#624: The Imperial Garden

[lordchen]

Prompt: #624
Title: The Imperial Garden
Pairing: Chen/Lay
Rating: PG 13
Warning: mentions of past abuse
Word count: 21,200
Summary: The imperial garden of China is full of wonders, magic clinging to every surface, waiting to be discovered. Something that has yet to be discovered is the battle happening right under its visitor's noses.
Author’s note

Comments

[zyxisagod]

ok I'm back and I'm just smiling widely jsjshshskxf I really enjoyed this so much! I loved everyone's characterisations and how they all fit in in the grand scheme of things. I adored chanyeol and junmyeon out of the side characters but maybe I'm biased bc they're just below laychen in my bias list lol~

I'm also p biased bc I basically died every time yixing came up and I loved everything you've done with him, and I'm so happy that you merged his and Marco's similarities.

I adored the attractions and how you described them. the yin yang one's my fav and when the description came to light and when jd saw yx's shadow I was just rolling around in my seat!!

I personally think it's great that jd had moments of doubt about his feelings for yx because he's not physically attracted to men but he can't deny that he needs yx. and him coming to terms with wanting yx in his own way and not in the way it's "supposed to be for lovers". because I've personally have been through that and it's really heartening to see it being explored without making it all "single-target-sexual".

well done on the loophole to end the game! again, I'm impressed with how you've adapted the night circus and made it your own. thank you so much for choosing this prompt and working so hard on it. thank you for completing it and thank you for sharing it!

[sugaryandsalted]

Hello, author here~ ♪

First of all, I'm really glad you like this, even though it's a partly unbeta'd mess - this type of style is the toughest for me, seeing as I'm not a native speaker (but the Night Circus is my 2nd favorite book, so I had to take the challenge!)

I should thank you for prompting this - after all, you chose Lay to kind of resemble Marco, and I feel like the two roles suit them very well!

Unfortunately, I was lacking the time to elaborate on the whole soulmate-like situation, but I'm glad you picked up on it. Many soulmates are more bound than actually in love, so Lay held himself back to let Jongdae develop actual feels on his own; even though those are not of sexual nature per se.

Again, thanks for reading, thanks for prompting, and see you again in the next round, maybe? ♥

P.S.: I think we can agree on being Chanyeol-biased, with how big his role became. *no regrets*