#flash forward 15 years to jin ling who's a perfectly normal daoine sidhe-merrow halfblood thank you very much

[tanoraqui]

[previous]

so there’s fog, you know, soft and empty fog, except that sometimes there are people in it. There are songs, soft and sweet, except the song about the woman named Janet isn’t allowed at all - the song- the song his...the song for which He beats him, when he sings, beats him and beats him until he can’t taste anything but blood, and he swallows it and sings louder for spite - and feels terrible immediately, for disrespecting Him so terribly. 

Acacia comes for him, dresses him and scares off his attendants, and he remember...Wei Wuxian remembers a little...

“Your daughter’s dead,” he says abruptly, as they pretend to have every right to walk the corridors. “Your lost Rhodia - but she had a son.”

“What?” says Acacia, hungry.

“He’s a bit of a brat,” Wei Wuxian says, in the contemplative way of someone still partly asleep. “But only because he’s loved and well-cared for, and knows it. Also because he’s a brat. He sent me here.”

Acacia pulls him along a little faster

But they don’t make it. Blind Michael’s more clever, more cruel lieutenants interrupt them, and Blind Michael himself, and Wei Wuxian is dressed for a Ride and a wedding, and Blind Michael becomes a god in his eyes, through his eyes - and they Ride

oh, how they Ride.

With a thousand eyes and none his own, Wei Wuxian sees it: through the cold-capped mountains they Ride, horse-hides steaming in the clouds. Through the sea-wide lakes they Ride, over and under. Through the stony hills they Ride, and all the beasts scatter in their wake. Through the golden streets they Ride, and human and faerie alike cower.

until the Hunt reaches a lightly flooded crossroads, and with a thousand eyes and none, Wei Wuxian watches a woman form from the water. She’s dressed like a pirate and stands like a queen; her skin is darkly scaled and her teeth are as sharp as a shark’s. 

“With the holy water in her hand,” she shouts with a captain’s voice, “she cast the compass round. At twelve o'clock the fairy court, came riding o'er the mound.” And, “Michael, this is ending.”

[NB: our lyrics for this evening are “Tam Lin” by Steeleye Span, my favorite version of the song/poem]

Hands pull Wei Wuxian down from his horse in the confusion, drag him forward and pin him in a vicious headlock just above water just deep enough to drown. He struggles to return to his lord and he goes limp and hopes the familiar arms will flip him over, into the water facefirst

He can’t quite see who’s holding him; the Huntfold gaze he’s part of is still focused on Blind Michael and his half-sister

“Get out of my way, daughter of Titania,” he sneers, and probably several other things. “You have no right to be here, tonight.”

“Oh, am I the one being a selfish, manipulative egomaniac?” Amphitrite calls back. “But fine.” She stamps her foot as a child in temper, a woman drawing a line in the sand, and the air reeks of ocean and fresh kills, deep currents ripple in the flooded intersection. She points toward the held figure near her feet. “That’s my descendent you’ve got there, by birth if not by blood, and I want him back. He was under my protection when you took him, and he owes me a debt.”

several other Riders have been pulled down, too, now struggling and limp in the hands of unseen strangers

“You have no right!” Blind Michael snarls again (only a child in temper)

“Friends and family and companions of blood always have a right.” Amphitrite warns one last time, “You can still walk away, Michael. I don’t really want you to - I’m not Annie. But I’ll let you.”

“Who would come for him?” Blind Michael demands.

“Lan Wangji, heir to the Duchy of Cloud Recesses,” a voice says from above him, as cool as though it was rude of Blind Michael to ask. “My claim precedes yours.”

“Wen Qing.” “Wen Ning.” They speak almost at the same time, Wen Qing somehow sounding exasperated through her steely determination, and Wen Ning only, rarely, confident in his. “He’s our idiot.” “He’s our friend.”

“Luo Qingyang, formerly of the Court of Golden Sun,” says the one holding down his legs, and for the first time, Wei Wuxian scrambles completely organically to remember. Wait, that’s not- Mianmian? “Wei Wuxian saved my life, and those of many I love, and I don’t see why that debt should go unpaid.”

“Jiang Yanli,” declares the one with a firm arm around his neck, “Princess-consort of the Kingdom of Golden Sun and heir to the Duchy of Lotus Lakes. I’m bringing my didi home.” 

She speaks with such furious intent that he almost expects to see Madam Yu when he looks up, a thousand eyes fading to just his own. But it’s his shijie who smiles down at him, and tightens her headlock (Madam Yu would approve)

Blind Michael raises his hand and change hurts (change always hurts) but Wei Wuxian was made for it. He is sleek and long and made of nothing but muscle - and fang and poison, and desperation to escape the grip that suddenly slips on his neck. He is nothing but neck. He slides and twists and swipes his tail, and the grip tightens around his middle with a startled gasp. He twists and rears and lunges and bites, sinks venom into blood and the grip goes slack - 

- and the best Daoine Sidhe blood-healer in a generation, in several generations, slaps Jiang Yanli’s back and grimaces, and Jiang Yanli grits her teeth and tightens her hold and above and before them, Amphitrite chants, “They've shaped him in her arms, into an roaring snake. She's held him fast and feared him not, to be her lovely mate.”

Another change. Wei Wuxian is a beast of dark fur and gnashing teeth, slashing claws and sharp as a sword and twice as savage. He is the wildness of the Hunt itself. He swipes at his captor - he cannot be contained, he will not be contained - and strikes her across the cheek; he writhes and snarls and - 

- a pale hand shoves a sachet into his face; a glimpse of ice-blue eyes and a strong hand shoves his head down into it, his nose, and orders, “Calm.” He inhales to snarl and strike again and breathes in pure, alchemically enhanced catnip and...it’s kind of like being hit with a truck, if the truck was dreamy serenity but also raw LSD. He wants to escape the arms now locking more firmly around his neck, but he also wants to nuzzle up into Lan Zhan’s hand now scratching his head, and also never take his head out of this really amazing-smelling bag...

“They've shaped him in her arms, to a wood black beast so wild. She's held him fast and feared him not, the father of her child!“

A third. Wei Wuxian is heat, is pain, is light, screaming, ecstasy, agony, destruction, life, fire. (“They've shaped him in her arms again, fire burning bold!”) He isn’t sure he even wants to go back to Blind Michael, but he can’t stop burning. (“She's held him fast and feared him not, till he was iron cold!”) Jiang Yanli cries out and Wen Ning grabs her arms to keep them steady, gasping in pain himself, and Luo Qingyang drags all three of them down into the water, which does very little but -  

“ - They've shaped him in her arms at last, into a naked man,” Amphitrite calls at the last. “She's wrapped him in the green mantle, and knew that she had him won.” And at last it is true: Wei Wuxian sags, exhausted and bruised and not a little blood, his own and his sister’s and his friends’.

He licks his lips absentmindedly, and realizes he’s naked when Lan Wangji looks away with a stiff expression. Luo Qingyang rolls her eyes and pulls a spare robe out of somewhere and throws it over him, and it catches Jiang Yanli as well, because she does wait to hold him closer and cry-laugh against his shoulder. “A-Xian! Are you okay? We were so worried! You’re not to do that again, do you hear me?”

“Ah, shijie,” Wei Wuxian gives a laughs right back, only a little fake. “I’m always okay! And you - ” He’s about to say something about how magnificent she was, but a dash of his memory catches up and he actually does pull away from her a little just enough to look in her face with horror. “Wait, Princess-consort - no! Shijie, you didn’t marry the peacock?!”

(while around them other families reunite, and a few weep - not all held tight enough. while Blind Michael shouts and whines his protest and Amphitrite invites him to fight or fuck off)

Jiang Yanli smiles tearfully. “I wanted to wait for you, we all did, but...” Her shrug encompasses everything from true love to royal politics. But her smile both widens and softens as her hand runs over her stomach. “I’m even pregnant already.”

Wei Wuxian almost smiles, before he sits up with a horrified start. “No - Janet’s first baby didn’t - Wen Qing! Wen Qing, is the baby okay?!”

His panic is infectious; Jiang Yanli’s eyes widen and Wen Qing drops to her knees and presses her hands to Jiang Yanli’s side, swipes a drop of blood from her cheek and tastes it, and all stop until she says, “The baby’s fine. You should rest, though. Both of you. All of us.”

Blind Michael and his Hunt turn away in shame, ride away in defeat...all but one. Acacia lingers, golden.

Two figures wade carefully through Amphitrite’s flooded crossroads to greet her, one head black and the other dark, dark red. 

“Grandmother,” says Nie Huaisang, part curiosity and part awe. 

Acadia reaches out without a thought. Her hand stops in the air above Amphitrite’s lapping waves (which wouldn’t last for much longer, not on land, but for now still fought back the touch of Blind Michael’s realm). 

She smiles sadly as her hand drops. “You do look like her. I don’t suppose you’d like to come home with me?”

Nie Huaisang bites his lip with the longing of a faerie meeting (one of) his Firstborn for the first time. But he says decisively, “No thank you. It seems kind of terrible.” He hesitates. “Would you...like to come home with me?”

Acacia doesn’t laugh, though her smile twists like she might have, once. “Would you pull me through into my sisters waters yourself, child? Would you hold me tight and fear me not, and set me free?”

“If Huaisang cannot, I’d be happy to, Lady,” says Nie Mingjue, every maiden’s picture of a strapping young knight and duke. “My brother’s family is mine, by definition, and Lady Rhodia is much-loved by all of Butcher’s Hill, whether or not she still dances with us.”

“I’m glad,” she tells him, after a pause the length of a flower petal’s breadth, and turns her gaze back to Nie Huaisang. “But, no. Live well, grandson. If you ever take your bloody hero’s Choice - ” her gaze flicks over his shoulder to Wei Wuxian, and back - “I hope you choose your mother. You have her wits as well as her face.” 

And she turns and rides away without another word.

And for a brief while, it’s over.

TBC