Moonlight Shines Three Thousand Miles Along the Long River

She was among the enemy's commanders. My deputy was pointing out their position, while the blowing sand blurred their ranks. Just as I narrowed my eyes to make them out, an arrow shot straight at my chest like lightning. I flung myself backward in a panic and, in a most ungainly fashion, caught it by the feathers. The soldiers crowded around me, shielding me from view. I lowered my head and saw her name on the arrow shaft. I was only twenty then, a young general serving at the side of the great Chanyu Modu. She was still a girl, with no achievements to her name, and had only just arrived in Wachen. The lord of Wachen was her brother, Prince Xian Molun. Two years later, Xian Molun fell in battle. And Wachen became her city. Now I stand atop the city wall where she once stood. It is the thirteenth year of Yongjia, and I have become commander of the Western Expeditionary Army. I silently gaze down at the city, watching an old man selling melons, imagining what she saw back then, imagining what I looked like. I once sat astride my horse, carrying a silver spear, with five thousand cavalry behind me, right where that old man stands. Back then, the man she saw had no graying hair and no furrowed wrinkles. There was only youth, speed, strategy, and clamor. Yet I still cannot make out what she looked like. Her silver armor hid her beautiful hair, and the sun formed a dazzling halo around her. All I could see was her silhouette, and the forest of banners behind her. That was the second time we met. That meeting lasted three months, until we had settled who would win and who would lose, until one of us became the other's captive. This story will probably end up abandoned, so just have a look for now. When I can't keep writing Snowbound Dream, I'll come back and shovel some dirt onto this one.