creatures more than torn - winter mournings [closed]

[poorlittlesange]

Who: Jin Guangyao, Lan Xichen, Shen Yuan, Nie Huaisang, and Mike Enslin
When: waves hands vaguely, throughout December
Where: The past!!
Notes: quick note that the only memory which can have the events as they transpire altered is the one between jgy and nhs, as they are both palebloods--the other two, unfortunately, can't be altered by the other participants, though we can toy with how aware jgy is of these events being witnessed by others; see my OOC plotting post for more info. also enjoy the self-indulgent ~mood music~ in the starter headers.

also, I adapted the conversation between jgy and nmj from the ER translation of the novel. whew!

Content Warnings: Physical violence, abuse, references to rape and incest. Tread carefully.



i. that's what you want, but it's not what you're asking for
closed to Nie Huaisang

It is autumn in Qinghe. Jin Guangyao, having taken as much time as he deems allowable to recover his energy and compose himself after the journey from Lanling City via sword, is preparing to play Clarity for Nie Mingjue.

(The courtyard is the best place for their sessions, they had decided. 'They' being himself and Lan Xichen, for the most part, while their Da-ge looked on in surly, inscrutable silence, his face as ever an impenetrable mask that no amount of effort on Jin Guangyao's part could decipher, no matter the long and fractious years of their acquaintance. Still, he has not stopped trying. There is still time, he tells himself. His father will give him more time.)

Zewu-jun is not here. He is in the Cloud Recesses, as he has been for some weeks--months? Jin Guangyao cannot be sure--overseeing the reconstruction efforts after the conclusion of the Sunshot Campaign. And so Jin Guangyao settles himself into the seat across from the empty space where his Er-ge once sat, absently tuning the pegs of the guqin that has been left here for his use, when he hears Nie Mingjue's booming reprimand coming from the opposite site of the courtyard.

(Fearful instinct has him on his feet immediately, heart in his throat, but he keeps his face pleasant, calm, ready to wield his smile like a shield.)

"Huaisang!" comes the shout again, "Get back here--Huaisang!"

ii. i will not starve for you
closed to Lan Xichen and Shen Yuan

Jinlintai's Blooming Gardens had always been Jin Guangyao's preferred place to work when he wished to devote his attentions to the legitimate matters of administering his father's sect. He has plenty of work of this nature to keep him occupied, particularly regarding his watchtower proposal revisions for Jin Guangshan... and he cannot pretend not to enjoy any opportunity to spend time alone with Zewu-jun.

(His head hurts. His head hurts so very, very badly. Perhaps he should simply be grateful that Madam Jin had not killed him with that blow.)

And so there he and his Er-ge are together in the garden's pavilion study, blueprints laid out before them and their minds bent to the task of bringing this vision into being in such a way that Jin Guangyao's father won't be able to dismiss it out of hand again, when the air changes. They both feel it, and Jin Guangyao struggles to master himself. "Da-ge?" his memory of Lan Xichen says beside him, hesitating.

Having pushed his way past two useless junior disciples supposedly guarding the entrance to the garden, Nie Mingjue comes to stand at the edge of the pavilion. To Lan Xichen, he says curtly, "Don't move," then throws his glare like a javelin at the back of Jin Guangyao's head. "Come out."

Jin Guangyao is very still where he stands, his smile perfect and his eyes empty. He looks up to Lan Xichen first. "Er-ge, could you please review the revisions to this proposal for me? I should speak privately with our eldest brother. I'll have to ask for your expertise at a later time."

Lan Xichen's worry is clear on his face. "A-Yao," he begins, but Jin Guangyao stops him with a brief touch to his arm. He does not allow his look or his touch to linger--not here, not in front of Nie Mingjue--but turns and follows Nie Mingjue out of the garden. At the top of the Jinlintai steps, Jin Guangyao only has a moment to register what is happening, and to dodge out of the way, when Nie Mingjue whips around to try to strike him.

The disciples beside him each cry out in surprise, their exclamations of, "Jin-gongzi," and "Lianfang-zun..!" cut off abruptly when Jin Guangyao raises a surprisingly steady hand, gives each of them sharp looks. Don't, his eyes say, before he mollifies his demeanour, struggles to find that version of himself which Nie Mingjue seemed to find the least offensive, the least duplicitous. Jin Guangyao masters his racing pulse and reaches for calm, and finds it. Somehow. (God, the pain in his head under the bandage--) "Da-ge, why are you so angry? Please, let us both be calm."

Before him, Nie Mingjue's stare is unflinching and unmovable as solid stone. "Where is Xue Yang?"

(This isn't real, some part of him not clouded by both fear and pain knows. Or, it is real, but it has already happened. There is no way for him to change what is happening, not in a way that will make what comes later any less horrible. His fate was sealed the moment he kowtowed before Jin Guangshan.)

iii. too close to the sun, too messed up to change
closed to Mike Enslin
cw: discussion of rape and incest

It is the middle of the night in Jinlintai when Madam Qin comes to call on her future son-in-law. Jin Guangyao does not know how she found her way into his pavilion, and cannot--cannot--allow himself to contemplate whether she was seen. Instead, he quickly pulls on his outer robe and does his best to ensure he is presentable for the matron of his betrothed's family, and tries not to allow his own anxiety to show on his features.

"Lianfang-zun." She looks at him from the doorway to his elegantly furnished parlour, beautiful despite her stricken pallor, and he notes not for the first time how very much A-Su takes after her, rather than Qin-zongzhu. Then she bows low--too low, she is nearly going to her knees!--"Lianfang-zun, please forgive me, forgive me, I have to speak with you!"

"Madam Qin..!" Jin Guangyao catches her forearms before she can kowtow, wide-eyed and filled with sudden dread. "Madam Qin, there is no need for such gestures. We will soon be family, you must know there is nothing that I would not do for--"

She does not let him finish before she blurts out, "You cannot marry A-Su!"

It's hard to describe the look that flickers across his features, because there are too many of them, a legion of microexpressions that can't be categorized. Shock, of course, and then something like hurt; perhaps there is anger there, too, and resignation, that of course Madam Qin could not accept that her daughter had chosen Jin Guangshan's bastard, out of all the eligible men of her generation. Of course she would choose a man who was undeserving of her, and in truth, Jin Guangyao can't disagree. He isn't deserving of her affection, but he cherishes it anyway, and more than that he needs this marriage, needs the security and stability of it, surely Madam Qin must know that..! (Because if he didn't need it and this alliance, if he had been born with the luxury of his dead brother's unambiguous legitimacy, then perhaps he would not have needed to marry at all. Perhaps then, if they were very careful, then he and Er-ge could have--no. He promised himself not to think of it anymore.)

He struggles to breathe. "Has this one not treated A-Su as well as Madam Qin would like?" Jin Guangyao keeps his voice gentle and steady, somehow, and even manages a smile. "If that is the case, then please, allow this one to beg forgiveness from Madam Qin for his unforgivable mistake--"

"You cannot marry her, because she is your sister!"

Something shatters like glass. Maybe it is Jin Guangyao's heart. Or the last fragile pieces of his dignity.

Comments

[fanfavors]

Is this how it happens? The crowd parts and Jin Guangyao tenses, looks to him with just enough muted discomfort for Huaisang to notice, and Huaisang only blinks back at him uncomprehending. "What happened? Does san-ge need to rest in the shade?"

(He sees the bodies. This isn't how it happens, he thinks, and the sharp cut of a voice he recognizes as his own, as if from outside himself, insists, Don't say anything. You don't know. So he blinks, and cants his head to the side, and ignores studiously the awkward sprawl of dead limbs among the decorations he'd spent so long perfecting.)

The appearance of Nie Minjgue turns the moment into a blur. Jin Guangyao pulls him and he moves, and his gaze strays to his brother, and he is only halfway listening to the conversation, because he doesn't know. A distant pleasure at seeing Mingjue drifts across his thoughts, tempering the strangeness and the horror of how he's behaving, and Huaisang gives Jin Guangyao another look like he doesn't understand what the big deal is.

And then he's shoved through the gate, and the rest of his mind wakes up suddenly, and he can see the madness and terror before him while he simply stands there, far away and ignored by the rest of the scene. Free to watch the confrontation turn from violence to desperate talk, to see Jin Guangyao cower on the ground in the face of Mingjue's fury.

This is how it happens? A thick and uncomfortable silence descends after that begged apology, broken only when Huaisang's oriole cries out, sharp and abrupt into the air.

"I don't need to see this," Huaisang says, calling out to the disaster of a scene before him. Agreeing, perhaps, with Jin Guangyao's earlier assessment. "Da-ge, stop it. San-ge, stand up! I'm going now!"

And then he blinks himself back, and looks at Jin Guangyao with a frown and a furrowed brow, and in the absence of anything better to say, he says, "I don't think it's supposed to work like that."

[poorlittlesange]

"I don't think it's supposed to work like that."

Jin Guangyao looks sharply towards the sound of Huaisang's voice, but what he sees first is actually a puzzled and bespectacled archivist who is standing about six feet away from him where he's still bent into a kowtow on the floor. They're blocking the narrow footpath in a range of shelves holding arcane archival texts devoted to blood powers--specifically one Sleeper's donated works on how they'd leveraged their paleblood capabilities to offset the weaknesses that had accompanied them to Trench. Dimly, Jin Guangyao recalls that was the whole purpose behind their visit here today; here, to the Arcane Archives, which is not the Unclean Realm in Qinghe, or Jinlintai in Lanling City, or the bloodbath that was his killing of Wen Ruohan in the Scorching Sun Palace. That can't explain how he came by the bit of antler that is now clutched tight enough to shatter in his hand, but as soon as he realizes just what it is, what has happened, he gets to his feet and flings it away as if stung by it--

--and where the antler clatters to the ground, a colourful oriole suddenly bursts forth from between two boxes in a tittering flurry of feathers, spooked by the sound. She flits straight to Huaisang's shoulder and alights there without any hesitation. (hello, friend, she loves you, take her home, please.)

The elderly archivist lets out a startled yelp and nearly drops his armful of delicate papers to point at the bird--like they could possibly have missed it, thanks--and exclaims indignantly at Huaisang, like this is his fault (somehow), "You can't bring a bird into special collections! Get it out of here right now! And," he adds tartly, snatching up the antler and brandishing it back at Jin Guangyao, "take your garbage with you, it isn't our responsibility to--"

Jin Guangyao rounds on him. "You keep it!" he snaps back, vicious in the way only a terrified, cornered animal can be, "I'm not touching that wretched thing again!" (The archivist recoils, frightened, and scurries away, because he is not paid enough to deal with this shit.)

Wild-eyed, white-faced, and without even the pretence of cordiality, Jin Guangyao watches him hurry away and struggles to catch his breath, his body still flush with adrenaline and shame. When he turns to look back at Huaisang again, he can barely sustain eye contact with him for longer than half a second before he has to look away again. Instinct has him lifting a trembling hand up to straighten his hat, only to remember even before his hand is halfway there that his hat is gone, he lost it months ago. He curls his fingers in on themselves tightly.

"If Huaisang does not mind," he begins again unsteadily, still unable to meet his eyes, "I would like to go home now." Go home, and pretend none of this happened, which would be much easier for him to do if evidence of this shared memory wasn't presently perched on Huaisang's shoulder preening its feathers.

[fanfavors]

The gate has gone, the bizarre scene and all of its strange and terrible tensions with it, and Huaisang finds himself standing framed by the archival stacks, looking at this archivist and then tilting around him to see Jin Guangyao. Still on the floor, still penitent, and something about him seems more pathetic that way, in the absence of Mingjue's towering fury.

Huaisang has begun to think of his anger as a thing separate from himself. It isn't the wisest of decisions, given what happened to Mingjue and so many other Nies before him, this is of course known to him - but what else would anyone have him do? Quietly ruminate on his options and graciously choose forgiveness? Succumb to the white-hot sickly thing in his chest that rises unbidden, over and over and over?

No; he shouldn't. So his anger is a thing apart, something that shadows him, something he keeps at a pointed distance, never too close to overpower and never too far to forget. He's good at it, he's been good at it; who knew the years of restraining himself under Mingjue's tantrums over saber practice and whatever else would come in handy in such a way.

The sick angry thing in his chest lifts its head when Jin Guangyao terrifies the archivist. Huaisang simply scoops the bird off his shoulder to hold in his cupped hands, stroking its head with his fingertip and somehow unsurprised to see it here, as well. (He dare not consider how a bird has manifested that was not, a few minutes ago, real. Maybe it was in the archive's rafters all along, and only came along for the ride.)

He is content to hold this bird and quietly get the hell out of here, really, he is. It's the burning husk inside him that dares to feel anything else about what he's seeing now, let alone what else he's just seen in that strange dream— and now the thing inside him curls in awful satisfaction, that Jin Guangyao looks so pale and so frightened and so unlike himself. Tickled, nearly, to see him reach for his hat. So what, the anger thinks, so what if Mingjue tormented Jin Guangyao to such an extent, that excuses none of his actions, none whatsoever— And a smaller voice buried even deeper in him offers only a mournful, So what? How can it be 'so what'?

Huaisang looks down at the bird in his hands, murmuring some nonsense to it to calm it down.

"I won't force san-ge to stay out," he says, quietly. The hot thing in his chest rails against his ribcage with demand and force, and he purses his lips and quells it, quietly, without any fuss. He doesn't need that right now. "Ah, is san-ge alright to walk, or...?"

[poorlittlesange]

Whatever the Midas touch equivalent is for birds, Huaisang must have it. The oriole is easily soothed by Huaisang's gentle murmuring, and though her feathers still remain puffed up in agitation, she settles into his hands and turns a trusting eye towards his voice. Jin Guangyao stares at the bird with barely constrained fear, even if the logical connection between the little oriole and the frightened animal eating itself alive in his heart is tenuous at best. There's no logic to anything in this place--that bird shouldn't even exist, it comes from a day in their past that never even happened.

(That's how it should have happened, though. A sad, wistful echo, already fading. Jin Guangyao lets it go.)

"I'm fine," he replies and winces at how short he sounds, closing his eyes. Try that again; none of this is Huaisang's fault. He manages a smile that is more of a grimace, clasps his hands together, and bows once. "Huaisang is very kind to ask, but I am--I will be fine. We will come back another time."

He hesitates a second longer while his pathological compulsion towards politeness wars against his instinct to get out, to go, to run, and it's the latter that ultimately wins. Jin Guangyao at least has the presence of mind not to look like he's running away, even if that is exactly what he is doing. He bows again without meeting Huaisang's eyes, then straightens up and slips past him out of the stacks without another word.