WHO: Lan Xichen and William Laurence WHEN: Night of the Mid-Autumn Festival WHERE: The roof of Morningside Manor WHAT: Lan Xichen and Laurence have mooncakes and get mildly melancholy over a moon goddess WARNINGS: N/A
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The rooftop of Morningside Manor was, perhaps, one of Laurence’s favourite places to be in Vallo. It was crisp, yes, but the view was magnificent. Possibly, he thought, the closest he’d be able to get to having a dragonback view of the city. He’d never imagined that buildings even this tall could exist, and Vallo City was host to buildings that towered even over her. Laurence was especially taken with the view of the ocean, visible from the Morningside rooftop, and he’d frequently come up during sunrise or sunset to see the water reflecting the colour of the sky.
He was, overall, very happy to have a chance to bring Lan Xichen up here. He regretted, a little, that he couldn’t bring him inside, but Lauence had brewed some hot green tea - he’d only had to bring it up a single flight of stairs - and had found them a spot on the roof where they watch the waning moon and the water.
“Have you been enjoying your Mid-Autumn Festival?” Laurence asked, pouring first Lan Xichen’s tea into a his teacup before filling his own.
“I have,” Lan Xichen replied, and behind the content smile on his face was a bit of surprise at the truth in his statement.
His last Mid-Autumn Festival had been miserable, spent in grief and seclusion. If someone had asked a month ago, in his own world, Lan Xichen would have answered that this one would be the same: another night of quiet contemplation of the comfort he did not feel he deserved and of the people who would never share another family celebration again. Less raw than the year before, perhaps, but still dark and exhausting. Instead, he found himself attending the local celebration with his nephew, sharing a joyful dinner with family and friends, and eating an amount of sweets that he would surely be chided for if Grandmaster Lan could see him.
It was all right to have nice things, he’d reminded himself all day. Enjoying a festival didn’t mean he’d forgotten his mistakes. Making new friends didn’t mean he’d forgotten the old ones he would never see again. Indeed, at least one of those old friends would have seen him in seclusion and told him to get over himself and get back to work. (Nie Mengjue had never been the patient type.) Lan Xichen had enjoyed the day, and he was pleased to meet Laurence and enjoy the evening now that family dinner was complete.
On the table, next to the tea, he placed a woven bamboo container - or rather, three containers stacked on top of one another and bound together with a single handle.
“Lan Sizhui and I made a point of trying a number of mooncakes this afternoon, and I picked up an extra of all the best ones,” Lan Xichen explained. “And one that was just so strange I wanted someone else to see it.”
“I’m glad,” Laurence said, warmly.
He couldn’t have known it, but he was feeling rather similar to Lan Xichen. He’d gone to the symphony earlier in the evening with Eloise. He’d been disappointed to learn that he and Eloise were, in fact, from different worlds, despite the presence of Napoleon and his war in both, and even more disappointed to learn that if they were, in fact, from different worlds, than there was no way to reasonably expect her to have heard of his crimes. He’d told her, and after the initial surprise, she’d hardly seemed to mind at all.
It seemed a greater relief the reactions of Captain Lance and Dorian, not because Eloise’s opinion mattered more than either of theirs, but because she came from a world so alike to his, in customs and manners and beliefs, that he’d never have known they were from different worlds if she hadn’t mentioned it directly. She’d not needed the reasons, as Granby and Jane and the others back undoubtedly would have needed (not Tharkay, he thought. He suspected that Tharkay could have overlooked treason for lesser causes as well, so long as that cause hadn’t been for fame or riches). It carried more weight to the idea that the treason itself could be, if not forgotten, than at least forgiven. It was, perhaps, more than Laurence deserved, but he longed for it nevertheless.
He still had to tell Lan Xichen, but not tonight. Not during an especial holiday for him.
Laurence eyed the containers with only a little trepidation. He did enjoy the occasional sweet treat, but he hoped Lan Xichen hadn’t allowed himself to get carried away; Laurence would be unlikely to manage too many of them. He’d hate to waste Lan Xichen’s hard work though, so he’d do his best.
“I’d not expected you to go through so much trouble,” he admitted, touched. “I’ll confess that you’ve piqued my curiosity though.”
“It’s a holiday,” Lan Xichen replied, and another one of those small, gentle smiles came to his face. That was all the explanation he felt was needed. What were a few extra mooncakes on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival? A bit of self-indulgence, perhaps, but Lan Xichen had spent his entire life so afraid of self-indulgence that he’d worried he enjoyed painting too much, and what had it gotten him? Disaster all the same. He wasn’t about to run out and turn into Wen Chao, but he could share some extra mooncakes with someone who’d never experienced them.
“Don’t worry, I’m not expecting us to eat every bite immediately,” Lan Xichen went on as he lifted the cover from the top tier of the carrier. There was a single mooncake there, a few inches in diameter and around an inch tall, round, the top decorated with an intricate design - the characters for longevity and harmony in Mandarin, and then an imprint in English letters for the local bakery that had made this one. The large box was there not to hold many cakes, but to show each cake to its best advantage.
Laurence perhaps should have suspected that the bamboo cases were meant to display the mooncakes to full advantage instead of worrying that Lan Xichen had brought him a dozen of the treats. The relief on his face may have been visible when he realized there was only one mooncake inside, but it was gone in an instant. The mooncake itself was unexpectedly beautiful - not at all like the cakes from his own home, which could be decorated and garnished but rarely had the designs baked right into them.
"It almost seems like it would be a shame to eat it," he said after a moment. "Is it common for them to have writing on them?"
“Mn.” It was a noise of confirmation, judging by the nod that accompanied it. “They usually have writing, sometimes designs. The more grand the baker, the more intricate the pastry will be, usually. This one…”
Lan Xichen picked up the fine porcelain plate the mooncake sat upon and brought it to rest upon the table between them, quickly followed by a small knife. “...is like the ones I would buy in Caiyi Town, with red bean filling and a salted duck egg at the center. And it is quite pretty, comparatively. I would not be ashamed to serve it to any important guests who joined my family for the festival.”
Laurence was a little surprised at the mention of there being a duck egg contained within. He wasn't completely unfamiliar with the concept - he was a great fan of scotch eggs - but he'd thought that mooncakes were to be sweet. He'd not balk from it though, not when Lan Xichen had gone through all the trouble.
"It is rather lovely to look at. Much more pleasing to the eye than any of the foods we have in England," he admitted. He had seen baking here in Vallo that was intricately decorated: cookies with icing to make them look like animals, or intricately designed cakes, but this was simplistic in its beauty and he thought he preferred it to the colourful icing.
He took the half of the cake when it was offered, and took a moment to examine it before he took a tentative bite, but he nearly immediately realized that the flavour was quite nice, the salted duck egg offsetting the red bean paste pleasantly.
"How do you normally celebrate your Mid-Autumn Festivals at home?" Laurence asked. "Other than sampling mooncakes, of course."
“Even as austere as Cloud Recesses is, we still hold a feast for Mid-Autumn,” Lan Xichen replied. “We hang lanterns all about, and some small group will perform the tale of Chang’E the moon goddess for everyone. After the feast is the viewing of the moon; people tend to split off into smaller groups then, and my role is traditionally to pretend not to notice the junior disciples who sneak down to Caiyi to get drunk on Emperor’s Smile.”
He always caught sight of at least one or two of them, but Lan Xichen had always felt that letting them have a little leeway on the night of the festival was good for the juniors. As long as he maintained the fiction that he was being cleverly evaded, they would retain their respect for the rules and confine their breaking of them mostly to special occasions.
Laurence’s lip twitched. “That’s a role I’m intimately familiar with myself.” It was the same with both sailors and aviators - when there was debauchery to be had, many of his crew would sneak off to partake. Laurence suspected that none of his crew ever thought they were getting away with being sneaky - they never tried particularly hard to keep their activities a secret - but while Laurence didn’t necessarily approve of the practice, he allowed it so long as it didn’t interfere with their duties. There was little that would cause ill-feelings faster than a captain that denied a crew their liberties when there were liberties to be had.
“I don’t believe I know the tale of Chang’E the moon goddess,” Laurence said, taking another bite of his moon cake.
“There are two versions of it, actually.” Lan Xichen gave a slight smile, his mind drawn back to various tellings of the story over years of Gusu Lan Mid-Autumn Festivals. “One is a rather sweet, tragic romance, while the other is a tale of duty and sacrifice. Would you like to hear the stories?”
The romantic version of the story was Lan Xichen’s favorite, and always the one he would choose to tell when it was his turn. He always found it interesting to see which version other people chose; it seemed to give a little insight into the person, though it didn’t always mean the same thing about them. Given that Laurence wasn’t aware of either, it seemed only fair to tell both for him, if he was interested.
“I would, very much, if you don’t mind the telling,” Laurence said, both because he was curious in his own right, and thought he’d like to hear Lan Xichen tell the story, and also because he thought it might be nice to have some tales to tell Temeraire, if he were to ever show up here. Vallo had a great many books, a great many indeed, so much so that Laurence wasn’t even sure where to begin when he’d get a chance to read to Temeraire again, but he thought Temeraire would appreciate none so much as a tale of duty, sacrifice, and moon goddesses.
“I’ve always enjoyed it, and I haven’t been called to tell the story in many years,” Lan Xichen replied. The performance of Chang’e’s story was always the province of those who were not the sect leader, and Lan Xichen had been sect leader since he was nineteen. His time for volunteering himself to speak the words or play the xiao to accompany another had been cut short. It was nice to have an opportunity to tell the tale again, even without all the trappings of the musical performance at the feast. “Let me bring out our second mooncake, and I’ll get to it.”
He lifted the top layer from the box and placed the next mooncake before them, cutting it deftly into quarters. This one was less intricately decorated than the first, bearing no bakery imprint on its outer pastry, but still clearly crafted with care. “Yunmeng-style, with lotus seed paste and nuts for the filling. Jiang Yanli made these to share with us at Lotus Pier.”
“Jiang Yanli is one of your friends from home, right?” Laurence asked, taking a slice of the moon cake. He took a small bite, and smiled. “You must be glad to have such a skilled baker among your friends.”
He settled deeper into his chair to listen to the tale.
“We are lucky indeed,” Lan Xichen agreed.
He took a centering breath and briefly closed his eyes, looking for the words and sounds of the story. He knew it inside-out, but Lan Xichen always liked to do things properly, with all due care and concentration.
“Long ago, in ancient times, all ten suns rose above the earth on a single day, scorching it and bringing great hardship to the people. Their farms were baked barren, and the dry thatching of their roofs could catch fire with the slightest spark.”
Lan Xichen had a voice trained for formal speaking, an even and steady baritone, but it was not without emotion. He told the story as though he’d known these peasants whose fields were dried to nothing. The words came out in a practiced manner, though, as one might recite a monologue from Shakespeare in the world from which Laurence came.
“All the lands that now make up the cultivation world were then under the rule of Emperor Yao. When he saw that all the suns had risen at once, he called upon the Lord Archer, Hou Yi, to handle this issue. Hou Yi, being a wise man, first attempted to reason with the suns. ‘You are ruining the earth!’ he shouted at them. ‘You must only rise one at a time!’ But the suns would not listen to him. Then, Hou Yi pulled out his bow and took aim at the suns - perhaps threats would work where reason had not, he thought. Alas, the suns stayed put, heedless of the burning grass and the weeping people, scorching away. Threats, it seemed, were no more effective than explanations and orders.
Hou Yi, as I have told you, was a wise man. He knew, therefore, that a threat could not be made and not followed with action. He drew back his bow, now with true deadly intent, and fired his arrow into the first sun, shooting it down from the sky. Surely, he thought, the others will now retreat! But no. The suns took no more heed of their brother’s fall than they took of reason, threats, or the wailing of the kingdom of earth. So the Lord Archer shot down the second sun, and the third, and the fourth. The fifth, sixth, and seventh sons followed after, and then the eighth. A final time, Hou Yi took aim and fired, shooting the ninth sun from the sky, leaving only the one to do all the work of keeping the earth warm and the crops growing every day.”
Lan Xichen paused there a moment, where he would have allowed the young apprentices at Cloud Recesses to reflect upon the wisdom of Hou Yi and the consequences of recklessness.
“Now, a great immortal watched all this, and he so admired Hou Yi that he gave to the Lord Archer an elixir of immortality. But why would he take this elixir, Hou Yi asked? He would never want to live longer than his beloved wife Chang’e. Hou Yi gave the elixir to her instead, asking her to keep it safe - they could not dispose of a gift from an immortal, but neither of them wished to be immortal without the other. They would rather meet again in the next life, or cultivate immortality together.”
His voice dropped lower, taking on a sinister note appropriate to the introduction of the story’s villain. “Only one other person knew of the Elixir of Immortality that Chang’e held: the Lord Archer’s apprentice, Feng Meng. He had never shown signs of being wicked before, but the promise of an easy path to eternal life sours a weak spirit. While Hou Yi was away hunting, Feng Meng attacked Chang’e, trying to force her to give him the elixir! Again and again she refused, but he chased and demanded and beat her, and Chang’e knew that she could not outrun Feng Meng forever. Her husband was too far away to seek help from, and she knew that if she kept resisting, Feng Meng would kill her for the elixir. She was left with only one choice: to drink the elixir herself and become immortal, preventing this wicked man from having immortality, even though it meant that she would never again share a life with her soulmate. In one swallow, she downed the elixir, and summoned all her spiritual power to fly out of his reach, all the way to the moon.”
Lan Xichen paused again, leaving a little space to appreciate Chang’e’s sacrifice and ruminate upon the evil of those who would harm another to take power for themselves, power which they had not earned.
“When Hou Yi returned and learned what happened, he banished his apprentice forever. In his grief, he lit candles in the courtyard and brought out all the sweet foods his wife loved to eat, placing them as sacrifices that she could only enjoy from her distant new home. Chang’e was now immortal, but she was bound to the moon now, to serve as its goddess, and she could only watch as her husband grew old and died and reincarnated, hoping that one day he would achieve immortality as well and join her in the moon palace. Until then, she has only the Jade Rabbit for company...but the Jade Rabbit is a story unto himself, one for another time.”
An ending, unmistakably. Lan Xichen let the words sit, and waited for the audience to choose a response.
It was easy, surprisingly easy, for Laurence to get lost in the general cadence of Lan Xichen’s voice, and while no one had ever accused Laurence of having a particular love of mythology or a strong imagination, he found that picturing the scene as Lan Xichen described it was nearly as natural as breathing. If Temeraire did come here, he thought, it would have to be Lan Xichen who told him the stories; Laurence would never do them justice.
It seemed almost a shame to speak again, and so he let the comfortable silence sit a little so that he might truly appreciate the tale and its themes: the need, sometimes, to go against those that one should follow without question, as he was sure the suns were of a higher rank than Hou Yi, how easily an easy victory could sway some men’s hearts to evil, the need to give up all one held dear to prevent that.
“That was beautifully told,” he said at last, gently so he didn’t shatter the silence so much as ease into it, a ripple more than a splash. “I should not be surprised you’ve a talent for such things.”
“Less talent and more rehearsal. I lose count of how many times I practiced that one when it was my year to tell the story at the banquet,” Lan Xichen replied, smiling faintly as he thought of the young junior disciple he’d been then, already responsible for too much but carefree compared to the man he was now. “I doubt I would tell the version where Hou Yi becomes a cruel and tyrannical king and Chang’e steals the elixir of immortality from him to prevent him from hurting people for eternity nearly as well. That one never appealed to me as much, so I never practiced telling it.”
“Ninety percent of talent is practice,” Laurence said. Dedication to any pursuit was more admirable to Laurence than natural born skill anyway.
He raised an eyebrow a little at the summary of that story. It was wildly different than the one he’d just heard, though he supposed if he were inclined to look, he was likely to find many such variations on the Classical Greek and Roman methoses that he’d been made to study when he was a boy. “I look forward to hearing it nevertheless.”
He topped up Lan Xichen’s tea, and then his own, pleased that the tea still steamed from the thermos despite the briskness of the evening; even in the little things, modern technology was still something to behold.
Lan Xichen took a bite from his half of the mooncake first, indulging in the rich sweetness and the care that Jiang Yanli put into everything she cooked. It was good to have her here, to have her as part of his extended family now, to get to know her as an adult rather than see her cut down much too young. Whatever things he might miss about his own world, it was nice to see so many good people get second chances here in Vallo.
“This story begins much like the other: long ago, the ten suns rose at once, scorching the earth. Once again, Hou Yi, the great archer, came to save the people. One by one, he shot down the suns, leaving just one in the sky to provide the light and warmth that sustains us. In this story, however, there is no benevolent emperor, and the grateful people of the world which was nearly burned to ashes named Hou Yi their king. And at first, all was well.”
Lan Xichen paused in the telling, this time as much to note the parallels to his own lost friend. He grew a little quieter as he continued telling the story, without realizing he’d done so. “But this Hou Yi, strong and capable though he was, lost his sense of responsibility to the people, failing to see that a ruler is also a servant. He grew proud and tyrannical, demanding too much of the people he was meant to protect, placing his own desires before their needs. He stopped seeing them as people and instead saw them as pawns to be moved as he saw fit. And his wife, the beautiful Chang’e...she was left to watch as the man she loved became a stranger.”
Oh, this was sad, and it was much sadder when Lan Xichen let his own life inform the tale. Before, he’d always found this story reminded him overmuch of his parents, and that was reason enough to prefer the other version. Now that he could see himself and A-Yao in it, it hit him even harder.
Lan Xichen’s eyes fixed on the full moon above as he continued. “No doubt she made excuses for him at first, believed that the wicked things he did must be for some good reason. She would not have married an evil man. But the more she saw, the more she knew that even if she had not bowed to the heavens and the earth with an evil man, that man had become someone else. So when he demanded from the Mother Goddess Xiwangmu an elixir of immortality, Chang’e knew what must be done. She could not allow this terrible king to continue hurting their people and their land, no matter how much she had loved him before. She stole the goddess’s gift from Hou Yi, and fought him when he tried to take it back. Their swords clashed and blood was drawn, even as Chang’e pleaded with her husband to turn away from his wickedness, to forget about immortality and come back to being a noble and righteous man...but he would not listen. At last, Chang’e thrust her sword into her husband’s chest. Unable to bring herself to kill him, she left her blade there, plugging the wound, and flew away as far as her power would take her: to the moon, where she could mourn in solitude for what she had loved and lost and drink the elixir of immortality so it could never be touched by her husband. It was only through the coaxing of the Jade Rabbit who brews the elixir of immortality that she came out one year later to find that the people who had suffered under Hou Yi’s rule made sacrifices of sweets and incense to thank her for saving them, as we continue to do at the Mid-Autumn Festival to this day.”
Laurence knew little of Lan Xichen’s history, outside of misplaced trust and a self-imposed exile, but even had he not known that much, it would have been difficult not to see how the story affected him. Laurence watched him tell it, lips pursed, and when the story was over, he impulsively reached across the table to lay his hand on top of Lan Xichen’s so that he might give it a brief squeeze of support.
He withdrew his hand and took up his cup of tea, and held it up to the moon in a toast - it was, he admitted, a little unorthodox to toast with tea as opposed to wine, but it was all they had and it seemed necessary. “Then let us toast to Chang’e’s sacrifice, no matter which story holds more truth. As painful as it may have been, she never wavered from her duty.”
Lan Xichen appreciated the bit of comfort, particularly the friendly touch of a hand. Coming from such a restrained household, there had never been enough of that in his life, especially in recent times. When a member of the Lan clan was upset, the common wisdom was to respectfully let them suffer in dignified silence. Lan Xichen was easily the warmest of the group, barring a few younger disciples, which meant that if he was the one in need of sympathy, there was no one equipped to offer it. While much about this world could be overwhelming, the casual approach to touch felt refreshing.
“To Chang’e,” Lan Xichen echoed, lifting his tea cup in both hands and giving a slight bow to the moon before taking a drink. He looked to Laurence with a rueful smile, dismissing his own fretting over the past and its parallels to mythology. “Now you see why I like the first story better. Along with my childish love of sweets, I also have a childish love of happy endings, and in that one I can at least imagine ways that all could work out for the best.”
“I don’t think there’s anything childish about enjoying happy endings,” Laurence said. Liking sweets, well, everyone was allowed to take a childish joy in something now and then. Laurence might not have thought as much five years ago, but it was hard not to have that particular perspective changed once Temeraire had come into his life - there were times when he felt positively boyish when they were flying at top speed through the air, the wind whipping at his hair and beating at his face. “I often read to Temeraire - he’s a great lover of books, and he’s done a fair job at turning me into one too, despite never having much of a taste for them before - and our favourite stories to read are the ones with happy endings.” He paused, frowning. “Well, no, I suppose Temeraire’s favourite books are about mathematics or philosophy, but of the fictional novels we read, we prefer those that end on an upnote. The world is hard enough that we all deserve some levity once in a while.”
It was such a different approach to life than the one Lan Xichen had been raised with, which specifically forbid levity in at least a dozen rules with slightly different wording. It sounded so nice, though, this idea of allowing one's self a bit of room to breathe without feeling guilty about it. To accept a little happiness, whether it was earned or not...perhaps that was no more wrong than letting the current of a river pull one downstream. It was not the lesson he had ever thought to learn from a dragon he'd yet to meet, but it was one that might bring Lan Xichen some peace.
"As much as I hope to meet your dragon myself one day, I think I hope even more that Temeraire gets to meet Wei Wuxian," he mused aloud. "The more I hear of him, the more I think those two are kindred spirits."
“He’s the one that enjoys cooking shows, yes?” Laurence asked. He had thought to look at a couple, and while some of them seemed quite unpleasant, he’d found one called The Great British Bake-Off that Laurence found he enjoyed quite a bit. He thought it likely that Temeraire - who enjoyed good cooking more than he ought to, even if he was able to eat it less than Laurence would like - would likely enjoy such shows too. “I hope I’ll have a chance to meet him myself one of these days.”
“I’ll invite him and my brother to join us next time you come for tea at Cloud Recesses,” Lan Xichen said, feeling no need for hesitation. He enjoyed having new friends meet old ones. And, a particularly rude and unpleasant part of his brain pointed out, then he could get people who were actually good judges of character to verify his theory that Laurence was not in fact secretly murderous or consumed by ambition. “You will like Wei Wuxian, I think - virtually everyone likes him easily. As for my brother, just know that he’s not rude, merely reserved.”
“Please do,” Laurence said, interested to meet at least some of the people from Lan Xichen’s home. “I assure you that I’m unlikely to mistake reservation for rudeness.” Laurence himself had a great love of easy conversation and could think of no better way to spend an afternoon or an evening, but he was aware that conversation did not come as freely to others; he’d not hold it against them unless their rudeness was deliberate; it was often easy to tell the difference.
“I thought not, but the habit of explaining Lan Wangji to people is an old one for me,” Lan Xichen replied with a fond smile. He loved his brother, and he’d never had any trouble reading him or understanding him, but he knew that most people found him a touch unapproachable. That had been true since they were children, and Lan Xichen had accordingly seen to paving the social roads for his brother until Lan Wangji could be handed off to a new extrovert.
“I’ll send a message tomorrow so we can work out when to schedule tea. Right now you still have two more mooncakes to try, and I need to see someone else react to the snow-skin one.”