The sound of crickets and empty howls echoed through the night and darkness although the imperial grounds were splashed with lanterns to create light and make a clear pathway, the place was still cloaked in darkness.
Xin-yi exhaled, dragging her sash tighter around her waist, her hair spilling into her face and she pulled them back. The day was dark but her life was darker, bleaker than any night to come and days gone by.
She scratched her head as she tried gathering her hair together, she forgot to pin her hair letting it loose and it was so long she wanted to cut them but remembered the promise she made to a certain someone never to cut them but only trim it.
And she couldn't ever break such a promise no matter how miserable the hair was leaving her in such a miserable place. She sighed again, the number of times she'd breathed out was innumerable.
She licked her lips as she walked down the road leading to the garden, cleaned and covered in wildflowers, her hand rested upon them sliding down as she walked. It was rough but beautiful just like her life in the palace.
Sometimes she wondered what her life was going to end like, she had no social life. No friends or acquaintances, only people that hated and envied her for being able to talk to the crown prince without no title and respect.
Like two normal people
What she would pay to get out of these walls and live a normal life without the constant pain and distractions from everyone, especially the person she was going to see that'd whispered to her to come see him.
She plucked a flower and tossed it away into the same bed. She reached the entrance of the main garden, a wooden sign up woven with thorns of roses that had weaved their way out of the garden to the wood.
It didn't say anything, just a reminder that this place was off limits to many people and not just from the wooden sign board but from the thorns that inadvertently added to the sacredness of the place.
She straightened her back, no matter how close they were or still is. He was still a royal and a crown prince at that. The next emperor after his father. She was far below him.
She plod her way in and like the lanterns that scattered around the garden creating a halo on every single place of its sitting up in the air felt her, it clanked together and she gulped trying to feather her steps but the silhouette of someone behind the cherry blossom tree at the middle of the garden caught her attention and she knew who it was.
She stood watching as he paced near the tree, lost in thoughts. His head hung low and his face folded into the tightest frown she had seen on his face. He was worried but why.
Her steps rushed and she sprinted her way around to him. He was in the middle and she needed to walk around many routes to reach him, when she arrived she saw him again, this time still.
Calm and collected, his posture rigid as he gazed up to the night sky, the moon shining so bright with the stars filtering around it. She swallowed whatever had clogged in her throat.
Her hands went clammy and she rubbed them on her cloth and drew a quick breath to approach him but the rough sound of that familiar voice she knew like the sound of hers went through the small space that was left between them.
Controlled and deep, he asked, his face still up to the sky "You are late?"
Ohhhh
She thought it was something else but yeah, she needed to make a quick run for the empress and that delayed her but then again she was here. She tried to come early but couldn't.
Xin-Yi hummed "yeah, the empress asked me to get something for—"
"When I tell you to meet me at a certain time. You tell anyone who is about to send you on an errand that the crown prince asked for you at that certain time, Xin-Yi. How many—"
"I know who I am, you don't have to keep on rubbing it in my face, Your Highness. I—"
"It's Li to you. Xin" he gritted out, she could hear the edge and growl beneath his voice and she rolled her eyes, turning to face the other side.
"You no longer act like Li to me and more like the crown prince. I think we should keep at that."
He angled his head first before whirling around to her, his movement slow and calculated, his expression void as his eyes found hers under the moonlight. The wind blew, taking her hair with it. She shivered and pulled her shawl she brought along with her tighter.
"What do you mean?"
Xin-Yi sighed, the sound flew across them and they both felt the weight of her exhalation. "Seriously Li why am I here? I'm so tired right now, I just want to rest. There are more work for me tomorrow and I don't want to miss any inch of rest I can get"
He moved closer, light and unhurried, closing the distance between them making the headpiece on his hair glint in the light, "You just said Li just now. Xin"
Xin-Yi retreated, her eyes everywhere but not at him and she acted like she didn't hear what he said, not like she knew when she blurted out the name "you asked me to meet up with you here. I'm now here Li-Rong or maybe should I call you your highness" she said, scoffing, her words laced with derision "if you don't have anything you want to say to me" she inclined her head, but her eyes clashed with his "I will be leaving your highness"
Xin-Yi let her words sink in as it hung in the air between them, she curtsied again and turned and left not once looking back to see what became of him. She knew his anger and how he managed it and knew someone was going to get a hit out of that but she didn't care.
She'd stopped caring when no one did for her. When the world took the one person that made life bearable and worthy enough to live in. The care and love within her died after the person died but as she went out the wooden sigh, she knew not caring was a lie.
She was starting to care and she didn't like it because now there were many and she didn't know how to handle such distractions.