Chapter Text
To be fair, the Golden Winged Peng indeed had a fucked up way of interacting with those who he deemed lesser than him. Born with the hugest ego everywhere the land touches, the Golden Winged Peng only held honor and loyalty to a few notable people; The Azure Lion– and perhaps that was it. The Demon Bull King is certainly another who Peng respects, to say the least. The King has a notable presence in the brotherhood, loud and strong. The Yellow-Toothed Elephant Demon is a silent figure. Gigantic, but soft-spoken and nicer than the rest of the knives thrown on the dinner table. Sun Wukong, however, a monkey of peach auburn fur was somebody Peng could at least tolerate. He was of importance– one who holds their entire brotherhood together, with his ridiculous whims and schemes about creating more trouble for the Jade Emperor.
Peng’s feathers ruffle in annoyance as he realizes he forgot one more person.
Ah, right.
That annoying shadow that lurks behind Sun Wukong’s ridiculous existence. Always closed-off and timid, a dark-furred monkey enveloped with velvet shadow powers, he was never one to talk at the dinner table. Only responding to Wukong and gazing his way, Peng always despised his very existence at the table. Pah, that monkey, the Six-Eared Macaque, was nothing but a waste of space, a shadow, a nobody, the background character.
For somebody like the Golden Winged Peng, a creature who adored the spotlight and attention and the titles that could be offered to his name, seeing the Six-Eared Macaque, a creature he knows is capable of making his own name and destroying mountains of land, be a silent shadow that has no presence infuriates him.
He and the Macaque were two polar opposites, it made sense for Peng and Macaque to always somehow end up sitting across each other all the time during their dinners. That was a lie, of course, because the Golden Winged Peng always wanted to sit across the Macaque and criticize his every movement during the times when he could put his eyes on the shadow monkey.
When Wukong and his shadow flee the table alongside a drunken Demon Bull King, Peng is quick to open a conversation with none other than: Macaque.
“His shoulders are slouching more this week,” Peng says as nobody asked him, “That damned rat looks like he has not gotten sleep.”
The Yellow-Tusked Elephant nods absently across him, cleaning out any messes of their fruit peels left on the solid ground.
Peng chatters to whoever cared to listen, not bothering to care if the Six-Eared Macaque, who has never shown the brotherhood existence of his ears, would even hear.
“If Wukong would keep a shadow, at least he should maintain a shadow with a good form.”
Azure Lion bellows out a laugh behind him, grand and gigantic as the rightful leader he is. “Oh, dear brother Peng, If this one had not known any better, I would say this obsession of yours with Sun Wukong’s shadow has gone a different way.”
Peng’s eyebrows lift as he looks his way toward his brother. “Obsession?”
“Why, it seems like he is the only one you ever talk about.”
“I do not-” His wings flare up in anger. “I do not talk about that rodent all day long.”
His backstabbing other sworn brother, the Yellow-Tusked Elephant, laughs alongside Azure Lion. “But brother, you do!” He stomps with a chuckle. “Oh, last few days ago, you went on a day-long tangent about his form during the fight against some few heavenly guards in the nearby village of the south. You went on and on about how he could have changed his moves and his positions.”
Peng huffs with the cross of his arms, looking away from both of his sworn brothers who are seemingly focused on annoying him instead. “I am simply commenting on how weak such a warrior is. I know that monkey is capable of more than what he is now, and it infuriates how he is not putting it to good use.”
“Ah, brother Peng,” He hears Azure Lion step near him and comfortingly pats his shoulder with that big dumb kitty grin on his face. “Let him be. The Six-Eared Macaque is not a weak warrior, for if he were, then our dear friend, Sun Wukong, wouldn’t be protected very well.”
Peng explodes, but not tearing away from the hand of Azure Lion’s. “That is my point, Azure. How good is a great warrior if he is in such a vulnerable state? How good is he to our plans against Heaven if he is slagging? How can he protect Sun Wukong if his eyes are drenched with black and drowsiness?”
The two stare at him, blinking in silence, and the Yellow-Tusked Elephant comments over everything important Peng had just stated, just to say, “Do you mean to say the Six-Eared Macaque has eye bags?”
He throws his hands up, infuriated. “Yes, he does.”
“Does he really?” Azure Lion tilts his head, and Peng grunts, “If you look closely enough you can see hints of grey underneath that rat’s eyeballs. His wrinkles are also showing too.”
Azure Lion and Yellow-Tusked Elephant share a knowing look.
“If you care that much,” Azure coos.
“I don’t.”
“Then perhaps you should take it upon yourself, dear brother.”
Peng’s feathers ruffle with the wind in confusion. “What?”
“If seeing the Six-Eared Macaque in such a state infuriates you so, perhaps the best thing to do is take action in your own wings.”
Peng looks down onto the ground, claws tapping impatiently as he runs his thoughts through it.
Ah, Azure Lion, their wise, wise, leader. What noble thoughts.
His signature grin rests on his beak as he unfurls his wings with a grandiose pose. “You are correct, Azure.” Peng turns around them, “I will be back in a few hours.” And flees upwards towards the mountain where the shadow monkey and his King reside.
Azure Lion and the Yellow-Tusked Elephant stare at each other again, finally able to talk without the eagle in the room.
Elephant speaks first. “Do you think he-”
“He very much does.”
“Our dear brother Peng just has too much ego to even realize it.”
“Indeed, he does.”
Peng scours through the night sky with a packet of herbs, flying towards the blurring vision of Flower Fruit Mountain until the wafting scent of fruits and forestry hits his nose, the outline of the mountain seemingly clearer and more distinct. He makes his way toward places he had usually seen Sun Wukong hang out, knowing that the shadow would be staying nearby his protected King at all times. However, Peng has not seen what he is looking for.
He walks towards an unfamiliar section of the mountain he hasn’t explored, and there he saw Sun Wukong’s subjects, snoring lightly as they turn about and around, unfazed by the presence of Peng right beside him. The eagle’s pink eyes look through the shadows and everywhere the very little light touches on the mountain for a glimpse of the familiar outline of that shadow monkey, thinking he should at least always be at his King’s side.
He, however, found Sun Wukong instead.
Who cares? Peng is not looking for him.
Peng restlessly flies around the mountain when he has gone tired of walking aimlessly in that void of a mountain, absent of any light to guide his path. He trusts his nose to at least whiff out that stupid rat’s scent, one that Peng had grown familiar with upon weeks of sitting across Macaque’s side of the table or during quick processes where Macaque walks across him. It’s a scent that erupts a rage in Peng, one that lingers carelessly in his mind even when that rodent is far away. He ponders about how Sun Wukong could even tolerate such a unique scent, how that King could fall asleep so fast and heavily as if he is not haunted by the very existence of it.
The Six-Eared Macaque contrasted differently from his King to Peng’s surprise. His forethoughts were that the monkey would smell similarly to Sun Wukong, having always followed behind his back and being close to one another. Smells of peaches and summers and waterfalls– and yet, the Six-Eared Macaque did not smell similar to any of those.
Peng remembered clearly, very clearly as vivid as his memory is when he was bestowed titles upon titles with honor.
Macaque had taken a careless smart decision to sit tiredly beside Peng, even though he only did it because Sun Wukong was too busy making more of a fool out of himself and the monkey seemed to be too tired to talk some sense into his idiotic King. Peng had an insult ready at the tip of his sharp beak, or perhaps a compliment about himself that he knows would certainly rile up the monkey or make him passively look away to ignore Peng. But the instant his beak slowly opens and he makes the terrible decision to breathe in as the air swifts, blowing through Macaque’s fur, Peng learns that day how to close his mouth for once. They sit in uncomfortable, awkward silence as Macaque shares accusatory glances towards Peng’s way at the lack of insults shared between them, but he says nothing as he enjoys the very peace of it.
Peng, on the other hand, is not enjoying anything out of this. He sits rigidly as his fingers tighten and he snaps his beak shut for fear of saying something out of place. The monkey beside him is so obliviously unaware Peng wants to pick him up and throw him far away but he feels as if this lingering smell will exist for as long as Peng has the ability to smell.
A sharp contrast to anyone he’s ever smelled, Macaque was an earthy scent after a rain, the tanginess of ripe mangoes, and the strange existence of sweet plums drenched in honey. It was too contrasting, too different, too sweet, too earthy, too tangy, too much– It was too much like Macaque.
Flying about above the blanket of stars, Peng flies through and sniffs out that same haunting scent, before he picks up one that stands out from the rest, and he swiftly descends his way down with little to no care about what damage he causes or any ruckus he’ll make with the noise of his landing.
Across him sits the perpetrator, the reason why Peng is here in the first place, his back behind him and ears twitching but he stays unmoving as if Peng’s looming presence is not something he should care about. Peng marches greatly, his shoulders square of a soldier with the flimsy packed herbs in his hands before he makes his way behind Macaque.
“...Peng,” Macaque says when Peng is near enough.
“Macaque,” Peng says with less disdain this time.
Macaque timidly turns his head towards Peng, a raised eyebrow as he sits cross-legged on the floor. “What are you doing here? If you're looking for Wukong, he is asleep in the cave.”
“I did not come here for that insolent chimp .” Macaque frowns at Peng's usual rudeness as if that were something he should be surprised about. Peng had not seen Macaque react to his insults in such a way, even when called a rat or a deficient waste of potential, he had never been able to get under Macaque's skin–not the same way Peng's insults toward Wukong affects him. "I came here for you ."
Silence washes over them, Peng's inquisitive eyesight peering over Macaque's figure that blurs with the night sky.
The monkey’s fingers rise as they point up towards the packet in Peng’s hold, seemingly aware of the distinct scent of the herbs. “What is that? Trying to poison me?”
Peng laughs, “Why, if I were given the opportunity to, I would.”
Macaque holds a stern expression, and yet his voice is floaty and calm. As if he was not scared of Peng doing such a thing. “You wish. Everyone would know it was you."
"What?" Peng guffaws, chest heaving as a laugh beckons out of his chest. "Why would they know it was me ?" The other tilts his head, and the answer was obvious. “Because you hate me, is that not obvious to you? Because it is obvious to me.”
Hate. Hate was too much of a strong word for Peng’s liking. Intolerable was a much better fitting word for his straight-cut feelings towards the simian. A hatred meant Peng would want Macaque to be driven out and far away from him, out from his line of vision, out from wherever the land touches and wherever Peng can fly.
The crickets chirp loudly, and Peng thinks this is the most peaceful they have ever been with each other.
Peng sits beside Macaque, but far enough for it not to irritate the unstable bridge hanging between the two. “It’s a sleeping herb,” He clears up after seconds of annoying quiet.
“So you are trying to poison me.”
“I am not trying to poison you.”
“Sedate, then.”
“Wh-” Peng clucks, choking on his own breath and Macaque’s careful demeanor shatters at the very image of Peng breaking before him. The eagle chokes similarly to a chicken– he even acts like one. “I am not trying to do any of those things!”
Macaque hilariously raises his brow at Peng. “You just said you would do it.”
“You are simply pointless to talk to. Not even humorous, unlike your that clown of a King you have.”
“Hey,” Macaque sharply looks at him where he sat, rigid and his magic already spinning at his own hands. Peng keeps hating- no, disliking Macaque the more he does this. “Don’t talk about him that way.”
The eagle snickers, crossing his arms and challenging this weak warrior’s mockery of a fight. “Or what? You’ll punch me?”
Macaque’s shadows glitch from behind him, their symphony of catastrophic screams that unfazed Peng echo through the silent, seemingly peaceful night of the mountain. The eagle slowly smiles as he hurries for a challenge, a duel, a fight– to see if this Macaque is even worthy of being seen as a tolerable figure in Peng’s eyes. To his disappointment, however, the shadows silent down and lull into the abyss, Macaque’s rage melting into solemnity. “Maybe I will.” He says, promises empty and easily forgotten.
Peng dislikes the monkey for several reasons, and one of the notable things he hates about the monkey is how he barely stood up for himself in front of Peng’s bastard words. Knives could be thrown to the warrior and he would take and swallow all of it with a demeanor unbroken, but when his King– stupid, idiotic, clown and fool of a King– is involved, that demeanor crashes and breaks into devotion and foolish loyalty. Macaque would sacrifice himself for a clown than stand up for himself, even if the other is well aware he has enough strength to be equal to the Monkey King’s footing. He may as well breathe off of every gasp of air that damned monkey inhales if that was the case.
Pathetic.
“How can you even punch me,” Peng mocks, that same sincere and genuine ridiculous sneer in his tone never leaving. “You barely have any energy to do so, Macaque.”
“I so do-”
“Bah. You can’t even lift your hand and punch me where it hurts, not with those useless eye bags littering your face.”
Macaque finally shuts up, claws coming up to grace the under of his eyes, touching the light greys Peng can easily discern in the dark. “I- I have eye bags? Where?”
Peng sits closer, his fingertips dangling, dancing in the night air as they slowly reach Macaque’s face, just the under his eyes to pinpoint where the darkest grays have settled in his lack of sleep. To his traitorous self, his palm opens slowly, nearing the other’s cheek in an effort to caress, and not point out the stupid gray under the monkey’s eyes.
And Macaque– Macaque just stares at Peng’s once-in-a-blue-moon patience, the eagle’s eyebrows furrowed in deep focus, searching for what Macaque can’t see. The lightest of Peng’s touch, the softest graze of those well-groomed feathers touch his face, and both of them expect the other to flinch at the touch.
Neither of them does.
Peng moves closer, cradling the cheek of the most intolerable person in the world to ever exist in his open palm, pressing further into that soft cheek as he presses his thumb across brown skin to pinpoint the standing-out grays that litter his complexion. In his focus, he fails to see Macaque watching agape at Peng’s genuine actions– no hints of annoyance or backhanded compliments thrown at him, but the very few minutes of truce between them.
His hand stays there longer than intended, already finding the grey area but his palm refuses to let go of the softest thing it has ever cradled. More worthy to hold than any golden jewels he was gifted as a warrior or any precious grown fruits he had stolen from others; his hand lays still and uses the excuse of still finding that already found a grey spot.
“Have you found it yet?”
“No,” Peng lies. “Stay still- I can’t see in the dark.”
A pathetic excuse to almost brush his thumb across that sweeping nose on the other. He lifts his useless other arm to touch the other side of Macaque’s face in an effort to see if both cheeks are as soft as they are. Macaque sputters, muttering a sound before Peng hushes him quickly. “You have eye bags on both of your eyes.”
He moves his thumb over the skin and pulls them back and lets it go, thumb softly moving about that cheek as Peng distinctly points out the outline of Macaque’s red marking. Only then, did he lift his face finally and look at the other, a seemingly weak warrior in Peng’s eyes, just letting the other graze his face with their white feathered hands unknowing it was all but a lie– an excuse to find more things about Macaque to hate.
Pink meets yellow, and Peng quickly breaks out of his trance as he not so harshly presses down on the particular spot where the darkest gray eyebags rest as he pulls his hands away. “They’re over here.”
Macaque soothes the ache of Peng’s thumb pressing on his face with a scowl. "Is it that bad?"
"Yes it is, you rodent," The eagle chucks the packet he had been holding, the very reason why he came here in the first place but was distracted by Macaque’s pointless conversations that led to nothing. “Drink that– it should help with sleeping because you obviously have not been sleeping well.”
Macaque says nothing, perhaps muttering a thank you or nothing at all, bowing his head to stare emptily at the packet of herbs in his crossed legs.
Peng insignificantly rolls his eyes. “Bah, what good is a warrior like you going to do when your King is in danger and you can’t even take care of yourself.” He enunciates with another cross of his arms. “How can you say you will protect him in that weak body of yours?”
The monkey looks down solemnly and silently, eyes glued onto the packet before he finally lifts his head out of the clouds, but still gazing emptily towards the scenery before him. “I’ve been hearing more visions lately. They keep me up at night.”
Peng says nothing, but an open ear at the monkey’s muttering. “These screams of terror and defeat are scaring me because all futures I’ve seen are inevitable- I fear we may not win the war against Heaven, but I mostly fear that he - Wukong-”
He looks towards Macaque dead straight in the eye. “Sun Wukong might as well be dead because his incompetent warrior is busy asleep because he is incapable of sleeping.”
Macaque finally stands, his demeanor breaking at Peng’s hold yet again– perhaps twice this night. “I am not incompetent!”
“Prove it to me then,” Peng dares him, his back immediately straightening and wings cast open for a challenge. “Show me you are not.”
Macaque hisses a growl as he finally stands, not tall enough to make Peng quake in fear as the other was significantly shorter than the eagle, but he remains rather impressed that the monkey finally picks up a fight. His teeth snarl as magic swirls in the palms of the monkey again, bending on his knees to jump onto Peng. However, the bird quickly cuts him off as he presses one simple finger onto the tip of his nose.
“After you get enough sleep and after you get those eye-bags out of your face.”
The magic is cut short quickly, Macaque scowling at him unfairly.
“I don’t need sleep, I can easily prove I’m a competent warrior for Wukong easily even without it-”
Peng clicks his tongue with the scolding of a mother. “Ah-ah, sorry little rat, but I prefer dueling with my opponents when they are on the same level as I am. Strong, good-looking, and most importantly, not sleep-deprived.”
His wings flutter once, and twice before they go into an array of rhythms that send him slowly flying. Peng finally turns his back on Macaque, done dealing with the monkey’s incapability of sleeping. He is not about to cut off his sufficient hours of sleep just to lull the other to sleep. That chimp is grown enough to be able to do so.
“Unfortunately,” Peng sing-songs, turning to Macaque with a turn of his head and a sultry smile. That damn bird always loved to get the final words anyway, even if the person he is fighting was Macaque, a person of fewer words and fewer actions– even if they were a total nobody. “You are all but the last one.”
His claws touch the ground once, before he bends his knees and finally flies out into the sky, and back to where he came from.
Macaque stands in silence, watching Peng’s figure blur behind the night clouds and the blanket of stars rising above him. He grasps the packet into his hands as he descends from the cliff, and inside the cave where he and Wukong usually resides and sleeps beside the other monkeys.
He lays in his usual spot, a reserved place beside Wukong and a few touchy monkeys that have no sense of personal space. Macaque curls, thinking and pondering about the enamoring echoes of whispers and voices that discomfort him in the darkest of nights, voices that leave him awake for nights and nights more to go, a future he craves but is scared of reaching– a future that screams at him that it does not exist, only a piece of fiction held laden in promises and the tiniest of hopes. A future the brotherhood dreams of- a wish to be heard and recognized by the Jade Emperor, to know that they have been treating demons and mortals unfairly just to protect their own reputation crawls at the feet of Macaque when he is deep in slumber, begging him to go back and not go through with the plan. Not to continue any further, because all of them will just get hurt.
So Macaque spent weeks and weeks of listening through visions of the future– close enough to not drive him out of sanity, but far enough to require his sole focus that it leads to him being unable to spend time with Wukong or groom himself. His king pouts and frowns as Macaque goes on another ‘nightly stroll’, and the warrior hates lying to his King foremost, but he has to see all inevitable futures that are possible for every course of action they could take. So he basks in the night, his spot beside Wukong’s gone cold as he sits cross-legged looking over far the horizon by the cliff as he asks the wind what the future has for them, and if he can change anything for it to be one where at least he and Wukong live together and the rest of the brotherhood are safe, no matter how little their closeness to Macaque is.
Then comes a future he has failed to see, simply because he was so busy looking into futures far out of his reach that he fails to see a vision that was just mere minutes away from happening. The smallest most genuine piece of interaction he just had with the guy who basked in his sorrows and failures.
Peng. The Golden-Winged Peng came behind his back with nothing but his huge ego, that stubborn chatty beak always so full of himself, and a packet of distinct herbs for tea.
At first, Macaque had thought the Azure Lion sent The Golden Winged Peng out to give something to Sun Wukong as usual, but the Peng ruins every ability of Macaque to even think of a proper conclusion when he says, I came for you.
Came for Macaque? For what? To insult him more than Peng already had hours prior? Does Peng not know Macaque is fully aware of the things the eagle carelessly spouts against him? His name, the Six-Eared Macaque, is simply not just for show. Even if he does not show his six ears to barely any of the brotherhood, he is still fully aware of what Peng mutters underneath that beak. The eagle even sits right across him- Macaque’s six ears are useless at this point because he can just hear loud and clear what the other says about him. It’s not like Peng ever made it his business to be discrete about who he’s talking shit about– Macaque always knew it was him or Wukong– his fur stands up when Peng makes a mockery of Wukong’s name, and even if it does churn and burn his insides when Peng insults Macaque himself, he does not dare let it show to the eagle.
But Peng, to his utter surprise, sits beside him and offers out a conversation with minimal insults. A jab is thrown back at each other; another insult thrown at Wukong– and finally, two things that had Macaque by his feet the whole night.
One, Peng comes closer to Macaque with nothing but genuine concern, even if it is hidden through layers of hatred and disdain for the monkey. Macaque stares at him baffled when Peng mentioned he has eye bags, and Macaque could not even believe Peng– because how on earth does he have eye bags? Has he stayed up that long through nights beckoning about the future for the other to seemingly notice the weight of the grays underneath his eyes? Were they noticeable enough for that asshole of a guy– Peng, to notice them from across the dinner table? Macaque never bothers to look Peng in the eye for too long, but the whole time he was there, he could truly feel the snake that is Peng’s eyes coming at him and waiting just to bite Macaque.
Little did the other monkey know, it was because Peng was seeing evidence of a lack of sleep from him.
How nice. How very sensitive of Peng to be able to point out such a thing.
Then Peng touched his face slowly– an aching slow approach before that bird’s feathered palms make contact with his cheek, and Macaque means to back away but the warmth that was unexpected from the bird made him stay in place. Peng uselessly runs his thumb around Macaque’s face while the other simply just lets him without care, unmoving but breathing, staring completely in silence as Macaque soaks in the most peaceful Peng has ever been.
If Peng were to simply shut up for once, perhaps he would be second to the prettiest in the brotherhood.
Peng was surely taking his time stretching out Macaque’s face as he groans, “Have you found it yet?” but Peng says something in between a lie and a truth, something Macaque cannot discern properly because Peng had a point anyway, “I can’t see in the dark.”
If Peng could not see in the dark, how did he manage to find Macaque then? A figure with a dark mane that mirrors the void of the empty night sky without stars to litter it– how could Peng find him in the entirety of the mountain, when there are nearly no lights that exist in the place that could help the eagle be able to discern him from the rest?
The question sits heavily on Macaque’s tongue, and he does not dare to ask it at all. Not that it matters.
The moon was too unfair to Macaque that night, seemingly soaking up and radiating on Macaque’s pristine pearly white feathers, his pink eyes furrowed in focus but glistening against the full moon, and he had never seen Peng up close before, always wanting to be far away from the chicken just so the other has nothing to say about him– but now, in close proximity where Peng raises his hand and cups the other side of Macaque’s cheeks; finally lifting his face to stare at Macaque completely, who had done nothing but be useless and gaze in the Golden Winged Peng’s surprisingly ginger complexion– both of them simply had nothing to say.
Peng was the first one to tear his hands away from Macaque’s face– because it seemed like the other did not want to.
The second was when Peng gave Macaque the packet– which was in the monkey’s arms right now– and explained his messed up state of concern for Macaque’s ability to even take care of himself. For the Golden Winged Peng, the official asshole and the ruiner of Macaque’s life, to come his merry way to bring Macaque a simple packet he probably stole just to help the other sleep because he noticed over the dinner table that Macaque has not been resting– it introduces Macaque to a feeling he cannot quite discern.
He had felt all kinds of emotions before for many people, always able to pinpoint and differentiate how other people make him feel.
But Peng, the one to always comment on each of Macaque’s movements whether he breathed right or wrong– to show concern at such a little thing– what does it mean?
When Peng marks his final words as he opens his wings-- Strong, good-looking, and not sleep-deprived-- what does it mean?
And the eagle makes an annoyingly good point at Macaque being unable to protect his King in such a state. Sluggish and weakened from lack of sleep. One of the only few times the bird said something out of that atrocious beak that Macaque could actually agree on. Their confrontation hangs in between them, a promise that will be fulfilled as soon as Macaque finally gets enough rest and snooze– when his eyebags are no longer noticeable by Peng’s peering eyes. He absolutely cannot wait to shove it in Peng’s face that he is a competent warrior.
Macaque tosses and turns, wanting to sleep but not daring to- not when the echoes of the future scream at him and beg him to do something, and not while recurring thoughts of tonight- of Peng- repeat like a broken record inside his mind. His cheek grazes the soft leaf pillow under his head, and if he were more delusional, perhaps he could reimagine it as those feathered fingers touching his face.
He subconsciously lifts the packet underneath his nose and lets the aroma of the herbs lull him to sleep.
It reeks of honey.