Work Text:
"Hey, stranger!" Ke Jiang had never been one to turn away a potential victim. Not when he was kept in the pool of Guanyin, and not here in the dry, horrid desert which loomed around him over the centuries.
The last group had been a bust. That stupidly powerful child and his band of misfit friends, who had taken him for everything he had, and almost left him destitute. But now, weeks after the fact, after an alarmingly long time spent alone, he finally laid eyes on his next mark. At noon on the dot, a figure appeared on the horizon, as if to answer his prayers.
Another monkey demon, skinnier than the last one, darker, with armor that weighed down their gracile frame, and a look in their eyes that said they needed something that Ke Jiang might provide.
For a price, of course. He wasn't running a charity shop.
"Over here, friend! Step right up and win what you need!" He hoped they'd take the bait.
“Where’s the last group that came through here?”
They were skinny, he noticed. Fur shorn into dense, silvering curls, with the outline of bone clear beneath the gaps in their too-large armor.
“Want some food? I might have a discount for you.” He tried not to notice their vacant eyes or how they glared at where the last monkey demon had sat. “Maybe some medicine? Those scrapes look rough.”
Their right eye twitched, a muscle pulling the lid up in a rictus spasm towards the crease in their brow.
“Maybe a place to rest?” He hoped they weren’t a robber, but you could never be too sure these days of strangers who appeared out of the blue.
“Where’s the last group that came through here?” They repeated the words robotically, examining the compass held on a string around their neck. Ke Jiang couldn't blame them for being confused. The desert made fools of all travelers and their tools, but fortunately, Ke Jiang was there to help.
"You mean that kid and his group?" He tried to speak slowly, trying his best to keep them calm. Keep them tractable, and they would buy.
"Yes. Kid, around twenty-five years, human, forty, dragon twenty-three, pig demon, forty-four, river demon, forty-seven." They repeated the words like a mantra, and Ke Jiang felt something cold sink into his tank at the hunger in that dull gold eye.
"What's your name, stranger?" He grabbed a chipped teaset with one of his robotic arms and brought it forward to pour them a hot drink- something soothing would be best, no doubt, to soothe the shattered mind that no doubt inhabited that fragile, almost broken shell.
"Not your business." They hissed, drawing their tail around their body. Defensive, definitely in pain. No doubt aggressive. He'd heard tales of how monkey demons could be when provoked.
"Well, how about you sit down for tea? All that dark fur of yours, and dark armor, it can't feel good walking out in the sun! You'll die of heatstroke!"
The face they made at the mention of death told him more than he needed to know about them. This was someone who came back. Came back wrong and colder. Probably seeking revenge if he had to guess, but he didn't want to pry.
"Stay for tea, and I'll get you some medicine."
They shook their head, lips curling over yellow, stained teeth. "I don't want medicine."
A slip of the tongue. They were injured, no doubt. Probably quite badly as well, if he were to hazard a guess.
"Well, how about-"
"Listen to me and listen well." Their right eye twitched again, and he couldn't fight the impulse to retreat to the furthest corner of his tank.
"I don't want water. I don't want medicine. The only thing I want is information, and then I will be on my way. So tell me, where did the last group go?" They peeled their lips back further over their gums- a threat display, and a big one, no doubt. Or it would've been, had their fangs not looked so chipped and crooked.
"I really think-"
Their fist slammed into the frame of his tank, and he yelped, covering his head as that one golden eye bore into him from just outside the glass.
"Tell me. Tell me now, or I will break your tank, and I will leave, and you will die alone, gasping for breath as the water pours over the sand around you." There was something frantic in how they looked at him. A beast, yes, he could see it in their atrophied muscle and wild eyes, but one which had been pushed too far. Ridden hard and still pushed more, they stared at him with furrowed brows and twitching ears, and finally, Ke Jiang put a name to that narrow, scowling face.
"The Six-Eared Macaque?!" He shrank back into his tank, feeling the metal backing press flush against his spine. "You're supposed to be dead-"
"I'll ask one more time." Macaque snarled. "Where's the kid? Where's Wukong!"
"He didn't say! Please believe me! he didn't tell me where he was going!" His heart was pounding, the water over his gills coming up short for oxygen, making him gasp as he struggled to think. What could he offer? What could he possibly offer this monster so that it would leave him alone?
"WEST!" He finally blurted out the first direction he could think of, not knowing if it was true or not, and not caring so long as they left him, as long as they let him live.
Macaque drew back, ears pinning, and he scrambled to apologize.
"West. One of them mentioned west!"
That dull gold eye fixed on him, and he felt a surge of relief. They believed him. He would live, and they would live, and-
The old warrior drew back, twisting their head from side to side, and sighed.
"Thank you, my friend. And I'm sorry for this."
"For what?"
Crack.