[ closed post: the sun shines brightly ]

[lightbearinglord]

It has been a strange handful of weeks, but Lan Wangji can accept strange far more easily than he could accept the pain that rippled inexorably outward from Shen Yuan's death, seeming to leave no one untouched. The parade of visitors was unusual, and thought-provoking, but not painful. Lan Wangji enjoyed meeting most of them. Even Galahad, whose empty politeness made him feel hollow in turn -- there was a quiet satisfaction in bringing him to the rabbits and watching his stunned expression at the simple joy of holding something small and vulnerable and trusting.

As for himself, the memories are so abstract as to be incomprehensible. There is something there, enough something to assure him that Aornis had no hand in this specific strangeness. But he can barely grasp at the details. He remembers embracing Magnus, but that signifies nothing out of the ordinary. He remembers sparring with Gideon; he remembers that he needs to ask Sagramore for fresh poetry. He remembers the loss of Wei Ying, newer and crueler than it typically is these days, but when he came back to himself the next morning, Wei Ying was there, his head tucked beneath Lan Wangji's chin and his ankle hooked around Lan Wangji's hip.

The least enjoyable of his encounters, at the least, provided him with something important. He has not removed the locket from his qiankun pouch. He wants to waste no time in bringing it to its intended recipient. He performs the first of his morning routines -- his meditation, his patrol, Wei Ying's breakfast -- and then goes to look for Magnus at the camp.

Comments

[summerdude]

"Obviously," Magnus says, rolling his eyes. "I mean, like -- there's no one else in the house? I bet that was an adjustment here."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn. It is quiet at the Cloud Recesses." Not unlike this church, in fact. "I lived alone in the jingshi for most of my life."

[summerdude]

"Even as a kid?" Magnus asks, surprised. "Wait, because of your mom? Wait, what about -- you have a brother, right?"

[lightbearinglord]

"I have an older brother." Magnus knows that, but he doesn't mind saying it again. "We lived with my uncle when we were very young."

[summerdude]

"How young? When did you move into your, um, house by yourself?"

[lightbearinglord]

"I was twelve years old when I moved into the jingshi."

[summerdude]

"Wow, that's so young," says the guy who started living alone on the streets at barely two years older.

[lightbearinglord]

"Is it?" asks the man who has no other frame of reference, often spent several consecutive days in secluded meditation as young as thirteen, and went off to fight a war at seventeen.

[summerdude]

"To live all by yourself? Yeah, isn't it?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji is not the type of man to shrug, or he might do so here. "I don't mind being alone." That's less true than it once was -- or perhaps he's only more recently aware of the times at which it was less true than he believed -- but it is still true enough.

[summerdude]

This shocks Magnus. "Do you really?" he asks. "But you're so... with people."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, in turn, is so surprised that he says nothing. He merely looks at Magnus with blank confusion written on his face.

[summerdude]

"Like," Magnus says, and gestures broadly in a way that is meant to encompass your husband and your friends and your disciples and whatever it is that I am.

[lightbearinglord]

"Speak properly." As admonishments go, it is a very fond one.

[summerdude]

"You have a lot of people!!!" Magnus says. "You're, like, People Guy!"

[lightbearinglord]

Magnus could hardly be more wrong, but it's a touching way for him to be wrong. "Wei Ying was dead for thirteen years. I told you that Claudius is my first friend."

[summerdude]

"That doesn't mean you're not People Guy," Magnus says, rolling his eyes in a dad-respecting way. "The entire time I've known you you've had your husband and your best friend. Also you, like, like being around people. Right? Even if you're just watching quietly and it's not your thing. You put up with all the parties and stuff here so much better than me."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji could argue again, but he considers what Magnus has said instead. He does like being around people -- he likes listening to them, learning how they fit together, watching the ways that they choose to express themselves. People have not often liked being around him, but that is less often the case here. He is immensely grateful for it, for the people who have taken the time to understand him.

"Mn." He gives Magnus a slightly softened sort of look. "They say that I go where the chaos is." A mansion party is not quite the definition of chaos the cultivation world had in mind when they gave him that distinction, but it remains fitting.

[summerdude]

"Yeah. See? You have the vibe."

[lightbearinglord]

"The vibe?" He has heard Magnus use that term before, but now that it is being used to describe him, he's curious enough to ask.

[summerdude]

Magnus really should put a definition of 'vibe' on the welcome table! "It's, like, a feeling," he says. "An impression? An aura. Emotional resonance. A place can have vibes, and a person can have vibes, and a situation can have vibes. They can be specific, or they can just be generally good or bad."

[lightbearinglord]

Luckily, this actually makes perfect sense to Lan Wangji. "Such as your aura of summer," he says, and nods, "or the killing intent from Galahad's former sword."

[summerdude]

"Yeah! And your People Guy vibes. And, like, dad vibes or whatever," Magnus says, and then flushes.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji manages to look fleetingly almost abashed at that. "My dad vibes?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah, those," Magnus says, flush deepening.