Work Text:
Can I let go? (and let your memory dance)
in the ballroom of my mind […]
It hurts to love you (but I still love you) - 13 Beaches Lana del Rey
Nie Huaisang hisses as his brother pricks his finger and then his own and takes a deep breath before he concentrates on the admittedly tiny conserves of his Qi. He really has to start cultivating in earnest. He misses his golden core.
“Ready?” Mingjue asks him and Huaisang nods.
“Ready.”
They touch the seal at the same time, smearing their Qi-infused blood across the bold lines. The seal on the door flashes brightly and then vanishes with the sound of a door unlocking. His heart beats so powerfully, it feels like it jumped into his throat, he is so nervous. He has never entered these rooms, as the seal required the blood of two people with Nie Yibais bloodline and Nie Huaisang had only discovered this door after his brothers death.
He looks up to his big brother and is still so confused at how far he has to look up, at how young his brother looks. Technically, he’s double the age as Mingjue right now. He still can’t quite believe what’s been happening to him. Waking up in the past.
They open the door and step into the rooms of Huaisangs mother. He is immediately charmed at encountering a tidier version of his own creative chaos. Shelves with books, paints and brushes. A seating area with an abandoned tea set with three cups. Warm earth colours and accents of cheerful greens and pinks. If it weren’t for the layer of dust and the smell of stale air, it seems as if his mother could walk in at any moment.
Mingjue wanders over towards the shelves, fingers brushing over the spines of the books, while Huaisang makes his way towards his mothers desk. The papers hastily brushed to the side contain sketches of people. He recognizes his father, so young and with an expression of joy he can’t remember ever seeing on the man. A striking woman with Mingjues sharp eyes, tall and strong and beautiful. That must be Sang Shuhua, his brothers mother. There is a sketch of a tiny Mingjue holding a bundled up baby, which has to be himself and he can’t help but brush his fingers across the side of it. As he does so, he moves it to the side to reveal the rough sketch of a self portrait and his eyes widen at it.
He has always been told that he resembles his mother, he had never realized just how much. No wonder his father had hated looking at him. As a child it wasn’t as obvious, but he knows what he will look like when he’s grown and had he been just a little softer, his mouth a little more plush, he’d have been her mirror image.
His fingers itch to take those sketches and turn them into real paintings. Instead he opens her deskdrawer, looking if she had any writings in there, but only found more brushes and inkstones. He is just about to close the drawer when he notices something wrong with it. The dimensions are slightly off.
He carefully empties the drawer and feels along the edges for a latch or something similar. He finds no latch, but when he presses really hard at the furthest end, the bottom plate lifts up to reveal a small space beneath. Enough to hide a thin book.
“Did you find something?” his brother asks as Huaisang pulls out what he found.
“A hidden book.” he answers and Mingjue comes over to sit besides him. He turns the first page and his brother gasps as if hurt. “Da-Ge?”
“That’s your mothers handwriting.” he answers Huaisangs question, if not why he seems so affected by it. They begin to read and find that it is a journal, addressed towards Mingjues mother and their father, for keeping their memories fresh, Ming Xiuyu writes.
They can’t help but keep reading, stumbling right into the mystery that was their parents.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I remember the first time I saw you, Shuhua, in your armor, your swords strapped to your sides and looking at me as if I had stabbed you in the heart. I laugh now, writing this, but back then my own heart was beating like anxious birdwings against the inner walls of my chest. I never believed in love at first sight, was never inclined to love fast, but with you… something about you caught my attention and wouldn’t let it go.
And then you introduced Yibai and by the gods, I thought my heart was breaking. If he had not looked at you like you had hung the sun for him, I would have stolen you away that instant and eloped. He knew of course, probably before you even realized it, he knew why I stayed, when I could have gone and moved on from the tournament. He could have refused me and send me away when I requested to join the Qinghe Nie sect, but he didn’t. We have a very brave and generous husband.
Such insecure times, not knowing where we stood with each other.
- - -
Yibai, my husband, strangly enough, or maybe not, I kissed you first. Kissing you was like asking for permission to kiss Shuhua and when you kissed back, my hands were numb with anxious joy. You laughed and took my shaking hands, I still feel your smile against my cheek as you said “She is the most striking woman I’ve ever seen and I know her heart is devided because she loves us both. If I can even have a small part of the love you hold for her, I’d die the happiest man.”
And what could I have answered except for “I love you too”, because I did and still do. I’d like to believe, that if I had never met Shuhua, I’d still would have fallen in love with you. Not instantly, like with her, but slowly. You are steadfast and strong and have the most peculiar humor, I can’t help but laugh just thinking about it. Gods, sometimes I can’t believe how blessed I am. Meeting you both and getting to have you both.
- - -
I can barely find the words. I don’t know if you will ever read this, my loves. I hope when you do, we have overcome the heartbreak of this, of losing our unborn child, of burying her not in the Nie sword tombs but in the sun, beneath white roses. You fell asleep, crying in my arms, Yibai crying against my side, face pressed against my stomach, Shuhua against my shoulder and I could barely breathe through our grief. I don’t have the words. I can just kiss your tears away and hope it soothes this agony.
Maybe this is my punishment. I’m always waiting for the day when the crimes of my past catch up to me, but I had hoped they would never touch you. I killed my clan of assassins, leaving only me as the sole survivor. Maybe this is how the gods tell me that my bloodline should end with me.
- - -
Your son, our son is such a bright light in our life, I can’t help but be giddy with joy just thinking about him. Holding Mingjue for the first time, while scolding you for naming him with my family name, will be one of the most precious memories of my life. He’s got the cutest nose and already frowns just like his father. Such a frowny little baby, I laugh everytime I see him look at the world like that. I suspect, by now he does it just to hear me laugh. He gets all the kisses for it and his giggles are just the most adorable sound in the world.
You both did good. The love I hold for him is so unconditional, it sometimes frightens me. Our little A-Jue. He’s going to break so many hearts with his charming little frown.
- - -
Huaisang. Huaisang. Huaisang.
I’m crying writing this and I can’t tell if they are tears of joy or tears of sorrow. After loosing… It’s been so many years and I had given up to ever having a child. Had reconciled myself with it and was so happy to have Mingjue as our son, though sad to not give him any siblings to share his childhood and life with. And then I found myself with child again, both of you overjoyed and anxious. Don’t tell me you weren’t afraid, I could feel it in the way you held me when I slept Shuhua, the way you didn’t leave for a single nighthunt in the months following the news. Yibai you too, refusing to join the other Sect Leaders in their meetings unless they were held in Qinghe.
And weren’t we right with our worries? He came so early, I almost thought I’d lose him again. My heart almost stopped with fright when the pain started.
But he lives. I’ll just have to write it down again and again, tell it to myself as I hold him and watch him breathe.
He lives, he lives, he lives.
He’s so tiny. So much smaller than his brother ever was and I am almost afraid to hold him. I’m glad you have no such qualms Shuhua. Yibai is already joking that we love each others sons more than our own and I can just smack him every time he does. Stupid man, I’m shaking my head at you, fondly, but still.
I already issued his fans for him. I don’t know why, but I woke up, drenched in sweat one night, full of fear. The thought that he needs them wouldn’t leave me, even though it will be years from now, before he will even be able to hold them. I couldn’t sleep until I contacted the artisan, until I gave him the Nie steel to forge my sons weapons for him.
How can my heart be so full of love and fear at the same time?
- - -
I…
I can barely breathe. I…
I don’t think these words will even manage to contain the agony I feel with every beat of my heart. Sang Shuhua, my beautiful, my fierce, my lovely Shuhua is dead.
Seeing the words, I wish for numbness. I wish…
But then I find Mingjue crying and Huaisangs tiny hands trying to sooth his brother and I can’t. They need me. Yibai needs me to raise them into the strong, righteous, marvelous men they’re going to be. Shuhua would never forgive me for leaving them behind.
I wont.
I love them, too. More than I ever thought I could love at all. Even if you held the biggest part of it in your smile, your eyes, your voice and the lovely scent of your skin, your kindness, your abrasive laugh and just plain stupid inability to form a single melody… I still have enough love left to stay. It has to be enough. It will be enough.
We buried your daughter besides mine. Let them be reincarnated together and find happiness.
Let us find each other in the next life.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mingjue can barely see the words through his tears. He had not known how much he missed Ming Xiuyu’s words until he saw them again. And reading about their parents like this, so intimately, about things he had never known or never realized at his age, makes him miss them with a pain that makes his breath stutter in his lungs.
He wipes at his eyes and looks at Huaisang, unsure how his brother will react to these memoriers written by his mother and finds him frowning in deep thought, tear tracks glistening on his cheeks. He lifts his arm to pull him in for a hug, but stops when Huaisang speaks up.
“She didn’t kill herself.”
Mingjue lets his arm drop back to his side in surprise. “What?”
“My mother, she didn’t kill herself. These last words, they’re not the words of a person who will kill herself just a few days later. I don’t think she took her own life.” Huaisang puts the book on the desk and stands, pacing back and forth, hands fidgeting as if they wanted to make a specific motion but were missing an essential part of it.
“How could I not see it? We were growing too strong. Again. He killed you because we were growing too strong again. They were killed. Your mother probably as well. Gods, I never thought of it, I never thought to look so far back.”
Mingjue watches his brother with growing confusion. What was he talking about? Mingjue’s death? Was he talking about his dream? What?
“What?” he stands and catches Huaisang by the shoulder, his little brother looks up at him, dark, big eyes seemingly far away and hyperfocused at once. It was such a spine-chilling expression, so incongrous with his ten year old face. “Huaisang, what are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
A semblance of recognition comes back into his little brothers eyes. A frown of conflict forms between delicate brows.
“Da-Ge, I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”
Mingjue caresses a lock of hair back behind Huaisangs ear, leaning down to kiss his head.
“Let me decide what I believe. I promise, I will not interrupt you.”
Huaisang looks at him for a long moment. Longer and longer, until Mingjue almost thinks he will never get an answer at all. Then his little brother nods, slowly.
“We will need tea for this. Privacy charms and a lot of tea, it’s a long story.” Huaisang sighs. “A long, impossible story.”
Mingjue tasks a disciple outside to bring tea, while Huaisang cleans up the table the abandoned tea set occupied for years, caressing the deep blue-purple glaze of the cups, lost in thoughts. The tea arrives and they settle down comfortably, after Mingjue seals the door and surrounds themselves with a talisman for privacy. He focuses on Huaisang after he is finished, watching as his brother takes the first sip with a sigh, the action hiden behind his sleeve, like a woman.
“Then let your long, impossible story begin.”
“When our father died, I decided I wanted four things in life: to paint, to collect and care for my birds, to never touch a saber for more moments than I absolutely must and for you to be happy. The last thing was the most important point and in conflict with all the ones before, so I…” and his brother begins to spin a tale, that indeed seems impossible. And tragic. And heartbreakingly lonely.
When Huaisang reaches Mingjues death, he takes his brothers hands, wonders how small and cold they are and holds them through the hours Huaisang needs to finish what he has started.
A long silence settles after the last words fall from Huaisangs lips, voice hoarse and the last cup of tea empty an hour ago. Mingjue shakes his head in disbelief. All of this suffering because of power. His mothers, his father and he himself killed, just because of power.
“You want to change it.” he more states than asks and Huaisang nods. Mingjue sighs, exhausted and still trying to wrap his mind around everything, to be honest.
“I’ll help you. Huaisang, promise me you wont do this alone, let me help.” His little brother startles, eyes wide. Gods, he looks so young!
“You believe me?”
Mingjue scoffs.
“Yes. Gods help me, yes. I believe you.” No-one could just think up this story of a life-time lived. No-one could fake the maturity of expressions and words from his brother, who looks ten and talks and moves like the Sect Leader he is, he has been for longer than Mingjue right now.
“Let me help you. Let’s shape our future, together.”
Huaisang looks at him and takes a shuddering breath, then nods.
“Yes.” A tentative smile and a squeeze of their hands. “Together.”
The End