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The Northern Kingdom is a cold, miserable place. Desolate and dying, the stillness of the snow and tundra is more frightening than peaceful. At any time, any place, you know that at some point people died brutal deaths right where you stand. A war torn, empty land.
Shen Qingqiu has always had this opinion, unfair though it might be, and the reception he gets every time he visits does little to alleviate it. The people are harsh and vitriolic, quiet one moment and loud the next. They hide nothing, their lifestyles allowing little pleasure even within Beishan's stone walls. Perhaps the only thing he can admit is that they are uniquely easy people to deal with. They don't hide what they want, nor do they pussyfoot around their demands. When he haggles, he knows it will not cost him part of his soul as it would in the South, and every interaction does not come with the possibility of a knife in his jugular.
It is simultaneously relieving, and exhausting to be here, he thinks.
His tea has long since gone cold in the freezing temperatures, but with the wind howling outside his window, and the gentle flickering of fire, he can't quite bring himself to care.
Alone once more, he sits, and waits, playing the part of a sad housewife. The comparison is humiliating as much as it is upsetting. He misses Binghe, an ache, like an abscessed tooth. While there's never any worry, there is always yearning. How embarrassing! Is he not meant to be better than this? Is he not meant to be the icy Empress of the Golden Throne?
No amount of etiquette lessons seems to help. Even his handmaidens cannot help the burden of his position, as it digs its claws deep into his throat and strangles any protest before they make their way out.
Oh, he could complain. He could tell his white lotus that he wants out, that he's tired, exhausted, that this life was never what he expected, never what he wanted, that all he really, truly wants is to be free again, to roam this world with his beloved husband. And with a snap of his fingers, Binghe would even make it happen.
How many people would die in the process?
His eyes close against the visions it brings. The responsibility of his position is a suffocating beast wrapped tight around his neck like a boa constrictor, jaw agape to swallow him whole in his hubris. No running away, Shen Yuan! You're a big boy now, and you dug this grave with your own two hands.
Surrounded by the Northern people, he finds himself envious of Airplane. They love him, with such reverence it borders on worship. The maids coo and fawn over him, the soldiers watch him with pride like one would their own child, the common folk treat him like one of their own, even the nobles approve, wisened old men stroking their beards and nodding in approval. They are unashamed of their love for him, giddy with every casual interaction. He is no distant leader they rail against, no human they seek to remove for something better. To them, Qinghua is someone to admire, to respect.
It is in rather stark contrast to the way the Peaks once treated him, loathe as he is to ever face his own guilt for their juvenile bullying. It's unsurprising that he left, but to have found acceptance, a home here?
It makes him ache terribly, for want of something similar. To walk the streets of his city and not be seen as someone foreign and unwelcome, to embrace each and every tradition and not be hated for trying to fit in. Every festival it is the same, every parade and wedding and menial event, they turn their backs and they look to one another for leadership he doesn't know how to provide, like a child dressing as an adult and thinking themselves grown.
Shen Qingqiu drags the spoon idly around the rim of his cup, the cold liquid turning and turning in an endless motion, and thinks about differences.
He doesn't want to be someone nasty and hateful and…jealous. Envious. Doesn't want to be the privileged highschool bully he knows he can come off as with his unkind words said without thought of consequence and impact. But so too is it true that he DOES wish he had what Airplane has. His handmaidens are not like the man's retainers, casual touch and love in every glance. Though they care, they keep a distance he doesn't know how to bridge with them. Like birds on a branch, they sing to one another with a song he'll never replicate.
To be an Empress is to be alone.
But Qinghua had managed to subvert such an expectation, to find happiness and family all by himself, without the design of the System to force it. Mobei Jun loves the human because they have gone through everything together, for years. Can he say the same about his fellow Peak Lords?
A part of him rails against the doubt, but late at night, it still manages to creep in. Even the protagonists arms cannot keep everything away, no matter how much his Binghe might like it to.
He wants, desperately, for all of his disjointed puzzle pieces to click into place, to get just a taste of what Qinghua has gained.
Shen Qingqiu's eyes turn to the woman before him, as she writes with careful, surprisingly elegant strokes of her brush, and wonders.
"What you told me yesterday…" The human trails, and her eyes pin him in place, a butterfly with needles through its wings. "Those I absolutely trust…what do I do, then, if I cannot bring myself to do so?"
It's a weak tone, something his people would scent out like blood in the water, and he knows that she sees that first before anything else. For all that she's dyed herself to be a Northern demon, her roots still show.
Song Xifeng puts her chin on her fist and watches him, idle, contemplative. He wonders what she sees when she looks at him, or if she only sees his fragility, and wonders how best to crack him open. Discomforting, but no longer unfamiliar.
"Well, I could give you two answers, kid. The one I was taught, and the one I've learned myself." The demoness tilts her head, and knocks back her tea with a grimace like she expects it to be wine. Likely, based on gossip, she does. "You can do what my mother did, what your people expect you to do, and cultivate a friendship of mutual animosity. You can let slip a secret or two, and collect more than you've let go, until you've reeled in those you find most useful."
It's enough to make him grimace. A horrendous idea, but a means for survival he understands he's simply never had to experience.
"Or?"
She smiles, and gestures towards herself.
"Or, you can put away your pride, and you can learn from the friend you pretend you don't have."
…Qinghua.
She doesn't hold her punches, he winces, and her self satisfied expression tells him she probably would have, to anyone else. Not kind, never kind, but it is, undoubtedly, a far better alternative to the man he'd met only briefly, passing in the hallway, of wild eyes like a caged animal, who had only had to look at him for him to know that he was meat on a menu to the demon. They'd passed, went their separate ways, but it's the first time he's felt something like fear since his marriage.
"Then, you want me to…study him?" His nose wrinkles, hands moving to pour more tea, and she laughs, a barking sort of noise.
"Study him? God, no, he's a mess. What you need to do is look to his people, not himself. Their expectations, their hopes, he's in tune with it in a way you can be as well, if you put in the work. Do you think you can do that?" Her brow raises, sharp, doubtful. She doesn't hide that she sees little of her Queen within him, no matter the way it stings.
Shen Qingqiu swallows the bitter cold liquid, a balm to the pride he swallows as well, and says, "Yes."