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Yue might never become accustomed to solitude. She was raised with many handmaidens, each nobility in their own right. She had been raised with them, became a woman alongside them, spent every night sleeping in the same room together, and when she married Shenlei, her court had come with her. They were her closest friends and confidants,
and now, they were memories.
Yue could not bring herself to cry about it. She had long since thought she had cried every tear that she might ever cry – as far as sorrow went, she was plumb out. One could not lose as many children as she had, and still mourn for every creature that came in and out of her life. Mayhaps that was why the Empress had adopted a strange behavior of keeping to herself. So, so many of them were strange to her. However…
They were only strangers for as long as she allowed them to be strangers.
The gentle, chiming echo of water reached her ears, which responded instinctively by swirling towards Rio mere moments before her eyes followed. The Empress acknowledged the chestnut woman with a smile and a wave of her sodden tail – and her attention was only ushered downward when she felt something gently brush, bump against her arm.
It was a flower, soft and pale and succulently fragrant. Now her expression was something more like childhood wonder, when one could be delighted by something simple. However, simple it was not – to float, plump vegetation spinning against fresh aqueous current, fractured webs of light; it was akin to poetry, and Lady Rio, the poet.
In fact, so inspired was the Empress that she uttered a poem she remembered from childhood about the spiritual essence of a thing. "Bamboos could die but the joints will stay," she uttered, lowering her nose to the flower to breathe deeply, taking the chemical composition of the scent within. Then she looked upward at Rio. "Flowers could fall but the fragrance will linger."
The Empress spoke Mandarin, as she now did with all who called themselves Tianlong.
It was no surprise the gentle lady had brought flowers. How fortunate she had been to have been blessed with a family of perfumists in lieu of her friends and family of old.
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