Chapter Text
When Wei Wuxian finally resurfaced from the depths of the forest, he was riding a high. The sharp smell of pine stuck deep in his nose from zipping among the densely growing trees under the safety of their wide, leafy canopies for hours. He leapt over a fallen trunk, high enough that his stomach rose thrillingly, and landed heavily, front paws digging into a mossy patch. Sun-warmed earth sprayed up to the sky as he shook his body to free his glossy black coat. With a wide yawn showing an impressive array of sharp teeth, he sunk his lower half into a deep and satisfying stretch. His spine tingled and his teeth buzzed with the fading adrenaline of an overdue run, when all he had to worry about was where the forest ended and where it began. Now all he longed for was to get back to his clothes, change back to his human body, and pass out literally anywhere that the scent of his jiejie’s famous soup heating in the kitchen could be smelled.
Prancing to the leafy ferns near the clearing that he hid his clothing near, Wei Wuxian startled and leapt back from the bush, twisting mid air and dancing on his hindlegs to get away. The air smelled wrong. Like gooseberries and something rich, thick, so heavy he could taste it. He knew exactly who was there beyond the thick bushes.
“You look like a feral animal,” came a voice so snarled it felt like the round prickly balls that fell from some of the trees. They hid amongst clumps of moss and leaves that scattered across the forest floor, ready to take Wei Wuxian by surprise and cut into the soft pads of his paws.
He made a questioning whine and cocked his head, his panting coming to a nervous halt. Madam Yu rose, appearing behind the bushes Wei Wuxian’s clothes were in. She was striking in all her deep violet glory, the weaponized bracelet Zidian coiling around her wrist. Striking like venomous snake with glittering purple scales.
Madam Yu looked startled, like she hadn’t meant to say that. Looking at her shaking hands where they gripped the loose white shirt and patchy red pants that were Wei Wuxian’s ticket back to bipedal freedom, he could guess why. She hadn’t meant to be found.
“You belong here,” Madam Yu said jerkily, the angry vein standing out on her otherwise clear and smooth forehead. Patches of sweat glistened at her temples where short whisps of midnight came free from the elegant combination of braids and buns her hair had been painstakingly pinned into by her maids that morning.
Helpless to say anything, Wei Ying whined deep in the back of his throat and lowered his body to the ground. He forced his ears to pin back against his skull and his hackles to stay flat and smooth when they wanted to rise into a porcupine’s warning quills. The position usually worked to soothe Madam Yu’s wrath or cruelty, whichever he was subjected to that day.
“I realize this must feel sudden for you,” Madam Yu said, slinging Wei Wuxian’s pants over her shoulder in an uncharacteristically common and masculine manner. She grasped his linen shirt in both hands, gave him a friendly smile that looked more like disgust, and curled her lip. Then her hands jerked apart and the fabric in them let out a high pitched tearing sound.
Wei Wuxian instinctively moved to leap forward and snatch his clothing back with his teeth or maybe swipe them out of Madam Yu’s grip with his paw, but Madam Yu held out the wrist that was decorated with a slowly uncurling Zidian.
“Be careful,” she said softly, her dark eyes flat. Wei Wuxian let out a yip and jerked back while Madam Yu wound the ripped fabric of his shirt into a ball.
“You have to have known that this wasn’t permanent,” she continued. Her voice wasn’t even that cruel, just matter-of-fact. “You had to know that, one day, you’d be sent back here.”
Wei Wuxian let out a soft sneeze in protest.
“You were snatched from the arms of this forest and dragged to my home by my addled, soft-hearted, lump of a husband who thought you were a puppy. You were supposed to be a gift for my son, a pet,” Madam Yu spat the last word like it was a dirty, offensive slur and Wei Wuxian reared back from the force of it, his front canines making an appearance before he could stop them.
“You were meant to be a gift,” Madam Yu continued softly, looking down at the scraps of his shirt that she still held. She smoothed a hand over the shirt, oddly gentle. “And you became a distraction. A bad influence. You stole my husband’s heart away from his own son, you’ve bewitched my daughter to cater to you like a maid, you came into my family when we welcomed you kindly and with generosity, and you ripped us apart.”
She was shaking the shirt at Wei Wuxian, her fist so tight he could hear her knuckles crack. She was all teeth and fury and Wei Wuxian was powerless to escape it.
“But you are nothing more than a wild dog,” she said softly, her voice practically a whisper. She raised her chin looking down at Wei Wuxian with a flat expression. “A pest. You’re lucky I’m not having you put down.”
And then she turned and walked out of the forest, thick amethyst skirts swirling as she walked. Wei Wuxian was frozen. He fell back onto his haunches, staring at the space that Madam Yu had occupied and felt his chest rising and falling faster and faster. He couldn’t be stuck in this forest. He couldn’t be here, his shijie was waiting for him. She was chopping pork and lotus while slapping Jiang Cheng’s thieving hands away from her finely proportioned ingredients. When he got home, she’d ask if he was okay and she’d give him that exasperated, fond smile while he dug into the meal she prepared like he’d never eaten. If he was lucky, he’d get a sisterly kiss on the forehead.
Wei Wuxian watched Madam Yu disappear into the village that lay stretched ahead and felt oddly hollow. It felt so final. Probably because she was right. To Jiang Fengmian, he was the better loved son delivered from a family friend of Jiang family’s front step, mistaken as a puppy, discovered to be a monster, and yet still held more beloved than the Jiangs’ own son. The walls of that grand home where Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng attempted to cohabitate were filled with “why can’t you be more like Wei Wuxian" and “Wei Wuxian has trained twice as many juniors as you, what’s your excuse today?”, things Jiang Cheng heard every day. Wei Wuxian could be so much closer to his adopted brother without those accusations acting like a pair of steel pliers wrenching them apart, but the problem could be resolved with Wei Wuxian’s removal from the home. Jiang Cheng will be happy to stop hearing those things.
He was the inappropriate object of affection Jiang Yanli was scolded for supporting, feeding, holding, loving. But that wasn’t true anymore. He’d never throw himself across her silk draped lap and feel her fingers in his hair, slowly falling asleep in the dim glow of a softly flickering candle that shijie embroidered by. He’d never hold her close to him and feel her too thin arms around his waist and bury his face in her neck where all he smelled was the sweet flowers that magically appeared weekly in his and Jiang Cheng’s rooms. He couldn’t remember the last time they did that, though.
A shudder ran through Wei Wuxian’s tightly coiled body and he lowered onto his belly, snout burrowing between his paws. He swore he’d be by his brother’s now cold and lonely side no matter what. He and shijie may have never made promises like that together, but their “forever” was implied with every homemade meal and warm embrace. But the bond between blood sister and blood brother was something Wei Wuxian couldn’t compete with. And even if Madam Yu was all cutting insults, loveless barbs, angry snarls and even if Jiang Fengmian was coolly dismissive, flatly unimpressed, carefully distant, they still needed their children to carry on the line of power, if nothing else.
But Wei Wuxian was no loss. Wie Wuxian wasn’t built for family, he was built for the forest.
He was built for long runs down dusty paths, mossy forest grounds, grassy fields, dodging hunters and their weapons and their horses, zipping between the trees and leaping over bushes, splashing through streams and climbing over rocks. He was built for early mornings when the sun barely shown its first ray down like a blessing, and he was built for late nights when the stars gently illuminated the night like a candle peeking through the holes of a lantern. He was built for running, he was built for waking, he was built for survival. And what’s one more thing to survive.