[pfsb] burial rites
Sep. 19th, 2020 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightamidchaosLan Wangji carries the ritual items back with him from the inn to Cold Pond Cave in silence. He has the whole day to prepare, as it will not be safe for him to leave the cave until evening.
He takes the time first to restore the silver ring to Lan Yi’s lantern as it was before, and to kneel before her table and thank her spirit for the use of it. Given her connection to Baoshan Sanren, and Baoshen Sanren’s connection to Wei Ying through his mother, he also explains what he is planning, and why. He thinks she might remember the laughing young man who made her an earnest promise in this very cave; he thinks she might have wanted to know.
(He should not be the only one to mourn Wei Ying. But if he is, so be it.)
He takes the towel-wrapped bundle containing Wei Ying’s robes from his qiankun bag and lays it gently on the table. He takes far less care with the ocean-marked set of his own robes, pulling them from the bag and examining each layer critically. The sea has not ruined their quality, he finds, and is satisfied to see it.
Bichen flashes brightly in the dim light of the cave as he cuts his robes apart into the pieces he needs. He unwraps the towel and sets it aside, then carefully wraps Wei Ying’s robes first in the fine white silk cut from his inner robe, followed by a richly-embroidered covering taken from the outer two layers.
To further his meditations during seclusion, he has been provided with the tools of study: ink stick and stone, paper, and writing brush. He wraps them all in silk as well and places them beside Wei Ying’s robes. When his evening meal arrives, left just inside the mouth of the cave as usual, he makes sure it is covered and well-wrapped. He spends a moment wishing that he had thought to bring chili oil from the inn, or some other kind of spice that would make the bland food of Gusu Lan more palatable, more to Wei Ying’s taste, but there is no help for it now. Both grave-gift and burial feast, such as it is, will have to do.
It is not enough, but it is the best he has to offer.
He waits as long as he can, until well after dinner hour when all of the disciples should have returned to their residences, until twilight begins to deepen into true nightfall, before he takes everything he has collected and sets out in secret. The darkness does not matter. He knows exactly where he means to go.
He slips from the cave and follows the trail along the stream up the mountainside from the bathing pool, up toward the higher slopes. He pauses at the base of the waterfall, standing for a moment on the flat rock, lost in memory – and then again, on the height overlooking the rest of Cloud Recesses, where lanterns had once carried their vows into the sky above.
It is here that he leaves the trail for the mist-shrouded forest, climbing ever upward until he reaches the remote, peaceful place he discovered as a boy, long ago. Although it is dark now, he knows what it looks like during the day, with sun-dappled shadows stirred by soft breezes from the mountain peaks. He knows that it is sheltered in the lee of the slope from the worst of the winter snows, and that if one looks outward through the trees, the valley below shines like a jewel.
Lan Wangji moves slowly to the base of the largest tree, where he has spent more than one afternoon reading the poetry of Lan An, and kneels down among its roots. He draws Bichen and, working carefully by the light of his sword’s blade, carves Wei Wuxian into the trunk to serve in place of a tablet. He shifts back from the tree just enough to make the needed space, and begins to dig.
He lays Wei Ying’s robes in the new-made hole and places the scholar’s tools beside them before filling it back in with his bare hands. He sets the burial feast on the sides, arranges the sticks of incense, and lights them from the fire he starts in the metal bowl. As he kneels before Wei Ying’s grave to fold and burn joss paper for him, grief tears through him anew and tears begin to fall.
This is not what he had wanted, when he begged Wei Ying to come back to Gusu with him. Wei Ying will never stand beside him on these slopes again. His laughter will not ring from the hills nor bubble like the mountain streams throughout Cloud Recesses. His chatter will not fill the silence of the library pavilion, nor will he challenge elders and disciples alike with new ideas. He will not spend nights hunting beside Lan Wangji to defend the helpless from monsters and demons, will not stay awake until dawn creating new talismans and inventing impossible things, will not see A-Yuan grow from a boy into a man—
Lan Wangji bites back the sobs that threaten to choke him, and repeats the promise he has made to himself more than once during the last three years.
He will keep their vows for them both. He will seek out trouble in the world when his seclusion is done, going wherever there is need and doing everything he can to live by the virtues they both believed in. He will continue to raise and love A-Yuan as his son, as he already does, and will see to it that the spirit tools and talismans Wei Ying made are taught to others and made part of his legacy, so that the world will remember him as more than the Yiling Patriarch. He will do all of this and more, and he will regret none of it.
In the silence of night, lost in the drowning-deep well of his sorrow, he concentrates on feeding the fire, keeping the light alive and the flame dancing before him. It is hours later before the last of the paper finally burns out, and longer still before Lan Wangji finally rises to his feet in the darkness and retraces his steps, returning to Cold Pond Cave.
He takes the time first to restore the silver ring to Lan Yi’s lantern as it was before, and to kneel before her table and thank her spirit for the use of it. Given her connection to Baoshan Sanren, and Baoshen Sanren’s connection to Wei Ying through his mother, he also explains what he is planning, and why. He thinks she might remember the laughing young man who made her an earnest promise in this very cave; he thinks she might have wanted to know.
(He should not be the only one to mourn Wei Ying. But if he is, so be it.)
He takes the towel-wrapped bundle containing Wei Ying’s robes from his qiankun bag and lays it gently on the table. He takes far less care with the ocean-marked set of his own robes, pulling them from the bag and examining each layer critically. The sea has not ruined their quality, he finds, and is satisfied to see it.
Bichen flashes brightly in the dim light of the cave as he cuts his robes apart into the pieces he needs. He unwraps the towel and sets it aside, then carefully wraps Wei Ying’s robes first in the fine white silk cut from his inner robe, followed by a richly-embroidered covering taken from the outer two layers.
To further his meditations during seclusion, he has been provided with the tools of study: ink stick and stone, paper, and writing brush. He wraps them all in silk as well and places them beside Wei Ying’s robes. When his evening meal arrives, left just inside the mouth of the cave as usual, he makes sure it is covered and well-wrapped. He spends a moment wishing that he had thought to bring chili oil from the inn, or some other kind of spice that would make the bland food of Gusu Lan more palatable, more to Wei Ying’s taste, but there is no help for it now. Both grave-gift and burial feast, such as it is, will have to do.
It is not enough, but it is the best he has to offer.
He waits as long as he can, until well after dinner hour when all of the disciples should have returned to their residences, until twilight begins to deepen into true nightfall, before he takes everything he has collected and sets out in secret. The darkness does not matter. He knows exactly where he means to go.
He slips from the cave and follows the trail along the stream up the mountainside from the bathing pool, up toward the higher slopes. He pauses at the base of the waterfall, standing for a moment on the flat rock, lost in memory – and then again, on the height overlooking the rest of Cloud Recesses, where lanterns had once carried their vows into the sky above.
It is here that he leaves the trail for the mist-shrouded forest, climbing ever upward until he reaches the remote, peaceful place he discovered as a boy, long ago. Although it is dark now, he knows what it looks like during the day, with sun-dappled shadows stirred by soft breezes from the mountain peaks. He knows that it is sheltered in the lee of the slope from the worst of the winter snows, and that if one looks outward through the trees, the valley below shines like a jewel.
Lan Wangji moves slowly to the base of the largest tree, where he has spent more than one afternoon reading the poetry of Lan An, and kneels down among its roots. He draws Bichen and, working carefully by the light of his sword’s blade, carves Wei Wuxian into the trunk to serve in place of a tablet. He shifts back from the tree just enough to make the needed space, and begins to dig.
He lays Wei Ying’s robes in the new-made hole and places the scholar’s tools beside them before filling it back in with his bare hands. He sets the burial feast on the sides, arranges the sticks of incense, and lights them from the fire he starts in the metal bowl. As he kneels before Wei Ying’s grave to fold and burn joss paper for him, grief tears through him anew and tears begin to fall.
This is not what he had wanted, when he begged Wei Ying to come back to Gusu with him. Wei Ying will never stand beside him on these slopes again. His laughter will not ring from the hills nor bubble like the mountain streams throughout Cloud Recesses. His chatter will not fill the silence of the library pavilion, nor will he challenge elders and disciples alike with new ideas. He will not spend nights hunting beside Lan Wangji to defend the helpless from monsters and demons, will not stay awake until dawn creating new talismans and inventing impossible things, will not see A-Yuan grow from a boy into a man—
Lan Wangji bites back the sobs that threaten to choke him, and repeats the promise he has made to himself more than once during the last three years.
He will keep their vows for them both. He will seek out trouble in the world when his seclusion is done, going wherever there is need and doing everything he can to live by the virtues they both believed in. He will continue to raise and love A-Yuan as his son, as he already does, and will see to it that the spirit tools and talismans Wei Ying made are taught to others and made part of his legacy, so that the world will remember him as more than the Yiling Patriarch. He will do all of this and more, and he will regret none of it.
In the silence of night, lost in the drowning-deep well of his sorrow, he concentrates on feeding the fire, keeping the light alive and the flame dancing before him. It is hours later before the last of the paper finally burns out, and longer still before Lan Wangji finally rises to his feet in the darkness and retraces his steps, returning to Cold Pond Cave.
