Chapter Text
For a long moment Xie Lian just stares, stares at the ghost, stares at his body. It’s strange now to look at it, strange in a different way then looking at it on the altar was strange. This body is him, really him, in a way that that body was not. His eyes, his face, his hands. It might not be the him that once stood divine among the flowers and cheers of the royal capital but it is the him that he has grown used to seeing reflected in mirrors and in water. Yes, this is him now, and yet it is not. There is a subtle wrongness to the body language, a something in the way the ghost holds himself in his expression and in his eyes that is not Xie Lian.
It is strange.
Xie Lian pushes the strangeness aside. It does not matter.
Very little does.
“What will you do now?”
The ghosts eyes widen as though he is startled by the question.
“Whatever you highness wishes.”
Xie Lian tenses. That title again. How it grates on him. Is the ghost mocking him? He said he wasn’t but the world is filled with liars. Why shouldn’t this ghost be one? His fingers twitch with the instinct to reach for the ghost, grab him, shake him, shake the truth of him, but Xie Lian holds himself back after all this isn’t just any ghost. This is the ghost who tried to help him, tried to warn him away from White No Face’s trap and was rewarded for his kindness with pain unending, pain meant for Xie Lian. This ghost is better than the world deserves, better than Xie Lian deserves and so Xie Lian will not take out his anger at the world on him. He does not know why the ghost keeps addressing Xie Lian with such respect but he will allow it. He still believes that it is probably mockery but he will allow that too, after all, if anyone should be allowed to mock him then it is Wuming.
There is also the matter of the ghost being in Xie Lian’s own body but that thought he easily shrugs aside. After everything else it has been through, the idea of striking bruises into his own flesh does not bother him.
So it is for the sake of the ghost not the body he inhabits that Xie Lian stills his hand.
“I asked what you wish to do.”
“Whatever your highness wishes me to do.”
Xie Lian glares and again the temptation to strike rises in him but he has already decided to allow this ghost to mock him so again he forces it down.
In the end all he says is, “I need nothing from you.”
The ghost bows his head. “Then I will return to your highness’s family.”
Those words bring Xie Lian up short and he stiffens. “You intend to take my place.”
“If your highness will allow it.”
“Why?” Suspicion makes Xie Lian’s voice sharp.
He understands Wuming must loath him three times over, first for his fallers as Xianle’s prince and god, second for the ghost’s own death in his army, and third for all the pain he has suffered in Xie Lian’s place. He accepts that hatred as his due. If Wuming moved to strike him down, if such a thing were possible, Xie Lian is not even sure that he would resist. Yet that is one matter and his family is another. If the ghost plans to use Xie Lian’s body to get close to the former king and queen in order to enact some sort of revenge on them for their failure to protect Xianle then Xie Lian cannot allow it, will now allow it.
“To deceive White No Face.”
The answer shocks Xie Lian from his thoughts and he stares at Wuming in incomprehension.
“What do you mean!?”
The demand comes out angry then he intends just like all his words since he first started speaking to the ghost. For all his promise to himself not to take out his anger on Wuming he has not spoken to another person in three months and he finds now that there is simply too much anger in him to keep it from bursting out.
The ghost raises his head to meet Xie Lian’s eyes. “It is what White No Face will expect. If I do not then he will realize something is wrong and come looking. If he does there is a good chance he will realize that we have switched bodies.”
Something about the answer is so unexpected, so wrong, that Xie Lian finds himself moving forward into the ghost’s space, grabbing a handful of the ghost’s robes.
“Why don’t you want that!? You should want that! If he knows that I am me and you are you then you will be safe from him!”
The ghost nods. “Yes, your highness, but you will not be.”
At that Xie Lian feels something in his chest shift and crack, something so deep and unexpected that he can no longer hold himself back. He grabs he tightens his fingers in Wuming’s robes, shaking the ghost hard.
“What do you mean!? What do you mean I will not be safe!? Why would you say that!? Why would you care about that!? You…”
His voice trails away as he feels the ghost sway in his grip, feels his knees begin to give out, his body slumping into Xie Lian’s. Instinctively Xie Lian lets go of the ghost’s robes with one hand to wrap an arm around him, helping to lower him gently to the ground.
“Forgive, your highness.”
The ghost looks ashamed somehow, as though it’s /his/ fault that Xie Lian shook him to the point of unbalance, /his/ fault that, after three months in the ghosts tireless body, Xie Lian failed to account for the weakness of his own still healing flesh. Abruptly Xie Lian is furious with himself, furious with himself for hurting this ghost as the world as hurt hm, for forgetting that this ghost, alone among the world, is kind, and there for this ghost alone deserves his kindness.
He has no idea what to do with the ghost’s words, no idea how to even begin to understand them. What does he mean he wants to take Xie Lian’s place??? What does he mean he wants to White No Face to think he’s Xie Lian??? He should know how dangerous that would be! How much pain that will cause him! Is he lying?? Trying to trick Xie Lian into letting him close to his parents? Does he have some other motive? Or could he… Could he…
Xie Lian can’t understand it, can’t process it, can’t…
He can’t.
So he doesn’t.
He pushes the thoughts away, focuses on the matter at hand.
The ghost is still recovering, still hurt, weak, exhausted.
He needs care.
“Have you eaten?”
The ghost shakes his head and starts to rise.
Xie Lian pushes him back down.
“Rest. I will get you food.”
The ghosts eyes widen.
“Your highness should not.”
“It’s my body.” Xie Lian reminds him and at that ghost relaxes back.
His head dropping back into the dirt. The sight is upsetting to Xie Lian in ways that have nothing to do with the sight of his own hair in the dirt so he strips off his over robe and places it beneath the ghost’s head as a pillow. The ghost looks as though he’s about to abject but then he catches himself and relaxes again, allowing Xie Lian to shift his head onto the folded fabric.
That done Xie Lian rises to his feet and looks down at the body that is his and yet not his.
“You’ll stay there?”
The ghost within Xie Lian’s flesh nods.
“Good.”
That’s… That’s good…
With that Xie Lian spins on his heal and turns away into the forest to find the ghost something to eat. He will focus on that right now, he decides, focus on caring for the ghost, on nursing him back to health, and he will do his best thing of nothing else, especially not the ghost’s strange words, or the even stranger things they seem to do his heart.