thesecondjade | OOM: The Rot in One's Heart

OOM: The Rot in One's Heart

"Why are you encouraging this?" Lan Qiren's voice cut was clear through the evening air.

"If anything can reach Wei Wuxian and turn him from this path, then it's Wangji." His brother Lan Xichen sounded so calmly certain, as if he knew exactly how things should go. Step one, encourage brother's rivalry. Step two, hope their friendship deepens into a lifelong, abiding thing. Step Three, save Wei Wuxian from himself. What was step four, then? Did Lan Xichen have a plan for after that?

Lan Zhan did not have any answers, and he did not like being part of a plan he couldn't see the clear outcome from. He knew his brother would support him in bringing Wei Wuxian to Cloud Recesses. The weight of everything that Lan Zhan had shared what not been dismissed. But neither would it be acted on -- the only one who could act was Wei Wuxian, and he refused to listen to reason.

Lan Qiren did not see this. All he saw was a rebellious man engaging in dangerous magic, a problem from the time he was fifteen forward. A corrupting influence on one of the Twin Jades. He had no desire to offer succor to anyone. (Had he always been this cold?)

Lan Zhan didn't linger at the entrance to ponder the question. Instead, he opened the doors and both men went still.

"Grandmaster," he said as he went through his bows. "Lan-xiongzhang."

"Wangji, did you come for your assignment?"

"Yes." There was no reason to waste words here.

"Let me see you out, then."

Lan Qiren just turned away after they made their bows and let them go with little fuss. Lan Zhan did not speak; the tension was too much, and if his tongue didn't stay still in his mouth he would easily destroy what peace they had. So instead, he simply took his instructions in silence, and went to leave.

"Wangji," his brother stopped him with his name. "Wangji, you know-- uncle means well. He's afraid, though. Afraid of losing more of us. Cloud Recesses burned. We are weak. He does not speak out of malice."

The weight of the discipline whip in his hands had felt malicious enough, Lan Zhan did not say. He didn't have to, though. Lan Xichen knew how to read his face when no one else could. So he simply put his scroll case in his hand.

"Bring him home," he said.

"I will try," Lan Zhan replied. "One more time."

A short swordflight away he found the thing: chenghuang were normally good spirit beasts, the ghosts of good stallions who still honored their human masters and protected their lands. This one had strayed too close to the Burial Mounds, eaten of the dry dead grass, and now was incurably ill. There would be no swordplay with this beast; archery would take it or it would not be taken.

It was leading him on a merry chase in the gray woods; too close to Burial Mounds, he knew. Too close to the pass that would wend toward one of the side entrances to the Mounds themselves, wood giving way to rocky cliff and scrub.

With his next moment, he sent up a prayer with a blessed arrowed, praying the beast would drop before it came close enough to summon the Yiling laozu from his hiding place.

Despite everything he'd said, he was not sure he wanted to see Wei Wuxian here, to bring him home. At the world between worlds, they pretended everything was normal, that they were almost friends again. Here, that illusion would be rent with a single stamp of a hoof.

The arrow hit it's target; the chenghuang screamed in a voice that sounded like several tangled, a herd of horses howling as one. Though it was wounded, it did not stop in it's gallop. He knocked another arrow, took to the air, and ignored the campfires in the distance. When it struck the beast, it finally tripped and fell, oozing black ichor from every wound.

He approached slowly. It's black coat had lost it's sheen; mottled grey-green rot consumed it, leaving fleshy tumors in it's place. One eye rolled in the head, knowing the end was coming.

"I am sorry," he told the beast, as he drew his sword. "I really am."

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It seems that Lan Wangji's ancestors listen to him about as well as Wei Wuxian's do to their wayward progeny. From high up a nearby tree comes the opening notes of Requitat, played on the dizi. He doesn't interfere with the slaughter he knows is coming, knows it is inevitable, but...

Wei Wuxian can't help but feel for the creature.

Bichen stills in the air in Lan Zhan's hands. His heart sinks even as it skips a little, tumbling about his chest in an uncertain feeling that he doesn't want to name. But he doesn't want to look up, and see Wei Wuxian watching him but down the corrupted beast.

It's hitting just a little too close to home.

He regains his nerve a moment later, knowing the thing is still moving, still in pain. Bichen will end that suffer, sliding through flesh and bone like it was dry grass before a sickle.

A flick and Bichen casts the blood away as the monstrous stallion goes quiet and still. Not a bit of black blood stains Lan Zhan's blade or his clothing. Only once he's tossed down his talismans to burn away the body and purify the corruption does he look up, face swallowed up by the long shadows that shift and move with the growing blaze at his feet.

Wei Wuxian can't help but stare at the sword as it gleams, cold and clean, in the firelight. Will there come a day Bichen will refuse to be stained by his blood as well? Or will that be the one kill that is allowed to leave stains?

He manages to keep enough of his focus to finish the song, mindful enough of the delicate balance of spirits to not want to risk causing more harm by leaving it unfinished.

"Hanguang-Jun, you are living up to your title tonight." He calls, laconically, presenting the cover that has worked so far - that he is unconcerned, untouchable, beyond censure or attack.

Bichen returns to to its sheath, and Lan Zhan does not stop looking at Wei Wuxian.

"Forgive my trespass," he says, and bows. The camaraderie they can find in the heather
of a far away fake Scotland doesn't exist here. Here, all the weight of duty and responsibility is keenly felt, pressing in at all times. "It ran far afield from where it had been."

Straight to the Burial Mounds that had corrupted it in the first place. Of course, like would seek like.

"Seeking sanctuary from the hunters." Wei Wuxian notes somberly, slightly more at ease with Bichen sheathed. It is a false sense of safety, he knows. He bows in return from his perch, Chenqing braced in his hands.

"It had killed," Lan Zhan said, and the words were ashen in his mouth. "It would do so again, in time. The Burial Mounds would not stop it from killing again - merely direct it's attention to a penned in population."

If it had come in, someone would still have to kill it -- and it would have been Wei Wuxian. It was still sick. Being in the Burial Mounds would not have changed that.

"Then it is good that you are there, to prevent killers from striking again." There's a sense of resignation in his voice. Lan Wangji is not wrong, but... how long before that argument is used against him? Or is it already? They were already busy blackening his name before he found Wen Qing, he can't imagine the great powers that be have been any kinder since then.

It's a resignation shared, if for different reasons. Lan Zhan feels it in his bones. When the nights are cold and damp, his right leg aches for all the abuse it has suffered. Talking to Wei Wuxian like this makes his heart ache instead, as if this were another old injury made worse by the bitter cold that stretches between them.

The beast as been reduced to ash, and will corrupt no more, and nor will its evil add to those of the Burial Mounds. This is a victory. Standing here with Wei Wuxian makes it feel like a defeat.

"I'm not worried about killers," he says, despite the fact he knows it's opening the door for another fight. But if he would just take a moment to hear him, then maybe it could be different! "I worry about good hearts that turn black, when illness befalls them."

Edited 2020-09-30 04:21 (UTC)

"There is no illness here, Lan Wangji." Wei Wuxian retorts, just this side of flippant, even as his grip on Chenqing tightens. "No poison, no tragic degradation. I am the same as I have been for years. I have control."

It even has the benefit of being true. There's no golden core to corrupt, and his body was ruined long before he stalked Wen Chao to his death. What damage there is was dealt out long before they could even argue about it.

"No?" Lan Zhan's lips press tight after the word; the courtesy name is a deliberate snub, pushing at his tenderest feelings. He knows it. Wei Wuxian is baiting him. He's always baiting him. "I must be mistaken, having carried Wei Ying to safety and made sure he was fed. Or is this someone else? Hanguang-Jun and Yiling Laozu?"

This isn't what he wants, he screams inwardly. He doesn't want a goddamned fight. He just wants this man to stop hurting himself. Why is it so hard to have Wei Wuxian care about himself?

"Don't answer," he says after a pause that makes him nearly choke on the words. "Confidant of a lifetime. Is that life is over, then? Wei Wuxian is buried, and the only thing that remains is Yiling Laozu?"

What am I to you?

Edited 2020-09-30 04:54 (UTC)

Wei Wuxian has known for a long time that Lan Wangji is an excellent archer - so he really should have expected those barbed words to lodge deep in his chest. His breath still stutters over the ache blooming under his ribs.

"Do not befriend evil." He may have protested the sheer weight of rules that one golden summer, but he did, actually, learn them. "Am I supposed to believe the great Hanguang-Jun would keep so many rules sacred, and break this one in particular? It seems like one that would be important."

"You sound like Lan Qiren."

It comes out deceptively mild, but the it's swimming in speaks to just how much of a curse that was. How dare you sound like his uncle, the uncle that has promised he'll be punished for coming here.

"Wei Ying is not evil," he says as if he was speaking to Lan Qiren, with all the chill formality, the highest of registers he can speak in. "Wei Ying is a hero of the Sunshot Campaign, who gave so much for the weak and vulnerable he swore to uphold. Why, then, does Wei Ying treat himself like a villain?"

"Wei Ying practices wicked tricks." He doesn't even have to pause to recall the words. "Which will damage his body and temperament. He should be taken to Gusu to give a full account."

That night had been the culmination of three months of hell, and had ended in agony when he realized his method of survival meant he lost Lan Zhan's friendship.

"Did you not mean it, then?"

"To give a full account, not to be locked in a dungeon," Lan Zhan says, but his words sound tired even when they're in his mouth. He spoke the truth then, and the truth of the same now. "Not to hurt. Not to punish. To help, to heal. To stop further damage, mend what can be mended."

Why can't he see what this is doing to him? Surely he must know he's a temple with a single pillar now --- if he falls (and he will fall) he'll bring it all down on the Wens who depend on him too.

"And when I do not stop my wicked ways, my crooked, wayward tricks?" Wei Wuxian asks, knowing and bitter. "When I do not pick up the sword? What then?"

His smile is such a tired thing, a jagged slash across his face. He polishes Suiban weekly, as best he can - even just holding the blade like that is draining, leaving him weak and shaking for far too long.

"How long will you save me from the ferrule your clan demands?"

"You cannot pick up Suibian," he says.

Not won't.

Can't.

He knows -- the suspicion has been roused too many times now for him not to voice it. Lan Zhan is not blind. He knows that there must be a reason, and Wei Wuxian has never been lazy. This form of cultivation has it's challenge, but it's easy-- even someone without a Core can do it. That's part of what makes it so dangerous.

"Why ask the impossible? Whatever harm has been done, Wei Ying-- can we not face it together?"

Panic is a clawing, choking thing - Lan Zhan cannot know, that is a guess, it must be. Word would have spread if it were known. Jiang Cheng would be here, furious and blazing. It has been years since he's felt the lash of the whip he now carries, but he can still feel its bite across his back.

How long then before the clans came for him?

"I don't want to carry Suibian." He claims, firmly. "I much prefer Chenqing."

The lie of it tastes like grave dirt in his mouth, but he's eaten worse to survive here.

"Can't," Lan Zhan says, repeating himself. "I do not know if this is the cost of Chenqing, or what happened during your months here, but I am certain. You cannot practice swords."

Suibian had sealed itself in Nightless City. He knew it when he lifted the blade when they retrieved it. Something had gone terribly wrong, he knew it then. Sealing usually was done when a sword had lost it's master - to death, or worse. He just didn't know what 'worse' was Wei Wuxian.

The memory of those months is never far removed, full of teeth and darkness and pain and fear and loss. He resolutely keeps it off of his face, doesn't allow one iota of those relentless screams to show, but the chill of it wraps around his bones and bites.

"If you're so certain, then why do you bother? If I am so lost to your righteous ways? Or do you just want me kept where you can see me, make sure the corruption isn't spreading?" He dredges up memories of meetings between clan leaders, when pride spoke before kindness, and spits that fire back out.

"You called me zhiji," Lan Zhan insists, his fists so tight now that he's leaving crescents in the meat of his palm with the fore of it. "If that is true, then how can you expect me to sit idly by while you suffer? You reach for this power to defend the Wens -- your cause it is righteous, but--"

There's a crack in his voice as he asks, "--why would you ask me, confidant, soulmate, to watch you suffer and lose yourself? Is it so impossible to think that I stand here, Lan Zhan, only Lan Zhan, and not Hanguang-jun? That I am here following my heart and not the Codes of Lan?"

He could almost wonder if this wasn't some vision brought on by the spirits of the Burial Mounds. They did that sometimes, showed him visions of people he missed, people he wanted, saying things he only wished they'd say... only to be ripped away when he started to believe.

Turns out, when it's real, it hurts more. Who knew? Shadows cackle deep in his marrow, delighted in his pain.

"I do not ask you to watch. If the view is so poor, turn away." Wei Ying orders, and to his everlasting shame, his mastery over his voice fails, leeching pain into the night air.

He needs to leave before he is undone. He stands, with a thin sort of pride that at least he can still do that without shaking.

"I would rather bear the pain with you," Lan Zhan says, two steps carrying him forward, "then have you fade away and never know. Will you have me play Inquiry to find out the fate of the Yiling Patriarch? Or will Wei Ying remember he had a friend before he took up Chenqing?"

Maybe it's the Burial Mounds, but the pain is far more keen here. Is it the ghosts, hungry for fresh suffering? Or is it just his heart, creaking the weight of his feelings start to crack it open?

"Just what is it that you wish to do?" Wei Wuxian demands, the words coming more harsh, the snap of a cornered wild thing as he retreats two steps, wary of the closing distance. "I will not turn aside from this path, I do not recognize your authority to censure, I will give nothing to the Jins. I cannot leave these people here. I have no clan to go home to. You know what my fate will be, if the Jins have anything to say about it. So what do you want?"

"Nothing that Wei Ying will give," Lan Zhan says, voice low and rough. The despair feels like it might split him open, break him in half. "There is nothing that can be given, since there is only Yiling Laozu."

Bichen stays sheathed, and Lan Zhan turns. There's a span of seconds where he hopes some voice will sound, will ask him to come back. Anything that will forestall his leap away.

This is... this is right, this ensuring Lan Zhan will be safe. That he won't be dragged down in Wei Wuxian's wake.

He hugs Chenqing to his chest, his hand over his own mouth to keep from making a sound.

Feet still, he glances back -- all but pleading in silence that Wei Ying says something, anything, that can mend this before it is completely broken.

Something that'll stop him. A reason.

He just needs a reason.

Wei Ying is the picture of misery, poorly concealed. The road ahead is dark and terrifying, promising nothing but a poor end, but he's known that for years now.

When he sees Lan Zhan has looked back, he forces his hand down, forces himself to stand straight and proud. He's fine.

He's always fine.

In the next moment, the pale blue and white of Lan Zhan's robes are fluttering and snapping in the wind, signaling his escape. He bounds away some distance, before he takes to his sword and flies through the chill night to reach the thin air of Cloud Recesses.

When he arrives, Lan Xichen is near. From his expression, he can already guess that something has transpired.

"Do not send me to Yiling again," Lan Zhan says, brutal in his complete lack of respect. But he's a brother speaking to his brother, not a disciple to his leader. This is a matter only Lan Xichen will understand, not Sect Leader Lan.

Lan Xichen can only nod to Lan Zhan's back, as he retreats to the Jingshi to grieve something that never truly was born, father to a miscarried feeling.

Somewhere, Lan Qiren is watching. Unlike the brothers, he lets satisfaction cross his face. Good. Let the boy understand what that love will bring him. Being cut-sleeve is bad enough, but the Yiling Patriarch? That way lies ruin for all involved. Hopefully, things will resolve themselves now. Lan Zhan will learn his place again, and be his good student. There will be no more foolish risks, no more terrible friendship. Lan Xichen was wrong; Lan Zhan was perfect as he was. He needs no one else.

Edited 2020-09-30 20:39 (UTC)

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OOM: The Rot in One's Heart

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