It was dark. Profoundly dark. Darker than black. Darker than time.
The darkness moved, circling in a burning vortex, pressing closer all the time.
Frozen motionless in his mind's eye, Wei WuXian was unable to stir. No escape to be found. Unable to leave. The darkness could not be stopped nor pierced.
Wei WuXian's body was frozen in place, an unyielding block of ice. No muscle could move. Not a finger could twitch. He didn't feel he was breathing. The cold was absolute and all-encompassing.
The wind picked up, buffeted him where he crouched. Despite the agony of the deep freeze within his tissues, the wind roared as a furnace, fiery air blasting around him in the dreamscape. Heat as deep as the cold that froze him in place. Two absolutes, fire and ice, that were so entirely at their limit they seemed to become one, the pain from either indistinguishable from the other.
Where am I?
Voices.
Many voices. So very many voices. Old and young. Fresh and faint. Gravelly, spring-like, croaking or lilting. Too many voices. All at once. Impossible to understand.
Emotion. So much intensity. A devastation of want. Of intent. Of pressure. Of determination. For what?
What is happening?
What wants to happen?
Can't breathe. Too cold. Too hot. Too windy. Too terrifying. Too much. Too everything.
"L... L... L... Lan Zhan!"
Many useless efforts and finally a dry throat screaming a terrified call had Lan WangJi folding Wei WuXian into his arms immediately, warm and safe and strong and loving.
"Wei Ying. I am here."
"Lan Zhan Lan Zhan Lan Zhan. Er-Gege. My HanGuang-Jun." Hands shaking and barely under control reached for Lan Zhan's warm body, shocking him with their iciness. Wei WuXian's cracked voice whispered, barely audible, "I am so glad you are here. That one...that was the worst yet. I couldn't see anything. It hurt, my love, it hurt so much..." He cried softly for a moment, as Lan Zhan rocked him gently within the safety of his embrace.
"They wanted something."
"Who?"
"I... I don't know."
"What?"
"I don't know."
Lan WangJi's warm arms and stroking hands soothed Wei WuXian. Racing hearts gradually slowed and eventually Lan WangJi was able to coax Wei WuXian to lay back again, to rest above his heart, the steady beating lulling his racing pulse. Finally, sleep overtook them once more.
The nightmare repeated the following night, as it now did every night.
Always the encompassing dark, the fiery wind yet frozen body and voice after voice, calling. Asking? Telling? Alone. So utterly alone. The dark became impossibly darker and the cold yet more infinite. The wind whipped like invisible fire around him. There was no comfort. There was need in the voices now, heard in their unintelligible mutterings. And an indescribable, exquisite agony deep within Wei WuXian's centre, far beyond pain.
By now Wei WuXian actively avoided sleep. He had dark shadows beneath his eyes, which Lan Zhan grieved to see. His appetite was failing with his growing exhaustion, but his enthusiasm for the hunt still rose and he loved his days in the Library, chasing information. Often at night he would wait until Lan Zhan was asleep, then go back to work at the desk in the Jingshi, still tinkering with a permanent silencing spell or going through the day's notes from his research.
YOU ARE READING
WangXian Untamed
FanfictionA sunny meadow above a waterfall, soulmates meeting after too long apart - this was not the end, but the beginning. Fates and Clans did their worst but nothing could come between Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi. The two men would keep their vows to stan...
