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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years

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From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 25)

The drizzle grows into a hideous storm. Thunder vibrates the framework of the small in.

“We’re lucky that we did all of our trading yesterday.” Min-Ta muses.

“Would have been a hassle in this weather.” Hao-Bai agrees.

Azula keeps to herself, eyes fixed upon the harbor, upon the boats that bob precariously against such aggressively tempestuous waves. And she finds that her mind is wandering again. Wandering to a time when she had insisted that her command held more value than the whims of the tides. In retrospect, she understands why the man was so hesitant to port--steel or wood the waves can tear it to ribbons.

And she finds herself torn between being thankful that she had stayed just a day longer to help the couple and wishing that she were well out into the ocean. The ocean where the waves would pull her under and into darkness. A darkness that is kinder than the sort that she knows. The sort that stirs within her. She thinks that she would rather find herself battered by the waves than by the thoughts in her own mind.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Min-Ta asks as she rubs circles upon her baby bump. “And powerful.”

Azula nods, “storms are...fascinating.”

“You’re a lightningbender, aren’t you?”

She nods.

“You’re a force to reckon with then.” She laughs.

And Azula wishes it were true. Had she been a force to reckon with then she wouldn’t have been reckoned with. She wouldn’t be in this village… “how long do you think it will be before the storm passes?”

The woman shrugs.

“The folks who tend the docks seem to think that it could be a good week before the waters are safe to sail. A seasoned sailor told ‘em that clouds like these mean that it’ll get sunny and then stormy again at the snap of your fingers.”

Azula nods. She supposes that she will have to get used to syrup and the smell of resin. It isn’t such a difficult task; the scents are cozy enough and she is in pleasant company. Comparatively speaking, this inn is akin to her palace. She lays back, rests her hands upon her middle, and closes her eyes. It has been such a long time since she has slept on a real bed. Even if the sheets and pillows are slightly tattered and worn, it is the most comfort she has had in ages.

She lets the relentless batter of the rain lull her to sleep, with any luck, when she wakes, the soreness in her muscles will have alleviated.

.oOo.

There is a duration of sunshine, but she can see concrete clouds on the edge of the horizon. A second onslaught waiting to be unleashed. Despite her apprehensions about the coming storm, she follows Hao-Bai along the gravel path.

“This place is one of my favorites.” He gestures to a ramshackle looking eatery. “It’s where I met Min-Ta.”

Azula furrows her brows, “is this your birth town?”

“Indeed it is. I was here when it was just a handful of small timber houses.”

Azula nods. And how the place must have changed. A few timber houses has become a decently sized village with several inns, restaurants, and shops. She comes to find that the people who live there are a friendly bunch with a sense of community that is hard for her to fathom.

When the storm gives pause they gather at the center of town to exchange stories and meals. To give gifts and make banter. By now she thinks that she should be used to being the only firebender about, and yet she still feels out of place and out of sorts. Everyone here seems to know everyone and she knows no one at all save for Hao-Bai and Min-Ta.

Nobody says it but she can feel it; they don’t want her here. It is her eyes, her golden fiery eyes. There is no place for a firebender in a village like this. She is a match surrounded by firewood and they know it. They regard her like such--with fear based respect.

They offer her meals and lodging not because she is traveling with Hao-Bai and Min-Ta nor because they enjoy the stories she tries to share over meal times but because they regard her as a volatile thing, an explosion waiting to happen and claim everything they adore.

And suddenly she feels as though she hasn’t changed at all. That she is the same woman who left her mark on Omashu and Ba Sing Se. The same woman who swears by and lives for intimidation. They certainly tread around her as though she is.

She knows that it is nothing more than a stereotype, but it stings all the same. Stings when, deep in the back of her mind she doesn’t think that she will ever be rid of who she used to be. Deep in the back of her mind she thinks that she is one more tragedy away from regressing, from letting her heart grow ugly and cruel again. Shielded. Stony.

.oOo.

It is her last night in this village. And it is a gorgeous night. The clouds have finally cleared away. The last roll of thunder had boomed an hour or so ago, she can only see the storm as a series of flashes far off over the open ocean.

And this is where she stays. Alone on the beach, the lively chatter and music feels just as distant as the storm clouds. She props herself up against a decent sized boulder and stares up at the stars. She wonders if the stars can bring her closer to the spirit world, if she could look into them and coax a conversation with her old friends and lovers. With Atsu and Caihong and the child she never got to meet.

She remembers hearing about cosmic energy and its influence on the universe. She wonders if this cosmic energy has arranged itself in a position to specifically antagonize her…

“There you are.” Hao-Bai chuckles. “The wife was getting worried.”

Azula shrugs. “I’m alright.” She isn’t sure if she is lying or not. Sometimes she is alright. Sometimes she is able to put Wujing out of her mind. Sometimes she is able to make herself feel grateful that she had gotten even just a small taste of what it was to have a home and loved ones. Sometimes she is able to shape a new future for herself in her mind.

Tonight isn’t such a night. Tonight she isn’t okay. Tonight she would like nothing more than to run out to the waves and let the tides pull her away…

“Why don’t you join the rest of us?”

“They don’t want me there, Hao-Bai.” She frowns. “They don’t want firebenders around.”

The man is quiet for a while. “You have the wrong impression. They know that you don't mean any harm, that you’re just passing through.” He pauses again. “The people in this village are...kind to a fault. They don’t want to get attached to someone who is just going to leave them. It hurts too much.”

Azula nods, “in other words, they’re an intelligent people.”

Hao-Bai chuckles, “you have a long journey ahead of you, come back and enjoy a meal and good company while you can. I have a surprise for you.”

A long journey. He doesn’t know the half of it. Or maybe he does, maybe she has given him just enough hints for him to know that she has been on a journey for some time now.

She follows him back to the village to the lively music and the tantalizing scents of kebabs and fruit platters. To the everpresent odor of syrup and resin. Min-Ta greets her with a hug and gestures for her to have a seat near the bonfire.

She must admit that she is impressed by the size of it; she hasn’t seen such a hearty and large blaze since the last Fire Nation festival she’d attended.

“We’re just about to begin story swapping.” Speaks a man, an elder who she assumes is the host.

She nods, “why don’t you share a little something before you leave?”

Maybe it is because she knows that she won’t be staying long enough for pitting looks or maybe it is that she needs to alleviate some of the pressure. But she shares the story of Wujing’s collapse. The tale of why she can’t stay in the Earth Kingdom any longer.

She thinks that she has well and killed the mood until Min-Ta confesses that this is her third pregnancy. That she fears for it because she had miscarried the first two. And the liveliness dies away for a swapping of tales each as dismal as the next.

And she understands what Hao-Bai had meant by kind to a fault; it is nothing like the Caldera City and nothing like Wu-Jing. These people cry together. These people laugh together. They hurt and rage together. They love and joke together.

And sometimes they do it all in one night.

Hao-Bai hands her a pipa. “I carved it myself, out of the first tree you helped cut down.” He explains. “Play it when you have something that you can’t express with words or when you need something kind to think about.”

By the spirits she could use something kind to think about. She isn’t practiced by any means, but she plays a song. The only one she has ever heard played on a pipa. These people laugh together, cry together. And they make music together.

In a night they had mourned for one another and by its end there was music and jokes. A sense of lightheartedness.

That night she learned that each little town has its own special flavor.

.oOo.

It is almost mesmerising to watch Azula interact with Caihong. The way she cradles the girl against her chest and strokes at her hair. The way that her light voice softens further still when she assures the child that she is safe now.

He is plenty aware of Atsu, plenty aware that she has probably helped tuck the boy in time and time again but until now those were just words on parchment. Just visuals in his mind like a charming fictional tale.

“You live here?” He hears Caihong ask.

“I live here.” Azula confirms.

She seems to perk up, “yer a palace gardener! Ya didn’t tell me that you was a palace gardener!”

“I’m not…” she trails off. “It’s a hobby, not a job.”

“Then how come you get to live in the palace?”

Azula is quiet for a while. “I’m the princess, Caihong. I’m supposed to live it the palace.”

Caihong tilts her head and then shakes it. “Nope, yer Rikka.”

“My name is actually Azula.”

She shakes her head again. “Nope. Rikka.”

Azula sighs. “I suppose that you can keep calling me Rikka. But other people are going to call me Azula because that’s my name.” She pauses and with a hint of a devious smirk adds, “and you’re going to look ridiculous because no one else here knows that I was ever called Rikka.”

Caihong narrows her eyes, “no, yer ridiculous. And also yer dumb. So there.” She folds her arms and sticks out her tongue. And yet the child makes no attempts to wiggle her way out of Azula’s grasp. In fact she nuzzles herself closer.

To himself, Sokka quirks a brow. Children are strange little beasts. In one breath they hate you and in the next they’re begging for bedtime stories and lullabies. This child has just been rescued from a slave trade and she is being difficult. And somehow, Azula seems to take it better than he would have.

“If you say so, Caihong.”

“Mmhm, I do say so.”

“What do you want for supper, Caihong? Do you want me to try to make turnip stew how your grandfather did?”

“No one makes it like grandpa!” She declares. “But you can make turnip stew, Rikka.”

“Alright, come on then.” She hoists herself to her feet. .oOo.

Her mind is full to bursting and she thinks that the only thing keeping it from doing so is Sokka tagging along next to her. She has too much to think about. Too much at once. Caihong’s face is a gift and a destroyer in one. She is more than grateful to have the child back, a child she cherished as much as Atsu and Juro. But staring at that face is like staring at the past. At everything she has lost and worked hard to put behind her. Staring at that face is cutting open an old scar that has only just begun to heal.

And so, as she stirs the ladle around the pot, her mind goes back to something else. Another thing that disturbs her but not quite as deeply; she had enjoyed it. She had enjoyed bringing the slave trader to his knees. Enjoyed the taste of battle and victory on her tongue.

Perhaps this wouldn’t trouble her so much if she hadn’t been so sure that she had left that side of her behind. But it is still there. It is always there. It will always be there, waiting to emerge.

She swallows hard, she thought she had changed. She thought that she was better. But she is still angry. Angry and ready for war. She can make all the changes she wants but she will always be ruthless at her core.

And now, combing Caihong’s hair and stirring the stew between brushstrokes feels like an imitation. A mockery of motherhood. It feels false, however genuinely she cares for the girl who kicks her small legs at the air.

She scoops a liberal amount of stew into the bowl and sets it before Caihong, “don’t eat too fast, it’s…”

Caihong shoves the spoon right into her mouth.

“Hot.”

“It’s fine.” Caihong insists through watery eyes.

Azula ruffles her hair. “How about you take it a little slower.”

“I can handle it!” She declares. But she doesn’t pick the spoon up again until the steam stops rolling.

“Thanks Rikka!” She declares between spoonful.

Azula forces a smile, while her stomach drops. Agni, she wishes the girl would stop calling her that. It hurts in such a particular way. “Did I make it like Ojihara did?”

“Mmm mmm, nope! Not even close! But yours tastes good too.” She grins.

Apparently the kid is more resilient than she. Or maybe she thinks that her father and grandfather will be coming back too. It is just one more thing for Azula’s mind to do circles around.

“Well, now that you’re all done I think that it’s time for bed.”

.oOo.

It is twice as disorienting to see Azula tucking the child in. To see that soft smile as the girl giggles and laughs, “this bed is huge!”

“And it’s all yours tonight.”

“Where are you going to sleep?” Sokka asks.

“You have room?”

“No!” Caihong shouts. “Rikka’s gonna stay with me! I don’t wanna be alone.” She tugs at Azula’s sleeve.

“I’m giving you this whole big bed and you’re telling me that you want to share. Since when do you like sharing?”

“Since now!”

“Alright. I’ll stay with you.”

The child is beaming again. This time she throws her arms around Azula. The princess smiles and scoops her onto her lap. Quietly, she reaches behind her and finds the badger-mole. She plops it onto Caihong’s lap.

“Bao!” She yells with delight.

Azula nods, “Bao will keep you company while I get ready for bed.” She looks up. “Sokka is here too but Bao is a lot smarter.”

“Hey!”

She brushes her fingers over his hand as she exits. And he wishes that she hadn’t left him. Now the girl is staring at him with those big bright green eyes and all he can do is manage a toothy and awkward smile that coaxes her to say, “you looks stupid. Are all waterbenders weirdos?”

“I-I’m not a weirdo!” He throws his hands up.

“Mmhm, you are.” She gives a firm nod and then gives Bao a shake. “Bao thinks so too.” She hold up the stuffed animal and in a much lower voice says, “that’s right Caihong, water guy is a weirdo.”

He folds his arms across his chest as the girl continues to have a back and forth with the stuffed animal about how he is a ‘strange and silly man’. He wonders if the girl has always been so blunt.

Azula returns several minutes later barefaced, with her hair in a ponytail, and tucked into a very cozy looking night robe. She sits herself upon the mattres. “Did Sokka behave?”

“I guess.” Caihong grubles.

Azula quirks a brow. “And what about Caihong, did Caihong behave.” She opens her mouth but Azula cuts her off. “Or did Caihong call Sokka a weirdo several times?”

“Caihong didn’t do that! Bao did!”

“Oh? Is that right?”

“Yup, Rikka, it’s right.”

.oOo.

Caihong’s sleep talk serves as a backdrop to the chaos in her mind. To the turbulence that threatens to break forward. Perhaps Sokka has sensed it too because he has made himself comfortable in a chair at the corner of the room.

She rubs her hands over her face. She could have had this. She could have had it every night with Atsu and Juro. She could have been so happy and so very nearly untroubled.

She could have been a mother leading a perfectly quiet and mundane life. She could have been Rikka. But she is still Azula; life is forcing that much upon her while flashing in her face who she could have become.

And she resents it. She resents life. She resents the person she is.

She rubs her hands over her face, she knows that she shouldn’t resent the person she is. Before, Hajime and Seukhyun had assured her that she is a good person. Sokka reminds her as much now. Deep down she is beginning to struggle to see herself as evil through and through. Deep down she is able to piece together all of those small deeds that seemed to mean so much to people like Min-Ta and Hao-Bai. And deep down she is well aware that she has been defying her upbringing and the monster that life is trying to fashion her back into--the path that it is trying to put her back on.

Deeper down she is still afraid that all of her hurt and pain will come back and bring the worst of her back. Deeper down she is afraid that she won’t be able to stop it. Deeper still she is afraid that the process has already been set in motion.

She is scared.

.oOo.

Sokka wakes late into the night to the sound of music. The charmingly melancholic tune. It has the feeling of watching a warship depart and then return battered and broken. The same energy as a light rain that sets the world a glimmer while ruining a sunny outing.

It is beautiful and broken. Depressive and joyful.

He makes a point of rustling his clothing as he walks so that she doesn’t jerk when he sits upon the mattress and wraps his arms around her middle. In a few final notes, the song dies away.

She puts the pipa aside and leans into him. He wants her to talk, to give him a problem to walk her through but he doesn’t think that she is in the mood for conversation. So he instead wipes away several silent tears and holds her hand until she finally falls into a much needed sleep. He finds himself toying with her hair until he too is able to drift off.

The pipa melody lingers in his dreams.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Sokka #Sokkla #Fanfiction

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imaginaryelle · 4 years

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Chapter 3: Memento, Mori ~2.5k Rating: Teen (may change in later segments) Warnings: temporary character death, blood, injury, suicide mention, imprisonment, violence, minor character death, mild gore Tags: MDZS, Wangxian, Role Reversal AU, Soulmates AU, Canon Divergence, Very AU okay, I’m warning you, soulmates + WWX living changes things. Note: This chapter was written for the @wangxianweek 2020 day three prompts "mementos" and "rebirth." Many thanks to @miyuki4s and @morphia-writes for awesome brainstorming and feedback! Summary: The clan elders made sure Lan Wangji would not be present for the siege of the Mass Graves, but even the discipline whip can’t cut a soul bond, and pain can’t dim Lan Wangji’s determination, even if his efforts consume him.

Wei Wuxian lives. The siege fails.

Thirteen years later, Lan Wangji wakes in a body that is not his own.

on tumblr: part one | part two

Dawn seeps into his awareness with slow light painted over his eyelids and the bright notes of birdsong outside. For a moment Lan Wangji can’t remember where he is—not the Jingshi—but the smell of rotting blood soon brings his surroundings back to mind.

Physically, the cell looks no better in daylight. When he again extends his senses he finds no change; no new beings have joined him in this prison under the shroud of night.

The body he found himself occupying is still weaker than he is used to, still hungry and thirsty, but he feels steadier for the sleep. All but one of the wounds on his arms have scabbed over, and that one remaining sends a shock through his fingertips when he touches it.

A curse, most likely. Perhaps related to the ritual that called him here.

It’s worrying, but not his most pressing problem; if he doesn’t find a source of water soon, he will lose what mental clarity he still retains. The demands of this body, so much less disciplined than his own, batter at his mind. The itch of blood and sweat on his skin is ever-present, but the single set of yi and trousers he wears is not cleaner than anything else in the room; even the sash is bloodstained. He resumes his meditations, sinking deeper than the night before.

His spiritual power is still reduced, but not quite so low; meditation does seem to help it coalesce into a more workable form as well.

So. He has a small amount of spiritual power, the clothes on his back, a forehead ribbon, a very weak spirit lure and a sharp shard of porcelain. He is barred from escape by a door which opens outwards, a lock, and a seal.

He takes a moment to tie the ribbon in place for whatever comfort that can offer and examines the door again, probing the seal cautiously. Perhaps he can negate it, or overpower it. It will be tricky without the ability to see or physically touch the talisman itself, but it’s theoretically possible. Alternatively, he could write a new talisman, in blood on torn cloth.

Of the two, attempting to remove the seal is more appealing; the spirit lure does not inspire confidence in future talisman creation attempts. He’s determining the exact positioning of the seal talisman when voices suddenly cut through the small morning noises of birds and wind over leaves, apparently partway through a conversation.

“—said only you should take the food,” says one voice.

“Is he here, that you need to quote him so faithfully?” asks another, the tone strident and irritated. “Was he cleaning up pieces of teacup yesterday because his ‘guest’ threw a fit?”

That explains the shard still in the room. Lan Wangji listens with more than his ears to confirm—there are two new presences inside the bright circling of space he can sense, but only two. In less promising developments, the abruptness of their presence implies that that circle is indeed restrained by a ward, and anything could be on its other side.

Outside the cell door, the conversation continues, the voices growing louder as they draw closer.

“I think you can handle one weakened, failed cultivator. He doesn’t even have a golden core,” says the first voice, still reluctant.

“I don’t care what he has,” voice two insists. “I want him incapacitated when that door opens.”

There are footsteps now, careless and too-heavy on raised wooden floorboards. One pair, the one lagging behind, favors the right side. Perhaps an injury, or something carried on that side. This close, Lan Wangji can also hear a soft rattle of wood against wood, perhaps the mentioned food. He moves to the side from which the door will open and considers his options. He has no chance against a spiritual weapon of any caliber, but if he moves quickly enough—

“If we use the talisman too much it could kill him,” says voice one.

“So then we say he killed himself,” says voice two, very close now. There is the scrape of a bar being removed. “We can’t be blamed if he’s dead when we open the door, right? He’s been locked in a room on his own.”

Two assailants who barely care whether he lives or dies. Who are willing to kill him, so long as such an act does not draw the ire of a superior. Lan Wangji holds his shard of porcelain carefully in his right hand, nearest the door, and raises his left hand to his face, two fingers pointing to Heaven. He may, just, have the spiritual strength to shield from a talisman, depending on the skill of both maker and caster.

He doesn’t have time to make another plan; iron turns against iron, and the seal dissipates. The door is opening.

“Ugh, that stink,” says the bearer of voice two as Lan Wangji begins to move. “Look at the blood—”

Lan Wangji clears the doorway and slashes a clean line across the speaker’s throat. A talisman flies toward his face but he catches it against his fist and—stumbles back, blood filling his throat and streaming from his nose. He staggers and coughs, fighting to breathe, to see.

The first of his targets is slumped on the floor. The second is reaching for his sword. Lan Wangji rushes him, aiming for that heavier right side and slamming him into the wall. He struggles again with the shard in his fist until the blood that coats his hand is not only his own and this assailant, too, falls.

For a moment Lan Wangji only stands in a sun-warmed hallway and shakes, and breathes.

Blood drips down his chin; he wipes it away with his sleeve. Once again, his spiritual power is a guttering vagueness near his center. His right hand stings, fingers and palm both lacerated, but he cannot let go of the shard until he is certain. He drops to his knees to check for breath, but the second man is well and truly dead, his eyes open but unseeing and his throat a ragged mess. The first man is also still and lifeless.

The outer ward is still in place. No new presence has arrived.

He has a few moments, at least. Perhaps longer. He tucks the shard into his sash with fingers that tremble no matter how he tries to control them, and examines his situation once more.

The door is open, and this hallway, at least, appears unguarded. His assailants wear outer robes of rough, dark blue linen that he doesn’t recognize as belonging to a known Sect, but their inner robes are finer, pale cotton and silk with delicate stitching, so the outer garments are likely a deception rather than daily wear. They each bear spiritual swords that will do Lan Wangji no good at this body’s current level, and the second one also carried a pipa, the neck and frets of which snapped in the struggle. The weapons carry gold detailing, but no peony. Nothing that points definitively to Jin Guangyao or the Jin Sect, or any Sect he knows. Nor does the iron key for the door’s lock bear any identifying stamp.

His hands are still shaking.

The tray of food was upset in the struggle, but some small amount of rice still remains in the dish and a wax-sealed gourd proves to hold water. He drinks half of it, then tears a strip from the cleanest of the dead mens’ sashes, wets it, and wipes carefully at his face and wounds. Aside from the curse mark, the cuts in his right hand are now the most worrying, one lancing long and deep at an angle across his palm. He wraps it carefully, tightening the knot with his teeth when all other attempts fail. Even careful rinsing cannot wash the taste of blood from his tongue.

He needs to keep moving. This progress is only progress so long as he can hold onto it. If there is a way to delay pursuit, he must take it.

He drags both men into the cell and removes their outer robes and sashes. Stained and rough as they are, they will still provide a moment’s doubt to his identity, and he will not surrender to the shame of approaching another being in only his blood-soaked underlayers if he can avoid it.

He’s going to have to approach someone, eventually.

He knows who he wants it to be.

Later, he can think about that later. He eats the rice and cleans up as much of the spill of food and blood as he can. Then he moves the dishes and the men’s weapons into the cell as well.

The array is too obvious a clue to leave it undamaged—even if he cannot decipher it, that doesn’t mean whoever arranged this prison will not recognize it.

He starts at the edges, breaking the circle carefully in case of residual backlash. The blood is dried and flaking, and he uses another torn rag to smudge it into more of a smear than any sort of defined, focused shape. Then he positions one of the dead men over the space, face down to perhaps prevent questions about additional blood, and moves the other out of sight from the door. In their sleeves he finds a jade pendant that tingles against his fingers, a sachet of medicinal herbs, a sachet of chrysanthemum tea, five talismans and a qiankun pouch holding another gourd of water, a comb, and a pair of leaf-wrapped zongzi.

Just the smell of the zongzi makes his mouth water, but escape is more pressing. He puts everything but the water gourds and the pendant in the pouch, along with three of the pipa’s four silk strings and the polished wooden rice bowl. The remaining string he tucks beside the porcelain shard.

Neither of his assailants’ boots fit well, but they will serve far better than bare feet. He wraps one sash around his left arm, covering the curse mark, layers one outer robe over the other despite the gore that coats their collars and promises himself he will wash as soon as an opportunity presents itself.

He leaves the cell, closes the door, and locks and bars it.

He can sense no new presence inside the ward. There are other rooms along the hall, and an opening onto a courtyard beyond it.

None of the other rooms are cells, or locked. Most are empty of all but the faint smell of dust. One holds a small writing desk with a brush, ink stick and stone, paper, and a sheaf of notes he can’t read. He wraps the brush and ink stick carefully and folds all of it into the qiankun pouch. He does it again with the mobile contents of the next room: paper twists of tea, a small cloth bag of rice, a small earthenware bowl and two small bottles—one of soy sauce, one of vinegar. A horsetail whisk he tucks into his sash; this one was clearly designed for shooing insects rather than combat, but better than the makeshift weapons he’s accumulated so far.

The ward burns against his awareness as he nears the courtyard, and he stops in the shadow of the hall to watch that brightly sunlit space carefully.

Birds flit across the space. Insects buzz. Between two buildings he can see trees swaying gently in the light summer breeze, a promise of shadowed shelter beyond this place.

It would be easy to stop here. To meditate until he no longer feels as though his muscles will betray him at any moment.

The longer he stays still, the more likely someone is to come investigate why his assailants haven’t returned.

He closes his eyes and allows himself ten slow, steadying breaths. The ward hums at him. The jade pendant in his sleeve vibrates in response. Like the wards of Cloud Recesses, and the jade pass token he wore for nearly half his life.

If he’s wrong, the ward could rebound on him, and in his present state that would likely knock him unconscious. But this ward is a much stronger, more permanent working than the array he woke to, or any of the talismans he’s encountered thus far. If he’s wrong, he has no way to move outside it anyway. If he’s right …

He steps into the courtyard and walks to the very edge of the carved stone that marks the boundary. Nothing impedes his hand, reaching in front of him. Neither ward nor token shift in resonance.

He steps over the ward.

It hums merrily behind him.

He runs for the trees and doesn’t stop until he hears moving water. It’s only a small stream, but it’s enough to clean himself, and his clothing, and he removes only his boots and the contents of his sash and sleeves before he wades in eagerly. The water is cold, but not nearly as cold as Gusu’s Cold Spring, and the sun is warm on his back as he soaks, and scrubs, and then lays all but the inner trousers out to dry as he re-binds his wounds and combs his hair.

It’s only when he catches sight of his reflected face that he remembers: this body is not his body, for all that he is bound to it, and feels its pain and hunger and weariness.

He examines the face more closely and finds it familiar, but only vaguely so. A face he has not seen in many years, and rarely before, but one that did live within the walls of Cloud Recesses in his memory. A disciple who left the Sect for—family reasons, he thinks. After the Sunshot war. His brother had been disappointed about it. Lan Wangji cannot remember the man’s name. He must have kept the forehead ribbon as a memento.

It’s disconcerting, that this man, this cultivator, knew Lan Wangji’s name well enough to summon him from death but left no strong impression on him during life.

He shakes the thought away and finishes combing and tying up his hair, and then busies himself refilling the water gourds. He trickles a pinch of the chrysanthemum tea into one and sets in the sun to brew. Then he eats one of the sticky, red-bean-stuffed zongzi, and turns his mind to the question of where to go next.

It occurs to him that he may be able to reach his spiritual senses further now, outside the prison’s ward, and so when he has finished his paltry meal he meditates, sinking as deeply as he can. His range is still not as far as he’s accustomed to, but the flow of energy is much clearer. To the north he can feel a collection of power, a static array, strong but far off. To the south another, further away and indistinct.

South, the small tug he associates with the soul bond informs him, and the relief he feels that that connection remains threatens to overwhelm the sensation itself. He should go south.

South, to Wei Ying.

on to part four

#wangxian #lan wangji #wangxianweek2020 #mo dao zu shi #mdzs fic #cw: suicide #cw: blood #cw: imprisonment #cw: violence #cw: character death #cw: mild gore #alex writes

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