unTalent, Chapter 2 of 11
Jan. 4th, 2011 02:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laleiaChapter 2:
See Chapter 1 for Summary, Notes, more information, etc. I start using more and more Chinese -- I believe the only untranslated characters I have this chapter are names, however.
“Maya?” Avi burst out incredulously.
A statuesque woman stood in front of her, sticking out from the rest of the miniskirted masses like a sore thumb in her black tanktop and cargo pants. While everyone else was swaying in time with the music, she held impossibly still.
She was also someone from Avi’s hometown who she hadn’t laid eyes on in five years.
Maya said something, but Avi couldn’t hear her over the music. “What?” she screamed. “I can’t hear you!”
Maya seemed to realize at the same time that this wasn’t the best venue for conversation. She grabbed Avi’s arm and tugged.
Although she had no idea what was going on, Avi let herself be pulled away, mouthing a “I’ll be back” to her friends over her shoulder, figuring they’d call her cell if she was gone too long and they got really worried.
“Where are we going?” she wanted to know as Maya pulled her out of the club before she could even get stamped for re-entry, and yanked her to a quieter corner outside, though they could still feel the beat of the music through the ground.
“We’re going to talk,” Maya said grimly, finally turning around to look her in the face.
“What are you doing here?” Avi asked, befuddled. The alcohol wasn’t helping matters as she tried to process what exactly was going on, and why Maya might want a private conversation when she shouldn’t even be in Beijing in the first place. Last she’d heard, Maya was on the fast-track to prestigious appointments in D.C.
“I should be asking you the same,” Maya demanded sharply. “What exactly do you think you’re doing, hanging around Beijing while serious Family Feuds are going down? Especially this part of Beijing!”
“The Feuds aren’t going to affect me. Haven’t you heard?” Avi’s smile was more than a little brittle and her next words couldn’t help but be a little resentful. “I’m unTalented.”
The news didn’t faze Maya – it would have been surprising if she didn’t already know. The urgency in her tone certainly wasn’t at all lessened, though. “Do you think they’ll believe that? Or even care? A Lau Family member secretly on their turf? At best they’ll believe you’re unTalented, but still treat you as an emissary representing your Family’s interests and force you to choose a side. At worst, they won’t believe what you say, believe you a spy and … deal with you accordingly.”
Avi would have made a dry comment about the melodramatic pause being overkill, but something was slowly dawning on her – Maya was too invested in this; this was more than a gentle warning. “You’ve … taken a side, haven’t you?” she asked, a sinking feeling in her stomach.”
“There were extenuating circumstances,” Maya said grimly. Even as Avi opened her mouth to press further, Maya cut her off. “Circumstances which happen to be none of your business.”
“After everything we learned in School,” Avi gasped. The alcohol was clearing out of her system out of necessity, and her next words were cold. “You’ve still chosen a side? Do you believe in your cause, Maya?”
“Don’t do this now,” Maya sighed.
“Would you die for your cause, Maya?” she pursued relentlessly. “Would you kill for your cause?”
“Stop it!”
“Would you misuse your Talent for that cause?” Avi finished quietly.
Maya looked her in the eyes. “I would. And indeed I have.”
“Oh, Maya,” Avi said sadly. “Our parents emigrated so they wouldn’t have to make these choices. How could you-”
“No,” Maya interrupted harshly. “Your parents emigrated so they wouldn’t have to choose one of these sides. I don’t come from a Family. My parents immigrated to America because they wanted a better life for me. A life that this country couldn’t offer at the time.”
“And is this the better life they wanted?” Avi asked quietly.
There was no answer, as was to be expected. For a few moments, the only sound was the thrum-thrum-thrub in the background of the music from the club, and then Maya snorted. “Whatever,” she said curtly. “I came here to warn you that someone tipped off the Family, and probably not just the one, that you’re here.”
“What?” This surprised me. “Not everyone in my Family knows that I’m here. Mom and Dad didn’t think it was safe.”
“Well, your parents trusted one person too many somehow,” Maya said. “The Families don’t know who is here, but they know it’s someone from Lau Family, and they’re going to find out how eventually. The running theory is that your sister popped in for a visit with one of the Families about choosing a side.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Nadia, as practically the formal Heir Official, wasn’t allowed to leave the Family territory because she was too precious. And Susan was too busy with school to run any Family errands ever. It was part of the reason her Family had been fairly low-key in recent global power shifts; they simply didn’t have the manpower to interfere.
“They don’t know it’s you yet, but it won’t be long until they figure it out. You need to leave as soon as possible.” Some people approached, probably for some sleazy purpose or other, but Maya scared them off from ten meters away with a simple furrow of her brow and an ice-cold glare.
“But there’s no way they can find me,” Avi objected. “I have no Talent they can trace.” That’d been one of the reasons her parents let here come here anyway – unless someone spilled the secret, nobody’d be able to tell her apart from the next mundane person.
“You have a public blog, a visa, employment records, financial transactions. Avi, you have an identity. Just because they can’t track you down with their Talent doesn’t mean they can’t use more mundane means.”
“My … blog? Have you been looking for me?” While her blog wasn’t exactly private, she hadn’t exactly intended for, say, Maya’s eyes when she started it.
“It’s not exactly hidden, is it?” Maya asked wryly. “Your Mom made a call to someone who made a call to someone else who suggested me. I’m supposed to warn you, and while I was trying to locate you, I found your blog in a five-minute Baidu search. Are you even trying to hide?”
“My blog is very discreet! Nothing there talks about anything related to the Talented world – just about things like my job, what I do, all the mundane stuff.” She didn’t even use codewords to refer to the Talented bits of her life, just avoided mentioning them entirely. Her blog was almost like a fantasy world – what her life might have been like if she weren’t from a Talented Family.
“Like I said, they can track you down the mundane way, too,” Maya said grimly.
“So, what, Mom sent you to warn me?” That was just like Mom, to worry to the extent of calling in the cavalry.
“No, your mother sent me to tell you that the Family wants you out of here,” Maya hesitated, then corrected herself. “Your Family wants you out of here.”
“What? No! I have a life here, and friends, and …” Avi recognized how petulant she sounded, and trailed off at the look on Maya’s face.
“Does that usually work with your Family?” Maya asked dryly. “Telling them about the things you have, the things you want, the things you ‘refuse to give up’ – do your priorities actually rank over those of your Family?”
Of course not. Since when has what Avi wanted ever mattered?
The Family comes first, and less Talent you have, the less your interests align with the Family’s. When you’re an unTalented middle child, no matter how much your parents might love you, they won’t prioritize you.
“Stop being selfish,” Maya said gently. “Don’t put your Family in a difficult position. And you know it’s for your own good, too. Your Family would probably be able to negotiate your release if you’re caught up in the Feuds on a trumped-up espionage charge, but there’s a chance they might not. And you… you don’t even have Talent to protect yourself with.”
And that’s what it came back to, always. Not enough Talent. That was the reason her parents gave for every decision they made about her life. Not this time. “I don’t need Talent to protect myself,” Avi said hotly. “Your warning is appreciated, but I won’t be leaving.”
“Avi-” Maya began, but Avi had already turned and left. Maya didn’t give up though; she ran after, and yanked Avi around.
“What?” Avi snapped. She’d already started hailing a taxi. She needed to go home and think, and get away from the noise, and the people, and Maya.
“If you’re planning on staying, I’ll have to issue a full report to my superiors,” Maya cautioned. “You’ll be here on official business, an emissary of the Lau Family living in Beijing.”
“I’m-”
“I’ll note in my report that you’re unTalented, but you won’t be able to maintain your mundane lifestyle. Do you acknowledge this?”
“Yes, I acknowledge,” Avi scowled, before realizing what’d Maya’d done. “You extracted my Words!” A taxi pulled up, and Avi tugged her arm, indicating she’d like to go.
“I just wanted it Acknowledged for the record that you know what you’re getting yourself into.” Maya let go of Avi, letting Avi go drown herself as she chose, she supposed.
“Well now that you’ve used my Words without my permission,” Avi said, “Can I go?” Without waiting for an answer, she got in the taxi and slammed the door. “Suzhoujie,” she scowled at the taxi, and didn’t look back to see Maya’s face as the taxi sped away.
---
That night, as Avi sat in her apartment, on her bed, in the dark, her mind was whirling. She’d gotten her mother’s email, and understood the very many risks to herself and to her Family if she stayed, but –
But really. She’d always rearranged her entire life to accommodate her Family. She’d grown so used to thinking about the Family’s interests over her own – was it so selfish to have this one thing for herself?
And the risk of being found out was actually pretty low. The risk of everyone Talented of note finding out that the Lau Family had turned out a Dud was embarrassingly high, but she’d been more or a less a model daughter her whole life. What did she care if she embarrassed the Family this one time?
For all Maya’s hyperbole, the chance that anyone would try to terminate her and risk starting their own, separate feud with the Lau Family was unlikely. Though newly-formed compared to some of the Families with centuries-old history, both her parents came from their own prominent Families endowed with generations of Talent, and her siblings were all quite powerful for their age. Nobody would want to make an enemy of them.
In the end, it was now out of her hands. Maya’d no doubt made her report to her superiors already, and she’d already sent off a curtly-worded email to her parents letting them know she wasn’t uprooting her life at the drop of a pin when there wasn’t even a large chance she’d need to. Things had been set in motion. Now she’d only have to wait and see …
---
The next morning, Avi could feel that things had changed.
She woke up early despite her long night, and this time she recognized it for what it was – her instincts too hyped up on adrenaline to let her sleep when there were important things afoot. Instead of her usual Youtube workout, she decided to go for a jog to clear her head. While jogging outside in Beijing wasn’t exactly the best of ideas (the not-so-clean air could really do a number on your lungs when you were jogging), she really needed some fresh air to calm her nerves and help her think.
She absent-mindedly noted that the lights in the kitchen were flickering but didn’t give it much thought. She saw that the oven clock was a couple of minutes off, and then she opened the door. That’s when she came across the first sign that things were going to be different from now on.
More specifically, she opened the door and came face-to-face with a dragon. A miniature one, granted, but a dragon nonetheless. (Even if she mistook it for a floating snake at first.)
She slammed the door shut, an instinctive response to try to ignore the unexplainable. Unfortunately, the unexplainable refused to be ignored. Someone—something—knocked on the door.
Avi braced herself and opened the door again. This time, she didn’t just react to the presence of the mythical creature, she allowed herself to look it over, half in wonder, half in disbelief.
It was small and sleek, its scales golden-red and shimmering even though not much sunlight filtered through the dimly-lit hallway. It had very grandiose whiskers that curled, and a long, thin body, and it reminded her of nothing more than the best and noblest bits of the most elegant creatures in all the world put together into one being that was vastly superior to everything else.
If she were at all thinking clearly, she might catalogue its features – the 九像九不像. There were a few variations, but the one she’d learned growing up went like so: 头似驼，角似鹿，眼似兔，耳似牛，项似蛇，腹似蜃，鳞似鲤，爪似鹰，掌似虎. In particular, the eyes of the rabbit (in some versions, the eyes of a demon) and the claws of an eagle sent a shiver down her spine. She had enough presence of mind to note the number of claws – three, so less a king among beasts and more likely serving as some form of messenger.
And then, it spoke.
Not with a voice, but directly into her mind.
Is this one before us the one known to humans as Avi Lau?
It wasn’t so much that it spoke into her mind, for it wasn’t speaking English, nor was it speaking Chinese. It was communicating in thoughts more than words, expressing itself through feelings. Words were what humans used to express what the dragons simply willed. Words were used to describe and evoke things while the dragon’s language simply was, and embodied and existed.
“And who might I be addressing?” Avi tried to go for formal levity. Or humorous formality. She wanted to crack a joke, but didn’t feel like the dignified creature was open to humor.
This majestic creature comes as a representative of the Zhang Family and extends an invitation to the one known to humans as Avi Lau to attend upon the Zhang Family Manor at their convenience.
“I’m sorry?” Avi asked, trying to be as polite as possible (it never did to offend the supernatural creatures). “I’m not quite sure I understand when I’m to go?”
At the earliest convenience, which would be this present moment.
“This isn’t the kind of invitation where I could say ‘No thanks, maybe later’, is it?” Avi asked suspiciously.
If the one known to humans as Avi Lau wishes to postpone the invitation, that is of course Avi Lau’s prerogative, however this majestic creature cannot vouchsafe that there have not been further instructions regarding the disposal of intractable guests.
“I get the idea. Give me a moment to put on some clothes and make myself presentable,” Avi said. “Would you like to wait inside?”
She took the lack of response as a no.
Luckily, dressing presentably enough to formally meet a Patriarch at a Family House wasn’t too difficult when your father was a Patriarch himself. She put on her customary outfit, taking care to make sure that the insignia on her House Necklace was facing in the right direction, and that her hair was in place.
“Ready to go?” she beamed at the dragon as she walked out the apartment and locked the door.
---
The trip was rather more frightening than she had expected. Travel by dragon seemed to involve a lot of blinking in and out of existence. Now normally this would sound something like Star Trek’s “beaming up” or Harry Potter’s “Apparition.” Travel by dragon seemed to take blinking in and out of existence rather more literally – each time they reappeared, Avi needed a few moments to reorient herself, to remember her name, her identity, where she was and why. It didn’t help that the dragon seemed unable to go directly to the destination, but had to make a number of stops along the way. At one point, a quick succession of trips, one blink after the another, had sent her reeling, barely suppressing the urge to throw up on some nearby bushes. The dragon seemed at least mildly aware of her sensibility, however, and gave her time to rest between trips for the remainder of the journey, waiting for her to recover before moving on to the next stop.
When they finally arrived in front of the Zhang Family House, Avi was more than ready for the trip to be over. She wouldn’t be surprised if the dragon had been instructed to take her the long way there so the disorientation might affect any upcoming negotiations and/or talks with the Patriarch – it’s the kind of thing her father would have ordered.
The Zhang Family House was large and it was intimidating, particularly because it was so ancient and reeked of tradition. This wasn’t some nouveau-riche mansion, or a three-hundred-year-old castle like some of the European Families had. This building was at least a thousand years old, probably more, maintained over time by Talent.
It wasn’t a single building, either – it was a Siheyuan (四合院).
The doors were large and red, with copper rings for knocking and stone guardian lions on either side. These weren’t normal stone lions, either – they both turned to face her, a very disconcerting effect, before they acknowledged the presence of the dragon and returned to their former immobile position.
Avi knew what lay beyond – she’d seen all the movies. The doors would lead to a courtyard, with buildings on all sides (that was, after all what Siheyuan meant, literally), with probably a second and even a third courtyard beyond – she had a feeling Families were wealthy back in the day, and she was sure they flaunted their wealth as necessary.
She had a sinking feeling in her stomach that this experience would be hugely different than House formality as she was accustomed to – she’d never realized that the very American house she’d grown up in and gone through House functions at would be so architecturally different from the very ancient, very traditional Chinese House she was about to enter now. This would no doubt mean that the rituals she was used to were also different (especially a few she was pretty sure wouldn’t be possible here).
She waited for the dragon to knock, but instead the doors magically opened. The dragon floated through, then turned around, as if to say, What are you waiting for?
Avi rather nervously walked inside to a dark courtyard. The rooms beyond were lit, however, though still empty. She followed the dragon inside, only to see the dragon nod at her once then disappear. At its disappearance, a rather regal feline appeared at the other side of the room, its tail lashing back and forth in impatience. When Avi approached, it turned and led the way out of the room and to another courtyard.
The cat led her in a circle around the courtyard only to stop in front of the doors they’d just come from, which had closed at some point. When the cat nudged the doors open again, they opened on an entirely different room even though it should have been the one she’d just come from, spatially speaking.
But of course. Why have an excessively large house when you could just make an infinite number of rooms occupying the same space?
They walked through this room to the courtyard beyond and the room beyond that (where of course the front gate should have been if this were a normal place), and those doors were brightly lit and she could see the silhouettes of the people inside.
Even though the room looked small, Avi could tell even before the doors opened that appearances were going to be deceiving.
The cat flung the doors open, and it seemed as if something had been unleashed. Suddenly, the formerly dim Siheyuan seemed brightly lit, all the silence courtyard up to now vanished as she heard the sound of erhu and guqin from inside the room, harmonizing with a violin to play hauntingly beautiful music that seemed to reverberate in her bones. She could see people beyond, lots of them, and lots more space than should be possible in such a seemingly-small room. There was a sense of commotion, of hubbub, and Avi knew this was where the Family had surely been gathered, along with all their retainers.
She allowed herself a private smile, and considered quoting Doctor Who (“It’s bigger on the inside!”) but didn’t think anyone here would get the joke. The cat’s tail started lashing impatiently again when Avi didn’t immediately go inside, so she took a deep breath, then stepped forward.
---
The room was very ornate, almost excessively so. There was so much gold, so much jade everywhere that it would have been characterized as gaudy if it weren’t for one thing – this room was ancient. It had so much history, had been around for so long, this room predated gaudy. Every ornament and decoration had been earned through the years. The gold wasn’t there to impress – it was there to intimidate, to remind you that the people in this room were older than you, richer than you, stronger than you.
The people in it were equally ridiculously sumptuous. They all looked like they’d stepped out of the pages of a book, all coming from an older era – but not the same older era. At a glance, Avi recognized women wearing qi-pao, with slits of varying heights, but there were also women wearing beautifully-embroidered gowns and extravagant headdresses that reminded her of the historical dramas she saw on TV, which meant the clothes were Qing-dynasty. Others were even floatier dresses, in different styles, some of which she guessed and put down to Tang-dynasty clothing, others which she didn’t recognize at all.
And yet, even though all the clothes were elaborate, slightly over-the-top, and incredibly anachronistic, Avi hesitated to refer to them, even mentally, as costumes. The men and women wearing them did so with natural ease, as if this is what they’d worn every day of their life, and they couldn’t imagine even touching a pair of jeans, much less putting them on.
The entire effect was rather chaotic, and yet purposeful. Avi wasn’t sure what message it was supposed to send – wasn’t even sure the message was for her and not for someone else who would be fetched by their own miniature dragon as soon as she was on her way.
Avi slowly made her way through the throngs of people chattering away in Mandarin and ignoring her existence. Interestingly enough, she heard at least a few strains of Cantonese and at least one person had a very distinctly Taiwanese accent, until she found herself in front of the chair in the middle of the room. A chair that was so very pointedly not a throne.
In the not-throne was a stately woman, her hair elaborately coiffed, her face a blank mask. She was stunningly beautiful, in an artificial, unnatural kind of way. Her eyes, for example, were a little too black, and as they were focusing on Avi in full force, the attention was more than a little unnerving. In stark contrast to the people around her, the Matriarch was the only one dressed in what might pass for modern clothing. She was wearing a pair of black slacks and a navy blue blouse. The blouse was embroidered with what Avi’s untrained eye identified as Words for protection, for wisdom, and possibly for intimidation, and even more that she couldn’t interpret.
There were two attendants on either side of her, each wearing black slacks and a plain navy blue blouse, obviously some sort of uniform. They each bore a tray in their hands, and each tray held something different. Their expressions were uniformly impassive.
“It is a pleasure to have you before us,” the Matriarch said in perfect English, with a lilting accent.
“It is a pleasure to be before you,” Avi responded, the words stiff and formal in her mouth. “On behalf of Lau Family, I wish you happiness and prosperity as is only right.”
“Please, have a seat,” the Matriarch said, snapping her fingers.
A stool appeared in front of her, with an embroidered cushion on top it. The embroidered Words were too small for Avi to decipher, but since refusing would have been the height of rudeness, she hoped they weren’t anything bad and sat down.
“Tea,” the Matriarch announced.
“No, that’s alright,” Avi tried to demur.
“I insist,” the Matriarch said in a steely tone.
Avi pasted on a smile as one of the attendants who bore a tray with a statue on it then brought her tray to the Matriarch and bowed. The Matriarch broke off the tip of the statue with a small knife, to Avi’s surprise, and as this attendant stepped back into place, another stepped forward with a teapot.
What followed was some sort of complicated tea ceremony where the bit of statue was the tea, and the hot water was summoned as the stool had been. The entire ceremony was different from more mundane tea ceremonies Avi’d observed, and seemed to involve a lot of attendants bowing excessively.
This, too, was probably supposed to send a message only Avi was too dense to pick it up. She didn’t mind – if the Zhang Family were going to go to such lengths to send subtle messages, they should learn sooner or later that direct messages worked better. As she watched the entire thing and tried to stifle a yawn, she thought to herself, This is what my parents left behind. This is why they left.
Rather than take sides on centuries-old Feuds and abuse their Talent, rather than adhere to tradition to the point of absurdity, rather than relying on formalized structures that stifled ingenuity and restricted progress, rather than look on in disapproval as Families started meddling in national politics, for all these reasons and more, her parents had left this country for America.
All so their daughter wouldn’t have to sit through a stupidly boringly long tea ceremony and deal with unnecessary formality as she is forced to choose a side – and yet here Avi was, despite everything her parents had done so she didn’t have to be.
Fortunately, she recognized the irony.
When the tea seemed done, the attendant bore a cup over to Avi, who politely sipped at it even though she personally couldn’t abide the bitter taste of tea without at least six sugar cubes.
“This is 普洱茶 (Pu’er tea),” the Matriarch explained. “It was gathered in 云南 (Yunnan) over a hundred years ago from the wild trees, the 古树 that grow on 蛮砖山 (Manzhuan Mountain). The leaves were then laid to dry out under the sun, then pan-fried, rolled into strand, and dried in the sun again. The bad leaves were removed, and the leaves were then pressed into the statue you see Feifei holding. The entire process until the pressing was done by hand the mundane way, and then the Family Patriarch of the time personally oversaw the shaping into a statue, using his Talent to ensure accuracy. Over time, of course, more and more Talent has been added to the leaves through Words drawn, through Spells cast, through Chants whispered. So while Pu’er tea typically darkens as it ages, and the taste grows mellow, this tea has also gained certain … special properties.”
Avi blinked at that last statement, and looked uncertainly at her teacup.
“Do not worry,” the Matriarch chuckled, though her eyes weren’t smiling. “The special properties are good ones, certain blessings and the like. I wouldn’t poison a guest. I tell you this because I think it is important you understand that this tea is valuable because it is so old. That age has only improved it, and that as a result, there is a special way to make the tea to ensure the best flavor. You saw me run hot water through it three times, for example. The first is to wash off the dust, the second to wash away the bitterest of the taste, and the third is the tea that I serve you. That is the way it is done. That is the way to ensure that the tea I offer my guests is quality tea.
“Do you understand my point?”
“Of course,” Avi said, bowing her head. “The point is taken.”
“Good,” the Matriarch said, and then waved her attendants away.
Avi waited quietly for the Matriarch to make the next move.
“I trust your mother is doing well,” the Matriarch said. “It has been so long since we last spoke.”
It was all Avi could do to keep from gaping, not just from the abrupt change in topic but also from the new topic – this woman knew her mother?
“She cut quite an impressive figure back in the day,” the Matriarch mused. “I suppose now that she’s settled down, she no longer duels quite so much?”
Avi struggled to get her brain past the cognitive dissonance (her Mother dueling?) and formulate a response. “Not lately, no,” Avi responded on automatic, adding a polite smile that made it more of a pleasantry than an actual piece of information.
“I was surprised when I heard of Lau Family having four children when she’d once been so adamant on remaining childless her whole life,” the Matriarch continued. “Your Family must be so proud to have four young Heirs to carry on the Family legacy.”
“Three Heirs,” Avi corrected, ignoring the bit about her mother. “Although my parents love me as much as my siblings, I lack Talent and so cannot be named Heir.” Might as well get that out there. Avi debated telling the Matriarch that Nadia was all but formally declared Heir Official, but decided in the end that it was none of Zhang Family’s business.
“Surely you’re just a late bloomer, or your Talent is undiscovered,” the Matriarch suggested. “Lau Family hasn’t had a 无能 …what is it in English? Ah yes, a Dud. Lau Family hasn’t had a Dud in near three generations now, is that not the case?”
“Lau Family hasn’t been around for three generations, but yes, I am the first Dud three generations back through both my mother’s and my father’s line,” Avi said cheerfully, while all she really wanted to do was claw the woman’s eyes out. The Matriarch’s tone pretended at sympathy, but her eyes revealed cruelty. She knew she was prying into old wounds, that this must be a sore subject. She probably knew about the unTalent as soon as it became public knowledge, she was the kind of person who would keep tabs on foreign rumors like that. Yet she either didn’t believe it or wanted to be cruel, so she was determined to press the issue. Fortunately, Avi had been brought up to stand firm. “So really, my blessings on the House are formality, and will have no effect,” she pretended to apologize.
Blessings were ritual, but tradition had it that they were only effective when uttered by Talented. For this reason, Avi’d never said them in her life until today, and still found the words stylized and ridiculous. Formally acknowledging this, however, was tantamount to withdrawing them – yet remaining with the bounds of civility.
“How … incredible,” the Matriarch said, her face twisting as if she’d bitten into a sour persimmon. “And so have you come to search for a way to restore your Talent?”
“There’s no Talent to restore,” Avi corrected. “I never had it in the first place.”
“Nevertheless, I’m sure there’s something in the ancient scrolls about how to remedy your situation. Is that why you have come?”
“No, it is not. I don’t care about my unTalent,” Avi said very firmly. “I understand that I was born without Talent, and I’m okay with that, as is my family. I came to enjoy a year off before I start medical school.”
“You’re not telling me that your mother and your father, so ambitious they went to a new country to start their own legacy, are satisfied that they’ve birthed a Dud?” The Matriarch wasn’t even trying to be nice now, her tone just slightly mocking.
“My parents accept me the way I am,” Avi said with bravado, as much to convince herself as to convince her opponent.
“I suppose they must, if they sent you as emissary,” the Matriarch sighed. “So? What’ll it be?”
“I’m sorry?” Avi said, taken aback. “I thought I made it clear – I’m not here on behalf of my family.”
“Nonsense. You really think your parents sent you to the city with the most Talent this side of the Pacific Ocean, and expected you to maintain cover as mundane? You are a message they are sending to the people of Beijing.”
“Well, then it’s a message I wasn’t informed about?” Avi said coolly.
“You do seem to lack subtlety,” the Matriarch admitted. Avi tried not to take offense. “Nevertheless, the point remains. Whether or not you are aware of it, you are a message, and you were sent here with some purpose towards benefiting your family. And since you are here with a purpose, you must also fulfill a purpose. You must choose a side.”
“I’m not one of your Family,” Avi said tightly. “You don’t give me orders. There is no need for Lau Family to take a stance on matters on the other side of the globe.”
The room suddenly silenced, and Avi felt the eyes of everyone in the room on her. She tensed.
“Little girl,” the Matriarch said, “you’re unTalented in a room full of men and women who would execute you right now if I but gave the order, and you dare show incivility?”
Avi gave the Matriarch a withering look. Although she was generally used to such threats being unvoiced, being unTalented in a room full of Talented was nothing new. Granted, there hadn’t been a Patriarch or Matriarch this upset with Avi in a while (not including Mom and Dad, who were generally always upset for one reason or another at some point each visit home, but that “upset” tended to spread across four siblings so it wasn’t as noticeable).
The Matriarch laughed. “You have … what is the word? Spunk. You have spunk, girl, I’ll give you that. So let me explain the matter to you. There are currently four different alliances battling over control of Beijing. We’ve been battling for over a century now, so that’s nothing new. What’s new is you. You are being added to the equation, and you’re an unknown. Most think you are hiding your Talent and represent your own interests. Even if you are unTalented, however, you still represent your Family’s interests. You are new, and new … new is not good, not unless new can be categorized.”
The Matriarch waved her hand and an attendant appeared to refill her tea.
“You see, my alliance currently consists of the two oldest Families in Beijing, our own illustrious Family and the Wang Family. And where I’m softhearted, the Matriarch of the Wang Family is much less so. In her perspective, one I rightly understand, if you do not side with us, you could very easily side with one of the other alliances, which is not permissible.
“So, Miss 李莲味,” she said, addressing Avi by her Chinese name, “here is how the matter stands. I find you amusing, so I will give you 48 hours to consider the matter. At the end of the 48 hours, you will either have left the country or have chosen a side. Lack of response is not an option – if you don’t elect to side with us, I’m afraid we’ll have to consider you an enemy, assume you’ve joined one of the other alliances, and deal with you accordingly.”
She waved again. “柳雅 will show you out,” she said.
And like that, Avi was dismissed. An attendant materialized to remove the stool, the bystanders parted to open a path to the door, where someone was waiting. Avi didn’t even bother with the formalized farewell formula, she just turned and left. She was so through with this shit.
And, of course, she was unsurprised to see that the person showing her out would be none other than Maya.
See Chapter 1 for Summary, Notes, more information, etc. I start using more and more Chinese -- I believe the only untranslated characters I have this chapter are names, however.
“Maya?” Avi burst out incredulously.
A statuesque woman stood in front of her, sticking out from the rest of the miniskirted masses like a sore thumb in her black tanktop and cargo pants. While everyone else was swaying in time with the music, she held impossibly still.
She was also someone from Avi’s hometown who she hadn’t laid eyes on in five years.
Maya said something, but Avi couldn’t hear her over the music. “What?” she screamed. “I can’t hear you!”
Maya seemed to realize at the same time that this wasn’t the best venue for conversation. She grabbed Avi’s arm and tugged.
Although she had no idea what was going on, Avi let herself be pulled away, mouthing a “I’ll be back” to her friends over her shoulder, figuring they’d call her cell if she was gone too long and they got really worried.
“Where are we going?” she wanted to know as Maya pulled her out of the club before she could even get stamped for re-entry, and yanked her to a quieter corner outside, though they could still feel the beat of the music through the ground.
“We’re going to talk,” Maya said grimly, finally turning around to look her in the face.
“What are you doing here?” Avi asked, befuddled. The alcohol wasn’t helping matters as she tried to process what exactly was going on, and why Maya might want a private conversation when she shouldn’t even be in Beijing in the first place. Last she’d heard, Maya was on the fast-track to prestigious appointments in D.C.
“I should be asking you the same,” Maya demanded sharply. “What exactly do you think you’re doing, hanging around Beijing while serious Family Feuds are going down? Especially this part of Beijing!”
“The Feuds aren’t going to affect me. Haven’t you heard?” Avi’s smile was more than a little brittle and her next words couldn’t help but be a little resentful. “I’m unTalented.”
The news didn’t faze Maya – it would have been surprising if she didn’t already know. The urgency in her tone certainly wasn’t at all lessened, though. “Do you think they’ll believe that? Or even care? A Lau Family member secretly on their turf? At best they’ll believe you’re unTalented, but still treat you as an emissary representing your Family’s interests and force you to choose a side. At worst, they won’t believe what you say, believe you a spy and … deal with you accordingly.”
Avi would have made a dry comment about the melodramatic pause being overkill, but something was slowly dawning on her – Maya was too invested in this; this was more than a gentle warning. “You’ve … taken a side, haven’t you?” she asked, a sinking feeling in her stomach.”
“There were extenuating circumstances,” Maya said grimly. Even as Avi opened her mouth to press further, Maya cut her off. “Circumstances which happen to be none of your business.”
“After everything we learned in School,” Avi gasped. The alcohol was clearing out of her system out of necessity, and her next words were cold. “You’ve still chosen a side? Do you believe in your cause, Maya?”
“Don’t do this now,” Maya sighed.
“Would you die for your cause, Maya?” she pursued relentlessly. “Would you kill for your cause?”
“Stop it!”
“Would you misuse your Talent for that cause?” Avi finished quietly.
Maya looked her in the eyes. “I would. And indeed I have.”
“Oh, Maya,” Avi said sadly. “Our parents emigrated so they wouldn’t have to make these choices. How could you-”
“No,” Maya interrupted harshly. “Your parents emigrated so they wouldn’t have to choose one of these sides. I don’t come from a Family. My parents immigrated to America because they wanted a better life for me. A life that this country couldn’t offer at the time.”
“And is this the better life they wanted?” Avi asked quietly.
There was no answer, as was to be expected. For a few moments, the only sound was the thrum-thrum-thrub in the background of the music from the club, and then Maya snorted. “Whatever,” she said curtly. “I came here to warn you that someone tipped off the Family, and probably not just the one, that you’re here.”
“What?” This surprised me. “Not everyone in my Family knows that I’m here. Mom and Dad didn’t think it was safe.”
“Well, your parents trusted one person too many somehow,” Maya said. “The Families don’t know who is here, but they know it’s someone from Lau Family, and they’re going to find out how eventually. The running theory is that your sister popped in for a visit with one of the Families about choosing a side.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Nadia, as practically the formal Heir Official, wasn’t allowed to leave the Family territory because she was too precious. And Susan was too busy with school to run any Family errands ever. It was part of the reason her Family had been fairly low-key in recent global power shifts; they simply didn’t have the manpower to interfere.
“They don’t know it’s you yet, but it won’t be long until they figure it out. You need to leave as soon as possible.” Some people approached, probably for some sleazy purpose or other, but Maya scared them off from ten meters away with a simple furrow of her brow and an ice-cold glare.
“But there’s no way they can find me,” Avi objected. “I have no Talent they can trace.” That’d been one of the reasons her parents let here come here anyway – unless someone spilled the secret, nobody’d be able to tell her apart from the next mundane person.
“You have a public blog, a visa, employment records, financial transactions. Avi, you have an identity. Just because they can’t track you down with their Talent doesn’t mean they can’t use more mundane means.”
“My … blog? Have you been looking for me?” While her blog wasn’t exactly private, she hadn’t exactly intended for, say, Maya’s eyes when she started it.
“It’s not exactly hidden, is it?” Maya asked wryly. “Your Mom made a call to someone who made a call to someone else who suggested me. I’m supposed to warn you, and while I was trying to locate you, I found your blog in a five-minute Baidu search. Are you even trying to hide?”
“My blog is very discreet! Nothing there talks about anything related to the Talented world – just about things like my job, what I do, all the mundane stuff.” She didn’t even use codewords to refer to the Talented bits of her life, just avoided mentioning them entirely. Her blog was almost like a fantasy world – what her life might have been like if she weren’t from a Talented Family.
“Like I said, they can track you down the mundane way, too,” Maya said grimly.
“So, what, Mom sent you to warn me?” That was just like Mom, to worry to the extent of calling in the cavalry.
“No, your mother sent me to tell you that the Family wants you out of here,” Maya hesitated, then corrected herself. “Your Family wants you out of here.”
“What? No! I have a life here, and friends, and …” Avi recognized how petulant she sounded, and trailed off at the look on Maya’s face.
“Does that usually work with your Family?” Maya asked dryly. “Telling them about the things you have, the things you want, the things you ‘refuse to give up’ – do your priorities actually rank over those of your Family?”
Of course not. Since when has what Avi wanted ever mattered?
The Family comes first, and less Talent you have, the less your interests align with the Family’s. When you’re an unTalented middle child, no matter how much your parents might love you, they won’t prioritize you.
“Stop being selfish,” Maya said gently. “Don’t put your Family in a difficult position. And you know it’s for your own good, too. Your Family would probably be able to negotiate your release if you’re caught up in the Feuds on a trumped-up espionage charge, but there’s a chance they might not. And you… you don’t even have Talent to protect yourself with.”
And that’s what it came back to, always. Not enough Talent. That was the reason her parents gave for every decision they made about her life. Not this time. “I don’t need Talent to protect myself,” Avi said hotly. “Your warning is appreciated, but I won’t be leaving.”
“Avi-” Maya began, but Avi had already turned and left. Maya didn’t give up though; she ran after, and yanked Avi around.
“What?” Avi snapped. She’d already started hailing a taxi. She needed to go home and think, and get away from the noise, and the people, and Maya.
“If you’re planning on staying, I’ll have to issue a full report to my superiors,” Maya cautioned. “You’ll be here on official business, an emissary of the Lau Family living in Beijing.”
“I’m-”
“I’ll note in my report that you’re unTalented, but you won’t be able to maintain your mundane lifestyle. Do you acknowledge this?”
“Yes, I acknowledge,” Avi scowled, before realizing what’d Maya’d done. “You extracted my Words!” A taxi pulled up, and Avi tugged her arm, indicating she’d like to go.
“I just wanted it Acknowledged for the record that you know what you’re getting yourself into.” Maya let go of Avi, letting Avi go drown herself as she chose, she supposed.
“Well now that you’ve used my Words without my permission,” Avi said, “Can I go?” Without waiting for an answer, she got in the taxi and slammed the door. “Suzhoujie,” she scowled at the taxi, and didn’t look back to see Maya’s face as the taxi sped away.
---
That night, as Avi sat in her apartment, on her bed, in the dark, her mind was whirling. She’d gotten her mother’s email, and understood the very many risks to herself and to her Family if she stayed, but –
But really. She’d always rearranged her entire life to accommodate her Family. She’d grown so used to thinking about the Family’s interests over her own – was it so selfish to have this one thing for herself?
And the risk of being found out was actually pretty low. The risk of everyone Talented of note finding out that the Lau Family had turned out a Dud was embarrassingly high, but she’d been more or a less a model daughter her whole life. What did she care if she embarrassed the Family this one time?
For all Maya’s hyperbole, the chance that anyone would try to terminate her and risk starting their own, separate feud with the Lau Family was unlikely. Though newly-formed compared to some of the Families with centuries-old history, both her parents came from their own prominent Families endowed with generations of Talent, and her siblings were all quite powerful for their age. Nobody would want to make an enemy of them.
In the end, it was now out of her hands. Maya’d no doubt made her report to her superiors already, and she’d already sent off a curtly-worded email to her parents letting them know she wasn’t uprooting her life at the drop of a pin when there wasn’t even a large chance she’d need to. Things had been set in motion. Now she’d only have to wait and see …
---
The next morning, Avi could feel that things had changed.
She woke up early despite her long night, and this time she recognized it for what it was – her instincts too hyped up on adrenaline to let her sleep when there were important things afoot. Instead of her usual Youtube workout, she decided to go for a jog to clear her head. While jogging outside in Beijing wasn’t exactly the best of ideas (the not-so-clean air could really do a number on your lungs when you were jogging), she really needed some fresh air to calm her nerves and help her think.
She absent-mindedly noted that the lights in the kitchen were flickering but didn’t give it much thought. She saw that the oven clock was a couple of minutes off, and then she opened the door. That’s when she came across the first sign that things were going to be different from now on.
More specifically, she opened the door and came face-to-face with a dragon. A miniature one, granted, but a dragon nonetheless. (Even if she mistook it for a floating snake at first.)
She slammed the door shut, an instinctive response to try to ignore the unexplainable. Unfortunately, the unexplainable refused to be ignored. Someone—something—knocked on the door.
Avi braced herself and opened the door again. This time, she didn’t just react to the presence of the mythical creature, she allowed herself to look it over, half in wonder, half in disbelief.
It was small and sleek, its scales golden-red and shimmering even though not much sunlight filtered through the dimly-lit hallway. It had very grandiose whiskers that curled, and a long, thin body, and it reminded her of nothing more than the best and noblest bits of the most elegant creatures in all the world put together into one being that was vastly superior to everything else.
If she were at all thinking clearly, she might catalogue its features – the 九像九不像. There were a few variations, but the one she’d learned growing up went like so: 头似驼，角似鹿，眼似兔，耳似牛，项似蛇，腹似蜃，鳞似鲤，爪似鹰，掌似虎. In particular, the eyes of the rabbit (in some versions, the eyes of a demon) and the claws of an eagle sent a shiver down her spine. She had enough presence of mind to note the number of claws – three, so less a king among beasts and more likely serving as some form of messenger.
And then, it spoke.
Not with a voice, but directly into her mind.
Is this one before us the one known to humans as Avi Lau?
It wasn’t so much that it spoke into her mind, for it wasn’t speaking English, nor was it speaking Chinese. It was communicating in thoughts more than words, expressing itself through feelings. Words were what humans used to express what the dragons simply willed. Words were used to describe and evoke things while the dragon’s language simply was, and embodied and existed.
“And who might I be addressing?” Avi tried to go for formal levity. Or humorous formality. She wanted to crack a joke, but didn’t feel like the dignified creature was open to humor.
This majestic creature comes as a representative of the Zhang Family and extends an invitation to the one known to humans as Avi Lau to attend upon the Zhang Family Manor at their convenience.
“I’m sorry?” Avi asked, trying to be as polite as possible (it never did to offend the supernatural creatures). “I’m not quite sure I understand when I’m to go?”
At the earliest convenience, which would be this present moment.
“This isn’t the kind of invitation where I could say ‘No thanks, maybe later’, is it?” Avi asked suspiciously.
If the one known to humans as Avi Lau wishes to postpone the invitation, that is of course Avi Lau’s prerogative, however this majestic creature cannot vouchsafe that there have not been further instructions regarding the disposal of intractable guests.
“I get the idea. Give me a moment to put on some clothes and make myself presentable,” Avi said. “Would you like to wait inside?”
She took the lack of response as a no.
Luckily, dressing presentably enough to formally meet a Patriarch at a Family House wasn’t too difficult when your father was a Patriarch himself. She put on her customary outfit, taking care to make sure that the insignia on her House Necklace was facing in the right direction, and that her hair was in place.
“Ready to go?” she beamed at the dragon as she walked out the apartment and locked the door.
---
The trip was rather more frightening than she had expected. Travel by dragon seemed to involve a lot of blinking in and out of existence. Now normally this would sound something like Star Trek’s “beaming up” or Harry Potter’s “Apparition.” Travel by dragon seemed to take blinking in and out of existence rather more literally – each time they reappeared, Avi needed a few moments to reorient herself, to remember her name, her identity, where she was and why. It didn’t help that the dragon seemed unable to go directly to the destination, but had to make a number of stops along the way. At one point, a quick succession of trips, one blink after the another, had sent her reeling, barely suppressing the urge to throw up on some nearby bushes. The dragon seemed at least mildly aware of her sensibility, however, and gave her time to rest between trips for the remainder of the journey, waiting for her to recover before moving on to the next stop.
When they finally arrived in front of the Zhang Family House, Avi was more than ready for the trip to be over. She wouldn’t be surprised if the dragon had been instructed to take her the long way there so the disorientation might affect any upcoming negotiations and/or talks with the Patriarch – it’s the kind of thing her father would have ordered.
The Zhang Family House was large and it was intimidating, particularly because it was so ancient and reeked of tradition. This wasn’t some nouveau-riche mansion, or a three-hundred-year-old castle like some of the European Families had. This building was at least a thousand years old, probably more, maintained over time by Talent.
It wasn’t a single building, either – it was a Siheyuan (四合院).
The doors were large and red, with copper rings for knocking and stone guardian lions on either side. These weren’t normal stone lions, either – they both turned to face her, a very disconcerting effect, before they acknowledged the presence of the dragon and returned to their former immobile position.
Avi knew what lay beyond – she’d seen all the movies. The doors would lead to a courtyard, with buildings on all sides (that was, after all what Siheyuan meant, literally), with probably a second and even a third courtyard beyond – she had a feeling Families were wealthy back in the day, and she was sure they flaunted their wealth as necessary.
She had a sinking feeling in her stomach that this experience would be hugely different than House formality as she was accustomed to – she’d never realized that the very American house she’d grown up in and gone through House functions at would be so architecturally different from the very ancient, very traditional Chinese House she was about to enter now. This would no doubt mean that the rituals she was used to were also different (especially a few she was pretty sure wouldn’t be possible here).
She waited for the dragon to knock, but instead the doors magically opened. The dragon floated through, then turned around, as if to say, What are you waiting for?
Avi rather nervously walked inside to a dark courtyard. The rooms beyond were lit, however, though still empty. She followed the dragon inside, only to see the dragon nod at her once then disappear. At its disappearance, a rather regal feline appeared at the other side of the room, its tail lashing back and forth in impatience. When Avi approached, it turned and led the way out of the room and to another courtyard.
The cat led her in a circle around the courtyard only to stop in front of the doors they’d just come from, which had closed at some point. When the cat nudged the doors open again, they opened on an entirely different room even though it should have been the one she’d just come from, spatially speaking.
But of course. Why have an excessively large house when you could just make an infinite number of rooms occupying the same space?
They walked through this room to the courtyard beyond and the room beyond that (where of course the front gate should have been if this were a normal place), and those doors were brightly lit and she could see the silhouettes of the people inside.
Even though the room looked small, Avi could tell even before the doors opened that appearances were going to be deceiving.
The cat flung the doors open, and it seemed as if something had been unleashed. Suddenly, the formerly dim Siheyuan seemed brightly lit, all the silence courtyard up to now vanished as she heard the sound of erhu and guqin from inside the room, harmonizing with a violin to play hauntingly beautiful music that seemed to reverberate in her bones. She could see people beyond, lots of them, and lots more space than should be possible in such a seemingly-small room. There was a sense of commotion, of hubbub, and Avi knew this was where the Family had surely been gathered, along with all their retainers.
She allowed herself a private smile, and considered quoting Doctor Who (“It’s bigger on the inside!”) but didn’t think anyone here would get the joke. The cat’s tail started lashing impatiently again when Avi didn’t immediately go inside, so she took a deep breath, then stepped forward.
---
The room was very ornate, almost excessively so. There was so much gold, so much jade everywhere that it would have been characterized as gaudy if it weren’t for one thing – this room was ancient. It had so much history, had been around for so long, this room predated gaudy. Every ornament and decoration had been earned through the years. The gold wasn’t there to impress – it was there to intimidate, to remind you that the people in this room were older than you, richer than you, stronger than you.
The people in it were equally ridiculously sumptuous. They all looked like they’d stepped out of the pages of a book, all coming from an older era – but not the same older era. At a glance, Avi recognized women wearing qi-pao, with slits of varying heights, but there were also women wearing beautifully-embroidered gowns and extravagant headdresses that reminded her of the historical dramas she saw on TV, which meant the clothes were Qing-dynasty. Others were even floatier dresses, in different styles, some of which she guessed and put down to Tang-dynasty clothing, others which she didn’t recognize at all.
And yet, even though all the clothes were elaborate, slightly over-the-top, and incredibly anachronistic, Avi hesitated to refer to them, even mentally, as costumes. The men and women wearing them did so with natural ease, as if this is what they’d worn every day of their life, and they couldn’t imagine even touching a pair of jeans, much less putting them on.
The entire effect was rather chaotic, and yet purposeful. Avi wasn’t sure what message it was supposed to send – wasn’t even sure the message was for her and not for someone else who would be fetched by their own miniature dragon as soon as she was on her way.
Avi slowly made her way through the throngs of people chattering away in Mandarin and ignoring her existence. Interestingly enough, she heard at least a few strains of Cantonese and at least one person had a very distinctly Taiwanese accent, until she found herself in front of the chair in the middle of the room. A chair that was so very pointedly not a throne.
In the not-throne was a stately woman, her hair elaborately coiffed, her face a blank mask. She was stunningly beautiful, in an artificial, unnatural kind of way. Her eyes, for example, were a little too black, and as they were focusing on Avi in full force, the attention was more than a little unnerving. In stark contrast to the people around her, the Matriarch was the only one dressed in what might pass for modern clothing. She was wearing a pair of black slacks and a navy blue blouse. The blouse was embroidered with what Avi’s untrained eye identified as Words for protection, for wisdom, and possibly for intimidation, and even more that she couldn’t interpret.
There were two attendants on either side of her, each wearing black slacks and a plain navy blue blouse, obviously some sort of uniform. They each bore a tray in their hands, and each tray held something different. Their expressions were uniformly impassive.
“It is a pleasure to have you before us,” the Matriarch said in perfect English, with a lilting accent.
“It is a pleasure to be before you,” Avi responded, the words stiff and formal in her mouth. “On behalf of Lau Family, I wish you happiness and prosperity as is only right.”
“Please, have a seat,” the Matriarch said, snapping her fingers.
A stool appeared in front of her, with an embroidered cushion on top it. The embroidered Words were too small for Avi to decipher, but since refusing would have been the height of rudeness, she hoped they weren’t anything bad and sat down.
“Tea,” the Matriarch announced.
“No, that’s alright,” Avi tried to demur.
“I insist,” the Matriarch said in a steely tone.
Avi pasted on a smile as one of the attendants who bore a tray with a statue on it then brought her tray to the Matriarch and bowed. The Matriarch broke off the tip of the statue with a small knife, to Avi’s surprise, and as this attendant stepped back into place, another stepped forward with a teapot.
What followed was some sort of complicated tea ceremony where the bit of statue was the tea, and the hot water was summoned as the stool had been. The entire ceremony was different from more mundane tea ceremonies Avi’d observed, and seemed to involve a lot of attendants bowing excessively.
This, too, was probably supposed to send a message only Avi was too dense to pick it up. She didn’t mind – if the Zhang Family were going to go to such lengths to send subtle messages, they should learn sooner or later that direct messages worked better. As she watched the entire thing and tried to stifle a yawn, she thought to herself, This is what my parents left behind. This is why they left.
Rather than take sides on centuries-old Feuds and abuse their Talent, rather than adhere to tradition to the point of absurdity, rather than relying on formalized structures that stifled ingenuity and restricted progress, rather than look on in disapproval as Families started meddling in national politics, for all these reasons and more, her parents had left this country for America.
All so their daughter wouldn’t have to sit through a stupidly boringly long tea ceremony and deal with unnecessary formality as she is forced to choose a side – and yet here Avi was, despite everything her parents had done so she didn’t have to be.
Fortunately, she recognized the irony.
When the tea seemed done, the attendant bore a cup over to Avi, who politely sipped at it even though she personally couldn’t abide the bitter taste of tea without at least six sugar cubes.
“This is 普洱茶 (Pu’er tea),” the Matriarch explained. “It was gathered in 云南 (Yunnan) over a hundred years ago from the wild trees, the 古树 that grow on 蛮砖山 (Manzhuan Mountain). The leaves were then laid to dry out under the sun, then pan-fried, rolled into strand, and dried in the sun again. The bad leaves were removed, and the leaves were then pressed into the statue you see Feifei holding. The entire process until the pressing was done by hand the mundane way, and then the Family Patriarch of the time personally oversaw the shaping into a statue, using his Talent to ensure accuracy. Over time, of course, more and more Talent has been added to the leaves through Words drawn, through Spells cast, through Chants whispered. So while Pu’er tea typically darkens as it ages, and the taste grows mellow, this tea has also gained certain … special properties.”
Avi blinked at that last statement, and looked uncertainly at her teacup.
“Do not worry,” the Matriarch chuckled, though her eyes weren’t smiling. “The special properties are good ones, certain blessings and the like. I wouldn’t poison a guest. I tell you this because I think it is important you understand that this tea is valuable because it is so old. That age has only improved it, and that as a result, there is a special way to make the tea to ensure the best flavor. You saw me run hot water through it three times, for example. The first is to wash off the dust, the second to wash away the bitterest of the taste, and the third is the tea that I serve you. That is the way it is done. That is the way to ensure that the tea I offer my guests is quality tea.
“Do you understand my point?”
“Of course,” Avi said, bowing her head. “The point is taken.”
“Good,” the Matriarch said, and then waved her attendants away.
Avi waited quietly for the Matriarch to make the next move.
“I trust your mother is doing well,” the Matriarch said. “It has been so long since we last spoke.”
It was all Avi could do to keep from gaping, not just from the abrupt change in topic but also from the new topic – this woman knew her mother?
“She cut quite an impressive figure back in the day,” the Matriarch mused. “I suppose now that she’s settled down, she no longer duels quite so much?”
Avi struggled to get her brain past the cognitive dissonance (her Mother dueling?) and formulate a response. “Not lately, no,” Avi responded on automatic, adding a polite smile that made it more of a pleasantry than an actual piece of information.
“I was surprised when I heard of Lau Family having four children when she’d once been so adamant on remaining childless her whole life,” the Matriarch continued. “Your Family must be so proud to have four young Heirs to carry on the Family legacy.”
“Three Heirs,” Avi corrected, ignoring the bit about her mother. “Although my parents love me as much as my siblings, I lack Talent and so cannot be named Heir.” Might as well get that out there. Avi debated telling the Matriarch that Nadia was all but formally declared Heir Official, but decided in the end that it was none of Zhang Family’s business.
“Surely you’re just a late bloomer, or your Talent is undiscovered,” the Matriarch suggested. “Lau Family hasn’t had a 无能 …what is it in English? Ah yes, a Dud. Lau Family hasn’t had a Dud in near three generations now, is that not the case?”
“Lau Family hasn’t been around for three generations, but yes, I am the first Dud three generations back through both my mother’s and my father’s line,” Avi said cheerfully, while all she really wanted to do was claw the woman’s eyes out. The Matriarch’s tone pretended at sympathy, but her eyes revealed cruelty. She knew she was prying into old wounds, that this must be a sore subject. She probably knew about the unTalent as soon as it became public knowledge, she was the kind of person who would keep tabs on foreign rumors like that. Yet she either didn’t believe it or wanted to be cruel, so she was determined to press the issue. Fortunately, Avi had been brought up to stand firm. “So really, my blessings on the House are formality, and will have no effect,” she pretended to apologize.
Blessings were ritual, but tradition had it that they were only effective when uttered by Talented. For this reason, Avi’d never said them in her life until today, and still found the words stylized and ridiculous. Formally acknowledging this, however, was tantamount to withdrawing them – yet remaining with the bounds of civility.
“How … incredible,” the Matriarch said, her face twisting as if she’d bitten into a sour persimmon. “And so have you come to search for a way to restore your Talent?”
“There’s no Talent to restore,” Avi corrected. “I never had it in the first place.”
“Nevertheless, I’m sure there’s something in the ancient scrolls about how to remedy your situation. Is that why you have come?”
“No, it is not. I don’t care about my unTalent,” Avi said very firmly. “I understand that I was born without Talent, and I’m okay with that, as is my family. I came to enjoy a year off before I start medical school.”
“You’re not telling me that your mother and your father, so ambitious they went to a new country to start their own legacy, are satisfied that they’ve birthed a Dud?” The Matriarch wasn’t even trying to be nice now, her tone just slightly mocking.
“My parents accept me the way I am,” Avi said with bravado, as much to convince herself as to convince her opponent.
“I suppose they must, if they sent you as emissary,” the Matriarch sighed. “So? What’ll it be?”
“I’m sorry?” Avi said, taken aback. “I thought I made it clear – I’m not here on behalf of my family.”
“Nonsense. You really think your parents sent you to the city with the most Talent this side of the Pacific Ocean, and expected you to maintain cover as mundane? You are a message they are sending to the people of Beijing.”
“Well, then it’s a message I wasn’t informed about?” Avi said coolly.
“You do seem to lack subtlety,” the Matriarch admitted. Avi tried not to take offense. “Nevertheless, the point remains. Whether or not you are aware of it, you are a message, and you were sent here with some purpose towards benefiting your family. And since you are here with a purpose, you must also fulfill a purpose. You must choose a side.”
“I’m not one of your Family,” Avi said tightly. “You don’t give me orders. There is no need for Lau Family to take a stance on matters on the other side of the globe.”
The room suddenly silenced, and Avi felt the eyes of everyone in the room on her. She tensed.
“Little girl,” the Matriarch said, “you’re unTalented in a room full of men and women who would execute you right now if I but gave the order, and you dare show incivility?”
Avi gave the Matriarch a withering look. Although she was generally used to such threats being unvoiced, being unTalented in a room full of Talented was nothing new. Granted, there hadn’t been a Patriarch or Matriarch this upset with Avi in a while (not including Mom and Dad, who were generally always upset for one reason or another at some point each visit home, but that “upset” tended to spread across four siblings so it wasn’t as noticeable).
The Matriarch laughed. “You have … what is the word? Spunk. You have spunk, girl, I’ll give you that. So let me explain the matter to you. There are currently four different alliances battling over control of Beijing. We’ve been battling for over a century now, so that’s nothing new. What’s new is you. You are being added to the equation, and you’re an unknown. Most think you are hiding your Talent and represent your own interests. Even if you are unTalented, however, you still represent your Family’s interests. You are new, and new … new is not good, not unless new can be categorized.”
The Matriarch waved her hand and an attendant appeared to refill her tea.
“You see, my alliance currently consists of the two oldest Families in Beijing, our own illustrious Family and the Wang Family. And where I’m softhearted, the Matriarch of the Wang Family is much less so. In her perspective, one I rightly understand, if you do not side with us, you could very easily side with one of the other alliances, which is not permissible.
“So, Miss 李莲味,” she said, addressing Avi by her Chinese name, “here is how the matter stands. I find you amusing, so I will give you 48 hours to consider the matter. At the end of the 48 hours, you will either have left the country or have chosen a side. Lack of response is not an option – if you don’t elect to side with us, I’m afraid we’ll have to consider you an enemy, assume you’ve joined one of the other alliances, and deal with you accordingly.”
She waved again. “柳雅 will show you out,” she said.
And like that, Avi was dismissed. An attendant materialized to remove the stool, the bystanders parted to open a path to the door, where someone was waiting. Avi didn’t even bother with the formalized farewell formula, she just turned and left. She was so through with this shit.
And, of course, she was unsurprised to see that the person showing her out would be none other than Maya.
