#*sits down with a powerpoint and fifteen pages of conference notes* y'all wanna talk about sizhui growing up hearing inquiry every night?

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I've always thought that LWJ didn't really spend 16 years hunting to find WWX. I'm sure he kept his eyes open and looked for any sign of demonic cultivation, sure. But I also think he spent 16 years looking for danger so that he could increase his chance of dying young. Trouble is, he's too skilled to die easy. I headcanon that Lan Xichen made LWJ take the juniors with him on night hunts because he knew his brother wouldn't put /other/ people in clear danger, & he just wanted to keep LWJ alive.

ANGST!  No dialogue, noplot, just ANGST!  This is who I havealways been!

It’s not—Xichenknows that his brother isn’t likely to die on a night hunt.  It’s not thatsimple.  In a way, he’s not even worried for him.  No matter whatelse he is or may be, Xichen’s brother is still Hanguang-jun, the bearer oflight, who stormed Wen supervisory strongholds and who stood against most ofthe cultivation world and whose skill as a warrior is very arguablyunparalleled.  The only one who could match him—

Well.  Xichen doesn’t worry about his brotherbeing beaten in battle, these days.

And he doesn’t worry about Wangji allowing himselfto be killed, either, although that’s a closer way to define it.  There islittle A-Yuan, sweet-eyed Lan Sizhui, to think about, who Wangji loves with adesperate ferocity Xichen has only seen in him once before.  Sizhui is twelve and the best son any father could hope for, in Xichen’sadmittedly biased opinion, talented and kind and earnest, easy to love andquick to love in return.  Xichen loves him almost as recklessly as heloves his brother.  He can do nothing less for the only person who seemsto bring his solemn didi joy anymore.

He is utterly confident that Wangji would neverleave his son, never, not for all the peace that might be found on the otherside of a sword.

This absolute truth,this wholehearted confidence that Wangji will always return, no matter thechallenge, no matter the risk, makes it difficult to explain why Xichenworries.

The thing is, Lan Wangji, Hanguang-jun, A-Zhan, is dimmed, in away that tears at Xichen to see it.  He is less, as if he abandoned more than just color when hestopped wearing blue.  There were days, when Xichen would visit duringWangji’s seclusion—and the elders be damned, for trying to stop him, for tryingto keep A-Yuan away, he is Sect Leader and he was not having it—when he wouldhave sworn that he might have seen straight through his brother.  Wangjihas always been quiet, he was a quiet baby, but since—since, he’s been aghost of himself.  Even after three years in seclusion and nearly a decadeto heal, Xichen still barely recognizes him.  A thick shade has settledover the light in Xichen’s brother, and he is afraid that someday, whileHanguang-jun will come back from a night hunt, that faint light will not.

Xichen is supposed to be wise, he’s supposed to beZewu-jun, he’s supposed to be the calm, enlightened Sect Leader of GusuLan, buthe doesn’t know how to help his brother.  He hasn’t found a good answer inall this time.  He knows that the wound of—that the wound won’t heal becauseWangji won’t let it heal, and he doesn’t know where to go fromhere. 

He remembers when Sizhui first began to learn toplay the guqin, and brought a piece to Xichen in childlike pride.  Hislullaby, he had called it as he plucked out a careful melody, learned by heart. Without spiritual energy directed and channeled, without the complexities of anexperienced hand, it was only music, but Xichen had listened to Inquiry toomany times not to be able to translate it.

Are you there?

Are you lost?

Are you at peace?

Are you with your sister?  Your parents?  Your people?

Are you waiting?

I miss you.

It’s not—it’s not a search, not anymore, Xichendoesn’t think.  It’s been too long to expect an answer, and Wangji hasnever been a fool.  But Wangji can do nothing else.  There’s nowherefor him to bow, there was no vigil to keep, there will never be anyone whoburns paper money or grieves with him.  So Wangji plays Inquiry, over andover again, to a spirit that doesn’t answer, and someday Sizhui will learnInquiry himself, and know that his lullaby was always a eulogy spoken insecret.

Once, Xichen tried to make his brother stop. Tried to make him leave off his long, slow grief, to shakehim out of his ghost-self and back to life and light.  He hadn’t been ableto think of anything except to take Wangji’s guqin, an attempt to force him tostop, stop, playing that damned unanswered query.  Andit had worked, in a way.  The cold, blinding flare of rage, when Wangjiswept uninvited into Xichen’s rooms and demanded flatly that his instrument bereturned, please, Sect Leader Lan—it had been good to see.  Proof that,even if the embers were banked and dull-glowing, there was still a fire to bewoken in Xichen’s brother.  But the days of bitter silence, afterward,wasn’t worth the short-lived victory.

Sizhui had sided with his father, of course, even ifhe didn’t then understand what the point of contention was.  He had given Xichen affronted looks andorbited closer to Wangji than usual for weeks.  Sizhui had always knownthat there was a wound somewhere in his adopted father, in that sharpperceptive way that’s entirely too unlike Wangji, entirely too himself to beanything but a relic of before Cloud Recesses, the time that he doesn’tremember and Wangji won’t discuss.

Xichen has his theories.  But Lan Sizhui is thepride of GusuLan Sect, the brightest light in his father’s life, and Xichen isgrateful that someone else loves his brother enough to be angry on hisbehalf.  Xichen’s theories have been buried in a shallow grave for manyyears.

And Wangji is only himself, in any way thatXichen can recognize, with Sizhui.  It’sbeen like that ever since he first brought the boy back, when A-Yuan, feverishand delirious and calling for people none of them knew, crept into hissickbed.  Wangji had been barely responsive,had allowed the physicians to tend his scourged back and had stared at the wall,not sleeping, not meditating, not speaking, just waiting.  When Xichen got word that his brother hadspoken, to call the weeping A-Yuan over and tell him, quietly, that the man hecalled for was not going to come back, he’d felt a rush of relief like hislungs trying to jump out of his mouth. But he hadn’t spoken to Xichen, not that day, nor for several more, onlyholding A-Yuan close while the boy slept.

Xichen hadn’t gotten a word out of his brother foreight days after he was whipped, and then, when he finally did, it was only toclaim A-Yuan as his son in a tone that broke Xichen’s heart.  He had forced the elders to accept the child withoutarguing or demanding details from Wangji, had simply put him in the sectrecords as Lan Yuan and stared down anyone who questioned his actions.  Xichen would have done anything Wangji askedof him, in that moment, anything to keep him talking, anything to keep A-Yuan nearhim.  Wangji had been nearly a corpsehimself, in those early days, lightless even in the presence of A-Yuan’s tinysun, but he had moved and spoken and lived when A-Yuan was near.  The effect should have grown less pronouncedas Wangji returned to himself, but instead it has only made the difference moreapparent.  

Maybe that’s what he’s worried about, when Wangjileaves on night hunts.  Some part ofXichen never got over the fear of it, of seeing his solemnly brilliant diditransformed into a shell, silent and detached, the heart of him carved out.  Some part of him is terrified still, thatbeing away from Sizhui for too long will let Wangji slip back into thatnumbness, that corpse-cold stillness, so different from his familiar reserve.

Hanguang-jun would never die on a night hunt, notthrough anything but dire misfortune.  Heis still the best of the Lan, their bearer of light.  But Xichen is secretly, desperately afraidthat, someday, one of the reports they receive of resentful spirits and demoniccultivation will be true, and he will not get his brother back.

Wangji never allows anyone else to investigate thosereports, the ones that claim in half-hysterics to be the Yiling Patriarchreborn, or trapped as a spirit, or the dramatics of the day.  He always comes back with flat unfeelingreports of frightened villagers and exaggerations and resentful spirits easilydispatched.  And when Xichen gets down tothe bone of it, the living core of his fear for his brother, Xichen is horriblysure that someday, someday, Wangji will come back from one of those nighthunts and say nothing at all and shimmer out of existence at last, a heatmirage under a cold wind.

It isn’t suitable for Zewu-jun, Sect Leader Lan, tohate someone.  Xichen thinks about itsometimes during meditation, about how foreign it feels, this hard hot chip ofloathing, and worries at it like a loose tooth, tries to pry it out of place tobe discarded.  He can’t manage it.

He hates Wei Wuxian, for what his death has doneto Xichen’s brother.  

For standing up when everyone else knelt down, eventhough it cost him everything, life and family and sanity all gone in a merehandful of months.

For what finding his resentful spirit would do tothe last light in Hanguang-jun.

So.  He just—hehas to find a way to keep Wangji from following these leads.  It isn’t healthy for Wangji, and none of themever have any sign of the man himself anyway, dead or otherwise.  Xichen has to find an excuse to send othercultivators after fantasies of the Yiling Patriarch, and that means findingsomething to keep Wangji busy.

Wangji is only himself around Sizhui—a quieter,sadder self, to be sure, but the honest adoring boy that Xichen half-raisednonetheless.  Sizhui, while a prodigy, istoo young for night hunting.

The junior disciples are promising and bright, andWangji needs a—a check, for lack of a better word.  Something that will force him to speak, tointeract, to think of safety and security rather than only results.

He will not appreciate what Xichen is going to do,but someday, Sizhui will be on night hunts too.  This is��this is practice.  Maybe then Wangji will brighten again, traveling with the son headores.  Maybe then Xichen will be ableto sleep while his brother is gone.