Chapter Text
The peacefulness of the rain-master’s realms was a slightly startling experience for Pei Ming every time he came here. Something he did more often than anybody would have thought, especially with the history between the rain-master and the general that was common knowledge in the heavens. The tranquility of this place always gave him a felling of not belonging; like he was somehow tainting a perfect place with his bare existence.
This was also the reason why he always snug in like a thief in the night when he came. Maybe he also did not want to meet any of the rain-master’s subjects, but he would rather die than admit that. She not once mentioned this behavior of his though. And she didn’t do so today either, just opening the door for him like he was as much a welcome guest as any traveling scoundrel that came to her doorstep during the day asking for a few grains of rice and leaving with enough for a few days.
He knew that his visits never went unseen by her subjects though, and he also noticed how the slight frown on her face only appeared when it was him visiting, but he still came, even if he knew that the only reason, she didn’t send him away was her general hospitality. Instead, he tried to fool himself into believing that she also cared for his company even if only the tiniest bit. It was humiliating and so far below him that he would probably take his own life before admitting any of this out loud, but she never made him explain.
She just closed the door behind him, pointed to the table and filled the teapot with boiling water from a kettle that was conveniently ready whenever he stepped in.
He never commented either, just sitting there, drinking the tea she poured in silence and watched her move around in the tiny house she had chosen to live in when she should have been surrounded by gold and diamonds in her own palace in the heavens. Honestly: on earth as well. She was the one bringing rain to all the world, offering nutrition for plants and animals alike. Humanity should be carrying her on their hands. Instead, they prayed for wealth and love in other god’s temples, taking her gifts for granted or even worse, foolishly believed that their own invention would bring prosperity to their fields.
He never had understood how she refused her palace when even in her mortal life she had been robbed of what should have been hers as a princess.
But she never appeared to be unhappy, not when she swept the floors with a broom nor when she washed dishes or beat the rugs. All of these were tasks he had never performed himself, neither in his mortal nor in his immortal life. He considered them beneath him, but she even smiled when she finished with an especially rough stain, seemingly satisfied with her work.
Her smile always made his stomach ache.
Today she cleaned the window screens with her delicate fingers. She not once faltered under his stare even if he knew that it was unreasonably intense. She did not even turn until she finished her work and he put down the empty cup on her simple table in unison. He never knew if she waited for him to finish or the other way around, but as soon as the tiny ‚clink‘ echoed through the small hut, she turned around, putting her cleaning device away and spoke the first words of the night, „Would General Pei care for another cup of tea perhaps?“
And like all the other times before he would shake his head. „There is no need. Thank you.“
She would remove the cup then but did not wash it. Instead, she came towards the table, pulling out the second chair for herself.
At this point, normally, a stiff conversation would follow. She would ask about his latest visits to the human realm. He would ask about the crops as if he knew anything about the kind of work she did here. In the end he would apologize for his unannounced visit, bow his head lightly and leave with a ‚thanks for Queen Yushi’s hospitality.‘ but not today. Before she could pull out the chair for herself, he stood and she stopped, surprised by the change in their usual pattern.
He stared at her as if she had grown a second head for a moment, completely ignoring the fact that he had been the one who had broken the silent agreement they had.
It felt like at least an incense time passed between them, even if it was probably far less. Then Yushi Huang returned to her usual kind expression and opened her mouth, probably to ask another overly polite question.
Pei Ming barged in before she could form words. „Let’s take a walk.“ It wasn’t even a question but an order in the way he barked out the words. It was extremely impolite.
„Whatever the General wants,“ she answered as if it was not at all called for to throw him out and forbid him to ever return when he dared to order her around on her own lands. It was his luck that the black ox wasn’t close by or the general would have been chased off her land in the blink of an eye.
For a moment she seemed to consider if she would need her hat, but as it was the middle of the night, she left it at its place behind the front door, before turning toward the back door instead, opening it for him.
He hated how he lost all ability to use his usual skills of charm and gallantry whenever he was around her. As if he would ever allow a woman to pull her own chair or hold a door for him when he was in his right mind!
But he was unwilling – and unable – to correct this situation and left first, only slowing his steps a little for her to catch up to his side once she had closed the door behind them.
He did not have the slightest clue about the area – he was not a well-liked guest here after all –, but Yushi Huang did not argue with the path he chose, simply falling in step with him.
He had to remind himself quite often that his legs were quite a bit longer than hers, and slow down.
He had never considered if the scar at her neck impaired her ability to breathe, he realized.
She did not complain though, even as they made their way up a mountain in silence.
His muscled were tense, his brows furrowed as his eyes wandered over the waste green lands around them, enlightened by the full moon’s light above. It was a beautiful place. Pei Ming was sure that nowhere in the central plains existed a more lavish landscape.
He couldn’t even remember if it had been like this before the war and he hated that all his mind was able to conjure of memories of that time were pictures of violence and blood. He wanted to remember. He just couldn’t. It didn’t matter how hard he tried. And what right did he have to ask the rain-master about her country after he had been the one who had invaded it with his army all those years ago?
Maybe Yushi Huang noticed how conflicted he was. Maybe she did not know how to handle this change in their usual routine either. She stayed silent next to him, her hands resting calmly in each other. The moon made her skin glow softly.
Pei Ming suddenly envied it. He wished he could caress the stretch of white with his fingers like its light did. But he was the last man that ever deserved to do that, and it made bile and anger rise inside him.
He suddenly stopped where he was. Conveniently they had just reached an elevation where the small path they had walked opened up a little bit into a wider area of grass. From the cliff they could look down onto the rice fields around the rain-master’s small house, already looking small from how far they had gone.
Once again, he just stared, his forehead furrowed deeply and unable to bring his thoughts into words.
Queen Yushi stepped in as she so often did. „Maybe we take a small break here, General Pei?“ she asked. Her voice sounded a little more strained than usual. The walk must have been exhausting for her. He was a martial god after all.
He had burdened her too much, he thought angrily and nodded his agreement stiffly.
He stood stiffly, staring down onto the piece of land that had once been Yushi as if he could force it back into a state that had been gone for centuries just with the power of his mind.
Yushi Huang sank to the floor elegantly all the while, carefully straightening the wrinkles in the fabric of her verdant robe and looked up to him.
She stayed silent until he abandoned his impossible deed and plunged down next to her.
„General Pei has a lot on his mind today,“ Yushi Huang commented after another moment of silence, not a hint of judgement in her voice.
It wasn’t even a question, but it finally broke through the impenetrable defenses of Pei Ming’s silence.
„I try to remember what these lands looked like all these years ago.“ he explained bitterly.
He knew that these words would cause her pain. They were talking about her homelands after all. A homeland which he had entered under the pretense of peace only to return with an army and no mercy at all.
„Yushi kingdom is long gone, General Pei. Why bother with the past and things that will never return?“
She made it sound so easy to let go of things. And in a way it was. After all: who but him knew that better with how many women he had forgotten over the centuries? He never hung himself up on things of the past. He lived from one day to the next. And he enjoyed every second of it.
But lately…
„Yushi was never rich,“ the former princess obliged his question, „Even when the royal family became greedy, nobody would ever starve. But the people were farmers and craftsman. They enjoyed the simple things and had no sense for word twisting and clever sementics.“
It was a tiny jab against Xuli’s focus onto the civil arts, but it held no harm in it. She tried to make him understand what he had been asking for. And as he himself was a martial god and not a civil one maybe it even appealed to him in a way.
The general stayed silent though.
„I do not regret what it became now, and neither should you, General Pei.“
So, he didn’t.
His shoulders relaxed a little and for the first time since he arrived this evening, he did not look like he was about to bolt at any second.
He still looked exhausted though.
„You should rest a little,“ she suddenly said and what she did next broke an unspoken boundary they had upheld for all these years: She offered up her lap for him to rest his head upon.
They never touched. Even when she offered him the teacup with both hands, he carefully avoided brushing her skin with his fingers.
But he had been the one to first disrupt the carefully established equilibrium they normally shared.
And he was tired.
So, he sank down slowly, placing his head between the curves of her legs, facing up towards the stars above them.
It was a position foreign to him. Not because he never came this close to a woman. Not even because he lowered himself beneath a woman in the process. He did that quite a lot actually, but always the other way around and with far less fabric in the way. But he never made himself this vulnerable in front of anybody, neither female nor male.
It felt soft and warm, and he had to close his eyes for a moment.
When he opened his eyes again, Yushi Huang was looking into the distance, leaning back a little on one hand, while the other lifted carefully before softly caressing a strand of his hair that had slipped from position. She did not notice the increase of a reflection of moonlight in his eyes when his eyes widened. And he did not mention that her hand stayed in his hair even after all the stands had long been brushed from his face.
It could have been minutes or hours that passed like this with no words spoken. But it became another tradition of them: After the cup of tea, they would walk up the mountain for a while and then Yushi Huang would sit down and caress Pei Ming’s hair for a few minutes while he rested in her lap like a child.
But it was different in a very important way from their previous tradition: With every repetition of it, Pei Ming desired to touch her back more. He wanted to reach out his hand. To pull her down to him and to kiss her.
It would be a terrible mistake.
But the desire became unbearable at some point, and he did. Well, he did lift his hand. He touched her cheek. He brushed his thumb along her lips like he had done a million times before with other women. But he had never done it like this – not with this much gentleness and hesitation and without his usual intentions.
It made his organs churn.
Only for a moment she seemed surprised. Then she smiled. And Pei Ming’s heart melted in his chest.