(OOC - most dialogue written in English for everyone’s ease. Italics denote French, bold denotes Chinese)
“Qu'est-ce que vous deux discutez?” Matthieu asked, his brow furrowing in confusion at the exchange between his mother and Émilie.
“You need to practise your Chinese,” his mother sighed, still speaking in Mandarin. He had forgotten so much, being away at school, and it saddened her. She reached out to to chuck him affectionately under the chin - he dodged this with a huff of annoyance, one that suggested he was too old for such things. She had to reach up, now, to try such things, and more often than not he shrugged her off. She had heard teenagers could be difficult… Was this going to be her life from now on? Watching as one by one her sweet little children grew up, becoming sullen and sulky? It had been so hard seeing Émilie go off to school this year - her little girl, her baby, growing up and leaving her. Were they all going to start behaving like this? Would spending too much time away mean they forgot how to speak her language? Or was it just how Matthieu was? He always had been very... independent. Strong. And those were good qualities, especially in an oldest boy. But it had already felt for a long time like he didn’t really need her. Now it was starting to feel like he didn’t want her either. She didn’t want to feel that from her children… But Dorian wasn’t like that, and she couldn’t imagine him becoming so. And he wasn’t forgetting his Chinese, he was even teaching his friends - Jehan had absolutely delighted her with his attempts during the summer.
“What for? We live in Canada,” he shrugged indifferently. Why work on something that marked him out as different and other? Being an outsider was not a good thing. In society, your value was determined by your reputation. His mother simply didn’t have one here. She could be anyone - there was only their word for it as a family that she was from a proper Pureblood family in China, because, after all, who the heck knew anything about Chinese nobility here? And whilst it would be rude to doubt their family’s word on it, it wasn’t worth as much as people who were known here. He already had to work twice as hard to convince people that he was half as good. Some people regarded them as scarcely better than new money.
“To speak with your grandparents and your cousins. To speak with me! You need to practise more before we visit this summer.”
“Ugh, do we have to go to China over the summer?” he groaned, even though it didn’t exactly come as a surprise. They went every two years - his mother would have liked to go more, but recognised that they couldn’t miss all of Canada’s society events every summer season, and her parents often visited them between trips.
“Of course we do. And speak Chinese with me.”
“It’s so boring,” he continued in French.
“Don’t be so rude! It is not boring. Half of your family is there.”
“No one there even plays Quidditch. What dates are we going?” he added, another disadvantage occurring to him.
“The first four weeks of the holidays.”
“No! The I made reserve on the school team this year. That means I have a really strong chance of making Camp D'élites in Montréal,” he complained. The camp was run by actual players from the Montréal team. Guaranteed spots were given to the starting lineup of L’Institut’s school side. Everyone else who wanted a place had to try out. Being reserve gave him a good shot… He was one of the best. If it had just been based on talent, he knew he would get a place. But it wasn’t… It was also about who you knew. Who liked you. If he could do it, getting into this camp would make him Someone. And he would be set, he would be in with all the right people. But if he failed to, he might well be looked over for the school team next year. It wasn’t just the training he’d lose out on, but people bonded at camp. (It was one of those nice, self-perpetuating rituals of which Pureblood society was so fond - those who made the team got the places at the best camp, and those who’d had the places at the best camp made the team). “I can’t miss it!”
“I would think you would value your family above a Quidditch camp!”
“Well, you think wrong then. Visiting your family in China does nothing for our position here. Being at Camp D'élites does.”
“Don’t you dare speak about your family in such a disrespectful manner!” she replied angrily, the subtle linguistic difference, the fact he had disowned them in his choice of determiner slipping past her, as he had suspected it might. He felt the smug satisfaction of having got one over on her. “I did not raise you to be insolent and unfeeling,” she continued, ”Behave yourself. And speak Chinese when I ask you! Do as I ask you!”
“I don’t understand the words you’re using,” and it was half true. He was struggling to keep up with some of the more abstract language, although he could more or less guess from context. But he didn’t want to stand here arguing in Chinese, because it was stupid, and he didn’t want to have to speak it. Not now, and not for four long, dull weeks of summer.
“Je suis ta mère. Respectez moi. Et ta famille.”
“Respecte,” he told her haughtily, feeling victorious at the fact that she had broken first, resorted to French to try to hammer home her point. That she could yell that she wanted him to speak Chinese until she was blue in the face but she couldn’t make him. For a moment, she wasn’t sure why he was repeating that back to her. And then she realised, her face flushing with anger and embarrassment - he was correcting her.
“Ni meiyou biaoxian zhengque-de rén!” she yelled, levelling something she considered the most serious of accusations at him - not showing proper rén. Benevolence, devotion, loyalty… There were a million translations, none of them exactly right, none of them that encompassed exactly what but it was. But she had raised him to know it. To understand it, and to value it. It was the core to being a good son. But the fact she thought he lacked it seemed to glance off him without any noticeable impact. “Go to your room!”
And he obeyed that, but with a casual shrug that suggested he was going not because she had ordered him but because he didn’t care either way.