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curiosity-killed · 4 years

Text

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

He lands in Lotus Pier just before dinner, and he can feel the wards humming up to him in greeting as he descends. The loop around his wrist has grown to be a comfort, especially in these last months when Wei Wuxian has been far away. It’s not the same as his brother’s hand around his wrist, tugging him into trouble, but there’s a familiar harmony in its song. When he was growing up, the Sect Leader ate with his family on one of the private docks back in the labyrinth of Lotus Pier’s inner depths. Father had always made sure to eat with them when he wasn’t attending to sect business, but the three of them always ate together even if it was only them. He remembers the first time Wei Wuxian joined them, still skinny and scared to take too much; jiejie had shown him how to peel the lotus seeds and encouraged him to eat plenty. Father had watched with his quiet smile, eyes only for his dead friends’ son. Now, jiejie and Wei Wuxian are not here, and Jiang Cheng is warm with tentative hope. He joins the disciples instead and winds up sharing a table with Bujue and Xingtao. As sect leader, he could have a table to himself, but he knows them well enough that their company is preferable to individual peace. “How is da-shijie? And Jin Ling?” Bujue asks.

He has the small chin and bold brows of all their family in Meishan, and coupled with his eagerness, it always makes him look younger than he is.

“A-jie‘s well,” Jiang Cheng says. “She seems happy. A-Ling is healthy and strong, but I think he’s been cursed with his father’s looks.” Xingtao snorts, spinning noodles around in her bowl. “What a tragedy, to be cursed with the third most eligible bachelor’s looks,” she remarks, dry as salt. “Oh, are you looking to snare a peacock for yourself, er-shijie?” Bujue teases. His grin has sharpened, turned a little like Wei Wuxian in its teasing edge. Stifling his own grin, Jiang Cheng eyes their martial sister curiously. Rolling her eyes, Xingtao shakes her head. “Idiot,” she retorts. “Their maidens are just as fair and infinitely less empty-headed.” Bujue snorts and relents. Jiang Cheng has yet to see Xingtao flustered even once, despite his cousin’s efforts. “And da-shixiong?” he asks, turning back to Jiang Cheng. “Is there any word from Yiling?” Rolling his eyes, Jiang Cheng scoffs. “Didn’t you already read his last letter?” he retorts. “What, do you think I snuck off to the Burial Mounds while I was in Lanling?” There’s a pause where Bujue smiles a little tentatively, eyes flicking over Jiang Cheng’s face. “Did—” “No, a-Jue, don’t be stupid,” he scolds. “It’s the wrong direction.” He has the sense to look abashed, even as Xingtao snorts a laugh around her noodles. Jiang Cheng takes pity on him, turning back to his bowl. “He’ll be at Jin Ling’s celebrations in a month,” he says. “We’ll make decisions then.” Excitement blooms bright across Bujue’s face, though he does his best to suppress it until it’s only apparent in the way his lips quirk up as he turns back to his noodles. Across from him, Xingtao’s thinned her lips and her brows are furrowed. “Ah, er-shijie, just wait,” Bujue says. “You haven’t gotten to know da-shixiong properly, but I’m certain you’ll like him once you know him. He’s very clever and kind.” Xingtao hums, noncommittal. “The talisman designs he’s sent have been useful,” she allows. Bujue beams and Jiang Cheng lets himself grin. Wei Wuxian has evidently been keeping busy in the Burial Mounds; he’s sent designs for revealing and concealing objects, for tracking someone with one half of a pair of talismans, for erasing ink from paper — and then added details for intensifying the arrays around Lotus Pier and some sketches of inventions he’s thought up while away. Between his inventing and the settlement’s activities, Jiang Cheng wonders that he even has time to write. He hopes it’s because the Wens are treating him like a proper young master and giving him peace to cultivate, but he doubts it. The young masters of Yunmeng Jiang are expected to share in the people’s labor, and neither he nor Wei Wuxian have ever shied from helping. Wei Wuxian would complain about it, but he’d still take the heavier load. That now-familiar worry rises once more in his chest; it’s too easy to call up the image of him thin-cheeked and pale. He tries to tell himself that Wen Qing won’t let him waste away. She’s a skilled physician, and she clearly cares for his brother. Something other than worry, spindly and green, winds through his belly at this thought. He forces it back down in the pit of his stomach. There’s no sense worrying about it now when it’s far from his hands. For now, he’s sitting in a hall full of his disciples with his lieutenants teasing each other across their dinners. Xingtao will be worn into fond exasperation within a few months of Wei Wuxian coming home, and he’ll talk to his brother about bringing little Wen Yuan with him, spreading the boughs of their family. Listening to the two of them talk about the past couple days, Jiang Cheng wonders if Wen Qing would like it here, too. After dinner, he turns to his study to read the correspondence and reports he’s missed over the last week. The newest class of juniors finished their third exam today, and he reads over their rankings with a critical eye. Of the five new boys and three girls, all but one is progressing steadily. The one girl comes from a border town and, according to her teachers, has a wealth of spiritual potential; her struggles lie in her reading and writing instead, formal education having been pushed off by her family’s need for labor around their farm. His lips quirk in a small smile at the report. It’s easy to see Wei Wuxian in the girl: how he’d rushed into spells and talismans as if he didn’t need any training but stumbled over learning his characters years behind the other shidis. Jiang Cheng makes a note to have the girl given tutoring on the side and wonders if Wei Wuxian would remember anything that helped him catch up. He’ll ask in his next letter. Hopefully they can catch the girl up without sacrificing her calligraphy the way Wei Wuxian did. When he’s finished the most pressing work, Jiang Cheng rises from his desk with a groan and stretches his arms overhead. Picking up Sandu, he wanders out into the night humming an old folk song. It’s late enough that most everyone has turned in for the night, and there are soft murmurs behind the closed doors he passes. The air’s turned crisp, and it cools as he walks out along the pier jiejie has always favored. A downy mist is rolling across the lake, shrouding the lotus stalks in grey. Sitting down at the edge, he pulls off his boots and rolls up his pants to dangle his feet in the water. The water stings a little against his warm skin, chilled even compared to the autumn air. Goosebumps race up his shins. One more month. One more month and they’ll have a way to protect Wei Wuxian from the seal. They’ll celebrate together the expansion of their small family and then they’ll come home to their shidis and shimeis. Wei Wuxian will surely dive back into teaching with relentless enthusiasm, and Xingtao will scowl at the way he darts away from strict curriculum, and Bujue will try to egg him into showing off for their juniors. Jiejie will visit when a-Ling’s old enough, and Jiang Cheng won’t be able to shove her husband into the lakes anymore but he’s got other ideas. There’s always chili oil to slip into his dishes, and at least Wei Wuxian will be there to share grimaces and rolled eyes. Still humming along to himself, he leans back on his palms and smiles a little at the future.

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #untamed fic #jiang cheng #my writing #this is such a fluffy lil interlude lol

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curiosity-killed · 4 years

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a bow for the bad decisions: Chapter 10

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(on ao3)

Wei Wuxian.

We’ve been waiting, Wei Wuxian.

Do you remember, Wei-gongzi?

You can’t control it, Wei Wuxian.

You promised.

You promised, Wei-gongzi.

Wei Wuxian.

Let us out.

Let us out, Wei Wuxian.

Don’t you want to?

Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian

Wei Wuxian.

It’s time.

Half-spectral, ash grey—

“Wei-gongzi, please.” Blood on his teeth, an open grave empty of bones— Revenge— Don’t you want revenge? Wen Chao laughing, sneering; Wen Chao trembling, peeling his own skin off in bloody strips. “Do you know what it’s like to starve, Wen-er-gongzi? Do you know what hunger tastes like?” Tears running hot as fresh blood, broken fingers closing around a seething hilt. Resentment cuts through him, splinters bone and tatters veins. His heart thumps hollow with the two-beat rhythm of revenge. “Wei-gongzi, please, you need to calm yourself.” Calm yourself. Restrain yourself. Chenqing hissing under his hand. Of course they can attack him as they please, but when it comes to protecting himself, he must hold back, curb his strength. How fragile they are, these all-mighty gentry. How thin their pride, how feeble their strength. The crack of bone breaking, a punched-out gasp. A valley of undead swarming two golden sparks. Jin Zixuan swaying, surprise breaking bloody over his lips. “A-Li—” Wei Wuxian comes to in the feeble light of candles. A tear slips hot down his cheek and he doesn’t let himself brush it away. How obscene, how wrong, to feel sorrow when he’s the one who’s brought this down on all of them. He is the architect of their ruin and he has the gall to weep? Absurd. He’s been lying to all of them, pretending he’s anything but a weapon, trying to hide his sharp edges under the swaddling of smiles and laughter. As if he could ever be anything but what he made himself. He’s a demon with a smile, a curse in human skin. “Why?” he asks. “Why him? You could have killed anyone else — why did you have to kill him?” He sits up, somewhere outside of his body. Nothing hurts anymore. All those aches and old breaks have been replaced. Reverse ossification, where once was bone is nothing more than resentment, dark hunger swallowing him whole. He understands. His body is not his own. His hands close around Wen Ning’s collars, clenching the fabric as if to tear it off or fling Wen Ning away. Wen Ning puts up no resistance, uses none of that terrible strength Wei Wuxian forced onto him. “Why did you kill him?” he demands. “Why did it have to be him? What is shijie supposed to do now? What am I supposed to do?” “I’m sorry,” Wen Ning bursts out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, it’s my fault.” Wei Wuxian stumbles back, releasing him. Wen Ning is a weapon. Wen Ning is a blade in careless hands. He drags his fingers back through his hair, digs his nails into his scalp. “What am I supposed to do? Why did I choose this path?” he mutters, begs. “What on earth should I do? Who can tell me?” His nails bite into his scalp, blades of pressure against his skull. His body hums, sings, is brought to life with his grief and rage. Black sand scrapes through fragile capillaries. “What can I do?” he wails. “Who can tell me what I’m supposed to do?” Slipping down his skull, his hands clench around his hair, tugging, before they drop to fists at his sides. His own voice falls dead on the cave walls. There is no one here to guide him. He is alone, utterly and wholly by his own making. “Wei-gongzi?” Wen Ning’s voice is so tentative, hesitant and fearful. Fair, he thinks. Fitting. He remembers only snatches of the pass; he remembers enough. Fear, anger, blood, his own will rising like the tide and drowning out Wen Ning’s, the current dragging him under. Wen Ning had only ever wanted to be a cultivator and a medic, to make his sister proud and help his family. He’s only a kid — only nineteen when he died and only nineteen forever, trapped in a slipshod eternity. Wei Wuxian had thought he was helping when he did it — or was that only another lie he told them? He can’t remember his thoughts at the time, can only recall anger and grief and thrumming, screaming power. This is his own disaster. No one can fix this. His grief and panic cool, solidify like iron dropped in a bucket by the forge. Tempered, honed, he steadies. “Wei-gongzi, there is a message from Yunmeng. It came the night before last.” Wen Ning’s eyes are wide and worried; he watches closely even as he extends the arrow on shaking hands. Wei Wuxian takes it, and the spelled shaft unfurls into a small, tight scroll. He recognizes Yu Bujue’s hand, and before he has even read the first character, he knows the naïve hope that is to follow. ‘Da-shixiong, there will be an attack the day after tomorrow. All the sects have pledged forces.’ How innocent of a-Jue to think this warning would be either news or helpful. He’s always been like that, just enough younger to always seem a child even when he was fighting beside them in a war. Of course the sects are coming. Wei Wuxian has killed the heir of the Chief Cultivator himself. There is no other path they could take. “Perhaps if — if I turned myself in,” Wen Ning suggests. Wei Wuxian shoots a sharp look his way, silencing him. Wei Wuxian has done this. He started all of it, and he puppeted Wen Ning in the pass. He will not let another take his punishment. “No,” he says, straightening. He can feel the resentment now more than ever. It distorts his edges, blurs the boundary of his skin. His heart no longer pulses for his own blood but to set a steady beat for the burn-song replacing his veins. Every movement is a half-conscious command, a sequence of notes directing his limbs as Chenqing leads ghosts and ghouls. “No,” he says. “Leave. Go anywhere away from here, but do not turn toward the sects. There is a desert far to the north. Go there, go to the mountains, to the sea, but do not ever turn back here.” “Wei-gongzi—” Wen Ning protests. His dark eyes are wide and fearful. Wei Wuxian turns to him, crumpling the talisman scroll in his hand. Wen Ning’s throat bobs once before he squares his shoulders and faces Wei Wuxian stubbornly. “Wei-gongzi, I cannot leave my family,” he says. “I can’t leave you to face the sects alone. I did it, I was the one who attacked. Let me help you.” Help? What help will he bring but his own destruction? Does he really think there is any way Wei Wuxian will walk away from this? The end is here. There is no escape from the encroaching night. “If you won’t go on your own, I can make you,” Wei Wuxian says. His voice comes out cool and even, and Wen Ning flinches back. Wei Wuxian has always promised that Wen Ning was his own person, wasn’t a puppet, wasn’t just a tool. He’s made a lot of promises over the years. “Wei-gongzi—” Wen Ning starts, taking an uncertain step forward. “Wen Qionglin, leave this place,” Wei Wuxian orders. “Leave and never look back. I don’t need Chenqing to command you.” Some part of Wen Ning still seems to protest; his gaze searches Wei Wuxian’s face, begging, pleading. Wei Wuxian meets it, flat and uncaring. He promised Wen Qing he’d keep him safe. He owes them too much to do anything else. If Wen Ning will not save himself, Wei Wuxian will give him no choice. Wen Ning takes a faltering step backward. His face is so still, but there’s the faintest start of a frown. If he were alive, he’d be crying already. Wei Wuxian holds himself tight and still, strings pulled taut through the hollows of his bones. Wen Ning’s hands are shaking as he brings them before him, bowing low and solemn. “I’m sorry, Wei-gongzi,” he says and his voice trembles. Wei Wuxian doesn’t watch him leave, but he can feel it; the threads still connecting them, thin and stubborn, stretching farther away. He’ll feel it when Wei Wuxian dies. He’ll know when he’s free. Now, Wei Wuxian turns to his work. There are forty-eight of them living here. With Wen Qing and Wen NIng gone, that leaves forty-five villagers to protect. He doesn’t need to factor himself in, doesn’t need to calculate his own protections. That cause has long been lost. Everything is thinner, sharper-edged. He flickers on the threshold between realms, yin energy replacing his blood and bone. It scours the backs of his ribs, bites into the soft tissue still lingering like meat that hasn’t yet rotted from the bone. There were lessons Jiang Cheng took alone growing up, as sect heir, ones where Wei Wuxian would wait outside the hall and then talk them over with Jiang Cheng when he emerged. The duties of the Head Disciple weren’t limited to teaching, after all, even if that had always been his favorite. An attack on the Burial Mounds, on the Yiling laozu, will warrant full forces from all the sects. Now, he sketches rough estimates of the army coming for his head and prepares. The Jin sect will be the greatest force, both because they are the most offended and the most powerful. Next, the Nie sect — martial and brutal as their sabers. The Lan sect will hold back a little, still nursing wounds from the burning of Cloud Recesses; like Yunmeng Jiang, they haven’t fully replenished their numbers. He draws in a steadying breath. Yunmeng Jiang will bring the smallest force, but they won’t be able to winnow their numbers in his favor without risking the sect itself. They will come to fight, even if they don’t want to. He calls up disciples’ faces, draws up his shidis and shimeis, Yu Bujue and the new swordmaster Cao Xingtao. He pictures Jiang Cheng. The Burial Mounds have always liked him, ever since they tugged him down the first time. It reminds him a little of the lakes of Yunmeng, how he’d been able to feel the living energy swirling and flowing around them. The lakes had always pulled to him like the tides, ebbing and flowing, giving and releasing. Every Jiang disciple knows the harmonies of the waters, recognizes the disturbances caused by common problems: water ghouls, drowned spirits, and the like. The Burial Mounds are not so forgiving. The dead do not love by halves: they are made of hunger, of want. He’d bartered and bargained and dealed the first time to make them let him walk away. They’d resented having to give him up even temporarily, jealously clinging to this new song he composed from their screams. There are no concessions this time. He will not walk away. They give back fully, energy rushing up to greet him with seething delight. The qin-wire strings of his existence resonate with the force. There are no more lines between them anymore. He is the Seal is Chenqing is him. The Burial Mounds open up and welcome him. He cuts into his palm and begins painting. The array will be a focal point, the center of his force. The parched stone soaks in the scarlet of his blood, the thick lines spreading into the cracks of the rock. He chooses carefully, selecting with intent. Amplification, exclusion, repulsion. He is his own arsenal; he arrays his forces in the patterns of talismans and wards. With each cut, each stroke, he feels the resentment take firmer root. A spreading snarl of roots knotting through his chest, wrapping around and cracking open bones. The voices are louder now, shrill screams echoing in his ears as if reverberating through his own hollow shell. A bitter wind scourges his skin as the Burial Mounds opens itself to his crooked hands. “Wei-gongzi?” Popo and Uncle Six stand side by side, shoulders curled as if they’re only barely keeping themselves from cowering. Popo’s veiny hands shake where they’re clasped before her ribs. “Wei-gongzi, how can we help?” Uncle Six asks. They are so frail before him, so small and fragile. He can feel their qi, dull and quiet against the raging resentment all around them. Only the faintest brushes of yin energy shadow their own souls; they are peaceful people, gentle. They don’t have that shuddering quake to their bones. “Go inside,” he says. “Close the doors and do not open them. No matter what you hear, do not come outside.” Uncle Six swallows, shaggy brows furrowing as if in worry or perhaps fear. Popo reaches out a shaking hand but pulls back before touching his sleeve. “Wei-gongzi,” she says gently, “your eyes…” Her hand creeps back to curl close to her chest. He does not feel regret. They should have known from the beginning, should have been better warned of the monster walking among them. Wen Ning was never the one to fear. “Go inside,” he says. There’s a long hesitation before, finally, they give little bobbing nods. He can feel the rest of them watching, the uneasy shuffle into their hard won homes. The houses are small and flimsy, put together with hard work and meager materials. There are no wards that can make the dark wood stone, but he can seal them once they’re closed. It will be something at least, a barricade of broken table legs. The sects have their swords and spiritual weapons, but they can still bleed. A hundred thousand needle pricks can drain an elephant. Drawing out the Seal, he picks up Chenqing and begins to play. The screaming night of the Burial Mounds and the yin energy of the Seal have always been of two different fabrics. They share the common thread of resentment, but they’ve been woven in separate ways. Where the Burial Mounds is raw, unfinished grief and rage, the Seal is refined and condensed, a purer form of resentment. Ghosts and spirits are drawn up from their shallow graves in the Mounds; the Seal gives power with nothing but corrosion tagging along. Chenqing sings for them, drawing and plaiting them together. She hums with this overload of energy, this sudden flood soaking into her wards and walls. She was forged here, too; she carries the Burial Mounds in her edges the same way he does. The boundary is reinforced, then new walls of protections pulled up. He plays new seals into being and builds up walls of the living dead. The spirits echo his own music, and the notes reverberate through the Seal. Each passage, each resounding chorus, strengthens and solidifies the spells. “Xian-gege?” The voice is thin and frightened as it interrupts Chenqing’s dirge. Playing out the last notes of the spell, he lowers the flute and turns. A-Yuan stands at the edge of the array, his little shoes just shy of the blood. A paper butterfly is clutched tight to his chest, wings crumpled in his small fist. “Xian-gege?” he says again. “A-Yuan,” he says, lowering Chenqing. It takes him a moment to recall the name, to draw up the identity of the child before him. The resentment stirs, uneasy at this interruption, but recedes enough for him to reach out a hand. “A-Yuan, why are you outside?” The doors have already been sealed, blood painted in tight arrays along the walls. He could feel the huddled bodies behind them, the fear marinating in their four walls. “Xian-gege, I’m scared,” a-Yuan says, tears bright in his eyes. He can feel it, sublimating off his little frame. He’s not steeped in it, but it’s wound into the young fibers of his core. Resentment in the form of his arms circles around a-Yuan, pulls him up to rest on his hip. The boy nestles in close, his heart racing rabbit-like under his skin. He can’t feel his warmth anymore; there’s a gap between sensation and his soul now, the chasm filled by the prickling dark. “Xian-gege, will you sing for me?” “Of course,” he says. He hums as he walks, a melody untouched by the writhing anger around them. It rises from deep inside him, slips between the shadows of his shattered soul. The spirits do not touch this song, do not attempt to echo its refrain. This is his his his. It is a last bloom on a mountain of ash. They will not taint it. A-Yuan hums along, holding tight to his collars. He’s so little still, small for his age and always skinny. They’d given him extra portions whenever they could, everyone slipping something off their plate for his, but even still, there has only ever been so much to go around. Now, he fits easily in Wei Wuxian’s arms and hardly weighs anything at all. “I need you to be good, a-Yuan,” he says. There’s an old tree at the edge of the clearing in which they made their fragile home. Black rope-work scars it, and the bark peels back from the gash of the lightning strike. It’s an old wound in an ancient tree, and the edges have been worn smooth by wind and rain. “A-Yuan will be good for Xian-gege,” the boy promises solemnly. He offers up a smile, hopeful, even as his big brown eyes are dark and worried. Settling him up in the hollow, Wei Wuxian smooths back his mussed hair. “Be good and stay quiet,” he says. A-Yuan bobs his head in a nod. His little hands fold tight around the butterfly, clutching it close to his chest. “And a-Yuan,” Wei Wuxian says, “don’t look. I need you to promise me.” There are tears gathering in his eyes, his brows pinching toward each other in distress. Wei Wuxian cups his cheek with his palm. “Xian-gege, are you going away?” he asks. Wei Wuxian swallows, hums an affirmation around the knot in his throat. It was easier moments ago, when he was alone in the storm welling up inside him. So much resentment has threaded itself through his skin that he hardly remembered who he was if not an extension of the hurt and rage of this place. “Xian-gege, please don’t leave,” a-Yuan says, fat tears welling up and breaking. “Please don’t leave. I’ll be good, Xian-gege, I’ll be really good.” “Mm.” Wei Wuxian clears his throat and leans a-Yuan’s head forward to brush a kiss to his forehead. “It will all be alright, a-Yuan. I promise.” “You’ll come back?” Such a small voice, already breaking. Wei Wuxian settles him, smooths flyaway hairs where they’ve slipped from the tie. It’s only one more lie. “I’ll come back,” he says. “But you have to promise you’ll be quiet and you won’t look. Alright, a-Yuan?” After another tremulous pause, a-Yuan nods. “A-Yuan promises,” he says. A smile flickers on Wei Wuxian’s lips, shaking even as he suppresses it. It’s quick work to ward the tree, to seal it against the coming attack. Cruelty, even in this — to imprison the boy in an unmarked tomb. Perhaps his spirit will forgive him. He’s always been a kind boy, quick to forget his own tears. It’s too much to hope for, but it’s the smallest wish he can make. Perhaps, in another life, he’ll have the chance to say ‘I’m sorry.’ For this life, there is only so much he can do. Turning from the tree, he walks back to the center of the clearing and raises Chenqing once more. There are still a few loose ends, unraveled edges of wards. The corpses shuffle closer to the edges, congregating on the border toward Lanling. The Seal, still halved, hangs suspended at his sides. It hums, all hunger and thirst. Its filigree burns, rings with the white-hot heat of want. Sibilant words sing out from it, memories and reminders of the power that it holds. All he has to do is fit both sides together, slot them into place, let the power flood him. How strong they’d be if only he let them. He holds off. Perhaps some stubborn hope still lingers where he thought he’d drowned it. Maybe it’s Jiang Cheng’s insistence that they can figure it out; maybe it’s shijie’s assurance that the three of them will be together. He doesn’t really want to die, even if he knows he’s long past living. If he connects the two halves, it will be surrendering any hope of return; he will be lost in a way even death can’t fix. He’s been planning to destroy the Seal for so long, he knows the process by heart. If he can only get through this — if he can just hold off the sects and keep the Wens safe — then he’ll break it apart. He’ll be done. At least he’ll be able to do that one last good thing. He just has to hold on a little longer, dig his fingernails in and cling to his fraying control. There’s a ping against the wards, the first sign of an approach. It hums through him like the echo of qin strings in a cave. Reverberating through his chest, it’s caught and overwhelmed by the tearing sensation as the wards are broken. Pressure mounts, spiritual energy a rising crescendo against the seething resentment called up around them.

Closing his eyes, he lifts Chenqing and begins.

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #untamed fic #wei wuxian #burial mounds #my writing

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