He is expressionless, sitting beside her in blue and gold silk, accepting the congratulations of their clan with cerebral grace. Meilan peeks at him underneath her eyelashes, which feel heavy coated in black ink, as heavy as the gold bridal crown gracing her head.
Chang Wufei is her husband. Their clan has deemed it so, and her honour wouldn't allow her to rebel, no matter how inappropriate of a match she thinks it is. He isn't so bad—she can name at least a dozen worse—but he isn't ideal. He is said to be intelligent, one of the brightest minds in their clan, but Meilan would prefer someone with a heart.
Wufei is cold, like a fish, and he doesn't look at her. He doesn't look at her once, and he doesn't smile, and at no time does he reach out to touch her.
She feels bereft, and she doesn't know why she should.
Despite his best efforts, he can feel her presence burning beside him. Long Meilan takes up space, mental and emotional and physical, and he doesn't need to look at her to know she is there. She is beautiful today as she rarely is any other day, covered in red and gold silk, and he dares not touch her lest he burn up.
Today is unlike other days. Today is their wedding, and Meilan is beautiful, and she is quiet, and he knows enough about her to know that this will not be the case any other time. He thinks he understands why their marriage has been arranged, why he has been selected for Master Long's prized granddaughter, when there are perhaps a dozen more suitable candidates.
Wufei isn't frightened of her.
They marry. Things change, and then they don't. Meilan isn't expected to live with him, not for years yet, and while they're expected to socialize far more often than previously, life is not so different than it is before.
She goes to school and fails most of her classes. Wufei is top of every class. She goes to training every day after school—Wufei shows up exactly four times a week, no more and no less. He is more often found with a book, reading outside under a tree.
She sits by him, once. "What are you reading?"
"A treatise on resource management and its effect on societal stability," he replies, turning the page.
"Oh." She hesitates and resists the temptation to fill the air with chatter. She is inclined to talking, but something about Wufei always silences her. He doesn't say anything further. As far as she can tell, his attention is back on the book. She wants to steal it from him, to make him pay attention to his wife, but they already fight so much, and she doesn't want to do so today. She doesn't feel like fighting right now.
"I like books about adventure. Or quests. Things like Journey to the West." She pulls her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them. "Things where there are heroes, and there are villains, and someone has to save the world."
He looks up, and there's a small smile on his face. "Of course, you do," he says, and somehow, it feels like that tiny smile fills her whole chest.
She doesn't want to fight today. That's a nice change, he thinks, and he closes his book and sets it beside him to look at her. They've fought more than anything else, these past weeks—Meilan and her ridiculous, naïve idealism, Wufei with his hard pragmatism. Meilan and her dedication to an amorphous ideal of justice, and Wufei with his harsh criticism of the same.
She is trying, and because she tries, he thinks he should too.
"I liked Journey to the West as well," he offers, and he's rewarded when she turns to him with a bright smile on her face. "I especially like the reinterpretation that each new generation gives to the traditional epic."
She looks blank, and he corrects himself. "I like the way that we change the story to suit our current circumstances. Like when the Monkey King goes into exile in space. Those chapters aren't in the original."
"Oh." She smiles again, her face lighting up like a beacon. "Yes, I know that! I think the Monkey King is a symbol of hope, though. He always faces new challenges and always comes out on top, and it makes me feel like we can win against any challenge that we come across."
"He is, isn't he?" Wufei hesitates, and he reaches out to touch her on the shoulder. They're married—even if they aren't expected to live together yet, he's allowed. She would stop him if he wasn't. "Maybe we can read it together sometime."
"I'd like that." Meilan rests her head on her knees, leaning slightly into his touch. "I think I'd like that a lot."
They fight each other. She is fire, and he is ice. He is all head, and she is all heart. She is ideals, while he is practicality. Their marriage is marked with both harsh, angry silences and loud, vicious words. But in between every fight and every resolution are a thousand moments: soft moments, kind moments, a touch of the hand here and a brush of the hair there. An offered hair tie, when Meilan loses hers—a borrowed bookmark, when Wufei misplaces his.
It ends too soon, and no one is more surprised than Wufei at how affected he is when it ends. She was never the one who was supposed to die—her hopes, her dreams, and her naivete should have insulated her. He should have protected her, and those same ideals, with the same desperate fervour that she had thrown into protecting him in that final battle.
He packs his bags. He will be the justice that she wanted to see in the world.