Disclaimer: I do not own The Long Ballad, nor it's characters. Nor do I own any rights to the invention of Assassin's Creed and The Old Guard themes. (Contains: Child Abuse, Torcher, Suicide, Fighting, Death, Romance, Drama, Depression, History, Real Places, Secret Groups, and Supernatural elements)

Sitting down and tending to the fire, Sun watched as the lamb shank he was rotating slowly cooked and just waited for Shisi to talk to him. Every so often he would take a drink from his wine bladder and look at her discreetly, seeing her looking down at the leaves she had picked, while running her thumb over them. After a while, she finally started talking to him by asking him a question.

"Tandin, why did you want to have roasted lamb shanks with me today?"

"Your slave was fighting with Mujin over a lamb shank, and you're my military strategist after all. I don't want people to think that I'm treating you so badly."

"Before, would you also roast a lamb shank for Mujin and the others?" She asks him quietly, and he looks at her a moment before turning back to tent to the fire.

"No, this is the first time"

Looking once again back to the fire he decided to tell her about when he was little and cooked a lambs shank for his father, but ended up burning it completely. He told her how his father ate it to make him feel better, and how from that moment on, he worked hard to learn how to cook over a fire because he didn't want to disappoint his father again.

"I didn't expect something like that would've happened between you and your father."

"When I was little, my father used to care for me. But later on..." he raised the wine to his lips, taking a drink.

"Enough about me, tell me about your father."

"I have nothing to say about him, we were only allowed to see each other when permitted." She says sadly with a far of look.

"You can't blame him, he was the Crown Prince after all. It wouldn't be unusual for him to be busy" her eyes snap to him.

"When did you find out?" He looked back to the fire to move some logs around.

"When you were able to freely enter the Governor's Manor, I already knew that you were not an ordinary person. Later on, I heard them call you Prince Shiqi and that's when everything made sense, with the exception of why they didn't know you were a girl." He looked at her again seeing a guarded look in her eyes.

"Since you've long know my identity, is the reason you didn't expose me is so you can use me?"

"…Yes, I've used you. I've used you to torment myself. I saved you in Chang'an. I saved you in Youzhou. I still saved you in Shouzhou. Now, in grasslands, I'm roasting a lamb shank for a slave like you. I've really used you." He said while smiling at the lamb shank he was holding up, before he stood and walked towards her.

"What's the matter? You didn't forget everything did you?" He mocked her, and watched her unsure face as she looked away and sawing that she hadn't.

Still smiling, he held the leg out to her and says 'let's eat'. Slowly she reached out, taking the cooked leg from him and looked at it as he sat next to her.

"It's really unnerving how much you know about me... While you're right that the Crown Prince was the man who helped create me, he wasn't my father."

"Oh"

"The man I called father was a captive Old Guard, who was locked in a cell and kept there for thirty years."

Frowning he tried to put together what he knew so he could understand what she ment, while she watched the fire in front of them.

"Then how did you meet him?"

"…The Crown Prince didn't let his daughters live long after they were born; when my mother gave birth to me, he was away. My A'nya, with the help of her maid, my second uncle and his doctor, kept my gender hidden from the Crown Prince."

Sun felt the air he was breathing gets stuck in his throat, not believing she was talking like it was about the weather..

"When I was six, one of the Crown Prince's sons found out, and as punishment I was whipped in front of my mother, then thrown into a cell next to the man who would end up being like a father to me."

"The Crown Prince killed his daughters" Sun asked in disbelief still trying to presses what he had been told and gets a nod from the girl next to him.

"He always said females served no purpose other then to be in the way, they are weak and were only useful to provide children. That they're always demanding things that are better off in the hands of more deserving people. He would tell me often that he would not allow any weakness from his blood to live, or allow people to think they could have power over him through a marriage ploy." She slightly shrugged, then a whist full smile came to her face.

"The only reason I'm alive, is because of my father."

"Why would it matter that you were being trained as an Old Guard?" With his last admission of knowledge about her, a sharp look pierces him from her eyes.

"… My father wouldn't bow to the Crown Prince and when he found out that I became his student, the Crown Prince saw his chance to have a weapon he wanted so badly… It doesn't matter anymore, I'm considered dead in Tang now. So I have nothing to fear from the Imperial court. I can use the birth name my mother gave me. From now, on my name is Chang'ge, I will honor her by using it." She says more to herself then to him smiling.

"Chang'ge?" He says trying out her name for himself before looking to watch her, and smiles when he sees the free and content look on her face

"Chang'ge" he repeats again and she looks at him in question while still smiling.

He thinks of the meaning of her name and how she was like a song in some ways. He looked into her amber eyes, before he started to get uncomfortable at their closeness. Looking away, he motioned for her to pass the shank to him so that he could have some, and tears off some of the meat before handing it back to her. While they ate in silence enjoying the food, he thinks about what they had talked about and how he knew he had only started to scratch the surface of the girl beside him. When all of a sudden her head fell onto his shoulder. 'What is she doing? Does she want to give herself to me?' He thinks flushing red lightly.

"Hey. It's dark and windy, and I'm a hot-blooded man after all. You shouldn't be doing this."

When he doesn't get a response he, looked down to her and found that her eyes were closed. Saying her name again, he pulled away from her, causing her head to fall backwards. Reaching out quickly he grabbed her head in his hands and worriedly called her name a third time, before bending and picking her up when she still didn't respond.