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On starry summer nights when the cicadas and heat made it impossible to sleep, my mother used to sit on the porch, feet in a basin of cool water, and peel lotus seeds for me and my brother to eat while she told us stories. Beneath the low-hanging moon, above the chorus of crickets and frogs, the sky would unfold like a map of all days and open up the vastness of this world and beyond.
I remember being told how the stars hold all knowledge and all possibilities, how all things are laid out among the tiny spots of light that looked, I thought, like dust mites dancing in golden sunlight. I was told how the sky knows all things and nothing will ever surprise it because it knew before we were born how our lives would tumble out. How we would tumble into each other. How we would- no, how we will! - shake the very earth to its foundations with the eyes of a god that ties us both to each other and to so much more. We are the beams of starlight amongst blue-gray shadows. We are the strings that tie the universe together.
My mother used to tell us of the couple across an endless river - unable to meet, condemned to an eternity of sorrow and longing. I used to wonder why they didn’t just walk away from each other and find someone else to love. Surely, I thought, it’s easier to move on?
I was wrong.
Now I understand why they couldn’t walk away. I understand why spending forever apart is better than abandoning the one you love. I understand why they never walked away.
I thought I knew what love was when I first began training with the Guhua Clan. I was wrong. Maybe what I felt was passion, or excitement, or joy, but it was you who taught me what love has the potential to be. Sometimes I look at you and see the infinite possibilities of who you might have been if something, no matter how small, had been different. I look into myself, sometimes, and see what I might have become, how I might not be who I am now. And every time, I am immensely grateful that you are yourself and I am mine, and we are together. I can think of nothing more I could possibly want than that.
Sometimes I look at what could have been and what has, and I can never find anything I want to change about us. We are the hero who slew the suns and the lady in the moon, tied to each other by choice and by fate. Who can tell which of the two is stronger? I am the least worthy of speaking for Celestia, but I believe that even if we were held captive by divinity, I would not and could not love you less than I do now. The ties that bind us are ones I run my fingers over and pray will never break or fray.
Perhaps, a thousand generations from now, on hot summer nights when frogs croak and crickets chorus, children will see the moon and think not of the immortal Jade Rabbit who lives there, but of us, who have so deeply and so freely loved each other. Maybe they will look at the river of stars across the indigo night and think not of the bridge of blackbirds and salt of endless tears, but of us, and how each point of silver light is part of a constellation that spans both this realm and the next, spelling out how our willingness and the mysterious hand of destiny intertwined for our sakes. Maybe they will tell stories to their children on starry nights like this one, about us.
Even if none of those things were to happen, that would not and could never change what we have now. Even if nobody remembers our story, even if our names fade to dust, even if history and time slowly grind away any legacy we could hope to leave and erode even the foundation of Liyue Harbor, nothing will stop me from loving you with my whole heart as I do now.
The immensity of the world sometimes scares me. The ever-shifting ripples of time, slipping away like water through cupped hands or sand in an hourglass, are not merciful nor selective. Sometimes I feel hopeless and lost in despair, because if there is so much evil in this world, what can I possibly hope to do to stop it? But then you are the one who reminds me that even if we one day dissolve like salt in water and are blown away by the gentlest of breezes, that which we have now is still real and those who we helped are proof we were here.
There is a happy ending to the separated couple’s story. When a flock of blackbirds hears weeping, they take pity on the couple and and agree to form a bridge so the two lovers can meet - but only once a year, when the water is lowest. The story ends there, leaving the mixture of hope and sorrow that is life on the listener's lips. I used to think that a year was too long to wait for anyone, no matter how much they mean to you, but I was wrong. For you, I will wait as long as I need to. Centuries, eons, eternity - nothing will be too long. I will wait forever, and then some, because I know you and I are irrevocably connected to each other.
If you promise to remain yourself and I promise to remain mine, even the relentless erosion of infinity will be nothing at all to withstand if we are by each other’s sides. What hope could any immortal have when what lies within us is so much more than anything without?
Forever yours,
Xingqiu
PS - Chongyun told me that Xiangling got a visit from Beidou the other day and a batch of new ingredients. He didn’t say what, so shall we meander by Wanmin today and plead urgent business if it turns out to be some inedible concoction? And, well - if “urgent business” turns out to be a leisurely visit to Wanwen Bookhouse, then nobody needs to know but us.