Work Text:
One of the windows in Xie Yun's tower overlooks a meadow with a cheerful brook. The meadow blooms with wildflowers as soon as the snow melts away, dots of white and yellow and blue that bring a busy crowd of bees and swooping swallows out of the surrounding forest. The little reading nook by the window is Xie Yun's favorite place in the tower room that he has been locked in since he was delivered into the hands of the Chen dynasty as a small boy.
There aren't many books in the tower. He has memorized the neat stack of them that sit on the floor, and though he is sometimes successful in convincing the guards to bring him a new book, he does not have nearly enough reading material to fill his long days perched beside the eastern window. Xie Yun marks the days in knotted string, unravelled from an old robe. Every five days, he carefully snips one strand of his hair, allowing himself a new story.
This is the bizarre side-effect of the potion the old enuch in the palace gave him to save his life when he was young: Whenever Xie Yun cuts a strand of his hair, a book slowly unfurls in his mind, the words transmuting themselves into his memory in whatever increments he stops to listen. Not all of the texts are books, strictly speaking. There are military reports, histories of different regions, accounts of travels to different cities, plays, poetry, medicinal recipes, and everything else that could conceivably be of value to a library. As a child, he thought it was his family keeping him company. When he was a little older, he thought the texts were different accounts written by his ancestors.
Based on the conversations he has overheard from the guards, though, and his own conversations - if one can call them such - with the emperor and officials of the Chen dynasty, Xie Yun has believed for some years now that the texts he hears are the ones locked within Hai Tian Yi Se - the mysterious treasure trove that the Chen dynasty has been seeking ever since the Xiao palace burned, and the reason that Xie Yun counts his days in a tower instead of lying beneath the cold ground.
It is said that only someone of the Xiao bloodline can unlock the seals on Hai Tian Yi Se's hiding place. Xie Yun has no idea if that is true. There is little he can do about it either way. He supposes he is grateful for the rumor, grateful enough for the drifting life that he leads. He prepares simple meals with the rations they send up. He watches the migrating geese, and the deer that sometimes venture past the treeline and drink at the stream. He dreams of adventure and romance, travels and heroism. He rereads his books, luxuriates in each new text that he absorbs every five days, and dabbles in composing plays of his own. On the days that the dragon is in a good mood, Xie Yun converses with Shen Tianshu, who may be his keeper and his father's betrayer, but at least has a sharp enough mind to make decent conversation.
~
One day, in late spring, Xie Yun is jolted from his latest composition by Shen Tianshu's roar. He runs to the northern window, and sees that the dragon is hounding a small figure on the ground, with little success. It's no one he recognize from this distance, not that there is anyone left in the world who would come for him, but any enemy of Shen Tianshu's is likely to be a friend of his. Xie Yun pulls the small flute he had painstakingly carved last winter out from its hiding place under his mattress and starts to play a composition he had learned from the repository of texts. It is supposed to have a sedative effect on magical creatures. He has never had occasion to test it, since he has never had the slightest chance of getting anywhere without help.
Shen Tianshu roars in outrage when he hears the flute. The cat's out of the bag, Xie Yun supposes, and keeps playing. The dragon's movements do seem to be slowing down. Shen Tianshu veers towards Xie Yun's window, making him step back in alarm, but the dragon abruptly crashes back to the ground. His snout wrinkles in a snarl as he succumbs to the sleeping spell.
"Quick, up here!" Xie Yun calls to the blue-cloaked figure on the ground. "The guards will come soon, unless you hide. If you're going to run, you should do it now."
"How am I possibly meant to get up there?" the person on the ground calls. It's a young woman's voice, scornful, but less malicious than anyone else Xie Yun has talked to in years.
"Here, climb up!" Xie Yun responds, leaning out the window and throwing down the end of his long braid.
There are shouts in the distance, presumably from the guards who had heard Shen Tianshu's roar, and after a moment's hesitation the woman takes hold of the braid and climbs up. Just in time.
Xie Yun quickly guides her under the bed, stows away his flute, and arranges himself casually at the east-facing window. He tries not to think about her incredulous scowl or her skilled swordsmanship or her startlingly beautiful face. It's like something out of an epic play.
~
The guards are consoled and fooled and sent away in due time. As soon as they leave, the woman pushes herself out from under his bed.
"What are you doing up here?" she demands.
"Ah, you see, yingxiong, it's a long story. I would love to tell you the story! But, we should probably get out of here first. Shen Tianshu will probably wake up soon. And he won't be happy to see either of us."
"You know the dragon's name?"
"As you can see, I'm kept in this tower! And Shen Tianshu is here to keep me company - and keep me in the tower."
"And who are you?" the woman asks, guarded yet forthright.
"This humble one is Xie Yun," he responds, clasping his hands to bow. "Does this yingxiong have a name?"
"I'm Zhou Fei," she says curtly. "And I'm not a hero, just passing by."
"Well, Zhou-daxia is my hero," Xie Yun beams. "Perhaps I can be of assistance to Zhou-daxia in leaving this tower? Only, I beg that Zhou-daxia consider taking me with you, so that this dragon does not kill me right away when he wakes up."
"Fine," Zhou Fei huffs. "Let's get on with it."
~
They climb down the tower together, taking turns holding onto any outcropping in the wall while the other uses Xie Yun's braid to lower themselves along the outside of the tower. They have just made it to the ground when Shen Tianshu wakes up.
Zhou Fei leaps into action before the dragon can draw breath to roar. She attacks him fearlessly, and Xie Yun fumbles for his flute to help. Shen Tianshu's movements quickly grow sluggish, but he is not famed for nothing, and the poisoned spines on his wings graze Zhou Fei's arm before he collapses once more.
"Zhou-daxia!" Xie Yun cries out in alarm.
"I'm fine," she hisses. "Keep it down, let's go. Which way are we going?"
Following the deer tracks that Xie Yun has noted in his many years observing the forest's patterns of rustling brush, they make it around the far side of some cliffs before they make camp for the night. Xie Yun does his best to treat Zhou Fei's wound with a poultice from one of the medicinal books. Her arm should heal well, but there is no cure on hand for Shen Tianshu's poison.
"Only Nichang-furen's Floating Wave spell can cure a dragon's poison," Xie Yun tells Zhou Fei. "It is said that her troupe is based in Hengyang. We should go there and see if we can find them. Otherwise, this poison will accumulate, and it will weaken and kill you in less than a year."
~
The pair of them make their way to Hengyang in fits and starts. Between Zhou Fei's blade and Xie Yun's well of knowledge, they make it through their scrapes with the Chen Dynasty officials and other miscreants.
They meet Zhou Fei's cousins along the way, along Li Yan and Li Sheng's new friends, who gradually become Xie Yun's friends as well. He's never had friends. Not unless you count the books, or the dragon who kept him prisoner, or the pair of birds who made their nest ouside the northern window one year. Having friends is nice. Seeing cities and mountains that he has only heard of in old travel journals is also nice, even if all of these things are temporary.
Once they meet up with Li Sheng and Wu-xiaojie, it comes out pretty quickly that Xie Yun is, technically, Xiao Chuan, who has no business being alive. They're all good-natured about still calling him Xie Yun. Zhou Fei doesn't seem to care at all, which rather explains how he'd gotten away with telling her so little about himself before now.
The conversation with Li Sheng and Wu-xiaojie also reveals that the Chen Dynasty has been seeking the last few tokens of Hai Tian Yi Se, three of which are in the hands of their little group. The locket, the bracelet, and the horsetail whisk are all such innocuous little things. The people they meet on their travels whisper of Hai Tian Yi Se containing a dark secret, or a mysterious paradise, or slumbering army, or a castle full of spirits. Xie Yun is fairly certain that those in the upper echelons of the Chen Dynasty palace do not believe such things, but in truth, it matters little.
The people they meet on their travels say that the Chen Dynasty has become greedy and unscrupulous in recent years, demanding more tribute in terms of taxes and conscripts, though no one knows to what end. What do you expect, people mutter, shaking their heads. Royals will do as they wish, after all. Xie Yun thinks back on his conversations with Shen Tianshu, and the wider-ranging tales he has brought back of him and his brethren's travels the past few years, and wonders what they are looking for. In the end, that, too, matters little, at least to Xie Yun. There is a sense in which his loyalty lies with the common folk who they meet in each town and hamlet, since he has been firmly instructed by most (though not all) of his book-based teachers that the duty of the emperor is to the people under Heaven. But there is a much more real sense in which Xie Yun's loyalty is to Zhou Fei, the woman who rescued him, who is unflinchingly committed to doing right by the people around her.
After a few months of travelling, they finally find Chenfei and the rest of the disciples from the 48 Strongholds, who Zhou Fei was looking for when she came across Shen Tianshu and the tower. Fate is fickle, Xie Yun thinks to himself, sitting with them around the fire that evening. He always believed that his fate was a short and simple one, but it has twined with those of the people gathered here who call him by his chosen name, and that connection warms and terrifies him in equal measure.
~
The poison in Zhou Fei's veins takes a while to make itself known. The first few months, it is not noticeable at all, save for an uneven fluttering that can be found in her qi if you know how to look. By the time the wheat starts to ripen and the summer leaves grow dusty, however, Zhou Fei is easily winded and needs to spend time recovering after each fight. They all depend on her to defeat their most skilled opponents, but for the smaller skirmishes, Xie Yun desperately pleads her to stay back and leave the fighting to Yang Jin and Li Sheng. He hates to ask anything of her, content to serve and admire her as a distant friend, but he cannot bear the thought of her coming to further harm. Zhou Fei getting poisoned in the fight with Shen Tianshu is his fault, no matter what the others say. His highest goal is to save her life before the price on his head catches up with him.
Something more sinister than war is coming on the wind. Perhaps it is to do with Hai Tian Yi Se, perhaps something else. They discuss the rumors and troop movements long into the night, many campfires burning to embers, but nothing Xie Yun surfaces from his deep memory can tell them what has the Chen Dynasty's people roiling and fearful. There has been a drought in the east, and the harvest will be poor. An avalanche in the northern mountains swallows entire villages and declines to yield them back up. It is decided that Li Sheng, Li Yan, and their companions need to go back to the 48 Strongholds to seek the advice of Chief Li Jinrong and the famed Gantang-gong.
Xie Yun and Zhou Fei break away from the rest of the group and head for Hengyang. There is no time to lose in finding Nichang-furen. They arrive in Hengyang right before the first snowfall, when the frost is crackling under their feet every morning as they near the city. Xie Yun thanks every prince in Heaven that the directions he knows for how to find the Feather Robe Troupe are still correct.
He is prepared to offer everything he has or is to Nichang-furen in exchange for her aid for Zhou Fei. His words, his service. His life. The price on his head. In the end, the detailed explanation she insists on is long, but she agrees to help them as thanks for the information he has shared about the workings of the Chen Dynasty and his recitation of an obscure text about poisons sourced from across the sea. Xie Yun keeps watch at Zhou Fei's bedside for the long days that it takes her to fully recover, sleeping on a mat on her floor against all objections about propriety. He is deeply grateful for each easy breath that she takes.
Nichang-furen says that she and her disciples have several things to follow up on with the Chen Dynasty. She sends them on their way, telling them that she will be in touch. No need to worry about setting up a meeting - she will find them when she needs to.
~
They regroup with Li Sheng, Li Yan, and the others during the middle of the spring floods. It has been a year since Xie Yun left the tower. It is a year more than Xie Yun thought he would have. He is grateful above all that this thread of happenstance and kindness binds him to Zhou Fei, an excuse for him to follow her to the ends of the earth, an obvious debt that saves him from needing to explain his devotion. He would have loved her if they met in the street, like real people do. He would have loved her if they met in battle. He would have loved her if he were a fish on her line, would have loved her like rivers love their ports, as his reason for existing.
A dragon's shadow passes overhead one day. They are deep in a bamboo forest, hidden from the sky, and the shadow circles once before flying on. Zhou Fei has to hold Xie Yun for long moments as he shakes, curled in a ball on the ground, terrified and paralyzed by the thought of being snatched away. He thought he knew to expect it, sooner or later. It does not make the fear any easier. Zhou Fei presses him to her chest, her hand cradling the back of his head, as she whispers fervent promises to kill anyone who dares to try and take him from her side.
~
Xie Yun clings to that promise weeks later, locked in a cell guarded by Shen Tianshu. He is the son of an emperor, born to bow to no one. He draws on that knowledge to keep his head high. He is dear to Zhou Fei, he holds in his ribs a hero's promise to come save him, and he draws on that fierce belief to keep breathing day by day. Hai Tian Yi Se has been opened. The Chen Dynasty has no need for his life any longer, save that his friends hold several critical items from the mountain in their hands. Zhou Fei will come for him, Xie Yun is certain of it, and he only hopes that his rescue does not come at her cost.
His beloved does not keep him waiting for long.
After two days and two nights, on the third day, Xie Yun finds a small wooden flute hidden in the blanket they bring him. Stitched in the seam of the fabric are two characters. Moonrise.
And so he plays their melody at moonrise. Shen Tianshu is already half asleep, and he plays as quietly as he is able, slowly lulling the dragon into a full slumber. Moments later, Zhou Fei appears by his cell, a deity in the dim moonlight. She produces a key to his cell.
"Are you hurt?" she whispers.
"No, A-Fei," he replies. "I am well. You came."
"Of course I came. Xie Yun, I can't stay, and we can't get you out tonight. I have much to tell you. We only have until the moon sets."
~
It is only by chance that the text sought by the dragons fell into the hands of his friends. It is, Zhou Fei explains, a summoning ritual that would bind the wealth of the Chen Dynasty to a dragon's lifeforce, making them near immortal, in return for their service to the Chen army. Xie Yun memorizes the text as the moon tracks across the sky. Zhou Fei holds him as he reads, his back pressed to her chest, and he feels invincible with her heartbeat reverberating through him.
They have a little bit of time left when he finishes committing the text to memory. Xie Yun begs Zhou Fei to love him, on this one night that they have together. She agrees.
~
The sun is high when Zhou Fei comes to demand that Xie Yun be freed. He takes comfort in her presence. He watches her take comfort in his, as well.
Unbeknownst to Shen Tianshu, Xie Yun is working from a trove of texts far greater than anything he could have memorized in one evening or read in a year, books that no one has seen in decades and which are just starting to be catalogued from the spoils under the mountain. He has been preparing all of his life to weaponize the most coveted text sought by Shen Tianshu and the dragons under his command.
Together, Zhou Fei and Xie Yun kill a dragon. It is the beginning of the end, and the end of the beginning.
Xie Yun cuts his hair for the first time he can remember, and no words wash over him as the braid falls to the floor. He looks up from the mirror that Zhou Fei is holding for him, and smiles.
~
Nichang-furen's messenger finds them in the 48 Strongholds. She is unmoved by the impenetrable wards and the swords that are leveled at her throat as soon as Zhou Fei calls out in alarm.
"I come with word from the Feather Robe Troupe," she says evenly. "The emperor is dead. So is most of his court. Chen Zichen, the third prince, is next in line for the throne. It appears that he knew nothing of his father's schemes. Junwang," she says to Xie Yun, "my mistress says to tell you that, only this once, she will wait on your command."
~
Chen Zichen takes the throne. Xie Yun has never met him, which is a strong mark in his favor, given the nature of his encounters with those in the Chen palace. The young man is easily confused, but seems good-hearted. They set him up with several advisors who are firmly under Nichang-furen's thumb, and who pay deference to Gantang-gong's guidance.
Zhou Fei and Xie Yun are married by an old fisherman who has known Zhou Fei since she was a child, and who served Xie Yun's father in matters he refuses to share.
"It was a long time ago," he says. "These bones of mine are old, and if I want to have the strength to fish, I must put some things down. Those matters have all been laid in the past. Xie Yun," he says, turning to him, "I am sure you understand."
They leave the 48 Strongholds shortly after the festivities are over. Every night for the rest of their lives, Zhou Fei asks Xie Yun if he wants to sleep under the stars. Sometimes he says yes. Usually, it is impractical, and he likes a warm bed as much as the next person, especially if he can share it with Zhou Fei. But every night, Zhou Fei asks, and every day Xie Yun walks free under the open sky.