Jiang Cheng felt off-kilter. Being back in Lotus Pier should have centered him, but between bringing his family back here after so many years without them and Wen Qing seeing it for the first time, his walls were a little shakier than normal. He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d shown George or what he’d even said, which didn’t bode well for the accuracy of his tour so far.
They were approaching the pier now, though, and with the sun nearly set, it was a rejuvenating sight. Sunset pinks and oranges reflected off the water and the lotus that surrounded the pier. The last few vendors were packing up their stalls and heading home.
Jiang Cheng led George to the end of the pier. He had his sheathed sword in hand, as was custom for his people, but it felt more and more uncomfortable in this place where no one did the same. He leaned it against one of the pier posts and left it there.
“Well? Does it live it up my estimation?” he asked, glancing back towards the village. “Be honest.”
There was a marked difference between the architecture of the late 20th century United Kingdom and ancient China. George could easily recognize the beauty in what he was seeing as they toured the Lotus Pier, which was a departure from the rolling green hills and English countryside he came from. Even the squashed together cityscape of London had a different feel to it.
This place had a serenity that he hadn’t felt ever in his life. No wonder Jiang Cheng had a different pace to him than the people he normally surrounded himself with.
“You may have been biased,” George said, as they came to a stop at the end of the pier and took in the sights from there. “But it was with good reason. I can’t imagine living somewhere this peaceful.” His whole life had been chaotic, both in good and bad ways. He wondered if he and his siblings would have turned out different, growing up in a place like Lotus Pier over the Burrow? “Are you going to settle down here permanently? Or stick to Morningside?” He asked, crouching down by the water and trailing his fingers over the surface of it, watching the ripples that it caused. No tentacles came up to prod at him, though he hadn’t really expected the giant squid to have magically shown up there.
Pride had a tendency to make Jiang Cheng foolish. Sometimes it was subtle. The way his spine straightened now and the twist of his mouth that suggested he was resisting a smile, for instance. The way he watched George touch the lake. He’d worked hard to return Lotus Pier to the peace it had held before the Wen Clan had defiled his home. But his own feelings here would always be complicated.
He stepped a little closer to the edge and half-turned towards the village. “That depends on my sister. She hasn’t had the years I have, to…” Forget wasn’t the right word. He hadn’t forgotten anything ever in his life. “... Accept what happened here. If she’s uncomfortable, then I’ll stay with her Morningside.” He dropped his gaze back to the water and all the flowers growing around the pier. He crouched to run his fingers along the edge of lotus. “Did you still want to swim?”
"You mentioned that you had to rebuild your clan. Guessing that the rebuild of this place was part of it?" He prodded with the questions gently, ready to drop it if Jiang Cheng didn't want to talk about it. George himself had been one to bury his feelings after Fred had died, but in recent years after Ron had kicked his arse into gear, he has become a lot more open about his life and thoughts. It felt good to be unburdened in that way and so, he usually tried to set the example with people he saw that struggled with their own demons.
Maybe it was why he had started to get along with this man from ancient China so quickly. He saw himself in him, in a way.
Standing, he stared out over the water for a moment, before he started to shrug off his jacket. Turning around to grin at the other man, he said, "Best close your eyes if you don't want to be blinded. I'm paler than milk and it's a pretty unforgiving sight." All of the Weasleys had the same curse - skin paler than the moon, blinding if looked at directly under light. Charlie was the lone exception, spending most of his days under the Romanian sun. George didn't wait for a reply as he continued to disrobe down to the shockingly red swim trunks he had on under everything.
The question about Lotus Pier was fair. Jiang Cheng had brought up this topic; he could face it like everything else. But when he opened his mouth to give a brief answer, he stuttered to a stop as George stripped off his clothes. He glanced furtively behind them – the vendors had all gone and only a handful of people meandered the village center off in the distance. There was nothing to be secretive about, obviously, and people often openly bathed in the lake, but people didn’t do that around him.
He could admit, he’d cultivated that avoidance over the years. It was disarming to be around someone who wasn’t intimidated by him or mired down in sect politics. Disarming and frustrating and probably another half dozen words that weren’t all bad.
“We’re not exactly a tan people, if you haven’t noticed,” he deadpanned, even though his face felt like it was probably going red. The color of George’s swim trunks helped pull him back from the edge of embarrassment at least. He rolled his eyes. “You should know that your apparent favorite color is the color of my mortal enemy. Which means…there’s only one thing to be done about it.”
With that as the only warning, Jiang Cheng lifted a slippered foot and kicked George into the lake.
Once you saw someone that was sauced on schnapps, it was hard to be intimidated by them. Yeah, George respected the fact that Jiang Cheng was a powerful man with abilities that were very impressive. But intimidated? Not likely. There was also the fact that the other man didn’t actually try to intimidate him and they had some sort of rapport between them. He was sure they were friends at this point, but he didn’t think about it too hard. It was what it was.
And at the moment, it was war.
He had been about ready to point out that the other had turned an interesting shade of red, when he got his freckled arse Sparta kicked into the lake. The indignation was obvious when he surfaced a few moments later, spluttering and trying to get the water out of his eyes. “Oy! Foul play!” Oh hell, he definitely swallowed some of that lake water. At least it didn’t taste too questionable? But his indignation melted into laughter as he swam toward the dock and started to pull himself up and out of the lake in the guise of using his shirt to wipe at his eyes. “And now I see why you invited me here. A sacrifice to your lake. Arse.”
“I have to say…” Jiang Cheng’s smirk split into a full smile as he laughed. The rareness of that sound would’ve turned heads if anyone was close by. “...That felt just as good as I thought it would.” Prepared at least somewhat for retaliation, he backed away from the edge to strip off his outer robe and then the thinner tunic underneath. Everything was varying shades of purple, blue, and grey, and clearly well-cared for. He draped them over the pier railing and toed off his slipper boots. He was left in cotton trousers, banded just below the knee and lavender.
They were delicate compared to the old scars on his chest, slicing haphazardly from his left shoulder down across to his opposite ribs.
“If we had something hungry in the lake, I suppose that skin and those underclothes of yours would make you an easy target.” He lowered himself to sit on the pier and dipped his legs into the lake. It wasn’t summertime warm by any means, but it was comfortable enough for early spring. “I’d have said a few words first though. Done a bit of magic. Sacrifice has ceremony, you know.”
Surprised by the laugher - was that the first time he had heard it? Maybe - George had been all too ready to launch himself like a human torpedo at Jiang Cheng to get his much wanted revenge for being kicked, but that urge died quickly when the other man started to disrobe. It wasn't that he was a handsome man that had him pausing, though that would have normally been enough to drive George toward distraction. No, it was those scars.
He was familiar enough with scars and had plenty of them himself from the war, that jinxes and curses had left behind. His most prominent one was the scarring that made up what used to be his left ear, caused by Sectumsempra. But his weren't so unexpected and shocking, so large.
Using his shirt to pass over his face one last time to dry the water droplets still clinging to him, he dropped it and scooted a little closer, so he could sit next to Jiang Cheng on the pier. "Can I ask what happened here?" He mimed the shapes of the scars on Jiang Cheng's chest over on his own with his hand, curiosity obvious in the tilt of his head and in his eyes.
It wasn’t that Jiang Cheng had forgotten the scars. He was just very distracted – by Lotus Pier, by his family, by George. And no one had ever dared to ask about the scars either. Of course, the list of people who’d seen them was also very short. He lifted his hand to cover his chest for a moment and then sighed.
“You asked before, if this place had to be rebuilt. It did, but it wasn’t the only thing. My clan was killed, this place was defiled in a hundred ways, and I ended up back here under enemy control. I was tortured and my core was destroyed. These are just…” He didn’t want to belittle what had happened to him, but knowing the truth now about everything that came after made it seem less important somehow. Maybe if he hadn’t let the loss consume him at the time, everything could’ve gone differently. Guilt was a terrible thing.
“These are just a reminder,” he murmured.
It was clearly painful for Jiang Cheng, having to talk about what had happened. And George kind of felt like he shouldn’t have asked what he had, but now that particular can of worms was open and he wasn’t sure how to get them back to the somewhat playful mood they had been in before. So he forged on. “Sometimes reminders are good to have, sometimes they’re not. Just so long as you don’t get stuck living in the past, I think that’s the most important part?”
He sat there in the quiet, skin goose pimpling all over as the water dried on him. But George was content to sit there for awhile though because it was nice, even if the air was a little melancholy now. “I’m sure it’s hard to see this place and not be reminded of what happened, but a place this beautiful, I can also see why you would want it to be home again. Hope you figure it out though.”
There were a number of things that made the issue sensitive – things that Jiang Cheng wasn’t ready or willing to discuss with George no matter how battered his walls were right now. But he had some manners, and he did appreciate that George spoke highly of Lotus Pier. He glanced sideways at George and nodded, once.
“Thank you. I’m stubborn enough. I’ll figure something out.” Eager to get the topic of conversation off of him, he slid into the water and slipped under the surface to completely wet his waist length hair. Everyone in Lotus Pier was born and raised in this lake, so he’d always been comfortable in water. But it sang through his blood a little extra now, thanks to the totem dangling from a chain around his neck. He stayed with the lower half of his face submerged for a second and then lifted his head back up out of the water.
“Would you choose to stay in Vallo forever now that you have your brother back? If you could?” he asked.
Dipping his legs back into the water, George watched as Jiang Cheng disappeared under the surface for a moment. It was clear to anyone watching that the man was comfortable in his current surroundings and it made sense why the water totem had chosen him to be its master. George didn’t fully understand everything about Jiang Cheng’s life, but he was trying. Why? Well, George didn’t plan to look too closely at that at the moment. Life was already complicated enough.
“Merlin, we’re really picking some light topics today, aren’t we?” George laughed, not cheerful, but not disapproving either. He shifted until he was sliding into the water, trying to buy some time to formulate his thoughts on the question he was asked. “Honestly? Yes. I love my other siblings, I love my parents, but Fred’s...my other half, you know? Two halves of a whole, me and him. Always have been. I haven’t felt whole like this in over a decade and I don’t want to lose it. Not again.”
He fluttered his arms to keep himself afloat, before laying back in the water and letting himself float. “This place isn’t so bad, you know? Might not be as big as the world I’m from, but it has magic, it has my brother, it has my shop. Maybe it’ll bring more of my family here too, but yeah, I would stay if I could.”
“I’m not very good at light anything,” Jiang Cheng admitted. Even his effortless movements in the water were not especially delicate. They were more those of a man who could swim strong and fast across the lake. It was tempting to do so now just to avoid talking too deeply about George’s strong brotherly bond or his own family. But then he’d brought up this topic.
“I would stay for my sister too. And for--” His gaze shifted away from watching George float and he blew out a breath through his nose. He laid back in the water, scowling up at the too pretty sky. It would be very dark soon and the lanterns on the pier would be lit. “Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s a selfish choice. I have responsibilities.”
The way Jiang Cheng cut himself off had George making an educated guess. It was a topic that he knew the other man to be sensitive about, but he couldn’t help it. “For Wei Wuxian?” He asked, the name clumsy on his lips, but clear enough that Jiang Cheng knew exactly who George was talking about. It was obvious that the two brothers had a lot of love and strife between them, but George still didn’t understand their relationship.
So he didn’t touch on the feeling of responsibility or doing the right thing. It was a hypothetical scenario until someone could control the magic of Vallo and figure out how to bring people here or send people back to their worlds. No use delving too deep into it now. But the unasked question about further elaboration on Wei Wuxian...well, that he could get into. He was asked about Fred, it was only fair.
Jiang Cheng grunted and closed his eyes. “Unlike my sister, he is at home. We’re just…”
It would’ve been hard to explain recent events at home to even someone who knew everything that had happened sixteen years ago. For someone who only knew bits and pieces, delivered to him by a reluctant Jiang Cheng and a mouthy Wei Wuxian, well. It seemed awkward at best. He settled for floating quietly for a moment.
“Things might have improved now that we know we were all being misled and manipulated by our Chief Cultivator for many years, but…” The water barely moved as he sat up and let his feet graze the rocky lake bottom. He frowned. “Do you have strict societal expectations at home? Rules that if someone breaks, they are shunned?”
Feeling very much like he was brand new to swimming, with how easily the other man flowed through the water, George clumsily stood back up in the water and swam in little circles as he thought over the question. “I suppose it depends on who you talk to? That war I was in? It was over blood purity. Witches and wizards that were fully magical, with no non-magical people in their bloodline, were called Purebloods and looked down on people that were open to marrying Muggles or Muggleborns, which are witches and wizards that came from Muggle families. Purebloods that actually cared about someone’s blood status like that definitely shunned people that didn’t.”
“For us, it’s about your core and your methods. Those with a weak golden core or none at all shouldn’t be able to use magic at all - or at least that’s what the purists would tell you.” Jiang Cheng had been one of those purists, partially because his mother had possessed no grey area about things like her family’s reputation and partly because his goal was to protect his family, first and foremost. He’d always known Wei Wuxian would break the mold somehow and he would be left to hold the pieces together.
He’d failed at that. And he’d let his grief and fury make a unyielding force out of him ever since.
“Their argument is that the types of magic one can use without a core are capable of corruption and much harder to control. And they’re not wrong.” He swiped a damp wave of hair off his forehead, his teeth clenching. “Wei Wuxian is proof that it’s not impossible. But his whole existence has been about ignoring the rules. Worse, he breaks them on purpose. Even if--”
He’d already said too much and he wished the water would swallow him up. Thanks to the totem around his neck, that thought alone was enough to make the surface of the lake break with small waves and swirl around him in a circle.
He closed his eyes. “Whatever relationship I might be able to have with him here...it’s not possible at home.”
It seemed like in any world where magic was possible in different ways, there would always be strife. Maybe their worlds weren’t so unlike after all?
George couldn’t be sure, but he was fully convinced that the water started to act up as Jiang Cheng started to get heated about what he was saying. He was just about to point that out, momentarily forgetting their conversation, when the other man spoke again. “So you would, if you had a choice and no responsibilities, stay here to preserve the relationship with him,” George said, recalling how Percy put duty above family too. He hadn’t been necessarily wrong about that, but it had been the way he turned a blind eye when the Ministry started to turn on its people, that had the Weasleys becoming distant with Percy. In the end though, he came back to them. It’s what mattered.
George wanted to ask if Jiang Cheng would be happier if he could stay, but the mood had become heavier than either of them had intended and bringing feelings into it felt like the wrong move at the moment. So instead… “Doesn’t matter now, since we have no choice in the matter...but hey, I thought you said there weren’t any lake creatures? What’s that?” The ginger waited only a second for Jiang Cheng to turn in the direction he was pointing in, before launching himself at him and trying to dunk him.
It didn’t sound like a question, what George had said, and it didn’t feel like a question in Jiang Cheng’s heart either. Two of the three people he had cared most about in this life were here. If his nephew arrived, he would never wish to leave.
He didn’t say as much out loud. He’d already lowered his defenses too far - evident in how easily he was led to follow George’s gesture with his eyes and even a half turn in that direction. Water up the nose was never fun, but he supposed he’d earned it. And it did rescue him from this too personal conversation. He came up sputtering and sweeping his hair out of his face. His gaze was on the more amused and heated side of dangerous, than actually angry.
“Ooh. There is going to be a lake creature soon,” he said ominously. The water behind George started to pull back and swell into a large wave. “A ghost.” He willed the wave to crash over George’s head and hoped he’d at least mastered this little bit of revenge.
He accepted his comeuppance, it was well earned, and before he even had a chance to laugh over his little victory, his eyes widened as he saw the shadow of the wave behind him darken the sky above him. He barely had a chance to take a deep breath before an unknown amount of force behind that wave pushed him under the water’s surface, very effectively pushing him down.
This was how he died, he was pretty sure.
Okay, no, he was just being dramatic, but it did take him a minute to orient himself and kick toward the surface. Before he could pop up though, he stopped a few feet away from the surface, waiting to see how long it took Jiang Cheng to start worrying.
Jiang Cheng allowed himself a moment of smug pride but as George didn’t reemerge, his smirk withered. Really, he should’ve had an idea of what was happening. He’d grown up with Wei Wuxian, of all people. But he was a creature of emotional overreaction, first and foremost. His voice had the slightest edge of panic.
“George?” He ducked under the water, but it was too dark now that the sun was nearly entirely below the hills. If he’d had more experience with the totem, he might’ve thought to simply part the water, but he didn’t. Instead, he swam towards where he’d seen George last and reached around blindly underwater until he had to come up for air.
“I wasn’t actually trying to make a ghost out of you,” he complained breathlessly.
Growing up with six other siblings, George learned pretty quickly how to hold his breath under water. This especially became important, when the older brothers teamed up against the rest of them and really tested their limits in the pond by the Burrow. But George didn’t have an infinite capacity for the skill and as soon as Jiang Cheng dove down to search for him, he shot up and out of the water, gasping in air like he had been under the water for an hour rather than just a couple of minutes. He definitely used to be better at that.
By the time the other man returned to the surface, George was swimming innocently like nothing had happened. Blinking owlishly, he asked, “What happened? Lose something?” The grin splitting his face was absolutely shit-eating.
Jiang Cheng spun around to face George, anger at being duped flaring bright as neon across his face. That part wasn’t a surprise. That was normal. It was how George’s stupid grin - a grin that should’ve been annoying in every right - somehow dulled the edges of his ire in an instant. He was still mad, but it gusted out of him in a loud exhale and in the dramatic roll of his eyes. He snapped a lotus pod out of water and flung it at George’s chest.
“You’re lucky I’m not dressed for burying a body.” Swimming back over to the pier, he pulled himself up on the edge with one strong tug. His expression softened into something closer to good humor. “Come on. My sister will start to wonder if you don’t want to try her soup after all.”
George let out a startled laugh when the lotus pod hit him, glad that Jiang Cheng wasn’t as angry as he had first seemed. “You have an outfit for burying bodies? How many bodies have you buried, exactly? Should I be concerned?” He wasn’t expecting any answers though, nothing more than an eyeroll, so he swam over to pull himself out of the water as well. The ginger wasn’t nearly as graceful as the other man while pulling himself back up onto the pier, but he wasn’t worried about looking like an idiot. He was certain that’s how Jiang Cheng saw him, a good portion of the time.
Reaching for his clothes, he looked for his wand, finding it tangled up his jeans. Using it, he cast a quick drying spell over himself, raising his eyebrows over at Jiang Cheng in a wordless question of whether he wanted in on the action. Then he started to pull his clothes on. “Trust me when I say that there’s no food I don’t want to try. Unless it’s sauerkraut. Or cabbage based.” Finishing up with his socks and shoes, he clapped his hands together. “Lead the way?”