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-1-
Sect Leader Nie comes to her still wearing mourning white. With his pale face and hooded eyes, he looks a shadow of his former self, a darker, duller copy of the man Mianmian used to watch from afar at formal events, who had so effortlessly drawn people to him with fine wine and finer conversation. There’s a skittishness to him that wasn’t there before; when he finally notices her, he looks ready to bolt.
Things have not been easy since she left the Jin Clan, but they’re not so dire that she can’t afford manners. She welcomes him as best as she can. If the tea isn’t to his liking, he’s too polite, or too distracted, to say anything about it.
“Luo-guniang,” he all but whines instead, “it’s all so complicated!”
With that out of the way, he launches into a long, meandering speech that takes a lot of twists and turns to tell her very little. He needs to go, it seems, to some faraway western land – farther west than Meishan, farther even than Yumen which is as far west as she knows – but he himself doesn’t seem all too clear as to why the going is needed.
She’d heard it said that, in the wake of his brother’s death, what little wits Nie Huaisang once had had deserted him for good. At the time, she had written it off as a rumour, and an unkind one at that.
Now, watching this once-eloquent man stumble over his own words, fan moving faster and faster as he just won’t stop explaining – she can’t help but wonder if there might be a grain of truth to it. Grief can twist people in all kinds of sad ways.
“It’s all so complicated,” he says again. “But you see why I need you for this. I can’t leave this to anyone else, but how could I do this myself?!”
“Besides,” he adds as an afterthought, “Hanguang-jun speaks well of you.”
Faraway western lands weren’t part of her immediate plans, but he’s offering enough gold to pay for a good marriage, and she’s not so well off that she can ignore that.
Besides, it's more interesting than anything else she could be doing at the moment.
-2-
Things get a bit dicey when they cross the Almyran border and almost run straight into some local skirmish - men riding on flying beasts, clashing against soldiers led by a pink-haired general. In the confusion, they manage to slip past unnoticed.
In the weeks that follow, they make their slow, winding way through the low hills and fertile plains of southern Fódlan, following the trails of country fairs and merchant caravans. Their foreign garb draws inevitable attention, but away from the borderlands, people seem content enough to assume they’re supposed to be there or let them be someone else’s problem. Those who aren’t are quick to back off once they see the golden-hued glare of her sword.
While she gets used to being a stranger in a strange land, Sect Leader Nie sets about visiting every shop, stall or marketplace they come across, fluttering from one purchase to the next in a flurry of gold and silks, making idle talk in his bumbling, harmless attempts at the local language while he amasses a veritable treasure trove of books, wines, and shiny baubles. She does her best to follow along, even starts to pick up on a few words herself as they carve a trail of reckless spending from Goneril to Hevring.
She picks up on other things, too, without needing them said. There’s a tension in the air that she recognizes from the months that had preceded the Sunshot Campaign, storm clouds on the horizon that will break into war sooner or later. The last thing they want is to be caught in it. When she says as much to Sect Leader Nie, he hides behind his latest acquisition - a lewd illustrated pamphlet he swears up and down is some kind of religious text - and hems and haws so well it takes her an hour to realize he didn’t come to any kind of decision at all.
He’s still infuriatingly vague about what it is they’re looking for, but she’s starting to get a clearer picture from the things he’s not telling her. If he’s mad, it’s not without method; if he’s flighty, it’s not without purpose. Shiny baubles can be used to grease palms and ease tempers; time spent on wine and food is time spent in places where rumors can be overheard.
Those conversations go too fast for her to follow, but when she stops trying to understand the words and listens to the rhythms instead she can almost believe she’s home.
-3-
Finding Abyss is almost a relief.
Deep underneath the massive Monastery that stands as the heart of Fódlan lies a town that never sees the light of day, a haphasard collection of huts and hovels where the poorest of the poor have built their refuge. It’s dark, seedy, and for the first time since they started on this journey Mianmian feels almost at home.
There’s a commonality to poverty that isn’t found anywhere else. Even halfway across the world, she could never mistake the language of empty market stalls, of living space shared with chickens and pigs, of streets filled with drunks, layabouts, and the peculiar stench of hopelessness.
No-one gives her a second look, here. People have enough troubles of their own to worry about a passing stranger. After so many months of being gawked at, the lack of attention comes as a breath of fresh air.
Sect Leader Nie takes to the Shadow Library like a duck to water and refuses to deal with anything else. He complains endlessly about the food (awful), the lodgings (dreadful), and having to trade his silk robes and fancy hair crowns for something less likely to draw unwanted attention (beyond the pale).
Yet for all his complaining, he never so much as suggests they leave.
-4-
“Well now, what have we here?”
It doesn’t take long for Yuri Leclerc to find them. Abyss’s unofficial leader and most stalwart defender is a slender youth, younger than Mianmian if only by a couple of years, pretty like a girl with his long lashes and painted eyes and with something in his demeanor that strikes a chord in her, something that just screams mischief-maker.
Though he knows the language better than she does, Sect Leader Nie ducks behind her and nudges her forward with his fan. She does her best to explain, in her broken half-speech, that the two of them are not looking for trouble - not to make it, nor to find it – that they’re merely travelers-
“Tourists,” interjects Sect Leader Nie. “Tourists, sightseeing.”
That they’re merely tourists, and this merely one leg of a longer journey. With every word that falls out of her mouth, Yuri looks a little more bemused.
“No trouble,” she says again, because she understands enough to know this man could easily have them run out of town if he wanted to. “Just visiting.”
“‘Just visiting’, is it? This is a strange place for sightseeing.”
“Yes, very quaint!” Sect Leader Nie enthuses.
Mianmian can feel her ears turn red at the shamelessness of such a bold-faced lie, but Yuri Leclerc laughs frankly and leaves them to their own devices after that.
Later, he finds her again and drags her out for drinks, and flirts so outrageously and with such obvious purpose she finds herself mourning the boy Wei Wuxian had once been all over again.
She can fairly well guess what it is he’s actually fishing for. But whatever secret designs Nie Huaisang is pursuing, she's not privy to them - she's just hired muscle, there to guard his body and, she's starting to suspect, act as a decoy for the more suspicious minds.
Eventually, even Yuri Leclerc has to relent in the face of Nie Huaisang’s haplessness.
-5-
The rumour sparks outside the Ashen Wolves’ classroom and spreads like wildfire to the rest of Abyss. It catches Mianmian right as she's leaving the blacksmith.
She doesn’t quite get it, at first - the enormity of it – like it’s too big, too improbable for her to wrap her mind around.
Once she does, she drops everything and goes looking for Yuri.
She finds him in the empty classroom, fiddling with the strange harness he sometimes wears on his hand. When she tells him what she’s heard, he sighs, not unfondly.
“Those idiots. I told them to keep it quiet.”
“So...”
“Yeah, yeah, you got the gist of it. Chalice of legend, sacred to the Church, all of it. Constance is determined to find it, but honestly, I’ll just be happy to have it out of the way - if it turns out to be real. Something like that is bound to draw unwanted attention on us.”
“Is that so?”
“Sure is. Why? You have an interest in raising the dead, Mianmian?”
“Who would?” she can’t help but whisper, as if she doesn’t know the answer.
She had wondered, more than once, what could possibly have been so important as to push Nie Huaisang, a man who had developed such a careful and deliberate reputation for laziness, to such extremities - why this sudden, unexplained journey, alone and without help but that of a woman who had renounced her claim to the cultivation world, when he should have been at home, mourning his brother. But this, this makes sense, dark and twisted as it is. Who else would have both the knowledge and the desperation, the raw, ugly need for something that could never be? And who else would help him, who else could he rely on, knowing what kind of censure he would face for even considering such a thing?
It’s insane. It’s unnatural.
It’s the kind of thing Wei Wuxian was accused of, right before the end.
But when she confronts Sect Leader Nie about it, he waves his fan lazily before his face. His eyes are wide, his brows raised: the very picture of innocence.
“Luo-jie, I don’t really understand any of this, but... if there really was such a ritual, well, it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing… for people who have met an unjust end…”
He avoids her gaze as he says it.
For the first time, there isn’t a hint of fear or uncertainty on him.
Not a day later, Aelfric, the priestly man who serves as a liaison between Abyss and the rest of the world, goes missing.
Sect Leader Nie goes with him.
-6-
She finds Yuri in the empty classroom. Though his mentor and friends are all gone, he’s still smiling, unbothered, his nervosity only betrayed by his fiddling with the harness on his hand.
“Just the woman I was hoping to find,” he says, head cocked and cocky grin. “You can use that sword you’re carrying, right?”
She answers by drawing her sword and leveling it at his chest. His grin vanishes. Slowly, he straightens up and uncrosses his arms, keeping his hands wide apart and well in sight.
“Easy,” he says.
“What’s going on?”
“Well, I was going to ask for a date, but I'm guessing that's off the table.”
“No.”
“Pardon?”
“No, stop! Stop playing games, stop dancing around! People keep not telling me things and I’m sick and tired of it! What’s going on, and how do I help?”
He takes a sharp, pained breath. For a second, just a second, all of his masks are gone and she can see vulnerability on his face, and uncertainty, and a trapped look that she recognizes from others – recognizes from herself, back when the war was nothing but a far-distant threat and she hadn’t yet learned how and when to take a stand.
Then the curtain falls, and he’s back to his usual self. Smiling. Unbothered.
But he tells her.
Everything, he tells her.
-7-
Their plan is simple, but leaves little room for error.
Yuri leads her through a maze of tunnels and stairways, up to the mausoleum where Aelfric is waiting to enact his ritual. As he heads further in, she unsheathes her sword and flies up to the stone arches, where she can observe without being seen.
It’s not a pretty sight. At the head of the room, there is an altar; on the altar lies a woman’s dead body. Aelfric’s old love, Yuri had said, Aelfric’s madness, but Aelfric just stands, staring, unblinking, lips shaping words unspoken and unheard, and that unsettles Mianmian more than anything else she’s seen so far.
Yuri’s friends are huddled together in a corner of the room, tied up and bleeding. Sect Leader Nie is passed out nearby, unrestrained, unharmed, unconscious – a hostage, a sacrifice, or just a victim of circumstances, dragged into this mess because he just so happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time? Yuri hadn’t been sure. Mianmian isn’t, either, though she has her suspicions.
As Aelfric prepares for whatever his ritual entails, Yuri walks up to his friends. Mianmian tunes them both out, focuses instead on watching Aelfric’s men, mentally tracking numbers, weapons, weaknesses.
When Yuri’s giant friend breaks through his bonds and, with a mighty roar, punches a warrior clean out of his boots, she jumps on her sword and barrels straight into the nearest cluster, scattering the men amidst surprised shouts.
After that, things get somewhat messy.
The fight drags on. Mianmian fights back to back with Yuri and Balthus, watches Hapi’s back, weaves around Constance’s spells in mid-air, dancing around the altar, keeping attention away from the still-unconscious Nie Huaisang. Soon it’s just her and Yuri’s Wolves, squaring off against the last of Aelfric’s men. Aelfric himself, face deathly pale, eyes dark, bloodshot, not sane, fingers blackened from all the spells he’s been casting, raises up the Chalice, raving, ranting–
She sees it coming to late to prevent anything:
Nie Huaisang, suddenly awake and finding himself surrounded by armed strangers, yelps, scrambles to his feet, and in his panic backs into Aelfric.
The Chalice drops to the ground with a clang.
Balthus uses the distraction to haul Aelfric up by his collar and slam him into a wall, pinning him down. With a rallying cry, the Wolves charge. In the confusion, the Chalice is kicked further away, and then Mianmian loses track of it, all her focus on making sure no-one decides to take a stab at Sect Leader Nie.
As if that wasn’t enough chaos, the monastery’s Knights finally decide to show up, drawn in by all the ruckus. With Aelfric restrained and most of his men to the winds, Mianmian figures it’s high time for them to disappear: she grabs Sect Leader Nie by the collar and makes a break for it.
-8-
For all the blood that has been spilled over it, the Chalice of Beginnings doesn’t look like much. Just some fancy golden cup. Sect Leader Nie, pleased as punch with his little vanishing act, shows Mianmian the carvings inside and out, the lines that curve and intersect.
“An array?” she blurts, surprised to recognize some of the pattern. It’s like nothing she’s ever learned, but close enough to look familiar – like poetry, translated back and forth until all that’s left of the original is the bare-bone structure. Nie Huaisang hums, thoughtful. Even after so many months spent in his company, she’s still not entirely sure what to make of him. The helplessness isn’t completely fake, but neither is it completely true. The real man is somewhere in between - she’s not sure he himself knows where he falls just yet.
“Each Apostle to a Guardian, and the Sky Dragon in the center,” he comments to himself, fingers idly tracing along the lines of the array, from one gemstone to the next.
“What does that mean?”
“As for that, I truly don’t know. But I do know how to find out.”
Looking around at the small library he’s accumulated during their trip, she doesn’t doubt that he will.
As Sect Leader Nie prepares for the long journey home, Mianmian takes one last walk around Abyss. She doesn’t quite admit to herself what it is she’s looking for until Yuri falls into step beside her, looking pale but unhurt.
“A little bird tells me you and your friend are leaving.”
“Yes.”
“Quite the hasty departure, that.”
For a moment, she thinks, a little wildly, about telling him everything - from the day they set out, from the day she walked out on all she had worked for, disgusted at what her world was becoming, maybe even before that - it would certainly make for a good story.
“It’s a good time for it,” she tells him instead. “Before the first snow.”
He nods without replying. They walk side by side in companionable silence, two near strangers who have shed enough blood together not to bother with needless words. Finally, he seems to come to his own conclusions:
“You know, I’ve been thinking: if the person who found the Chalice wanted to take it out of the country - well, that would be one less reason for anyone around here to hunt down me and mine. Isn’t that right?”
His tone is light, playful, but this is important: she lifts her hand up in a child’s promise.
“No hunting,” she says. “Promise.”
“Yeah, didn’t think that was your style.” There’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Maybe it’s the shadows playing tricks on her, but she thinks it’s a real one. “See ya, Mianmian.”
“Goodbye, Yundao.”
She knows he doesn’t get it.
But as he walks away from her he’s whistling a merry tune, and she thinks of riverside grass, bending to the wind, bending towards home.