#including for this chapter

[robininthelabyrinth]

The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 1

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

Summary: Lan Qiren still couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.

He was married.

He had a wife.

That wife was Wen Ruohan.

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A/N: Title from the idiom “The other mountain’s stone can polish jade” (他山之石，可以攻玉), meaning improving yourself through external criticism or accepting advice from others will help you overcome your shortcomings.

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Wangji was missing.

Wangji was missing, and Lan Qiren was frantic with worry. Lan Wangji had always been a solemn child, perhaps too solemn for a six-year-old, and he had always adhered firmly to routine, the way Lan Qiren did. But now he was nowhere to be found, not in his rooms, not in the classroom, not in the training yards, the Library Pavilion…he was simply gone!

Not that Lan Qiren could blame him for running away.

Not when –

Lan Qiren had to pause in his search through the corners of the Library Pavilion and close his eyes, his chest abruptly too tight for no physical reason at all.

Everything was different now.

The moment it had all changed had been viscerally seared into his brain, every single sensation so clear that Lan Qiren needed only to close his eyes to be back there at once. Had no choice but to be back there, every time he did, whether he wanted to or not. He could feel his shoulders suddenly too-tight and too-heavy, could feel his nose filled with the damp smell of dirt and death that had permeated the room, his throat choked by the stuffy heat of it, all the windows closed…

His ears ringing, his breath too fast. His entire body frozen with sudden inextricable tension.

And the blood, of course.

There had been so much blood.

Wangji had not seen the blood, at least, and for that Lan Qiren was deeply thankful. He could not even imagine his little nephew’s reaction to such a thing – not his Wangji, who had always been so rigid, so formal, so distressed when things did not happen as they should…he’d never been especially good at dealing with change. The Lan sect’s teachings counseled acceptance of change, the recognition that it was inevitable, but Wangji had always been deeply suspicious of it.

In that way, he was…a little too much like his uncle.

Change had never been good for Lan Qiren, either, not in his whole life.

His mother’s too-early death, his father’s decline, his brother’s love and his decision to abandon his duties to save his accused murderess of a wife – it was all the same, all bad, every change a change for the worse. Every time something changed, he was forced to change with it, and never into anything he wanted. He’d been so young, so painfully inexperienced and immature, when he’d been forced to start taking over sect matters, and he hadn’t wanted any of it. He hadn’t wanted to spend his time in the confusing and unpleasant marsh of politics. He hadn’t wanted to become the acting sect leader.

He certainly hadn’t wanted to be a father.

Lan Qiren loved his nephews, he did, but at the same time…no, he hadn’t wanted to be a father.

And that was what he was to them, really, though he’d never been granted the title and had been scrupulous about never doing anything to indicate he might deserve it, even when he felt inside that perhaps he might. As usual, he’d gotten all the duties and none of the benefits, and all the months he’d had of foreknowledge of his nephews’ arrival had somehow still been utterly insufficient to prepare him to take care of two small children.

He’d never wanted any of it.

Lan Qiren hadn’t wanted the years of sleepless nights, using one hand to write out sect correspondence by candlelight and the other to comfort sleeping infants that no one else could settle, that he didn’t dare entrust to anyone else for too long for fear that they would never be returned to him. He hadn’t wanted to be burdened with so much responsibility, always worrying about them, always chasing after them, always thinking of them, having to keep in mind two other schedules other than his own, always having to accommodate them. He hadn’t wanted to endure long and agonizing waits, filled with anxiety – raising children seemed like nothing but waiting, sometimes. First waiting for them to be born from a woman he barely knew, then waiting for them to fall asleep, waiting for them to heal after an illness, waiting for them to grow up…

Lan Qiren hadn’t wanted to have to figure out how to parent a child, two children, when he felt as though he were still barely old enough to figure out how to behave properly himself.

For them, Lan Qiren had had to learn to balance love and discipline, simultaneously worrying that too much kindness and laxity would hurt them in the future and that too much strictness and censure would hurt them in the present. He’d never been sure which one to pick and he had been convinced every time that he’d picked the wrong one. He’d had to try to manage the frustration and self-hatred that came with raising his two nephews, the way he constantly questioned and second-guessed himself, the guilt that came with every decision he made for them because there was no one else available to make them.

He had been constantly dogged with the feeling that he wasn’t enough.

That he could never be enough.

Lan Qiren had at one point found himself regularly waking up in the middle of the night, utterly terrified. Terrified that he was ruining these children – terrified that they would grow up and one day realize that Lan Qiren was not only inept but inadequate, and grow to resent him in the same way that he’d grown to resent his own father, in time.

Lan Qiren’s father had resented him, blaming him for his mother’s death from the complications of childbirth, and Lan Qiren had known it, known it and suffered terribly from it.

He hadn’t wanted to resent his nephews the same way.

He hadn’t – and yet he had, at least a little. How could he help it? Lan Qiren had been a young man when his brother had retreated into seclusion, now going on ten years ago, and in truth, by the standards of his sect elders, he was still a young man. But he’d grown old before his time, trapped at home by duty during the age when most young men went out to travel the world, to do good deeds and earn fame and fall in love. He’d had to give all that up in favor of the soul-crushing drudgery of politics and the day-to-day management of a sect with so many people. He’d had to give up travel in favor of security because the sect couldn’t risk their last remaining heir, give up all thought of devoting himself to something of his own choosing, give up everything in order to fritter away his youth in endless, endless work. He’d had to give up that part of life that should have been marked by independence, autonomy, and agency, a time to learn and to figure out who he was. A time of freedom.

He hadn’t had that chance.

He never would.

From the very first moment that He Kexin’s pregnancy had been disclosed to him, that had been the end of it, the extinguishing of all hope. His nephews had shackled him to the Cloud Recesses more thoroughly than even the sect leader position, and although he loved them, it was because of that love that he was so thoroughly bound in place. He’d adored them from the first moment he’d seen them, loved them more than he loved himself, but he could not say that he had wanted them.

That would be a lie, and the Lan sect rules said: Do not tell lies.

From there came the resentment, from there came the guilt.

He hadn’t wanted them.

He certainly hadn’t wanted the closest adult relationship in his life to be with He Kexin, who he did not like and did not love and who he had certainly never touched – he, who’d never even kissed anyone – and yet he had no choice, for to do anything less would be to deny his nephews access to the mother they loved or He Kexin to the sons she’d birthed. He had had no choice but to see her every month when he took his nephews to see her, and then again even more often to ask her questions or bring her something she wanted.

Lan Qiren had resented her, too, even though he pitied her for her eventual fate, which she had brought upon herself. For his nephew’s sakes he had never said a word against her, keeping silent where he couldn’t say anything good – speak meagerly for too many words bring only harm – but in his heart he could not help but blame her for his predicament, for all the dreams he’d lost, even though he tried not to. The one who was ultimately at fault for ruining Lan Qiren’s innocent dreams of freedom was his brother, not the woman he’d married, but Lan Qiren still couldn’t help thinking that it had been her actions, her decision to kill a Lan sect elder within the Cloud Recesses, that had kicked off that terrible sequence of events.

If only she had never come to the Cloud Recesses.

If only she had chosen another way, any way, to resolve whatever her troubles had been other than murdering their teacher.

If only –

If only his brother hadn’t been so mad for love!

If only they hadn’t been so selfish, both of them - his brother in marrying his love to save her life despite everything she’d done, in declaring he would enter seclusion in penance rather than carry out the duties he’d sworn to uphold…if only they had not had children together, the second time with full knowledge that the child would be given to Lan Qiren as yet another burden he’d had no choice but to accept. They’d made him a father twice over without his consent, and sometimes it bewildered him how much he resented them both for that.

When Lan Qiren was being sensible and reasonable, he knew that his brother and He Kexin hadn’t had children for the purpose of hurting him, but that didn’t make him feel better about it.

He hated her for it.

In truth, he hated him for it.

He didn’t want to admit it – do not, the Lan sect’s rules counseled, do not, do not, do not – but he did, he really, truly did. Lan Qiren hated his brother.

He hated his brother.

As a child, Lan Qiren had adored him. His brother, ten years his elder, had seemed like a giant in Lan Qiren’s eyes, and he had for the longest time disregarded the fact that his brother had always disliked him for reasons that had never wholly made sense to Lan Qiren…but no love could live one-sided forever.

Years and years of crushing duty had curdled whatever love Lan Qiren had had for his brother into disdain and disapproval, a toxic stew made up of all those endless nights of wondering why, if he could sacrifice himself, his brother couldn’t or wouldn’t do the same. All those days of labor, those pointless sessions in front of his brother’s locked door attempting to report to him about matters of the sect that he ought to have cared about and maybe did, and receiving not a single word in response, not once.

Not one single time in all those ten years.

Yes, Lan Qiren hated him.

He hated the great and powerful Qingheng-jun, the man who should have been elder brother and father both, who should have cared for Lan Qiren instead of disdaining him. He hated the man who had been the Lan sect’s prized treasure and hope for the future, once upon a time, before he’d thrown it all away for a love like disaster, a love that no one had wanted, not even his wife.

Especially his wife.

He Kexin…

There had been so much blood.

Lan Qiren had been the one to find her.

Had it really only been four days ago? Only four days, four sleepless nights, and seemingly endless hours, since Lan Qiren had gone to see He Kexin – thankfully without his nephews – to ask her some pointless question he no longer remembered, and had instead found her dead upon the floor of her beautiful prison of gentians?

This will change everything, he’d thought at that moment, staring down at her body, mute with shock. Everything.

He Kexin had been a beautiful woman, a fact that had been unchanged by age or imprisonment, but now – now her beauty had been marred, irreversibly marred. The pool of blood around her, the bloody sword at her side…

Lan Qiren had rushed over at once to try to help, not yet realizing she was dead, not yet realizing what must have happened – what she must have done to herself, since there was no one else around. In his memory, he was still there crouched above her, his fingers still pressed to her neck to seek a pulse that wasn’t there, his other hand still cupped under her nose, trying desperately to feel the warmth of her breath on his palm and finding nothing.

Ironically, between the Cloud Recesses’ strict rules on segregating male and female disciples and how young he’d been when he’d been suddenly forced to become an elder, it was probably the most bodily contact Lan Qiren had ever had with a woman. Even Cangse Sanren, who he’d known for only one brief and bright summer, had had enough propriety to avoid unasked-for contact, or at least she did if one put aside her one late-night adventure in shaving off his beard while he was asleep. It was certainly the most contact he’d had with another adult in years, he who had only his nephews and his work and basically no friends. He was surrounded by family, that was true, but he was not close to any of them. Even the cousin he’d liked most as a child, a boy by the name of Lan Yueheng, had since gone out into the world to seek his fortune, or at least to go get more of those dreadful plants he was so fond of.

(He’d written, at first, but at the time Lan Qiren had been dreadfully jealous of his freedom, so he hadn’t responded. He’d instead let himself sink into the muck and mire of sect business, drowning in it, insensate to and rejecting the rest of the world in his bitterness and resentment, and by the time he’d resurfaced and realized he really did need other people, that relationship and all the others like it had weakened, grown distant. And now he had no one at all.)

Touch had long become something Lan Qiren had grown to deeply crave but didn’t know how to ask for. A friend, a lover, even someone who only wanted his body, a thought he’d initially disliked but in the intervening years had grown more open to…he’d thought to himself that he’d welcome anything, really, as long as it could touch him. And then, in some grim parody of his life so far, instead of what he’d really wanted, he’d ended up instead with a lifeless corpse in his arms.

Change, he’d thought, trapped in that dreadful moment, this means that things will change, and he had been afraid.

Not afraid enough.

He hadn’t thought – he hadn’t realized –

No, Lan Qiren couldn’t blame Wangji for having run away in the face of all the things that had changed, all the things that had happened, all the things that were still to come. These days, Lan Qiren found himself yearning to run away as well.

But empathy aside, Wangji was still missing, Wangji still needed to be found. He was not in the Library Pavilion, not even in the Forbidden Section, and so Lan Qiren left to continue the search.

“Have you seen him?” he demanded when he saw several of the disciples he’d sent out looking for Lan Wangji returning, but they all shook their heads in the negative. “What are you doing back here, then?! There are more places to check! It is winter, cold, and Wangji is young and likely not sufficiently dressed, liable to get sick. We must find him at once. He could be anywhere –”

“Qiren.”

A feeling of icy cold ran down Lan Qiren’s spine, a match for the absolute frozen calm of that voice.

It wasn’t because of the winter weather.

He turned and saluted formally. Too formally, really, given that they were inside the Cloud Recesses, alone among family, but he wasn’t stopped or excused from doing it.

He’d known he wouldn’t be.

“Xiongzhang,” Lan Qiren said, his head bowed down and his eyes fixed firmly on the ground for as long as he could manage before propriety required he look at who he was speaking with. “I did not see that you were there.”

“And yet here I am,” his brother said. He stepped out of the shadows and into the light, the gleaming Qingheng-jun in all his majesty – he looked perfect as always, and standing there in the gently falling snow he looked like some idealized dream of ink given form in real life. Ten years of complete seclusion seemed to have taken no toll on him, and he was as tall and broad-shouldered and beautiful as he had ever been. “Where else would I be?”

Anywhere, Lan Qiren thought, and tasted the bile of his hatred on his tongue. Anywhere but here.

Back in seclusion where you belong, maybe.

When Lan Qiren had found He Kexin’s body, he had known that it meant that things would change. Foolishly, perhaps, he had thought only in terms of the impact it would have on Xichen and Wangji. He had known that it would crush them. They were good boys, loyal and filial, and they loved their mother deeply; it was for that reason that he had tortured himself visiting her so often, despite his resentment of her. He had not known how to make her loss easier for them.

Xichen was old enough to understand death, at least, but Wangji wasn’t, being only six; Lan Qiren had worried about how he would take it. Lan Qiren knew how delicate his younger nephew was, how stiff and strict…how similar to his rigid, rule-bound shufu, to Lan Qiren’s agonized mix of pride and shame. He had worried about him all the more because of that, knowing how badly he himself would have taken such a thing at that same age.

He hadn’t thought to worry about anything else.

He hadn’t thought…

It had been ten years. Ten years that Lan Qiren had borne the weight of his sect on his shoulders, alone, and only a little over nine since Xichen’s birth. Ten years since he had been summoned home from some sect business he’d been sent on because his brother was too busy being in love to do it, the note in his hand speaking only of disaster. Ten years since his brother had married his beloved lady instead of letting her stand trial for murder. Ten years since his brother had declared that he would be entering seclusion to pay for his sins in marrying her.

Sins which, as Lan Qiren belatedly discovered, his brother considered to be paid off by He Kexin’s death.

Lan Qiren had been in a daze after discovering He Kexin’s body – no matter what he felt about her, she had been a reliable constant in his life, and he hated change – and he had been worried for his nephews, putting that fear before everything else. He had mechanically gone through the expected motions, the sort of thing that would happen with any unexpected death in the Cloud Recesses: the servants with access to the house questioned, though as expected all of them had been attending to duties elsewhere at the time, arrangements made for the body to be moved until the funeral, the house cleaned, a musician appointed to play spiritual songs in honor of the deceased, all the usual. Lan Qiren had done everything he needed to do as sect leader, and everything he had needed to do as the closest adult relative of her family as well.

Well.

The closest available adult relative.

Lan Qiren hadn’t thought twice about reporting the fact of He Kexin’s passing to his brother’s door, that useless practice he had maintained less out of conviction than out of habit. He had felt…sorry, he supposed, that he had had to tell his brother that his wife was dead, that the great love he had sacrificed everything for was gone. But at the same time he hadn’t paid very much attention to it, either. It hadn’t seemed all that important at the time, not in comparison with the agony he knew awaited his nephews when he told them the same news.

Lan Qiren hadn’t thought about what it might mean – for his brother, for his sect, for his nephews.

For him.

After all, with his wife, the reason for his seclusion, dead, there was no reason for Qingheng-jun to continue abstaining from the mortal world. He had come out once more, Lan Qiren’s elder brother, and in so doing he had taken back from Lan Qiren all that was rightfully his.

His sect.

His sons.

“There is no reason to waste other people’s time searching for Wangji,” Lan Qiren’s brother said, voice flat and disinterested. “When he is finished with his temper tantrum, he will come out to face punishment for his defiance.”

Lan Qiren’s nails dug into his palms.

Defiance? He wanted to shout. How can you speak of defiance, of punishment – Wangji is six! He is too young for punishment to be a lesson! At his age, he does not yet know how to trace the connection between his actions and their consequences. He is hurting, as anyone could expect; his mother has just died! To punish him now when what he needs is comfort would be worse than pointless. He would learn nothing from it, nothing but that those who he should be able to trust are willing to hurt him.

Don’t you dare, he wanted to scream. Don’t you dare touch him, don’t you dare…

But it was Lan Qiren, now, who could not dare.

He had raised both boys from infancy himself; he had done everything for them, more than a man of his position strictly should have. He had fed them with goat’s milk when the wetnurse the sect had hired couldn’t manage, he had had changed their dirty clothing, he had tucked them into bed, given them baths, wiped away their tears. He had taught them to speak, taught them to walk, taught them the rules, taught them everything he could – but in the end he was still only their uncle, not their father. He wasn’t even their sect leader, with power enough to stop that which he thought was wrong.

He could do nothing.

Lan Qiren had always believed that he did not love power in its own right. He had always been quite proud of it, even, patting himself on the back with the knowledge that he, unlike so many of his fellow sect leaders, had never sought the position, had never loved it for the power it gave him, had never yearned greedily to increase that power and been willing to make compromises in order to do so. It was only now that all power had been stripped away from him, rendering him absolutely helpless to enact his will and leaving him only his useless words that could change nothing, that Lan Qiren realized how accustomed to power he had become.

It was only now that he realized that power was necessary not only for duty’s sake, for tradition and for the sake of his sect, but to let him protect that which he held dear.

“I do not believe Wangji intended to be defiant,” Lan Qiren said, forcing the hatred and bitterness out of his mouth and trying to sound as humble as he could manage. He was still half-bent in the salute, trapped in the posture because his brother and sect leader had not seen fit to give him leave to stand back up; the humiliation was deliberate, the insult pointed, and it burned more than he might have thought it would, if he had ever thought about it. Lan Qiren had grown too arrogant, these past few years of reporting to his brother’s locked door as if to nobody, and his brother had not forgotten nor forgiven it. “I believe he has merely been overwhelmed by all that has been happening around him and fled in order to master himself. He reacts badly to change, and always has…the failure in teaching him is mine.”

“Yes, it is,” Lan Qiren’s brother agreed, and finally waved his hand – twitched his fingers, more like – to allow Lan Qiren to straighten. “They tell me you have made yourself some reputation as a teacher while I was gone, but I must admit I haven’t seen much evidence of it.”

While I was gone, he called it, as if he’d just ducked out for a quick night-hunt or a casual visit to see friends, rather than forcefully reordered the sect for ten years, stolen away Lan Qiren’s life for ten years, while he indulged himself in his sacrificial penance. While I was gone.

Just hearing it phrased like that made Lan Qiren’s blood boil. The rules said Do not succumb to rage, but Lan Qiren’s temper had always been poor, one of his many failings.

And yet he wondered how anyone could not succumb to rage in the face of such provocation.

“I admit to my failings,” Lan Qiren said again, hoping that his self-abnegation would satisfy his brother’s apparent desire to see him torn down. His brother had never liked Lan Qiren, an ancient hatred that had grown to be mutual in time, but seclusion seemed to have sharpened it into something very near to cruelty – it had only been three days since his brother had exited his seclusion, and Lan Qiren had already accumulated enough punishments that the end of the month would see him reporting to the discipline hall to be whipped like an immature boy. He’d already been obligated to spend one long bitter night kneeling outside in the cold winter wind instead of grieving or working; his brother had even come to watch, as if he’d thought Lan Qiren couldn’t be trusted to actually follow through on the assigned discipline.

He had been smiling.

“Still, as the fault is mine, I worry that Wangji may not realize that he has erred,” Lan Qiren said carefully, trying to strike the balance that would let him protect his nephew from a punishment he did not deserve and would not think to expect. “I am certain that he would make amends if he did. If only he can be found, first…”

His brother’s face did not show any sign of yielding, and Lan Qiren’s anxiety spiked. Didn’t he understand?

“It is snowing, Xiongzhang,” he said, stressing the word. “Wangji is still very young, young enough that a fever could be very dangerous to him, and he is likely not sufficiently dressed for the weather. If he isn’t found, he could linger outside and grow ill. If we could only find him…”

“You can do as you like with your own time,” his brother said, and Lan Qiren nearly lost his breath at the sheer dismissiveness of the statement, at how little his brother seemed to appreciate all that Lan Qiren had done in his absence. As if all of Lan Qiren’s sacrifices for the sect had been merely the misbehavior of an unattended child. “But do not waste that of others.”

That was the best he was going to get, Lan Qiren realized, and gritted his teeth in suppressed anger, wondering why his brother didn’t seem to realize, didn’t seem to care, even though Wangji was his son…but such thoughts were meaningless. His brother had decided, and his brother was sect leader, his word as immovable as any of the rules on the Wall of Discipline.

There was nothing to do but accept it.

So Lan Qiren did, nodding stiffly and saluting his brother once more before he turned to go.

“Once you find my son,” Qingheng-jun said from behind him, and Lan Qiren couldn’t help but wonder if he emphasized the words my son just to remind Lan Qiren that his nephews had never truly belonged to him, “you are to return him to his rooms and then report to my rooms at you shi. It is time to discuss your future.”

Lan Qiren swallowed. “My future?”

Change again, he thought, his stomach clenching in terror. Not again –

Although Lan Qiren didn’t turn around, he could feel his brother stepping forward again, coming closer to him.

“I think you’ve done enough here, Qiren,” his brother murmured into his ear, voice low but cold. Always cold. “Don’t you?”

No.

“Don’t be late.”

Lan Qiren nodded once more, stiff now with terror rather than rage, and left as quickly as he could. It was better not to think about it, he told himself. There wasn’t time to worry about himself right now.

He had to find Wangji.

Only…he still had no idea where his nephew could have gone. The Cloud Recesses were large, and Lan Qiren was only one man; he could only cover so much ground. He’d already checked all the usual places: his rooms, Xichen’s rooms, Lan Qiren’s own rooms, the classroom, the library, the discipline hall, the places he was usually assigned to do chores, the garden he preferred to play in. Lan Qiren knew that Wangji took after him, that he was also a creature of habit, that he preferred to walk the same paths whenever he could. And yet he wasn’t in any of his favorite haunts. Where could he be?

Lan Qiren wished he could at least ask Xichen for his insight – his older nephew could read his younger brother like no one else – but Xichen would be at his lessons now, and Lan Qiren had already been instructed not to interrupt or distract him. Xichen was his brother’s eldest son, his heir, and since Lan Qiren’s teachings had already been found to be inadequate, his brother had decreed that it was necessary for him to be thrown into a punishing schedule meant to help him meet his father’s expectations. Lan Qiren hadn’t seen Xichen for nearly two days by this point, and it was probably the longest period of time they had ever spent apart while they were both in the Cloud Recesses.

He hadn’t been allowed to see him.

Lan Qiren’s brother really was treating him as if Lan Qiren were still some stupid child messing around and causing trouble for everyone, rather than a man of thirty. As if Lan Qiren hadn’t led one of the Great Sects for ten years, managing the elders and tricky internal sect strife on one hand and the complex and subtle play of intersect politics on the other, as if he weren’t the man who’d raised his brother’s children for him, who for ten years had done everything for his brother, even tended to his older brother’s own damned wife –

Wait. He Kexin. Of course.

Today was the day of the month when Lan Qiren normally took his nephews to see their mother.

Lan Qiren had explained to his nephews that they wouldn’t be going to visit her this month, or ever again. He’d tried to be kind about it, but still explicit enough to make clear what had happened.

Wangji…Wangji must not have understood.

He had cried, of course, because Xichen had cried, but he hadn’t understood. Lan Qiren had stayed with them all night, first holding them in his arms and then playing them music meant to help them sleep. At the time, he’d planned to try to slowly coax his younger nephew towards some semblance of understanding. He had meant to repeat himself several times, to explain more, to give them both books or stories that would help them understand and come to terms with what had happened, but then the next morning Qingheng-jun had come out of seclusion and everything had so very suddenly changed…

No matter. Lan Qiren hurried his steps towards He Kexin’s house, and was relieved to see a small figure crouched there in the snow in front of the closed door.

“Wangji,” he called, though there was no response. “Wangji, there you are…”

He went over to where Wangji was stubbornly kneeling, red-nosed and red-cheeked from the wind.

“I’m here to see Mother,” Lan Wangji announced before Lan Qiren could say anything. “I’m not going.”

“Wangji…”

What could Lan Qiren say?

Your mother is dead, and you should mourn her. Your father is alive, and you should mourn that, too.

You have already lost so much, and though you do not know it, you have more yet to lose. Death has already taken your mother away, and your father is going to take me away, too. He has already barred me from Xichen, and he will do the same with you, I know it. I should tell you, prepare you for it, but I can barely bring myself to believe it, so how can I explain it to you? I do not know what my brother has planned for me, nor for you both, but I know that there is nothing I can do to stop him.

I do not know how to tell you.

I do not know how to tell you that I have failed you, Wangji. You and Xichen both. That I am not strong or wise enough to defend you.

I do not know how to tell you that things are going to change, change for the worse, and I will not even be able to be there to help you with it.

I have let you down.

You are still so young, Wangji. You probably will not even remember me after a few years, except maybe to hate me for abandoning you. You will not know that I did not do it voluntarily, only that it happened. Only that I did not stop it from happening.

If only I could stop it.

If only –

But there is nothing I can do.

I am useless, I am hopeless, I am worthless, just the way my brother has always thought me to be.

I am sorry, Wangji. I am so very sorry…

“…Shufu?”

Lan Qiren tried to say something.

It probably would have been something inane like The rules say ‘Do not grieve in excess’ – but all of a sudden he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth, all of them congealing abruptly into a sob he could not suppress. And that was even worse, because once there was one, there was another, and another, and then he was kneeling next to Lan Wangji in the snow with his hands futilely cast over his face to hide his disgrace, sobbing pointlessly like the immature child his brother so obviously thought he was.

“Shufu?” Lan Wangji sounded alarmed, as well he should in the face of such a wretched display by someone who ought to be setting a good example for him. “Shufu, don’t cry! I didn’t mean to upset you – I am sorry –”

“It is not your fault,” Lan Qiren choked out. He didn’t really think it was his own fault, either, not really, since he didn’t think he’d ever done anything to earn his brother’s hatred other than being born, but he blamed himself regardless. He blamed himself for Wangji having run away, he blamed himself for He Kexin having killed herself to escape her endless solitude, and he blamed himself for not being able to do anything to stop his brother from stealing away every source of joy he’d ever managed to spare for himself.

Was this the ultimate price of his dreams, he wondered wildly, the price of his secret resentment? Lan Qiren had never wanted to be a father, never wanted to run a sect, hadn’t wanted to be He Kexin’s caretaker – well, here it was, all his stupid selfish wishes finally fulfilled.

He wasn’t any of those anymore.

He wasn’t anything, anymore. In his brother’s eyes, he was scarcely even the second son of the Lan sect.

“It is not your fault,” Lan Qiren said, tears still spilling down his face as he wept, unable to stop himself. Do not grieve in excess, the rules said, but surely this was not excess. Surely this was exactly as much grief as his stricken heart felt fit for the situation. “It is not your fault. It is important that you know that, Wangji. You must listen to me, listen to your shufu. Know that none of this is your fault.”

“Shufu –”

“Listen to me. It is not you, it is not Xichen. You must both know that. None of this is your fault, none of it will ever have been your fault. It is only that – that things have changed, Wangji. Things have changed. They are never going to go back to the way they were.”

He could feel Wangji’s small hand on his arm, patting him lightly, seeking to comfort him.

But there was no comfort to be had.

“We cannot go back to the way things were,” Lan Qiren said again. “Not for your mother –”

And not for me.

[somie]

DELTARUNE CH 4 SPOILERS !!

*looks at Ch 4*

Its all yuri...

Getting all my doodles out it might take a while

[danceintheskies]

im goinfg to throw uup

[juice-enjoyer]

i really enjoyed chapter 4...kris nation rise up

[heywriters]

Once again, you can be an English major. a seasoned journalist. an established author. a famed literary critic...and you will still scratch your head over the junk that makes it big. Public opinion has no worth. Just write what you want.

"But I don't want to share something that isn't perfect" why not? everyone else does.

[mijlen]

How it feels watching Deltarune Chapter 3 OST and "secrets" videos when you're afflicted by the horrors (spamtenna).

[ilyberrymuch]

you can also put in the tags how old you were, again im nosy lol

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 57-60)

* That was a long entry...

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[newttxt]

another comic for “utilities included” skfkskdjsjs

this time for chapter two 😅

masterpost

[snidy]

designs for additional characters who make an appearance in the oathbreaker ch.1 (written by @lesbianherald ❤️)

[asmodeusamaryllis]

[leyagrossman]

BHVR!! PLEASE MAKE A FULL LEFT 4 DEAD CHAPTER!!! The ability/perks sheet might not be the best or balanced, maybe someone can come up with the better idea for it

[mythropigman]

I haven't posted this here yet. Sorry, guys!

My baby!

[del-hayelite]

I think it's hilarious that we collectively decided the insecure TV guy should be with either a high maintenance confident baddie robot or the freaky trash Gremlin he divorced who went insane

[orphicauroras]

“Gwyn let out a high-pitched noise that was nothing but pure excitement. Azriel, on the other side of the ring with the rest of the priestesses, half turned at the sound, brows high.”

“They fell silent again as Gwyn shifted her feet, angling the blade. The wind waggled the ribbon again, as if taunting her

Cassian glanced over at Az, but his attention was fixed on the young priestess, admiration and quiet encouragement shining from his face.”

“Gwyn asked Az, her teal eyes bright, “What do we get if we finish the course?”

Az’s shadows danced around him. “Since there’s no chance in hell any of you will finish the course, we didn’t bother to get a prize.””

“Gwyn threw Azriel a withering stare as she strode past him. “See you tomorrow, Shadowsinger,” she tossed over a shoulder.

Az stared after her, brows high with amusement. When he turned back, Nesta grinned. “You have no idea what you just started,” she said. Az angled his head, hazel eyes narrowing as Gwyn reached the archway. ”

“There are plenty of other unspeakable things that could be happening to her,” Cassian said, voice thickening. “To Emerie and Gwyn.”

The shadows deepened around Azriel, his Siphons gleaming like cobalt fire. “You—we—trained them well, Cassian. Trust in that. It’s all we can do.””

[choccy-milky]

chap 2 of flames and fairies is out!!

i made a post about it before, but its an AU of my fic written by beekaybee in the pokemon universe🥹 and i had to draw this scene bc its my fav LMAO, i love the idea of clora's dad lecturing this cute little pokemon to keep her safe BAHAH💖😭

also to this anon I AGREE!! ITS ONLY GETTING BETTER!! so go show some love to beekaybee on ao3 if you have time as well!!🙏💖💖nothing motivates someone to write like comments!😤