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Warning(s): G, child death mention
“…Yīnyuè-jūn?” The scent of the forge followed Yìng Xīng like a ghost, heavy with metal like water evaporating from the blacktop after a summer storm, heady with smoke and steam. Dān Féng’s tapered ears twitched as leather soles clicked on the tiled rooftop, picking his way to where the Vidyādhara perched, legs dangling. The sloshing of sweet plum wine in a gourd and clinking of porcelain cups sounded, Yìng Xīng settling with a sigh. “Quiet again? Hm, I suppose I should be lucky you’re here at all,” the forger mused with a wry smile.
“What does luck have to do with it?” Dān Féng replied quietly, pale jades chancing a look. “I’m here because—“ He gave pause as if the words were lodged in his throat by brambles.
“Nevermind.”
Yìng Xīng gazed obliquely at the tiles that parted them, the difference of inches feeling like an uncrossable gulf. The silence was broken when he uncorked the gourd, a bubble popped in a stream. The cups were fetched, and sloshy wine was poured into the waiting goblets. To Dān Féng did he cross that gulf, yearning in his fingers.
Holding the goblet filled with wine and something else, the air was heavy with summer and longing. It was proffered like an olive branch. “Credit for your thoughts?” Dān Féng took the drinks, and the ghost of touch almost connected when he did.
Dān Féng’s fingers curled around it on his lap, reflection rippling in the opaque liquid like an impossibly small mirror. His brow furrowed and Yìng Xīng swore he heard the other draw a brittle breath. “…I lost a patient today. A child.”
Yìng Xīng‘s head snapped up to Dān Féng and he choked on tenderness, expression stricken but his limbs stony and motionless. “I’m sorry. Is there—“
“She was… young. Maybe a few decades old. Too young,” Dān Féng continued somberly, every word dropped like a stone.
He could see it. Dān Féng wouldn’t admit it, but he could see the signs. It was as though the Vidyādhara gazed through the moon, a pucker in his brow, a downturn of his lips. His hands balled into fists so tight that his knuckles blanched.
That face was too comely for a frown, too ethereal for sadness. But, that was the problem, wasn’t it? This was the side of the High Elder he didn’t allow others to see. The sadness, the vulnerability. Where exposure to the wrong person could be fatal.
“Let’s drink to her.” Dān Féng tensed at that, for it felt patronizing, a retort springing to his tongue, but it quelled when he understood. His hackles lowered and the mortification of being seen stripped him to the bone, the quick.
“I could’ve saved her. I should’ve—“
“Are you saying you didn’t do anything?”
A shot of anger bubbled in the Elder. “No—! You don’t… Do you even understand?!” Emotion. So raw and rare that, if it were bottled, it would be priceless.
Yìng Xīng smiled mirthlessly and swigged a mouthful of plum wine with swill. “I’m understanding that you’re blaming yourself for something that might not have been your fault,” he countered and Dān Féng seethed.
“It was my fault! I didn’t heal her! You don’t get it!”
A flutter of Dān Féng’s coattails followed as he descended to the ground below, fog swirling in the cool, late night. Yìng Xīng followed suit, landing soundly on the flagstones below.
“You make it sound as though you did nothing,” he called after his inconsolable friend.
“I didn’t do enough!” Dān Féng snarled in reply.
“What isn’t enough for the High Elder?” Yìng Xīng challenged, ground-eating strides catching up within the moment. Dān Féng balked and the smith knew he’d said something right. “Only a heartless fool wouldn’t do enough. Does that sound like you?”
“No, it’s just…” Dān Féng’s silhouette filled the mouth of the alleyway that released into Starwatcher Avenue, shoulders sagged in defeat.
Yìng Xīng’s sturdy hand perched on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s more than you know,” Yìng Xīng consoled sedately.
Yìng Xīng could feel the tremble in his skin beneath the fabric, the clamminess. Circling the shorter male, he enveloped the other in a tight embrace, all metal and warmth and softness he sorely needed. “You did what you could, and it was enough.”
Dān Féng sagged in his arms, circling—needing—around his larger frame as though he were an anchor he needed to keep from slipping away. How someone so regal and powerful could feel so precious and protected in his arms…
“Thank you, Yìng Xīng—“
Maybe, he was beginning to understand.