Chapter Text
It jumped forward a few months at most, Hua WuXian standing in her room staring at the mirror with eyes that were still disturbingly flat.
“Is it okay if I come in?”
“It’s always okay for Cheng-gege to come in. Cheng-gege will never hurt me.”
‘Jiang Cheng’ walks into the room, holding a small box in his arms. Like everything else in the time of Hua WuXian’s memories, ‘he’ is only made of shades of white and black and grey.
“Some new robes were bought for you while Jiang-zōngzhǔ and Jiang YanLi are away for inter-sect relations. Do you want to try them on now or wait until tomorrow, since the Jiangs of the head family won’t be back until next week?”
Hua WuXian opens the box to reveal a set of robes that are quite distinct in how they are not Jiang style, nor in a style seen in any of the major Clans or Sects around. Hua WuXian lets loose a soft huff of amusement, before turning to look at ‘Jiang Cheng’ with an upwards quirk of her mouth.
“A-Die, you know you don’t have to take on another’s form if you want to spend time together. This one is never unhappy to see you when you are able,”
With a soft huff, ‘Jiang Cheng’ changes form until there is an adult man wearing robes similar to the ones in the box standing in Hua WuXian’s room. The aura coming from him is unmistakably that of a heavenly official, despite Hua WuXian never having mentioned knowing one before. In her memory, there is a soft and almost unnoticeable glow around this god’s form.
“You did take a moment to see through the disguise, xiǎohua. You need to be faster, I wasn’t even making sure the disguise was perfect today. What if something happens to you because you can’t see through someone’s lies?”
“A-Die, I see through your disguises more often than not. You help me disguise ‘it’ more often than not too, and… and you don’t look at me the way he does,” Hua WuXian sits and leans against him when the heavenly official sits on the edge of her bed.
“He? The only ‘he’ you speak of positively are the ones you’ve decided to call ‘gege’ or ‘ge’. You’re not speaking positively, xiǎohua. Has someone been trying to do things to you that you don’t want?”
“He’s only been trying to tempt me to stray from my path, A-Die, nothing more. May we speak of happier things?” Hua WuXian bluntly requests a subject change.
“These robes are made with an array sewn into the patterns in the same colour as the surrounding cloths. They will grow with you, never being too small for you to wear. Fire-proof and water-resistant as well, I know how the past still haunts you in ways you don’t let those around you see. They are made to withstand blades and are stain-repelling since I know your fighting style leaves some openings that could be taken advantage of and you have a hard time seeing stains on clothing if the stain is not a different enough colour,”
“Hua WuXian never mentioned this. Why wouldn’t they tell someone?” Nie ZongHui voiced.
“Perhaps they kept the connection private to avoid others trying to abuse it?” Jin Ling spoke up, with his father nodding in agreement from behind him.
Hua WuXian is running, running with shaky breath. He is perhaps eight if one were to be generous, his dull eyes are wide and there’s a glimmer of fear in those flat irises as he races through a forest to get away from something. There are a few tears in his robes that might have gotten caught on the trees he has already passed.
“Da’Yi! Da’Yi!”
Hua WuXian sounds nearly hoarse, distress clear in his voice as the sounds of some unknown animal moving through the forest behind him makes itself clear. The chances of it being a dog are high with the amount of fear present in Hua WuXian’s body language and eyes.
“Da- Da’Yi,” Hua WuXian trips over a gnarled tree root and sprawls across the ground, the skin on his palms tearing and welling with blood quickly, “Da’Yi,”
He is clearly calling for someone, yet so far no one has answered. The unknown animal comes a bit nearer, before there’s a flash of light between it and Hua WuXian and it lets out a yelp before running off.
“Xiǎohua, I’m here. I’m here, kid, it won’t hurt you,” the heavenly official from before says as he helps Hua WuXian off the dirty ground and takes hold of the boy’s hands gently.
“It- it just- it started chasing me, Da’Yi, it started chasing and I didn’t think- I just saw the teeth and knotted fur and it made me ‘member and- and-” Hua WuXian starts trying to explain as the heavenly official carefully cleans out the injuries.
“I know, xiǎohua, you don’t have to say more. Your fear is understandable, and I would be surprised if you didn’t have it after all that’s happened. Do you want to let your wounds heal naturally, or would you be okay with me using my energy to bypass waiting for however long that takes?”
“Heal it? I don’t want to make Cheng-gege or Auntie Yu sad when they get back. Jiang-zōngzhǔ is away doing something, I wasn’t paying much attention, but he’s gonna be gone a lot longer than Cheng-gege and Auntie Yu so I’m not worried about him. Jiang YanLi is off somewhere in Lanling-Jin spending time with Madame Ráo so she’ll be away for a while too,” Hua WuXian mumbles as the heavenly official finishes cleaning his wounds.
“I was under the impression everyone calls her Madame Jin, seeing as Jin GuangShan is her husband,” he comments idly.
“Only because he did bad things to her. Madame Ráo was gonna marry Cousin NuanQiu, and then that Jin couldn’t take her telling him ‘no’ for an answer. Everyone living says it was an accident while night-hunting, Da’Yi, but spirits don’t lie. Jin GuangShan killed one of my people just because my cousin was going to marry a beautiful woman that he wanted. Madame Ráo deserves better, Cousin NuanQiu asked for her hand because he loved her and wanted to night-hunt with her and that no good Jin ruined it. Now Madame Ráo is kept from having her freedom and she isn’t even allowed to go out for night-hunts anymore,” Hua WuXian refuted.
“W- what?” Jin ZiXuan seemed horrified at finding out what his father had done to his mother, “… if my- if the former Sect Leader Jin hadn’t done that, Hua Wuxian and I would be related.”
“Mama talks about you like you’re Mama’s cousin, this must be why,” Hua Yang spoke up from where she was standing just behind her father.
Hua WuXian is eight and kneeling in a temple while wearing the robes they had been gifted by that heavenly official. Their hands are clasped in front of their chest and their head is bowed deferentially.
“Xiǎohua, I see you’re wearing my gift for you,” a voice calls softly from before the child.
Hua WuXian opens their eyes and stands up, before smiling and running forth to wrap their arms around the official, “A-Die, it’s been so long since I saw you last. This one has been waiting as patiently as they can to meet with you again.”
“I’ll do my best to find time away from my duties so we can spend more time together, then,”
On the bedrolls, Hua WuXian had been relaxed throughout each memory that held this unknown heavenly official. They felt safe enough around him to let their guard down, something that had taken months for Madame Yu and nearly every other adult in Hua WuXian’s life had yet to achieve. The fog dispersed and then reformed, and they were looking at a Hua WuXian standing somewhere in a forest after another number of dog attacks. At this point Hua WuXian should just never be left without at least one other person, since their fear of the animal made them freeze up or start running as soon as they saw one. Jin Ling had already been planning to write an apology after seeing how the fear had originated, but now it needed to be much more than simple ink on paper with how severe the fear had been proven to be through Hua WuXian’s memories.
“A good person wouldn’t do this,” a man of about twenty-five to twenty-seven says to the nine-year-old Hua WuXian.
“Laying someone to rest when others have forgotten to is never a bad thing,” Hua WuXian retorts.
They unwind their black bindings from around their wrists to reveal black markings on their skin. They could almost be considered tattoos, if not for the way they vaguely resembled a locking ward. Hua WuXian directs the black bindings to wrap loosely around the body of an unknown individual, sacrificing the bindings around their neck when the ones around their wrists prove not enough to lift the individual from the ground. This reveals that those same black markings are around their neck as well, and Hua WuXian carefully moves in a way that directs the bindings to place the body in a prepared grave before returning to pool by their feet.
“Oh? Then should someone lay you to rest?” the mantells them mockingly.
“You have no right to say these things, you were born dead and continue your state as such. How you have consciousness and retain any fascimile of a soul when you were never alive to begin with eludes me,” Hua WuXian snaps and the man laughs as if in triumph.
“There it is! Ah, you’ve taken so much longer to crack than that other dianxia, a beautiful testament to how persistent and steadfast I am!” He sounds delighted, and Hua WuXian takes a few deep breaths before unclenching their fists.
They ignore him as they kneel before the grave now that the body has been laid in it and covered with the displaced soil, and Hua WuXian begins to give funeral rites to the person this body had belonged to. Shadowy tendrils of some sort dissipate where they had begun to coalesce as Hua WuXian does so, and the teen leaves a clear grave marker at one end of the impromptu grave they had made.
“Oh come now, your highness. Surely you are able to understand that if anyone were to find out about your state at birth they would never accept it? You died moments after birth, and if it weren’t for the efforts of that meddling god you would have been buried within days. They will never let you continue. You will lose the claims of family you’ve fostered with that Jiang boy and his mother, the bonds with your cousins, your aunts and uncles will forsake you, your elder brother will turn his back on you, your mothers will strike you from the family registry, your people will curse your name and wish you to know nothing of peace. You will be cast aside, and that’s why you don’t tell them. You know that none of them will accept you the instant they know you were once dead, you know-” the unknown man is cut off when there’s a brief flash of light.
“Step away from my child,” the heavenly official that Hua WuXian refers to as ‘A-Die’ says in a voice like ice, “before I forcibly separate your head from your body and leave both in reach of He Xuan.”
The antagonistic being immediately vanishes, and the heavenly official moves to pull Hua WuXian into a tight embrace, “you stupid little fucker, how fucking dare you, of all the foolish things,” he continues saying disjointed admonishments as he holds them close.
“You came, A-Die,” Hua WuXian breathes into the fabric of his robes.
“Of course I came, my child called for me. What other reason would I need?”
“All in favour of finding that guy and ensuring he can’t hurt WuXian again?” Jin ZiXuan asked those still in the room, as a few had gone to see if they could do anything to assist the spirits and corpses in keeping the attacking ones at bay.
A series of quiet agreements sounded, with Hua WuXian’s children being the most vocal.