Empress (A Tickle Commission)

A Needed Escape

“Yuanji?” Sima Yi asked, knocking gently against her chamber door. The young attendant had given Yuanji the evening to flush her anguish, a near destructive form of meditation Yuanji seemed to rely on when confronted with troubling moments. Though no event in her life had ever elicited such a seething and explosive response from the girl, Yi believed in Yuanji’s strength to work herself through it. The boy came by the following morning before sunrise. He carried with him a tray of Yuanji’s typical breakfast: rice with a peeled orange and a kettle of honey tea with an empty cup. Yi held the tray against his chest as he continued to knock. “Yuanji, I have food. I know you didn’t eat much last night, so you must be hungry. Yuanji?” No response. Sima Yi grabbed the handle and started to push the door open. “Yuanji, I’m coming in.”

“Are you alone?” Yuanji answered quietly on the other side of the door. She held the door shut with two extended arms.

“Yes, I’m alone,” said Sima Yi. “What’s going on?” Yuanji paused before opening the chamber door. The girl wore a dark cloak with a hood and a pale expression on her face. Yi stepped inside and laid the tray down atop her desk.

“You need to leave,” said Yuanji.

“Why?” Sima Yi asked. “What’s going on?” Yuanji looked away. Her eyes were large and glassy. The girl’s nose was puffy, glowing red.

“Okay, I know it’s going to seem crazy, but I think that’s just where we are now,” said Yuanji as she paced around the room. “My father has really crossed a line this time. I’ve been patient and obedient about this whole ‘princess’ thing for all my life, but I can’t do this. I can’t marry this man, this stranger.”

“You had to have known that something like this would be happening soon though, right?” Sima Yi asked. Yuanji lifted a small collection of clothes from on top of her bed and stuffed them into a traveler’s pack.

“I don’t know, maybe,” Yuanji said. “But I guess, I don’t know, that I would have gotten over these feelings before then, that I would have achieved the same complacency in my life that everyone else has for theirs. But I haven’t. I want more and I can’t get over that.”

“So, what? You’re just going to run away?”

“I don’t know, maybe, yeah,” Yuanji stuttered. Sima Yi walked up to her.

“You can’t,” said Yi. “It’s one thing to want to, but you realize why you can’t, right?”

“I have to,” said Yuanji. “Just for a day.” Sima Yi rubbed his head.

“The Emperor will not go easy on you because you’re his daughter, you know that, right?” Sima Yi shouted. He grabbed for her hands and held them to his chest. “You can’t leave, even if it is just for a day.”

“Then a week, a month, a year,” Yuanji arged. “I don’t care. I have to get out of here.”

“Yuanji, he will send the entire guards to hunt you down the minute he finds you missing,” Yi said. “As much as I’d be afraid of facing the consequences of letting you go, I can’t bear to think of the lengths he’d go through to keep you here after.”

“That’s why you have to get out of here,” said Yunaji. “You didn’t let me go. I slipped out before you came by to drop off breakfast. You played no part in this.” Yi puffed and shook his head. Yuanji pulled away from him. She took his mother’s book and placed it in the pack. “I’m really sorry to dump all of this on you. You’ve been the just the best friend I could have ever hoped for in a place like this. I owe you a lifetime of gratitude. But I have to do this.”