Chapter Text
Lan Wangji first encounters it in the thick forests that blanket Anhui’s southern border: the faintest flicker of a foreign scent laced through the qilin scent trail he’s been following down the Yangtze. He pauses to inhale deeply, but even hours old, the scent is complicated. Clean rain and fragrant spice tugs at him, too complex and too alluring for a mere animal.
Lan Wangji hesitates. He considers turning back. Though the dragons of Gusu Lan typically hunt in groups at his age, his brother had assured their uncle that the qilin’s peaceful nature would pose no difficulties for Lan Wangji’s first night hunt. He has strict instructions to tame, release, and turn back at the first sight of danger—but he’s more than a day out from Gusu by sword, the qilin is so close that he can feel the thrum victory curling low in his bones, and what remains of the strange scent...does not appear to harbor killing intent, despite its unnerving pull. An acceptable risk, then: do not waver in your convictions. Lan Wangji draws Bichen, unblemished and shining in the dappled light, and walks willingly into what may be a trap.
The scent sharpens as it draws closer, overpowering the musk of wild qilin—fresh dew cutting through the bog-smell of stagnant river water, a distinctive note that evokes the freshly turned soil of a warm den. Lan Wangji very nearly careens into a tree and catches a whiff of fivespice smeared so thick and rich across the high branches that it makes his head spin. His hunting sense turns away from the qilin and towards this new scent, and he realizes dimly that his dragon instinct has overpowered his human restraint. Whoever it is, he’s at least certain by now that it’s a fellow cultivator. He can hear a melody on the wind, a light, soothing ditty. Is this musical cultivation?
By the time the cultivator’s scent trail comes to its heady peak, his blood is roused from the hunt, every muscle in him primed for a fight as its proper conclusion—Bichen cuts a wide arc, cleaving a tree clean in two as he bursts into the clearing.
He sees the qilin immediately. It’s reared up on its hind legs, its long, scaly body—not unlike a dragon’s, covered in deep azure scales—stretching up into an oak tree’s boughs. Its front legs rest against the tree trunk, its head lying in the lap of a bright-eyed fox spirit sitting in the branches. The fox can’t be much younger than Lan Wangji, with his gangly frame and the hint of roundness in his cheeks. Perhaps fifteen. His bright red tails wave lazily behind him.
(Sloppy posture, Lan Wangji notes with a frown.)
The fox lowers his dizi, breaking into a blinding smile as he sees Lan Wangji. “Ah—sorry, were you hunting this unruly creature?” At Lan Wangji’s curt nod, the fox reaches down to scratch behind the qilin’s ears. He whispers something in its ear—Lan Wangji feels another prick of irritation—and leaps down from his perch.
Lan Wangji starts forward, but the fox lands nimbly on his feet with a showy swirl of his tails. “Don’t worry, Lan-gege, nobody can best me in the forest!” He winks, unfazed by Lan Wangji’s stony glower. Lan-gege? “What else can I call you when you haven’t said your name?”
Now that they stand before each other, Lan Wangji finds the fox’s scent impossible to ignore: like crushed pine needles, like a warm summer morning. Lan Wangji suppresses the instinct that tells him to lean in and breathe more of it.
“Be serious,” he snaps, surprised at his own vehemence.
The fox frowns, turning pleading eyes toward Lan Wangji in what must be an extremely well-practiced pout. “But I am serious, Lan-gege! You are a Lan-gege, aren’t you—I heard that all the dragons of Gusu’s Lan family wore those forehead ribbons! That’s what this is, right?” The fox reaches a hand out thoughtlessly, as if to confirm it for himself. The motion is so flagrantly improper that Lan Wangji doesn’t even realize the intent until it’s too close for comfort; he only barely manages to knock his hand out of the way with a quick flick of his tail. “What else am I supposed to call you, then, if I can’t call you Lan-gege?”
The strange fox tilts his head, his ears flopping slightly with the motion. Lan Wangji unconsciously follows the motion with his eyes; there’s a hole in the side of his left ear, a tiny bite mark marring the symmetry. It’s...endearing , in a way that makes Lan Wangji’s jaw clench. “You may call me Lan-gongzi.”
“Lan- gongzi?! That’s so boring, Lan-gege—what is this, a formal presentation? Should I bow to you right now or something?” He should , is the thing, but Lan Wangji doesn’t even have time to say so before the fox plows onward, tapping the end of his flute theatrically against his own chin. “No, no—we’re just two friends who’ve stumbled across each other on the same night hunt. Lan-xiong? Ah, but something about you just screams gege, you know, gege?”
“...No.”
“There, see? That right there—you’re a gege , no question about it. You know, this would be a lot easier if you’d give me more of your name to work with.” The fox shakes his head with mock-disappointment. “This is the part where you introduce yourself properly, Lan-gege! If there’s one thing I know about Gusu Lan, it’s that you’re all about propriety and rules, isn’t that right? It’s very impolite not to tell new friends your name, you know!”
“Irrelevant.” It simply doesn’t apply to this situation. “We are not friends.”
The fox’s lively body language screeches to a stop, his tails freezing mid-sway . The shock on his face gives Lan Wangji a rush of satisfaction, burning as it drops through him as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of boiling water. The stranger recovers quickly, though, his annoyed expression losing its playful undertone as he crosses his arms and his tails bristle with indignation. “Rude! I’m telling everyone back home—dragons are rude! Is this the result of Gusu Lan’s famous three thousand rules? Is this the sort of etiquette we’re to learn at your lessons next summer? Fine then! If you won’t tell me your name, I won’t tell you mine either!”
Lan Wangji nods. “We are strangers. It is unlikely we will meet again.”
Somehow, this confirmation only makes the fox more agitated. “Unlikely! Hmph! Unbelievable—my first night hunt alone, and the one person I meet is you! I wanted to make friends, gege, can’t we be friends—and here I was going to offer you the qilin as a gift!”
“No need.” Lan Wangji feels his spine stiffen as he draws himself to his full height. “I have tracked the qilin for five days and found it here. Your help is unnecessary.” Already it rankles that he will need to describe this fox’s intervention in his first night hunt report. He might have summed up the account in a single page—his route and his methods—but the fox’s abilities seem intricate. Overly showy. What kind of musical cultivation does the fox use? Lan Wangji feels annoyed to find himself ignorant.
“Lan-gege,” the fox wheedles, drawing a length of rope from his sleeve and winding it around the qilin’s neck. The beast doesn’t protest, only nuzzles the fox’s hands. The fox turns his radiant smile on the qilin and rubs a hand over its antlers. “What a good boy! Such elegant antlers! Not as nice as yours, Lan-gege—” Heat pools in the pit of Lan Wangji’s stomach. His ears burn, and his antlers itch to—to ram against the qilin, who gazes at him almost smugly—he tightens his grip on Bichen. He is a Lan dragon who has worked hard to cultivate a human form. He will not lower himself to glare at a mere animal.
But the fox chatters on. “You could learn something from this fellow about making friends! Don’t you have a rule against being wasteful?” Tying off the knot, the fox waves the improvised leash at Lan Wangji. “I’ll just let him go if you don’t want him. You came all this way for him, didn’t you?”
Lan Wangji clenches his jaw. Do not be prideful. He knows it is unbecoming to refuse help, however impudently it is offered. Still, has he not tracked his quarry through river and forest, only for this interloper to snatch his accomplishment at the last moment? And the sheer impertinence, to offer him his own prey as a gift!
Lan Wangji opens his mouth once more to refuse, but the fox extends the rope with one final beseeching look. The light catches the fox’s eyes; dark, warm brown, friendly though they still sparkle with mischief. Lan Wangji hears his brother’s voice: Even those with good intentions find our rules onerous, if they were not raised in the Cloud Recesses. He grits his teeth, snatches the rope out of the fox’s hand—the fox’s smile widens, pleased and surprised—and Lan Wangji turns on his heel to leave.
The qilin tugs against his hold, but he gives the leash one hard yank and the qilin falls into step beside him. As he returns the way he came, the fox’s parting call (“I’ll see you next time, Lan-gege!”) fading into the trees, he reluctantly wonders who the fox might be. Simple black robes without sect markers, yet the fox had known enough of the Gusu Lan rules to quote them back to him—the ones that might be taught to a sect heir.
It does not matter, Lan Wangji tells himself sternly. He will likely never see the fox again.
---
He is proven wrong almost immediately. Rather, Lan Wangji begins instead to see the fox everywhere he goes; on his very next night hunt, the snake yao he’s fighting drops dead inches from defeat, an arrow pierced neatly down its length seemingly from nowhere. Lan Wangji whips around, still on high alert, only to find that same red fox waving at him from a nearby tree. He’s lounging on a branch and smirking proudly.
“Well, Lan-gege?” He leaps down, his tails whirling as he catches his balance and straightens inches from Lan Wangji. His scent rushes to fill the scant space between them, smothering the smell of foul blood. It’s more disarming than Lan Wangji remembers it being. “Aren’t you gonna tell me it was a good shot?”
It was good; Lan Wangji doubts he could’ve made it himself. “Do not be arrogant.”
And the night hunt after that, and the night hunt after that—Lan Wangji comes to expect the fox’s presence against his will, his senses now attuned to that familiar trace of freshwater and spice. The fox loses interest in his name rapidly, satisfied with calling him Lan-gege and occasionally beating him to his targets. Something in Lan Wangji recoils at the thought of asking the fox’s name first. Whatever his motivations, he seems to have taken an interest in Lan Wangji, seeking him out with infuriating persistence.
“Wangji,” his uncle observes one day, waylaying Lan Wangji before he submits his latest night hunt report. This time Lan Wangji had encountered the fox in the woods once more; he had been on the trail of some yao trampling the crops of a nearby village in the early morning hours when he had been nearly enveloped in nine warm tails as the fox bumped suddenly into Lan Wangji’s back, black robes half-hanging off his shoulders. His scent had drifted in the air, infectiously drowsy. Aiya, Lan-gege, he had yawned, warm eyes struggling to focus on Lan Wangji’s face through the lingering fog of sleep, why are you always night hunting so early, can’t you sleep in a little for my sake? Spare a thought for this poor fox, won’t you?
“Wangji…?”
“Apologies, uncle.” Lan Wangji bows, remembering himself.
“You’ve been distracted lately.” His uncle’s gaze falls to the report. “Is it this unfamiliar cultivator you’ve mentioned?”
Lan Wangji cuts his eyes away, briefly ashamed. When he finally looks back, assuming the matter dropped, his uncle is still looking at him with something akin to apprehension.
“Be careful,” Lan Qiren finally says, and dismisses him with a shake of the head.
Some weeks later, Lan Wangji is sent back to Anhui to investigate a string of mysterious deaths in the forest. He detects no scent trail, only an uneasy hum of resentment that seems to permeate the air. Nor, he realizes as he unbuckles his qin and lays it across his lap, does he detect any sign of the fox. He takes a look around to make sure, but all he sees are trees draped with climbing vines. Perhaps the fox exclusively hunts scented prey.
A flash of movement in his periphery is his only warning before his qin is snatched from him. He unsheathes Bichen in the same instant that he rises to his feet, but it’s too late. A wall of awakened, resentful vines lunge for him, and though he brings up his sword, Bichen is too long to slash at close range. Blood pounds in Lan Wangji’s ears even as he curses himself for lowering his guard. Be careful , his uncle had said, and Lan Wangji still lost his focus.
In the split second before the vines seize him, something warm and heavy collides with Lan Wangji and knocks him sprawling to the ground.
“Lan-gege, you stay here, I’ll draw it away!” the fox shouts, already climbing to his feet to stand between Lan Wangji and the strangling vines. Before Lan Wangji can do much more than ready Bichen, the fox draws his own sword and hurls himself into the writhing tangle.
Lan Wangji’s stomach lurches. The fox presses his advantage with a flurry of quick, short swings, cutting a swath through the overgrowth. Before the space fills with new vines, Lan Wangji leaps into the fray and stands at the fox’s back, slashing through the clinging stems like the straw dummies he trains on. A bead of sweat trickles down his temple. He parries every incursion, yet the effort still takes all his concentration.
He’s furious. Stay here? Did the fox mean to fight this yao alone? Foxes, he thinks with another vicious slice at a vine too close to a red bushy tail; arrogant, careless creatures running around seeking nothing but excitement, nothing but disregard for propriety—another swing, this time to protect the fox’s head—disregard for their own safety—another swing, another, and another—
Lan Wangji stops slashing only when he realizes that all the remaining vines lay dying on the ground. He turns to face the fox—he’s panting from exertion, leaning on his sword, more exhausted than Lan Wangji has ever seen him. His eyes sparkle with triumph. Lan Wangji wants to hit him.
Lan Wangji gives Bichen a cursory wipe before sheathing it again. Then he drops Bichen to the ground, grabs the fox’s lapels, and slams the fox back against a nearby tree. “You were reckless,” he hisses, barely restraining himself from shaking the fox. The fox’s cheeks are flushed. He opens his mouth, but for once, Lan Wangji speaks faster. “You needlessly endangered yourself. Why did you try to fight it alone?”
The fox narrows his eyes, his familiar smirk returning. “I had Lan-gege to protect me, didn’t I?” Lan Wangji feels a growl starting in his chest. The fox’s eyes immediately widen. His hand comes up to where Lan Wangji still grips his robes. “What does it matter how it happened? We killed it and neither of us got a scratch, doesn’t that make you happy?”
His touch feels impossibly hot. Lan Wangji remembers that he ought to throw off the fox’s hand, but not why.
“Will Lan-gege even refuse my gallant rescue?” The fox asks mournfully, squeezing Lan Wangji’s hand. His gaze challenges Lan Wangji to be ungrateful. “Won’t you spare me this much face?” He steps closer. He tilts his gaze up to continue looking at Lan Wangji, who can feel his heart beating rapidly. “It was all for you, wasn’t it?”
Lan Wangji feels possessed. He wants to pin down the fox again and make the fox eat his own insolence, make him atone for his carelessness.
But Lan Wangji is a principled dragon of Gusu Lan. “Thank you for your help,” he says, as evenly as he can manage. Then he snatches his hand out of the fox’s grip and marches to his fallen qin, not even fastening it to his back before leaving with the qin held in his arms.