patration | before the hall are gathered peaches and plums

When Zhuge was a young child, years before he had been carted away to court for higher schooling, he'd often spent his afternoons searching through zhe trees for the small, fat worms which ate away at their leaves, collecting them in boxes to bring back to the house. Zhe trees were common in the northern and eastern parts of the land, if less so the closer one drew to shore, and so silk production was a widely known skill in Yanzhou, albeit one often saved for the upper-middle class, a job which didn't require as many hours tilling the earth as his own family's crops of wheat and maize had needed. His elder sisters, both beautiful and highly sought after as potential brides, often served as a helping hand with such work, feeding thousands of silkworms a day and helping to twist the strands they produced into thread. Curious as he'd always been, Zhuge requested guidance once on how to get such threads started, and his second sister had brought back an intricate carved box in which the worms could be held in and breathe.

As of yet, he's been unsuccessful in finding any silkworms on the island, or trees similar to the zhe he often climbed around in those years, but Zhuge finds himself wondering, regardless, if silken threads from certain types of garments, undyed and untreated, might be able to serve as strings for a guzheng. Sitting just outside the bakery, a hollowed out guzheng body rests by his side, painstakingly crafted over the course of months, and a small, contained fire keeps a pot of glue melted by its side. His brow furrows as he dips the first thread into the glue, not minding its heat as he twists it tight and uses the tip of his finger to brush excess off, a couple of drops landing on the rest of the partially deconstructed robe. Chances are, it won't work, and he'll have to ask for access to the scrapyard in hopes of finding thin metal wiring, but Zhuge has never been one to let odds overwhelm him.

Less so when he looks up to find a familiar face standing just a few paces away.

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"Ni hao!" Cassie chirps happily. It doesn't seem to matter how often she sees him; whether by appointment or by chance, the sight of Zhuge is ever a pleasant surprise, a cherished thing that Cassie half expects to be torn from her at any moment.

"Have you come for a pastry?" she asks, hurrying towards him with ever widening eyes. "Oh, but what are you making? Not another crossbow, Liang."

"Ni hao, Cassie," Zhuge smiles, calm as he continues to hold the string in the air, waiting for it to dry, but save for that small fraction of his attention, the rest is suddenly fixated on her. While not as strong or constant, still, she shines like the sun. It's impossible to miss that. With his free hand, he waves at the empty space in front of him, inviting her to sit if she wishes— he's always liked this particular spot, the smells of fresh bread wafting over. (If it entices her to eat, too, then all the better.)

"I am trying to make string for music instrument," he adds calmly, blowing on the string before pinching the end. Not quite dry enough, he still picks at both ends of the string and holds it out over the body of the guzheng to demonstrate to Cassie. "I need to make many strings. But... I do not have the best silk to make string."

"Oh wow," Cassie breathes. She takes the seat offered her, bony knees set to the wood so she can lever herself closer to his project, already of far more interest to her than a bow could ever be. "Will it be like a guitar? Only, how will silk make music, Liang?" She pushes her tumbling hair behind her ears lest it harm the still drying strings. "Mustn't strings be wire?"

"In my world, we do not have... thin wire," he explains, holding two fingers closely together to demonstrate the width that he's seen in various possessions of the citizens around the island. While certain artists have spent endless amounts of time hammering and coiling gold for jewelry and decor alike, to find a type of metal pliable enough and capable of producing a pleasant sound is a challenge as of yet unmet by artisans of his time. "We use silk, hold together with blue. It is strong, and it has gentle sound. But best silk come from the worm, and silk worm do not live on this island." He shoots Cassie another look, one that beckons her to keep watch as he tests the string again, and finding it decently pliable, stretches it across the span of the board and clips it in with a wedge of bamboo to hold it in place.

Carefully wiping his fingers on the cloth he'd held aside for this very reason, Zhuge presses curiously down on the string with his left hand, sliding along the edge— the texture isn't quite smooth enough, but better than he'd expected for a first try— before plucking intermittently with his right index finger as his left pushes down and draws closer to the bridge wedge, each sounding higher than the last.

"It is not very good," he confesses with a soft laugh, shaking his head.

"Oh, but it shall be," says Cassie, beaming, and might feel more embarrassed for her earnestness, but she's already made a practise of worshiping him at every turn. "You are making it, so I know it's clever, and will be perfect once you've puzzled it all out. Have you made them at home? Oh Liang, can you play them?"

She seizes his sleeve, fingers happily free of glue, in her excitement. "Perhaps you'll make me one, too, and then you'll teach me."

There's a laugh that tugs its way out of his chest when her fingers grab onto his sleeve, an action brazen, if not necessarily quite as tactile. He wonders if this is simply a preference of Cassie's, or if perhaps she's gleaned a great deal more from their friendship than Zhuge could have ever expected. It takes close friends, he thinks, to catch these little details in one another. They're the only ones who'll care, aside from enemies, but unlike the latter group, friends come in for the sheer beauty of the other, rather than treating the relationship as a game, or something meant to be exploited. Maybe she's realized that it's most polite to hide one's hands behind the sleeve rather than making plain contact, skin to skin.

Or maybe she's simply charming in that way, undeniable across time and cultures alike.

"I have not make guzheng before. But I have play it many times, and open the guzheng to change string," he explains, shifting his hand until he can momentarily rest it over her own, a gesture more intimate than most he's known. "If I make good guzheng, I will teach you everything I know."

His fingers fold warm over her own, and Cassie's heart, already full to bursting, aches that much more. "I will be an avid student," she promises. "I did well in school, when I cared enough, and I promise to care very much."

She keeps hold of his sleeve, his arm steadying her when she leans in again. The body of the instrument seems so long, with pegs for so many strings. She only hopes her fingers will be long enough. "Do you sing as well? But perhaps it's best if I not try that."

"Everybody sings," Zhuge replies, hand shifting until it clasps hers in full, before reaching out to rest on her shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. She's beautiful when she's like this, bright and excited and full to burst. She's beautiful at other times too, of course, when she falls and winds like a fluttering leaf to the ground, but Zhuge knows that he prefers her like this, standing strong and ready to give life everything that she has within her. As long as he can inspire that in any capacity, Zhuge feels that the day is a fulfilling one. Reaching out to tuck an errant lock of hair behind her ear, Zhuge raises a brow.

"I do not know if I sing well. I do not sing for other people," he adds with a tilt of his head.

"Well," says Cassie, grinning, "on your own head be it, Liang. I'm not certain I sing well, either, but if I did I think I'd know. But perhaps it will be awful, and my guzheng playing will sound all the better for it. It will be a scheme, and only you will know the truth."

He laughs, a hand raised to carefully pet at his chin in consideration as his gaze skirts up and to the sky overhead, as though it might have the answers to this, might be able to tell him just how decent of a singer he is. It's not a skill he's practiced, nor one that he's really tried for at all. Zhuge finds that there is often too much that can be read in a voice, whether in spoken word or sung, and in a way that isn't completely reflected in the pluck or pull of a string. Voice is something over which a person has nearly complete agency, and the last thing that Zhuge would want to have happen is to let his intentions slip with song.

He remembers being invited to play at Zhou Yu's, remembers all that he heard in the other man's playing. To sing would only magnify that effect several times over. "Next time, I will sing for you," he offers with a tilt of his head. "But Cassie needs to promise: no laugh."

before the hall are gathered peaches and plums

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