Fen’s days had been preoccupied with her usual midday shennagians. With her father’s gaze elsewhere and her mother still nowhere to be found, the attention placed on the Princess felt… minimal at best. To which she had no qualms or desires to change. In fact, it allowed her to slip easily past the guards who often watched over her, to find her shadow in the midst of the overgrowth of the forest, and for her pawsteps to become an ode to the miles she had traversed in secret. She wandered aimlessly, and yet her purpose had been nothing more than a fierce-hearted curiosity.

What lies to the east, to the west, to the north, or to the south?

She had yet to have the courage to make it past Tianlong’s walls, toward the desert that Regis had spoken of, or to the tunnels that had brought her entire family here once before. A part of her yearned each time she stood at the line that drew the Dynasty’s territory, and yet, still, she never crossed it.

Someday…She told herself.

Dusk approached by the time that Fen’s weary paws sought the familiar terrain of their home, her silhouette swaying between the shadows of the darkening night as she slipped back into the confines of her gilded cage. She had done her best to tidy her fur from any clumps or debris that may have sat as evidence of her unannounced travels. And in her head, she recited a very well-used lie she could recall should anyone ask the Princess where she’d been.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to use it…and she could just slip back…without anyone…

Her paws halted in the path that Empress Yuè walked, and for a moment, the very blood within Fen’s veins ran cold.

The smile that graced the Princess’s face was habitual, routine, and chiseled through years of curated expressions as her head dipped and her body slightly lowered. Her own attempt at a curtsey, if one willed. Empress Yuè, She greeted easily, holding back the quiver of anxiety that now rushed through her vocal cords as she blinked in the woman’s direction.

Was it obvious that Fen had only just been returning from one of her own adventures?

It is a fine night to gaze upon the stars, she quickly said, before her eyes fell to another body past the Empress’ own. Liú Yínhuā, she recalled. Oh, her words were but a breath in the air as she sent a silent prayer to the Celestial Dragon above.

Thank the Heavens someone else was here.

She hoped that this distraction would be enough to dispel the potential for any prying eyes to gleam across her coat or for any wandering questions to be sent her way in regard to where Fen had been all day long…