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“I accept your surrender, Captain Lan,” said the masked young man, taking Lan Wangji’s offered sword from his outstretched hands. His voice was light and teasing. He was smiling under the black scarf that was tied over his hair and pulled down to conceal his eyes. Lan Wangji glared up at him from where he knelt on the deck of his own ship, between the pirates and the remainder of his crew.
The damage to his ship, the Jade Hare, was significant. Her mainmast and rudder had been blasted to splinters by the forward guns of the pirate vessel. They had tried to outrun the pirates. They should have been able to-- the Jade Hare was a light two-masted schooner that could outpace most heavier ships, even a clipper like this one. But there was something unnatural about how the pirates’ ship cut across the wind that would ordinarily have given sleek, swift Jade Hare her usual advantage.
The masked pirate captain (Lan Wangji presumed) stood up straight again when it became clear that he would get no further engagement from him. “Strike their colors,” he said, glancing at the woman at his right hand. “Raise our flag instead. We’ll make for Yiling.”
The woman did not move to obey, and the captain turned to her, clearly exasperated, and said “Are you really going to argue with me about this?”
“We don’t have the numbers for a prize crew,” she said. “Unless you’d have Granny climbing the rigging with us?”
Lan Wangji blinked, startled. This ship and her captain had made short work of the Jade Hare--two precise shots taking out the mainmast and the rudder in quick succession, boarding as soon as they came within reach. The pirates had quickly and brutally driven Lan Wangji’s 15-man crew to surrender. But there were absolutely more than fifteen pirates on the deck as they spoke. So why did this woman protest that they did not have sufficient numbers to crew the Jade Hare?
He looked around at the pirates, and then a chill ran down his spine.
Beyond the two men and one woman that surrounded the captain, every other pirate standing on the deck of the Jade Hare was a corpse.
Their eyes were blank and milky, their skin grey, and their clothes weatherbeaten and faded. They stood silent, pistols and swords in hand, their only motion from the sway of the ship on the waves.
Lan Wangji turned so he could see his crewmen and officers behind him. Most of them huddled together, stripped of their weapons, eyes downcast. His two lieutenants, Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen, met his eyes with determination. Of course they would be excited, even captured by pirates and the walking dead. Both young men were overly fond of adventure novels, and neither had the good sense to be frightened even in an ordinary fight. Su Minshan, his Imperially-assigned marine sergeant, stared down at the deck, fists clenched and jaw set.
Lan Wangji turned back to the pirates, watching them skeptically, his face carefully blank. The captain and the woman continued to argue about whether or not to take the Jade Hare as a prize. Finally, another one of the living pirates interrupted. “I say we kill them all and burn the ship to the waterline, as a warning to the Imperial Navy,” he said, and the woman rounded on him immediately, her hand flying to the pistol in her belt.
“That is not an option, Xue Yang,” she snapped. Xue Yang laughed at her, but she continued, talking over him: “And I’ll thank you not to speak over myself or our captain, especially when all you have to say is excessively violent and pointless.”
“I let you stay onboard in good faith,” said the captain, not even looking at the other man. He had been arguing animatedly but good-naturedly with the woman, but now his tone had sharpened, and his upper lip curled into a sneer. “Don’t make me regret it.”
Lan Wangji could not avoid thinking that he wished he could speak bluntly like this to Su Minshan sometimes. The man had been forced on him by the Admiralty at the last minute, and he did not get along with the rest of the crew.
Xue Yang made a mocking obeisance towards them and strode off, back over the gangplank to the other ship, and the woman and the other living man followed him. Over her shoulder, she called, “Captain! You can strike the colors your damn self.”
“Captain in name only,” muttered the masked man, shaking his head. And then he drew out a flute from his belt, carved from bamboo, with a charm hanging from the end.
Lan Wangji felt hope bloom in his chest, for the first time in years.
The corpses had been waiting motionless, scattered about the deck, but when the flute emerged, their heads turned in unison, empty eyes fixed on the masked man. There was a murmur of fear from his crew, behind him, and he glanced back at them again and made a “hush” motion with his hand. They fell silent.
The masked captain reached out to Lan Wangji with his other hand, and after a moment of consideration Lan Wangji gripped his forearm and allowed the man to pull him to his feet. Standing in arm’s reach, Lan Wangji could appraise him more thoroughly.
The masked captain was of a height with him-- maybe an inch or so shorter if his boots didn’t have a slight heel. His hair was long, braided into a queue that fell over one shoulder. His clothes might have been elegant at one point, but the button plackets of his black velvet coat were worn almost threadbare and he wore no waistcoat, only a deep red shirt that lay open at the neck. A sword belt hung over his shoulder, holding his sword and pistol.
He met Lan Wangji’s eyes, and Lan Wangji felt a shock of recognition. Through the eye-holes in his mask, his eyes were a startling bright grey, the same color as the sky on a foggy morning.
The flute. The dead. Silver eyes. It was him.
“Captain Lan,” he said, with gravity. “We will take yourself and your crew prisoner, to be ransomed at the nearest Imperial port. If you will submit peacefully and cooperate, I swear upon my honor as a gentleman that you will be treated well, and that no harm will befall you if it is in my power to prevent it.”
“A pirate like him cannot possibly have enough honor to swear upon,” muttered Su Minshan, and then he gasped with pain. Jingyi had probably stomped on his foot. Lan Wangji suppressed his smile before he turned and met Jingyi’s eyes again, and nodded minutely.
“We will consider submitting peacefully,” began Jingyi, and then there was a minor scuffle as someone (probably Zizhen) subdued Su Minshan. Jingyi huffed, and then went on, “if you will tell us in whose honor we are placing our trust.”
The pirate captain nodded, and said simply, “I am the Yiling Patriarch, captain of the Raven.”
There was another scuffle, and this time Lan Wangji turned around in time to see Zizhen and one of the other marines yank Su Minshan back to his place. Zizhen clapped a hand over Su Minshan’s mouth and said “Apologies, captain.”
Jingyi looked at his captain, eyes wide, but composure intact. Lan Wangji nodded again, and Jingyi couldn’t keep the glee out of his voice as he said “We will surrender peacefully then, given the oath of the Yiling Patriarch.”
“We will weigh anchor here tonight, and I will decide what to do with your vessel in the morning. You may go belowdecks and gather your belongings,” said the Yiling Patriarch. “We,” and he gestured to the corpses, “will be waiting to escort you onto the Raven.”
The crew dispersed, eager to get away from the corpses, and the Yiling Patriarch looked at Lan Wangji again. “I’m going to strike your colors,” he said. “You’ll have to let me go, though.”
With a start, Lan Wangji realized that he had never let go of the other man’s forearm. Hastily, he dropped his hand back to his side, straightening into the formal stance that came naturally to him.
“No need,” he said, and then swallowed hard. “I will do it.”
His voice was rougher than he intended, and he turned away from the Yiling Patriarch’s gaze and started for the stern of the Jade Hare himself.
Slowly, carefully, he took down the blue-and-white cloud banner of Gusu Lan, his family’s branch of the Imperial Navy. He folded it into a wedge-shape, and tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat. Then came his personal heraldry, a gracefully leaping white rabbit on a grey background. This, he also folded, but when he tried to stuff it into the pocket as well, both flags made an unsightly bulge that spoiled the neat line of his uniform, and he wrinkled his nose and pulled the flags out again. He would hold them, then. Jingyi and Zizhen would probably approve of the dramatic gesture.
His search was over. He had found the Yiling Patriarch.
--
The woman who had argued with the captain met him as he stepped off the gangplank and onto the deck of the Raven. “He insisted on putting you in his cabin. I’m sorry in advance,” she said, long-suffering, and it was clear she meant the captain even before she led him astern to the captain’s quarters.
Lan Wangji found upon entering the captain's cabin that his guqin and the small chest where he kept the rest of his belongings had already been brought in and stowed carefully, probably by Jingyi. The young man was sometimes flighty and loved melodrama, but Lan Wangji had no complaints about his dedication to duty where it counted.
They were the only two items in the whole cabin which were actually put away. Every flat surface-- the tables, the chairs, the floor, and even the bed--was covered completely. Discarded clothing, crumpled paper, sheet music, maps, pens, quills, navigational instruments, and even several sinister-looking magical devices lay haphazardly around the room. Lan Wangji stared in mute horror for a full minute. Then he sighed, took off his coat and rolled his sleeves up, and started picking up important-looking papers.
By the next bell, he had gotten all of the paper onto the writing desk, sorted by whether or not it was crumpled, and then whether or not there was writing on it. All the clothes now lay in a pile by the bed, which he had straightened as best he could. Only one of the blankets covered the entire thing. He had not touched any of the magical devices.
Lan Wangji was on his hands and knees on the floor under the writing desk, trying to find a stray pen, when the door opened. He started up, bashed his head on the underside of the desk, and then fell back down again, stifling a curse. And then the captain was beside him, gently drawing him out from under the desk.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Mn,” said Lan Wangji. The impact to his skull had been more surprising and embarrassing than anything else.
The captain sat back on his heels. He had also taken off his coat, so he was rather indecently only in shirtsleeves. His shirt collar still hung open, and Lan Wangji carefully avoided looking at the tanned skin exposed there. He still wore the black scarf mask.
“Captain Lan,” he began, and Lan Wangji cut him off tersely.
“Wei Ying,” he said.
The captain froze. “I... wha-- who?” he stammered.
“Don’t play games,” said Lan Wangji. “Not with me.” He stood up, pulled a chair out from the table in the center of the cabin, and sat down heavily.
Wei Wuxian followed him after a moment, sat next to him, and pulled the scarf up and off his head. Immediately, several short strands of hair that were not caught back in his braid fell into his face. He dashed them away reflexively with the back of one hand. “Damn,” he said, annoyed. “I got so used to wearing this mask that I forgot what it’s like to have my hair in my face.”
Lan Wangji stared at him, lost for words.
The last time he had laid eyes on Wei Wuxian, he had been twenty-two or so, freshly out of the naval academy. Wei Wuxian had been tall, lissome, and as disobedient and willful as he was beautiful. They were both into their thirties now, and Lan Wangji knew his own body and face had changed, but that had in no way prepared him for seeing Wei Wuxian in the full bloom of his manhood.
His shoulders were broader, and he had gained muscle over the years at sea. As a teenager and a young man, he had been slender. Now he was lithely powerful, the once-slim lines of his upper arms and thighs curved noticeably with muscle beneath his clothes. There was a hint of stubble on his chin and above his upper lip, just enough to shadow his jaw and accentuate the beauty mark just below his lips. The sun and the wind had weathered him, to be sure, but in Lan Wangji's humble opinion it would take a lot more than a decade or so at sea to diminish the smooth regularity of his features, the nobility of his brow and the sensual curve of his lips.
He still retained that once-infuriating air of gleeful rebellion. That could never change. But that rebellious demeanour now seemed far more than a flippant teenaged affectation. It was the air of a man who knew right from wrong, and who took what joy he could in pursuing the right course regardless of what others thought.
After all these years, after everything that had happened, Lan Wangji was still irrevocably, hopelessly in love with him.
“Lan Zhan, ah,” said the object of his fixation, reproachful. Lan Wangji felt at once embarrassed to be caught staring, and proprietarily pleased that Wei Wuxian still wished to call him by his intimate name. Wei Wuxian went on, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Lan Wangji considered quietly for a moment, organizing his thoughts. Wei Wuxian waited patiently, and the silence was filled with the warmth of long familiarity despite the fact that they had not seen each other in close to ten years.
"It is good to see you," he said, and Wei Wuxian let out a breath he'd been holding.
"I gunned down your ship, boarded you with corpse soldiers, and I'm taking you as a prize! And still you say it's good to see me," he said, and then laughed out loud. "Admiral Lan was right, I'm bad for your reputation."
"Uncle has always been overly concerned with appearances," replied Lan Wangji. He hoped Wei Wuxian had not noticed how his ears reddened slightly at the words 'taking you as a prize.'
"At least he could see your brilliance clearly," said Wei Wuxian. He waved his hands in the air, tracing the shape of a banner. "Captain Lan Wangji, Hanguang-Jun, master and commander! Why don't they have you sailing one of those big old things with two gun decks? Like Zewu-jun on the Jade Hart?"
"They tried," said Lan Wangji. "But I prefer a smaller vessel. More maneuverability."
Wei Wuxian's eyes gleamed. He said slyly, "Of course Lan Zhan has been so blessed, he doesn't feel the need to compensate with a big ship and lots of cannon!" and then darted his eyes sideways at Lan Wangji, expecting the teasing to get a rise out of him.
In their youth, such comments from Wei Wuxian would have sent him into a rage. He had been confused by his attraction to Wei Wuxian, desperate to hide it, and furious that every cold response on his part only seemed to make the other boy more determined to press him. But he was no longer confused or upset by his feelings for Wei Wuxian. The intervening years and experience had given him confidence, and now he drew upon that to smile back smoothly and reply, "Wei Ying knows this to be true already."
Wei Wuxian flushed beautifully, his eyebrows shooting up. He smiled delightedly. “Ahh, now you’ve learned how to tease back,” he said. “Has Lan Zhan been practicing with someone?” His eyes narrowed wickedly. “A lady, perhaps?”
Lan Wangji rolled his eyes, exhaled sharply through his nose. “Call it staircase wit,” he said. “No one else dares to tease me as you do.”
Wei Wuxian’s smile faded slightly, replaced with an intensity that made Lan Wangji's mouth go dry. Wei Wuxian leaned forward, about to speak, but there was a knock on the door, and a man outside called, “Captain! I brought tea!”
Wei Wuxian sighed and sat back. "Come in, Wen Ning," he called, and Wen Ning entered. Lan Wangji appraised him briefly as he set the tray down on the table. If this was Wen Ning, then the woman who had argued with Wei Wuxian earlier must have been his elder sister, Wen Qing.
The rumours about Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, scourge of the seas and traitor to the Emperor, were at least partially true, then.
Wen Ning left quickly, and Lan Wangji poured himself a cup of tea. He pushed the other cup towards Wei Wuxian, who took a flask from his boot and poured some of its acrid contents into the cup. Lan Wangji could smell it from where he sat.
“Before you ask,” said Wei Wuxian, after taking a sip of the noxious liquid, “Yes, that’s the Wen Ning you think it is, yes I did break him and his sister out of prison, yes we did commandeer the Raven, and no we did not intend to bring Xue Yang. He stowed away.”
“I was curious,” said Lan Wangji, blowing on his tea. It smelled a little stale, but it was hot and it was in fact real tea. “I was not going to ask.”
“I know,” said Wei Wuxian, and his voice had a warm note of fondness in it. Then he sighed, and his face fell. “I want to tell you-- about what happened ten years ago. When I defected.”
“Wei Ying,” protested Lan Wangji, but Wei Wuxian went on.
“They were holding Wen Qing’s people in a prison camp,” he said. “They released her and Wen Ning to Imperial custody, because they’re nobles, but the rest of them were sentenced to transportation for life! That’s just flat-out slavery in the colonies! And the palace told us they were soldiers and cultivators. But they’re just everyday people. Farmers, smiths, bakers. A tailor.” He shook his head, and then downed the rest of the contents of his cup in one gulp.
“And you know the rest, I guess,” he said. “Your uncle gave the command of the slave ship to me. And then...”
“You did the right thing,” said Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian looked up.
“...what?” he said faintly.
“You did the right thing,” repeated Lan Wangji. “You acted to defend the innocent from a fate they did not deserve. You stood by friends who had stood by you. And you have never once looked back these ten years.”
For once, Wei Wuxian seemed speechless. He stared at Lan Wangji, his mouth hanging open slightly and his eyes wide.
“Did you expect a lecture from me?” Lan Wangji asked, unable to keep his frustration out of his voice. Then he put his cup down on the table with rather more force than was necessary. Some of the tea splashed over his hand and onto the table, and he ignored it. “Did you think I wouldn’t understand the choice that you made?” He looked away from Wei Wuxian’s thunderstruck expression, down at his lap. “Wei Ying. I’m the last person you should have to justify your actions to. If you had told me, back then... I would have joined you.”
There was silence for a long moment. The sounds of the ship around them filled the cabin, shifting and creaking. Lan Wangji heard Wei Wuxian's unsteady breathing, bit the inside of his cheek briefly, steeled himself, and looked up again.
Wei Wuxian's dark eyes, usually full of mirth, were brimming with tears. He was biting his lip, and his knuckles were white where he gripped the edge of the table and the arm of his chair. He said nothing, and although he was tense, he did not seem revolted or angry, so Lan Wangji breathed deeply and went on.
"In fact, I took this assignment specifically so I could look for you. I intended to find the Isle of Yiling and join you. I chose men loyal specifically to me for my officers-- Wei Ying, what-- Mmmf!"
Wei Wuxian had lunged across the space between them, seized Lan Wangji's face in his hands, and crushed their mouths together in a kiss so forceful that Lan Wangji could feel the imprint of both his own teeth and Wei Wuxian's against his mouth. His hands on Lan Wangji’s face shook, and he made a quiet, broken sound against Lan Wangji’s mouth as the press of his lips softened a little.
Lan Wangji almost didn’t dare move while Wei Wuxian was-- gods above, Wei Wuxian was kissing him. Doubt, confusion, fear-- all of these tried and failed to keep him still. Love and desperation slowly but surely brought life to his limbs, and as Wei Wuxian relaxed against him, he brought his hands up and curled them around Wei Wuxian’s upper arms. Wei Wuxian whined a little at his touch, and it sent a shock of heat throughout Lan Wangji’s body. He leaned into the kiss then, and let their mouths fit together, soft and warm. Wei Wuxian’s hands fell from his face to his shoulder, then one drifted up to his jaw, to the back of his neck, and Wei Wuxian slipped his fingers into Lan Wangji’s hair.
He could have stayed like that forever, perched on the edge of a chair, pulling Wei Wuxian closer and closer, the soft sound of their lips meeting and parting, and Wei Wuxian’s ragged breath hot against his mouth. Finally he drew back, using his grip on Wei Wuxian’s arms to steady them.
“Wei Ying,” he said, and for the first time in a decade he put all his feeling, all his love into the name as he spoke it, holding nothing back. This could be his only chance. Wei Ying had to know.
“Nothing else matters but this,” he said. “Wei Ying, I would be yours.”
And then his Wei Ying was kissing him again, softer this time, his tongue sliding warmly against Lan Wangji’s lower lip. “Lan Zhan,” he whispered against Lan Wangji’s mouth. “Yes. Be mine, Hanguang-jun.”