You're mine as yet

Lan Fan does not resent Mei.

Resenting her wouldn't do anyone good; it would only sow unnecessary seeds of irritation.

Besides, she loves the little princess. She's spunky and loud, and she talks enough to fill up Lan Fan's thoughts with nonsensical ideas and simple small talk. She doesn't expect much from Lan Fan.

However, Lan Fan can't help but feel hurt- or, rather, not hurt, but pained- not pained, just aching strangely, an acute emptiness in the space between her ribs- when she turns to say something to Ling, and instead finds Mei's face looking back at her.

It's strange, the both of them, learning how to exist as a duo. Mei is used to being alone with Xiao Mei; even as the princess approaches twenty, Lan Fan is constantly having to track her down, expelling energy to track her qi and making sure she stays nearby.

Lan Fan, on the other hand, grew accustomed to seeing Ling beside her in their twenty-one years together; finding his red-gold presence buzzing in the air and uniting with him with relative ease. She wouldn't have to say a word for him to reach for her, reassuring her that he was still by her side; she didn't have to speak for him to look at her, acknowledging her plan, which he could always sense and predict so easily, with a nod or a subtle shake of his head. Lan Fan finds that Mei doesn't understand the nonverbal cues she and Ling spent years fine-tuning- who could, when the signals were so particular and small?

She can't be mad at Mei for being unable to understand, but she gets frustrated all the same.

It's easier, they discover after four years of service to Mei, for Lan Fan to be a bodyguard in title only; she keeps her weapons, on her, of course, and her uniform, but they both know perfectly well that Mei is capable of defending herself. Besides, no one's putting plans in motion to assassinate Mei these days- there's no point. She lost her chance to succeed her father years ago, and she no longer has favor with her brother the Emperor. She's impossible to track down, anyway, flitting back and forth from Amestris to Ishval to Xing.

Lan Fan becomes a confidant- more of a lady-in-waiting than a guard, but it works for her. If her master must change, she'd rather her occupation change with it. Trying to do her job effectively with an unfamiliar partner, each used to operating on her own; they were both miserable.

Lan Fan doesn't mind being a friend to Mei. She's a sweet girl, and a pleasant traveling companion. However, she'd be lying if she said she didn't miss having a purpose.

Ling never needed her, necessarily; he was as strong as she is, if not stronger, but he let her take care of him. Let her work by his side. Mei is too stubborn for such frivolity. Lan Fan respects her effective simplicity, but at the same time, she wants to-she was born to- serve. It's in her blood. It feels wrong to walk by Mei's side rather than behind her at a distance.

She finds contentment in Ishval, where her arms ache and burn in the desert sun. She works by Scar's side; she learns how to lay bricks, to carve limestone. There is purpose in the physical, in bare feet in the sand and silent work beside people that are not quite strangers, but not quite friends. She eats lunch amidst charred ruins of ancient buildings and does not wince when the metal plate that connects her automail to her shoulder begins to singe her skin. Her sore arms come as a relief at the end of the day; she tires herself out so she doesn't have to spend hours staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. It's the worst at night, after all. Listening to Mei's steady breathing across the room; wishing she were someone else.

She remembers Ishval with Ling, staying up late in their little tent while Mei, only twelve then, slept soundly on her pallet, close to the floor. They sat cross-legged, side by side on Ling's cot. They dressed each other's wounds, still fresh from the Promised Day; they wept from pain and from overwhelm of emotion, taking comfort in one another.