doesn't lose his core, Jiang Fengmian lives and it's implied that his core was transferred to JC (heavily implied; JFM retires as the Sect Leader after that). This is absolutely not the most important part of this fic but it's a paragraph that I've got stuck in my head and now I'm searching for the rest @_@ Thanks in advance! ~ @otemporaetmores

FOUND! by @notsobabblespace, who was reminded of I’m aching and I know you are too by edenwolfie (part 3 in series, M, 23k, wangxian)

FOUND! by @jim-is-spocks-thyla, who suggests ❤️ to arrive late is better than not to arrive at all by Moominmammashandbag (M, 35k, wangxian) [ETA: Oops, not this one. JFM has no core, but he didn’t give it to JC]

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2. Hi Mojo! I’m in need of you/your followers help in finding a fic that I read a little while ago. It was a fic where Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi lived together in Cloud Recesses and their children were Sizhui and an OOC that was younger than him. I remember SiZhui faced a lot of criticism for not being the chief cultivator’s real child? And they were happy he had a younger sibling that would be sect leader in the future because he was blood. Come to think of it, this is probably an ABO fic too. Thanks for your time 💜

FOUND! @andidontmeanto believes this is Blue Blood by PotterheadAvengerDemigod (T, 91k, wangxian, my post)

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3. Aksks it's like 3 am but I just remembered a fic and I can't find it?? I'd really, really appreciate your help. It was a wangxian fic, maybe a oneshot idk, and lwj was kind of a nerd and wwx a badboy? So basically lwj has a massive crush on him and dresses up like wwx etc. (i think he even got an undercut) and after a party they sleep with each other at lwj's place?

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4. i’m looking for a fic set in the where lwj’s mother killed his father? i don’t think that was a main plot point but it did show up in his backstory - any idea what this might be? ~ @thehype

FOUND! @rentslirott thinks this could be ❤️the best of you by sysrae (E, 42k, wangxian, my post)

FOUND! @castaways-logbook offers The Right to Care by travelingneuritis (E, 39k, wangxian, WIP)

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5. ... same as #6 ...

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6. Hello friend, sorry for the inconvenience but I wanted to see if you could please find me a fic that I lost but I only remember more or less the final part, it goes more or less like this, lan zhan and wei ying are kidnapped by jin guangyao and lock them up if not I'm wrong in some cells next to lan xichen after the fights jin guangyao dies but lan xichen did know how bad jin guangyao had done and he didn't care and then to get revenge he wants to kill wei ying but lan zhan kills him and sizhui gets scared It was more or less like that, please help me ~ @isa0123lol

FOUND! by @wangxiansfics who says that tragically it’s no longer available, but @dulachodladh found it on WaybackMachine here: Thread and Needle by haysel (M, 86k, wangxian)

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7. Hi, Mojo! I'm glad that you're back but I hope you enjoyed your time off tumblr! Can you and/or your followers help me find a fic? I think the summary was talking about wwx and somehow they were asking mingjue for help since he's the only one who can help. The summary was in italics and it's a dialogue from some guy? And a shorter summary below. Sadly this is the only thing I can remember but I hope you can still help me

FOUND! @alwayswenning suggests love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, wangxian, has it’s own fanfic here, I just finished this last night!, my bookmark)

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8. Sorry to bombard you as soon as you're back, but this one's driving me crazy--a modern AU where they met online. WWX thinks LWJ is an old man from how he talks. I don't remember much except the excerpt made it seem like he still was amused by/enjoyed talking to him, and Wen Qing was telling him it was a bad idea and to stop. It's not How to Fall In Love With a Catfish, tho that one is brilliant! (Also any top notch identity porn would be great) Hope your break was restful, you deserve it! Thanks

Here’s my #identity porn tag, but I’m not sure about this exact story.

I'm the anon for #8 on the fic finder. Though I'm excited to read it, the suggested fic isn't the one I was looking for. I swear I thought I saw it on here around a month ago or slightly more, but searches have failed me.

FOUND! Rating: General Audiences by Mishaa (T, 18k, wangxian WIP) - mysterious author LWJ (speculated to be an old man because of his formality) and infamous artist WWX paired up for an Untamed Big Bang (in an AU where JGY was the series’ antiheroic protagonist; this fic was written before the release of CQL.)

FOUND? could you be looking for Something Real by Latios (G, 5k, wangxian, my post) - wwx thinks lwj is an old man, but there’s no WQ. There are many pictures of bunnies.

SIMILAR! @emilysidhe thought of ID Bro Saga by Bowandtie (T, 39k, wangxian)

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9. Hey, how are you? Could you help me please? I've read 3 fanfics once, but I can't find them anymore. 1 - Nanny Problem, Wei is going to be the babysitter of A-Yuan, he is an omega and Lan is an alpha. 2 - Doctor Perfect, Yibo is an omega nurse and Xiao is an alpha doctor. 3 - The Baby of my Omega, Yibo is omega and Xiao is alpha, both of them are bodyguards, but Yibo has to protect Xiao in the beginning. I think they were at ao3, but I really can't find them. Can you help me please? Thank you!! ~ @weallmad

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10. Hi! Im happy you’re back. I hope you had a good break. I missed your recommendations, but at the same time i got a break from fics and actually studied to my tests haha. [Ah! I’m glad to hear your time was spent productively!] I’m looking for a fic like Linger in the Sun by etymologyplayground. In the fic im looking for wangxian slowly lose their senses instead of all of them at once. Like they lose their hearing, then touch, sight etc, They can’t see each other or hear each other. I’m sorry i can’t explain very well.

FOUND? Could you be thinking of ❤️shadows in the sun rise by Yuu_chi (E, 25k, wangxian)? Only lwj losese his senses one by one in this one, though.

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11. heyyy im trying to find this fic where wwx died the first time he was thrown in to the burial mounds then 10 years later he gets resurrected or something. I can't find it on AO3 and it's been bugging me for days. Thank you!

FOUND! Well, @moku-youbi offers both of these as possibilities:

Did I Not Explain Why the Sunset Turns Red? by 3988Akasha (E, 100k, wangxian)

we're starting at the end by Miss_Enthusiasimal (M, 95k, wangxian)

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12. Hi I am looking for a fic where wwx is a witch (/mage?) in a world where magic is being persecuted (especially in Gusu) except for Yunmeng/Lanling I think but they're still frowned upon nonetheless. Then after accidentally hurting Shijie, wwx runs away, and ends up hiding in Gusu pretending to be a servant to lwj (lwj is a prince, lxc is the emperor) but lwj actually knows of his identity and tries not-so-discreetly to protect him from being caught. Thanks!

FOUND! by @bibliobasilisk who gives us Witchfinder by misbehavingvigilante (E, 86k, wangxian)

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13. Hi! Firstly, I'm glad to see you're back, and I hope your break was a good one! I'm trying to find a LWJ/WWX story that I had planned to read and ending up losing before I could. It was set in the immediate aftermath of the 33 lashes, LWJ is in the Jingshi recovering when a healer(?) discovers he's pregnant (by WWX). It may have been a/b/o verse, but I'm not 100% on that. Part of the story was a flashback to when WWX was still alive. Thank you!

FOUND! by nonny themself. It’s Unexpected Surprise by Glucose_Gremlin (E, 4k, wangxian)

SIMILAR! @mondelgel suggests my heart is kept as pure as ice in a jade vase/一片冰心在玉壶 by Daledesu (M, 21k, wangxian, WIP)

SIMILAR! from @impending-cuttlefish: something new, something white, something blue by ariskamalt (E, 140k, wangxian, WIP)

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14. I'm trying to find this one fic where Jin Ling finds this diary that Wei Ying wrote as the Yiling Patriarch that basically reveals everything, including the golden core reveal and it even has training tips that helps Jon Ling improve. When Wei Ying comes back, he tries everything to keep him there because he is THE best uncle now. I need to find it because it is a N E E D.

FOUND? by @theladypeartree who says, “The Truth (Untold) is jl reading jyl's journals, not wwx's though. And mordant is jl returning wwx's journals that he found, not grew up with. Neither fit #14 properly, but I seriously could not find anything closer after two solid days of searching. Good luck!“

The Truth (Untold) by anxiouswreck0_0 (g, 3k, wangxian, jin ling & wei wuxian)

or this one on ffn:

mordant by tennisnotensai (M, 18k, wangxian, here’s the link for mobile)

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15. I have heard tell of a Sizhui/Jingyi fic where the boys end up going to Wangxian for advice about how to be intimate. Can you help me find it?

FOUND! @manaika-chan says this one is On Advisement by LaMachina17 (M, 19k, wangxian, zhuiling, chengyi)

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16. nm

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17. Hi! Sorry, do you happen to know that nsfw fic where wwx is still studying in the cloud recesses and he’s reading a novel (im not sure if it was from nhs) that features a cultivator couple and there’s a scene in the book where the woman was pegging her husband? Basically wwx got curious about this and tried fingering himself. I remember he was hiding in the back mountains and then lwj eventually caught him

FOUND? Could you be thinking of Deep in the Woods by malkinmalkout (E, 5k, wangxian, my post)?

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18. Ahhh I'm going crazy trying to think of a fic that I've read where Lan Zhan killed Wen Chao in a locker room and nie huaisang stood guard outside the door! Then lan zhan went to lan huan and said I killed someone and he said did they deserve it? Then it's fine. And I can't remember the name of the fic! Have you heard of it? ~ @uchihaautumn

FOUND! @artemisisdiana offers So Full Of Love (Wouldn't Know Where to Start) by witchupbitch (M, 54k, wangxian, WIP)

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19. Hi, I was wondering if you could help me find a fic. I read it a while ago and I don't really remember all the details but it was a modern au where Lan Wangji was a police officer in this small town and Wei Wuxian comes back after years, having left the town due to some stuff. Thank you in advance.

Btw love your blog. I live for your fic recs. [Thank you!]

FOUND? Could you be looking for medium blues by dark_and_terrible (E,193k, wangxian)? It appears to be taken down atm, but it might come back (it’s done it before).

FOUND! by @grannyweatherwaxshat who offers When a Bird Flies, It Leaves Feathers by Bem_Kofi (not rated, 75k, wangxian)

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20. Hi mojo!! First of all I luv your blog Thank you so much for all those ficrecs. [You’re welcome!] Actually I’m looking for a fic I read months ago. I probably found the fic from your blog. But I can’t seem to find it now 😢 it was a modern au wangxian fic (inspired by call me by ur name?) wwx was like 5 years older than lwj. (And lwj was like 16?) Wwx lives in another city but he spent around a year in cloud recesses with lwj in the past. And wwx yanli and jc visits cloud recesses again and wangxian gets 2gether

~*~

[My ko-fi.]

#wangxian fic finder #wangxian #mdzs fic finder #wangxian fic rec

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songofclarity · 3 years

Text

The way I see some discussions and mentions of Nie Dad’s death, they give the impression that Wen RuoHan killed him in the same manner Meng Yao killed those Nie cultivators in the Sun Palace: by savagely cutting him open and letting him bleed out across the floor while Nie MingJue could only stand there and helplessly watch.

And like, symbolically, I can see the similarities of teenage Nie MingJue having to just stand there and watch his dad rage himself to death in his sickbed, but what happened between Wen RuoHan and Nie Dad, and the Wen Sect and Nie Sect, is much more complicated and far less direct.

There are reasons Nie MingJue’s resentment is quoted as being about his father’s death and not, directly, at Wen RuoHan.

Three key points:

First, neither the Nie nor the Wen could ever possibly agree about who started the conflict or how it ended. Was Nie Dad truly the arrogant type who would be so prideful as to mock Wen RuoHan for enjoying something or did Wen RuoHan try to teach a lesson to someone who was the innocent victim of some guest cultivator’s malice? The guest cultivator played them both by setting up a lose-lose situation.

Second, Wen RuoHan did not and does not know about the saber spirit. Nie Dad was stuck in a sickbed for six months which shows there was plenty of time to heal him. Do the Qinghe Nie just not take care of their people? The Wen Sect love getting into other people’s business and they have fantastic doctors. Did the Nie Sect reject help when it was offered due to the secrecy of Nie Dad’s underlying condition? This Sounds Like a You Problem if the Nie Sect just let Nie Dad languish and die. It’s no wonder Nie MingJue would resent his father’s death if there was nothing in-house they could do to help him and the Nie Sect refused to seek outside help--especially for reasons of Sect pride.

Third, Nie Dad’s death, namely how Nie Dad handled being injured and the six months leading up to his death, was a horrific reality check for the Nie Sect and the consequences of their saber cultivation. Wen RuoHan did not lay hands on Nie Dad or attack him in any manner, and yet one indirect hit shattered what tenuous hold Nie Dad had on his temperament. How fragile and vulnerable the Qinghe Nie must have felt! Wen RuoHan found their fatal flaw by a complete accident! It’s easier for the Nie Sect to blame the Wen Sect when there is nothing they can do about changing their cultivation methods without completely changing the Nie Sect as they know it. Change is hard. Blame is easy. Anger is easy. Resentment is easy.

Keep in mind this conflict was not started by Wen RuoHan. I cannot emphasize that point enough. This conflict began when a guest cultivator heard the innocuous question, “What do you think of this saber of mine?” (ch. 49, ERS) and started naming names.

Wen RuoHan smacked Nie Dad's saber because he was told Nie Dad was arrogant, boastful, and condescending. He was told Nie Dad was a dirty liar who would compliment Wen RuoHan’s saber to his face and talk shit about it behind his back (or in his heart, which is kind of worse, actually).

[The guest cultivator,] "[Sect Leader Nie is] awfully arrogant, always boasting about how his prized saber is absolutely unrivaled, and how even in a hundred years no sword has been able [to be] compared to his. No matter how good one's saber was, he definitely won't admit it, and even if he did admit it out loud, he won't admit it in his heart." [Ch. 49, ERS]

Is this a true account of Nie Dad’s character or is it a complete fabrication in order to throw him under the bus? We’re never told. But Wen RuoHan is told that Nie Dad will not be telling him the truth about how he feels, so Wen RuoHan can’t even talk to Nie Dad about it in order to clear the air if he so wanted. The guest cultivator has put Wen RuoHan and Nie Dad in a lose-lose situation. The conflict has immediately degraded to petty passive aggressive revenge.

Wen RuoHan decides to test the waters. Or, perhaps, he will teach Nie Dad a lesson in humility.

[Wen RuoHan,] "Are you sure about that? Well, I want to see." (Ch. 49, ERS)

Wen RuoHan requests Nie Dad’s presence. He holds the saber and compliments that it’s a very good saber. Then he does one of three things: he tests the saber’s strength for himself, teaches Nie Dad a lesson about having too much pride, or both.

Wen RuoHan smacking the saber, trying to break it, is a good way to humble a man whose pride comes from having the so-called greatest saber. Maybe when that saber breaks Nie Dad won't be such an arrogant asshole anymore. The guest cultivator noted that the saber was a point of pride for Nie Dad. Take it away, and maybe he’ll be more humble from now on.

The saber should probably have broken when slapped several times, but it didn't, because it was indeed a good saber.

Wen RuoHan hands the saber back and that is the end of Wen RuoHan’s involvement with Nie Dad and the Nie Sect.

(Keep in mind that we hear about Wen RuoHan leaving his house ONE time in canon, and that was to fight Nie MingJue at Yangquan during the Sunshot Campaign. Wen RuoHan and the Wen never go after the Qinghe Nie again until after the Sunshot Campaign begins.)

Nie Dad leaves the Sun Palace without noticing anything wrong with his saber. He finds the encounter with Wen RuoHan strange, but he leaves it at that.

The Sect Leader of the greatest saber cultivation sect didn't know his own saber had somehow been damaged! How embarrassing for him when he went on a night hunt days later and it broke and he got severely injured!

And that's it. Now Nie Dad's saber isn't the greatest saber anymore. Wen RuoHan taught Nie Dad a lesson, purposefully or not, and Nie Dad is still very much alive. Cultivators aren't down with their injuries for very long. It took Qingheng-jun a month to die from his critical injuries. By comparison, the core-less Jiang Cheng recovered from his broken ribs in just 3 days and the core-less Wei WuXian healed from an abdomen wound in a week. Six months for Nie Dad, a capable cultivator with likely a powerful golden core, is a long time! Unlike Qingheng-jun, he arguably was at least in a stable if disabled condition if he lasted six months.

Lesson learned and he'll be fine.

But Nie Dad isn't fine. He stews in his anger, his embarrassment, his resentment. He lets his fury engulf him. He can't heal from his injuries because all he wants to do, let’s say, is rage and yell and fume about that fucking Wen RuoHan who played a dirty trick!

(And if he did rage as such, perhaps there is some hearty arrogance in him that he thought himself and his saber untouchable, that he didn’t even give it a second look after Wen RuoHan was involved.)

It's not clearly stated if Nie Dad died from his injuries or by qi deviation, but considering the extent Nie MingJue and his sworn brothers go to in order to avoid a qi deviation AND Nie MingJue’s own feelings with how his father died, it's highly probable that Nie Dad died from qi deviation. And, like I said, if a cultivator doesn't die immediately from their wound, and if the wound doesn’t even put them in a critical condition, they heal just nicely.

But Nie Dad dies. It’s interesting to note the description of Nie MingJue’s trauma:

The thing in Nie MingJue's life that he loathed and regretted the most was the death of his father...

After Sect Leader Nie was brought back [from the night hunt where his saber broke], he couldn't make peace with such an event no matter what, and his injuries didn't heal either. Having fallen ill for half a year, he finally left the world, from either the anger or the illness. The reason why Nie MingJue, along with the entire Qinghe Nie Sect, detested the Qishan Wen Sect with such intensity was due to this. (ch. 49, ERS)

Although the Wens become the target of Nie hatred in the wake of Nie Dad’s death, Nie MingJue isn’t loathing them specifically. It’s not Wen RuoHan he hates, but rather the death of his father. The nuance here is important. He loathes those six months where Nie Dad could not get better and refused to get better when he picked his anger over healing. Those six months where he would have lashed out and shouted at his innocent children--just like Nie MingJue would, years later, shout and lash out at his brothers.

The death of Nie Dad showed the very worst side of the Qinghe Nie Sect and the effects of their saber cultivation. And all Nie MingJue, just a teenager at the time, could do was stand there and watch it all unfold. What a nightmare. It’s no wonder he accepted help from the Song of Clarity when he did, especially when Lan XiChen and Jin GuangYao were amping up the risk. it really just highlights the outrageous betrayal by Jin GuangYao, who knew all of this about Nie MingJue and the Nie Sect and still did what he did, using intimate knowledge to slowly murder Nie MingJue for his own gain.

Not even Wen RuoHan was that cruel.

Because all the while Wen RuoHan is not aware of the saber spirit or Nie Dad’s high risk of qi deviations. Nobody outside the Nie Sect knows about the saber spirits. Outside the Nie Sect, saber spirits aren't a real thing that someone could reasonably plan for. Hell, even Nie HuaiSang went over twenty years not knowing about the saber spirits and he lived with them!

So there is no possible way Wen RuoHan could have suspected pulling a punk ass, petty stunt to humble Nie Dad would exacerbate this supernatural disease that would anger Nie Dad to death.

This isn’t to say that Wen RuoHan is innocent. He very much chose to call Nie Dad over and made the decision on his own to smack the saber. But fate took over after that. The saber didn’t have to break and it didn’t have to break at such a dangerous moment.

Wen RuoHan’s actions did not seek Nie Dad’s death--because if he wanted Nie Dad dead, he would have killed him. (Who could have stopped him? No one.) Having policies that cause injury but not necessarily death are kind of Wen RuoHan’s thing though. (That’s an analysis for another time.) Suffice to say, no one can learn their lesson if they’re dead. Indoctrination camps and supervisory offices require living, breathing people to teach and be supervised. Wen RuoHan never sought to take over the world, only to correct the obvious flaws in the world around him. Correcting Nie Dad’s arrogance and pride was such an attempt.

And the Nie Sect secrecy shot the Nie in the foot in the end. They were angry with Wen RuoHan and the Wen Sect for causing Nie Dad's death by causing his injuries by damaging the saber, but of course Wen RuoHan and the Wens would never agree with this under the known circumstances. And with them being Wens, of course they aren’t going to take the blame and no one else is powerful enough to force them. This whole situation is especially Not Their Fault from their point of view.

Nie Dad was in bed for six months without critical injuries.

Maybe the Nie Sect should have had gotten better doctors.

(And I can perfectly imagine the Wen Sect, always throwing their weight around, actually offering to send their doctors, arguably the best doctors in the cultivation world, and the Nie Sect refusing because what ailed Nie Dad was not something the Nie Sect wanted to share. Nie MingJue allowing his sworn brothers to help him shows he learned from the experience of his father’s death, but I digress.)

We know all of this to be true because Wen RuoHan, years later at the start of the Sunshot Campaign, speaks of the Nie Sect as a place where people die in part because of their personality type and in part because the Nie Sect itself fails to care for them:

...the Qinghe Nie Sect's sect leader [Nie MingJue] was so stiff that he'd easily snap in half--soon afterward, no need for others to move and he'd die in his own people's hands sooner or later... (ch. 61, ERS)

And considering what we know about the saber spirits, this is a pretty good deduction when Wen RuoHan is missing the saber spirit cornerstone. The Nie Sect has a cultivation tradition that kills them. Obviously it’s in the hands of their own people that they die, having picked up this cultivation style. Wen RuoHan also accurately determines that personality, such as Nie MingJue being inflexible, contributes to that death. It is the build-up of anger and resentment that eventually pushes the Nie cultivator to snap and fall into a qi deviation.

But of course Wen RuoHan also lacks the knowledge that saber spirits cause those personalities to begin with. That Nie Dad acting rigid or arrogant or harsh might not be because he’s an actual asshole, but rather because the saber spirit is effecting his temperament. With a teenage son, Nie Dad was likely pushing 40 if not already much older. We see what a juggernaut Nie MingJue already is in his early 20s. Nie Dad had more than twice the time to wreck his temperament than Nie MingJue ever did, and it still took him six months to die while in a constant state of turmoil while bed bound.

(Which really shows how deadly the Collection of Turmoil was if it could kill Nie MingJue in less than half that time. I know this post is about Wen RuoHan and the Nie, but it truly cannot be understated how horrifically cruel Jin GuangYao’s actions were when he carefully crafted Nie MingJue’s murder, especially how he would have heard from both sides how this all went down.)

In the end, Wen RuoHan obviously gained a vague idea about what happened and what the Qinghe Nie are like as a Sect, but he is, of course, missing the vital point--just as he misses the vital point when he doesn't actually try to kill Nie Dad.

#wen ruohan #sect leader nie #nie mingjue #mdzs thoughts #mdzs quotes #i am both a pro nmj and pro wrh blog so please play nicely

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aquadrazi · 3 years

Text

Find Someone to Carry You

Chapter 45

One Year Later

“I hear that they’re letting that fierce corpse run the Nie Sect.”

“Are you SERIOUS?”

“I hear he’s just helping.”

“But…he’s…”

“Look, I’m not saying it’s a BAD idea, I’m just saying…”

“Tell you what, YOU go up to Chifeng-Zun and tell him he can’t do something.”

“Let’s see how that works out for you.”

“Just make sure you’re FAR away from us when you do it.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to be impaled by association.”

“Speaking of impaling…has he killed the Jin bastard yet?”

“I don’t think so. Sect Leader Lan keeps visiting on a regular basis.”

“I wonder why they’re keeping him alive…”

“No idea, everyone ELSE who was involved with hurting the Yiling Patriarch seems to have disappeared…”

………Lotus Pier………

Sect Leader Jiang,

I shall start with business. We have received your invitation to Lotus Pier for the One Month Ceremony for Sect Leader and Madam Jin’s new daughter. The courtesy of not holding it at Koi Tower was not lost on us. I am pleased to inform you that we will be accepting your invitation.

Wei Ying expressed interest in visiting early, so he could have some time to adjust before a large number of people arrived. I’m guessing that means that this letter may arrive only JUST before us, since it looks like he’s packing as we speak.

Now, on a more personal note. Wei Ying has told me that he would like to see you. I gather the letters you two have exchanged have gone well, he has not shown me their contents, but he is excited when a new one arrives, and seems to be in a pleasant mood afterwards.

His nightmares and panic attacks are becoming fewer and farther between, so I think we might finally be over the worst of it. He does still fixate on his experiments. Is that something that he has always done, or this this a new thing that has developed?

If you see Jin Ling before we do, the rest of the Juniors would like to send their regards. They also said that there was to be some sort of…ceremony? Celebration? I wasn’t sure as to what they were speaking about, just that some sort of milestone had been achieved and they were going to “kidnap him for some fun”. I’m guessing there will probably be large quantities of alcohol involved.

It looks like I shall have to send this letter off now, since there appears to be a small fire…

Regards,

Lan Wangji

Jiang Cheng carefully folded the letter and placed it in the box with the others. He had been corresponding with Lan Wangji for about a year now. Ever since he returned to Lotus Pier. They still hadn’t located Jin Zixun, but he couldn’t spend the rest of his life waiting in the Nie Stronghold. He had a Sect to run after all. He was confident that if anyone could find him, Nie Huaisang’s spies could.

“Please have my brother’s rooms prepared. He is coming to visit.” Jiang Cheng told a servant. In traditional Yunmeng Jiang fashion, he soon heard the excited and bellowing calls echoing all throughout Lotus Pier “Wei Wuxian is coming home!” He smiled and let out a relieved breath.

He’s ready to see me.

I’m missed my brother.

Lan Zhan could hear the calls as he landed Bichen. It seemed that his letter had only JUST arrived, and the word was still being spread. He quickly looked at Wei Ying to see how he was doing, since all around them the news that he was coming was echoing.

Wei Ying had his head down, and was fidgeting with the hem of his outer robes. Lan Zhan placed his finger under Wei Ying’s chin and raised his head. He saw tears forming in his eyes.

“It seems they are exited that you are home.” Lan Zhan comforted.

“I didn’t think it would hit me this hard, being…home…” Wei Ying said with a small smile.

“Mn” Lan Zhan removed his finger and grabbed for Wei Ying’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Wei Ying is strong. Wei Ying is loved.” Lan Zhan had gotten used to verbalizing for Wei Ying often. It seemed to help him to recover from what he had endured, and remind him of Lan Zhan’s feelings, when his mind tried to lie to him and make him feel undeserving.

Sect Leader Jiang stood alone on the path ahead of them, as unassuming as possible. He squeezed Wei Ying’s hand again, to remind him to breathe.

“Your brother loves you. He remembers your smile, your laugh, how you used to push him in the lake…” Lan Zhan continued to list off memories and things about Wei Ying that were NOT that day in Koi Tower. This was another trick that had seemed to work in the past.

When they reached Sect Leader Jiang, he could see tears falling down his face. Before anyone could say anything he pulled Wei Ying into a hug. “I missed you so much.” He cried.

Wei Ying returned the hug just as tightly, and started crying as well. “I missed you too.”

Lan Zhan found something interesting to look at elsewhere, and let the brothers have a good cry, while the excited voices of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect echoed around them.

Wei Ying is home.

Wei Ying woke up and he realized he was alone. Not just in the bed, but Lan Zhan wasn’t in the room at all, which was strange. Lan Zhan hated leaving him alone. It was almost like he thought that Wei Ying would disappear if he didn’t look at him every few minutes. He hadn’t quite realized how much his husband had really meant it when he had said “mine” that first time, like he was some precious treasure that Lan Zhan had found and was jealously hoarding.

Not that he felt suffocated. Quite the opposite. Lan Zhan would follow him around wherever he wanted to go. Patiently wading through crowds of people in markets, or hiking up the sides of mountains to get a better view of the clouds. It didn’t matter. Wherever Wei Ying wanted to go, Lan Zhan would follow.

Wei Ying was starting to feel like something was wrong. There was no note. Lan Zhan had always either left a note, or someone had come along to visit with him, as if they had requested some time with him alone. He pulled the blanket around him tighter as he padded out of the room. He needed to know where his husband was.

He saw the lamps were lit in the main hall, which was strange for this time of night. Maybe something was wrong. Maybe Lan Zhan didn’t want to wake him, and rushed to a meeting. He could make out voices as he got closer. One was his brother. He sounds REALLY angry. One was Lan Zhan, which made him feel instantly better. One was A-Sang, which he guessed wasn’t so strange. Who else would have prompted a meeting like this in the middle of the night. He also made out the sound of a muffled voice, like someone talking into a gag.

Since Wei Ying had grown up in Lotus Pier, he was VERY aware of how to sneak into the main hall and eavesdrop unnoticed. It wasn’t HIS fault that Jiang Cheng had decided to rebuild everything EXACTLY the way it was before. He was feeling pretty proud of himself as he settled into his old spot…until he noticed…HIM.

Wei Ying froze, and he had trouble remembering to breathe when he saw that the muffled voice belonged to Jin Zixun. He didn’t want to be there, but he couldn’t move. He was frozen, his brain had somehow decided that if he tried to sneak back out, Jin Zixun would SEE him. He didn’t want to be SEEN.

Jin Zixun was on his knees, surrounded by Nie Guards. Lan Zhan threw up silencing talismans on the main hall, and Jiang Cheng waved his hand, sealing the room.

“Hey…now we can’t order snacks!” Nie Huaisang whined, earning him a glare from Jiang Cheng.

“I don’t plan on this taking long enough to REQUIRE snacks.” Jiang Cheng growled, causing Nie Huaisang to pout.

“We must finish this before Wei Ying wakes. Left him alone.” Lan Zhan explained.

Wei Ying wanted to shout out to him, to let him know that he was there, but his throat was sealed closed in fear. He KNEW that he was safe, there was no way that Lan Zhan would let Jin Zixun hurt him, let alone what his BROTHER would do if he even TRIED to touch Wei Ying again, but he just couldn’t move or say anything. His mind was trapping him there.

If I stay here, perfectly still, not making a sound…maybe he won’t see me…

I don’t want him to see me

I’ll be safe here.

Nobody ever found me here before

It’ll be fine

*********************Graphic torture***********************

A couple times Wei Ying had been punished by Madam Yu in this very hall, so he wasn’t surprised to see the Nie guards pin Jin Zixun to the floor and find the bolts to tie ropes to, to hold him in place. He was laying on his stomach. Jiang Cheng unleashed Zidian and began to strike him, as Lan Zhan knelt down and grabbed Jin Zixun’s wrist, feeding him spiritual energy to heal him after each hit.

Having been hit by Zidian himself, Wei Ying knew the kind of pain Jin Zixun was in. His fear began to diminish as he watched his brother mercilessly beat the man that had tortured him. The fabric of his robes was being ripped to shreds, but Lan Zhan dutifully kept knitting the skin of his back together again after each hit, prolonging the punishment.

They seem to have done this before.

I wonder how many times…

When it looked like Jin Zixun was going to pass out from the pain, A-Sang drew up a talisman and flung it at him. Wei Ying supposed it was to keep him awake.

Jiang Cheng stopped. “Flip him over, and remove his robes.” He ordered the guards, panting for breath. He looked like a wild animal. He clearly not controlling his rage at all.

Jin Zixun was now spread out on the floor, in an X, naked and sobbing. Jiang Cheng continued to whip him with Zidian. He shrieked and screamed as his tender flesh was lashed over and over. Lan Zhan continued to knit it together as fast as Jiang Cheng broke it open.

I wonder how long they’re going to do this.

Are they going to continue until Jiang Cheng gets tired?

Jiang Cheng moved from Jin Zixun’s torso to his thighs, also landing hits across his exposed cock and balls. The first time it happened Jin Zixun couldn’t even scream. He looked like he was choking and his entire body had seized up. The inhuman scream he let out a couple of seconds later caused A-Sang to cover his ears and grimace.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Jiang Cheng began to tire. He huffed and hunched over, continuing to glare at Jin Zixun as he sobbed on the ground. He took the end of Zidian, and wrapped it around Jin Zixun’s cock, starting at the base, and wrapped it around, all the way to the tip, encasing it. He then sat down on the ground and sent pulses of electricity through Zidian. Lan Zhan let go of Jin Zixun’s wrist and let Zidian’s damage take hold.

Slowly, Zidian scorched and burned at Jin Zixun’s cock. Jiang Cheng would yank on Zidian, pulling Jin Zixun’s cock away from his body, and watch as he shrieked and arched his back, trying to relieve the pulling.

************End of Graphic Torture************

It was a horrible scene, and Wei Ying couldn’t stand it any longer. He uncurled himself and slowly slid down from his hiding spot. No one seemed to notice him as he padded towards his brother, they were all fixated on the writhing man on the floor. He knelt down next to his brother and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Jiang Cheng looked up at him with wide, questioning eyes. Wei Ying slowly unsheathed Sandu, and padded over to Jin Zixun, the blanket still draped over his shoulders like a cape. He lifted up Sandu with both hands, and looked into Jin Zixun’s eyes as he drove it straight through his heart. Wei Ying wanted him to know that he was showing the mercy that he was never given himself. He was allowing Jin Zixun to die, and end his pain.

He stood there for a minute, leaning on Sandu for support because he was shaking so badly. Finally, he felt Lan Zhan come up behind him and scoop him up, cradling him to his chest as he carried him back to his room.

The One Month Celebration was a boisterous and borderline disorderly affair, like most in Lotus Pier. Jiang Cheng had a feeling that it had everything to do with the presence of his brother. Everyone just seemed…happier, louder, more excited… over the past few weeks since he had come to stay. It was like the grim blanket that had shrouded Lotus Pier had been lifted and Wei Ying had brought the sun and the breeze with him.

Once Jin Ling’s friends had arrived for the ceremony, the excitement just rose a few levels. Wei Ying had taken to basically playing with the Juniors, like a big kid. He still can’t get the picture out of his head of the day he found them in the lake, having some sort of battle that involved one person swimming while another person was on their shoulders, trying to knock another group over with sticks. When he asked Lan Wangji about it he had just shrugged and told him that there WERE rules, he was just unaware as to what they were.

Jiang Cheng had found himself often over the past few weeks, sitting with Lan Wangji, watching his brother have fun. Letting the warmth of his brother’s smiles and laughter wash over him and cleanse him of all the anger and the hurt he had been carrying for years.

One day, after all the guests had left except for Wei Ying and Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng found his brother sitting at the end of the pier with his feet in the water, staring off at nothing. Jiang Cheng sat down next to him, and he turned to look at him, with a small smile on his face.

“Is this really all real?” He asked with wonder.

“Of course it is, you idiot.” Jiang Cheng responded, punching him lightly in the shoulder.

“Oh.” Wei Ying replied, then a twinkle entered his eye. “Then I guess you’re going to be mad that I probably ACTUALLY burned down the side shed.”

“You-“ Jiang Cheng flushed.

Wei Ying laughed and jumped up, sprinting away from Jiang Cheng.

“Come back here so I can break your legs!”

“You’re going to have to catch me first!”

#mdzs fic #the untamed #graphic torture #family feels #wangxian #brothers

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satan-chillin · 3 years

Text

Preface

Wei Wuxian puffed up his cheeks, waving his words dismissively. “Still not fair.” He poked the stick on the same spot he burrowed. “If I’m to build a school, I won’t bother with a thousand rules, or even a hundred.” He sent Nie Mingjue a glance before his eyes darted back to the dirt. “For one thing, I won’t punish anyone who simply defended my family’s honor.”

Nie Mingjue was quiet for a while. “You heard.”

In retrospect, it's a bit of an odd start of a friendship.

(Or: in which Nie Minjue is the Second Young Master Nie)

Also available in Ao3

When Nie Mingjue marched straight to Lan Qiren to meet his punishment for his committed infraction, he did so with upright posture and squared shoulders.

The disciples who had witnessed the incident quickly avoided his path. The expression on his face that, frankly, Nie Mingjue had no idea what looked like either, was enough for them to turn away their shocked gazes to gape instead at the spot he just left.

Nie Mingjue had felt a peculiar sense of calm that he usually couldn’t achieve with hours of meditation. Baxia, who had been previously irritated to be left alone in his quarters, purred her satisfaction and glee through their shared connection like a faint thrum of strings at the back of his head.

He announced his presence to Lan Qiren and did not waste time to explain what happened once granted entry. Respectfully, Nie Mingjue ignored the bafflement from his usually stern instructor. Lan Qiren cleared his throat, recovering the next moment as he gestured for him to stand up from his bow and ordering him to spend the whole evening kneeling to mull over the Gusu Lan rule he had broken.

Nie Mingjue was prepared to copy the rules by hand, with a handstand or otherwise; it was as if he was being let off easily. Lan Qiren must have sensed his doubt, adding that it was simply a reflection for the both of them. He admitted that even he wasn’t certain what was the appropriate punishment to inflict, and if he understood that Nie Mingjue acted in righteous defense, he didn’t voice it. Nie Mingjue would know the following morning what was to be done with him.

He came across Lan Xichen on his way, bowed his greeting, and promptly excused himself to begin his reflection, tightlipped despite the warm and open, if a bit concerned, expression by Zewu-jun that was seemingly imploring him to talk to him. Nie Mingjue had no relationship with the older man to speak of, unlike his older brother who he might have been close friends with at some point, but he knew enough of Zewu-jun's character to believe that he would listen.

He was still in hearing distance to catch Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren discussing his visit when he went on his way.

Nie Mingjue hit the gravel resolutely, unminding as the points dug against his pristine disciple robes and the skin of his knees and legs. He folded his hands on his lap and began to meditate, mind carefully easing into a state of tranquility where he drifted back to the smell of pines, of ink, and of lemons and chai.

He thought of the few hours on a pleasant day spent on a low table across from his older brother, with a particularly aromatic tea between them, or, if Nie Mingjue was given the chance, his latest shabby attempt on the spicy braised pork. The latter was usually accompanied by his sullen recollection of the cook's fussy distress at his presence in the kitchen, much to his older brother's amusement time and time again.

Nie Mingjue tried not to think of the latest letter from home. A night hunt was all his brother said in his missive written in the special ink reserved for subjects only he was privy of. Although Nie Minjue took pride that he held his brother's confidence and was not being left in the dark with the pretense of protecting him from the truth, he couldn't help the same measure of apprehension for the message and the underlying meaning of it.

He knew what night hunt his brother spoke of.

It was a considerable number of hours later, with the dawn already at his back, when Nie Mingjue paused, looking past his shoulder at the slight noise. He heard someone sighing in disappointment at being discovered.

"Do you have eyes at the back of your head or something?" Wei Wuxian muttered as he went beside him to imitate his pose. At the noncommittal grunt he received in return, he pouted.

Nie Minjue was tempted to say that Wei Wuxian wasn't exactly the subtlest of people, but that could be taken as an invitation for mischief. Then again, if Lang Wangji's silence wasn't enough to deter Wei Wuxian, Nie Mingjue's wouldn't be an exception. The fact that Wei Wuxian was being punished, again, was already an omen.

He watched as Wei Wuxian's attention was immediately on the lying twig which he poked the gravel with, burrowing a hole on the ground.

“What is it this time?” Nie Mingjue asked; Wei Wuxian’s presence wasn’t a prelude to a quiet evening, after all. Certainly not when he would eventually lament missing dinner.

“Broke the barrier past curfew,” Wei Wuxian chirped. At Nie Mingjue’s scoff, he defensively added, “Hey, I’m only a minute late.”

“You don’t see the rule allowing a minute of grace period either.”

“Yeah, well, that’s inconsiderate.” Wei Wuxain crossed his arms defiantly. “What if you were supposed to get back right on time but got caught up with something important?”

“Like what exactly?”

“Oh, I don’t know, like when you lost your pass and you have to retrace your steps where you might have lost it.”

“That’s negligence,” Nie Mingjue said. “Hardly anyone’s fault but yours.”

Nie Mingjue was quiet for a while. “You heard.”

“It’s what everyone’s talking about when I came in,” Wei Wuxian said simply. “Ah, I didn’t believe it at first until I heard it from a Lan disciple. Be proud that you made someone break the no gossiping rule there. And good job decking that prat by the way. Just when I think pompousness is the only quality the Jins share.” He pointed the stick at him and grinned. “And just when I thought all you Nies are aggressive and hotheaded.”

There was no stopping Nie Mingjue’s snort at that. “I proved your point then.”

Wei Wuxian made a noncommittal noise. “I’m not sure you can call that fighting in the first place. He insulted your brother, a sect leader, and you knocked him out for it. It’s a clear-cut situation. If anything, I think he got off easy. If you are what the rumors said then he’d be crawling back to Jinlintai with broken legs.”

Well, that was new. Nie Mingjue was used to people believing he was a kettle nearing a boiling point, someone who was prone to lashing out and was slow to forgive. Their impression got better as he grew older, broader, and bigger. He was never out of place among cousins and distant kins. Nie Mingjue belonged with the men that served the Nie Sect. Instead, they called him proud—and he was—and someone quick to anger but fair; a young man who had the qualities that made a perfect Nie.

Just like his father before him and so unlike his older brother, they would say. Why wasn’t the second son born first?

Stifling down his ire at hearing those common words led to him developing longer patience and fewer thoughts on wanting to smack those who thought his older brother was any less of a man for being sickly and of a delicate constitution as they were led to believe. Because his older brother never made an appearance in public since his supposed qi deviation subsequent to the death of their father and his ascension as the sect leader behind closed doors, it was equated as having a weak leader.

A pushover, Nie Mingjue had called him when he hadn’t known any better, young and impatient as he had been. A boy grieving for his dead father and an older brother who no longer had the time to spare for him. He had had the mind to repeat the insulting names that he had heard in passing, words that he hadn’t initially believed until Wen Ruohan dared to establish a supervisory office in their border unhindered. Nie Mingjue remembered the fury at the slight, but what he remembered being furious for was Nie Huaisang letting the insult be.

It wasn’t until he stormed his older brother’s private chamber to personally bring his and the restless people’s grievance that he stopped and considered what he truly knew of the matter.

Nie Mingjue recalled that day with vivid clarity: his older brother sitting behind a low table with strewn papers and documents surrounding him. He looked older, his face sharper and withdrawn with dark circles underneath his eyes, eyes that were familiar to smiles and held gentleness for small animals and a younger brother who was rather tall for his age but who he called precious nonetheless.

There was a storm of anger for the brief moment that Nie Mingjue stood there to take the sight of Nie Huaisang, who, contrary to popular belief, was not bedridden and was moving about. Easily, his older brother smiled at Nie Mingjue brightly and melted whatever hurt and rage he might have in his chest. Nie Mingjue should have been mad, should have felt betrayed that his brother was hiding from him, but his brother was alright all along and wasn’t in imminent danger of leaving him alone and that was all that mattered to the lonely boy that was Nie Mingjue.

He had not understood then why he was asked for his secrecy of his brother’s true state, but he agreed. Pleased, Nie Huaisang embraced him tightly. “You’re the only one I can trust, A-Jue,” was whispered to him.

Then, on the third evening that followed, Nie Mingjue, in what he had thought was a lucid dream, was led by the hand by his older brother. They walked sedately, unminding of anyone who might recognize them in the middle of the night a good distance from the Qishan Wen border. When asked about their destination, Nie Huaisang smiled serenely at him and squeezed his hand.

Within the hour, the mountainside blazed in a fiery light that burned on Nie Mingjue’s sight and mind, as if a Fire God had come down to rain down its wrath that swallowed that damned supervisory office whole. Nie Mingjue returned to sleep dreaming of the fire and his older brother apologizing softly for missing out on his eleventh birthday.

No one knew. No one knew what Nie Huaisang truly was capable of. Oh, they were right that they were not alike despite their shared blood. Where Nie Mingjue would rather be direct and face an enemy head-on, his brother worked in the shadows to take revenge bit by bit at their father’s murderer and who never received credit for the victories he perpetrated as stepping stones to his ultimate goal.

“It’s enough for me that you know,” Nie Huaisang would say, and all the more Nie Mingjue loved and admired him for it.

Where Nie Mingjue began to make a name for himself in leading successful night hunts in haunted forests and abandoned villages, Nie Huaisang’s hunting ground was in Wen outposts and prison encampments. Where Nie Mingjue was famed for his skill with the saber at a young age, Nie Huaisang was capable of tricks and deception through his creativity with paints and expertise in subtle performance. He could appear either as a noble or a commoner, a local or a foreigner, or as an older man or a young woman. The latter which Nie Mingjue had admittedly taken the time to get used to.

Nie Mingjue could only wish he was half the man his older brother was, therefore striving to be the heir that Sect Leader Nie could be proud of. His older brother sent him to the Cloud Recesses to study with the very intention of letting Nie Mingjue have the experience of attending lectures with his peers ( you’re young, A-Jue, make friends and enjoy your youth while you still can ), and while he understood making connections who he could form alliances with later, now that war was seemingly inevitable in the near future, it didn’t mean that Nie Mingjue wouldn’t try to be the best of his generation. He was looking forward to sending a letter of his full marks to his brother soon—if a letter about what had transpired earlier wouldn’t reach him first.

At his periphery, he caught Wei Wuxian observing him, uncharacteristically silent. When Nie Mingjue raised an eyebrow, he sighed. “Shame I wasn’t there. I would have cheered for you.”

“Not worth the trouble,” Nie Mingjue muttered with a twitch of a smile. It was hard not to around Yungmeng Jiang’s head disciple, he found during his minimal interactions with him. The most notable perhaps was when he had invited him, drunk, for a ‘communal reading experience’ that Nie Mingjue had not bothered to find the meaning of before dumping him back to his shared quarters with Jiang Wanyin who had been utterly mortified that evening and had been relieved that it hadn’t been Lan Wangji who had found his foster brother.

“If it was me, they’d have to pry me from that bastard who badmouthed anyone from my family,” Wei Wuxian declared, hitting his fist with an open palm. “I don’t blame you. Lan Qiren shouldn’t either. And if Sect Leader Jin has sense, he won’t make much of a fuss about it. It wasn’t his peacock of a son at least, so there’s that.”

Peacock of a son… “Jin Zixuan?”

“Mmh. That one doesn’t know shijie’s worth. If he’s also the one who insulted your brother, all the more reason to kick his ass.”

Nie Mingjue doubted that Jin Guangshan’s son would lack propriety, but he was familiar with protectiveness over siblings, something he could empathize with Wei Wuxian.

"Of course," he humored.

Wei Wuxian proved to be a distraction from what started as an onerous mood with his jovial personality and penchant for mischief that he was determined to involve Nie Mingjue in. While Nie Mingjue would gladly take his punishment, he didn't have to particularly look forward to it. Perhaps, though, tomorrow wouldn't be so bad with Wei Wuxian who liked to run a commentary on almost everything about the Cloud Recesses, why Yunmeng was infinitely better, and why the Second Jade of Lan would benefit with smiling more. The last one was a peculiar subject that made way to Wei Wuxian's recollection of his antics so far in Gusu, which were a lot, as it turned out. Nie Mingjue barely knew and heard half of it.

His older brother might have meant to say that he was to get acquainted with responsible young masters and disciples and not troublemakers, but if this was a start of a friendship… then Nie Mingjue wasn't about to complain.

#mdzs fic #mdzs #cql fic #cql #untamed #fanfic #fanfiction #nie mingjue #nmj #cql nmj #mdzs nmj #wei ying #wei wuxain #mo dao su zhi #nie bros #nie brothers #wwx #cql wwx #nie huaisang

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anthropwashere · 3 years

Text

TAG: WORD FIND

Ty @faenova for the tag! My words are abrupt, key, scare, and tie! First three fics are DP, last two are FMA.

your silence is my favorite sound

scare: The routine begins again, a crackly boombox keeping aggressive pace in the far corner. She's already decided to burn it before the day is out. Her attention drifts; not for the first time she wishes they were nearer a larger city rather than dead center in yet another stretch of cookie cutter cul-de-sacs filled with cookie cutter families and their cookie cutter thoughts—if any of them can be bothered to think at all. She's tired of suburbanites gawking down their noses at her and the rest of the troupe, as if they're less for being what Freakshow made of them. She aches for excitement, for fear. She can't remember the last time she truly got to scare anyone.

making maps out of your dreams

scare(d): {Confused,} you chitter once you're both settled. {Where? Where before? Scared. Tired.}

{Confused,} the other agrees. {Tired. Rest.}

{Where? How? You?}

{Rest,} it repeats, and elbows you. Static jumps between your green hides, sharp and startling. You both hiss pain. You snarl, daring it to try that again. In turn it makes a new sound, something—grinding. Mechanical. You think of running water, a tangy and clean smell, the ability to make that sound via the flick of an innocuous switch. You have no idea what any of that means. You're pretty sure in this context the noise the other's making is supposed to be laughter. Let it laugh. You know by the tightness gathered at its red eyes that it's as scared as you are.

You curl in on yourself and try to remember the meaning of sleep.

some say we’ll see armageddon soon

abrupt(ly): Better late than never he falls through the apartment before the ghost can sink its huge horsey teeth into him again, swooping through somebody's living room and out a window to land a solid punch to the back of its head. He regrets it immediately. Sure, it sounds like the ghost doesn't appreciate getting clocked at something like 60 miles per hour by a guy strong enough to dent steel, but he also earned himself another shock for his effort. It's pure luck his abruptly clamping teeth don't bite his tongue in half.

The ghost peels off, whinnying furiously. Danny doesn't hit the sidewalk four stories below by dint of sheer stubbornness. He groans, residual tremors leaving him feeling nearly as weak as a hit from the stupidly-named Plasmius Maximus. He has to look at his hands to check he hasn't reverted back. It's not even much of a relief to see white gloves instead of human hands; he still has to beat this asshole.

i’m still, still dreaming magnificent things

abrupt(ly): “It’s no different from a child who hides the sheets after he wets the bed,” Dad continues mildly. There’s no anger in his voice, only disappointment. It’s somehow so much worse. “You were running away.”

“Stop it,” Alphonse pleads. “Don’t—”

Ed loses what little restraint he had. Ed screams. “What would you know?! You're the one who left us! You've got no right—!"

And just as abruptly, Ed breaks off, face twisting in some miserable mix of fury and grief as he spins on his heel, making a beeline for the cemetery's entrance.

Alphonse jumps in front of Dad the moment he sees his mouth open to call after Ed. "Leave it alone. Please, Dad, don't push him—"

your head will lie in dust

abrupt: “Damn,” Zampano mutters. “I got it,” Ed says, and claps his hands.

Hohenheim hauls Zampano back as hungry tongues of red light lash out from Ed's feet, deconstructing without bias, reconstructing with shocking speed. The different materials smear and tangle with one another to create a clear path, abstract and abrupt, scaly with transmutation marks sharp enough to cut. Concrete and steel melt, waxlike, into each other. Blue uniform fabric is pinned in place by rivets of yellow bone. Pink muscle ribbons through soft organ meat and polished boot leather. Pale fluids streak down the walls as the transmutation light dies out. The sudden sunlight is blinding after long minutes in near-darkness.

“Damn,” Zampano mutters again, far more shaken.

key: Nazeri cackles. So much for avoiding civil war. Just imagine!

Hohenheim smiles to himself, slotting Lan Fan’s arm into its port and reaching for the hex key he needs to connect the nerves. They’ll just have to wait and see how well Ling Yao and Greed share the throne, won’t they?

O God, Nur groans. Anything but that.

scare: Mei Chang finds him here. She is small, young, fragile. Twelve years old? Thirteen? Only a little younger than his boys, and all alone in this vast and echoing wasteland. “Are you all right?”

He smiles, because that’s what people are supposed to do when someone is concerned; reassure and lie in order to placate social norms. “I’m fine, thank you.”

She eyes him, fidgeting. Thoughts weigh down her shoulders.

You make her nervous, Hohenheim, Shahzad says, delighted.

Rostami laughs. Scare her out of her wits, I think. The other two have been gossiping.

And she’s the only alkahestrist of the lot, Samad adds. You remember how those dusty scholars prettied up your life into neat fables. She must be so disappointed to meet the great Sage himself and have him turn out to be you.

tie: It’s evening now, and [redacted] have been given rooms near the makeshift infirmary. They’ve both recovered from [redacted], at least enough that they no longer stumble or slur, but they’re too exhausted to keep their eyes open. Hohenheim can only imagine what it must be like for them, reconciling how cavernous a body is with only one soul rattling around inside it. How well did he tie their souls to their flesh, their minds to their brains? Do their own thoughts echo out in those empty spaces he didn’t heal right?

Only time will tell.

I tag @kinglazrus, @x-rainflame-x, @thephilosophersapprentice, @presumenothing, and @zombiemerlin!

#my writing #danny phantom #fma #magnificent things #your head will lie in dust #i always wonder what these tag games read like without context

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ruensroad · 4 years

Note

Dragon god au prompt 3 - wangxian first meeting?

AHHH thank you so much! I’m glad people are enjoying this AU! More of the Dragon God ‘verse here!

Prompt from this list here!

Prompt 3 | “Don’t be nervous, you can come closer.” | Wangxian

There was something almost soothing about the fire below. Even from the cliff, he could hear the sizzle and bubbling of the lava, the creak of rock crumbling in the immense heat. It was a forbidden, forsaken place, so different from the Lake that had claimed his brother’s soul. Here, it was open air, a thousand foot drop, and hissing shadows. Mysterious, yet foreboding.

It would be enough for any man to turn away and go back the way they came. Too many ghosts screamed in the air, too many dark flickers laughed in the corner of the eye. The tales, so often flourished, had not been wrong about this place, this Burial Mound. To die here was to become just another spirit lost, should the Dragon God who had claimed it found him wanting.

He should have turned back miles ago, at the base of the mountain. Should care more about what the stories would say, this tragic Lan who killed himself after his own brother’s brave sacrifice. What a shame, what a shame.

It was for his brother he was here at all, looking down into the fiery pit, and felt nothing but calm, resolution. Anger.

“I am here to seek audience with the Dragon of Yiling,” Lan Wangji said, bold and sure, before turning his back to the cliff as tradition dictated. The sacrifice must face their home, all they were leaving, and go backwards, just as his brother had done, eyes never leaving Lan Wangji’s as he slowly disappeared under the water.

Only the air here was there to swallow him, and with a step backwards he was off the cliff, tumbling in a total freefall into the rest of his life. Or his death, should the Dragon God ignore him. Either way, he was going with a clear mind and determination, and if this was death he’d meet it gladly.

Feeling the hot air slow him, cradle him, was a victory. As the starry sky above dissolved into ashes and fire, his world began to glow with black rock and vibrant magma, down and down and down, until he was gently set on his feet at the bottom of the world.

The cave was huge, with a sprawling estate nestled in-between glowing rocks. He was startled to see shadows moving from building to building, and realized that they were people, or what were once people, hustling as though this grand place was not in the bowels of the earth, but a town no different than Lan Wangji’s own home, open and carefree.

Then the smoke came, billowing around his ankles, sweeping his robes, and he turned. The darkness behind him was absolute, save for two glowing red eyes at his own height, and the impression of flashing white teeth - a grin - in the blackness.

“Do not fear,” the Dragon of Yiling told him, voice far more low and almost soothing than a cursed beast’s should ever be. “Approach, let me see the mortal who dares to come so willingly.”

It was not a pleasant sentence, nearly mocking, and Lan Wangji wondered how many had come before to meet this creature face to face, boastful and foolish. He stepped forward into a patch of glowing light and held his head high, for he was neither a boastful fool or ignorant. He had a purpose and this Dragon God would know it.

Those eyes did indeed take on an impressed gleam the longer they stared at one another, then with a whisper of air the Dragon God was slowly circling him, like a vulture, or a wolf, eyeing him like meat, like something confusing, but interesting, and funny.

Seeing the boyish smile, the utterly handsome face was a shock to Lan Wangji’s senses, one that did not go unnoticed, if the way that grin only sharpened meant anything, unbound and wild. “So, tell me mortal, what do you seek? My treasure? My power? Do you yearn to conquer the world, perhaps? Or win a war?”

He said this as though all had been asked of him, far too many times, and Lan Wangji remembered the screams above and the laughter that followed them. So, the Dragon of Yiling did not suffer fools. All the better.

“Your name,” Lan Wangji said, because it was true enough, and was pleased to see the Dragon stumbled just a little, caught off guard.

“Oh?” He recovered quickly, but something like hope was starting to light in his eyes. In one graceful movement, he got his finger under Lan Wangji’s chin and lifted, just enough, baring his throat to that toothy, toothy smile. He did his best not to swallow too thickly, or fear the obvious danger. “And tell me, gorgeous prince, what would you do with my name?”

Lan Wangji looked at him through his lashes with the way his head was tilted, and hummed softly, unafraid. This was it, then, the moment he’d braved everything for, gave up everything for. “Mn. It’s bad form to ask someone for their hand without knowing their name,” he said, all eerie calm and watched the Dragon’s eyes widen in pure disbelief.

Then, that smile brightened, the sun reflecting on the moon, beautiful and soft and shining, all at once, and Lan Wangji felt his breath leave him in a rush, something a lot like awe lighting in his heart to that sudden warmth.

“So it is you,” the Dragon breathed, reverent and awed, and his hand dropped to take Lan Wangji’s fingers and kiss them. “I have waited a long time for you.”

He wished such words did not make his heart beat so hard, or his breath catch, but it did. He’d come for his brother, to be a Dragon’s mate and see him whenever he wanted, no barriers or restrictions, but all his planning started to unravel at such an earnest expression, full of gratitude and sweetness.

“My name is Wei Wuxian,” the Dragon of Yiling gave him, gladly, and Lan Wangji was definitely not breathing again as his palm was turned up and a kiss was softly bitten into his wrist, claiming him. “And I am honored to welcome you home.”

#ruenwrites #wangxian #dragon god au #hope this was okay!#lan wangji #wei wuxian #writing prompts

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madtomedgar · 4 years

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xichen thinks

so i don’t think xichen stays in seclusion indefinitely post-canon but i do think he takes exactly 3 years for the following reasons:

a) guilt over what he did to Wangji, especially now that it has come out that Wangji was in fact correct (mostly) and Wei Wuxian was innocent (ish) and Wangji wholly did not deserve the extremely harsh punishment that (in my head) Xichen was conflicted about giving him to begin with. Wangji got 300 lashes and 3 years in seclusion for befriending the devil, how can Xichen not prescribe the same treatment to himself for the same crime, this time one he actually committed. He’s probably 70% guilt by volume post-canon, and it’s mostly very complicated guilt that is very difficult to express or get people to understand or process or do anything concrete about punishing himself for. But this? This he can do. He could also smash his guqin or melt his sword down but that’s going to have everyone making a fuss, and he’s not a dramatic type, and it would be really hard to explain in a way that didn’t make him sound unhinged. But the exact same punishment he gave Wangji for the exact same crime? Well that’s just good old fashioned Lan sect discipline.

b) The real damage done by JGY was in shattering Xichen’s ability to trust his own judgment about who and what is right vs wrong. Wangji’s experience with Wei Wuxian helped sharpen and hone his moral compass. Xichen’s experience with Jin Guangyao brought home for him just how badly his can malfunction, and how unaware of that he can be, and how awful the consequences can be for everyone around him. It’s going to be really hard for him to resume his duties in a real way if he cannot trust his ability to judge character or courses of action, and immediately post-canon, I don’t think he can!

c) But! Xichen is good at learning and adapting, as evidenced by his different treatments of the Wei Wuxian situation (try to point out other people’s rashness but don’t push too hard on public consensus) and the Jin Guangyao situation (investigate thoroughly and carefully and collect evidence before acting on suspicion, and treat the object of suspicion with respect while doing this). He will recover his ability to trust himself and others, but (I think) will develop the ability to pry and insist on follow-up questions when needed, and to call people on it when they are clearly hiding things from him, rather than trusting that they have their reasons.

d) He needs a god damn break from being the Responsible Older Sibling, ok. And this is going to be his snapping-point on that. Because look. If Wangji is allowed to cry into his ice-cream over his dead necromancer for 16 fucking years, Xichen is allowed to be a little fucked up about accidentally stabbing his lover in the chest! Ok! Also! He was fully and completely prepared and willing to die! You don’t (or at least you shouldn’t!) go back to a high-powered high-stress job quickly after that! That’s not good! He dealt with the sect and rebuilding single-handedly while Wangji was having his issues, Wangji can deal with running the sect and calming down the other leaders single-handedly while he has his. It’s fair.

e) I cannot see Xichen leaving two people he was so close with locked in some kind of sartre-esque hell indefinitely, especially given how responsible he feels for them winding up there. He has the oldest-sibling-in-a-broken-family thing where he has a pathological need to fix other people’s relationships. That’s the whole origin of the sworn brotherhood. It’s his idea of a get-along shirt. He’s not going to leave Nie Mingjue decaying in his own resentment, and he’s not going to let what little good might be left in Jin Guangyao get burned away. That’s just not who he is as a person. And what is more healing than finally laying your sworn brothers to rest?

f) The one thing that is guaranteed to get the vengeful ghost of Jin Guangyao to terrorize Cloud Recesses is Xichen deciding to do THAT with the gift of life that Jin Guangyao gave him as his final act. Unacceptable. Illegal. He did not push you out of that temple so you could spend your whole life moping on top of a mountain.

#untamed stuff #the untamed #general warnings for like #what happens in the last episode

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thesporkidentity · 5 years

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The juniors are like ducklings and this is so adorable. Also just watching this cute zombie boy run away in chains made my heart melt. I am glad we're back to a healing zone because these interactions are so pure. Except the little brother, like I get your issues really I do but at the same time wow really living up to the over dramatic younger sibling vibe over there whip boy.

THE JUNIORS MUST BE PROTECTED yes they’re the most adorable ducklings and i love them so much. not just as their adorable selves but also like, thematically. like, so much of the story is about the middle generation (wei ying, lan zhan, jiang cheng, nie huisang, etc) trying to recover from and break away from the mistakes of the previous generation (jin guangshan, jiang fengmian, madame yu, etc) with varying degrees of success.

and in the duckling’s generation you actually see the fruits of that effort because they’re just…they’re so much more innocent than wei ying’s group had been even at their age. because on the macro level they didn’t grow up under the pall of a brewing war, they didn’t have to fight in that war at age 17. and on the micro level they’ve all been trying desperately not to repeat the horrible things their parents did to their families (lan zhan’s father’s imprisonment of their mother and his uncle’s obsessive imposing of the rules as a result, yu ziyuan and jiang fengmian’s loveless marriage that they took out of their children in aggressive and passive-aggressive ways). like lan zhan could have easily imitated his father and gone into seclusion to abandon all his duties, but instead he worked through his grief and became a mentor to the children of his clan who all seem to genuinely adore him. jiang cheng is not the greatest uncle, he’s emotionally constipated with anger issues, but you can see the huge difference between him and his mother in that jin ling desperately wants to please him but you never see fear in his eyes when jiang cheng yells about breaking his legs. like, look at that extremely petulant little bow in episode 2 when he’s under the silence spell. that is not the face of a kid who’s actually afraid of anything his uncle is saying because he’s well aware that when it comes to him at least jiang cheng is all bark no bite. whenever jiang cheng shows up his first reaction is never fear of what he will do to him.

like they’re not perfect in any way they’re still definitely struggling with their past and their own pain, but they succeeded enough that the juniors are children in the way that the main characters’ generation never really got to be. and i just love seeing that even if they’re not perfect, even if they still fuck up, that their effort wasn’t in vain. those kids are the fruits of their labor and they’re getting better even if it’s just a little bit at a time.

WEN NING IS A PRECIOUS BOY AS WELL

as for jiang cheng, i totally understand people’s frustration with him. he’s loud and angry and so. fucking. extra. just like all the time. as for myself, though, i do have a special soft spot for characters like that mostly because they remind me of my own brother when we were children. like we’re getting into tl;dr territory here and it’s a lot of detail we don’t need to get into but i just always see him in those desperate children who are so hurt and scared that all they can do anymore is lash out at the people who love them because either it proves that they still love them enough to stay or it proves that no matter what people promise them everyone will always leave. so like, i always tend to love characters like jiang cheng (or for another fandom example, edmund pevensie in narnia, or fifth-year harry potter) that other people tend to find so irritating. and like, objectively yeah they can be super obnoxious but i also just want to protect them and love them lol.

ANYWAY sorry for…all that lol. i’m glad you’re finally back to the present and can get some pain relief. (i mean there’s still pain ahead, yi city is full of knives, but at least for our main characters you get some resolution started instead of that slow descent into everything falling apart that was the flashback)

#follower replies #anonymous #/#//#///#////#/////#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #Anonymous #mdzs meta #ish

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merinnan · 4 years

Text

Nevermore - Part 6

“Shanghai?”

“Honestly, I think the hardest part is going to be flying over it on my way to the Shatterdome.”

Now that he was actually flying over the city, Lan Xichen wasn’t sure if his words earlier in the day were prophetic or a curse. The closer the chopper got, the faster his heart began to beat, until now it felt like it might leap right out of his chest. He leaned back in his seat, placing his clammy palms flat on his knees, and took several deep breaths. In, out. In, out. In, out. Once he felt his heartbeat stablilise and slow to something approximating normal, he felt ready to look out of the window again. He wanted – no, he needed – to see it again. To see how it had also healed over the past four years.

From the direction that they were approaching, many of the buildings looked the same. They would mostly be the same, he knew, since he, Nie Mingjue, and Meng Yao had been able to prevent Malerax from getting far into the city. That it had got into the city at all was still too far, but… He forced the hand that had clenched to relax. Yes, it had got into the city, but it had been contained. Most of the city had been spared. His eyes scanned over the buildings, until they were caught up the decorative logo on one of them.

A purple nine-petalled lotus adorned the side of one building, near the top. He didn’t have to be any closer to know how large the lotus was, or that it was made of steel. He recognised it well.

~~~

The lotus, ripped from the building the kaiju had smashed just before they got to it, was large enough to fit neatly into the creature’s clawed fist. When that fist hammered down on them, it was the lotus that smashed against Purple Lightning’s exterior, right where the CONN-pod was encased inside.

“These fuckers use tools now?!” Nie Mingjue shouted in disbelief as they twisted to avoid another blow.

// It’s probably mimicking us. // Meng Yao’s mental voice through the Drift was much like his physical voice, smooth and reasonable.

~ We did just throw a truck at it to get its attention, ~ Lan Xichen agreed.

Another blow collided with them, rattling them around in the motion-rig. Lan Xichen wondered if the steel lotus, with its pointed petals, did damage anything like the kaiju’s claws.

< Thanks, A-Huan, that’s such a reassuring thought. > Even Nie Mingjue’s mental voice sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth.

The comm crackled to life. “Tools…? Oh, I see…” Lan Xichen could just imagine the headshake on the other end. “Geiszler’s gonna have a field day with this.”

“He can have a field day after we kill it!” Lan Xichen shouted back as they were hit again. He felt his teeth rattle inside his skill, and could feel the gouge in Purple Lightning from the lotus.

< When the fuck did kaiju get smart? >

“LOCCENT, are you sure this one’s a Category III?”

~~~

Lan Xichen blinked and shook his head, bringing his thoughts back to the present. It had been some time since seeing a lotus had brought those memories back so clearly, but then again, this was an identical lotus to the one Malerax had briefly used as a weapon four years ago. The building was further into the city now, though. He supposed that whoever used the purple lotus had decided that moving buildings was a better option than waiting for the original building to be rebuilt.

His gaze wandered towards the harbour. There was a large gap in the buildings that he could see – probably a few blocks of missing buildings, he guessed. The buildings immediately surrounding it looked like a mish-mash of new and of skeletal disrepair. He could still see the claw marks in some of them. Further past it, the buildings were clearly newer ones. That gap must be where they’d finally felled Malerax, and where he imagined its skeleton would still be, much like other fallen kaiju in other cities around the Pacific.

Moments later, when the chopper banked around to adjust its course to go out over the harbour to the Shatterdome, he saw that he was right. Malerax’s skeleton lay in that open area, picked clean by clean-up crews, black-market opportunists, and other scavengers both human and animal. The bones were bleached white after four years’ exposure to the sun, in stark contrast to the darkened and crumbling concrete ground and buildings around them. Now that they were closer, he could see the damage done not just by the battle itself, but by the Kaiju Blue released from Malerax’s corpse, poisoning the area around it. He could see the ribbons and signs marking the Exclusion Zone, and the tiny figures of the many people ignoring them to enter the Zone for reasons as varied as those doing it. Kaiju cultists, street gangs, black market vendors, tourists come to gawk…

Shaking his head, Lan Xichen looked away from the skeleton and past the Kaiju Blue-damaged buildings towards those which have been rebuilt in the past four years. The last time he’d seen the harbour and the buildings that lined the roads from the harbour to where the kaiju’s bones now rested, it had been devastated. Now, with the exception of the Exclusion Zone and the buildings around it, the only thing that gave away the fact that anything had happened was how new all of the buildings looked, and all of them in the latest architecture rather than the mish-mash that they had been. Apart from one, he noted, which looked like…his breath caught.

That building was etched in his memory. He was sure it had been destroyed in the fighting, and yet it looked exactly as he remembered it. Had he misremembered its destruction? Hoped that it had been destroyed, and convinced himself of it? Or had the owners simply decided to reconstruct it exactly as it had been? Whichever it was, he had not expected to see it standing there, a silent reminder of when things had really begun to go so terribly wrong.

~~~

“Lighting,” the voice crackled more than usual over the comms. Purple Lightning had been fighting Malerax for over an hour now, and both jaeger and kaiju had taken a beating. “Lightning, try to pull it further back towards the harbour. The bunkers are all full, but they couldn’t take everyone. Strike Teams are on the ground and setting up an evac zone.”

“Roger, LOCCENT.”

None of the pilots said anything else aloud as they moved in unison to have Purple Lightning catch Malerax’s wrist as it swung at them. They didn’t need to – with the three of them connected in the Drift, spoken words were unnecessary unless they needed, or wanted, LOCCENT to hear what they were saying. They took a step to the side and tried to haul Malerax past them, but the kaiju dug its pointed tail into the ground, anchoring itself in place.

// Damn, if our arm-blade hadn’t snapped, now would be a perfect time to cut that thing off. //

< Is the plasma cannon recharged? >

~ Not yet. ~

They moved closer to the kaiju, raising one giant metal foot and stomping down hard on the tail. The end immediately shot up out of the ground, and lashed around uselessly where it was trapped. The other clawed fist swung towards them, connecting with their chest and sending them staggering back a step, releasing the tail but managing to grab hold of the wrist. With both hands now in their grip, they leaned forward and wrestled the kaiju back step-by-step through the wreckage of cars and buildings.

There were people in that wreckage as well, Lan Xichen knew. He hoped that their slow, hard-fought path back towards the harbour wasn’t taking them through any wreckage where there were people still alive. He hoped that there weren’t many people in the wreckage at all, that they’d managed to evacuate into a bunker or away from danger. He hoped that, but he knew that it wasn’t likely. Malerax had been a lot faster in water than any kaiju before it, and had slipped past them while they were still landing in the water. They’d chased it through the harbour as fast as they could, but it still made landfall before they could reach it, and before the evacuation could get underway.

// Watch out for that tail! //

The warning came a moment too late, as the tail wrapped around one of their ankles and pulled. They stumbled, releasing their grip on one hand as they fell to one knee. Before they could recover and get back up, the kaiju was on their back, biting and clawing at the jaeger beneath it. One claw pierced through the gouge caused by the lotus earlier, and breached the CONN-pod.

< PLASMA CANNON! >

~ Almost there, but I can’t get a clear shot with it on our back! ~

Lan Xichen was sure he wasn’t the only one who gave a grunt of pain as the kaiju’s jaws clamped around their shoulder, but it meant the damn thing stopped wriggling enough for them to struggle to their feet, and from there to slam back into one of the buildings to dislodge the kaiju from their back with a screech of torn metal. As they turned to lay one hand on its chest, the plasma cannon recharge finally hitting green, it plunged one clawed hand through the hole it had made in the CONN-pod, tearing the hole wider and wrapping its claws around Nie Mingjue.

~ A-JUE! ~

// A-JUE! //

Both Lan Xichen and Meng Yao’s eyes flicked to their partner in horror.

< FIRE! >

“FIRE!” Nie Mingjue shouted at them as the kaiju ripped him out of the CONN-pod, cables and wires dangling in its wake. Lan Xichen felt like something was crushing his chest, a feeling which lifted as he felt Nie Mingjue’s presence ripped from his mind.

“A-JUE!” He wasn’t sure if he was the one screaming the name, or if it was Meng Yao, or if it was both of them.

“Lightning!” the crackled voice sounded both frightened and horrified. “We’ve lost Mingjue…neural handshake between Xichen and Yao failing…down to 50%...”

~ A-JUE! ~

Malerax’s fist closed around the ranger and rig it had just torn from the jaeger, then threw it to one side. Nie Mingjue’s crumpled form hit the building across what remained of the street, leaving a red smudge against the white stone as it fell towards the ground.

~ A-Jue… ~

“A…A-Huan…,” Meng Yao rasped out, voice shaking.

// A-Huan… // His mental voice was just as shaky, full of the shock at both the abrupt removal of Nie Mingjue from their Drift, and at the sudden death of their partner and lover. // Plasma cannon…you have to fire. //

Plasma cannon. Right. It was charged, had charged just before…

Lan Xichen clenched his jaw, moving Purple Lightning’s hand back into position from where it had dropped in shock of what had just happened. Nie Mingjue’s death was not going to be in vain. He fired the plasma cannon directly into the kaiju’s chest, and it bellowed in pain, pushing them away.

“Neural handshake at 60% and rising.” The relief in the voice was palpable, but Lan Xichen didn’t feel it. He felt something hollow in his chest, where something – someone – was now missing.

~~~

“…chen? Lan Xichen!”

Someone was waving a hand in front of his face and calling his name, voice full of concern. Lan Xichen blinked, then blinked again, aware of his heart racing and his breath coming far too fast. His hands were clenched into fists on his lap. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and looked to the young man opposite him with what he hoped was a reassuring smile on his face.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

The young man – what was his name again? Wen Qionglin, that was it. His uncle’s assistant. Wen Qionglin still looked concerned.

“Are…are you sure?”

“Just a bad memory,” Lan Xichen said. He began to smooth out the rumpled cloth of his pants where he’d been gripping them, and focused on bringing his breathing under control. “It’s nothing to worry about, really.”

“Um, okay. We’re about to land.”

He nodded. “Thank you,” he said, before looking out the window again. The city was now behind them, and they hovered above the Shatterdome landing pad. He could feel them slowly descending. To one side of the landing pad, he could make out a ramrod-straight figure in a dark suit. Lan Xichen didn’t have to be close enough to see his face to recognise his uncle, Marshal Lan Qiren. Almost unconsciously his already straight posture straightened a fraction more, and he checked that his forehead ribbon was properly in place. Once done, he gave Wen Qionglin another smile.

“Well. Let’s do this.”

AO3

Nevermore Masterlist

#nevermore #pacific rim #mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #the untamed #mdzs #cql #gdc #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #xicheng #3zun #lan xichen #jiang cheng #fanfic

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Niecest? With yandere!Huaisang?

Silver Mist - part 1/3 - ao3

According to Nie Huaisang’s teachers, there was a small voice in people’s heads that told them what was good and what was bad, and that voice was called the conscience.

Nie Huaisang concluded, after some observation, that this was true – for other people, that was.

Nie Huaisang himself did not appear to suffer from this particular affliction.

Which was not to say he didn’t have a small voice in his head, of course he did, only he was pretty sure it wasn’t actually telling him the difference between good and evil. When he was very young, he thought the voice might be his mother, who had died (or possibly disappeared) when he was born – it sounded a bit like the way people described her, witty and enchanting, with a fox’s face and a fox’s mind.

A poisonous beauty, they called her, and they sounded almost afraid.

His mother’s voice might not have much to say on the subject of morality, but it had plenty to say on the subject of people: how to study them and learn the weaknesses even they didn’t know of, how to flatter them and lower their guard, how to deceive their eyes and minds until they did everything you wanted. Men or women, it didn’t matter much – they were all there for the taking, ripe for the plucking, prey waiting for him to hunt them down. All he needed to do was want it and he’d be able to feast upon them at his leisure, harvest their desires for his own, eat their hearts out of their chests and pick his teeth clean with their bones.

Possibly literally.

His mother’s voice wasn’t very clear on that.

(How did a no-name no-family girl from nowhere marry a prestigious sect leader to become the second Madame Nie, a new disciple asked, laughing, not noticing how the others glared at him, what was she, a man-eating nine-tailed fox in human guise?

He didn’t last long.)

Still, no matter how much Nie Huaisang’s mother’s voice – or possibly his own – entreated and enticed him, Nie Huaisang didn’t go around convincing people to jump off cliffs or murder their spouses out of love for him, not even if he did secretly think it would be a bit funny. He might not have a little voice that told him right from wrong the way other people did, but he still had something to show him the way – something better.

He had his da-ge.

Nie Huaisang loved his da-ge.

Other people said that Nie Mingjue, the great and fearsome Chifeng-zun, was not easy to love, but what did they know? Nie Huaisang had never found it difficult. Sure, his brother was often angry, intemperate, volatile – prone to lashing out and then making it up later – cold and standoffish with those he did not trust – stern and unyielding in his righteousness, convinced of his position and unwilling to compromise – but that was all for other people.

For Nie Huaisang, his precious didi, Nie Mingjue bent his unbending spine, relaxed his rigid standards, denied his obdurate instincts, strained himself almost to the breaking point. He spoiled him and scolded him and believed in him when no one else would – he gave Nie Huaisang his heart, full and entire, laid it bleeding in his palm, before Nie Huaisang even knew that that was something he might want.

The sky could fall down, but his da-ge would still hold it up for him if he could.

And so Nie Huaisang did not, in fact, go around eating the hearts of unwary cultivators, neither metaphorically nor literally – except for a few times when he wasn’t paying close enough attention and let a little bit of that fox-face he’d inherited from his mother slip out, a handful of people falling madly in love with him and pursuing him until his da-ge beat them black and blue and kicked them out of the Unclean Realm, but no one could be held accountable for a few tiny slip-ups, surely. Nie Huaisang did not become everything that he could be, neither great nor glorious nor terrible, but rather stayed lazy and indulgent and indulged, luxuriating in his brother’s attention, whether positive or negative.

And then there was a war.

His brother was gone for months and months and months. He sent letters when he could, asked his friends to check up on him, worried endlessly about his precious little brother – but he was far away and could neither return nor allow Nie Huaisang to come to him.

It wasn’t fair.

Nie Huaisang got bored.

Maybe he also fucked his way through the Cloud Recesses, but he didn’t eat anyone’s heart in the process, so it was still mostly fine, he thought. According to the adorable stuttering version of the talk his da-ge had stumbled through for him at one point, long after Nie Huaisang already knew all about it, sex was something natural and wonderful that two people (or more) shared to express their affections for each other, nothing to be ashamed of, but also please don’t overdo it or do anything that would result in children outside of marriage, as that was more trouble than it was worth – just look at the Jin sect.

Nie Huaisang had a lot of affection to share, and avoiding by-blows was easy, with a bit of creativity; besides, there was a war on, and all those people didn’t really need their virginities, anyway.

It wasn’t enough, though. It didn’t make up for not having his da-ge.

It didn’t make up for not knowing how his da-ge was doing, because obviously he wouldn’t include details in the letters he sent and the people at the Cloud Recesses were inclined to think that Nie Huaisang didn’t need to know about the brutal realities of war, when all he wanted to know was if his da-ge was eating properly and sleeping properly and not working himself up into a stress migraine from unvented rage.

It didn’t make up for hearing that his da-ge was missing.

(He’d fucked that one out of Lan Xichen, who wasn’t supposed to say, on one of his frequent visits, licking bits of knowledge out of his mouth through grunts and thrusts and starry wide-eyed stares that seemed to be mostly puzzled at how he had been so thoroughly charmed by him.)

It didn’t make up for the sudden and horrible feeling of fright, of concern, of fear – the abrupt realization that his brother had been in danger during all this time, not merely called away by duty – the notion that he might not return – that Nie Huaisang might have to do without him forever.

And then his da-ge came back.

That was when Nie Huaisang abruptly realized that he was just too greedy to give up either his da-ge’s affection or sex, and in fact would ideally like them both at the same time.

(His da-ge had come back from the war injured. His robust spiritual energy had been drained from overuse, his strong body broken and beaten down by a force greater than him, broad shoulders bowed; his lips were pale, his limbs weak, and he clung onto Nie Huaisang as if to a savior, refusing to let him go even when urged.

Nie Huaisang liked that.

He liked that a lot.)

There was really only one problem with this little realization, beyond the obvious disappointment awaiting all of his previous lovers: unlike Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue really was possessed of that little voice that said do or don’t do, and he heard the sound of it loud and clear, even clearer than most. He was a righteous man, an upright man; even if he were to develop a sudden passion for his younger brother, who he had raised, he would die rather than act upon it.

Right, there was that bit, too – they were half-brothers, sharing the blood of the same father, but Nie Huaisang didn’t see that as a real issue. His mother’s voice laughed like a jackal when he mentioned it, and all the history books were full of salacious tales of noblemen who took twins as brides into the same bed or married someone who fell a bit too close on the family tree; the erotic works he collected as a hobby were stuffed full of such tales, and they were often among the most hotly requested for borrowing. The number of times he’d been asked to play the little didi, asking for his dearest darling gege or jiejie to give it to him hot and hard… if he had a coin for each instance, he’d be a rich man.

He already was a rich man. Maybe he ought to use some other metric.

No, the main problem was the righteousness that Nie Huaisang so admired when it was aimed at everyone but him. His brother had been making exceptions for him since the very first – why not this, too?

Still, sex was such a tricky subject for some people, and thinking back to the way his brother hadn’t looked him in the eyes for nearly a week after that initial talk, that was probably applicable here. Nie Huaisang loved his brother far too much to wish him any real harm – his brother had only the single heart, fragile and precious, and if it broke there would be no recovering it so he had to be careful – and some initial explorations, done under the guise of drunkenness, confirmed that Nie Mingjue had never considered the possibility of the two of them together in that way and almost certainly would be horrified and upset by the suggestion that Nie Huaisang had.

Forcing the issue might win him some small and temporary pleasure, since his brother didn’t know how to deny him anything, but it would shatter his brother into a million pieces to give up something so fundamental to his sense of self as his sense of righteousness.

Perhaps for someone else, that would be enough to convince them to stop.

Not so Nie Huaisang.

He was too greedy, too spoiled. He wanted what he wanted – his da-ge, in his bed, wanting him – and he’d never been denied anything he really wanted before, least of all involving his brother.

He went to his brother’s room at night.

“Da-ge,” he said with a smile. “Let me brush your hair.”

His brother grumbled something about being tired but acquiesced at once, accustomed to Nie Huaisang’s petty dictatorship of their household. He sat in front of a mirror and Nie Huaisang settled behind him, slipping his fingers into his brother’s hair and rubbing against his scalp until he could feel the tension in his brother’s body start to dissipate. He chattered as he worked, speaking of nothing and everything, and his brother at first responded with grunts and hums and occasional comments but soon enough succumbed to the feeling of safety and security and home, slipping as he relaxed into a state not unlike meditation.

He’d trained his brother well.

Normally, Nie Huaisang would only take a little advantage of his touch-starved brother’s torpor, which rendered him so very agreeable, asking for favors or presents or excuses – he’d won his first visit to the Cloud Recesses in just this way, not to mention authorization to start his aviary. In normal times, he couldn’t push too far, since what Nie Mingjue might agree to in a daze might not survive his temper when he’d returned to full sobriety, but Nie Huaisang had recently been watching his brother’s new sworn brothers using musical cultivation to soothe his brother’s ever-present temper, and it had given him all sorts of ideas.

It was easy enough to adjust his voice – Nie Mingjue wasn’t really listening to him anymore anyway – and to modulate his tone into something very near to a melody, the cadence quickening and slowing, rising and falling, infusing it with his own very special cultivation, and it wasn’t long before his brother began to instinctively incorporate the music into his own cultivation just the way he did when it was his sworn brothers who were playing for him. The situations were largely similar, after all, what with there being meditation, music, and a younger brother he trusted.

The fact that the melody was different from what Lan Xichen played, the instrument a voice rather than a guqin, was unimportant; as Nie Huaisang had hoped, his poor nearly tone-deaf da-ge either couldn’t tell the difference or didn’t care to. Nie Mingjue’s own talent took care of the rest, spreading the effect of the music through his entire body at double-quick pace, sinking him deeper and deeper into his pleasant, comfortable rest.

Nie Huaisang smiled down at his beloved brother, his fingers still deep in his hair even though the braids had long ago been fully taken out.

He leaned down and whispered in his brother’s ear, “Wake up.”

His brother’s eyes opened – but they were glassy and blank, unseeing and empty.

Nie Huaisang’s smile widened, and in the mirror he saw a grinning fox’s face where his own ought to be.

“It’s me, da-ge, it’s Huaisang,” he said, voice coaxing, his tone still half-singing. “You love me, don’t you?”

Slowly, as if his head were terribly heavy, his brother nodded.

“And if you love me, you must trust me.”

Another long, slow nod.

His smile widened still more, and the fox’s face gave way to the fox’s voice, which, it was said, could stir up the hearts of men and lead them to their doom.

“Because you trust me, you will listen to me, believe in me,” he crooned in his brother’s ear, watching in delight as the words were carried by the unconscious habit of cultivation straight into his brother’s core. “Whatever I say is how things are. Whenever you hear me hum this tune, you will remember that, won’t you?”

His brother’s brow wrinkled, just a little, instinctively fighting the spell for a moment, but Nie Huaisang pressed harder, with his cultivation and with his fingers digging into his brother’s temples, and after a moment habit kicked in, the tension released, the words accepted, the trance state complete.

His brother was as docile as a doll, as impressionable as wet clay.

His beautiful, wonderful da-ge.

For this first outing, he would not push too hard. His mother’s voice urged caution, care – the prize could not be won in haste, and if there was one quality Nie Huaisang did not lack, it was patience. He would move slowly, gently, and in the end he would get everything his black little heart desired.

Just like his mother had.

“Your didi, Huaisang, is special,” Nie Huaisang murmured in his brother’s ear. “He needs special care and love from you. You know that already, don’t you? That’s why you’re always so permissive with him, so indulgent. That’s why you let him touch you, even when you don’t let anyone else. Even where you don’t let anyone else.”

He let his fingers slip down his brother’s chest to settle into his lap, tracing lightly over the outline of his cock, even though he couldn’t really feel it through all the layers.

“You let him touch you here, sometimes,” he whispered, and the words flowed in with everything else. “And sometimes, as a treat, when he’s been good, you touch him back, make him feel good. It’s not wrong. Not when it’s Huaisang. It’s normal, natural, as easy and unremarkable as breathing – you don’t say anything about it to anyone else, but why would you? You don’t tell people about ruffling his hair, either.”

His da-ge’s eyes stared blankly into the mirror. He did not object.

“You’ll forget about this conversation when it’s done,” Nie Huaisang told him. “Every time I hum this song for you, you’ll return to how you are now, nice and relaxed and quiet and listening, and when you wake up you forget it, every time. That’s normal, too, and nothing to worry about.”

That should be enough for today, he thought. A small adjustment, yet well within the realm of what he could play off as a laugh if the spell didn’t take – and if it did, it would edge his da-ge’s mentality a little closer to what he wanted, to a world where his righteous brother didn’t perceive that there was anything wrong with bedding his own half-brother, his little spoiled fox that he loved so much.

Each future time he took his da-ge down into the quiet, he would reinforce the command, move him just a little closer to there – it would be like replacing a single item in a room at a time, moving so slowly and delicately that the person in the room didn’t ever realize that the room had completely changed.

“Time to wake up, da-ge,” he said, and snapped the connection between them.

A moment later, his brother’s eyes cleared up.

“Are you still not finished?” Nie Mingjue complained, as Nie Huaisang had all but expected. “Some of us wake up early, you know.”

“I was being thorough!” Nie Huaisang protested, rolling his eyes at the mirror and watching his brother smile at him. “You’re always telling me to be! It’s all ‘work on your follow-through, Huaisang’, ‘don’t give up halfway through, Huaisang’, ‘finish what you set out to do, Huaisang’ –”

“All right, all right. Off with you. And go to bed this time, I don’t want to see you at breakfast with circles under your eyes because you stayed up until dawn again, you hear me?”

Nie Huaisang raised his hands in surrender. “Da-ge’s so mean,” he pouted. “I do all that hard work for da-ge, working until my hands hurt, and da-ge just sends me away to bed?”

He got an eye roll in return. “You’re the one who barged in here and insisted on it!”

“I still did it! That means I deserve a reward,” he insisted, leaning back on the bed, spreading his legs.

A hint, although it could be laughed away as innocent if needed.

“You’re so spoiled,” his da-ge complained, but he stretched out his arms high above his head, twisting and cracking the air out of his back and neck, and seemed pleased enough by his improved flexibility. “All right, all right. You big baby. You can’t do anything yourself, can you?”

“Nope,” Nie Huaisang said with a grin, watching as his da-ge climbed onto the bed next to him, his expression open and free and relaxed, and started to open Nie Huaisang’s clothing as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do, his hand sliding down to wrap around Nie Huaisang’s cock as if he’d done this a hundred times before – although the clumsiness of the action suggested otherwise. “I depend on my da-ge for everything.”

“You really do,” Nie Mingjue grumbled, starting to pump Nie Huaisang’s cock firmly. Nie Huaisang made a happy sound, bucking his hips up encouragingly – he’d been hard since he first walked into the room, and honestly the feeling of a plan working out just as he’d intended was very nearly as good as the actual physical pleasure of having his da-ge’s hand on him for the very first time. “What am I going to do with you, Huaisang?”

“Many things,” Nie Huaisang giggled. “Many, many things.”

#mdzs #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #niecest #my fic #my fics #silver mist #mind the ao3 tags #dubcon #hypnosis #mind control #man-eating fox NHS #Anonymous

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queenmorgawse · 5 years

Text

bang bang, there goes your heart

here’s some modern / espionage au sangcheng as a somewhat belated birthday gift for @hua-lian !! once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JY, ilysm and i hope you enjoy this. <3 ( read on ao3 + end notes )

For the eighteenth time in the span of twenty-four hours, Jiang Cheng asks himself how the hell he ended up here — stuffed in a janitor’s closet, with his heart racing in his chest and about two inches of breathing room between his face and Nie Huaisang’s.

It begins, as all disastrous stories do, with a dare from Jiang Cheng’s idiotic brother.

“You wouldn’t have the guts.”

“Like hell I wouldn’t.”

In retrospect, it really is laughably easy to get Jiang Cheng to do anything, especially when your name is Wei Wuxian and even a slight smirk from you can be enough to send him spiraling downward into an ocean of spite. It’s like they’re eight, not twenty-eight.

The mission isn’t even anything complicated. Get in, socialize, wheedle the right information out of the right people, plant a few cameras and microphones here and there, get out. ( Wei Wuxian is not actually dumb enough to suggest they pull this kind of stunt during an assignment that requires their full focus, much as Jiang Cheng hates to admit it. )

“You’ve got to go together anyway, don’t you?” His brother flutters his lashes at him, and any charitable thought towards him Jiang Cheng might have entertained immediately vanishes from his head. “Why not as a couple?”

“What am I getting out of it?” Jiang Cheng grits out. After twenty years of knowing each other, he’s learned to exploit an opportunity when he can.

“If you do it, Lan Zhan and I will do it next time we have to be undercover together,” Wei Wuxian declares, and Jiang Cheng snorts.

“With you? Like he’d let you.” If he’s being honest with himself, he’ll admit that one was mostly to get a rise out of the other. Lan Wangji will definitely let him pass as his fake boyfriend, fiancé, husband, whatever he asks of him, a fact obvious to all but the interested party.

Whatever. It’s not the point. If they go, Wei Wuxian might finally clue in on Lan Wangji’s feelings, and then Jiang Cheng will (hopefully) be free of his oblivious pining. What’s one evening of pretending against that?

“Fine!” he snaps, and Wei Wuxian’s face lights up. “I’ll do it, but only if Nie Huaisang agrees.”

“I doubt he wouldn’t,” the other retorts, intently checking out his own nails. “You’ve got to change your personality for this thing, which is clearly your most disagreeable trait, so once that’s done, anyone would jump on the chance of going on a not-date with you.”

Jiang Cheng launches himself across the desk at him.

The evening even started out well. No one even glanced twice at their forged invitations, the appetizers weren’t half bad, and Nie Huaisang clearly charmed at least one of the targets they were supposed to. Everything goes exactly according to plan, until Jiang Cheng spots an unfortunately familiar set of faces across the room and swears under his breath.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he says with the most convincing smile he can, crossing the room and tugging at Nie Huaisang’s elbow. “Darling,” the pet name leaves a strange taste on his mouth, though not an unpleasant one, “can we walk out for a minute? Family emergency.”

The lady across from them makes sympathetic noises and waves away Nie Huaisang’s apologies. Jiang Cheng watches him deliver a few more carefully chosen lines about how sorry he is and how he’ll be delighted to bask in the light of her company again when their business is taken care of before he lets himself be led away.

“What is it?” Huaisang asks the moment they’re out of earshot.

Jiang Cheng jerks his chin towards the entrance, where a commotion is visibly kicking up some metaphorical dust. “Wen Chao, some new girl of his and Wen Zhuliu just got here.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes widen. “What? Qishan didn’t notify us.”

“When do they ever tell us anything important?”

“...Good point. What do we do?”

Jiang Cheng only hesitates for a fraction of a second. “Lie low, tell the boss so they can take it up with Qishan themselves, and follow what they’re doing on the cameras we already placed. Wen Chao won’t give a shit about the Five’s agreement, he’ll definitely be an asshole and expose us if he recognizes us.”

He doesn’t voice the more pessimistic possibility : that this is indeed something none of the other four central offices know of, and Qishan Wen has its own agenda in sending its own agents here without warning them. It could be nothing, just Wen Ruohan’s usual pride in assuming he doesn’t have to notify anyone else of his will if he doesn’t want to, or - knowing the Wen patriarch - it could be suspicious.

It’s not Jiang Cheng’s place to decide. The best he can do is not compromise their mission, report to the higher-ups, and comply with what they’ll do.

“I hate them so much,” Nie Huaisang sighs, and though his tone is merely annoyed, Jiang Cheng is reminded of Nie Mingjue’s usual fits of rage whenever Qishan’s central office is involved.

“Ditto,” Jiang Cheng echoes. They exchange an exasperated look, several years’ worth of disagreement flashing through their heads, before Jiang Cheng sighs and offers Nie Huaisang his arm again. Together, they sweep out of the ballroom unseen.

For such a majestic place, the museum certainly lacks spacious, empty rooms. Oh, Jiang Cheng does not doubt that there are offices aplenty in parts of the building that aren’t accessible to the public, with locks that would be laughably easy to pick, but the only cameras they’ve managed to place so far have a ridiculously small range. Which leads them here, now ⎯ crammed together in a closet, with the light of Jiang Cheng’s phone between them and not much room for anything else.

He’s uncomfortably aware of Nie Huaisang’s presence, from his quiet breathing to the flowery smell of his cologne. When he tries to move, they knock together once again, an awkward tangle of limbs in the dark.

Nie Huaisang takes a sharp breath.

“That is indeed a gun in my pocket,” Jiang Cheng hisses before he can add anything.

He must have gotten it right, as in the glare of his screen, the other’s mischievous look turns into one of disappointment. “Jiang-xiong, if you ruin my jokes before I even get the chance to tell them, what am I to do?”

“Get a better sense of humor,” he snaps back, ignoring the flush creeping up his neck at the way Nie Huaisang’s lashes cast delicate shadows on his cheeks.

“How rude.” Jiang Cheng can feel him tilting forward. Deliberately closer, he tells himself. He’s just teasing you. Still, it’s hard to keep his thoughts in order when Nie Huaisang quite literally leans on his chest, his face now just a breath away from Jiang Cheng’s. “Don’t I even get an apology?”

Maybe it’s because of his nerves. Maybe tension has been running through him like electricity through a wire for the past hour, and something had to take the edge off. Or maybe it’s the warm weight of the arm Nie Huaisang has slung around his neck, his general proximity, and the fact that Jiang Cheng has kissed him once at a drunken college party and lived from that point onwards with the knowledge that perhaps, just perhaps, he wanted to do it again.

Regardless of the reasons why, here is what happens : Jiang Cheng tilts Nie Huaisang’s chin up and presses his mouth against his.

Nie Huaisang makes a little surprised noise and goes boneless in his arms. It only lasts an instant ⎯ before Jiang Cheng can overthink his decision and jerk away, Huaisang is the one grabbing him by the collar and bringing their lips together again. They crash against the back wall of the closet, Jiang Cheng’s arm coming up around the other man’s waist to brace the fall.

“Jiang Cheng,” Nie Huaisang breathes, like he’s discovering it for the first time. Jiang Cheng finds he likes the way it sounds on his tongue, soft and breathy, like something to be held dear rather than carelessly thrown around.

He should say something. Explain. Ask him, is that alright?, even though it must be, given the enthusiasm with which Nie Huaisang reciprocated, tell him he’s been thinking about this an embarrassing lot. But Jiang Cheng has never been good at juggling with words, especially when they matter as much as they do now, so instead, he runs his fingers through the loose strands escaping from Nie Huaisang’s bun and kisses him again.

He loses track of time ⎯ the only thing that matters then is the warm touch of Nie Huaisang’s lips on his jaw, on his neck. He makes a sound he would be way too embarrassed to let anyone here in different circumstances, but Huaisang doesn’t point it out, only seems to take it as encouragement.

Then Jiang Cheng’s earpiece, so far carefully tucked under his hair, crackles, and both of them are brutally jerked back to reality.

“A-Cheng?” Jiang Yanli’s voice on the other end of the line instantly sobers him up. “Are you alright? We reached Qishan’s office and demanded an explanation, they should be removing their agents now.”

Next to him, Nie Huaisang has also recovered, as straight-faced as someone who was not making out in a random closet just a few seconds ago. He swipes Jiang Cheng’s phone out of his hand and flips through the cameras before nodding his assent. “Gone,” he confirms. “Or at least I can’t see them anymore.”

“Good. Do they know we were there?”

Jiang Yanli chuckles. “Not your names, no. I wish I was there to watch them try to figure out which of the guests were Lotus agents.” She pauses before her voice turns serious again. “Coast’s clear. Go do what you have to do. I sent Nie Huaisang some convenient excuses in case you need to explain what took you so long.

“Thank you, A-jie,” Jiang Cheng says, just as Nie Huaisang echoes with thank you, miss Jiang.

“Good luck, you two.” He can almost feel the smile in her voice before the earpiece goes silent again.

The atmosphere is awkward as they step out of the closet into a mercifully deserted corridor and fix up their clothes. Jiang Cheng’s collar is somewhat rumpled, and he knows without looking his hair must be a mess.

He catches Nie Huaisang looking at him, an amused glint in his golden eyes. “What?”

“You’ve got lipstick on your neck,” Huaisang says dismissively. “Better clean that up quickly.” He taps a finger against his lips (now somewhat smudged themselves), then seems to take pity on Jiang Cheng and pulls a packet of wet wipes out of seemingly nowhere.

“Thanks,” he mutters. The first wipe comes out stained with a dark shade of red.

If he’s blushing, and Nie Huaisang is watching, he might as well end himself here and now.

“We are not talking about this,” is what Jiang Cheng finally settles on. He pairs it with a withering glare, for good measure.

“No, we’re not,” Nie Huaisang agrees, then winks. “Not before I take you out for dinner for real.”

Not for the first time tonight, and - he has a feeling - probably not for the last, Jiang Cheng is left speechless.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #sangcheng #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #kim's fics #hua-lian

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littlewhitetie · 6 years

Text

Silence: Part One

An anti-Galra nanoweapon leaves Keith ill and Shiro badly injured. It's up to Lance and Allura to find them, take care of them, and get them home safe and sound.

(Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | AO3)

“Lance? Will you tell me a story?”

It’s a simple enough request, but Lance seems confused by it. He raises a thin eyebrow as he casts Allura a sidelong glance. “Uh, sure. What about?”

“Anything,” Allura says. “I just… can’t stand this silence.”

The cave is too quiet, nothing but the occasional crunch of crystals beneath their feet echoing through the tunnels. Her head is too quiet, the usual presence of the Lions muted by the strange walls. Worse than all that, though, is the dead silence over the comms. No word from Keith or Shiro; no way of tracking them down. They could be anywhere in here.

“Yeah,” Lance says. “I know what you mean. So, a story. How ‘bout this. Once upon a time, there was a really cool space princess, who had a knight. Well, she had five knights, but one of them was especially awesome. He was brave, and strong, and smart, and popular, and really, really good-looking.”

“Was her knight named Shiro?” Allura asks, with a teasing smile.

“What? No! It was Lan— …do. His name was Lando.”

“What a terrible name,” she says.

“Yeah, I regret it already, but too late now. So Lando and Princess… uh... Allana? Yeah, Princess Allana, along with two of her other, less attractive knights, were—“

“What were the others’ names?” she interrupts.

“Uh… Keef and… Shoro.”

Allura laughs aloud at that.

“Hey. It’s not their fault the person who named them had to do it on the spot,” he says, defensively. “So, yeah, Allana, Lando, Keef, and Shoro were chillin’ in their space castle out in space, while their friends were busy on some super boring tech mission in another galaxy. Suddenly, they received a distress signal from the, uh…” he pauses, scrunching up his face as he tries to think of a name. “Screw it, they’re just gonna stay the Ferexians.

“Ferexis had been hit by this really bad pandemic that had infected thousands of people in, like, a week. There was a cure, but the ingredients for the medicine were super hard to get, and the Ferexians weren’t in any shape to get it. So Allana, Lando, Keef, and Shoro went to go find the ingredients for them. Allana and Lando—who was clearly her favourite knight—went to the mountains south of the capital to gather serafi roots, while Keef and Shoro went north to find the atraxeth flowers that grew in the crystal caves.”

“How can you be certain Keef or Shoro were not her favourite?” she asks, her lips curving upward.

“Uh, ‘cause those other guys were boring, obviously,” he says. “So Allana was super happy she got to be paired up with the best knight ever, and she had an awesome time ‘cause Lando was so handsome and witty and smart. It took a while, but Allana and Lando eventually found the roots they were looking for. No problem.

“But while they were out, something bad happened. There was a terrible empire that had enslaved most of the universe, and Ferexis was the empire’s main supplier of one of the components needed for the ion cannon things on their ships.”

“What was the empire called?” she asks.

Lance groans. “Do I have to name everything?”

She nods.

“Fine. It was the Glara Empire. Happy?”

“Very,” she says.

Lance huffs. “Okay. So while our dashing heroes were off getting the ingredients, the Glara dropped by Ferexis to collect their ion cannon stuff. The Ferexians didn’t have it, but they’d prepared for this day. They unleashed a really terrible nanoweapon into the atmosphere that would infect the Glara and mess with their tech all at once.

“Allana and Lando didn’t find out about this until vargas later, when they came back to the city with the roots. When they got back, there were broken sentries all over. The sentries weren’t just shut down, they were, like, twitching, or—or fried. And there were… there were soldiers on the ground… sick, a-and convulsing, and dying…” His breath hitches.

“That is enough detail,” she says, tersely. She tries to ignore the prickling sensation behind her eyelids, wishing she could scour away the image burned into her mind. “Please move on with the story.”

“Y-yeah. Right. Um, well, Keef and Shoro could've been affected by the anti-Glara weapon, too. They hadn’t come back yet, so Allana and Lando went into the cave to find them. Allana and Lando couldn’t hear them over the comms, though that was definitely, definitely only ‘cause something in the cave was messing with their comm system. But it meant they didn’t have any idea where Keef and Shoro were. Lando and Allana walked for vargas and vargas and still didn’t see them.”

“So what happened next?” Allura asks.

“Next, Allana had to decide which way to go, ‘cause they’d reached another fork in the path,” he says.

Allura’s heart sinks as her eyes follow the path below their feet, finding the notch where it diverges. There are no signs of which way Keith and Shiro would have gone—if they’d even chosen this route in the first place. The odds of finding them along this route are already terrifyingly slim, and now the chances of finding them have been halved yet again.

The place is a maze. The winding cave is made all the more confusing by its reflective surfaces and too many light sources; crystals upon crystals in pink and blue and violet surround them, shiny and glowing. A ‘funhouse’, Lance had called it when they’d first entered, but this is hardly fun.

“She chose to go right,” she says, with a sigh. “Please tell me Lando and Allana found Keef and Shoro in time.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, totally,” Lance says. “It didn’t take much longer, and they found them, and Keef and Shoro were a hundred percent fine. They didn’t actually need rescuing; they were completely safe. They were just, like, caught up in finding the flowers, or taking a long nap, or playing patty-cake, or something. They were happy to see Lando and Allana anyway, and they were all—” Lance raises his voice an octave, “Oh, Lando, you’re so amazing and talented! If only we could be as cool as you are!”

Her lips turn up. “Did they really sound like that?”

“Yes. So Allana, Lando, Shoro, and Keef got back to the city no problem. They got the ingredients to the Ferexians and saved everyone. The Ferexians were super grateful and threw the heroes a parade—”

“A parade? Would they not still be recovering?”

“It was a small parade. Everyone had a good time, and then they all went back to the castle and took a nap. The end.”

She gives him a smile. “Thank you for the story. It was perhaps not particularly imaginative, but I did enjoy the ending.”

“Yeah. …Maybe I should’ve changed up the plot. It would’ve been better if Lando had just gone with Keef, like he was supposed to in the first place.”

“Well, Allana did not object to the proposed change in plans,” she says. Far from it. Allura loved Shiro and Keith dearly, but Lance… Lance knew how to make her smile.

A low, throaty roar echoes through the cave. She stiffens and grabs Lance’s wrist, yanking him backward.

He furrows his brow in confusion. “What is it?”

“Did you not hear that?”

“No, but my hideous human ears are inferior to yours,” he says.

“They are… charming," she offers. "It sounded like some sort of creature. I think it may be behind us—we must proceed with caution. I can guard the rear.”

“Alright."

Several tense doboshes pass, the heavy plod of footsteps and occasional growls getting progressively louder.

Finally, a large, blue creature comes into sight. It looks like a monstrous crossbreed between a crocodile and a xznly sqiwl. It’s armoured in thick, shiny scales. Its fangs are visible from the outside, too many sharp teeth hanging out of its broad mouth.

She pushes Lance out of the way, and then she rushes at it.

“What—what are you doing?” he gapes.

“Distracting it for you,” she calls, veering away from him. She has to get its attention; she can’t let it get to Lance.

The beast kicks up loose crystals on the ground with its forefoot, stomping, and then it charges at her.

For such an enormous creature, it’s surprisingly fast. She manages to leap out of the way when it comes at her, tucking into a roll. But the blasts from Lance’s gun have no effect, unable to get past its plated hide. Dodging won’t be enough on her end.

She runs forward and, getting close enough, strikes it with her whip. It doesn’t hurt it, but it does make it very, very angry. It snaps its teeth at her. She nearly gags at the rank odour emanating from its fleshy mouth.

“Get back!” Lance yells.

“No! This is your chance,” she calls. “If I remain close enough, it will keep trying to bite me. Shoot it in the mouth when its jaws are open.”

“You’re out of your mind,” he says, but he doesn’t object.

She lashes the monster with her whip again, this time aiming for its face. It rears on its hind legs before lurching forward, mouth gaping open, rows and rows of pointed teeth exposed. “Now!”

Lance takes several shots in rapid succession. He hits his mark, the blasts aimed perfectly between its sets of teeth to find the back of its vulnerable throat.

With a hideous screech, the beast collapses. The smell of burnt, putrid flesh penetrates her nostrils.

“Ew,” he says. “So. Gross.”

“It is rather disgusting,” she says, wrinkling her nose. When she’s certain it won’t get back up, she turns to Lance and gives him a grin. “Great job. I knew you could do it.”

The smile he returns isn’t the usual beam he wears when he receives praise. “Thanks. But… Keith and Shiro. Would—would they have been able to…” He trails off. It would have been difficult for the two of them to defeat it even in top form, given their close range weapons and the beast’s natural armour and teeth. As they are now…

“We have been in here for several vargas, and this is the first we’ve seen of these,” she says. “There can’t be many in here. They may not have encountered any at all.”

“Okay, but still,” he says, “we’ve seen, like, ten of those giant snake things.”

“Eight at most,” she says. “And those would not be so difficult for Keith to take care of with his sword.”

“If he can use his sword. If he can even move,” he says. “You saw those Galra soldiers.”

“Keith is only half Galra,” she says. “I am certain his symptoms are not nearly as bad.” She reaches for Lance’s arm and begins walking again, pulling him along. “Keith and Shiro are strong. They always manage to pull through. We will find them, and we will bring them home, safe and sound.”

Lance gives her a slight smile. “How do you do that? Manage to sound so confident, when things get bad. Know how to inspire hope, and stuff.”

“Surely you know the answer,” she says. “After all, you do the same for me.”

He brightens at that. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing we’ve got each other, then.”

She smiles. “Absolutely.”

…

As they continue walking, Lance fills the silence with commentary on their surroundings. Apparently, there are no caves like this on Earth. They’re way more boring; the rock is always drab brown or grey, and they’re really dark. Sometimes, though, there are things that glow in the caves, like mushrooms or weird worm things that hang from the ceiling—at least, according to a documentary he saw. He’s never actually seen them in person.

There are a lot of things on Earth he hasn’t seen. Most humans, it seems, haven’t explored everything their planet has to offer. Allura can barely fathom the notion, but for a race that had never even travelled outside their own solar system before, it’s not all that unexpected.

When they reach a small pool of water, Lance runs to it. He cups the water in his hands, slurping loudly.

While Lance is busy quenching his thirst, another large snake-like creature noiselessly slithers toward her. It glitters pink, shiny spikes running down its spine. Its diamond eyes flash.

As quietly as she can, Allura slaughters the creature before Lance notices. It only takes a few well-aimed strikes. Immediately, she drags its carcass out of sight, hiding it behind a wide crystal pillar. There is no need to worry Lance further.

Lance has many fears, and he’s not quiet about them. He doesn’t have quite as many as Hunk, but it’s toward that end of the spectrum. He’s often frightened, so it makes it all the more commendable that he’s able to overcome that to protect others. He really is someone she's grown to admire.

As they continue onward, Lance keeps talking. It’s idle chatter, but it’s nice all the same. He tells her about a wide array of animals on Earth. It’s strange that there would be so many of the same animals as on Altea, completely different planets with galaxies between them. At the same time, though, it’s not all that surprising, considering how many uncanny similarities already exist between them. It’s not exactly random chance—the Blue Lion went to Earth for a reason.

The animals on Earth sound quite boring, generally drab in colour and not nearly as intelligent as their Altean equivalents. All the same, many people own pets. While not particularly smart, they’re supposedly nice to cuddle and play with.

Pidge is one such pet-owner. She has a dog at home that she misses. She had found great comfort in her dog when her father and brother went missing. Allura feels a pang of guilt for taking Pidge away from that, recruiting her in this war so far from home, but Lance assures her she’s not just here out of obligation; she’s chosen to stay of her own volition. She’s found a home out here, too.

Allura wishes she could have heard this from Pidge directly. She wishes they were closer. Her hopes for a sisterly bond between them had been quickly quashed, and they don’t talk all that much outside of missions. It’s not just Pidge, either; she wishes she were closer to all of the paladins. Allura had distanced herself when the paladins had first come to the Castle, too afraid to gain more loved ones to lose. The paladins found their way into her heart all the same, but by then, the paladins had grown so close to one another, she didn’t feel she could join them in activities outside of battle without intruding.

“Are you kidding?” Lance says, after she tells him—he has a way of getting her to open up in a way she never would with others. “We’d love to have you join us! We kinda always just assumed you wouldn’t want to, or would be busy hanging out with Coran, or playing with the space mice, or something. Seriously, you’re always welcome to hang out with us. We’d like that a lot.”

“…Are you certain?” she asks.

“C’mon,” he says, with an easy smile. “If Keith’s invited, there’s no way you’re not.”

She laughs. “What even started your rivalry with Keith in the first place? He told me before that he had no idea; he didn’t even know who you were at the time.”

“That’s exactly it!” Lance says. “He didn’t seem to care about anyone other than Shiro. He wouldn’t give anyone else the time of day. I know better now, but at the time, I assumed it was ‘cause he thought he was better than everyone else. The worst part about it was he was better than everyone else, and he didn’t even have to try.”

She cocks her head to the side. “Why would that matter?”

He gives her a wry smile. “You’ve always been amazing at everything you do too, so you wouldn’t really understand.”

She’s not really sure how to respond to that. “…Tell me more about animals.”

He laughs. “Okay, maybe you don’t always win gold for subtlety. But yeah, sure. Ostriches. Did you guys have ostriches on Altea?”

Many conversations, six snakes, and two crocodile-xznly squiwl creatures later, Allura interrupts Lance’s explanation of ‘bowling’ when she hears the slightest noise from around the corner. It doesn’t sound like any of the beasts they’ve encountered. No, it sounds like… a groan.

Allura grabs Lance’s hand and breaks into a run.

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