They stay like that for a time: Wei Wuxian silent, listening to Lan Zhan's soft breath, feeling the other man's palm trace a steady line along his back.
He thinks of the Burial Mounds. Not how it ended, but an indeterminate time in the middle when their home had settled into quiet routine. The moments when he looked out of Demon-Subdue Cave and thought, We have dug a new clan out of the soil. Something small, scraggly as the lotuses he struggled to plant in the water, but slowly blooming all the same.
Would he have taught A-Yuan some of his crafty tricks as the boy grew up? Would their little clan have brought others who did not seek to destroy them, but wished to learn of a new way?
Knowing now that his work has marked him, he isn't sure he would have taught it to others. And he will never forget the rabid scramble among the sects as he hurled the broken Stygian Tiger Seal into their mist: those who practice it now could walk the path for nothing more than power and violence.
no subject
He thinks of the Burial Mounds. Not how it ended, but an indeterminate time in the middle when their home had settled into quiet routine. The moments when he looked out of Demon-Subdue Cave and thought, We have dug a new clan out of the soil. Something small, scraggly as the lotuses he struggled to plant in the water, but slowly blooming all the same.
Would he have taught A-Yuan some of his crafty tricks as the boy grew up? Would their little clan have brought others who did not seek to destroy them, but wished to learn of a new way?
Knowing now that his work has marked him, he isn't sure he would have taught it to others. And he will never forget the rabid scramble among the sects as he hurled the broken Stygian Tiger Seal into their mist: those who practice it now could walk the path for nothing more than power and violence.
Still.
There are others, now.