Wei Wuxian drew in a deep breath, eyes narrowed at the golden glints off holy symbols, the faintest glow to poured water and incense smoke. The resentment in the river twitched and snarled, clumped and sprawled. Some smaller fires of resentful energy pulled loose, swirling their way. Good, those were likely to be the conscious ghosts, the ones most vulnerable to all that spiritual power and the least likely to deserve getting swatted by it.
They can get behind me, too. I’m not sure what I can do for the Nie and Lan Zhan, though.
After all, if anyone was likely to suffer from too much divine power in the air, it would be the cultivators. Valdemarans grew up in a land of Companions, just as those of the Jianghu grew up with the riptide energies of twisted dragon lines. Even the seedlings would likely be fine.
As long as they don’t panic.
From the way shadows were shifting under the water, someone was likely to panic. Soon.
“Night-hunt rules, juniors,” Wei Wuxian ordered. “Stay behind me and Wen Ning. Stay together. Watch each other’s backs-”
Paling, Jaim pointed to a dark ripple in rushing water.
“Well spotted,” Wei Wuxian nodded, walking casually over to the river edge. Glanced upriver to the ongoing chants, and crouched to offer his hand. “Mistress Vienne! It’s good to see you. Would you mind meeting a few new people, or should we take this farther downstream?”
Ghostly flesh shimmered over bones, as her icy grasp closed on his. “…People?”
“Students.” Drawing her to shore, he cast a smile over his shoulder, along with a raised eyebrow of hang back just a little longer. “And Father Gerichen. I have it on good authority he lets kittens climb on him and scolds even Weaponsmasters out of thinking too hard. Do you mind meeting them? They’re learning how to deal with ghosts, and yao, and worse things. It’d really help if they got to know a spirit that doesn’t want to kill them.” He waited a breath to let her pull away if she wanted, then waved to each living soul in turn. “Look, this is Mina, and Kais, and Jaim – and you already know Wen Ning – Molli, and Elpis….”
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Ah! The awesome power of Something To Do so people don’t panic. ^.^
YOU! Watch and learn– oh, good work, you saw Something and that’s like totally cool.
Hi, scary thing from the water, can you please help me calk you down by showing these people how nice and totally not homicidal you are? Thank you! :twinkles:
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He is canonically good at this. *G* Wanted to show that.
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I love this — ghosts are only human, as noted earlier, and he’s working on how to protect the ghosts along with the live humans, partly by introducing them so they hopefully won’t flip out at each other.
Thinking of the Companions as parallel to the twisted dragon lines in terms of becoming inured to dangerous energies is also neat.
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to see the face of father gerichen and other priests as WWX introduces them to that ghost
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Fortunately the other priests are far away enough not to notice. Yet.
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Ooo! Very subtle! By slipping Wen Ning into the middle of introductions to the living, that creates an association in the minds of the students! And Vienne isn’t a bad choice for meeting a not-homicidal-about-you ghost. Valdemar, a palace ghost to be specific, and one he’s worked with before. Solid choice!
Slightly paranoia inducing that he’d just arrived in the capital and already knows a ghost in the heart of the palace, though.
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Your paranoia is reasonable – recall he was specifically looking for ghosts with grudges related to the Palace, because for all he knew he’d have to burn the whole place down….
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Remind the students that ghosts are still people, remind Vienne that /she’s/ still a person! The social ritual of being introduced to other people works both ways!
Lovely fic bit, you write Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning both so well!
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Oooh, I’m a little worried about his idea that the cultivators could have a problem (especially the Nie because reasons…) with TOO much divine power. Maybe most of the people who know about cultivators (including companions aside from Kellen, dang it) still don’t understand the whole “balance” of energy that is part of maintaining a gold core. Kellen will hopefully have an idea that this situation might be more hazardous to his chosen than it would be normally, because of all the divine power, because he has a bit more understanding of what a golden core is, or the closest equivalent. I wonder if he is nervous about Lan Wangji and if he can even help protect him (because he is also part of that divine power) if there IS an issue??
Also, evil little plot bunny can see things starting to go very crazy, Divine power gets ramped way up to dangerous levels in reflex, Lan Wangji sees the danger and puts himself forward as a shield for Wei Wuxian, the Nie and maybe others, (not nessesarily realizing that people other than the cultivators might not need his protection) Wei Wuxian notices and has a rush of protective and slightly panicked “feelings” and that is when the Yiling Patriarch comes out… probably not even close to what you have in mind, but fun to picture either way. 🥰😈 Especially with the idea Mina and Plotting-Nie giggling about both sides later, trying to tease both Lan Wangji and Wei wuxian into realizing that their first reactions were to protect each other, with the rest being more of an afterthought?
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