[[ so many mentions of @sirenofthesea-xiv / @benes-diction !!! I LOVE THESE CHARACTERS SO MUCH I WILL CRY ]]
When I was first posted in the Jade Palace, the cherry blossoms were just coming into their fullest bloom. Now winter is on the cusp of arrival, and though I’ve never been one to be particularly sentimental... Well. It’s hard to not look back on all the events of these past few moons and think about how everything - every single solitary thing, almost - has changed.
Aoi is strong. Aoi is strong and healthy and impish, in stark contrast to that frail girl I first met, too weak to rise easily from bed by herself. The girls that served her that were so skittish of consequence have grown spines of steel - or, rather, been inspired to show that they had them to begin with. I have watched them grow into young women that have teeth and nerve, willing - foolishly, maybe - to put themselves in harm’s way just to protect... me. To protect each other.
This palace was built by a woman. It is matriarchs who protect it. It’s been long since overdue, even from an outsider’s perspective, that women regain control and take the reins once more.
The creatures of myth and legend that terrorized the palace are now the ones who talk its halls, tall and strong and beautiful, back to their rightful place. I don’t know if the curse is entirely broken. I don’t know if the waters are entirely safe, if there are yet other creatures that we haven’t met yet, but... Luli, Liqin, and their families have emerged. From milky-eyed creatures that could not speak to the warriors and healers that they are, soothing and protecting in equal parts. The laughter of children fills halls that once knew only silence or screams from ‘ghosts’ or prisoners. Music floods corridors, voices that are happy and at ease, people who know, now, that they’re safer than they once were.
It doesn’t mean the danger has passed. The Jade Lord is still here. The Jade Lady needs Jun and I to help her, but... I don’t trust her. I don’t trust that she wouldn’t betray us if another, less dangerous option presented itself. The oyabun still watches, still expects me to produce something for him - whether it be the child of a siren or the prince himself. He tells me that my mission isn’t over. To keep the peace, I agree. My mission isn’t over. It’s far from over.
It’s just that the oyabun doesn’t know that my my mission has become securing the safety of these people I’ve grown to love so dearly.
Arriving here... I thought the job would be simple enough. I would find a way to coax the Jade Prince to the compound, away from a stifling and abusive household. He’d be offered even more power, more riches, more wealth, lovers, but that plan got trashed so... quickly. From the day we met, Jun and I viewed each other as puzzle boxes that we so desperately wanted to solve.
We were two kindred spirits - those who wished for death, who thought of it so often that it felt more like a memory - that gravitated towards each other. We danced around it. We danced around each other, sometimes literally, but mostly figuratively. And don’t believe what he says. He craved me first. He pursued me, even during the times I stubbornly refused his heart, even during the times I avoided him to keep myself safe - and to keep him safe, too, from the monster that I felt that I was.
In sacred, darkened nights, Jun struggled to tell me the secrets of the palace, of his people - of himself. I watched him strain against a bracelet around his ankle that kept his lips sealed, choking out what we could so that I wouldn’t exist in the dark against threats bigger than myself. I leapt into battle and bore my teeth before I even knew what I was doing just to protect him. I bore scars and blood for intervening, but every pain was worth it. Every moment of ache was worth it. I would do it again. I would do it over and over and over again, just to keep my Jade Prince and Princess safe from harm, as much as I can.
Though his scars aren’t visible to the naked eye, he showed me his, and I showed him mine. The first day we met, and we were alone - after I had snuck into his quarters - he asked me if I was afraid, and... the answer is the same. I hadn’t been afraid. Not of him. I never had been, despite all reason and better judgement. Any person with any sense would have run when they saw the webbed fingers and claws and gills he grew in the water, but I was... fascinated. I was little Sun Xiu all over again, wandering into quarters belonging to ghosts just to speak to them, just to understand.
Maybe we gravitated towards each other because we saw each other’s darkness, and neither of us wanted to run. He saw my anger, my pain, and I saw the things that haunted him the most. I knew what he did to survive, to protect Aoi, and he saw what I did to survive, to protect Hui. Kindred spirits, from the very start, and I... I know. I know that, maybe, I should have run from this palace during the opportunities I had to do it. That stopped being an option within a sennight of me being here, though. The Jade Palace, for all of its gold and all of its rot and all of its secrets and wickedness, became a strange sort of home.
Or, rather, its people became a home. In the cold of a lagoon filled with creatures born from myth, I was taken in. I became a daughter, a niece, a big sister, and... maybe sometimes, a mother, to Aoi. Something like it.
Somehow, I became the prince’s princess. We were bound together by a red string, but it never felt forced. It never felt like anything but our own choice. I have gravitated towards Jun since day one, and vice versa. He knows all of me. I know all of him. There is no doubt in my mind that this where I’m meant to be.
Jun took all of my difficult ways and all of my tall, thick walls, and he tore them down. He broke every single one of the rules I had set for myself. I’m like a stray puppy that follows him, wherever it is that he goes. He is my lover, but he is my prince, too. I would follow him to the ends of this star. My siren, my Junichi, my other half - the man that I would die for, even if he’d never ask it of me. In truth... In truth, Junichi Nakamura - or Jun Amari, dealer’s choice - wrecked all of my plans. He saw a piece of me that I thought I had killed and he breathed life back into her. He wanted to know Sun Xiu, and he brought her back.
I admit that I live in awe of him. The world bends to him like the limbs of a wllow tree. He is power and grace, the picture of control and poise, even when poison and pain is spat into his face. This was supposed to be a quick job, but Jun pulled me into his current. He whispered secrets to me and promised that I would be safe at his side. He is... the wind, and he is the sky, and he is the sea, and I am nothing but a mortal standing at the edge with bated breath, watching, filled with amazement and reverence and adoration.
I am his lotus. He is my siren. He sees my strengths and my weaknesses and he loves me. Jun truly loves me. And I truly love him. Every breath in my lungs feels like a breath taken because of him. In a sea of nervous songs, thrumming and beating, I am his ribbon of calm - steady, poised, something to hold onto. He is my anchor. He is my mythical thing. He is... dramatic, and he is bold, and he is a horrible tease with an endless sort of hunger, but it’s for me and for me alone. Jun is brilliant. Jun is kind. He has done horrible things to survive, but... so have I. He has done things that few people could understand, not unless they were in the same line of fire as he was.
But I understand. Just as he knows me, I know him.
That’s my prince. That’s my man.
I know, even though things have grown safer in our little part of the palace, that we’re far from being out of the woods. But we have allies. Our story has only just begun, but it doesn’t feel as daunting as it did the day I first arrived in this cove. And wherever Jun leads, I will follow. Wherever I lead, he will follow.
He is the wind, and I am the willow. I bend to him of my own free will. He looks at me as his equal, or, sometimes, even above that. Foolish man.
Precious man.
I should bring him some kibi dango from the kitchens tonight.
