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rainbowfic2015-10-04 04:46 am
crossfortune) wrote in rainbowfic2015-10-04 04:46 am
this is all you have to go on;
Name: Mischa
Story: the empty throne
Colors: bistre (The affairs of humanity tend to be messy and complicated. And at the same time, it's the simplest thing in the world), spark (Hey they found a body not sure it was his but they're using his name), elvish green (It is but a shadow and a thought that you love.)
Supplies and Styles: graffiti (special bonus)
Word Count: 1465
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: implied rape, implied abusive relationships, implied (past) suicide attempt. if I've forgotten any, please let me know.
Summary: None of us are wearing our own face.
Lihua navigates the illusions of court and the illusions of her own household: things are beginning to be set into motion.
Notes: really rough. probably going to be revisited and revised completely later.
“None of us are wearing our own face,” Jun says, arms folded across his broad chest as he stares past the wall - and not for the first time, Lihua wonders what he sees instead. He’s very difficult to read, though she sits quiet and tries, and whatever strange intuition she’d gained since her bargain with the Lord of Silence can tell her nothing more.
Instead, she gathers the veils of illusion up, further wrap her rooms in them, hides what’s actually going on and being talked about beneath complete harmlessness. There is nowhere truly safe in these palace walls, but this is the closest she can make to a refuge. Court is worse, by far: there are eyes always on her, even as she tries to make herself small and quiet. Or at least, she tried, before Jun’s presence destroyed any chance she had of going unnoticed.
“That’s the way things are in court,” Daiyu replies, sighing. “Illusions on illusions.”
“Hmph. Too many illusions.” Jun grumbles.
But not simply the courtiers, Lihua knows. She’d lived small and quiet, and now hides beneath a quiet smile and pleasantries, hides her god-given mark beneath gloves. Illusions are her stock-in-trade.
Now, she lets them talk, and clarifies nothing. Lets the court noblewomen speculate openly on her choice of lover, lets her sisters ask her where she found him, says nothing when a large knot of women (and more than a few men) watch him spar with Daiyu in the mornings. Says nothing of the truth: a convenient lie, to explain his presence close by, nothing more. Lihua has never looked towards men: Jun, or so he’d told her when he’d realized just what rumors were flying around court, had no regard for women.
Lihua says nothing, but prays and watches, makes her offerings to the gods and waits.
(“An interesting choice, sister.” her brother’s breath cold on her neck, his hands tight on her shoulders. “A lady who won’t claim her inheritance and an open heretic.”
Her heart beats fast in her throat, but she forces herself to remain calm, breathe calm.
“See to it that your choices do not become too much more interesting.”
“...of course, Eldest Brother.” she says, demurely.
“Good.” he says, and releases her, once more beyond his notice. Beyond him, she meets Lin’s eyes, and smiles.)
“Daiyu,” she asks, dipping her brush in ink and carefully writing the poem. “Would you bear this message for me?”
“Of course, Princess.” Daiyu says, makes her title sound like a smile, and Lihua can’t help but to smile back. “For you, anything, even if that message is for your brother.”
Lihua shakes her head. “I wouldn’t ask that of you.” she says. “It’s for Lin.”
“Are you sure it won’t end up in your brother’s hands?” Daiyu asks, suspiciously. “Given that he thinks everything Lin gets is for him, too, since he married him and all.”
“The spring rituals are in three days.” Lihua says, calmly, and doesn’t need to explain herself any further. Ritual purification: Eldest Brother, the emperor, will need to preside over those rites, and since the harvests have been bad two years in a row, they are even more important now. Even he won’t do anything to risk the wrath of the Emerald Mother, now: He’ll leave Lin and his other consorts alone, for now, until the rituals are over.
It’s that fact that Lihua is counting on: Daiyu takes the message, bows, and leaves, leaving the two of them alone.
“I told you that I wanted you to protect someone,” Lihua says, quietly. “I apologize that it’s taken so long to meet him, but-”
Jun snorts. “He’s the emperor’s favorite consort. And you want me to protect him?”
“You’ll see when you meet him.” Lihua replies, gently. “But I also ask that you don’t speak anything of this to him. Because-”
From the grim expression on Jun’s face, he already understands what she means, and why Lin might not take knowing of this arrangement well. “Very well.”
“Thank you.” she replies, gracefully, just as Daiyu, followed by Lin, comes back into the room. “Good afternoon, Lin.”
“Hello,” he says, as emotionless as ever: in his arms is a box, of lacquered wood, that she’s never seen before. “I thought this would be useful.”
Lin sets down the box containing his calligraphy brushes and removes his prayer strips from another compartment, beginning to mix his inks. The tools of a ritual mage and Lihua can’t help but raise one eyebrow. She hadn’t known that Lin had been trained - not that her brother would have allowed him much opportunity to use his magic even if he’d known.
(too much freedom from the cage. too much opportunity to escape.)
“My father taught me,” he says, his voice empty as usual. “Before,”
“Your father?” Lihua asks, delicately, trying to be careful. Lin is her friend - and save for Daiyu, her only friend in court. She misses An Lieh, who had almost been a friend, but he is gone and not likely to ever return to court. But friend or no, she has only outlines of his life before he’d been her brother’s unhappy consort, his prince’s unwilling concubine. The barest details of a life that could have been, before it had been taken from him. A father, missing. A mother who had left them all behind when he was still an infant. A sister, most beloved, whom he had traded himself for in order to keep her free.
If he doesn’t want to speak of it, she won’t press him again.
“My father,” Lin repeats himself. His sleeves fall back for a moment: his wrists have healed unusually clean, without even a thin scar to mar flawless skin. “Liang Zemin.”
“The strategist?” Daiyu interjects after a moment, managing to close her jaw. Lihua cannot blame her awe: Liang Zemin is the most legendary strategist who has ever lived. Her mother had required all her children to read his manual on strategy and tactics, and had spoken to Lihua before her death her regret in not being able to sway him to her side.
(Liang Zemin is most likely dead, dead with the king he served and his country. most likely dead, and Lin will never see his father again.)
“The same,” Lin says. “He taught me nothing of strategy or tactics. Only of magic.”
The brush dances gracefully across the surface of the prayer strip: Lihua had never been adept in ritual magic, never been able to use more than the most basic of charms to guard her dreams and even that with the greatest of difficulty. But even she can tell the art and precision poured into the spell, her senses thrumming with it - the work of a master.
Jun glances Lin’s way for a moment. “He taught you well.”
Lin bows his head, his every movement pure grace, even as his moon-pale hair tumbles into his eyes. “He was only able to teach me a little.”
Lihua stills the words that come to mind, the questions, and folds her hands in her lap. Watches Lin finish the spell with a chant that’s only barely more than a whisper, prayer strip dissolving into ash. Watches Jun, who looks at Lin for the barest instant with a strange recognition, and a terrible sad yearning, love and lost, before the moment shatters and he turns away.
***
She asks Jun about it, later, when Daiyu has gone to escort Lin back to his unwelcome rooms. The time is coming, perhaps sooner than later, that Lin will never have to return to his cage, but the time is not yet. Soon. Gods, let it be soon, she prays.
“Did you meet Lin before?” she asks, quietly, sorting through her embroidery silks and needles. “Before he was my brother’s consort,” she clarifies.
“No,” Jun says, after a moment, staring past the wall. “Never.”
“You recognized him,”
Silence, for a long moment, and Lihua is afraid that she pushed him too far.
“He reminded me of someone that I used to know.” Jun finally says, turning back to face her, his eyes as bleak as the oldest winter. This is the closest she has ever come to reading him, and yet he is still so far away. “Someone that I tried to save. I, and his brother, and his eldest daughter, and all his children.”
Lihua knows, without him having to say it, that Jun had failed. That whoever Jun had tried and failed to save was gone now, gone beyond his reach.
“I’m sorry,” she says, not knowing what else to say.
Jun turns away. “So am I.”
Story: the empty throne
Colors: bistre (The affairs of humanity tend to be messy and complicated. And at the same time, it's the simplest thing in the world), spark (Hey they found a body not sure it was his but they're using his name), elvish green (It is but a shadow and a thought that you love.)
Supplies and Styles: graffiti (special bonus)
Word Count: 1465
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: implied rape, implied abusive relationships, implied (past) suicide attempt. if I've forgotten any, please let me know.
Summary: None of us are wearing our own face.
Lihua navigates the illusions of court and the illusions of her own household: things are beginning to be set into motion.
Notes: really rough. probably going to be revisited and revised completely later.
“None of us are wearing our own face,” Jun says, arms folded across his broad chest as he stares past the wall - and not for the first time, Lihua wonders what he sees instead. He’s very difficult to read, though she sits quiet and tries, and whatever strange intuition she’d gained since her bargain with the Lord of Silence can tell her nothing more.
Instead, she gathers the veils of illusion up, further wrap her rooms in them, hides what’s actually going on and being talked about beneath complete harmlessness. There is nowhere truly safe in these palace walls, but this is the closest she can make to a refuge. Court is worse, by far: there are eyes always on her, even as she tries to make herself small and quiet. Or at least, she tried, before Jun’s presence destroyed any chance she had of going unnoticed.
“That’s the way things are in court,” Daiyu replies, sighing. “Illusions on illusions.”
“Hmph. Too many illusions.” Jun grumbles.
But not simply the courtiers, Lihua knows. She’d lived small and quiet, and now hides beneath a quiet smile and pleasantries, hides her god-given mark beneath gloves. Illusions are her stock-in-trade.
Now, she lets them talk, and clarifies nothing. Lets the court noblewomen speculate openly on her choice of lover, lets her sisters ask her where she found him, says nothing when a large knot of women (and more than a few men) watch him spar with Daiyu in the mornings. Says nothing of the truth: a convenient lie, to explain his presence close by, nothing more. Lihua has never looked towards men: Jun, or so he’d told her when he’d realized just what rumors were flying around court, had no regard for women.
Lihua says nothing, but prays and watches, makes her offerings to the gods and waits.
(“An interesting choice, sister.” her brother’s breath cold on her neck, his hands tight on her shoulders. “A lady who won’t claim her inheritance and an open heretic.”
Her heart beats fast in her throat, but she forces herself to remain calm, breathe calm.
“See to it that your choices do not become too much more interesting.”
“...of course, Eldest Brother.” she says, demurely.
“Good.” he says, and releases her, once more beyond his notice. Beyond him, she meets Lin’s eyes, and smiles.)
“Daiyu,” she asks, dipping her brush in ink and carefully writing the poem. “Would you bear this message for me?”
“Of course, Princess.” Daiyu says, makes her title sound like a smile, and Lihua can’t help but to smile back. “For you, anything, even if that message is for your brother.”
Lihua shakes her head. “I wouldn’t ask that of you.” she says. “It’s for Lin.”
“Are you sure it won’t end up in your brother’s hands?” Daiyu asks, suspiciously. “Given that he thinks everything Lin gets is for him, too, since he married him and all.”
“The spring rituals are in three days.” Lihua says, calmly, and doesn’t need to explain herself any further. Ritual purification: Eldest Brother, the emperor, will need to preside over those rites, and since the harvests have been bad two years in a row, they are even more important now. Even he won’t do anything to risk the wrath of the Emerald Mother, now: He’ll leave Lin and his other consorts alone, for now, until the rituals are over.
It’s that fact that Lihua is counting on: Daiyu takes the message, bows, and leaves, leaving the two of them alone.
“I told you that I wanted you to protect someone,” Lihua says, quietly. “I apologize that it’s taken so long to meet him, but-”
Jun snorts. “He’s the emperor’s favorite consort. And you want me to protect him?”
“You’ll see when you meet him.” Lihua replies, gently. “But I also ask that you don’t speak anything of this to him. Because-”
From the grim expression on Jun’s face, he already understands what she means, and why Lin might not take knowing of this arrangement well. “Very well.”
“Thank you.” she replies, gracefully, just as Daiyu, followed by Lin, comes back into the room. “Good afternoon, Lin.”
“Hello,” he says, as emotionless as ever: in his arms is a box, of lacquered wood, that she’s never seen before. “I thought this would be useful.”
Lin sets down the box containing his calligraphy brushes and removes his prayer strips from another compartment, beginning to mix his inks. The tools of a ritual mage and Lihua can’t help but raise one eyebrow. She hadn’t known that Lin had been trained - not that her brother would have allowed him much opportunity to use his magic even if he’d known.
(too much freedom from the cage. too much opportunity to escape.)
“My father taught me,” he says, his voice empty as usual. “Before,”
“Your father?” Lihua asks, delicately, trying to be careful. Lin is her friend - and save for Daiyu, her only friend in court. She misses An Lieh, who had almost been a friend, but he is gone and not likely to ever return to court. But friend or no, she has only outlines of his life before he’d been her brother’s unhappy consort, his prince’s unwilling concubine. The barest details of a life that could have been, before it had been taken from him. A father, missing. A mother who had left them all behind when he was still an infant. A sister, most beloved, whom he had traded himself for in order to keep her free.
If he doesn’t want to speak of it, she won’t press him again.
“My father,” Lin repeats himself. His sleeves fall back for a moment: his wrists have healed unusually clean, without even a thin scar to mar flawless skin. “Liang Zemin.”
“The strategist?” Daiyu interjects after a moment, managing to close her jaw. Lihua cannot blame her awe: Liang Zemin is the most legendary strategist who has ever lived. Her mother had required all her children to read his manual on strategy and tactics, and had spoken to Lihua before her death her regret in not being able to sway him to her side.
(Liang Zemin is most likely dead, dead with the king he served and his country. most likely dead, and Lin will never see his father again.)
“The same,” Lin says. “He taught me nothing of strategy or tactics. Only of magic.”
The brush dances gracefully across the surface of the prayer strip: Lihua had never been adept in ritual magic, never been able to use more than the most basic of charms to guard her dreams and even that with the greatest of difficulty. But even she can tell the art and precision poured into the spell, her senses thrumming with it - the work of a master.
Jun glances Lin’s way for a moment. “He taught you well.”
Lin bows his head, his every movement pure grace, even as his moon-pale hair tumbles into his eyes. “He was only able to teach me a little.”
Lihua stills the words that come to mind, the questions, and folds her hands in her lap. Watches Lin finish the spell with a chant that’s only barely more than a whisper, prayer strip dissolving into ash. Watches Jun, who looks at Lin for the barest instant with a strange recognition, and a terrible sad yearning, love and lost, before the moment shatters and he turns away.
***
She asks Jun about it, later, when Daiyu has gone to escort Lin back to his unwelcome rooms. The time is coming, perhaps sooner than later, that Lin will never have to return to his cage, but the time is not yet. Soon. Gods, let it be soon, she prays.
“Did you meet Lin before?” she asks, quietly, sorting through her embroidery silks and needles. “Before he was my brother’s consort,” she clarifies.
“No,” Jun says, after a moment, staring past the wall. “Never.”
“You recognized him,”
Silence, for a long moment, and Lihua is afraid that she pushed him too far.
“He reminded me of someone that I used to know.” Jun finally says, turning back to face her, his eyes as bleak as the oldest winter. This is the closest she has ever come to reading him, and yet he is still so far away. “Someone that I tried to save. I, and his brother, and his eldest daughter, and all his children.”
Lihua knows, without him having to say it, that Jun had failed. That whoever Jun had tried and failed to save was gone now, gone beyond his reach.
“I’m sorry,” she says, not knowing what else to say.
Jun turns away. “So am I.”