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Chapter Text

The QishanWen sect had been bragging. Rumors spiraled from the lips of even their lowest cultivators, even the dregs and hangers-on of the sect.

‘Wen Ruohan caught a god.’

‘Wen Ruohan brought down an immortal and trapped them in Nevernight.’

‘The Heavens didn’t punish him for it.’

The great sects ignored it for the most part. It was a laughable idea, that the Wen, strong as they were, clever as they were, could steal away one of the ascended.

They should have listened.

-

It started like this.

YunmengJiang had two heirs, two children, two inheritors to its name and fame. A brother and a sister, both skilled in cultivation and in the 4 Arts, both strong and brave and everything their parents could have ever wanted them to be. The halls are filled with laughter and joy and the bickering of friends and everything is perfect.

Right?

If one was to ask any disciple, they would say so. If one were to ask either of the heirs, they would say so. If one asked the sect leaders, they too would say as such.

If one were to get the lesser heir, Jiang Wanyin drunk, however…

A truly improbable thing.

He would say that there was always something missing. Like a hole you can’t see in your clothing, but that catches the breeze and let cold air through. Like a split in the wood of your boat that cannot be found until you’re sunk and well gone.

If one were to try getting the Heir Apparent drunk, may the heavens guide your soul. 

Both would agree, separately, under conditions of inebriation or extreme relaxation, that there was something gone. Not something that had never been there, but something that should be, had been, and now wasn’t.

But there was a shrine, hidden away in the depths of the main hall, that would be ever shining and clean, come hell or high water

-

It also started like this.

Gusu Lan had ever been a quiet sect. A strict, erudite, and exacting place to learn and grow. They had ever only one Heir, Lan Xichen. The Purest Jade of Gusu. He was everything his Uncle could ever have wanted him to be, graceful, strong, charismatic, kind.

Everything in the Cloud Recess was clean and righteous, shining and heroic.

Ask anyone, they would tell you so.

Ask anyone of the disciples and they would tell you so.

Ask any of the elders, and face the prospect of writing down the 3000 rules while doing a handstand.

Ask the Purest White Jade, first among cultivators, peerless among even his own family-

Ask Lan Xichen what was wrong and he would tell you. It was like a missed string on the guqin, a filled-in hole of a flute. There was something missing. Something gone.

There was a thread, pulled from the tapestry of his life, not enough to make it fully unwind but-

But there was a shrine, deep in the corners of the main quarters, that never gathered dust.

-

It went like this.

Once, there were two young gods.

They were in love. 

They are in love.

They would forever, be in love.

The end.

-

It all came down.

One day, Wei WuXian, the Patron God of YunmengJiang, Patron of Musical Cultivation, went a-walking. He left his flute, his sword, and his fan, and he took to the material world to see everything it had to offer. Far from the borders of his domain, with no surviving icons left to him, there was no one left alive who would recognize him for what he truly was.

He wore the shadows like a cloak, wove the outer layers of fire and starlight. And walked right into the hands of Wen Ruohan.

There had been a trap, laid at the root of a mountain. An old trap, left from the year of War, when gods walked as cultivators and fought as such and took sides.

That time was long gone.

Wei WuXian had yet to ascend during that time, and so did not recognize the formation, even as it glowed a sickly green under his feet.

He was well and truly trapped. The power leached into his bones, forming a heavenly shackle around his neck, a chain that he could not touch, not move, that only obeyed the will of the Wen Sect Leader. A muzzle, so that he could not call up to the heavens, to warn them, to beg-

Lan Zhan!

-

Lan Wangji had ever been the Patron God of Gusu Lan. He watched it form, watched it grow, year after year, generation after generation.

One day, Lan Wangji, Patron God of Gusu Lan, Patron God of Sword Based Cultivation, went a-walking.

Well, a-running. Chasing?

The starlight of his love had winked out. Unlike Wei WuXian however, he could not leave. He could not go past the very edges of his territory, so tightly were the ribbons of duty bound around him. He could not leave, he could not help. Until-

Great Ancestor, we go to war. Bless our blades, guide our hearts. Please,

Help us.

The materialization of a god was rare. Was draining, on both the summoner and the summoned, but Lan Wangji saw his chance and seized it with both hands. The young disciple kneeling before his altar, the heir to Gusu, had more propriety than most and politely refrained from screaming. Lan Xichen bowed, forehead almost to the stainless ground.

“Revered Immortal, how may this humble one assist?”

Lan Wangji had a face like ice, like jade. Expressionless, yet if Wei WuXian had been there, he would have said his Lan Zhan was smiling.

“Who do you oppose,” The god asked, “what is their crime.”

“The QishanWen sect. They have killed our people, my-” Lan Xichen swallowed back the tears. “My friends. They are set on ruling over both Heaven and Earth and it is said…”

Lan Wangji waited.

“It is said,” said Lan Xichen, “That they have captured a god. The Patron God of Musical Cultivation. I would set him free.”

Chapter Text

Everyone was whispering, saying ‘Gusu Lan has called down their patron.’

‘The Lan Sect begged Heaven and it answered.’

‘He wants nothing but Wen Ruohan’s head.’

Qishan Wen did not listen. 

They should have. 

-

There is a god on the frontlines of this war. Nie Mingjue has seen him, striding through the grime and blood like it was water. Or flowers. 

The eldest and youngest of the Lan alike bow to him as he passes, he is Hanguang-Jun, the light bringer. 

“Fight me,” Nie Mingjue demands in a week of lull between conflicts.

Sect Leader as he is, renowned as he is, praised as he is, he is not strong enough. 

This, he knows. He understands. 

Nie Mingjue learns this again, and more as he spits out the mud and blood from his mouth. 

There are things in this world he can’t protect. 

“Fight me,” he begs as the chill of winter sets fully in his bones, Qinghe borne and warmed only by rage. 

Sometimes, rage is not the way. 

This, he learns as well and his cuts and bruises are tended to by the only person he can afford to let close, knowing and safe in knowing that they can and will put him down if he becomes a threat to what he loves. 

There is no need for spies in this war, driven as it was by a divine fury and Meng Yao now rarely leaves his side.

Nie Mingjue has never been so grateful. 

(The Purest Jade of Lan watches from afar and something warm, the smallest of candles is burning in his heart)

“Tell me,” Nie Mingjue asks in the dead of night, the only things awake, a god and the Venerated Triad. The four of them sit around a dying fire. 

“I was asked,” says the god. He pauses, bracing himself as if the next words could destroy everything saved. “They took something from me. Cannot be replaced.”

Lan Xichen turns to face the ones who do not know.

“Have you heard the rumors,” Lan Xichen says. 

“They say Wen Ruohan has captured a god.”

“They say Wen Ruohan plans to burn Lotus Pier to the ground.”

These two things are related

-

There is a god in Yunmeng. Jiang Yanli has seen him, walking the piers as if for something lost, and...

And.

And there’s a voice in the back of her head, the same one that tells her to make pork ribs and lotus seed stew, the same one that insists on dusting the abandoned shrine and leaving offerings on the quarter moon. 

It tells her what he’s looking for. 

“The shrine is in the main hall,” she says, nearly stifled under the weight of his gaze.

His hands are shaking, she notes. Ditching propriety, she takes the edge of his sleeve in her own hand and leads Hanguang-Jun inside. 

Her mother would threaten insist on a sparring match if she saw her heir in such a situation. 

But this takes priority. 

The shrine is an open secret on Lotus Pier, their patron a laughing god and a wanderer. Mother had never approved but Jiang Yanli has taken to leaving fresh lotus seeds whenever they were in season. 

Mother said if Yunmeng Laozu was so set on traveling the world like some common mortal he could damn well get them himself. 

The echoes of laughter didn’t leave the halls for weeks after. 

But now the halls are silent. They have been since this war started and she can help but think. 

“Wei Ying’s,” the god she still holds by the sleeve says. There is a world of longing buried in those 2 words and she looks at what he sees. 

“His flute,” she agrees. “His sword and fan are behind the altar. 

She kneels. Bows. Places the blossom she picked along the way next to the burner.

He’s here. She prays as loud as she dares. He’s coming to save you. 

He heard you. 

-

There is a god on his roof, Jiang Wanyin thinks hysterically. The Wens are coming to burn Lotus Pier, reinforcements are 3 days out, Yunmeng Laozu is missing and the Patron of Gusu Lan is sitting on his roof with a jar of wine dangling from loose fingers. 

His only saving grace is the wax-covered stopper, unbroken. 

Hanguang-Jun notices him looking and disappears the jar in a showy display of qiankun space. 

“They are coming,” the god says. 

“Yes,” Jiang Wanyin replies intelligently. 

The god huffs, a shocking show of emotion.  “Will face them,” he declares. 

Jiang Wanyin can only watch as Hanguang-Jun descends. Can only watch as the sword of legends is unsheathed. 

Can only see, in the depths of what should be unreadable eyes, an ice-cold fury blooming.

“For Wei Wuxian,” he breathes, a revelation, the name sacred on his tongue. 

“For Wei Ying.”

-

Wen Chao is dead.

Lotus Pier is never conquered

A ribbon, bright red and silk, lies waiting on an altar in the depths.

-

War makes beasts of men. 

So it is said. 

But what of the women?

Wen Qing has never believed that saying. Men make beasts of men. Men make beasts of war. War makes men of gods. 

There is a god hiding in her closet. Without the muzzle, she would be certain that he was pouting but as it was, the only thing she could tell from were his eyes, glowing red and guileless as ever.

“He’ll come looking here eventually,” she tells him. 

“You aren’t very good at hiding,” she tells him.

If she could see it, she would know that he was smiling. Wen Qing shuts the door and continues with her research.

Hours later, when the candles have burnt down to stubs and the sun is well and truly gone from the sky, Wen Ruohan walks into her office.

She will not lie to him.

“Is my little god here,” he asks, voice sickeningly sweet. Desperate, something makes her think.

She will not lie to him.

“No,” Wen Qing says.

It is not a lie.

“I haven’t seen him tonight,” she says.

This is also not a lie.

Wen Ruohan’s god burns in the sky, crosses the heavens each day and vanishes as the stars come out.

Wen Ruohan’s god blesses the world with light, life, and warmth.

Wen Ruohan’s god is the god of Nevernight.

The diminished, flighty, dancing man hiding in her closet is not his. 

Wen Ruohan’s eyes narrow. Not in suspicion, because if it was suspicion she would already be dead. Something else. He is gone before she can begin to decipher the look on his face.

An hour passes.

“You can come out now,” she announces to the empty room.

He never does

This is the tenth time he has hidden here, the tenth time he has placed his wellbeing in her hands. It will not be the last.

-

Wen Ning is not a brave man. He is not proud, not headstrong, he does not burn with the same fire as his sister or his mother.

He is his father’s son.

He is the son of open skies and endless winds, the winding plains and sharp rocks.

Wen Ning is the son of a god.

He knows divinity when he sees it and the man hiding under his bed has more power in his little finger than his father had in his entire body.

The god hiding under his bed is brand new, mere centuries old and leaching wild energy from the world like the divine child he is.

Soon he will have enough to swallow the sun and the city will bloom again.

Wen Ning knows that there is too much wild energy, too much resentment, too much hate and the qi it generates poisons the groundwater of Nevernight.

Wen Ning knows that Sect Leader has made his final mistake, that he panicked finding a trapped god and started the chain of events leading to his own destruction.

Wen Ning knows many things he shouldn’t.

“Wei-Laozu,” he begins, because it is always a good idea to be polite.

“Wei-Laozu, please get out from under my bed.”

“Wei-Laozu, I’m sure sitting at the table would be more comfortable, rather than on top of it.”

“Wei-Laozu, please stop bringing me birds, I don’t know what to do with them.”

“Wei-Laozu please do not come in through the window!”

-

The gold of Koi Tower pales before the man who stands in the reception hall, as if not daring to try to outshine him. Hanguang-Jun has come to ask why Lanlingjin has not contributed to the war effort.

Jin Guangshan has never been more afraid.

Chapter Text

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong in Nevernight. There are flowers, weeds, growing between unseen cracks of floorboards and cobblestone. 

Some of the more enterprising citizens have started keeping window boxes.

Some of the more superstitious citizens start remembering new gods.

Wen Qing laughs. Shuts the doors, sticks silencing talismans to the doors; Laughs and laughs and laughs. Wen Ning laughs with her.

The sun is setting now, on the city barren of stars.

The Sunshot Campaign continues.

-

Meng Yao has not slept well in years. Ever, maybe. Since before his mother sickened, since before he learned the other half of his family tree and it turned out that he was the son of 2 whores, one of choice, one of need. It was like the cycle of karma was laughing at him.

Regardless, a sect leader is sect leader and he thought if he just proved himself, presented himself as someone worthy, worth something-

“He will never love you as a son.”

There is a god standing by the fire, by his bedroll and Meng Yao has never wanted to talk to anyone less. Had wanted to make his own way, without divine words or being told of fate. He doesn’t look up.

Fabric rustles. A hand, cold, gentle in all things but battle, turns his face upward. A distinctly human expression spirits across the Light-bearer’s face, but it’s gone before he can interpret it.

“Jin Guangshan, if you seek him out, will tear you apart. He will use you until there is nothing left to be gained and then, he will forget you,” The god states, as sure as the turn of seasons.

The chill of dusk settles in Meng Yao’s bones. The sun is going down, and the winding wind punctuates the surety of Hanguang-Jun.

He isn’t crying.

He isn’t.

But it isn’t fair. He had worked so hard, had choked on, choked down his pride so many times, done the best he could, done better than anyone else and no one saw.

No one cared.

“Go back to sleep.” The hand releases him. He settles back against the ground fighting back the burn crawling up his throat. A sigh, and Meng Yao is lifted to his feet in complete opposition of what he was just told to do and he thinks, what game is being played now, what would he want from me but Hanguang-Jun just shoves him away from the fire. “Go back to A-Huan, Meng Yao. Go back to your sworn.”

Lan Xichen’s tent (the one he shared with Nie Mingjue since they bowed, since they vowed- ) is ten meters away. Ten agonizing meters but he goes, the weight of divine eyes driving him forward. Or so he tells himself.

Later in the night, the wind howls, the fire roars, and Meng Yao cries a decade worth of tears born of frustration and pain, cries under the cover of darkness and pure white sleeves. Cries under the shelter of a dark green dyed robe, three sizes too big.

No one talks about it, but Mang Yao’s bedroll mysteriously vanishes and never again does he sleep alone near the fire.

-

Lan Xichen has never been so thankful. So relieved that for once in his life, he broke the rules, went where he shouldn’t. And it was the right thing to do. His first and only act of rebellion and he has saved hundreds of lives, has changed the face of the war.

Now there is a god walking among them, his god, the Lan Patron, the Martial god of Gusu, and forbidden pride swirls gently in his chest. He is young, this he knows. He is young and knows little about the world but this is his doing. 

Meng Yao, precious, hardworking Meng Yao tells him he earned the right to feel that pride. That he did what others would not, humbled himself as others did not, spilled blood to altar as others refused to, summoned a god and asked him to help as others couldn’t.

Nie Mingjue laughs at him, laughs at this little Lan, so torn up inside. Nie Mingjue laughs and tells him he did the right thing.

Lan Xichen holds his sworn close in the deep of night and sleeps like the dead for the first time since the start of the war.

-

Nie Mingjue didn’t know what to think of Meng Yao when he first saw him, eating alone under the trees. He still doesn’t.

Meng Yao is not a warrior. He wields no saber, commands no troops. Nie Mingjue thought this a failing at first.

Even so, he saw the potential for more, better, saw some of it, and bound them together. To ensure they would stay together, the three of them, to see what would bloom.

Meng Yao is not a warrior. 

He is a weaver of threads, as Lan Xichen is of song.

They make a perfect triangle, and Nie Mingjue watches over his sworn, draped in his colors, his Qinghe green, and wants for nothing.

-

Jin Guangshan can be a smart person, for all his fluttering, whoring, and, well, general incompetence. 

He knew the danger that had stood before him, if only because of ancient stories. 

There had been a god in Koi Tower and Jin Guangshan had no excuses for him.

There had been a god in Koi Tower and Jin Guangshan had no answers for him that would not have gotten him immediately killed.

Jin Guangshan can, occasionally, be a smart person.

Lanling Jin deploys under the watchful eyes of Madam Jin, soon to be Sect Leader Jin if she has anything to say about it and Jin Guangshan goes into seclusion and does not come out for the rest of the war.

-

Months later, a letter finds it’s way to Lotus Pier carrying the peony of Lanling Jin. It is an unorthodox offer of marriage, with allowances for two shared, male, concubines.

Yu Ziyuan looks to her husband, her lovely, stupid husband who was barely able to tell her how he feels, had to almost die before he found the right words to say, to convince her he married for love and thinks to herself, why not. Why not hold everything she loves. Why not keep hold of the new and welcome the old.

Why not indeed.

Purple and Gold go well together after all.

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian ascended from humble beginnings. He was the son of a servant, son of a rogue, of the first demonic cultivator. Cangse Sanren was reviled, hated. 

Her son has been anything but. 

Wei Wuxian came from humble beginnings, dishonorable roots. He has never cared about that. He sang, he danced. He played the dizi, the guqin and the erhu. He wrote, he laughed. 

He loved a quiet man, sword-sharp and cutting. He loved the son of the regional lord like fish love water, like breathing and drowning all at once. 

They ascend together, two wholes that fit together perfectly. Each complete. Each more than the sum of their parts. 

He makes the mistake of letting go once and is torn away. 

Never again. 

-

Lan Wangji was the grand-uncle of Lan An, not that he would know it for years to come. 

He was the son of a regional lord, was scholarlike and well versed in bladework, was a perfect gentleman. Cultivation came easy to him, armed him with lists of rules that settled the world, outlined how he should behave in any situation with little ambiguity. 

And then. 

Lan Wangji fell in love with the son of a servant. Lan Wangji fell in love with a man like fire, and like so many Lans after him, burned the shape and name of that man into his heart. The courtship was long, spanning years and decades and everyone agreed that they made a most harmonious couple. 

They ascended together, hand in hand bearing the tribulation lighting together, rising into the clouds on sparking gold Qi together. 

And they loved and they loved and they loved. 

And Lan Wangji made the mistake of letting go, for a fraction of a lifetime and Wei Wuxian was ripped from him.

Never again. 

-

Nie Huaisang knows very little about the war. Not that he wants to! That kind of thing is best left to his brother, he is far too busy managing Qinghe to deal with all…

That.

But the war comes to him anyway and there is a Wen crow on his windowsill with a letter addressed to him. 

He nearly faints.

Little Nie, the scroll reads.

Little Nie, the sun is setting. The sun is going down in the west and the rivers rise to meet it. 

The clouds cover the skies of Nevernight and blot out the stars. Have you heard the Lotus god sing? Have you heard the voice of the Storm-bearing-light? 

Little Nie, it says, all is well. Fire, no matter the source, will always be put out in the end. 

Nie Huaisang nearly faints and it is from relief. The letter is as cryptic as usual and there is never a signature, but he knows who it is from. The purple ribbon, the stylized dizi border, all markers he has long since learned mean ‘truth’. The war will end soon, and it will end all because of a rumor that has spread, from mouth to mouth, from Yunmeng to Gusu to Qinghe. 

It may have started on Wen tongues but rumors from a single source often die fast and no one believes anything the Wens say nowadays so Nie Huaisang has spread his own rumor. On behalf of the Lotus God, he whispered in the ear of the people.

‘Haven’t you heard? Wen Ruohan is trying to court a god.’

No one knows which came first, but at least one of them has to be true, right?

-

Wen Ning is a patient man. He knows when to watch from the shadows, when to stay silent. Most importantly, he knows when to speak.

“Sect Leader,” He says, barring the entrance to his room for what seems like the hundredth time.

“Sect Leader,” He says, proud of the firmness in his tone, “I don’t know where he is.”

But it doesn’t always work.

Today, Wen Ruohan lounges on his oversized metal throne with a bound god at his feet. Immortal Binding cable, uncommon if not rare, wraps Wei-Laozu up into a pretty little present. Powerless.

The god doesn’t seem to mind, seems almost bored. Powerless or not, there is very little that can harm him. Bound or not, there was very little that could be done to him. Wen Ruohan coos to him, honey dripped words meant to seduce, to sway. Calls him dear, calls him powerful, makes promises and promises and promises.

Wen Ning stands in the shadows to hide his face and fights laughter because there is nothing that Sect Leader Wen has that this young god will ever want. Not even the most precious Yin metal and Wei-Laozu outright snubs the man when it’s offered, turning away with a huff like a spoiled princess. It is the funniest thing that’s happened in Nevernight in a long time and the whole Main Family is there to see it. Those that are still alive that is.

-

Jiang Yanli, born as a child of the lake, loves to watch the skies. To see the clouds, the stars, and the birds fly by.

She can’t say that this is a first but is certainly surprising to find one watching back. A crow sits on the railing outside her window. It laughs at her. She laughs with it.

There is a letter attached to its leg, address to her.

Lotus Bride, it says and she smiles, knowing who it is from. Her dearest fiend, her contact in Nevernight, the fearsome physician.

Oh Lotus Bride, the winds are blowing due west. It won’t be long now.

Wait for me?

Jiang Yanli makes her reply, a yes, always yes, and send the bird winging back Wen Qing. She would wait until they were both old and gray if necessary.

Once, such sentiment belonged to Jin Zixuan, and some nights she still feels the ache of lost love, but he had not loved her back. Could not, as he had confessed sometime after the incident in Gusu. She learned no more before he chickened out and ran away and so she was left with the simple facts. His heart, for whatever reason, would never be hers.

And then the war. And then a letter had arrived, bearing first the seal of Yunmeng Laozu, openable by only his choosing and then-

Lotus Bride, in perfect calligraphy.

Lotus Bride, how do you get this idiot to stop playing the guqin in the dead of night. Sleep is important and a rare commodity with him around.

Too bad Hanguang-Jun had left by that time or she would have told him the news, but she sent a prayer just in case. 

Soon, Wen Qing had said. Soon the war would be over. Soon, A-Cheng and Mother would come home. The halls were quiet, with just Father and her there and whomever of the disciples were injured enough to return. Peaceful, but she missed the noise sometimes.

-

This war is almost over.

Yu Ziyuan sits in her tent, polishing a dagger, sharpening it over and over into uselessness. The only weapon she has ever needed rest on her finger. A-Cheng sits with her, opposite the table and attends to his sword. There is a stillness to the air.

This war is almost over.

There is time now, for truths. This far away from Lotus Pier, from the memory of Jiang Fengmian throwing himself on a sword for her, surviving the endeavor and yet. This far away from the roiling storm of emotions she cannot yet deal with. This far away, and now, perhaps, she can tell him.

“I never wanted to marry.”

If the air was still before, now it is boiling. Yu Ziyuan stops. Chooses her words carefully because anything she says now will be burned into A-Cheng’s mind forever.

“I did not love Jiang Fengmian, in the beginning,” she says.

“I could have chosen any man, A-Cheng, but I had to choose,” she says.

“Your father,” She says, “Is incomparably bad at communicating his feelings.”

The rasp and hiss of the whetstone is the only sound for long moments.

A-Cheng hesitates. Opens his mouth, “Do you love him now?” He asks. The silly boy that he is, missing the whole point of what she was trying to tell him. But-

“I think,” She says quietly, “I am starting to.”

-

Jiang Wanyin has known for many years that her parents do not love each other. He wasn’t even sure if they loved him, or Yanli for that matter up until the failed invasion. But sitting here, on the edges of the front line with Madam Yu-

With Mother, he is sure. It’s just that the Jiang line is cursed or something with, as Yunmeng Laozu had once said, foot-in-mouth disease.

-

Lan Qiren does not know how to deal with this. He is wise, yes, a teacher, an elder, people look up to him. But there is a god sitting across from him, being served tea by his precious nephew.

“You have questions,” Hanguang-Jun prompts. 

There is a knot in his throat. 

‘Yes,” Lan Qiren says, “Yes, about what you mean to do, after the war. And why you answered A-Huan’s summons.”

The god looks at the tea. He drinks the tea.

“Surely the Heavens would not allow you to meddle in material affairs,” Lan Qiren says.

“Will there not be a punishment?” Lan Qiren askes, the picture of a dignified sect leader and so incredibly nervous.

Hanguang-Jun looks at the tea. He drinks the tea.

The teacup is placed back onto the saucer with a decisive click. Finally, the god says.

“For Wei Ying, would take a thousand tribulation bolts.”

“But,” He says, the shadow of a smile on his lips, “They would not dare.”

The matter is put to rest

Permanently. 

Chapter Text

The metal of the Iron Throne is cool under Wei Wuxian’s cheek and he leans into it, sighing. It soothes the throbbing red of Wen Ruohan’s latest temper tantrum and he finds himself nodding off.

Ten months.

It has been ten months since he last saw Lan Zhan. Last held his hand. Last gazed into his eyes.

Wei Wuxian, god that he is, doesn’t cry. But its a close thing.

Nevernight was a dead city when he first tripped over the great gate. Dead, barren, lifeless and scared. It hurts, to be within its walls, burns a little closer each day and he can feel the heat creeping closer with each day. 

The whole area is sick with resentment, with pain and energy and he gorges himself on it, drags the tainted Qi up and through his core, purifying it.

It tastes disgusting.

He is more powerful than he has ever been, brimming with force and divine purpose and he has never been so helpless. So caged.

A whisper on the breeze catches him. A voice he remembers. The message is old, bound as he is he could not hear it before. Now he is burning with power and.

He heard you, it says.

He’s coming.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t cry, but it's a near thing.

-

There is a meeting. Informal, held on the bloody ground of their latest victory of three years of war. Everyone knows the war is going well. It is night, and those with standing sit around a scavenged table and drink. And talk.

“All Wen dogs should be exterminated!” 

“Make them work for us.”

“Brand them!”

A quiet click of cup to saucer silences them, Sect Leaders and foot soldiers alike. Hanguang-Jun has something to say.

He turns to the first speaker, Su She once of Gusu Lan.

“Will you kill the old.”

“The civilians?”

Su She shifts uncomfortably.

“Even children.”

“Of course!” Su She blusters. “Any of them could have the potent-”

The rough wooden table shatters. There is a noise like tearing silk and he has said the wrong thing for the last time.

His friends urge him away from the meeting and new blood mixes with the old and the mud.

Hanguang-Jun resumes his seat. Someone hands him a new cup. It is not tea.

“Before anything,” The god lectures, “the campaign must be won.”

“Wen Ruohan must die.”

Hanguang-Jun looks at the drink. He drinks the drink.

Nie Mingjue leans forward, an earnest look in his eyes. “What will you do?” He asks, bracketed by his sworn. All are eager to hear this plan. Everyone looks to the god.

The face gives away nothing to no one but to Meng Yao, who has spent his entire life learning to read people, there is a viciousness to the slant of his mouth. There is a new looseness to his features.

“I,” The god says, just on this side of drunk, “am going to…”

He pauses, seemingly unmoved by the new inhibitions surging through him. 

“Wei Ying,” He declares. 

A beautiful chance blooms before Meng Yao and he thanks everything that Nie Huaisang sends so many letters to his brother. Letters about home, about defenses, about the weather. Letters about rumors.

He knows what love looks like now, know what possessiveness can be. Knows jealousy. 

And knows exactly how to use them. 

“The Yunmeng Laozu?” He asks.

“Wei Ying.”

“Hanguang-Jun,” Meng Yao says.

“Haven’t you heard?” He says. 

“Wen Ruohan is courting a god,” He whispers, safe and knowing what will come next.

The crater left of that barren plain will become legend and Meng Yao smiles, dimples and all as he is blown back into the arms of Lan Xichen by the eruption of Qi. The ground buckles. Lightning forks across the sky.

This war will soon be over, three years after it began.

-

There is a delicate balance between boredom and chaos in the nightless city. Wen Qing walks the knifes edge again today and opens the door to a bundle of papers held by the resident god. Bound booklet of research and the newest letters slipped into the city by undead crows with red-gold eyes.

Wen Qing takes the packet and Wei Wuxian melts into the shadows under her writing table.

Living here is changing him, slowly but surely.

When he first came here he was washed out. Pale in pastels. Tired. He had used up so much of himself trying to get free of the array that there was barely any left. She barely saw him again for the first 4 months but by the time that A-Ning found him hiding under the bed, he was flourishing.

Now he sinks into the wall of Nevernight like he was born here, like he was a part of the city as much as it is a part of him.

He burns with color now, flushes come and go with ease. He is vibrant, present, divine.

And absolutely miserable.

He hides it well, hides in the collar of his black-red robes and behind the gray bandages of the muzzle but he is devastatingly miserable, locked up like a songbird in a pretty pretty cage.

It doesn’t suit him in the least.

She sits at the table and pours over the research first. It is advanced surgery theories, golden core transfers, ruminations on the Nie Qi deviation problem, everything she asked him to prepare because Wei Wuxian might be the Patron of Yunmeng, might be a Musical cultivator but she knows where he came from and she knows he was the first musical cultivator and before all else he was an inventer.

It had taken her only a month to find his legend in the forgotten stacks of Nevernight. Far in the back, unattended and covered in dust, where even Wen Ruohan would not look for it.

And so she was the first person to know exactly who will be coming for him.

One month after Wei Wuxian’s arrival, two months after his capture Wen Qing was the first person to know Qishan Wen had lost the war before it had even truly started.

Now, 2 years into the war, she reads the brilliant leaps a divine god can make and passes lotus seeds to shadow hands under the table.

The new routine of her life is completely insane but-

This war will end soon.

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian was a Musician, first and foremost.

One of his favorite places to play was the Lotus poetry hall. Scholars would come and go, some would turn their noses up at him. All would stay for at least a song. All would come back.

He played for fun, for money and on request of the old granny who ran the place with an iron fist. 

The first time she tried to pay him, he refused. 

After the week it took the bruises to go down, he accepted half and learned how to sneak into her office to replace the rest in the vault.

So he sat just off stage, behind curtains or in the open and he played his heart out. There was no instrument he could not use and some he created himself to fill the holes in the lineup. The guqin was one of his favorites but the dizi was his . What he created with his own two hands. 

The first one.

He earned a living working there, and the poetry house flourished. People came from far and wide simply to listen, to drink the tea and relax. 

One day, the son of the regional lord came to the Lotus.

One day Lan Wangji came to listen. 

And even when he left for the day, his heart stayed. 

One day turned to two, to a week, a month. He learned the guqin, sitting side by side with Wei Wuxian and composed his very own song. 

One month turned to two and every time he left he would return. 

It was one year before they confessed to each other. 

Two years before they began officially courting with his father’s permission. 

Five years before they married with bands of black jadeite on their fingers. 

Ten years after meeting, they ascend together. Always together. 

Heaven’s golden halls welcomed them with open arms.

-

There is a young god playing with her grandson in the courtyard. A-Yuan is laughing like he hasn’t in years and she can’t quite find it in herself to be wary of the god who sits with him. 

She remembers this divine child. Wei Wuxian, from Lotus hall. 

Lotus hall was hers once. Once it was her shrine. 

But that was a long time ago

Wei-Laozu’s eyes burn red in the dusk and she sees the wrinkles around his eyes, the smile lines and the quirk of his eyebrow and there is a young man, not even twenty years of age sitting in her courtyard, playing hide and seek. She remembers him. 

Granny is old, old enough to have seen so much of the world and what she has seen resonates in her bones. Granny Wen is old, so old that no one knows her name anymore, no one knows where to look for it.

Granny is old. And she has been old for a very long time.

She knows so much, and she passes on what she knows to A-Ning, to Wen Qing, and A-Yuan. Little A-Yuan, not even old enough to learn to cultivated but already bursting to the seams with divine light.

Granny has been granny for hundreds of years, was granny before she was Wen and has no intention of stopping now. Her children grow and grow and bring their children back to her, and one more finding his own way back into her family will not be a problem.

She hums from her place in the old rocker and stitches a new line in the family tree, reinforcing the faded text from oh so long ago. Adding a branch to the spiraling chaos of her tapestry.  

Wei Ying

Courtesy: Wei Wuxian

Sone of Cangse Sanren

Sone of Wei Changze

Childe of Granny Wen

Husband of Lan Wangji

Lan Zhan

Courtesy: Lan Wangji

Sone of Lan Meifang

Sone of Lan Qiung

Childe of Granny Wen

Husband of Wei Wuxian

Wen Yuan

Courtesy: L̷̛̘͚̹̰̝a͈̞͕̦͇̘̦̙n͙̫͍̤͔̯͞ ̷̫̞̬̞̤͓̮͝S̴͉͕̝͈̗͓͉̜͝i̵͇̩̹̙͟z̻̬̲͖̗͉͔͙̥͡h̡̟̪͕̖͓̳͝ͅu̷̴͈̻̻i͔̼͍̪͙̺̣͚͘

Sone of Wei Wuxian

Sone of Lan Wangji

GrandSone of Granny Wen

She stitches each word in blood-red thread, piecing together the edges between known and unknown. A-Yuan’s courtesy name is not a surprise to her, for as she delicately picks it out on a background of gray, she has always known it.

Granny Wen is the First, from before sects, before cultivation and gods and people.

Granny Wen is old and her children are legion. She cares for nothing else.

-

Wei-Laozu is playing again. The chains make it so he cannot use his powers to directly or indirectly harm anyone with even a drop of Wen blood so the chords that hover in the air are toothless and benign and beautiful.

His hands sweep across the strings of the hastily constructed guqin and say what he cannot. 

The array that trapped him was a sadistic favorite of the mortal army, during the Year of War between heaven and earth. It is a slave binding, tethering the deity to a bloodline but allowing access to the most basic of their powers. 

To put it simply, Wei-Laozu can not disobey a spoken order from Sect Leader Wen. 

In old times it was used to set god against god, family against family.

Wen Ning hates it like he hates nothing else. 

Hates the muzzle that digs into Wei-Laozu’s cheeks and leaves them bleeding. 

Hates the shriek of chains manacled to his ankles. 

Hates the misery in Wei-Laozu’s eyes when he is sure no one is looking. 

Wen Ning is always looking. 

He has many eyes, far more than mortally acceptable and so Wen Ning knows many things. 

He does not yet know how to be the breaker-of-chains. 

He will. 

-

Lan Wangji is not a patient man. He is uncompromising and ruthless. He is harsh. 

This, he knows. 

Wei Ying brought out the best in him, from the first day they met under the purple curtains of Lotus hall. 

Now he fears he is backsliding, inexorably being drawn back to where he started.  Every day without Wei Ying is a year. Every moment without him, a lifetime and it has been 3 mortal years since he last saw his love. 

He helps people on and off the battlefield when he remembers to, heals them in Wei Ying’s name and in his place.

Wei Ying was always the kinder of them. 

Wei Ying would not let the Wen’s be exterminated, regardless of what they have done. The offender is quickly punished. 

A cup is placed in front of him. 

It is not tea. 

Lan Wangji looks at the drink. He remembers a smile and a promise. 

He drinks the drink. Downs it in one gulp. 

He has places to be. 

Chapter Text

Wen Ning was born with two warm black eyes, full of light and quiet laughter. Or so he was told, but Wen Ning was born with uncountable eyes, searing and sealed as he breathed his first.

Wen Ning is an abomination, is what he thinks. Qing-jie calls him a blessing, calls him special and tells him to stop being an idiot about things, and Qing-jie was born with two burning black eyes and not a single thing wrong with her.

A-Yuan was born with two blinding gold eyes that faded to smooth brown in the hours after his birth. 

The Yiling Wen branch has always been odd. Lower blood, or so the Main Family says but Wen Ning is the son of a god with one thousand eyes and he sees too much and he sees the blood staining the floor of the main hall, sees the echoes of screams trapped for eternity between ghostly white walls.

Wen Ning has a thousand eyes open and an untold still sealed shut but not a single one can see A-Yuan right now.

Fear drips like wax, burns a line down his back and he is running through the house, out into the street because A-Yuan was born with blinding gold eyes and no one knows but Qing-jie, him and Granny who was there at his birth.

He is running because as powerful as he is, as filled with power as his diluted blood is, he is a thimble to a lake compared to A-Yuan’s endless potential and if Wen Ruohan finds him, finds out, he will tear A-Yuan apart to harvest the gold veins that line that little body.

He is running to Wei-Laozu, because if anyone knows Nevernight better than him it would be the full-blooded god who breathes the very soil back to life.

Wei-Laozu is sitting on the thin window sill of his cell, resplendent in rich black edged with gold.

A-Yuan is sitting on his lap.

A-Yuan is laughing.

Wen Ning collapses at his feet, cries like flooding, burning white edged in black tears and Wei Laozu comforts him, regret and apology in every motion but Wen Ning does not blame him. 

It wasn’t like Wei-Laozu could have said anything.

They drink tea, well, Wen Ning and A-Yuan drink tea in the weak afternoon light. 

Wei-Laozu holds the cup in his hand and slips slowly down to sleep on Wen Ning’s shoulder.

-

Meng Yao has been under scrutiny pretty much his entire life. First, it was the patrons who would see him running behind the curtains, carrying water and fetching drinks for the whores, then it was the Nie disciples, the people of Qinghe and then. 

Sect Leader Nie. 

Then it was Lan Xichen, the purest Jade who followed his form with smoldering eyes. 

He tested it, wove in and out of sight during meetings and events and every time he looked up, their gazes would lock. 

A thrill races down his spine

He is being watched now, as he straightens the dark green of his new overrobe. As he reties the pure white bracers around both wrists. There is a security in being marked like this, impermanent yet present. He has no color of his own, nothing to dye them in and it would rankle, would cause him anxiety but now he can feel them, swirling through the protections lining each piece. Feel the fragments of the Qi they laced through the embroidery and know they can feel his just as keenly.

He is theirs and in every way that matters they are his.

Meng Yao is being watched, twin gazes rest heavy on his back and he wants for nothing.

-

Wen Xu is the eldest of two now, Heir apparent to the Throne of Nevernight and so very very bored. He has been ordered, by his Esteemed Father, not to step a single foot outside the gate with the death of Wen Chao still hanging over them.

There are Wen minions running around outside his bedroom, the guards have already started to nod off and Wen Xu slips out of his room, quietly closing the window behind him. There is a god in Nevernight and at the very least it promises to be interesting for the five minutes it will take him to find it.

Three hours later Wen Xu is delighted to still be searching. He grew up in Nevernight, had watched some parts be built around him. Had spent hours weaving in between buildings, dodging the bodyguards and servents who would try to coax him back, he knows this city like the creases of his own hand.

Turning the corner of yet another row of houses, he sees the trailing strands of hair vanish just up ahead.  Taunting him.

Tempting him.

Let it never been said that the Wen Main Family ever turns down a challenge.

He picks up the pace, leaping to the rooftops and jumping over the peaks of the houses. This is something he does not want to lose, someone, now that he thinks about it, that he does not yet wish to dispose of. That is a rare thing for a young master like him.

What was the god called again?

W-

Wa-

We-

“Wei Wuxian!” he crows, excitement lending wings to his feet. There are miles of city left to tread and days still until his father will call for him, there are only smooth roads under his feet and the tantalizing sight of Wei Wuxian disappearing around yet another corner.

The hunt continues.

-

Wei Wuxian will admit, he is bored. Still miserable, still longing for Lan Zhan’s strong and tender embrace. Still hating how easily he was caught. But oh so bored, bored to tears bored enough that he spent three days phased into a wall because at least that was something different.

And yet, that didn’t fucking mean he wanted to be chased all across the city by a demented mini Wen Ruohan! Wei Wuxian isn’t sure how far the binding reaches when it comes to commands but there is no way in heaven or earth that he was letting the brat close enough to try.

Hard to catch someone when they don’t have to pay attention to physical boundaries isn’t it, you little shit.

Chapter Text

There is a rare lull of peace not even one year since the beginning of the war. Qishan Wen has withdrawn for the winter and the great sects have followed suit.

Nie Mingjue has returned to Qinghe to find everything in working order.

Even so, there is a problem waiting for him. Politics, and a Lanling Jin.

This is not-

Nie Mingjue has never had to handle this kind of situation and prays to any god that is listening that he never will again. He misses the battlefield, the simplistic back and forth of brutally killing people as the god of Qinghe intended. No subtle shit, no ‘oh you served the wrong tea that must mean you intend to make me your arch-nemesis’ and to everything holy, damn does he miss Meng Yao.

Meng Yao would know how to deal with this nonsense. Meng Yao would probably have been able to keep it from happening in the first place but Lan Huan stole him away for a couple of days, citing a need for relaxation in the newly repaired Gusu cold pools.

Lan Huan is a simple kind of sneaky, Nie Mingjue thinks.

The nattering messenger from Koi Tower has yet to shut up and he can feel the burn of qi deviation itching its way up his spine. He is five seconds away from splitting the little gold bastard open on Baxia when Huaisang, of all people, intervenes.

His ever-present fan is a pale iridescent purple today and is currently being waved gently in the Jin bastard’s face like an admonishing finger.

Nie Mingjue leans back in his seat and watches the softest, kindest, and most gentle throwdown he has even seen unfold.

The fan is snapped open several times in punctuation, the glittering lotus catching the light and Nie Mingjue has a profound realization.

Nie Mingjue also makes immediate plans for the death of one Jiang Wanyin. Brat must have thought he was sneaky, but while there are many nuances that Nie Mingjue ignores, the one damn thing he knows is what a declaration in clan colors means. Especially to another Heir.

And if he has anything to say about it, anyone who tries to court A-Sang better be prepared to make the courtship one that rivals the Esteemed Husbands at least in length and doubly so in grand romantic gestures

And he will have something to say about it.

Many things.

Punctuated with his fucking Saber if needed.

The Jin- what was his name again? Ziya or something- runs away with his tail between his legs and the ever-present headache called politics eases up on its fervent attempts to drive a nail through his skull. Before retiring for the day, he makes sure to catch Huaisang.

“You did good,” he says, knowing just how little of the genuine respect he feels is actually communicated.

Luckily Huaisang seems to get the message so Nie Mingjue makes sure to add, “And if that Jiang fellow thinks he can just swan in and break your heart on half-baked fan promises, I will put him down like the dog he is.”

Somehow he makes it back to his quarters and keels over in the tragically empty bed. Three days until Meng Yao and Lan Huan return.

Three long days.

-

Lan Wangji doesn’t know what to do with himself when the pause comes. Summoned by mortals, for the most part, he has to follow the flow of war. Every day extends how far he can be from A-Huan but as of yet, he cannot reach Nevernight. He is roughly one-third of the way there and while he could brute force the rest of the way, Wei Ying would be incredibly disappointed in him for killing everyone along the way.

There is very little he wants less than disappointing Wei Ying.

So he sits beneath an evergreen on the outskirts of Caiyi and plays. He strokes the string of his guqin and pretends there is someone sitting beside him, guiding his fingers.

Inevitably, someone notices him. Something, that is.

A little golden soul floats down to rest just above the strings. It is crying.

It is lost, here in the mortal world.

Lan Wangji pauses in his own playing and lets the soul take the place of his fingers. It hesitates before dipping down.

Hell-o Gege-, it burbles, do you know where Papa is?

He does not, but strums out that he could find ‘Papa’ if given a name.

The soul twirls a little in happiness before fading just the slightest.

He doesn’t know he’s Papa but his clothes look like me and he wears a flower on his chest. 

Lan Wangji waits, hardly surprised by this. Whoever the father is, getting chosen by a Small God is hardly a thing that comes with warnings. He sets his fingers to ask if they have chosen a second father or a mother.

Nope, not yet! But Papa’s name is Jin Zixuan, so mine will be Jin Ling.

This little one chose well. The heir to Koi Tower will provide, regardless of if another parent is chosen. He agrees to help and scoops the soul into a little jar he materialized for just this purpose.

“We will find him swiftly, Jin Ling,” He says.

“He will care for you,” he says, adding in a push of power, if he knows what’s good for him.

-

Jin Zixuan will accept the fact that he is a coward. That he never had the guts to tell Jiang Yanli the whole truth. It’s his fault, and he doesn’t have the right words to explain it to anyone, much less the one person who deserves the explanation.

Nevermind how his father might react.

Romantic love just… didn’t seem to work for him as it did for other people. It is slow coming, if at all, and slips so easily away. Only for those he counts among his closest friends has he ever felt anything like romantic love, regardless of gender.

He just doesn’t know Jiang Yanli well enough.

But, maybe, regardless of the barrier that lies in his way, one day he’ll have a family as she does.

The stirring wind sounds the hanging chimes outside his window and Jin Zixuan sighs into his paperwork. Even if he wanted to try, there’s still far too much work to do and Jiang Wanyin would probably take his head off at 10 paces before he even tries to get close enough to explain. He sighs again and buries himself in the piles of requisitions, demands, requests for aid, and messages that Father really should be the one to deal with. 

An hour later, as the candlelight is barely enough to illuminate his absolutely perfect imitation of Father’s signature if he dares say so himself, the door slides open. He turns, braces himself for a new load of papers and-

And there is a god in his doorway, cradling a small glass jar. Inside the jar, a spark like firefly is bobbing against the walls.

Hanguang-Jun sweeps into the room like he owns it and places the spirit jar directly into his hands.

“This is yours,” he says.

“Care for them well,” he says.

Jin Zixuan looks at the god.

He looks at the jar.

He looks back at the god.

He has a guess at what resides in the jar but-

But no, that can’t be right.

He isn’t married, for one.

“What?” he says, voice breaking a little. He cradles the jar closer, something warm like hope threatening to ignite in his heart.

“You have been chosen by a Small God,” Hanguang-Jun explains patiently.

“You are now a father.”

“Congratulations.”

The god leaves as quickly as he came and Jin Zixuan is not ashamed of the tears that track down his cheeks. They are tears of joy.

A Small God chose him.

Him, who thought he would never have-

A child.

Are you sad, Papa?

“No, no little one I am so incredibly happy,” He hurries to explain.

“Do you,” he hesitates, “do you have a name chosen already?”

I’m Jin Ling!

“Welcome, Jin Ling,” Jin Zixuan whispers, still crying just the tiniest bit, brushing careful fingers against the fragile glass. “Welcome home.” Thank you, he means to say but the words stick to his tongue like glue.

Somehow, he thinks Jin Ling hears him anyway.

Chapter Text

The thrum of chords hover in the air and break the silence of Nevernight. There is a fell song on the breeze, a damned singing in the wind. 

It calls for Wen Ruohan’s destruction. 

It carols the end of him. 

A meeting has been called in the halls of Nevernight. Three years and they are losing this war. Three years and they have already lost. All generals not dead stand in the hall, all tacticians and strategists lined up before rows and rows of maps as if any of that could save them. 

Wei-Laozu is there too. 

Wei-Laozu sits in the corner, left alone and abandoned by his minders and the only thing that crosses his wrists are the black gold chains of the array. 

The cinnabar red of Immortal binding cable is nowhere to be seen. 

This is the chance Wen Ning has been waiting for. 

There is an army at the gates. 

There is a god at the door. 

And Wen Ruohan has dropped the end of Wei-Laozu’s lead. 

Wen Ning is Main Family by right and Divine by blood, and while he might not be enough of each to truly break the bleeding chains and rip away the burning shackles, he is more than enough to shatter the ugly gray ceramic of the muzzle. 

A quiet crack is the only evidence of his betrayal. 

No one notices.

Wei-Laozu takes his first breath in three years.

Scraps away the remaining shards that still cling to his cheeks. 

Wei-Laozu takes his second breath, long and deep, dragging white-gold sparks from the air and swallowing them down. 

Throws back his head. 

And screams.

And the hall fractures around him, walls buckling, roof blowing away. 

And the floor beneath him crumbles, years of carefully maintained stone turning to shards and then to dust, years of blood and screams and torment dissolving. 

And Wei-Laozu is wailing, an unearthly, spine chilling sound, like something clawing against the sides of reality, like something wrong, a half step behind the veil and it needs cross over-  a door left shut a broken mirror the discarded remains of a beloved drum-  

And Wei-Laozu is crying out, from three years of misery, desperation, hope and pain. 

Wen Ning has one thousand and two eyes that were open from the moment of his birth and an uncountable number that have never opened before. 

They cover the broken walls, layer the pitted, gauged floorboards and Wen Ning is crying white-black tears of victory. 

-

Hanguang-Jun is drunk. Drunk on power, on alcohol, and those that can follow on saber or on foot do so.

It is not far to the nightless city.

Not far at all.

Lan Xichen hurries, holds Yao-er safe in the cradle of his arms atop his sword and hurries after his god. 

Nie Mingjue is mere inches behind him.

They had plans for this, weeks worth of careful considerations and laying out of even the smallest of details until all involved had to go have a lie-down until the headaches went away, but the point is, there had been a solid plan.

And somehow they never accounted for this.

Yao-er shifts slightly, enough that cold lips are pressed against Lan Xichen’s neck.

Enough so Lan Xichen can hear him say, “I’m not sorry,” in the quietest voice that could still be heard over the roaring of the wind.

“Even with the plans, even with Hanguang-Jun, there was still a chance.” Unspoken, there was still a chance that one of you might get hurt.

“Like this, you won’t even have to fight.” You are strong, and I trust you. But sometimes fate is best left unchallenged.

Lan Xichen can only laugh, because of course crafty, planning, spider-like little Yao-er would seize this kind of chance, would weave the whole situation into something like this. Joy flies like a swallow in his heart at the care, the precision with which the whole scheme unfolds. Given a hair-thin strand, Yao-er has woven him a stunning tapestry.

Wen Ruohan’s head, embroidered in the dirt and blood. 

Mingjue, close enough to hear and close enough to know, roars with laughter, “My little weaver!” he delights.

It is not long before they can see the towers of the great city looming before them. 

They are close enough to touch to sky. 

The blinding white barrier of Nevernight activates not 100 meters in front of them, and the army screeches to a stop. 

Hanguang-Jun accelerates, a dazzling streak of pale blue against the still dark sky. 

He collides. 

The barrier does not break, rather upon impact, reverberates like a great drum.

It is impenetrable.

The next three days and nights find sleep impossible, even as the rest of their forces catch up, even as some cover their ears, as the Light-bringer wields his full strength, brings forth his immense power to bear down upon the barrier. The alcohol must have burnt away in the first hour of his assault, but Lan Xichen supposes, in for a coin, in for the whole store.

During a brief pause in the god’s relentless assault, Lan Xichen approaches him.

There are many things he doesn’t say.

When will you stop?

How do you know Yunmeng-Laozu is still alive?

What will you do to Wen Ruohan?

“Can it be broken from the outside?” is what he finally settles on.

Hanguang-Jun shakes his head.

Why keep trying?

“Wei Ying-“

“Wei Ying is waiting for me.”

-

Lan Wangji is no longer drunk but the sizzle of alcohol still echoes in his veins.

He knows it is useless.

He knows that no matter what he casts upon this array, it will not break.

Lan Wangji is about to do something incredibly stupid.

He isn’t thick-skinned enough to pretend he does not know that.

With one hand, he summons Bichen. The other, Wangji, his guqin. The two pillars of his godhood, the two icons of his power. He would break them, if that is what it takes to break down the barrier that lies between him and Wei Ying. 

Luckily, he is not going to do something quite that stupid. 

Mostly because it wouldn’t work. 

No, Lan Wangji sheathes Bichen at his waist, covered yet ready, and kneels upon a large rock. 

And plays. 

Chapter Text

Jin Zixuan may be in a place on honor on the frontlines of this war but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Each day is a practice in paranoia, keeping A-Ling safe and hidden. The jar he lives in is small enough to fit along the inside of Jin Zixuan’s forearm, and he tucks it beneath his bracer, lined with soft silk.

He checks it obsessively.

Brushes light qi against the surface just to feel A-Ling tap back.

He hasn’t told anyone.

He is the Heir to Koi Tower, the Shining beacon of Lanling Jin and he has told no one of the precious cargo he carries and if he had it his way, no one would have known until A-Jing was old enough to protect himself.

Here on the doorstep of Nevernight, that choice is taken from him in the kindest way possible.

He gets a cut from a rebounding lance of godly qi and passes out in the medic tent.

His bracers are off when he wakes up.

A-Ling is gone.

A-Ling is in someone else’s hands, barely a meter away from Jin Zixuan’s cot and it is kilometers too far. He’s moving before he is even fully awake.

By the time the black has fully faded from his vision. Jin Zixuan is curled against the back wall of the tent, curled around the array reinforced glass jar, his own back to the room. Vulnerable.

He shudders, the ghost of a sob on his lips.

“Jin-Gongzhu,”

“Jin-Gongzhu, I won’t take it from you,”

Gentle but firm hands coax him back to sit on the cot, studiously avoiding touching his arms.

A-Ling swirls, qi pinging with concern.

Jin Zixuan doesn’t dare look up.

What a disgraceful side he’s shown to her.

A swish of gold robes and Luo Qingyang sits across from him.

She is kind enough not to look at him. Instead, she retrieves his bracers from the table, passing them back to him one at a time.

Finally, once he is again fully dressed for war, she says, “I couldn’t hear it.”

He stills.

“I didn’t mean to Try, but you were bleeding over your sleeves and it fell out.”

“I’m sorry.”

He lets out a shaky breath, the unnamed fear that had crept behind him fading a bit. A Small God would only let themselves be heard by specific mortals, their chosen parents, and when he saw-

When he thought he saw-

It didn’t matter.

A-Ling chose him. Him, and no one else.

“You didn’t mean to?” He asks, desperate and needing… something.

“I didn’t, and I don’t want to,” She confirms.

“Besides,” she continues, driving the final nail in the coffin of his fear, “I already have a Promised.”

Jin Zixuan looks up, flabbergasted.

“A merchant,” Luo Qingyang says, clearly enjoying the shock on his face, “and he has the cutest daughter.”

“Will you-?” leave the cultivation world.

“No. He wants to come night-hunting with me.”

Jin Zixuan fumbles his way through the traditional congratulations and stumbles out of the medic tent. A-Ling is laughing at him.

The day passes quickly and he throws himself into the logistics of camping outside enemy headquarters. Food must be rationed for those who cannot practice Inedia, any issues must be resolved without the use of duels or combat, troop numbers to be counted, and Jin Zixuan is fully aware that he is avoiding the problem.

But night comes, and in the dark… 

That night, devoid of sleep as every night has been since they set siege to Nevernight, Jin Zixuan shakes a little in his bed. Shakes, because of what he would do to keep A-Ling safe. Shakes, because of how lucky he was that it hadn’t been one of the many gold-diggers that have dogged his steps since he came of age, or one of the many marriage candidates Father had sent after him before being forced into seclusion. 

Ignores the prickle of tears and resolves to tell someone else, so that even if he falls in the upcoming battle, A-Ling will never be alone.

Resolves to actually talk with Jiang Yanli. And explain. And apologize for not explaining sooner.

And if the rumors are true, offer another set of congratulations. Maybe a wedding gift or three.

-

When the wailing stops, Wen Xu crawls out from under the planning table of the Great Hall and comes face to face with a living nightmare.

Wei Wuxian is loose.

There is an eye directly underneath his hand.

His Esteemed Father is nowhere to be seen and unlike his dead Brother, Wen Xu was gifted with a modicum of intellect on the day of his birth. 

He stands up slowly, hands in the air and sword left sheathed on the ground. 

Wen Qionglin has a bow drawn on him, a stygian arrow matte and void in the evening sun.

Unlike his Esteemed Father, Wen Xu is not prone to panicking.

And he can, on occasion, think very quickly.

“I can remove the shackles,” he says.

“Father was the only one who could directly command him, but I can free him,” he says.

Wen Qionglin does not shoot him. Yet.

“Cousin,” Wen Xu says, testing his luck.

The arrow wavers a little, before returning to aim unerringly at his heart. Thousands of eyes blink in a wave of motion, from the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling.

The one on Wen Qionglin’s forehead does not close.

“Cousin,” he says, “I can break the chains that bind him.”

A general, not yet dead, groans from beneath a fallen pillar. They are swiftly silenced, an arrow to the eye and Wen Xu finds himself taken by the arm and shoved toward the god now perched atop his Esteemed Father’s throne. Wei Wuxian looks like the cat that ate the canary.

A drop of pure Wen blood and the manacles snap open before disintegrating in a rush of gold qi.

A hand fists in his robes and Wen Xu is dragged up face to face with the Yunmeng-Laozu.

There are far too many teeth in the god’s smile to call it friendly. 

“Now then, little Wen,” Yunmeng-Laozu purrs.

“You wouldn’t mind leading me to the center of the shield array,”

“Would you.”

-

Nie Huaisang has no idea what he is doing this far out on the frontlines. He really. Really, doesn’t want to be here, but-

It’s far too late to go home.

And he needs to be there to see Wen Ruohan fall from his throne.

To grind his heel in the blood and dirt. For Father, if not for himself.

All that does not change the irrefutable fact that he would rather take a swan dive into the nearest lake fully clothed than be here, especially when Da-ge finds him.

Which will be in… three to five hours, given that he sent his last letter three weeks ago and both Xichen-gen and San-ge are off looking for medicinal herbs. Or a smooth rock to fuck on. Whatever.

Nie Huaisang drops a fold of cloth over the crate he is currently hiding in and contemplates life.

He contemplates his fan as well, quietly snapping it open and shut in the half-light that trickles in through the gap he left. It glitters, pale green and embroidered with a half-lotus in deep purple.

A fan promise, Da-ge had called it. Half-promise, but maybe, once the war was over…

But nothing. Jiang Cheng would be an honored cultivator with many badges, honors, and glories to his name and Nie Huaisang would be in Qinghe. Jiang Cheng would be lauded with accolades and return to Yunmeng and Nie Huaisang would still be in Qinghe.

He sighs, wistful for the days of learning in the Cloud Recess. He sighs, almost wishing for the hundredth time that he knew how to use a sword, a saber, anything so that he could make a name for himself as well.

Jiang Cheng has Sandu and he… he has this fucking fan.

His Qi stirs to life, scorching like a pot of tea just being brought to simmer and Nie Huaisang knows this is what Da-ge must have felt, must feel, constantly on the edge of tipping over and into the abyss. The burn of deviation is creeping up on even him, even without the saber. He channels it down into the fan in one stupid, spiteful push.

Instead of vaporizing, his fan promise shines in the dark, piercing through the gloom that had settled over him. Arrays light up, crisscrossing over each other until Nie Huaisang can no longer understand them, but he can read the ones on the outermost edges.

Reinforcement. Edge-sharpening. Actual Qi channels, that would take his intent and transform it into blades of air and lighting shocks.

The only sound is the drip, drip, drip of tears down his face and Nie Huaisang is smiling, a warm rush filling his veins and he knows he is blushing.

What a mess he is. Sitting in the dark like some kind of mushroom, sulking over the fact that he doesn’t know how to murder efficiently enough and Jiang Cheng-

Ah, Cheng-er.

This is far more than a half baked fan promise.

Chapter Text

Nie Mingjue stops at the edge of the encampment.

Stares.

Rubs his eyes and looks again because there is no way in heaven or on earth that Huaisang is actually sparring with someone.

Sure, the fan is still there, but-

But, he thinks, watching a perfectly executed block that should have resulted in shredded silk, in a cut along the upper arm and hours of tearful Huaisang, but-

It is working.

Huaisang is dancing, ripples of air traced by the very tip of the pale green fan. He twists and turns with the force of a water spout, deflecting what he cannot block and hitting back twice as hard with a fan that should be pulp, should be splinters.

A fan, and Huaisang is beating the 4th ranked prodigy of his generation black and blue, up and down the street, into the dirt.

The spar ends with a bang.

Jiang Wanyin is blown back into a tree, through a tree and lies there groaning. Huaisang is laughing.

Nie Mingjue remembers something very important. Several things, actually, but most important of all-

“Nie Huaisang, what the hell are you doing here!” he roars.

Huaisang fumbles, almost dropping his weapon. And it is a true weapon, Nie Mingjue realizes as he gets closer, gets close enough to see the arrays etched into the spokes and painted on the soft silk. It is deadly, perfectly concealed as an innocuous tool Huaisang would carry with him anywhere-

And a long tied knot in Nie Mingjue’s chest dissipates.

Finally, A-Sang has something to protect himself with.

But back to the problem.

Nie Mingjue seizes Huaisang by the shoulders, ignoring the usual whining and shakes him back and forth like a ragdoll. Three weeks, three weeks since his last letter and now he shows up on the frontlines, at Nevernight with a brand new style of fighting, a new fan, and Jiang Wanyin!? He says as much and more.

This continues for several minutes.

“And you!” he rages, turning on the purple bastard who has been trying to sneak away, “How shameless can you be, at least have the guts to stand up for him!”

“Da-ge, it’s not his fault,” Huaisang whines, “You’re just terrifying.”

A hand taps Nie Mingjue on the shoulder and Lan Huan gracefully eases his way into the conversation. 

“A-Sang,” says the only voice of reason within a ten kilometer radius, “What on earth are you doing here?”

-

The tent is filled with an uncomfortable silence.

Jiang Wanyin shifts stealthily in his seat and worries. Sect Leader Nie is said to be tyrannical, near terrifying, even to his younger brother, especially about his younger brother.

And Jiang Wanyin had gifted Huaisang something in the colors of his sect. That was pretty much a proposal by Qinghe standards.

Sure, at the time he hadn’t known what it meant but he did mean it.

Or he would have.

If he had known!

But he didn’t.

It’s just, Huaisang is so fierce, so small, has so much potential and given a weapon that actually suited him, curb-stomped Jiang Cheng and sent him through a fucking tree.

It had taken Jiang Cheng three years, from the first day he saw Huaisang in Gusu to a snowy-yet-romantic picnic on one of the lone peaks in Yunmeng territory, for him to confess his feelings.

It was awful.

He tripped over his words, almost called it all off multiple times but Huaisang had been patient, urging him on when he forgot where he left off or suggesting words he lost.

It was the best and most embarrassing conversation of his life.

And he loved Huaisang.

He-

He glances over at Huaisang, catching the pale green of war-fan in the corner of his eyes.

Jiang Cheng can feel the burning on his cheek, the twitch of his mouth of its own volition and knows that he looks like a besotted moron.

So be it.

He has three parent-like people to impress and not a lot going for him, this is probably sink or swim. With rocks in his shoes.

So be it. Jiang Cheng is of Yunmeng Jiang, of the lotuses and the river and the lake.

To Achieve the Impossible.

Whatever the odds.

He should at least make Mother proud, even if chances are good on him getting many, just a ridiculous number of bones broken in the process.

He straightens his back, meets Nie Mingjue’s eyes.

Holds Huaisang’s hand.

And wants for nothing.

The interrogation begins.

-

The Nightless city is a maze to those not born there and a death trap to intruders.

Wei Wuxian has walked these walls, filled these rooms for far too long to be called either.

Nevernight is his, as Yunmeng.

As Gusu is Lan Zhan’s.

He falls into the streets, fills the gap in between thought and mind, between tile and mortar.

He falls, and remembers a time when he was flying. 

He falls, and remembers a time he was caught.

There are no arms below to receive him now.

Here, in a city of a thousand souls, he is alone.

Wen Xu is dragged along by the neck, Wei Wuxian carries him through doorways and up stairs, inexorable inwards. Close, closer as the spiral of Nevernight closes ever inward. There is but a barrier between him and his love and it will not stay there for long.

Now that he has the power to close the gape himself, he has a plan.

A simple plan.

Step One: Destroy the ungodly heavens, the wall that dares stand in his way.

Step Two: ???

Step Three: Run to Lan Zhan’s tender embrace.

Step Four: Everyday on Wen Ruohan’s stupid throne.

He is a simple god, he likes simple things.

Revenge can occasionally be incredibly simple.

And personal.

Oh yes, and of course,

Step Five: Eat Jiang Yanli’s lotus pork soup again once this all blows over.

Satisfied with this plan, Wei Wuxian sets a hand to the Great Doors of the Inner Sanctum and disintegrates them with a mere thought. The script lined in the very stone resists for an impressive 5 seconds before blowing away in the wind.

The walls of the sanctum are lined in red, glowing veins of lava that pulse and shake like living, like breathing.

Like the inside of some great beast, slumbering.

This is no place of rest, nor is it of war.

This is where twisted minds work, plan, stew and simmer in their own juices.

Wen Ruohan’s own personal workshop, a hell of his own design meant to twist every last drop of innovation from captured cultivators and even himself.

It stinks with resentment, with the poison of the spirit and mind.

Wei Wuxian drinks it down like wine.

He breathes it out, purified and smooth like rich black soil.

Even this wretched place is his now.

Chapter Text

Gods are not stagnant in their aspects, not singular, not momentary or confined, save for those that confine themselves.

Wei Wuxian has ever been free in that respect. He floats between poles, dances away from definition. He is a laughing god, and very good at what he does.

Whatever that happens to be at the moment.

This day he is a god built from burning and from fire. From hearty ashes and blooming fields. Today he is a straight-up contradiction, and the fissure tears him. But, with the power he’s gained, the qi he’s glutted himself on for 3 long years, it does little more than sting.

He is birth and death in one glorious moment, he is the never-setting sun and the cool depths of the water.

And he is powerful.

The array powering the barrier is old, older than him, older than the array that trapped him, older than the blood that extends it, modifies it.

It is so much more resilient than the door that blocked his way to it.

Wei Wuxian sits in the center and draws up every last scrap of his being, forces himself down and out into the array, bleeding through the stones and the paint and the bones of the city.

This will take some time.

-

There is a god sitting at the campfire. 

They are not Hanguang-Jun.

The white sword that lies on their back is not Bichen, however spotlessly it may shine. The black sword strapped opposite is not Suibian, and has a pristine black finish. A Horsetail whisk is tucked into the crook of their arm.

Their eyes are two separate colors, one dark as rich earth, the other pale as a corpse.

Jiang Yanli approaches with care, but without hesitation.

There are more ways to see than with eyes.

“Revered Immortal,” she begins, as is only polite.

Jiang Yanli is the Heir to Yunmeng Jiang, the Pride of Meishun Yu, the Lotus Bride of Wen Qing. She collects titles like raindrops and is modest enough to be embarrassed about it but-

She has ever and will always be the Speaker of Yunmeng Laozu.

And she can hear the voice in the back of her head, the one that told what Hanguang-Jun was looking for, the one that asks for Lotus Seeds. The one that tells her when the moon is rising, when the tides have turned.

So she knows what to say to this Immortal.

She straightens her spine and looks Song Zichen of the heavens directly in the eyes. Honesty is the peak of virtue.

Or so Mother says.

“Fuxue’s Zichen,” She begins again, “Wei-Laozu is trapped in Nevernight. But once he is free, he will be able to heal Xingchen-Daozhang.”

Only to Jiang Yanli, standing as close as she is, watching as closely as she is, can see the relief, the joy that passes across the immortal’s face.

Song Zichen relaxes infinitesimally, bows his head only the slightest. She gets the feeling he has come very far looking for Wei-Laozu, over mountains and across rivers. 

He looks tired.

She sits next to him, on the side of his warm eye and sets about making tea. The motions settle the unrest that had been building for the last couple of days as they camped on the doorstep of the Nightless City, and she chooses a precious handful of native Yunmeng tea leaves. Helpful for meditation, for calming the Qi.

Song Zichen watches her, tracking the movement of her hands and the pour of boiling water.

She places a cup before him, leaving the option of refusal without offense.

Song Zichen looks at the tea.

He drinks the tea.

Long, peaceful minutes stretch before all the tea is drunk and talk can resume. As the initiator, Jiang Yanli has the first move.

“Would you like to talk to Wei-Laozu’s husband while we wait?” She asks.

Song Zichen drops his cup, “Wei-Shidi’s what?!” he says, aghast.

-

Lan Wangji is no longer the mortal he once was, no longer flesh and blood. But he plays and plays and his fingers are torn and bleeding ichor onto the cold ground. He is sitting in a garden.

The rows of vegetables sway in the unnamed wind and a drop of ichor lands on a small, stunted radish.

The radish grows, glows. A small white-edged-in-blue ball of qi forms.

A Small god.

Two of them, he realizes and he stops playing, leaving his guqin to strum itself with a touch of Will.

One born from a radish, the other, a lettuce.

They rise together, chiming their confusion and joy.

Papa? One says.

Xichen-gege? Says the other.

He reaches out.

Cradles the children.

His children.

It might have been an accident but this was Fate’s hand.

He searches in the wavering edges for an imprint of a second parent.

Almost cries, feeling the ripple of Wei Ying’s power laced between pale stands of his own.

“What are your names,” he asks instead.

Lan Jingyi! Says the second.

The first Small God hesitates, bobbing this way and that. Papa calls me A-Yuan in his head.

I am here and not here. I don’t know-

Father?

Lan Wangji can no longer hold himself, can no longer stem the sweet-ache. A single icy tear rolls down his cheek.

“Wei Ying,” he says, a mountain and a legion fitting inside a single name.

He gathers them closer, so much closer. They are the closest he’s had to Wei Ying in 3 years, almost four.

“A-Yi,” he says, voice smoothed back, controlled and monotone, “I will take you to your Xichen-gege.”

“A-Yuan…” his voice softened, “stay with me.”

He leaves the song playing, powered by the drops of blood he left on the string and set off to the far camp. People scatter, make way for him.

But there is another god here, one he does not know. 

He goes to them first.

The other god sits with Wei Ying’s herald, Jiang Yanli of Lotus Pier. The campfire crackles and the rich scent of tea softens the atmosphere.

Lan Wangji sits opposite them, still clinging to his children.

He bows to Song Zichen, the Heavenly Fuxue.

Jiang Yanli smile and gestures to Lan Wangji.

“This,” she says, “Is the husband of Wei-Laozu, Wei Wuxian. This is Lan Wangji, Hanguang-Jun.”

“And-” her gaze falls on the precious cargo in his arms. She gasps, lightly and full of delight.

“His children!”

Song Zichen, teeters.

“Wei-shidi has children.” He repeats, stunned stupid.

Chapter Text

Song Zichen fell like rising, like flying. He fell for a beautiful moon, a god that took to the mortal realm and used his power to lighten the darkest of nights so that people could live with a little less fear in the cold dark of winter.

Song Zichen fell hard, fast, and irreparably for Xiao Xingchen, God of the Rising Moon. A kind god.

Too kind.

There are gods that do good and gods that do bad. On a separate axis, there are deities and demons. Xue Yang was Divine, that much is right, but he was temperamental, volatile, and took advantage of Xingchen’s kindly nature while he could.

Now, Xingchen is hurt, hurt yet safe, hidden in the depths of Song Zichen’s core. 

They see as one now, through two mismatched eyes.

Now Xue Yang is trapped in the smallest of bottles, stored in Song Zichen’s sleeve where he can keep an eye on the brat and the brat can keep his filthy hands and eyes off Xingchen .

It’s a pity the heavens will not allow Song Zichen to kill him.

The reason is hidden, even from the Heavenly Fuxue, and-

And.

He could not heal Xingchen.

Could only tuck him away, merge and bolster with his own powers so he came down to the mortal world in search of someone who could.

He’s been walking for so long and he heard so much .

It is said that Wei Wuxian can heal and hurt in equal measure.

It is said that Wei Wuxian is the son of Cangse Sanren, disciple of Baoshen Sanren.

It is not said that he is the husband of Lan Wangji.

It is also not said that he has children but, Song Zichen reasons, it has been hundreds of thousands of years since the last time Wei Wuxian entered the Heavenly realm.

That does not soften the blow in the least.

So he might be staring, just a little bit.

Lan Wangji stares back with deadfish eyes.

“You said…” Lan Wangji says after a long pause, “‘Wei-Shidi’?”

“His mother was my Promised’s Shijie, under Baoshen Sanren.”

The atmosphere slowly relaxes, and Song Zichen sets to learning all that had happened in this area of the mortal world while he had been away on his travels.

Apparently, there was a war going on.

Apparently, when Jiang Yanli said the Wei-Shidi was trapped, she also meant captured.

Apparently, Lan Wangji was set on rectifying this in the bloodiest manner possible.

Good for him.

If it was Xingchen-

Bound, gagged, chained and caught in Deity sealing arrays, made to keep the company of a mad man and a warmongerer-

Who cooed to him, tried to seduce him, sway him with honeyed words and false promises-

Well.

Scorched earth would be letting them off lightly.

Too bad Xue Yang is off-limits.

Maybe he can find a nice volcano to drop him in?

There is a flare of power from deep inside and Xingchen radiates disapproval and understanding in one breathtaking moment of synergy.

Song Zichen is a Martial God, and very good at what he does.

Xiao XIngchen, kind as he is, pacifistic as he is, loves him because and in spite of the blood staining his hands

The Ichor that drips from his soul.

“Do you want help,” he says, and he hopes the crackle of the fire can cover the bitter, sharp edge of anger on in his voice. Can cover the desolation of centuries of solitude, the absence of a warm hand in his and a living man beside him.

Song Zichen is a bleeding god, born from Heaven’s rage and Hell’s benevolence.

And he is very good at what he does.

-

Xiao Xingchen fell for a young man on the cusp of godhood. He fell like diving, like learning, like reaching.

Xiao Xingchen fell for a martial god stained with the Ichor of his clan and the sins they committed.

Xiao Xingchen fell for a righteous god.

And he has never regretted it.

And then, Song Lan vanished.

Disappeared and the only one that would help him, could help him was Xue Yang and he thought he could guide this younger god back to a path of good and-

He had never been so wrong.

He only has one eye now. 

Xue Yang took the other while he slept.

Spilt his blood over a river stone and forced a new god into existence.

A-Qing is only half, robbed of what she could have been by Xue Yang’s impatient experimentation and she tore out his throat multiple times for that.

She is no one’s creation but her own and she watches over their home in the Heavenly Imperial City, presumably bullying anyone who tries to visit in their absence.

He misses her.

But...

Xiao Xingchen sits in the depths of Song Lan’s soul and does not mind it as much as one might think.

Sure, he can only see the outside world and not interact with it.

Sure, pretty much everything hurts.

But Song Lan came back to him, for him.

Looked for him in the crevices and deep places of the world until he found the glass coffin Xue Yang had trapped him in.

Song Lan climbed his way back up to Divinity for him, ascended for a second time and was all the more powerful for it.

So Xiao Xingchen sits in the dark and waits.

Because Song Lan is looking for his nephew and one day, one day they will stand hand in hand, together again.

Because Song Lan has done the impossible so many times, that a simple matter of fixing Xiao Xingchen, repairing his heavenly coil, must be nothing to him.

Xiao Xingchen waits and he trusts.

And he loves with all his heart this wild, cold and lovely god of his.

-

Xue Yang is trapped in a fucking Jar. A Jar.

What the hell.

He tries to wiggle, to yell, to do anything.

There is nothing to do but sit and stew in the darkness and Xue Yang minds it quite more than one might think.

-

Chapter Text

 Time passes like the tides of Lotus Pier, rising and falling with the breath of seasons, by the pull of the moon and swaying of the willows.

Wei Wuxian falls into himself now, into the city, deep into the world.

He will pull this array out strand by strand if he has to, boil away the leyline it is tied to if that is what it takes.

Luckily for the people living in the Nightless City, it will not come to that. 

For as the days have gone by, Wei Wuxian steps down and into his core.

He sits in the empty space within his soul and meditates, now practicing sword forms, now making adjustments to new instrument designs, thoughtless and rhythmic, he does these things without thought, without meaning, not needing to pause or contemplate exactly what his fingers do while his conscience is so far away.

He listens without ears, sees without eyes.

And then-

There is a song threading it’s way past the far reach of Wei Wuxian’s conscience. He isn’t awake enough to listen, not there enough to hear, but he feels the feathered edges between his fingers and the falling notes in every breath.

Lan Zhan is singing for him.

And he’s not alone.

One God might not have been enough to reach through the creeping sickness of the blood array but there are two more with him, stretching out along and reinforcing the pulse of sacred power.

Wei Wuxian breathes it in, breathes in the corrupting twist of Nevernight and breathes them out and into his core. He draws himself together, tightly bound and lets it drop away, spilling out over the city, sewn up and reinforced by this new flow of pure qi.

The array starts to flake away beneath his corporeal fingers, coin-sized patches of ancient blood sizzling and blowing away in an eldritch wind.

There is nothing left for him to fear here.

One final surge with the force of three gods supplementing him, nearly doubling his power, and the barrier breaks like crystalline sugar.

One final surge and Wei Wuxian is gone, already flying past the farthest reaches of his new domain.

There is only one place he wants to be now.

Wei Wuxian soars up towards the dark and the dawn, higher and higher until even his power cannot push him any farther. He hovers there, above this new city he has claimed for himself and sees the army spread before its doorstep.

He sees the edges of the barrier fade into the ground, sees the figures that stand before it and then-

He lets go.

He is falling through space, down through the clouds to the cold dark earth, at speeds even gods cannot escape unharmed.

But there is nothing for him to be afraid of here.

Now, there are arms to catch him

Wei Wuxian lands in the cradle of Lan Zhan’s embrace and wonders why on heaven and earth he ever left in the first place.

This is where he belongs, he thinks.

And then he doesn’t think, because Lan Zhan takes him by the hand and is kissing him breathless, senseless and in one glorious moment they are all that exists in the world.

In one glorious moment, there is nothing but Lan Zhan’s arms around his waist, his lips on Wei Wuxian and an endless stirring of qi.

Nothing but bliss, pure and heady.

-

Lan Wangji has a head full of static and arms full of Wei Ying.

He holds tight, as if with enough force he could merge for even just a moment, become one together, never leave never let go-!

Lan Wangji is far too much his father’s son, there is far too much boiling beneath his skin and so he knows where the line is. 

Where he has to draw it. 

He reins in his wandering, sharp and possessive thoughts and he closes his eyes, settling back into a skin a little bit too small.

Still, he takes Wei Ying’s hand in his, laces his remaining arm around his shoulders and kisses like starving, like a desperate man and Wei Ying is the last gasp of air. Like swimming, like drowning.

Like his lips are the first and the last thing he ever wants to taste.

-

The barrier comes down with an almighty roar from both sides.

Two armies facing off, with the thin wall of qi between them now gone, finally collide.

Lan Xichen isn’t sure what he expected the husband of his god to look like. An elegant man, perhaps. Clothes of white with a delicate demeanor.

A singer, or so he heard, so a slender build with agile fingers.

Not this bolt from the heavens, a black mass of Qi and clothes that plummets down into Hanguang-Jun embrace. Not wild curls of black hair barely held back by a single red ribbon.

He expects many things, none of them concrete or even coherent, and even so is promptly blown away by the separation of imagination and truth.

Wei Wuxian is chaos incarnate and as Lan Xichen reflects, the perfect image of a god of innovation.

He coughs awkwardly, turning to give the pair a moment. Heaven’s Fuxue looks on the edge of passing out.

Or interceeding and kicking Hanguang-Jun off the nearest cliff in a bout of elder brotherly rage. 

Luckily for all of them, a distraction occurs.

“Wei-Laozu!”

Jiang Yanli is leading the charge, decimating wave after wave of Wen Syncophants with her whip shining a brilliant deep purple.

She is the one who called out, making her way across the field of new corpses towards the outcropping they stand on behind enemy lines.

Lan Xichen allows himself a moment of quiet admiration, spiced with a healthy dash of fear.

There is a reason Meishun Yu, of all the women-only sects, is unbothered by anyone.

Even Qishan Wen did not dare to attack it directly, only hiding their intent and attempting to raze Lotus Pier.

Half of the new bodies now devoid of life and souls are her kills.

Jiang Wanyin and A-Sang are following close behind, paired in near-perfect harmony together.

They cut through the crowd with ease.

Lan Xichen still isn’t completely on board with this new relationship. A-Sang is grown enough to know what he wants, but not what is good for him and a promise is not hard to break. Jiang Wanyin is an unknown.

Not that Lan Xichen really has any room to talk, seeing as he fell into a relationship within 2 months of knowing Yao-er and not much longer knowing Mingjue.

But still, he muses, watching them fight as one, it’s the principle of the thing.

He resolves to test the young Yunmeng Heir further when they aren’t facing imminent dismemberment via Wen swords.

The Esteemed Husbands finally disentangle themselves and Yunmeng Laozu is blushing. He thinks Hanguang-Jun is blushing as well but the only evidence of that is the light red tinge to the god’s ears. 

A battle cry breaks the moment and Hanguang-Jun’s eyes burn, setting his gaze upon the troops advancing on them.

“A-Huan,” Hanguang-Jun says, “Wei Ying, step back.”

Bichen is drawn, a baleful lance of white, searing light. Divine Fury incarnate, Hanguang-Jun steps out onto the empty air.

A swing of his sword and the only things filling the air are blood and screams.

Chapter Text

The Wen troops ascending the hill are quickly subdued and new corpses litter the ground.

The Burial Mound is spreading, consuming.

It was made by wars like this.

Made for wars like this.

The edges are creeping further from their bounds, inching out. Testing.

The Burial Mounds is singing.

Crooning.

Welcome Home, it whispers, Welcome Home, to each new soul that gets sucked into its vast body.

Welcome Home, it whispers to Wei Wuxian, reaching out to drag him in as well.

But Wei Wuxian is a Childe of Granny Wen now, a new power is flowing through his veins.

He knows this: Granny Wen is Ancient and her Children are Legion. She cares for nothing else.

He knows this: The Burial Mounds cannot have him this time. 

Someone else can bear that burden and it may be selfish, it may be cruel but Wei Wuxian can’t handle it. He has spent the last three years gorging himself on hate and fear and pain and he just can’t deal with any more saturating his core.

Someone will bear this burden.

It does not have to be him.

So he turns his back on the whispers, turns his back on its song because there is only one song he wants to hear right now, spiraling on up to the heavens, and he sweeps a hand through the air, slowly, purposeful.

The warm jade of Chenqing falls into his fingers and he sets it to his lips, testing, blowing a low mournful tone.

Cangse Sanren may have been the first Demonic Cultivator, the first to spin resentful energy into something useful and honorable, may have been the first to braid blue and red qi together, the first to find balance but her son has taken it so much farther.

The two conflicting energies settle in Wei Wuxian’s palm, docile as only trained beasts can be before the whip and blend, become one in a horrifying moment of singularity. Lightning crackles off him, pale lilac and corpse white.

Wei Wuxian is a god of two Domains now and he is of Yunmeng and of Nevernight, of Heaven and Hell.

There has never been anyone like him.

And as such, so many gods, (cowards, he thinks), are praying to any higher higher power that may exist that there will never be.

They will not be listened to.

Wei Wuxian slides through the first bars of his favorite song, low and sweet, longing and sees Beautiful Lan Zhan slow and spin to the sway and pulse of the music.

They fight together now and forever. 

Two wholes, perfectly fitted together.

Soulmates that were made, not found.

This is their song.

Their love story.

The Burial Mound is still whispering, still begging. All he can do is send a single thought, a reassurance. 

Someone will come.

He weaves it into fate and into truth.

Someone will need you.

But it cannot be me.

A sigh, a breath on the wind and Wei Wuxian returns to the fight with a lighter heart.

He may not be able to do anything for the Mound, saturated as it is in all things hateful, but Nevernight is another story entirely.

Nevernight is his .

Cangse Sanren was the first Demonic Cultivator, a prodigy and she lives on out in the farthest edges of the world. Helping, creating, furthering the teaching of Baoshen Sanren.

Wei Wuxian is the rising storm to her falling tsunami, the maelstrom to her hurricane.

Wei Wuxian is so much more than he once was and he laughs, throwing his hands to the sky.

He sings, strumming the music with qi, the beats echoing from foot-lain arrays.

He sings and Lan Zhan dances, here together.

Gold light breaks through the crust of the earth and rises with each beat of his song, with each step Lan Zhan takes.

Wei Wuxian sings, Lan Zhan dances, and this war will soon be over.

-

Jiang Yanli does not take pleasure in the lives she takes on the battlefield. With every body that falls, with every soul that she forces from this world, all she takes from it is a cold reassurance. 

These are the ones who would have burned her home to the ground.

These are the ones who would have laughed as they killed Jiang Cheng.

As they killed her little brother.

These are the ones that would have taken her whole world from her if given the chance.

Her Zidian, a mere fork of Mother’s, cracks and crackles with all the power of it’s namesake, with all the force of tribulation bolts.

Jiang Yanli could have been meek, once had been.

War changes many things but she remembers a hand on her head, a voice in her ear. Years ago, back in the safety of childhood. A black-clothed figure, a laugh like wind chimes in a gale. Warm black eyes and a smile like a noonday sun.

She hears the voice in the back of her head, a comfort, a warning.

The tide is rising.

And she rises with it.

-

Wen Ruohan, Sect Leader and Father of two, Warmongerer and Sadistic Bastard, finally crawls into the light on the fourth hour. The waves of lesser Wen are only now slowing, making up for in numbers what they lack in power.

Nie Huaisang wants to feel Wen Ruohan’s neck crack under his hands.

Wants to feel the life leach out.

The light drain from cold eyes.

Blood spill from mouth, from nose, from heart.

He wants to see it-

A hand in his brings him spiraling back to earth.

A hand in his and Cheng-er is frowning, worried.

The burning qi that bubbled at the back of his throat is subsiding, flowing down and out with each four-step breath and Nie Huaisang brings that hand up to his lips, sighing into a kiss to callused knuckles.

They share a quiet moment, undisturbed by the destruction around them. Da-ge, San-ge, and Xichen-ge are all in the thick of it, fighting side by side and back to back, despite yelling at each other about some nonsense.

The Lotus God and his Husband are dancing, purifying the city with each light step, writing a sun-gold array in the sky with each note.

Nie Huaisang takes this last moment and memorizes the shape of Jiang Cheng’s eyes, the slope of his mouth. The light, the blush on his cheeks.

Wen Ruohan reaches out a hand and flattens an entire platoon. Wen Ruohan steps forward, and the earth cracks beneath his feet like sun-scorched desert sand.

Wen Ruohan is an abomination, he thinks.

Nie Huaisang will need something more than skill to make it through this fight alive.

His fan glitters, reflecting the array overhead and he has the best-worst-lifechanging idea he has had since he decided to stay the extra year at Gusu.

“When all this is over,” He says, taking Jiang Cheng’s other hand in his as well, holding it to his cheek.

“Marry me?” He begs, a tear already tracking down his face and he may be a coward by Da-ge’s standards, might be weak and low in cultivation, might not be brave or strong but even so if there is one thing that he knows, here at the edge of all things, it is this.

A day apart is a year of hell.

Cheng-er is openly weeping, snarling, pulling him close and hiding his own face in Nie Huaisang’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Cheng-er says, rage and love and burning fire, “A thousand times yes.”

Chapter Text

They separate with a sob and Jiang Wanyin knows that this could be the last time he holds Huaisang.

This could be the last time.

This could be…

No, he refuses to believe that. This will not be the last, cannot be.

They separate with a sob and a promise and Jiang Wanyin kisses Huaisang hard, bruising and feral, trying to pour out every word that his voice cannot carry past his lips. 

He thinks it gets the point across.

When this is over, they will marry and Jiang Wanyin knows he is blushing a furious red, feels dizzy and breathless and happy and rage that burns like fire, like the swelling of the river before a flood because Wen Ruohan is now the one thing standing in between him and a spring wedding with the love of his life.

He draws Sandu, sees Huaisang ready his fans. There are no certainties in war, no way to be sure but-

But, he thinks, they’ll be just fine.

He sees the smile, gentle, lazy, that graces Huaisang’s lips and thinks, Wen Ruohan isn’t going to know what hit him

-

His city is in ruins.

His little god is free, and burning the world down around his ears.

Wen Ruohan admits that he might, might have miscalculated. Just a little bit.

He pushes outward again, rending the great host of cultivators in front of him. Power sizzles along his arm and screams start to fill the air again. Wen and Sunshot alike. No matter, he was strong as ever. The Wen are as strong as ever.

Cities can be rebuilt. People die. People are born.

But this is incredibly boring.

For the first time in decades, Wen Ruohan draws his sword. Long, with jagged teeth, held together by will and qi, this is not a gentlemen’s sword.

He brings it up over his head, satisfaction rolling through him with the use of long idle muscles. He remembers a time when he would never sheath it.

It comes down like a meteor on the young man before him, clad in dark green robes with white bracers. An odd arrangement of clothing.

The ground quakes, splinters, and Wen Ruohan turns his head, searching, looking to find his next victim, sure of the blood that must be coating the ground, sure of the dead that must be and-

He pauses, a half-second.

That did not feel like flesh being torn by his blade.

He turns back and finds a new body where his original opponent had been

The dust blows away fully.

Lilac against the steel gray of his blade, dark green robes edged with gold.

“Nie Mingjue, I presume,” He purrs, already feeling a new twist of excitement. He leans into his sword, forcing Nie ?Mingjue? back further. Had Sect Leader Nie always been this small?

They exchange blows, Wen Ruohan driving the Nie back step by step, blade against, fan?

Each twist and turn is more like a dance than a blow and he is beginning to doubt his original identification when a hand darts past his guard, managing to stick a piece of paper to his cheek. It glows, a godly gold.

A Divine talisman, he realizes with the slow creep of dawning horror. He stumbles back, blowing his opponent away, a hand coming up to tear the paper off.

“My name,” the man facing him said, calm as a Nie could be under the circumstances, patting the dirt from his robes, “is Nie Huaisang.”

“You killed my father.”

“Prepare to die.”

The world goes white, goes gray. 

Detonation, a thunderclap of qi and Wen Ruohan can feel the impact of stones, of rocks against his back. There is a ringing in his ears and-

He could have sworn he had two eyes when he started this fight.

Slowly, he climbs back up to his knees, then to full standing.

Someone, for the first time since he sat on the throne, actually managed to hit him. 

Someone-

Nie Huaisang. The useless younger brother, the dandy, the flightly little boy who has never held a saber in his life.

Even Nevernight has heard the rumors, how the Sect Leader Nie would spoil his younger brother, would protect him, even from the truth of their sabers.

Wen Ruohan ducks, barely escaping the next swing of the war fan coming his way. The blood pouring down his face is hot and he can taste it in his mouth.

This only excites him further.

“For your father?” He roars, laughing. 

“You fight me for a dead man?” He cackles, still dodging, still redirecting each swipe.

There’s a pull, an inhale from behind him.

There’s a whip, narrowly missing his neck.

Purple robes this time.

Lightning cracks, the bolt freezing Wen Ruohan in his steps.

Zidian?

-

Jiang Yanli sees Meng Yao go down, sees Nie Huaisang take his place under Wen Ruohan’s blade.

See the love of her brother’s life detonate a talisman and blow out one of the mad Sect Leader’s eyes.

There are no more enemies for her to fight here.

There is a clear circle around her, Wen troops too scared to get within range of her whip.

“Hold the line,” She orders.

The disciples around her bow, once and quickly.

She can hear her god’s song, can hear the tide and the moon and the rising blood.

This is her choice to make.

And she makes it.

Wen Ruohan isn’t paying attention to anyone but Nie Huaisang, doesn’t even hear her approach, the crunch of gravel or the sizzle of Zidian.

The scum still manages to dodge and Jiang Yanli yanks Zidian around with a snap, a true lightning bolt discharging directly in his face.

He screams and Jiang Yanli takes nothing but cold satisfaction from it.

This is the man that ordered the death of her family.

This man is laughing, and trying to kill her.

Jiang Yanli hasn’t been training with the whip for very long, just a few years, just long enough to begin to trust it and she does so now, wrapping the length once, twice, three times around her hand.

There is nothing left but trust and she lets her qi ripple and shake down it with the beat of her heart.

This is the man who tried to kill her fiend’s brother, who worked Wen Qing to the bone day in and day out making her fix what he broke in the torture halls.

This is the man she will kill.

If for no one else than her beloved fiend in Nevernight.

Zidian sparks once, twice, three times and she lets it go with a thunderclap.

The air splits in front of her and Wen Ruohan is thrown back yet again.

Nie Huaisang is waiting behind him.

-

Song Zichen doesn’t even bother pulling his sword, doesn’t even bother dealing with those so far beneath him.

This isn’t really his fight.

Oh, he definitely wanted to kill Wen Ruohan, wanted to help at the very least but mortals are incredibly fragile and with Xingchen in such delicate state, he’s more likely to flatten everything in a ten-kilometer radius then manage to kill only one man.

And Song Zichen would rather not obliterate Wei-Shidi’s herald.

Or this triad in front of him.

One little spider, one Nie, one Lan. 

A most harmonious arrangement.

Carefully, oh so carefully, he reaches out and shields the three of them from equally fatal blows, letting the sway of divine power enclose them like a second skin.

None of them are dumb enough to stop fighting and bow to him but he hears their unspoken prayers.

Song Zichen flicks his sleeves and rises up into the air.

If nothing else, he can at least reinforce his Shidi’s array.

He’s pretty sure he can manage that without killing anyone.

Chapter Text

Jiang Wanyin was once asked what he wanted to be in life. A stranger, a boy in white, asked him what he expected.

It hadn’t been mocking, nor had it been ignorant of his position as heir.

It was a genuine question.

He hadn’t been able to answer. 

But, for the first time, Jiang Wanyin was asked .

For the first time, someone looked at him and saw more than just a lesser Heir, more than the waning moon to his sister’s full. 

More than the sum of his titles.

And in retrospect, he probably fell right then and there.

He falls in love all over again, with the red string wrapped around his fingers, the promise on his lips, seeing Huaisang face off again the most terrifying man he has ever seen. Missing an eye, breaking the ground like fragile ice, Wen Ruohan, he thinks, is a monster.

And Huaisang is the one to land that first blow.

Huaisang is the one, fan versus cracked, rotting blade, Huaisang is the one fighting him with all he’s worth, the only one who dared , even the renowned Triad are off fighting the rabble and it is Huaisang who is putting himself in such danger.

Jiejie as well, and she has never looked so comfortable in her own skin as she does now, wielding her Zidian with all the force and respect it deserves.

Jiejie looks like Mother, is graceful like Father.

She is a force upon this earth and Jiang Wanyin has never felt so proud to be her little brother.

This distraction costs him.

A burning line along his ribs, through his ribs and Jiang Wanyin is alone behind enemy lines, surrounded and Huaisang is so far away.

A turn and a gasp and Jiang Wanyin falls to his knees, cursing himself and lashing out with Sandu, with a blow that echos…

And something changes, as his lifeblood falls to the shining earth.

Something rises.

Jiang Wanyin has ever been the Lesser Heir, the second, the youngest. Jiejie speaks to Yunmeng-Laozu and hears his voice, hears the turn of tides and the rise of the moon.

Jiang Wanyin can hear the roaring of the storm in a place where only silence once was.

Something new is crawling in his veins.

Something new is pooling in his lungs.

The next drop that falls is a glittering silver, a pearlescent grey.

Once, a boy in white asked him what he wanted to become.

I want to become someone who protects , is what he couldn’t say.

I want to become greater than my name, is what he refused to say, well aware of the petulance that would have shown.

“I want to do good,” Jiang Wanyin whispers to the ground below and the sky above.

“To be a shield before the storm and the calm of the eye.”

Half-ichor, not fully divine, falls from his wound.

Jiang Wanyin rises, still mortal, still hurt, still bleeding but-

More than his bones, larger than his soul.

Jiang Wanyin rises with the storm in his heart and in that brief moment, he is both the question and the answer. He is the water to Jie’s lightning, the winds to her thunder.

He is not lesser.  

And he roars.

-

Nie Mingjue has never been so scared in his life. He’s fighting like always, winning like always but-

There are some things in this world he cannot protect.

There are things in this world he cannot defend. 

Apparently, Huaisang is one of them and Nie Mingjue has never felt a fear like this before. 

He sharpens it, powers through and uses it, a hammer blow here, an upswing there and he is carving his way across the blood-soaked fields, his sworn bracketing him, whirling devils in white cloth. 

He is carving his way towards Wen Ruohan, towards his father's killer. 

Who seems to be missing an eye?

Lan Huan and Meng Yao are steadying presences beside him, counterbalancing the uncontrolled spin of his Qi.

This war needed no spies, took not his sworn from his side and Nie Mingjue has never been so grateful. 

He lets go, fights without inhibition because now he can , because he is no longer alone, no longer balancing upon the single plank above Abyss. 

There are hands on his back now, steadying him when he needs it and he leans into them, safe in the knowledge that they will never let him fall into the black.

It may not be a cure.

It may not be any more than binding the wound. 

But it is something and something to be thankful for. 

Maybe now, he will not die disgraced. 

Like his ancestors and their ancestors before them.

Wen Ruohan is screaming, lit up by purple lightning and cut in a million and one places. 

Wen Ruohan is screaming and Nie Mingjue is grinning, he knows, a twisted knife slash of a smile. 

Wen Ruohan is dying, in moments and slow, staggering steps and Nie Huaisang and Jiang Yanli are dancing, barely a cut on either of them. 

The gods are singing in the sky above his head. 

Meng Yao to his left, Lan Huan on the right, Nie Mingjue plunges into the fray again.

There are things in this world he cannot protect. 

And he is still scared, still worried, still breaking over the very idea of Huaisang getting hurt, but-

Maybe, he thinks to himself, in a hidden corner of his mind where only he exists, maybe A-Sang can protect himself. 

For about the amount of time it takes him to get over there. No more than that.

Three incense sticks, tops. 

A-Sang’ll probably be fine for that long. 

Nie Mingjue speeds up anyway, and in doing so nearly steps on Jiang Wanyin.

He picks the kid up and slings him over his shoulder, making a mental note to get around to have a second talk when Jiang Wanyin isn’t actively bleeding metal. 

Reluctantly impressed with the amount of dead bodies and the blood dripping from Sandu, Nie Mingjue hoists the love of his brother’s life a little higher up on his shoulders and beheads the nearest Wen with ease. 

A plan was in the works.

Step one: drop the purple brat off with Huaisang and Jiang Yanli so Huaisang can bring him to an actual medic and Jiang Yanli can protect them both. 

Step Wen Ruohan: finish the job, Baxia style. 

It satisfied two-thirds of the main criteria, which was getting Huaisang away from any kind of enemy and killing Wen Ruohan. The remaining third will have to wait until, once again, Jiang Wanyin isn’t actively bleeding metal. 

Because while Nie Mingjue had always been the blade of Qinghe, Nie Huaisang was its heart. 

And as the eldest, Nie Mingjue has promised to protect him.

Both as his brother, and as the very very literal blade of Qinghe’s god born again and again as Heir and swordmaster. He is but the newest incarnation. 

He remembers other times. 

Other bodies. 

The memories are vague, faded with age and with time.

Here and now, he is only Nie Mingjue. 

Here and now, he is Chifeng-zun and fucking furious. 

Baxia purrs in his hand, soaking in the blood and unwell spirits of the battlefield. 

There is so far to go until it can rest. 

And leagues to go until he sleeps. 

-

Granny Wen listens to the creak of the old trees out in the yard. 

Sees the soothing gold of divine machinations. 

She puts down her needle, puts down her thread. 

Her Children are dancing in the sky above, A-Ying is singing, A-Zhan is twirling. 

Granny Wen smiles, a joke known only to herself. 

She gets up, up and out of the rocker for the first time in living memory. Her old bones feel no pain. 

“A-Yuan,” she says, knowing that his mortal half is right beside her. Hobbling to the doorway, with both the grace given and the elderly slump of her age, she points one wizened hand to the sky. 

“A-Yuan, your fathers are singing for you.”

A-Yuan is watching them with awe, with stars in his eyes. A-Yuan is laughing, trying to catch the falling sparkles on his tongue like snowflakes. 

Granny Wen is ancient and her children are joyful. 

What else could she possibly wish for.

Chapter Text

There is very little left of the gilded white walls of Nevernight. What remains lies mostly in ruin, jagged and weeping broken arrays, Qi dripping from sharp edges and holes. 

The people of the nightless city take shelter in their homes.

Family, friends, crowding together under the same roof. 

They can hear the Lotus God sing. 

Wen Ning sits in the hub, bow braced across his knees and waits for his Wei-Laozu to return. 

Wen Xu, blessed with the sole remaining brain cell of the Wen Main Family, sits quietly next to him and does not attempt to escape. He knows that the only thing waiting for him out there is a painful death. 

He is not scared. He is not. 

Unnerved, maybe. By the silence of his guard.  

Shaken, maybe. By the void left behind by the god’s disappearance.

Wen Xu sits with his back to the hub and takes his time, carefully ticking over his current situation. 

He is the only remaining heir to Nevernight.

Esteemed Father is most likely dead or soon to be so at the hands of any number of cultivators. 

There is no good way out of this but-

Wen Ning, no, Wen Qionglin.

Close enough to full-blooded?

It doesn’t really matter, he thinks grimly. 

Slowly, obvious as he can make it, Wen Xu reaches into his robe and fishes out his red jade. Emblazoned by the roaring sun of Qishan Wen, it is proof enough of heirship. It is his only bargaining chip left. 

Wen Xu has never hated it more. 

Wen Qionglin makes no attempt to stop him, so Wen Xu slides it across the smooth floor.

“Wen Qionglin,” He says. 

“As the sole remaining member of the Main Family, I bequeath this unto you, to do as you wish and I renounce my name.” 

“My right to throne and sect.”

“My,” Wen Xu can feel the sick taste of bile, can hear the click of his throat and knows how stupid he must look, getting emotional over a dead husk of a future. 

He coughs. 

“My home,” He whispers. 

Living comes at a cost it seems, and he doesn’t even know if this one will be accepted, if it will be worth anything more than his word which is hazy at best. The silence stretches. 

This war is not of his making, and he knows that will not save him.

He has lead troops just the once, and he knows that may condemn him, should condemn him even if he failed to burn Gusu-Lan as his father ordered.

He bows, lower than ever and feels the shame steadily creeping up. Wen Xu forces it down and knocks his head to the ground. 

Wen Chao is dead. Fath- Wen Ruohan must not be far behind. 

And his family may have been poison, may have been chains and putrid fakes of real bonds but they were the only ones he had. 

Now he has no one and can live for no one but himself. Has never felt so free and so afraid. 

The long moment passes and there is a hand on his shoulder, an eye opening beneath his forehead. 

It stares into his soul and Wen Xu does not dare to move. 

“This absolves you of nothing,” Wen Qionglin says, as gentle as a death sentence. “But-“

Hope rises.

“But, your part in the war was short. There were no travesties, no disasters, no atrocities committed under your name or by your order or by your hand.”

“You will pay only for what you did and not for what you did not try to stop.”

“Rise, Xu of the nameless. Your task is done."

-

Wen Qing sneaks out of the city as soon as the barrier falls, as soon as it breaks with all the force of an explosion. She is running alone, along the edges of the walls because she is not a fighter, she wields no sword and to heal is her promise.

A-Ning will be okay now, bolstered and Risen with granted power.

A-Ning, she knows, is the greater of them. And she does not begrudge him that.

Wen Qing knows she was born with two cold black eyes and nothing strange about her, but that does not mean she can sit out of this war. This may be a divine conflict, this may be the territories of the gods but she has her own stake in this bullshit.

Her Lotus Bride is on the frontlines and there is no way in heaven or on earth that Wen Qing will leave her there alone.

She is Wen, but Nevernight has already fallen.

She is Wen, but soon, she hopes, she will not be.

So the barrier falls, and Wen Qing takes her satchel and her herbs, her needles and her fan, and she runs towards the fight. 

It does not take long before she can hear the clash of swords.

Can smell the iron, the blood.

Can see the brilliant purple flares and Yanli wielding a whip with all the serenity of the cold Abyss, all the power of lightning.

Wen Qing stops, for the briefest of heartstruck moments and stares, because there are things in this world that she treasures and this sight will forever be one of them.

Oh, she knew her Lotus Bride was no pushover, no fainting lily but sparks are coming down from the sky like snow, glittering like so much gold and they settle in Yanli’s hair like drops and light up her form like god rays and-

Wen Qing knew she was in love but holy shit.

She pulls herself together after a solid minute, smoothes out the plain black robes she found and hurries toward to front.

Lives to save, lives to save, no time to waste on tripping over her own feet because of how beautiful her Promised looks beating the shit out of Sect Leader Wen.

She sneaks one last look anyway, engraving the sight deep in her mind before striding off to find her first victim patient. Her first patient.

-

Meng Yao can feel the ripple of godly qi over his body like a heavy blanket, like an admonishment. He got ahead of himself, going after Wen Ruohan like that all on his lonesome, and, got blasted halfway across the battlefield for his troubles, right back into Mingjue’s arms like some kind of frail child.

There is no way he’ll be living this down in the next decade, nevermind -

He ducks.

The Wen sword coming for his head misses by a hair’s breadth and A-Huan dispatches the fool it is attached to with ease.

A battlefield, Meng Yao thinks sourly, is not a good place to do detail oriented things like thinking.

Stepping in time with his Sworn, his, a quiet voice delights, his his his, Meng Yao draws qi out into razor-sharp wires. His sword work has seen little improvement since the start of this war but his wirework, well.

Once a weaver, always a weaver, even if the tapestry he’s making is one of blood and gore and his skill is not bent to the task of mending clothes or curtains.

Mingjue is yelling at him, still sweeping through the low-level soldiers like blades of grass even with Jiang-Gongzi slung over his arm like a  sack of potatoes and Meng Yao is firmly not listening. He is busy, very busy.

Meng Yao cycles opposite of A-Huan, lacing energy through Mingjue’s system and reinforcing the flow to his core. They make a complete and utterly perfect formation like this, Mingjue drawing A-Huan down and Meng Yao up, the two of them keeping Mingjue steady in the middle. 

They act as buffers, as levies against the press of Abyss.

Against Qi Deviation, and Meng Yao can trace the path of anger as it comes to him, bleeding through and out as fast as it came.

They’ve had this conversation multiple times and while Nie Mingjue, swordmaster, blade of Qinghe, Sect Leader may be yelling at him, Meng Yao is Busy and Not Listening.

Busy wrapping the thin strand of wire around yet another throat.

Pulling, twisting with the rip of flesh and gush of blood.

Vanish the wire, start again.

Meng Yao is not a good fit for the battlefield, but he is trying his best.

Considering the circumstances, he’s just happy not to be dead yet.

He sees the red of Wen Robes, sees the flash of a purple fan in the distance and something like regret squirms in his stomach. 

This too, is his fault.

Huaisang is up against the most powerful cultivator of their time, matching blade to fan with a monster and while Meng Yao isn’t so full of himself to believe that it is done for him, the point remains.

Huaisang is there because of him. Because he thought he could get close enough and end it without Wen Ruohan even seeing him.

Something, definitely regret, mostly guilt, seizes and contorts and Meng Yao knows that he does not belong in open warfare.

A twist, a pull, a head going flying.

Every step forward brings him closer to fixing this mistake that could have cost Mingjue his family.

He just hopes it isn't already too late.

Chapter Text

Nie Zonghui pledged his loyalty to Qinghe young, barely able to wield a saber.

Nie Zonghui pledged his life, his blade, his soul to the Heirs of Nie before he really knew what it meant, what he was giving away.

Now, so far from home, dyed in Wen blood and lancing shadows, he doesn’t care. 

The pain, the hardships so far, the slough, the endless walking is all worth it because-

Wen Ruohan is dying.

Slowly. 

By fractions and fragments and Nie Zonghui feels only pride, only joy watching the architect of his Masters’ pain topple and bleed.

Well, maybe a little vindication because the Second Young Master is fighting. Seriously, focused and every stitch the warrior Zonghui knows he has always been.

Fighting, and winning, against a Sect Leader anyone would call monstrous.

With a fan. Made of wood, and he will be oh so happy to remind anyone of that in the future, should they quarrel.

Vindication, swelling, warm like sunburned rocks, pride, like an endless wave. This is the one he has sworn his loyalty to, even if in the beginning it was only on behalf of Sect Leader Nie.

Even if at first, he hadn’t understood.

But this is worth it, worth the broken bones and the fighting because now, a lifetime of teachings lies at his feet, proven wrong and obsolete.

Zonghui can only smile, only laugh because now, Nie Huaisang has forged a new path for himself and Nie Zonghui would boast to the Four Seas and the Seven WIlderness if he could, shout to the stars above that it is his Second Young Master, his Principle that has ended the cycle.

Because finally, others can see what he has always been saying, what he has known and knows now, for years.

Second Young Master was never weak.

He can see the looks of the disciples around him, can see the awe, the bewilderment.

Nie Zonghui hides a secret smile, proud, vindicated, and utterly content.

They, all of them, had been fooled.

They, all of them, now know.

Even the weakest of them can see the steady flow of Nie Huaisang’s temperament, even the most unobservant can tell.

There is no sickness in his Qi, no burning oil.

The once turbulent and deadly condition, present in even their Young Master, has calmed. Settled into a simmer.

Still there, for who would the Nie be without that heart torn twist.

Still present, for it will take more than a revelation on the battlefield to cure it.

But gentled , tamed.

The Second Young Master is bleeding qi, channeling it down and out in drumbeats and blows. A secondary wave punctuated every hit that lands and Wen Ruohan is staggering, tossed this way and that by Zidian, forced to his knees by Qinghe’s heart.

If Zonghui was of a mind for frivolities, he would have been waving a banner.

-

The Array finishes with a brilliant stroke, a final weaving strand that pulls the whole region together.

It burns in the sky, piercing and heady like fine wine. 

This, Wei Wuxian muses, is perhaps one of his finest works.

Self-sustaining, self-contained it channels the taint up in a spire of pale qi and rains down pure in golden sparks.

Where they fall, flowers bloom, rot and bloom again, the cycle of the seasons sped up until the dry soil is dark and fertile again. Skeletons rise and decay, but the assembled cultivators beyond the walls and the citizens of Nevernight remain unaffected.

The Land renews itself, moment by moment.

This is his gift, to the people of the nightless city.

He has lived among them, walked the selfsame paths.

Wei Wuxian knows them . 

And some part of him hopes that they know him just as keenly.

Arms slide around his waist and Wei Wuxian is hoisted further up and into the air with familiar ease. Lan Zhan steps down, not a sign of strain or effort on his face, meandering through the sky in a vaguely earthward direction.

They take it slow, watching the waves of cultivators below them rise and retreat. 

Wei Wuxian rests his head in the crook of Lan Zhan’s neck and lets the swell of comfort, of warmth and safety, overtake him. If anyone asks, he will firmly deny the few tears that slip out.

In terms of the lifespan of a god, it should have been no time at all. A few years, not even a decade, should have passed in the blink of an eye.

The arms around him tighten, shake in the infinitesimal way he knows means relief .

Wei Wuxian thinks, a day away is a year in hell , and knows Lan Zhan can hear him.

Hears, and understands.

“An hour gone, a century alone,” Lan Zhan states, quiet and firm. Declares, to him and the entirety of existence. The words carry the weight of worlds and empires and Wei Wuxian knows he is crying again. They both are, little tears and absent sniffs, and no lesser for it.

They can live apart, have administrated their respective domains for too long not to know how to live and live away from each other for a time but-

There is an ocean of difference between that and this, the involuntary separation that was abruptly forced upon them.

There is such horror in the inability to touch, to hear. To speak and be spoken to.

Even to see.

And it hurts, even now as Wei Wuxian holds so tight, tight enough that maybe some vital part of them can never be separated.

It hurts, but now like healing, like the slow pull of mending.

He doesn’t let go, even as they finally touch down near the main battle cluster.

Lan Zhan doesn’t let go either.

Wei Wuxian knows they aren’t exactly keeping up a godly image but frankly, he cannot find a single fragment of himself to care.

A few more moments, deliciously alone and together, before a welcome presence descends. 

The second-and-third god lands next to them and Wei Wuxian bows will all the decorum he can manage from Lan Zhan’s arms. They are the reasons he was able to free himself in the end.

WIthout collateral damage, that is.

“Thank you, Senior,” he says.

“Our pleasure,” is replied.

“We were hoping to speak with you,” says the one-who-is-two, and Wei Wuxian stares , because there is a core within a core, a soul within a soul and-

“Shufu?” He asks, disbelief and hope warring in his chest.

The corpse white eye blinks, asynchronous with it’s darker companion.

“A-Xian,” says a voice he only has memories of, “What in heaven and earth have you gotten yourself into this time?”

-

Chapter Text

The one to land the last blow is Jiang Yanli. 

Wen Ruohan chokes to death, Zidian wrapped tight around his throat.

Wen Ruohan dies slowly, his every desperate flail shattering ground and shield.

But in the end, he is dead and Jiang Yanli stands over him, quiet triumph in every line of her body.

Nie Huaisang swoops moments later to behead the corpse.

Better safe than dead.

They share a look, comrades in this effort and part unspoken shovel talk from Jiang Yanli.

He hands her the severed head.

Nie Huaisang is many things.

A fool is not one of them.

This victory belongs to her.

A hand to his side, Nie Huaisang staggers. Falls to his knees and braces himself against the cold earth.

Takes a breath, a second, a bare moment to revel in the fact that he is alive, well and for the most part, unharmed . 

Takes a breath, and sobs, and lets his tears fall to mix with the blood on the ground because Wen Ruohan is dead , because his father is now avenged and he had been sure that he wouldn’t live past this, and he had been almost certain he was going to die, leaving Cheng-er alone and bereft and-

And this is ten years of terror, of knowing his father’s killer lives and lives well. Ten years of watching Da-ge crumble and slowly change, grow bitter and angry until he could barely see his older brother in Da-ge’s eyes-

And he wasn’t strong, all he had was tricks and twists and seven weeks of fighting with a fan against anyone who could be spared in a moment, talismans he wrote himself on the back of old maps and inventories-

And Nie Huaisang lets himself melt into a little pile of dark green-clothed goo because San-ge almost died , and he almost died and all he wants now is to sleep for a million years.

A warm hand descends, moving in wide, comforting circles across his back.

Jiang Yanli, he thinks, already half asleep and fading fast, is quite possibly one of the best people.

-

Jiang Wanyin wakes up almost smothered by soft brown strands of hair, warm and tucked in under a warcamp blanket. The pale blue of the medic tent swims into focus and he blinks.

Apparently, he is not dead.

He closes his eyes again.

Reaches for the warm body next to him.

Turning over, Jiang Wanyin curls around Huaisang, burying his nose in the fresh pine, new paper and ink smell that always seems to follow his love around.

People talk, quiet whispers and he lets himself be lulled back to sleep by the gentle firelight and steady pulse under his fingertips.

The war is over, and they have both survived. The war is over, must be over, he thinks wryly, else why would they both be here, in the same bed.

The war is over and soon, he thinks, fading fast and already half asleep, soon they will be married.

He relaxes fully, lets himself go if only to usher that day in all the sooner.

-

Four gods sit around the fire in three bodies. 

Four gods sit opposite each other, as Lan Wangji has yet to let go of Wei Ying. 

It is a comfortable silence between them, mulled in the promise of conversation and good tea to come. 

Lan Wangji stares at the flames and gives in to a little temptation. 

Slowly winding his fingers through Wei Ying’s hair, Lan Wangji stares at the gods sitting across from him and soaks in the comfort of family. 

Wei Ying’s Shixiong and Shufu blinks calmly back, the corpse pale eye once again out of synch. 

Wei Ying has returned to him, hale and hearty, bursting with life and new energy. 

Wei Ying has returned to him and in the morning he will introduce the twins to him, in the morning they will set out to see what can be salvaged of the walls. In the morning, they will talk, about what is to come and what they can do for the two-that-are-one. 

But tonight is for them and them alone. 

So Lan Wangji sits at the fire. 

Combs Wei Ying’s hair from root to tip, letting each strand twist and tangle around his fingers before smoothing them out. 

Wei Ying presses back into his hands. 

Stares at the flames. 

This time is for them, and against all probability, they drift off together. 

Those who cultivate to immortality rarely need sleep. 

Those who call themselves divine usually abhor it. 

But the fire is warm, the breeze is soft. The night is singing and the lost souls are finding their way home. 

The lanterns of the camp are slowly going out, one by one until all that is left is the fire pit, blazing merrily and alone. 

The trees are dancing and the stars above shine out the brighter, and Lan Wangji slowly falls asleep under a full moon rounded and gorged on sunlight. 

He can hear the breaths, soft and gentle, as Wei Ying slips away with him into rest. 

He tucks his cheek against Wei Ying’s head, heart full of home, mind full of nothing at all. 

Closes his eyes. 

And sleeps. 

-

Meng Yao lies awake, bracketed by his sworn, his loves and marvels in the unending capacity to forgive that A-Huan bears for him.

Marvels at the tense, yet yielding way Mingjue bestowed his own version of forgiveness as well.

Meng Yao knows he is not a good person, knows it like the scars on the back of his hands, like the wore callouses from long nights of needlework.

Meng Yao also knows this: of all the people in all the world he has lied to, deceived, he has never been able to truly trick Mingjue.

Ever.

Even the softest of whispers, the lightest of falsehoods are found out in seconds and here there is comfort, in knowing that his webs will not entangle at least one of them.

That even as he gets lost in his own words, tripping over every time he’s lied, Mingjue has cultivated the extraordinary ability to see right through him.

To know him, like no one else.

In this, there is comfort, with one who will believe him above all else, and one that will ensure that he is worth believing in.

Meng Yao has meters of plans, kilometers of tricks and traps and he has left each and every single one wrapped on its spool.

Meng Yao has decades worth of plots, for himself and for select others and each and every one of them has been made invalid, superfluous and unnecessary now.

Meng Yao has two pairs of arms wrapped around his waist, two heartbeats lying next to him in the dark.

And he is beginning to believe that they are all he needs.

Against his own will, now he has started to believe.

But there is so much blood staining his hands already, there is so much fault that can be lain on his doorstep, and-

A-Huan rolls over, rolls closer in his sleep, cradling Meng Yao’s head to his chest.

The threads of encroaching, sickening thoughts fade at his touch. Not vanish, because he has heard too much, lived for too long in the places where no kindness lurks for it to take that little.

The Red Lights District is no place for a child with any amount of curiosity.

But the thoughts fade, fade fast, and further as the night grows deeper and the chill in his bones is replaced by gentle warmth.

As he shifts, not even trying to get up, to leave, and the hands still on his waist only hold tighter, the arms around his shoulders hold him closer.

It seems any attempts at separation is long past the point of failure, and Meng Yao is not a good person.

Certainly not good enough to give this up, to give them up, even for their own sakes.

Meng Yao listens, feels the breaths under his hands, hears the pulse from two hearts.

He closes his eyes.

Tomorrow, there will be talk. There will be celebration, negotiation and conversation.

But that, is tomorrow’s problem.

Here and now, in a bed two sizes too small, Meng Yao lets himself sink, lets himself lose the razor-sharp focus of day.

Meng Yao sleeps, soundly and better than he has in decades.

Sleeps deeply, for once, untroubled.

Here and now, Meng Yao is only Meng Yao, and all the better for it.

Chapter Text

Jiang Yanli finds her fiend surrounded by broken bodies, the dead and not yet dying. Wen Qing is covered in blood, head to toe soaked through her plain black robe.

None of it is hers.

But this is a singular battlefield and Jiang Yanli waits at the edge of it, knowing better than to go where she cannot help.

The night is coming fast and there are so many left to heal.

Jiang Yanli waits with the patience of mountains and seas, keeping the soup in her hands warm.

Jiang Yanli waits, and watches her fiend work.

The breeze is cool against her neck, the stars bright above.

It will be many hours until the final patient is either stabilized or finally dies, and Jiang Yanli thinks she could wait forever for her fiend, wait forever watching Wen Qing work and do what she can not.

Zidian takes lives and cuts down bodies like blades of grace.

Taking a life is so much easier than saving one. 

That was the first thing Mother taught her on the charred, yet whole steps of Lotus Pier. 

The second thing was this: Revenge heals nothing, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be savored.

She sit on the edge of a log.

Jiang Yanli watches her fiend do the work of saints and dreams. Half out of her own head, and dreams of old blood turned brilliant crimson, plain robes turned elaborate works of art in their own right.

Keeps the energy pulsing through her hand and swirling around the bowl stable with barely an afterthought. 

Dreams of what will be, eyes wide open to what is. 

Time slips by like this, hour upon hour and the rusted, jagged thoughts chasing each other through her head slow, smooth back over. 

The war fades from her bones, a little more, a little further each moment

She knows it will never leave, never truly and completely vanish and leave her in peace.

The Third thing Mother taught her.

Each life broken, each thread snapped, will take something from her whether she would let it or not.

And it will be a very long time before she can get them back. 

But get them back she will. Not the same, not a perfect fit anymore, and yet.

She will get them back nonetheless.

Here and now, there is only the quiet, the night and the setting sun.

Here and now, there is a bowl of soup and Jiang Yanli thinks that is a good start to just about anything.

The sun is long gone by the time Wen Qing has finished her work. She rises from the last sickbed, staggers and nearly falls.

Jiang Yanli is there to catch her, soups still balanced in one hand, heedless of the slow spread of blood that bleeds into her clothes.

Clothes can be washed.

They walk together, not talking yet, not needing to. Silent as the morning’s blush and the slow set of night, they walk down the rows of tents. Arm in arm.

The grass is crisp underfoot and the moon lights their way to the Yunmeng section, where purple pennants fly. 

There is an agreement in this silence and Jiang Yanli holds the tent flap open. high overhead.

Sets the bowl down on a waiting table.

She draws a bath, warm and sudsy. Listens to the slow slide and stick of soaked robes tossed into the waiting basket.

This, she can do for her love.

A comb in hand, oils and soaps ready.

A tap on the divider, and she rounds the corner. Settles behind Wen-

No.

Settles behind A-Qing, nameless and lovely.

A silken mass of black hair tumbles over the edge of the bath and Jiang Yanli takes her time, takes care to be gentle and delicate and all the things she put aside when the war began.

She may be good at being a soldier, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it.

But this, this she can do and it soothes something inside of her. Something else wakes in it’s stead.

Knots are picked out, smoothed over. She detangles, unweaves. Watches the water turn red twice, each time being replaced by a convenient array etched on the bottom of the tub.

Runs her hands through the straight, ink black hair in front of her and feel A-Qing slowly relax under her touch.

Woken, the smallest part of her, boxed up and locked away, wants to scream. Wants to run, so far away that the blood on her hands will never touch A-Qing, the lifeblood she spilt over and over and over-

Instead, she breathes. 

Loosens the chains on that small fragment. 

Looks it in the eye.

This will not control her. The pain may be real, the memories as crushingly vivid as the day they were created, but this is not all she is.

Jiang Yanli is more than her pain.

That doesn’t mean it is easy.

Lesson Number Four: Trauma is an unrelenting beast, but that doesn’t mean she owes it a damn thing.

She breathes, and leans forward. Bent almost double, forehead braced against the wood of the tub, Jiang Yanli listens to the water. Listens to the silence and knows that A-Qing is safe.

She breathes, and resumes her ministrations. Coaxing the strands flat and even, clean and shining in the dim lantern light. 

The soup is lukewarm by the time both baths are done, and normally she would sit opposite, usually, according to etiquette.

Tonight she sits side-by-side with A-Qing and listens to her talk. Speaks freely and fully, things Mother usually listens to. Speaks about what she did, listens to what A-Qing has lived through.

The both of them weep, clutching at each other because they both have brothers, people to care for, people who need them.

 People who are safe and there is so much relief in talking.

A-Qing’s head is heavy on her shoulder, the night is old and fraying and the light finally goes out with a hushed breath.

They fall asleep hand in hand, heads bowed together in one bed and this may have been the first time they met, might have been the first time seeing each others face and-

And Jiang Yanli knew she was in love long ago, in love with the words on letters and the spirit behind them.

And Jiang Yanli knows she is in love, here and now in the dead of night.

And Jiang Yanli, here in the dead of night, knows she is loved right back.

She closes her eyes, not against the dark, not against the night.

She closes her eyes, A-Qing closes her eyes and they drift off together, restful and deep.

The most peace either has had since this war began.

The night is long.

The shadows are deep.

The whisper of the wind wakes no one.

The Sunshot campaign has come to an end.

Three years after it started, this war has ended.

So they sleep, and wait not for what morning will bring.

-

Chapter Text

Morning dawns bright and clear, the softness of night sharpened with the rising sun.

Wei Wuxian wakes first, still cradled in Lan Zhan’s arms,fist still wrapped up in the other’s ribbon.

The fire is nothing but ashes and coal.

Shufu and Zichen-xiong are nowhere to be seen.

People stagger here and there, some drunk, some hungover.

Wei Wuxian laughs.

He laughs, hauls himself to his feet and sets about waking his husband.

This is everything he had missed. Everything he had wanted, locked away in a fearful city of thousands. Where people flinched when he walked past, where people never looked up from the ground, terrified on the consequences. 

Lan Zhan wakes fast, wakes groggy which is fair. Neither of them have slept in hundreds of years and both are quite out of practice.

Ah, life outside of heaven is the best. Stuffy golden halls give him hives.

This is where the real fun is.

People! People living, being people. Mortals doing mortal things like a gold boy tripping on a discarded log.

Wei Wuxian catches him by the arm, barely saving the poor bastard from getting a mouthful of dirt.

Lan Zhan wobbles off, to find a stream or barrel of water in all likelihood and Wei Wuxian beams down at the young man he is holding up.

“Better be more careful!” he chirps.

Who were the gold boys again? Lanlie-

LanLin…

Hm.

Jin!

The little cinnabar dot is a dead giveaway.

A shout of “Yunmeng Laozu!” and the gold boy bows deep.

A bit panicked.

“At ease, at ease,” he says, carelessly waving it away. 

Wei Wuxian leans back, luxuriating in the warm sunlight. Stretches his fingers up and up-

Hears a familiar chiming.

A small glowing soul zips from the young man’s sleeve and hovers in front of his face.

A Small God.

How cute!

“Yours?” he askes.

“How cute!” he says, as it is worth repeating. In his time watching over Yunmeng, he’d seen hundreds of the little guys float past, looking for their parent or parents. 

Always had wanted one of his own, but alas, one thing leads to another.

Next thing he knew, he was locked up half a world away.

Funny how that happens.

Shushu!

“What,” says the Jin.

“Huh?” says Wei Wuxian.

Pretty-ge’s husband is Shushu!

Pretty-ge… Lan Zhan? 

He cups the fluttering god in his hands and smiles again. There, he has officially smiled more times in the past hour than he did all three years in Nevernight. He probably looks like an idiot, but, well. He’s earned that right.

“Lan Zhan is the prettiest gege,” he agrees, absolutely serious.

Pretty-ge helped me find papa. The Small God burbles happily, flickering here and there like the world’s cutest firefly.

The Jin looks torn between dying of embarrassment and passing from sheer anxiety so Wei Wuxian gives him a break, passing back…

Jin Ling is Jin Ling!

Passing Jin Ling back to his father.

“Hey, Jin boy,” he says.

“Want a courtesy name?” he says.

The smirk on his face has only a little to do with Lanling’s golden god, the absolute bastard in shoes five times too big for their feet.

Okay, it has a lot to do with them. And spite.

But, well deserved spitefulness, and pettiness that only came about after several decades worth of feuds.

Fucking Peacock gods.

“This Jin Zixuan would be honored, Yunmeng Laozu.”

Thank you Shushu!

“The next generations character should be Ru,” he said. 

A nod from the Jin boy.

“In that case,“ He says, and then stops.

Lan Zhan strides back into view, polished and alert. Graceful, powerful.

Wei Wuxian smiles. Well, smirks. Again.

Because spite is a beautiful thing.

He turns back to the little family. 

“Jin Ru Lan!”

“Lan?”

“As in Orchid, obviously.”

A hand in his, Lan Zhan pulls him away from the conversation. Leans in close, as if trying to make up for the years of absence.

An unspoken question lingers between them.

Wei Wuxian leans in as well.

“All done,” he says once they separate.

“For now,” he says, jittery with glee.

They walk together under the morning sun, hand in hand. Fill their eyes with the dissolution of war, the tents being taken down, the blades finally being sheathed.

Everywhere they look, the quiet of peace has taken over. The gentle horror, the exhausted relief. Many are weeping.

Just as many are laughing.

This is a new beginning.

This is a bitter end.

“The cycle returns,” Lan Zhan says, and they have lived for long, so long compared to the mortals that surround them, and they are so young, so new in the eyes of the gods above and the monsters below.

They know how this could have ended, might have, if not for Wei Wuxian’s capture.

Know how it just might loop back again, start all over.

Same board, new players.

But Wei Wuxian looks out over the cultivators, the people gathered. Sees Wen, sees Nie, Jiang Jin and countless others working together to move rubble and find bodies.

But Lan Zhan looks out over the assembled mortal. Sees the scars and the broken bones. Sees the bonds, the new ties. Sees the bloom of friendship, the death of apathy.

They just might get it right this time around.

Later as they stand in the ruins of the Main Hall, it is a matter of moments. A rush of pure gold as Shufu and Song-xiong peel away from each other, and they hold hands, so tight they might never let go.

Wei Wuxian follows it up with a wave of pure white, as gentle and healing as he can manage. 

His new power itches, his new domain clamoring for his attention like a needy pet, and he staggers.

Falls, but Wei Wuxian feels the slide of his hand, of an arm around his waist, grounding and electrifying all at the same time.

Lan Zhan lifts him into the air once again, sweeping him off his feet shamelessly. 

“I have been meaning to ask,” says Shufu, eyes sparkling.

“What did you name the twins,” he says, completely unaware.

Wei Wuxian looks at Shufu.

Looks at Lan Zhan, who’s ears now practically glow red.

Back to Shufu.

“Twins?” Wei Wuxian asks.

“Twins.”

This time he really does faint.