Nie Huaisang 聂怀桑 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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marlowemuses2022-04-26 12:27 pm
fanoperator) wrote in marlowemuses2022-04-26 12:27 pm
Entry tags:
I know, people change just like the weather
For the past months, it has been difficult for Huaisang to view his return with anything but grief.
He’s been grateful to still have the memories of his time in Duplicity, the love and laughter and frivolity of those years, but the memories are all that remain to him. The scar of his navel piercing is gone, his jewelry is gone along with the charms that had been bound with it, and his lovers are lost to him.
He steps back into his life as though he had never left. Qinghe runs with or without him, because he leads the way he always has: the practicalities and bureaucracy are put in the hands of capable and intelligent people, and Huaisang handles the diplomacy himself. Systems of grain storage and mining and civil defense function without his oversight, and the fussing of the nobles can just damn well wait. It’s a relief, at least, to no longer need to play at stupidity and ignorance, though he still makes use of it when it suits him. In Duplicity he grew comfortable in power and confident in himself, but now he must set aside so many of those trappings. His robes are fine quality but unobtrusive, and he wears no jewelry except the silver guan in his hair and the plain gold ring on his finger. It isn’t the same ring, and no matter how many times Huaisang tries to activate it with a spark of magic it will never summon his husband.
Alone at night, he weeps, curled up tight into himself and mourning everything he’s lost. By day, he makes himself hard and unyielding as steel—just like his brother and father before him. He handles others as gently as ever and rewards loyalty with silver and praise as generously as ever, but his walls are back up, locking his heart and emotions tightly away. When he can, he spends his hours in the library, studying and practicing his cultivation, anything to try and build a bridge between the worlds and draw Javert home to him, but every effort is empty and fruitless, leaving him exhausted and lonelier than ever.
He’s in the midst of a mind-aching discussion with several of his officials over how to get more bureaucrats with high enough aptitudes, but they can’t be tested for aptitudes if they don’t have enough education to test, and they can’t be educated if they don’t have the time or money to acquire that education.
“Why can’t we just … subsidize it,” Huaisang groans, rubbing at his face and slumping further in his chair. “I don’t know. Teach every eight year old to read, then test them after a year.”
“And where do you want to take money away from in order to subsidize such an enormous undertaking?” Toutong asks him, maddeningly deadpan.
“I don’t … I don’t know.” Huaisang whines petulantly, knowing that his seneschal will endure it with seemingly endless patience and continue tirelessly keeping Huaisang’s government running. “Don’t ask me anything, I don’t know.”
A clerk comes into the room, walking swiftly and looking flustered. “Sect Leader Nie. There’s … a foreigner asking for you.”
Blinking with bewildered curiosity, Huaisang gestures encouragingly at the clerk. Even though Nie Sizhe is younger and less experienced, he normally would know enough to extract the necessary details of who and what from anyone trying to get an audience from the Sect Leader. “And?”
“And … that’s it. He seems to be a beggar. Perhaps deranged. He doesn’t seem to understand any questions and he won’t say anything but your name or some babbling in his foreign tongue.”
Huaisang gives a snort at the absurdity of it. “Have we already tried feeding him and sending him on his way?”
“Yes, of course. He keeps asking for you. Just Nie Huaisang. Nie Huaisang.”
Sighing, Huaisang sits up properly and smoothes his skirts, trying to look a bit more like a sect leader. “And did we try giving him some mulberry leaves? Silkworms? Silk?”
“Oh.” Nie Sizhe blinks a few times at this, surprised to consider taking the request more literally, that perhaps the stranger meant the words to hold mulberry leaves rather than the sect leader’s name. “Should I try that?”
“No, just bring him in. I’m curious now. And if he doesn’t actually know who I am, we’ll figure out his babbling from there.”
“With guards,” Nie Toutong added. “He might be an assassin.”
Huaisang rolled his eyes, but gestured yes do that, and Nie Sizhe scurried away to obey.
He’s been grateful to still have the memories of his time in Duplicity, the love and laughter and frivolity of those years, but the memories are all that remain to him. The scar of his navel piercing is gone, his jewelry is gone along with the charms that had been bound with it, and his lovers are lost to him.
He steps back into his life as though he had never left. Qinghe runs with or without him, because he leads the way he always has: the practicalities and bureaucracy are put in the hands of capable and intelligent people, and Huaisang handles the diplomacy himself. Systems of grain storage and mining and civil defense function without his oversight, and the fussing of the nobles can just damn well wait. It’s a relief, at least, to no longer need to play at stupidity and ignorance, though he still makes use of it when it suits him. In Duplicity he grew comfortable in power and confident in himself, but now he must set aside so many of those trappings. His robes are fine quality but unobtrusive, and he wears no jewelry except the silver guan in his hair and the plain gold ring on his finger. It isn’t the same ring, and no matter how many times Huaisang tries to activate it with a spark of magic it will never summon his husband.
Alone at night, he weeps, curled up tight into himself and mourning everything he’s lost. By day, he makes himself hard and unyielding as steel—just like his brother and father before him. He handles others as gently as ever and rewards loyalty with silver and praise as generously as ever, but his walls are back up, locking his heart and emotions tightly away. When he can, he spends his hours in the library, studying and practicing his cultivation, anything to try and build a bridge between the worlds and draw Javert home to him, but every effort is empty and fruitless, leaving him exhausted and lonelier than ever.
He’s in the midst of a mind-aching discussion with several of his officials over how to get more bureaucrats with high enough aptitudes, but they can’t be tested for aptitudes if they don’t have enough education to test, and they can’t be educated if they don’t have the time or money to acquire that education.
“Why can’t we just … subsidize it,” Huaisang groans, rubbing at his face and slumping further in his chair. “I don’t know. Teach every eight year old to read, then test them after a year.”
“And where do you want to take money away from in order to subsidize such an enormous undertaking?” Toutong asks him, maddeningly deadpan.
“I don’t … I don’t know.” Huaisang whines petulantly, knowing that his seneschal will endure it with seemingly endless patience and continue tirelessly keeping Huaisang’s government running. “Don’t ask me anything, I don’t know.”
A clerk comes into the room, walking swiftly and looking flustered. “Sect Leader Nie. There’s … a foreigner asking for you.”
Blinking with bewildered curiosity, Huaisang gestures encouragingly at the clerk. Even though Nie Sizhe is younger and less experienced, he normally would know enough to extract the necessary details of who and what from anyone trying to get an audience from the Sect Leader. “And?”
“And … that’s it. He seems to be a beggar. Perhaps deranged. He doesn’t seem to understand any questions and he won’t say anything but your name or some babbling in his foreign tongue.”
Huaisang gives a snort at the absurdity of it. “Have we already tried feeding him and sending him on his way?”
“Yes, of course. He keeps asking for you. Just Nie Huaisang. Nie Huaisang.”
Sighing, Huaisang sits up properly and smoothes his skirts, trying to look a bit more like a sect leader. “And did we try giving him some mulberry leaves? Silkworms? Silk?”
“Oh.” Nie Sizhe blinks a few times at this, surprised to consider taking the request more literally, that perhaps the stranger meant the words to hold mulberry leaves rather than the sect leader’s name. “Should I try that?”
“No, just bring him in. I’m curious now. And if he doesn’t actually know who I am, we’ll figure out his babbling from there.”
“With guards,” Nie Toutong added. “He might be an assassin.”
Huaisang rolled his eyes, but gestured yes do that, and Nie Sizhe scurried away to obey.
no subject
no subject
Huaisang speaks those three words to him, adamantly and with so much love in his expression, Javert cannot help but guess what they mean. He repeats the words with a bit of trepidation, wanting desperately to get it right, to not make a fool of himself as he speaks to Huaisang in his language.
"Wǒ ài nǐ," he says, and then he says it again, until his pronunciation is a little better. "Wǒ ài nǐ, Huaisang."
no subject
Pressing a hand to Javert's arm to get him to stay in place, Huaisang gives one last peck then calls for his aides, not at all surprised when all of them immediately spill back into the room.
All calm confidence now, Huaisang explains that he had seen this person in a dream, a sort of priest who had dreamed of Huaisang in return and was coming to serve him. Huaisang has never before had prophetic dreams, but here is the proof of this one in front of him. Even if this one doesn't speak a word of Chinese.
"Take him down to the baths first and have him washed," Huaisang instructs one of his junior aides, gesturing for him to take responsibility of Javert. "Dress him as an acolyte and then take him to the barracks and have him introduced. He will begin training as a member of the Nie Sect but he will not sleep in the barracks. He has been sent by the gods to protect me, so I will have him at my side. Set up a cot in my chamber."
There were vociferous objections to that last part, but Huaisang stormed them down with pure force of will, and they all yielded to him. Here, just like in Duplicity, he commanded intense loyalty, and his people trusted his judgement.
He gestured for the junior aide to go, dismissing Javert with nothing more than a nod. He feels as though he's going to shake apart at the misery of sending his husband away so quickly after getting him part, but he's spent half his life hiding his emotions under a frivolous veneer.
Then he answers dozens of questions upon his 'dream', filling it in with true details from Duplicity and invented details as necessary. He doesn't let his mind drift to thinking of Javert taken down into the hot springs inside the mountain to wash and recuperate.
Surviving the next few hours is agonizing, and Huaisang cancels everything he can, retiring early with a headache and curling up in his room in a daze of impatient yearning. He trusts his people and knows that they will obey his instructions, but he still has to painfully restrain himself from going recklessly in search of what they're doing with Javert. The story of being fated from a dream is the best he can do, and thus it will take him months or years before he can make his people accept Javert openly as his husband. As it is, he suspects that the guard outside his room will be doubled for the night out of concern for what this stranger might try to do to their beloved Sect Leader.