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Immortality was not supposed to exist. In lifetimes, generations, dynasties, everything had a finite span. Humans were not supposed to be different — ever. To do so would have been a blasphemy against the gods that had shaped the earth through wind and flame, tide and quake.
The myths would never say it, but Chang’e had swallowed the pill as a challenge. It wasn’t supposed to be magic; it was not supposed to grant her a life with no end, phases to turn for infinity.
Houyi had been away, the demon had preyed upon her, and she had thought she would be stronger and smarter than any trick.
She did not mean to, but she became a goddess.
And it was a curse. Thought it had not felt like one at first.
Until Houyi died in her arms.
The myth never told that story either.
Going to the moon had seemed like the only option left. If she could not find a way to bring Houyi back to life on earth, then she would defy the heavens and surpass them. Surely the gods of the moon would see her plight; they would know she had traveled so far and reward her for her persistence, for the strength of her love.
But the moon had been empty. No thrones, no kingdoms, no villages, no spirits. No gods to grant her a boon for her journey.
The only thing Chang’e had was Jade — her rabbit companion — and the magic that brimmed around her fingertips ever since the day she had become immortal.
Yet she was a powerless god. She could bring moondust to life and shape creatures and bring them alive — but they were not human. The only thing about them that brought her joy was that they adored her, these little lunar children that were so colorful and plentiful. ”My little lunettes,” she would say, ”may you shine even when I cannot.”
And when Chang’e sang, they would listen with the most rapturous looks. To them, she was life-giver and goddess and truth and beauty. The moon would have been empty without Chang’e. If earth had its fathers, then the moon had Chang’e as its mother.
It was so easy to pretend the earth did not exist when she could shine so bright on her own.
It should have been easy to forget the life of a mortal wife, the waiting and pining, the utter helplessness as Houyi provided protection and shelter and bounty.
Houyi should have been easy to forget.
But he was not. Because, no matter her power, she had not been able to do anything to save him.
Singing helped her forget. When a song passed through her lips, she had no thought for anything else. When long nights had plagued her as a mortal woman, the only thing that had calmed her was singing to herself, to the garden, to the whispering trees as they shook with the night breeze.
Houyi had loved when she had sung, no matter what melody or words came to her. As his frail and aged body had nestled in her arms that last night, she had sung him a goodbye song. A song of promise, a song that held all her belief that they would one day meet again. When his eyes closed, she might have been able to convince herself he was just sleeping, but her magic sensed the loss, like a candle flame sputtering out and taking away all warmth and light.
Any other woman might have been able to move on, but it was a long life. Death was not possible for her; she could not have followed Houyi onward to an afterlife even if she had tried to do so. The only recourse was that faraway path to the moon.
It was easy to ascend when all her thoughts were of returning Houyi to her side as soon as she could.
But the moon was a loveless land when she arrived. Cold, desolate, eerie. Only as she willed it did color come to splash against the landscape. Lunaria was born from her wildest imaginings, all the things she dreamed of and wished for — and even things she had never consciously considered.
”Houyi,” Chang’e would say as if he still stood beside her, ”when you return, this will be our sanctuary.”
She did not need earth with its time limits and pain and woe. Even trees, flowers, plants of all nature of beauty could not defy the eventual destruction of time.
Chang’e would watch the earth from afar and wonder why she had ever thought she had been happy there. On the moon, there was no war. On earth, joy did not always rule the day. Here, she could dance and sing and twirl among her admirers that would never say a word against her. On earth, she had been a young girl who had always been told what to do, how to act, what to say. Even her life with Houyi had been colored by his wants and whatever manifested in his life.
She missed her true love, but she did not miss the chains that came with love on earth.
Lunaria blossomed and flourished with Chang’e’s graces. Only when sadness entered her eyes did there come a great darkness over the luminous landscape of the moon.
The moon might have been the perfect place to live if Chang’e did not act as the worst natural disaster to hit the lunar homestead.
Only when the tide of her sadness passed did song flutter anew from her lips. The stars were witness as the lights again flowed to vibrance, as if their very roots were connected to the lifeblood of Chang’e.
”Watch me,” Chang’e would say as she stepped forward for another performance, another opportunity to be adored while she tried to ignore the holes in her heart. ”The universe knows nothing like me.”
And then she would sing as if she were the very center of every galaxy.