Content Warnings: none?
Don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now and that my ao3 account is wearealloflegendnow (even though I haven't posted there yet)!
~TLL~
Hong Kong was alight with beauty. Rose had seen it many times in her teen years but there was no getting used to the way it looked at Lunar New Year. The sea of lanterns, the way that red and gold blanketed the city, the dragon imagery that seemed to be everywhere. There was nowhere else like it. Rose looked away from the window to Lao Shi, who was sharing the middle section of the Long van with Fu Dog and Haley. He was looking out the window, his expression nostalgic, maybe even a little wistful.
In the very back of the van, Jake slung his arm around Rose's shoulders.
"Ready to see your family?" he asked.
Rose shook her head but that wasn't the whole truth. She was excited to see her parents and her twin sister, Emma. They were excited to see her and pend Lunar New Year with the Long family. Rose just didn't know how they were going to feel when they attended a magical celebration. Well, ideally, they would take things well enough to attend a magical celebration.
"You don't have to tell them."
Rose knew that too but she and Jake were getting married next year and some of their loved ones were of the magical variety. Rose didn't want to exclude them. And if she and Jake had dragon children, she didn't want them to have to hide themselves.
And now was the best time to do it.
Her family would se Lao Shi and Jake in all of their glory. It was Year of the Dragon, after all. Lao Shi was going to be an honoured guest, along with his World Dragon grandson. The prestige and the ceremony might help distract her parents from the everything else that they were going to find out about.
"No," Rose assured Jake, "now's the right time."
The van pulled up in front of Rose's parents' house.
"Call us when you're done kids," Jonathan called cheerfully from the passenger seat, Susan left gripping the wheel in the Chinese traffic. "We'll all go get lunch!"
It was an optimistic thought. There was a good chance that her parents weren't going to want to speak to her for a while. Which, Rose would try to understand. They didn't have the benefit of remembering their past life and not needing to have much explained to them.
"Good luck," Lao Shi said gravely, his tone sounding much closer to how Rose actually felt.
"Yeah," Fu added. "I'm really out of practice with memory potions. Wouldn't want to experiment on your parents."
That didn't make Rose feel better either.
Still, Rose and Jake got out of the van and headed inside, where they were greeted immediately by hugs and kisses by her mother, Melinda, and her father, Carl. Her twin sister, Emma, joined in on the hugs but not so much the kisses. Rose clung to her mother, trying to blink away her tears. Rose didn't regret moving back to New York to be with Jake, even as her parents and her twin stayed in Hong Kong. Even though Jake's family treated her like she had always been one of them, it just wasn't the same as hugging her own mother.
"We're so excited you're here!" Melinda rocked Rose back and forth. "And to get to spend a holiday with Jake's family."
Melinda was squeezing Jake now, although she was looking over his shoulder.
"They went to get settled at their hotel," Rose said. "We wanted to speak to you all along first."
Emma squinted at Rose. "Are you pregnant?"
"NO!" Rose said quickly and loudly, squashing the glee on her parents' faces before it could get too far. "This is a very different talk. Let's sit."
When they were all settled in her parents' living room, nerves hit Rose. This was her last chance to not change her family's lives forever. But, she'd be changing them anyway by not saying something.
"So, I know you're excited to go to festivities with Jake's family but they do Lunar New Year a little different, especially while they're here in China."
Carl leant forward, the enthusiasm on his face reminding Rose of Jonathan. "Jake, we welcome learning about your family's traditions and customs. Yours are Rose's now and ours are yours too."
Jake smiled. "Thank you." Then, he glanced at Rose, like she knew what to say right now.
"See, Jake's grandfather is, um, I guess you would say kind of, like, prolific, I guess?"
"Oh?" Melinda said.
Emma had her arms crossed over her chest. "What does that mean?"
Rose looked over at Jake. "Help. I don't know what to say."
"I've never actually told anyone either," Jake said.
"Except me."
Jake looked like he had bitten into a lemon, which was how Rose knew that she had won. "I guess, the second time. Okay, here goes."
"Here goes what, Jake?" Carl asked, suspicion in his tone now.
"I understand that this might be hard to understand and that you are going to have a lot of questions in the aftermath but I'm just going to say it in the plainest way possible and we can deal with the consequences later."
Both of her parents were nodding but Emma was still squinting with suspicion. It all made Rose feel a little better because no one was acting weird yet.
"Mythological creatures are real. My grandfather is the Chinese Dragon. I am the American Dragon. We are both World Dragons. We can transform at will. We are chosen protectors. This is not something shared lightly with people but it was important to Rose for you to know because if our children become dragons, she wanted them to be able to be themselves with you."
The room was so quiet and so still that it almost made Rose dizzy.
Emma laughed. "Dragons? Are you insane?"
Then, Jake transformed.
Not with his usual theatrics, just in a simple way that left him in the same position that he had started in, instead now he was sitting as his red scaled, big winged self. Rose reached over and took his dragon claws in her hand, her eyes drifting to her Huntsmark. The things that her parents had yet to learn, the things that she wasn't ready for them to know.
Emma slid off the couch. "Holy –"
Carl was on his feet while Melinda covered her mouth.
Jake let himself become human again.
"What's going on!?" Carl demanded.
"There's a whole world out there, hidden from ordinary humans," Jake said. "It hides itself well but it's there. This is who I am. This is my legacy. If you would like to – because we would like you to – my family invites you to celebrate Year of the Dragon with us and the magical community."
Melinda let out a strangled noise.
"So, does the baby come out a lizard?" Emma asked and it was enough to bring a chuckle out of everyone, even though Rose wasn't sure everyone knew what they were laughing at.
"Umm, transformations can happen at any point in a dragon's life, if they're destined to become a dragon. My sister transformed younger than I did but my mom never did because it skipped her generation. I'm the first American Dragon." Jake explained all of that and then he said, "We're not lizards."
"Well –"
"Emma."
"Scales, tails, the tongue thing –"
"We do not have the tongue thing, I am a dragon!"
Melinda looked very pale.
"I know it's a lot," Rose said. "There's so much and there's so much more. But, this is a part of my life now and I want you to be part of it. I want to share everything with you."
Emma sidled closer to Rose but her eyes were on Jake. "So, fire breathing?"
"Yes."
"Flying?"
"Yes, but it's like a cheetah. For speed, not really distance."
"Does it hurt, going back and forth?"
"It's like a muscle."
"STOP!" Carl said. "This is crazy!"
"Carl, you saw it," Melinda said. "It's … so much. But, we saw it. And, we're going to see more if we go this magical new year, right, Rose?"
"Yes. It's the first Lunar New Year Lao Shi has been in China for since Susan's birth. It's a big deal."
"This is unbelievable," Carl said.
"I know," Rose admitted. "And we'll answer any questions and give you any space you need but, just, promise you'll come tomorrow night? Please, just come."
Answering for the whole family, Melinda answered, "We'll come."
Well, that was enough for Rose.
(-.-)
"ROSE! JAKE! POSE!"
Rose hated to step away from her family but she melded int Jake's human side, putting on her best smile. She didn't even move as Jake transformed into a dragon underneath of her, just keeping her gaze on the faerie's camera. They were from magazine or another and it would end up on a front page tomorrow. Conceited thinking, she knew, but their love story – a World Dragon falling in love with an enemy, the memory loss, then Rose saving the magical world – was always a best seller. Once they were done getting their picture taken, Lao Shi collected Jake to take their place in the parade. Rose rejoined her family, taking them to the section for the Long family. Emma was looking around with interest while Carl looked light-headed. Melinda was keeping her hand on Rose's arm whenever she was able.
"What just happened?" Melinda asked.
"HEY! You made it!" Jonathan said celebratory. "Was it overwhelming? It was overwhelming for me and I already had two dragon children at the time."
Susan put her hand on Jonathan's shoulder. "Dear, some people need more time that you do."
"It's a lot," Carl managed.
There were magical creatures of any and every kind crowding the streets, waiting for the parade and the subsequent fireworks. Children were running around in red with sparklers in their hands, decorating in flowers from the markets, and people were exchanging lai see packets as they made their way to their spots. The whispers were loud as they exchanged gossip that the Chinese Dragon was actually here tonight.
"If I found out my daughter was a dragon hunter getting married to a dragon, I'd think it was a lot too," Fu Dog said, but both of Rose's parents nearly fell over.
"A TALKING DOG?"
"A DRAGON HUNTER?"
"I think the whole conversation about how I actually grew up in a murderous cult and all of our memories together from my early life are actually magical implants was a lot for the first conversation about this." Rose glared at Fu.
Fu shrunk into Haley's side.
"Here they come!" Susan cried.
Rose leant against the barricade, her family doing the same thing on the other side of her. Lao Shi and Jake were surrounded by flames, followed by floating lanterns, and then choruses, other iconography, and then, the most magical thing of all – the wish wall. It zipped by, only taking a person's wish if they were amongst the most favoured that day. It paused in front of Melinda and Melinda quickly stabbed her prepared note onto it before it moved on. The bells rang out, the music was loud, the roar and dragon's fire taking precedence over everything else that was going on.
"After this, we're going to eat," Rose informed her parents. "Gramps has an old family friend who would like to treat you and the family to the traditional favourites. It'll be small, not the big restaurant celebrations you're used to."
Melinda's eyes were shining but Carl still looked shell shocked as the flowers in the parade rearranged themselves at will, sometimes gifting themselves to the clearly non-human parade watchers, who always just lifted their flowers in pure delight at being chosen. Rose surveyed it all with satisfaction – it was the new year, the time of rebirth, the time to start all over. And, hopefully, it would be a new start with her parents along for every step of her journey. A time of understanding. The start of their two families truly becoming one family.
Emma sidled up to Rose. "How much have you not told me?"
"Too much," Haley said, not letting Rose answer. "But as the sister who knows too much to the sister who knows too little, let me say – I'll fill you all the way in."
"Thanks, Haley," Rose said but Emma was already diving into the questions.
"Why did they want pictures of Rose? What does a World Dragon mean? Are they important? Is this like dragon royalty?"
Rose left Haley and Emma to it and slid between her two parents. Nervously she asked, "What do you think?"
Lao Shi and Jake were performing acrobatics above the parade, fireworks going off behind the two of them. Carl and Melinda never took their eyes off the sky.
"I still think I'm in a dream," Carl admitted.
"Is this real, Rose? Is this your life now?" Melinda asked.
It had always been Rose's life but she didn't want to get into all of that with them now, not when it was such a good night. She wrapped her arms around both of their shoulders and held them close, gifting them the strength that she had far too much of. Now was not the time to explain destiny or soulmates or the past and how they had gotten here, but she had the feeling that her parents were going to be open to that conversation.
"Jake is my life," Rose said, "and this is our life. Thank you so much for being here. For accepting this."
"Anything for you, Rose," Melinda said. "We'll get used to it. If this is real and this love is real, we'll get used to it."
"I'm going to need a lot more questions answered," Carl said, "but if this is our family, this is our family."
Jake swooped down in front of Rose, popping into a human as he landed on his feet. He reached over the barricade and pulled Rose close to him, kissing her.
"To the Year of the Dragon," she said.
"To family."
Jake kissed her one more time and then he was back in the air show, big red fireworks going off behind him, making him three time the size of real life. Rose couldn't take her eyes from him, in awe of him and their story and their life all over again. This time next year, they'd be married, maybe even working on their first baby, and all she could think was that it was all worth it.
It was the best Lunar New Year.