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Dan Heng was immediately on high alert when he heard footsteps in the hallway outside the archives. It was just him and Pom-Pom on the Express, and these footsteps sounded much louder than Pom-Pom. He immediately remembered the time that Knight of Beauty and his poor IPC companion had boarded the Express without warning– could it be another intruder?
Well, this was why he had stayed behind on the train, after all. There had to be someone to watch for intruders, and he was technically the Express’s guard, no matter how most of their duties ended up being shared among all of the Nameless. He summoned Cloud-Piercer to his hand and pushed open the door to the archives, almost running directly into Stelle.
Both of them froze. Now that the door was open. Dan Heng could faintly hear a new tune playing from the Express phonograph– a tune that March had made him listen to before, by the singer Robin. Stelle must have just changed it.
“...I’m sorry,” muttered Dan Heng, dismissing Cloud-Piercer. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Stelle looked Dan Heng up and down, and raised her eyebrow. “No problem, mister High Elder.”
Right– he had taken the shape of Imbibitor Lunae. Dan Heng had decided since the Express’s visit to the Luofu that he would get used to this form again, for like it or not, he still had importance as the reincarnation of Dan Feng, and… well, sometimes he would have to deal with that, like it or not. It had been useful when visiting Bailu and repairing the seal of the Ambrosial Arbor, and since then, he’d come to find the sight of this version of his reflection slightly more tolerable.
“Hm,” he grunted noncommittally, beginning to step back into the archives, but he stopped himself as the door was closing as the gears turned in his head. What was Stelle doing back here?
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” said Stelle, walking away, and Dan Heng immediately knew something was wrong. It was never that easy to get her to leave him alone.
“Wait,” he said, and Stelle stopped in her tracks.
Good. Now what?
“Um,” he continued eloquently. “I… ah, do you… are you…”
“Take your time,” said Stelle, a slight smile on her face. Dan Heng felt his face warm.
“I only meant to ask how your time in Penacony has been so far,” he muttered. “The four of you have been surprisingly reticent since making your way into the hotel, and, well…”
He met Stelle’s eyes. They were tired and puffy, and his heart sank.
“I was there when Himeko briefed us about the suspicious details of the Family’s invitation, you know. You can tell me what progress you’ve made, or anything you’ve learned about it, if you’d like…”
Stelle’s face returned to a neutral mask. “Welt– uh, Mister Yang and Himeko will have a better account, so I’d wait. They know what happened on my end, but I haven’t learned what exactly happened with them.”
The two of them held eye contact for a long moment.
“Just come in, would you?” Dan Heng sighed. “I’m adding some new entries to the archives. I could use your help.”
Stelle nodded and walked in wordlessly. This was something they’d done several times before, when they were on the train and Stelle had gotten bored with nobody left to bother, so they fell into a comfortable routine as they reviewed, sorted, and inputted the information.
Maybe half an hour in, Stelle went five minutes without passing him any documents. Dan Heng glanced over at her, only to see that she was absorbed in reading an entry.
He crept closer and peered over her shoulder, only to be greeted with the data bank’s menu screen.
“What were you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
Dan Heng hit the back button and was instantly greeted with a light cone featuring his own face: Brighter than the Sun. He had seen it before, of course, and even used it in combat a few times, but this was the first time that he had bothered to read the description provided by the Garden of Recollection.
From birth, all that ever lay before him was but a lightless dungeon.
To this darkness, irrelevant sins bound him... irrelevant memories engulfed him.
He writhed, gasping for breath with every fiber of his being,
attempting to clasp a sliver of light in this fathomless ocean.
Until the day the general stepped into the lightless depths of this prison,
he beheld a radiance shining brighter than the sun — the gaze of a young man.
Dan Heng’s mouth twisted into a frown. While the light cone was accurate, due to being harvested directly from his own memories, the description felt… overly dramatic for something that was really so simple to express. And what was with that description of his meeting with the General? Perhaps he was just bitter from his own obvious negative bias, but…
“I met a memokeeper, in the dream,” Stelle said without warning. “She told me a thing or two about light cones. Do you remember what you were feeling? In this memory, I mean. If I’m understanding it correctly, it’s the moment that the general first visited you in the Shackling Prison.”
Dan Heng thought for a moment.
“I think… I was still very confused. It was the first time I’d seen the general, and I was very indignant at being detained. So, I suppose… pain, confusion, and anger.”
“I see.”
A short, tense silence settled between them. It didn’t take long for Dan Heng to decide that even discussing his past was far better than letting Stelle stew in whatever she was feeling.
“Is there… Anything else?”
“Hmm… Okay, how about this. Imagine that you had left the Shackling Prison and the Luofu behind you, and boarded the Astral Express immediately. I know you really had some other adventures before becoming a Nameless, but just… pretend.”
“Sure,” agreed Dan Heng. “I would have been even more of a nuisance to Mr. Yang and Himeko, I’m afraid. But yes. Then what?”
“Imagine that on the Express… you were having the time of your life.” Stelle smiled faintly. “I guess you might not have to imagine that. I’m sure being a Nameless is leagues ahead of being a prisoner or a fugitive.”
“You can say that again,” muttered Dan Heng.
“And then… imagine that, at any moment, you could be sent straight back to the Shackling Prison. Imagine that you… that you knew that your life on the Express wasn’t real, but all you could do was cling to it desperately and pray that you didn’t get sent hurtling back into that cell, or whatever, chained to the wall with only the guards and the walls to talk to.”
“Well, that sounds like an extremely stressful weight to carry.” Dan Heng frowned. “Stelle, where are you going with this scenario?”
Stelle sighed and took a seat on Dan Heng’s mattress.
“All right, I’ll tell you. Come on, sit down,” she said, patting the spot next to her. Dan Heng obliged.
And then Stelle began to tell him of all the things that had happened to her in the Dreamscape. It was a long account, taking several hours with only a couple breaks to get some water. Stelle talked and talked– about the strange circumstances of the hotel, the smug and smarmy IPC representative whose motives she had no idea how to decipher, the Galaxy Ranger whose presence was both comfortingly familiar and eerily off putting, the inscrutable organizer of the festival, the laid-back security head, the terrifyingly unpredictable Masked Fool, the young bellboy whose voice she kept hearing even when he surely wasn’t there, the mysterious and surprisingly involved Memokeeper, the Stellaron Hunter who seemed to char the very air she breathed, the singer who met a tragic fate, and apparently, Sampo fucking Koski. (No, Dan Heng– We met Sparkle the first time, but I watched a memory from Black Swan that had the actual Sampo in it. They were both in the same place at the same time– he HAS to be here. Unless Sparkle can clone herself, or something, and was just acting. Actually… fuck…)
But most of all, Stelle talked about Firefly. She talked and talked until her throat was hoarse and coughing and tears welled up in her eyes.
“I wish I could have trusted her,” Stelle sniffed. “She trusted me, you know. At least a little bit. I could tell. When we found her again in the Dreamscape… she seemed so relieved to see me.”
The tears slid down her face.
“Do–” Dan Heng cleared his throat, and tried again. “Do you know for sure that she’s irretrievably dead? It was in the Dreamscape, after all…”
“No,” whispered Stelle, “but the others acted like she was, and… I…”
Stelle took a deep breath, and her voice trembled as she continued. “I was afraid to ask. What if the answer is yes? And… Well, whatever happened there, it must have been bad. Everyone was so shocked and horrified, and… Dan Heng, I heard that monster tear a hole through her chest.”
Dan Heng flinched.
“She turned into some sort of weird dream goop in my arms. There was something different about that Memory Zone meme… Something unnatural. And even if she’s still okay in the real world… I can’t believe anyone could walk away unaffected after something like that. She’d be right back in her own body, anyways.” She smiled bitterly. “Her own Shackling Prison. At least, that was how she made it sound.”
Any bitterness that Dan Heng had felt upon seeing his own tormented face on the data bank screen melted away. Stelle had obviously been hurting, and he was the one who could help her. He put his hand on her shoulder.
“Stelle, the Express will not be leaving Penacony for some time. You still have, at the very least, until the Charmony Festival. There will be more opportunities for you to learn the truth about what happened to Firefly, what is happening with the Watchmaker and Penacony’s dreamscape, and the other people at this festival. It may seem to be a more treacherous situation than expected, but… You’re strong, Stelle. And you have March, Himeko, and Mr. Yang with you. There’s nothing that can stop four trailblazers.”
Stelle cracked a smile. “You’ve become very optimistic, Dan Heng. What happened?”
“Hardly. Have you seen Mr. Yang fight?” Dan Heng remembers watching a Voidranger Reaver being torn apart by a synthetic black hole and shivers. “And, of course, he and Himeko are incredibly smart. And, well, March is… March.”
“I’m telling her you said that.”
“I’ve said similar things to her face,” Dan Heng declared, unbothered. “And I will again. You know this.”
Stelle huffed. “Yeah, yeah. I tried.”
“Regardless.” Dan Heng’s hand slid off her shoulder. “I do not want to give you false hope, but I have a feeling there is much more about this girl than meets the eye, and I would be entirely unsurprised if you see her again.”
“I wish I could be as confident as you, Dan Heng. I want so badly to know what it is she couldn’t say at Dream’s Edge, but…” Stelle took a deep breath, and shook her head. “No, you’re right. Even if I don’t meet her soon, I can still ask the others. Black Swan… The Family… and that Stellaron Hunter, of course.”
Dan Heng nodded. “Yes. And I would ensure, then, that you have an idea of what you’re going to do or say if you meet her again. In a dream, anything is possible.”
Stelle gulped and turned away from him, but he could still see her reddened ears. “I– Yeah. You’re right. I… Hm.”
Dan Heng pinched the bridge of his nose. Stelle fell for people so easily. For a companion who had been with the Express for so little time, he had already been subjected to far too many flustered rants about how attractive the people she met on their trailblazing expeditions were. It was a little amusing, but mostly irritating, especially during the Express’s time on the Luofu, where he knew some of the subjects of these rants all too well. He wished she would go to March instead with this stuff– she would eat it up. (And probably tell him about it later, anyways.)
“I’m not sure if this is a possibility, but… What are you going to do if she is Sam, Stelle?”
“That would honestly be kind of hot,” Stelle blurted, and Dan Heng regretted saying anything. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised, considering the things he’d heard her say about Kafka in the past. (He refused to think about her comments on Blade.)
“Whatever,” he grunted, getting back to his feet. “Don’t make me tattle to Himeko about your… infatuation with the Stellaron Hunters. It could endanger us, you know.”
“Come on, Dan Heng,” Stelle groaned as she rose from the mattress as well. “Don’t be jealous. You know I still love you.” He met her gaze with a deadpan stare as she wiggled her eyebrows. “You were looking kinda nice in that light cone, too, you know. All chained up… Phew.”
“Get back to work, will you?”