Work Text:
Ruyi has picked up a new game.
He skips through the halls of the red palace as one compressed ball of six-year-old excitement. Skidding around a corner, he almost crashes against the legs of a maid carrying baskets of warm laundry, and she stumbles and gasps before she catches herself. Two eunuchs rush to keep track of him, but when the maid catches sight of the little prince’s face she swallows the scornful words already on her tongue and lets him pass. Blissfully aware of the ruckus happening around him, Ruyi jumps past her red face.
As he dashes past glorious paintings and blooming azaleas, he can’t escape the huffing and puffing behind him as his guards follow suit. How he wishes to traverse the royal hallways as swift as the wind! In this life, he must wait at every other corner lest he leaves the elderly eunuchs behind. They are fighting against their bellies, and age, and Ruyi taps his foot impatiently as he waits for them to catch up. He will earn himself a mouthful from the guards, his teachers, and probably his mother as well if he removes himself from security.
That also means Ruyi is never allowed in the peach garden without supervision. As he grows with age, however, more and more times do the eunuchs and wetnurses in charge of him keep to strolling around the far corners of the garden rather than breathe down his neck. It has been one of these rare days today, and Ruyi has made a find under the sunny sky so incredible he can’t wait to share it with the world.
Kiran is not the world, but he is one of the people Ruyi desperately wants to tell. The second oldest prince is standing under a giant chandelier, chatting with advisers, heads bent together as they discuss something of secondary importance.
“Kiran!” Ruyi exclaims as he comes to a halt directly in front of the prince. Only barely does he manage not to bump into him. Wiping a hand over his forehead, Ruyi pushes back sweaty bangs to grin up at his brother. “You’re back!”
A few people in the hall turn their heads, curious to see the two princes of the azalea house interact. Ruyi can’t help but sway with joy, eager to reach out but for now keeping his fingers inside his sleeves like he’s supposed to. How he’s missed his brother! It’s truly a fortunate sign that Kiran has returned from his mission just in time for Ruyi to show him his finding. Unable to contain his excitement anymore, Ruyi tugs on his brother’s hand, ignoring the hushed whispers of the men around. “I have to speak to you urgently! Come with me!”
Kiran’s face sours at the sight of the small prince. He pulls his hand away, glaring at his fingers like they disgust him. Self-consciously, Ruyi rubs his hands together—he knows better than to wipe the sweat, dew and dirt onto his clothes.
“Ruyi,” Kiran hisses, his voice low and breath cold like the wind. “Remember yourself.” He looks around as if searching for someone, and Ruyi’s eunuch guardians quickly mince forwards, heads bowed low. “May you live a thousand years, Prince Kiran. We apologize deeply for Prince Ruyi’s disregard of proper behaviour,” one of them says, while the other tries to grab Ruyi’s arm.
Prince Kiran’s face turns into a sneer. “Where is Lady Sun? I believe it is best to lead the Prince back to his mother… and to his duties.”
“No!” Ruyi complains as one of the eunuchs starts to move in his direction. His arms are outstretched, like he’s trying to trap him between them. “Please, you must come with me! I have something really important to show you.”
“Ruyi,” Kiran repeats through gritted teeth, nostrils flared as his eyes flicker back to the crowd surrounding them.
Helplessly, Ruyi watches his brother turn, and he is quickly ushered out of the room.
He drags his feet through the heavy doors separating the hall from the imperial clan’s chambers. “Let’s get back to your lesson, your Highness,” one of the eunuchs says, and this time Ruyi doesn’t bother to complain. He simply trails behind his teacher, thinking of ways to finish the poem he’d been given in the garden.
——
The fifth or sixth time the ghosts appear, Ruyi doesn’t flinch. He is determined to start acting more bravely; but when the husky figures inch closer to him, he does take a few tentative steps back—as a mere precaution, of course.
“Do you want to play?” one of the ghosts asks. He looks down on Ruyi with almost a full head of difference. Despite his height, his face is still plump and child-like, with a broad nose and light hair. A strange familiarity lays in the way he looks at Ruyi, but nothing he can put his finger on. Maybe there’s something of Kiran’s breeziness hidden behind his mannerisms or the glint of Isan’s eyes in his smile, but that’s about it. More than that, the ghost child looks like Ruyi would imagine a prince or dragonslayer to look, a missing canine carving a wild hole in his grin.
Behind him, hidden in the shadow, the second ghost hides and stares. Ruyi would suspect him to be of similar age than himself, but his wide eyes and trembling mouth make him look young the way a frightened animal is tiny. Like the other ghost, the line of his chin and slant of his eyes look oddly familiar.
He reminds Ruyi of pictures he’s seen around the palace, of black-haired emperors and princes past, but he doesn’t carry that same stiffness Ruyi has seen in the older men and women of the court. Instead, the ghost acts horribly shy, just recently managing to come out of his shell more and speak enough to spit out two verses at a time.
Ruyi has learned the two ghosts are brothers, but only because they always refer to each other as such, forgoing names entirely. If they didn’t, he would be none the wiser. Their respective types of beauty are definitely distinct, only matching in the identical sharp smile both of them flash at him.
“Of course! What do you want to do?” Ruyi asks eagerly. The ghosts share a quick look.
“Dueling Couplets!”
Ruyi plops down on the grass. They always play Dueling Couplets.
Watching the two compose their poems—or, rather, parts of one poem—is almost as much fun as getting to play himself. When he does, his own verses are clumsy in comparison, not ever living up to the words that came before.
But the brothers don’t mind: sometimes, the older one suggests switching a few words if he wants to verses to flow more easily, other times (more often than not, as Ruyi is proud to announce) they simply nod and clap when he comes up with his response. Today, their poem goes as follows:
A peach tree drinks the sun,
Watch how the light shines through the leaves.
(That part is Ruyi’s, and he is incredibly proud of it.)
May it continue to stand for a thousand years swallowing the sun and stretching its roots,
Or fall at the next storm.
That was the dark-haired one’s suggestion. Usually, only two of them are allowed to compose, because as the brothers say, their game has always been played as a duo. The third player, this time the older brother, is tasked with listening, simply sharing the joy when a new poem is created.
“May it, may it,” he sings, grinning. “Don’t pretend to be so wise!”
“Shuddup!” the other cries, swatting at his brother. His cheeks are red with embarrassment. Ruyi laughs as he looks on, but he feels oddly wistful as he watches the two fight and slap each other’s hands away. He can grab objects the ghosts offer, but never actually touch them or join in on their fights.
Sour jealously bubbles up in his belly, and then immediately guilt for allowing such an ugly sentiment. He is a prince. Princes feel duty, sometimes joy, and anger at their enemies, that’s what his mother and his teachers say. Princes shan’t be jealous when they have everything valuable on earth a wave of their fingers away.
The two ghost brothers are still laughing, play-fighting in the grass. Their hair is full of little leaves and blades of grass as they tumble around, neither one quite managing to secure the upper hand.
Ruyi clears his throat, rubbing the silk of his gown between his fingertips. “Can I go again?” he pleads. It’s out of turn, and the black-haired ghost looks like he wants to protest with the way he pouts, but his older brother nods.
“Do you want to go first?” he asks, brushing the dirt off his robes as he straightens up, preparing for the next round. Ruyi opens his mouth, and his new friend follows his two verses up with his own.
There is a beach made of the whitest sand,
Shining pearls made just for crunching under our feet.
But what use do those riches and treasures have,
When all all we do is press them down with our feet.
Ruyi tilts his head. “Why do these poems always come out sad?” he asks, sighing. First the tree has to fall, and then his friend discards the nice pearls Ruyi had offered him.
“They don’t have to,” he relents, scratching his wild tuft of hair. “How about this? Brother, let’s make a better one!”
The scales of a fish will never know how the wind blows atop a cliff,
Whereas a bird and its beak are crushed under the sea.
But through their swimming and their flying and their moving on and on,
They shall create palaces of their own.
——
“You wrote this?”
Isan looks up from the scroll to stare at Ruyi. No matter how many times anyone stares at him—and being the youngest prince of the red palace, enduring stares is a constant responsibility—Ruyi simply won’t get used to it. The Emperor looks confused, but there’s something unreadable in the way his mouth twitches and tugs downward. “I shall show this to the Empress.”
“I made it for you only,” Ruyi protests, biting his tongue at the scolding look he gets in return. Being his brother does not save him from the Emperor’s scorn when he talks out of turn. The eunuch standing by the door has also paled, urging him to shut up with a sharp hiss. Still, he absolutely must right this. Ruyi can’t allow a piece of his poetry to fall in the hands of anyone but the rightful recipient. “I made it for you, to convince you to come out to play with us.”
“Again, who is us, Prince Ruyi?”
Ruyi pouts. The eunuch who has been watching him from the door of Isan’s office steps in to explain that Ruyi has taken a liking to the peach garden, and that he comes back talking of ghosts and friends when none of the other advisers or servants can seem to see the same thing he does.
In a quieter voice, he adds less friendly things: how Ruyi is starved for attention with the Emperor and his mother busy with their respective duties and Prince Kiran constantly away on trips around the nation. Perhaps he only wants to rouse you, Emperor, he shall be banned from entering the peach garden to put on end to his foolishness—
At this, Ruyi and Isan respond with a resounding “No!” at the same time.
“The Prince shall continue to play wherever he pleases,” Isan says, his voice hard as ice. Ruyi preens. Inside, he is sticking out his tongue at the eunuch. Then, Isan’s focus turns back to him, and he quickly straightens his posture.
“This poem you have showed me seems to refer to the taming of the Crown. How did that topic come to you?”
“The Crown?” Ruyi scratches his head. He didn’t mention the Crown, the giant dragon sleeping on the roof of the red palace. “My friends helped me compose it,” he explains. “The first two verses are theirs, and then I added mine.”
Isan looks back at his scroll and the messy scrawl on top of it. Ruyi hopes he likes his verses. The poem goes as such:
Blood red rosehips with their twisted roots entangled, blades bridges and fruit.
Only the sharpest petal will ever get to bask in the sun.
But knives cut the fruit to ready for eating,
And on the bridge, we shall look at the flowers while drinking their juice.
It doesn’t mention the Crown once!
“Ruyi,” Isan says, and his voice is dangerously low. Ruyi rarely feels truly afraid of his brothers, but right now he does fear the Emperor as his eyes are locked on his. “Who exactly are those friends of yours?”
——
Ruyi couldn’t convince Kiran to come.
What he really, really wanted was to share his friends with his two older brothers. Sure, maybe he does revel at every shred of their attention like his teacher suggests, but that doesn’t make his matter less pressing. It’s important they both come! Lady Sun and Empress Yin tell stories about the importance of family and sharing what one has all the time (though the “sharing” part is mostly the latter), so for weeks Ruyi has tried his best to share his joy with his brothers. And after all that he still didn’t convince Kiran to come.
The Emperor could, however.
Now, Kiran trots behind them, grumbling to himself. He’s at that stage in life where everybody needs to cut a slice off him and no one knows what exactly it is they want. Ruyi has heard his mother say many fabulous things in conversation to the other ladies of the palace, of selling one’s hands and revealing cards and the magical game of courtship. Perhaps Kiran will be cheered up by this!
Today, the three brothers are in minimal company with only a frail advisor of Isan and few soldiers accompanying them to the peach garden. As soon as the Emperor’s soles hit the grass, he commands his men to halt. He turns, presenting his steely-eyed gaze to the others, but Ruyi is at eye height with his trembling fingers and notices. Even Isan’s trusted eunuch is told to stay behind, and Ruyi can’t contain his giddiness as the three advance further, finally alone.
“My friends should soon be here,” he babbles. “They’re always here. I can’t believe we’ve all come out to play!”
“I will not play,” Kiran immediately hisses. Ruyi’s eyes dart to Isan, but he doesn’t come to his aid like he wants him to. Instead, the Emperor looks straight ahead at the trees in front of them, and then at the shadowy figures taking form in the shade.
Ruyi gasps. “There they are!”
It’s like a stone has been lifted off his chest. He’d been afraid the ghosts wouldn’t appear the one day he’s brought his family—that would have been the worst of luck.
Once they’re close enough for a conversation, Ruyi steps forward to take the lead. “I brought my older brothers,” he announces proudly. All around him, the others are eerily silent, so it is apparently his task to be diplomatic and introduce them to each other.
“This here is Emperor Isan,” he begins, pointing at Emperor Isan. The man on the other side of his pointing finger does not look like an emperor at all, however, with his mouth agape and eyes wide open in shock. He looks instead like someone incapable of reading who’s trying to decipher the scrolls Ruyi’s teacher hands to him every morning.
“And that,” Ruyi continues, looking at Kiran, “is Prince Kiran, second son of the azalea castle.”
Although Kiran doesn’t look as sceptical anymore, he is still sporting that annoyed, bored expression he’d had ever since Isan and Ruyi had dragged him out.
“He is the second too!” the older ghost says, pointing at his little brother. Three heads turn their attention to him at once.
“Maro?” Isan asks hesitantly. Next to him, Kiran gasps, and Ruyi tilts his head. Maro? Where has he heard that name before?
“Well, allow me to introduce myself!“ Maro says formally. He looks up at them, still the same broad nose and light hair and smile that Ruyi has written countless of poems with.
“I am Prince Maro, first-born of Emperor Minzha. It’s my pleasure to meet you!”
“Maro?” Kiran chokes out. Isan drops to the dew-wet grass slowly and steadily, but with the beads of sweat on his forehead and struggle to hide his surprise, he looks entirely ungraceful.
Meanwhile, the dark-haired ghost’s eyes flicker from one prince to the next. His hand has found Maro’s to grab, and he holds him tight during the commotion. Ruyi is incredibly jealous—would Kiran let him hold his hand like this if he was scared? Would Isan? It is unbecoming of an emperor, but maybe if no one was there to see?
“We wanted to play,” Ruyi says slowly, looking back at his brothers. “Right?” He looks them up and down, their pale faces, their twitching mouths. “What’s wrong with you?”
“You don’t understand,” Kiran chokes. The words sound wet, like something is clawing its way up his throat. His eyes are fixed on—Maro, that’s his name. Huh. It’s weird to finally put a name to the face Ruyi has referred to as “older ghost” in his head. But the name does sound… right.
Kiran points at Maro’s little brother. “You must be Terren, then. Oh Ancestors, give me strength.”
Terren quickly slips back into Maro’s shadow, and Ruyi is utterly confused. Does Kiran know his friends? Have they played with him before?
Isan, still stricken with whatever emotion is troubling him, catches Ruyi’s confused look and explains. “Ruyi, Maro and Terren are your older brothers. Our older brothers,” he corrects himself. “Those who died taming the Crown.”
Ruyi looks back at his friends—his brothers.
“Ah.”
He has heard their names before, of course he has. Warnings from Lady Sun, stories from eunuchs, praise from the murals and legends, and anything between from the Empress herself during the rare occasions she agreed to talk to him about the first and second prince. His older brothers.
“I can meet you?” Ruyi gasps. Oh, how he’s been jealous of his brothers for being old enough to possess memories of the deceased princes. Snippets, in Kiran’s case, but more than Ruyi has, nonetheless. He has heard terrible things about Terran, things that made him have nightmares, and the Empress had called Prince Maro a coward when one night her tongue had been loosened enough to slip. But his friends are neither terrible nor cowards.
“Who are you?” Maro asks him, and Terren looks his way, too, curious. He doesn’t look like a boy who can wield a thousand blades. There’s snot under his nose.
“Prince Ruyi!” Prince Ruyi announces. “Youngest of the red palace.”
“That’s so cool!” Maro cheers. “We’ve been playing with our baby brother!”
Ruyi blows up his cheeks. “I’m no baby!” he protests, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Before he can defend himself further, Isan asks, shakily, “What have you been playing?”
“Dueling Couplets,” Terren whispers. Only his eyes peek out past Maro’s shoulder. Both Isan and Kiran look like they want to sob, or scream.
“Do you know how to play?” Ruyi asks them. When he receives sign of even being heard, he sighs and starts to explain. He’s never seen his brothers this solemn, the Emperor this exhausted. But they nod when he’s finished, and Kiran even offers to go first.
Even midnight can reveal many secrets
When the full moon is kind enough to shine.
But secret or not, whatever revealed,
Don’t trust the silver to show it in full.
Maro’s addition is good, but not as fun as the ones about animals. Throughout the afternoon, the princes take turns creating their own poems, until the sun stands so low all Ruyi sees are orange shadows.
“You are kinder than I remember, and much quieter,” Kiran tells Terran, when they have sat in the grass for hours. The note in his voice is something impossible to decipher.
“He is a child,” Isan steps in before Terran or Maro can say anything. “Of course he is kind. He has not been…” He searches for words. “Nothing bad has happened to him.”
Yet, goes unsaid, and Ruyi wonders what Isan might know. Conjecture is frowned upon, so Ruyi can only concentrate on what he can see, which is Kiran’s thin lips and unsure tongue.
“Nonetheless I can’t believe this would turn into the Terren I knew,” Kiran says. Under his words, Terren shrinks back into Maro’s side, lips trembling.
“Stop it,” Isan grunt, voice loaden with power. “There is—come.” He stands, tugging Kiran aside to whisper, but his voice is used to speaking to wide halls full of listeners and Ruyi is adept at listening in.
“You do not have to forgive Terren for what he has done. I do not condone it either. However, this—” he gestures towards the ghosts, “is not the Terren either of us knew. He has not done any of the things your mind accuses him of. He is as innocent as any—as Ruyi. Don’t be bitter over the acts of a long-dead man, and don’t punish his infant soul for what he did as an adult.”
“He is Terren,” Kiran hisses back, hands desperately pulling at his own hair. “He has his eyes, he—he has his eyes. And Maro… I can’t unsee how he fought, in the end.”
“Listen,” Isan commands, quieter this time. “This is not the Terren or Maro we have met. Look at this like a chance to meet your brothers, as their untampered selves, before they were burdened by the same problems we struggle with. If you do not want to join us, I understand, but don’t let your anger out on those who don’t deserve it. Understand?”
When they sit back down, Kiran forces himself to smile. “It is… fun playing with you,” he tells Terren and Maro. Maro smiles up at them, small and frail.
How is he supposed to be the oldest prince, Ruyi wonders. He can’t imagine a universe without Isan on the throne.
“Do you want to create a poem with more verses? One for all of us?” he proposes. He’s breaking their already established rule of two players only, but in light of recent events, Ruyi believes Terren and Maro could be inclined to try it out.
“I which order?” Isan asks. A solemn sort of atmosphere has sunken over their circle. It’s like their time is almost over—which, of course it is, it is dark and Ruyi’s bedtime—but this feels like a heavier end than bedtime. Isan sounds like he is saying goodbye.
“Perhaps by order of birthdays?” Maro suggests, and Terren huffs in agreement. Ruyi wants to complain, but one look at his brothers—all four of them—reveals he is already outvoted. And a prince does not complain.
Their poem goes like this:
I believe that to be free is to fly like a fish, and swim like a bird,
Burn under moonlight until your face peels and freeze, bumps on the skin, in the sun.
But I don’t know how to hide from a shadow or outrun the wind,
So heavy I must carry the stone of my body through life.
And for the next thousand years I shall carry it,
Taking both worn-down trails and unused footpaths alike.
All to find the centre of the storm,
Where I can look into the eyes of my ancestors to ask,
Can I outrun the wind? Can I hide from a shadow?
All so they tell me, you already did.
It is the first poem they ever make together.
It will also be the last.
Ruyi is taken by the maids and nurses to bring him to his chambers, and he can only be swayed to go because he knows his friends (brothers!) will still be there tomorrow. Stomping through the grass, he looks over his shoulder by the entry to the peach garden, and sees Isan and Kiran sit with Maro and Terren. The sight of their conversation makes his little heart swell, and Ruyi imagines countless days in the future where all four of them can play and talk all day long. This, he thinks, would be paradise.
—
The next days, Ruyi cries and weeps and wails when Terren and Maro are nowhere to be found. Ghosts can come back, his servants tell him, sharing incredulous looks when he repeats his brothers’ names to them. No one can tell why or when they leave, his master sighs when Ruyi can’t focus on his books. Perhaps their unfinished business is done or curiosities have been sated. Perhaps it is for the better.
It can’t be, Ruyi thinks. For the first few days, he goes around kicking the walls and shouting at servants and refusing even his mother. Then, after a week of fighting, Kiran stands at his door, armed with a scroll and a pot of ink, and challenges him.
“Let’s play Coupling Poems.”
“Dueling Couplets,” Ruyi corrects, and his fit is in the past. He wipes the tears out of his eye, concentrates on his living brothers, and smiles when he walks past the paintings of Terren and Maro. Two terrible princes, who wrote the sweetest poetry the red palace had ever seen.
Ruyi shall not forget them, he cannot possibly. Not when it is their blood in his veins, their temper under his skin, their fingers guiding his every brushstroke.
Bridges, Blades, Fruit, and Storm in blood-red sigils. Ruyi cannot wait to wear the connection to his brother on his skin.