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This is not what they wanted, and it’s almost enough that they both know that. Yanli knows that it’s not fair, because she has come out with the better half of the bargain--she gets to stay at Lotus Pier with her brothers, her people, her home. Jin Guangyao has been married off, outside of his Clan, practically abandoned to the plain faced sister of a Sect Leader; the second choice after his older brother’s engagement to her fell through with devastating finality. She doesn’t know if that bothers him--it would have driven A-Cheng to near lunacy, had the same happened to him. But Jin Guangyao has been patient in all of their meetings, his manner pleasant, his smile gentle.
She can’t say that she thinks all too much of Sect Leader Jin, if she’s honest (though she keeps this to herself. There’s no need to cause a fuss.) He doesn’t seem to be overly concerned with speaking well on his son’s behalf during wedding negotiations, handing him over to be wed with an air of vague distaste and relief. He compliments the Jiang Sect, speaks of their strengthened bonds, honoring her father, speaks of Jin Zixuan’s foolishness for his refusal--and oh, how she wishes he wouldn’t bring him up. How it squeezes her chest like she’s trapped under the pier, about to drown in green, green water--but he has said nothing of Jin Guangyao’s merits. Simply a half-hearted mention of his sacrifices during the Sunshot Campaign and something about him being observant. She only sees the flicker in Jin Guangyao’s smile because it reminds her so much of the little sprigs of darkness that she so often finds growing in Xianxian’s, now that he’s returned. That sort of shadowed sorrow.
This alone would have endeared him to her. She can’t help but want to make him smile, truly smile, to make him comfortable in her home with her. He does not love her and she does not love him, but nothing about him repulses her. They can rest together in this gentle pool of sorrow they had both been left in by the reneging of affection from powerful Jin men.
Their wedding is not terrible--she intimately knows what terrible feels like. This is merely...not what she had hoped for. She wishes her Father had been there. Her mother. That Jin Zixuan was bowing beside her instead of watching indifferently from the small army of guests--that he loves her, wants her, sees her as worthy.
But A-Cheng and A-Xian are there, watching her with anxious faces and so she smiles in her wedding finery and strokes their cheeks and tries to enjoy herself. It is a nice party and everyone is kind. Marriage to such a man will not be terrible.
She hopes that he feels the same.
He hasn’t truly spoken to her about what he wants and he has certainly never given her the impression that he finds her company distasteful. But alone in the newly prepared couples suite in Lotus Pier, he folds back her veil, kneels before her and takes her hands with a smile. “Jiang-furen, I am under no illusions as to the nature of this union. I will never presume anything of our relationship. Please don’t feel like you need to have any obligation to me, marital or otherwise.”
She lets out a breath that had kept her hands trembling in his. She wants to be a mother, wants to have someone warm beside her, but when the reality of what was necessary for such things to happen drew closer, she had felt her knees weaken and her heart pound. A-Xian and A-Cheng would never let anyone hurt her, and she trusts that Jin Guangyao would not force her if she truly said no. And she hadn’t planned to say no. She had always understood her position and what was for the good of the Clan, had always known what path would be expected of her.
But to be told so very kindly that it was not required makes her at once intensely relieved--and yet, distantly sad. She takes his face in her hands and kisses his forehead, now bare of the vermillion Jin dot and hat. “Please, call me A-Li.”
She isn’t sure what he had been expecting, but he blinks and his easy smile slides right off his face into something very bare for a split second before he pulls it back on. “A-Li,” he repeats, dutifully. “You may call me whatever you wish.”
“A-Yao?” His dimples press deeper but he simply dips his chin in acceptance without speaking. “A-Yao,” she repeats and rubs her thumbs across his cheeks. “Thank you.”
He looks very handsome in wedding red and gold, the bold colors suiting him far better than the pale Jin robes. It makes her wonder what he will think of the purples and blues and teals of the Jiang Clan.
A-Yao proves to be a valuable asset in so many ways--he is observant, quick and hard working with a mind for numbers and calculated risks. A-Cheng and A-Xian have some trouble knowing what to make of him, but they cannot deny that his ability to simply know what needs to be done and arrange for it to happen makes the work of expanding and finishing the rebuilding of Lotus Pier all that much easier. He is an extra calming presence for their friction when Xianxian becomes distant and moody and A-Cheng too frustrated to have perspective outside his own upset. There are still times when someone stomps off or explodes in a rage, but between the two of them, Yanli and A-Yao mostly manage to translate intention over action. A-Xian still harbors his guarded darkness and A-Cheng still shoulders his gruff Sect Leader persona like too large armor, but things are not nearly as on edge as they might have been.
As her brothers grow more comfortable with his presence, less prickly of his role in their sister’s life when they see that he has no intention of taking up their time or love, she thinks that they begin to enjoy him, too. He quickly charms Xianxian with his self-effacing humor and ability to banter and he is able to make suggestions to A-Cheng without seeming overbearing or condescending. He quickly learns every disciple’s name, their likes and dislikes, their hobbies and peculiarities. Yanli adores him for it. His presence is easy and unobtrusive.
The first time she sits him down beside her brothers at the small table overlooking the lake, the confusion on his face had been sweetly wounding. Does he truly think she will leave him sitting, sleeping, eating, working alone? Unloved? She may not want the things that a wife should want from a husband, but she does want him fed and smiling. He lives under her roof, doesn’t he? And so she pets her hand over all of their heads, her 3 silly, ridiculous boys and fills their bowls and bellies with soup. He is quiet while the siblings tease and chat, simply watching the toss of conversation as the fireflies drift among the silk hangings on the pier. Yanli watches how his face is still and absorbing. She wonders what memories he’s collecting, what information he’s storing behind those clever eyes. The blue of his robes has him melting into the twilight along with the sounds of laughter, swallowed by the lasting humidity of the day.
They share a room and a bed, at night, as a husband and wife should, but he always lets her settle first, always leaves a cushion between them like a careful reminder of his promise. She leaves it for the first few weeks, though she thinks it’s a little silly--as if a cushion would be the thing that would stop a man from taking advantage, if he ever wanted to. It’s another kindness he is allowing her.
She wakes from a nightmare one night that leaves her shaking, sweating through her night clothes and finds him propped up on one elbow right on the other side of that barrier, eyebrows pinched as he looks down at her through the moonlight. She doesn’t remember what it had been about, but that it left her with the feeling of trying to bail a sinking, hole riddled boat in the middle of a storm--so very hopeless and panicked--and without thinking, she reaches across and curls her hand around his lapel. His hand comes up to carefully smooth back her frazzled hair and he tilts his head. “A-Li?”
“Can you...can you hold me, please?” Her voice is waterlogged and quivering, but he hears her and after a moment of hesitation, he sweeps the cushion aside and does.
She is able to tuck herself into his chest and cry until her eyes ache before he carefully rolls onto his back so she is pillowed on his sternum, feeling the thrum of his heart under her cheek. Being so near something so vitally alive is helping. His hands stay strictly in her hair and shoulder, combing and combing it back from her sticky face and neck. The room is filled with the sound of the frogs and crickets and she wonders if he ever finds it too loud to sleep. To her, it is a lullaby. She sniffs and looks up into the pale, blurry moon of his face in the dark. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” he murmurs back, quiet as the knock of boats against the pier. “Anything.”
He is a good husband.
Now, it is easier to simply not place the cushion between them, to wiggle over to his side as he lays down and press her back to his side. Graciously, he lays an arm out for her to pillow her head and, sometimes, she links her fingers through his as they drop off. Well, she drops off--she hopes that he is as comfortable as she is, but every time she asks if it’s alright, she simply receives the same charming smile, the same, “Of course.” She decides to trust this, because it seems to have served them well so far and she enjoys the sweet, subtle cologne of him. She has to wonder if Zixuan would have been so patient with nightmares, had she been the one beside him in his bed.
She suspects that a great many things would have been very different, had they married. Perhaps not better, perhaps not worse, but very, very different. Arrogance was not a trait that she had ever seen in A-Yao. She is lucky to have what she has. It’s not what she had wanted nor what she expected; but she knows herself to be lucky all the same.
For all that he is sweet and easy to talk to, she finds it difficult to get him to talk about himself in any capacity. He is attentive and thoughtful, a good conversationalist with a startlingly wide knowledge base, but when she asks about his family, his parents, his wants, he always smiles that pleasant smile that she is beginning to be able to see around the edges of and manages to slide his way away from the question. The impression she gets is that his father is a topic of great pain, a deep wound unhealed and she cannot see a way to find a fault in that. No one wants their parents to disregard their worth.
It takes them attending the opening ceremonies to a night hunt with a few of the smaller Sects of the area, a churlish young cultivator to mutter, “Son of a whore,” within earshot for his flawless smile to freeze, for his cheek to twitch and all at once, Yanli is angry .
“I cannot believe that Sect Leader Yao would allow someone so inexcusably rude to practice as his disciple. What on earth would provoke you to say something so pointless and cruel? What sort of lack of discipline do you suffer from that would make you think that you could attend such an event without endangering yourself and the people around you with judgment so poor?” she demands with her back ramrod straight, staring up into the young man’s startled face. “That is my husband . And comments on his station are not yours to make. You will apologize at once and bring Sect Leader Yao here for a discussion, please.”
A-Cheng and Xianxian are drawn by her voice, faces thunderous already at whomever dared make her upset and the cultivator visibly quails, spins to bow to A-Yao. “I-I apologize, Liangfang-zun. I misspoke.”
“Did you?” A-Xian quirks an eyebrow with a smirk. “Or do you just regret getting caught, eh?” He looks over at A-Yao, who is standing quite still and breathing quite evenly. “What did he say?”
A-Yao’s smile is rigid and his eyes flat as he shakes his head. “I couldn’t say.”
Which did not mean that he didn’t hear. Yanli feels as if she is growing inches to tower over this cruel boy with every breath she takes. Beside her, A-Cheng snaps, “Well? She told you to go get him, didn’t she?”
As he scurries off, she turns to A-Cheng and A-Xian, lays hands on their arms. The look she gives them they know well; and, though they do look crestfallen at not being able to stay and join the fray, they leave her to pull A-Yao with her into a small courtyard. She turns and lets go of him, watching his face closely. “A-Yao?”
“It’s true, though, A-Li. You must have heard, by now.” He still has his small, stiff smile on, tucked up in a way that makes him look young and locked up. He isn’t looking at her. “I’m sorry to have been the cause of--”
“A-Yao,” she says again, almost like an admonishment. “That was not your doing.”
“But A-Li must resent such a background. Such an association. I apologize for--”
“I don’t accept,” she interrupts, as gently as her throbbing heart will allow because she hates that frail little smile that’s hiding something that she hasn’t seen on his face before. And it’s gone because now, the smile is silky and faraway, his eyes hooded and fixed on her feet as he shakes his head. Like she doesn’t understand. Like she’s being ridiculous. “I don’t accept because there is nothing to apologize for. I am not ashamed of your past or your mother. I am not ashamed of you. You are my husband, my family, one of my people. And I am angry, not because what he said offends me, but because he said it to hurt you . And that is inexcusable to me. I can’t do much,” she continues and her throat squeezes, pressing her voice reedy. “I’m not very strong and I am not able to offer very many things. But I won’t allow the people that are mine to be hurt anymore than I can help. I won’t do it .”
Everything she hated about his expression is gone, now, including the smile and he is staring at her like he has never seen her before. He is not a short man, shorter by a few inches than either A-Xian and A-Cheng, taller than her by half a head, certainly, but there is a way that he always holds himself that makes him seem small. A deference in the tilt of his chin, the roundness of his eyes. She would have him blossom like a lotus bud, bursting open in the sun until all the pale softness of him could feel the warmth. She would tuck him into her sleeves if she thought it would keep him safe, but she would rather see him fully in the light. Too many people she loves rest in the cool, shaded family shrine, beyond her reach.
“I can’t control what happens to me,” she keeps going as he stares at her with his wide eyes, as tears overflow her own. “And I can’t control who wants me or-or what is happening or what is going to happen, but I can control me . And I’m not going to let anyone else be cruel to you, A-Yao. I’m not . Not your father, not some hateful disciple, and not you, either. You are mine because we are married. And you and A-Cheng and A-Xian are what I have left. You won’t be hurt anymore. I won’t allow it.”
He is silent and still, face open and familiar in its bare wonder--the same face he wore on their wedding night when she had kissed his forehead. But now it is staying, watching her like he’s just not certain of anything, even though she has just told him of her own certainty. “I would choose you, A-Yao. Given the choice again and knowing what I know, I would choose you again. You are kind and you are clever. I love having you in my home.” Yanli wonders if she keeps going, will it push him deeper into incredulity or towards a reaction? She doesn’t want to overwhelm him.
This is nothing new, to her. She had decided the night they wed, when he had assured her that he would take nothing from her she didn’t want to give, that she wanted to keep this thoughtful man among her meager collection of people she wanted to protect. But it seems to be taking him by surprise that she likes him at all, which she finds inexcusable. She comes closer and he watches her like an injured bird on the verge of flight, wary and disbelieving, even shaking slightly. There is no barrier, here, no cushion or mask between the things that live on his face and she has to ask. “A-Yao, what do you need?”
“I don’t...know,” he chokes, his hands fisted in the dark purple silk of his robes. “I don’t...I don’t know what to say.”
“And that frightens you, doesn’t it?” She says softly, raises her hands to cradle his face again and he gives a start but doesn’t pull away. “You don’t need to lie to me. You don’t need to pretend.”
He is shaking his head, slowly. “A-Li, if you knew--”
“Then tell me. Or don’t. I can wait. I can be here. I don’t want you to feel alone at Lotus Pier. I don’t want you to feel like you were forced on me because you weren’t. I said yes. You said yes. This is not what we wanted and not what we thought it would be but it isn’t bad, is it? ...Is it?” She asks again, voice small, traitorous lips trembling again because she can’t help but remember the times it took her a moment too long to gather her thoughts, for her words to come out sideways and prod Jin Zixuan too far. She didn’t want A-Yao to feel as badly as she had clearly made him feel. She just wants to be happy and have him happy with her in return.
A-Yao’s hands come up and his thumbs smooth away the tears from her cheeks, his expression still terribly open and wounded. “No,” he breathes. “It’s more than I ever….It’s never bad, A-Li. Never with you.”
Yanli draws him down, touches their foreheads together and takes in a shuddering breath. “Good. A-Yao?”
He is staring into her eyes with avid attention, his thumb sweeping over her cheek as he waits. His eyes are dark and there is an intensity there that she has rarely seen, but it is all liquid and disbelievingly warm. A lake on a midsummers night.
“I think I could love you,” she confides quietly, his patience making her bold, leaving her without fear.
On a whisper she more feels across her face than hears, he replies, “I know I could.”
She smiles and tilts her nose down to bump his. “I think I would like to try. We have time.”
He swallows hard and nods, the tips of his fingers flexing against her cheeks. “You would have me, then?”
Silly, ridiculous, clueless man. She pulls him closer, tucks her face into his shoulder as he squeezes and squeezes, burying his own face in her hair.
“I already do.”