[He's suprised by the labor and the offer, and can't help but have a surge of affection. Affection was a default at this point, he knew it's name and it's tone so well. Gently he takes a seed and puts it in his mouth. Lotus seeds, the greatest things in the world, the answer to all problems and a sense of home.]
You should eat some too.
[Because they have to be shared, no matter what they need to be experienced with others, that was their purpose. With his family, with his shidi or even his friends, they must be shared.]
In the matter of how to proceed? Observe the boy, see his state, try inquirey, then zidian. Evocation isn't an option with a fragmented soul, so something else is needed. Maybe distance? If it's latched on, perhaps we can trick it into thinking a substitute is the real person.
[Of course he meant to move the fragment to a paper man, and once it was moved destroy it properly.]
But, no matter how good you are, you can't do that alone. And Jin Ling doesn't have the skill to help.
[ Force the spirit out. Lure it. Trick it, in the method closest to Wei Wuxian's own mind, nearest to his heart. Lan Wangji nearly laughs, but the smile contains itself, directed instead at the largest seed in his hand.
He picks it up between two fingers, carefully raising it to shift it left-right and let the light dance down and catch on its fattened, twirling figure. It is no gentlemanly feat to chew seeds like the peasants do, but there is a limit to how much he can deny Wei Wuxian in the scope of the same lone conversation.
With a hum, he bites down, chews, lets the strange tang diffuse itself in his mouth. A different breed to the lotus at home. Bitterer, more raw than he'd perhaps intended — not displeasing, exactly. Only changed. ]
Zewu-Jun can accompany me.
[ Of all the objections Wei Wuxian might set against Lan Xichen, the master of Cloud Recesses is not unskilled.
[Do not judge him of his suggestions, he has spoken naught but practiced and true daoist method, should he instead think of that which is more aligned with the Buddist dictomy decended down within GusuLan? He has not proposed one wicked trick, or taboo practice.]
If he is well, the Two Jades should be more than enough for most anything!
[He can't help but enjoy watching him, as if such simple and mundane things as eating seeds was a grand preformance.]
It should not be dangerous. Failure should not have reprocessing, and success should not harm him. But, it all depends on a preliminary examination. To have proper answers, one must understand the nature of the problem they need to solve.
[ The commitment, then: to reveal all there is for the eye to see and the mind to grasp, to spell out stakes and answers. So be it.
Examination. Study. Consultations to determine the righteous path after. Tame precautions the precepts recommend, but the mind struggles to accept easily. As if exorcism is an unhurried thing, and demons have learned to do their waiting. Let alone spirits, forever and organically restless, homeless and without boundary.
Water, constantly in overspill.
No matter. This, too, can be resolved later. Now is the time of a simpler arrangement, supply ahead of demand. Next he offers his seeds, Lan Wangji borrows the strength for shamelessness: ]
[ Need. Wisely chosen. For once, hard exhale shredding what little integrity his lungs are yet given, Lan Wangji can style his request for the truth of its nature.
He needs. Harry the potter needs. His guqin, deprived the strength of his play, needs. Inquiry simply commands.
Brother leads the clan, but Lan Wangji is still compelled by his tasks. Vanity and arrogance cannot trump duty. He stares at this Wei Wuxian, reshaped in the figure of a man Wangji has never known, and understands what he asks of one, he steals from the other. ]
Lend me your back. [ Another pause. ] To sit against.
[He can't help but smile, it isn't a mocking smile or one of levity. It was a simple caring smile, a tender smile glad to help those he cared about, to be asked to help when it was needed.]
Would you like to sit here, or somewhere more suited to your tastes?
[ With any other but the family, a change of scenery would not dictate the improvement. The sacrifice is the cost here, Wangji's comfort for the trifling gain of energy unneeded on most occasions.
Critical now. He raises himself, obliging at least in the understanding that the supplicant should compromise first. Then, the reconfiguration: Wei Wuxian, clumsily sprawled as he likes himself, to face the world. Lan Wangji, sat steadily behind him, their backs bridging hairs' widths of distance with inevitable points of connection.
The moonlacing, a grudging warmth, trickling between them. At the last moment, he holds his hand out to the side again, a plate for Wei Wuxian to have his pick of the last few lotus seeds. ]
You give too easily.
[ And he takes too readily, well matched in this one respect. Forgive him, Uncle, for all the times and turns he bowed his head willing, or raised his spine strong, to stand with the whims of Wei Wuxian. ]
[He takes one seed but makes sure there is one left. This was sharing after all. And though he wants to fully lean back in a relaxed manner, he considers Lan Wangji's comfort before doing so. Leaning just enough to not be too offensive.]
And is there a reason I should not give to you? Are we not already acquainted rather well?
[ The final seed, and Wei Wuxian so fickle and moderate in his appetites. So be it. Setting it on his tongue, before the crinkle-crack of slow teeth, Wangji lets himself enjoy the green taste of it again, the promise of a spring that seems to neither ever come, or leave them.
He could learn to love this, a compromise between the roasted Yunmeng Jiang lotus seeds of home, and the aggressive novelty of all that surrounds them here. ]
You should have acquainted before marriage.
[ Hit, parry. If Wei Wuxian teases first, then it behoves Lan Wangji to deflect and strike back in kind. Nothing given here is done so freely, for Wangji's own person — only in the name of a man who wears his face in another world. ]
Do not feel obliged.
[ But do not leave, either, for all Mo Xuanyu's back is slighter than Wangji remembers of Wei Wuxian's, and he gives so much less support. ]
[ A gentler correction than countless before it. Friendship is a simpler thing than the turns and turmoils of Lan Wangji's heart. There is sickness inside it, rot of indulgence digging a tomb hole, where affection can dwell, unhindered.
There is a name brother struggles to give this bond Wangji strains himself not to call out. A nature. And though the hour hasn't come yet to speak the word, there are fights he has stepped out to win with better odds in his favour.
He leans back, purposefully trusting more of his weight. ]
I abuse your kindness, when it is convenient.
[ He did today, presenting himself like an orphaned cat with his boon to beg. Came, regardless of it. ]
Forgive me. [ A gentler correction than countless before it. Friendship is a simpler thing than the turns and turmoils of Lan Wangji's heart. There is sickness inside it, rot of indulgence digging a tomb hole, where a
[He pauses a moment as he can feel the deeper lean of Lan Wangji behind him, he allows himself to lean mack just a little more as if trying to make sure he will not startle the small animal before him.
He can't help but feel a warmth swell within him though, to be accepted that much.]
There is nothing to forgive, and nothing abused. All is given freely and without limits.
[ He laughs, soft enough to bide himself the pretence of decency; later, if asked, he might well play at it being a last-moment hiccup, a strange and curious accident.
All is given freely and without limits. As if Wei Wuxian were a fruit merchant, raising the offer for his wares, polishing his terms. ]
You speak like a diplomat.
[ To think, brash and brazen Wei Wuxian, one day set to join the high cultivation table and set the sharp edges of his mind against talk of taxes, merchants' passage, the hermit clans. ]
I would be a terrible diplomat. I hate those stuffy conferences.
[He was also a terrible salesman, but why bring that up?]
I'm sure they all hate me as well.
[He wants more than anything to say Lan Wangji should laugh more, that it's a good sound, and that he likes it. But, he has started to learn that saying such things will chase the elusive man away potentially, scared by the silliest things of displayed emotion.
He can bring it up another time and teasing has fewer drawbacks.]
[ He murmurs between gritting teeth, careful not to disturb what short-little balance has been struck so tentatively between them. Over the lotus pod, his grip lessens, until the depleted flower withers down.
He takes over its sister, carefully extracting a new set of seeds with the same tireless, studied inclination. Wei Ying does not enjoy the flesh of lotus marring his seed. Wei Ying prefers crunch and a long chew.
( Lessons he did not think he had learned, now summoned for inspection. Ah. ) ]
As long as they speak nothing against your dignity.
In these days I'm no longer their default for a villain, another having taken my place in the spread of gossip and grizzly stories.
It's funny how quick everyone will change their tune when they have another to decry and you become less convenient as a target.
[He had saved everyone's children, he had uncovered the villain, he was accepted by GusuLan and the venerable Hanguang Jun. He was not a convenient target anymore.]
But that doesn't make such gatherings any less awkward and filled with politics I woukd rather avoid.
[And though he tried to keep his tone light there was still a weight to it. An unpleasantness to the concept. A sadness and tiredness to it all. He was so sick of the cultivational world and it's politics. How quick it could praise who were convenient and decry who were not.]
Somehow, the skin of the lotus needles tenders under Lan Wangji's nails, breaks and gives way. He stares down at his workmanship, struck by his own misplaced violence. Aggrieved by it. Then, hollowed out. Indifferent.
By contrast, Wei Wuxian sits a stain of warmth on his back, a misshapen and glorious sun. Who can blame him for drawing all in his orbit? Testily, Lan Wangji reaches out to offer the seeds, some crushed, some painting-perfect. ]
Then, we avoid them.
[ Together. A simple pronouncement, no matter its implications. ]
[He can't help but laugh a little, though it comes out as a muffled snort. The ravished seeds some abused and some unscathed. At one time he wouldn't have noticed these subtleties, but now he's learned to look.
He takes some of the offered prizes gladly, as carefree as ever.]
Thus a politician I could never make. There are others better suited with more promise and skill.
[ Like sunlight, inescapable, pervading every obstacle before it. Wei Wuxian of Yunmeng Jiang — of Yiling, after — can be intermittently avoided, but never truly outrun. Or captured, though enough of Lanling Jin and Qinghe Nie and Qishan Wen have tried.
Lan Wangji too, for all his kindness, must pay the bribe price for his presence, offers of lotus seeds, a warm back, a few sweet words. Like a small, adorable animal, Wei Wuxian doesn't lend himself to a long stay easily. ]
You should have roamed and played longer.
[ Carefree, with no responsibilities, the lesser son of a great clan, stumbling on his future as he might do on pebbles in his path. Not what the sects made of him.
Things then would never have allowed it, no matter what.
[Everyone was pushed so hard to be first in cultivation, to not fall behind. Even before the war started and things errupted, the strain caused by the QishanWen were great. In a way he envied the juniors, able to cultivate at their pace, able to be children and learn comfortably....]
But now, I can play, but who wants to play alone?
[He turned as best he could without releasing his back from Lan Wangji, his hair up in a ponytail moving with his head in a swish.]
Lan Zhan should also experience roaming and playing.
[It's never too late, and he would make the same offer each time. Play with him.]
[ Never as vocally, as ignorantly, as unchained — never, in such a way that might whip his hair across another's nape, or make an obvious nuisance of his person. He is not yet so thick-skinned that these feats can be brokered easily. But he has learned to bend, before he chooses to break. Learned to shift, so Wei Wuxian can move and turn, to accommodate him in the negative space of Lan Wangji's body. ]
I play now.
[ And, to illustrate, he lends even more of his weigh onto Wei Wuxian's back, careful evidence that he knows all too well what he's doing — and crushing his feebler confidant is some strange plot of earning his laughter. Let Wei Wuxian, who boasted his skill with the bow and ease with callisthenics so often before, struggle, for a change.
He sounds smugger than any virtuous adept of the school of Lan has a right to, by the end of it: ]
[He cried out getting back into a better position to not be pushed over by Lan Wangji's sudden humor. Of course despite his outcry he is smiling, having fun in the moment and enjoying the moment of levity.]
[ As if, crushed into his own corner, Wei Wuxian has that great of a choice. Lan Wangji allows himself this one moment of victory, before a quiet exhale signals the start of mercy, and he pulls back in time with Wei Ying's push.
There. Let it not be said he pays no mind to his lesser, feebler companions. Like a rabbit, Wei Wuxian needs constant, proficient care. ]
Were you not building strength?
[ An entire core of it, to hear Wei Wuxian boast. And what's come of that? ]
[His tone was a mix of a pout and a whine, he was quite proud of his swiftness, he was pretty sure his sword was one of the fastest, and he had always been great at dodging even without his core. The streangth of his cultivation was completely seperate from his physical.]
Then next time I'll have to prepare.
[He leans back completely at the mercy given, allowing his full dead weight to lean. He will have to remember to go all out when another encounter rears it's head. Just to prove some decency still exists within him.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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You should eat some too.
[Because they have to be shared, no matter what they need to be experienced with others, that was their purpose. With his family, with his shidi or even his friends, they must be shared.]
In the matter of how to proceed? Observe the boy, see his state, try inquirey, then zidian. Evocation isn't an option with a fragmented soul, so something else is needed. Maybe distance? If it's latched on, perhaps we can trick it into thinking a substitute is the real person.
[Of course he meant to move the fragment to a paper man, and once it was moved destroy it properly.]
But, no matter how good you are, you can't do that alone. And Jin Ling doesn't have the skill to help.
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He picks it up between two fingers, carefully raising it to shift it left-right and let the light dance down and catch on its fattened, twirling figure. It is no gentlemanly feat to chew seeds like the peasants do, but there is a limit to how much he can deny Wei Wuxian in the scope of the same lone conversation.
With a hum, he bites down, chews, lets the strange tang diffuse itself in his mouth. A different breed to the lotus at home. Bitterer, more raw than he'd perhaps intended — not displeasing, exactly. Only changed. ]
Zewu-Jun can accompany me.
[ Of all the objections Wei Wuxian might set against Lan Xichen, the master of Cloud Recesses is not unskilled.
And it might still not prove enough. ]
Might the boy die for such an exorcism?
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If he is well, the Two Jades should be more than enough for most anything!
[He can't help but enjoy watching him, as if such simple and mundane things as eating seeds was a grand preformance.]
It should not be dangerous. Failure should not have reprocessing, and success should not harm him. But, it all depends on a preliminary examination. To have proper answers, one must understand the nature of the problem they need to solve.
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[ The commitment, then: to reveal all there is for the eye to see and the mind to grasp, to spell out stakes and answers. So be it.
Examination. Study. Consultations to determine the righteous path after. Tame precautions the precepts recommend, but the mind struggles to accept easily. As if exorcism is an unhurried thing, and demons have learned to do their waiting. Let alone spirits, forever and organically restless, homeless and without boundary.
Water, constantly in overspill.
No matter. This, too, can be resolved later. Now is the time of a simpler arrangement, supply ahead of demand. Next he offers his seeds, Lan Wangji borrows the strength for shamelessness: ]
May I steal from you?
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[And he would give if asked, why would he deny? He gladly plucks a seed from Lan Wangji's plan and chews on it.]
What did you need?
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He needs. Harry the potter needs. His guqin, deprived the strength of his play, needs. Inquiry simply commands.
Brother leads the clan, but Lan Wangji is still compelled by his tasks. Vanity and arrogance cannot trump duty. He stares at this Wei Wuxian, reshaped in the figure of a man Wangji has never known, and understands what he asks of one, he steals from the other. ]
Lend me your back. [ Another pause. ] To sit against.
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[He can't help but smile, it isn't a mocking smile or one of levity. It was a simple caring smile, a tender smile glad to help those he cared about, to be asked to help when it was needed.]
Would you like to sit here, or somewhere more suited to your tastes?
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[ With any other but the family, a change of scenery would not dictate the improvement. The sacrifice is the cost here, Wangji's comfort for the trifling gain of energy unneeded on most occasions.
Critical now. He raises himself, obliging at least in the understanding that the supplicant should compromise first. Then, the reconfiguration: Wei Wuxian, clumsily sprawled as he likes himself, to face the world. Lan Wangji, sat steadily behind him, their backs bridging hairs' widths of distance with inevitable points of connection.
The moonlacing, a grudging warmth, trickling between them. At the last moment, he holds his hand out to the side again, a plate for Wei Wuxian to have his pick of the last few lotus seeds. ]
You give too easily.
[ And he takes too readily, well matched in this one respect. Forgive him, Uncle, for all the times and turns he bowed his head willing, or raised his spine strong, to stand with the whims of Wei Wuxian. ]
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[He takes one seed but makes sure there is one left. This was sharing after all. And though he wants to fully lean back in a relaxed manner, he considers Lan Wangji's comfort before doing so. Leaning just enough to not be too offensive.]
And is there a reason I should not give to you? Are we not already acquainted rather well?
[How could he not give easily to this?]
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He could learn to love this, a compromise between the roasted Yunmeng Jiang lotus seeds of home, and the aggressive novelty of all that surrounds them here. ]
You should have acquainted before marriage.
[ Hit, parry. If Wei Wuxian teases first, then it behoves Lan Wangji to deflect and strike back in kind. Nothing given here is done so freely, for Wangji's own person — only in the name of a man who wears his face in another world. ]
Do not feel obliged.
[ But do not leave, either, for all Mo Xuanyu's back is slighter than Wangji remembers of Wei Wuxian's, and he gives so much less support. ]
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[Beyond acquainted, beyond friend. The one who completes.]
But are we talking of that? It's unfair to deflect Lan Zhan, it's unhealthy to be so dishonest.
[Or at least in what he has decided is Lan Wangji's way of being close to dishonest. Avoidance.]
We already have a rapport, and to help one another is a given, it should be expected, we are friends.
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[ A gentler correction than countless before it. Friendship is a simpler thing than the turns and turmoils of Lan Wangji's heart. There is sickness inside it, rot of indulgence digging a tomb hole, where affection can dwell, unhindered.
There is a name brother struggles to give this bond Wangji strains himself not to call out. A nature. And though the hour hasn't come yet to speak the word, there are fights he has stepped out to win with better odds in his favour.
He leans back, purposefully trusting more of his weight. ]
I abuse your kindness, when it is convenient.
[ He did today, presenting himself like an orphaned cat with his boon to beg. Came, regardless of it. ]
Forgive me.
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He can't help but feel a warmth swell within him though, to be accepted that much.]
There is nothing to forgive, and nothing abused. All is given freely and without limits.
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All is given freely and without limits. As if Wei Wuxian were a fruit merchant, raising the offer for his wares, polishing his terms. ]
You speak like a diplomat.
[ To think, brash and brazen Wei Wuxian, one day set to join the high cultivation table and set the sharp edges of his mind against talk of taxes, merchants' passage, the hermit clans. ]
Uncanny.
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[He was also a terrible salesman, but why bring that up?]
I'm sure they all hate me as well.
[He wants more than anything to say Lan Wangji should laugh more, that it's a good sound, and that he likes it. But, he has started to learn that saying such things will chase the elusive man away potentially, scared by the silliest things of displayed emotion.
He can bring it up another time and teasing has fewer drawbacks.]
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[ He murmurs between gritting teeth, careful not to disturb what short-little balance has been struck so tentatively between them. Over the lotus pod, his grip lessens, until the depleted flower withers down.
He takes over its sister, carefully extracting a new set of seeds with the same tireless, studied inclination. Wei Ying does not enjoy the flesh of lotus marring his seed. Wei Ying prefers crunch and a long chew.
( Lessons he did not think he had learned, now summoned for inspection. Ah. ) ]
As long as they speak nothing against your dignity.
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It's funny how quick everyone will change their tune when they have another to decry and you become less convenient as a target.
[He had saved everyone's children, he had uncovered the villain, he was accepted by GusuLan and the venerable Hanguang Jun. He was not a convenient target anymore.]
But that doesn't make such gatherings any less awkward and filled with politics I woukd rather avoid.
[And though he tried to keep his tone light there was still a weight to it. An unpleasantness to the concept. A sadness and tiredness to it all. He was so sick of the cultivational world and it's politics. How quick it could praise who were convenient and decry who were not.]
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Somehow, the skin of the lotus needles tenders under Lan Wangji's nails, breaks and gives way. He stares down at his workmanship, struck by his own misplaced violence. Aggrieved by it. Then, hollowed out. Indifferent.
By contrast, Wei Wuxian sits a stain of warmth on his back, a misshapen and glorious sun. Who can blame him for drawing all in his orbit? Testily, Lan Wangji reaches out to offer the seeds, some crushed, some painting-perfect. ]
Then, we avoid them.
[ Together. A simple pronouncement, no matter its implications. ]
Who are they, to deserve your time?
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He takes some of the offered prizes gladly, as carefree as ever.]
Thus a politician I could never make. There are others better suited with more promise and skill.
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[ Like sunlight, inescapable, pervading every obstacle before it. Wei Wuxian of Yunmeng Jiang — of Yiling, after — can be intermittently avoided, but never truly outrun. Or captured, though enough of Lanling Jin and Qinghe Nie and Qishan Wen have tried.
Lan Wangji too, for all his kindness, must pay the bribe price for his presence, offers of lotus seeds, a warm back, a few sweet words. Like a small, adorable animal, Wei Wuxian doesn't lend himself to a long stay easily. ]
You should have roamed and played longer.
[ Carefree, with no responsibilities, the lesser son of a great clan, stumbling on his future as he might do on pebbles in his path. Not what the sects made of him.
Not what Lan Wangji failed to prevent. ]
Do it. However foolishly and shameless.
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[Everyone was pushed so hard to be first in cultivation, to not fall behind. Even before the war started and things errupted, the strain caused by the QishanWen were great. In a way he envied the juniors, able to cultivate at their pace, able to be children and learn comfortably....]
But now, I can play, but who wants to play alone?
[He turned as best he could without releasing his back from Lan Wangji, his hair up in a ponytail moving with his head in a swish.]
Lan Zhan should also experience roaming and playing.
[It's never too late, and he would make the same offer each time. Play with him.]
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[ Never as vocally, as ignorantly, as unchained — never, in such a way that might whip his hair across another's nape, or make an obvious nuisance of his person. He is not yet so thick-skinned that these feats can be brokered easily. But he has learned to bend, before he chooses to break. Learned to shift, so Wei Wuxian can move and turn, to accommodate him in the negative space of Lan Wangji's body. ]
I play now.
[ And, to illustrate, he lends even more of his weigh onto Wei Wuxian's back, careful evidence that he knows all too well what he's doing — and crushing his feebler confidant is some strange plot of earning his laughter. Let Wei Wuxian, who boasted his skill with the bow and ease with callisthenics so often before, struggle, for a change.
He sounds smugger than any virtuous adept of the school of Lan has a right to, by the end of it: ]
You are losing.
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[He cried out getting back into a better position to not be pushed over by Lan Wangji's sudden humor. Of course despite his outcry he is smiling, having fun in the moment and enjoying the moment of levity.]
You're stronger than me. Of course I'm losing.
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[ As if, crushed into his own corner, Wei Wuxian has that great of a choice. Lan Wangji allows himself this one moment of victory, before a quiet exhale signals the start of mercy, and he pulls back in time with Wei Ying's push.
There. Let it not be said he pays no mind to his lesser, feebler companions. Like a rabbit, Wei Wuxian needs constant, proficient care. ]
Were you not building strength?
[ An entire core of it, to hear Wei Wuxian boast. And what's come of that? ]
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[His tone was a mix of a pout and a whine, he was quite proud of his swiftness, he was pretty sure his sword was one of the fastest, and he had always been great at dodging even without his core. The streangth of his cultivation was completely seperate from his physical.]
Then next time I'll have to prepare.
[He leans back completely at the mercy given, allowing his full dead weight to lean. He will have to remember to go all out when another encounter rears it's head. Just to prove some decency still exists within him.]
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