Lan Wangji (蓝忘机) (
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.
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.
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"Shut your eyes. Continue to breathe, slowly, with me, and drop your hands when you are ready." For a collection of breaths, he is silent, his own breathing deep and even. He listens in turn, to be sure that Claudius is with him. "Think only of each breath. When other thoughts come, release them without fighting them. In this room, you need to do nothing but nourish your body with breath and nourish your spirit with qi. Where there is one, the other follows."
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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.
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With some, he might remain silent from here. Claudius worried about doing this, though, in the flippant way he has that means he cares very much. His thoughts will want to creep back in and fill his lungs and mind. So Lan Wangji continues speaking, low and measured, carving a gentle path for Claudius to follow. "You share this breath with every other thing in this universe. You share it with me, with Danding and Xiaoxue, and with the trees outside as they wait for spring. Like the fruit, like those scraps of clothing, it all springs from the same source, differing only in name. Breathe and feel that sameness."
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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.
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There are countless ways to meditate. Lan Wangji could be icy and remote in the cold spring. He could be holding brush-straight handstands with Lan Xichen. He could be flowing from one sword form to the next, Bichen alight in his hand. This morning, he is here, caught between worlds and glad for it.
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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 …
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"The ten thousand things rise and fall while the self watches their return. They grow and flourish and then return to the source. Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature." He slips into silence then, to see if Claudius can endure it.
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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.
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Lan Wangji can sit this way for days. He did so at intervals when he was younger, when the silence was all that he wanted. Causing noise is prohibited. Do not use words frivolously. He has more worldly attachments now and finds himself unable to regret them. He would not want this all the time, not anymore -- and he will not ask so much of Claudius, not during his first morning meditation.
He waits until the stick of incense burns low and then goes out. He opens his eyes. "Claudius."
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He returns to his seat, sleeves trailing as he crosses his legs again. This story is like a dozen strands of hair knotted together. The only way to unravel it is to pick one strand and begin there. "Qinghe Nie was founded by a butcher. Its cultivators do not cultivate with swords as I do. They cultivate with sabers1 and the resentful energy of beasts. It is a dangerous path. Nie cultivators live short lives and often die of qi deviations." He knows someone else who died of a spiritual backlash, but he keeps a calm demeanor as he speaks. "Xiongzhang was always close with Nie Mingjue, who became the sect leader of Qinghe Nie as an adolescent. He hoped I would become similarly close with Nie Huaisang." He pauses again, an evocative enough pause to say, clearly, that he and Nie Huaisang did not become close. Plainly put, they could have not have had any less interest in one another.
1Dao, or 刀.
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"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?"
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"Before I could speak with Mo Xuanyu, he fled. The next time I saw him, he barely let me thank him. The third time, he had a bamboo flute in hand, and he played a song only one person could have known."
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It's a beat too long before he gathers himself, looking at Claudius with a hint of sheepishness. He trusts Claudius to understand his lapse into distraction, at least. "Mo Xuanyu was gone by then. He had sacrificed himself with an old, forbidden ritual. He intended to summon the Yiling Patriarch to take revenge on his cruel family on his behalf."
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