Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are nowhere near Wen Ruohan when the monster is vanquished, and they don't get glory for it, but no matter; everyone knows that if the Sunshot campaign ends, it's because Wei Wuxian's demonic cultivation drowns out the sun until its last rays are smothered by the night.
Returning to Lotus Pier isn't easy. Jiang Cheng wasn't naive enough to think it would be - his childhood home is no longer quite ruins, but it will be long until it's returned to its former bloom and living people outnumber ghosts. It'll be hard work, and tearstained nights he knows before they've hit him he'll never tell anyone about, but he's never been scared of effort, only failure. The nightmares when he passes too close to the nook the Wens tortured him in taste like the latter, but he can't afford to slack off, not when Wei Wuxian seems even less able to return from the war than Jiang Cheng himself.
It's different for Wei Wuxian; what Jiang Cheng lost in the war - the horrific violation that hollowed him of his golden core - he regained, somehow made stronger for the ordeal. The new powers Wei Wuxian returned with won them the war and the respect of sects who'd have been all too happy to deny YunmengJiang the epithet Great, but they're not so easy to shake off.
Wei Wuxian plays with corpses and Jiang Cheng wouldn't care if he wasn't also playing hooky, wouldn't care if not for the other sects turning squeamish, turning their eyes to what is firmly YunmengJiang business - the Jiang sect's motto covers rule-breaking, and didn't Wei Wuxian win the war?
--wouldn't care if it didn't feel like Wei Wuxian drifting, drifting, and the other sects whispering as if another would-be monster was threatening them.
In the twilight, the songs of Wei Wuxian's dizi grow sharper and Jiang Cheng's mouth runs dry with excuses.
Fill: The Untamed/MDZS, Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian (cw: war, necromancy, implications of torture)
Returning to Lotus Pier isn't easy. Jiang Cheng wasn't naive enough to think it would be - his childhood home is no longer quite ruins, but it will be long until it's returned to its former bloom and living people outnumber ghosts. It'll be hard work, and tearstained nights he knows before they've hit him he'll never tell anyone about, but he's never been scared of effort, only failure. The nightmares when he passes too close to the nook the Wens tortured him in taste like the latter, but he can't afford to slack off, not when Wei Wuxian seems even less able to return from the war than Jiang Cheng himself.
It's different for Wei Wuxian; what Jiang Cheng lost in the war - the horrific violation that hollowed him of his golden core - he regained, somehow made stronger for the ordeal. The new powers Wei Wuxian returned with won them the war and the respect of sects who'd have been all too happy to deny YunmengJiang the epithet Great, but they're not so easy to shake off.
Wei Wuxian plays with corpses and Jiang Cheng wouldn't care if he wasn't also playing hooky, wouldn't care if not for the other sects turning squeamish, turning their eyes to what is firmly YunmengJiang business - the Jiang sect's motto covers rule-breaking, and didn't Wei Wuxian win the war?
--wouldn't care if it didn't feel like Wei Wuxian drifting, drifting, and the other sects whispering as if another would-be monster was threatening them.
In the twilight, the songs of Wei Wuxian's dizi grow sharper and Jiang Cheng's mouth runs dry with excuses.