1 Meeting

The sun is warm on her skin, smearing its heat all over the lavender ribbon tied around Xie Pai's torso which descends and brushes her heels. Her scalp feels like a fork has been jabbed into it as if the maid mistakes it as a comb and leaves it there to hold her hair together in a bun with a string of braid encasing it. Flyaway are left caressing her cheekbones as the wind blows past the miniature field-like lawn; she craves to push them back and lock them behind her ears.

Maids in white cotton aprons scurry about, some carrying a nicely fashioned napkin on a tray, some with wooden rulers in hand that remind her of her lessons where her teacher would walk around with a whip at her back, to measure the precise centimetre gap between the silverware. Men in tailcoats and high chin are setting tables and chairs under the instruction of the higher-chinned butler.

The whole mansion is buzzing with the preparations. The blowout.

It is tonight, right after the last streaks of magenta disappears from the sky, the moonlight begins to peek through the clouds, candles and lanterns hung on branches of the trees surrounding the mansion await to be lit.

Her sister must be inside, on the second floor first room on the left, cooing over her husband whilst the maid pins her naturally curly hair up the way she requests, already donned in her white lace wedding gown hours prior to the event, her mother flattering how she looks darling. Her first born is getting married and the first in the branch family to do so! She will have a splendid time presenting her sister's ring off to her aunt who, in her mother's words, needs to get that stick out of her ass.

She has done her fair share of compliments, sharing her bed last night for the first time since she was a kid, listening to her go on and on about how happy she is to have found her mate and her parents' approval, though his respectable background has something to do with their immediate rupture, adding to her euphoria. Nothing could be more perfect than marrying for love! Said she.

In all honesty, she doesn't quite share her sentiments but that must be because she hasn't actually met a man in sequestered, those she has are all acquaintances of her father, sons of nobility who peers down through their noses and leers at she like she's a trophy. If all men are like that, she would rather grow old not knowing the pleasure of another.

But she is, without a tinge of uncertainty, happy for her sister. Josh is a gentleman with humility, pride, and what made her parents say yes right off the bat; came from a family with impressive background. But what matters most is that he treats her like there is no other woman in the world.

And as she walks down the pebbled path to the garden, the hem of her gown dampening from the evening dewdrops on emerald grass, she thinks, her sister and her husband are two of the lucky ones for not all women nor men are free to marry for love. Not even her parents as her mother once admits that she too was unhappy for the longest time after gaining the title of Duchess upon marrying her father until they got their first born. That was the word she'd used ─first born─ but she decides not to ponder on it too much.

The garden is breath-taking at this time of day, between the sunset and moonrise; white roses at its full bloom painted as rosy as the sky. Farther into the heart of where the flowers are is a bench, a vantage point of which she can see the beauty of what her brother once held a rapt interest in before he was lost to the war, though that isn't why her heels root themselves onto the ground and her body stills like the statue of the lone lover at the centre of the fountain.

It seems someone's beaten her here, when all is in mayhem of finished touches, last minute checks and guests beginning to arrive. She doesn't expect to find a dark haired man perched on the bench. Surrounded by these roses, he is isolated from the world and the soft hums from the lawn; but he isn't looking at them. His back is on her, on the beauty of the floral as he tilts his head up to look at the crescent moon which rays makes his hair glow.

The sound of Xie Pai's approach or rather, sudden halt from announcing herself as one should must have told him to look over his shoulder. Then, his body rises to a stand, noticing the lavender among the roses and he bows slightly to which the years of her etiquette lessons drilled into she like flesh and bones, curtsy.

With the sun gone and its counterpart casting a silver glow all over the dew on leaves and pebbles, she can barely see his features, though it is not a feat to guess that from the graceful bow and the natural stature he poses, he wears the colour of his coat in his bloodstreams; a royalty. The golden insignia of two swords crossed together is clipped to his left chest winks at she as though praising her knowledge of the royal family.

"My lady," he takes a step forward and freezes as though thinking twice about approaching, why, she doesn't know, "congratulations on your sister's marriage to the Earl."

"Thank you, my lord, I'm sure my sister is delighted to have you here," his facial expression is unchanging as he awaits her next words and she can only hope to have addressed him accordingly as she feels the weight of the burden of the host's daughter to know every single one of her guests though─ "I believe we haven't been properly introduced."

"Ah," he nods contemplatively as though he's forgotten his own name, composure falling apart, "I'm MingMing."

Alarm heats her cheeks as a striking thought crosses her mind; no person should be able to pass the lawn unnoticed to get to the garden and judging from the time she has tread her way here, there wasn't any guest in sight which is to say, if he was the first, her father would have given him extra attention and bore him with social affairs and attempting to offer his second daughter for a beneficial marriage for the whole evening until other guests start to arrive.

"Well, my lord, MingMing," the lanterns have all been lit on the left side of the garden, the lawn looking like a sea of fireflies deep in the forest where her brother once took her and her sister to at midnight when all the servants thought the masters of the house are asleep, "the banquet is starting soon, shall we?"

"Just MingMing and uh, I forgot I have something of the utmost urgency to attend to," and because his face contorts uncharacteristically for his beautiful features, she confirm her suspicions; that he is not on the guest list and one way or another, he has strutted into her father's land undetected and in his hurried farewell, she hear the creaking sound of metal which can only come from the disused gate in the corner of the high walls where she see the last of his figure disappears through, "send my regards to her family!"