Archive of Our Own

When Dan Heng thinks of his youth, he thinks of cold air, cold floors, cold chains. Shivering himself to sleep every night, the only warmth he could generate was in his own thoughts. 

And even then, Dan Heng had only known his own immediate surroundings. Reading books without any imagery wasn’t sufficient enough— all he knew, all he had access to to imagine, was this cold prison cell. And yet, Dan Heng could imagine the Xianzhou Laofu vividly. He had many splintered memories to recall in the smothering silence of the shackling prison.

Memories that did not belong to him. Nameless faces that carried an unknown joy with them. Places that felt familiar. And always, Dan Heng returned to the precious few fragmented memories of that man with white hair. The craftsmen. As Dan Heng grew older and more of these memories visited him in his dreams, he knew this man as Yingxing. The beautiful things he made, the perfected way he moved in a spar, the lines around his eyes that indicated he smiled wide and often. The memories of him always brought warmth. And Dan Heng clung tightly to them when he wanted to feel something other than the cold.

He’d hated Dan Feng for getting to have this man in the waking world. Because the High Elder was a horrible, evil man who made things indefinitely worse for the Vidiyahara on the Laofu. Everything the preceptors told Dan Heng echoed this. Dan Feng was crafty and self absorbed, a prideful, stubborn, heartless monster who betrayed his own species by committing some ultimate sin. 

Dan Heng hadn’t hated him for any of those reasons. He hated Dan Feng because it was his fault he had to find ways to stay warm every night. It’s his fault his wrists and neck were always freezing. It’s his fault Dan Heng never knew the universe beyond these walls. It’s his fault Blade wanted him dead. It's his fault that no matter where Dan Heng runs, his past keeps catching back up.

Dan Feng must’ve been as horribly selfish as they said— he committed some horrific act and never considered who would end up paying for it. 

All Dan Heng’s hardship was caused by the High Elder. He would do anything to avoid returning to those cold floors. After being able to leave, he hadn’t even wanted to think about them again.

Everything he had ever allowed his captors to define him with; his past life, his history, his appearance, even his own species— he’d forsaken it. He didn’t want anything to do with any of it anymore.

He had his own sources of warmth now, he had his own friends, his own memories, he didn’t need to reach for Yingxing. (Even if he did it anyway sometimes, allowing that longing warmth to fill him up, keeping his spear sharp like that craftsmen once instructed him how to.) It was only because his friends were threatened did he consider letting his past outpace him. 

He knows he can’t truly outpace his own identity. Maybe it had been foolish or even naive to try for so long. It was fear that drove him to create Dan Heng, a fully independent identity, severed from the entirety of what made him Dan Heng in the first place. People are the way they are because they are formed from experience, even if they don’t remember those experiences. 

If Dan Heng didn’t inherit anything from Dan Feng, there is no reason for him to feel for Jing Yuan the way he feels for March or Stelle— weirdly protective. Even though March is Dan Heng’s equal in terms of maturity, Dan Heng always feels like he has to look out for her on missions. It’s the same way for Jing Yuan— who is much older and much more experienced than Dan Heng is. Even though Jung Yuan was the superior fighter, Dan Heng felt strange letting him stand on his own after their fight with Phantiliya. If Dan Heng inherited nothing from Dan Feng, it wouldn’t make sense for Dan Heng to have the instinct to listen so respectfully to Jingliu, a known criminal and insane person, as if she were Himeko or Welt. 

Dan Heng has already come to acknowledge his past as a Vidiyahara and the previous High Elder as a part of himself by meeting with Bailu, but listening to Jingliu talk about her past with Imbibator Lunae was making his head spin. 

She didn’t talk about Dan Feng like he was some horrible demon, she talked about him like he was… a person.

Which, obviously, he was. But before now, everyone had talked about him like he was some mythical sea god, someone who stood above those mere mortals that were the rest of his kind, some perfect deity that others could justify not accepting mistakes from. He hadn’t made a mistake, he had intentionally turned on his kind. Someone divine like that didn’t err. 

But Jingliu talked about the sedition like Imbibator Lunae was a person that did something wrong once. 

It shouldn’t make him reel the way it does, but having this evil untouchable version of Dan Feng in his mind that he could hate made the hating easier. It felt wrong to hate another version of himself that had loved his friend Baiheng so much he went a little too far trying to see her again. Jingliu made Dan Feng seem so… miserable. A lonely dragon king sitting on his throne, surrounded by friends he couldn’t keep. Could Dan Heng really keep hating him now?

If one of Dan Heng’s closest friends— his family— aboard the Astral Express died like that, what would he do?

She talked about all of the High Cloud Quintet like they were just old friends she missed. Jing Yuan, Baiheng, Dan Feng, Yingxing. 

It should’ve been uncomfortable, how easily Blade and Yingxing clicked together in Dan Heng’s mind. But he already had all the pieces. Truth be told, Dan Heng had refused to consider why Blade had chased him down all those times before. He didn’t want to know anything about Dan Feng’s life, or why someone might want him dead. Who wouldn’t? He was an awful person, apparently, so why bother asking? It’s not like Blade was able to answer, he was insane. He feels shame now, thinking back on that way of thinking.

But Yingxing had been so full of life. In what Dan Heng can scrap together— whether he had been working, fighting, drinking, or even just talking, Yingxing was vibrant and willful and radiant and alive. He shone so brightly among the immortals around him, because he burned with terrible, unquenchable passion and fury. He was a whirlwind, it was impossible to get him to stop or slow down. He cared so deeply about everything. And Blade was so…

Looking at him now, standing back up and yanking the thick black sword out of his midsection with grunts and gasps of horrific pain, Blade was… empty. He really had been killed. Cut open and carved out and left empty inside.

What happened between then and now? Who had squeezed all the life out of Yingxing and turned him into this? 

As Jingliu goes to sit by the waterfall and Jing Yuan goes to call for his Cloud Knights, Dan Heng watches Blade stumble away, one unsteady foot after the other, dragging his sword in one hand and leaving a trail of red in his wake. 

Dang Heng is following after him without making the willful decision to. The tide, drawing him out to sea. 

Blade is mumbling to himself when Dan Heng catches up to him. “She couldn’t do it with her sword, either. She still couldn’t do it…”

In his mind, he sees Yingxing in his forge, standing before the fire, highlighted in its warmth. But when he goes to turn around, instead of the beautifully fond gaze of his closest companion, Blade looks at him with pure hatred, devoid of any familiarity. 

“You.”

It sends a chill down Dan Heng’s spine, but more importantly, his eyes are pulled away from Blade’s face. Down to his exposed chest and torso where his clothes have been cut away and he’s been gutted. Dan Heng can see the white of his ribs where his own sword had torn straight through him. His own blood is spattered all down his front, staining his clothes and his hands and his face. It’s nauseating to look at, he can barely force himself to keep doing it. Grotesquely, Dan Heng wonders how his guts aren’t spilling out, and why he isn’t healing faster than this. Is it always so slow? Isn’t the blood loss at least making him dizzy? He doesn’t show any signs of pain. There’s just red, everywhere, tainting everything, leaking out and dripping to the ground beneath him, as his skin slowly moves to pull itself together and… and vines start to grow out of his exposed insides. 

They grow in sudden jerky spasms, sprouting outward. Obviously, Dan Heng has seen other marastruck before, he knows that branches and leaves will grow out of the skin when a person is struck by mara (well, those who are struck by Mara suddenly, by the abundance, usually have gold leaves clinging to their body. Those who grow into Mara from old age like Jingliu don’t usually suffer from this), but he never imagined Blade had to deal with that. 

He figured, well— Blade doesn’t look anything like he did when they met. When they first crossed blades, Blade was someone completely unknown to him, to anyone. He was in tattered rags, stained dark with his own blood. His ink black hair was down to his ankles, he was always wounded. His eyes were sunken in and completely void of any real sentience. Most notably, there had been Mara vines and branches growing from him all over. 

Dan Heng hadn’t actually run into Blade since he joined the Stelleron Hunters, but he’d seen his wanted posters, and acostomed himself to that man’s new moniker; Blade. Do the Stellaron Hunters… prune him? Dan Heng hadn’t thought about this before. Does Jingliu prune herself too? Does that hurt?

As Dan Heng can only stare at him in shock and horror and silence, Blade goes to answer Dan Heng’s silent question. He reaches into his exposed insides with one hand, the other never leaving Shattered Sword, and grabbed at the roots, wherever these vines were growing from deep inside him. 

Nausea gripped Dan Heng fiercely as he looked on in horror. As Blade ripped back open what little skin his body was managing to sew back together, and blood spattered down his hands and onto the floor, and Dan Heng felt himself pale in disgust, and without thinking— reached out to grab Blade’s hand away.

“Stop it, you’re making it worse. Stop.”

A growl made its way from Blade throat as he tried swatting Dan Heng’s hands away— but as he ripped his hands away from himself to slap Dan Heng’s hands, he took the plant with it, tearing it out as he went.

He gasped in pain and hunched forward as it rips out of him, bringing a splatter of red with it. His body trembles in pain and Dan Heng can only watch in horror. Then, Blade takes a few deep breaths, dropping the flesh-stained root on the ground and placing his hand back over the wound as if to keep it closed. When he looks up to Dan Heng again, his face is pale with blood loss and strain, yet his scowl remains undeterred. He swallows before saying anything. 

“Enough’” He spits. “I don’t want your pity.”

Dan Heng staggers back, yanking his hands to his chest. He shakes them off, but they’re still stained in Blade’s blood. “It’s not pity, it’s common sense. Give it a chance to heal. That’s unsanitary.”

“So is letting weeds grow from every wound this husk of a body accumulates.” Blade counters. “Don’t act like you care, it’s insulting. You have no idea who I even am.”

Dan Heng’s throat goes dry. He doesn’t, does he? Dan Feng knew Yingxing once. But Dan Heng isn’t Dan Feng, and Blade is hardly Yingxing. “Well, that’s because we’ve never held an intelligent conversation until this exact second. Every time we see each other, it’s because you’ve hunted me down in some far corner of the universe in a maddened rage and then tried to kill me. Not a lot of words were exchanged aside from you yelling about sin.”

Blade looked to the side absently, as if considering this perspective lightly, and then nods. Then he says “I’d apologize, but that would make you sound hypocritical.”

Dan Heng crosses his arms. “What does that even mean?”

A nasty smile tugs at the deep scars on Blade’s face. “Well, you see, until I met Kafka, I was completely consumed by insanity. I didn’t remember who I was, or really know who you are. I just acted out of pure, carnal, insane bloodlust, with no rhyme or reason. In fact, everything I can barely remember from that time is fragmented horribly.” He cocked his head, maddingly arrogant. “I don’t remember hurting you very much at all. Obviously since this doesn’t affect me, it doesn’t matter at all, to anyone, does it?”

Immediately, Dan Heng knows what he’s calling reference to, and he fumes. So Blade is still bitter about Dan Heng refusing to acknowledge himself as Dan Feng? Well, he’s bitter at least about how Dan Heng has chosen to talk about his relation to his past life. He’d never meant to imply Dan Feng’s actions didn’t matter at all… just that they shouldn’t be attached to him. Or— well— okay, maybe he did a little. He’d told Blade numerous times when they’d fought before that he didn’t care what he was feeling or his pain or about his grudge against Dan Feng. But that was before Dan Heng knew what the grudge even was. He hadn’t asked. He hadn’t cared. He hadn’t wanted to know because he hadn’t wanted any association with him. He had brushed Blade away over and over again.

But whatever. It was self defense! “So great to know that you’re a jackass even while sane. I’ve never done anything to you but defend myself. I don’t know you. I don’t feel anything for you at all. I don’t owe you anything.”

Blade quirks an eyebrow. “Okay.” He says. “I don’t want you to owe me anything, I only want you to face the truth. Your actions had consequences, I refuse to let you run from them. Although… in all my memories of you saying things of that ilk to me, you sounded much more certain then. Now you just sound like you’re grasping at straws. Still too stubborn to admit when you’re wrong?”

Instead of answering, Dan Heng swallows. He looks down at Blade’s torso, where one of his hands rests as his skin stitches itself back up. It’s making some progress, but not enough that it isn’t nauseating to look at. With so much of his skin exposed beneath his torn shirt, Dan Heng can see how scars litter every inch of his body, even under the stain of blood. “Does that… hurt?”

“Of course.” Says Blade, likes he’s commenting on the weather. “They all hurt. They always do. Even healed, the skin stretches awfully, and sometimes they reopen. Cutting off nerves, leaving parts of my body damaged or numb or both.” Blade raises the hand that had been resting against his torso so he can look at his stained palm. His hand… shakes. Like there’s nerve damage. The hands Yingxing used so lovingly to create so many beautiful things, now only capable of destruction. “But with pain brings clarity. With each new wound, I am reminded of what I was taught.”

Jingliu’s mention of her and Yingxing’s last encounter echo in Dan Heng’s mind. He knows her point of view, but Jingliu might be less sane than even Blade is. Blade had thanked Jingliu for her teachings moments ago, before she had ran him through with his own sword. He wonders what Blade remembers of those ‘teachings’. “What were you taught?”

“Of five people, three must pay a price. Why did you and Dan Feng commit such a horrible sin?” Blade says, as if he’s echoing someone else’s words. “This body, sustained endlessly by the abundance, it deserves to be destroyed. If I experience pain, it is because I deserve it. We deserve it. All three of us. We made our own choices, and we will pay the price for them. As Jingliu said just now— she will rot in her own madness on the Yuque, you will continue to live in your own shadow, and I will be forced to carry on living in pain. That is what I must endure.”

There is a petty part of Dan Heng that wants to throw all his cumulative anger from his childhood at Blade’s face, all the hatred he spent those years in prison ruminating on, as he had let it fester. Who are you to say I haven’t suffered enough? I was born into the iron cage of Dan Feng’s sins and have never been able to escape. I was raised on his legacy, I was taught of his evil deeds, I repented for sins that I have no memory of. I can never outrun his name. I can never outrun him even in my own mind. In my dreams, I see his life. I cannot outrun Dan Feng because he is in my veins, in my bones, in my soul. And every time I see you, I am only reminded of the shadow his legacy casts over my life, the life that will never be mine alone. Isn’t that enough? 

But something stops him. Because Blade isn’t just the manifestation of Dan Heng’s past life, always catching up to him no matter how far he runs. (Which was how Dan Heng used to think of him, anyway.) Blade is a real person, a person Dan Heng had countless fond memories of (even if most of them are hazy, disjointed, or missing). And Dan Heng’s pointless deflection falls flat.

He feels gross listening to Blade talk about himself like he’s some inanimate object, his body no more useful than a weapon. It also feels incredibly wrong. Dan Heng realizes so startlingly that he’s never heard Blade talk so coherently in his entire incarnation. This is who Blade was stripped away from his insanity, and that feels wrong too.

When Dan Heng used to recall Dan Feng’s memories of Yingxing and its warmth, it also called back Dan Feng’s feelings for him. Those feelings are what made him feel warm, because in Dan Feng’s memories, Yingxing was so alive. He has to assume that’s what drew Dan Feng to him to begin with. Yingxing was vibrant and full of passion for his craft, for his revenge, for his friends. Everything he did bled his tenacity and brilliance, he never did anything halfheartedly. He was constantly surprising Dan Feng with his resilience and skill. Yingxing, as Jingliu had all but directly told Dan Heng an hour before, was the only one able to pull the High Elder out of his cold lonesome and make him feel alive again.

Looking at Blade now, for the first time now that he knows what he knows, it hurts to think of what must’ve happened to Yingxing to have become Blade. How the universe widdled him down into nothing. Stripped away from his vigor and arrogance and the mortality he took such pride in. Dan Heng’s memories of the sedition are foggy, but he knows Yingxing had been struck with mara during it. He remembers Jingliu talking about teaching him or changing him by killing him a hundred times, she’d mentioned it earlier in the day. The image of Yingxing— vibrant, warm, fleeting, like a beautiful comet passing him by, slowly bleeds into the man standing before him.

Dan Heng looks at Blade and he sees nothing. There is no warmth. Blade’s beastly eyes are empty when he looks at Dan Heng. There is no spark of recognition or emotion at all. If anything, all Blade looks is tired. Yingxing had been hollowed out, no wonder Blade thinks of himself as an empty husk. A creation of the abundance no better than the ones Yingxing had once sworn his life to defeating. Dan Heng feels a pit growing in his stomach. He almost prefered Blade’s marastruck state to this one. At least then Dan Heng could find a version of warmth in his burning anger.

“So you do hate me?” Dan Heng asks. “Me. Not him. Me. You want me to suffer with you.”

Blade stares at him like he’s looking right through him, lost in his own thoughts. Or maybe seeing someone else. The thought makes Dan Hang swallow back something bitter.

“You.” Blade repeats hollowly. “Hate is as close as I’ll ever get to love. They’re right next to each other. They burn the same way. I used to be able to feel many things, but everything is tainted by the pain now. Every emotion hurts. What I feel for you… burns. That you get to live your own life and explore the world, that you don’t have to be reminded of your past whenever you dream, experience pain, or look at your own face… I do hate you. Your existence mocks me.”

Something clicks into place in Dan Heng’s mind. Suffering is all Blade knows. Dan Heng’s face is the only thing that’s stayed in one piece in Blade’s splintered mind. Blade was Yingxing once— Dan Heng remembers him. He knows him. When Yingxing was hurt, he would’ve sought Dan Feng out. Blade is doing the same thing— maybe unknowingly— in the only way he knows how; in violence. In blood. In suffering. And that’s assuming Blade is right, and suffering is all he knows how to feel now… it makes sense. In an awful twisted way that makes Dan Heng furious to realize he’s able to understand Blade so well despite not really knowing him, and upset that this is what remains of the man whose face brought such warmth to Dan Heng once.

Does Blade find warmth in his hatred for Dan Heng? Is it true that hatred is the warmest thing he can feel? Does he call upon the disjointed, fragmented memories of Dan Feng to keep himself warm at night, the way Dan Heng did with Yingxing?

“I see.” Is all Dan Heng says in response.

A silence lapses them, neither knowing where to go from here. In completely uncharted territory.

“Will you return to the Astral Express?” Blade asks.

“Soon.” Dan Heng confirms. “And I assume you’ll keep following the Stellaron Hunters.” He says the title with venom, unable to prevent it.

“Kafka is the one who brought back my sanity. I owe her my life.” Blade says, responding to the unasked question; why them? “But since that is not worth much, I’ve instead given her my loyalty. She believes Stelle is unfathomably important to the fate of the universe, everything we’ve done since dropping her off with you is make sure she says on a set path of Elio and Kafka’s choosing. And so, I aid her in this when she asks.” Even when she orders you around like you’re a weapon? Dan Heng thinks bitterly. “In return, I’ve been promised an end to my suffering. I cannot pay the price until Kafka’s confident that action won’t alter the course of the destiny she hopes to influence to come true. But even still, we have no choice but to continue the pursuit, as Jingliu talked of. This is the price that the two of us must pay.”

Dan Heng hears the plea to remember him, to not run away again. But Dan Heng doesn’t plan to this time. He and Blade have been intertwined from the beginning, and it doesn’t seem ignorable anymore. This is something Dan Heng must face. “If that’s what you wish, I’ll accompany you to the end.”

Blade’s eyebrows quirk up slightly, like he’s minutely surprised Dan Heng didn’t just tell him to go fuck himself like he probably would’ve any time before this. But the shock passes, and Blade nods in affirmation. “Elio’s script still requires you to stay alive… for now. I don’t mind prolongating my vengeance.” He says, turning to walk away. “It might be… more interesting that way.”

It is then Dan Heng catches a glint of warmth in his eye, a twitch of a smirk in the corner of his lips, the echo of Yingxing arrogance. It’s only for the briefest of seconds, but Dan Heng sees it. 

Then the moment passes, and Blade is walking away, leaving a trail of red behind him. 

…

As the weeks following his return to the Loufu turn into months, Dan Heng puts more and more brain power into trying to forget that last glimpse of Blade he’d caught before they parted ways.

That was Yingxing. Undeniably, unmistakably. That friend from his memories, that old source of warmth. His Yingxing.

Except Yingxing was never really his. Dan Heng hates how that split second overwhelmed all the memories of Blade with his sword at Dan Heng’s throat. Does he have any right to miss Yingxing when he never really knew him? Can he miss Yingxing and still hate Blade? Aren’t they the same person? Or at the very least, one flows roughly into becoming the other. 

For years as Dan Heng traveled the cosmos, he kept vigilant. He could never relax, never let his guard down, because he knew the moment he found something to like— a place he may want to stay at for a while, Blade would appear again. Dan Heng was never safe with Blade as his shadow. He could never truly face Blade either, because Blade couldn’t die. Dan Heng could only ever run away and hope he put enough paces between himself and that undead man that he would finally be able to breathe again.

Before meeting him in his sane mind, Dan Heng had always thought of Blade as a physical manifestation of his past— he couldn’t outrun it, he couldn’t kill it, it would never leave him alone. And— Blade was physical, a real person Dan Heng could project all his hatred for himself and his past onto. But now that he knew who Blade actually was, that felt wrong. Now he’s not really sure what to feel about him. 

He hates that even now, even though Blade isn’t here, Dan Heng still feels like he’s sprinting. More like the metaphor he’d once seen Blade as, Dan Heng is suddenly drowning in his past. As if giving a little leeway into accepting some of the things he refused to before; his identity as a vidyadhara and his connection to his previous life as such, the floodgates had just completely opened.

He can’t really blame himself. His mind must’ve been overtaxed, working for so many years to repress another lifetime’s worth of memories and feelings. Relaxing for a minute made the whole dam collapse, just as Dan Heng always feared it would. But Dan Heng is through being afraid. He wants to accept it, it’s just… a lot. 

Dan Heng’s dreams have worsened, leaving him afraid to sleep at night, knowing more disjointed and complicated swirling memories were all that waited him. He’s tired and irritable and refuses to leave the archive room most days. He knows his friends are worried about him, because his friends are great and supportive and loving and every time Dan Heng opens his door, there’s a meal waiting for him outside on the ground. They probably think he’s depressed or something, but really he’s just overwhelmed. 

It’s his own fault, and he fucking hates that. This is all repression gets you! Absolutely nowhere! He almost wants to go back to ignoring everything his brain is trying to tell him he needs out of petty childlessness, but not even he is that stubborn.  

It’s just stupid, and he’s angry about it.

Most of the memories are of really boring stuff too. Dan Heng is starting to think Dan Feng spent all his time talking politics with the preceptors and doing paperwork and going to hearings or other dumb meetings. He can’t tell if it’s his own annoyance he feels when he’s sleeping, or Dan Feng’s. Either way, he’s grown to really really really hate seeing the faces of the preceptors in his dreams, even more than he would’ve with just his own experiences with them. Dan Heng had never known vivid dreams like this could be so fucking tedious. He doesn’t know how Dan Feng had the restraint to put up with them every day for hundreds of years. Dan Heng isn’t so practiced with the politeness politics demands, he thinks if he ever sees a single one of them ever again, he’s just going to punch them in the face no questions asked. 

Those are the easiest ones though. He has more vivid memories; those spent on the battlefield. He can feel Dan Feng’s isolation, his cold detachment, his unfeeling dragon heart, as he descends into the fray of a war and unleashes his full power onto whoever stands before him, taking out friend and foe alike. He sees through Dan Feng’s eyes as he skims over their mangled broken bodies as if bored. Every bit the selfish, evil dragon the preceptors told Dan Heng he was.

And what remains even worse is the memories of the High Cloud Quintet. When the senseless disjointed memories eventually bring up these familiar figures, Dan Heng feels how they warmed that cold hearted dragon from the inside out. How Dan Feng opened up to them. How they drank together, went to war together, mourning together and supporting each other. It reminded Dan Heng of the love he’d felt for his family here on the Express, which is why memories with them were the worst ones. 

These weren’t Dan Heng’s friends. In fact, those people did not exist anymore as a group of friends. Dan Heng knew how their story ended, and every time he woke up after seeing their love for each other, after feeling how intensely Dan Feng loved them, he can only feel grief. 

And always, every single time, the memories turned back to him. No matter how cold and detached the dragon became, Yingxing’s warmth always drew him back out. Political meetings melted into moonlit nights together, empty battle fields turned into the heat of a working forage, the cold throne so high up and lonely on its pedestal, it always melted away as Yingxing offered his hand, and Dan Feng always took it. 

Dan Feng had hundreds of years to become stuck in his ways— no, Imbibator Lunae had hundreds of lifetimes to get stuck in his ways. And he had. Frozen solid and stuck in his isolation; the burden of power and responsibility. And yet, in a few short decades, a single mortal human craftsman forced his way into that dragon’s life and changed everything. 

Dan Heng feels the security and peace and love Dan Feng had felt in Yingxing’s warmth, passion, and mortality. Every morning when he wakes, Dan Heng resists the urge to retreat into his collection of memories for that man, trying to seek the warmth of them like he did when he was younger, still locked away and trying to starve off the cold of his chains. He had to resist, because he knew if he sought out that man’s warmth now, Dan Heng wouldn’t find anything. Because Blade had no warmth. He was empty.

No matter how Dan Heng twists it, he’s been left with broken, fragmented, twisted remains of Dan Feng’s life. Like his memories, the ones that don’t make sense, and… Blade. Because that’s what Blade is— something Dan Feng broke and left behind.

He returns to the one true conversation they ever had, replaying it in his mind over and over, trying to connect that version of Blade to Yingxing from his memories. The Yingxing who had loved Dan Feng so fiercely and completely. And again and again, Dan Heng has the random thought he keeps beating himself up over— why did I ask him if he hated me? Why didn’t I ask whether or not he had loved me? Or— Dan Feng. Why did I ask if he hated me? 

He had to assume Yingxing and Dan Feng were in love. All the information he had pointed in that direction. Little else made sense. But Dan Heng was too hesitant and prideful to reach out to ask anyone that might’ve had a concrete answer, and none of his memories were relevant or lucid enough to confirm anything. 

He figured if he had asked Blade if he’d loved Dan Feng, he would’ve received the same answer for the question he had actually asked; hate and love are next to one another, Blade cannot feel anything without it being stained in pain and violence. It frustrates him though, to not have a clear answer for what exactly Yingxing and Dan Feng were. 

He’s starting to hate himself for wanting to know so badly, because he knows himself. He knows exactly why he wants this information. He feels the all encompassing love those two had felt for each other, and he wants it for himself. He misses Yingxing, as if he has the right to do so. How can you miss a man you never even knew? Dan Heng hates Dan Feng. He hates that Dan Feng got to have that kind of undying love from Yingxing, and Dan Heng only has scraps of it. Dan Feng was an awful, greedy, selfish ruler. Why did he get to have a whole lifetime with a man who loved him like that, and Dan Heng doesn’t? 

Aeons, Dan Heng hates himself. He’s just as greedy and selfish as Dan Feng. He hates himself, he hates Dan Feng. He doesn’t know anymore.

He never wants to be like Dan Feng. He doesn’t want to be cold and unfeeling, or inattentive, or greedy, or selfish. He doesn’t let himself want it. He won’t. He can’t seek out Yingxing’s warmth. 

The way Blade had said “interesting”, that playful growl in his voice, echoes in Dan Heng’s mind and dreams endlessly as they set forth to Penacony.

…

Dan Heng is in a masterfully crafted dream. He doesn’t notice it at first. 

At first, he leaves Penacony and boards the Astral Express, he and his friends depart on another adventure. And then another one. And another.

Over and over and over again. They visit countless worlds and meet even more people. Some people leave the express, others join. They never stop or slow down, it’s one Stellaron crisis after another.

And before Dan Heng even knows what happens, he looks around him and realizes none of the people who are on his journey now are the same people who he started it with. The ageless vidyadhara he is, Dan Heng stayed exactly the same as everyone around him grew and left. But Dan Heng was static, he wasn’t growing, he hadn’t changed. Not once in all his years of traveling did he have to think about his past, not once did Blade ever catch up to him again.

That’s when Dan Heng realized he was in a dream, and woke back up.

That’s also when he accepted it as true, even his subconscious knew it— Dan Heng cannot outrun his past because it is part of who he is. Ergo, this fantasy world cannot be real.

…

When the image of General Jing Yuan appeared on the Express inviting them to the Wardance, Dan Heng surprised himself with how much he actually wanted to attend. He doesn’t have any real, solid, fond memories on the Loufu, not any he made himself, and that feels wrong to him. Whenever his birthplace is even mentioned, a longing homesickness tugs at his chest, despite this fact. Dan Heng thinks he’d probably feel better about that feeling if he had a reason for feeling it. 

He didn’t really expect to be staying idle for weeks as March trained with Jing Yuan’s little Lieutenant, and a young girl from the Zhuming to participate in the Wardance. But apparently, that’s what he’s doing now.

He doesn’t actually mind it, even if it’s a bit of a strange turn of events. The three of them— himself, Stelle, and March— share a hotel room (ever since their mission in Bellabog where Stelle had been too confused to be alone, they’d begun a tradition of sharing a room and a bed whenever the three of them were alone on a foreign planet together) and spent their days roaming the Loufu idly. March wakes up earlier than her friends, leaving to join her new masters for training that lasts throughout the day, every day. But that leaves Dan Heng and Stelle with as much free time as they want. 

He’s grown very fond of Stelle in the few months where they’ve known each other, and he’s glad she’s here. She makes roaming Aurum Alley and other hot spots of the Loufu fun and unexpectant of him. Just like when he invited her to join him when he met the new High Elder all that time ago, Stelle relaxes the atmosphere and he doesn’t think too much about anything else aside from having fun with his friend and passing time.

Although, there is one thing about Stelle that Dan Heng finds he can no longer ignore. Ever since leaving Penacony, Stelle has been in constant contact with the Stellaron Hunters. Specifically with Firefly, but also with the others, like Silverwolf occasionally. Stelle hasn’t brought it up to him directly, and he hasn’t spoken about it to anyone else or asked their opinions on it, but Stelle is always on her phone anyway. He’s caught her giggling at it more than usual, stepping away in the middle of their outing to take phone calls and very loudly calling the recipient Firefly. He knows at least March is aware of it— once, as the three of them were sitting, eating lunch at a cafe, Stelle caning suddenly and incredibly uninterested in their conversation, looking only at her phone, texting away. He’d made eye contact with March and shared a concerned but knowing look with her. 

Dan Heng didn’t totally know how to feel about it. Obviously, Dan Heng wants Stelle to be happy with whoever makes her happy, and Dan Heng has never met Firefly directly. She might be one of the nicer Stellaron Hunters, but she was still a Stellaron Hunter. Even just briefly researching SAM’s list of crimes… Dan Heng doesn't like the idea of his friend associating with someone like that. He’s worried and scared something might happen to her, or all of them, if the Stellaron Hunters have someone on the inside feeding them information.

Not that that’s what Stelle’s doing, but still. What if Kafka suddenly decides she wants to take advantage of Stelle’s obvious affection for Firefly? What if Silverwolf suddenly decides to track Stelle through their text chain? It’s just worrying. Dan Heng couldn’t stand it if anything happened to Stelle. If her— whatever she and Firefly had— ended in heartbreak, Dan Heng would have to start killing. 

He has to assume at least Himeko knows. Nothing happens on the Express without her knowing about it. And if Himeko hasn’t asked Stelle to stop, then clearly she didn’t see any danger in it, but Dan Heng doesn't have to agree with everything Himeko says. He’s still worried.

It’s one day when he’s returning to the hotel that he finally can’t stop himself from saying anything.

He’d spent the day out by himself, Stelle had been too tired from yesterday and wanted to stay in the hotel room, taking a day off from their tourist-y activities. When he opened the door, he saw Stelle sitting on the floor in front of the room’s holo projector, which was currently runing one of the shooting games Dan Heng’s seen Stelle playing on her phone. It must be connected to her phone somehow, because the thing is still in her hands— she’s using it as a controller, making her character run around shooting other people. 

He hears a voice faintly from the screen, but doesn’t think much of it at first.

“Hey, Stelle.” He greets, closing the door behind him.

“Hey! Dan Heng!” She shouts back.

Over her screen, a voice yells “You’re getting shot at! Stop standing in the open!”

Stelle yelped, her attention returning to the screen. “I’m running! I’m running! I’m running away! Ah! Help! Silverwolf, help meeee!”

When she’d shifted her attention back to the game, Dan Heng had gone back to what he was doing before too— walking into their shared space and tossing his takeout leftovers onto the bed. But the second Stelle named the Stellaron Hunter, he froze, his attention snapping back to her. 

It’s not like he didn’t know Stelle was in contact with Silverwolf, but he’s never seen any physical evidence of it besides text notification on Stelle’s phone. It was jarring to hear the teenager’s voice in person. Or— over a screen, but still. He raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything.

“Quit being such a baby! Take cover, I got a clear shot.” Silverwolf’s voice chirped over the screen.

“Oooh, yes!” Stelle exclaimed as her character in the screen ran and jumped behind some crates. “Kill ‘em! Snipe ‘em! Kill ‘em dead!”

Dan Heng snickered despite himself. “Why are all the games you play so violent? You don’t get enough of that in real life?”

Stelle laughed too, shooting him a smirk over her shoulder from where she sat on the floor, controller phone in hand. “I never get tired of blowing shit up.”

There were shooting noises from the game and Stelle’s character started moving again, a few numbers popped up in the corner of the screen.

“Gottem,” Silverwolf’s voice came again, “come find me.”

“Yes! Finally!” Stelle shouted back. “Looting time!”

“Who were you talking to?” Silverwolf asked, after Stelle’s character started running over the virtual terrain.

“That’s Dan Heng.” Stelle answered with a quick look his way. “He’s a passenger on the Astral Express too, he’s our archivist.”

“No, I know him.” Silverwolf replied, her voice clear in sudden recognition. “That’s Blade’s ex-husband. Hi.”

She drags out the last word so it sounds more like hai-eeeeeeee in a tone that feels dry and utterly condescending. Dan Heng scrunched his nose and narrowed his eyes at the screen in distaste, even though he knew Silverwolf couldn’t see it. 

Stelle chucked to herself. “I don’t think he’s super fond of that title.”

“I’m not hearing any protests.” Silverwolf pointed out. “Must mean it’s true.”

Dan Heng scoffed, but didn’t go to prove her wrong. Because, really, what did he know? It’s not like it would surprise Dan Heng to learn Dan Feng and Yingxing had been married, or some kind of marriage equivalent. He doesn’t know enough to dispute it.

He does wonder where Silverwolf got that idea from, though. Did she get it from Blade? Did Blade ever mention being married to Dan Feng? Did Blade casually refer to Dan Heng as an ex to his co-workers? That felt wrong. The idea left something bitter tasting at the back of Dan Heng’s throat, keeping the scowl present on his face as he silently fumed.

Dan Heng went back to taking the takeout containers out of the bag he’d dropped on the bed and moving them to the mini fridge.

“Man, your playing is ass today.” Silverwolf commented as he walked the length of the room. “I thought you said the connection was running smoothly.”

“It is!” Stelle said. “I mean, I think it is. I’ve never connected my phone to a big screen like this.”

“And you never would’ve if I hadn't been on call, giving you step by step instructions.” Silverwolf added snarkly. “Maybe the Xianzhou just have slow, outdated tech in their hotels.”

Dan Heng froze where he was— squatted to the floor, putting the plastic takeout tins in the mini fridge. He slammed the door shut and stood up. “You told her where we were?!” He barked at Stelle.

Stelle’s attention snapped to him, alert and confused. “No! No, I didn’t— honest.”

“I always know where you are.” Silverwolf said briskly. Off handedly. Like that wasn’t an insane thing to say. “You make it pretty easy to track you, your online presence is pretty consistent. Plus, I know how to locate anyone as long as they’re contacting me.”

Dan Heng saw red for a second as fear pooled heavy in his gut. The Stellaron Hunters know where they are? Quickly, his mind flashed to Kafka or Blade tracking them down, putting his friends in danger, Stelle or March getting hurt or killed. Stelle was raised by Kafka— a person incapable of feeling fear. Despite the fact that Stelle doesn't remember that time in her life, that impression has clearly left its mark— Stelle seems stuck in a constant state of emulating Kafka. She doesn’t seem to have any real sense of danger. Her baseline for what she should and shouldn’t be fearful of was way off and not at all realistic. She was constantly throwing herself into things more dangerous than she could handle with unfettered confidence— Dan Heng had to watch out for her. He walked over to the holo screen in two long strides and grabbed onto the cord plugging it into the wall.

“Say goodbye to your friend,” he snipped, yanking the cord out and shutting down the projector.

Stelle jumped to her feet. “Nooooo!” She wailed. “What is your problem?!”

She ran over to him, going straight for the fist that hill held the cord. He held it high up and away from her, trying to keep it over his head, which was hard because Stelle was taller. 

“She’s tracking you!” Dan Heng argued, as he topped backward to try and keep it out if her grasp.

“Give it!”

“This is dangerous.”

“Give it back!”

Stelle made him back up until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed, sending them both tumbling over onto it.

“Knock it off!” Dan Heng hissed, shoving her off and rolling away. “Do you realize how dangerous of a position you’ve put us in?” Stelle lets out a noise of frustration before launching herself back at Dan Heng. He’s been in enough wrestling matches with her to know to keep out of the way of her long limbs, but he won’t give up either as she kicks and grabs at him. “I know she’s your friend, but Silverwolf is the most deadly hacker in the universe—“

“I know! Just give it back!”

“You know?” He’s able to get the upper hand, sitting back up, holding it away from her. “Do you understand just how dangerous the Stellaron Hunters are?”

“Dan Heng—“

“They’re not like any of the other friends you’ve made on your travels, they’re responsible for the deaths of thousands.”

“Give it back.”

Stelle sits up, and there’s further lecture right on the tip of Dan Heng’s tongue, but Stelle’s expression makes him pause. She’s angry. Not upset or anything remotely childish. She’s genuinely distressed and mad at him. At his hesitation, Stelle reaches forward and grabs the cable from him before he’s able to react, standing up and taking out her phone. It looks like she might go to plug the projector back in, but whatever she sees on her phone makes her stop.

She drops the cable to the ground. “She’s gone.” Stelle says, her voice flat. She backs up back to the bed, sitting down on the edge and dropping her phone on the covers, looking dejected.

Dan Heng moves to sit next to her. “I’m sorry I cut off your game with your friend.” He says. “It’s just not a good idea to let a known hacker have your private information. I’ve run into the Stellaron Hunters more than you have, I know how they operate better than you, and I—“

“Do you?” Stelle counters, sharply. It’s so unlike her, Dan Heng can’t help but freeze to listen. “I know they’re dangerous, Dan Heng. I’m not naive. But they… I know them. Or, I did know them. You wouldn’t get it. They know me. They know a version of myself that I’m not anymore.” She explains, in a tone more serious and forlorn than her usually bubbly self. “But… I was that version of myself for longer than I was this version. When I see them, when I talk to them, it’s like I can almost remember who I used to be, I can almost feel it…” she stretched her hand out as she talked, a longing written in her gestures, as she drops her arm. “…but then it’s gone. I’m never going to get that version of myself back.” She looks away, and mumbles something else more at the ground than at Dan Heng. “Sometimes, like when Silverwolf and I were playing just now, it’s like she’s talking to someone else entirely, someone who’s played a million rounds of league with her instead of a few dozen.”

Dan Heng’s chest pangs in sympathy. He remembers finding Stelle, all alone, abandoned on the floor of a space station. How he was watching over her as she slept a few minutes later, spent from using up her energy to save March, mumbling Kafka under her breath, thrashing in an uneasy slumber. How she had come to him, the archivist, to ask about the information he had on Kafka and the Stellaron Hunters. Dan Heng didn’t like Kafka— he never has— but now he likes her even less for making Stelle feel unwanted. 

He doesn’t understand why she wants to get close to Kafka anyway, if she’s such an awful person. Why attempt to reconnect with a past if you know is painful? But it’s not like Dan Heng can deny he feels his own past calling to him. It’s impossible to ignore how General Jing Yuan talks to him sometimes, like they were more familiar than they really are. He feels guilty about it whenever he sees the General looking at him, like he misses him, even though he’s right there.

“I probably understand that more than you think.” Dan Heng admits, putting a hand on her shoulder.

He wants to keep talking, comfort her or give advice, but Stelle shakes off the touch and scoots back away from him on the bed.

“No, you don’t get it!” She snapped. “You remember your past life. And I know— you’ve explained it to me. You recall bits and pieces, sometimes nothing at all. But you have something. There’s mountains of records of your past achievements here. And you have Jing Yuan! He’d talk to you whenever you want. I’m lucky if I can get so much as an emote from Kafka over text.” 

Stelle sighs, her anger evaporating. Big sad puppy dog eyes made Dan Heng’s heart clench painfully. 

“It doesn’t matter how hard I try to remember, everything from before meeting you is blank.” She continues, her voice small. “I see it everytime I talk to Firefly, Silverwolf, Kafka— even Blade. They show a level of familiarity towards me that I can’t match. They know a version of myself that’s gone. It doesn’t matter how many times I talk to them, how many stories they tell me, I’ll never be that version of myself again. They’ll always miss me. And I’ll always miss them, because there’s still a part of me that, deep down, knows they’re important to me. It just sucks. Can I really know who I am now, if I don’t know who I was then? I know they’re dangerous, I know what they’ve done, I know I’m probably safer not talking to them, but… I can’t help wanting to know more about myself.”

His throat felt thick with cotton. He didn’t know why it was so hard to imagine Stelle feeling so deeply about herself, but it shocked him. “I’m.. sorry I made you hang up on your friend.”

Stelle exhaled, pouting childishly. “Nooo, it’s okay.” He said, resigned. “I’m sorry for yelling at you, I know this stuff is complicated for you and I know you were just trying to look out for me. Should’ve predicted you’d be overprotective about this, so that’s on me.”

Dan Heng winced at the word— overprotective. Is that how Stelle sees him? Sure Dan Heng loves his friends, and sure he can’t stand the idea of them being in danger anywhere he can’t protect them— (it’s the whole reason he decided to return to the Loufu despite such a great reluctance; he thought his friends were in danger), and sure he's always ready to throw himself into harm's way to protect them, but that’s not overprotective, that’s the normal amount of protective. He’d been so long without anyone who actually cared about Dan Heng for who he really is, the idea of losing that makes him nauseous.

Stelle was important to him. He reflected on the emotion in her voice when she talked about the Stellaron Hunters and her past. “If this is something you care about that much, I’m not gonna try and take it from you.” He decided. “But… are they really that important to you? You really care about them? Even knowing they’re bad people?”

“I do.” Stelle replied. “But ‘they’re bad people’… I don’t think it’s that simple.”

Dan Heng sighed. “No, I know that.” He acknowledged. It was hard to deny that fact anymore. Feels like nothing about this is allowed to be simple. “I just mean… the Stellaron Hunters aren’t…” he stumbled, trying to rephrase. “What if you really do learn more about your past, and you find out you’ve done as many bad things as they have? Is it really worth remembering or knowing if it’s just gonna be painful?”

Stelle nodded, no hesitation in her whatsoever. “Even if it hurts, I want to know. That pain really did happen, even if I don’t remember it. It shaped me. I wouldn’t be who I am now if I hadn’t been who I was then. Even if I’m not that person anymore, I’d like to know a little more about her. And anyway—“ she flopped backward onto her back, looking at the ceiling, “that’s the person Firefly fell in love with. So she must’ve been badass, right?”

Dan Heng snorted. “Oh, I’m sure.” He says, fondness swelling in him for his goofy best friend. “You can try and call Silverwolf back. I can even leave the room, if you want.”

Just as he’s about to get up, Stelle stops him with a hand on his wrist. “I know you’re afraid of knowing about who you used to be,” she says, “but you shouldn’t be. You’re a good person, Dan Heng, that didn’t come from nowhere.” She dropped his wrist when he stood up, looking down at her. “And besides,” she adds playfully, “that’s only who you used to be. You’re you right now, and the Dan Heng I know is pretty rad.”

Dan Heng rolls his eyes, diverting his gaze elsewhere. He didn’t want Stelle to catch the swell of fondness and sadness that rose in him then. As long as he lives, he’ll never take the unconditional love from his friends for granted. “Rad.” He echoes, mockingly.

“It’s a word!” Stelle protested. “People use it. You’re just a hater.”

Dan Heng chuckled, and silently, he made a decision.

…

Thus far in his life, Dan Heng had avoided learning anything further about his past life for two reasons.

Number one; what if Dan Feng isn’t as awful as everyone says he was? What if Dan Feng was just a person— not some almighty princely being— who was a little selfish and made a questionable decision? Then Dan Heng had been participating in the active slander of himself— a version of himself he had hid away and actively shunned and tainted the memory of— all because he believed the word of the fuckass preceptors who’d always hated Dan Feng anyway. He would have to put aside his pride and admit he was wrong, and that things aren’t as black and white as they’d always seemed. He’d have to accept all the parts of himself that he hates, all the parts of himself he’d labeled as “Dan Feng” and shoved aside. He’d have to change how he thought about his past, and all the people attached to it. 

Number two; what if the preceptors were right? What if Dan Feng had been a truly awful person? Dan Feng was Dan Heng’s past, he was part of Dan Heng and always would be. He can’t outrun Dan Feng because Dan Heng carries him with him everywhere he goes. That would mean that evil is part of Dan Heng too, a part of himself he will never get rid of. He can’t accept that facet of himself, he just can’t. And he’s starting to realize he doesn’t want to live in active denial about the parts of himself he chooses not to like. 

It felt like such a lose/lose situation that he hadn’t dared touch it with a ten foot pole. But even though his memory nightmares have calmed down, it’s been made perfectly clear to Dan Heng that he can’t just push this away forever. Like Stelle was wondering; if your past shapes your present self, can you really know who you are now, if you don’t know who you were then?

And so, his decision; he texted Jing Yuan and asked to hang out.

It would be kind of embarrassing to admit that he had been trying to avoid Jing Yuan since returning to the Loufu, so he’s not going to admit to that.

It’s just that— ever since the dam had broken, it was hard to ignore how Dan Feng’s old familiarity with Jing Yuan seeped into Dan Heng’s interactions with him. He feels that same rush of fondness and protectiveness he feels around Stelle and March when he’s around Jing Yuan these days. It’s weird, and it’s messing with him. But he can admit; that part of him that thinks of Jing Yuan so fondly is relieved the selective avoidance is over, maybe even a little excited to see the General outside of battle or political meetings. 

Jing Yuan seemed pretty surprised when Dan Heng reached out. Which makes sense, because he’s literally never done anything like that before. He feels weird about imposing on the General’s busy schedule, but Jing Yuan was more than accommodating— he actually mentioned postponing work related matters in order to meet with Dan Heng, with the excuse being that he just didn’t really want to do those things anyway.

Over a few text messages, they decided to meet at a diner for lunch in a few days. As he waits for the day to arrive, Dan Heng grows more and more uncertain about this abrupt decision, because he’s starting to realize how little he’d thought this out. What does he even want out of this interaction? Why does he think Jing Yuan can give it to him? Does he want to be friends with Jing Yuan? He’s not really sure. He doesn’t know what he wants to say or ask. Should he ask about Dan Feng? If anyone would know about him, it would be Jing Yuan. He’s probably the only person with memories of Dan Heng’s past life that he can actually trust. He’s probably the only person that could give a decisive answer to Dan Heng’s current dilemma; was Dan Feng a good person?

But does he even want to know that? He doesn't know. Or, more accurately; he’s still afraid of the answer.

When the day arrives, Jing Yuan is ten minutes late and offers no explanation for it. He looks like he always does, his eyes are sleepy and his lips are pulled up into a small catlike grin. Stelle and March have both mentioned that the General always looks relaxed, and that it puts them at ease. But for some reason, Jing Yuan’s never-ending calmness made Dan Heng anxious. It gave him the nagging sense that something was wrong, but Dan Heng didn’t know what it was or why he was feeling that way. 

Jing Yuan pushes Dan Heng to regale him with tales of his many travels aboard the Express from the moment he sits down, eager to hear about life as a Nameless.

He knows he must sound fondly reminiscent and content as he speaks, really portraying the love he has for adventure and his Express family, because the smile Jing Yuan gives him in response slowly starts to feel warmer, more real. Like he’s happy for Dan Heng. 

When Dan Heng runs out of things to say, he starts asking Jing Yuan about what he’s been up to. The General starts talking about the Wardance and the other generals and his lieutenant and the upcoming trial. 

His warring emotions must show on his face, because Jing Yuan asks “Is something the matter?”

He takes a deep breath, hesitating on it for a second longer before deciding to ask. “Did you actually let Blade and the other Stellaron Hunters leave the Loufu?”

When General Feixiao had said it, Dan Heng had been fuming. Actually, he’d been furious the entire duration of that conversation. Even if others may have found it subtle, it was so obvious that Jing Yuan had been tired and stressed that day. But back then, he did what he thought was best for his people, it wasn’t Feixiao’s or anyone else’s place to judge him for doing what needed to be done. Feixiao doesn’t know what it’s like to live here, she wasn’t there when Phantilia attacked. How dare she back Jing Yuan into a corner! 

Man, maybe Stelle has a point, he really is overprotective. The second Jing Yuan was under fire, Dan Heng all but leaped to defend him, especially since Jing Yuan asked him to attending the hearing. Like it was instinct.

Jing Yuan’s smile didn’t change, but something about it seemed to grow sadder. “And if I did, would you think less of me?” 

Dan Heng gaped at him. When General Feixiao accused him of that, Dan Heng couldn’t defend him fast enough. Sure he knew the Stellaron Hunters made it out of the Loufu in one piece after their encounter with Phantilia, but he assumed it was because that faction was sneaky, they must’ve found a way to do it under Jing Yuan’s nose. The General was known for his brilliance in tactics and warfare, it just didn’t seem like he’d be the type to use his political power to let his old friends get away with whatever they want.

But then again, hadn't Jing Yuan also pardoned Dan Heng of all his crimes and revoked his exile? Dan Heng still remembers how that made him feel; safe. Cared about. From then on, he stopped seeing Jing Yuan as just the Arbitor General and started to see his kindness and humanity. 

“I guess not.” He decided. “But… why? Was it really because of Blade?”

“It was.” Jing Yuan confirmed, his smile faltering for just a moment. Without that, and only his tired eyes to inform his expression, he just looked sad. The same way he’d looked standing next to the Generals Feixiao and Huaiyan as they questioned him. “When the Stellaron Hunters first arrived at the Loufu, Blade came right up to the Seat of Divine Foresight to demand an audience with me. It’s the very first thing he did when he got here— turn himself in. When I asked if he remembered me, he said he did. And when we detained him, he went willingly.” 

Something clicked in Dan Heng’s mind— this is the scene he saw play out in his dream the night before the Express arrived on the Loufu. That must’ve been a memory played in real time. How was Dan Heng able to see it? In the past, he has been able to randomly glimpse into Blade’s life, oftentimes when he’s doing meaningless things— in the midst of battle, or just standing around. Were those all real time glimpses into Blade’s life? Why was he even able to do that?!

“And then… you let him go?” Dan Heng guessed, pushing that thought to the back of his mind.

“I did.” Jing Yuan admitted. “Blade wasn’t even surprised when I showed up. It’s like he knew I would come and release him. When the two of us were alone and I asked him what he was doing here, he told me the truth. He wasn’t planning on actually hurting us. In fact, he was planning on intervening with the events to come enough to make the situation on the Loufu at the time turn out well for us in the end. So, I.. decided to trust him. I walked him right out the front door.” His smile faltered again, but just for a second. “Well, before he left, he asked me to kill him.”

Immediately, Dan Heng’s mind brings two memories back to him, the first is of the last time Dan Heng saw Blade, when he asked Jingliu not to leave just yet, to fight him again because she owed him “one last death.” 

The second memory was the first time Dan Heng met him in this life. They’d had a long fight, one where Dan Heng was confused and scared for the most of it. Mostly because Blade was manic the entire time, and he didn’t seem to completely know what was going on or who he was fighting. But when he realized Blade thought he was Dan Feng, he’d been quick to tell Blade that he was Dan Heng now. Dan Feng is dead, and Dan Heng doesn't have anything to do with Blade. He’d told Blade to leave him alone. Then Blade had stared at him for a second, the fight halting. Manic laughter bubbled in his throat, and he replied “Then tear out my heart and take it back, I don’t want it anymore.”

Dan Heng had killed him that day, but he hadn’t gone that far. 

“That… must’ve been hard to hear.” He said. “Especially if that was the first time you’d seen him in hundreds of years.”

“It was, but it made a lot of sense.” Jing Yuan agreed. “At least I knew why he was traveling with the Stellaron Hunters now; they’d promised him an eventual end to his existence. That's… all he wants now. Far be it from me to keep him from what he wants.”

Dan Heng scratches his nails lightly along the surface of the table they sat at. “So… you did do it?”

“I did my best.” Jing Yuan admitted. “I stabbed my glave through his chest, and summoned the power of the Lightning Lord through his body until it was charred and unrecognizable. We were in the gardens then, so I sat by the gazebo and waited for him to get back up. He did, eventually, two hours later. He came back over to me to say goodbye, and then left. I did my best, but… it wasn’t enough.”

Dan Heng shivered at the imagery. “Why would you do that?” He asked, unable to help himself. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Because he was my friend.” Said Jing Yuan. “Because he’s still my friend. I took a chance and decided to trust him. Even if that ends up being a mistake, I won’t regret it. I don’t want to forsake our friendship just yet.” His smile turns upwards, playfully. “Do you know he contacts me sometimes?”

“Like, through the phone?” Dan Heng questioned. “You have his phone number?” For some reason, he can’t imagine Blade texting.

“Why, do you want it?” Jing Yuan offered, teasingly. Before Dan Heng could even think of a response to that, Jing Yuan answered his question for real. “I do. He’s not very talkative, and to be honest, there’s not much for us to talk about. As much as I’m not the plucky young Lieutenant Blade remembers, Blade…” Jing Yuan sighs, betraying his exhaustion. “There is so little left of the friend I once remembered. And yet, I can’t just avoid him. More importantly; I don’t want to.”

“But isn’t it—“ Dan Heng began hesitantly. It feels strange to open up to Jing Yuan, he still feels like a stranger in so many ways. But Dan Heng knows him too well for him to be a stranger anymore. “Being around him and knowing how he used to be, isn’t it worse? Wouldn’t you just see what’s missing?”

Jing Yuan shakes his head. “We are tied together by time. It’s not like I’m the same as I was back then either. People will always change as time passes, but that doesn’t mean you care about them any less. It’s nice to know how he’s doing every once in a while. Not that he texts very often. Usually, he calls if he has something important to say. Like he suddenly recalled a memory with me in it or something.”

“Does he do that often?” Dan Heng wondered.

“Sometimes.” Jing Yuan answers. He props up his face with a hand, leaning forward on the table, his smile slowly growing ten times more cat-like. “Anything else you’d like to know about Blade?”

Dan Heng winced, embarrassed, because oh god, he totally has been asking Jing Yuan about Blade. “I don’t want to know anything about him!” Dan Heng hissed defensively. “That’s not why I asked you here!”

“Then why did you ask to meet me?” Jing Yuan asked. Dan Heng went to correct him, to deny it, but Jing Yuan spoke once more. “Come on now, friend. I know you well enough to know when you want something from me.” Do you? Dan Heng thinks, unable to stop it. “No need to be shy. Go ahead; ask.”

Dan Heng swallows thickly, his palm closing into a fist as the words to ask sit heavily on his tongue. “In your opinion…” his gaze falls down to the table, he can’t bear to look the general in the eye as he says it, “as someone who knew him…” the words lodge in his throat, as though he’s choking on them, “if it’s okay to ask… do you think Dan Feng was a good person?”

When Dan Heng finally looks back up, Jing Yuan seems shocked. Which makes sense, Dan Heng has gone his whole lifetime refusing to seek any knowledge on his previous life. 

Jing Yuan has to think about it, and as he paused to do so, fear crawls up Dan Heng’s throat as he waits. Fear for every possible answer he might receive. He’s not sure if he wants Dan Feng to be good or evil, and he’s not sure if he’s ready for the answer. All he knows is that he needs to face the truth, whatever it might be.

“I think… when I knew him, he was.” Jing Yuan decides. “At the end of his life, Dan Feng was a good person. But he was a complicated person too. He lived a long life before I met him, and if the records and tales of those years are anything to go by, he wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. He did a lot of bad things before we met, and a lot of bad things while we knew each other. I think… if you’re asking for my personal opinions, I think he was horribly lonely for most of his life. Imbibator Lunae has been High Elder for countless lifetimes, he was tied to the Xianzhou by duty and responsibility. He alone was the voice of the Vidiyahara. His people and the preceptors placed him on a high pedestal, where no one else could reach him. He spent hundreds of years surrounding himself with politics and warfare, in an isolation he could not escape.”

Jing Yuan didn’t sound sad or remorseful as he said it, just… honest. Dan Heng wondered if Jing Yuan needed to get this out just as much as Dan Heng needed to hear it. It’s hard to grieve alone, and he doubts there’s any people left on the Loufu willing to listen to anyone speak well of Dan Feng.

“I think, though people revered him as some kind of kingly god, he was just as fallible as the rest of us. In the early years of his life, he struggled with empathy because he had no one around him to be empathetic towards. That’s just what I think, but… I know we were the first real friends he ever had. The first people to care about him without revering him or having some underlying motive. He used to talk about how we made him feel like a person. Like he was himself, just Dan Feng, not Imbibator Lunae or the High Elder, for the first time.”

Immediately, Dan Heng chest seized in recognition, feeling the echo of the love he felt for his own friends aboard the Astral Express. The first people to love Dan Heng for Dan Heng. He felt like himself around them, he felt free.

“I think he cared about us.” Jing Yuan continued. “Maybe more than he knew what to do with. And it drove him to make a bad decision. But… I don’t hate him for it. We were the only people that didn’t make him feel… trapped.” 

His smile tugged up slightly as he waited for any form of response from Dan Heng. As Dan Heng listened, he realized this was more or less exactly what he’d expected to hear. All that was left now was to swallow the truth, and hope he knew how to digest it. 

…

For many years, Dan Heng thought he’d never return to the Loufu. And if he did, he would never have to return to the Shackling Prison. And yet, here he was, at Jing Yuan’s request. The fiercely protective part of him would’ve agreed to anything so long as it got Jing Yuan out of a stressful position. And yet, being here again after all this time…

He had to focus on Stelle next to him. Everything about this place screamed danger. The eerily silent halls, the weird navigation, the bottomless pit beneath them, the smell of sewage and rotting flesh, and of course, the freezing cold. All of it brought him back to how it felt to live here. Every moment was spent on high alert because he knew he wasn’t safe. It was strange, but his biggest fear was anything bad happening, because now that Stelle was here, it would happen to her too. 

That was the worst thing he could imagine; if this place took away the one thing he’s managed to find for himself outside the Loufu— his friends on the Express. The Shackling Prison had taken everything else from him; his childhood, a sense of belonging in his homeworld, his sense of self… he wouldn’t let it take anything else from him. He was bigger than the Shackling Prison now, he wouldn’t let it hold onto him. 

It was a bit strange, having Stelle there gave Dan Heng something to focus all his attention and energy on, so he felt less scattered or panicked. He did panic a little when the doors shut them in and there was a split second where Dan Heng thought they’d be trapped in there forever— but then Jing Yuan showed up and got them out. 

He returned voluntarily because Jing Yuan was still in a bind, and now the whole Loufu was in danger. But he still found himself focusing all his attention on his friend. Logically, he knew Jing Yuan was stronger than him, he didn’t need Dan Heng to keep jumping in front of him every time they encountered the enemy. But he kept doing it anyway. It was nice to have him there, just like it was nice to have Stelle there. Although he spent the whole time terrified for their safety, he wasn’t spending the whole time freaking out. Which was better. Dan Heng might not feel safe in this place, but he isn’t alone anymore. It makes a world of difference. 

(He also still has no idea what to think about Jing Yuan’s random ass lore drop about his conception. He’s a little upset he didn’t know his hatching rebirth was interrupted via magic, and feels robbed of his right to have his past and sins washed away in the egg like every other Vidiyahara gets to. But he also gets why the General didn’t mention this to Dan Heng before. Dan Heng probably wouldn’t have wanted to know before, he was actively avoiding his past until now. So he feels in equal parts jipped and grateful that Jing Yuan was respecting his boundaries.)

…

Punching Taoran in the face was more satisfying than it had any right to be. He remembers the preceptors from his childhood, they were the only ones who regularly visited him in his cell. They taught him things, like how to read and write, the history of their kind, and the history of his predecessor. They taught him to hate himself.

He hated how Taoran looked at Dan Heng, like he knew him better than he did. He hates how he treats Bailiu, like she wasn’t even a person. He hates how he throws his weight around and expects to come out on top. How he expects no consequence of his actions. For once in his life, Dan Heng understands Blade’s anger at the idea of someone running from the consequences of their actions. The idea that no one will ever pay for the hurt and pain Taoran caused has Dan Heng’s blood boiling. 

Taoran has always been himself, and he will be himself even when he is reborn. He will just be another version of himself, that’s all. And he cannot continually get away with using his power like this. 

After throwing himself into battle, the only one able to fight against Taoron’s forces, Dan Heng felt like he could finally relax again. He wasn’t trapped, he wasn’t back in the prison anymore. Dan Heng was free, he was himself. 

After the battle ended and Jing Yuan reentered the fray to arrest Taoran, Dan Heng found himself staring up at his predecessor’s statue, recalling how Taoran spoke to him. He said Dan Heng had always been stubborn. He wondered if Dan Feng was like that too (that did kinda feel like what Taoran was hinting at). And if so, what else did they have in common? Was it not just the negative qualities they had in common— stubbornness, pride, greed— but his other traits as well? Was Dan Feng curious about the world and how it worked? Did he like history and stories? Adventure? Did he love his friends as much as Dan Heng loves his friends? 

Dan Heng would do anything for the Astral Express crew, even break the trust his own kind placed upon him, commit sins and laws of all kinds. If Dan Feng was like that… maybe it would be okay if it turned out they were more connected than Dan Heng used to believe.

As Lingsha and the rest of the Cloud Knights walked back out the entrance, Jing Yuan came up behind Dan Heng, deep in thought.

“What’re you thinking about?” He asks.

His voice carries the warmth of a friend, and Dan Heng wonders if that’s really what they are now. They’ve spent a few outings together with the sole purpose being to get to know one another better, and Dan Heng can admit he’s grown to actually care about Jing Yuan for who he is to Dan Heng now, not just for who he was to Dan Feng back then. But does Jing Yuan feel the same? 

When they’d first met in this life, as Dan Heng’s exile pardon had passed and he was released from the Shackling Prison, the General approached him with unproportionate familiarity. It came from the love he had left for Dan Feng, not any level of friendship with Dan Heng. When they returned to the Loufu recently, Jing Yuan treated Dan Heng like a familiar acquaintance, and now he was back to treating Dan Heng like a close friend. It’s close enough to the initial overly close friendliness from when they first met that Dan Heng wonders if Jing Yuan cares for who Dan Heng is now, or just who Dan Feng used to be? Does Dan Heng want Jing Yuan to care about the person he is now? He’s starting to think the answer to that question is yes.

“Just that the fight with Taoran was more satisfying than it had any right to be.”

“Well, that makes sense.” Jing Yuan reasons. “I mean, I’m sure Imbibator Lunae’s been growing resentment for the preceptors for countless lifetimes.” With a cheeky grin, he adds “I’m sure Dan Feng would be proud.”

“Even though I’m a Nameless now, and I abandoned all his duties to the Vidiyahara?” Dan Heng asks.

“Well, yes actually.” Jing Yuan agreed. “Did you know Baiheng was a Nameless?”

Dan Heng perked up. “She was?”

“She was.” Jing Yuan confirmed. “When the five of us would get drunk together, Baiheng would regale us all with tales of her time aboard the Astral Express, traveling to countless worlds, meeting so many people, and having wild adventures. I think we were all a little jealous of her. Or maybe that was just me. But I know at least Dan Feng shared that sentiment. He talked about how he felt tied to the Loufu. He dedicated his life, his past lives, and his futures lives, to serving as the voice of the Vidiyahara. He would live the same lonesome life over and over, because he knew that his people needed him to. I don’t want to put words in his mouth— and maybe it isn’t my place to say it— but I think if he knew there would be a time where his people didn’t need him anymore, if he knew that he’d get to become you, Dan Heng, I think he’d be so happy.”

When Jing Yuan stopped talking, he looked to Dan Heng in shock. Sometime during their conversation, Dan Heng had started crying. He doesn’t know why, only that some small part of him must’ve been unbelievably relieved to hear that.

He let that part of himself cry for as long as it needed to.

…

He was only able to relax again once he saw his friends safe and sounds after the dust settled. From what he’d heard, it sounded like Stelle had been pretty far removed from the action, and while March had gone up against Hoolay himself, she’d come out fairly unscathed. Dan Heng breathed a sigh of relief once he saw their faces again, and all was right with the world.

Well, almost everything.

As Stelle and March visited the Alchemy Commission, Dan Heng branched off from them. They’d of course invited Dan Heng to come with them, but he’d declined— he had his own task to complete. Self imposed of course, but important nonetheless.

On one of the handful of occasions Dan Heng had spoken/ hung out with Jing Yuan during their stay on the Loufu this time around, the General had let it slip that General Huaiyan was currently staying in the same hotel as the Astral Express crew. Of course, the Zhuming General was staying in a higher, more restricted floor than Dan Heng and his friends, but it wasn’t hard to deduce which one belonged to him. There were two foreign Xianzhou Generals staying on the Loufu at the moment, one of them was at the Alchemy Commission indefinitely due to sustained injuries acquired during the fight with Hoolay. There was only one hotel room on the top floor guarded by Cloud Knights. Dan Heng’s master powers of common sense led him to believe he’d found Huaiyan’s room. 

“The General isn’t in at the moment.” Said one of the four Cloud Knights stationed outside the hotel room. 

Dan Heng deflated. It had taken a lot of effort for him to put aside his pride and convince himself to seek out the Zhuming’s General before his departure. “Where is he, then?”

“I’m afraid that information is restricted.” Replied the Cloud Knight.

“Well, can you tell him I stopped by?” Dan Heng asked. “I just want the chance to talk with him before he leaves the Loufu.”

“We can pass the message along.” He answered.

“What?” Came a young girl’s voice from down the hallway. Dan Heng turned to see Yunli trot up to them, hands on her hips. The Cloud Knight straightened to alertness as she came closer, acknowledging her ranking and prestige. “Grandpa isn’t home?”

“He— he went out, Miss Yunli.” One of the other Cloud Knights told her.

Yunli frowned at them, then turned her gaze to Dan Heng. He hadn’t spent any one to one time with the young swordsmith of the Zhuming, but since meeting her upon their arrival to the Loufu weeks ago, had a rough determination of her personality. She was hotheaded, unapologetic, smart, strong, and overconfident. The little smirk she gave when she denied returning Yanqing’s sword to him on the grounds that she believed he didn’t deserve the weapon had made Dan Heng’s nerves stand on end. Why, he didn’t know. Only that the facial expression was familiar, and it was unnerving to see it on this total stranger. She was an intelligent, promising young girl, and Dan Heng had no reason to dislike her. And yet, every once in a while when he did get to see her speak or act, something she does will make him want to punt her across the room for no reason at all. It’s strange. Maybe it’s her child-like arrogance? He doesn’t know for sure.

“Why are you looking for my grandfather?” She asks him.

“I had something I wanted to ask him about.” Dan Heng tells her. 

Yunli frowns, her cheeks puffing out in adorable frustration. “Well… since we’re leaving soon, it makes sense he’d want to visit there one last time…” she muttered to herself. Just as Dan Heng’s curiosity was piqued, Yunli turned her sharp attention back to him. “Follow me, Nameless. I’m pretty sure I know where my grandpa is right now. I wanted to come and talk to him anyway, so we can go together.”

Yunli didn’t wait for an answer, turning around on her bare feet and walking right back where she came from. Dan Heng rushes to catch up. 

He follows her down Aurum Alley and other backstreets of the Loufu wordlessly. Yunli doesn’t attempt to strike up a conversation with him, for which he is grateful. He’d never been very good at small talk. Eventually, Dan Heng realizes they’re in the Artisanship Commission. He takes her a direction he’d never been in before, away from all the major forages and shops, and down a little alley where Dan Heng doesn’t see any open businesses.

But then, between a large, soulless, concrete factory, and a rundown bookstore, was a moderate sized workshop. Yunli narrows in it on, likely seeing the Cloud Knights stationed outside at the same time Dan Heng does.

“I knew it.” She exclaimed, rushing right up to them.

Dan Heng was hot on her heels as she ran up to the abandoned forage. He could tell it was old the second he got remotely close— the architectural style was super dated. While it did appear some upkeep was being attempted, the roof looked frail, and the walls were peeling and yellowing. The windows were fogged from age and the sign hanging from the outside was worn beyond recognition. If anything had been written there, it had been thoroughly lost to time. 

“Miss Yunli!” One of the Cloud Knights acknowledged as she neared them. “What can we do for you?”

“Is my grandpa inside?” She asked.

The Cloud Knight who’d spoken before nodded. “Do you wish to speak with him?” 

Yunli shook her head. “Nah, but this Nameless does,” she replied, jabbing a thumb in Dan Heng’s direction. He was starting to wonder if she knew his name at all. “Let him in, but let gramps know I’m outside.”

While the two Cloud Knight guarding the door looked at Dan Heng with confusion and suspicion, they didn’t hesitate for a second to yield to Yunli’s command. 

“Thank you,” Dan Heng said to Yunli. “I’m sure it’ll just take a moment.”

Yunli shrugged flippantly, and Dan Heng parted from her to enter the old workspace.

Dan Heng was right, this place was ancient. 

It was clear to him immediately that it used to be a grand workshop. The interior was spacious and had been designed with care. And yet, the wallpaper was peeling, revealing the old, rotting wood and steel behind it. The floor creeked when Dan Heng walked on it. There were racks and hooks on the walls where weapons were supposed to go, and the lack of weapons was obvious and stark. There was a door leading outside the back and a set of stairs that would lead to an upstairs, assumingly. But the space Dan Heng was in now was devoid of anything. All furniture and crafting tools had been taken out, all that remained was the empty, built in furnace on one of the walls. No lights were lit, the whole place was cast into inconsolable darkness and emptiness.

And yet, the moment Dan Heng crossed the threshold, he felt his insides warm up and his body relaxed, as if his most base instinct recognized this place as home. How odd, he’d definitely never been here before. 

General Huaiyan was standing in front of the empty forage, looking lost in thought as he stared. “Sorry, Yunli,” he said, “I would have brought you with me and told you some more stories about him, but I thought you needed your rest after—“ he looked up to see Dan Heng and paused in surprise. “Imbibator Lunae!” He greeted. “My apologies, I thought I heard my granddaughter’s voice a moment ago.”

“Uh, you did.” Dan Heng replied. “She’s just outside, she brought me here so I could speak with you.”

“Ah.” Hauiyan hummed in acknowledgement, a little surprised, but happy nonetheless. “Well, I’m glad you did! Why don’t we go upstairs? We’ll have somewhere to sit down, come follow me.”

Dan Heng felt a smile warm his face as he followed Hauiyan without question. The Zhuming’s General reminded Dan Heng of his feelings for Mr. Yang— the security and fondness that made Dan Heng think this must be what it’s like to have a father or grandfather. 

The old wooden stairs (though Dan Heng could tell some steps had been replaced at various points in time) creaked under both their feet as they climbed upstairs. Dan Heng caught a whiff of old paper and dust before he ascended to the second floor and saw the space for himself.

It was lit by a dim bulb in the center of the ceiling. The space was super cluttered, like someone was using it for storage. Still no smithing tools or weapons, but there were bookshelves of old scrolls and loose papers and files. A few work benches were against the wall, worn in and covered in dust. A few various knick knacks sat on shelves— like old parts of automatons, pottery, wine glasses, toys. In the center of the place there were two old couches that looked like they must’ve been red at some point, but closer resemble brown now. Between them was a small old coffee table with a tea set placed in the center that was much newer than anything else in the room. Hauiyan must’ve brought that himself. 

Hauiyan sat down on one of the couches, his feet not long enough to touch the ground, as he reached forward to grab the tea pot, starting to pour some of its contents into one of the cups.

Dan Heng sat on the opposite couch from him as Hauiyan pushed the now full tea cup towards him. Dan Heng took it greatfully.

“Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.” Dan Heng says, breaking the silence. 

“Of course!” Hauiyan agreed cheerfully. “I knew you fairly well in your last life, it would be nice to get to know you all over again in this one. Anything in particular you wanted to ask me about?”

Dan Heng’s hands tighten around the warm ceramic cup. “I was wondering.. if you knew any specifics about what Dan Feng and Yingxing were to each other.”

Kindly, Hauiyan tilts his head. “Why don’t you ask him?”

It settles on Dan Heng quickly, cold and startling. “You know he’s still alive?” He’d assumed most people didn’t know Blade had been Yingxing once. The resemblance isn’t really there, and he can’t see Blade purposefully tracking down his master and telling him where he’d been for the last seven hundred years. 

Regardless, Hauiyan nodded. “My boy has changed quite a lot since I last saw him, but I would recognize him anywhere. He doesn’t look the same, or move the same, even the way he wields his sword is different. But I know my boy.”

Dan Heng takes another sip of his tea, knowing the General is still patiently waiting for an answer to his question. Why didn’t Dan Heng go to ask Blade? “I’m… not sure.” He answers. “I mean, it doesn’t seem like a good idea. His memory isn’t… it’s not reliable. And we’re not exactly on the best terms. Who’s to say he’d even answer.”

Hauiyan nodded understandingly. “It’s strange, seeing him like that.” He spoke. “On the news, on wanted posters. It’s painful, really, to know he must be in pain. I haven’t seen him since he decided to go by the moniker ‘Blade’, but I also have seen you since your last incarnation. What makes you so interested in Yingxing now, of all times?”

Dan Heng shrugs, his pride retaining him from explaining even if he wanted to. He’s not really sure. It isn’t because he feels like he owes Blade anything— he didn’t do anything to Blade, and he refuses to take the fault for his pain. It’s not because he wants any kind of relationship with Blade— the man was a psychotic killer that barely knew who Dan Heng was half the time. If he’s being honest, it’s all very selfish. There’s memories of warmth in Dan Heng’s mind, leftover from another life, that he wants more of. Dan Heng misses Yingxing and the way he used to love his past life more than anything. He can never get that back, because Blade will never be warm and alive in the way Yingxing was. And yet, Dan Heng wants it anyway. There is nothing to yearn for, it doesn’t exist. 

And yet.

Hauiyan stands up, placing his tea cup back on the table. Dan Heng follows the General with his eyes as he walks over to the shelves on one of the walls, rooting through the centuries old files and journals and papers haphazardly stacked there. Dan Heng is fairly impressed the paper doesn’t immediately disintegrate the moment it’s touched— he can only imagine how old it is. Probably centuries old, if he had to guess. It must’ve been restored somehow, or enchanted as to not decompose.

After a short while of rifling through them, Hauiyan returns with a leather bound journal, standing before Dan Heng and offering it out to him. It’s thick and filled, he can tell other papers were bookmarked in, or taped or stabled, because the binding is bloated, and some paper sticks out the sides. There’s a thin strip of cloth tied around it to keep the book closed. Dan Heng takes it in his hands— it's heavier than he expected. 

“Everything you’re looking for can be found in those pages.” Hauiyan tells him. 

“What is it?” Dan Heng asks.

“Yingxing’s notes,” Hauiyan reveals, “taken as he was crafting Cloud Piercer.”

Dan Heng’s breath caught. All of a sudden, it all made sense. Why Dan Heng felt so at home the moment he walked in. Right now, he must be standing in Yingxing’s old forage. It was so well preserved… he could easily imagine people lined up outside and crowds around the entrance. That meant— everything stored here; the files and papers, the ceramics and automoton parts— they’d all been Yingxing’s creations.

Dan Heng’s heart swelled with grief and longing— Yingxing would’ve been so happy to know just how much he impacted the Loufu, just how much its people respected him and his legacy, and kept it alive. 

Dan Heng tries to recall any more memories of this place. Surely, Dan Feng had been here many times when it was inhabited. But only the dark, empty downstairs he’d seen a moment ago came to mind. 

“Thank you,” says Dan Heng, standing. 

…

The walk back to the hotel felt longer than it was. Dan Heng felt the weight of the journal in his pocket, and stewed over the gravity of it. He knew Yingxing had made Cloud Piercer specifically for Dan Feng. It was perfect for him, in a way that made it feel wrong to use any other weapon. Holding it made Dan Heng feel safe; this weapon has never failed to protect him before. It was made with so much love and thought. Though Dan Heng didn’t know how he knew that, he was positively certain about it. Because Yingxing had known Dan Feng better than anyone else.

He has the memory of Yingxing giving him the spear. He’d bowed down and presented it to him, the illusion of reverence broken by the playful, arrogant smirk on the craftsman’s face. 

Careful with that, High Elder. It’s sharp enough to pierce dragon scales.

What had Yingxing thought about while making it? How did it reflect Dan Feng? Or rather— how Yingxing saw Dan Feng. 

What would this journal tell him? Would it really have any way of showing how Yingxing had felt about him? Would it fill in the gaps in Dan Heng’s memory? Or was it just a bunch of designs and blueprints? 

“Dan Heng!”

He stopped at the sound of March’s voice. She and Stelle must be back from the Alchemy Commission already, it seemed. He waited for the two of them to approach him.

“There you are!” March exclaimed. “We were looking for you, but you weren’t in our room!”

“I did say I had something I had to do.” Dan Heng defended himself.

“Oh. Right.” March replied slowly. “Anyway, whatever it was, you took forever!”

“What’d you need to do, anyway?” Stelle asked. “It’s not top secret Loufu stuff, is it?”

“Top secret Loufu stuff?” Dan Heng echoed.

“Whatever it is you and Jing Yuan talk about.” Stelle explained poorly. 

For the second time since arriving on the Loufu for the Wardance, Dan Heng wondered when Stelle and Jing Yuan became so chummy. Because why is Stelle casually referring to the Seat of Divine Foresight by his first name?

“I wasn’t talking to General Jing Yuan.” Dan Heng said. “I was talking to General Hauiyan.”

“About what?” March prompted.

A few years ago, before he had boarded the Express, when he was all alone in the cosmos, he would’ve made an excuse to get out of saying anything. Too afraid of exposing a weakness or an opportunity for someone to steal the journal. Completely untrusting. These days, Dan Heng doesn’t hesitate to take the book out of his coat pocket and show his trusted friends.

“These are the plans and schematics for my spear.”

March and Stelle stared in confusion.

“How’d you get your hands on that all of a sudden?” March wondered.

“Better question; why did General Hauiyan have his hands on that?” Stelle countered.

“He got it from the craftsmen who made it.” Dan Heng revealed. “Blade.”

Mach gaped. “Blade is a craftsman?!”

“He was.” Dan Heng confirmed. “But that was a long time ago. Anyway, I was lucky General Hauiyan was willing to part with it. He said inside it had all I needed to know about my past with that man.”

“Woah!” March bawled, taking a step back. “What happened to you?! I’ve been trying to pry your tragic past out of you forever, and you always told me it didn’t matter anymore because you’d left it behind you or whatever.”

“Willingly seeking out information about yourself.” Stelle added. “You’ve certainly changed a lot. Low key impressed.”

Dan Heng turned his head to the side, face flushing in embarrassment as his friends dig into his ego for no reason. “Don’t be so surprised.” He deflects. “It’s because of you, Stelle.”

“Me?” Stelle wondered. “What’d I do?”

“Well, I started thinking about it because of you.” Dan Heng explains, “Do you remember when I asked you to come with me to meet Bailiu, and we went to scalegeorge waterscape and I told you about the sin Dan Feng committed?”

Stelle nodded. “We saw all those… dragon water shedded past life skins. It was kinda weird.”

“Yeah.” Dan Heng confirms. “Well anyway, do you remember what you told me after I explained myself?”

“Not the exact wording.”

“You said that Dan Feng made the choice to revive Baiheng because he loved her. You said not to be so hard on someone because they love their friends.” Dan Heng recalled for them both. “Actually, what you said was ‘don’t be so hard on yourself’. And I remember thinking; but I’m not being hard on myself because I didn’t do it. That was Dan Feng, not me. It was Dan Feng who I hated, not myself. I’ve hated Dan Feng my whole life. He was the reason I grew up in the shackling prison, and I resented him for that alone. And, growing up here, the only time anyone mentioned Dan Feng to me was when they had something awful to say. He was evil, he was heartless, he committed a great sin. He was the reason Blade wanted to kill me, he was the reason the Luofu couldn’t be my home, the reason I felt like I had to keep running, why I had to keep proving myself and my identity as an individual, over and over and over again.”

March winced. “Well, when you put it that way, it does really sound like his one mistake caused every single problem in your life.”

“That’s how I used to think about it too.” He replied. “The only thing I had in the shackling prison was my sense of self, it was the only thing no one could take or ridicule because no one cared to know who Dan Heng was. I guess that’s why I’d become so protective of my identity, and so stubborn about changing how I see myself.”

Stelle nodded, an index finger and thumb resting in her chin. “So that’s where Dan Heng’s infamous stubbornness originated, huh?”

“Hush.” Dan Heng bristled. March choked back her laughter. And to their credit, his friends did quiet down to listen.

“Anyway, the first time I ever heard anyone have anything nice to say about Dan Feng was when we came to the Luofu the first time, and I met General Jing Yuan again.” Dan Heng explained. “He and Jingliu, Bailiu, and even Blade have started to make me realize… Dan Feng was never the evil monster everyone made him out to be when I was young. He was… he was just a person. And the more I remember from his life, the more I realize he was just like me. Stubborn, prideful, loyal, observant, curious... When we went to Penacony, we were asked; why do people dream? It stayed on my mind for a long time, but in the end, I think you had the right answer.” He said, gesturing to Stelle.

His friend blinked at him a couple times, trying to remember. Then it came to her. “We dream so that we can wake up again.” 

Dan Heng nodded. “Dreams are a short respite from the world. But we are not meant to stay in them forever. Sooner or later, we must wake back up and face reality.” He continued. “In my version of Ena’s dream, as I told you, I journeyed with the Astral Express to countless words, leaving my past completely behind. That’s how I realized it wasn’t real; we cannot escape our past like that. I cannot escape my past, no matter how far I run. That idea used to scare me, but it doesn’t anymore. I have spent too long in this sweet dream, and I must wake and face reality; I was Dan Feng once. He is my past. I thought that because Dan Feng was in the past, meant that he didn’t matter, because he wasn’t who I am now. For a long time, I refused to let him determine my future, and I still stand by that. But I can acknowledge him as part of me without overriding who Dan Heng is now. So when you once said to me ‘don’t be so hard on yourself’, you had a point. I was being stubborn, and too hard on Dan Feng, a version of myself I once was. He was just a person doing his best, and… I forgive him.”

…

When Yingxing had received the commission, he had hardly been able to believe it.

A weapon for the High Elder of the Vidiyahara?! And they wanted Yingxing to craft it?! It felt too good to be true. But apparently, the High Elder had broken his spear during the last siege against the Abundance Abominations, and had requested the very best craftsman aboard the Loufu to make him a new one, so of course his Preceptors had come here. It was a daunting task, but Yingxing wasn’t about to turn away from it. Afterall, if he couldn’t forge a spear good enough for the High Elder, no one could.

That being said, those dragons hadn’t made it easy on him. When foraging weapons meant for a specific person, it helped to at least be able to see that person. But the High Elder hadn’t shown up to his forge, his lackeys did. And Yingxing had no way of contacting the guy either. Apparently he was some kind of recluse. No one ever saw him unless they were really important. When Yingxing fished for more details from the Preceptors who’d shown up to order the commission, they’d only given him one requirement.

“Make sure it can cut through dragon scales.”

Great. Super informative.

Did the High Elder like longer shafts or shorter ones? What should the weight of the blade be? How could Yingxing know his weapon would be catered to a man he can’t even meet one time?!

“Jingliu, you gotta help me here.”

The swords master ignored him, as she had been doing their whole conversation. She was the only person Yingxing knew of that had met the High Elder. They were frequent sparring partners. Allegedly. His and Jingliu’s friendship was shaky, and truthfully Yingxing doesn't even know if she likes him at all, but she was his only lead. He had no idea where to even start with this, he needed something.

“Come on, I’ll make it worth your time!” Yingxing tried again. 

Jingliu continued to sip her tea and ignore him.

He let his head fall down to the surface of the table that sat between them. “I’m dying here.” He reiterated. “I’m not even asking for much! How tall is he? How does he fight? What did his old spear look like?”

“He’s fast.” Jingliu replied suddenly.

Yingxing jolted up, eyeing her expectantly. “Yeah? And?”

She sipped her tea again.

Yingxing wanted her to explode.  

Okay, so a lightweight spear built for speed! Sounds easy enough. At least he has some kind of starting point.

He figured a majestic deity-adjacent dragon figure would like something a little more on the elegant side. He circulated through many designs before settling on something just to settle. He was unhappy because he knew it could be better. But he can’t make it better without more information.

Getting information about the High Elder’s tastes was like pulling teeth. Not even the Vidiyahara know anything about the guy. Isn’t he their mascot?!

This may be the most important job of his life, and he’s going into it completely blind. This would freak anyone else out, but luckily, Yingxing isn’t just anyone. The unknown element presents a challenge, one he’s excited to pursue. Besides, things are boring when they’re too easy. 

What takes the longest is the head of the spear. Having his most important guidelines be “sharp enough to cut dragon scales” was a pretty wide range for picking a metal. That’s what he’d assumed originally, anyway.

As it turns out, dragon scales are tough as shit. Not that Yingxing had any way of testing it. He’d mentioned his Goliath task to the man he usually buys metal from casually as he was purchasing his wares, and the merchant went pale as a sheet.

“I don’t think I got a metal for that.”

Yingxing had been buying new types of metals from all over the cosmos, trying to combine and meld some type of material that was tough enough for the task. What made the whole thing even harder was that Yingxing didn’t have any dragon scales to test it on. They don’t exactly sell those on the market. And Vidiyahara tend to react poorly to being asked if they would help a human test his spear’s strength by letting him cut open the scaley dragonic parts of their skin with it. Go figure.

As time passed, Yingxing found himself slowly growing to resent the High Elder. What kind of guy doesn't even commission a weapon for himself? Doesn't he care what he wields into battle? When his life is in danger, it’s Yingxing’s weapon that the High Elder will have to trust to save his life. Would the High Elder really put such blind faith in a mortal he’d never met? Or did he just not care?

Maybe the High Elder didn’t feel the need to use his weapon all that much anyway. He had all that weird dragon-y magic, didn’t he? Maybe he was only getting a new spear because he didn’t want to be seen without one.

Whatever. The High Elder is going to get the most amazing spear ever crafted on the Loufu, whether he uses it or not.

After months of creating new metals and testing them on rocks and trees and other tough surfaces, Yingxing found a metal he was fairly satisfied with. When he swung it through solid granite and split it clean in two, he knew he had finally done it. After all these sleepless nights, it was finally over.

Again and again, Yingxing achieved what no other craftsman could. The others could look down on him all they wanted, but Yingxing knew his mortality was his greatest strength. His ticking clock lit a fire under his ass, propelling him to go to lengths those long lived species wouldn’t understand. 

It was barely two days after he’d secured the head of the spear onto the shaft when he was visited randomly in the middle of the day. 

He checked the clock opposite of his work bench. No, it wasn’t time for any appointments. In fact, Yingxing isn't sure he has any appointments today. Who should show up to his forage randomly like this?

Maybe it was Master. When Yingxing first moved out on his own, Huaiyan would visit from the Zhuming to remind Yingxing to rest or get out of the forage once in a while. He doesn’t do that as much these days, but he can’t think of anyone else it would be.

Unless it’s the pipsqueak again. Jing Yuan is always popping up out of nowhere when it’s the least convenient. Or maybe Baiheng! He’s known her since he was a kid. They’re not super close, but she’s probably his closest friend on the Loufu. She might’ve brought him a meal to share, she’s always doing things like that. 

But when Yingxing opens the door, he’s greeted by the most beautiful man he’s ever seen.

His face is pale, flawless, and ageless. His long black hair falls down his back in a single stroke of ink. His clothes are formal without being flashy, yet still speaks of wealth. He stands straight, composed and confident, magnitudes of importance seem to just roll off him, as if forcing attention onto him. His eyes were stillwater of an emerald lake. 

Yingxing stares dumbly for a moment before collecting himself. “Uh, can I help you?”

“I’m here to collect my commission.” Says the man. He’s a Vidiyahara, Yingxing can tell that from the teal horns peaking through his wispy bangs and the long tail behind him. But Yingxing’s certain he hasn’t met the guy before. He doesnt recognize the man, and this is not the kind of face Yingxing would just forget.

“Uh… right.” Yingxing replied. “Remind me your name again?”

“If you must call me anything, you may call me Imbibator Lunae.” Says the man sharply. Impatient. “My Preceptors placed a commission in my name six months ago. Is it ready to be picked up or not?”

Every nerve ending in Yingxing’s body jolted at the same time. 

That’s the High Elder.

Now it seems obvious.

“Right!” Yingxing chirped, refusing to betray his intense spike of anxiety. “Of course it’s finished, I’ll go grab that for you!”

He opened the door further, stepping so the threshold was clear. “Come in.”

Imbibator Lunae eyed him with some kind of vague distrust before stepping inside his forage and standing put. Meanwhile, Yingxing rushed down the corridor and into the armory.

How had he managed to lose track of the days like that?! It didn’t feel like six months. He walked over to the hooks he was hanging the spear on and took it down. It was… usable. He had hoped to be able to polish some finer details today— after finishing his pet project— but that’s over now. He just has to be confident when he hands it over. Confidence is key. He’d spent so much time detailing the shaft, surely Imbibator Lunae wouldn’t notice a few imperfections?

Not giving himself enough time to worry about it, Yingxing moved out of the armory and back to where Imbibator Lunae was waiting for him.

The Vidiyahara had busied himself with eyeing the swords on his walls, standing close to the fire of the burning furnace. When Imbibator Lunae looked back up, Yingxing saw him with a rim light of flickering orange. 

Yingxing walked right up to him, presenting the weapon to him with a flourish. “Exactly what you requested; a spear worthy of Long the Permanence themself.”

Instead of the expected woeful admiration, Imbibator Lunae took the spear from him with indifference. No fanfare. Completely unfazed. And it’s not like Yingxing needs to be praised for his talent, but even his sloppiest work is leagues above the Loufu’s average craftsman. Yingxing worked his ass off to create a spear so unique and godly, the least Imbibator Lunae could do is look slightly impressed. 

“Mhm.” The High Elder hummed absently. “But can it cut through dragon scales?”

Yingxing swallowed. “It’s made with a tougher metal than I’ve ever worked with.” He says, tip-toeing around a response. “It’s been able to cut through everything I’ve put in its path.”

“But can it cut through dragon scales?” Imbibator Lunae hissed, insistent.

What a stubborn asshole, Yingxing has time to think before his mouth gets ahead of him. “Well, it’s not like they sell dragon scales out on the street.”

Imbibator Lunae’s face drops into an unimpressed scowl. “So, you don’t know for sure?”

“Well, that’s—“

He sighs, his patience worn through. “I asked you for exactly one thing. A spear sharp enough to cut through dragon scales. I don’t care if it’s worthy of every Aeon in the universe, I don’t need my weapon to be pretty. I can’t wield art onto the battlefield.” He pushed the spear back into Yingxing’s hands. “I asked my Preceptors to commission the greatest craftsman they could find. If you can’t do it, I’ll find a greater one.”

As Imbibator Lunae turned on his heel and marched for the exit, Yingxing lept into action without thinking. “There is no one greater!” He argued with absolute confidence. “I was taught by the greatest craftsmen on the Zhuming, I’ve sparred alongside the greatest swordsmen on the Loufu. I’ve done things in my two decades of experience that most Xianzhou natives can’t accomplish in centuries. You can walk out that door if you want, but I can promise you, you’ll never find another me, even if you spend the rest of your infinite lifetimes looking.”

Imbibator Lunae stops by the door, Yingxing’s words forcing him to a halt. He turns around to look at him.

Granted the attention he desires, Yingxing preens, slamming the butt of the spear into the floor. “This is the spear you need. I guarantee it.”

Yingxing swears he can see the glint of something in the High Elder’s eyes. Maybe interest, maybe disgust. But it’s something. “Many people have claimed their importance to me.” He says, taking a stride closer to the craftsman. “Few have proved it. What makes you so sure I direly need a spear that can’t do the one thing I need it to do?”

Yingxing takes a step closer next. “If you’re not afraid, show me your scales. I can cut you open right here and now.”

Impossibly, Imbibator Lunae’s lips quirk into the slightest of smiles. It’s mean-spirited and demeaning. Yingxing likes it. “Quite bold of you to assume I’d just kneel over and let you lay even a single hand on me.” He takes the next step closer. “If you want to prove your skill that badly, you’ll have to fight me for it.”

“Done.” Yingxing says immediately, not thinking at all whatsoever. Because if he had been thinking, he would’ve said no, absolutely not, what the heck?! Imbibator Lunae was the High Elder of the Vidiyahara! He was an eternally living, godly, magic dragon! Yingxing should not fight this guy! He has centuries of experience on Yingxing! And he also has magic!! But his mouth continues to betray him. “I’ll go get you a spear. I have a ring out back. First to draw blood loses.”

Imbibator Lunae takes the last step in, and Yingxing feels like he’s breathing his air. “Perfect.”

He feels like he may have woken up something in the High Elder today. He’s sort of wishing his ego had taken the bruise and let the thing sleep.

Regardless, he fetched the High Elder another of his spears and leads him to the ring he has set in the space around the forage. Imbibator Lunae keeps his eyes on him as they circle each other. Neither of them feel the need for words. When Yingxing senses Imbibator Lunae readying himself to strike, he strikes first.

Their spears clash, matching each other bout for bout, thrust for thrust. And while Yingxing is certainly keeping up, he can’t help but notice Imbibator Lunae sticking to defense. Swinging his spear as if bored, only in a means to keep Yingxing away from him. When Yingxing is able to close in anyway, Imbibator Lunae sidesteps and curls the tip of his tail around Yingxing’s ankle, pulling it to the side and knocking Yingxing to the ground.

He groans at the impact, and Imbibator Lunae snorts. “Pathetic.”

But he’s only down for a second— Yingxing flips to his back and uses the reach of the spear to swipe at Imbibator Lunae’s ankles, sending him falling to the ground in the same way he’d done to Yingxing. All in the same move, Yingxing has righted himself back to his feet, just in time to see Imbibator Lunae do the same.

They stare at one another, only a yard apart.

“Ready to stop underestimating me, princess?” Yingxing goads.

Something switches in Imbibator Lunae. No, more like something breaks. He rushes forward, their spears crossing, and Imbibator Lunae’s face is, in an instant, right in front of Yingxing’s. His eyes— before, emerald stillwater—  now rippled and churned violently, like a raging ocean. Yingxing couldn’t prevent the laughter that bubbled up past his lips, because Imbibator Lunae was attacking him, really attacking him. And Yingxing could keep up.

As they went back and forth, the High Elder didn’t try to use any of his magic or Pathstriding ability, he seemed determined to beat Yingxing without his full arsenal. He had riled up the High Elder of the Vidiyahara, and Aeons above it was a sight to behold. 

Jingliu was wrong, he wasn’t just fast. Imbibator Lunae moved like water. He flowed seamlessly from one perfected form to the next. Yingxing felt like he was barely reacting in time, that’s how swift he was. He jumped in and out, attack retreat, faster than Yingxing could counter. He wasn’t getting anywhere near where he needed to hit. Whenever Yingxing felt like he was finally about to land something, Imbibator Lunae sidestepped and suddenly he was gone. The slippery motherfucker. 

He was vicious. Yingxing was convinced he heard the High Elder growl a couple times. His face stayed impassively stony and determined. He didn’t seem to get tired, and when he swung his spear, he meant to strike down something. Yingxing had no doubt if he were a less talented man, this Vidiyahara would’ve torn him to shreds already. But Yingxing wouldn’t be taken down that easy.

The fight was more exhilarating than anything else he’d ever done in his life. He felt like he was fighting a hurricane. Imbibitor Lunae was incredible. He was gorgeous. 

Yingxing doesn’t know how long the fight goes on, only that it must’ve been hours. The artificial sun sets and the stars begin to shine before he’s able to strike. But it’s a moment of pure luck— as Imbibator Lunae pivots to dodge an attack, his tail wraps around his own legs and Yingxing brings his spearhead down, cutting right through the dragonic appendage.

Imbibator Lunae lets out a wounded hiss and drops his spear. He flicks his tail to the side to see his cut, and the both of them stare at the bloody slit down the teal scales.

“I did it!” Yingxing proclaims, triumphant. Imbibator Lunae only stares at him, wide eyed and unblinking.

Of course the High Elder isn’t winded at all, but Yingxing is prevented from saying anything more by his desperate pants for air. He takes a knee, holding his spear upright for balance. 

“Take… that…” he pants, “you dick.”

As Yingxing tries to catch his breath, Imbibator Lunae keeps staring at him. It lasts a little while longer before the mask cracks, and he’s smiling. Smiling.

“You know, when people come up to me promising they’re the perfect person to solve whatever ails me, and how I need to pay them whatever amount, it’s always a greedy investor or politician, and they’re always the same. Overselling their abilities and underperforming. Or worse, taking advantage of my trust. The people around me are there for my power, they’ll say whatever they need to say to benefit from my title. But you…” he walks up to Yingxing, standing before him. “You’re everything you said you were. You absolutely frustrating, arrogant man. You just kept pushing me until I saw it.”

Yingxing is glad he doesn’t have the air to actually respond, because he’s stuck with his jaw on the floor. He has no idea what to say to that. He feels stunned.

“I will take your spear into battle.” He decides.

“Wait.” Yingxing manages, looking up at him. “I want… to keep working on it. You… the way you move… I’ve never seen… anything like it. You’re… a whirlwind. I can… make it better. I have so many ideas.”

Imbibitor Lunae looks down at him curiously. “Well, far beit from me to keep a craftsman away from his art.” He places his spear end on the ground, letting Yingxing grab hold of it to pull himself up. “But know I expect nothing less than perfection.”

Yingxing feels himself smile. “I’ve always… liked a good challenge.”

…

Yingxing worked on Cloud Piercer for years. All the while getting to know Dan Feng more and more. Slowly, the observational notes in the journal began to be less about Dan Feng’s fighting style, and more about small, personal observations on the High Elder’s personality and ticks. Yingxing slowly stopped writing about how he was worried about his smithing skill being up to par, and more if Dan Feng himself would be impressed. Over sparring matches, talks over wine and moonlight, Yingxing’s goal changed. 

Less and less he cared about his reputation and proving his skill, and more and more he began caring about the man he was smithing for. Over time, Cloud Piercer became a symbol of Yingxing’s love for Dan Feng. He wanted to create a weapon so sturdy and formidable that it could never fail Dan Feng. In that way, Yingxing would always have a way to watch over and protect him. 

And the thing is— Cloud Piercer had always made Dan Heng feel safe. It was one of the only things he took with him when he left on his exile. He’d been taken into an armory and told he could have a single weapon to protect him on his journey. The second he’d seen Cloud Piercer among the rows of spears, he knew that was the weapon he had to have. It had never failed him. It’s edge never dulled, the shaft never cracked. It was reliable, Dan Heng wasn’t sure what he’d do without it.

When Yingxing and Dan Feng met, the High Elder had no close friends. He was surrounded by people who only saw him for his status. In fact, Dan Feng only seemed to see himself as the High Elder. He dedicated his life to being the voice of the Vidiyahara, and he hadn’t allowed anything else to be more important than that.

Until he met Yingxing, who didn’t lie to him, who didn’t use him, who pushed him, who met him blow for blow, who was constantly testing him and forcing him outside his comfort zone. Yingxing who genuinely cared about who Dan Feng was as a person, who forced him to actively participate in their friend group, and welcomed warmth into his life. 

Before that warmth, Dan Feng didn’t feel human. He didn’t consider himself one. He killed enemies and allies alike without remorse, his dragon heart far colder and more deadly than his human heart. It was only by being shown love was he able to show love back. Because he had always been capable of it, it’s just that no one had bothered to care about him before. 

Yingxing had been so warm to him, so loving. Having finished looking through the journal, Dan Heng thinks about Dan Feng, who hadn’t thought of himself as someone who could even love at all. About how Yingxing had taken a chance, reached out with his warmth, and it ended up changing Dan Feng’s whole life for the better. About the bracers that Dan Feng made for the two of them, so they could reach out and feel one another anytime they wanted. 

What would happen if Dan Heng reached out to Blade now? He wouldn’t feel the warmth of Yingxing’s love, surely. But would Blade feel Dan Heng’s warmth instead? Because of the love Dan Feng’s friends showed him, Dan Heng knew of love. He was surrounded by it. His friends on the Astral Express, his family. He’d always have them. Blade is now the one cold and alone, feeling more like a tool than a person. Dan Heng is the one in Yingxing’s position now. He could freely show the warmth of love to that man if he wanted to, just as Yingxing did to him once. Would paying it forward finally quell the thirst of longing Dan Heng feels for the craftsman he never really met? 

Dan Heng still doesn’t feel like he owes Blade anything, he doesn’t even feel like he wants to get to know the guy. Just because Dan Heng still feels love for who Blade used to be, doesn’t mean he likes the man he is these days. And yet… he can’t help but wonder. What would even happen? Would Blade feel empty? Or would he feel like Yingxing? 

In the darkness of the Archives room, Dan Heng eyes the red bracer on his forearm. Since returning from Penacony, the memories in his dreams have slowed in their intensity, leaving him less afraid to go to bed at night. As he lays back and tries to sleep, his mind wanders to the man who hunts him, his shadow…

…

When the monster called Blade woke, his entire body hurt.

It wasn’t a new sensation. Dying and the subsequent returning to life was painful every single time it happened. Though, he doesn’t remember quite how he died this time. For a moment, the man sits there, disoriented, not really remembering who he is to begin with. But it’s often hard to remember what happens when he’s consumed in his mania. 

He sighs, disappointment filling him once again as he fully wakes back up. At once, his mind starts to fill with memories and voices and the pain returns with it. It had been so quiet just a moment ago. But, of course, once again he is healed. Never so fast that he doesn’t experience the pain of it, but not so slow that life will finally let him out of its grip. Inevitably, he is forced to continue.

He struggled to breath, then sit up on the table he was splayed across. He searches his mind, fishing for memories of anything that had happened before now, and the mere action creates a new surge of pain blossom forth in his mind. He sees red, and doubles forward in the agony. 

That’s right, his mind is broken. It’s in fragments. Using it hurts, so he usually avoids that. Kafka is his brain. She makes all the decisions, she soothes the hurt, Blade just does what she tells him to. 

That’s right; Kafka. The Stellaron Hunters. That’s what he is now, he’s a Stellaron Hunter. He is a weapon seeking its own destruction. That is all that’s left.

He takes a deep breath. It probably doesn’t matter if he remembers what killed him or not. Fact of the matter is; he died again. He was probably under Kafka’s orders as he did so. What does it matter? 

Pain is a thrumming heat under his skin. He touches his abdomen, trying to find out where it’s stemming from. He doesn’t seem to have any surface wounds. Not any that remain, anyway.—

The bullet tore through the flesh of his face, making him stagger backward. His vision went white as the pain overtook him—

Ah, that’s right. He had been on a mission for Kafka. He was on that asteroid planet, and had been taken down by gun slinging mercenaries. 

He touches his own face gingerly, he notices his hands are shaking as he does so. Blade despises his own anatomy; how his body shutters and spasms without his consent, how his mind will fragment and torment him with old memories he no longer has the context to. He is a monster of the Abundance, the same kind of beast who killed Yingxing’s parents and homeworld, who he swore his life to warring against— how could he not hate this body he is trapped in now? When he touches his face, he feels the raised flesh stretch across his cheek. Experimentally, he flexes the muscles of his face and jaw, and more pain blossoms from it. He knows he deserves this pain as punishment for his sins (the phrase echoes in his mind secondarily in Jingliu’s voice) but it’s still irritating to be constantly dealing with. Though, he supposed that was probably the point. Repenting for your sins is probably supposed to suck. 

Blade swings his legs over the side of the medical table and forced himself to stand. The meat of his thighs quake as pitifully as his hands do, but he ignores their protests to make him stop. As he starts moving again, he can feel the other aches and pains in his body. Stretched skin on his bicep, an ache in his achilles tendon, several newly stitched slashes in his back. His collection grows, what joy.

He also notices that he’s not wearing his shirt or coat, which means his wounds were deep enough that Kafka decided to confiscate it and sew it back up for the millionth time. He also notices that there’s no dressing over his wounds or his hands, which means Kafka must’ve taken them off. Blade has stopped caring whether his injuries get infected or not, they’ll heal anyway. The healing process is always slow— how would he learn his lesson otherwise?— so why does it matter if this particular wound gets reopened? But Kafka always just kinda looks at him whenever he expresses that line of thought, so he keeps his wounds bound.

The reason he keeps his hands bound is a more personal reason, though. He just… doesn't like looking at them. They’re useless, he doesn’t want to acknowledge their existence if he doesn’t have to. That’s his first order of business now that he can move again. 

He takes a moment to mourn his blissful moment of unawareness again, and then he leaves the infirmary to rejoin the others.

He remembers now where they are; the ship they’d stolen from the IPC a few system weeks ago. As he forces his feet to keep carrying him to the room he knows to have the medical supplies, he stumbles past Firefly and Silverwolf, sitting on the floor (instead of the couches just a foot or so behind them) watching a large monitor. Firefly is the only one that looks up when he passes through.

“You’re back up!” She exclaimed, shooting to her feet.

“What?” Silverwolf said, not looking away from the screen. She must be playing one of those computer games again. 

Firefly is by his side in a flash, and Blade hums in acknowledgement. “Kafka’s sewing your shirt back up again.” She tells him, but he guessed that already. “Do you need help dressing the stitches?”

“Hey!” Silverwolf barks from her place on the floor. “You promised you’d play next turn. Don’t chicken out now!”

Firefly, facing Blade and with her back to Silverwolf, allows herself to grimace, very clearly wanting to get out playing a video game. Silverwolf probably misses Stelle, the only member of their group who’d been willing to play with her. Maybe not as much as Firefly does, but Blade had done his part in that. He’d warned her about distractions on Penacony, and she had decided to reach out to Stelle anyway. Whatever happens next is on her hands.

Blade does them both a service. “I’m fine on my own.”

Firefly raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you don’t need help?”

Blade waved off her concern. He didn’t need it, even if he did know she understood it. She had her own pain to struggle with— the purple and blue veins that course her body have multiplied by a lot since they first met. But Firefly is trying her best to live. Blade is ready to die.

He finds the room they’d been stashing everything they don’t have space for anywhere else and locks himself inside. 

It doesn’t take long to find the medical kits; they have several, just because they keep going through them so fast. It takes a minute for Blade’s flimsy hands to open the latch on the small white box. When he does, he takes out the roll of bandages and drops the rest on the ground. When his hands steady (to the manageable point they can get to, anyway) he’ll put them back. 

He slides down against the wall and uses a blunt fingernail to scrape at the loose end of the roll. He grits his teeth in frustration when he just can’t manage to get it up. With a grunt, he goes at it with his teeth instead. The action hurts the ruined skin on his face, but he doesn’t care. Let the skin tear anew if it wants to, he just wants to cover up his hands again.

He manages to get one end off the bandage roll, enough that he can dig a finger underneath it and tug it away from the roll.

As he unravels it, he can feel his hands growing shakier. He furrows his brow, glaring at them as if that’ll make it stop. 

He starts wrapping the bandage around one of his hands with the other. It’s a difficult process as neither of his hands remain still, and the wrap is much looser than he’d like, but that’ll have to be good enough for now. He doesn’t have the energy for perfection.

He reaches across the floor to the discarded medical kit for the scissors. Holding the bandages in place— They’re getting even looser, he thinks bitterly— with one hand, he gripes the scissors in the other. As he goes to cut the edge of the bandage, his shaking, broken hands betray him again. He slices open the palm of his hands with medical scissors.

He yowls, his vision going red, as his whole body screamed in pain. He can smell it, he can hear—

— “Why did you and Imbibitor Lunae commit such an unforgivable sin?” Jingliu asks him again.

The Unknown raises his hand to shield his face, too weak from her last attack and still healing the mark it left in his body to even stand back up, not to mention fight her off. No, he has simply given up. Jingliu brings down the obsidian black sword again, this time straight through his hand—

—“I don’t deserve something like this.” The Beloved said, his voice too ginger and frail to be his own—

Blade takes a deep breath, but even that shakes. He sees red, he sees spider lillies. He cradled his cut palm in his empty hand, both shaking even more viciously. The red of the bracer on his arm fills his vision—

— “They’re for Vidiyahara.” The Beloved said, continuing to protest.

“But I made them for you.” Dan Feng argued.

The Beloved snorted. “Bullshit. You’ve never made anything with your own two hands in your entire life.”

Dan Feng had the decency to be a little embarrassed. “Well, I had them commissioned for you.”

The Beloved turned the mystical bracer in his hand. “…Why?”

“You spent several years crafting something for me.” Dan Feng pointed out. “Why should this be any different? Is it so hard to believe I just wanted to give you something in return?”

“Yeah, but these are…” the Beloved turned the words over in his head a couple times, “more personal… in Vidiyahara culture… right?”

Dan Feng’s ear twitched as red creeped into his cheeks. “So?”

The Beloved decides his lover is too stubborn to openly admit to what he’s doing right now. It’s time to be direct. “Is this not you basically proposing to me or what?”

Dan Feng doesn't quite cower under the accusation like the Beloved expected. “It’s more complex than that.” He said, confident. He must’ve been planning this for a long time. “I… I was leading up to asking you to participate in the ceremony, so thanks for ruining that. But… yeah, basically. We would be bonded together for the rest of our lives. Don’t you want that too?”—

— Blade closed both his hands into fists, even as the pain worsened he could not relax his body, his mind slipping, falling apart—

—Kafka dug the dagger into the side of Blade’s face. Blade screamed, but as he’d asked her, she ignored it and pressed on. She dug the blade under his skin, under his muscle, until she reached the root of the Abundance fledged vine protruding from his jaw.

“Okay, I’ve got it.” She said, the only warning given before she began to dig it out—

—“Of course I do.” The Beloved is quick to respond. “I just mean… ‘the rest of our lives?’ I don’t think you’re quite grasping how short that’s going to be.” He sees Dan Feng going to interrupt him, and continues his own thought first. “I want to be with you the rest of my life, and I already know that’s what you want too, you don’t have to do this to prove it. I’m not a Vidiyahara, but isn’t this ceremony kind of a big deal? You can only do it once in your life. Dan Feng… you’re going to be around for a long time after I die. I don’t want you to… to feel like you—“

—The silence that engulfed the Unknown broke as the bitter healing of the flesh brought him back into this world.

All his life, he had fought to exist. No— not just to exist, but to mean something. Overconfident in his abilities to the point of arrogance, all he wanted was to prove his worth to the masses. Because the Unknown already knew he was a league above the rest, he knew his talents were what the Xianzhou needed. He put so much stock and so much pride in his short life. 

Now, all he wanted was for it to end.

He couldn’t handle this level of pain. He couldn’t take it anymore.

The Unknown would give anything for it to stop.

Even if it meant betraying his whole identity.

The Beloved must truly be dead.

Jingliu stalked over to him once more. “Do you remember now?”—

—“Stop it.” Dan Feng interrupts him. The short phrase comes out in a hard burst. But the moment it’s out, his smile turns kind and worrying. “Wasn’t it you that once said that there won’t ever be another you in this existence, no matter how long I searched? Where’s that confidence now?”

The Beloved took a step in, emotion building behind his eyes as the gravity of what was being propositioned to him began to weigh down. “You would really tie your life to someone you know you’re going to lose someday?”—

—The Unknown’s flesh is torn into yet again by the sharp blade of a weapon he feels as though he knows intimately.

“Don’t come back this time.” Said Imbibitor Lunae, now missing his horns and tail, but still Imbibitor Lunae. The Unknown cannot mistake the emerald chaos in his eyes. A disturbed lake, a violent churning sea. “If I see you again, I’ll cut out your heart.”

A laugh bubbles up from the Unknown’s throat as crimson leaks from his chest, where the spear has buried itself into. 

“I’m serious!” Imbibitor Lunae insistes, but the Unknown isn’t laughing because he thinks the threat is empty. Actually, he doesn’t know why he begins to laugh.

But it tears out of him, and he is unable to stop it. He can feel his own blood flooding his lungs as he begins to cough. The pain is overwhelming, and he thinks Imbibitor Lunae is trying to speak to him, but he can only hear Jungliu’s voice. (“Every time you see your own face, everytime you feel the scars there, remember what you did. Remember what you are.” ) He can only see red. His mind buzzes, and he tries to reach out for Imbibitor Lunae, but he falls forward instead.

As he hits the ground, his laugh has become more of a gurgle than anything else as he wheezes for air. He catches another glimpse of those emerald eyes as his body starts to shut down, which is when he figures out what’s so funny.

It’s all going away. It’ll go away for good this time.

Finally, finally, finally—

—“But you can’t be gone.” Dan Feng says with utmost confidence. The Beloved tries to interrupt him, but it’s Dan Feng’s turn to be persistent. “My entire life has been changed because of you. How I see the world has changed because of you. Even if you left right now and I never saw you again, I have been changed. You have left your mark on me. So long as I live, so will you be with me. There will never be another you in a million years, Yingxing.” He pressed the red bracer further into the Beloved’s hands. “So take this, and marry me.”

The Beloved feels tears slide down his cheeks as he chuckles pathetically. “So stubborn.” Is all he can get out before leaning down to kiss him—

—Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar! Echoes in Blade mind amidst the mania, threatening to close in on him and consume him. He feels himself fill with that feeling again. Love, he thinks. It must be love, it burns and scorches his insides. But it is hate too, it has to be. But isn’t that the same thing? Those two feelings have mixed together into a wholly new emotion meant just for him. It is anger and it is yearning, and it swells in Blade and it hurts to feel it. As the blood trickles down his palm, Blade submits to the Mara living under his skin, and suddenly—

Warmth.

A warm, soft touch on the back of Blade’s bleeding hand seems to pull him completely out of his fractured memories. It feels like someone’s body heat is encompassing him instead of his mania. Like someone is holding his hand, like someone is here with him, here for him.

Blade closes his eyes, his head too filled with cotton to process what’s even happening. And then it’s gone.

When he opens his eyes, he’s crying. He doesn’t know why the tears spill from his eyes like that, but he knows what that touch was. 

Or rather, who it was from.

His hands… they’re not shaking anymore. The voices have quieted (as much as they ever do). Everything is calm.

Blade cleans up his cut and bandages his hands, and the stitches on his back. He wonders if maybe Dan Heng made a mistake.

Afterall, who would think of Blade with warmth?