She’d done it—she’d taken Ruyi’s hand! She’d been brave and done it and she was so proud of herself.

As she led Ruyi along, princess Song dearly hoped she was doing a good job hiding her nervousness. Every night in her diary she wrote a snippet about Ruyi. Some nights she wrote mortifying things, things she blushed at and crumpled up and threw in the hearth once she’d read them in the light of day.

She kept sneaking glances at Ruyi when she wasn’t looking. She felt like she might faint. She’d agonized over every word of that invitation. She’d thought about signing it ‘love, Tingting,’ but what if it scared Ruyi off?

She really really hoped Ruyi fancied her too, but if she was honest, she wasn’t so sure. Ruyi was so—so—her. She probably had dozens of suitors lined up for her; she probably had to beat them off with a broom. And Song… the only special thing about her was that she was a princess, and with who Ruyi was family with she’d hardly be impressed by stuff like that…

No! She shook her head—she promised herself she’d stay positive. She’d underlined it three times in her diary. Positivity only today. No crying, and definitely no nervous breakdowns. Not until after Ruyi left, at least.

“This way,” she whispered, turning down another spiral staircase, using each turn as an excuse to sneak a little glance over her shoulder. Ruyi looked so cool, like a fae queen—cool and composed and dignified.

Then she thought about the very undignified things she’d written in her diary and blushed harder. There was the poetry about Ruyi, oh Heavens the poetry, but there was stuff that was even worse. She’d written fantasies about them kissing—on the lips! One night—looking back, she was sure she’d been possessed by a demon—she wrote things that went even further...

She felt a rush of shame. How could she sexualize Ruyi like that? It was so crude, so awful; it wasn’t fair to Ruyi at all. She was such a creep.

***

If this little minx didn’t stop swaying those sultry little hips Ruyi might just pounce on her then and there. She was going feral. She was losing her mind.

***

Somehow they made it down to the library without incident.

“—And this is where we keep the third century tomes. We have several of Cao Ziqing’s original observations on flowering herbs, can you believe?”

“Oh,” mumbled Ruyi. “…Cool.”

Who was this imposter who had taken over Ruyi’s body? Where was all her spunk, her pride, her wit? She kept waiting for some biting line to pop into her head, but none did. Instead she shut down, mutely following. Why was she so empty? What was wrong with her?!

With a cold horror she realized she was screwing it up. Where was a drink when she needed one? The princess probably thought she was such an idiot.

***

Song’s worst fear was being slowly played out before her eyes, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

She was boring her guest. She was screwing it up.

“Ah,” drawled Ruyi upon being shown a sixth-century jade cauldron. Song had thought it was really neat, but Ruyi was acting like—like it was so boring it wasn’t worthy of her intellect, or something, which—maybe it wasn’t? Song didn’t know. She was nearly in tears, but she promised herself she wouldn’t cry, she’d underlined it thrice! So she swallowed, and sniffed, and kept on trying.

She was such an idiot.

***

They made it to the organic transmutations section after the longest thirty minutes of Ruyi’s life.

“How’s your research going? It was in transmutations, wasn’t it?” said the princess with this encouraging smile, as though this wasn’t the twelfth time she’d tried to single-handedly resuscitate a dead conversation. She was being so caring, she was trying so adorably hard, but all Ruyi could give her was, “It’s… difficult.”

She wanted to throw herself into the White River.

“Oh,” said the princess. “Difficult… yeah, I guess it’s just like that sometimes, isn’t it?”

The princess turned away. She’d lasted far longer than Ruyi had expected. Far longer than Ruyi deserved.

“Well, here’s the wing,” said the princess, flapping a lame arm at the hall. “I picked out a few titles for you, but… um.. it’s probably best I leave you here to browse…wouldn’t want to get in your way or—or anything…”

She sounded choked up.

“No!” said Ruyi desperately. “No—stay. Please. I want you here.”

“You do?” sniffed the princess.

“Of course! I love being around you. I love your shy little smiles. I love how caring and plucky and kind you are, and the only reason I’ve been so quiet is half of me is too nervous to talk straight and the other half is too horny to talk straight. Actually, the ratio isn’t half and half, it’s more like a quarter to three quarters. Can I please please please kiss you, I am going insane.” This was the monologue that went through Ruyi’s head, and she wished she had the courage to say at least the first bit. Instead what came out of her mouth was,

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Yeah…”

“Oh…” said the princess. Then it hit Ruyi how inconsiderate she was being.

“I mean—if you’re free, of course—if you’ve got something else later—”

“No!” yelped the princess. “Nothing else at all. I’d love to stay.”

Ruyi felt like she’d finally mustered the wherewithal to form complete sentences. Then the princess flashed that shy smile at her and she felt like a blind person seeing sunlight for the first time.

“Uh,” she said.

“Here.” The princess skipped down the aisle. She seemed suddenly rejuvenated. “I thought you might like this treatise by Liu…”

Ruyi figured out a coping mechanism. She didn’t need to say much—she could smile and nod and ‘ooh’ like an idiot. She was fine with being an idiot if it made the princess happy. And the princess did seem much happier than when she was silent and brooding. She was having quite a bit of difficulty latching onto what the princess was saying; she was getting distracted by the subtle movements of her lips.

She really was going insane.

“And this—oh?” The princess had hit upon a book bound in cracked red leather amid a sea of dusty browns. “I don’t remember this being here…”

She picked it out. “The Tartarus Codex: On the Becoming of Demons.”

“Wait, what.”

Ruyi was on it in an instant. “No way in Hell!”

“What is it?”

“Can I?”

“Sure.”

She flipped through the pages, skimming at the text, frowning skeptically at the diagrams. By the time she was halfway through the text her frown had gone from skeptical to puzzled. By the time she neared the end she was wide-eyed. She picked out a formula at random, closed her eyes, ran the colors and shapes in her brain.

“No way,” she whispered again.

“What?”

“This is supposed to be a lost text,” murmured Ruyi. “I thought all copies were erased.”

This was by design. There was an ancient rumor, long discredited, plaguing the logs of old alchemy texts, that demons and humans were once the same species. It was an accident of alchemy which split them. And the Tartarus Codex, a mythical lost text, purported to be the bridge.

No one could confirm this since all copies of the Codex were burned by a human Emperor thousands of years ago. Even now it was banned—it was meant to rank among the forbidden texts. But it had been so long it was hotly debated whether the Codex even existed.

It was still far likelier than not the thing in her hands was a forgery. If it was, the forger was at least a Master-level Alchemist himself. It had a whiff of authenticity.

Demon biology differed fundamentally from humans in one key way: they had no core. They stored their powers in the flesh, and consequently their physiques were the source of their power. A lightning-aspect human might draw lightning from the clouds or cast electro-balls at their enemies; a lightning-aspect demon would throw fists crackling with lightning and move with limbs made lightning-fast by qi.

Somehow, they’d come across a secret humans didn’t: how to use qi without a core.

Probably this was nothing. Almost certainly this was nothing.

“Can I borrow this?” she asked. Her fingers were tingling where they met the leather cover.

“Yes! Take anything, please. Anything at all,” said the princess. “What’s mine is yours.”

Ruyi had no clue what possessed her. But she took a step in so they were real close, almost chest-to-chest, and said, “Anything?”

“Anything you want,” whispered the princess. “Just take it.” She was very close, so close Ruyi could smell her peachy perfume. Her face was quite red; her eyes were trained on the ground.

Ruyi had leaned halfway forward before she caught herself.

What was she doing?!

“Thanks,” she gasped, leaning away, dropping the tome in her satchel with nerveless fingers. She wasn’t sure if she couldn’t meet the princess’ eyes or if it was the other way around—maybe both?

They ambled along to the end of the aisle, the princess mumbling introductions to a few more books, her nodding along. At one point their hands brushed. Both of them flinched like they’d been stung.

The next hour passed like that, locked in this excruciating waltz.

***

It was time to bid farewell. Princess Song stood on the doorstep, feeling fragile.

What was wrong with her? The last hour she just couldn’t talk! She thought she was holding up fine, and then something happened in the library when Ruyi got really close, close enough to kiss, so close she felt Ruyi’s hot breath on her face, and all the stuff she’d kept locked away in her diary flooded her head, even the lewd stuff, especially the lewd stuff, and her tongue felt like a lunk of dry wood in her mouth…

She wanted to burrow a hole in the ground and never come out. She really was such a creep.

It wouldn’t have worked anyways. She couldn’t see them together, if she was honest—she’d look like a toad next to Ruyi. It was better this way. She knew she’d promised she wouldn’t be negative today, she’d underlined it three times, but there was just no stopping it. Ruyi probably didn’t even like her that way.

The princess snuffled.

***

It was time to bid farewell. Ruyi stood on the steps, feeling frustrated.

She was so useless it hurt. Everything she said felt like the wrong thing.

“Thank you,” she said. She held out a hand like a businessman. Like an invitation signed ‘Sincerely.’ The princess shook it, and Ruyi felt her pulling away, slipping through her fingers—

Was she crying?

“I’m sorry,” whispered the Princess. “I’m so stupid.”

“What?!”

She dabbed at her face with a sleeve, trying—failing—to stop the tears. “I just—I just wanted to impress you. That’s all.”

She looked so frail then, like she was about to topple. Ruyi caught her before she could.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, sobbing into Ruyi’s chest. “I’m sorry.” Over and over—

“Why?!”

“I feel like all I did was screw it up—”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This—this perfect little angel was blaming herself?

“You were perfect,” she breathed, and she meant it.

“I’m sorry—”

“What for?!”

“I m-made you c-come all this way and—and all I did was b-bore you—”

“Shut up. Shut up, you gorgeous little idiot.”

Which stunned the princess so much she stopped crying. Just gawked.

“How could you possibly think that? I love being around you! I love your shy little smiles. I love how caring and plucky and kind you are, and the only reason I’ve been so quiet is half of me is too nervous to talk straight and the other half—” She cleared her throat. “Uh... yeah.”

The princess blinked, sniffled. “Really?”

Only then did Ruyi realize how close they were pressed together. “I thought—I thought you hated me—” mumbled the princess.

“Of course not,” said Ruyi, her voice suddenly half an octave higher. “I like you. I… I might like you a bit too much.”

“Really?” The princess’ smile was too much—just pure innocent joy. She was happy Ruyi liked her. The implications rattled loudly in Ruyi’s empty head.

Then it seemed to dawn on the princess just where her face was buried. She jerked back.

“I’m sor—!”

“If you say 'I’m sorry' one more time…” Ruyi wracked her brain for a punishment, but she was a bit too frazzled at the moment. “…I'll punish you," she finished lamely.

“How?!” The princess looked genuinely scared.

“I’ll kiss you. Right on the lips,” she declared. Then instantly regretted it. She’d meant it like a joke, but she’d said it like she was serious. The delivery didn’t really work.

“Oh…um…” The princess smiled shyly. “Then…I’m sorry.”

***

Princess Song’s diary entry spanned thirty six pages that night.