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Chapter Text

Winter is, perhaps, Wei Wuxian’s favorite season.

It is the season when his elder sister comes to visit, and after the passing of his adoptive father, the warmth is more than welcome in their home.

Tonight, he peers out the window, just far enough away for his breath not to fog the chilled glass.

“What are you doing?” Jiang Cheng grumbles.

Wei Wuxian glances back at his brother. “Waiting for A-Jie.”

“It’ll probably be hours yet,” his brother says. “She said she would be here by dinner time, not tea.”

“That’s alright. While I wait I’m counting how many sleighs pass by.”

“What a waste of time,” Jiang Cheng declares as he sinks down to play with his cards. They used to play together more often, but Jiang Cheng is something of a sore loser and prefers solitaire most days. “Don’t let A-Niang catch you.”

As if summoned, Yu Ziyuan stalks into the parlor and glares at Wei Wuxian. “Wei Ying! What are you doing dallying like that? You are hardly dressed for the party! Unacceptable.” Her eyes narrow and Wei Wuxian feels much more like a scolded child than a young man of twenty. “I will not have your godmother thinking we do not provide for you. Go change this instant!”

Lowering his gaze to his forcibly loose hands, Wei Wuxian murmurs, “Yes, Yu-Ayi.”

As he pulls away from the window, he counts one more sleigh— the 37th of the afternoon. He would bet most of them are headed to or from the Immortal Mountain, his godmother’s mansion.

Once each winter, the reclusive and eccentric Baoshan Sanren hosts a party for the solstice. It is one of the few times he sees his godmother each year.

Normally, the party is the highlight of Wei Wuxian’s winter, but now that Jiang-Shushu has passed and A-Jie is married, the Jiang household strains. Too much temper and not enough tempering.

If Jiang Yanli and Jiang Fengmian were placating, Jiang Cheng and Yu Ziyuan were anything but. Wei Wuxian had once been in the center, knowing when to push and when to back down.

Now with only his brother and adoptive mother in the house, every creak of the wooden floorboards feels like a trespass on their fragile nerves and raging grief.

As Wei Wuxian dresses in his high-collared formalwear, he looks at himself in the small mirror above his dresser.

A-Jie always says his face was born for smiling. He tries to smile at his reflection, but all he sees is a grimace.

He practices until he can mask his sadness everywhere except his eyes. He prays it will be enough to get him through the party tonight.

He startles when a gentle rapping sounds against his door. “Come in!”

He turns toward the ensuing giggle. “My little XianXian gets more handsome every time I see him.”

“Jiejie!” He scoops his sister into his arms and breathes deeply to soak in her lotus perfume. After months apart, she smells like memories of before. “You’re early,” he says around a pout. “I was going to wait for you downstairs.”

She pinches his cheek. “I couldn’t wait to see my precious little brothers a minute longer.”

“Not so little anymore,” he declares, resting his chin atop her head with ease.

“Oh? Is my A-Xian too big for his sister’s soup, then?”

He shakes his head rapidly and smiles. “XianXian is only three,” he clarifies, holding up three fingers.

Her eyes go soft as she cups his chin. “Will you help me?”

“Of course.”

Downstairs, he carefully assists her by slicing the lotus roots and salting the pork.

Jiang Cheng joins them halfway through, just in time to steal some peeled lotus seeds and season the broth.

“So where’s that husband of yours,” their brother asks, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed.

“A-Xuan is going to pick us up for the party, but he went to spend time with A-Yao first.”

Jiang Cheng raises his nose and does a near-perfect impression of their mother. “Associating with his father’s bastard is hardly in good form.”

“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli scolds. Her gentle disapproval instantly makes him cringe. “Their father’s indiscretion is hardly Meng Yao’s fault. If A-Xuan wants to have a relationship with his brother, then he deserves to. In fact, I am proud of him for taking this step.”

“Sorry, A-Jie,” Jiang Cheng mutters with his cheeks red.

She sighs. “The society we have been raised in is too often concerned with status and not enough so with substance.” She reaches out and cups Jiang Cheng’s cheek in her palm. “You are a good person, A-Cheng. Strive to be better than the other men around you.”

“Yes, Jiejie.”

With a smile, she gives his cheek another pat and then turns to pat Wei Wuxian’s cheek again. “My boys are getting so grown up.”

“They do not act like it,” Yu Ziyuan says, entering the kitchen.

“A-Niang,” Jiang Yanli greets, curtsying.

Yu Ziyuan’s harsh edges soften the slightest increment. “Welcome home, A-Li.” She eyes her three children, and for a moment, they all keenly feel the absence of Jiang Fengmian. The last time the four of them were together was after the funeral. “I am glad to see you are well.”

“Yes. A-Xuan is most attentive to me.”

“As he should be!” she declares. Still, she looks more than politely pleased for having arranged a fruitful match. “Had he not been, his mother and I would be having words with him.”

Jiang Yanli smiles. “Thank you, A-Niang, but I assure you it is unnecessary.” Another giggle escapes. “Though I’m sure A-Xian and A-Cheng would also have words with him should he mistreat me.”

Wei Wuxian has the courtesy to blush. Truly, he had not liked his brother-in-law the first time they were introduced. Jin Zixuan had been a pompous teenager eating from a silver spoon and expecting Yanli to coddle him like his maids.

He and Jiang Cheng had given Jin Zixuan a talk with their fists— said talk almost ended the engagement and got both Jiang boys grounded for a month even after their father had soothed their mother’s ire.

Over the years, Jin Zixuan has improved. Most notably so after the passing of his horrid father last spring.

When the soup is done cooking, Wei Wuxian carries the heavy pot to the dining room where his sister ladles it, and his brother passes out the filled bowls.

After breaking bread, Jiang Yanli clears her throat softly. “I have some news.”

Both brothers pause with their spoons halfway to their mouths. Wei Wuxian meets his brother’s eyes for a moment and they both set their spoons down with elated terror.

“A-Xuan and I are expecting our first child,” Jiang Yanli announces, fulfilling their prediction as she cups a hand over her stomach.

At first the room is silent, but then the brothers start talking at once.

“I can’t believe it!

“I’m going to be an uncle!”

“We’re going to be uncles!”

“But ugh, I don’t want to think about you and him…ew.”

Jiang Yanli’s face radiates happiness. “Be nice,” she teases. “I happen to love A-Xuan very much.”

“Ew,” Wei Wuxian protests.

“Hopefully the baby takes after you,” Jiang Cheng grumbles.

Yu Ziyuan reaches across the table to take her daughter’s hands. “This is wonderful news. How far along are you? When are you making the announcement? Not tonight, surely?”

“It’s too soon for that. I have not cleared the first trimester yet. Not until midwinter.”

“We’ll have to start planning the naming ceremony. I’ll visit with Madame Jin next week.”

Helpless to stop the mothers, Jiang Yanli merely nods. “I trust you and she will make the event memorable.” Wei Wuxian knows that is his sister’s gentle way of saying it’s going to be a gaudy nightmare, but at least the mothers will be satisfied.

Not long after the soup has been finished, the doorbell rings and Jin Zixuan is there to take them to the Immortal Mountain manor.

The family slip into their coats and then slip into the evening with the Jin heir.

Wei Wuxian begrudgingly admits that Jin Zixuan has grown tolerable. He looks at Jiang Yanli with clear devotion and she deserves nothing less.

He supposes his brother-in-law might even be companionable one day.

When they reach the party, Wei Wuxian’s soup becomes a ball of ice in his stomach.

It hasn’t been long enough. They’re still in mourning, and suddenly society feels overwhelming. His instincts beg him to run when he sees all the faces of upper society turn toward them on the steps as they descend toward the ball.

Yu Ziyuan nudges him forward, but her eyes are more understanding than usual. Wei Wuxian knows, logically, that he cannot stop on the velvet steps. Therefore, he lifts his chin high as his mother has taught them and continues toward the crowd.

“A-Ying!” cries the host of the whole evening. The crowd parts for Baoshan Sanren. Her whole face glows with a smile that shames the grand chandelier above their heads. “There’s my baby.”

Technically, Baoshan Sanren should be called his grandmother. She raised Wei Wuxian’s birth mother. However, given that the Jiang family adopted him first, Baoshan Sanren had taken the role of godmother to let the Jiang and Yu matriarchs call him their grandson.

Wei Wuxian smiles at the whirlwind of a woman as she steps into his open arms. “Hello, Jiaomu,” he says, kissing each of her wrinkled cheeks. She smells like sugarplums, just like his mother did in the few faded memories he has left.

“You’re still too skinny,” she complains, pinching his narrow waist. “Not enough meat on your bones. Are those Jiangs feeding you?”

Wei Wuxian laughs before his mother can take offense. “They feed me plenty, Jiaomu! I just play too much for any fat to stick!”

“Hmph. Make sure you eat plenty tonight, my boy. My Cangse could eat a whole buffet if I let her.”

“Believe me, Wei Wuxian can do the same,” Jiang Cheng declares. “He stole my sausage just yesterday.”

“You said you were done!”

“For the moment! It wasn’t an invitation for you to steal my food!”

Yu Ziyuan clears her throat and the squabbling stops. She bows to their host. “We thank you for extending the invitation, Lady Baoshan.”

“Of course, Ziyuan. You are raising my A-Ying, and that makes you family.” She assesses the other Jiang children. “A-Cheng is getting so big! I think you might end up taller than my Xingchen,” she says around a chuckle. “And A-Li, you are practically glowing, my dear.”

After another minute of pleasantries, Wei Wuxian is released to enjoy the party. Normally, he would enjoy inserting himself into the intellectual conversation he hears around the edges of the dance floor. Instead, he sips at a cherry wine and nibbles absently on the hors d’œuvres.

When Mianmian and her friends ask him to dance, he indulges them, but he is not ready to be happy yet. Mianmian can see it in his face even if her giggling friends cannot.

“Wei Wuxian,” she asks tentatively on their third dance. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” He forces his lips up, but she gives him a flat look and he surrenders. He should know better than to hide things from her by now. “It’s too soon,” he whispers as they weave their way across the warm, golden dance floor. “I hoped tonight might be fun.”

“But?”

“But I only miss Jiang-Shushu’s smile even more.” His lip trembles for a moment, and Mianmian squeezes his shoulder and hand. “Sorry. It’s just been a hard season.”

When the dance concludes, Mianmian kisses his cheek. “Why don’t you get some air? I'll let people know where you went, and I’ll come find you later.” She presses a sachet into his hand and adds, “This blend is for temperament, but I think it just smells nice. I was going to give it to you later anyways,” she says before he can protest the gift.

He smiles and kisses her cheek in return before watching her yellow gown disappear into the throngs. Air sounds good. He needs the sting of the cold after the cloying ballroom.

…

On his way to the courtyard garden, Wei Wuxian nods to his maternal uncle, Xiao Xingchen and Xingchen’s husband, Song Lan. They stand under a lantern and watch with fond amusement as their young daughter runs circles around boys twice her size.

The two men had married in the first cut sleeve union of their province. Though their relationship earned some scorn, Wei Wuxian has witnessed how unfailingly happy they make each other.

He wonders if he will be so lucky in love one day. With a wife, perhaps. Or maybe even a husband…

Sometimes he wonders what it would be like to kiss another man. Mianmian has soft lips, and the two of them had practiced kissing when they were young and foolish, but neither of them are interested in deepening their relationship past friendship.

More likely, Yu-Ayi will nudge him into a fortuitous match with some debutante. It would not be so bad, he supposes. Though part of him yearns for a love match like that of his birth parents— Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren.

At last, Wei Wuxian reaches the garden entrance and fills his lungs with bracing air. Throwing off the shackles of the party, he steps onto the darkened path and follows the curve of it until he reaches the rabbit fountain he used to splash in as a boy.

The fountain had been built for his mother. Baoshan Sanren is something of an engineer. Every minute, the mechanical centerpiece rotates such that it acts as both a clock and a fountain.

Wei Wuxian had spent days analyzing the gears and soaking his clothes to get closer until he could take the rabbit apart and put it back together just as well as his godmother and (once) his mother.

Jiaomu calls it having the spark.

Wei Wuxian calls it being curious.

Tonight, he reclines on the fountain ledge and stares up at the waxing moon.

Perhaps it’s symbolic. The darkness is giving way to light. Just as his grief should be giving way to contentment once more. It’s been nearly five months. So much can change in five months, and yet he feels rooted in place.

Wei Wuxian’s heart has not caught up to his rationale.

The death of his adoptive father hurts. Jiang Fengmian loved him as his son, and Wei Wuxian loved him as his father.

He can barely remember his biological father— Jiang Fengmian’s best friend.

It was Jiang Fengmian who taught him how to read and write. It was Jiang Fengmian who bandaged his scraped knees and kissed his forehead at night. It was Jiang Fengmian who taught him how and when to fight— though admittedly Wei Wuxian’s temper sometimes gets the best of his teachings.

His father died and Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how to function anymore.

The seasons haven’t stopped changing and clocks have not stopped ticking, but Wei Wuxian feels like his lungs can’t quite quite remember how to do their job. There’s never quite enough air. And whenever Jiang Fengmian is mentioned, what little there is gets knocked from his chest.

He is told time heals grief. Perhaps it has not yet been long enough.

Perhaps he also does not want to let his grief go.

When it is gone, what will he have left?

Pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes, Wei Wuxian blows out a breath and laughs so he doesn’t cry.

Here he is wallowing at his godmother’s party. A younger version of himself would be appalled.

“Ah, there you are, A-Ying.”

He startles, knowing his birth name is only ever used by Yu-Ayi and Jiaomu.

“Jiaomu!” He hurries upright, straightening his formalwear in the same motion. “What are you doing out here?”

“It’s my garden,” she points out as her lips curl in amusement.

He rolls his eyes because she finds that more endearing than disrespectful. “I meant why are you out here where it’s cold instead of with your guests inside?”

She draws closer and sits beside him on the fountain’s ledge. “I needed to check on you. My baby.”

“I’m not a baby,” he says as he lays his head on her lap.

She runs her fingers through his ponytail. “No matter how big you get, you will always be my baby. My grandson.” Her voice trembles ever so slightly, and he reaches up to fold her calloused, wrinkled hand into his own.

“Jiaomu,” he begins just barely audible, “does time really make things better?”

He doesn’t offer clarity. Luckily, she does not ask for it.

“When I lost your mother, it was the worst day of my life,” she says. “And I felt like I failed her further that I was not fit to take you at the time.” He rolls over to glance up at her. Her voice is strong, but her eyes are tight. “I will always, always miss my little girl, but I know she would not want me to linger in sorrow. Just as Fengmian would not want that for you.”

She pinches his cheek and then dries her eyes. “But grief is a burden, and everyone carries it differently, A-Ying. Just know… if it ever gets too heavy, do not forget that you do not have to carry it alone.”

Wei Wuxian buries his face against her stomach like he did when he was small and breathes deeply as she holds him. “It hurts.”

“I know, baobei.”

“I don’t know if I want it to stop,” he whispers, almost hoping she won’t hear.

She takes longer to answer before saying, “I know that part, too.”

Together, they sit in silence with her stroking his hair. A long time must pass because Wei Wuxian next notices when she shivers.

Sitting up, he dries his eyes. “Ah, sorry, sorry. It’s too cold out here for you! Let’s head back.”

Her raspy laughter highlights her crow’s feet. “Stop fussing over me, young man. I’ll go inside when I damn well please.” She shivers again and stretches. “Which will be soon— curse these old joints!” When she straightens, she turns back to him. “But first, I have a gift for you.”

“A gift? But it’s not the holiday yet.”

“This one is just for you, A-Ying.” She hands him a small rectangular parcel.

“May I open it?”

“Of course, of course!”

He pulls back the pale blue ribbon and tissue to reveal a gorgeous wooden nutcracker. The nutcracker is painted in blues so pale they almost look more like mourning whites. The darkest color is his ink-black hair, worn long. His skin is fair and unblemished, not even with blush. There is a sword at his hip and a qin across his back. He is quite unlike the nutcrackers Wei Wuxian has seen before.

Still, most striking are the life-like golden eyes that stare back at Wei Wuxian.

The nutcracker is a work of superior craftsmanship, and Wei Wuxian cradles it close. “Thank you, Jiaomu. I will take good care of him.”

Her eyes crinkle with humor. “I know you will.” Grabbing her cane, she leans up to kiss his cheek. “I’m heading back to the party now where these old bones can warm up. Don’t stay out too long, A-Ying.”

“I won’t,” he promises, watching her go toward the golden warmth of the party.

Looking back at the nutcracker, his smile shrinks, but grows no less warm. “You look so severe, my friend. I hope your life is not as sad as mine has been of late.” He strokes the figure’s fine black hair which feels nearly human rather than cotton-like. “Truly, you are a work of art. I would never dare to crack a nut in your mouth.”

Cradling his wooden gift, Wei Wuxian meanders around the garden. All is quiet except the burble of the rabbit fountain. Sometimes the calm of the garden helps him remember his birth parents. He knows he played here often with his mama and baba. Mama used to read to him under the shade of the winter-bare peach tree. Baba used to help him make ‘potions’ from water and leaves. And sometimes Wei Wuxian would pretend to raise the dead after Mama told a particularly gruesome story she had read.

“Most people only have two parents,” Wei Wuxian tells the nutcracker as though the wood can hear. “Somehow I’ve already lost three. I don’t think I can bear to lose anyone else.” He sighs. “Don’t give me that look. I know crying is unbecoming. At least there’s no one here to see me but you.”

Just then, Wei Wuxian hears a clatter.

He whirls, wiping his cheeks.

Rather than finding some debutante or drunk gentleman, Wei Wuxian spots a broken lawn ornament.

He sets the nutcracker down on the edge of a planter and crouches to look at the shattered stone. “What the—“

Just then, he hears another crashing sound and he looks around.

Mice.

An army of mice.

Not merely a great number of mice, no. An actual army with armor and swords.

Wei Wuxian blinks at the approaching wave of rodents. “What in the world?” He must be dreaming. Perhaps he fell asleep at the fountain. Perhaps he drank more cherry wine than he realized because surely there weren’t actual little mice soldiers storming the garden and destroying Jiaomu’s statues.

“Get the nutcracker!” squeaks one of the mice.

Bewildered, Wei Wuxian scoops his nutcracker back into his arms and away from the rodents’ warpath.

“Sorry, little mice, this nutcracker is already spoken for.”

Just then, the rabbit fountain’s clock trills, announcing the 9 o’clock hour.

Three things happen at once.

First, another wave of mice joins the first, surrounding Wei Wuxian on all sides when he’d really rather not step on their tiny, wriggling bodies.

Second, a mouse king— wearing an honest to goodness crown— is carried on a palanquin until his entourage stops just before Wei Wuxian’s polished boot.

Third, and most shockingly, the nutcracker in his arms comes alive.

Wei Wuxian simply must be dreaming. Or drunk. Or both.

Chapter Text

“Towering human!” the mouse king declares, sounding awfully pompous for a creature smaller than Wei Wuxian’s foot and in prime kicking distance. “Hand over the nutcracker or I’ll have your head.”

Though seemingly alive, the nutcracker in his arms does not talk. He simply radiates indignation with his tiny sword drawn. Wei Wuxian is reminded of their neighbor’s tabby cat— a furball whose murderous intent is checked by his doting human’s arms.

Wei Wuxian may believe he’s inebriated, but he is still not inclined to take orders from a mouse. Especially not an ugly little thing with limp black hair and blood red robes. “No, thank you,” he says to the mouse very reasonably. “I promised I would take care of this nutcracker. Go find your own.”

He hears a small noise and realizes it came from the nutcracker soldier in his arms. “Sorry, friend. Am I crushing you?”

“No,” the wood replies with as much intonation as a printing press. He then wiggles free and jumps down to the ground. His joints are clumsy, but his motion still betrays an impression of grace.

Wei Wuxian shoos at the mice that try to corner his nutcracker. “Don’t make me step on you.”

The mouse king sneers. “You will regret not heeding my warning, human.”

He pulls something small and metallic from his robes. For a moment, Wei Wuxian hears voices, like voices screaming, but when he tries to focus, all he hears is the mouse army below. The mouse king’s hands flare to life with a poisonous rust-red light.

Wei Wuxian steps back, but he’s too big a target to dodge the lightning as it strikes.

The world spins. Everything grows, and his stomach lurches.

The ground rushes up to meet him with each winter-crunched blade of grass now so much closer and larger. Already drunk, Wei Wuxian nearly vomits before his stomach has a moment to settle.

When he pushes to his hands and knees, suddenly the army is much larger.

Or, frighteningly, Wei Wuxian is infinitely smaller.

“What the fuck,” he whispers quietly. Yu-Ayi is not here to chide his profanity. Though, to be honest he thinks she would curse in his position, too.

When he sways to his feet, he finds himself back to back with the nutcracker as the army encircles them. “How are you in combat?” the wooden man asks, his sword aloft in a clear starting position.

This is the weirdest fucking dream he’s ever had and he’d very much like to wake up now. Still, since that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon, Wei Wuxian cracks his knuckles and then his neck. “Adequate,” he replies, thinking of the boxing lessons Yu-Ayi has been giving the three of them since he was small.

He hears a huff that might be amusement or derision. He elects to think of it as amusement.

The first mouse attacks, and Wei Wuxian throws a punch, catching it on the nose and stunning it.

Behind him, the nutcracker wields his sword like a master, easily taking on five mice at any given moment.

Wei Wuxian does not have time to linger in his admiration as he brawls his way through his own cluster of gray and brown and black mice. “Come and get some,” he says, delirious.

The situation is too absurd to be real, and yet the kinetic frenzy cannot be anything else.

Some part of him feels good as his fist connects with flesh and his knuckles ache with every punch. He feels more alive than he has in months as the pain inside is finally given tangible form and an outlet through which to express it.

He thinks he might be cackling.

He almost doesn’t dodge the sword in time.

In an instant, the nutcracker is there, blocking the blow with his wooden forearm and suddenly Wei Wuxian remembers that he is not alone.

There’s a nick in the wood now, and though the nutcracker makes no sound at the wound, Wei Wuxian cries out. “Why would you do that!”

“Pay attention,” the nutcracker says rather than answering. He tosses a stolen sword to Wei Wuxian and turns back to the fray.

If not for the advancing soldiers, Wei Wuxian might have stayed frozen. Suddenly, years of dueling knowledge guide his muscles through the fight.

He can hear Jiang-Shushu’s voice in his head. “Keep your body centered, A-Xian, stay alert. Sword up.”

He listens to the ghost in his heart and he swings.

He and the nutcracker dance around each other with the same grace he twirled Mianmian with earlier. They spin around each other fending off one mouse after the next. It is a sisyphean task as the swarm continues on in waves.

A thrust, a parry, a jab. It feels natural to leave his back unguarded like he does when he and Jiang Cheng get into trouble. His body’s trust in this stranger is terrifying, but his nutcracker seems an honorable sort.

He doesn’t even know why they’re fighting. Not really. Only that he cannot let the mice have his nutcracker, and that carnage feels good right now.

He feels alive.

Laughter wells up in his throat and burbles past his lips in a roar.

Several mice cower and slow their approach. Good.

“So,” he begins companionably, like he’s not currently a few centimeters tall, fighting a mouse army with his back guarded by a wooden soldier, and wielding a stolen sword like it’s an extension of his body, “do you fight rodent armies often, my nutcracker friend?”

“Focus,” the nutcracker scolds.

Just as Wei Wuxian is about to come up with what he’s sure will be a lovely quip, three soldiers attack him in tandem. Notably, one of them is a human about his size. The first he parries, the second— the human— he dodges, but the third is too fast and too far into his blind spot.

A blade grazes his side and Wei Wuxian admits— as wet, searing pain lances through him— that perhaps this is not some twisted dream or drunken hallucination.

He cannot quite stifle the surprised cry that burns his lips, and when he touches the wound, his palm comes away bloody.

“Wen Zhuliu,” the nutcracker snarls.

In an instant, he finds himself swept into white arms as the nutcracker grabs him and leaps away from the mice.

For a small, wooden man, the nutcracker crosses the garden quickly. His feet barely deign to touch the ground before he leaps high, landing back at the fountain’s edge.

“You are wounded,” he says, setting Wei Wuxian down on the bench. Funny how much larger the fountain he knows looks from this height. The nutcracker glances back at the army which approaches swiftly. “Do you have any paper?”

“What?” Wei Wuxian presses both hands to his side to staunch the bleeding. “Why would I carry paper?”

The nutcracker’s sharp golden eyes assess him for a moment. He closes his eyes and seems to make a decision. “In that case, please forgive my trespass.”

“Trespass? What are you—“ Wei Wuxian cuts off with a hiss when the nutcracker prods his side and uses his bloodied wooden hand to sketch an array in the air.

A barrier burns red around the fountain, and Wei Wuxian is so distracted by the sight of it that he forgets to tell off the soldier beside him.

Even the nutcracker seems mildly surprised. “You have strong spiritual energy,” he says.

“Thanks?” Wei Wuxian sucks in a breath and tries to pretend he’s not hurt. It doesn’t work this time. “What is spiritual energy?”

The man lifts one incredulous brow and does not answer. “Come. We must find a way to return you to size.”

The mice below cannot seem to breach the glowing red barrier, though their tiny arrows pelt the energy. For now, it appears Wei Wuxian is relatively safe.

“Hey, Nutcracker, why were they seeking you? Are you some kind of criminal?”

“No.” The voice is so cold that Wei Wuxian nearly shivers.

At first, he thinks the nutcracker won’t elaborate, but then he says, “The Mouse King Wen Ruohan invaded my homelands and enslaved my people.”

“Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry.” What is one supposed to say to that? Fuck, he’s just as bad at this as he is at responding to condolences.

“It is not your concern.” The nutcracker pauses in leading him closer to the fountain’s ledge. “We must treat your wound.”

“I’m fine,” Wei Wuxian lies. “Just a scratch. How about you? You got a chunk taken out of your arm.”

He can feel the judgement in his companion’s blank stare. “Take off your shirt.”

His cheeks burn crimson. “I beg your pardon!?”

“Shirt off,” comes the recalcitrant command. “I must bind your wound. You are dripping.”

Wei Wuxian glances behind him and notes a disconcerting trail of blood. “Oh.”

Slowly, he wiggles out of his jacket and shirt. The nutcracker closes the distance between them and examines the wound where he kneels. “We must go to Dafan Mountain and seek treatment. The blade was poisoned.”

“Poisoned? Now that’s just dishonorable,” Wei Wuxian mutters.

“Why are you so unconcerned?” The nutcracker tears strips of fabric from Wei Wuxian’s discarded shirt and binds them around his waist to staunch the bleeding.

The tightness of the bandages makes him yelp, but Wei Wuxian says, “I’m having a rather peculiar night as it is. Why shouldn’t I be in mortal peril due to poison?” He slips his jacket back on over his bandages to ward off the chill.

The nutcracker stands, lifts Wei Wuxian into his arms once more, and leaps toward the central spire of the fountain. “Reckless,” he murmurs, clearly wanting Wei Wuxian to hear him.

“That’s me!” Wei Wuxian drapes his arms around the nutcracker’s shoulders and grins. “Say, Mr. Nutcracker, I still don’t know what to call you. My name’s Wei Ying, though most people use my courtesy name, Wuxian.”

When they land and the nutcracker makes no move to put him down, Wei Wuxian is surprised. “Wangji,” he says at last. “Birth name Lan Zhan.”

“So you weren’t always a nutcracker, then?”

“No.”

“Was it Wen Ruohan?”

“Mn.”

Lan Wangji walks them toward the rabbit statue.

“Where are you taking us?”

“To my realm. To Dafan for treatment.”

Wei Wuxian squints at the mechanical rabbit which he’s taken apart and put back together at least a dozen times. “Um… how?”

When they reach the rabbit, Lan Wangji carefully sets him down and reaches up to pull at his forehead ribbon. Wei Wuxian watches for a moment before realizing that with his current level of minimal articulation, Lan Wangji cannot untie the knot.

“Here, let me help,” Wei Wuxian says, tugging the knot free and offering the newly loose ribbon back.

Lan Wangji has gone still. Wei Wuxian does not think he is incorrect in seeing rage in the frigid expression on Lan Wangji’s face as he snatches the ribbon back like Wei Wuxian’s hands have personally offended him.

“Do not touch.”

“Sorry, I just thought, well… never mind.”

Lan Wangji sighs and presses the metal plate at the ribbon’s center into a groove on the rabbit’s paw.

The gears clink into motion and the paw lifts to reveal a hidden entrance that glows silvery blue.

Wei Wuxian’s jaw hangs open. “Lan Wangji! Has this always been here?”

“Yes.”

“No way! I’ve taken this statue apart and put it back together many times! This doorway never existed before. I would have known.”

“Would you?”

“I would,” he insists, almost offended as Lan Wangji offers a hand and pulls him into the light.

“I definitely would have,” he mutters more petulantly to himself.

On the other side of the portal, Wei Wuxian blinks into harsh light.

After leaving the darkness of Jiaomu’s garden, the dawn-lit landscape is unforgiving against his eyes.

Shielding his view with his arm, he sees crooked pine trees standing guard before a great, verdant mountain in the distance. To his left, he sees a palace banked by tall towers. To his right lies a vast sea like the one he visited when Jiang-Shushu brought them to the coast one summer.

It’s a breathtaking vista, but he’s still reeling at the fact that there’s a secret world! Hiding in his godmother’s garden!

After a moment, he realizes the nutcracker has begun walking without him. He hastens after him, wincing all the way.

“Lan Wangji.”

No response.

“Lan-gongzi.”

He remains unheard or ignored. Wei Wuxian has never been very good at being either of those things.

“Lan Zhan!”

Ah. Success. His quarry pauses and glares over one lacquered shoulder.

“Why are you walking so fast? Don’t you know I’m injured?”

“That is why we must move quickly.”

“Hmph. What kind of poison is it even? What will it do?”

Lan Wangji closes his eyes slowly and gives the impression of sighing without uttering a noise. “It will slowly boil your blood from the inside until your body fails and your spiritual core withers.”

Wei Wuxian’s foot catches on a branch.

Lan Wangji catches him, but he’s still hanging onto the words. “Boil my blood? Well, points for creativity and horror.”

“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji scolds. Still, he offers his arm and helps Wei Wuxian walk along the well-worn path.

The scent of pine soaks the air around them, and Wei Wuxian inhales deeply. He’s surprised to catch sandalwood in the mix. As subtle as he can manage, he leans closer to the nutcracker and catches the sandalwood scent in his hair.

Interesting.

They walk in silence for a while until Wei Wuxian can no longer lash his tongue. “So what’s this Dafan place? Is it far?”

“It is a town of healers. It is the mountain you see ahead.”

Wei Wuxian squints and feels a very real curl of fear in his stomach. “Can we make it there in time? I’d much prefer not to have my insides turned into soup.”

“No soup,” Lan Wangji agrees. “An apothecary along the way should stave off the infection long enough for a physician to treat you.”

“Ah. That’s good news. I’d hate to leave my siblings behind like that.” His throat almost doesn’t work around the words as he realizes the joke is anything but. What is he doing? He’s in some alternate world, the size of a mouse, walking around with a poisoned stab wound.

His family doesn’t even know where he is. They’re going to be so panicked when the party ends. What will Jiaomu think? Yu-Ayi will probably start yelling at anyone in her path, and Jiang Cheng will follow suit because that’s what they do when they panic. And A-Jie, what will she think? He does not want to stress her out, especially when she’s expecting.

Lan Wangji notices the falter in his pace. “What is it?”

“I left my family behind. They’re going to think I’m missing. Or dead. What have I done? Lan Wangji, I must go back!”

“No. You will die.”

“But—!”

“Time passes differently between our world and yours. An hour there is nearly a month here. They will not worry for you yet.”

Wei Wuxian does not even realize he had been hyperventilating until his breathing begins to slow and his vision clears to find Lan Wangji’s beautiful golden eyes watching him closely. “A month?”

Lan Wangji inclines his head.

“Okay. Okay. I can do this. Plenty of time to get back.”

Lan Wangji offers his arm again and Wei Wuxian takes it and stands.

When they are back on the shrub-lined path, Wei Wuxian asks, “How long have you been a nutcracker?”

Lan Wangji gives the impression of sighing, seeming to realize Wei Wuxian is not big on silence— companionable or otherwise.

“Three years.”

“Three! That’s so long! Is there no way to undo the curse?”

“There is,” Lan Wangji admits with some reluctance.

“That’s great!”

“It will not happen.”

“What? Why not!” Wei Wuxian demands. “I’ll help!”

“You cannot,” Lan Wangji says, shaking his head. “Wen Ruohan cursed me with a spell knowing that the only way to break it would be impossible to achieve.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Wei Wuxian says. “My father always told me to attempt the impossible! Maybe I can do it.”

Lan Wangji sighs out loud. “You cannot.”

“I won’t know unless you tell me how to break the curse,” Wei Wuxian wheedles.

Lan Wangji’s painted lips form a tight line, and he remains pointedly silent.

“Fine. Watch me do it anyway, just to spite you.”

More than an hour into their trek, Wei Wuxian feels a sudden flash of pain in his side. Before he can suppress it, he cries out, and his knees buckle.

Lan Wangji catches him before he faceplants in the dirt path.

Wei Wuxian lets himself sag into those wooden arms as he breathes through the throbbing, radiant agony.

“You appear to be suffering from fever already,” Lan Wangji says. The nutcracker cannot feel temperature, but he can probably see the sweat beading Wei Wuxian’s brow. “That is bad,” he adds as if it wasn’t clear.

“What kind of herbs do we need from the apothecary?” Wei Wuxian asks between gritted teeth. “My sister is a nurse. I may know the plant, should we pass it.”

“Black walnut bark, mandarin peel, crushed ginseng leaves, and sweet wormwood.”

“Oh!” Wei Wuxian pushes himself upright with Lan Wangji’s support. “I have some of those!”

“You carry medicinal herbs on your person?”

“Not usually!” Wei Wuxian rifles through the interior pockets of his jacket. “Mianmian gave me a perfume sachet this evening while we were dancing… Ah! Here it is.”

Wei Wuxian beams, but his companion has somehow grown stiffer than the wood he’s already made of. “You left a young lady behind?”

“Not really. She’s the one who sent me outside for air. She knows me too well,” Wei Wuxian hums, digging out some of the potpourri mix. “Here, Lan Wangji. Help me apply this, would you? I’m not keen on fainting anytime soon.”

He is answered by a noise he would call petulant if he didn’t know any better. Still, Lan Wangji helps him sit down on a large rock by a whispering creek as he applies the poultice to Wei Wuxian’s wound.

Morbid curiosity makes him look at the gash. He immediately regrets the decision and has to clap a hand over his mouth to swallow down the bile. “That doesn’t look good.”

“No,” the nutcracker agrees. “We must travel faster.”

There’s a furrow in his brows that Wei Wuxian is learning to read. “What are you thinking?”

“My spiritual energy is sealed in this form. Normally I can fly on my sword.”

“Fly!” Wei Wuxian crows, throwing himself back in delight before the injury makes him wince and coil back. “You can fly?”

“Not currently,” Lan Wangji reminds him.

Wei Wuxian settles back on his rock. “Okay. So that doesn’t help us.” He considers for a moment. “Unless…”

“Unless we use your spiritual energy,” Lan Wangji says, confirming Wei Wuxian’s thoughts.

“Would that even work? I certainly don’t know how to fly.”

“There is risk involved. I would steer us, but the energy will tax you further.”

Wei Wuxian eyes the mountain in the distance. “How far is Dafan on foot?”

“A week.”

Wei Wuxian sucks in a chilled breath. “And on sword?”

“A day and half.”

“How draining would it be? I don’t even know how to use spiritual energy.”

Lan Wangji makes a noise of clear frustration. “Apologies. I do not know. It varies from person to person.”

Wei Wuxian drums his fingers against his chin in thought. “What happens if I run out of energy in mid-air?”

“We fall.”

“Not ideal.” He hums. “Okay, so your job will be two-fold! You have to hold me while steering the sword, and you have to keep an eye on me to make sure we can land before I get too tired.”

“It would be dangerous,” Lan Wangji says even though, really, this is his idea, Wei Wuxian just improved upon it.

“Well, the alternative is probably me dying by being boiled alive, so I’m inclined to take the risk. But are you willing?”

“Yes. I will see you healed. You never should have been dragged into this conflict.”

“Great!” Wei Wuxian says, popping to his feet and ignoring the jab of pain at the motion. “Let’s fly.”

Chapter Text

All told, flying is the most terrifying thing Wei Wuxian has ever done, which is saying something as he’s fought a mouse army with his fists.

They spend half an hour’s time testing their balance on the blade— Bichen, Lan Wangji called it— and getting the sword’s stubborn soul to respond to Wei Wuxian’s coaxing energy. Never has he been so grateful to Yu-Ayi for her balance and posture lessons as he is standing on a sliver of steel above the ground.

All too soon, he steps into the circle of Lan Wangji’s wooden arms and they guide Bichen skyward.

Wei Wuxian is not entirely successful in smothering his scream when they jerk upward past the tree line. It’s almost worth the fear when he hears the slightest noise of amusement escape Lan Wangji.

With the smallest of motions, Lan Wangji guides Bichen through the air and toward the craggy mountain on the horizon.

The way Lan Wangji rides the gusts of wind reminds him of his childhood visits to the sea. The way the waves had crested and crashed over him until he’s learned how to read their rhythm is very similar to flying. They soar high, above treetops and villages and lakes and temples.

The ground rushes beneath them in the painted strokes of a harried brush.

In the safety of his nutcracker’s arms, Wei Wuxian dares to spread his arms and soak up the sunlight. He whoops, delirious and awed and feverish, but still so very alive.

For most of the flight, they are silent. Wei Wuxian is only quiet during their flight out of necessity. It had only taken swallowing the second bug to convince him that shouting over the wind isn’t worth it.

At first he occupies himself with the sights and sounds and colors, but as the sun sinks, his attention wanders.

Standing in Lan Wangji’s arms feels meditative after a while. He feels at peace, which is ludicrous given their position and circumstances. He’s never stood so close to another man before, but he almost forgets that somewhere under that wood Lan Wangji is human.

Perhaps it is because he has fallen into such a meditative state that Wei Wuxian fails to notice anything is wrong until the sword drops and he screams.

His stomach stays behind as they fall, but his cry rips through the fabric of the violet sky.

“Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji shouts, curling around him as they plummet. “Focus! You have to slow our descent!”

Focus! At a time like this? Wei Wuxian wants to retort, but he’s too busy screaming and scraping his energy reserves. “Stop!” he commands Bichen as he pours himself into the sword and hopes to every god Yu-Ayi has ever prayed to that they survive.

The sword jerks, slowing their descent into the forest enough that they only strip a few trees of their branches rather than forming a crater.

When they hit the last bough of a gnarled pine, Lan Wangji rolls them so he lands first on the hard ground, and then they roll the last few meters to a stop.

“Wei Ying!”

All the air has gone from Wei Wuxian’s lungs. The edges of his vision swim with black as his sword wound throbs so intensely that he’s sure he’s going to die of agony well before his organs boil.

“Wei Ying? Wei Ying, stay awake,” Lan Wangji commands.

He manages a grunt in response, trying to find Lan Wangji’s worried eyes. “Fuck,” he mutters feebly. “My bad. You okay?”

“I am fine.” He feels himself being scooped back into Lan Wangji’s arms. “This is my fault. I should have known you would be exhausted soon. There’s a village not far from here. You must stay awake.”

“Why?”

“You might be concussed. You need treatment before sleep.”

“Oh, joy.” He sulks for a moment before brightening. “Talk to me,” Wei Wuxian pleads, still breathless from the fall.

“Pardon?”

“Keep me talking. Keep me awake.”

A pause as the nutcracker runs carefully through the forest. “Very well. What do you wish to know?”

Words are hard at the moment, but Wei Wuxian tries anyway, going for the low-hanging fruit. “Why is the mouse king after you? He already cursed you.”

“He thought the curse would stop me from fighting back. He was wrong.”

“How long has he been a problem?”

“Years. The threat grew over time, but we did not know how strong his forces were until he conquered the palace.”

“You’re from the palace?”

“Mn.”

“Let me guess, were you a general?”

“Of a sort.”

“How vague. So what happened?”

“The emperor, Qingheng-Jun, was slain in battle.” There is strain in Lan Wangji’s voice. “The crown prince was forced to take the sacred texts and flee the burning of the palace library.”

“He burned a library?” Wei Wuxian cries. He immediately regrets it when he curls closer to Lan Wangji at the brutal pain in his side.

“They wanted to erase the Lan Dynasty’s history and culture.”

“Lan? Then they are your family?”

“The royal family was very large. Many cousins and distant relatives inhabited the palace. There are few left,” Lan Wangji says, and for the first time, Wei Wuxian can hear the clear sorrow in his companion’s voice.

“I’m sorry, Lan Zhan.”

“I will not fail them again. And I will not fail you. Your only crime was aiding me.”

“I know you won’t,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, resting his head on Lan Wangji’s chest. He can almost imagine a rapid heartbeat beneath his ear. That would be cute, if Lan Wangji’s stoicism was betrayed by his heart. “Does the crown prince have any siblings who might help you?”

“No. There was a younger prince, but he has been missing since the siege. The family presumes him to be dead.”

“No sisters?”

“No. The queen passed when the princes were young. They are the only members of the main family left aside from the emperor’s younger brother.”

“I’m sorry, Lan Zhan.”

“Wei Ying knows grief as well,” Lan Wangji says. “I heard you crying for your adoptive father.”

If he wasn’t injured, Wei Wuxian would be mortified. As it is, all he can muster is exhausted agreement. “Yes. He grew ill over the last year. We all watched his health decline until there was nothing left.”

“My mother sickened and passed similarly,” Lan Wangji confides. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“And I for yours,” Wei Wuxian replies. He burrows closer into Lan Wangji and finally takes a deep breath. “Mm, Lan Zhan, you smell of sandalwood.”

It’s only in the deafening silence that Wei Wuxian hears his own words. “It is very pleasant,” Wei Wuxian says, as if he meant to do this all along. He forces a weak laugh. “I’m sure the maidens enjoy it.”

“Wei Ying. I am made of wood.”

“Hah… oh, yes. I’m just going to shut up now.”

“You may not until we reach the village.”

“Lan Zhan!” he whines.

Lan Wangji, the cruel man that he is, insists. Mercifully, he gives Wei Wuxian’s rambling mouth another topic to discuss. “Where did you learn how to fight?”

“Jiang-Shushu taught me to duel. Me and my brother. He practiced martial arts for decades. That’s actually how he met my birth father.” Wei Wuxian tries to clear his throat when the words catch. “But hand-to-hand fighting was taught by Yu-Ayi. She was the reigning champion of the underground bare-knuckle boxing club for years. The only one who ever challenged her was my birth mother.”

Lan Wangji hums appreciatively. “Wei Ying is the son of four skilled combatants, then. No wonder.”

“Ah, you flatterer. Even as a nutcracker, you are far more graceful than I’ll ever be.”

“Perhaps.”

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian struggles upright in delight. “Was that humor?”

He catches the tiniest quirk of a painted lip and can’t help his own delirious grin.

“It was!”

“I do not know what you mean.” Lan Wangji’s lip stubbornly flattens once more, but Wei Wuxian silently counts his victory. “I see the village up ahead. I will get us an inn for the night.”

Wei Wuxian is barely aware of the process of them settling into the small inn, but he hears Lan Wangji ask the proprietress to fetch a healer and hot water.

He is significantly more aware of an elderly man cutting the makeshift bandages free and prodding at his weeping wound.

“Core Melting Poison,” the elder says with a shake of his head. “Nasty stuff. Only the Dafan healers can remove the toxin.”

“We are on our way there,” Lan Wangji informs the man.

“Good, good. In the meantime, give your friend this herbal tea, and be sure to change his bandages thrice daily. His golden core is naturally trying to expel poison from his wound. Old blood lingering does him no good.”

The man assesses his head and declares him not concussed. A small relief after the reaction to Core Melting Poison, but Wei Wuxian will take any mercy he can get at present.

Lan Wangji holds his sword before himself and bows to the departing healer. “Thank you.”

Wei Wuxian throws a hand over his sweat-beaded forehead. “So how bad do I look?”

Lan Wangji stays silent.

“That bad, huh?”

“It has been a rough day for you.”

“That’s a very diplomatic way of putting it.” Wei Wuxian tilts his head back and sighs. “Sorry I keep slowing you down.”

“It is no trouble. I pledged to see you healed; I shall.” Lan Wangji stays silent long enough for Wei Wuxian to know he’s picking his words. “There is a selfish reason I accompany you, as well.”

“Oh?”

“Your godmother was once a resident of this world. You are familiar with her works.”

“Well, yes,” Wei Wuxian grunts as Lan Wangji tightens the fresh linen bandages around his waist. “Wait, I beg your pardon? She lived here once?”

“Mn. She was born here, and she guarded the path to Yiling.”

“Yiling? Hmm. That name sounds familiar.” Wei Wuxian lies back on the bamboo bed frame and allows Lan Wangji to help him drink the medicinal tea. It tastes about as bad as it smells and reminds him of the sludge he and Jiang Cheng made the first few weeks after A-Jie married out and they suddenly had to brew their own tea. “I think Mama’s stories often involved Yiling.”

“That should not surprise me,” Lan Wangji says, shifting to begin feeding Wei Wuxian a bowl of stew the innkeeper left. “Your spiritual energy is far higher than most people from your realm.”

“You think my mother was from this world?”

“It seems likely.”

“So what does this have to do with why you’re tending to me?”

“Baoshan Sanren created a mechanism to guard the location of Yiling. I believe you can unlock it.”

“Me?”

“Mn.”

Wei Wuxian stares at the rafters overhead. “What is in Yiling?”

“The Sugarplum Patriarch.”

Wei Wuxian snickers. “That cannot be a real person. Sugarplum? What kind of a title is that?”

“He is real,” Lan Wangji says mulishly. “The crown prince himself assured me that only the Patriarch can defeat Wen Ruohan.”

Wei Wuxian is feeling a bit like an ass, but he still giggles. “How? By throwing candy at him? Come on, Lan Zhan.”

“Wei Ying. The Sugarplum Patriarch is a legendary figure. He is said to be a Fae deity who can break any curse and raise armies.”

“Raise armies? Of what?”

“I do not know, but if anyone can break the curse on me, it would be him.”

Wei Wuxian’s gaze snaps back to his forlorn companion. “Oh. Oh, Lan Zhan. Of course. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. As soon as I’m not dying, let’s go find this Sugarplum Patriarch.”

Lan Wangji bows. “Thank you.”

Wei Wuxian waves a hand. “You should hardly be thanking me. You’ve done all the work so far.”

“Your spiritual energy allowed me to fly for the first time in three years, Wei Ying.”

“Ah. Well, fine.” He waves the comment off. Lan Wangji’s sincerity is too potent. “Then say we both did work, and there is no need for thanks between us.”

When he looks back, he catches the soft, barely-present curve of a smile. It’s too much for his poor heart.

“Wei Ying, you may rest now. I will keep watch.”

“Don’t be silly, Lan Zhan. You must be tired, too.”

He shakes his head. “I do not need sleep these days.”

“That sounds sad. Think of all the dreams you are missing out on,” Wei Wuxian murmurs as Lan Wangji helps him slip under the blankets.

“Perhaps it is better,” Lan Wangji says softly. “No nightmares.”

Wei Wuxian catches Lan Wangji’s wrist before he can walk away.

“Wei Ying?”

“Stay,” he whispers.

“Stay?”

Wei Wuxian swallows his pride when he remembers the despair in Lan Wangji’s eyes when he spoke of the palace. “Will you stay next to me? Just in case I get worse overnight.”

It’s an excuse, but Lan Wangji takes it after a moment. “The bed isn’t big enough,” he says, ignoring Wei Wuxian’s gesturing, “but I will stay at your bedside and meditate.”

“Okay.” Slowly, he releases his grip on the warm, sculpted wood of Lan Wangji’s body. “Goodnight, Lan Zhan.”

“Goodnight, Wei Ying.”

…

Wei Wuxian stands at the base of a mountainous path. The clay beneath his feet is a dusty red-purple, and the air smells sweet like sugar or decay. It walks the edge of cloying without reaching offensive.

When he looks down at himself, his tunic shimmers in the light like the iridescent scales of a prized koi fish. Beads of red and warm purple swirls across the torso of his black and gray robes.

It is beautiful, if unlike anything he has ever worn or witnessed before.

As he takes a step forward, Wei Wuxian begins to hear the familiar notes of a lullaby he has not heard in many, many years.

His birth mother’s voice croons softly, and he opens his mouth— whether to call for her or to join in her cannot be sure— but no sound escapes.

“Listen, A-Ying,” Jiaomu’s voice whispers in his ear. “Just listen.”

So he does, walking deeper along the path and toward his mother’s voice. He feels nostalgic for this place he has never been to before. His heart aches with the weight and loss of home in all its forms.

Still, his mother’s song continues, luring him up the tree-lined path and toward the mountain’s peak.

He feels like he’s forgetting something. Something should be slowing him. Hurting him. What is he forgetting?

It must not be important if he can’t remember it, he reasons.

As he scales the last lip of rock, Wei Wuxian catches sight of his mother’s figure standing in front of the temple at the summit.

“Mama!”

The song stops, and Cangse Sanren turns slowly to smile at him. Her warm expression and unruly dark brown tresses are just how he remembers— just like the ones he inherited. She looks just like the portrait in Jiaomu’s hall, and it aches. “My little Ying’er! Look at how you’ve grown.”

He stumbles closer, afraid to reach out, but needing her touch like he needs breath in his lungs. “Mama, wha-what are you doing here? Where is this?”

“Shh,” she soothes. A cool, breeze-soft caress comes at his cheek. “It will all make sense soon, my love. Did you listen well, A-Ying? Can you remember my song when the time comes?”

“Yes,” he says, willing to promise whatever she asks. Tears slide down his cheeks and he sniffles, trying to force them back. “I listened.”

“I know you can do this, A-Ying,” she murmurs, kissing the crown of his head. “I did not want this to be your fate, but I know you will meet it beautifully.”

“Mama?”

Her eyes are sad when she kneels before him and wipes his tears. “My brilliant little boy, always remember that you can do anything you set your mind to. Your mind is your greatest weapon, and your heart is your biggest asset.”

She wraps his arms around him and they cling tightly enough that for a moment Wei Wuxian thinks she might not leave him this time. He has so few memories left. The flash of painted lips. The brim of her sunhat. The stubborn old donkey she had adored. His memories are blurred like a smudged sketch and it is hard to tell memories from stories.

Surely she won’t leave him again.

He is not so fortunate.

“Ying’er, it is time for you to wake up.”

“No,” he protests, trying desperately to hold on to this moment.

“I know, my love, but you have to let me go. There are others who need you now.”

She presses one last kiss to his forehead and withdraws, stepping into the temple. “Wake up.”

Unwillingly, he does.

In the dawn-lit inn, there is only the memory of her song and a glimpse her sad, brown eyes left behind.

Chapter Text

“Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian gasps awake to find heavy hands on his shoulders.

He struggles for a moment before he registers Lan Wangji’s golden eyes glowing with concern. He goes limp against the bedding, though his breaths and pulse take longer to stop thrashing.

“You are crying,” the nutcracker observes. Wei Wuxian sees that he seems to have stayed at the bedside through the night.

Wei Wuxian swipes a hand across his cheeks. “Yeah.”

“Nightmare?”

“Not exactly.”

Wei Wuxian does not volunteer more information, and he is grateful that Lan Wangji does not ask for it. The memory of his mama’s touch still feels too raw and too real. Atop the grief for Jiang-Shushu, he feels more like crumpled paper than skin and bone.

After he pokes at a meager breakfast, they leave the inn and Lan Wangji begins walking them toward Dafan Mountain.

Wei Wuxian gapes at the distance, especially when his side throbs. He stamps his foot. “Lan Zhan, aren’t we going to fly again?”

“We fell.”

“Well, yes, but what if we just flew over the footpath? Not very high, but still faster than walking.”

“Hmm.”

Wei Wuxian sidles up to him and elbows him with a practiced grin that has gotten Wei Wuxian into and out of so much trouble over the years. “Come on Lan Zhan. Don’t you want to fly again? The faster we get me healed, the faster we can start our quest for Yiling.”

“…Very well.”

“Yes!”

“But we will take a break every hour for me to check on your color and wound.”

“Ugh, fine.”

True to his word, from the moment they embark on Bichen, Lan Wangji is hyper-vigilant. They set down often and Wei Wuxian is forced to drink the bitter medicinal tea twice more when Lan Wangji changes his bandages.

Wei Wuxian catches a squirrel for lunch when he escapes Lan Wangji’s watchful eyes for a few minutes. He then learns that Lan Wangji was a vegetarian when he used to eat. Oops.

Some breaks are appreciated— necessary even for Wei Wuxian to shake feeling back into his limbs after standing still atop the sword for so long. Other breaks are utterly ridiculous. His patience wanes with each successive stop.

By the time the mountain looms over them, Wei Wuxian is feeling downright cranky even if the poison feels less potent.

Lan Wangji tries to direct them to land, and Wei Wuxian protests. “We’re so close! Let’s just get there.”

“We cannot risk it.”

He looks back over his shoulder and scowls. “Lan Zhan, please! I’m tired and hungry and I’d really like to not be dying.”

Lan Wangji sighs. “If you insist on pushing yourself, fly lower. It’s harder to catch you from this height.”

And so they spend the last hour and a half of the journey skimming less than a meter above the well-trodden path to Mount Dafan.

When a settlement comes into view, Wei Wuxian sags into Lan Wangji’s arms. “We made it.”

“Wei Ying did very well.”

He flushes at the comment, but a smile blooms on his face as Lan Wangji helps him down and sheathes Bichen. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Lan Wangji scoops him up again, and Wei Wuxian thinks he might be getting too used to being carried around like a bride. He doesn’t even protest as Lan Wangji carries him into the village in front of the farmers and craftsmen.

He ducks into a central structure as if he’s been there a hundred times before, and none of the villagers seem alarmed to see a wooden nutcracker marching through their home. “Lady Wen,” Lan Wangji calls, not quite raising his voice.

A petite woman with sharp needles in her hand and sharper eyes in her face rounds a corner. “Lan Wangji, what problem have you brought me this time?”

“He’s been wounded by Wen Zhuliu’s blade.”

Wen Qing sucks in a breath. “Core Melting Poison.”

“Indeed.”

Wen Qing crosses her arms and jerks her head to the back. “Bring him back to the table. I’ll get A-Ning to gather the ingredients.”

Lan Wangji bows his head to her and marches through the wooden clinic until Wei Wuxian sees a hard bed.

“Rest assured Doctor Wen is the best medical mind in all the lands.”

“Wen? Is she related to Wen Ruohan?”

“Distantly. Diverged branches of the same family.”

“That makes sense since she’s not, um… a mouse…”

Lan Wangji huffs a tiny laugh. “Mn. Rest, Wei Ying. You are in good hands.”

Wei Wuxian offers his most charming lop-sided smile. “I was already in good hands.”

Lan Wangji arches one brow, but his lips twitch to betray him.

“Alright,” Wen Qing announces, stalking back into her exam room, “shirt off.”

“Pardon?” Wei Wuxian asks, clutching his shirt like a scandalized maiden.

“I’m a doctor,” she says, rolling her eyes so spectacularly that Jiang Cheng should take notes. “You have nothing I haven’t seen before and nothing of interest.” She levels him a flat look. “If you want to live, take your shirt off.”

“Yes, Doctor. Sorry.” Wei Wuxian rushes through the buttons on the shirt Lan Wangji procured for him after his first one became bandages.

She uses a pair of shears to slice through the bandages and examine the wound.

“It’s not bad yet, I presume you’ve been treating it with herbs.”

“Yes.”

“Ah, yeah, Lan Zhan’s been cleaning the wound and giving me medicinal tea.”

Wen Qing turns to his nutcracker with one arched brow. On Jiang Cheng, he’d call the expression she wears incredulous bemusement. Lan Wangji remains emotionless.

“Alright. Who are you and how did you end up getting sliced by Wen Zhuliu’s blade?”

“Forgive my manners,” he says, not meaning a word, but echoing the etiquette lessons his mother drilled into them. “I am Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian. Wen Ruohan brought an army against our nutcracker friend here, and I happened to be nearby.”

“He is from the other world,” Lan Wangji says, and Wei Wuxian is relieved that isn’t a secret he’s expected to keep from Wen Qing’s shrewd eyes.

“You are not meant to be this size, are you?”

“Ah,” Wei Wuxian says, “no. I was much taller.”

“Well, I can’t do anything about that, but I can fix your wound.” She grabs a bottle of clear liquid and tells him, “This is going to hurt, but I need to disinfect your wound.”

Wei Wuxian eyes the bottle and draws a deep breath. “Alright, let’s get it over with.”

When Wen Qing applies alcohol to the wound, Wei Wuxian bites his lip to smother the scream in his rib cage. He must look pretty awful because Lan Wangji supports his shoulders and makes a small, worried noise.

It takes a few passes of the alcohol burning through the edges of the wound before Wen Qing relents. “Your golden core is strong,” she says with reluctant admiration.

“My what?”

“Your spiritual energy,” she says, poking his stomach. “It sits here in your lower dantian and grows with you once cultivated.” She smears a foul-smelling cream across the edges of the wound and then passes deep orange energy from her fingertips into his injury. “It is good you got here as quickly as you did. From what I can tell, your core is undamaged, merely depleted from use.”

“We flew,” Lan Wangji supplies.

“On Bichen?”

“Mn.”

Wen Qing whistles. “Impressive. Your blade is almost as fussy as you, Lan Wangji.”

“Oh?” Wei Wuxian tries to prop himself on his elbows to see them better, but Wen Qing pushes him back down.

“Rest,” she orders. “It’ll take me a few hours to render the antidote. The less you move, the less the poison spreads.”

Wei Wuxian pouts, but it is completely ineffective against her.

“You,” she says, pointing to Lan Wangji, “keep an eye on him. If he moves, I will paralyze you both,” she says, holding up her slender needles.

“Can you even paralyze wood?”

She gives Wei Wuxian a dark look. “Do not be the reason why Lan Wangji finds that out.”

When she leaves, Wei Wuxian laughs. “She’s scary. I like her.”

“Mn. One does well not to cross Wen Qing.”

“I think she’d get along with my brother. That, or they’d kill each other. Hard to say.”

Wei Wuxian spends the rest of the evening looking around the room from his limited vantage point and guessing what purpose each medical instrument serves. Lan Wangji supplies corrections and affirmations from time to time.

Wen Qing returns long after nightfall with a vial of purple liquid in hand. “The antidote,” she says as Lan Wangji props Wei Wuxian up on her orders.

The antidote tastes sweet in a way that is nearly repulsive, but Wei Wuxian holds it down as well as he managed the bitter medicines before.

“The poison should burn off by morning,” Wen Qing informs them as she examines Wei Wuxian thoroughly and freshens his bandages once more. “If anything happens overnight, come get me.”

They both nod and give their thanks before settling in.

Wei Wuxian has always been terrible at staying on bed rest. Anytime he had a cold as a child, it had often taken his sister’s pleading to coax him back to rest when all the other boys were playing in the street or down by the creek.

“You have to help me stay in bed,” he tells Lan Wangji after the first hour passes and boredom is twitching his muscles. “I’m too restless to manage it myself.”

“Perhaps you should sleep early?”

“I’ve always kept later hours,” Wei Wuxian admits. “Sleeping before midnight is challenging.” He glances at Lan Wangji, noting the guqin strapped across his back. “Do you play?”

“I used to,” comes the reply as Lan Wangji holds up his blocky wooden hands.

Wei Wuxian winces. “Sorry.”

“It is no matter.” Lan Wangji settles into his usual lotus pose for meditation. “Do you play an instrument?”

“Flute. I’ve got a silver one at home, but my favorite is a lacquered bamboo one that used to belong to my birth father.” Wei Wuxian glances at his friend. “When the curse is broken, how about a duet?”

Lan Wangji’s lips curve in the softest smile. It does something funny to Wei Wuxian’s pulse, but that’s probably just the antidote in his blood. “I would like that, Wei Ying.”

“That’s settled, then! I can’t wait to find this Sugarplum guy so we can get you human again.”

Lan Wangji huffs. “I hope your manners are not so poor when you meet him.”

“I’ll have you know I’m a perfect gentleman, Lan Zhan. I was raised in high society, after all,” Wei Wuxian says, laying on the snootiest voice he can muster.

“Ridiculous.”

“I drink with my pinky up and everything.”

“That I do not doubt.”

Wei Wuxian beams and looks up at the ceiling. What a shame Lan Wangji is a nutcracker, he’d make an excellent partner. “Smart, skilled, and funny. The maiden who marries you will be awfully lucky.”

“I do not seek marriage.”

“Really?” Wei Wuxian turns to look at him in the warm candlelight. “You never crave that connection? That feeling of being so known?”

“It is not a matter of yearning. I am known by my family, and that is enough.”

Wei Wuxian sighs. “I suppose that’s fair. Men like us are more likely to be put in an arranged marriage. I suppose I’m just a romantic.”

“Does your heart seek this Mianmian you mentioned before?” From anyone else, Wei Wuxian might call that expression envy, but Lan Wangji has nothing to be envious of.

“Mianmian? Haha, no, no, no! She’s my best friend. I mean, maybe once I thought I could love her in that way, but no.” He clears his throat. “There’s no one right now. A little sad, huh?”

“Not at all. You will find a partner suitable for you one day.”

“You’re too good, Lan Zhan.”

“Flattery is unnecessary.”

“It’s not flattery if it’s true.”

Lan Wangji huffs and turns back to the table to pick up a scroll. “Rest, Wei Ying. When you are healed we can depart for Yiling.”

“Fine, I’ll try to sleep. But…”

“Mm?”

“I want you to sing me a lullaby,” he declares, giving his best pleading eyes.

Lan Wangji tilts his head. “Why do you assume I can sing?”

“You have a rich speaking voice and a talent for music. Call it a hunch.”

“Ridiculous.”

“That’s not a no…”

Lan Wangji closes his eyes and Wei Wuxian’s already counting his victory. “If you insist, then close your eyes. You must try to sleep.”

Wei Wuxian holds up three fingers. “Promise!” His whole body wiggles in anticipation until Lan Wangji gives him a reproving look.

As his eyes drift closed, Wei Wuxian hears the susurrus of the Dafan settlement around them. Gentle calls and the scraping of wood fill the night air.

Further away, the bamboo forest creaks in the sweet wind.

He can hear his own breaths as he forces them to slow and deepen.

Finally, Lan Wangji begins.

As he suspected, the man’s voice is low and smooth. Wei Wuxian does not know the song, which is unsurprising given that they are from different realms, but the melody is full of an aching sort of longing.

Though there are no lyrics, Lan Wangji’s song spins a story of love and loss and hope that feels as grand as the mountain they are resting below.

Despite wanting to listen to every bit that Lan Wangji shares, all too soon, Wei Wuxian’s eyelids weigh him down, and soon his constantly-spinning mind quiets to make room for the melody and then sleep.

On the fringes of consciousness, he feels the covers of the blanket being drawn up to his chin.

That night, all his dreams are blissfully pleasant.

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian wakes slowly as a shaft of sunlight slips through the slats of the wooden structure.

Beside him, Lan Wangji is still sitting in lotus pose, but his eyes are closed and his expression is soft with a sort of peace that is new.

“Lan Zhan,” he murmurs, propping himself up carefully. His side only hurts a little— marked improvement over the radiating agony of the last few days.

Reflecting on his injury and rather miraculous healing, Wei Wuxian is completely unprepared for the tiny, sleepy noise the man unleashes. Wei Wuxian screams silently in delight as he replays the rather cat-like “mrp?” noise in his head. He is helpless against the grin stretching his lips.

Propping himself on his stomach, he scoots closer and rests his chin in his hands. “Lan Zhan, did you sleep?”

His friend slowly blinks awake, looking in Wei Wuxian’s direction but not seeing.

Wei Wuxian smothers a giggle and waves his hand. “Zhanzhan, did you have a nice nap?”

Lan Wangji startles, his eyes coming to full alertness in an instant. “I slept.”

“You sure did! You looked very cute sleeping.”

Lan Wangji looks at him in alarm. “Wei Ying.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I have not slept in three years.”

“Oh. Shit.” Wei Wuxian’s brain immediately turns on. “Like, not at all? I know you said you don’t sleep before, but I didn’t realize you couldn’t.”

“No, it was impossible. I tried.”

“So… how?”

“I do not know.”

Wei Wuxian sits up despite Lan Wangji’s mumbled protest. “Hmm… could the curse be lifting somehow? Like maybe you’re making strides toward breaking it?”

Lan Wangji flinches as if Wei Wuxian had slapped him. “Impossible,” he snaps.

Wei Wuxian holds his hands up in surrender. “Alright, so we can rule that out.”

“Rule what out?“ Wen Qing asks, slipping into the room with a dish-laden tray in her arms.

“He slept through the night,” Wei Wuxian tattles to the doctor before Lan Wangji can hide it.

“You what?” She stares at Lan Wangji with the same alarm. “You never sleep. Is the curse lessening?”

Lan Wangji frowns spectacularly at the floorboards. “No.”

Wen Qing’s eyes narrow as she looks first at the nutcracker and then Wei Wuxian.

“Fine,” she says in a tone that suggests she thinks Lan Wangji is an idiot, but she’s not his boss. Wei Wuxian definitely thinks she’d get along with Jiang Cheng. “Monitor any other major changes you experience. I expect a full report next time I see you.”

“Mn.”

“And you,” she says to Wei Wuxian, “keep an eye out for him. Lan Wangji may seem level-headed, but there’s a reason his only friend is a doctor.” She sets the tray down on the table and comes to the bedside.

“Your fever broke and your color is good,” she says after a moment’s observation. “Let me see your wound.”

When she peels the bandages free, she makes a surprised noise. “Very strong spiritual energy. Look at this, Lan Wangji.”

Wei Wuxian strains to look at the wound as they see it, and he’s rather surprised to find the area has scabbed over with shiny pink flesh at the edges.

“How long have I been asleep?” he frets, his hand hovering over the no-longer open wound.

“You slept through one full day,” she tells him. “Your energy was low from supplying Bichen with the power to fly here. But even so, a wound like yours should have taken a week to scab.”

“I slept a full day?”

“Yes, and Lan Wangji guarded you the whole time.”

Well, that’s sweet, but still. A whole day! He’s never slept through a day before. He slept through lunch once and still gets harangued about it whenever he sleeps past breakfast.

“I’m going to have you do some exercises after breakfast,” Wen Qing says. “I have to decide if you are fit to travel to Yiling.”

Wei Wuxian eagerly accepts the bowl of egg and congee while Wen Qing and Lan Wangji discuss over several maps. Wei Wuxian knows nothing about this world, and as much as he might want to learn, he’s ravenous after missing three meals.

Toward the end of his meal, Wen Qing assigns Lan Wangji chores around the settlement. Wei Wuxian finds it amusing to watch the noble nutcracker take orders from a tiny spitfire of a woman.

This must be common, though, because Lan Wangji immediately picks up an axe and vanishes outside with only a backward glance at Wei Wuxian.

True to her word, Wen Qing has Wei Wuxian run through a range of stretches and motions while filling him with more medicinal tea than his stomach can reasonably hold.

By the time he’s about ready to burst, she finally relents and clears him for travel. “But don’t lift anything heavy until the wound is fully closed. You can easily reopen it at this stage.”

Wei Wuxian thanks her profusely and is intensely grateful when she finally leaves and he can use the chamber pot.

Lan Wangji comes to collect him some time later. He is laden down with supplies for travel. Wei Wuxian accepts the smaller of the packs and the supply of herbs Wen Qing gives him near the compound’s gate.

“You are likely to encounter Wen Zhuliu and his poison again. These herbs counteract the poison.”

Wei Wuxian tucks them into his inner robe and prays he never needs them.

She pokes Lan Wangji’s chest. “Be careful. If anything happens to you, your uncle would have my head.”

“Shufu would never hold you accountable.”

“I am not inclined to test his graciousness,” she says, nonplussed.

Wei Wuxian bows. “Thank you, Doctor Wen.”

“I hope you succeed. Wen Ruohan has been tarnishing our family name for too long.”

“We will succeed,” Lan Wangji says.

Wei Wuxian cracks his knuckles and gives the kind of smile he’s been told is more frightening than reassuring. “We’d better. I’ve got a bone to pick with that mouse.”

…

Traveling with Lan Wangji is much more fun when he’s not actively dying. Now, Wei Wuxian skips along the path with his arms folded behind his head. “So where is Yiling?”

“We can find it’s coordinates in the Tanzhou Gardens if we please its keeper, but I suspect it is on an island across the Xuanwu Sea.”

“Xuanwu? Like the giant celestial tortoise creature?”

“Mn.”

“Hopefully it’s friendly.”

“It is not.”

“Cheery.” Wei Wuxian tuts, “If only the Sugarplum Patriarch wasn’t so reclusive. Do you think he even knows about the mouse’s reign?”

“Unlikely,” Lan Wangji offers as they walk along the dappled forest road. “There was once a Sugarplum Fairy, and the last time she was seen was many, many years before the Wen came to power. It seems unlikely that her successor would know about current affairs.”

“I wonder if he’s immortal. I mean for the Patriarch to be foretold in legend, he’s gotta be an old man, right?”

“Perhaps.”

Throughout the days, Lan Wangji offers small replies and comments while Wei Wuxian speculates about all sorts of things— the passage of time between realms, Lan Wangji’s curse, how the Wen family contains both mice and humans (that goes down a path neither of them wish to recall), why the mice and humans are the same size, and why the Sugarplum Patriarch is so powerful.

At night, Wei Wuxian stares at the foreign stars and Lan Wangji names constellations like the Qinghe Beast, the Lan Rabbit, and the Lanling Peacock. The last one cracks Wei Wuxian up hard enough that Lan Wangji eventually walks out of the clearing to meditate.

A few days in, Wei Wuxian is delighted to find that his wound has healed into a shiny pink scar that he finds rather dashing. “C’mon, Lan Zhan, it’ll be a great story to tell my future wife. A sword fight!”

Lan Wangji sleeps now. Not every night, but once every few days, he falls asleep promptly at 9pm and wakes eight hours later. Wei Wuxian can time it on his pocket watch.

On those nights, Wei Wuxian stays awake as late as he can before falling into a light sleep, ready to spring up should the situation demand it.

Some mornings, they take Bichen over the footpaths, and Wei Wuxian cannot help but be hyper-aware of the way Lan Wangji brackets him in his arms. The pressure feels safe in a way that flying while balanced on a sword should not.

After a week, they reach Tanzhou.

The gardens are along the outskirts of the bustling little city. Blooms in every shade paint the horizon like dabs of jewel-toned paint on a palette. Wei Wuxian cajoles Lan Wangji into purchasing a journal and charcoal sticks for him so he can draw the Gardens and the manor they surround.

Lan Wangji ends up meditating in the afternoon sunlight while he waits.

Wei Wuxian pretends to still be capturing the lush vegetation as his fingers deftly capture his handsome nutcracker on the soft yellow parchment.

“Alright! I’m ready,” he announces, tucking his sketchbook into his travel sack. “Shall we?”

Lan Wangji rises slowly, his carved joints protesting. “Remember the Flower Damsel expects perfect diction for recitations and allows only one guess for riddles.”

“How will she know if I recite correctly if the poetry in my realm is different?”

“She is inhuman. Perhaps she knows?”

Wei Wuxian sighs, blowing his hair out of his eyes. “Is she really as pretty as the rumors suggest?” He elbows Lan Wangji. “Think we’ll get a glance?”

“It would be rude,” Lan Wangji says flatly.

“Boo. You’re no fun, Lan Zhan.”

All too soon, they reach the gates of the Garden.

Wei Wuxian can feel, instantly, the old magic protecting this estate. It is a statement and warning. His eyes skim over the symbols on the fence. Protection. Beauty. Culture.

The metal-embossed wooden gates swing open to allow them passage. He swallows hard and then gasps. All around, gorgeous blooms in every shape and color burst like it is the deepest spring and not early winter.

Wei Wuxian cups a red lily and traces a soft yellow peony. “Beautiful,” he murmurs. His eyes catch on something and he grins. Scooping up the fallen pink chrysanthemum, he bounces up to the nutcracker with it held behind his back. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“C’mon! Just do it. Please?” He gives his award-winning pout and Lan Wangji merely frowns before closing his eyes. He stands on his toes and tucks the flower behind a carved ear and silken hair. “There! Now you look even more handsome.”

Lan Wangji’s hand comes up to brush the flower, and his mouth opens softly before snapping shut again. “This is not the time for games.”

Wei Wuxian dances back, stifling a dejected twinge. “I never said it was.” He turns his back on Lan Wangji and stalks further into the overflowing earth.

After a few more minutes in the dappled sunlight, his fake smile grows real once more. His eyes alight on all the colors and shapes, and he plops down in the grass to sketch several snowdrop flowers and a bush of orange buds he has no name for.

Beside a small, withering gentian, he crouches with a frown. He observes the other plants blocking its light. Looking around, he snatches up two small, sturdy twigs and stakes the taller plants upright so they no longer crowd out the little gentian.

Perhaps it is foolish, but he cups it’s indigo petals and speaks gently. “You can find the sunlight now, little flower. Don’t be afraid to grow.” Just to give it a better chance, he imbues it with a small amount of spiritual energy and delights when it perks up under his touch.

When he stands up and wipes his hands, Lan Wangji is frowning at him. He does not appreciate the contemplative look, so he glances away first.

Wei Wuxian inspects his person. “Did I make a mess?” He twists, looking for what is causing Lan Wangji’s frown.

“It is nothing. Come. I have found where the mechanism hides.”

Side by side, they avoid eye contact as they traverse a narrow gravel path and cross a small wooden bridge until they reach a tiny temple painted a red so bright it verges on pink. Wei Wuxian finds it charming.

“The mechanism is inside the temple. To obtain access, we must please the Flower Damsel with recitation,” Lan Wangji says, kneeling before the structure.

Wei Wuxian kneels beside him under the beating of the afternoon sun. A drop of sweat beads on his neck as Lan Wangji shifts imperceptibly and opens his mouth to begin. “From whose home secretly flies the sound of a jade flute?“

Wei Wuxian suddenly recalls from conversation that Lan Wangji’s brother played a jade xiao, and his heart clenches.

“It’s lost amid the spring wind which fills Luoyang city// In the middle of this nocturne I remember the snapped willow,” Lan Wangji recites clearly, his voice strong and unwavering despite the sorrow weighing it down. “What person would not start to think of home?“

Wei Wuxian feels his own grief echoed in Lan Wangji’s choice of poem. There is a gaping hole in his heart that three of his four parents once filled. He thinks of his own wooden flute at home and feels the keen loss knowing his birth father never got to teach him the instrument they shared.

In the silence after the recitation, a slender, pink hand darts from the bushes and places a warm magnolia bloom in front of Lan Wangji.

Wei Wuxian swallows. “My turn now, I suppose.” He thinks back to the poems he devoured in Jiaomu’s library as a boy. Poetry has always held an allure, but there is one poem he spent weeks dissecting. His baba once recited it for Mama after she spent a season abroad. Wei Wuxian thought was the most romantic thing in the world at age 10. Reciting it now feels right, like the closing of one chapter and the opening of another.

Wei Wuxian draws a breath. Inhale. Exhale. He speaks:

“Long yearning // To be in Chang’an. // The grasshoppers weave their// autumn song by the golden railing of the well// frost coalesces on my bamboo mat, changing its color with cold.“ He thinks of long nights sitting in the lilac cold with only the sky and the earth to keep him company as he desperately tried to forget grief. “My lonely lamp is not bright// I’d like to end these thoughts// I roll back the hanging, gaze at the moon, and long sigh in vain.“

Grief and desire, he has learned, work at their own pace, regardless of what he has to say about it. Before the next verse, he glances at Lan Wangji, his clarity and confidence growing. “The beautiful person’s like a flower beyond the edge of the clouds.// Above is the black night of heaven’s height// Below is the green water billowing on.// The sky is long, the road is far, bitter flies my spirit// The spirit I dream cannot get through, the mountain pass is hard.// Long Yearning—“ he nearly falters, his heart beating too fast. Quickly, he finishes his recitation. “—breaks my heart.”

In the silence after, he wonders if Lan Wangji and the Flower Damsel can hear his heart beating. It’s louder than the thunder of horses on cobblestones to his ears, and his breaths are too shallow.

The pink wrist darts out again, and this time a red aster bloom finds its way in front of Wei Wuxian. He cradles the petal carefully and tucks the flower into his lapel. He takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, and releases. “Thank you.”

The gate on the red temple creaks as it swings outward. His and Lan Wangji’s eyes meet. Even the warmth of sunlight pales in comparison to the deep gold there.

The temple’s threshold is short, so he ducks beneath it as he enters.

Against the far wall is a mechanism made of large copper gears and clear tubes of glass. Wei Wuxian gravitates toward it until Lan Wangji catches his arm.

They stop just before a line on the floor. Wei Wuxian can feel the repellent pulse of the barrier now.

He bows. “My Lady, how may we please you at this stage?”

They both shield their eyes as slips of parchment are slipped into their hands.

Riddles.

Lan Wangji reads his aloud. “A ship sinks along the border of Qinghe and Qishan. The passengers belonged to both territories. In which territory are the survivors buried?” He takes only a moment before answering, “Neither; survivors do not need to be buried.”

“Well done!” Wei Wuxian claps him on the shoulder. He then reads his own riddle. “What runs, but never walks. Murmurs, but never talks. Has a bed, but never sleeps. And has a mouth, but never eats?”

He taps his nose in thought. Runs but never walks. So something fast. Murmurs but never talks. Not a human or deity, then, but something that makes soft noise. Not an animal if it never sleeps or eats. “Ah! A river.”

They are each given another flower, and then the barrier drops around the mechanism.

This, at least, he is familiar with. He touches the gears carefully, tracing their connections and relays. “There’s a secret compartment,” he announces, bending sideways to find the well-fitted seams. “I’d say mechanical and magical.”

Lan Wangji’s frown does not abate. “I am of little use for either.”

“Not to worry! The mechanical components are easy! Jiaomu and I used to take all sorts of trinkets apart. This one is actually a puzzle. See this bit here… if I turn it like so— now it unlocks this gear which slides into place here. Now if I just connect this one here and shift that one over, and… there!” Wei Wuxian turns a wind-up key that is tarnished but otherwise functional. The mechanism clanks as it comes to life, and then the secret door pops open to reveal a compass suspended in shimmering white energy.

“A stasis lock,” Lan Wangji says, coming closer. “It looks strong. You might be able to crack it with a talisman.”

“Crack it? There’s no need to break through,” Wei Wuxian says, aghast. “You said it yourself, Lan Zhan, it’s a lock. We need a key.” He digs out his sketchbook and charcoal and sketches. “See, the radicals on the lock are simple, but they interlock. To open it, we need something like this.” Drawing on his spiritual energy feels weird— a lot like a child pretending to be a wizard— but he traces the key in the air and pushes it toward the barrier.

It unlocks instantly, leaving Lan Wangji in stunned silence as Wei Wuxian scoops up the compass and gives it to Lan Wangji.

If his grin is more than a little cocky, at least Lan Wangji is too stunned to admonish him. He claps his hands together. “Now! Let’s find out how to get to Yiling, yeah?”

Chapter Text

Ten days into their seaward journey, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji wake before dawn to find their campsite covered in black ash.

Wei Wuxian coughs, dusting the fine coating off the gray travel robes the Dafan Wen had procured for him. His black winter cloak doesn’t show the ash, but he shakes it out anyway.

“Lan Zhan, this ash… it’s not trees burning.”

Lan Wangji cups a handful of ash in his palm. His white painted robes are smudged gray. “We must find the source.”

“Let’s take Bichen, it’s faster.”

They breakdown camp at record speed and alight on Bichen’s wide, sturdy blade.

As they chase the black smoke clouds, Wei Wuxian already fears what will be waiting at its source. Black ash often means tragedy, and neither of them can bear much more.

It is mid-morning when they find the village.

It is worse than they feared.

The scorched wood is still smoking where it isn’t blazing. Wei Wuxian’s heart settles near his feet when he sees the blackened corpses littering the village streets.

Those not caught by the flames still have arrows embedded in their backs. The red fletchings are a proclamation of their own.

Lan Wangji falls to his knees. His eyes are shiny with tears that cannot fall from a painted face.

Wei Wuxian places a hand on his shoulder, but the gesture feels hollow.

“Wen Ruohan did this,” Lan Wangji growls. “To women and children. To civilians. To my people.”

“We’re going to kill him,” Wei Wuxian promises, bending to press his forehead against Lan Wangji’s. The warm, cloud pendant presses into his skin, and he feels rage and power simmering in his veins. “We’ll put him on a pyre and let him burn just as he did to these innocents.”

Lan Wangji shudders, and Wei Wuxian strokes his lacquered face.

“We should… we should bury them.”

“Of course, Lan Zhan. Of course.”

Just as they stand, a shrill, plaintive noise stills them.

They share a panicked look.

“Was that—?”

“A child,” Lan Wangji confirms.

They launch themselves toward the sound of sobs. Wei Wuxian’s dismay grows when he realizes the child is trapped in a blazing cottage at the far edge of the village.

“Hold on, little one!” he calls over the crackling heat. Waves of flame lick at the building, and the black smoke is thick overhead.

Turning to Lan Wangji, he says, “I’m going in.”

The nutcracker catches his wrist with a pleading, “Wei Ying!”

“I have to, Lan Zhan. I can’t abandon someone in need, and you can’t follow me. You’d go up like kindling in that fire.”

Wei Wuxian quickly unwinds his outer belt and wraps it over his mouth and nose before plunging into the smoking building.

Inside, the heat sears immediately, and the smoke stings his eyes. “Little one? Where are you?”

He hears a round of fresh sobbing that might be an attempt at words. It’s good enough for him to follow into the back of the house.

The fire is working it’s way quickly through the building, and Wei Wuxian weaves through the fallen logs and blazing inferno as quickly as he dares. Sweat drips down his face, sliding into his eyes with the smoke and ash.

The sobbing grows louder, and finally, through the suffocating heat, he sees a toddler trapped under a larger form.

Closer now, Wei Wuxian finally deciphers the wailing over the hissing curls of orange fire. “Popo! Popo! Wake! Please!”

His heart shatters as he plucks the boy into his arms. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

But the little boy is inconsolable, and when Wei Wuxian touches the woman’s neck, he confirms why. Smoke inhalation, if he had to guess. Wei Wuxian removes the makeshift mask from his face and ties it around the little boy’s head. “I’m going to get you and your popo out of here, okay? Just hold on tight, okay?”

The little boy gives a miserable nod and buries his face in Wei Wuxian’s shoulder as fresh wails shake his tiny lungs.

Wei Wuxian heaves the grandmother’s body into his arms and turns back toward the doorway just in time to watch it collapse.

“Ah, shit.”

He turns, observing the room. No windows or other doors. Fuck.

His mind spins as he searches for some way— any way— out of this inferno.

At once, he recalls the array Lan Wangji drew the night they met in the garden. If that had been an array to defend, maybe inverting it would… yes, if he swapped the radicals, maybe…

Wei Wuxian slices his thumb on the edge of his hunting knife and draws the inverted array on the exterior wall. When he finishes dragging the cut to form the last character, he pushes hard and commands, “Break!”

Shielding the child against his shoulder, he closes his eyes and bursts through the wall in a spray of splintered shrapnel.

He tumbles onto the ground outside, landing on his shoulder as he cradles the little boy on his other side.

“Wei Ying!”

Lan Wangji rounds the corner at a sprint and quickly drags them away from the fire.

“What did you do?” Lan Wangji frets, noting the singed fabric and bloody fingers.

“Doorway collapsed,” Wei Wuxian pants, gulping in the fresher air and coughing up ash. “Had to get them out. Drew an array.”

Lan Wangji takes the grandmother’s body and his eyes go sad when he registers her unnatural stillness.

The little boy’s sobs have grown quieter, but he still trembles with them. “Popo…”

Wei Wuxian sits up in the grass and cradles the toddler closer as he shushes gently. He moves his own body back and forth like a rocking chair— the way Jiaomu used to soothe him after Mama and Baba’s funeral.

Lan Wangji sits beside them and sings soft lullabies until the last of the fires have gone out and the first drops of a too-late rain patter down on the embers of the charred village.

Lan Wangji guides them to a small pavilion away from the houses. The cold fire pit suggests this was a gathering space.

No one is inclined to light a fire just yet.

Eventually, the little boy falls into a fitful sleep against Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, and Wei Wuxian is too afraid of waking him to move.

“Stay for now, Wei Ying. I will find food for you both.”

“Okay, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whispers, laying down on the scattered cushions with the little boy clinging to his chest. “Come back soon.”

“I will.”

When the little boy wakes, they manage to coax a bit of fish into him and a name— A-Yuan— out of him. A-Yuan holds up two chubby fingers when asked how old he is. “Almost this many,” he adds, holding up a third finger.”

“And what about Mama and Baba? Do you know where they are?”

A-Yuan shakes his little head, and fresh tears fill his wide, gray eyes. “No baba.” He looks around the village with renewed panic. “Where Mama? Mama! Mama!”

He takes off in a sprint before they can stop him, and his stubby legs carry him faster than Wei Wuxian expects. He stumbles after the child, but he doesn’t know these streets as well as the boy does.

Back in the village center, they find A-Yuan shaking the shoulder of a young woman lying face down in the carnage. “Mama!” he wails.

Wei Wuxian sees the dried blood in the dirt around her and his heart shatters anew.

He nearly cries alongside the baby. He was barely older when he lost his birth parents. He wonders if A-Yuan will even remember this woman when he grows up. He hopes, selfishly, that A-Yuan forgets this moment in a way that Wei Wuxian has never forgotten the day he lost his own parents.

Silent tears slip down his face as he watches A-Yuan fall to pieces. Lan Wangji’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. He leans into it as if it can take the weight of this horror away.

He and Lan Wangji watch over the little boy until A-Yuan runs out of tears and goes listless. Then, he lets himself be pulled into Wei Wuxian’s arms and sits there like a rag doll as they walk back to the pavilion.

No one sleeps well that night, and none of them feel like talking. Lan Wangji sits vigil as Wei Wuxian curls around the toddler. He rubs A-Yuan’s back until they both fall into a fitful sleep.

…

When morning comes, A-Yuan latches onto Wei Wuxian’s leg and refuses to let go. Wei Wuxian wouldn’t dare scold him for it.

The adults spend the morning digging graves. So, so many graves. Wei Wuxian’s hands are blistered and bleeding by the time the sun is high overhead.

Lan Wangji looks no better despite his wooden veneer.

Only the thunderous grumble of A-Yuan’s stomach— despite his continued silence— forces them to consider their priorities.

After washing up in the small creek, Wei Wuxian carefully peels a few orange slices that he holds to A-Yuan’s lips until the little boy finally eats.

Lan Wangji stares at him until he eats for himself, too.

After lunch, A-Yuan stands at his side with one chubby thumb stuck in his mouth. Wei Wuxian doesn’t have the heart to take that comfort away. “A-Yuan, can you help Xian-Gege with something?”

“Help?” he asks, looking more exhausted than interested. His cheeks are still ruddy from crying all night and again this morning.

Wei Wuxian sympathizes, so he lifts the toddler onto his hip. “That’s right, baobei. Can you help me pick flowers for Mama and Popo? Do you know what they would like?”

“Mm,” A-Yuan says, and points. Wei Wuxian follows his directions until they end up in a small meadow that was left untouched by mouse army’s violence.

Set down on his little legs, A-Yuan wanders over to a patch of bright red poppies. “For Mama,” he says. He meanders a little farther until he finds buttery yellow flowers with white tips. “Popo likes,” he says, momentarily taking the thumb from his mouth.

“Good job, baobei,” Wei Wuxian says, patting his head and carefully plucking the flowers A-Yuan deems worthy.

When A-Yuan is down for an afternoon nap, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian converse in hushed whispers.

“What should we do with him, Lan Zhan?”

“He cannot stay here alone.”

“Of course not, he’s barely able to relieve himself alone.” Wei Wuxian sighs. “So there really were no other survivors?”

Lan Wangji has searched all the burnt homes hoping for signs of life, but every grown adult had been slaughtered by the army, and every child other than little A-Yuan had fared just as poorly.

They both pray that others managed to escape. Even so, it is unlikely people will return to this burnt-out town.

“Do we bring him with us?” Wei Wuxian asks, voicing the idea they’ve clearly both considered.

“The journey is dangerous,” Lan Wangji frets. “Is he safer with us?”

“Safer than abandoned in a massacred village? Probably.” He groans. “Maybe we can find a nice family to leave him with at the next village?” Wei Wuxian already worries over the idea. He remembers the terrifying first weeks after his parents passed and he was sent to an orphanage while the authorities searched for his next of kin.

“Perhaps it is for the best,” Lan Wangji says with clear uncertainty.

Wei Wuxian rests his chin on his fist and blows his bangs out of his face. “It’s really the only option unless one of us is keen on raising him.” Or both of us, his brain offers unhelpfully.

“Mn.”

“Okay, so it’s settled. We’ll take him with us until we find a good home. And as long as we are traveling with the baby, we have to avoid confrontation.”

“Agreed.”

They both turn to look at A-Yuan who is sleeping in a nest of salvaged blankets. His chubby cheek is pillowed on his arm, and a bit of drool slips from his lip. Wei Wuxian’s heart swells with sorrow and affection in equal measure.

“Do you know anything about watching children?” he asks Lan Wangji.

“No. Nursemaids tended to all of the palace children until they were old enough to start training.”

“Aiyah. I suppose that makes sense. I have some experience, but I never thought it would be tested like this.” He drums his fingers on the table and considers. They’ll need supplies: robes, food, toys, winter gear, and ideally some sort of sling for when A-Yuan’s tiny feet inevitably tire of walking.

The list he rattles off to Lan Wangji is incomplete, but it’s somewhere to start.

The only thing they can do now is move forward.

…

It takes three days to bury all of the village people. They burn incense and paper money for them, for good measure.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji bracket A-Yuan the first night as he prays for his mother and grandmother and lays the wildflowers over their graves. Wei Wuxian bows to the clumsily erected funerary plaques for both women and promises them that he will do everything he can to protect the little boy they are survived by.

When they leave on the third day, A-Yuan is strapped to Lan Wangji’s chest in a makeshift sling. The little boy waves goodbye to his village as he looks back at it over Lan Wangji’s shoulder.

After some time walking through the creaking bamboo woods, A-Yuan perks up and looks around with a furrow in his brows.

“Wood-Gege, where go?”

Lan Wangji’s perpetual scowl softens as he brushes A-Yuan’s bangs from his face with infinite care. “We are going to find you a new home.”

“Why?”

“Because you cannot stay here any longer.”

“Oh.” He reaches out and grabs at a leaf. “Have another Mama?”

“I do not know yet.”

A-Yuan frowns and sniffles. “Don’t want.”

Wei Wuxian sidles closer and brushes fat tears from little cheeks. “What, baobei? What don’t you want?”

“Want Mama,” he insists as his face screws up in a red twist that signals an impending meltdown. “No another!”

When he starts beating his little fists against Lan Wangji’s shoulder, the nutcracker turns to Wei Wuxian with a helpless expression.

Slipping the baby out of the sling, Wei Wuxian bounces him on his hip and starts singing a silly old tongue-twister Yu-Ayi made all three children practice for elocution until A-Yuan is so confused he stops crying.

Wei Wuxian leans his head against A-Yuan’s and smiles when the baby nuzzles closer. “Feeling better?”

A-Yuan nods once.

“Good,” Wei Wuxian says, hefting him higher on his hip. “No one will ever replace Mama or Popo. Just like no one can replace you.” Here he tickles the boy just enough to get a startled giggle. “Wood-Gege and I are going to find a new home for you with more people to love you, A-Yuan. They don’t have to be Mama. They could be Ayi and Shushu or Muqin and Fuqin or A-Niang and A-Die, or maybe something else entirely! You could have lots of siblings, maybe. Doesn’t a big family sound fun? So many options.”

“Family?”

“Yep. A new family just for this little radish.”

“A-Yuan not radish!” the baby protests with puffed up cheeks.

Wei Wuxian grins, catching Lan Wangji’s eye before turning back to the boy. “Not a radish?” he teases. “You could have fooled me… Let’s see… we have fluffy leaves—“ he ruffles A-Yuan dark, feathery hair ”—a sturdy root—“ here he pokes the boy’s side and gets another giggle “— and a tasty snack,” he finishes, making a big show of nibbling on A-Yuan’s cheek with “nomnomnom” noises until A-Yuan squeals and bursts into shrill peals of laughter so bright that the sun is envious of his little dimples.

When he turns back to Lan Wangji, he’s wholly unprepared for the openly affectionate look on the man’s face. It punches the breath out of his lungs, though he decides to blame that fact on the accidental kick A-Yuan lands on his stomach in the throes of his giggles.

Wei Wuxian clears his throat and bounces A-Yuan again. “And there you have it. A tasty little radish.”

A-Yuan scrunches his nose and catches both of Wei Wuxian’s cheeks in his palms. “Silly Gege,” he declares.

“How about that, Lan Zhan? We’re now Silly-Gege and Wood-Gege.”

“It is fitting.”

Wei Wuxian snorts.

Though his arms grow tired, he doesn’t protest carrying A-Yuan the rest of the afternoon.

Chapter Text

Traveling together isn’t new now, but traveling with a toddler is.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji take turns building shelter and entertaining the little boy each evening. They know better than to attempt flight on Bichen with a toddler in their care, and so the journey is much more sedate with this new addition.

Now that they have A-Yuan, they split the night watch shifts on the days when Lan Wangji’s body demands sleep. Wei Wuxian stays up late watching his friend and their young charge until his eyes are drooping, and he gently shakes Lan Wangji awake.

They make their way through small villages as they follow the compass. These bits of contact don’t bring them any closer to finding the child a new home, but they do allow Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji to acquire more supplies for their little charge.

A-Yuan is an easy child, excluding his fits of understandable melancholy. Wei Wuxian spends one night carving a little bunny toy for him after A-Yuan cried about losing sight of a wild brown hare earlier in the evening.

When the toy is gifted the next morning, A-Yuan kisses his cheek in thanks and Wei Wuxian has to sit down for a minute to talk his heart out of things it cannot want. It simultaneously makes him eager to return to his sister and meet his future niece or nephew.

One afternoon, while A-Yuan naps and Lan Wangji meditates, Wei Wuxian digs out his sketchbook to capture them both in shades of smudged gray. Even when he goes home, he’ll carry the sketchbook with him to keep these two precious people close.

It starts snowing on their tenth morning with A-Yuan.

Wei Wuxian wishes he could immortalize the moment a fat snowflake lands on the little boy’s nose and he goes cross-eyed in an effort to see it.

“Gege! Gege! Snow!!! A-Yuan caught a snow!”

“You sure did, baobei. So talented,” Wei Wuxian says, kissing the apple of his cheek which is propped on Lan Wangji’s shoulder.

With his little mittens held out, A-Yuan spends the rest of the late morning catching the flakes and pouting when they melt.

That afternoon, the gentle flurries thicken into a proper snowfall, and Lan Wangji’s brows furrow.

“What’s wrong, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian strokes A-Yuan’s back where the little boy naps against his chest in the sling.

“There is a storm approaching. We should seek shelter for tonight.”

Wei Wuxian scans the horizon and nods. “The winds are picking up. Do you know if there’s a town near here?”

“Mn. If we are where I believe us to be, there is shelter a few hours walk from here. We must hurry, though. The snow could delay us and A-Yuan is too young for this kind of weather.”

“Alright.”

Lan Wangji reaches for Wei Wuxian’s bags. “You two can keep each other warm. I cannot. Allow me to lighten your burden.”

“Wise plan,” Wei Wuxian says, slipping the knapsack off his shoulder carefully to avoid waking A-Yuan who had cried himself to sleep again—missing his mother and grandmother.

He is surprised when Lan Wangji hesitates, so he arches a brow and waits.

“A precaution,” Lan Wangji says.

“Hm?”

“Reduced visibility in snow.” He reaches up and touches his forehead ribbon. “This is warded to protect. Please untie it for me.”

Wei Wuxian stares for a moment before reaching up. “Are you sure? Last time I touched your ribbon, you looked at me like I’d spit on your ancestors’ graves.”

“The ribbon is sacred. There are rules about who can touch it.”

“And I’m allowed?”

“I give you permission.”

Wei Wuxian pulls the ribbon loose and holds it carefully in his palms. “Now what?”

“Tie it around our wrists so we cannot separate in the snow.”

Wei Wuxian carefully ties his right wrist to Lan Wangji’s left. The silver cloud pendant dangles in the space between their hands.

As they make haste toward the village, their hands are close enough that every so often, their knuckles brush through the fabric of Wei Wuxian’s borrowed black gloves. Wei Wuxian does not feel butterflies in his stomach every time it occurs.

…

It is nearly dark by the time Wei Wuxian spots a fortress on the horizon.

“Um, Lan Zhan,” he begins, breaking off from the game of “I spy” he had been playing with A-Yuan, “that’s not a village.”

“No, but it is home to allies.” He holds his hands out to Wei Wuxian as they descend a small slope. “Wei Ying… I must confess something.”

“Oh?”

“I have not been fully truthful in my identity.”

“I know, Your Highness.”

Lan Wangji flinches. “You knew?”

“I figured it out,” Wei Wuxian admits. “I knew you must be hiding it for a reason.”

“I failed my people.” He looks away and Wei Wuxian squeezes their still-joined hands. “I was their prince and their general, but when my father was killed and my brother went missing, I was captured and turned into this.”

Wei Wuxian stops and places both hands on Lan Wangji’s shoulders. A-Yuan makes an inquisitive noise from his place between their chests. “Lan Zhan, you did not fail them. You were captured and cursed, but even after suffering so much, you stayed and you fought! You are still fighting! You never gave up on your people.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, so distraught that Wei Wuxian wants to raze the entire Wen army and make Lan Wangji a nice, soothing pot of Jiejie’s soup over the pyres. “You have seen what has been done in my absence.”

“We will fix it. We’ll find the Sugarplum Patriarch and your brother and we will save what is left.”

“Save!” A-Yuan parrots, so incongruous with the rest of the conversation that Wei Wuxian can’t help snickering.

Lan Wangji’s expression warms when A-Yuan wiggles in his sling and presses a kiss to Lan Wangji’s cheek. “Wood-Gege no more sad. A-Yuan kiss better.”

“Mn. Thank you.”

Wei Wuxian can’t help smiling, too, as he caresses one wind-chapped, chubby cheek and one cool, wooden one. “Let’s go get warm, hm?”

As they walk, Lan Wangji tells him about the Nie Clan and their resistance to Wen Ruohan’s domination of the rest of the lands.

Closer to the fortress, Lan Wangji asks Wei Wuxian to continue to refer to him only as Lan Zhan. “Few people know my birth name, but the Nie brothers know me by title or courtesy name.”

“Ooh, what is your title?” Wei Wuxian asks, nudging their shoulders together. “Your father was Qingheng-Jun and your brother is Zewu-Jun, so what does that make you?”

“It is embarrassing.”

“Aw, but you can tell me, right?”

He very nearly calls the expression on Lan Wangji’s face a pout. It’s terribly endearing.

Before Lan Wangji can crack or Wei Wuxian can push further, a boulder shifts on the trail ahead of them.

The mood shifts instantly. The two of them go back-to-back. Wei Wuxian has his hunting knife drawn and held in front of himself and A-Yuan. Lan Wangji rests a hand on Bichen but waits to draw it.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t blame him. Surely a carved jade-hilt blade like that is as much a giveaway of his identity as his name.

“Who goes there?” Lan Wangji asks in a voice that should make anyone’s knees tremble. A vicious little thing inside of Wei Wuxian loves it.

“I would ask the same of you,” bellows a deeper voice.

Suddenly, they are surrounded by a loose ring of tall, bulky fighters. Swords and arrows are drawn.

A-Yuan whimpers in his sling and the vicious part of Wei Wuxian swells until the dagger in his hand glows red.

He is startled when Lan Wangji places a palm on his shoulder and conveys, with his eyes, to relax. “Chifeng-Zun, we come in peace as victims of Wen Ruohan.”

“My companion and I were cursed by the mouse king,” Wei Wuxian says to the hulking, fur-cloaked man ahead. He has an impressive beard and a coil of braids that escape the hood of his cloak. “Our ward was rescued from a razed village to the south.”

“Your ward?”

Wei Wuxian cautiously lowers the dagger so the assembled fighters can more clearly see the sling and toddler against his person. “A-Yuan, can you give your greetings to Chifeng-Zun?”

A-Yuan still looks terrified, but he lifts one tiny, mitten-clad hand and waves while burying his face into Wei Wuxian’s neck. “Gege, I don’t like.”

“I know baobei, I’m sorry,” he says, swaying gently and rubbing his back.

“For goodness sake, let them come in, Da-Ge,” cries a new voice. “They have a child with them.”

Wei Wuxian spots a shorter, younger man coming around the leader. Lan Wangji tenses at his side, looking oddly sad for a moment before his expression smooths free of emotion.

The new man has soft, delicate features, and he smiles when he steps closer to Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan. “Hello, little one. Please excuse my brother. He looks big and scary, but I promise he’s really a softie.”

“Huaisang,” Chifeng-Zun scolds.

Nie Huaisang, because that must be who this man is, winks and gives Wei Wuxian a conspiratorial smile. “Da-Ge, please. It’s far too cold for this. If you mean to interrogate them further, do it inside.”

Chifeng-Zun huffs and crosses his arms. He jerks his head toward the fortress. “Come along, then.”

It is blessedly warm inside. Wei Wuxian had not even realized how cold he was until he and A-Yuan begin thawing in the greeting hall and he sees the little puddle of snowmelt around them.

A-Yuan is still, understandably, shy around fire, so he sticks close to Wei Wuxian and far from the braziers. Lan Wangji also, notably, avoids the open flames.

Nie Huaisang brings them two trays of food and A-Yuan eagerly paints the front of his tiny robes in crumbs and sauce as he munches through the braised meat and buns. Lan Wangji manages to take over feeding him before A-Yuan takes a bath in his soup bowl.

“Wood-Gege eat?” A-Yuan asks as Lan Wangji guides the spoon to his mouth. He offers a mildly nibbled bun to Lan Wangji.

“That is generous, A-Yuan, but I do not need to eat. Finish your food so you may grow strong and healthy.”

“Like Xian-Gege?”

“Mn. Like Xian-Gege.”

“Ah, you sweet monsters,” Wei Wuxian grouses, swallowing the last of his own meat bun. “How dare you look so cute while saying such nice things. Unfair,” he concludes, jabbing a finger in their direction.

He gets twin head tilts that absolutely do not help the fluttering feeling in his chest. It makes him crave something unbearably domestic and completely impossible. He takes that feeling, balls it up like wasted paper, and crams it down mercilessly as if it never existed at all.

He has a mission and he has a home to return to. No use getting more attached.

“So,” Nie Mingjue— Chifeng-Zun— begins once their plates have emptied and A-Yuan is dozing in Lan Wangji’s lap. “How did you come to be here? And why should we let you stay?”

“I was a soldier in the Lan Palace,” Lan Wangji says, his voice flat and low so as not to disturb the sleeping child. “After Wen Ruohan’s attack, I was captured and turned into this,” he adds, gesturing to his wooden body. “Zewu-Jun spoke often of our Nie allies. After I escaped, I began searching for ways to overthrow the mouse king. I came to you because believe I know the way.”

“Oh?” Nie Mingjue scratches his beard. “How?”

Lan Wangji holds himself upright with an effortless sort of discipline that makes the rest of them sit taller in return. “There is word of a deity known as the Sugarplum Patriarch. He is said to reside on the island of Yiling and possess the power to break any curse and raise an army with the snap of his fingers. My companion and I have obtained a compass that points the way to Yiling.”

“I don’t buy it,” Nie Mingjue says from his throne. “If there’s a man so powerful, why has he never shown himself before? And why have I never heard of him?”

“I cannot say. However, this information was told to me by Zewu-Jun himself. I have made it my mission to find the Sugarplum Patriarch and persuade him to aid my people.”

Nie Huaisang pipes up with careful hope in his voice, “Do you really think this Sugarplum Patriarch can end the mouse’s reign?”

“I can only hope,” Lan Wangji admits.

Nie Mingjue weighs the words and then turns to Wei Wuxian. “It was said that the mouse king cursed you both. What have you been afflicted with?”

“Ah… um, you see I’m not exactly from these lands,” Wei Wuxian tries delicately. “I was once quite a bit taller.”

Both Nie brothers’ eyes grow wide as they observe Wei Wuxian with renewed curiosity.

“You’re from the other realm?” Nie Huaisang blurts with far too much enthusiasm.

When his brother glares, he has the grace to look abashed as he hides behind his silk fan.

“The mouse dared go beyond our realm?”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian says in answer to them both. “I met the nutcracker in the garden of my godm— grandmother, Baoshan Sanren. There, we were accosted by Wen Ruohan and his army. He used an amulet to shrink me to this size.”

“Baoshan Sanren, you say? Does that mean you are the son of—?”

“Cangse Sanren, yes,” he finishes, tightly.

Nie Mingjue huffs. “You may be from the other realm, but your roots are here, boy. No wonder you got dragged into this mess.”

“Your grandmother is legendary,” Nie Huaisang says. “They call her an immortal. She is said to appear once every 100 years in our world.”

Wei Wuxian shifts, feeling uncomfortable about this legacy he is supposed to bear. It is not his, and it fits poorly. “I never even knew this world existed until a few weeks ago, but I will aid you in defeating Wen Ruohan. You have my word.”

Nie Mingjue descends from his throne and comes close until they are nearly nose to nose— eyes locked. Lan Wangji starts to move, but Wei Wuxian quells him with a gesture.

“Give me your wrist.”

Wei Wuxian holds the man’s gaze with a steady calm, knowing this is a test. He offers his wrist and does not flinch when Nie Mingjue grasps it with firm fingers.

A surge of green energy flows from Nie Mingjue’s fingertips into Wei Wuxian’s veins.

Beneath his skin, his own energy sings in response, circling Nie Mingjue’s as if they are preparing for a spar. His forearm glows red as the energy rises to meet Nie Mingjue’s challenge.

One corner of Nie Mingjue’s lips curve upward. “You are strong. Your core is untamed, but it is powerful.” He turns to a servant and barks, “Fetch the sword smith!” Turning back to Wei Wuxian, he nods. “We accept your pledge. Be ready to train.”

Wei Wuxian blinks and then bows in gratitude. “Thank you, Chifeng-Zun.”

After another hour, Wei Wuxian has had time to converse with the Nie sword smith, forger of powerful spiritual blades. Wei Wuxian does not allow himself to feel giddy about the idea of having his own sword. It is still exhilarating.

When the sketches are done, he and the sword smith exchange bows and part ways.

A-Yuan is slumped across Lan Wangji’s lap and Wei Wuxian smiles at them. “I think it’s well past bedtime for you both.”

Nie Huaisang leads them down the halls to the guest lodging. “Will you be needing one room? Two? Three?”

“One room,” Lan Wangji answers for them, holding the sleeping toddler closer.

“A-Yuan still has nightmares,” Wei Wuxian offers as an explanation. Though, truthfully, the idea of being more than a few steps from either of them sends intense panic through him.

“Of course,” Huaisang says graciously and leads them to a large set of chambers.

Before they fully enter the rooms, Huaisang makes a noise and then seems to try and take the sound back.

At last, he sighs and asks the question he’s clearly been holding back. “Nutcracker, please forgive my presumption, but do you know what happened to the younger prince? I was told Hanguang-Jun was captured. Perhaps you have news?”

Wei Wuxian’s stomach drops to his feet. Oh. Oh, they were friends. Lan Wangji’s tension makes sense now.

“Wen Ruohan destroyed him,” Lan Wangji says, his voice quiet and sympathetic.

Nie Huaisang sucks in a breath as his whole face crumples. “Oh.” His fan comes up to hide his face. “Please excuse me. I shall retire for the night.”

After Nie Huaisang’s footsteps have receded down the hall, Wei Wuxian rounds on Lan Wangji who has just laid A-Yuan on the large bed. “Lan Zhan!” he hisses, as loud as he dares while A-Yuan slumbers. “What was that? Why did you lie? I thought you said lying was not allowed?”

“I did not lie. I was destroyed. I am destroyed. Wei Ying, look at me.”

“I am looking at you.”

“Surely you can see.”

“Of course I can see!” he snaps, prodding the painted robes on Lan Wangji’s barrel chest. “I see you! I see you. I can’t not see you. You are not destroyed, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji gives the impression of slumping his shoulders without actually damaging his perfect posture. “Wei Ying, I am not the man I was before.”

Wei Wuxian steps closer until they are nearly nose to nose. “I may not have known you before, Lan Zhan, but I know you now. You are brave, resilient, and compassionate.” He places his palm over where he believes Lan Wangji’s heart would beat. He can almost feel a pulse surging under his palm anyways. “Wen Ruohan tried to destroy you with this curse, but he failed. You are still a force to reckon with, and it scares him.” Wei Wuxian leans forward so his lips are near one carved ear. “Be his reckoning.”

Lan Wangji shivers.

The motion is so unexpected that they stumble apart.

Wei Wuxian clears his throat and takes a sudden interest in the stone floors. “I, uh… please excuse me. I’d say I don’t mean to stick my nose into your business, but that would be a lie.” His arms cross again. “I think hiding the truth from your friends is ridiculous. If someone did that to me, I’d be pissed.” At Lan Wangji’s silence, he sighs and turns to the window. “That said, if you decide to keep this a secret, I won’t be the one to share it.”

Lan Wangji nods. “Thank you, Wei Ying. I will consider your words.”

The last of the fight recedes and Wei Wuxian is left with only exhaustion. “Fine.” He rubs his hands together and blows on them. “What a cold day! I swear my joints are locked up like an old man. Carry me to bed?” he jokes.

Lan Wangji scoops him up without missing a beat, and Wei Wuxian squawks out a noise that marries a laugh and shout. “Lan Zhan, I was kidding!”

“It is no trouble,” Lan Wangji insists, avoiding his eyes.

“I think you should be Silly-Gege instead,” he teases as Lan Wangji sets him carefully on one side of the mattress next to A-Yuan. Wei Wuxian kicks off his boots and lays back against the downy surface. It is quite welcome after weeks of sleeping on thin bedrolls atop dirt.

When Lan Wangji prepares to meditate at the low table, Wei Wuxian catches his hand. “Lan Zhan.”

“Mn?”

“Come to bed with us. You look tired, too.”

Lan Wangji opens his mouth to protest, but Wei Wuxian pouts, and his mouth closes. His lips twitch with a begrudging smile as he rounds the other side of the bed and carefully lays down.

He and Wei Wuxian face each other on their sides while A-Yuan sleeps between them with a thumb stuck in his mouth.

“That’s better,” Wei Wuxian whispers, stroking A-Yuan’s forehead.

“Rest, Wei Ying.”

“I will.” He meets that steady golden gaze and feels like he is being consumed by a different kind of blaze. Part of him is ready to be subsumed. Part of him is not. He breaks eye contact first and withdraws his hand to curl tighter into himself beneath the heavy blankets. “Goodnight, Lan Zhan.”

“Goodnight, Wei Ying.”

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian fancies himself pretty good at swordplay. He and Jiang Cheng had been the top students in their fencing league, and they had learned the Jiang family techniques from Jiang-Shushu as boys.

Even with his borrowed blade, he had felt comfortable facing most of the mouse soldiers back in Jiaomu’s garden.

Nie blade-work is like nothing he has encountered before.

There is power in every motion, and it seems to be of the mindset that brute strength is the best path forward. Wei Wuxian admires the sentiment even if he does not agree.

He spends a full day running practice drills with the Nie disciples while A-Yuan sits nearby with a tiger plushie and some woven grass butterflies. Nie Huaisang and a slew of aunties chat with the little boy and feed him plenty of peanut cakes and other treats while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are busy.

The nerve of people giving his toddler so many sweets when the inevitable crash will be on him and Lan Wangji to sort out!

Still, when the child is grinning so widely, Wei Wuxian can’t even ask people to stop spoiling him.

Nie Mingjue is a general for good reason. He’s strong and he trains his people hard. Wei Wuxian is no exception.

By the end of the first day, he’s almost good enough to parry a strike from Nie Mingjue’s heavy saber. Baxia is a hefty blade, and Wei Wuxian is relieved that the sword smith will be forging a slimmer blade for Wei Wuxian to wield.

In the meantime, the iron practice sword works well enough.

It takes a week for his sword to be forged. During that week, he learns Nie blade-work until his shoulders ache and his knees tremble, and then he does it again the next day. Lan Wangji spends his days poring over strategic maps with their host and his council. As an outsider to this realm, Wei Wuxian is useless there. He spends his afternoons taking tea with Nie Huaisang and reading books on cultivation theory. Nie Mingjue called the golden core in Wei Wuxian’s body untamed. Wen Qing had suggested something similar.

Now that he’s got a library at his disposal, he intends to learn what it means.

As the days trickle by, A-Yuan begins opening up to more people. Wei Wuxian wonders if they might find the baby a home here in the walls of the Unclean Realms.

Still, every night, A-Yuan climbs into Lan Wangji’s lap and waits with his mouth open like a baby bird for the things he cannot eat with his sticky little hands. After dinner, Wei Wuxian bathes with him and then tells him stories until he drifts off. After which, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji take tea while they discuss everything and nothing at once.

One night: “No, for real! I think the Flower Damsel must be related to the Sugarplum Patriarch's people.”

The next: “Wei Ying, peanut cakes are not a valid source of protein.”

Later the same night: “Okay, so what if I made a talisman to communicate across— don’t look at me like that, I know perfectly well what that radical is for- oh, no wait, my bad.”

And so on.

His sketchbook begins to fill with drawings of sword forms, renderings of Nie Huaisang’s spoiled little pet songbirds, and many, many versions of his nutcracker and sweet, precious A-Yuan.

Every morning in Qinghe, Wei Wuxian wakes with A-Yuan curled against him as Lan Wangji watches over them from the opposite side of the bed. It feels so normal and right that Wei Wuxian is terrified of the ache his heart is inviting when it inevitably ends.

On the eighth morning, Wei Wuxian greets the sword smith in the grand hall.

His blade is a slender silver thing with a sharp crimson inlay and wooden sheathe. It is gorgeous, and the moment he imbues it with his power, he can feel the spiritual energy of his new weapon rising up to meet him like an old friend.

“What will you name it?” Lan Wangji asks.

Wei Wuxian has spent a week mulling over names for this blade. None of them feel right, in the moment. Instead, he decides, “Suibian.”

“Pardon?”

“Suibian.”

“You are naming your blade ‘whatever’?”

“Yes. It can be whatever it wants and I need. Unlimited by the bounds of definition.”

He reads the mild exasperation in Lan Wangji’s face and snickers, looping Suibian onto his belt.

“Hey, Lan Zhan, fancy a duel now that I’ve got a real sword?”

“Perhaps later. We must prepare for departure.”

Wei Wuxian sobers as reality swoops back in. “Lan Zhan. What do we do with A-Yuan? Are we going to bring him with us across the Xuanwu Sea? Would he be safer here?”

“It is likely to be safer here,” Lan Wangji concedes, but he looks as recalcitrant to leave the boy as Wei Wuxian feels.

“We promised to find him a new home,” Wei Wuxian says. “I suppose this place is as good as anywhere else. The aunties love him.”

“Mn.” It’s a non-answer. Despite their best efforts, they have grown attached to the boy.

Wei Wuxian sighs and leans their shoulders together. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“We must leave him here. The Xuanwu is a temperamental creature. We cannot endanger him.”

“Right. Right. Of course.” Wei Wuxian sucks in a breath and plasters a smile on his face. Lan Wangji can see through it, but Wei Wuxian needs the smile as armor. “I guess we have to tell him, then. And find someone to look after him when we go.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says gently, taking his hand.

“Ah, I’m just being silly. I mean it’s not like we’re his parents. I just… never mind. This is what needs to happen.”

He straightens and leaves before Lan Wangji can give him another of those painful, sympathetic looks.

They wait until dinner to broach the subject of their departure with A-Yuan.

It goes about as well as expected, which is to say a full-blown, snot-dripping, scream-filled meltdown.

Wei Wuxian’s heart is going to be ripped out of his chest if he ever hears A-Yuan scream like that again.

It’s like he’s failed somehow and he doesn’t know how he can possibly fix it. A-Yuan falls into a fitful sleep that night with his tiny face still twisted in a betrayed scowl and a tiger plushie clutched in his arms like a lifeline.

He sits in Lan Wangji’s arms and cries. “What do we do. Lan Zhan, I can’t leave him like this.”

“We will find a solution, Wei Ying. I promise.”

“How?”

They are slated to leave for the Sea in two days.

A-Yuan whimpers in his dreams and Wei Wuxian cries himself to sleep with Lan Wangji carefully wrapped around them both.

Everyone is exhausted come morning.

Over the next two days, they introduce him to many of the aunties, trying to see if any of them would be a good fit. Despite his earlier exuberance at the attention, A-Yuan hates every minute of it. He’s no fool, and he only clings tighter to Wei Wuxian’s robes like the world will end if he lets go.

A-Yuan is still upset with them on the morning of departure, and Wei Wuxian cannot blame him.

“Xian-Gege and Wood-Gege leave?” he asks before breakfast with wet, red-rimmed eyes. “Like Mama?”

Oh.

Oh. Fuck. He’s an idiot. Great. Now because he and Lan Wangji selfishly held A-Yuan so close, they’re going to give him another set of abandonment issues.

“No, little radish,” he says, crouching until he and A-Yuan are level and he can take those petite palms in hand. “We’re not leaving like your mama. Wood-Gege and I have to go find a fairy— remember from our stories?”

“With wings?” A-Yuan asks, looking skeptical.

“Mhmm! We’re going to find a fairy who can help us defeat the evil mouse!”

“Bad mouse,” A-Yuan agrees, solemnly.

Wei Wuxian pinches his cheek gently and gives a wan smile. “Wood-Gege and I have to go, but we have a very important job that only a big boy can do. Do you know any big boys?”

“A-Yuan is big boy!” the baby says eagerly.

“You are? My little radish?”

“Not so little, Xian-Gege,” he protests, placing Wei Wuxian’s palm on his fluffy head. “Tall now!”

“So you are.” Wei Wuxian presses a quick kiss to his forehead. “Can I give you a very important job, A-Yuan?”

“Mn,” he replies with a nod, looking and sounding just like Lan Wangji. For a moment, Wei Wuxian can almost believe he’s theirs.

“Since Wood-Gege and I are leaving with Mustache-Gege, we need you to help Fan-Gege protect the Unclean Realms.”

“Protect?”

“Yes. It’s a very important job. You have to be brave and listen to your aunties, but I know you’re my little warrior, right, baobei?”

“Mn!”

“Good boy. Be sure to help Fan-Gege practice his swords, okay?” he teases, knowing that A-Yuan might succeed where all else failed in getting Huaisang to practice fighting. “Soon the mouse king will be gone.”

“And Xian-Gege and Wood-Gege come back for A-Yuan,” the boy says like it’s a foregone conclusion.

Wei Wuxian opens his mouth, unsure what will come out, but Lan Wangji beats him to it.

“We will come back for you. I swear it.”

“Really?” A-Yuan’s face is such a mix of hope and fear that Wei Wuxian cannot breathe.

Lan Wangji kneels down beside them and bows his head. “Wei Ying, the ribbon, please.”

Wei Wuxian draws a shaky breath and slips the knot loose, placing the ribbon in Lan Wangji’s hands.

“A-Yuan, from now on, I give you the name Lan Yuan. My name is yours, if you want it.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian breathes. At once, he feels like a stranger trampling on a private scene and also like a proud mother with every right to bask in the glory of this moment.

“Lan Yuan,” the baby says, trying the name out. “Lan like Gege?”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji agrees, carefully using all his concentration to force his wooden joints to wrap the ribbon around A-Yuan’s forehead. Wei Wuxian helps him tie the knot and does not dwell on the heavy, swelling emotion in his ribs.

“This ribbon is sacred,” Lan Wangji says. His eyes flicker briefly to meet Wei Wuxian’s as he continues, “Only one’s parents, children, siblings, and spouse are permitted to touch it.”

A muffled squeak escapes Wei Wuxian’s lips when the words register in his swirling brain. What does it mean? Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are none of those things to each other, but Lan Wangji holds his gaze for a long moment.

The molten amber of Lan Wangji’s eyes burns through his veins and swirls in his stomach like a second golden core. He is sinking into it and he finds he doesn’t have the will to fight it.

Lan Wangji looks away first and Wei Wuxian, despite knowing he is fully attired for their expedition, feels bare as the day he was born. The servants and soldiers continue to pass by around them, but his world is narrowed to two people.

…

Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang clearly do not miss the significance of the Lan ribbon tied around A-Yuan’s head. “I expect we shall see you again, my wooden friend,” Huaisang comments, holding A-Yuan’s hand.

“Yes. I will return for my son,” Lan Wangji declares without preamble.

Nie Mingjue nods. “You Lan are an honorable sort. He’ll be lucky to grow up under your influence. In the meanwhile, please trust my brother and clansmen to protect him.”

Lan Wangji bows to both Nie brothers and then crouches by A-Yuan with his arms held open.

A-Yuan flies into them, flinging his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck. “Wood-Gege, be safe,” A-Yuan commands.

“I will do my utmost.”

When A-Yuan pulls back, he flings himself at Wei Wuxian’s thigh. “Xian-Gege! A-Yuan miss you. Come back.”

Wei Wuxian pats his head and crouches to kiss his downy hair and cheeks. “I’m going to miss you, too, baobei. So, so much.”

When A-Yuan throws his arms around Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, he ends up on his butt with the toddler in his lap.

Despite valiant efforts, A-Yuan starts crying and Wei Wuxian fights back a sting in his own tear ducts. “Gege have to go?”

He knows A-Yuan is asking about this trip, but part of him feels this could be a larger question. Does he have to go back to his own realm? Can he go back after everything he’s experienced here? He has his mother and siblings to return to, and his little niece or nephew on the way.

“Yes, little radish,” he says, wiping the tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “But I’ll be back,” he says and hopes to make it true.

A-Yuan snuggles into his neck for a long minute and says, “I love Xian-Gege.”

“Xian-Gege loves you, too. So much.”

Chapter Text

From the Unclean Realms, it takes four days to reach the ramshackle village of Dusk Creek, which banks the Xuanwu Sea. The sky continues to remain a cold, miserable gray, forcing Wei Wuxian to bundle deeper into his winter cloak.

The journey is largely uneventful despite increased movement of the mouse army. The three of them dispatch many soldiers along the way. Still, there are more felled trees and scorched paths in the Wen army’s wake.

Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, and Nie Mingjue are stealthy as they travel through the woods and occasionally on their blades. Wei Wuxian can’t help grinning the first time he holds Lan Wangji as they ride Suibian along the air currents.

Luck remains on their side until they reach Dusk Creek.

Part of him fears that it’s due to run out when the compass points them out to sea.

Wei Wuxian volunteers himself as their lookout being that he is not as conspicuous as a wooden nutcracker nor a burly, known rebellion general.

As he meanders through the town gathering supplies and a boat, he suddenly notices that a pair of mice are tailing him. Years of living in the city back home have taught him how to read signs of trouble in every subtle step.

Admittedly, these two are clumsy, barely waiting to round a corner after him.

Just as he leads them into an abandoned area to interrogate, they’re gone.

He spends too long standing there, waiting for his pulse to settle.

The unease stays with him the whole way back to their encampment, with every twisting path meant to shake any followers. Will it be enough?

All three of them are on edge that night. Lan Wangji requires no sleep that night, but Wei Wuxian barely gets any himself, he’s too disquieted. Every tree branch and scuttling critter makes him reach for his blade.

At dawn, they board a small, weathered sailboat and cast off with the vague notion that Yiling is across the sea where the compass points. The question of how far remains unanswered. They carry a month’s worth of rations and pray it’s an overestimate rather than a pittance.

The white, canvas sails catch the wind, and Wei Wuxian steers the rudder, pointing them east, into the sunlight.

At midday, he and Nie Mingjue shelter under a small canopy to avoid the worst of the blinding winter rays.

At night, the sunset warms their backs before the frigid night takes hold.

Nie Mingjue’s temper is rearing its ugly head by their second day on the water.

“I can’t believe you think there’s actually a fairy who can solve all the realm’s problems. The real path to victory is determination and bloodshed.”

Lan Wangji’s flat look asks why they even bothered to bring the man if all he does is bemoan the journey and lack of action. Wei Wuxian bites his lip to hide a laugh.

“Yes, but I would prefer the blood not be mine or my allies’,” Wei Wuxian comments.

“Hmph. How do we know this island even exists?”

Lan Wangji does not sigh, but Wei Wuxian hears the disgruntled noise anyway.

Before he can steer them back to safer topics, his eyes fall on something in the distance.

It moves.

“Um… Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian begins, “Chifeng-Zun, I think we have company.”

Both men tense and turn to face where Wei Wuxian is pointing into the evening fog.

“Oh, shit,” Nie Mingjue breathes, echoing Wei Wuxian’s thoughts.

“The Xuanwu of Slaughter,” Lan Wangji confirms.

Slithering through the water is a great, hulking creature made of shell and hide and gore.

The stench comes with a wave that rocks their boat.

Nie Mingjue draws Baxia and Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian follow suit with their own blades.

“Which plan are you considering?” Wei Wuxian calls as the beast approaches. It does not seem to have noticed them yet, but they know it is a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ they will be targeted.

“The third one,” Nie Mingjue barks back.

“Nets it is,” Wei Wuxian decides.

They cannot allow the Xuanwu to get close or else their vessel will sink and they’ll be destroyed.

Wei Wuxian grabs a net and mounts Suibian.

“Be careful,” Lan Wangji says.

“You too.”

The wind rises to meet him as he pushes off and flies toward the scent of decay and the sight of a many-fanged beast.

Closer now, the smell of corpses and rot almost makes him heave his rations up. The snake-head scents the air with a forked tongue and starts to turn toward the boat with its jaws dripping. Fear punches him in the stomach, and he acts before thinking.

Wei Wuxian is nothing if not a great distraction. He’s been told it’s one of his many talents, though usually not as a compliment.

“Hey, Ugly!” he shouts, sending a burst of spiritual energy into the Xuanwu’s right eye. “Look over here!”

When the blast lands, the creature opens its maw with a roar that shakes the air around him so hard that Suibian vibrates. He nearly loses balance on the sword.

“Damn. Didn’t like that, huh?”

The snake head lunges for him, and Wei Wuxian zips backward, relieved when the long neck hits the end of its range and Suibian doesn’t.

He casts the heavy netting over the beast’s head and allows himself a smile when the Xuanwu thrashes with a roar.

Naturally, as he’s getting cocky enough to venture back down, he neglects to heed the beast’s unexpectedly long tail. It lashes out and smacks him from the sky.

The last thing Wei Wuxian hears is Lan Wangji’s scream of “Wei Ying!” before he blacks out.

…

When Wei Wuxian wakes, he thinks he must be dead. It certainly smells like death in this blood-painted space.

He shifts and hears the sharp crunch of cracking bone a split second before his hand plunges into something warm and slimy that makes him roll over and vomit.

His stomach heaves once, twice, three times until it’s empty and his throat burns with acid and bile.

Not dead, he decides miserably.

Wei Wuxian forces himself to his feet and winces when his ribs protest. He must have had the air knocked out of him when that damned tail hit. But where is he?

He feels the ground lurching beneath him, and the rotting human remains only have a little to do with it.

He’s not in the Xuanwu’s stomach, of that he is fairly certain. Touching the walls, he decides he must be within the turtle shell of the monster. A built-in pantry of horrors and appetizers.

A shudder ripples along his spine, and he spares a moment to thank every deity he’s ever heard of that A-Yuan was not on their boat.

Wei Wuxian uses his spiritual energy to summon Suibian with a talisman the Nie clan taught him. It does not come. There’s a dull clang, and he sighs. He can feel his blade responding to his call, but it cannot pierce the armored shell.

“Fuck.”

Wei Wuxian appraises his gory surroundings with distaste.

Picking through a pile of soggy bones yields him three arrows, a hunting knife, and a rusted sword.

He’ll make do.

If he ended up here somehow, there must be a way out.

The ground beneath him is fleshy, Wei Wuxian drags the knife along it and winces when he hears the echo of the beast’s roar outside. “Okay. He doesn’t like that and it’s not doing much.”

His eyes narrow. “Unless…”

While in the Unclean Realms, Nie Mingjue wasn’t the only Nie instructor he had.

Nie Huaisang is a talented talismanic writer and Wei Wuxian is an apt pupil.

Wei Wuxian draws shallow breaths through his mouth to avoid passing out from the stench as he sits down and dips his hand into corpse sludge. The feeling is no more pleasant the second time, but he manages to wrangle his stomach into submission as he sketches sigils and radicals in various iterations as ideas storm through his brain like a winter blizzard: demanding attention and blanketing the world indiscriminately.

Idea after idea zips through his brain and fingertips. He hears the battle continuing outside. Lan Wangji is still in danger, and he does not want to rely on wood floating.

He draws.

Stupid.

Too dangerous.

Maybe…

He doesn’t want to die with the Xuanwu.

Closer.

Hmm…

That one.

Wei Wuxian sends a pulse of spiritual energy into the rusted sword and is pleased when it hums in reply. The blade is a heavy iron thing and it burns with trapped rage. Ideally he won’t be holding it long.

He will only have one shot at this.

He rummages through another pile of corpses and procures two more arrows. Five like the five elements. Yes. This will do.

Carefully, he wedges the arrows into the thick, slimy skin until a loose circle is formed.

Wiping the blade on his hems first, Wei Wuxian attempts to sterilize it with a shimmer of his spiritual energy.

Drawing a breath, he slices his fingertips and paints the bloody talisman in the center of the circle. Another line. Another radical. A flick. A flourish.

Now or never.

He plunges the sword into the last line, channels his power into the blade, and commands, “Decay!”

The effect is instant.

All around, the skin nearest the array withers and wrinkles, turning gray and then black and then splitting into blooming, bloody reds that fill the space with the tang of iron.

The Xuanwu screeches, its roar ringing in his ears even after it ends. Wei Wuxian sways on his feet as the world moves beneath him. Suddenly, he is face-to-face with the beady eye of a furious monster as the serpent’s head meets him in the shell. It snaps its great jaws. Spit and gore are flung into his face.

Hmm. Fuck.

Wei Wuxian snatches the sword on instinct and just as the spitting jaws open wide to cleave him, he slams his fist down, plunging the metal through its forked tongue and into the vulnerable flesh of its palate.

He and the beast scream in unison as its jaws sink down, pinning his arm between two great fangs.

He slams into something, and suddenly, there is light. So much light.

Wei Wuxian blinks as he is tossed back and forth through the sky. After the darkness of the Xuanwu’s shell, sunlight burns.

“Wei Ying!”

Is that Lan Wangji? He sounds so worried. Wei Wuxian wants to reassure him, but his mouth is already open for some reason.

Is he screaming? Is that the noise?

Oh. No, the screeching is definitely the Xuanwu.

Why is it screaming?

Wei Wuxian dangles from its mouth and he can feel the dagger’s hilt in his fist. Why is he still holding it?

Why is there so much blood on his robes?

Just as his vision goes spotty, he imagines the deep twang of guqin chords. That must be what Lan Wangji’s guqin would sound like if he could play still.

It’s lovely and powerful, like a noble stag protecting its kin.

He hears a roar and the sharp slice of metal on flesh, and then the teeth around him are loosening and he is dizzy, so very dizzy. His arm is covered in blood and he can’t tell how much is his own.

His vision fades to black and his hand slips from the sword’s bloody hilt.

He falls.

Chapter Text

The world is very dark, but someone isn’t letting him sleep.

“Wei Ying!”

That sounds like Lan Wangji. And that is his name. Why is his nutcracker calling for him? He should know by now that Wei Wuxian likes sleeping later.

“Let me work. He’s got water in his lungs.”

Is that Nie Mingjue?

Wei Wuxian likes water. Jiang-Shushu used to tease that he was part fish with the way he swam circles around his siblings at the lake house. He misses that house keenly for a moment. The summer lotuses and wooden planks felt like home in a way their city townhouse rarely did or does. Perhaps because the lake house was where the five of them had gotten along best.

Yu-Ayi was free from the stress of high society and Jiang-Shushu was free to dote on her with hairpins and trinkets from the local craftsmen.

Wei Wuxian grew up in water. How ironic if water kills him after all.

But then there’s a sharp pressure in his diaphragm. A rhythmic pushing, and then he’s heaving and gasping and coughing up water and blood and he feels warm, steady hands on his shoulders and familiar wooden ones at his back and holding his hair.

Wet, rasping heaves and coughs shake his body until everything aches, but his lungs are finally able to draw a proper breath.

It’s so bright. Too bright. Ugh.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji cries, shifting him carefully and wiping his bangs from his wet cheeks.

Wei Wuxian is too tired to examine the clear welling of emotion in Lan Wangji’s voice. “Dead?”

Nie Mingjue chortles. “If you’re asking about yourself, boy, then no. You’re quite alive. But thanks to you, the Xuanwu is slain.”

Wei Wuxian hums sleepily and curls into Lan Wangji’s smooth, wooden chest, wishing it was more comfortable.

“We have your sword,” Lan Wangji says.

“Mm. Good.”

“That was reckless.”

“It worked,” Wei Wuxian retorts.

Lan Wangji rests his head atop Wei Wuxian’s and cradles him closer until Wei Wuxian is in his lap. “Wei Ying.” His voice is on the edge of breaking, and guilt swims up from Wei Wuxian’s guts. “You were not breathing. Between the blood loss and the water, I thought…”

“Shh…” Wei Wuxian is bone tired.

Most of him wants to take a very long nap and preferably wake up next to his baby.

He fights the instinct and turns just enough to press his forehead against Lan Wangji’s naked one. He looks a little funny without his ribbon. “Lan Zhan, I wouldn’t leave you like that.”

“You nearly did.”

Suddenly, a memory tugs at his addled mind. “There was a guqin.”

“Mn. My spiritual energy unsealed itself.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes fly open. “What!” He suffers through another coughing fit before demanding details.

“You were in danger and I was useless. When I saw you dangling from its jaw, something shifted. I felt spiritual energy for the first time in years.”

“You saved me,” Wei Wuxian croaks.

Lan Wangji’s eyes are soft even if his lips still betray worry. “I could not bear to lose you.”

“Oh, Lan Zhan…”

Nie Mingjue clears his throat. “Hate to interrupt you lovebirds,” he says, looking somewhere into the distance, “but there are two things.”

“Proceed.”

“First—“ Nie Mingjue suddenly sounds as exhausted as Wei Wuxian feels “—why were you hiding, Hanguang-Jun?”

Wei Wuxian vaguely notes that he has not yet teased his nutcracker about the title. Light-Bearing Lord, indeed, he thinks with no small amusement.

Lan Wangji stiffens. “The guqin,” he realizes.

“Xichen was my dearest friend,” Nie Mingjue says. “I would recognize the guqin of your namesake anywhere, Your Highness.”

Lan Wangji bows his head. “Please forgive my deceit. I have told no lies, but I have allowed you to believe many, regardless.” Lan Wangji carefully situates Wei Wuxian in his arms before continuing. “Wen Ruohan and his sons captured me in the library. Xiongzhang was tasked with protecting our sacred texts once our father was slain. I stayed behind to ensure he would get away.”

Nie Mingjue sucks in a breath and Wei Wuxian can see him imagining his own younger brother in Lan Wangji’s place.

“I was captured. At first, they intended me as bait for my brother.” Lan Wangji closes his eyes for a moment and Wei Wuxian reads an echo of pain in his brow. “When I did not cooperate, they resorted to violence. When that remained unsuccessful, I was turned into this. Trapped to live as wood— a toy with no power… I was ashamed”

A wave of anger washes through Wei Wuxian, boiling the last bits of water from his lungs as his red spiritual energy flares through every vein in his body.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji scolds, feeding blue energy back into his exhausted body. “It is past. Rest. Justice will be done.”

Lan Wangji’s energy is like the cool trickle of a mountain stream. It surges alongside his own depleted energy and raises it like a tide until the aches and bruises quiet from a cacophony to a yowling. He had not noticed the horrid pain until he felt its absence.

“Chifeng-Zun, I believe you had a second topic of discussion.”

“Indeed, I think I see our island on the horizon,” he says, gesturing over their shoulders with the hand not holding the lacquered compass.

Wei Wuxian turns to get his first glimpse at the fabled island of Yiling.

They’ve been pinning their hopes on this quest and the man said to reside here. Have they been right to put their trust in a mythical figure?

When the fog shifts, Wei Wuxian catches sight of the distant shoreline and frowns.

His eyes trace over the mountain and forested terrain, taking in the trees and angles and a pair of gates by the shore. He looks once and then twice and then a third time as he blinks and wonders if he is still unconscious.

There is no mistaking it.

He has been here before.

…

The shores of Yiling are coated with a fine black sand. Wei Wuxian knows, inherently, that the sand was born from the steady weathering of the obsidian lava flow that covers patches of the island.

He should not know this.

He swallows his concerns and allows Lan Wangji to clean and dress his wounds before they pull ashore.

The island is encircled by powerful wards, just as Lan Wangji expected. Wei Wuxian can see the shimmer of a pale white energy that feels familiar enough that his eyes water with a memory he cannot quite recall. It’s not dissimilar from the energy that protected the compass, but he can tell the casters were different.

They approach the gates which are hardly more than carved wooden pillars wrapped in writing.

“What does it say?” Nie Mingjue wonders.

“I do not know,” Lan Wangji confesses.

Wei Wuxian, still propped upright by Lan Wangji, blinks at them both. “You can’t read it?”

“Can you?”

“Well, yes.” Though the characters are not the ones Jiang-Shushu, Yu-Ayi, or any tutor taught him, Wei Wuxian can read these characters just as easily. “It says something along the lines of this land being sacred as ‘here dwells the last of the Fae’ who were driven from the cultivation world.” He squints at the words and adds, “For practicing magic thought to be heretical.”

“That is true, unfortunately,” Lan Wangji states. “Our ancestors feared that which they did not understand and drove the Fae from our lands. I had not known this was where they chose to settle.”

Nie Mingjue huffs. “I don’t know how much there is to understand. Fae don’t respect the bounds of life and death. They desecrated graves and communed with the dead.”

“The Lan can commune with the deceased through Inquiry,” Lan Wangji points out.

“That’s different. You use an instrument as a channel of questioning. The Fae are said to raise the dead and let them talk for themselves.”

Wei Wuxian does not say that sounds fascinating, but only because he is too tired to withstand a Nie Mingjue glare right this moment.

And so he keeps reading.

And then he stops and stumbles a step.

“Wei Ying?”

“No,” he whispers.

“Wei Wuxian, what is it, boy?”

His eyes cannot not leave the column even as he recalls his strange dream many weeks ago. “There’s a melody carved here.”

“A melody?” Lan Wangji asks. “Is it the key?”

A watery laugh escapes him. “I don’t know. But it is my mother’s.”

Both men turn to gape at him. “Your mother’s?”

“Huh. I always knew those Sanren women were odd ones. I suppose them being Fae should not come as a surprise,” Nie Mingjue huffs, crossing his burly arms. “It explains how Wei Wuxian came to be here and so powerful with an untamed core.”

Wei Wuxian bristles but tries not to take offense. “I’ve seen this place before in dreams. When I was little, I saw this shore. And when we were in Dafan, I dreamt of this island.”

Lan Wangji inclines his head and stares at where Wei Wuxian’s fingertips rest stop the foreign music. “This is your ancestral home.”

“Perhaps,” Wei Wuxian says, running his fingers over the notes. He whistles the tune, a low, mournful melody his mother used to sing when he had nightmares.

The shimmering white barrier around the island parts at the gate, and Wei Wuxian hesitates for the briefest moment before stepping through the wooden structure and onto a path that he should not know as well as his feet seem to.

The air is sweet. He finally recognizes the island’s scent as the same sugarplum sweet one that wraps around Jiaomu. It makes sense now that the Sugarplum Patriarch would hail from the same land as a so-called immortal.

The light is dimming as dusk falls. Nie Mingjue summons a ball of swirling green spiritual energy. Wei Wuxian knows the path ahead is long, so he requests a sheet of talisman paper and scrawls a quick spell. He blows across the fresh cinnabar and coaxes the paper, “Glow.”

All around them, tiny spheres of light begin to drift like fireflies, leading them up the mountain like their own little ghostly procession.

When he turns to grin at his companions, Nie Mingjue looks begrudgingly impressed, but that is irrelevant for the sheer wonder expressed in the subtle lines of Lan Wangji’s wooden face. Wei Wuxian traces the expression in his mind, and his fingers twitch with the urge to capture it on paper.

The moment isn’t long enough, and they keep walking.

Halfway up the mountain, they make camp for the night and Wei Wuxian mulls over the revelation that he is likely as much Fae as human. His father was human. Of that, he is reasonably certain given that the man had grown up alongside Jiang Fengmian, far from Jiaomu and her apparent magic.

But Cangse Sanren was from this island. He is sure of it now as the sweet wind caresses him and a distantly-familiar power washes over him, soothing every ache.

Should he feel betrayed that he never knew? Would he even have believed Jiaomu had she tried to tell him? ‘Oh, and by the way, your mother and I are from another realm where magic exists and also you’re half Fae.’ Yeah, that would have gone over well at any point in his life.

By the time Nie Mingjue leaves to gather firewood, Lan Wangji still has not let him out of sight. The nutcracker clings to him. Wei Wuxian is both endeared and frustrated by the attention.

While Wei Wuxian is eating an orange, Lan Wangji nearly snatches the knife from his hands the moment his fingers shake.

“Lan Zhan.”

“I thought-“ He stops himself there and glances away, knowing there’s no easy way to end that sentence.

Tired, exhausted, injured, and about five hundred things he doesn’t have the capacity to quantify, Wei Wuxian snaps, “Stop fucking hovering! I’m not made of glass, so stop treating me like I’m going to shatter!”

Then, he stands up and stomps away from Lan Wangji, even as his sister’s voice chides him in his head.

He is, in fact, too injured to climb a tree, which would be his normal option for getting away from people. He settles from grumpily plopping down under a winter-bare pear tree.

After a few minutes to ground himself— literally drawing in the dirt with his fingertip, he tries to place himself in Lan Wangji’s shoes. What if he had thought his nutcracker was dead? Would he be any more reasonable in the aftermath?

No, he decides, and lets himself melt into Lan Wangji’s embrace after making his apologies.

Nie Mingjue situates himself on watch at the mouth of the cave they settle in and pretends he cannot see the way Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji curl into each other with less propriety than most married couples.

The image of Lan Wangji’s ribbon wrapped around his wrist surges to the forefront of his attention.

Wei Wuxian startles and rolls over so they are face to face.Those familiar amber eyes blink slowly at him and Wei Wuxian debates digging out his sketchbook to capture the way the firelight flickers across his beautiful face. “Lan Zhan?”

“Mn?”

“What am I to you?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes widen before his expression smooths into a purposeful mask. “Why do you ask?”

“You let me touch your ribbon,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, brushing a lock of Lan Wangji’s silky, ink-black hair behind one wooden ear. “What does that make me?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes flicker away.

“We’re not parent and child, of course,” he teases. “And I would hardly call us siblings.”

“No,” Lan Wangji agrees.

“So that only leaves one thing, doesn’t it?”

Lan Wangji’s hands fold over his own. “You are the one who knows me. In your eyes, I am seen. Wei Ying,” he whispers, so fond and so scared as their eyes meet and hold, “you are my zhiji.”

A smile curves Wei Wuxian’s lips as he leans forward and presses their cheeks together.

“Zhiji,” Wei Wuxian echoes. He feels softer than the fur of his cloak.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji murmurs a moment later. “Do you recall when you asked about my curse?”

“About how to break it?”

“Mn. I must confess, there is a way to break it, though I thought it would never be possible. I am ready to tell you now.”

“What is it, Lan Zhan?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes flicker away and Wei Wuxian can almost imagine a blush painting his cheeks. His mouth opens.

The answer never comes.

Nie Mingjue gives a shout and they jolt apart and to their feet in an instant.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji flank him at the cave’s mouth in an instant with their blades drawn.

There awaits a mouse battalion.

There is another ugly, throned mouse at the helm. He stands, smooths his garish red robes and steps on the backs of several others to reach the ground.

The mouse offers them a patronizing applause. “I really must hand it to you, my dear Nutcracker and friends. I never could have made it to Yiling if you hadn’t guided me here and done all the hard work.”

“Wen Chao,” Lan Wangji hisses, “ leave this place.”

Wei Wuxian flinches at the name, knowing that this man was the primary tormentor Lan Wangji was trapped with during his imprisonment. Lan Wangji may not sleep much, but when nightmares arise, Wen Chao is the source.

This murder will weigh nothing on Wei Wuxian’s conscience.

Wen Chao’s face contorts into a leer. “There is a new prince in these lands, Lan Wangji. You’d best get used to bowing in my presence.” He turns back to his battalion. “Capture them. Alive for now,” he tacks on as he climbs back onto his cushioned perch.

That is all the warning the three of them get.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji aren’t even at half-strength between the two of them. He swallows down his apprehension.

He and Lan Wangji know each other well and usually move like a well oiled machine. Though still in sync, their exhaustion becomes clear as they move in fits and starts, stealing pockets of rest as the other shields their back.

The soldiers come in waves—over and over. Skilled though they are, they are only three men against an army of trained soldiers.

Now, Wei Wuxian recognizes Wen Chao’s lieutenants. Xue Yang is also the only other human on the battlefield. Wen Zhuliu and Xue Yang are easily the most skilled mercenaries, launching a solid offense that is meant to gradually wear them out. But then Wei Wuxian whirls to block a blow aimed at Lan Wangji and finds himself with a garrote around his neck.

“Drop the sword and he lives,” Xue Yang announces.

Lan Wangji freezes.

“Don’t,” Wei Wuxian gasps out as the wire tightens around his neck.

There is a sharp sting and then the warm trickle of blood down his neck, but Wei Wuxian keeps his gaze steady. They cannot surrender.

Lan Wangji closes his eyes for a moment and lets the sword fall from his hand.

Wen Chao’s smirk alone makes Wei Wuxian come up with five new methods of murder.

Wen Zhuliu, in his dark, garnet robes, approaches and binds Lan Wangji’s arms behind his back.

Nie Mingjue, bleeding from multiple wounds, is brought to his knees a moment later.

It is over.

“Excellent!” Wen Chao cries. “Father will be pleased at my capture of these treasonous men.”

At his side, a human concubine giggles and drapes herself over his lap. “My ChaoChao is the greatest prince who ever walked these lands,” she demurs. Wei Wuxian’s disgust mounts. He supposes he knows now why the Dafan Wen are not mice.

Wen Chao waves his hand as the three men are thrown at his feet. “And now we march on this Sugarplum Patriarch. Soon, no one will stand against the great Wen Empire!”

The army cheers. Wei Wuxian thinks of A-Yuan and prays that the Unclean Realms still stand.

Chapter Text

“Move along!” a soldier barks when Wei Wuxian stumbles.

“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji strains toward him, but they are being kept apart. It is a smart strategy, but Wei Wuxian does not have the mind to appreciate it.

“I’m fine, Lan Zhan,” he croaks.

They are led, bound hand and foot, up the mountain.

Every bone and muscle in Wei Wuxian’s body aches. The spiritual energy Lan Wangji gave him before has dwindled, and not even the sweet Yiling wind can counteract his utter exhaustion.

He wants to be mad at Lan Wangji for surrendering. He cannot muster the indignation.

They walk, and they walk, and they walk.

The peak of the volcano looms, and Wei Wuxian swears he can see a mocking smile in its jagged cliffs.

Hours later, swaying on his feet, Wei Wuxian sees the peak. The sulfuric air is stronger here, but not completely obscuring the sweet smell of sugarplums. It makes for an odd combination that makes him nauseous.

Nie Mingjue looks as haggard as Wei Wuxian feels. And given that he feels like shit…

At least Lan Wangji retains his dignity, even surrounded by hostile rodents.

They reach the peak, and Wei Wuxian’s knees give out. The guards don’t bother catching him as he sits in the dirt.

There is a temple atop the mountain. Half-forgotten stories wash across his mind like a wave lapping at the shore.

His mother was the priestess here. Baoshan Sanren was once, too.

There is old magic in the white stone and Wei Wuxian can feel it resonating in his bones, beating like a second pulse.

With ever tremor, his certainty grows, along with an idea stupid enough that even Jiang Cheng, his erstwhile accomplice would call him an absolute idiot.

He is the heir to this island and, with or without the Sugarplum Patriarch’s help, he cannot allow this army to desecrate his ancestral home. The memory of mother and her people deserve better.

A frisson of energy crackles in the brisk, sweet air.

Wen Chao approaches the temple behind Wen Zhuliu. “Oh, Sugarplum Patriarch, won’t you join us,” he entreats, an anticipatory smirk already pulling at his snout.

There is no answer.

Wei Wuxian snorts and gets kicked for his troubles.

After a long, awkward minute, Wen Zhuliu kicks open the doors and stirs up a layer of dust as thick as midwinter snowfall.

The two mice dart back, waving away the cloud of dust.

“What is the meaning of this!” Wen Chao roars when they realize the temple is abandoned.

Lan Wangji and Nie Mingjue appear equally perplexed.

“I don’t understand,” Nie Mingjue huffs. “Why go to so much trouble to protect an abandoned temple?”

Wei Wuxian’s brows furrow. This island isn’t abandoned, he knows that much, but clearly this temple is. Where is this deity waiting if not in a holy place?

“Useless!” Wen Chao roars, stamping his foot.

He stomps up to Lan Wangji and gets far too close, jabbing his finger in Lan Wangji’s face. Wei Wuxian would bite him if their places were switched.

“You are wasting my time, Nutcracker. Where is he?”

Lan Wangji remains silent and immovable. Wen Chao’s fury grows.

“JiaoJiao,” he hisses, still face to face with Lan Wangji, “get me the branding iron.”

After months at Lan Wangji’s side, Wei Wuxian knows what he looks like when he flinches.

The woman grabs a long iron. Wei Wuxian has been told about these. They channel spiritual energy and leave a permanent scar that no healer can mend.

He doesn’t want to know what it does to wood.

The concubine saunters closer with a perverse smile on her pretty face. The iron glows red with heat.

Lan Wangji’s expression remains flat, but Wei Wuxian can see the hidden panic.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t think; he moves.

One second he’s being held by Xue Yang, the next, he’s snapped the rope around his wrists and ankles and flung himself between Lan Wangji and his torturers.

The branding iron lands on his chest and he screams as the sun crest sears into his flesh. The edges of his vision go black with pain. The smell alone is almost as bad as the corpse sludge had been, if entirely different.

“Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji catches him, voice shrill with worry and too many other emotions for Wei Wuxian to name.

The concubine looks startled, but she only gets a moment before Wei Wuxian snatches the iron from her grasp, breaks the handle over his knee, and skewers her throat with the jagged shaft.

She dies with a startled burble as blood flies from her mouth, collapsing against Wen Chao.

Wei Wuxian does not relent. He puts his stupid plan into action.

He grabs Wen Chao’s sword from its sheath and in an instant, he has his back to the temple and the stolen blade pressed to Wen Chao’s throat.

The entire army, startled into action, has drawn their swords and bows. They all point at him.

“Lay down your weapons or I will kill your prince just as I killed that bitch,” Wei Wuxian snarls, pressing the blade deeper until crimson begins to stain Wen Chao’s fur.

“Do as he says!” Wen Chao shrills, shaking like a leaf for all his false bravado.

One by one the swords begin to lower.

Wei Wuxian hears the arrow loose. He doesn’t dodge fast enough as it pierces his sword arm and the blade falls from his hand. “Shit!”

Wen Chao bolts behind Wen Zhuliu.

All hell breaks loose.

Lan Wangji cries his name again, but he and Nie Mingjue are surrounded and weaponless.

Wei Wuxian is brought to his knees by five soldiers. His arm dangles at his side, dripping. The charred skin on his chest weeps.

It’s over. Again.

Wen Chao’s eyes blaze with indignation when he stands before the subdued man. His paw catches Wei Wuxian’s chin as he tilts his face up. “So you are the outsider my father mentioned. Wei Wuxian, son of Cangse Sanren.”

Wei Wuxian flinches.

“Oh, yes. We knew who you were that night in the garden. We knew that you, the last of the Fae, could bring us here to uncover the one threat left to my father’s reign.” Wen Chao sighs. “It seems we all came a long way for a fairytale, though. And now the Fae will die with you.”

He snaps his fingers and Wen Zhuliu moves.

Wei Wuxian does not know what hurts more: the sword through his stomach or the way Lan Wangji screams his name like the world is ending.

Wen Zhuliu withdraws his sword and Wei Wuxian is dragged by his hair to the edge of the cliff.

The slow, bubbling lava below isn’t at risk of erupting, nor would it spare his life should he fall.

“Wei Ying! Wei Ying!”

He’s too weak to turn back to Lan Wangji now. He wishes he could have one last glance at his beloved nutcracker.

Instead, Wen Chao sneers. “A demon like you does not even deserve a burial.”

And then he’s falling.

He falls.

And falls.

And falls.

And

f
a
l
l
s

He closes his eyes, but he is not afraid.

The orange heat rushes up to meet him.

He embraces it.

…

“And then the fallen soldiers came alive,” Cangse Sanren declares, her best storyteller voice on as she weaves the tale for little Wei Ying.

He watches his mother with rapt attention.

“The corpses lumbered forward, waiting for the command of the Sugarplum Fairy.”

“And then what?” Wei Ying prods. “What did the corpses do?”

She laughs, pinching his cheek. “Well they can’t do anything on their own, silly boy. Like any weapon, magic is a tool. To wield it, you must know how.”

Wei Ying puffs up his chubby cheeks. “Mama, I can do it.”

“Maybe one day, baobei,” she agrees. “Our people have tested many ways of communing with the corpses. Can you guess what works best?”

Wei Ying frowns, his little brows furrowing. “Yelling?”

Cangse Sanren bursts into laughter. It rings like the wind chime on Bao-Popo’s porch, and though Wei Ying’s pride is sore, he can’t suppress a smile.

“The key, A-Ying, is music.”

“Music?” he tilts his head and scrunches his nose. “You said I was done today!”

She smooths his hair. “I’m not trying to get you to practice your flute. I’m serious.”

“Really?”

She holds up three fingers in promise. “Really.”

“How?” Wei Ying asks, curling into her lap.

“Listen, A-Ying,” she says, stroking his hair.

“Listen.”

Wei Wuxian hears a distant melody. It plays in the fringes of his mind like a forgotten word on the tip of his tongue and just as bothersome.

The melody comes and goes like the music at a ball when one weaves closer and farther from the musicians with each turn about the dance floor.

Sometimes, he can almost reach out and touch it.

It coaxes him, demanding something he is not yet fit to give.

He lays in shallow water and feels it lapping at his hands and feet and cheeks like a hug from A-Jie or the lick of a kitten or the gentle, steady love A-Yuan offers so freely.

Where is Wei Wuxian?

Why is he here?

Everything feels so distant. Like a dream.

Perhaps he died and this is the afterlife.

It’s cooler than he would have expected given the volcano he distantly recalls. It smells sweet like Jiaomu always does.

Perhaps he fell asleep on her lap at the fountain and this has all been an elaborate dream.

But no.

He cannot be dreaming.

He has lived these last few months. Every moment. Every triumph and loss and wound and laugh have been real.

A-Yuan is real. His harrowing losses and his infectious giggles and pitiful tantrums are no figment of Wei Wuxian’s imagination.

Lan Wangji is real. His beautiful, cursed nutcracker. The man who has saved his life so many times. The man who calls him zhiji. The man who he desperately wants to wake up next to again.

The melody is stronger now. Wei Wuxian feels the shape of it enveloping him— a gift from a people he will never know.

He is a thousand generations in one, and he is singular.

Here, he can hear the voices of the dead, but it is not so scary. It is a homecoming, and that is when he knows.

His eyelids flutter open and the world glows red.

Like a phoenix, he bursts from a lake of fire, his wounds nothing more than shiny scars and stories.

Draped in glimmering robes of black and red silk, he alights on the volcano’s abandoned peak and makes his way into the temple.

The dancing fairy statue inside has a flute resting across two of her palms. Wei Wuxian takes the lacquered bamboo instrument in hand. He can feel the history in the rings of it. He can feel how many hands played it.

He will make himself worthy of inheriting it.

When he plays the melody his mother taught him, the corpses left behind lurch upright and bow.

Bringing the flute down, Wei Wuxian’s lips pull into a crooked, wicked smile.

After all, he is the Sugarplum Patriarch.

Chapter Text

Sneaking into the palace a week later is easy compared to sneaking out under Yu-Ayi’s watchful eye.

The palace is made of white stone, dark wood, and paper screens. It feels gorgeous and ancient in a way that nothing in his city life ever has. Rather than climbing skyward like city apartments, the palace sprawls across acres of verdant land.

Inside and out, Wei Wuxian finds that the Wen Clan has burned the Lan banners and replaced the pale blues with a garish red. The sun crest mocks passersby from every window and balcony.

Though the castle has been occupied for years now, the hold of the Wen Clan feels transient, like a child declaring the fort theirs rather than a newly-established dynasty.

All the better to overthrow them.

Wei Wuxian cannot wait to burn those Wen banners just as they burned their crest into his skin.

The Lan Clan will rise again.

The mouse guards have a rotation. The pattern is easily figured out, and Wei Wuxian steals between shadows and around corners during their rounds.

The palace is grand. He can feel the echoes of centuries of scholarship and peace. So, too, can he see the scorch marks where the Wens carved their filthy paws into the foundations.

If finding his way to the dungeons involves the murder of a Wen official or two, it certainly does not weigh on his conscience.

A quick trill of notes on Chengqing has Wei Wuxian standing over the corpses of the last guards. He tuts at them like a disappointed parent. “Honestly, you’re making this too easy.”

He snatches the key ring from the robes of the warden and unlocks the last room.

It is empty.

“Now why would they bother guarding an empty room?” he muses, twirling his flute. He can feel something buzzing.

His eyes narrow as he crosses into the room with his hand up. Halfway across the barren room, he touches a barrier and smirks.

Plucking a talisman from his belt, Wei Wuxian presses it to the barrier and channels the Fae magic in his blood. “Shatter,” he intones; the barrier fractures like smashed porcelain, revealing two figures.

“Wei Wuxian!”

Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang are in shackles, both covered in grime and bruises. The cell smells of filth, but neither brother looks less noble for the squalor.

Any trace of mirth vanishes from Wei Wuxian’s face. He rushes to Nie Huaisang. Fear and anger surge within him, but he tamps them down before they overwhelm him.

“Where is A-Yuan?”

Nie Huaisang’s hands quake. “I’m so, so sorry. They took him from me. They’re using him as a hostage to keep Lan Wangji in check.”

Wei Wuxian draws a sharp breath, and the Nie brothers flinch back from him.

“Your eyes… they’re glowing,” Nie Mingjue says, edging in front of his brother like a shield. “What happened to you? We thought you were surely dead.”

Wei Wuxian allows the crooked grin to curl his lips. “Our trip to Yiling was not wasted after all.”

“You found the Sugarplum Patriarch?” Nie Mingjue questions, his chains clinking as he leans forward.

He snorts. “In a manner of speaking.”

Nie Huaisang’s gaze narrows for a moment before he bows low. “This humble one acknowledges the Sugarplum Patriarch.”

Wei Wuxian catches his elbows to keep the man from prostrating himself. “None of that. We have work to do.”

“The Sugarp— So it was you all along? Did you know?” Nie Mingjue asks, his guarded expression returning. “I suppose I should not be surprised.”

“I did not know,” Wei Wuxian says, unlocking their shackles. “Not until Death knocked at my door and I politely replied, ‘not fucking yet.’” He stands and offers them each a hand. “Now let us go find Wen Ruohan and his sons. I have unfinished business with them.”

…

“A-Yuan, baobei, can you close your eyes for me?” Wei Wuxian asks softly as he rocks the toddler in his arms.

“Mm,” A-Yuan sobs, burying his face in Wei Wuxian’s collar and clinging.

Behind him, Lan Qiren, the uncle Lan Wangji mentioned many times, leans heavily against Nie Huaisang. After years of confinement, he’s thin and pale, but Wei Wuxian knows the set of his brow anywhere. It is the same face his zhiji makes.

Wei Wuxian whistles sharply and the corpses of the mice from the hall spill into the room and surround the last of the enemy soldiers. Expression flat, he whistles once more and then the walking corpses descend on their living brethren, tearing them to pieces.

Wei Wuxian covers A-Yuan’s ears to protect him from the worst of the screams.

“You’re safe now,” he whispers to the baby when the unnatural silence reigns. “I’m here, A-Yuan and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“Gege came back,” A-Yuan whispers wetly against his neck.

“I will always come back for you, my little radish.”

A-Yuan sniffles and rubs their cheeks together. Wei Wuxian strokes his head and turns back to Lan Qiren and the Nie brothers.

“Please excuse the mess, Master Lan,” he begins.

Lan Qiren’s frown is severe. He looks vaguely green around the gills, but he still nods to Wei Wuxian and says, “You must be Cangse Sanren’s boy. You look just like her.”

He blinks, shifting A-Yuan’s weight. “You knew my mother?”

“We were friends, once. She bothered me to no end,” he huffs before his expression softens. “I’ve never met a more honorable woman.”

Wei Wuxian bows, still holding A-Yuan close. “Master Lan, I ask for your trust in saving your nephew.”

Lan Qiren strokes his goatee. “If Wangji’s son trusts you, then you already have it.”

“Really?” Wei Wuxian cannot help glancing at the gore in his wake.

“I do not pretend to understand or enjoy Fae magic, but I do know that your people were righteous.” He clears his throat. “Wangji has always been an excellent judge of character, as are children,” Lan Qiren says, stepping closer and stroking A-Yuan’s head. “You have already done much for my nephew and my grandnephew. For that, you have my trust.”

A-Yuan pokes his face out and offers Lan Qiren a weak smile. “Shugong help,” he informs Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian kisses A-Yuan’s forehead and smiles at Lan Qiren. “Thank you for taking care of him.”

“Of course.” Lan Qiren straightens and strokes his gray-streaked beard. “Now, let us find Wangji.”

Wei Wuxian nods.

They free several more Lan elders on their way to the throne room. The most hale of them, a woman named Lan Yi, offers to take A-Yuan.

With both hands free, he wields Chenqing and conducts the fallen Wen soldiers like the maestro of an orchestra.

What a sight they must be, him leading a group of elders, two Nie, and a toddler through the palace, guarded by puppets of the dead. He nearly laughs, but Lan Wangji is not at his side and that is unacceptable.

As they are passing by a barred room, Wei Wuxian feels Suibian calling out to him. Nie Mingjue clearly hears Baxia reaching for him as well.

“Stand back.” Lan Qiren places his palm against the red ward and cracks it with ease.

There, Lan Yi reclaims a guqin and Lan Qiren takes up a white jade xiao.

With Suibian back in his hands, Wei Wuxian is twice the threat.

At the helm of the procession, he slices his way through the Wen army.

He switches styles as easily as a chameleon shifts colors. A Jiang parry followed by a Nie strike and then a punch like Yu-Ayi taught him.

Effortless as it is to cut down one soldier after the next, the sheer volume is overwhelming.

The mice swarm, and he cannot call up their dead brethren fast enough.

Behind him, Nie Mingjue swings Baxia as though he isn’t still weak and exhausted of energy. That cannot be sustainable.

Nie Huaisang stands in the center of their party with A-Yuan tucked into his arms, bracketed by several Lan elders, all of whom wield spiritual instruments.

The twang of guqin and the hum of the xiao echo in the grand halls.

It won’t be enough.

It has to be.

He has to get to Lan Wangji.

He recalls one summer day when he was ten years old. Jiaomu had come to visit the Jiang summer home in the country. She was fresh from her travels.

He had not known then where she went in those months away from home.

She had given him a pocket watch with a shoreline painted on the face. “Where is this?” he had asked.

“Home,” she replied. Her eyes rested on the lotus-covered lake, but her gaze was much farther away.

As always, they spent the afternoon with him taking the watch apart and her offering mild commentary as he learned to fit the pieces back together to form a whole.

“A-Ying.”

“Hmm?”

She had smiled at him in the sticky summer haze. “You have the spark. Just like your Mama.”

“The spark? What’s that?” he’d asked with a scrunched nose, for he was much too old for this kind of thing.

“It means you’re clever. You can look at a situation and see forest and the trees without losing sight of either. Not many people can do that.”

Mildly intrigued, he leaned forward as he twisted the last screw back into place. “Really?”

“Really,” she replied as the watch ticked back to life and he set it to the correct hour after glancing at the shadows that stretched out behind the wisteria.

Now, Wei Wuxian tries to use that talent.

How had Wen Ruohan amassed this army? Could they all be loyal, or could some of them be persuaded to flee? Surely not every mouse is as gleeful a mercenary as the human Xue Yang.

Nie Mingjue steps forward to hold off the attacks as Wei Wuxian brings Chenqing to his lips. There is a song vibrating in his bones.

Wei Wuxian does not mind spilling blood when it is earned, but nor is he seeking to tally up the most kills either. Calling on memories of those warm Yunmeng summers, he plays a lullaby and weaves a suggestion into every note.

‘Aren’t you tired,’ the music asks. ‘Wouldn’t you rather lay down your sword? We don’t have to fight.’

The corpses at his command slow, still blocking his allies from the army, but they are no longer the aggressors.

Unsettled, many of the mice step back.

Wei Wuxian seizes the moment of hesitation and weaves his snare tighter.

‘I can free you,’ he promises through the sweet, lilting melody. ‘Lay down your sword and be free.’

To the surprise of the Nie and Lan forces, nearly half of the mice drop their swords, mostly those who were already further back from the fray. Some hesitate, but others fling down their weapons like hot irons.

The remaining hostile forces push forward.

Wei Wuxian smiles against the bamboo of his flute.

Of course. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji cannot have been the only ones under Wen Ruohan’s curse.

And what is the Sugarplum Patriarch if not a fabled curse-breaker?

Wei Wuxian works quickly. Slicing his palms on Suibian’s blade, he magnifies an array with an amplification talisman. When the radicals have all been drawn in glowing red, he smirks. “Reveal!” he commands as he slams his palms together and an echoing clap of red and gold magic slices through the hall.

Every mouse who dropped their sword, all low-ranked by the look of their robes, begins to glimmer gold and then hundreds of curses melt away like candle wax. Some of them return to human form, the way they had once been before. Others, still mice by nature, shake their heads in confusion and glance around at the carnage in fear.

“Run!” Wei Wuxian shouts. “You are free now!”

Lan Qiren sucks in a sharp, awed breath.

Some of the freed turn to each other and weep. As expected, they were innocents swept up in Wen Ruohan’s magic. This battle is not theirs to fight.

The remaining mice are infuriated, turning on the traitors and the newly-turned humans in their ill-fitting robes.

“Flee, my friends,” Wei Wuxian calls over the fray. “We will take care of the rest.” He snaps his fingers and the docile corpse soldiers rejoin the battle with markedly more success now that he’s halved the enemy.

The newly freed men and women either vanish or take up arms against the horde. Wei Wuxian does not keep track. His only goal now is finding Lan Wangji before it’s too late.

Nie Mingjue snorts. “I like these odds a lot more.”

“I need—“

“Go after him, boy!” Lan Yi chides. “You’ve done enough. We may be weakened, but we can handle this much.”

Wei Wuxian eyes the dwindling forces and relents. “Take A-Yuan to safety.” He presses a kiss to the boy’s head and rubs his thumb across the silver cloud adorning his ribbon. “I’ll be back for you soon, my little radish.”

A-Yuan presses something into his palm, and Wei Wuxian is surprised to see the carved wooden rabbit he had whittled weeks ago. It became A-Yuan’s favorite toy to play with on their travels. “Gege come back,” A-Yuan says firmly. “Bunny will be sad.”

“We can’t have that, now, can we?” Wei Wuxian rubs their noses together, squeezes two little hands reassuringly, and slips away before he can talk himself out of leaving.

He slides the rabbit into his robes and slices a path through the army.

He twists and dodges and glides across the polished hall. He is an artist: the sword, his brush, and blood, his paint. He creates abstract arcs of crimson across the white stone floors.

The Lan elders suspect that Lan Wangji is being held in a magic-repressing isolation hall. Originally meant to house dangerous artifacts, the Wen Clan perverted it like everything else about the palace.

Wei Wuxian knows the chamber when he sees it.

At its doors waits Wen Xu.

Chapter Text

Wen Xu, the elder of Wen Ruohan’s sons, is the one who laid siege to the Unclean Realms in the absence of Nie Mingjue. He is the one who captured Nie Huaisang and took A-Yuan hostage.

He looks cocky, and he’s certainly taller than Wei Wuxian at the moment, with a broadsword and a competent stance, but Wei Wuxian has settled into his skin and knows tricks these mainland cultivators could never dream of.

Wei Wuxian draws the shadows to himself and watches the confidence die in Wen Xu’s eyes. Like this, surrounded by coiling shadows that steal the light, he must look terrifying.

He catches hints of his reflection in the polished stone doors and sees the red glimmer of his eyes as he stalks forward with intent.

Wen Xu takes an involuntary step back as Wei Wuxian approaches. Some part of his brain must register who is the hunter and who is the prey.

Wei Wuxian snaps his fingers, and then his target is frozen in place, his breaths coming rapidly, but his limbs frozen in place. A cruel, slow smile spreads across Wei Wuxian’s face like a shadow eclipsing the sun.

Leaning close to Wen Xu’s ear, he murmurs, “You hurt my son and my zhiji. That was unwise.” And then he plunges his blade into Wen Xu’s still-beating heart.

Wen Xu dies with his beady eyes wide in terror and his scream stuck in his frozen mouth.

Wei Wuxian flicks the blood off his blade and wipes it on Wen Xu’s robes. “So messy,” he sighs.

He turns and kicks the stone doors open, imbuing the motion with enough spiritual energy that one side cracks as the doors crash open.

Three figures turn to him.

“Impossible!” Wen Chao shrieks.

“Wei Ying!”

Wei Wuxian’s gaze flies to his beloved, and fresh horror sparks rage in him anew.

Lan Wangji is not kindling yet, but nor is he whole. His wooden arms have been separated from his body and rest on a table across the room. His legs are similarly displaced from the knee down. His wood is dull, and soot blackens the edges of his torso.

“What. Did. You. Do?” he growls at Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu.

The shadows come to him without conscious command now and the ground trembles under his feet.

Fear crosses their faces, and Wei Wuxian can already see the quaking of Wen Chao’s body.

Good.

Wen Zhuliu steps in front of his prince, but Wei Wuxian has used up his mercy and patience for the day.

In the space of a heartbeat, he teleports across the room and plunges his hand into Wen Zhuliu’s abdomen. It’s hardly as bad as the corpse sludge had been, though much warmer.

“Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji cries in alarm.

Wei Wuxian draws his arm back and watches Wen Zhuliu collapse as Wei Wuxian holds his glowing golden core in his bloodied hand.

He stares at it for a moment, watching the way it’s golden light casts shadows on the abject terror contorting Wen Chao’s face. Then, he grins and crushes the golden core with his bare hand.

The magic dissolves into the air around them, and Wen Zhuliu rasps out one last gurgle before he bleeds out in a puddle of garnet gore.

He wipes the blood onto his black robes. Turning to Wen Chao, he leers. “Scream,” he suggests.

Wen Chao’s mouth drops open and he shrieks, falling over backwards in his scramble to get away from Wei Wuxian, but there is no escape. No quarter and no mercy.

With a sharp trill of notes on Chenqing, Wen Xu and Wen Zhuliu’s corpses lumber to life. “Hold him down, wouldn’t you,” he asks them sweetly as he twirls the flute in his hand.

He walks to the table and gathers up Lan Wangji’s wooden limbs, his heart in his throat as he approaches his beloved nutcracker.

“Lan Zhan,” he whispers, reaching up with his clean palm to wipe soot from Lan Wangji’s cheek. “What did they do to you?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes are wet with tears he cannot shed. “To me? Wei Ying, I thought— no, you were dead. What happened? How are you here? Are you well?”

“I did not die,” he says and presses their foreheads together. “I could not leave you. I’m fine, sweetheart,” he murmurs, pressing his finger to Lan Wangji’s mouth when he starts to protest. “I’ll explain later, I promise.”

Wen Chao screams and thrashes as the corpses hold him spread eagle on the floor.

Wei Wuxian sighs. “Gag him,” he orders with a snap of his fingers.

The screaming goes mercifully muffled, and Wei Wuxian has time to assess the damage before him.

“Did it… does it hurt?” he asks, gently running his fingers over the hollow joints.

Lan Wangji remains silent and Wei Wuxian’s displeasure grows.

“They can be reattached,” he says at last. “It has happened before.”

Wei Wuxian inhales so sharply his lungs burn.

With the utmost care, he reconnects the wooden ball-and-socket joints and cuts Lan Wangji free from his chains. “Wait for me,” he murmurs before crossing the room back to the three Wens.

Wei Wuxian draws Suibian and glares down at Wen Chao. “Well, Your Highness,” he croons, “I hope you enjoyed yourself. I hope it was fun tormenting a man who is thousands of times your better. I hope you’re proud of yourself, because the fun stops here,” he finishes, his voice going as hard and cold as the stone beneath his boots.

Wen Chao’s eyes are gushing tears, but Wei Wuxian merely smiles.

“Hey, Lan Zhan.”

“Mn?”

“Which limb did they take first?”

“Right arm.”

“Oh,” he says, saccharine sweet as he turns back to Wen Chao and drags the tip of his blade over Wen Chao’s arm, drawing a line of blood. “So clever, you think? To take his sword arm.” Wei Wuxian channels his energy into the blade until it ripples with waves of heat. “Let’s see how you fare without yours,” he says cheerfully, and then he slices through flesh and bone as Wen Chao screeches into his gag.

“Not so tough now, are you?” Wei Wuxian asks, stepping on Wen Chao’s chest. It heaves beneath his heel, and Wei Wuxian is forced to admit that charred flesh smells no better a second time. Nevertheless, he’s not done.

“What next, Lan Zhan?”

“Left arm,” Lan Wangji replies, closer now. He stands at Wei Wuxian’s back as Wei Wuxian swings the sword once more and cleaves Wen Chao’s left arm from his body.

The heat of the blade cauterizes the wound instantly, prolonging his comeuppance and denying him the quick death Wei Wuxian granted the other two.

Wei Wuxian whistles a command, and Wen Xu’s corpse shifts to hold Wen Chao’s torso now that there are no arms to restrain.

“Incredible,” Lan Wangji murmurs, his hand flexing on Wei Wuxian’s waist. Wei Wuxian smiles, leaning into the touch.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he replies, glancing up at his beloved.

Lan Wangji’s other hand comes up to brush his messy hair from his eyes. “I am now that you are returned to me.”

“Aw, Lan Zhan, you sap,” he mutters fondly. “Apparently it’s harder to kill the Sugarplum Patriarch than that.” He hears a surprised noise, but he barrels on. “A-Yuan is safe. He’s with your uncle and the elders.”

Lan Wangji’s brows furrow. “He was most upset when I last saw him. They kept him in here during the…” he winces before settling on, “process.”

“Did they now?” Wei Wuxian asks rhetorically. He turns back to his quarry and glares, pouring every ounce of malice into his voice. “Some nerve you have, Wen Chao. Making my son bear witness to your trespasses.” The room grows cold around him as he slices Wen Chao’s legs off just below the knee. He goes one at a time, slowly and cruelly.

The mouse squeals into his gag and thrashes. His eyes are cloudy with pain, but Wei Wuxian has no interest in ending his suffering.

He raises his sword higher, intending to strike at mid-thigh next, but Lan Wangji catches his wrist.

He startles, feeling the shadows around him waver. “Lan Zhan?”

“May I?” he asks.

Surprised, Wei Wuxian hands over Suibian. The blade sparks where Lan Wangji’s blue energy touches the red of Wei Wuxian’s, but it allows Lan Wangji to wield it.

Stepping around Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji looks down at Wen Chao’s crying, severed body. “You failed,” he says, clearly, firmly. “I am not broken,” he declares, and then he plunges the blade through Wen Chao’s heart.

When Wen Chao stills, beady eyes still staring at the ceiling, Wei Wuxian snaps his fingers and the other two corpses collapse and go lifeless.

Lan Wangji steps backwards and sways.

Wei Wuxian catches him and brushes the matted strands of ink-black hair from his wooden face. “Lan Zhan?”

“He’s dead,” Lan Wangji murmurs, seemingly in shock. “He’s gone.”

“He’s gone,” Wei Wuxian agrees. “He can’t hurt us or our son any longer.”

“Our son,” Lan Wangji echoes.

“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says. “I hope you don’t mind sharing.”

Lan Wangji lets out an incredulous puff of a noise that might almost be a laugh. “Wei Ying,” he gasps. “Thank you.”

Wei Wuxian leans closer, pressing their foreheads together and lowers them to the bloody floor. “No need for thank you and sorry between us, remember?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes go soft. Amber and adoring as they drink in Wei Wuxian despite the blood and horrors he surrounded them with.

“Lan Zhan,” he murmurs, “you can’t just look at me like that.”

“I can.”

Wei Wuxian can’t resist a moment longer.

He leans forward and presses his lips to Lan Wangji’s painted mouth.

It’s meant to be a quick peck.

Then, there’s a burst of light and the wood beneath his mouth softens into a pair of eager, soft lips.

Wei Wuxian startles, making a little, “Mph?” noise, but Lan Wangji’s warm, very human fingers are holding him close and dragging him in for more. It’s too enticing to resist.

When they finally part for air, Wei Wuxian feels a soft smile all over his face. His nose crinkles from the force of it. “A kiss, huh? That was the impossible solution to Wen Ruohan’s curse?”

Lan Wangji—somehow even more handsome in the flesh— blushes. The rosy color starts at his ears and dusts his regal cheekbones. Wei Wuxian grins and steals another peck.

“It is true love’s kiss,” Lan Wangji admits. “I have never been known for my ardor.”

“Too bad for Wen Ruohan that you found me.”

There is the tiniest upturn of Lan Wangji’s lips as he leans forward and kisses Wei Wuxian again, slow and devouring. “Too bad for him, indeed,” Lan Wangji breathes when they part once more.

He gets to his feet and offers Wei Wuxian a hand. “Shall we?”

Kill a king? Overthrows a monarchy? Wei Wuxian knows what Lan Wangji is asking. Without hesitation, he takes the offered hand and lets himself be pulled into Lan Wangji’s arms. “We shall.”

Chapter Text

Lan Wangji was graceful as a nutcracker, but watching him fight now, in human form, is a wholly different experience.

The prince clearly earned the title of General through merit not bloodline.

Even with his stolen Wen sword, Lan Wangji’s movement is like the weaving of stream water. He rushes past obstacles and dodges danger. His attacks are small and precise, not flashy, but no less deadly than the way Wei Wuxian wields Suibian.

It takes mere minutes to reach the throne room. Lan Wangji grew up in these halls, and no enemy soldier can stand against them, separately nor together. He guides them with grim determination, slicing every Wen banner and guard on their route.

Wei Wuxian plays Chenqing and leads the corpses into battle behind them like a dark Pied Piper.

Wen Ruohan awaits in the throne room. For all that his reign is crumbling around him, he looks impressively unconcerned.

He’s sprawled in the opulent black throne with a stone swirling lazily in the space above his outstretched paw. That same stone is what led Wei Wuxian here in the first place.

Xue Yang waits at the base of the dais with his double-sided sword drawn and a smirk on his face.

“So you’ve made it this far,” Wen Ruohan drawls. “Impressive.” His sharp gaze cuts to Lan Wangji and one brow arches. “And you broke my curse. A pity.”

Lan Wangji steps forward. “Your dishonorable actions end here,” he says, pointing his stolen blade at the king. “I will avenge my father and my people.”

“You cannot match me, boy.” Wen Ruohan laughs. The sound echoes in rasping chortles. “With the shards of the Yin Iron at my command, you cannot even touch me.”

Wei Wuxian stares at the bits of metal that hover above Wen Ruohan’s claws. The Yin Iron may be a tool to the mouse, but he knows it is alive. He can hear it calling out.

A weapon is merely a tool wielded with intent. In this case, Wen Ruohan is not the wielder.

“Lan Zhan,” he whispers out of the side of his mouth. “I can handle him. Can you distract Xue Yang?”

He receives a terse nod and their fingers brush for a moment before they separate.

Lan Wangji lunges at the mercenary in a clash of iron, and Wei Wuxian stalks closer to the throne.

Wen Ruohan leers. “So you are the fabled Sugarplum Patriarch.” He chuckles. “I see you have Cangse Sanren’s knack for necromancy. I did not expect that a half-blood like you would inherit the Sugarplum title. Fae standards have truly fallen.”

Wei Wuxian snorts and spins his flute carelessly. “If you think I give a rat’s ass—pun intended— about what you think of me, you are sorely mistaken.” The false smile slips from his face, and he lets the shadows draw around him once more.

Wen Ruohan tuts. “You think your powers can stop me? You, the untamed hero, curse-breaker extraordinaire?” Wen Ruohan stands and looks down his long nose at Wei Wuxian. “You are thirty years too young to match me, boy.”

He raises the hand with the Yin Iron shards; strands of energy weave around him. He points at Wei Wuxian. “Erase.”

Wei Wuxian brings Chenqing to his lips and blows three sharp notes in succession, forcing the Yin Iron’s energy to freeze.

“Ah, my dear Mouse King, I wonder what you know about the Yin Iron,” he says, circling the paralyzed magic and poking it with the edge of his flute. “Clearly not much.”

Wen Ruohan snarls. “It is old magic, and it is mine.”

Wei Wuxian throws his head back and laughs coldly. “Yours? Oh, what a quaint notion. No.”

Wen Ruohan launches another attack, this time a smaller volley of blasts. He is still looking down on Wei Wuxian, but there is a subtle wariness under his conceit.

Wei Wuxian dodges with ease and continues as though they’re having tea. “You see, the Yin Iron has five shards. You merely have two of them. And your pet mercenary over there— Xue Yang, was it— he’s got a third piece.”

Startled fury twists the mouse’s face as he whirls to look at where Lan Wangji is tiring Xue Yang out.

“Oh yes. I can hear the shard singing in his pouch. How loyal do you think he is? He’s probably just waiting for a chance to off you and steal the shards for himself,” Wei Wuxian muses as Wen Ruohan snarls and stabs at him with a jewel-encrusted sword that looks too decadent to have seen much battle.

“You know nothing.”

“I know everything,” Wei Wuxian counters. He steps forward and meets Wen Ruohan’s blade with his own.

Suibian is a young blade, but it was forged with battle in mind. He wields it as an extension of himself.

Wen Ruohan wields his sword like Jiang Cheng wields a ladle. He knows the purpose, but lacks the skill to take advantage of the tool he’s been given.

Still, Wen Ruohan did not become an emperor through conniving alone. His alacrity, though eroded by the Yin Iron, still echoes in moments of underhanded brilliance.

He feints high and slices Wei Wuxian’s thigh with a concealed dagger in the same breath.

Wei Wuxian huffs, stepping back and hissing when blood gushes from the wound. “Core Melting Poison, I presume. Well-played,” he concedes. “But not well-enough.”

He reaches into his robes and pulls out his own fragments of the Yin Iron.

Wen Ruohan falters. “What is that cursed blade?”

“Oh… this?” Wei Wuxian hefts the sword he had pulled from the Xuanwu of Slaughter’s shell. Fishing it out of the sea had been a delay, but a necessary one. “This is the fifth shard. It was forged into a blade hundreds of years ago, and it is loyal to me now.”

Loyal is a strong word, but Wen Ruohan doesn’t need to know about the rageful spirits screaming into his brain every time his fingers wrap around the hilt.

Wen Ruohan staggers back a step. “No.”

Wei Wuxian takes a step forward. “Yes.” For one moment, he allows the Yin Iron to use him as its conduit, but only for a moment. He knows better than to trust it.

The shard and blade hum with desire to be made whole. Wei Wuxian turns their hum into a melody that he trills on Chenqing.

He holds his hand up and catches the two new shards as they fly toward him from Wen Ruohan’s grasp. “I’ll be taking these for safe-keeping,” he says cheerfully.

Wen Ruohan howls and lunges at him with bare claws, his manners gone in his rage.

Wei Wuxian ducks under the swipe and stabs upward with the short sword at the same moment the claws catch his robes and skin.

The shout dies in Wen Ruohan’s throat as he glances down at the blade lodged in his chest. His eyes meet Wei Wuxian’s one last time before he crumples.

Wei Wuxian, dripping blood, dives out of the way and rolls to break the fall. The claws tear his skin further, but he needs to get away.

He needs to move.

He needs to—

The crash of resentful energy implodes like a wave.

It subsumes the space where Wen Ruohan had been.

Wei Wuxian gets hints of it as he tumbles away.

When he stops, he stares up at the ceiling for a long moment, catching his breath.

He glances back and finds only streaks of blood on the stone where a king had been moments before.

Shakily, he sucks in a breath and breaths out a harsh puff of air that might aspire to be a chuckle.

There is a manic laugh that cuts short in the background, and between one blink and the next, Lan Wangji is hovering over him with concern writ in the furrow of his brow. The long strands of Lan Wangji’s hair tickle his face, so he blows them away with a small grin.

“Wei Ying?”

“Fine,” he answers. “Just get these things away from me,” he says, holding up four shards of the Yin Iron that very much want to reunite but are missing the piece from Xue Yang’s corpse.

Lan Wangji takes two of the shards and sticks them in embroidered white pouches that he ties shut with blue silk. “Spirit-trapping pouches,” he says. “We will get more for the other two soon.”

“Ah, good. That thing is noisier than Wen Chao was.” He rubs his head and groans.

Lan Wangji offers him a hand. Wei Wuxian is tempted to pull his zhiji down to join him on the floor for a nap, but after a moment, he allows himself to be pulled to his feet.

His head is pounding, and the world is swaying.

“Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji cries, catching him.

“I’m fine,” he insists, wobbling so severely he’d make Jiang Cheng after a bottle of champagne look sober.

“You have a nosebleed,” Lan Wangji points out, and Wei Wuxian touches his face to find that, yes, he does.

“Ah, probably related to the headache and spiritual exhaustion.”

“Let us go. You need rest.”

“Ah, you mean you don’t want to explore my body? And so soon after we kissed,” Wei Wuxian bemoans.

Lan Wangji arches one unimpressed brow. “Rest first.”

Together, they stagger out of the throne room. Wei Wuxian leans heavily on Lan Wangji as he limps along.

“You should see Shufu. He has medical training,” Lan Wangji says with a glance at the bloody gash on his leg. His eyes rove more slowly over the claw marks.

“Good plan.” He winces when he tries to stand taller and his thigh screams louder than his mother on a bad day. “I need to take the herbs from Wen Qing. Oh, hey. Did you find Bichen?”

“Mn.” He dips his head and Wei Wuxian glances over to see the familiar blade on Lan Wangji’s hip where it belongs. “It was hanging over the throne.”

Wei Wuxian sags the further they get from the battle.

Luckily, they cross paths with Nie Mingjue in the halls and Lan Wangji announces his intention to get them more presentable.

Lan Wangji guides him into a washroom and Wei Wuxian scowls. “Is this your way of saying I need a bath?”

“Yes. We both do before we see A-Yuan.”

His scowl slips away as he looks at the blood caked on his robes and hands. It’s mostly not his own, but he doesn’t care to further traumatize the little boy. “Ah. You’re right.” He sighs and leans back against the wall while Lan Wangji fills a bath and places a heating talisman against it.

He must drift off because the next thing he registers is Lan Wangji’s hand on his shoulder and a gentle, “Wei Ying.”

A warm cup is pressed into his hands, and Wei Wuxian drinks the sweet medicinal brew he recognizes from Dafan. Not being poisoned is good. He had not missed the fever.

When the cup is empty, he smiles, and leans his head against Lan Wangji’s arm. “You’re even more handsome in the flesh. Too handsome, Lan Zhan.”

To his delight, he catches the way Lan Wangji’s earlobes darken to pink. “You really can blush!”

His beloved gives him a look of mild exasperation. “Come, the water is warm now.”

“Oh, are we bathing together?”

Lan Wangji’s ears darken to red, and Wei Wuxian’s grin widens, almost hurting his cheeks. “Who knew my Lan Zhan was so naughty?” he teases, leaning closer to one cherry-red lobe and blowing on it.

“Wei Ying,” comes the warning. “Do not tease. You have no stamina at present.”

He can’t help snorting and laughing. “I’m covered in blood and who knows what else and your only qualm is about my stamina? Nothing else?”

Lan Wangji’s gaze roves slowly over his whole body with intent, making Wei Wuxian feel more naked than they’re about to be. If he’d thought Lan Wangji’s eyes to be expressive before, it was only a fraction of the actual heat and depth of his golden gaze. Lan Wangji’s eyes linger so long Wei Wuxian feels like a maiden who should be shrinking from the attention. Then, Lan Wangji looks him dead in the eye and says, “Nothing Else.”

Wei Wuxian’s cheeks are on fire. “Oh,” he says. And then they strip.

When they are both shirtless, Wei Wuxian makes a discovery.

“You have a brand, too,” he says, his hand coming up to trace the edges off the old scar. He doesn’t even realize he’s done it until Lan Wangji shivers under his touch and Wei Wuxian realizes they’re nearly chest to chest.

“Before I was cursed, I was still their prisoner,” Lan Wangji says softly.

Wei Wuxian leans down and presses his lips to the scar. “I’m sorry.”

Lan Wangji’s fingers tilt his chin up. “No thanks or apologies between us,” he reminds, leaning down an inch until their lips brush.

They’re both too exhausted to be passionate. The kiss is gentle and slow. A reassurance that they are here. They are together. They have time.

When they part to breathe, Lan Wangji ducks his head and presses petal-soft kisses to the scabbing over Wei Wuxian’s matching brand wound. Then, he continues making his way down Wei Wuxian’s bare torso, kissing the scars and scabs he’s gained in their time together. The sword wounds, scratches, and small burns.

Wei Wuxian drowns in the sensation of Lan Wangji’s fingers on his bare torso. Warm, calloused hands that he surrenders to easily.

With a warm, damp cloth, Lan Wangji wipes away the worst of the blood from the claw marks and the dagger wound before dabbing at the rust-crusted flakes that cover his hands.

Lan Wangji strips them both of their pants and guides Wei Wuxian into the bath where he settles between Lan Wangji’s spread thighs with his back pillowed against his beloved’s chest. He will admire those muscular thighs from a different angle later. For now, he runs his fingers over the sculpted skin with one lazy fingertip.

Lan Wangji’s fingers wash away the blood and grime before working a gentle sandalwood oil through Wei Wuxian’s hair.

It is heaven. He leans into the touch and feels his eyelids drooping further. When they are both clean, Lan Wangji presses a kiss to his cheek and bundles them dry.

He bandages the wounds and helps Wei Wuxian slip into his borrowed white robes when the pull of the gashes on his upper chest prove troublesome.

“You’ll spoil me,” he warns, warm and sleepy. “Soon, I’ll never want to dress without you.”

“Wei Ying deserves to be spoiled,” his awful, wonderful partner murmurs, kissing him sweetly.

They meet the Lan Elders in the dining hall, one of the few gathering rooms spared of carnage.

A-Yuan spots Wei Wuxian first and he bolts off of Lan Yi’s lap to launch himself at Wei Wuxian’s legs. “Gege! A-Yuan was good! I helped. Throw shoe!” he proclaims proudly.

“You what?” Sure enough, his toddler is barefoot now, so Wei Wuxian scoops him up and settles him on his hip.

“Your child is just as reckless as you,” Nie Mingjue huffs. “He threw his shoe at one of the guards who cornered Huaisang. Good aim, too. Knocked the thing out.”

“Bad mousy,” A-Yuan adds with a decisive nod.

Wei Wuxian laughs to force back the parental panic. “That was very brave, little radish.”

“Brave like Gege!” he exclaims, throwing both arms up and nearly unbalancing in Wei Wuxian’s arms.

Then, he glances over Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and frowns at Lan Wangji.

Oh.

He supposes they should have discussed how to tell A-Yuan about the curse being broken.

“Who is?” the baby asks.

Lan Wangji comes closer and places his hand atop A-Yuan’s head before humming a gentle melody that Wei Wuxian has heard many nights.

A-Yuan’s confusion melts into a smile. “Wood-Gege!” He flings his arms at Lan Wangji, and the man easily accepts the little boy. “No more ouch?”

Wei Wuxian’s heart feels impossibly full as he watches Lan Wangji rock their son in his arms. “No more ouch,” he agrees. “The mouse is gone now.” Then, Lan Wangji looks up at him and offers a hand. “Wei Ying?”

Wei Wuxian takes the hand and lets himself be pulled into an embrace.

“Will you stay?” Lan Wangji asks into his hair.

“How could I ever leave you?” Wei Wuxian replies, cupping his cheek.

Their lips brush softly, and Wei Wuxian feels drunk on it. This man. This family. This world.

A-Yuan giggles, and Wei Wuxian smiles against Lan Wangji’s lips. When they part, they each press a kiss to the toddler’s cheek, turning the giggles into full laughter.

Lan Qiren clears his throat and gives them a reproving look.

Lan Wangji turns to the elders. “Shufu, I wish to take this man as my husband.”

Wei Wuxian chokes and is grateful he’s not the one holding their son at the moment because his whole body feels pleasantly numb.

Lan Qiren presses a hand to his brow and sighs. “Yes, I gathered that. I would say that heirs are a problem, but you have already claimed one.”

Lan Yi elbows him. “Let the kids have their peace, Qiren. Besides, Cangse Sanren would have loved this.”

“I am not disagreeing,” Lan Qiren huffs. “Merely considering wedding logistics.” His expression turns sad. “We still do not know what became of Xichen, thus, I am unsure what titles will be bestowed upon Wei Wuxian and Lan Yuan when they are formally added to the registry.”

Lan Wangji flinches under Wei Wuxian’s hand and all the Lan folk express their sorrow on their faces.

Nie Mingjue stares at the fire. “If he’s alive, he’ll come back once he hears of Wen Ruohan’s fall.” He turns to clap a hand on Lan Wangji’s shoulder. “You mean the world to your brother.”

Lan Wangji nods, but even A-Yuan can see his distress as he burrows into Lan Wangji’s neck and pats his back gently.

One of the other elders turns to Lan Wangji. “How should we proceed, Your Highness?”

Wei Wuxian squeezes his arm. Lan Wangji draws a breath. “We must send word of Wen Ruohan’s death and weed out the remaining soldiers loyal to him. If Xiongzhang is out there, he will return.” He turns to Wei Wuxian and asks quietly, “Will a betrothal suit you for now?”

“Of course, Lan Zhan,” he soothes. “As long as you don’t expect me to keep my hands to myself until the wedding night,” he teases.

“We would not last,” Lan Wangji says flatly, making him snicker. Turning back to the elders, he announces, “My betrothed and I will wait six months for the wedding. We shall pray that Xiongzhang returns to us before that time.”

“Very well,” Lan Qiren says.

“What’s a wedding?” A-Yuan asks, swinging his legs.

“It’s a big party for me and Lan Zhan to tell the world we’re going to be together forever,” Wei Wuxian says cheerfully, poking a chubby cheek.

“A-Yuan stays too! I have a wedding?”

Wei Wuxian laughs, meeting his fiancé’s eye and finding amusement there. “You, little radish, get a different party. We’re adopting you. That means we’ll be your parents now. Do you want that?”

“Parents for me?”

“Yep! You can call us Baba and A-Die if you’d like, right Lan Zhan?”

One of his large hands comes up to brush A-Yuan’s ruffled bangs. “Mn.”

“Baba?” A-Yuan says, tasting the word as he looks at Wei Wuxian.

Though he is young, this feels right. He has long thought of A-Yuan as his, as theirs.

A-Yuan takes Lan Wangji’s hand and brings it to the ends of his ribbon. “Wood-Gege is A-Die?”

“Yes,” Lan Wangji says, and this time a tear slips down his smiling cheek.

There are a million more things to do: questions to answer, messes to clean, and so, so much restoration to begin.

Tonight, Wei Wuxian sits at the long dining table with his new family and lets A-Yuan feed him bites of dinner.

Tonight, Wei Wuxian allows Lan Qiren to further clean and bandages his wounds without complaint even as he gets a mild scolding.

Tonight, Wei Wuxian settles into bed beside Lan Wangji and stares at where their fingers tangle together over their slumbering son’s stomach.

Tonight, they rest.

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian wakes to the sound of screams.

Specifically, it is the sound of the screams that echo through every shard of the Yin Iron. The screams of every wronged Fae.

The screams aren’t exactly new, he’s heard them in his dreams now and then since he first touched that cursed blade in the Xuanwu’s shell. He can only discern waking from sleep when the wooden chest creaks, and the guard talisman lights up the room with a burst of red and a shrill whistle.

He bolts upright with one hand on Suibian, but he’s too late.

Silk bags litter the floor. Xue Yang stands near the chest of drawers holding all five pieces of the Yin Iron. His sharp, twisted features are bared in a grin that’s all teeth.

Wisps of resentment coil around him. The shards have been corrupted from decades of malicious use. Wei Wuxian can feel its bloodlust. There will be more death tonight.

“No!” Wei Wuxian cries as the mercenary— who is apparently not dead yet— slots the shards together. “Don’t—“

And then Xue Yang is torn to shreds by resentful spirits, and the world explodes into darkness.

There are more screams, but this time they come from A-Yuan who clutches his robes in terror.

“Wei Ying!”

Lan Wangji draws Bichen and the darkness is pushed back just enough for the sword to glow with blue energy. Lan Wangji gathers the two of them into his arms. Wei Wuxian cuts his thumb on Suibian’s blade and paints a protection sigil on the headboard. A bubble of warm, red light envelops them.

Distress is written into every line of his fiancé’s handsome face. “What is happening?”

He has to raise his voice to be heard over the roar of resentful energy as the souls of Wen Ruohan’s victims writhe against the righteous fury of the Fae, whose magic has been stolen.

“The Yin Iron has been reforged,” he says gravely. “I have to destroy it before it destroys everything else.”

Lan Wangji catches his wrist. “No. It is not safe.”

Wei Wuxian presses their foreheads together. “If anyone could do this, it would be me. The Yin Iron was forged from Fae blood. I’m the only one left in this realm who can suppress and eliminate it.”

“Wei Ying.” There are tears gathering in his beloved’s eyes.

The castle groans around them as the darkness swells and pushes against the walls and windows. It’s not safe.

A-Yuan is crying, too, and holding his robes tighter. “Baba! No! Don’t go.”

“Hey, hey. I’ll be fine, baobei. Stay with your A-Die and be good, okay? I’ll be right back.” He doesn’t know that for sure, but he can’t bear to contemplate the alternative. He leans over and kisses away the tears on A-Yuan’s cheeks before gently unfurling his grip on Wei Wuxian’s sleep robes.

Wei Wuxian grabs Chenqing and leaves the safety of their shelter.

He stands tall and proud before the tempest. These are his people’s souls and he will lay them to rest.

The darkness tugs at his hair and his robes, but it is not vicious, not with him.

The darkness calls to him. He hears it, and he answers.

His fingers glide across the flute weaving a melody of calm and rest. He cannot right the injustices wrought against them centuries upon centuries ago. He cannot erase the wrongs of this world anymore than the one he hails from. However, he can pledge to do better. To hold the world accountable. To build a cenotaph to the past alongside the better future he will forge at Lan Wangji’s side.

He will not forget their suffering, but he won’t let it hold him back, either.

It could be hours or minutes that he plays. He can feel blood trickling from his nose and mouth, but he cannot afford to stop when he has what is left of the Lan and Nie families under this roof, and especially not while his fiancé and their son are in danger.

He plays on.

Slowly, gradually, the spirits are laid to rest. As the resentment is chased away, he catches glimpses of the people these spirits once were. Parents and elders and children and artisans and inventors. They were people. They thrived and they loved, and they were erased.

He can feel tears sliding down his cheeks. No matter how far gone the ghosts may seem, these souls belong to his ancestors. There is a whole culture that is gone now except for him and Jiaomu.

That is a heavy burden to bear.

He feels a pang thinking of her and his family back in the other realm. If he never returns, surely they’ll grieve. It’s been hard enough without Jiang-Shushu. He doesn’t even want to know what his disappearance would do to his siblings.

Still, he cannot abandon the life he has built here at Lan Wangji’s side.

Torn as he is between these thoughts, he doesn’t notice the first crack.

He notices the second.

“Shit! Lan Zhan, reinforce the shield now!” he screams over the din.

“Wei Ying!”

The last soul leaves the metal, and it shatters into millions of tiny pieces

Wei Wuxian throws his arms up over his face and braces for an impact that never comes.

The silence echoes.

He can hear himself breathing hard.

Can it really be over?

“Baba?”

“I’m here,” he calls back, lowering his arms and assessing the damage. There’s no trace of the Yin Iron left. That’s a net positive.

“Baba! A-Die! Where is Baba?”

The blood in his veins chills.

“Wha- what do you mean? A-Yuan, I’m right he- oh. Oh no. No no no no. Shit!” He holds up his hands and sees through them in the moonlight.

“Wei Ying?” He hears barely restrained panic in Lan Wangji’s voice. “Where are you?

They can’t see him. Fuck. He darts to Lan Wangji’s side and reaches out, but his translucent hand goes right through him. Can they hear him?

Is he dead? He doesn’t feel dead. And it’s not like his body is laying there. His body is still tangible to him.

“I’m here,” he says, and they both jump, looking frantically. “I’m here, I don’t know why you can see me.”

A-Yuan’s breath catches with fresh tears. “Baba!”

Think. Think. Gods damn it, he needs to think.

“Hey, hey, little one. It’s okay. I’m okay. I promise.”

“Where are you?” A-Yuan whines as Lan Wangji strokes his hair to keep them both from freaking out. “I can’t see you.”

“We’re playing hide-and-seek,” Wei Wuxian says, willing his voice not to wobble. His hands are growing fainter by the moment. He can feel something pulling at him. It’s not death. He knows what that feels like, and it’s not this. A small comfort. “A-Die is going to count to 10 and then you’ll have to look for me.”

“Wei Ying,” his beloved protests.

“It’ll be okay, Lan Zhan. I know you’ll find me.”

Lan Wangji’s tears slip silently down his face. “Mn.”

“Good,” he whispers. “Now start counting.”

“Ten.”

“Ah, who knows where I might end up when I’m done hiding,” he muses, keeping his tone light.

“Nine.”

“Maybe back in Yiling. We should take A-Yuan there someday to pay respects to his ancestors.” He ruffles his son’s hair and does no more than a butterfly’s breeze.

“Eight.”

His throat tightens. “Maybe I’ll be in Qinghe or Dafan. Did you know the Yin Iron shards were stored there once?”

Lan Wangji stares at the space where he stands, and his lip wobbles. “Seven.”

“Don’t look so sad, Lan Zhan,” he soothes. “Maybe I’ll be in the garden where we first met. Though that’s pretty far away.”

“Six.”

“Baba. Don’t go again,” A-Yuan protests.

“I’m sorry, A-Yuan, but A-Die will take care of you until you both find me.”

“Five.”

Wei Wuxian sits back on the bed and radiates anger that his hands have betrayed him as they pass through A-Yuan. Drawing a deep breath, he keeps his voice pleasant. “Can you be a big boy and help A-Die search for me? I know you can find me.”

“We find Baba. Promise,” he says, still distraught.

“Four,” Lan Wangji’s breath catches on a sob.

“I’m okay, Lan Zhan. I’m okay. I’m not hurt,” he says, and it’s almost true.

“Three,” they say together. Wei Wuxian wraps his fading form around his little family.

“You’ll see me soon,” he whispers. “We’ll be okay.”

There is a long moment where Lan Wangji fights to stifle himself before he croaks out, “Two.”

The pull is stronger now.

Wei Wuxian is gone before he ever reaches one.

Chapter Text

“A-Xian! A-Xian, where are you?”

Wei Wuxian blinks, his vision catching on dancing flakes of snow as they drift from the pitch-dark sky.

Why is he outside? He was… he was in the palace, wasn’t he?

Where is A-Yuan? Where is Lan Wangji?

“A-Xian!”

He lurches upright, recognizing the voice at last. “A-jie!”

The world spins, and he clutches his head where he sits on the edge of the fountain.

Why is he here again! Where is his son? Where is his fiancé?

Desperate, heady panic seizes control of his mind, and he nearly falls into the fountain as he searches for the secret entrance to Gusu.

“Where is it? Please,” he begs the stone rabbit. “I have to go back! I can’t leave A-Yuan again. I can’t!”

A hand lands on his shoulder, and Wei Wuxian whirls on instinct, reaching for Suibian, but finding nothing there. Even Chenqing, which had been in his hands when he disappeared, is gone.

“A-Xian, what’s wrong?” Jiang Yanli asks, her brows furrowed as she takes his frozen hands between her own tiny, warm ones. “What can’t you do? How long have you been here in the cold?”

For a moment, he can only blink down at her in utter bewilderment. “What are you doing here?”

She reaches up and pats his cheek. “Searching for you, silly boy. No one has seen you in several hours. What are you doing outside in this weather without your coat?”

“Wait, how long have I been gone?”

She considers his query. “I think it was three hours ago that I saw you with Mianmian. A-Xian, are you alright? I know tonight is hard without–” she breaks off, looking pained. He knows what she means, and he finally grounds himself enough to squeeze her hands back. She may be married and moved out, but the loss of their father was not any easier on Jiang Yanli than the rest of their family.

“It is,” he agrees softly. “And not tonight, but soon, I want to talk about it. I think it’s time.”

She pinches his cheek and offers a wan smile. “When did my Xianxian get so mature? I turn my back for one evening,” she murmurs.

Unable to resist, he nuzzles into her palm and smiles. “Xianxian is only three.”

She squeezes his hand and then frowns, her warm brown eyes landing on his fingers. “Oh, A-Xian! What happened?” she cries, looking at the barely-healed cuts across his fingertips.

He stares at them too.

He knew it.

He knew it was real. It was all real.

He has to go back.

“A-Jie,” he starts, taking in a too cold breath of winter-sharp air. “This is going to sound crazy, but I met someone.”

She meets his eye and tilts her head. A small, confused smile pulls at her lips. “Ah? You met someone at the party?”

“No. Not here. Um…” He swallows hard. “You know how Xiao-Jiujiu is married to Song Lan?”

Her confusion melts into a more genuine smile, and he feels the blush heating his chilled cheeks.

“I met a man,” he squeaks out. He clears his throat and continues. “I want to marry him. I still- still like women, but he is my other half; my zhiji.”

His sister squeezes his hands. “Oh, A-Xian, that is wonderful news! What is his name? When will I meet him? How did you meet?”

He laughs, laying his head on her lap. “It’s a long story. I wish you could meet him now. I think you would get along well. He’s so good at cooking, and when he recites poetry, I feel like I might swoon.” He feels tears stinging his eyes, and he sniffles, damming them up. “Lan Wangji, my Lan Zhan. I don’t know when I can see him again,” he admits, and then his sister’s skirts grow damp where his tears soak into the lavender fabric. “Jiejie,” he sobs.

Though they are both grown, Jiang Yanli does not hesitate to gather him into her arms, swaying gently as he grieves. Safe in his sister’s arms, the walls crash down as he sobs the way he never let himself in front of his mother and brother in the aftermath of Jiang-Shushu’s death. He cries the way he didn’t in front of his fiancé and son as he faded away in their bedroom. He cries for everything he has lost between this realm and the other, and he doesn’t know how to make it stop once it starts.

Through it all, Jiang Yanli holds him tight, rubbing his back and gently anchoring him to his body and every emotion he’s been so desperately outrunning for so long.

In the end, he feels as heavy as stone and as light as the snowflakes dusting his lashes.

Of course, it’s while he’s wiping the tears and snot off his face that Jiang Cheng finds them.

“Wei Wuxian! There you are–! Oh, uh,” he throws a handkerchief at him before turning to the side and staring very intensely at a naked tree. He waits until Wei Wuxian has cleaned his face before clearing his throat and asking,” Who upset you? Who do I have to punch?”

He can’t help snorting at that. “No one, A-Cheng. This isn’t a punching kind of problem.”

“Oh,” his brother murmurs, squirming. “Uh… want a hug?”

“Yeah, c’mere.” Wei Wuxian extends an arm and finds himself happily sandwiched between his siblings and their familiar floral scent. Though it is so different from the sandalwood he has grown used to, it still smells like home.

More settled now, he begins planning.

To get back to Lan Wangji and their son, he’ll need to cross realms. If he cannot get back through the fountain (and he can’t without a Lan pendant), he’ll need another method. Luckily for him, there is a fabled immortal hosting a party in the mansion mere meters away.

He just needs to find her.

“Shall we get back to the party?” he suggests.

“Hold on. You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” he says at the same time their sister scolds, “A-Cheng!”

“What?” Jiang Cheng huffs, leaning forward to begin straightening out Wei Wuxian’s hair and clothes. “He looks like he hasn’t slept in days and fought off a whole gang by himself… Seriously, what did you do to your knuckles?”

“Punched stuff,” Wei Wuxian says, not lying, but certainly not explaining.

Jiang Cheng scowls. “Yeah, no shit. Ugh. This will have to do.”

Flanked by his siblings, he returns to the warm ballroom. With so many bodies, the heat is nearly cloying.

Wei Wuxian stands taller and marches into the crowd like he’s going into battle.

People part around him, sensing his intent.

Where is she?

His eyes narrow as he searches the throngs of silk and brocade and sparkling jewels. Little A-Qing drags Song Lan into another dance, standing on his feet with her little slippers.

Xiao Xingchen catches his eye over the dancers and smiles, nodding his head toward the stairs.

Wei Wuxian lets out the breath he had not meant to hold.

He turns just in time to spot Jiaomu coming toward him. “There you are, A-Ying!”

Taking her proffered hand, he is dragged toward the grand staircase, blurting out, “Jiaomu, I need your help!”

“Soon, sweetheart,” she says absently, patting his hand. “There’s someone you simply must meet.”

“No, Jiaomu, please, I need to go ba- back–?” At that moment, his eyes finally find their way up the staircase, and he has to do a double-take. “Lan Zhan,” he chokes out.

Standing there, wearing evening finery is Lan Wangji. His ink-black hair is pulled back in a low braid, threaded with silver ribbon. In his arms, A-Yuan is clutching something, his beloved, little face hidden against Lan Wangji’s cheek.

Like all the magnetic force on Earth belongs to them at this moment, their eyes lock–silver meeting gold– and the ballroom fades away.

Baoshan Sanren smiles a little too knowingly. He recognizes mischief from the woman who taught it to him. “Perhaps you’ve already met?”

Still looking only at Lan Wangji, he murmurs, “Something like that.” His hand brushes the banister, and he’s already climbing.

“Wei Ying,” his beloved says, sounding just as stricken by emotion as he is.

A-Yuan whips around and sees him. His face breaks into a smile so big it could eclipse the full moon outside. “Baba!” Wei Wuxian’s heart feels like the Tanzhou Garden, bursting with life and color.

Wei Wuxian launches himself up the stairs, and Lan Wangji glides down to meet him.

On the middle landing, he throws himself into their arms hard enough that Lan Wangji stumbles back a step before his muscular arms wrap firmly around Wei Wuxian’s waist.

A-Yuan wiggles into Wei Wuxian’s arms and rubs their cheeks together. “We found you!”

“A-Yuan,” he says wetly, kissing his son’s soft black hair. “You found me, baobei! You did so well, my brave little radish. You found me.”

A-Yuan leans back just enough to hold up his toy. “Bunny was sad. Needs kisses.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, staring, a little cross-eyed, at the carved bunny. “Well we can’t have that.” He kisses the toy, and A-Yuan nods.

“More, Baba,” he says, pointing to his cheek.

“Of course,” Wei Wuxian says, smacking kisses to his son's forehead and cheeks and nose and head until they’re both giggling helplessly.

When he looks up, Lan Wangji is smiling at them; Wei Wuxian melts under the warmth of his gaze. “We found you,” Lan Wangji says, leaning forward to rest their foreheads together.

“You did,” Wei Wuxian promises, using the hand not holding A-Yuan to thread his fingers through Lan Wangji’s. He swallows and then asks, “How long?”

“Six weeks.”

“A-Yuan is this many now!” the toddler declares, holding up three fingers.

Wei Wuxian’s heart pangs. “Oh no! Can you ever forgive this baba for missing your birthday?”

A-Yuan puffs up his little cherub cheeks in consideration. “Want bunnies,” he decides. “A-Die said ask Baba.”

“Bunnies? What a wonderful idea.” He nuzzles their noses together and draws more giggles from the little boy. “Little bunny friends for our little bunny. Sounds like a plan, eh, Lan Zhan?”

“Wei Wuxian!”

He startles, turning with A-Yuan still perched on his hip as he looks down at his other relatives. “Ah?”

Jiang Cheng and Yu-Ayi have defaulted to their angry faces, the kind they wear when they are overwhelmed and confused more than actually mad. Knowing the difference has been crucial. “Wei Ying, what is the meaning of this display?”

Jiaomu slides in front of the stairs, cutting Yu-Ayi off with a polite smile. “Ziyuan, please allow me to explain. It would be my honor to introduce Prince Lan Wangji–” A-Jie sucks in a breath, her eyes darting to Wei Wuxian– “a relation of my dear friend’s.”

“Prince?” Yu-Ayi’s brows shoot up, but she curtsies with proper deference.

Lan Wangji bows to the Jiang family. “A pleasure to meet Wei Ying’s family at last.”

A-Jie’s smile grows, as much as she tries to bite it back.

Jiang Cheng bristles. “What do you mean ‘at last’? And who do you think you are addressing my brother so casually by his birth name?”

Wei Wuxian steps closer to Lan Wangji and lays a hand on his arm. “We are engaged.”

“Oh?” Yu-Ayi has always been protective. Now, she shoulders her way past Jiaomu and up the stairs. Her violet eyes narrow. “Engaged? And whose blessing did you get in marrying my son?”

“Yu-Ayi, please,” he whines, drawing her attention.

“Ziyuan, I must apologize,” Jiaomu says, joining them on the landing. “I gave the boys my blessing. The Lan family has long been close with mine. When our A-Ying began courting Lan Wangji, I was thrilled to witness their love match.” She bows as much as her old joints allow, and the fight leaves his mother’s face.

When Jiaomu stands straight, he doesn’t miss the playful twist of her lips. “Little did I expect they would acquire a child out of wedlock,” she bemoans with a wink, making Wei Wuxian’s cheeks flare pink like Lan Wangji’s ears. A-Yuan innocently accepts the custard cake Jiaomu offers as his fathers stand in quiet mortification.

“Wei Wuxian!” his brother cries as their sister giggles.

Yu-Ayi blinks. “Wei Ying?”

“Ah… haha, surprise?” He winces at his mother’s disapproving look. “This is my son, Lan Yuan. Lan Zhan and I found this little orphan and couldn’t bear to be parted from him.” Wei Wuxian rubs a hand across A-Yuan’s back. “Little radish, can you say hello? This is my mother. You can call her Nainai.”

A-Yuan peeks around Wei Wuxian’s shoulder to look at Yu-Ayi. “Nainai?” his sweet little baby voice asks.

His mother’s face goes softer than he has seen in years, since before Jiang-Shushu’s illness. “Hello, A-Yuan,” she says, holding her arms out. A-Yuan hesitates a second, but when Wei Wuxian nudges him, he lets his new grandmother settle him on her hip. “How old are you, A-Yuan?”

“Uh…” His little brows furrow in concentration before he proudly says, “Three!”

“Such a big boy,” she says softly. When she looks up, she gives Wei Wuxian an exasperated look. “Of course you had to upstage your sister and give me my first grandchild. Insolent child,” she huffs, unable to keep the smile fully off her lips.

He beams.

“Where did you get a child? When were you courting? Why didn’t I hear about this?” Jiang Cheng demands very reasonably, all things considered.

“A-Yuan, that grumpy man there is my brother; you can call him Shushu. And the pretty lady there is my big sister! She’s Guma to you.”

“Big? Baba is bigger,” A-Yuan says.

The adults laugh, much to his confusion.

Wei Wuxian smiles and scoops the little boy back into his arms. “That’s true, I am pretty tall. She’s my jiejie.”

“A-Yuan wants a jiejie,” the little boy says. “Baba, A-Die, can I have?”

“Mn. We will do our best,” Lan Wangji replies, his hand sneaking onto Wei Wuxian’s hip.

“Lan Zhan,” he hisses, scandalized.

“Seriously, is anyone going to answer my questions?” Jiang Cheng grouses.

At that moment, Jin Zixuan appears, thwarting Jiang Cheng once more. “A-Li, there you are! A-Yao and his partner are in the parlor.” There’s a slight flush of panic in the man’s voice and Wei Wuxian snickers uncharitably. Social interactions have never been Jin Zixuan’s strength, and it shows clearly tonight.

“A-Yuan, that red-cheeked man there is Guma’s husband. I guess that makes him your gufu.”

“A-Xian, be nice,” his sister scolds. He smiles innocently.

“Too many people,” A-Yuan grumbles into his neck.

Lan Wangji smooths the little boy’s hair and runs a thumb across his headband. “It is alright to be overwhelmed, A-Yuan. You will have time to know them later.”

The family migrates from the stairs to the parlor where Meng Yao waits, awkwardly fiddling with his cravat. When he sees them, he jolts, offering a polished smile like it’s a weapon. For the bastard of a gentry family, it probably is.

“Another uncle?” A-Yuan asks, sounding tired. He can’t blame the kid. Family relationships get complicated quickly.

Wei Wuxian laughs and kisses his son’s chubby cheek. “Maybe. This is Gufu’s brother, Meng Yao.”

“Hmm,” the baby hums, much more interested in the sweets A-Jie is slipping to him. “Thank you, Guma!”

“A-Jie, you have no idea what sugar does to this little gremlin!”

“Baba eat,” A-Yuan says, shoving a tart at his mouth.

Wei Wuxian pouts for a moment before opening his mouth to accept the treat. “You and A-Die are fattening me up, huh? I see how it is.”

Meng Yao is shorter than his half-brother, but he’s handsome in a boyish way. Lan Wangji is much more attractive, of course. Still, for all the faults Jin Guangshan had, poor taste in women was not among them. Meng Yao would likely do well for himself if not for his familial standing.

Lan Wangji is clearly uninterested in socializing, as he is currently admiring a painting rather than talking to other humans. Wei Wuxian can’t help chuckling. He loves his fiancé for many reasons, but interpersonal skills are not among them.

“Yanli-Jie, I heard congratulations are in order,” Meng Yao says, his smile now more awkward. Wei Wuxian thinks this smile is genuine. “When my partner returns, I’d like to propose a toast to you and my brother.”

“That is very kind of you, A-Yao,” A-Jie replies, peering up at her husband with a soft smile as their joined hands rest over her belly. “This baby will be lucky to have such a large family.”

Meng Yao’s face lights up as he raises a hand. “Ah, here he comes. A-Huan, welcome back.”

There is a tall, gorgeous man with a warm smile across his regal features. He approaches the group with two champagne flutes in hand. Wei Wuxian does a double take, glancing between the man and his own fiancé.

Lan Wangji has abandoned the painting judging by his sharp inhale.

“Lan Zhan… is that–”

“Xiongzhang.”

Lan Xichen startles, his eyes leaving Meng Yao and falling on them. “Wangji,” he breathes, nearly dropping the glasses before Meng Yao catches them.

“You’re alive,” Lan Wangji says. From anyone else, the tone of the words would sound flat, but Wei Wuxian and Lan Xichen can hear the volumes contained in those sparse words.

“You’re here. I cannot believe it! I’ve missed you so.” Lan Xichen closes the distance between them. The brothers grab each other's arms. Lan Xichen’s face clearly expresses all the emotion Lan Wangji holds back.

“Wen Ruohan is dead. We are free,” Lan Wangji says without preamble.

“Truly? Oh, Wangji, I am so sorry I was not there to support you.”

Lan Wangji shakes his head. “You are alive. That is more than I dared hope for.”

Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan look back and forth between the so-called Twin Jades of Gusu. The moniker makes more sense now that he sees them side by side. The only difference, other than Xichen’s deep brown eyes, seems to be their disposition.

A-Yuan leans further out of Wei Wuxian’s arms until he can poke Lan Xichen’s cheek. “Who are you?”

The crown prince startles, looking at the toddler and Wei Wuxian with polite bafflement.

Lan Wangji takes the boy into his arms. “A-Yuan, this is my older brother. You may call him Bobo.”

“More uncles?”

“Mn.”

“Bobo?” Lan Xichen’s brown eyes are watery now, and Wei Wuxian can’t help how disconcerting it is to see that face so much like Lan Wangji’s trembling with palpable emotion. “Wangji, this is wonderful news.” Lan Xichen turns to Wei Wuxian and bows. “You must be Wangji’s husband.”

“Fiancé,” Wei Wuxian corrects, smiling. “We were waiting for you to be at the wedding.”

Jiang Cheng glances between everyone in the room. “Seriously! What the fuck is going on?”

Wei Wuxian looks at this patchwork collection of family and throws his head back with a laugh.

“Don’t worry, Jiang Cheng, I’ll explain everything tomorrow.”

And maybe he will. Or maybe he’ll just bring all of them to Gusu.

For now, his future-husband is here, his son is warm and heavy in his arms, and he is content.