Archive of Our Own

This story starts with a mortal boy dying.

He’s no more than eleven springs of age yet he has long forgotten the warmth and security of a home, a family. He’s known, instead, the pain of hunger and cold, the pain of stares and ridicule - and yet, none compares to the red-hot pain that wrecks his body now. It feels clammy and hazy, with ice-cold currents sweeping through his frail body that bring no comfort amidst the feverish moments. His teeth rattle together as he curls into a tighter ball, no longer knowing if he wants the cold or the warmth to abate, he just wants to stop feeling. The forest floor is not forgiving under his starved self, the rocks dig into his ribcage and the twigs of fresh autumn scrape his thin, dehydrated skin with their sharp stalks and make him bleed all over his threadbare clothes.

He no longer knows what his mother would do if she saw him like this. He no longer knows how his father would react, either. They have become memories so deeply buried that he can no longer unearth them, not even now as he begs fate to not let him die here alone.

If they are waiting for him at Naihe bridge, he will probably walk past them.

The freshly fallen leaves dance in the wind around him, their rustling a faraway sound in his overheated head, but a welcome one nonetheless. It’s far better than the disgusted noises of the townsfolk, the rattling of the wagon wheels or the panting of the hungry dogs waiting on his demise. His hand spasms with a fresh wave of hurt as he settles tighter around it, and he wishes for a blade, for Chang Cian to feel this same all-consuming heat, for someone to hold him close and tell him that it will get better. Nothing moves around him though, but the colourful leaves on the ground.

The shivers get worse before they abate again, and in that momentary relief when he is neither hot or cold, when he turns to face the crown of the trees above himself after sprawling out on his back, that is when he hears it first. Steps, careful and silent, as if the forest floor dared not make too much noise under them. No branches are snapping, the wind stops sweeping the leaves into lazy swirls, and soon something otherworldly stands over him.

The man is a huge, white blur before the boy’s eyes can focus on him properly - and then his breath hitches. Above him stands the most beautiful of beings. A man with porcelain skin and robes so white it puts the cleanest snow to shame, his hair like the riches black silk, and there is worry in his midnight-black eyes. The boy should be afraid, he thinks, as he realises that the black envelopes the sclera, but he can no longer summon enough care. He’d be eaten in this forest anyways.

The man suddenly is a lot closer, maybe crouching or kneeling next to him, and a tender touch brings the boy’s attention back to his mangled hand. The beautiful man lifts it up a bit, turns it around without speaking a word, and once he’s done with inspecting it, a deep sigh escapes him.

“Will you give me your name?” He speaks and the voice is like the trickle of a clear spring brook, gentle and cool, refreshment to all. He looks like a soft-spoken one, one that never shouts but whose words you would want to obey even if it is only barely whispered.

“Call me…” the boy starts, his speech shaking, remembering this old lady on the streets who told him about the fair folk and how they could steal your name in a heartbeat. “Chengmei.”

It was never truly his to claim, but the old lady liked to call him that when she looked at him and saw his long dead son, lost to pointless war and human greed. He was Chengmei for a good year before the harsh summer sun took the old lady and he was left with no one to call him anything but insults.

“Clever little thing,” the man smiles, his teeth perfect just like the rest of him, and Chengmei decides to overlook how sharp they glint in the low, red light of the evening sun, filtered through the forest.

“If we don’t remove the finger,” the man starts, and tears well up in the boy’s eyes. He was ready to do that, to get rid of it just a moment ago - but hearing it makes it more real and more frightening. “It will kill you. Do you want my help?”

He nods, weak and afraid, but no matter what this man does, Chengmei does not care. If he makes the hurt go away, it will be wonderful, and if he does not, the boy knows he’s not long for this earth, not with the fever and certainly not with how his destroyed pinky looks. It’s such a dark purple the tip of it borders on black, reaching now beyond the very first joint.

He watches as the man in white takes his hand, brings it closer to his face with a gentle motion yet in an iron hold, then opens his mouth. His teeth appear even sharper now and there’s a lightning-fast moment when Chengmei knows what will happen, and then there’s even more pain as the skin separates and tendons tear and the bone closest to his knuckle snaps. His vision swims and as his breath catches for far too long, as if it is lost for good. He feels silent tears rush down his burning face, but once they clear from his eyes, all he can focus on is how natural the red looks on that beautiful face above him. It drips from the corners of the man’s mouth in thin crimson streaks until they join into one under his chin, and Chengmei wants to reach up and catch the flow of it before it can stain more of this ethereal beauty. He tries to move his left hand, tries to bend his fingers as he used to, all five of them, but the pain that cuts through him freezes him on the spot and makes his head swim around worse than before. The leaves rustle about once again, flowing like a small storm about the man’s head while his hair stays still, and the forest fills with the agonised howls of the local wildlife. Amidst this chaos, as the redness of the forest around them blackens, the man’s hold on his wrist fades to nothing and the boy closes his fever-red eyes for the last time.

It starts with a boy dying.

It continues with the king of the fae denying his death.

Xiao Xingchen walks with the child in his arms, his pristine white hanfu sucking up the blood slugging out from what’s left of his finger like a hungry leech, the taste of it still sweet on his tongue. The infection could not fully hide it, no matter how closely death approached the boy and how it filled his blood with the stink of decay; it was fresh and so incredibly full of promise, Xingchen could not let himself let such a creature drift into the otherworld. 

“Chengmei,” he calls out, but feels no connection, no tendril of belonging forming between the name and the boy’s person.

“What a clever thing you are, truly,” he praises the cooling body in his arms as he steps through the barrier of his home. It is autumn in the human world and Xingchen likes it just enough to let his beloved trees don its colours. No leaf dares to fall though, and they need not do so for it is no mulch that feeds the grounds of his domain. As he walks to the grand, ancient oak in the middle of it all, he feels even more heat seep out of the young one along with his life. He shivers rarely now, but he still curls into the solidness of his chest. “I wish you would have given me your own, unaltered name so I could order your death to stay away… Still, what a bright mind… I might just keep you close to me.”

Xiao Xingchen sighs deeply as he reaches the trees guarding his castle’s gate, and with careful hands he lays not-Chengmei to the ground next to his garden. It is full of flowers, the blooms of which bring him joy, the songs of which make him content at night. Now he arranges the boy with his head resting on the silken fern and moss between the white hellebores and the crimson foxgloves, and with his body sprawled out on the grass.

He touches his forehead to the boy’s, places his palms on his cheeks and whispers a promise.

He straightens and sweeps a hand over his chest, over the darkening patch there and as he pulls his fingers away, the droplets of blood separate from the pristine white fabric until nothing is left on it. The blood dances sluggishly around his palm, tired and looking for rest like its owner. Xiao Xingchen tells it to last, to hold on, and even though he has no command over anything that is not-Chengmei, the blood exhaustedly obeys. He drips it all over the boy’s head, splattering the white and red blooms and the green stalks, and spreads his own power over it all. He tells them to watch the boy’s sleep and keep death away, to keep the young one in the limbo between the land of the living and land of the dead.

Once he’s done with that, he turns back to whence he came with his grievous burden, and sets off. It is imperative, he knows, to find out the real name of the child and bind him to his own land, even if he will not be under his control.

He knows not what happened, but there is a town just a short walk away from that place he found not-Chengmei, and he is sure other humans will know. They have a curious way of always being in the know and yet not offering a helping hand when someone is in dire need of it.

He walks there, the forest bending out of its form to grant him an easy passage, but he scarcely notices it. His mood is darkened, although it is not solely due to the human nature of the humans. It is due to an old prophecy, one that was told by his teacher back in his childhood years that used to carry his daydreams far and his imagination even further.

“There shall be two,” she used to say, her strict lips gentling into a caring smile. “Who shall dance by your side. Their arrival nearing you will be heralded by a changeling who steps out from a half-enclosed grave of dark flowers.”

Xiao Xingchen used to wonder, where he would find such a person, but he always hoped the day of his arrival would be soon, for he wanted his forever companions to join him as soon as they could. But then a hundred years went by, then another, and not a single changeling that fit the description ever emerged in his court. He wanted to stop dancing alone amongst the Condemned, even when he was still doing it in Baoshan Sanren’s court as her almost-son.

He still wants that now, a few hundred years later, aches when he thinks of how long the wait has already been and aches even more when he thinks of his own, vast future where he is doomed to dance alone and know no true love from another.

This child now, he thinks as he walks with his pitch-black gaze morosely pointed to the ground, he is not the changeling of the promise either. He is not claimed, and Xiao Xingchen fears that even with his command for his garden to keep death at bay, the boy will be gone by the time he could learn his name and keep death surely away from him.

It is a mystery even to himself why he is adamant on saving this child, but it brings him the comfort of a warm morning when he thinks of Chengmei walking amidst the trees and sitting by the indoor pools. He wants to show him all of that, teach him the ways of his people and keep him away from the horrid care of humans.

He looks up as his feet hit the bare earth of a road well-travelled, and finds that the gate to the town looms near. This might have been home to Chengmei for a while, or maybe a nightmare from the first day onward. Xingchen does not know, but he wants to ask when he arrives back at the castle – if the boy’s death does not rid him of the chance to do so.

It does not take long to understand what exactly happened.

Humans are indeed curious creatures, as they gossip behind fans and bent palms about how that one orphan is gone now, how he was run over by no one else but the clan leader, and how it was a good riddance. His blood boils as he walks the streets, as he listens; but he is not here to drown the whole town in blood. He is here to learn a name, so he does nothing but glance sharply at the woman who very loudly applauds Chengmei being gone, and asks for her name.

It is almost a surprise when he gets it. Almost.

Then he leans closer, his smile polite and unwavering as he whispers into her ear. He promises her that she shall never know a restful night again, that whenever she closes her eyes, she will see blood dripping onto dying leaves and she will taste decaying flesh and sinew.

Her gaze is empty once he leans back, and she does not say goodbye.

With that done, Xingchen turns towards the biggest building in the town where he knows the clan leader to be at. He has heard his name, and he has heard of his deeds, and he has no wish to let him live.

When he walks in, not a single person notices him until he stands in the inner courtyard. There, amidst carefully tended flowers that the clan leader has never touched and trees that he never truly wanted, the man sits at the stone table, his attention completely taken up by a letter he’s reading. Xingchen walks behind him, silent and sure, and reads the words on the paper.

“It seems you never learn,” he says in a low voice, then jumps back when the clan leader swings his fist blindly behind himself. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“Who are you? Who let you in?”

“Both of those questions share the same answer,” Xingchen smiles and cants his head to the side. “Now it’s my turn to ask you something.”

He cradles the pain and the fear of the boy to his heart then, and feels as the pleasant smile slips away, as his eyes narrow into a source of terror, as his lips pull into a humourless straight line. The clan leader stands onto shaking legs, and he is just about to shout for his servants, for help, for anything that can save him – but Xingchen is faster. He summons Shuanghua with a thought, and it obediently slices a circle into the air right in front of the clan leader’s neck, quite a few steps away from Xingchen. The frost-cover on it glints in the daylight, once on the blade itself, twice in the clan leader’s fearful eyes.

“What was that boy’s name? The one you hit with your cart,” he asks, and he knows himself to be terrifying as he stands in front of the man. He pulls the shadows tighter around his body and commands the wind wordlessly to tug at the man’s hair with shards of ice interwoven in its currents as he walks closer and closer. His back is straight and he rests his left arm behind his back, but with Shuanghua floating next to the outstretched fingers of his right hand, he has no need for both of his arms.

“I don’t know! It was just some urchin who didn’t mind his own business!”

“Wrong answer,” Xiao Xingchen whispers into the wind, and lets his grin grow wider. “I feel the truth hiding in your chest. If you don’t part with it willingly… I can always just cut it out of you.”

“Do you know who I am?” the man howls, his fear feeding into his anger that is the quickest for him to reach for. Xiao Xingchen grins more at that, licks his lips and imagines the fun he will have once he has pried his new charge’s name out of this pig.  “How dare you threaten me?”

“Hm, no,” Xiao Xingchen offers a hand towards the man, his fingers hooked and his palm open. “May I have your name?”

“I’m Chang Cian, you ignorant fool!” he shouts, and emboldened by Xiao Xingchen’s motionlessness, he raises a finger to threaten him with the haughtiness of a lord unfit for his title. His face reddens more and more with each angry word that leaves his mouth, so sure of his own power, not knowing that his fate is no longer his. “No matter which sect sent you here, this behaviour is completely unacceptable! You should…”

His shouting stops then, mid-sentence as if his voice was cut by a sharp blade, and instead of continuing, a deep gasp tears free of his chest. Slowly, his red face darkens to violet from the lack of breath as he gasps for a breath that would not arrive, then he goes ashen from fear, but when he looks at who he thought to be a cultivator, he finds no empathy there. What he finds is a sharp grin, feral and elegant, and eyes that are black in their entirety like the moonless night.

With a flick of his wrist, Shuanghua goes soaring through the air and stops a hair’s width from Chang Cian’s chest, but it is more for show than anything at this point, with his breath obeying Xiao Xingchen’s wishes.

“I will allow you to draw one more breath,” he says as Chang Cian claws at the dirt underneath his now soiled robes. “If you tell me that boy’s name. He lived under your gaze his whole life… And I know you know it.”

“Xue Yang,” Chang Cian gasps it out quickly, gulping down the air that Xiao Xingchen allows him to take. He’s greedy in it, as he has been with everything, Xingchen notes, then closes up his airways again.

“Xue Yang,” he says, raising his right hand to his chin, tasting the name in its entirety, and finds that it has the same potent taste the boy’s blood had. “Yes, it is indeed his. I’m quite sad he did not tell me himself.”

Chang Cian slumps onto his side as his eyes bulge from his purpling face, and he reaches out towards Xiao Xingchen with a bloody gurgle escaping his mouth.

“But then again,” Xingchen speaks and turns his gaze towards the miserable man on the ground. “Not everyone is stupid enough to offer me their name of their own free will.”

“Now you enter the domain of death,” he starts talking again, as bile and foam pours from the dying Chang Cian’s mouth. “But you shall not find the boy there for I claim Xue Yang as my own, to keep him and provide for him as if he was borne of my own home.”

As the words leave his lips, Xiao Xingchen knows that it is part of his own fate to utter them, to claim and keep the boy away from the human realm, to let him raise to adulthood amidst the woods, the stained-glass windows and warm stone walls of his castle upon the branches. He knows it as the truth of Xue Yang’s life to learn the dance of the daggers, to learn the language of the forest and the rivers, to see him become more than his human shell. The air shimmers around him as the words weave themselves into all of their truths, into the fabric of fate, and Xiao Xingchen knows that Xue Yang is now his.

He sweeps a long sleeve behind his back as he rests his arm behind his waist and orders his sword to once again float right next to himself. This man will not be granted a swift and painless death by Shuanghua for having harmed that which is now his to protect.

“Die knowing that your ignorance and cruelty not only earned your untimely death, but also granted the child you did not even consider a human being powers akin to those of the fae king.”

He stands with his back straight and his eyes cold and unfeeling as he watches the sect leader of the Chang suffocate on his will, and he knows the sect shall be better off for it as he catches the scared stare of a child. He hides behind the doorframe to the courtyard, but Xiao Xingchen makes no move to confront him.

“A place that cherishes its children not,” he says into the silent air of the courtyard, and he knows he’s heard. “Shall not thrive nor live long.”

Then with a flutter of his robes and a sharp metallic noise from Shuanghua following closely by his side, he is gone from the Chang mansion.

On his way home, he takes a deep breath, smelling the freshly dug earth and the newly rotting leaves on the ground, the peeling barks and the air that is awaiting the night to arrive. Its friendliness is almost astonishing after the smells of the human town, and Xiao Xingchen’s soul sings with joy that he is now free to share such wonders with the boy the fates have led his way.

By the time he arrives to the guardian trees of the gate, the world is bathed in the crimson of the dying sun, the leaves fluttering in all shades of gold and red around his home and around the garden he left the boy at.

But as he walks near it, his heart drops from the sight that awaits him.

For instead of the boy’s body, he finds a patch of tightly-knit vines and black hellebores in the shape of a child, raised above the ground.

“Xue Yang,” he addresses the grave, and curiously the vines slither to open up just a bit around where the face should be underneath them all. Fearful, dark eyes peer out from the slight gap, and once they focus on Xiao Xingchen they go wide, but it is not prompted by fear.

“Xue Yang,” he calls again, but he does not order the plants to reveal his new charge. He wields the name with the power it carries even if it was not freely given, but it is not to bind the boy to him. He would have no power to do that, but he can bind him to life at least.

The vines retreat to their burrows underneath the ground, dragging chunks of fully grown, midnight-purple hellebores with them until they are nothing but an outline around Xue Yang. They boy stares at Xiao Xingchen as he sits up and cradles his left hand to his chest, clotted blood blackening the back of his hand. In his eyes, wonder gleams and tears gather, and with shaking legs but a will made of steel he stands.

His balance is off, his skin is grey from his close brush with death and his hair is a right mess from the protective vines and Xiao Xingchen can feel his pain through their newly established bond, but when Xue Yang lifts his head to look at him, his face sports the biggest and brightest smile.

“Xue Yang,” Xiao Xingchen says and opens his arms for he feels the boy yearn for the embrace of someone kind, and while he is not kind or merciful to those that threaten his own, he is kind and loving with those that are his.

The boy takes a step, then another, and with the third one he crosses over the person-shaped grave of midnight hellebores, and with the next one he crashes into Xiao Xingchen. The earth from his clothes, the clotted blood from his injury and his dirty hands stain his robes, but Xiao Xingchen has no care for that, only for the tears that stream down, over wobbling lips that keep angling back into a wide smile.

His new changeling is a strong one, a true fighter, but his soul is malleable still, in which Xiao Xingchen could sow seeds of hatred and revenge, of love and forgiveness, and as the crimson sun burns out on the horizon, he decides to teach him all.

**

This story starts with a mortal man dying.

He’s twenty and seven springs of age and instead of the love of his parents he’s been given the love of his teachers and his peers, orphans much like he himself. He’s done his best to repay them by never straying from the righteous and helpful path he was shown, by hunting down the evil that would poison the lives of the ordinary folks. If anyone asked the people at his temple, they would all say that he is the perfect cultivator; he is honourable and peaceful, yet he is a master of both the blade and talismans already. He goes where trouble is and will not leave until it is solved, no matter how far it is from his home. He will go to the village that borders on the land of the temple and offer his help when he returns home, and he will offer a reserved smile to his peers, his teachers and the villagers alike when they greet him.

But now, now he stumbles into his room at the temple and claws at the wall from the pain that seems to be everywhere within his body. It burns hotter than fire, hotter than the highest fever he’s ever had. His skin feels as if it should be flaming and burning off his flesh and bones, but it is paler than it has ever been, and when he finally glances into the bronze mirror in his room, he finds himself pale like a corpse.

With an angry sweep of his arms his belongings clutter to the floor from the dressing table and he collapses among them. There’s pain, then there’s hunger he has never felt, not even on the streets as a young boy and it borders on more painful than the hurt that flames through his veins. He wants to scream, but something holds him back. He keens into the wooden floor and curls around himself as another hungry, angry wave of need courses through him. His nails gouge deep lines into the dense wood, and for a moment he wonders if his nails have ever been this sharp, but then his attention is wrenched back to the sick and empty feeling nestling in his stomach. When he concentrates on that, the pain almost subsides - almost. His breaths come out in desperate little pants, forced to abrupt halts by whatever is making him suffer as he sprawls out on his stomach. He has his eyes closed because just like everything else, they ache as well - then he forces them open as something loudly shatters next to his head. Once his vision returns to him instead of the bright light the pain brought to him, he can see his own fingers and bloody, black nails that look more like talons. In their hold, there is a piece of wood, broken and bloodied along the splintered edges.

He’s always been strong, the pride of Baixue, but this new strength terrifies him.

It is not the result of cultivation, not his to claim, and yet it stirs below his skin and fills out his bones and makes him feel invincible even through the curtain of his fears and aches.

He pants and a fearful whine tears out of his lungs along with it, and his tears are not far off to follow.

He is confused. He is hurt. And he is so, so hungry.

With a pained grunt, he pulls himself up to standing, still hunched over protectively around his midsection. Barely does he take a few shaking steps before he has to lean against the door, its wooden scent almost an insult to his oversensitive nose. The texture digging into his forehead is not better and it makes anger boil in his gut, and anger that is completely unfamiliar. It burns and rages even as he tries to push it down, but it does not relent. Then suddenly there are voices.

He’d know them anywhere; his shifu and two of his shidi, voices that usually mean comfort. Now all they bring is more pain in his ears and a fresh wave of irritation that burns all the way up to his throat and spills into his mouth like acid. He tries to breathe through it, tries to swallow his rage back down - and then the youngest one laughs.

It is over long before he realises what he has done.

He is on his knees, his eyes are closed but the pain is not pulling at them anymore. His stomach is warm, something in his mouth tastes phenomenal and all the hurt he has been unable to shake off is gone. He feels refreshed and light, and a small laugh escapes him at how wonderful it all is.

Then he remembers.

His shidi’s laughter, his own anger and the vicious way his sharp claws and sharper fangs have torn into dark grey robes and healthy flesh. The image of his shifu’s confused face swims across his mind and all he can think of is how sweet his blood was. The shame follows only after that, and it is not there to stay. He sank his teeth into all three of them and left their mostly drained bodies on the floor, and yet he still hungers. His shifu twitches powerlessly on the ground, and for a moment he rejoices at the fear he catches in his eyes.

“Go,” his shifu whispers, but it is as clear in his ears as if the man spoke directly next to his head. “We can’t help you.”

Help? He thinks for a moment, considers why he would need help - and then it all crashes into him. He looks at his red hands, the deadly talons and the scraps of dark grey that cling to them. He’s hurt his family. Bile threatens to choke him, but he forces it down and looks at his shifu pleadingly.

“What happened to me?” he asks, and he feels himself tremble all over. “Why did I do this…?”

“Go, Zichen,” his shifu gurgles out along some blood-filled bubbles. “Get away..!”

He watches as all the power and life leaves the man, as his teacher slumps to the ground, and he runs. He bolts through his door, grabs the bag that he has not even had the chance to unpack, and in the next moment he is gone through his window.

The next few hours are hell for him, his mind caught between the warm pleasure of having fed and his belly being full, and the cold dread of knowing what he filled it with. He has been running for half a day when he realises that he has not taken a break in almost as long, and he considers doing so. His body feels fine though, as if he was above things as exhaustion or pain, even though he suffered from them not an entire day ago.

He stops at a river, its water clear and crisp from the autumn air, and as he glances into it, his breath catches.

His eyes burn crimson instead of their old dark brown shine, his lips part around fangs that have been licked clean, and his face looks pale as if he was a corpse. The water ripples slowly as it flows past him, blurring the image of his new self. Tears rush down his cheeks, some of them catching on his lips as he tries to gulp down some air, and he finds that their salty taste reminds him of how his shidi and shifu’s blood tasted.

He is still craving more of it, more of the saltiness and the underlying sweet tones, the rich clamminess of it, and he shivers from how hard the need to have more slams into him.

He pulls his legs beneath himself and does his best to meditate, just as he used to back at the temple, and luckily enough, the calm focus he is used to greets him like a friend. His mind clears a bit, the slowly stirring hunger abates, and he is finally able to focus on righting his jumbled memories.

There was a hunt, he knows that, for a monster that left behind desiccated corpses, with their necks, wrists or thighs torn to shreds. People in the village were afraid to remain alone, but even after most of them grouped up some of them still ended up being killed, and thus the village head called upon the help of whoever would listen to his pleas, including him. So he went, and he investigated, and after days of watching and waiting finally the monster emerged. It looked like a person, although his corpse-pale skin and the feral red eyes sold him out as no longer human.

This first meeting is where the memories start to get hazy, as if he could only watch them through the gentle mist over a fresh spring. Still, he concentrates and sinks deeper into his meditation.

He can see it now, the monster and him facing off, sharp claws batting at Fuxue, his loyal and trustworthy sword. He was winning, he remembers, the monster weakening and slowing from all the cuts and talismans that he was able to send his way – and then the memory sharpens into a sudden spasm in his heart.

There was another.

A second one came from nowhere, sank his teeth into his neck, and soon the man was on the dirty ground as pain coursed through his whole being. Even now, the memory of how he got the monster off his back and how he sliced his head off with Fuxue is still far too deeply buried in his mind to unearth it, but he does remember the putrid stench of rot, and the smell of blood that was simply different from any other. He also remembers the taste of it as he struggled to crawl out from beneath the decapitated corpse before he crawled over to the first monster to deal with it as well. It wasn’t much, but it seems that it was just enough to somehow transfer the monster’s attributes to him.

As he returns from amongst his memories and opens his eyes, he finds that the riverbank is now bathed in silvery moonlight. It is a wonderful scene, and he gets lost both in his sorrow and the way the moon glints off the small waves, as if the whole river was an expensive bolt of silk interwoven with the finest of silver strands.

“What am I to do now?” he asks the silently gurgling water as there is no one else now for him to ask, but the river does not answer.

He hangs his head, and with a sad sigh he stands and walks even further away from his old home.

Weeks go by, and the man learns that even though he resents his new hunger and his new self, he resents the thought of dying even more. He loves life and he knows he can make it good for a lot of others too, just as he has done it his entire life as a cultivator. So he sticks to his path as much as he can, and spends the majority of his time hunting those that would face a death sentence anyways. He brings them in, and after the first time when he barely got away a flimsy story of the culprit having gotten mauled by a feral boar, he starts offering his targets quick and efficient deaths. If he drains their blood into neat little flasks that he hides in his qiaqun pouch, that is nobody’s business but his own. He gets blood and he gets money for his troubles, but he cannot stay in one place for fear of the news of his nature having spread from Baixue. Maybe they don’t know that he was the one who did it – but maybe they do. And he cannot face them ever again. Not his sect siblings and not his remaining teachers.

His hunger is much more manageable now and the insanity that he felt on that fateful first day no longer skirts around his mind either. Now all that remains from that nightmare is his new diet, his new strengths and physical traits, and his guilt that seems to last into forever.

He usually avoids spending his nights in any human settlements now, preferring to spend his sleepless existence in the quiet embrace of a forest or under the stars on the road, in solitude that was once an indulgence and that is now a curse. He is alone, even when he indulges in his need to spend some time amongst humans, to hear their chatter and feel the lively camaraderie that he misses the most. There are days when he ponders if a monster like his is even allowed to miss something that he destroyed with claws and fangs and a hunger that seemed pitless at the time and that still plants fear in his heart whenever he has to be near anyone. What if it returns one day? That uncontrollable urge that was bigger than him, that was stronger than him, the memory of which has him spending his days alone when he craves for connection that used to be in abundance at Baixue. It’s due to this that sundown finds him walking slowly next to the riverbank within the woods, his sword strapped against his back and his freshly returned hunger crawling around in his stomach. He wanted to eat a town ago, but there was a sickness spreading there that smelled foul and he was sure it would have made everyone’s blood taste like sewage, so he decided to carry on without having his fill.

It is still not as bad as it was on the first day, but he has no intentions of testing how long that can remain the case.

As he walks, the river glimmers at him in soft oranges, deep reds and sharp whites and he feels his soul settle to a point where his hunger is nothing more or less than the trickling of the water, a background noise. Then, he stops.

On the other side of the river, there’s a vision of a person. The mirage moves almost more fluidly than the water that covers them up to their waist, and the man has to shake his head.

When he looks back, the person is still there, with their back to him, but even like this the man feels enchanted. The slim waist he can see draws him closer to the water until his boots sink into the mud and his ankles grow cold from the lapping waves. The long, silken hair that drapes around the form like a black bolt of silk makes him take another step – then the smell of the richest blood pulls him to the middle of the river before his mind starts working again.

His feet barely touch the mud, his foothold is slipping, and he does not know what came over him just now. There is a pull, a need that hammers at his heart that he must go to him, that he must taste him and love him, and he whines from the weight of it.

That gets the other to turn, and if he was not lost before, he is now. The beautiful, ethereal man that stands only a few steps away from him has the fragile look of porcelain and yet, something tells him that there’s steel underneath it.

He wades closer, and something in him purrs as the beauty reaches out for him and takes his hand without a word. The face that he cannot get enough of is delicate, with pale pink lips and unblemished skin – and when he looks higher, the sight of those eyes freezes him in place.

The man in front of him is not human, for they are black in their entirety.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” the beautiful man whispers onto the waves and they carry his voice around the frozen one. “Come to me and eat your fill, come to me and take your pleasure. I know you crave for both.”

“Who are you?” His voice does not tremble, but his heart does. He has no right to judge someone just because they are not human, and yet something in him tries to make him turn around and run, but his hunger and his want win in the end.

“Will you give me your name?”

The question is dangerous, for he would give this man anything in that moment – his name, his heart and even his sword to stab it with, so he swallows down the name on the tip of his tongue. 

“Only in exchange of yours,” he says finally with a leaden tongue, then bows his head to show that he means no disrespect.

“Smart daoshi,” the beauty smiles, and it looks sharp enough to cut through bone. “You may address me as Xiao Xingchen. What may I call you, lovely man?”

He blushes at the words, at the way Xingchen steps closer to him until they are chest to chest in the waist-deep water, but he gathers his wits, and something soothes him into answering.

“Zichen,” he says, then wraps his arms around the narrow waist and leans forward until his nose rests against Xiao Xingchen’s shoulder. His blood smells lively and pure, addictive even through the walls of his veins and his skin.

“I can feel your hunger, dear one,” Xiao Xingchen says, then presses a small kiss onto Zichen’s temple. It is calm, like being in the middle of a storm, even though his hunger and his desire hammer at his resolve to not get intimately involved with unknown people, and he craves more of it. Xiao Xingchen’s hands fist into the fabric at his elbows and as he takes a step backwards, Zichen has no other option but to follow him.

“What have you done with me? That I desire you so?” he asks, his face hot and his blood boiling with the want to press his lips back against that divine being, to be able to inhale his scent of wilderness just once again.

“Nothing at all,” Xiao Xingchen laughs, and his laugh is even more crystalline than the gurgling of the river. “Not yet.”

His black eyes glint mirthfully as he pulls Zichen closer to the riverbank, closer to a pile of white fabric on the ground, and Zichen goes with him. It is as if his legs were not his own as they follow Xiao Xingchen, but he knows better – he knows he could stop if he really wanted to.

The thing is, he does not want to stop. Not even if this beautiful man turns out to be his killer. He has missed the company of others in his wanderings, and now both his hunger and his loneliness urge him to step out onto the dry silt next to the river after Xiao Xingchen.

“Zichen,” he hears his name and it breaks him out of his thoughts, to find the vision that is Xiao Xingchen looking at him with such a naked, plain want that his knees buckle under its weight. He leans closer and seals his lips around Xiao Xingchen’s throat, kisses down on the silken skin as the creature swallows. He smells of wildflowers and honey, even after his time in the water, and it makes Zichen even hungrier.

“Zichen,” Xiao Xingchen whimpers against his hair as he lets his fangs scrape over his sensitive neck, but he lets him play around until he stops right above the pulse point to sink them all the way in. “Not here.”

Then he takes a step back, until his feet ruck up the white fabric, and Zichen looks all over his lovely body. Xiao Xingchen looks like a deity of the river, perfect limbs and perfect skin on full display now. He sits down and spreads his legs, his eyes never looking anywhere but at him as he reaches out for Zichen to take it, to take his place between his thighs. And Zichen goes, kneels into the freed space, and even though he wants to touch and look everywhere, he stills himself.

“Where…?”

“Here, love,” Xiao Xingchen takes his left hand and brings it to the meat of his inner thigh. His knuckles bump into the hard cock that rests against Xiao Xingchen’s stomach, and that finally breaks his resolve. He has always been called polite and reserved, but now he cannot stop his curiosity to look down and take in all that divine sight that is Xiao Xingchen.

The skin under his hand is hot like a pile of embers, and the sight of it makes him growl in satisfaction. His greying pale fingers look good against the canvas of Xiao Xingchen’s thigh, would look much better curled around his member, drawing pleasant little sound from the man - but for now, after a look back at Xingchen's face, he lays down and noses at the veins under the plush skin. As he sucks the first kiss into it, he can think of nothing but his own hunger, his lonely days and how inviting that wicked smile and beautiful blush looked on the being’s face just a moment ago.

He presses kiss after kiss onto the leg, massages the flesh over the veins with his left hand, while his right finds Xiao Xingchen’s other thigh and pushes against its trembling flesh. His thumb catches against the hard manhood there, and he both hears and feels the shudder that follows even that minute touch. He continues until he hears blood rushing like crazy under his lips and hears his name, gasped in reverent silence.

When he bites down, there’s a second when he forgets to lap up the trickling blood, he is so completely frozen from the wonder that is its taste, rich and warm and so full of life. Then he pulls himself together and cleans the drops that escaped him, sucks on the puncture wounds to get more and more of it, and sometime during his feeding his hand leaves Xiao Xingchen’s other thigh to grasp at his waist and pull him closer. He drinks and drinks, both the blood and the warmth that envelops him, and he forgets about the strangeness of their meeting, the otherness of Xiao Xingchen and how this is highly unusual for him to do – he simply enjoys his place between the other man’s welcome legs.

Soon, a soft palm cradles against his face, and obediently he raises his head to look at the man that commands him so without a single word. There’s blood on his lips, and Zichen has half a mind to lap at every remaining drip and patch, but Xiao Xingchen’s depthless eyes keep him motionless.

“So good for me, my dear Zichen,” he whispers and swipes a gentle finger over Zichen’s blood-tainted mouth. It makes the half-dried patch spread even further onto his cheek, but the only thing he cares about in the moment is how the gentle touch is just as welcome as it is undeserved. “But that is enough for now.”

The noise that escapes him would put him to shame any other time – but now all Zichen can think about is how he wants to put his fingers back around the other man’s erection, and how he yearns to free his own.

Xiao Xingchen laughs, his voice melodic like the clearest windchimes, and Zichen grabs at his arms in desperation.

“Enough of the feeding, my dear,” he says, then reaches over to where Zichen’s belt is fastened and undoes it with an effortless motion. “This is not over yet, though. Shed your robes for me?”

And Zichen does, piles his dark grey layers on the ground right next to Xiao Xingchen’s white robes, all the while stealing glances at the other man. He is lounging on his back, and Zichen is mesmerised by the sight. He joins Xiao Xingchen soon, lays next to him and reverently presses a new wave of kisses on his jaw, his neck and his chest, while his hand finds his erection. Xiao Xingchen’s smell fills his lungs and his heat warms his chest like a bonfire. He ruts against a slender but strong thigh, and he knows he is not long before he spends himself.

“Zichen,” Xiao Xingchen gasps out his name as he comes, and as Zichen turns his head up, the sight that welcomes him there is enough to push him over the edge as well.

It starts with a man dying.

It continues with the king of the fae inviting the half-dead creature that is left in his place to his home.

The man looks strong and his features are sharp, but in his slumber, he looks almost soft. He is naked as the day he was born, and with his head resting on the fae king’s thigh and his name resting on fae king’s lips, he is just as vulnerable as well.

But as Xingchen slides his fingers lazily up and down on a strong arm, the only thing he can think of is that he wants to bring him home and cherish him. The connection he felt upon the man entering the forest is stronger now, with his blood filling up Zichen’s stomach, but he knows that it is not what created the bond, nor is it the thing that is holding it up. It is older, stronger – something inevitable and eternal.

The first of the two whose arrival Baoshan Sanren’s prophecy and Xue Yang’s presence foretold.

He is not bad for a lover, Xiao Xingchen thinks as he smiles down onto the creature. He is still nothing more than a fledgeling of his new species, but he will have the endless times to learn himself anew and come to peace with his undead life. There is conflict within him, Xingchen can tell, but he is eating which is a good sign.

He undoes the hairpiece Zichen is wearing in his mussed-up hair, then cards his fingers through the unruly strands, careful of the knots that have recently formed in it. It is soft, just like his skin and while he does not run as hot as a human or a fae would, touching him is still a far cry from touching a corpse.

Zichen blinks his eyes open just after the red glow of the sun has turned into complete darkness, but Xingchen can see him perfectly. He goes from confused to afraid in a matter of seconds, his beautiful crimson eyes widening in horror.

“Don’t be afraid, my love,” Xingchen says in a tone he knows is soothing and alluring, while his fingers trail down from Zichen’s hair onto his breastbone. “You are in good hands.”

“What did you do to me?” the man asks, his form and his spirit both still like a deer that just spotted its soon to be killer.

“I already told you, my dear,” the fae king answers with a small frown. “I did nothing to you. What drove you to my woods was fate, what drove you across the river was fate and that which made you hunger for me was also fate. I have been waiting for this day to finally arrive – and now that it has, I am the most pleased with it. And with you, love.” 

“Are you telling me it was fate’s plan for me all along to become a monster?” Zichen is still on the ground, with his head pillowed on Xiao Xingchen’s thigh, but as these words leave his mouth, he turns onto his side and closes his eyes to escape his pain. The tears that roll down his cheek and drip onto Xingchen’s leg are almost warm, silk brocade in their sorrowful existence.

“I have been alive for long,” Xingchen starts and places his fingers back among the dark strands to soothe his fated one. “And I have seen many monsters. Some of them were like you, some of them were like me. Most of them though, they wore the skin and the identity of humans.”

Zichen stirs at his words, and slowly, as if he is unsure of even the smallest moves of his body, he sits up. His back is facing Xingchen, his long hair hiding most of his strong back from his view.

“You know what I was made into?”

“I do,” he nods, and Zichen snaps his head around to face him as if an outside force made him do it regardless of the pain it must have caused him.

“Will you tell me?” he reaches out and Xingchen welcomes his touch as his fingers fold around his wrist like steel vices. “Please, Xingchen, tell me, I beg you.”

“But you don’t have to do that,” the fae king smiles reassuringly, then reaches up and slides his palms over Zichen’s cheeks. It is wet from his tears but his eyes are now dry and wild with both hope and dread. It is a good look on him, a delicious one that makes him itch for a dance to share with the man, but Xingchen knows it is not yet the time for that. Maybe one day when his Zichen has grown into his new strength and powers, when he has made peace with Xingchen’s wild ways that he does not even know about yet. “Just follow me home, and I shall share my knowledge with you.”

“Your home? You’d endanger it by bringing me there?”

“My home and my people are thoroughly protected, do not fret over either,” Xingchen says and leans forward to press a soft kiss into the middle of Zichen’s forehead. The thought that his fated one would care about that which is his, even without knowing either the place or its residents, warms Xingchen’s chest. “Just follow me and it shall be your new home as well, if you wish it so.”

“I would love being home again,” the man says softly, then hangs his head in sorrow. The first little breeze that brings the smell of the night reaches them, and it is soon joined by a heavy sigh from Zichen. “If you think me no danger to your home… I’ll gladly go with you.”

The walk home is perfect. The glow of the moon coats the woods in silver and shadows as they walk, and the night itself brings with it its usual sounds. Zichen stirs only once, to look towards the direction where a wolf just howled, but then he sinks so deeply into his concentration as Xiao Xingchen talks, that he completely misses the way the animals bow to them and also the trailing patches of dainty white flowers that grow from wherever Xingchen’s bare feet touch the ground. He soaks up everything, and the hunger for more knowledge is just as lovely an expression on him as the hunger for blood was, and it makes the fae crave more of it.

They must be halfway on the path that leads to the heart of the woods with the castle resting between the branches when something unpleasant grips at Xingchen’s senses. There are intruders in his home, humans with malicious intent, their anger and their ill thoughts only growing in their intensity the longer it goes on – and then calmness washes over him once again. Whoever the intruders were, they either left, or one of the guardians got to them just in time to stop them from causing any harm.

He leads Zichen by his hand through the gate at the double guardian trees, and as they walk by, his eyes reflexively linger for half a second on the small, person-shaped line of the dark hellebores. It’s been more than two decades that he took the boy in, more than two decades of waiting for his fated ones. Feeling the unnaturally cold hand in his hold and thinking of Xue Yang makes something ugly stir in the pit of his stomach, but he pushes it down for the time being. There is a time for feeling guilty for falling in love with someone who might be fated to someone else, and there is a time to bring your newfound fated partner into your home.

He hears a soft gasp as he leads the man up the winding steps, built onto the sturdy branches of the agglomeration of trees that serve as the base for the castle, overgrown by moss on the sides that see no use, the solid stones tapping lightly under their steps. He turns his head back and offers a smile to the awed Zichen, who is busy taking in all the scenery they go through. He was taken by the woods themselves, but now his eyes sparkle from the wonder, and even though Xingchen can only feel a shard of it through their newfound connection, it is enough to make his heart soar. He leads Zichen into the castle proper, leads him through the corridors where the colours of the rainbow dance between the coloured glass panes and the white stone floors, painting Zichen’s pale face with the most beautiful crimsons, blues and greens as they pass through them.

When they finally arrive at the throne room, the double door opens soundlessly, and Xingchen brings his partner through them. Their bare feet barely make any sound on the stone as they walk in, and even that is overshadowed by the water trickling down from the wells carved into the sturdy walls. He watches as Zichen looks around, takes in the pools fed by the wells that house water lilies and lotuses in full bloom, the curtains of ivy that run along the wall and over some of the stone pillars that hold up the ceiling with delicate but strong curls, then the glowing white flowers that surround an elegant throne, made of dark wood, at the far end of the room.

“Is this… Is this your home?” Zichen asks, his voice is full to bursting with wonder, and Xingchen cannot help but take it as a praise. He knows his home is wonderful and without a peer in the whole world, but hearing the awed confirmation from his fated one caresses his soul like nothing else. “It’s so delicate and elegant…”

“I’m happy you find it agreeable,” he bows his head a bit, then brings Zichen’s hand to his lips and presses a reverent kiss against his knuckles. “Will you be happy to call such a place your new home?”

“I will,” Zichen says, and the palest pink hues appear on his pale face as he glances at his hand, still clutched in Xingchen’s hold, barely any distance from his lips. Xiao Xingchen smirks, then peppers some more kisses onto the soft skin, warming it with his breath until it almost feels like the skin of a human being. “But you must have someone to sit that throne, will they not object to me coming here unannounced?”

Xiao Xingchen then laughs, crystalline and free, for he cannot contain his steadily bubbling up adoration for his new partner. He drops his shoes as he stands, then pulls Zichen after himself, across the stone floor, his toes barely touching it as he half-skips half-dances until they are right in front of the throne.

“We do have someone to sit it, that’s true,” he says, then, without letting go of Zichen’s hand and with a wicked smile on his face, he lowers himself onto the throne, all the while keeping his eyes locked with Zichen’s. “And I am beyond happy to welcome you and keep you, my lovely Zichen.”

“You are…” Zichen stammers, his ears a delectable pale pink, which might be the worst fluster his body is capable of producing now, then he collects himself. He pulls his gaze away, turns it towards their intertwined hands, then with the elegance of a noble he kneels before the throne, before him, and returns the kiss to the back of Xingchen’s hand. It lasts only a heartbeat and it lacks the heat Xue Yang’s kisses usually offer, but it is true and heartfelt, and Xiao Xingchen locks the feeling of it into his heart. “What should I call you then?”

“Xiao Xingchen,” a voice cuts through the scene, but it does not bring ruin to the moment. “You’re late. I had to have all the fun without you.”

“A-Yang!” Xingchen smiles at the young man who steps into the room, his midnight blue and black robes fluttering around him as he walks to the centre. The once underfed and sickly boy has grown into a man most handsome, with a roguish charm that Xingchen had a special fondness for. He watches as Xue Yang’s mouth pulls into a grin, showing off his sharp canines as his gaze shifts from his person to that of the still kneeling Zichen. “This is Zichen. I just invited him to live with us.”

“Oh, is that so? Song Lan daoshi, Song Zichen is a very popular person alright,” Xue Yang says with his usual playful tone, and Xiao Xingchen shivers at the name. It is undeniable that the man by his side carries the name Zichen, but the one Xue Yang just uttered is even more so his to claim. It fits him just like his soul does. “He is barely arrived and yet, I have already had to collect some vermin from the woods that would have made a ruckus looking for him.”

“I felt their malice, and that you took care of it for me,” he tilts his head as he answers, his voice calm and silent as it usually is, but within his chest the tempest grows. He did feel their presence, did feel the threat against his home or his people, but to know that it was directed against his barely-found fated one makes it even more enraging.

“I caught them talking in one of the outer clearings, about how they were hunting a cultivator gone rogue, but they'd also settle for anyone else they might find in, let me quote them, this cursed forest to claim the body as his. I didn’t know who it was they were after, but I couldn’t let them just walk everywhere with their ill intentions.” Xue Yang shrugs, and Xiao Xingchen smiles at him in return. The young man has truly found his place here, amongst the trees and the wonders humans usually fear and avoid, has grown into his own strengths and powers as one of the changelings of the fae. That he felt the threat only shows how much he is connected to it all, to their home and its well-being.

“You did well,” he says, and brings both himself and Zichen to standing, then steps up to the young man and leans down to grace his forehead with a kiss, all the while keeping his hold on Zichen’s hand. The sweet scent of hellebores envelops him this close to Xue Yang, while the earthy smell of decaying leaves lurks just about hidden underneath it.

“They would threaten what is mine to protect,” he speaks as he straightens up to his full height, his long sleeves fluttering about his lithe figure as a savage wind picks up in the room, feeding on his brewing anger and determination. “I shall deal with them myself.”

“Are you going to dance with them?”

“Yes,” he nods, and at the questioning look in Song Lan’s eyes, he offers him a soft smile and a light touch upon the back of the hand that he is still holding onto. “It is a custom of ours, to deal with those that would threaten our safety or peace. A dance till death, then a feast for those that won or those that watched. In a few days, you will be able to see for yourself.”

“A-Yang, would you like to show our dear Zichen around? I wish to speak to the condemned before we proceed anywhere.”

When Xue Yang nods and calls for Song Lan to follow him, only then does Xiao Xingchen realise that he does not want to let go of the man, does not want their hands to be separated. He turns to Zichen, and finds something similar flash through his crimson eyes; strong, naked want.

With his breath caught in his chest, he lifts their joined hands and presses a gentle kiss against the pale grey skin of Zichen’s fingers.

“Go,” he says and smiles, although he feels something just about break in his as he thinks about going different ways. “And we shall meet tomorrow.”

**

The story continues with the no longer mortal boy falling in love.

At first, Xue Yang thought that taking Song Lan around the castle would be boring. Now, as they walk side by side, with awe clear as day on the man’s face, he is just about to reconsider it in full.

Song Lan is not excessive in showing his emotions, but he also does not hide them at all - he reflects back the wonders of the castle, and it makes Xue Yang think. He’s been living here for at least two decades, and the initial wonder faded into the usualness of it all; the coloured glass windows, the fluorescent flowers, the ivy-covered walls and the view of tree branches and treetops have become simple and expected for him. But now, seeing as Zichen’s eyes go wide and shiny with wonder, something akin to nostalgia worms itself under his own skin as well.

“You like the place this far, Song daoshi?”

“It is beyond words,” he says, and Xue Yang preens at the words as if they praised him and not his home. Although, he thinks and lets a smirk form on his lips, there are parts of it that he is responsible for – like the corpse garden down at the gate, the lotus flowers in the throne room and the inner lakes in both his and Xingchen’s rooms, and the intricate carvings on several bench-like root formations around the castle, and all of those deserve their fair share of praise. Not that the corpse garden was intentional, but he still likes to go back there, sit next to the small figure’s outline, and wonder how a wretch like him got this lucky.

“Wait until you see your rooms,” he says. Seeing those was maybe his second fondest memory of his introduction to this new world in the woods, only beaten by meeting Xiao Xingchen. To him, who had known the vastness of the streets for years before his injury, seeing similar endless space but within several rooms that were to be his, to sleep and learn and play in, was neigh unbelievable at first. “And your new clothes. Did you fall into the river or something?”

It is pure luck that he asks that while looking at Song Lan, and it is pure luck that he catches the man go pink in the face as he turns away from him.

“Now, now,” he laughs. “You must have met quite the water nymph to lure you in!”

“There was no…” Song Lan starts, then he clamps his mouth shut. “Are there even such beings or are you messing with me?”

“Oh, there are a few ‘round here. But they usually don’t go for non-humans, that’s why my interest was piqued. I so wanted to know what Song daoshi had that they could not resist having a taste of,” he laughs, and pulls on the man’s wide sleeve when he is about to walk past a turn they have to make. “Maybe I’ll just have to find it out myself.”

“There’s nothing,” Song Lan answers, his voice barely above a startled whisper, and Xue Yang can literally taste embarrassment in the tone. “I simply walked across the water.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s a lie,” Xue Yang tilts his head to the side as he lets the words wash over him. “But I sense some more to this story. Will you tell me if I make you laugh?”

“No,” the answer is short, to the point, and somehow it still gets the blush to deepen on Song Lan’s face.

Xue Yang laughs at his misery, but he lets go of it. He can simply ask Xingchen once they retire for the night, and ask him what happened that would get the daoshi all deliciously pink in the face.

He stops at a door that has been bare that very morning and that is absolutely overgrown now with periwinkles stretching from a fern-covered base to the uppermost corners. It's there that Xue Yang realises that he has not let go of the drenched sleeve ever since they turned that one corner, and that it has eased a part of him that he didn’t even notice was tense before.

“Ah, yes,” he nods at the door, now even more curious as to what Xingchen might have witnessed upon finding Song Lan. “This is yours.”

He opens up the door and even though politeness would dictate that he lets the guest go forth first, he walks in and turns back as fast as he can. He wants to see the man’s face as he takes in his new living place for the first time.

It is worth being a bit impolite, he concludes soon after.

Song Lan’s face is awash with wonder, and he is only in the foyer. It is a smaller room, but it has its charm in the overhead plants that glow faintly amongst the moss that has found home on the ceiling ages ago. There are several doors leading further into the place, and Xue Yang point at them in order.

“That goes to your bedroom, this is the bathing chamber, that’s a study or whatever you wish it to be, and that leads to the lake,” he lists, then leans against the wall where no flowers are at danger of being crushed. He motions towards the bathing room with a flick of his wrist. “I’m sure Xingchen has already had someone to bring a change for you, seeing that you are dripping water all over the castle as you are right now. After you finish changing, we might resume our tour of the most important places – I doubt we’ll have time for anything more.”

Song Lan draws up an elegant eyebrow, and before he could ask anything, Xue Yang simply shrugs and flicks his fingers towards the door with a very fake annoyed expression. He is almost sure he hears a small huff of amusement from Song Lan as he rolls his eyes, and he cannot help but grin at the retreating back of the man.

He does not have to wait particularly long, but he is sure Song Lan has also taken the opportunity to quickly wash himself before dressing, because no matter how elaborate a set Xingchen might have gotten him, it should not have taken this long to put it on.

When Song Lan finally emerges, Xue Yang is very tempted to rethink the validity of that thought and to congratulate Xiao Xingchen on his choices. Song Lan looked regal in his worn Daoist robes, but now he is nothing short of magnificent in his new clothes. The first visible layer is a rich deep grey that almost looks black, with matching dark embroidery forming patches of falling leaves on the fabric, trailing from its high neckline to the bottom of the sweeping sleeves. The outermost layer is black, with silver trims along the edges and with the same shade of embroidery at the shoulder seam where it ends, closed around Song Lan’s waist by a matching belt.

Xue Yang barely avoids choking on a jumble of words that wish to exit him at the same time, all of them a praise towards the daoshi’s good looks, but he does reign them in before he could embarrass himself.

“You ready to go?” he settles for the question, and at Song Lan’s silent nod, he lets him go out of the room first. Purely for politeness’ sake, and not at all to see how the dark fabric swirls up around the man’s figure as he walks past him.

**

“So,” he drinks the rest of his honeyed tea as Xiao Xingchen enters the room late in the night. The moon is almost completely overhead, it’s silvery waterfall of light spilling into the lavish room, although it is overwhelmed by the chandelier that hangs in the middle, the warm-white of the fae flames triumphing over every shadow. “What is our esteemed guest’s secret? I’ve been trying to guess all night, but I just can’t put a finger on it…”

As he speaks, he deposits the cup on the low table he’s been sitting at, careful of keeping it far away from the book of cultivation he’s bought just a few weeks prior. It seems like a huge scam, but now he has a cultivator to ask whenever he will feel bored enough to bring it up. Xiao Xingchen’s laugh comes from behind the privacy screen, making it seems as if the graceful cranes laughed from the expensive silk. No answer comes, but Xue Yang is in no hurry. He fills his own cup and one for Xingchen as well while he waits, the smell of honey spilling all around him as he does so. Soon it is overtaken by a much more enchanting honey, with the decadence of wildflowers added to it and Xiao Xingchen lowers himself onto one of the pillows. His sheer sleeping robe is secured around his waist, but it does not leave much to the imagination. It drapes over perked nipples and a half-hard cock that makes Xue Yang’s mouth water. So this is the mood Xiao Xingchen is in this night. 

“Is my dearest A-Yang curious?” Xingchen asks, and Xue Yang goes willingly when he reaches out to pull the changeling up to stand, follows him as he walks backwards to his bed and sits, with Xue Yang falling into his lap with a little laugh.

“He is,” Xue Yang smiles, trying for an innocent smile that gets nothing but a huff of amusement out of the man beneath him.

“Then he must find out himself. It would be simply rude to take this fun away from you, my dear,” Xiao Xingchen’s voice still carries tones of his earlier laugh, and Xue Yang is almost mesmerised enough by that to not protest. Almost.

“Not fair,” he pouts, but it is soon kissed away, until he has no more thought of fairness or questions, only the warm weight of Xiao Xingchen’s mouth upon his own. Xingchen’s sharp teeth graze the skin of his lower lip until a few drops of blood spill forth and disappear on Xingchen’s greedy and talented tongue.

It is almost misleading how gently Xingchen removes his robes afterwards, Xue Yang thinks, as if he wasn’t going insane from all the want that hides in the depths of his dark eyes, the slight tremor of his fingers as they pull at fabric and push at skin and the name that lurks in his lungs, not yet freed to become a word.

“You want him to be here,” he pants as Xiao Xingchen fists his cock, his mouth a scant breath away from Xingchen’s ear. He sees the man shudder, sees gooseflesh cover his arms and hears as his breath catches. “You want to fuck him again – because you have already had a taste, right?”

He grins with his fangs uncovered, then gasps as he is breached by Xiao Xingchen’s fingers. His head lolls backwards until his throat is pulled taut over his next question.

“Tell me, Xingchen,” he pants and keens as sharp, pearl-white teeth scrape against the tender flesh of his neck. “Did you enjoy Song daoshi? Did he enjoy you?”

“A-Yang,” Xingchen’s voice sounds dangerously full of want, desire that burns like fire, forest-consuming and unstoppable. “He’s incredible, so wonderful… Just like you, just like my dearest A-Yang…”

He lays himself flat on the bed and stretches while Xingchen leans over to the bedside cabinet for the oil, the pleasure fading slightly with Xingchen’s body so distant from his. He turns his head to the side to drink in the sight that is Xiao Xingchen in nothing but a sheer, white robe that he usually wears to sleep in the warmer days of the autumnal season, that hides nothing but entices instead. He watches as the fabric flutters over a smooth chest, and just as Xingchen’s silken hair falls forward, he catches the door sliding closed across the room behind the man’s form. No one has entered, he’s sure of it, so he thinks nothing more of it as Xiao Xingchen slides his body back against his, nudging his leg into a position Xue Yang absolutely loves.

He lets his moans spill free without any shame as Xiao Xingchen moves, calling out his name as if it was a prayer of old.

For a moment he thinks about how this, the way Xiao Xingchen looks when he is overflowing with lust and how his skin smells without the obstruction of any proper clothes, is something that Song Lan might already know – and he wonders if the daoshi enjoyed it just like he does. If his own skin prickled from the intimacy of being this close, if his blood quickened seeing Xiao Xingchen unrobed and hard.

Then he is pulled back into the moment as Xingchen’s fingers tighten around his throat, gentle yet firm, pulling his whole head up into a searing kiss. Maybe he can ask about Song Lan later on, but for now, this is about just the two of them.

**

The Glade of Dances is a serene place with its thick, healthy green grass and the graceful weeping willows that separate it from the woods and from the castle, rustling gently from the playful winds. Xue Yang walks across the grand balcony of the castle towards the giant branches that act as a railing above the Glade, and slows to a halt as he takes in the scene before him. Soon the green of the grass will turn to black and the willows shall whisper of the strength and wicked precision of their lord, and he cannot wait to be witness to it again. It has been quite some time since a dancing was held, but Xue Yang carries the memory of it tucked safely into his heart; silken sharp images of Xiao Xingchen twirling around in his pristine white robes lodged between his ribs like a precious and sharp jewel. They hurt just as much as they please him, the knowledge that he was never deemed good enough to stand by his side festers while the knowledge that Xiao Xingchen wants to protect him from harm applies healing balm to it.

He watches, rooted in his memories, the grass rumble like wild waves of the most savage oceans as the wind picks up, to rattle everything but his person. Around him the wind gentles, catches his hair lightly and teasingly as a young lover would in the tales, and brings him the comforting scent of honey and wildflowers.

His thoughts take him back to the planned dancing, to his uncertainty about it. The hunters were after Song Lan, and while he still knows the bare minimum about the man, there’s an ever-glowing, ember-like need in him to offer him protection. These hunters are not leaving the woods, he knows it just as Xiao Xingchen knows it, but he is not sure if he wants to watch the king dance from afar or try to join him by his side. He knows what the answer to that would be, and it irks him like nothing else. He’s been learning how to fight ever since he got strong enough to not fall over after twenty minutes of walking, both from the official instructors and then from Xiao Xingchen himself as well. He has a wonderful sword, Jiangzai and he has fed it the blood of those who wished to trespass within their woods with their malicious intent and the wish for violence, and he came out a winner all the time. And just like the day before, the king has not shown any problem accepting that he fights them - and yet, the dancing still seems to be something that Xingchen considers to be above his skill level.

Or maybe there is something else to it, Xue Yang thinks as he lets go of a deep breath. It would be a lot better if Xiao Xingchen didn’t give him that one look all the time it comes up, right before switching to a different topic. Fae can’t lie. Not that it matters much when Xiao Xingchen can just stay silent or start talking about something that just so happens to interest him at the moment. It is infuriating and also endearing. He remembers when he first made the king laugh simply by lying about something inconsequential. It might have been about a small cut on his hand, or a misplaced, very shiny rock from Xiao Xingchen’s rooms, he no longer remembers; the crystal-clear and blanket-warm laughter of the man will, however, live forever in his memories.

Lying seems to be an ability that he has not lost, even after it became very clear that he was no longer an ordinary human being, and he was glad for it. If nothing else, it still gets him a pretty laugh out of his lover, and that is one of the best things in the whole world.

He sighs as their morning conversation comes back to him, where Xingchen was laughing just the same. He told the man that he was not interested in playing guard to Song Lan all day while Xingchen got everything ready for the feast that traditionally followed a dancing, but it was clear as day that the man did not believe him. And he was right to do so, as Xue Yang was more excited than anything to learn some more about the fated one Xingchen had brought to their home. These mystery people have been a constant among his thoughts for the past few years, although they never earned a place at the forefront of his mind. He simply kept wondering when a handsome envoy arrived or a new changeling was brought in, if they were the ones he’d have to share Xiao Xingchen’s affections with. If they would also like to laugh like Xingchen, or if they were strict and stone-faced, if they could be partners in crime when he was in a playful mood, or if they would be a stickler for rules and decorum. 

Now that Song Lan is here, these wonderings are louder than ever, and both he and Xingchen know that he cannot keep his curiosity bottled for long. So he is there, with a beautiful morning, a lie and a laughing Xingchen’s kiss into the new day, waiting for Song Lan to show up.

The sun climbs higher in the sky, but there is still no sign of Song Lan. It is slightly weird, seeing how the balcony should be a fairly easy place to find, but after he feels that he’s waited just about enough, Xue Yang shrugs, and walks towards the guest rooms.

He can hear nothing from within, so he braves Zichen’s wrath and opens up the door to check - and the room is truly empty, save for a small bag at the foot of the bed. So he did not just up and leave, Xue Yang thinks, and walks back into the corridor, deep in his thoughts. Where could he have gone? Did he get lost?

He shakes his head and takes a deep breath.

It brings him the smell of stone and moss, a scent that has marked home for the longest, and that can ground him like nothing else. He opens his eyes and lets instinct take over his thoughts as he starts walking, thinking of nothing else but finding Song Lan. His walk is rather short and surprising, as it brings him to his own rooms. And Song Lan is truly there, looking at the door with his hand raised as if he was contemplating if he should knock on it or not.

“Song daoshi!”

The way Song Lan barely avoids jumping from his voice makes Xue Yang’s smile widen into a most pleased grin. He must have been deep in thought to not hear him approach, he thinks, or maybe he was thinking something inappropriate, no matter how his face did not even show hints of it.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I’ve been up for a while. You know, waiting for you to continue our grand tour of your new home. Also, you would not have found me here.”

“I know. I wanted to talk to you before our day started,” Song Lan says, and his voice is stuck between powerless and heartbroken. It is not a good tone coming from his mouth, just as it would not be good to hear it from Xingchen. “I hoped I’d e able to avoid going to Xingchen’s rooms.”

“I’m here now,” Xue Yang frowns, the daoshi’s words echoing in his head. He understands them, but as to why they formed the sentences they did is a mystery to him. The only thing he is sure of is the bitter note that clings to them, like a surge of bile before the sickness strikes in full. “Did something happen?”

“I am sorry.”

“What for?” Xue Yang asks, trying to remember if he felt any discord from within the castle during the night or the early morning hours. As he waits for Song Lan to continue, he comes up with no guesses of his own.

“I saw you and Xingchen, last night,” Song Lan starts and although he seems to be struggling, he never breaks eye-contact with him which Xue Yang appreciates very much. He can tell a lot about someone looking into their eyes or hearing their voices, more than the most observant human ever could, and all he sees now is shame, regret and worry. “I never realised you two were together. If I’d known, I’d have never…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Xue Yang’s mouth quirks back into a smile as he laughs lightly at the admission, and swats at the air as if he wanted to chase away a nasty fly. “He told me you got real friendly with him real quick. But it really doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean? If he is with you, he should have stopped me!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Song daoshi,” he tilts his head to the side and offers a wide grin. He remembers how weird he found that taking more than one partners was absolutely fine here, after what he had seen among his fellow humans in his younger years, but how it also soothed his worried heart. “If someone who is fated to be one of the most important people in my life just fell into my lap, I’d also take my chance to get all handsy a bit. Don’t worry about it.”

“Fated…?” Song Lan frowns at that, but then rights his face after barely a few seconds. “It doesn’t matter, it still should not have happened. You have my sincerest apology.”

And then bows. From the waist.

Xue Yang stands and while his brain tries to figure out whether to have him laugh or start on a very much timely explanation about how relationships can go here, his hands move automatically.

They slide under Song Lan’s arms and bring him back to standing with his back straight - and sweet spirits. The man is even taller if one happens to stand right in front of him, maybe even a bit taller than Xingchen.

“A good advice, from another not so human being to another,” he says with a small, mirthful grin, his mind still caught between what to do about the situation. “Don’t ever apologise to people here. There’s a promise of compensation within all of those.”

“A promise?”

“Yes. It assures me that you know you wronged me in some ways, and thus I am allowed to ask for compensation.”

“Then, I should not be stopped from apologising. I wronged you, and you ought to know that I… I don’t want to sow discord between you.”

“Then, Song daoshi, let this be your first and last apology,” he says “And I shall name my compensation price tomorrow, when the three of us dine together after the dancing.”

Song Lan bows his head again, and Xue Yang just shakes his head at that. That explanation cannot come soon enough - but he wants to drive the point home. He wants to show Song Lan what he’s been brought into, that neither he nor Xingchen would feel excluded or jealous, and he has a strong suspicion that until Song Lan can see it with his own eyes, he would be reluctant to fully believe it.

“Now come along, I want to show you the gardens.”

**

“Do you know why I am here?” The question is sudden, but Xue Yang only raises a brow in question, then shrugs. 

“What do you mean? We’re taking a walk.”

“Not that. Xingchen told me that fate brought me here,” Song Lan says. “And even though it does sound a bit insane… I feel as if he was right about that. I’m just curious as to why.”

“Well,” the young man sighs, and lets his body fall until his shoulders thump against the mossy stone wall they have stopped at. “There was a prophecy by his predecessor, about his partners appearing some time after some event. But it is truly a good question as to why now it decided to bring you. I mean, it’s about two decades off the mark by now.”

“Xingchen has been waiting for so long?”

“And since you’re just one of the two, he still might have quite a lot of waiting to do. But for one, two decades is barely anything for one such as Xingchen, and two, at least you’re fun to have around.”

“I thought fae couldn’t lie,” Song Lan sighs, and the look Xue Yang sees directed his way is so full of bitterness that his throat reflexively closes around it.

“I’m just a changeling, I don’t really count,” Xue Yang says and forces out a small laugh, but by the end of it his face is back into that tight, thoughtful set that he hates to show around others. It’s better if they think he’s nothing but a big-mouthed fool, but for some reason, it does not feel like a vulnerability around Song Lan to show otherwise. “I can and I do lie. It makes Xiao Xingchen laugh.”

He does not know why he had to share that – it is something like a pearl, cradled fondly between his own palm and Xiao Xingchen’s, their own little secret. And now Song Lan is also privy to it – and the worst thing is, it feels right. In fact, he wants to share more; he wants to tell Song Lan how Xingchen loves mingling with humans and how utterly bad he is at acting normal. How he’s been mistaken for some mythical cultivator on several occasions in smaller towns, how he had absolutely no idea how human currencies worked, how he couldn’t not amuse the children there with small tricks and gifts of flowers that he would never expect any compensations for. He wants to share Xingchen’s fond smiles, melancholy tears and pleasure-filled breaths with Song Lan, and he can barely fight off the compulsion.

“Next question’s mine,” he forces it out, through the need that seems to fill up his entire being. “Are you doing anything to me right now?”

“No,” Song Lan frowns as he answers, an it brings the tone of honesty with it. Xue Yang curses softly under his breath, and shakes his head as Song Lan’s expression turns watchful and curious. “Is there something wrong?”

“Everything’s just peachy,” he says, although he has not been this unsure about anything in a great long while. With considerable effort, he pushes the feeling away and decides that if he’s having an absolute disaster of a day, then Song Lan will have to suffer it as well. He plasters on a smirk that he knows would make Xiao Xingchen respond in kind before pulling him aside for a quick tryst and that earns nothing but frows from Song Lan. “Are you a succubus?”

No answer comes, and when Xue Yang looks up, he finds no one beside himself. He looks around with the man’s name already on his tongue, but he does not need to call out for him. Song Lan stands a few steps behind him, his face housing an expression that could just as easily turn into mortification, curiosity, disbelief or even a flattered flush. After some seconds of just staring at each other while the wind catches their hair and the finer outer layers of their robes to play around with, it settles on a detached-sort of curiosity.

“Do I look like one?” he asks slowly, then raises his hands to look at them, as if he could not fathom how anyone with his looks could be a master of seduction.

“I mean, there are variations to every type of creature, so who knows,” he shrugs, and thinks of that little changeling that came some years after him – her ears grew into an elegant pointiness and her eyes became a glazed white, as if her blindness was real and not just a pretend means to an end, while he never really changed appearance-wise. He has always had his fangs, and oddly enough that is the only thing that could set him apart from the humans. “You’re handsome enough though, you could probably charm me into your bed,” he laughs as a handsome pink flush crawls up onto Song Lan’s cheeks, and laughs some more as he walks past him with a nervous flutter of his sleeves.

He follows, soon catching up to the creature, who is now trying his best to pretend that he does not exist.

“Are you a wraith?”

“No.”

“Then a banshee? Although you’re too quiet for that.”

“I’m not sure what that even is.”

Xue Yang keeps guessing for about an hour, with Song Lan asking about most of the creatures that cultivators or their manuscripts don’t know much or anything about, while Xue Yang learns how humans, especially cultivators, view those creatures Zichen seems to recognise.

It is one of the biggest shocks of their conversation that Song Lan has never heard of the fae, the dwellers of those places that are beyond beautiful. He makes a note of truly taking the time – or maybe even asking Xiao Xingchen to do so – to teach the man about the most important aspects, because a small part of him dreads that Song Lan will fall victim to one of the more mischievous ones. Not that it would do unpunished by either Xiao Xingchen, but it would be best to arm Song Lan against the threat that only fae could pose.

He hums, deeply in thought, as they reach the gate nestled between the guardian trees, a strange but welcome calmness sitting like a warm blanket over his usually untamed and chaotic energy. It feels new, just as the need to include Song Lan in his and Xingchen’s lives was new, so he chalks it up to whatever powers the man might have. Maybe he is a creature that thrives on being surrounded by friends, or one that brings serenity with his person, even to the most troubled minds.

They walk past his would-be-grave, and he stops to lean down and pluck a hellebore amongst the few dozens that still form the outline of a small body.

“Song daoshi,” he calls, and once he catches up with the man who is already on the first stone-step, he motions for him to lean down. Song Lan looks unconvinced that this is a good idea, especially seeing how Xue Yang still has his left hand behind his back, but then he sighs and steps back onto the grass with one foot and bends down to be on Xue Yang’s level.

“Look what I got for you,” Xue Yang whispers, and brings the flower to his chest, his fingers holding the stem gently as it sways in the soft, slow wind. “Do you like hellebores?”

“I have never seen a black one before,” Song Lan nods, and reaches for the flower.

Xue Yang is faster though, and before Song Lan’s hand could get anywhere close to it, he has already lifted it to the man’s head. He slides it into Song Lan’s hair, beneath the strict hairpiece he has, and it fits as if it bloomed to find its forever home right where it is now.

**

It is already evening by the time the condemned are let into the Glade, with rust and red leaves whispering their demise around them. Their shadows lie on the ground in long, twisting shapes as they walk to the middle of it, maybe hoping for clemency.

Once they reach the balcony that they think might house their salvation though, their hope vanishes completely, for there is no one but the man they were hunting and the man who hunted them down in turn.

Song Lan stands silently, regal in his new set of robes, with a cold gleam in his warm crimson eyes. Xue Yang walks up to him and whispers something that the condemned cannot hear, but they start shaking at the smile that they can very well see on Xue Yang’s lips.

He laughs, and hands a branch of snow-white elderflowers to Song Lan, who nods, and walks closer to the railing, resting his left hand upon its sturdy bark. In his raised right, the elderflower rests calmly, clear for all of the condemned to see.

“You know your fate already,” Xue Yang addresses them loudly, his voice carrying through the glade on the cold gusts of autumn wind. “But if you can catch this flower, the king of woods might just show you some approximation of mercy.” 

He nods at Song Lan, who returns the gesture and with a sombre look on his face, throws the flower into the air.

It raises above the glade gracefully, white stars thumbling in front of the reddening sky, while underneath it in the glade, the hunt begins.

Xiao Xingchen appears out of nowhere, and Xue Yang can tell that Song Lan is just as mesmerised by the king as he is. Xingchen is dressed in all white, his long sleeves fluttering around his figure as he twirls between two of the condemned, Shuanghua grasped elegantly in his lithe hand.

The two condemned die on the spot, their heads still tilted upwards, looking at the elderflower that has barely started its descent from the air, their blood splashing onto the thirsty grass as they fall over.

The rest of the condemned do not even turn to see what the noise was behind their backs; all of their attention is on that one little flower that falls slowly towards their upward-stretched hands, that little dainty thing that might get them some mercy and maybe even their life…

Xue Yang bunches his four fingers in Song Lan’s sleeve and tugs on it like an excited child, then after he has his attention, he motions towards the falling flower.

The condemned are reaching out for it, it is no more than another arm’s length away from them - and then the wind picks up just a notch. It cradles the flower into a deep gust and spins it away from the waiting, despairing condemned.

Xue Yang laughs as their expressions morph first into disbelief, then into anger and finally – when they turn and see where the flower has ended up – into resignation.

Xiao Xingchen stands over the fallen two, holding Shuanghua in his outstretched right hand, the blade dripping frozen little flakes of blood onto the ground, while the elderflower rests in his left, brought to his elegant lips as if to kiss its minute star-petals.

Xue Yang feels Song Lan stiffen beside him, his elegant posture morphing into something more rigid at the sight, and he risks not seeing Xingchen’s entire dance to take a glance at the man beside himself. Song Lan’s eyes are zeroed in on Xingchen, their hungry red gleam a clear sign of how he finds the being just as breathtaking as Xue Yang does. He lets go of the silken fabric of the man’s robe, and instead he finds his hand, twining their fingers together.

A shiver runs through the daoshi, and while he does not pull his hand away, he also does not curl his own fingers around Xue Yang’s hand.

“Look at him,” he says, although he is sure that Song Lan can just as surely not avert his gaze from the divine sight that is Xiao Xingchen as he can’t, the king resplendent in his feral elegance.

They watch as the condemned realise that there is no way out of this, that there is no mercy to be had after their trespass into the woods of the fae. Some of them lunge at Xiao Xingchen, unable to stomach facing their end without at least a desperate mockery of a fight, and that is when Xingchen moves. He cradles the elderflower to his chest in an elegant hold and shakes off the remaining frozen blood from his blade before he also twirls into the fight.

The condemned gang up on him, grasping their last semblance of hope, and as their anger and fear moves their limbs, it holds a sharp contrast against the lithe and light steps with which Xiao Xingchen glides through their cluster. He barely touches the grass as he moves, his robes flowing after him as if he was nothing but a cloud in a hazy dream, one that draws blood left and right. Shuanghua dances with him, flickering between the soft bodies of the condemned, slicing into skin and drawing both pain and anger from them until they lose themselves more and more into their madness of hope.

Xue Yang watches it with his heart and soul singing along the steps that Xiao XInghen takes, then he turns and watches as Song Lan follows the same ehereal creature, and he knows they both hear the same song.

The dancing is over soon, and Xiao Xingchen walks up to the balcony slowly, with a glorious smile adorning his face, his white robes free of any stains. 

He stands in front of them and with the strict movements of a ritual most sacred, splits the cluster of the elderflower into two even parts. He bows to Xue Yang and pins the half into his hair, behind his ear, and then does the same for Song Lan with the other half. It looks even prettier next to the hellebore in SOng Lan's hairpiece, the midnght purple holding up the night sky for the pale stars of the elderflower. Xue Yang bows deeply, and he is pleased to see that Song Lan copies his action with barel any hesitation or delay. He should have told him about this part, about the gift to the king's lover - or lovers now, but it matters not. Even if Song Lan is reluctant yet to make it official, to accept it in full, Xiao Xingchen loves him, and that will not change.

He snickers as Xiao Xingchen then drops all formalities, and with a soft touch, draws Song Lan to himself and goes in for a kiss, only to be stopped with the daoshi’s palm pressed against his lips. It is not exactly a shock, but most certainly unexpected, when instead of addressing Xingchen, Song Lan turns to him.

"Are you sure you're alright with this?"

"Go on," he says, and although he was ready to feel somethign bitter, it never comes. There is, on the other hand, a sense of rightness as he watches Song Lan's palm slide away from Xiao Xingchen's mouth, only t obe replaced by Zichen's lips. 

The feast is already set up in one of the grander halls of the castle, tables and chairs taking up half of the place, while the other half is left completely empty. Xue Yang explains while they take their seat that later on there will be music and dancing, this time of the non-lethal variety, and that Song Lan can also participate should he want to do so. Song Lan politely declines, and seats himself next to Xiao Xingchen. Xue Yang would usually sit right next to the king, but now he both wants to needle Song Lan and also be able to collect his due, which he could not do from across Xingchen’s lap. Not that it would be a hardship, he thinks, if he had to drape himself all over the man to be enveloped by the sweet scent of honey and wildflowers.

People most beautiful bring out their food, servants whom Xue Yang has known for years now and whose beauty has never been able to sway his thoughts as much as half an approving glance from Xiao Xingchen could. He watches now, if Song Lan will be taken by their charm, but what he finds earns his approval. Song Lan helps them deposit the trays full of delicacies on the table, takes the teapot from the offering hands, accepts the cups on a separate tray and deposits them to the middle so all three of them can reach it – and while his eyes are busy taking in all the sights, including the servants’ rich clothes and handsome features, they always go back to Xiao Xingchen’s serenely smiling face.

The smell of an exquisite blend of floral tea fills the air around the three of them, just as the chatter of the rest of the people does, creating a domestic scene that Xue Yang loves to immerse himself in. It is warm, to be like this; with a feast within reach, with his loved ones near and with his future clear.

It would only be able to get any better if he could sway Song Lan into giving in. He wants to taste his lips, wants to watch as he kisses Xiao Xingchen, wants to sleep tucked between Xingchen’s warmth and Zichen’s coldness in their bed. Where the need comes from, he has no idea, but he suspects that no matter what kind of creature Song Lan is, it is not within his purview to force such a craving out of anybody. He has felt echoes of hunger when they touched, mixed with a deep sorrow, and fierceness almost as sharp as his own. It is full of promises, should Song Lan accept their advances someday, full of untapped potential both in combat and in their bed. 

The man must feel being stared at, for he turns and pulls up a finely shaped eyebrow in question.

“Is it time for you to tell me what I owe you?”

“I might ask you for anything,” he whispers and flexes his four fingers around Song Lan’s shoulder. “Even if it’s not within your abilities to give. Even if it kills you, even if it kills a whole town… Are you still sure you want to apologise to me?”

“I am,” the man hangs his head, but when he turns towards him, Xue Yang is pleased to find a fire burning in his eyes. “I owe it to you.”

“Alright.”

Xiao Xingchen sits on Song Lan’s other side, a silent spectator to this exchange. His eyes are still slightly wild from the thrill of the dancing, and Xue Yang is sure that it is only his regard for tradition that keeps him seated instead of taking either of them to his bed, and it is just as breathtaking and unbelievable as it always is. He wants Song Lan to look at all that desire, all that adoration and love, and know that it has no bounds.

“Then, Song Lan, Song Zichen, I name my price here and now, unchanging and unavoidable” he turns, looks Zichen straight in the eye, trying to keep a strict face. “I demand that you kiss me.”

At first, there is confusion on Song Lan’s face. Then, it slowly morphs into something deeper, darker, almost into anger. Xue Yang does not take his eyes off of these changes, and he hears nothing from Xiao Xingchen but he is completely sure the king is holding back one of his light-hearted little laughs.

“Xue Yang!” His name sounds good on Song Lan’s mouth, even if it is said with disbelief and some barely tampered rage that makes those crimson eyes even more attractive. “Whatever is wrong with you?”

“You ought to fulfil your end of the bargain,” Xingchen speaks then, his voice full of mirth and a light teasing. Xue Yang watches as his elegant fingers appear on Song Lan’s other shoulder, and push him gently towards him. “You said you owe him, after all.”

“Do you not find me attractive enough, Song daoshi?” Xue Yang blinks at him with a very fake pout on his lips. He inhales the scent of mossy stone, steels himself and raises his whole hand to slide it along Song Lan’s face, until it is cradled gently in his palm. “I told you; I might ask for you to slaughter a village for me, or command you to dance in front of me until you drop dead from exhaustion… And yet all I’m asking instead of all those, is a kiss from you. Don’t you think it’s a fantastic bargain?”

“Shameless,” Song Lan says, his anger still seething around the edges of the word, but he leans into the touch. Xue Yang would bet that he is not even aware of it, but it makes the entire thing that much sweeter.

“You see? You even know me so well already, don’t you?” he laughs, slides his hand further until he can scrape his nails along Song Lan’s scalp and cradle his neck in his hold. He could pull him closer he knows, maybe with some difficulty seeing how Zichen was a cultivator already before becoming a vampire, but he could do it. There’s simply something within him that wants Song Lan to bridge the gap between them on his own, to fulfil his part of the bargain without any more prompting.

He is looking at the other man intently, waiting for something to happen – and that is the only reason he sees it. Song Lan stiffens just a bit, then his lips pull into a deviously handsome smile as he nods.

“Alright,” he says, and his voice contains the same glee his face showed a moment ago.

Then, before Xue Yang could gloat over his victory, or really ready himself for what is about to happen, Song Lan moves.

The kiss on his forehead burns, even though Song Lan runs much colder than the average human; even though the skin to skin contact regrettably lasted only about a second or two.

“Wait, no,” he blurts it out as Song Lan settles calmly back into his seat, and lifts a cup of tea to his lips. “That was not a proper kiss.”

“You never specified anything,” Zichen smiles, and even though something seethes within him, Xue Yang cannot help but offer him an impressed little hum.

“Maybe you won’t be as lost amongst us as I feared you’d be,” he says as he lifts the tea pot and fills Zichen’s cup. And if there’s anything in him that is stuck on thinking how Song Lan is a wonder, that’s only his business.

**

The story continues with the no longer mortal man falling in love.

It has been weeks since his initial meeting with Xiao Xingchen, but it feels less. He wants to think that it is like swimming in an overgrown pond with its mud stirred, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is far too easy, to settle into a routine that consists of practicing his sword forms after waking up, learning about the fae and the other non-human beings that apparently exist from either Xiao Xingchen or Xue Yang, walking with them afterwards in the woods that offer something new to look at in awe each day. The time he spends away from the two of them finds him usually in the grand library, or chatting away with the rest of the woodland residents. They treat him amicably, even with a respect he is sure he has not earned in any way, and even though he was sure nothing would ever be able to compare to living at Baixue, Xingchen’s domain starts to feel like home.

It is different from what he knew back in the temple, but he settles into it with an ease that surprises him.

It takes barely any time to look forward to every second night that Xiao Xingchen spends with him, sparring with him, feeding him his blood, far from the curious eyes of his subjects – and even Xue Yang. The question as to why sits heavy in his mind, and for weeks he is hesitant to breach the subject, slightly fearing the answer. Maybe Xiao Xingchen does not want to let it out that he brought back such a being as him, he thinks on several occasions, curled tightly around Xingchen’s sleeping, slender form, and his heart breaks a bit every time. He’d like to think that it does not seem like a thing Xingchen would do, but he knows better. Xiao Xingchen is the fae king, kind to those that are his and devious to those that are not. But where is the line, what marks one as this or that? Maybe it is all a game, and soon he will wake only to find both Xingchen and Xue Yang laughing at his naivety.

Xiao Xingchen stirs in his arms, turns around still asleep and nuzzles his head against Song Lan’s still chest. Song Lan adjusts his hold, lets his fingers roam along the man’s back, soft skin warming his ever-cold hand, and he throws those thoughts out. He buries them in the infertile soil of trust, to never let anything bloom from them, and grasps at all the affection he has for the fae king to nurture this trust further. If he hides what manner of creature he has brought to his home, he must have a good enough reason for it.

The next day, he sits at the edge of the bed and Xiao Xingchen kneels behind him, as is their custom by now, with a dark wooden comb held in the king’s hand.

“There’s something changed about you,” Xingchen speaks softly as he brings all of Song Lan’s hair behind his back before taking the comb to the mussed up strands. “Something calmer.”

“Is that so?” he asks, leaning back into the touch until Xiao Xingchen’s hand stops him from falling backwards. The man laughs, crystalline and fond, a sound that warms Song Lan’s entire being, and for a while the iciness coursing through his veins is forgotten.

Xiao Xingchen hums as he continues tending to his hair, and Song Lan is thankful that no more questions come. He could tell him about the realisation he had, the surety he feels now – but that would also mean that he has to uncover his past doubts. He does not want to offend Xingchen, and even more so, he does not want to make him sad.

But eventually, it would all be revealed, he knows, and the longer he leaves it festering the more damage it shall cause.

He sits up straighter, then turns so he almost faces Xingchen. He has yet to look up, to look at the man’s beautiful face, but until he gathers enough courage to do so, he does the second best thing and gently takes hold of the hand that is still holding onto the dark comb.

“A-Lan?”

The name comes as a surprise. Not because he has never heard it from Xingchen’s mouth, but because this far the only time he had the luxury of hearing it, it was always during their more intimate moments. But even now that Xingchen’s voice hold no passion or desire, it still sounds divine enough to give him courage.

“Why have you not told Xue Yang about what I am?”

“Oh,” Xiao Xingchen says, his voice tinged with a curious tone. The hand in Song Lan’s hold starts to shake minutely, but before Song Lan could even start to feel anxious about it, Xiao Xingchen’s laughter breaks through the silence that has settled over the room in the long seconds after the question.

Song Lan blinks at him, opens his mouth to ask – but then he closes it with a defeated sigh, for he does not even know what he could ask.

“Oh dear,” Xingchen says, and Song Lan hopes that it is not him the king is laughing at, because it is far too beautiful of a sight to hate it. Tears gather in the corner of Xiao Xingchen’s eyes as his laughter continues, the black irises granting them the gleam of pure obsidian before Xingchen reaches up and wipes them with an elegant swipe of his hand. “A-Lan, please tell me this has not been bothering you?”

His silence must be answer enough, because soon enough Xingchen reaches out to lift his head until he looks right at him. His expression is still balancing on the edge of mirthfulness, but there is a seriousness there as well.

“You were worried,” Xingchen says, then gently swipes his thumb over Song Lan’s cheek. “Let me reassure you, my reason of not telling him is silly. You will also laugh with me once I share it.”

“I wonder what could be such a reason,” Song Lan says, silent and guarded, but he cannot resist pressing more into the touch where Xingchen’s palm warms his face. He closes his eyes and lets the following silence wash over him, hopeful and curious.

“I wanted you two to get acquainted, but you know how our dear A-Yang is,” the voice settles over him, and he hums out a small questioning tone – he thinks he has a good understanding of what Xue Yang is like by now, but he has no idea which part Xingchen is referring to. “He does not like new people, and he absolutely hates it when I ask him to entertain guests who are boring for him. I had no idea how he’d take to you.”

“You thought I’d bore him?”

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t, but I couldn’t be sure,” Xingchen’s voice is halfway to another laugh, a fond one. “So I came up with this idea; if you were not just a guest for him, but also an enigma, a riddle to solve, maybe he’d spend more time with you and eventually warm up to you. I wanted him to like you.”

Song Lan opens his eyes, and he knows that his surprise is evident in them. Is that why Xue Yang kept on seeking him out? To simply sate his curiosity?

“It’s hard to believe his curiosity could get him to spend so much time doing something he dislikes,” he settles for saying. He wants to tell Xiao Xingchen that he thought he saw genuine happiness on Xue Yang as they sparred, as they talked, as the young man taught him about the creatures of the world and learnt from Song Lan about his cultivation in return. He does not want to word it like that, just in case he was wrong.

“Oh yes, he wouldn’t,” Xingchen smiles, and when this particular one reaches his eyes they light up like the night sky. “I think by the time the dancing happened, he was completely taken with you. You have this effect on people, my lovely Zichen, where they see your brilliance and crave more of it.”

Song Lan stares until Xiao Xingchen’s dark eyes are the only thing he sees, everything else blended together into blotches of colour, stares until he has to blink. The tears that roll down his face leave an even colder trail, and he shivers as Xingchen crowds closer to him. Warm hands pull him into a strong, secure embrace, and soon he feels himself relax into the honeyed wildflower-scent of his lover.

“I promised you laughter upon learning the truth,” Xingchen murmurs softly into his neck, then nuzzles into the skin there. “So why do you weep?”

“I’ve never been good with feelings,” the answer comes easily, after years of making peace with it. “But I think these might be tears of relief. Do you think he’d still seek out my company if he found the answer to this lowly riddle of a creature?”

“Most definitely,” Xingchen says, then puts just enough distance between himself and Song Lan to be able to look him in the eye. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he craved you the same way I do, regardless of everything.”

“Is that so,” Song Lan hums and feels his face turn warmer. While he has noticed those intent looks that lingered, the flirty responses that oftentimes felt less of a joke and more of a real try, the touches that he was sure he would not have tolerated from many other people and that he was getting more and more sure Xue Yang wouldn’t just give everyone, it all would have seemed far too perfect if it was true.

“I’m not in the business of betting,” Xingchen smiles and slots himself back against Song Lan’s chest, warming his side. “But if I did, I’d bet that he does care for you a great deal already.”

“Does it truly not bother you?”

“It doesn’t,” Xiao Xingchen says against the skin of Song Lan’s neck, a quickly cooling patch of hot air that Song Lan craves more of. “Maybe after some time here with us, it will stop bothering you as well. Or so I hope.”

Song Lan wants to say that maybe he does not mind it that much, that he has already more than made his peace with the idea of having more than one lovers, that he has managed to fall for both him and Xue Yang in that short span of time, but he never gets the chance to voice it. Xiao Xingchen kisses him languidly, drawing him softly into the touch, keeping his delicate pink lips on Song Lan’s until they are pleasantly warm.

As gently as it starts out, it quickly becomes something that boils both of their blood, and neither of them mind. Xingchen’s sharp teeth catch and play with Song Lan’s lips, while Song Lan can barely keep his fangs away from Xingchen’s neck – but he would not have enough time to heal and Xue Yang would notice, and then the game would be up. So he keeps to kissing, to bringing Xiao Xingchen’s strong and tender body against his own until they feel like one entity in two bodies. There’s no outside world for a while, just Xingchen; his mouth against his own, his fingers in his hair, tugging oh so deliciously against the strands.

Then, the world barges back into his perception as a loud whistle slashes through the hazy and heady all-encompassing feeling that is having Xiao Xingchen’s undivided attention.

They both turn towards the door, more from reflex than from the need to check who it is that entered.

“Am I late?” Song Lan asks after he finds his voice, while Xingchen piles himself behind him and embraces him. His hands rest on Song Lan’s shoulders and his breath warms the nape of his neck as he leans his head on one of his own hands. It feels comfortable, but his newly acquired knowledge and his absolutely not new but still developing feelings would have him bring Xue Yang into this embrace as well.

“Not yet,” the young man smirks, shamelessly letting his eyes wander over their forms, and Song Lan rolls his eyes at him. “But you will be, Xingchen can be like one of those water ghosts in Yunmeng.”

“Oh, would you look at that,” Song Lan hears Xiao Xingchen whispers into his hair, just audible enough to get both his and Xue Yang’s attention. “I just combed your hair and it’s already such a mess. Utterly unacceptable if you’re going out. Yang-yang, come and help me fix it?”

“We’re going to visit a town today,” Xue Yang says, then stands in front of Song Lan, with an assessing look in his eyes. “We should pick out one of the wooden hairpieces, maybe they don’t try to mug us for that.”

“Where are you going?”

“Do you remember the place where that pig of a man groped your butt?” Xiao Xingchen offers a half amused, half affronted noise as an answer, which prompts Xue Yang to break into laugh as he brings three wooden guans to the bed, showing them to Song Lan with a flourish.

“Do you know what bothered him the most about it?” The question is aimed at him, Song Lan knows, and points at one of the guans in Xue Yang’s hands as he considers his answer. It is a delicate-looking piece that depicts a bunch of different flowers twisting around one shared stem. For some reason, it feels like he’s choosing more than a hairpiece as Xue Yang’s grin grows bigger after his decision is made.

“Maybe he was drunk?”

“He was, and that’s… A close second,” Xiao Xingchen’s voice comes from behind him, but it carries a tone that tells Song Lan about the blush that must adorn his cheeks now. He gathers Song Lan’s hair, then fixes the guan in place with a satisfied little hum.

“It’s that he wasn’t even decent looking. He had barely any of his teeth and even those were rotting. Also, I know what a nail on a dead finger looks like,” Xue Yang rattles on as he puts the two remaining accessories into an ornately carved box that seems to lean into the same floral theme the hairpieces have. “And let me tell you, this guy’s nails were somehow worse.”

“Don’t worry,” Xiao Xingchen adds as he stands from the bed and stand in front of Song Lan, his hand held out for him to take. “He is not longer there to bother people.”

Song Lan takes the offered hand, and as he stands, he leans right into Xiao Xingchen and presses a rather chaste kiss onto his lips.

“Wish me luck,” he whispers against Xingchen’s lips. “And courage. I’m about to test what we talked about this morning. On this trip.”

“Good luck, my dear,” Xiao Xingchen says with a fond little light dancing in his eyes. “The courage you already have, several times over.”

“Alright, alright you saps,” the words are no sooner there than Xue Yang, his hand clamping down on Song Lan’s arm with considerable strength but not hard enough to hurt. “They will sell all their tanghulu and you promised to buy me some. Let’s go already, slow daoshi.”

Xiao Xingchen only laughs, then before Xue Yang could drag Song Lan away, he stops the young man.

“Not even saying a proper goodbye to me, Yang-er?”

“You already got your smooches for the morning,” Song Lan watches as Xue Yang turns away from Xiao Xingchen and rolls his eyes. It does not escape him that throughout this charade, Xue Yang cannot hide a rather smug smile. There might be no jealousy, but Song Lan is achingly familiar with feeling abandoned, and he cannot claim that it is just as absent in this situation as jealousy is. He reaches out slowly, and places a placating hand on the young man’s shoulder, while drawing Xingchen closer with the other.

“I think one more might still be needed,” he says, and steps away to busy himself with putting on his boots. When he risks a glance at them, he finds two pairs of eyes watching him with varying levels of disbelief and mirth.

“What,” he grumbles.

“You’re an interesting man, Song daoshi,” Xue Yang laughs, and gradually the disbelief fades from his expression. Then, as if his life depended on it, he turns back towards Xiao Xingchen and pulls him into a biting kiss that is passionate enough to both make Xingchen moan out loud, and get Zichen’s slow, sluggish blood quicken simply by looking at the sight.

**

The town that borders on the woods is neither small nor big, but its market has a wide variety of foods, including all manners of sweets. It is more than enough to have Xue Yang’s eyes sparkle from excitement as they walk through the main square, stopping by the different vendors to take a closer look at their wares. Song Lan appreciates the more savoury smells, although he does not really feel hunger for any of the foods they waft from, while Xue Yang has already assembled a list in his head of the dessert he has to try.

It is nice, Song Lan thinks, to be able to walk around like this. He has been dreading this moment, to be back amongst humans, but his hunger remains as nothing but an afterthought, just as it does in the woods, where he is surrounded by Xingchen’s people. Xue Yang’s endless and excited chatter makes the small stirs of hunger even less noticeable, and by the time they sit down on a comfortable bench, he has all but forgotten about it.

“I’ll be right back,” Xue Yang stands, mere second after he sat down, and Song Lan has to hide a small laugh behind his hand.

“Don’t let me keep you from your sweets,” he says, and after a series of nods, the changeling is gone, his smile brighter than the sun shining overhead.

For a while afterwards, he feels countless eyes on his person, although he notices no gawkers as he carefully looks around, and he makes a not to tell Xue Yang that he was right about not bringing anything fancy. He is not sure whether there are thieves, or shy beggars that are trying to avoid anyone who might look proper enough to be a powerful cultivator, but he knows there are watchers.

When a small group of four approach him after some minutes, the sight of them makes something like apprehension slither down his spine. They are dressed in the modest but sturdy garbs of a few smaller sects that Song Lan has never had dealings with personally, but has seen them on his trips enough to now recognise their colours and the motifs stitched into their robes.

He watches, the ominous feeling in his gut keeping him from addressing them first, not that the first one to directly step in front of him would grant him much of a chance.

“Song Zichen?” He asks, his voice loud and grating, and something in his eyes makes Song Lan want to lie. He still nods, and offers them a respectful bow.

“How may I be of help?”

“Help?” The second bravest man steps forwards as well, and with a particularly nasty snarl, he spits on the ground right next to Song Lan’s boots. “Maybe not murdering innocents would be a good start, you bastard.”

“As he said!”

“That you have no shame to show yourself around is a crime in itself,” someone else chimes in, and Song Lan lets out a silent sigh. His luck is either the best or the worst, there is truly no in-between.

He is about to stand up and leave, hoping that they would not be brave enough to actually do anything to try and stop him, when a loud and dangerously cheerful voice stops him.

“Song daoshi, you’re being very popular once again,” Xue Yang shakes his head as he appears behind the cultivators’ backs, with no food in his hands. He must have heard them, then, Song Lan assumes, and simply nods his head.

“You know him?” one of them asks the young man, nodding his head towards Song Lan.

“Yeah, I do. What about it?”

“You’re lucky to be alive then,” a second cultivator sneers. “He killed several people already, leaving only their dried out corpses behind.”

“Yes! He didn’t show mercy even in his own home!”

Song Lan only listens half-heartedly to the cultivators who continue bringing all of his crimes to Xue Yang’s attention, and watches his face instead. But Xue Yang’s expression does not change from the initial frown with which he regarded the group, but he is looking at them and not at Song Lan.

“You are all awfully boring, you know that, right?” he asks, and it shuts up even the most gregarious of the group as well as if their voices were cut with a blade. He holds out a hand towards Song Lan, and as he turns towards him, his lips curl into a playful smirk. “Let’s go. I no longer want that tanghulu, my appetite is gone.”

“Damn brat, do you want to die?”

“I don’t plan on every dying, so no,” Xue Yang laughs, and pulls Song Lan to his feet. “Do you?”

It earns him a sputtering from the people, mixed with some curses that Song Lan finds insulting and based on his laugh, Xue Yang must find rather entertaining.

“Are you threatening us, you freak?” one of them shouts, and it is almost enough to stop Xue Yang in his tracks as he is dragging Song Lan away from the group.

“Not yet,” Xue Yang murmurs into the air, and Song Lan is sure that aside from him, no one heard him. They duck behind a building and Xue Yang changes directions several times before he talks again. “Let’s get out of the town, I don’t want to get permanently banned from coming back. Those sweets looked so good…”

“Do you think they’ll follow us?”

“Oh, for sure. If they are like the rest, like those Xingchen got rid of, then they are bubbling with the need to kill something so much more powerful than they are – and they won’t stop trying until it’s too late. For them, anyways.”

“You sound maybe a bit too excited about them possibly attacking us,” Song Lan sighs, but something warm trickles around his undead chest at the thought of Xue Yang being just as ready to fight for him, to kill for him as Xiao Xingchen is. He does not feel joy at the thought of anyone perishing, but he has grown fond of his freedom within the woods, his new family there, and thus his new life as well. He’d loath it even more if one of these fight-craving people endangered any of those, and while he is more than capable of protecting himself, it feels good to know that there are people who have his back.

“Oh, you haven’t even seen Jiangzai yet,” Xue Yang smiles as they come to a halt at the edge of the woodland, where the rules of human an fae realms blur the most. “She’s a beauty, and it’s tragic that I barely get to use her nowadays. What is the world coming to, honestly…”

“Maybe you should take on sparring with me like Xingchen does,” the offer is out of his mouth before Song Lan could think better of it – but he cannot bring himself to regret it. His sparring with Xiao Xingchen is one of the highlights of those days when it occurs, where he can both experiment with his new powers and also keep practicing his sword techniques so they don’t fade into his past completely.

“Maybe I should,” the answer from Xue Yang pleases him, and he turns to say something that could potentially lead to him confessing exactly what he is, and how that might affect their sparring, but then angry shouts bring that thought to a halt before anything could be borne of it.

“There you are!”

“We won’t let you slaughter any more innocents!”

“Yes, you freak! You die today!”

Xue Yang laughs, drawing both Song Lan and the group’s attention to himself. A sword materialises in his right hand; a construct of jagged metal pieces for a hilt, with a beautiful and thick blade attached to it.

“Come on,” Xue Yang growls into the rising gale. “Amuse me for a few minutes at least!”

And with that, Song Lan can only watch as Xue Yang propels himself into the middle of the group to slap the slowest one who has not stepped out of his range in time on the thigh with the flat of his sword. It could have been his neck, Song Lan thinks, but it seems that playing around with the prey is Xue Yang’s style.

The young changeling twirls around, almost a direst copy of Xiao Xingchen’s move, but while Xingchen makes it look delicate, Xue Yang looks like a deadly hurricane approaching, with his dark robes and his dark laughter swirling around him.

Several of the cultivators circle around him, but Xue Yang’s grin only turns more excited, the gleam in his eyes more feral at the sight. He lets them approach, he dances out of the reach of a few swords that lash out towards him as the form a circle around him, but he looks far from panicked. Song Lan wants to fight beside him, wants to summon Fuxue and make himself useful – but he also wants to watch. He was able to see Xingchen at the dancing, his deadly precision and elegance in the bloodshed, and something in him craves to witness Xue Yang as well.

The circle tightens around the changeling, and then at one second Song Lan freezes to the spot as the cultivators lunge forwards with their swords pointed at Xue Yang – and in the next they stop dead in their tracks. Their headless bodies freeze into the moment as the blood splatters around them onto the grass in a neat arch, then they fall next to their severed heads.

The rest of the attackers gape in horror at the sword in his hold, while Song Lan hurries to his side, with no regards to the bodies.

“That was reckless of you,” he says and grasps at Xue Yang’s right wrist.

“But you liked it, did you not?” Xue Yang quips back at him, and raises up their connected hands, with Jiangzai in his hold. The sword has split into two blades, connected by the same hilt, and Song Lan pushes away the need to ask about its mechanics, about how and where Xue Yang learnt to use it like this, and instead he brings Xue Yang’s hand even higher until it is level with his mouth. The skin is clean and warm under his lips as he presses a reverent kiss onto it.

Xue Yang’s gasp makes him look up, but instead of something bad that he has not even had enough time to start fearing, all he sees in his eyes is want mixed with surprise.

“This is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today,” Song Lan says softly, but he knows that their own, private moment is coming to an end as he hears more footsteps approach them. There are still a few of their enemies lingering, after all. “It’s a shame we were interrupted.”

“Never mind that,” Xue Yang laughs and he fists his left hand in Song Lan’s sleeve. “I love a good fight. I’d love it even more if you showed me your sword, gege.”

The way he says it hits something in Song Lan, something that makes his heart race and his cheeks heat up with both embarrassment and want.

He summons Fuxue without any further delay, and faces the remaining assailants by Xue Yang’s side.

It is almost like the non-lethal paired dances he saw back at the banquet, as he and Xue Yang move in perfect synchronisation, their swords flowing through skin and blood and bone, and soon, they are alone once again.

The grass drinks up the blood, but as Song Lan looks over the both of them, they are free of it almost completely. There is only one small streak of it, a few drops smeared across Xue Yang’s face, but Song Lan is sure it’s not his.

He reaches up to run his thumb over it, collecting the red droplets until there’s only one large line beneath Xue Yang’s left eye, but before he could take it to his mouth to dispose of it, something knocks the breath out of him.

His hands find purchase on Xue Yang’s shoulders as his body lurches forward – then there’s only a sharp pain that nearly blinds him. He cannot pinpoint where it originates from, his whole being is on fire and his entire body screams from it. His knees hit the ground with a loud thud, but he does not hear it. There’s a ringing in his ears, and the only thing that filters through it is the way Xue Yang screams.

Then, as the lights dancing in front of his eyes recede a bit, he can now see his face as well. His eyes are blown wide with panic, and his mouth moves as if he was saying something.

Song Lan steels himself, and as his memories slowly trickle through the haze of pain, he looks down and reaches up to where the hurt feels the sharpest. He focuses his eyes on the metal tip of the arrow at the same moment his fingers touch it clumsily. The movement causes a tremor to run through him, from head to toe, and now he knows why Xiao Xingchen advised him to protect his heart as if any injuries suffered there would kill him. It hurts beyond what he endured at his transformation, and the only thing he is thankful about is that he has Xue Yang with him.

“Get it out,” he says, barely more than a choked-up whisper, but it seems enough for the changeling. He breaks off the arrow’s feathers, then pulls the shaft out of his body – and it feels as if someone decided to gut him several times over. It burns like staying out in the snow for too long, and it looks downright disgusting as something darker and denser than blood bubbles out of the wound. It takes him a few seconds to realise that it is indeed his blood, such a dark red that it almost borders on black, seeping into his robes with sluggishly slow speed.

“A-Lan?” Xue Yang’s voice reaches him, and it’s a relief to be able to look away from his own chest in order to look at him. The name catches his attention, but he feels too weak to comment on it. He feels too weak to move and to think as well, but at least his senses have cleared up enough for him to know that he is propped up against Xue Yang’s chest and arm, his head resting against the young man’s neck.

“’m okay,” he manages to mumble out, and tries to reach out to touch the changeling, but all he achieves is a twitch that moves nothing beyond two of his fingers.

“Okay my ass,” Xue Yang heaves out a shaky breath above his head, and as he swallows his throat bobs right next to Song Lan’s nose. The faint smell of his blood reaches Song Lan, even through the stench that lingers from the corpses all around them. They don’t hold any of his interest in that moment, but Xue Yang’s blood calls to him like Xiao Xingchen’s did on the day of their first meeting.

“Can you,” he starts, and his throat closes over the sounds. He tries again, but his tongue refuses to let him form any more words.

“What do you need?” The panic is so clear in that usually playful voice, it breaks something in Song Lan to be the unwitting cause of it.

He turns his head even closer to Xue Yang’s neck, and with great difficulty, he places his fangs against the soft skin until they are just about to pierce it. Stopping at that point takes more of his restraint and willpower he’d like to admit to even himself, but he does command himself to halt.

“Oh,” Xue Yang sounds surprised but not apprehensive, and soon a choked-up laugh breaks free of him. It sounds like relief, and it sounds like acceptance. “Go for it, daoshi.”

And Song Lan goes for it. He sinks his fangs into the flesh, into the veins underneath the skin, and starts to drink.

At first it’s messy as he can barely hold his grip on Xue Yang, and some of the blood flows out of his mouth to tarnish the changeling’s black and midnight-blue robes. He drinks, and after the pain has pulled back to the back of his mind, the deliciousness of it takes its place as the foremost thought. He cannot describe it as anything but the same divine Xiao Xingchen’s blood is, one that sings the same enticing song for him. One that he can barely stop from drawing more and more of – but once he feels whole enough, he draws his fangs back, and laps up the stray streaks from a shivering neck.

“Had enough?” Xue Yang asks, and as Song Lan looks up at him, he meets with the most guilt-ridden expression he’s ever seen.

“Even more than I needed, I’m afraid,” he answers as he sits up, his hands grasping at Xue Yang’s shoulders until he heaves himself upright. “What happened?”

“He was far enough for me to not sense his presence in the woods,” Xue Yang says and hangs his head, shame and guilt clear in the pained grimace that he wears.

“It’s not your fault,” Song Lan murmurs, and tightens his hold around Xue Yang’s hand. He turns in the direction Xue Yang is looking at, and a surprised little breath escapes him at the sight. Vines of different thickness stand behind a wide and thick bush, one that once must have had bright white flowers growing on its surface. They are now a dark red, from the blood that still rains from the suspended body above it. The vines pierce his chest and his head, keeping him in the air as if it was some kind of bizarre sculpture. “Also, I can see that you dealt with him. Revenge accomplished.”

“I didn’t want to leave you,” the admission is silent, but it doesn’t matter for Song Lan can still clearly hear it, and it warms his mending heart. “I thought it would be enough to take you.”

“Me coming clear to you would have been the second thing I wanted to bring up today. But at least everything is out in the open now,” he sighs, then leans back to lap at some more drops of blood that have gathered around the puncture wounds on Xue Yang’s neck. “Even if we got no chance to test out something.”

“What is it?”

“I was wondering if you would have kissed me for a piece of tanghulu,” Song Lan laughs softly, and soon Xue Yang also joins him. They laugh slowly for a while, huddled together on the ruined grass, before Xue Yang moves Song Lan’s head until he can press a kiss onto his forehead.

It takes a moment, but when his meaning lands, Song Lan offers him a small chuckle and a fond smile.

“Is this now fair?”

“All is fair in love and war,” Xue Yang looks at him, a challenge in his eyes that hides the vulnerable and unsaid question beneath.

“Hm, good thing there’s no war,” he says, and Xue Yang’s eyes fill with hope most radiant.

“Does that mean…” he starts, with a shyness that Song Lan is not accustomed to seeing coming from him, but maybe the rarity of it is why he finds it so compelling.

“It appears so,” he teases, and leans in to kiss Xue Yang on the mouth. It tastes like blood, but it might just be one of the best kisses he’s ever had. It’s over far too quickly, but he does not want to leave the question hanging for too long. “I love you.”

Xue Yang pulls back from him and looks at him, his eyes wide and wonder-filled, and Song Lan smiles softly at him.

“Song daoshi is really testing me today,” he says slowly, and Song Lan’s curiosity is piqued as his expression turns to playful once again. “First scaring the soul out of me, then drinking until I can barely keep my hands to myself, and now also this…”

“Who said you needed to keep your hands away?” he asks, and leans back to catch another fresh droplet of blood with his tongue, making sure to press a few kisses along the exposed skin as he licks at it. Xue Yang’s eyes are blown wide when he sits back up, and the noise that escapes him when they make eye contact is almost as delicious as his blood.

“I won’t, then,” he says with such a feral of a smirk that it would surely make him go weak at the knees were he standing, and Song Lan finds that he rather likes the new look on Xue Yang. It suits him, to have his fangs on display and that unapologetic gleam in his eyes, and Song Lan does not even care that they are in a field amongst corpses, he wants Xue Yang to make good on those unsaid promises right then and there.

The kiss he gets is full of teeth and blood once again, but Song Lan loves it, especially when it turns so fierce that he feels it safer to lay back onto the ground and pull Xue Yang with him, his fingers twining into his hair as he tries to pull him closer than close.

Xue Yang’s weight settles over him, and soon his hands start to roam, untying both of their robes and parting them deftly and quickly until he can take both of their erections in his hand. It is fast and rough, and Song Lan would not have it any other way right now. He pants into Xue Yang’s mouth and keens out his name as he comes. Then, he lets go of the strands of hair that he kept in his grip all along, and swats away Xue Yang’s hand so he can wrap his own fingers around his cock, switching up his fast pace into something slower until Xue Yang almost weeps from it. When he spills over Song Lan’s hand, it is accompanied with a whine and a desperate and deep bite against Song Lan’s shoulder.

As he sits up, Song Lan admires his form, his strong body hidden mostly by rumpled and loosely hanging clothes, and he knows he will want to repeat this in the comfort of their bed, with far less clothing involved. Based on the fire in Xue Yang’s gaze as he looks down at him, he must feel the same.

He is about to say something, but then Xue Yang stiffens. His mouth slowly pulls into a satisfied little smirk as he looks at something behind Song Lan.

“What a lovely sight,” Xiao Xingchen’s voice falls over him like a warm blanket, and Song Lan sits up with Xue Yang still balanced in his lap to be able to turn his head towards him. Xingchen stands there in his pristine white robes, with Shuanghua hovering by his right arm, and his expression is absolutely radiant with joy. “I expected a fight, and yet…”

“You were slow, Xingchen,” Xue Yang laughs and throws his arms around Song Lan’s neck to bring him into a crushing, overly enthusiastic embrace. “We’ve handled that so long ago their bodies must already be cold.”

“Long enough for you to mess each other up this beautifully, hm?” Xingchen walks to them and kneels down, until he is at eye level with them.

“So slow,” Xue Yang offers instead of a real answer, and lets go of Song Lan with one arm so he can slide it across Xiao Xingchen’s cheek until he can pull him forward. The kiss looks just as good as it felt to be on the receiving end on either of their kisses, and Song Lan cannot keep a besotted smile off his face. He also lets go of Xue Yang with one hand, and twines his fingers lightly around Xingchen’s wrist.

“What is your verdict on all of this, my dear?” Xiao Xingchen asks once their kiss ends, aiming the question at Song Lan with a soft smile on his face.

“If I can have the both of you,” Song Lan says with a sharp determination and a feeling of absolute surety as his grasp tightens on Xiao Xingchen’s wrist, keeping him close. “Then I shall.”

“My mentor shall be eternally amused by this, you know?” Xingchen laughs then, and both he and Xue Yang look at him questioningly.

“Why would she be?”

“Yeah, she has one expression and that’s not amusement, and you know that,” Xue Yang adds, and honestly Song Lan believes him.

“Oh, she’s been waiting for the conclusion of my denseness,” Song Lan watches as Xingchen tilts his head to the side a bit, and something akin to embarrassment flashes through his black eyes like far-away meteors. “For about a decade now. A-Yang, I’m a stupid, stupid man.”

“Xingchen?”

“I should have realised it a long time ago, and ever since Song Lan came to live with us, I had my suspicions, but I wasn’t sure, and…”

“Xingchen,” Song Lan lets go of the man’s wrist and brings his fingers up to his face to cup it in his hold and turn his head towards Xue Yang, who is shaking apart in his hold. “Would you tell him already that he was your first fated one? He’s about to keel over from his nerves.”

“I was the what,” Xue Yang snaps his head so hard towards him that Song Lan almost expects his neck to break from it.

“Xingchen’s fated one, the first to arrive,” Song Lan hums softly, and as they both turn to look at the fae king, he offers an elegant nod of his head, his cheeks tinged pink still.

“I expected it to be like what Zichen and I had – something fast and immediate, but I miscalculated. You grew up under my care and I took it as nothing out of the ordinary that I’d care for you. Only, you have been by my side for so long that it was less of an explosion and more like the hearth of the home when our bond formed.”

“Does this mean,” Xue Yang gulps, and Song Lan suspects that he swallowed the second part of the question for good when it never comes, only a litany of Xingchen’s name. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“Let’s go home,” Xiao Xingchen nods and stands, and Song Lan swiftly rearranges both Xue Yang’s and his own robes before helping the still shocked changeling to scamper to his feet.

“Yes, let’s,” Song Lan breathes out a sigh, and turns his back on the bloodied fileld to trun towards Xiao Xingchen. “And the next time we try to get some tanghulu for A-Yang, you should also come with us.”

“I wouldn’t miss such a fun outing as this one,” Xingchen smirks, and Song Lan leans in to kiss it.

“With some less frights, if you please,” Xue Yang grumbles, and then steals a kiss for himself as well from the fae king. “But the fighting part can stay.”

“Agreed.”

**

If you were to ask – but how does the story end?

Long after the era of cultivators, long after the liveliest decades of the castle in the woods, it still has not come to a conclusion. There have been hardships and memories that shall be forever cherished, tears of misery and joy alike, but there are two constants in their lives: that there are the others to lean onto when needed, and that there shall always be a tomorrow to look forward to.