Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Warnings: None.
Pairings: One-sided Liu Chan/Xing Cai, Liu Chan's POV. Also includes Zhao Yun/Xing Cai and Guan Ping + Xing Cai.
Author's note: This idea came into my head while I was listening to the radio today. It centers around Liu Chan and Xing Cai's relationship, as told from Liu Chan's point of view. I actually never thought I'd give Liu Chan so much as a second thought, since he came off as such a wimp in the game - but the song seemed to fit him, so I couldn't help myself. I don't do songfics much, so I hope it's not awful. Comments appreciated.
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Beauty queen of only eighteen
She had some trouble with herself
He was always there to help her
She always belonged to someone else
Her first love should have been her last. They've both known this as long as they've been eyeing each other from opposite sides of the audience chamber, one with wistful, longing eyes and the other with shoddily concealed scorn. As soon as she could speak, those words were out of her mouth—
"I love him. I'm going to marry General Zhao Yun when I get older."
He couldn't blame her. He's always loved General Zhao Yun, too.
I drove for miles and miles
And wound up at your door
I've had you so many times but somehow
I want more
Not quite that way, perhaps – not romantically, not with the physical infatuation that blanketed her expression even at five years old, lighting her beautiful hazel eyes every time his name escaped her lips. Not with the rosy blush that skirted her cheeks when the middle-aged officer stooped to pick her up, swung her tiny form in circles and held her so tightly. He has never harbored any delusions about which man holds her heart; his status as heir to the kingdom of Shu – no, emperor of the kingdom of Shu – is nothing, not even a blunder compared to the radiant glory with which the Little Dragon enraptured her.
He's always thought so, too. He knows what he lacks.
I don't mind spending every day
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile
It isn't that he's never made the effort to woo her. At seven, he asked her to marry him for the first time – but Zhao Yun was still alive then, still moving with his easy stride through the palace's halls and catching her sparkling eyes with every offhanded smile. And when she refused him, he sought another route – he found favor with Zhao Yun himself, hoping that perhaps proximity would grant him that glory, that strength. He curled up at the Little Dragon's feet and waited for that patient hand to brush the hair away from his eyes, praying so hard that dedication and charisma would trickle through his fingers and fill his tiny form with the perfection it took to win the little girl's heart.
It hasn't worked. It didn't then. Nothing could tear her eyes from his beautiful form.
And she will be loved
She will be loved
But it's been a few years since his death, and longer since his prime. The other boy died even earlier, of course – but that wasn't love, really, so much as a friendship which his execution prevented from getting out of hand. He knows she finds what she's looking for in older men, in accomplished and honored generals with kind smiles and strong arms – men who can protect her, who long to spoil her. Guan Ping was older than her, as well – almost a quarter of a century older. And there was a time when she shadowed his footsteps with almost the same affection she gave unconditionally to Zhao Yun – but Liu Bei's most trusted Dragon officer had only to set foot in the palace to win her attention again.
Of them all, only he has never been able to draw her eye. It seems ironic that of them all, only he has held the right to her body, only he been unable to capture her heart, and only he ever tried to capture it at all.
Tap on my window knock on my door
I want to make you feel beautiful
I know I tend to get insecure
It doesn't matter anymore
No one has believed her, of course. Her father laughed at her true, passionate love for Zhao Yun until the day he died – and though Guan Ping once offered to marry her, he knows the young swordsman didn't mean it. But she was only thirteen then, in any case – and Liu Bei was already deep in conversation with her father, nodding almost proudly at the cowardly, desperate child his miraculous son had become.
It is true. He is a coward. He knows. So does she – and it's for this deficiency, this inability to shelter, that he has fallen below her consideration for their many years of acquaintance, their six years of marriage.
It's not always rainbows and butterflies
It's compromise that moves us along
My heart is full and my door's always open
You can come any time you want
Perhaps the cruelest thing she has ever done is to wipe away his tears – for he knows, and she knows too, that she is the protector between them, and that she cannot love what she must rescue. The day the great General Zhao Yun died – in quiet, in silence, in the comfort of a long old age – he cried into his hands like a mere child, and she was the one to hold his shoulders. He still can't quite place why she wasn't crying with him – despite the Little Dragon's age, he's certain they were involved almost as soon as Liu Bei offered her hand to his worthless heir. He saw them once – kissing beneath the rain in the garden, her hands tangled in his sharply graying hair, the rain coursing down their faces. He'll never know what Zhao Yun felt for her – lust, or love, or simply possession. He knows that those stolen kisses mean more to her than every touch from his hand combined.
I don't mind spending every day
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile
And she will be loved
She will be loved
He supposes she didn't cry because she's always been stronger than he is – she's always understood death better than he. Perhaps because she lost Guan Ping and her father so early, or because time and fate turned their joined hands against her only true love. But one way or the other, she has never failed to stand in front of him, to protect the kingdom – the tattered legacy – as she has been ordered.
That is what he is, in her eyes. The kingdom they all fought for. The baby her dearest General risked his very life to rescue, when he was younger and more scrupulous. The reason she marches to war with the other soldiers. He wishes he could change that.
I know where you hide
Alone in your car
Know all of the things that make you who you are
I know that goodbye means nothing at all
Comes back and begs me to catch her every time she falls
He has tried – he is trying. He does what he can to be stronger, to wield his sword without the trembling shiver of a spoiled palace brat. Sometimes she smiles at him – the condescending, almost affectionate smile that she gives to her dedicated bodyguards, to the faces of the common people his father loved. And he would do anything – anything – to be worthy in her eyes. To piece her broken smile back together. To be the name she fights back when he's holding her.
Tap on my window knock on my door
I want to make you feel beautiful…
For a long while, he considered giving up – letting her go her own way, hide in her sunlit quarters amongst the precious treasures and jewelries at whose meanings he cannot guess. But he has realized over time that unrequited love, while bittersweet, is the closest he will ever get to love – because just as she chases after the long-dead fantasies she cannot reach, he has eyes only for her.
I don't mind spending every day
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile
It's not a tragedy, he's decided. It's just the way fate chooses to flicker across the rollicking landscape his father has given him. And in some ways, it's enough – whether she accepts it or not, she has his love. His heart and soul – the only things he has to give. The only things she has ever refused him. But she is loved. And that, he knows, must be bliss.
And she will be loved
She will be loved