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 is not disappointed, but she is a little surprised--if Janet is Queen, even if it is not Queen of this place, does she not simply take her pleasure wherever she sees fit? But, again, this is not her world, and she hardly knows this woman; perhaps there are those here she does not wish to reveal her dalliances to. She inclines her head wriggles her hips, just a little. "Then I suppose you must let me stand, so we may move inside."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet smiles down at her, intent. For a second, she doesn't move. This is one of those feelings she likes to savor, when she's in control and the power is in her hands. Then she stands and, to keep showing off, pulls Liu Mingyan easily to her feet instead of letting her stand under her own power. "I'd ask who won, but I guess this can count as a tie."

[empressliu]

"A draw," Liu Mingyan agrees, summoning Cheng Luan back to its sheath and then back to the hand that Janet did not use to so easily pluck her from the ground, which she will not drop until Janet does. She cocks an eyebrow at her, just the tiniest bit challenging. "The least satisfying outcome, in most dueling scenarios, but I hope we will see some satisfaction from it today."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh, sure. Call this round one." Janet watches with interest as Liu Mingyan's sword moves of what seems like its own volition, then remembers herself and shoots her another easy smirk. Hand half in hers, half curled around her wrist, she tugs Liu Mingyan right back toward the mansion.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan allows herself to be lead. "I have an associate who can control shadow," she says. "It allows him to teleport from place to place--it has always seemed to me it would be a convenient way to skip the part where one must move to a new location, when everyone involved would very much like to already be--fulfilling inside demands." She sighs, lightly. "Unfortunately I believe this potential is lost on him."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet makes a kind of huh! sound of interest as they're making their way up the stairs and toward her bedroom. "Sounds like pretty powerful magic to me," she says, "like, almost impossibly powerful. But I get that things are probably different where you're from."

[empressliu]

"He is powerful," Liu Mingyan concedes. "He is Luo Binghe's lieutenant, his most trusted." She decides to make another concession to Janet's bluntness. It's surprisingly fun, to dispense entirely with insinuation and simply state what one means. She wonders if Janet keeps this same tone in her royal council meetings. "If I am honest, I only brought him up intending to insult his lack of bedfellows, and ideally make you laugh."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Where the first attempt didn't land, the explanation does: Janet laughs¹. "Got it. So he has powerful magic but no game." Something a little mischievous flickers in her smile as she opens the door to her bedroom with her free hand. It's slightly more lived-in now, as she's had to accept more and more that this really is a long-term stop, but at least she made her bed this morning. She's not an animal. "Maybe I come out on top in this comparison after all."

¹A rare instance where 'explaining the joke' actually enhances the humor.

[empressliu]

"Oh, in many ways," says Liu Mingyan, archly. Janet's axes are a more intriguing use of ice than Mobei-Jun's blades, too, but she prefers to let the double entendre hang in the air rather than divert Janet's attentions back to magic. She'll be happy to explain all sorts of cultivation and demonic tricks--after she finds out what that fierce little smile feels like pressed into her skin.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet gives her a little look, like gee, good one, although it's not really as withering as it could be. Once the door shuts behind them, she has one last trick up her sleeve before Woven Strength starts to wear off: she kicks off her boots, one and then the other across the room, and then picks Liu Mingyan up clean off the ground to carry her over and deposit her on the bed.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan laughs, a little breathlessly. She toes her own boots off so they drop off the end of the bed onto the floor, but makes no other move to undress. It is novel, ceding control to someone so strong—the only person who could handle Liu Mingyan like this at home is Sha Hualing, and Liu Mingyan does not cede control to Sha Hualing. She lifts her wrists, placing them on either side of her head. "Are picking up where we left off, then?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"I did say that was only round one," Janet answers lightly. She takes a second to throw her hair into a hasty ponytail with an elastic off her wrist, then she's bearing down on Liu Mingyan, knees planted on the bed to sit astride her again. This is the most weirdly nervous to make a move she's been in a while -- which means she pushes through it extra hard, summoning up all her poise as she takes Liu Mingyan's robes in her hands and yanks her into a kiss.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan takes a sharp breath in through her nose. Only the boldest of her lovers dare kiss her through the veil, rather than waiting for her to allow them access to her lips; she likes that Janet will now be among them. She kisses back, hotly, the thin, gauzy fabric growing damp between their mouths, and slips a hand through a slash she'd made in Janet's shirt to touch her waist, gripping the softness and muscle there.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Into the space between their mouths and the veil, Janet huffs out a small and breathless sound of approval. She lets the kiss stretch out a while longer, almost experimentally, with the texture of the fabric as it warms, but then she pauses and asks, carefully neutral, "Can this thing come off?"

[empressliu]

"You may remove it," Liu Mingyan allows, looking up at Janet through her lashes. "It is only men I forbid from seeing me fully."

[sorrowandsorrow]

God, that's -- Janet doesn't even know. She smiles, feeling a little wild with it, with having this insane assignation with a beautiful mostly-stranger, and reaches to, as instructed, remove the veil. That gives her a minute to take in Liu Mingyan's face, the carved-statue beauty of her, and to laugh in something like disbelief. Holy shit, she thinks, but she can't psych herself out, so she leans down without hesitation for another kiss, this time with nothing in the way.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan returns this kiss with just as much enthusiasm, arching up, a little, into Janet's weight, and letting her lips part to entice Janet's tongue. She is playing into a helplessness, a subservience, primarily because it is so novel, to be physically overpowered this way. It's exciting; a game, unthreatening because she and Janet both know the power she has over Liu Mingyan is halfway granted as well as won.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Liu Mingyan opens up under her so beautifully, and it's so obviously an invitation instead of an acquiescence. Janet kisses her deeper, open-mouthed and purposeful, as she works her hands under the collars of her robes, fanning out her fingers once she finds bare skin: collarbones, shoulders, the beginnings of the swells of her breasts.

[empressliu]

Janet will discover—as Susan did before her—exactly how easily Liu Mingyan's robes part for roving hands, and how few undergarments she's wearing. Liu Mingyan lets her eyes slip closed, concentrating on the sweeping warmth of strong hands on her skin, her own hands continuing to wander—one up under Janet's tatters of a shirt, the other curling around her hip, toying with interest with the belt loop on her jeans.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Can someone have getting naked as their magical discipline? Janet guesses it must theoretically be possible. Like, minor mending is pretty lame, but it's still a real thing.

Not that she's complaining. She lets her hands slide lower, cupping Liu Mingyan's breasts in both hands to enjoy the weight and softness of them. "You can, uh," she starts, then laughs a little again, "there's a button on these. Just pop it open."

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan opens her eyes and locates the button. She does, in fact, pop it open, and find a little tab that she can pull down—carefully—to loosen the rough trousers around Janet's hips. She does so, and then slips both hands into them to take firm, appreciative handfuls of her ass. Janet is wearing underwear similar to what Susan was wearing; she wonders briefly if they are from the same world, but it is an idle thought she discards in favor of staring up at Janet, her teeth catching her lower lip.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Hi," Janet says, just this side of breathless. She brushes her thumb across Liu Mingyan's nipple, smiling a little as it stiffens under her touch, then lifts the other hand to brush Liu Mingyan's hair back so she can lean down to press her mouth, with a scrape of teeth, to the side of her neck.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan moans softly, encouraging both the bite and the hand on her breast. She rolls her hips, using her hands on Janet's ass to keep her still so she can grind up into her.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet lets out a little bitten-off hiss, pleasantly surprised by the onslaught of friction. She takes Liu Mingyan's encouragement seriously and applies herself to sucking a bruise into the side of her neck, sliding that other hand into her hair, cradling the back of her head and then tipping it slightly for a better angle on what she's doing.

[empressliu]

Liu Mingyan hisses, arching up into her. Rare is the partner who dares to mark her, even though she can remove such things with a single thought. It is the psychological weight, the idea of laying claim to the Empress, and it is dizzying that Janet does not care.