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Yingxing is the first to talk to Jing Yuan about death.
It is one of the days the Quintet returns victorious from another big battle. They have gone through this routine frequently enough that it only takes a quick debriefing to set Jing Yuan free.
He finds Yingxing perched on a roof in Starskiff Haven watching the soul-soothing ceremony, the procession of starskiffs sending out the bodies of fallen soldiers and pilots into the galaxy beyond. He wonders if this is where Yingxing retreats to every time the other Quintet members are pulled away for their own post-battle responsibilities.
"Aren't you too old to be climbing rooftops now?" he says, sending an experimental nudge at Yingxing's current mood. Jing Yuan squeezes into his personal space, flush up against his side, and locks their elbows together. To his delight, Yingxing does not push him away.
"Aren't you?" he throws back without turning his gaze.
He doesn't retort any further, so Jing Yuan sits with him quietly until the last starskiff is gone, and they are left gazing into the sunset at the end of a long day.
In the sky of the Xianzhou, everything about the weather is simulated—the rain, the clouds, the day, the night. But if you tilt your head a little higher than that, the stars are always there like a blanket over everything, even through the filter of daytime light.
It is a sight that centers him. The Luofu is a ship cruising through a galaxy of stars, and the stars are always out there. A little window into the beyond. They are Jing Yuan's favourite part of the sky.
"Maybe I'll be sent out there too, someday," Jing Yuan says.
"Yeah?"
"My bloodline is partly Foxian, you know. My family still follows some of the traditions. And if I get killed in battle before the mara takes me, I'll get to be part of the Returning too. The life of a Cloud Knight is dangerous, any battle could be my last."
Yingxing flicks him in the middle of his forehead. "Don't let Jingliu hear you talk like that."
"Ow," Jing Yuan whines, rubbing at the sore spot. A craftsman stores his true strength in his fingers, indeed. "I'm just saying, it's a possibility. We face life and death situations more often than the average citizen."
Yingxing huffs. "If you want to sail out into the stars so badly, Baiheng can take you with her next time she goes on one of her trips. It's not too late to change careers and become a Galaxy Ranger or something," he says, even knowing it would not happen. Jing Yuan was never one to shy away from the harder paths in life.
Jing Yuan shakes his head. Not in his future as far as he can foresee. Right now, everything he cares about is still on the Xianzhou.
"Galaxy Rangers probably face life and death situations too. You never know what the galaxy out there will throw at you," he points out.
Yingxing rolls his eyes. "If you're so prone to dying then you should just stay home and do paperwork."
"That's even worse. I'll die of boredom."
"Okay, stop talking about death. Are you trying to invoke something?"
Jing Yuan makes a face at him.
"So. Sometimes I think about how we'll all die differently, the five of us," he says. Yingxing pinches his cheek in warning. Jing Yuan sticks out his tongue. "No, really. Think about it."
Yingxing relents, settling back down to watch the sky with him.
"So what you mean is," he says, "Jingliu will be taken to the Hall of Karma, Baiheng will be in one of those starskiffs, and Dan Feng will go back into the ocean."
"Yeah. And what about you?"
Yingxing is silent for a moment, watching the scenery. Starskiffs begin to populate the sky again, the regular traffic routes now open to the public after the ceremony.
"Jing Yuan."
"Hm?"
"Will you do something for me?" he says, a little low, like the start of a secret, and it makes Jing Yuan straighten up to listen. Yingxing can be ever so stingy with the things he shares. Yingxing nods to himself. "I've decided. When I die, you're in charge of sending me off."
"...Huh?"
"In my original homeland, it was important for the dead to be sent off properly by their family or a loved one. People die but their bonds continue, or something. The soul will remember its roots and return to home in a different form. It's not like it is here, where you just say your goodbyes and get quietly taken away. It's closer to the soul-soothing for our fallen soldiers."
Is that why you climb all the way up here to watch the ceremony, Jing Yuan wonders. Yingxing keeps his eyes fixed on the passing starskiffs and carefully does not look at him.
"So how does it go?"
Yingxing shrugs. "Don't know. Nobody was around to show me that part. Sometimes you become an orphan and all you have are dandelions picked from the side of the road, two small daggers, and not even a body. I think even that should count. But surely you can do better," he says, nudging him lightly.
Jing Yuan does not let go of his breath. He listens very carefully, because Yingxing so rarely talks about his life before landing on the Xianzhou.
He continues. "Normally for the short life species here, any remaining family members will be contacted to help settle matters regarding their death, but you know I don't have anyone like that. So when I die, I want you to send me off. Burn me, bury me, send me out to space, whatever's fine—I'll leave it to you."
Jing Yuan feels his heartbeat in his throat. "Why me? I would've thought… but Dan Feng…" He feels the weight of the words settle on his shoulders. He feels time shedding away, slipping by in layers.
Yingxing reaches for his hand and lines them up palm to palm, fingers stretching all the way. Jing Yuan has yet to fully grow into his body, even after several decades under his belt. The first time they compared their hands like this, his was a little larger than Yingxing's, but now his fingers fall a little short.
"I think you already get the picture. My life is short, unlike the rest of you." Yingxing taps his knuckles against the side of Jing Yuan's head. "Surely you've turned it over in that big brain of yours at least once or twice? You are the one who is meant to outlive the five of us."
Jing Yuan falls silent, because Yingxing is right. He was the one who started this conversation, the one who was thinking about death. When they're fighting together in the heat of battle, when they're laughing in jest and clinking cups over a round table, it's easy to forget that Yingxing has lived the smallest number of years among them. Especially with Jing Yuan around, baby-faced in comparison, wielding his charm to beg Baiheng for more sweets and calling Yingxing gege when he wants to tilt things in his favour.
But Yingxing was still a teenager when they first met. Jing Yuan had spent many pockets of his time lingering at the forge watching him work and taking naps in between. He passed his time like this, watching Yingxing from day to day to day, year after year. And at some point, he looked up and noticed Yingxing was a whole head taller than him. Jing Yuan looked up and thought of the sparklers they waved around together at the festival that year: ablaze with the loveliest light you can't look away from but only for one bright and sustained moment, leaving silence and darkness behind.
Jing Yuan turns away, biting down on the pout his face wants to make. It's a kind of sourness he wouldn't dare show in front of the others, and it makes Yingxing grin with an old fondness. "Stop sulking," Yingxing tells him, pinching at his cheeks. "We spoil you like a baby sometimes, but I know how you are, Jing Yuan. You see further than any of us."
"Yingxing-ge…"
"You know, Yinyue called you our lightbringer," he says. He twists his hand so their fingers intertwine. "So Jing Yuan. Watch out for him, will you? I don't know if he's prepared to imagine a world where I am gone."
Yingxing's smile is a troubled one: full of pain, and full of love. There are shadows at the corners of his eyes and something well-worn in the line of his mouth. Jing Yuan thinks that Yingxing has never looked more beautiful.
He drops his head onto Yingxing's shoulder so he doesn't have to see it anymore.
"You really have grown up," Jing Yuan grumbles. He runs his fingers across the back of Yingxing's hand, feeling the scars, calluses, the lines that are starting to form.
"And as a grown-up I don't have time to arrange my own death, so I'll just have to leave all the work to you."
Jing Yuan smacks at Yingxing's chest in reproach, and the responding chuckle reverberates along his side through all the places they are touching.
He wants to ask if his Yingxing-ge is sad that he won't see Jing Yuan reach the end of his growing up, if that's even a thought he's considered. If you ask Jing Yuan, this is how he prefers it. If Yingxing is only allowed to happen to him for this amount of time, he's glad it's near the beginning of his life. That means he still has the rest of it left to spend remembering him.
Jing Yuan sighs. Yingxing would never share such sentiments with him so easily. Maybe under the moonlight, with alcohol in his system and Dan Feng next to them, but even then only maybe.
"Yingxing, are you scared?"
Yingxing thinks for a moment then shrugs. "More scared of my hands not working anymore."
"I'm scared," Jing Yuan admits.
"Never stopped you before."
"Huh, are you not going to comfort me?"
"Ah? You're so annoying." Yingxing clicks his tongue, but doesn't move away or shake him off. He's not ready to let go of his hand yet.
Jing Yuan ducks his head down with a secret smile. He counts it as a win. He curls his pinky and squeezes, ready to make his promise.
☾ ₊˚ ☼
The four of them are gone, but Jing Yuan's love remains home with him. He has carried its weight for hundreds of years, he's grown comfortable under it. A name on a piece of paper, a face on a poster. Familiar memories he turns about in his head, like dusting antiques on a shelf.
He gives himself to the Luofu, because he honours the hands that have raised him and cared for him. He is the only one left of them who could still see hope here. If he leaves too, it will feel like an abandoning. They have all poured their dedication into this home, and their love into Jing Yuan. He remembers why each of them fought, why each of them suffered.
So Jing Yuan carries on and loves every new colour that turns with the seasons, filing it all away into the library of his mind. Remembrance is a part of grief.
Then here comes the change in the wind, the ghost rising from its grave. As Blade walks up to him in chains, Jing Yuan draws in a deep breath, long and slow.
"I remember you," the ghost says, across the gulf of time between them.
The Stellaron Hunters are infamous and widely travelled, and so is Jing Yuan, as an Arbiter-General of the Xianzhou. By whatever stroke of fate that Blade follows, this is not the first time they have encountered each other in recent years. But it was always from a distance; across a room, behind a barricade, on the other side of a window. Not this close, never face to face, and never on the Luofu. This time, Blade is here for a purpose.
Jing Yuan wills himself not to react. He has already spent so much of his life mourning people who are not dead. First, there is more work to do, a new crisis to resolve.
The office is in quite a fluster these days, overseeing damage control behind the scenes. Jing Yuan slips away to visit Blade in the confines of his cell.
"Jing Yuan." He seems unsurprised to see him.
At first Jing Yuan doesn't respond. He's not sure how he should address this man—none of his names feel right on his tongue. The stern look in his gaze is so familiar.
Jing Yuan thinks he might appreciate a straightforward approach. "What are you after?" he asks.
Blade blinks slowly at him. His eyes scan left and right, as if taking in his appearance for the first time, trying to commit details to an unreliable memory.
"There are no good endings left for me," he says. "But surely there is still an end. There must be. And as for the other two…" Anger clouds his eyes and creeps into his voice, heading towards an unsteady and dangerous cliff. Any regular guard would have raised their sword as a precaution; Jing Yuan only sees the grief in him.
"And the Stellaron Hunters will take you there?"
Blade scoffs and tips his head at him. "You have a different path. Do what you want, but don't involve yourself with me, Jing Yuan. This has nothing to do with you." You are not one of the three. But Jing Yuan looks away; he has already started thinking.
He wonders if there were any cosmic observers peering into his dreams last night, at the starskiffs and their hands clasped together and the promise he wanted to make. Even after the weathering of centuries, there still remains some part of Jing Yuan that cannot bear to abandon this man again. He reformulates the strategies in his head, and leaves the bolt on the door loose on his way out.
When Kafka approaches him with her script and offers him a deal, he knows exactly what to ask for in exchange.
It may be written so far into the future that even Jing Yuan could not make it there on the last legs of his own life. But if there's a chance—
Jing Yuan spent years after the Sedition not knowing what became of Yingxing. This particular regret he held in his heart all the way until the next time he saw his face again: on a wanted notice with a bounty of billions attached to it, accumulating with each reprint.
This time, even if he cannot follow, at the very least he would like to know.
☾ ₊˚ ☼
Jingliu pulls her sword out of the remains and tosses it to the side, where it shatters into shards of light, shimmering away into air.
Nobody standing there has any words left; the distant roar of the waves over the waterscape fills the distance between the four of them, spaced apart.
She does a quick scan of the body. "He won't stay dead," she tells Jing Yuan when he approaches. "There is nothing different about this time."
Blade lies unmoving in a crumpled heap, half buried in debris. Even with a body as resilient as his, that last strike had enough force to pierce through him, drag him across the ground and tear open the hard stone along the way, leaving a trail in his wake. Anyone else would have been in a much worse condition.
Jing Yuan assesses the damage: cuts and scrapes across fabric and skin, neck at a weird angle, arm looks broken. His clothes are torn in different places, bandages falling apart. Jing Yuan would be surprised if his spine was still fully intact.
This is what's left of Yingxing's body, he thinks, and a wave of defeat washes over him, another layer on top of everything else. If it could fix anything at all, he would fall to his knees and apologize on behalf of the world for failing this man, who was once so brilliant and whole. Those gentle hands that he once held.
Instead, Jing Yuan bends down to lift the stone trapping Blade's arm. It gives his hands a reason to move.
He can tell that Jingliu is staring at him with judgement in her eyes, but in the end she only sighs like Jing Yuan is twenty years of age again, eager with his affections and barely up to her waist. She slips her blindfold back on and steps away. Nothing is different, she says.
First, he clears the rest of the rubble away. Dan Heng drifts closer to help, which earns him a grateful smile from Jing Yuan. Yanqing also steps forward, having returned from his escort duty at some point. Jing Yuan hopes he didn't have to witness too much of the fight. All of these old and heavy sorrows should not have to touch Yanqing.
Once they are done, Jing Yuan lifts the broken body out of the mess and carries him a short distance away to an area with flat ground and more space. Dan Heng looks like he has a few more words to say, but he doesn't follow, watching the way Jing Yuan cradles Blade to his chest.
Jing Yuan shakes his head to reassure him. "We'll have time to talk later," he tells Dan Heng. He also spares a nod for Yanqing, who glances between them with uneasy eyes. There is something else he has to take care of first.
He lowers Blade to the ground and lays him out neatly, keeping his body parts aligned in all the right places. He stretches out his limbs, smooths the folds of his tattered coat. Perhaps it will ease the process of regeneration, or perhaps it will make no difference.
Jing Yuan settles on his knees next to him, this unloved body, and brushes away the blood and dust that covers him. He combs through the messiest parts of Blade's hair, replaces the bandages on his hands with a fresh layer.
Even as he does so, he knows it is not enough. Seven hundred years, and Jing Yuan still cannot do anything for him.
He turns his hand over and hooks their pinky fingers together, an answer to a memory only Jing Yuan recalls. He makes a promise, or perhaps it might be better to call it a wish. This might not make any difference either.
The only thing left to do is wait for breath to return to him. Jing Yuan hopes it sweeps in gently, like rising from an undisturbed sleep. He knows his hope is powerless here, but he hopes it does not feel like yet another stab through the chest, or like the killing blow of a sword done in reverse.
Blade is wearing such a peaceful look on his face, after all. The world is cruel to snatch it away from him again and again. This peace that he can only seem to find in death, even temporarily.
Jing Yuan doubts he looks this rested when he sleeps. He's not sure he sleeps at all.
He sweeps the front part of Blade's hair out of his eyes. It's getting long. He wonders if anyone in the Stellaron Hunters minds it enough to trim it for him, or remind him to do so. If there is someone with Blade who will tend to his body when he forgets to.
Jing Yuan rises to his feet. Better to go before Blade is alive enough to question him. He can hear Yanqing calling for him, his swift-footed steps drawing closer.
"Jiangjun, are you…" he begins, looking at Blade behind him with uncertainty in his gaze.
"Forget everything you've seen today. These matters should stay in the past where they come from," Jing Yuan tells him. His bright protege is meant to soar higher than the clouds someday; Jing Yuan will fold in the old heartache, return it to the shelf, carry it within him where it cannot weigh Yanqing down.
Yanqing visibly reins himself in. He keeps it to business: giving his report, asking for further instructions, and Jing Yuan gives him the rest of the day off. It makes his face scrunch and his fists clench, but he goes quietly, holding back all the questions on his tongue. Jing Yuan won't change his mind, but he is sorry to turn him away so many times.
After Yanqing leaves, everyone else does too, one by one.
He lets Jingliu go on her own, knowing she will at the very least honour their agreement and let his Cloud Knights waiting on the other side guide her to the right place.
Blade jerks awake gasping for breath and climbs to his feet in a daze, with his back turned to them. The pained scoff he makes hits Jing Yuan in the chest. He still has not spared a single glance for Jing Yuan since Jingliu and Dan Heng arrived. He walks away without looking back.
Dan Heng has also said his goodbyes and left, though he seemed reluctant to part.
Jing Yuan should head back soon too, at least to watch over Jingliu's escort to the Yuque. And to see her one last time. He should leave because there are still too many things to do. Yanqing will be waiting despite his dismissal, Qingzu will have updates for him, and the charioteers will call for another meeting soon.
Jing Yuan allows himself a few minutes to take in the empty ruins, the waters rumbling in the distance. A few minutes is enough for him to swallow his heart again. The statue of the first High Elder points his stone spear into the distance somewhere beyond the waves, beyond the arbour, further than the eye can see.
What you wait for is not here, Jing Yuan. Just a little longer. Go, it is time to return to your post.
Jing Yuan sighs and walks away, the last to leave, down the path where the steps meet the sand.
Seated on the floor is a dark figure leaning on the other side of the pillars framing the steps that he only notices when he steps past him. Their eyes meet.
"Jing Yuan," Blade says, the name in his mouth like a mantra he repeats to himself. At this point it sounds almost like a greeting to Jing Yuan.
He waits, but Blade has no other words for him.
Blade doesn't make any moves to get up, but he doesn't look away either. He rests his back against the wall with his arms around his sword, carefully wrapped again, tucked close to his chest. It looks like he stayed behind to wait for something, or someone.
Jing Yuan shifts his gaze away and forces his feet to keep moving.
They follow him all the way down to the shore, the eyes trying to pierce through the back of his head, as if blinking is another thing Blade has forgotten how to do.
He stops when he reaches the edge, where a singular starskiff waits for him, hovering above the water. There are no other boats in sight.
Jing Yuan stares at the choppy waves lapping at his boots, wondering if Blade walked all the way here, counted the boats, and then turned back.
Swallowing again to keep his heart quiet inside his body where it's supposed to be, he turns on his heel and goes back the way he came, this time with quicker steps. It sticks out to him, the sight of the solitary figure in the distance, sitting in a ruined space. Empty and still, waiting for a change in the air.
Blade opens his mouth to speak, but Jing Yuan cuts him off. "Can you stand?" he asks.
Blade stares him down with his most incredulous look. Jing Yuan meets him with his most diplomatic smile.
"Are you still injured?" he tries again. "Do you need an escort off the Luofu as well?"
Blade glowers at the mention of his master. "Take the starskiff, Jing Yuan. I don't need it."
Jing Yuan glances away, feigning interest at the surroundings. "I don't mind quietly enjoying the scenery with you, if that's what you're here for. I know you don't get to spend time on the Luofu that much these days. The water is quite pretty from here, isn't it?"
Blade exhales a long and slow breath. "It's not an issue you should concern yourself with."
"Is it so hard to give me an answer?" Jing Yuan sighs. The tilt of his head causes his hair to fall into his eyes for a brief moment. Blade purses his lips at the familiar sight.
Jing Yuan crosses his arms and waits. He has only gotten better at it over the years.
"My phone is broken," Blade says, giving up, frowning like he has a headache. He has not lost all of his old impatience. "It's happened before. Silver Wolf will eventually pick me up. It's not an issue."
Jing Yuan pauses and considers his options. He pulls out his jade abacus and starts tapping away at it.
"What are you doing."
"I'm asking your fellow Stellaron Hunter to come and get you."
Blade narrows his eyes. "You have Silver Wolf's contact?"
"Of course not."
"...You have Kafka's contact?"
Jing Yuan hums. "The other way around—Kafka is the one who has my information. What I have looks like a temporary number. It hasn't been too long since it's been in use, so it might still work if I send a message."
In one swift movement, Blade leaps to his feet and crowds in close enough to peer over the top of the screen. Jing Yuan does not flinch, does not lean away. He stays very still, like he's holding out a handful of seeds for the new birds that flutter to his window.
The oldest message Blade can see reads: I'll let you know when the time comes, from an anonymous sender with a blank icon. He eyes Jing Yuan warily. "What are you planning."
Blade's eyes glow red from behind the curtain of his hair. Jing Yuan holds his gaze and smiles evenly.
"It's nothing that will change your script. It will play out as promised to you, not to worry."
The device pings in his hand. Jing Yuan looks down at the message: otw, it says, followed by a cute sticker of Blade wielding his sword. Silver Wolf? He makes a guess.
"They'll be coming to get you soon," Jing Yuan tells him and turns to leave. There are no goodbyes, nothing else left to say.
Blade watches him go.
"Jing Yuan," he mutters, the name in his mouth a reminder to himself.
☾ ₊˚ ☼
On the day Jing Yuan is to learn the date of his death, he drags himself out early in the morning to feed the birds. He leaves the windows open for the breeze and crawls back into bed. He allows himself to sleep in a little more, at least until the sunlight grows too bright and the sounds of the world waking up outside become too much to ignore.
He shuffles into his kitchen and sighs at the breakfast Yanqing dropped off for him on the counter. The boy himself is nowhere to be found. He's been spending the early hours of his days in the training grounds, perfecting the sword techniques he's learned from all the new people he's met lately.
Jing Yuan gets dressed and goes to work, sits down with the documents waiting for him at the Seat of Divine Foresight. There are no urgent meetings this morning, only the dull work of picking through the papers at his own leisure. The years have taught him that there is no point in rushing. The flow of work is endless no matter how fast or slowly he goes.
Dan Heng once asked him what it was like to be a general for so many years. Jing Yuan knows it as the slow work of having fingers in every pie and the quick meetings that are not quick at all. Every decision is never made alone, it's like trying to walk a five-legged race without falling. Stumbling is inevitable.
"If you take a simple step forward, the whole world moves along with you. You get very good at staying still," he told Dan Heng. "But of course, other generals have their own way of doing things."
Other ships certainly do not have a xiangqi board spanning the floor of their head office. His long years and careful hand are what earned him the name of Foresight and why Fu Xuan has grown into such a steadfast presence by his side, with her way of lighting a path forward.
Ah, Fu Xuan. It's almost time for his appointment.
Fu Xuan is waiting for him with arms crossed. She looks him up and down as he approaches, studying his face extra carefully as if she might find something different about it today.
"Are you sure?" she asks, even though she knows her question will not change anything. "Most people avoid this type of divination for a reason."
"I think I have waited long enough," Jing Yuan says. "This is not just for myself; it will also determine the course of the Luofu. My hand is on the wheel, but I also go whichever way the bow of the ship points. I entrust our future into your capable hands, as usual, Fu-qing."
The stern look on her face crumbles for a split second, something almost vulnerable flickering across her eyes, but she pulls it back just as quickly, hands clenching into fists at the fabric of her skirt. She gives him a sharp nod and turns on her heel, expecting him to follow.
The Matrix of Prescience hums in wait. The three base terminals have already been activated by her own hand in preparation for this appointment. Time, Space, Karma—Fu Xuan has personally overseen every part of the process. The margin of error must be reduced as much as possible for this particular divination she will make today. His is a fate tangled with thousands of other threads, a life nestled at the heart of the Luofu.
He has lived as Luofu's general for so long, some people have even lost count of the century. How long more, I wonder?—the question is still only a passing fancy fluttering in and out of the people's minds when they remember that Jing Yuan won't live forever. An afterthought left for a later time.
Even Fu Xuan herself, who has been impatient for him to retire his position, has trouble picturing it. She, too, has never known a Luofu without Jing Yuan.
"Step onto the platform, Jing Yuan-jiangjun," she says. "I will divine the best ending for you."
When he stepped up to the general's seat, Jing Yuan knew that it came with its own chains. It hardly mattered at the time, amidst the chaos he was trying to pull together, the mess he took on as his duty to clean up. It seemed almost the same as a Cloud Knight risking death in battle, which he's been prepared for since his first assignment.
But for a general on a battleship, it is more binding. You sign away the rest of your life to an invisible clause in the contract that shortens your years—unless you're lucky—and determines how you die, as a calculated sacrifice to protect your people, one life for a whole ship.
He was lucky the last time, saved by the grace of Dan Heng's cloudhymn. In his flickering consciousness he felt an embrace, like an echo of Dan Feng shielding him from a violent death, pleading not like this, not like this.
Jing Yuan goes straight home after his meeting with Fu Xuan. On his way back, he tilts his head to the starskiffs passing above and thinks about endings. He thinks about the choices that have opened up in front of him.
Perhaps the end of his life is not yet another thing he needs to pledge to the Xianzhou. Perhaps someone he loves does not need to die alone in a faraway world.
He can still see the stars past the Luofu. He can make a plan and set the pieces in motion. Jing Yuan gazes up into the sky, and wants.
☾ ₊˚ ☼
Yanqing pulls it out of him over a game of starchess:
The pieces are already set up to clear a path for the general. He rests his head on his hand, waiting for Yanqing to make his move. The birds chirp in the branches above, and he listens to the wind filter through the leaves.
He turns his gaze back to his distracted opponent. "Something on your mind?"
It has been Yanqing's turn for long enough that the gingko leaves from the branches above have fallen onto the board between them, scattered between the pieces. Jing Yuan leans forward and dusts them away with a long puff of his breath. They flutter into Yanqing's face, catching his attention.
"Ah…" he rubs at his nose.
"Or has it been so long since our last game that you've forgotten how to play?" Jing Yuan prods.
"No, it's…" Yanqing hesitates for a beat, but he steels himself and meets his eyes with determination.
Jing Yuan already knows what's coming. It is the intensity in Yanqing's eyes that surprises him.
"Jiangjun, you've been getting ready for something important. Please tell me what I can do to help," he says, bringing a fist to his chest as if to make a pledge.
Of course Yanqing is sharp enough to have already put some clues together. Jing Yuan sighs. "If only I had a bit more time..."
He has wrapped Yanqing in all his blessings over the years—the silver lock at his shoulder, the birds on his robe, the red cord at his ankle, the various charms that sway with his movements, everywhere he goes. Good luck, safety, prosperity, and all his love. His gifts are meant to outlast him.
The sparrows flock to his garden to wait for their breakfast, and Jing Yuan rises every morning to feed them, knowing there will eventually be one morning where he won't.
It is strange how difficult it is to say it plainly in words, after having spent years and years preparing. The end of a chapter is approaching, the kind that upends a young boy's entire world, and Yanqing is in front of him, expectant and with an open ear.
Yanqing narrows his eyes. "But you don't have that time, do you? Jiangjun. Respectfully, you don't have to guide me through it this time. You don't have to be careful with my future anymore. Yanqing is strong enough to bear it now," he says. Where there used to be an impatience, an urgency in his gaze, it is replaced by a kind of resilience that Jing Yuan thinks he's been a bit late to notice.
It makes him smile to see it, although at the same time his heart hums with an older kind of ache.
"Perhaps you have a point."
Jing Yuan knows without having to look, that the stars above are peeking through the gingko leaves that shelter them. He can hear the memory of Yingxing's voice in his ear, weaving the beginnings of a promise together.
"Yanqing," he begins, "I am preparing for my funeral."
According to their best diviner, his most favourable ending looks like a quiet departure from the Luofu at the turn of the next century, heading out towards the stars. It leaves him with just enough time to evade the Ten Lords Commission and just enough time to hold back the mara that blooms in the blood of all the Xianzhou-born. Whether he finds his destination before the worst of it strikes is up to the rest of fate.
It is not an ending that anyone would wish for him—not Yanqing, not Fu Xuan, or the rest of the Luofu. It sounds lonely to anyone other than Jing Yuan. It sounds like loss, like fading away in the dark.
Jing Yuan, however, considers it a luxury to be able to choose for himself. To have the time to make arrangements, to wrap things up and clean his room, to close the door neatly behind him. He hopes his absence will not be a traumatic event. He hopes to step away from his people with a gentle bow.
Across the table, Yanqing takes a few moments, struggling with himself and the weight of what he's learned.
This is important, and he has not yet experienced enough of his life to find his way with his words. So he grasps onto Jing Yuan's hands, holds onto them like he is trying to press all his meaning into his palms, and does the best he can.
"I will be by your side until you say it's time to go," he says, voice a little shaky despite his best efforts. "And then, you will always be with my steps, and in the swing of my sword."
Jing Yuan squeezes his hands reassuringly.
"Jiangjun has given me so much," he swallows, looks down at his lap. "Let me do what I can. Let me take you there. Let me—"
"Of course," Jing Yuan says, and knows that these hands will be the hardest for him to let go of.
☾ ₊˚ ☼
Jing Yuan makes his preparations.
In truth, there is not much to do.
The event of his own passing is just another eventuality he has prepared for since the beginning. The draft of his will has been sitting in his drawers for a few centuries now, revised and updated every few decades before the onset of a major battle, just in case.
All his assets are named, all his plans are noted down and kept safely in the hands of Qingzu and Fu Xuan. What's left is the passing of time, for him to shift the weight of the Luofu slowly enough for Fu Xuan to find a good grip.
The people are getting used to seeing both of them at the General's seat, looking over each other's shoulders and sharing the desk when they need to lay things out. Sometimes it's Fu Xuan alone, when Jing Yuan leaves the rest of the day for her to handle.
It's a political display. It's clear to everyone what it means. He brushes off the recent inquiries about his health with a warm smile and a lazy wave.
He still worries, for the Luofu has never learned to heal right from its own internal unrest. It has landed Jing Yuan in a few tight spots. Trouble is unavoidable in a long-lived future and Fu Xuan just needs to find her own way of navigating it, just as he once did.
As the years progress, Jing Yuan finds himself with more idle time on his hands. He takes naps that last longer and longer. His attention starts to wander, and sometimes he falls into a daze, thinking about the past. He thinks about Blade at the last reunion at Scalegorge Waterscape, a lifeless body lying in the rubble after the finishing blow from Jingliu's sword. Blade dying, or perhaps already dead. Blade waiting in an empty world for nothingness to take him away.
He has more than enough sanity left to easily stop the thought from consuming him, but he knows this is only the beginning. He can feel his mind like a shrinking cage, pressing in at the corners. He's been meeting Yingxing in his dreams lately.
The symptoms are clear. Fu Xuan's predictions are timely and accurate.
Yanqing watches him like a hawk these days.
A message from an anonymous number sits in Jing Yuan's pocket. He has long committed its contents to memory: a set of coordinates pointing to a lonely corner of the universe.
The arrival of the Astral Express at the docks is the long-awaited signal.
Jing Yuan does not pack. On the day of his departure, he carries nothing but his glaive when he goes to meet the Astral Express. It is only meant to be a short trip for him.
Yanqing is waiting for him at the docks with a travel bag slung across his back, chin raised high and stubborn. This departure is an important one for him as well.
He approached Jing Yuan one day with his papers applying for indefinite leave, announcing his intention to travel with the Nameless when Jing Yuan sets off. While he was handing things off to Fu Xuan, Yanqing has been making preparations of his own, figuring out what to do with the space Jing Yuan will inevitably leave in his life. He'll need the time to consider what his quest for strength should look like, to learn more about the universe outside and how he wants to tie himself to the world, to his home, and to the people in his life.
Jing Yuan is glad Yanqing can choose differently than he did, and that duty for him does not take the shape of chains. He can be better than the way Jing Yuan drags loss behind him like a body he pretends to ignore. He can be better because grief will not still his steps even if it weighs down on his shoulders.
Jing Yuan holds out a hand to Yanqing and nods towards his bag. "Let me help put your things away. You can look around and greet the rest of them."
"I'll be staying with the Express long after you leave, I have plenty of time to settle in," Yanqing says, tightening his grip on the straps and angling it away from him. "Jiangjun, why don't you go look around the main car? I hear Dan Heng-laoshi is waiting for you."
Yanqing zips down the corridor, turning corners like he's afraid Jing Yuan will insist on following.
Jing Yuan smiles despite himself. The Nameless will be good company, and Dan Heng will be there for him to lean on. Someone Yanqing can look to, a taste of home for a boy who has never travelled for the sake of travelling, without knowing exactly where he's going and when he'll be back. The thought is a comforting one for Jing Yuan who has always worried about him a little too much.
Now. He steps up to the doors and slides them open, scanning the room for a familiar face. One more loved one to see him off.
The Express pulls away from the Luofu, drifting further into space to get ready for a warp jump, the rumbling of the engines fading into a low hum in the background. The music in the parlour car dances over it all, strings of the guzheng like flowing water—Jing Yuan recognizes the tune as a souvenir Dan Heng collected from a previous visit to the Luofu.
They huddle by the window, the two of them. Dan Heng leans into his shoulder as the Luofu shrinks away into the distance. They drift among the stars that have always been waiting beyond the veil of the Luofu. Jing Yuan imagines a young boy on the other side of the sky, perched on a roof in Starskiff Haven watching him go.
"Goodbye," Jing Yuan whispers, and hopes that these eight hundred years have been enough.
He appreciates the gentle nudge at his side. Farewells like this are something that Dan Heng of all people would understand deeply. How there is a part of you that is left behind when you leave. He seems determined to walk with Jing Yuan through this as far as he can, just as Jing Yuan once did for him, out of the dark prison of his early life and into his first brief taste of sunlight.
They are both watching carefully when the light starts to change.
"Oh," Dan Heng hums, a note of wonder in his voice.
Jing Yuan agrees. Never in all his years has he witnessed the Luofu in such radiance.
It should still be the middle of the day for everyone right now, but the whole ship is dyed in sunset colours. This can only be Fu Xuan's doing. When did she find the time to sneak away from her desk—what did she tell the workers at the weather pavilion?
Even with all her eloquence, she is less practiced with speaking her emotions, having sent him off with a straight face and a straight back. He thought she was about to salute him like one of his Cloud Knights, but she only squeezed his hand and told him to leave without worry or regret.
Jing Yuan looks back at the Luofu as it disappears behind them. This ship cradles within its hull everything that he has persevered for and held on to for all his life. It is beautiful as it leaves, drenched in the golden hues of sunset.
☾ ₊˚ ☼
Jing Yuan's childhood is the sun at his back. Ten-thousand swings of his sword. The familiar ache of his shoulders.
Also, the sound of Yingxing's voice—"Don't let go, I'm almost there." The steady grip of his hand.
Yingxing leans over the water with his arm stretched as far as he can reach, the grappling tool in his hand feeling its way around the riverbed. The only thing keeping his weight suspended above the surface is Jing Yuan's grip on his other arm, anchoring him to the shore.
See, Jing Yuan has a talent for getting Yingxing to do things for him. With Jing Yuan, Yingxing is all biting words and yet gentle hands, rolling up his sleeves and nudging him aside even though Jing Yuan insists all he needs is to borrow some of his tools.
"Are you sure about that?" Jing Yuan asks. "I don't mind going in on my own, I might be able to find it faster than you can." They must have been holding this position for at least half an hour. It's not long enough for his arms to tire, but he cannot say the same of his wandering mind.
"Bullshit, you can't see anything in here, you'll just be reaching around blindly. At least my grapple has magnets attached to it."
"If you want to brag about it you should've spent five extra minutes attaching a metal detector too," Jing Yuan says.
"I only need one minute for that," Yingxing retorts.
"You're just supporting my point."
He digs his nails into Jing Yuan's arm to get him to shut up.
"Ow! Yingxing-ge," he whines, "I'm falling asleep over here."
"Don't you dare. I swear it's only stuck between these rocks. Let me just—" He jerks forward, the sudden movement causing Jing Yuan to lose his grip. Yingxing plummets face-first into the water with a loud splash.
"Pfft…" Jing Yuan hides his laugh behind his hands.
Yingxing rises to his feet like a river creature from the underworld, dripping from head to toe. He shoots him his best death glare from behind the wet curtain of hair over his eyes.
He flings something at Jing Yuan. It bounces off his head and Jing Yuan catches it before it hits the ground.
"The mechanical bird! You found it!" Quickly, he wipes it clean with his sleeves and secures it safely into his pockets.
Yingxing crawls back to land. "Don't lose it again. I'm not making another one for you," he threatens with a flick of his hand, spraying droplets of water at Jing Yuan.
Jing Yuan grins. "Thank you, thank you! Yingxing-gege!"
"Don't think calling me that earns you any favours," he says, but still allows Jing Yuan to lead him away by the hand, after wrapping him up in a towel he had enough foresight to bring along. Jing Yuan counts it as a win.
They walk home holding hands. They could walk to the end of the world like this, if you ask Jing Yuan. Quietly, secretly, he allows himself one of those many impossible wishes that children make—just one time is fine!—and wishes for another day like this. And another day, and another day.
☾ ₊˚ ☼
Blade opens his eyes and wonders why he's still alive.
He is on the ground. Arms spread apart, waiting. He is more mortal than he's ever been since Yingxing.
Elio delivered to him his final script—the one Blade has been waiting for this whole time, his reason for joining this eclectic group. It was a solo mission, and he didn't plan on saying goodbye. Farewells are for people who form personal attachments, and that is impossible for a thing like him to hold on to. But at the end as he tried to leave quietly in the middle of the night, they were all there, crowding by the getaway starship, a group of regular night owls and light sleepers.
They don't speak goodbye words, but he gets an all the best from Firefly, a thumbs up from Silver Wolf and a hairpin she stuck into his hair on a last minute whim. Good game, it was fun, she said, even though he's still never sat down for a game with her. Kafka sent him off with a last kiss on his cheek, smiling as gently as she always does for him. He manages his words carefully so that his last words to her land on a thank you.
They ask him about his destination and drop him off at the coordinates he provided. It is already more than he can ask of them, but their energy pulls him along as it usually does. He supposes that partings have always been part of their journey; they are not unlike the Nameless in this way. Blade watches from the ground as the starship lifts off into the distance.
Blade has toiled to the end of his script. This is the eternal end he was promised—in his graveyard of swords, where he will stake himself into the ground.
He thought of this place the moment he knew. It felt right for him to return here even if he had to drag himself, broken and bleeding from the gaping wound in his chest that, by Elio's miracle, will not close.
It is no homecoming. It is not a memorial with any significance. This place is just an abandoned wasteland with no life. It was the first place he happened to crash into after his banishment from the Luofu. He was no longer Yingxing, but he had not forged himself into Blade yet. He buried himself among the ash here and simply thought it was a good place to die.
Blade visits every year, bringing new swords to line the fields with. It was a habit he'd picked up as a Stellaron Hunter, collecting the blades of the people he fought and killed. He stakes them into the ground here, building up a cemetery of his own, because that's the only ritual of parting he's ever learned how to do. It is one that he made up himself, long ago, when little Yingxing stuck two daggers into the soil of a foreign land and put his hands together in a clumsy prayer, with not even a body to bury in memory of his parents.
Silence seeps into the barren land. Every heavy step taken falls soft on the ear, and even the wind seems to pass through like ghostly hands brushing over the grass. This is a place with nothing left, a place where things go to sink into the ground and be quiet forever.
He has gotten as far as to lift his sword and point it towards the wound of his chest, but as he went to plunge it in, he could not complete the motion. He stopped, hovering, as if by an invisible force.
But why? Is this not the end he wished for so desperately? The quiet world, the eternal peace. All of this grief he's been holding for Yingxing, he can finally return it to the ground.
He is a dying man who will be dead soon. He cannot shake the sense that he has forgotten something important.
He lays down to rest among the abandoned swords that litter the fields. It matters not if death comes to him slowly or in an instant, just that it does.
Countless stars sprinkle the sky, like fragments of a lost dream, like pieces of a shattered soul. Everything too far away but not far enough away to disappear from his sight.
His whole body hurts, but that is nothing new. He closes his eyes and longs for something he cannot name.
(He dreams of a boy who wraps him in sun-baked towels, who holds him by the hand and takes him back home.)
He closes his eyes and misses the streak of light that darts across the sky. The echo of a train's horn that follows is absorbed by the planet's atmosphere.
☾ ₊˚ ☼
Jing Yuan quietly wraps up his time with Dan Heng. They have arrived at his stop, and all that is left is for him to disembark.
He turns, and feels a sharp tug on his sleeve that stops him. Yanqing is on his other side, pulling his hands away and backing off, embarrassed by his own sudden impulse.
"I was about to look for you," Jing Yuan reassures him.
Yanqing forces his arms back down to his sides but his face cannot hide how he feels. It reminds Jing Yuan of Yanqing's first time on the battlefield, witnessing the reality of death with a scared look in his eye, but still determined, never hesitating with his sword.
"Yes," he says. "Yanqing is here."
Jing Yuan hums softly, rifling through his vocabulary for perhaps another wisdom to impart.
He has spent each new year wishing for life to be a little kinder to Yanqing than it was for him. The depth of his gratitude, his pride, his love could never be expressed in words, even with his silver tongue, but Yanqing knows where to look for it. The evidence is felt in their time together, in the care he's given, in all the blessings showered upon him.
As for Jing Yuan, he can feel it too. Glimpses of his place in Yanqing's heart: in his daring steps, in the upswing of his sword.
What words they do have for each other have already been conveyed. What Jing Yuan can do instead is open his arms a little hopefully and wait for Yanqing to step forward.
Yanqing's breath hitches.
He moves, one step, two steps, before throwing himself into Jing Yuan's arms. He holds his breath and squeezes, and squeezes, until he can bear to let go.
☾ ₊˚ ☼
Footsteps approach.
Blade snaps awake.
"What are you doing here."
Jing Yuan raises a hand in greeting. "Have you been waiting for a long time?"
"Why are you here," Blade demands.
"Sorry for being late. I hope it hasn't been too hard on you," Jing Yuan says, smiling like he's on a casual afternoon stroll. "I had a lot of people to say goodbye to."
"Jing Yuan."
Jing Yuan takes his time to respond, returning his glare with an assessing look from head to toe, eyes lingering on the battered state of his body, the dripping wounds.
"I'm here to fulfill a promise."
"You have no promises with me."
Jing Yuan sits down next to him, carefully leaving a space between them, and takes his hand. The warmth of his touch is startling. Blade lets him work away at his clenched fist, unfurling one finger at a time.
Jing Yuan traces over his bandages, thumbing away at the edges fraying apart. "These are coming loose again. Let me," he says, and starts unravelling them.
The audacity, Blade thinks, but does not have the strength to push him away.
What an utterly pointless action. Soon enough, Blade will have no need for bandages. He will have no need for hands, or fingers.
"I hope there was time for you to say all your goodbyes. Is there anything you've left unfinished?" Jing Yuan asks.
Blade narrows his eyes. "Are you here to deal me the killing blow?" he asks, despite his disbelief. Jing Yuan was ready to offer such a mercy to his master, that woman, but never to him. Jing Yuan has never raised his weapon against its maker.
An uneasy pause. "Would you want me to?" Jing Yuan asks quietly. His grip remains soft around Blade's fingers.
Blade rips his hand away. "You have no business here," he says. "Jing Yuan, go home."
Jing Yuan's arms are left hanging, and he folds them back together with remarkable elegance, hands curling at his elbows. "If you truly wish for me to leave, I will," he says, "but you should know that I am not long for this world, either."
Blade turns to meet his golden gaze. It is subtle, but he can see a tremor, a fading awareness behind his eyes, the pointed focus to compensate for the way they're about to wander into delirium. It is familiar to him, even, as someone who has been meditating on it for hundreds of years.
Blade stares at him blankly. To think that Jing Yuan would reach the end of his long life just as Blade finds the end of his long death—it cannot be coincidence. These sound like events nudged into alignment by a careful hand. But Elio's script has made no mention of this, not even a vague hint from Kafka, who has a better grasp on the bigger picture than the rest of them. "How…"
"I received the news as soon as you left the Hunters," Jing Yuan sighs as if he heard his unspoken question. "It's been a long time. I'd made my preparations in advance, although I wasn't sure I could arrive in time to find anything left of you."
"Then why—"
"But you're here. You waited," he says, looking upon him in wonder. "Why did you wait?"
Blade does not have an answer.
The shard sword in front of him is barely holding itself together. Jing Yuan summons his own glaive and sticks it into the ground beside it.
So it is nothing as momentous as fate. It is a postscript of no consequence to anyone but them, just an old man reaching for a hand to hold one last time.
"I'm glad I didn't fail you in this regard, at least," Jing Yuan tells him. "But I can still walk away if you would rather be alone for this. I have already seen you one last time with my own eyes. It is enough to satisfy me."
Blade growls under his breath. This impossible man. Asking what Blade wants. Tucking his heart away even on his last day, even when a broken man is the only witness before him. Closing his eyes in resignation, as if the very sight of Blade is a limited resource, and he mustn't be selfish, even with this.
He understands what Jing Yuan is asking of him without needing to hear it in words. To be here, worlds apart from his home, stolen away from the Ten Lords Commission of soul reapers when the mara is creeping in so close. It's either take it or leave it and turn him away. The choice of you or me or together. His fingers remain curled loosely around the handle of his glaive, ready to walk away at Blade's word and take on the duty of death alone.
Jing Yuan has only done what the four of them have always wished for him—to keep his good heart, to carry their light with him, even though they abandoned him in all the worst ways. He was always meant to outlast them all. Jing Yuan does not deserve to find his end here on a desolate planet, turned away from company.
"Shut up and sit down," Blade says, rubbing at his temples with his fingers.
Satisfaction dances in Jing Yuan's eyes. A cat with the cream. "Since you insist, I would be happy to."
Jing Yuan sweeps the loose fabric of his clothing underneath him and lowers himself neatly onto Blade's lap. Blade gets a brief mouthful of hair that still smells like expensive shampoo. Jing Yuan curls up against him like a giant cat.
Blade sends him a bewildered look but it only encourages Jing Yuan, laughing into his ear, arms coming up to loop around his neck.
This body holds back under Jing Yuan's touch, as if it can't forget how much smaller he used to be. Blade stiffens, uncomfortable, and yet his own arms hover at Jing Yuan's back, ready to support him if he tilts too far.
"Stop. You'll get blood all over you," he warns, leaning away, but Jing Yuan only clings on tighter.
"It's all the same to me," he insists.
Blade gives up. Who knew the General of the Luofu would return to such childish behaviours in his final days of life. There is no point in resisting.
The way Jing Yuan sighs and sinks into his hold shows him how tense he was before. Now he notices the clammy temperature of the hands around his shoulders. Jing Yuan used to be small enough to hide himself in these arms.
"I always thought I would pass in battle like the many generals before me," he says, "I was ready for that. But this… waiting, is…”
"You have not yet experienced death."
"But you are with me," Jing Yuan points out. "I am not alone."
Blade nods. This, too, could be a form of atonement. "I will stay."
Jing Yuan pats him over his chest with the softest hands, careful with his wounds. "And you are not alone either."
Blade closes his eyes to the sharp and sudden throbbing in his chest where it should be impossible, in a violent cavity that used to house a cursed heart. An echo of Yingxing scrambling—here, I'm here—for just a moment, struggling to burst forth.
"Jing Yuan," he whispers, the words cracking, barely able to leave his throat. The time for wanting is long gone. It's too late to become human, but he holds his warm body close to him and prays it makes a difference.
They are no longer the Yingxing and Jing Yuan of their childhoods with hands that were never meant to end each other's lives. Those hands pressed their palms together and hoped for a happier journey, a happier ending. Better that Jing Yuan faces him instead—the one who holds the blade, the one who makes his choice and waits for him to fall asleep before lifting it so that he won't have to suffer too much.
You and me and together. The one with the biting words and the gentle hands, Blade-of-Yingxing, stabs the shard sword cleanly through the meat of their bodies in one breath.
Jing Yuan struggles in his grip. Blade is already expecting it, but he still has to wrestle to restrain him. They fall to the ground, the sword still connecting both of them. He jolts, coughing up blood onto Blade's clothes. Blade leans in to lick the corners of his mouth clean.
He kisses Jing Yuan on the forehead to bless him with peace. This was something Kafka used to do for him after calming him down.
Jing Yuan relaxes into him, closing his eyes again like he is going back to sleep after a nightmare. Sometimes a soft touch and a soft voice is all he needs.
Blade kisses him on the mouth, as tenderly as he can, to distract him from the pain. This was something Yingxing did for Jing Yuan once, when he was an embarrassed youth asking for his first kiss to be gentle.
Blade combs his hand through Jing Yuan's white hair, trying to be careful with the limited dexterity of his fingers. He plucks out the golden leaves in their midst, clearing them out until Jing Yuan's hair is full and fair again. He sweeps it behind his shoulder and tucks the sides behind his ear.
Life spills out of them, seeping into the ground.
"...hnd…" Jing Yuan mumbles, barely audible. Blade obediently laces their hands together, and Jing Yuan smiles without opening his eyes. "Gege. I promised."
A fragment of a memory resurfaces in his broken mind.
The voice of a younger Jing Yuan whispers to him. Are you scared?
Blade ignores the stinging of his eyes, the blurriness at the edge of his vision. He lets himself fall forward, wrapping himself around the person who has loved him longer than anyone else in the universe.
Death finds him buried in the warm embrace of Jing Yuan's arms.