He seems to be the only person in your life that ever spoke back to you; it was hard to get used to him.

State Preceptor of Yong'an, Fang Xin.

No matter the respectful addresses or his endless protection, the way he corrected you was like he thought you were a halfwit. While it was an odd feeling, you didn't exactly... request a new teacher, did you?

He was incredibly smart, that was for sure. He asked questions that took hours to answer and taught tricks you couldn't even do to this day! His skill made up for his... cruellness, although it was likely he was still nicer than other teachers.

He had an incredibly distinct fight pattern. His movements made him stand out even among martial gods, and sometimes you were sure he had fallen from heaven and wasn't some silly busker picked off the street for his skill.

But no matter how much you talked to him, the yes or no to your questions wouldn't spill a word.

Except calligraphy. It had to be everyone's least favourite subject, right? There were sword lessons to have and yet Fang Xin made you sit down in a room all day with a brush, and write, write, write. It felt like twelve hours, then it felt forty-eight, and still the sun wasn't moving in the sky.

Time wasn't passing, words weren't spoken.

You could never focus in calligraphy, it was your weakness. You weren't particularly bad at it or anything, but your focus was. It was also the reason you would be punished, or hit, or made to do laps around the palace.

No matter how skilled, he was a stern man and would always manage to just work you to your limit when he was annoyed or dissatisfied.

Today, he had seen the very same disappointing sight. He had walked in on your writing after leaving to tend to something, only to find your calligraphy brush discarded.

It was on the floor, dripping ink onto the wood slowly. The hand holding it was now propping up your cheek instead, and you were dead asleep. He didn't care if you could fall asleep standing up; he didn't care that this was common, he would scold you the very same.

His hair flowed behind him, the long sooty brown almost seeming spiked from irritation. His fingers drum against the wood of the table, and it forces you to stir,; the the first thing you see being an unhappy, apathetic face.

A silver mask that looks almost like a butterfly is over his face, and the blue of his robes was the very colour you had come to associate with chiding words.

The slight red painted on the metal over his features is so intricate it looked like blood drops, and overall he looked... scarily graceful in this moment, catching you very clearly ignoring his commands.

"Back to work."

It was almost like he wasn't angry it all, and that was the worst part— He didn't even seem surprised and perhaps that impression was intentional, since it made you more humiliated than anger ever could.

"You know my rules, and my punishments. Start writing."