Impossible Things

by Rose Thorne

Disclaimer: I don't own anything associated with The Untamed, and make no money writing fanfiction.


Sometimes Wei Wuxian wondered if Lan Zhan had truly understood what he had meant when he told him, "You truly do not fall short of being Hanguang-Jun."

His zhiji had replied, "You truly do not fall short of being Wei Ying," and given that so many people felt he was deserving of the title Yiling Laozu and all the gossip, bullshit, and lies that title represented, he had been pleased by that. He liked being Wei Ying to Lan Zhan.

But sometimes his body felt too small for the emotions that swirled inside him, the anxiety and grief and yearning, as though the feelings might burst through his skin like a curse, or swallow him into the darkness, like he had once been swallowed by resentful energy.

He didn't know what he yearned for, only what he had lost and would never regain. All he knew is that Lan Zhan grounded him, bore light that fought his darkness and kept it at bay, a beacon amidst the shadows.

And leaving him to wander the world, as necessary as he knew it was as he tried to find his place in it and remember how make his own light again, was the hardest thing he had ever done.

But Wei Wuxian had never stopped being a Jiang, not really, so this was just another impossible thing for him to attempt.


For the Writer's Month 2021 prompt "darkness."

I'm relying on a meta discussion of the literal translation of the words shared between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian by the waterfall in The Untamed.