There is a short-lived pause. Lan Wangji is far from self-conscious about performing. That is not in his nature, and even if it were, he knows how skilled he is at playing the qin. He is only taking in the surreality of the moment, of sitting on the precipice of playing the most personal composition of his life for two people from other worlds. A tiny smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, there and gone again, the proverbial sunlight over snow. With that, he begins.
It would be impossible to play this song without thinking of Wei Ying. Lan Wangji has never tried. When he wrote it, he was burning up, a boy made of ice thrust without warning into the suffocating heat of a summer's day. His mother had been dead for nine years, and he had intended never again to feel anything as keenly as he felt her loss. All of that resolve cracked in two when he caught a boy with a beautiful face trying to sneak Emperor's Smile into the Cloud Recesses past curfew. Lan Wangji stopped him, told him the rules, and threatened to punish him. Wei Wuxian only smiled, a smile like every cold word out of Lan Wangji's mouth delighted him, and danced with him, their swords aglow in the moonlight, across the walls of the Cloud Recesses.
He plays through it all, the strings alive under his hands and his qi: Wei Ying's head in his lap, the heat of his damp forehead under Lan Wangji's hand. Wei Ying demanding a song and Lan Wangji powerless to deny him, furious with him and enchanted by him. Wei Ying cast into the Burial Mounds, emptied of his core and left for dead, clawing his way out reshaped and haunted and still the brightest thing Lan Wangji had ever seen. Wei Ying throwing him flowers, Wei Ying blindfolded with a bruised-red mouth, Wei Ying aflame with righteousness and spitting a countdown at Jin Guangshan. Wei Ying out of control, his shijie dead and his tattered black robes fluttering around him. Wei Ying gone and Lan Wangji alone in the jingshi, back where he had started but with thirty-three lashes on his back and a sun-shaped brand on his chest, his body a freshly-constructed monument to his years of longing.
The last time Lan Wangji performed this piece for Claudius, he was shamefully drunk, and they were not yet friends, whatever Claudius said. He presumes he did it passably well, although his memory of that is poor, because he is so familiar with the melody. This time he will do better, with all the artistry he earned across days and nights with nothing but his books and his qin to keep him company. Claudius, who is dear to him now, will likely appreciate the improvement, and there is Crowley and the newly-realized ache of his own disobedient heart to consider. Lan Wangji's fingers are deft on these strings he knows so well.
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It would be impossible to play this song without thinking of Wei Ying. Lan Wangji has never tried. When he wrote it, he was burning up, a boy made of ice thrust without warning into the suffocating heat of a summer's day. His mother had been dead for nine years, and he had intended never again to feel anything as keenly as he felt her loss. All of that resolve cracked in two when he caught a boy with a beautiful face trying to sneak Emperor's Smile into the Cloud Recesses past curfew. Lan Wangji stopped him, told him the rules, and threatened to punish him. Wei Wuxian only smiled, a smile like every cold word out of Lan Wangji's mouth delighted him, and danced with him, their swords aglow in the moonlight, across the walls of the Cloud Recesses.
He plays through it all, the strings alive under his hands and his qi: Wei Ying's head in his lap, the heat of his damp forehead under Lan Wangji's hand. Wei Ying demanding a song and Lan Wangji powerless to deny him, furious with him and enchanted by him. Wei Ying cast into the Burial Mounds, emptied of his core and left for dead, clawing his way out reshaped and haunted and still the brightest thing Lan Wangji had ever seen. Wei Ying throwing him flowers, Wei Ying blindfolded with a bruised-red mouth, Wei Ying aflame with righteousness and spitting a countdown at Jin Guangshan. Wei Ying out of control, his shijie dead and his tattered black robes fluttering around him. Wei Ying gone and Lan Wangji alone in the jingshi, back where he had started but with thirty-three lashes on his back and a sun-shaped brand on his chest, his body a freshly-constructed monument to his years of longing.
The last time Lan Wangji performed this piece for Claudius, he was shamefully drunk, and they were not yet friends, whatever Claudius said. He presumes he did it passably well, although his memory of that is poor, because he is so familiar with the melody. This time he will do better, with all the artistry he earned across days and nights with nothing but his books and his qin to keep him company. Claudius, who is dear to him now, will likely appreciate the improvement, and there is Crowley and the newly-realized ache of his own disobedient heart to consider. Lan Wangji's fingers are deft on these strings he knows so well.