Learning Diabolism

༒way to cloud recesses༒

The way to Cloud Resesses wasn't very long. But it took them a lot longer, since Mo Xuanyu was constantly trying to escape and sometimes he was joined by the mischievous Fox and the Yilling disciples, they never got too far tho, as Hanguang-jun easily caught them back.
It also took a lot of consideration and warming up, but by the end of their travel, the Lans were becoming friends with the Yillings. And Fox immediately picked up on something interesting about Song Anyue.
The thing is, just anyone wouldn't notice, because she is good at masking herself with this thin veil of fake emotions, but Fox has been around long enough to see right through it. And he knows exactly how to tear it apart. Teasing. All it takes is teasing.
"So... Stupid Human," he starts talking with her once during dinner, "eat your words."
"What do you mean?" she looks at him with a questioning face.
"Do you want me to say it?" replies Fox with a teasing smirk.
Song Anyue almost visibly heats up when she realizes what he is talking about.
"It's not like that!" she protests.
"Oh yeah? I can read your mind you know," replies Fox matter of factly. He didn't read her mind, but he needed confirmation of his little theory.
The answer he got was unexpected. It was a bowl of soup in his face.
"The fuck!" Fox screeched angrily, the fire that was burning on him and warming him up suddenly gone.
Song Anyue stuck her tongue out at him: "You're wrong!"
"Your reaction told me otherwise!" reacted Fox and suddenly they were chasing each other around the camp. They passed Lan Sizhui and Wan Yunque, who were clearly making those ♥️ eyes at each other, which meant that there was a new OTP on Fox's and Song Anyue's radar, they both made a mental note about this. They also almost ran over Mo Xuanyu, who was currently being dragged back by Lan Wangji, who in turn simply gave them a "the hell are you doing" look, but the two were too preoccupied in running away and screaming half insults half teasing remarks at each other.

Meanwhile the disciples of Lan present were staring at the two running idiots in surprise.
"Ah yes, I think Fox figured out that a-Yu has a crush now," smirked Wan Yunque and continued to eat her soup while stealing glances at Lan Sizhui. "Real stealthy" glances.
"I honestly did not expect the most evil person in the world to..." started Lan Jingyi after a little while.
"Run around like a headless chicken, while being chased by her own demon?" finished Wan Yunque for him, "trust me, this is not even close to the shenanigans the two of them get to. Actually scratch that, we all do stupid stuff."
"How stupid?" asked Lan Sizhui with a smile.
"Like fill Hanguang-jun's bed with rabbits stupid," confessed Wan Yunque and scratched her neck with a shy smile. The Lans were left with open mouths, unable to speak.
The first to break the silence was to no surprise Lan Jingyi:
"Is that why he hates you?"
"Yes, it was totally worth it tho," laughed Wan Yunque.
"Why would you not try to get on his good side again?" wanted Lan Sizhui to know.
"Because it's impossible," replied Wan Yunque, "he sat on one of the rabbits, he isn't going to forgive us as long as he lives and honestly that was the intention..."
Lan Jingyi wanted to push a bit more, but he was stopped by a head of red hair that fell on top of him.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," apologized Song Anyue, a barely visible blush forming on her cheeks.
"I was right! I was right! Eat your words Stupid Human!" screamed Fox next to them and started laughing.
"Why should you eat your words?" asked Lan Jingyi when they both stood up.
"It's a long story," answered Song Anyue honestly. And she made a "god's I hate my life" face as she remembered what happened:

*flash back*
The sun was high in the Burial
mounds, but it was still to early to spot any of the inhabitants of the "Demon slaughtering cave" awake. Their breakfast was cold, waiting for them by the entrance, but none really cared. The first one to move and show any sign of life was Fox. He stretched his paws, yawned and turned to lie on his back.
"Stupid Human," he mumbled after the sun from outside reached his eyes, "give me food."
"Go get it yourself," yawned the Stupid Human in question as she shifted a little under her warm blanket, immediately regretting the action, as the cold cave air got in.
The first one to actually get out of bed was surprisingly Wei Wuxian himself. He was still sleepy, but the sun was almost reaching noon and that meant no time to lose.
"Wake up you two," he said, as he stood on his toes to look to the cave alcove where his two students still soundly slept. When there was no movement from them whatsoever, he pinched both their cheeks and when they went to defend themselves, he stole their comfy blankets.
"I said to wake up," he told them matter of factly. And put their blankets on his own bed, which was on the other side of the cave.
"Master Weeeei! Five more minuuuutes!" whined the girls.
"No more minutes, it's almost noon and I want to see that talisman I told you to make yesterday before sunset," he replied, leaving no place for possible arguments. Song Anyue and Wan Yunque sprinted from their beds to eat their food.
They suddenly had a lot of work to do: train, make talismans, take a look at what master Wei is doing, probably get a lecture about that and, of course Anyue and Fox had yet to practice their favorite night-time activity: Writing fanficton. Wan Yunque wasn't gonna be home anyway, she was going on a date with her "boyfriend". A man, that Fox was extremely not enthusiastic about and master Wei was just a little more willing. As for Song Anyue, it was not her place to judge... but she was jealous. Not that she would ever admit it to anyone else, or act differently to her friend. Either way, they had a lot of work to do, maybe, if they finish the talismans before lunch, they'll get to go down to the city with master Wei and that was always a good change. So while Song Anyue and Wan Yunque downed their breakfasts in the matter of seconds and scrambled around to get their stuff together (that always took the longest, since the cave was in disarray literally all the time), Fox was just resting in the heat of the sun, lazily stretching from time to time. His breakfast long gone.
That day was fairly similar to any other. The girls made about from 7 - 10 different talismans, before their teacher was finally satisfied. And than more, because one good talisman per day is not enough. Than they all studied the spirit attraction flags, to everyone's surprise Song Anyue actually helped this time. A little. And than they trained different techniques, until their arms and legs hurt and suddenly the sun was almost setting, so Wan Yunque left to have dinner with her "boyfriend". Fox distracted himself by bothering Wen Ning and for some unknown reason Song Anyue was left to take care of A-Yuan.
"Oh come on! Master Wei, I can't take care of him!" she tried, frustrated.
"You'll have Fox to help you," he shrugged and continued to work on his stuff.
"Fox is flirting with Wen Ning!" replied Song Anyue and threw herself on the ground, leaning against the stone table and watching what her teacher was doing.
"Is he succeeding?" quickly noticed Wei Wuxian and looked out of the cave.
"Probably," shrugged Song Anyue.
At that Wei Wuxian frowned and started looking at the two more visibly, sending death glares to Fox. Who probably didn't notice, or didn't care.
"You won't stop him like that you know," told him his annoyed disciple, without even having to look at him.
"Oh I will stop him one way or another," he decided, "but either way, you gotta take care of A-Yuan today."
"Noooo! You know how I'm bad with kids! I don't even like kids!" protested Song Anyue and she started to play around with the new version of the "compass of evil" that was still work in progress.
"Well someone has to do it and I still have work to do, you're free tonight, go and play with him," ordered her teacher.
"And what am I supposed to do?" asked Song Anyue.
"Think of something," was his distant reply, as Fox and Wen Ning outside became a much more important topic to him.
"You're the worst," pouted Song Anyue and decided to go outside and look for the little creature she had to babysit.
"Hey there?" she more asked, than greeted A-Yuan when she saw him, sitting in the dirt and playing with his butterflies.
"A-Yu!" screamed the child and caught her leg.
"Cool, what now?" crossed the girl her arms, honestly not knowing what next. The kid didn't seem to mind much, just hanging there, looking up at her. When nothing happened after a while he let go pouting.
"I want to play," he said and raised his butterflies.
"Um... well... how do you play with them?" Song Anyue was honestly at her limit, she had no idea how to deal with kids, did I mention that?
"A-Yu is no fun!" the boy crossed his arms.
"Um... well..." she looked around, trying to think of something to entertain the kid, than she noticed an actual live butterfly and got an idea.
"Hey, these butterflies of yours, aren't they a bit sad?" she asked the kid and pointed to his priced toy.
"Why?" wanted A-Yuan to know.
"Well, butterflies have beautiful colorful wings, look at yours," she told him. He looked at them and he seemed to be thinking really hard about this problem, it took a while.
"That is true," he said, disappointed in his toys. And than he started sniffling.
Great, thought Song Anyue.
"Look, eh... A-Yuan, um... ah... I have some colored inks back in the cave... I could help you color... them?" she tried. And let out a loooooong breath of content, when the boy beamed up again. And than flung himself on her leg. Why!?! thought Song Anyue.
"Hey, hey, come on, I can't walk if you hold my leg," she carefully pried him off.
"But Xian-gege and A-Lu can!" he protested.
"I'm neither of them, you know," laughed Song Anyue and took his little hand.
"You're weak," grumbled the boy.
"Hey now! I have different strengths," she scolded him, but felt a tinge of sadness on the inside, ouch, she thought, how does this kid know where it hurts?
"Like what?" didn't understand the child.
"Well... I... hm... well, unlike the two of them I can help you color your butterfly," she ended up saying.
He seemed to be thinking about it, than asked again: "What else?"
"What... else?" Song Anyue honestly thought that by this point the child is going to be the death of her. And made a mental note to add "babysitting A-Yuan" to Fox's ever prolonging list of things to protect her from.
A-Yuan seemed fairy disappointed in her answer.
"What else... hm, there's just so much, that I can't think of the best ones," she quickly repaired her answer.
A-Yuan seemed to buy this lie and beamed up: "Can A-Yu play the pretty songs?"
"Yeah..." answered Song Anyue not so surely, after all her play was nowhere near as good as Wei Wuxians and that was what A-Yuan is expecting from her.
Meanwhile Fox was trying to figure Wen Ning out in his own way. The thing was, Fox was interested, at first, he was excited to have someone similar to himself around, to which Wen Ning always thought that he is not enough to satisfy Fox's expectations, but Fox was more than happy with what Wen Ning was. Actually that went to the point of thinking of Wen Ning as more than a friend, tho that thought had her place in the darkest corners of Fox's brain, since Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian were always furious when they would even see them together. And that hurt the feelings Fox spent the smaller part of his life thinking he didn't have. Either way, he was now scolded and chased away by Wen Qing, altho Wen Ning tried to help him out. As he was now left with nothing to do, he strolled around mindlessly, until he remembered that Song Anyue was probably in the cave and absolutely unbothered. So of course that needed fixing.
As he was entering, he realized that she was not alone in there.
"... and they are in LOOOVE," exclaimed a boy's voice and Fox could clearly see him waving his hands around in his head.
"Oh yeah, how so?" came the answer from Song Anyue, when Fox finally entered, he found out that they were sitting on the ground, while Song Anyue was holding one of the grass butterflies that belonged to A-Yuan and carefully brushed color to it's wings. While the child in question was all over the place at one moment he was lying on her legs, the other he was running around, and a second later he was leaning against Song Anyue telling her some kind of a story, or something. Fox decided to watch the scene for a bit longer, before informing them of his presence.
"Well, they saw each other and than they were in love!!" exclaimed A-Yuan, "like in grandma's stories!"
"That's just the stories," scoffed Song Anyue, "love at first sight doesn't happen in real life."
"Really?" the boy seemed confused.
"Of course not, love takes trust, friendship, understanding of each other, how could you get that at first sight," explained Song Anyue, which got the boy to silently think about it.
"Hey, don't mix things in his head," smirked Fox and officially entered the scene, "you know I'll make you eat you words one day."
*end of flashback*