The princess rips off the elaborate gold hairpins from her freshly styled hair and threw them across the room, messing up the braids and designs on her head. A loud clunk is heard as she throws a bejeweled, gold comb across the room, smashing through a mirror as it made it's fatal way to the wooden floor. Servants tower at her, trying to calm her and take her sword from her tight grip. She tears the skirt of the expensive silk hanbok that hindered her from moving comfortably. Servants shriek as they hear the delicate fabric tore through, leaving a large, revealing opening on her clothed legs. She made her way to the door, but someone pulls her back. With a swipe of an arm, the person was thrown back in midair and landed on top of a few unfortunate people who were served as cushions. She throws open the door and steps into the darkness of the night. Shouts and shrieks rang out to prevent me from leaving.

“Your highness!” Lotus shouts with fear, “The his highness has forbid you from leaving your residence!”

“ his rules! I'm breaking them!” She mutters profanity as anger overtakes her. She storms through the garden of the north wing into the imperial residence. A servant runs over to her and bows deeply.

“I apologize, your highness. His majesty has forbid you to enter his residence tonight.” He bows, keeping his gaze to the solid, rocky ground. With each of his words, her anger only fumed more and more. With a thumb, she flicks the newly sharpened sword out of the scabbard about a quarter of a way. She places the glistening blade on the crook of his neck roughly. He gasps with a shaky breath. “I-I a-apologize, yo-your highness. H-his majest-”

“Shut the hell up before I cut off your old head and feed it to my Labradors!” She screams at him. Truthfully, it is unruly for a high class lady to raise her voice, but at this point, she's at the peak of her undeniable ferocity. Instead of chopping off his head and drawing blood, she knocks him on the side of his head with the handle. It's painful, but not fatal enough to kill him. As he drop down on the floor clutching his pounding head, she stomps to the entrance of her half-brother's study. The guards stumble back, not planning to end up like the guy on the floor, and acknowledged her with a greeting. She kicks open the sloppily locked door and pushes her way through. The maids and servants shriek as they predicted another violent outburst from the bipolar princess.

“Y-YinRi?” The prince stammers and stumbles from his seat at his study after glancing at her fire blazing eyes, giving him death glares and piercings. It was as if she could look through his guilty soul. She pulls my sword from the scabbard, which she threw on the floor, and charges at him. He fell backwards from his seat and stumble to get on his feet to run away from her. “Yah! I'm sorry, okay!” He runs to his bed as she swiftly jumps on his desk, breaking it in halves while she was at it.

“GET BACK HERE, YOU WORTHLESS WRENCH!” She throws the sword to his direction as he charges to the door. Trained by her constant violent outbursts, he learned quickly to have fast reactions to dodge and duck his way through to save his life. The sword spins through the air and cuts a vase in half with a clean cut. He stares at the outcome of her dedicated training with his sword-master teacher. Their father had created a monster by allowing the girl to train with him. It's quite peculiar to say that the best student of the keen master was the fragile looking girl instead of the well-built boy. She slumps down on the floor with tears glistening in her eyes, throwing a big tantrum as she bursts into uncontrollable tears. She feels so unfair at the moment, being treated as a property rather than a human. He slides down on the floor with sweats of relief that her violent phrase is over and her feeble and more fragile side is sinking in.

The prince reluctantly made his way to his young sister with shaking hands. He hesitatingly patted her shoulder as if she would bite. “I'm sorry, YinRi-ah.” He gulps guiltily as he pulls her into his arms protectively. With forcing her into marriage without consent, he felt as if he lost his sister's wholehearted loyalty and trust. But it was something that had to be done in order to secure his future throne and the future of his country and people.

Still sniffing and hiccuping, she pouts sadly, “I already told you I didn't want to get married! Yet you drug me and believed that I can just sleep my way through this process of losing my freedom! How is that fair to me?”

Her defense soon turns into frustrated screams and shouts that silenced the whole residence. The prince sighs, feeling guilty enough to die at the moment, and looks up to her with sorrowful eyes. “It had to be done,” His brotherly voice is gone and a powerful commanding tone filled his vocal cord, making him sound more and more like a ruler and an emperor as the days go on. With his undeniable commanding voice, YinRi sits up, forming a posture that made her look more presentable and ladylike.

“Our cousin.” His voice drifts off. “Or should I say adoptive cousin...is a big threat to the throne.

“With many of the powerful, influential kings and officials supporting him to rebel against the empire to form another dynasty, he poses as a big threat to the imperial throne, which I will be taking myself after our father's death.” He sighs as he guides me to the seat in front of him at the tea table.

“But what does that have to do with me?” She hisses.

“Use your brain sometimes, girl! You have a big part in this and without you, there's a bigger chance the domestic empire will fall in it's peak.” He insults with a glare. YinRi's more of an insulter with violence, while her brother's more of an insulter with the brains. She frowns distastefully at him. “Look, girl. You are the most supportive, devotional, and loyal person to me and the empire! You...are also the public's eye candy. The oh-so-perfect, gentle Princess of Heaven and Earth. The public loves you, in fact everyone loves you! If I can get you together with our cousin, I can most likely secure the loyalty tie between him and I or else if he decides to rebel, you can act as spy.”

“Makes sense, but I still don't get how I'm the one that will 'secure the loyalty tie between him and you'.” She rolls her eyes, annoyingly. “Jiho, don't drag me into your plans without my consent. If we had this discussion earlier, you wouldn't have to do the drugging.”

“Yes, yes, yes. I'm very sorry, sis.” Jiho smiles sheepishly. “Just think! If you are him and I'm offering the people's loving princess slash the empire's most prized jewel to you, wouldn't that mean that I'm offering a once-in-a-life time deal to make an alliance with you or I feel that I trust you?”

“This is absolutely peculiar!” She ruffles her hair in frustration, making herself look more and more disheveled with her ripped dress and untidy hair. Jiho groans in annoyance, thinking that his sister is brain dead enough that she can't even twist her way through a simple mind game. “Most of us know that I'm not the real princess, so won't that spark something once he finds out?”

“No, my dear sister.” He smiles cunningly. “There's always a way out of something when you are powerful. We can just cover that lie with another lie. The easier way out is, of course, killing the ones that know the secret or making them loyal. The riskier way is saying that you were adopted since birth due to an concubine's death by childbirth. Or the even riskier way is to fake a blood test result by using mother's or my blood.”

YinRi nods, a little unwillingly. Even though the young princess was not the emperor's true blood daughter, the emperor treats her better than he would treat his own daughter. From birth, YinRi has capture the attention of many officials and the public eye with her gentle appearance and playful personality. Growing up, her tender aids to the helpless in poverty and her love for orphans earned her the title of the Gentle Princess by the people. Even until now, her disdain for silk dresses and love for weapons and power frighten the officials of the Imperial Court, predicting that her repulsive and directional nature towards power would lead her to rebel against the empire, and try to become emperor herself. Instead of being ladylike and quiet like a future wife and delicate princess, she has a cocky attitude, loud and animal behavior, a violent nature, and hyper and boyish actions. Most of her personality and nature are highly influenced by her cousins and her brothers, who she grew up with since birth. As the youngest girl in the imperial palace, she found the females of her family highly tedious, who bored her with sewing, long talks of finding a reliable man, cooking, dancing, making tea, putting on makeup, and other subjects she found utterly irksome. At the age of 8, she started to play with her male cousins and brothers. From pretending to be pirates of the 7 seas to imitating the daily imperial life, she found fun and freedom within her group of little friends, who never thought of her as an outsider from her birth. The 7 little boys often wasted their playtime staring at her from afar as she sulk in boring lessons of tea making and sewing. They would often stare at her with inquisitive as this strange little girl blesses their palace with laughter. Of course, with the second to youngest female already a mother of 2 boys, the boys have never seen such a small girl. With the want lurking in them to approach her to play, they were always scolded by their mothers to never bother their lessons with the little princess. After joining in with their lessons in archery, swordsmanship, kungfu, and academics, the young princess never wanted to go back to the tedious lessons with the females.

“So are you willing to comply and cooperate with me or do we have no deal?” Jiho says with pleading eyes. It was as if he was begging her to help him and to cooperate with him. Sacrifices will have to be made for one's blossom. And YinRi's sacrifice for her freedom will not be for her own blossoming, but for her empire, for her brother, for the emperor, and for the future of her kingdom.

“Under one condition,” She smirks at her brother. “I get to get married in a male's attire or like this.”

Jiho's smiling crescent eyes droop into a blazing glare. His knuckles turning white in his tight grip. “No way! I rather have you forced into marriage than have you in a male's attire or in great dishevelment!” He hisses at her with venom leaking out of his words. “That will be a great dishonor to the imperial family! We're not cheap, we're not a mess, and we surely are not a family who will be giving their daughter away looking like she just woke up from the Stone Age!”

YinRi bursts out in laughter at her brother's raging temper, which reminded so much of her loving father. Well, at least when he was in good health. “I was just kidding. I wouldn't want to be embarrassed either.” She laughs rhythmically like a flowing melody. “I want to get married in my best dress. Not the bridal wear. I want my hair done in a ponytail and not like a bird's nest.”

“That's better, but still disgraceful!”

YinRi slam her fists on the redwood table, causing the legs to breakout and leaving the table tumbling down on the ground with a loud bang. The fine porcelain tea set cracks. She places her slender hands on her hips admiring her masterpiece. Jiho groans in utter irritation. “This or nothing.” She smirks devilishly.

“Woo YinRi! This is the 2^nd time this week!” He whines as he stomps his feet. “Oh my God! That tea set was Uncle Bang's present for my 13^th birthday! Yah! Stop destroying my furnitures! It must have cost me a million dollars by now to repair and buy new ones!”

“Whatever, Jiho. Don't buy such expensive stuff then.” She snorts, waving him off.

“How would you like it if I bent your precious million dollar weapons?” He threatened.

“Don't you dare, you little punk!”

“Then don't destroy mine!”

“Fine!” YinRi sticks her tongue out in a childish way. She proceeds to stomp out of Jiho's study.

“Yah...” He mutters.

“What?” YinRi snaps around, sounding annoyed.

“Don't you want to know who you're promised to?” He asks as he stares at the full moon in the night sky. The stars glisten back at him, illuminating the entire palace like crystals. He stares back to his sister. She has changed. From a fragile girl with a plump face and stubby figure, she has grown to be a slender, graceful woman with sharp craved features and a curvy figure. But there is one thing that was always there. Her doe like eyes reflecting admiration, devotion, and loyalty to him. As a kid, she sees him as a hero and an example, but now, her eyes show respect and dedication to him as the future leader of the entire kingdom. It pains him to see the little girl he always protects and spoils, now sacrificing herself for him. The moment he was always afraid of has arrived. He has always been awoken from nightmares, dreaming that his once little princess would leave him to become a woman. Today, his nightmare became reality and he's scared to let go of his grasping palms on the little girl's soft hands, but it wasn't him that's letting go...it was her brushing it off.

She smiles gently, her eyes reflecting the love that she could never describe with words for her big brother. “Does it matter?” She laughs it off sadly. “My trust is in your care, my lord.”

A lump forms in his throat as she addresses him. He shakes his head disapprovingly. “You are dismissed.” He sighs as she bows and proceeds to walking. With a whisper, he says, “Thank you, my YinRi-ah.”

She does not stop walking. While Jiho believes she had not heard him, YinRi's lips curl into a proud smile as she head back to her residence.