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“jiaoqiu,” feixiao calls to him, beckoning him over to her charts. they're planning their next campaign, the world already decided by the knights, only their strategy yet to be decided. “what do you think?”
jiaoqiu considers the maps the scouts have made, rivers that carve through deep valleys and the caves that the borisin are hiding in. it will be difficult to chase them out without someone to draw them out. feixiao must know this already, and from the way she looks at him, patient and waiting for him to come to the conclusion she has, he sighs internally.
“i believe the general already has a plan?” he asks. her smile is a brief, feral thing, just for him. “but i would send in a unit to draw them out to the delta, where our main forces can meet them. flood the river if you can, the water will fill the caves and drown some of them as it forces them out.”
“very good, we are in agreement then.” she gestures to the lieutenant, who nods and salutes. the yaoqing is a marvelous machine of warfare, feixiao's orders dispersed quickly and clearly. before the day is out, they will strike out. before the week is out, they will be engaged with the borisin. jiaoqiu can almost hear it from his years of being a field medic, but these days he prefers to stay on the yaoqing.
“you intend to take the verdant knights into the caves then?" jiaoqiu asks, like it was ever in question.
“but of course. who else is suited for such than those who know it well?” feixiao asks, a dangerous glint in his eyes. he merely nods, and excuses himself to inform the alchemy commission.
the verdant knights go where feixiao goes, and jiaoqiu does not follow.
it’s a strange thing to watch feixiao and moze together, her the bright streak that flies across the sky, moze the shadow that follows closely behind. she is open and frank with him, drawing out the scant words he has. the light she shines on him makes him less of a shadow, and more of a man.
in life she is loud and brash, laughing as she sails through the skies, unafraid. she leaves jiaoqiu without looking behind, certainty in every line of her, like it is a forgone conclusion that she will return. she does everything with aplomb, like it's a show, like life is too short and her years are at an end, even though she is barely older than he is. sometimes her smile is patronising in the way she doesn't realise, as if to say she has seen so much more than he has. she has in many ways, and not at all in others.
in sleep, she is smaller, more fragile. the kind of wariness that says she hasn't slept well in years, ready to spring up and take up arms. she is a soldier through and through, raised as one to be the best, and it shows in so many ways. the foxian and the xianzhou natives do not wear battle scars like others might, abundantly blessed as they are. but the body keeps score in other way—the stillness that suffuses her when the first shot of a thunder crossbolt is fired, the way she is never at ease, however loose and languid her body language. the body keeps score, and even under his hands she does not forget, cannot forget.
moze had been the same, the way his words had dried up year on year, sparingly given until he had none left for jiaoqiu. in the end he had been more shadow than man and there hadn't been anything jiaoqiu could do about that, so he let moze walk away and he didn't look to see if moze turned around.
moze had once promised that he would never let jiaoqiu come to any harm, but that had never been the point. poultices, bandages, herbal soups and tonics, hours upon hours learning moze's body as well as his own. and all jiaoqiu had wanted was for things to align in a way that might have been some kind of happiness and contentment, even if it had just been a few weeks a year while moze spent the rest of it away in their endless war against the abominations of abundance. but it didn't, and all jiaoqiu could do was be grateful he never had one of the cloud knight lieutenants show up at his door with the kind of expression that said he wouldn't like what he was about to hear.
the battlefield leaves no room for feelings, as feixiao likes to tell him. but he watches her and moze and wonders if it leaves no room for anything at all.
on clear days, he takes a starskiff out by himself, an easy flight over the delve. it's one of the few pleasures he still keeps, like his hotpot and his little garden. life certainly does wear you down in strange ways, and he supposes he should be grateful he only has three hundred years to the seven odd hundred that the xianzhou natives have. poor general huaiyan must be well beyond that now by jiaoqiu's measure, yet he still persists. there must be something in the crafting, jiaoqiu thinks. meditative in its own way, and that huaiyan has been so rarely seen on any battlefield. but the zhuming is famed for innovations and its weapons of war, not for its martial prowess on the battlefield.
how strange to endure so long, and how painful it must be. but jiaoqiu has other concerns for today, and few of them have to do with a life that has yet to run out.
so it's a surprise to return to someone waiting for him, much less that it is moze.
“i don't suppose this is a social call?” jiaoqiu jokes. he knows better, has kept tabs on moze's rise to becoming one of the shadow guards. last he heard, moze had been assigned to the general's office, as a shadow and to do her bidding. this isn't a social call at all, especially when he hasn't heard from moze for the last decade.
“general feixiao has requested your presence,” moze says. jiaoqiu raises an eyebrow, and moze remains silent. no answers to his questions then, but then again, jiaoqiu should know better by now.
“and why are you here instead of any of the cloud knights?” jiaoqiu asks. he doesn't invite moze in, the two of them standing in the garden that jiaoqiu had planted for him. the flowers flutter as the wind blows in, and moze averts his gaze to stare at the horizon.
“the general's request,” moze answers finally.
jiaoqiu nods. “and i cannot refuse?” he asks quietly.
“you can," moze says. “the general would not force you.”
“then i decline her invitation," jiaoqiu answers. “tell your general she can ask herself.”
“i would hope—” moze starts, then he cuts himself off, shaking his head. an old habit, a bad one.
“you hoped that you wouldn't be a reason for me to say no?” jiaoqiu guesses. “or was it that you hoped if you were the one doing the asking, i would say yes?” he's too practiced at filling in the blanks for moze, another bad habit. but when you know someone so well, it's hard not to, especially when you have known them so well. “i've retired from the field, moze. i am happy with where i am, despite everything. i hope you are too.”
moze stares at him, clearly trying to find words, but jiaoqiu merely inclines his head slightly, its own kind of dismissal. moze takes it for what it is, and jiaoqiu watches him walk away, then goes back into his house.
“jiaoqiu," her voice is soft in the darkness, the new moon a comfort. “what if we can't fix this?" she asks, her voice fragile, small. “what if this is all for nothing?”
“then i am not half the alchemist you think i am, and all your efforts to court me back into your service were in vain,” he answers, pulling her close. feixiao leans into him, her face tucked into his neck. he strokes her hair as her hands dig into him, sharp claws that are almost permanent now, just like how her eyes gleam in the moonlight reflective. “nothing will happen to you, not while i'm looking after you. not if moze or i can do anything about it.”
“you can’t stop this from taking over though, nor can you stop the moon from waxing.”
“try me.”
she laughs, almost a sob. “what are you going to do, throw coriander at it?”
he shrugs. “if it works, why not? digong knows it's vile enough a herb.”
“i imagine your worst nightmare would be abominations made of coriander then,” she teases, trying for levity despite how shaky her voice is.
“i'll have to ask my brave general to deal with it for me then. after all, i am but a doctor with little martial skills to my name.” she laughs, watery but she laughs, her hands digging into his back like he is the only thing keeping her sane in the face of a waxing moon.
“you and moze," feixiao starts, her voice muffled by how she's face down on the mat while jiaoqiu runs his hands over her back, feeling for knots and blockages.
“not your concern, general,” he answers smoothly. he presses down on one of her pressure points, and she yelps.
“warn a lady, would you?" she grumbles. jiaoqiu raises an eyebrow.
“we're in the middle of a treatment, surely your coming here was warning enough?" he asks pleasantly. jiaoqiu hears her grumbling under her breath about demanding doctors, so he presses down at another point that has her yelping. he has to admire the way she turns to scowl at him though, but he continues anyways.
“what’s it with you two?” she asks, persisting despite jiaoqiu’s deflection.
“you’re under some serious misconceptions if you think i want to discuss this with you,” he says, bearing down on yet another pressure point. feixiao groans, but it’s stubborn and doesn’t want to release.
“well, it doesn’t feel like nothing,” she complains. “every time the two of you are in a room together something feels weird. ouch, that really hurts.”
“still doesn’t make it your concern. don't tense up.” he eases up, rubbing gently at the surrounding area so she relaxes before he presses down again. he doesn't pause before he starts on the next area of blockage, and they don't talk for the rest of the session beyond his instructions for her to move her limbs one way or another.
later, she's dressing while he makes some notes when she raises it again. “so. moze.”
“moze knows where to find me, if he wants to,” jiaoqiu answers, not looking up. “as for the rest, that's also his choice.” he can hear her sighing, but she doesn't prod any further. it's a relief when the door closes behind her, leaving him to the quiet of his herbs.
the first time he’d come home after a campaign with the kind of heartsickness that would become too familiar, he’d gone to see his father. the two of them sat together picking leaves from stems, the kind of work that should be left to the most junior of apprentices. how, he’d asked, the smell of bitter herb on his fingers.
duty, his father had said. love, patience. kindness for those who were in pain, because it was necessary. because the war makes orphans of all of them in its own way, that there was little enough pleasure to be had in vengeance. that when life was so difficult out there, sometimes all it took was a warm meal and someone who cared enough to sit with you while you ate.
his mother had brought him soup and kissed the top of his head, smoothing out the tangles with gentle fingers. eat, she told him, a mantra from his childhood. let it heal that which hurts.
the soup had been too salty that day, but jiaoqiu had swallowed it anyway.
“this isn't quite how i imagined the famed jiaoqiu-daifu retiring,” feixiao comments. jiaoqiu squints up at her from where he is weeding his garden, then goes back to weeding. it’s hardly a quiet life with so many visitors, but he supposes he invited this one. it’s a surprise she came alone, but then she is the general of the yaoqing, and he is a retired healer with no martial skills to speak of.
“do share?” jiaoqiu asks, rising from where he had been squatting the last fifteen minutes. he can feel a hip joint pop, protesting the abrupt change in position.
feixiao regards him shrewdly, head tilted. he remembers her being younger, the rare occasions they had crossed paths when he’d still been a field medic. she’s more steady in the way she presents herself now, but he supposes being general of the yaoqing demands a kind of maturity and surety that can no longer be indulged.
“i imagined a few more medicine cabinets and books, less of being a hermit in the valley.” feixiao makes a gesture around them, and jiaoqiu smiles.
“but surely the general must know that the valley is famed for its medicinal herbs?” jiaoqiu asks pleasantly. “after all, the best herbs are found here, and these days i’m only a herbalist at best.”
“truly?” feixiao asks, studying him. he shrugs, gathering the weeds for his compost heap. he stills needs to finish a number of things today; feixiao’s timing could not have been poorer. he can feel her eyes tracking him as he moves around the garden, sorting through the basket of herbs he’d collected this morning, collecting the ones he’d hung out to dry from the previous week. some of them needed to be fried, then he’d have to store them away to preserve their potency. there’s also plenty of vegetables he’d foraged while he was out, and all of them needed washing.
“what would make you come back?” she finally asks, getting to the heart of the matter.
jiaoqiu turns around to face her, eyeing her tense posture. “honestly? nothing.” he’s had enough of trying to make sure someone heals right only to have them return to him the next day wounded once more, until they eventually stop coming back. “jiaoqiu thanks the general for the honour, but would decline your kindness.”
feixiao regards him with an odd look in her eye, before it morphs into something he doesn’t know how to name. “is that so?” she asks and jiaoqiu nods. “very well then.”
she turns and he watches her go with the distinct feeling that this is not the last he will hear from her.
from the yaoqing, he watches the armies meet and clash. the helm-master stands beside him while some of the junior officers start recording casualties. starskiffs that pierce through the thin atmosphere, the thunder of a hundred crossbows firing, the flash of light that was feixiao streaking through the sky. jiaoqiu had seen digong's lux arrow streaking through the sky, utterly devastating in its brilliance, shattering all upon its impact. much like feixiao herself, bright and brilliant, cutting through the darkness and the foxians that the borisin had sent out as the vanguard.
she had been one of them once, young and in need of hope. now she is one of the fiercest fighters the yaoqing boasts, reaching her hand up to call upon the strength given to her by lan. not at all an easy path, but the only path she knew how to walk, that she could walk.
by comparison, jiaoqiu has led a peaceful life, opting for his books and herbs, calculating and careful in his choices. not all of them had worked out of course, but by and large, this had been his choice. strange juxtapositions he thinks, especially if he considers moze.
moze had never liked saying much about himself, but it had been clear enough to jiaoqiu. war makes for many orphans, and the yaoqing has adapted accordingly. many join the cloud knights, some show enough aptitude they are apprenticed to elite sub-units. it's a life laid out, with clear marks of progression and choices. despite the foxian tradition of birthfates, most of those on the yaoqing wind up serving in the cloud knights in some shape or form.
but that was its own kind of fate, he thinks. all of those they free and take in, all these wars they wage, the lives they lead. perhaps it has all already been decided, and they are simply deluding themselves with the illusion of choice.
he senses more than sees moze coming in, the silent shadow that he is. he doesn't look up from the herbs he is sorting for tomorrow's soup, setting some aside to soak later.
“are you here because feixiao asked, or because you want to be?” he asks without preamble.
moze shifts his weight as he leans in the doorway, watching jiaoqiu move around. bones for broth, peppercorn and dried chillies frying in oil, vegetables on the counter waiting to be cut and made into something warm and nourishing.
“i want to be here," moze answers, sounding almost uncertain. “to talk to you.”
jiaoqiu hums, keeping an eye on the stoves he has going. his kitchen is never quiet. not busy and frantic like that of the restaurants or the field kitchens, but certainly never quiet. always some tonic or soup simmering in the back, preparations for another dish in the making, recipes he is developing and adjusting.
moze watches, a familiar routine. he knows he's not allowed past the threshold unless invited, just as he knows jiaoqiu will pour him a cup of tea or a bowl of soup. there's a small stool by the door for this purpose, though moze doesn't sit and jiaoqiu doesn't insist.
the bowl is empty before moze speaks. “it wasn't the right time,” he says, like it explains anything at all. it does and it doesn't, because there were other things. that there were so many things moze could not speak of when he came home, how often he was gone, jiaoqiu's own duties cutting into the little time they had.
“is there ever a right time?” jiaoqiu asks, stirring the soup he has been simmering. almost done, then he'll have it sent over to the general. “there is only now. the past is gone, and the future is uncertain.”
he starts chopping vegetables for his own dinner while moze watches, a familiar enough routine for them. songlotus roots, cabbage, mushrooms. a few slices of meat and some noodles, and it would be a one person hotpot.
“you deserved better than i could be.”
jiaoqiu looks up, and looks moze in the eye. moze almost flinches, because it’s so rare that jiaoqiu is serious, that he isn’t smiling. “you don't get to choose for me, moze. i can make my own choices, just as you made yours.”
“i chose you,” moze says quietly.
jiaoqiu smiles tiredly, tossing his vegetables into a pot. “you did. you chose me but not us.” he steps closer to collect moze's empty soup bowl, their fingers brushing briefly as it exchanges hands. there's still that spark that jiaoqiu never was quite sure came from moze's affinity for lightning, or if it was just something between them.
moze averts his gaze. “i didn't know that it was a choice then.”
“it was,” jiaoqiu tells him quietly, hands curled too tight around a bowl. “it is.”
one step, two. gentle fingers loosen his grip, the bowl removed and set on the counter. strange how gentle those hands could be when all they are used for these days is violence. but they are gentle still when they envelop his hands, warm and secure and the safest place jiaoqiu has ever known.
“why did you say yes?” she asks him as he takes her pulse. it's steady and slow, unlike the nights when the pull to change is stronger. even her blood senses the strangeness of the moon then, trying to change her from the inside out.
“well, you wore out a new path up the mountain in your persistence for starters,” jiaoqiu quips. “also you agreed to ban coriander from the yaoqing, though i see that it has yet to go into effect despite my years of service now.”
feixiao laughs from where she is lying with her head pillowed in his tail, half turned to look up at him. so different from the way moze looks at him despite the equilibrium they've regained, the carefully nurtured thing that exists between the three of them.
“you're not answering my question,” she says, like she knows. but she does and he does and they both know it was very little to do with any promised bans of coriander.
“does it need an answer?” he asks, his hands flattening out to rest in hers, her fingers loosely curled over his.
“no,” she admits. “but i want to know.”
he considers her question, but then the answer had always been very simple.
“because you asked,” he says. she blinks in surprise, as if she wasn't expecting such a plain answer. but it had been that, in the end. the right question with no promises or threats, straightforward and easy as this thing between them.
her smile is a lazy thing as she pulls him down to her.
the winter sun is weak, and jiaoqiu wraps his jacket around him more closely. he needs to finish shopping for tomorrow's dinner, since tomorrow will be hectic with feixiao and moze's return. the reports had indicated she was well enough, but he knows the full moon leaves her feeling out of sorts, and he and moze will have to watch over her.
where they are now is fine, he thinks. there is dinner every now and then, feixiao regularly complaining the soup is too spicy and moze picking over the vegetables for hidden chillies, nights where moze is more than a shadow, tangible and within their reach. there is the two of them setting off without looking back, certain of victory and return, while he waits for them to come back to him. they will come back to him, he knows. he is patient enough to wait.
time will pass regardless, the valley flooding with the spring rains and leaving verdant greenery in its wake.