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Why is there eternal sorrow, nobody to share eternity with. Nobody to watch the evening skies, unbound, endlessly. Nobody to calmly walk into the rising sun.
Why is there eternal lonelyness, everybody just passing by, glances of lifes. A flower that withers between the pages two and three.
Eternal mountains eternal skies, even the rivers change with seasons. The watcher stays, just like the stars, unreached, so very far away. A lonely light in the dark.
Fleeting is the smile, withered away the passion, the storms have calmed before the might of time. What is his purpose, what the meaning of eternity. Is it just the essence of the lonely, sad heart, that will never stop beating?
Kingdoms crumbled, allliances were formed, humanity rose and fell, nothing more but a story to tell, a tale so sweet and sad, that heavens cry.
There is nothing left in the world for him to see or experience, there is only his tired soul in a sky of withering flowers. When he lifts his gaze he sees the setting sun, the world painted in red.
He closes the book, his duty is done. What will become of him? The only thing left, the only thing that means hope and mercy to him, this gate before him. A gate between space and time, the only thing that is unexplored.
And as he leaves the world, it stops for a second, then continues without him. Until the last dawn of destruction it will revolve. A lonely planet in a universe of worlds.
Why is there eternal sorrow? Why does it have to be this lonely, this eternity?
When he opened his eyes there was a fresh new world before him. A wind, that he did not feel, a sun, that touched his face, with unknown warmth.
Just a world, he thought. A world like every other.
Soon he discovered, that this worlds rules were a little bit different then what he knew. But humans still were humans, the skies were skies and nature did, what it was supposed to do.
The wind rustled in the leaves above while he took a stroll through the bamboo woods, never knowing to where his path would lead him.
He did not fear the humans, nor did he fear the animals. Although some of them seemed a lot more dangerous, he knew how to hide well, to go unseen although they were within his reach. A gift and a curse, to become invisble to life. No. To be invisible for death.
Although he searched far and wide, death was never one to find him and the one occassion in which their gazes met, only lasted for a dying breath. Not his, of course.
Although he was tired of interfering and of watching, he soon became curious towards how the human structures were working here in this new world and so he decided to mingle with the mortal crowd. He was just here to observe. Just watching, that was what he told himself.
Two days later he was accustomed enough to his sourroundings to begin with interacting. He had quite the handsome face – mostly due to the fact, that he was immortal, his time frozen in the best moment possible – long, black hair, that flowed down his back like a smooth river. He even managed to learn how the hairstyles of men worked in this time period. With his long robes he mixed in quite well with the masses. Although he still seemed more like a noble person than a commoner. Somehow he liked to stay true to his habitual dressing style, which had a lot in common with what he currently wore. The main colour was white, accompanied by a dark, pleaseant to look at, green. His belt and sash were also a colour of white and a lighter green. All in all he was quite pleasent to look at.
The thing that stood out the most was not his way of looking incredibly tidy and well dressed, but the slightly pointed ears, high cheekbones, his fair and very light skin colour, that contrasted very well with his emerald green, eyes. The aura of sadness, that seemed to sorround him made him look almost like an immortal god, that fell from heaven.
Not even a day after this appearence this caused a lot of interest in the city he first visited, he noticed, that he would have to look a little bit more mortal and conceal his aura way better then before. This reduced the amount of people staring at him to a point that wasn't as uncomfortable, although some of them still asked if he was one of the immortal cultivators, that roamed this lands.
He learned quite a lot about cultivating since he set foot into this world, but he did not consider himself a cultivator. Not only did he not interfere with problems like curses or undead things, he did not even have a weapon to fight with. All of the cultivators he met – although „took a glance upon“ might be the more correct description – seemed to carry at least a sword or sabre with them. This was mostly related to the fact, that he simply avoided fights and had even more chances to get out of one unharmed then the average person, that was able to handle a sword.
It was not, that he had no experience with weapons. He had indeed a lot of experience with bows and swords and some other things, but this phase of his life was just a blink in the eye of eternity. He couldn't even remember clearly when he last used a sword to fight. There had been a lot of peaceful days for him that did not need any weapons.
When he met the kids, that slept in the streets and fought with the rabid dogs for food, he felt nothing. When he met the richer part of the humans living in this city, who were indulging in food and women, he felt nothing. No tear, no cry, no laughter could reach him. When he stopped in the shadow of an old tree to rest, he asked himself if he really grew numb to everything. Was his detachment really this bad?
The god of this – and all the other worlds - looked down upon this immortal being. He saw a little girl, that was smiling happily and then gifted this immortal a beautiful little flower, saying something sweet before she hopped off like a little, newborn rabbit.
And maybe he was the only one, that saw the hint of a smile upon those never withering lips.
Maybe there was still hope for this one.
It might have or not have been the flower girls doing, but the immortal was quite in a good mood today. When he continued his stroll he was almost humming to himself, lost in thought, when he suddenly heard a voice, that seemed to call out for him.
„Young master!“
When he turned to the one who spoke he was surprised to find a group of young looking cultivators in front of him. Judging by their light blue to white robes and their forehead ribbons with clouds they were definitely not the cultivators from around here. They saluted to him, he returned the salut while he examined them curiously.
„I'm Lan Sizhui and this are my brothers. We are from Gusu Lan Sect and not familliar with this town. Maybe you can help us and show us the way?“
The young cultivator then asked for the directions to one of the many inns in this part of town.
„The streets are quite confusing around here, I'll simply show you the way.“, he replied.
„Thank you, young master!“
Lan Sizhui saluted again, visibly relieved.
„Please call me Xian Xiao.“
„Gusu is quite the way from here...“, he startet the conversation while guiding them.
„Yes, we are on excursion for a few days.“
That did not explain everything Xiao wanted to know but he wouldn't ask further.
„So it's your first time visiting. The River can be quite beautiful in the evening and there are a lot of places with good food near the docks too.“
With this and other normal topics they continued talking until they reached their destination. The Inn sat neatly in a quieter part of town, it even had a small backyard in which an old Jujube-tree was growing. In front of the Inn were two people, wearing the same distinguished Gusu Lan Sect outfit. Both of them were good looking and they were definitely related to ech other. If it weren't for their different styles and auras he would have thought to look upon two undistinguishable twins.
„Hanguan-jun and Zewu-jun!“
„Thank you for guiding us.“
All of the Gusu Lan Sect disciples saluted, Xiao returned the salut.
„My pleasure.“
So this are the famous twin-jades of Lan, he thought to himself, while he watched the youngsters rushing over to the two men which definitely wore an even more noble and calm expression than them. One of them, he seemed to carry something large on his back additional to his sword, looked in his direction and they exchanged a quick glance, before Xiao vanished into the crowd of people again. This man seemed to have kind of a frosty attitude, by all means, Xiao almost felt like he would physically freeze if he came too close.
Silently shaking his head and sighing to himself his steps brought him automatically back to the marketplace. Today seemed to be a good opportunity to listen for rumors and maybe learning a little bit more about the cultivators prensence in this city.
For two of the most famous cultivators to appear here with a bunch of disciples, it must mean, that something really interesting was going on.