The Queen's Honor Guard
by Nyohah
II.
Hua Quy Ling was bored.
Officially, he was not a slave, but as far as it really mattered, he was treated exactly like one. No one ever called him by name, it was either 'slave', 'you', or 'boy', which really irked him. He was seventeen years old. Definitely not a boy. No one ever gave him a choice of his activities, either. All he ever did was guard doors, guard carriages, guard entrances, guard buildings. All day, every day. And it was not as if anything ever happened. No one had the nerve to attack Emperor Yuen.
Not even Quy Ling, himself. Not even the one person who would not have to fight the guards. He had easy access, and was certainly clever enough to come up with a suitable plan, and yet...
It was true; he was scared to death of the emperor. Anytime he got even got an inkling of an idea for a plan of vengeance, he could think only of his parents, not alive and vibrant, but dead, fallen, soaked with their own blood. And their murderer, casually walking away, not fatigued, not bloodied, like an exterminator having rid the world of two very small, fragile pests.
And now here he was, the son of the two most well-organized rebels of their time, guarding the door to the emperor's dining hall.
At least he had something to look forward to, today. She would be here, soon. Very soon, in fact, he corrected, as he saw the two white mares that pulled the princess's carriage trotting nimbly down the stone-paved road. A formal dinner, then, celebrating the Emperor's return, to require the carriage when the princess preferred to walk.
The small white carriage stopped, the horses tossing their heads playfully, and a young man sitting beside the driver stepped down. Quy Ling recognized him, Lan Yiao Nih, a former military trainee, and an exceptional fighter. He had recently been condemned to the same boredom as Quy Ling—as the guard for the princess's carriage—due to insubordination, and not killed due the luck that the General's son wasn't nearly so cranky as his father.
Lan Yiao Nih opened the door and bowed respectfully to the princess as she exited. Yuen Ming looked irritated with her dress, a stiff, restricting thing recently imported from Earth, and even more so with the white makeup she was forced to wear. As though in protest, her hair was done as simply as her father would tolerate. She crossed to the dining hall doors quickly, and Hua Quy Ling bowed as he opened the door for her.
But it was after the princess had disappeared and bowing was no longer necessary that out stepped what had to be the most gorgeous creature on Mandalore. Her purity, reflected in the plain white hooded dress she wore. Her skin, of wintry cream and flawless. Her eyes, both deep blue and green, enchantingly beautiful. Her gait, smooth as—
Hua Quy Ling shut the door quietly behind her and turned, to see Yiao Nih shaking with unconcealed laughter.
"Oh, you've got it bad," he chuckled.
"No, I don't," Quy Ling, denied, beginning to turn red with embarrassment.
"What a liar. I saw the way you watched her. I can just imagine you making up Shakespeare in your head. 'Her skin like flawless wintry cream.'" He began to laugh uncontrollably. Quy Ling turned away, even redder.
"But honestly," continued the guard once he'd regained control of himself. "Why her? I mean, she's pretty and all, but distant, and...disconcerting. I mean, her eyes..." He shuddered.
"I don't think she's frightening in the least."
"Don't you? Perhaps you've never seen her fight. Women aren't supposed to be able to fight, and I know she's never had anything beyond what they may have learned in the opera, but, my God. Some of the other men challenged her once. There were, I think, five of them. One after another, they got beaten badly, and they hardly even hit her. Just once, and even then she managed to turn away so it just barely tapped her on the shoulder. It was like...I don't know, this is going to sound stupid, but...almost as though she knew what they were going to do before they did it."
"Really...?" breathed Quy Ling, mystified.
"Yeah, look, she's dangerous. So, just stay away from her, okay?"
"Sure," he said, hardly meaning it. Beautiful, and a good fighter?
Incredible...
"That was quite a close call," the old man was saying. "I thought he might be good enough to cause Goro some trouble. But it turned out he was scared to death of him, and lost all his composure. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd wet himself." He dipped his ceramic spoon into the soup once more, sipping it and making satisfactory noises before continuing. "That is something many people underestimate. The fear factor. But not you and me, eh, Your Highness?"
He was, truly, extraordinarily old, thought Ming. Probably even older than Grandmamma, and Grandmamma was old. He was also obviously someone of great importance, this Shang Tsung, to be able to communicate with her father on such equal terms without being reprimanded at the very least. But he kept rambling on about some tournament. It was actually quite interesting, and she would have liked to know more about some of the fights, especially this Kung Lao that had beaten the invincible monster Goro, where so many others had failed.
But Ming was not allowed to speak. Women should be seen, not heard, according to her father. Especially in the presence of esteemed guests. So Ming sat, habit keeping her back straight and her chin up even throughout her boredom and frustration. She ate silently, taking dainty little portions, and sipping her tea after every three bites, as she had been taught, reluctantly accepting the fact that she was none other than an ornament, a pretty decoration to look at.
And becoming more and more disturbed as the old man refused to take his eyes off her.
Sitting beside her, having been ousted from his seat by the old guest, and apparently completely unaware of the man's leering, Ming's brother Jer Rod, spoke. "I take it there are no weapons in this tournament of yours?"
"Occasionally, yes, there are. However they are used very sporadically, certainly not as the main method of fighting. We like to concentrate on unarmed strikes. The best warriors have special skills they can use, often akin to your elemental powers, though they are only allowed such powerful strikes as trained Mandalorians are often capable of to finish off a fighter; to kill him. Most fighters aren't quite so blessed, but of course they end up dying not far into the tournament—"
"While all of this talk of fighting is quite interesting, Tsung, perhaps we should inform the others of why you are here." Emperor Yuen pushed his empty plate away from the edge of the table and directed his attention to his daughter. "Ming, this meal was formal not only because of our esteemed guest, but also because you are to be wed."
Ming took a deep breath, gaining her composure. "Pardon, father? I am to marry soon? To whom?" She studied her father's face through the silence, searching for a clue. Several long seconds later, she glanced quickly over at the guest, and then, as realization struck, her mouth slackened in disbelief. "You can't be serious..." she breathed.
"Shang Tsung is a very highly esteemed colleague of mine, not to mention a powerful necromancer and a master over the powers of sorcery," Yuen stated firmly.
"...B-but, he's so...old!"
"Not for much longer, if all goes to plan." The old man smiled at her, and Ming stood in protest.
"Sit, child," commanded the emperor, his patience wearing thin.
"You cannot expect me to be this, this sorcerer's wife."
"I will not repeat myself anymore. Sit and be quiet. I have no tolerance for disobedient women."
"You cannot make me to do this! You haven't the right!" She slammed her fist down on the table, bouncing the plates.
Emperor Yuen rose in anger. "Sit and be obedient or you will regret this day for the rest of your life."
They stood, like father, like daughter, staring each other down; two pairs of eyes blazing with anger, four clenched, trembling fists. After what seemed like minutes, Ming lowered her head, and Yuen assumed victory. He sat back down and started on his dessert, but Ming had not given in.
"I will not," she whispered very calmly, then turned and walked out of the dining hall.
Sitting in the shadows of a secluded corner by the kitchen, Kei Sa quietly ate her meal—the burned bits of poultry, shrimp too runty to be served, slightly less than fresh vegetables, anything not fit for royalty to eat. She certainly did not have the best meals of the slaves, as the kitchen staff had leftovers to look forward to, but neither was she unfortunate. At least she could imagine what the real meal tasted like; many among the slaves lived half-starved on rice and yesterday's bread, some had never tasted freshly cooked meat, burnt or otherwise.
She typically closed her eyes in a game she played, paying more attention to the smells of the good food than her tongue, tasting the warm, lightly seasoned aromas that surrounded, drifting from the long mahogany table and the kitchen, imagining she was eating the real thing.
However that day's meal was far too interesting for Kei Sa to close her eyes and ignore. She saw everything, Ming growing increasingly agitated, and finally standing, her father yelling at her, Ming walking away.
Not a second after the door had swung close, Kei Sa followed, walking past Yuen Po, who was somehow managing to keep her great-grandson from storming out after his daughter, and then past the guards outside the door, who seemed dumbstruck by the princess's departure.
Ming had begun to sprint immediately after she left the building, and Kei Sa chased after her, all the way to her chambers, catching the door just before it closed. She shook her lightly pinched fingers as she stepped through the entryway.
Inside, Ming was rushing about with no apparent purpose, grumbling incoherently to herself. Kei Sa watched, perturbed, as Ming stamped ungracefully across the room, viciously wrenching at the pins in her hair until it cascaded, loose, against her back. As she passed the doorway, Kei Sa caught some of her muttering, something about a wedding and a...sorcerer?
Ming reappeared, dragging a large trunk behind her. She hoisted it onto a stand by her dresser and opened the top drawer. Digging through it for a few seconds, spilling sashes on the ground, she realized nothing she wanted was in this particular drawer, and she slammed it shut. She opened the next drawer, pulled out its only contents—a rich emerald fighting outfit—and dropped it into the trunk. She proceeded to the next drawer, but a quick glance at its useless contents caused her to slam it shut just as quickly. She went through the rest of the drawers, growing frustrated with the lack of suitable clothes until, in anger, she kicked the trunk. It crashed to the ground and fell open. Ming retrieved the green silk outfit, its only contents.
She stripped off her stiff dress, not caring that she ripped the expensive fabric and slung it across the room. Donning her only fighting outfit and snatching a pair of plain black shoes, Ming continued over to her bed and kicked off the fluffy comforter. She tied the underlying sheets together and hung them out her window, high in the tower.
"Kei Sa," she said at last. "We need more sheets."
"Certainly," the handmaiden replied, dashing out to fetch some. When she returned, heavily laden with spare sheets, she said, "May I ask where we're going?"
"Opal Coast," the princess replied calmly, still tying sheets together.
"Opal Coast..." Kei Sa wondered. Then the truth hit her and she gasped. "You don't mean...the Oracle?"
"Yes, of course."
"But you can be tried for treason just for speaking her name!"
"True, but she and her students have also withstood every attack my father has made. They are the very reason he bought those missiles. That must mean something." She threw the sheets out the window, where they finally hit the ground. "I won't stand for this."
Emperor Yuen was irate.
In all his years of serving the man, as a Lin Kuei and as a bodyguard, Tempest had never seen him lose all control as he had now. Before, when angry, he had always remained calm, channeling his anger, using it as a source of energy and ambition, as befit his element, ice. Yet now he was pacing aimlessly, a mad tiger in a cage, waiting for someone foolish enough to venture too closely.
But no one did. Tempest stayed on the far side of the room. The boy, Quy, was nearly cowering in the corner. Shang Tsung was relaxing on an armchair, still far out of reach of the emperor. And even the ever-present Vendetta—Yuen's primary bodyguard and the one person, besides perhaps Yuen Po, who did not fear him—was leaning against a bookcase, seemingly unworried, but out of the way.
Without warning, Emperor Yuen rounded on Hua Quy Ling. "You! Go fetch my daughter! I will show her who is in charge here." Terrified, the young guard sprinted away.
"I will teach her to never defy me," continued Yuen, wringing his hands as he concocted her punishment.
But when the boy returned he was alone. He trembled as he tried to gather the courage to speak.
"What is the problem?" demanded the emperor. "Out with it, boy!"
"Yuen Ming and Kei Sa are gone."