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By the bridge that leads to the next life, you can find a white-haired, golden-eyed man. There is a crimson ribbon in his hair, and one half of a jade pendant in his hand. The beauty mark at the corner of his left eye is shaped like a tear.
There, he waits.
—
(the beginning.)
First, there is a baby.
He was born with white hair and golden eyes. On her first glance at him, his mother thinks back to the passing cultivator whose gentle touches she had accepted in a moment of weakness, and then to her husband, with his cruel eyes and rough hands, and she knows: he cannot not stay.
So she places him in a basket, and then sets that basket into a river that spills out to the open sea. He does not cry, because there is no one to hear it.
First, there is a dragon.
His once bright scales had lost their luster long ago, and behind his cerulean eyes there is now only the weight of the centuries he remembers. But such is the curse of the blessing he carries: there is no mortal blow strong enough to fell him. He will not age, and he cannot die.
He slumbers in the depths of the ocean, tired from the pains of his life and his duties. One day, he rises to the surface to watch the rising sun—and instead, finds a child who smiles at him like the spring sunshine.
The dragon sees him, and for the first time in a very long time, feels his deadened heart stir. So he takes him in as his own, and showers him with all the gentleness he has left to give.
Until, one day, the dragon looks up and realizes that the boy is now a man. He can only think: this luminous, shining pearl; did he not deserve better than to be hidden in the lonely depths of the ocean? He should be radiant where all could see, his luster in the light for all to admire. So he asks, regretful:
“You could see the rest of the world. Why stay here with me?”
“Don’t be a fool,” the golden-eyed man says. “You are my world.” He presses a kiss to the dragon’s brow, and he does not leave.
Still, even with their happiness, their love growing gentle and patient like the ebbing tides of the sea, the man, who had known the dragon for all his life, could see the weariness that lingered behind those eyes. His lover had lost far too much to be forgotten, and regretted far too much to be at peace.
And so the man, knowing that the dragon was in pain and would continue to be, forever, seeks the one being that could help him.
“Who are you to dare to reject the gift that I gave my children?” The god asks.
“Someone who loves him,” the man says, unwavering. “Who wants to see him happy, even after I am gone. Does he not deserve his rest, after all he has done in your name, Long?”
The god, impressed by the mortal’s audacity, could only agree.
“Very well, then,” the god says. “I cannot grant him your wish. My children have their promises to fulfill, for that was why I made them. However, I can give him this: The power to forget his sorrows, and for him to be reborn. When it is his time, he only needs to take this jade pendant with him to the underworld, so that it may guide his spirit back into his new body, free of what pains him. But do not forget this: his soul will always be bound to his duties, and tied to me he will always remain, even after I am gone. In the sea he shall sleep, and to the sea he shall return.”
When the man returns to his love, proud, the dragon rejects the gift.
“What need do I have for this, when you are here by my side?”
And so they are happy, for a little while. But the man is but a mortal, and the span of his life is as quick as the yellowing of the autumn leaves.
“Now, I am an old man,” the man muses. “While you are still as majestic as ever.”
“Do you regret it?” The dragon asks, pained. “Giving all your best years to me?”
The man smiles. “Don’t be a fool,” he says. “I would give you all of the years of the rest of my lifetimes.”
Still, no matter how beautiful, even the cherry blossoms in full bloom must eventually wither. When the man dies, the dragon knows that there is nothing left for him in this world. He takes the gift from his god and snaps it in two. He places one half into the mouth of his lover, closed forevermore, and holds the other half between his lips. Then, cradling his lover to his chest, the dragon walks into the sea for the last time in this life.
“Let us meet again in my next life, A-Yuan.”
—
(an interlude, by the river under the bridge.)
“You stubborn bastard,” the spirit of the man says. “With only half of the power of the pendant, you will never truly be able to forget. Why would you condemn yourself to this fate?”
“Don't be a fool,” the spirit of the dragon echoes. “Is it not clear that is the only fate that I want; mine, intertwined with yours?”
“But I am not one of Long’s children,” the spirit of the man cries. “I will never be able to match your power, nor your lifespan. All I will bring you is more pain, on top of everything you have already been forced to bear.”
“If I can carry into all my future lifetimes the memory of your smile,” the spirit of the dragon says. “It will all have been worth it. Like this, we will always be able to find each other again in life. And in death, as long as we hold these two pieces of Long’s gift separate, I will never be able to cross this bridge without you. This is my only desire, my true destiny. Will you come with me?”
In life, the man was never able to deny his dragon anything, after all, and so it remains in death. He sighs.
“Alright,” he says, and takes his hand. So together, they cross into their next life, like this.
And so, this is how the very first of the Vidyadhara is born.
—
(again, and again, and again.)
Yubie presses a gentle kiss to the cheek of the frail, pale beauty that he holds in his arms. They are sitting on the pier that overlooks the sunken, withered branches of the now-sealed Ambrosial Arbor. For all the meticulously curated artificial stars in the Luofu’s sky, none of them can hold a candle to the one beside him.
“I wish I could help you more,” Qiying murmurs. His hands are chilled when Yubie picks them up to intertwine their fingers together, his calluses rough and ugly against Qiying’s unmarred skin. “If only it wasn’t for this sickly body of mine, I could be by your side, fighting against Yaoshi’s abominations, rather than cowering here.”
“You already do,” Yubie says. “If not in body, then in spirit. You are my best strategist, are you not? Besides…” Yubie reaches out to tuck a strand of white hair behind Qiying’s ear. “You are no coward. It sets my heart at ease to know you are here, rather than out there.”
“I suppose I should be glad that I have enough talent to be of some use, at least,” Qiying says, smiling softly, his eyes sad. He leans into Yubie’s touch anyway, like a flower turning towards the sun. “After all you have done for the Luofu’s people, and yet your battles still never cease, do they? Please come back safely.”
“How could I not, when I have you to return to?”
Two days later, Qiying blocks the edge of an assassin’s blade that would’ve found its home in Yubie’s heart with his own body, instead. The blood spilling from his lips is as red as the ribbon in his hair, stark against the pallor of his skin and his silken robes. The clothes of a scholar, not a soldier. When Yubie holds him close with trembling hands, he feels like ice.
“Be well,” Qiying whispers. “I will wait for you.”
The passing clouds obscure the light of the moon, lengthening the long, cold winters of separation. When the spring sunshine comes, it is all the more beautiful for it, sweeping away the shadows, if only for a short moment.
—
“I’m sorry,” Lianhua says. The world around them is quiet, save for the waves that lap at their ankles. The setting sun has turned the ocean into the color of autumn leaves; a perfect match to the shade of Lianhua’s horns, Yiqie thinks.
“What for?”
“Do you not get tired of it?” Lianhua whispers. “Even though I have to return to the sea before you this time, you will still have to wait for me by the bridge until I’ve slept long enough in my shell to be reborn again.”
“What about you?” Yiqie smiles. “Do you resent me for leaving you alone in the living world, nearly every time before this one?”
“No,” Lianhua says. “Because I know I will see you again.”
“There you go,” Yiqie laughs. “Time matters not to a spirit. What fool would ever give up the chance to remember the love of a beauty like you? If I ever say otherwise, feel free to slap me. Maybe that will knock the memories back into my head.”
“Yiqie!” Lianhua hisses. Even in the dim light, Yiqie can see where a flush settles along his cheekbones. Four hundred years between them and millennia more of half-remembered past lifetimes, and he was still so easy to tease. “Be serious.”
“Alright,” Yiqie relents, still smiling. “Don’t be angry with me. I’ll miss this sight while you’re gone.”
Lianhua sighs. “You will tell me, won’t you? If it becomes much to bear?”
“For as long as you want me by your side, I will be there. Rest, my love,” Yiqie says, stroking the curve of Lianhua’s cheekbone for the last time. “Yinyue-jun, I am ever your loyal lieutenant. Let me carry on your legacy for you. When you wake, we will be together again.”
—
They are walking through the training yard of the latest batch of Cloud Knight recruits when Dan Feng catches the glimpse of silver hair out of the corner of his eye, the trailing end of a crimson ribbon. He stops.
“Yingxing,” Dan Feng says. His voice is unsteady. “Who is that?”
“Jing Yuan,” Yingxing says, curious. “Jingliu’s new apprentice. Why? Do you know him?”
As if he hears, Jing Yuan turns to meet Dan Feng’s gaze. His eyes are bright, like the sun. Just as always, Dan Feng thinks, and then blinks, surprised. He feels it then: the threads of the tapestry he had thought to be his future unspooling before his eyes, all of them now leading to the silver haired boy before him.
“I think so,” Dan Feng murmurs, and takes the first step towards the rest of his life.
—
(an interlude, in the night.)
“Feng’ge, are you happy?” Jing Yuan asks, once.
Dan Feng closes his eyes. The war is long, and his dreams neverending. Jing Yuan can see the grief writ upon the lines of his brow, the exhaustion in the curve of his shoulders.
“Sometimes, with you,” Dan Feng whispers, and he is telling the truth.
Still, no matter how resplendent, even the fruits of a flowering tree must eventually rot.
—
(a legend.)
You are but a man. There is a dragon you love. He is forever bound to you, and it hurts him to remember.
There are two halves of a jade pendant that was once Long’s greatest gift, lost in the depths of the sea. You and him are two halves of a soul.
Can you let him go?
—
(an end?)
There is a dragon in the shape of a man, held in shackles, unconscious. Before him is a white-haired, golden-eyed general. In his hand he holds two halves of a jade pendant, and he presses them both into the mouth of his love, closed forevermore in this life.
“I can only be sorry I could not save you. Let us not meet again,” he says. “In your next life, I will set him free, Dan Feng.”
And so, for the first time since the beginning, the spirit of the dragon crosses the bridge alone.
—
(a new beginning.)
“You are always welcome here on the Luofu,” Jing Yuan says, looking into Dan Heng’s eyes, and he almost means it. No matter how long it has been, the truth of it is that he knows that looking at that familiar visage will never cease to stop hurting. There is no panacea that can heal the open wounds that Jing Yuan chose to give himself—but the least he can do, here, is to fulfill the promise that he had made to Dan Feng in that prison, and to Dan Heng on the beach of the Scalegorge Waterscape.
I am not him, Dan Heng’s voice echoes between them, an executioner’s sword hanging over Jing Yuan’s neck.
Dan Heng’s expression does not change, but Jing Yuan feels flayed open by his gaze all the same.
“Thank you, General, but my place is with the Astral Express,” he says, and Jing Yuan does not expect to see him again.
That is more than enough, he tells himself. The centuries have slipped away from him. Time has carved into him the understanding of loneliness like water eroding even the sharpest edged stone. For all those centuries, he has managed to sustain himself on merely the knowledge that Dan Heng is out there blazing his own path amongst the stars. Now he has had the chance to see him safe once again, with loyal friends by his side. Friends who will shield him from people like the Preceptors, who will fight for him, who will teach him how to laugh and smile.
What more could Jing Yuan ask for?
But then Dan Heng… keeps coming back.
At the beginning, it is a game of starchess that escalates into two, then three, then regular ones, sometimes over the phone if the Astral Express is away for too long. “Caelus is busy,” Dan Heng says, as if in explanation, the first time. “He said you offered him a lesson. Teach me, instead.”
Doing what, Jing Yuan thinks, helplessly. As far as he knows, the carefree trailblazer spends most of his time on the Luofu drinking tea and terrorizing hidden members of the Sanctus Medicus. “Of course,” he says instead.
It doesn’t stop there. Dan Heng always returns in person eventually. Jing Yuan, no matter how busy he is, finds himself taking Dan Heng to all the places Fu Xuan tells him about, but he could never find the motivation to go to by himself: the tea shop that sells Immortal’s Delight, Aurum Alley, the starskiff tours in the Exalting Sanctum. Every time, it feels like Jing Yuan is losing his hold on his original resolve, even as he finds himself greedily memorizing the sight of every one of Dan Heng’s smiles. But, well. Would it be so bad to allow himself this one weakness? But Dan Heng’s goal with all this, on the other hand…
Was reuniting the pendant not enough? Did Jing Yuan fail Dan Feng, even in this? Were their souls still doomed to walk the same path together?
But if so, then why was Dan Heng only returning now?
He gets his answer soon enough. One late night, Dan Heng lets himself into the Seat of the Divine Foresight. At this point, his presence has become a familiar one to Jing Yuan’s staff—Qingzu only sighs before leaving, shooing out Yutie as well.
“What is this?” Dan Heng demands, tossing a scroll onto Jing Yuan’s desk. Untouchable Lovers, it reads. And then, worse: he places the pendant beside it.
Jing Yuan averts his eyes. “A new discovery for you, I suppose, that the people of the Luofu tend to have questionable taste in literary works,” Jing Yuan manages.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Jing Yuan,” Dan Heng says. “I know you were the one who gave the pendant to me when I was reborn. Who else would it have been? What the story says… Is it true? The legend of Long’s first child and his lover, and this pendant? Of Dan Feng and you being their incarnations?”
“If it was, wouldn’t you remember your past lives, like the story says?” Jing Yuan attempts to deflect. Reuniting the halves of the pendant should’ve fixed that, but Dan Heng doesn’t need to know. “It’s just some overly creative interpretation of a history mixed with a fairytale. There’s no need for you to pay it any mind.”
“But I do.”
“I—What?”
“I do remember. I’ve seen you,” Dan Heng says. “Standing by me under the blooming branches of the Arbor. Bleeding out in my arms. Us together, in the sea. I thought they were just Dan Feng’s memories, at first. But it wasn’t you, was it? At least, not in this life.”
Jing Yuan freezes. So he knows.
“It wasn’t me. And you aren’t him, as you’ve said,” Jing Yuan says, resigned. “So why does it matter?”
“I know you know,” Dan Heng says, firm. “Dan Feng no longer exists. You didn’t make that choice for him. You made it for me. So don’t you owe me an explanation, at least? Why did you end the cycle?”
“Dan Feng finally found a way to escape the burdens that Long placed upon every lifetime of the High Elder,” Jing Yuan forces out, his jaw clenched so hard it hurts. The secrets of his heart, now laid out at Dan Heng’s feet. “What if you fell into the palms of the ones who wanted your power again? I couldn’t risk it. You needed to leave. To be honest, spending as much time as you do now on the Luofu… It worries me still. You shouldn’t.”
“So?” Dan Heng returns. “I came back, did I not? And am I not safe?”
“You were able to leave and be free. Now you have people that can shield you far better than I, and the Preceptors no longer hold any power over you. You would’ve never been able to achieve all that you have if you were still bound to me.”
“Exactly.” Dan Heng crosses over to his side of the desk; a general advancing his troops across the river. He leans in, close, until Jing Yuan is caught in his gaze. “Now I have chosen to return to you. So why do you still hide your truth from me?”
“I’m hardly—I’m not hiding from you,” Jing Yuan sighs. “It is only that I have lived a long time, and my time draws near. Why would you waste your time on the pointless wishes of an old man?”
Dan Heng’s eyes are like chips of jade. “You do wish for it, then.”
Jing Yuan looks away. “Wish for what?”
“What you took from us,” Dan Heng says, and Jing Yuan feels his heart stutter. “Tell me. Are you really happy like this?”
“I am—content, truly,” Jing Yuan gets out.
“An answer, though not to the question I asked,” Dan Heng sighs. “Another one, then. Will you come with me?”
Jing Yuan closes his eyes. Now, he realizes that he has long lost his footing in this battle, felled by the hole that Dan Heng has made for himself in Jing Yuan’s heart and his own newly rising, traitorous hope. “To where?”
“You set me free.” Dan Heng’s fingers are gentle where they trace the edge of Jing Yuan’s jaw. “But what about you? If you are so worried… Join me then, general. Sail with me among the stars, away from this place. Give me another chance to know you in this life.”
“My position on the Luofu, my responsibilities…” Jing Yuan trails off. “It is not so easy as that, Dan Heng.”
“Yes, it is,” Dan Heng murmurs. “You and I, have we not given them enough? If I should not bear the sins of Dan Feng, why must you bear your duties any longer?” He presses the pendant to Jing Yuan’s chest, right above his heart. “He has given us this chance. Now will you take it?”
No matter how long, the coldest winter must end eventually. With the gentle arrival of spring comes the slow, tender blooming of the once-again blossoms, their patience finally coming to fruition in the warmth of the sun.
“Alright,” Jing Yuan exhales.
He takes the pendant.
—
And so they are happy, for a little while.
—
(a final question.)
They sit under the stars, together.
“Will you wait for me again?” Dan Heng asks.
Jing Yuan’s eyes are impossibly bright. In his hands he holds a jade pendant, two halves mended by a thin line of gold the same shade as his gaze. “For as long as you want me by your side.”
Dan Heng knows then, that it is time.
When the sun sets, Dan Heng takes the gift from his god and snaps it in two. He places one half into the mouth of his lover, and holds the other half in his hands, a promise renewed.
“Let us meet again in my next life, Jing Yuan.”
—
(another legend.)
You are but a dragon. There is a man you love. You have bound yourself forever to him, twice. His heart is your heart, and his soul is your soul.
You do not let him go.
—
“Xiansheng, what are you doing here? Why haven’t you crossed the bridge yet?”
“What other reason could anyone have for lingering here?” The white-haired man tilts his head. “I’m waiting for someone, of course.”
“Who are you waiting for, xiansheng?”
The man smiles, pressing a kiss to the jade piece in his hand.
“My love, who sleeps in the sea.”