<div align="center">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/04/FengBao.jpg)</div><br/>Feng Bao moved through the gathering with casual ease, not letting any hinder him for to long, brushing off attempts of conversation with soft words and a polite smile. His gaze kept flicking to the throne, and his friend who sprawled in the seat. He did pick up a goblet as he passed a small table, not drinking from it but holding it gracefully as he moved. He was dressed in red shirt and pants with a black overcoat with strands of gold thread at the cuffs and collar, simplistic and casual as befitted the setting but a clear display of wealth and pride. His long, black hair was caught back in a braid tied with a ribbon and three golden bells. His eyelids he had smudged with kohl - an old habit he had taken to, to stir his mother's ire without breaking social rule. Despite the feminine touch, his gait and frame were totally masculine, his body lean muscled from archery and horse riding. He was a good lucking man, but he had a reputation for being true to his wife - a woman he saw briefly every year when he returned to his lands to the west.<br/><br/>He was not, by far, the most well landed at court. Nor the richest. The greatest asset he had was the small mine that gave him gold and sapphires. If he hadn't had such a talented tongue or had the luck to have been born when he had been his presence at court would have been minimal, and his power non-existent. However, he had been the childhood friend of the Emperor, judged of an age to be compliant to the order of befriending the young boy, high-born to not instil him with any common ideas but not of influential stock, so unlikely to use the friendship for negative reasons. For all their friendship was artificial to start with, Feng felt it had become true. To Feng, Tai was one of his only true friends. Feng liked it so, not wanting to be close to any other noble in the same way he was close to Tai.<br/><br/>A few minutes after entering the Throne Room, he came in front of the young Emperor. He bowed to Tai and straightened with a smile. "It looks like you won our bet. Five years on the throne and you haven't broken your tailbone sitting on that old thing. Can you recall what the prize would be, or will you settle for a duck-down cushion?"