Chapter Seventeen: The Orchid and the Dragon

A gallant officer, a spirited handmaid…and a warhorse named White Bunny.

Xiahou Dun stood dashingly aboard the deck of a small but swift wooden sloop as it cut efficiently across the waters of the Chang Jiang. Its crew bypassed some of the more convenient, popular ports, choosing instead to dock at an obscure little wharf where the only witnesses to the Wei general's arrival were a scattering of ignorant old fishermen.

Upon feeling the gentle bump of the ship stopping against the sandy shores, Xiahou Dun prepared to disembark.

Turning to his crew, the fearsome one-eyed warrior ordered brusquely, "Wait here; I shouldn't be gone too long."

With those stern words, he threw on a long, black cloak over his handsome armor, pulling the hood low over his face in an effort to be less identifiable by his one glaring eye.

A flash of steel glinted harshly in the sunlight when tonfa met with sword blade. Inside the Wu palace grounds, Sun Ce and Liu Bei progressed into the second tournament—fighting with weaponry—of their brother versus groom duel. Most of their audience seemed enthralled by the fight…if only because each individual member was rooting for his or her respective side.

Sun Ce unleashed a lightning-fast volley of spinning strikes with the Overlord; his opponent blocked the majority of these with the Gold Moon Dragon, but was forced to at one point slide quickly to one side to avoid having his skull crushed in, and the fight raged on.

Xi Tian alone frowned with bored impatience, as she watched the two supposed allies attempt to kill each other with moves that alternated from breathtaking to inanely primitive. Having pledged allegiance to neither of the two kingdoms, the nineteen-year-old could only think that at the rate all this ridiculous slashing and clobbering was going on, she was going to be stuck outside all day and all night.

Just as Xi Tian was beginning to seriously lament her fate, a Shu footsoldier discreetly entered and made a beeline for Zhao Yun. Whatever he whispered into the young warrior's ear must have astonished him, for Zhao Yun's eyes widened in surprise before the infantryman had even finished relaying his message. He then hastily strode up to Zhuge Liang, and after a few hushed words, the latter nodded understandingly and excused his third Tiger General.

Unbeknownst to them, a pair of golden eyes had been watching their exchange with a spark of curiosity. Xi Tian now saw an opportunity to do something—anything—other than watch this endless dueling between Liu Bei and Sun Ce, when Zhao Yun started to make an inconspicuous exit.

As subtly as she knew how, she hurried up to the warrior and asked, "Are you going somewhere, General Zhao? Please, may I come with you?"

Zhao Yun shifted on his feet, an uncertain expression on his face as he told her, "I'm only leaving because my horse escaped from the stable, and now it's my responsibility to lead him back—it'll hardly be a task that you might find entertaining, Orchid."

Zhuge Liang, however, who'd read the poorly-concealed boredom on Xi Tian's face, smiled knowingly to himself before instructing his general, "Zilong, you may as well take the girl with you. She probably doesn't find long duels all that entertaining, either."

Zhao Yun looked a bit confused, but quickly shook it off. Acquiescing with a good-natured nod, he proceeded to lead Xi Tian out of the palace and onto the busy, noisy streets of Jianye with an affable instruction of, "This way, then, Orchid."

Xiahou Dun growled with impatience as he roughly pushed his way through the crowds, intent on finding the girl and giving her Lord Cao Cao's letter. His predecessor, Zhang He, had eloquently described Xi Tian as being an "exquisite blossom of a maiden, with raven hair and eyes like a pair of beautiful golden stars." Unfortunately, however, such flowery words had little meaning for the elder of the two Xiahou brothers.

Then there was also the fact that Zhang He's task had been much easier, since he'd had a portrait of Xi Tian to help him identify her. But the narcissistic idiot had sold the painting somewhere between Jingzhou and Xuchang, in exchange for a worthless butterfly trinket which had momentarily caught his fancy. This left Xiahou Dun with the rather annoying task of checking every pretty young brunette in Wu for golden eyes.

The tall Wei general randomly yanked a jet-haired girl of about nineteen or twenty for inspection, then flung her aside when her eyes turned out to be a pale shade of almond. His upper lip curled over his teeth in an angry snarl, as he started to realize that, contrary to what he'd told his crew, it was beginning to look more and more like he would be gone for a long time after all.

At the same time, Zhao Yun was walking down a bustling street while holding his tall white horse by the reins. By his side was Xi Tian, wearing a sheepish smile on her face as her companion posed a question to her.

"I'm rather curious, Orchid," Zhao Yun was saying, "as to how my warhorse came to be renamed White Bunny."

Upon leaving the palace, the young warrior had tried every trick he knew to recover his rebellious steed. Unfortunately, the narrow, bustling streets of Jianye had severely limited his most effective methods.

In the end, it was the innocuous-looking handmaid beside him who had, surprisingly, tamed his horse long enough for Zhao Yun to recover it.

"Little White Bunny, come back," she'd called pertly after the snorting beast.

As soon as it heard its new moniker, the fierce charger had, indeed, stopped long enough for its master to seize its reins.

Now, Xi Tian attempted to palm off a high-spirited laugh to cover up her embarrassment at having her little secret flushed out.

"Is White Bunny really that terrible a name?" she wheedled, flashing the young officer her sweetest smile. "After all, if the great General Guan Yunchang rides a red warhorse named Red Hare, why shouldn't the Great General Zhao Zilong ride a white warhorse named White Bunny?"

Zhao Yun arched an eyebrow at her charming but rather unsatisfactory explanation. He was going to take a lot of flak from the other officers once they found out that the Little Dragon of Changshan would now be riding into battle atop a stallion named White Bunny, of all things!

"Is that why you insisted on coming along? Because you knew you were the only one who could get, ah, White Bunny back?" he guessed, deciding that one warhorse with a ridiculously cute name wasn't so terrible that he couldn't forgive its namer.

Xi Tian, caught up in trying to catch a view of some performing street acrobats, failed to think of a more tactful reply and instead blurted out the first words that sprang to her lips.

"Oh, no," she answered, truthfully and without thinking. "It's just that I needed an excuse to get out; it was so boring watching two grown men try to clobber each other to death for hours on end!"

Zhao Yun chuckled at her unwittingly candid response, while Xi Tian realized what she'd just said, and began to blush.

"Stop laughing!" she huffed in annoyance, pulling a pink lotus flower from her hair and throwing it at his face.

Zhao Yun brushed the little ornamental projectile off his nose with a careless grin, before laughingly challenging its thrower, "Is that the best you can do?"

Lips set in a rather childish pout, Xi Tian attempted to slap him on the chest next, but only ended up hurting her hand on his tough silver armor, causing an unconcealed twinkle of mirth to flash across his eyes. Xi Tian gingerly clutched her hand and gave a soft sigh, turning away as if she'd somehow injured it. When a concerned Zhao Yun drew closer and leaned down to check on her, she suddenly twirled back around and playfully tweaked his nose with her supposedly "injured" hand.

Zhao Yun half-gasped, half-croaked in surprise, while Xi Tian giggled merrily at the success of her little trick.

After recovering from his initial surprise, Zhao Yun drew himself to his full height and demanded in mock anger, "So you think you're clever, little Orchid?"

"Compared to you, I must be," Xi Tian playfully fired back.

Hearing this, the Tiger General opened his mouth, about to retort. At that moment, however, his newly-renamed horse accidentally knocked over a wooden booth, spilling neatly-stacked oranges all over the street.

At the same time, Xi Tian was abruptly yanked into an obscure side street.

When Zhao Yun had finished apologizing to the irate shop owner, and had helped her reorganize her products, Xi Tian was gone.

Zhao Yun turned around in a full circle, calling out quizzically, "Orchid?"

How could the girl have just disappeared during the brief moment his back was turned?

At the Wu palace, Sun Quan and Lu Xun appeared to be fretting over something of great importance, speaking in hushed whispers and gesturing frantically. The former appeared to be trying to convince the latter of something; this one kept refusing with equal parts politeness and adamancy.

Just as Lu Xun burst forth with an enigmatic cry of, "I have to use peaches? But they'll bruise too easily!" Sun Jian strode up to the duo.

At Sun Quan's none-too-subtle prod, the two immediately fell silent and dipped down in respectful bows.

The king of Wu looked surprisingly hopeful as he bid his officers to straighten up.

"Lady Wu has given her consent that Lord Liu Bei may meet with Shang Xiang," Sun Jian explained by means of clarifying his cheerful mood. "If the girl likes him and wants to marry him, then that's her choice to make. However, if she doesn't want to marry him…"

Here, his smile drooped a notch, as he finished glumly, "If Shang Xiang doesn't like Lord Liu Bei, then we'll have to find another way to align ourselves with Shu."

Lu Xun and Sun Quan lowered their eyes and shuffled around, mumbling something under their breaths and generally looking not quite as exulted about this news as the latter's father had expected of them.

"What's wrong?" Sun Jian asked sharply, shooting the two young men a suspicious glare.

These ones stalled with admirable Sun Ce-esque quality, but eventually coughed up the answer.

"My lord, we can't find Lady Sun anywhere!" Lu Xun finally admitted.

Xiahou Dun pinned his newest unfortunate victim against the walls, holding her shoulders down and tilting her chin up so that he could examine her face.

Noticing a particular feature, the formidable Wei warrior growled in a low voice, "Golden eyes—you must be the girl!"

Roughly releasing his captive, Xiahou Dun stepped back and wrenched off his heavy, hooded cloak. One eye glared coldly at the girl before him; the other was covered by a strip of dull gold cloth tied diagonally across his forehead.

"Xi Tian of Jingzhou?" he asked harshly, and at her wary nod, proceeded to introduce himself: "I'm General Xiahou Dun—"

Before he could go on, though, Xi Tian had echoed his name with a look of dawning recognition seeping into her features.

"Xiahou…Xiahou…Ah! Aren't you that same warrior who once got shot in the eye?" Xi Tian squealed. "And didn't you pull the arrow out and then ate your own eye?"

Xiahou Dun scowled at her pesky questions and nonsensical gabbling…but unfortunately for him, Xi Tian was just getting warmed up.

"Does it still hurt? Can you feel anything at all?" she trilled on in happy oblivion.

Then, with a surge of Heaven-granted courage (or perhaps just plain foolishness), she began poking around his eye with her little finger.

"Can you feel this?" she wanted to know.

Stoic silence was her reply, encouraging her to pull out her gold chai(1) from her hair next, and begin jabbing it at the cloth which protected Xiahou Dun's empty socket.

A blue vein on Xiahou Dun's forehead began throbbing dangerously, but when Xi Tian failed to take the hint—or rather, the warning sign—the irascible swordsman angrily punched the wall behind her head. Out of vengeance, he wrenched the chai out of her hands, easily bending the hair ornament in half between his powerful fingers.

"Here are your new instructions," he snapped in a harsh voice, simultaneously thrusting Cao Cao's letter into her hands.

Xi Tian, after grieving over the irreparable mangling of her favorite gold chai, reluctantly unfolded the draft and began to read. Its first line obviously caught her by surprise, for she cried out questioningly, "How's that going to create dissension?"

But when she looked up, Xiahou Dun was gone.

At the same time, a second male voice—this one thankfully much nicer in tone—called out in audible relief, "Orchid!"

Xi Tian whirled around, guiltily hiding the letter behind her back when she recognized Zhao Yun standing at the mouth of the alley.

"Why did you suddenly run off?" the young officer of Shu questioned her as he began to escort her back to the Wu palace.

His only response was an unsatisfyingly vague half-whisper of, "No particular reason."

Zhao Yun didn't press her…but he did notice that Xi Tian was growing quieter and more distracted with each step.

The brother-groom duel between Sun Ce and Liu Bei finally arrived at its fifth and final tournament: team fighting. The young prince had naturally chosen his best friend and sworn brother, Zhou Yu, to be his partner. Over on the Shu side, however, things weren't progressing quite as smoothly.

Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were arguing amongst themselves about who deserved to be Liu Bei's partner. The former spoke in strong, dignified tones as he asserted his seniority, the latter blustered and cursed freely as he fired back claims that he was tougher.

Meanwhile, the soon-to-be-groom could only watch in helpless frustration as his two sworn brothers readied themselves to duel each other to see who was strong enough to merit their Elder Brother's partnership.

"Veteran General Huang," Liu Bei finally summoned, deciding that to save time, he really ought to bypass his own brothers and instead pick the oldest of his four Tigers.

Thankfully, at that moment, a haggard and exhausted-looking Sun Quan burst in.

"Stop the dueling!" he wheezed, trying to both catch his breath and make his announcement as grand-sounding as possible. "Lady Sun is ready to meet Lord Liu Bei!"

1. Hair pin