Work Text:
How cruel, his heart tells him as he is steadily painted by the crimson red.
It was a sunny day.
He had been good that day. He picked fruits and helped around camp. He hadn’t yet hurt anyone. He had been good.
The blood feels like the hot sand beaches they would play on when they were naive to the world beyond their home. The sand would dance around them as they tumbled and sang like the birds in the trees. The crabs would pinch their fingers and scuttle away at the sight of their eyes. The infants would soon find them and pester the older group of monkeys into playing games around the tropical island. The safe island.
Why did I..
He sat there on his knees, arms limply hanging there as he looked down at the nightmare laid open like a book with no happy ending. There was never going to be a happy ending.
Did I- did I do that?
The monkey wanted to reach out, cup that warm face. The once warm face. Pick out the dirt and dash away the drying red from ashen fur.
It used to be like a corinthian white peach’s petals. It was their favorite hiding spot, the white flowered trees on the island.
The king continued to stare, blankly, as if he had no face at all, down at his- what once was one of his dearest.
Master.. he..
It was so silent. Not even the rocky dust settling down on the crater made a soft plep.
The king could only stare at the eyes. Or rather, eye. It was so dull. A matte painting of gold shaken and paralyzed into fearful stone.
They were afraid when they died. They were afraid of him.
He only wanted to help him. Gods, he should have listened, he should have stopped himself. Why did he do that? He, a king, the matriarch of his troop, who was meant to protect his own, hurt his own. Over and over and over again. He tested the heavens and the consequences followed through. The monkey was also so angry, he should have dodged. They shouldn’t have done that. They should have left him alone, not go after him. Try to “save” him. The journey was almost over. But they couldn’t be patient, could they. And now they’re dead. And it’s on his now curling and clenching hands. Holding back the anger and the tears.
Fuck heaven. Fuck the journey. Fuck Tripitaka. And fuck Li-
His two, unglamoured, striking red eyes flicked helplessly to the killing blow as he recited his anger. The king came to a pause in his thoughts at the sight. A rod of red with a tip of gold, accompanied by carvings of swirls and clouds, portureded from the steadily leaking skull.
The bile rose in his throat like a balloon encasing his heart, threatening to pop while also threatening to drown him. He could taste the copper like rich bone broth on his tongue and sharp teeth.
Buddha, he felt like throwing up.
The golden, cursed, halo around his head dug a little deeper into his skull.
The monkey watched inside his husk as he himself blinked at the gory peace, and screamed reddened rage and tears for hours while hanging onto the circlet like a life-line. His voice grew hoarser and drier, and his own paint mixed in with theirs.
He buried his heart and his shadow only hours later under the cover of night. The memories, so fuzzy now, he couldn’t tell you where.
After that, he walked back to the dreaded camp.
How cruel, his master later tells him when he wakes up. Before, of course, spinning frequencies of habitual ache on his human tongue.
All the pilgrims had gained a new, ugly, and angry scar that morning.
It was a sunny day. Sunny days meant fruit picking and chasing the infants in the canopy as their mothers gossiped. It meant warm rocks that were great for cooking fruits on. Sunny days meant sparring in the sand and throwing words around in an older, blunt tongue.
The Monkey King always says that Macaque, an old enemy, died at night under a bed of stars. The lucky bastard.
Sun Wukong doesn’t tell that story.
Liu Er Mihou died on a sunny day.