OOM: The Rot in One's Heart

[thesecondjade]

"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."

Comments

[thesecondjade]

"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?"

[alongfallfromgrace]

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.

[thesecondjade]

"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.

[alongfallfromgrace]

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.

[thesecondjade]

"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?"

[alongfallfromgrace]

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.

[thesecondjade]

"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?

[alongfallfromgrace]

"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?"

[thesecondjade]

"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.

[alongfallfromgrace]

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.

[thesecondjade]

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.

[alongfallfromgrace]

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.

[thesecondjade]

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.