Some very subtle sheepishness crosses Lan Wangji's expression for a fraction of a moment. This is difficult for him to answer objectively. The first time he saw Magnus, he saw the echo of his own memories, of the first time Sizhui held a sword and Lan Wangji talked him through the first steps of the Lan clan's most basic sword forms.
He considers him, the fall of his freshly-neatened hair and the grey of his eyes, the impression of ghosts within them. There is something of a gravity to Magnus, something that Sizhui and Jingyi and their peers do not have most days. Maybe it is the additional years or maybe it is the bloodshed that Magnus has seen, the unchecked violence that Lan Wangji has been so relieved to spare his students from witnessing. They all performed beautifully during the second siege of the Burial Mounds, and he is proud -- but he wishes they had not needed to.
"Neither sixteen nor twenty-four," he says again, with a fresh measure of deliberation, but he has to admit, soft with that precipitous fondness, "but I see my disciples when I look at you."
no subject
He considers him, the fall of his freshly-neatened hair and the grey of his eyes, the impression of ghosts within them. There is something of a gravity to Magnus, something that Sizhui and Jingyi and their peers do not have most days. Maybe it is the additional years or maybe it is the bloodshed that Magnus has seen, the unchecked violence that Lan Wangji has been so relieved to spare his students from witnessing. They all performed beautifully during the second siege of the Burial Mounds, and he is proud -- but he wishes they had not needed to.
"Neither sixteen nor twenty-four," he says again, with a fresh measure of deliberation, but he has to admit, soft with that precipitous fondness, "but I see my disciples when I look at you."