Title: Bye Baby Bunting
Fandom: The Untamed
Author: Elwendell
Characters: Wei Ying, Lan Zhan, Bunnies...lots of bunnies
Rating: PG (for mild language)
Setting: After the series.
Summary: Wei Ying goes out to cool down, and gets colder than expected.
Word Count: 1640
Warnings: None
Written For: Challenge 391: Storm.
Disclaimer: I don’t own a whole lot of anything, and nothing at all of this series.



BYE BABY BUNTING

Wei Ying curled his body tighter, tucking reddening hands into his armpits. “Stupid!”

He had been muttering that word a lot in the last hour; so often that he was no longer sure whether he spoke it aloud, or whether he just thought it. The word was the only sound in his head. In truth, the word was probably the only sound outside his head too.

He looked up, blinking furiously as a particularly large snowflake splattered on his forehead. It began to melt, sliding coldly down his face, until he shook his head to dislodge if from his eyebrow. Wei Ying tried to draw up his legs, hissing as an injured ankle protested, and had to settle for hugging just one knee to his chest. Of course, that left his hands unprotected again. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

The blanketing snow devoured all echoes, leaving his words to drop flat, as soon as they left his lips. Clenching teeth against the pain, he tried to shuffle deeper into the hollow beneath the roots of an old tree. In the process, he gave up on hugging his knee, settling for keeping his hands warm instead. Thus was the breadth of his choices. Hypothermia, or frostbite. Would this snow never stop?

“Stupid.” It was his own fault for getting into this situation. The snow had looked so pretty and, alone in the jingshi, he grew bored easily. Lan Zhan had students to teach every day, but his own classes were still poorly attended. It wasn't that the young students were not interested in his craft, but parents were more difficult to persuade. Using demonic cultivation to fight demons was fighting fire with fire, and many were still unconvinced regarding its use. Wei Ying sighed, the cloud of his own breath temporarily blinding him, then coughed as he had to draw in a deeper, icy one, to replace it.

He had awoken in a bad mood that day, having sat up for most of the night working on some simple talismans for the next class, and spent the entire breakfast sniping at Lan Zhan. Stupid. Yes. He was good at stupid. It had not helped, that Lan Zhan did not retaliate. Wei Ying wanted a good fight, damn it! Poking at your opponent with a sword was no fun when all they did was dodge. To add insult to assumed injury, Lan Zhan hugged him before leaving. Wei Ying had taken a perverse pleasure in not hugging back, then regretted the whole thing, as soon as the door closed upon a still apparently indifferent Lan Zhan.

Simmering, and at a loose end, when snow began to fall softly, Wei Ying threw on one extra layer of clothing and set off for the hillsides, in hopes of finding some good vantage point from which to observe the landscape changing; incidentally hoping that his mood would change with it. It was only the second time he had seen snow in Cloud Recesses, and still a new experience for someone raised in the lowlands. Of course, that meant that his clothing was not exactly suitable for such weather but, typically, he decided to postpone that problem.

Now he risked a good dose of frostbite as he brushed an inch of snow off his legs. At least the cold was beginning to numb some of the pain in his ankle. He had been caught out by the severity of the storm, and managed to turn his ankle in a buried rabbit hole. Damn those stupid bloody rabbits! It felt good to momentarily call something else, “Stupid”. At this particular moment Wei Ying wanted to kill the whole herd. (And just what was the collective name for a lot of stupid rabbits? ) No. Lan Zhan would never forgive him. It was his own fault that he was in this predicament, after all. He had been spending too much time staring up at the trees, draped in their sparkling blankets, and not enough time at what was beneath his feet. Wei Ying smiled. That was almost a metaphor of his life. Long ago having adopted a policy of, 'live and let live', if they were not within sight, Wei Ying tended to ignore life's rabbit holes until he fell into them.

Leaning out from his meagre shelter, Wei Ying stared up, through the lazy haze of snow, into pale grey sky that seemed to lour only inches above the tree-tops. If anything, the snowflakes had grown bigger since he had managed to stagger, and then drag himself here. He looked down at the snow bank before him, unsurprised to discover his tracks had long since been buried. A deep shudder wracked his body, and Wei Ying ducked back. Wait. What? His eyes noted a tiny flutter of movement nearby. When he risked another glance, however, he could discern nothing through the thickly flowing air.

At least the snow that was forming drifts around his shelter, was beginning to close out some of the worst of the wind. Wei Ying wondered if any of the tales of people surviving by burying themselves in snow were true. For a moment he considered trying it, then ditched the idea. How would anyone find him if he buried himself? How would Lan Zhan find him? Lan Zhan would surely be searching by now. For a moment Wei Ying pondered that thought with more than a twinge of conscience. Despite his behaviour that morning, he still had no doubt that Lan Zhan would come looking. How long he had been gone? In this pale, diffused light, shadows were all but lost, so Wei Ying had no way to gauge the time. It was not dark yet, so he took courage from the fact that it must still be early afternoon. How cold would it get when the sun went down? He pulled a hand from his armpit, unsurprised to see that it had gone from red to purple, and hurriedly stuffed it back.

His teeth were chattering, despite efforts to clench them. At least it was a sound. There was no birdsong, no animals or birds moving about...or were there? Wei Ying blinked at what seemed to be another flicker of movement a few yards away. Were there wolves in Gusu? He supposed there must be. He checked for Qingcheng, relieved when he found it still tucked into the back of his belt. It was not much defence against a good set of wolf jaws, but it may buy him some time. Playing it would be out of the question. His lungs were refusing to accept any large quantities of this freezing air, but a mouth full of sharp bamboo splinters may make a wolf think twice.

There it was again. Movement; little more than an awareness of change low down, amongst the hummocks of snow. Wei Ying squinted hard, but still there was only a vague sense of something having moved in the snowy landscape. He shook his head. It was probably just a clump of snow falling from a branch.

“Shit!!!”

Wei Ying tried to leap to his feet as something wriggled at his back. Hampered by what he suspected was a broken ankle, and long hours of sitting in the cold, he could only scrabble to one side, yelping as the movement drew a sharp stab of pain. Clumsily grabbing for Qingcheng, he pointed it, swordlike, in the direction of that wriggle, then blinked.

A large, plump, white, rabbit sat staring up at him, apparently totally unconcerned that he was staring down the barrel of a bamboo stick. Wei Ying lowered his largely ineffectual weapon and snorted. At least the shock had stopped his teeth chattering. “What are you doing out and about?”

The rabbit only took a hop closer, whiskers twitching. Suddenly, another pink nose, followed by a long set of white whiskers, appeared from a hole in the bank at his side. In his desperate scramble to find shelter earlier, Wei Ying had not noticed the burrow entrance, and had been leaning with his back against it all this time. Perhaps the cold was beginning to get to him, but Wei Ying began to laugh. “Sorry, rabbits. Was I blocking your front door?”

The first rabbit hopped onto Wei Ying's lap, while the second snuggled warmly, against his hip. A third and fourth appeared from the snow to join them. Half an hour later Wei Ying was all but swaddled in perhaps a couple of dozen soft, warm, bodies. He could not begin to guess their reason. Perhaps Wei Ying's cold body was, even then, warmer than the burrow. Or could it be that, as Lan Zhan's companion, something of the Lan magic clung to him. Whatever the rabbit's reasoning, he was glad of their company. They may just be saving his life. Perhaps rabbits were not so stupid after all.

It was growing dark when Wei Ying roused from a light doze. From out of the grey-whiteness a brighter white coalesced, growing larger, and larger, until he had to crane his neck. The field of white completely filled his vision before he realised that he was looking at a tall figure, swathed in a heavy, white, deeply hooded, cloak. The figure dropped to its knees before him and long, strong fingers pushed back the hood to reveal...the face of an angel, brow bound by a pale blue ribbon, and eyes, the colour of deepest amber. Those hands reached forward to cup his face, warmly, then moved down to gather him into a strong embrace, scattering indignant rabbits left and right.

“Wei Ying! Are you hurt?” That voice alone, brought all the warmth he needed. “Let me take you home.”

Wei Ying burrowed in, hugging back as tightly as frozen arms would allow. “I am home.”

END