#this is ablut doctor who

[sarenderpity]

Save me, comfort show from my angsty teen years

#this is ablut doctor who #if it wasnt clear #im doing #real fucking bad #the holidays are always rough on me #but having to leave my home #and then being specifically asked not to return until mid january #has done a number on my emotional state unseen since 2016 #the year i gave up and laid on the floor until i passed out and nearly passed away #but i have this thread of truly excellent comfort media #so like #i can hold on for at least the next 2 weeks #to see the doctor donna specials

[robininthelabyrinth]

The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 22

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

———————————————————————-

Wen Ruohan woke up groggy and disoriented.

This did not come as a surprise, as it was not particularly unusual for him: a hundred years and more, infinitely powerful cultivation, and somehow he’d still never quite gotten the hang of mornings. Once he’d become accustomed to sharing his bed with Lan Qiren, who like the rest of his sect preferred to rise at inhumane hours, the other man had routinely been able to get up, go about his morning ablutions, go outside to train, and come back to bed before Wen Ruohan even twitched his fingers in the direction of his clothing.

Not that he usually needed to get up early, of course. That was one of the many benefits of power: the Nightless City might never sleep, but it only really got going when he did. Lan Qiren had remarked several times that he found it unusual that the quietest hours in the day were the early morning, as those were often the hours most generally preferred for chores, until eventually Wen Ruohan had taken pity on him and explained that his servants and disciples had judged it better to do their chores at an hour before they risked waking up their irritable sect leader.

(“Ah, yes,” Lan Qiren had said, nodding. “I had a similar experience when my nephews were toddlers.”

“…toddlers.”

“Yes, they got terribly cranky when anything disturbed their naps. I would always refrain from doing anything too loud during that time of the day.”

“I don’t think I appreciate your comparison.”

“Comparison? I was conveying that I understood – ”

“That was a comparison, and you know it.”

“...perhaps. Truly a strange and inexplicable parallel. Perhaps even an opportunity for you to learn some form of lesson…?”

“Not in the slightest. Clearly I’ll just have to put more effort into making sure you don’t see me as a child. Perhaps something more adult instead.…?”

“Again? Already? It’s not that I object, of course, but sometimes you genuinely make me wonder: do you have no other hobbies?”)

The memory made Wen Ruohan want to laugh.

He opened his eyes, and found, to his puzzlement, that he was not in his own bed, neither alone nor (preferably) with a warm and energetic Lan Qiren coming in straight after his exercise, but rather in his favorite sickroom.

Most people would not be able to say that they had a particular preference in sickrooms, but in this, as in many ways, his Qishan Wen sect was different. His sect had been founded by a surgeon (who’d also been an assassin and a warlord, as the situation required – those needles of Wen Mao’s had been put to any number of purposes, a practicality his descendants had whole-heartedly embraced), and as a result, they had always prided themselves on their medical skills. Naturally, the Nightless City’s sickrooms ought to reflect that pride, which they did in both quality and in sheer multitudinous quantity.

The rooms were always well-equipped, well-staffed, and well-tended to, as befit a sect with their inheritance. His Wen sect disciples had even taken to dividing them up by type of illness: one reserved for people suffering from physical harms such as broken bones or sword cuts, another specializing in treating diseases, a third for cultivation problems…

Wen Ruohan was currently in the one fondly and universally known as the “you fucked up” room.

It was a large room, having at some point in the past been meant to be a warehouse, but it had been filled with room dividers to create the illusion of smaller spaces. Each little nook was supplied with a standard-issue cot, a blanket enhanced with warming talismans and a pillow similarly made to be cooling, a slate at the end of the bed for doctors’ instructions, and little else. This room specialized neither in a particular type of injury nor a particular type of cure, and neither did it make any differentiation between injuries unique to cultivators or more commonplace sorts that anyone could suffer.

It had a singular focus, which was to say, it catered exclusively to people who’d caused their own malady through stupidity.

To be more specific, it was reserved for people who’d hurt themselves through excessive over-exertion, which was commonly regarded as an offshoot of idiocy. Strained muscles, overworked meridians, twisted ankles, emptied dantians…even those scholars who developed headaches from reading too much in poor light, it didn’t matter; they all ended up here. A doctor would look them over, snort in disdain (a requisite and much-enjoyed part of the treatment), and order them to stay, rest, and recuperate, which usually translated to being confined to rest for a given length of time, typically marked out in chalk on the slate that hung over their cot. The room was patrolled by junior disciples still learning the way of medicine, most of them at the stage where they had more enthusiasm than skill, and they were all licensed to meet any attempts to escape prematurely with paralyzing needles, jabbed in as hard as their black little hearts desired.

Wen Ruohan remembered the place fondly.

He’d once been a very frequent visitor, in fact, back when he’d been constantly experimenting – he couldn’t quite now remember when he’d stopped, or why, but it had always been enjoyable. After he’d become sect leader, the senior doctors had used his visits as a means of teasing their juniors. They would archly insist that there was no choice but to follow the iron-clad traditions of the room, without exception, even if the patient was their terrifying sect leader, and eventually one unlucky or suicidally brave junior would be tasked with placing and enforcing the chalk marker beside his bed. Not that Wen Ruohan ever listened, of course, since naturally very few of them really dared to try to jab him (and he just shrugged off the few that did). As fun as tormenting the junior generation was, he simply had too much to do…

Ugh, speaking of which, he was probably falling behind even now. Wen Ruohan squeezed his eyes shut with a groan. He didn’t even remember what he’d been experimenting with to cause him to end up here, but it didn’t really matter. He couldn’t linger. He was the sect leader, there was always something to do.

He mentally reached for the running list of tasks he invariably kept in the back of his head – and then frowned, coming up empty. He couldn’t think of what he had planned to do today. Had his secretaries failed to bring him his schedule the night before? Had he injured himself sufficiently badly that he’d simply forgotten it all, somehow?

What had he been doing last that had led him to come here, anyway…?

Wen Ruohan’s eyes abruptly flew open: Xixiang. The mountain. Lan Qiren!

He sat up in the bed at once, ignoring the sudden rush of vertigo with an effort of will. He remembered Cangse Sanren standing beside him, telling him that he’d blown out all his spiritual energy, but also that she was having people search for Lan Qiren, who had last been seen going to see his brother – had they been found? What state was he in?

Wen Ruohan was in his favorite sickroom, which meant he was in the Nightless City. Hadn’t he last been in Xixiang? How had he even gotten here?

How long had he been unconscious?!

The chalk marker in the room was unhelpfully blank, and the room itself was oddly empty, so there was no one to ask. Overusing one’s qi didn’t usually result in unconsciousness that lasted longer than a few days at most, but Wen Ruohan had always been extraordinary, so he didn’t dare make any assumptions. He got up out of bed – then staggered, unhelpfully, but righted himself with an effort and a hand on the wall – and made his way to the main door of the sickroom, pushing it open to break the binding of the sound-proofing spell so that he could try to find Lan Qiren by listening for the sound of his voice, however futile –

Oh.

There he was.

“How can that possibly be your first solution to the problem?!” Lan Qiren was saying…no, that wasn’t quite right. He was bellowing, in fact, and from somewhere not far away; Wen Ruohan thought he might have been able to hear it even without sharpening his hearing to try to find him. Lan Qiren’s voice rang loud and clear, immediately identifiable, as welcome as the sound of a rooster crowing in the dawn after a night-hunt gone wrong.

He sounded fine.

He might not be fine – as if being “fine” were possible, given that Lan Qiren had successively suffered the Fire Palace, the shock of realizing what his brother was doing, and then his brother himself – but he sounded fine, or at least uninjured, unharmed, alive…

Wen Ruohan arranged his clothing and ignored how sore he somehow still was in favor of following the sound of yelling.

“I cannot believe that any reasonable person would think that to be an appropriate proposal. It doesn’t even fix the actual underlying issue. It barely even postpones it! I cannot believe…no. No, no, no. Simply no. Denied.”

A fainter murmur, some unimportant person that Wen Ruohan didn’t care about saying something in response.

“This is me trying to keep an open mind!”

The noise turned out to be coming from the Wen sect’s receiving hall, where Wen Ruohan usually sat in the main seat and received petitioners, including his subordinates, or else visitors. It was used exclusively for sect business. It seemed to be full, which puzzled Wen Ruohan briefly: what sect business could there possibly be happening right now, with him not there…?

He let himself in through the back, managing to avoid notice only by virtue of the fact that everyone inside the room was looking at Lan Qiren.

Wen Ruohan was looking, too. Lan Qiren – one side of his face was badly bruised, with a black eye that definitely hadn’t been there before, and a bandage was tied high on one of his arms, binding both upper arm and shoulder. As injuries went, it wasn’t too bad, and the colors on his face suggested that he was already well along the path of healing, that extremely pure golden core of his already ameliorating the worst of it. It certainly didn’t seem to be slowing him down in any way.

On the contrary, Lan Qiren seemed to be in particularly fine form today, with an especially fierce scowl and face red enough that he looked on the verge of trying to breathe fire. Oddly enough, he was seated on the main seat, where Wen Ruohan usually sat, glaring down at the usual run of petitioners and high-ranking Wen sect subordinates as if he wanted to order them all away – wait.

Wait.

Was Lan Qiren attempting to deal with sect business? With Wen sect business? Was that what was going on now?

It was.

Wen Ruohan felt a sudden surge of tremendous fondness fill his chest, making him feel warm. He could see Cangse Sanren perched on the floor next to the main seat with a gigantic shit-eating grin on her face, looking for all the world like a vulture watching its next meal struggling to its death right in front of its eyes for its amusement, dinner and a show combined. That explained an awful lot: Wen Ruohan distinctly remembered having mentioned to her, in a fit of bitter pique, that in the event of his untimely death, Lan Qiren’s status entitled him to the right to rule the Wen sect as his widow.

Cangse Sanren was the sort of person to find the idea sufficiently funny that she’d encourage Lan Qiren to do it while Wen Ruohan was merely incapacitated, and Lan Qiren sufficiently duty-abiding that he’d assume he had no choice but to agree, even if he didn’t think himself fit for the role. And thus, presumably, they had ended up here.

Wen Ruohan couldn’t blame Cangse Sanren one bit, though. This was hilarious.

Poor Lan Qiren. Ten years of leading the virtuous (or, well, mostly virtuous) Lan sect had clearly not prepared him in the slightest for what he was dealing with in the Nightless City.

Not that he was doing badly.

In fact, he’d even apparently somehow managed to deal with Wen Ruohan’s wives, which in the normal run of things Wen Ruohan would have assumed to be his biggest problems. However, instead of jockeying for position or fighting Lan Qiren for the right to lead, they were contentedly in their usual positions for the rare times they attended to matters of sect management.

Practically, this meant that Lu Qipei was putting on a show of pretending to supervise but mostly just displaying herself to best effect to win the admiration or envy of the female disciples in the audience, wearing something that was no doubt going to be the peak of fashion in another month or two once everyone copied her look, while Shen Mingbi…well, Shen Mingbi was currently preoccupied smiling at a man wearing the insignia of a Fire Palace guard and a face that for whatever reason vaguely reminded Wen Ruohan of Lan Xichen, while he in turn ignored the ongoing proceedings in favor of smiling back.

Ugh. Not another one! How had Wen Ruohan managed to marry women with such poor taste?

At least Lan Qiren didn’t have that problem.

“Go back and think once more on the issue and how to solve it, then bring me a proposal that does not include threats, blackmail or gross negligence of your duty as a cultivator and, for that matter, as a human being,” Lan Qiren said crossly to one of Wen Ruohan’s lieutenants, who looked abashed. He was presumably the one who’d presented the idea that had so raised Lan Qiren’s ire. “In deference to the customs of your sect, I am not excluding the options of using bribery, petty theft, and crimes at around that level – ”

Wen Ruohan choked down another laugh.

This was amazing. He’d have to find a way to reward Cangse Sanren for having thought of it.

“ – but you have to at least start with something remotely palatable. To human beings. Yes, even human beings of the Qishan Wen sect. Am I understood?”

He was.

“Good. Dismissed. Who’s next?”

There was then a brief silence, during which Wen Ruohan’s very brave Wen sect disciples looked at each other with expressions suggesting that they’d rather volunteer for the Fire Palace than volunteer to become the target of Lan Qiren’s attention and Wen Ruohan himself continued to try his absolute best not to laugh audibly. This was far too funny to interrupt.

Eventually, someone cleared their throat and stepped forward – it was Wen Yingjiu, Wen Ruohan’s hapless nominal head disciple. Presumably he’d been pushed forward as a sacrificial lamb by his peers.

“A gift has arrived for Sect Leader Wen from Lanling Jin.”

Oddly enough, that made Lan Qiren snort in what sounded like audible disdain.

“I see,” he said, with what sounded almost like a sneer. “I take it that Sect Leader Jin has received my letter indicating my displeasure regarding his sect’s participation in framing our Wen sect and that he is now trying to go above my head. Is that it?”

Our Wen sect.

Wen Ruohan felt a delightful little shiver of pleasure to hear Lan Qiren call it that. That was as it ought to be, of course – they were married, and Lan Qiren’s marriage vows meant that he rightfully ought to treat his new sect as if it were his own – and of course Lan Qiren was never improper in public, not even when Wen Ruohan occasionally wanted him to be.

He wasn’t foolish enough to think that it meant that Lan Qiren had forgiven Wen Ruohan, or that he was willing to stay voluntarily, or really anything at all. It didn’t signify anything other than the fact that Lan Qiren had good manners and an overactive sense of duty and the sense to preserve face. And yet – and still –

Our Wen sect.

Wen Ruohan liked that.

“I cannot say, Senior Lan. But it is a princely gift: a rare saber from the northwest region,” Wen Yingjiu said, his tone appropriately respectful. Presumably he’d decided to err against calling Lan Qiren “Madam Wen”, which was probably the right move, even if the alternative would have been much funnier. Wen Yingjiu had always had a decent sense of self-preservation, one that outweighed even ambition. “The messenger who delivered it insisted that the Sect Leader would enjoy having it in his possession. The saber is said to be of surpassingly fine quality, beyond anything that can be made in our present cultivation world.”

“Is it really?” Wen Ruohan said, unable to keep from speaking up. He’d always enjoyed receiving high-quality gifts, even when they were obviously meant to be bribes – all good things ought to belong to him, after all, and he wasn’t too picky about how he got them. So what if it was a bribe? Even if he accepted it, nothing was stopping him from betraying the person who’d sent it later on. And since both he and the person trying to bribe him knew that, one could scarcely even call it unethical. “I’m not sure what the Nie sect would have to say about that. How does it compare to theirs?”

The sound of his voice was like dropping a rock into a still pond, the effects of it rippling outwards in waves: everyone turned at once to look at him once they heard it, rows of heads all moving one after the other. Even Lan Qiren, seated up at the main seat, twisted himself to look in Wen Ruohan’s direction, and as he did some strange emotion flickered over his face, only visible for a moment. Wen Ruohan couldn’t quite distinguish what it meant.

“I cannot say, Sect Leader,” Wen Yingjiu said, saluting him at once. He seemed relieved to see him, which said something either about his loyalty or, more likely, Lan Qiren’s ferocity. “The messenger from Lanling Jin sang its praises, and from my humble appraisal, I would agree that it seems to be exceedingly well-made.”

Wen Yingjiu was head disciple of the Wen sect and possessed perfect recall, which meant that he had a pretty good sense of judgment as to what made a good weapon. That meant the saber probably really was exceptional – one of those wonders that were sufficiently impressive that even the ridiculously wealthy Lanling Jin thought them worth keeping in their treasure room. It had probably pained Jin Guangshan immensely to part with it.

“How nice,” Wen Ruohan said, smirk curving his lips as he thought about Jin Guangshan squirming in discomfort but ultimately giving in to reality, knowing that he needed to appease Wen Ruohan’s anger. “Perhaps we should invite Lao Nie over to see which one is the better.”

He was only speaking lightly, thoughtlessly saying what he would have normally said as if nothing had changed, but he had reason to regret it the second it came out of his mouth: the room went completely silent, and Lan Qiren’s face abruptly froze over into complete neutrality.

Wen Ruohan wanted to smack himself. Was he some novice at politics, not to realize that he’d inadvertently implied that he might be willing to accept Jin Guangshan’s bribe and override the expression of disapproval that Lan Qiren had sent out in their sect’s name, in his name? Accepting the gift suggested that he would be willing to cast aside Lan Qiren’s hard work on his behalf, to put someone else’s word over his yet again – a subtle but effective way to put Lan Qiren back in his place, as Jin Guangshan had laughed to him during the discussion conference.

It was certainly not a good way to start making things up with Lan Qiren.

Wen Ruohan immediately wanted to take back his words, but he didn’t know how. Showing weakness in front of so many of his subordinates was impossible, especially when he genuinely felt weak – humor aside, his body felt immensely sore and somehow also too light, as if the usual heavy cloak of power he usually carried with him everywhere was gone. Anyway, it would be inappropriate to admit that he was wrong, because that would be admitting too much. He hadn’t actually said anything out of place or inaccurate, merely a little tone-deaf.

And yet, having Lan Qiren think that Wen Ruohan valued Jin Guangshan over him…

“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” Cangse Sanren said helpfully, if by helpfully one meant it in the sense of throwing fuel onto an already blazing fire. “I mean, really, Sect Leader Wen! You just fought a mountain. Is it really still necessary for you to argue with Sect Leader Nie about who’s got the bigger dick?”

The tension in the room shattered.

Lan Qiren slumped in the main seat with a groan, putting his hands over his face, while the petitioners all burst out in choked-off guffaws and sniggers, some notably less choked-off than others.

Wen Ruohan smirked.

“Well,” he drawled. “Actually – ”

“No,” Lan Qiren said firmly. “Absolutely not. This conversation is not going there.”

Wen Ruohan shrugged, putting aside the uncalled-for burst of relief he was currently feeling. It was only natural that he would find a way to salvage the situation, even if it was with assistance.

“Very well, have it your way,” he said, purposefully casual, as if his comment earlier had merely been meant as a joke. “I suppose Cangse Sanren has a point. There’s no point in comparing anyone to me, now, is there? Yingjiu, under the circumstances I think you’d better send the saber back. We wouldn’t want Jin Guangshan to get the wrong idea.”

“Yes, Sect Leader! At once!”

Lan Qiren looked begrudgingly appeased, and the rest of the room looked profoundly impressed. There, that ought to do it: he’d erased the implication of his earlier statement, and publicly reaffirmed his support for Lan Qiren’s disapproval of Lanling Jin. Now that would make Jin Guangshan really squirm…as was only right. What had the man been thinking, joining forces with Qingheng-jun to scheme against Wen Ruohan and his sect like that?

If it had been Wen Ruohan up in that seat right now, he wouldn’t have limited himself to a mere letter of disapproval. At a minimum he would have demanded a whole cartful of treasures, or maybe even some land, a subordinate sect or two sacrificed to his ambitions…Jin Guangshan ought to count himself lucky!

“Should you be here?” Lan Qiren abruptly asked, frowning at Wen Ruohan. “I thought the doctor said that he intended for you to rest for a while longer? Someone said something about a chalk marker…?”

Wen Ruohan smirked at the idea that someone had had to explain the rules of the “you fucked up” room to Lan Qiren, hopefully in terms as colorful as the way he’d always heard it – though actually, now that he thought about it, he did rather feel as though he might want to go back to bed relatively soon. What was wrong with him? He’d never been this weak after exerting himself.

Though he supposed it had been rather a long time since he’d done himself in this badly…

“Enjoying your new work so much that you’ve decided to get rid of me?” he drawled.

Lan Qiren didn’t rise to the bait. “If that were my intention, I would tell you in advance.”

He probably would, the ridiculous man. Wen Ruohan could imagine it now: Lan Qiren all puffed up like a albino bird of paradise, solemnly stating that he regretted to inform him that he had decided he had no choice but to kill him and that he would appreciate it if Wen Ruohan would be so kind as to make himself ready for the attempt.

It was an oddly comforting thought.

“However, assuming you have just violated the doctors’ directives, I suggest you return to your sickbed, or at a minimum to your room, to continue resting,” Lan Qiren continued, looking annoyed. Or possibly concerned? It was hard to tell with him, sometimes – and for whatever reason, Wen Ruohan had the sudden feeling that Lan Qiren was being deliberately dismissive of him, almost performatively so. “Unless you want to take over managing sect business…?”

Wen Ruohan looked at his subordinates, who looked at him hopefully.

“No, I think I’m enjoying this too much,” he said thoughtfully, and smirked when their faces all fell.

“Well done, Sect Leader Wen!” Cangse Sanren cackled. “Milk that invalid status for all that it’s worth! At least one more day, please. You see, you just missed Qiren-gege threatening everyone to start the morning session at yin shi – ”

“At chen shi, not yin shi! A shichen after dawn, not before!”

“Was that it? I couldn’t tell from the way everyone looked like you’d threatened to murder their first-born sons. Remember, it’s only called the Nightless City because they’re all insomniacs!”

“Oh?” Wen Ruohan said, arching his eyebrows and allowing his tone to become a little dangerous, just for fun. “Is that what someone has told you…?”

The entire room full of petitioners took a step back away from him.

Lan Qiren’s eye twitched.

He turned to Cangse Sanren and said: “Take him away before I throw something at his head.”

And then, to Wen Ruohan: “Take her away before I strangle her.”

“Shall we?” Wen Ruohan asked, offering her his arm. She jumped up and trotted over to take it.

“We shall,” she said with a grin. “You promised me a tour.”

Wen Ruohan was fairly sure he had done no such thing. And, indeed, the moment they had left the main room behind by some distance, Cangse Sanren said, quite casually, “The tour can wait. I want to yell at you. Where’s a good place for that?”

Wen Ruohan opted to lead them both back to his bedroom, since it would be private and he was certain that Lan Qiren, unlike his wives, would think nothing of him taking a woman there to talk. Also because he was feeling increasingly dizzy, and he preferred to be weak somewhere he had protected with many, many layers of protective arrays. Technically the sickrooms were similarly protected, but he had no interest in returning there – someone would undoubtedly come to find him there now that he was awake, and he wasn’t in the mood to listen to complaints.

“How long was I out?” he asked as they walked.

“It’s been a few days,” she said promptly. “Not too long, really quite usual. We had the senior doctor that Qiren said looked least likely to gossip examine you – Wen Dairong, I think his name was – ”

That was fine. Wen Dairong usually preferred research to patients, but he’d kept his hand in with doing the rounds in the sickrooms enough that his skills hadn’t deteriorated, and he was notoriously close-mouthed. Best of all, he was one of Wen Ruohan’s more trustworthy cousins, having always very obviously set supporting his beloved research as the price of his loyalty, and no one could meet that price better than Wen Ruohan.

He wondered if Lan Qiren had been worried when he found out that Wen Ruohan was unconscious. He was fairly sure that Cangse Sanren wouldn’t tell him even if he had.

“Anyway, he confirmed that there’s nothing seriously the matter with you – well, nothing the matter with your health – other than qi exhaustion. Well, other than extremely severe qi exhaustion.” She glanced at him sidelong and waited until they were in his room, with its privacy arrays activated, before she bluntly added, “You completely emptied not only your active supply of spiritual energy but also your reserves, and you dipped pretty heavily into your life force, too. Nothing that will cause long-term damage, but I’m telling you, you were dry. No matter how ridiculously quickly you accumulate more through cultivating – I’ve seen the charts, by the way, so well done there – there’s simply no way you’re getting back to normal until at least a few months have passed, if not more. Welcome to the world of us mere mortals.”

Wen Ruohan scowled.

Unfortunately, after he sat at his desk and took a moment to examine himself, he was forced to conclude that Wen Dairong was right. He didn’t just feel weak, he was weak – not quite down to the level of a common person, but certainly around the level of a common (if still very talented) cultivator. He had woken up too quickly and without guidance, and hadn’t realized the level of his weakness when he’d headed out. No wonder Lan Qiren had made such an effort to get him out of the receiving hall, with Cangse Sanren playing along to make it seem as though neither of them had any concerns for Wen Ruohan’s health or strength.

The information would get out eventually, of course. But their apparent dismissiveness would deceive people for just long enough – long enough to give Wen Ruohan a little more time to decide how to best control the narrative, to ensure that the rest of the cultivation world remembered that while he was weakened, he would only be weakened for a short while, and that in the interval he still had his army and nearly half of the cultivation world at his beck and call.

And also to remind them that when he returned to normal, he would be even more powerful – and extremely vengeful against anyone who dared to try anything in the interim.

“What happened with Qingheng-jun?” he asked Cangse Sanren, who had seemingly forgotten her plan to yell at him in favor of poking around the bedroom with an expression of profound interest. At the moment she was perusing one of Lan Qiren’s annotated copies of the Lan sect rules, which had been carelessly left on the bedside table after Wen Ruohan had grabbed it for a (purposefully rather ostentatious) consult during one of their more contentious bits of bed-play.

That had been a good day. Lan Qiren had been so incredibly annoyed to have lost the argument, and Wen Ruohan had enjoyed every moment of it – as well as every moment of Lan Qiren taking it back out on him later on.

“Qingheng-jun? He’s missing,” Cangse Sanren said, turning back to look at him. “Possibly after having some sort of nervous breakdown? It wasn’t entirely clear. Lan Qiren only saw him leave, and since then he hasn’t been seen anywhere, not even by his own sect, which is starting to be more than a little nervous about it…to make what is undoubtedly a long story short, I’d say our Qiren won that encounter hands down.”

“He hurt him. Lan Qiren’s face – ”

“There’s nothing we can do about that right now, so stop thinking about it. Between you and Qingheng-jun, which one of you just fought a mountain again…?”

Wen Ruohan rolled his eyes.

“The whole world saw you do that, you know. It’s going to have some interesting consequences.”

“Let it,” Wen Ruohan said dismissively. “How is Lan Qiren doing?”

Cangse Sanren gave him a look.

“Oh, yes, please, let’s talk about that,” she said acidly. “The Fire Palace? Really?”

“I concede that I erred,” Wen Ruohan said stiffly, not appreciating her insolence. How dare she think she had any right to scold him? “Also, this is a discussion I will be having with Lan Qiren, not you.”

She arched her eyebrows. “You don’t want advice on how to make up with him?”

On second thought, Wen Ruohan was a practical man from a practical sect; he knew how to be flexible when necessary. With someone as complicated and rigid as Lan Qiren…he could probably use all the help he could get.

He gestured for her to sit.

Cangse Sanren perched herself on his chair, once again resembling nothing more than an over-large bird, probably of a corvid or a vulture. She tapped her distinctive fingernails on his desk, drawing his attention.

“All right,” she said. “You’ve already gotten to the point of admitting that you fucked up, that’s better than I expected. It’s still not going to help you. You really fucked up.”

Wen Ruohan was aware.

“So what’s your plan? You have to apologize.”

Wen Ruohan grimaced.

“Apologize and be punished,” she clarified mercilessly. “The Lan are big on exacting justice.”

Wen Ruohan was aware. Unfortunately, he still wasn’t sure what type of punishment he could offer up that would actually mean anything to Lan Qiren.

“…Lan Xichen suggested I write an essay,” he finally said, all too aware of how pathetic the suggestion sounded. “Laying out what I did wrong and explaining that I wouldn’t do it again.”

“That’s not actually that bad of an idea. He’d probably find it charming,” Cangse Sanren said, to Wen Ruohan’s surprise, but then almost immediately afterwards she made a face. “Well, assuming you were actually willing to do it properly. What’s your proposal for the ‘never doing it again’ bit?”

That had also been the part that had tripped up Wen Ruohan. He was always going to be sect leader and Lan Qiren was always going to be just the sect leader’s spouse – even if one accounted for the unique husband and wife dynamic they’d chosen, there was always going to be an imbalance between them.

Wen Ruohan was always going to have more power.

“Become omnipotent and therefore no longer make mistakes?” he offered, only half-joking – he knew it was unrealistic, but the thought was so very appealing. He was already so powerful, surely if he only tried a little harder, he would finally get to the level where all his problems would be solved. Right?

Cangse Sanren groaned. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say. No essay. It’ll just make it worse.”

“I’m open to alternate suggestions.”

“Nice try. He’d know if it came from me rather than you, and I’m not the one you want him to forgive.”

That was extraordinarily unhelpful.

She hummed. “You are at least aware that at least one part of the problem is that you even have a torture palace to begin with, right?”

Wen Ruohan scowled at her.

“I’m just saying, it’s a lot harder to throw people into your torture palace if you don’t have a torture palace,” Cangse Sanren said with a smirk. “Also, have you ever considered knitting? Or embroidery?”

Wen Ruohan stared at her.

“You know, because you like stabbing things…?”

“Out,” Wen Ruohan said flatly. “Now.”

“Listen, if you would just get another hobby – ”

“Out.”

After Cangse Sanren left, Wen Ruohan opened a drawer in his desk and dug around until he found a very old set of acupuncture needles that he hadn’t used in any number of years, then got up and went to the garden to find a sunny spot to meditate. It had been quite a long time since he’d needed to cultivate the old-fashioned way, but he still remembered the tricks he’d used to do it faster than his peers. Though technically speaking, jabbing yourself with acupuncture needles to help you process spiritual energy faster wasn’t so much a trick as it was an incredibly unwise medical procedure. But that was only if you didn’t know what you were doing…

(He refused to consider if this counted as part of a hobby of “stabbing things.”)

He'd only been meditating for half a shichen when a noise pulled him out of it.

Several noises.

“Are you sure we’re allowed in here?”

“No one’s ever here during the middle of the day, it’s fine.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Don’t be a spoilsport.”

“Is this really where Shufu lives now? It’s so big!”

Wen Ruohan opened his eyes and watched bemusedly as a small troop of children marched right into his quarters, with his own little Chao-er leading the way, looking pleased as punch with himself.

For a moment, Wen Ruohan felt rage swelling in his heart, the urge to lash out growing. How dare these children invade his quarters without permission? How insolent they were! He was busy. Didn’t they realize that he had to regain his strength, and quickly? If he didn’t, who would be left to defend his home and his sect –

Well, technically there was now Lan Qiren to do that.

Hmm.

There was something appealing about that.

He took another moment to observe the children, who hadn’t yet noticed him sitting in the corner of the garden. They were sticking mostly to the inside rooms, avidly exploring the various surfaces – the Lan boys were very proudly pointing out everything that visibly belonged to Lan Qiren, no matter how inane, while the other children oohed and aahed appreciatively, and Wen Chao was bouncing around and pointing out things that were characteristic of the Wen sect to equal appreciation.

Interestingly, Wen Chao seemed more comfortable with the younger boys, most particularly the Jiang heir, who he seemed especially eager to impress. It was an interesting choice, given the availability of the seemingly more charismatic Wei boy or the more mature Lan Xichen…or even Jiang Yanli, who was following the others with a surprisingly mischievous smile.

And speaking of smiling, Wen Chao was doing a surprising amount of it, almost to the point that Wen Ruohan briefly doubted that that was his son he was looking at. As far as he was aware, Wen Chao always looked either bitter or resentful, sulking like the spoiled princeling he was whenever Wen Ruohan wasn’t around and cringing and cowering whenever he was. He’d unfortunately inherited a solid portion of his mother’s stupidity, being both gullible and easily manipulated, and those traits in combination with Wen Ruohan’s prickly pride had led him to form grudges against virtually all of his peers in the Nightless City, many of whom had undoubtedly been given ulterior motives by their parents. It wasn’t a bad thing, necessarily, to learn to detect that early on. But unfortunately the result had been to leave him alone, making him a lonely and unpleasant child, willing to lie to get his way but not quite cunning enough to pull it off.

None of that was presently in evidence. Wen Chao looked happy.

How strange. Wen Ruohan had mostly written off his second son, figuring that children mostly resembled their mothers in childhood and their fathers in adulthood, that Wen Chao would therefore improve and acquire more of Wen Ruohan’s own traits as he got older and that there was therefore no point in bothering with him until then. But looking at him now – well, either Wen Chao had very abruptly matured overnight, which seemed highly unlikely, or else the presence of a group of his peers that were not only willing to spend time with him but actively intended to incorporate him into their group for reasons other than their parents’ selfish schemes was doing wonders for his personality.

Wen Chao was practically shining with delight, and with pride. For once, the habitual arrogance of the Wen sect sat upon him naturally rather than hanging off of him like an ill-fitting coat.

Much more like Wen Ruohan than his mother. Good, good. About time!

(Really, if this was the result of Lan Qiren’s casual instruction to his nephews to befriend his son, who by that point he’d barely even met, Wen Ruohan couldn’t wait to see how much active instruction by the man would benefit his son further.)

No, it was better not to interrupt. He wouldn’t want to ruin Wen Chao’s big moment, after all.

“What are these swords doing on the wall?” Wei Ying asked. “They seem pretty nice.”

“They’re treasure swords!” Wen Chao chirped. “Each one of them has a name and a history, a reputation – they’re all famous, every one of them.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to have swords on your wall, though?” Jiang Cheng sounded doubtful. “What if they fall off? Or what if someone comes in and grabs them in the middle of a fight…?”

“My father would grab them first,” Wen Chao said. “And then he’d kill them.”

Good boy.

“It would be awesome,” he added proudly.

Wen Ruohan smirked.

“But why so many?” Wei Ying wanted to know. “Don’t most people only have the one spiritual sword that they cultivate with…? Does your father have a favorite, or – ”

“Children!” Lan Qiren’s voice cracked out like a whip, making them all jump and scatter like a flock of startled pheasants. “What are you doing in here?”

“We were looking around, Shufu,” Lan Xichen said respectfully.

“We weren’t bothering anyone, Teacher Lan,” Jiang Yanli said, and Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying nodded furiously in agreement with her. “We didn’t disturb anything in here, either.”

“We just wanted to see where Shufu lived,” Lan Wangji explained.

“I told them you lived with my father,” Wen Chao put in, very proud. “They didn’t believe me at first, but now they do.”

From where Wen Ruohan was sitting, and because he knew to look, he could tell that Lan Qiren’s ears had gone pink. It was perhaps a little strange for a married couple with separate courtyards available to choose to share one instead – verging on shameless, really, since what it usually meant was that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

Hopefully none of the children had picked up on that. Lan Qiren might die of embarrassment.

Also, if he didn’t stop blushing, Wen Ruohan was going to start laughing.

“You still should not have entered these rooms without permission,” Lan Qiren said firmly. “These are Wen Ruohan’s private living quarters. What if he objected to your intrusion?”

“That’s why we came now,” Wei Ying explained. “So he wouldn’t be bothered! He can’t be bothered if he’s not here!”

The children all nodded in agreement.

Lan Qiren blinked owlishly at them with a frown. “What do you mean ‘he’s not here’? He’s right over there, in the garden.”

“He’s what?!” Wen Chao shrieked.

Wen Ruohan smiled with teeth when the children finally looked over at him.

The next ke or so was spent in childish pandemonium – and Wen Ruohan trying and failing not to laugh – until Lan Qiren got tired of it all and ordered them all (excluding Wen Ruohan) to leave.

“And each of you will copy lines for half a shichen this evening,” he added sternly. “Xichen, you will be in charge of selecting which lines, but I expect you to pick something appropriate regarding respecting one’s elders and the privacy of others. Understood?”

“Yes, Shufu! Understood, Shufu!”

“Jiang Yanli, as the eldest, I expect you to both supervise and lead by example.”

“Yes, Teacher Lan. Understood, Teacher Lan.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

Wen Ruohan watched them go with amusement. “You speak to the children in the same tone you use for my lieutenants,” he remarked once the children were gone. “Or should that be the other way around…?”

Lan Qiren glanced at him only briefly, then turned away. “Get those needles out of your wrists. Words will not be able to encompass my displeasure if you manage to further hurt yourself in an effort to recover your power faster.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Wen Ruohan said, though he did remove the needles and get up to come back into the room. Why wasn’t Lan Qiren looking at him? Was this the result of the Fire Palace, now that Lan Qiren had had some time to think about it…? “Why are you here?”

Lan Qiren stiffened. “I live here. Am I unwelcome?”

Wen Ruohan hated the ungainly awkwardness that seemed to have suddenly sprung up between them. It had never existed before, not even right after they had first married – Lan Qiren had been earnest, then, and sincere, even though he’d also been recently traumatized. There hadn’t been any of this…prickliness.

This – wariness.

Wen Ruohan hated it, but he knew he had only himself to blame.

“Not at all,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately light, smooth. “I only meant that I would have expected you to continue to receive petitioners until later in the afternoon. They’re usually especially needy immediately after some major event.”

“I dismissed them early. I wanted to find you to discuss an important matter – we’ve received an invitation to go to the Lotus Pier.”

Wen Ruohan arched his eyebrows. That was unexpected. “What reason does the Jiang sect have to invite us?”

“Not just us,” Lan Qiren explained. “The entire cultivation world. They are holding a celebration…ah, no, let me explain from the beginning. It is about what happened in Xixiang.”

“…they’re throwing a party over it?”

Lan Qiren had the world’s most tired and long-suffering expression. “The cultivation world has unanimously decided that they did not, in fact, nearly go to war, but rather that everyone had merely gathered together to tackle the ghosts of Xixiang.”

Wen Ruohan felt a sudden headache. “Are you joking?”

“I am not. Everyone worked quite collaboratively against the spirits that emerged from the mountain. It is being hailed as an example of the cultivation world overcoming obstacles to unite against evil.”

“That is the most transparent face-saving lie I have ever heard in my life,” Wen Ruohan marveled. “My very, very long life.”

That got a faint smile out of Lan Qiren.

It faded quickly, though.

“Transparent or not, everyone has an interest in maintaining it,” he said briskly, shifting back to impassively discussing politics. “No one had time to question the ghosts, so the secret of the mine remains intact, and the excuse of a night hunt in the area happens to match perfectly with the lie that drew your army there – a large-scale haunting, which they were invited to help eradicate. The aggressive moves by Gusu Lan and Lanling Jin can then be explained away as mere over-enthusiasm and the result of unfortunate misunderstandings, particularly as both sect leaders retreated or left relatively early in the proceedings – ”

Wen Ruohan was deeply unsurprised to hear that Jin Guangshan had gotten spooked by seeing a display of what real power was capable of and ran away, leaving his forces to face the music without him. He’d probably spent the time comforting himself with his current mistresses and putting together a plan regarding who he was going to blame for having gotten involved in the first place. Maybe he’d even re-use Wang Liu, who had undoubtedly outlived his usefulness. Certainly that pathetic display earlier suggested that Jin Guangshan was absolutely desperate to get back into Wen Ruohan’s good graces…

“I have even heard,” and now Lan Qiren’s face was set in deeply disapproving stone, “that some people appear to be trying to claim that the misunderstanding was originally caused by an illusion array, possibly a ghost wall of some unprecedented type – ”

Wen Ruohan snorted in disgust. That sounded like the Jin sect all right. “Face-saving all around, then.”

“Yes, exactly.” Lan Qiren sighed. “The Jiang sect, for its part, wants no one to pay attention to the fact that a war was nearly started with an independent sect so close to their border, particularly since it quite evidently happened without their knowledge. Moreover, they are also using this party as an opportunity to make up for the discussion conference that was canceled…”

Wen Ruohan snorted a second time, this time in amusement. That wasn’t going to happen.

Lan Qiren hummed in agreement. “Unfortunately, this situation presents us with two issues. The first is that we do not know where my brother has gone or what he might do. Putting aside his future actions in their own right, he is still capable of sharing the details of what happened in the mine, which would by itself be devastating – he is the last remaining witness to the actual events of the mine, excluding the Gusu Lan sect elders involved.”

“I assume from that statement that you’ve confirmed that the merchant house that committed most of the massacre was put to the sword in turn?”

Lan Qiren scowled. “None of your record keepers were able to find any trace of them after that time, so I would assume so. Likely in the name of ‘justice,’ as we are dealing with hypocrites.”

Lan Qiren was still furious at his sect elders, it seemed. Quite reasonable.

At least he was displaying some emotion. Wen Ruohan was growing increasingly displeased with the neutral expression Lan Qiren sometimes put on, finding it far more hateful than his unvarnished rage. Now that he had seen Lan Qiren use that deadened face in public meetings with his political enemies, he no longer wanted to see it when they were alone.

“What’s the second problem?” he asked.

Lan Qiren glanced at him again – another fleeting look, there and then gone. “You have been invited as the guest of honor, on account of your heroism in defending the common people of Xixiang. It would be impolitic to refuse.”

Now it was Wen Ruohan’s turn to feel prickly. “Why should we refuse? Are you suggesting that I would be unable to attend? You think I am too weak, perhaps? Or merely untrustworthy…?”

“Ridiculous,” Lan Qiren snapped. “I had only thought that you might not wish to appear in public until you had had more of a chance to recover.”

Wen Ruohan sneered. “Yes, you’re just being considerate, of course. How could I doubt it? When you won’t even look at me – ”

Lan Qiren’s jaw tightened, and Wen Ruohan cut himself off. What was he doing? This wasn’t what he’d wanted at all.

He’d wanted…

“Cangse Sanren said that I shouldn’t write you an essay,” he blurted out.

That got a reaction, at least: Lan Qiren turned to stare at him. “An essay?”

“I asked your nephews how I could make you stop being angry at me after I – after a misstep,” Wen Ruohan explained. “Lan Xichen explained that if it was him, he would write an essay explaining what he had done wrong and expressing that he wouldn’t do it again, as well as proposing appropriate discipline to be imposed. But I could not think of what discipline would be appropriate, and Cangse Sanren said that offering to become omnipotent as a solution was likely to backfire, so – ”

He stopped again, but this time it was because Lan Qiren was laughing.

At first it was only a little, an incredulous little chuckle, but then it got stronger and stronger until Lan Qiren’s shoulders were shaking with the force of his laughter.

“Is this,” he wheezed, “your idea of an apology?”

“It’s not exactly an area in which I have a great deal of experience,” Wen Ruohan said, watching Lan Qiren’s face, all crinkled-up with good humor, and wanting desperately to kiss him. “On account of the fact that I am so rarely wrong.”

That just made Lan Qiren laugh harder.

Eventually he needed to sit down, which he did on the bed – quite promising, really. Wen Ruohan went and sat next to him.

“Tell me,” he said. “Have I beaten out Lao Nie?”

“Beaten…? Oh, you mean in being the most obnoxious man in the world?” Lan Qiren wiped his eyes. “Do not tell me you have gotten competitive over that. It is hardly a title anyone would want.”

“Perhaps I simply wish to be first in your thoughts.”

“Me and the rest of the world,” Lan Qiren said dryly. “I am well aware of your narcissism.”

Wen Ruohan had meant his statement to be romantic, but he had to concede that Lan Qiren had a good point. Also, he’d forgotten that there was no point in romantic subtleties with Lan Qiren; the man was too blunt and literal for that.

He’d have to be equally blunt in turn.

“Your sect believes in punishment that ends and absolves the error,” he said, because he still couldn’t bring himself to force the words I was wrong and I regret what I’ve done through his lips. “Is there something that would be appropriate here? I am willing.”

Lan Qiren’s humor slowly faded away, and he sighed.

“I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to suggest a punishment in this circumstance,” he said. “The purpose of punishment is twofold: deterrence and remediation. Deterrence applies both to the community at large, to show them what is wrong and what is right, and to the individual, so that they never again do what they know to be wrong. Remediation is a matter of balancing the scales of justice, repairing the harm committed so that the victim is appeased and peace restored. While punishment can be imposed and often is – discipline is generic, even-handed, applicable to all, a way to teach and to remind those who err of the importance of the rules that underwrite the basis of our community – it is a little different when punishment is being used as a means of penance. In those cases, voluntary accedence is the most effective.”

Wen Ruohan frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you will need to determine for yourself what the appropriate punishment will be. As the victim, I can absolve you of the harm you caused, if I wish, but that is only half of what you must do: there is still the question of deterrence. Only you can determine what you must do now to show your sincerity – what sacrifice you will make that would serve as both payment for the past and a promise to the future.”

Wen Ruohan scowled.

“There are any number of punishments that you can choose from. There are punishments of pain, where you show your sincerity through suffering the pain that you caused others or to use the pain to burn in the lesson to be learned; there are punishments of time, where you devote yourself to writing lines or essays or some other form of contemplation that encourages you to truly think about what you have done wrong. There are even punishments which consist merely of loss – loss of advantage, loss of privileges, or even loss of freedom…though I will say that I would greatly disapprove if you chose seclusion as a punishment.”

“Absolutely not,” Wen Ruohan assured him. “As a general rule, I try not to lock myself alone with my paranoia. It only makes it worse.”

Lan Qiren’s eyes curved in another smile. A lingering one, this time.

“Explain to me what this means,” Wen Ruohan said. “You won’t impose a punishment until I select one that is appropriate? Does that mean we are at odds until then?”

“No, merely that your punishment is not fully complete until you yourself determine that you have completed it. For the half that involves seeking to remedy the harm…” He paused briefly, then shook his head. “There is no need. I am willing to accept your apology and forgive you.”

Wen Ruohan stared.

“You were tricked,” Lan Qiren pointed out. “Anyone can be tricked. I understood at once what must have happened.”

“You were tortured,” Wen Ruohan said. “On my order. You shouldn’t forgive me just like that!”

“And that is why punishment is required,” Lan Qiren said patiently. “You cannot force me to forgive you, but you also cannot force me not to. It is wholly up to me whether I wish to bear a grudge, and I do not. But only punishment will adequately serve to make you believe it.”

That was true in one respect: Wen Ruohan didn’t believe it.

Or, rather, he supposed he did believe it, but it wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want Lan Qiren to forgive him because the Lan sect rules said Do not bear grudges. He wanted something else. Something better.

He wanted Lan Qiren to trust him again. He wanted Lan Qiren to love him.

And that meant, he supposed, that that was what the punishment was really for: to show Lan Qiren that Wen Ruohan meant what he said. That Wen Ruohan was serious, that hereally was sorry, that he really wouldn’t do it again.

Only then would Lan Qiren be able to really forgive him in his heart, rather than merely forgiving him in his head.

“I’ll think of something,” he said, and for the first time really meant it, rather than a half-hearted attempt to patch over the consequences of his actions. “Give me some time, and I’ll come up with a suitable punishment. One that even you won’t be able to say is inappropriate.”

“Do not underestimate yourself,” Lan Qiren said, sounding amused. “You excel above all others.”

Wen Ruohan should not have felt complimented by what was obviously an insult. He was, though. Just a bit.

“Though, on that note, I feel that we should discuss what you did with the mountain.”

Wen Ruohan arched his eyebrows. “I suppose, like Cangse Sanren, you wish to scold me for overexerting my strength and making a spectacle of myself?”

“On the contrary. I wish to praise you. You did a very good thing, saving the common people, and you did it at great cost to yourself.” Lan Qiren shifted a little, and Wen Ruohan noted that his ears had gone red once more. “Perhaps it is arrogance on my part, but I flatter myself to think that I played some role in your decision to do what you did – ”

“It’s not arrogance when it’s true,” Wen Ruohan said. “You’re right. I did it for you. Or – not for you. Because you would have wanted me to.”

Lan Qiren looked at him, and there was that strange emotion on his face again, the strangest mix of pain and fondness.

“That pleases me more than I can say,” he said, and Wen Ruohan smirked proudly. “Well, let it not be said that the rules are not fair. Just as they demand punishment for wrongdoing, so too do they demand that rewards be given for exceptional behavior.”

Reward?

Wen Ruohan brightened. A reward sounded good.

“Of course, we must account for the fact that you have been injured and rendered vulnerable,” Lan Qiren mused. “I would not want to cause you to feel any sense of threat from me, and also we must avoid causing you greater harm…I have been giving the matter some serious thought, and I think I have found a method that would work well.”

This sounded very good.

“Of course, it would require you to consent to being tied up – ”

Forget very good. This was going to be great.

#mdzs #wen ruohan #lan qiren #cangse sanren #my fic #my fics #Megafic

[asksidon]

could you do a drabble about teeth/dental care? i feel like its very different between hylians n the zora, it would be cute to see sidon n his sweetheart talk about yet another cultural/species based difference between them. fem pronouns are always preferred when brought up, but never necessary! TIA <3

"So, let me get this straight," Sidon says slowly, seeming to contemplate both your appearances in the large bathroom mirror of your chambers. "You have to go to a . . . a tooth doctor, every six months, to get your teeth scraped with odd machinery? To make sure they're . . . healthy?"

You place your toothbrush down, your evening ablutions having triggered this discussion. "Yes, that's the essence of it," you say, wondering if there was a better way you could have explained. The baffled look on the prince's face is rather adorable, though.

"And if they're not healthy? What does the tooth doctor do, exactly?" He watches as you start to floss. It gives you a good reason to pause and think through your answer. Hylian health topics can be complex even to one who is familiar with them.

"Well, then they figure out what the problem is. Sometimes they can do it just by looking around in your mouth. Most commonly, Hylians suffer from cavities or buildup around the teeth, especially if they haven't had a professional cleaning by the den-- er, the tooth doctor in quite some time," you explain.

"What is a cavity?"

After you explain, he is still rapt with interest in the subject. "Huh. That explains why you've never lost a tooth around me, then. I never realized that Hylians can't regrow their teeth, as the Zora do. Now I feel a bit silly." He eyes your toothbrush, a shadow of something more in his expression, but he says no more on his feelings. "Do you have an extra one of those?"

Suppressing your questions, you dig through your toiletry bag until you find the one the dentist last gave you. You've never had cause to open it, given that you use an electric toothbrush. "Sorry, it's not a fancy one," you say, "but it will get the job done. You don't have to, though. It won't be bad for you like it is for me, if I go without brushing."

"I know. I . . . think it's nice, though. And if you're going to do it, then so should I." He blushes a little. "I do hope I haven't been unpleasant for you to kiss, Y/N."

"Of course not." You are silent for a moment, taken aback both by his sudden interest in Hylian tooth care and his self-consciousness. "You've always taken good care of yourself and your diet, my prince. You have nothing to worry about. I never thought anything about it before now."

He turns from the mirror to look into your eyes. "Truly?"

"Yes. Don't make me prove it to you." You give him a small smirk.

"Hm. That sounds like a threat." The corner of his mouth turns up a little. "So why is it so utterly alluring to me?"

He grins and places the toothbrush down on the counter so that he can pull you close and give you a little squeeze. Conscious of his own massive size, he takes care whenever he touches you, careful to listen to the pattern of your breathing and your heart. He sometimes mistakes the butterflies in your stomach and chest for fear, and he is gentler than you'd like. In response, you hug him tightly, wrapping your legs around him as your feet leave the floor.

"You. Bed. While I finish up here." He gives you a quick peck on the lips that tells you he is still battling somewhat with his self-consciousness, but you decide that if brushing his teeth makes him feel better, you won't argue with him about it. He might need a much bigger brush, though. You wonder if you can find one in the Zora shops on some off chance. You expect him to place you down, but instead, he carries you to your bed and gives you a kiss on the forehead as he sets you down on it.

You start to snuggle under the covers. He pauses and turns back toward you on his way back to the bathroom. "Hey, Y/N. Do you think I could come with you next time you go? To the tooth doctor, I mean?"

"I . . . uhm, sure." Your mind is on a completely different subject by now, so his question jostles you. "If you want."

"Thank you." He smiles. "I'll be back. Get ready to show me some proof." With a wink, he disappears around the corner, the sounds of vigorous brushing ensuing.

#millie berra #zora teeth #sidon x reader #romance

[nerd-at-sea5]

reading comics + keeping track of all the kajemac moments that i like (prob not all of them just ones i’ve noticed and think are cute)

-mac goes from laying on her handlebars to super alert the moment kj’s voice comes from the walkie

-mac is the first one to listen to kj when she brings up the ‘war of the worlds’

-kj running after the guys w her hockey sick out and mac yelling ‘kaje, wait!’

-mac punching the guys when they hit kj (and tiff)

-kj and mac arguing over candy during the ‘end of the world’ (ablution)

-kj being the first to vote to go w mac to her house

-kj teasing mac for being a girl scout

-kj and mac agreeing to not put erin (who’s bleeding out) on the handlebars of a bike

-kj and mac arguing over gay stuff, time travel, and discussing kj’s bat mitzvah all in 1 page

-mac ready to leave everyone else to find kj + jumping up the instant she finds even the slightest lead to kj

-‘all that matters is we’re together’ M A C

-the whole ‘saving mac from drowning’ thing

-‘your an asshole’ *proceeds to jump into each others arms*

-the entire mac thinking kj is rlly hurt but in reality she’s just got her period thing

-more of mac being concerned for kj and kj’s like ‘babe i’m just on my period, chill.’

-THE UNTRANSLATABLE

‘it showed me crap that couldn’t possibly-‘ KJ NOT THINKING MAC WOULD LIKE HER BACK

‘i’m gonna kiss mac?’ IN FUCKING BOLD

-mac being mad at kj for running off

-kj judging mac for her taste in comics

-kj coming out to mac, mac not realizing it for a second, and then ‘the fuck did you just say?’

-mac still being crazy worried at kj when the dude hits her with the red stick thing

-kj reciting when she first met mac and mac crying

-‘we’re gonna make sure mac lives rove a hundred’

-just kj telling mac abt her vision

-the entire doctors office thing

-every single times mac calls kj ‘kaje’

-THEN I GUESS WE DO.

-mac thinks she’s abt to die and she’s saying kj’s name

-‘i kissed a girl.’ ‘can you get me back to my girlfriend or not’

-‘because i know you taste like cigarettes and ultra brite toothpaste’

-‘i hate you.’

-‘i didn’t even get to say goodbye’

-the whole bat mitzvah scene.

-have you seen kj tonight?

-‘trust me she’s said way worse’

-they had accidental matching costumes

-‘why’ ‘i have no idea’

-NO PUNCH BACKS

#paper girls #kajemac #kj x mac #mac x kj #kjmac #kj brandman #mac coyle #tiffany quilkin #erin tieng

[farisjax]

Personally i know people ( both men and women ) who are really giving millions to doctors for depression and sadness. They don't feel peace. I asked a few about it. Like what causes not to have peace and they said something is missing. Keep in mind I'm talking about non muslims. Last night a sister asked me about how to find peace and I just said do sujood ( prostration) and i told her keep in mind you're kneeling down to Allah .

Now you would say anyone who is not sick in the head wouldn't ask so like without wudhu ( ablution) and other stuff. I just said it because prostration to Allah gives me peace so I shared and now I hope she becomes muslim before death takes her. But you know many non Muslims are so amazing like they give you such a good energy and they research everything before doing anything and that's what I like about them.

I personally know her that's why I'm sharing her episode with you. Anyways may Allah guide her and me and every muslim. I hope she accepts islam and all those who are trying to make this biggest decision

#quranquotes #quranandsunnah #islam help #islamislove #islam #islamic #convert to islam #islamdaily #al quran #islamicpost

[stranter2-blog]

My stroke

On May 4th, I was due to start PCV chemotherapy around lunchtime. First, I was going to take William to school and then do some work before signing off for 10 days.

I was sitting, completing my morning ablutions, when my left leg went numb. I stood up and a sort of wave went across me. I sat back down again and tried to telephone Anna, who went to work as normal. No answer. Shit. I called to William, who was playing, waiting to go to school, that I felt funny. I somehow managed to make it to the top of the stairs. I looked down and thought, if I tried to go down as I did usually, I'd definitely fall. So, I went downstairs on my bottom and when I got to the bottom, the house phone was ringing. I asked William to find a the phone, but he couldn't. He was so calm and helpful, I truly felt he would've been able to help if necessary. I then rang our wonderful neighbour Mel and asked her if she was able to take William to school. Of course, she said yes. But then she asked "Are you ok?". To which I replied "No, not really", which to be fair was a bit of an understatement!

She came rushing round, somehow I managed to open the door and to my great relief, took William to school. She also called another wonderful neighbour, Suzanne to come and be with me.

By this point, I had already thought, I'd had or was having a stroke. So I called 999, remembering the F.A.S.T acronym we see on TV. Face, Arms, Speech and Time.

The 999 operative went through all the things I'd associate with a stroke, and said she'd dispatch an urgent ambulance. Great I thought. Then she said it would be TWO HOURS! TWO HOURS!?! For an urgent ambulance!?!

Thankfully, Suzanne offered to take me to A&E.

I was triaged and then had a CT scan (a computerised, detailed x-ray). This showed nothing, other than the tumour. Despite my discussion with the A&E doctor about my stroke like symptoms, it was assumed it was tumour related. I remember saying to anyone that would listen, it's a stroke.

Anyway, I was moved to an oncology ward and given steroids to reduce the swelling.

They had no effect and a lovely doctor on the oncology ward sent me for an MRI scan. This showed I'd had a stroke, which I'd said on reaching A&E, two days earlier.

I was in a further four days before being discharged. Thanks to Anna, I was sent home with all the equipment in the hospital! Literally, all the equipment!

One positive about being in hospital that long, bizarrely, was the food. I discovered the "cultural menu", which basically was curry. While being a way off a good restaurant curry, it was infinitely better than the standard menu.

[minorhoursmagazine]

Issue 22, containing: Odd Housemates, Syllabub, Letters, Commonplaces, &c.

------------------------------

SOME EDITORIAL NOTES

April is a cruellish month, forgoing lilacs in this dead land and therefore being not much fun.

I like lilacs. They ought to be bred here more substantially.

Beyond that, though, April is typically the busiest month of my year work-wise -- students have final presentations, faculty-hiring gets more panic-driven, and the end of the academic fiscal year means that allocating the purchases I've made on the company card can no longer be ignored.

All this to say: I dislike that this issue has been abominably late, but I also don't suppose I can promise better, at least this year. But there are always more Aprils. And some of them, by sheer statistical probability if nothing else, must bloom better.

------------------------------

ODD HOUSEMATES

I have two cats. They've spent the last couple of years, since the younger one was adopted, being generally displeased by the fact they have to co-exist. Strangely, though, with me at home for months now -- and, I admit, the multiple room reorderings -- the cats have finally come to something like a truce. And with that truce, comes... behaviors.

From their various attitudes of looseness, I have to assume that these behaviors are what my cats are like when they're not either miserably lonely or engaging in a complex guerilla war. But it's a bit like getting two brand new pets whose quirks have to be entirely relearned.

Specifically, they've both gotten weird about cleaning themselves.

Don't get me wrong, they aren't behaving poorly. They seem to be very happy and content in their ways. The elder fluffy cat has taken to contorting himself in a way that I thought was, frankly, impossible for any cat, let alone one of his size -- no delicate upward leg for him, but rather both hind legs straight up as he curls in on himself, a black nebula rocking in the sunlight that will, sometimes, topple sideways and off the hassock he's claimed as his private boudoir. Meanwhile the younger cat, who the shelter believed had been mistreated as a kitten and therefore ended up with a wonky neck, will find a flat patch of ground, catapult backwards from a standing position, land on her back, and wash vigorously with all four paws in the air while wiggling like a fish dropped on a boat deck.

Picture, if you will-- a sunlit living room. To the left, a two-pronged mass of fur engaging in ablutions entirely too close to a cushioned edge while, to the right, a loud thumping noise erupts from the kitchen, the sure sound of a 10-pound cat flinging herself spine-ward onto linoleum.

I won't say that it's unheard of for a human owner to be overly aware of their pets' cleaning rituals. But it is disconcerting for those rituals to be accompanied by dramatic sound effects.

------------------------------

EXHIBIT B

Exhibit A turned aside with a delicate blush upon spying the camera aimed in his direction.

------------------------------

SYLLABUB: FIT THE FOURTH (AND FIFTH)

In the continuing adventures of my syllabub experimentation, I have taught it to my sister, served it to my brother, and shared my doctored recipe with a coworker. The ever-expanding attempt to bring syllabub back to the mainstream continues apace -- but I, as always, must be the brave one to continue the work of perfecting this recipe.

This is why, most recently, I have exchanged the champagne I've been working with up until now for something aficionados the world over refer to as... "chocolate wine".

(More accurately, the brand name is "ChocoVine". Is it a red wine mixed with actual chocolate milk? Yes. Do you have to shake it before serving, as we all know is definitely the best way to treat wine? Naturally. Does the bottle have what appears to be a clip-art heart outlined in milk chocolate on its label? My god, what do you take me for, of course it does.)

This stuff is great.

However, the road to perfection is oft beset by briars. Specifically:

Version 1: Chocolate wine, a tablespoon of amaretto, sugar, heavy whipping cream. A sprinkle of espresso powder to garnish. Delicious. But, crucially, missing sufficient acid to create the curdle and separation that makes syllabub so delightful.

Version 2, intended: Chocolate wine, a tablespoon of amaretto, sugar, heavy whipping cream, clementine juice. A sprinkle of espresso powder to garnish. --Had to be cancelled, due to throwing out the clementines because they looked funny and anyway, I had lemon juice in the refrigerator, no problem.

Version 2, intended: Chocolate wine, a tablespoon of amaretto, sugar, heavy whipping cream, lemon juice. A sprinkle of espresso powder to garnish. --Had to be cancelled, due to opening the bottle of lemon juice to discover that, in fact, a container of lemon juice clearly dated as expiring in 2019 will, in fact, be disgusting. In fact.

Version 2, not at all intended: I had a bowl with a little less than 200 mL of chocolate wine, a tablespoon of amaretto, and 5 tablespoons of sugar stirred up. I did not want to reproduce the previous attempt at chocolate syllabub -- after all, I'm not doing this for fun. I'm doing this for science. I had to find an acid.

Keen readers of the magazine may remember a favorite household acid of mine that I have mentioned many times before. But no, I thought. Surely not. I stood at the counter and desperately scrolled through my phone, looking up lists of possible additives that would achieve the same effect. Nothing. Nothing except, over and over, the one thing that I knew could not possibly be the answer.

Finally, with heavy heart and heavier hand, I opened the cupboard door and pulled out my bottle of apple cider vinegar.

Reader: I took a capful of that vinegar, and I added it to a chocolate wine mix. Did it begin to curdle without even the addition of the cream? Yes. Did I go ahead and pour in the cream anyway, again from a great height and with certain dread? Also yes.

Because I do, sometimes, rarely, try and learn from my mistakes, I had covered most of the top of the bowl with plastic wrap. I set the mixer on high and managed to keep most of the concoction from splattering around the kitchen. I set the timer for two minutes -- two minutes was not nearly enough. I let it run for another, unending length of time, waiting for the moment that it either became boozy whipped cream or, failing that, weird cottage cheese.

Neither happened. Eventually, it became just "slightly thicker" milk -- fully incorporated, but with nothing like structure. I dutifully pulled out my tea cups. This mix couldn't be spooned -- it had to be poured. Grim with my failure, I added the sprinkle of espresso powder, set the tea cups in the fridge to settle, and then poured the remainder into a glass to try in the living room.

Dishes were put in the sink. The vinegar returned to its shelter. I washed my hands to rid myself of any lingering trace of folly.

I sat, cup of disaster beside me, and spent some minutes describing the evening to my siblings, who did not give me nearly the credit I deserve for my brave dedication to culinary science. But, finally, the moment could no longer be held off -- it was time to test the brew.

Reader: I stand before you here today... changed.

Could I detect the vinegar? Yes, subtly. Can I guarantee that I would have been able to do so without foreknowledge of its presence? No.

What's more, the vinegar allowed the syllabub to separate faster than it usually does, and so a dessert that normally takes at least a couple of hours to perform its chemical magic did so in mere minutes. And a later test of the tea cups revealed that while the separation is not as structured as it is with lemon juice and champagne, it still nevertheless happens and, more importantly, doesn't seem to taste like vinegar.

I feel as if this experiment has now taken a grand turn. What other variations can be attempted, now that the great Rubicon of reasonable ingredients has been crossed? Will I finally make the version that involves heating red wine and honey? Who fucking knows.

But it will certainly be an adventure.

------------------------------

AN ADDITIONAL NOTE REGARDING HOUSEMATES AND SOUND EFFECTS

My cats snore.

------------------------------

A NOTE TO GENTLE READERS

As Christopher Lee once said, "Summer is a'coming in," and with it the dawning hope that perhaps we might have a better season than last year's. I intend to go camping in June, for the first time in many years, and as such I find myself seeking campfire recipes to recreate the joy of eating things half raw and half burnt to charcoal. A sampling of the list so far:

Toast and cheese

A meat thing, wrapped in tin foil (?)

Hot dogs and beans

Banana boats

Bisquick, possibly also wrapped in tin foil (???)

Unending s'mores

Dear readers, do you have any fondly remembered camp foods? Pass them along, before I do something ill-considered with tabasco sauce.

------------------------------

LETTERS

From the Refrigerator, to the Editors, "Apple Juice":

You ought to tell them.

******

From the Editors, to the Refrigerator:

Shan't.

******

From the Refrigerator, to the Editors, "Either You or Me, Bub":

One way or another, someone's going to tell the readers that not even a day after the vinegar panic -- not even twelve hours later -- you offered your children some apple juice from a container that had been sitting idle and in-date right beside the lemon juice. Just waiting for its time to shine.

------------------------------

COMMONPLACES

From T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land":

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: One must be so careful these days.

******

From Richard Siken's War of the Foxes:

Some say God is where we put our sorrow. God says Which one of you fuckers can get to me first?

******

From Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese":

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

------------------------------

ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you would like to write a letter to be produced/answered in the magazine, please email me at [email protected] with the subject line:

Letter to the Magazine: [subject of letter as you would like to see it printed]

If you wish the letter to be anonymous or under a nom de plume, please state so in the body of the email; similarly, if you'd rather not be printed at all, please also state so in the body of the email. It will otherwise be assumed that mail sent to that address is intended for print.

Alternately, commenting on the Patreon post will get you a similar result, with much less fuss.

******

As always, you can find me at my regular website, katherinecrighton.com, or via twitter, at @c_katherine.

To support the magazine and get it delivered directly to your inbox, join the Patreon.

-Until next week, be safe.

#the minor hours and small thoughts magazine #katherine crighton #april 27 2021

[minimoefoe]

Hello?????

#doctor who #doctor of oz #does this mean we're not gonna get a major acknowledgement #of the doctor knowing ablut it #in the show #cuz that kinda sucks #but also im not surprised

[puppyexpressions]

My Pet Has Itchy Ears. What's Going On?

Though it seems a small thing, an intensely itchy ear can be maddening for a pet. When both ears are involved, as is often the case, head-shaking and -scratching can mean a sleepless night for both you and your afflicted pet. Excruciating pain, in fact, is a not-uncommon long-term prospect for some pets.

The good news is that there’s hope — and help — for even the itchiest, most painful situations. The ease with which these issues can be dealt with, however, depends on the cause. And though some might require only a round or two of topical medications before getting better, some causes of itchy ears demand a lifetime of management.

Causes

Common causes of itchy ears in pets include:

1. Allergic skin disease. It’s a likely cause of itchy ears in pets — dogs, especially — but the cycle’s the same for both canines and felines:

The ears become inflamed in response to an allergen that’s been inhaled, absorbed, or ingested. The ears produce excess wax and other secretions.

Organisms that love warmth and moisture grow happily in this environment — hence, the increase in yeast and bacteria.

These organisms and their detritus bring on greater inflammation and sometimes even an additional allergic response.

2. Yeast infections. Yeast infections are notoriously itchy. But almost all yeast infections in pets are secondary to allergic skin disease. However, once in a while pets who are not suffering allergies can suffer yeast infections, given the right conditions.

3. Ear mites. These extremely common parasites are spiderlike and microscopic; they are relentless inside a pet’s ears and can make a pet miserable.

4. Other external parasites. Though ear mites are a common cause of itchy ears, plenty of other parasites cause itchy ears, too. Mange mites and even fleas and ticks can make the ears and head itch.

5. Foreign bodies. Sometimes things that don’t belong end up in ears. Grass awns, foxtails, and even bits of cotton swab or paper towel left behind when you clean your pet’s ears can lead to serious itchiness and vigorous pawing and head-shaking.

6. Aural masses. Masses in the ear canal — such as polyps and cancerous tumors — will typically act just as any foreign body might.

7. Bacterial infections. As with yeast, most bacterial infections of ear canals are secondary to other processes. Masses, foreign bodies, and allergic skin disease are likely to yield secondary bacterial infections.

What To Do at Home

There are some things that pet owners can do at home to help keep the ear itchies at bay.

1. Check your pet’s ears every week or more often if your veterinarian recommends it. Look inside to be sure there’s nothing gumming up the works. A smooth, shiny surface with a delicate pink undertone is ideally what you’ll see. Bring any redness or discharge to your veterinarian’s attention.

2. Clean ears every week or more often if your veterinarian recommends it. Some dogs and cats require daily ablutions to keep their ears clean, while others manage without any serious attention whatsoever. Nonetheless, it’s recommended that all pet owners wipe out their pets’ ears at least once every couple of weeks.

3. Keep pets with hairy ears well groomed. Some dogs might even require the removal of hairs that grow in the external ear canal. Others’ thick coats immediately surrounding the ear canals might need to be clipped to allow for drier conditions, especially during hotter weather or if water play is frequent.

4. Take your pet to a veterinarian at the first sign of discomfort — whether head-shaking, -pawing, or -scratching. Early intervention is the key to healing.

What Your Veterinarian May Do

When you take your pet to a vet for itchy ears, here are some of the things your doctor may do:

1. History. Most veterinarians will start by asking a few questions to understand the history of the problem. When did you first notice it? Has it changed? How has your pet been otherwise? What do you normally do to take care of your pet’s ears? What medications or products do you use? Take the products with you so your veterinarian can have a look.

2. Physical examination. Examining the whole body, not just the ears, is a crucial part of the process. The aural examination, using a hand-held otoscope, however, is the most important aspect of itchy ear assessment.

3. Ear discharge analysis. Obtaining a sample of discharge from your pet's ears and looking at it under a microscope helps a veterinarian determine whether microscopic parasites and/or bacteria and yeast are involved in an ear’s itchiness.

4. Ear discharge culture and sensitivity testing. Once a bacterial organism is identified (or is assumed based on the characteristics of the discharge), culturing the ear discharge is standard procedure. This tells your veterinarian what kind of bacteria live there and which antibiotic is best employed to defeat it.

5. Anesthetic evaluation. Unfortunately, even the most cursory evaluation of the external ear canal is sometimes impossible due to copious amounts of debris in the ear canal and/or pain the pet is experiencing. In these cases, a vet will sedate or anesthetize the pet so that he can thoroughly assess the entire ear canal with an otoscope. Sedation also provides an opportunity to thoroughly clean the ears of debris.

6. Ear canal cleaning. As part of a thorough evaluation of the ear canals, clearing them of all debris is necessary. As mentioned above, this can require sedation or anesthesia in moderately to severely affected pets.

7. Biopsy. If there is apparently abnormal tissue a vet may recommend obtaining a small sample for submission to a diagnostic laboratory. Pathologists there examine the sample to determine its origins; this helps your veterinarian recommend the best treatment. This tends to be the case when ear canal masses are involved.

8. Food trials. Pets with food allergies can develop itchy ears and ear infections. If your vet suspects your pet may have a food allergy, a food trial may be recommended. Eliminating all but a few ingredients in a pet’s diet for a period of time can help isolate which proteins a pet may be allergic to.

9. Allergy testing. Sophisticated skin or blood testing may be necessary to determine which allergens a pet might be reacting to.

Treatment

Treatment depends wholly on the underlying cause. It can range from the application of topical medication to kill parasites to long-term allergy treatment involving a multipronged approach with oral and/or topical therapy (at least in the short term) and a restricted diet and/or immunotherapy.

#dog ears #dog health #itchy ears

[rest-in-being]

Shibli was a great Sufi and a high-ranking member of the royal court. He was born into a distinguished and noble family; his mother was a renowned physician. When Shibli sought Truth, he placed himself in the hands of the enlightened Sheikh Hazrati al- Junayd of Baghdad (may Allah sanctify his secret.). He was first put to work in the tekke cleaning the place of ablution. His mother felt sorry for her young son. He was such a sensitive boy and was given such harsh duty. So she brought twenty slaves to Hazrati Junayd and said, “Here, i have given you twenty slaves to work in my son’s place. Can’t they do the work?" “You are a physician,” al-Junayd said to her. “If your son had an ailment with his gallbladder, should I give the medicine to the slave?” In the dervish order, the sheikh is the doctor who prescribes the medicine that each of us needs. My medicine can’t be taken by you, and your medicine can’t be taken by me. Medicine is usually prescribed in specific quantities to be taken at a specific time. If you take all the medicine at once, it does not make you better. Most probably, it will make you sick. The same applies to any spiritual path. If you attempt to do all the exercises that the sheikh prescribes too soon and all at one time, you may cause yourself more harm than good.

#stories of the saints #full of lessons #rumi #spiritual path #naqshbandi aaliya #dear seeker

[guqin-and-flute]

Holding Me Holding You [Ch. 2]

[Beep beep, are you ready for some 3zun Raise Jingyi AU angst? So. This will be at least a few chapters more, going up through Xichen deciding to keep A-Fu, writing to the rest of 3zun, probably even them meeting A-Fu so...no idea how long that will take. This is significantly more angsty than And A-Fu Makes 4, so just be ~*aware*~]

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Ao3]

Sleep proves to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

He’s startled from a doze by the unknown child coughing, then Lan Fu squirming under his chin, groggily beginning to rouse at the disturbance. Lan Xichen simply takes to walking a slow circuit in the early morning chill of the room, feeling half sunken behind his own eyes as he strokes their backs, letting the rhythm of his own steps suffice as a focus for an imperfect meditation. 

His core feels like a bowl scraped empty. His body is stiff, his head dull and full as an old silver teapot covered in patina. Every place his skin had torn or split or blistered in the Battle is pulsing with aching tendrils of pain in time with his heart, healed or not. 

It’s alright. There is a space to be made between his mind and his body’s pain--there always has been. The children are quiet and Wangji is breathing. That is all that is necessary in this moment. 

The doctor finds him still circling slowly sometime past 5 am, when everyone else is beginning to wake again. The haggard bruising of his eyes tells Xichen that he has also not found sleep for the past 2 nights either--not since the bodies and the wounded had begun to pour into the Cloud Recesses. His quiet examination of Wangji is long and troubling and Lan Xichen must tuck his terrified heart back from his face at the news that he is healing slowly. Very slowly. Xichen leaves him and Wangji’s mystery child in the doctor’s care with the instruction that they are to be kept together.

He doesn’t know exactly who this boy is or what his brother had been thinking--

No. No, that’s not entirely true. He knows what--(who)--Wangji had been thinking about. The only thing. And so he can guess who this boy is. Or at least what he is to Wangji. Xichen will not take anything more from him than he can help. He can give him this. He can do this much for him, pitiably small as it is. 

(He had done this. He had let this happen. He had done this to his brother.)

(And Wangji had fought against them.)

The hurt between Xichen and Wangji, what they had done to each other, all those choices they had each made in these past few frantic, blood soaked days is as messy and tangled as anything. But through those knots shines a certainty of what he knows will come--what has always come. What will always come. He loves Wangji and he will do what he must in order to to keep him safe. 

Xichen does not know if he himself is a strong enough tether for his brother to want to stay alive, right now. 

That’s alright. It can’t be helped. 

He takes Lan Fu to the Hanshi to nestle on his unused bed as he changes his own rumpled clothes and performs his daily ablutions mechanically. Then steps out into this new day, misty and cold, inextricably woven into the last by dismally weighty tendrils of dread and lack of sleep. As he does, he is aware, distantly, that it is odd to carry around a child that is not his own while he attends his duties. However, nothing about today is anchored in the same reality that existed before Wei Wuxian’s rampage. The Cloud Recesses smells of blood and death, and every once in a while, low, muted wails break the compulsory quiet that usually reigns. He is sending groups to attempt a cleansing of the Nightless City--to lay to rest any Clan members lingering beyond death and bring them home; writing orders for more medical supplies; compiling lists of the dead. There are even more than last night. 

Besides the unreality of it all and the fact that no one even bothers to look askance at the strange sight of the childless young Clan Leader toting a sleeping child, Lan Fu is quiet when he wakes. He blinks around in a daze, absorbing his surroundings with a dull sort of disbelief, but he maintains his silence. Even when a passing outer disciple, a mother with her own toddler helps Xichen to fashion a sort of sling around his back that allows the boy to peep up over his shoulder, he simply stares with glassy eyes, fists like little burrs in Xichen’s hair. 

The only noise he had made was when the mother had offered to take him with her, so Xichen wouldn’t have to bother. Xichen hadn’t even moved to take her suggestion and Lan Fu had hidden, burying his face in his shoulder, making distressing whimper-moaning sounds, voice still hoarse. It had made Xichen’s stomach lurch sickeningly--the wounded noises, the knowledge that the boy understood, to a point, what was going on, but not enough to know what was going on. Xichen had smiled and politely thanked her, but declined. The company of his solid warmth on his back was soothing, anyway. If Xichen was wanted, why add another suffering voice to the despair that lay so palpably over everything? If he could be a comfort to at least one person, why would he not give them this? It was alright.

He makes sure to give him little snacks over his shoulder from time to time between meals, little biscuits and carrots, heedless of the crumbs that sneak their way down his collar and into his hair. It even reminds him to eat. Eventually. For efficacies sake if nothing else. 

The day remains grey. Wangji and the child remain unconscious. Lan Fu remains silent; through meals, through fumbled changing of underclothes, through meetings and letters and endless walking. Xichen’s head and neck slowly suffuses with a deeper, persistent ache, like slowly rotting wood. Like the dull crush of being far below the surface of the ocean. 

He does his best to attend to the wounding he has somehow allowed to befall his already weakened Clan. He knows it’s not enough. 

When darkness comes some hours or eternity later, he finds that Lan Fu has fallen asleep in the sling already, little head lolling around over the lip of it, mouth open. It seems needlessly cruel to subject him to waking up with a stranger in a strange place and so he takes him back to the Hanshi. You, too, are a stranger, he reminds himself as he carefully unties the bundle from his shoulders, rolling them to assuage the ache carrying it without rest has settled into the already abused muscles. 

A stranger stranger, then. He brushes a little flyaway wisp back from where it sticks to the child’s eyelashes and stares at his sleep-slack face. Alone in this world and he doesn’t even know. Of course, he would be taken care of, he would not be abandoned by his Clan. But it isn’t quite the same. Xichen knows this. Knows the hole parents leave in one’s life, like an organ cut out, a tooth improperly removed. Aching, always. “I’m sorry, little one,” he whispers, thumb stroking over his soft cheek. 

Lan Fu sucks in a deep breath, but doesn’t wake.

Xichen slides his bed so it is tucked into the corner of his room, one side flush with the wall and settles the boy in a little well of wadded up blankets nearest to it before wearily sinking in on his other side as a buffer to the edge. Sleep pulls him under with insistent little hands at the edges of his consciousness, but the hyperawareness of the small presence next to him keeps him from completely submerging. Every toss and turn has him surfacing groggily to re-remember. Thin, fractured visions have him surfacing in a muzzy panic--awful things where he loses the child in the folds of the blankets. Or out the window. Or finds him crushed into some sort of horrible jam across the wall. Or--

A quickly cresting wail shatters the night, wordless and lost and immediate, right in his ear. Xichen’s head is pounding like someone is hammering nails into a coffin, and he sways upright in the blackness, gathers Lan Fu up, mumbles tumbling from him blearily. “Shh, shh. ‘S wrong? Lan Fu, shh, shhh….”

“Niaaang!” 

Xichen’s stomach drops abruptly at this shattered sob, sick ice creeping through his blood. The room’s darkness is slowly eaten away by the light of the moon through the window screens and Lan Fu’s tears shine silver as he wrenches himself away from Xichen’s chest, face contorted. “Niang? Wanna niang!” Insistent. Pleading. Desperate.

“Listen--” he whispers, voice cracked, dragged deep by exhaustion, the lingering burn of resentful energy and smoke in his lungs, but this seems to panic the child further and he lets out a scream.

Swiftly, Xichen spells the talisman for silence, sends it to the corners of the room, encapsulating this grief as the boy squirms and rolls and flails, kicking his feet as he tries to worm his way off the bed. Xichen catches the back of his shirt and lowers him down to the floor so that he doesn’t hit his head, but this assistance is met with even louder shrieking and furious jackknifing of his whole body. 

“Niang!! Niang!!! Niaaang!!”

Is it rage or fear? Sorrow? They nest so closely together, it’s almost impossible to tell. 

“I’m sorry--”

Every time he speaks, Lan Fu gets louder.

Every time he tries to lay a hand on him, the edge of his wailing becomes more hysterical and ragged and so Xichen must sit, letting him writhe on the floor in grief and helpless pleading. Wanting his mother. Begging.

I cannot be the one that you want. I cannot be the person who can help you.

He swears he can smell blood, but there is nothing on his face, nothing on the child, he checked, despite his ferocious fighting. The tension in Xichen’s jaw is strung up through his temples and down his neck like some sort of awful instrument, ready for his misery to be plucked like a guqin string. 

In the end, he lights a lantern far from dangerously swiping limbs and sits on the edge of the bed next to him, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, simply whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” low enough that it doesn’t drive his wailing higher.

There is no sense of time when the world is just cascading screams. Xichen knows this, has learned it again and again in the War and this last Battle and now in the room with this child that he cannot help even a little bit. It could have been half an hour, it could have been the entire night. All he knows is that, eventually, Lan Fu’s throat becomes unable to sustain his screams and he lays panting and whimpering, shaking all over as he stares up at him with huge wet eyes. “Niang,” he croaks. “P’ease.”

At this tired, despairing plea, as though he is somehow willfully keeping her from him, Xichen’s eyes and face grow hot, his nose prickling dangerously and he kneels down beside the child. Your mother died fighting. She died in pain. She was so brave. She can’t come back. He can’t say any of these things. Carefully, he puts a hand out and rests it on Lan Fu’s stomach, heaving with shuddering breaths. “Little love,” he whispers. “I would bring her if I could.”

“Wanna.”

“I know.”

“Wanna,” he insists, face crumpling anew, but only with exhausted tears. No more fight left.

“I’m sorry. I’m here.” Xichen holds out his hands; an offering, a question, and Lan Fu rolls over onto his face, away, and sobs quietly into his rug.

You are not the one they want.

All at once, a winter morning invades his memory. The first snow, fluffy and white and charming. It coated the world like frosting, dotted against the dark trees like little floating stars. Bundling winter cloaks on the bench next to him, gathering of stories and scrolls--carefully hand lettered calligraphy, the painting of a waterbird in the cold pond, a memory he wanted to share. Little sweets he had saved. Waiting by the window, fresh air stinging his nostrils and nibbling his fingertips, watching for A-Zhan’s telltale form trotting back from his class so they could leave together. A-Zhan never ran, but he always hurried on visiting days. Xichen had grinned to himself--had been A-Huan at the time, had helped brush the snow from his shoulders and hair, warming his chilly pink cheeks with his palms.

There had come a heavy hand on his shoulder. The grim line of his Uncle’s mouth. His smile falling away. The excitement and wonder with it. The warmth of being held and known. Words could make holes in you, he found. Could make the snow just snow and the cold just cold.

A-Zhan had been confused but kept silent and nodded at the explanation, because that’s what he did. That’s how he was good.  

A-Huan hadn’t been confused. Had been the one to put the cloaks away. Had been the one to lead A-Zhan to his room with numb hands and sit on the bed and woodenly try to explain words like ‘never’ to someone who had only been alive for a few years.

A-Zhan had wanted to go, was frustrated at the time wasting. He never liked change. Liked his schedule, liked the rhythm. He wanted to go see their mother already. A-Huan didn’t know how to make him understand that they were never going to be able to again.

He still doesn’t.

#3zun raise jingyi au #3zun raise jingyi au content #my stuff #my fic #3zun

[coping-via-clint-eastwood]

Everything Hurts - AOS!Leonard McCoy x Reader

(A/N: @urban-trek-thru-middle-earth Here, I wrote this thing. I hope it helps.

This happened to me this morning.)

You lay on your side staring miserably at the wall. You had detached yourself from Leo's embrace, because your entire body hurt, and his arms around you made it worse.  You hurt too much to move and check the time, but when you first woke up, it felt like the equivalent of 3 am.  You spent what was probably an hour to two hours shifting in little bits, trying to get comfortable and fall back asleep.  After that time, you gave up.  Your entire body felt numb.  That was when the overthinking started.  'Why can't I sleep?  Why can't I sleep?' repeated in your mind. Tears formed and fell from your eyes. You rubbed them away with your arm.  You lay there, in physical numbness and emotional pain, until you heard and felt Lenny stirring behind you.  "Mmh...(y/n)..."  he murmured, his arm coming down around your waist quite heavily.

"Ow!"  you gasped, flinching away from him, and gasped out another, "Ow!"  because even that movement had caused you pain.

That woke Leo up fully.  He sat up in bed and tentatively put his hand on your shoulder.  "What happened?"  he whispered; from past experience, you (and other patients, for that matter) preferred it when he spoke softer when you were in physical pain, because that usually meant that you had a headache as well.

"I've been awake since three..." you said hoarsely.  Your throat hurt as well, but that was because you had not drunk any water since you had first awoken.

His eyebrows furrowed.  "Again?  You were doing so well..."  When Leo first found out you had sleeping problems, he had tried setting a strict lifestyle for you, appertaining to what time you ate dinner; what time you went to bed, etcetera.  When even that did not work, he prescribed you sleeping pills.  You were able to sleep then.  You used them for a while.  However, Leo had recently tried to get you off them, so that you were not dependent on them.  You had been sleeping well on your own for the past three weeks.  So this was a relapse.

"I'm sorry, Leo..." you tried to say in a normal voice, to hide your crying.  You felt that you had failed him somehow, because you had broken progress.

He knew you well, and reached over your head to the nightstand.  He yanked a piece of tissue from its box and put it over your eyes.  You quietly took it from him and wiped your tears.  "You know I don't blame you for anything," he rumbled softly, moving your hair out of your face.  Bless him for his gentle doctor's hands, because any harder contact would have made your headache worse.  You were unable to come up with a response.  "You have to get up.  You'll feel better after some breakfast," he told you.

"It hurts to move..." you whined a little.  He sighed, pitying you. Then, you felt his hands on your shoulder, gently massaging it.  You tensed up and hissed in pain at first.  "Relax," his smooth voice rumbled, sending pleasant shivers down your spine, "It's worse when you're tense."  You did as the doctor ordered, and slowly begun to feel better under his careful pressing and rubbing.  "You know what to do, right?"  he asked.  When it came to aches due to lack of sleep, you had to inform him when you felt better, because unlike aches due to injury to the muscle, the receding of pain in sleeping muscles was not tangible.

"Mhm..." you sighed, your eyes closed and a relaxed smile on your face.

He raised an eyebrow at your sudden change in mood, and of course you felt his hands slipping away from your shoulder to massage slightly lower down your arm, much to your disappointment.  "It seems to me that that bit there is already better," he said as he did so.

You genuinely whined and begged him, "Just a little more..." He moved his hands back up with no arguments. He understood that when you said you were in pain, you actually were in pain. "Thank you..." you whispered sheepishly when he complied.

"No problem," he responded in tandem. The both of you fell silent again. The whole process of massaging your arm only had the occasional informing that he could move his hands elsewhere. "Okay," he said when he was done with your wrist, "Turn onto your back." You did so with much grunting and groaning. He sighed sympathetically as he knelt between your legs and leant over you, supporting himself with a hand on either side of your head. He grinned at you before saying softly, "Good morning, sweetheart." He lowered his head and kissed you, his eyes closed.  You lifted your good arm and placed your hand on the back of his head, trying to make as much contact with him as possible without hurting either of you.  Normally, you would have liked it if he had put his full weight on you, because you would feel secure and warm, but just...not just then. He pulled away and leant his forehead on yours for a few moments. Then, he shifted further back on the bed, and now leant on his elbows, which were on either side of your abdomen. He slid his hands under your back and started massaging it. You groaned in relief, subconsciously moving so that his hands massaged the area around your spine. He understood and worked on it, paying attention to your vocalisations, movements, and occasionally looking up to see your look of either relief or pain. You moved only the lower part of your torso at first, not daring to aggravate your upper back. But as soon as Len started to eradicate the pain there, you started twisting your back and popping your spine. "Can you not do that while I'm massaging you?" he said uncomfortably with a frown.

"Sorry," you smiled, staying still like he asked. He soon eased the muscles of your upper back and your other shoulder. He shifted to lie on your other side, and your other arm was gotten over with quickly too. "Ahhhh..." you sighed, rolling your shoulders.

"Not yet," he smiled. He moved his hands to your neck.

"Mmh..." you sighed and closed your eyes again. He chuckled, glad that you were feeling better. After that, he massaged your head. That had the most pain relief. You yawned; you had been yearning for sleep all night, and you were suddenly comfortable enough to sleep again."

"Eat breakfast before going back to sleep, he lectured. Then he asked, "Do your legs need massaging too?"

You flexed them. You did not exclaim in pain, but still responded, "Yeah. They aren't hurting at all, but they're the numbest of the lot."

"Okay then," he said. He shifted to lie next to your legs.

"Area under my knees is the weakest," you told him.

After finally having given treatment to your entire torso and all your limbs, he put his arm under your waist, about to lift you up. "Can you get up now?" You sat up with his help. You slid your legs off the bed until your feet touched the floor. You could walk on your own, but your knees were still wobbly, and you kept stumbling. You could step and put your weight on your other leg if you had to, but with there was a wall or a piece of furniture beside you, you would lean on it. He let you fall onto him and helped walk you to the bathroom. After the both of you did your ablutions, he walked you out to the dining table. He pulled out a chair for you and pretty much dropped you onto it. He got what the two of you would be eating from the replicators and set the plates down, going back for the drinks. You drank some water before consuming anything else. "This is just a minor relapse. You'll be able to sleep alright tonight," he said over a forkful of egg.

"I hope so," you sighed sadly, your shoulders slumping.

“Hey.” He reached a hand across and held yours. “This is only temporary. You will recover.” You smiled wryly. “Try to sleep after we eat.” When the two of you finished, Leonard washed the utensils. After that was done, he grabbed his communicator. “McCoy to Mr. Scott.”

“Ah, the good doctor! What can I do for the boyfriend of the woman who’s supposed to be at my warp core in a few minutes?”

“Yeah well she won’t be there today.”

“Oh...did she not sleep again?”

“Y-ep.”

“All right. Understood. (Y/n), are you there?”

“Yes sir.”

“Have a good rest.”

“Thank you sir.”

“This is Mr. Scott, over and out.”

“Thank you Leo,” you smiled.

He stood up and made his way over to you. He helped you up and led you to the bed. He sat you down. He stared into your eyes for a few seconds. Then, his hand slowly made their way under your shirt, moving up your sides and then back down, sliding to your back and up it. You sighed and shuddered at the touch of his warm, calloused hands. He lifted your shirt off your head, then took his shirt off and put it on you. You sighed and cuddled him, resting your head on his shoulder. He held you, placing a kiss on your cheek. He stayed like that for as long as he could. Very reluctantly, he pushed you back to lie flat down. “I gotta go now,” he said sadly.

“I know...” you hummed, putting a hand on his cheek. He pulled himself away and got into his uniform, then immediately walked out before he was any more compelled than he already was to stay. You sighed and moved to his side of the bed. You embraced his pillow, burying your nose in it and inhaling his scent. After a while, you were indeed able to fall asleep. You woke up to the pang of hunger in your gut. After a quick lunch, you sat in bed and let your food digest. You sighed and laid your arm across your eyes. Maybe you could fall asleep sitting up...

You woke up to a hand gently shaking your shoulder. “Sweetheart, sweetheart wake up,” Leonard said as he shook you.

You grumbled sleepily. Your arm had fallen awkwardly, and now your shoulder was stiff. “Ow...” you mumbled, looking down at it. He put one hand on it and enclosed the muscles in his fingers. This time, he could feel exactly what he had to do. You were better in no time. You swung your arm.

“Have you even eaten dinner?” your doctor asked you. You shook you head. He brought you up to a chair again and sat you down. “Eat, then you continue sleeping,” he instructed as he went to the replicators again. You complied wordlessly. He sent you off to brush your teeth while he washed the utensils. You collapsed onto your front on the bed. It was his turn in the bathroom. When he was done, he joined you. He turned you over and brought you into his embrace, with him on his back and you face down on top of him. “Been sleeping well, huh?” he murmured. You nodded. “You can sleep again?” More nodding. He smiled. He stroked your back, and as he did so, he sung softly to you. You buried your face further into his chest as you became more relaxed. He smiled when he sensed you fall asleep and fastened his arms around your waist once more. He son fell asleep himself.

#c-v-c-e fic #karl urban #leonard mccoy #star trek aos #star trek

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 131

Metaphysics of Mental Health

Over time, the pressures that accumulate from our commitments and responsibilities can affect our mental health. Through prolonged periods of stress, cortisol and adrenaline poison our body, which can lead to anxiety disorders. To maintain our emotional and mental health, we must consider the state of our spirituality and be mindful of the metaphysical aura which is in continuous interaction with our physical body.

Our cardiovascular system meticulously delivers oxygen and nutrients to body tissues and in turn removes carbon dioxide and waste products. The average rate of contraction is 75 beats per minute, meaning that a human heart contracts 108,000 times a day, more than 39 million times in one year, and nearly 3 billion times during a 75-year lifespan. However, this magnificent center of our being is not only related to our physical, but also our spiritual, well-being. The blood that our heart pumps contains more than just oxygen and nutrients for the body. It acts as both a radiator of goodness from the spirit (ruh) and evil from our carnality (nafs). The Arabic language has eight different translations for the word “soul,” with each of them accounting for a different element of the soul, including the heart, reinforcing the link between the physical and metaphysical.

Basic cardiovascular physiology denotes that deoxygenated blood returns to the right ventricle, which pumps it into the pulmonary trunk and then to the lungs, where carbon dioxide is released and oxygen is absorbed. Oxygenated blood then travels back to the left side of the heart into the left atrium, then into the left ventricle from where it is pumped into the aorta and subsequently the arterial circulation.

Based on this circulatory system, one may speculate about an interaction between our heart and soul. The right ventricle, where our deoxygenated or “dirty blood” returns, might be the location point of our evil-commanding carnal soul or nafs-al ammara. In contrast, the left ventricle, which pumps clean, oxygenated blood, might be the locus of the presence of our spirit (ruh). Thus, one can think of the heart as a tool of the soul, and the soul as a mirror of the heart [1]. If the mirror is kept clean, one can see. If it is dirty, then we are blinded. In this way, the state of the heart affects the soul; the two are in a directly proportional relationship.

Long before the advancement of modern psychology, emotional and mental well-being were highlighted in the Qur’an. The verse “And We have already created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer to him than his jugular vein,” (50:16) is a perfect example of the spiritual psychology that is immanent throughout the Qur’an. Not only does it demonstrate the proximity of God to His servants at times of inner turmoil, but it also sheds light on the notion of delusion, or whisperings of the heart (waswasa), and that He is aware and understanding of moods of doubt.

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) also refers to the relationship between the heart and soul: “Truly in the body there is a morsel of flesh which, if it be sound, all the body is sound and which, if it be diseased, all of it is diseased. Truly it is the heart” (Bukhari). This hadith refers to the close relationship between the bodily organs and the subtle psychic organs of the human soul; the spiritual heart is the center of human consciousness and is interrelated to the bodily, physical heart.

Our conscience, or mind, must acknowledge and make sense of all the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that arise. Muslim scholars describe possible sources for inner voices to be God, the angels, the devil, and the physiological body [2, 3]. With the appropriate depth of perception, self-regulation and spiritual expertise, one can distinguish between them. While waswasa has a negative connotation and usually refers to the whisperings from the devil and our nafs, we can also receive sources of inspiration from other metaphysical beings such as angels [4]. The mind’s ability to see the world through patterns and metaphors are the workings of the heart, and a gift from God to help us see the meaningful connections in life and to learn by reflecting upon experience. In this way, mindfulness provides an innovative approach to treat mental health issues. By having awareness and a clear comprehension, one can pay attention with patience and care to what happens and try to resolve it accordingly.

It is an understatement to say that we have an incredibly complex and dynamic aura, where the interaction of the metaphysical and physical matter that make up the human body are continually interacting. We’re constantly receiving input from other existing beings around us. There are mechanisms of action we can adopt to make a protective shield against these forces, some of which can have a negative impact on our soul.

The most obvious constituent of this shield is being immaculate in performing prescribed worships. These “must-do’s” are a reference point for us. If we slack off in our worship, our protective shield against waswasa is inevitably weakened. The ablutions we take throughout the day, even before we sleep, are another protective mechanism, while in the remembrance of God (dhikr), our hearts will “find tranquility and satisfaction” (13:28). However, even saints have lamented over periods of “dark nights” when the believer is tested by God who, for a short period, withholds from the devotee all delight in prayer and worship. Sufis describe this state of the soul as qabd, literally meaning being grasped by hand. This causes distress and makes one suffer from spiritual blockage. On the other hand, the soul can also reach a state of bast, or openness, expansion, development, or relief, when one is freed from spiritual blockage and develops inwardly. Thus, “God contracts and expands” (2:245) and believers must make both of these states fruitful by being thankful during openness and seeing contraction as an effective remedy for the sickness of the soul.

Trying to solve psychological problems solely with spiritual therapies is a mistake. Mainstream, pharmacological therapy can be necessary, just like in physiological disease. We rarely hesitate to see a doctor when we have an allergic reaction or the flu, but a psychological disease is assumed to be resolved through worship. While prayer is an incredibly powerful metaphysical tool that eases and lessens mental health problems, it might not be enough to completely cure a person of their condition. Psychological problems can be considered a cancer of the soul and should be treated with the appropriate therapy – that is, professionally. While prayer will undoubtedly have an anesthetic effect on the patient, going to see a psychologist would be the active prayer. Only then can you leave the outcome to God, after having done your part of fulfilling both verbal and active prayer.

As Imam al-Ghazali said, “Knowing the definition of these diseases, their causes and their cures, and remedies to fix them, is personally obligatory on every Muslim” (Al-Majmua). Thus, we are obliged to not only realize what is going on in our hearts and our conscious minds, but also to cure ourselves from any of the diseases that may have a negative impact on our mental or physical health.

#allah #god #muhammad #prophet #quran #ayah #hadith #sunnah #islam #muslim #muslimah #hijab #help #revert #convert #religion #reminder #dua #salah #pray #prayer #welcome to islam #how to convert to islam #new convert #new revert #new muslim #revert help #convert help #islam help #muslim help

[weshallc]

#Once I had a secret love that lived within the heart of me.#  was that 20 seconds? Not certain? Better safe than sorry, # All too soon my secret love..#

“Sorry Sister, for this unwelcome intrusion into your recommended 20 second ablutions, but I am relieved to find the bottles of Dettol remain sealed and secure.”

“I am a qualified nurse and midwife and may I add Scottish. Do you believe me to be now lacking of the good sense I was born with, Doctor? When you cut me do I not bleed?”

“That was unforgivable.”

“Who is it who decides what is forgivable or unforgivable?”

“I am thinking you know that better than I do.” Note to Dr self, remember this line for future series.

“It seems to me Doctor, it depend on which country or state you live in, the papers you read, which news you watch. I am not turning my back on them but am just using common sense and looking out for myself, my family and friends and my community”

“And if I don’t accept that, I don’t deserve an NHS bed or any other health service, for that matter.” Beautiful, clever and in a habit..I should leave now before I look like a complete knob.

Bugger, if only I hadn’t been asked to take over the daily briefing.

STAY SAFE THE CALL THE MIDWIFE WAY. 

#call the midwife #stay safe the call the midwife way #hope you all are okay #remember the chummy rule still applies #sorry about the repeat patrick pic #well if that is the worst thing i do

[genna-ivanovich]

Based from that repost, i remember there's muslim astronauts who celebrates Eid Ul Fitr on space!l And also, performed their 5 time prayer on there.

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Al Masrie bin Sheikh Mustapha, the first Malaysian astronaut.

Also shortly known as Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, is a malaysian orthopedic doctor with Arab-Malay descent and in his leisure time, a part-time model.

With Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, they go to the ISS on 10 October 2007 with Soyuz TMA-11.

The eid ul fitr was celebrated in 13 October.

Does he celebrate it? Yes!

Here is him, singing Eid Chants. We usually sing it before doing Eid ul fitr prayer. And some Eid ul fitr messages and greetings for malaysians (and muslims!) in malay.

Also, praying in ISS.

How about the wudu/ablution?

We usually using water, and its a must for using water. But, if water is not available we can do tayamum instead! (using clean dust)

In that 'always floating' condition is not really recommended to using water for wudu, the water particles can be spread around and broke the space station electrical stuff. So it's more recommended to do tayamum.

How about the kibla? Well, the position can be everywhere because well, he can't just wait till ISS rotates towards to the city of mecca right? He'll be losing his one of his 5 time prayer, and it's really confusing to set the constant kibla on space. You could check my recent repost for more further information.

But Wait. He is not the first Muslim who do that, in 1985, The first Muslim and arab in space, Sultan bin Salman al Saud also celebrating Eid Ul Fitr, fasting, reading Quran and praying in outer space.

Prince Sultan bin Salman al-Saud is one of King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud son, and the first astronaut from saudi royal family.

His mission started on 17 June 1985 with Space shuttle discovery STS-51-G, carrying three communications satellites, Arabsat-1B, Morelos I, and Telstar 3D.

It's the month of ramadhan too.

Recently, First emirati astronaut Hazza al Mansouri also do his prayer on ISS too.

The third arab in space, first arab in ISS, going to space with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Jessica Meir with Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft on 25 September 2019.

Maybe that's all! well...these people are really obedient when it comes to doing their religious beliefs heh, that's sounds interesting tho lol

And... I'm so sorry for my broken English!😅🇲🇾🇸🇦🇦🇪🚀🌟

Stay safe everyone, and always wash your hands!

#muslim #astronaut #space #malaysia #arab #my eyes hurt bc of their nice looking bye #i hope this helps?? hehe

[salty-apples]

Under lock and key

The sky was a vibrant blue today. More blue than I've known it to be in the three months that we've been living here. It was a clear blue on a hot day with no clouds to break up the monotony of sky and sun. No ripple or disturbance. Nothing. 

The sky was blue yesterday but it did not move Agav. "Rain's on its way," he'd sniffed when I noted the blinding brightness of the day. Agav offered nothing more than his thoughts on the weather. He was right. It rained last night. 

Mama had told me it was best what she and Uncle were doing. "It is not good that you should still be unmarried at your age," Mama had whined the day after my graduation. "Look at Leila," Uncle chipped in. "Your sister is happily building her family. You could have that. You should have that." My happiness was all that mattered to them. So they chose Agav to give it to me. 

The rain began an hour ago, sinking my mood lower than an anchor. Hunched over on the window seat, my book laid carelessly aside, I watch Agav as he taps away on the computer. He says nothing. He hardly makes a sound. In this house of many rooms, Agav and I are like wandering ghosts. We say few words to each other, all at the right times of the day and nothing more. In an hour, I will ascend the stairs and retire to a room where I will sleep alone. Just like I've been doing for three months. Just as if I was never married. 

"Come Mahdi," Uncle had tried to pacify me when I railed against Mama. "You ought to be thankful and happy. You know Agav. You've known him since you were children."  My anger had boiled over that afternoon. It had not been enough to see my employment letter thrown into the bin and hidden under piles of rotten bananas. Agav had stood outside the door quietly waiting until Uncle invited him in. Leila had smirked, one hand resting on her swollen belly while the other cradled a toddler. She needs to stops giving birth, I had thought at the time. She needs to leave me alone.

Agav won't come to bed. Not when he doesn't see it as his. I sleep here alone, going through my daily ablutions without so much as a friendly word. 'Good morning,' 'Here's your food,' and 'Good night' are all we say to each other. Mama had promised me that things would improve. "He's just shy," she had chuckled the day after the wedding. He's not, I wanted to say. I am.

A loud thud wakes me up in the middle of the night. I search for my watch, turning it over in the darkness to check the time. I can't see anything and I can't hear anything either. Not the sound of Agav walking from the living room to the kitchen for coffee. Not the constant tapping of his pen on the desk as he mulls over something. The corridors are empty as I tiptoe out of the room. "Agav?" I call out tentatively. The scarf I tie to bed has slipped, pooling around my shoulders and providing some warmth on this wet cold night. "Agav?" I call out again. No answer. I don't expect one anyway. It's just like him not to answer quickly. 

Leila had prided herself on being the town beauty. Her conceit had grown even worse with marriage. "Mahdi dear, marriage would suit you," she laughed as I fumed. Five pregnancies and counting and yet, she had lost none of her youthfulness. Every time I came home on holiday, it seemed as if she was only growing fresher. Motherhood suited her, I believed but not marriage. Wearing a veil in the morning because you spend your nights crying is not a way to live. But she approved of Agav and hers was the only opinion Mama cared to hear.

The lights downstairs are off. Agav likes to work in darkness. I never complain about it as I find myself suited to this arrangement. But now is not the time. The silence in the house is choking me, pushing me forward into the living room until my leg hits something and I stumble. I pick myself up and start to feel around to find the offending object. Instead, I find a hand. It is Agav. An unconscious Agav. 

The wedding day of a woman of Dacca is said to be the crowning day of her life. For me, it was the lowest. Each step towards the temple had been torture, bringing me closer to a man whose presence in my life I had not agreed to. The road to sadness is paved with happy smiles and Uncle and Mama and Leila had the brightest ones. It had been a bright clear day and I had cursed the sky for not sending the rain.   

My back strained as I dragged Agav upstairs. All the lights were on. What a wonder it must have been to the neighbours to see our house lit up like a Christmas display. Slow progress I made pulling him up, each tug and lift sending sparks of pain dancing along my spine. I, who had always looked so small beside the Agav, the giant of Dacca was heaving like a pack animal to haul my husband to a bed he had never claimed. 

A hand on Agav's forehead had told me that things were horribly wrong. He was running a fever. His face and lips were ashen and his breathing laboured. What could have happened between the time I went to bed and the time I heard him collapse? Had he been sick and I hadn't noticed? Perhaps if he was awake, he would have grudgingly volunteered some answers. Now was not the time. Emergency services would not be able to reach us in time. The riots had cut us off from the rest of the city. If I waited till morning, I was risking an early widowhood. We were alone. All alone in this house of many rooms with no one to turn to. 

On the day we left Dacca, Mama had begged me to give Agav a chance. "I gave him many when he courted me," I retorted. Uncle only shook his head and left to speak with my new husband. Our flight was called and I began to tear up. A new life in a new country with a new husband I didn't understand. "A child will make things better," Mama promised me as I hugged her goodbye. I snorted at her words. A child? Ha! If only she knew that Agav has been sleeping on the floor. 

"Mahdi, is that you?" Mama sounded groggy with sleep but I couldn't bring myself to apologise. "It is Mahdi, Mama," I wept into the phone, "Agav is dying and I need your help."

Agav had gotten the house for free from a friend of his father. It had been a lucky stroke for him, one in a series of many. When we had first arrived, the neighbours were curious. Most tried to gain entrance, to be able to brag that they had been welcomed into the home of the strange new neighbors. Agav had been polite but firm. 'We did not want any company' and  'yes, we were thankful for the casserole,' he would answer with a small smile. Those smiles were rare. Rare for a man who preferred to look like stone than to risk cracking his facade to reveal softness. 

He was smiling now in his sleep. Mumbling as well. My eyes are tired from watching him for two days. Mama had given me instructions, directing me on which plants to pluck from the garden to administer to him. A ginger root poultice on his forehead and a hot drink of strained Shasha water every two hours. Anxiously, I waited for the herbs to work, to show me some proof that Agav had not left the land of the living. His eyes had twitched first and then his lips. His breathing evened and I relaxed my shoulders. Agav would live. I would make sure of it. 

"Won't you say hello to Agav, Mahdi?" Leila would taunt me whenever  Agav passed by our house. From my hideout under the window, I would shush her, a plea for her to leave me alone. Why would I want to say hello to Agav? I was too little to be noticed by him. Too young. Too flighty. Leila would laugh and speak even louder. "Agav!" She would yell. "Mahdi says hello!" I never knew what his response was. Crouched under the windowsill, I would burn from embarrassment and pray for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. 

I rouse myself from my memory just as I hear Agav mutter my name. Little Mahdi is gone and in her place is an older one, the wife of her childhood neighbour. The wife who is worn down from lack of sleep from looking after a sick husband. The wife who is lifting his head to give him a drink of water. Agav's eyes are yet to open and I am so so tired. Bone tired. I move to the other side of the bed and crawl between the sheets. I keep my distance from Agav, knowing he would have wanted it just so. Just as Agav's breathing stabilises, I drift off into an exhausted sleep. 

Agav had been quick to get workmen to fix up the parts of the house that needed fixing. I had been quicker to send out my resumes. Staying inside was not an option. Agav had known this. "I won't stop you from pursuing your dreams," he had informed me on our wedding night. An hour later, he was bundled among blankets and soundly asleep. 

Offices are closed but not my ambitions. Despite caring for Agav full time, I have found time to look up work. My hands are itching to do something, to be in another place that is not here. I want to be busy. The kind of busy that let's you forget that yours is a static marriage and the knowledge that you might never grow to like your partner. 

It's been a week since Agav fell ill and two days since I began to notice clear signs of recovery. It pleases me to see the colour slowly return to his face. He has stopped murmuring in his sleep and I have begun to sleep a little easier. The doctor I had called over the phone has assured me that Agav will be fine. "It was merely fatigue," he'd informed me. "Must be the riots. Everyone's on edge these days." I agreed with him. It must be the riots indeed. 

"You can't play the game if you don't have a partner!" Leila had yelled from the edge of the field. Surrounded by the other children in our age group, she was the unofficial leader, the one who set the rules for the games and split up fights. As her younger sister, my duty was to tag along and support her decisions. I rarely joined their games but that day, I wanted to. I looked among the others, searching to see whose hands were unlinked. And then I saw Agav, an elder among children, sitting quietly under the pear tree and observing the world around him. He was only one without a partner. Shyly, I had shuffled up to him, hoping he would not be upset with me for disturbing his peace. "Brother Agav," I had ventured with a tiny voice, "Leila says it's a game for two. Would you be my partner?" Agav said nothing. His eyes like those of a hawk looked me over and fixed themselves to my ear. Slowly, he reached up and held the lock of hair that had escaped it's bindings. Tucking it gently behind my ear, he answered. "No." 

The brush goes through my hair repeatedly, the familiar motions calming me. It's been a few days since I have let down my hair and taken care it. Since Agav's illness, I have let my morning routine go to rot as I spent my time between brewing Shasha water and applying cold compresses to his fevered brow. My hands move from scalp to tip, gently untangling the knots which have managed to form. I pull the mass of hair over my shoulder to oil and braid when I hear a groan behind me. I turn sharply and find Agav blinking against the sunlight and attempting to stand up. "Don't!" I caution him and move to his side. "Don't get up. Whatever you need, I will get it," I tell him. His eyes, though unsteady, hold mine. His mouth opens as if he wants to speak but he says nothing. Instead, he reaches out to touch my hair and tuck a wayward lock behind my ear. 

Mama liked to give lessons on the magic of coconut oil while she made it on the weekends. Aunty Alia, my uncle's second wife would sit with us and help to mash the coconut shafts to extract the water. "You want to trap a man, my girls, use coconut oil on your hair." Aunty Alia would laugh long and loud at the statement, enough to annoy Mama. "You laugh," Mama would scoff, "How do you think I snagged a husband? One whiff of my hair in the market and I was married within a month." A wistful smile would find its way to Mama's lips while Leila and I giggled. 

Agav has been awake for two days, slowly regaining his lost strength. This morning, I heard him pick his way down the stairs while I make our breakfast. I can tell that movement makes him dizzy but he does it anyway. That is his way of handling it, of fighting back and making sure his muscles don't waste away from a lack of motion. I hear him as he picks his way to the kitchen, his hand making noise as he feels his way down the corridors.  I hear him as he pulls back a chair from the kitchen island and lowers himself into it. I can feel his eyes boring into my back while he says nothing. I continue with my work and attempt to ignore his brazen staring. 

"I like your hair," he says suddenly. I stop beside the range, startled. When  I turn to look at him, I see him smiling. Smiling at me. Self conscious, I pat my head and take hold of the end of my braid which grazes my waist. "I like your hair," he says again. "I like how it shines under the light. It has a very nice colour." My hair is reddish brown, an embarrassment in a family of raven haired people. I lower my eyes as heat spreads from my belly to my cheeks. "Thank you," I whisper and go back to my tasks. 

"How is he doing?" Mama asks when she calls. "He is better now, thank goodness," I answer. It's been a week since Agav complimented my hair. He is moving around without holding on to the walls, rearranging rooms so that he has something to do. Occasionally, he will call me into a room to ask my opinion on its furnishings. I would give it and he would smile. "Be honest, Mahdi or are you scared you'd hurt my feelings?" His chuckling would cause me to crack a smile. "He is better, Mama. Better than ever before."

Agav comes to bed now. When I leave for bed, not too long afterwards, he's in the room as well. At first, he looked unsure of staying here. "I've never shared a bed with anyone," he admitted with shyness written on his face as he looked around. His clothes have always in the room but not him. He sees nothing of himself here in a room made up to my tastes and preferences. "It is fine, Agav," I tried to reassure him. He nodded and looked away, a blush staining his cheeks. I laughed at him, at his bashfulness and embarrassment. Eventually, he got into bed, staying on his back to look at the ceiling. He turned to look at me, to really look at me for the first time since we had had our hands bound with red cord in front of the entire town of Dacca. "This is nice," he said with a smile as he stroked my hair. He continued to stroke my hair until I fell asleep.  

For the first time since we were shut at home, we hear news that the riots have begun to disband. The chaos outside is lessening and the roads will soon be opened. It's been a month and half now for us at home. A time of laughs and secret smiles. While I work in the garden, Agav stands ready to help or extend a glass of water. In the kitchen, he joins me to cook. Last night, he'd made me sit while he made dinner. "But Agav, you don't know how I arrange the spices. You'll scatter the rack!" He'd grinned when I complained. "You forget that I lived in a house full of women for most of my life," he'd countered, "I would never scatter a spice rack." Resigned, I watched him put our meal together. Amazed, I had watched myself finish every morsel on plate. 

I come home later than Agav. My days at work are long but fulfilling. The riots have at least done something good. More jobs have opened and more people are needed to work. Agav however, is lucky. He gets to work from home if he wants. I open the door quietly, not wanting to disturb him if he's asleep in the living room. "Surprise!" I hear from behind me and I jump, screaming at the top of my lungs about demons in the dark. When the lights come on, I find Agav rolling with laughter on the floor. "Happy birthday, Mahdi," he wheezes between chuckles. I chuckle along with him and shake my head. When I enter our room, I stop in surprise. On my dressing table is a vase of fresh roses and a large bottle of coconut oil. Gifts from Agav.

Agav and I are lying awake. Dinner was hours ago as was our card game. Agav is a trickster, I've come to know, using sleight of hand to spirit away cards. It's raining outside and cold but in here, it is warm. Life has long since gone back to normal outside. No more riots, no more impromptu lock downs. Inside is where the changes have happened. It's almost the end of the year and in a few days, Leila, Mama and his mother will be coming to spend a month with us. We have rooms enough for them. Agav's eyes are sparkling with tears. He's not one to be ashamed to cry. I've seen him a few times shed a tear when looking at my flowers and herbs. There's no space between us on the bed now. His hand is on my belly, as it has been these last few months. "Are you happy, Mahdi? Tell me the truth," he asks in a soft voice. My eyes stray to where his hand sits, on the large swell marking the presence of a third human. My hand meets his and grasps it. This is our life now. All this is ours. "Why wouldn't I be happy, Agav," I answer in a voice thick with unshed tears. "Why wouldn't I be?"

#writing #lockdown #life #love #marriage #slow burn #friendship