open post: in a carefully staged pavilion

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu is luxuriating in having his cultivation restored. He's also steeling himself for his next conversation with Luo Binghe, trying to engineer everything about it so he doesn't fucking die. The combination means he is being... maybe a little bit extra.

The Mansion's closets have a strange way of giving him the clothing he's used to; apparently both as Shen Qingqiu and—before that. He ignores the array of jeans and Naruto t-shirts and selects a set of fine silk robes in greens of deepening hue, so that the crossed layers at his throat imitate the sequential layers of a bamboo shoot: from forest green passing through spring green and jade to near-white as they reach his skin. He also takes great care with his hair and his guan—he can't look like a slob in front of the Emperor.

There are several beautiful Chinese-style pavilions on the Mansion grounds¹, and he chooses one in the shadow of a blossoming cherry tree. The sun is high, painting dappled shadows across the floor of the pavilion as the blossoms sway in the breeze. He fetches a small writing table and sets it up on one side of the pavilion. Under it he tucks the congee, rescued from the rice cooker, which is...well, it can charitably be said to smell like it might be edible. As long as Binghe doesn't think he's being intentionally poisoned, maybe it'll be okay?

He takes great care with the invitation. He considers writing it with the very expensive pen Crowley had conjured for him, but it feels wrong, not to grind his own ink for it; disrespectful, somehow. Thankfully he keeps an extra brush and ink stone in the qiankun pouch in his sleeve. He crumples up several drafts before he's happy with his calligraphy,² and decorates the edges of the page with bamboo leaves and elegant black lotuses.

If he were really doing this properly, he'd have taken the time to boil some cherry blossom petals, distill their steam into perfume, and then add it to the ink—but he'd felt like he was risking his life just going back into the kitchens for the congee. It's the most likely place for Luo Binghe to be, after all, since there's no throne room or audience hall here, and the whole point of the invitation in the first place is for them to meet on Shen Qingqiu's respectful and very much non-confrontational terms.

He folds the invitation and marks it with Luo Binghe's name and a small talisman that both seeks his former disciple and makes sure he's the only one who can open it. With a wave of his hand he sends it wafting away on the breeze, and then settles back. To wait. He has a small stack of parchment at his elbow, so when Luo Binghe arrives—or if anyone else should happen upon him—he can pretend he had something occupying him rather than just sitting here, paralyzed with anticipation.

¹ As established by Temeraire.
² This is definitely just him being obsessive and a perfectionist. As Peak Lord of the scholar's peak at Cang Qiong, Shen Qingqiu's calligraphy is impeccable. He's won contests.

Comments

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu shakes his head. "Unfortunately not—it's chronic." He waves his fan as if dismissing an annoying fly. "Don't concern yourself, though—my own cultivation is high enough to keep it from killing me, most of the time. I've lived with it for—" he thinks about it for a moment. Binghe had been fifteen when Sha Hualing attacked the peak, and he was seventeen at the Immortal Alliance conference..."Three years or so, I'm quite used to it."

[sagramore]

"Are you sure?" clearly disappointed. "It's one thing to be used to something. If there's anything you need help with, I'm always here and there."

[peaklordshen]

"Ah, don't look so downcast, brave sir," Shen Qingqiu jokes, standing up. "I've learned to take advantage of my powers while I have them." It's an exaggeration—he really doesn't do much of anything, even with Liu-shidi constantly on hand, especially since the Abyss, preferring to wander gloomily around the bamboo house and wait for his inevitable doom—but Sir Sagramore doesn't know that, and Shen Qingqiu doesn't like how disappointed he seems. Things are great! He's back to baseline! He's going to be waiting a long time if he's hoping for Shen Qingqiu to be actually cured.¹

He crosses the pavilion to Sir Sagramore. "If you do wish to fly on a sword, this may be our chance," he offers, coming to stand next to him and look out at the beautiful blustery day.

¹ Unless—but of course that's never going to happen.

[sagramore]

He's still let-down on Shen Qingqiu's behalf (it's hard not to think, even for a moment, of how profoundly different his life would be if he no longer had to worry about spells of sickness), but Shen Qingqiu seems philosophical enough about it. More than that, Shen Qingqiu seems happy right now, and he doesn't want to be the one to spoil that by dwelling on things that can't be changed.

So he grins again, and knocks his shoulder lightly against Shen Qingqiu's. "I don't like to leave chances untaken."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu smiles from behind his fan—more habit than hiding, as Sagramore can easily see it from his position at his side—and draws Xiu Ya (Sagramore may note the beauty of the sword, and the unthinking grace with which Shen Qingqiu wields it). "I think you will have some natural talent at this," he says, "as the carriage of the body is not unlike riding a horse." He hesitates. "From the waist up, obviously." What it's really like is riding a skateboard, but that's not a reference that Sagramore would get, nor a reference Shen Qingqiu should be able to make.

He takes a moment to check on the talisman he's affixed to the back of his fan, which will turn blood-red when Luo Binghe has broken the seal on his invitation. It remains black. He nods. "Ready?"

[sagramore]

"Wait, wait-- do I just stand behind you? May I put my hands on your waist if I need balance? Do we step on?" This is his first time, Shen Qingqiu! He also absolutely noticed Shen Qingqiu's way of handling the sword, and might ask for sparring practice, although his last experience with Laertes has him slightly more wary on that point.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu laughs. He sends Xiu Ya to hover just off the last step up to the pavilion, and hikes up his skirts a little so Sagramore can see the positioning of his legs¹ before stepping onto it, then holds out a hand to him. "Yes," he says, "you step up behind me, and yes, you may support yourself on my waist." He's still not entirely clear on Sagramore's boundaries re: touching men, but he'd picked him up before, this is hardly more intimate.

¹ This would be entirely scandalous to his fellow cultivators. He's wearing trousers, but they're quite thin.

[sagramore]

He grins again -- this is honestly exciting, the idea of human flight is just an absolute impossibility to him, and Shen Qingqiu's comparison to riding a horse did not go amiss (if that was one of the most freeing experiences of his life, how much wilder might this be?). "Thank you." He takes Shen Qingqiu's hand and steps carefully onto the blade of the sword.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu tucks his fan into his sleeve and directs Sagramore's hands to his waist, covering them with his own for extra stability. It's a little funny, doing it this way around—when he's shared swords before he's usually been the passenger. "Don't worry," he says, over his shoulder. "I won't let you fall."

He starts them out slow enough, rising gradually from the pavilion in a long spiral so the grounds of the Mansion are laid out underneath them, orderly lawns and hedges creating a patchwork of different greens like a quilt, the lake shining silver, and the elegant oblong Mansion itself, massive and imposing but somehow not massive enough to contain all of the rooms Shen Qingqiu has come across in his time here.

[sagramore]

"I appreciate it," drily, but once they're in the air his demeanor changes to one of pure exhilaration. It is like riding in that it feels almost impossible, a miracle that someone from a world so earthbound could soar.

It must be how it feels to be a wild animal, unyoked from the knowledge of past and present. How could a person fly and still worry about dying alone in a land he hates? How could this fierce wonder coexist with self-loathing (all right, he knows that answer very well, but in the air it's somehow rhetorical)?

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu can almost feel the delight radiating from Sagramore, and he smiles to himself, leaning forward and urging Xiu Ya faster, from standard traveling speed to racing speed. They zip by the highest floors of the Mansion, close enough that Shen Qingqiu could reach out and touch the walls, then dive, sharply, to skim above the surface of the lake, sending up silver waves in their wake. It's nice, to view flying like this, through Sagramore's eyes; not just a standard of the xianxia genre but a truly special ability that he's been given, and can share.

He slows them, spiraling around the pavilion only a few feet off the ground before coming to a halt back at the steps.

[sagramore]

When they stop he staggers a few steps, getting his balance back on earth again, but that absolute pleasure is still obvious. "That may have been the best thing I've ever done." The light in his eyes is boyish as he runs his fingers through his wind-tousled curls.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu grins at him. "Happy to take you up again any time you like," he says, "assuming, you know." Though—he glances at his fan again; the talisman is still dark, but the last thing he wants is for it to change while he's sixty feet off the ground with Sagramore's hands on his waist. "Perhaps not now, exactly. I'm... kind of waiting for someone.¹"

¹ This should be taken only as apology for not flying with Sagramore longer, not an indication for him to leave.

[sagramore]

"It's all right, it's all right. When you're not busy. Thank you, that was wonderful." He leans back against the support he started on (he likes leaning). "Who are you waiting for?"

[peaklordshen]

"Ah," says Shen Qingqiu. He flutters his fan. "Luo Binghe. Have you encountered him? You'd remember."

[sagramore]

"Oh, yes, I remember. You're friends?" Friends seems not quite the right word, given Shen Qingqiu's obvious anticipation, but he's of a mind to go gently.

[peaklordshen]

It's the obvious question, but it still takes Shen Qingqiu by surprise. "What? I—no," he says. "I mean—"

Is that even possible? He really hadn't thought about what their relationship might look like long-term, being more focused on not dying in the short term. He'd settle for Binghe tolerating his presence enough for him to be able to be around and observe him in his element, smiting his enemies and seducing his wives¹, or whatever, but—they are so many things to each other that friends is kind of impossible to imagine. "It's—complicated. He... I don't really think he has a lot of friends."

¹ Not that he wants to watch the actual seduction, of course, but like, the lead-up. You know. He's thinking—again—about Binghe kissing Claudius.

[sagramore]

"I suspect you're right," Sagramore says mildly. "But that rather makes me feel he needs the ones he has."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu nods. In PIDW, it would be a ridiculous thing to say—what need does Luo Binghe have of friends, when he has subjugated entire realms to his rule, and spends his days in endless sexual bliss with every beauty ever born? But if Luo Binghe's machinations with Claudius have proved anything, it's that Luo Binghe is adrift, here, without those comforts. "I think—I would have liked to be his friend. If things were different." If he'd transmigrated into someone else, some minor disciple on Qing Jing, or one of the other peaks, and not the man destined to cause Luo Binghe the most pain he would ever experience.

[sagramore]

"Can they not be?" a little gentler.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu smiles, a little sadly. "I am trying to convince him they already are," he says. "But even if I succeed, I doubt you'll see us braiding each others' hair any time soon."

[sagramore]

"I think-- if you want my opinion, and certainly you can tell me to go to hell-- but I do think he's the sort of person who has a hard time asking for the things he really wants. It's easy to posture and be disliked. Actually trusting someone to care for you is generally more difficult."

[peaklordshen]

It rankles, to hear Luo Binghe described as having a hard time¹ with anything at all. But. "He is unused to asking for what he wants," he allows. "Instead of demanding it, and simply being obeyed."

¹ Except in the euphemism way, in which case Shen Qingqiu is very used to people describing Luo Binghe as having a hard time. Well, one person. At enormous length.^2
2 The hardness in question is also of enormous length, hahahahaha.

[sagramore]

"Yes. That was the impression I got."

[peaklordshen]

Something occurs to Shen Qingqiu, something he could do—a small thing, alongside the congee; maybe if he builds up enough small things they might even matter. "You're a knight," he says. "Used to serving, like, lords, and stuff."