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It was a mercy kill, no
It was a suicide, no
It was an accident, no
Well at least I tried
—Seamstress, Dessa
The border to the Hinterlands is more vividly dangerous now than ever, it feels like. He knows why, in theory, but it's an odd contrast.
His Nikan, subjugated, is like a dormant drugged beast all sluggish and slow. But ever since he crossed through Ram Province to the plateau, Nezha's hair has prickled against the back of his neck at all hours. He's being stalked across the rocks, and he knows it.
He's more impressed than anything by that knowledge, because he knows it, but he hasn't seen anything that makes it true at all.
He declined an escort for this. Despite the obvious presence of the border guards — or more — following him, he's yet to regret it.
The escorts are really just another way for Hesperia to keep their hands fisted in his hair. It's not paranoia if it's true, and most every uncharitable thought he's ever had about Hesperia is true. The escorts aren't any use anyway— if anything could threaten his life, a handful of war-worn officers that could give less of a shit are hardly going to be what stops it. He's resigned to that. It's just more bodies on his conscience, and that's the absolute last thing he needs now. All the escorts are children, anyway, and he just— they're children. Hasn't he already fought a war?
So: he didn't bring anyone. He's far from unrecognisable, but with his hood pulled down and blue robes all exchanged for undyed rough wear, nobody is exactly pointing him out. He passes through Dog Province and stops twice to buy food he doesn't taste at the villages he spends the night at. He brought less conspicuous money, coppers on strings and not silver pieces, because Rin—
He won't think about Rin.
He misses her fire with a rushing suddenness. Had fought back to back with her at the Red Cliffs and felt vividly alive and warm. The plateau is nothing like that.
But Nezha heard, from a little bird or a great one, that the khan of the Hinterlands had named a successor.
He makes it about halfway through the province in three days and when he lays out his bedroll on the third, side of the road this time cold-be-damned, the horses behind him finally catch up from the slow trot they've been trailing him at.
Nezha sits down and closes his eyes. The Dragon coils in great circles in the forefront of his mind, strength on display and collar flared.
Kitay would've called it a shocking lack of self preservation. Venka would've called it a death-wish.
Rin would've called it arrogance.
None of them are here now, though. And none of those are quite true anyway. Nezha knows things the same way everyone who survived the war does. If Nezha dies, it will be on his terms. It's not arrogance if it's true. And Nezha knows just about everything there is to know about himself, by now.
The horses like a drum beat through the floor. He can feel it in his hands. Nezha counts the seconds between them and smiles to himself. Someone calls out distantly, a laugh in the air.
Hoofbeats like the tap of drums, closer and closer. "Yin Nezha," someone very very familiar says, voice clear.
"You've made it very unpleasant travelling here," he observes. Opens his eyes, shaking off his hood. They've cut his hair short, cropped to a cun of length. When he lifts his head, it doesn't brush against his neck.
"Yes, well," Chaghan Suren says, smiles sharp and small and exactly like Nezha remembers. He doesn't look as small as Nezha remembers, but he's— paler. Somehow. "Security's been a little lax on both sides, don't you think?" Nezha offers him his own wry approximation of a smile.
"I suppose," he says.
"So," Chaghan says. "Who are here on behalf of this time? The blue eyes, or your poor dead father?" Just as bitingly cruel, too.
"Neither, if you would believe it," Nezha says, still smiling flat and wrong.
"I wouldn't," Chaghan says, eyes sharp but not unkind. He dismounts in a smooth motion, handing the reins to someone in his entourage. Just three flanking him on the thin narrow road, so similar to Nezha himself. He would hate that comparison.
"Do as you please," Nezha says.
"Thank you, then. So. Why does the sole democratic leader of the Republic of Nikan ride through the Scarigon Plateau?" Chaghan says. "Come to retake these lands?"
"And if I was?" Nezha says. Fear doesn't spark in Chaghan's eyes, because he's always been smartest. Rin had complained so very much about him. "We have a personal grievance, don't you think?"
"I suppose," Chaghan says. He settles on the floor, legs crossed in front of Nezha. "How has victory been treating you?"
Nezha tilts his head very slowly to the left, unimpressed. The things Chaghan reaches for automatically, the hurt— well, they're hardly news to him, are they? "You could ask yourself that," he says, without any real acid.
"I could," Chaghan agrees.
They're not so different, except that Chaghan is better. Because Chaghan lost the people he loved and that's why he won, but Nezha killed the people he loved and that's why he won.
Or, maybe it's better to say it like this: he didn't lose.
Rin lost. She died on her own terms, but she lost. It's not as hard to reckon with as he thought it would be, sitting alone in Arlong right after the fact.
"I'd rather hear it from you, though," Chaghan says, all hidden barbs. "It's so very cold up here, you know? I like to hear the news, from down south."
Nezha bares his teeth back. "Yes," he says.
Neither of them are afraid of death, sitting in front of each other unflinching. The difference between them is this: that Nezha is an everlasting thing now. He has to endure. And Chaghan, he will end. Soon.
It's like a circle, this thing. The last time he'd come up here— it'd been fresh. Chaghan had placed just one knife against his heart, so the Hesperians let you leave? They never get anything right, huh, and then something about putting down dogs and Nezha had—
He just can't. Had hurled accusations about Altan and about cowardice and Chaghan had snarled that he had no right to speak of cowardice. He'd been right, of course. Chaghan is rarely wrong, Nezha's come to find.
"Well?"
"Chaghan," Nezha says simply. Chaghan deflates.
"Come to see me off?"
"Someone has to," Nezha says, not quite sad and not quite raw. Everyone they love is dead, and Nezha does not love him, but.
There's something very final about it. Chaghan brushes his hands off.
"Two days," he says without looking at Nezha. Nezha imagines the world where everyone he loved is dead and finds it is only as cold as the air around them now.