a starter for @zidaine [ xukun && xinyuan ]
xukun is more observant than most people think. for instance, he’s noticed the small lilts in the political atmosphere in the palace, despite his teacher’s constant criticism of him paying more attention to breasts than to the ins and outs of the current governance of his father. he’s also noticed that more and more messengers are coming in with news of foreign trade and the good and bad that come along with them. whether he actually chooses to care is another matter entirely, though.
one of the other, more noteworthy things he’s noticed is that his father has a new bride, and the best thing about this observation is that she’s pretty. not in the pretty with a lot of powder, a lot of jewelry, a lot of expensive clothes way, but more in the pretty pale skin, soft eyes, and sweet little mouth way.
pretty in the way xukun likes to mess up.
she’s younger than most of his father’s brides, but that’s more indicative of his father’s odd political needs than anything else. she’s also xukun’s cousin, but that’s also more of a side note than an actual barrier, and he takes the little family thread running through them as perhaps just another little challenge he’ll have to step over.
he sees her walking down the halls, watches her enter and exit his father’s chambers, but she’s hardly without handmaidens, except when she gets to her own rooms. it’s right by her door that he waits, a patient little smirk on his face, wondering, perhaps, if she’d be happy enough to see the handsome prince lounging about by her door. after all, it’s her honor to receive him, isn’t it?