Name: Mischa
Story: the empty throne
Colors: spark (She's addicted to nicotine patches, she's afraid of the light in the dark), elvish green (Are you sure you do not suffer needlessly?), bistre (Let the warriors clamor after gods of blood and thunder; love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. It is as inexorable as the tides, and life and death alike follow in its wake)
Supplies and Styles:
Word Count: 1204
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: skip
implied rape, implied abuse, child abuse, suicidal ideation
.

Summary: "Duty's a damn stupid thing to die for. Especially for people who don't even care about you ."

"I owe them my loyalty. I will see it done.

An Lieh has a run-in with the man he's pledged to kill, as his duty to his family demands. Instead of another duel, there's honesty about love and duty.

notes: thanks to my boyfriend, who is letting me steal and rework Pan, who is his character, for this universe.

“Still here?” Terribly Unlucky Pan’s deep voice comes from somewhere behind him, but An Lieh can’t bring himself to move. Everything aches and he is covered in bruises at best - not at his best, not by half. He knows where the man is, tracks his movements by the sounds of his footsteps, and the sounds are all wrong to be the prelude to a fight. “Thought you would have left.”

“I haven’t killed you yet,” Lieh replies, quietly, and tries not to be irritated at the other man’s low, rumbling laughter. Kill Pan for his theft of their familial style, or die trying, had been his mission from his family’s elders: but Pan is still alive, despite his best efforts, and he isn’t dead, either.

“Being dutiful won’t save your life,” Pan warns him as he closes the distance between them. “Never will. Go home to your lover, unless you want them to mourn you.”

“No,” Lieh says, simply. He won’t leave this undone, though not tonight, and he has no lover anyway. There is no one who will mourn him save perhaps Aunt Mei, who taught him everything he knows about the sword, and she knows the weight of duty herself.

Pan stops for a moment, almost too sudden to be entirely planned, but the sound of ringing steel is still curiously absent. “No?” he asks, slowly, voice lower still.

“No,” Lieh says, and doesn’t look at the other man. “I have no lover, anyway.”

“Have you ever had one?” Pan asks and takes a step forward, feet smooth against the cave stone.

“No,” Lieh says: he’s held his mother’s warning close to his heart for all this time, don’t fall in love, my flower. never fall in love: love is a curse and then you wilt and die. when he’d been younger and growing still, he’d ignored whatever desires he might have had, channeled them all into his swordplay until they’d faded faint and then gone.

Silence, for a long moment: had Lieh actually managed to surprise Terribly Unlucky Pan, for only the second time? The man had certainly been surprised, even if only for half a moment, when he’d drawn his sword and challenged him, after he’d just been around for a span of months.

“Duty won’t keep you warm at night,”

“And neither will you,” Lieh retorts and is glad he isn’t looking at the bandit leader, because he can feel his face heat remembering just what comments Pan had thrown at him during their duel. Certainly just a ploy to throw him off his guard - and he’s ashamed to admit that those crude comments had worked, he shouldn’t have been thrown off so easily.

“Your loss,” Pan says, the shrug clear even though he isn’t looking at him, and Lieh can hear the grin in his voice. “Nights get real cold around here. Though you should really go on home to your family before that happens. Shame if they had to mourn and burn another child.”

The reminder of his cousin stings - but Jiayi had been much more beloved than he, for all that she had tried to share even an echo with him, and there is no one left save perhaps Aunt Mei to mourn him. His mother is long dead and he only barely remembers her face, save when he sees his own reflection. There is no one left who will mourn him.

“They would grieve more the duty left undone,” Lieh says, and isn’t quite certain why he’s being so honest with a brigand, the man who had stolen part of his family’s legacy and was trying to be one of the world’s ten greatest sinners. Perhaps it’s simply the knowledge that very likely, someday soon, though not tonight, Pan will kill him, for all his trying.

“Duty,” Pan’s low, rumbling laughter is incredulous. “Duty. Filial piety. Valued more than the life of one of their own. Fools, the lot of them, and you as well, for letting them value you so little. They knew you would have no chance against me and sent you anyway.”

Lieh turns, sharply, despite the bruises, despite the pain - it’s true, and he knows it, but that doesn’t mean that he wants to hear it from him.. “Take your words back-” he hisses, one hand coming up - for what, he isn’t certain- just as Pan catches his wrists. Too slow, for once, and he’s not strong enough to tear himself away.

“You have perfect mastery of the blade.” the man says. “Dance with it like you were born to it. Maybe you were. But you can’t master your own style, not like you are.”

“Let go-”

“Heart moves the blade,” Pan says, his voice quiet, as he reaches out with one big hand to tap him on the chest. “I studied your family’s style, too. The White Lady loves, and she spun that style from her love. You’ve never had a lover. You don’t love anyone enough, not even yourself. Especially not yourself. And no one’s ever loved you.”

“Let go,” Lieh grits out from between his teeth.

Never fall in love. Love is a curse and then you wilt and die. His mother died from love, and he remembers her distant, dreaming eyes. He’d never wanted anyone to notice him, not in that way, never in that way, never again in that way. Lieh remembers, from the one time he’d ever gone to court, Lin’s empty eyes, and knows it could have been him instead, possibly should have been him instead. The First Prince - now the emperor - had lain eyes on him and sent an imperial summons home for him, and he’d refused, and only Aunt Mei had even bothered to defend him to the elders.

(and like the Eldest, the Son of Heaven only wants that that doesn’t want him, doesn’t forget his hungers, and Lieh’s still running but he can’t possibly run for long enough-)

Pan releases his wrists. “Don’t go getting yourself killed before you’ve lived a little,” he says. “Duty’s a damn stupid thing to die for. Especially for people who don’t even care for you.”

“I owe them my loyalty,” Lieh says, glaring up (and up, and up) at the other man. “I will see it done.”

“Not tonight. Tomorrow doesn’t look good, either.” Pan says, lazily, and walks past him, snatching the jade comb out of his hair: long, black strands tumble free, loose much too suddenly. “And when next we meet, I hope you’ve learned something.”

“Give that back-” it was his mother’s comb, the one thing besides his face that he has of her-

Pan shrugs and walks away, throwing a challenging grin over his shoulder. “Come and get it, then.”

Lieh sighs, checks that his sword is at his side, and runs out of the cave after him, into the pouring rain.