'till my sleeves are stained red
Characters: The warriors of the Yao-Clan
Summary: There are so many people working in the dark to protect their prince and their clan.
who will bring flowers when it's over
Character: Tao Fang
Summary: He will be the last one left.
'cause sooner or later it's over –
Iris, The Goo-Goo Dolls
Year of the Tiger, 1902
Tao Fang was an oddity in his village and he was aware of this.
He was not all that old, had only passed his fiftieth birthday a while back and compared to his less fortunate friends, he was truly a lucky one because his body had given no hint on failing him anytime soon. One might blame the strict health regiment the members of the Fang-clan had always enforced on him and anyone else who was born into their rows for this.
Tao remembered. Always.
Tao remembered a time when the town, then a village, had been poor, when the houses which did not belong to one of the Four Families had been build of wood and not stone, a time long before Emperor Jun Yao had gained power and had brought wealth to the place where he had been born and where he had grown up.
Tao remembered watching the village grow little by little as more and more clans moved into the settlement, how the Second Ring consisting of the compounds of the four oldest clans – Cho, Fang, Wei, Bo – had gotten a sibling, the Third Ring where less prestigious warrior clans had settled down, aiding in the protection of the First Ring, the royal palace.
Tao remembered holding his mother's hand as Li Fang had brought him to the then-new school where he was taught how to read and to write, to defend himself. He remembered how his mother – a proud warrior in her own right – had kissed his forehead which had embarrassed him (what if another student had seen this?) before she had reminded him of his duty, the protection of those who were less fortunate than him because they would not be taught how to fend for themselves.
He also remembered going home and learning from his older brother that their mother was dead, that she had fallen – honourably as the older added although the Fang-clan had never bothered as much with honour as the Weis – and that he, Tao, would now be clan head for the brother considered himself unable to fill the spot their mother had left open.
And so, as a child of only six summers, Tao Fang had become head of the proud and very prestigious Fang-clan. No one had complained because there had been no one in the clan who had ever considered it a good idea for the older brother to take over.
Tao had learned to hate his new position quickly, mostly because of the way he had gained it. He missed his mother dearly but sometimes, when he prayed in front of her grave for advice, he felt a hand on his shoulder and when he went back, he felt like she guided his steps.
He became a wise clan head, wise enough to keep the elders – who had been powerful enough to order his father's death for no better reason than he had been an outsider to the clan who had only been a Fang by name and never by blood – on a short leash and to make friends with the young heirs of the other important families.
He called Chen Bo a brother after being saved by the man and while he was never all that fond of Tian Cho and the ignorance of the man, Fu Wei became his best friend and this was good because Fu used weapons and Tao had poisons in countless different combinations at his disposal.
Tao was twenty-two and happily married when he realised that he would be the last one left out of his friends, that he would have to carry on after losing them all one by one. It was a painful realisation but the pain was numbed when he saw the way his friends' wives looked at them, always worried that one day, they might fall in a pointless war between two half-siblings.
Tao loved his friends dearly but to know that he would be the one to hold speeches on three different funerals and that he would be the one who would bring flowers to their graves on the important holidays long after they would be all gone … it hurt deep inside his chest.
But he accepted it and as he accepted it, the pain numbed away and he realised that now that it would no longer be a surprise, it would not hurt as much when it actually happened. Nonetheless, he retired earlier than all of them because he was prepared and they were not and if he was not the one to die after them all, if he was not the one to have to catch up – it would break them and Tao had always tried to keep them from falling apart.
He tried to save everyone the way his mother would have expected him to.
And, truth be hold, the woman has been dead for nearly fifty years and he still remembers the face she had made whenever she had been disappointed with him or his brother. (And old fears never really left, did they?) His mother taught him to respect women above everything else because they carried the weight of the men's world on their shoulders, because they suffered the most under every little war men started.
These teachings were the reason why he was unsurprised to find Fu's granddaughter on the steps that led into his laboratory, her dragon mask in place and her breath calm and even. If Tao was any less skilled as he happened to be, she would have managed to fool them. However, Tao was not only aware of the reputation he had in the village, no, he had met too many like her before. Other young heiresses who acted calm and relaxed as they were on the edge to despair.
"Fang-san," she greeted, a little more formal than she should have if she had aimed for deceit because she had called him her uncle all her life and to revert back to his last name was a dead giveaway. "It seems like I require your assistance."
She was Fu's grandchild, there had never been a doubt about that. The way she tried to hide underneath a perfect excuse – one she would deliver soon enough – and the fact that their clans had cooperated for a very long time. The thought that Fu might be proud of her for this stunt struck his mind for a moment, then he discarded it. Even Fu never forgave everything.
"I am sorry, Jun Li-chan," he said, using the old name without truly thinking about it. "However, Fu would murder me for doing this."
She was visibly displeased at this. Her eyes – pale blue as frozen winter skies – narrowed beneath her mask as she crossed her arms. "You seem to misunderstand," she said slowly, testing the words in her mouth before speaking. "I am going on a mission soon, one of the emperor. This mission has a high risk of me getting caught and … tortured. I would like to have some poison that can kill me swiftly in this case … I do not wish to betray the emperor."
And she would even less like to disappoint the emperor's son, he mused, as he remembered the prince who had arrived in their town alongside with her. Where she was a child of dark shadows and endless rainstorms, a child of moonless nights and loneliness, the prince was the opposite. His eyes were warm, as if they held the sunlight. He was a child of sunlit meadows in spring, of twirling around and laughter. They were polar opposites which was likely while they were – although Jun Li probably had not even admitted as much to herself – attracted to each other.
(Fu would throw a fit if he ever found out.)
"And you have come to ask me for this instead of asking your grandfather to give you have of the poisons I have had delivered to your compound two days back," Tao said with a sigh. He had never understood the reason why the Wei-clan made such a huge deal out of possessing always a certain stock of poisons that killed fast in case that the town was invaded and they would all fail.
Even in his book – and he spent his days working on poisons and their antidotes – having a plan for an entire clan to commit suicide out of losing their honour seemed to be slightly creepy.
"Yes," she said with a nod before a smile was mirrored in her eyes. "I promise you that I will not make you my accomplice in an abortion, Tao-jii-san."
The slip back was what convinced him to hand over the poison – because in the end, this was what his mother would have wanted and disappointing her was never an option even if it meant that he might have to add her grave to the ever-growing number of graves where he brought flowers to.