One Welcome can i break out and seek the light, a future shining bright?

skill | post/coinciding with invasion

The sky swirls with clouds. A looming threat of rain, not yet descending upon the princess' bare crown. She wears no adornments. She wears only her own perfume. Flowing layers of ripe peach silk wrap around her diminutive form, brushing around elbows and cheeks as she bends into a bow before one of Tianlong's more secluded shrines. The princess has been here before the sun saw fit to turn a blackened sky grey. She bends forward again, forehead kissing the earth.

Crystal Dragon, grant my people your strength.

Stay close to your mother and sister, Taro had said, but with no promises of his own safe return. It is for her, for them that Shēnléi has gone, to claim the Keys. But is she the reason? The lotus is not sure. Yue's labors have been fruitful, and though Lian knows not the details - not how many siblings she has, how many brothers or sisters, their names nor their faces - she knows the truth. Within Tianlong's heart beats the blood of true heirs, dragons of the purest might one and all. It is only natural, her father's scarcity. He has a duty to his Empress. He has children that few beyond him are permitted even to see, children that need him more than Lian. He is distracted by his newborns, she tells herself to explain it all away.

But what explanation, now, princess, for he is not so distracted, not so devoted, not to march on foreign, fertile lands! In her name! Her people's blood shed in her name, for it is Baihe, the league of the Crane, that will flourish upon the islands when Heaven bends to Shenlei's will and grants victory! Stranger's blood shed in her name, and no recourse for the lotus to intervene. She is left home. Safe. Sheltered. Or is it outcast, is it discarded?

Fire scorches through the lotus' veins. She bows with ferocity, soil clinging between her brows when she straightens again, a frenetic breath rising within her chest. Thunder snarls overhead. Lian welcomes the rain. Let it wash her clean of these festering feelings. Let it douse the fire within her ribcage, before the flames scorch the delicate petals of who she wants to be.

Merciful Crane, grant my people your compassion.

Her father loves her. This is fact, like the sun always rises, like the storm always ends. But he has always loved her mother, too. The demands of the Crown rise above any one man, any one love, no matter how great. She is the Emperor's eldest. She has witnessed the great power and great curse the Crown has always been. It is not hunger for power that forms the root of the lotus' ambition. It is the unwavering belief that the weight of the Crown can be lighter, that there are paths to be followed out of hope instead of fear, out of compassion instead of the rigid bounds of tradition.

She has not stepped foot in the war-room. There is no invitation for her input, no opportunity granted for the lotus to offer to coax and charm the foreigners into cooperation before this recourse. Lian is no fool - knows that peace will be Shenlei's first offering. But she knows, too, that it is an army of Tianlong's fiercest warriors that have left the shelter of their territory to accompany the Emperor. They are not guards. They are forces. Forces gathered and dispensed to expand Tianlong's influence. To give Shenlei someplace to set aside the princesses that are not suitable to guide the Tianlong, no matter how many hours Lian has spent listening to the court, dissecting the law with her father, expanding her languages so that she can communicate clearly with any people they come across. So misunderstandings are avoided. So peace is had with ease. So that when she is sent from her father's side to a husband's embrace, it is without hesitance or fear. So why does she cling now to this idea of her place in the court? So why now does she resist the presence of her siblings in her heart? So why now does it hurt, to have the half-dreamed vision of the future she didn't dare imagine in clarity stripped away?

Heaven above, guide my father with your wisdom and patience.

Her throat is tight. Her prayers mouthed to the ground, and not spoken aloud.

If there is death on the isle, it is blood in Lian's name, it is blood on her hands. Can she live with that? How can she live with that? How could her father put that weight on her? Has she not borne every trial, every duty, every sacrifice, not with grimace or stoicism but with the smile and grace befitting her station? How is it not enough?

Is she not enough?

Heaven carves families into pieces. Blood seems all that sates it. Heaven seems to pay no attention to the binding nature of love, the way it is a fiercer power than any bloodshed. Will there be orphans made on the island if they refuse Tianlong? She will never forsake her Dynasty, their divinely granted right to rule, their right to following the path that Heaven deems is for them to tread. But the journey they take to get there matters. What is left behind matters. The sacrifices made during the war before her birth must not be repeated. The means are as important as the ends - Lian must demand better! More! A Tianlong worthy of Heaven itself! She is the first of the dragon's blood to breath life after the war. She is the daughter meant to keep the Tianlong from the pain of another. She is hope. She is a better future.

She is not enough. She cannot make these ambitions true.

A sharp rock. A forceful mockery of worship, or a pitiable display of desperation. A starburst of pain across her brow, and a trickle of blood from a tiny cut right between her brows. She thinks of her father, of Taro, of Yuezhuo and Shengyu. Of all those who stand miles and miles away from her, on the cusp of calamity, outside her reach, outside her meager influence. The princess folds, tucks her bloodied face into the cradle of her slender, pale arms, and bursts into tears.

Grant them mercy
Grant them life
Grant us peace

Eager to veil the lotus' sorrow, the skies open up.