31_days | [July 29] [Shediao Yingxiong Zhuan] Resounding

Title: Resounding
Day/Theme: July 29/a bit of your skin that I've yet to have kissed
Series: Shediao Yingxiong Zhuan
Characters/Pairing: Yang Tiexin, Bao Xiruo
Rating: G

Shediao Yingxiong Zhuan © Jin Yong, et al.

"That's not how the world works." Yang Tiexin blew out the candle and turned toward the bed, where, for the first couple of seconds, Bao Xiruo was no more than a silent shape. "Some lives are sacred, and many, many more are not. Corrupt officials, for instance, are better off dead. Things like compassion would be wasted on people like that."

The shape bent her head. "Are you saying that people deserve to be killed for what they do, rather than for what they are? If, say, there are persons from the Jin kingdom who treat us nicely, does it mean we needn't harm them, even if they're from an enemy race?"

Yang Tiexin sat down next to her. "Where are you going with this, Xiruo? Even if we should ever meet nice folks from Jin, we'd do better to stay away from them. There is no need for complicated relationships like that, not for us." He laid a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Don't you agree?"

Her hand came up, covering his. "You're right, of course."

"Now let's go to bed," he said, marveling on how you could spend a lifetime with another human being, and never knew what stones accumulated inside the well of their soul, what phantoms had brushed past them and marked them forever.