In a small act of defiance, where prolonged focus yields damnation, Batu does not look away. Green meets lilac in totality, no longer careful.

His smirk is a curved sword. It is neither the language of imperial guard, nor docile subject. She advances her step and he brings them closer, eyes dark and alive. Near enough to inhale what cloying scent encumbers the true ripeness beneath.

“I can shield you from more than you imagine."

It is a trespass; but Batu has barred the exit.

༻❁༺

---

His gaze probed her once more, and for that, Yue felt worthy. The role of the Empress was such that she could rarely pull back the ornate drapery to reveal her true self. Her needs were secondary to those of her dynasty; her wants were ever irrelevant. She could give so greatly that it was all anyone sought from her: favor, answers, or response.

There was little depth to any of it, besides the decisions she made in war or great transition. When her leadership was called upon in masses, the empress shone.

Here, she was nothing more than a woman. One who wished she wore the hide bequeathed to her by this very man, for she needed a shroud around her shoulders, but it lay inert upon her bedside. Her ability to deflect, to fight, had already left her – the last of her defenses were intangible, nothing more than wishes.

Wishes, easily released.

She must be as she was now, digesting the different paths that lay before her. Weighing them all, and then weighing all that Batu claimed she could not imagine. It was not often a beautiful and demure process, though the lessons Yue had learned in school would lead anyone to believe differently.

The Empress believed Batu had hedged an invitation – one to inquire about all those possibilities, to allow his conjecture to continue to guide their interaction. The Empress already knew, and she paused to teeter upon the edge of insanity.

Then she dared not another step, and her nose constricted around her exhale, breaking the breath off shortly.

Imagination is what remains to me.

Her mind was one that ran wild, filling with ideas of a better world and the perilous route to get there. But, just because she could think it, did not bring it to fruition. If she had this power, no mothers would ever weep – not Kexin, nor ever another.

Heaven’s Mercy wished she had such ability, but instead she was blind and bound by the very ideals that gave her power. She was a vessel for the Emperor, from her birth unto her death. An empty vessel, full of only wishes.

That was the true danger of imagination: to live in it forever. To depend upon her mind to satisfy every desire she allowed to remain unfulfilled, to process every tragedy, to follow every clue unto its end – the danger was when it became preferable to life's truest form.

The orchid turned a pale cheek, breaking their shared gaze. You see far. He saw far, and he saw deep. What he glimpsed felt raw. She didn't need to be saved.

A less painful reality would be appreciated, though.

---

༻❁༺

Erect, in his military bearing, a head curving down from its own weight to see her— never much comprehending before what had been so easy to over-look. That a spread-out hide is the bed of nomads, a hide unfurled is the flag of campaigns for war. But in her flowers and silks, the empress too dresses in a costume most appropriate to battle, feats, forfeitures.

That the labor of one was not so unlike the other.

The curtain of shade’s defenselessness dropped to expose two pregnable beings, arrayed for no peaceful or trusting encounter with life.

Batu stands, contemplating Yuè.

“Tell me of them. Your imaginations.”

༻❁༺

---

He had believed there were worlds and circumstances that Yue had not yet considered; if Wei Jun did not yet understand that was untrue, then he would soon. He was asking questions now about the limits of her imagination.

Besides being a very interesting question in general, it probed as deep as she knew he could.

An enticing invitation, too. Wouldn't it be a thing of beauty to share with another her thoughts, both pretty and heinous? There were so few that were able to comprehend the weight behind a dynasty – even those closest to her, the Golden Kin and her court, hadn’t a clue.

They sat in beautiful silk and spun their baubles; drew warm baths when requested and gossiped when it wasn’t. They had no clue what terror paved the way for their luxury, or the sheer power they would have over her, if they knew her imaginings.

Yue found herself surrounded by this type of characterization so often that she could choke on it. The Empress would suspend her own dreaming, fearing it would become fodder for the masses. Her consciousness ran dry of inspiration. Sometimes it felt as if her mind was the equivalent of a one-woman council meeting, where the only thing discussed was what-ifs.

So many thought they knew what they wanted. Often, it turned out that they wanted everything, but knew far less. Most of the time, it was like they understood nothing at all. They thought they wanted to know Yue; to find proximity to her, and thus safety.

Safety was an aegis, created by the winged shadow of Heaven’s Mercy.

It was one of the Orchid’s responsibilities not to shatter such an illusion with talk of her dreams at night, or imaginings during the day. Not when asked, nor prompted, nor tortured for it. It was a matter of dire security.

She did not feel this way about Batu. At times, the meta-part of her brain felt as if it were silly. In a life where she could not trust her own husband, a man sent to her by the power of the crane and the dragon combined, then there was little else that could be extended to a guardian’s blade.

The dark, dusky man had brought her husband several wives and offered his body of protection to the Empress alone. There was clearly something lofty he desired, though Yue could not quite place a finger on it.

At the very least, Yue felt as though whatever Batu craved was not a device for Evil. It was not only that, though.

Yue wanted to. She wanted to speak of things she found dreadfully boring, as well as those matters of dynastic secretude. She wanted to speak without the fear of how it would crumble the very life she had built. Doubt was unwelcome. An Empress didn’t get to doubt.

She only needed to feel into a decision, then execute it. With Batu, she executed a new decision. A journey to trust.

or, at least, to explore the feathery edges of trust.

As with most things with gravity, she felt it was wise to ask twice. She wanted to hear him say it again. Do you truly want to know? she asked, unable to achieve the levels of sorrow and frustration she had experienced earlier. The lack of it was evident in the way she allowed an easy silence to roll out between them, as she glanced across as if assessing a crevasse. She canted her head.

They are not beautiful.

---

༻❁༺

It is interesting, this preoccupation surrounding beauty. Some delicate standard fabricated by a crane bird and a peony, and how nearly a woman might be made to resemble such things.

Neither crane nor peony thrived on the steppe. They had broodmares with strong hooves, and caribou whose cows wore the same broad antlers as the stag.

Eyes of the dullest color shed upon the empress. They had not lost an ability to become intrigued.

“I want to know you.”

---

Again, Yue had a feeling stir in the pit of her belly; one that told her that Batu was more aware of his words than most were. He spoke with intention and purpose, but with a less grandiose form than the Empress was accustomed to.

The woman narrowed her eyes playfully, exhibiting a tightening around the outer corners that hinted at recognition of his complexity.

The man made no qualms asking for what he wanted, whether it be to give her gifts, the position of Wei Jun, or a piece of her that was deeper than what all of Tianlong saw. It wasn’t that his words (or hers) lacked a sense of honesty. It was that Batu was nearly too genuine, and Yue feared that ability to see right into someone like that.

Yet, the vulnerability she feared was the very same vulnerability that he asked for.

It made her feel as though she must reach inside herself and give it to him, since he always asked so nicely and sincerely. Would he then, too, desire to fulfill her imaginings simply because she stated them aloud, and gave them shape with words?

And if he could – would she want him to?

It was no use to her to imagine a life of luxury, or renown, a belly that was never hungry. The lack of these plagued many, but they did not plague her. Such access to plenty left her mind available to chew over less customary fodder. Of course, the Empress often thought of the possible end of Tianlong. She thought about it every day. The propensity that all her life would end in smoke. Names forgotten, not because she couldn’t keep it all standing.

Because she didn’t desire to.

Even these dreamings had become trite, after their sudden appearance in this land! Now that the impossible scenario had come to pass, it no longer held allure for her. Many had been left and forgotten in the transition – and Heaven’s Mercy was no longer anything to them, in return.

That was now what captivated the dark synapses of a pure mind.

I imagine… she began, her voice held quite and with a length to the vowels that would suggest she was thinking, processing as she spoke. What it is like, to be… What was it, exactly? It was not the finality of death or disappearance that kept her awake at night, but more about what that meant when it was still entangled with life.

It was, perhaps, the antithesis of the life she currently led.

To be nothing to someone.

Then her eyes, which had been unfocused and gazing at the earth between them, snapped onto his. Her tail curled into the shape of a question mark, perhaps denoting the silent question in her eyes. Was that okay to say?

Was it too predictable? Was it something every person of fame and fortune wished for? Did Batu know how perfectly boring she was for thinking these thoughts? A pearl was beautiful and unique, but it was still just like every other pearl that sat at the bottom of the ocean, surrounded by bottom-feeders, waiting to be gazed upon.

Now, Yue felt the burden of explaining. She drew in a deep breath and then pivoted her body several degrees so that she glanced askew without moving her gaze. To be treated with less than respect, the Empress breathed. To speak, and there’s no one to listen. Would he think that she did not appreciate his audience, nor his dedication?

To starve and no one saves me.

She hoped he did not, after all, this was just her imagination, imagining things. These were not her outward desires. After all, it was not a good life that she had laid out.

However, it stood to question: if one did not desire it, then why bother thinking of it at all?

A soul with no rights.

She saw a little of this in Batu. She felt it in his words. He did not take with force – instead, he asked. Yue felt that if she ever said no to him, he would shoulder the denial just fine. He was not entitled, and furthermore, there was something within him that saw her as an equal.

An equal, who had chosen to live at her whim and whimsy.

It was as if their equality was an inside joke, held aloft between just the two of them. She had noticed it in his every glance, but only now had it demystified itself.

I always think of it. What it must feel like, not having any… choices. and then she sighed, shrugging her shoulders up behind her neck and letting them fall. The Empress took two long, dragging steps. How dreadful. Yet… Her luminous voice trailed off. There was nothing more that needed to be said. Instead, she smiled.

She could not laugh in this moment, but she could smile.

Why must we dance with what wounds us? the silken orchid asked rhetorically, allowing the wind to carry her words far away from them. For a moment, she thought of Shenlei and his child –

But then her gaze refocused on Batu, over her shoulder, and she did not think of her husband anymore.

What do you imagine?

---

༻❁༺

Batu listens to the echo of her, and to her description of a place where she is nothing, entirely, where the past itself is a vast keep of memory; whereas here there is a great determination to pitch recall and live only in spaces where she is all things. To be inconsequential; and not even an echo that will spring up again long after she is dead.

For a time, he had been that. There is Yuè’s voice, and here where Batu stands, blocking the sun, his teeth are revealed in frames of dust.

“Because you are living. Because sometimes we like the void; the danger, [i]saran dari ekh. Sometimes it is the only way to be alive.”[/i] Does she see that monotony is the slowest death? That without turbulence and that which makes eyes glisten and hearts canter, there is no living? To never risk what is safe for the uncertain, to never run at least once, away from sensible advice?

Breath ascends, swells, gathers, then is sent adrift in shards of rutilant gold light. The image of Siakhanbayar appears in snap-shot. She does not reach him through tactile memory of any sense but smell.

Even that, too, has become hard to remember.

Yuè is in his eyes. Wife of thy enemy. Is she not also his enemy?

He could do it, now. He could bleed life from her and set the han kingdom in ruinous wailing.

He could take what the emperor had not, brim her with his issue, with mongol bastards too wide and rugged to be mistaken for anything else.

What he finds now is a flushed, clear-eyed face, smiling, smooth, beautiful. Multiple acts of artifice dissolved. Prepared to meet this day, her true appeal emerging. The lord steps forward, inherently.

He wanted her.

What do you imagine? Your husband’s throat in my jaws.

“I imagine the opposite of my Empress, Teng Yuè. But there is little use to a guard’s imaginings. So I do not dream, Empress. I work.”

---

Batu offered her a golden explanation; that such things preoccupied her conscious mind because it was akin to pleasure. Yue could not deny the truth of his position, but she did not want to acknowledge it.

Was a beautiful life not enough? Was it within her own nature, and the nature of all wolfkind, to tear down what they had once so wanted? Were they always destined to be unhappy, and to sour any opportunity through the sheer desire of wanting more?

Yue was determined to be the single, solitary wolf who did not succumb to such a fate. Especially since the first step towards any goal was awareness of the problem, and the orchid was more than aware of it. She lived it. It was everywhere.

Their propensity towards pleasure affected her every moment – she saw it in the eyes of Shenlei when he looked at his harem, and she also saw it in the gaze of Batu as he looked upon her.

She, however, would not be its victim. Not when the crystal Dragon had given her everything she had ever wanted – except for one thing.

In this regard, Yue was certain her piety and obeisance would one day be rewarded.

You work, she restated his own words, her gaze heavy and weighted, as do I. The Empress turned back around, prepared to meet him should he advance further.

But you don’t dream? she questioned, breathless by the question itself.

He imagined, but he did not dream.
The difference between the two was subtle, but palpable.

I don’t believe that.

Yue looked at the man before her, assessing him openly. He may think himself astute, but she was more astute. She saw that the dusky Mongolian was a welcome complexity in her life, though he wanted for nothing more than most men wished for. As he had said in his own soul-bearing words, he wished for the opposite of her: power and a lineage. To know that, once upon a time, he had mattered – and to know that he would still matter after he had died, as an ancestor. To perpetuate oneself as a part of a larger whole...

not as nothing. With a family, one was never nothing.

The Empress lifted a brow of solid alabaster. The evidence of his dreaming was right here.

You stand beside an Empress, after all.

---

༻❁༺

“I’ve told you, haven’t I?” Facing again, Batu smirks fiendishly, making reply because his empress expects one and not for any other reason. Ironic that heaven’s mercy seeks the thoughts of a bastard. And if she knew?

“I’ve been a chit of no expectation. I imagine being— something.” Something, to someone, stood on land where no one had to search the horizon for signs of their enemy.

“So, I work to be it, your highness.” His eyes meet her own, keen and fierce in lavender.

attempted exit ♡

---

His quip nearly brought the laughter back to her lips, which was a delightful sensation after being vacant of it for quite some time.

However, with her jaw fused shut as it was, she could not utter the sound – and instead, expressed it through a crinkling in the outer corner of her eyes. Again, he tested his limits, but it did not inflame her inquietude as it had before.

"I’ve told you, haven’t I?"

No. Not with the amount of detail that I prefer, she chided, bending to turn around at the neck and shoulders. This, Yue, was used to. Only rarely were others forthcoming to her with the loftiness of their pursuits, but that was their loss! As Batu had likely begun to realize, the Empress was a generous and benevolent creature.

She desired to fulfill the wants of her people.

Her tail cut a line through the air, as if placing her judgment upon his mention of something. Yue lifted her nose, as if to denote her point made. It is fair, if you do not wish me to know the details, the Empress uttered softly, unsure if she should meet him with yielding grace or the same sort of provocation that he, himself, was skilled in.

after all, these are only our imaginings.

The pale orchid straightened out the lines of her body, swinging her nose around to face forward, away from the guard Batu. Again, she spoke her words to the winds. – and you, Wei Jun, are supposed to protect me from those.

The Empress fell silent for a moment. There was nothing, save the rustling of wind through the vines and branches of the misty jungle.

Without looking backwards, Yue made to take a step forward. The woman hesitated a moment, her long legs held aloft and ready to unfurl. Her gaze fell, unsure what she needed in this moment, and feeling as though it was quite unfair to siphon whatever this was from the horse-man.

A willing participant he might be, but the Empress appreciated him too much – needed him to much – to distract him with wordplay and emotions, unbridled.

Please excuse me. I must pray.

That was not the way of Tianlong. That was not the way of Yue.

---

༻❁༺