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Yuè

What was it that delighted the mind about shows and feats of strength? Was it that the mind equated physical prowess with success in many forms; that being unbeatable in body, extrapolated to meaning that the dynasty was sound and refused to flounder? – or was it that she, first a princess and then an empress, had been told to value this for so many years that it had eventually become true?

For a moment, Yuè wasn’t certain how purity could lie behind such sport. The wedding was no sham of purity, not with Shenlei taking his fifth wife and Yuè so freshly out of the childbed. Nor was she a fan of war, when it was not the ugly necessity of progress made – and such matches were war games, were they not?

Whatever it was, it had held her attention just fine, until the man beside her had broken it wholly. This was perhaps the first time she had turned to Rivers and been curious about what he was – for Yuè was no stranger to higher beings. Some might consider that Heaven’s Mercy was one herself.

Yuè herself? She just considered herself lucky. Burdened, even.

Creatural. Mortals. These words he used were not thrown around by those who had no reason – to which the Empress took silent note, depressing her gaze and blinking thick, dark lashes. The woman Lyra had been quite the experience, for the brief time they had spent at the Howff, and it made a peaceful sort of sense that Rivers had their quirks and secrets.

He was no commoner, and Yuè, as the leader of a nation, silently spread her appreciation that perhaps this interaction would not devolve into pleas for aid, as most of her interactions with commoners did. Somehow, she felt there was little she could offer that Rivers would value. Gold and art abounded, but it would not – might not – satisfy him.

That, and she could not think of what he might ask of her, aside from recompense for his guardianship.

Suddenly aware of her prolonged silence, her pale lips split into a small, constrained smile and she cleared her throat, lifting her head to sit regally upon her tall neck. “I will pay winter heed when it raps on my door and forces me to do so,” she claimed emphatically, hoping her jest would be clear. The Empress was ever-pragmatic, with a mind that did not stop anticipating problems.

However, the point deserved to be made. “These times of peace… of sunshine…” Yuè cast an eye across the crowd, momentary awe stealing the breath from her lungs, “...are not to be squandered.”

The darkness would return, of course – the times that required great healing. This celebration, and all of the rites associated with it, were a force that was equal in measure but opposite in intention. Nothing about this was natural, other than the innate desire to revel.

It was a force of will, just as she imagined the relentless sunshine forced fruits to ripen on the vine, when perhaps the fruit itself might rather wait until next season.

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she of the radiant moon

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Verdant's Grace

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she of the radiant moon

Common • Mandarin • Japanese • Mongolian • Cantonese