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Murder machines

Chapter 10

Notes:

I place the blame for the interminable delay on this chapter squarely at the feet of one Nie Huaisang, who both:
a) refused to narrate this chapter
b) refused to tell me what his plans were for five entire months

That being said, we're here now! Hope you enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

When Gideon Nav stalks over to Lan Jingyi, where he’s seated on a veranda, her massive sword hanging off her shoulder and sweat dripping down her neck, Jingyi crosses his arms, lifts his chin, and turns his body away.

She had gotten the attention of the entire refectory this morning when she had entered that way (minus the sweat); sword bold over her shoulder, impossible to miss. The remainder of breakfast after that had been a somewhat rushed affair, with the undercurrent of boasting about relative sword prowess steadily rising in volume while at least four authority figures tried to glare the meal back into silence. Now every junior who bears a sword regularly and doesn’t have specific duties this morning has been gravitating to the sparring circle outside.

If Jingyi had permission to stand up and lift his arms without throwing everyone into an overprotective tizzy, he would be right down there with them. But due to some subtle but very firm maneuvering on Sizhui’s part, he’s been planted on a cushion, with a pot of tea, and summarily ignored, up until now.

Gideon Nav sighs at him. “Oh, don’t be like that, I have a question. I am here to plumb your wisdom, Jingyi-xiong.”

“Who gave you leave to call me that?” he answers, archily.

Gideon tips her glasses down her face and tries again, confiding. “Senior? Teacher. Please. I’m still getting the hang of groveling for information and favor, new vocabulary and shit. And I need your wisdom. I need a wingman.”

“Fine. What’s your question?”

“Who is the babe wearing the hood, and will she step on me if I ask politely?”

Once he’s managed to parse that – and Gideon’s expectant look - Jingyi cranes his neck to see if it’s a shijie or qianbei he recognizes. There has been a slow but certain growth of spectators all morning, visitors for the conference adding their colors to the crowd, and contributing to the general atmosphere of levity. Almost no one has their head covered, so he manages to pinpoint the woman wearing the deep grey hood almost immediately. Her clothing is pointedly lacking sect insignia, but she would look much shabbier if she were truly unconnected.

He shrugs. “No idea, though you could ask Wen-shishu, isn’t she talking to him?” Both Wen-shishu and Sizhui, actually, and in quite a close conversation as she lays a hand on Wen-shishu’s shoulder. The smile lighting up Wen-shishu’s face is infectious, so the strange woman must be someone he knows. Ah, well, information to pull from Sizhui later.

Absorbing that, Gideon mutters something to herself, offers a half-hearted slap to Jingyi’s arm, and strides back into the sparring circle.

“Hey!” With a snort, Jingyi resigns himself to more watching. He has to be content to shout more-or-less unhelpful suggestions as Gideon re-enters a match to hulk around with her huge blade, and his shixiongs dance, bright and light, exemplary in Lan forms. Before the next round has finished, Zizhun, bashfully, sweeps by and drops off a plate of snacks, but sees Jingyi’s glower and neglects to stay for more than a moment. Jin Ling, gripped by unfortunate responsibilities, isn’t here to watch, meaning that they’re missing out on him doing that little twitchy dance he does when he’s trying to learn a new sword-form. (It looks like nothing more than Fairy trying to sit still after being promised a treat.)

Jingyi is mid-cheer when Clan Leader Nie, of all people, fumbles himself down into a seat next to him, and helps himself to the plate of snacks, and moans, "Ah, for my passed youth! Imagine having the energy to fight after such a grueling journey.”

Now, don’t get him wrong; Lan Jingyi’s objections to Clan Leader Nie aren’t personal. But the coldness with which Nie Huaisang has been denied invitation to the Cloud Recesses lately has indicated to anyone paying attention the mark of Hanguang-Jun’s hand, and it’s important to be partial to the right people.

He fishes the plate of snacks away from Clan Leader Nie’s searching fingers. “What are you doing here?”

Nie Huaisang wafts a puff of air at him with his fan. “Taking a well-earned rest!”

Jingyi narrows his eyes in response, and accuses, “You’re clan leader, shouldn’t you be providing a little bit of an example?”

“I just finished the longest, most boring and tense meeting of the past year, among so many people able to decide nothing! How can I go on without a break?”

Indeed, leaders of numerous clans, large and small, are filtering their way from the reception hall into the crowd, guided by their personal friendships and animosities. Clan Leader Jiang and Senior Wei are visibly doing their usual awkward nonspeaking avoidance of one another and compensating by projecting attention onto their closest juniors at hand – this being Jin Ling and Harrowhark respectively. Jin Ling is getting a lecture for his trouble, while both of Senior Wei’s hands have landed jovially on Harrowhark’s shoulders, making her startle and freeze like a small ash-black bunny.

Glancing across the courtyard, Jingyi notes that Wen-shishu and his companion have melted farther back into the crowd.

Clan Leader Nie has busied himself in pouring a cup of tea, from the pot which is still within his reach. Jingyi can’t prevent him while continuing to defend the snack plate.

With a smile, Clan Leader Nie asks him, “Why are you sitting at the sidelines and telling me about the value of discipline?”

“I’m providing advice. If hadn’t played a daring and critical role in our night hunt yesterday,” says Jingyi, sourly, “I would be right over there.”

“Testing your mettle against the foreign cultivator, of course,” Clan Leader Nie says, gaze fixed, wide eyes on the fight before them. Gideon is matched against a particularly savage young cultivator in Nie colors at this moment. “What do you think of her?”

“She’s weird.” Jingyi says immediately, then, for the sake of partiality, amends; “Powerful, but weird. Not graceful - it’s like no one ever told her she could guide the blade, it’s just muscle, but I’ve seen what it can do.” He feels a sudden surge of possessiveness for this battle-partner. “Don’t you go underestimating her!”

“Oh, no no no, of course not, I would never,” Clan Leader Nie demures.

Gideon has triumphed over her Nie opponent, to assorted calls from the audience. She sheathes her sword, pumps a fist in the air, spins, and ends in a pose of apparent triumph, with one elbow bent, her other arm extended up and back in parallel, and her face dropped into her bent arm. The posture looks stiff and rehearsed, like a dance.

“Ghost General next!” someone calls.

Wen-shishu has failed to hide. Other of the spectators join in, adding jovial encouragement, though Wen-shishu looks more bashful for it. His head inclines in question at the hooded woman, then at Sizhui. Sizhui smiles, and the hooded woman squeezes Wen-shishu’s hand and says something.

Gideon Nav, pulling her head out of her elbow, beckons him.

Clan Leader Nie says, "She’s certainly something. And what about the other one?"

"The other one? Oh. She's -" Mid-answer, Jingyi has the very sudden and strong recollection of Harrowhark, her face inches from his, furrowed in focus under the bone-white paint. The vibration of resentful energy warping the antlers through his chest, and the way she bit her lip and squinted while that energy had wiggled its way between his bones.

How she had looked ageless. A bit terrifying.

"I like her," he says stoutly. The least endorsement, really, for a life-debt, which he apparently has now.

“Some people have been calling her dangerous,” says Clan Leader Nie, as though he’s talking about the weather.

“And who are you supposed to believe? ‘Some people’, or me? You asked me!” Jingyi says, tart. “Just because they don’t like new cultivation techniques, people think they can go around and judge.”

"Oh, like or don't like, I'm sure I don't know what to think!" Clan Leader Nie is saying, smiling. "So I'm here to see for myself, in any case."

The encouragement from the audience has gotten more strident, and while this would usually mean that Wen-shishu is about to disappear - he's shy like that - Sizhui has managed to coax him into the circle, bare-handed, across from Gideon and her massive blade.

Clan Leader Nie, trailing off, quiet, makes a subtle toss of his head and his fan. Has he made eye contact with someone in the crowd? Taking stock, Jingyi sees the Nie arranged somehow symmetrically around the courtyard. Not aggressively, no naked blades, but with an air of preparation.

Gideon and Wen-shishu square up, clash twice, and Gideon nearly takes victory – Wen-shishu knocking her strike out the way in the very last moment, his shyness transmuting into concentration. After their third serious clash and disengage, even typically proper Sizhui shouting his excitement on the side, Wen-shishu tips his head back and roars, cutting through the babble of the crowd.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Wen-shishu – Sizhui’s bashful and kind Wen-shu - is the Ghost General, etchings of puppetry hiding under his collars, the sweetness of his usual personality providing cover for a power that can rend his enemies to pieces.

The crowd is transfixed. Gideon herself holds her ground.

It is only because Jingyi is sitting right next to Nie Huaisang that he notices the gesture that changes the fight.

That subtle flick, flick, unravel that originates in his fingers – that’s a trick some folks have the knack of, something that Jingyi can’t manage himself, but he has the skill to see it, as it sets off, shimmers through the air, faint color of qi lost to the bright sunshine and then something distant snaps-

Gideon’s sword explodes in a geyser of death.

There’s nothing to call it really, other than death – maybe resentful energy would be the textbook word for it, the one shifu would expect to hear in a classroom, but it’s a nauseating eruption of energy in some sort of non-color emerging from the sword, blasting the weapon out of Gideon’s hands and straight up into the air, making everyone in the courtyard duck for cover, gagging from the half-metaphysical stench and teeth-grinding horror of it.

The sword howls. Jingyi feels it in his eye sockets.

Through lidded eyes, Jingyi sees Gideon, directly beneath it, covering her head on the ground, and Wen-shishu struggling to stay vertical, a clawed hand reaching up through the miasma, veins standing out pitch-black on his neck.

With a flash of white fire, Hanguang-Jun is arrowing his way between the Nie disciples (still somehow at attention, as though they were expecting this before the slight parting of the air that set chaos loose).

Wei Wuxian, too, wades through the crowd, glowing red and dark with summoning, and there’s a lash of Zidian, and the crackle of sword energy from all directions, including a glowering Clan Leader Jiang’s Sandu.

A streak of black and bone darts in closer than any of them, for the heart of the blast, for the flash of Gideon's red hair inside it.

“You see,” says Clan Leader Nie, who has not moved, even when Jingyi flinched low himself. “Dangerous.”

The fount of energy is calmed, sealed with the combined attentions of two generations’ heroes; the sword clatters to the ground under a shower of talismans and surrounded by cultivators at attention.

And then, with deceptive swiftness and a graceless stumble, Clan Leader Nie is cowering behind Hanguang-Jun, clutching the robes at his back; and Lan Jingyi can not for the life of him tell what trick he used to get there.

“Chief Cultivator!" he wails. "What was that, I don't understand! Did that sword have some sort of spirit sealed in it? And even the wielder didn’t know?”

Hanguang-Jun closes his eyes briefly. He hasn't yet sheathed his sword. "Yes."

Many of the audience are still picking themselves up from the ground, casting suspicious glances at the now-quiescent sword in the center of the courtyard, in a shallow crater marring the flagstones. Harrowhark and Gideon, closest to that epicenter, are a huddle on the ground, singed and blinking. Harrow shows particular disarray, bloody tear tracks down her unveiled face and hands still raised toward the sword's resting place, shards and sheets of bone scattered from her in every direction. Gideon supports her by the shoulders from behind, half-shielded, glasses gone, silent for once.

Wen-shishu, also raising himself from the ground, looks undamaged as ever. The hooded woman has come to kneel at his side.

Clan Leader Nie continues, still addressing Hanguang-Jun, in a voice that cuts over the rising speculation. “How fortunate you’re here to protect us all! What must we do about this?”

Lan Jingyi could swear that he hears Wei-qianbei say “Laying it on a little thick there, Nie-xiong,” but with the disorder, confirmation is impossible.

Notes:

Thanks also to Writing Salon discord friends for helping to workshop an appropriate victory gesture for Gideon - and especially to Westie for pointing out a dab, it was perfect!