eastbound | un: xianxian of yunmeng jiang

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un: xianxian of yunmeng jiang | video

( The recording shows a small toad, black and red and gold, sitting in the palm of one hand. In another hand a brilliant emerald green toad is held, pointed in the direction of the smaller toad.

The smaller toad shifts to look "toward" the display, lifting up on front legs to address the one recording by pendant. )

I don't want to kiss the toad, Lan Zhan! Hnnngh.

( The toad, who spoke in Wei Wuxian's voice, shifts his legs and tiny bulk back around to stare down the larger toad. Who inflates its throat and offers a long, wheezing croak. )

Ugh. Fine. For the sake of proving this works before anyone else suffers through this —

( He abruptly leaps forward, smashing his small toad face into the larger toad's face. How does one kiss a toad when one has no notably amount of lip? Both Wei Toadxian's front feet plaster against the larger toad's face, attempting to keep the other toad respectable. Holding the awkward position for excruciating seconds. He falls backward, kicking off the other toad, to flop back into Lan Wangji's open palm. )

Was that long enough? I don't —

( Abruptly the image shakes with a yelp of Wei Wuxian's surprise as the screen is filled with pale flesh, mud, and the sudden forward falling scramble of a man who has now found himself with a palm filled with the weight of an adult human male. Welcome to the darkness, shifting, squelching sounds of mud and an irate toad expressing its displeasure even as Lan Wangji's equally excruciatingly dry voice ends the video with a: )

... efficient.

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Will you be resolving everything regarding the witches in a day?

( he's so on to these endless stallings, he's really asking for clarification )

Will you give chase to your comfort before their own?

Yes, because it takes less time to attend to myself to be back on their trail than denying myself because I think the penance will assist in the journey.

( oh look, the visual finally sees more of him as he whirls away with a sigh and shake of his head, striding out in barefoot glory up the path and toward the village, which does have baths one might make use of for the right asking and the right price. )

( ...right, right. Must... give chase to this not-witch. )

Wei Ying.

( Because sullenly calling after Wei Wuxian has historically done so much good. )

Lan Zhan~!

( he keeps one hand holding the robes decently closed at his navel, but other than that, he seems to be enjoying his barefoot romp a touch more than usual, because all his unhappy demeanour is shedding off as he practically prances up the trail. no, he's not heeding the sullen call of his name, but he is luxuriating in the feeling of humid air tugging at his hair, the sweat forming down his back and under his arms, the feel of silk on skin, his single lidded eyes, that when he smiles or licks his lips his tongue doesn't extend twenty feet away from him. delightful!

he's taken to humming as he heads up the curving length before, stepping squarely on a sharp stone and yelping, hopping a few steps forward, staring down at his foot as he shakes it out, then gently continuing on. no blood drips or drops behind him, ergo he chooses to shake off the pain and continue his Very Human Romp along. )

( This is, in no particular order: unwise, unseemly, uninvited, obscene. Wei Ying, who has never trotted onward down the path to sensibility is now carefully devolving into blissful infamy and enjoying himself along the way.

Lan Wangji, who has yet to find a sword he won't delightedly throw himself upon for his soulmate, decides this flat ground will do just as well as any hill for certain and impending death, and — breathless, if not entirely huffing — spares a moment to stare.

Then glare. Then promptly, rhymes nearly exhausted, to beware, when faced with the horror of Wei Ying's prickled toe. )

Allow carrying.

( ...at least this human-shaped heart attack yet has his clothes and shoes at their cave-dwelling. )

( Unless his husband, soul mate, twinned half who is not a perfect reflection but a flawed and tandem stride, has finished the recording, then let it be known this remains on camera: do enjoy. This is as close to skipping through meadows of daisies as Wei Wuxian is getting.

Meaning he's correcting the temporary hobble and waving his hand off to the side and up above his shoulder at Lan Zhan's offering: )

No need! I have two legs, can walk myself. Go forth, follow the witch trail! Tell me what you've learned when I'm back from bathing.

( A wind stirs his robes, tugging them away from the length of his calves, even partly up his thighs when they're whipped around by a gust blowing the heavy scent of growth and decay of greenery past them, black hair stirred into a minor banner waving that he allows to proceed. See, his hair ribbon and the rest remains with his clothing; he's as utterly unlike his usual portrayal as he could be, in whites and blues and with more the ghost of propriety around him than the physical reminder of his general modesty. Not worth it, when he shakes off the fetters of his recent physical confinement, and he laughs outright reaching out to allow his fingers, his unwebbed, smooth tipped fingers, to brush the soft petals of a flower hanging heavy over the path. That he sneezes not long after, pollen as heavy in the air, isn't important; all of it is so markedly human he can't help but delight in that too. )

( ...belatedly, snap and the pendant falls lifeless, because, sir, there are natural limits to one's exhibitionism, and kindly don't tempt the likes of flustered witch girls elsewhere into wicked temptation.

Lan Wangji, arrested, considers his objections (numerous, indignant). His misgivings (fractured, in perpetuity). His temperament (rattled, charmed). And his priorities (misplaced).

Calmly, he surrenders the fool's notion of coaxing Wei Ying to peaceful pastures and colludes against decency with a betrayal of delay. He is... a pretty thing, is Wei Ying, so easily, gently, thoroughly satisfied by platitudes and banalities. Enjoying this body he has lost twice now, already, and regained nearly in full.

Briefly straying, he returns after just as Wei Ying has finished rewarding the world with a deep sneeze — only to present a fat, full and broad lotus pod, held delicately by the stem, seed-brimming head tipped to knock against Wei Ying's nose. One advantage to the wealth of lakes beside them. Hello. )

Allow carrying, and you may have this.

( Wei Wuxian blinks at the touch of heavy lotus bud to his nose, going near crossed eyed with the effort of focus on the bud and then blinking to look beyond it, up the proffered arm, to Lan Zhan with his particular expression. He smiles in spite of himself, a huff of laughter and the warmth that rises up from his empty core to suffuse the whole of his chest. Yes, he knows what Lan Zhan does now, but the point to it all is that he wishes to do so, cares to coax and cajole and does so in a means that runs contrary to what once was most obvious, most logical, to the young man formed in Gusu Lan.

He became a man tempered by the world, where rules and reading and logic couldn't define or provide clear division to what is and is not the better and worst of the world. So much subjectivity is difficult to swallow.

Not bound by pride, though once he knows he probably would have been, he reaches for the lotus pod with both hands. Forgetting for that moment the lack of waistband, thus the robes gently resettle to his sides, and more of the humid breezes off the water stir them, coax them from their overlap, send them billowing to his sides. All the better that only Lan Zhan stands before him now, because he'd be flashing anyone else unintentionally and with his hands full of his husband's gift of seed. )

Who owns these waters?

( He asks, lips quirked, even as he allows that to be his tacit acceptance: you may carry me on his back, which makes for awkward eating of the lotus later, but regardless. Compromise. )

( Who owns these waters? A slap, returned. His cheek singes with it, flush that transfers, blooming, to the pinched points of his cheeks and the tips of his ears, the rush of a fever.

He remembers, then: what he understood only in fragments. Now, what he sees in whole. He should have allowed Wei Ying to consume his fill of the lotus pods, then show him all of Yunmeng thereafter. Should have, but did not.

And now, he stays stilled, arm snapping behind his back, carefully and diplomatically positioned. )

You do. ( As the member of a village that claims the entire lakes' spread its residents' own. An ephemeral resident, yet possessed of a claim, and how can Lan Wangji deny him this? ) It is known.

( Lips twitched into a smile less bewitching than bemused; genuine amusement and the touch of confusion that years ago had been deep rooted, had been a loss of self and faith and trust in who Wei Wuxian was, to what space he took in a world, to what parts of it he might lay claim to, to allowances he sought at the benediction of Lan Zhan's graces.

He steps forward now, cupped lotus pod in hands, and he lifts both arms to hook them over Lan Zhan's head, choosing not to forsake the hold they retain on the husked blossom. What he's eaten since his earlier days, what Jiang Yanli had shelled for him and Jiang Cheng both, for this part of childhood and home that he had tried to resurrect in Yiling, that the Dafan Wen had given him there after A-Yuan had torn the single seedling Wei Wuxian had coaxed out of the transplanted mud from its home. The one time he'd lost his temper without a cause that a child, curious and sweet, could understand, and he'd regretted it in degrees after, no fault of a child that his own hopes were as fragile and poorly rooted.

Pressed against Lan Zhan's front in his loaned robes, he leans in, enough to be offbalance for any movement Lan Zhan makes. Speaks with his nose near but not quite touching Lan Zhan's, the weight of his arms over Lan Zhan's shoulders, his lashes lowered a touch less out of art and more out of the proximity of their faces and a fondness he doesn't attempt to disguise. )

Let it also be known what is mine, I choose to share with you. Do you like the taste of lotus seeds, Lan Zhan?

( Tell him, murmur the affirmation or denial for his waiting ears, for the inopportune moments where his excusable lack of modesty has attained the inexcusable, caught in the drone of insects and day's heat and blessing of breezes off the water, heady with the scent of living, breathing plant growth, plant decay. )

( Wei Ying, despairingly thin, stranded, a straggler. Clinging over Lan Wangji like wetted weeds, drowning him. Is this what you learned of the witch? Who seduced her targets just so, flesh syrupy and bones molten, and her frame wilted upon theirs, as if their intimacy were poison. Who teased, who demurred, who cast her spell strong thereafter.

And now he watches Wei Ying like a tense cat stares at the moon, her cheek wan and beauty tormented — wanting, waiting, transfixed. What does he care of lotus seeds? Moon cakes and Yunmeng, and the unctuous aftertaste of richness and laughter. Pastries, delight. Happy new year.

He kisses Wei Ying, hands buried in his lapels, drawing in, drawing close. Crafting his robes firmly closed. Hush. )

It's sweet.

( Mild, nutty. He hardly peels the notes off Wei Ying's mouth, relinquishing him — except for a hand. Tugging. )

Tastes of toad. ( Come, come. )

( He smiles after, unequal parts amusement and curling want that cannot quite escape the need to bathe first, however much he's allowed modesty to stay submerged beneath the waters of circumstance. They never have properly right moments. He's increasingly of the opinion they need to shake the idea free

Moments are moments. Even as he groans in dismay over the comment and tease of toads, even as one hand clutches lotus bud and his own borrowed robes closed almost as Lan Zhan had crafted them to be, the stumble as he steps on uplifted root, shifting his weight so the balance he catches natural has him bumping into his husband, trying to squirm his way into a handhold like a much younger man, all pastiches of courtship and flirtations whispered sweet on springtime's winds.

This is not a sweet village. These moments have harrowed, and he's bothered by the lack of justice for anyone here, villagers suffering, witches accused and accusers, people in power slipping and fighting to keep their home whole. )

A bath, ( he says, no more whine in his voice, the settled nature of a statement, ) Then the learning of this village's hurts. Lance one injury, find ways for it to heal. Understand why time and memory is broken, ah?

( Then the beacon, always the beacon, but he thinks: of course. And so he doesn't think further of the beacon, foregone conclusion, at all. )

Ah. ( Agreement, sound. He is barely an accessory when the wheels that cart Wei Ying's sharp, beautiful mind start turning, and the moment between them has shifted. Wei Ying is ready now, primed to conquer the truths of Yancai — and it is for Lan Wangji to now temper him, reaching out to tug his hand then gently bending the knee and shepherding Wei Ying to climb on Wangji's back, as children might.

He did so pledge, and to think, barefoot. Hardly seemly. Even Jiang Cheng would dutifully protest. )

The man who cannot remember, resolving memory. So be it.

( He pledged this, forgot near as easily, needing it even less now than the time he decried it while wearing the curse taken from his martial nephew. Wei Wuxian pauses as he's prompted, shifts, finds his face turning red in degrees, his turn to highlight sharp cheeks in red, his nose, his ears, the back of his neck. He does not wear the layered robes that make this form of modesty easier, not in Lan Zhan's loaned overrobes, and he swallows and laughs, a touch breathy, a touch nervous over the particulars of his embarrassment — not for anyone else, but for how this, how they, how... )

I did say, ( he does say, ) I remember that much, faulty as anything else is.

( Through genuine disinterest, yes; through defense for keeping himself saner, happier. Had he been happier here as the minstrel, no one and nothing else?

Perhaps. But that never was, never was meant to be, who or what he is.

He slides his arms as prompted, the loss of his hold on robes leading to their shifting, parting. To press himself against his husband's back, to submit to the hands questing for his thighs to support him, that much perhaps spared indelicate exposure.

Again.

Burying his face into his arm and at the side of Lan Zhan's neck when he rises, he bites down on his tongue. )

You.

( Are the evidence he never needed to parts of himself he never paid attention to. He holds as still as he can, burred to his husband's back, and quietly contemplates the absurdity of finding this stirring on any level. )

( He. A man, by any other name, for all the prison of his flesh neglects at times this humble memory. It serves him now, fierce reckoning, as Wei Ying climbs and digs his heels, the jutting, stabbing arrow-tipped pillars of his elbows. There are moments in this tryst when Lan Wangji cannot remember if he is serving a kindly, soft, medical purpose or being wholeheartedly invaded, duly scaled.

Wei Ying clings, Lan Wangji's arms fold back to capture his legs and cradle his thighs, and the cavernous concavity of his palm catches the bundle of Wei Ying's feet, in passing — fingers flicker, dance and dally, tickling toes with rivulets of entirely misused qi, because a man who runs wild and free in a forest, barefooted, must have waved his banners before every splinter in the land.

He holds on to Wei Ying. Starts them on an even path, only, not home, no. They have — a detour before them. )

I intend — ( This, amiably, in the way of every man who knows he possesses the advantage of physical strength: ) To gift you to Wen Qing.

( What a mighty pity that Wei Ying can't flee now. )

( stiffen, like his member come morning, when urine decries urgency, but anatomy renders it difficult to impossible to meet with immediacy. turn his head, eyes flashing dark in the brightness, lips pulled back from teeth. lean in, to murmur in voice deep and certain: )

I'm no one's to gift.

( and that promise, all before he very fetchingly nibbles, no, latches on to his husband's neck with teeth, using a touch of qi into the lotus pod to give it strength enough to part flesh.

think fast, lan wangji, because he has blood and free hands and the expanse of your white, white back to write on, and your hands there, parting his milky thighs. )

( Hissing, serpentine and quick, brush of Wei Ying's teeth a quiet murder. There's blood to be born of it, clotting with qi, the quiet rejuvenation of a body that above all, protects itself. He should yield, he knows. It makes Wei Ying pliant, bides Wangji time.

Whatever game this is, it will end poorly, frustrated or bittersweet. They have scant time to waste. He walks, branches crackling and wet licking at his ankles, his calves and climbing carelessly and cruel when the dark of the lakes escalates, and they cross drowned land again. He hefts Wei Ying farther up his back.

Then, disarmingly: )

Please. ( Be good. Allow this. It would ease him. )

( no fingers painted red stroke the back of his husband's neck, lines sinuous, curving into known quantities echoing his heart as much as that impulsive part of him unwilling to lay back down again after it awakened to the allowance of his existence once more. the possibility of his hands movement stills with the one word, and his expression, disgruntled and set, morphs slowly into mellow grumpiness, remaining unseen. )

Start by asking. Pleading after deciding for yourself is unworthy.

( there's of course unfair reasons in both directions, but he's tired of this, tired of this treatment of porcelain when he hasn't been fragile in genuine ways for years now. the shift into a man who walks a path other than the one of sword arts is long established, but still not fully accepted; he's not the strong qi cultivator he once had been, but he's not weak except in the bullheaded perspective of those who would only pit themselves directly against unstoppable forces as unmoving walls. it's how his husband has crafted himself, but it's not limited to that, his husband is not limited to that.

but this, too, is true: )

You're precious to me. Agree to your own physical with her now, and I will.

( Silent, still, paralysed. He listens, first to Wei Ying's words, then the murmured cascade of his righteous complaints, as they wade, Wangji's silks a slowing deterrent, through thickened, cold waters.

Unworthy, Wei Ying says, and the sting of it corrodes his skin, poisons his flesh. It singes and brands, and this is the truest hurt, to think that this man he carries in life as he did sixteen years in memory might find him — unequal to the task of serving him as companion. An unsuitable soulmate. Lacking. )

I was not transformed. ( Only one man between them flirted with metamorphosis, and Lan Wangji still touted his opposable thumbs. Even now, waters past his thighs and climbing, as they traverse sunken land, he is still proudly, inescapably human. The danger was born by one, alone.

Yet, conciliatory, he offers — )

But agreed.

( — and releases Wei Ying, dropping him down into lake water. Swim, if his help is so superfluous. )

( pulled back as he was, dropped, he falls fast, the flailing of hands catching at the back of lan zhan's robes to drag him back as he yelps, hitting the water with a splash of silty browns. )

( And down —

down, down, down, flopping, down

— they go, together.

Lan Wangji floundering, muttering, seeking purchase, drowning them in his silks, before emerging to break water with the general grace of an exhausted seal. He remembers, absently, to clutch Wei Ying's wrist and pick him up, protect him from harm's way —

...then, blinking away water from his lashes, as he beholds the shrew, his soulmate, he lets go again with a pointed push. Back in the water you go. )

( fished from the waters, tossed back in, and rising with borrowed robes already falling from shoulders as they still plaster to sides, he does as any man raised in yunmeng might.

he tackles lan zhan into the water with a lilting: )

Haa!

( Stop it. Cease, desist, contain thyself.

He falls back like a hard rock, splintering, like an arrow's tip — absently catching Wei Ying in both arms, before turning them both around, looking to dislodge his pursuer.

...never mind the water that keeps inundating his mouth. )

What — are you doing? ( What is this all about. )

( he laughs, short and water interrupted, struggling in the pointed way of one at play and willing to send them both repeatedly splashing into the waters: )

Playing, Lan Zhan!

( no fishing, but plenty of poignant grins and the tenacity of the man who was labeled yiling laozu as a mockery later morphed into a fear with respect, before it became arrogance.

play with him in the waters, maybe see the advantage to a proper bath, maybe not. he throws himself as fully into this moment as his complaints many moments before, addicted to the fluid nature of a life lived. )

un: xianxian of yunmeng jiang | video

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and lo, he remembers to turn off the video

and so they go off grid unless you tracked them down

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