[OOM + EP] - The feelings haven't changed, and neither has the pining.

[thesecondjade]

 [I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.

-- John Clare]

Lan Zhan has been here since Wei Wuxian arrived.

This does not mean that he is constantly at the man's shoulder -- though he's often nearby in the background when his zhiji socalizes or trains, just in case. Still, he finds time for his own studies and pursuits, like study in the library, or creating a small space on the porch that is not too cold to play the guqin in.

Today, he's at a low table in the bar proper, seated before it. On the table is a packet of notes that are on magics that are forbidden - curses, spells woven by the Yiling Patriach, recently brought out of their hiding spot and re-copied for use in study only. His handwriting is much neater than his zhiji's, but if one knows Cultivator magic, this is most certainly dark stuff.

Which is fine, this is research in counter-curses. He is once again pouring through notes on the Songs of Clarity, wondering at what he might find to help counter such things. If there is a way to soothe Mo Xuanyu's cursed pain, perhaps they can buy themselves more time for their quest. Anything that will keep Wei Ying breathing longer.

Tucked to the side? Lesson plans. He's still teaching, after all, and he has to give the juniors something to study in his absences while he travels with Wei Wuxian looking for solutions to the little curse problem -- or whatever poor soul has to die to fulfill Mo Xuanyu's thirst for vengeance.

Comments

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying is glowing. He's spent the morning getting his ass carefully and comprehensively handed to him by a very enthusiastic Japanese cop, and after a quick swim in what is an incredibly cold lake, he's gotten cleaned up and set up with a very planned lunch.

He'd chafe at the regimented-ness of it all, but how can he protest so much effort being put towards his recovery? Besides, it's... very, very good, not trying to do this alone.

Speaking of not being alone...

"Lan Zhan! So studious!" He teases, like he didn't spend days here once trying to figure out how to grow lotus once upon a time.

[thesecondjade]

Having (spied) watched Wei Ying at his workouts with his very loud trainer, Lan Zhan has begun to wonder about that relationship. It is decidedly nonromantic and nonsexual. Zenigata-qianbei seems to have a lover, already, if the little monkey man -- were there two of them? -- draping on him is any consideration. However, he knows the look of a doting father on a son, because he's caught himself wearing it a few times.

If Wei Ying has found himself a new family, then Lan Zhan is happy for him. He deserves a loving family, a father that dotes. Someone better than the Jiangs. Someone who will love him like he deserves.

"Research," Lan Zhan gently corrects. "Returning to old work. Seeing if anything of value can be applied."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Mmm?" Wei Ying has never obeyed the 'silence during meals' rule, reaching across his bowl to snatch up one of the papers up. "Now what are we..."

...

Oh.

He remembers writing this, curled over the paper, leaning too heavily on the makeshift table, candlelight flickering and smoky, the bodily ache a constant counterpoint.

"You... kept it?"

[thesecondjade]

"Yes," Lan Zhan says, and there's so much he says but doesn't say in that single word answer. Yes, he kept it. Yes, he kept everything that Wei Ying gave him, little pieces of the life that he lost. Yes, he holds on to them dearly. Yes, he made sure they would never be forgotten.

"Curse work requires broad study. I am seeking potential alternatives to fulfilling the curse's requirements, in case Mo Xuanyu's rage against someone is misdirected," he continues, as he puts his book of music down. "I still think we will find them among the Jin."

And if it is a Jin, I am certain they will deserve whatever punishment is meted out.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Oh, I ... yes, I..." He stutters, stunned. He's visibly resisting grabbing all of the papers and running. When he planned this, it was... well. Not fine, obviously, but he didn't worry about it. It wouldn't matter at that point that Lan Zhan had access to all of his work, that was the point - maybe something he did could do some good in the world. Now... now it looks like a highlight reel of all his darkest moments, the grinding exhaustion, the darkness twined through his marrow.

Now it feels like a horrible display. It is beyond too late to hide it again. He has to keep remind himself of this, and carefully tuck into his meal instead.

"I don't know if I explored that too much - I mostly worked on the theory of it."

[thesecondjade]

"Theory is all we have," Lan Zhan points out. This is not something that is commonly cast about in violence and spite, like the Hundred Holes, but something that is focused, resentful, angry. A long burn of a spell.

He pauses there, and weighs all the things he could say, before he finally settles on something: "The magic in itself, the theory here, is not evil. It is not-- blood sacrifices, maidens defiled to power dark ritual. It is just-- theory about how things could work with a type of energy. You do not give descriptions or instructions. You simply point out what things are, and how they could be used. The ritual of transference itself was a spell where something is given, not stolen. The rest of the world was blind the these facts, but I am not."

Lan Zhan has to take his third, final drink of his tea before he can say anything else after all that speaking.

"But it upsets you. I can understand why," he says, acknowledging that his logical ruthlessness is not shared. "Would you prefer me to put this aside?"

[alongfallfromgrace]

"No, no, it is yours." Wei Ying declares once he recovers from such a speech from Lan Zhan. "Just... it was different then. I was... different." That is painfully vague, and immensely unhelpful, but he doesn't want Lan Zhan thinking that he's still trapped there.

[thesecondjade]

Lan Zhan looks up at him from behind the fringe of his inky lashes. But he says, "It's alright -- if part of you is still there. That is why we are here. So you can can have time to leave that behind, and more forward, if you need to."

Lan Zhan can empathize better than Wei Ying can possibly understand, how hard it is to step out of the dark place you were and push forward. This is time is for healing; Lan Zhan's studies are dark, yes, but he takes them on willingly. All to help another.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"You are too good to me." Wei Ying ducks his head, overwhelmed. He doesn't have a coping method for this kind of support - this was never something he heard, previously. It was always demands to return to normal, pointed observations about all the ways he was failing, snide asides covering all the ways he had changed.

How could he use so many evil tricks?

How could he break so many promises?

Where was his sword?

"So good to me, Lan Zhan." There's a shaking, tremulous ache in his voice. He doesn't know where the limits to this permissiveness are, and is braced, reflexively for the end to come.

[mogget_cat]

There is a gaze that doesn't belong to Lan Wangji perusing those materials, as well. A green gaze that holds only voracious, bottomless curiosity, emanating from a relatively small place in the rafters overhead.

[thesecondjade]

There's the prickling sensation at the back of Lan Zhan's neck. Something like the presence of a spirit, or a magical creature. Something that makes his senses turn sharp and focused.

Paperwork moved to the idea, and Lan Zhan drew his guqin from his sleeve. The ebony instrument is laid across the table, testing the strings a moment later with a series of chords. Satisfied the guqin is in tune, Lan Zhan starts strumming out chords.

Speak your name, that I may know you.

[mogget_cat]

"Should I choose just one?" answers the small, cat-shaped patch of spiritual static, the wild, roiling power tucked away behind soft, white fur and the bright green eyes gazing down at the cultivator. "Even then, I don't know if would help you know me."

[thesecondjade]

"Mn," Lan Zhan says aloud as he covers the strings of the guqin with both hands. "Choose one."

At the very least, he needs a mode of address for the fluffy thing.

[mogget_cat]

"Yrael, then, still," answers the thing that isn't and has never been a cat, even if it is still more cat than even it knows.

It continues to peer down at the materials before Lan Wangji on the table, with their fascinating energy. "Has the bridge widened, then?"

Perhaps two could even walk side-by-side along it.

"Or has he returned?"

[thesecondjade]

"I have not walked the single-plank bridge," Lan Zhan said quietly. It is not the same, what he is doing here now. "But he left me the guide to it."

His eyes duck beneath his lashes, and he says, "I have been taking what can be used by those who walk the broader path, and incorporating it there. It, in and of itself, is not evil. Theoretically, it can be used for evil. But so can all other things. A hammer can break a skull and drive a nail in the same day."

A far cry from the boy he was, vibrating with tension at the mere suggestion of what the trail-blazing magic could provide.

He does not say a think about Wei Wuxian's return. For some that would be a distinct answer, likely yes, but in Lan Zhan it could simply be his natural reticence to talk about anything 'useless,' a confirmation of Wei Wuxian's death. There is silence because there is no need to repeat facts. Anybody's guess.

[mogget_cat]

Recognizing 'evil' methods as merely different tools, or the potential for a method to be both tool and weapon is a massive step forward! Such growth! Yrael would be proud, if he cared enough to be.

"That you return to it after the time such a broadening of perspective usually takes suggests there has been some recent change, however," answers the thing that is not a cat, smug as any cat could be. "A reason for the subject's renewed relevance."

"A return with strings attached, perhaps?" Those are notes on curses, right?

[thesecondjade]

"Few know," Lan Zhan says, keeping his words quiet.

It should also stay that way; he does not trust Jin Guangyao, and Wen Qing is for Wei Wuxian to decide to speak to. He does not wish to put this new life at risk.

[yinyangwizard]

Abe no Seimei, coming through the Door from home, sees Lan Zhan hard at work. He greets the Bar, as is his custom, before approaching.

“Lan Wangji,” he says, bowing respectfully, “I had hoped to talk to you - although if you are preoccupied, we can talk another time.”

Another time when Lan Zhan is away from Wei Wuxian may be difficult to find, but that is no reason for Seimei to make an unnecessary nuisance of himself.

[thesecondjade]

That is the rub, isn't it? Lan Zhan looks up from his work, before he rose to bow and greet Seimei properly, and then gestures to the place across the table from him. "Please, sit."

He settles down, gathering up some papers and setting them aside in a neat stack. His tea is long emptied, but he flags a rat down for a new pot.

"How can this one be of service?"

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei sits down across from Lan Zhan. “In fact, I was considering the opposite. Wei Wuxian is not in his original body: this new one was given to him. It is often the case that the magic used to accomplish such a thing is very tricky, and it seems very unlikely that the body was given to him unconditionally.”

This is a reasonable line of thought, given Seimei’s experience, but he was promoted to bring it up because Zenigata let slip the matter of the curse. However, he does not want to put Zenigata in an awkward spot by revealing his involvement.

[thesecondjade]

Oh. It's this sort of talk.

Lan Zhan looks at him with his golden eyes, searching Abe no Seimei for indications of of emotion, of involvement, of concern or of anger. He needs to know where this is going before he says much else.

"There are conditions. Some are already met," Lan Zhan tells him.

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei is concerned. He has no problem letting it show to someone he knows as well as Lan Zhan. “My worry is, what conditions would someone put on the Yiling Patriarch, knowing his fearsome reputation and not Wei Wuxian, personally?”

That’s the issue here. Wei Wuxian has a second chance. Whatever his...benefactor wants him to do, it might involve throwing that second chance away.

[thesecondjade]

"Three of four resolved themselves through their own wickedness," says Lan Zhan. "The fourth is being investigated."

He is loathe to give Abe no Seimei -- who he trusts, of all things -- too much information, either. Wei Wuxian needs help, and Lan Zhan will provide it. But too much help and Wei Wuxian will spook and retract. Such is the care and handling for the Yiling Patriarch.

Kid gloved delicacy is necessary.

[yinyangwizard]

“Oh. That sort of condition.”

That’s what Seimei was worried about.

“I could help you identify the fourth, and then you can decide what to do about it. But I understand if this is a delicate matter.”

(Actually there’s no ‘if’ about it. It’s a revenge pact: it’s messy and ugly by nature.)

[thesecondjade]

"No," Lan Zhan said; brusque and likely unintentionally rude. "I believe... I believe our final accounting will be among a Sect. The Jin sect. Mo Xuanyu was a Jin cultivator until he was cast aside."

Getting Abe involved in Jin politics and Cultivator struggles? Nice idea, but--- not if it's going to potentially lead to intersect war. There can be no other fingerprints on this than his and Wei Ying's.