Work Text:
“From whom do you suppose this is, Grand Marshal?” Hua Xiangyi holds up a bouquet of flowers as she enters Qi Zhuyin’s tent, face still as pale and drawn as it was when she had received the news.
Half-awake, still fumbling to get dressed, Qi Zhuyin squints at it. “Chrysanthemums… white… is that—” she straightens up. “If this is a threat—”
“No, no, I don’t think so,” Hua Xiangyi smiles, hugging the flower arrangement to her chest. “Who would dare try to kill me while I’m under the Grand Marshal’s protection? No, I think…” she hesitates. “I suppose someone must be feeling sympathetic to my grief.”
They both know that no one around here feels particularly touched or moved by the Empress Dowager’s passing—at most, uneasy for what it means for Da Zhou in the days to come. Li Jianting, it appears, intends to keep Qi Zhuyin in her good graces, despite that the Empress Dowager’s beloved niece stays with her as the eldest madam of the Qi household.
“Plenty of men are taken by your beauty,” Qi Zhuyin offers another kind of truth instead. She pretends, even now, that she isn’t gazing upon Hua Xiangyi’s beauty and feeling quite unbalanced herself. That Hua Xiangyi is not aware of this and doesn’t seem to be having fun watching Qi Zhuyin fumble around as she does. Though the last few days have been particularly bleak. “It’s not out of question that they feel badly because of your loss.”
Hua Xiangyi contemplates this, turning over the flowers in her hand. Chrysanthemums and lilies. Qi Zhuyin has half a mind to start questioning soldiers because where the hell did someone find all this? Whoever left this for Third Lady Hua must’ve sacrificed quite the amount for it. It’s a petty feeling, but Qi Zhuyin feels rather—put out, that she herself hadn’t thought of such a thing.
Not that Hua Xiangyi needs such a thing.
“It’s a beautiful arrangement,” Hua Xiangyi says softly. “Not the most well-done, but there is care.” She laughs gently. “A-Yin, my aunt would not have looked at this and considered it a proper gift.”
It is not at all advisable to speak ill of the dead, but Qi Zhuyin isn’t about to rebuke her for it. “She would have played at it.”
“True. She would have.” Hua Xiangyi exhales, lowering her arms. She tilts her head up to look at the tent ceiling as she says, “she entrusted me to your father because she genuinely believed that Qidong is where I would be the safest. In that sense,” she lowers her gaze, looking at Qi Zhuyin in the eyes, “it’s true.”
Her smile is wobbly, even with the steely resolve in her eyes. Practically speaking, Qidong was a wise choice in that the Qi family’s fortune and status would afford her a safety blanket in turn. Literally speaking, though no one could have expected it, winning the Grand Marshal’s approval and even affection—
Third Lady Hua, raised in a pit of treachery and learning at the hands of the most cunning of them all, is no fool. Qi Zhuyin is extremely, extremely aware of this, just like how aware she is that everyone has taken notice of her closeness to her father’s principal wife, just like how aware she is that she truly does not care. Not with the war prolonging on and on and more problems bearing down on her shoulders day after day.
“Your aunt…” Qi Zhuyin begins, and then stops. There’s a sense of frustration gnawing at her—she knows as well as anyone does that you cannot help who you’re related to, but. Grand Marshal Qi is not good with words, much less sympathetic ones meant to offer condolences. “If you need time away from prying eyes,” she ends up offering, “then just stay in the tent. It’s fine, it’s what we’ve been doing this entire time.”
She sort of regrets the joke she made to Xiao Chiye. But she wouldn’t take it back.
“So considerate of you,” Hua Xiangyi says, and then she’s rushing forward to throw her arms around Qi Zhuyin, her breathing shuddering. Qi Zhuyin stills for a moment, unsure of what to do with that. The point here is to give her comfort, so she raises her arms and wraps them loosely around Hua Xiangyi, uncertain but refusing to back out now.
“Are you going to cry all over me now, Eldest Madam?” she asks, aiming for a joke. It does not come across the right way at all, but Hua Xiangyi is a kind and merciful woman, cunning and deceptive, hard to say no to, hard to get upset at.
“A-Yin isn’t turning me away,” she murmurs. The scent of the flowers almost dizzying, sweet and cloying. In some respects, reminiscent of the incense burned in the palace the last time Qi Zhuyin had had an audience with the now-deceased Empress Dowager. “So I think this is fine.”
“Yeah,” Qi Zhuyin agrees, a bit horrified by the way her voice cracks on the syllable, but really, Hua Xiangyi has seen worse from her. Hell, she’s the one trying and failing to deal calmly with the passing of her aunt, who, for all her faults, had treasured Hua Xiangyi like no other. Qi Zhuyin tightens her grip on her, and is relieved when this is received well. “It’s fine.”