A Crown for a Tail

An Arrangement

Almost pushing her daughter into her room and slamming the door shut, Bai Qians mother burst into fits of giggles while the sound of Zhe Yans laughter that was roaring through the den almost overtook it.  

Flopping back down onto her bed, Bai Qians face had gone the brightest shade of pink her mother had ever seen, not even she could have achieved that color she thought to herself, as she quickly gathered a suitable outfit for her daughter to wear.

"Did Mi Gu not tell you about the meeting we were holding this afternoon Qian Qian?" her mother asked as she pulled her back up and lowered a soft silk undergarment over her head before picking up a dress and throwing that over her head too.

"No he didn't tell me!" she said almost in tears.  "What is he doing here?" she cried out sharply.  The embarrassment of having been caught half naked by The Crown Prince in her own home, was just too much.  Pulling the dress back off her body, she promptly threw it to the floor.  "I'm not leaving this room until he leaves." she cried as the tears began to stream down her face.

"Come on now Qian Qian.  It's not his fault you have no decorum." she answered her sarcastically, picking up the dress and barely keeping her desire to join Zhe Yans laughter at bay, which they could still hear from her closed chamber.

"Besides, this is an auspicious day, he is here for a very good reason." she said smiling down at her growing tear streaked face.  "It seems as if you made quite an impression on the young man last night, he felt he could not allow another day to pass without first coming here to discuss an urgent matter with us all." she added somewhat enigmatically, and though most women would have picked up the subtle nuance in an instant, Bai Qian was completely oblivious to it, which her mother read very clearly.

And that had her laughing lightly.  Her daughter was not only dense when it came to romance and matters of the heart, she had no clue at all when it came to her beauty and the effects it had on every man she had ever met outside of her family.  And that was the problem, she thought to herself sighing.  Having been raised in a household of men, who looked and saw only a little girl with a very mischievous nature and a propensity to live as one of them, even scratching herself as they did, in places a woman should never do in public, it was little wonder she didn't notice. 

Though her brothers looked at her in angst when she misbehaved, they all looked at her in adoration and with brotherly fondness when she wasn't, so brotherly love was all she saw when other men looked at her the same way. 

  And that had her wondering what kind of wife she would make.  Any man who took her on, had best be very prepared for what she brought to the table, because they themselves barely managed to keep up with her.

"I don't care, I don't want to see him." she stomped her feet stubbornly on the bed before flopping back down onto her back and crossing her arms angrily.

But her mother wasn't going to have it.  Forcing her off the bed and onto her feet  which Bai Qian initially had tried to fight, she gently wiped the tears away, before once again forcing her clothing over her head much to her daughters dismay.  Ignoring her plaintive cries of resistance, she then picked up her comb and quickly ran it through her hair.  It never took much to have her daughter looking beautiful, even after rolling around in the peach blossoms which she suspected she still did, going by the petals scattered all over the bed, she still looked lovely, in fact it was hard for her mother to imagine her ever looking anything but.

Within minutes, she was looking much more presentable.  Smiling down at her while her daughter looked sullenly back up, she pulled her into her arms and embraced her lovingly.  

"They are only breasts my dear, I'm sure he has seen plenty of them." she said lightly as if it were of no consequence at all, and that only had Bai Qian scowling even more.