youfightgood:

Shang eyed Ping carefully, as if he could automatically detect hidden motives in that boyishly round face, strangely moon-shaped and chalky (though when one spends their time indoors pursuing scholarly habits, as he suspected of his smallest soldier, paleness was to be expected). He found nothing deceitful in Ping’s wide, innocent eyes. Under his breath, he grunted a little hm and set his gaze ahead. The mountains yawned and stretched across the expanse of the awakening sky, painted in the same rich hues as ripe peaches: yellows, oranges, reds. Fierce, rousing colors that kindled one’s excitement. Or at least, they should have.

“I am the eldest son,” he said on an exhale. And he knew well the expectation that came with being the first son of a general of the Imperial Army, knew the title made him seem ever more imposing. On the question of siblings… he looked at Ping carefully now. 

“I have a younger sister.” He narrowed his eyes. Li Xiá was beautiful and of marriageable age; she frequently pinned her thick hair into a bundle of gold combs and jade pins atop her head, floating by on little feet as if she were perched on a cloud. Shang preferred not to think of the many suitors whose attention she must have attracted by now. “She is not available, if you are wondering.”

Ping shook his head mutely back and forth, which was a little difficult to do and keep pace.  He abandoned it then, realizing his denial was surely clear enough by now, and broke into a sort of trot to regain his position, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with his commanding officer.  The top of his head seemed to rise and fall as Ping hastened his stride; he was unaware of the way that his weight seemed to settle in the balls of his feet when he walked, like an acrobat poised to leap.  Mushu had tried to train him into a “man walk,” but even Ping could see that no man in camp strutted the way he’d been made to do on his very first day.  

Nobody would notice if he walked as he’d always done, right?

“Heh,” he chuckled gruffly, feeling as if Captain Shang’s remark had made the silence an unwieldy one.  That is, it certainly was odd, for Ping, whenever he was forcibly reminded that those around him expected the young soldier to find women attractive and appealing.  But the captain couldn’t - shouldn’t - be expected to know that!  Trying to appear nonchalant, Ping waved his hand dismissively through the air.  "Don’t even worry about me.  Uh, that is, not that I don’t would ever not want to um…Well, I’m seventeen,“ finished the recruit, looking as defensive as if he hadn’t been the one to revive the topic in the first place.  "My family -

"They expected I’d marry soon.”  He wasn’t sure what had come over him, apart from the sudden frankness, but if there was one thing Ping was beginning to learn about lying, it was that the less you had to lie about, the more convincing it seemed.  Which made a lot of sense - of course the truth would sound like truth.  But of course the truth was far from what Ping expected his commanding officer to think.  And the words, spoken aloud, made Ping flush in remembered shame far more keenly than he had when he was alone with his unspoken thoughts.  He frowned and kicked at a pebble, missing it narrowly with the side of his foot.  "But I guess war changes that.“