AN: Hi everyone! It's Vero, aka lunarvampyr aka lunarladyofthelake on ao3, here to return to my roots on ffnet. This is my reupload of Odd Geometry! Unfortunately, it's on long term haitus, so once I run out of pre written material, it won't update after that. Maybe I'll write more, who knows! But thanks for reading !
This is part of my original author's note: It's kind of an Avatar the Last Airbender fusion, in the way that there's elemental magic used in a style akin to bending in the ATLA universe, but that's the only remnants of ATLA you'll find in this. There is no crossover element with that show. The elements in question are the wǔxíng, or the 5 elements of wood, fire, water, earth, and metal. I'm not an expert in the philosophy surrounding it, and if I make any mistakes, please feel free to correct me.
Just some worldbuilding notes that don't go explained but are kind of implied, but ones that I want to make clear: the element that each character "bends" is not something that's inherited like it is in ATLA, nor is one element limited to one sect (i.e. Yunmeng Jiang being Water). It's whatever element that character feels the most affinity with. Also, this takes place right before and during the Sunshot Campaign! No future times with reincarnated wwx, I'm afraid. This will be mostly wangxian, and I'm trying to work out if I'm gonna have any background pairings or not. Characters might seem OOC, but that's only because of different circumstances to the novel/show. If need be, any trigger warnings will be in the beginning notes! Assume that there is a blanket trigger warning of things that already happen in MDZS/The Untamed canon, i.e. the use of Zidian on WWX, that type of thing. Thank you and I'm really sorry for the lengthy note!
I: Tide Out, Tide In
Kiss me. I am an odd geometry of elbows and skin, a lopsided symmetry of sin and virtue. And you. I can feel your eyes burning over the horizon of my shoulders. - Sandra Cisneros, Beatrice
Wei Wuxian stood back after healing the ankle of his last "patient" of the day. She was a girl who recently abandoned her sect for reasons she did not name, and he did not ask. The only details he pressed for were her name (it was Mianmian), and how she had gotten hurt (she was escaping from Wen Sect soldiers, and though she had escaped, got caught in someone's alligator trap). Her ankle was swollen and twisted before, but now that he was done, it was back to normal.
He had manipulated the water in her blood, making it curl around in her veins and heal.
"You should be alright now," he said, helping her up. "Just don't put too much pressure on it in the coming days. Come see me again if it hurts."
She nodded. "Thank you, really, so much…" She was searching for the name that he did not give when she first came in. It was all too much of a rush; she was too hurt, she was in a little bit of shock from getting caught in a trap and still a little too high from the Wen soldiers' chase.
"Wei Wuxian," he supplied. It was the only thing of his mother's he had left, his name. It was on a small piece of paper that looked like a page torn from a journal, that had outlined some of his mother's future plans for him, including his future (now present) courtesy name. It was thrust into one hand when he was a small child, holding dried peaches in the other. His mother told him that that paper was his future, and that she and his father would be back as soon as they could.
They never returned, and Wei Wuxian never ate another peach anything.
"Thank you, Wei Wuxian." Mianmian smiled. "What do I pay you? I have no money, but…"
"No," he said, beginning to strip the bed she had laid on, bundling up the sheets to wash. "I never ask for payment. No money, no favors, no owing."
This was true. He knew that if anyone had to resort to such unorthodox methods of healing, ways that he had no name for, that came as naturally to him as the tide, they would not be able to pay. They would have gone to the real healers that lived in Yunmeng, they would not come to his shack in the outskirts of Yiling, if they had the money.
There were women in the past who wanted to pay him with their bodies, and this he refused as well. He would never want anything from a woman that was forced out of her by circumstance, and he made that clear.
He was the healer with no tools, no payment, no favors. The Nothing Healer, the Blood Healer. Water-Moves-From-His-Hands-Healer.
And with that, that made him the best healer in all of Yunmeng, at least to the poor and desolate. That was enough.
Mianmian gave him another grateful smile. "Thank you...I really can't thank you enough. I think I will visit you again," she said, nearing the door. "It would be good to have a friend in a new place."
Wei Wuxian gave her a smile of his own. "You're always welcome here, Miss Mianmian."
After she left, Wei Wuxian closed the broken window shutters, signaling to regulars that he was closed for the day. He was seventeen, tired, and it was only mid-afternoon. Maybe he'd go to the lakes and steal lotus pod seeds.
He put the bedsheets aside, resolving to wash them later, and went outside. He walked absentmindedly, thinking only of the sunshine on his skin and the slight breeze that tangled his hair and the faded red ribbon he always wore. He began to wake up a little when he realized that his body was leading him closer towards Lotus Pier, and he had to consciously stop.
When he was younger, Wei Wuxian wanted so badly to be a part of it all, Yunmeng Jiang Sect: the flashy purple robes, learning how to really work with cultivation, with elements, being acknowledged as a real cultivator. He knew they were out there; he spied on the cultivation lessons frequently when he was younger and short enough to hide better. The only ones who ever found him out at first were Jiang Cheng, the sect leader's son, and Jiang Yanli, the sect leader's daughter.
It was a complete accident when he met Jiang Cheng. Wei Wuxian hadn't known that he had dogs, and found that out the hard way. He was nearly chased out of Lotus Pier by them, before Jiang Cheng was chastised by his mother in passing to control his dogs during lessons. That he did, and with coming over to the dogs, he had seen Wei Wuxian hidden up a tree.
What are you doing up there? Who are you? He had asked.
Your dogs, Wei Wuxian breathed out, anxiously, I'm afraid of them.
It was a fear that stemmed from his earliest days on the street, from fighting with dogs for scraps of food, from being bitten dozens of times and the terror of having the dogs latch their jaws onto him. It was visceral, and it showed itself obviously through his shaking frame, red cheeks, and teary eyes. It was a fear that still lived on, even though Wei Wuxian was now a young man and could easily defend or heal himself.
It was fear that led Jiang Cheng to be his friend.
He could never bring Wei Wuxian into the actual lessons, but he always came to him afterwards, to teach him the moves that he learned that day, all the proper terms to describe what Wei Wuxian was feeling inside, qi and dantian , the elements; how those who could channel metal were brilliant bladesmiths who understood sword fighting better than anyone, and made the little bell that Jiang Cheng wore at his waist. Those with fire were those who had such in their personalities, and they were a candle that could never extinguish, and that was him, because fire was Jiang Cheng's affinity. Those with earth could will flowers to come up where they stood, or move the ground beneath their feet at whim, they were as constant as the earth itself and just as grounded. Those with wood were architects, archers, fuel to the fire's flame. They had innate understanding of archery, could almost whisper to their arrows to go the direction they wanted.
Those with water, he said, were healers. They were calm, and flowing, and free. They were his sister, they were the rain.
What about blood? Wei Wuxian had asked. In his young mind, it was blood he was controlling. He didn't think about the water within it.
Blood? Jiang Cheng had repeated, startled. Don't ever say that. You are water. You are like my sister, and you will be my brother, then.
They swore at the age of 9 to be sworn brothers in the future, and they had the biggest little-boy-dreams of them all. Wei Wuxian would be his sworn brother, and then he'd be welcomed into the sect, and they could go to lessons together, at last. Wei Wuxian would finally have a family, but he didn't tell Jiang Cheng that at the time.
Meeting Jiang Yanli was not out of fear, it was out of lotus pork rib soup. He was too skinny, she used to say, and would always bring him the soup with extra spice. She was calming where Jiang Cheng was not, she was patient where Wei Wuxian was reckless. To anyone who didn't know her, Wei Wuxian wanted to describe her as a soft rain, pattering lightly against your heart, because no one could turn her away. She didn't always attend the cultivation lessons, but when she did, anything she did came naturally to her. She was an amazing cook, but an even better cultivator, especially when it was healing related.
Everything was a dream, in those days. They fit together like a puzzle, as if fate had reincarnated Wei Wuxian wrong and didn't put him with his rightful family. Every move that Jiang Cheng taught him that afternoon, Wei Wuxian practiced in whatever corner of an alley he found himself in at night, with stolen lotus pod seeds in his hand, rewards for when he copied Jiang Cheng exactly right, an extra snack to appease Jiang Yanli's carefully watching eye. He used to think that maybe if he'd mastered all the moves, proved that water flowed from his hands just as well as it did from the sect leader's childrens', Jiang Fengmian himself would see and he would let Wei Wuxian in.
That illusion came shattering down when Wei Wuxian was fourteen.
He had always been careful to avoid Madam Yu, and with him, Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli. None of them wanted to get caught, none of them wanted the tapestry they'd woven of a found family to be destroyed by her single, electrified pull on a thread. He really didn't know how it happened, either: they had all been careful that day, he was sure, and he was only waiting in his usual tree for Jiang Cheng to come after his lesson.
They would've been practicing manipulating rain right out of the air that day, but Wei Wuxian should have known that the storm overhead wouldn't be the one that would strike him with lightning.
Madam Yu was fire, and with that, lightning. No one knew how, but manipulating lightning was how she became the infamous Purple Spider of Yunmeng. She must have seen Wei Wuxian sitting in that tree, and he should have opted for a less obvious spot, he thought later. He was fourteen, he was lanky and awkward, and there was little that the tree's nearing-naked branches could do for him. He figured that Madam Yu would stay inside during the planned storm.
She was lightning, of course she would not.
Her purple lightning- Zidian, Jiang Cheng had called it once, with a shudder-ripped him right out of that tree, sending him shaking on the ground. It hurt like nothing he'd ever experienced in his life, not even the jaws of mad dogs. He must have made a sound, because Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli were over in an instant, and noticed their mother after they had seen Wei Wuxian. There was nothing that either of them could do at that point; even at seventeen, Jiang Yanli knew better than contest her mother's wrath.
She had whipped Wei Wuxian a second time, for good measure, and told him that he was never to be seen on this pier again. If he had been cockier, he would have just met Jiang Cheng on a different pier, a joke on her saying that she only said this pier. But he knew what she meant, and he never wanted to get a spider bite ever again. She meant Lotus Pier, she meant her home. He was not welcome, and he would not be.
There were rumors about him for years circulating the streets that he was somehow the bastard child of Jiang Fengmian, but he never paid them any mind. Not until that night, sitting in an alley, nursing his wounds. Maybe that's why she hated him, he thought. Somehow, though, Madam Yu was too high above jealousy in his mind.
He hadn't stepped back on Lotus Pier since, true to the threat he was given. Sometimes, he used to meet Jiang Cheng out in the waters of the lakes, as far from his mother's eyes as he could get without anyone noticing his absence, but as he got older, his responsibilities grew. As they all got older, the threat of the Wen Sect was on the horizon.
At fifteen, Jiang Cheng was sent to Gusu Lan in the east to study. Wei Wuxian had no idea, but he found out after several missed lake meetings, when Jiang Yanli had snuck out, leaving a container of lotus pork rib soup at his new shack, with a note that said that Jiang Cheng would be gone to go study in Gusu.
Wei Wuxian read the note over and over, trying to ignore the crushing feeling he felt. His brother would be gone for at least half a year, if not a full one, and he had no way to reach him. He couldn't even talk to Jiang Yanli, because she was getting ready to start wedding arrangements, and quelling the arguments between her parents, as well as still mastering cultivation herself.
His heart ached as he bitterly ate his now cold soup, and at the time, he thought that it was a perfect metaphor for his life. For years, he lacked the warmth that he saw other children have, the kind that families gave. He was abandoned, left out, and when he finally found where he thought he belonged, it was all torn away and burnt by purple fire. He was once more in winter, in ice, and everywhere screamed that he would never have the privilege others had, he would never work his way up, he would never be their family.
Now, at seventeen, standing paces away from the path that led to Lotus Pier, his heart ached the same way it did two years ago.
Jiang Cheng had to be back by now, he thought. Was Jiang Yanli married yet? Maybe not.
He couldn't bring himself to step forward, and walk down that path. All he could do was turn around, head full of worry, eyes almost unseeing, as he walked towards home.
It seemed like he wasn't going to have his way this afternoon: he bumped directly into a young man in lily-white robes. The young man had the most serious expression on his face, but Wei Wuxian thought he was beautiful in an instant. He wanted to make him smile almost faster. There was a ribbon across his forehead, and a jade token at his waist.
Gusu Lan, his mind breathed. Jiang Yanli told him about all the major sects before, of the cold water and jade Gusu Lan, metallic, earthen and ashen Qinghe Nie, flowering and nectar Lanling Jin, and the threat rising that came from the scarlet Qishan Wen.
"Apologies, young master," he said, his mind already churning with waves of idea and thought.
"Mn," the young man replied, before turning back to his group, and continued walking.
There was no way that Wei Wuxian could blend in with them, not with his night-black robes and a face that Madam Yu would find too noticeable. Even so, he followed them all the way to Lotus Pier, instead detouring towards the docks and water, hiding underneath the dock closest to the pavilion. He'd rather be sogging wet and hearing only half a conversation than getting caught by Madam Yu and hearing none of it.
He focused as hard as he could on the conversation ensuing. What he could hear was that Lan Qiren, the elder that accompanied the younger members of the group, was here to discuss with Jiang Fengmian strategies against the Wens. He had left his eldest nephew in charge at Gusu, Lan Xichen, and travelled with his younger nephew, Lan Wangji. He and Jiang Cheng were classmates, Lan Qiren said. Perhaps they could train together some.
From what he heard of Madam Yu, she sounded pleased that someone of Lan Wangji's serious constitution would be around to influence Jiang Cheng, and Wei Wuxian wasn't surprised. She must have thought Wei Wuxian to be a terrible influence. He had made Jiang Cheng dream, while this Lan Wangji would somehow put him back in line.
So these Lans would be staying a while...he made it his mission to talk to them as soon as he could.
After he heard their conversation was done, and they moved inside, Wei Wuxian swam out from under the dock, and quickly began to swim out of the area of Lotus Pier. He didn't make it very far, when he heard someone quietly call his name.
He turned around, and there was Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng, standing on the dock.
He paused in his swimming, treading water, as he looked around for any signs of Madam Yu.
"Mother is inside, with the guests. She will be busy for a while, Lan Qiren and her have much in common," Jiang Yanli said, quietly, but her voice carried over the lilypads and water bugs. "Come closer."
Wei Wuxian did as he was told, trying to quell the rising feeling in his chest. Two years, had it really been that long? Jiang Yanli seemed much unchanged, if only a little bit older. Jiang Cheng seemed rougher around his edges, as though he were carved out of the boy he once was. Wei Wuxian waded in the water, careful to stay out of sight of windows and doors.
"Wei Wuxian, where were you?" Jiang Cheng hissed, but in his eyes, Wei Wuxian found no real anger. He missed his brother, his twin hero.
"I was in the outskirts of Yiling. You were in Gusu, I couldn't follow you," Wei Wuxian replied, his voice tinted with slight sadness that he couldn't prevent.
"I came back," Jiang Cheng said, his eyes filling up with the emotion he wouldn't let pour out, "I'll always come back, you know."
"I know that now."
Wei Wuxian spent the rest of the time they had asking the two about what he missed, about Jiang Cheng's lessons at Gusu. He found out that Jiang Cheng made new friends, Nie Huaisang from Qinghe Nie being the best of them all, but he found that he was bored often in the company of rich cultivator's sons. He didn't like Jin Zixuan, but he didn't say as much to Jiang Yanli; he only said how he got in a fight with him once because he disrespected her, and while Jiang Yanli couldn't have been happy that the man who was to be her husband disrespected her so, she was happy that her brother defended her. Wei Wuxian was told about how strict Lan Qiren was, and it seemed that the Violet Spider would find a friend in him, for they were similar in their harshness; Wei Wuxian did, however, note that Lan Qiren would never treat his nephews as Madam Yu treated her own children.
Jiang Cheng talked about the threat of the Wens on the horizon, that now they were getting too powerful, and they had even sent a violent ghost downstream in Caiyi. Wei Wuxian told him how he's seen some of their devastation firsthand, how they seem to be targeting wayward sons and daughters, exiles of their sects, to come and join them in their ranks; how just earlier today a Miss Mianmian had almost torn her ankle to shreds in an alligator trap to escape them. How they had to be closer to Yunmeng than anyone was expecting, or how at least some soldiers were.
This made Jiang Cheng worry, and he resolved to tell his father as much. Jiang Yanli asked how healing went, and if it was a profitable business. Wei Wuxian explained that he didn't do it for profit; he never asked for a price, and the reason why his shack was still his was because he often healed the aches and pains of the old woman he'd got it from, and he kept it when she died.
She was a kind woman, Madam Guo. He went to her after seeing a handwritten sign saying the shack had vacancy, and someone could live there as her adult children had found luck and had moved onto greater things in joining a group of rogue cultivators. (The details of her children were not on the sign, but was told to him when he asked why the shack was available.) He told her that he had no money, and no parents or family, but he could heal anything she ever asked him to, and help her with any chores that she needed done. There was a great kindness in her heart that day, and for the first year that he lived there, he helped her whenever he could.
She had passed one night in her sleep, and Wei Wuxian had found her the next morning when he brought over some of her extra laundry he had left on his line the evening before. Going through some of her papers, he found the names of her children, and after talking to a great many people, finally caught them as they returned to Yiling once for a night hunt. By then, he had already buried her, and some of the girls from the local brothel had given him some incense sticks to burn for her, because he had nothing else.
He really hoped that her spirit knew that he was trying, and that her children finally came, and that they gave her the proper burial she deserved, and that she peacefully passed on to wherever her soul was destined to go.
He shook his head of thoughts about her. He had to focus on Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli; who knew how long he had left to talk to them.
"If you ever get a chance," he said, "Come visit me. Shijie knows where I live."
Of course, Jiang Yanli wasn't really his martial sister, but it was a habit he picked up when he was younger and something that she never discouraged from him, because that was when his dreams of becoming a real part of the Jiang family and sect were as fresh as spring dew. Even though those wishes had fizzled away, Jiang Yanli didn't take calling her "shijie" away too. Wei Wuxian let himself accept that as payment for what Madam Yu had stolen.
"I'll try," Jiang Cheng said.
That was all Wei Wuxian really needed to hear.
#
In the days that followed, Wei Wuxian didn't get a visit from Jiang Cheng or Jiang Yanli, but he figured that was to be expected. They couldn't leave so soon after their guests had just arrived, and surely detailed plans were being made on how the other sects along with Gusu Lan and Yunmeng Jiang could work together against the Wens. Wei Wuxian did have his daily stream of patients, and his life resumed its normal pace.
Mianmian didn't visit again yet, either, but he did see her in passing several times when he went to and from the market for more spices, more dried apricots, more lotus pod seeds. They always shared a smile, or a nod, and Wei Wuxian was happy to be acknowledged, even in that small way.
Finally, four days after the arrival of the Lans, Jiang Cheng showed up, with Lan Wangji at his side.
"It was the only way I could get out of the Pier," he said, hushed in Wei Wuxian's ear. "I offered to show him around."
Wei Wuxian understood, and didn't mind. He cleared enough space for Lan Wangji too, hoping that maybe, he'd finally get the chance to see him smile. He closed the shutters quickly, and hoped that no one needed his help in the coming hours.
"I told my father of what you said," Jiang Cheng said, once they all sat down with Wei Wuxian's tea. "I didn't tell him where I heard it, of course. He said that he would see what he would do."
Wei Wuxian nodded. "Good."
For a while, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian talked about more things that they missed with each other, stories of Jiang Cheng's study abroad, and Wei Wuxian's work at home. Wei Wuxian tried to get Lan Wangji to join the conversation more than once, but he stayed the mostly silent observer. Wei Wuxian wanted him to feel welcome, though. This was his home, and if Lan Wangji didn't think he could talk freely in it, then what was the point?
Jiang Cheng told him, finally, that there was a rumor that the Wen Sect was requiring disciples from other cultivation sects to go to them for "learning" and "discipline." Official news must not yet have reached his father, because he hadn't spoke of it yet. But therein Wen Sect's plan for (surely) brainwashing and obedience, there was Jiang Cheng's plan of defiance against his parents.
"Wei Wuxian, come with us."
"Come with you? But how? Won't they know I'm not the son of…" Real cultivators.
"How can they? They can't have records on us all."
"I guess that much is true," Wei Wuxian said, glancing at Lan Wangji as he did. He said nothing.
"You want to fight them, don't you? Now you can come with us and learn their ways, so we can use them against them."
Jiang Cheng made a fair point. The more you knew about your enemy, the better you could defeat them later on. If Wei Wuxian was to be part of this fight at all, he had to get learning.
That night, after Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji had long left, yet Lan Wangji's unwavering eyes still stayed in Wei Wuxian's mind, he wondered what was to come. He wondered what would happen if anyone ever learned of his ability to manipulate blood inside of people, he wondered if others did that too. Any other cultivators akin to water always manipulated water as its true form, whether it be rainwater or lake water or just water from a drinking cup or puddle. Had others unlocked the secrets of sweat? Of blood, of tears? That the human body was a weapon, just waiting to be undone?
Long ago, Jiang Cheng had hurriedly whispered to Wei Wuxian to never mention blood, never mention the things he could do with it, even though all he did was healing. It sounded like a crime then, and it probably was, even now. If it was something outlawed, something only for secrets and hushed voices, then that was something he could use against the Wens. He never used blood as a weapon before, but he truly began to think on it, as he stared up into the eaves of his shack, listening to the quiet chirping of crickets and churn of the distant lakes.
His mind didn't wander too far before he drifted off to sleep, his mind dashed with images of puppets and a puppeteer, with blood and muscle as their strings, tears and sweat as sharpened as arrows. Images of Lan Wangji's unwavering eyes, watching it all unfold.