( Dam of his settled mind is roundly cracked, and thoughts spill, spill inundating. Drench and drown him. He does not heal well, wracked with the guile of feigning all well to Kafka and guilt inherited in this scarred, soured flesh. He fumbles through his convalescence, balance and dexterity slower to resurface, but he remembers himself, the shapes Blade occupies. The purpose.
Days bleed into each other, a rapid, dripping succession. At times he remembers their passage. Now and then, he is startled into the realization, between one hunt successful and the next stalled, that weeks have passed. In between, his stomach curdles with the quiet, frigid certainty that he remains unmoored. He was anchored, fleetingly, in a medical ward, days — a month prior. Another world. Another's man's lifetime.
And with him —
The hunger comes in the light of a fire, sweet pungent benzene and combusted fuel. He is told — and who is with him? where? — to run. Keep low for some time. They left evidence. Worse, Elio advertised the roaring success of their venture. He is not told where to go: head emptied, pay account full. Ashes snow down his hair, he is wanted everywhere. He goes — south.
Nebulous, dormant coordinates, the instinct to go like a twitching, animal thing. He does not know what he will find — it emerges, a perfectly bland, sedate and sleepy world, caressed by the technological successes that have traditionally repelled the Legion. Romantic in the clean pale lines of ornate architecture, the treacle of manicured waterways littered around a city of sorts.
From the people, he learns nothing about what drew him here, only accepts their sickly politesse and, on whim, several travel bottles of the local wine. Too sweet, he learns on a sip, for regular consumption. Just mellow enough to ease him into a state of serene, learned lethargy. And he walks, flitting between locations, muscle memory serving as a direction. Lie low, they said: of course, he climbs high. He finds himself on a perch, little more than a risen dais on a hillside beholding the cityscape, in the quiet of what must have once served as an aerial landing platform for urban fliers. There's a beauty of symmetry in it, the quiet of a white moon, the silvered tops below, the bleeding of the luster like that of his time.
He drinks. And he drinks. And he drinks — and he does not flinch, strange even to himself, when a shadow crosses his, when he knows its shape. Dan Fe — ...no. The moon's gravid and watchful, his latest bottle — the third — half full. He offers it out, hand slack, behind himself without thinking. )
You might as well. You won't run faster than I can catch. ( A courtesy warning. )
[ dan heng's memories of his past life are hazy. they always have been. he does not remember bits and pieces clearly - there is a fuzzy haze about it all, a surreal fog that clouds his mind when he tries too hard to grasp at them. and like trying to remember a dream, the more he attempts to recall, the more it all slips away like grasping sand too tightly in his hand.
so he does not attempt it. the most important memories are those that he is making right now. those that belong to dan feng are of his past life, and while he does not try to run from them any longer, neither does he deny them. he has found a balance, some sort of peace with what he can and cannot recall, a respect for the past without the need to dig too deeply.
yet sometimes things stir within him, and his footsteps draw him places without his input, led along by a string of thread around his heart and the vague gesture of a memory that clings and will not relent. when he lays eyes upon blade's slumped shoulders he knows that it was the ghost in his bones that led him here, for dan feng's memories of the quintet are the strongest that remain, the ones that hold on tightly and hook into his mind, unwilling to dissolve. for all the pain and torment that dan feng faced at the end of his life, it is not those reflections of agony that grasp on the hardest, but instead the warmer memories, the faces and voices of the people that he loved. ]
I could get a head start.
[ but he does not run, there is no reason to. their last meeting had ended abruptly, but dan heng has not forgotten the words exchanged, nor the sentiments that hung thick in the air between them. the bone-deep chilling fear that he once had for this man has dissipated, chipped away by time and knowledge, by reflections in the water. yingxing. the man who meant most to his predecessor.
stepping forward, dan heng leans to take the bottle, then settles himself down beside the man, sitting with one leg folded beneath him. the scent of the drink drifts, sharp and sour, but rather than drink from the bottle he takes up one of the small abandoned cups, pouring for himself. ]
( Two knives sharing a sheath, blades yet sharp enough to cross and batter one another. Even at willful peace, there is an element of friction, the possibility of war. Dan Heng assumes his seat beside Blade, dressed in gaunt moonlight, and Blade sees him, wan and frail and reduced in ways in which his predecessor would not have permitted. He wore your bones better.
Strange, how the same flesh can be a trifling accessory, ill used. Even Dan Heng's grasp of the cup is more tentative, less fluid. As if he dances around the motions, sooner than accepts them. This place eviscerates them to reach the innards of their memories. And Dan Heng, at least, remembers. )
I do not. ( Not with the surgical sharpness of distinct memory, not with purpose. Diffused, foggy, distant. He hesitates, then corrects himself: ) Deja vu. It feels — known.
( He drinks, once more thick, overly pleasant, warming his fingers, the tail of his spine. Finding house and kindle in him. )
I should wring your neck. ( Then, in that same breath, conversationally: ) You might have brought your own wine.
[ dan heng would be inclined to agree. there are times when he does not feel like himself, where his limbs seem to move on their own, guided by the touch of another, by old memories that linger in his blood. though he retains much of dan feng's grace and elegance, dan heng lacks much of the proud confidence that his predecessor had boasted, and it comes through quite easily. he has no station to cling to, no lineage to take pride in, only fractured memories and a lifetime of horrors.
but he lifts the cup nonetheless, taking a careful sip, allowing the alcohol to sit on his tongue, and burn down his throat. even the flavor of it is nostalgic, stirring gentle fondness. ]
It has always been your task to bring the wine.
[ he says it without thinking, but knows it to be true instantly. dan feng, haughty as he was, had thought that his presence was all the gift that needed to be presented - it was up to yingxing to bring the source of their more earthly pleasure. he lifts his eyes to the bright visage of them moon. ]
( To think, a mouth so trembling and small and lost can acquire such a conceit of certainty. Blade's task. No — that man's, corpse bound. The vessel in which the wine of Blade's rancor has been filling to bitter brim. He thinks to correct the assumption, on principles of pride. Thinks to elbow this willow of a man straight down off the stone palisade. Thinks to ruffle his hair or tear it off his scalp.
He does not suit ruminations. Wine, then. Wine and old yearnings and laughter like a rusted knife. Drink scalds his throat, wherever it's gone so often, indefatigably torn then stitched afresh. Beautiful, says Dan Heng, and it seems only pedestrian compared to moons glimpsed prior off the same perch. )
Why did we come here? ( Then. Now. He should decide — ) These are only the bones of a place. ( He lives and breathes among cadavers. Is, himself, only a revenant. ) There must be a thousand places with a thousand moons better than this. Why here?
( You chose it, he doesn't say, because he cannot imagine himself a creature of such playful whim, such joy as to draw them to this destination. )
[ a faint furrow appears in dan heng's brow, the memories flitting frustratingly out of reach. why here? surely there is a reason. he feels it. yet the more he tries to chase the reason, the further it dances away, so instead dan heng drops the thought, leaving the thread to fall. he looks forward again, over the dark water, where the heavy moon above reflects its bright visage. ]
.. this was the first place.
[ the first place they drank together, just the two of them, without the others. a night that saw them growing close to one another. discovering. searching. dan heng feels a warmth tighten in his chest that does not belong to him, yet does belong to him. ]
( The first place. The last, also? In truth, he cannot say. So often does the Vidyadhara — he of the likeness, if not the claim — say that he recalls nothing through the fog of another's passage, that he is a man reborn. Yet he knows this, in the blood and the marrow of him. He hears calls that once deafened Dan Feng, knows the same summons.
They drink together for a moment as intimate as the breaking of bones, in clicks, in creaks, in agony. Sweet, their wine, deceptively peaceful. Little cries of whatever trinket of a creature crosses the dark horizon on dark wings. Blade's teeth are gritted, and his pulses dances beats of tension on his temples.
He flings his arm, all at once, to collide their cups together in a quiet toast, leg skidding off the perch to broker new balance when he retreats back to himself. )
This does not hurt. ( As if it should have, carnally and intrinsically. As if parts and the whole of himself should have torn and scattered. )
[ as much as dan heng would like to admit that he bears no memories of his past self whatsoever, that simply is not the case. thanks to the meddling of the preceptors and their vicious exuviation charm, dan heng is a fractured man, a shattered mind, and though his thoughts and memories are usually his own, dan feng's seep in through the cracks in his psyche, like old dreams that do not fade. they feel strange and foreign, and yet entirely his own as well, like putting on a pair of gloves that he does not recognize, yet fit perfectly tailored over his hands.
it's an awful feeling, and a terrible existence, to always be overshadowed by someone greater than you, to never be able to escape his long reach. he experiences dan feng reflected in jing yuan's somber eyes, in blade's harsh expression, in jingliu's cold voice. even when he is alone, he feels the ghost of his predecessor.
the snap of their cups together shakes dan heng from his reverie, his eyes flicking open again, and he looks toward blade's bandaged hand holding the cup, mildly perturbed. lifting his head, he looks to blade's profile, handsome and sharp as the edge of a knife, those fearsome eyes aglow in the dimness of the night around them, eyes that he once saw in his nightmares, again and again. a deep inhale. ]
.. I cannot be him, for you. Even if I wanted to be.
[ for the truth of the matter, dan heng is not dan feng - in many ways he is both. neither a new person nor the person left behind, but something different, an amalgamation of old memory and new experience. the way he has lived his life, and all the events that have occurred since his rebirth, have shaped him into something different from the once proud high elder, something that can never fully be the same.
dan heng takes another drink, then carefully refills both of their cups, his voice soft, gentle. ]
( Can he consume this much wine without consigning his innards to an acidic bath? He is bound all rancor and gristle bound with cheap, thin strings. At times, the simplest biological protocol propels the tentative balance of his being into chaos. He does not remember —
But takes his chance. Drinks, after Dan Heng pours. Again, more to occupy himself than savor the sweetness, when the Vidyadhara speaks again. )
A tree bare in winter or shrouded in springtime. ( Gilded hanks or fractured dermis, torn scales or reborn flesh: this is Dan Feng, Dan Heng, the Vidyadhara. Eyes that burn and linger and should go gouged out.
I'd keep them, he suspects, but doesn't speak words Dan Heng ever finds threatening or idle, and not the phantom attraction of bone to marrow. He finds — ever finds, always awakens to himself, wolfish traitor in lamb's skins — himself reaching out, fingers frail and burdened by chills that turn them waxy and wan, no longer privileged of all the nerve endings that once facilitated circulation. These are the benedictions of his... condition: he is no shadow of himself, but a sum of scabs, core burning with purposes his limbs struggle to deliver. An outdated model. Ready to take out in the back.
His thumb does not meet the corner of Dan Heng's eyes, barely grazes the slope of a cheek; withdraws, as if burned, dismissing whatever rigors of fancy and madness entertained the possibility of contact. Were this not Dan Feng to whatever degree — were this a creature less lethargic — Blade would also find himself without a hand, for his trouble. )
You are yourself. You are the same. ( A pause, then rasping: ) An archive is a cage. It does not suit you. You'll suffocate. You must be, already.
[ a rebirth, a new identity, memories so faded and unfamiliar that they could never feel like his own.. yes, he is himself, but he is not the same. too much has changed. is a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis the same as the caterpillar that wove it? yes. and no. dan feng was broken down and melted anew, perhaps this is something that blade will never understand, and so dan heng will not argue it further. perhaps he is the one who is wrong, but his heart guides him otherwise.
yet even still, he no longer runs from dan feng's sins, but accepts them as his own, even if he will not give his life for them. a soul sin is a soul sin, and it stains him nonetheless, but he will nevertheless assert his right to be himself. ]
I am not confined to the Archives.
[ he says quietly, watching blade's hand withdraw, a warm tingling left behind on his skin where that thumb brushed him. his mouth presses into a thin line. ]
Aboard the Express, I see the universe. The endless expanse of stars is my home. It is a freedom that I never thought that I would know.
[ when first he beheld the vast ceiling of stars, he had wept, having known only the cold walls of his cell for a century or more. frigid isolation. his heart tightens behind his ribs; it is unfair that blade should suffer still for the same sin that dan heng has been unshackled from, but would he ever be willing to lay down that burden? remembering that night on the thin hospital mattress, dan heng lays his free hand over the back of blade's, carefully weaving their fingers. ]
( A foolish thing to clasp his hand, to take Blade as his for the knowing. He thinks, Dan Heng's fingers wrapped to shield his own and the print of his touch frail, burning, that he should snap every bird bone, twist and turn it. Wants to, viscerally.
Rotates his hand instead, palm threatening a print of warmth against Dan Heng's, as if they are schoolchildren coming together again, dancing around affection. )
Your catacombs. ( The Archive, a dead-end for a creature that once prizes open skies and a moon bright and rights over nearby, clashing waters. To think he would be reduced to this, that Dan Feng would be so shackled, first by skins barely new, then by purpose estranged from his nature.
It changes nothing, but sparks his pity. Better the mercy of rapid euthanasia than a trickling entrapment. Surely, surely. )
How do you breathe in their cage? ( And does he want the answer tentative or kind? Does he hope the best for this creature, at the very least his dignity spared? )
[ blade's hand moves beneath his, and dan heng wonders if he will slap his own away with a hiss - but no, instead it turns, palm to palm, and dan heng can feel the warmth of him even through his bandages, even through the glove and bracer that he still wears. something in his heart settles. he does not push for more, only holds that given hand snugly. ]
It is no cage. It is my home, now.
[ the only one he has ever really known, for the shackling prison had been many things, but it certainly had not been his home. but the express, and the people there.. they are his home. blade either refuses to accept this, or cannot understand it, dan heng is not sure which. ]
Being with my crewmates.. I imagine it is something like how Dan Feng and Yingxing had felt, among the quintet. I feel at peace there, with them.
( Half growled, half permissive, all withering. The truth coalesces amorphously before him, reality a play-pretend veneer. He does recalls little and late and fractured, this is known. But Dan Heng, a creation of denial and uncertainty, knows far less still.
And they were beautiful, weren't they? Flowers of a long lost season, the relics of an era of glory and gladness. Shadows and mishappen shapes, but for telltale signals: the cut of Dan Feng's iridescent gaze, Jingliu's crisp step, Jing Yuan's air of crackling expectation. Baiheng, a burst of carefree delight. And then —
His fingers round, catching Dan Feng's forcibly, holding. Keeping in place. His other grip freed, he drinks as madmen might. )
They weren't fugitives. ( As Blade and Dan Heng are now, with silent inevitability. ) They reaped good.
( Until they didn't. And all that was justice and formidable victory and the achievements of the ages crumbled as nothing at their feet. )
[ their meeting place is usually quiet, serene, uninterrupted, a tiny planet that is nearly entirely oceanic, save for a handful of scattered islands. there's a large amount of interesting wildlife, but no advanced species, making it a quiet, picturesque location to enjoy, its large moon lighting up a velvety night sky, even in the daylight.
it is quiet now, as well.. but the same cannot be said for the second system over, where a rogue squad of borisin have scouted a nearby solar system, joined by a small troupe of wingweavers. given that he must move through this solar system to reach their little watery planet, well.. dan heng simply cannot leave well enough alone. the borisin are known for their viciousness and cruelty, and should there be living species on this planet, surely they will find themselves eradicated or enslaved should he not intervene.
and so he does. it's a decently sized platoon, but not so large that dan heng is particularly concerned, no more than fifty combatants total combining both borisin and wingweavers. should he invoke the power of the imbibitor lunae.. surely it is nothing that he cannot handle. blade may be displeased that dan heng is late, but this is something that he simply cannot ignore.
so dan heng steers his small ship planetside and begins his work, assuming his form and leading a pack of borisin toward a bottleneck in the nearby mountains, where he can face them a little more safely as they charge through the narrow pass. the wingweavers, however, are much more of a nuisance, soaring in from above to harry him with aerial attacks, and save for throwing cloudpiercer like a javelin, he has little in the way of airborne strikes, unless he chooses to invoke the water dragon to charge through the skies.
as a wingweaver dives, slamming his shoulder with sharp talons, he thinks perhaps he may soon have no other choice.. ]
( Four days, won at hard bargain, wrested from Elio's broken hands. Four days, contentiously compromised, Dan Heng's mouth dark and mutinous to sign away his agreement. Four days, Blade's forfeit and fleeting regret and the grazing, acidic inquietude that he makes of himself a vessel to the shape of beloved, fallen Yingxing, filled with rot of Mara, churning. He cannot be what Dan Feng, so often peering behind the glass of Dan Heng's wandered gaze, wishes him to be. He cannot be that man. In four days together, he will betray himself, inexorably.
But he comes, all the same, as he is called — to their rendezvous point, a sleepy, serene world stranded between antiquity and violent modernity, at once far but also artificially removed. He is dressed in every last layer of Elio's finery, the loan of a sleek tow-person shuttle that — for a change — has both the equipment and lingering capacity to answer his flight commands with blitzing obedience... and the sensors to signal the inevitable chemical pollutions ahead. A fine primitive characterization of conflict, no skin off Blade's nose, a system away might just as well be a lifetime —
If not for the familiar other ship that cuts its path blitzing ahead of him, straight into the belly of the assailed system. He tries (fails) to transmit instructions for Dan Heng, who has wisely (inconveniently) turned off comms to avoid frequency detection; then, no better than a dog, he gives chase.
Dan Heng lands too close to the mountains, at the heart of the skirmish. Blade, more hesitant to entrust that packs of wingweavers won't assault a lone ship, abandons his in a farther-out clearing. He is — delayed to hunt Dan Heng again, nose first and the tremors of vibration that indicate the presence of the Vidyadhara's bracer, answering his own in kind. He rushes, blade tasting air that ripples electric with the tinny cry of shields deactivating, weapons in collision. Dan Heng fights, but so do the natives, and in the crowd that things out by the bottleneck, Blade nearly loses his prey's scent.
In retrospect, he should thank the wingweaver: large, flaunting supple limbs, iridescent. Beautiful for the eerie omnipresence of the silvered, waiting moon. It crashes in, intent to barrel into Dan Heng and catapult him in the mountain's stretch, where his lungs and ribs might stab and bruise — but for Blade's last-minute entrance, less to kill the beast than, at the awkwardness of his downswing's angle, to stall it from its target. The creature has some part of its triumph, if not its kill, claws pulling back red-tipped while Blade, hissing, accepts the aches of his slashed upper arm. No matter.
The wingweaver, Blade, Dan Heng, the wall — and the smoke grenade Blade drops down and kicks alive between them, wafts rising to shroud them whole. If not for the bracers, even Blade might struggle to spot Dan Heng, a mere few steps away — but he is found, caught at the wrist, dragged in a direction of which Blade is only half certain. )
[ ah. dan heng had hoped to clean this up before blade's arrival, thought that perhaps he might have the opportunity to complete this self-made mission and reach their planet only slightly tardy, but blade is as sharp as his namesake. he must have seen dan heng's ship descend, and followed suit.
he can already imagine the tongue lashing he will receive for intervening here when by rights he should be taking advantage of their four days, but that will be borne later. for now, blade snatches him up, and dan heng scurries behind him, abashed. ]
I couldn't ignore it.
[ he'll give his apologies later, when it is appropriate, but even still, dan heng is dan heng, and given an opportunity he would make this same choice again - though the scent of his lover's blood on the air makes his stomach twist. blade takes injuries regularly, yes, but that does not mean that dan heng would like to be the cause of one.
nevertheless, they run together through the bottleneck, quick as a flash. ]
If you can hold the land, I'll take care of the sky.
( For a moment, he is reduced to Elio's creature, Kafka's companion, a pawn sufficiently self-aware to know and plan around his choking limitations. Hold the land, says Dan Heng — and can he? There's no shortage of land-bound enemies, no guarantee he'll be enough.
But he has to be. Nodding, hastily, he stays in his step, drawing his sword, preparing to defend in arcs and slashes — long, wide cuts, powerful incisions. Hissing, wind joining him in the vanguard, he rushes forward, a dart of speed and power that can only hope to distract, setting a zigzag course. They chase him, blood in his wake: his, their own.
Once or twice, he nearly tumbles over, the lay of the land unfriendly to an easy hunt. And when they swarm, unable to hold off before even he must fall back, he calls out: )
[ they fight in tandem, land and sky, their styles complementing and completing one another in every way. dan heng knows well how he has inherited it from dan feng, that his every move feels natural and precise because of his connection to his predecessor, but rather than running from that, dan heng now embraces it. he may not be dan feng in many, many ways, but he no longer denies the similarities, or the fractured reality of his memories.
he is who he was, while also being wholly himself. and that is something that he has made peace with.
hovering above, dan heng surges against the wingweavers, rippling ghosts of cloudpiercer running through his assailants, gouts of water blasting them from the sky, keeping them at bay without any managing to get close to him. blade fights like a devil beneath him, the wind whipping and whistling through the pass, shard sword singing, but the moment dan heng hears him call out, he nods. ]
Stand back.
[ he says, drawing his hands together as he summons the great serpent, water in the shape of a dragon coalescing in his hands, surrounding the powerful orb hovering in his palm. dan heng does not hesitate. he releases, and the dragon surges forward with a mighty roar, sweeping through the high walls of the bottleneck, catching the ground fighters entirely unawares. borisin howl with fury, some at the back of the line attempting retreat, but it is futile - the dragon consumes them all in a torrential rage, foaming rapids of water sweeping brutally through the chasm, breaking their bodies against hard stones, drowning those that survive.
with his palm pressed outward, dan heng halts the waters before them in a massive wall as he alights, his boots touching the ground beside blade. ]
An easier ask when Dan Heng is not unleashing the better part of a tornado upon them, deluge yet bloodless but storm-born, catching the borisin — howling, crashing — in whirlwind. Blade wastes little time: where they lose balance, he strikes in downswing, sliding between them to aim gusts of wind where their bones break brittle at the knee and he can take hollow advantage to submerge them.
They won't die for the fall, but the waters claim them, and the lay of the land is of help to trail them, roaring down the corridors. The dragon still shrieks, ravenous and limitless, and it's on Blade to call out to Dan Heng — )
Fall back. Call it back. ( — even as he desperately begins the climb up, hastened, worried less that he won't make it to high ground in time, as each crest gives way to his climb — more that the structure of the passageway will see its ceiling brought down in somber collapse upon them, if the dragon were released to its full ability. )
We can retreat! ( Only, Dan Heng didn't come here simply to withdraw, did he? )
[ the moment blade begins to climb, dan heng turns back toward the wall of water in which the dying borisin and wingweavers thrash, some bleeding out, others drowning, gasping for air only to receive lungfuls of water. he hears the scramble of blade's boots against stone rising higher, higher, and only once dan heng is convinced that he's reached high enough ground does he begin to release.
rising from the ground, dan heng pushes, the water forward, ejecting it through the end of the bottleneck in a great, roaring spout that spills the corpses of their enemies upon the hard stone floor.
frowning, he allows the waters to slacken, settling down into a calm river that half fills the ravine as he rises higher, to where blade awaits him. no longer is it a screaming rush of rapids, but instead a placid stream that laps at stone walls. with one hand on blade's shoulder, dan heng settles onto the stone shelf, watching the waters closely, trying to suss out any survivors. ]
( There is a moment in between peeling himself off the hurt of stone and bartering his next few steps to balance — between allowing Dan Heng to situate himself on the perch and auditioning his own requirements for space — that Blade thinks to answer, brows raised, I was certainly meant to be.
But then, corpses afloat below, their gazes tired — this isn't the moment when they trade either niceties or misplaced affection. At a thorough scan, Dan Heng looks — at ease, in control of himself, almost comforted by his own mastery. The dragon no longer overwhelms him.
He is — magnificent in ways Blade understands far too deeply can become contentious on the battlefield. And he laughs, choked and passing a hand through his own hair, dragging smears of cutting gravel. )
You used me. ( His presence, his limited offensive advantage. ) Are we done here?
Please. I didn't even know that you would be here.
[ he came on his own, after all. but once blade was here? well, best that he makes himself useful, hmm? at last, satisfied by the dead, dan heng turns to survey blade, seeing to it that he is in one piece, scanning for injuries. it's a silly thing to do, given how quickly he will regenerate, but even still dan heng worries, and he did drag blade into this, even if he did not intend to. ]
You could have kept sailing on. I would have caught up.
[ he would have managed, likely releasing the dragon all the sooner. fighting beside blade, however, was a nice, brief privilege. ]
And yes, we are done here. You remembered the wine?
( Did he... remember the wine? A question so flimsy, so discordant, so savagely ill at ease that Blade briefly withholds himself, awash with stupor. The wine, yes, stranded in his ship in a frozen transport crate, the least immediate of his concerns, as they linger battered and not subtly bruised, negotiating their next breaths.
The wine, asks Dan Heng — )
Never imperil what's mine alone like this again.
( — and, hissing, Blade is on him, slowed by the strain of light injury but still a blitzing force sufficient to slam Dan Heng against the wall of stone and bracket him in, both hands to the swell of his cheeks before Blade's mouth lands upon his, a vicious whirlwind. What use is attempting to domesticate this creature, when he so clearly only understands one tongue? )
blade is on him in a moment, pressing him back against the cool stone, all but growling his threat, and dan heng hardly has a moment to formulate a response before he's being kissed, hard and rough, blade's hands cupping his cheeks. dan heng breathes a soft sound of surprise, but ultimately relents, closing his eyes and tilting his head to better facilitate blade's fierce mouth. his hands press to blade's chest, grasping in the thick fabric of his coat, feeling the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath.
though his partner is rough and ferocious, dan heng cannot help but be touched by his concern, however twisted and misplaced it might be. their connection is slowly but surely deepening, but dan heng would be a fool to think that they could be like any other average, happy pair - too much between them is complicated, broken. yet there is care here, there is desire, and old memories. there is fondness, and a slow repair of what is shattered, a cutting away of rot to bleed new, healing flesh.
the kiss breaks, and dan heng nudges their noses together, gentle and affectionate. ]
I'm here. [ he murmurs against blade's lips, smoothing his hands upward. ] I'm safe.
( Well meaning and poorly executing and fortunate, so very fortunate. And still Blade lingers, eyes shuttered and the drip of his lashes too weighted and low, and his breath alive with relief incandescent. He can't look at Dan Heng now, can't perceive him, silhouette overlapped with the Vidyadhara who was, the contours of his bright, bold soul.
On his chest, Dan Heng's hand lingers like a burning imprint, an anchor. He wants to shrug it off on instinct. Wants, and his hand overlaps Dan Heng's, to draw it into himself, his blood and his bones, wants to make of this man his marrow.
He lets go. This, then, is the song of their countless disappointments: Blade always lets go first, and his eyes wake blood-tinted and searing and soft, hazed by exhaustion. Glance sliding. )
Is it done, or do you plan to linger? ( If Dan Heng stays, Blade inevitably must, beside him. )
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Days bleed into each other, a rapid, dripping succession. At times he remembers their passage. Now and then, he is startled into the realization, between one hunt successful and the next stalled, that weeks have passed. In between, his stomach curdles with the quiet, frigid certainty that he remains unmoored. He was anchored, fleetingly, in a medical ward, days — a month prior. Another world. Another's man's lifetime.
And with him —
The hunger comes in the light of a fire, sweet pungent benzene and combusted fuel. He is told — and who is with him? where? — to run. Keep low for some time. They left evidence. Worse, Elio advertised the roaring success of their venture. He is not told where to go: head emptied, pay account full. Ashes snow down his hair, he is wanted everywhere. He goes — south.
Nebulous, dormant coordinates, the instinct to go like a twitching, animal thing. He does not know what he will find — it emerges, a perfectly bland, sedate and sleepy world, caressed by the technological successes that have traditionally repelled the Legion. Romantic in the clean pale lines of ornate architecture, the treacle of manicured waterways littered around a city of sorts.
From the people, he learns nothing about what drew him here, only accepts their sickly politesse and, on whim, several travel bottles of the local wine. Too sweet, he learns on a sip, for regular consumption. Just mellow enough to ease him into a state of serene, learned lethargy. And he walks, flitting between locations, muscle memory serving as a direction. Lie low, they said: of course, he climbs high. He finds himself on a perch, little more than a risen dais on a hillside beholding the cityscape, in the quiet of what must have once served as an aerial landing platform for urban fliers. There's a beauty of symmetry in it, the quiet of a white moon, the silvered tops below, the bleeding of the luster like that of his time.
He drinks. And he drinks. And he drinks — and he does not flinch, strange even to himself, when a shadow crosses his, when he knows its shape. Dan Fe — ...no. The moon's gravid and watchful, his latest bottle — the third — half full. He offers it out, hand slack, behind himself without thinking. )
You might as well. You won't run faster than I can catch. ( A courtesy warning. )
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so he does not attempt it. the most important memories are those that he is making right now. those that belong to dan feng are of his past life, and while he does not try to run from them any longer, neither does he deny them. he has found a balance, some sort of peace with what he can and cannot recall, a respect for the past without the need to dig too deeply.
yet sometimes things stir within him, and his footsteps draw him places without his input, led along by a string of thread around his heart and the vague gesture of a memory that clings and will not relent. when he lays eyes upon blade's slumped shoulders he knows that it was the ghost in his bones that led him here, for dan feng's memories of the quintet are the strongest that remain, the ones that hold on tightly and hook into his mind, unwilling to dissolve. for all the pain and torment that dan feng faced at the end of his life, it is not those reflections of agony that grasp on the hardest, but instead the warmer memories, the faces and voices of the people that he loved. ]
I could get a head start.
[ but he does not run, there is no reason to. their last meeting had ended abruptly, but dan heng has not forgotten the words exchanged, nor the sentiments that hung thick in the air between them. the bone-deep chilling fear that he once had for this man has dissipated, chipped away by time and knowledge, by reflections in the water. yingxing. the man who meant most to his predecessor.
stepping forward, dan heng leans to take the bottle, then settles himself down beside the man, sitting with one leg folded beneath him. the scent of the drink drifts, sharp and sour, but rather than drink from the bottle he takes up one of the small abandoned cups, pouring for himself. ]
I remember this place.
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Strange, how the same flesh can be a trifling accessory, ill used. Even Dan Heng's grasp of the cup is more tentative, less fluid. As if he dances around the motions, sooner than accepts them. This place eviscerates them to reach the innards of their memories. And Dan Heng, at least, remembers. )
I do not. ( Not with the surgical sharpness of distinct memory, not with purpose. Diffused, foggy, distant. He hesitates, then corrects himself: ) Deja vu. It feels — known.
( He drinks, once more thick, overly pleasant, warming his fingers, the tail of his spine. Finding house and kindle in him. )
I should wring your neck. ( Then, in that same breath, conversationally: ) You might have brought your own wine.
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but he lifts the cup nonetheless, taking a careful sip, allowing the alcohol to sit on his tongue, and burn down his throat. even the flavor of it is nostalgic, stirring gentle fondness. ]
It has always been your task to bring the wine.
[ he says it without thinking, but knows it to be true instantly. dan feng, haughty as he was, had thought that his presence was all the gift that needed to be presented - it was up to yingxing to bring the source of their more earthly pleasure. he lifts his eyes to the bright visage of them moon. ]
It's beautiful here.
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He does not suit ruminations. Wine, then. Wine and old yearnings and laughter like a rusted knife. Drink scalds his throat, wherever it's gone so often, indefatigably torn then stitched afresh. Beautiful, says Dan Heng, and it seems only pedestrian compared to moons glimpsed prior off the same perch. )
Why did we come here? ( Then. Now. He should decide — ) These are only the bones of a place. ( He lives and breathes among cadavers. Is, himself, only a revenant. ) There must be a thousand places with a thousand moons better than this. Why here?
( You chose it, he doesn't say, because he cannot imagine himself a creature of such playful whim, such joy as to draw them to this destination. )
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I don't know. I think..
[ a faint furrow appears in dan heng's brow, the memories flitting frustratingly out of reach. why here? surely there is a reason. he feels it. yet the more he tries to chase the reason, the further it dances away, so instead dan heng drops the thought, leaving the thread to fall. he looks forward again, over the dark water, where the heavy moon above reflects its bright visage. ]
.. this was the first place.
[ the first place they drank together, just the two of them, without the others. a night that saw them growing close to one another. discovering. searching. dan heng feels a warmth tighten in his chest that does not belong to him, yet does belong to him. ]
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( The first place. The last, also? In truth, he cannot say. So often does the Vidyadhara — he of the likeness, if not the claim — say that he recalls nothing through the fog of another's passage, that he is a man reborn. Yet he knows this, in the blood and the marrow of him. He hears calls that once deafened Dan Feng, knows the same summons.
They drink together for a moment as intimate as the breaking of bones, in clicks, in creaks, in agony. Sweet, their wine, deceptively peaceful. Little cries of whatever trinket of a creature crosses the dark horizon on dark wings. Blade's teeth are gritted, and his pulses dances beats of tension on his temples.
He flings his arm, all at once, to collide their cups together in a quiet toast, leg skidding off the perch to broker new balance when he retreats back to himself. )
This does not hurt. ( As if it should have, carnally and intrinsically. As if parts and the whole of himself should have torn and scattered. )
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it's an awful feeling, and a terrible existence, to always be overshadowed by someone greater than you, to never be able to escape his long reach. he experiences dan feng reflected in jing yuan's somber eyes, in blade's harsh expression, in jingliu's cold voice. even when he is alone, he feels the ghost of his predecessor.
the snap of their cups together shakes dan heng from his reverie, his eyes flicking open again, and he looks toward blade's bandaged hand holding the cup, mildly perturbed. lifting his head, he looks to blade's profile, handsome and sharp as the edge of a knife, those fearsome eyes aglow in the dimness of the night around them, eyes that he once saw in his nightmares, again and again. a deep inhale. ]
.. I cannot be him, for you. Even if I wanted to be.
[ for the truth of the matter, dan heng is not dan feng - in many ways he is both. neither a new person nor the person left behind, but something different, an amalgamation of old memory and new experience. the way he has lived his life, and all the events that have occurred since his rebirth, have shaped him into something different from the once proud high elder, something that can never fully be the same.
dan heng takes another drink, then carefully refills both of their cups, his voice soft, gentle. ]
.. but I can be myself, for you.
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( Can he consume this much wine without consigning his innards to an acidic bath? He is bound all rancor and gristle bound with cheap, thin strings. At times, the simplest biological protocol propels the tentative balance of his being into chaos. He does not remember —
But takes his chance. Drinks, after Dan Heng pours. Again, more to occupy himself than savor the sweetness, when the Vidyadhara speaks again. )
A tree bare in winter or shrouded in springtime. ( Gilded hanks or fractured dermis, torn scales or reborn flesh: this is Dan Feng, Dan Heng, the Vidyadhara. Eyes that burn and linger and should go gouged out.
I'd keep them, he suspects, but doesn't speak words Dan Heng ever finds threatening or idle, and not the phantom attraction of bone to marrow. He finds — ever finds, always awakens to himself, wolfish traitor in lamb's skins — himself reaching out, fingers frail and burdened by chills that turn them waxy and wan, no longer privileged of all the nerve endings that once facilitated circulation. These are the benedictions of his... condition: he is no shadow of himself, but a sum of scabs, core burning with purposes his limbs struggle to deliver. An outdated model. Ready to take out in the back.
His thumb does not meet the corner of Dan Heng's eyes, barely grazes the slope of a cheek; withdraws, as if burned, dismissing whatever rigors of fancy and madness entertained the possibility of contact. Were this not Dan Feng to whatever degree — were this a creature less lethargic — Blade would also find himself without a hand, for his trouble. )
You are yourself. You are the same. ( A pause, then rasping: ) An archive is a cage. It does not suit you. You'll suffocate. You must be, already.
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yet even still, he no longer runs from dan feng's sins, but accepts them as his own, even if he will not give his life for them. a soul sin is a soul sin, and it stains him nonetheless, but he will nevertheless assert his right to be himself. ]
I am not confined to the Archives.
[ he says quietly, watching blade's hand withdraw, a warm tingling left behind on his skin where that thumb brushed him. his mouth presses into a thin line. ]
Aboard the Express, I see the universe. The endless expanse of stars is my home. It is a freedom that I never thought that I would know.
[ when first he beheld the vast ceiling of stars, he had wept, having known only the cold walls of his cell for a century or more. frigid isolation. his heart tightens behind his ribs; it is unfair that blade should suffer still for the same sin that dan heng has been unshackled from, but would he ever be willing to lay down that burden? remembering that night on the thin hospital mattress, dan heng lays his free hand over the back of blade's, carefully weaving their fingers. ]
.. you could see it sometime, perhaps.
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Rotates his hand instead, palm threatening a print of warmth against Dan Heng's, as if they are schoolchildren coming together again, dancing around affection. )
Your catacombs. ( The Archive, a dead-end for a creature that once prizes open skies and a moon bright and rights over nearby, clashing waters. To think he would be reduced to this, that Dan Feng would be so shackled, first by skins barely new, then by purpose estranged from his nature.
It changes nothing, but sparks his pity. Better the mercy of rapid euthanasia than a trickling entrapment. Surely, surely. )
How do you breathe in their cage? ( And does he want the answer tentative or kind? Does he hope the best for this creature, at the very least his dignity spared? )
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It is no cage. It is my home, now.
[ the only one he has ever really known, for the shackling prison had been many things, but it certainly had not been his home. but the express, and the people there.. they are his home. blade either refuses to accept this, or cannot understand it, dan heng is not sure which. ]
Being with my crewmates.. I imagine it is something like how Dan Feng and Yingxing had felt, among the quintet. I feel at peace there, with them.
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( Half growled, half permissive, all withering. The truth coalesces amorphously before him, reality a play-pretend veneer. He does recalls little and late and fractured, this is known. But Dan Heng, a creation of denial and uncertainty, knows far less still.
And they were beautiful, weren't they? Flowers of a long lost season, the relics of an era of glory and gladness. Shadows and mishappen shapes, but for telltale signals: the cut of Dan Feng's iridescent gaze, Jingliu's crisp step, Jing Yuan's air of crackling expectation. Baiheng, a burst of carefree delight. And then —
His fingers round, catching Dan Feng's forcibly, holding. Keeping in place. His other grip freed, he drinks as madmen might. )
They weren't fugitives. ( As Blade and Dan Heng are now, with silent inevitability. ) They reaped good.
( Until they didn't. And all that was justice and formidable victory and the achievements of the ages crumbled as nothing at their feet. )
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four days;
it is quiet now, as well.. but the same cannot be said for the second system over, where a rogue squad of borisin have scouted a nearby solar system, joined by a small troupe of wingweavers. given that he must move through this solar system to reach their little watery planet, well.. dan heng simply cannot leave well enough alone. the borisin are known for their viciousness and cruelty, and should there be living species on this planet, surely they will find themselves eradicated or enslaved should he not intervene.
and so he does. it's a decently sized platoon, but not so large that dan heng is particularly concerned, no more than fifty combatants total combining both borisin and wingweavers. should he invoke the power of the imbibitor lunae.. surely it is nothing that he cannot handle. blade may be displeased that dan heng is late, but this is something that he simply cannot ignore.
so dan heng steers his small ship planetside and begins his work, assuming his form and leading a pack of borisin toward a bottleneck in the nearby mountains, where he can face them a little more safely as they charge through the narrow pass. the wingweavers, however, are much more of a nuisance, soaring in from above to harry him with aerial attacks, and save for throwing cloudpiercer like a javelin, he has little in the way of airborne strikes, unless he chooses to invoke the water dragon to charge through the skies.
as a wingweaver dives, slamming his shoulder with sharp talons, he thinks perhaps he may soon have no other choice.. ]
this is excellent tku
But he comes, all the same, as he is called — to their rendezvous point, a sleepy, serene world stranded between antiquity and violent modernity, at once far but also artificially removed. He is dressed in every last layer of Elio's finery, the loan of a sleek tow-person shuttle that — for a change — has both the equipment and lingering capacity to answer his flight commands with blitzing obedience... and the sensors to signal the inevitable chemical pollutions ahead. A fine primitive characterization of conflict, no skin off Blade's nose, a system away might just as well be a lifetime —
If not for the familiar other ship that cuts its path blitzing ahead of him, straight into the belly of the assailed system. He tries (fails) to transmit instructions for Dan Heng, who has wisely (inconveniently) turned off comms to avoid frequency detection; then, no better than a dog, he gives chase.
Dan Heng lands too close to the mountains, at the heart of the skirmish. Blade, more hesitant to entrust that packs of wingweavers won't assault a lone ship, abandons his in a farther-out clearing. He is — delayed to hunt Dan Heng again, nose first and the tremors of vibration that indicate the presence of the Vidyadhara's bracer, answering his own in kind. He rushes, blade tasting air that ripples electric with the tinny cry of shields deactivating, weapons in collision. Dan Heng fights, but so do the natives, and in the crowd that things out by the bottleneck, Blade nearly loses his prey's scent.
In retrospect, he should thank the wingweaver: large, flaunting supple limbs, iridescent. Beautiful for the eerie omnipresence of the silvered, waiting moon. It crashes in, intent to barrel into Dan Heng and catapult him in the mountain's stretch, where his lungs and ribs might stab and bruise — but for Blade's last-minute entrance, less to kill the beast than, at the awkwardness of his downswing's angle, to stall it from its target. The creature has some part of its triumph, if not its kill, claws pulling back red-tipped while Blade, hissing, accepts the aches of his slashed upper arm. No matter.
The wingweaver, Blade, Dan Heng, the wall — and the smoke grenade Blade drops down and kicks alive between them, wafts rising to shroud them whole. If not for the bracers, even Blade might struggle to spot Dan Heng, a mere few steps away — but he is found, caught at the wrist, dragged in a direction of which Blade is only half certain. )
Move. ( Into the mountain. )
woo!!
he can already imagine the tongue lashing he will receive for intervening here when by rights he should be taking advantage of their four days, but that will be borne later. for now, blade snatches him up, and dan heng scurries behind him, abashed. ]
I couldn't ignore it.
[ he'll give his apologies later, when it is appropriate, but even still, dan heng is dan heng, and given an opportunity he would make this same choice again - though the scent of his lover's blood on the air makes his stomach twist. blade takes injuries regularly, yes, but that does not mean that dan heng would like to be the cause of one.
nevertheless, they run together through the bottleneck, quick as a flash. ]
If you can hold the land, I'll take care of the sky.
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But he has to be. Nodding, hastily, he stays in his step, drawing his sword, preparing to defend in arcs and slashes — long, wide cuts, powerful incisions. Hissing, wind joining him in the vanguard, he rushes forward, a dart of speed and power that can only hope to distract, setting a zigzag course. They chase him, blood in his wake: his, their own.
Once or twice, he nearly tumbles over, the lay of the land unfriendly to an easy hunt. And when they swarm, unable to hold off before even he must fall back, he calls out: )
Now would be the time to act.
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he is who he was, while also being wholly himself. and that is something that he has made peace with.
hovering above, dan heng surges against the wingweavers, rippling ghosts of cloudpiercer running through his assailants, gouts of water blasting them from the sky, keeping them at bay without any managing to get close to him. blade fights like a devil beneath him, the wind whipping and whistling through the pass, shard sword singing, but the moment dan heng hears him call out, he nods. ]
Stand back.
[ he says, drawing his hands together as he summons the great serpent, water in the shape of a dragon coalescing in his hands, surrounding the powerful orb hovering in his palm. dan heng does not hesitate. he releases, and the dragon surges forward with a mighty roar, sweeping through the high walls of the bottleneck, catching the ground fighters entirely unawares. borisin howl with fury, some at the back of the line attempting retreat, but it is futile - the dragon consumes them all in a torrential rage, foaming rapids of water sweeping brutally through the chasm, breaking their bodies against hard stones, drowning those that survive.
with his palm pressed outward, dan heng halts the waters before them in a massive wall as he alights, his boots touching the ground beside blade. ]
Can you reach high ground?
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An easier ask when Dan Heng is not unleashing the better part of a tornado upon them, deluge yet bloodless but storm-born, catching the borisin — howling, crashing — in whirlwind. Blade wastes little time: where they lose balance, he strikes in downswing, sliding between them to aim gusts of wind where their bones break brittle at the knee and he can take hollow advantage to submerge them.
They won't die for the fall, but the waters claim them, and the lay of the land is of help to trail them, roaring down the corridors. The dragon still shrieks, ravenous and limitless, and it's on Blade to call out to Dan Heng — )
Fall back. Call it back. ( — even as he desperately begins the climb up, hastened, worried less that he won't make it to high ground in time, as each crest gives way to his climb — more that the structure of the passageway will see its ceiling brought down in somber collapse upon them, if the dragon were released to its full ability. )
We can retreat! ( Only, Dan Heng didn't come here simply to withdraw, did he? )
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rising from the ground, dan heng pushes, the water forward, ejecting it through the end of the bottleneck in a great, roaring spout that spills the corpses of their enemies upon the hard stone floor.
frowning, he allows the waters to slacken, settling down into a calm river that half fills the ravine as he rises higher, to where blade awaits him. no longer is it a screaming rush of rapids, but instead a placid stream that laps at stone walls. with one hand on blade's shoulder, dan heng settles onto the stone shelf, watching the waters closely, trying to suss out any survivors. ]
Are you spent?
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But then, corpses afloat below, their gazes tired — this isn't the moment when they trade either niceties or misplaced affection. At a thorough scan, Dan Heng looks — at ease, in control of himself, almost comforted by his own mastery. The dragon no longer overwhelms him.
He is — magnificent in ways Blade understands far too deeply can become contentious on the battlefield. And he laughs, choked and passing a hand through his own hair, dragging smears of cutting gravel. )
You used me. ( His presence, his limited offensive advantage. ) Are we done here?
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[ he came on his own, after all. but once blade was here? well, best that he makes himself useful, hmm? at last, satisfied by the dead, dan heng turns to survey blade, seeing to it that he is in one piece, scanning for injuries. it's a silly thing to do, given how quickly he will regenerate, but even still dan heng worries, and he did drag blade into this, even if he did not intend to. ]
You could have kept sailing on. I would have caught up.
[ he would have managed, likely releasing the dragon all the sooner. fighting beside blade, however, was a nice, brief privilege. ]
And yes, we are done here. You remembered the wine?
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The wine, asks Dan Heng — )
Never imperil what's mine alone like this again.
( — and, hissing, Blade is on him, slowed by the strain of light injury but still a blitzing force sufficient to slam Dan Heng against the wall of stone and bracket him in, both hands to the swell of his cheeks before Blade's mouth lands upon his, a vicious whirlwind. What use is attempting to domesticate this creature, when he so clearly only understands one tongue? )
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blade is on him in a moment, pressing him back against the cool stone, all but growling his threat, and dan heng hardly has a moment to formulate a response before he's being kissed, hard and rough, blade's hands cupping his cheeks. dan heng breathes a soft sound of surprise, but ultimately relents, closing his eyes and tilting his head to better facilitate blade's fierce mouth. his hands press to blade's chest, grasping in the thick fabric of his coat, feeling the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath.
though his partner is rough and ferocious, dan heng cannot help but be touched by his concern, however twisted and misplaced it might be. their connection is slowly but surely deepening, but dan heng would be a fool to think that they could be like any other average, happy pair - too much between them is complicated, broken. yet there is care here, there is desire, and old memories. there is fondness, and a slow repair of what is shattered, a cutting away of rot to bleed new, healing flesh.
the kiss breaks, and dan heng nudges their noses together, gentle and affectionate. ]
I'm here. [ he murmurs against blade's lips, smoothing his hands upward. ] I'm safe.
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( Well meaning and poorly executing and fortunate, so very fortunate. And still Blade lingers, eyes shuttered and the drip of his lashes too weighted and low, and his breath alive with relief incandescent. He can't look at Dan Heng now, can't perceive him, silhouette overlapped with the Vidyadhara who was, the contours of his bright, bold soul.
On his chest, Dan Heng's hand lingers like a burning imprint, an anchor. He wants to shrug it off on instinct. Wants, and his hand overlaps Dan Heng's, to draw it into himself, his blood and his bones, wants to make of this man his marrow.
He lets go. This, then, is the song of their countless disappointments: Blade always lets go first, and his eyes wake blood-tinted and searing and soft, hazed by exhaustion. Glance sliding. )
Is it done, or do you plan to linger? ( If Dan Heng stays, Blade inevitably must, beside him. )
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