[closed post -- training]

[onthewillowsthere]

The day after Evil Twin Magnus leaves, Galahad shows up for his training with Lan Wangji exactly as he always does (although later in the day, because Lan Wangji asked him to wait until afternoon to meet) -- if Lan Wangji were going solely on his appearance, he'd see absolutely nothing out of order. He throws himself into the sword forms with his usual focus. But he's gripping the hilt of his sword too tightly, and his movements are tense; he's never graceful, but today he's almost clumsy, and each failure or misstep only seems to pull him tighter, like an overwound watch.

Comments

[lightbearinglord]

And so Lan Wangji ushers Galahad inside, keeping a hand flat and steady between his shoulder blades until they're indoors. He never touched any of his Lan junior disciples like this; it would never have occurred to him. When Sizhui grew old enough, he intentionally stopped touching him with overt affection where anyone could see.

By the time they step inside, he's made a small decision, and he brings Galahad up the stairs with him, to the room he shares with Wei Ying.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad has never been to Lan Wangji's room before, but he knows this isn't the parlor Lan Wangji likes, where he sometimes sits with the rabbits. When they enter, he looks up at Lan Wangji uncertainly. The room is spare and clean, tidy in a way that makes perfect sense for Lan Wangji, but it also feels like a place that isn't meant for Galahad.

[lightbearinglord]

"Sit." He urges Galahad gently toward the low table where he likes to serve meals and tea.

Wei Ying must have finally awoken sometime late in the morning, but there is some evidence of his presence. Fond and exasperated, Lan Wangji tidies the bedding, folds and tucks away the pair of trousers half-wedged under a pillow, and sends Bichen flying neatly into its place on the wall beside the bed. Once he is satisfied, he joins Galahad, sitting across from him.

[onthewillowsthere]

He's already seated, arranged neatly with his legs crossed, the way he likes to sit under the kotatsu, his shoulders straight and sharp. He watches Lan Wangji attentively.

[lightbearinglord]

For now, Lan Wangji doesn't say anything. All of the components for tea are laid out on the table, neat and ready for use. He draws a talisman from his sleeve to heat the pitcher of water, with silent gratitude to Wei Ying, then drops a cake of tea into the pot and fills it with water. While it steeps, he dips each cup in the hot water with the tongs, one by one, and sets them aside. He knows Galahad won't mind the silence.

[onthewillowsthere]

And he doesn't; he sits quietly and watches Lan Wangji perform this ritual. It's soothing to see the deliberate steps, one-by-one.

[lightbearinglord]

After a little time, when the sharp and herbal smell of tea is drifting on the steam to join the ever-present sandalwood scent of the room, Lan Wangji holds back the drape of his sleeve and pours them each a cup of tea, precise about it so that not a drop is spilled. They'll need to wait for it to cool, now. It's another thing he likes about the ritual of serving tea: the enforced pauses, like taking slow breaths. It would be possible to cool the tea with cultivation, but he prefers not to. They can wait.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad reaches out to curl his fingers around the cup, but only to warm them against the delicate porcelain. Within this room, everything feels hushed and protected.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji settles in, holding his own tea and watching the steam curling away from its surface. He is still silent; he can break this silence in time, if it becomes necessary, but in this moment, it has the feeling of something necessary, something that tucks them safely away from the outside world.

[onthewillowsthere]

Finally, Galahad asks, "Did you meet my Evil Twin?"

[lightbearinglord]

It is on the very tip of his tongue to protest that Galahad's double was not evil, but dwelling on that is pointless. He already knows that Magnus was using the term generally. "I did," he says. "Do you remember anything?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"No. Magnus said he was really depressing."

[lightbearinglord]

That is one, somewhat blunt, way of putting it. Lan Wangji studies his tea, thinks for a moment, and then says, "He was sad. It was an untouchable sadness."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Because he wasn't allowed to die."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." He frowns down at his tea, rather than directing it at Galahad. The older Galahad, the melancholy king, told him how he wanted to be buried with Percival, but Claudius did not speak of Percival as someone dead. He opts to tread lightly. "Who is Percival?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Percival is--" He frowns slightly, his brows drawing together. "Percival was my best friend."

[lightbearinglord]

"You had lost him. King Galahad had lost him." It was clear how hollow he had become in answer to that loss.

[onthewillowsthere]

He imagines his life if he had never come here, and spent the next few years questing with Percival instead -- becoming more and more ashamed of his love and desire, with no other friends except the man he most wanted and most hated wanting. If God had continued to speak to him, guiding him towards his duty and warning him away from his sin, until at last he found the Grail and then was forced to live, filled with despair -- if, while he lived, Percival died. He imagines the world without Percival's light in it, without Percival's salt, and nothing else, either. He misses Percival here, and he thinks he'll always miss him, but he has Claudius and Magnus and Shen Yuan and Lan Wangji; he has other people who make the world bright and worth living in. If it had always only been Percival, and then Percival were gone-- He can understand how he became someone whose only thought and hope was death.

"I miss him," he says truthfully. "He was the first person who chose me."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji feels an echo of that same ache he felt when he spoke with that older, much sadder Galahad. It is not so acute now, because he is sitting across from his student, who is young and determined and who wants to live, but he can recall how it was to be even younger than that. He can recall the implacable sense that there was something holding him forever apart from nearly everyone else. Wei Ying chose him, as furiously as Lan Wangji fought it. He was the first person, aside from his own brother, who looked at Lan Wangji's unsmiling demeanor and wanted more of him.

"I understand," he says, meaning it. He hesitates, but not for long. "Tell me about him."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad rubs the band of his watch, his thumb moving along the soft leather of the braid. "There was a blood feud between his family and King Lot's. His mother was afraid he would be killed, so she took him and his sister into the woods when they were infants. He lived there until he was sixteen. Then he met Sir Gawain and decided to become a knight. He came to Camelot." A part of him wishes Claudius were there to tell this story beautifully. Claudius would know how to fill in the details to make the words flow better; he would use metaphors to explain what it was like to grow up in the forest without ever seeing anyone besides Dindraine and their mother. How their mother taught them faith in a way that made God more than just a disapproving voice in Percival's ear, made Christ's sacrifice so meaningful that Percival could believe and care and want to live like Him.

[lightbearinglord]

Galahad tells a story much in the way that Lan Wangji himself does, as a concise series of facts, which comes as no surprise, but which strikes some now-familiar chord of fondness within him. He listens quietly, the tea cooling in his hands, and tries to imagine Percival, a boy who lived in the woods until he was nearly grown. "You met him there?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. I came a year before him. We met at Mass." He takes a drink of his tea, which is cool enough now, and savors the earthy taste on his tongue; he remembers Percival, with his ruddy skin and his red-gold hair, grinning and reaching for his hand. It was the first time he had been touched by anyone other than in combat since he was a child. "He decided we would be friends. I had never had a friend before. He was knighted very young because when he came he killed a man who had dishonored the Queen, and the King rewarded him for it." Galahad drinks again, lets himself be silent and gather his thoughts in the space it takes to swallow the mouthful of tea. "Before you become a knight, there is a chapel vigil. You must stay awake all night in the chapel and pray. I couldn't be with him because I was already knighted, but I waited outside for him." He remembers looking up at the stained-glass windows and wondering whether Percival was looking at them too; wondering whether Percival was saying the same prayers. He remembers wishing that they were together, because he already missed the feeling of Percival's hand in his.

[lightbearinglord]

He thinks of Galahad, even younger than he is now, waiting for his friend, the first person to claim him. Percival sat vigil for his knighthood; Galahad did the same for Percival. He swallows his own sip of tea. "You loved him," he says -- quiet, almost hushed with it, but not a question. To love someone is to wait for them.

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods and takes another drink of tea. "When we left Camelot we went together. Everybody liked him. He's easy to talk to. He makes people feel important. People were kind to me when I was with him, when they hadn't been kind before." People opened their homes and inns and churches, fed them, gave them supplies. People looked at Percival and clapped his shoulder or ruffled his hair or urged him to eat another helping. People said he looked like their son, their brother, their cousin. It was like traveling with Christ from town to town, and everywhere people wanted to hear him speak; if he was able to make bread from stone it was because his warmth and brightness always brought out other people's generosity. Galahad doesn't know how to explain it, but he thinks Lan Wangji might understand.

"He loves animals. They trust him. He chose my horse. Eirlys."

[lightbearinglord]

He makes people feel important. With inevitability, Lan Wangji thinks again of Wei Ying, whose warmth can flood a room like the sun framed perfectly in a wide and open window. He thinks of Wei Ying winking at the women of Caiyi, catching loquats, nudging Lan Wangji with his shoulder and saying, Ladies, isn't this young master terribly handsome? He thinks of Wei Ying in the Burial Mounds, the lean and terrible Yiling Patriarch smiling at the old women and the farmers with their patchy beards, planting A-Yuan in the ground like a radish and laughing. He thinks of Wei Ying with Wen Qionglin, refusing to accept the Ghost General's subservience.

He takes the first sip of his own cup of tea. "You had no choice but to love a boy like that."