Work Text:
Power, Enshrined
They start with the basics, as always. Wen Qing remembers her own training well. Even in the Burial Mounds, surrounded by living shadow and deathly air, A-Yuan learns to feel the warmth of a fire, his little hands extended towards the flames. Wen Qing teaches him to respect them, to love them, to cradle them in his palms.
Then she teaches him how to feel the flow and power of qi, to harness it to create his own fire. A-Yuan is a good student, sensitive to the currents of the world around him. It takes several tries, and a few frustrated tears, but soon enough, the tiniest flame bursts to life, and A-Yuan bursts into delighted laughter.
A child's first steps into a new world: A-Yuan toddling around their camp, showing the proud, tiny flame shining in his hands, careful, so careful not to let it go out.
Wei Wuxian helps too – he bends only shadows now that he's coreless, armed with Chenqing, but the Jiang sect's waterbending techniques are etched into his very bones, and he has read about all types of bending. He knows about qi flow, about slow control and release, and he knows how to make it fun. It takes work off of Wen Qing's hands, and he lays foundation she will then build up on, to teach A-Yuan specific firebending techniques.
Every time there is a flame to light now – a candle, a lantern, a cooking fire – A-Yuan demands to be allowed to do it. It is good practice, and none of the Wen remnants have the heart to deny their child this simple joy, and so A-Yuan progresses fast.
But not fast enough for what comes next.
Jin Zixuan dies and the sects march on the Burial Mounds, determined to put an end to what they call the « Wen problem » once and for all. They send their strongest benders to lure Wei Wuxian out while the others attack the Wen. Wen Qing is their only bender able to fight – she is strong, but not strong enough to hold the sects back all by herself, and by the time Wei Wuxian realizes the trap and cuts his way back to the encampment, shadows screaming and tearing everything around him, it is too late: Wen Qing is on her knees, her hands bound and so many, too many, of the Wen remnants lie dead at the sects' feet. They are destroying everything: the houses, the fields, the few belongings they had managed to amass over the past months.
The benders he outran are catching up, and those present in the encampment are moving to surround him – if he wants to act, he needs to do it, and fast.
Then Wen Qing catches his eye.
She mouths two words: “A-Yuan.”
It is a split-second decision: the Wen are lost, but A-Yuan lives, still. Hidden by his family. The sects must never find him.
With a nod to Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian whirls on them, Chenqing at his lips. Obeying the flute's shrill tones, the shadows bend around him. Resentful energy made solid, sharp and merciless, lashes at the sect benders. The shadows cut through the stones the Jin benders hurl at him, protect him from the Lan's gusts of air and the Jiang's waves, but it takes all of Wei Wuxian's energy, and little by little, he retreats.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Wen Qing and Wen Ning being taken away by the Jin, just as the sect benders push him further and further back. He disengages, makes a run to the cave where they won't be able to attack him all at once, and there, hiding being a large rock, is A-Yuan. Face stained by dirt and tears, the little boy runs to him and clings to his leg.
Wei Wuxian has no time, no time, but he gently frees his leg and kneels to look A-Yuan in the eye. “A-Yuan,” he urges, “I'm going to need you to hide, okay? There's bad people coming.”
The little boy looks at him, all trembling fear. “Bad people?”
“Yes. But Xian-gege will hold them back. You go hide at the back of the cave, okay? No matter what happens, they can't see you.”
Shouts outside, getting too close. Wei Wuxian insists: “Promise me, A-Yuan. You'll hide and only come out when I come get you.”
Slowly, the little boy agrees, and Wei Wuxian directs him to the back of the cave, raises shadows to keep guard around him. He has barely had time to give A-Yuan one last smile that the sect benders irrupt into the cave, and Wei Wuxian runs back out to face them.
*
**
Wei Wuxian resists, but Wei Wuxian is one man.
Wei Wuxian dies.
The shadows dissipate, and the sect benders go deeper into the cave, aiming to root out anyone still hiding there. Terrified, desperate, unable to understand why these people attacked them, A-Yuan keeps his promise: he knows only that they can't find him, and a sudden power surges within him, unlike anything he has ever felt before. Too strong for his young mind to control. Instinct made power, taking over. The deflagration it causes is violent enough to push the sect benders out of the cave and half collapse the ceiling.
And A-Yuan remains, suspended in time and power.
*
**
Lan Wangji creeps slowly, picking his way through the dead trees and vines. The old path he'd seen Wei Wuxian walk is gone, long overrun, so he focuses on walking up the slope, confident that he will eventually reach the settlement. Or what's left of it.
It has been three years, after all. Nothing awaits him in the Burial Mounds, nothing but death and decay.
And yet, he must know. He must see it for himself, this place where Wei Wuxian died.
His back aches under the strain. There had been very few Lan benders during the assault on the Wen settlement, and Lan Wangji still feels dark satisfaction at that. They had received the summons: the Jiang and Jin benders were marching on the Burial Mounds and requested the Lan's help. There had been a quick, heated debate the likes of which the Lan clan hadn't seen in decades – the elders ready to take up arms, Lan Xichen trying to placate them, to propose a more diplomatic solution. He'd lost, in the end. The elders had walked out of the room and gathered their benders, ready to go to Yiling, only to be stopped at the gates by Lan Wangji.
He'd done it for Wei Wuxian, for the Wen, for little A-Yuan, for his brother. He'd stood in the benders' way, stronger and more inflexible than any of their defence arrays.
The sect benders had fought.
The sect benders had lost.
There had been very few Lan benders during the assault on the Wen settlement, and Lan Wangji had been whipped and sent into seclusion for his rebellion. Thirty-three lashes, one for each elder and bender he'd injured or killed. Three years in the Cold Cave, to reflect on his wrongdoings. Reflect he had, and come to the conclusion that he would do it again, if the situation called for it.
He hadn't been able to save the Wen remnants, but he could honour their memory now. There may be something, some artefact to salvage. If anything, he hopes he can put their spirits to rest and wish them peace in their next lives.
There is little left of the settlement, when he finally reaches it. Small houses with collapsed roofs, former fields overgrown with weeds. Resentment and pain saturate the air, settle like lead in his stomach. Mostly, the place feels unbearably sad, chockfull with hopes cut short. He hadn't got to see it when he had met Wei Ying and A-Yuan in Yiling, but Wei Ying had told him how the crops were producing more, how they now had enough to sell the extra, how they were using the money to buy medicine and blankets and make survival a little easier. How he hoped that, as long as their defensive barriers held, the Wen could make a decent life for themselves there, against all odds. Lan Wangji sees the bones of that hope now, tarnished by the elements and shadows of a place that keeps earning its name.
He explores carefully, going from house to house, looking between roots and bushes for any forgotten memory. The Wen had little, and there is little to find, and yet: bowls, smashed and broken. Piles of wood meant for cooking fires. A shawl, half buried in dust. All signs that people lived there, that make the place feel even sadder, emptier.
Lan Wangji continues his search and eventually makes it to the mouth of the cave, half blocked by collapsed blocks of stone. Caught between them, he finds paper, that still bears half-erased characters and drawings in Wei Wuxian's unmistakable terrible handwriting. Those he collects like precious treasure, heart in his throat. This is more of Wei Ying than he has every had: faded old paper, folded between his robes, over his heart.
Later, he will lock himself in the Jingshi and go over them, for more of Wei Ying and his particular brand of genius. For now, he focuses, and with tightly-controlled gusts of bended air, lifts the rocks and clears a path into the cave.
He notices it, then. There is something else in the cave, far into its depths. It is not the surrounding heavy air, although that is still there. A strumming of energy, a vibration in the flow of qi, unlike anything he has ever felt. Ever prudent, Lan Wangji summons a ball of spinning air, keeps it in his hand, ready to act if needed, and walks towards the source of the disturbance.
When he finds it, hidden by more fallen rock, it is impossible to miss: an orb of pure power, radiating blue, and in its centre...
“A-Yuan!”
It is A-Yuan, there is no mistake possible. The little boy seems to be floating, suspended in mid-air in the lotus position, fists joined. Ever so gently, Lan Wangji directs the air still coiled in his hand to brush against the orb of power, only to have it react instantly: lightning sparks at the point of contact and violently pushes him back towards the rock behind him. His back smashes painfully into it, knocking the air out of him – and what irony for an airbender. Lan Wangji will have to try another approach, then.
He calls to the boy again, but A-Yuan doesn't seem to hear him, doesn't react at all. Lan Wangji doesn't dare touch the orb directly either. He wonders if this is one of Wei Ying's parting gifts, if he had wanted to protect A-Yuan like this, only to lock him in time when he died. To control that much power would require tremendous bending skill, and Wei Wuxian's was unparalleled. Suddenly inspired, he pulls the notes he just collected, hoping to find any clue on the nature of this spell, but they seem to be notes about firebending. Lan Wangji returns to the entrance of the cave in search of more notes, but nothing he finds even mentions such technique.
He walks back to A-Yuan, studies the flow of qi around him. There are so many unknowns... what is the source of that power? How long can the orb hold A-Yuan? Is the boy even still alive? Lan Wangji's own skill is recognized and praised everywhere, the famous Hanguang-jun, with his exquisitely controlled airbending dispelling clouds and evil alike. He has to find a way. This much he knows: he cannot leave the boy, not like that. If airbending doesn't work, if calling out to the boy doesn't work...
What would Wei Ying do? He wonders, wishing, not for the first time, that he had Wei Ying's creativity.
One thing, that Wei Ying responded to, that Wei Ying found solace in.
Lan Wangji sits down, his pose mimicking the boy's, and summons his guqin. The notes come to him instinctively – the song he wrote for Wei Ying, imbued with love and loss and regret for things left unsaid. For A-Yuan, he adds warmth, safety, home . This, too, Lan Wangji knows: he cannot leave A-Yuan, and he will protect him, see to it that he grows up safe, far from the madness that killed his family. Gently, gently, the music wills A-Yuan to understand.
The orb of power... twitches.
Slowly, so slowly, as Lan Wangji plays, the enormous amount of qi surrounding A-Yuan spins and starts to gradually dissipate. Lan Wangji plays with renewed fervour – not the Lan songs but folk songs from Gusu, songs from Lan Wangji's own childhood, songs he's heard Wei Ying play on his flute. He keeps his eyes fixed on A-Yuan, and so cannot miss this: A-Yuan opens his eyes, but they are not the deep brown Lan Wangji remembers, they're blue like the qi flowing around him, and Lan Wangji isn't looking at a little boy, he is looking at an otherworldly being, at the source of the power pulsating in the cave.
The orb eventually vanishes entirely, and Lan Wangji catches A-Yuan as he falls, no longer sustained by that qi. His eyes are closed again. For all intent and purposes, A-Yuan appears to be sleeping, his breathing slow and deep. Now that Lan Wangji can have a closer look, the boy still looks to be about three years old, as if he hadn't aged at all since the day they'd met in Yiling. He is small, and thin, but not worryingly so. He is warm and soft, asleep in Lan Wangji's arms, and Lan Wangji holds him closer.
His mind keeps replaying what he just saw: all of that power had originated from A-Yuan himself. Pure, raw power that had kept him alive and safe for three years.
This isn't a firebending technique.
This isn't a technique any of the sects possesses.
To be able to wield that much qi, for such a small boy who could have only started the most basic trainings...
An old legend, that Lan Wangji's mother used to tell him and his brother: a person able to bend all elements, who only appeared once in a generation, who worked to bring peace and enlightenment to all the sects. A person whose title Lan Wangji's mother had spoken in a low voice, that Lan Wangji had received in awe.
The Avatar.
A-Yuan.
A-Yuan was the Avatar.
That was the only conclusion, the only way to explain what Lan Wangji had seen.
And he would have to keep it a secret, to protect the boy from the sects. There were too many who would try to either terminate the last of the Wen or control the Avatar, especially when he was so young and so easy to manipulate. For now, A-Yuan slept, unaware of his power and what it meant for their world. Lan Wangji would finish his exploration of memory another day: the boy firmly in his arms, he exited the cave and flew back to Gusu.