Ling had known from the moment he met the girl that he liked her.
When Fu had first informed the young prince that he needed another guard his age, Ling had fought him tooth and nail. Almost literally. If Fu wasn't such an accomplished fighter, the young Prince would have actually started fighting with him.
But he had insisted. And when Fu insisted, Ling had to do what he told him. It wasn't fair! He was the Prince! Somehow, though, Fu always managed to get his way.
Ling had dreaded the day when he had to get another guard for a really long time. Every day he glumly asked Fu if he was going to have to meet the new guard that day, and every day Fu would tell him that no, not today. He hadn't found anyone suitable for the job.
Ling was alright with that.
He didn't want another guard at all. He didn't even like having one. Fu went with him everywhere. And he wasn't very fun. Ling was sure that if he got another guard, he would be just as boring and with two of them, he would never be able to escape.
Then the day of judgment came.
"Young Lord, I would like to introduce your newest guard."
Ling prepared himself for the death of his fun.
"This is Lan Fan."
The person who stepped up next to Fu was not another fussy old guard… in fact it wasn't even an adult. Or a man.
It was a girl that looked to be about his age.
He blinked.
She looked like a typical Xingese girl, dark hair, dark eyes, but her face was narrow and her hair was pulled back. Her eyes were really, really wide and it almost looked like she was afraid. Afraid of him?
"Hello," he said cautiously, testing the waters.
She bowed deeply. "Young Lord." Ling could see that she was trembling slightly. She was scared!
"I'm not scary." She froze in the middle of rising from her bow.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not that scary. You don't have to be afraid of me."
She glanced at Fu. "I… I am not afraid of you Young Lord."
"Well you shouldn't be," he said firmly before grabbing onto her hand. "Come on, I want to show you where I like to go swimming!"
"Young Lord, she is not here for you entertainment. She is here to protect you."
"Well she's going to need to know where I like to play to be able to protect me there, won't she?"
No one would ever hear Fu denying that the Prince was destined to become Emperor.
"Very well. But you will return here in an hour."
"Okay," Ling chirped happily before dragging Lan Fan away.
Fu frowned slightly. He should probably go after the children and make sure they weren't getting into trouble. The Prince could be a bad influence. Not that he was malicious, merely… overenthusiastic. And lacking a few drops of common sense.
He didn't follow them, though. Lan Fan would have to learn how to deal with the Young Lord's exuberance. Indeed, if his plan succeeded, she would be his guard for the rest of her life. Fu had no delusions about his age. He was old. He would not be able to protect the Young Lord forever and he needed someone his own age who would be able to protect him throughout his life, baring death in the line of duty.
He had tried to avoid choosing his granddaughter for weeks before finally realizing that she was the only choice. He would have preferred the new guard to not be female. If his granddaughter were a male, she would have been able to protect the Young Lord much more intimately. And there was the slight chance that she might over time become attracted to the Young Lord, which could be disastrous. He already planned to drill it into her head that she could under no circumstances develop romantic feelings for the Prince.
Then there was also the fact that this was his kin.
It had taken months to convince his daughter to give up his granddaughter to the guard duty. Linh-thi had already lost her husband, Fu's son in law, in the line of duty and did not want to sacrifice her daughter to such a life of hardship.
Eventually he had convinced her though, more because Lan Fan herself wanted to do it. Linh-thi blamed him for corrupting her with ideas of honor, but Fu had only ever told his granddaughter the truth. There were few occupations as honorable as protecting another life.
She had allowed it on two conditions. Lan Fan was to receive an education alongside the Prince. Fu agreed to that one readily enough. She would just have to guard him during the times that the Young Lord took his lessons. It would give Fu time to patrol the perimeters and it might even make the Prince pay more attention.
The second condition he had taken a bit more warming up to; she was supposed to have some measure of fun. Lihn-Thi didn't want her daughter to wilt into a hard rock that had never experienced anything other than constant training and danger.
Fu eyed the path that the two children had taken to where the Young Lord enjoyed swimming.
While he could easily admit that he didn't like having agreed to that condition… fun was something she certainly wouldn't be starved of serving the Young Lord.
"Come on Lan Fan, we're almost there!" The Young Lord called as he ran through the woods that surrounded the Yao home. Lan Fan struggled to keep up. She had thought that training with Grandfather for the past year would have enabled her to stay in pace with the Young Lord, but it seemed impossible for anyone to match his speed! Plus, Grandfather had just introduced a new type of training that had left her sore all over.
He had been reluctant to leave her as Ling's only protection on this trip, but he eventually allowed it when Ling reminded him about complaining a few days earlier about not having enough time to train some of the new guard recruits.
Which left Lan Fan as the only one standing between any assassins and a knife in the Young Lord's body. That thought made Lan Fan speed up.
Enough so that she almost ran into her soon-to-be-charge.
Ling turned around and grinned at her.
"Come on, this is going to be so much fun," he said, grabbing one of her hands and dragging her out of the trees they had been running through. She blinked quickly to adjust her eyes to the sudden bright light and found herself standing next to a road.
"Young Lord?" she asked, terribly confused.
He didn't answer, instead continuing to drag her towards a tree that stood out of the thicket, closer to the road. It's branches were thick and spread over a large distance, spreading almost over the road itself. Lan Fan noticed after taking a few sharp breaths through her nostrils that it was obviously a spot where many people stopped to… relieve their animals.
She was utterly confused. Why would he bring her here? What was to be gained? He said that it was going to be fun… what fun was there to be had at such a place?
He confusion was even more heightened with the Young Lord began to climb the tree. He scuttled up it in a way that suggested he had done it many times before.
"Young Lord?" she asked one more time, hoping that he'd explain.
He did not. In fact it seemed almost like he had forgotten about her even being there. He perched on one of the branches above the mass of the foliage. Someone from the road looking up wouldn't be able to see him unless they knew where to look. She could still see him if she stood at a certain angle at the back of the tree, though, so she didn't worry herself too much about climbing up after him. Not unless he ordered her to.
Almost an entire hour passed in complete silence while they waited there, Lan Fan still clueless as to why they were there. She didn't relax though, but stayed completely alert. Anyone could sneak up on them here. If anyone found out that they had gone or where they were, any manner of dangerous things could happen.
Because of her caution, Lan Fan was very much aware when the group of travelers became visible down the road. The Young Lord didn't notice them for a few more minutes, but when he did he sat up straight and changed his position in the tree. Lan Fan frowned slightly.
"Young Lord?"
"Shhh," he ordered quickly. His tone was different. Lan Fan's frown deepened. What was he planning?
As the travelers approached, Lan Fan could tell that it was a small wagon with two men driving it. They were obviously father and son, but she couldn't tell what they had in the wagon. Never too cautious, she made sure to keep one eye on the cart just in case they had any malicious intent.
The closer the cart got, the more wound up the Young Lord got though. He seemed to be preparing for something.
Then he began shaking the tree.
Lan Fan glanced at him, alarmed. What was he doing?
The two men in the cart stared at tree, slightly confused. It was a perfectly windless day, so she could understand their confusion.
The younger glanced at his father and asked something that Lan Fan couldn't quite hear. The older shrugged and they continued driving.
The Young Lord shook the tree again.
The younger asked his father another question that the man responded to brusquely.
Then, when the cart was only a few yards away from the tree, the Young Lord shook it again, more violently than the past few times. Only this time, he spoke.
"You dare to come here?" he asked, in a deep voice that didn't sound anything like him.
The cart stopped.
"Excuse me?" the old man asked out loud.
"You dare to travel this road and pass by my tree without a proper sacrifice?" The Young Lord said in the same voice.
"What sacrifice?" the younger asked. "There is no sacrifice required to travel this road."
"So you think, huh?"
"I don't believe you," the younger said, sitting up straight. The older man looked spooked.
"Son, perhaps we should leave and return later—"
"Father, we have never been required to make a sacrifice to travel this road. It is open to all, it always has been. We should keep going, or we'll never make it to the town in time to sell our rice."
He looked hesitant, but struck the animals once more to make them move forward.
Lan Fan gasped at the Young Lord's next move.
Just as the cart and the two men were passing under the tree, the Young Lord hooked his legs around one of the thickest branches and dropped down. He was wearing a mask that Lan Fan hadn't seen him put on. It was a terrifying mask of a dragon with terribly sharp fangs and horrible angry stripes across its eyes bulged with red and anger.
Both men yelled out. The horses reared back in fright, already turning away and hurrying down the road.
"This was only a warning!" The Young Lord shouted after them.
The cart was already almost out of sight, the spooked horses carrying it far, far away.
Lan Fan's mouth would not close.
The Prince flipped himself right side up and dropped onto the ground, before removing the mask. He was laughing.
"Wasn't that funny, Lan Fan?" he asked, the smile on his face as wide as the horizon.
Now, Lan Fan had to consider her words very carefully here.
She knew that it was inappropriate for the prince to be behaving like that. It was quite frankly rude for anyone to do. A Prince especially should know better. He was supposed to be better than the rest of the commoners, not pull petty pranks like this for his own amusement. Especially not when they scared or hurt people like this.
However, she was still extremely scared of telling the Prince this. He was her Lord. He could have her killed if she told him something he didn't like. And while her grandfather would protect her, would he if he knew that she had reprimanded the Young Lord when it wasn't her place to do so?
"That wasn't very nice, Young Lord," she said hesitantly. His smile seemed to dim a little.
"Yeah well… it was funny. Didn't you think it was funny, Lan Fan?"
"I thought… I thought…"
When people did rude things they deserved to be called rude didn't they? That's what her mother had always taught her. But she knew that if she called the Young Lord a rude little boy that he would be able to punish her. She didn't want to get punished. She didn't want to disappoint Grandfather or her mother. So she couldn't call him rude…
"Lan Fan?"
"Poo-face!" Lan Fan blurted, almost immediately clapping her hands over her mouth afterwards. She had not just said that. She had not just said that! That was worse than calling him rude! She had insulted kids back at her village with that, not a Prince!
"… excuse me?" Ling asked, his jaw dropping lower than hers had been earlier. "What did you just call me?"
Lan Fan, hands still held tight over her mouth, shook her head.
"Lan Fan, what did you just call me!"
Oh no, she had made him angry. He would have her sent away. She would return home in shame. But she couldn't disobey a direct order.
"Poo-face," she whispered as quietly as she possibly could.
"Why did you call me that?"
"Because… because," Lan Fan winced, closing her eyes and deciding to take the plunge. "Because you were being one. A rude, Lingy-poo-face."
There was silence and she wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear.
Then there was laughing.
A lot of laughing.
Lan Fan slowly opened her eyes to see the Young Lord laughing, bent over holding his stomach he was laughing so hard.
"Young Lord?" she asked, almost too afraid to speak.
"Lingy-poo-face!" he shouted, before continuing to cackle.
Lan Fan watched, eyes wide, as he continued to laugh.
Laughed so hard, in fact that he fell backwards into the pile of animal refuse she had smelled earlier. That stopped the laughing fairly quickly though.
The Young Lord stared at her, then looked at the pile of animal manure he was now lying in, and the terrified look on Lan Fan's face… and began to laugh even harder, were it possible.
"I guess it's true now, Lanny!"
"Lanny?" she squeaked.
"Well if you're giving me a nickname, I should give you one. Your nickname is Lanny now. And mine's Lingy-poo-face."
"But… but I could never call you that Young Lord!"
"You already have," he pointed out.
The poor girl had never been so bright red in her entire life.
Prize-fic for heart-land on DA
She won 1st place in the AlMei Walking In a Winter Wonderland contest, and one of the prizes that she got was a 2000+ word fic about anything she wanted and she chose something fluffy about Ling and Lan Fan when they were kids. So I took it as a opportunity to expand my head canon about LingFan's past and I decided to write an event that I mentioned briefly in my AlMei stories: the creation of Ling's nickname, Lingy-poo-face (A Source of Hope, Chapter 24 Bringing Good News).
Please review!