Things were quiet – and things were never quiet.
A time that should have made her feel at leisure, made the Empress feel ungrounded. When orders and responsibilities did not make up every hour of her day, then she simply did not know what to do with the time. She sat, listless, feeling as though something must be amiss – and she, oblivious to it entirely! The weight of it was, at times, enough to crush her.
This was when she used prayer like meditation. Free moments reduced to prostrate position, repeating her deepest desires to the crystal dragon again and again and again; resorting to a higher being to guide her movements, even down to what filled her life between duty and religion. Yue was relieved when her pious pleading led her to a small grove, where there existed a lake, bubbling from some invisible underground aquifer.
The Empress bathed, and she heaved a sigh as the chill of the water caused her muscles to contract involuntarily – then to relax entirely, as if she were melting into the very basin itself. She floated, she dove, and when she was finished, the woman exited the water and proceeded to wring it from her silken, argent coat.
The early night was nearly the only time a chill settled into the jungle, and it wouldn’t be impossible to catch a cold of the late season. Stuck in her palatial bedroom all day to convalesce – how truly useless she would be, then!
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