open post: Empress Liu Mingyan

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan has a lot on her mind.

In the three months since Luo Binghe vanished into thin air, Xin Mo abandoned at the foot of his throne, his Empire—her Empire—has... changed. The throne remains empty, of course—to have anyone else claim it, even temporarily, would be conceding that his absence is unintentional, either accidental or, more likely, a malicious coup. Whoever did the claiming would be the prime suspect for mal intent, including Mingyan herself. So it sits, empty, at the center of his great hall, Mobei-Jun standing sentinel beside it, never to be looked at directly by any visiting dignitary or sniveling demonic petitioner.

She's been redirecting all audiences to her wing of the palace instead. Her hall is not quite so grand, but it is nearly as imposing, and her own throne no less terrible and beautiful. When Luo Binghe is in residence, she primarily uses this hall for meetings with her network of all-female spies—not because Luo Binghe doesn't know about them, in his vague and uninterested way, but because Liu Mingyan has learned from experience that if they encounter him they turn very quickly from useful and competent agents to fawning and lovestruck young maidens, and then it's only a matter of time before they join the ranks of the harem. Liu Mingyan does not resent this; there would be no point. But she prefers to conduct her business in private nonetheless.

Now, of course, even from her own throne many of her edicts must be delivered as if they're orders that Luo Binghe left for her to give. Ning Yingying has been surprisingly useful on this front; despite Liu Mingyan's disdain for what she believed a naive and trusting heart who had given up her sect loyalty to marry for love, Ning Yinging does know Luo Binghe, perhaps better even than Liu Mingyan does, offering insight into what Luo Binghe would have said, if he had in fact instructed Mingyan on how to handle this matter. Liu Mingyan does not always take this advice—she does not always want to do what Luo Binghe would have done, especially as his absence stretches from days into weeks into months, but she does not resent it, either.

In truth, what Liu Mingyan resents is the idea that Luo Binghe will return, and she will be expected to relinquish rule back to him, and everything she has built—the tenuous and confusing peace between herself and Sha Hualing, and thus the quelling of the constant threat of southern rebellion; the ease with which she receives the other wives and soothes their fears, rather than holding herself above them;¹ the shifted tenor of court itself, with fewer public displays of violence²—all of it will go back to normal, and Liu Mingyan finds she has less taste for normal every day. It's not that she doesn't want Luo Binghe to return—of course she does—but she wishes that somehow he might return different. It's a futile thought, and a disloyal one to think about a man who created this life for her, a man she cares deeply about, but she cannot deny that she thinks it.

So when she steps down a secret stairway into a corridor that should lead to her chambers and ends up in an unfamiliar hallway instead—the light entirely wrong, the architecture unfamiliar—her first thoughts are uncharitable. It seems obvious that this is the same trap that ensnared Luo Binghe. It also seems unfair to make her the one to bring him home, and be the agent of her own undoing. She'll do it—he is her husband, and while that doesn't mean the same thing to her as it does many of his wives, it does mean something significant, as undeniable as it is ill-defined—and her Emperor. But—

She sets her jaw behind her veil and wraps her fingers around Cheng Luan's hilt, proceeding silently down the hallway.

[NSFW: Susan's thread, Janet's thread]

¹ Well, sometimes she's still above them. If you know what I mean.
² Not that there has been no violence—it's just generally conducted elsewhere. Her floors are harder to clean than Luo Binghe's.

Comments

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan allows herself to bask, just for a moment, in the attention, her own gaze fixed on the skin Susan reveals with every undone button, and then she swings herself gracefully astride her on the bed, bending to capture her mouth again.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan presses up into the kiss, bringing a hand around the back of Liu Mingyan's head. There, she spreads her fingers, slipping them through the strands of Liu Mingyan's fancy updo. She runs her other hand down Liu Mingyan's side, slipping her fingers down the waistband of her trousers.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan--working from that little shudder, earlier--bites Susan's lip, none too gently, as she breaks the kiss to mouth hotly down Susan's throat and chest. Her hand finds Susan's bra before her mouth does, and she hums. "This, too, to defeat men?" she asks, slightly breathless, cupping one of her breasts through the cloth and squeezing.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Or enthrall them, as need be," says Susan. Liu Mingyan's hair is working easily free from her updo without much effort on Susan's part; she tugs it, lightly. Her mouth is hot from Liu Mingyan's bite. She wants more. "There's a - hook, in the back, that releases it."

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan feels her hair come loose from its guan and spill over her shoulders, sudden cool silk that makes her shiver. She slips a hand under Susan, easily locating and unhooking the catch in question, and then tugs the bra down Susan's arms enough that she can get her mouth on her breasts, making liberal use of her teeth. She returns the other hand to the breast she'd been cupping before, rolling her nipple between her fingers. "I like it," she murmurs, between nips. "Your armor."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan, who has worn actual armor -- leather and mail, primarily -- likes very much the idea of her underwear also being armor. Or maybe she just likes Liu Mingyan's mouth at her tits. She also appreciates that Liu Mingyan isn't shy about being rough, and tugs harder at her hair. Her other hand she moves to cup Liu Mingyan's ass, feeling the shape of it through her thin trousers; from the (lack of) texture, she's pretty sure that Liu Mingyan isn't wearing any underwear, herself. She likes this discovery, too.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan groans encouragingly at the tug in her hair, pressing back into the hand on her ass, and runs her tongue across Susan's nipple, pinching and tugging at the other with her hand. She is keyed in to Susan's reactions, every catch of her breath and twitch of her body. She still can't decide where she is going: down, to see what other titillating defenses await her before she can get her mouth on Susan, or up, to straddle her face? She likes both options very much, which Susan will discover if she explores Liu Mingyan's lack of armor further.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan's dress, by this point, has fallen away save for one errant button on the skirt. All that's left is her underwear, garter belt, and nylons - plus her half-twisted bra, which digs into the meat of her belly and has her arms lightly constrained in a very interesting way. It's not something she's explored for herself before, and now she's idly wondering why. Not very deeply, of course; Susan has other, more pressing concerns. She pulls Liu Mingyan's hair more sharply, not enough to leverage her mouth away from Susan's chest but enough to show that she's listening, and works her hand fully under the waistband of Liu Mingyan's trousers. Yes, it's as she thought: just warm, soft skin.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan bites at Susan's nipple, once, to make her gasp, and then goes with the tugging of her hands, sitting up to stare down at her, drinking her in. The single button still buttoned on her dress obscures what appears to be the apparatus that the straps on her legs attach to; Liu Mingyan untwists it, deftly. The dark fabric is very pleasing against Susan's pale skin; like she has already trussed herself up, ready for Liu Mingyan before she ever arrived. Women in the world truly walk around with this under their clothing, just waiting to be discovered?

She makes her choice. "These stay on," she informs Susan, snapping one of her straps again, and stands up to step out of her boots and trousers.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan shivers, and then props herself up on her elbow, watching Liu Mingyan strip. It occurs to her to be productive with the time, so she works her bra off the rest of the way and pulls her dress off, casting it to the side, too. Then she settles back, adjusting her garter belt and its suspenders minutely where they've shifted to the side in the past few moments. Usually she's the one calling the shots, in moments like this, but this entire assignation feels pleasantly dreamlike and she's eager to see where it goes.

Also, Liu Mingyan is gorgeous. Susan runs her eyes feverishly up her lovely legs, lingering at the thatch of hair between them, before lifting her gaze up her torso to her pretty, bare face. Her hair is cascading down her shoulders, long and relatively un-mussed; Susan will have to work harder, then, to ensure that it is properly disheveled.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan finishes disrobing and settles back down, this time between Susan's thighs, a position she knows accentuates both the strength of her shoulders and curve of her breasts. She runs the knuckle of her index finger up and down the front of Susan's underwear, then leans forward to plant a kiss on her mound. "Sometimes," she says, "if I wish a lover to beg, I will leave my veil on for this, and tease her for hours through the cloth. It is a shame my time here is limited, or these could serve similar purpose."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"A pity indeed," says Susan, shifting into Liu Mingyan's touch. She spreads her legs wider, nudging Liu Mingyan's side with her knee, and reaches down to feel the muscles of her shoulders, which really, truly are impressive to behold. "I can see how that might drive a girl wild."

[empressliu]

It does not occur to Liu Mingyan to ask before she easily tears away Susan's underwear. In her world, she could offer Susan a thousand finer things, and would; in this one, it seems, all her needs are met. She just does it, baring Susan to her eyes. It is a hundred times more pleasing, immediately, that she is still wearing the belt and straps and mesh on her legs. She sinks her teeth into Susan's thigh, hard, where a square of it is framed by dark satin, and slides two fingers teasingly through the wetness between her legs.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

For a moment, the bite renders Susan useless, her mouth open and working against the air. And then she comes back to herself: a desperate, needy thing. Liu Mingyan is so decisive; Susan likes it very much.

"Like what you see?" she asks, aiming for teasing but sounding more hoarse than anything.

[empressliu]

"Mmh, more than you know," says Liu Mingyan. She digs her thumb into the spot she'd bitten, not letting the pain fade, and lowers her chin to fuck into Susan with her tongue.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan's breath hitches. Oh, it has been a while since she's lain with a woman. She finds that she's missed it terribly, and indulges in a few long moments of just letting herself feel what Liu Mingyan is doing -- the purposeful and talented movement of her tongue, the ache where she's pressing her thumb into Susan's thigh, the way that she keeps touching Susan's nylons. Susan is a well-mannered woman; she'll become more participatory in a moment. But for now she'll let herself lose herself to the sensation.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan is perfectly satisfied with this; she has enjoyed Susan's touch, of course, but this is one of the things she likes doing most in the world. If Susan does nothing else but submit to pleasure, she will be perfectly content. She keeps up a steady rhythm, working her open, then shifts to lave the flat of her tongue over her clit, snapping the straps on her thighs again as she does so.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan, meanwhile, is beginning to wonder why she hasn't had sex with her garter-belt and nylons on before. She presses herself up against Liu Mingyan's mouth, hips working in abortive little shifts, seeking that warm pressure.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan sets up a rhythm—flickering her tongue over Susan's clit, then slipping back down to her entrance, then back up over her clit again, snapping a different strap each time so her skin never gets used to the sting. Her own hips are twitching against nothing, her clit throbbing with the sounds of it: her mouth against wet flesh, the tiny snap, the hitch and sigh of Susan's breath. If she had a hand free she would touch herself, bring herself off in unison with this beautiful stranger, but she can wait; she enjoys the feeling of it too much, her fingers fumbling from one strap to another, made clumsy with eagerness, with the heady musk that fills her mouth.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Very well, then; Susan shall allow herself to lose herself in this sex. Her thighs are stinging deliciously, and she is floating on the feeling of Liu Mingyan's tongue. Her hands are clenching around air; she moves one, unfocused, until it is clenching around Liu Mingyan's hair, instead, fingers tangling in and tugging at the soft strands. Her other arm she brings across her face, where she bites at the side of her forearm to give her mouth something to do. Warmth unspools throughout her body as the tension in her center grows.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan sighs against her as Susan's legs begin to tremble. She shifts up to concentrate on her clit, sucking lightly, licking over her quick and steady, and slips two fingers inside her where she is so, so slick and hot and open from her tongue.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan sighs into this touch, driving herself down against Liu Mingyan's hand. She'd assured Liu Mingyan that she was awake, but now Susan feels rather like she's dreaming, to be here so quickly and so exquisitely. As in her sex dreams, she's close, fast and effortless; it'll be barely the work of a moment to come. If it weren't for the sting in her thighs from Liu Mingyan snapping her stocking suspenders... but the sting is there, and it is good, as good as the soft weight of the hair around her fingers and the sharp ache of her own teeth in the flesh of her arm.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan moans as Susan rides her hand and mouth, driving herself to orgasm as much as Liu Mingyan is bringing her to it. The twisting of her own hips against nothing becomes more and more desperate.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

When the tension crests and Susan shakes apart, she does so as quietly as she ever does, but her thigh flexes against Liu Mingyan's cheek and she shudders, mouth falling lax against her own wrist. She wants to luxuriate in the aftershocks, to lie languid under Liu Mingyan's tongue for a while longer, but she also wants -

- she tugs at Liu Mingyan's hair, hard enough to pull her mouth away. "Come up here," she says, equally eager for whatever Liu Mingyan might read into the words. "I want to--"

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan lets herself be drawn up Susan's body. She captures her mouth again, licking into it to let Susan taste herself, and tangles their bodies together, eager for skin against her skin. She presses her own wetness against Susan's thigh, so she can see how pleased she is with her for her beautiful, silent orgasm.