Characters: Wu Zetian, Li Shimin, Gao Yizhi
Rating: T for discussions of canon typical misogyny, period typical homophobia, and internalized fear being sapphic makes one inherently predatory
Words: 2,213
Prompts: Horror, possession, whump(?), Iron Triangle, some mention of Wan'er Taping and Qieluo
All of Zetian's life she had been threatened and menaced with the idea she was nothing more than property to be owned by men. First to her Father, inescapable by the simple nature of living in his home. Then, to the shadowy concept of a husband. Someone to tame the clinging vestiges of feral girlhood from her personality, literally paying for her company, and time, and love. Should she outlive even him she would not be free, forever tied to whatever son she would have been forced to bear. Zetian's singular purpose in Huaxia was to be possessed by men.
Somehow, she had escaped that fate. A bit ironic given that it's two boys, not one, who sit across from her in the military assigned apartment she shares with them, and how both have laid careful claim to her heart. Twice the men should mean twice the loss of freedom, but. Societies expectations found no root in their tender, new relationship.
Zetian is their equal. They care about her thoughts, her ideas, how she feels. Yizhi and Shimin are falling in love with one another, too, creating something with her she's never heard about outside of rumors. Maybe that's where her comfort with it all comes from; Zetian and her lovers are all damned in the eyes of Huaxia for this.
Watching the two, now, sitting practically on top of one another on the couch Zetian is reminded of the strange loneliness inside her. The spot that is constantly inflamed, now, seeing her two boys together. Always left to wonder if that kind of like-gendered romance is something she'll ever get to explore for herself.
Granted, she doesn't even know what that would look like, and she thinks that's why her mind wanders back to it endlessly. Would she be no better than a man to pursue a woman? A high ranking chrysalis pilot, a celebrity, someone the average girl couldn't say no to? Is her desire to have sex with woman no different than a man's, reducing them down to desirable objects?
What's the difference? Knowing so little about navigating such a thing, how would she know where that line is drawn?
"Meiniang?"
Shimin calls to her, drawing her eyes into focus from where she'd been lost in thought. Clearly he took the staring wrong, extracting himself from Yizhi's attentions.
"No, don't--"
"You look sad," he says by way of explanation, crossing the room to touch a thumb between her brows. She hadn't noticed how deeply they'd been furrowed until he smooths the expression out for her.
"Oh, yeah, I wasn't--" She makes a vague, nonsensical gesture at them. Navigating the three-way of their relationship has had its awkward bumps, and it seems she's run into another one of them. "I wasn't jealous and wanting you to stop, I was just thinking about…" She trails off and then presses her lips together.
"About what?" Yizhi scoots closer to her, but remains on the other couch. As much as she loves the three of them getting to live together the furniture truly isn't made for it. It's made for pairing off. Two cushions, two couches, two feet of space between them.
"I'm...not sure I know how to explain it," she admits.
"Try?"
Yizhi knows Zetian likes girls. She hadn't told him in as many words, but she'd said enough he has to know. Anxiety washes over her for a moment. Would this be coming out of nowhere for Shimin? They share minds, but she doesn't know how much he's gleaned of her thoughts and life, really.
It'd be hypocritical of either of them to judge her anyways, she realizes. Like they get to kiss one another, and then have an issue with just the idea of her thinking of women? It's enough to have her back straightening.
"I was thinking...how nice it would be. To have what you and Shimin have, but with another girl. And then realizing I don't even know what that would look like. We heard rumors back home about men being with men, but never women with women, you know?"
"Did you have someone in mind?" Shimin asks. Thankfully, he doesn't seem at all upset, just curious.
"No!" Zetian winces at how forcefully she says it, like she's trying to make up for doing something wrong. "It's kind of a miracle I'm here with the both of you, there's not anyone else, trust me. They're just idle thoughts, I guess. Seeing how comfortable you two get to be together…" She trails off again, lost to the longing of it all.
"It's normal to think about," Yizhi murmurs. "It'd be pretty different from us, right?"
"That's the thing! I don't know." She sags down in her seat a little bit. "It's not like I trust a lot of people in general. And girls are taught to act in such a specific way, I guess I'm just having a hard time picturing what it would be like. Is yearning for something so abstract really normal?"
"Well. That's how it was for me," Shimin says simply, taking Zetian's hand in his own. He doesn't look at her, eyes on how he runs his thumb over her knuckles, and she realizes he seems a bit embarrassed. "When I was in prison, it was just other boys. As long as I didn't stare I always told myself it was okay to look. But it scared me, sometimes, the thought I might catch someone looking back."
He looks to Yizhi, searching, maybe hoping he has a similar experience to share. Instead, Yizhi remains a bit wooden as he repeats, "I think it's normal. And I'm not just saying that to make you feel better. There are plenty of books, even academic ones, that discuss this sort of thing."
Shimin's face brightens as he turns back to Zetian. "Would you-- would you like me to 'read' to you a story of a woman who fell in love with another woman? Among the stories I've memorized I know one that's relevant."
"They have stories like that?" Zetian asks, looking between the two of them, the knot in her chest unwinding a bit. "I-- yes. Tell me about them?"
Shimin returns to his seat by Yizhi, as there's not enough room to join Zetian in her loveseat, and she recognizes a long held fear of hers tremble inside of her.
She is so afraid being in love will soften her in some subtle, irreversible way. Shimin is animated as he tells her about his story, like he always is when he gets to retreat to the things that made him happy before his incarceration. How it infects Yizhi, too, their hands intertwining and gentle, and she knows if she's not careful those same hands can wear down her sharp edges if she's not careful. If she doesn't remain vigilant.
Yizhi has already asked her once already to run away with him, flee her home and prospects for a simple life. To forget all the women who weren't lucky enough to find someone so caring and leave them to their continued misery under their current government and its laws.
Her feet ache.
What if Shimin wanted that, too, if it meant they could all stay together? Pilots don't retire, as a rule, they all know that now. If there's any future to be had between them it can't be here. Not unless something drastic happens to change. All of it. Everything they know. She can only pray her rage born of countless injustices is stronger than her need to seek comfort. If things have to change she may very well need to be a part of it. She needs to be ready.
For now she listens to Shimin talk, along with Yizhi's occasional interjections, until it's time for bed. She crawls under the covers with thoughts and ideas focused on women finding meaning with one another, how that could look and feel outside the wants or intrusions of men.
As sleep clouds her mind and dreams creep in she even has the taboo thought of a chrysalis, in all its metaphors for relationships and marriage, to be piloted by two women.
---
Zetian dreams she's restrained.
No. That's not quite right.
She can't move, and her awareness feels off; sounds muffled while the setting Sun fails to warm her. Because…because she has no skin. Instead, she's covered in rough, green textured hide. That's right. She's not a girl, she's a chrysalis. The nine-tailed fox. Even so, something was wrong. This form has always meant painless exhilaration. Power, raw and unchallengeable.
So why can't she move?
Everything is too heavy, like eyelids losing the battle against sleep. Like qi exhaustion amplified to a degree she thinks she should be dead. As she struggles she idly wonders if this is what it would be like if her real body lost too much blood, unable to do anything but lay cold, motionless, and dormant.
The longer she struggles the more she forgets herself. She was never a human. This wasn't always her shape, but…
Her foggy mind rationalizes she was always the fox.
How lonely it is to sit, tails furled around herself, day and night. How she starves and starves until finally a pilot enters her body. It's hard to tell who the parasite is between them as the pain seats themselves within her head. She punctures their bodies with delicate pins, tastes their blood, while she finally is fed the qi needed to move. Given the chance, she will drain them dead. She's rather good at it, honestly, but it's never enough to fuel independence.
They frolic onto the battlefield, the humans assuming it's two minds that move them and not three. She sees no reason to burst their bubble. As long as they keep her alive this way maybe if she drains enough of them she can run away. She won't be a pawn for killing anymore.
For now she's their puppet, her body and power meaning nothing without their input. They turn her head, but it's her who flexes the claws into the soft soil and falling into a steady lope. Together, they lay waste to her fellow hundun. She's not fond of it, but what is she to do? How can she stop it?
How can she save the concubines?
The thought has Zetian pulling up short so that she loses all control of herself to the pilots. The pilots? She was a pilot, wasn't she? Was one of the pilots in her now a concubine? Was she killing girls she's always wanted to protect?
For a moment she sees her surroundings for what they are-- a dream.
She's not the nine-tailed fox, a thing made for war. She is a pilot, watching herself from above, shocked to see herself in the Yang seat. She would never. There's another woman there, draped under Zetian's arms, but she can't make out her face. She wrenches her face away, seeing through the eyes of the fox once more, and she bolts towards the woods, away from the battle and the lights of the city, the protection of the wall.
The trees loom far too tall compared to a chrysalis body, darkening her surroundings significantly, heart leaping into her throat because she knows she's being pursued. She's not a human or a war machine, just a fox, wounded and desperate to escape whatever's chasing her.
A heavy weight lands on her back, claws digging in through her fur and into her skin. Zetian yelps, twisting and snapping to wrench herself free, to at least catch a glimpse of what's caught her.
"There's no running from this," a familiar girl's voice lets her know. She catches a glimpse of white fur over her shoulder and cool, green eyes. "I'll take the Yang seat if you're going to be so dramatic about it."
"We can't!" Zetian redoubles her struggle, tails whipping and claws gouging through the leaf litter of the forest floor.
"We can't, or you don't want to?" Unbidden, Zetian imagines it. Accepting her role as a woman, dominated by another woman. Was that so bad? Was it unequal? Was it what she wanted?
"Qieluo--"
"My, my," Qieluo settles more of her weight onto Zetian's back. Her bulk was impossible to squirm out of but it only made Zetian try harder. "Seeing you in Jian's dreams was one thing, but for me to be in yours?" She tuts, and her amusement burns through Zetian's chest. "And you told your boys you had no pretty thing in mind."
---
Zetian wakes lurching upright, fighting off something that wasn't there any longer. The dream still clings heavily in her mind and has her casting a guilty look at the pillow beside her. Empty. Sharing a bed with anyone gets tricky when the pain from her feet are acting up, even an accidental stray bump or nudge to them causing her to wake up with a pained yelp. She'd needed the sleep so she'd made the call to go to bed alone. Right.
One of her hands creeps over her shoulder, touching her upper back. Phantom pain throbs there for a moment where the white tiger's claws had held her down.
you need to make more self-indulgent art btw. hyper-specific self-indulgent niche shit that appeals to You Specifically and maybe nobody else will get it or even like it but that's the point.
need to figure out how to use the captura system cause I have no idea how to draw the pieces on Prime Valkyr's back by looking at her on the appearance screen
For some reason Tumblr will not let me answer the ask in the ask box, but to the Anon asking why you're blocked: idk! I block liberally, and as long as you're not a bigot you just have to accept you said something at some point that made me go "one thousand years dubgeon" and that it's probably not that deep
janainaart
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
ellievsbear
2087
