( Jiang Cheng had not been a fool alone. Jin Guangyao painted a pretty picture, manipulating as always, because he spoke truth but simplified, implied, and the realities were more complex. Wei Wuxian still acted without consulting his brother in arms, brother in raising, martial brother: fact. He did not fight for Jiang Cheng to stand by him; he did not demand that Jiang Cheng open a home of rebuilt pains to the starving, average remnants of a clan that had left his home in tatters. He couldn't have known the ways to twist his brother's arm, whisper strive for what you want, the only failing is in not trying, couldn't fight to keep himself a place by a side he saw by then as standing opposite across a gulf he'd dug for himself the night he held Chenqing up to Lan Wangji, and said, is this our justice.
Wei Wuxian had failed to push, to press, to ask for help. Had instead made it eaiser to let him go. If you can't stand with me, then cast me away. Say I've defected. Face a broken arm and a stab to the gut and two men too proud and too young for the wisdom they might have now to see where they'd allowed it all to start unravelling at the seams.
He doesn't regret, exactly. The past remains as it happened. It cannot change. And he's not disappointed, unlike Lan Zhan, in the thigns Jiang Cheng has done, because the underlying truth is he's preserved, been acknowledged for, kept thriving Lotus Pier, and that was what he'd wished. Only one of them had ever been the intended heir, and to this day, it's no burden Wei Wuxian would take.
There are no what ifs for their lives. There's only what has, and what may. Striving for the may is something that wasn't easy for him to do at first, and has only recently stopped feeling like claws digging into his soft, unprotected places.
(Wei Wuxian has Lan Wangji, and his silences, and his presumptions. There is a closeness and caring there that he leans into, wants more than anything, doesn't think he deserves, accepts for existing; at the same time, it is not one met on equal ground, and he as a living man is not the ghost that Lan Wangji had chased after in memory for years. Wei Wuxian still wanders, because for whatever his heart yearns for, he still has not yet found a way to understand its home.)
What he does is watch Jiang Cheng, both obviously and indirectly. He carries nothing to leave outside the threshold of this room, no wine jar, no weighted promise of violence or misery. Hears what Jiang Cheng says, and swallows, lips parting after. A twitch toward a smile he allows to blossom partway, stepping inside at last as Jiang Cheng shakes, a leaf caught in a river, swirling and twirling downstream. ]
Hello, Shijie. You hear Jiang Cheng? He acts like he's not happy to see my face, but I think he is just a little, stupid looking or otherwise. And it's not stupid looking, it's very good looking still, if any wished to know.
[ He hopes Jiang Cheng is a little glad, and knows he is, or else Wei Wuxian would not be here, going to his knees by his side, and bowing, to Jiang Cheng's father and mother, to their shared sister, the only one of those three without a weighted burden Wei Wuxian had never been able to do anything constructive about.
He bows as Jiang Cheng does, but when Jiang Cheng stands, Wei Wuxian doesn't; instead he reaches out, fingers twitching, and catches at the fabric of Jiang Cheng's robes. Outermost, barely holding on to the seaming, and with no more strength than in an uncoordinated kitten's claws. ]
Wei Wuxian wants to see you, Shijie, but can you remind your little brother that it's never seeing just one person alone?
[ That tug at his robes, and then Wei Wuxian's hand twitches away, apologetic, falling back to his lap. He bows again, to Jiang Fengmian, to Madam Yu. One who gave him a love he wished could have felt better shared, and the other giving him rebukes he wished had only been aimed his way. People could be so at odds and still care for each other. Love doesn't always work out in kindness or fairness.
Jiang Yanli, however, believed that it could. Not just in romance, he finds. She'd given love, a painful, harrowing emotion, the gleam of something more powerful and lasting than it was sour. )
Your son has done the Jiang Clan credit. His years have only strengthened the teachings of the clan's disciples, and there is no one in all the regions who can say he's less than a dedicated, attentive hand in all things.
( Overly attentive in some things. Eradicating tricks and demonic cultivators, searching for someone who had no way to explain where he had or hadn't been. Accused of killing a former brother, with the ones who knew better dead or tight lipped. Lan Zhan's antagonism with Jiang Cheng was a palpable thing; likewise Jiang Cheng's toward Lan Zhan.
He hopes less so, now. Not because everyone can get along, but because he can hope they will. Or that he alone will be the target of Jiang Cheng's tongue in the future. Lan Zhan doesn't deserve it. Neither does Wen Ning.
(Wei Wuxian, well. Perhaps at least half the time he does.) )
He's a man to be proud of, and I apologise... that this lowly one has not been what he was meant to be. ( Not support. Just dedicated to ensuring that Jiang Cheng survived, that he thrived, no matter the cost. Wasn't that supposed to have been enough? (It isn't. Wei Wuxian's slowly learning that himself.) ) I offer no excuses, only my humility and apologies. ( And a bow, agian, with that said. Because he owes it to them, and to himself, and to Jiang Cheng. ) Shijie, I'm here to visit, at least for a while. I've been painting, you get up to all kinds of things when you're on the road for long stretches, and while my memory isn't the best—you remember that, don't you? Can you forgive it still? I'm trying to recall all the better memories, the splashing fights on the lakes and river, lotus seeds and soup and nights spent on the riverside with what passed as creative thoughts on wine.
( He wonders without saying: does anyone here make it, still? )
For your son. He's a good young man, more like you than he knows. Like his uncles, too, but more honest. I know that's not from Jin Zixuan, so shijie, just know that it's you who gave him an honest tongue. The rest of us, we still mess up the things we should say, and say the things we shouldn't. I'm sure you'd tell me I'm being silly again, and you'd be right, but it's no less true.
( His voice stays soft, a sort of two way confessional, to the dead before him, and to the living standing tall in this same quiet, incense scented space. )
Jiang Cheng has done well by your Jin Ling. You always knew he would, didn't you? Remind him of that, in your ways. I think sometimes even sect leaders and clan heads need to hear when they've done well.
( Like they don't, but it's for the things which matter beyond persons. This, this is personal, and he's half expecting to get kicked or pulled up or shouted at, in this litany of soft sincerities. He does finally look up to Jiang Cheng, tongue still for a moment, a fond smile from his words to Yanli still lingering on his lips. If his eyes look uncertain, and his shoulders don't rest easy, it's the world he's learned to live in, step by step coming back from resignation to reclaim a space that can be his when he had, seemingly, thrown everything that once was away, a long, long time ago. )
this is why we're attempting to smash their heads together and go TALK, FOOLS
Wei Wuxian had failed to push, to press, to ask for help. Had instead made it eaiser to let him go. If you can't stand with me, then cast me away. Say I've defected. Face a broken arm and a stab to the gut and two men too proud and too young for the wisdom they might have now to see where they'd allowed it all to start unravelling at the seams.
He doesn't regret, exactly. The past remains as it happened. It cannot change. And he's not disappointed, unlike Lan Zhan, in the thigns Jiang Cheng has done, because the underlying truth is he's preserved, been acknowledged for, kept thriving Lotus Pier, and that was what he'd wished. Only one of them had ever been the intended heir, and to this day, it's no burden Wei Wuxian would take.
There are no what ifs for their lives. There's only what has, and what may. Striving for the may is something that wasn't easy for him to do at first, and has only recently stopped feeling like claws digging into his soft, unprotected places.
(Wei Wuxian has Lan Wangji, and his silences, and his presumptions. There is a closeness and caring there that he leans into, wants more than anything, doesn't think he deserves, accepts for existing; at the same time, it is not one met on equal ground, and he as a living man is not the ghost that Lan Wangji had chased after in memory for years. Wei Wuxian still wanders, because for whatever his heart yearns for, he still has not yet found a way to understand its home.)
What he does is watch Jiang Cheng, both obviously and indirectly. He carries nothing to leave outside the threshold of this room, no wine jar, no weighted promise of violence or misery. Hears what Jiang Cheng says, and swallows, lips parting after. A twitch toward a smile he allows to blossom partway, stepping inside at last as Jiang Cheng shakes, a leaf caught in a river, swirling and twirling downstream. ]
Hello, Shijie. You hear Jiang Cheng? He acts like he's not happy to see my face, but I think he is just a little, stupid looking or otherwise. And it's not stupid looking, it's very good looking still, if any wished to know.
[ He hopes Jiang Cheng is a little glad, and knows he is, or else Wei Wuxian would not be here, going to his knees by his side, and bowing, to Jiang Cheng's father and mother, to their shared sister, the only one of those three without a weighted burden Wei Wuxian had never been able to do anything constructive about.
He bows as Jiang Cheng does, but when Jiang Cheng stands, Wei Wuxian doesn't; instead he reaches out, fingers twitching, and catches at the fabric of Jiang Cheng's robes. Outermost, barely holding on to the seaming, and with no more strength than in an uncoordinated kitten's claws. ]
Wei Wuxian wants to see you, Shijie, but can you remind your little brother that it's never seeing just one person alone?
[ That tug at his robes, and then Wei Wuxian's hand twitches away, apologetic, falling back to his lap. He bows again, to Jiang Fengmian, to Madam Yu. One who gave him a love he wished could have felt better shared, and the other giving him rebukes he wished had only been aimed his way. People could be so at odds and still care for each other. Love doesn't always work out in kindness or fairness.
Jiang Yanli, however, believed that it could. Not just in romance, he finds. She'd given love, a painful, harrowing emotion, the gleam of something more powerful and lasting than it was sour. )
Your son has done the Jiang Clan credit. His years have only strengthened the teachings of the clan's disciples, and there is no one in all the regions who can say he's less than a dedicated, attentive hand in all things.
( Overly attentive in some things. Eradicating tricks and demonic cultivators, searching for someone who had no way to explain where he had or hadn't been. Accused of killing a former brother, with the ones who knew better dead or tight lipped. Lan Zhan's antagonism with Jiang Cheng was a palpable thing; likewise Jiang Cheng's toward Lan Zhan.
He hopes less so, now. Not because everyone can get along, but because he can hope they will. Or that he alone will be the target of Jiang Cheng's tongue in the future. Lan Zhan doesn't deserve it. Neither does Wen Ning.
(Wei Wuxian, well. Perhaps at least half the time he does.) )
He's a man to be proud of, and I apologise... that this lowly one has not been what he was meant to be. ( Not support. Just dedicated to ensuring that Jiang Cheng survived, that he thrived, no matter the cost. Wasn't that supposed to have been enough? (It isn't. Wei Wuxian's slowly learning that himself.) ) I offer no excuses, only my humility and apologies. ( And a bow, agian, with that said. Because he owes it to them, and to himself, and to Jiang Cheng. ) Shijie, I'm here to visit, at least for a while. I've been painting, you get up to all kinds of things when you're on the road for long stretches, and while my memory isn't the best—you remember that, don't you? Can you forgive it still? I'm trying to recall all the better memories, the splashing fights on the lakes and river, lotus seeds and soup and nights spent on the riverside with what passed as creative thoughts on wine.
( He wonders without saying: does anyone here make it, still? )
For your son. He's a good young man, more like you than he knows. Like his uncles, too, but more honest. I know that's not from Jin Zixuan, so shijie, just know that it's you who gave him an honest tongue. The rest of us, we still mess up the things we should say, and say the things we shouldn't. I'm sure you'd tell me I'm being silly again, and you'd be right, but it's no less true.
( His voice stays soft, a sort of two way confessional, to the dead before him, and to the living standing tall in this same quiet, incense scented space. )
Jiang Cheng has done well by your Jin Ling. You always knew he would, didn't you? Remind him of that, in your ways. I think sometimes even sect leaders and clan heads need to hear when they've done well.
( Like they don't, but it's for the things which matter beyond persons. This, this is personal, and he's half expecting to get kicked or pulled up or shouted at, in this litany of soft sincerities. He does finally look up to Jiang Cheng, tongue still for a moment, a fond smile from his words to Yanli still lingering on his lips. If his eyes look uncertain, and his shoulders don't rest easy, it's the world he's learned to live in, step by step coming back from resignation to reclaim a space that can be his when he had, seemingly, thrown everything that once was away, a long, long time ago. )