Red Peonies

This is the High Tang.

Women wield brushes, hold seals, and approve vermilion edicts. They write their names into imperial decrees and carve their desires into the court.

Then, one by one, the age devours them.

They lived. They loved.

She made the realm her chessboard, placing her piece at the center. A lifetime of bloodshed was distilled into a bitter bowl of medicine behind the pearl curtain. Taiping was born a chess piece, then became the Protector of the State. She accepted the imperial seal, and also took a sprig of flowers bearing a half-inch cut from before her husband's grave.

Shangguan Wan'er rose from the muddy ground of the palace laundry. She ground fourteen years of frost and snow into rich ink, inscribed the Nine Tripods, and cast the Tian Shu monument praising virtue, yet left behind only a small seal carved with two characters: Wan'er.

The wind rose at the Hall of Enlightenment; the Taiye Pool grew cold. Separated by death and the realm, they wielded their brushes as blades and made their seals their pact. In this life, some carved their lives into words; others cast their names into seals. All they wanted was this:

Level ground beneath their feet, and old friends by their side.

Princess Taiping Li Lingyue, Protector of the State * Shangguan Wan'er, Lady-in-Waiting Who Drafts Edicts

Theme: The one who wields the brush eventually becomes a character in its story; the one who protects the realm ultimately guards the moon in her hand.