Conquest
The air was thick with the summer heat. The imperial court buzzed with hushed tension, a constant murmuring din like the low hum of a cloud of flies. The court officials were complaining about the unbearable heat and long, sleepless nights, and they worried that the rice yield might suffer in their domains if it did not rain soon. Someone could be heard enthusiastically prescribing an herbal remedy to anyone who would listen to him; it would keep one cool, he swore it by his ancestors. Standing on the altar by the dragon throne, his hands clasped behind his back, Mongolia listened with undisguised contempt as the fat, privileged men that made up the Chinese court engaged in idle chatter as if they were women in a marketplace.
Just then, a guard came into the court and the murmurs fell into silence. The guard marched down the length of the hall and threw himself down before the altar in a kowtow.
"May your rule last for ten thousand years!" he cried.
"Rise," said the Great Khan from where he sat on the dragon throne. The guard rose obediently to his feet, but clasped his hands together before him and kept his head bowed.
"Your Highness, it is prepared."
Mongolia's right arm twitched. He ground his teeth together as pain radiated from the wound he had suffered on his shoulder in battle. The wound had healed, but it was only beginning to scar over, and the pain spiked sometimes, locking his arm in agony. His silent grimacing went unnoticed, however. The Great Khan dismissed the guard with a wave of his hand and settled back against his hard-won throne.
"My empire," he called.
Mongolia turned to face him and knelt down on one knee. "My liege," he said. He did not kowtow. Men of the mountains do not kiss the ground so readily, and he was unwilling to adopt this particular custom of the Chinese, not even for his own boss who had crowned himself emperor of China.
The Great Khan pulled out a small object tucked into his grand yellow robes. It was a dagger, a simple ornamental piece inscribed with the Khan's name; whosoever possessed it carried the will of the Great Khan himself.
"My friend, you know what is necessary," he said, extending the dagger towards Mongolia.
"Yes, my liege."
Mongolia accepted the dagger with both hands, bowed, rose to his feet, and turned once more to face the court.
The Chinese had begun to buzz once more, but Mongolia did not hear them. Blood pounded in his ears as the pain in his shoulder intensified, but he smiled as he tucked away the dagger. He began to shed his armour; his gauntlets, his chest plate, his shoulder pads, dropping them noisily to the floor. A servant came forward to collect them, but Mongolia paid him no heed, and continued to undress until he was stripped of all outer garments.
Presently, the guard returned, this time with another guard and a man in chains. The court quietened down again. The guard pushed the prisoner forward, who stumbled and fell to his knees, the chains that bound his hands clinking together.
The court let out a silent, collective gasp.
"What is the meaning of this?" cried one indignantly.
The Great Khan smiled a cold, thin smile.
"My fellow subjects," he said. "You are here to witness as I, your new supreme ruler, take my pleasure of your nation, as is my right. My empire, my servant, will be doing it in my stead."
At those words, Mongolia descended from the altar towards the prisoner on bare-soled feet, the guards withdrawing as he neared them, their eyes firmly averted. The prisoner smelled faintly of scent, and Mongolia saw that his hair was slightly wet. They had him groomed, he mused grimly. He reached out a tanned, sword-calloused hand, and pulled at the brushed mass of ink-black hair so that the prisoner's head was raised.
Eyes as golden as a tiger's burned into him with hatred and revulsion.
"Unhand me!" China bristled. He was trembling even in the suffocating heat of the court, his light summer robe damp with cold sweat.
Mongolia released his hair, and then kicked him viciously hard in the stomach. He nodded to the guards in dismissal as China doubled over. The court seemed to flinch from the shameful spectacle as a herd, while Mongolia knelt down to China's level and raised him by his chin.
"We meet again, brother," he said calmly, as if it was another one of their run-ins in the wild lands so many, many years ago, and not before the dragon throne with one bound in shackles. China continued to glare at him, still winded, but said nothing.
This close to him, Mongolia could smell the jasmine fragrance they had bathed him in, and he buried his face into China's neck to inhale the scent. To his surprise, China shuddered bodily and let out a low, longing moan, an involuntary noise that was tinged with dismay.
They've drugged him as well, Mongolia realised.
This discovery only stoked his passion. He pushed China onto his back, China falling rather heavily on the cold marble floor, and pinned his fettered hands above his head, arranging China's lithe body beneath him just so. He met resistance when he tried to spread China's legs.
"Don't make this any harder than necessary," Mongolia threatened, even as he found China's futile struggles strangely arousing.
"I have no intentions of – of letting you defile me – in – in front of my subjects!" China said in between laboured breaths, his chest rising and falling as he panted.
"But they are now my subjects," Mongolia whispered. He was inches above China's collarbone, his breath coiling over China's skin, causing him to stiffen. "They are now my subjects, and I must make you submit to prove that you are not the hallowed deity they believe you to be."
Mongolia looked up and saw China's face pulled in anguish. Suddenly, impulsively, he moved to capture China's lips in a kiss that was harsh enough to bruise and draw blood. China kicked and tried to thrash himself free, but his limbs fell heavy with the drug, and as Mongolia drained him of his breath, his protests quickly subsided.
He hated himself for this weakness.
The rape was an excruciating affair. Over a hundred pairs of eyes watched impassively as Mongolia mounted and rode him into humiliating submission. At the first thrust, China choked out a small cry, while Mongolia only groaned at the tight heat that engulfed him. A rough rhythm was eventually set, with Mongolia's shallow breaths and China's unchecked moans filling the deathly quiet of the court.
China burned at his own helplessness and disgrace, his hands clenching and unclenching under Mongolia's grip, thirsting for a sword. Mongolia lost himself in the realm of pleasure, and China became one of the many beauties he had taken over the years, not the proud empire that only weeks ago had torn past his armour in a burst of strength and sent him reeling into a depth of pain he had never known to exist before. He climaxed with a hoarse groan, and spilled liberally into China who only bit his lip in gritted shame.
When it was over, Mongolia drew the dagger from its sheath and hacked clumsily at China's hair, his final humiliation. He looked into the now lifeless, golden eyes and could not help but smile.
China was finally his.