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The sorrow took root deep in his core, becoming long vines that draped down his gut- piercing his heart and trapping his mind. They wrapped around his throat, drowning sound. Most of all they dragged him down, heavy weight pulling him below. His stone carved limbs shook from the weight- the grief, anger, sorrow and guilt; all of it pooled together into a world meant to hurt. Pitch black ink pooled from a face long forgotten, the king became plagued by shivers.
He ran away from the ink monster. Again, and again and again. He ran but it always found him. Always taunting with yet another memory- another promise left to rot.
When his fickle mind failed to grasp reality- numbness overtook. It spread from the tip of his fingers over his elbow and up towards his shoulders. From the bottom of his stomach up past his chest. It swallowed his mind- offering tranquility amongst the blurry focus.
Of course it couldn’t last forever, soon a sight would drag him back and he would be back to the useless sobs and the draining anger. The constant back and forth was tiring- both on body and mind.
Hours had passed, maybe even days- the king wasn’t sure. Time spent in the formless ink wasn’t the same; The frozen scenes of days long gone offered no insight to reality. Huge chunks of awareness were lost to infinite pools of sorrow. Every so often the ink would latch on too well, would drag down too hard and the golden ape would plummet. Drowning in a sea of black- clogging his throat and blocking his sight. He would claw his way out, lashing out like a terrified beast, mindless and wild- no thoughts spared for anything other than fear.
Mk would solve this- Mk would help. He mumbled it like a mantra in his head, over and over every time the taunting progressed into something more. It was sickening- pathetic really- the way the king depended on that poor boy. He had failed the kid one too many times- he knew, the savior he craved was not one he deserved. But goddamn did he wish for it.
It became his only spark in the anguish. Noone else would bother freeing him, Mk was his only hope- and so he clung onto the kid like a leech.
Something shifted in the air, a black thin tendril snaked its way towards him- the king tensed. The ink had found him. A shapeless mass of black started seeping out of the soil below him, Wukong stood up hastily- practically forcing his exhausted limbs to move. The defensive stance was slanted and off-centered. His arms hung lower than they should, his legs shook- in fact his entire body was shaking.
The ink pooled up higher and higher, eventually looming over its prisoner as a sickening grin appeared in the midst of its mass. The king stood, frozen in that same battle stance with his tail between his legs, staring up with wide eyes. His limbs were too weak, running would be useless.
The being loomed further, slowly inching its way closer and closer to Wukong’s face. Something wet rolled down his face and tickled his cheek, he kept staring up at the being before him even as the fear and hurt pounded his rabbit heart. The thing hadn’t even done anything yet and the king was breaking down? It stared down at him with hollow eyes, showing clear interest in the emotion displayed and cooing with faux pity when the first tear fell to the floor. Wukong filled with hopeless heartache, he tried to ignore the sound for the twisted imitation it was.
The black mass gurgled slightly before a shape took form within it, an arm stretched out from its middle- the long sharp claws and rugged fur was all Wukong needed to see before he shut his eyes tight. Mk will help. Arms draped sweetly over the king’s shoulder, cold talons scraped their way across his back- it left a trail of blood. Mk must- surely he will?
“Peaches? What’s wrong?” The voice was soft and familiar- it echoed around them, twisting further from the original with every bounced repetition. Sweet and disgustingly sincere.
Five breakdowns ago Wukong would have fought back best he could, would have at least made an effort to flee- to deny. Now he slowly opened his eyes to stare at the inky imitation before him.
Macaque. His heart shattered like a half empty glass against concrete.
Grief had a funny way of hurting even when you think nothing could ever hurt you again, and so the heartbreak that spreads now is just as fresh and just as raw as the very first the king endured. Way back when the corpse of his other half lay beaten black and blue in front of him, way back when the blood stained his hands and there was no amount of scrubbing that could get it off.
He closes his eyes again, lets the pain seep through him, lets the heartache soar through his bones and lets it take root. Then he sits.
His master would not have wept, he would have meditated and he would have recited. “The only way for the soul to be at peace is for the mind to be the same.” That was one of the first lessons the simian was taught, at a time when his bones still shook of echoes from the weight of the mountain. Wukong knows and so instead he prays. To the Buddha, to his dead master, to Mk. To anyone, really, who could offer a glimmer of hope.
He prays even as he hears the mocking around him, even as he feels the ink caress, beat and slash at him. The king channels the old monk even in his death and for a moment he feels him there. The heat of his body and the mumbling of his mantras. The comfort in his presence.
A moment later he is gone and the king feels burdened by the loss. Forgetting in that moment of peace the burden of facing the world without a mentor.
Then he thinks of Mk and he prays for him further, prays that he makes it out if only to help that stubborn boy, if only to make his existence a bit less terrible than his own. If only to lessen the loneliness of immortality, if only to give the hero a hand.
He prays to Mk, and he hopes the boy knows how dearly the king loves him.