Chapter Text
A pile of books clustered around the foot of the bed, burying the floors. It left only a thin line of walking space to the door, enough to not let anyone trip if they happened to stumble in.
Like that would ever happen.
Yeah. Never.
The palace would be lucky to even have birds chirp in the mornings.
Hong-Yi lay sprawled on the grand bed, fingers plucking away at one sunflower out of the many dozens by the window-sill.
She shouldn’t have asked for flowers. A small voice in her head scolded her to be grateful. And in hindsight, she should.
The white dragon encircling her tower had been one of the more reasonable ones; most of her requests were followed through, despite it not uttering a sound back to her. Hong-Yi thought at least it was better than ignoring her.
Glancing at the rest of the bouquet by the window, she sighed.
At first it was to remind her of the sunny days that were few and far between out in the East Sea. But the moment she laid eyes on the array of bright yellow petals, her heart felt the stab of regret plunging into its depths.
It was better if she didn’t think back on the days when the warm embrace from the sun welcomed her at dawn. It was better if she didn’t get a chance to miss it.
So she put them to other use. She did read somewhere that this method would bring her good luck if she landed on the right phrase.
“...I will find true love. I won’t find true love. I will find true love. I won’t find true love. I will find true love. I wo- ...”
Her hand hovered over the last petal. Brows pinching together in a tight line, Hong-Yi let out an exasperated sigh.
True love wasn’t coming any time soon. Onto the next flower.
A collection of plant stalks soon joined the heap of books on the ground, further adding to her frustrations.
Time was irrelevant at the tower; all she had to know was when to eat, sleep, and wash. All else was inconsequential. She figured she could waste the rest of today for once, as mindless repetition was just as addicting.
The moon shone brighter compared to other nights in recent days. Maybe she could stare at that for the next hour. The notion failed to tug at her heartstrings, it was a pity she was more into the sun.
An unexpected flash of red had Hong-Yi jerking from her thoughts. She yelped and threw a pillow towards the door, missing the mark by a long stretch. A squeak erupted from the side of the bed, blowing out her vigilance in one breath.
Tiny claws grabbed at the covers, and a whiskered face poked out from under the bed.
Mushu was not amused.
“Now that’s no way to greet your elder!” the red dragon lectured. His nails clattered in an agitated rhythm against the wooden headboard.
Hong-Yi fel her cheeks burst into flames. There was zero reason for her to be on alert for intruders, the dragon had made sure of that.
She could count on one hand how many times she prepared herself on the bed to be kissed only to hear her rescuers being tossed out the palace. Hong-Yi frowned. ‘Rescuers’ was a kind word, maybe ‘face-hogging-wannabes’ was a more ideal adjective for them.
At this rate she should just sell her soul to the dragon lord early and be done with this shit. She wouldn’t even need to wait until her birthday; it was a waste of everyone’s time.
At least I’d be able to step foot outside the palace for once.
Hong-Yi wanted to slap herself upside the head; there was still a good few weeks before her final day. It wasn’t like she had no chance to have prince charming barging in and sweeping her off her feet...she hoped.
Fortunately for her, she didn’t have to retreat back into her head. Mushu was all over her face, dragging her attention back to his snout.
“Hel-loo?!” Mushu repeated. “Anyone home?!”
Hong-Yi ruffled his furry head, not bothering to respond to the query.
“Sorry, I got caught up with stuff.” She wasn’t about to spill her whole monologue to the already chatty creature.
Mushu huffed, sashaying to the foot of her bed. Flicking a whisker, he tsked at the state of the room. The glint in his eyes glowed with mild curiosity.
“Ya really need to fix this mess before anyone sees this,” the dragon said. “A princess does not pile her cave with books.”
Hong-Yi snorted. “Forget about it. You’re the only who’s ever going to come in here. The last flower said I won’t be getting a kiss anytime soon.”
Eyeing the doggy-eared parchments on the ground, Mushu blew out a puff of smoke.
“Girl, you might as well build a house inside that head of yours! I swear you talk more to yourself than with anyone else.”
The dragon gathered an armful of papers and straightened them out on their respective shelves.
“I did have evening tea with Mr. Handsome over there a few hours ago,” Hong-Yi replied. She pointed towards a reclining wooden figurine at the corner of the room. “He said wheat tea wasn’t his thing and excused himself.”
The princess arched a brow at her companion, feigning disappointment. Mr. Handsome wasn’t that handsome anyway.
Mushu skittered across the floor, paying little attention to the mindless babble from the woman.
“Huh, even your imaginary man is scared of you.” Sarcasm dripped from him as he decluttered her knitting station.
“Yeah,” Hong-Yi agreed. “I think I spoke out of turn. He wasn’t too happy with me talking about my writing.”
It was a surprise she even gave the man a personality. Hong-Yi wondered what could’ve happened if he was just a tad bit more lenient. She didn’t mean to harm him.
A loud rustle from the side had her turning back to the bustling dragon across the room. Mushu was rummaging through her (failed) embroideries, without judgement in his eyes.
He muttered to himself. “Don’t worry, I’m sure a pretty lady like you would score a hot hunk soon enough.”
“Soon enough?” Hong-Yi’s ears perked up at the spark of hope. “How soon?!”
Mushu was up on her shoulder in seconds, pulling her tangled hair in his claws. Still mumbling about the mess of the room, his fingers set off to pull the mane into an updo.
At first it was difficult to even get a bun from her hair. But over a decade of experience certainly helped Mushu perfect his aptitude in multitasking. Anyone could come barging in at any time, it was crucial for Hong-Yi to look the part twenty-four-seven.
Mushu was surprised he hadn’t developed arthritis yet.
Maybe it was just a human thing.
“It’s a good thing the stupid gossip traveled that far,” the dragon bumbled. “You’d think people wouldn’t believe a stupid legend about us. But here we are, going through one smelly man after another.”
Hong-Yi didn’t look up in the mirror; the bronze reflection was never her favorite tool of reflection. She always trusted Mushu in making her presentable.
“Yeah, and they never go more than a few yards before they get their ass-”
“Language!” Mushu threw her a dirty look. “What do I always tell you? A princess-”
“Never uses bad language,” Hong-Yi finished a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”
The dragon groaned. “Jesus, you grow up so fast!”
His complaint didn’t falter her, and she grinned at him through the mirror. “I learned from the best.”
Her retort had the dragon choking, his tail flinging wildly from side to side. If she hadn’t known better, Hong-Yi would think Mushu’s already red face had turned magenta.
“Don’t you sass me !” Mushu warned. “I’m a good few thousand years older than you! Have some respect for this poor ol’ dragon here!”
Hong-Yi sniggered. Under the fiery pesona Mushu seemed to lug around wherever he went, she could spot the bashful smile threatening to break out. Mushu was good with a lot of things, but hiding emotions wasn’t one of them.
He was the cutest.
She smoothed a hand down his ears, giving them a good scruff. “You’ll always have my unwavering admiration, you big noodle.”
Mushu’s grumble at the nickname only made her laugh harder. The memory of her five-year-old self mistaking his tail as a part of her lo mein meal came back with twice the force.
There were many good times in the pagoda if she cared to admit. And Hong-Yi sometimes wondered if any of that would stay the same when she managed to get out. Wait scratch that. If.
“Didn’t think you learned sweet talk, too,” Mushu remarked. His work on her hair was almost done, so his attention skewed back to her.
Hong-Yi smiled. “Like I said, saw you fluffing the dragon outside a few times too many. I’m a fast learner.”
Mushu’s cheeks were on the edge of going purple.
“And who do ya think I was doing that for?” he retorted. “Get on his good side and whatnot. Maybe he’ll bring us more stuff. He just never talks back!”
The dragon mumbled a string of colorful words. It was as if the white dragon’s silence was a lethal weapon against his pride.
“Never have I ever come across such arrogant youngling! Side eyes me every time I acknowledge him! ” Mushu ranted.
Sensing another turbulent outcry of unfairness from the creature, Hong-Yi sighed. She rubbed his tiny shoulders, trying to rescue Mushu from the focal point of his own rampage. As much as the dragon was an adorable mess, you wouldn’t want to hear him complain for hours on end.
That would take a special amount of patience. And Hong-Yi’s drooping eyes would close business before Mushu could get past thirty percent of his grievances.
“At least he got me the flowers and treats I wanted,” she offered. “The ones before would only do the bare minimum.”
The attempt to sway her little dragon friend blew up in her face. Mushu took on a scowl and was skittering all over the place in seconds. Scouring every nick and corner, he made an extra emphasis on the size of the room.
“Girl, wouldn’t you like to know the bare minimum of life. I bet they’d be so happy to live in a claustrophobic-inducing hellhole of a tarnished building that no one in a million years would ever consider looking at a second time!”
Mushu’s word scramble sent Hong-Yi’s brain tumbling into the whirlwind with it. She’d laugh for a second round if she wasn’t exhausted.
Sleep was another one of her hobbies recently. Funny how one could get tired from boredom alone. The things you’d never know until you experienced it firsthand.
Hong-Yi felt her eyes roll to the back of her head in humorous annoyance. “Did we switch souls? I thought I was the one who needed a shoulder to cry on five minutes ago.”
It was fascinating. The rate at which they could go from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other was mind-boggling.
If she knew any better, Hong-Yi would chuck it up to the sheer reality of having nothing to do. There were moments when she was legitimately afraid that whoever may come through the door would spot a crazed madwoman going on about ‘true love’s kiss’ instead of a proper woman.
She begged the gods to not let her fears come to fruition.
Religion was never a strong passion of hers, but Hong-Yi was adamant in praying to anything that could hear her. It wasn’t much, however it laid some sense of serenity in her.
May they let her be free of this wretched existence. May they let a galiant warrior with gold-polished armour riding on his just as marvelous stallion into her life. May they let her find-
Screeeeeeeeeeeeech!
An ear-splitting cry of deafening nature exploded into her ears.
It traveled through the veins of her body, blowing past all her organs with a thunderous roar. Her brain pounded its violent response against her skull, dulling her hearing to a static ring that lingered far longer than she expected it to.
The bookshelf rattled like a stack of cards on the verge of crumbling to oblivion. And her vanity followed suit, shaking free all her jewelry and makeup onto the ground like it wanted to grow two legs and run out without burden.
Hong-Yi blinked once, then twice, before she snapped her neck in a painful angle towards the source of the blood-curdling scream.
A dragon’s roar was hard to come by. One could even say it was rare; the aftershock of such vibrations was a weapon in itself. Legends have it that the full potential of the sound could incite the greatest tsunamis.
It didn’t take Hong-Yi long to realize what was happening.
The white dragon was in deep peril.
Her muscles failed to execute her commands to move; she remained still against the anticipation of the next outcry of atrocity.
Mushu beat her to the window first, jutting his head out with strained limbs to catch a glimpse of the chaos. His claws steadied him against the smooth frames. Had it not been for their sharpness, he would’ve slid off the tower.
Hong-Yi wanted to tell him to calm down, she didn’t wish to fish him out from the sea below.
The dragon’s eyes narrowed, blinked, froze, then bulged into the size of saucers before shooting from his post back to the woman on the bed.
Said person barely had the time to formulate words when she found herself being jerked away by her small friend.
“There’s a man !” Mushu panicked, throwing his head left and right as if that would shake him of his stupor. “There’s a man down there! Holy bejesus! He’s fighting the dragon! The dragon you hear?!”
The princess didn’t need him rambling more to understand the dire situation.
She was an utter mess. No makeup, no jewelry, her hair was partially done, and the room.
Oh fuck. Don’t even start with that.
In a flash, the vase of tattered flowers was tossed out the window.
Covers were thrown into the air as the duo scrambled to shove the rest of the books to the corner. They refused to go into the closet, so Hong-Yi had tried to pile them up beneath her bed before realizing there was no space.
Thank god for extra duvets. She grabbed them without a second thought, tossing them over the paper mess. Hong-Yi could only hope that no one would notice the giant bulge of fabric by the bed.
Now what else?
A glimpse from the shattered mirror had her backpedaling to horrorland. As if one of her wasn’t enough, the many Barefaced and unprepped, she couldn’t go out like this! The single strand of unkempt hair in the back made her itch with pure agony.
“What do I do?! What do I do ?!”
She stood in the middle of the room, hands holding out like she was desperate to receive an answer from thin air.
Mushu facepalmed. “Get the moisturizer but don’t do the routine! We don’t have time! And slap some lipstick on! Make sure it’s the glossy ones! And forget about the hair, it's hopeless!”
It felt like eons before Hong-Yi could look at herself without breaking down in tears. She wanted to fix her brows, but that attempt was terminated the moment she reached for her brush.
“Don’t even think about it!” A snap from Mushu sent her recoiling. The dragon herded her to the bed, wasting no time in waving a scented incense in the air.
“This should do it,” Mushu muttered. “Quick! Lie down and sleep!”
Hong-Yi wanted to scream. “But I can’t! It won’t come to me!”
The dragon tore at his whiskers. Truth be told, she wanted to do the same thing had it not been for her precious hair.
“Just pretend! Close your eyes and breathe in and out! In and out! In and out! Perfect!”
Skirting up the sheets after her, Mushu dug himself into her pockets. Coiling into a ball, the dragon became still.
The rise and fall of his body comforted her. It was the small reminder that she wasn’t facing the dreadful silence alone.
Hong-Yi’s lips quivered; a strange pit in her belly that tugged at her stomach. The nauseating pull of anticipation rose to her chest, dragging her breaths into an uneven shake.
Her hands felt clammy against the breeze of the night. And despite the cool air encircling them, her cheeks burned with excitement.
It had been too soon to hope. But the thoughts in her head ran amok with wild fervor.
They couldn’t help but fantasize about the man. Her savior.
She wanted to know if he was tall like they said in the books. If he was dashing. Or brave. Or majestic. Or kind. Anything. Anything that could keep her mind running for the rest of time.
It would obliterate her spirits into nonexistent powder if he wasn't.