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Once, there were trees full of birds.
Luo Binghe remembers them clearly. He remembers the gentle rustling of bamboo leaves, the dancing of shadow and light as sunlight poked through the canopy. He can feel the breeze, crisp and cool in the morning, and he can taste the fresh mountain air.
If he closes his eyes, he can see the pastel green hues of Shizun’s robes as he plucked at his guqin, as his gentle smile suffused Luo Binghe’s heart with hot embers. Shizun’s hands were always so delicate yet firm and strong, his scent so subtle yet noticeable, his movements graceful yet concealing great strength and skill.
Luo Binghe’s dreams often center around his kind, gentle Shizun. Tranquility, peace, a sense of belonging that he hasn’t felt in years, the kind that wraps around him like a blanket and quiets his ire, his anger, the darkness that’s settled in his heart and doesn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon.
But the thing about dreams, you see, is that they’re ephemeral, always fleeing at the first sign of waking. They flitter away like birds, water that he cannot grasp, sand that slips through his fingers no matter how hard he tries to cup the precious memories in his grasp. They evaporate in the gentle morning rays…
And he wakes, flowers withering to ashes, birds silenced in their trees. Sometimes, he can hold on to those memories for a few more seconds, but he always awakens.
There is a cold, lifeless body lying beside him. Pale, emotionless, only a ghost of what was the kindest, or perhaps cruelest, soul Luo Binghe had ever met.
As he caresses that pale cheek, he wonders if he’s just imprisoning himself within a hopeless dream. Is he a plaything of his dreams, fiends of his own conjuring? Perhaps he’s only deceiving himself, that his Shizun would be happy when he awakens to see Luo Binghe’s face, that Shizun would even want to return to the land of the living.
That his Shizun even loved him in the first place.
When daylight touches the mortal realm, he fights and rages against his fate. He clashes against immortals, past comrades and peers, people he once called acquaintances. His blade sings, wailing out his master’s grievances against the cruel, unjust world that has taken his Shizun from him. He tells himself lies, he buries his head in his own delusions, reaching for a rapidly dimming light. Desperate to bring back the only thing that was ever important to him. Reaching, stretching, but never grasping.
And he realizes, when he lies on his bed, after blood has been shed and lives lost to death, with his head against a chest that may never breathe again, fingers skimming over unyielding skin, he realizes that he has accomplished nothing. The ghosts of his delusions come back, invading his sleep, and he’s haunted again.
Where is his Shizun? Why has he not awoken yet? Would he be pleased to find that Luo Binghe’s grown into a strong man, or will he be disgusted and throw him away like trash? He’s trapped in a nightmare, a cruel cycle of memories and reality.
All that he has left, in the end, after all the battles are done with, after all challengers turned away and duties handled, all he has left are nightmares that lay him down. He mourns for his Shizun. Nights spent beside his body cripple him with grief. His dreams carry him away, cruel in how gentle they are, to a better time in the past.
And though he strives, and oh does he strive, to keep his belief alive, that his Shizun will return to his arms happily…
…well. He doesn’t dare imagine losing his Shizun to the immortal, grasping claws of death. He twists himself further in the veils of deceit, only a puppet to his past dreams and his own desperate desire.
Around him falls his ashes of dreams.