Her motion to leave was arrested before it had even begun. Though she was looking away, Yue could see the twist of a grin in her mind’s eyes. He likely felt as rogue-ish as he sounded; looked as wry as he intended to be. Yue felt her own pale lips curl into a smirk in return.

The tonality of his words was interesting. It was at both times a joke, yet a peek into how Batu would describe himself. Never before would Yue have combined his name with that of bastard leech, but there it was – out in the open. Even if this was not his most base consideration of himself, it had (at least) been words that came easily to his tongue.

As if the words bastard leech had been spoken before.

It made Yue’s heart rend in a way she had not expected. Wèi Jūn was so secure of himself – it is what made him capable of guarding her corporeal livelihood, as he had been charged to do. The realization that, behind his dreams, there was a small inkling that he was purposeless.

A version of the nothing that enchanted the Empress so.

That his imagining of grand things would be like putting perfumes and oils on a sow.

The Empress turned right around and placed the lilac of her eyes on the man. Please, do not speak of yourself as if you were a beast, she ordered him. It provoked her thoughts most interestingly, a way he had intended. A way that intrigued her. We both know you are not.

The woman felt the desire to affirm his most outward question, regarding the quality of his attempt to be something, but it was clear the question was rhetorical. The man knew the quality of the job he was doing, even now, with every one of his utterances triggering some unknown tripwire in her mind.

He was the water that turned the wheels of her cognition, to process in real time what otherwise might take months, years, to puzzle. There was a nuance to his guardianship that operated on a level that transcended the physical.

He had achieved a level of expertise that Yue had never seen before, not in all the soldiers she had come across, in all of Tianlong.

Batu claimed he would not keep her from her dreams. Another double-entendre that Yue was happy to entertain. No, I daresay that you wouldn't, she acquiesced softly.

Like a seed of a pine pirouetting through the air, Yue turned her positioning entirely, turning to face the sun-beaten man in all his furs. Her expression bloomed towards him; at first held low, but then unleashed behind a veil of thick lashes.

Her heart did not beat quickly. Besides the threat of imminent death, few things could rile the orchid so. Instead, she felt a type of diamond-minded clarity that she had not thought possible when she had first left the birthing den.

I do not fear nothingness, mine or otherwise. Her heart thuddedly slowly, but the rushing of blood was loud in her ears. I do fear that you might... give me...

everything.

but her last word remained unvoiced.

Wèi Jūn was not the only one who could say exasperating things in order to create polarity; a type of tidiness that only resulted when the dust of chaos settled. Heaven's Mercy, now simply a woman who wished to speak the innocent parts of her heart to one who appeared to care under his roguish guise.

Everything that an Emperor can not.

Not to be nothing, but to be known. Of those parts of Yue that appeared outward, princess and wife and empress – all those were Shenlei's. These parts of her, the Emperor owned in totality.

Yet, there were so many parts of her that even Shenlei had not yet unlocked. They were lands yet undiscovered, ripe and latent and dreamlike, waiting to be seen,

waiting to be realized, waiting to be claimed, waiting to matter.

and she wondered just what Batu was going to do with that.

---

༻❁༺

The dialogue she participated in was like a dance, for this was the only way that another could touch her, through the sound of their voice or by the brushing of auras. He had noticed the subtlety of her openness. How, only energetically, she posited that she would accept another into her realm.

Batu, however, pushed past that and into her sphere.

At first it was the brutish curvature of his mouth, close enough that the vapors of his breath were a worthy prelude to the strumming of a long, solid forelimb. It traveled from dainty ankle to bent knee, achingly hovering in a half-step position, as if she could pull away from this at any moment.

The press of his body eventually made her plant her foot, to better bolster her frame against the force of another. Whether she had intended to or not, it conveyed a message that she would not shy away from this.

There was no reason to, not when his touch felt welcome. Not when the rogue’s exhales hovered just beyond her fur tips, like how a warm zephyr could stir one’s sense of groundedness and tranquility.

It was strange, how in one moment, she could feel so exasperated by the enormity of the situation she, alone, faced. Now, on the other side, it felt so small. As if Shenlei and his bastards could not affect her – in fact, she was so intimately reminded the Emperor, though a God incarnate, just wanted what anyone wanted: closeness, affection, and to not feel so alone in the drudgery of their duties.

Everyone wanted this, including she; an empress, an orchid, and everything in between.

If he was a beast, then it was a beast who received a brush of her nose; the barest touch on his shoulder. So you have, she affirmed, realizing with a heart-flutter that she had so-willingly played the fool to his verbal machinations. Again, Batu was nothing but honest. However, it was not a curse to be someone’s fool.

Both had their place and their value.

Some might say a jester was the stark opposite of the Empress, though both played their role. It was a relationship that took an absurd amount of trust – the jester trusted the Empress not to take it personally, and the Empress needed to trust that the jester knew boundaries.

and for this dynamic to exist within one soul?

Well, it felt luxuriously nice to allow another to lead, if but only for this moment.

---

༻❁༺