---

Born on the eighth of an eighth

Two pine needles fell upon Empress' brow

Two months later in a place of no pines

Two more would fall upon another's too

Tested by a broken string, a zither like a tiger

Straining the Empress like a wound, these were her days

Passing by like the years lost to tempests winds

Drowining in the rain, but always one more breath

A book inked in a tongue, in a hand only she'd know

Widens the Empress' gaze when the messenger arrives

The weight of paper in her hand feels like a bar of gold

She hestitates before she reads, afraid of what it says

The first words she reads makes her heart sing

Her name written in that unsteady hand

"If Grandmother Sky is good," it reads

"Then this will find you stitting on your throne

It's been so long for me - so long in the dark

That my eyes might mistake a candle for the sun"

The first time they met their mothers knew

Entangled fates - their destinies entwined

They were but children who did not know

Shefali of the steppes, Shizuka the Empress

Too many years apart, far too long to bear

A flower she'd never seen, so the Empress would take

Her whole garden and move, every flower for her

And for Shizuka, she'd see the world from the stride of horse

An arrowhead that night cut across their palms

A bonding of blood, a promise

The Empress slides a finger 'cross the scar

At least she has the sweetness of a memory

The night beneath the moon, by embers of dying flames

Would forever change the course of their lives

Waking to the dawn as something more

In the light they'd seen the tiger approach

The Empress reads with a tear and a smile

Remembering the day that they'd earned their names

Paintings still depict and the legends tell

Of the girls of eight and the tiger they'd fell

Too many are the years, so tenuous their hearts

Distance and time, parchment and ink

A tether for their souls

The Empress stops - unable to read

Pained by memories

Pained that they're just memories anymore

Time does not heal, time only hurts

O-Shizuru! O-Itsuki! The warrior and the poet dead

The Empress' parents slain by her uncle's disdain

She...she would ride against her mother's wish

Shefali would never leave Shizuka to mourn

Day and night she'd never stop

No rest until she was with her again

Reunited once more, so long apart

Shefali inhales the sweetness of her scent

Shizuka embraces, afraid to let go

And the fated once more entwine

Until she mourned, Shefali would not go

And the Empress weeps-another memory

Plagued and blessed by her divinity

And heirless emperor would marry off his niece

For the flowers and the sun they followed her

But in a duel the suitor must win

Dancing around her suitor's blade

Shizuka a child, but an unmatched sword

One single stroke - out of the sheath and in

Her suitor's face cut, the duel is her's

Their mothers' fates entwined like them

With Shizuka's now dead, just Shefali's left

And she arrived, silent and god-like

Claiming the Emperor' niece as her own

Out on the steppes with Shefali's clan

Day and night she trained, Shizuka persists

Her blade must be sharp, her strikes must be swift

Determined to never be caged again

Beneath the moon, wailed in its light

Shefali watched her train, simply entranced

The way she moved, an elegant dance

Only she could make death such an art

Even the fated have their limits

And sickness would take Shizuka that night

The Empress takes a breath, pausing on the page

For it wasn't the sickness that she remembered

She carried her in furs, Shizuka in her arms

Shefali refused, for gods could not die

Feverish and weak, unwilling to yield

She demanded of her, a kiss before death

A million stars in the sky

A million lives lived before ours

Yet none would love as deep as we do

The heavens would envy us

I worshiped your body as you worshiped mine

Like the lick of flame our lips had met

A taste I long for even now

I yearn for your soul to be in me again

And so they ran, an unaccepted love

As one had left their home, so too would the other

Across the steppes, across the hills

For a brief part of time they had been free

The Empress smears the ink, a tear on the page

If only she had known what was to come

Gods, Shizuka said, they had always been

And if gods they were then demons there were too

In the lands they walked, stalking them in guise

In their clash with the first demon Leng

Shizuka would face him - fearless

And in one single stroke the demon would fall

Spraying from the wound the black blood swept

Across the air Shefali's lips

The infection sets as the blood dripped in

And their eyes becomce locked in a horrified gaze

Now Shefali would learn if she too could survive death

The Empress feels a pain just behind her eyes

A headache from the words - of the bottle she's dried

The black infection, it had always been her fault

What else was she to do, but risk her life too?

Gods do not die like this, Shizuka refused

Shefali would not succumb, and she had always known

That the woman she loved had always been divine

How could she ever be anything else?

Though she had lived, Shefali was cursed

By the keenest urge, the sweetest taste for her blood

And when they had slain men worthy of the sword

She had ravaged them with her hands

Indulging in them, enlivened by their deaths

Shefali couldn't see her hands around her neck

Squeezing the life from the woman she loved

Ashamed she fled, afraid of what she'd done

Once she had returned, Shizuka embraced her

Without hate or judgment

For Shizuka truly knew, what her lover didn't see

That she'd never hurt her again

The path they took was long, but the pain was well endured

And to her brother's palace Shefali would lead them

To the bronze home of her kin

And there they might have peace

But time never heals, it only hurts

The Empress knew her greatest joy was but a portent

Of her greatest pain

The emperor would arrive and demand Shefali gone

He'd demand his niece again to be caged with a man

To be under this thumb - so again she would duel

But he was not divine, the heirless emperor

And he could not see the beast at his side

Stalking the fated, again in human guise

Shizuka - blind - would face the demon Kailon

An ear taken from her, Shizuka realized

A demon hidden he'd been all along

And demon's blood in her, Shefali would devour

At the cost of her eye, she would take its life

Her true nature seen, her sickness unveiled

Shefali would soon be sentenced to death

Shizuka takes her lovers hand, "marry me," she says

"A member of Imperial blood he can never kill"

Shizuka declared her love in the court

Spat at her uncle's feet and challenged his divinity

The emperor roared, "If I cannot kill her

Then out of these lands, she will be exiled"

Only by the impossible, only for the flame

Of a Phoneix feather, may she return

And eight years she wept for her exiled love

The Empress still yearns to see her return

The emperor now tarnished, removed from the throne

Yet still she is incomplete, her soul in two

The Empress for days, had read her wife's words

Now she must know who had brought her this

The messenger is unknown, but they carry one thing

The feather taken from a phoneix's flame

The Empress runs, it cannot be true

The sight of her wife has stolen her breath

The feather held aloft, a smile on her face

And for now they embrace, the rest can wait