Aaron/Huaisang

[creeksidealtarboy]

It's nightfall by the time Aaron finally sees this "Impure Realm" that they took him to. He's hungry. He's filthy. He's thirsty. And there's nothing around him that's familiar. He has cigarettes in the pocket of his jeans and nothing else of his own. No note. No information.

Only the vaguely unsettling feeling that he's been deposited somewhere...wrong.

These people look like Huaisang. The robes, the way they move...it's familiar enough that, before they could unsheath their swords, he's throwing his hands out, asking for Nie Huaisang to their complete bafflement. But they loaded him up and took him. Goddamn.

Hopefully they sent someone ahead.

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[threedontknows]

Sect leader Nie has indeed heard that there was a foreigner, a very out-of-place and almost ghostly-looking foreigner at that, was asking to see Nie Huaisang. How a pale foreigner knew to ask for the sect leader of the Qinghe Nie is puzzling beyond belief, though Huaisang himself had the strangest inkling as to just who was being brought to his door.

He doesn’t greet him himself; that’s not the job of a sect leader. Instead a small entourage of Nie disciples come to the gate to collect the foreigner and deposit him in a clean room, clean robes, a tub of hot water, and good food waiting for the unusual guest.

[creeksidealtarboy]

The bath is welcome but the food is...odd. He never had enough time to develop much of a taste for anything other than ramen or mac and cheese.

On the other hand, he is starving, so he bathes and, after fumbling with the robes, decides that he needs to stay in his old clothes or he'll wear the damn things backwards.

Then he finally picks through the food.

[threedontknows]

As Aaron goes to sit down and attempt to eat the very strange-looking food, the sect leader himself finally knocks at the doors to the guest quarters.

Huaisang is wearing a very plush, very lovely-looking robe, but it's the jewelry and ornate braids in his hair that distinguishes his appearance here from the Barge.

[creeksidealtarboy]

Aaron looks up from a very fragrant soup and automatically stands up, ready to slip into his 'dumb and confused' act, a more comfortable fit than the robes.

But he sees his face, sees how ornately he's done up, and he pauses.

"Holy shit," he swears under his breath.

[threedontknows]

"Aaron," Huaisang smiles, dropping the fan with a flourish. He'd hoped it was him. Ever since waking back up in the Impure Realm he'd wondered when he would see him again -- he was certain it would happen. This had to have been some sort of mistake.

"Aaron," he repeats, shutting the door and striding across the room to greet him. "They told me there was a foreigner with pale skin and blue eyes on the road. I'd guessed it was you." It was why he'd put him in such a nice set of rooms.

[creeksidealtarboy]

He rolls his shoulders back, standing up straighter, crossing over to greet him in turn. "Where the fuck am I?" he wonders, glancing behind him, as if they'd been followed. He's tense, worried, no longer in control of anything. And Huaisang looks...exactly the opposite. Aaron's almost a little jealous.

"How did you guess that? Did you do this?"

[threedontknows]

“Do what, bring us here?” Huaisang scoffs. “I’m not anywhere near that powerful! I think it’s some sort of port, or the Admiral dropped us off accidentally. That’s been my guess though, I was waiting to hear if anyone I knew had come along with me.”

[creeksidealtarboy]

"Yeah, there ain't anyone else here, man. Just me. And I was in the middle of nowhere. I rode a fucking donkey to get here."

Not exactly an experience he wants to repeat any time soon.

He glances over Huaisang's shoulder. "Did you - did any of your people make it back? Or are they still fucking dead?"

[threedontknows]

Huaisang glances away at Aaron’s question. “No,” he answers him, distracting himself with a painting on the wall. “No, no one came back. It’s just how I left it.”

Jim Guangyao still dead, his brother still dead, Lan Xichen still in seclusion. The cultivation world is dreary and he’s even more alone.

“So it was just you. What’s the Admiral playing at with this!”

[creeksidealtarboy]

"Maybe it's just a port," he says, moving away to return to the very good smelling soup. He didn't get to eat and his stomach is reminding him of that fact.

"Maybe everyone got dropped off in different parts or - or on different worlds. Shit will be back the way it was in a week."

[threedontknows]

He doesn’t know if he’s ever heard of a port going directly into someone’s world, but this is the Barge. Anything could happen!

He sits down across from Aaron to make sure he’s eating well. He knows the roads in and out of Qinghe — it’s rough traveling up here in the mountains.

“Other than all that, are you alright?”

[creeksidealtarboy]

"I mean, I woke up in the dirt and then people started coming at me with fucking swords. I saw someone fucking fly. On their sword."

He shakes his head. "Your world is weird, man."

[threedontknows]

Huaisang laughs a little. “You don’t think about it until you’re on the other side. Cultivators do fly on swords. Good ones anyway.”

And the ones that don’t use evil-devouring sabres.

[threedontknows]

Nie Huaisang tried his best to prepare Aaron for the rest of the cultivation world as they journeyed from Qinghe to Gusu, especially the Lan Clan of Gusu themselves. Their rules were...excessive, to put it mildly, and completely insane if one were being truthful. He explained about the different styles of all the different clans -- Jiang clan, the Jin, the former Wen and some of the other minor clans that would be joining them.

Cloud Recesses were absolutely gorgeous though, and he gushed about the wine they would be having and the beautiful scenery they would be taking in together. This was going to be fun! (Once they were allowed to retreat to their rooms after the banquets, that is).

He did send a letter ahead warning the other clans he would be bringing a guest, and if they asked any rude questions he'd immediately call the cultivation conference to an end. He doubted the Lan would say anything, but the Jin and Jiang were unpredictable at times.

He wondered if Wei Wuxian would be there.

[creeksidealtarboy]

Aaron tried to take it all in. He'd resigned himself to a life here at first, becoming quiet and a little solitary for a few days, but that was all it took before he perked up again, dreaming of the life he could have here.

He finally found a routine that made sense, and started working on learning how to read the language properly. If the Barge was never coming back, then he was worried any residual Barge magic would leave him, ensuring he wouldn't understand a goddamn thing.

But he's a quick study and after only a week, he had been picking up several phrases here and there. Not that anyone could tell the difference, but Aaron could.

Following Huaisang, he asked every question that came to his head, but once they reached Cloud Recesses, he was too busy eyeing everything to talk.

[threedontknows]

Lan guards meet the Nie representatives and the chief cultivator at the main gate, and after a very solemn announcement to the attendees up the stairs, the entourage passes through and heads up to greet the others. Huaisang keeps Aaron by his side, smiling quite genuinely the entire time as they pass by cultivators in white, gold, and silver.

Huaisang offers a bow to his fellow sect leaders, though the ones he's given in return are lower and longer, as befitting his status.

"Your Excellency, we've prepared your rooms. Come this way."

[creeksidealtarboy]

Aaron eyes the guards as they walk past, but he sticks close to Huaisang. He's learned how to bow and to whom, playing the part of the good guest for as long as he needs to.

It's strange, he thinks, being around such ceremony. But at least they seem to be getting a bit of a break. It's exhausting to be in his character for so long.

[threedontknows]

The rest of the Nie clan are shown to their cottages, while Huaisang and Aaron are brought to a large, empty house on the top of the mountain. It's where Huaisang usually stays when he comes to Cloud Recesses, removed but still close to the Lan family, as fitting the Chief Cultivator.

He thanks the young man who shows them along the way with a short bow, flicking closed his fan as he steps inside and inhales.

"They put the herbs in I'd requested."

[creeksidealtarboy]

"Of course they did," he tells him, giving his ass a pinch.

Aaron scrubs at his face when the young man leaves, collapsing onto the nearest cushion. "I will never get used to walking that fucking much."

[threedontknows]

Huaisang swats at the air with his fan. “I was never very good with flying. I’m afraid I’d drop you.”

He fiddles a bit here and there - lighting a candle with the flick of his wrist, opening one window and closing another - then sits on the floor by Aaron’s feet and pulls off his boots. He pulls Aaron’s right foot into his lap and massages from heel to toes slowly.

[creeksidealtarboy]

Aaron closes his eyes, enjoying the attention. He lounges back, sprawled out. "Why does it always seem like you have such perfect weather here?"

[threedontknows]

He laughs, digging his fingers into a pressure point. “That’ll change, it’s all rain and fog up here in the mountains.”

[creeksidealtarboy]

"Yeah, but it ain't too hot. And - you're always warm if you need to be."

He hisses softly, though not in pain, at the feeling of the fingers on his foot.

[threedontknows]

Huaisang switches feet and gives the other one equal attention. “You haven’t been to Qinghe in the winter,” he teases.

[creeksidealtarboy]

"No. But I guess I will be," he laughs. "So what are we gonna be doing today?"

He pulls his foot from Huaisang's hands and gently pushes him down with his toes, sitting up to look down at him.