Plop.

The stain spread. The ink soaked silently into the cream colored parchment, splitting and feathering as it went, until the parchment looked like pale skin filled with veins of black blood.

She paused, holding the writing brush still in her fingers as she contemplated her shoddy handwriting. The underside of her arm was the very same shade as the ruined paper.

It figures. She pursed her lips. I can't even sign my own title. My officials are right – I am utterly useless. She set down the lacquered brush with a decisive clack. I don't know how to do this. I can't do this. Why am I here?

She sighed and turned to look out the window. She didn't expect to see much (it was nighttime), so she jumped when she saw someone standing there.

Right. Thank you, universe, for reminding me.

He stood there, tall, pale and beautiful as any mountain in Tai. In the middle of winter. During a snowstorm.

She wondered what he could see out there that made him so serious. She certainly couldn't see a thing; the darkness was opaque. But maybe he could. He wasn't the same as her. He wasn't- She frowned. Human. I know he isn't.

He was her... she stopped. Her what? Somewhere in this whirlwind of their lives, she had lost track. Servant? Partner? Teacher? ...love? She could no longer define what they were to one another, or what they should be. She only knew he was hers.

"Keiki."

She watched his hair shift over one shoulder as his head turned towards her, feeling the familiar twinge of something (pain? or pleasure?) as his cold, tired eyes met hers. There was something powerful and intense about him when all of his attention was directed on one thing - especially when it was her. She winced as those eyes shifted to the ruined document on the table in front of her. Another failure, yet another small thing that she could not do right. If only they were all so small.

She knew how the courtiers saw her, what her officials condemned her for. She jeered at them just as cruelly in her own mind. Frigid bastards. How could anything so beautiful be wrong? But over the weeks her laughter twisted and began to sound more like sobs.

I don't care what they think. Keiki...

Unfortunately, she did care what he thought. He starred in all of her nightmares. They mirrored real life, and so they were terrifying. He drew back from her more with every passing day, getting colder and more formal until he was as stiff as when he first knelt at her feet. As if he thought he could erase that golden time, when he would smile so softly, so rarely. Silly. You can't take back what you've already given. She knew now, Tentei had carved her fate in stone from the very beginning. Jokaku was drawn round Keiki like a rock round the sun. It was only gravity... like the ink from the tapered bristles of her brush; it was inevitable that she would fall.

And fall she did.

Ahhh, Keiki and Youou. So tragic and creepy. *wipes away tears dramatically* This is set somewhere in the middle of Jokaku's 6 year reign, after Taiou's coronation and before she starts murdering women. It's supposed to be the crack that started her landslide of failure as a ruler. Well, I don't particularly like this piece, I think it's clumsy and I didn't get the point across as powerfully as I imagined it. But I wanted to write something so, here it is. I'd love for anybody to tell me what I can do better on it! (Or stroke my ego, whichever you prefer.) Sooo, review, yes??

This one-shot is just copying parts of Vienna Teng's song Gravity in prose form, with characters from a novel. So, I don't own either Vienna or the 12 Kingdoms. Though I'd certainly love to take a trip there with her... Anyways, please listen to Gravity after you've read this, I think you'll have to agree that it fits this pairing perfectly. ^^

(and if you disagree, please tell me in a review! ;))