"I can't believe that was your plan," Mingzhe muttered, still salty after a few glasses of wine. He didn't normally indulge in so many, but the night had been full of startling information, and he was feeling a bit more everything than he usually was.
Chenzhou huffed and sank back into the cushions of the couch, all three of them were piled on. "Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was a good plan."
Mingzhe looked ready to argue, but Eirian, her legs across Mingzhe's lap and her head in Chenzhou's, agreed with Chenzhou before he could. "It was a good plan because you picked me."
"If he hadn't, it would have been a disaster. You can't call it a good plan if it depends so much on one factor." Mingzhe argued.
Chenzhou groaned as Eirian squawked, playfully insulted.
"Let's change the subject," Chenzhou begged, tired of hearing of his own stupidity, deserved or not. Alright, it was slightly deserved, but he refused to say it was completely deserved. Eirian had saved the Camelia multiple times since she'd arrived. Chenzhou would go to his grave believing Eirian was the best thing he'd ever done for the Camelia, and he knew Mingzhe would agree, once he got past the anger and hurt. "What do we do now?"
Eirian looked up from his lap. "About what?"
Chenzhou flushed and hid behind his wine glass. "Us. You said you wanted us. This life. How do we…" He trailed off, unsure how to finish. How did they balance this? Did they all stay here? What did they tell the court? Did they have to tell them anything? Eirian knew more about the etiquette of society than either of them, so she'd have to be the one who guided them in that regard.
Would the King have a problem with it? He was the only person Chenzhou really worried about when it came to this. He was the only family member Eirian had who was concerned for her happiness.
Mingzhe finished his glass. "I have no idea. Can't we just continue on as we are? At least for now."
Chenzhou and Eirian glanced at him.
"There's so much happening as we try to recover and the…investigation. Maybe this is fine for now?" He fiddled with his glass as Eirian and Chenzhou shared a worried look.
Eirian started to reassure him, but Chenzhou cut her off. "We can't talk about that. If it comes out it that we did, then it will make everything a hundred times worse. The court will take it as proof, and we could end up with a civil war on our hands."
Eirian frowned. "That seems like a ridiculous response." She continued before either of them could argue. "But you're probably right." She sighed, upset. "The courts have always been a pain."
"But a necessary one," Chenzhou added. "Without a court, I'm just a tyrant." The words tasted like poison in his mouth. Being a tyrant was the last thing Chenzhou wanted.
"You are not." Eirian and Mingzhe snapped.
"The courts exist to ensure leaders can't take advantage of their people. They're supposed to check the power of a throne." Mingzhe recited. His mother had always taken that responsibility seriously and ingrained all of it in her children. Even though he loved Eirian and Chenzhou, Mingzhe would be the first to speak out if they started abusing their power. It would be a painful day, but he honestly didn't believe either of them would ever do it.
Eirian snorted. "That only works when the court isn't filled with power-hungry backstabbers." The High Society of the capital was famous for power struggles, and there'd been plenty of royal transgressions against the people that had been allowed amid personal rivalries and greed. The high ideals of the courts seemed to get further and further away with every year.
Corruption seemed to be a natural progression for anyone who gained any sort of power. There were a good number of families that had achieved nobility through great acts, but generations later, they were just as dirty as the rest of them.
Power corrupted, no matter how much people tried to withstand it.
The talk of the investigation brought the mood down, the three of them falling into contemplative silence as they watched the fire in the hearth dance.
While the talk of their relationship had been inspiring and joyful, the fact that it was coming now, with such a dark cloud already over it, was less so. But there was always something, wasn't there? Nothing started in totally perfect conditions, and nothing stayed in totally perfect conditions for its existence. There were always trying times. There were always challenges, some easier to handle than others.
Sometimes people, despite being so close, took the same thing in completely different ways.
Chenzhou, for example, would not allow the bad parts of this situation and his responsibilities to be the end of them. Even if it meant they stayed behind closed doors their entire lives. Or eventually left the Camelia to live quietly somewhere, just the three of them.
Eirian, on the other hand, was willing to burn down the world before she let it hurt the two of them. What was the point of a world that didn't have all three of them in it?
Mingzhe, though, was thinking far more selfishly. He wasn't going to allow anything to hurt Chenzhou or Eirian. Even if it meant he had to sacrifice himself to protect them.
~ tbc