Chapter Text
“I am content to simply watch over you...”
A claymore; crafted from peachwood and varnished to a mirror shine, hung in the garden, suspended by thick, hand-woven ropes sieged with paper sigils. Despite the clouds drifting across the leaden sky, the terrace with the sword remained in perpetual, blinding sunshine.
“That is such a lonely existence don't you think, Auntie?”
“They named me Chongyun, for the layers of frost blue clouds crowding the horizon on the day I was born.”
He arrived to a special fanfare and priestly chants. A baby bursting with positive energy, so much so, he unwittingly banished the shadows in the birthing chamber. The lamps guttered, its flames extinguished and relit in a dramatic flourish. The boy, with a downy crown of pale blue hair, deafened his mother with loud, lusty cries.
“As a baby, I was constantly carried and waited upon. My parents were instructed in my upbringing by the high priests, for we were a branch family. Despite being exorcists and experts in the art of curses and demons, it felt like a shadow constantly hounded the compound.
“Not something evil, no...”
The sword in the garden swayed.
“But something secretive. Like it brought shame. A stain.”
Little Chongyun was never allowed to touch the floor. The best artisans in Liyue crafted his toys. One cloudy night, when the nursemaid rocked him to sleep and laid him in an antique cradle, she froze, a hand half-way to her mouth.
A snow white crane stood outside the window, watching the baby with piercing eyes. It raised its wings, flapped them and took to the skies, leaving a handful of feathers melting like snow to the ground.
The next day, news of an adepti's blessings raged through the compound. Gifts were discovered in unlikely places. An elderly grandfather, liver spots dotting his hand, went fishing in the pond one day and reeled up an hourglass filled with ice dust.
“There's the pond, it should still be there,” Chongyun pointed. A beat of time passed. “Oh, right, you can't see me pointing.”
Rain drizzled from above, splashing on leaves, pattering on the pavement. Strangely, it avoided the peachwood claymore.
While teething, Chongyun was allowed a ring of traditional, sterling silver. His clothes were of fine silk and soft linen held together by sashes sewn with tiny brass bells. He often sported a black felt hat, an imitation of the child princes belonging to Liyue royalty.
On the eve of his first birthday an adepti crane with plumage in autumn browns and reds arrived with gift of a crystal in its beak. The crystal's smoky interior writhed hypnotically and it cracked in Chongyun's presence. Mortified, the high priests ordered a purification at once while the adepti gracefully strutted around the baby on long, stilt-like legs and chirped lowly about The Conqueror of Demons.
The Conqueror of Demons frowned, his jade spear lay on the stone pavement, glimmering faintly.
“Are you offended?”
“Hmph,” came the cryptic reply.
The dawn after his first birthday arrived with falling leaves and a pleasant chill. It also brought a new surprise.
A red thread of fate looped around his chubby ankle.
His parents stared apprehensively at the thread. Oblivious, Chongyun rolled on his back, to a sitting position and tried to wobble upright. He gurgled and fell into his Father's arms.
They bathed him. Rubbed a multitude of essential oils. The radiating positivity ignited an aromatic candle on the dresser and released a cinnamon scent through the vast bedroom.
“Why is it on his ankle?” His mother playfully pulled his baby pink toes and Chongyun giggled. She checked her thread, a luxurious red bound faithfully to her husband, questing around the room. “We can't see who's on the other side, the thread disappears.”
“Perhaps some foreign princess?” the father joked, a glint of worry in ice-blue eyes. His shoulders drooped. “The High Priests will take him again.” Chongyun waved his arms in the air, his gaze tracking something unseen. “Can we cut the thread?”
“Dear!” Mother exclaimed, horrified. “You can't tamper with fate.”
“By the way, it wasn't some foreign princess.” The claymore seemed warm to the touch.
The High priests isolated Chongyun for six months. When he emerged, tottering on feet lovingly shod in silk slippers, the boy stared defiantly at the sun, his pupils constricted permanently.
“He looks like a cat.” Father placed Chongyun on his lap and settled on the shady veranda. The thread from the boy's ankle snaked underneath the house. “Chongyun, can you say Papa?”
Chongyun remained mute.
He continued eating a diet endorsed by the elders, full of hearty meat hunted from the barbarous, icy lands of Dragonspine and fish caught in the stormy banks of Inazuma. Fruit from Sumeru frequently graced his pallet. Chongyun braved the spices of Natlan and decided chilies and his mouth were incompatible.
“I want an ice-lolly,” were his first words.
The cleaning maid dropped a jade vase in shock. She gathered the household, the famed boy had spoken! In a minute, Chongyun; surrounded by well-wishers, curious onlookers, his parents vainly trying to extract him from the scene and the high priests hobbling on their gnarled walking canes, retracted his words and arranged them into something more fitting.
“Heart be pure, evil be erased. Mind be purged, world be..."
“Where did you learn that?!” Thundered the eldest of the elderly priests. His squinty eyes widened to impossible proportions, the whites visible and laced with crimson capillaries. The crowd parted and a space between the youngest and oldest opened up, the air fraught with tension.
“Um... ugh... I always forget the last part,” Chongyun mumbled. “I learnt it from-” the thread on his ankle wavered and he flinched when the priest wrapped it around the end of the cane and lifted it.
“Who is at the end of this?” he furiously demanded.
Father pushed forward. “With all due respect esteemed elder,” he clasped his fist and bowed submissively, “Chongyun is startled, perhaps we can discuss this another time when he is calm.”
“What the boy needs is discipline.” The elder thudded his walking stick on the wooden floor. “And find out about his other half,” he turned to leave, “if it's some wench...” he muttered while dragging himself along, the stick punctuating his monologue with loud, irregular thumps.
“My dear Chongyun,” Mother twisted a lock of ice-blue hair between her fingers, “can you tell us who is at the end of your red thread?” She smiled when he climbed into her lap and listened to her heartbeat, running rapidly. “Normally we exorcists can see these threads but you seem to be a special case.” She wrapped Chongyun in her arms and rested a plump cheek against his head. “Who's the lucky someone?” Her smile reached deep into her cheeks.
The rapid fire heartbeat slowed, calmed. Chongyun rattled a toy drum and kicked his legs.
“She says her name is Shenhe,” he related.
At this, his parents' faces grew ashen. Mother quickly shushed him. Father furtively glanced out the windows.
“Are you sure?” His mother croaked. She lifted his foot and for the millionth time, followed the thread to no avail. “Are you sure?” her voice hitched. “That's impossible. She's...”
“You see, Auntie Shenhe died a year before I was born.” The rain stopped. “A person with my level of congenital positivity is only born once every thousandth year... or so the story goes. As for my Auntie, her case is stranger. She is the Yin to my Yang, the negative to my positive and like me, she has an excess amount which eventually poisoned and killed her.”
The distant shouts of exorcists in training echoed like silent waters in this part of the garden.
“Did your congenital positivity kill you?”
“Don't be silly,” the claymore chided. “I'm still alive, aren't I?