mdzs ancient magus bride au where
yiling laozu is the mage risen from the nightmares and resentful energy of the burial mounds, neither human nor fae
and lan zhan is a pre-adolescent, rare and very coveted dragon halfling, one of the last known alive, captured and sold at an underground auction.
the yiling laozu buys lan zhan to rescue him and takes him away to their remote little cottage in yiling. lan zhan is understandably mistrustful at first, but a week of living with this strange, kind, dark being who treats him as a person instead of a slave or rare artifact, well.
and when lan zhan proposes to stay by the yiling laozu's side forever and ever and be his, the yiling laozu laughs it off and brushes it off as the whimsy of a duckling imprinting on the first carer it meets. a fleeting childish phase. perhaps lan zhan has more human in him than dragon, the yiling laozu thinks. they are always so easily swayed by emotion...
but lan zhan is determined.
and so, as lan zhan grows up, he learns more about his dragon-side, his magic, his whole self. and he trains hard to be a suitable for the yiling laozu. he takes note of the yiling laozu's likes and dislikes, carefully tests his boundaries, tries his best to show how much he loves the yiling laozu in every way.
and then when lan zhan comes of age, he gets discovered by his kind - he learns he has a dragon brother and a paternal uncle. he leaves to spend a year with them, with his kind, far and protected in the unreachable mountains of gusu.
when he leaves the yiling laozu's cottage - a place that's felt like home more than any he remembers - he's barely shoulder-height (head-to-head if they count his antlers) of the man who makes it home.
the yiling laozu waves goodbye, feels a bit of pain and heaviness in his chest and thinks, oh, this must be what "missing someone" feels like.
the year trudges on like a slug.
the yiling laozu misses lan zhan more and more, sees his tiny serious face in every little nook in his - their - home. which should be weird, because he has had this house for longer than lan zhan has been here. and yet it feels incomplete to be in it without lan zhan there.
so he spends less and less time in it, spends his days where it's less empty, hoping the loneliness will fade away.
until one day, as the yiling laozu drags his feet back to his house - dreading another night in a cold, empty space - he finds something is different.
the lights are on and there's a fire going.
and outside, on his doorstep, there's someone there.
the person standing by his door is huge - tall and broad, maybe something familiar in the regal set of the shoulders, the stiff-but-not posture.
it's the golden eyes that freezes the breath in his lungs, that force his feet to move, like a lighthouse guiding him home.
the yiling laozu feels strange. he feels light and heavy at the same time, hot and prickly even though the air remains the same temperature.
the lan zhan before him is more dragon, more man now than boy. so much of him has changed -- has his gaze always been so intense?
"i have come back," lan zhan's voice has lost its adorable pitchiness; now it is deep and smooth. like rumbling thunder, the call of the heavens. "wei ying."
the yiling laozu freezes. the name - those two syllables that no one has called him by in-- in a long, long time.
it feels like lightning in his bones.
distantly, his own words echo back at him, spoken to a then younger lan zhan.
"if you still feel that way when you come of age, you can call me by my name."
"what is your name?"
"now that is a secret! only if you are determined to call me can you do so."
a small pout. "already am."
"though my mother was human, the dragon blood in me is strong." gently, lan zhan takes his hand in his. "did you know? dragons only love once. for the rest of their lives."
wei ying smiles shakily, " that's a shame then, surely you want a redo?"
lan zhan's hold tightens, another hand cupping his face.
"never." lan zhan presses a gentle kiss on his knuckles, almost an affectionate nuzzle that washes wei ying's hand with a cool breath. "i will only ever want wei ying. i will always want to be by your side."
and isn't that a tantalizing offer.
the yiling laozu has lived long - longer than even he remembers. and the immortality has only ever hammered in the fleetingness of life, the loneliness of time.
and yet here lan zhan is, offering him the promise of something a little more permanent. perhaps it was fate that wei ying had chosen to settle down in a house in yiling, a scant few decades before he met lan zhan.
perhaps it was a sign, that wei ying only ever called it home, when lan zhan was there to call it home, too.
vaporwave
origamiaround
turnnoffyourmind
yousharknotpass
dededos
areudirty
romaincrisis
