Disclaimer : I don't own anything... Sad.

Chapter One : Special Day

I winced as the sunlight leaked from the closed curtains crawled slowly onto my face. It was morning already, much to my disliking. I lingered on my oversized bed, but as the sunlight fell on my closed eyes, the brightness penetrated through my eyelids and I gave up trying to fall asleep again. I flickered my eyes open, blinked several times before my eyes got used to the light, and sighed. Today was a special day for me.

Suddenly without warning, the doors slid open with a loud bang and instinctively I was up, my hand grabbing a double-ended spear hanging on the wall. However, when I looked at the intruder, I relaxed instantly because the person who had just walked in was one of my favourite person in the world. She walked in graciously but casually as if barging into my room was an everyday thing (which, in fact, was) and tapped me lightly on the shoulder with her golden flute.

"Cao Hua, the sun is already half way across the sky and where should I find you? Still in your bed. It's your sixteenth birthday for crying out loud! Aren't you supposed to be over the moon?" she said melodically with her soprano voice, giving me a reproachful look. She then saw my outstretched hand, still lingering on the spear and she sighed. "You know, how are you planning on getting married if you are always that suspicious? You'll probably kill your husband by accident."

I winced inwardly and retrieved my hand slowly from the weapon. "Of course. That's is, if I do indeed marry, which doesn't seem likely." I said to my sister-in-law, Zhen Ji. She smiled beautifully and sat down on the edge of my bed.

"You're right. No man would want to marry a woman who could knock them out cold in seconds in a combat, even if the woman was as pretty as you… Unless they need protecting, like that Zhuge Liang in Shu."

Now that made corner of my mouth twitch briefly. My sister-in-law carried on excitedly.

"Now come on, Hua. For once in your life, show some emotions! It's your sixteenth birthday and your brother – my husband – especially asked me to take you out for shopping for your party tonight. Let's go, let's go!"

Zhen Ji basically dragged me out of my bed and forced me to dress, opening my small wardrobe and scowling at the contents. She rummaged through them (which didn't take long) while continuously complaining how I had nothing to wear and that she needed to take me for a good shopping. Ji kept trying to make me consider wearing one of her clothes, but I firmly said 'no' and by the end of dressing, I was already exhausted from all the fuss she had made over me. I silently cursed my brother, Cao Pi, for asking Ji to do this, but then I cancelled it because Ji was a really good friend of mine, someone who, at first, could appear rather haughty and arrogant but in truth, had a really kind heart… And a bit of a chatterer too.

"Ok, fine. You win. You shall dress like that in front of all the peasants and call yourself a princess of Wei. Honestly, Hua–"

"No, Ji. Let's get this over with quickly." I said, and Ji finally gave up and walked out of the room first, chattering away madly, not even glancing back to make sure I was listening.

As we walked out of the building towards the gates, I found my father, Cao Cao, walking with an unfamiliar man – probably an envoy, seeing the way he dressed – followed by his servants. I stopped and observed for some unknown reason and my father must've felt my gaze. He lifted his eyesight away from the envoy and caught me staring at him. I was taken aback, but as usual, remained calm, as I always have trained myself to be, and he just smiled and went back to the envoy.

I must admit, I find my father intimidating at times. He has two faces; one of them he is a fierce and harsh but just leader while the other was a kind, loving father. But no matter what the people say about him, he's still my father and – I suppose – I love him and whatever they say won't change a thing about my opinion of my father.

A flash of metal was seen in the corner of my eyes and I immediately spun, grabbed my double daggers I carry around with all the time on my waist belt and blocked the oncoming attack. The metals clashed loudly. I could feel my father's gaze this time on me, alert, but there was no need. The attacker was none other than my older brother, Cao Pi. He smirked but I could see his disappointment clearly behind his unrevealing eyes.

"Always so alert and suspicious, aren't we, Ice Princess?" he said, withdrawing his double swords. I grimaced in my mind for being called by my nickname but I nodded without saying anything.

"Oh, damn. Failed ambush again, my lord?" Zhen Ji's voice was heard behind me. "So how many times was that? Tenth?"

"Hmph," replied Cao Pi with his favourite saying, "eleventh, actually. You're improving daily, sister, so much for father's liking."

"I shall take that as a compliment, brother."

This is how our conversation went all the time. We were too alike with each other, as many people observed. I haven't earned my nickname 'Ice Princess' for nothing. People thought I was emotionless and cold and gave me that nickname. It's not like I dislike my brother or anything and I'm sure that he does care about me. In fact, he's the next closest person to be after Zhen Ji and father. But I need to speak to Zhen Ji to communicate whilst with my brother, words didn't matter. We knew each other well, well enough to not need any words.

"Well then, shall we get going?" asked Zhen Ji cheerfully, dragging me by my arms. "I'll see you later, my lord. Right now, Hua needs some decent clothes for her party tonight!"

With that, she almost ran, dragging me along. But before I turned around to be dragged, I could have sworn that my brother was smiling.

My father had never been happy about me learning how to handle weapons and fight like a man. He believed that I should be more feminine and I suspected that he asked Zhen Ji to approach me so that I could be impressed. But Ji never changed me at all to the feminine side. In fact, she made me realize how lame a feminine woman's life really was. While she was choosing a dress for me at a store, I stayed outside, knowing she would take hours just looking and deciding. I played around with the daggers, casually jabbing the thin air with a slight flicker of my wrist but time still went on painfully slowly. I could hear Ji's voice inside, shrill with excitement and I sighed. She certainly didn't sound as if she was going to come out soon.

In the end, I decided to go for a walk around the marketplace and I doubted if Ji even heard me say loudly that I was going for a walk. It didn't matter anyway. I still had good two hours or so at least. I wandered around aimlessly, looking around for anything interesting. Then I saw a group of peasants talking quietly among themselves in a pub and decided to eavesdrop. I casually walked towards the pub and sat down on to a table next to them, a perfect spot to eavesdrop. They hardly noticed me and carried on, their voices barely more than a whisper.

"I've heard that Wu and Shu had formed an alliance!" said one of them excitedly.

"Yes, but I also heard that Wu and Shu aren't in a very good relationship right now because Shu stole Wu's land of Jing. There is tension between those two countries," said another, and after taking a gulp of wine he continued. "It's been said that Lord Cao Cao wishes to forge alliance with Wu, using this as their advantage. It'll certainly be easier to conquer the lands with either Shu or Wu gone."

"That may be so, but would that Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu fall for that? I mean, they were smart enough to defeat Lord Cao Cao's giant naval fleet in one battle."

I closed my eyes. That embarrassment in Chi Bi, something that Wei nor I could ever forget. I wasn't there because of my age but if I had been there, I could've helped father escape more easily, I was sure of it. Because of that battle, thousands lost their lives and people began to fear the 'Sleeping Dragon' of Shu and Zhou Yu of Wu.

I had heard enough. I quietly rose and went back to the store where Zhen Ji was still fussing over some small detail on the dress. But I could feel the finality in her tone when she picked up one of the dresses and I sighed in relief. Soon afterwards she came out holding a large straw basket with a lid, smiling brilliantly.

"You are going to love it," she said, "I picked one that I thought would suit you the best!"

The one that she thoughtwould suit me the best… I had a very bad feeling about tonight's party.

dancing-dolly : Ok, that was my first story published here. Please give me some advice to improve my writing! Thanks!