Author's Note: I love this show and also hate it because it's so like Fushigi Yugi in its never ending drama. Anyway, afterwards I just want Runyu, poor baby, to be happy, damn it. He deserves happiness after the shithole his life has been. Pardon my spoilers, etc. I thought about a one-shot with Jinmi coming to her senses, but I really love her and Xufeng's story AND she really doesn't have those feelings for Runyu. But who does? Precious baby Kuanglu. So here we are. Happiness at long last, bitches. Enjoy. I own no part of this show or book and make no money from these ramblings.
Runyu held a hand out.
"You have never abandoned me. You have stood behind me despite every injustice, every humiliation of my station. Every suffering."
Kuanglu held her breath, felt the tears gather in her eyes. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not after all this time. It was a dream. A dream the Beast of Dreams would swallow and reveal to its master later, for him to turn away from in indifference.
Runyu spoke again, his voice even softer than before.
"I don't want you to suffer any longer."
"I don't want your pity," Kuanglu found the breath to speak.
Runyu's eyes were dark, wet with tears of his own, and unfathomable as the night sky.
"I'm not offering you my hand out of pity."
Kuanglu's breath caught in her throat and suddenly she was choking on her tears, so distraught that she barely knew when Runyu came to her, catching her up in his arms, covering her with the long sleeves of his robe, enveloping her in his surprising warmth. She could feel his breath against her hair as he continued to speak.
"It has taken me ten thousand years to see you properly. To truly understand the power of loving quietly, without ambition, without motive. Your heart is so pure and I...do not deserve it. But I will have it now, if it is still being offered."
To her shame, Kuanglu's weeping was his only answer for some minutes. That, and her presence in his arms.
Slowly, so slowly she wasn't sure it was happening at first, Runyu pulled away enough to bring one hand beneath her chin and tilt her face up to his.
"Kuanglu. You would be with me forever, standing behind me, supporting me in all my foolishness. I ask you now to stand beside me forever. Marry me. Be the Heavenly Empress this realm needs." He hesitated and Kuanglu could see the muscles in his face working minutely, tense, as if he were so afraid, and she never, ever wanted him to be afraid again. The tears continued to roll down her cheeks.
"Be the Heavenly Empress I need," he breathed.
"Lord-"
"Runyu," he corrected her.
Kuanglu wasn't sure if it was possible to be so happy and terrified at once, but it was how she felt. She daren't smile - not yet.
"Why now? Why?"
"I have been surrounded by fire and ice my entire life," he replied. "Thousands of years ago, Jinmi put out the fire. And now you...have thawed the ice. I looked at you yesterday and I saw you, Kuanglu. You filled my vision like the heavenly lights. I saw you. And I can never unsee you again."
Kuanglu tried to lower her head, to look away from him, but he wouldn't let her. His expression was calm, but fierce. His eyes intent on hers, on every micro-expression she made and she felt stripped away to the bone and blood. As if he could see every inch of her, of the feeling that had been burning in her for so long…and she gave in.
"Runyu," she whispered and his lips were suddenly on hers and it was as if nothing existed in the world apart from the two of them.
Around them, the night sky came alive with meteors, streaking across the heavens in every color imaginable, and the heavenly lights began to dance, waving and snaking about the stars in their paths.
Across the realm from the Emperor's palace, outside the House of Marriage, Danzhu stood watching the display. A thoughtful smile turned his lips up. He watched the comets and lights a few moments longer, then turned and went back inside his palace, humming jauntily to himself.
Outside their humble mountain home, Xufeng glanced back inside to see Jinmi sleeping quietly, holding their children close. He looked back up at the heavens and sighed, then smiled slightly.
"I'm happy for you, brother," he murmured. "Loneliness never suited you."
Back at the Emperor's palace, the Beast of Dreams bounded inside and stopped short. Tilting its head, it took in the scene before it, let out a soft mewl, then turned and bounded away again, leaving dreams streaming behind it in its surprised joy.