Tayana yawned and stared at the sunset while she ate her breakfast. Her new night shift had a variety of advantages: it paid more; it was quieter; and she could play with everyone in Endless Song after work, instead of before work. It made her weekend feel completely upside down though.

There was one other advantage that she planned to make use of tonight: the VR rental place had an eight hour "overnight" package from midnight to 8am.

She finished her food and neatened her little room. There was a time that she would have considered this space a closet, and there had been a time when she would have considered any private space at all to be completely luxurious. At the moment it felt a bit bare and lonely.

The full motion VR console was the obvious star of the furnishings. Her little mattress hardly took up as much space, and had a much lower profile. Her clothes never left their two laundry baskets, they simply moved from the clean one to the dirty one between washings.

She was tempted to log in for the extra hour she was left with, but even though it was silly, she kind of wanted to surprise the Merchant, or rather, the Emperor who was Kit Tay's husband. It probably made no difference to the NPC which device she logged in from though.

She wondered if anything would have changed when she interacted with the traveling merchant again. What would it be like meeting the wife of your other identity? There had been some very creepy movies about such scenarios, but Kit couldn't imagine the cheerful merchant being involved in that kind of drama.

She thought that for herself, it would be like meeting her husband at his workplace, or some other situation where he had to stay formal. Her expression dimmed as the thought occurred to her that an emperor might have to be formal all the time.

She shook her head and remembered the way he'd held her hands. He had already allowed her to cling to him if she wanted to. It would be okay, she told herself firmly.

--

Tayana nodded again as the technician repeated the warning that VR play was not sleep, and that she needed to schedule time to rest after her long session. She'd already explained that she currently worked nights, but the technician was obviously just following a routine.

When she finally logged in to 'Living Jade Empire', she took a deep breath of the seemingly lightly sweet scented air, stretched her arms out and wiggled her fingers, and then she remembered. The last time she'd used VR, she'd held her baby. He hadn't been 'real' but she still missed him anyway.

A pair of arms slid around her and Tayana froze. "Welcome back," said a familiar voice beside her ear and she spun in his arms and hugged him. He was so warm and real feeling, that she started to cry.

"Kit, my love? What's wrong?" asked the Jade Emperor.

"Nothing," she insisted.

"You're using a different game system to connect, is it causing you any distress?" he asked gently.

Kit laughed through her tears. "No. No, it's really comfortable. I forgot how comfortable it could be."

She raised her face to kiss him. He was a little taller than the traveling merchant, but the difference wasn't enough that she couldn't dismiss it as a different pair of shoes. For all she knew, that was actually the difference.

When he kissed her, a jolt of pleasure tingled through her, and she giggled. He lifted an eyebrow at her inquiringly. Kit shook her head. Nobody had limited the Jade Emperor's stats to a purely human range, and she was never going to tell anyone.

"I missed you," she whispered.

He caressed her cheek. "I am always glad when you return, my dearest Empress," he assured her. He slid her hand into his warm clasp and lead her into the garden hidden at the center of his celestial palace.