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Min was small. Small and stubborn and ever so ready to fight in ways that gave Maomao a headache. She would think that her soul would be as capable of letting things go as she was, and yet time and again, she had to pull him out of some mess or another and end up in the middle of it herself. They both were nosy, but at least Maomao knew when it was safer to shut up and move on.
"You're going to get us killed someday," she told her daemon as he crawled along her hand in the form of a small brown lizard.
"Will not." Min shifted into a viper, small but fierce. "If anyone tries to kill you, I'd bite them."
"You're not big enough to do much damage. And touching people is taboo." Maomao didn't quite understand why. Sometimes she saw clients try to touch the daemons of courtesans. They usually were stopped, something uncomfortable and unsettled on the girls' faces, so she knew there was something bad about it. Something violating.
"Then I'll bite their daemon to dust!"
"And then we'll be arrested for murder," Maomao said wryly. She liked when Min became something small and deadly though. Courtesans were encouraged to have their daemons Settle as something pretty. Small, pretty, unassuming. Failing that, something exotic and exciting. Not something like a snake. Most of the women at the verdigris house had songbirds or small mammals as their daemons.
Maomao hoped Min would Settle into something as far from the pretty courtesan daemons as possible.
o*O*o
It was said that trauma did strange things to daemons, be it physical trauma or mental. Maomao knew her own experience; after her mother cut off her little finger, Min had been static for weeks, stuck in the shape of a fledgling songbird. The time was one of their first memories. It was only after she started healing physically and mentally that Min started changing again. And there had been girls at the brothel whose daemons Settled because of bad things happening to them. Another whose daemon didn't Settle for far later than her agemates because whatever hurt she experienced made it hard for her mind to be anywhere but in the moment. There were drugs that were also said to prolong the time it took to Settle far past puberty, though Maomao hadn't seen such cases personally. Maybe that was why Jinshi was a curiosity. She almost never saw his daemon—could have believed he was severed except that he didn't behave like someone that had been through that particular kind of trauma. The few times she did, it was something different than the last time.
His daemon seemed to prefer small forms, things that could go unnoticed, which was so far from the cultivated personality he put forward that it only drew attention to how fake the sparkling smiles he sent at people were. Almost always mammals. Maomao didn't even know what the daemon's name was, and had never heard it speak.
It was normal not to know that sort of thing about someone above your class. Maomao had no reason to know. If she had her way, she'd keep not knowing because it would mean that she wasn't getting too invested in her life here, and that Jinshi wasn't getting too invested in her.
Still, one of the few times Min and Jinshi's daemon weren't hiding beneath their clothing, the two had gravitated toward each other in a way that was upsetting if she stopped to examine the implications. Social strata had lines. What someone could or could not do to interact with an equal's daemon was complicated enough. Add social difference into the mix... Min should never get close enough to acknowledge Jinshi's daemon let alone gently bump noses as the two examined each other.
It wasn't just her that found it weird. Gaoshun had cast the interaction a sideways glance, his dhole daemon's ears flicking back with discomfort. Jinshi continually surprised her in treating her differently than many people of high birth. It shouldn't have been a surprise that his soul followed suit and yet it was.
Sometime before the debacle with the sabotaged ceremony, Min crawled up her arm to coil by her ear. "Her name is Yueyuan," he said, voice only audible to her, barely carrying past her head on its pillow. "I think she will be Settling soon."
"Don't go poking your nose into trouble," Maomao murmured back.
"You're the one that gets into trouble. At least I don't have as much to possibly injure."
"You know what I mean."
"..." Min's thin tongue tickled against her cheek as he flicked it reflexively. "I think they care about us."
"Does it matter when rank and duties keep us in different worlds?"
"He lets himself be young with us," Min said like it was the most important thing in the world. Like they could afford to be young. Maomao knew she crossed lines of propriety too often when Jinshi showed that childish side. It was dangerous to get comfortable. Min sighed when she didn't answer, moving to curl along the crook of her neck and shoulder, just inside the collar of her robe. "We're allowed to like someone," he whispered.
Maomao pretended not to hear. After all, liking someone was dangerous in its own right. Liking someone, especially someone of higher social standing, was a doomed endeavor. Maomao's birth was evidence of that. Two people could like each other, or be friends, and none of that would matter when life made demands on them. They shouldn't get involved any more than they already were. Normally Min was practical enough to keep that in mind. This time she'd have to be the practical one.
o*O*o
Loulan knew what was expected of her, and so did Minglin. From the day they were born, they had been pushed and molded and pressured into being what their mother wanted from them. Be pretty. Be obedient. Mirror her feelings. Mirror her form. Minglin would take the form of a butterfly like her mother's daemon, toxin-coated wings beating gently as she rested in Loulan's hair. A living ornament on a girl who was all but a decorative doll.
A butterfly daemon had been something enviable to have as a concubine to the emperor. Pretty and seemingly harmless. Maybe it was her mother's daemon who first gave them an interest in insects. There were so many of them, so many kinds and forms and lovely and strange shapes. Wasps that laid eggs in ants. Caterpillars that became butterflies and moths. Delicate silkworms that produced fibers of the finest cloths. Things that crawled in the dirt, under leaves, and flew freely for brief, vibrant lives. It seemed fitting that her mother was a toxic butterfly; something small and harmless becoming something pretty but poisonous. Some days it made her wonder if she, a small, pretty doll of a girl, could change and metamorphize into something stronger and freer.
They liked butterflies, though not so much the same kind as their mother had.
Loulan liked other bugs more though. Ants and bees who worked together. Grasshoppers and locusts that could cause so much destruction through sheer numbers. Flies that hatched larva that broke down dead things and rot. Spiders that spun webs to catch what they could eat. Beetles and their hard shells that warded off harm to the softer parts beneath them.
Her daemon was expected to be fitting of a court lady. Of someone who could rise to Empress if her mother's ambition was seen through. Women in court were expected to have small, decorative daemons. Harmless creatures. Perhaps a species known to be motherly.
Loulan didn't know what motherly meant some days, because she was sure her mother was not the pinnacle of it.
Minglin should have fallen in line with expectation, like Loulan did time and again. When Minglin finally Settled, she wasn't a butterfly, or a bird, or something fluffy. She was a hard-shelled beetle, a vibrant, metallic shade that she thought was green, but a common field pest. A beetle. A pretty beetle, Loulan thought, but a beetle nonetheless. Mother would be furious. Her prized doll of a daughter with the soul of a farmworker.
o*O*o
The emperor's daemon was a tiger. About as far from the previous emperor's hare as could be. That his first chosen consort's daemon was a horse had been seen as fortuitous once. Two zodiac animals, and firm-willed ones that would at least mean strong leadership instead of an emperor who couldn't stand up to his own mother. After Lady Ah-Duo lost both her child and her womb... The horse daemon at her side seemed too brash. It was a daemon more fitting for a farmer or soldier than a court lady. More than once, she'd been seen riding her daemon while the emperor and his tiger stalked beside her on a round about the gardens. At least, some of the gossips said, neither of them was misaligned.
The new emperor had more consorts now. A whole rear court full of women for his choosing with appropriate daemons at their sides. He seemed to favor Lady Gyokuyou with her weasel and Lady Lihua and her sunbird daemon. Bird and small mammal daemons were common in the rear court. But despite this, no one ever truly forgot that his first choice had been a headstrong woman with a horse daemon.
o*O*o
It was strange seeing a baby's daemon. Maomao wasn't sure the last time she had seen one; perhaps while helping some poor girl in the red-light district give birth? When they were first born, daemons were barely a shape, a cloudy mess of Dust and emotion that shifted as freely as the infant breathed. Infancy was one of those times that daemon touch taboos didn't apply. Their mother had just had them in her belly, felt their soul against her own, so it was only natural that a baby's daemon still touched their mother.
Watching Lingli stare at the world with big, guileless eyes as her daemon flickered through forms was oddly refreshing. No one was pressuring her to shy away from certain forms or coaxing her daemon to put gaps between them. Just a baby and her daemon in constant touch.
This would change at some point. At some point, Lingli would start to notice that everyone around her had daemons in certain forms. She'd start by copying them, and then surely she'd be gently herded toward a handful of them. Maomao had seen this happen dozens of times before. Had had it happen to herself, though she and Min had refused to conform out of stubbornness. There was every chance that Lingli would end up stubborn like Maomao, with a daemon that refused the confines of the little world the rear palace was building around her. It was unlikely though. Maomao barely remembered her own brief time of Min copying people at the brothel. The first time a man tried to be inappropriate with her very young self, they'd both stuck to things less friendly than most courtesans were encouraged to have.
For now, Maomao had to smile when Lingli's daemon took the shape of a fluffy, round kitten, just as clumsy as its human half. Let them hold on to that joy and innocence a bit longer.
o*O*o
The most important thing about insect daemons were that they were small. Suirei was sure Loulan would argue that their best feature was that they were interesting, but Suirei didn't share her interest in insects. A spider wasn't an insect, but it was a bug, and a small, golden-brown house spider was about as inconspicuous as a person could get. It had been a boon for keeping out of attention where otherwise her looks drew notice. It was hard to call someone flashy if their daemon was the size of a fingernail. Loulan's daemons took pretty insect forms. Suirei's daemon had tried to avoid notice even before he Settled as a spider. Small forms that could be hidden in clothing and pockets and be a harder target if the lady of the household took offense to her existence like usual.
Even a lowly spider was a predator though. Spiders were smart and creative and as Suirei found herself in the middle of a conspiracy, they were good at weaving webs to catch other creatures. They were weaving that web now, working bit by bit to create a chain of effects that would pave the way for a new emperor. Or at least a new bloodline. Remove the emperor's brother from the running, and perhaps Loulan's child could gain the throne one day.
That was the way that everyone pulling the strings wanted it to happen. Suirei knew that there were other motives at play, personal ones that didn't coincide with that goal. Loulan certainly seemed determined not to have the emperor's child from the sheer number of abortifacients she'd arranged to enter the rear palace in the guise of harmless-seeming things. And Suirei... Suirei at the end of the day wanted the people she loved to live. And if that meant destroying the current royal line, she'd do it, damn the own blood running in her veins.
o*O*o
There was no right or wrong age to Settle. It was one of those things that everyone experienced differently. For some it came at around puberty. At others, there was some life event that left a person with a changed self, something defining that shocked them into Settling before they otherwise would have. For still others, that sort of shock could put off Settling for years. Eighteen was unusual to have not Settled. Twenty, it was almost unheard of, and yet there were cases. There were things that people did to keep from Settling, like taking medicines or having surgeries. Some people had even tried severing themselves to keep from Settling, but all that did was leave two halves of a person broken and hurt. Jinshi, the eunuch in his twenties, would be an oddity at having an Unsettled daemon. More common to be seen in eunuchs past when puberty would happen if the surgery happened young, but still not something seen often. Not having a Settled daemon helped the facade. In reality, Jinshi the eunuch was a nineteen-year-old, fully-intact man, so it was a bit more concerning that his daemon had yet to choose to settle. Yueyuan was childish and picky and possessive; all the traits Jinshi couldn't let the world see, that she tended to bare with the full stubbornness that he should have expected from his other half.
Even then, it hadn't been a problem until one apothecary fell into his life. Yueyuan was obsessed with her. No matter what Jinshi might be doing, Yueyuan was poking her nose in Maomao's direction in terribly obvious ways. She wasn't even supposed to be seen, so why was she being so ridiculous about her?
"You know exactly why," Yueyuan said when they were alone, her shape currently a lithe-looking fox. She liked larger forms when they were in private, a side effect of being smaller in public. "She's interesting."
"She is interesting, yes, but be less obvious! She's seen you multiple times."
"And? I've been in a different form each time. It's not like she's going to think you aren't a eunuch." She yawned dismissively. "I got a chance to meet her daemon the other day. His name is Min."
Jinshi felt his eye twitch. When did she manage that? Both he and the apothecary kept their daemons on their persons when in public. "You can't just talk to her daemon!"
"Already did."
"Stop ignoring what I mean."
She yawned again. "Don't feel like it." Her form shifted to a cat in a move that had to be deliberate. Jinshi scowled at her. His own soul and she was such a pest.
"You know the position we're in."
"And you know that we don't have to be in this farce. We should have just committed to being heir, or given it up completely, not whatever this limbo is. The emperor has a child that's lived now. It's not like we're going to be essential anymore."
"...We don't know that." The only child so far was female. There had to be a son to secure the line of the throne, and that sort of thing was all random chance. "...If we become the heir properly, we'll be pressured to take concubines and have children and do terrible amounts of official work."
"You already do terrible amounts of official work," Yueyuan said contrarily. "I don't want a bunch of concubines either. One concubine though..."
"Stop." He flicked her ear and she hissed at him. Brat. "I don't think she's interested in anyone that way," he said after a moment. "I won't take someone to my bed that doesn't want to be there, just because I want them there." He wasn't like the previous emperor. He wasn't.
"I know." Yueyuan licked his hand apologetically. "I know. Just... I think that she might like us back. In her own way."
"And if she knew the truth, it would only open her eyes to how wide our class differences really are." Jinshi sighed, and Yueyuan crawled into his lap like she was getting away with something. If only they had a bit more self-delusion the way their apothecary could manage. It seemed like a useful self-defense mechanism at the very least. If not for her, he could have kept believing that he wasn't interested in people that way, and life would have been simpler.
o*O*o
Lihaku had a dog daemon. It suited him. Soldiers often had dog daemons, Maomao had noted. Loyal, trainable, obedient. Maomao wondered how many people noticed that Lihaku's daemon was a dog crossed with something else though. Still loyal, she thought, but less biddable than most people would assume, and likely smarter too. It was little wonder that he'd risen in rank despite not seeming to be very remarkable. He must be good at his job at least in some way, or he'd never have gotten it. Poison drinking incident aside, Maomao didn't have many negative thoughts about the man. All the more so because he was infatuated by Pairin. Loyalty was something she hoped her sister would get. He also seemed to match up well to her tastes, so that all would work out if Lihaku could raise the money to buy out her contract. Pairin would probably say yes.
It was funny how many dog daemons there were in the rear palace. Servants and eunuchs and concubines alike had them. Even Xiaolan had a dog daemon, though hers was a small, scruffy thing that seemed to get infinite joy out of the simplest things. Perhaps there was a bias in hiring. Loyalty was assumed in someone who had that sort of daemon. Everyone always forgot that dogs didn't have to be loyal to a master; feral dogs were a thing, and Maomao didn't think that it was any different in humans.
Then again, how many people would underestimate a small snake daemon like Min? Or Lady Gyokuyou's weasel daemon? Pairin's ibex daemon with his curled horns just looked exotic when draped in golden chains and gilded horn-tips. Her daemon could cave a man's skull in with his hooves or worse with a headbutt from his horns. There was always more to a person than first glances showed. A daemon's shape wasn't a guarantee of personality and stereotypes could blind to other traits. Even lapdogs had teeth.
What would Jinshi end up Settling as, she wondered. Something small like the forms she tended to take to hide away in his clothes, or something with a larger presence that was more befitting the strong personality that Jinshi hid with charming smiles?
o*O*o
The daemon of the woman in the sick room was a pathetic thing to behold. Once-proud feathers hung crooked and limp, a haze of Dust along it like a golden sheen. It looked more like an animal than a daemon with how his other half's mind had been lost in pieces. Fengxian's secretary bird daemon once was a sight to behold; a pinnacle of the Verdigris House's allure with an exotic daemon paired to a beautiful woman. Proud. Strong. Just as sharp-witted as she was. It was sad to see the shell of them both, though Maomao had trouble feeling much sympathy. Her mother was not much of a mother, and the daemon that belonged to her was nothing to her or Min. They had lost the title of parent back when Min was just starting to take solid forms.
There was a certain irony in Min's Settled form set against their mother's daemon's secretary bird. A bird that hunted snakes and a daughter with a snake daemon. It could very likely say something about them, that they decided a snake felt best, but Maomao thought that people put too much into the symbolism of it all. Her mother suited a bird. Maomao did not.
Neither the woman nor the bird ever seemed to notice she was there lately. Maomao could clean her up and clear the space of old linens and she would stare blankly at a wall or sing that damn lullaby of hers that Maomao had no memory of ever being sung to her.
They didn’t like coming here.
They came anyway, and she didn’t know if it was some kind of self-punishment that brought her back, or the thinnest sense of duty.
o*O*o
There was much speculation about what sort of daemon the imperial brother had. Some said that because of his frail constitution, it was likely something like a butterfly; small, harmless, and pretty. A daemon more suited for a concubine than a prince. Others said that he kept his daemon hidden away because he was ashamed of it. That he resembled the previous emperor and was similarly misaligned. That rumor seemed to be attached to salacious gossip and dark murmurs about how the palace had been run before the current emperor took his place. It hadn't been a long time, and yet it was more than long enough for the depravity to have gained a near-mythic quality in the rear palace. The women there had largely turned over with the new emperor, and so there weren't many who experienced the previous reign. The most interesting rumor, in Maomao's opinion, was that the prince was so sickly because he suffered an accident that severed him in his childhood. His daemon was never visible because it wandered off and he barely held on to his sanity. Maomao had come across a few severed people in the pleasure district, and while it was probably the least likely of the rumors, it was the most interesting because severed people reacted so differently. One had been all but catatonic. Another had apparently gone through a violent personality change, lashing out at everyone and everything around him, including his own daemon. Still another, had gone mute, she and her daemon like ghosts of their former selves.
The imperial brother and his daemon likely were perfectly normal. The chance of them being severed was terribly low; the number of people who had that sort of thing happen could be counted in perhaps one in ten thousand, often from accidents or the worst of punishments. If an imperial prince had been severed, everyone would know. It wasn't the sort of accident that could have gone unnoticed. Now a stretched bond... Maomao couldn't rule that out. If his daemon wasn't small enough to hide, then perhaps he'd worked to stretch the bond until his daemon could walk out of sight. It fit with the possibility that his daemon was misaligned or Settled in a form unsuitable for royalty.
It was all harmless speculation though. It wasn't as if Maomao was someone who would know. She might have some sway in the rear palace, and have even met the emperor, but there was no reason for her to come across the imperial brother, and even less reason for her to confirm or deny any of the rumors.
o*O*o
Loulan's maids were all lookalikes. She knew they were chosen by her family to help with the conspiracy; it let her wander when needed after all. One of them could take her place. All of them have small daemons easily hidden. None of them match hers. It made it all the easier to pretend to be a servant though, because who expected a common beetle daemon to belong to a concubine? Her daemon could be in full view and no one would even blink at it, and then she could go and pose in Loulan's hair as an ornament and be completely overlooked all over again.
So many of her habits were to distract and evade notice. But being Shisui... Loulan could be who she wanted to be. Not what her mother or father wanted. Just a girl who liked bugs and could have friends and just... be happy. Wasn't that a revelation? Being happy.
o*O*o
Lakan knew his love wasn't well. Even if she looked the same to his eyes as the day he last saw her, just as beautiful and brilliant, whatever his face blindness, it had never affected people's daemons. And her daemon was in poor shape. The once-brilliant secretary bird with its elegant shape and perfect feathers threaded with golden adornment now had patches missing from his wings and body. There was a dullness about him the way someone long sick and pained tended to hold, and sometimes his eyes seemed to see nothing at all. He had exchanged comments with Jingli before, but now the two didn't speak.
It didn't stop him from loving her.
Not knowing her disease and its cause, not seeing the reflection of its destruction in her daemon's form, and not even in the way that her mind sometimes wandered even with him there by her side. He loved her. She was alive after years that he thought her dead; how could he not love her? And even with all the damage to her, she still was brilliant at go in the same way she took his breath away all those years ago. The could-have-beens were bitter, but the have-now was bright.
Lakan sat at her bedside and cared for her whenever his schedule allowed it. Fed her, cleaned her, did her hair on the days when her mind wasn't present. His daemon preened what was left of Jingli's feathers, Ruli's monkey fingers getting into all the crevices and straightening things out until what feathers were there shined with health again.
They both looked healthier. Happier. Sometimes there was even an echo of the spark Jingli used to have before he'd stomp and disrupt their games for the fun of it. An elegant bird, cold to all until Lakan became close enough to see that he had a provocative, childish side that liked to prod and poke and test to see how he'd react. Ruli had always delighted in that and had provoked back just as gleefully. Even as Fengxian never let her emotions about it show on her face. Lakan knew she enjoyed those times too. If she hadn't, she would have reigned her daemon in to hold the same forbidding poise that everyone else always saw.
They might have been too late, but they weren't too late. They could give Fengxian and Jingli a better life for as long as they had left. Could play as much go as they could dream up, could ramble stories and spend time together and treasure every hint of the woman left in her.
So Lakan sat with his wife, brushing hair oil through her hair until it gleamed as Ruli threaded golden chains with pretty teardrop pearls through the remains of Jingli's crest. Jingli's eyes were half shut in contentment rather than a daze. Fengxian hummed under her breath, the lullaby she seemed to like so much. He'd likely never know what its significance was to her, she didn't have the words to tell him now, but he thought he hadn't been this happy in a very long time.
Ruli gave a little startled sound as he reached for more hair oil and Lakan looked up to see Jingli's beak before him. He stilled. There was consciousness there in the daemon's eyes. Deep and piercing as when he once dared to meet his gaze across a chess board. Jingli's long neck extended. His beak dipped down, and Lakan could feel it skim through his hair, preening him in turn. Daemons didn't touch other people unless they couldn't help it. It was one of those things that everyone knew, even as a child, that once you were aware of yourself enough to have a daemon proper, your daemon stopped touching people and you stopped touching other people's daemons.
And yet there was no greater intimacy than a soul touching another. Tears filled his eyes as contentment sparked from Jingli's touch, an overwhelming and foreign feeling that ran parallel to his own emotions. Oh. If he had any doubt that Fengxian was happy with him... Lakan smiled tremulously. "Thank you."
Jingli pressed his beak to the crown of his head once more before pulling back. Ruli watched them both, wide-eyed.
She didn't dare try the same thing with Fengxian, but that was fine. Feeling her soul for that moment was enough. He pressed his face against her hair. He might not deserve this happiness, not with how many mistakes he'd made, over and over across the years. Still. He had it. Lakan wouldn't take that for granted.
o*O*o
Maomao had seen many deaths over the years. The pleasure district was as full of suffering as it was full of earthly delights, and an earlier memory was the death of one of the courtesans from illness, just a bit before she was adopted by her father. Daemons reflected their other half. A sick courtesan had a sick daemon, and a courtesan at death's door had a daemon that shed golden Dust like it was moments from shattering into pieces. There had been no one to watch her at the time, just her and Min while the others worked, and she'd peeked in at the sick woman. The courtesan wasn't one that doted on her. In fact, she had been new to the life, and unlucky to catch an illness that most of the other people had already caught a year or so back. The sight of her wasn't upsetting in the way that seeing that woman was upsetting, or if it had been one of her sisters. It was strange though, to see her labored breath and the still form of her sparrow daemon on her chest, wings spread wide and unmoving with a pale gold haze about it.
She had been unlucky enough (lucky enough? Even now she couldn't decide if the luck was good or bad) to witness the woman's last breath. With it, her daemon had burst into Dust, a golden swirl that dissipated so quickly it might have never existed.
It was horrifying. It was fascinating. It left questions about what happened after death and made her clutch Min to her chest at the thought of him turning to Dust like that. Were the two halves together in death? Were they lost to each other forever?
Somehow Maomao thought that life in the rear palace would be less full of death than the pleasure district. In some ways, it was. In a place meant to create new lives in the form of heirs, most of the inhabitants were young, healthy, and in their prime. If not for the deaths of the Emperor's children, and the occasional outlier death, there was no reason to think that Maomao would come across more bodies and more daemons turned to Dust. And yet she found herself in the middle of death-filled intrigue somehow. There was Lihua's sunbird daemon on the edge of Dust before Maomao could pull her back from the brink. There was the maid who drowned, leaving nothing of her daemon to be found, not even a speck of Dust. There were dead officers and officials and artisans. Sickly workers with sickly daemons and more. The rear palace and the pleasure district weren't so different as they would like to imagine.
"We could end up dying here," Min whispered in her ear late at night, after another incident. "Poisoned. Stabbed. There are many ways to kill someone and we've made enemies."
"We've also made allies." For all that they'd tried to keep a low profile, after a certain point they'd stopped bothering. They were known here now. Known as an eccentric in Lady Gyokuyou's employ, one of Master Jinshi's favorites to borrow for mysterious tasks. The girl whose face got bashed in for interrupting a ceremony and yet no further punishment because she'd saved the person doing it.
She definitely could have died at that time. Maomao still didn't remember how Min had been transported with her when he'd been flung from her when the guard hit her. She knew their bond stretched that day from her running to stop the pillar from crushing its intended victim.
They both had a scar from that day.
"Our allies will get us killed," Min said drily, clearly thinking of the same times. The most danger she seemed to end up in was thanks to looking into things for Jinshi. Or poison for Lady Gyokuyou. "I suppose it would be worth it though."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Maomao asked, pinching his tail between her fingers.
Min bit her with his fangs still tucked in so it wouldn't cause any real harm. "I mean we like them, so the good is worth the bad!"
"We're not dying for them."
Min gave her a doubtful look, tongue flicking in and out like he was tasting lies in the air.
"We're living for us," Maomao said stubbornly. Caring was one thing, but she had herself to look after too. No dying because there was still too much to see and learn and experience. Poisons to try, medicines to craft, new potential ingredients to explore...
"I like having friends now. Don't you?"
It was very rare for a heart to waver from what a daemon felt, so that question was pretty much a given. Of course she liked having friends. Even if some of them she couldn't call friends because of their class differences. Like how her sisters at the Verdigris House were family even though she knew they would always have to put their jobs first. Life and emotions were complicated.
"Goodnight, Min," Maomao said, refusing to continue this line of thought. Min gave an annoyed sigh, but coiled close to her head. They were both ridiculous. Their hearts were too soft and the world was too often cruel. Maomao hoped that those vulnerabilities they held between them wouldn't come to stab them in the back.
o*O*o
It took a week after being saved by Maomao for them to Settle. Jinshi wasn't aware at first what was happening, too distracted by seeing the injuries on Maomao's face and leg replay in his mind every time that they saw her. It was like Yueyuan couldn't help being present since then, peeking her head out of his sleeve to look at her or changing to something larger. Something visible. Larger and larger forms until Jinshi either had to let her walk or carry her in his arms instead of hiding her in his robes. One day, she was a stoat, the next a rabbit, and then... Then she was a cat.
The universe had to be laughing at him when Yueyuan took the form of some sort of cat and then stayed in it. And stayed. And stayed. It felt so normal that he didn't even question it until he had picked her up for the third time that day and realized she hadn't changed at all since their last check in with Maomao.
They both froze, Jinshi with his arms around Yueyuan, and his daemon with her paws on his shoulder to help the movement. The desk with all the paperwork to be done beside them because he'd moved to lift her instead of letting her jump after so many years of her taking small forms.
Thank goodness Gaoshun wasn't in the room.
"This is what you chose?" Jinshi asked his daemon incredulously.
"Chose? Who chose anything?" Yueyuan shot back, just as shocked. She looked down at her sand-colored paws and the faint, darker, not-quite-stripes along her body. Her ears had tiny tufts on their tips, the sort that Jinshi saw once on an exotic larger cat brought as a gift from some noble during his childhood. Yueyuan wasn't large enough to be that sort of cat. He didn't know if she was supposed to be a housecat or some sort of round...wildcat. Her fur was thicker and bottlebrush in her tail. Very different from the cats that court ladies kept.
"This is going to be a disaster," Jinshi said.
"For you? For me! I can't be small anymore! I can't fly or burrow or...or... any of that!" Her tail lashed, fur puffing further with stress. "What will everyone think?!"
Jinshi pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay. Jinshi the eunuch had to Settle eventually. We knew the medicines wouldn't last forever."
"But why now?" Yueyuan moaned.
He gave her a sidelong look and then glanced toward where Maomao was undoubtedly tinkering with some medicine or poison in a different part of the building, not letting her injuries stop her from being the strange, enthusiastic, crazy person she was. They both knew exactly why now. They both knew exactly why this shape. One girl burst into their lives and made herself home there in their hearts and he'd thought at first that it was just fleeting. Curiosity. This... This was not something fleeting. This was something deep and life-changing and she'd saved their lives at risk to her own for no real gain. All she hoped to get from solving his problems was a medicine that she might not ever have reason to use.
Yueyuan's ears went flat, her body cringing in on itself, becoming small. They both ached with a bittersweet emotion.
"It can't last," Yueyuan said despondently. Things they cared for were always taken away. Always. He wasn't allowed to have favorites. He wasn't allowed to have real wants or desires outside a role he'd been born into.
But Settling was forever. So maybe even when it was all over and done some day, there'd still be a piece of her in Yueyuan whenever he looked at her.
o*O*o
"So. A cat," the emperor said, fighting off a smile as Jinshi pouted across from him.
"Don't," he said, pouting harder.
Yijun gave a chuff at the emperor's feet. "It's fitting," she said, coming to stand over Yueyuan. The comparison was almost comical. A full-grown tiger next to a small cat.
Yueyuan pretended to stand tall, puffing out her chest. "Ah yes, I definitely see a resemblance," she said sarcastically.
Yijun laughed. She pranced back over to the emperor's side to headbutt him affectionately. "She's so cute like that. Fluffy."
Yueyuan bared her teeth.
"Still, this won't cause you problems in your identity?" the emperor asked, watching Jinshi closely.
The pout left Jinshi's face. "No. We've been planning. We've managed to stretch our bond enough that if necessary, Yueyuan can hide somewhere close, but far enough away to avoid notice. Enough people are used to seeing both of my roles without a clear view of my daemon. They'll just think she's hidden away like usual."
"Worst case scenario, I hide under his robes between his feet," Yueyuan said.
The emperor stifled a laugh. "Well. It appears you have a plan of sorts. Do try to keep from causing too much chaos."
"Since when have we ever tried to find chaos," Yueyuan muttered under her breath a bit too audibly.
"Do let me know if you decide to make that apothecary your concubine," he added lightly.
Jinshi sputtered, going bright red. He looked his age instead of the age he was pretending to be. "Nothing like that is happening!" he insisted.
"Mm." The emperor would believe it if not for the fact that Jinshi had never held onto a person like this before. It was strange taste, but he wasn't going to raise a fuss. The girl was of age at least, and both intelligent and useful. All nothing but positive traits to look for in a partner. Though perhaps her interest in poisons should at least be less open. Someone might accuse her of trying to poison people someday.
o*O*o
The sisters themselves were identical. If not for the various forms of their daemons, Maomao would think that someone had managed to make copies of people. As it was, the sisters' daemons intermingled with each other, making it hard to tell which daemon belonged to which girl. Was the one with the snow-white duck daemon the one with 'white' in her name? Or did she have the lizard daemon that darted between the other two daemons' feet? The sand-colored mouse? Ugh, this was why Maomao disliked having to keep track of people. She tried not to look too relieved when they offered to wear colored ribbons. Less professional people would probably use that to trade places with each other, but she thought they were in earnest. Lady Gyokuyou trusted them, so Maomao supposed they had to be worthy of that trust. After the poisoning attempts in the past, Lady Gyokuyou wouldn't leave things to chance.
o*O*o
Shisui was something of a contradiction. She was knowledgeable about a range of things a servant had no reason to know, used paper casually, and spoke of reading books like it wasn't an oddity for a servant to know, and yet she also clearly knew how to serve noble women. She gave massages practically professionally, was cheerful, helpful, and fairly level-headed from what Maomao could tell. Not to say that nobles couldn't be level-headed, it was just that so many were sheltered and in Maomao's experience, none would lower themselves to something like catching bugs for fun. Her daemon, Minglin, was a small, bright-colored beetle who occasionally was just as chatty as Shisui, if given an opportunity. Min seemed to like the other daemon. Minglin was misaligned, which some people would consider something of a tragedy; but most people wouldn't know unless Minglin chose to speak and they noticed her female voice. Maomao knew enough people who were misaligned to know that it was just one of nature's quirks. It wasn't something brought on by the heavens as the previous emperor's history would like everyone to believe, and it wasn't a sign of perversion, or even of being in the wrong body. The previous emperor aside, most people Maomao had met were just living their lives with a daemon a bit different than the ones around them. They were just people.
Some stereotypes existed for a reason, but no one should hinge anything on them, because real people rarely were as one dimensional as such. People with snake daemons were seen as either unfeeling and liable to be cruel, or medically inclined, which was in practice tended to be the exact opposite of cruel and uncaring. Clearly Maomao saw herself falling into the medical stereotype, but at the end of the day, they had chosen their settled form. They'd gone for a venomous snake because it meant protection and less visibility, not due to stereotypes or even necessarily what fit them best. Maomao knew that in another life, she could have settled into something very different. Her soul's shape was because they were stubborn and didn't want to become what was expected of them.
o*O*o
Suirei's daemon was different. His spider form had once been golden and delicate. Now, he was dark, sturdy and smaller. She should have expected death would change them. Her arm didn't work right now. His front two limbs worked strangely. Any web he spun, it would be imperfect. It felt apt considering how they'd been caught and how close to getting caught they were again. Their plans were imperfect. It felt clear that things weren't going to end up as they'd hoped, but once an avalanche was in motion, it wasn't something that could be stopped. They'd each played a role in this treasonous act, and now all that was left was waiting for consequence to catch up.
It was a bit funny how the new form actually helped her hide as a eunuch a bit more. Her daemon didn't match what had been in her personnel file. It was the sort of thing from storybooks, just like the resurrection drug itself.
Suirei didn't fear death. She'd almost died so many times in her life, that actually dying could almost be a relief—no more work if she was actually dead. It was something she and her daemon disagreed on, as rare as the case might be. He wanted to live and create and study. She would like to sleep and perhaps have better access to more medical texts. If there wasn't so much pressure behind her medical studies, she would enjoy them. As it was, they were one more tool in an endless lineup of ways that her life was being used for others' purposes.
o*O*o
"When did you Settle?" Jinshi asked.
Maomao didn't look inclined to answer. She seemed to be avoiding his eyes a lot lately, and he could only guess that the 'frog' incident had shaken her more than she let on. That, or some other nonsense was stirring in her brain. Her daemon peeked lazily from her sleeve, thin tongue flicking like he was trying to gauge Jinshi's mood.
It wasn't a trick question. He was genuinely curious.
"Settling has been on my mind lately," he said for explanation, Yueyuan practically sticking out like a bright-colored sign. Maomao hadn't addressed the fact that his daemon Settled. Other than a long look at her shortly after she Settled—honestly an impolitely long stare—she hadn't brought it up, or made a big deal about it. So many other people had. It had been refreshing at the time.
Maomao's eyes flicked toward Yueyuan and away. "I Settled as a child," she said shortly. "We've always had a strong sense of self."
"Ah." That could be due to trauma, or perhaps due to living in the red-light district caused her to mature earlier than a sheltered girl would have. Either way, it made him a bit sad to consider it.
"He's some sort of krait," she added, looking down at the head poking from her sleeve. "Venomous, potentially lethally."
That... was probably something he should have known about, something that hadn't been flagged in her personnel file. In fact, he was fairly certain that the file listed some sort of harmless grass snake. It made sense that she wouldn't advertise his toxicity. And by now, he trusted that she wouldn't have her daemon kill someone.
"We decided to settle this way," Maomao said, looking up into his eyes. There was a challenge there. What did it say about her that she chose to become a venomous creature?
Well, knowing Maomao, it meant she was far too obsessed with poisons even as a child.
"He suits you," Jinshi said numbly, and wondered if that was the wrong thing to say. It came out sounding like he meant that she was toxic, not that her daemon being something small and deadly and elegant and unexpected was fitting for a woman who held so many surprises. It was a compliment, not an accusation.
Somehow, Maomao seemed to see what he really meant through his clumsiness. Her eyes softened and her daemon actually chose to come out of her shirt, curling up around her shoulders. Min stared in Jinshi's direction with as much curiosity and intensity as Maomao's stare so often held. "We're happy with how we Settled," she said. She glanced at Yueyuan, but didn't ask. It was almost frustrating how she chose to keep propriety at the oddest moments. Jinshi knew that there had to be some sort of scale in her mind, keeping track of when and how she could get away with acting above her station, but sometimes he wished she would ask. Ask anything about him so that he could share the way that he'd learned things about her. She spent so much time deciding not to be curious and drawing lines instead.
Yueyuan must be feeling the same stir of frustration because she stepped forward boldly. "We're content with how we Settled as well," she said, addressing Maomao and her daemon directly.
It was practically scandalous, and Jinshi could count on one hand the number of times she had spoken to another human instead of their daemon since he left his child years behind.
Maomao's eyes widened and she hesitated in responding, glancing at Jinshi once more, like she thought he'd reprimand her for his daemon's actions. "That's good," she said slowly.
Yueyuan nodded firmly before leaping into Jinshi's lap, headbutting him with aggressive affection. "Sometimes I miss being small but I have claws now." Jinshi winced as she flexed said claws into the meat of his thigh.
"Yes, they're very sharp," he grumbled, moving her to his desk despite her mewl of irritation.
"Sometimes I miss being big," Maomao's daemon said unexpectedly. "But venom makes up for quite a bit." He smiled a serpentine grin, matched by Yueyuan. Two predators, in a moment of deadly appreciation.
Truly, there was something to be said about each of them that their souls were deadly creatures, no matter how harmless they looked.
o*O*o
Yueyuan could play at being a housecat. A cat with common tabby appearance, perhaps, and when Jinshi brushed her fur clean and neat and tied a ribbon on her, she truly looked the part to anyone that didn't look too closely. Anyone who did look longer would have a bit of uncertain dissonance. Something about her frame wasn't quite right for a domestic cat. Her tail too thick, her body a bit larger than the average pet. When Yueyuan stepped near Maomao-the-cat, it was instantly clear that she wasn't a domestic cat. Jinshi still hadn't looked up her species. If he didn't know, he couldn't tell anyone, and no one could make speculation about what his soul's form meant with that particular species being chosen. There could be long, drawn-out drama about how his Settling a certain species only seen in parts of the empire would mean that he favored those parts. Jinshi remembered at least two examples of that sort of ridiculousness from his history lessons off the top of his head, and that was just the ones that had started wars. The current emperor hadn't actually been nitpicked as much as most rulers were because, one, he had settled as a tiger and that had enough implications of someone not to cross that most people weren't stupid enough to try it. And two, after the previous emperor, everyone was too relieved that he appeared to be sane and not have questionable tastes to do anything too disruptive. Oh, there were still potential coups happening, and plenty of underhanded things happening in the shadows, but none of it was about the emperor's daemon, which was more than some former emperors could say.
There was surely a way to use this to his advantage, Jinshi was sure, but it would take a greater strategist than himself to utilize it. If he ever rode off into battle, he certainly wouldn't be someone to write about. He didn't cut an intimidating figure, and his daemon wasn't the stuff of legends, but he thought that if he was ever one on one, Yueyuan could prove terrifying if she put her mind to it. Her teeth and claws were larger than a pet cat and her strikes, when they practiced martial arts, were viciously precise. They were easy to underestimate, and someday that would come in handy.
o*O*o
"I can't believe you ate that snake," Min grumbled as they made their escape. He hadn't even tried to stop her doing it, he was complaining just to complain.
"Snakes eat snakes," Maomao said, bickering in return because it was a familiar back-and-forth that kept her calm. This could quite possibly be life or death, but here they were. "You aren't actually a snake anyway."
"It's the principle of things," Min said. It had been a hellish time of things lately, but what could they do about it? It was just one more thing after another and they were along for the ride. And then Loulan showed up with her beetle daemon a speck of shiny green in her hair, and then there were the children—
They looked dead. She didn't want to think about the thought of Loulan killing them, but if Loulan didn't, then it was going to be the army, no matter how messed up that was. They were innocents in a mess of adults' creation, but that was how things were. The whole paid for the actions of the few. And yet... There was a fine coating of dust on each of them. Something unnatural...
With the chaos around them, she could be forgiven for not realizing what was going on. Especially seeing Jinshi and Yueyuan, a fresh wound scarring their face, and all appearance of domestication left behind in Yueyuan's fierce baring of fang and claw.
It didn't feel right to see him commanding people. Maomao had seen him at his most pathetic. Had seen him drunk, crying, dehydrated, disguised, and covered in pond weed. She had seen him scared and sad and tired and frustrated, seen his childishness and a surprising amount of innocence on how the world worked. The Jinshi the eunuch that she had come to know didn't fit this man.
If she hadn't already figured out that he wasn't actually a eunuch, today would have hammered that in clearly.
People would die tonight at this man's command.
It was going to take time to unpack that along with all the other revelations of the day.
When Maomao thought to check on the corpses of the children... Well, when she finally had the mind to think of them, she connected the two dots and her and Min had a shared feeling of electric impulse to look at the bodies. Just in case. Just in case they were right and the resurrection drug was at work here.
And there, on the small, Dust-coated bodies, the swirls of gold were coalescing into shape.
The first child to wake up had had a Settled daemon. The creature their daemon formed now wasn't the same as it once was. Maomao could feel hair rise along her arms and scalp. It was wrong on a level that verged on blasphemous, but it was real, and the child had come back from the edge of death, reforged in their being. Their daemon was similar to the form it had before, but there were differences, almost like it had resettled into a slightly different species. Suirei never mentioned if her spider daemon had been a different sort of spider after the fact. Looking at the children, it seemed clear that it would have to be. A person didn't cheat death by the skin of their teeth and come away unscathed. Suirei's arm refused to function correctly. Her spider daemon couldn't use its front two legs. The children, most of them, hadn't been Settled. Would it be better or worse that they were still changeable and impressionable?
Still, thanks to a promise Jinshi made, the children would be able to live. Not without loss, but having a future at all after what happened...
"Do you think," Min whispered in her ear as doctors checked the children over, "that Shisui made it out alive?"
"No." But she knew that they both wanted to hope. Friends had always been hard to come by. It was going to take time to recover from this.