title: my kingdom for your graces

summary: all jiyeon wanted to be was perfect.

pairing(s): bona/xuan yi

rating: pg

word count: 2776 words

for serxxt who requested some boxuan

eloquence is embedded into jiyeon’s disposition by age three. she holds her chin up and crosses her legs; her arms sit upon her lap graciously. she’s the royalist shade of purple, deep and beautiful. dolled up and hanging high, high as can be, she is the enshrined dream of her people. threads and needles carefully hold her together, but she’s the (im)perfection her people want. the fire, the flame, the warm fervor they so desperately crave. for the different claws that cling to the palace walls and moan and howl and demand; she embodies it all. like patchwork but more (im)perfect, her faces remain true to their origins: she pleases all and she fails no one.

the murmurous poisons that bounce off the walls at galas do not fizzle and die. jiyeon’s ears take them in – devour the sap each syllable holds. she grasps every straying thought and every cadence and she burns them into her skin – in her mind, she has each hum of approval inside of her pulling the strings.

fast words graze jiyeon’s skin all too suddenly sometimes, but she makes do with it. never is she (never could she ever be) the type to disregard the suggestions – or rather, the orders – that her parents, her king and queen, bestow upon her. too old is she to be reminded to sit up straight and welcome visitors properly. she’s at the age of:

“that young man is nice and he’s the prince of a most prosperous kingdom. do make eye contact with him.”

“go dance with that charming fellow in the corner, the one with the curly blonde hair and white, straight teeth. he’s next in line to head the drapion’s kingdom.”

“do make sure you bow to sir kim of the idewyth empire. his riches could very well be an asset to our kingdom.”

she is at the age of pretty, porcelain boys and brawny, sturdy men. her mind is supposed to ring with purpose when she makes contact with supple hands, hands of someone who has never once performed manual labor a day in their life. her heart is supposed to beat a little harder when she meets eyes with the well-mannered boy sitting next to her, his posture stiff and practiced (but not as practiced as jiyeon’s own) and his scent purely not innate. if not for herself then for the future of her kingdom – jiyeon is at the age where she’s supposed to feel for the opportunities, the men, that walk in and out of her life daily.

her mind does ring with purpose. her heart does beat a little harder. she feels and feels and feels (she’s not supposed to but she does. she feels so hard) and when the feelings become too much she feels even more. what is assumed of her goes on in the privacy of her head. she does feel - (she shouldn’t feel though. not like this.) – it all. but it’s not accompanied by the soft hands nor is it due to the eyes of the well-mannered boys she’s supposed to impress.

her breath leaves her; all reason leaves her, and it’s because of the pools of brown that greet her every morning. it’s the low whisper that coaxes her awake. it’s the calloused hands that brush through her hair. it’s the cautious fingers that dab lipstick on her lips. she doesn’t mean to, but she falls for it. she falls in love with something, someone she cannot have. someone she shouldn’t be in love with.

xuan yi decorates her; she makes it so jiyeon looks the part. jiyeon isn’t the child of her parents without the make-up, the hair, and the jewels xuan yi adorns her with. she’s not the treasure her kingdom cherishes without the mask. as hard as she tries (and she does try. she tries so hard), her (im)perfections aren’t natural. it has and will always be a process, a struggle to maintain the pride of her people.

“you’re quite pretty without make-up,” xuan yi mumbles one morning. they’re  floating in comfortable silence with xuan yi carefully smoothing out jiyeon’s blouse. she has yet to begin touching up anything on her face; jiyeon’s eyes are puffy and still held in sleep’s dungeon. red splotches take claim on her cheeks and her forehead and her lips are pale, not the color of status. there’s no princess here. there’s nothing royal about the way jiyeon looks, and yet xuan yi’s words sound honest enough.

what looks to be a pimple finds shelter on jiyeon’s chin. she’s imperfect now (she’s always imperfect). she’s disgusting now.

rain hits the window with a pitter-patter. jiyeon doesn’t say anything; xuan yi’s statement goes unanswered.

“do you want your hair up today,” she asks. there’s no reason for her to ask, jiyeon thinks. the answer is the same everyday.

“yes. please, if it’s not too much trouble.”

it’s never too much trouble. xuan yi has never once protested an ounce to anything jiyeon has said.

“of course. it’s no trouble at all.”

the constellations strewn in xuan yi’s eyes make it easier to forget the imperfections the mirror reflects back at her.

royalty’s sharpest thorns find home in jiyeon’s soul. she’s full of holes (but they’re glued shut every morning. because she has to be perfect. she’s so imperfect). she’s not one ready to pounce. she doesn’t fight with her teeth bared. the only thing she has as a crutch is the sense her parents drowned her in as a child. it’s impossible to hide from the paper work and the discord (the lies), but she must do it. she’s the princess. it’s her job.

 every day consists of laws and debates so insistent on tearing her apart. but she gets through it. it’s worth dragging her remnants back to her chambers if her people are happy. if her parents are happy, pleased with the work that their daughter is able to accomplish. she’ll continue it with all her energy until her dying breath if that’s what keeps her (im)perfect portrait on the walls of her kingdom’s heart.

even if it’s all a lie. she’s a lie. she’s imperfect.

no one has to see the (im)perfect princess at her low: runny nose jammed into her elbow and her face scrunched up in such a terrible expression. she knows her tears fall silently, but she forgets sometimes. it’s so loud in her ears.

no one has to see her at her worst. no one wants to see her at her worst.

xuan yi stays with her anyway. jiyeon’s makeup runs and she’s a mess; she’s the worst kind of mess – she’s herself. the self that cannot bring her people pride. the self that cannot bring her people fortune. the self that cannot bring her people motivation. she’s the self that cannot do anything right. she’s the self that she was born with. all the bumps and torn edges reveal themselves and suddenly she’s no longer who she needs to be.

“you’re going to be okay. it’s going to be okay.”

“h-how do you know?” jiyeon hates how shattered she sounds. she hates that xuan yi lets her nuzzle in her neck, lets her leak all her imperfections onto thin silk and warm skin. she hates that she’s no good. she hates that she’ll never be any good. she hates that she’s a lie. she hates that she’s herself.

servants walk by her door. one of them laughs while the other tells a joke. they sound happy. it’s effortless. she wants to be that at-ease. that comfortable in her own skin.

fabric wipes her nose and dabs at her eyes. “i don’t know,” xuan yi speaks softly. her hands rub all over the small of jiyeon’s back. “i wish i did.”

they fall asleep like that.

jiyeon doesn’t know when xuan yi’s laughs become her blanket. her laughs are plentiful. they are always light like the jingle of a bell. it’s perfect the way her nose crinkles and her eyes twinkle. everything about jiyeon is faded (her mask is all that hides her ugliness). everything about xuan yi is ethereal. she’s a radiant sun. jiyeon can’t help but think that she’s her sun, as selfish as it is. as much as jiyeon doesn’t deserve such a beautiful person.

they sometimes sit in jiyeon’s room alone before the palace gates open and the first kitchen-aids begin to cook breakfast. xuan yi is always up it seems. jiyeon cannot think of a time when she was awake and xuan yi was not.

“you’re up early.”

xuan yi giggles and opens the curtains. “it’s a beautiful day.”

“you’re beautiful.”

she giggles again, but there’s something there. something deeper hides in the depths of her giggle. her hair frames her face nicely. it’s always out and free, a contrast to jiyeon’s normal braids. the sunlight hits her just right, and jiyeon swears that there is no work of art more alluring than xuan yi in that moment. something moves from down to her stomach. there’s a whirlpool happening in her body.

there’s always that part in jiyeon that wants to rebel. regardless of how the people around her feel, sometimes she wants to cast away her mask and throw away her title. she wants to wriggle out of the skin that isn’t hers. she feels those waves of rebellion the strongest when xuan yi links their hands together when she helps jiyeon get out of bed. jiyeon feels the strongest when she’s with xuan yi. she feels the strongest when xuan yi looks at her, when xuan yi touches her, when xuan yi speaks to her. she feels like maybe she can be herself. she feels that even with all her dreary imperfections she can love herself (if someone as precious as xuan yi thinks she’s worth something. well, she must be).

but then she wakes up from her silly dreams and the strings wrapped around her dig into her skin a little deeper. she forgets about ever rebelling.

it’s wicked, jiyeon thinks, that people look up to her. she’s appalled that people want to meet her. she’s nothing. it’s laughable.

“have you been stressed lately?”

jiyeon looks up from her desk. she’s supposed to be writing a letter back to the prince of yueh. he’s expressed a lot of interest in you, the queen said. she’s also supposed to be getting ready for a gala occurring later in the evening. plenty of important people will be there, and it’s jiyeon’s duty to greet them and put on a show. xuan yi, all too busy when big events happen, allows her time to be wasted by helping jiyeon pick out a dress. jiyeon never had an eye for things like that. if she was completely and totally honest, she would never build an eye for it as long as xuan yi is around.

“i’ve been okay. thank you for your concern.”

lying comes second nature to jiyeon. all she does throughout the day is act. lying to xuan yi however, that’s harder. they’ve known each other since they were little (xuan yi has always been her favorite servant), and no matter what, xuan yi has always been able to pick up on jiyeon’s fibs. it’s never changed.

“i don’t like when you lie to me, jiyeon.”

xuan yi is the only person of servant status that dares refer to jiyeon as her given name. there’s no princess attached. jiyeon is never the princess when it’s just her and xuan yi. she’s just jiyeon. she’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. at least as the princess there’s something worth looking at. jiyeon is small and useless. jiyeon is ugly. xuan yi has to suffer and witness her at her lowest.

“my throat hurts. can you just get me ready for tonight? i don’t want to talk.”

“if you’re not feeling well you shouldn’t go.”

“i have to go. i’m the princess, and you know that,” jiyeon hisses. repulsive. princesses are not supposed to hiss. she can’t ascertain why her thoughts begin to pound against her head. it’s my duty. i have to. she doesn’t know anything. she doesn’t understand. she never will.

the light blue dress previously cradled in xuan yi’s hands is set on jiyeon’s messy, unmade bed (another imperfection). “you need to start taking care of yourself.”

jiyeon doesn’t know how to take care of herself. what is there to take care of?

a lot of little cracks begin to open up. they should still be glued together. a storm rumbles underneath jiyeon’s skin, and she feels something ugly bubble up inside of her chest. a monster, all her imperfections, crawls up and forcers open.

“do you think you’re really so important that you can order me, the princess, around?!” hatred and hurt and imperfections, imperfections, imperfections splatter against the walls. it’s all red and black and dark, deep fury; it’s not the royal purple her parents want her to be. it’s ugly, ugly ugly.

the slithering pest of venomous anger invades xuan yi’s space. it slinks through her ears and oozes out her eyes. “i’m just trying to look after you.” it’s a guttural sound, something jiyeon’s never once heard dribble out of the other girl’s mouth. “i’m trying to help my friend. i didn’t know all this time i was just bending to the will of the oh-so-perfect princess.”

jiyeon is broken. “i’m not perfect,” she sobs. she doesn’t mean for it to come out as a sob. she doesn’t mean for very many things, least of all another addition to her list of imperfections. “i’m not perfect. i’m not. i’m not.” it’s a mantra of grey.

she feels like garbage. she isn’t perfect, can’t xuan yi see that. there is a lot of perfection in the world but jiyeon isn’t a part of it. in fact, the most perfection jiyeon has ever bore witness to, ever had the luck to be graced with, is xuan yi herself. her natural pink lips to her luxuriant brown tresses to her blemish-free face – that’s the perfection jiyeon needs. that’s the perfection jiyeon strives to embody.

“you’re perfect,” jiyeon blubbers. “you’re so perfect. you’re more of a princess than i am.”

thin fingers brush the disheveled hair out of jiyeon’s eyes. “oh, sweetie,” xuan yi breathes, “i’m so sorry. i didn’t mean to make you cry. you're an amazing princess. you're the princess these people need. they adore you.”

“i want to be perfect,” jiyeon whines. she can’t look at xuan yi’s face. she doesn’t want to see the concern etched out on that fair face. “i really do.”

jiyeon goes to the party as any princess should. xuan yi works quickly when preparing her. there’s so much left to say, but jiyeon feels like xuan yi knows anyway. she’s too smart, too perfect to remain ignorant to the sorrow transcribed in jiyeon’s demeanor.

she ends the night with another bout of flirting with princes and knights and scholars-to-be, and she returns to find xuan yi already bathed and in her bed. they have a system eleven years in the making. it’s jiyeon’s room and jiyeon’s bed but everything that belongs to jiyeon might as well belong to xuan yi too. xuan yi is always there.

jiyeon washes up and puts on her nightgown. when she quietly slips next to xuan yi, the other girl’s eyes are closed shut. she looks so at peace. she’s the light that ignites even the tiniest slivers of hope (of love) in jiyeon.

all too naturally, she finds xuan yi’s hand under the covers and laces their fingers together. emotions brush against her cheek in the form of xuan yi’s soft puffs of breathe. the coals inside of her stack on top of each other, keeping the fire burning even in the dark, cold air of the night.

perfection is the only thing jiyeon was raised to hold close. so why is it that she has other desires – desires that would lead her away from the path she’s been forced to find – wading through her murky conscious. she didn’t mean to fall in love. she really didn’t.

“i want to be perfect,” she tells the sleeping figure. “i want to be perfect…for you.”

xuan yi’s hand tightens around her own. butterflies flutter all around. too sudden for jiyeon to react, the other girl gets even closer, her eyes fluttering open and her breath caressing jiyeon’s mouth. “you’re already perfect for me.”

and for the first time in her life, jiyeon feels alive in her own skin.