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Having spent the better part of seven centuries as Arbiter-General of the Luofu with very little in the way of close personal connections to anybody, Jing Yuan is understandably mediocre at feelings but fantastic at Cloud Knight protocol. So, when he notices that his apprentice has been increasingly tired and irritable since the ordeal of the Stellaron Crisis and the incident with the heliobi after it, he's quick to pull up the Cloud Knight union bylaws mandating that all officers at the rank of Captain or higher take their vacation days once they've accrued for five years - and as luck would have it, he's well aware that Yanqing is about to reach the end of his fifth year in the Cloud Knights without having ever taken a vacation.
(The fact that their particular division of the Cloud Knights isn't actually unionized is relatively unlikely to come up; so long as he presents his case with enough confidence, Jing Yuan has found that his lieutenant seldom questions him, especially on matters of procedure. He may argue, certainly, but he never takes aim at the central premise - something that they'll have to work on for general investigative and critical thinking skills going forward, but at the minute it happens to be convenient.)
"But General!" Yanqing protests when confronted with the policy. "Can I at least train at home?"
"No work, and no training," Jing Yuan says sternly. "You're taking a break. That's an order."
Yanqing droops, pouting into Snowmoon Junior's fur. "What am I supposed to do if I can't work and I can't train? I already used my sword money for the month..."
...okay, so it occurs to Jing Yuan - with more than a slight pang of regret - that his parenting skills leave something to be desired. How did he miss Yanqing's complete lack of work-life balance until this point? He supposes it may have something to do with the child never having developed much of a life independent of work in the first place... Come to think of it, does he have any friends, actually? The general frowns as he tries to recall seeing his retainer socialize and comes up more or less blank. He certainly doesn't "hang out" with the other Cloud Knights after their shifts, either, given that he's never had the opportunity to truly engage with them as peers, having proceeded more or less directly from being a small civilian child to being an officer who hugely outranks the vast majority of them.
(Hm. Is that lack of normal socialization why he was so resistant to the idea of being introduced to Huaiyan's granddaughter, then? It's something to consider later.)
"I'll come up with a special assignment that you can do during your vacation instead," promises Jing Yuan, already locating his message threads with the Nameless to ask if any of them has ever seen Yanqing enjoying other things or acting like he's friends with anyone. Surely one of them must have some kind of clue that might lead to something Yanqing likes unrelated to his job or his swordsmanship...
><*✴︎*><
It's the work of under an hour to obtain a Skyfaring permit from Yukong, officially allowing Yanqing to spend his two-week vacation somewhere other than the Luofu or the Astral Express. Jing Yuan was pleased beyond measure (in a way that Yanqing, like most teenagers, would probably find very embarrassing) to find out that his son does, in fact, have a friend around his age - someone he met while visiting the Astral Express, actually, and found a surprising sort of connection with despite their many differences.
Unfortunately, almost all of the information he's been able to find out about that friend pertains to the many reasons that there simply isn't much information find out about her. Clara is a girl from the frigid Jarilo-VI, which worships Qlipoth the Preservation and was completely isolated until a few months ago when the Astral Express crew cleaned up the root of the centuries-long Stellaron influence that had been keeping the planet behind a wall of ice; no interastral data bank has detailed copies of their civic records. Even if Jing Yuan had access to Belobog's records, he's also been made aware that he wouldn't find much if anything on Yanqing's friend: she lives in the Underground, and a fair distance from the main settlements there, at that, with her guardian who's a centuries-old robot - and there is a joke to be made there, he decides, about that single point of similarity between the children's family backgrounds, though it's perhaps not the right time to be making it.
All in all, the main salient point that he finds out about Jarilo-VI is that it's very, very cold.
Jing Yuan feels that Fu Xuan is definitely judging him when he asks her if she knows where to buy warm and comfortable winterwear on short notice given that they don't have winters on the Luofu, but there's a certain sense of vindication when she comes in to work the next day having conveniently "encountered a two for one deal on sweaters when she only needed one, and hey, isn't this spare sweater around the right size for Yanqing?". Word gets around somehow, and by the next day people ranging from Cloud Knight officers to Artisanship Commission swordsmiths to the famous streamer Guinaifen are surprising Yanqing with sweaters, scarves, mittens, and socks. Lady Bailu even drops off some clever little alchemical heating packets she made, with a deeply miffed warning that he'd better not come back with frostbite.
The young lieutenant might be too concerned with acting "grown up" to ever admit it, but Jing Yuan can tell that all these gestures are making him feel more loved than he tends to realize.
><*✴︎*><
When the Nameless drop by to pick Yanqing up, Dan Heng gives him yet another sweater, which brings his total to twelve.
"Thanks," Yanqing says, because as a lieutenant he represents the Cloud Knights and has to be polite to their distinguished allies on the Astral Express - but he hopes his tone and baleful glare convey enough annoyance beyond the words.
(Unbeknownst to him, while all three young Nameless do indeed notice the attempt at scorn, they mainly see it as cute.)
"You should put those on," says Caelus, who is awful and mean and wouldn't even agree to let Yanqing ask the Silvermane Guard Captain they mentioned before for a spar because apparently the general talked to them and told them about the rule banning Yanqing from training while he's on vacation.
"I'm fine," Yanqing insists.
"Oh! This one's so soft," March remarks, examining the hood of one of the most oversized fluffy sweaters - so large and so fluffy he could almost mistake it for a bedroll.
(He definitely didn't tear up when Qingyi gave it to him, as much as it reminded him of the time Tingyun watched them both for a night and they had a sleepover in the garden.)
"Do you want it?" he asks. "You're not wearing any sweaters, Miss March."
"That's okay! Caelus is right - you should wear it!" March holds up her camera almost threateningly.
"The power of the Trailblaze keeps us safe from the climate," Dan Heng says. "However, it doesn't extend to visitors."
"Oh. But I'm still okay!" Yanqing reiterates, spinning around to emphasize how much he enjoys the cold and isn't bothered by it - though the sneeze that follows doesn't help his case. Darn snow, blowing everywhere, tickling his nose!
...he puts the sweaters on, but he'd like to note that it's under protest.
Then they get to the Robot Settlement - wow, look at all those different blades! - and Clara isn't even wearing shoes! She's too sweet to comment first on Yanqing's dozen sweaters, though it's clear from her face that she badly wants to; that opens the floodgates and soon both children are sinking to the floor (well, the ground) in peals of laughter.
Awkward as he feels with all the sweaters, it's a nice start to their first time adventuring together.