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[lightbearinglord]

With Claudius married and Aornis at last a permanent memory, the days seem to open up in front of Lan Wangji, like rounding a bend and finding a mountain path opening finally onto a vast and lush valley. He has never struggled to fill his time; there are always topics to pursue in the library, dishes to cook for his husband and for the handful of people he has taken to feeding with regularity, corrections to issue unto Galahad, who listens with the same earnest solemnity as ever. There is a sudden sense of freedom to it all, though, with the end of fear. He told Tally that he had set aside the pursuit of escape in favor of the pursuit of Aornis, and he believed that to be true, but he has yet to pick it up again in her wake. Every day, he yearns for the Cloud Recesses. He misses the quiet, the cleansing mist, and the view of Gusu from atop its walls. He misses the sight of the junior disciples, his brother, anyone but himself sporting the forehead ribbon. He misses Sizhui with the constancy of the waves that now push and pull over and over at the shore of their newfound beach. And yet he is not trying to find his way home.

In the absence of Sizhui, in the troubling void of purpose where once he would have been certain he would never give up the hope of return, he thinks often of Magnus. Their conversation in the kitchen seemed to release something between them, something he had not known to monitor until it was already coming loose. Magnus loves him, and Magnus kept something from him for months, and Lan Wangji is not angry, but he has continued to turn it over and over in his mind, a stone growing smoother and smoother in the relentless current. Magnus trusted someone else with his training. Lan Wangji would be lying to himself if he said he felt no envy at all.

Long familiarity with this place and its people, and his habit of assessing the mansion from overhead, have given Lan Wangji a good idea of Lancelot's routine. Typically, he is at the training yard only to work with Galahad. Today, he returns later on, at a time when he calculates that Lancelot's presence is likely. Bichen is at his side. It always is, naturally, but perhaps if nothing else, the two of them can cross blades. He has wanted to do so again ever since that first and only sparring session between the two of them, before he knew anything about Lancelot at all beyond his skill with a sword.

Comments

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot is, of course, where Lan Wangji expects him to be. He is in the last portion of his drills, sweating a little in the early summer sun. He definitely notices Lan Wangji's approach -- he glances over briefly -- but he doesn't pause right away. He only has a few more forms to move through, and a part of him assumes that Lan Wangji's discipline works similarly to his own. There is no harm in finishing before greeting him.

[lightbearinglord]

Indeed, Lan Wangji is not offended at all, and he would not like to think that he had cut Lancelot's drilling short before he had finished. He gives him a brief nod, which he may or may not catch out of the corner of his eye, and then tucks himself into a corner of the yard to wait, his hands behind his back and his shoulders straight.

[lanselos_du_lac]

It's perhaps five or ten more minutes before Lancelot concludes his practice, lowering his sword and taking a long breath before sheathing it. That done, he turns and smiles, giving Lan Wangji a bow. "Good day, sir."

[lightbearinglord]

Thus cued, Lan Wangji withdraws his hands and puts them together for an answering bow in his own style. "Hanguang-jun," he offers, "if you would address me by title."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Ah-- yes. Thank you," with a deep nod of his head. "Hanguang-jun. You are well, I hope?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Better now that our safety is assured again," Lan Wangji says, a surprising little burst of honesty rather than the nicety he would certainly have dispensed a year prior. "I hoped to speak with you."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot wipes his forehead with his sleeve, and says, "Of course. I have time."

He crosses the yard to sit on the bench, removing his swordbelt and setting it aside and then reaching for the bottle of water he has brought along. "Forgive me," he says in tones of apology that suggest that this is somehow rude, "it is warm today."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji follows, then, and sits as well, shaking out his sleeves as he folds his hands neatly in his lap. He darts a look of faintest bemusement at Lancelot in answer to the apology. "Mn. There is no need to be sorry." He hasn't dressed any differently in answer to the heat, but that is only because he is stubborn, and a creature of habit. After a tiny pause, he broaches the subject: "Magnus came to me. He told me that you have been teaching him to wield a sword."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Ah," quietly. "I was wondering when he finally would. He had not told me he had done so, as yet."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji is, perhaps unsurprisingly, quiet for an extended moment. He thinks of Magnus perched on the kitchen counter, the obvious anxiety of the confession, his own plunge into confusion, surprise, and hurt. His face remains perfectly still. "I think it was not easy for him." It was also not easy for Lan Wangji, but this is not meant to be about him.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"That does not surprise me."

[lightbearinglord]

He hesitates again, caught in his thoughts. It was difficult for him even to arrange them into words with Magnus; he likes Lancelot well enough now, inasmuch as he can, but they hardly know one another. Still, it seems absurd for them not to confer on the matter of Magnus Chase now that Magnus is no longer keeping this secret from Lan Wangji. "What did he say to you when he asked you?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot takes a breath and sits back a bit, recalling. "He said he came to me because I did not like him," he pauses and looks over at Lan Wangji, "That was untrue. But he explained that he thought that meant that I would not be troubled by training him, but that I would take him seriously anyway. I asked why he would not instead ask someone whom he liked better, or was closer to, and he said that he felt anyone else would be... he said 'sad and quiet', I think, about it. He said this was because he had stopped fighting, after the onslaught of the undead."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn," Lan Wangji says, quiet, after he listens. At least this matches, essentially, what Magnus told him, that Lan Wangji himself was disqualified from the task because he was too likely to care. "He was unsettled that night. He lost consciousness and I found him. He told me that he didn't like to fight. He stopped carrying his sword."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He nods a little, "I was not fully aware that he had lay down his sword, until he came to see me. It was an unsettling afternoon, though I admit I felt fairly well that day as it was good to be able to do something I understood. I was also wounded, that day, while I was with Magnus, and he healed me such that it was as if the wound had never happened."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji is well aware of this ability of Magnus', although it has by now been nearly a year since he himself felt its effects. He also, admittedly, felt a certain clean and uncomplicated enjoyment that day, the sense of having fulfilled his purpose, once he was assured that everyone who needed to find safety had been brought to it. "It was good," he agrees, "for me, too. But Magnus found it troubling." Naturally, this is a colossal understatement. "I told him that if he no longer wanted to fight, I would do it for him." It is a little frustrating, now, to look back on that -- he only wanted to give Magnus permission to rest, and permission to seek a more suitable path. He never intended to make part of himself inaccessible.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot nods, frowning a little. He had not really understood Magnus' distinction between fighting and not fighting.

He says, "He mentioned to me that he did not wish to fight. But as I told him: training, sparring, these are not fighting. They may prepare one for fighting, but on their own they may be sport. They are practice, keeping up one's strength. I had not realized how different his experiences were from my own."

[lightbearinglord]

"He has only fought to survive until now." Of course, some part of him must have known that, but then, his second meeting with Magnus was a sparring session -- and a very pleasant one, at that. "I think the difference between a battle and the drills that may prepare one for a battle did not occur to him."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot sighs, nodding, "I did not understand, until he explained, that his 'training' was not training at all." He scowls a little. "He had not been properly instructed. Only--"

[lightbearinglord]

"Only asked to die again and again," Lan Wangji finishes for him, an abrupt wash of ice-cold anger to the words.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye," ruefully, and not without an edge (if a careful one) to his own tone. "I cannot understand the purpose of it, even as training for warfare."

[lightbearinglord]

"It is training for the end of the world." Lan Wangji hates it, viscerally and overpoweringly. His hands are tight around each other. "Even outside of Valhalla, he had no assistance. His father is a god, and he did little to intervene when Magnus was in danger."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I understand -- well, I know of the 'end of the world' aspect, but still-- it is unconscionable to teach someone such skills without prioritizing their survival. And... to ask young men, just past childhood, to practice dying--" Lancelot shakes his head, "The less I speak of it, the better, I think. I would not wish to fight in some way that did not also ask me to value life."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji looks over at Lancelot, almost abrupt with it, startled and gratified with a relief he did not prepare to feel, although his face stays steely and calm. He keeps his anger about how Magnus has been treated tucked carefully away, the strings to its mouth pulled tight, although he never forgets its presence. "Mn," he agrees, grim. "War often forgets that as it wears on, but it should not. Valhalla never recalled it in the first place."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"It is senseless," he says, firmly, "and no doubt it does its own kind of harm."

Lancelot pauses, as if determining whether to ask the question that's looming before him, but then decides he must. "I have not offended, in taking him on, I hope?"