A glint of gold sits above the throne of the Emperor, sinuous body hidden among the coiling patterns of the throne, a pair of rubies glinting out from the shadows, winking in the candle light like a pair of eyes.
No one looks at it directly. No one speaks of it, not even in secret, not even in the privacy of their own homes.
The craftsmanship is exquisite, the best the empire has to offer but it's a poor substitute. Its too still, too silent, a pale mimicry of the real thing. The symbol of the emperors reign, of the prosperity of the empire, and it hasn't been seen in decades. Some have begun to wonder if it ever existed at all.
He can hear Zhanying shifting from foot to foot, the hours of waiting enough to test even his iron-clan discipline, but Jingyan doesn't call him out on it. They've been waiting for two hours, approaching three, and the guards at the gate are starting to give him pitying looks.
Jinyan rolls his shoulders minutely, sore after days of hard riding, but doesn't move. He cannot leave, will not leave, not after what happened last time. It is not a fear of punishment, but a matter of pride, of resignation. Jingyan is not his father's favored son, has never been his favored son, and he knows it. He cannot change his fate, only bear it with as much grace as he can muster.
For the first hour he'd thought of strategy reports, of supply chains and new training formations and the requisitions he's going to need to make after the last military campaigne, but even that train of thought soon wears thin. There's a line in his head, a piece of poetry his mother once recited, but Jingyan has never had a mind for the arts and it escapes him, elusive and ephemeral. He never managed to remember the line.
"How long have you been waiting?"
Jingyan blinks. The servants never dare address, too afraid of causing offence - on his part, or the emperors, he doesn't know, but the result is that they always spends these long waits in tense silence. To be addressed, as so openly as well, catches him completely off guard.
The man is a stranger, but that does not say much. It has been years since Jingyan attended court with any sort of regularity, and even longer since he had any friends there. He could be anyone - another lackey of one of the princes or worker of one of the ministries. Only the fine cloth of his robes marked him out as anything other than a servant, one of the invisible thousands that toil in the palace each day.
"What is your name?" Jingyan demands instead.
A tilt of the head, expression indescribable. There's something sly about him, something unsettling, and it sets Jingyan on edge. He's met thousands of men, politicians and paupers and men mad from the head of the battle, but this feels like something new.
"Mei Changsu." Extending his arms with a sweep of his blue robes. He never finishes the bow. "I have a proposition for you."
"No." Jingyan had said, and walked away, thinking that would be the end of that.
He was wrong. Oh, how he was wrong.
Jingyan doubts him right up until the moment he doesn't. He's sly, schemeing, always ready with a quiet word and clever suggestion - a strategist, born and bred, and that alone makes Jingyan wary. He's seen what men like this can do, the poison they can whisper into peoples ears, the destruction they can cause with no care for the collateral, so long as the bodies help them get one step closer to the top.
He thinks it for days, for weeks, until Nihuang lies in his arms, eyes hazy and clouded, her robes torn and the crossbows of a dozen different guards pointed at them as the Noble Consort and Crown Prince watch on, something like greed, like madness, bright in their eyes.
He thinks it until the Empress arrives, the Dowager Queen in tow, until Prince Mu somehow stumbles across the missing assailant, and Jinghuan, oily snake that he is, suddenly takes a turn for the honest and defends Jingyan before their imperial father.
And then he thinks - maybe he was wrong. Maybe Mei Changsu is more than he appears.
Another oddity about Mei Changsu: he has a way of simply appearing. Jingyan can be in the court, out in the city, even in his personal residence, and Mei Changsu will walk around the corner as if he has always been there. It had infuriated him, driven him mad with curiosity and frustration alike, but Jingyan never managed to figure it out. Jingyan must have interrogated his men a dozen times trying to figure out how he got in, but all swore up and down that they hadn't seen hide or hair of the man before they spotted him walking side by side with Jingyan.
He'd come close to having them beaten for it, back when he was still denying Mei Changsu, certain that blackmail or bribery or some other foul machination was greasing the snakes way into his house. In the end only Zhanyings own unwavering testimony to the same end had changed his mind.
Every day for three months Mei Changsu visited him, coming again to offer his proposition, and every time Jingyan had refused him, until finally, worn down from a day in the toxic miasma of the court and night dreaming of dead faces, staring at incense he couldn't light for his brother without commiting treason, Jingyan gave in.
"Fine." He said, tired and weary to the bone. "Tell me what you want to do. I'm not agreeing." He adds sharply, shooting Mei Changsu a dark look. "But I will listen."
In that moment he is absolutely certain that nothing Mei Changsu can say will change his mind. He is not interested in power, wealth or influence, not tempted by deviance or the lusts of the flesh. He has no ambition, save to serve his country and his men as best he can.
Jingyan is a rare creature - an good man, an honest man - living in a time when both are rewarded with derision and suspicion.
But Mei Changsu doesn't speak of power, doesn't speak of glory or fame or the hollow satisfaction of the crown sitting on his head. Instead he speaks of justice, of honor, and leaving behind a legacy to be proud of - not paid for in blood but in generosity, charity, and a will to do better.
"Da Liang is a great empire." Mei Changsu said, his eyes so old and sad. "But it is not a good one, not like it once was. I want to change that."
The explosion at the fireworks factory makes him doubt again, but it only takes one look at Mei Changsu to know that it was no scheme of his. He stands in the wreckage, soot staining the hems of his robe, smoke roiling like a storm over the whole city. The air is thick with pain, heavy with the cries of the dying, and in the midst of it all Mei Changsu stands, a rage in his eyes that startles Jingyan.
He's always seemed to mild mannered, so calm, but now Jingan looks at him and see's a fury. It burns right down to his bones - unforgetting, unforgiving.
Jingyan swallows back the words before they can even reach his mouth, suddenly feeling foolish that he could have ever through Mei Changsu had anything to do with this.
"They will not get away with this." Mei Changsu promises, voice soft and quiet. Jingyan watches him walk away, off to talk to Nihuang, and blinks, shaking his head. For a moment it almost looked like his eyes were red.
The crown prince falls first, then Jinghuan. Even Director Xia stumbles and falls from the emperor's graces, aided by an invisible nudge in the form of Mei Changsu. Xia's rage is terrible, his wrath without equal, bandying about accusations with the fervor of a zealot, blaming everyone, everything, and all the while proclaiming his own innocent to the emperor
Jingyan watches it with a terrible sense of satisfaction. This was the man that drove Jingyan's most beloved brother to his death. This was the man that framed the Chiyan Army and the Lins, friends so close they may as well have been his mother's family. They had often lamented their own lack of child, making wistful promises of marriage if they'd ever had a girl and resolutions to raise the two of them like brothers if they'd had a son. It had never happened, of course, but that never stopped them like treating Jingyan like one of their own family, helping him get settled in to his own household once he grew too old to live in the Zhao palace with his mother.
Every birthday they had given him a gift, and every new year an even greater present - surpassing even the generosity of the emperor, though it would have been treason to suggest such a thing.
One by one, Jingyan watches them be avenged, each pearl on his crown another step towards the heavens, towards the throne, as his enemies falter and fall around him. Nihuang, to whom he has said nothing of his strange association of Mei Changsu, and yet seems to know so much anyway, compares it to divine right. There's a spark of amusement in her eyes as she says it. "It is almost as if the gods favor you, Jingyan."
Mei Changus actually chokes on his tea, and Jingyan goes to pat him back firmly before realising that it is laugher that's shaking his shoulders.
For all the plotting and scheming, the betrayal and death, there are quiet moments too. They sit across from each other at the low desk, brazier burning at their side, turning the pages of battle reports and poetry books like.
Sometimes, when Mei Changsu is busy, entrenched in the pages of his book, Jingyan will look up and study him. Fine features, Jingyan would say almost nobel, save that Mei Changsu has no claim to high blood. Jingyan knows, he's checked. Meticulously.
His finger's tace the edge of the page as he reads, up and down and up again as his eyes trace the lines of ink. When he reads there's a softness of his face. So often it's a smirk, a sly look, even flashes of determined anger. It's so rare to see him at peace, and when he spots that look Jingyan can't look away.
Maybe if he'd had a wife, a consort, more friends than just Zhangping and his men and his strange association with the Mu's and General Meng, he wouldn't feel so attached to Mei Changsu. But as it stands, sad as it is to admit it, Mei Changsu is probably his closest friend in the world, and the sight of him makes Jingyan's day a little brighter, for all that trouble always follows at his heels.
Jingyan watches Mei Changsu for another quiet moment, watches him flip the page, amusement lighting up his eyes at some quirk in the writing, and looks away before Mei Changsu can catch him staring.
"I have chosen you." Mei Changsu had once said, and Jingyan, so full of suspicion had glared back and demanded "For what?"
A smile, sly, secret. "The throne."
For all that Mei Changsu seems to appear at his residence every few days, wandering in like a stray cat, Jingyan has never been invited back to his own residence. It's always to the Mu's, or the Marquis Yan's, even General Meng's residence - any one of a dozen good friends. For a while Jingyan wonders if Mei Changsu even has his own household, and then strikes the thought from his mind, irritated at his own ridiculousness.
Of course Mei Changsu has his own residence. He has an almost startling knowledge of every event and key player in the city, such a wealth of knowledge that could not be obtained without years of careful study and observation - he must have live in the city for years, even if Jingyan had never crossed paths with him before.
As for the others? Well they must simply be close friends, keeping a room open for him in case he stays late, talking or reading or doing whatever it is Mei Changsu, the Marquis Yan, and his son all do together.
When Jingyan wants to calls upon him he goes to the Mu residence, and nine times out of ten will find him in their gardens, sitting beneath the plum blossoms, or inside, surrounded by books and sipping at his tea. He might almost think there was some understanding between Mei Changsu and Nihuang, save that the man had helped create the test that would screen her suitors.
He even brings it up at one point, only for Mei Changsu to smile softly. "If I were any other man I would love her, but I am who I am, and she is too wild and beautiful to settle down with someone as boring as me."
Jingyan bites back a disbelieving noise and takes another sip of his tea, almost frowning at the taste. It's too strong for his tastes, most teas are, though he isn't adverse to a cup of wine every now and then - light and fragrant, yet with enough bite to spark a gentle hum in his veins. He resolutely doesn't think about why Mei Changsu's response relieves him so much.
It took Jinghuan ten years of scheming and squabbling to claw his way up to nobel prince, and even then he was only a counterbalance, the emperors way of giving the crown prince a slap on the wrists when he takes things too far.
Jingyan sits and drinks tea with Mei Changsu one day, listens to him talk, and two years later he kneels before his father, accepting the honor of the royal decree and a new crown.
Divine providence indeed.
Then comes the hunting palace and Jinghuan's treachery. Jingyan rides faster and harder than he ever has before, laming two horses along the way, and even then its not enough. Perhaps they were an hour too slow or perhaps Jinghuan was just lucky, because even with Nihuangs help they arrive to find the palace breached and blood pooling on the steps, bodies still warm.
Jinghuan falters at the door but Nihuang doesn't hesitate, stepping over the body of a eunuch, blood splashing beneath her boots, and into the room. Jingyan steels himself and follows.
The room is carnage. Blood sprays the walls, bodies torn across the floor. Flesh, wood and paper alike bear witness to a tale of destruction, gouges cut deep into the floor and the sliding paper panels thrown from their tracks. Flesh and armor alike like torn on the floor, jagged fragments of metal glinting wet and red. With every step he expects to see familiar faces. His mother, his brothers, the emperor, Mei Changsu-
Jingyan quashes the thought before it can take the heart of him, and move onwards. Nihuang makes a startled noise. Jingyan whips around, hurrying to her side. Deeper in the hall there is no sign of the carnage. Bodies litter the floor but they are strangely peaceful, absent of the blood and viscera of the other bodies. The emperor's lies prone and pale, once so powerful and now spayed like a doll on the floor. Nihuang kneels at his side, her fingers to his neck.
"What is it?" Jingyan asks.
Nihuang looks up, confusion plain on her face. "He's alive. They're - they're alive - just unconscious. Most of them anyway." She adds, glancing back at one of the guards, an arrow embedded in his neck.
"Guards!" Jingyan calls, whirling into action. "Check each body in the hall! Tend to the wounded and wake the rest!" He point to another guard. "And you, go fetch more men, tell them to collect all the dead, line them up outside."
Three hours later and the first of the sleepers are starting to wake. They've been lined up in the hall, sleeping side by side, inspected by the army physicians as soon as they'd arrive. None had been able to tell what was wrong with them. "It is like they just fell asleep." Physician Huan said, checking over the emperor again, just in case. Jingyan's mother lies by the emperor's side, her face serene in sleep. Jingyan hovers by her side, often called away to help organise the clean but but returning as quickly as he could. Even with the physicians assurances Jingyan can't help but worry.
Of Mei Changsu there is no sign. He and Fei Lu have vanished without a trace, lost somewhere in the chaos of the battle. No one has seen them, and Jingyan doesn't know whether to be relieved or concerned, so he settles for a cautious mix of the two. Mei Changsu has always been a slippery one, moving like a shadow when he wanted to, but this was a battle. He cannot ignore the possibility that something more sinister has happened.
Yujin is the first to wake. He blinks up at them blearily, almost slumping over when the guard releases his shoulder, only to hastily grab him again to help keep him upright. "Nihuang?"
Nihuang squeezes Yujin's arm reassuring. "It's me. How are you feeling? Do you know what happened?"
Yujin bolts upright, searching wildly for his sword. "The soldiers! They have entered the hall!"
"Yujin. Calm down- Yujin! The enemy has been defeated. Jinghuan is in custody and the army has surrendered." Nihuang says. She's far more patient than Jingyan. Every moment longer he waits for answers in intolerable, questions threatening to burst from him in a flood.
"I- I was fighting. Miss Gong was there too. And then the gates were breached." Yujin's hands are starting to shake, the battle finally catching up with him. "There were too may, we had to draw back, and..." He frowns.
"Then what?"
"They entered the hall." Yujin continued uncertainty. "Yes. One of them got Miss Gong in the leg and I had to help her retreat, then-" He frowns. "There was a flicker. A shadow. I can't remember anything more."
Yujin could answer any more of their questions, just sighing and shaking his head, looking more dispirited each time, and eventually they let him be. The other sleepers were beginning to wake up, and at the first stirrings of the emperor Nihuang and Jingyan were summoned to report.
Zhanying finds him later, a curious look on his face. "There's something you should see."
Jingyan, weary and tired and still worried about his missing friend, has a dozen other things that need to be taken care of. The camp needs to be secured, the deserting soldiers taken care of, new supplies found, and doctors to deal with the wounded, bodies to be collected and punishments to be administered. But Zhanying actually looks worried, properly concerned, and Jingyan knows him well enough to know that he wouldn't disturb him for a light matter.
So he nods, buckles his sword to his hip, and follows Zhanying out into the fresh evening air.
"We sent men to scout the area, reestablish the perimeter and they found something. They kept it quiet, reported directly back to me." Zhanying explained, leading him deeper into the forest. A small detachments of guards moves to follow them, but Jingyan dismisses them after Zhanying meets his eyes and minutely shakes his head.
This part of the forest is dark, untouched by the fervor of the battle and the ambushes along the slopes. The light of the torches casts an eerie glow against the trees, and Jingyan's hand strays to his sword by instinct alone. A perfect place for an ambush - drawing one of the princes out, alone and in the dark. But this is Zhanying leading him out, and Jingyan trusts him irrevocably.
He picks out signs as they walk, traces of something amiss. Something has disturbed the forest, branches broken and fresh leave scattered across the forest floor. The trees part before them and Jingyan stops in his tracks. There, in the trunk of a tree are scourced marks - a set of four, all in parallel. The same as in the hunting palace.
"They found it an hour ago, but weren't sure what to make of it." Zhanying said. "And look, there, against the ground."
Jingyan knelt, bringing his torch closer, fingers going to the dark stain in the leaf litter. They came away red. Blood.
"Did anyone else see it? See what made it?" Jingyan asks. Zhanying shakes his head.
"It was luck that it was one of our patrols that spotted it. I told them to keep a guard on this area of the woods, make sure no one else wanders by." Zhanying glaces around the forest, torches casting his face in shadow. His shoulders are tense, on guard, his hand never leaving the hilt of his sword. Zhanying has always been an exemplary officer.
The branches creek above them, something moving in the trees, and Jingyan and Zhanying whirl, swords hissing as they fly from their sheaths. A dark form land on the ground, hidden in the shadows, light reflecting in their eyes. Jingyan shifts, preparing for an attack, only to draw in a startled breath when the figure steps into the light.
"Come." Fei Lu says, blinking at them. He's frowning, a stubborn tilt to his head. When they take too long he waves for them to follow. "Come. Come."
"Fei Lu? Where is your master? Where is Mei Changsu?" Jingyan demands, sheathing his sword and stepping forward. Fei Lu justs shakes his head, stepping deeper into the forest.
"Come."
Jingyan and Zhanying share startled glanaces, but they follow.
"Is Mei Changsu alright?" Jingyan asks. Fei Lu pauses, shoulders going tense, and looks back over his shoulders at him. He looks scared, Jingyan realises with a start. He's seen Fei Lu laugh in the faces of the empire's best martial artists, face blood and death without blinking an eye, but now he looks terrified. Something goes cold in his chest. "Is he alright?"
Fei Lu doesn't answer, leading them ever deeper into the forest. A shape appears before them, a small shrine - barely more than a hut and stone altar. Jingyan has been here before, wander across it during his childhood exploring the forest during the Spring Hunt, but it takes him a moment to recognise it now. Great hills of gold lie coiled around the shine, a thick band that glimmers in the orange glow of the torches.
Jingyan steps closer, breath caught in his throat. The hill of gold was moving. What he'd taken for some strange monument to the gods was a living breathing creature, lying tangled and prone around the small form of the hut. Great scars rend its skin, splitting open its golden hide and leaking blood into the leaf litter. Here and there he can see limbs, clawed hands hidden amongst the bulk of its massive body.
Zhanying steps back, clasping his hands together and murmuring a breathless prayer. "The golden dragon."
Fei Lu kneels before it, stroking a hand over its hide, down the dark fur of its mane, as gentle as Jingyan as ever seen him with anyone but- Jingyan has a thought. It's crazy and blasphemous and completely impossible but- "Fei Lu. Is that Mei Changsu?"
Fei Lu nods. It feels like his lungs have collapsed, like his very breath has abandoned him. Mei Changsu. The Golden Dragon. Jingyan doesn't know how to think, how to make sense of this, so he doesn't. He put the thought aside, focusing on the matter at hand.
The wounds are less deep than they first appear but there are dozens of them, slashes and spear holes and a dozen different arrows still buried in his hide. "Can he turn back?" He asks, turning to Fei Lu. He doesn't have the faintest idea of how to tend to the wounds of a dragon, and he cant bring him to the physicians like this.
Fei Lu shakes his head, pointing at the exposed shaft of an arrow. "It stops him."
"Zhanying, help me. We have to get them out." Jingyan said, already reach for the first arrow. His scales on his stomach are strangely soft and yielding, thin and delicate. The arrows cut through them like paper, sinking deep into his flesh, and it takes every ounce of precision to get the arrow free without ripping him open. The dragon is almost a dozen meters long, sinuous body collapsed in an exhausted tangle before the shrine.
They work together in silence, taking turns holding the torch and removing the arrows. By the end of it Jingyan's hands drip with the dragons blood, Mei Changsu's blood, and 16 arrows lie in a pile by his side. He brushes a finger down his side, feeling the clean edges of the thicker scales along his back, fingers leaving a streak of red against the gold.
When he looks up its to find red eyes watching him. The dragon's face is pressed into the dirt, dead leaves and twigs caught in his mane and blood pouring from between its fangs. It stares at him, eyes red and hazy, breath hitching as every inhale pulls his wounds open.
"You are awake." Jingyan says warily. He goes to step forward and hesitates. He's hurt, delirious. What if he doesn't recognise Jingyan? What if he think he's an enemy? He doesn't know much about dragons, but perhaps they are like any other animal, even people, prone to lashing out when they're in pain. He steps closer anyway. "Mei Changsu?"
There's a moment when he thinks he's just going to close his eyes again, lay down and fade back into unconsciousness, but then he moves. Jingyan stumbles back as the mountain of golden coils slides against itself, scales scraping in the dirt. The movement is awkward, halting, and Jingyan takes a step forward as if to help him, only to realised he has no idea how to. There's a shimmer in the air, silver and gold, as his massive body folds in on itself. Then there is Mei Changsu standing before them, human and whole. He moves as if to step forward, only for his legs to give way beneath him.
Jingyan lunges forwards, catching him before he can hit the ground, and swings one of his arms over his head. Mei Changsu's head hangs forward, collapsed beneath its own weight, can even from here Jingyan can see his face is paled and pain, the damage done to his body looking so much more severe now that it has been concentrated in a smaller form. Jingyan can feel the places where his robes stick, wet with blood, and it makes something inside him run cold.
"Call a physician." Jingyan orders urgently, sending Zhanying ahead. Fei Lu crowds closer, eager to help his master, and takes his other arm. Together they hurry him back to the camp, with every step Mei Changsu's weight growing heavier between them as his strength gives out and the pain overtakes him. They're carrying him entirely by the time they reach the borders of the camp and Jingyan dispenses with propriety, taking Mei Changsu straight to his own tent.
He looks so small when they lay him down on the bed. Irreconcilable with the beast he'd seen in the forest. Perhaps he should be shocked. Perhaps he should be afraid or dismayed, betrayed by the secret. The truth of it is that all Jingyan feels is relief. Mei Changsu is alive, and that is all that matters.
The physicians come and go, tend his wounds and checking on him every hour. Jingyan does not move from his side, seated at his bedside and keeping watch with a dutifulness that borders on obsessive. What he can he delegates to Zhanying, and the rest he deals with the best he can without leaving his tent.
It it late into the third night when Mei Changsu finally wakes. Jingyan dozes uncomfortably in his chair, worn to the bone yet too stubborn to leave and take proper rest. When he jerks awake, head falling forward, its to the sound of a quiet noise of pain from the bed.
Jingyan reaches for the jug, pouring out a small cup of water and holds it to Mei Changsu's lips, helping him drink. "Stay here, I'll call for the physician-"
A hand catches his wrist. Jingyan stops, turning back. Mei Changsu stares up at him, bleary from the medicine and... afraid? Jingyan clasps his hand, kneeling beside the bedside. "Fei Lu is alright. So are Nihuang and General Meng. No one in the hall died."
Mei Changsu shakes his head minutely, searching for the words. "Jingyan."
"Yes?" Jingyan says, leaning in.
"You saw." He says, voice rasping and sore. He clings to Jingyan's arm, afraid to let go, and Jingyan lets him. He would let him do almost anything.
"Yes." Jingyan replies. "The golden dragon. You."
Mei Changsu closes his eyes, expression hollow and defeated. "You know."
"I know that you are alive." Jingyan says. "I know that you are my friend, whatever you are. I know that my mother, my father, are alive because of you. I know that-" dragon or not, you are the same man I've always loved. His throat closes on the words. He doesn't dare say them, doesn't dare say a single word more, in case his voice betrays him.
But-
For hours, almost a day, he thought Mei Changsu dead, or close to it. Vanished without a trace. For three days before that he rode himself to exhaustion, not knowing whether he would return to find all he love dead beneath a traitors sword. And now, against all odds, Mei Changsu is alive.
It's stupid. It's impulsive. Jingyan can't help it.
He leans down, takes Mei Changsu's face in his hands, and kisses him. It's gentle, chaste, nothing more than a soft brush of the lips, and then he yanks himself back. "I'm sorry- I- Please forgive me. I didn't-" Mean to? Jingyan thinks bitterly. But you did. You always meant to.
A hand grabs him by the front of his robes and yank him back, pulling him down. Mei Changsu's eyes are red, furious and dragonic (beautiful, a part of Jingyan whispers. he smacks it down before it can get them into any more trouble). "You-"
Jingyan flinches.
Something in Mei Changsu's expression changes, growing softer, and his grip gentles, no longer yanking Jingyan down. He doesn't release him, not yet, still keeping his fingers tangled in the rumpled fabric of his robes. "You kissed me."
"Yes." Jingyan admits miserably.
"You want me." Mei Changsu says. It's not a question but a statement. Jingyan doesn't meet his eyes, can't meet his eyes, shaming burning in his chest like a house fire, consuming and terrible. "I'm going to ask you another question." He says, voice so quiet. "And if you say- If you say yes, then there's no going back. Never."
"Do you love me?" It's so tentative, so fragile, and yet it hits Jingyan like a blow to the chest. He wrenches his eyes up, unable to bare looking at Mei Changsu yet unable to stand another minute without seeing his face, his expression, what he thinks of this.
"Yes." Jingyan say, so desperate it borders on a snarl.
There's a noise, breath hitching, and then Jingyan is being hauled forward, onto the bed, pressed against Mei Changsu. There's a head pressed to his shoulder, long hair sliding against the bedding, and arms wrapped around him so tight they could break bone. He's whispering something, shuddering against Jingyan's chest. "- love you. I love you. I love you. I love you."
Jingyan gasps, tries to draw back, look at his face. Mei Changsu doesn't let him, holding him close. There's laughter bubbling in his chest, born from a desperate joy at something he had thought unattainable. He presses a kiss to Mei Changsu's shoulder through the fabric of his robes, to his neck, his hair, every part of him he can touch. The fall together with a furious desperation, soft and fierce and loving and needy - itss everything Jingyan thought it would be and more.
They press close together, swallowing each others breaths, unwilling to put even an inch between them, warm and breathless and flushed with heat- Then Mei Changsu winces, flinching as the weight presses against his side, pulling his injuries. Jingyan yerks back, scrambling off him, only for Mei Changsu to grab him before he can stand. He settles for lying beside him, pressed close, hands wrapped together and heads held close.
"When we couldn't find you I thought you were dead." Jingyan admits quietly, pressing a kiss to his wrist. "I thought-" He cuts himself off, swallowing thickly. He doesn't want to relive those thoughts, the dark place his mind had wandered to after each hour without finding Mei Changsu.
Mei Changsu presses a kiss to his lips, so gentle and loving. "I'm not. Nothing could take me from you. No force in this world could convince me to leave you."
"But-" Jingyan says, because this has been what he's been dreading. The cause of his reluctance, his determination never to let his feelings get the better of him. "It's not proper. Two men, it's- I'll have to take a wife, the court will demand it and-"
Mei Changsu snarls, eyes flashing red, dark and deep and draconic. "No. I told you. I told you if you said yes that if would be forever. You are mine. I do not share. And if they say otherwise? I am the Golden Dragon, the Beast of Da Liang. I was here when the empire was founded, chose every emperor that ever sat on her throne. Let them try."
And Jingyan, still hesitant and scared that it will all disappear if he closes his eyes, just leans into his side and whispers yes.
Years later, when Jingyan sits on the throne, its with the dragon at his side, golden and gleaming and surveying the court as if he's always belonged there, the people say he was chosen by the gods. The golden dragon, not seen in almost a centuries, returned to herald the golden age of Da Liang.
When they leave the throne room, retire to the palaces, it is not a dragon but a man who walks by Jingyan's side. This thing between them is quiet, gentle, played out to the sound of laughter, teasing conversation and secrets never shared with another living person.
"Is this what you imagined?" Jingyan asks in a moment of quiet introspection, standing in the gardens of the palace. The spring air is brisk, cold, and all the more beautiful for the way it ruffles the first blossoms of spring.
"Almost." Mei Changsu says, stepping into Jingyan's space. This close he can feel the heat of him, the fire of the dragon, and yet he snuggles into Jingyan's side, as afraid of the cold as ever. Jingyan takes Mei Changsu's hand, kisses his wrist, his forearm, and smile when Mei Changsu huffs and leans in, taking his lips.
"It's better than anything I could have imagined."