[ closed post: the heavy is the root of the light ]

[lightbearinglord]

His promise has been kept. Gideon has seen Aornis' body, and the conclusive nature of her death can't be denied. When Lan Wangji drew back the covering of his own robe, there was nothing, no lingering spirit. There was only a body.

He finds his way to the game room for the third time that day, weary. It has emptied of all its occupants now. The television has been shut off. Lan Wangji suspects that he spots one of SecUnit's drones, but he doesn't have the heart to look more closely. He is not trudging -- not in reality, not when he has his body trained so impeccably to obey him -- but he feels a certain heaviness of limb as he crosses the room's threshold again. His robes are flecked with blood and there are still traces of dried blood on his face, though the glass shard wounds that bled there are scabbing over by now. Memories keep plucking at him with demanding fingers, trying for his attention, and he continues to dismiss them as best he can, with every scrap of discipline that he has.

The room has been emptied, more accurately, of all its occupants but one. Claudius, who waited to meet him just as he asked. Lan Wangji could easily make an excuse for this request -- he and Claudius worked together on this plan for so long, coordinating what felt like a thousand game pieces and meticulously documenting every move and discovery they made. It would be easy to tell himself that he merely wants to bring finality to their efforts by going over the details of the battle, nothing more. It isn't untrue. But he knows that, in fact, most of what he wants is to see his friend. He wants the comfort of his presence and of the fact that they've accomplished what they meant to accomplish, as unclean as it feels now. They're done, and no one else had to die for it.

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[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji finds himself, just for a flickering moment, smiling, hidden from Claudius' view where he is resting his head. He is weary to the bone, in countless ways, but he remembers now that it is over. They completed their work; Aornis is gone. Luo Binghe will soon lose the power of fear over them. Claudius will walk into his wedding day unburdened, and Lan Wangji will walk beside him. Claudius' fingers are soothing as they pet his hair and forehead ribbon, and Lan Wangji considers telling the weight of the tiny gesture he has just made, but he keeps it to himself for now. Claudius likes slowly uncovering information. "You have known how much I care for you since that truth spell."

[wickedwit]

"Ay, I have. 'Tis how I muted my shock in finding out I was on that tree branch, and thou couldst not easily let me fall. I suppose I knew 't for a while."

[lightbearinglord]

"It was not a secret." He might not have chosen to speak of it when he did, to make it so clear so early that Claudius had become irrevocably vital to him, but it was not a secret then, unlike so much of what was compelled from him. It certainly isn't one now, and knowing all the little ways Claudius can doubt himself and his worthiness, he is glad it has been known for as long as it has. "I want to let no one fall." With his face tucked against Claudius' shoulder, it's not so difficult to coax the words from himself. "I want the strength to hold everyone and to need no one's sympathy." The silence that follows is laden with his slightly mulish acknowledgement of the impossibility of that desire.

[wickedwit]

"Strong as thou art, there are times when thou wilt need to be held, too," he says. He says it with the steadiness of his arms, too, a gentle squeeze of confirmation for what mulish tone already admits. It's not possible to hold one's self up and everyone else forever. "'Tis difficult to accept, is't not? As though any moment for thyself is a moment stolen."

[lightbearinglord]

"It is," Lan Wangji says, allowing the faintest hint of petulance into his voice. With Claudius, he can be childish and tired and irritable. Claudius won't mind it.

[wickedwit]

Claudius finds it utterly endearing, in fact. “If there were two of thee, thou might’st have managed by switching off whene’er thou art in need of a rest. But thy other self is among the stars, I hear.”

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji frowns a little, that expression, too, hidden in Claudius' shoulder. "I hardly understood what I was told about him."

[wickedwit]

“I only heard it from Galahad, who knows I like romantic stories,” Claudius says fondly, fond of them both, “and has an ear for them himself — ‘tis all his reading. He likes historical romances, with codified societies whose structures and strictures are familiar to him, and whose passions are more striking stood against them. But I like those tales from far-flang futures, which stir my imagination. A man made by science, crafted for a purpose, who found his own purpose sailing the stars, studying strange worlds alongside his lover … thou can’st see how it speaks to my sentimental soul. We’re sentimental men, thou and I.”

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji can see it; he can see how he often feels like a man who was crafted for one purpose and then, painfully, chose another with the changes wrought by time. Of course Wei Ying would always be at the center of that. Whether that version of Wei Ying lives again, and Lan Wangji wants him to, wants so badly for every Wei Ying in every universe to live in whatever way is possible, the Lan Zhan who loved him will never be the same for having known him.

"Your other self told me a story of love," he says. It amounts to an agreement. They are both sentimental, and as painful as that can be, surely they would want to be no other way.

[wickedwit]

Claudius rolls his eyes, in indulgent fondness for his other self. Of course Claudius's relationship him to himself is always complicated. "He should've told me more of his love stories. Mostly he boasted about his children, something I can never imagine myself doing. But neither can I imagine myself surrounded by a gaggle of orphans everywhere I go." Except, of course, for all the teenagers he befriends throughout the mansion. Those don't count. "What did he tell thee? Was it more thrilling than a long account of assembling fabrics to make his daughter Rielle a doll?" It's an invitation to sit trading stories for as long as Lan Wangji likes. Their time no longer borrowed, Claudius is perfectly happy to hold Lan Wangji, to dote on him, to stroke his hair and hair-ribbon.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji could nearly smile again, because he knows the name Rielle, and he is thinking of Alphinaud, too, with that borrowed fondness of his. He is unreasonably glad to be here, with his best friend, this specific incarnation of Claudius who is so dear to him. That gladness spurs him to tighten his arms around Claudius for a moment, an outpouring of affection, before he allows himself to relax again. "Mn. It was about a knight named Haurchefant. He loved Claudius. He sacrificed himself for Claudius' safety."

[wickedwit]

"Is't e'en so?" Claudius laughs, face softening further. "I suppose he would have a weakness for knights, wouldn't he? Though I found the ones in Elsinore failed to live up to youthful dreams of some foreign cavalier who would swear himself to me and protect me." It makes him feel slightly less irritated and envious towards that other Claudius who seemed too perfectly tall and confident -- he should know himself well enough by now to realize their sentiments formed around the same vulnerabilities. He used to think the romantic knight was a comforting fantasy, after realizing how many knights in his own court would openly disavow him for favor with the king. But perhaps it's not so remote a possibility. After all, he's about to marry a former knight who no longer serves any king or god, and who would challenge emperors for him. Perhaps there's more than a single fascinating but unlikely world where Claudius can find people who care enough to protect him, no matter his status -- knight or no. Lan Wangji protected Claudius, protected the mansion in its entirety, not as a knight who's sworn to a monarch but as a man acting of his own conviction. Claudius rests easier, holding Lan Wangji close.

This other Claudius, apparently, was loved and protected and instead of feeling bitterly envious, Claudius feels a bittersweet sense of kinship. And, of course, he wants to know more. He wants to know everything. "What was this Haurchefant like? An equestrian?"

[lightbearinglord]

It suffuses Lan Wangji with fresh fondness to recall that other Claudius, both because he liked him very much and because he likes his own chosen brother even better. He shifts a little and sits up, only so that he can see Claudius' face as they talk -- and so that he can reach up with one hand and adjust his forehead ribbon, which has gone slightly askew with all the activity.

"Haurchefant was," he says, and although as usual he does not even bother to try recapturing Claudius' expressiveness, he pulls off the timing, the pause laden with exasperated affection, "loud." His eyes soften with the memory of hearing about him. "You met your alternate self. Did you also meet Hebona?"

[wickedwit]

Lan Wangji is already such a master of meaningful pauses; it speaks volumes. It lets Claudius's imagination run rampant within three words, and though he may never know the sound of Haurchefant's voice, he can envision its unabashed volume. "I know what hebona is," Claudius confesses, with a small smile, "but not who."

[lightbearinglord]

"Your double's mount," Lan Wangji clarifies. He pauses again, but this is a pause devoted solely to an effort to describe said mount. "A very large bird. A chocobo. When I bowed to her, she returned the gesture."

[wickedwit]

"What, like a pajock? No, larger, I warrant thee." Claudius does, as it happens, have a certain kinship with birds, whether they're garden visitors or caged pets. There's something entirely delightful about the image of one bowing, large enough to ride -- and it annoys him only slightly that his other self grew up in a world of such commonplace wonders. The same could be said of him, he supposes, in a world of peacocks and cassowaries. "Hebona is what I named my poison. What a whimsical man, to give that name to his mount."

[lightbearinglord]

It slots something into place, something Lan Wangji never knew needed guidance to its home until now. He thinks of Hebona, of how protective she was of Claudius, and he thinks of the world in which Claudius had no fantastical avian companion, only poison, by which to protect himself and Gertrude. "His brother is alive," he says. "And he asked me to tell you something." He wants to do that something justice; he frowns faintly as he recalls the specifics. "About Rielle. He killed her mother, because she would have had her child imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Claudius told me that when it was done, Rielle said he had made her unafraid of the future for the first time." He finds Claudius' elbow and squeezes it, a fortifying grip or a proud one. "And he told me that you are braver than he is, despite the people who call him a hero for his deeds."

[wickedwit]

"Ah." Claudius had found his other self so condescending, an admission of admiration takes him surprise. Of course they’d talked around it, Claudius curtly insisting on a precise account of everyone he’d spoken to, everything he said. The other Claudius raised his eyebrows over eyes so narrow and bright they looked empty — Claudius could easily imagine being pinned on that a gaze, compelled to give up all his faults in evidence.

“Keeping secrets?” he asked. “I suppose we wouldn’t be us without them. What secrets do you imagine I’d divulge to a stranger that you haven’t shared in all your time here?”

Claudius glared. “It’s not a matter of what it’s a matter of who. I have shared my secrets, as a matter of fact, but there’s a young lady I’ve resolved to tell in my own time.”

“An old secret, then. One you believed I’d know, even though we’re from separate worlds, and at some point our paths diverged.” With a too-familiar smirk and shake of his head — how frustrating that flippancy was from the other side — he said, “Believe me, I’m an old hand at keeping cards close to my chest.  You know because you lived through it. Unless you were a good child, who never hid a heretical thought?”

It was cruel, Claudius knows — he knew even then — to demand the man who grew up from that child keep hiding the truth no matter where he went. Their paths diverged, but not that far. The other Claudius chided him for being controlling —  controlling and condescending were the twin barbs exchanged between them, but it was self-control, self-condescension. Claudius always spoke down to himself.

And then the other Claudius surprised him, Saying, “Congratulations, by the way.”

“For what?”

“Wangji told me,” there was a heavy pause, swiftly covered with a lightening smile, “about your upcoming nuptials. Tell me everything.”

Claudius could almost roll his eyes. Face to face, of course his other self swerved, switching thoughts like a shell game to something less vulnerable. Even now, he finds such praise hard to believe. How many times, as a young man, had Claudius recoiled in disgust from his own mind, from the sins of the heart no prayer could lift? Except he recalls how he felt, when Gertrude’s eyes were on his, when she said, You gave me my freedom. How his heart filled with love and hope as he kissed her. 

Those stories, which seemed so frivolous, about asking Gertrude what animals little girls liked so he could stitch Rielle something soft to hold, take on new meaning. He thinks of Tress's eyes, struggling to understand everything Claudius just told her, and the conviction building in his chest that if he had to kill again to keep her safe, he'd do it without repenting. "I didn't know I was capable," he says, slow as he lets it sink in, "of being so kind to myself."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji's relationship with himself is such a straightforward one that this nearly gives him pause. He sees himself; he knows who he is. He knows the things he wants and he knows his strengths. He knows his weaknesses and he knows what causes him pain. If he ran into himself, he can hardly imagine what they would have to say to one another. There is nothing to uncover.

He knows, though, that he is not necessarily usual in that. Wei Ying speaks of his own self, prior to his death, with equal derision and half-condescending affection. I was so embarrassing, Lan Zhan! he'll sigh. Lan Wangji doesn't think he was embarrassing. He thinks that Wei Ying was young and lost and terrified, too confident one moment and too afraid to listen to his own brilliant mind in the next.

It doesn't surprise him at all that Claudius is the same way, that he entered an encounter with his distorted mirror with defenses up. It surprises him about neither of them, in fact. The look on his face melts into something almost nakedly affectionate. "Now that you know it is possible," he says gently, "perhaps you can try it for yourself, in your own mind."

[wickedwit]

"Well, my mind has become less of an unmastered wilderness lately. Perhaps it's a place for civil conversation again." He settles comfortably at Lan Wangji's side, gives himself a breath or two more to truly accept what he's been given. The other Claudius wasn't only speaking of Rielle, or Gertrude. He'd given hope to himself. He's done it again, despite himself, despite the months of careful circling and fearing the collapse of the fragile society they've begun to build here. He's taken steps to protect this strange and fragile community made up of the castaways of many worlds, and now he can hold a marriage without starting for hidden threats or subtle manipulations. "And thou, my friend? How is thy mind with thee?"

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji sits with the question in silence. Some of the mundane details of reality are filtering back into his awareness -- there is blood on his hands, on his face, a little on his robes. There are things that need his attention. But nothing is quite so urgent as it was before, when anything or anyone might be taken from them without warning. "It will be well," he says at last. "I would rather know and remember everything. Even what is painful to know and remember."

[wickedwit]

"As would I. I would be a daring hypocrite otherwise -- you advised me once on matter already, when Galahad wasn't himself, and I was considering going the same way. What was it you said?" It's a rhetorical device, nothing more -- Claudius knows exactly what Lan Wangji said. "Your regrets are lighting the path. Without them, how could you know the way forward?"

[lightbearinglord]

That look of affection, still in place, solidifies itself anew, Lan Wangji's eyes terribly soft as he looks at Claudius. Those words lead back to another memory he would have hated to lose, one of their earliest conversations. He was so uncertain then of what their friendship might entail; he only knew that he wanted to do what was right, to be whatever a friend could be. Slightly overcome, he finds Claudius' hand again and presses it in both of his. He says nothing. Claudius will know himself understood in that silence.

"The body," he says, after a time. "Luo Binghe asked me to see to it." Frankly, even if he had felt inclined to speak generally, he would not have argued or wanted to leave its care to Luo Binghe. "I took Gideon to see it, as promised. She wants to tend to it. I told her to speak with you."

[wickedwit]

"Thou know'st I think little of him ordering thee about like a servant," Claudius says with a dryness. He presses back those blood-stained hands. "But it must be seen to. Gideon -- she's lived long beside death, methinks. She's mentioned dungeons full of empty cradles and attacks by revenant saints in the same casual breath I once used to speak of my disastrous flirtation in the kitchen. Only I was trying to make it sound like an everyday occurrence, when it wasn't. I think such things were her everyday. I trust her knowledge about what to do with dead bodies, certainly ... and I've more than enough experience with soldiers who didn't make it." Sometimes, in moods of extravagant self-hatred, he even entertains the thought that those were his first kills. He failed to save them, perhaps even made then worse with war-time medicine, and there were times when he knew a sleeping draught was simply a way to a gentler death. "I will aid her an I can."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji won't thank Claudius, in deference to their agreement, but Claudius can likely read the gratitude into his slight drain of tension and his weary expression. "Mn. She took me for a necromancer." He would not even use that word for what Wei Ying does, but it certainly comes closer. Regardless, he is relieved to have passed off this responsibility, more relieved, quite literally, than he can say. "I have my share of experience with dead bodies, but--" This hesitation is not a reflection of trepidation about expressing himself to Claudius, only of the necessity of organizing his mind before he speaks. "I would rather share this burden," he admits, after a moment. The corpse of their enemy, who would have carved their minds to pieces for her own ends, who killed one of their own -- and yet whose remains must be shown care and respect. It is a complicated sort of burden.