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(and if you take my hand) please pull me from the dark
The room he shared with his mother was at the top of the building, just under the eaves. It was a little bigger than the rooms used by a lot of the other women his mother worked with, but it was often freezing on winter nights. The thin roof was no good at keeping in the heat, and the walls had cracks that let in draughts.
But all Meng Yao could picture when he thought of that room was the cozy embrace of his mother’s arms around his tiny body. He was always warm enough, wrapped in all the blankets, kept safe by the heat of her body. All he could see was the beams of summer sun shining through the cracks.
~
Despite his mother’s best efforts to keep him sheltered from the worst of the elements, Meng Yao is no stranger to the cold. Even so, the biting wind chills him to the bone as he stumbles away from the fortress that he had been beginning to call home. He sees black spots fading in and out of his vision. Perhaps that is the blood loss. He misses his footing and falls to one knee. But he can’t afford to stop here. If he sits down out here in the wilderness for even a second, he will never be able to get back up again. He forces himself to put one foot in front of the other, and then again, and again. Each step feels like an insurmountable obstacle, but Meng Yao can do it. He has to. He has no choice.
~
Meng Shi had many skills, but cooking wasn’t one of them. Since he was small, Meng Yao had heard strangers on the street comment on how all a woman was good for was sex and sustenance. Some of the other women in the brothel would comment on it. “Meng Shi isn’t fit to be a wife - she can only perform half of the duties.” Every time someone made a comment about his mother’s food, Meng Yao would make sure to thank her extra gratefully. He was sure she picked up on the pattern - after all, it was she who had instilled in him innate perceptiveness. But she would just smile, and give him the choicest pieces from her own bowl. “I am blessed to have such a sweet, loving son!”
~
The Lan Sect rules regarding food state that it is for nourishment only, and any attempts at frivolous flavour should be discouraged. Meng Yao is thankful for this. Lan Xichen is weak, and his will is broken. Meng Yao is able to get him to eat only the simplest of foods before he returns to his catatonic state. Meng Yao contents himself with whatever leftovers remain that Lan Xichen has not eaten. He is glad that he has years of practice in forcing himself to eat whatever food is available. It had been a privilege to have rich, nourishing foods while living in Qinghe - Meng Yao shakes himself. He is doing his best to avoid thinking of the Nie, and of Nie Mingjue in particular. His wound is almost fully healed by now, and besides. Lan Xichen needs him.
~
One of Meng Yao’s earliest memories is of seeing his mother cry. Meng Shi tried to hide it from him the best she could, but he would often wake up in the night, as she let herself into the room they shared. That night was no different. A beam of moonlight cut through the dark, illuminating his mother’s shaking shoulders as she leaned her back against the door, her hand covering her mouth as she wept silently. Meng Yao, perhaps two or three years old, had sat up in bed, the covers falling from his own shoulders as he raised his arms to her. “A-niang?” he called, and she raised her head to look in his direction.
“A-Yao!” she replied, brushing the back of her hand across her eyes to wipe away her tears. “It’s very late for little fox cubs to be awake! If you’re not careful, the owls will swoop down and get you!” And with that, she pounced on him, taking him up in her arms and tickling him until he shrieked with laughter and she had to shush him, holding him close and warm until he drifted back to sleep, her earlier tears gone from his mind.
~
Nie Mingjue is a strong man, but he is also well known to be deeply emotional. It’s not uncommon to see him engage in physical affection with his sect members, and he cries easily. That’s why it is so unnerving to see him almost completely blank faced, his eyes boring into Meng Yao with a focus so intense that he is sure he can feel it burning his skin.
Anyone who knew Nie Mingjue less well that Meng Yao did himself would assume that the man was inexpressive, or indeed that he was not experiencing any emotion at all. But there are few who know Nie Mingjue better than Meng Yao, or are better at reading people, and Meng Yao can read him perfectly. Nie Mingjue is displaying a visceral hate stronger than he has ever seen - possibly more than he held even for Wen Ruohan, the man who had killed his father.
Meng Yao meets his gaze with a cool expression of his own - any sign that he is holding back, any outward expression of regret, could be taken as a sign of weakness by either Wen Ruohan or Nie Mingjue, and would put his life in danger.
Meng Yao looks away and draws the blade in his hand across the throat of another Nie soldier. This man had been kind to him while he had been in Qinghe - another outsider who had met the wrong side of the general Meng Yao had killed. He is sorry to see him die. Across the chamber, Nie MIngjue roars.
~
There had been a toy that Meng Yao had played with for years - a small cloth creature of indeterminate species, hand-stitched by Sisi, and stuffed with rags. The fabric had originally been a peachy orange, though the colour had faded over time until it was more a sort of dull beige-grey. Even after he had outgrown such childish things, his mother had kept the toy, claiming that it would remind her of her son once he was grown and living in his father’s palace, too busy and rich to remember his poor old mother. Meng Yao would laugh and throw his arms around her, declaring that he would always remember her, and of course he would bring her with him once he had introduced himself to his father! There would be room aplenty for the both of them in the spacious rooms he was sure to be allocated once his father welcomed him into the family.
~
Jin Guangyao doesn’t know what had happened to that toy, though he fervently wishes he did. Now, rather than being a childhood keepsake for his mother to cherish, it is yet another thing from his past whose loss he regrets.
~
Meng Yao hadn’t been the only child at the brothel. Of course several of the other women had become pregnant at one point or another - though not all of them had remained that way. Some of the babies were raised in the brothel, while some of them disappeared not long after the birth - adopted out to childless couples or exposed to die in the surrounding hills. Of the children who stayed, Meng Yao was the only boy.
~
Wen Fei and her brother Wen Liu had been the closest thing Meng Yao had had to friends while he was working in the Wen Sect. Wen Fei had shown Meng Yao how to sneak through the halls without being caught, and Wen Liu had brought him food and water when he caught the wrong end of Wen Ruohan’s temper. They hadn’t been the youngest people who worked in the palace, but they were the youngest Meng Yao came into regular contact with, at 15 and 13, respectively.
Now, a year on, Wen Liu’s body still holds the vestiges of his prepubescent baby fat, and the smell of it roasting off his bones is almost enough to make Jin Guangyao vomit. The sound of his screams, gurgling through the blood he coughed up, is what makes him actually do it, his stomach contents splattering on the floor. Jin Guangyao makes himself watch until his friend’s screams come to an abrupt halt. Wiping his mouth, Jin Guangyao turns to the adjacent cell, where Wen Liu’s sister is already screaming.
~
By virtue of birth, his mother had given him her slight stature, her petite features and dimpled smile; by virtue of his passive observation, she had bestowed her quiet, contemplative analysis and drive to protect oneself and loved ones above all costs. Most of the things he learned from his mother were for protection, safety, life skills that he needed to survive in the world he was born into. But occasionally, she would teach him something for the sake of fun, of spending time together and sharing joy.
Meng Shi was famed for her skills as a musician on the qin, and Meng Yao had begged her to teach him for most of his childhood. When he was very little, she would sit him on her lap and allow him to pluck the strings with his tiny fingers while she formed a melody from his nonsensical notes, humming made-up lyrics into his ear until they were both laughing too hard to keep playing. When he was big enough to reach across the instrument on his own, she began to teach him the finer skills of the instrument until he was able to play complex songs on his own.
His mother had delighted in this shared passion for music, and had declared that it was something they could keep between the two of them as a way to celebrate their closeness. Meng Yao had agreed. He would keep music pure, as a way to connect to his mother. The qin was something they had in common, after all.
~
Jin Guangyao had expected there to be more satisfaction in the action of it, but as he sits across from who had once been his oldest friend, the only thing he feels is a sick revulsion that if he looks at it too closely, becomes overwhelming regret.
“Da-ge?” he whispers, his fingers faltering on the strings of his qin. Nie Mingjue grunts assent, but doesn’t raise his head or otherwise speak. This dismissal of what could be Jin Guangyao’s final attempt to reach out, to undo this damage, to repair the broken bridge between the two of them, crumbles his weak resolve. He turns back to his instrument, and begins to play once more. The qin before him - one of the few things he had been able to salvage from the ruins of the brothel where he had grown up - seems lifeless under his hands. All that had been of his mother about it is gone.
~
There had been a number of occasions when patrons of the establishment had mistaken Meng Yao for one of the workers. As a child, his round cheeks and wide, round eyes had made him soft and attractive, and his slight, undernourished frame hadn’t been out of place among the thin bodies of the women around him. The first time it had happened, the man had grabbed him by the rear as he passed, and dragged him into his lap before tilting his chin up with a finger. Meng Yao had frozen, staring up into the man’s smirking face in terror.
“Well aren’t you a pretty thing?” the man had purred. After Meng Yao didn’t speak for a long moment, he had chuckled. “And quiet as well! Lets see if we can’t get you to make a little noise upstairs eh?”
Meng Yao had twisted, trying to get away, but the man had grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back. “What’s this? Like to make me chase you, is that it?”
Meng Yao had opened his mouth, to do what, he didn’t know, but before he could make a sound, the man had suddenly released his grip on him, Meng Yao tumbling to the floor as the man was yanked backwards with a yelp.
“Get your hands off him.” Meng Shi was not a tall woman, but she seemed to tower over the man now sprawled on the floor.
“I- I don’t-” the man spluttered.
“Get out.” Meng Shi took a step towards him, and the man scrambled to his feet and ran for the door.
“A-Yao…” his mother was on her knees beside him in a second, and Meng Yao buried his face in her skirts as he shook.
For driving away a valued customer, Meng Shi was made to work for no pay for a month. Not that Meng Yao found out about that until it was much too late to do anything about it.
~
Jin Guangyao is going to die. He knows it, he’s minutes away, if not seconds. If the blood loss from where his arm had been doesn’t kill him, the resentful energy that is threatening to overwhelm his mind will, or the collapsing temple will surely crush him to death. Oh yeah, or Zewu-Jun’s blade through his chest. Jin Guangyao draws in a breath, feeling the way the blade is shredding his internal organs, the way his lung isn’t fully inflating. He lets out a sharp laugh, forcing what little air he has managed to obtain back out through a tired, cruel smile.
“A-Yao…” Zewu-Jun’s eyes are wide, horrified, as his hand shakes on the blade he has shoved through Meng Yao’s chest.
“Lan Xichen…” Jin Guangyao wheezes, reaching a hand out. His vision is starting to blur, a red haze descending that could be resentful energy, or could be blood. Zewu-Jun reaches for his hand, but Jin Guangyao evades him, wrapping his fingers instead around the blade of the sword that is killing him, and dragging himself forward on it. If he is going to die, he wants to be close to Zewu-Jun while he goes. Surely that is the least he deserves?
Zewu-Jun’s lips move, mouthing words without sound, or perhaps Jin Guangyao is simply too far gone to be able to hear him anymore. No… A-Yao please… No… I’m sorry!
Zewu-Jun has… stabbed him. This is… a betrayal. This is… unforgivable. Meng Yao closes his eyes, warring with himself. Zewu-Jun has… Zewu-Jun… No, that isn’t right. Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen, er-ge, Lan Xichen… Lan Huan. Huan-ge. Huan-ge!
The sound of a huge piece of masonry falling to the ground nearby forces his eyes open. Huan-ge is still standing in front of him, his eyes overflowing with emotion that Meng Yao can’t even put a name to. Another piece of stonework falls mere inches away from where the pair of them are standing, and suddenly Meng Yao is thrown into motion. He can’t let Lan Xichen die here. It is too late for Jin Guangyao, but Lan Xichen is worth more than his own life. He grasps a handful of Lan Xichen’s robes, and with the last of his strength, shoves him backwards and away. As the red overtakes his vision completely, the last thing Meng Yao sees is Lan Xichen’s scream.
But all Meng Yao could picture when he thought of that room was the cozy embrace of his mother’s arms around his tiny body. He was always warm enough, wrapped in all the blankets, kept safe by the heat of her body. All he could see was the beams of summer sun shining through the cracks.
~
Despite his mother’s best efforts to keep him sheltered from the worst of the elements, Meng Yao is no stranger to the cold. Even so, the biting wind chills him to the bone as he stumbles away from the fortress that he had been beginning to call home. He sees black spots fading in and out of his vision. Perhaps that is the blood loss. He misses his footing and falls to one knee. But he can’t afford to stop here. If he sits down out here in the wilderness for even a second, he will never be able to get back up again. He forces himself to put one foot in front of the other, and then again, and again. Each step feels like an insurmountable obstacle, but Meng Yao can do it. He has to. He has no choice.
~
Meng Shi had many skills, but cooking wasn’t one of them. Since he was small, Meng Yao had heard strangers on the street comment on how all a woman was good for was sex and sustenance. Some of the other women in the brothel would comment on it. “Meng Shi isn’t fit to be a wife - she can only perform half of the duties.” Every time someone made a comment about his mother’s food, Meng Yao would make sure to thank her extra gratefully. He was sure she picked up on the pattern - after all, it was she who had instilled in him innate perceptiveness. But she would just smile, and give him the choicest pieces from her own bowl. “I am blessed to have such a sweet, loving son!”
~
The Lan Sect rules regarding food state that it is for nourishment only, and any attempts at frivolous flavour should be discouraged. Meng Yao is thankful for this. Lan Xichen is weak, and his will is broken. Meng Yao is able to get him to eat only the simplest of foods before he returns to his catatonic state. Meng Yao contents himself with whatever leftovers remain that Lan Xichen has not eaten. He is glad that he has years of practice in forcing himself to eat whatever food is available. It had been a privilege to have rich, nourishing foods while living in Qinghe - Meng Yao shakes himself. He is doing his best to avoid thinking of the Nie, and of Nie Mingjue in particular. His wound is almost fully healed by now, and besides. Lan Xichen needs him.
~
One of Meng Yao’s earliest memories is of seeing his mother cry. Meng Shi tried to hide it from him the best she could, but he would often wake up in the night, as she let herself into the room they shared. That night was no different. A beam of moonlight cut through the dark, illuminating his mother’s shaking shoulders as she leaned her back against the door, her hand covering her mouth as she wept silently. Meng Yao, perhaps two or three years old, had sat up in bed, the covers falling from his own shoulders as he raised his arms to her. “A-niang?” he called, and she raised her head to look in his direction.
“A-Yao!” she replied, brushing the back of her hand across her eyes to wipe away her tears. “It’s very late for little fox cubs to be awake! If you’re not careful, the owls will swoop down and get you!” And with that, she pounced on him, taking him up in her arms and tickling him until he shrieked with laughter and she had to shush him, holding him close and warm until he drifted back to sleep, her earlier tears gone from his mind.
~
Nie Mingjue is a strong man, but he is also well known to be deeply emotional. It’s not uncommon to see him engage in physical affection with his sect members, and he cries easily. That’s why it is so unnerving to see him almost completely blank faced, his eyes boring into Meng Yao with a focus so intense that he is sure he can feel it burning his skin.
Anyone who knew Nie Mingjue less well that Meng Yao did himself would assume that the man was inexpressive, or indeed that he was not experiencing any emotion at all. But there are few who know Nie Mingjue better than Meng Yao, or are better at reading people, and Meng Yao can read him perfectly. Nie Mingjue is displaying a visceral hate stronger than he has ever seen - possibly more than he held even for Wen Ruohan, the man who had killed his father.
Meng Yao meets his gaze with a cool expression of his own - any sign that he is holding back, any outward expression of regret, could be taken as a sign of weakness by either Wen Ruohan or Nie Mingjue, and would put his life in danger.
Meng Yao looks away and draws the blade in his hand across the throat of another Nie soldier. This man had been kind to him while he had been in Qinghe - another outsider who had met the wrong side of the general Meng Yao had killed. He is sorry to see him die. Across the chamber, Nie MIngjue roars.
~
There had been a toy that Meng Yao had played with for years - a small cloth creature of indeterminate species, hand-stitched by Sisi, and stuffed with rags. The fabric had originally been a peachy orange, though the colour had faded over time until it was more a sort of dull beige-grey. Even after he had outgrown such childish things, his mother had kept the toy, claiming that it would remind her of her son once he was grown and living in his father’s palace, too busy and rich to remember his poor old mother. Meng Yao would laugh and throw his arms around her, declaring that he would always remember her, and of course he would bring her with him once he had introduced himself to his father! There would be room aplenty for the both of them in the spacious rooms he was sure to be allocated once his father welcomed him into the family.
~
Jin Guangyao doesn’t know what had happened to that toy, though he fervently wishes he did. Now, rather than being a childhood keepsake for his mother to cherish, it is yet another thing from his past whose loss he regrets.
~
Meng Yao hadn’t been the only child at the brothel. Of course several of the other women had become pregnant at one point or another - though not all of them had remained that way. Some of the babies were raised in the brothel, while some of them disappeared not long after the birth - adopted out to childless couples or exposed to die in the surrounding hills. Of the children who stayed, Meng Yao was the only boy.
~
Wen Fei and her brother Wen Liu had been the closest thing Meng Yao had had to friends while he was working in the Wen Sect. Wen Fei had shown Meng Yao how to sneak through the halls without being caught, and Wen Liu had brought him food and water when he caught the wrong end of Wen Ruohan’s temper. They hadn’t been the youngest people who worked in the palace, but they were the youngest Meng Yao came into regular contact with, at 15 and 13, respectively.
Now, a year on, Wen Liu’s body still holds the vestiges of his prepubescent baby fat, and the smell of it roasting off his bones is almost enough to make Jin Guangyao vomit. The sound of his screams, gurgling through the blood he coughed up, is what makes him actually do it, his stomach contents splattering on the floor. Jin Guangyao makes himself watch until his friend’s screams come to an abrupt halt. Wiping his mouth, Jin Guangyao turns to the adjacent cell, where Wen Liu’s sister is already screaming.
~
By virtue of birth, his mother had given him her slight stature, her petite features and dimpled smile; by virtue of his passive observation, she had bestowed her quiet, contemplative analysis and drive to protect oneself and loved ones above all costs. Most of the things he learned from his mother were for protection, safety, life skills that he needed to survive in the world he was born into. But occasionally, she would teach him something for the sake of fun, of spending time together and sharing joy.
Meng Shi was famed for her skills as a musician on the qin, and Meng Yao had begged her to teach him for most of his childhood. When he was very little, she would sit him on her lap and allow him to pluck the strings with his tiny fingers while she formed a melody from his nonsensical notes, humming made-up lyrics into his ear until they were both laughing too hard to keep playing. When he was big enough to reach across the instrument on his own, she began to teach him the finer skills of the instrument until he was able to play complex songs on his own.
His mother had delighted in this shared passion for music, and had declared that it was something they could keep between the two of them as a way to celebrate their closeness. Meng Yao had agreed. He would keep music pure, as a way to connect to his mother. The qin was something they had in common, after all.
~
Jin Guangyao had expected there to be more satisfaction in the action of it, but as he sits across from who had once been his oldest friend, the only thing he feels is a sick revulsion that if he looks at it too closely, becomes overwhelming regret.
“Da-ge?” he whispers, his fingers faltering on the strings of his qin. Nie Mingjue grunts assent, but doesn’t raise his head or otherwise speak. This dismissal of what could be Jin Guangyao’s final attempt to reach out, to undo this damage, to repair the broken bridge between the two of them, crumbles his weak resolve. He turns back to his instrument, and begins to play once more. The qin before him - one of the few things he had been able to salvage from the ruins of the brothel where he had grown up - seems lifeless under his hands. All that had been of his mother about it is gone.
~
There had been a number of occasions when patrons of the establishment had mistaken Meng Yao for one of the workers. As a child, his round cheeks and wide, round eyes had made him soft and attractive, and his slight, undernourished frame hadn’t been out of place among the thin bodies of the women around him. The first time it had happened, the man had grabbed him by the rear as he passed, and dragged him into his lap before tilting his chin up with a finger. Meng Yao had frozen, staring up into the man’s smirking face in terror.
“Well aren’t you a pretty thing?” the man had purred. After Meng Yao didn’t speak for a long moment, he had chuckled. “And quiet as well! Lets see if we can’t get you to make a little noise upstairs eh?”
Meng Yao had twisted, trying to get away, but the man had grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back. “What’s this? Like to make me chase you, is that it?”
Meng Yao had opened his mouth, to do what, he didn’t know, but before he could make a sound, the man had suddenly released his grip on him, Meng Yao tumbling to the floor as the man was yanked backwards with a yelp.
“Get your hands off him.” Meng Shi was not a tall woman, but she seemed to tower over the man now sprawled on the floor.
“I- I don’t-” the man spluttered.
“Get out.” Meng Shi took a step towards him, and the man scrambled to his feet and ran for the door.
“A-Yao…” his mother was on her knees beside him in a second, and Meng Yao buried his face in her skirts as he shook.
For driving away a valued customer, Meng Shi was made to work for no pay for a month. Not that Meng Yao found out about that until it was much too late to do anything about it.
~
Jin Guangyao is going to die. He knows it, he’s minutes away, if not seconds. If the blood loss from where his arm had been doesn’t kill him, the resentful energy that is threatening to overwhelm his mind will, or the collapsing temple will surely crush him to death. Oh yeah, or Zewu-Jun’s blade through his chest. Jin Guangyao draws in a breath, feeling the way the blade is shredding his internal organs, the way his lung isn’t fully inflating. He lets out a sharp laugh, forcing what little air he has managed to obtain back out through a tired, cruel smile.
“A-Yao…” Zewu-Jun’s eyes are wide, horrified, as his hand shakes on the blade he has shoved through Meng Yao’s chest.
“Lan Xichen…” Jin Guangyao wheezes, reaching a hand out. His vision is starting to blur, a red haze descending that could be resentful energy, or could be blood. Zewu-Jun reaches for his hand, but Jin Guangyao evades him, wrapping his fingers instead around the blade of the sword that is killing him, and dragging himself forward on it. If he is going to die, he wants to be close to Zewu-Jun while he goes. Surely that is the least he deserves?
Zewu-Jun’s lips move, mouthing words without sound, or perhaps Jin Guangyao is simply too far gone to be able to hear him anymore. No… A-Yao please… No… I’m sorry!
Zewu-Jun has… stabbed him. This is… a betrayal. This is… unforgivable. Meng Yao closes his eyes, warring with himself. Zewu-Jun has… Zewu-Jun… No, that isn’t right. Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen, er-ge, Lan Xichen… Lan Huan. Huan-ge. Huan-ge!
The sound of a huge piece of masonry falling to the ground nearby forces his eyes open. Huan-ge is still standing in front of him, his eyes overflowing with emotion that Meng Yao can’t even put a name to. Another piece of stonework falls mere inches away from where the pair of them are standing, and suddenly Meng Yao is thrown into motion. He can’t let Lan Xichen die here. It is too late for Jin Guangyao, but Lan Xichen is worth more than his own life. He grasps a handful of Lan Xichen’s robes, and with the last of his strength, shoves him backwards and away. As the red overtakes his vision completely, the last thing Meng Yao sees is Lan Xichen’s scream.