lightbearinglord | [ interlude/closed post: Lan Wangji, not meditating ]

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[ interlude/closed post: Lan Wangji, not meditating ]

Lan Wangji has lived through worse feelings than this. He knows this. He has lived through a grief like the night sky dropping to the earth and compressing him beneath its blackness. He lived through the recovery from the discipline whip, weeks of physical pain so searing that he could not breathe, much less walk, without agony. This week, he has lost no one. He bears no injuries to his body or his spiritual power.

He is all the more frustrated, then, that he still feels so helpless with rage and humiliation. He has meditated for so long that it feels nearly indulgent. He has run his sword forms, and he has copied the first thousand of the Cloud Recesses rules for the comfort of it, and he has pinned Wei Ying up against the wall of their quarters and taken him with such punishing force that he laughed and wept and begged all at once until it was finished. That helped, because it always helps, and because Wei Ying required singular focus and care from Lan Wangji afterward. So did cutting down countless corpses. Neither helped as much as he would have preferred.

Perhaps it is the humiliation of it. There was a time when Lan Wangji walked upright on a broken leg for days on end in a seething and desperate bid to hold onto his pride and dignity, so that no member of Qishan Wen could point at him and say see, the Cloud Recesses burned at our hands and, look, we've broken Lan-er-gongzi, too. When he shuts his eyes, before he can slip into the comfort of meditative breathing, he hears Shen Qingqiu telling him that his story, Wei Ying's story, is open to him like the pages of a book, that everything Lan Wangji has kept close and guarded and precious is known to him already. He hears himself telling Galahad about the sacrificing curse, he sees himself crushing wood beneath his bare hand in front of Claudius, he hears himself confessing aloud to his poisonous jealousy toward anyone who has ever looked too long at Wei Ying.

In that same room where he once accidentally received several visitors mid-handstand, he sits. There is a stick of sandalwood incense in the corner, but it has burned out. Lan Wangji, cross-legged, is not meditating. He is looking quietly at the floor, and he is trying to clear his stubborn mind.

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Because Lan Wangji trusts Claudius, he trusted him to understand, but the depth of his understanding loosens something tightly-wrapped in his chest. It grants him a fresh breath, easier this time, and the ability to look directly at Claudius as he continues. "Wei Ying had no empire. He had a group of exiles, erecting houses and tending crops on soil so poisoned with corpses it could hardly grow anything." Here he frowns, a tiny and quickly-passing expression, and makes another silent decision to place his trust in Claudius. "Do you know what a golden core is?"

"If thou wilt test my knowledge from thy writings, 'tis where thy spiritual energy is stored. 'Tis cultivated in thy body like ore within a crucible. It sounds like schools of alchemy that claim the gold produced by the Philosopher's Stone isn't an ore or earthly material, but the means to immortality. But I've never heard of true immortals in my world, and there are immortals who've cultivated golden cores in thine." Claudius keeps a light tone explaining it, but he's also sparing Lan Wangji the effort of explaining it over again. If what Lan Wangji has to say weighs heavy, Claudius won't have him weighing more words than necessary.

Lan Wangji is lightly, pleasantly surprised, and grateful for Claudius' attentiveness. He gives him a little nod. "Mn. Here." He touches his abdomen, over his lower dantian. "Meaningful cultivation is impossible without one."

It takes him slightly less time than he thought it might to gather the words for this part. "When we were younger, Wei Ying and I were matched in cultivation. Then the Wen clan began its bid for greater power." This led to the Sunshot Campaign, the war that forged him into Hanguang-jun rather than the second young master Lan.

"Qishan Wen began with a show of force." That was, too, when they forced the Lan clan to burn the Cloud Recesses, and when Lan Wangji's leg was broken in his effort to defend the library, but he is mercifully no longer compelled to speak of his own suffering. It is trivial in comparison with Wei Ying's. "They came to Lotus Pier, Wei Ying's home and the seat of Yunmeng Jiang, and a massacre commenced. In the process, Wei Ying's shidi¹ had his golden core destroyed by Wen Zhuliu, a man better known as Core-Melting Hand." Here he stops, both to ensure Claudius is following and to grant himself respite.

¹Younger martial brother.

"It sounds a devastating loss," Claudius murmurs. "The loss of a lifetime's work, when thy work was lodged within thyself." It must feel like the loss of one's self, too. The tactician in Claudius recognizes the strategy of it -- there's a way that empires invade that's as much theater as warfare. The show of force, then crushing the means and the will to resist. The Core-Melting Hand reached out first, because a people who've seen their strongest cultivators broken would surrender themselves more easily. Claudius can imagine how Wei Wuxian felt to witness it, to have his own home razed around him.

There is one reason, among many, that Lotus Pier was targeted with such crushing force, but that would take even longer to explain, and involve the existence of a gargantuan demigodly beast in the shape of a tortoise, which would no doubt be distracting. Lan Wangji is entirely committed to not lying to Claudius again, but surely these details can wait.

Instead, he gives Claudius a grim little look, a yes, precisely. "Wei Ying was devoted to his shidi." He does admirably, for this part of the story, at cloaking his own feelings about the man. "He has always been brilliant, daring, and unconcerned with his own wellbeing."

Claudius may have begun to guess where this is going, but Lan Wangji has to look away again, focusing his gaze on his own hands. "It had never been done before, and it should not have been. The procedure was lengthy, and no anesthesia was permitted. Wei Ying was awake for days enduring the pain of having his own core removed so that Jiang Wanyin could continue to cultivate."

“To take a loss like that willingly, and for someone else’s sake …” Claudius had always thought highly of Wei Wuxian, of his easygoing charm and warmth, his curiosity and kindness. But every new thing he learns, he learns there’s a goodness in Wei Wuxian that’s hard to come by. He feels even more keenly the deep unfairness that must rankle Lan Wangji, when a man who should be praised by the world is despised by it — or compared to an unapologetic despot who jealously guards his power, rather than painfully and lovingly giving it away. “Not many could make such a choice,” Claudius says softly, “even for a brother.”

"No," Lan Wangji answers, equally soft. Sometimes, still, he must skirt around the edges of his own awareness of the way that he feels about Wei Ying. It is too much, too big, too likely to overwhelm. He breathes out through his nose, very slowly, and continues.

"He told no one. Jiang Wanyin believed himself the recipient of some great work performed by Wei Ying's mother's teacher, an immortal cultivator." Lan Wangji lowers his gaze a little further still. "I only learned of what he had done nearly twenty years later, from Wei Ying's Ghost General¹." This memory is searingly vivid: Wei Ying's unconscious body in his arms, Wen Qionglin's absolute inexorability, Jiang Wanyin's face and eyes turning redder and redder with disbelieving rage. The revelation had the feeling of having a mirror held up to several years of history, everything that Lan Wangji had believed he understood cast in smudges of bronze.

Allowing himself to sound just faintly bitter, he says, "Shen Qingqiu knew." Shen Qingqiu, or Shen Yuan, or whomever, living inside an immortal body with a core he did not cultivate himself.

¹This is probably another unreasonably hefty can of worms for this specific conversation, but Lan Wangji would be more than willing to explain Wen Qionglin's existence later. The Ghost General is, he must admit despite some of his own petulant drunken actions, a very good man.

Claudius feels a fresh flare of fury — he knows his own secrets were selfishly kept. However he told himself it was for Gertrude’s sake, to guard her from the knowledge of what he’d do to free her, he didn’t want to be caught. He wanted to get away with a murder, and reap the rewards of it. His own dismay and anger at the play has faded. But Wei Wuxian kept a secret nobly, kept the secret of his own self-sacrifice, kept it even from Lan Wangji for twenty years. And someone else gleaned it without effort, someone outside their lives, with no personal stake in the matter.

“Did he learn it from his dramatic adaptations?” asks Claudius, more to confirm than anything else. He lets bitterness color his own voice — not so much at Shen Qingqiu for watching an entertainment, but at how fragile and exposed their secrets are once they’re on the stage.

"Mn." There is no other reason Shen Qingqiu could have known to speak Wen Qing's name in that context. It is difficult to picture exactly how this information came to Shen Qingqiu's awareness¹, but it did, with no pain or heartache on his part.

There is a beat, and then Lan Wangji asks, "Did you tell him that I am dominant?" This question comes in the most neutral tone possible, with the most unreadable facial expression possible. He manages no giveaway at all as to his feelings on the matter aside from, as ever, the prickle of heat beginning at the tips of his ears.

¹Lan Wangji doesn't know about television, but Shen Qingqiu's fixation on some actor's "beautiful" lip mole seems improbable for an adaptation viewed on a stage.

For Claudius's part, the heat of fury shifts to something less righteous, with a flush creeping up the back of his neck. "Yes, well," he says with a resigned sigh. "Thou shouldst know, for me, there are herbal remedies as effective as a truth spell. They make a man more relaxed and voluble. I saw Shen Qingqiu partaking in a remedy for relaxation -- an experiment, to see if it changed how he behaved around others¹. He was quite different from when we saw him. I joined him, and told him ..." He thinks this over. "One or two facts about every man I know and how they behave in love affairs. I spoke of thee as one example." And he's certain he's correct about Lan Wangji, but perhaps that's less than relevant.

¹ Was that what it was for ...?

Admittedly, the description of Claudius and Shen Qingqiu partaking of dubious herbal remedies together does draw a frowning glance from Lan Wangji. His feelings toward Shen Qingqiu have softened slightly of late, but he can imagine nothing that would convince him to spend time with the man in a social setting.

Denying Claudius' claim about himself would be useless, given that it's true. Instead, Lan Wangji says, calmly, "He told me that it has occupied several of his thoughts." His mouth twitches a little, although the expression it's trying to assume isn't immediately clear. "In his adaptation, Wei Ying and I were merely friends." In this, it may become clear that the tone he's battling back is one of smugness. This is the rare scenario in which he is not only pleased, but nearly delighted, to have scandalized someone.

Claudius laughs -- a rather cathartic laugh, that takes him by surprise. He cannot hold back his smirk, too delighted by all the signs of Lan Wangji's suppressed delight. "So the adaptation didn't teach him everything, I see. Or even the most basic and important of things. I admit," he says, "I wish now I'd seen him grappling with the realization. It's so satisfying when some men find out they're wrong."

At that laugh, Lan Wangji catches Claudius' eye with a look of half-rueful amusement. Arrogance is forbidden, but he is helpless against enjoying the thought of Shen Qingqiu's fascination with himself and Wei Ying. It does some work to soothe the memory of how much he hated every other aspect of their encounter.

"Magnus Chase thought me a god," he says, "and Shen Qingqiu my son." His eyebrows quirk up the tiniest bit, as if to say, Can you imagine me producing such a dissolute child?

That wins another laugh from Claudius. The subtleties of Lan Wangji's humor, the slight shifts of expression, have only become better with time. "Lan Wangji," he says. "Thou hast the best of stories. Always in thine own style."

There is a quiet warmth in this, in having someone see through to him the way that only a very few have ever done. For the first time since Claudius walked in, Lan Wangji relaxes his posture. It's subtle, because he always sits perfectly straight regardless, but there is a release of tension.

This recalls another piece of information he has meant to pass to Claudius. "Luo Binghe has the ability to manipulate dreams," he says. "He assumed my likeness in Magnus' dream in an effort to manipulate him." It's obvious enough, understatedly, how angry this makes him. He looks toward Claudius with a flicker of protective impulse, and he wants to say please take care around Luo Binghe, but there is no need. Claudius already knows to do that.

"Magnus deserves rather less of that, I think. I've grown quite fond of the young man, and it seems he's been manipulated by higher powers before -- but also like he escaped manipulation, and acquitted himself well. I'm glad thou wert able to pull him from this one." Claudius shakes his head -- speaking to Luo Binghe under compulsion, he realized Luo Binghe had a rather crisp image of himself and his flaws, despite the self-deception Claudius suspected in him. But he doubts very much in Luo Binghe's ability to portray Lan Wangji, with all his subtleties. "That dream must have helped along his image of thee as a distant god. In time, perhaps Magnus will also see thy charm and humor."

The depth of his fondness for Magnus Chase is impossible to express, so Lan Wangji hesitates. Perhaps Claudius will accept one more story.

"I mentioned the child I carried away from the Burial Mounds," he says. This may seem unrelated, but he imagines Claudius will trust him to bring this around to the point. "Wen Yuan. His family name was a death sentence. I gave him mine, so that he became Lan Yuan, and when he came of age, I gave him his courtesy name as well, Sizhui." He takes a moment to think, and then says the name again, slowly, separating out the characters in hopes that Claudius will understand: "To recollect and long for."

"I would my own parents named me so thoughtfully." It would've made Claudius feel wanted, and worthy -- worthy of what, he couldn't say. Not royalty, though that's its own tangle. Something more like belonging. "Thou caredst for him like thine own child, didst thou not? Moreso than many natural parents do."

If there is a meaning to Claudius' name, it is lost on Lan Wangji, but he makes a silent note to look into that later. For now, he considers the question. "I was in seclusion for three years after I brought A-Yuan back. My uncle, my brother, and the whole of the Lan clan had cared for him." He cannot lay claim to responsibility for everything that is so good about Sizhui. No child has ever been loved more, by the kindly uncles and aunts of the Wen remnants or by the sterner elders of the Lan clan. "He had forgotten, in a fever, everything he had lost. I could hardly stop remembering my losses. I had to learn to care for him, and we came to know one another in that. Sizhui is the brightest of the junior disciples now." Because Lan Wangji is with a friend, not aiming for impartiality in front of students or his uncle, his voice warms with a hint of pride.

Claudius laughs with appreciation. "Good for him. Thou needst no praise from me, but good for thee, too." He shakes his head, and explains, "I was loved not by queen mother or king father, and had a guide in the lord chamberlain of my court -- the one who attends to the domestic matters of Denmark. Laertes's father. When I was under the spell of honesty, I told Laertes his father was as good as mine, which was a troubling thing to confess. The lord chamberlain had a wife he lost, and the loss made him less generous, less forgiving. Thou art not such a man. Thou didst learn care, and raise a fine disciple."

Of course Lan Wangji remembers, vividly, the fear and loneliness that had Claudius so frozen as a child, his tears and his terror of rebuke. He remembers Claudius struggling to ask his god how to be good, because he had no one to tell him that he already was. He doesn't think that a lapse into outsized sympathy would be appreciated, but he can hardly restrain the tiny frown that draws his brows together. He is silent for a stretch, retreating into his thoughts, before he says, very serious, "Whether or not he intended to, this lord chamberlain raised a fine man in you as well."

Self-deprecating though he is, Claudius can still accept some compliments gracefully. If he didn't want to be found well-spoken, witty, charming, or handsome, he'd be living a very different life. But for fine man, he manages a flustered, "Thou art too kind." And then at once he redirects, with, "He raised a fine man in Laertes. 'Tis as thou saidst, so long ago: the regrets of men light their path forward. The regrets of his youth make Laertes what he is now -- where the lord chamberlain erred with him, Laertes has found his own light. And thee ..." Lan Wangji, Claudius knows, always had a depth of loyalty in him, for the mother whose home he knelt outside month after month, despite whatever led to her imprisonment there. In another court, it would be a whispered scandal: the wife kept locked away for some unspoken crime by the heartbroken husband. But when the time came for it, Lan Wangji fought against his own clan for the freedom of the man he loved.

"Well," Claudius says, "thou dost know I admire thee. Thou gavest Sizhui the best of thy upbringing, and more, thou gavest him the chance to live anew and free of family shames and expectations. Magnus's life and death both seem filled with complications, and many old gods using their children like pieces in a game of weiqi. Some of his fondest stories involve schemes to circumvent a god trying to sell his daughter into marriage for a sword, or some other self-serving decision divine parents like to make. Thou wilt be a much-welcome and wiser example."

There are times when Claudius' verbal maneuvering is well beyond Lan Wangji's understanding. This is not one of those times. He can easily see what Claudius is doing, and he politely doesn't allow the depths of his fondness or his entertainment to show on his face. As a result of that fondness, he will let Claudius get away with it this time.

"Laertes is a good man and a diligent student," he agrees, easily enough. After another shorter pause, he continues, softening in a way that's subtle but not too subtle for Claudius to notice, "At times, I see Sizhui when I look at Magnus. I entrusted him with my jade token. It allows entry without accompaniment to the Cloud Recesses." The token in question is, in fact, missing from his waist where it almost always hung up until now.

“I hope one day he may visit. I assume when I visit,” he says with teasing confidence, “thou wilt be there to escort me. I expect thee to play the host for me and make all my introductions.” Teasing Lan Wangji is a bit bold after all that maneuvering around a compliment, but Claudius makes bold decisions.

"No one will turn away Hanguang-jun's honored guest," Lan Wangji assures him. This is true; he is still the younger brother of the sect leader and the nephew of its most renowned teacher. It also serves to very lightly tease Claudius in return.

It's an indulgent thought, his friend coming to visit him. If Lan Xichen could be coaxed out of seclusion, Lan Wangji imagines that Claudius would find some entertainment in meeting a man nearly identical to himself but so much more expressive and outwardly warm. The juniors would love him, particularly Jingyi. Jingyi's hero-worship of Lan Wangji himself might be the only method by which to salvage such a partnership from worrying levels of camaraderie. No doubt Claudius would struggle to follow all four thousand rules, but that is what the designation of Hanguang-jun's honored guest is for.

A little more soberly, he says, "I would like to show it to you."

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