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.

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