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Nostalgia washes over him in waves he could drown in, half-memories and vague sensations of the past clawing up his throat and spilling into his mind every moment he spent in the Xianzhou Luofu, an imposter in his own body, a criminal with the face of one who the people once adored.
Dan Heng’s presence in the Luofu is a terse affair, his reprisal of the role of Yinyue Jun even more so, despite how many times he must insist that Dan Feng is no more, reduced to the cautionary tale that future Vidyadhara elders are raised upon should they be seduced by petty sentiments and fickle affairs of the present. Still, when the General’s—or Jing Yuan, he supposes, though calling him by name feels too intimate an affair for someone who is nothing of the one that the other man yearns for—gaze lingers on him for too long, wistfulness clouding its edges as solemness flashes in his amber eyes despite the easy smile he feigns, Dan Heng can’t help but feel uneasy.
Dan Heng sighs, prodding at the throbbing headache building at his temples whenever he thinks too hard about his current situation. Though he may currently be pardoned due to his compliance with the General and his plans, staying in the Luofu for too long never fails to dredge up unpleasant memories.
He tosses and turns in his bed—the General was generous enough to provide lodging for the night—as he fails to settle into a comfortable sleeping position, restlessness thrumming throughout his body, down to his extremities. Dan Heng stretches his limbs for a few moments before releasing the tension, but it fails to aid him in any substantial way in his quest for sleep.
Tossing over his pillow to the cooler side for the nth time that night, Dan Heng sighs before giving up and rifling through his things to find something to distract him for the night. He fishes through his small bag of supplies to find a weathered novel from a series he’d been working through for a while now, one on the winding history of the Xianzhou Luofu.
He’d dog-eared every page that mentioned Yinyue Jun, his act of treason against the Luofu, immortality thieved from the Ambrosial Arbor, and his eventual incarceration in the Shackling Prison.
(None of the sources he’d ever read came to a conclusion on just what exactly occurred in the Shackling Prison. Dan Heng found himself strangely grateful that it was often skipped over; he’d spent enough time there to know the details.)
Dan Heng flips to one of the corner-creased pages to resume reading its contents once more, making mental notes alongside the information in comparison to the knowledge he’d gleaned to fill in the gaps that the text preambles over, glossing over pivotal events to one-off mentions.
Only when a knock raps against his door does he stop, heartbeat skittering with a momentary spike of adrenaline as a million thoughts race through his head. Was there another attempt against the Xianzhou Luofu to quell? Had Phantylia risen again? Had Blade truly come for his head this time, and was someone here to warn him before he burst in through the window to slit his throat–
“Hello, Danny? You asleep in there?” comes a voice, high-pitched and probing. Dan Heng heaves in relief, the tension evaporating from his body in an instant as he stands to open the door, revealing a pyjama-clad March standing outside his door, bedhead and all.
“Is there something you require?” he asks curtly, wary of the hour. It’s not like March to stay up this late. Usually, whenever she insisted on sleepovers with him and Stelle, she’d be the first to fall asleep.
March shifts in her slippers, pale pink with bunny ears, staring down at them sheepishly. “No, not really, I just…”
“Couldn’t sleep?” Dan Heng finishes for her before stepping aside to let her in. He might as well be the one to invite her in before she’d inevitably ask to stay the night, insisting on keeping him company.
She nods, kicking off her slippers to flop onto his bed, burying her head in his pillow. “It’s been driving me crazy,” she agonizes with a groan muffled by the pillow.
Dan Heng chuckles as he closes the door, then joins March on the bed, sitting cross-legged next to her. She looks up at him, a weariness in her eyes from the stifling night. “Why aren’t you asleep?”
“Can’t,” he says, clipped with a sigh. March gives him a sympathetic look. It skitters under his skin the wrong way. “I’m used to it,” he explains, as though to quell the pity in those doe eyes, even if he knows March doesn’t have it in her to be insincere.
“Why?” March rolls over to lay on her back, then sits up, mirroring his position by crossing her legs, too.
Dan Heng scratches the back of his neck. “Nightmares, usually.” It feels strange for his neck to be bare, having grown used to the sensation of cascading tresses brushing against his nape from his other form. “Tonight, I just can’t. I don’t know why.”
“Is it from your memories?” March asks, fiddling with the hem of her pyjamas. It's a common occurrence for her to toy with the fabric of her clothes when she’s trying to stay focused, Dan Heng notices.
“Usually. They don’t make much sense, honestly.”
“Like blurred photos from a bad shot?” March adds, nodding for him to elaborate.
“Something like that,” he starts. “It's pieces of moments that aren't mine, vignettes I can’t make sense of.” The glint of a flower hairpin under the moon’s bathing light; scarred, crinkled hands holding his, soft and ever-youthful; a chorus of laughter cascading through the air, five voices harmonizing over a joy lost to his fraying consciousness as Yinyue Jun before being moulted into who he is now.
March nods once more. “Usually, for me, it's the lack of memories that scares me. I used to wake up from nightmares, shaking at the idea that I could die with no friends or family to mourn me, nameless and lost,” she says, a solemness to her tone before she shakes her head as though chastising herself. “Sorry, I’m just bringing up stuff that’s a bummer to think about. Thinking too hard about that stuff gives me the heebie-jeebies, and– Dan Heng?”
He doesn’t register the sounds of his name at first. It's only when March begins waving her hand in front of his face, saying, “Hello? Earth to Dan Heng? C’mon, I can’t be that boring when I talk about other stuff,” that he reorients himself back into the current moment.
March pouts at him, whining softly. “Did you seriously zone out just then?”
He blinks, rubbing at his eyes. “Sorry, I’m just a bit distracted with everything.”
March turns towards him, hands on her hips. “Well, make it up to me for oh so rudely zoning out when I was talking by letting me brush your hair,” she declares.
Dan Heng runs a hand through his hair, glancing up at it. “Why, exactly?” He doesn’t mind indulging in her request, but it strikes him as random.
“No, your long hair,” March says. “Y’know, from your other form? With the horns?” She points at the crown of her head, where the horns would be on his head, as though he forgot their existence.
Dan Heng’s lips pull into a slight frown. “Why? What’s wrong with my current hair?”
She makes a face at him, flabbergasted that he’d even ask that. “It's boring , that’s what. It’s so short that I can’t even do anything with it!” March entwines her hands together in a prayer gesture as she pouts up at him, batting her eyelashes like a spoiled child whining for what she wants—which, if you asked Dan Heng, wasn’t that inaccurate. “Please, Dan Heng? I’ll even say pretty please with a cherry on top!” she pleads, to which Dan Heng rolls his eyes.
He sighs in exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose to calm his stifled patience. He didn’t particularly enjoy going into his other form, but with March’s helpless, pleading eyes, there was little he could do to deny her.
( ”You’re growing soft,” Stelle had said one night, just as he was about to retreat to the archives room.
“ Pardon?” He asked, one brow raised.
“ For March,” she said, elaborating on little else. When the perturbed look on his face remained, she snorted. “You seriously don’t get it? You can’t say no to her, Danny– ”
“ Don’t call me that,” he interjected, irritation hidden beneath his typical polite tone.
“ You can’t say no to her, Dan Heng,” she rectified, a smile rising. “It’ll be your undoing one day, I swear on it.” )
“I…” he starts, then sighs. With anyone else, he could whip up a sharp dissertation as a retort to reject whatever they were asking of him, but with March, all words seem to shrivel up on his tongue, no matter how much he wants to prove Stelle wrong. Her pout grows as his resolve falters, and he concedes, “Fine. But go get your stuff while I change into my other form.”
March springs up like a wilted sunflower that’s finally given proper light and water to flourish as she flings her arms around him to hug him, exclaiming, “Oh, thank you, Danny!” before dashing to her room to get whatever she needs.
“Close the door after you!” he yells, to which it slams shut. Dan Heng sighs and shakes his head, controlling his breathing to begin shifting into his other form. Like a reptile pulling on an old shed of skin, Dan Heng dons Yinyue Jun’s likeness once more, smooth horns peaking out of waves of long, brown hair, with flesh giving way to scales as his tail curls around him.
Just then, March bursts into his room, wielding her sparkly pink hairbrush with as much vigour as she does her bow in battle in one hand and a bag full of hair accessories in the other. She squeals at the sight of him, belly-flopping onto the bed before sitting up next to him, a grin bright enough to power the entire Astral Express for a month on her face.
She shifts to sit behind him, carefully avoiding his tail, which he pulls in front of him to lay on his lap, gathering all his hair together. March is almost reverential with her touch, gently running her fingers through the dark locks that cascade down his back. “Your hair is so soft, Danny. What do you use for it?”
“Uh, shampoo? It’s the kind that Welt uses,” he says.
In the floor-length mirror in front of them, he can see March wrinkle her nose. “The two-in-one stuff? Really? You’re not lying, are you, with hair this luscious?”
He shrugs. “Must come with being a Vidyadhara.” Dan Heng supposes that if there’s one perk that comes with being the reincarnation of a disgraced High Elder—national traitor wanted for treason and all—it's that the good hair carries over into the next lifetime (or at least according to March).
She sticks her tongue out at him spitefully. “No fair! All I got was being stuck in a block of ice before you guys chipped me out. If I wasn’t going to get naturally voluminous hair, I could’ve at least gotten my memories.”
March parts his hair into sections to make it easier to detangle. She begins combing from the bottom of the hank of hair in her hand, careful not to pull too harshly. When she’s satisfied with the area she’s working on, quick hands move on to the next section, repeating the motions.
Dan Heng watches her through the mirror. Face screwed in absolute concentration, March is an endearing sight, treating the simple task of combing his hair with great diligence. She hums along as she works, a melody from one of the sugary pop songs she always insists on playing.
“Why are you combing from the bottom?” he asks, lacking a better topic to hinge a conversation on. Usually, with his short hair, he cards his fingers through it to see if it’s passable.
March perks up, surprised he was the one to speak first. “Oh, Himeko taught me to! With long hair, the knots are usually lower, so it's best to comb the bottom half first before doing the top and then combing fully from the scalp. That way, you aren't pulling out more hair than necessary by having to drag the brush through tangles at the bottom when the top was already fine.”
Dan Heng nods along as she begins to ramble extensively about hair products, from what scented shampoo is best for a pretty girl to debating with him whether conditioner is truly essential to buy.
“If you can buy it already incorporated into the shampoo, I don’t see why you need to buy it separately. It's foolish to purchase two bottles when you can have both products together at the price of one,” he reasons, opposing March for nothing more than to pass the time.
March looks at him like he offended her entire person, features etched in an almost cartoonish version of disbelief. “You’re just saying that because you have good genes! Listen, I love Mr. Welt and all, but his hair is musty from the two-in-one he uses.” March shakes her head, laughing good-naturedly. “You’re lucky your hair isn’t the same.”
Once March is satisfied with the state of his hair, she begins combing it thoroughly, starting from the top to tug it through the thick length until the comb can run through it seamlessly. He suppresses a shudder from the euphoric scraping against his sensitive scalp as she artfully avoids the base of his horns, wary of the protrusions. He has to will his tail to stop wagging in his lap from the pleasurable sensation.
Still, some strands end up tangling around his horns. “Sorry, can I?” March asks, vaguely gesturing to them. Dan Heng nods, tilting his head toward her for easier access.
Like a child cajoling a wounded animal, March’s hands clumsily reach for him, tentatively brushing along the length of bony keratin, an apology already prepared on her bitten lip as she chews it anxiously should she hurt him in any way. Her fingers linger at the ring of gold at the base of his horn, unravelling the hair wound around it.
Dan Heng reaches up to place a hand over hers, small and soft in comparison to his that have gained callouses from years of tireless labour—if there’s one that differentiates him from Yinyue Jun, it’s that he didn’t have the opportunity to sit idle while lavishing in spoils. “You can touch,” he assures.
At his confirmation, March tenderly strokes his horn, gasping softly. “It’s like glass,” she starts, running her fingers along the smaller ridges that branch out, “smooth and cool to the touch.”
Dan Heng bites back a moan that threatens to spill out when March applies more pressure near the base of his horn—he hadn’t realized just how sensitive to the touch they’d be—and wills his voice to be steady as he remarks, “Hopefully, they’re not as delicate as glass may be.” He thanks the Aeons that March seems blissfully unaware of his dilemma, his traitorous tail twitching with the urge to wrap around her waist and pull her closer so he can bask in her touch for longer.
“I think you’re good now,” March says, retracting her hand after smoothing down his hair for the final time. Traitorously, he mourns the loss of her warmth as he peers into the mirror to assess his appearance, running a hand through his hair. It flows through his fingers seamlessly, silken to the touch.
March beams at his reaction in the mirror, squeezing his shoulder. “You’re so pretty, Danny,” she sighs wistfully, tucking a lock of hair behind his pointed ear. He yelps when she gives it a tug, laughter treacherously saccharine. “Did I ever tell you that your ears are cute when they’re pointy?”
Dan Heng blinks at her. “Not particularly?”
“Well, you know now,” she giggles softly.
Just then, a small yawn spills from her lips. March stretches out her arms, blinking blearily, before shuffling into her slippers. “I think I should be heading back now–” another yawn tumbles out of her throat, slurring her words, “–it’s getting pretty late.”
The bed creaks with the loss of her weight as she stands, limbs lethargic as she rubs her eyes. “Good night, Danny,” she warbles sleepily, heading towards the door to rest for the night.
Without thinking, his hand clasps around her wrist, tugging her into halting mid-stride. March turns to look back at him, discombobulated. “Danny?”
“I–” He scrambles for an excuse, helplessly glancing around the room until he spots the bag of hair accessories March brought. Dan Heng clears his throat. “Wouldn’t you want to… braid my hair? You mentioned wanting to do it the first time you saw me in this form, and it’d be a pointless endeavour to spend all that time combing my hair if you’re not going to style it.”
March blinks at him; Dan Heng mirrors her, his fingers still wrapped around her wrist, an apology on his tongue for keeping her from going to bed. Just as he loosens his grip, she bounds next to him. “Really? You’d let me?”
Dan Heng nods, internally grateful that he bought another hour of her time. March giggles as she dumps the contents of the bag onto his bed, hair clips and pins clattering into a pile. Digging through it, she scours the mountain of accessories, splaying them across the duvet to find whatever she desires.
“Do you want ribbons? I think they’d look really pretty,” March says. “I don’t have the right colour to match your eyes, but maybe a baby blue would work? Or white? I have pink, too, but I doubt you’d like that one.”
He shrugs, content to listen to her ramble on. “I don’t have a preference. I trust you to pick what’s best,” he answers, eyelids fluttering shut from the exhaustion that’s beginning to creep into his limbs.
Flitting in and out of being fully awake, Dan Heng is content to drift off to the sensation of March’s nimble fingers skittering across his scalp, weaving through his hair to tug it into a plait. Lulled on by the return of March’s soft humming, time escapes him as he basks in her attention like a pet spoiled rotten by its owner.
It's only when March nudges him that he jolts awake, eyes adjusting to the light of his room. Dan Heng rubs his eyes with the back of his hand, blinking the exhaustion away. March squeezes his shoulder once more. “So? What do you think?”
He glances at the mirror, his gaze still blurry, before blinking slowly, waiting for his vision to sharpen once more. When his sight finally clears, the reflection is not one he thought he’d ever see of himself. With satin bows wrapped around his horns—he’s faintly impressed that March managed to get them on him without waking him up—a messy braid splayed across his neck to cascade down his shoulders, pale blue and white ribbons entwined with the dark strands. His bangs are clipped back with sparkly blue hair clips, pushing the fringe out of his eyes softened by the lack of red eyeliner, making him appear younger, the sharp edges of his features nulled by the girly accessories.
March pulls at one of the interloping strands of the braid wound too tightly, looking out of place with the looser parts. She gives him a sheepish grin. “My hair’s not long enough to braid that much yet, so my only practice has been on Himeko whenever she had the time, which isn’t really that often. Stelle usually agrees too, but she’s too fidgety to sit still long enough to finish a braid, not gonna lie.”
Dan Heng stares at his reflection, soaking in the sight. March looks at him anxiously. “Danny?”
“I like it,” he says after another moment, a faint smile on his lips. Something of warmth blossoms in his chest, unfurling from where it was tucked away like a lotus flower rising from cool mud to embrace the light’s touch as he holds back a tender laugh, threatening to spill from his lips. “I like it,” he repeats, watching as March’s furrowed brow relaxes and the pout of worry falls from her lips, giving way to a wobbly smile.
“Really?” she asks, hopefulness edging her tone. “You’re not just saying that 'cause you’d feel bad?”
“Didn’t you once cry because I said that I didn’t think ‘Heart Attack’ by Chuu was the pinnacle of musical excellence? Do you really take me as one to lie out of pity?”
March sticks her tongue out at him. “I still think you need to get your ears cleaned.”
“Personally, I think Gowon had the best solo–”
“You’re just saying that because she spent the whole music video trying to run away from the actions of the other version of her.”
“Touché.”
She wrinkles her nose in thought. “Does that mean Blade’s Olivia in this case?”
Dan Heng frowns. “Don’t compare her to him ; at least she didn’t get sloppy when she wanted to burn something down to the ground,” Dan Heng says disdainfully. “He destroyed several IPC ships and still failed at killing me.” He pauses for a moment. “That, and Olivia isn’t a deranged stalker.”
“You say that last part like it's impressive,” March mutters, shaking her head before resting it on his shoulder. “That aside, I know you don’t really like going into this form. So… thank you.”
“For?”
“For indulging me, Danny.” March seems surprised she has to elaborate. “I know that when Stelle asked you if you’d transform again so she could see if your eyes glowed, you emptied out all of her beloved trash cans in the nearby vicinity.”
“You’re… hard to say no to,” he admits, mumbling into his palm splayed across his embarrassed features. Somewhere along the line, March wormed her way between the cracks of his defences, the instinct of self-preservation simultaneously quelled and fuelled by her tendency to rope him into her shenanigans, much to his chagrin. It was exhilarating; it was exhausting, keeping up with the whirlwind of energy that she had ever since she was whittled out of that icy entombment to stumble onto the Astral Express, hand in hand with Himeko.
“Does that mean you’ll let me take a picture of you like this?”
“Don’t push it,” he huffs, fighting to stop the small smile that spreads on his face despite himself. “I know you like taking bad photos, evidenced by all the ones you have of yourself–”
“ Hey !” March does her best attempt at a glare. “I hate you.”
“Sure you do,” he snorts.
“I do!” She shoves his shoulder. “You’re so ungrateful for all the work I put into doing your hair. A little thanks would be nice,” she replies, miffed.
“Thanks,” Dan Heng deadpans. That earns him another exasperated look from March and a smack on his arm. His tail uncurls itself in his lap and smacks her back with equal vigour.
Rather than the annoyed reaction he expected, March seems contemplative at the sight of his tail. “Do you think that was something he used to do? Smack people with his tail?”
“Maybe,” he says. “It’s strange to think that Yinyue Jun could’ve been just like you and I or anyone else. With his own petty troubles and desires, likes and dislikes.” Before everything had fallen apart remained unsaid as Dan Heng glances wistfully at his tail.
“Maybe he had someone to braid his hair for him, too,” March supplies. “Can you imagine that? The High Elder of the Xianzhou Luofu, probably doing whatever important—and boring, honestly—duties he had, in all of his ribboned, sparkly-clipped glory.”
Dan Heng entertains the thought for a moment. Then, he meets his own gaze in the mirror, swallowing back the acidic taste in his mouth at how close that musing is to reality, the line between his reflection and his past life’s blurring uncomfortably close. If he doesn’t have the likeness reflected to him in the glass to himself, then what part of his being truly is his own?
“You’re doing it again,” March says, poking at his cheek.
He makes no attempt to stop her. “Doing what?”
“Thinking too hard. It’s like your nerd brain never shuts off,” she muses. March leans back, lying on the bed, palm outstretched to the ceiling. She flexes her fingers before curling them into a fist, receding her raised arm to rub at her eyes. “Is it really worth losing sleep over? Whatever you’re worried about?”
March yawns, rolling over to lay on her side to look at him. “Can’t it wait until the morning, at least? Please?”
Dan Heng blinks, gaze trailing across the hair splayed across March’s face, her hand loosely clenched on the bed, eyes fluttering shut as she held back the weariness nestling into the crevices of her bones, similarly infecting him as he can feel his ability to stay conscious wane.
Without a word, he scoops up the pile of remaining hair accessories and his book from before and dumps them onto the nearby bedside table, then treads over to lights to flicker them off. When he climbs into the bed, cloaked by the dark and led by nothing but the warmth of March’s hand reaching for his to tug him closer, his eyes sting with exhaustion.
A pair of arms wrap around him from behind as March nestles into the crook of his shoulder, the ghost of a kiss against the nape of his neck laid bare, braid pulled over his shoulder, eliciting a shiver from him. Dan Heng twines a hand with the smaller one that rests against his stomach, squeezing it tenderly.
For the first time in years, Dan Heng smiles as he drifts off into the embrace of slumber, the weight against his back anchoring him to the small oasis he’s carved out for himself, scented with strawberry shampoo and filled with the shuttering sound of another memory captured through film.
*__*__*
Dan Feng squeals as strong arms haul him into their embrace from beneath his knees and around his back, an unimaginable sound for the High Elder lest that he wasn’t inebriated beyond coordination. Still, faint laughter shakes its way from beneath his ribs as he wraps his arms around his captor's arms, burying his face into the conjecture of a shoulder.
“Yingxing,” he drawls, alcohol-slurred despite his authoritative tone, “put me down.”
Yingxing gives a rusty chuckle, carrying him through the halls of their home. “I’m of a short-lived species; it's only natural that I relish the extraordinary sight of the illustrious Yinyue Jun reduced to a babbling, drunken mess clinging to my sleeves.”
“I’ll skewer your head off with my spear.” He lacks all acerbity; they both know that he’d never dare to raise Cloud-Piercer against Yingxing. Still, he smacks the aging man’s shoulder, inciting him to sit him down on their bed when they reach their bedroom.
Yingxing shakes his head, smiling good-naturedly, the lines creasing his face outlining the joy etched into his features from their years spent by each other’s side. It makes him all the more beautiful for it. Dan Feng places a hand on his cheek, frowning when it feels as smooth as ever—the decades had combed strands of gray into Yingxing’s dark mane while he remained a walking memory, static through the passage of time as it swallowed away more and more of the other man’s articulation and eyesight.
“And if you do, who will sharpen your spear when it runs dull?”
He meets Yingxing’s crinkled gaze, shoving away the thoughts that linger as the fog of his stupor lifted. “Then I suppose I shall never swing it again without its original master to tend to it,” he says, feeling as though he is suddenly trudging through Scarelorge Waterscape while half-drowned rather than sitting comfortably on his bed in the warmth of his home.
Yingxing gives him another tender smile before forgoing the conversation, climbing into their bed with a yawn on his lips. He gestures for Dan Feng to follow. The Vidyadhara obliges him, settling next to him as a pair of arms wrap around his waist from behind, Yingxing nestling into his shoulder after brushing his hair aside to place a tender kiss on the nape of his neck, hands twined with a squeeze.
Ah , Dan Feng realizes, as Yingxing’s faint breathing gives way to gentle snoring— I would chase after this warmth into the next lifetime. Let it linger for me to reach for it once more.