The winds over the imperial capital carried a quiet tension.
News of the Zerg retreat after the appearance of the mysterious white fox spread like wildfire. The imperial court, already in turmoil from recent revelations, now seethed beneath a surface of controlled grace.
Whispers filled silken halls.
"The fox ger… he controls ancient power."
"What if he turns it against us?"
"The Marshal is compromised."
"We must act before he changes everything."
Behind gilded doors, shadowy figures met in secret.
Among them was a young lord with calculating eyes and a noble insignia pinned in jade. Beside him, cloaked emissaries of bloodlines loyal not to the empire—but to survival.
"He must be taken. Quietly. His power belongs to the crown."
"And if the Marshal resists?"
"Then the dragon must fall with the fox."
The pieces began to move.
But that night, in a quiet villa nestled within the capital's fortified rings, Xiao Lin wasn't thinking of politics, or war, or conspiracies.
He was sitting by the window, watching the moonlight pool across the floor, lost in thought. The white of his robe shimmered like water, his silver hair damp from a recent bath. The pendant Sheng Long had given him hung low, warm against his chest.
The door opened behind him.
Sheng Long stepped in, half in armor, half disarmed. He paused when he saw Xiao Lin.
"…You're not asleep," he said softly.
Xiao Lin turned, a small smile playing at his lips. "Couldn't. Too many thoughts."
Sheng Long stepped forward. "…Me too."
A silence stretched between them—unspoken, heavy, charged.
Then Xiao Lin patted the floor beside him.
"Sit with me?" he asked, voice quiet.
Sheng Long did.
The night was still. Outside, the city buzzed faintly, but inside their small world, there was only the soft sound of breathing and the flicker of candlelight.
"Do you think," Xiao Lin said, looking at his hands, "it's selfish to want one night? Just one… where we don't have to be a weapon or a symbol or a soldier?"
Sheng Long didn't speak right away. Then, he reached out, gently brushing a strand of silver hair from Xiao Lin's cheek.
"I think," he murmured, "I've wanted that for longer than I've admitted to myself."
Xiao Lin leaned into the touch.
It was awkward at first—two warriors unused to softness, brushing fingertips like strangers afraid to break something sacred. Their lips met gently, hesitantly, then again, deeper, more sure.
Sheng Long's hands trembled slightly as he cupped Xiao Lin's jaw, and Xiao Lin shivered when the Marshal whispered his name like a prayer.
The world outside faded.
Clothes slipped away. Walls dropped. No masks, no orders, no bloodshed. Just warmth. Breath. The slow realization that love could be terrifying not because it hurt—but because it healed.
And they needed healing more than anything.
That night, the dragon and the fox slept in each other's arms for the first time. Not as commander and soldier. Not as protector and charge.
But as two souls who, for just one fleeting moment, chose each other—despite the world.
Far away, a pair of traitorous eyes watched a glowing crystal orb as it flickered with foxfire.
"Soon," the whisper came. "The boy will be ours. And when he falls… so will the Marshal."