As the days passed, their relationship stayed quite good, ameliorating even. In his free time, he indulged her enough to have little black stay still for her to draw it completely, harmless drawings that were piling up now, hiding well, the sketches of him at the bottom of the piles. The horse was... a willing participant, not that she would be testing its willingness to have her on its back anytime near.

A letter, one from the capital that he was waiting for finally arrived. It was actually a decree.

An imperial order.

***

She was… quiet. It wasn’t that she was too much of a talkative person but she was never this quiet in bed. And while kissing her, caressing, hoping to hear a moan escaped from her lips–or even a giggle -, Ru Shan Yong found, for the first time, that she was biting her inner cheeks, firmly keeping her mouth shut, desperately holding herself back from making any sound.

And he couldn’t quite understand why.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” he whispered to her prizing her mouth open with a finger, which she bit too. Ruthlessly, holding on for dear life and had it been a softer hand, she would be tasting blood already.

The general didn’t have too much of a reaction, instead, wondering what was happening in her head. She had been ever so strange since he talked about going.

“You’ll hurt your teeth,” he whispered again, contemplating for a moment to open her mouth with another finger to release the first but deciding against it when she just added pressure on her teeth. Least he broke one of them now.

There was a flicker of anger in her eyes as she saw him not reacting still and he thought, she wanted him angry too… and he couldn’t understand why.

In the end, she released him herself, her eyes blaming him… of what… he didn’t know. He was ever so familiar with her glares and if before he could actually state the reasons why she was usually angry with him, -which most of the time if not all of them were related to Li Ming Qi- now, he absolutely didn’t know why and it wasn’t for the lack of trying.

Such a hard person to understand.

He snuggled to her neck, inhaling her scent, trying to memorize it for no real reason he could name. Maybe because this time they were going to be separated for a longer period and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t come back.

“Mu Rong An”, the words left his lips, her breath hitched in response.

He felt her tensed under him.

“Repeat it,” came her voice in a shaky breath, “Repeat my name.”

Ru Shan Yong lifted himself up, his eyes searching hers under the dim light of the candles. She was staring at him with a bit of uneasiness, a bit of scare; a bit of… apprehension… and he couldn’t understand the fixation she had with her name. The fear she was feeling at this very moment… that state of almost losing her sanity.

And how could he? He had never loved to the point of insanity. He had been heartbroken yes, but nowhere near what she had felt. Maybe because she had loved for a longer time or maybe because hers was an unhealthy one. The kind which didn’t know restraint…That tearing pain of seeing her beloved choose another, seeing him take another person’s side, seeing him call and whisper that person’s name ever so lovingly. Ah, these people had had no qualm in flaunting their love to her face… and beyond losing face, how much she had hurt.

Mu Rong An. Mu Rong An. Didn’t she have a sweet name too? Wasn’t it a beautiful one too? Was it so difficult to spell?

It didn’t matter at this very moment that Ru Shan Yong wouldn’t be saying her name with the same adoration that Hen Ru Ying had in his voice when calling Li Ming Qi. Mu Rong An felt that she would be contented if she was called if she was, this time, the one whose name left the person she wanted’s lips; she would have then, maybe, the illusion of being the one chosen.

“Mu Rong An,” he indulged her, his voice, even though one used to shout for his men on the training ground or a battlefield, this same voice was now incredibly soft as it enounced the syllables composing her person; saying her name like a caress, like someone he really cared for.

He saw her smile. Not the kind she would have, that polite stretch of her lips, perfect replications of palace etiquettes. She had perfectioned those to the point that, even fake smiles could appear real, warming her eyes, blocking her behind that illusion of serenity. Oh, how he never liked it. All those ceremonial in the palace and those people he could never completely read. People with whom one should always have his guard up, whose words always had twice, thrice and sometimes far more meanings. Those same people from whom the second prince was always trying to find a breather against… and Ru Shan Yong, too used to his surrounding filled with blunt people, simple and most of the time direct ones, was finding those people’s proximity even less pleasant than Hen Ru Ying who had grown accustomed to them since childhood.

Yet the person in his bed, in his arm, under him at this very moment was the living representation of all of that… nevertheless, the idea of being anywhere else didn’t graze his mind at this exact instant.

Her lips were trembling a bit, the smile didn’t reach her eyes and he was in a bit of dismay, wondering if this was a fake one too. She stretched her right hand to his lips, her fingers shaking slightly as they touched his lower lip,

“Again,” she asked of him in a barely audible voice.

He took hold of the stretched hand and placed a kiss in the middle of her palm. It appeared to Ru Shan Yong, for the very first time that this woman too, could be sincerely fragile sometimes.

“Mu Rong An,” he whispered against her palm.

She stretched the other hand and touched his face, holding it between both hands. His curtain of hair framing his face, slipped between her fingers. He let her do as she looked at him, intently, as if it was the very first time she was seeing him, really seeing him.

“Mu Rong An,” he repeated to her and she grinned again.

He could feel her smile still even when he bent down and kissed her. Tongues touching, breath mingling, suddenly more than it had ever been. The silly smile was still on her face as they parted, and maybe that was what prompted him to keep saying it all through the night.

Her messy thoughts scattered and left her for a time as she became mindless saved for his lips on her neck, on her breasts, lips that kept on repeating her name ever so gently.

He lost count on how many times it left his lips but at one point, she echoed it with his, over and over and over again until it felt like they were both drowning in those names.

As they came, both their names died in the other person’s mouth, lips locked together. Yet when they parted, Ru Shan Yong felt a wetness on her cheek that had him startled.

“Did I hurt you?”

How could he have? He was far gentler than she ever thought it humanly possible. Nonetheless, he seemed horrified with the thought and a ghost of a smile appeared on her lips as she murmured a broken ‘no’, smiling but not smiling at the same time, those unruly tears not listening to her as they kept on dampening her face.

Sanity came back, and with it, even messier thoughts.

The gentler he was, the more scared she became.

In no position to know the happenings in her head, he could only wipe her face and draw her closer to him, letting her lie on his chest, and for more than once now, he wished he could be privy to her thoughts. She held him tight and he inhaled her hair’s scent, gently tapping her back. At this very moment, he knew, it would lead him to nowhere if he asked, for she wouldn’t respond.

***

It was a little hot despite it being dawn. The sky was still a little dark with rays of orange from afar. But why was it that she was so cold? So horribly cold? She was saying goodbye… it wasn’t the first time… yet how scared she was that it was going to be the last one? Why were such ideas in her mind for days now… refusing to leave her alone? Something impossible to share but maddeningly clawing at her sanity?

He was already in his armor this time and she watched mindlessly as he finished wearing it by himself as he usually did.

Ru Shan Yong was quite confident though and she nonetheless was overthinking things. She smiled, a pitiful effort for her own self maybe.

She found that recently she had been feeling… glad, joyful and dared she said… happy, so immensely happy… and the realization of that… got her overthinking things... Being happy wasn’t in her plan…, never had it been, really… She had thought she would be living her last days the way she wanted to… not bending to anyone’s will but hers and she would be contented with that no matter where her decisions lead her to… yet she grew happy here… and now she was desperately holding onto the hope that it wouldn’t disappear…

If she had married Hen Ru Ying as had been her childish dreams, if Li Ming Qi never showed up, she would have lead a life where she would have had to share her husband with some concubines. He was, after all, a prince and for the sake of being virtuous, she would have said yes to him expanding his rear court a bit somewhere far in the future. Following the three morals and four virtues, if only on the surface. She didn’t doubt though that it would have been like it was with her mother, she would have, of course, oppressed these concubines, make their life as uncomfortable as possible if they were too daring and mayhap, wouldn’t have let them have children easily. Even like that though, she could have supported it, would have to, were her thoughts at the time. She would have been the main wife and be contented with it knowing that she had her husband’s love for her. What of concubines? With her talents, she would have made sure that it was only the minimum. A life she was ready for, had been trained for all along.

However… why was it that she was happy right now? Really, she had a belly full of complaints about living here was far from what she found pleasing… at the same time… not living here… that idea was far more annoying…

If Mu Rong An had to define what she felt in view of that marriage she had with Ru Shan Yong it would be plain possessiveness. She had always been a person who didn’t like to share and since the situation wasn’t one in which she cared if her husband was seeing a good side of her, she had made it quite plain to him, not caring that he would find her unvirtuous. Anyway, he was someone already aware of the unvirtuous nature of her being.

Yet, despite all of the things she could hate in his manor -and they were many actually- she found that her days when he was here weren’t so bad.

A stolen happiness… how far could it run?

How many fates did the change of hers altered? How many lived because of her, how many died because she changed the path intended for her?...

Mu Rong An found that she didn’t care. The whole world could explode and everyone dies that she wouldn’t care. The only one’s fates she cared about were hers, her loved ones… and now his too. And she wondered a bit if she wasn’t going crazier.

The events forwarded by so many months and all she could think about was how she was supposed to die around a time like this and how her life… the one that she managed to save… could actually be replaced by …another’s death. His.

Why did she keep on seeing deaths in her dreams lately?

“What is it?” he halted when he was finished with his hair’s ornament. The expression she had on the face was… an intriguing one.

“Nothing.” She replied to him. And for once, she found, that no matter how much she willed it, the smile couldn’t form itself on her lips.

“Don’t do that… Don’t start lying... Not to me.”

Ru Shan Yong was frowning trying to understand her. She barely slept, had awoken long before him, that he knew, and even when he started readying himself she sat there, on their bed, just staring at him without saying anything. Her head was on her knees, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, tightened on her body calling for a heat that she lacked. She was trembling ever so slightly.

He cupped her cheek and she inhaled a bit at the contact of his skin on hers, turning her head to press a kiss on his palm, mindlessly.

Yet she said nothing.

Ru Shan Yong wasn’t sure what he was waiting for himself. He wished she would talk though.

“Take her with you.” The words were whispered, soft, heating blows on his hand, that he barely caught.

But he really didn’t seem to understand.

“Feng Xi.” She added.

She had won, didn’t she? Mu Rong An could feel good about that, there weren’t any amorous feelings in him when she evoked Feng Xi.

And as she was thinking such, the only thing in his mind was ‘she was so not like her usual self.’

“Why?”

Because she got his back. Because she was supposed to be there. Because they were supposed to help each other and saved each other’s lives. Because… Because Mu Rong An wanted him to live… in this tormented moment of febrile insanity, she could lock her selfishness for a time and truthfully willed him to live.

She had many reasons she could state, reasons she rather died than stated… so short words left her lips,

“She’s good with a sword.”

Ru Shan Yong waited for a moment and when it didn’t seem like she would be adding anything, he said,

“And so are my men.”

“…” She already talked once, she wouldn’t be vouching for the woman twice.

“But she’s really good,” he acknowledged, “that’s why she would be staying with you. One more guard won’t do you any bad. A woman at that, more appropriate to follow you everywhere.”

She pursed her lips into a thin line but didn’t say anything. Reinforcement from the capital had already come. He was leaving now to take charge and in the coming days, the evacuation of the population would be organized. They were all ready and set, far more prepared than they should have been originally… and only she was cast with infinite nightmares and bad days.

Just why was she suddenly plagued with so many black thoughts?

“You won’t be dying.” He felt the need to assure her, “There isn’t any danger threatening your life.”

She just looked at him uninterestingly, not lifting her head from her knees and with eyes closed, she exhaled, feeling suddenly so… tired.

“…I know.”

“Go back to sleep.”

“Not sleepy,” she mumbled with eyes closed, willing the bloody scenes behind those eyelids to disappear too.

“I’ll come home.” He suddenly said which had her staring at him.

Fragile was certainly not a word that should be used to describe this person yet as she was now, he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember those times when all he could think about was wringing her neck. And they were supposed to be many.

“We will then return to the capital.” Taking the road back to the capital at this very moment wasn’t really doable, he could only have her wait for him.

Ru Shan Yong had no plan to die. –Did anyone ever have when going to the battlefield?-. Still, Ru general was confident in his return. And he found that he quite liked it, the idea that maybe, what was depriving her of sleep at this moment was her fearing for his life, even if only for a little bit.

***

Mu Rong An had sat there on her bed, not accompanying him anywhere at all, not seeing him off either. The disappearing neighing and clapping sounds of the horses' hooves on the ground told her all she had to know whether she wanted to or not... and the silence that resided after was one that she didn't quite like. She sat there, long after he was gone, as the sky cleared and the day reigned. She let herself lie on the bed again.

In the end, it wasn't something she had any power to control.

Mu Rong An found long after when she finally got out of bed and stopped sending her servants away when they were trying to come in with food, that maybe, she should have actually gone out to talk to him before he went; for really, he knew how to be stubborn. Didn't she say she was fine without Feng Xi being here? What then was the woman doing in this manor?

The woman was saluting her and this time, for once, dressed in women clothes. Mu Rong An was really in no mood for that, so she tried having the other servants and even guards see her out. Yet, the general's wife got apologized to, for it seemed it was the only order they couldn't follow. Ru Shan Yong knew after all, that she didn't like the other woman.

She could hear her own voice again, praising the woman's swordsmanship. Really, it had been so that she would follow him, not her!

Hearing those servants' words, Mu Rong An had a warm smile that her husband had grown now to recognize as false and a particular sign of anger. As she stood preparing to rebuke them all, she swayed a bit and Feng Xi rushed to steady her.

And if on the moment Mu Rong An wasn't particularly pleased with it, later she felt that she could be dizzy all day long that she certainly wouldn't mind much!

For, really, the sole reason why she started not minding the fact that she started living under the same roof as Feng Xi was certainly that the physician, after prompting her to eat, told her she was expecting. Really expecting. Hearing such a news, her mood cleared and her stormy thoughts finally left the place to clearer ones. Ah, even Feng Xi’s face was quite bearable to see now.

Nothing could have occupied her thoughts and cleared her mind better than that. And she was the one feeling all restless now not knowing what to do with her euphoria. Her servants were ushering to sit still. but she had waited for so long... to finally hear such a good thing, really, she was overflowing with joy. She listened without really listening to the physician, it was mostly her servants that were, she was far too occupied with touching her stomach, imagining it swollen... Imagining being a mother... to Ru Shan Yong's child...

A pity that she had already departed, she wondered how he would have reacted to hearing it? ... She was far too glad at this moment to conjure negative thoughts so of course, he would have been happy!

She did collect her bearings though and the silly smile left the place to a polite one as she thanked the physician and asked for the precautions to take and the prescription for her to follow.

***

Feng Xi was to be her closest guard yes that she could accept, but for the time, since they were still in the manor, Mu Rong An really didn't have to have that person near her every day. They would talk sometimes but it wasn't like Feng Xi herself was someone who particularly liked sitting without doing much so most of the time she could be found with the other guards, dueling, somewhere in the manor or revisiting their itinerary for the incoming days.

And by her side, Mu Rong An would occupy her days liked she used to. Drawing, playing... wondering a bit how to be a mother... daydreaming a lot more about that than other things actually.

Lifting her brush, she found that it was actually quite easy to imagine a child. A healthy and plump one. Now a boy or a girl? Caressing her still flat stomach over her clothes, she wondered a bit if she asked for both, would it be considered being greedy?

It didn't matter in the end, she drew both anyway, trying to find features that could match them. When thinking about Ru Shan Yong, there was always a shadow of doubts that she would cast aside quickly. Her mind coming back to what she was doing previously. A girl with his eyes, his nose; a boy with her hair, her ears, her mouth. And then she inverted.

She filled her days like that. Even thinking further in the future, contemplating how their features would be at three, at five... when they had yet to be born.

When putting her things back at night, she found the carefully hidden earrings that hid poison. It seemed so far away the time when she had put it in her ear thinking about the worst.

With a glimmer of hope for the future, she had her personal servants get rid of the earrings. At the place left, she found good to put a small white stone. One of the garden's stones. If only as a memento of her first year here. It was as white as her earing had been blue, almost sparkling, yet the meaning entirely opposed.

***

When the evacuation started, everyone was mixed together. Villagers and officials and a part of the army was their escort. They were to go to a city where they would stay behind the safety of its large doors. They wouldn't be taking the open road but skirting around it. Some with horses others with feet, carriages.

When they met, Feng Xi asked if her friends, Ah Mei and Yan Mi could actually stay with their group. Mu Rong An discovered a soft spot in her recently for children and anyway, she quite liked Yan Mi so the idea wasn't rejected.

Of course, they weren’t sharing sleeping places but just the carriages. Yan Mi would sometimes sit in the carriage with her and Feng Xi, or he would go to the other carriage with Ah Mei and some of her servants.

***

It wasn't always easy to fall asleep at night. She would usually lay early willing for days to pass quickly and when she couldn't quite sleep, she would take out that random stone she had picked up. It was a simple stone, really, all round and cold; but it was warm in her hand, and the warmth spread. She would smooth her thumb over the edges, mechanical action that helped her imagined behind her closed eyelids the garden where the rock had been picked up from and she would find herself thinking about the scenery there in a better climate, wondering how it would be if the flowers were all blooming. Usually, she would fall asleep with the small stone in her hand. The weight of it is like her thoughts, all heavy and light at the same time.

Feng Xi was outside Mu Rong An's tent, it was her turn to guard, the others weren't too far anyway. Ah Mei who couldn't sleep still came to sit by her friend's side and they started talking. And as usual with them, the discussion was quite long once started.

And as they talked they got to a point were Ah Mei lamented a bit that Feng Xi wasn’t actually the one being the general’s wife, she thought, somehow, they would have made sense. So couldn't help herself but think so.

Feng Xi laughed it off. Really, the person was a good catch, she would lie if she said she wasn’t attracted even now; however, he was married and no matter what… Feng Xi was quite unwilling to lose herself, her value, even if she had lived for a long time in this world now, to actually become someone’s concubine... she couldn't do it... If she had to settle down it would be with someone who would have her and only her alone.

It was true though, that there was a bit of a heartache in her when she thought back to those time she spent in the general's company... despite knowing she was a woman he hadn't look down on her and actually had listened as she proposed her ideas, praising her even... and sometimes she couldn't help but wondered what if...

“The next time you will talk, will be last time you’ll have a tongue!” said a sharp voice behind them, and Ah Mei scaredly turned around to see Mu Rong An standing behind her at the tent's entry, covered in blanket her eyes glaring directly at her and if they could, would have kill her on spot.

Thinking back at what she said, she had never thought that she could be heard so she hastily apologized. Her first impression of that general's wife wasn't one she had liked but it still didn't permit her to say such words and never could have Ah Mei thought that the other wasn't asleep. It was so late in the night already and she had been the first one between them all to go to sleep.

Ah Mei felt Feng Xi patted her trembling hand, reassuring silently that it was going to be alright she would handle it. And indeed, Feng Xi proceeded to apologize on her friend's behalf, a bit remorseful now that she was the one who usually encouraged Ah Mei to talk to mind.

But the boss there definitely wasn't in the mood to listen nor forgive now, Feng Xi felt that maybe she too, wouldn't be in such circumstances,

And that was how Ah Mei lost the privilege of a carriage ride although Feng Xi prevented it from being anything worst.

***

At the end of the journey, they arrived in Lan City where they were welcomed, Mu Rong An being invited to an official's residence. Her face was the definition of politeness, yet her mood swinging between sour and sourer these days. She couldn't quite help it, Feng Xi's face got even less pleasing to the eye than before something the other seemed to have caught on, for now, she was trying to avoid meeting face to face as much as possible, an arrangement that wasn't displeasing Mu Rong An.

The time passed even slower there, her stomach swelling ever so lightly.

She could resume then, with her previous activities and even rekindled with lost ones, as there were many who were inviting her left and right but most of the time, Mu Rong An had to decline, assisting to the barest minimum for the sake of politeness.

If asked, she would say that everything was going alright, really. That was why she absolutely couldn't understand then.

She just woke up, one day with blood on her thighs. Too much blood. And before she could register it herself, she was already screaming, the thought of face the last thing in her mind.

“No” she cried, “please, no”

And the horror got confirmed later when a fast fetched physician said as much. There was no longer any baby in her.

Her baby, her dear baby... Ru Shan Yong's child... lost to her...

He was gone, just like that... and she didn't even know why!

And just like that the silly bubble of life that she started to imagine pop without her able to do anything about it. The babies she was dreaming about dying before even taking a single breath.

And she was herself no longer.