Tortoise and Fox [BL]

4.3

"When lightning strikes, thunder follows."

Amari awoke before dawn. But his early rise was not what caught Princess Xinyi by surprise. Upon entering the room, she froze. Her eyes traced the comb's movement down past his shoulders. His voice was direct and clear, void of an uncertain morning rasp.

Amari tilted his head. The comb in his hand was thin and wooden, solid but not infallible against a careless hand. Princess Xinyi set the tray down in her hands on the tableside. She pulled out a plate of steaming soups and breads. The folded Beijian robes were handed off to Amari personally.

"Eat breakfast, then try on the robes. If they don't fit, I'll retrieve another size. Then we leave."

Amari set the robes on the bed, rubbing their thin, satin sleeves. They were pale off-white, with turquoise streams running up the bottom of the fabric.

"You're staring at my hair again," he said.

"In Beijie, it is rare to see men with hair unbraided past ear length."

"It's a common style outside of here. Do you find something wrong with it...or rather, does it make me any less of a man?"

Princess Xinyi didn't respond. Not as Amari finished his food, which was fresh and fulfilling, nor after he changed into well-fit robes. As if her voice was stolen from her, the princess didn't answer any further probing. She only guided Amari through the open courtyards, hands behind the cinched waist of her draping turquoise dress. As Amari walked, he glanced down with a suspicious stare, pinching at the clothes wrapped around his waist.

Amari stepped up into the transparent-roofed carriage. With a lurch, it took them further north. The sky was painted royal blue with the sun beating down in heavy waves. Past Princess Xinyi, who sat as proper and still as a figurine, were paddies peppering the manor ground that gave way to endless yellowing crops. Farmhands bowed their gloved hands in quick succession to the carriages.

They passed several other carriages filled with important people of the court, including King Qianlong, who urged the coachman to stop farther ahead. The dead crops crunched brittle as Amari stepped down, surveying the plot of death surrounding him. Wilting stalks peeled out like a cascade—dying one by one as the last drops of moisture were pulled away from their veins. Amari slowly spun around. The uncertain specks of the kingdom surrounded him. Many were perhaps households, unsure of when their next meal might be.

The clopping of the horses against the twig-cracking floor settled like the dusty topsoil. Eventually, silence arose. Amari looked up to the blue sky curving down around him, before closing his eyes.

Darkness cloaked the fields. Amari wrapped himself in a curtain of blackened night. With every, slowing breath, water trickled in. It dripped, diverging past Amari's nape, before rushing out under his feet with pulsating lines. Wavy curls twisted as far as the darkness fell.

"Amari," a voice said in his mind, distinctly smoky and coarse from waking up. "It's a rarity to feel your presence so soon after earlier."

The faint sensation of soft fur brushed past his legs—distinct from the coiling scales of a dragon.

"Stop," he scolded, "Let me focus."

"That's all you ever say," he complained. Not any tone in his voice indicated his annoyance, however, as if beckoning for Amari to stop and retort.

Amari ignored Leishan and began to sift through the twisting rivers. He peered close at the ground, then at the sky where a string of water flowed past his head. His eyes narrowed, searching past the rivers of rocky currents and wild sprays, until finally, a gurgle pulled at his mind.