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[alongfallfromgrace]

The Burial Mounds are quiet, save for the thin moaning wind as it curls around the abandoned proto-village.

That, and the faint metallic sound originating from inside the cave rhythmic and slow. The courtyard is abandoned of human life, the only movement the lotus flowers bobbing in the breeze.

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[alongfallfromgrace]

"Lan Zhan." The sound is almost lost to the clash of steel, but it's there, the sorrow echoed on Wei Ying's drawn face. "Lan Zhan, when will you let me go?"

There's blood on his lips, blood seeping over his robes, blood dripping to the ground to be smeared by their footwork.

"Lan Zhan, when will it be enough?"

[thesecondjade]

"Never," he replies, golden eyes dull like spent coins.

"Never," when Bichen chimes out with another parry.

"Not till you've had enough," he tells Wei Ying, less strength put behind his parry. Each successive clash is weaker and weaker, guiding more than parrying. As Suibian glissades along the translucent, icy Bichen, he steers it closer and closer to his frame, all but beckoning it to plunge into his heart.

Only then will it be enough.

Oooooh, glissades is a good word

[alongfallfromgrace]

Thump

Wei Ying is too well trained, too battle-hardened, too pain-mad to resist the lure for long. But it isn't Suibian that crashes against Lan Zhan's chest, but Chenqing, the red tassel swaying between Wei Ying's fingers. Suibian is gone without a trace, taken and returned far too late to be of use.

"Let me go, Lan Zhan." Wei Ying repeats, still in full extension, his form graceful in stillness.

it is one of my FAVORITE words i just love the sound of it. GLISSADE.

[thesecondjade]

"Never," he repeats yet again. "I cannot. I will not."

Bichen clatters to the stone, useless, both hands coming to Chenqing to hold the blacked instrument to his chest, as Lan Zhan might somehow plunge it through his heart by force of will. Somehow the screaming inside him has finally aligned with the now, as he keens in grief.

"I can no more tear my heart from my own chest," he cries out, "then let you go, Wei Ying."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"You cannot hold us both, Lan Zhan." Wei Ying sighs, as across the cave comes the sound of a crying child, tucked away somewhere by the Blood Pool. "I have failed, Lan Zhan. I failed both clans I sought to protect. I failed my shijie. I failed a-Yuan. I failed you." The sentence is passed down without emotion - stating the facts, as cleanly as he ever answered a test question as a teenager back in the Cloud Recesses.

[thesecondjade]

"No," the denial just keeps coming as Lan Zhan slides his hands up Chenqing's length, to grab for a hand, an arm-- for whatever he can have. Tears have welled up, only to break the damn of his lash and sluice over his cheeks. "Please, Wei Ying. Please don't make me carry this weight alone. I couldn't stand by you. I couldn't even stand for the punishment. All I've done is fall, Wei Ying. Fall short of everything I needed to be."

It's not fair. None of it was ever fair; starting from the moments of their birth, sins of fathers passed down to sons, to the moment they clashed over ink and copied rules. War wasn't fair. Loss wasn't fair. None of this has been fair.

"I should have stood by you," he says, voice as cold and dry as Bichen. "What if I can't stand again? What if I fold to the Code of Lan again?"

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Lan Zhan." The earlier harsh snap is gone, replaced by a faintly exasperated fondness - a tone Lan Zhan hasn't heard except for one golden afternoon in Yiling, and fainter once upon a time in the Cloud Recesses. A gentle hand rests against Lan Zhan's cheek, thumb slowly wiping away tears. "You wouldn't even let me deny a-Yuan a grass butterfly. Are you telling me you wouldn't move heaven and earth to care for him now?"

[thesecondjade]

Turning his face to hide his face in Wei Ying's palm, Lan Zhan doesn't answer at first. He's too busy tasting the iron and salt that clings the air of the Demon Subdue cave, made all the bitter thanks to the flavor his tears impart.

"Lan Yuan," he murmurs, because he's already done. He's signed and sealed, bound by the words he whispered to the boy before he left him in the care of others, and bound my promises he made when he told him his new name. "Lan Yuan. He should have been ours, Wei Ying."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Lan Yuan." Wei Ying repeats, his voice shaped by the curl of a smile. "Teach him the promise we made, and he'll be ours regardless." The sleeve brushing against Lan Zhan's face is white, edged in Yunmeng Jiang purple.

[thesecondjade]

Lan Zhan doesn't want to look at that face; doesn't want to see it gently cajole him, nudge him, tease him. He already feels like everything is pouring out of him. First it was blood and all his guilt, but now it's all his love, rushing out of him in a torrent of grief. What is grief, after all, but love with no place to go?

"I will," Lan Zhan gives another oath, another one he doesn't want to break. "But it won't be the same, Wei Ying. You won't be there to teach him things I can't."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Things are never the same, Lan Zhan." Lotus Pier burned down to its pilings, the Cloud Recesses took permanent scars. Families have been torn apart, traditions lost.

The child's cries continue, softly miserable.

"But you will be steadfast."

[thesecondjade]

"I should have been steadfast for you," Lan Zha says, but it's less jagged at the edges. Not so broken. He is not whole or untrammeled, but there are less sharp edges to all his breaks.

There is a child crying, and it's his son.

Lan Zhan cups the hand pressed to his cheek in his calloused palm, breath still curling hot into its valleys. "I love you so much, Wei Ying."

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying's thumb strokes gently across Lan Zhan's face, calming, soothing.

"You will be well, Lan Zhan, and a-Yuan will be happy. That is more than I hoped for. For me, Lan Zhan, can you please not feed the poor child any radishes? Surely he has had enough."

[thesecondjade]

Lan Zhan does not sob or weep because there is no echo to his love. Even his mind does not lie to him, no matter how pleasant the illusion is. Wei Ying did not love him. All the same, he took Lan Zhan's heart with him, leaving just enough to love his newfound son.

Instead of giving his promise, he laughs at the request, even if it's breaking apart in his mouth. When he sucks in his next breath, he is aware of another weight-- his son slumbering at his side, breathing still rough and his rest still fitful.

Lan Zhan takes his little hand in his own, watching him. He does not fall back into slumber, and instead murmurs promises to the dead: he will be loved, Wei Ying, he will be cherished, he will be safe.