lightbearinglord: (petal)
Lan Wangji (蓝忘机) ([personal profile] lightbearinglord) wrote2024-04-25 06:51 am
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[ closed post: hold fast to the center ]

With Dark behind them, most of Lan Wangji's routine has managed to reassert itself. He awakens at mao hour and disentangles himself from his clinging cultivation partner, who tends to sprout several additional limbs in the night. He dresses and slips away for his morning meditation. He takes Bichen to the air, circles the grounds of the mansion and checks the woods for any changes beyond the known quantities of Ragnelle's nest and Magnus' camp, and runs through his sword forms. He stops in the kitchen and makes breakfast for his husband. By that point, his day can branch in several ways: he can, upon bringing the breakfast to Wei Ying, also opt to return to his bed, a perpetually tempting option. He can find Magnus and indulge in listening to him talking about whatever strikes his fancy. He can practice his qin, work on his calligraphy, retreat to the library for the endless project of educating himself, or embark on some more ambitious culinary endeavor.

Recently, however, Lan Wangji was reminded of a promise he made to someone important. Where possible, he prefers to keep his promises. So this morning, after he has sufficiently fed Wei Ying, made his apologies in the form of several lingering love-bites along his neck and shoulders, and changed his boots for house slippers, he approaches Claudius and Galahad's room. This route is one of the few persistently familiar paths that seem to exist in the ever-changing mansion.

It is early, but not so early. And Claudius did ask him for this, not once but twice. He lifts a hand and knocks crisply at the door.
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-04-25 10:05 pm (UTC)(link)
It isn't so early, and the sunrises are slowly coming earlier -- Claudius doesn't spend as long dragging himself out of bed for breakfast. And now that Laertes and Sagramore have looped him into the meal rotation, he looks forward to seeing them and seeing what they bring. But the sun through the window is deceptive, Claudius knows, and he's still in his dressing gown and huddled under the warmth of the kotatsu, considering risking the chill and checking the birdfeeders when Lan Wangji knocks. He reluctantly leaves the heated sanctuary -- but when he opens the door, he's glad of it. "Wangji! What an unexpected pleasure."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-04-27 11:16 pm (UTC)(link)
"I did, didn't I?" Both times Claudius asked, he was rather beside himself -- it takes a moment to remember, but only a moment. "And you're not a man to avoid saying no until the other party forgets they ever asked. Well, come in. Even the workbook recommends meditation -- can you believe that? I have a workbook," he adds, for helpful context.
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-04-28 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
The warmth of the parcels surprise Claudius -- he sets one down, then unwraps the other. No sooner does he start to devise words of thanks than he recalls their promises. No thanks are necessary. He takes a bite, and finds it tears easily, with the same delectable texture as some of Laertes's or Galahad's pastries. "It's a remedy book," he says, covering his mouth as he chews. Thanks or no, he's still civilized. "Or akin to one. Rather than a list of recipes and aliments, it's a list of questions meant to inspire self-reflection, with some rather pointed suggestions. Evidently, avoidance is symptom of my aliment." He rolls his eyes at that, because it really is obnoxious. He thought avoidance was his best coping strategy. "It's called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is a mouthful."
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-04-30 03:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Truth be told, when Claudius opened the workbook, he expected to check off a single, obvious trauma and kept finding more connected to it, like ripping up ground-ivy and seeing how far the roots spread. It's made progress slower-going than it would be otherwise -- but it helps to think of an aliment with symptoms to uncover, rather than a vice of cowardice he'd rather not confess. "It's presented as an alternative to avoidance. Avoidance functions as an anesthetic, I suppose, like using liquor to numb the pain during a field surgery -- which serves well enough, when nothing else is available. But after a certain point it's like the wound has grown gangreneous under the bandages, and ignoring it does more harm than good. So I'm meant to do other things. Talk to someone, mindfully breathe, meditate." He casts a sidelong look of who would have thought?
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-02 05:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius's first thought is that it's too early and he's too sober to be this sincerely touched, and his second thought is that that’s probably a pattern. He doesn’t have to be drunk and distempered to have a sincere feeling, but one does tend to lead the other. Perhaps such thoughts always come up later because never lets them see the light of day.

"The reverse is true, too, I'm sure you know,” he says, after a moment fighting his self-consciousness. “I’m with you. We’re equals.”
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-05 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
Then Claudius takes a moment savoring the fluffy youtiao (and since he knows Galahad likes fluffiness, he makes sure to reserve the second youtiao for him to try whenever he returns to their room today). "This is quite good," he observes. "Shouldst thou ever make too many of these, thou shouldst bring them to the café. Thou couldst be one of our patissiers, alongside Laertes and Galahad."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-05 10:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I thought thou madest a magnificent impression,” Claudius says, quite cheerfully. “I bade thee to impress thy husband, and so thou didst. And I learned we share a common interest, though we’ve never spoken of it.”
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-05 10:42 pm (UTC)(link)
"No, I always find a fit young man to do that." More to the point, he says, "Making proper bindings is both a skill and talent. And to do it so swiftly! It shows a practiced hand." He is aware that Lan Wangji has no memory of lashing together Wei Wuxian's wrists with his hair ribbon, in front of an audience, but he still deserves to be commended. In Claudius's opinion, it was quite the commendable and creative use of a hair ribbon.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-06 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
Claudius laughs warmly at that. "Sagramore won't struggle unless I ask him ... and then I think he likes to test the boundaries, and find them firm. I've reconciled with Sagramore," he adds, softening. "I attempted an apology, but he wouldn't have it. You know I'm manipulative by nature ... I can never be certain I haven't influenced someone unduly. But Sagramore's been quite insistent that he made his own decision, and he wants to make his own amends."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-07 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
"E'en so?" Claudius shakes his head, but smiles. "I think too oft on what stories can spread from a single action. Others, I'd argue, don't think oft enough on how they'll be perceived by others ... but it is a fault in me. One I'll lay on the cut-throat rumormongering at court. I fear to be misrepresented, to be misunderstood, but an thou dost understand me, I find my reputation bothers me far less. It's a virtue of thine," he says. The only request Claudius ever wrangled out of Lan Wangji was to protect Wei Wuxian's reputation here -- but in Lan Wangji's presence, with his quiet conviction and devotion, Claudius is sure Wei Wuxian rarely worries about reputation himself. It's because Lan Wangji loves so loyally, Claudius thinks. Having someone that loyal always at your side is naturally reassuring.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-07 06:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"Well, now I want to hear about the most skilled social architect you know," Claudius says, brightened by curiosity. "Would we get along, do you think? Or would we always be outmaneuvering each other?"
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-09 01:04 pm (UTC)(link)
“Ah, I know the type. I’m too proud of my own cunning to pretend at uselessness or ignorance … but my protégé at court was a Headshaker to the core. It’s the most efficient way to deal with the likes of Polonius. Look at him like you’re utterly lost, until he has to state his expectations outright, or else give up on whatever he’s asking. Nine times out of ten, he’ll give up. It’s both frustrating and fascinating to watch.” Claudius smirks and shakes his head, remembering. Idly, he crumples up the wax paper and tosses it into the waste basket, before turning to the wardrobe where he can consider what to wear. This will undoubtedly take some time.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-13 08:03 pm (UTC)(link)
"He must be an exceptionally talented man." That is, by Claudius's standard, the best outcome for an act of vengeance: to have done it so subtly no one would ever suspect you a hand in it. Other men, he's sure, prefer the more forthright approach, but why paint a target on your own back? "Who was he avenging?"
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-13 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"Ah," Claudius says with a laugh. "Well, I must admit ... if anything happened to thee, I'd be as willing to architect such a plot for thee. And I would have not thee to advise me wisely, so the plot would become more convoluted and cunning as time went on."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-14 09:27 pm (UTC)(link)
"Such shameless bribery! Know thou, it will work." With a thoughtful hum, he contemplates his two wardrobes, the curated one and the one that answers the mansion's whims. "What if I dressed in thy style today? Would it suit me?"
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-15 02:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"Those are thy azures and thy argents, ay?" asks Claudius, another thing Claudius gathered quickly from observing Lan Wangji. It makes it easy to plan future wedding wear. For now, Claudius thinks of darker clothes, warmer hues, and pulls from his wardrobe a black jacket with a folded collar and pleated skirt, a golden serpent winding over its shoulder. Or and sable are Sagramore's colors, but Claudius finds himself rather fond of them. "I do like layers," he says admiringly. "What should I layer this with?"
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-18 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
"There are many layers," Claudius says, with appreciation, taking in the many folds of fabric over one arm. "Well, I do enjoy them, as I said. In conversation and in clothing. And I would be obliged if thou wouldst assist me."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-20 07:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius laughs, both from fondness and because he does fear breaching etiquette an inordinate amount -- it feels natural, that Wangji should provide that education for him, the way Wangji taught him how to use chopsticks. He must have started thinking of Lan Wangji as a brother, even back then.

But that's a conversational layer. He starts navigating layers of actual fabric, removing his dressing gown to clothe himself in the zhongyi, unselfconscious as he does so. He also reveals a lot of marks left by Galahad, the rows of roses and peonies planted along his neck and chest.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-23 12:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius laughs, not surprised at Lan Wangji's accuracy, but suitably impressed. "Galahad," he says, "is a menace. None would think it of him, particularly if they met him back when he was chaste and would blush at the smallest insinuation of being otherwise. Know'st thou, I think I remember Wei Wuxian saying something similiar. At the talent show: no one back home would ever believe me that Hanguang-jun is so unreasonable ..." At this point, he's entirely teasing. He knows Lan Wangji doesn't remember that part of the talent show. He neatly pulls out the sleeves of his robe, seeing how far they go -- Claudius already knew the cut-sleeve story, but he has a new appreciation for it. Claudius would gladly cut the sleeve off even this fine a fabric, if Galahad were comfortable on top of it.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-25 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
"Didst thou?" Claudius laughs, a sharp, bright laugh like a flash of light down a creek. (Like the sort of example one might look for, when poetry students or disciples. He tilts his head a moment, while Lan Wangji works. "I can imagine it too clearly. What did he say, at that first bite?"
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-25 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
Claudius laughs with joy, and even hides the laughter in one of his long, layered sleeves. "What a disrespectful man! Know'st thou, even when Sagramore plays a dog, he is not half so disrespectful. And I --" He holds a finger to his lips, and winks. Tidy and wrapped in Lan Wangji's well-tied sash. "I understand such men need taming and chiding. It's because we have some wild instinct in us, but when we are humbled ... all of us longs for that humbling. Wei Wuxian longs for thee completely. I know this to be true."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-26 03:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"Ay, after all thy tribulations," Claudius says fondly -- the two certainly have had their share of tribulations, out of all the lovers Claudius knows. It's part of his fondness for them. "Now thou canst both bite and kiss."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-26 05:14 pm (UTC)(link)
"Sleeve garters," Claudius observes with a delighted laugh, as he slips his arms and neatly-bond sleeves through the jacket. "Dost thou know what this is? This is convergent evolution.” The next time a lover tries to pull a shirt over his head and Claudius has to explain there’s a very specific order to how these pieces come off, he’s mentioning this.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-26 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)
"Like fruit," Claudius says by way of introduction1. "Dost remember that charming story I told thee, about the Garden of Eden, and the fruits of all the trees made for mankind to consume? In sooth, trees do not bear fruit in service of mankind. Trees make fruit so that there can be more trees. The oldest forms of plants, simple mosses that grow by the water and in the shadows of stones, spread through spores like the ones Tress uses -- but without the wind to carry them, spores can only spread so far. Trees are far more ambitious. They have more specialized structures, roots and leaves, and woody stems which help withstand cold and heat. They also have flowers, which grow into fruit, and which animals will want to pick and eat. Animals have more locomotion than most trees do, of course, and sow their seeds farther. The more sumptuous the fruit, the more animals prefer it. In many ways, fruit is meant to tempt. It's because fruit is tempting that apple trees have survived; Crowley really only illustrated that fact. You could call him an early patron of agriculture."

While speaking, he straightens the cuffs of his sleeves, and does a testing half-twirl to see how the fabric flows around him. He rather likes it. "But apples aren't the only plant to have evolved for fruits. So have thy loquats. So have tomatoes, which came from the Americas with Mexican cuisine, and are not even a tree, but a vine. In parts of the world separated by vast oceans -- indeed, in thy world and mine -- fruits have evolved independently. All because, as a fashion of seed dispersal, fruits tend to succeed. There's an example of convergent evolution." Idly flexing his hand, showing off his wrist and the fit of the jacket, he says, "The same must be true of style. Some styles are invented, of course, but others evolve -- and naturally some evolve alike2."

1 Some men will say would you like to hear about convergent evolution and not wait for an answer, or they will wait for the slightest inquisitive look. Between Lan Wangji and Galahad, Claudius is used to this.
2 You heard it here, first: sleeve garters are like biological fitness.
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-27 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
"I am," he says, surprised at himself. When he was drunk -- he can remember it for clearly, for all that men drink to forget. He knows he expressed how much he feared meditation would be like prayer, another desperate call to the universe and the forces that shaped it, begging for something bigger than him to fix him. But the ritual of getting dressed, clothing himself in armor to face the world, always has its way of strengthening him. And now the ritual's shared. Every fruit and every scrap of clothing flows from the source. Even if his prayers go unanswered -- there's an answer. This is something different (and so, so familiar).
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-29 04:01 pm (UTC)(link)
For once, Claudius sits appropriately, copying Lan Wangji's movements precisely. His usual, sprawling sitting position is best for showing off trousered legs, anyway. The way the skirt settles around him like this is quite comfortable, the scent of sandalwood drifting in the air quite pleasant. "So," he says, "what now? Where do we begin?"
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-05-30 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"Dost thou know ..." Claudius can't help but laugh, a fond, fluttering laugh he can feel under his fingers when he mirrors Lan Wangji with a hand to his abdomen. When he places a hand on his chest, he feels the same laugh rising through his abdomen, before the sound spills out. "Sometimes, when thou say'st dantian, I hear it as an untranslated title. And sometimes I hear it as an alchemical term." The translator always leans towards artistic license, with him. It's why he thinks he can still understand so many puns. But before he can go on about it, he breathes -- there are times he's started on a subject and forgotten to breathe -- and makes himself breathe in slowly.

It feels too long, at first. He's too used to shallow breaths, like a rabbit made to run, who hasn't yet lost sight of a predator. So he listens for Lan Wangi's breath, and lets that soft sound guide him.
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-01 07:06 pm (UTC)(link)
His first thoughts, flickering with the low flash of light behind his eyes, are wry, self-deprecating, something about how the shallowness of his breath must speak to the state of his spirit -- he can't stop the thought from starting, but he does go back to his breath before he finishes it. Think only of each breath. How much is there to think? He tries to focus, but every other thought feels like weeds crowding around the edges of his head, strangling the ground before any new seed takes root. He worries about his health. He worries about time passing. He's worries how boring he must be -- not to Lan Wangji, perhaps, but then he worries about a dozen other people not here and what they've always thought about him.

He breathes out, slow, and tries just to think of the air passing through his lips, his chest falling. He's tilling the earth. He pulls up the weeds, then tries to let them go. There's no use in dwelling, in planting them again.
wickedwit: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-02 03:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius taught himself to identify fabric by feel. When he settles back into his body, every draped layer surrounding him feels like something familiar -- cotton spun from cotton blooms, silk spun from silkworms. Somewhere bolls must form on mallow branches, like white pearls form within the shell. Somewhere there must be groves of mulberry trees, and the children of wild moths emerging from their eggs to feed. Even worlds away, he knows it must be warm there, or the eggs wouldn't hatch. The mulberries wouldn't fruit. It all springs from the same source. Even worlds away, he knows breathing leaves must fill the sunlit air with oxygen. People live and walk beneath them, who couldn't live without them.

There's plenty to think about. Wryly, Claudius realizes that's another ancillary thought -- thinking about thinking, typical -- but he breathes in, sharing that air, the same air that brings Wangji's voice to him.

Voices, too, are breath. He lets Wangji's words fill his lungs, and become a part of him. Perhaps he'll form some fruit from it.
wickedwit: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-02 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)
To his credit, Claudius doesn’t scoff — what power? Voices, too, are breath. Lovers’ whispers, demagogues’ declarations, the adages of old men, the murmur of the crowd. They spread like cotton seeds, and drift, touch down and take root. Put Claudius on a battlefield and his breath would quickly tire, but he has enough life in his lungs to join a sea of voices. Enough even to sing, when it suits him.

Cotton seeds, drifting. One touches down, and becomes two, the last seed of the old plant and the first seed of the new. Two becomes three. Generation after generation, season after season, the three becomes ten thousand. Floating on the air, carrying yin, embracing yang.

He could be anywhere, doing anything. Doing something more productive — no. The cotton plant is still, and still produces ten thousand things. It doesn’t rush. He resists the urge to rise and pace, recites Wangji’s mantra in his head. The one produces the two. The two produces the three …
wickedwit: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-03 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Silence is always a struggle to bear -- he bore it so easily, he thinks, as a child, but that was when he had a duty to be seen and not heard. Now it feels remiss to let a conversation lapse, a failure if he can't smooth over the slightest awkward pause. Frankly speaking, it raises his blood pressure. He remembers lamenting to Lan Wangji that between Lancelot and Galahad, he would have to bear the burden of speech like Atlas on his shoulders.

So perhaps he's putting the burden down. With the next, sigh-like breath, he wills his shoulders to sink. He lets them rest. He listens to the silence, and recognizes there's still sound in it. Their breaths still stir the shared air. It's a kind of touch, Claudius recalls from diagrams. Sound moves on waves, and like fingers strumming harp strings, it brushes by something in the outer ear.

The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang. Carrying like a sound, like cotton seeds on the wind.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-04 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
Claudius eyes open slowly, letting light back in gradually. He'd be dazed otherwise -- like someone emerging from a dim cavern, to be struck by a sudden sunflare. As remedies go, he doesn't know whether this meditation healed something in him. But he does feel, almost, relaxed. All that tension's left his shoulders. "Wangji," he says with a smile.
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-05 01:16 am (UTC)(link)
"Reasonably calm." Reasonably, but also exceptionally, given his usual disarray of humors. "Thou may'st not know this, but I have very few hours of calm in a day."
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-05 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"Thou wilt see me more and more often." Until thou hast tired of me is the light, self-deprecating add-on that should follow, but he refrains. "The aim is to make meditation as easy and natural as reaching for a drink in times of turmoil. That's a well-trained instinct."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-05 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)
"More than anything, please."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-07 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius tries to envision Lan Wangji as the dutiful disciplinarian he was in his youth, tries to envision him crossing paths with an Osric-like man, from whom serious requests slide like water off a sea otter stole. Immediately he laughs. "I'm sure your xiongzhang would be satisfied," he says, "with any friend you managed to make." But not that one, pointedly.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-08 01:32 am (UTC)(link)
Claudius's eyes are wide and, frankly, delighted. It's dizzying in the same way listening to gossip the first day in a new court is, already untangling the knot of relations and business partners and illegitimate children that lies at the heart of understanding anything about the way societies move. "Well," he observes, "that does sound like quite the pairing of sect leader and counselor. Tell me more."
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-08 10:01 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a familiar sort of rumor -- the sort often spread about a man whose only sin was loving other men, and not being politic or subtle enough to disguise it. Claudius can imagine the murmuring gossips with fans before their mouths, saying, not only that, his own half-brother …

"And yet the philandering of their father, which produced two bastards, was easily forgiven," he remarks, with a wry roll of eyes. "What a difference power can make. What happened to Mo Xuanyu?"
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-10 02:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius smiles, slow and syrupy-sweet, fond as he always is of Lan Wangji's love story. "The song you wrote for Wei Wuxian."
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-10 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)
"Ah. It's a shame about the Yiling Patriarch," Claudius says, knowing well how Lan Wangji feels about Wei Wuxian's reputation after death. "But if there was a spirit I could summon to take my part against persecution and cruelty, I know Wei Wuxian would be a wise choice." It's a shame Mo Xuanyu couldn't live to see, but Claudius can take some solace in the cycle of reincarnation Lan Wangji believes in. Mo Xuanyu gave up his body for a spirit that deserved a second life, and one day may be reborn in a body of his own, a body knowing nothing of rejection or abuse.
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-12 03:47 am (UTC)(link)
Wryly, Claudius remarks, "That would rather limit his options, I suppose. So that was the end of the Mo family?"
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-13 12:30 am (UTC)(link)
Claudius's eyebrows both shoot up. "Did you? What was the mood of that journey like?"
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-13 03:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius laughs loud at that, just barely covering his mouth with his hand for a scrap of dignified reserve. "My, my. Wert thou horrified?" he teases, shameless. "What didst thou do?" He has a guess, which is freeze, and stare straight ahead, and not from horror.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-14 01:24 am (UTC)(link)
"A body-locking spell," Claudius repeats, impressed and delighted. "Thy first time sharing a bed, and already thou wert flirting with bondage."
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-14 11:57 pm (UTC)(link)
"Qinghe," Claudius repeats, testing his knowledge of names and relations in this fascinating, interconnected story. "Where Nie Huaisang was sect leader?"
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-15 02:52 pm (UTC)(link)
"Like a family crypt," Claudius ventures, envisioning the crowned sarcophagi at Roskilde Cathedral, each a monument to a past life and reign, many of them clutching swords in their stone hands. "Man-eating is quite descriptive. Were these sabers dangerous?"
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-15 03:29 pm (UTC)(link)
"Quite dangerous," Claudius confirms, rapt. "What did you do?"
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-15 04:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Wei Wuxian does seem to be in the habit of sacrificing himself for family members, whether giving up a golden core or taking on a curse mark. "Fascinating," Claudius remarks. "A sort of sympathetic magic. Like calls to like. Was that why the arm had led thee to Qinghe?"
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-15 04:53 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a puzzle, which delights Claudius -- that it's a puzzle with body parts doesn't put him off at all. Anatomical books always mesmerized him. Even on the battlefield, it was envisioning those pages and diagrams that carried him through his first amputation. "The next arm, I suppose. Or something else?" A head? A torso?
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-15 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)
It was the torso. Even hearing the story, there's a satisfaction in feeling the pieces come together, across a long journey (which Lan Wangji neatly elides). "From Qinghe to Yueyang to Yi City. The pieces sound quite deliberately scattered, as though to make the reassembly more difficult. Did you have any sense of what would happen, once they were united?"
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-15 06:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius considers the cast of characters. Naturally, it would have to be someone already dead before this particular leg1 of the story began. There was a veritable cascade of deaths and inheritances, between Qinghe Nie and Lanling Jin. But the most important clue is someone Lan Xichen would recognize. Perhaps someone he was close to, all those years ago, when Lan Wangji failed to befriend Nie Huaisang.

"No," Claudius says with shock. "Not Nie Mingjue?"

1 Heh.
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-16 11:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius audibly gasps. Yes, he knew this was a revenge story from the beginning, but all the pieces start to come together like -- well -- like the reassembled corpse of a close friend with an unmistakable torso who died from a qi deviation. "Nie Huaisang," he says. "Nie Huaisang knew it was a murder, didn't he?"
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-17 10:52 am (UTC)(link)
“Who was it? Thou hast me on the edge of my seat,” Claudius says, as though he wouldn’t be inching towards it regardless. He’s given up that straight posture to lean eagerly forward.
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-17 04:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius nearly gasps again. “Nie Huaisang’s own counsellor?” And another close friend of Lan Xichen’s — Claudius begins to understand why a charming, trusting man like that would end up in seclusion, with a pang of sympathy.
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-18 01:06 pm (UTC)(link)
"A rather complicated relationship," Claudius surmises. Claudius rarely spoke to anyone from his service in Normandy, but he knows what bonds form on the battlefield. And for one man to defend the other from all detractors, until there's one step taken too far ... He thinks back to what he recalls of Qishan Wen and the Sunshot Campaign, their brutal methods, their shows of force. All the same, Claudius's instinct is to wonder what the Lanling Jin commander did, particularly to a bastard son of the Jin family. Unwanted sons aren't treated kindly. "Thy brother is a sympathetic man, to still trust in Meng Yao. Was his intelligence reliable?" There's a complicated feeling there -- it would be very easy for this man to take advantage of Lan Xichen's trust, and pass on faulty information to hurt Nie Mingjue. It's the sort of thing Claudius used to do, which he only occasionally feels a pang of guilt for.
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-19 01:19 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, of course. Claudius could almost roll his eyes, if it weren't for the tragedy of it. He's met bastard sons of nobility who would do anything for their fathers' approval, to have some proof their birth and life were worth something, despite their illegitimacy1. "I see. Despite Meng Yao's last minute reversal and acceptance as a Jin, I take it Nie Mingjue wouldn't forgive the slaughter of his subordinates that easily."

1 Edmund. He's thinking about Edmund FromKingLear.
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-19 11:40 am (UTC)(link)
"Thy brother was popular, to have two sworn brothers. No wonder he was counted among the cultivation world's eligible bachelors." A tease, but a softly-made one. From the way Lan Wangji has described him, Claudius imagines Lan Xichen as a kind, attentive man who cares as deeply as Lan Wangji himself does, and who would've taken his oaths of brotherhood seriously. A loyal man, whose heart would be divided between two of his sworn brothers' enmity for each other -- and Lan Xichen lost them both. It's sincere, when Claudius says, "It's a shame his heart was not treated more kindly."
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-19 07:55 pm (UTC)(link)
An investigation at a discussion conference. Claudius's interest is certainly piqued. "A fine opportunity, with so many gathered. How didst thou proceed?" he asks.
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-20 11:42 pm (UTC)(link)
A hidden room! And a little paper man with Wei Wuxian's soul -- Claudius's eyes catch on that moment of softening fondness, as they always do on his friend's face. "Dangerous, and fiendishly clever. Wei Wuxian seems to like plans that are both."
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-21 11:40 am (UTC)(link)
“The head,” Claudius says, not because it needs to be said, but because it feels like a call-and-response. The last piece of a puzzle, locking into place. “He’d kept it?”
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-21 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"Extraordinary. Did he tell thee what he saw?" It's almost impossible to imagine he didn't. The more Claudius hears stories from Lan Wangji's past, the more he understands Wei Wuxian's courtship was a faltering, awkward thing -- all the more reason for Lan Wangji to advise Crowley against secrets and subtlety1. But they trust each other so completely now, and these journeys must have gone a long way to building up that trust.

1 Claudius. Claudius. Who told Crowley to be subtle? I'm your typist, and I won't let you get away with that.
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-22 04:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius knows how Lan Wangji loves, how fiercely and how endlessly -- I have never known how to feel anything by halves, he'd said, or how to love with any reservation. Lan Wangji was once a young man who touched no one, and now whenever he returns a touch, he grasps back with both hands. I have also never known how to take back my love once it is given away. He said that, too. It struck Claudius to his soul, the realization that after countless cycles of fairweather friends and temporary allies, he found a friend whose love would never leave him.

Lan Wangji loved Wei Wuxian, and trusted him. He loved and trusted his brother, but his brother was wrong. Loving both, he had to act, and the next move was uncertain. That uncertainty must have been agony.

"Ah," he says, and lets it say all of that. He touches Lan Wangji's hand.
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-23 06:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius clasps Lan Wangji's hands, with both of his own, giving as much as he's given. He runs his fingers, over the back of Lan Wangji's, steady and soothing. "What was it?" he asks.
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-26 08:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius presses Lan Wangji's hands for his own comfort, here. Naturally he doesn't care for the idea of some song that could ruin his health, turning his own body against him like the blood parasites did. With all his anxious, constant medicating and brewing of medications, it may be one of his worst fears. "He would've been covering his tracks, then," Claudius pieces together. "So no one would be able to read it there, and identify the same notes in his song. And that's what would lead to a death that appears to be by qi deviation."
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-27 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
Claudius nods slowly. "So that old, forbidden ritual of Mo Xuanyu's ..."
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-27 01:58 am (UTC)(link)
"Wei Wuxian is the first one I would go to for such a puzzle, too." It's not a puzzle that comes up often in his own life, admittedly. Claudius feels a mixed yet strong respect for Nie Huaisang (like certain drinks). Certainly, he'd preyed upon Mo Xuanyu in a moment of weakness ... but also gave him the means to take revenge1. While bringing back a lost friend and ally on which Nie Huaisang could rely, sharply aware of what was possible on his own, and what was beyond his abilities. A useful skill for for a head-shaker to have.

1 It's just something Claudius might considering doing if he had a vengeful young man in front of him and a problem to solve, that's all. Perhaps not the whole self-sacrificial ritual. (It's incidental that the duel at the end of Hamlet turned into a sort of self-sacrificial ritual for revenge.)
Edited 2024-06-27 01:59 (UTC)
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-27 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"Of course." What's a scheme without many moving pieces? "What we were the others?"
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-29 02:49 am (UTC)(link)
"I know thou wilt," Claudius says, and the words come so easily it surprises him. Usually he's too prying and curious to let something like that go -- but he felt no doubt at all that Lan Wangji would tell him later. Lan Wangji remembers the promises he makes.
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-29 01:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius raises an eyebrow. "Never has a man so swiftly gained my sympathies and lost them in the same story. Jin Guangshan ..." He shakes his head. "So much of the fault for this lies at that man's feet. And whatever my former God may've said ... I don't believe the children should suffer for the sins of the fathers. I cannot fault Jin Guangyao for who he fell in love with. But in killing his son, he simply made one more child suffer for his father's indiscretions. In covering those sins, he only passed them onward."

With a final scoff, he says, "And to think this man slandered Mo Xuanyu for being a cut-sleeve."
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-29 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"Quite a desperate series of moves," Claudius observes. “I’ve tried that in weiqi — making multiple captures in enemy territory to control the flow of the game. You always corner me regardless.” Thanks to content of his burn book entry, Claudius can guess it didn’t turn out well for Jin Guangyao, either.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-06-30 01:38 pm (UTC)(link)
"Clever Nie Huaisang," Claudius says with amusement. "Using his reputation for uselessness to his own benefit once more."
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-07-01 04:02 am (UTC)(link)
"Well-done," Claudius says, rather mild, but sincere. Plain congratulations can't capture how much he admires Lan Wangji, and not simply for the skill it takes to remove a man's hand without harming the hostage in his grasp. (Though of course Claudius has no doubt it was impressive. He's seen how graceful Lan Wangji is with Bischen.)
wickedwit: (intent)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-07-02 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
Claudius presses Lan Wangji's hands in his. Both the Lan brothers, it seems, love deeply and (some would say) unwisely. With all his imaginative empathy, Claudius can only begin to envision what Lan Xichen must have felt, running through the sworn brother he'd hoped to heal and reform. Lan Wangji would've seen it, seen the hope draining from him. Even if it was a fool's hope, it should've been Lan Xichen's to keep. "Let me guess," Claudus says dryly. "Nie Huaisang's screams were less than sincere?"
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-07-02 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
It would to be an extraordinary ending for a tragedy, two men who'd been allies and enemies both locked in the same coffin, continuing the same struggle. It is a tragedy, that Lan Xichen is still living through -- only the story of it has a conclusion, because stories always do. Lives keep going.

But (Claudius thinks) a mystery always ends with some sort of parlor scene, where the detective explains everything that's happened. That's why Claudius asks, "So how did Wei Wuxian discover Nie Huaisang was behind it?" He has a fair guess it was Wei Wuxian.
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-07-02 12:52 pm (UTC)(link)
“Of course,” Claudius says with a sigh. “The least likely suspect has the most time to cover his tracks. The cleverest ones leave no tracks to begin with.” Claudius can respect that; it certainly gives him a newfound respect for the Osrics of the world, who cultivate and trade upon their perceived uselessness. “What did he say when confronted? Did Nie Huaisang shake his head and say I don’t know?”
wickedwit: (mm really?)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-07-02 05:04 pm (UTC)(link)
"Politics," Claudius sums up eloquently.
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-07-02 06:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Claudius laughs, appreciative of the time it took, the time Lan Wangji has shared with him. "Tell me the truth. When the two of us meet, is it the most words you ever speak in a day?"
wickedwit: (smiling villain)

[personal profile] wickedwit 2024-07-02 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
"I'm honored," Claudius says with a beaming smile. "Thy words are rare, and rarity adds value. Each story thou hast told me is a treasured gem."