Title: How to map the heart
Fandom: Guardian
Rating: G-rated
Length: 1353 words
Notes: The Mirror Girl in Dixing. Thanks to mergatrude for beta and title. ♥ No warnings.
Tags: Deportation/Displacement, Heartbreak, Hopeful Ending
Summary: The Black-Cloaked Envoy had brought her to a boarding house.



She keeps the name and the face. They’re the only things she has left that feel like hers, even though they aren’t really. And she carries Ji Xiaobai’s broken promises like glass shards, as if one day she’ll be able to fit them back together and fill them with milk to drink.

Every time she changes her grip, they cut her to the bone. Stupid Xiaobai.

The Black-Cloaked Envoy had brought her to a boarding house. “You don’t have to stay here, but if you let her, Grandmother Tan will help you find your feet. And—unfortunately, it’s safest you don’t speak openly of your past or of politics to people in Dixing unless you know them well. But you can talk to Grandmother Tan and the others here.”

The old lady’s face is kind, but for days Weiwei can’t say anything. Can’t recount how she put her trust in a Haixing man who promised to love her completely. Can’t say she lied to him, hiding her true nature. Can’t tell of the girl whose face and name she shares, who’d once been her only friend. She feels wretched. When she eats, she thinks of them together in their apartment, and her stomach heaves. Will they go through with the wedding, those two?

She’ll never know.

She wanders the nearby streets like a ghost, avoiding eye contact, her surroundings a shadowy blur. Dragon City had been vivid and colourful, taken for granted; she hadn’t known to drink in its details with her eyes and her heart, to store them deep inside her as nourishment for the dark, lean rest of her life. She hadn’t known it would end, not like this.

She should have taken photos.

Coming down from her bedroom one day, she hears voices and stops in the doorway, out of sight. Grandma Tan is at the kitchen table with one of the other boarders, who Weiwei’s only seen twice before. The girl has short hair and glasses, and spends most of her time in her room. Weiwei can’t remember her name until Grandma Tan says, “Here you are, Xiao Liqiu.”

Grandma Tan holds out a long spark.

No, not a spark. It’s a needle, gleaming in the kitchen firelight. Craning her head, Weiwei spies a sewing box open on the chair next to Grandma Tan, and a large square of silk rumpled on Fu Liqiu’s lap. How can anyone see to do needlework in this dim light? How can anyone do anything?

“Thank you, Grandma Tan.” Fu Liqiu takes the needle carefully. She has to hold it right in front of her nose to thread it, and it reflects in her glasses, once in each lens, doubling. Then she picks up the silk, revealing dense embroidery but no clear repeating pattern or picture. There are bold, intersecting stripes, rows of squares and angles, and snaking lines, all beautifully stitched.

Grandma Tan reaches out and traces one curve with her fingertip. “I remember this bend in the river. I used to play here with my friends when I was a girl.”

Fu Liqiu spreads another section wide. “I’m stuck on this part. I can’t remember—can you, Grandma Tan? Is the library on the east or west side of Hepin Road?”

“In my day, the main library was in the north of the city,” says Grandma Tan. “The one in this street must be less than a hundred years old.”

Weiwei steps into the room, drawn forward by understanding. “Is that—?” She takes one edge of the cloth to fan it out on the table, but Fu Liqiu snatches it back.

“Don’t. It’s nothing.” Her fingers clench in the creamy fabric. “It’s not finished.”

Weiwei has already glimpsed the distinctive outline of the university buildings, the plan familiar from when she’d first escaped the mirror and had to learn her way around. She blurts, “Oh, I went to school there.”

“How?” Fu Liqiu glares at her in disbelief. “How could you go to school when you’re Dixingren? You can’t have had papers. They wouldn’t let you in.”

“I swapped places with my reflection,” says Weiwei, forgetting for a moment all that had come after. “She was doing geology. If I’d had a choice—”

If she’d had a choice, she’d have chosen a different science—chemistry or biology. Maybe even business studies. But it had been the other Weiwei’s life all along. She’d spent the whole last year pretending, terrified of discovery, working day and night to fool everyone. Even Xiaobai. Especially Xiaobai.

“Hei Pao Shi has proposed opening a school Down Here,” says Grandmother Tan, into the pause. “But of course, the Regent keeps putting obstacles in the way.”

“How do you know that?” Weiwei lowers her voice as if the walls might overhear. “The palace—I thought it wasn’t safe to talk about anything to do with it.”

“You just need to be careful who you open your mouth to, like with anything,” says Grandma Tan. “One of our neighbours’ sons is a palace guard, and he hears rumours.”

A school. If there were a real school in Dixing—a chance for a fresh start, even in the dark—that would be better than drifting like this. And Weiwei could choose her own studies this time. She could enrol as herself.

Fu Liqiu is staring at the outline of the university on her embroidery, her eyes burning with intensity. She glances up suddenly and catches Weiwei looking, but instead of telling her off, she quirks her mouth in a bitter smile. “I couldn’t go to university Up There, but I always wanted to learn about animals.”

“Zoology,” supplies Weiwei.

Fu Liqiu shakes her head. “Veterinary science.”

“Oh. Cool.” Weiwei doesn’t know anything about animals in Haixing or Dixing, but suddenly she’s curious. Do people here have pets? Maybe Fu Liqiu knows. Maybe she’ll tell her.

Grandma Tan stands and pushes Weiwei into her own vacated chair. “Sit down, dear, and help Fu Liqiu plan her embroidery. I’ll make you both some breakfast.”

This time, when Weiwei reaches for the fabric, Fu Liqiu doesn’t pull it away. Weiwei pores over the design, streets she walked every day, a tea shop she used to like. “This is amazing. What are you going to do with it?”

“Wear it as a scarf.” Fu Liqiu’s voice hardens like concrete. “Wear it always.”

“Amazing.” It will be a silent rebellion against being here, against having their lives snatched away from them. Weiwei is almost jealous. “How can I help?”

Fu Liqiu smiles for real, then, though she quickly ducks her head and smooths the thread in her needle. “I don’t know—can you remember where the library is?”

Weiwei closes her eyes, takes a breath and lets the memories come: the city’s streets and buildings and parks, its tastes and sounds and smells. They’re all inside her, after all. They’re part of her—and maybe, in the end, she is still a piece of the city. A missing, displaced piece. Maybe—maybe she is missed.

She sniffs, wipes her eyes, and points to the correct place on the scarf. “The library’s on the east side of Hepin Road, between the bakery and the bicycle store.”

“Oh, yes, the bakery with the good egg custard tarts,” says Fu Liqiu, her eyes lighting. “Yes, I remember now. Thank you.”

Weiwei shakes her hair back and sits up straighter. “I remember, too.”

In a flash, different futures unfold. She could hold onto the past, wear it as a badge of defiance. She could even try to find her way back. Or she can learn this place, these people—get to know Dixing and make a map in her heart of its landmarks. See if the school eventuates. Try out being herself. She has choices.

Mostly, right now, she wants home and Xiaobai and even the other Weiwei. She’s been torn down the middle, and the ragged edge aches and aches. But despite herself, a spark is flaring, a needle by firelight—and it’s up to her what she does with it.

Maybe she’ll make something amazing.


END