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Oh, thank goodness, finally , Jing Yuan thought: I can sleep.
He had given himself to that merciless and unstoppable darkness that swept over him at the end of it all, like the waves of the ancient Vidyadharan sea, and he actually thought it had been a good decision. For this darkness was a gentle, weightless place, not at all unpleasant to linger in. And the alternative - to return once again to dreaded reality aboard the Luofu, to a thousand details clamoring for his attention, messes to be swept up, loose threads to be tied, a familiar and beloved face that would never again turn to look at him in the way that he still hoped for - to wake up to a world where he needed to acknowledge that Dan Feng was completely gone from existence - what fool would want to return to that?
But in the darkness where he stretched himself out and floated, suspended, a speck of nothing in nothingness, he could still feel an expectant gaze on him. As if by refusing to admit that Dan Feng was truly dead, the ghost of Dan Feng was free to haunt his dreams, walk up to him where he lay pretending to be asleep, flick a playful finger at his nose and laugh when he indignantly sneezed and sat up.
“You made a promise,” Dan Feng reminded him.
Thus rebuked, Jing Yuan reluctantly opened his eyes. He was in what looked like the Knights’ infirmary - he hadn’t been here for so long - heavy curtains drawn shut in a circle around the bed he lay in. In the dim light he could see a small figure seated in a chair at the foot of his bed, slumped over with one outflung hand resting on his ankle. “Yanqing?” he called out, but he already knew he was wrong. It was too small to be a Knight but too big to be Yanqing, and anyway Yanqing would never have been able to sit still long enough to doze off like this..
The person in the chair started awake and sat up abruptly, lifting his face to look at Jing Yuan, eyes still dazed with sleep. It was a face Jing Yuan hadn’t seen in quite a while, although it reminded him instantly of one he had just seen very recently (and very long ago). He wasn’t sure if he liked it more with or without horns, pointed or round ears, long or short hair. Of course there was an ethereal, otherworldly beauty about the true face of the High Elder that could not quite carry over to a human face, although Jing Yuan diplomatically thought it was still a very cute face. But the eyes, although they no longer glowed, were the same.
“Yanqing is back at home,” Dan Heng said.
Home . Such a simple word that rolled so easily off Dan Heng’s tongue, and yet Jing Yuan couldn’t ever remember him saying the word once when he had been Dan Feng. He’d say ‘your house’, or ‘where you stay’, or the name of Jing Yuan’s mansion itself instead. Jing Yuan wondered what the difference was. Was it because, unlike his predecessor, no one had expected Dan Heng to call the literal prison in which he had grown up his home? Had it been easier for him to think of some other place he could fondly call home, like a space train, or even the abstract entirety of a vast ship he thought he would never walk upon again?
But Jing Yuan didn’t speak of any of this. Instead, he asked, “Can I go home too?” as pathetically as if he wasn’t a grown man armed with the wisdom and experience of several centuries of war and politics. As if the Arbiter-General of the Xianzhou Luofu had reverted to being a little kid who just wanted to be home, tucked safe and warm into his own bed.
“You weren’t in very good shape after fighting Phantylia.” Dan Heng didn’t seem to realize how exhausted he looked himself when he said this, dark circles heavy under his eyes and a little weary sway in his limbs when he moved. “A proper medical facility seemed a better choice than sending you home.”
“Really? I feel fine.”
“Yes,” Dan Heng said. “ You’d better . I’ve been healing you for the past hour or so. I’m not done. I had to take a break. But I’ll finish it.”
He turned away without warning, as if suddenly he could no longer bear the sight of Jing Yuan’s face. Jing Yuan’s breath caught in his throat, but then he saw Dan Heng lift his hands to rub at his eyes, tilt his head back in a furious and poorly hidden yawn.
“Don’t push yourself so hard,” Jing Yuan said. “I’m an old man. Don’t bother fixing every single thing that’s wrong with me. Some of it was already broken before we started fighting Phantylia.”
Like my heart , he would have said if it was Dan Feng who sat at the foot of his bed, who would have roared with appreciative laughter. But it wasn’t.
“You don’t age,” Dan Heng said. “You just read too many Outworlder books about old people lamenting their lost youth.” He paused, perhaps regretting bringing this up, but Jing Yuan was already looking at him with a sparkle in his one visible eye.
“So you did read all the books I sent you?” Jing Yuan asked. “In..” Now it was his turn to pause, unable to speak the name of the Shackling Prison out loud, afraid that even the mention of it would drive Dan Heng away from him forever. But Dan Heng, head tilted to the side, actually looked like he was thinking quite fondly of all the faithful books that had kept him company in solitude for so long, even if some of them had quite clearly been read a few times before and had cheeky notes scribbled in their margins.
“I had nothing else to do in there,” he pointed out. “I would have read anything .”
“I should have brought you porn,” Jing Yuan sighed. “I actually used to do that for Dan Feng–”
“Yes. I remember.”
They were silent for a while, during which Dan Heng pinched the bridge of his nose and seemed to be fervently praying that Jing Yuan would not ask him what else of Dan Feng’s memories he remembered.
“He always acted like he was locked up in a prison, too,” Jing Yuan said softly. “In a way, he was. Can you imagine the Imbibitor Lunae, the most powerful person on the Luofu, not being able to freely read or watch or even talk about whatever he wanted?”
“I don’t think that was the worst thing about his situation,” Dan Heng said. He still spoke very carefully, very distantly, unwilling to state his opinion without a disclaimer attached to it. “But it could be said that you did make things a little better for him.”
“By lending him porn?”
“Please stop talking about porn,” Dan Heng said grimly. “I need to focus so I can finish healing you. They’re waiting for me.”
He glanced through the gap in the curtains at the door of the suite. It was shut, but Jing Yuan remembered the waiting area outside it, and could imagine the three people who would be sitting on the couch there. The smartly dressed man with grey streaks in his brown hair seemed like the sort to fall asleep sitting bolt upright, arms crossed, cane wedged in the crook of his elbow. The bubbly girl didn’t seem close enough to him to curl right up against his shoulder to doze off, but it felt like he wouldn’t care if she ended up there, cheek smushed against the lapels of his coat, drooling a little on his expensive suit. And perhaps she wanted to have one arm wrapped around his, and the other arm tucked firmly around the arm of the quiet boy in black, but the boy would be on his feet, hands in pockets as he leaned against the wall, watching over his two companions but looking every now and then at the door, as if he could will it to open and Dan Heng would walk out and say, “Sorry. Let’s go home..”
And the boy’s yellow eyes would light up, and together they would shake the girl and the older man awake, and walk away from the infirmary, from the Luofu, from Jing Yuan, forever.
“Jing Yuan?”
Jing Yuan blinked, clearing the clouds of this sad daydream from his head, to find Dan Heng leaning over him, peering anxiously into his face. “You looked like you were going into shock or something,” Dan Heng said. “Is something wrong? I haven’t even started trying to heal you again.”
“I was just thinking,” Jing Yuan said. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t owe me anything. Quite the opposite, in fact. I made you a promise. Let me fulfill it and then you can go. They’re all waiting for you to go home, aren’t they?”
“Your promise,” Dan Heng repeated, cautiously, not even momentarily shaken by Jing Yuan casually baiting him with the temptation of home . “Is this about repealing the exile sentence?”
“My promise to let Dan Feng die,” Jing Yuan said. “Will you let me say goodbye to him? I never got the chance.”
Dan Heng’s mouth opened and then shut again; his hands clenched into fists, then, uncertainly, unclenched, only to grab at the tails of his coat, as if he needed to direct some great emotion somewhere. Jing Yuan waited, patiently, smiling the same gentle smile he always did, watching Dan Heng’s eyebrows knotting furiously beneath tousled black bangs, that stern little mouth finally uncurling to show a glimpse of white teeth, a lick of real anger.
“I’ve done everything you asked of me,” Dan Heng said, “and your idea of a reward is to ask of me another favour? You never change. You..”
He caught himself and clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late. The moment he said you never change he felt a great and silent force within Jing Yuan coming to life, a darkness pooling in those golden eyes like the shadow of the moon eclipsing the sun, a great cat watching its prey stumble close enough for a strike.
“Old friend,” Jing Yuan said softly. “Sounds like there’s still a little of you left. You and I.. Will you let me say goodbye?”
“You ask me as if I have a choice,” Dan Heng said bitterly. “As if I’ve ever been allowed a choice in my entire life.”
Jing Yuan leaned close enough to lay a hand on his shoulder and found him trembling; reached out to wrap broad and reassuring arms around him. He was so small like this, smaller than Dan Feng had ever been, or perhaps Jing Yuan had gotten bigger; it felt like he might disappear into Jing Yuan’s embrace, if they weren’t careful.
“Dan Feng said exactly the same thing to me before,” Jing Yuan said. “Do you remember?”
“I remember.”
“I’m going to speak to him one last time,” Jing Yuan said. “I’m sorry that he isn’t here, and that you have to listen to me in his place. You don’t have to. That can be your choice. You can ignore my sentimental ramblings - you’ve done an excellent job so far. You’re not him. I know he’s left me. But I couldn’t leave him.”
Dan Heng’s face was buried in his shoulder, but he felt a movement that could have been a nod, slender hands moving up his back to curl around his shoulders and clutch back at him.
“Thank you,” Jing Yuan said.
He untangled one arm just enough to reach down and tip Dan Heng’s face up, just enough for him to press a gentle kiss to soft lips that parted in surprise at his touch. If it was up to him, he would have made it last forever.
“There,” he said, fighting his way through the rest of the words in his memory. Their memory. “I’m giving you a whole bunch of choices of your very own to make. You can slap me, or punch me, or beat me up. What are you going to choose?”
The person in his arms didn’t reply for a while. Jing Yuan wondered, briefly, if Dan Heng was about to execute the fourth option that Dan Feng later told him had crossed his mind back then (a kick in the balls). But then he saw a brief flicker of light in the green eyes looking up at him, and for a moment he forgot everything that had happened, the terrible sins the Imibibitor Lunae had committed and all the tumult and the anguish and the centuries of loneliness that had followed. For a moment he was back on the balcony of his house, the back of his head still stinging from the slap his master had administered for being late again for that morning’s strategic meeting, and the city lights glittered under the night sky like drops of rain running away from their feet over the dark horizon, and Dan Feng was leaning on the railing of the balcony, mouth still parted in surprise, looking back at him like he was wondering if he could slap and punch and beat Jing Yuan up..
And then instead of doing any of those things he reached out to grab Jing Yuan’s arm so he could yank him close enough to return the kiss. As if to say that: for all the stories written about how love is so mysterious and inexplicable and unpredictable, in the end, love is also a choice I can make, a choice I made once and would want to make again and again, and I want to have the illusion that it is also the very last choice I will ever make.
“Goodbye,” Dan Feng said, his lips warm and dry against Jing Yuan’s mouth, his voice impossibly sad.
No. It wasn’t time to say this yet. Jing Yuan felt the hairs stand on the back of his neck and bile rise in his throat, even as this face he remembered and missed so much smiled so tenderly at him. Dan Feng had only bid him goodbye the next morning, after they’d gone on to talk some more, and kiss a lot more, and..
“Goodbye,” Dan Feng said again. “To you and I.”
And Jing Yuan realized that this was not Dan Feng saying goodbye after the first night they’d spent together, but at the very end of everything. That Dan Feng had bid him a proper goodbye, after all. He just hadn’t been ready to hear it then, let alone say it back.
“Goodbye,” he replied. “To you and I.”
The memory receded, and although Jing Yuan had his eyes tightly shut, he knew that when he opened them he would see the dimly lit room again with the curtains drawn like a prayer circle around his bed, and that even if the person in his arms had Dan Feng’s horns and tail and glowing green eyes like the waters of the Vidyadharas’ ancient sea - and, in this moment, they didn't - this person was not someone who had chosen to love him. But he held on to Dan Heng anyway for a little while longer, and then he let go and pushed him away, very gently.
“Thank you,” he said. “Dan Heng. Thank you for everything you’ve done. You should go. They must have been waiting so long for you.”
He did not look up, although he could feel from the dampness soaking through the front of his shirt, where Dan Heng’s face had pressed into his shoulder, that Dan Heng had tears in his eyes too. For a while he felt a shadow fall over him, as Dan Heng remained where Jing Yuan had pushed him, just out of arm’s reach. He waited so long for that shadow, too, to withdraw, to dissipate, like Dan Feng’s voice from his head for the very last time; for Dan Heng to redeem his hard-fought freedom and leave. But before that could happen, the door of the room slammed open, and three figures burst through, all of them turning around to push the door hastily shut and fight with each other to bolt it.
“Dan Heng! Is the general all right?”
“More importantly, is he fit to get up?”
“Even more importantly, is he dressed? Can I open my eyes?”
“Everyone,” Dan Heng said, looking at Caelus’s wide grin, Welt’s serious frown, and March with her hands held firmly over her eyes, “can you please be normal. What’s going on?”
About five seconds passed in which all three Trailblazers looked at each other, two with their mouths open but no words coming out (March side-eyeing Caelus by peeking through the fingers she held over her face as cautiously as he side-eyed her back), and Welt with his eyes shut as he mentally counted to five and then looked at the other two, saw that they were not going to volunteer, sighed and checked the door one last time before squaring his shoulders and clearing his throat.
“Sorry, Dan Heng,” Welt said, adjusting his glasses that had been knocked askew as he rushed through the door. “I’ll get to the point. General, I must apologize for imposing on you, but you know, you did say - many times - that the Luofu is deeply indebted to the Astral Express, and as such, especially with the most pressing matters of the Stellaron and all other threats to the Luofu’s security and safety neutralized, we believe it’s only fair to ask you for a small favour in return. Right now.”
“Of course,” Jing Yuan said politely. Somehow, in the brief space of the chaotic half a minute that had transpired, he had managed to wipe all traces of tears and heartbreak off his face; he looked as fresh and serene as if he were a man embarking on a yet-unknown period of emergency leave, which indeed he had every right to be.
“Dan Heng! Are you all right?” March waved her arms frantically, directing everyone’s attention to Dan Heng’s tear-stained, red-eyed face. “Have you been crying ? Wait, is the general decent?” One hand returned to shield her eyes from potential sights of Jing Yuan in exciting states of undress; the other went up to shield Caelus’s eyes from the same fate. Caelus, as expected, grabbed her hand to hold it in place, and shut his eyes tight too.
“Ah,” Jing Yuan said, “don’t worry, young lady, I’m decent. You may open your eyes. What favour would you like to ask of me?”
“Come back to the Express with us,” Caelus piped up as he patted March’s hand down. For all that he had fallen completely silent ever since they’d descended into Scalegorge Waterscape, he brimmed with energy now, as if the Stellaron within him was winding up, only for its mindlessly destructive power to be channeled into the exuberant positivity of a thousand golden retrievers contained within the body of an athletic teenage boy. “Dan Heng can heal you there... after he’s had a good rest. You can rest up too. There’s a ton of guest rooms. Or you can hang out in the parlor car with us and listen to music and eat something. I mean, we’ve been running around doing a bunch of stuff the entire time, and none of us has had a chance to even say hello to you properly. So we can do that now. Right?”
He nodded to March, who looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed to open her eyes only to see Jing Yuan indeed very well wrapped up in a dressing-gown. “Right!” March agreed, hands on hips. “Only I don’t know why you’re nodding at me like I’m in charge of getting us all back to the Express. Am I?”
“You’re holding the emergency teleporter,” Welt said gently. “You said you had space for it in your bag.”
“I’m the only one carrying a bag,” March pointed out. All the men in the room had the grace to look slightly embarrassed for a bit.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to spirit the general away with us,” Dan Heng said. He stood up to say this, drawing himself to his full, not particularly remarkable height, forgetting all about the traces of tears still ravaging his face, and staring very hard at Caelus and March - who patted him on the shoulder, and went back to excitedly setting up the teleporter together - and then Welt, who pretended to be suddenly very busy making sure the two youngsters were setting up the teleporter correctly.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Jing Yuan said. “Please - in order to fulfill the favour you are asking of me, that I owe you - please do me the favour of taking me to visit the Express while I am still on medical leave and under no obligation to remain on board the Luofu to attend to my usual duties. I am on medical leave after all of this, surely. Don’t heal me any more,” he said to Dan Heng, suddenly urgent, “or else I won’t be eligible for medical leave.”
Dan Heng’s gaze finally shifted to Jing Yuan. For a moment the frustration in his knotted brow seemed like a familiar one, and it seemed that the same, often-spoken words might tumble out of his mouth - but when he spoke he surprised himself, and, from the way he saw Jing Yuan blinking, Jing Yuan as well. It was that particular tone of his exasperation, something that would remain forever unknown to Dan Feng, High Elder of the Vidyadhara, because it was something completely unique to Dan Heng the Trailblazer: the feeling of wanting to scream when every single one of your Trailblazing colleagues, whom you loved dearly, voted against you in favour of doing something absolutely batshit insane. And what he said was: “We cannot just kidnap the general. The entire Xianzhou Alliance is going to come after the Express.”
“It will be fine,” Jing Yuan said, looking down at his phone, mainly so he wouldn’t have to look at Dan Heng and possibly start crying again. “I’ll message Lady Fu and let her know where I am.”
“Lady Fu isn’t in charge of the Cloud Knights!” Dan Heng felt himself grinding his teeth, seeing Caelus and March and Jing Yuan looking impossibly pleased with themselves in the same field of vision. But even as he felt the veins throb in his forehead, he also felt so much lighter than he ever had, as if the horns and scales and talons of the High Elder he’d always known he possessed, locked away within him, were finally sloughing off of him.
“She is, actually. I formally left them under her charge and I haven’t taken it back yet.” Jing Yuan sighed, leaning back and looking like he was already on his long-dreamed-of vacation. “Ah, I do need to talk to my poor Yanqing.. Well, I assume you get decent phone signal on board the Express. I’ll just need a quiet corner to give him a call. You wouldn’t mind me inviting him to the Express too, would you?”
“Mr Yang!” Dan Heng abandoned all faith in everyone else and turned to appeal directly to the one remaining beacon of common sense in the room, who patted his shoulder as awkwardly as only a dad could.
“Don't worry, Dan Heng. We can go whenever the teleporter is ready,” Welt said, “ideally, now, before anyone else comes in to check on the general. The Slow I applied to the staff and the sentries when no one was looking is going to wear off in,” he checked his watch, “one more minute.”
“March,” Caelus said with great satisfaction as he grabbed Dan Heng’s shoulder with one hand and the sleeve of Jing Yuan’s dressing-gown with the other, “hit it!”
From the other side of Caelus’s universe-defying grin, Dan Heng looked at Jing Yuan like he was going to say something particularly scathing, and Jing Yuan looked back at him with the same gentle smile he had been wearing ever since he’d seen Dan Heng again. Only it felt like it might be a real smile this time.
“You know, that was a very good point to make,” Jing Yuan said, patting Caelus on the shoulder, although his gaze never left Dan Heng’s face. “I was so hung up on saying goodbye to someone else that I didn’t even think about saying hello to you.”
Dan Heng’s mouth twitched, but whatever he had to say was lost as March gleefully slapped the teleporter and it whirred to life, carrying them out of the infirmary, off the Luofu, and all the way back to the parlour car of the Astral Express where Pom-Pom diligently mopped the floor and Himeko pored over paperwork at a table, waiting for them to come home.