Work Text:
Nie Huaisang, sect leader of Qinghe Nie, is not afraid of war.
He is seventeen when the Qishan Wen open their honest fire, but he has been leading the sect since he was twelve and his little brother was five and he knows how to wield his own sect as extensions of his own mind. He has been waiting for the Wen, preparing, since his father was destroyed by them. Nie Huaisang has always been expected to protect his little brother, even though Mingjue seems more inclined to the martial side of their duties than Nie Huaisang ever was himself, and it is simple: Nie Huaisang will tear the mountains apart, if doing so will shelter his brother from the sky that is falling around them.
(He studies at the Cloud Recesses only once, when he is fifteen, and finds it somewhere between useless and the softest summer he has ever loved. He has been sect leader for three years, at that point, and it is the first time he has been able to lay down his responsibilities and be a fool, a child, and he makes friends and falls in rivers and lets himself almost fail the lessons. And yet he cannot fail the lessons - because he leads the Qinghe Nie - and he cannot attend again, because his duties require his presence, and he is all the time consumed by a fierce anxiety that calls him back home, that reminds him Mingjue is only eight despite his height, and his saber does not obey him, and if this is the moment the Wen choose to attack in earnest we will be utterly unprepared -
He is not the only teenager to grow up too fast, though. Two years later, Jiang Wanyin is a sect leader himself, and there is a cold blankness to Wei Wuxian’s dark eyes that Nie Huaisang watches closely like he would a super-weapon, and suddenly the Qinghe Nie sect is in the second most stable position of all and Nie Huaisang is startled to find he knows exactly what to do with it.)
This is the truth: Nie Huaisang, sect leader of Qinghe Nie, has been waiting for this war since he was twelve and his little brother was five and his father was destroyed from the inside out by a blow struck by Wen Ruohan. Nie Huaisang knows he is not what anyone expects from the leader of the Nie - but he does not care.
He would prefer, actually, if Wen Ruohan were to continue to underestimate him. The better to keep his battle formations a surprise.
(He was not expecting to rekindle his friendship with Jiang Wanyin after everything, and yet it happens, one day after the fall of the Nightless City - he and his old friend meet on a parapet and look over the city they conquered together.
Nie Huaisang says, “I know you’re new to this. If you ever need help -”
Jiang Wanyin snaps, “Don’t patronise me.”
“I’m not,” Nie Huaisang protests - it was a gesture of trust to even extend the offer, to break either of the facades he likes to switch between, the serene clever da-ge of Qinghe Nie or the young panicked sect leader he shows to the rest of the world - but he lets Jiang Wanyin have this one.
Jiang Wanyin says, halting and gruff like he’s very upset about it, “Did you mean your previous offer? You won’t change your mind?”
Nie Huaisang looks sideways, considering, and then decides to commit. He turns to look Jiang Wanyin in the eye, lets himself speak honestly. “Your da shixiong,” he says, voice low, “is someone I would like to have uncompromisingly on my side. As is the Jiang sect. And you know it would be beneficial for you, too - your position is one that demands you make alliances, and make them quick. So yes, Jiang Wanyin. For the sake of mutual benefit, and for the sake of the summer you gave me that let me be a child, I meant my offer earnestly.”
“Wei Wuxian may take some convincing,” Jiang Wanyin warns.
“I’m very good at convincing people,” Nie Huaisang counters, feeling viciously victorious, and lets himself smile. If this man is to be sworn to him, after all, he will have to know the truth of Nie Huaisang’s skilfully hidden fury.
He has been doing this since he was twelve. He is not some soft thing to be protected.)
Nie Huaisang is not afraid of war. Similarly, he is not afraid of peace.
He knows how to leverage it to his and his sect’s advantage; he and Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian bow together at the top of the great Nightless City’s steps, and from then on he is da-ge (though it took some argument, Nie Huaisang is just a little older than either of the others, and the teenager in him which he is learning to be occasionally takes great pleasure in this fact).
Nie Mingjue says, a little mulish after another argument in which Nie Huaisang begged him to devote more time to studies other than the saber (this is peacetime, didi, at least for now, and I will not allow you to make yourself a creature of war that is blunt and useless when there is nothing to fight), “Do I have to call Jiang-zongzhu san-ge?”
Nie Huaisang laughs. He and his brother are kneeling together at a table, and he is undoing Mingjue’s braids, and the atmosphere is very comfortable. “If you would like,” he says. “He might take offense, but I’ll talk him down. He’s very silly sometimes.”
“I’m glad he makes you smile,” Mingjue says, too gruff for a boy of eleven. It twists Nie Huaisang’s chest a little - he does not want his little brother to have to grow up so prematurely, like he did. And then Mingjue says, too pointed, with a little smile on him, “You like him a lot. It shows.”
“I’m predisposed to like idiots with no sense of their own self-worth or safety who prefer to shout than to talk things out,” Nie Huaisang counters, and tugs on one of Mingjue’s braids, a little teasing. “Because I have a brat for a brother.”
“No, no,” Mingjue says, and the smile’s broadening. “You like him in a different way than you like me. I can tell.”
Nie Huaisang turns that over in his head. Then he stands, indignant. “Nie Mingjue!” he shouts, trying his absolute best to restrain his own laughter. (And, gods help him, Mingjue is right - but Nie Huaisang will absolutely not give him the satisfaction of hearing it.)
“It’s true,” Mingjue counters, scrambling to his own feet and then to the door.
Nie Huaisang watches his little brother flee, sighs, and kneels again. In private, there is no need to restrain his smile. And so he lets himself feel it, just a little.
He has won the war. He has avenged his father. His little brother is safe, and still a child, and willing to tease Nie Huaisang for his crushes; his sect is stable and strong, and Wei Wuxian is a threat relatively neutralised for now, and Jiang Wanyin is fiercely loyal to his promises; and Nie Huaisang himself, just eighteen, has fulfilled his duties.
He feels his saber lurking on the edges of his consciousness, of course; he always does. But for now, he is free to be teased by his little brother, to finally let himself feel the innocent boyhood crush that he has been ruthlessly suppressing since age fifteen, to sit in solitude and undo his own braids and let himself smile. For now, he has won.
Nie Huaisang, sect leader of Qinghe Nie, is a child raised in war. He is not afraid of peace.