#memprime

“You’re not going to die, stop being so dramatic,” Nie Huaisang grumbled. “The sect healers said that your meridians are clearer than they’ve ever seen in our family and that you may well have solved the problem in our clan’s cultivation method to the point that they don’t see any reason you can’t cultivate straight into immortality.”

Nie Mingjue did not respond. He was, after all, a saber.

“I can feel you being smug in there!”

It was a natural state for sabers. That was his story, and he was sticking with it.

Baxia laughed inside his mind and reached out with a human hand to pat Nie Huaisang on the head, her action still a little overly rough by the look of his face. She’d seen a parent do it to their child and been charmed by the action; she seemed to think it was the human equivalent of being polished.

“Ugh, da-jie, stop that, I’m a grown-up – more to the point, I’m a grown-up that’s going to be running the sect for the next few days until da-ge’s concussion is better!”

Baxia held up two fingers.

“…two days?”

She shook her head.

“Two weeks?”

A nod.

“I – but – da-ge, you can’t do this to me!”

Yes, he could, Nie Mingjue thought with a smile that had some bite in it. And he would, too.

“But there’s a discussion conference about to happen!”

It was all planned out already – Nie Huaisang only needed to attend in his place. What was the problem?

“Da-ge! You get out of that saber this instant and talk to me!”

No.

“Da-ge!”

-

It wasn’t so much that Nie Mingjue had overlooked the question of the discussion conference, but rather he didn’t think it was especially relevant to him as a saber, and of course Baxia would just sit there and scowl at everyone, her aura so intimidating that no one would dare come near.

He overlooked only a single problem: that a discussion conference meant guests, and guests meant swords.

Talkative swords.

In a manner of speaking, anyway.

Nie Mingjue had grown accustomed to the strange way of seeing things that sabers had, more qi detection than actual vision; he had learned to adjust to the strange way that he could almost taste evil, the way his blade was a single jagged tooth eager to drink down blood; he had become familiar with having a body made of sharp steel, immune to pain but vulnerable to dents.

Despite that, hearing the other swords converse was – utterly bizarre.

It was one thing when all around him were the sabers of his Nie sect, since obviously Wei Wuxian didn’t carry one and the Wen sect didn’t either, and Lan Xichen was far too polite to carry his sword openly in the halls of the Unclean Realm. Those sabers surrounded him like a raindrop fallen into a well, familiar and comforting and just the same as him – the same implacable hatred of evil, the nuances of their personalities in greater or lesser degrees, often echoing their masters. They rarely conversed, merely affirmed each other upon meeting, a low subvocal purr of contentment to be around the like-minded.

(Aituan sounded like a rusty door, squeaking and yawning, but however weirdly good-naturedly he was, he was still a saber, with his share of bloodlust and hatred and rage buried deep inside his metal.)

The swords, however…

Shuoyue was a rippling brook, gentle and clear and perhaps a little shallow, a little too flexible, while Bichen in contrast was steady as the earth – more saber-like, despite the double edge. They emitted a feeling like the curved vowels of Gusu and the straightness of their sect rules, the serene mountains and the generous plains, pristine and perfect right up until they met some of their neighbors (the newly formed Su clain, for example) at which point it was all screech-screech-screech.

The rule against gossip in the Cloud Recesses apparently didn’t apply to their swords.

Nie Mingjue would have expected the Jin sect swords to be flashy and bright, as gilded on the inside as they were on the outside, but they were actually a fairly quiet lot. He wasn’t sure if it was their masters’ poor cultivation – though it could be, they were weaker as a general rule than the other sects – or something else lurking behind, some secret of cultivation that he oughtn’t know.

Suihua was fairly pleasant, though: bright and almost maternal in the way she fussed about her wielder, secretly adjusting herself to compensate for any weaknesses in his form. She got along surprisingly well with Aituan, which Nie Mingjue wouldn’t have guessed, and Baxia hummed a reluctant note of approval as well.

Perhaps he should consider cultivating more of a relationship with the young Jin Zixuan, with such an excellent recommendation. Sure, he wasn’t his sword – unlike sabers, which reflected their masters in full, swords seemed to be more of a concave image, similar but distorted to more or lesser degree depending on the distance between master and sword – but the sort of person who would cultivate a sword like that probably needed all the real friends he could get.

Sandu, in contrast, was something of a disaster, something that Nie Mingjue hadn’t expected and, in hindsight, really should have. The sheer amount of power that the sword exuded was impressive, and he was stalwart and true, another saber-like one, but unlike his combative, grumpy, and uptight (but generally well-meaning) master, he was aimless and gamboling, mischievous in a vague unintentional sort of way, liable to make trouble more by accident than on purpose.

Reminded him of Aituan, actually. Children among swords…

It was really a fascinating insight, he thought to himself, amused. He could use this to his advantage in the future, even though he wouldn’t, politically; it seemed an unfair advantage. But perhaps as a means of making friends…

Hmm.

Speaking of friends –

-

“I don’t understand,” Wei Wuxian said, looking from Baxia to Nie Mingjue and back, eyes so notably not darting towards his Suibian that it had to be intentional. “Suibian isn’t a saber.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, already regretting having returned to his human form simply because of the skull-wracking migraine the concussion had left behind. Plus, if Nie Huaisang ever found out that he’d been willing to return for this but not to do the paperwork, he’d find a way to stab him no matter how great the difference in their cultivation.  “She isn’t. But she’s willing to compromise.”

“…what?”

Nie Mingjue wasn’t sure how to explain it. “You’ve interacted with Baxia when she’s - uh - upright, yes?”

“Yes, of course. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that it was mostly her during the conference – she nearly made Sect Leader Yao cry, and didn’t say a word the entire time. I want to know her secret method.”

“I’m fairly sure her method is ‘be a saber’,” Nie Mingjue said dryly. “Still, my point is – would you say that you have an understanding of her? Baxia, as opposed to me?”

“I don’t think anyone can really understand –”

Nie Mingjue leveled him with a look.

“Okay, fine, yes. She’s got a lot of personality, your Baxia. What does that have to do with you wanting me to cultivate Suibian with your sect’s technique?”

“A variation on my sect’s technique, since I’m obviously not teaching you the main technique itself. My point is, during the conference I had the opportunity to converse with a number of different swords –”

“Hold up!” Wei Wuxian held up both his hands. “You talked to the - to people’s swords?!”

“It’s not really talking,” Nie Mingjue admitted. “They’re mostly not as sentient as Baxia, especially for the younger generation. But they still have spirits; they wouldn’t be spiritual weapons if they didn’t. Anyway, it occurred to me that you weren’t using Suibian because of –”

“That incident we do not discuss.”

“…yes, that. Without a golden core, it’s impossible for you to cultivate in the traditional Jiang sect sword style -”

“Wow. You just completely missed the hint that I didn’t want to talk about that.”

“It’s not missing a hint if I ignore it deliberately. Anyway, the fact that you’ve cultivated Suibian in that style for all these years means that they are accustomed to that style, but since by coincidence I was able to converse with the other swords, I thought it worthwhile to feel out if they would be willing to consider adopting a style variation on the Nie sect style, with more emphasis on utilizing resentful energy as swordsmanship.”

Wei Wuxian looked stricken. “You – think that’s possible? I – no, I tried, it doesn’t –”

“You trained your sword to resist outside influences, I know. You can’t not teach a sword that; obviously no one wants Suibian being controlled by any ghost, corpse or yao that happens by. But I think with me in the saber and you on the outside, we might be able to work out a method by which Suibian could distinguish between resentful energy generally and resentful energy being wielded by you. That woudl allow them to respond to that energy as if it was your own…”

Wei Wuxian was hugging him. Why was he hugging him?

“I’m going to switch to Baxia if you don’t let go,” he warned, and Wei Wuxian let go at once.

His eyes were teary.