Work Text:
Xiao’er is a nocturnal child. That’s fine, Baoshan Sanren lets her students make their own schedules.
Amid the rolling dark he prowls the mountain, a little specter in white. Humans don’t have eyeshine the way that most animals do. Years of cultivation training have given him sharper night vision, a green cast behind his eyes. That extra skill makes his eyes flash green, not red, when he lifts his lantern. Though not necessary, the lantern is important for warning off other night wanderers, the leopards, dhole, squirrels, and owls.
Wild animals give him distance and he returns the favor. Moving lightly through the world means abiding by a system of mutual respect; besides, he’s grown too big to ride the wandering deer the way he did as a smaller child.
These days if he wants to climb to the top of the mountain he must do so himself.
It’s not an impossible climb but it does take most of the evening. Rocky paths of such incline require extra time after nightfall. This mountain was deserted before Baoshan Sanren and her students came five years ago. They haven’t changed much of its topography, haven’t carved easier handholds into the stark stone or worn down wide thoroughfares. The paths he walks were made by stalking mountain leopards and nimble goats.
Narrow paths lead up to steep peaks. Eventually even the foliage gives way to bare rock.
He finds his favorite place to watch the world and settles down. Putting out his lantern, he lets his eyes adjust to the full dark. Once he’s wholly immersed the stars peek out from the raw dark firmament, one by one, until the sky is not a flat blanket but a textured immensity, stretching up forever, full of ten thousand lights.
Being trained in matters of fate and fortune, he can identify the four great divisions of the heavens (each associated with a sacred beast), the three enclosures of the north, the heavenly mansions of the moon, and many constellations besides. Right now the moon is in the Three Stars Mansions, they’re coming out of the territory of the White Tiger as Autumn fades, and— he checks the sky, craning his head— the star right above him is Cumulative Corpses. Not the most auspicious one, but he only gets to keep it for a moment. An hour earlier he thinks it would have been something in Well, maybe the Celestial Wine Cup.
Stars are beautiful and Xiao’er loves them. He loves the moon too, a waning slice growing thinner by the day, steady in its patterns. That isn’t all he came up here to see.
With the heavens well appreciated he turns his gaze to the stars below.
There are ancient temples nearby, his teacher chose one of the less used of the Wudang mountains which means that the more traversed peaks are very frequented indeed. Even in the deep night when everyone is sleeping, some lanterns still flicker, some fires still roar. This season is especially good for earth-watching, the midautumn festival was four days ago and the aftermath of the celebration still lingers. Bright red lanterns and an extra hum of activity carry through the temple, visible from miles away. He can see the small lights wind up and down the mountain top, an earthbound River to match the one above.
There are other earthly asterisms as well. Small tea farms dot the valleys below and the glow of their chimneys, of windows and banked fires, can be seen here and there. On a damp, cold night like this, fires are extra high and extra visible. On the very edge of the horizon is a whole village, a cluster of tiny white pinpricks against a world of dark.
He loves to see the lanterns. They prove that there are other people out there, something more than the mountain and Baoshan Sanren’s teachings. These barely visible stars are a reminder that there’s a world he cannot see.
When they moved mountains, he got a glimpse of the outside. He was six then, two years in Baoshan Sanren’s care and one of the youngest of her students. The old mountain, in the north, no longer served its purpose so all her younger pupils packed up and left. Walking hand-in-hand down long roads, they made their way from there to here. Even avoiding the big cities they couldn’t help but pass through a number of towns and while his siblings averted their eyes from the buzz of a world unruly, Xiao’er stared. When his little legs got too heavy and his sister had to carry him, he stared even more, taking advantage of his place on her shoulders to watch every merchant that passed with wide eyes.
Promises are promises. Xiao’er swore once that his request to come study meant that he would never leave. But he was four at the time, raised in a quiet temple. He didn’t know what the world meant. The priest brought Baoshan Sanren in, a new person with a bright exciting face, and said ‘Xiao’er, this is the famed immortal. If you wish to leave with her you can never return.’
Blindly, he’d accepted.
He wanted to know her and now he does. Now he wants to know more, wants to know what happens in those little light filled homes, what how people behind those bobbing lanterns act. Are they different from the twenty eight people he has known for the past seven years?
The lights, temple and home, above and below, go to and fro for hours until dawn finally breaks. Xiao’er loves the dawn too (he is free with his affections, easy and open as a child who has never known fear). Dawn gave him his name; Baoshan Sanren says it’s probably when the priests at the temple found him.
With just enough light to see by, he picks himself up and goes back home.
By the time he finishes the climb down, which is easier than the climb up but not by much, a fourth of his brothers and sisters are awake. Morning is the best time for chores. He’ll do his and then settle in for an afternoon nap.
“Did you enjoy the stars, Xiao’er?” asks a sister picking up buckets to fetch water. “The spider moon is always lovely.”
“You should have waited until the new moon, it’s much easier to see in the dark,” advises a brother who thinks he knows everything. Baoshan Sanren teaches wisdom, not social grace.
“Oh, no,” Xiao’er says, “I was looking at the earthly stars, from Mid-Autumn. They won’t last long.”
The older ones chuckle. “Earthly stars, Xiao’er, such a poet!”
“Stars of the earth?” he tries, which only makes them laugh harder.
“Xingchen,” she pinches his cheek. “Our terrestrial astronomer.”
The River of Heaven slants and the morning stars are low.
They have no interest in the outside world. To them the stars above, which influence the fates of men, are more important than those distant flickering lights which will never touch this hidden sanctuary. Xiao’er knows this, so he bears their teasing.
But his curiosity does not abate. He wants to walk among those thousand lanterns. He wants to touch those stars.