Work Text:
“You turned him into a what ?”
Wei Wuxian waves his hands in the air frantically, attempting to dispel Wen Qing’s concern. “It’s an illusion!” he says. “Mostly. You see, bodies don’t just change into other bodies, at least not in a way I’ve been able to figure out. But resentful energy does all sorts of things to the senses, not just our senses, yours and mine, but his, and if I can get the resentful energy that powers his body to play the same trick on everybody’s senses at once—”
“It’s not permanent?” Wen Qing interrupts.
“No, it’s not permanent.”
“And it’s not— it’s not hurting him?”
“No.”
“And he gave you permission?”
Wei Wuxian laughs. “It was his idea.”
On the floor of the cave, A’Yuan sits cross-legged with a large gray cat draped over his lap. The cat is curled up, but its mass compared to A’Yuan’s tiny form is such that the edges of him fall off his lap and sprawl onto the cave floor. A’Yuan, transfixed, is running a tiny hand over and over from the top of the cat’s head to between his shoulder blades.
“Can…” she turns to address the cat, whom she hears now is purring. “A’Ning, you can hear me, right?”
The cat—Wen Ning—looks up at her and nods.
She frowns, tilting her head a little as she watches them. “How are you able to shrink like that?” she asks. “You should be crushing him. All the rest of you has to go somewhere , doesn’t it?”
He shrugs his shoulders in a very un-catlike way and jerks his head towards Wei Wuxian, who brightens and tugs at her hand. “Let me show you the array,” he says, “It’s down this way. I’m sure you can help me think of other uses for it—not practical ones, mind you, unless you think it’s practical to scare the pants off those kids who like to throw rocks at us-”
A’Yuan, undeterred by all this grown-up conversation, smashes his hand against Wen Ning’s face and giggles.