LANTERNS AND LONGINGS

Author's Note: This is a non-profit fanfiction based on A Song of Ice and Fire. It is part of a larger story world I plan to adapt into an original novel. All names, places, and affiliations may change in the future.

RUYAN

The midsummer equinox brought with it the Lantern Festival, turning Yin into a sea of light and color that could rival the stars themselves. Streets that normally bustled with the practical commerce of the empire's capital now overflowed with vendors selling paper lanterns, intricate confections, and trinkets of every description. The night air carried the mingled scents of sweet fried dough, incense, and the peculiar metallic tang of fireworks waiting to be launched.

Ruyan watched as her brother Jian guided Robb through the throngs of revelers, pointing out attractions with characteristic enthusiasm. She remained several paces behind, her face a careful mask of imperial dignity despite the festive atmosphere. It wouldn't do for the Princess to be seen gawking at street performances like a common girl, though a part of her—a part she kept carefully buried—sometimes wished for such simple freedoms.

"Robb Stark! You cannot visit Yi Ti without experiencing bird racing!" Jian declared, dragging the Northerner toward a circular arena where colorful songbirds had been trained to fly specific courses. "The southern birds are the quickest, but the mountain varieties have more endurance. I'll stake ten gold taels on the blue one—you should choose your own bird."

Robb hesitated, and Ruyan could read the internal struggle on his face. He was still trying to maintain his distance, his wariness—still the unwilling captive despite the wonders being paraded before him. Yet Jian's enthusiasm was difficult to resist, and the genuine excitement of the crowds proved infectious.

"I wouldn't know which to choose," Robb finally replied, a careful compromise between participation and resistance.

"The red one," Jian decided for him, pressing coins into his hand. "Look at how it preens—it knows it's the fastest!"

Ruyan suppressed a sigh. Her brother meant well, but his enthusiasm sometimes bordered on coercion. The irony wasn't lost on her—they had brought Robb here by force, and now Jian was forcing him to enjoy himself by sheer relentless enthusiasm.

"Jie Jie (sister, sister), look!" Ruolan tugged at her sleeve, breaking imperial protocol with the casual contact that only the youngest princess could get away with. "Those sugar sculptures—they've made a perfect dragon! Can we get one?"

The simplicity of Ruolan's delight never failed to soften something in Ruyan that she struggled to define. For all her imperial training—all the years spent perfecting languages, martial arts, diplomacy, and self-control—she found herself utterly defenceless against her younger sister's unguarded joy.

"Very well," she conceded, allowing Ruolan to pull her toward the candy-maker's stall, where an old man with wizened hands carefully constructed delicate creatures from molten sugar.

As she watched the craftsman work, Ruyan felt a familiar emptiness expand within her chest. The full moon hung above the festivities, round and perfect in the night sky, casting a silver light that made the paper lanterns seem to glow from within. There was something about the full moon that always triggered this hollow ache—a sentiment she couldn't quite place or understand.

It was deep, painful, and persistent. A longing without a name or clear object. Despite years of imperial training designed to suppress such feelings—to render the perfect imperial daughter immune to emotional weakness—the empty sensation persisted. She had learned to disregard it, to function through it, but never to eliminate it entirely.

"Sister, aren't you excited for the lantern release?" Ruolan asked, happily licking sugar from her fingers, propriety abandoned in the delight of the moment. "It's nearly time!"

Ruyan nodded, her eyes drifting toward where Jian and Robb stood watching the conclusion of the bird race. The red bird had indeed won, and Robb was collecting his winnings with a reluctant smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

The past few weeks had revealed a different dimension to the young wolf of Winterfell. During the military tour with Xian, he had asked insightful questions about command structures and training methodologies, absorbing information with the focus of someone genuinely interested rather than merely playing along. When Jian had shown him the administrative offices and imperial academies, he had been particularly engaged, asking about how information was organized, how systems were maintained.

"I want something like this for the Northern smallfolk," he had told Jian, surprising both princes. "Even if they can't enter high positions, such knowledge might discover talented minds among lowborns."

The comment had given Ruyan pause. Was Robb Stark beginning to see the potential benefits of an alliance? His anger toward her and Yi Ti remained evident, flaring whenever their conversations turned toward ideological differences. Yet beneath that resentment, she detected a growing appreciation for what her civilization might offer his people.

After the military and administrative tours, the medical schools will surely impress him further, she thought. He's seen our capacity for war and governance—next he'll witness our capacity for healing.

It was like enticing a petulant child with increasingly impressive toys until he finally agreed to behave. The comparison made her uncomfortable, but she pushed the feeling aside. The ends justified the means. Once the alliance was secured, the North would benefit from Yi Ti's knowledge—agriculture, medicine, governance systems that had been refined over thousands of years.

But what if, after all this, he still refused?

The thought chilled her despite the warm summer night. What would her father think... or worse, do? The Emperor had made his expectations perfectly clear during their last audience. Three is an unlucky number. There shouldn't be a third time. The warning had been unmistakable, and the consequences of a second failure potentially dire.

If Robb would not agree to the marriage, he might not be sent home at all. He would be kept in Yi Ti against his will, and while she could still marry him by imperial command, the result would be a poisoned alliance from the start. He would forever resent her for a forced marriage—more than he already resented the forced journey.

Despite her determination to complete her mission successfully, Ruyan found herself increasingly reluctant to consider that outcome. She didn't want a marriage of pure political calculation, with a husband who looked at her with cold contempt. She didn't want her future child to grow up witnessing their father's hostility toward their mother.

If Robb truly would not agree... then there was another option, one she had considered but not yet voiced. Jon Snow. Bastard he might be, but he carried Stark blood. If they pursued him instead, the diplomatic fallout might be less severe than if they simply forced Robb to comply. Perhaps Jon would even welcome such an opportunity—after all, he had been planning to join the Night's Watch, where baseborn men could rise beyond the limitations of their birth. In Yi Ti, he could become a prince consort. The blood was what mattered for magical inheritance, not the legitimacy of birth.

But that was a contingency for later consideration. For now, she still had time to convince Robb Stark that an alliance served both their interests.

"Sister, you're thinking too hard again," Ruolan chided, pulling Ruyan back to the present moment. "Look, they're bringing out the lanterns for the release ceremony!"

Indeed, servants were distributing rice-paper lanterns to the crowd, each one containing a small oil lamp to provide lift. Ruolan immediately grabbed two, handing one to Ruyan with childlike excitement.

"Make a wish when you release it," she instructed, as though Ruyan hadn't participated in the Lantern Festival every year of her life.

Nearby, Jian was explaining the tradition to Robb, who held his lantern with the careful puzzlement of someone encountering an unfamiliar custom.

"The lanterns carry our wishes to the heavens," Jian told him. "Some wish for prosperity, others for health or long life. What will you wish for, Lord Stark?"

Ruyan couldn't hear Robb's response, but she saw the way his face darkened momentarily. Home, she thought. He will wish for home.

The gongs sounded, signaling the start of the ceremony. As one, the crowd prepared their lanterns, holding them low until the final gong would signal the release.

Ruyan found herself standing near Robb in the shuffle of positions. Their eyes met briefly, and for once, neither looked away immediately.

"What does the Princess of Yi Ti wish for?" he asked, his tone somewhere between curiosity and challenge.

Ruyan considered her answer carefully. "Success," she finally replied, her voice low enough that only he could hear. "Success in creating something beneficial for both our peoples."

Robb's expression shifted slightly—not softening exactly, but registering surprise at her response. Before he could reply, the final gong sounded, and thousands of lanterns rose into the night sky, a constellation of human hopes ascending to meet the stars.

As she watched her lantern join the others, Ruyan wondered what Robb had wished for when he released his own. Home, certainly. But perhaps, just perhaps, he had begun to see other possibilities as well.

The medical tour will be decisive, she thought. After that, he will understand what we can truly offer the North.

The moon continued its silent vigil overhead, full and bright, as the lanterns drifted higher and eventually disappeared into the vastness of the night. The hollow ache persisted within her chest, but alongside it now was something else—a cautious, guarded hope that her mission might still succeed, not through force or manipulation, but through genuine understanding.

Time would tell if such hope was justified—or merely another illusion, as ephemeral as the lanterns that had vanished into the darkness above.