Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian, the eldest of the Elder Gods, the firstborn of Titan Wen Rouhan, was once a bright and happy Divine praised by the world. His youthful adventures were told by the tongues of every merchant, whispered in the ears of children, spoken of during meal times and during times of cold and hunger. He was praised. He was loved.

People told stories of his first great feat, of him killing a beast that threatened the life of Man. People whispered about how beautiful he was, about how he was grace and beauty and light.

Eventually, he became scorned by the people, his praise turning to rotten fruit in the humans’ mouths, spat out in disgust for how he disappeared from the world the moment the Titans began to rule with a tighter fist. He was hated just as much as he used to be loved, the people believing their savior had left them.

The hatred did not leave their minds once he finally reappeared, surrounded by siblings the humans had never met before. The humans saw him, a man once so beloved to them, who had left them with nothing but blood and fear. When they heard how he had helped them, how he and his youngest brother had worked together to land the final killing blow upon their father, they spat out that it was ‘about time’.

Their once beloved Wei Wuxian—Wei Ying to those who still tended to his temples and still cared for his blessed land—had fallen from grace.

It was a simple thing, once the war had ended and their father’s body lay sliced in pieces at the bottom of the deepest part of the Underworld, to divide the realms between the six siblings. There were three major realms to be chosen: the Ocean, with all of its inhabitants and life forms bustling to and fro; the Skies, filled with light and clouds, freedom and peace, yet bringing with them also the responsibility to those who lived below it; and the Underworld, land of hatred, land of pain and rot and nothing worth ruling.

Three sticks of different lengths were gathered by their only sister to represent each of the three major realms and placed in the sand equally distant from each other. Wei Ying, as the Eldest, should have rightfully gone first by order of birth. But, with eyes the color of moonlight and knowledge he should not have had, chose to go last. He only wanted what was best for them, and he was well aware that the Underworld, in all its horror, was an option to be chosen.

His darling sister was the first to choose. She took slow graceful steps between each stick,  tracking how close the bottom of her chiton got to the sticks, before stepping away from the points in the sand. With a low hum, and eyes kinder than Wei Ying could ever remember the sun being, she ran her finger along the closest stick rising from the sand before dropping her hand back to the golden girdle keeping her chiton up.

Her smile stayed on her face, gentle and kind like everything his sister embodied.

(In the shadow of her smile, Wei Ying could see their mother. Could remember being rocked by her as a baby, all tiny and wrinkled and screaming. He could hear her humming to him, singing the song of her heart to him, calming the squealing baby that couldn't sleep throughout the night without the warm press of his mother's arms around him.

“Shhh, A-Ying,” she would say, pressing a kiss against his forehead and swaying side to side, rocking him even as he kept screaming. “The dark is cold, and the dark is scary, but without the dark there isn't light. Sleep, little one, mother will be your light, and in time, you will be mother’s light.”

He would quiet down and listen to the humming, to the rhythm, to the sound of his beloved mother's voice.)

“I do not want a realm, or a kingdom,” his sister confessed, her voice as gentle as Wei Ying remembered their mother’s being, way back when she still loved her children (back when she was still willing to fight for them, back when she saw nothing but good in them—).

When Wei Ying focused back on his sister, he saw her gently caressing their youngest brother’s cheeks, her eyes filled with the affection of a mother and elder sister combined in an image of beauty and grace.

“I only want to provide a home for us to return to.”

And so, the least likely role for an Elder God—one of the original Gods—to choose, was taken by their beloved sister.

She, the only sister of the Elders, Jiang Yanli, became the Goddess of the Home and Hearth.

Since they were choosing by ages, Song Lan was up to choose next.

With the sun shining down bright upon the six siblings, Wei Ying closed his eyes for a moment. He basked in the warmth shining on his skin, listened to the gentle lap of waves ringing out upon the empty and deserted land around them, and felt the edges of the water brush against the edge of his feet.

As his eyes slid open, they turned to gaze at his younger brother for a moment before falling to the waves beside the two of them. His silver eyes looked out upon the blue vastness stretched out before him. It went as far as his eyes could see, past where he knew it should end. ‘A fine realm to rule,’ he idly thought. It was a powerful realm that stretched beyond the limits of power any of them deserved. Vast, unending, full of citizens to protect. Where the Earth and Sky lacked inhabitants, the Ocean was near bursting with them, life taking form despite the tyrant that did everything in his power to stop the growth of independent life forms.

Any of his brothers would rule that kingdom well, would protect the differences its forms represented, would love them despite their oddities.

He heard the crunch of sand under feet, causing his head to turn from the ocean full of memories to the form of Song Lan. So silent, the boy. Wei Ying could count on one hand the number of times his brother had spoken, preferring to cling to his siblings and have them speak for him instead.

Now his brother stood beside the stick furthest inland, his shoulders pulled back and his arms crossed in front of his chest. He was firm and absolute in his decision.

‘A strong boy,’ Wei Ying thought, gazing at the same man he could remember as a baby sucking at his hair and calling him Father. ‘I’m proud of what he’s become.’

Next, since they were following the order of birth—and subsequent swallowing—would be Jin Zixuan.

Despite growing up in their father’s stomach like the others had (all but Jiang Cheng, that is), Jin Zixuan was a prideful man. A prideful man who Wei Ying still loved, still raised like the rest of his little siblings. But also a prideful man who he could happily go the rest of eternity without seeing ever again.

The years in their father’s stomach had done little to mellow out the haughtiness he had inherited from their father, even though those years had seemed to drag on for an eternity. Wei Ying was proud of being out of that place, no longer stuck inclose quarters with the boy, even if it felt wrong to feel so.

(Even if Wei Ying knew, years from now, he would lay in the land of the dead and wish for the sound of his brothers' scoffs and complaints about how their father really must stop eating so much food because it really began to stink in there.)

When the man spoke, his voice was laced with the condescending tone of someone taking what they believed they deserved. “I don't want a realm.”

Wei Ying’s breath caught in his throat, his expectations mixing with the visage of the man he saw before him. ‘Maybe the years outside of Father’s stomach did him good,’ Wei Ying thought, watching how the prideful man seemed to both shrink under his gaze and straighten up. He seemed to be saying ‘Look at me!’ to Wei Ying with his eyes alone, dragging him along until the only thing he could see was what his brother wanted him to see.

The feeling of tears welling in the corner of his eyes wasn't able to pull him away from what shone in his brother’s eyes. It was devotion, and love, and pride, and everything Wei Ying could never remember seeing in his gaze before.

(And yet his eyes still burned, tears gathered at the edges. Tears of happiness, of regret, of everything he wished he could confess but knew he never would. His eyes burned, for he knew their other brother would not take a realm. They burned knowing that it would lead to what he hoped it would.

It burned because he did not need to fight them for his torture once more.)

“I want to marry,” his brother said, his arms folding resolutely across his chest, willing to fight another army of Divine simply to get his way. This spoiled little brat, this darling little boy Wei Ying raised so well.

Just like Song Lan, Jin Zixuan would not falter in his choice.

“I want to marry and have children with my partner.”

The siblings rested in the silence of dusk for a few minutes, waves taking up the sound that would have been their voices had any of them wished to speak. The waves sounded loud in the echoing nothing, reverberating in a way that told of secrets and mistakes left in each crash and pulled away with each lull.

“And who,” asked their youngest brother, Jiang Cheng, “is it that you will marry?”

With tired eyes, filled with a knowing glint that even his sister could not understand, Wei Ying watched. He watched as they fell into a bickering argument, Jiang Cheng launching at their brother to rub at his head and his arms in a playfully angry manner.

The years felt heavy on his shoulders, and still Wei Ying stood before his siblings, the oldest of them all. He was proud of the happiness they could experience now, proud of the love and adoration they felt free to share. He was proud of the torment they never had to face, happy to see love in their eyes instead of anger or pain.

He had protected them, cocooned them in his warmth and love inside of their Father’s stomach. He had kept them safe from the words they could hear but not make out. He had made sure they felt his love, even as their very first memory from infancy was the feeling of a throat swallowing around them and leaving them in a dark and empty place, filled with stink and hatred but with two gentle shadows, an older brother and sister, who would rock them to sleep and sing to them.

They didn't know the horrors their father committed when they were in his stomach, and it was only once they left the dank darkness and saw each other for the first time that they could see what the darkness of their Father’s stomach had hidden from them.

Where Jiang Yanli’s eyes were full of joy and life, where Song Lan’s had wonder and curiosity, where Jin Zixuan’s had pride and rage, where Meng Yao’s had cunning and understanding… Wei Ying’s eyes were like the blank surface of a mirror. Reflecting all they saw, but never truly feeling anything.

It wasn't until then that they understood just what their Eldest meant when he said it was better inside the stomach than out on land.

He had seen—experienced—the horrors under their Father’s ruling more than they ever had. They all knew, either through stories told by their brother or by whispers from the lips of Divine and human alike, that Wei Ying had not always been in their Father’s stomach.

He had been allowed to grow where they had not, to place his feet in the loose sands of time and his hands in the waves of fate, in the waves of a world that bowed before him. He had jumped between mountains, ridden on clouds of light and night, laid his face to rest in the valley of the early realm, and at one point, had felt the love of a Father who saw him as a gift more than a curse.

But Wei Ying was so much more than a curse or a blessing. Wei Ying was the start of a new generation, a generation meant to replace one that had stolen its power from the one before. Wei Ying understood that fate would change, understood that his father would not be there to protect him for his whole life. He had dipped his hands in the waves of fate and come back scarred from the threads that had wrapped around his being and pulled him in.

He had dipped his hands in the waves of fate, sunk under the loose sands of time, and had experienced a vision worse than death.

He had been given the freedom that a firstborn should bask in, and basked he had.

Until he had taken pity on a nameless child of another Titan, another being that was like him but not quite the same, and had shown him how to run and live with the freedom he had so loved.

He had been given the freedom of a firstborn until he had started showing signs of emotions more fitting for humans than Titans. Until he had begun to show emotions like the things they had taunted, and had tortured, and had seen as less than them.

(To Wei Ying, humans had always been so much more than playthings. His Father saw them as —)

His Father had seen Wei Ying’s actions, had seen his hands coaxing out smiles from this fellow child of the Divine, and had seen it right to punish him. He had wanted to toughen up his eldest—his only—child. His only son.

So his Father, in all of his might and glory, had tossed his son down into the dark abyss of the Underworld. A dark place, known to bring rot to any Divine that touched it, known to melt whatever makes someone Divine into absolutely nothing.

And so, according to his Divine Father’s ruling, he fell.

And fell.

And fell.

Andfellandfellandfellandfellandfell—

Up until this day, with his siblings surrounding him and sticks left to choose, he still doesn’t know how long he fell for. He can never remember an impact, nor can he remember what it felt like to be invaded by the coldness the Underworld was known for. He doesn't remember hatred seeping into his body, nor the dark feeling settling into his soul and leaving him cursed by the world of the dead.

What he can remember, though, are very odd sensations. He can remember a sluggish sharpness wrapping around him, something that made his skin tingle and his breath shake. He can remember the sound of water lapping at what had sounded like rocks, the gentle beat of a bird’s wings.

(The sound of brittle bone rubbing against brittle bone, the flapping of wings that could no longer carry its owner in the wind. How fitting, that the wings are the clearest thing he can remember about his fall. Not the pain, or the screams that tore his throat to shreds, but the sounds of something that should soar in the wind but had only fallen to the ground.)

The Underworld he had experienced was both like the stories he had heard whispered from the lips of the Divine older than him, but also…not.

Where there was supposed to have been nothing, barren land littered with bones of the forgotten, watered by the tears of those betrayed, there had been life in the oddest ways.

He can remember picking his way across the deserted land, bones sticking up from the ground like small flowers. He can remember taking shelter in brittle trees, dead and rotting from the inside out and leaving him a gentle hollow to place his head. He can remember the dead grass he had used as a cushion for his head, rotted with cold and winter.

He had survived a land he should not have survived, not as a Divine. He had survived a land that rotted everything from the inside out, a land that took what made the Divine Divine and warped it into a rotting mess of itself, roiling and coiling into a blackened husk of magic and Divinity.

And he had survived it.

He had survived it for what felt like an eternity, picking his way along ground that should have torn him limb from limb and left him quaking in his boots. He should have never been able to take a step in there, let alone last for so many years in such a deserted place.

His return from the Underworld, with bleeding hands and fueled by the anger of a child scorned by their father, had been met with both anger and hatred from the man who had thrown him in there, but also with a fierce pride. After all, his only son had crawled his way out of the Underworld, had pulled himself out of the hatred filled place known to destroy all, and had come back to the man who had cast him there in the first place. Had come back to the hand that had raised him and asked, ‘Was that enough, Father? Are you proud of me? Have I proven myself to you?’

The night of his son’s return, the Father had been met with a dream in which his son had stood before him. He had held a scythe in his hand and a wicked smirk on his lips. ‘I hope this makes you proud,’ the image had begun, twirling the scythe idly in hand before swinging it toward him, the curved edge resting against his neck. ‘After all, I am doing just as you did, dear Father. Like Father, like Son.’

He dreamed that his body had been cut into pieces, had been spread into the furthest corners of the Underworld, had been thrown where he himself had thrown his own father. He had been left there to rot for eternity upon eternity, forced to feel the constant pain of being detached from his very self.

Wen Ruohan had awakened in a cold sweat, his hands raised to grab at his neck and make sure his head was still attached. In the back of his mind, he could hear the sound of the Fates cackling, the idle click clacking of their scissors, spindle, and loom reminding him that no matter what he did, he would be a slave to the fates' whims.

Unless he took measures.

So he had run, ignoring his wife’s pleas for explanations, to his son's room. Where his darling, beloved, useless, son Wei Ying had been resting from a night of celebrations for his return. His Father would not be a slave to the fates’ designs, would not fall victim to the weaving of his fate in their hands.

He had descended upon his son as if he had never seen food before, his hands cramming the fully grown Divine into and down his throat. He had felt the kicks against his throat, the feeling of his son struggling his hardest to escape the constriction of his esophagus and stomach, but Father would not let up. His reign would last far longer than his father’s, and he did not care if it came at the sacrifice of his firstborn child.

And he had repeated this with every child his wife bore him. They would rejoice in the healthy birth of a new Divine, set to inherit the throne after the firstborn fell ill to a terrible case of Underworld Rot. Yet, the very next night, the child would be gone, nothing left but the basket that had rocked them to sleep. There had never been any signs of who had done it, yet the mother had known.

Just as she had known the night her firstborn returned would be the night his Father would seal.

He was startled out of his memories by a whisper of ‘A-Xian’, his silver eyes drifting lazily from the sea’s horizon and locking eyes with his sister. She stood before him, a warm hand resting on his shoulder. He wondered, idly, when the hand got there, yet dismissed the question. His sister always sensed when he needed someone. They seemed to communicate in a way only they could; their eyes locked and thousands of words passed between them with a glance.

He ripped his eyes away from hers, not wanting to hear the scolding, the anger, the disappointment for what he would do next. He instead settled his gaze on the three sticks that were still standing in the sand. There was now only one stick unchosen, the one that was closest to the sea.

He glanced at his dimple-bearing brother Meng Yao, whose gaze seemed to be questioning and proud.

“I choose the Harvest,” Meng Yao said, his head tilting to the side and trickery bouncing around his eyes like a playful child. (Wei Ying remembered a time Meng Yao bounced around like that, jumping from his sister’s arms to his. He remembered a lot he wished he didn’t.) “A-Xuan chose Marriage. A-Cheng chose one of the sticks.”

Wei Ying didn’t need him to explain that he was the last to choose. He knew he was. He wanted to be, wanted to have the chance to do this for his family. This family of his, so small and broken, was littered with betrayal and distrust from their Father’s misdeeds, but it was still standing strong years later. He loved them, so very much.

He felt like he was sitting on the edge of something, of the beginning and the end, of the passage of time itself. He could take what was rightfully his, as the Eldest. He could rule the Skies, he could crown himself the king of his siblings. They would allow him this, would allow him the power over them. But it was exactly that they would allow it, expect it, that he did not. He would not. This was not his road to walk, was not his role in life.

He could have his freedom from memories and responsibility, request that he not choose yet, request a time to settle and find himself.

Or he could continue as he had already planned.

He judged each of the three sticks, loose sand blowing in a warm breeze from the sea, and debated the choices laid out for him.

So many possibilities. He reached a hand forward, caressing the twisting tapestry of fate that weaved itself around his family, and noticed the possible divergences and scenery that would be created with their choices. So many ways for the artistry to unfold. Paths to anger, to grief, to happiness, to pain, to pleasure. He trailed his fingers over the tapestry of his sister that was wrapped around her inner self, showing all the choices she had made and would ever make.

He could understand them, his siblings, in a way none of them fully did. They couldn't see this, they didn’t have the sight of a firstborn. They couldn’t see all the strings of fate holding the world together; they couldn’t see how these strings weaved and spun until they connected in a beautiful mess of chaotic wonder. They did not have the Sight, did not have the ability to slip through the folds of what has been and what might be.

As the Eldest, as the one with the sight and the ability to See, it was up to him to make sure his sibling’s futures made themselves into one of seamless beauty. It was his job, his duty to them as their Eldest, to make sure they had happiness and love, not something hateful and spiteful that would spell the end of their existence.

So, pulling himself out of the vision, out of the blessing and curse he had had since he decided it would be fun to play with the Fates, he chose. With a deep sorrow in his heart and the knowledge that his own tapestry would face utter destruction so theirs could remain whole, he chose.

His feet crunched in the sand below him, pulling an odd ache from his bones and his heart. He paused before the stick closest to the sea, gazing out yet again at the land that had made him who he was.

He thought, maybe, he could recognize this land for what it was, for what it used to be. He could remember the mountains before they were flattened into plains, could remember the sea just as the sea remembers him. This used to be his favorite place to rest.

How ironic this would be the place of his downfall as well.

As he turned to look at his brethren, at his youngest brother in particular, he could see the anger and rage building in his eyes. But Wei Ying ignored it, just as he had ignored his brother's anger every time before.

His youngest brother had eyes the color of a stormythe sky, the color of the sea closest to the shores, the color of freedom and flight and everything that he deserved.

“Wei Wuxian!” he heard his youngest brother cry, anger causing him to step forward—as if to grab him, strangle him, make him see sense. But Wei Ying had already made his choice months ago.

The sky was clear for once, the clouds gone and giving them an uninterrupted vision of the sky and stars in all their glory. Wei Ying lay on his back beside a Divine so much younger than him yet still so very strong, still so very bright. His youngest brother, Jiang Cheng.

They didn't have much time to bond, not with all the fighting going on. They barely had time to sleep and to heal from their wounds. Wei Ying, himself, was stretched as thin as he could be. His siblings had refused to learn how to use their powers, had refused to understand how to work them when they were in their Father’s stomach. So now, with a war  on them, he was being forced to teach them all now.

He took this moment of peace, with his youngest brother beside him, and closed his eyes to bask in the moment of freedom it gave him.

“I made a deal with Wen Zhuliu.”

His peace was shattered by a sentence, his eyes flying open to stare at the inky black sky above them. He tried to dampen his anger, staring at the pinpricks of light raining down on them. The stars painted a world of love, of need. They painted a world that needed protection, a world that needed care. A world that needed saving from the tyranny of the Titans weighing it down.

“What deal?” he asked, scanning the stars above him as if they would provide an answer. As if they could spell out what he needed to do, who he needed to be, to save those who relied on him.

“He will assist us in the destruction of our Father…” Jiang Cheng trailed off for a moment, and Wei Ying had a sense that he knew what the next clause would be. The roiling in his stomach seemed to agree with him as well. “...In exchange for someone taking his place as ruler of the Underworld.”

It felt like a fist had closed around Wei Ying’s heart, clenching around every painful beat it took. He would deny it, if he were asked about it, but a tear fell from his eye and streaked its way down his cheek to soak into the ground below. “...Why?”

Jiang Cheng sat up then, turning towards where Wei Ying rested on the soil, and began to speak animatedly. “It is needed! Wei Wuxian—Wei Ying— Brother —He can give them mortality! The ability to die by our hands!” Jiang Cheng stood up then, beginning to pace back and forth, his hands moving rapidly in the air as if that would help justify his actions. “He can melt the Divine from their blood, that's why they’ve tried to keep him on their side. They’re scared of him! And, now, we have him!” He whipped around, staring straight at where Wei Ying still lay in the dirt and grass of the earth. “He wants  to help, as long as we can help him leave the Underworld. So, we can use this against them, and then once we kill Father—”

Wei Ying held up a hand to cut off his youngest brother. He picked himself off the ground with the fluidity befitting a Divine, with the fluidity of someone who had done it countless times before. “The Underworld is not something to trifle with, Jiang Cheng.”

His younger brother's eyes flashed in rage. He pointed a finger towards him. Wei Ying noticed, barely, that Jiang Cheng’s finger was shaking. “Why not? You always act like you know what's best for us, yet you don't tell us anything!”

Wei Ying raised his hand, grabbing Jiang Cheng’s shaking fingers and pressing a gentle kiss against them. He passed some of his magic over, a habit he had gotten into when Song Lan would have his trembling fits and seek him as refuge. He used it to comfort them, to let the others know he was close, that he was there to fix whatever had happened.

“There will be a vacuum, A-Cheng,” he murmured against his brother's hand, pressing another kiss against it before dropping it all together.

“There needs to be a ruler. It can't be without one, not a realm as strong as that.” He stepped closer, pulling his brother close enough to press their foreheads together. It was intimate, and maybe if others glanced they would think romantic. But Wei Ying would not, not with his siblings, not with them. Not during a war.

“Then I will do it,” Jiang Cheng said, his eyes downcast. They looked sad, his stormcloud eyes. Wei Ying hated knowing he put that look there. “I will rule it.”

Wei Ying shook his head, their foreheads rubbing together and bumping awkwardly. He stepped back, putting a good distance between the brothers. “No, you will not.”

He was glad he had stepped away, as his brother began to huff and pace once more, his lightning quick temper coming back without fail. “Are you the only one allowed to make sacrifices for this war, Wei Wuxian? The only one allowed to hurt, and make mistakes, and fail?”

He could hear the sounds of stirring behind them, Jiang Cheng’s raised voice more than likely awakening the rest of their tired siblings. He glanced back at where they had left their slumbering brothers and sister, hoping to convince Jiang Cheng to lower his voice just a little. With a huff, Jiang Cheng instead grabbed his arm and dragged him further into the forest they had been sleeping in.

When they finally stopped, it was in a small clearing. A lake was on the other side of the clearing, close enough to hear gentle splashing of lake fish but far enough away to not risk falling in.

“A-Cheng, it’s not that,” he murmured, grabbing his brother’s right arm and squeezing gently. “You know I would never stop any of you from learning, from making mistakes and understanding the consequences. You know this,” he whispered, his heart still tight in the grip of that invisible fist. “But A-Cheng, the Underworld is not something for you—or anyone—to play with. Please, listen to me.”

Jiang Cheng pushed his hand off angrily, the younger Divine stomping towards the lake. “I can make my own decisions!”

Wei Ying stayed where he was, silent in the face of his younger brother's rage. He watched as the boy—not quite a man yet, maybe wouldn’t be for a while—stared into the water as if it could give him the Divine knowledge Wei Ying had.

He let the silence drag on for long moments, debating if it was best to let him believe what he did or to correct him.

“It will kill you.” He finally broke the silence, turning from the bright and beautiful clearing to look at the dark forest surrounding them. “The Underworld rots, A-Cheng. From the inside out. Wen Zhuliu is able to cleanse Divine blood because he is a Divine of the Dead, A-Cheng. And you…”

He searched the forest for an answer, for a reason for his brother to be acting like this. For a reason his brother seemed to want to look death in the face and tell it to kneel . But the forest did not give an answer.

“...You are a Divine of the Living, A-Cheng. You will die.”

A loud scoff rang out from behind him, challenging in a way only his youngest brother seemed to be able to sound. “And what would you know?” Rapid footsteps approached him, feet stomping loudly against the dead leaves and branches that littered the floor. “Just because—What? You spent time out of Father’s stomach? I did too, Wei Wuxian.”

A hit against his shoulder jostled him, but Wei Ying stood tall and accepted it. He kept his gaze on the forest, on the darkness of the unknown. “I know you did.”

“Then why do you treat me like a child?!” His shoulder was grabbed, a sharp yank forcefully turning him around. He locked eyes with an enraged—embarrassed—youngest brother. “Why do you still look down on me?”

“I don’t—”

“You do! You look down on me, you don't see me as part of the family!” His eyes flickered, lightning and anger and rage all boiling into a roiling sky in his eyes. “Well, surprise, Wei Ying. I’m more a part of the family than you.” A sneer lifted his youngest brother's lips, disgust twisting his face into a mockery of their Father’s. “I never once sided with them. I am not a traitor.”

Wei Ying’s hand froze mid air, where it had begun to reach for the arm on his shoulder. He stood there for a long moment, thinking of the words and rolling them around in his head.

Finally, his eyes drifted shut. His shoulders instinctively curled inward, his mind’s eye conjuring up the image of his father standing above him. He could still feel the constriction of the throat swallowing around him, could still smell the thick stench of saliva.

The Underworld was claustrophobic, was suffocating, had stolen everything Wei Ying saw bright about himself. But the Underworld had nothing on his Father’s betrayal.

He took a step back, away from his brother, the boy he saw as his own, the boy he was looking after and willing to raise like he had the rest of their siblings. “You’re…” He swallowed around the lump in his throat, around the pain threatening to eat him whole. “You’re right.”

He heard a stuttered gasp from the boy in front of him, felt the hand tighten on his shoulder, heard the barest whisper of ‘Wei Ying’ slip from him, yet Wei Ying pulled away.

He wanted to turn, wanted to run, wanted to get away from this inky feeling sludging through his veins. Yet years of rules ingrained in him, years of learning how to be a proper little Divine, caused him to bow politely to his brother. He clasped his hands before him, bending at the hips and tilting his head towards the ground. “Please excuse this lowly one.”

His throat felt blocked, like he was talking around a fist clenching desperately around him. ( Clenching like the skeletons of the Underworld, clenching like the throat of his Father, clenching like all the rules and regulations he learned growing up, like the robes and finery he was forced to wear.)  He turned without waiting for a reply, his feet guiding him into the very forest he had been staring at.

As he walked away from his brother, from where their siblings lay resting, from the lake and the tranquility of the night, he stared up at the stars.

He wondered, ever so briefly, if they, too, had ever felt the sting of betrayal.

He planted his feet beside the stick he chose, staring challengingly at his youngest brother. He gave Jiang Cheng a smirk, his own silver eyes as bright and sharp as the Divine steel they used to fight. “I choose this stick.”

Jiang Cheng seemed ready to fight, to open his mouth and demand to switch places, yet Jiang Yanli placed a hand on his arm and kept him still. She whispered something into his ear, and knowing her, it was probably along the lines of “It’s his choice, A-Cheng.”

Leaving his sister and his youngest brother to their whispering, he locked eyes with Song Lan. They shared a nod, and Wei Ying watched as he bent to stare at his stick. Only five centimeters were peeking out over the loose sand, and Wei Ying hoped it was much longer than the five centimeters visible.

They shared a glance again, and Wei Ying could see the anxiety, the fear, in Song Lan’s eyes. Wei Ying abandoned his stick to walk over to him, crouching in front of him and hovering a hand over his. He waited for Song Lan’s slight nod before he rested his own hand over his brother’s. He could feel the tremors shaking him, and could sense just how terrified he was.

“A-Lan, be still,” he murmured, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. He pushed his own Divine magic through their hands, nudging their foreheads together gently. “I am here, A-Lan. It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

He felt a shaky breath exhaled against his skin, his brother still scared and fearful, yet willing to listen to his brother. “I’ll be okay.” He closed his eyes, and Wei Ying could see him counting his breaths like they practiced.

“You’ll be okay,” Wei Ying reasserted, pulling back to press a kiss against the other’s forehead. “I will be here, so everything will be fine.”

His brother nodded, once, before his eyes seemed to steel. Wei Ying knew it was hard for him, being out in a world he was kept from, being forced to live a life he wasn't used to. He knew closed spaces were terrifying to him, after being imprisoned in one. (He would never force his brother to experience that again—either in a stomach or in the Underworld.)

He offered his brother one last smile before standing once more and walking back to his place. He could feel the eyes of his siblings on him, the others aware of what he did and why, only Jiang Cheng was left in confusion.

After all, Jiang Cheng hadn’t grown up in their Father’s stomach with them. He would never know the intimacy, the closeness, that forms when you’re trapped inside a small space with only your newborn siblings to care for.

He watched Song Lan take a long, deep breath. With one more glance up at the Eldest, Song Lan pulled the stick from the sand in one fell swoop.

It was roughly fourteen centimeters long, the end obviously broken and splintered. It was an old stick, something that had more than likely been here for years. It, sadly, would not tell anyone what Song Lan’s realm was yet, as that would only be decided once all three had been lifted and their lengths compared.

“You’re next, Wei Wuxian,” a voice spoke, frigid and sharp.

Wei Ying forced himself to look over at Jiang Cheng, the brat, and give him a lopsided grin. He cocked his hip to the side, rocking his head from one side to the other. He crossed one arm over his chest, propping his elbow on his hand, gently tapping his nose in thought. Eventually, a loud puff of laughter escaped his lips. “Why, little A-Cheng, I chose last did I not?” He smirked, ignoring the murmuring of his siblings over his reaction. “That means…” He tapped his nose once more, his smirk stuck on his face. “Why, that means you need to show your stick, brother.”

The smirk told Jiang Cheng all he needed to know, and all Wei Ying wanted him to know. (If Wei Ying didn’t want him to know, didn’t want to proclaim his victory, he wouldn’t have. He spent years under the reign of people who only cared about whether he was useful, what he could give them, what pride they could take in what he did. They didn’t care about emotions, or love, or fear. His mask was strong. His mask was unbreakable.)

“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng took a step towards him, a hand raised to strike him. “I swear to our Divine ancestors, if you try to pull sh—”

A figure stepped between them, their sister separating them. Her hand shot out to grab Jiang Cheng’s wrist, gripping tight enough to bruise even a Divine being, yet gentle enough to tell him what she wanted him to know. Wei Ying didn’t know what was said, didn’t know the words exchanged, yet he knew whatever it was, it was enough to force Jiang Cheng to agree.

Wei Ying watched as he took a step back, dragging their sister with him, and returned to his place.

With the sun setting behind him, his shoulders pulled back by a sense of righteousness and confidence in himself, Wei Ying looked like the Divine he was. He looked lonely. Much like he had in the years he spent alone, both inside of their Father’s stomach and outside of it, he stood with a smile on his face and a quirk of his lips that spelled misfortune to those who crossed him. He stood strong and proud, despite every attempt to knock him down and teach him a lesson.

In that very moment, centuries spread between the youngest and the eldest. Years of memories and mistaken chances, years of words and promises and shattered faith lay broken before their feet.

At that very moment, it was Wei Ying against Jiang Cheng. The eldest versus the youngest. And Wei Ying, in all his years alive, in all his chances to fail and fall, had always come out on top. He had never lost a bet.

Yet, this time, it was not simply money or gold or goods on the table. It was freedom. The freedom of a brother. It was the secret of a promise made, and the secret of a promise that must be kept.

“Wei Ying…” Jiang Cheng murmured, pleading visible in his storm-cloud eyes, yet Wei Ying would not budge. The smirk of victory that painted his lips a bright and vivid red did not fade. He knew he had won.

Wei Ying watched, with victory in his eyes and terror in his blood, as Jiang Cheng pulled out a stick roughly twenty centimeters long. Wei Ying knew, to obtain the Underworld, he would need to pull a stick smaller than Song Lan’s. He would need to pull a stick smaller than fourteen centimeters.

And so, with a heavy heart and incandescent fear in his veins, Wei Ying bent down and pulled his own stick from the sand.

It seemed even the Fates had agreed that he would rule the Underworld without any intervention. Without him needing to break it himself, the stick he pulled out of the ground…

It was only ten centimeters long.

He heard what sounded like a scream, a heartbroken cry from his youngest brother, and his sister's gentle voice trying to calm him. Yet the only thing he could fully hear, could fully focus on, was the crashing of the waves against the sand and the cawing of the few sky animals there were. He closed his shaking hands around the wood, the thing dooming him to a death of his own choice, and turned his back on the only family he ever knew. He stared, with empty eyes and crying heart, out past the long line of the deep blue sea Song Lan would rule.

He would not let them see the tears in his eyes, nor the streaks they left down his cheeks. He wouldn’t let them see the shaking of his shoulders, the weakness laying itself into every tiny crevice of his being. He was the Eldest. He was first born.

He had been given chances the others hadn’t, given freedom the others hadn’t. He had been cherished, he had been given time. He had been given everything he could have asked for, and he had taken it for granted when he had it.

He had been given his freedom, his chance to grow and learn who he was before he got swallowed whole. He had been able to learn of life, and of the consequences of his own actions. He had learned how to walk without the stench of acid burning his nose, without the feeling of slick organ walls closing in on him.

He had been given so much, had been given so much that his siblings weren’t. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—let them experience that. Never that. Never the Underworld.

He would take this, this punishment the Fates saw fit for him. He would take it with a smile, with happiness and gratitude.

He would not let his siblings see the fear making him tremble in his skin.

He closed his eyes, blocking out the vision of the sun and the liquid gold ripples of the ocean. He ignored the bickering he could hear from his siblings, knowing that they were trying to draw his attention away from his fate, but they couldn’t.

They had no clue how torturous it was, those years locked in the Underworld in his own living prison. They would never know how it felt to have their life drained from them with each inward breath. They would never know how it felt to breathe out the fractures of Divinity.

This was his punishment to bear.

He deserved this.

They had a feast that night, the six of them huddled around a fire and laughing about times past. The siblings told Jiang Cheng the stories of their childhood, of growing up. Of how Meng Yao had a habit of tumbling with each and every step he took. Of how Jin Zixuan would call for his eldest brother to bounce him on his knee until he fell from laughter.

They recounted stories of the piles they would do, of how they would lay with each other in their Father’s stomach. Of how they would clamber over each other in attempts to get the closest to Wei Ying, would try to press against this man they saw as a father despite knowing that he was their brother.

Wei Ying suspected, as he leaned back against a tree trunk, close enough to participate but far enough to be left alone, that they knew something. Something they did not wish to. That they knew their Eldest would be leaving them to live in isolation, in desolation, leaving for a land that he had told them horror stories of.

This same brother, the one who protected them, the one who taught them how to talk and walk, the one who rocked them to sleep when they cried and sang to them when they were scared. This same brother would no longer be around. He would no longer be able to teach them what he knew, the rules he learned, the skills he was taught. He would no longer be able to sit with them in silence, or speak when one of them needed someone to just talk.

It felt like an important part of them was leaving, to never return, to never be anymore.

They were aware that they were losing a major part of themselves to the darkness that ruled below their feet. To the very darkness their brother had told them once, in one of his few moments of weakness, that he was terrified of.

They knew, objectively speaking, that the Underworld needed a ruler.

But they didn’t want it to be him. They didn’t want to lose the guide they had grown up with, the guide who would laugh away their fears and teach them to do the same. The very same person who would make funny faces at them, or do weird magic tricks to entertain them in the endless darkness they lived in. The one who would spend what little magic he had making pinprick constellations and teaching them about it.

They knew he feared the Underworld. They knew he feared being alone.

They knew they wouldn’t be able to prevent him from going to it, to his own personal torture land.

That didn’t, however, stop them from piling on top of their brother after luring him closer to the fire. It felt like the days before, when life had been sheltered inside of a stomach and its darkness. Wei Ying accepted it happily, a loud huff of air his only sign of playfully ‘being angry’. Jiang Cheng seemed hesitant; he had been aware that his siblings tended to pile on top of each other, but he hadn’t expected it to happen that night. He was pulled in by a laughing Jiang Yanli, who shoved him to rest his head against Wei Ying’s stomach and curl his knees up to his shoulder. Tangled together as the siblings were, it was impossible to see where one person ended and another began.

Arms wiggled their way between Wei Ying’s waist and Jiang Cheng's neck, and the thin fingers told him it was Meng Yao. Wei Ying held back a laugh, aware his stomach was Meng Yao’s favorite place to curl into.

“What will happen?” Meng Yao’s voice murmured, unusually soft and pliant as his fingers wiggled a little and gripped at the fabric of his chiton. “Will we see you again?”

Wei Ying hummed gently, raising his right hand to rest upon Meng Yao’s head. He gazed up at the stars, at the pinpricks of light he remembered teaching them about so long ago. He stared, just as he was prone to before, just like he did before he was swallowed. “Mother did this,” he said instead, deciding to leave the answer to Meng Yao’s question for later.

“Mother?” asked Jin Zixuan, his head rolling on Wei Ying’s thigh. Wei Ying felt his hair tickling his knee. “What did Mother do?”

“Taught me the stars,” Wei Ying whispered, staring up at the very things he used to show the others. He pointed toward a line of stars and traced them out with his fingers. “That set right there—three stars in a line, with a crook at the top? Mother called that the Eagle.” His left hand tangled itself in Song Lan’s hair, the only part of him touching his younger brother. “She used to make up stories for each of them. She loved making stories.”

And so he recounted the stories their mother told him, of how the Eagle carried lightning to the king. He told the story of the snake that protected the innocents and was blessed by their grandfather to forever watch over the humans.

He told them of the star-studded prince, with night as his hair and the sun as his eyes. He told them of the lover, cloaked in a swath of clouds and brightness, with liquid fire as hair and the ability to weave together images from nothing. He told the story of how they fell in love, the night and day, of how passion burned as bright as the sun-eyes of the prince, of how loyalty spanned as far as the sky-cloak the lover held. He told them of the betrayal of the night prince, how the prince’s brother cast him from the night sky in anger, in jealousy, and how he lives in the cradle of his sky-lover.

He told stories until his throat ran dry and the fire burned out. His siblings were all silently listening to him, holding onto every word he spoke, as if they were aware this would be the last time they saw him.

Eventually, once stars had been named and their stories told, Meng Yao spoke once again. “What will happen?” His voice was nearly swallowed by the night, and his hand fisted against his stomach, pulling a disgruntled noise from Jiang Cheng. “Will we see you again?” His head was buried against his right hip, curled up into a ball with his legs wrapped around Wei Ying’s leg.

His right hand fell from its hovering in the air and landed on the thick mass of hair belonging to Meng Yao. He wiggled his fingers in it, tickling along his scalp and tugging at the skin behind his little brother’s ear. His heart felt light when he heard the sound of his brother’s breathless giggles, the soft peal of “Big Brother!” pulling a chuckle from his lips. Yet, slowly, he let his playing abate and instead idly caressed his brother’s head.

Wei Ying stared up at the stars his Mother had so loved, at the stars he grew up with and grew to love as well. “I don't know,” he finally answered, his breath caught in the memories of times long past and times yet to come. He could remember asking his mother the same thing, when he was a boy, back when the world was so small and big at the same time. He hooked a finger around a strand of Meng Yao’s hair and tugged at it lightly, whether in an attempt to soothe his mind or play with him, he wasn’t even quite sure himself.

A soft snort echoed from his normally picture-perfect sibling, his aristocratic features scrunching up and causing the red mark on his forehead to wrinkle. He furrowed his eyebrows and batted his head closer to Wei Ying’s hand, like an irritated cat trying to scare away the person petting it yet immediately turning around for more pats.

“I think…” Wei Ying murmured into the dead of night, into the gentle crackle of a flame not yet gone and the embers of a time they all knew was drawing rapidly to an end. A hum rang out from his throat, in tune with the crash of the waves audible from the ocean not far from them and the crack of the fire. It was curious, but also so very scared of what might burn it. He began, yet again, to try to count the stars. “I think I will be fine, A-Yao.”

The echo of dead leaves crinkling, of shifting bodies and shifting weight, came from above his head. He felt Song Lan’s head turning and unsettling the leaves they were all using as a cushion for the hard earth below them. (An earth they now were set to rule, to guide, the people theirs to protect and love and cherish.) Wei Ying glanced up at him, turning his head to lock eyes with the brother he knew the most, with the brother who still sought out guidance from him like he did when he was still a toddler and grasping for any sort of knowledge.

He wanted to say something, it seemed, but was unsure if he should or not. Song Lan was always unsure, always scared, toddling his way to his older brother’s thigh and grabbing at it like it could protect him from the world and all the world sought from him. As if his thigh were strong enough to counter the waves of time that, inevitably, pulled everyone into it, rushing and churning. Finally, he spoke, his voice unsure but with a core of iron and surety that Wei Ying was proud of nurturing.

“Have you ever been there before? The Underworld?” Song Lan asked. Their eyes connected and said so much more than most would be able to understand. This was Song Lan, the boy he taught how to run and jump, the boy he taught how to speak and sing and play. This was the boy he held when nights were scary, the boy he sang to when the stomach was too small to bear. They had an understanding of each other far deeper than just elder and younger siblings. Not quite a parental bond, never quite that, but close enough all the same.

Wei Ying didn’t need to nod or speak for his affirmation to be heard, for his brother to read the reluctance in his eyes or the hesitance in his body. “What was it like?”

If Wei Ying had to place Song Lan’s eyes, in a measure of familiarity and understanding, he would say they looked like their mother’s. They shared the stormcloud darkness of it, of the liquid darkness descending upon the earth and wreaking havoc in its wake.

Yet, if he looked further in his memory, past the eyes of a mother whose love ran out, past the betrayal of a father who took what wasn’t his to begin with, past the anger and loneliness he was cast into, he could imagine he saw a glimpse of their Uncle. Their Uncle, who stood strong above the waves of the land he ruled, who would call upon his domain to churn the sky and rend the sky apart with his swirling anger masked in storm clouds and surging waves. Dark. Menacing. But so very strong.

“I have,” he whispered, lost in the memories of an Uncle they would never get to meet, never know. Their Uncle Fengmian, so soft and kind, who would pat his head and call him little A-Ying. His gentle and loving Uncle, who avoided his Father like the end of times were coming, who would bring him beautiful flowers and the seeds they bore. Their Uncle who would seat him on his shoulder and turn their gazes to the waters stretching out before the base of the mountain he grew up on, and tell him about the ocean and the beautiful beings who lived in it.

(The very same Uncle who died by his Father’s hands, who knelt before his Father’s throne and spat out words of war, of hatred, who fought for those under their rule and died because of it. The very same Uncle his father forced him to watch get ripped into pieces, hair and fingers and flesh scattered across the throne room floor. The very same Uncle his Father forced him to pick up, pieces still wiggling with Divine power, and told him to cast into the ocean where he belonged, the ocean he so loved. Wei Ying can still remember holding his Uncle’s beating heart in hand, can still feel the wisps of Divine power echoing from his Uncle to him, the gentle voice in his head telling him, “Be still, A-Ying, and do what he says. It’s okay. Be strong. Everything will work out in the end.”)

He could hear his siblings’ gasps ringing out in the air, the four other voices clamoring over each other to be heard. An elbow dug into his calf, fingers clung to his flesh, and arms wrapped around his limbs. As if to anchor him here, in the present, in a time of sibling love and adoration, instead of a time wrought with terror and fear. His sister’s worried voice rang out the loudest, clear as the sky yet sprinkled with the star-bright worry of a sibling who has had to deal with a self-sacrificing idiot for way too long. “You have?” she asked, her brows furrowed. In the firelight, she looked eerily like their mother, back when her only worry was the stars and their names.

He swallowed around the staccato beat in his chest, around the anger and fear and guilt threatening to rip him in two. He would have sat up if it weren’t for the heavy weight of Jiang Cheng holding him down to the ground, pressing against his stomach and chest as if he could keep him tethered to the earth itself with only his arms and hands.

Wei Ying let out a breath of air, faking breathlessness, and removed his hand from Meng Yao’s hair to gently pat at Jiang Cheng’s back. He tilted his head back, staring up at the sky and the pinpricks of light that he had grown up with as guides. He took in every speck of light, every shining moment they gave him, every whispered secret and giggle they held in their bright grasps, and tried to memorize this. The night sky, his siblings weighing him down to keep him here, the gentle sound of wind blowing through trees and the waves of an ocean that kept moving. He burned it into his eyelids, the stars and their secrets, and tried to convince himself that he would be fine as long as he could remember the moments shared under them.

(He thought, distantly, that so much would be solved if he too became a star, like the legends their mother taught him. Wouldn’t this have all been prevented, changed, stopped if he had simply been born a star instead of a Divine?) He thought, distantly, if he studied the stars enough, memorized their patterns and swoops and turns, he could recreate it. Maybe, if he could see the night sky, even an imitation…it would make the idea of returning to his land of torture so much more bareable.

He tightened his hold on Jiang Cheng, his youngest and most innocent brother, the darling his mother had given her life to save, and tried to ignore the liquid beading in the corner of his right eye. “It’s barren.” He murmured, his breath stuttering out of his chest and nearly choking the words right from his lips. His heart was beating fast, the bump bump bump nearly deafening in its army march. He couldn’t tell if it was beating from fear or anger, both causing his blood to boil in this liquid burning.

Fear of the Underworld, of all that it took from him, of all it was willing to leech from him and his family. Of the Fates cackling away down there, his thread in their grasp, his fate weaved as they wished, doomed to forever tangle and twist on itself. Fear of the unknown, of the dark gaping pits, of the winged things that flew down there and tore at his skin. The days waking up with cuts and wounds he never remembered getting, of the screams echoing in his ears with each step he took.

And the anger, an anger that threatened to destroy him. An anger that tried to overpower his senses, pull him into a rage yet unseen. A rage that threatened to boil him alive and leave him gasping in its wake. An anger towards his brother, an anger towards his hero-complex, an anger towards the urge to be needed even when he knows he’s not. An anger for taking this fate from his brother, for cursing himself with returning to a land that still haunted his dreams.

“Nothing grows there. Nothing. Only rotted trees and cold brittle grass.” He could, distantly, remember the loud crunch of grass collapsing under the weight of him, of the brittle crack and smush under each step he took. He could remember turning around, wanting to understand just how different he was from the land around him, and seeing where he came from. Each step left its mark in the death-strewn earth, each step reaching towards something he was scared to understand. The land seemed to take his steps, his marks upon the earth, with an air of it belonging there. As if it, too, was showing him the mistakes he made, the things he destroyed, when the only thing he ever wished to do was live.

“The dirt, it’s…it’s dark.” His hand was flat against Jiang Cheng’s back, yet even the silken feel of his brother's dark blue robe did nothing to scare away the memory of the barren earth in his hand, of the rocks and bones and soot all coating his fist in a muck of something he couldn’t understand. “It’s littered with bones. I think, at least. There isn’t anything else I could think of being there that would be such a bright white.”

He smiled bitterly, looking back on the memories of a boy forced to grow up too soon, on the memories of a boy stumbling along a sharp land meant to tear the Divine apart. “I couldn’t take one step without disrespecting the dead. I had to be careful that I didn’t step on a broken bone or a sharp rock.” He could remember stumbling across half-decayed corpses, half buried in the dirt. He can remember stumbling across people dying yet not quite dead, their hands grasping at him, begging him to help. He remembers running, from people, from darkness, from things half dead and things that might never die. He remembers being curled up in a corner, tucked between a rotting tree and a dark rock wall, and crying for his mother. He remembers sobbing when she did not reply.

“The air there is very heavy. It feels like its weighing you down, like something is sitting on your chest or back, and just…pushing, pulling, dragging. Its like its trying to sink you into the soil and bury you alive.” He leaned up just slightly, just enough to press a kiss to Jiang Cheng’s forehead. The boy was pale, shaking in his arms, trembling with the visions Wei Ying was conjuring with his words along. “It seemed like…” He trailed off, his lips pressed against his little brothers forehead still, debating on saying his thoughts or just describing the land. “It seemed like it was promising you something. A life of comfort, of warmth, of being loved, if you only just…gave in.”

He could feel his siblings stirring more, their arms and legs tightening around him, keeping him stuck in place under them.

(If he thought too much about it, about the arms and the legs, about being held down and weighed down, it would remind him of times he woke up with the soil creeping its way around him. He would never admit to the anxiety that filled him then, the feeling of being buried alive, nor would he ever admit to that same anxiety anytime his siblings piled onto him. They found comfort in it. He wouldn’t take comfort away from them.)

“Some days, though,” He shifted his head, resting it yet against the earth once more. He felt a palm under his head, and when he turned his head to see who it was, it shared a smile with Song Lan. “Some days, it was light. Like the breeze on top of home—the mountain.” He winced at the slip up, yet continued on. “Like the breeze on top of a mountain—clear, free, unrestrained by time or life. It felt like it could carry me back, from there, back to the land above. Back to a time before I was cast aside, before I was thrown, before I was—” He cut himself off, his lips trembling from emotions long sealed back. He still lost himself in memories, in times before he was cursed with the fate before him, yet the emotions were locked away. Behind duty, behind time, behind war. He didn’t like that they were breaking through now.

He remembered a time nearly erased from his memory, a time where he slept with fear as his blanket and loneliness as his pillow. He remembered a time where he became used to the sight of bones, where the memory of his mother’s face brought fear into his blood. He remembered a time where death, the things that make it up, the curses built upon it, were kinder to him than his father and his court.

He could remember a time where he should have died, where the rot was supposed to set in. He remembers his father's smile as he was cast down, smirking in victory, knowing he murdered a child for disobeying him and he basked in it.

He wouldn’t admit it, not then and most definitely not now, when he was scared. The Underworld, in its darkness and rotting wind and bone-littered land, terrified him. He wanted his mother.

“...The Underworld…” He began after a long pause, the beaded tear finally falling from his right eye, landing on the water-starved earth beneath him. “The Underworld is not made for those who bear Divine blood.” He confessed, his chest heavy with secrets long since buried. “It corrupts. It rots. If you have grown up under Father, if you had the chance to listen to his teachings—” He charted the stars, his guides even now, even when his mother turned her back and cast him aside like their father. “He was a terrible Father, but an amazing teacher.”

“Wei Wuxian.”

“He would answer any question asked, and wasn’t that mean if you answered something wrong. A stroke or two of the whip, and you learned quickly enough—”

“Wei Wuxian!”

“And he had a lot of knowledge, since he was, you know, the Divine of Time. Maybe not the Fates, but he understood the intricacies of it, and loved talking about it—”

“Wei Ying!”

He stopped talking then, at the shout of Jin Zixuan. His hair was no longer tickling his knee, and when he moved his eyes from the stars, it locked on the face of the very same brother that had just spoken. He looked angry, enraged, terrified. He didn’t want them scared, not for him, never for him. “I’ll be fine, A-Xuan.”

Wei Ying reached, with his hand that had been resting on Jiang Cheng’s back, and cupped Jin Zixuan’s cheek. His palm met moisture, met tears trickling from his proud brothers’ eyes, and felt his own tears well up finally. “A-Xuan, I’ll be fine.” He whispered, pulling his crying brother close enough to press their foreheads together. Jiang Cheng made a disgruntled noise as he was moved from laying on his chest, yet settled down once one of Jin Zixuan’s tears landed on his chiton. “A-Xuan, don’t cry. I’ll be okay.”

His brother sniffled loudly, one of his own hands raising to his cheek and wiping away the moisture leaking from his eyes. “I’m not crying.” He mumbled out, his shoulders shaking only millimeters away from him. “Why would I be crying? You’re an annoying brother, and a terrible teacher. We won’t miss you.”

He huffed out laughter, nudging his nose against his brothers and earning an entitled sniff in reply. “Of course you won’t,” he whispered, his eyes falling shut against his brothers tears, against the sounds of his siblings sniffling all around him. “I taught you all so well. Of course you won't miss me. You’re all good children, with me gone you won’t need to worry about everything being messed up.”

A breathy laugh was heard beside him, a warm body shifting from his leg to hold him tightly along the left side of his body. A moist face was rubbed against his bare arm, snot and tears smearing across his skin. “We can finally get stuff done, now.”

It felt like Wei Ying’s throat was being crushed by his Father’s hand, like his life was seeping from his body and soaking into the earth beneath them. “Yeah.” He murmured, his tears finally falling down his cheek. He heard murmurs around him, his siblings moving, yet he kept his forehead pressed against Jin Zixuans’, their noses rubbing affectionately against each other. “You’ll be fine.” He wasn’t able to hold back his sob, his own shoulders shaking. They felt heavy—A siblings expectations, a fathers responsibility, a duty he was meant to hold. “You’ll all be—” His shoulders curled inward, his left hand untangling from Song Lan’s hair and wrapping around Jin Zixuan. “You’ll all be perfectly fine without me.”

His siblings pressed closer, warmth and weight keeping him present in the day, reminding him that his time on the surface was running out. His time with his siblings, with their company and their warmth and their life was drawing low.

“I don’t want to go,” he whispered, his forehead pulling back from Jin Zixuan’s and being pulled to rest in the crook of his sister's neck, his waist circled by her arms. The same arms he taught how to hold, how to cherish. The sister he had taught to walk, to talk, to sing, to comfort, to love in the way their mother had taught him.

He felt hands combing through his hair, combing through the knots long since left unkempt, along the liquid darkness that made up his body and his soul, his curses left for all to see. “I don’t want to go,” he repeated, his hands scrambling for purchase on his sister's white chiton, on the folds of white silk that nearly glowed in the darkness surrounding them. “I’m scared.”

His sister fell back into the leaves, his body still cradled to her body, and kept him there. Like a needy child, like their siblings did long ago, like he did with the very same mother they had stolen from them.

In the dark of the forest, in the flickering flames of a fire burning low, they laid. Siblings piled on top of each other, hair tangled together, with the only discernible difference being their clothing color. They rested, in arms grasping to fabricand slept on after a battle long since fought.

The night seemed to stretch before them all, a neverending blackness. To Wei Ying, held in his sibling’s arms, sobbing from the wrongs he lived with before and after them, it reminded him too much of the land he was destined to rule.

When dawn broke across the blue waters, Wei Ying rose with it. Despite the weight of his siblings bearing down on him, the weight of his sister’s arms tight around his waist, he slid out from under the sleep-heavy bodies and approached where the water met the land.

He sat down slowly, his legs nearly crumpling under the weight of what was being asked—demanded—of him. He thought the sight of the waves would calm him, would calm the turmoil wrapping itself around his mind and his heart, yet even that could not stop the sickening beat of his heart, or the regret tainting him.

His eyes surveyed the area around him, at the ruin brought by him and his siblings. At the land torn asunder, a beach gouged in two by the people who swore to protect it, mountains toppled and left in rubble. He looked at this land, broken and destroyed, but still standing after everything it has experienced, and thought of time long past. Of a time where he was worshipped for what he was—the first of the new descendants, the firstborn, destined to lead and bring happiness in his wake. Destined for greatness, to bring the people together, to sing and dance and pull others into his beautiful and bright orbit.

And here he was, left with the scars of abandonment tangling his throat and arms, pulling tight and telling him just how useless his destiny was when the Fates had a say in it. It held him in its arms, unyielding, bruising, demanding. It told him what to do, and like a puppet on its strings, Wei Ying moved to its every command.

Now, so long past his birth, past the parties he attended as the bright light of the land, past the glamour of royalty and feasting and silken garments laden with gems and promises, he sat in the wake of a war. He sat in the lands torn apart, in the lands soaked in equal parts Divine magic and Divine blood, and still danced to the music the Fates played for him. His feet would move if they said walk, and his lips would speak if they told him to talk. Even now, even after everything that has happened, he is still left in their grasp.

His soul was marked, just like the land around him, with the life he has lived and the life the Fates have made for him. If he tried to imagine it, his soul as a untouched land, he wondered if maybe the world around him is echoing—action for action—the way his soul has changed since everything began.

Where once stood the mountains of pride, of honor, now rested a valley full of rubble. A waterfall of sadness seemed to be welling there, from the still-standing rocks. He wondered, if he tried to name it, if those still-standing rocks were understanding. A wonderful, beautiful, wretched thing. And before it laid barren lands, scorched promises leaving weeping regret-filled wounds in its wake.

His long softened heart, beaten by years of living in a land he was never meant to, of raising siblings in the dampness of their father’s stomach and not on the neverending fields of happiness like the ones he had been born to, wanted to weep. It wanted him to break down, here on the beach, like he did last night. It wanted him to crumple into the waves, to beg for forgiveness or understanding, to beg for a reason why. Why this all happened, why his siblings were given this fate, why he was left with nothing but fear and self-hatred, when his siblings have all the world at their feet now.

He did not listen to it, though.

He did not weep.

His eyes returned to the horizon, the sun cresting just at the edge of the water. He felt the water tickle his feet, fleeting and playful, felt the warmth of the sun sink into his skin, and thought ‘It’s time’. He understood what had to be done, understood what the Fates had been trying to tell him.

He basked in the peacefulness, in the moment before he gave up everything. It was a moment he didn't know he needed. With the sound of waves, with the warmth of the sun, with the sound of sand shifting under someone's foot—

A body settled beside him, startling him and causing him to jump slightly. He turned his head, unaware of who he was expecting, yet when he locked eyes on his sister's serene face, the tension he hadn’t been aware of started to seemingly melt away.

“It's a beautiful sunrise,” she said, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs, her knees pressed flush against her chest. Her eyes stared forward, searching the horizon for something.

“It is,” he agreed, leaning back on his hands, grabbing fistfuls of the sand and centering himself on the feel of coarse sand scratching at his palms.

She rested her head on her knees, staring at him with a question in her eyes. “Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”

He gave her a smirk, his eyes falling shut against the light and his sister’s all-knowing gaze. “I didn’t think the others would want it.”

Jiang Yanli hummed, and he could feel her gaze boring into him, trying to piece together something he couldn’t understand yet. She let the silence drag on, he suspected to make him squirm. “...Do you really think that, A-Xian?” she asked, her voice nearly drowned out by the waves.

He opened his eyes, silver meeting the beautiful blue of the morning sky, and rolled the question around in his head for a moment. “It’s best if I do.”

A sigh passed her lips, and he could hear the sound of sand shifting. She leaned to the side, pressing her shoulder against his and sitting there a little while longer in silence.

“If that’s what you wish to believe to make this easier, A-Xian, I won’t stop you,” she murmured, her head lifting from her knees and finding its resting place on his shoulder. “If that’s what you need, I won’t stop you. But I’ll miss you. You deserve to know at least one of us will.”

He pressed a kiss to her hair, breathing in the scent that was purely Jiang Yanli’s smell, and exhaled.

They sat like that for hours, pressed tightly together, as they watched the sunrise across the sea. Finally, when they began to hear their siblings stirring, he stood. His sister rose beside him, but he only had eyes for the sea.

For a moment—the briefest, smallest moment—the world was silent and still around them. For a moment, it was just him and Yanli, out in front of the ocean. Their lives were unraveling before them, leading them down two differing paths. He didn’t know if they would see each other again after this.

He knew he should not leave the others without a goodbye, without a final promise that he would be fine, but the darkness that had been festering in his heart for years told him he would not be missed. And so, with a final smile to his sister, and one last glance to his siblings behind him—sleep heavy, grumbling, snoring, happy—he knew they would be fine without him. He knew, with their sister beside them, and an earth made to love them, that they would be fine.

He stared out at the ocean one last time, burning the image into his mind.

And finally…

He descended.