"You could not take from me," he says with the smug satisfaction of a man who knows himself seen, understood for the wickedness of his needs. He may burn Wei Ying's nest, yes, with petty gladness, until the scraps and chords and chipped trinkets and drying paints and the drafts of Wei Ying's latest aborted talisman combine as a gasp in tireless flame. If Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, wanted a man dead, who could stop him? And if Lan Wangji, styled Hanguang-Jun, wants the universe at balance, who might stay his hand?
...Wei Ying. Wei Ying, mouth soft and shaping the swelling, overly joyous cadence of the countryside song. Wei Ying, who never breathes a note, but teases, Want me to —
Yes. Sixteen's years worth of ridicule and teasing, and isn't Lan Wangji owed? A lifetime of an equal's judgement. Wei Ying's. Ledger red, You never honoured your obligations to your soulmate.
He rushes, foolishly, and slaps his hand from the hills and valleys of the guqin strings beneath him to Wei Ying's forehead, sliding down to shield the dark of his eyes. Sealing there, as if Wei Ying were young Sizhui, cantankerous before his bed time, yearning for the good, undisciplined life of the Burial Mounds.
Lan Sizhui has learned obedience, since. He unlearns it now. A good boy. A lesser one stands before Lan Wangji now. ( He will learn too, Wei Ying was ever the superior scholar. ) "Want you rested."
no subject
...Wei Ying. Wei Ying, mouth soft and shaping the swelling, overly joyous cadence of the countryside song. Wei Ying, who never breathes a note, but teases, Want me to —
Yes. Sixteen's years worth of ridicule and teasing, and isn't Lan Wangji owed? A lifetime of an equal's judgement. Wei Ying's. Ledger red, You never honoured your obligations to your soulmate.
He rushes, foolishly, and slaps his hand from the hills and valleys of the guqin strings beneath him to Wei Ying's forehead, sliding down to shield the dark of his eyes. Sealing there, as if Wei Ying were young Sizhui, cantankerous before his bed time, yearning for the good, undisciplined life of the Burial Mounds.
Lan Sizhui has learned obedience, since. He unlearns it now. A good boy. A lesser one stands before Lan Wangji now. ( He will learn too, Wei Ying was ever the superior scholar. ) "Want you rested."