含光君

Galahad is not improving quickly, but he is improving, and Lan Wangji can ask no more of him. He began from a shaky foundation, his body weak and untrained but no longer gifted with the resilience and ease of learning that comes with childhood. He is diligent. He arrives in the training yard every morning at chen hour with determination simmering in every young line of his serious face. By now, Lan Wangji has the detached familiarity with Galahad's body that comes of putting it through its paces each day. He knows when to call their training finished -- when Galahad is trembling not with effort, but with exhaustion. Slowly, he is developing greater strength, flexibility, and balance. He holds his yet-unnamed sword with more confidence. When Lan Wangji takes hold of him to correct his posture, he can feel the incremental thickening of the muscles of his arms and shoulders.

At times, Lan Wangji thinks with regret of Magnus declaring that he no longer wants to fight. He and Galahad are such intimate friends; he is steering Galahad down a path that Magnus abandoned with clear intention. Still, he knows without having to question it that Galahad would never have allowed himself to remain too weak to defend Claudius. If he insists on learning to wield a blade, this is the least Lan Wangji can do. He will keep Claudius' beloved, a young man who's come to mean more to him, too, than he could have anticipated, safe from his own eagerness. He will guide him with patience and care.

This early spring morning, Lan Wangji is watching as Galahad assumes horse stance. He assesses him from a distance for a moment or two, then steps closer. "Do not let your knees fall," he advises. He touches Galahad's shoulder, recentering his back and taking the measure of his qi at the same time.

CWs for grief & discussion of death and gun violence.

The rabbits have been settling in. They have sweet, easygoing temperaments, which helps, and it helps, too, that the mansion has apparently noticed their presence and supplied Lan Wangji with a little wooden hutch for their keeping when he is not able to hold them. He does, on occasion, need his hands for other tasks. His preferred kitchen has also been forthcoming with hay and vegetables for their feeding. Wei Ying has already threatened to cook and eat them several times, which means he likes them and will be whittling toys for them any day now. Once winter passes, Lan Wangji will work on constructing a sturdier hutch for the outdoors as well, so that they can see the lake and the woods.¹

Because they are so sweet, and also so endearingly small, their presence is calming in itself. Lan Wangji does not exactly need help to meditate successfully -- he has been doing it daily since he was very young -- but the company does not go amiss, either. It is difficult to dwell overmuch on anything troublesome with two tiny, warm bodies in one's lap.

Lan Wangji is not actually meditating yet, but he is seated in that side room he prefers to use for the practice. There is incense burning, and he has a little brown rabbit, munching its way through a piece of watercress, perched on his knee. In his hands, he holds the equally little white rabbit, which is overall doing well, but which does have a greater tendency to startle and to want to hide itself. He is speaking to it under his breath, gently.

¹It's important for rabbits who began life in the bottom of a top hat to be exposed to nature.