If a path to the Cloud Recesses opened today, Lan Wangji would take Wei Ying in hand and walk it, and be glad of the return to the clean purpose of night-hunting, the gentians outside the jingshi, and the shaky handstands and eager smiles of his students. But he would hesitate, and he would look over his shoulder. He would miss people here, unexpectedly. Tress, Magnus, Laertes, even Crowley -- and easily Claudius the most of all.
Lan Wangji spent long, long years leaving his bedroom only to night-hunt. He mastered self-sufficiency. When they were young, he and Nie Huaisang were placed together, Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue's leftovers, but they were as two animals from opposite sides of the ocean in the same zoo enclosure. They hardly knew what to do with one another. That was the nearest he ever came to having a friend, until now.
Lan Wangji sets his tea down. "You are my first friend," he says. "Thank you for the company.1"
1He doesn't consciously remember this, but this is also what he said to Claudius as he left from their first meeting.
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Lan Wangji spent long, long years leaving his bedroom only to night-hunt. He mastered self-sufficiency. When they were young, he and Nie Huaisang were placed together, Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue's leftovers, but they were as two animals from opposite sides of the ocean in the same zoo enclosure. They hardly knew what to do with one another. That was the nearest he ever came to having a friend, until now.
Lan Wangji sets his tea down. "You are my first friend," he says. "Thank you for the company.1"
1He doesn't consciously remember this, but this is also what he said to Claudius as he left from their first meeting.