By The Will of the Gods

A Gathering of the Leaders

The entire world was numb.  The Demon clan and everything it stood for was gone.  What had once been their lands was now barren and lifeless, nothing moved and no sound was heard from anything, not even the birds, it was as if they had never existed.  For days on end Mo Yuan traversed the entire Demon lands in search of them along with others who came and went throughout the week in the hope that Tengfei was merely under cover and nothing sinister had happened, but as the day of the actual war drew closer, and no signs of them appeared, it became more and more obvious that they had met a sad fate.

A meeting of the clans was called for, and no one was going to miss out on it this time.  Usually there were a few leaders who couldn't make it for some reason or another only this time, Haode was preparing a much larger hall seeing as they were all going to attend this time, including Qing Cang and his minor allies who were also allies of the Demons.  

This was not going to be a typical meeting of the clans, but what he hoped would be the sharing of information that many thought was ludicrous including Mo Yuan who could see nothing good coming out of it.

Also invited was Bai Qian being the next Queen of Qing Qiu, however, Bai Zhi took Bai Zhen in her place seeing as she couldn't actually attend and be on Kunlun Mountain at the same time, though she had been informed and though the letter she sent back stating she wanted to go, her father overruled it.  He was worried for her safety because many of the leaders attending would view her as a pawn in a political shuffle that he knew would take place the moment agendas became known, and being exceptionally beautiful, she would certainly draw a lot of attention to herself.  Men would not only flock to her side and begin courting her, she was too young and too naive to understand genuine attention and affection, over political manoeuvring.  As far as he was concerned, his daughter would marry into a family that was suited to Qing Qius best interests not the other way around.

Mo Yuan too thought it best that she not attend, and not because of any marriage alliances that might be forged, but because she was just too unpredictable.  He, like everyone else knew the meeting would be highly volatile and knowing how easily she took offence to almost everything, he could see many taking offence to her.  Also, though one of his female Generals would be there, there would not be any other female leaders present and normally this would not even be an issue, but her gender along with her youth and loveliness would attract the wrong attention.

Now seated at the head of the large tent that held over two hundred seats and room for smaller dignitaries to line the edges which were left open to allow the air to flow freely through the group that were now gathering, Mo Yuan allowed his mind to momentarily shift to the night before.

His mind was of course on the meeting and those that were arriving, but so was she.  She had been on his mind the entire night and had she not been so drunk, he would have address her confession, but now with far more urgent matters to deal with, he was once again forced to push it to the back of his mind.  Only having a little time to dwell on it, he allowed himself a rare smile as his mind dwelt on the memory of her small hand lightly caressing his arm and her cheek pressed into the palm of his hand as she continued to mutter on about no one else being worthy of him but her.

Initially, he'd been stunned by it, because she had never shown any kind of affection towards him other than that of a little girl for her spiritual master which is where had thought she had firmly placed him, only to learn she had feelings for him and that had him wondering just how deep they were, or if they were merely a passing crush which she would eventually grow out of.

And that only had him wondering just how to address it, or even if he should.  She was certainly of marriageable age and he knew that even though Sang Ji had turned her down, it didn't mean that others wouldn't try for her.  In fact, of every female under their sky, she was the ultimate prize, and just because the second Prince had foolishly let her go for a mere beaver, didn't mean she was worth less.  If anything, now that the Celestials were out of the running for her hand seeing as Bai Zhi all but declared them 'no longer friends' he expected there to be quite a concerted effort from every corner of the world, in fact it would be within every leaders best interest to seek a private meeting with Bai Zhi once the meeting was over.