So quickly is Yuè closed off from him, half-consumed by shade while the rear of her is filtered still in banding light, and a moment before her lips almost made to bend. A laugh is interposed between them, Batu arcing forward his neck roguishly. “Aye, something of myself, something more than a bastard leech on resources. Am I doing a good job of it, empress?”

She mistakes his honesty for artifice, his vagueness for restraint, though she has never once been made nothing by circumstance— not for a single breath in a life devised long before her first. Her dreams are, in that light, perfectly understandable. He wonders if she can even imagine the opposite.

“Forgive me, huánghòu, but I've made no agreement to that. I'd not part you from your dreaming.”

The dark mouth curves, though wèi jūn presses no further.

---

Her motion to leave was arrested before it had even begun. Though she was looking away, Yue could see the twist of a grin in her mind’s eyes. He likely felt as rogue-ish as he sounded; looked as wry as he intended to be. Yue felt her own pale lips curl into a smirk in return.

The tonality of his words was interesting. It was at both times a joke, yet a peek into how Batu would describe himself. Never before would Yue have combined his name with that of bastard leech, but there it was – out in the open. Even if this was not his most base consideration of himself, it had (at least) been words that came easily to his tongue.

As if the words bastard leech had been spoken before.

It made Yue’s heart rend in a way she had not expected. Wèi Jūn was so secure of himself – it is what made him capable of guarding her corporeal livelihood, as he had been charged to do. The realization that, behind his dreams, there was a small inkling that he was purposeless.

A version of the nothing that enchanted the Empress so.

That his imagining of grand things would be like putting perfumes and oils on a sow.

The Empress turned right around and placed the lilac of her eyes on the man. Please, do not speak of yourself as if you were a beast, she ordered him. It provoked her thoughts most interestingly, a way he had intended. A way that intrigued her. We both know you are not.

The woman felt the desire to affirm his most outward question, regarding the quality of his attempt to be something, but it was clear the question was rhetorical. The man knew the quality of the job he was doing, even now, with every one of his utterances triggering some unknown tripwire in her mind.

He was the water that turned the wheels of her cognition, to process in real time what otherwise might take months, years, to puzzle. There was a nuance to his guardianship that operated on a level that transcended the physical.

He had achieved a level of expertise that Yue had never seen before, not in all the soldiers she had come across, in all of Tianlong.

Batu claimed he would not keep her from her dreams. Another double-entendre that Yue was happy to entertain. No, I daresay that you wouldn't, she acquiesced softly.

Like a seed of a pine pirouetting through the air, Yue turned her positioning entirely, turning to face the sun-beaten man in all his furs. Her expression bloomed towards him; at first held low, but then unleashed behind a veil of thick lashes.

Her heart did not beat quickly. Besides the threat of imminent death, few things could rile the orchid so. Instead, she felt a type of diamond-minded clarity that she had not thought possible when she had first left the birthing den.

I do not fear nothingness, mine or otherwise. Her heart thuddedly slowly, but the rushing of blood was loud in her ears. I do fear..

everything about you. everything that you might give me.

but her last words remained unvoiced.

Wèi Jūn was not the only one who could say exasperating things in order to create polarity; a type of tidiness that only resulted when the dust of chaos settled. Heaven's Mercy, now simply a woman who wished to speak the innocent parts of her heart to one who appeared to care under his roguish guise.

Everything that an Emperor can not.

Not to be nothing, but to be known. Of those parts of Yue that appeared outward, princess and wife and empress – all those were Shenlei's. These parts of her, the Emperor owned in totality.

Yet, there were so many parts of her that even Shenlei had not yet unlocked. They were lands yet undiscovered, ripe and latent and dreamlike, waiting to be seen,

waiting to be realized, waiting to be claimed, waiting to matter.

and she wondered just what Batu was going to do with that.

---

༻❁༺

He can admit that he is digging for revulsion, but he never does find it. Either it is buried too deeply, or it isn’t there at all. But the nomad won't believe that. Yuè is no masochist. He does not believe her to be a saint, either.

Otherwise she would have driven him off. Otherwise she would not permit the pull of a guard into her, a hover of breath just shy enough to bar husbandly scrutiny.

“Then I have you fooled, empress.” His mouth, a forearm, the length of him, pressing.

---

The dialogue she participated in was like a dance, for this was the only way that another could touch her, through the sound of their voice or by the brushing of auras. He had noticed the subtlety of her openness. How, only energetically, she posited that she would accept another into her realm.

Batu, however, pushed past that and into her sphere.

At first it was the brutish curvature of his mouth, close enough that the vapors of his breath were a worthy prelude to the strumming of a long, solid forelimb. It traveled from dainty ankle to bent knee, achingly hovering in a half-step position, as if she could pull away from this at any moment.

The press of his body eventually made her plant her foot, to better bolster her frame against the force of another. Whether she had intended to or not, it conveyed a message that she would not shy away from this.

There was no reason to, not when his touch felt welcome. Not when the rogue’s exhales hovered just beyond her fur tips, like how a warm zephyr could stir one’s sense of groundedness and tranquility.

It was strange, how in one moment, she could feel so exasperated by the enormity of the situation she, alone, faced. Now, on the other side, it felt so small. As if Shenlei and his bastards could not affect her – in fact, she was so intimately reminded the Emperor, though a God incarnate, just wanted what anyone wanted: closeness, affection, and to not feel so alone in the drudgery of their duties.

Everyone wanted this, including she; an empress, an orchid, and everything in between.

If he was a beast, then it was a beast who received a brush of her nose; the barest touch on his shoulder. So you have, she affirmed, realizing with a heart-flutter that she had so-willingly played the fool to his verbal machinations. Again, Batu was nothing but honest. However, it was not a curse to be someone’s fool.

Both had their place and their value.

Some might say a jester was the stark opposite of the Empress, though both played their role. It was a relationship that took an absurd amount of trust – the jester trusted the Empress not to take it personally, and the Empress needed to trust that the jester knew boundaries.

and for this dynamic to exist within one soul?

Well, it felt luxuriously nice to allow another to lead, if but only for this moment.

---

༻❁༺

The nomad is restless then, that longed-for intimacy of closeness taunting him. She must have sensed something, reading his temper without a single word more to be spoken, because then she is to him, melding them together in suspense that does not seek quick fulfillment, but prolongation.

A low growl rumbles in his throat, her touch searing the edge of his shoulder. He reaches for her in turn, taking a calloused paw beneath her own; the one that had before maintained her hesitancy. Slowly dark lips lower to run a row of kisses up the silver-blonde arm, all the while probing Yuè’s nacre gaze, undecided of what he desires to see more: her lust, or revulsion.

---

Ah, yes – if this was not the clarity that Yue had needed to release her anger and absolve Shenlei of his sins, then Yue could not imagine a better medicine.

There was something therapeutic about thrill; about toeing a line, understanding deeply what one stood to gain on the other side – weighing it against the potential loss – and deciding to explore it anyway. The rush of blood was healthy, a good physician would tell her. Making the heart beat fast was akin to exercise.

Is that what kexin would say?

Even now, her mind could not cease analyzing and weighing out scenarios – within Yue, these things would never cease, but in certain moments they quieted and became slower. The intrusive worries were fewer and farther between. The names of those who harmed her were briefly forgotten.

Beneath the weight of Batu’s caressing, her nervous system felt a semblance of safety.

It was only the soft pressure she felt against her forelimb, the hot puffs of breath that stirred the fine fur upon that leg, and the head of a man bent before her in prayer.

When she looked at the back of the man’s sable head, the Empress momentarily imagined herself placing her nose into the crook of his ear to feel how plush and thick it actually was. Maybe she would bring her lips together and offer such kisses, which now seemed to be their form of currency: interchanging, receiving, valuing.

Then she sees his eyes, gauging her, which somehow brought repose back to the Empress. It reminded her that she wasn’t alone in this experience, and that the one who dared touch a royal was one who held them in such high regard (for who else would dare?), and – oh,

the woman lifted her nose, revealing an ambrosial cheek and the crane-like curve of her neck, unfurling herself with a sense of magnetization that hoped would draw him upwards, and closer. She could not guess what he wished from this (besides things truly unachievable), but it did not matter, for she was receiving,

and receivers did not need to think. so, she did not.

---

༻❁༺

Yuè is not for him. This is no fabled dance between yin and yang. There is no prophecy nor balance in this, no jubilant cry would come from the spirits.

She should not taste so good.

Nor should she submit so sweetly beneath him, subdued to his exploration. No longer merely an image residing in the secrecy of a wanton mind. She is real, and arcing.

He watches in appreciative silence, holding in his palms every languorous squirm, remembering how she stands, the choleric heat of her queenly voice. A blissful un-selfing, allowing the barest scent of perspiration and lilac eyes to take him over entirely.

"You are beautiful, Yuè."

He bends his head to kiss her bared shoulder, preening the neckline a fraction higher to expose a firm little vein. Horselord becomes unintelligible, guttural, just sounds in his throat as he teases the neckline with teeth.

He doesn't deserve her.

---

Of all the things an Empress could bestow upon one of her citizens, this was not one of them. At least, not in a way that could be known outside of the tryst, and even that was quite dangerous.

Secrets could be the ruin of empires, and what could be more incendiary than the nascent passions between two beautiful creatures?

Yet, this did not stop her. What kept her firmly embedded was the understanding that this was the way of the world – and yes, she had been quite foolish to think it was not! She understood well that an Emperor could not be sated by one woman, but what of an Empress?

She deserved worship, as the Emperor deserved servitude.

Was it true that she must live out the rest of her days in the frigidity and secrecy that Shenlei shared with her? Men spilt blood to assuage such discomfort, and Yue sought nothing more than a pair of warm arms to hold her. In an unfair and cruel world, this had to count for something.

No, the tender caressing of female flesh was not a larger sin than bloodshed – a fact that Yue repeated in her own mind, over and over again, until it was as rhythmic as her own heartbeat.

The behaviors others displayed toward her were rarely unique, and followed many patterns – leaving clear signs to the Empress when she was being manipulated. Somehow, Batu continually subverted her expectations, and she found it thrilling. The orchid wondered, again, what Batu’s end goal could be – and, maybe it was the stirring of her blood, but she could not fathom any besides the type of humble desire that she felt herself.

Maybe it was that Batu was taking advantage of her wounding, or maybe he had taken it upon himself to show her an enticingly new perspective – it did not matter, because Yue was fairly convinced that she, herself, was doing the manipulating.

After all, what was she truly risking? The ire of Shenlei over a lover was nothing compared to the instability of siring unsanctioned progeny, and she simply did not fear Batu's exerting a touch she did not explicitly invite. Not in her own land. Not with the attention of the Emperor soon to be upon her. Not when the future of a dynasty relied of the purity of her womb.

Even when consumed by lust, no one would so explicitly sign their own death warrant.

Neither her lineage or physical safety was at risk, but the same could not be said for the man who embraced her so fervently. He had pledged to face death in the pursuit of her wholeness before, but Yue felt if she did not remind him now, then she was indeed using him for her personal gain.

She feasted on his guttural utterances, and inspired by him, her vocal cords came to life.

A soft vibrato denoted the effervescent energy that bubbled within her chest. Is it worth your life, Batu, to kiss this very throat? she asked him, exhaling, but not rescinding the offer of her exposed flesh.

He had to know, even if it was difficult to form words.

We may stop now, and never speak of this again…

Yue was willing to understand if the man realized he had gotten caught up in a moment – it would haunt her, but she would understand. To be close to Yue, after all, was to face death in a thousand unprecedented ways.

---

༻❁༺

He has already died— how to tell her that? How to tell Yue that being near her is the only time he remembers how to live? Her weight in his arms is the court, some forty lives balanced in her choices.

Empress, and yet her kiss is for a bastard, a man of no true origin, nor legacy, possessing nothing to give but himself.

And she would ruin herself with him, if it went further. Surrounded she is by elegant figures of importance, the son of heaven, those who'd known her for a lifetime, who carved passages to her soul a mongol bastard would never traverse. Why then is she in his arms? Under his lips?

“Tell me to stop.”

---

Yue was a prisoner, for the first time in her life. Some might imagine her a prisoner of the realm, locked into a cage she could not thwart, but the orchid did not feel that was true. She had a great many freedoms, within and outside of the Dynasty – and those freedoms she did not have, were ones she did not want anyway.

No, this was not the typical prisonerhood that came with politicking. This was being unable to move her body, and being grateful he was there to hold her aloft. This was her ribcage restricting the depth of her breaths, keeping them high in her throat. This was a small murmuring of lavisciousness, which felt alive in its own right, ready to leap from her tongue and take flight.

The guard of this imprisonment was the man who dared breathe against her. His exhales were the key, turning the locks that kept her fixed in place. Tortured longing blazed just beneath her skin. The Empress wasn't entirely unsure who held the control, amongst other dichotomies that she didn’t dare think.

Yue had decided to trust Batu once before, and she found that it did not fade under the pressure of his affection. Instead, it flowered – and so, Yue continued her cerebral echo: Why couldn’t she? If Batu was so tasked to her safety, and this was his manner of serving, Why wouldn’t she?

The argument would barely hold in court, but here, it was sufficient.

Was this what it was like to be someone who was not an Empress? One able to kiss freely, and love without consequence? Yue imagined that she would prefer to spend all her life this way, wrapped in the arms of another, and receiving all their focused attention.

It mattered naught that she had scarcely moved, aside from that lifting tilt of her chin. This was exactly the cage the Empress wanted to be in – one that felt as transcendent as when she stood before her altar, immersed in poetic refrain and smoke. Batu was the wind that alighted the flame in an incense, and similarly, her soul leapt and flared. The choice was beginning to become hers,

and it became hers fully when he bade her to stop their momentum. Yue understood, now, that it must be her word, not his will.

Regaining her countenance little by little, her lilac eyes flashed, perhaps catching a reflection of her fur’s own luminescence. Her chin downturned, closing access to the ivory finery of her jawbone.

We must stop, It was not an order, but a statement of fact. Yet her own forelimb reached forward, gathering the folds of the horsepelt that sat across his shoulders.

in a moment.

Then her lips, pursed into a loose ring, placed a kiss upon the corner of his mouth, with all the lightness of a plum blossom on a zephyr current. Her lips parted, allowing breath to intermingle, and she remained there, speaking into his own mouth.

I would not endanger you, she said, susurrus and hushed. If the man threw himself before her, ready to die due to the threat from another, so be it. It would not, however, be at her behest.

Her heart could not allow it, no matter what she felt she deserved.

---

༻❁༺