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[alongfallfromgrace]

It is still cold outside, still snowy, the ground still rock-hard.

And Wei Wuxian is still training.

Out by the lake, on the flattened training ground, the cultivator in black and red is moving fluidly through his forms - they're still so far below what he could once do, with a blade much less powerful than his much-missed Suibian, but...

But it's progress.

And he's so pleased it's ridiculous.

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

It is a tiring time of year, for Sunshine. The days are still short and cold and grey, and the plentiful energy of summer is a long-ago memory. That doesn't stop her from getting up and out early each morning, however. There is always something needing to be done.

Wei Wuxian will soon have a baker approaching with a thermos of ginger tea and two cups, as well as the practice sword that has been leaving its callouses on her hands the last few months.

"Room for one more?"

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Wuxian's smile brightens as he freezes mid-lunge, pleased to see her (and pleased his muscles don't shake with the effort of holding the stance).

"Of course, of course - have you warmed up already?"

[sunbaked_baker]

She grins. "I ran a couple of laps around the lake earlier," so not entirely cold, but that was some time ago, "but I should still stretch first."

Sword training pushes one's flexibility and range of motion in ways running doesn't.

"How has your day been so far?" Sunshine settles the thermos and cups nearby, before moving to start her stretches - neck, shoulders, arms, wrists, sides, back, hamstrings, heels, all in sequence. The clouds overhead move a bit more briskly, leaving occasional peeks of blue sky.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Disappointingly chilly." Wei Wuxian sighs, missing the warmth of Yunmeng winters. "I remember it being much warmer here before I died."

He slips back into the rhythm of his forms, delighted he can do so and talk at the same time without sounding painfully winded.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine chuckles a little as she stretches. It is only because he is standing there that she can. "It wasn't winter here yet then, but we're in the thick of it now," she says with a wry, shared dislike of the season.

"I wouldn't mind skipping forward to spring," she adds, wincing a little as she stretches her right shoulder. Wincing less the second time. "I know the days are already getting longer, but they're taking their sweet time at it."

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Wuxian caught that wince, and tsks under his breath as he spins himself out of his forms and sidles over to get a better look at how she's moving that shoulder.

"What have you done here?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Nothing important," she says mid-stretch, with that tight tone of one working out a familiar stiffness, fluttering her other hand at him.

"Old injuries, if a handful of years can be called 'old.' Broken collarbone, dislocated shoulder. Both healed fine, but it likes to complain about the cold, too. I suppose it was feeling left out of the conversation."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Mmm. Make sure to limber it up well." Wei Wuxian is all too familiar with lingering injuries. He should feel guilty he doesn't have to deal with that anymore (for the time being, anyway), but...

Well.

He doesn't.

He didn't ask for this, so.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Don't worry, I will," she says, with the satisfaction of one able to feel the loosening of the tight muscles as she works on them. The day is already brighter than it was, the fluffy white clouds scudding along the intermittent blue. "That shoulder gets stiff when I've not stretched it in a while and complains a bit when I first start kneading dough on cold mornings, but really they could've been a lot worse."

She advocates for not letting vampires run full-tilt into you. They might as well be made of toothy rocks. She was very lucky.

Judging her shoulder adequately loose, Sunshine shakes out her hands and picks up her practice sword. "Should be okay."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"You should see Wen Qing about it, she's amazing." Wei Ying encourages - while he lives in terror of Wen Qing's needles, he will be the first to point out that Wen Qing is the best doctor ever. "But not now, now is for training. Do you remember the starting routine?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"I do," she grins, cheerful, "but if I get it wrong I hope my teacher will correct me."

She shakes out her hands and tests her shoulder once more.

"I just might see Wen Qing about my shoulder, if it tightens up again. Did I tell you I got to meet her recently?" Rae asks, moving into position with her practice sword, the beginning of sword-callouses among her baking-callouses, and her will to learn.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Of course, of course, this humble one would be honored." Wei Ying echoes her grin, fire-bright.

"Did you now?" He asks as he takes up the opening stance, the movement so much easier than it was months ago. "Isn't she great? I mean, she's a terrifying, terrifying woman, but great."

[sunbaked_baker]

"I fully believe she has the capacity for inspiring terror," Rae says with great approval, as she follows him through the forms. "Even if I saw none of it. She helped me bandage my hand, and then we had tea."

[late but...]

[thesecondjade]

Someone else is pleased, but also more than a little afraid. He knows it is dishonest to feel the cold of Cloud Recesses sink directly into his belly, but it is there all the same. The better Wei Wuxian gets, the closer they get to to confrontation. The closer they get to confrontation, the closer Lan Zhan gets to the risk of losing him a second time.

Even with the face and body changed, though, Lan Zhan can sit back with the bleak winter sun rendering Wei Wuxian a liquid shadow going through his forms. He can remember the Wei Wuxian that was -- vital, young, innocent of the war that was waiting to step over their threshold and bring pain and misery with it. But he can also remember it that was that son of Lotus Pier, with his fluid grace, that met Lan Zhan at every turn as his match.

Bichen shivers in it's sheath, answering the conflicted longing; the desire to dance that dance again, but knowing that if Wei Wuxian answers him too well, meets him as he once did, then...

Well, then it will be over, won't it? Closer to the end, to either the success of justice or the endurance of yet another agony.

His heart brings him closer anyway, but his fear keeps his hands still.

Re: [late but...]

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying can't pull off the moves that require a strong golden core to gain height, and his sword would be considered an offensive joke at any cultivator conference, but he can just about pull of a novice set of sword forms without faltering. He lands, with somewhat less grace than emphasis, like someone staggering across the finish line. He's flushed and panting, sweat plastering his hair back against his forehead.

He's elated. It's shit, but it's his shit, so suck it, Jin trainers.

And that's when he realizes he has an audience for this shit.

He grins, sunlight-bright tinged with embarrassment at the basicness of the display. It's not exactly swordplay in the moonlight, is it? Ah well.

"Lan Zhan!"

[thesecondjade]

The tug at the corner of his lips speaks volumes: Wei Wuxian's energy remains infectious, and Lan Zhan has lost immunity rather than improved it. He inclines his head, letting his walk bring him closer.

"Wei Ying," he begins, "diligent in practice. Cloud Recesses's winters come to the lakeshore."

It was bright and shining summer, then. But winter has its own appeal, even in its harshness.

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying splutters, flustered at the praise. He can trade insults all day long (whether friendly or not), but this... he is never going to get used to this.

"Ahhh, you shouldn't go so easy on this one, that wasn't a very impressive display." He demurs, flapping. "It's because of the cold, my poor innocent fingers are all frozen, it's tragic." He huffs. After all, it's okay to joke about frozen fingers when really, he's not that cold with a baby golden core pushing warmth through his meridians.

[thesecondjade]

Bichen stills in its sheath as Lan Zhan extends his hands for Wei Ying's -- to take, to warm, to let his powerful Yang energy flow through a trickle from palm to palm, to encourage those newly developed meridians to flow and pulse.

Pouring something like liquid sunlight into his zhiji's veins, Lan Zhan says nothing and simply stays intent on his work.

He should have asked. He really should have. But the impulse was feverish, and the motive not entirely pure. Not just because he wants to touch Wei Ying in the smallest of ways, but because if he can gauge just how thirsty those meridians are, he can know how close or how far they are from walking through the trees to return to Cloud Recesses and begin the hunt anew.

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying melts a little - that feels amazing, and it's been so long that he's forgotten, a little, what it feels like to have that much energy at his disposal. He is stronger - he's taken Mo Xuanyu's poor flickering core and half-starved body and made something serviceable, if nowhere near his old standard. There isn't any resentful energy tangled through him, either because there's very little to rouse here in the first place, or because he's been behaving himself.

(On the whole, but Bucky-xiong has promised not to mention that one adventure, and besides, he was fine, it was the idiot with the urge to punch shit that had the problem. Look, Wei Ying still has feels about it.)

"Lan Zhan." He pouts, his expression soft, but making no move to pull away.

[thesecondjade]

The soft huff of air and then a "Mn," is the only reply. He is content at this moment to let energy tangle in the smallest intimacy he allows himself, before he is satisfied with both the contact and his knowledge. His hands vanish back, one behind his back and the other at his side, resting against Bichen's sheath.

Wei Ying is getting stronger. Greatly stronger. It won't be long now. But that is the way of things -- they cannot stay frozen in time here forever.

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying sways a half-step, gentle as the tides, before straightening himself out.

"Ah, but have you eaten? I should stop here anyway, Baba will roar if I overextend," He explains, leaving off the 'again' which should, honestly, be a given, "Or we could go see the progress on Baba's dojo? It's coming along nicely, though we can't start digging out the lotus pond yet."

[thesecondjade]

"Your baba will roar regardless," Lan Zhan says, lips quirking again. He still cannot fathom how they found the most Jiang father figure one could ask for in the inbetween of worlds. But maybe this is a waystop to reincarnation, too. Maybe he was a Jiang once. They'll likely never know.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"You're not wrong." Wei Ying agrees, not particularly bothered about any amount of future roaring. He was getting more comfortable in yelling back, more confident that this wouldn't be one more thing pulled out from under his feet.

Not perfectly, of course, there were days he second and third-guessed every move, tried to make himself quiet and agreeable and worthy. He found that usually didn't exactly in his favor, but habits did take a while to break.

"But anyway - food, or tour? Or..." Oh, here's that urge again, except here it might be actually warranted. "I guess you're probably busy, huh? Don't worry, I've got projects, I won't take up your time."

[thesecondjade]

"Food," Lan Zhan says to dispel any notion that he is too busy for his zhiji. "Then tour."

Can he be blamed for wanting to squeeze every single bit of goodness out of this? Every minute is a treasure, and he knows the value of each one. The idea of simply letting them slip through his fingers again seems like a wasteful sin.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Food, alright." Wei Ying agrees, not entirely convinced that Lan Zhan doesn't have something better to do with his time, but supremely unwilling to argue the point at the moment. He's missed Lan Zhan, and he can afford to be a little greedy, here. So he casually shoulder-checks Lan Zhan, and heads back towards the bar, rambling about plans of lotus ponds. He bypasses the back door to the bar to head through the garden to the door to the kitchen instead.

"You picked a good day to come back - I have some vegetarian soup on the stove." Wei Ying has been trying to spread the good news of soup.