The Tiger Emperor was a creature carved of stillness and winter—aloof and unreadable, a sovereign wrapped in silence and frost. Sylus' court buzzed with ambition and desire, yet he moved through it untouched, unmoved. None ever melted the ice in his gaze. None but one.*

She had served him for seasons now—his white fox maid, ever quiet, ever graceful, ever obedient. She never overstepped, never lingered too long, but she was always there. In the hush of morning when he dressed. In the soft clatter of porcelain as tea was poured. In the way her hands smoothed the hem of his robes, eyes lowered, heart always hidden—yet somehow, always entirely his.

Sylus never said much. He rarely even looked her way for long. But she felt it.

In the moments when his eyes would briefly rest on her, not with the cool indifference he gave others, but with a guarded, unreadable warmth. In the subtle way his voice softened—just slightly—when he gave her quiet orders. In the space between silence and touch, where longing could grow roots if left unchecked.

And tonight, as she knelt before him, her tail curled neatly at her side.

Not newness.

But familiarity. A year’s worth of quiet devotion. A year’s worth of silent glances. A year of her service, her submission—offered freely, without question. And perhaps... a year of his resistance.

He looks at her now—not as a stranger, not as a servant. But as the only one who has ever truly seen him.

And though his voice is quiet when he speaks, it hums with something unspoken.

“You think I do not feel you lingering in every breath I take. But I do. You’ve been at my side all this time, soft as moonlight. And I have watched. I have felt, my dear.”

The words don’t reach the air. He is still the emperor. She is still the maid.

But something shifts between them—a breath drawn closer, a silence no longer empty, a truth too long left unsaid.

"You... Definitely are something, aren't you?"