Please see introduction for disclaimer regarding this work.
Chapter Five
Continuing Dreams
Upon awakening, he found himself still in bed, the injured goddess lying where they had placed her. The bleeding had stopped in the night, or at least there were no new stains on the sheets.
Fou-Lu rose out of bed, stretching. A squeak and the slam of a door alerted him to a servant who had apparently come to tell him something. The emperor blinked, then grinned rather toothily. Deliberating as to whether it would be worth the amusement that would follow were he to exit in what he was currently wearing (nothing), Fou-Lu eventually got dressed.
He walked over to the door and stood, listening. After a while the expected knock came.
"Is…is Majesty…descent?" The unmistakable voice of a badly startled youngster came through the door.
Fou-Lu opened the door almost before the child had finished speaking. The boy stared at him, and he slowly raised an ominous brow. "Yes?"
"Um…I be from Tal-Durn, Sir…Majesty…Lord." It was apparent the boy's flustered state was leading to an inability to remember the proper title.
"Art thou, then?" the emperor said. "And what sayeth our friend, little one? Didst he not warn thee of mine sleeping habits?"
The message runner gulped. Fou-Lu smiled encouragingly at him. "The doctor…said he wilt be coming later to check upon the lady." Message delivered, the lad looked eager to leave.
"Very well," the dragon said after a moment. "If that is all, thou art dismissed."
The relieved youngster vanished almost before he had finished speaking. Fou-Lu shook his head ruefully and went back inside his room.
To his surprise, he found his guest awake. Her eyes moved to follow him as he walked over to stand next to her.
"Greetings." He smiled at her, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside her. Her narrow face tensed, but she remained silent. "Our name is Fou-Lu. Mayest we ask thine?" She didn't reply, and he frowned. "Dost thou not understand us?"
Throat working, the female managed to croak out, "Yes…"
"Our apologies. Thou shouldst most likely not talk until thy wounds art healed," Fou-Lu said. "But er we leave, canst thou tellst us thy name?"
"Yahla," she managed to say, blinking slowly. Then her eyes closed, and she appeared t have fallen unconscious again.
"Yahla…" the emperor murmured, looking at the sleeping female. "'Tis a lovely name…"
Fou-Lu woke to the rising sun in his eyes. He started to put a hand up to shield them, but Yahla was sitting on it, so he had to use the other. Holding his hand out before his face, he smiled down at his wife, remembering last night's dream. After Yahla had first told him her name, she had healed but slowly, and never would heal entirely. She would be eternally scarred, and it limited her power, preventing her form ascending to the form of a full dragon.
Yahla looked uninclined to wake, so Fou-Lu turned his head to the side to avoid the sun and fell back to sleep, dreaming of a variety of high and low spot from his years with Yahla.
"Yahla. Wilt thou marry us?" the emperor asked on bended knee. He had no ring-- dragons did not wear such things, and Yahla would lose it anyway.
The dragoness, who had spent the last year healing and falling in love with her rescuer, smiled. She leaned to kiss him. "There is but one thing."
"Yes?" he asked, prepared to grant her whatever she could wish.
"Wilt thou stop with the damned royal 'We'"
Fou-Lu got slowly to his feet, the shattered body of his wife in his arms. The entire army had gone silent, as if afraid to intrude on an obviously painful moment. His face shuttered, the emperor let his gaze travel from one face to another. His voice was strangely hoarse when he finally spoke. "General." General Wam-Ren, leader of his army, stepped up to his side. "Thou wilt find the perpetrator of this. Hunt them down and destroy them. Find those who supplied yon uprisers with such weapons. I wishest them dead."
The general nodded, tactfully ignoring the emperor's omission of the royal 'We.' "Yes, milord. 'Twill be done."
"Good. I wilt be in mine tent…shouldst any need me." Fou-Lu, carrying the body of his lover, left, eyes staring blankly ahead.
The army personal exchanged glances before the general jumped into action, giving instructions and assignments. One of the officers, however, refused.
The young man stepped forward, away from the body of troops he commanded. "My apologies, sir, but I cannot comply."
"What?!" the general thundered. "What art thou doing, Mal-Heu?"
The officer didn't balk, meeting the older soldier's gaze steadily. "I be going to see His Majesty."
"In case thou hadst not noticed," the man said acidicly. "Our lord no doubt wishes to be alone."
"In case thou hadst not noticed, the emperor just lost his wife and unborn child. As a friend, I cannot allow him to weather that alone," the son of Mir-Heu said. "…sir."
"Very well," Wam-Ren said. "Thou mayest go. As of now, thou art relieved of thy command."
Mal-Heu looked shocked for a moment before his face hardened. "I see…" With that, the junior officer turned on his heel and left.
Fou-Lu sat on the floor of his tent, the body of his wife on the floor beside. He sat and stared at nothing, occasionally stroking a strand of burnt hair. Several servants had disturbed him earlier, most intent on removing the body and preparing it for burial. He had thrown them out before they had even made it through the door.
He sensed the approach of another figure, and as it hesitated outside the tent flap, ordered, "Go away, Mal-Heu."
There was a rustle as the soldier entered. Fou-Lu didn't turn, he remained with his back to the door. "I said, quit this place."
"No." The officer stepped forwards, coming around to stand in front of the dragon. "I will not."
The emperor raised his gaze to the other's face, a flash of anger coming through the façade. "I needst not thee, nor any other. Be gone, and leave me. I be well."
"Do not lie to me, Fou-Lu," Mal-Heu said, crouching in front of his friend. "I have known thee since I was born, and my father knew thee before I." He reached forward and clasped the emperor's forearms. Fou-Lu started to pull away, but Mal-Heu held him still, knowing his friend wouldn't exert enough of his strength to hurt him. "Listen to me, dammit!"
"Get out!" the dragon snarled, his grief manifesting through anger. Anger he took out on his only living human friend.
"Like Hell I will!" Mal-Hew snapped back. "I know what thou art going through! I understand, and I will not let thee tear thyself apart! This nation needs thee! These people need thee!"
"How couldst thou understand!? Thou art mortal!" Fou-Lu shoved the human away from him, glaring.
"I understand, because I happened to me!" growled Mal-Heu, positioning himself back in front of the dragon. "Thou will listen! My wife, Sari, was pregnant with our first child." Fou-Lu refused to look at him, but Mal-Heu plunged on. "I was on leave, visiting the family. I was still in uniform, and was attacked by rebels. One threw a spear at me, and Sari took it in my stead. She did not die instantly. The wound grew festering and spoiled, and she caught a fever. After many days of agony, she died. They all die in the end, do the not, Fou-Lu," he said cruelly. "Every one thou loves or cares about…no matter what thou does…"
"Quiet!" The voice that tore itself from Fou-Lu's throat was not his own. It was angry and bitter and full of tears. Tears much like those running silently down his face, testimony to his troubled emotions. The dragon slumped, burying his face in his hands.
Mal-Heu was there in an instant, giving his much older friend a shoulder to cry on. "That is right…let it out. Cry."
His friend pulled away for a moment, choking on his own voice. "I wish not to go on…alone."
The emperor started to cry in earnest, sobs racking his slender frame. Mal-Heu found his own eyes misty and wet, both from sympathy and personal loss (Yahla had been like an older sister to him) and remembered pain. They cried together, clinging to each other like two survivors of disaster, who live on while everything they know is gone. Fou-Lu cried out Yahla's name often, while Mal-Heu murmured the name of his own lost wife.
Eventually, tears subsided and Fou-Lu pulled away, straightening his clothes and trying to wipe away the evidence of his weakness.
"Thou didst see none of that," he said after a while.
Mal-Heu smiled sadly. "Indeed." He turned to exit, but stopped. "Oh. Would thou speak to the general? I fear he had relieved me of my command."
"What ever for?" the dragon asked.
Shrugging, the soldier failed in his attempt to look innocent. "I disobeyed his order to come and see thee."
"Ah." Fou-Lu nodded. "Yes, I wilt have speech with him."
Mal-Heu bobbed his head in reply, moving to leave. Before he had totally exited, a soft call stopped him.
"Mal-Heu." There was a pause, and an even softer voice continued. "Mine thanks…"
