A loud groan wracked through her body as the splitting headache thrummed and thudded against her temple. Blackness met her vision; with sparks and spurts of white-blue static dancing in intermittent states of visibility. Whatever her head was against was cool and textured in a way she couldn't piece the words for, but she was thankful for it to help combat the intense drilling in her mind.

Jade couldn't recall anything that happened at the moment. Her hand reflexively closed, feeling something heavy and lightly crisping in the palm of her hand. She squeezed her eyes shut a little more, if possible, and didn't dare open them. Idly, she knew, behind the fog of her muddled mind that she could not lay there incapacitated without rousing more than a thought.

Baby steps. Though she had the mother of all headaches to battle with, her memory slowly started to piece together what had happened before the darkness.

Lizard-breath, formally known as Shendu, possessing Jackie. She's heard of his bad day, but now she reckoned that had to top worst day. Australia.. right, the land down under. She'd remember a stray thought about not being able to enjoy seeing any kangaroos or the deadly spiders because her uncle had been spirit-napped by their family's demonic archnemesis.

There was some kind of temple and.. honestly, when she found Jackie, she was going to throttle him for making her worry like that. Inwardly, she wondered if this is what her uncle felt every time she did something dangerous. But they were there for a specific reason.. a reason –

"The book!" she exclaimed; eyes snapping open. Jade immediately groaned and closed them shut, nursing her head with her hand which bewilderingly felt like paper. She squinted an eye open and saw the torn page she must have ripped out when Shendu tossed her like a ragdoll. It had writing about her .. if she ripped it out, she must not have been rewritten.

Well, that explains one thing, but the other was that she was clearly not laying down on the floor of some temple in Australia. Very carefully with her one eye open, she took in the immediate surroundings.

Books. No, tomes, to be precise, and Uncle had drilled it into her enough times to know there was indeed a difference. Scrolls that didn't look too important as they littered the floor and covered candlelight by the small podium she had been.. for a lack of a better word, sleeping against. What she felt earlier was the casing of the scroll, as her head was using the thin parchment on the desk as a pillow.

She slowly leaned back and was surprised to find there to be a cushion in the seat she was in. Strange, Jade thought. She squished her back right against it and found it to be silken and plush, unlike what she assumed should have been. Not that she had any idea of what was going on.

"So, some kind of library..?" she hazarded a guess under her breath, gaining the strength to fully open both eyes and drink in the sight before her. To add to her pounding headache; her stress was churning her stomach in all sorts of topsy-turvy waves. She liked to think herself a tough kid, where nothing frightened her, but the unknown was swiftly ranking up in her internal list of 'things that scared Jade.'

She explored the room with her gaze, as if moving will suddenly crumble the ground beneath her. It was a moderately packed library, entirely organised unlike Uncle's shop. Her heart sunk a little at that thought, as the more she inspected the more unfamiliar everything just felt. She didn't know where Jackie, Uncle, Torhu, anyone was. She didn't.. know anything.

"Okay, Jade. Deep breath." She took her own instruction; stemming her anxiety with some simple breathing exercises. She could sit still and wonder until someone discovers her, it would not get her the information she needed right now. She swung her legs around the chair, bare feet touching the –

Wait.

Bare feet.

She shrieked quietly as the ice-cold of the stone felt like fire against her soles, bringing her knees up to have her perch on the edge of the chair. She found herself looking down, noticing that the bright orange hoodie and capri she was known for were gone, and instead replaced with something that looked like her mother's dressing gown.

"What.. the hell?" They were silk; a soft purple, with sleeves that easily obscured her hands. It was wrapped around her in an intricate way that made her start believing it was less of a dressing gown, but honestly, she couldn't care less what she was wearing right now. Obviously things had.. changed. Shendu had changed things. She mondo-messed up and changed whatever he had in store for her because she was completely conscious of the fact he rewrote history in the first place!

"It's a dream." She rationalized, pausing a little before slowly nodding. She stepped off the chair, wincing at the coldness and began pacing with her arms crossed. "Yeah. Shendu threw me so hard my head totally conked out on the stone. I'm in a coma right now. In hospital. Cause they're fixing me up. Wait. That could imply that I'm totally dead or something and I—"

She rambled quietly to herself, hands fussing through her hair and tugging on the spiked ends to try and straighten out her thinking. Information. She needed information.

She was in a library, or what looked to be like one, for god's sake!

Jade went back to the scroll that she had fell asleep on, crinkling her nose when it offered no sort of information other than language translations. Stuffing the torn piece of paper into the front of her gown, she picked a scroll at random and opened it up, hoping to find something of use.

"The art of the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang –" Jade was frankly bored already from title alone, and were this not some distressing time, she would have tossed the scroll over her shoulder. But it did give her a clue.

"Wait. It's written in Chinese." Her eyes shot over to the scroll on the podium. The same greeted her. She hurriedly flapped open a couple of the tomes and unravelled the scrolls and found similar. "Everything is written in Chinese. So that.. doesn't really narrow it down, to.. anything. But it could mean I'm in China!"

Not that she had any means of actually confirming that. For all she knew, she could simply be a prisoner to someone who thought she didn't speak English, much like Uncle Jackie thought so.

Her pacing and thoughts were stopped dead, ice cold in her tracks when there was a knock on the door. A knock. Someone knocked. Jade was pretty sure that people didn't knock for their prisoners. Neither did they get expensive hanfu which she just remembered the name of. Her breathing was shallow, her headache pulsated, and her fight or flight response was kicking at her heart to begin.

"Your majesty?" the deep sounding voice from behind the door called. It was a baritone; naturally low but soothing, as though the tone was picked specifically for her.

Your majesty.

The voice just called her royalty.

Jade decided she could have her panic attack later, compartmentalizing that in her mind. After all, if she was discovered to have retained her memory in some shape or form, she would die, and she couldn't have a panic attack if she was dead. She would just have to bluff her way to victory. She was Jade Chan. There was no situation a Chan couldn't get themselves out of.

Except reality-altering mind-blowing ones..

Whoever was behind that door could not find out she was not who they thought she was.

"E-" She started with a tremble, her voice hoarse and shot from misuse. She cleared her throat and tried again, hopefully sounding strong and regal. "—Enter."

Jade didn't know what to expect when those doors opened.

A demon, perhaps, specifically Shendu, here to destroy her. The knocking must have just been his morbid sense of humour. Or maybe even Hsi Wu out to seek his revenge for the humiliating defeat at her hands. But not her gaze to come directly to a tea set and a incomplete haori bearing a red chest.

She followed the redness up, her panic turning to icy fear when her gaze met his face. It reminded her of a Japanese-style artwork of a tiger; with white whiskers and goatee and fluffy brows nestled against the visage of a horned, angry maw. But she knew better to think him simply a demon. She'd heard the shudders Tohru made whenever he had once mentioned to her the Oni.

She just didn't think them bringing tea was in their mythos, though.

"I thought I'd find you hiding in here." The mystery yokai bemused, approaching her closer to set the tray down at her table. He practically towered over her, and she tried not to think on that fact when it came to the fear of being found out.

"There is only so much demonic sibling squabble a young Queen can take, hm?"

Demonic –

Shendu. Shendu and his ilk. Jade wished things did not feel like a bombshell was dropped on her every single time, and her composure of worry and uncertainty cracked through enough that the ogre gave pause and studied her with a brow raised. The scrutiny wanted to make her collapse and, just like that, the overwhelming force of everything hit her.

She stumbled, weakly trying to reach out for the chair but was caught by the ogre instead. As she wryly thought this is where she would get eaten like all the stories Tohru told her, there was genuine concerned etched on his monstrous face, his touch light as he steadied her. He brought her over, settling her neatly in the chair and sighing quietly.

"You're overworking yourself again, my Queen." He chastised lightly, voice quiet enough for only her ears. "As your closest confidant, I should have advised against this trip to Emperor Shendu's palace. It is difficult enough to try and learn at the pace your late mother set you, let alone attend to the petty politics of demons."

Well, that gave her some clarity. Some frightening, devastating, panic-inducing clarity.

"Why are we here, again?" Jade moaned, trying to pose the question of exasperation rather than her genuine need to know. Thankfully, it seemed she was well-received given the fact the oni chuckled warmly.

"The emperor is hosting a banquet for his siblings and extended the invite to yourself, perhaps to try and earn some good will with the Dynasty of Shadow." Once he was sure she wasn't going to fall out of the chair in an undignified heap, he set about pouring some tea for her. " – As is natural for demons and their want for chaos, an argument broke out."

Jade didn't blame whoever she body-snatched from wanting to get away from all that. She witnessed what it was like to see them all fighting, and it was exhausting even on the best of days. She thanked him quietly when she retrieved her cup of tea, finding the warm herbal liquid a relief when she guzzled it down.

Dynasty of Shadow.. well, now that she thought about it, the tiger of a yokai reminded her of a tattoo that she had foolishly once gotten. Though she was never completely conscious of her time wielding the forces of the Shadowkhan, she only feared what hells she caused as her time of 'Queen of the Shadowkhan.'

God. When she dubbed herself that in her child-like power trip of terror, she never thought it to be a literal thing. She was going to name herself the "Totally Badass Empress of Evil", but for some reason that didn't click or fit just as right as the other title did. Regardless, that mark had a name. She remembered Uncle talk about it..

If the mark had the same looks about it as the yokai standing before her, then logic dictated it was probably him. What was it called again? Toro.. Tari …

"Tarakudo," she announced, having it click. She saw the yokai turn his head to her. Crap, she hadn't meant to vocalize that - !

"Yes, my Queen?" he asked, expectantly. Now she needed to think of something to say!

Jade busied herself by taking a sip of her tea, draining the rest of it and delicately setting it down on the tray. She did not know exactly the full extent of what she woke up in the middle of, but right now, all she had to do was live through it with nobody knowing, find the rest of her family and get the hell out to her reality and time.

A noble plan, if she didn't feel like curling up in a ball and crying her eyes out for two days straight from sheer stress alone.

"Take me back to the banquet."

Note: am i writing a fanfiction because of an annoying plot bunny that won't disappear for a fandom that probably hasn't been active since the 2010s? yes.

queen of shadowkhan jade with a big, very big twist.