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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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."

"Tell me what thou wouldst like best to show me," Claudius says, eyes alight and curious.

A brief silence follows, as Lan Wangji thinks. He sets his hands atop his knees, a casual version of lotus pose, and says, "The library pavilion. It was burned, along with most of the Cloud Recesses, in the war, but we rebuilt. There is a magnolia tree outside its window." Aside from his own home, the library is easily Lan Wangji's favorite building at the Cloud Recesses. There is a reason he refused to burn it, as meaningless as that effort turned out. "The gentians outside of the jingshi, and the bamboo grove that grows around the hanshi. You would enjoy the treasure pavilion, I suspect." He gives Claudius one of those looks that is not a smile, but that may as well be, to someone who can read the flash of warmth in his eyes. "The back mountain is populated with rabbits. I care for them when I can."

It’s sweet to think of Lan Wangji caring for the rabbits in the hills of his home, solemn-faced but fond. Claudius knew nobles who had rabbits on their land for hunting — the ones who preferred real blood to clay pigeons — and this is another way Lan Wangji is nothing like them. He holds on to the thought.

“The gentians I’m growing from seed have successfully sprouted, by the way,” he says. “If I can master the trick of making them blossom indoors, you’ll have flowers even in the winter.”

A pang of pure tenderness catches Lan Wangji by surprise and strikes him through. It isn't that he expected Claudius to forget, it's only that it becomes clear to him, in this quiet moment, how wrong he had been when he believed he needed no friends. The response he should be making, which is thank you, sticks in his throat, and he has to hope that his expression, soft and grateful in the subtle way of most of his expressions, speaks for itself, and that Claudius doesn't think him impolite for not responding aloud.

Once Lan Wangji has mastered himself, which takes longer than it ought to, he says, because he is stubborn, "Your time under the truth spell. Tell me."

“I never thought I’d grow tired of the sound of my voice, but I did,” Claudius says with a laugh, looking up. “Thou hast heard how I can talk, and talk, but there’s a tumult in my head that goes on for far longer — it starts before I even begin to speak, when I’m weighing each word, every pause and pointed emphasis. And I must be the most opinionated of men. So over-involved in other people’s affairs, so full of judgments and speculations, which I could no longer keep to myself. I spilled so few of my own secrets, because I went around telling everyone what I thought and felt about them. The one stranger I met I still formed a quick opinion on, and left with no ambiguity about where I stood.” Claudius rolls his eyes at himself. He speaks lightly, but it’s a lighter weight than he expected.

“To be fair,” he adds, in what he believes to be his own defense, “that stranger was Lancelot, Galahad’s father.”

"Magnus told me what Lancelot did," Lan Wangji says, with a flash of steely recognition that should make his own point of view on the matter clear enough. He enjoyed practicing his swordsmanship against Lancelot, but nothing more, and he is unlikely to do it again.

That cold judgment does thaw to some extent, however, as he considers the rest of what Claudius has said. He can hardly be anything but fond when faced with the reminder of Claudius' varied opinions. He likes to hear them. "You know now of the tumult my own mind becomes at times," he says, mildly chagrined. "Many of us were laid bare. I regret much of what I said."

Claudius finds Lan Wangji's steeliness reassuring. He's likely one of few people who can find reassurance in Lan Wangji's flashes of cold and stoic certainty -- but he's rather glad he and Magnus aren't the only ones holding a grudge. There were many tender conversations Claudius held with friends about the things they hid from each other, but he also found how sincerely and instantly he could dislike a man who raised a hand against someone he loves.

"I regret less than I thought I would," Claudius admits. It feels strange to say, but he feels the truth of it as he says it, the way he did when testing sentences under the spell. There's no magical compulsion to confirm it, only the sense of surprise and acceptance. "There were a number of things I'd resolved not to say nevertheless needed saying. With Crowley, for instance. I resolved not to let him know how concerned I was for him, lest it add to the cares already weighing on him. Knowing a friend sees thy troubles, when thou hast taken pains to conceal them, can make a man feel more vulnerable." Like with Sagramore. "I assume the same is true of demons. But I feel easier, having spoken to Crowley without painting a fair face for his sorrows."

"I am glad," Lan Wangji starts, "that you feel easier." He does mean it, and he does not want his unhappiness to compel Claudius to the same. There were long years where he felt concern for Wei Ying so urgent that terror rang in his ears even as he sat in the silent jingshi, or as he bedded for the night in the endless series of camps Gusu Lan made during the war. Wei Ying brushed him aside, or laughed, or looked at him as though they were bitter enemies. Come back to Gusu with me. Wei Ying refused, and Lan Wangji was so afraid of becoming his father. There must have been something better, something he could have said that would have broken through, but he never discovered what it was, and then Wei Ying was dead.

Most of his silences are of a more contemplative nature, but in this one, he is actively struggling to bring order to his thoughts. Vulnerability has never been of interest to him, and yet it was forced upon him, and he still can't entirely make up his mind about what to regret. "There is a rule on the Cloud Recesses Wall of Discipline. Be careful with your words. That rule has shielded me." He brings a hand up to touch the base of his own throat, then, appearing faintly startled at himself, drops it again. "I told you that I have always been this way. Having my silence ripped from my hands was... painful." It costs him some effort, but he looks directly at Claudius, and at last the words begin to cooperate. "I regret what I said to others. I was improper, uncouth, ungenerous, and unhelpful by turns. But not what I said to you. I would not have chosen for you to see me that way. Only my brother and Wei Ying have known me so thoroughly. I feel shame, still, but not regret."

Edited 2023-12-06 08:35 (UTC)

"That tends to happen when you befriend someone as obsessed with seeking knowledge as I am," Claudius says, but there's no true blame in it -- after all, Claudius started the friendship himself by choosing Lan Wangji, and Lan Wangji repaid him with loyalty and kindness and saving his life. There's a new gratitude for it, but Lan Wangji has saved Claudius's life more than once. "And sometimes, it leads to something like the mess between myself and Luo Binghe. I ran into him -- no need to worry. We only talked. But it became obvious that I see him too clearly, and he can't stand it. I still half-hoped he'd surprise me, but he never does, and he never will. And he'll never apologize for what he's done." It stings more than it should: Claudius never expected an apology, never demanded one. There are so many nevers between them.

Gaze softening, he says, "I appreciate that thou didst let me see thee. Mine isn't always the kindest eye -- it can be too keen, too quick and cruel. 'Tis no easy thing, to have thy silence ripped from thee, to break a life-long precept and not by thy will. But nothing I've heard of thee, nothing I've seen in thee, has made me think less of thee."

For most, Lan Wangji is content to be distant, unknowable, and silent, appearing where there is chaos and then vanishing again before he can resolve into a person in their eyes, but there is something precious in being known, and seen, by someone he values. Today, he spent hours alone in middlingly successful meditation, and yet nothing has helped to coax his mind back toward calm as much as conversation with a friend. If others have lost respect for him, then he can do nothing about that, but at least there is this. He offers up a tiny, rabbit-quick smile.

"Luo Binghe is unworthy of your keen eye," he says, evenly but witheringly. That clear and cutting sight of Claudius' is, to him, a gift, and not one that Luo Binghe has earned.

For a fleeting moment, Claudius indulges himself (he can only think of it as self-indulgence) and wonders whether this is brotherhood. Lan Wangji is a wise friend, a confidante, a protector. He's all the roles that should've been a brother's -- but Claudius and Hamlet were born in the wrong time, to the wrong family, almost destined to despise each other. Otherwise, a brother might have been the one to remind Claudius what his worth was, and who was unworthy of him.

And so, when Claudius prods it, he recognizes this is an old pain. That misaligned feeling, the feeling that -- if he just broke his bones again and shoved them into place -- the fractured pieces of his history could heal. Some people will never apologize. Some, Claudius thinks dryly, can't apologize because they're dead -- but no, even coming back as a ghost, Hamlet had no regrets. Some things can't be fixed, and re-breaking them only adds pain and damage. "My thanks," he says after a moment, "for finding worth in it." With a shaky laugh, he adds, "I could've used thee earlier in my life. Gertrude would've found thee a stalwart ally in advising me through my misadventures."

When he actually imagines it, imagines the two of them gossiping and sharing concerns, he realizes how easily the two could've united to embarrass him. Perhaps it's for the best¹."

¹ Foreshadowing ...?

This thought is another fanciful one, but given that Lan Wangji has already let himself imagine Claudius exchanging pleasantries with Lan Xichen and examining treasures in the Chamber of Ancients, he will indulge again. With a twist of regret, he wonders what could have been different if they had somehow, impossibly, known one another earlier. Would Claudius have been more at ease? Perhaps Lan Wangji would have come through his grief just a little more easily himself. There is no way to know, and he is all too familiar with the uselessness of dwelling on regrets, but still.

"I would like to have met Gertrude," he says, if only to have a better image to grasp when he thinks of her. Between the two of them, Claudius would truly have been protected from all manner of harm.

Speaking of misadventures. Lan Wangji eyes Claudius' arm. "Your wound healed well? You remained safe that day?"

Two very different questions," Claudius thinks to himself. "I think," he says, "the mansion's sense of time broke that day. My arm healed extraordinarily well, if anything. The skin on it looks newer than before¹. But I remember it being healed multiple times by multiple people, with no re-injury inbetween." He gives Lan Wangji a bemused look. "We live in a very strange place, Lan Wangji."

¹ Which, frankly, is only making Claudius want to exfoliate more often with more of the products that keep generating out of the bathroom cabinets.

Lan Wangji frowns, but the wound healing multiple times is better than a more dire outcome. Quietly, though, remembering his own worry before he found Claudius that day, he resolves to enlist Wei Ying's assistance for a small project.

"I endured a similar fracturing the day of the truth spell," he admits. The memory is unpleasant, like being pulled into sucking mud despite every effort to escape it. "I have studied hundreds of curses and battled all manner of grotesque monsters and vengeful spirits, but I have no explanation for that."

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

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