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Wu Ming coughed as quietly as he possibly could, kneeling there in the ruined temple. Then he reached into his mouth to grasp the base of the sepals and drag the stem the rest of the way out of his throat.
He looked at it and wondered if he dared do the most natural, to him, thing in the world: put the little white wayside flower on His Highness's altar.
"What are you doing?"
Oh no. His Highness was awake. He stood there, his beautiful face covered in the emblem of the enemy, but nevertheless still beauty itself radiating through the cloak of pain.
"...Nothing," Wu Ming attempted, trying to hide the flower behind him.
But there was no use. The little bloom was knocked to the floor, then crushed under His Highness's heel.
"You pulled that from your mouth," His Highness accused -- and it really did sound like an accusation. "You have the Malady of Love Unspoken."
Wu Ming did not speak.
"Who are they? Who is this person so intimidating to make a soldier-beyond-death into a coward?" His Highness's voice was sneering, as it so often was after His Highness's worst sufferings, but right now there was something more.
Wu Ming tried and failed to restrain another coughing fit, another flower, small and white and all a filthy boy had been able to offer, since he first knew what love was.
"...I have changed my question," His Highness said, colder than ever. "Where are they? We will go to this beloved of yours and get this matter over with. There is no point in delaying the inevitable."
Wu Ming, panicked, starting coughing some more.
"I ask again, Wu Ming: where is this person who makes you so happy, yet so afraid that you haven't dared to tell them the truth yet?" There was almost a whole new agony in His Highness's voice. "ANSWER ME!"
Wu Ming got himself to one knee, hand over his heart. "Here," he managed muffledly, and the flower falling from his mouth sublimated into air.
"...what." His Highness's horrible mask shifted back and forth, seeming to be staring at where the flowers had been before ... the only cure.
"...here, Highness." Wu Ming repeated, his throat now tight for other reasons. "This lowly one's beloved is before him."
"...don't call me -- don't mo--" His Highness pulled his own mask off, those beautiful eyes in shock. "HOW?! How, when I am this?!"
"Your Highness will always be Your Highness," Wu Ming said -- and caught his beloved when he dropped.