Eirian and Chenzhou slept for three weeks, four days, sixteen hours, and 37 seconds.
Not that Yuze was counting out of worry.
He was counting out of annoyance.
Yuze did not like being in charge when Chenzhou was incapacitated and the longest he'd ever had to do it before now, was a couple of days. Chenzhou had jokingly offered to make him heir the last time he'd taken to his bed and Yuze had threatened to leap off the southern bridge, which happened to cross the most dangerous section of rapids that travelled underneath the estate.
The past three weeks, four days, sixteen hours, and 37 seconds had been hell from the get go.
The only reason the Camelia's court didn't assassinate him by the end of the first day of the first time Chenzhou left him in charge, was because they all knew he how much he hated it and there was no chance he was going to try and take over permanently. Yuze being in charge left them free to squabble amongst themselves over who would take over.
It also meant they had no qualms about pushing as much responsibility as possible on him during the one period where he couldn't tell them to fuck right off. Not more than an hour after Eirian had finished healing Chenzhou, said "Let me rest a bit" and passed out right next to him, Lady Yang, Lord Hua, and Lord Zhao had been in his office demanding to see the marriage contract. An hour after that Lord Yin and his cohort had been in demanding Yuze rule on pretty much everything that had been sitting on his desk for the past month.
And then General Francis and General Yue had wanted permission to attack a small conglomeration of tribes gathering along the northeastern border and Yuze had almost given it to them, until Snake had nudged a report about their yearly festival to celebrate the end of summer harvest into his line of vision and he'd thrown the bored generals out of his office.
After that, every day had been a thousand little things, half of which other people should have been able to handle but apparently didn't want to and Yuze had lost his patience real fast. Snake had stepped up, barely leaving his office as she helped sort through the reports and taskings and kept guard at the door, stopping most of the visitors before they made it inside.
The beautiful farm girl had started as a maid to support to aging parents, but the previous First Eye had noticed her observational skills and above average memory after a few dramatic incidents happened behind the scenes in the main castle. She'd been out among the tribes when Yuze had first arrived at the Camelia's intelligence branch. She'd been a bit cold, wary of the newcomer the way every intelligent agent was when faced with someone new, but she'd been willing to offer advice when he asked and apparently the act of being willing to ask for advice had set him apart from the others, so she'd actually given him some.
They'd become close friends by the time Yuze had taken over and Snake had been recalled from the field to work as a senior intelligence agent that operated in and out of the Camlia. She'd even done a stretch in Aontacht before Chenzhou had started looking for a wife.
Much of Snake's life was a mystery aside from a basic understanding of where she came from. All these years later, Yuze still didn't even know her name, but he trusted her more than anyone besides Chenzhou.
He wasn't blind either. He knew she had a bit of crush on him, she had for years, but she'd never done anything about it, so he figured it was more of a friend crush than a romantic romantic thing. Snake wasn't exactly shy, nor was she stupid. She'd been there for all of Yuze's marriage, she knew he didn't like women.
She had to know. He'd never been involved with a woman as long as they'd known one another. Eirian was just imagining things.
"You don't have to do this. You should be enjoying you time off." Yuze shifted a stack of reports to the finished pile as Snake shut the door in the face of another court member demanding Yuze's presence at a negotiation that had nothing to do with intelligence and was below Chenzhou to deal with.
Snake locked the door and instead headed over to the fire, feeding more papers to the flames. "I'm no good at sitting around." Then, "You really should have an assistant." Chenzhou had been saying the same thing for years, but Yuze hated the idea of some else constantly working in his space and quite frankly, the security level of much of the work in his office, couldn't be trusted to anyone but Yuze himself.
"Maybe someday." He muttered, non-committal. No one listened when he said never so he'd pretty much given up. It was almost midnight, and he still had a dozen things he needed to do. This week's intelligence reports from the tribal lands were still waiting for review. He needed to review and sign off on the funding allotments for next month and the cavalry was requesting additional funds for special training. The Infantry Weapons Lost report was a fucking mess. How the hell did they keep losing their shit? And the yearly reparations from the tribes needed to be counted.
Then there was Eirian's work. She'd apparently ordered the entire main castle redecorated? Why, he had no idea. She'd started a review of Chenzhou's extensive medical records and Yuze had no idea what she was looking for. She'd also requested the Camelia's official Histories, but Yuze wasn't touching those. Her private correspondence was growing each day. Yuze hadn't opened any of them, but there were letters from the King and the Prince and Yuze wasn't sure how long they could sit unanswered before….
God, if the King or the Prince showed up while Chenzhou and Eirian were unconscious…
Well, Yuze was going to jump off the damn southern bridge right in front of them.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Snake snapped around, reaching for the dagger she kept in the small of her back all the time.
Yuze had drawn Qiang Ye without thinking.
"Lord Rong! Lord Rong, are you in there?" More banging. "Lord Chenzhou is awake!"
~ tbc