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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Subsequently, Lan Wangji produces a pair of wooden tongs. With these, he dips each cup in the hot water and then sets them back on the tray to cool slightly, but not too much, as the tea steeps. He sits across from Claudius, releases his hair from its ponytail, and meticulously straightens his forehead ribbon, ensuring the ends are even in length where they trail behind him.

For once, he takes it upon himself to break the silence. "This is nearly the same as a tea I used to purchase from Caiyi."

"An excellent find, in this mansion," Claudius says with a smile. He's becoming more accustomed to these silences, he thinks, more accustomed to letting them break rather than searching for topics with which to break them. "Is the tea well-known there?"

"Mn. It is a town of rivers connected to Biling Lake. Several goods are sold along the water: fruits, silks, and pastries, along with the tea. Wei Ying is fond of those pastries, and of a particular restaurant in town." Lan Wangji glances pointedly toward the lowslung workstation in the corner, which is strewn haphazardly with cinnabar and half-done talismans and a crimson hair ribbon. "He doesn't care for the food at the Cloud Recesses."

"I believe you'd mentioned he doesn't like the plainer fare. He prefers chili oil and meat," Claudius recalls, fondness in his voice. "And tea and pastries in a little riverside town. Did you visit this restaurant together?"

"Several times." There is a story here -- the family banquet Lan Qiren hosted in lieu of a wedding once they returned from their elopement and their long travels afterward. Bowls of bitter herbal soup, which Wei Ying could barely drink. Lan Wangji drank them all for him, then retired to the Cloud Recesses kitchens to cook him Hunan-style dishes in the fashion of this very restaurant. Wei Ying presumed they came from that restaurant and Lan Wangji did not bother to correct him.

He won't succumb to arrogance and tell that, although it does make him nearly smile for a moment to recall Wei Ying's delight.

Instead, he plucks the teapot from its spot on the bamboo tray and leans forward to fill Claudius' cup, then back to fill his own. "The demon Crowley spoke to me," he says, and then pauses for a single beat. "Once the silencing spell I placed on him ran its course."

Claudius laughs as surely as he would at the unspoken story. "Whyever didst thou place a silencing spell on him?"

Lan Wangji lifts his eyebrows a little, a fairly clear Why do you think? in the gesture. "He speaks nonsense habitually. I tired of it."

"I like his nonsense, yet cannot fault thee for it." Because it's too entertaining an image. "Did he speak sense when he returned thee?"

There's a moment's pause as Lan Wangji picks up his cup of tea, although it's not cool enough yet to drink. The smell of it is richer and grassier after steeping, and he breathes it in. "We spoke of waiting. I told him that it is possible to wait for someone who is already, in body, beside you."

Claudius follows Lan Wangji in picking up his tea, letting it warm his hands through the little cup without a handle. He finds he has to hold it closer to his face to drink, and that lets him better appreciate the scent of it, like the bouquet of a wine. He also picks up the topic with no need for prompting, as ready for gossip as tea. "Like his Aziraphale," Claudius says appreciatively. "Thou didst well to tell him so. Perhaps now that he and Aziraphale are side by side again, Crowley will have a better view of what he's waiting for ... but opposite as they are, I think they're equals in resisting change. Hast thou met Crowley's other half yet?"

"His celestial colleague," Lan Wangji says, quoting Claudius back to himself with a hint of amusement. "No." This blankly curious expression is an invitation to elaborate, in the event that Claudius has met Aziraphale himself.

Claudius likes little better than to talk about people he’s met, and the silent invitation makes him smile. Seldom has he felt so understood by a friend. “Aziraphale has a bookshop in Soho. All rare manuscripts, I think he said. Thou needst not know where Soho is, but imagine that -- imagine a man for whom it's a point of pride that he's had the same collection of old books growing older, and kept them in the same place for centuries. I'm sure the Cloud Recesses runs on men like that. And recall that man is an angel. I don't know how angels are in thy world, but I was raised to believe angels were messengers and instruments of God's will, that they had strange, awe-inspiring shapes, with many wings and eyes, blazing with holy fire. Aziraphale is a human-looking man with blond hair, and he dresses much like I do -- in suits, but lighter colors. He likes the same red wine that Crowley does, has a fondness for genteel entertainments, and is terribly easy to tease."

Edited 2023-11-02 14:51 (UTC)

This may come as no surprise, but Lan Wangji sincerely enjoys sitting in silence and listening as someone he cares for talks. He settles into his seat, holding his cup of slowly-cooling tea, and attends to this description with focus. The Cloud Recesses does indeed have quite a collection of rare texts, although it was diminished to some extent when the rampaging Wen clan burned the library to the ground.

Once Claudius is done, he remains silent for a measure of time and takes his first slow sip of tea. "As you said," he notes, "they have an interesting balance. Complementary."

Edited 2023-11-02 18:49 (UTC)

"Just so. Thou understandest me," Claudius says, smiling over the rim of his cup. "And they have a history. Crowley told me they circled each other for ages -- I'm sure real ages, rising and falling epochs -- before deciding they preferred each other's company to any of their respective sides. And this is a secret only known to myself and Crowley." There's no need to lean closer, in Lan Wangji's private rooms, but Claudius does lean a little.

"There was a book of magic in the library here that foretold the future. Whether or not it comes true may be up to the person who reads it ... but I think the futures concerned those closest to one's heart. For Crowley, it said that he'd live one day with Aziraphale in a cottage in South Downs. Again, thou needst not know where South Downs is -- neither do I, but I hear it's a bucolic place."

Again, Lan Wangji's eyebrows quirk the tiniest bit upward, this time with quiet interest rather than incredulity. He is not precisely in the habit of exchanging secrets. Most of his own are too closely guarded. Wei Ying does like to make the rounds, however, chatting with every Lan sect disciple and every townsperson in Gusu and Caiyi, and then bring endless tales of romance, drama, and petty squabbling back to Lan Wangji as a child with a prize.

Bucolic. Wei Ying had a dream, once, about the two of them sharing a house on a farm. Lan Wangji had been relegated to weaving.¹

Lan Wangji examines the surface of his tea and the leaves settling beneath. "In his first life," he says, "Wei Ying did not consider me in that way. He flirted with every girl and thought of no alternative." In fact, Wei Ying presumed they were rivals at best, enemies at worst. "One's heart may be closed not to another, but to possibilities."

¹"It's because you like things that are boring, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying had said later, upon their waking, with such utter affection in his voice that Lan Wangji could not protest.

"Thou hast the right of it," Claudius says with a laugh, imagining a young Wei Wuxian with another face, flitting and flirting with women while Lan Wangji watched and quietly simmered. "Whenever I tease the subject with Crowley, I'm left wondering -- and this may not surprise thee -- whether I've been too subtle. I'm almost afraid to startle him, like a bird that's lighted somewhere it thought was a branch. But the last time the three of us drank together, Crowley made a passionate declaration of everlasting friendship, using a metaphor with a bird and a mountain -- and that was progress. Every other time he simply says they work together, or not even work together, across from each other. I think they should dance together. Music, as thou know'st, is the food of love, and dance one of the first courses to enjoy it in."

Perhaps he should make this clear to Claudius, as he has not yet said it to him in plain words. Looking briefly but distinctly embarrassed, Lan Wangji says, "When alcohol affects me in that way, my memory fails me." It is actually a wonder that he and Crowley found their way to the relevant subject despite that fact.

"Crowley repeated the meaning of that story to me," he continues, not eager to linger on the topic of his own weaknesses. In fact, he takes another fortifying sip of tea. "He remembered that I spoke of Wei Ying." Again, Lan Wangji reflects, it's truly unbelievable that they muddled their way into a sincere conversation. He gives himself another pause, and then looks at Claudius with something knowing, and a little bit fond, in his otherwise placid expression. "You are making plans."

Edited 2023-11-03 14:17 (UTC)

Claudius gives only the briefest, barest nod of acknowledgement, so that Lan Wangji sharing his weakness won't feel like a waste, but neither will either of them dwell on it. It does entertain him -- Lan Wangji's reactions to alcohol may be remarkable, but Crowley's memory can be a muddle at the best of times. He raised the story again, independently? That image must have been pecking away somewhere in Crowley's mind.

Claudius sips his own tea and considers. "I started planning the same day we'd read that magic book. I didn't know what obstacles were ahead of me, of course -- I still thought getting Aziraphale here would the biggest one. But I find I'm undaunted." He smiles. "Crowley was my first man here I could consider a confidante. He's made me realize a great many things about myself, directly and indirectly ... and in a way, I wouldn't have the relationship I do with Galahad, if it weren't for Crowley. I'd like to return the favor."

Lan Wangji listens to this politely, lightly baffled behind that exterior. Crowley? A confidante? It's only very recently that the two of them have managed to string together a single intelligible interaction, and not without considerable effort.

Well, he knows that Claudius likes stories. When it comes to Crowley, he's no shortage of those. "On our first meeting, I presumed him possessed by an evil spirit. I attempted to cleanse him with my qin."

Claudius loves a story, eyebrows raised with shocked delight. "Thou didst?" He laughs, and waves an idle hand at his own question. "Why wouldst thou not? He's something like an evil spirit, even if he's not possessed by one. And how did he take it?"

"You and I are not speaking the same language." This seems obvious enough, although Lan Wangji has yet to discuss it with anyone here. He can remember easily his initial surprise at the foreign styles of dress, the foreign faces, he encountered when he arrived. "Some force here has granted us mutual intelligibility." He delivers this sentence with the barest hint of warmth, as he's grateful for that fact.

Now, how to explain this? "The demon Crowley greeted me with the speech of an uneducated child or a madman. After I played Cleansing, that largely resolved." Yet another pause. "There was no other effect."

Claudius envisions the scenario as best he can, trying to guess what his friend Crowley was thinking — it’s one of his favorites games to play, the game of guessing intent. For his time limit, he allows himself a sip of tea, and the length it takes to raise it to his mouth and set it back down on the table.

“How utterly incomprehensible,” he laughs. “What could he have been playing at?”

The corner of Lan Wangji's mouth twitches in fleeting mirrored amusement. "I couldn't say," he admits. "He has not spoken in that way again." Reflecting on the entirety of his bizarre acquaintanceship with Crowley is, frankly, alarmingly confusing. His eyes narrow briefly as he recalls one of their stranger exchanges¹. "Once I discovered his true nature, I took to him with Bichen in hand. I can't say why, but he believed that I was angry because of Luo Binghe's interest in men." This particular story beggars belief, which, of course, is why he is sharing it, to better entertain Claudius.

¹Unlike Crowley, unless he has been drinking, his memory is perfect. He can recall everything they have said to one another easily. The trouble is understanding it.

“Thou?” Claudius laughs even louder and longer at that — Lan Wangji can well understand why. “Of all men? I told him thou hadst a husband, a very charming one. But I also told him the name of every person in the mansion, back when I thought Luo Binghe could be perfectly biddable when coaxed. How did Luo Binghe’s name even arise?”

The question requires Lan Wangji to, once again, relive that conversation. As he does so, he finishes the contents of his cup of tea, then refills it, as well as refilling Claudius' back to its original level.

"Something to do with Peak Lord Shen," is the best he can offer, with a dip into frostiness on the deployment of Shen Qingqiu's title.

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