Author's Note:
This thread is intended to log various events and happenings inside the Radiant Empire. These can be random trivia, important events to major characters, or just plain silly nonsense. Or anything else I might want to post really. It should also be noted that posts will occasionally include more mature content.
What happens in this thread is to be considered as having happened; if you have any questions, find me on IRC or send me a telegram.
It can be very dangerous, AiQien thought, to break the status quo. The young empress considered her night ahead very carefully. She could hear the soft sound of her husband getting into bed, no doubt dressed very conventionally. Conventional. That was Damalin all over.
For that matter, it’s me. And yet… and yet… and yet… tonight she wasn’t dressed conventionally. She was dressed very carefully, very specifically. It had cost the emperor, her husband, millions of wen to get her to this point – not that he knew, of course, that he had spent that money – not that he would care, either. She studied herself in the mirror and took a deep breath. She felt no confidence, not in her actions, not in her appearance, not in her relationship with the boy. Her husband. But… well, maybe she had bought confidence.
Damalin had eased himself tiredly into the bed. It had been a busy day. There had been memoranda to read and blueprints to study and a cabinet to appoint and new guns to test and officers to promote and nobility to… ennoble? Was that the right word? And then there were all the foreign ambassadors he had decreed he would meet, and a letter to write to Mballa, and notes for his parents, and something for his brother, and he probably should send a note to his ‘sister’. And then there was… and that, and then there were always… and it never stopped, did it? No wonder his mother had been worn out, had given up, when on top of everything else her family had collapsed around her ears.
Enough! There was a time and a place for such thoughts, and this was not it. Slowly, he calmed himself, his breath growing even. Perhaps… perhaps he and AiQien would play a game this evening. She was learning Interstellar Galactic Fighter 55 quite quickly – not that he would ever admit it to her.
Pity the poor Emperor, then, for planning. For no plan survives contact with a half-naked young wife. When the bathroom door opened, he looked towards it with a friendly smile, expecting to see AiQien, perhaps in that beautiful nightgown they had purchased in the markets on their tour of the empire two weeks ago. “Good evening, AiQ…” his voice wavered as he stared at her.
Good, she had his attention. The soft… she didn’t think this fabric was silk, spider or otherwise. The salesman had been cagey about it, but security… well, that didn’t matter. It was go time. “Damalin…” She slowly stepped forward, one leg in front of the other, arms held out slightly to allow him to take as good a look as he wanted. And he was looking. Her breath shivered and she closed her eyes momentarily, but she could feel his eyes wandering from her short teddy down to the panties just barely peeking out from beneath it. And then beyond. She knew he was going down her completely bare legs, and with a seductive grin she turned in a circle for him. She heard the soft sound of his breath begin to speed up, and smiled. “Like what you see, Damalin?”
“Yes, AiQIen…” His voice cracked, as it often did in stressful situations. For a moment it was higher than hers, and she covered her mouth to hide a giggle, before slowly resuming her walk to their bed. Her advisers had said this was the crucial test. Don’t laugh at him, don’t tease him too much. And…
The young empress stopped right in front of the bed her husband sat on. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates. “Damalin… my husband.” She whispered as she reached up behind herself, beginning the slow process of removing her top. “Our first night together… our only night together… was the night of our wedding. For seven months, you have been respectful, you have been understanding… when I have refused you, you have not acted as would be your right. You have not sent me away, you have not forced yourself upon me.” She undid the last string and let her top fall to the ground. “And… and I… I understand you now, in a way I did not when we wed. I understand my husband better.” She trembled and took another step. One more, and she would be on the bed. “..Let us forget our wedding night, husband. Let us make tonight the beginnings of our life together.”
Damalin’s eyes had gone as wide as saucer plates as he took her in. “Do… do I please you, husband?” AiQien murmured. He didn’t trust himself to speak, obviously. He only nodded. Slowly, she climbed onto the bed, and into Damalin’s lap. Then she kissed him, smiling into the kiss as she felt his body react to hers, his hands reaching up to touch a soft, tight breast, the other brushing back her hair.
“Are… are you sure?” Damalin whispered, his breath heavy.
“I am positive, my husband.” And her hand slowly found what it was looking for, and suddenly Damalin could no longer question his wife.
They made love three times that night, each time better than the last as they grew more practiced and more controlled. Shortly after midnight, as they lay on the rumpled sheets of the bed, Damalin kissed her deeply. “I…” He began.
She shook her head quickly. “Not yet. Please. I know. It… it is easier for me to come to grips with my wifely responsibilities, my imperial responsibilities…. Then my personal ones.” She saw his eyebrow raise up, and touched his nose very gently. “Shhh. I did this because I wanted it. Because I wanted you. Because I want to be your wife, more than just your friend. My body wanted to be given to you, to be reunited with my spirit.” The young empress took a deep breath. “I know how you feel. And
sometimes, I believe it. I… I just cannot respond in the way those words deserve.”
Damalin’s thoghts were slowly drifting to sleep, but he managed to stay alert for a moment or two as he looked at her. “But you are more than my wife, and you are more than my friend. For the first time since this whole mess started, you... you make me feel like myself.”
AiQien smiled. “And you are more than my husband, and you are more than my friend. You are the greatest boy I have met.” She brushed her fingers across his falling brows and smiled. “But… I cannot say the words yet, my husband. ”
Damalin closed his eyes. Faintly, at the edge of hearing, “an emperor may do as he wills… provided he harm none who do not deserve it. And… it would harm me more to keep this within me than to let it out. AiQien, I love you. From the moment you stood up to that Grand Secretary, the moment you offered yourself to me…all for your people… I knew you were a woman I could love.” And then, without much more to say, he fell asleep.
His wife, however, slipped from the bed and walked to their great window, from which she could see the bright lights of the Imperial City. She touched her hand to her soft breast, and reached up with the other to rest on the glass. It was cool out. Much cooler than her homeworld. And yet, this was where she lived now. As Empress. Sole empress. Her father had a dozen wives, beauties from across his realm. Damalin had sworn that she was to be his only lover.
AiQien took a shallow breath and ran her fingers along the edge of her bosom, where her husband had been paying homage so recently; down her waist to the curves of her hips… and then along them, to the soft spot where her womb waited. Someday, she would bear his children, she knew. Someday, those children would nurse from her breasts. And someday, one of their children would rule this empire.
And yet… and yet it was not enough. Was it? What had she ever wanted out of life, to say that this was not enough? Her sisters had shown their jealousy, the women she knew here envied her. She possessed wealth and power enough for a dozen, no, a hundred wives… and she possessed the love of a boy who could alter the course of the stars if she asked – if he spoke the truth about his feelings. No, best not to go down that rabbithole. He was not a complicated boy. And they were both young. His feelings were no doubt his feelings at the moment; before she judged them true or false she should give him time.
No, she had risen as far, or farther, than any princess of the Tonhi ever had. Not for her, the life of the harem amongst that small land’s nobility. And yet… and yet, she wanted more. She would never have dreamed of it a few years ago, but to be a wife, a consort, and someday a mother was not enough. Not in a galaxy where ordinary women, barbarian women were traveling the galaxy, living, loving, leading lives of their own, talking to emperors and kings and princes as equals…why should an Empress not be more than just a wife?
Quietly, she walked back to her side of the bed, her eyes on the sleeping boy she shared it with. He was… handsome, she knew. And she was glad to be with him. Did she love him? No. Not yet. Was there much worth loving in him? Light, yes. But she wasn’t there yet. The bed depressed under her weight as she sat. Pitching her voice low so as not to wake Damalin up, she spoke the activation phrase, and then, “Computer, please get me a list of the distance courses the Imperial University offers.” A soft chime let her know that her instructions had been recorded, and she slowly lay down, one hand draping over Damalin’s chest. “I will be your empress, husband.” She murmured. “But I will also be a woman. My own woman.” And if he loved her, for truth, he would accept that.