Tales of Valor: Prologue

I do not own Kingdom

(Note: I know Shin's full name historically is Li Xin, I imagine, based on characters with similar names, his Kingdom Japanese name will be Ri Shin, much like how Li Si is now Ri Shi and Li Mu is now Ri Boku. My point is I will only be referring to his as Shin as it is my belief that he will receive his family name from Sei later in the story.)

Based around an idea I had that You (Yang) became fascinated in the young officer that saved her, Kou (Xiang), and Rei's lives during the State of Ai's rebellion.

Sometime after the rebellion is quelled and the affairs in Kanyou (Xiangyang) are finally under the full authority of the king of Qin, Ei Sei (Ying Zheng), the royal court became quite peaceful, for a time. It is deep within the royal palace that you will find an area referred to as the royal harem. The royal harem is a restricted portion of the palace that no man can enter, under normal circumstance, lest they be eunuchs or beheaded. But it is within this harem that something strange happens.

During the rebellion, a pair of palace girls were pursued relentlessly, one of whom had given birth to the current king's first daughter. This child is why they had been hunted down with such fervor. This child is also why You was willing to sacrifice her life if it meant that Kou and her daughter Rei could live on. You had resigned herself to death, she had accepted that is was to be her fate to die for these two. But fate had other ideas for her. For you see, in the moments before she killed by the invaders, a 5000 man-commander fell from the heavens, saved her and killed the attackers. This commander has made quite the name for himself and his unit that he leads. His name is Shin (Xin) and within the palace, he has also become known for his friendship with the king. Even a sheltered palace girl like You has heard of him, though mostly she heard of his brash and brutish nature from Kou who had met him only once or twice before.

From the moment that he saved her life onward, You would use all her contacts to keep track of the unit lead by this Shin. But she could only get so many details out of word of mouth stories that the contacts would give her. A victory here, a killed enemy commander there, this was merely keeping track of his movements, she wanted to know more about him. It was only when she came to want to know more than, she realized that she had in her special situation the best condition to learn about this man. It was no secret at this point that this man Shin had a special relationship with the king. He was his sword and at times his shield.

Upon the realization, You pleaded with Kou to convince the king to call for her soon. You had heard from Kou that spending the night with the king was about the only time that he would speak about his personal feelings and past, to the right person at least.

Some weeks later You was selected to sleep with the king one night. She had been called before but that was with the sole purpose of trying to produce the first heir, which had already come and gone. This was her chance to find out what she wanted to know.

-inside the king's quarters-

The door slowly opened and a young palace girl You bowed to the King of Qin. "G-" She stumbled over her words. "Good evening, your Majesty, I thank you for choosing me tonight."

The king merely sat in his bed reading scrolls, not even bothering to look up. "Yes, you may raise your head miss." His voice, though tired, rang with authority.

You approached his bedside, and the eunuch closed the door behind her. "I will be in your care tonight your highness." Though she had things she wanted to ask it would not be wise and would be highly disgraceful to bring them up right away she thought, he had to be the one to propose the idea of talking. So until he brought it up she would not say a word of it until he prompted it.

This mindset, however, would cause her a great deal of stress as the king would simply do the same thing every time she would come and lay in bed with him. He would read his scrolls until the palace girl did her duties, and once that finished he would resume reading. Over the next 6 months, she would visit him, and do the same thing over again. Eventually, Sei would break this silence and say, "You know, I keep requesting you because Kou said that you had something that you wanted to ask me, but If you are just using it as a way to get closer to me then I will stop requesting you as often.

You, shaken by this, prostrated herself to the King. "Please forgive me your highness, I wanted to ask you so many things but I felt I could not and should not be the one to bring it up first, as it would be disgraceful to ask what I want to ask otherwise. In fact, I'm certain that it would be disgraceful with way as well but I have no choice. Since I am a mere palace girl designated as a consort to you it would be most shameful to ask you to speak about your past." She would not raise her head unless told to do so.

Sei is struck by this. "My past? What are you looking to find you about me?" Sei became curious about her words, normally consorts did their duties and went on their way, not one, beside Kou cared to ask about his past.

You, still bowing, answers, "Forgive my impudence, but it is not your past exactly but actually about the man known as Shin of the Hi Shin Unit (Fei Xin). I understand that you two have a history. Please forgive me for asking you about another man." She was tearing up because she knew that it wasn't her place to talk about other men to the man she is meant to serve. She could even feasibly be killed for thinking so much about a man that is not the king.

The room was quiet for a time. Then You would feel a hand on her back followed by the king saying, "Raise your head. I am more than happy to tell you about the man that is Shin of the Hi Shin unit."

You raised her head and met the gaze of the king. His eyes were soft, "But where should I begin?"

Hello, everyone. So this was something that popped into my head some time ago. I will be adding to this on occasion. In fact, the first real chapter will come out sometime in the next week. The basic idea is pretty cut and dry but I thought it'd be fun.

As I always say I welcome all forms of critique and corrections. Leave a comment if you liked it. Follow if you want more and favorite so that I'll know just how much you like the idea I came up with. As this is the prologue this will be the shortest one by far. Hope to see you next time. And to those of you who follow my other content, worry not this will not derail the progress on the others. The Tag Along will update by the end of the year. The Test subject Will continue. And the others are on Hiatus until I get more inspiration. But if you like the idea of the Strawhats interacting with Team Urameshi please check out MaxGentlman1 and his Demon of the Grand Line story.

Until next time.

Shi-oon Yi Signing out.