Grace

2044 — İSTANBUL, TURKEY

@elysefz​ / for nuray

“what happened?” she set the coffee tray on the nightstand and sat beside nuray on the bed. “i thought you and tobias were good together, did he do something?”

&&. announcing her royal highness, ( nuray lilit osmanoğlu ), the ( 24 ) year old ( crown princess ) of ( turkey ). she is often confused with ( leyla lydia tuğutlu ). some say that she is ( stubborn & judgmental ), but she is actually ( intelligent & compassionate ). 

She did not want to let him in. It felt like another defeat but the sad look he wore made her open the door properly. Too sensitive for his own good. She wondered how many cats had died to make him look so sad. She stood to the side to let him pass into the apartment. “I’m not making any tea for you.” A fact that might change once he talked more. “Take a seat.”

”What I’m doing is living for the people who are alive now and not in fifty decades. Hard decisions come before improvement. Do you think these decisions are easy? To me? To anyone? Do you think I am happy and glad to assist France? Do you truly think so lowly of me that you think I wouldn’t have taken the deal unless I really thought it was worth it?” It had been worth it but someone might argue that her reasons weren’t humane enough for her to say what she had. ”The point is to always become better. The moment you think you have accomplished enough you become complacent and stagnant. There is always more to do that is why no one should think about legacies and what kind of an image they leave behind. It will hold you back.”  And it made difficult decisions even more difficult. Her brother already struggled with his over-powering conscience. “You wouldn’t have been the first father to ignore your daughter,” Xue pointed out with a scoff. Had she not spent her entire youth proving herself worthy in their father’s eyes, she would have never seen the insides of a meeting room. “Without me, you wouldn’t have survived this far. I have this freedom because you know my worth. You should know what I am capable of when I am feeling vindictive.”

Right now, having the love of her life standing right in front of her was excruciating. The fact that she had hurt him broke her heart every day for the past twenty years. While Helena did go on to get married, she never loved her husband. She married who she was told to because of the loyalty she had to her country. If she had followed her heart, she would have been happy and would have had a relationship with her daughter, but the past was the past. It couldn’t be changed. 

Now, Helena was done lying, so of course she had to tell Ming Fa that she still had feelings for him. What else did she have to lose at this point? She figured the feeling wasn’t mutual considering what she did to him. “You’re right…I could have told you, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to complicated things further.” Her husband that she never loved was now deceased, so she was free.

“And that’s completely understandable. I’ve been furious at myself for all these years,” Helena had started to say until Ming Fa moved closer. She then went silent, her eyes locking with his as the two of them stood there. Upon hearing him utter the familiar Chinese term of endearment she hadn’t heard in so long, she took a chance and leaned forward to kiss him. 

Complicate things further. He wasn’t sure that was possible. Not with a baby between them but he understood. He could have no more followed her to Austria as she could have stayed in China. It was an impossible situation. Impossible and painful and Earth-shattering. 

Helena had leaned forward but Ming Fa was already prepared to kiss her. It could have been twenty years ago in their Beijing apartment, the sounds of the city far away in their little world. Ming Fa kissed Helena was air and he had been drowning all this time. The building could have come down around them and he wouldn’t have cared. They could do this. This would be real now 

“That’s exactly the opposite of I want! I want you to stop worrying about creating the right kind of legacy. I want you to forget the word legacy.” She smacked her hands together at the beginning of each sentence, and let her voice rise freely. “Oh so you want change?” That was all he ever talked about. “Come up with a plan that might actually work and not create chaos.” The main reason why Xue would never support him chasing his dreams was because he never talked about steps — just the goals. She feared he would try to take too big a bite and ruin everything. “Is that how an adult man reacts when he hears something he doesn’t like?” she asked, her brows having shot up at his vulgar words. “You stopped doing your royal duty the day you were released from duty. After that it’s been this and that, here and there. Without army you have no direction and it’s starting to show. You might be doing a better job now if you hadn’t quit.” He had no right to call her a brat when he was behaving like an adult sized baby. “Do not,” she told him immediately, barely letting him finish his sentence. “Do not ever threaten me.”

Helena had kept the Austrian government and people in the dark about her relationship with Ming Fa and the child they shared together. At the time, she figured it was easier that way. He had his country to rule and she had hers. She had to take the Austrian throne, or else it would have fallen into the wrong hands. 

The time it took for him to enter the room felt like an eternity. As she stared out the window at the city below, she thought about her biggest regret, which was not being a part of her first-born’s life. She had tried her best over the years to keep tabs on her without making things seem suspicious. Helena wondered what her life would have been like if she had followed her heart and accepted Ming Fa’s proposal. Life would have been more difficult, but she would have been happier. 

The second their eyes met, she felt her heart begin to break all over again. Maybe if she hadn’t gotten caught up in her own web of lies they wouldn’t be in this situation. But the past couldn’t be changed and here they were. When he asked her what was true, Helena went quiet and looked at him for a moment. She still couldn’t believe he was standing right in front of her after all the years apart. 

Taking a hesitant step closer, Helena decided to answer. “Everything except for my name and a few details about where I came from was true. Besides that, you knew the real me. And my feelings for you were and still are genuine,” she admitted. “I couldn’t stay because I was betrothed to someone else. My brother had just abdicated and I was about to become queen.” 

Twenty years had past and Ming Fa still couldn’t think of anyone more beautiful. His father had parade woman in front of him after Mo Chou was born. Someone he could marry. Someone to give him an heir that he didn’t have to legitimize. He wasn’t able to do it. Like Emilia had taken his ability not only to love but to feel anything. She had it all. Had all of him. 

What she had left was a man with nightmares, unsure about everything except that he had never been whole. Ming Fa couldn’t put that on Emilia. This was something he had to deal with. His demons. No matter how quiet they had been when she was in his bed. 

Her answer didn’t help. Actually, it helped a little. The information he had wasn’t a total lie. But that she still had feelings for him left him feeling dizzy because now they had to address the question of What Now? “You could have told me,” he started but that wasn’t fair and it wasn’t true. It wouldn’t have changed anything. 

Ming Fa wanted to fall to his knees and beg. Beg for her back. Beg for her to leave and never return. Beg to be released from this torment. Beg just to touch her for a moment so he could feel something again. He wanted to ask about Mo Chou but that didn’t seem fair. Like it would hurt them both too much. And he wanted to keep this between them for right now. 

HSHQ Adopt | The Crown Princess of China

Ming Fa was the one to raise Mo Chou. He kept her close, almost afraid that she would disappear just like her mother. Mo Chou grew up to be strong-willed and intelligent. She’s just coming out the outside of her teenaged rebellion and looking to make a name for herself. She loves her father but finds him stifling and resents her mother but still aches to meet her.

Personality-wise, Mo Chou is deep down patient and kind like her father but she took after her aunt in many ways and she’s practical and politically savvy. Still, Ming Fa sees her mother in her too. Charming, graceful, and funny; sometimes it hurts Ming Fa to look at her because it makes his heartache. Not just for what he lost but for what Mo Chou never got to have.

She’ll make a good Emperess of China one day and Ming Fa wants to leave a legacy that she can be proud of.