---Empress---

---Khr’kowan’s perspective---

Damn you, Mvhokh!

These clothes are, without doubt, the finest I’ve ever owned… but did they have to be so unwomanly!?

Nothing like the loose fitting, sturdy, sleeveless silks I’ve worn my whole life, this outfit utterly swamps my palps, covers my arms and feels completely impractical to fight in!

Which… I suppose… is the point, isn’t it!

Now that I’m not First Woman any more, dressing like a warrior is no longer appropriate.

I need to dress like a head of state and, since all prior heads of state have been males, it stands to reason that that means dressing in an unfeminine manner.

As I stride from my father’s… from my palace, I see the slender Terran with the black horns, white skin and high, croaky voice coming the other way.

“Your Majesty. A few of us wanted to ask your people about the language of the song that was sung at your father’s…”

“Do as you like, Lilith.” I interrupt, briskly, not stopping.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” she acknowledges, graciously.

I don’t make it more than another [50m] before I’m waylaid again, this time by a corpulent, mostly nude offworlder with scarlet skin and four arms.

He speaks, what looks like a [dragonbird] beak on his face not opening where you would expect “Your Majesty, I was hoping to ask a few questions about the techniques involved in manufacturing your people’s tent cloths. I…”

I jab a finger to the tent we’re standing outside “This is the place where all our cloth is made, Gamoiwoth. I’m certain my halfuncle will be more than happy to tell you all about the techniques we employ… Just knock before you enter… even if you are a man.”

“I will, Your Majesty… Oh, erm… Mistress Miyazaki and [Commadore] Yakchutt were also looking for you… Miyazaki wants to check that you’ll be ready for the trip to the desert ruins tomorrow. Yakchutt wishes to discuss your planet’s naval defence and…”

Exasperatedly, I sigh “Please tell Emiko that I’ll be at the embassy first thing in the morning and tell the [Commadore] that that is an issue regarding which I am not free to make determinations of my own accord… Any discussions of outside military presence in this [system] require both my input and that of the Twigg. Representative Viig will need to be included for such a discussion to be at all productive!”

“O… of course, Your Majesty… I’ll let them know.” says the sturdy looking man, uncertainly.

I stride past him, making for my intended destination.

I have a brand new respect for my father.

In all the years he ruled, I never once saw him lose his patience!

[Three weeks] on the job and I’m about ready to envenom the next person who has some trivial nothing to ask me!!!

I’m so tired…

Drawing up to my… no… not my barracks… First Woman Haorken’s barracks now… I enter the courtyard and see them.

My young halfsisters, still apprenticed, are gathered around as Karkhal fights with one of the Terrans… More accurately, as she fails to fight one of the Terrans.

She swings at him, laughing in wonder as wherever her fist goes, there he is not!

“Stop.” orders the small man, his black hair tied into a bun and the middle of his lower face adorned with hair.

My halfsister instantly ceases and listens with a rapt attention she never gave my instruction!

“You’re still only swinging at me with your arms…” he observes, demonstrating by swinging his arm while keeping the rest of himself stock still “…you need to put your weight behind your strikes for them to be effective!” he swings again but, this time, throws his body behind the strike in a blow I can tell might very well have been lethal if it had been on something other than the empty air!

“But… my body doesn’t look like yours? How am I supposed to do that?”

“Our designs might be different but the principle is the same, the more of yourself you can put behind your punch, the more power it will have!… Try throwing a strike where your body ends up in…” he repositions her upper body and arms “…this position.”

Bemused, she draws back and throws another punch, ending in almost the pose he suggested.

It was clearly a superior strike.

“Wow! That’s so much better!” she observes.

“Truly!” he smiles “Try it again but just keep your fist a little higher?”

She does, throwing the best punch I’ve ever seen her throw.

Then she notices me, the smile instantly being wiped from her face.

“Your Maj…”

“I’m still your sister, Karkhal!” I snap “Being [Empress] does not change that!”

She flinches before turning her eyes down and saying “Yes, Sister… Sorry, Sister.”

I glare around at all of the other girls before saying “Everyone out! I need to have a word with Sir Yuán…”

Sullenly, all of them get up and file from the space, leaving me alone with the small Terran.

“What… do you think… you are doing?” I seethe at him from behind gritted toothplates.

“What am I doing?” he smiles in the same way my father used to, as if he were the only one in on some joke “Why… I was just having a friendly, instructional spar with some of your sisters, Your Majesty… and now I’m talking to you.”

“You know exactly what I mean!” I accuse “These are the barracks! Men aren’t allowed in this place!”

“Neither are Empresses(!)” he smirks “Yet here you are… giving orders that ought to be given by your General… *tsk**tsk**tsk*(!)”

I narrow my remaining eyes at him, causing a little stab of pain from the two sockets under my patch “What’s going on here, Yuán…? This isn’t like you… You’re intentionally trying to antagonise me!”

He pouts his lips and shrugs his shoulders “For the moment, why don’t we simply say I’m here to… teach you a lesson…”

Anger swells in me at the Terran’s arrogance… then quickly dies as it’s overwhelmed by exhaustion.

Coolly, my hands move to the clasp of my cloak and unfasten it.

I fold it up as I walk over to a stone side, around [150cm] from the ground, and place it down.

Next, my hands move to denude my palps of the ridiculous full length skirt they’re covered by, leaving my modesty only protected by the loin cloth I wear beneath.

I fold it up and place it atop my cloak.

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Finally, I take my crown from my head and set it down on my clothes.

I turn to the elder Terran.

“Teach me your lesson then, Sir Yuán… Show me how you fight when you’re against a real warrior and not some little apprentice girls(!)”

“Now… Your Majesty…”

“Fight me or leave!!!” I demand, furiously, pointing to the gap between the tents where he would exit.

He hesitates but then gives another nonchalant shrug of his shoulders and settles into a fighting stance “As you wish… If you are able to touch my head, torso or cause any part of me besides my feet to contact the ground, I will concede defeat to you. If I can cause any part of your body besides your feet to touch the ground, it will be my victory… Is that acceptable?”

I sneer “I don’t need your handicap! I…!”

As fast as lightning, he’s less than an arm’s length away from me with his palm against my midriff.

He looks up at me, no longer smirking and simply says “Yes you do.”

“I wasn’t ready!” I object, angrily.

His smirk returns “Those don’t sound like the words of a ‘real warrior’… Now, are you taking the handicap or is this fight already over?”

“Fine!” I scowl “Just count us in this time!”

His head pivots forward in a ‘yes’ and he begins “Three…”

“Wait!” I stop him and, pointing at his forearms, ask “You’re still wearing your vambraces! I thought you said you took those off when you needed to fight seriously?”

He glances, nonchalantly, at the iridescent metal on his arms and observes “I do… You may draw your own inferences about why I haven’t chosen to remove them for this bout(!)”

I scowl “Oh I am going to enjoy making you eat that arrogance, you smug, smarmy old fool!”

“Please do… if you can.” he retorts before beginning the count “Three, two, one, begin!”

I rush forward to aim a strike at his head, keeping my fist closed as I don’t want to kill him.

He blocks it with both palms and is thrown to my left by the transferred momentum, landing lightly on his feet.

“Sloppy.” he observes, calmly.

I run at him again, aiming a quick succession of light strikes at him with my arms and palps, all of which he easily blocks or parries with his four limbs.

He’s using his weighted vambraces to guard himself quite effectively. My fists hurt from where they’ve impacted the heavy metal!

“Weak.” he goads, infuriatingly.

Simultaneously, I bring both my arms down on him in strikes, from the left and right, while extending my right foreleg to swipe at the back of both of his.

He near effortlessly jumps the leg sweep and blocks both my arms in such a way as to cause me to hurl him backwards, connecting with neither his head nor torso.

He raises his right hand and casually begins inspecting under the small patches of organic armour at the ends of his fingers, as if checking them for dirt.

“Are you sure you ever finished your apprenticeship, Your Majesty(?)” he asks, still looking at his finger plates and not me.

For the life of me, I can’t work out why he’s provoking me like this… but it’s working!

Half growling, half screaming, I close the gap between us and unleash an onslaught of attacks.

The Terran pinwheels and pirouettes between them, not even doing me the courtesy of blocking anymore, just dodging!

“*yawn*…Is this really the best that the Vrakhand have to offer in terms of your Arts? I’ve fought more thrilling matches against the Twigg(!)” he observes, disrespectfully, as I take a break to catch my breath.

The insult riles me to the extent that I lunge down at him with my entire upper body.

I know I’ve made a mistake before I’ve even connected.

The man’s hands fly upward to grasp my horns and he somersaults over my head, landing on my back.

Even with my overcommitted lunge, even with my upper body supporting his weight, I still might be able to keep myself from touching the ground… until his hand braces just rearward of the joint between my upperbody and hindbody and his foot against the back of my neck.

Straightening the length of his body places just enough force behind mine that my hands reflexively fly out to keep my face from impacting the ground.

I stare at the coarse sand of the barracks’ floor, panting heavily and feeling the grit against the flesh of my palms.

“Your loss, Your Majesty.” states my opponent, simply, as he elegantly hops down from my back.

I straighten up and glare down at him.

“How?!” I demand.

“How did I beat you? You’re certainly right that I shouldn’t have been able to… not based on how you fought against Mr Stetter… How do you think I beat you?”

“I don’t know! That’s why I asked!!!” I spit back.

The man wobbles his head, as if mulling it over.

“Perhaps consider just how much sleep you’ve had this week?” he suggests.

I think about it.

Well, last night I had around [2 hours], the night before [3], none the night before that…

“If you’re having to perform maths to answer that question, Your Majesty, then the answer is ‘not enough’(!)” chuckles the Terran.

“Well of course I haven’t had enough sleep! There are a [million and one] things that all require my attention before I set off for the [galactic] capital! You don’t think I want to sleep?!”

“Do all of these things require your attention?” he asks, innocently.

“What do you mean?” I ask, suspiciously.

“Well… as a leader, do you need to do everything yourself? Mightn’t there be a little room for… delegation?” he poses.

“A leader’s role is to lead from the front! I can’t laze around letting others take care of my work for me! That’s not the kind of [Empress] I wish to be!… Besides! I would only have myself to blame if a task I had delegated were not completed as I wished it to be!”

The man gives a conceding wobble of his head before asking “Is that the way your father ruled? Doing everything himself? Denying himself sleep to take work away from those who would have been happy to complete it?”

I frown “I only ever knew my father as an old man, Sir Yuán… It’s natural as an old man that he would require greater rest than I do as a younger woman.”

“So you see his more relaxed style of leadership as resulting from his frailty? You don’t think there’s any wisdom in a ruler ensuring she receives enough rest to not irritably snap at her subjects or lose fights she ought to have won? In letting those best suited to tasks take them off her plate and only intervene when difficulties are encountered?”

I don’t respond.

After a few moments he continues “Your Majesty, I was once in exactly the position you are in now… Oh, I was never a king…” he clarifies, seeing the look of confusion that crosses my face “…I was the abbot of a monastery I left Earth to found on Xīn de Qín, around the same time as your mother was conquering your empire on your father’s behalf… Do you wish to know what I learned during that experience?”

“What did you learn?” I ask, flatly.

“I learned that I…” he takes a protracted pause here “…am not particularly well suited to certain aspects of leadership… I was an unparalleled teacher of Shaolin Arts and well versed in all aspects of Buddhist scripture, theology and philosophy and, so, I had mistakenly assumed none would be as suited to heading that monastery as would I… This I now know to have been conceit on my part! As pious and skilled as I was, it did not make me a good administrator and I lost many nights of sleep in those early years in trying to perform tasks to which I was not well suited! Do you wish to know what happened next?”

“Tell me.” I frown.

“My prioress, Shí Shī Wěi, found me half collapsed while attending to some paperwork… She had me carried off to rest… When I awoke, I returned to my office only to find that she had completed the forms for me! What would have taken me weeks to do between my other duties had taken her less than an hour. It was an immense relief and, the next time there was administration to take care of, I asked for her help… With Wěi’s administrative prowess properly utilised, I was better able to focus on the aspects of monasticism to which I was better suited!… Eventually, I relinquished the title of abbot entirely to her, though, by that point, she’d already been functionally acting as the monastery’s abbess for decades.”

“So you’re telling me you don’t think I’m well suited to the crown.” I state, irritably.

“I’m not, Your Majesty. I’m telling you that you don’t need to do everything yourself… You have designated your sister as your General and, yet, when she told you there was a man in the barracks, you came here yourself rather than permitting her to remove me on your behalf, didn’t you?”

“How did you know Haorken was the one who told me you were here?” I growl.

“Ah…” he chuckles “…well… that would be because she and I are both embroiled in a little… conspiracy against you…(!)”

I take a few steps backward, guardedly.

He waves his hand, dismissively “A joke, Your Majesty. An intervention more than a conspiracy! Both your husband and your sister are concerned about your overwork and insomnia and brought their concerns to our coordinator and ambassadors… they then enlisted me to come and teach you this lesson in the only way they all thought you’d be receptive to…”

“I’m surrounded by traitors(!)” I quip, dryly.

“You’re surrounded by concerned friends.” he corrects.

“And what do these ‘concerned friends’ propose to do about my fatigue?” I query.

“Ah… well… that part is nice and simple… 100m that way…” he points past me “…is the Swift Claw… 10km that way…” he points to his right “…is the embassy, where a comfortable room is made up for you and, 400m that way…” he points left “…is your palace, in which your husband and sister are standing by for the signal that they are to give you the night off… You just need to come with me and you can have a full 16 hours of rest… and, if you need more, we can delay the trip to your ancestors’ city and give you as much as you require… The choice is yours.”

I feel my every weary limb cry out for me to say ‘yes’ but, instead, I ask “And what’s wrong with my chambers in the palace? Why do I need to come to the embassy to sleep?”

“I asked precisely that question myself… My coconspirators explained that, so long as you are proximate to your place of work, there exists the chance for your rest to be interrupted, either externally, by those seeking you out, or internally, by your need to ‘just do one more thing’… If we remove you from those distractions, you can rest easier… Not to mention we’ve just developed what ought to be a rather effective, Vrakhand suitable, sedative application for if you’re still not able to rest?”

I sigh “Fine… you win… I succumb to your conspiracy(!)… I suppose I can’t very well trust Haorken to be my Regent for the next [few years] if I don’t even trust her to hold the fort for a single night, can I!”

“Very astute, Your Majesty.” he acknowledges “Now… I just need to retrieve my pet, Qīnglóng, from your river, then we can go.”