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Jing Yuan opens the door to his room. There is mildew growing on the walls, a sheen of dust on every surface. A husky smell greets him, left from years of abandonment.
He steps onto the rug, sending a cloud of dust billowing up. He draws the curtains and opens the windows, letting the artificial wind of the Luofu blow into every crevice.
He stares at the sky, searching for the familiar, familial glow.
The jade moon does not shine, the stars nowhere to be seen.
He turns away.
His guangdao is returned to its home, sheathed on a rack next to his wardrobe. He starts to remove his armour piece by piece. He hasn't had to do it by himself in many years. He fumbles with the clasps and buttons.
Yingxing makes a small sound of discontentment as he gently pries off the layers of armour on Jing Yuan. "Hmph."
"You don't have to do this if you don't want to." Jing Yuan says.
"He likes doing it." Dan Feng murmurs over his shoulder from where he is sitting in front of Jing Yuan, letting him take off the adornments of the High Elder. It is a tight fit on the bed for three adult men plus all their accessories, but they make it work.
"I know," Jing Yuan smiles. "But aren't you tired? It was a long day at the forge."
Yingxing leans forward to press a kiss to Jing Yuan's cheek. "I wouldn't trade this for anything else."
Dan Feng's tail coils around the three of them, pulling them closer. Yingxing laughs. "Are you getting jealous, venerable Yinyue-jun?"
Dan Feng pointedly looks away from Yingxing and Jing Yuan. His tail agitatedly twitches, pushing the armour scattered on the bed off and onto the floor with a loud clang.
All three of them wince. They stare at the door in dead silence, waiting for Jingliu or the Preceptors to barge in and scold "the two outsiders" for trespassing into Vidyadhara territory, and for acting in a way that is "utterly unbefitting for someone of their ranks". Explicit permission from Yinyue-jun be damned.
Dan Feng heaves a sigh of relief when no one comes knocking.
"As we were saying," Yingxing finally extricates Jing Yuan completely from his outerwear. "Getting jealous, Yinyue?"
Jing Yuan snorts and squishes Dan Feng's cheeks, then silences his protests with a kiss. Dan Feng's tail thumps happily on the covers.
When they break apart, Dan Feng's rouge is smeared across Jing Yuan's lips.
"Satisfied?" Jing Yuan hums as he unties the crimson ribbon tucked in Dan Feng's hair.
Dan Feng smiles. "Hardly." He grabs Yingxing by the wrist and pulls him in, pulling out his hairpin with the other hand. His silver hair cascades over his shoulders. Dan Feng tucks the strands behind his ear and leaves a kiss on Yingxing's lips.
Jing Yuan sheds off his many layers and collapses onto his bed. It is unfamiliar. There is no warmth beside him. It feels horrendously empty, the sheets cold and unwelcoming on his skin.
He tries to smother himself in blankets to recreate that warmth. The bed is as empty as ever, even with a wall of pillows and blankets beside him. There is no familiar weight of an arm across his waist or a dragon tail on top of his legs.
He feels like he is searching for something that does not exist. He chases after the fleeting warmth of his partners, their echoes fading away beneath his fingertips.
He is home.
That statement feels horrendously wrong.
"I am home." He tries to say out loud, but his voice fails him, only a pained growl leaves his lips.
The sun falters without its moon and stars.
He is not home.
He drifts off to sleep eventually.
"... General! Yinyue-jun, he… traitor… cardinal sins…"
Yingxing's hair is not the beautiful silver he had always known. It is a dark blue, tinged with red at the tips. Dan Feng is cradling Yingxing in his arms. Ginkgo leaves are strewn around them.
Mara-struck.
Dan Feng kneels at the General's feet and begs for his reckoning. The ocean waves crash against the Ambrosial Arbor as Jing Yuan escorts the corpse of one beloved and the unconscious body of another.
The Ten Lords Commission is cruel. Yinyue-jun must pay for his crimes, regardless of his contributions in incarnations prior. The Abomination of Abundance created by the Arbor's own protector must be exterminated.
The day of the execution, Yingxing's corpse disappears without a trace. The evidence is damning—Yinyue's crimes increase tenfold.
Dan Feng's devastated form and Yingxing's corpse haunt Jing Yuan's dreams.
The eerie golden glow of the mara spreads over his vision.
Jing Yuan jerks awake. The sky is still dark outside, the hum of starskiffs and cycranes absent. He pats his pillow to find that it is soaked wet beneath his cheeks.
He wipes the last vestiges of tears from the corner of his eyes.
The blankets are too hot now. They suffocate him. He kicks off the layers and tries to go back to sleep.
The clock on his mantle ticks. It's broken, the second hand flicking back and forth like a pendulum.
It's too cold now. He reluctantly drags the abandoned sheets off the floor again.
He tosses and turns for what feels like an eternity. Sleep normally claims him quickly, but he is not granted his reprieve. Time slogs on.
The steady drip of water from the meandering channels in the gardens keeps him awake.
… Perhaps alcohol could send sleep his way.
He stumbles out into the dark hallways. He isn't supposed to be outside with no armour or weapon, but the greatest threat to the Luofu currently had already been eradicated. No assassin should come his way.
He digs out Dan Feng's stash of mild wine, leaning on the windowsill in the cool autumn air. A stray leaf floats into his cup. The seasons on the Luofu are mostly constant, only a slight drop of temperature and the orange hues of the trees indicating the passage of time.
There is only wild nature near the Ambrosial Arbor, where rain falls and oceans roar.
Jing Yuan half expects to find the moon in his cup.
Yinyue-jun is sitting outside their camp, a cup of wine in his hands. The moon hangs high in the sky and dwells in his cup. He lifts the porcelain to his lips and takes a sip. Ripples on the surface distort the moon.
"Baijiu?" Jing Yuan asks as he settles next to Dan Feng.
"No, Huangjiu." Dan Feng's smile is tired. "You know I can't drink as much as you."
The moon in his cup, its glow upon his lips.
His hair blows in the wind, billowing and framing his high cheekbones. His robes are slightly dishevelled after a long day, his jacket falling off one shoulder to reveal toned skin.
At that moment, Jing Yuan realises that Dan Feng is beautiful.
"I am… Worried," Dan Feng admits. "Yingxing isn't like us."
Jing Yuan thinks of starspun hair as he rubs the base of Dan Feng's horns, smiling smugly when the venerable High Elder of the Luofu purrs and snuggles up to him. "Surely, he still has some time left?"
"Time is inconsequential to us, Jing Yuan. For him, it is not."
They fall into silence. Dan Feng's tail swishes lazily, stirring up fallen leaves to float through the air once again.
"He would be angry that I stole you away again," Jing Yuan murmurs. "Can't wait for him to beat me up, just like old times."
Dan Feng laughs. "You two have a strange definition of the good old times."
"Don't worry about me, Yinyue gege," Jing Yuan drawls. "Yingxing will surely show his little didi some mercy."
The image of Yingxing's lifeless body flashed through his mind. Jing Yuan shudders and moves away from the window. A ginkgo leaf floats in before he can close the shutters.
He makes his way back to his room, shadows dancing on the walls. A draft blows into his chambers from his open windows. A lone finch flies into his room, almost crashing against the wall before Jing Yuan catches it. It waddles around on his palm, disoriented, then collapsing. Jing Yuan holds the small creature next to his chest and leans in to listen to its weak heartbeat.
He watches the steady rise and fall of the bird’s chest as he lies on his bed.
“Are you alone too?” He whispers to the slumbering finch, uncaring for an answer. “Are you lonely too?”
The bird lets out a quiet chirp and flies over to land in Jing Yuan’s hair, startling a laugh out of him.
Jing Yuan impulsively decides to raise finches the next morning. His room is filled with the happy chirps of his newfound companions. He feels better.
His room still feels empty.
~
He stands at the edge of the churning sea under an umbrella, staring at the Ambrosial Arbor separating raging tides. Even unawakened, the tree glows faintly, framed by the water droplets cascading from the sky. An anomaly on the Luofu.
The waves have not parted in a long time, even for a long-life species such as he. The pain still ebbs and wanes, even with the birds nestled in his hair keeping him company.
A bed of fallen ginkgo leaves lies at his feet. Their warm golden hue has dulled, their edges tattered from the ruthless stampede of the passersby, underneath Cloud Knight boots and the heels of citizens, soaked into wet sludge by the rain. They remind him of the chrysanthemums they used to admire in full bloom.
The flowers aren’t in bloom. There is no one to admire them with now.
Dan Feng and Yingxing stroll in a sea of chrysanthemums. The ochre petals gently flutter in the breeze, unravelling to reveal more and more leaves of gold.
A tail trails in the blanket of fallen leaves and petals, flicking up ever so often to lift them back up into the air, even for a split second.
Yingxing has his hand on Dan Feng's slender waist, cradling him as close to his chest as he possibly can without them both tripping. Dan Feng rubs the ends of Yingxing's silver hair between his fingers.
Jing Yuan sticks to the paths, careful to not trample on the flowers with his boots. He has none of Dan Feng's grace nor Yingxing's precision—best not to ruin the sea of gold with a hasty move.
In the distance, Dan Feng laughs and stops to sink fully into Yingxing's embrace. Yingxing picks him off the ground in a bridal carry and spins himself around with Dan Feng in his arms. Dan Feng's tail sweeps up a shower of gold and yellow.
Jing Yuan looks at them and feels oh so warm.
Yingxing stops fooling around to look back at Jing Yuan. "A-Yuan, what are you doing back there-"
"-General! What are you doing here?"
Jing Yuan looks down to find a small child tugging on the edge of his coat. He can't be any older than four.
"You're the General, aren't you?"
Dirt smudges across the white fabric of his coat.
Jing Yuan holds the umbrella over the boy's head, then kneels on the ground to talk to the child, uncaring of the water seeping into his clothes and the rain battering his face. "Where are your parents?"
"Um…"
"What's your name, then?"
"Eh…"
Jing Yuan looks at the boy with the matted blonde hair and dirty, soaked clothes. He looks at the child with the golden eyes, the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.
"Would you like to go to the Seat of Divine Foresight with me to look for your parents?" He offers.
The boy beams and pesters him for a look at his sword.
Jing Yuan ends up carrying the child all the way back. Fu Xuan predictably splutters and questions his sanity, before organising a search for any information on the boy.
She turns up empty handed, even with using the Matrix of Prescience.
"It's like he's a ghost. Almost like his memories were wiped." She relays back to Jing Yuan. "Where did you even find this kid?"
"Near Scalegorge Waterscape." He replies truthfully. "Near the chrysanthemums."
Fu Xuan falters for a split second.
Jing Yuan wonders if she connected the steely, composed visage of the High Cloud Quintet with walks in fields of flowers, selfish indulgences and sweet nothings.
She quickly regains her composure, simply muttering insults at Jing Yuan under her breath about overtime and senile Generals who should just retire already. "I can put him in the foster care system. A Xianzhou native can probably take him in."
Jing Yuan stares at the boy playing with his collection of glaives, spears and swords, childlike wonder in his eyes.
Jing Yuan grabs that fleeting desire and embeds it into his heart, right next to where Dan Feng and Yingxing reside.
"Say, Master Diviner, what if I already have a Xianzhou Native in mind?"
Fu Xuan glares daggers at him. "If you say that you are that Xianzhou Native, I swear to Lan-"
"What if I were that Xianzhou Native?" He says with a joy that he hasn't felt in a long time.
He names the boy Yanqing.
Little Yanqing bursts into his room and immediately topples over the coat rack, tripping on the furniture and breaking an antique teacup that Jingliu left for him.
Jing Yuan has never felt so content with the chaos, even when Yanqing jumps on his bed and scatters his finches to fly around the room.
He goes to bed with a tired out child next to him, and his room finally feels warm.
He finally feels like he is home.
"Yingxing! Dan Feng!" Jing Yuan calls out to the blurry figures of his lovers in front of him. They turn to him, smiling like they never left.
Jing Yuan is dreaming. He knows that. He indulges all the same.
"Who do you have there?" Dan Feng looks at Yanqing standing next to Jing Yuan, staring curiously at the two strangers.
Jing Yuan lays a hand on Yanqing's shoulder. "My son."
Yanqing grumbles and snuggles closer, burrowing into the warm blankets.
Yanqing runs over to them, dragging Jing Yuan along. Dan Feng pulls them all into an embrace, and Jing Yuan sinks into the warmth.
Jing Yuan whispers, "My family."
Tears stain his pillow.
The sun chases away the night.