#xuesang

He's not sure how to feel the day that his perception of Sang-er changes. 

He's heard others talk about nervous anticipation, or hope, or even fear, but... 

"Talk to me, Jue-er," Sang-er murmurs, running long nails that feel like talons through his hair. 

It's a really pleasant feeling, though it doesn't disperse the discomfort in his stomach. 

"It feels like an obligation," Nie Mingjue mutters. 

The look that crosses Sang-er's face makes him feel like an asshole, but now that the words are coming out, he can't make them stop. "Bond a saber, lead the sect, fuck the resident good luck charm. All the requirements to be Nie-zongzhu laid out nice and neat."

The petting stops.

"You know, I only accepted three of the men who were Nie-zongzhu before you," Sang-er says, then quietly gets up and walks back to the aviary.

Oh.

Wow.

Now he feels like an even bigger asshole. 

Sang-er doesn't change back into a bird, but that doesn't lessen the feeling that he has ruined things between them. 

He knows it's on him to apologize, but he doesn't know how. 

In the end, it turns out not to matter much. Sang-er meets him in his new rooms two weeks after his father's funeral. 

"Remember. I chose you," Sang-er says as he sinks into Nie Mingjue's lap and nuzzles up under his chin. 

He won't forget.

---

One of the girls who worked with his mother loved telling outlandish stories of how cultivators would tame magical creatures to protect their sects. 

He had only ever listened with half an ear, dismissing most of them as pure fantasy. 

And then his new sect leader introduces him to the prettiest boy he's ever seen and tells him that is actually a bird. 

"Hm. Not to you, apparently," Nie Mingjue says, looking more amused than anything. 

"I- is that bad?" Meng Yao asks, suddenly fearful that he's failed some kind of secret test. 

One explanation later, he's still reeling a little bit. 

He has been warned that Sang-er might take a while to choose him, or won't choose him at all. But to even be considered an option is overwhelming. 

The stories all said that one had to be an exceptional cultivator to draw the interest of such a being, and he is... very much not that, especially not after being trapped in a bottleneck for the better part of a year. 

So when he returns to his room one evening and finds Sang-er waiting for him, all curled up with his chin resting on his knees, he can't help blurting out the question that has haunted him for weeks. 

"Why me?" 

Sang-er tilts his head, then unfolds himself gracefully and slips off the bed. "I don't see why it matters, but we can help each other. All power has to be refined before it can be used." 

It's an offer to crack open the bottleneck for him, Meng Yao realizes, and his chest and throat close up with painful knots of emotion. "Please. I'll give you anything you want," he begs involuntarily, the words escaping despite being sticky in his mouth.

Sang-er smothers a laugh with a gauzy sleeve, the sound making him shiver. "There's no need for that kind of dramatic proclamation, Yao-er. Just relax," he says, and then leans in to kiss him.

---

He is working the festival crowds, picking pockets and snitching snacks, when a rumble of excited awe goes up in the town's center square. 

"I can't believe they've allowed him out of the fortress," one woman murmurs to her companion. 

"How much do you think old man Chang paid to get them to have him bless the area?" he hears another man say. 

"If it means the crops survive this year, they can have the whole sect treasury as far as I'm concerned," his friend replies. 

Curious despite himself, Xue Yang slips through the very, very few gaps in the mass of people towards the center of all the attention. 

He's almost made it to the front of the crowd when he finds himself on his face in the dirt. 

He raises his head, intent on cursing out whoever tripped him- 

-and finds himself locking gazes with a pale-eyed boy sitting amongst the green and grey robes of a sect that isn't the Changs. 

The boy smiles and gives him a little wave. 

Xue Yang feels dizzy.

Unfortunately, the crowd shifts again, and he doesn't get the chance to see the stranger again before they leave.

---

The first time the pretty boy in green and gold silks that are far too revealing for Qinghe's weather smiles at him, all sweetness and sharp teeth, Lan Xichen feels dizzy. 

Having heard about Sang-er from Mingjue-xiong, he knows what it means that he is seeing a boy at all, but he never thought... he never considered... 

He was the heir, meant to marry and have children. 

Nie Mingjue outright laughs at him when he brings it up. "As if bedding Sang-er has ever stopped anyone else, even a Lan, from doing that." 

He's not sure what to think of that. It should be... indecent that anyone of his sect would have slept with someone, especially a yao, that they had no intention of wedding. 

He starts to wonder if maybe he's a little naive. 

There's a prickly little itch in the back of his brain that says maybe he should ask Sang-er more about it. 

That's... all he'll do... 

Surely.

—

It's… not. 

When, much later, Lan Xichen lies dazed with a pretty boy still curled up against his chest, he has a whole new perspective on things.

---

While Jiang Cheng has heard of Qinghe's strange pet almost all his life, most of the gossip being either jealousy from the Jin sect or denigration from the adults of his own, he doesn't actually meet Sang-er until almost a month after Wei Wuxian has returned from the Burial Mounds.

"Aren't you supposed to be lucky?" he asks, too bitter to remember at that moment that he should be seeing a bird and not a boy.

Sang-er tilts his head in an unnervingly birdlike manner and levels him with an unreadable stare. "Would you like to know how this would be going if I wasn't here?" he asks mildly. 

Jiang Cheng quickly shuts up and retreats to meet with the weaponsmiths.

It's another five days before Sang-er approaches him, alighting in front of him just before he can enter the tent where he sleeps. "My blessing is starting to wane. And you're going to need it for the next push your martial brother is planning." 

Jiang Cheng swallows hard. "Shouldn't you be going to him, then?" he asks, trying not to sound envious. 

Sang-er leans up on his toes and wraps slender arms around his neck, then kisses him lightly. "No." 

Oh. 

Okay. 

He is… very okay with this.

---

Wen Ruohan had only been the third son of the sect, no one important really, when he found himself among Sang-er's potentials.

The first one from outside of Qinghe Nie. The only one among his brothers and sisters.

His father had been smug; his siblings jealous.

Wen Ruohan himself had only been smitten.

Be it the possibility that a little of the pretty boy's luck had, quite literally, rubbed off on him, or a newfound desire to prove himself worthy, he had quickly surpassed his older brothers to steal away the position of sect heir.

But as his strength and standing grew, so too did his jealousy. The fact that Sang-er belonged to Qinghe Nie, that he had other mates, including the sect leaders…

It was hardly fair, was it? When Wen Ruohan could best them all?

And, for three generations, that jealousy quietly simmered. Even as he found himself eventually drawn in by Nie Haoran's irreverent, jovial attitude, found himself becoming friends with the fourth Nie-zongzhu he'd known in his lifetime, it remained under the surface.

Until it escaped.

It is only after Nie Haoran's death that he learns that his old friend and supposed rival was never one of Sang-er's chosen. That for all the clear fondness, they had only been a sect leader and a sect pet.

It's too late to fix things. Sang-er never requests to meet him again.

When the other sects foolishly decide to follow the Nie in standing against the inevitable, he immediately orders the capture of Qinghe's most valuable pet. But Sang-er proves to be surprisingly elusive for a creature of such fame and recognition, and every agent he sends inevitably winds up sentenced to the Fire Palace for failure… until they stop coming back at all, either due to cowardice or because Sang-er has taken note that he is being hunted.

And then, one night, he wakes from his bed in the Palace of the Scorching Sun to find Sang-er watching him from the sill of the open window. 

As a bird, not a boy. 

Incensed by the very clear rejection, he attacks the bird, not caring whether to capture or kill, and the bird retaliates with talons and wing edges as sharp as honed steel. 

Badly injured and mind in a storm, he does not react fast enough when the spy within his ranks (and one of Sang-er's current chosen), steps out of the shadows of the servants' entrance with a sword in hand.

---

He only ends up in Qinghe at all because their father sends him along with Yao-ge as "extra hands", which they both know just means getting rid of him for a while. 

At least Yao-ge is nice about it, sharing lunch with him on the way. 

"Should I go... somewhere?" he asks his brother nervously as they enter the gates. 

"Hm..." Yao-ge flags down a servant who seems to recognize him. "Would A-Yu be permitted to see the aviary?" 

"As long as Sang-er allows it, it's fine. Let's stop by the kitchens to get some fruit for the little ones." 

"Little ones?" Mo Xuanyu asks. 

"Some finches and nightjars found their way in over the last winter. Sang-er likes them well enough, so we never chased them out." 

—

There are not a bunch of little birds and one large bird in the aviary. 

There are a bunch of little birds and a boy his age whose pale-eyed gaze makes him feel like he's going to faint from his heart beating too fast. 

"U- um-" 

The servant who escorted him in makes a noise like trying to turn a laugh into a cough. "I'll let Zongzhu know a new candidate has arrived." 

Wait, what? 

He quickly turns around, but the door has already closed.