The light exchanged in this encounter: Reverberating Illumination

[ranalore]

Title: Reverberating Illumination
Author: Rana Eros
Drabble Type: Triple Drabble
Character: Mo Xuanyu
Rating/Warnings: Teen and Up, mention of self-harm, depiction of ritual suicide
Summary: Mo Xuanyu wants revenge badly enough to give up everything.
Author's Notes: Betaed by the mighty Eliza, who also helped when I was stumped on a title.

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It's overstating to call it a spell; just a sketched-out array with notes on the most likely radicals. With the other materials collected from Yiling Laozu's lair, however, Mo Xuanyu can extrapolate. He has no choice; the slow poison of his brother's music infuses his qi, and he can't fight it. All his rage makes no difference.

Except in this. Mo Xuanyu's rage sustains him through this.

He takes all the time he dares with the array. It's surely crude by Wei Wuxian's standards, but at least he can use it. First he traces the characters in dust for practice. He sits in their center. Imagines waking up to a world sixteen years after he left it. Imagines never waking up again. Imagines his half-brother smiling through a long life as xiandu; well, perhaps not so long. Nie-zongzhu, Mo Xuanyu is certain, has plans should this fail. But this is Mo Xuanyu's plan. His revenge.

When he has the size and configuration he wants, he calmly cuts his arm four times, and uses the blood to trace the array. His cousin stole his cinnabar, and it's not as though he'll need his blood after this. If Wei Wuxian needs it, Mo Xuanyu has laid everything out properly—he implores his ancestors he has—so the spell will take everything he gives and exchange it for what the recipient needs.

"Wei Wuxian," he says, and feels a pulling at his jindan. Of course that's where it starts; a cultivator as powerful as Yiling Laozu will doubtless not even notice it in the immensity of his own golden core. Still, as Mo Xuanyu unravels from the fabric of the world, he thinks he will be forgiven for hoping so small a piece of him lingers to see his plans through.

Comments

[hhimring]

That is an interesting idea that Mo Xuanyu was also poisoned by the music!
You have given him so much agency and self-awareness here, nevertheless.
And there is a lot of irony in that last bit about the golden core!

[amedia]

I really like how Mo Xuanyu takes ownership of this decision, despite Jin Guangyao's interference and Nie Huaisang's planning. It makes his narrative less that of a victim and more that of a successful avenger.

Mo Xuanyu's assumption about the Yiling Laozu's golden core adds a tinge of wry humor.

The metaphor "unravels from the fabric of this world" is beautiful.

[the_leaky_pen]

Oh I love this so much. I love anything that gives Mo Xuanyu interiority, and this is such a rich vignette. I can feel the strength of Mo Xuanyu's fury in every line of this. And oof, the line about WWX's golden core is a nice little prickle of irony.