Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It’s remarkable how little changes, in the end. 

On the surface, everything is different. Maomao is far from her home, and she has been for nearly a year now. She spends her days tending people who lead quite different lives from those who visit the medical offices in the palace, and she wiles away her evenings afterwards in a greenhouse filled with foreign specimens. The landscape outside her window is vastly different from that of the capitol; the winter chill rolling off the mountains bites much harder here than it does there, near the sea. The life she leads now is, objectively, very different from the one she led a year ago. 

Yet, as Maomao resettles into the familiar rhythm of her work, she finds that not much has changed at all. 

The effects of the locust plague still ripple through I-sei Province—the winter after any major disruption in the harvest is fraught with danger. The assassination of the Western Capitol’s leader is not damage that will mend overnight. But aid is arriving by the shipful to assist with the former, and the latter is far outside of Maomao’s purview. So, as the winter chill sinks its claws into the Western Steppes, Maomao does what she’s always done best: she puts her head down, she gets to work, and she finds that things aren’t so changed at all. 

There are some things that are different. The clinic is seeing more cases of malnutrition than it would have in the capitol, for one—the aid, after all, cannot touch everyone. The greenhouse is a luxury that she did not have at home, and she spends much of her free time there, comparing the foreign plants to the images in a book she brought from the capitol. Maomao fills the pages with carefully written notes on each species. When she bundles samples of them together and hangs them to dry, the leaves are dryer and stiffer beneath her fingers. 

But in the end, most of the patients she treats in the clinic complain of colds or influenza like any other winter. The book of plants is a precious old tome passed down from her father, one that she brought with her through her stints in and out of the palace and couldn’t bear to leave behind at home; its cover is as worn with age as it always was. The plants hanging on her walls are different, yes, but when she backs up to admire the many bundles dangling across her walls, the silhouettes of them, she finds, are the same. 

Chue is recovering well. Her work is fulfilling, and her time outside of work even more so. Even if the rhythm of her life is different, the underlying beats, she finds, are the same tempo as they were before. 

And one thing that never changes, Maomao finds one day in late winter, is that bored soldiers with nothing to do manage to get into all sorts of trouble. 

“Oh, goodness!” she hears the quack doctor cry from across the room. Maomao looks up from her medicine with a frown to see two soldiers stagger in, arms slung over each other. Both are covered in greyish streaks; the room quickly fills with the odor of singed hair. 

Maomao wrinkles her nose at the smell. Both are conscious, thankfully, so Maomao sets aside the basket of pills in her lap gingerly before rising. Perhaps it is rude to shoulder past a superior like she does to the quack, but he makes no move to stop her. His brow is scrunched in sympathy as she asks, “What happened?” 

The first soldier, the one supporting his friend, glances away. Though he is tall, he looks young, likely barely over eighteen. The boyishness only compounds the sheepishness on his face. His friend, meanwhile, shudders and raises his head. He, too, is young-looking—too young, Maomao thinks, for how badly his hairline is receding. 

She’d suspect some sort of hormonal issue if the boy were not also missing his eyebrows, and if he didn’t reek of singed hair. 

Maomao tucks her arms in her sleeves so she does not cross them blatantly, fighting the urge to tap her foot as the silence stretches on. The quack still hovers with sympathy, one that she can guess is misplaced. Judging by the state of their uniforms, the streaks across their faces, and the smell rolling off of them, Maomao can hazard a guess of what they’ve been up to. She’d like them to explain it themselves, though, since they both have the breath for it. 

“There was an—accident,” the hairless one stutters out. 

“An accident,” Maomao echoes. She doesn’t bother hiding the incredulousness in her voice. She instructs the quack to fetch some water, and he only goes after throwing another pitying look at the boys. “Sit down,” Maomao calls to the soldiers as she meanders over to the medicine drawers. She takes her time picking through the collection as they sit—with some difficulty, judging by the shuffling and quiet wincing. 

“What sort of accident was it?” Maomao drawls, though she only half-listens to the answer. Where did she put that new medicine, again?

“It—it was—” 

“We were testing the cannons,” butts in the tall one. “There—there were drills, and we loaded it just like we were told—but there must’ve been an issue with the chamber, because it exploded instead of shooting properly.”

Maomao pulls open another drawer and ah, there’s what she’s been looking for—a little wooden pot, sitting neatly in the drawer. The quack is fussing over them by the time she returns with it and a roll of bandages. He knows enough about burn care, at least, to dip the hairless one’s hand in a bowl of water. Now that the soldier isn’t cradling it to his chest, the burn stretching across it is obvious. His fingers are red and beginning to swell. They might blister in the coming hours, or they might not. The initial treatment will stay the same. 

“Keep your hand in that for at least ten minutes,” Maomao informs the hairless one as she spreads her supplies out on a nearby table. The hairless one nods dejectedly. 

She turns to the tall one, who’s slumped over in his chair and looking rather miserable. The skin of his face is reddened like a sunburn. It could have been if they were not in the midst of winter. “Are you injured?” He shakes his head quickly. 

Maomao spends the next several minutes confirming his assessment. She checks their pupils, listens to the quiet breaths of their lungs, and confirms that their hearing is intact and undamaged. 

By the time she’s peering deeply into the pupils of the tall one, the hairless one is getting antsy. “Are all these tests necessary?” He fidgets in his seat, looking ready to pull his hand out of the pail of water. “Our superiors will be wondering where we’ve gone, and if the treatment is going to take this long, then—”

“They are necessary,” Maomao informs him without looking away from his companion’s pupil. It is properly dilated for the well-lit medical office, and both eyes follow her finger well. “Close proximity to explosions can damage the eyes or ears.” She pulls back, satisfied. “Fortunately, neither of you have hearing damage, nor any observable issues with your eyes and lungs. If you were injured in the blast, it is likely an internal hemorrhage, and we will likely not know unless you drop dead.” 

Both boys go quite pale. Maomao does not care—she has little patience for injuries inflicted by carelessness or curiosity. They squirm and complain when she opens the little wooden pot and smears the thick, viscous gel on their fingers and faces. 

“It’s slimy,” the hairless one complains as she works the balm in between his fingers. 

Maomao’s eye twitches in frustration. “Aloe is one of the most effective treatments for burns,” she informs him. “We are lucky to have it here—we don’t have access to it in the capitol.” 

And what she wouldn’t give to have had it a year ago, when she was treating a burn much more severe than this. 

Between his complaints and wincing, it takes twice the time it should have to smear his fingers in aloe and wrap them in bandages. For a wound inflicted by carelessness, he could at least have the decency not to writhe and wince at every movement she makes. Maomao isn’t even having to scrape away dead and charred tissue. He should be grateful. 

He even has the gall, as Maomao puts away her supplies, to mourn his newly-receding hairline in the pail of water before the quack takes it away. “I have a date tonight,” he mourns. His friend pats him on the back. The red of his face can no longer pass as a light sunburn, especially in winter—both of their faces are red as a tomato. 

Maomao does not give them any sort of treatment for this and sends them back to their stations, pointedly ignoring their hesitations. When she finds herself still irritated after they leave, she puts off writing the report of their injuries by making a bit more of the aloe gel, to replenish what was used. 

What she wouldn’t have given for this last year, she thinks again. 

Medicine-making puts her in a better mood, as it always does. Maomao spends the last hour of her shift sipping tea the quack brewed as she jots down the symptoms the soldiers presented with, as well as the treatment administered. She didn’t bother asking any of their names, but she’s not one to try and get them in trouble. Ah, well. 

Her shift ends as the sun sets the horizon, and Maomao follows her usual routine. She cleans her workspace, ensures that every medicine is in its proper place, and makes the short journey home. She changes out of her medical robes and washes them. There aren’t any stains that she needs to beat out today, so soon enough she is hanging them up to dry and pulling on the robes she wears outside of work. 

She exits her rooms as the moon begins to peak out and, as she has every week in the last few months, she comes to a familiar hallway, and then a familiar door. She nods to the now-familiar guards as she steps through the threshold and, when she is out of their sight, she withdraws the silver pin she keeps in her robes, spears it through her hair, and keeps walking. 

When Maomao comes to a now-familiar sitting room, someone is already there. He sits at the low table by the window, chin resting against his knuckles, staring out at the wintry courtyard below. When he turns at the slide of the door, silver moonlight catches in his dark eyes. 

Jinshi sees her, and his small, quiet smile is more blinding than the moonlight outside could ever be. He reaches for her as she approaches, and she goes willingly, allowing him to pull her close, cradle the back of her head, and kiss her. He is better at kissing than he was a few months ago, but the way he smiles into each one remains the obstacle it always was. Not that it makes the kiss unbearable—Maomao is a professional, after all, and she adjusts accordingly. He smells of jasmine and sandalwood and cold winter air.

They break apart after a long moment, but he only lets them part a scant few inches. The fingers on the base of her skull twirl into her hair, then drift up to the pin placed there. His smile is audible as he whispers, “Hello,” against her lips. 

“You need to check the gunpowder stores,” Maomao replies. 

Jinshi pulls back and raises a delicate, arched eyebrow. Maomao slides a note from her breast pocket across the table, and his eyes skim the note as she sits. Her hands are cold, she realizes, and she tucks them into her sleeves to try and preserve the lingering warmth. Jinshi’s eyes trail down, scanning her words, and stop, halfway down the note. His gaze flicks up to her. 

“I’d recommend your commanders keep an eye on the lower ranks of the military,” she tells him. “Or there may be more accidents in the future.” 

Jinshi’s lips quirk. “There were no drills scheduled using the cannons today. I would have heard them.” 

“Which is why I recommend commanders keep a tighter leash on the soldiers under their command.” 

Jinshi hums. His free hand reaches across the table, seeking. Maomao stares at it a moment before she mirrors the action. His fingers curl around hers. His hand is warm. “I like the nicknames you’ve given them. ‘The hairless one and the tall one.’ You wouldn’t happen to remember their names, though, would you?” 

“I’m afraid I forgot to ask,” she drawls. “Though if you really want to know, I’d recommend following the smell of singed hair.” 

Jinshi laughs and the sound of it rings like a bell, musical and light. It’s sounded lighter, these days, and it comes more frequently. The dark circles under his eyes are still present, but they have lessened from what they used to be. He gives her hand one final squeeze before letting go. “His poor date.” 

 Maomao takes a sip of the tea, already set at her seat before she arrived. “He brought it upon himself.” 

“Oh, I’m not arguing that at all. Were they at least decent patients?” 

“No,” Maomao grumbles. “The hairless one kept whining about how the aloe was sticky.” She takes another sip, indignant. The cup is warm in her hands, and the scent of the jasmine is soothing. “They don’t understand how precious it is. I would’ve given anything to have had it last year.” She glares at the space beside Jinshi—at his flank, specifically. 

Jinshi’s mouth twitches, like he’s not sure he’s allowed to laugh. The topic of his brand is not the complete taboo that it once was between them, but it’s a space they haven’t fully treaded yet. “And the tall one?” he asks. “Was he at least more cooperative?”

“No. He kept complaining about how long it was taking. I told him he was lucky to have his hearing intact. If there’s any internal hemorrhaging from the blast wave, well—I suppose we’ll find out in a few days, if he or his friend drop dead.”

“Cheery as ever,” Jinshi deadpans. “Did you tell them this? It’d make my job easier if you scared them straight for me.” 

“I informed them of the risks, but I left any reprimands to your discretion.” 

Jinshi pouts. His lower lip looks even fuller jutting out like this. Maomao could name a dozen courtesans who would kill for it. “That’s just your way of saying you don’t want to be involved.” 

“It’s not my job to chase down misbehaving soldiers who fiddle around with gunpowder.” Maomao grimaces, adding meaningfully, “And I’d rather keep my distance from all branches of the military. Especially its higher command.” 

Jinshi makes a face in sympathy. “I see your point. I’ll see what can be done to prevent incidents in the future.” 

“Thank you,” Maomao replies. 

And, like it always has, the conversation meanders on. 

There is no small talk, not really. Maomao has never enjoyed wasting words on the weather or the food in front of them or the last week of their lives. If she is to discuss something, she intends to do it properly. They talk about work, the details of the harvest and the aid coming in from the capitol, the uptick in flu cases in the last week. Food is set before them and taken away. Their talk meanders like a river, narrow but deep, pooling in familiar hollows along the way. The moon rises through the window, shining on Jinshi’s scar, then on the bowls and cups before them, retreating further and further as its angle shifts. 

By the time the dishes are cleared away, only a small sliver of moonlight comes through the window. It rests on Jinshi’s hand, half-outstretched over the table. His fingers are slim and callused from holding a brush and a sword both. They’ve fallen silent, now, and neither of them move to fill it for a long moment. If their talk is a river, and this is a drought, then they simply wait for the rain to come again. It will, eventually. 

Jinshi’s outstretched fingers twitch, like a moment’s hesitation, before he reaches for her. Maomao allows them to twine together with hers. 

“There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Jinshi begins, nearly shy. 

A curl of discomfort twists in Maomao’s gut. Her own fingers twitch. Jinshi does not let her go, but he does not cling to her tighter, either. He just holds her. It doesn’t feel as suffocating as it might have, once. “What is it?” 

Jinshi smiles. Even without the moonlight upon his face, he is heartbreakingly beautiful. “Nothing bad, I promise,” he tells her. “In fact, I imagine you might take it as good news.” 

“Have you gotten more bezoars?” Maomao deadpans. 

Jinshi rolls his eyes. “No, but if you’re running low on them, you can just tell me.” Like he didn’t make such a staggering declaration (Maomao never has been good at selling jokes as jokes, after all), he continues, “I’ve received word from the Emperor. Now that affairs are stabilizing here, our presence isn’t as needed. If the peace holds, we’re to return home this spring.” 

Home, Maomao thinks. 

Verdigris, the capitol, the regular routine of her training in surgery and medicine. A return to normal, whatever that looks like now. A dull, odd tightness squeezes in her chest at the thought. What is normal now may look very different from how it used to. 

What remains unchanged, however, is how Maomao shoves the thoughts aside to deal with later. She makes room, instead, for a much more important question to be the first thing out of her mouth: 

“I can take cuttings from the greenhouse back home with us to cultivate, right?” 

Maomao has always risen early in the summertime. 

It is an old, ingrained habit, fingerprints of a time when she had to tend to the garden with her father before the day turned too warm and damp. She would rise with the sun, do her work, and retreat into the shade of the Verdigris House before the sun climbed too high. 

In the winter, though, the garden is asleep, and there is little tending to be done. The moon sets later, and the nights are longer; it was always a more lucrative season at the Verdigris House, as customers there for the whole night would need to buy a few extra hours. Even those who could not afford a full night would spend their coin more liberally, seeking a soft bed and a warm body to chase away winter’s chill. Unless the situation was truly dire, patients wouldn’t come to the apothecary shop until well after daybreak, once the pleasure district’s streets were emptied of love-drunk stragglers and the manservants had aired the brothel out. Back when Maomao’s routine fell in sync with the pulse of the brothel, it was a period of relative rest. 

So if Maomao dreams, she dreams longer, more indulgently; now, she dreams of the greenhouse, of its warm, muggy air and the comforting scent of exotic and familiar flora, rolled together into one. 

Consciousness comes to her in a slow drip, like the melt of icicles dangling from a rooftop. Sleep releases its hold on her one finger at a time, and it drags her back down whenever she nears its surface. The air smells floral, rich, pleasantly warm and a bit muggy. Familiar. Safe.  

It takes time for Maomao to resurface. When she finally does, it is for one single reason, one sharp point of discomfort amidst all the warmth: 

The tip of her nose is bitingly cold. 

Maomao cracks an eye open. The world is dark and quiet, secluded from prying eyes, save for a single slash of daylight. She blinks blearily until the culprit comes into focus: a part in the dark curtains surrounding the bed. The soft fingers of dawn reach through, rose and gold blurred together into a color that has no name. 

And with them seeps in an awful, biting, terrible morning chill. 

Maomao glares at the crack in the curtains, rubbing at the tip of her nose to try to encourage blood flow. In another world, in another time, it would be Maomao’s job to light the braziers in each corner of the room, to warm the chamber before the master of the house rises. 

She has a suspicion, though, that he would not appreciate such a gesture right now. 

As if hearing her thoughts, the body behind her sighs, and a heavy arm tightens around her waist. Warm breaths blow on the nape of her neck in a slow, steady rhythm. Admittedly, besides the tip of her freezing nose, it is a bit overly warm in the alcoved bed. The thick curtains hold in the heat and humidity from two bodies pressed together. Her hands and feet are a bit sweaty, and her back is warm from where her bedmate is pressed against her, chest to calf. It doesn’t help that her bedmate seems to give off heat like a furnace. Maomao wriggles a little, trying to get comfortable and dislodge some of the sweat. 

The robes between them hiss with the movement, and that may be another problem—that they are wearing any clothes at all. Despite the invitations that bring her to these rooms every few nights, and the conversations that linger long enough to become a convenient excuse to stay over, their evenings will often bleed into morning just like this—tangled up together, in bed but little more. 

Jinshi’s lips press to the nape of her neck with a quiet sigh, so gentle that she is unsure if he is awake or asleep. She waits for a moment, still, to see if he will stir further, but he does not, despite their jostling. 

In another time, Maomao would widen the gap in the curtains and rise, change into her day robes, light braziers or tend to patients or trot off to the greenhouse she spent the whole night dreaming of. Maomao blinks at the light of dawn and thinks for a moment. Her day is clear, and her only plans are to study in the greenhouse until dusk. There are weeks left until they will leave, but the time left to catalogue what she can is precious. 

But now Maomao instead ruefully sticks a hand out into the freezing air, grasps the curtain, and pulls it shut, blocking out the light and the cold and the breaking dawn. Now, she turns in the circle of Jinshi’s arms, presses her cold nose into the warmth of his chest, and shuts her eyes. 

His excessive body heat will be an issue come summer, Maomao thinks, and dreams about the greenhouse for an hour or two longer. 

Winter loosens its hold on the Western steppes slowly, reluctant to let spring slip in through the gaps of its fingers. It is nearly two full months before Maomao is able to pack away her heaviest winter cloak in favor of something lighter. The dry air still holds a crisp chill in the morning, only loosening its hold a little in the afternoon. The wind that whistles down from the mountains still bites. This is no concern of Maomao, of course—all the better to spend her free time in the greenhouse, testing which herbs make the best creams to treat winter-cracked hands. 

Nor is it much of a concern to Maomao when she and her colleagues are officially informed that they will at last be returning to the capitol in late spring. The doctors all react with joy and relief to return home at last after a year’s hard work. Maomao finds herself rather subdued at the news. She’s never been one to show emotion—and, besides, it’s hard to feign surprise when you’ve known for well over a month. 

The next few weeks are a blur. She still meets with Jinshi every few evenings, but their dinners become less frequent, a little shorter. They are both quite busy preparing to leave by boat and begin the long journey home. Jinshi sends a harried, apologetic note three days before departure, explaining that he will be unable to see her that night, or any night until they leave. Maomao shrugs and uses the extra time to root around in the greenhouse until her arms ache. Jinshi is a busy man; there is no need to apologize. 

As a result, they do not see each other, not until Maomao is standing upon the deck of the ship that will bring her home. 

The salty sea wind is warmer than the air of the mountains. Gulls circle over her head and the sky stretches out beyond them, unblemished by clouds, up and over her head. It fades lighter and lighter until it meets the deep azure of the ocean, dotted with white seaspray as waves crest and fall. 

It is a beautiful sight, the road that will take her home. Chue is saying something behind her, waving her good arm about and tittering like the sparrow of her namesake. Sailors bustle around, making the final preparations before they lift anchor. On the opposite side of the deck, barely thirty yards away, the freak commandant is puking his guts out. 

The raucous noise hurts her head. The risk of the commandant turning around and seeing her rises by the second. The road home stretching before her makes her oddly melancholy. 

So Maomao nods along to whatever it is Chue is saying, letting the woman titter on until she reaches her endpoint. Then, Maomao turns to the nearest sailor stacking crates on the deck, points up to the crow’s nest, and asks, “Could I go up?” 

The sailor raises an eyebrow. “It’s dangerous, miss,” he informs her. A light accent threads through his words. 

Maomao nods. “I’m aware.” 

The sailor narrows his eyes at her, then shakes his head. “What is it with you capitol folk and high places?” he mutters, then adds, “Don’t answer that,” when Maomao opens her mouth. He produces a length of rope and tells her, “Tie it around your waist.”

“Thank you,” Maomao replies, and does what he says. Chue is grinning from ear to ear for some reason as she ties the final knot, but she doesn’t say anything, only waves her fingers in farewell.

The noise dims as Maomao climbs the rickety ladder, replaced by the calls of the gulls circling ahead. It feels easier to breathe up here, Maomao finds—but even as she climbs higher, she knows there is risk that the commandant will look up and see his dear, sweet, darling daughter (his unfortunate words) scaling the mast. She doubles her pace. 

She shouldn’t be surprised by who she finds waiting up there, not really. Not after all this time. 

Jinshi sits, knees pulled to his chest, against the short wall of the crow’s nest. His long black hair is tied back by a single red ribbon. The colors contrast stark against each other and the great blue sky and white clouds framing him, but the wind treats them all the same---catching in his hair and the ribbon, driving the clouds beyond on in their march to the horizon. The sunlight beaming down overhead wreathes his black hair in gold, like the laurel crowns they wear further to the west. His face is flushed from the whipping wind and the lingering spring chill, and he is in profile, eyes distant, observing the vast sea and sky beyond walls too small to contain him. A rope, rough against his fine robes, winds around his waist, mirroring Maomao’s own. 

He blinks back after a few seconds and turns to her. The flush on his face deepens as their eyes meet, and his smile is almost shy, like a boy caught in daydream during his lessons. It is now that Maomao realizes she has been staring, her lower half still dangling down the ladder. 

“What are you doing up here?” Maomao asks, rather dumbstruck. 

Jinshi looks her up and down. She must look a mess—her hair is tangled into knots from the whipping wind. The beads in her hair are snarled from the breeze, save for one that keeps hitting her in the cheek when the wind gusts harder. She could never look so effortless. 

He cracks a smile. “The same thing as you, I think,” Jinshi replies. He pats the spot next to him.

Maomao hauls herself up the ladder and onto the crow’s nest, complaining, “It’s cramped.” 

Jinshi shakes his head with a fond smile. “Sit,” he urges again, and who is Maomao to defy an order? 

So she tentatively sits next to him. The crow’s nest is perhaps three shaku in diameter, so their shoulders bump as she settles. Jinshi shifts his legs, perhaps to get more comfortable, and Maomao realizes that he likely cannot fully extend them, cramped as this place is. As it stands, Maomao has barely a few inches between the tips of her toes and the wall. They are pressed up against each other, shoulder to knee. Perhaps it is the crow’s nest blocking the wind, but Maomao finds that she feels a bit warmer like this. 

The wind finally calms as a horn rings out from down below and a dozen sailors echo the call. The ship sways, and the mast beneath them shudders with the sound of rippling cloth. The ship lurches, and another horn blasts from down below as the anchor is pulled. Maomao watches the gulls twist overhead as the ship lurches from the dock, as her back presses further into the wall as unseen sails catch the wind, as the ship starts to carry them home. 

Leaving the greenhouse behind, Maomao mourns. How sad. At least she got all of the samples she wanted, as well as a few live cuttings to cultivate and grow and detailed notes on the ones too delicate to survive in the climate of her home. 

Did I take enough cuttings of lavender? Maomao is thinking to herself when a warm, gentle touch lands on her hand where it rests on her thigh. When she glances up, Jinshi is still gazing out at the horizon, at the sprawling sky and its boundary with the ocean beyond, uncaring of the whipping wind. Maomao stretches her legs out and stares at the tips of her shoes. He can probably see the horizon even sitting down like this, the lucky bastard. 

“You can’t see the capitol yet, you know,” Maomao says, eyes trained on her toes. “It’s a long journey home.”

Jinshi stays turned to the horizon, but his face twists. “Don’t remind me,” Jinshi gripes, but his voice carries less of a grimace than the words might imply. “There must be a mountain of work waiting for me in the capitol.” 

“When is there not?” Maomao retorts. 

Jinshi huffs a laugh. “True,” he concedes. 

He’s awfully subdued, Maomao thinks, as her gaze turns to the horizon—or at least, the sky above it. Jinshi likely knows better than anyone on this ship what awaits in the capitol. 

His hand is still clasped around her fingers—an innocent touch, careful not to brush any higher on her skirts. He has been very, very careful about that. Perhaps the stress of their return is why he hasn’t tried anything more than kisses and mild groping ever since he learned the news. Though he’d been like that before, too—after that first night, they have only had penetrative intercourse two other times, both on nights where risk was the lowest. Despite Maomao’s expectations at the first dinner invitation, Jinshi hasn’t used their evenings together to be a complete menace. 

It’s out of character. Menacing her is all he’s really done this entire time. 

The tip of Jinshi’s nose is flushed red like the ribbon in his hair. Sunlight catches in his dark eyes like shards of obsidian, glinting as they follow the gulls around and around in the air above them. There is a crease in his brow, and there has been for the past few weeks. 

Jinshi is overthinking, Maomao knows, and it is affecting his behavior. Maybe this is why she blurts, before she can stop herself, “What are you most looking forward to, when you return home?” 

Jinshi’s brow, to her exasperation, furrows further. “Most looking forward to?” he echoes, like he’s never heard the words before. 

“Do you have to think that much about it?” Maomao sighs. 

There is a long pause. 

“It’ll be nice to see how much the Crown Prince and Princess Lingli have grown in the last year, I suppose,” Jinshi says at last. His lips quirk. “Though I doubt they’ll remember me.”

Probably true, Maomao supposes. Young children would rarely remember a person they haven’t seen in a year, even if that person is their uncle. She squints at Jinshi’s profile, pale skin against dark hair and blue sky, and the single scratch marring his face like a jewel. Lingli would probably be fine, but would the Crown Prince wail at the scarred face of a stranger?

“But,” Jinshi continues with a grimace, “I’ll have to sort through candidates for high consort as soon as I’m home—as my brother reminded me, in the message he sent summoning us back.” His lip does not curl around the word brother, but it is a near thing, and his voice tinges bitter. 

Brother, Maomao thinks to herself, but does not dare say. 

Speculation has never gotten her anywhere. In this situation, it might cost her her head—not by Jinshi’s hand, she knows, but by someone else’s. Just thinking the words denoting Jinshi’s official relations with the Emperor and his children feels dangerous—feels like treason. 

Jinshi is still staring out at the sky beyond. His hand is heavy atop hers, but his grip is loose, like he would let her go if she shifted her hand. His dark eyes shine in the daylight overhead, the image of a bright young prince leading his people home. Maybe Maomao is one of the few who can pick out the doubt simmering beneath the surface. 

She wonders if, maybe, Jinshi is thinking the same thing she is. 

It is that unease, and nothing else, that pulls at Maomao’s hand, turns her palm up into his, and laces their fingers together. His fingers are longer than hers and well-manicured. She feels rather than sees the rough calluses as they scrape against her palm, arranged in a neat line from years of holding a sword and toning his body. The tension in his shoulders and side, pressed against her, drains as their fingers twine together. After a moment, his thumb shifts, running against her own in a soothing rhythm, and she sees that the black spot at its tip is not a shadow but an ink stain, only visible in the soothing action. 

She raises her head finally to find that Jinshi is already staring at her. The blinding mask of the Moon Prince is gone, replaced by something softer, like true moonlight. He raises their joined hands, twists them, and presses a kiss to the back of hers. 

“I suppose,” Jinshi whispers, voice honey-sweet like a confession, a prayer, “what I’m most looking forward to is more of this.” 

A shiver runs down Maomao’s spine. His gaze is suddenly far too heavy to hold. On instinct, she pulls her hand from his and wipes it on her skirt. “You’re being gross.” 

“Oh, come on,” Jinshi whines, petulant. Maomao pulls away—an impossibility in the cramped space, but she leans until her shoulder hits the crow’s nest wall, which is about half an inch—but Jinshi follows her. He nestles his head into the space between her head and shoulder. 

Maomao pointedly fixes her eyes on the gulls circling overhead. Their cries ring out like a chorus. There’s rather a lot of them, directly above. The two of them are lucky to not have been shat on yet. 

She manages around fifteen seconds before the pull of Jinshi’s gaze starts to get on her nerves. With a roll of her eyes, she acquiesces and meets his eyes. He is pouting, lip sticking out almost comically. “Can I not be honest?” he whines at her. 

The words stick in her throat. Her palms are sweaty, and she wipes them on her skirt. It does little to fix the issue, and her throat is still tight. 

Jinshi simply watches her, waiting for an answer. Patient in a way she is unused to. He waits until she swallows and reminds him, in a voice softer than she wanted, “You already have this.”

Jinshi is quiet for a moment. His chest rises and falls, and she feels the movement like an extension of herself, pressed against her. The gulls cry overhead, and the wind whips in their hair, snarling the tips together, and all is still. 

Finally, Jinshi reaches towards her again, hesitant, fumbling. Maomao turns her hand palm-up once more in offering, but Jinshi does not take it. Instead, he rests his hand next to hers where it sits upon her knee, presses the sides of them close, and twines his pinky finger with hers. 

“That doesn’t mean I stop wanting,” he murmurs to her, voice low. 

His little finger squeezes against hers, as if to say, But I’ll happily take this, for now. 

Their hands rest side by side. His is larger and much warmer than hers. When the rest of her fingers grow chill from the whipping wind, only the line where his hand presses against  hers stays warm. There’s a callus at the base of his pinky that scrapes against her skin when he shifts. 

The tip of her finger is crooked, bent at an odd angle, damaged from a memory so long ago that it may as well be from the time of her birth, and Jinshi pays it no mind. He simply curls his finger around hers, and he stays. 

Maomao stares down at their hands, barely joined. She blinks, and she is in a carriage, lying on her side, tracing the finger down a fresh wound as a single drop of his blood winds around it. She blinks again, and her hand is covered in his blood, an intact rivulet curving around the crook of her pinky, and she remembers how the fingers of her other hand clenched around the rag they held in the moment before scrubbing away the evidence. She blinks again, and it is clean and bathed in moonlight, and yet the strange pull she feels against it now feels stronger than ever in the instant before she turns and walks towards home—

Maomao blinks a fourth time, and she is on a ship that will bring her home. The body pressed against her is warm, and there is no gentle pull, no feeling of absence. Instead, her pinky curls slowly around his, and the movement is biological more than anything. A natural seeking of warmth, the reflex of an infant to grasp at something and not let it go. 

Another, final memory bubbles up in her chest, more vague than the others. Less memory, and more the memory of a myth—an itch in the back of her mind that tells her you have heard of this before. 

But Maomao is Maomao, and she knows there is no use in dwelling on myth. 

Instead, Maomao squeezes deliberately for a half-second, quick enough that the both of them could say it was their imagination and nothing more. 

I know, she thinks, but does not say. 

I don’t understand it, but I know. 

They sit together, curled up in the crow’s nest, as the ship sails off into the horizon, as the seagulls disperse and turn again towards land, as the blue skies of afternoon give way to the delicate pink-purple glow of twilight. Their talk meanders like a river, long and winding and about nothing in particular. 

Jinshi leaves the crow’s nest first, just as the stars begin to twinkle faintly into the twilight sky above them. He untwines their fingers, presses a final kiss to the crown of her head, and whispers a quiet good night into her hair as he departs. 

Maomao nods, but she does not follow. She instead stays to watch the stars glow brighter above her, to enjoy the peace of the bright sky and the dark ocean. She intends to stay long into the evening, partially to watch the familiar stars above, but mostly to ensure that the freak strategist is long gone from the open deck. The unpleasant noises of seasickness no longer carry up from down below, and the constellations above are familiar. 

In reality, Maomao finds that despite the peace and the quiet and the stars, the cold air and whipping wind quickly grow from brisk to unpleasant. 

Maomao’s hands are freezing, and she huddles them to her chest and curls around them. The movement presses her fingers to a hard line of metal, and instinct pulls her hand into her breast pocket. The hairpin is warmed from her own body heat. The crest of the poppy and crescent moon bleed heat into her freezing fingers. 

It is warm. More warmth waits for her down below, she thinks. 

In the end, Maomao decides to follow him not ten minutes later. Maomao stands, brushes off her skirts, and checks the rope still tied around her waist. She peeks over the edge of the crow’s nest, and when she sees the deck empty, puts her foot on the first rung of the ladder. 

Maomao looks at the sky one last time to bid it farewell to find Altair and Vega directly overhead. The heavenly river winds between them. They blink gently down at her. 

Maomao shivers, chilled by the wind, and follows Jinshi down to the warmth that awaits her below. 

Dear Meimei, Maomao begins, 

First, I’m sorry that I didn’t write to you sooner. I don’t know how much news has traveled from the Western Capital to you, but it’s been busy, and both time and paper were scarce. Here’s hoping the old hag will still keep her promise and get this letter to you. 

(Madam, if you’re snooping at this, don’t.)

How are things? You mentioned only a little about the customer who bought you out. A go expert sounds like a good fit for you, but the guy sounds odd. I hope you’re not too bored studying a board game all day. He doesn’t sound like your taste in men. 

Like I said, it’s been busy here. The locust plague wiped out a lot of the crop, but it could have been worse. Aid helped enough that we’ve made it through the winter. The medical office was busy but not swamped. Some other things happened over fall, but they’re not too important. I’ve been fine. I never want to see a locust again, though.

More importantly, I’ve been studying the native flora, and their effects and uses. I’ve been most interested in a plant called aloe—they use it to treat burns here. It’s a fascinating specimen. Instead of leaves, it has fat, stout spines. When you break them open, the inside contains a thick, viscous gel, which is the basis of its medicinal use. I took some cuttings, and I’m hoping to propagate them back home—I’ve been wishing a lot in the past year for more effective burn treatments. You might like it as a moisturizer, too. If I can propagate it, I’ll send you some to try. It’s not too greasy—plus, it soothes sunburns. This was very helpful, since I was traveling around the province a lot this summer, and I forgot to use the sunscreen you sent with me. Sorry. 

Also, do you remember the pictures of that purple flower in Joka’s book? Lavender? You always said you liked it best of all the foreign specimens I was studying. Anyway, it’s everywhere here in the summer. It’s used in antiseptics here to dress wounds in a pinch, as well as for repelling insects (I could’ve used it back in summer, but no one told me about that effect until the fall). It is most notable, however, for its calming effect on the mind and body. I was too busy in the summer to take a sample before the flowers wilted, but I took seeds from a greenhouse (no, I didn’t break in this time) to try and grow them. If I’m successful, I’ll send some cuttings to you, too. It smells nice. 

The door slides open behind her, a quiet scrape of wood. The gentle night’s wind, warmer here by the coast, swirls around the desk, stirs at the paper, and brushes its way through its newly opened pathway. The noise does not halt Maomao’s brush. 

Apparently the ladies of the West use it in their perfumes, she writes. I’ll try and make something for you if I can get the other ingredients. 

Another slide as the door closes. The wind swirls one final time, lazy, and stills. Maomao finishes the last character of the sentence she’s writing and sets the brush down against its inkstone, so she is not jostled into spilling the brush’s ink when warm arms wrap around her shoulders. 

Lips press to the side of her neck, over her pulse point. They are gentle and undemanding and warm. Her heart does not begin to race, but Maomao closes her eyes and tilts her head up all the same. The touch lingers long enough that she expects the bite of teeth, but when it withdraws, those lips fall next to her clothed shoulder. The arms around her tighten. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a drop of warm water roll across a toned forearm and fall upon her robes. 

In her ear, a low voice, smooth and tinged with drowsiness, murmurs, “I told you not to wait up.” 

“I wasn’t,” Maomao tells him. “I thought I’d take the opportunity to write a letter. I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your brush and some paper.” 

A quiet huff of air against her shoulder, the press of a nose against her neck. Another kiss, this time to the crown of her head. “I told you,” the voice admonishes gently, “this room is free for you to use.” 

Jinshi at last takes his lips from her skin, resting his chin upon her head. His long hair is damp from his bath. A stray lock tickles at her cheek, and she flicks it away. He is radiating enough heat that Maomao can feel it through her robes, enough that she surmises he is shirtless—because, for some reason, he likes to sleep like that sometimes. Horrible for any poor soul who might stumble upon the sleeping Moon Prince without proper immunity. Even if he were covered from head to toe, Jinshi—warm, drowsy, loose in the way he only is behind closed doors—looks heavenly enough. 

Maomao leans back into the circle of his arms. The warmth is pleasant, though the dampness of his skin bleeds through her robes. It feels fine now, but those droplets will soak into her thin cotton robes and cool against her skin when he inevitably retreats to bed. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, though—his damp hair tickles her cheek and neck unpleasantly. 

“Are you writing to your sister?” he asks. 

“Stop snooping over my shoulder,” Maomao replies. 

Jinshi huffs a laugh and buries his nose in her hair. “Just wanted to make sure you’re not spilling any state secrets.” 

“If you try to tell me any state secrets, I’m leaving.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He nuzzles at her scalp like a needy cat. The comparison seems especially apt when he whines, “Come to bed?” 

Maomao shakes her head. “I won’t be much longer,” she says. There is a bit more she needs to report to her sister, words to fill the gaps of a long year spent putting off this reply. 

Jinshi sighs, nodding into her hair, and Maomao’s stomach, already tight from putting words long overdue to paper, twists. She raises a hesitant hand up, not sure herself what she is reaching for. It settles on Jinshi’s forearm where it rests around her neck. Jinshi has always sought contact like an instinctive need; Maomao sometimes wonders if she was born without such human drives. Her palm is rather sweaty. Unsure of what else to do, she gives a little squeeze. 

“Go to bed,” she urges. “I’ll be there soon.” 

Jinshi would have once whined or pled or forcibly picked her up and carried her away, the still-wet brush in front of her be damned. But they have been doing this—coming closer, staying longer, sharing these quiet evenings together—for a few months now. Maybe he has changed; maybe it is just that he is no longer starving. 

The Jinshi of now presses a kiss to the crown of her head, soft and lingering and without any further demand. His fingers find her jaw and Maomao allows him to cradle her face in his hands like she is something precious. Maybe she, too, has changed; maybe the slower contact is just more comfortable, sends her skin buzzing in a quiet, more pleasant way. Regardless, she lets him press a kiss to the tip of her nose, to her forehead, and, at last, to her lips. 

Jinshi has gotten better at kissing these last few months, a quick study in the dance of tongues and lips and teeth. He has learned it much faster than Maomao ever did. He knows now how to apply those skills, but often, here, under the cover of night, he chooses to disregard them in favor of something almost chaste, almost reverent. 

They break apart, and it feels like he stole Maomao’s breath with his retreat, feels like he uses her breathlessness to murmur, “Come to bed soon,” in the space her silence leaves, and Maomao finds herself promising, “I will,” before she can think better of it. 

Jinshi’s arms around her squeeze one final time before they retreat, trailing over her shoulders as they go. The wind curls in to fill the space he left. It winds around her shoulders, stirring the locks of hair strung with turquoise and crimson beads. Maomao watches him retreat, watches him pull the curtains of the bed back and disappear behind them, before she turns to the paper before her once more. 

The cool night air of An’an winds in through the window, brushing against the droplets of water Jinshi has left on her skin, and raises goosebumps in their memory. Maomao shivers and dips the brush once more in the ink—while not nearly as cold as the Western Capitol, the coastal spring wind still bites. She’ll want to finish quickly. So she lifts the brush again from its inkstone, wets it freshly with ink, raises it above the paper, and goes still. 

Meimei wrote many things in her last letter. When she first received it, Maomao read over it several times, trying to parse the meanings behind the words. She failed at comprehending many of them. 

Her sister wrote a wish for Maomao to find happiness, but Maomao would argue that she has always been content with her work and her studies. Her passions were not left behind in that apothecary shop in the Verdigris House; she has carried them on her back, across an ocean and through arid steppes. She has taken great pleasure in the last year in cataloguing the flora native to this part of the world and parsing the uses they might have in medicine. She is happy. 

How could Maomao assure her, though? She’s already written about aloe and lavender. To assure her sister, should she write more about the process of harvesting and utilizing them, to show that her passions and joy remain unchanged? Probably not, she muses. Meimei likely wouldn’t find it interesting, and even if she would, Maomao has written about as much as a layman could grasp without specialized knowledge. Her sister is smart, but she doesn’t know everything, and to delve deeper into the plants’ medicinal properties would require vocabulary she may not be familiar with. 

Another option, maybe, would be to address some of the vaguer concepts of the letter. Choice, her sister wrote about. Red string. Whatever else was in there. But Maomao has always prided herself on basing her thinking in reason, logic, and reality. The ideas her sister wrote about are anything but grounded, and even after a year of pondering, Maomao struggles to grasp them. 

The final part was about routine, and the breaking thereof—but what is there to tell about that? Maomao is the same as she ever was. Little has changed. 

That’s true, isn’t it? 

So little, in actuality, has changed in her time here. Maomao still holds her passion for poison and medicines. She still enjoys her studies. She still admires her father for his brilliance and misses him dearly. She still looks forward to seeing her sisters when she returns home, even if their meeting may look different from how it was before. 

Maomao’s relationship with Jinshi has changed. She knew that it would when she took his hand that night beneath the stars, and she took it anyway. She knew that everything would invariably shift. 

Except it didn’t. Not really. 

She still comes to his chambers every few days, as she did before. They still talk about their work, skirting some details, over dinner. Suiren welcomes her with the same warmth she always did. The rhythm of their relationship may have changed, but the tempo thrumming beneath is as steady as ever. 

Despite everything, whether Maomao peers into a muddy puddle on the dusty, unpaved roads of the pleasure district, or whether she looks into a mirror of polished brass in a room a thousand leagues from here, it is always her reflection that stares back. Older, perhaps. Changed, slightly, like clay molded from a thumbprint. But herself, and no one else. 

Meimei also spoke of the woman who birthed her. How the courtesan simply fell into orbit, moving the go pieces only in anticipation of or response to other moves. How she remained content in vagueness and words unspoken. How she only moved when it was far too late. Meimei put brush to paper and wrote Maomao a warning. 

It is comforting, then, that despite everything, Maomao is still not that woman’s daughter. 

So Maomao puts brush to paper, and she hesitates for only a moment before writing, 

Other things have happened, but they can wait. I’m coming home now. I’ll tell you more when we see each other—I’ll come knocking on the first day that I get off with the lavender I promised. 

But until I can explain more, rest assured—this trip to the west went much better than last time. 

I’ll see you soon. 

- Maomao. 

Jinshi stirs when she pulls the curtains back. The room is lit by silver moonlight, and a streak of it races past her to land upon his outstretched arms, uncovered by blankets, like bangles of a dancer. Maomao sits upon the bed and begins unweaving her beads from her hair. 

There is a grumble from the lump beside her, and the outstretched hands grasp at air. Moonlight dances in their fingertips. “Finished?” comes a slurred rumble. 

Maomao hums. “I’ll leave it to dry overnight and send it off tomorrow.” She unweaves the final bead from her hair and cups the four of them in her hand. Two red, two blue. The same ones that she has worn for almost as long as she can remember. They clack together gently in her palm. 

Belatedly, she realizes she is still letting light stream into the dark, enclosed bed, and tacks on, “Sorry to have woken you.” 

“Mmh,” Jinshi hums. His voice is lower than hers. It vibrates through the small, secluded space like an echo. “Wasn’t ‘sleep yet.” 

Sounds like something that someone asleep thirty seconds ago would say, Maomao thinks. Like second nature, she unties the pouch of beads from the inside of her robe, pours the four in, draws the string shut, and sets it beside her pillow, like she has done every night since she was six. Like second nature, she pulls the poppy-and-moon hairstick from its place and sets it beside the pouch, like she has done every night for the last few months. While the leather of the pouch is dull and worn from years of love, the silver hairstick shines bright in the moonlight. 

Maomao draws the sheets back, slides in, and draws the curtains shut, leaving them in darkness. Jinshi opens his eyes as the bright moonlight fades, and they are deep like the night, like the darkness around them. 

In the colorless, silhouetted world that draws in like fog in the absence of light, Jinshi opens his arms and murmurs, “C’mere, sweetheart.” 

The beads clack in their pouch as Maomao shifts her weight, as she and Jinshi together close the distance between them. The bed is warm, soothing away the chill of the coastal spring air. Jinshi folds her into his arms, until Maomao’s cheek is pressed to his shoulder, and lets out a quiet, contented sigh. 

After a long moment, Jinshi tilts his head down in something like caution, and he presses a kiss to the top of her head. His lips linger, and Maomao feels rather than hears them speak three words into the crown of her head. 

Maomao’s throat tightens. She does not ask him to repeat what he said; they both know well what they were. They are just some of the many words that Maomao cannot say. When she so much as thinks about putting them to sound, they catch in her throat until it squeezes tight, until she has to gasp for air. 

Maomao does not know if she will ever be able to say them. In the quiet grey dark, in the moments before sleep, that is the thought that scares her more than anything. 

But here, the world is quiet, and the curtains are drawn, and the prying eyes of the world are far away. It is here, in this safe, dark space, that Maomao tilts her chin up, searches blindly through the dark, and kisses him hello. 

If she cannot ever say them, she thinks, perhaps she can leave the words against his mouth, instead. 

Somewhere, in a little garden in the pleasure district, there grows a tiny, crooked sprout of wood sorrel. 

In defiance of the hardship at the beginning of its life, in defiance of the crook in its stem, its little leaves and flowers turn up. 

At last, it grows to the sky—into the embrace of gentle, steady moonlight.