Chapter Text
The Twin Jades of Lan were cursed.
The Lan clan refused to admit to this, of course, but it was true. Their mother was the one who cursed them, before she died, and everyone knew how, at the end of a long and debilitating illness, she had summoned all her strength to slip the wards on her house and escape into the system of caves behind the Cloud Recesses. What she did there no one truly knew, apart from perhaps her sons, but when she stumbled back into the Cloud Recesses, halfway to death from the spell she had cast, twin silver chains were around their necks, thin and light and impossible to break no matter how the other Lan cultivators tried. When a spell they had cast nearly rebounded and struck his younger nephew, Lan Qiren finally declared they would cease their efforts for the time being.
“That woman always was talented,” he said bitterly, and went into his study to draft this message to rest of the clans: That the Twin Jades of Lan were never to marry, not unless the person in question walked the same path the late Madam Lan did, down into the caves where it was said two great dragons slept, and fulfilled the three tasks they would set.
Of course, once the boys were older, and the rest of the clans began to see how great their cultivation was, and how beautiful they had grown, this seemed a great deal less terrifying to the five great clans, and there were an assortment of cultivators who decided to brave the cave systems to test themselves against these dragons.
They all failed.
Most of them hauled themselves (or were hauled) out of the caves within the space of an hour, coughing and spluttering, a thin layer of frost melting off their clothes. A rare few managed to walk in and out on their own two feet, some having even been given tasks, though they were always eventually disappointed. And most disturbingly, some never came out at all, and the caves would remain silent for at least a week, before some other brave or foolish soul chose to try their luck. The Lan clan sent warnings out to the other sects whenever such a thing happened, but it was never that much of a deterrence; most cultivators were unfazed by death or danger.
The few people who had gone inside and returned were always interrogated by other cultivators fiercely, but they could not give up much information. Of the dragons, all they would say was that there were two of them, one blue and one white, curled around great pearls which gleamed in the darkness of the caves. If you said you were present for Lan Xichen, the white one would uncoil and speak to you, and if you said you were there for Lan Wangji (no one had, yet, not then), it would be the blue instead. If the dragon in question approved of their request, they would hand them a ribbon the same colour as their scales, to mark them as a contender, and set them a first task. If not, they were sent away, as gently or harshly as required.
Of the tasks; there were many, and all of them different. One cultivator was asked to weave silk from the sun, and walked away scratching his head. Another was asked to steal from the greatest thief who had ever lived, and nearly died in the fight that ensued when he was caught. A third was set a complicated riddle and spent hours in the library, searching for an answer. Some didn’t even understand what the task they had been set was. The dragons refused to explain themselves. Understanding was part of the tests.
“And they’re rude,” one of the defeated cultivators had said, and then paled, as though they’d said something they shouldn’t have.
“Rude?” asked the crowd around him, pressing closer. “What do you mean, rude?”
“Just rude,” he mumbled, before he caught Lan Qiren glaring at him ominously. Then he made his excuses and hurried away before anyone could force him to continue.
As for the two brothers, they never spoke of the curse, not to anyone. Lan Wangji, of course, was either too intimidating for anyone to even broach the subject, or too silent to pry answers out of, and Lan Xichen, though miles more approachable, would only smile warmly and deftly change the subject every time it was brought up.
The closest either of them ever came to talking about it was this conversation, overheard in the halls of the Unclean Realm by someone who definitely should not have been shadowing his older brother:
“It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Mingjue, very few things in life are fair.” Lan Xichen’s voice is amused. “As far as I’m concerned, I should consider myself lucky. Every other sect heir will have to have an arranged marriage-- just look at how unhappy Jin Zixuan is. At least I can avoid that.”
“So you’ll have a marriage based on what a dragon decides is best?” Nie Mingjue harrumphed. “At least an arranged marriage means your family gets to decide. You can’t tell me Lan Qiren would force you into anything without even letting you meet the person.”
“Well, it hardly seems a concern right now,” Lan Xichen pointed out. “The dragons do not seem too inclined to pick just anyone, or I would already be married. I suppose I will have to wait for someone extraordinary, and that probably won’t be terrible. The dragons don’t seem to suffer arrogance.”
“What were the terms of the curse anyway?” Nie Mingjue asked, ignoring this. “Is there anything I can—?”
He cut himself off, because Lan Xichen was smiling at him, shaking his head. “Really, you needn’t trouble yourself, Mingjue,” he said warmly. “Our mother never cursed us.”
“She didn’t?” Nie Mingjue’s brow knotted.
Lan Xichen shook his head again, sipping at his tea. “My brother and I consider what she did to be her final gift, of sorts, and we are grateful to her for it. Other than that… well, I would prefer not to talk about it.”
“Hmm,” Nie Mingjue said, appeased. “Well, as long as you are happy, my friend.”
Lan Xichen smiled again, wistful. “I believe I am,” he answered. “But I suppose an older brother does want to see his sibling happy as well. I hope Wangji finds someone who understands him as well as I do.”
“You have nothing to worry about,” Nie Mingjue groused, expression rapidly darkening. “Your brother is talented and sensible enough; he’ll be fine no matter where he goes or what he does. Now, my brother on the other hand…”
The conversation dissolved into his usual complaints, punctuated with Lan Xichen’s soft laughter and protests that Huaisang wasn’t as bad as all that, really, and neither if neither of the two noticed the boy in question slipping around the corner, thoughts whirling from what he had overheard, it didn’t matter overmuch. After all, the second Nie brother was a frivolous, useless type, and he was never inclined to exert himself for any reason, so the contents of this conversation were never disclosed to anyone else… though Nie Huaisang never forgot them, either.
So things went for the next few years, until finally Nie Huaisang was sent to the Cloud Recesses for his studies. He didn’t particularly enjoy his time there— he remained hopeless at cultivation despite the best efforts of Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen, who had been requested to take him under his wing by his oldest friend and had done so readily. But though he didn’t enjoy his lessons, he found great amusement in watching cultivators throw themselves up against the dragons.
“Huaisang, you have to stop taking bets on these cultivators’ chances,” Lan Xichen said sternly one evening, as the two of them watched Wen Chao be carried away on a stretcher, swearing viciously. He had made it all the way down to the cave which held the dragons, only to be frozen solid by an immediate icy blast from one of them. “It isn’t kind of you.”
“Don’t be silly, Xichen-gege,” Nie Huaisang answered cheerily, fanning himself. “No one was dumb enough to bet on him. You should have more faith in your students’ common sense.”
Lan Xichen’s mouth twitched. “Huaisang.”
“I’ll stop, I’ll stop, I promise,” Nie Huaisang laughed. Then he sobered slightly, frowning up at Lan Xichen. “But don’t you ever get worried you’ll never get married, this way? I know my brother never wants to be married, but you seem like the type who would prefer it.”
Lan Xichen considered this. “I think I would prefer it,” he said, slowly. “But not yet, at least. There is too much to do, and I think I would want to see my brother settled before I started worrying about such things.”
Nie Huaisang made a noise of protest. “Isn’t the elder supposed to be married off first? Xichen-gege, don’t give my brother any ideas, please!”
Lan Xichen laughed. “I promise I will never mention it in front of him,” he said. “But you and Wangji are both young yet, so I don’t think there is anything for you to worry about.”
This was true enough, so Nie Huaisang was appeased.
The months Nie Huaisang spent at the Cloud Recesses passed otherwise dully, and though he moaned and sighed at the fact that he had failed his exams, he begrudged the fact that he would have to return the next year very little— especially, though he made no mention of this to anyone, as he would get to see Lan Xichen again. It was perhaps inevitable that he had developed a crush on his brother’s oldest friend after they had spent so much time together, but while he freely admitted to being frivolous, no one could accuse him of not being realistic, and so he never thought to pursue his affections. The Lan Sect heir was about as unreachable as the moon for Nie Huaisang, and doubly so for the dragon that stood in his way. Nie Huaisang, cheerful and lazy, was satisfied just with being in close proximity to the First Jade of Lan, and so he welcomed the prospect of another year at the Cloud Recesses easily enough, though he was careful to engage in the appropriate amount of whining in front of his brother-- there was no need to open himself up to teasing, after all. And so the next year, he was sent back to the Cloud Recesses, certain it would be just the same as it had been the year before— as certain as his brother was that he wouldn’t learn anything, as certain as Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji were that no one would succeed in completing the dragons’ tasks.
Perhaps none of them had truly realised this, but they had all fallen into a pattern of complacency, too used to cultivators trying and failing and leaving. It suited them to believe that this would go on forever, that nothing would ever change, but it would, and with the sudden violence of a storm sweeping in, because this was the year Wei Wuxian would come to the Cloud Recesses.