1/17/2026, 4:23 AM
(This post was last modified: 1/17/2026, 4:26 AM by Rosie Partytime.)
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In truth, the empress didn’t know many merchants. She knew the results of their travails, enjoying the feats of their travels and trade with much glee, and relied upon them to make accessible the wants and needs of her people. The traders themselves had always remained delightfully distant, a mystery hidden behind a veil. They came and went, a concept that was foreign to the woman of ivory. Ever still, ever present.
She was a carved obelisk that did not move.
Even if it was a thing of his past, Yue could not place a mental image to the term ‘tradesmen,’ thus he became that image for her forevermore. She turned on her heels to face him, made curious by his response. “What are you now? and she only turned to look back at the hide when the story the man wove began to captivate her, somewhere halfway through, when the matriarch had been stolen.
It must have been a most happy theft. As she placed a pointed paw against the fur and skin, she could almost feel the deep fulfillment that radiated from it, inherent in its cells. It was the last vestige of an ancestor, and Yue wondered if the connection was strong enough that the great spirit of the matriach might adopt its wearer as a child, and bestow it with the same fortuitous blessings as she would her many offspring.
“It is very fine," she uttered, a soft gasp as she pressed her paw more firmly into the supple skin. “As soft as silk. Her awe was as genuine as it could be, for Yue managed to muster no small amount of appreciation for fine things. She often allowed the beauty of things to overtake her. Her eyes shifted again to look at him in a sidelong glance. With a less trained hand applied, the yak and her story would have been lost to rot and decay.
“How can it be so?"
She was a carved obelisk that did not move.
Even if it was a thing of his past, Yue could not place a mental image to the term ‘tradesmen,’ thus he became that image for her forevermore. She turned on her heels to face him, made curious by his response. “What are you now? and she only turned to look back at the hide when the story the man wove began to captivate her, somewhere halfway through, when the matriarch had been stolen.
It must have been a most happy theft. As she placed a pointed paw against the fur and skin, she could almost feel the deep fulfillment that radiated from it, inherent in its cells. It was the last vestige of an ancestor, and Yue wondered if the connection was strong enough that the great spirit of the matriach might adopt its wearer as a child, and bestow it with the same fortuitous blessings as she would her many offspring.
“It is very fine," she uttered, a soft gasp as she pressed her paw more firmly into the supple skin. “As soft as silk. Her awe was as genuine as it could be, for Yue managed to muster no small amount of appreciation for fine things. She often allowed the beauty of things to overtake her. Her eyes shifted again to look at him in a sidelong glance. With a less trained hand applied, the yak and her story would have been lost to rot and decay.
“How can it be so?"
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