[ 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]

"Well, still. If."

[lightbearinglord]

"Then you will be an expert midwife."

[summerdude]

"Or at the very least," says Magnus, thoughtfully, "I can make a strong case on behalf of prenatal vitamins."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji doesn't bother asking his question aloud. He merely gives Magnus a prompting glance: Explain.

[summerdude]

"They're vitamins," Magnus clarifies. "You take them prenatally."

[lightbearinglord]

Expressionless, Lan Wangji waits.

[summerdude]

"They help?"

[lightbearinglord]

After it becomes obvious that Magnus will not be explaining, Lan Wangji resigns himself. "I will look up vitamins later today."

[summerdude]

"Oh," says Magnus, eyes going wide. "You don't know vitamins. They're, like, nutrients? You need them; you usually get them from, like, food and stuff. You can take them as, like, a supplement pill to make sure you're getting enough of whatever. Vitamin C prevents scurvy and comes from, like, citrus and stuff, Vitamin D helps your bones and sometimes comes from the sun... I don't know the rest. But there's certain other nutrients that benefit people who are pregnant or trying to be pregnant, apparently. So."

[lightbearinglord]

Pleasantly surprised, Lan Wangji listens to this explanation. He will still need to do more research, but this gives him somewhere to begin. "Thank you," he says, solemn. "That will indeed be useful in the event that someone here becomes pregnant."

[summerdude]

Magnus loves to be useful! He smiles.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji gives Magnus' shoulder one fond, firm squeeze, his hand heavy there for the time it takes to complete the gesture. The church, such as it is, is still quiet and warm around them, and he steps back only to allow himself to admire it again, to appreciate what Magnus has done. Much of the time, he is glad of all there is to learn, an endless library of inventions and discoveries and histories of years that stretch well beyond his own time. He will never grow bored. He will never run out of books as he once thought he might do with the Cloud Recesses library, which was considered luxuriously expansive. At times, it aggravates him, a petty and almost childish desire for familiarity and for the feeling of unquestioned authority of knowledge he had at the Cloud Recesses. He is caught somewhere between those feelings now.

Some things change very little. This clearing looks nothing like Gusu, but the tranquility it evokes is known, and comforting.

[summerdude]

Magnus watches Lan Wangji for a long, long moment, taking in his typical muted expression and the tiny line between his eyebrows as he looks at the church, and then decides to ask the question that's been bothering him for months now. "Hanguang-jun? Can I ask you something?"

[lightbearinglord]

Immediately, Lan Wangji's attention snaps back to Magnus. "Yes."

[summerdude]

"Are you, like..." Magnus digs his toe into the dirt, and he looks studiously at the cross for a moment before making himself look back at Lan Wangji. "Sad?"

[lightbearinglord]

That line between Lan Wangji's eyebrows deepens. At first, he is uncertain how to answer, and so he doesn't, but he also doesn't want to leave Magnus feeling as if he has asked something unanswerably complicated. So, after a hesitant pause, he says, "At times."

[summerdude]

"A, um. A lot of times?"

[lightbearinglord]

"What is a lot to you?" Lan Wangji asks -- reasonably, he thinks.

[summerdude]

Oh no, oh no no no, it's worse than Magnus thought! "Like, um. More often than not, maybe?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Not a lot," Lan Wangji concludes, then. His frown deepens again, and he looks at Magnus in the hope that he will explain why he asked in the first place.

[summerdude]

"So, like, a medium amount?" Magnus asks and sighs. "Sometimes I just, like. Get the feeling that you're really sad." It's different, Magnus thinks, from what he's pretty sure are Galahad's depressive episodes, and therefore harder to quantify and understand.

[lightbearinglord]

"I am," Lan Wangji allows, "sometimes." He is at once touched by Magnus' concern and quietly bemused. "I know no one who is happy at all times."

[summerdude]

"I guess," allows Magnus, but he's still stubbornly convinced Lan Wangji might be sad more often than 'sometimes.'

[lightbearinglord]

"Magnus," Lan Wangji says after a moment, able to tell, if nothing else, that his answers have not been satisfying. "What gives you the feeling that I am so unhappy?"

[summerdude]

Magnus makes a face. "It's another vibe," he confesses. "But like, especially when you're, like. Homesick I guess."