Shen Wei never wanted to be an Emperor, but on the anniversary of the peace deal he discovers that Kunlun might be alive.
Part 1 of the The Leaves Of Autumn Are Memories series
Okay....so I've rewritten this a number of times....changed things...then again...and then had another idea at the worst possible moment usually and changed it again....
...But....a lot of things happened last month and I realized that trying to stuff a liter worth of ideas into a half-liter container was not going to work. Any constraint I had, I was making and so...long story (no pun intended) short I've decided to just cut this giant mess into two.
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Géxià - My King, Your Majesty.
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Shen Wei was floating, his body boneless and his mind was quiet. How long he simply existed for, in this space outside of time or sensation, he didn't know. There were no thoughts, no interests or even feelings at first. He existed, everything else was fleeting, phantom.
It was the moments when you just wake, overtired and boneless in your exhaustion. Suspended in a lull, absent of understanding or awareness.
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Then there came a tug, a clumsy, frantic pull. A little hand holding onto a trailing sleeve...
And he who only existed, remembered.
...wide eyes, a bundle in a white silk blanket, a tiny body made of flailing fists and kicking feet. Chu Shuzhi's face smiling for the first since they lost Xiao Guo, "Already a general fighting for her troops Géxià!"
The little giggle as wobbly feet tottered ever closer to him, smiling - for the first time since losing him - as tiny hands waved, pride and worry for those first little steps. He wasn't a soldier or a king, he was a father and nothing, not protocol, war or a council was going to interfere in this precious moment. He waves his hand encouragingly and tiny feet crossed the invisible middle line between Wang Zheng and him, their audience as invested as they. Chu Shuzhi looked proud. Eunuch Liu was smiling.
A ridiculously, terrifyingly light weight perched on his knee, a tiny hand holding onto his Imperial belt as he read reports, glaring at anyone who came into his office too loudly. Could they not see his baby was teething?!
A three year old running through the flower beds with a toy stone horse and a wooden sword. Large doe eyes silently crying because someone else got into trouble, when these little shoulders would take the blame entirely. A boy barely older than nine, swinging over a shoulder as an angry five year old defended a boy crying in the mud, her nurse trying to stop her, her bodyguards so trained and so paralyzed.
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