#i just love the fact that he canonically bristles and shows fangs as a sign of aggression

[nico00235]

HELLO (TAILS) NINE NATION HOW R U FEELING????

yes i want to add more features to his design

[sweetwatersong]

let the land come at you, love rating: pg characters: Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian, cameos warnings: canon-typical injury and violence

summary: As a Cultivator Lan Wangji brings light into darkness, hope into towns filled with fear, and a bard along on the long road he walks. One of the three was entirely unintended.

author’s note: I got really excited about a Witcher/The Untamed fusion yesterday? So have an AU I am surprisingly mushy about. Title and lyrics from Not Yet / Love Run (Reprise) by The Amazing Devil.

O let the land come at you, love With all its sand and sin, a-singing A song you once knew well's begun

Love run, love run... Run to show that love’s worth running to!

Those that see his bright sword and white robes know him to be a Cultivator. Those that recognize the forehead ribbon, the guqin slung across his back, call him Hanguang-jun. In the wake of his passing they whisper that he vanquishes monsters, rescues the lost, seeks out chaos.

One night, tucked into an inn to eat after a long hunt, chaos finds him.

The bard that has been working the crowd is now circling through his audience, his black and red robes standing out as he manuevers towards Lan Wangji’s table with fascination sparking in his eyes. Used to only hearing pleas and prayers from those approaching him, expecting shock and a withdrawal, the Cultivator is taken aback when the bard blinks, smiles fit to light the room, and declares, “Hanguang-jun!”

He says it as if it’s a revelation, and true, Cultivators are rare enough that it’s not common to see one. But it’s also not the brilliant deduction the bard seems to think it is. Any number of clues give it away: the scrollwork on Bichen’s sheath. The pristine robes. The circle of silence and space everyone else has afforded him that this young human has deliberately breached. Ridiculous.

The bard, oblivious to Lan Wangji’s stony silence, throws himself into the seat opposite him. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he says delightedly. “It’s taken me three months just to feel that I was even in the right area. And the first tavern that I decide to stop at-” His expression turns serious. “Hanguang-jun, it must be fate.”

Lan Wangji, who has debated whether fate is impossible for almost a century, ignores him. Silence is the only answer he has to give this man.

Unexpectedly, though, the bard studies him for a moment before his lips quirk into a pout that can’t disguise his smile. “Ah, Hanguang-jun, don’t worry. I’ll show you why we were destined to meet. And the songs that I’ll sing of your glory!” He sighes, putting a hand to his heart. “Wei Wuxian, bard extraordinaire, and your grateful companion for the road ahead.”

-

Wei Wuxian does, in fact, invite himself along on Lan Wangji’s travel. That is to say that when Lan Wangji leaves the tavern, the whispered rumors of trouble steering his footsteps towards the south, the bard catches up to Apple’s heels and only avoids being kicked by virtue of a swift dodge. The cranky mare has little love for anyone other than Lan Wangji, and even then only on good days.

“Hanguang-jun,” he says accusingly, a laugh in his voice. “Were you trying to leave without me?”

Lan Wangji spares him a cutting glance. “Boring.”

Wei Wuxian staggers back for a moment, one hand going to his heart. “Boring? Me? Hanguang-jun, you wound me! I could never be boring.”

He proves his point, too, much to Lan Wangji’s irritation.

It is not the done thing in the Cultivator world to use spells on ordinary people. It is too easy to slide into disagreeable habits, to begin the cycle of fear that has set common folk against Cultivators more often than not in their long history. Still, Lan Wangji considers, if he is forced to continue listening to these ramblings, he is more likely to go mad than if he simply solves the issue with the use of a Silencing spell.

He is glad his reserved nature keeps him from smiling at Wei Wuxian’s face when the bard struggles to speak and realizes what has happened.

He is even more thankful when the spell wears off and Wei Wuxian launches into another story, seeming to understand that his best revenge was to continue talking. The man is irrepressible.

Five hours down the road, aware that they are nearly to the point he plans to camp at, Lan Wangji is ready to forcibly part ways with the bard when a snarl rumbles through the underbrush.

Another joins it, off to its left. Two more answer on the other side of the road.

Lan Wangji swings off of Apple, drawing his sword. He is grateful, in that moment, that Wei Wuxian has at last fallen silent of his own accord.

He meets the bard’s wide eyes for a split second before the jagged shapes launch out of the shadows, strands of white saliva dripping from their jaws.

“Hanguang-jun!”

It is simple if brutal work to dispatch two of the demonic beasts. Apple claims a third victim, her vicious temper putting paid to the notion that she might be easy prey, and when Lan Wangji spins to defend the helpless bard - irritating or not, he is still a victim here - he pauses.

A sword gleams in Wei Wuxian’s hand, black ichor coating its blade as its owner relaxes from his ready stance to look over at Lan Wangji, genuine concern in his eyes.

“They must have been rabid. Hanguang-jun, you’re not hurt are-”

A surge of movement, out of the corner of his eye. A streak of silver flying past him as Wei Wuxian’s sword finds its target in the mortally wounded beast’s heart.

A heartbeat where Lan Wangji stares at the shadow wolf’s slumped body, half-turned to defend himself.

“Were you cut?” Wei Wuxian asks worriedly as the bard stops an arm’s length away, scanning Lan Wangji for any sign of injury.

Lan Wangji slowly lowers Bichen and glances back at the wolf. At that Wei Wuxian seems to realize it’s the sword that has him distracted. He pulls it free and grimaces at the gore before looking back at Lan Wangji. “Ah, it’s important be to be able to defend yourself with whatever you have on hand. Don’t you know it’s dangerous to travel alone?” And then he beams with pride. “That’s why we should go together!”

Ringing with the sound of his mirth, despite the nearing dusk, the battle-torn road seems to brighten.

Lan Wangji is experienced, has fought more battles than the human can imagine. This was nothing except unexpected. But Wei Wuxian’s worry over his safety while they collect the heads of the pack is unexpected as well. Unlooked for. He complains about Lan Wangji’s pristine robes and laments his own splattered ones (”Black is good for hiding stains, and still! If only we all had your Cultivator secrets, Hanguang-jun.”), helps to pitch camp, keeps a tune flowing through the air as the grouse he snared roasts over the fire. And Lan Wangji’s silence or blunt remarks do not drive him away at all.

He is too old to pretend to storm away, to bristle at the bard or turn his icy exterior into a shield as his younger self might have. He has grown past the point that his pride and dignity can be bruised so easily. At this point it is simpler to wait. The next town is half a day’s ride and will see them part ways.

-

The next town sees Wei Wuxian remain by Lan Wangji’s side, effortlessly weaving himself into the routine questioning of the townsfolk. Perhaps it is their surprise at seeing someone accompanying a Cultivator; perhaps it is Wei Wuxian’s personality. Regardless, before Lan Wangji has time to give more than a curt glare and try to order Wei Wuxian to mind his own business, the bard has begun sweet talking the shop keepers and stall vendors into revealing the details of what had been rumors in other towns. Details spill forth like welcome rains, revealing that the rabid shadow wolves had not been the culprit - at least not for the crimes he was called for.

Somehow, as Wei Wuxian drags him all over the town in pursuit of the next lead, Lan Wangji realizes that the distance that everyone treats a Cultivator with has grown smaller. Those who would be uncertain about his reserved demeanor instead laugh and treat Wei Wuxian like an old friend. And after every conversation Wei Wuxian turns to him, expectant, and seems satisfied with a simple “Hn” in response.

Clues in hand, the job goes smoothly. So does the one after that, and the one after that.

-

They do not all go so easily.

The acrid scent of venom scorches the sand, forces tears into Lan Wangji’s eyes. It sizzles harmlessly against the enchantments sewn into his robes, each drop crackling as it falls away, but underneath the noise Lan Wangji can hear another sound too.

Wei Wuxian grips his sword arm, teeth clenched, Suibian steady. Smoke rises from the holes splattered into his dark robes.

The warped cobra rises again, swaying side to side as it prepares to strike, and it has two targets instead of one because a certain bard is too stubborn to understand when he is in mortal danger. Lan Wangji can see how the diamond-shaped head is angled towards Wei Wuxian, knows the scent of blood will draw its attention almost to the exclusion of everything else.

If he can use that, if he can take advantage of the distraction to find the right weak point -

Wei Wuxian looks to him and nods sharply, setting his stance. He opens his mouth to shout, to draw the creature’s attention, and Lan Wangji’s fingers fly.

It might be comical, in any other circumstance, how shocked Wei Wuxian is when Lan Wangji’s outer robe settles over him.

“Go!” Lan Wangji snaps, darting to the side to catch the cobra’s attention. He flings a flare taliman at its eyes and throws his arms up to protect his face when he is rewarded with a deadly spray of venom. The enchantments hold, as he knows they will, and he redoubles the flares the moment he can. The cobra shakes its head and lunges, head stretching out impossibly far, fangs half the length of his body; nearer, nearer. Then Wei Wuxian is in the cobra’s blindspot, white robe caught around his elbows, Suibian shining in the sun.

Afterward Wei Wuxian shakes his borrowed robe to slough the clinging blood off like water. “I knew your robes had to be magic somehow,” he tells Lan Wangji, shaking his head. “No wonder you look so put-together all of the time.”

He offers the outer robe back with thanks. Lan Wangji takes it. But when they sit down around the campfire that night and Wei Wuxian pulls out thread and needle with a grimace, Lan Wangji takes the battered black robe and patches the venom holes with small, neat stitches.

If he also sews four small protection characters into the robe’s hem, well. No one will ever notice, and no one without a golden core will be abe to replicate their effects. It only makes sense to give the bard one more small advantage, given the way he throws himself so recklessly into danger.

-

His blood is boiling in his veins. That’s the only thought that pierces the haze surrounding him, turning the forest into clinging white fog and all his senses into things far removed from his control. Heat continues flooding his chest, seeping in from the acid that lingers like a cloud in his lungs. Suspended in the fire Lan Wangji can feel his heart and every beat of its futile fight against the confines of his ribcage. More than that, more than anything else, his blood is boiling in his veins.

A touch on his shoulder. Bichen is in his hand, striking out at the danger, fighting even though he is nearly helpless -

A voice, muted and warped by the distance; words, distorted beyond recognition. But comforting. Known. Reassuring.

Lan Wangji loosens his grip on Bichen’s hilt, surrendering to the voice’s care, and focuses on breathing through the fire as he is lifted. Set on a surface that sways from side to side. Lowered onto solid ground. Laid down.

Inside the haze his golden core swirls and churns with energy, fighting the acid’s effects. Outside of the haze cool compresses cover his forehead, press against his neck.

When the fever breaks he opens his eyes to see Apple cropping grass in the distance, her tack stripped, her picket line tied to a sturdy root. He doesn’t understand for a moment how she has been taken care of. He has not done it, and her foul attitude won’t allow anyone else to do it. So -

A figure settles by his side, dipping a compress into a bowl. There is worry written in the lines on his brow, dark circles under his eyes. Wei Wuxian starts when he reaches to put on a new compress, realizing Lan Wangji is awake. “Hanguang-jun!”

He captures the wrist that pulls back, holds it in a butterfly grasp and marvels at the coolness of his skin.

“Lan Wangji,” he says hoarsely, voice scraping at his throat. “Lan Zhan.”

For a moment Wei Wuxian is still. Then he smiles, something broken but soft, and smooths the new compress over Lan Wangji’s forehead despite the hand still encircling his wrist.

“When you recover your senses,” he admonishes, “you don’t get to take that back.”

He calls him Lan Zhan from that moment forward, a gift, a gesture of thanks, and it echoes somewhere in the beat of Lan Wangji’s slow heart.

-

There is a point at which Lan Wangji realizes that he now spends as many evenings listening to Wei Wuxian regale townsfolk with songs and talk about the glory of Cultivators as he once did sitting alone, as far removed from this world as his spotless white robes were from his muddy and mundane surroundings.

It is a strangely comforting thought.

-

The night that Wei Wuxian first coaxes Lan Wangji into playing a duet together leaves the bard beaming so brightly that it seems the sun has emerged from the night sky, that the joy bubbling up through his laugther and song is a tangible thing.

Lan Wangji does not deny him such requests after that and Wei Wuxian nevers asks him to play when they are in public.

-

It is not uncommon for Wei Wuxian to receive letters. His contacts seem to scatter them like wishes to the wind, hoping that one or the other will intercept him at a tavern along the way, and for the most part it seems to work. But when Wei Wuxian’s excited grin falters and fades, when all color drains from his face, Lan Wangji sets his tea down and watches him closely.

“Lan Zhan,” the bard says, and the words shake and tremble in a way Lan Wangji has never heard before. “I need your help.”

Lan Wangji meets his eyes and nods. There is nothing more needed between them than that.

They ride double on Apple, maintaining the fine balance between her stamina and her strength, and travel west into the sun. Lan Wangji does not recognize the surroundings as they race towards their destination. To his eyes the forest and streams no different from a hundred thousand others he has passed by in years before. He knows when they are nearing the village, though, by the slow tightening of Wei Wuxian’s hands on his belt.

They fly past the neat farms arrayed on the outskirts, clatter through the streets that are more hard-packed dirt than paved stone. Cries follow them, even in their passage, of “Hanguang-jun!” and “A Cultivator!” and “Wei Wuxian!” There is hope in their voices, in the fear that saturates the air of this place, and Lan Wangji trusts Wei Wuxian to know their next move.

Apple senses it first. She tucks her hindquarters under herself and comes to a lathered halt as Wei Wuxian throws himself off, lands almost on the doorstep of a sun-helmed shop. He has barely had time to pound on the door before it opens. Two figures pour out, a slender woman, another young man, who greet the bard with open arms and cries of their own.

“A-Xian,” the woman says, “A-Yuan,” Wei Wuxian chokes, and the young man answers, “It took him, A-Xian, we can’t find them anywhere-”

Lan Wangji dismounts slowly, stroking Apple’s foam-covered neck, and understands that he is watching a small family embrace. Wonders how much of Wei Wuxian’s life he does not know for all the bard’s openness.

It does not take long for the townspeople to settle Apple in a nearby stable and promise to make sure she does not founder. It takes even less time for the story to be laid out before him, a white-knuckled Wei Wuxian at his side.

A monster has taken children from the village. A monster has captured A-Yuan, Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s cousin, Wei Wuxian’s brother in all but name, and all the healer’s arts and all the young man’s archery cannot show them where it lairs.

“We’ll bring him back,” Wei Wuxian swears, his jaw tight. He looks to Lan Wangji then, not for reassurance but for confirmation. “Lan Zhan, we will.”

“We will find them,” Lan Wangji replies, and keeps any questions about the state that they will be in tucked behind his teeth. From the despair in Wen Qing’s fiery gaze she hears them anyway.

“Bring him home,” she tells Wei Wuxian when they prepare themselves, swords at their sides, talismans at the ready. Then her reddened gaze turns to Lan Wangji and he understands what she does not say. Bring Wei Wuxian home.

“Good luck,” Wen Ning says solemnly. “Good hunting.”

His words hold true. They track the monster, Lan Wangji’s keen eyes picking up the traces that few would recognize as such. They find its lair, holed into the mountainside, a narrow sliver the only entrance.

They find the children, held in a stasis that breaks and in doing so brings the monster.

In the midst of battle, talismans and thundering rocks flying, Lan Wangji fights as fiercely as he has ever fought before. For once the death of his enemy is far from his thoughts. Its armored exterior is impervious to blades, its natural energy gives it protection from his spells. No, it is the need to cover Wei Wuxian’s retreat that defines his tactics instead, the need to keep Suibian clean and the small knot of children safe.

It is the need to protect that lets him take in the cave’s shuddering ceiling, and the monster’s wild, deafening cries, and make a grim decision.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian calls, the cave echoing his desperation through the roar of crumbling rock. Lan Wangji spares him only a glance.

“Go!”

It is enough. The children crawl free; Wei Wuxian slips out of harm’s way; Bichen strikes true through a narrow eye that glints with malice and rage. The monster shrieks, its death throes slamming against the walls, and Lan Wangji, Hanguang-jun, knows that it is worth it, to have brought light into this last dark place.

The monster will not get them this day.

When he opens his eyes an inderminable amount of time later, focusing on wooden ceilings instead of tumbling rock, he realizes it has not gotten him either.

Wounds ache and sting across his body, broken bones a deep and underlying thrum, bandages lying tight across his scraped skin. There is the soft sound of breathing here too, loud in comparison to his own, and Lan Wangji turns his head to look across the room.

Wei Wuxian sits slumped against a nearby wall, his arms cradling a slumbering toddler, his hands bandaged a dozen times over.

A swordsman’s life is in his hands, a musicmaker’s as well. Wen Qing tells him the truth after Wei Wuxian brushes his concern off with laughter and comments about Lan Wangji’s own state. Wei Wuxian dug through the rubble with his bare hands, his bard’s hands, to find him.

They stay in the village longer than Lan Wangji has stayed anywhere in his long memory. Wei Wuxian’s flagrant avoidance of his Cultivator title rubs off to the point that the villagers begin to respectfully call him by his courtesy name. No one dares to use his birth name, of course; no one but the fearless, reckless man who tries coaching the little ones into playing melodies he can sing along to, just to stay in practice while he heals. The brilliant, bold bard who stills when Lan Wangji unwraps his guqin and plays the requested melody note-perfect, hands light on the strings.

He sings, when he recovers from the surprise and startled warmth that shines in his eyes, and their duets drift through the village with blessings of peace and prosperity.

Wen Qing doesn’t make threats of violence against Lan Wangji when they prepare to leave; given her sharp, unmistakable expression, she doesn’t have to. But her hands are gentle as she gifts him new medicines, for the inevitable time when one of them is so foolish as to get wounded, and her embrace is kind.

Clutching onto first Wei Wuxian’s leg, then Lan Wangji’s, A-Yuan begs them to stay. When all else fails he promises to learn how to play the guqin by the time that they return, asking them to make it soon, swearing they will be proud of him.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian laughs as they ride away, the shine of tears in his eyes. “I think you have a son!”

Lan Wangji says nothing, of course, but more from the odd sensation in his throat than from his long-standing practice of silence.

-

They travel, side by side, through rain and darkness. They meet Lan Xichen, the renowned Zewu-jun, who looks at Wei Wuxian with delight and Lan Wangji with understanding. They pass through Yunmeng where Wei Wuxian’s flippant tongue turns to awkward expressions in the court that Lan Wangji’s aid has been requested at, and where the heirs flanking the lord’s seat look at Wei Wuxian with displeasure or compassion according to their nature.

Lan Wangji declines the Jiang Clan’s request before Wei Wuxian grabs his wrist, eyes wide and startled, to ask what he is doing.

“We do not have to stay where you are not welcome,” Lan Wangji tells him. The gratified surprise that crosses his face stirs something in Lan Wangji’s chest.

“They need our help,” the bard says after a moment, ease settling back into the shape of his shoulders, and his discomfort does not return even when the whole court reflects the irritation of the lord’s wife, crackling like lightning over the scene.

This could have been Wei Wuxian’s family, Lan Wangji learns. He could have been trapped within these walls, had his mother not set off on her own course. He would have been bound to servitude under the weight of centuries of tradition.

Lan Wangji thinks of the bard, of his easy comraderie and boundless love, and of a road that might never have joined with his.

He does not with the Jiang Clan ill. He does, however, offer his gratitude for the journey that Wei Wuxian’s steps were set upon, all those years ago. Fate may not be real but if it is, it has granted him Wei Wuxian. That is enough.

-

They travel, side by side, through sunshine and snow. Their songs rise to the distant stars, their blades keep danger far from the innocent, and their travels are never lonely.

-

The Song of Clarity hums through the small glade, resonant and rich, and under the guqin’s voice a flute follows the melody easily, effortlessly. Lan Wangji pauses, lets Wei Wuxian sing out the ending in Chenqing’s sweet voice.

In the calm stillness that follows Lan Wangji listens with his ears, his shoulders, his hands. Under the dance of the fireflies, surrounding the stems of grass crushed under their feet, a faint trace of spiritual power drifts through the night air and over his skin.

Music is a strange thing. It is in beyond comprehension in ways that he has come to appreciate during his long life. If being taught the songs of a Cultivator defies tradition, if playing songs of power draws forth energy though the player has no core, if learning to speak the heartbeat of the world leads to the impossible - he cannot deny the truth.

He has put no power of his own into playing this night, and still Clarity has come.

He carries hope on his tongue, fragile and cautious, and draws Wei Wuxian into a kiss to share it.

Wei Wuxian studies him curiously when they draw apart, unaware of his thoughts. “What was that for?”

“Every day,” Lan Zhan tells him quietly. Every day. Their mantra that each one could be their last, that a Cultivator and a human might not out-live each other when the dangers they face come from magic and monsters and men.

Every day, each day, worth it because it’s one they’ve shared together.

The laugh lines on Wei Wuxian’s face, visible now in the golden firelight, crinkle as he smiles. “Every day,” he replies. Then he puts Chenqing in his lap to lean back on his hands, looking up at the night sky. “Ah, Lan Zhan, I’m so glad I found you in that tavern.”

“As am I, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji replies, and looks down at his guqin, begins to pluck the notes of a song that has no power but what it speaks to between them.

Forgetting envies, and every day, and I love you.

These are the words that Wei Wuxian does not put in the songs that he sings of their travels, but they find their way into the stories in due time. And they, all of them, are true.