Archive of Our Own

Yanqing is, at first, a bit hesitant about taking on March 7th as a student.

He’s never exactly gone about teaching other people his sword techniques. Still a child to most people, others usually assumed he had more to learn from them than the other way around, and trying not to ruffle feathers, he usually just let it happen. This is a new opportunity to pass on some of his knowledge the way his own master had, so he’s perhaps a bit excited too.

His concern starts with the fact that she’s years upon years younger than he is, though he supposes accounting for the distortion between Xianzhou natives and short lived species like her, that he is younger, but she’s never wielded anything but the bow she carries, and he’s pretty sure she might just have the physical constitution of a brand new Diting.

(That’s to say, none at all)

But Yanqing didn’t get to where he was by underestimating his opponents, or his allies. If Huaiyan was adamant that he and Yunli take on the task, it wasn’t like he was about to go and disappoint either general. Under the gaze of Jing Yuan at least, he couldn’t quite rise to the challenge that Yunli posed as he wanted to (nor should he really be starting a diplomatic problem during such a precarious time on the Luofu by insulting one of the Zhuming’s swordmasters), so here he is, terribly early in the morning, two weeks into March 7th’s training watching her follow through on sword exercises with Yunli.

This is typical, but usually he’d be with his Cloud Knight unit, not off on an individual task. He’s honestly a bit restless, he wants to do a good job for the Luofu and for his own reputation, but there was only so much he could do when someone was literally starting from scratch. Half the first week was just spent on learning footwork, something March just couldn’t quite grasp at first. It felt like an eternity walking her through things he’d already known for more than a decade at least, all with Yunli pestering him for even bothering to walk her through all the “fluffy stuff” so early on.

There were proper ways to do things, and he would adhere to them.

Well, it’s not like he wasn’t also needling Yunli on her teaching style. He’d be remiss if he wasn’t, her brute force way of doing things seemed to clash head on with his teachings, even seeming directly contradictory at times. It frustrated him to no end, stalling their training sessions for ages sometimes trying (and usually failing) to find a way to let their two styles coexist.

March’s reasons for picking up the sword seemed oddly fanciful, another issue he was struggling to make sense of. Yanqing was quite open minded, always had been, always would be, but even he probably wouldn’t have picked March first to be a sword champion. It wasn’t an insult either, her prowess in battle was primarily with her six-phased ice that could possibly rival his own given enough time, and the little magic that came with her newfound swordsmanship seemed not to take on the same qualities. He didn’t believe her incapable, no, especially considering her innate talent they were discovering day by day. He didn’t even think she was particularly terrible at it, considering that he could see her improving daily. His mind hadn’t even wandered to thinking if she was just terribly disinterested in it, considering she came around to it pretty quickly after he and Yunli had given her the space to grow.

No, he just thinks she wasn’t completely honest in her reasoning for picking the sword up in earnest.

Yanqing has his theories. Originally her goal had leaned towards being like the heroes in the immersia she loved to watch. Cliche and perhaps bordering on delusion, but who was he to deny her that lofty goal? If it meant she would work as hard as required, he’d certainly support it, even if that meant bringing her back down to earth occasionally.

But he does wonder if her earnestness depended upon the assistant she’d chosen.

Stelle, of the Astral Express, often accompanied these sessions as some sort of extra coach. It wasn’t even completely clear if Stelle herself understood what was asked of her, but she stuck to her side and they mostly made sense of the schedule the pair of them had cobbled together. Occasionally joined her for some lessons to keep her company and learn from the pair of them as well, interestingly enough. Whenever Stelle was around, March’s mood seemed to shoot up tenfold, but her focus also seemed to waver quite a bit more often than when it was just him and Yunli working with her.

He couldn’t quite pinpoint why this was exactly. If March had requested her being her coach, then shouldn’t she be performing better whenever Stelle dropped by the training field?

They could run through the same exercises twice beforehand, with little to no mistakes on her part. Her footwork would be fine, if not a little heavy (thanks to Yunli, of course), her strikes were clear, and she was precise. March would be somewhere in the neighborhood of perfect, and Yanqing would puff up with pride like a peacock at his student’s achievements.

And then Stelle would appear, and she’d get shaky. A little clammy, even in the cooler air of the afternoon. A bit shy, embarrassed moreso by her arguably minor mistakes that would cause her pause her typical routine in places Yanqing had never even caught beforehand. Her blue and purple eyes would purposefully (probably) avoid her masters and instead be focused on the woman that watched on from the sidelines. Always following, looking for a reaction. Approval, maybe? Causing more than a handful of mistakes as Yanqing tried and failed to keep her attention on their lesson.

What was so terribly captivating about the Trailblazer? She looked as she always did, hair pulled back away from her face, heavy jacket even in the warming temperatures of the Luofu, barely half a smile on her face while she watched. Yanqing rarely can make heads or tails of her expressions as it is, if there’s anything particularly different he can’t see it.

Yet, Stelle would just give her a thumbs up, pat on the shoulder and tell her she’d meet March back at the inn later after ruffling her hair. All giggly and flushed red the latter would wave goodbye, twiddling her thumbs until the Trailblazer was gone around the corner.

The situation was weirdly repeatable too. Without fail, every time he saw grey hair in his peripheral, March would falter. Every time she left, March would straighten up and get back to cleaning her work. Every single day for two weeks, Yanqing would facepalm, Yunli would quirk an eyebrow, and they’d be right back at square one watching all their hard work trickle down the drain. All because of her terribly nosy friend.

Yanqing isn’t that cold hearted to admit that it wasn’t sweet, the way Stelle looked out for her with the bandages she carefully wrapped around her hands or the encouraging words that she offered. She got excited when March would pick up a new skill, often managing to pick her up in pride. Or, they’d work on a particularly difficult skill together, with Stelle using one of her swords to do it side by side. Oftentimes she’d bring lunch or snacks with her when she wasn’t busy that day, and the two would sit in a tucked away corner of the practice field talking all break with March laying down on her for a quick nap occasionally.

This coach of her’s made her smile, clearly, but the whole idea seemed to be serving as more of a distraction that Yunli eventually got around to handling.

He was, however, this close to just banning Stelle from visiting at all. It was clearly causing issues for March skillwise, and he needed to put his foot down sooner rather than later if he had any hope of his pupil not getting shredded into ribbons at the Wardance. She might’ve been a ceremonial addition for relations sake, but his name being attached to her teaching wasn’t. He has to admit that it matters more to him than it should, and comes to a shaky agreement with Yunli that she can only drop off and pick up March from training.

So, Stelle is kicked out from the training area for the forseeable future when she comes visiting that third week. It’s difficult to explain (that Yanqing thinks she’s a terrible influence — fluffed up some not to hurt her feelings), but after some conversation, Stelle seems to sort of understand and laugh it off a little without too much fuss. Walks off with a request to tell March she’d get them all some bubble tea for her trouble later.

Yanqing wasn’t sure he cared, but it’s not like he was going to turn down any either. Curse that sweet tooth of his that gave him away too terribly often.

And for a few days, he and Yunli knew peace again. Life was good. There were few distractions on the field, March was settling into training just fine, and he had a decent amount of pride for the work that he’d put in. He was even now beginning to tolerate Yunli and her own teaching, even if he didn’t entirely believe in all of it. After all, who blocked like that with a sword? Her stance just irked him to no end, but Yanqing does wonder if it had any real merit. The Zhuming wasn’t a formidable ship for nothing, after all.

They’re just getting around to creating more special moves for March when a new problem inserts itself into the situation. A new variable. A new person.

Dan Heng.

Yanqing isn’t even sure why the high elder is coming by as frequently as he does until he asks. It’s a straightforward enough answer, that Jing Yuan asked him to check up on the progress of his pupil, but also he had come to check on March — his crewmate. Dan Heng knew how she could be and that sometimes she needed a little extra support, especially if Stelle had been particularly distracting as of late. So, he was here to offer it, especially since he had his own expertise with a spear — perhaps some of it would carry over.

It makes sense on paper, and he figures surely March could benefit from someone who had at least a century’s worth of combat training. For Dan Heng, it seemed as natural as breathing to wield Cloud-Piercer, maybe he could impart some wisdom on her. It wasn’t the same stance, but the fundamentals were similar. It’d probably also help that they were clearly close, maybe his advice wouldn’t hit deaf ears.

Yunli flicks his forehead for being so dense after a week of this, and perhaps Yanqing deserves as much.

This tactic doesn’t seem to work either. Terribly so to the same results as when Stelle had been a regular visitor. Missing cues, losing balance, the wrong technique used in the right place and vice versa.

Again, Yunli airs that she thinks it’s sort of sweet how Dan Heng takes particular care with March. There weren’t many people Yanqing has seen Dan Heng be close with at all since he met him a few months ago, much less ones he has this much patience for. While he’s not as outwardly proud as Stelle is, it’s still clear as day on his face when he thinks March has done well. Occasionally he’ll step in to explain a concept to March, or move her ever so slightly if he catches that she’s not doing something quite right. It makes her shiver and giggle whenever he does, but maybe it’s helping — later on, she doesn’t miss that skill. Probably helps more that he works with her individually when Yanqing and Yunli are pulled away to their own duties, as Yanqing had caught the pair of them together rather late in the evening as he was returning back to the Starskiff port.

He’d glanced over for just a little while, watching them work through the same things that they had earlier in the day. Little mistakes that got corrected in the moment, more physical than Yanqing would’ve preferred, but the next day it seemed to work.

It’s maddening that it’s like night and day depending on who’s with her during training. If it’s only Yanqing and Yunli leading her work, then all is fine. All is calm. All is perfect.

Aeons forbid that Dan Heng shows up, or Stelle popping by with lunch. They lose at least a few tens of hours over those long six weeks of March’s training leading up to the Wardance, and Yanqing is still trying to decipher where everything was going so wrong by the time week five rolls around.

Were Stelle and Dan Heng afflicted with something that just made March immediately terrible at whatever it was she was doing? Or perhaps it was the compliments they showered her in that simply reinforced the bad habits? All the compliments … as much as March had expressed that they helped her more than anything, it still bewildered him just how wildly out of control training could spin if either of the troublemakers were present.

With so much potential, Yanqing was well and truly stumped by the time he got around to trying to figure it out in earnest. He couldn’t keep either of them away, after all, they were friends. Always with that hand-holding, little touches here and there, kind words he couldn’t really make heads or tails of. He even catches Dan Heng correcting her posture one day while he’s on a break to March’s relative embarrassment, hands on either side of her waist to gently shift her. Yanqing can’t even be upset because the posture is correct, her execution is just so far left the Zhuming might’ve called asking about it.

So what exactly was going on? Sitting idly by to ponder it all certainly didn’t seem like it was working, and eventually he confers with Yunli about the situation.

“I just don’t get it! She’s perfectly capable, she knows what she’s doing, and yet whenever one of her friends is here, she just completely forgets everything,” Yanqing sighs, from where he rests his head in his hand propped up on the table, stirring a straw around in his cup. At least if Stelle came by, she usually brought snacks, which the pair of them were currently working their way through while the small group was on a break, tucked away in a small corner of Starskiff Haven near some of the foodstalls, “She’s not a Cloud Knight, so I guess I can’t be that upset, but I wish her focus wouldn’t just — wander so much.”

Yunli is quiet for a moment, unwrapping one of her own snacks and chewing on the treat. That bored, Yaoshi-may-care attitude of her’s usually irks him into oblivion, but the annoyance has mostly subsided lately while the gears turn in her head, “March 7th clearly cares about learning, but she’s not you or me. She’s not going to hold herself to a crazy rigorous training schedule if her friends are here. She probably likes them more than us anyway.”

“I know, I know. I just don’t know why that translates into worse performance,” Hearing his own words parroted back at him is somehow more frustrating than just letting it loop around his own mind. Back to square one, fantastic, “It’s two people, one of which she even wanted around during training. Dan Heng’s even better than both of us combined, that should be a massive help theoretically. They’re supposed to help, you know. Now I’m concerned Stelle’s going to be the one that’ll be our sword champion at this rate.”

“Right …” Yunli tears through another wrapper, neatly folding it to lie in the small pile she’s collected. What is it she’s eating anyway? Yanqing glances over while she thinks aloud, “I don’t know. Maybe we’ve just been too strict about how she learns.”

“There’s a specific way of doing things though, and like, yeah she’s probably not going to keep fighting with a sword later, but I want to set a good foundation for her to learn her fundamentals with. I’ve been learning under the general for years, and while it was tedious, I’m definitely better for it.”

Clearly, Yunli seems to care little for that anecdote, considering the way her gaze wanders from Yanqing, sighing at his addition, “But there’s more than one way to use a Diting. Just as there’s more than one way to forge a sword. Maybe she just needs a different way to do it, ad what we’re doing isn’t working for her.”

“What do you mean?” Yanqing asks, the taste of brown sugar dully refocusing him to the task at hand after he takes a sip from his cup, “Fundamentals are fundamentals. I don’t know what you learned, but I’m sure it was just as important to your sword stance as mine were. I’d feel pretty bad if I — we, I guess — sent March out there only to get made a fool of.”

“And something tells me that March might just need encouragement from people that aren’t us,” Yunli interrupts. She shrugs, pushing a stubborn strand of hair behind her ear, “She has still been doing well, just not always in the moment or the most consistently.”

“Consistency is key.”

“Maybe. But she’s growing. Performing in front of them might just be harder because she wants to look better for them. Have you noticed she overcompensates when they’re around?”

Yanqing would be pretty remiss if he said he didn’t notice. Where he might’ve thought she was just forgetting the things she’d learned, the fact she grew stiff and far more nervous than usual could probably be chalked up to just doing too much. They’d worked on her relaxation and focus plenty of times, yet he guesses maybe it went out the window when she was trying to impress someone.

The concept doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to him though, “Whether the general is present or not, I always give a hundred percent — no, two hundred percent. I probably perform better when he’s around anyway.”

Yunli downright giggles at him, mirroring his own pose by resting her head in both her hands, that smug smile making him raise an eyebrow. That look when she thinks she knows more than he does always ruffles his metaphorical feathers, “Is the general really your friend like Stelle is to March? I think you’re comparing berrypheasants to startaro here.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Oh … I don’t know,” She lazily waves a hand around, and it feels more like she’s looking through him rather than at him, “Have you ever really wondered how close they actually are?”

And now she’s speaking in riddles at him again. One of her many tendencies that he usually paid little attention to. Yanqing was happy to learn from others most of the time, but nine out of ten times, with Yunli it felt more patronizing. What did that even mean, how close they actually were? As far as he knew, the three of them were great friends, and often took care of each other when the occasion arose. There were plenty of examples of such over the last couple weeks, when they could spare the time, they were with her. And March often went running after their classes to likely spend time with them. Thick as thieves, as Jing Yuan would probably say.

It checks out, for the most part.

But beyond that, he never really went poking around into them. They’d only been on the Luofu for maybe a few weeks during the Stellaron crisis, and it’d been months since then. It’s not like he kept tabs on the Trailblazers really, sometimes he spoke to Stelle, occasionally he’d talk to Dan Heng, but he had his own responsibilities to take care of. Their relationships were never any of his concern until March landed back on his radar.

They do seem close though, now that he begins to think about their interactions at large. March’s performance might’ve dipped, but she was eager to learn whenever her friends were around. Hoping they saw this or that and excited to show off what skills she actually could manage to do correctly. Exchanging hugs when things went well, easier to cheer up with either Dan Heng or Stelle by her side. It’s almost downright adorable how quickly they come to each other’s aid, honestly. So was there some other reason everything was giving her so much trouble?

The three of them sit a little while away at their own table, talking amongst themselves animatedly. Yanqing isn’t really one for eavesdropping or even being particularly nosy when the situation doesn’t call for it, but he watches from afar for a few minutes, curious if Yunli’s observation holds any real water. There was nothing that’d ever really tipped him off to March’s distractions being caused by anything else but her own nerves, but it wasn’t like he was about to go denying anything.

March sits in between both Stelle and Dan Heng, the former of which is leaning over to show her companion something on her phone in between eating something she’s ordered from a nearby foodstall. Dan Heng is leaning a little further away, but clearly still interested in whatever it is his friend has. The two women laugh together over what they’ve found, separating a little to chat more while Stelle peels one of the treats from Dan Heng’s box. She’s only lightly reprimanded, as the latter ends up allowing her to keep it. March drums her fingers on the table while she talks, and Stelle punctuates her words with striking gestures that only amuse her companions.

He guesses maybe they are sitting closer than strictly necessary. Dan Heng picks up one of March’s hands, peeling away her glove to run his fingers along her palm. Yanqing can’t understand what he says, but it makes March bashful, allowing him to continue massaging her hand out. If he remembers correctly, it’d been the hand that was bothering her a few days ago, and she relaxes quite quickly into his touch. Okay, still not that unusual, anyone would do that for a friend in pain. He thinks at least, he certainly would if any of his soldiers came presenting with an injury.

Stelle drags her chair ever closer, allowing March to rest her head on her shoulder. All too cozy, brushing her hair out of her face while the three of them talk about something else unrelated. Yanqing turns back around to Yunli, wincing a bit from the neck strain, “That’s not really out of the ordinary. They’re just close, there’s gotta be something else going on.”

Yunli hums at that, finally sipping out of her own drink as she swings her legs back and forth, nudging his foot with her own, “There probably is. You know, March always gets really happy when they show up, and even if she’s worse at skills she works harder nonetheless.”

“I—well. Maybe.” Yanqing relents at that, rattling the thought around in his head, “What’s that mean though? It just seems really contradictory.”

All Yunli does is nod slightly behind him, making Yanqing turn his head again. Dan Heng is getting ready to leave, saying his goodbyes likely as he begins to put his things away.

He begins to replace March’s glove, but not before pressing his lips to the back of her hand.

Okay, still not all that odd. Sometimes men on the Luofu would do that for women when they were being polite. Dan Heng probably had also picked up on that habit, he was a terribly kind and polite man whenever they interacted, so the action makes sense in the grand scheme of things. Again, not really something that’d throw up any red flags, as careful as he is with her to begin with.

His smile is almost foreign on his features when March says something else to him, near pouting as he begins to walk away. Dan Heng sighs, returning back to the table. He glances around quickly before tilting her head slightly to the side to kiss her cheek, then doing the same to Stelle. Both women grin at the action, Stelle pulling him down by his collar to do the same, before he finally waves goodbye and disappears down one of the side roads.

Yanqing turns back to his and Yunli’s table when he passes by, very much avoiding his gaze. The Zhuming girl has the nerve to laugh, condescending as ever once he’s out of earshot, “I told you there was something else going on. I knew it!”

“Still doesn’t really mean anything…”

“You’re being dense on purpose, songbird,” Yanqing’s eye twitches at the nickname she’s given him, and maybe at himself for not catching what was already laid out in front of him. Yunli starts talking again before he gets the chance to, “March is just trying to impress her boyfriend. And girlfriend. And she’s doing a terrible job of hiding it from us.”

Yanqing spares a glance over his shoulder, particularly annoyed by the fact he didn’t catch it earlier. It’s not like he’s had many friends his own age to really compare interactions with, and it certainly wasn’t like he was very good at making sense of them. What he might’ve seen as just being polite could certainly be taken in a completely different context if he wasn’t careful, which seems to be what he’d just done for the near month and a half they’d been working together.

Rather gently, he sets his head down on the table and groans audibly, “I bet you think you’re so smart right about now, huh?”

“I do.” Yunli hums, a smile in her voice.

Yanqing keeps himself from knocking his head against the table for good measure. People were difficult, and apparently the members of the Astral Express, moreso. Plenty of secrets for good measure that he didn’t have the time to really unravel. Better questions to be asked is how long Yunli had known, and whether she’s just really rubbing it in now to make him look back, “So you definitely knew already, right?”

The girl doesn’t answer at first, her legs stilling for a moment. He picks his head up to fix his bangs, no reason to wallow in his own inability to reason, as she seems to relent, “No. Not really at least. I’m just not as surprised as you.”

“’Course you aren’t.” Here it comes …

“It’s not like they were being very public about it. If March hadn’t given it away, I probably still wouldn’t have known,” Yunli polishes off the rest of her snacks, picking herself up to push her chair back in. Collecting her wrappers, Yanqing figures he’ll follow if she’s headed back to the training grounds, collecting his own lunch to throw away, “Doesn’t matter to me anyway. Just gives us another angle to work with later this week.”

Yanqing figures she’s not exactly wrong, he’s already formulating new ways to work March’s training schedule to accompany this new tidbit of information. If she wanted to do all that, then maybe it was better for them to let her friends — partners — help with the training more. Maybe she’d be able to incorporate some of their melee attacks into her own patterns, “We’ll get started later today then.”

Or, perhaps not, considering Stelle and March are still locked in on whatever they’re watching on her phone. Completely enamored with the content, one of Stelle’s arms loosely thrown around March’s shoulder, while March leans all her weight into the other. He and Yunli stand there for just a moment, observing the pair, before Yunli nudges him along to keep walking back down the street, “Let’s just call this a day off. If I remember correctly, you owe me a duel anyway for what you said last week.”

“Uh, that’s because you owe me one after what you said last week.”

So, when they end up returning to the training field a few days later, just before Dan Heng and Stelle are called in to give their testimonies for the Stellaron crisis, their found instead with their very insistent girlfriend alongside Yanqing himself dueling against each other. Whatever Yunli had suggested seemed to have worked a little too well, as he’s actually finding himself having to think his way through this fight. Second guessing himself where March parries in places he’s never seen her do before, swift on her feet while Stelle cheers her on from the sidelines.

Yes, maybe there was a separate reason that March 7th picked up the sword, and it’s particularly evident as she shines under the afternoon sun, blades clashing against his own. It’s clear as day in her eyes, determination as she takes on a stance he recognizes from months ago watching Dan Heng. Swings controlled against his own defensives, rolls her sword over her wrist the same way Stelle would as soon as he tries to knock it out of her hand.

While he may best her today, and likely will still be able to years from now, he can sort of understand it when put alongside something else that she’d told him early on in her training.

“It’s like … the immersia hero protecting his damsel in distress!” March had proudly exclaimed, much to Yunli’s amusement, “Except, I don’t want to be the damsel, I’d rather be able to protect the people I really care about in a different way than I usually do.”

“A shield is still just as useful as a sword, you know, Miss March.”

“I guess that’s true, but —”

Yanqing finds himself proud at the end of the day, watching as she takes her new swordsmanship skills to the field with Dan Heng. He’s holding back, clearly, but not by much. There’s that surprise in his expression as well, but it’s met by what he can only really define as fondness. He figures March must’ve met her goal when Dan Heng calls for a truce, allowing her a hug that almost takes them both down into the grass.

Probably doesn’t help when Stelle’s addition actually does take all three of them down in the grass, and he and Yunli share a laugh.

“I’d like to really do something more for them. Just as much as they’ve done for me.”