Huaisang's home is a beautiful place, with manicured lawns and garden areas surrounding the central house. He's left the gate unlocked, and greets his guest at the door with a smile. For something as traditional as the tea ceremony, Huaisang's worn his traditional robes from home, something he hardly ever does anymore.
"Lovely to see you again," Huaisang greets him, pleased to see Hubert.
Leading him into the house, Huaisang takes him through to the tea room. It also serves as his dining room, but he has clear priorities as to which of these things is more deserving of having a room dedicated to it.
Huaisang kneels at one of the cushions at the table, gesturing for Hubert to take the place opposite. He's pleased with his table, which is primarily designed for kneeling but also has a footwell underneath to allow guests to sit upright if they aren't comfortable with kneeling.
Hubert greets Huaisang with a small bow, arms folded behind his back.
"Good afternoon. You look quite nice." Hubert is wearing his same outfit as usual, minus the cape, which feels a bit much in Duplicity most of the time, and he hasn't really prioritized shopping for other clothing yet. Though, as he's led into Huaisang's house, he realizes the cape wouldn't have been too much at all. It's huge and lavish, something he can only compare in scale to the Imperial household, though the architecture and stylings are completely different.
Hubert is... Not a flexible man. He does his best to kneel on the pillow opposite Huaisang, grimacing slightly at his discomfort, but wanting to give it a proper try.
"Thank you." Huaisang beams happily, always glad to receive praise on his home. "I did all the interior design and the paintings." They'd walked past an elegant black and white mural showing a serene mountain town in the previous room, and Huaisang gestures toward the painting on the wall in his tearoom, another minimalist black and white piece showing mountains in a sea of mist.
He's set up for their tea, with a heavy iron kettle hanging on a hook beside the table. To start, Huaisang picks up a wooden chest and opens it, taking out a few different waxed paper packets of tea. He makes his selections based on the knowledge that Hubert likes coffee--and seems to be a restrained person in general who doesn't care much for indulgence. First, a Keemun Gongfu tea, a classic varietal, with a woodsy, slightly malty flavor. He holds out the packet toward Hubert. "Breathe in the scent. You're going to choose one of these three."
The next one he offers is a Dian Hong Gong tea, curling golden leaves with a warm scent like cocoa and black pepper. The third one is a Lapsang Souchong tea, his brother's favorite. It's more of an acquired taste than the others, being smoked over pinewood fires, a smokyness that stands up to the bold flavor of the tea, but Huaisang includes it because he thinks that the bold intensity of it might help to win Hubert over. "Which one shall we do?" Huaisang asks, once all three have been presented.
Hubert looks over at the painting, awed by the size and the style of it.
"Wow. You are quite talented."
The Ignatz of Ancient China, perhaps.
Hubert prefers coffee, however, he doesn't hate tea by any means. There were a couple of teas he enjoyed back home, one being a fruit blend from Dagda, and a cinnamon blend. He generally enjoys more "exotic" and spicy flavours, and has a sophisticated palate. He smells each of the teas, closing his eyes and considering each carefully. The second one smells almost similar to coffee, and he picks up on the notes of pepper in it.
"Thank you." Huaisang's cheeks flush with pleasure at the compliment and he ducks his chin for a moment, but his smile stays wide and pleased.
Once the tea has been chosen, breaks off enough leaves from the tea cake and places them in his bamboo tea scoop, then he tucks the other packets away and closes the tea chest. Reaching for the hanging iron kettle, he uses his fingertip to sketch a sigil over the surface in silvery light. Within seconds, steam begins to rise from the spout, and Huaisang lifts it carefully from the hook and pours some into his teapot. He works with patient, graceful motions, intent upon each step of his tea ceremony.
Hubert watches intently as Huaisang preapres the tea with slow and careful movements. He's fascinated; he has never seen tea prepared like this before, not even by Ferdinand.
His eyes light up at the use of magic.
"I didn't know you were a mage," he comments quietly. He's unsure if it's rude to talk during this ceremony, but he's so interested that it slips out anyway.
Huaisang smiles a little at the comment. Even though he doesn't have a lot of pride in his magic, he always likes pleasing others and Hubert is clearly interested. It's nice to see a few more cracks in the harsh demeanor that Hubert had first presented. Huaisang's pleased with himself for softening this gruff man (something which he hadn't meant to make into a hobby but he does have a gift for it), and he likes this new side of Hubert. It seems like he's a nerd. How charming.
"I'm not a very good example of one," Huaisang says, smirking a little with wry self-deprecation. "My people cultivate spiritual energy. It takes a great deal of dedication, and I'm terribly lazy. I'm the shame of my clan, largely because I simply don't care. Here, especially, I almost never use my cultivation for anything other than heating tea and removing stains. Oh, and I braid it into my hair, so that the braids stay perfect for a week or more, until I feel like weaving them into some new style. Are you a magic user?"
His preparation of the tea shifts a little as he starts to weave his own spiritual energy through the flow of the water, around the curve of the pot and cups. The energy of the room shifts when he does it, moving through the pattern that Huaisang weaves, and the movement of the energy is like a pleasant, warm breeze. While the sigil had been a bright light that anyone could see, this new practice--more meditation than spell--is so subtle that only practiced magic users would be able to notice, or to see the shimmer of it through Huaisang's hands. He's curious if Hubert will be aware of it, or if it will seem to be nothing more than elegant gestures, a part of the overall tea ceremony performance. This extra layer takes effort from him, but it has rewards: the resulting tea is charged with energy, restorative to any magic user, and the benefit far exceeds the small cost. This is cultivation, the way that Huaisang likes to do it. It's practice, and meditation.
Huaisang's peers cultivate with swords and with musical instruments designed to be spiritual weapons. Huaisang cultivates with tea and hair-braiding.
Hubert chuckles softly. It reminds him of Linhardt; so skilled, and yet so unwilling to do anything he perceived as "extra," which included anything outside of his passions. Hubert had scolded him on multiple occasions for it, but he did come to respect the preference for efficiency. It was in some ways much smarter than Hubert's own way of working, where he often forced himself to stay up and toil even if he was not making any real progress. The ideal work ethic likely lied somewhere between the two of them, but both were too stubborn to change.
"Yes. I specialize in dark magic."
He's highly perceptive; call it hypervigilance, so he does notice the ever-so-slight feeling of warmth as Huaisang pours the tea, and, looking closely at his hands, the tiny silvery shimmers. It reminds him of the unique warmth of faith magic he'd been healed by many times during the war. Reluctantly so, by Linhardt.
"Yours reminds me of faith magic, from my world, but there's something quite distinct about it as well." In his mind, faith magic channeled divine energy, and reason magic could manipulate the elements, but Huaisang seemed to be able to do both with the spiritual energy he could harness.
"We call it cultivation because the spiritual energy already exists in all things. But it's like ... a fallow field, until you tend it and weed it and carry water to the seedlings and all the other things that it takes to tend to that innate potential and make it grow." Huaisang shrugs a little. He never cared much for theory, and he also doesn't actually know anything about farming, so he hopes he didn't get the metaphor too wrong. "All the practices require patience and meditation, because it's always cultivating oneself. What makes your magic 'dark'?"
Huaisang tries not to jump to any conclusions about that. He's known a few people who became cautionary tales in the practice of the 'dark path' of or in the use of cheating 'tricks' of magic that tried to shortcut the grueling effort of ordinary cultivation. Not that he himself is above doing a little necromancy for a good cause.
As he finishes his performance, Huaisang sets one of the cups of tea in front of Hubert and then picks up his own.
Hubert listens intently, leaning forward and holding his chin in his fingertips. The farming theory is quite an interesting way to look at it, one that seems partially applicable for his world's magics as well.
"Fascinating. My world has three types of magic; white, black, and dark. White magic summons divine energy for healing purposes, black magic manipulates elemental energy such as wind and fire, and dark magic draws on dark energies. For example, I can pull poison particles from the air and concentrate them to poison an enemy, or draw dark spikes from the ether and pierce someone with them."
He takes a careful sip of the tea as Huaisang does, pondering the taste for a moment, then taking another sip. It's an interesting flavour, and he thinks he likes it.
"It is much like you said. All of those energies already exist all around us, but magic practice harnesses them, concentrates them, and moves them toward a goal."
Huaisang has some questions about all of this: Why is there both a "black" and a "dark" category? If both are necessary then why is there not also a "light" category in addition to the "white"? What are "dark" energies? Where do the "dark" energies come from? What creates and propagates them? Why is there poison in the air?
But he doesn't actually want to learn things or get into any kind of academic discussion beyond what they already have, so he lets all that go.
"What do you think of the tea?" Huaisang asks. Hubert is hard to read, but he at least doesn't seem to be displeased.
These are all great questions that absolutely do not have canon answers
He takes another sip, as if to make his final decision on the tea.
"I like it. It is... Complex. A hint of spice, which I am partial to. The ceremony is also quite fascinating. Where I am from, tea preparation is a big part of the social world, but we do it quite differently."
Huaisang smiles happily at Hubert's approval of the tea. "The ceremony is important to our ... civilized culture. While I do sometimes make myself tea by an abbreviated method, it's something that I mostly prefer to keep to family. If I'm serving tea to guests, I prefer to do it properly. It creates ... a meditative environment. Calming and reinvigorating, even to those who can't benefit from the magical replenishment. I think that too much is lost in the abbreviated version, and it's not an area where I wish to become complacent. It's an art, and my art is one of the most important aspects of my life and my identity."
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"Lovely to see you again," Huaisang greets him, pleased to see Hubert.
Leading him into the house, Huaisang takes him through to the tea room. It also serves as his dining room, but he has clear priorities as to which of these things is more deserving of having a room dedicated to it.
Huaisang kneels at one of the cushions at the table, gesturing for Hubert to take the place opposite. He's pleased with his table, which is primarily designed for kneeling but also has a footwell underneath to allow guests to sit upright if they aren't comfortable with kneeling.
no subject
"Good afternoon. You look quite nice." Hubert is wearing his same outfit as usual, minus the cape, which feels a bit much in Duplicity most of the time, and he hasn't really prioritized shopping for other clothing yet. Though, as he's led into Huaisang's house, he realizes the cape wouldn't have been too much at all. It's huge and lavish, something he can only compare in scale to the Imperial household, though the architecture and stylings are completely different.
Hubert is... Not a flexible man. He does his best to kneel on the pillow opposite Huaisang, grimacing slightly at his discomfort, but wanting to give it a proper try.
"You have a lovely home," he says quietly.
no subject
He's set up for their tea, with a heavy iron kettle hanging on a hook beside the table. To start, Huaisang picks up a wooden chest and opens it, taking out a few different waxed paper packets of tea. He makes his selections based on the knowledge that Hubert likes coffee--and seems to be a restrained person in general who doesn't care much for indulgence. First, a Keemun Gongfu tea, a classic varietal, with a woodsy, slightly malty flavor. He holds out the packet toward Hubert. "Breathe in the scent. You're going to choose one of these three."
The next one he offers is a Dian Hong Gong tea, curling golden leaves with a warm scent like cocoa and black pepper. The third one is a Lapsang Souchong tea, his brother's favorite. It's more of an acquired taste than the others, being smoked over pinewood fires, a smokyness that stands up to the bold flavor of the tea, but Huaisang includes it because he thinks that the bold intensity of it might help to win Hubert over. "Which one shall we do?" Huaisang asks, once all three have been presented.
no subject
"Wow. You are quite talented."
The Ignatz of Ancient China, perhaps.
Hubert prefers coffee, however, he doesn't hate tea by any means. There were a couple of teas he enjoyed back home, one being a fruit blend from Dagda, and a cinnamon blend. He generally enjoys more "exotic" and spicy flavours, and has a sophisticated palate. He smells each of the teas, closing his eyes and considering each carefully. The second one smells almost similar to coffee, and he picks up on the notes of pepper in it.
"They all smell nice. I'll choose the second."
no subject
Once the tea has been chosen, breaks off enough leaves from the tea cake and places them in his bamboo tea scoop, then he tucks the other packets away and closes the tea chest. Reaching for the hanging iron kettle, he uses his fingertip to sketch a sigil over the surface in silvery light. Within seconds, steam begins to rise from the spout, and Huaisang lifts it carefully from the hook and pours some into his teapot. He works with patient, graceful motions, intent upon each step of his tea ceremony.
no subject
His eyes light up at the use of magic.
"I didn't know you were a mage," he comments quietly. He's unsure if it's rude to talk during this ceremony, but he's so interested that it slips out anyway.
no subject
"I'm not a very good example of one," Huaisang says, smirking a little with wry self-deprecation. "My people cultivate spiritual energy. It takes a great deal of dedication, and I'm terribly lazy. I'm the shame of my clan, largely because I simply don't care. Here, especially, I almost never use my cultivation for anything other than heating tea and removing stains. Oh, and I braid it into my hair, so that the braids stay perfect for a week or more, until I feel like weaving them into some new style. Are you a magic user?"
His preparation of the tea shifts a little as he starts to weave his own spiritual energy through the flow of the water, around the curve of the pot and cups. The energy of the room shifts when he does it, moving through the pattern that Huaisang weaves, and the movement of the energy is like a pleasant, warm breeze. While the sigil had been a bright light that anyone could see, this new practice--more meditation than spell--is so subtle that only practiced magic users would be able to notice, or to see the shimmer of it through Huaisang's hands. He's curious if Hubert will be aware of it, or if it will seem to be nothing more than elegant gestures, a part of the overall tea ceremony performance. This extra layer takes effort from him, but it has rewards: the resulting tea is charged with energy, restorative to any magic user, and the benefit far exceeds the small cost. This is cultivation, the way that Huaisang likes to do it. It's practice, and meditation.
Huaisang's peers cultivate with swords and with musical instruments designed to be spiritual weapons. Huaisang cultivates with tea and hair-braiding.
no subject
"Yes. I specialize in dark magic."
He's highly perceptive; call it hypervigilance, so he does notice the ever-so-slight feeling of warmth as Huaisang pours the tea, and, looking closely at his hands, the tiny silvery shimmers. It reminds him of the unique warmth of faith magic he'd been healed by many times during the war. Reluctantly so, by Linhardt.
"Yours reminds me of faith magic, from my world, but there's something quite distinct about it as well." In his mind, faith magic channeled divine energy, and reason magic could manipulate the elements, but Huaisang seemed to be able to do both with the spiritual energy he could harness.
"Fascinating." Yes, he is a huge nerd.
no subject
Huaisang tries not to jump to any conclusions about that. He's known a few people who became cautionary tales in the practice of the 'dark path' of or in the use of cheating 'tricks' of magic that tried to shortcut the grueling effort of ordinary cultivation. Not that he himself is above doing a little necromancy for a good cause.
As he finishes his performance, Huaisang sets one of the cups of tea in front of Hubert and then picks up his own.
no subject
"Fascinating. My world has three types of magic; white, black, and dark. White magic summons divine energy for healing purposes, black magic manipulates elemental energy such as wind and fire, and dark magic draws on dark energies. For example, I can pull poison particles from the air and concentrate them to poison an enemy, or draw dark spikes from the ether and pierce someone with them."
He takes a careful sip of the tea as Huaisang does, pondering the taste for a moment, then taking another sip. It's an interesting flavour, and he thinks he likes it.
"It is much like you said. All of those energies already exist all around us, but magic practice harnesses them, concentrates them, and moves them toward a goal."
no subject
But he doesn't actually want to learn things or get into any kind of academic discussion beyond what they already have, so he lets all that go.
"What do you think of the tea?" Huaisang asks. Hubert is hard to read, but he at least doesn't seem to be displeased.
These are all great questions that absolutely do not have canon answers
"I like it. It is... Complex. A hint of spice, which I am partial to. The ceremony is also quite fascinating. Where I am from, tea preparation is a big part of the social world, but we do it quite differently."
no subject