A monumental frown is working its way onto Mingjue's face, one entirely self-directed. As Huaisang clings to him and Mingjue clings back, patting him soothingly, Mingjue feels his convictions rock like unstable ground. Because Mingjue had pushed and pushed Huaisang to be everything he needed to be for when he'd inevitably become sect leader and this was the result.
Ten years dead and Huaisang is offering no babble about the family he built or all the things Mingjue missed, just apologies and fears and failures scattered among the sorrow-in-joy of finding someone thought irrevocably lost. That's more upsetting than anything Mingjue's learned yet since his arrival. Worse because the fights over saber practice—he had those just recently, before the war and some after, prodding the child Huaisang was to put that brain to work, to use his saber, to at least try. How that became this, he has no idea.
"You were always smart. You are always smart. Of course you'd have found another way," Mingjue says helplessly. A fight he could handle, or his little brother's tears when they were childhood tears, but this kind of regret leaves him out of his depth. He flails for reassurances, some part of him despairing that his little brother never became accomplished at the saber, but if failing at it caused this much pain... "You did good, I promise. The sect's still standing, isn't it? Huaisang, it's fine, I'm proud of you anyway. You kept going after I was gone. I never thought trying to get you to use your saber would trouble you like this."
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Ten years dead and Huaisang is offering no babble about the family he built or all the things Mingjue missed, just apologies and fears and failures scattered among the sorrow-in-joy of finding someone thought irrevocably lost. That's more upsetting than anything Mingjue's learned yet since his arrival. Worse because the fights over saber practice—he had those just recently, before the war and some after, prodding the child Huaisang was to put that brain to work, to use his saber, to at least try. How that became this, he has no idea.
"You were always smart. You are always smart. Of course you'd have found another way," Mingjue says helplessly. A fight he could handle, or his little brother's tears when they were childhood tears, but this kind of regret leaves him out of his depth. He flails for reassurances, some part of him despairing that his little brother never became accomplished at the saber, but if failing at it caused this much pain... "You did good, I promise. The sect's still standing, isn't it? Huaisang, it's fine, I'm proud of you anyway. You kept going after I was gone. I never thought trying to get you to use your saber would trouble you like this."