lightbearinglord | [ open post: Lan Wangji, training ]

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[ open post: Lan Wangji, training ]

Lan Wangji is upside-down.

This is not unusual for him, although he is more used to practicing this in the company of students, his brother, or his husband.¹ Recently, however, his mind has come up against more turmoil than he would prefer, and turmoil of a variety that is unusual for him. It can't go amiss to return himself to the basics of his training.

He is in a small enough room, largely bare aside from the stick of sandalwood incense² he has set burning on a side table. Its scent drifts into the hallway, and anyone who follows it to the source may see a white-clad cultivator standing on his hands.

Well: standing on his hand. Lan Wangji needs one only to keep himself aloft, his body straight as an arrow. His hair is pulled into a ponytail so that it may pool off to one side over his neck and onto the floor rather than spilling in all directions, the long ends of his forehead ribbon tucked into the same tie and falling in the same way. He is in trousers and an undershirt of a decent heft, in deference to the fact that he is arguably in public.³

With the hand that is not currently holding him up, Lan Wangji is holding an ink brush. He is copying, from memory, the lines of a sutra.

¹Wei Ying is not good at it. Particularly not in his second body.
²This may explain it to anyone who has been wondering why he always smells faintly of sandalwood himself.
³If he does this in their quarters, Wei Ying insists it must be done with nothing on his torso at all. Lan Wangji invariably becomes distracted. Now anyone else is welcome to distract him (in a different way, ideally).

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Lan Wangji listens quietly and fondly to this recitation of Crowley's attributes. He drinks his tea, thinking on how perceptions of another's nature may shift over time. He never feared Crowley, particularly, but he also never anticipated tolerating him, even occasionally enjoying him, to such a degree.

He does actually have some idea of Crowley's logic on this false assumption specifically. "He encountered me at fifteen," he admits, faintly rueful about the memory. "When he spoke Wei Ying's name, I was... agitated." The conclusion Crowley drew is evident, although Lan Wangji is unsure how it was not obvious that he was not his usual self at the time.

"Ah, the agitation of young love," Claudius says with a grin, which is also a grin at a mystery solved. "I see. After the encounter with bichen, Crowley well remembered thou wert married, and then he saw thee again unmarried and agitated. He only had the flow of time wrong which, to be fair, this mansion does muddle. He's an eternal being, and thou look'st so young for thy years, he might've waved off thy seeming a handful of years younger. Or mayhap he thought it was thy cultivator's art." The latter, Claudius admits, seem like a rather silly conclusion to come to without further evidence. Everything can't be cultivation. He sighs before his next sip of tea. "I should remember that. He and Aziraphale are operating on a time scale of eternity. But still, even an eternity of friendship or courtship should have a turning point."

Characteristically, Lan Wangji is quiet again as he thinks on this. He has only one example from which to draw, and he and Wei Ying were hardly even friends. The memory of his own confession, locked in the treasury of his memory with no one else to corroborate the details, is too painful to consider during a conversation such as this. "I suspect this place may serve as a turning point," he says, slowly. "None of us will remain unchanged by our stay here."

“Thou hast the right of jt. I thought my stay in this mansion would be rather brief — that I’d find whoever was in charge, arrange my passage back to Denmark, and return to the business of taking over a kingdom. Sitting here and sharing tea with thee, I’m rather glad I didn’t.”

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.

Edited 2023-11-05 23:47 (UTC)

There’s that feeling again of a connection made, a mystery solved, a key sliding into a lock. Lan Wangji said himself he was known to be cold, and difficult to approach. Only the second, Claudius thinks wryly, of the cultivation world’s most eligible bachelors. When Lan Wangji was young, he easily believed he’d been sent counsel in the form of Claudius for dealing with his peers and his first frustrated crush. It all makes sense. It doesn’t surprise Claudius.

But it does humble him. And it shifts something in his perspective, the same as Lan Wangji’s shifting perspective of Crowley. “And to think,” Claudius says, “I was so concerned about prevailing on you for too many favors. I’ve even been holding one in reserve, until the last favor’s been cleared.” He laughs. “I think you’re a truer friend than I’ve had in some time.”

Lan Wangji hesitates, watching Claudius' face. He knows himself. When he loves someone, he does it with everything that he has. He will kneel once a month for years to wait for someone who is not coming. He will find his voice and speak for shichen at a time to counsel his brother through heartbreak. This is no small matter to him, but it is impossible to say that without cracking himself open over tea in a way that he has never known how to do. It may, however, make him a true friend, as Claudius says. He hopes that it will.

"You may ask any favor of me," he says. The promise of action is an easier subject. "I am not counting."

"They count in Elsinore," Claudius remarks wryly. "It's why I was so unfortunate a child -- I had nothing to give anyone. I learned how to cultivate friends and alliances, but even at its best, it's an unending cycle of favors for favors." With nothing in the middle. Claudius hadn't realized, until now, how much he'd identified himself with that nothing. He shakes his head, and continues. "I've an associate here with what he described as channeling powers, something both like and unlike how you channel qi -- I read thy leaflet, by the way. Beautifully written, even the ones with slightly freer brush-strokes." Claudius smirks, since he can imagine whose brush-strokes those were. "Before coming here, my associate's powers were shielded in a way that restricts him from using them fully. I wondered whether such things happen in the cultivation world, and if you knew any remedy for them. Now that I've said it out loud, it's very Elsinore-like of me to treat a simple question like an onerous favor. Information is a precious currency there."

It is, in fact, a very simple question. Lan Wangji picks his tea up again as he answers. "Meridians can be sealed. Another cultivator may do it, by trickery or force." He recalls that Wei Ying unsealed Shen Qingqiu's before Lan Wangji could warn him of the man's undeserving nature. "Or there may be some outside force, such as poison or a curse. It is also possible to seal one's own spiritual power." Lan Wangji most recently did that at Guanyin Temple with Wei Ying's life on the line. "If your associate allows me to try, there is a chance I can unseal his power, but I can't say if it will be effective on someone who is not a cultivator."

"I'll make mention of it to him. I don't think he's pinned any particular hopes on a remedy, but he's rather like I am when under stress -- pacing and plotting out every angle." Claudius remembers again how Lan Wangji stepped in to help him, even when Claudius was half-mad, snarling with desperation. He leans back with his own tea, savoring the feeling of simply sitting, speaking without urgency. "Well," he says with a smirk, "now I've nothing else in reserve, unless thou wouldst learn the gavotte to help me fill out the numbers for Crowley and Aziraphale to dance."

Slightly more settled, Lan Wangji lifts his own cup back to his face as he listens. The tea is beginning to cool, but the temperature remains pleasant, and it tastes something like home.

"Gavotte?" he asks, an entire fairly eloquent what in the world are you talking about in the single word.

"It's a dance Crowley once suggested Aziraphale would enjoy," says Claudius with a laugh. "Most of the things I know about Aziraphale are things he enjoys, which suggests Crowley pays close attention to them. Thou see'st, with all thy stories of Crowley, what an oddity that is: this angel is someone who makes him pay attention and remember. But the gavotte is a dance with many dancers in a line, where partners touch hands. In some courts, they kiss, which is altogether scandalous." Curious now, he tilts his head, and asks, "What are the traditions for dancing, where thou comest from?"

Lan Wangji, who has committed every last frivolous, useless, irritating word Wei Ying has ever said to memory, nods. He understands what this means for Crowley, whose memory is more akin to Wei Ying's, especially. Obviously, Lan Wangji will be kissing no one who is not his husband, but Claudius knows that already.

"I have been asked to play the qin for purposes of others to dance." He considers. "They perform yayue at the imperial court." That is no concern of his, however. "If Wei Ying and I had wed without eloping, Uncle may have arranged a lion dance for our wedding banquet."

"A lion dance -- I can't imagine it." It's a bit much, to ask Lan Wangji to paint a picture with his words, but Claudius is transfixed. He does truly love to learn new dances, as much as he loves to learn the names of plants, or alchemical recipes. "How is it performed?"

Claudius' interest does make Lan Wangji a little fond, and it's easy enough for him to answer a direct prompt. "There is one costume that contains two dancers. One is the front of the lion; the other, the rear. They perform to the sound of drums and cymbals, and will display their martial arts prowess." He drains his tea. "It is performed at every new year, but at many weddings, too, to bring prosperity and stability."

Privately, he is rather relieved to have avoided a spectacle. "Uncle hosted a banquet, but no wedding," he adds. He and Wei Ying had been gone too long by the time they returned, having spent months enjoying the pleasures of traveling as newlyweds.

Claudius can imagine the skill it must take from both dancers, individually and together, to move as one beast in one costume. He smiles at the thought. For the second time, he starts to think that if a way ever opens out of the mansion, he'd like to travel to other worlds than his own. "A wedding should have some recognition from close family and well-wishers, even if it's an elopement," he says teasingly. "They all wished you well, I trust? You mentioned having a brother." Suddenly, achingly, Claudius wants to know whether Lan Wangji's brother was the sort of man to wish him well.

Again, Lan Wangji hesitates. He is committed now to maintaining truthfulness in this relationship, but how can he explain the way that Uncle sees Wei Ying? The way that half the cultivation world still sees him?

There is enough tea left for one more cup for him, one more for Claudius. He takes the time to refill his own and gather his thoughts. Lan Xichen is the simplest place to begin. "I have an elder brother," he confirms. "His name is Lan Xichen. They call us the Twin Jades. He emerged from seclusion to attend the banquet." Lan Wangji was touched by the gesture. He knows how it cost his brother to put on his smiling face without any visible resentment for the situation or for Wei Wuxian.

More slowly, he says, "Wei Ying's death was celebrated by most. Uncle would have lost face whatever we chose, but hosting a wedding for the Yiling Patriarch would have been difficult for him."

There's another key turning in a lock, though Claudius already surmised what lay behind that particular door. It's the title Lan Wangji told Claudius to suppress, after all -- the title Lan Wangji scowled at his first night here. It was that first night Claudius also heard the words 'demonic cultivation,' heard Wei Ying died and came back -- just as there are certain blasphemies in Claudius's own world, he gathers the cultivation world has its own forbidden arts. But the Wei Wuxian Claudius knows is warm and charming, quick-witted and teasing but never unkind, and moreover, true-hearted Lan Wangji loves him like the moon and stars.

"Reputations are fickle things," Claudius says with a click of his tongue. "I've often thought this place presents a rare opportunity to live free of the reputations of our own world, as long we can avoid bringing them in with us. But you've never sought that for yourself, I think." For yourself, crucially. "I'm quite glad your husband came for you." And glad he has you, to care for him, and wish him every freedom.

"His name is a story told to frighten children," Lan Wangji says quietly, "and I could not do without him." Not anymore.

It strains the imagination, sometimes, when he looks at his laughing husband, who pouts and whines to demand Lan Wangji's superior strength while he pretends to struggle to open a jar of wine. But then, Lan Wangji will never forget the sight of Wei Ying half-mad at Nightless City, bodies at his feet and resentful energy steaming around his dark robes.

"No more than yang without yin," Claudius says, with soft fondness. He would've never really known Lan Wangji, he thinks, without Lan Wangji's other half. Lan Wangji might cease to fully be himself, if he had to survive for too long in this place alone -- and that would be a loss. "You balance each other. It's beautiful to see."

Without a great deal of success, Lan Wangji attempts to hide his smile in a sip of tea. Nobody but Wei Ying himself could have stopped Lan Wangji from marrying him, but he is surprised at how it touches him to have unconditional approval from someone whose opinion he values.

"And you and Galahad?" he asks, maybe teasing just a little -- but sincerely curious, too.

Claudius tilts his head in sincere consideration, teacup in hand. "The people I love are so varied," he says, "Though I've only fallen into a deep love -- a love I can't claw my way out from, no matter how I try -- twice. There was a time where I'd gotten quite adept at finding the exact moment where I felt too much, and it became too dangerous, and then I'd make myself scarce. I tried to make myself scarce with Gertrude, and ..." A flickering hand gesture. "You know how that transpired. And I tried to leave Galahad to God, but I would always think of him in silence. There's something in him, some kindred soul that speaks to mine, and it makes me wish to quiet myself so I can hear it whispering. Sometimes -- thou shouldst know -- I speak to him, and I understand how Wei Wuxian looks at thee, and laugh at thy looks as though thou hast unveiled whole stories unspoken." Claudius laughs at himself. "Perhaps there's a balance in that, for a fork-tongued man such as myself. My first love taught me to speak, my second love to listen anew."

Lan Wangji could almost smile again, if it were in his nature to dole out smiles more readily, at the description of a love that ensnares without escape. He has been in that kind of love for more than twenty years.

He drinks a mouthful of tea and hopes for an easier span of decades for Claudius, and his Galahad by extension. "I couldn't speak of how I felt for Wei Ying," he admits, "until it was nearly too late. He broke the silence with a qin string on the verge of slicing his throat. I could only say his own words back to him."

It's an image vividly-drawn, the urgency of near-death drawing hidden feelings to the surface like blood to a bruise. Wryly, Claudius recalls his own melodramatic oaths when he thought he could die at any time -- but he doesn't regret a one of them. "With thine own eloquent inflection, I'm sure," he says. "'Tis well. Thou spokest in a language thou couldst be sure he understood. A shared book of thy love."

Lan Wangji huffs out one of his silent, tiny laughs. He had not been eloquent at the time. His voice and body shook and he was in such shock, so overcome with the happiness of knowing his feelings requited, that he wept into Wei Ying's hair in front of his brother, in front of Jin Guangyao and his underlings, and felt no shame. "You are mistaken when you call me eloquent. That skill falls to you."

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