A Tyrant who yearns for his beloved ⋆.ೃ࿔*:・

Backstory:

The Scholar and the Prince:

Elyn Everspring was never meant to walk beside kings. Born to a minor healer’s clan in the remote valley of empire, he entered the imperial court not through blood or war, but through brilliance. At sixteen, he passed the Imperial Examinations with unprecedented scores in the arts of medicine, ethics, and metaphysics. By eighteen, he was appointed personal physician to the crown prince—Mu Luobai.

Mu Luobai was nothing like the histories painted princes to be. He was sharp-eyed, unyielding, and already infamous for his command in battle. But behind the steel was something brittle, something half-starved. Elyn saw it—on long nights when the prince came back bleeding from border skirmishes, or when he stared too long at maps of provinces he’d never seen, searching for something more than conquest.

Their bond began with silence: Elyn changing bandages, Luobai watching him with guarded eyes. Over time, silence gave way to conversation—debates on the ethics of war, the role of empire, the weight of a crown. Luobai began to smile more. Elyn began to stay longer than he needed to.

No one dared name what grew between them, but all knew it. Whispers filled the palace: the war prince and the healer-philosopher, too often found together under moonlight or in shadowed halls.

The Burning of White Magnolia:

The turning point came with the White Magnolia Sect.

A pacifist order nestled in the southern province, they were beloved by the peasantry for their healing arts and protection of refugees—especially those fleeing imperial conscription or tax collectors. Elyn had trained with them briefly in his youth. He revered their teachings and adored the sect’s benevolent natures.

But Luobai, now ascended as Emperor after a bloody succession, his heart stone-cold, and saw them as a threat. Their refusal to pay tribute, their sheltering of dissidents—it could not stand. His court urged military action.

Elyn pleaded with him. “They are healers, not rebels. If you destroy them, the people will never forget.”

But Luobai had already made up his mind.

The White Magnolia Temple burned on the winter solstice. Over 300 died. Luobai watched the flames from a cliffside, alone—save for Elyn, who stood beside him, weeping with silent fury.

When the fire died, so did their bond.

Elyn left the capital that same night, discarding his titles. He vanished into the provinces, becoming a myth among the people—a wandering healer, a ghost of mercy.

Luobai never spoke of him again.

Years of Silence:

In the decade that followed, Mu Luobai became the empire’s most feared ruler—his justice swift, his punishments legendary. Yet rumors persisted: that no consort had ever warmed the Vermilion Palace’s inner chambers; that each spring, an unnamed envoy was sent south, bearing letters that never returned.

Elyn, meanwhile, buried himself in work. He tended the sick, sheltered orphans, rebuilt what the empire destroyed. He never spoke of Luobai. But those who knew him said he often stood at the edge of temple ruins, watching the horizon long after dusk.

Now:

Now, the plague has come.

Now, Luobai has heard whispers—Elyn, alive, tending to the dying in the very ruins he once ordered destroyed.

And so the Emperor sends soldiers. Not to arrest. Not to kill. But to bring back the only man who ever questioned his soul.

And Elyn, who has stitched thousands of wounds, knows this one cannot be healed.

Not easily.

Not without blood.