1/9/21

aroberuka: (cql)
Title: Where Life Travels
Fandom: The Untamed
Challenge/Prompt: chenqing_100 - Spring comes, and all again is peach blossom and water
AO3 Link: here

***

In the language of travelers, time is kept in seasonal blooms and the comings and goings of migratory animals. A child of nowhere, raised on a mountain where no one had any use for months and years, Cangse Sanren is fluent in this tongue.

Born and raised in Lotus Pier, Wei Changze only knows how to count in calendar days.

But as he sits with her under falling peach blossoms and tenderly traces the gentle curve of her rounded belly, he thinks the baby will be born along with the chrysanthemums and realizes he is, after all, starting to learn.

***
aroberuka: (cql)

Title: The Third Rule
Fandom: The Untamed
Challenge/Prompt: chenqing_100 - Rules
AO3 Link: here

***

Of all the rules that steered the course of Wangji's life, there were three that no-one else knew about:

first touch, life;

second touch, death;

no more than sixty seconds in between.

The third rule was of utmost importance, because Wangji was never the one who paid the price of breaking it.

But this was Wei Ying, coming back to precious life at Wangji's touch, already in movement, already smiling, as if this was just a chance meeting between old friends, even though his death had been anything but peaceful. This was Wei Ying, and Wangji—

Wangji forgot the time.
 

***
aroberuka: (cql)

Title: Crucible
Fandom: The Untamed
Challenge/Prompt: chenqing_100 - Five elements
AO3 Link: here

***

The river has always been his favourite playground: everywhere he looks, there is a memory.

He watches it turn red with the blood of childhood.

-

The pain traces lines of fire across his back; every move a firework.

He shifts his shoulders, idly, every time his body thinks to sleep.

-

wind thunder-howls past his ears no air in his lungs everything so loud ground coming up too fast can't breathe can't breathe can't even clo

-

The taste of iron never leaves his mouth anymore.

Better than nothing, he thinks, better than hunger: then the hunger gives way to something worse.

-

The wood smells rotten, but so does everything else. Even he stinks of decay.

It will serve him well, if it can withstand the carving.

***