༻❁༺

---

Very few times could the Empress admit to feeling understood, save by her own mother, and it surprised her that she might feel it at the hand of this tradesman. They were both servants in their own right, their value and purpose determined by another. Yue had never known another existence, but she suspected that Batu once had, which made his willingness to adapt more significant.

Yue punctuated her glance with a small whuff, and a subtly mirthful smile of recognition.

True curiosity was the woman’s main weapon. She was not entirely hopeless in combat, but she found that the requirements of her station leant themselves better to pursuits of the mind. In a life that imposed rules as a prison imposed bars, this was her lot. Within such confines, she still found vast expanses to explore. Between the details, existed different perspectives that lit her path; guiding her way as would a sage with a lantern.

A deeper understanding of the world around her caused the many complexities to unravel in her very hands, wanting only then to be moulded as she pleased.

He answered her, proffering the explanation that sated her. “How keen,” she murmured idly in the spaces between his words, noticing that when he spoke, he used many words – much like Shenlei, much like a man with something important to say. She relished hearing about the guard hairs as much as the herd’s dynamics themselves. Relished the way that both stories made her feel a part of something larger.

Yue would never consider declining an offer to wear such finery. Much as she would if she were sweeping into a bow, did the Empress depress a shoulder so that the wild man could dress her in his furs. She felt his gaze just as she felt the many gazes of unseen others, always watching. Though this meeting was private, this simple brandishment would inevitably cause the demand for sarlag to soar. Batu could become a rich tradesman indeed.

The orchid refused to shrink from it. Instead, she sighed a sweet note, and turned her face towards him in wordless permission.

---

༻❁༺

“The one you wear has crossed over many passes, swam in many waters. Mothered many children. Listen, and you will hear her traces.”

There she slips from han florals into the nomad’s colors, into his feral scents. Batu’s lips twist into liveliness. Her image teases him.

“Why does the empress walk her kingdom alone?” Brazen attention is called to a noticeable lack of guards and attendants, without which there was none to ensure the queen’s safety, and demands. Her honor.

༻❁༺

---

The hide possessed more weight and heft than she had thought, perhaps belying the strength of the animal that had grown it. There was a noticeable shift from before he cloaked her to afterwards; a brief, forbidden brushing of his agouti furs against her ivory that perhaps she had only imagined.

This prompted Yue to muse upon her own aloneness, which she did not immediately perceive as mere vulnerability – not in her own kingdom, at least. Not when the presence of the son of heaven was everywhere, yet nowhere, all at once.

The Empress moved only in subtle motions, hitching her shoulders and hips to accommodate the added weight. She thought that he made quite a salesman, more in so that she believed the tale he wove – wanted to believe him – desired to buy into this idea that power could be communicated through inanimate means.

Such communion was what drove her to the altar of the crystal dragon time and time again, and she felt a similar call here. Pale lids lowered to shield her eyes. The grammage of the hide settled into the electrical spark of her own cells, and the Orchid knew that she and the Matriarch were one.

They settled into each other, an empress old and a empress new.

Bless me.

His question brought her back to her own previous train of thought, and her eyes opened to settle on his; suddenly so aware of the suede that rubbed against her, the tactile barrier that suddenly separated her from the hidebound himalayan. She waited a beat before responding, thinking briefly that it was more than likely Touying was close by, watching her from the shadows.

"I am not alone," the empress suggested in demure, dulcet tones – momentarily wavering, wondering if she should let him steep in the vagueness. She eventually decided to do him the honor of clarifying. "I’m with you." A small twist of a smile forced itself through the line of her pressed lips, and her eyes danced with unspoken laughter. For it was true, was it not?

---

༻❁༺

That small smile gives life to his mouth, which shows more than he had yet done the protuberant fangs. Brazen now the darkening eyes which flick out over her lissom form, down the high cheeks, the slender throat.

“Then I will stand as your personal guard tonight— and in the days after if you would have me, Empress.”

Sensing the birth of minute tension, Batu watches her to see how the orchid would take command of her servant.

༻❁༺

---

The man had earned her attention.

Quiet laughter faded on her ambrosial lips, but the inquisitive look remained. Her tongue filled the void within her mouth, blocking any words that might come out unbidden. Like this, she looked at him and allowed herself to steep in his words, summoning to mind a thousand things that mattered in decisions such as these – and a thousand other things that did not.

The Emperor himself liked to helm decisions surrounding the royal family and their personal guards. Decisions to a lesser degree, like those of the court, fell to Yue – but the safety of the Golden Kin was of the utmost importance. The princesses had been assigned their escorts. Despite this, the Empress’s ranks remained woefully undecorated, and so did such ranks for the entire harem. It might have been a statement from Shenlei, positing that he was the true protector of all in his harem...

but Yue knew that the Emperor was a practical and objective man, who would not gamble with his legacy to make a statement before the dragon itself. Therefore, he must have just been preoccupied.

The refined edges of her skull angled to the left as she reshifted her gaze, turning over Batu in her mind as a true option for this role. He interested her greatly, by virtue of his vocation and his verbosity; the way he regarded fine things as more than the sum of their parts. Still, his allegiance to Tianlong satisfied her in a way that somehow still left her wanting. It was difficult for her to understand, at that moment.

She had dealt with complex creatures for all her life, and she suspected there was far more to the hound before her; something concealed neatly behind the stretched panels of hide. A being that lived and breathed and made choices left a trail of dazzling complexities in its wake. In this way, the Orchid could easily admit that most she met left her wanting, for there was no way she could know everything about everyone.

She wanted to know more about the rogue, the Empress supposed rather simply.

"To my Emperor husband, you had returned one of his wayward consorts," came her measured response, similarly wondering how he would respond to being pressed. "Do you not then wish to seek his holy employ?"

---

༻❁༺

The empress laughs, her lips drawing back over white teeth, curving cheeks raised attractively in amusement. Batu closes the distance by a step, eye caught by the backs of her paws resting against his ger in the moonlight, iridescent and fine.

“I submit that a guardian with my experience would be appointed to the Son of Heaven’s most cherished counterpart,” his voice purrs. “I served many seasons on the khaan’s front lines. I give my word, her majesty is in practiced paws.”

Boldness is upon him, and with it the obstinacy which boldness brings to a man in service. He would not mind filling his days in Tianlong with the sight of Yue.

“And if I may, her highness is here with me tonight— and the emperor is not.”

༻❁༺

---

The Empress was not used to this. There was only one man in the world who commanded her, and his pelt was of a stark contract between ebony and ivory, not the many shades of agouti tan that stood before her now – the hues of which seemed to bleed outward past the boundary of his being, mostly in part to his surroundings being entirely leathered, but also because an aura of deep, dusky brown radiated from him.

Yue could see it, as if she were a heat-seeking viper and he were her prey, if she tightened her lids and unfocused her gaze but for a moment.

but this was not about the shades of sable that delighted her, nor the brazen and open way in which he shared himself with her. It was not the accent, which she had only heard on the rarest of occasions. He sought something from Heaven’s Mercy, and those who wanted could rarely be trusted in their entirety.

They could, however, be powerful allies.

Yue was now determined to find a way to proceed forward, using her line of questioning as a guide.

Do not misinterpret my curiosities, mongolian swiftly surrendered to the imperial language, and her blazing eyes watched his, holding his gaze strongly, already aware how it has a penchant to wander. for I am inclined to fulfill this wish, for the cost of one fine sarlag hide, she thought with no small amount of mirth, hiking the pelt higher on her shoulders and drawing it close.

Still, the man must understand that she was not like the other concubines and consorts Batu might have interacted with. She was the Imperial Emperor Teng Shenlei’s first wife, and bore the weight of legend upon her featherbone shoulders. Everything in her life was high-stakes, and for her guard, that left little time for other pursuits. He must be adept in the ways that others were not.

Thus, this was no ordinary stewardship – but it might be something similar to that of a Khan. Experience such as this weighed heavily. It begs the question, why are you not still within your Khaan’s strata? She punctuated her question with a tilt of the head, so that he knew it was his turn to speak, in case he did not speak a lick of Mandarin. This was a factor to consider indeed, as her tongue was already tired from carrying the heaviness of his language, and she so missed tasting the refined syllables of her own.

---

༻❁༺

She would not trust so readily. This pleases the nomad. Even so, he had been prepared to serve a fool if fate required it. The man’s eyes behold the empress pointedly, a tooth snagging as his lips free a grin. Her voice folds back into the gentler native-tongue.

“I am loyal still in many ways to the khagan, I traveled his silk road for some time after service as a mercenary for hire. It is good training. But it is empty work.” Loyal, yes. Batu was his son, though he does not say this.

“I know a bit of the world, and your court intrigues me.”

She intrigues him.

༻❁༺

---

Yue again is struck by the accent of his words, which is gruff yet smooth, like the purr of a feline. She thought that, if anyone’s voice was made for telling stories or selling wares, it was his – and just like the softness of a hide or the weaving of silk cloth, something as small as this mattered greatly. If she loathed his voice, then she might not desire to pass time in each other’s company… and that could prove dangerous.

What was life, if not a series of necessities that could be enjoyed (not just endured) with the smallest of improvements? That was how Yue had begun to regard this possibility, as an improvement to a situation that could stand to be improved, at least a little bit. The Empress could easily admit that she experienced loneliness without her accustomed retinue.

Her court had always been the majority of her social life.

The Orchid also felt vulnerable, with only her own eyes to watch over Tianlong, unable to watch herself at the same time. She nodded, slow, intentional movements, as she contemplated what he said. Still loyal?

Somehow, Yue felt as if she understood, as there were parts of oneself that were innate as blood, and nearly impossible to shed, even if one desired to do so. It did not mean they could not rightly serve another – on the contrary, these were the types of souls that brought the dynasty into awareness of the outside world.

Such information was of high value.

The Empress swallowed, then gathered herself up in propriety that might have been lost in her prior inquiry. “Within a moment, you would be as culpable for the health and sanctity of Tianlong as I am,” she explained, fearing that he knew this already, after all – this was his idea.

“It is a lofty calling,” Then she said quite plainly, “one that may even result in your death.”

The Imperial Queen dearly hoped it would not end this way, but it was always a possibility. She made certain to govern in a way that did not procure a plethora of death threats, but she could no more avoid aggravating certain bureaucratic parties than she could avoid slaying a life in order to eat.

“And you accept this in the name of mere interest?”

---

༻❁༺

Mere interest. The nomad’s brown eyes flash, then are overcast anew. He advances a pace.

“I was a soldier for the empire, then sold myself on the road. The risk of death has always been my lot in life. But it need not be your’s, Empress. Not while I am near.”

There are perhaps glimpses of disarment— a brightening in her features, an added spirit to the noble aspect. Though loth to look elsewhere, Batu kneels, his bow a pledge in body to the Imperial Highness; her blade to command.

“I set my life between heaven’s mercy and harm.”