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[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is having a slow-motion argument with the Bar over breakfast. She wants water and a little bread, and the Bar does not agree that this is a breakfast.


She has rejected an omelet, a breakfast sandwich, and biscuits and gravy. The Bar is trying a bowl of porridge on her and she's considering it. (She hasn't noticed it has raisins in it yet.)

Comments

[acrookedpath]

"I see. Well, ah..."

He straightens up a little. (So to speak.)

"A sect leader would need to marry their opposite for the sake of an heir. That is the face they present to the world -- if they wish to have a relationship with another in private, that is their business, so long as it does not bring harm or disrespect to their family. Which is difficult," he adds, "but not impossible, I suppose. Anyway, some find the idea more scandalous than others, which is where the gossip comes in."

[we_bring_hell]

She frowns, quizzically." Oh--of course. You have no reproductive technology. Of course your marriages must support biological reproduction."

Even through the paint, her face says clearly, yuck.

[acrookedpath]

He blinks.

"How else would we...?"

Honestly, he isn't sure he wants to know the answer to the question, but. Damn his eternal curiosity.

[we_bring_hell]

"We have technology," she says, "to combine the genetic code of two parents and gestate the fetus. It's incredibly uncommon for a parent to undergo... gravidity... personally."

"The Ninth's creche technology was limited, but even on Drearburh we are decanted, not truly 'born.'"

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian did not get as far as he did by being unable to adapt swiftly to new elements, ideas, and environments. He's exceptionally good at taking things in stride. So it says a lot that this is the first time he has ever looked at his friend as if to ask, What the hell, Harrow?

"Huh," is all he manages out loud, after a long moment.

This is so far outside any possible framework he might have that he doesn't know where to begin.

[we_bring_hell]

"Pragmatically, even setting aside matters of squeamishness, it allows for any two parents to reproduce," she says. "And it is safer. Especially between two necromancers, viability of the fetus is often touch-and-go, even in the controlled environment of a gestation unit. Not to mention the risk pregnancy poses to the child-bearing parent."

"But perhaps these risks are greater in post-Resurrection humanity," she says, with the fastidiousness of someone trying to make every allowance.

[acrookedpath]

Ah. If it is something done for health, then that, he can understand: he has seen the infirmary and knows the healers work with tools far beyond his current understanding. It is still very, very strange to think of a child growing wholly separate from its mother, planted in such a cold and barren field. Decanted, said Harrow, like wine.

"They may be," he says, finding his thoughts. "I think there will always be risks when a woman is with child, but I have never heard of them being so -- extreme, as the ones in your world. I see why it would require measures of that nature."

[we_bring_hell]

"In turn, I can see why couplings that can produce pregnancy are more common in a world without modern fertility technology," she says. "Yet I cannot believe it changes the nature of human beings themselves."

"Lan Wangji has shown a tremendous willingness to re-consider your world's taboos in light of new information, rather than merely reacting automatically." She is thinking of the reverent way in which he returned her journal. "I cannot think that if he is drawn to you, such opinions will sway him."

[acrookedpath]

He cracks a lopsided smile. "He is that," he says, "and he is also very stubborn. It may be."

The smile fades, and he drags his hand down his face.

"Of course he is also very used to following endless, meaningless rules that dictate everything from when he can rise in the morning to when he can sleep at night."

[we_bring_hell]

"Yes," she says. "Yet in my experience, he does not allow those rules to harm those he cares for. Have you seen otherwise?"

"If the Eighth House kept the tome as Lan Wangji does, their reputation would be other than it is."

[acrookedpath]

He could crack a joke about how those rules cost him a very nice bottle of Emperor's Smile once, but he knows that is not what Harrow means. (And even if it was, one could further argue that he and Lan Zhan barely knew each other then.)

"No," he says, quietly. "No, I have not." He lifts his hand as if in a shrug. "And he has already broken them for me, in the eyes of his sect. He did not reject the crooked path."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "I really think there is no obstacle other than his feelings, Wei Wuxian. Do you truly fear he would judge you for seeking companionship? Or desire anything but your happiness?"

"What is it you fear?"

[acrookedpath]

"That he will turn away from me."

He cannot look at Harrow any longer.

"That I will -- ruin this."

That I will lose my last piece of home. The one good piece remaining. The one who knows me best, even still; even after all I have done.

[we_bring_hell]

However Wei Ying sees me is his choice. That is what I accept.

"No," she says simply. "I do not believe there is anything that could do that, Wei Wuxian."

"He may not reciprocate your desires. It may be excruciatingly awkward." Amazing pep talk, Harrow. So good. "But abandon you? No."

[acrookedpath]

Though he is still looking down at the bar, he cannot help but crack a smile at her brutal honesty.

"So I will only have to live at the bottom of lake for several days, not forever," he says.

[we_bring_hell]

Her lips curve faintly. "I, too, value my dignity highly. But you have said the current situation is untenable."

"My experience with such things is trivial. But surely once you know for certain, you will be able to find a way forward together." She colors faintly under the paint. "As... lovers or simply... zhiji."

Her pronunciation is mediocre, but she's only heard it twice, and it has a couple of difficult consonants in it.

[acrookedpath]

His head snaps up.

All words have fled; all he can do is stare at Harrow in pure shock.

[we_bring_hell]

She holds his dark gaze with her own black-on-black eyes.

[acrookedpath]

Hoarsely, mouth dry:

"He told you?"

[we_bring_hell]

She breaks the eye contact. "I told you I have carefully considered the path of duty in this."

"It is a word I learned here, from one who has experience with the concept," she says guardedly.

[acrookedpath]

Who else could it be, though? There is only him and Lan Zhan. Perhaps there is someone from a world similar to theirs, but if he has lived at the inn for over a month and hasn't met them yet -- and he knows he would remember it, as one meets a traveler from their own land when they are far from home --

He is breathing a little unsteadily.

"We were, once," he says, helpless. "I thought we were."

[we_bring_hell]

"Do you think that has changed?" she says gently. "Or that he feels it has?"

[acrookedpath]

"How could it not?" He laughs a little, without humor. "He wanted to play Clarity. He wished to exorcise me. All he could talk about for a time was the harm the resentful energy would do to me."

Swiftly, he pinches the bridge of his nose to swipe the gathering tears from his eyes.

"I told you we had drifted apart before I died, but in truth, Harrow, I pushed him away. Because I thought I could not trust him. And now -- "

Now, he doesn't know what to do. Only that his chest burns with raw feeling, so intense he fears he will never be able to ignore it.

[we_bring_hell]

"Then before you ask him about his feelings" she says, just as delicately, "you must decide if you can forgive him that, and trust it will not happen again, yes?"

"That seems to me the far more important question than anything--carnal."

[acrookedpath]

What he thinks of now, of everything that happened the night before, is not the moments his mind went blank, or Lan Zhan looked at him strangely, or he tripped so hard over his own words that all he wished were to snatch them back out of the air.

What he thinks of is sitting curled up on the floor of the washroom, wracked by so much pain he could only breathe enough to sob the air right back out of his lungs. The small sliver of light on the other side of the door. Lan Zhan's voice, quiet and calm: You are not fine, but you will be.

How he did not hide forever, as he thought he might, but instead chose to walk back out into the light. To the softness of a shared bed; to music, hummed softly against his hair.

To Lan Zhan.

Oh, he thinks. Maybe this is why.

"I do trust him," he whispers. Soft wonder unfurls through the words like a flower blossoming. "I forgive him."