Archive of Our Own

Jinyan was a quiet child. She started to talk late, always slow and with a stammer that never quite went away. One that occasionally grew better and then worse, like a change of weather, with no visible rhythm or reason.

As the sole child to a clairvoyant and a doctor, expectations rested on her from day one. 

Her mother wanted her to stick to family tradition, her father wanted her to be... well, a doctor. The two never seemed to quite agree on the matter, but it couldn't be helped. 

Her mother enjoyed it, working as a psychic, even though she'd settled for living on a farm near the city after marrying her husband. Her mother adored the animals there, despite her ability not being suited for it. 

When she wasn't working, she played the part of a prim-and-proper house wife. Cooked, cleaned, baked or took care of the animals. 

She was content, satisfied, happy. Jinyan couldn't quite understand. 

While Jinyan had an affinity for handling animals, not unlike her cousin Tan Ningwei, and preferred their company most days, she couldn't picture herself staying there forever. Not when expectations rested upon her from so early on. 

In truth, even as a child, Jinyan preferred getting lost in books and weaving worlds of her own inside her head. 

Her mother, a woman who could converse with the souls of the deceased, seemed quite set on Jinyan following in her foot steps despite her daughter having no interest in it. Seemed convinced she'd share her ability.

Her? Conversing with spirits? What a joke. 

Despite growing up around the macabre concept of death, Jinyan feared the very idea of talking with ghosts... or worse yet, doing so for strangers.

A mouse, Ningwei had called her on occasion, warmth accompanying the word. Small, skittish, scared of her own shadow, as he put it. She'd stubbornly stomped her foot at the comparison to hide her embarrassment. 

"N-Not sc-scared!" she'd complained, pouting in the child-like manner that all nine-year-olds seemed to share. Ningwei had laughed, open and joyous. Had ruffled her hair, and called her a rat for a while, until she'd cried and both their parents had chided him. 

He'd gone back to calling her a mouse, after that, and Jinyan had settled for accepting the nickname that was lined with amusement, cheerfulness, affection and occasionally pride as well.

He was her best friend, after all. 

~ 

Her cousin was special, as the older family members put it. It was a trait most members of the Tan-family shared, and while Jinyan carried the name of the Aì-family, she too was a descendant of the Tan-family. Ningwei's father, Jinyan's uncle, was her mother's brother. 

Perhaps the only reason Jinyan shared her father's surname rather than her mother's was that their bloodline was... odd, to say the least. Her father feared it, she knew, despite how well he outwardly hid it, but he never said a thing. 

But they were indeed odd... or rather special, as the Tan family preferred putting it.  

Aunt Hua, for example, could look through the eyes of a cat under specific circumstances, and used it to gather information. Uncle Yang could converse with animals. Which was likely why his "magic shows" involved them heavily. Ningwei could put people into trances, a born hypnotist.

The Tan-family was known for their magic acts, their nomadic nature. They were a one-family-show, moving about the country as a small... well, her father called it a carnival. Her mother had left the nomadic life behind for love, but she never stopped doing her job.

From what young Jinyan could gather, her grandmother, a small but strict old woman who shared Aunt Hua's ability, intended to have Jinyan join them one day. Her father was angry, nervous, worried whenever the entire family came together and the topic was brought up. He called it out-dated. Her mother called it tradition. 

Jinyan was not allowed to have a word in. 

They always yelled, in the end, and Jinyan hid. Ningwei tended to be the one to find her. 

~

Jinyan was fourteen when Ningwei, only eighteen, got engaged to Zhang Ming. It was arranged by their grandmother, and as far as the teen had heard, Ming would join the family's travels. 

Her grandmother had been pleased, when the family had gathered at Aì Yanlin's farm. The day had been oddly calm, a distinct lack of seriousness. 

The fourteen year old had enjoyed it, sitting at a table and watching the adults dance while munching on sweet buns. The only others her age were the kids of her great-uncle. But the twins seemed to enjoy playing with the farm's dog more than paying her attention. 

The warmth of happy, love, excitement, joy intermingled in the air, leaving Jinyan smiling on her own. 

There had been singing and dancing and Ningwei and Ming being "sappy grown-ups", as Jinyan would've put it at that time if anyone had asked, the twins causing general mischief by almost toppling the poor bride in the middle of a dance. 

There had been some annoyance, resignation, amusement floating about, but not enough to affect the comfortable warmth. 

It was a generally peaceful affaire, though. 

That is, until the sun sank below the mountains. Most of the family had retired to the tents they'd set up. All except Tan Jian, Grandma Tan and Aì Yanlin. 

It had been the calm before the storm.

Jinyan was supposed to be in her room, sleeping. Instead she crouched at the top of the stairs, quietly listening in with Lan sitting on her lap, the cat's calmness easing her own nerves despite the way the conversation downstairs was heating up. 

It was the same as always. Her grandmother demanded that Jinyan would join the travels. Her mother mentioned that Jinyan would as soon as her ability made itself known. Her father insisted that Jinyan was to stay here, at the farm. 

She never found out how the conversation ended, that day, for Lan alerted her of Grandma Tan's cat approaching. Quickly, Jinyan had vanished to her room. 

The stinging cold of resentment, anger, fear, rage, annoyance had haunted her all the way there, even through the closed door. 

~

She had been sixteen, when everything came to a head, in a way. When she realized that life as she knew it? It would be over in less than a year.  

Things did change, in the last couple years. Not with her mother, beyond her trying to turn Jinyan into a prim-and-proper housewife and tried to convince her to go out and get a boyfriend. More her father's acceptance that she didn't want to be a doctor. 

It was a quiet day, 

It was another family gathering. There hadn't been many news, the last gathering having been only three months ago. But Zhang Ming had gotten pregnant, and was now sitting in the house with the other adults. The emotions had been... chaotic, to say the least. 

Happiness, guilt, annoyance, 

Less positive than Ava would've expected. 

It had been overwhelming, and she'd retreated to the sheep's enclosure. Had taken a seat on the fence, watched them eat, while absentmindedly scribbling random ideas into her notebook. 

She'd sensed Ningwei before she'd seen or heard him. Before he'd leaned against the fence next to her. 

There was always an underlying mix of confidence following him like a cloud. As if the emotions were too much for him to contain. A blind person would recognized him by that alone, Jinyan couldn't help but think, even before he opens his mouth. 

They'd talked, and...

"Y-You're... not h-happy" 

"... how do you know?" 

"Y-You can... can act r-really well, but... but your e-emotions give y-you away"

Ningwei had stared, light blue eyes narrowing. He'd asked her to explain, and so she did. Jinyan explained, slow and cautious. Explained it as if Ningwei was being ridiculous and pretending to be stupid- which he likely was. 

He loved messing with her, after all.

When she'd finished, he'd told her to look up schools in Bridon, to look up scholarships, to pack her bags. To inform her father that she'd move in with some of Ningwei's friends. 

She'd been horribly confused, watching him cautiously.

"If Grandma Tan finds out, it's game over..." he said, and looked at her with pity, sympathy, stress. "What you're describing? That's not an universal thing. That's an ability" 

To Jinyan, it felt like her entire world had come crashing down. 

All this time she'd assumed she'd been skipped over, or would awaken hers late. It had been present all along. 

~

At seventeen, she stood before a small house on the countryside in Bridon. Not China. Bridon. 

Ningwei's friends were... kind. She got along well with them, but she knew she wouldn't be able to stay there forever, either. 

Her father hadn't been happy, but he'd understood. Her mother had been angry. 

She'd understand eventually, was what both Ningwei and her father had assured her. 

Jinyan, who'd taken to going by Ava while in Bridon, wasn't so sure. 

It didn't matter. For now, she'd finish school. Get a mini-job, maybe try and get a college degree later. 

The future was hers now, and no longer bound to traditions of a family who's name she didn't even carry. 

~

Eventually, she did go to college. Took to studying history and working in a cat café part-time to afford a little flat in Bridon.

What she didn't expect was to walk home one evening from the library, having studied a little longer than she'd planned to, and be hit with a wave of distress mixing with amusement and hate from a nearby alley.

She told herself she'd only take a look, Ningwei would be horribly upset if she got hurt and if he were to find out.

There, she saw two men holding someone down. Her eyes zeroed in on a metal pipe and, deciding that she couldn't just leave a distressed person to themselves, picked it up.

She'd been called a mouse her entire life. Sneaky and timid... but sneakiness proved useful.

The second the first man went down, the other shot upright. His confusion reaching her like a fog, before his emotions cut out when the pipe connected with his head.

Slowly, she glanced to the last one, the one on the floor. Still clutching the pipe, just in case.

Another man, with hair longer than her own. Vaguely, he looked familiar. They stared at each other, and it wasn't until he opened his mouth that she remembered that he'd been interviewed once:

"May I hire you?"