inheritedpain | IC INBOX: PRISMATICA

You can’t answer them!

[ The frustration made his voice sharp, the bitter loneliness made it thick. Lan Wangji had protected him - protected all of them. He’d been a pillar of righteousness who still allied himself somehow to the dark and Jin Ling didn’t understand it at all.

But fine. He wanted his questions? Fine! ]

You were with him. Before I was brought here. The two of you, together, on the steps of Koi Tower, defying the entire world, even though you know what he’s done. He killed my parents, he tricked everyone into thinking he was someone else - I thought you just didn’t know who he was, but you did!

[ He was getting more riled up by the second, and he came to a halt, glaring at Wangji. ]

Why! Why does he matter more than my parents! Why is it okay to stand by him, even knowing what he’s done!

[ Questions — no. Torrent of morning flood, accusations, one pouring after the other. Fingers of the hand that had stitched itself steadfast to his back curl in, fold in tight-knuckled fist. He squeezes, once, then again, then releases —

And he begs himself a statue against the poison, immutable and resolute. Years between them, and a resurrection Xichen has hinted, without volunteering a wealth of detail. Wei Wuxian, returned among them. Lan Wangji, a stray dog licking his master's boots.

And this child-thing, denied his vengeance — raised by the one man who should have secured it on his part. Seconds steal away Lan Wangji's breath, then return it, hissed and staggered. His fist unfolds, marks of hard nail eating the inside. ]

He never taught me to leave.

[ A simple truth, plainer than the boy-survivor of his parents' bloodshed deserves, or the cultivation world understands.

Wei Wuxian draws and lures, charms and keeps. He does not banish. ]

[ He wasn't expecting a real answer. At most, he was expecting stony silence. Maybe a denial. Most likely, an admonishment or a dismissal. He knew he was speaking out of order. Just like he knew how bad his behaviour was, or how much he disappointed everyone, or how they all wished he would be better without actually teaching him how to be.

He was expecting to be treated like the child everyone always treated him like, the child that lashed out just as they expected because he didn't know how to react any different. This is what he expected.

He didn't understand what he got.

Or, maybe he understood it too well.

He hated it, when he felt the angry heat rise to his eyes, blurring the edges of his vision. It wasn't an answer, not really, but then he's not sure that any answer he could have gotten would have explained it. Because he already knew. He knew something was wrong. He knew he didn't understand something, knew that people were lying to him.

Wei Wuxian had been one of the kindest mentors he'd ever known, when Jin Ling hadn't even known it was him. And he should have known, shouldn't he? His Uncle had known, and yet he'd released him. He'd been happy to believe the proof that Zidian offered, because he didn't want to believe anything else. He wanted Mo Xuanyu to suddenly be an actual uncle to him - to suddenly be smart and kind and good and--

He raised his sleeve to his eyes quickly, rubbing the hot angry tears away before they could betray him, swallowing his upset as thickly as he could though he could feel it mounting. Why couldn't he have better control over his own face?? ]

I don't understand him.

[ Not Wangji. Wangji he just didn't want to think about deeply enough to understand. Because if he thought deeply enough, he already knew. He'd seen it.

It's Wei Wuxian he doesn't understand.

He scrunched his face up, trying to forestall himself before the words left his lips, but he couldn't do it: ]

I stabbed him. Before he left. Because I had to. Because of what he'd done. I stabbed him, but I couldn't-- I can't--

[ He made a choked, angry sound - not quite a sob, and then took a step back away from Wangji to glare at him. ]

So go on! We're enemies now, right? That's what that's supposed to mean!

[ Stabbed him. Touched him. Ruined him.

Wei Wuxian.

Blood still curdles in Wangji's veins. He knows, because it clogs them, stills them, arrests his heartbeat. One breath, as if belonging to another. The second.

( And then, the elder-self's reassurance: It is worth it, in the end. So, Wei Ying survives. )

He finds himself before a boy who never learned manhood, who stumbled towards him on frail legs, asking answers he cannot stand with his back steeled long enough to hear. Jiang Cheng again, the consummate failure: an heir should have been schooled in the dignity of staring his rival in the eye, then cutting him with contempt.

Tears, instead, welling on Jin Ling's face. Wei Ying's habits, painted well over a decade later on fuller cheeks. They cry just as messily, the both of them too earnest. Wei Ying's mouth, perhaps, slackens more, where Jin Ling's nose lifts to mimic the revulsion that dresses his clan. Subtle variations of the same war song.

They stand in the middle of the road, like musicians in opera performed too cheaply for the embroidered landscape panels. The loquats feel comical in Wangji's grasp, vulgar against the weight of the moment. He does not cast them aside, but brings his other hand to draw out Bichen — her blade down, presented more as an opportunity. ]

Shall I hold it still for you?

[ For the boy to thrust himself upon it squarely, dead of his own design. So he might savour the suicide their enmity would win him — the only beggarly pittance Wangji will afford him. ]

[ He had the sudden irrational desire to just grab Bichen's tip and shove it away, letting it cut his palm. Maybe it was part of what he wanted. Maybe he did want something to hurt him, for what he did. For the guilt he felt, even though he should feel righteous. For the fact that he had not even done half of what he should, and even that felt like he had erred so completely and so deeply.

But this felt mocking and he hated it. He hated that Wangji didn't remember, hated that he should be able to declare them enemies himself and yet he couldn't. Hated that he should be able to declare Wei Wuxian his enemy, like the hundred thousand times he had before, and yet he couldn't.

And on top of everything, the sudden, deep knowledge that if all three of them were here - if Wei Wuxian stood between them - that he would have felt utterly safe. That Wei Wuxian wouldn't have let him be hurt, not even if it was his own fault. Not even if he deserved it.

Thick, hot tears rolled down his cheeks as he thought about the look that was on Wei Wuxian's face after the blade had sunk in. No anger. No vengeance. Just resigned remourse--

He hissed and turned his face, unable to look at Hanguang-jun any longer, waiting for a punishment he both wanted and wanted to be saved from. ]

You don't even remember it. [ Bitterly. ] What's the point. Whatever. You know now, you can hate me if you want.

[ He didn't care.

Or at least that's what he was going to tell himself. ]

I'll just figure it out on my own.

[ Why he cared about Wei Wuxian, when he shouldn't. Why he loved him, when he'd stolen everything from him. Why he couldn't make those truths overlap and interconnect in any way that mattered. ]

Edited 2020-01-31 00:48 (UTC)

[ Memories. Hatred. Confusion. The old ache that ravaged his temples on arrival, returned even in the absence of the light haze. A sea of migraine, setting him for ruin, as he returns his sword to its hold with a trembling hand.

The boy-thing weeps on, his wretchedness and turmoil unending.

In another world, a distant day, Lan Wangji might have been possessed of the slip of silk to spare him for his ablutions. Now, he only has his fruit, round and perfectly competent, lifted again as if Wangji is proffering an exotic blessing unto Jin Ling, and not the last resort of a frustrated parent, riddling the whims of his child's hurts. ]

Eat.

[ Softer than before, no better than when the little Wen needed his soothing. Grown now, even that child. Lan Sizhui. Fruit and gifts of kindness never poisoned one child; they cannot spoil another. ]

Stand with him. [ And the reason, written plain: ] You've already failed to stand against him.

[ Where one path led to disgrace and madness, its brother might serve better. The heir of the Jin would not present himself before Wangji, seeking out an executioner, if he thought himself in the right. ]

[ It was the kindness that broke him, that broke any remaining hold on his pride in front of Hanguang-jun. He sobbed, pulling his sleeve up to stain his tears against the ivory and gold threaded silk. He was not accustomed to kindness, though he'd seen a larger share of it here than he was used to. Raised between two pillars - one so deep in his grief that he lashed out at any sign or symbol of his enmity - the other so committed to his name that Jin Ling's ostracizing among his own peers went largely unmentioned. Kindness was not the balm on which he was raised, and he had no idea what to do with it, offered now by the one person he knew deserved to never give it to him.

He tried to stop the tears, his breath hiccuping as he reached out, as he took another loquat like the peace offering he thought it to be: hesitant but wanted more badly than he could openly admit.

Salt tears shifted taste as he bit into it, but he didn't care. He was eating because he was told to, rather than because he wanted to. Because he couldn't say he would stand with Wei Wuxian, not in so many words, not without the grief and disappointment of his parents and his ancestors rising up in his throat to choke him.

He couldn't say it.

But he was going to do it, anyway.

He sniffed, rubbing his face with his sleeve again, the fruit half eaten, his eyes still lowered.

He doesn't say thank you, though he hears Wei Wuxian's voice in his head, telling him. I'm sorry. Thank you. Neither leave his lips. Instead: ]

I can tell you. About what happened. If you want to hear it. No one - no one in this place seems to want to talk about it, but I can tell you if you want.

[ He does not want.

He wanted nothing of this encounter, less of what Jin of the Ling, cheeks lashed by tears, can deliver. What use is an unwanted future, shadows darkening a hard horizon? What will it give Lan Wangji but reminders of every man and turn he's failed?

No one yearns for talk of ruin. Perhaps the boy has lived too little of it to know that tell. No wars, against Wangji's two. A golden age of peace bathed and baptised in Yiling blood.

He gazes to read Jin Ling's face a moment longer, past the happy accident of his easy feeding. Lan Xichen will never begrudge a child the toll he's taken on gifts unasked for. Of all things, the loquats are Wangji's best investment yet.

Children enjoy treats. He learned this long ago, with Yuan. What difference do a handful of years make? A toddler or a Jin, the cure is the same. ]

You may.

[ Deluge: what is to come, what the child-thing makes of it, what relief his confession may yet bring him. Wangji can tolerate it all, so long as it brokers one of them some satisfaction.

And if he regrets it, he will do as he has done before, and — forget. Force himself to unlearn truths that were never his to encounter. Push cheap, easily won revelations down, in favour of riddling his mysteries alone. ]

[ You may.

He makes a final sniff, a final wipe of his face, and takes another bite of the loquat. He feels drained, and empty, and he doesn’t know how to take the words. He is used to being put up with, tolerated. But he hadn’t offered it only for himself. He didn’t understand how the adults around him - some barely older than he was - didn’t want to know. Didn’t yearn for every tiny scrap of truth. He felt like all he wanted were endless answers, all the mysteries committed before he was born having sprung up to unravel his life now.

But Jiang Cheng didn’t want to hear it, not really. Not the important things. Wei Wuxian was happy in his obliviousness. Even the ghosts of his parents were terrifying in their ignorance, despite how badly he yearned to be near them. To know them.

Maybe only the Juniors understood. It wouldn’t be the first time.

He considered unloading it all anyway. Dumping every last thought and feeling he’s ever had about Wei Wuxian on him. But despite feeling like Lan Wangji would understand, the gap is too great. They aren’t in Lanling. Wangji hasn’t saved him, with Wei Wuxian, twice over.

It would be like how it felt offering his feelings to his parents at the shrine. Their love set so far in the past that he can only hope they might recognize him now.

He glares at the dwindling fruit in his hand. ]

He makes terrible congee.

[ His nose scrunched in memory as he said it. ] And he told me once that I should fight everyone now, while I’m young. As if anyone would actually let me get away with it. He- you- saved my life. Twice.

[ He squeezed the fruit a little too hard, finger nails cutting into scant remaining flesh. ]

I’ve never seen him do a single thing that would let me call him evil.

[ He raised his eyes, harder now. There. Debt paid whether Wangji recognized it or not. As if he could possibly know how much that hurt to admit. As if anyone could. ]

The rest I’ll keep unless you ask.

[ A poor cook. A worse adviser. Above all else, a wretched villain.

All of these things, facets of Wei Wuxian's character — onion layers, shrouding the same, acrimonious core. There was fear within Wei Ying, before he learned charisma. Hate beside affection. Wit, misused for cruelty and cunning, to accompany creation.

There was all the wrong of the world, packaged in the red envelope of every gift of beauty and ability. Jin Ling is blind, as they all were, once upon a time, when their one duty was quiet study, when they allowed themselves to fall in the gravity thrall of Wei Wuxian.

Guilt should not add to Wei Ying's charm. And still, Lan Wangji can't bring himself to condemn Jin Ling's instinct for adoration. ]

Put aside honour, duty, pride. [ Words softened, like every blow pulled at the last moment, like the trial sword strikes mimicked so disciples might learn to parry. ] You cannot hurt him.

[ Ice crystallises in his eyes, the one edge of white sharpening a dark gaze. Witness, assassin, executioner. He has tolerated or implemented too much cruelty to pretend his soul is cut of the same white cloth as his robes. ]

You die before your sword falls.

[ A simple truth to whisper, a promise freely given. The boy's skill is unknown, for all his upbringing is — dubious, but privileged. Perhaps he might even hold his own ground, given the opportunity. Lan Wangji will not win for the greater merit, the finer talent

Needs must, he will erode the boy down to bone and marrow. ]

Understood?

[ Put aside everything you've ever known, everything you've ever been taught, been held to value, every lesson and every comfort given by the men who raised you. Those are the words he hears, even if they aren't spoken.

And just as happens many times in Jin Ling's life - when he finally gets the thing he wanted in the first place - the threat, the promise - a rage flares up inside him.

He throws the remains of the loquat to the ground in a sudden fit - tender flesh smeared over pavement, pits tumbling. ]

If I wanted to kill him I would have then!

[ Snapped far too loud, in the middle of the street, but an admittance he's made to no one. Not here, not there. Even if some had already accused him of it.

Wei Wuxian had left himself completely open. Jin Ling could have killed him. If he'd been braver. Smarter. If he was the son he was supposed to be, not the failure he actually was.

But he steps back, because he's always had a healthy fear of Hanguang-jun, and he knows the man doesn't lie. This isn't an empty threat. He hadn't wanted an empty threat in the first place, he'd wanted something real, but he had never been very careful about what he wished for.

Fairy bumps his ankles, turning her head up to him, feeling his frustration even if her animal ignorance kept her from knowing the cause. ]

None of you get it! [ He snapped in frustration. He needed someone to get it. Someone to understand and explain it to him. Because he was the last person able to untangle his own mess of feelings.

He turned, abruptly, stalking back the way he came, feeling himself aggrieved beyond all others. That fallacy of youth: that no one had or ever could feel the way he did, that no empathy or understanding could possibly be given. Even if he kept practically begging for it, it would never come.

He knew he couldn't stop Hanguang-jun if the man made a point of it, but if left to his own devices, he simply fled. ]

[ Rat on a sinking ship, the child-thing flees faster than Lan Wangji's first blink can pass. A second later, his eye catches the arrow of white behind Jin Ling, low and thickly-furred, a companionship creature.

Dog, Wangji supposes, for all it seems too adept at reading its master's temperament to be a mutt or foundling. Even now, paws scratching hard road tile, it looks more the child's shadow. Raised with Jin Ling, perhaps. Bred, if not born, to serve him — another luxury of rank, a silvered spoon cradled on the corner of an heir's mouth.

And why does Jin Ling storm? No doubt, for Jiang Cheng's example. Conflict resolution is only ever tried and true, if it is at once vocal and fragile, a patchwork of fragmented violence. Jin Guangyao should have complemented that learning, taught the boy better. Did not.

He was not Lan Wangji's to fail, this much he accepted before. But his true guardians did their harm by his upbringing.

Wei Wuxian will only poison that well further.

Mercy corrodes at the last moment, enough that Wangji watches the sun-kissed gold stain of Jin Ling's back retreat, and still raises his voice past the permissible octave: ]

Stop.

[ He stops, despite himself, halting where he stood, one fist balled up at his spine and the other gripping his fathers sword tight enough to turn his knuckles white. He wants to flee. He wants to go, wants to find some kind of comfort somewhere even if he knows it won't be enough. He should just keep walking. He's heir to Lanling, half heir to Yunmeng - Hanguang-jun even in all his decorated glory shouldn't be able to command him.

And yet he halts.

He doesn't turn around, he keeps his back to Wangji, but he turns his head sharply so that he's looking back over his shoulder. ]

What? [ Rough. ]

You've made your point.

[ Death threats, again, but at least this one expected. ]

I'm not going to hurt him. Is that what you want me to say?

[ One point made, another absent. Lost between them, a truth comprises both.

The child-thing stops, rash in his boyhood, the energy of his barely restrained frustration echoing the force of Jiang Cheng. Subdued like river's course, Lan Wangji covers the distance between them, step and sorcery stubborn to fill in every nook and cranny.

He does not raise his hand to turn the boy towards him, does not request the courtesy of acknowledgement one practitioner should pay another freely — and one gentleman should reserve for his fellow man without restraint. Who is this boy to him? Not of the Lan, to discipline. And not so offensive now that Lan Wangji must strain the scope of his influence. ]

Apology. [ He offers instead, arms awkward in a tentative bow, form spoiled by the bundle of lingering loquats. ] I have no justice for you.

[ A debt owed, claimed, unanswered. None of them will rush to bring the balance Jin Ling deserves, not with Wei Wuxian's happiness at risk. ]

[ That, he wasn’t expecting. He wonders if he can ever remember Hanguang-Jun apologizing for anything. Even on the last night he remembers, Lan Wangji was unapologetic in his defense of Wei Wuxian. Standing at his side when any lesser man might step away, let the rocks be thrown.

No. The last thing he expected from Lan Wangji was for him to dole out justice to Wei Wuxian. He believed the man’s sense of justice to be nearly flawless in ever other respect, but not that one. He swallowed, wanting to walk away still, but instead he turned, face warm from frustration and shame. His eyes kept to the floor, his back stiff, his grip tight. ]

No one does.

[ Roughly. Quietly. ]

Because it’s all wrong and I don’t know how yet. Even Wen Ning—

[ He clicked his tongue in frustration and looked away. ]

I’m not a complete idiot. Either you are completely hopeless, or you knew something I didn’t. But I can’t get justice here and that has nothing to do with you.

The only one that could have given me - given me anything - [ Justice, an explanation, an absolution— ] - never lived any of it. What’s the point in taking something hollow now?

[ In years, the boy of the Jin is closer to Lan Wangji than the man he must have expected, the Hanguang-jun that earned respect Wangji usurps without regret or compulsion. To deprive himself of gains won under his name, wearing his face, seems a wasteful and stupefying folly.

He keeps the bow longer than a child deserves, less than a future scion has inherited with his name claim. Tension rides his shoulders, eats at his ribs. A small eternity later, when the back of his mouth tastes of iron and sea salt, of blood from where he's hooked the tender inside of his own cheek — he rises.

Among them two, it is not Lin Jing who is found wanting. Wangji will not presume to forget that much. ]

Gratitude.

[ For Jin Ling's patience, if not his kindness or his foresight. Each one of of Wei Wuxian's borrowed days is made more precious by the confusion and misunderstandings that broker them. Lan Wangji will not question the mercy that bides them more of that frail time. ]

He will not know to thank you. I do it on his behalf.

[ A wave of something very close to grief washes over him, and he pierces his lips tightly, face scrunching with the effort of pushing the feeling away. No. He won't cry in front of Hanguang-jun again. He's already lost what little face he had. He won't again. Never again. ]

I don't want his thanks. [ And yet, his voice is rough with the emotion he tries not to let seep into his face. He might be wearing the colours of the Jin, but his face has always born the hallmarks of the Jiang. ]

If he doesn't owe me justice, he can't owe me thanks, either. All I want--

[ But he cut himself off, clenching teeth hard. An uncle. A family. A place.

A child's wish, and he knew it.

No more losing face in front of Hanguang-jun.

Belatedly - as if he recalled his manners a century too late, he put his arms out in front of himself, clasping his hands. Bowed. Stiff. Not low enough. The duration too short. But an attempt.

He rises, and immediately ruins it.]

Just don't let it all happen again, here.

[ He says it without meaning to, and it's hardly an order. It's a plea. His parents, newly revived, alive and well, and he's as terrified of losing them as he is of getting to know them. ]

It has to be different, here. I'll make sure it's different.

[ He'll save them all from themselves, if he has to. If it means that for once in his life, he isn't shadowed solely by death and grief: child of a hundred murders. ]

[ It cannot be different.

Wei Wuxian's actions have rippled through the universe of their entwined fates, writing out start and end points that cannot be grasped, let alone avoided. Yanli of the Jiang might not die of his creation's hand, but she will still, somehow, be lost to him. There is no hope for the Jin. Tragedy rounds its own circle.

But this is not talk for a child who is slow to negotiate the basics of diplomacy across multiple timelines. They are not even words that Wangji speaks to his own face in the mirror.

So, he rises, rights himself, sheds layers of raw honesty, only to become the statue once more, the watcher. ]

Until we meet again.

[ Until Wangji fails in his duties, and the boy-king of the Jin crosses paths with Wei Ying. He will want for a master, he supposes — a keeper of his chain. Jiang Cheng has been too long bereft of duty here. ]

[ He takes it as the dismissal that it is, and gives another short stiff bow before turning without a word, clenching one fist behind him and the other around his sword.

Fairy lingers for a moment, black eyes staring up at white-cast stone, tilting her head as she considers. She wags her tail - once, twice - and then turns to follow her lost master, bereft of a port he can safely call home.

Things have to be different here. It is a belief struck so firmly in him that it will not waver. If all the respected seniors and masters of his past have failed time and time again to avert the tragedy, it doesn't matter. He will not fail. He will stop Wei Ying from recommitting his crimes and he will stop Wen Ning from becoming the knife and he will stop his parents from ever leaving him again.

Hubris and folly and youth wrapped in one, but he is as determined as he is heart broken.

And then he is gone. ]

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