Archive of Our Own ^beta

Wei Wuxian is thirsty. He has been walking for what feels like hours upon hours, though the dark forest around him has not changed. No matter which way he turns, he comes back to the same clearing cut by swathes of moonlight, and the same pool of still, black water.

He kneels at its unnervingly round edge, sets down his sword, and reaches for the surface. He is almost touching it when he pauses.

It feels…

He does not want to disturb it.

It sparks his curiosity, but it is just one of many inexplicable things he has come across in the hours since he woke alone in this endless wood, and he is too tired to think on it just now. He drinks from the sighing stream that feeds the pool instead, and the first draught touches his lips bright as a burst of starlight in a clouded sky. He almost spills the rest, but what he does manage to drink is refreshing: cool, and clean, and sweet. He drinks his fill, and dries his hands on his robes before sitting back.

This place is more than strange. It thrums with veins and currents of qi he does not understand, the likes of which he has never felt before. The way it tricks his mind and his body, the way it keeps him caged, is unlike any feat of cultivation he has yet come across.

He begins to question his initial assumption that Jiang Cheng and the other disciples will find him here, begins to ponder the possibility that it will require less of a search and more of a rescue. It’s possible he’s contained in some huge array, and such a thing would need breaking from the outside, if only Jiang Cheng could—

There is sudden movement through the trees across the clearing. Wei Wuxian hears low shuffling sounds, but the sheets of moonlight between him and whatever is making them obscure any shape. Wei Wuxian takes his sword and crouches, moving toward the trunk of the nearest tree. He hasn’t seen any other living thing here thus far, and he squints, watching, as something progresses toward the pool.

First to break into the light is a fox. It trots silently toward the pool as if to drink, seemingly unbothered by Wei Wuxian’s presence. At the last moment it sits beside the pool instead, as if waiting.

It is followed by a sudden burst of movement, of flapping wings, as a small host of bats, nightjars, and owls emerges to alight on branches all around.

Wei Wuxian ducks farther behind his tree just as more creatures amble out into the open space. He’s never seen so many different animals in one place, let alone sitting like an audience. Or a…or a court.

It is not quite silent any longer, with so many living things breathing together, but the atmosphere hushes when a much larger figure steps forward. It looms, a tall shadow, until moonlight washes its features in silver.

“Trespasser,” the figure says in a low, melodious voice. Dark eyes flash hot as embers as they sweep the clearing, a sharp contrast to the softness of the voice and the mouth which shapes it. “How do you answer for your crime?”

He is tall—taller than any man, even without the magnificent antlers that twist up from his dark, glossy hair—and imposing, though his layers of pale robes flutter around him, insubstantial as mist. They obscure his shape thoroughly, baring only a long, elegant neck and an exquisite, impassive face. The same silver velvet that blankets his antlers underlines his sharp jaw, and his high cheeks catch the light strangely, though he is too far off for Wei Wuxian to see how. A pale ribbon binds his forehead. He stands rigidly straight, one arm bent behind his back, the other at his side, bearing the mantle of his kingship both proudly and easily.

For this, it is obvious, is the king of this forest and of all things within. This, it is obvious, is the revered Hanguang-jun of legend. He almost glows, imbued with something otherworldly, a concentration of qi that thrums impossibly bright beneath his fine skin.

It takes an embarrassingly long moment for Wei Wuxian to realize the command and question both are directed at him. He snaps out of his awe and stands to step out from behind the tree. He bows as politely as he knows how without touching his forehead to the ground.

“Hanguang-jun,” he says. “Forgive this one for asking, but how can one answer for a crime one has no knowledge of commiting?” He holds his hands out, palms up. “I was making my way back to my camp, and then I was here. I know of no trespass.”

“The forest brought you here from the edge of the sacred grove,” says Hanguang-jun, hypnotic voice smooth and level to the point of disinterest. “No human mortal is suffered to pass its borders.”

Wei Wuxian blinks and glances around. The animals arrayed about them are watching, solemn.

“I was just walking,” he says, feeling dazed. “There was no warning. No indication…”

“Every other human for a thousand years has known to keep away.”

The pronouncement is final. An accusation. Wei Wuxian bristles.

“It isn’t as if there’s a sign! I wasn’t trying to go to any sacred grove. I didn’t want to be there, and I don’t want to be here. I need to get back to my shidis and shimeis—we’re on our way to—”

The leaves of all the trees around them suddenly begin to rustle, a sound like distant thunder rushing closer. Wei Wuxian cuts off, flinching from the unnatural din. It is a reminder that as a guest here, whether he likes it or not, he is subject to this forest's unknown depths of power.

Hanguang-jun looks at him then, meets his eyes for the first time.

“The forest does not find this excuse satisfactory.”

Wei Wuxian swallows hard, pinned by his dark gaze as furious light churns in its depths. The very air seems to crackle with anger, with unrest.

“What…” Wei Wuxian clears his throat. Though it is foreign to him, he knows defeat when he sees it. “What now, then?”

“I will decide your punishment,” Hanguang-jun intones.

“Oh.” Wei Wuxian bows again, his mind whirring. Decisions mean time, and time means a chance at rescue. “I understand. When will my sentencing take place?”

Hanguang-jun looks away then, and pauses. “When I have decided.”

He turns, stalking back into the dark of the trees, his full retinue of beasts behind him. They are gone just as suddenly as they came, leaving Wei Wuxian alone in the quiet of the night once more.

He sits down on the soft, mossy ground beside his sword, shaken.

“Well, fuck.”

Time passes. Wei Wuxian does not know how much. The forest brightens and then darkens again in cycles almost like days, but not like days at all. Wei Wuxian cannot make sense of them, cannot make the cycles even or distinct enough to count. He sees not a single creature in this first lonely stretch, though he wanders endlessly. The trees themselves seem to go quiet when he nears. It is an uncommonly lonely way to pass the time.

Somewhere between one and ten days after that first fateful night, though, a high, cloying whisper teases at the edge of his senses. He pauses, and it takes him much longer than it normally would to puzzle out what it is—it seems so contrary to this place’s very existence. But it is familiar. Deeply so. It is uncomfortable, and repellent, but somehow as familiar as the grip of his sword. He stands, listening, and tries to turn toward the faint, not-sound of it.

When he gets it, his puzzlement only heightens, and with it, his interest. What is resentment doing in such a deeply serene place as this?

He sets off after the sickly, oil-slick thread, weaving his way through its tricks and twists until he comes to what seems to be the end of it. He hums, staring at the bole of a thick pine, and circles it, considering. This particular tree doesn’t look much different from its brethren, but on closer inspection, its needles look sparse, just a few of them fading to brown. Wei Wuxian reaches out and lays a hand on its bole.

“Hmm…what’s happening here, ah? What’s happened to you…”

The trees maintain their eerie silence. Wei Wuxian sighs.

“Well,” he says, “you’ve come to the right place. I happen to be a cultivator. A very good one, in fact, and you know what we’re known for? Other than cultivating, of course.”

There is no response. But Wei Wuxian can keep up a conversation perfectly well on his own. He pulls a series of talismans from his pouch.

“Banishing resentment,” he answers himself. “Just you watch. You’ll see why. I’m not the head disciple of all of Yunmeng Jiang for nothing.”

There aren’t many trees containing seedlings of resentment in the sacred grove, but it was strange enough to come upon one, let alone several. Wei Wuxian seeks them out after that, snuffing out the tiny, burning pits of hatred and sorrow before they can catch, before they can swell and overwhelm. It’s very like the honest work he so enjoys in his normal life, but perhaps stranger and a bit more difficult, which means he likes it even better. He goes on like this for he knows not how long, alternating between doggedly following barely-there tendrils of black smoke, and trying to poke holes in whatever feat of cultivation is keeping him trapped.

He is not yet bored by these endeavors when, once again finding himself at the black pool, he catches sight of movement, of a shocking reminder that he is not in fact alone in this place.

The king of leaves and rocks and beasts is gliding between the trees, silent and glittering as cobweb-caught dew, when Wei Wuxian spots him. He watches from his perch on the branch of a tall tree, hoping to escape his notice, at least for now. He does not want to arouse suspicion that he is trying to discern and potentially break the mechanism of his imprisonment. But Hanguang-jun pauses just within earshot, and speaks.

“Climbing the sacred trees is forbidden,” he says without glancing up.

Wei Wuxian closes his eyes briefly in defeat before letting himself deftly down.

“Is there some sort of guide to tell me which trees are sacred and which aren’t? We’ve clearly established that I can’t tell.”

The glare Hanguang-jun shoots him then is sharp with disapproval. “All trees in this grove are sacred.”

Bowing, Wei Wuxian sighs. “Now that I know of this rule, I will respect it.”

Hanguang-jun’s eyes narrow as if he suspects the lie of this.

“I have no intention of disrespecting any part of your kingdom,” Wei Wuxian adds, to seal it with a dash of true sincerity.

Slowly, Hanguang-jun nods.

“Do you believe me? Because I’ve actually been helping you, you know.”

“I know of all things that pass beneath this canopy.”

Wei Wuxian blinks. “Then. Why do you allow it? The resentment. How does it grow?”

Hanguang-jun’s mouth tightens almost imperceptibly, but he says nothing more as he turns and starts again on his way.

“Ah, Hanguang-jun?” Wei Wuxian dares. Hanguang-jun pauses but does not look back. “Is there…ah, food, here? And perhaps a warm place to sleep? That’s two requests, by rights I should get three, shouldn’t I? Surely even trespassers such as myself would still be treated as guests by Your Righteousness."

There is a pause during which Wei Wuxian hopes fervently that he has not pushed his luck too far. But Hanguang-jun does not slay him where he stands, nor does he so much as acknowledge his words before simply sweeping off into the dark.

But the forest changes, after that.

Subtly at first—the trill of a bird much closer than before, or the white spots of a fawn just visible through brush—but then, not long after that second meeting, a squirrel scampers right up to Wei Wuxian and tugs on his hair.

“Ah—ah?” Wei Wuxian says.

The fluffy brown creature skitters away, chittering in an eerie semblance of a put-upon tone, but then sits on its haunches and stares at him. Wei Wuxian stares back.

“Can I help you?” he asks, feeling the surreality of his situation rather keenly.

The squirrel chitters again, scampers in a circle, and then plants itself once more, a little farther away.

“You want me to follow you.”

More chittering, distinctly upbeat this time.

Wei Wuxian sighs.

“Alright,” he says, and gets up from his starving, brooding nap. “Lead the way.”

Lead the way it does, through something like late-afternoon dimness to what is almost certainly another section of the stream that feeds the dark pool at the grove’s center. There on its bank lies a flat rock covered in leaves, atop which sits a variety of nuts, berries, and mushrooms. The squirrel sits next to it, tail twitching, until Wei Wuxian catches up.

“You brought me…food,” Wei Wuxian says. He looks up, looks around, searching for a glint of white or a flash of silver. He sees none, but does not take this to mean he and his tiny companion are necessarily alone.

He feels himself smiling at the thought, and hurries to tamp it down.

“Thank you, Squirrel-gongzi,” he says, a bit too loudly, and bows. “This kindness is much appreciated.”

The squirrel seems to have had enough of him then, and is gone in a flash of tawny fur. Wei Wuxian sits down to his meal and is so genuinely grateful to be eating that he almost doesn’t mind the absence of spice. But, being Wei Wuxian, he can’t seem to leave well enough alone.

“There’s no meal that’s not improved by good wine, though,” he calls after it. “In case you were…wondering.”

Later, after the sun (if it is the sun as Wei Wuxian knows it, which he suspects it is not) has gone down, and a chill mist drifts among the deepened shadows, he has just begun to shiver when another curious face peeks out from beneath a bush. White, and pointed, with bright, clever eyes.

“Hello…” says Wei Wuxian to the fox, wary. He’s never heard a story of a fox who wasn’t a trickster. “Are you the one from before?”

The little face disappears. Wei Wuxian grimaces to himself, before wondering what food a sly fox might lead him to and thinking he might prefer not to find out anyway. But then he feels a sudden, faint prickling on his hand, and jumps, startled.

The fox is sniffing at his wrist. Wei Wuxian goes very still, not sure how to behave this close to a wild fox.

“Hello again,” he says, as low and calm as he can manage.

The fox eyes him and gives him a last sniff before turning and prancing leisurely away. It stops, though, before disappearing. Looks back at him over one red shoulder.

Wei Wuxian levers himself off the ground, giving over to his fate. “Right, following again, got it, coming.”

He is led on a twisting, at times almost impassable path, through thorny thickets and between grown-together trees, but eventually they come out to a small space surrounded by oaks not far from the black pool. He can hear the clash of the clear stream with the dark water’s unnatural stillness in the distance, but the fox disappears immediately down between twisting roots. Wei Wuxian stops short.

“I can’t go in there,” he says, hands on his hips, a little breathless from the chase. “I’m not fox-sized. I can’t.”

The fox emerges again and pads up to him, tail swishing emphatically, then turns back toward the tree.

“I can’t! I’m—look! I’m a person, I can’t crawl into little fox dens—alright, fine,” he says, when the fox begins scratching irritatedly at the earth.

He stalks over and goes to his knees on the leafy forest floor.

“Do you want me to put my head in so you can see I’m too big? Would that help?" he asks. Then, at a sudden thought, "Ugh, if Jiang Cheng chooses this moment to show up, I swear…”

He grumbles as he bends, and sees that the fox isn’t going into a den at all, not really. It has simply curled into a perfectly fox-sized space between roots. He watches as it paws at the fallen foliage surrounding its bed, pulling it over itself like a blanket.

“Alright,” says Wei Wuxian, leaning back. “That’s very…”

Impressive? Sweet? He puzzles over what sorts of compliments a fox might like, and then puzzles further over the nature of such a question. But before he can mire himself fully in the sudden ridiculousness of his life, the fox slithers back out of its hiding place and passes him. Wei Wuxian watches its progress until it comes to a stop in front of another of the trees in the little clearing. There is a large, time-worn hollow among its roots, and leaves heaped up around the hollow’s edges.

Wei Wuxian blinks. “Oh…m—me? That’s for me? Oh, I…”

The fox sits, pride beaming from its posture. As if to punctuate its point, a chill breeze wafts through, bringing with it even thicker mist. Wei Wuxian shivers again, and shakes his head.

“Alright.” He shrugs. “Couldn’t hurt.”

He crawls over to the hollow, making sure to stop and bow his thanks to the fox, and then settles himself down inside. It’s not exactly comfortable, but it’s better than most of the other places he’s rested for the past…long while, actually. Even before he found himself in this strange place.

Just as he’s wondering if he’s going to manage an effective leafy blanket or simply forgo the attempt, leaves begin to rain down on him from above. He looks up, brushing them from his face, to see the fox standing over him, kicking them over the edge. He huffs, murmurs his bemused thanks, and dubiously lets the fox bury him.

In mere breaths, he can feel the trapped warmth begin to gather. In just a few more, he drifts off to sleep.

It goes on and on this way. He eliminates resentment, and he follows woodland creatures to small delights. It feels unceasingly like a dream. A good one. The opposite of a nightmare.

An indefinite measure of time later, he is wandering the wood at its lovely approximation of twilight, when he becomes aware that the music he has been hearing for a fair while should be entirely out of place. He has heard no man-made sound for his entire time in this grove, and it should be shocking, should feel like some sign of humanity, of civilization. But there is something about it that makes it clear it is not.

Ever curious, he follows once more. As he does, the sound comes clearer, separates into distinct notes with definite beginnings, discernible timbre. A qin, he thinks, and masterfully played. The melody is unrecognizable, uncanny, filled with the same shifting, radiating power as everything else in this place. His search becomes less curious and more…necessary. Something essential in him is drawn to the song.

He finds it in a meadow dappled with the last rays of the fading light. The grass here is soft and wild, pricked through with small white and yellow flowers, and here and there a fawn lies sleeping, or a vole yawns as it grooms. But his eye is drawn immediately, inexorably, to the source of the music.

Hanguang-jun is seated among a small clutch of white rabbits, his long fingers delicately plucking the strings of a snow-white qin. The light bathes him in pale gold, wreathes his form lovingly in a dust-glittering halo. His eyes are closed, and somehow it seems his antlers have shrunk, softened from their many-pointed magnificence of before. He looks younger, somehow. His song and his form both exude peace.

Wei Wuxian stares for a long moment, entirely unaware, then catches himself as he starts to step forward, into the dying light, and stops. This is a place of peace. A private place, undisturbed. He is already bearing the consequences of defiling something sacred. Somehow, disrupting this scene feels like an even worse offense.

He sits, leaning against the bole of a tree. Hidden, but still able to hear, and even to see if he cranes his head. He wants to look, wants to drink in the sight, but he is so tired. So very tired. Sleep blurs the edges of his mind, and he drifts. He dreams of a hand gently brushing the hair out of his eyes, and then he dreams of his shijie, her warm voice calling him home.

When he wakes, the forest has gone dark and silent. There is a feeling in his chest like loneliness, but hungrier. He goes to the black pool.

He waits for three cycles of dark and light, never straying far from that hub of the forest, the only place he knows Hanguang-jun to go. He is restless in his waiting, and he tells himself it is Jiang Cheng he is waiting for, and rescue, and home, but he grows less certain the longer he spends here, the more strange kindnesses are bestowed upon him by wing and by paw. And then at last, Hanguang-jun comes, drawn up tall and severe and magnificent once more.

“Hanguang-jun,” Wei Wuxian says, bowing.

Hanguang-jun regards him only briefly, and with a distinct air of wariness.

“I came to thank you,” he goes on, “for the food, and the place to sleep. And the salve for my bruise, and the ink, which I’m not even sure how that dove came by, actually, and the ribbon for my hair when I lost mine, and…and for the music. Which you may not have meant to give. But I thank you all the same.”

He holds the bow for a moment longer, and then straightens to see Hanguang-jun looking down his perfect nose at the ground. He wonders, in the stretching silence, if Hanguang-jun will simply ignore him again, or perhaps deny any hand in these small gifts. It would not be surprising that the forest itself should take such initiative, as strange a place as it is, but somehow Wei Wuxian finds himself holding his breath for what Hanguang-jun will say.

“It is of no consequence, Wei Wuxian.”

His voice is soft and low; gentle such that it surprises Wei Wuxian, suffusing him with an unexpected warmth. It is not a voice that he finds he wants to hear from such a formal distance.

“Wei Ying,” he corrects, not even meaning to be bold.

Hanguang-jun looks at him, finally, his blank, impassive face now clearly, if minutely, showing surprise.

“Please,” Wei Wuxian insists.

Looking away, Hanguang-jun shakes his head once. “Ridiculous,” he says.

But he does not leave.

“Ah, Hanguang-jun, you can’t deny me,” Wei Wuxian wheedles. “I’ve only used two of my guest requests, I can ask anything of you, you know. If you refuse I’ll just ask something more ridiculous out of spite.”

Another shake of Hanguang-jun’s head makes his glossy hair swish, and his cheeks catch the light. Scales, Wei Wuxian realizes. TIny scales reflecting the unearthly moonlight in vivid hues of blue and purple. He’s never seen anything so strange and lovely. His fingers itch to know if they are rough or smooth to the touch.

“Do not make such a request,” Hanguang-jun says.

“Why not? Hmm? Hanguang-jun may be perfectly proper, but I’m certainly not. The name should reflect the thing, no?”

A sharp glance, darted in his direction. Another pause.

“I am to decide your punishment,” Hanguang-jun says.

“Ah,” says Wei Wuxian, reminded of the punishment and the fact that he is trapped, and definitely still trying to escape. “Right. What, ah...what’s taking that so long?"

A breath almost like a sigh escapes the rigid king of beasts. "There are many scrolls to consult."

"I see," says Wei Wuxian, hoping to obscure the depth of his wonder and excitement at imagining what sort of rare scrolls Hanguang-jun might possess. "All the more reason, then. Punishment is a very familiar thing, you know. I’ve only ever been punished by—well, I only remember being punished by the people who feed and clothe me. Which…includes you, now, too. Sort of. Doesn’t that make us closer than strangers?”

Hanguang-jun looks properly pained at this, the faint, delicate twist to his features nearly enough to make Wei Wuxian take it back, nearly enough to make him laugh and back away, call some light goodbye and dash off into the dark.

But then slowly, perhaps grudgingly, Hanguang-jun holds up his arms, and dips into a slight bow.

“Lan Zhan,” he murmurs, “Courtesy name Wangji.”

Wei Wuxian stares. And stares. He fights the urge to shout senselessly.

“H-Hanguang-jun, that’s—” he clears his throat. “Very. It’s, ah. Thank—nice. To make your…acquaintance. Lan Wangji.”

Hanguang-jun looks about as lost and wrong-footed as Wei Wuxian suddenly feels, which instantly makes Wei Wuxian feel much better about the situation. He takes a deep breath.

“Speaking of food,” he hazards, “I’m hungry.”

Hanguang-jun does not react to this news. Wei Wuxian forgoes his polite hinting.

“Eat with me,” he says. “It’s your food anyway."

This earns him another direct, surprised stare. Wei Wuxian finds it burns in him more sweetly than any liquor.

“Come on,” he says, distantly shocked at his own presumption, to address an immortal, legendary king of branch and beast this way. “You know where my dinner’s waiting, don’t you? Why not take me there yourself?”

He waits, breath and heart suspended, to see what Hanguang-jun, Lan Wangji, perhaps even Lan Zhan, will say.

And then his stomach drops, and he wilts, as Hanguang-jun turns abruptly, and begins to leave. Wei Wuxian shakes his head at himself, wondering what he could possibly have thought. That he’d, what, become friends? With Hanguang-jun? A mere mortal such as himself? Ridiculous indeed.

But after only a few steps, Hanguang-jun stops. He turns his head, looking down and to the side instead of properly back over his shoulder. An elegantly hesitant tilt that casts stark, twining shadows from his antlers across his face, muting his scales’ bright glint to distant starlight.

“Are you coming?” he asks.

Wei Wuxian smiles. “Yes,” he says, trying and failing to keep the glee from his voice. “Of course.”

He springs forward, hands clasped behind his back, to follow Lan Wangji into the trees.