Work Text:
Eight months pass from the moment Cloud Recesses is burned until Lan Zhan finally sees her brother again.
The ground beneath her is cold, mud squelching, blood and water mixing with the soil. Exhaustion is thrumming through her; it’s been several days since she got a full night’s sleep and a good meal. It’s only luck that sees her here. She is only passing through, on her way to the front in Qishan in hopes of catching up to Jiang Wanyin to see if he has had better luck finding Wei Ying.
Lan Xichen is helping tend the wounded. It’s not the pale blue and white robes he wears that set him apart—there are too many Gusu Lan disciples in this camp for that to be distinguishing—but rather, the way he carries himself. Worldly concerns—the screams of the dying, the oppressive stench of human misery—seem not to touch him. He moves through the soldiers lying in their cots to apply soothing balms, wet cloths to foreheads, and provides gentle words to the dying. He is as radiant as he is brilliant.
Lan Zhan, in contrast, stands almost awkward in the middle of the field, unable to call out. Her voice fails her. There is no one at her side who she can rely on to have the words for her, to call an easy welcome to her brother.
It is maybe fifteen minutes she stands there, healers and soldiers weaving around her, before Lan Xichen’s attention is drawn upwards and he catches sight of her. His face shifts, taking on a warm, genuine smile, relief flooding into his eyes. He takes a moment to finish what he is doing, than hurries over to her.
“Wangji,” he says, in greeting.
Lan Zhan bows. “Brother,” she replies, knowing that Xichen will see the relief in her face, hear the gratefulness for his safe return in her tone, even when no one else would. She does not need to say those words.
“Have you eaten?” he asks, looking her over. Lan Zhan knows she looks no worse for wear than anyone else these days, but she also knows that she looks very different from the last time she and her brother were together. Thinner, paler, her facial features stark and haunted. She had still been shaking off the last vestiges of her childhood when Cloud Recesses burnt; there is no trace of that left now.
She shakes her head.
“Come,” he says. His hand brushes her elbow gently to turn her in the direction he wants her—a touch Lan Zhan does not begrudge, given the months they have been parted. The crowds part easily to make way for Zewu-jun and his sister, and it is not long before they both have bowls of food.
Lan Xichen guides her onwards to his tent, small but private and with an oiled sheet covering the dirt. A wooden plank serves as a seat, and brother and sister eat the food they have been given in quiet. It’s not the same as mealtimes in the Cloud Recesses—the food has been spiced after a fashion to suit the tastes of most in the camp, and the bustle of noise outside never stops—but there is a familiarity to it that Lan Zhan has long missed.
The bowls are set aside when they are finished. Lan Zhan will return them when she leaves. They sit in companionable silence for a little while, a quiet Lan Zhan enjoys. She’s missed this. She’s missed the ease she has with her brother, the quiet contentedness that falls over her when she’s in his presence. It isn’t this easy with anyone else.
Lan Xichen indulges her with the silence for a little while before he breaks it. “How have you been, Wangji?” he asks.
Lan Zhan considers what her response to that can be. She knows she cannot answer it, not in a way that is in any way adequate. They have been apart for too long; too many things have happened. Even someone who did not have the trouble Lan Zhan has in spitting out the words she means would struggle with it. Xichen knows that too; he knows her too well to think this question will provoke a full answer.
But without the question being asked, Lan Zhan would provide no answer at all.
“It has,” she says, words sticking to the roof of her mouth, “been difficult.”
Difficult is only the start of how things have been. Xichen likely could have surmised as much from the rumours swirling around of the summons for indoctrination in Qishan, the disciples’ struggle in the Xuanwu Cave, and the battle to retake Cloud Recesses.
Difficult does not cover the fact that no one has seen or heard from Wei Ying in two months. It does not cover the fear that rises in Lan Zhan’s chest about Wei Ying’s fate, the shame of wondering whether she is right to care about Wei Ying’s wellbeing above all others, the dread in her stomach at what may await her at the end of her search.
It does not tell Xichen about the night terrors she has, where she finds Wei Ying’s body, drenched in blood and cold and the life drained out of her, how Lan Zhan feels her own life fall away from her in that moment, trying to press it into Wei Ying’s lifeless body because Lan Zhan’s life is nothing if Wei Ying is not in it.
“Yes,” Xichen replies, in agreement of Lan Zhan’s concise surmisal of the past months. “I have heard that Mistress Wei is missing. You must be concerned.”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan acknowledges her brother’s statement for the truth it is, even if his words barely scratch the surface of how she feels. “I will find her.”
She will. There is no other alternative that is acceptable to Lan Zhan. She will walk to the ends of this earth to find Wei Ying, and then the next if she has to.
Xichen nods, an easy acceptance of his sister’s devotion. He knows there is no moving her from the path from which she has stepped and so he carries on to talk about how he has been, answering the questions that Lan Zhan hasn’t asked. He doesn’t speak about the time he was missing, where he went and sheltered when their Uncle ordered him to run, but he speaks of his duties, about the war, about the front that moves closer to the centre of Qishan with every day.
Lan Zhan hums in the correct places, adsorbing the information. Mostly, she just feels soothed by the rhythm of her brother’s voice, his soft tones a marked difference to the rough nature of the soldiers’ chatter, to the shrill concerns of healers and commanders, to the memory of Wei Ying’s playful jibes. Her attention to the words he says starts slipping, becoming less relevant, until—
“—you know, I never expected there would be so much gossip about your hair.”
Lan Zhan reflexively reaches up, fingers touching the base of her hairline, her bared neck. Her hair has been pinned up since the Xuanwu cave. The front is how she was wearing it the last time Xichen saw her, pulled high, side pieces securing her forehead ribbon, providing a base for the silver hairpiece she wears. But her hair no longer falls freely down her back. Her hair is woven into a braid down the back of her head until the nape, then twisted into a rope and wound and secured against the braid with a hair pin.
It is, Lan Zhan knows, the hairstyle of a married woman. It is not suitable for the supposedly unmarried younger sister of a sect leader, for a woman of a mere twenty years of age.
In the Xuanwu cave, she’d swept it up out of a matter of pure practicality. It had been in her way as she tended to Wei Ying and waited for rescue. Later, when she’d had a chance to clean off, wash her hair and restyle it, it had seemed wrong to leave it loose, the mark of a girl she no longer was. So she’d pinned it up. No one has seen it down since.
This decision has not gone unnoticed.
“I like it,” Xichen says. “I think it suits you. And it seems very practical.”
Lan Zhan nods. That is the reason she is giving, when anyone dares ask her about her reasons for doing so.
It’s true, in its own way. Having all the long hair loose is impractical when Lan Zhan doesn’t have the time to care for it properly. Pinning it up is practical and easy, a time saver, and her hair stays that way until she has time to pull it down from its confines and comb it out. But practicality is not the main reason she has wears her hair up these days.
She’s glad Xichen does not disapprove.
“Yes. Practical,” she replies.
“Don’t worry about what anyone else says,” Xichen adds, largely pointlessly, because Lan Zhan has only ever cared for his and Uncle’s words, not anyone else’s. “You’re doing good work, little sister. I’ve heard what they’ve started to call you.”
Lan Zhan knew it was only a matter of time before she ended up with a title to match her brother’s. Hanguang-jun. She’s unsure if it’s because of the pale white robes or her mastery of the guqin or the way she has cleaved her way through the ranks of Wen soldiers and puppets in every battle she’s been in so far.
“Mn.”
She is not quite comfortable with it yet.
Lan Xichen just smiles at her. He talks a little more about a few, unrelated challenges. The hour gets late. Lan Zhan makes her excuses to leave, picking up their dinner bowls as she goes.
She hopes she sees her brother again soon.
A month later, Lan Zhan finds herself in the recently retaken Unclean Realm, making preparations to go to Yiling.
It’s the first solid lead they have on Wei Ying, and yet Lan Zhan can only hope it isn’t true. If Wen Chao tossed Wei Ying into the Burial Grounds... there is little chance she made it out alive. The motto of the Jiang Sect may be ‘do the impossible’ and no one embodies it quite like Wei Ying, but there are some things that are too far even for her.
Lan Zhan loses her afternoon in practising forms in the grounds, reacquainting herself with the weight of Bichen. The sword she had been using was adequate enough, but it was not hers. It did not fit the grip of her hand like Bichen does, did not swing as easily or cut as sharply, did not sing with the righteousness of Lan Zhan’s spiritual power.
She eats her dinner with the soldiers, sitting alone and eating in quiet. No one disturbs her.
After that, she retires to the room Sect Leader Nie has set aside for her. It’s pleasant, sitting alongside the family quarters; they may have only just retaken the Unclean Realm but due hospitality is still being issued, with Sect Leader Nie having another Sect Leader and two sect heirs under his roof.
Lan Zhan kneels at the low table and sets out her guqin. Her fingers settle over the familiar strings, falling into easy reacquaintance. She strums a few notes, checking the sound and the reverberations in the room. And then, carefully and cautiously, she plucks out the first notes of Inquiry.
She has done this once before, for Wei Ying, back when Lan Zhan first knew she was missing. The silence that followed had been reassuring. If the spirits were unaware of Wei Ying, she must be alive somewhere.
Now, with their only lead pointing towards the inevitability of Wei Ying’s death, the silence is stifling. Lan Zhan continues to play, melody soaring, asking questions that she does not know if she wants answers to.
No answers come.
She is stopped from asking more by a knock at her door. She rises to open it—there is every chance it is Jiang Wanyin or Sect Leader Nie with information about the war—and is greeted, not by them, but by her brother’s smiling, genial face.
“Brother,” she says, a note of surprise entering her voice. She had not known he was here. She had not known he was anywhere near here.
It is a relief to see him, his steady presence bringing a level of calm she needs.
“Wangji,” he replies. “May I come in?”
She steps back from the door, giving him the space to enter. Lan Xichen sweeps in, casting an eye over the room, landing on the guqin set out. “Sister,” he starts, a note of concern entering his voice. “Inquiry?”
He heard.
“Brother.” Her tone is pleading, imploring him not to ask further; Lan Zhan doesn’t know if she can find the words to answer him, to explain, to tell him why this matters so much. She can’t tell him why this matters so much. She’s afraid it may all come spilling out anyway.
Lan Xichen goes to a cabinet, finding a tea set ready and waiting. He moves the guqin—Lan Zhan takes it and stows it away again—and sets the tea service out on the table, heating the water and getting the tea ready. “Sect Leader Nie knows your tastes,” he says. “Come, sit. It’s your favourite.”
There is no chance that Sect Leader Nie cares what her favourite type of tea is and every chance that her brother has informed the staff here on a previous occasion and they’ve remembered.
Lan Zhan has not had good tea in a while. She has not had tea with her brother in at least a year. She sits.
They wait for the tea to brew. Lan Xichen then pours it.
“I heard from Da-ge that you and Sect Leader Jiang are leaving for Yiling in the morning,” Xichen says, keeping his tone light.
“Yes,” Lan Zhan replies. “We have a lead on Wei Ying.”
Lan Xichen fixes her with a stare, urging her to elaborate on that. He knows that his sister would not play Inquiry for just anyone.
“The Wen say they threw her into the Burial Grounds,” she says.
Lan Xichen takes a sharp intake of breath. He knows what that means as well as she does; if it is true, Wei Ying is unlikely to be alive.
“Oh Wangji.” Xichen’s sympathy extends through his face and tone. He reaches out, taking her hand and running his thumb across her knuckles, a brief gesture of comfort. “Did she answer?”
“No.” Lan Zhan can hear how her voice cracks. She reminds herself that it is a good thing, that Wei Ying didn’t answer. It means she may still be alive. Her hand tightens in her brother’s, clenching as she clings to that reminder. She drinks her tea; Xichen is right, it is her favourite.
“Wei Wuxian is resourceful,” Xichen says, “and she has survived many challenges in her life. She may still survive this one.”
Lan Zhan knows this. But Wei Ying has been missing for three months. The assault on Lotus Pier happened not long after they fought the Tortoise of Slaughter, and Lan Zhan knows how much that fight took from Wei Ying, how much time she spent fretting over Wei Ying’s unconscious body before they were rescued. Jiang Wanyin will not talk about what happened at Lotus Pier, but the rumours point to another, exhaustive, all out battle, that the Jiang siblings somehow managed to escape from. By interrogating the Wen guards, she and Jiang Wanyin have surmised that Wei Ying was thrown into the Burial Grounds shortly after she last saw Jiang Wanyin.
She went in, empty and exhausted and with little to live for, and it has been three months. It is inconceivable that if Wei Ying has managed to pull herself out, she would not have gone to her siblings, to Lanling. No one has heard anything from her. Therefore, she must still be there.
Lan Zhan can believe that Wei Ying is smart enough, brave enough, strong enough, to survive a week in that hellscape. She does not know that she has faith that she can survive three months.
A hot drop of water splashes onto her hand and Lan Zhan is shocked to realise it’s from her, tears dripping down her cheeks. She blinks her eyes, trying to stop it. She does not succeed.
“Sister, sister.” Lan Xichen’s hand slips from her own, and she misses it, but then he is at her side, shoulder to shoulder, a hand on her back rubbing smooth circles as she cries. Lan Zhan turns into him, hands reaching up to clutch at the front of her brother’s robes, head falling to his shoulder. She weeps, quietly, as she has not done since she was a child—maybe not even then.
It is not just about Wei Ying. The war has been exhausting. Much has already been lost. Everything Lan Zhan knew has been torn to shreds in the last year, and she’s still stumbling for anything that seems solid. She is tired, and burdened by a grief heavier than she has ever known, and the only thing bringing her any solace is Lan Xichen’s steady bright presence. He is still here. He will always be here for her, the other half of their matching set, with the ease and understanding that comes of long acquaintance.
But he is not the other half to her soul.
The other half to her soul is missing, presumed dead, and it is tearing Lan Zhan apart.
She takes a deep, shaky breath, trying to stabilise herself. It doesn’t work. She just cries harder, the floodgates of her tears unlocked.
“A-Zhan, it’s okay,” Xichen says in a soothing manner. “It’s alright to cry for your friend. It’s okay.”
“Not just friend.” The words are forced out of Lan Zhan’s mouth. She almost chokes on them, but she can’t keep them inside anymore. They come out despite the fact that she’s drowning, as if saying them will put the air she needs back in to her lungs. “Wei Ying is companion. Soulmate. Partner. We are bound.”
Xichen stills. For a moment he sits there, quietly stunned. Then he moves his hand up to touch Lan Zhan’s bound hair. The hair she now wears in a style suited to a married woman.
“Wangji, what did you do?” her brother asks, his own tone now desperate and confused.
“In the Cold Springs Pond. Had to—” Lan Zhan has thought about it, and she knows that there were alternatives that would have protected Wei Ying. She did not need to bind their wrists together in a mockery of the Lan Clan marriage ceremony. “My ribbon was wrapped around her wrist.”
“Does she know?”
“No.”
Lan Zhan shakes her head into Xichen’s shoulder. For all the time spent in the library of Cloud Recesses, for all the time spent copying the Lan rules, Wei Ying has all the pieces she needs to put what Lan Zhan did together. She hasn’t.
“It’s not a marriage if she didn’t know, Wangji.”
Lan Zhan nods her head. She knows this. She does not consider Wei Ying to be bound by the mess she made. If Wei Ying wants to marry a handsome cultivator who catches her eye some day, Lan Zhan will not stop her.
But Lan Zhan knows that she will never marry anyone but Wei Ying. Wei Ying has her heart. She is a Lan; she only loves the once in her lifetime. She no longer feels comfortable walking around as if she were unwed, as if she were free to promise herself to another. It is not true.
She may not be married to Wei Ying in fact, but it doesn’t make her heart hurt any less.
“I have never expected you to marry for anything less than love,” Xichen says, fingers brushing at her hair, close to her forehead ribbon. “If Wei Wuxian is the one you want, I will support you in that.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t know that Wei Ying will want her back. Wei Ying has shown no signs of being aware of her feelings, no signs that she reciprocates them in any way. Wei Ying may not even be alive to want such a thing. And besides... “Uncle will not approve.”
Xichen huffs. “If this makes you happy, Uncle will learn to live with it. And besides, you marrying the senior disciple of the Jiang Sect? Probably the most politically astute marriage you could make, considering the pieces on the board.”
Lan Zhan looks up. Xichen is smiling. He’s been handling marriage offers for her for years—not that he’d ever accept one on her behalf, but he will have considered the particular advantages that her accepting any would bring. If he thinks this is a good match then it is.
“Dry your tears, sister.” Lan Xichen uses his thumb to wipe the tear tracks off her face. “You need your rest. I have every faith you will find Mistress Wei. And then you can court her properly.”
Lan Zhan nods. She uses her own sleeve to dab at the worst of her tears. Xichen’s robes have a damp spot on one shoulder; he bore the brunt of it. He moves away, back to the tea, using a quick charm to warm it back up again. He pours her another cup. They drink in silence. He wishes her good luck on her journey tomorrow, and then leaves.
Wei Ying returns. Wei Ying is alive.
Wei Ying is changed.
The cultivation she is intent on practising is dangerous, and unnatural, and it will lead to harm. Lan Zhan cannot condone it.
As Wei Ying interrupts their discussion conference, being as disrespectful and arrogant as Lan Zhan has ever seen her, Lan Zhan can feel her brother’s gaze flick over to her. It makes her uncomfortable. She knows he is only checking that she is alright, knowing what he knows now of her feelings for Wei Ying.
Lan Zhan wishes he did not know.
Lan Zhan does not know what to make of this version of Wei Ying. The longing, the want, is as fierce as ever. Wei Ying is striking in her new robes, the flashes of red seen beneath the black overdress. Lan Zhan cannot fail but to see the reckless confidence she displays as anything other than the most attractive thing she’s ever seen. And yet all this is tempered by a sense of wrongness about the entire affair.
Lan Zhan does not know what to do.
Her brother’s words, when they finish and are alone, do not help. Lan Zhan knows their uncle raised them in too regimented a fashion for their views to ever line up to the rest of the world, but Xichen unsettles her. Lan Zhan thought she knew what was right, and what was wrong, and now Wei Ying is upending all of that.
“You should tell her how you feel,” Xichen says, as they watch Wei Ying and Jiang Wanyin walk away from them.
“No,” Lan Zhan says. This is not the time for that. There is a war on, and Wei Ying is changed, and Lan Zhan’s feelings about her pale next to everything else they face.
“She would listen to you, if she knew why you are so worried about her.”
Lan Zhan does not have the same certainty about this as her brother does. “No,” she repeats. “Brother.”
“I will keep your confidence, Wangji,” he says, not entirely approving. “But please think about it.”
Lan Zhan has. Lan Zhan will. She does not think it will make a difference. Wei Ying is as stubborn as she is; she will not stray from the path she has picked just because Lan Zhan loves her. That will not be enough.
Lan Zhan turns and walks away.