Work Text:
The Emperor looked at the damaged painting in front of him, his gaze tracing the delicate lines of blossoming trees, the curve of a cheek as one of the girls seemed to have her attention drawn away from the central figure to look off into the middle distance, traces of once vibrant color now faded onto the comparatively cheap medium of the wallpaper. He reached out to touch the edge of the painting and felt the paper’s springiness beneath his fingers. “So. This is what killed him, in the end.”
Silence greeted his statement, ‘Master Jinshi’ focused on the painting in front of them, his false role forgotten. The Emperor’s attention was pulled away from his father’s legacy to focus on the young man beside him.
He had never quite believed that his brother would get away with his deception, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been shocked. The court’s memory was a fleeting thing. So many of his father’s duties had been fulfilled by the Empress Regnant when he was young that a list of those who remembered the details of His Former Majesty's features in his youth was short.
Master Shishou was on it, unfortunately.
Still, he had carefully secured his position as his grandmother’s health continued to decline in her final years. The fact that the palace master was the very image of His Former Majesty was probably a source of speculation among the most senior members of the court, but after being directly presented to that same court as a eunuch, there was little they could say or do, even to a newly crowned emperor. To outright accuse Master Jinshi of being the Moon Prince could have one of two terrible consequences.
Either they openly doubted the Son of Heaven’s word, or they would have to believe that he had deliberately mutilated his only heir.
Nobody who had survived his grandmother’s reign long enough to be a senior member of his current court was the type to fling discretion to the wind without proof of their words. Shishou, in particular, had certainly looked between the Emperor and the new palace master during Master Jinshi’s official introduction with a curiously blank expression on his face.
At the time, the Emperor had almost wished Shishou would challenge him in public. Partially because he would have relished an open chance to oust the man from his position and send him scurrying back north with the rest of his grandmother’s flunkies. If Shishou had also destroyed this charade on the way out, then the man would have at least served a useful purpose.
As the light faded and his companion’s attention was thoroughly distracted, the Emperor took the opportunity to actually study the younger man’s features.
In his opinion, Zuigetsu was far more beautiful than his father had ever been. Quite aside from the striking coloring inherited from his maternal side, there was an animation to his expression, a cutting intelligence in his eyes and a confidence in his demeanor that made a mockery of his Former Majesty to anyone who had known the former Emperor.
When he was a child, though, he had thought his father was the most beautiful person in the world. Not that he saw him terribly often, but until he was about ten or so years old, his father would sneak him out of his lessons approximately once a month and they would go on a small adventure, usually within the Inner Court, but occasionally elsewhere during summers in the north to escape the heat. And ‘sneak’ was the correct word for it - nevermind that the emperor’s word was ostensibly absolute. He had known, even at that tender age, not to say anything about his time with his father. Not to Suiren, not to his mother, not even to Gaoshun or Ah-Duo.
Those days were a secret.
“Daddy, look at this!” He half dangled out of the tree, feeling a grin split his face as he held his prize up between two fingers.
His father smiled at him from a slightly higher branch, the eunuch guards ringing the base of the tree with silent, stoic faces. “Good job, Yoh. Race you to the top!”
He grinned and tucked his find into the inner pocket of his robes before scrambling up the tree as fast as he could, feeling the thrill of climbing high - higher than Suiren or any of the nursemaids would let him go.
His father, however, stopped on one of the very highest branches of the tree, where it made a natural seat. “Too slow!”
“Aww!” he complained, but grinned as his father settled on the branches and opened an arm so that Yoh could climb into his lap - a much more comfortable seat, with all the fancy silks than the rough bark of the tree. “You’re still faster than me.”
“I’m bigger than you,” his father said, a gentle smile on his face. “When I was little I couldn’t go as fast either.”
Yoh pouted. “I’m getting bigger! I grew a whole two sun this summer!”
It was difficult to describe the change in his father’s expression - almost as if a passing cloud covered the sun as he squeezed Yoh against his chest. “Don’t be too eager to grow up.”
“I know. I’ll get more lessons!”
That made his father laugh, a sound like bells tinkling, the embrace growing looser as he relaxed. “So, show me what you found.”
Yoh reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out the pretty feather that had caught his attention. “Look, Daddy.”
“I see,” his father said, delicately taking the feather from him by the shaft and holding it up against the sunlight filtering through the trees, turning the vivid blue spines translucent. “This is a good find - see that color? How it shifts between a pure blue to having just a hint of green as I turn it into the sunlight?”
Yoh nodded. “What kind of bird is it from?”
“A kingfisher.” His father continued to admire the feather. “They have these beautiful blue feathers on the tops of their bodies, but underneath are the most vibrant shade of orange. Like clouds during the sunset.”
He considered the feather. “It looks like one of Mother’s hairpins.”
He felt a tiny tremble run through his father’s body. “Yes. These feathers can also be used to make jewels fit for an empress. They scoop the poor birds out of the sky with a net and pluck their feathers to adorn the phoenix crown.”
Yoh didn’t like it when his father’s tone shifted like that - as if he were afraid, even though they were high up in the tree with the sun beating down on them. “Well, this one's for you, Daddy! And it’s better, because I found it!”
His father began to chuckle again, the line between his eyes smoothing as his expression cleared. “Why thank you. It’s a beautiful gift - I’ll make sure to keep it with my treasures.” As if to keep his word then and there, his father tucked the kingfisher feather into a pocket of his own robes. “Hmm, what might I have in exchange for such a handsome gift?” His father’s hand came back out of the robe, holding a small bag, which he passed to Yoh.
He pulled the bag open and grinned with delight. “Dragon beard candy! You’re the best!”
“It’s your favorite,” his father said, his gaze soft.
He held the bag up. “Share?”
“No, thank you. It’s all yours.”
Yoh shifted his weight to rest the back of his head against his father’s shoulder as they looked up at the sky. “Daddy? Will you tell me about clouds again?” he asked, tilting his head to look at his father upside down.
“Again? You sure you’re not tired of hearing about them?” his father teased, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Nuh-uh.”
“Well then.” His father’s gaze turned toward the heavens. “You see the clouds as they pass by?”
“Yeah.”
“And what color are the clouds?”
Yoh smiled. “White! But not really white!”
The back of his head shook with the rumble of his father’s chuckle. “Exactly. It looks white, but when we look closer, there are all kinds of colors in the clouds. For example, around the edges, what color do you see?”
He squinted at the clouds as the wind blew them across the sky in big, puffy balls. “Gray?”
“Mmm. I can see that. What else?”
He tilted his head a little. “Umm, just white, but the edges are dark. Like when the clouds are about to rain.”
“Yes - those dark areas are shadows. But depending on the cloud, sometimes the grey is a misty blue, like the early morning sky and sometimes it’s a dark, angry gray with lots of black in it. Or if a storm is coming, sometimes there’s hints of green.”
He relaxed and let the familiar lecture wash over him. His father’s voice was as pretty as the way he described the hidden colors inside the white clouds. Yoh loved to listen to his father talk about things that made him happy - things like games, or colors, or music. He had heard one of his mother’s ladies in waiting saying once that hearing His Majesty’s voice was like listening to a nightingale sing about cinnabar wine.
He didn’t know what cinnabar was, but it sounded pretty.
“Your highness? Your highness, where are you?!” came the call from below them. One of his mother’s attendants was looking for him. No doubt because it was time for lessons. Yoh giggled and muffled the sound against his father’s bright yellow robes. They’d never find him up here!
“Excuse me, gentlemen. Have you seen the Crown Prince? It’s time for his math lesson and I can’t find him anywhere,” the attendant asked one of the blank-faced eunuchs, ringing the base of the tree.
“Our task is to guard the Emperor, not to manage the Crown Prince’s schedule,” came the stony response, the eunuch guard staring straight ahead, giving no indication that Yoh was in the tree with said emperor.
The attendant sighed. “Of course.” She bowed and walked away, continuing to look for him and try to drag him back into his math lesson. It was a good thing it hadn’t been Suiren! Then he would have had to go with her.
His father looked at him with a conflicted expression. “You probably should go do your math lesson.”
“But Daddy! I don’t care what x equals!” Yoh whined. “Everyone says I’m gonna be an emperor, like you! D’you have to do algebra?”
His father sighed. “I did when I was your age. I hated it too.”
He grinned, triumphant. “So you understand.”
“I do.” They settled back among the branches, but his father’s voice fell silent as he watched the clouds pass above them and Yoh ate the rest of his candy.
Their peaceful cuddle was interrupted though when a far more welcome voice started yelling, “Yoh! Yoh, where are you?”
He perked up and peered down the branches to see Ah-Duo looking for him, her face annoyed as she passed under their spot in the tree to walk over the bridge that led to their favorite orchard. They could usually find some of the best peaches there, before the gardeners got to them. “Oh boy. Now I’m gonna get it. Ah-Duo had to do the lesson without me.” He squirmed slightly with guilt for leaving his best friend to wrestle with algebra without him and looked up to say that he probably should go.
The look on his father’s face stopped him. There was a focus to his gaze as he also watched Ah-Duo standing on the bridge.
Her hair was mostly down, except for a couple of small braids at the sides keeping the strands out of her face and the mass of inky black had caught the late afternoon sunlight to create a fiery halo of gold around her head. She was dressed for lessons, which meant she was stuck in the dresses that she hated, but Suiren loved. And, because Ah-Duo loved her mother, she wore the simple, pretty dresses when she had to behave ‘like a lady,’ as long as she could change into old pants and shirts that meant she and Yoh and Gaoshun could have adventures together without worrying about dirtying their nice clothes.
“Daddy?” he asked, suddenly cold in the late afternoon summer sun. Why was his father looking at Ah-Duo like that?
“Yoh, who is that young lady?” his father asked, eyes still caught on the sight of the little girl as she pouted and continued crossing the bridge.
“That’s Ah-Duo. My friend. She’s Lady Suiren’s daughter, so we do all our lessons together before we get to go play.” Yoh shifted his weight so that his body faced his father, drawing the emperor’s attention back to himself and away from his best friend.
His Majesty sighed before focusing his attention back on him. “I see. So she’s yours?”
Yoh tilted his head - he’d never thought of it like that. But he kept his eyes on his father’s and nodded. “Yeah. Ah-Duo’s mine.”
The focused expression on his father’s face disappeared and he reached a hand up to brush a thumb against Yoh’s cheek. “You really are growing up so fast.”
Yoh froze, unsure what to say to that, when they heard the distinctive clack clack of an entourage making its way through the Inner Palace. He looked down to see the vanguard of a grand eunuch escort beginning to enter the courtyard, where they were. “Grandmother’s here.”
His father began to tremble. “You’d better go find your friend. I’ll see you later.”
“See you, Daddy!” he whispered and began climbing down the tree, watching with worried eyes as he spotted his father begin to bite on his index finger at the top of the tree. Grandmother wasn’t much fun to be around - he always had to put on what Surien called his ‘court manners’ when she came to inspect his mother’s pavilion and she was very strict about how Yoh had to study hard to become a good emperor. Honestly, he didn’t think she liked him very much.
But she wasn’t that scary.
As he scampered past the ring of eunuch guards, though, he couldn’t get the image of his father’s captivated gaze out of his mind.
“Your Majesty?”
The Emperor blinked, his father’s face replaced by the palace master’s. Jinshi watched him with eyes that held an expression his father never had. “Did you say something?” he asked, clearing his throat and doing his best to keep his tone nonchalant.
“I was asking what you wanted to do with it? This section of the Inner Palace is scheduled to be demolished next month.” Jinshi had drawn himself up as he focused on the palace business that had ostensibly brought them here.
The Emperor looked back at the damaged painting. “What would you do with it, Zui?”
Jinshi stiffened. “I…don’t know.”
He smiled at the uncertain tone of voice. “Do you still have the stone he gave you?”
Jinshi reached into his robes and pulled out a handkerchief that he unwrapped, careful not to touch the stone inside with his bare fingers. “Here it is.”
The Emperor peered at the stone in his brother’s hand. “And what did your apothecary call it?”
“Orpiment, sir. Apparently it makes a golden yellow color.”
“Imperial yellow,” he murmured. The stone glowed, even in the low light. He glanced back at the painting, at the faint golden background that remained, but he had little doubt was once far more vibrant.
Jinshi looked at the stone in his hand. “You don’t usually wear Imperial yellow. Not outside of large, formal events, anyway.”
“No.” He paused. “His Former Majesty almost always wore it, as did the Empress Regnant.”
There was silence at that. Modest, black silk with gold thread embroidery, rather than expensive, vibrant yellow. Lush curves on full grown women as opposed to barely budding figures and squishy cheeked girls on the cusp of their change. How much of his reign, he wondered, reflected his continuing rebellion against his father? Although, if he were truly honest, his father was not the one he continued to rebel against. He glanced at the central figure in the painting, the delicate, sparse lines somehow conveying the sheer presence that remained even after the celestial beauty that had once captivated an emperor’s attention for a night or two had faded. Her beauty had been passed on to her son - her strength of will had not.
As Zuigetsu grew and it became more obvious that he bore the telltale stamp of the Imperial line, it had been mutually agreed upon that such a subject was not fit to be discussed in front of him. Children could be extraordinarily sensitive. There had been no way to keep him from hearing about how pretty he was - indeed, it was best that he learn how to use his appearance effectively. Nor was the Emperor deaf to the rumors of illegitimacy that swirled around the Moon Prince’s birth as the precise nature of his father’s beauty was lost to age.
But as far as he had been concerned, better to bear speculation of bastardry than to have Zui think he was somehow doomed by the blood that ran in his veins. He and his mother had made sure that Zuigetsu would have the space to take what gifts he had been granted by his lineage and make them his own, far outshining the parody of a man His Former Majesty had been.
“Mother didn’t really know what he might have been trying to say, back then.” Jinshi’s voice was subdued. Hesitant, as if reluctant to even ask.
The Emperor took a deep breath. “Before I was old enough to understand just how stunted a man he was, I used to spend time with him. One of the things I remember was how much he loved color. The brilliance of a sunset, the shading of a bird’s wing in flight, even the subtleties of white in a cloud.”
Jinshi’s eyes were wide, his expression torn between shock at hearing his Former Majesty spoken of so openly and fascination at hearing about the man whose specter still haunted their family. “So, was this…?” he looked down at the stone in his hand.
“It was his favorite color,” the Emperor said. “Mother used to wear a great deal of yellow as well, if you remember. I always wondered if that was one of the things that drew his attention.” He looked from the stone in Jinshi’s hand to his face. “I couldn’t tell you for sure, but it would fit the man I remember to try to share something pretty in order to make a friend.”
Let us not ask the question of why he wanted to make friends, he thought to himself. He, himself, had always been a very masculine child. Zuigetsu, however, had looked like a little girl, no matter how carefully the nursemaids dressed him as a prince.
But his father was now five years in the grave and this appeared to have been one of his genuine, childish gifts - the only one he had ever had the opportunity to offer to his youngest son. Just in case his intentions had truly been an attempt at connection rather than predatory, he would bite his tongue so as to not taint the one gift Zui would ever receive from his ‘father.’
The younger man blinked, forcing back the suspicious sheen of tears in his eyes as he carefully wrapped the orpiment back up and tucked it inside his robes. He didn’t know what his brother would do with it, but he suspected that it might find its way to a spot in the back of a box of treasures.
Just like how a delicate kingfisher’s feather, found when his father’s office was cleared out, was tucked away in a drawer of his own personal effects.
He took another deep breath, inhaling the scent of old glue and mold before squaring his shoulders. “The demolition should proceed as planned. However, please see to it that this section of wallpaper is cut away and preserved, Master Jinshi.”
His brother bowed with the servile grace of a eunuch. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
“Come. Let’s breathe some fresh air.”
The two of them stepped into the warm, summer night. “I fear I am poor company tonight. Please convey my regrets to Lady Gyokuyou and tell her I will visit her another night.” He wasn’t in the mood for small talk and Lingli would already be in bed by the time he arrived.
Jinshi stopped, bowing in acknowledgment of his sovereign’s order. “Yes, sir.”
The Emperor continued on, the eunuchs of his own entourage trailing behind him as he wandered the older sections of the Inner Palace, eventually crossing into the threshold of the Rear Palace itself to revel in the unkempt wildness of the northern quarter. It suited his mood.
“He’s a disgrace!”
The words rang in the otherwise silent office. His grandmother, the Empress Regnant, sat behind her desk, watching him with a piercing stare as he paced back and forth in the closed office. Perhaps he should have tempered his words, but the only people present were himself, his grandmother and the state slaves who had been forcibly silenced. And it was about time someone said what needed to be said about his father’s behavior.
The Empress Regnant delicately laid down the brush she had been writing with when he arrived. “Did you wish to continue?”
“Do I have to?!” Yoh huffed. “A full dozen children have just arrived in the Inner Palace - at this point, we could start the most infamous brothel in the capital! The Rear Palace - the only place in the nation where you can diddle little girls in the open!”
Of all things, his grandmother’s lips quirked around the edges. “I see you are still as naive as ever, Kyouyou.”
“Oh, no, we are not going to turn this into another lecture about my shortcomings!” His chest heaved in outrage. “If you’re going to treat him like a puppet, the least you could do is put him safely away in between uses.”
“You are speaking of the Son of Heaven, boy!” The Empress’ voice rang through the office.
Yoh slammed his hands on the desk, too angry to be intimidated. “I am speaking of a pedophile. To his procurer.”
Slap!
He allowed the force of the blow to snap his head to the side before turning his face slowly back to face her, their gazes locking across the desk as his cheek burned and his eyes watered.
Her usual impassive expression twisted with rage at his blatant insult, the palm of her hand red in contrast to the chill of her tone. “You would be wise to hold your tongue, you insolent child.”
He drew himself up, taking a single breath to steel his nerves. If there was one thing his grandmother did not respect, it was weak-willed men. “Or what? You can funnel as many children into the Inner Palace as you want, but even if one of them miraculously popped out another heir, you would still have to wait for that child to live past the age of seven before they could begin to threaten my position. Like it or not, I am the heir you have and, unlike His Majesty, I don’t cower if you raise your voice.” He raised his chin. “Or your hand.”
He had expected more anger - perhaps even a beating. It would have been within her rights to administer punishment for the insult and the state slaves at her disposal would have held him in place at a single word from her. Instead, his grandmother’s expression smoothed out and she smiled ever so slightly. “You think you’re irreplaceable?”
“I know my value,” Yoh replied evenly. “You’ve already sunk fourteen years into me and my education. Starting over is an uncertain gambit, since subsequent pregnancies in the Rear Palace have all ended in miscarriage and stillbirth - at best. Shall I even mention all the consorts who have died in childbirth because they were too damn young? Time is a luxury that you may or may not have anymore. Are you willing to bet the stability of the succession for your pride?”
A pair of arched eyebrows greeted that challenge. “Interesting. Very well. You object to the new concubines being admitted to the Rear Palace?”
“I think I’ve made that fact quite obvious,” he spat.
She sat back down, leaving him to stand in front of her desk as his cheek began to redden. “Tell me, then, Kyouyou. What is the primary duty of an emperor?”
“To rule,” he answered. Indeed, the answer was almost rote by now.
“And yet, your father only makes a token effort to read petitions, lead ceremonies, or even listen to his ministers. He is easily swayed by anyone who can present information in a way that doesn’t scare him. He doesn’t know one end of a sword from the other. Yet, the nation prospers. Why?”
Wonderful. More of the Empress Regnant’s word games. “Because you’re doing his job for him.”
“And because you will continue to do his job for him after I am gone.”
He was silent - his grandmother had never referred to something so inauspicious as her own death before. He wanted to ask what, exactly, her point was, but instead he bit the inside of his mouth, holding his tongue.
His grandmother’s eyes crinkled with approval at his discretion. “Your answer is correct, but lacks nuance. Any tyrant can rule. What is needed to rule well?”
He thought for a moment. “Wisdom. Judgment. An even temperament.”
The Empress Regnant nodded along with the qualities he listed. “And what do all of the qualities you’ve listed have in common?”
“The ability to listen to other people while maintaining your own perspective and opinion.” Yoh breathed carefully, determined to keep his temper. It had been one of his first and most enduring lessons from this woman - to lose his temper was to lose to her.
The sting of her slap continued to burn triumphantly against his cheek.
She picked up the brush again, spinning it between her hands as she spoke. “It seems you have mastered the basics, then. Let us see if you are ready to learn something beyond them.” She used the brush to point at his chest. “Those dragons you wear so proudly; what are they?”
Yoh continued to breathe carefully. He was well used to his grandmother’s rhetoric by now. “They symbolize the imperial family and are the progenitors of the imperial line, hence why we title ourselves as sons of heaven.”
The Empress Regnant nodded. “Power. Authority. Strength. All excellent qualities for a ruler to embody. How do they demonstrate these qualities?”
He frowned. “They’re usually associated with water. Rainfall, but also storms.”
“Typhoons. Floods.” She arched her brows. “The same water that nourishes the land - grows our rice, parches our thirst, is also destructive. To the farmer who sees their entire livelihood torn down when the world floods, do you think that they care that those floodwaters will nourish the soil for the future? Or would they think the cause of their pain is monstrous?”
He stilled. “You’re saying that to rule is to be monstrous?”
The Empress Regnant inclined her head.
He scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” She watched him. “Then let’s take an example nearer to the issue at hand. The current Son of Heaven is a man whose proclivities leave much to be desired, yet countless men flock to accommodate them, whether they be lowly slave traders or the highest ministers. And I admit these daughters like sacrifices into the Rear Palace.” She speared him with a look. “Why?”
Because you indulge him! His first thought was less than helpful - and if he simply blurted it out, he would fail her little test. “The ends don’t always justify the means,” he managed in a mostly even tone.
She shrugged. “If you were attending to your duty, would either be necessary?”
He froze, staring at his grandmother with wide eyes.
The Empress Regnant put both elbows on her desk and rested her chin on her intertwined hands as she watched him. “As you so astutely put it, I have invested fourteen years into you. You have begun to fulfill your official duties as Crown Prince, but your most essential one remains. Why have you not taken a consort?”
The image of Ah-Duo, laughing over a map of Li and tracing possible trade routes, caused his heart to clench in his chest. “There’s nobody I want.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s quite true,” the Empress Regnant drawled. “That little girl you’re always running around with has grown into an unusual beauty. You’ve been mooning after her for well over a year now.”
He let out a sigh. “She doesn’t want to be a consort.” He was as certain of that as he was that he wanted no other woman beside him.
His grandmother arched her brows. “Have you asked her? Directly?”
His gaze fell. He didn’t need to ask - he knew Ah-Duo. He knew her hopes, her dreams. She was ready to break free of this palace, even as he could feel the walls closing in around him, day after day, trapping him.
The Empress Regnant scoffed. “If you must be sentimental, at least have the courtesy to ask this girl if she’ll have you. You may be pleasantly surprised.” His grandmother lifted her chin off her hands. “For now, however, new concubines will continue to be admitted to the Rear Palace and some of them are of age. Whether they are there to serve you or His Majesty will be for you to decide.”
He raised his own chin and took a deep breath. “You want me to secure the succession.”
She gave no indication of being pleased with his conclusion, only saying in a flat tone, “I consider the fact that you are irreplaceable to be an unacceptable liability. If you would be an emperor, you would do well to learn the value of stability as your guiding virtue. Consider, Kyouyou, whether those children you pity would have a kinder fate if this country were to be plunged into a succession war.”
His fists clenched. “I understand.”
“Good. You are dismissed.” His grandmother dipped her brush in the ink and returned to the document she had been writing when he had demanded his impromptu audience.
He bowed and left her chambers, feeling a bubble of nervousness in his belly.
However self-serving his grandmother’s logic might be, he had to admit that she was correct about one thing. He had never outright asked Ah-Duo if she would be willing to stay with him, if he offered her the role of consort. He knew better than to ask her to be his wife - the Empress Regnant might believe him hopelessly naive, but he knew that his marriage was a matter of political capital. But if he did as his grandmother asked, secured the succession, then he could stop the influx of children and begin to redeem the royal family’s reputation. And later, when his father was finally gone, nobody could complain if he raised Ah-Duo to his side as his Empress, with their son as Crown Prince.
He just had to convince his best friend - perhaps she would be more receptive to his courtship if he proposed it as a tutorship?
Please, Ah-Duo. Accept me, and I will raise you up above all other women.
The Emperor stopped beneath a familiar tree, grown even taller in the last thirty years, that he had once scampered up and down with his father as an ignorant child, his innocent affection souring into contempt and disgust when he had realized that the girls entering the Rear Palace were not, in fact, playmates for himself and Ah-Duo and Gaoshun, but were there to service his father in a way he had understood, even at a tender age, that no grown man should have regarded a child.
The Empress Regnant had played him and his hopeless naivety like an erhu.
She had seen a hot-headed young man with a head full of steam for the dishonor he saw in front of him and turned his youthful passion and infatuation to her own ends. Otherwise, he might have realized that for a prince to ask a common-born woman if she would be his consort could only have one possible answer.
Make me the mother of the nation.
He sank to the base of the tree, resting his back against the trunk as he gazed up at the nearly full moon, his stare blank. Ah-Duo had always been smarter than him. Quicker, more shrewd. Faced with a situation with no seeming way out, she had still come up with a strategy meant to make him think, to reconsider. She had deliberately bid far too high for her station, the price of her love seemingly dependent on ambition unbecoming of a mere servant’s child. Had a consort of his said anything remotely similar to him today, he would have immediately thrown her out of the Rear Palace.
It was Ah-Duo’s bad luck that her impossible condition had been exactly what he was prepared to offer.
He rubbed one hand over his face. In the end, his mother had been the one to provide his grandmother with the peace of mind of a stabilized succession. He did his best not to think about what it must have entailed, but Anshi’s quiet rage and decisive action, whether right or wrong, had been more effective in putting a stop to His Former Majesty’s behavior than any half-baked, idealistic plan of his. He and Ah-Duo had publically failed at their task, his heart and her dreams shattered against the harsh reality that not even the power and prestige of the royal family could protect a cherished baby from death.
Twenty years later, here he sat, with a garden full of consorts, two of whom he actually favored with his affection and two more babies on the way that he could only pray were male in an attempt to stabilize his own succession. He was beginning to give up hope that Zui would outgrow his stubbornness on this issue, content to play the part of a eunuch, oblivious to the fact that the gifts from both side of his lineage, coupled with his willingness to work, to learn, made him a near-perfect Crown Prince.
What had made one of them monstrous while the other one shone bright? His grandmother’s heavy handed education was too pat an answer - he himself had been subject to it, yet he had never laid his hands on a child.
His gaze snagged on the old bridge he and his playmates had scampered across as children, now fallen into disrepair. The rot was evident even in the moonlight, but as he stared, he could still see Ah-Duo in his mind’s eye, limned by late afternoon sunlight, her expression innocent and openly annoyed with him for cutting lessons without her.
In retrospect, that had been the beginning of the end of his relationship with his father, and the birth of His Former Majesty’s fear of him as he began to learn to behave with the authority and dignity demanded of a Crown Prince. Authority and dignity that appeared to be beyond the capabilities of the man then crowned as the Son of Heaven. He wished he could say that he had immediately told Suiren about the incident, but his father’s attention had made him feel special. His Former Majesty had been very attentive to the types of things that were important to children - paying attention when they spoke, as well as taking the things they said seriously. A ready supply of candy - and remembering which candies were favorites. A willingness to wonder at the small details of the world around them which other adults might blow off in favor of more mature pastimes.
He closed his eyes and, for the first time in many years, deliberately recalled how his father had played with him as a child. Beautiful, yes, but constantly nervous and sad when the outside world intruded into their bubble of childish adventure. Shockingly immature - more of a playmate than a parent, yet with odd moments of adult perspective.
Of all things, his father had taken him seriously when he asked if Ah-Duo was his. His father never looked at Ah-Duo in such a way again, that he had ever seen, nor had he ever so much as approached her. His dearest friend had confirmed that for him, long ago, with a puzzled expression at the question, even as simply breathed a sigh of relief into his teacup, practicing the discretion his station demanded, even with his Crown Princess.
To rule is to be monstrous.
He wasn’t maudlin enough to equate his behavior with either his father’s or his grandmother’s. But time had worn away his youthful idealism as he learned to compromise in the name of the stability his grandmother had prized highly enough to sacrifice almost fifty children for the sake of only two heirs. Had learned, through bitter experience, that there was a paradoxical mercy in ruthlessness. To know what could be forgiven, what could be overlooked - and when to draw a bright, hard line beyond which no quarter was given. Even when innocent people were dragged down alongside the guilty.
It was a monarch’s duty to scar his soul with those lives, to preserve the nation.
A duty that his grandmother had understood all too well and his father not at all. If he had opposing influences to rebel against, it had led to him learning how to steer between two extremes. Perhaps that struggle would make him a great emperor in the end, but in the moment he could only be grateful that his reign had been blessedly quiet, with no true tests of whether the Ka line still held the mandate of heaven.
The light shifted and the Emperor returned his gaze to the sky. A cloud blew across the moon and, as he watched, the white moonlight split into colors within the cloud’s body.
The news of His Former Majesty’s passing, only a bare month after the Empress Regnant was anticlimactic. The primary emotion at his father’s funeral had been relief. But tonight his eyes burned as he marvelled at the delicate prism. “I hope your next life is wiser, Daddy,” he whispered. A single tear fell as the cloud continued to blow across the sky and the phenomenon ended after a moment, the moon once again shining over the old, overgrown orchard with its pale, cold light.
The stars were halfway through their stately dance through the heavens before he thought that he could return to his rooms with something approaching equanimity. Even the palace master should have retired by now. He stood and stretched, feeling something in his back give a sharp little pop in protest at sitting on the ground rather than a comfortable chair.
He left the now overgrown orchard, passing only a single maid who scrambled to bow at his unexpected presence out of the corner of his eye. His eunuch guard trailed behind him, silent as he wound his way out of this garden of women, toward the section of the Inner Palace that was his home.
His knee creaked and he grimaced. Moping into the night was a foolish, young man’s gambit. While he did his best to present himself as a vital man in his prime, in truth the Emperor was beginning to feel distinctly middle-aged. While he could never condone her methods, he at least understood his grandmother’s perspective much better when she had said the fact that he was indispensable was an unacceptable liability.
Patience, he reminded himself. Both Gyokuyou and Lihua were with child. Although she had not submitted official notice of a pregnancy, there was a possibility that Lady Loulan was also securing her family’s position. Now that the poison had been swept from the rear palace, odds were good that future children would do well. As for Zuigetsu, it was not yet time to give up hope. He was no prophet, but even he could feel that they were approaching a tipping point.
The mask of the impeccable palace master was ready to crack.
Finally, there was something - someone - Zui wanted more than the vague goal of escaping from his own self. The time was coming. He would have to choose - this illusion of ‘freedom’ he clung to or the privilege that came hand in hand with his duty. He could never truly claim Lakan’s daughter as the eunuch ‘Jinshi.’
But to force growth was to kill it. However, Shishou had been, once again, very insistent with his annual invitation to visit the north for hunting and leisure. Perhaps it was time to redirect his attention and suggest that he invite the Moon Prince, instead. After all, his younger brother was notoriously reclusive. Some fresh, mountain air and physical exertion would be good for him.
The Emperor smiled. Time to change things up and see what shakes loose, he thought, as he stepped over the threshold of his home, pausing to stare for a moment at an old screen that had been there forever. If he moved it though, it would be just about the right size for the section of wallpaper the apothecary had uncovered.
He would keep his father’s legacy here. Where he could see it and remember who his father had been versus what he might have been. It was the only act of filial piety he could perform for a kingfisher of a man who had so badly failed himself, the country and his own children. Perhaps that made him weak or sentimental, but if so, so be it. He could do as he pleased.
He was the Son of Heaven.