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Nagsi Jiya kept a measured pace as torrential rain fell down all around her. She was still reeling from her visit with Qiyan Agula at Chengchao Palace, his voice an uncomfortable weight beneath her skin, “How far the prince of the grass plains has fallen,” she greeted upon arrival, to which he replied, worn and weary, “The bright pearl isn’t so far behind.”
She wondered what he meant by that, as she stopped to feel the rain drip onto her open palm from beneath her wax umbrella, but she knew there was no sense in trying to understand him. If Qiyan Agula knew anything, it was her weaknesses and that was enough to keep her curiosity on a tight leash. She stood to lose too much to question him like she wanted–unlike when she first arrived in the Wei Kingdom, free and unburdened.
“I imagine life would be different,” Jiya murmured wistfully, “had we married back then.”
“Do not make a mistake,” Qiyan Agula warned, “this truce is by necessity. We aren’t friends, nor were our tribes.”
If only he knew Jiya didn’t fancy herself a friend of anyone. She went where the tide tipped in her balance, ready and willing to say or do anything if it meant her survival.
“We aren’t quite enemies either,” Jiya replied.
“Aren’t we?”
Jiya thought back to a game she used to play as a child with her brother Anujin.
The rules were simple: hide while your opponent seeked. But there was a twist; for at the end of every round, the winner would ‘cut’ off the loser's head and claim victory as the Khan of the Tuba Tribe. It was meant to be harmless fun, but she remembered looking in his eyes and seeing real bloodlust there. It scared her enough to hide in her father’s tent every round even if it meant Anujin would find her, but before he’d ‘take’ her head, her father would return, place her on his lap, and force Anujin to yield.
It was her first memory of pleasure derived from ‘taking’ an unwilling head, or of being in control even when the situation called for her to be the opposite. She could still remember her brother’s sneering voice: “You really are the bright pearl of the grass plains.”
Pearls protected the mushy insides of an oyster and the shell protected the pearl. If Jiya was the pearl, the Tuba Tribe was the mushy inside, and her father the shell.
But when he died, head shorned on a stick, she became both the pearl and the oyster; or in other words, she became the only thing she could trust.
That’s partially why she was so afraid of Nangong Shunu at the time of their affair. Nangong Shunu burned bright even in captivity; she burned hot.
A moment longer by her side and Jiya would’ve risked everything to keep her there. She would’ve killed for her, destroyed anything in her path for her.
But in the end, she was scared off before Nangong Shunu’s light could shine on her and open her shell.
Jiya heard bright childlike laughter first and then she heard her—Nangong Shunu, running around the corner with a child in her arms.
It was watching them, soaked from the rain and mud, that made Jiya realize she had taken a detour from the Chengchao Palace directly to the little princess’ courtyard where Nangong Shunu often was.
She didn’t know if it was because she had a child of her own now, but she felt maudlin at the sight of them.
Nangong Shunu didn’t ignore her like she expected; instead she shielded Qi Yuxiao’s head from the rain with her arm until she could safely deposit her inside and then she came back, still without an umbrella.
The soft pink and seafoam green robes on her frame were sopping wet from the rain and bits of her hair from her (usually) prim hairstyle stuck to her face while raindrops clung like fallen stars in her lashes.
Jiya clutched the wax umbrella above her head as she came into talking distance with Nangong Shunu.
They were but a foot apart.
Without fear of being drowned out by the rain, Nangong Shunu finally spoke to her for the first time in a long time: “Why are you here?” she asked.
“Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t know?” Jiya asked, “Because I don’t know,” she admitted quietly, honest, as she glanced at Nangong Shunu’s rain-distorted features, “but now that I’m here there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she said, “and I don’t want you to say anything back.”
“Jiya.”
“Just listen to me,” Jiya pleaded, tilting her umbrella to cover Nangong Shunu’s head, “I don’t make it a habit to regret anything in life,” she said, “but I’ve found that I regret the way I left things with you because without my knowledge, I had come to care for you,” she confessed, “I had begun to think of you as a friend,” she said, “and as the only person worth caring for outside of myself.”
Nangong Shunu’s eyes widened as raindrops slid down from her hair, to her cheeks, and then, finally, to the soft cleft of her lips, “Every moment with you,” Jiya murmured, “every touch, every kiss, it was all new for me too,” she stated, holding her breath as she caressed her with her words, “what I felt for you was the realest thing I’ve ever felt for someone else. The realest thing I’ll ever feel,” she said, “and I’ll regret you, what I did to you, for as long as I want you.”
Jiya didn’t give Nangong Shunu the chance to reply before she dropped her umbrella, drenching them in the downpour as she took her face in her hands, “Shunu,” she panted, hard, “I’ll always want you,” she said, before kissing her rain-soaked mouth.
Nangong Shunu’s mouth fell open for her, much to her surprise, as she kissed her back. It was anything but gentle, but Jiya understood what it meant: Goodbye.