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Language:
English
Series:
Part 9 of Rainbows (TEO-verse bright side) , Part 46 of Through Each Other (TEO-verse)
Stats:
Published:
2021-12-30
Completed:
2022-12-31
Words:
2,023
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
26
Kudos:
42
Bookmarks:
4
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440

Hope Like A Snowflake

,

Summary:

Chapter One: Wen Qing is snowed in at the Burial Mounds, but it's all right.

Chapter Two: Melting snow and growing friendship at Lotus Pier.

Notes:

Just fluff, honest! Happy New Year's Eve to those of you celebrating!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

It’s snowing in the Burial Mounds, and Wen Qing doesn’t have to do anything about it.

This winter, every single household has decent insulation. This winter they all have several days of dry food in sealed containers, and jugs of pre-melted clean water, and a huge pile of fuelwood, and a stack of talismans for emergencies, and a stocked first-aid kit.

This winter, every single person has a talisman bracelet or necklace that not only wards off uncontrolled low-level fierce corpses and spirits and demons, but also makes a little dot of light glow on—not a map—but a hanging scroll painting that could pass as decorative if you didn’t examine the array on the back. Wen Qing in her solitary hut, and Wei Wuxian up in his cave, and Fourth Uncle in the hut he shares with several cousins, can each just look, and see that glowing status light that means every one of the Yiling Wen family is exactly as alive and healthy and un-possessed as they are supposed to be.

This winter she doesn’t have to go out in the snow and sleet while it’s still howling down, to struggle between overcrowded chilly shacks and try to make sure nobody has frostbitten fingers and toes, or a wind invasion of the chest, or the red eyes of a winter hunger spirit taking up residence. She’ll do her rounds, checking in on everyone as their physician and their leader, but it can wait until the worst of the storm stops.

Even if that takes days, honestly. Filial obligation will drag her out sooner than that, the combined responsibilities of a medical caregiver and a family head. Soon enough, she’ll be trudging along with a modest use of Wen fire-rooted spiritual cultivation heating just the insides of her socks and gloves, rather than attempting the arrogance of carrying summer temperatures around with her. But there’s a specific luxurious feeling to knowing that carrying out her duty is only as urgent as she wants it to be. Everyone is all right, and the snow can fall horizontally if it wants to without changing that.

All of which means that Wen Qing doesn’t have to do anything right now, except decide which book to read, and when to make another cup of hot tea.

They didn’t—couldn’t—grow the tea she’s drinking, or the rice for the dry rice cakes she’s half-contemplating topping with homemade fruit preserves for a lazy breakfast. But it’s real tea. More than that, it’s decent quality. And honestly traded for, a fair swap for a good harvest, with distant neighbors who know her by her present affiliation and at least part of her real name, and smile when they see her, regardless.

Wen Qing sighs peacefully. She admits, privately, that Wei Wuxian had actually done a good job, for once; that all the collective’s hard work seems to be paying off. And she herself isn’t doing too badly, at this whole ‘rescuing people’ thing, even given the setting.

Wen Qing pulls her blankets tighter around her. She wiggles her toes. Finally, Wen Qing takes another sip of tea, tentatively triumphant.

Chapter 2

Summary:

A new chapter of Wen Qing fluff, for a new (Western) New Year.

Notes:

Content Warnings: None, this is fluff. (Edit: Whoops! Brief mention of community health care / preventative medicine / infectious disease control, from a 'got this handled' perspective.)

Content Note: Mild implied spoilers for WIPs in this AU, but no big reveals.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It's snowing at Lotus Pier, and Wen Qing has lots of things to do.

A brief glance out the closest window suffices for due appreciation of the shift in the weather. Then she gets back to work. She has neat stacks of papers and reference texts on her desk, which is very large and very nicely carved, and still doesn't have enough drawers to quite suit. The matching medicine cabinet is almost adequate for the essentials of her pharmocopeaia, though, and has removable labels and movable dividers on each of the one hundred sixty-eight long, narrow drawers; she does appreciates the thoughtfulness of that.

The muffled sounds of lapping water and the cool moisture in the air keep Wen Qing company, as she wrestles with lists of available pharmaceuticals, current inventories, estimated values for future usage and spoilage and emergency reserves, and the corresponding purchase orders for resupply. Given her fire-rooted personal qi, damp with a hint of chill is probably good for her. She used to get terrible winter sniffles from the hot dry air in Nightless City drying out her nostrils, before diagnosing and curing herself.

Outside, wet, white, enormous flakes eddy downwards, like goose feathers. They melt like spun sugar as soon as they contact the damp dark wood of decks and railings.

Wen Qing brushes a strand of hair out of her face impatiently, and dips her brush back in her ink. She has very little respect for Jiang Fengmian, but he did his son one favor, at least, by standardizing the form letter used by Yunmeng Jiang Sect for recurring purchases of bulk supplies. It's a simple script, one that merchants with long-term dealings with the Sect already know to expect, across the board, regardless of the quantity, frequency, purveyor, or form of payment, including taking it out of the tithes for protection. Compared to making a Wei Ying-proof shopping list on a nonexistent budget, planning how to buy medical essentials for an entire sect is almost easy.

Wen Qing reminds herself that her paper supply is effectively unlimited, at least, and makes her next column of characters larger, for others to read more easily. Her habit of keeping her wrists tense means that that her writing tends towards the angular and overly-cramped. There need be no room for others to misunderstand her instructions.

Wisely ordering supplies, even with a sizable budget, requires prioritizing. What's hypothetically available, what's actually reliable, what's best quality and most efficacious, what's most effective at scale...those aren't the same thing. Precision matters. The best doctor of Lotus Pier will be ahead of any springtime surges in infectious illnesses or careless injuries with all available preventative measures and prepared medications. There is no or else.

There's a small rattle, from time to time, from the oiled paper in wooden frames that screens over closed windows. Overall, though, there's remarkably little wind. Many of the windows are still open, looking out over green plants, wooden buildings, and the calm gray river.

There's a brazier in the corner, with a plentiful supply of the unscented plum-wood charcoal that she prefers, but she hasn't bothered to light it. The talismans placed on every windowsill, to prevent the openings from letting all the heat out, currently have hardly any work to do; it's just not that cold here, despite the snow flurries. Accordingly, she's taken advantage of the natural light for her work, and opened up the most prominent screens. There are clear views over to other houses and out across the water.

Those particular talismans still set off occasional tiny bursts of purple sparks, not from external interference, but by design. Having household talismans that occasionally glint or sizzle supplies the inhabitants with a reminder that protection from the weather doesn't come entirely free, and even the best talismans need replenishing occasionally. But whether it's technically free or not, it's easy to stay warm here, compared to the harshness of contaminated Yiling or overtaxed rural Qishan.

Wen Qing sighs quietly, as she sets a finished page aside. She'll be prepared when she needs to be. There isn't a real rush here, despite her awareness of several overlapping schedules. She simply has a strong preference for being so ready that she's never called upon to do something at the last moment that could have been done earlier. Part of the guidelines for running a competent medical practice or staffing an responsible cultivation sect is recognizing that sometimes people will be on duty with little to do besides completing low-priority tasks without hurrying, in order to be maximally effective and available when on call for emergencies. Yunmeng Jiang is doing well, really.

She looks up again. More snow is coming down, but it's still not sticking. The world at the moment is hazy, distances softly obscured and faraway sounds indistinct. The sky is a soft clear white like the nacreous inside of a shell.

Every flake that falls melts at once, whether they land on the buildings of Lotus Pier, or descend directly into the river. All their sharp intricacies are swept away in the waves, lulled into the eternal return of the water cycle. Only last year's lotus leaves and the branches of budding plum trees, at the very edges of each plant, catch a glimmer of white rime. The rest disappears completely.

Wen Qing takes some slow, deep breaths, while she looks out at the silvery water, the porcelain sky, the touch of frost that will become clear dew by afternoon. Part of being a doctor is recognizing when she requires medical treatment herself, including preventative care and healthier habits. She's gotten this far. She needs to unbend a little, in order to be at her best, going forward.

Wen QIng looks up, and smiles, as Jiang Yanli comes in. It's remarkably pleasant, having this woman who may yet become her sworn sister here at the same time as she is. They've shared a number of meals together, with different iterations of the core family here. Yanli cooked several of them, but graciously allowed her brother's staff to supply the rest.

Jiang Yanli's cooking is excellent and her appearance is meticulously curated; her mannerisms are sweet and her manners are impeccable; but none of that is why Wen Qing likes her. Jiang Yanli is kind, and she is honest. Wen Qing values both traits, but she cannot really relax with anyone who does not have them both together.

Wen Qing and Yanli have also taken some very purposeful and organized walks around Lotus Pier together, comparing what was once there, to what has been rebuilt, and to what can be built in future, in order to promote the physical and spiritual health of the inhabitants. Those talks were businesslike and unapologetic on either side. Wen Qing significantly appreciated Yanli-mei's spine of flexible steel, as well as her deft politeness, for achieving that innocuousness in the context of their fraught past.

They even have a joint outing to the town of Lotus Cove planned for tomorrow, though for that, Jiang Wanyin insisted on sending an escort of cultivators along.

He tried fussing about the weather, too, and in that regard, Jiang Yanli gently but indisputably put her foot down. It's not that long, really, to the New Year, to the start of spring. Most of the world is dormant, but the days are getting longer already, with the equinox past. In the comparative warmth of Yunmeng, hardy plants are already starting to grow.

Jiang Yanli smiles whimsically, and gestures towards the brazier. A flame talisman from her sleeve flies over to light it, and the coals are crackling within moments. Small as the required expenditure of qi is, Yanli's confidence in using a talisman for an incidental reasons, and without bracing herself first, signifies that her meridians are much steadier than they used to be.

Yanli is proud of her progress, understandably. She needs someone to be proud with, someone who is neither overly invested in her bodily health at the expense of her personhood, nor accidentally patronizing purely out of their own different experience of using power. Wen Qing is glad to be that person.

Also, it's nice to have someone who actually appreciates Wen Qing's growing collection of flavorful herbal tea. Not that Wen Qing needs someone to make her take a tea break, unlike some other people. She's perfectly capable of organizing her own schedule. It's nice to have company, though.

Jiang Yanli sits down at the tea-table, kneeling gracefully on a dark blue, sturdy cushion that harmonises with the gold-edged blue-violet of her darker recent choices of dress. Wen Qing rises from her desk to join her.

Outside, the snow continues to fall. Behind clouds, the sun is rising, and everything will melt, sooner or later. But at the very end of the furthest dock, where a flock of migratory ducks are peacefully sitting and standing on a thin scrim of ice, the snow has started to stick.

Notes:

It occurred to me just today that this fic deserved a callback (in the author's timeline) and a flashforward (in the character's timeline, per the main plot), so here we are. A hopeful New Year this Dec. 31/Jan. 1 to anyone observing that calendar system. Note, this is flash-fic and patchily edited.

(It's hard to believe I've been working on this AU for a year and a half, but I have, and I want to keep going! There's so much more story to share!)

Notes:

This is a small piece of a large canon divergence AU, TEO-Verse, which is very much a work in progress. Mind the tags if you read on: contains angst, dark themes, violence, sexual violence, dubious consent, characters who may not deserve it getting a happy ending, and multiple less-popular ships. Also, worldbuilding that intentionally diverge from both my necessarily limited cultural background research and my own life experience.

Overall, this AU mixes up: the MDZS novel in translation (several of them); CQL | The Untamed; pieces of other MDZS adaptations; assorted fanon takes; and new divergences. You can now request MDZS from your local library in officially licensed English translation, or buy for yourself. (Comment if you need help finding a version to read in the meantime, I know we’re all having trouble getting our copies right now.)

I do not have an update schedule, but I'm posting a lot; I'm not sure how much more I have to write, but I have a clear sense of the overall plot arcs and a lot of rough drafts. It will not be posted in chronological order, but the main TEO-verse series order is basically chronological.

I am a white USAian who does not speak Chinese, writing an AU of fantasy-China characters created by a Chinese author. I will definitely consider feedback on language, culture, or other issues. Friendly comments of all sorts are welcome!

Revision dates: 12/31/2021; 12/31/2022.