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Lan Wangji remembers a time when great beasts flew in the sky to disrupt the calmness that engulfs him.
Lithe bodies spanned the sky, the force of their flight tickling his hairs when he dares to venture above the surface. It would always be worth it; to see their iridescent scales, darker than his own, breathing in the daylight and shimmering with the undulations of their leathered tails and necks. Trailing behind them, like an entity of their own, are long wisps of whiskers, shaping their path for all to admire.
And when they breathe their ire, the sky glows with their wrath. Lan Wangji had no name for it, only a bated breath. The heat would travel with the waves, and touch his soaked skin. It would be years later that the reverent whispers piercing the murky depths of his home would give acknowledgement of these divine creatures.
Dragons.
Lan Wangji is tranquillity embodied in all its glories and its curses. A still gradient ranging from the shallows pierced by blades of light to the darkness that skims the core of their land. Lan Wangji is serenity incarnate, a frozen line that has never bent high enough or low enough to taste the heady relief of catharsis. Trouble won’t touch him, excitement won’t find him, and he’s never ventured at the right time to earn the privilege of meeting a storm. The silence of the deep sea is his only constant companion.
Despite that, he closes his eyes and sketches the sky with the same glow that he saw from long ago. Time hums on and he refuses to forget.
Then he meets a child.
A child who dives into his merciless home to capture his sister lost to him. A small cretin against the endless sea, gasping and reaching with small hands for another body that’s jerking and clawing at her own throat. Their hands strain to grasp each other.
The boy struggles, but his intent does not falter. Lan Wangji can see that glint in his eye, burning impossibly bright like a little koi fish swimming against the current of the Yellow River.
Lan Wangji tilts his head. He has perseverance, one that will be wasted in his home.
With a billow of his tail, he surges forwards, jerking the children in surprise. He sweeps them into his arms – tiny critters compared to the creatures that lurks under – and swims towards the aimless boat floating on the surface.
Once their heads break the sea level, Lan Wangji is gone. At least from their sight.
Down below, he watches them scramble onto their tiny boat and closes his eyes, sketching behind his eyelids the glimmering intent of the child that dared to dive into the sea.
~
The child comes again and again. Day after day he rows to where Lan Wangji found them and waits until the sun sinks into the ocean before rowing back to shore.
Waiting for him, he realizes while curiosity lingers in his belly, now why would such a cretin do that?
One day, he breaks the surface and startles the boy. Their eyes meet. Moments pass where there’s nothing between them but the humming sea singing its peaceful lullabies. The child then breathes in, and garbles.
Not a garble, Lan Wangji realises, but coordinated speech. A pattern exists. The child communicates through speech.
He chooses which words to remember and which words to forget. Thank you, he remembers the boy saying, flapping his arms everywhere. He points to himself, garbles again, and Lan Wangji wisely picks up the word he repeats over and over, with heated insistence and the familiar glint in his eyes. Wen Cheng.
Lan Wangji stares. Then he tilts his head, and repeats in his head, careful in his lilt and intonation, Wen Cheng.
Wen Cheng jolts back, rocking the boat in the process and grips the edges in an effort to stop tipping over. Chest heaving, his eyes roam all around them, before realizing that it’s only them within the near vicinity and nods furiously while repeating his name. His speech warps, gesturing back to the shore, and Lan Wangji understands that the child needs to go back.
He submerges himself back into the ocean, feeling the cool water hug his whole body long before Wen Cheng paddles himself back to shore. This time, instead of dragons twisting through the sky, he pictures a spiky-haired boy on a rocking boat when he closes his eyes.
The sound rings through his head. Wen Cheng.
~
Lan Wangji is as constant as the still sea. For as long as he can remember, he simply existed.
Wen Cheng shifts and changes in a way that never wades back, unless it’s to return to him. He comes again and comes often enough for Lan Wangji to start blurring the moments between his sprouting height and his growing abundance of hair and his animated facial expressions and his flurry of garbles.
With every visit, it becomes easier to string the sounds that Wen Cheng vocalizes with meaning. Black, Wen Cheng says pointing to his own hair. Black, he says as he gestures to Lan Wangji’s own hair. He picks at his outer robe. Red, he describes. He gestures to great expanse of the sea around them. Blue, he whispers, awe tinging his word.
The word rings in his head, slotting into place. Finally, he finds a word to pinpoint the calming sea around him.
Lan Wangji swims in closer, rests his arms on the edges of the boat and raises his tail. Wen Cheng seems transfixed at the glimmering scales that blinks back at him. Blue? Lan Wangji asks, even though not a single muscle on his face twitches.
Feeling the word reverberate in his mind must be a strange experience, but it doesn’t stop Wen Cheng from nodding, and repeating the word again. His pale fingers touch the water, before mischief twists his mouth into a smirk and, with a slap of his hand, splashes water on Lan Wangji.
Lan Wangji blinks with a measure of incredulity. A measly human splashing a creature of water…with water.
Lan Wangji is not sure if the cretin is courageous or a complete fool.
Meanwhile, Wen Cheng snickers until he curls into himself. He is too busy to notice Lan Wangji lifting his tail in an ominous gesture of impending vengeance.
A huge body of water crashes into him and Wen Cheng yelps, the wave rocking the boat and soaking him through. His soggy bangs blocks his eyesight, so he lifts it up with one petulant hand to glare at Lan Wangji.
There is a tickle of Lan Wangji’s chest. Amusement. It’s something he hasn’t felt in such a long time. It’s something he feels often when Wen Cheng comes around, and it’s something that draws him closer to the shore, treading until the ground breaks into tiny grains that sifts through his fingers.
One night, Wen Cheng visits him with a metal lantern housing a candle inside. Lan Wangji is immediately drawn to it, transfixed by its glowing beauty.
Fire, Wen Cheng explains to him while showing him the candle. Then Wen Cheng brings his fingers up, a ball of red, orange, and yellow dances out before dissipating into the air. Fire, Wen Cheng repeats again, this time with pride straightening his shoulders.
Lan Wangji is breathless, a feeling akin to tasting the lightness of air after hours of breathing in dense water. One word travels round his mind, mixing with the only memory that can turn his heartbeat into rapid thuds. Dragonborn.
The deep rumble echoes through Wen Cheng’s mind, bringing a surge of giddiness through him. Preening under his attention, Wen Cheng changes the shape of his fingers. Watch, he says.
This time, the shape is reminiscent of dragons rising into the sky. The color of the fire is blue, not like the sea that he buoys in, but like his tail, like the day sky, burning bright and enchanting.
For once Lan Wangji feels his tongue drying in want and he aches to lift his finger to touch it.
~
As time flows on, Lan Wangji begins seeing the colour red as Wen Cheng. He begins seeing fire as Wen Cheng.
Wen Cheng’s visits grow infrequent, his stories grow heavy with an emotion that threatens to sink his boat into the depths of the ocean.
War, Wen Cheng rasps out while burying his face in his hands. My shixiongs and shidis, he sobs out a couple of visits later.
Lan Wangji feels a pull to the shore, scanning the surface for a speck of red. One day, Wen Cheng staggers onto the sea line with no boat in sight. His gait waivers as his feet splashes clumsily and water rises to his waist.
The trail he leaves is red, but not in a way that Lan Wangji is familiar with.
Lan Wangji meets him halfway. He swims until the bottom of his tail grinds against the sand shallows, and catches Wen Cheng when he falls, wrapping his arms around Wen Cheng’s waist to support his limp weight. Wen Cheng’s breathing is sluggish, his skin pallid and cold, with none of the usual warmth he emanates. Lan Wangji glance at one of his hands. Red streaks his fingers.
Wen Cheng buries his face into the crook of Lan Wangji’s neck. One more time, he whispers while his chest heaves and drags his breath. See you one more time.
Emotions bleed out of Wen Cheng’s tone: longing, then fulfillment, then peace. The thumping in his chest grows calmer with every swish of the waves. It drives Lan Wangji’s own heart into a frenzy.
Wen Cheng is strength and perseverance; his love for his Jiejie and shixiongs and shidis as enduring as the koi rising to the top of the Yellow River, his will as tough as the scales adorning a dragon’s body– tough enough to drive a broken body crawling back to Lan Wangji. Wen Cheng is fire and smoke, the heart of the flames that painted the sky red, his warmth rushing and pulsing under every inch of his skin.
He should not be so cold.
Something twists in the coils of his gut. Lan Wangji tucks Wen Cheng close to him, and pulls him deeper into the ocean until the water laps at their necks.
After one hundred years of jumping against the flow of the stream, one koi fish had reached the top of the waterfall, impressing the gods with its resilience and determination. The gods blessed the koi and turned it into the image of power and strength; a golden dragon.
Lan Wangji knows that there’s magic within the depths of the waters, the same one that suffused life into him and threaded his blue tail piece by piece. The ocean will look upon Wen Cheng and admire his vitality. It will admire his soul. The ocean will look upon Wen Cheng, and smile, and it will give Wen Cheng what he’s due.
The ocean will turn his red fire blue. Dragonborn.
Lan Wangji clings to Wen Cheng, and dives into the depths of the sea.
Ever since she could remember, Wen Cheng was always chasing after Wen Qing. She would grab A-Cheng’s hand, and tug the little boy along. Together, they would run side by side, and the joy that flooded through the siblings could encompass the burning mountains that overlook the seas. But she knew, as they grew, in expectations and skill, A-Cheng would always run ahead by the gift of talent and hard-work, and Wen Qing had to muster everything in her not to worry and forbid her precious Didi from running into harm's way.
It has been months since Wen Qing chased the trail of blood into the shorelines.
Sitting in her row boat with tired red eyes watching the vast body of water, Wen Qing can’t help but remember the time she fell into the ocean and her Didi had plunged after her in all his desperation. Grief rattles Wen Qing like an earthquake. She used to love watching the sun dip into the waters; she knew A-Cheng did too. Now, sorrow has dulled her admiration for the sea into a feeling of vacancy.
“Where did you go, didi ?” Wen Qing croaks, hollowness in every word. “Why can’t I find you?”
Her breathing turns ragged. She rubs the tears out of her eyes, and when she puts her hands down, she jolts backwards, eyes widening in surprise.
She meets the gaze of a mermaid with his alluring beauty, and generous heart. The same one that saved her and A-Cheng all those years ago.
“You!” Wen Qing gasps. Remembering the years of etiquette beaten into her head, she flushes. “ Forgive me,” Wen Qing mumbles. “That was rude me. I never thanked you for saving me all those years ago – so uhm,” she bites her lips, and pours all the sincerity she can squeeze from her tired body, “thank you.”
The mermaid tilts his head slightly, and Wen Qing admires the blue streaks on his chin and his cheekbones. Then, the mermaid slips closer to her boat, and offers his hand with his palm up.
Confusion runs through Wen Qing. “Umm,” she hesitates. “Are we shaking hands…?”
The mermaid stares back unblinking, but expecting.
“Okay,” Wen Qing decides. Drowning the tiny thread of uncertainty inside of her, she takes the mermaid’s hand and squeezes lightly, expecting a handshake.
Instead, she gets hauled into ocean.
Air whooshes out of her. Her eyesight blurs with water. The mermaid tackles his waist downwards, and Wen Qing can feel pressure building above her.
Her lungs squeeze and struggle, but before she can rake her hands down the mermaid’s back to free herself, she feels cold lips pressing into her own. Her chest shudders in for a breath, and Wen Qing doesn’t let go. Channeling spiritual energy into her eyes, her vision sharpens until she can see the mermaid around whose neck she wrapped her arms.
What are you doing?! She wants to scream, but she’s unwilling to release herself into the darkness. Her heart pounds against her ribs.
Then the mermaid’s hold against her waist tightens. That is her only warning before her vision is obstructed by a rush of color. A long body with red scales and black splotches and spikes travelling across the top. Wen Qing follows the spikes, turning her head to see red fins, drifting whiskers, slim horns, a fearsome snout and –
Eyes that glints familiarly. Amethyst eyes so dark, it bleeds into black. Like A-Cheng’s eyes did.
Wen Qing wheezes out her only supply of air. The mermaid has to grasp her chin, reel her in and inflate her lungs again.
Wen Qing knows her myths, has memorized them all by heart. After being saved by a mermaid, Wen Qing knows better than to strike off myths as untrue. For all the stories about dragons, none of them had ever mentioned one that nests within the sea.
The dragon curls his body around Wen Qing and the mermaid, twisting until the tip of his sharp tail floats in front of Wen Qing. An image flashes through Wen Qing, of her brother reaching out to grasp her hand; of A-Cheng reaching out to tug Wen Qing so they can run with each other, side by side.
With an unsteady hand, Wen Qing reaches forward, and runs the tip of her fingers down A-Cheng’s tail.
Its solidity wracks a sob out of her chest. Wen Qing cuts the energy to her eyes and she can’t tell if it’s weight of water or relief gurgling her. She doesn’t particularly care at this moment.
Closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around the mermaid’s neck, she can tell the exact second the ocean breaks away to the surface. Fighting to fill her lungs with air, Wen Qing clings to the mermaid like her brother once did, months ago.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she chants at the mermaid like a fervent prayer, hands clenched and voice broken. Tears trickle out of her shut eyes to mix with the beads of water on her face. “Thank you for saving my brother.”
~