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blackthorn tree

Summary:

It began on the battlefield, deep within the screeching of ghosts with too much resentment and not enough power to unleash it upon the world. That was where the man in mourning white that stood in the center of it came in.

From the shadows of a scorched and fallen tree, a soldier in black robes and a bone-white mask observed silently.

Notes:

Wuming week days 4, 6, & 7: devotion/faith, masks/disguises, promises, wuming pov, and canon divergence. and yes, the title is inspired by hozier’s nfwmb. sometimes i succumb to my baser instincts

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:

It began on the battlefield, deep within the screeching of ghosts with too much resentment and not enough power to unleash it upon the world. That was where the man in mourning white that stood in the center of it came in. All he needed was enough hatred to fill his sluggish meridians with power again. All he needed was enough unchecked fury to decimate a small country.

He welcomed the dead soldiers’ putrid black hate into the sword that was an extension of himself; he let it fill up to his fingertips until his skin crawled with the familiar weight of the pain of thousands.

From the shadows of a scorched and fallen tree, a soldier in black robes and a bone-white mask observed silently.

-

Xie Lian didn’t know what to do with the quiet, intense loyalty that Wuming followed him around with, he knew. They wandered battlefields, the ruins of manors and temples, searching for the leftover resentment of the dead. Wuming patiently watched Xie Lian conduct his rituals of feeding off the dark energies of the barren places they found themselves in. When he was finished, he always looked pale and shaky, though not from sickliness—rather, from an overabundance of power.

The first couple of times, Wuming suggested that—if His Highness would allow him—he could calm the ghosts’ restlessness in his meridians until it was needed. Xie Lian’s only response was “Don’t call me that.”

“Then how should this servant address his master?”

“Not at all. Just do as I say.”

Wuming bowed his head. “I swear to follow Your Highness to the end.”

Of what, he could not say. His own afterlife, surely. Xie Lian’s, certainly, though he could not imagine a world in which the Flower-Crowned Martial God no longer roamed. And if that was the case, then he must mean the end of the world as well.

Xie Lian sneered. He seemed to give up his argument for the time being as he turned his back and continued his work of coaxing the spirits of the abandoned shrine they were hiding in to emerge and join him.

Regardless of how much hatred he could collect from the lingering dead around him, Wuming always thought he looked like a cup tipped on its side with all its contents spilled out afterward.

-

There was an exhilaration that came with killing on the behest of Xie Lian’s orders. With the spark that set the Yong’an palace ablaze, so too did a feeling of dry kindling being set alight fill Wuming’s gut. It had flickered awake with the death of that imposter king, but it flared alive as they fled the dying building.

Beneath the mask, Wuming smiled at the sight of the paint peeling off the walls in large strips, of the foundations crumbling to ash. When the flames began to chase toward the rest of the city, Xie Lian turned. This was Wuming’s cue to follow.

“Stop acting so smug,” Xie Lian said, as soon as the crackling of the fire faded into the distance.

“Your Highness must know that he is the only true ruler of this land.”

Xie Lian cut a glance over his shoulder. “I could disperse you for your insolence.”

Wuming’s smile faltered. He barely heard the threat in his god’s words. But the lack of faith they implied was clear.

It was true that a soldier’s most important duty was to place his whole devotion in service to his prince. But what use was that devotion when His Highness could not see its purpose for himself?

Wuming wished Xie Lian could see himself illuminated in the light of the burning Yong’an capital. He wished he could picture the crown of his head as it was wreathed in gold just like the statues of his young glory.

He still contained that light within him; Wuming could see it. He could feel it, in every step Xie Lian took and in the air he breathed. Xie Lian may not notice it in himself, but that was alright for now.

-

“Why do you wear that mask?”

Wuming didn’t respond immediately. He continued to press his fingers into the soft pressure points of Xie Lian’s arm, soothing away the turmoil of thousands of dead Xianle citizens that seethed just beneath the surface. The Yong’an king’s death had agitated them to the point that Xie Lian was forced to concede to Wuming’s administrations.

He sat half in the shadows, his knees drawn to his chest in imitation of a scared child. Wrapped up in his heavy white robes, with his hair falling in dark curtains around his drawn face, he appeared engulfed by his own image of calamity.

“Why do you wear it? What do you have to hide?”

Wuming cast his gaze down, though Xie Lian couldn’t see it. “Shouldn’t a servant mimic his master?”

“Are you mocking me?”

“Never, Your Highness.”

Xie Lian scoffed but did not respond. Wuming’s hands trailed down the rest of his arm and lingered on his hand. Sensing his pause, Xie Lian stiffened.

His god’s words ringing in his ears, Wuming ducked his head and pressed the cold surface of his mask to the back of Xie Lian’s hand in the ghost of a kiss. Instantly, Xie Lian retracted his hand as his leg shot out. His foot made contact with Wuming’s shoulder, knocking him to the ground.

“What are you doing?”

Wuming didn’t speak.

There was a waver to his voice as he brought his hand back to his chest. “Show me your face.”

“This is my face, Your Highness.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Slowly, Wuming rose back onto his knees. He kept his head bowed. “I don’t mock Your Highness. In this soldier’s eyes, you are the only true—”

Before he could finish, a hand shot out and grabbed onto the edge of the mask. Xie Lian tore it off in one clean motion and tossed it to the side, next to his own crying-smiling mask.

Wuming’s hand shot up to cover his face, but Xie Lian was quicker and grabbed his wrists. They both froze. For an excruciating moment, Wuming was viciously aware of his hair pulled neatly out of his face and his wide, frantic eyes that he couldn’t seem to tear from Xie Lian’s own searing gaze.

He seemed to be searching for something. But there was never a moment of clarity that softened his expression. Eventually, he let go of Wuming’s wrists and rose to his feet. “You’re a poor mirror, but at least that makes you something. Put it back on.”

He kicked the mask toward Wuming. By the time he picked it up with shaking hands and fixed it back on his face, Xie Lian had walked off deeper into the shadows of his seclusion.

-

Wuming couldn’t stop Xie Lian from running himself through with a sword, nor from lying in a shallow grave for two days, but he did appear on the day that he knew Xie Lian intended to release the Human Face Disease. He never really left as his god ordered him to—rather, he melted into the shadows until he thought it necessary to reveal himself, as was his role—so he found Xie Lian quickly.

At first, when Wuming approached the human-sized ditch in the center of that small village, Xie Lian didn’t react. He stared glassy-eyed and unblinking up at the sky, letting the rain patter quietly on his slack face and mingle with the dirt and blood caking his robes. Wuming watched silently.

Then, Xie Lian took a shuddering breath. The black sword pierced through his torso rose shakily with his chest. Fresh blood began to trickle anew out of the wound. His hand reached up to grip at the blade, but it wasn’t even strong enough to cut on the smooth-sharp edge.

That was all the prompting Wuming needed to reach forward and slowly grip the hilt and pull the sword out of the fallen god’s body. Despite the undeniable brutality of the action, the way Xie Lian’s breath hitched and his blood rushed back to fill the new void in his body, Wuming’s movements were graceful, almost reverent. When the last centimeter of the sword had been carefully extracted, he tossed it to the side without another glance.

Xie Lian didn’t rise. He hardly moved, though it appeared he was trying his best to suppress the convulsions of his dying body. It just made him look even more like a stiff corpse.

When he spoke, his voice was as small and frail as a flower petal picked up on the wind. “No one came.”

Wuming’s gaze was heavy and silent. “Your Highness, I did.”

This time, his voice cracked cleanly down the middle. “No one came.”

-

Xie Lian anticipated his own ascension before it happened. Perhaps it was because he had already experienced it once before, but as he stood in the center of the storm of black smoke and howling voices, he turned his face to the sky.

Wuming noticed, of course. He pushed blindly through the driving rain and disorienting screams until he found himself before Xie Lian. Xie Lian lowered his gaze just enough so Wuming could see the frenzied look in his eyes.

“They’re calling me,” he said. “They want me to return.”

“Does Your Highness wish to return?”

The arm that was raised high in the air brandishing Fang Xin trembled. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Where Your Highness goes, this believer will follow.”

Xie Lian’s eyes widened. In his hand, Fang Xin began to slip. But before it could fall, Wuming’s hand shot up and closed around Xie Lian’s on the hilt, steadying it. The sword thrummed with so much power that it consumed all his senses. With so many splintering, putrid curses rushing through the dark blade and running through Xie Lian’s body like an electric current, Wuming couldn’t help the wave of despair that overcame him for a moment, imagining the state of suffering the crown prince must have endured for so long.

But now, looking upon Xie Lian’s face, his gaze seemed clear. The rain had washed away much of the dirt and blood that had accumulated on his body.

There was a building feeling of warmth flowing through every corner of Wuming’s body—like golden light pouring into the cracks, sealing them up, and spilling over.

So as Xie Lian ascended in the center of the storm of his own creation, Wuming followed.

A ghost could roam the earth for as long as it could cling to its love and anger. The heavens never rewarded that sort of ugly devotion.

But that was what made a ghost a ghost. It didn’t care for the approval of heaven, or of humanity. Only the one. Only ever the one it searched for, and once it was received—that was more than enough.

-

Heaven had never seen an ascension like that of the second White-Clothed Calamity and his masked servant. It was a burst of light and the crack of thunder, the collective shuddering of every gilded palace, and the terror of each heavenly official plain to see on their faces.

Nobody dared to interrupt the Calamity’s solemn march to the Emperor’s throne room. Even if they had wanted to, his black-clad soldier cleared the way with wide, threatening swings of his silver blade, daring anyone to get close. Still, a hushed procession of heavenly officials began to form as they made their way through the sparkling gardens, over the golden bridges, and up the hundreds of stairs to the very edge of heaven and its power.

The crowd stopped at the threshold of the throne room as the Calamity and his shadow continued on to the foot of the empty throne itself. Beneath the immensity of its shadow, he craned his head to take it all in. The soldier positioned himself a step back and to his left, his sword tucked neatly behind his back and ready for use.

It only took the space of an intake of breath for the murmuring of the heavenly officials to start up again. But this time, they were prayers of relief and thanks.

The soldier turned around, his sword already raised. The air in the room had begun to spark and crackle with a raw, concentrated energy that he had only ever felt a handful of times before. Except, this time it was an overwhelming sensation of light, so hot and brilliant it was painful to stay in the presence of.

“Xianle,” Jun Wu began calmly. “What are you here to prove?”

Shock and confusion rippled through the heavenly court with reckless abandon. From the crowd, one martial god pushed through to the front, a demand of “What the fuck?” sharp off his tongue. “Your Highness?”

Slowly, Xie Lian turned on his heel, surveying the masses of the court with a cold expression. “Were you not the one who called me here again?”

Wuming edged closer to Xie Lian, moving to stand a few steps in front of him. He stared Jun Wu down the edge of his blade.

Jun Wu’s lips stretched into a smile. And it clicked.

The energies were the same—only reversed. The suffocating dark was the same as the blinding light. A ghost recognized one of its own, regardless of how it was dressed up or what precious things it surrounded itself with to hide its wanting nature.

“Your Highness,” Wuming said under his breath.

No words he spoke could convey all that he knew. So he only gestured with a slight turn of his head to Fang Xin held loosely in Xie Lian’s hand.

Xie Lian seemed to hesitate before raising it to inspect it. Its excitement was obvious from the way it shivered in his hands as if wanting to leap out and return to its master.

“Xianle,” Jun Wu repeated. His voice was as warm and smooth as honey poured down a sore throat. “Let’s stop pretending.”

Xie Lian raised Fang Xin again. Though it shook, it pointed directly at Jun Wu’s heart and left no room for interpretation or negotiation. “Yes,” he murmured. “Let’s.”

-

A rejection of godhood was swift and final. It did not involve any spilling of light or converging of darkness, though it garnered twice as much renown as the ascension that came before it.

Xie Lian did not attack Jun Wu. Neither did he order Wuming to, and so he didn’t. True to his word, when Xie Lian stepped out of the shadow of the throne, so too did Wuming follow. And when Xie Lian stood on the edge of the gilded staircase with no railing, overlooking the thick clouds and distant mountain ranges of the mortal realm below, Wuming took his place beside him. The entire heavenly court watched with bated breath.

Who jumped first, no one could tell. But all that was left in their wake was an oil-black sword rusty with its abandoned resentment and the bitter aftertaste of a ghost’s unpalatable, undying faith.

-

Xie Lian stood on the edge of an old battlefield that was beginning to grow infested with weeds. Since the last time they were here, little green shoots had curled up from between the churned wet earth. Soon enough it would be entirely overgrown with new plants and animals, a wild place of life and living by all things that weren’t human. Perhaps it would be cultivated into farmland—rice paddies or wheat fields, a source of nourishment for the people of this new country.

Wuming stood behind him, a silent, stoic figure. When Xie Lian moved forward, Wuming took another step in the same direction in tandem.

He paused on his first step. He didn’t say anything, but a deep sigh seemed to overtake him, rolling through his body and relaxing some of the tension it held. He reached for the mask fixed on his face. Wuming watched his hand—slim fingers with knuckles and veins more pronounced than they used to be—take off the mask and drop it unceremoniously in the dirt by his feet.

When he turned around, the shadows of his hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes appeared more prominent than ever. There was still that frigid regality to his expression, the kind of beauty that was too fierce to gaze at directly for too long. Wuming, in anticipation of receiving an order, lowered his head and sank to one knee.

There was a moment, heavy in the air, in which Xie Lian took the handful of steps necessary to stand directly before Wuming. A breath held between the both of them that drew out and grew impossibly thin, until—

A hand—with broken nails and skin peeling delicately off the palm—reached out and rested on the smooth white cheek of Wuming’s mask. Fingers curled against his jaw, guiding his face gently up.

He was greeted with the sight of Xie Lian’s steady, teary gaze. In the flaring light of the sun over the battlefield, his eyes were still as deep and golden as they ever were. His lips parted as if to speak, but nothing came out, and so he pressed them tight again. Instead, he raised his other hand to cup the other side of Wuming’s face, so that he was holding his head in his hands. Wuming stayed impossibly still.

Twin tears caught on Xie Lian’s lashes and fell silently onto Wuming’s mask. They slipped down the cheeks of that smooth surface, giving the soldier the appearance of perfect mimicry.

Underneath the mask, the ghost stared. If he could convey his thoughts through those unblinking eyes—one coal-black, the other demon red, both smoldering with the kind of fervency only a dead man still clinging to the living could hold—then perhaps those tears wouldn’t have to grace the white of his mask at all.

As he gazed down at Wuming, something seemed to shift in the prince’s expression. He softened, or he hardened. He lost something, or gained another. Either way, his thumb reached out to wipe one of the already-dried tears from the ghost’s mask. It lingered there, seeming to caress his false face.

He opened his mouth—those lips, bitten raw and bloody and yet still so alive and human with the breath that touched them—and this time, they actually managed to form silent words.

Wuming, he murmured. Wuming.

He was rocking gently back and forth, his hands cradling his soldier’s head, murmuring like a devout worshipper lost in prayer.

This ghost wishes he could find a voice, I want to say so many things, I want, I want, I want. Your Highness, I understand your everything. I’ve seen it all, I have always watched you. Your Highness, I will continue to follow you for as long as you will allow me. I am forever your most devoted believer. It’s the only truth I know.

Trembling, Wuming raised his hands and buried them in Xie Lian’s robe—white-knuckled in white cloth. He clawed, and neither was sure whether it was to pull himself out of his kneeling position or to bring his god down to his own level.

It didn’t matter, it really didn’t. Xie Lian stopped his rocking and Wuming’s hands stopped trembling, and neither moved, neither let go.

They simply looked, and saw. In those gazes, one carried a regret, one a promise. Both were a kind of unveiling. Both were a kind of faith.

Notes:

mxtx: yeah xl knew wuming for like 3 days lol they committed just a couple atrocities together
me: wow can u believe the fraught fucked up and ever so delicious dynamic that calamity xie lian and wuming had that spanned at least several weeks. can u imagine all the spicy atrocities and genocide

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