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WHEN FU XUAN asked Jing Yuan about his dreams, she wasn’t expecting a genuine answer at all. It was a silly question, born of the many dreams she’s had of late, and pushed out her throat with the encouragement of the foreign wine they were drinking, shipped all the way from distant worlds, courtesy of the sharp-eyed Amicassadors. Age dulls one’s reactivity to poisons and drugs alike, they say, but the unfamiliarity that comes with a new taste can undermine all those years of intolerance and send you in a drunken state anyway, Fu Xuan later learns. They were not beyond themselves—not enough to admit any fatal secret, at least; not enough for her memory to be impaired at all—but she stirred, drooped against his timely embrace, and when she felt like she was about to slip into slumber, asked the innocent question without another second's thought.
Jing Yuan did not immediately answer. For a moment, Fu Xuan was alone, acutely aware of her beating heart—it was not quick as it would be during a hectic work day, but rather, gentle and heavy. It beat in a rhythm that syncs with Jing Yuan’s slow massages on the crown of her head, kneading slowly, sharply.
He, too, must’ve been caught in the sparks of this peculiar wine. “I dream of flight.”
“Flight?”
“… An age-old dream, really,” Jing Yuan laughed. She caught trails of the lingering regret in his words, dwindling toward a muted sigh. “I’ve embarked on many flights, really, as part of my duty. But each of those ships were charted towards a destination, equipped with a goal to fulfill. I suppose, more accurately, you could say I dream of wandering. Wandering in the unending cosmos, admiring all the stars we could possibly hold with our eyes. Does that not sound the most romantic?”
Fu Xuan felt her facial muscles relax just a smidge. She, too, enjoys taking in the starry expanse above—she easily sympathized with him on the sentiment—and yet, she’s always been quite content to watch it all from the ground. “Is that why you revere the Nameless like so?”
“In a sense.” Fu Xuan knew there was more to this, as there was to everything he’d say; stories he’d buried in the far past, stories she had no right drawing back to the surface, nor desired to. She absorbed, silently, the feeling of Jing Yuan’s fingers tracing her hairlines, undoing the tiny knots among the lengths of her hair. “More generally… for a man whose yoke is boredom and monotone, it could not be helped that I would dream of flight, of adventure.”
He and Fu Xuan have always been very different, she knows, yet it astounds her every time that they should find each other amidst countless millennium, united by their duties for the nation.
“Will you go for it? Once you’ve donned off this robe and acquired your freedom?”
She heard Jing Yuan’s grin before she saw it, “Oh, most certainly. The ultimate goal—the final chapter of my life as a general: successfully handing over this seat to you. And then, I’d be able to peacefully embark on a journey with no end, go wherever the wings decide to take me. Visit many worlds, listen to plenty of stories, try all sorts of tea so you get the best from all those worlds, not limited to just our little fleet.”
He spoke with a youth’s enthusiasm—one, perhaps, he’d been forced to suppress over his many years as a general; experiences he’s never gotten to live for himself. Books authored by short-lived mortals speak of the cycle of life: that at the end of days, one returns to the days of their birth, to enjoying the simple needs and whims, no longer plagued by worldly troubles and higher purposes.
His final chapter.
Fu Xuan’s hand reached out for the cup on the table, but eventually, she decided against the drink.
“Fu’qing,” Jing Yuan whispered by her temple. “When your accession dawns, you’ll need to be congratulated with the richest splendor. Tell me, what do you dream of?”
The easy answer to that question, of course, was that being the general itself was already her biggest dream. A nagging tick on the back of her mind would remind her that she had another dream, a smaller, deeper dream that she constantly avoided, for fear of overindulgence. Of the despondence that would come with its improbability.
An improbability, she now knows, was turning into an impossibility.
If you asked her of grander dreams, of what she aimed to achieve in life…“I’m curious too, I suppose,” she admitted, “of what lies out there. Xianzhou technology is uniquely sophisticated, but there is no harm in learning how outsiders perform their means of prediction for the future—or, really, just how their nations run.” She paused, again, hearing the thumps of her heart against her chest, loud under the liquor. “When you’re out there, don’t forget to ship me some books. And, of course, any delicacies you can find that should rejuvenate me from a day’s hard work.”
“Is that not a given?” Jing Yuan’s laugh resonated across the dim room, in harmony with the flickering lanterns. “You do not need to worry—I’ll be sure to keep you entertained while you carry the weight of this fleet on your tiny but incredible shoulders. It’s the least of what you deserve. Now, though… now we just need to make sure you’re truly ready for the Seat. I’m confident that’s not too hard a feat for you.”
On a regular day, Fu Xuan would’ve argued that she’s all up to boot, and that Jing Yuan’s just needlessly prolonging the change, unwilling to let go of what he’s held on so tightly, so safely, over the past centuries. But perhaps it was because the night was warm, or that his eyes are lined with crinkles of lethargy amidst casual mirth; perhaps his confession revealed something Fu Xuan hadn’t quite considered, that she said nothing to his words. She took the wine in her hands, watching the gold shimmer sway under her gentle swirls, before downing it in one go.
Jing Yuan stared at her in a way that was impossible for any single heart to handle—deliberate delight, remorseful concern, an innocent hope all at once.
Fu Xuan has always known Jing Yuan quite well, and her opinion on that hasn’t changed. Not really, but now, she knows what to do. It’s quite simple, really—
Her greatest wish is just as much his greatest wish, and he’s been doing all he can to make that reality work. All Fu Xuan has to do is play her part well, be the person Jing Yuan can fully trust to lead the Luofu, so that he can finally let go of this heavy mantle to her.
If nothing else, at least, this she knows: the man deserves his chance at freedom.
PATIENCE, JING YUAN’S noted time and again, is her biggest obstacle in becoming a leader. Fu Xuan would argue that many generals in the history of the Xianzhou have been far more temperamental than herself, but it’s not like she should be pitting herself against lowered standards. Indeed, Jing Yuan has been a remarkable general with impressive longevity and stability—it would not do for the Luofu to be handed to anyone less, nor would it leave a good stain on Jing Yuan’s name.
Patience, Fu Xuan’s noted time and again, is a near-unattainable virtue. For her, that is.
It does not take plenty to set Fu Xuan’s anger off. Provocation comes far and wide, often in the form of ignorance—considering Fu Xuan’s unparalleled intelligence, she easily finds herself losing patience when it comes to explaining a concept she’d consider mundane but others find particularly difficult. Her diviners note that her manner of speech doesn’t help her attempts; “Fu Xuan” speech, they call it, a term she’s pretty sure Jing Yuan himself coined. She herself doesn’t think any of the words and phrases she uses are particularly hard to understand at all, and therein lies the problem; there is a massive disconnect between their levels of understanding, and she does not have the patience to dumb down for the sake of education.
At least, when it comes to the Divination Commission, she’s found ways to get other senior diviners to be teaching apprentices how to get around. Jing Yuan would comment, often, that she can’t always delegate tasks to others; that eventually, she’ll have to learn to handle people that are not easy to communicate with.
She must learn to be patient.
She must hold back her temper.
Fu Xuan starts to teach the students of the Divination Commission herself.
It is not an easy feat, but she tries to think of her teacher through it all. Late Master Diviner Jing Tian of the Yuque did take her up as a student from an early age, imparting wisdom well beyond her age, but even then, he always did say things she could not understand—things she would only very belatedly understand, when there was nothing else she could do about her guileless folly. She imagines these students as blank papers, coming from naught; tries to use the easiest words she has in her arsenal in describing the basic concepts of divination. “Speak slowly,” Jing Yuan often advises, “as it should help calm your disposition;” so does Fu Xuan enunciate her words bit by bit, taking breaths in between her sentences so as to not run herself too far in her lectures.
And some idiot would ask her something she’s just explained.
Hold it back. Hold it back. Hold it back.
“Patience is repeating the same words a billion times without wavering,” says Jing Yuan once—Fu Xuan always thought it to be ridiculous, deeming the task easy. Only now does she realize what such repeating entails—repeating despite the circumstances. Repeating despite your lethargy, your annoyance.
She repeats, forcing a smile—and when she has to repeat it again another day, she settles for sighs, settles for deep breaths, settles for a good cup of vanilla milk tea.
THERE IS ONE easier way to incite Fu Xuan’s anger, aside from the idiocy that so offends her. One simply has to directly offend her.
No one likes to be offended, Fu Xuan thinks, nor will anyone willingly stand quietly in the face of blatant offense. It’s natural to want to scream at someone calling you puny, over-the-top, a clout seeker for wanting Jing Yuan’s position, and worse, foolish.
People tell her, easily, not to pay laymen’s words much regard; they are worth nothing, spoken by people who do not know her at all. Still, these words aggravate her; she’s even been taunted once: “You’re ticked off by these comments because you know they’re true, aren’t you?”
Fu Xuan does not have such low self-esteem that she should be swayed by them. Yet she does wonder—why is it that she can’t let such harmless words go without feeling wrath consume her, unfailingly?
Keep calm, she reminds herself, reminds herself, reminds herself. They are insignificant, and these words are meaningless. You know your worth. Your own opinion is what matters.
Until it isn’t.
In an informal meeting with the Yaoqing’s Arbiter-General, Madam Feixiao remarks curtly that while Fu Xuan “makes for an inimitable diviner, one worthy of she who hails from the Yuque, she doesn’t know the first thing about leading an army—she’d just send your troops straight to their deaths, for the sake of an idealized victory.”
It strikes Fu Xuan—a well-aimed arrow, and nothing more. It matters, of course, because these are the words of another general, one greatly revered even across the Xianzhou’s ageless history; it matters, of course, because while Fu Xuan would argue that Madam Feixiao knows nothing of her—
She would not be incorrect. She has made such a decision once, after all—a victory that resulted in the deaths of a fifth of a fleet; of civilians and knights and pilots alike.
Fu Xuan loses herself and sees red, but this anger is not directed at the Arbiter-General.
Jing Yuan takes her hand because he knows, always does, that she is not okay. That she cannot remain patient in the face of this. His argument for Feixiao is simply that “I trust her,” but this argument holds no ratio, no truth. It is no argument, merely sentiment.
Even then, it is a sentiment that wavers. Do you trust someone so easily shaken to lead an entire nation?
She is offended, and she is mournful, and she is mad at everything. But—in front of the generals, in front of her general, Fu Xuan must not falter; even if she cannot, she must fight to be strong, to keep calm in spite these jabs.
“And I shall not betray that trust,” Fu Xuan promises, her voice uncharacteristically quiet, but she means it with her entire heart, her entire life.
DO IT ENOUGH, and you’ll get used to it—that seems to be the whole concept of patience, or so Jing Yuan makes it sound. It sounds a lot like a skill to be trained—Fu Xuan is naturally a quick learner, so there aren’t many skills that require a lot of her time and patience, but she does have minimal training in the martial arts, a heavily physical activity. She figures that she’ll have to be sufficiently adept in fighting anyway, if she’s to become the leader of an army who fights in the field—so she decides to learn the skill.
Jing Yuan offers to teach her, but he, too, is a busy individual; Fu Xuan ends up training alone more often that Jing Yuan even gets to nap. It is just as well—she’s always been self-sufficient, and solitude brings her comfort. Jing Yuan shows up every once in a while, correcting mistakes in her posture and giving her tips on how to strain her arms less, to punch harder with less effort.
She’s not particularly blessed with brawn; it takes her several months before her punches even start leaving dents against dummies, and many years before they can scratch the surface of Jing Yuan’s skin. He grins the first time he recoils from her kick, proceeding to lunge toward her to ruffle her neatly tied hair. Fu Xuan quickly glares at him, quick to jab him with her elbow, before she remembers.
Right. Patience. Lose not your temper…
And she lets her annoyance go with ease, because she’s started grinning as well, elated by her achievement.
“Do you think you can manage weapons now?”
“Look who’s impatient,” Fu Xuan grumbles. “I just managed one thing, and you’re hauling over another boulder.” But her eyes are shining, enticed by the idea of wielding a polearm like the knights. “I don’t even know if I can lift one, heavy as they are.”
“Get a weapon your size, then. Try,” says Jing Yuan, handing her a dagger he fished out the weapons rack. Very much her size. Again, Fu Xuan wants to curse at him, but refrains from doing so, only because she knows he genuinely means well. “It is, too, a good transition from what you’ve been doing—the dagger, considering its size, requires still sharp arm movements. But of course, since you’re holding a blade now, you’ll have to be careful about where you strike. Even against an enemy you’re trying to immobilize, you can’t just recklessly swing it around—every movement counts, including a missed attempt. I’m sure you understand the premise?”
“Grasping concepts is like breathing air to me,” Fu Xuan scoffs. “How well I’ll fare in the field is the challenge.”
“Mhm. Given a couple of years, I reckon you’d have become a mighty skilled assassin,” Jing Yuan jokes, earning him another glare. “But you do need those years, as does anyone. The sooner you start, the better, is it not?”
And Fu Xuan has never been one for waiting, so of course, she immediately readies herself. Jing Yuan instructs her on how to hold the dagger, how to thrust it in the way that least hurts, how to swing it so it doesn’t accidentally scratch her instead.
With his expertise and her willingness to learn, they manage many practical skills in an incredibly short amount of time, years that go by in the blink of an eye.
YET IN THE end, the thing about patience is that it takes time.
Conceptually, Fu Xuan understands that time passed productively, time passed working towards a goal, is not time wasted, and yet she cannot helped be overwhelmed by the mere idea of time passing. She knows she is young and that there are still plenty of forks down the road to traverse, many chances still to make mistakes and to learn, yet she cannot help the incessant ticking in the back of her mind, just as she cannot help bouts of anger when it comes to her.
Madam Yukong, who tells her she was once quick to temper as well, suggests meditation as a form of training her composure. Common advice, an activity she’s tried again and again, over the different decades of her life, even from before she’s moved to the Luofu; Fu Xuan’s parents have always told her it was pertinent for someone of her bearing to exercise restraint, as patience is grace.
She fails, time and again. She’d rather be spending the time reading a book or doing divinations rather than this idleness—that’s how she always feels about the passing of time, about the notion of steady progress. That she’s doing nothing, even when her feet are constantly moving.
Perhaps it’s simply that she doesn’t have a good gauge of progress. And if the marker of this progress is Jing Yuan himself, it should not come off so strange that she keeps asking him—“Am I doing alright?” “Is this enough patience for you?” “When will you finally step down your throne, General?”
Still, still, still—his reply comes out as nothing but a hum.
Patience.
Patience.
Have some patience, Fu Xuan—he is still your general, in the end.
Fu Xuan knows this is a test of its own—perhaps even the ultimate test of patience. Perhaps Jing Yuan will only ever relinquish that title once she is patient enough to stop asking. Except to her, stopping is giving up—like no longer caring, and unless the heavens stir and the stars’ charts are set to mass collision, she would never see reason to give up. She can never bring herself to stop this passion of hers, the answer she’s dying to seek; Fu Xuan is not one to forsake her heart for anything, not even for this.
It’s a Vidyadhara elder that later tells her: “The art of meditation is not the art of forsaking the world, or stopping to live—that’s death, or perhaps mara, to you long-life species. It is, rather, the art of restraining mortal impulses—of emotions that hinder pure thought; of thoughts that beget evil. It is the precursor to maturity and spiritual wisdom, hence its prevalent practice among peoples of old, peoples plagued by the world’s ailments.”
Loath is Fu Xuan to admit it, but perhaps this is one of those things she cannot yet understand at this age, with her experiences. But she isn’t one to sit idly when faced against a problem she can’t solve, so she seeks one of her own.
If she can’t sit still enough to wait, she simply shall fill her hours to the brim, doing anything and everything so she doesn’t have to feel the sands slipping past her fingers. She’ll teach her lectures, even if the people ridicule her speech; she’ll face the judges, even if they deem her unfit to lead. She’ll learn to fight, with swords and ropes and catalysts and bones; she peers through the Omniscia and thinks until she can no longer feel.
Until she is too tired to feel the rage in her veins.
“You know, when I said I was going to make you my successor, I didn’t mean you should literally follow my footsteps and become The Dozing General 2.0,” chuckles Jing Yuan, having caught Fu Xuan falling from lethargy.
She does not laugh, does not glare at him.
“You don’t need to be blessed by the Wisdomwalker to know that mortals need sleep, you know.”
Another jab, another one she takes straight to the chest with no fanfare.
“I hope you know this is not helping your case,” Jing Yuan says more earnestly. Fu Xuan senses his concern, sees the apology in his eyes, and wakes.
My silent oath. Our shared wish.
“One has to try all hands they have in deck,” whispers Fu Xuan, “don’t they?”
She has failed, but at least—at least—she knows what not to do. At least this feels like progress, like growth, a step forward.
She passes out in Jing Yuan’s arms.
“FU XUAN,” HE mumbles. Their fingers are barely grazing each other’s, but there is an unreachable distance between them. A safety fence, transparent yet illusory.
She hums, refusing to open her eyes.
This future, she would rather not gaze into.
“Do you trust me?”
The answer is on the tip of her tongue, but she does not say it. She thinks, instead, of his gaze, yearning for the sun; his lips, glazed with bittersweet affection. She does not need to see him—this image is well ingrained in her mind, in her heart. The seal to my oath.
Slowly, his pinky finger curls itself around hers.
“Mere words are worth naught, I know, when unfulfilled. And I would be entitled to ask you to hold on to a promise that appears far from sight,” he admits. Gone is the voice of confidence with which he speaks to his knights, to the people; there is a gentleness reserved for her, a hesitation leaking through cracks they’ll have to hide tomorrow. “But, if nothing else, have my honesty: I want you to have the Seat. We will make it happen, someday.”
Someday is too vague a word for her, with her paper-thin patience. But she fixates on the ‘we’—because ultimately, this cannot do without her own effort. Without her own trust in that promise, without her hard work to earn the title.
He is tired, she hears.
In some other reality, she would perchance take this moment to leave a kiss by the corner of his eyes, bid him a good night’s rest.
In some other reality, she might’ve curled her pinky, the acceptance of a promise, and tell him her silent vows, confidently claim that she will do her best to make that dream a reality.
Each of them are eloquent in their own rights, quick to move when the situation calls for it. Yet words and acts are excitative things, and this space between them is vulnerable. Many things she does not dare say, things she fears would break this carefully retained arrangement, this momentum.
She hums again.
This may well be a fleeting dream in the midst of a long night, but she keeps this memory close to her chest, close to the resolve she’s signed many moons ago.
IT TOOK TIME, yet it happens all too soon—the Stellaron crisis dawns upon them, resurrecting the Ambrosial Arbor, and the Luofu is sent into utter chaos. Fu Xuan has gone through wars over her lifetime, yet this is her first as the Master Diviner, and the future of the Luofu lies in her hands.
This is one of many tests, one that will prove how she fares against tribulations as someone in power.
She would not have wavered if she hadn’t seen what she’s seen. That third eye—a blessing, and when tragedy is impending, a curse.
Yet still, the future is so much easier to process through the Omniscia. They appear as visions in her mind, easily dismissible as dreams; they do not hold a firm image, and are more like invisible threads, constantly coalescing and disintegrating, changing with every minute act, every decision made. They grow more vivid when something becomes more likely, but flicker when this possibility dwindles; there always appears to be chance to change before the end time comes.
Only in dire times like these does time ever appear to be lacking. Sometimes, Fu Xuan wonders what happened to all that time wasted waiting—why can’t she see this far? Why can’t she have begun preparing for it ages ago, when she was crying about remaining idle during quiet days?
She tries not to show hesitance when she comes up to the general, ready to take his order—knowing exactly what it is he’s going to say. Not wanting to hear the words come out of his mouth.
They are never one for sentiment—Jing Yuan says it loud and clear: “Remain here.”
A line drawn, the stamp of the seal.
Fu Xuan thinks she is used to this, and yet, it pains her to hear it nevertheless.
In any case, the Matrix has foreseen this, too, and instructed them to follow the wise Arbiter-General’s orders as they are. Even if she wanted to say something against his order, tried to argue some sense into him, there is no going against what has been preordained. Not that it would be conscientious, either; Jing Yuan is, after all, only doing his duty as a servant of the Luofu, first and foremost. There was really no room nor reason for her to bring up an argument—
So she accepts his order without question, head slightly bowed to the ground.
See not my fears, Jing Yuan.
Fu Xuan is first to turn her back on him, quick to round the Cloud Knights for a brief. Whatever should happen, in the end, the Xianzhou Alliance comes first—this is the grounds of her commitment to become the general, the grounds of her promise to Jing Yuan. She will give him no cause to worry, just as he will not disappoint her.
Come back alive—watch me prove myself worthy of displacing you.
JING YUAN RETURNS all tattered. A groundbreaking victory, a most heartwarming homecoming—and yet, Fu Xuan cannot help feel the blades lodged in her stomach, ceasing to disappear.
He is unconscious, alive only by a faint beating of the heart. It is nothing short of a miracle that he’s alive.
Nothing short of a miracle.
By all means of planning and foresight, he was never supposed to make it out alive.
Fu Xuan knows—first, nothing escapes Jing Yuan’s cunning. He would have prepared for every possibility imaginable, no matter that he cannot yet tell which of those many possibilities would have occurred. Even if he had never come to realize this was the plotting of the Ruin Author’s cronies, he would have prepared contingencies for unexpected circumstances just as well—would have prepared for a fight, for someone else to cover for him should he be gone. When Qingzu briefed her on her duties, she spoke as though she had rehearsed her script; her face was taut with worry, her eyes wander everywhere but Fu Xuan herself, yet her mouth kept on talking, feet kept on moving. Signs of practice—Fu Xuan would know.
She, too, was moving on auto-pilot—no matter that her divination required careful scrutiny, no matter that the duties of a general were inherently foreign to her. She moved, but she didn’t feel like she was there. So used to functioning, and yet, not used to… all of this.
The change. The loss.
He’s here, he’s back, but there is a reality where he isn’t. Fu Xuan has seen it in her dreams, have it trail her day and night, but seeing his body in such a careless state—she knows nothing can haunt her more.
“What of your dreams?” She asks the limp body in a fit of frustration, annoyed at that unchanging smile. “What of your wish to travel the stars, to see all that the world has to offer? To be free, alive?”
Jing Yuan’s expression does waver then, like he’s surprised to have heard her say that. Like he doesn’t expect her to have brought up something so raw, because—because really, they are coworkers, soldiers, and they are not here to indulge in heart-to-hearts, but to fight against demons, to shed blood for the nation. These are not matters they should burden each other with, for there are far greater burdens for people of their destiny.
And he reminds her just that: “That is secondary to the Alliance, to the Luofu,” he says, quiet and simple. “Secondary to protecting the people. To protecting you… the people’s hope.”
His hope, she knows. They can and never will come to admit this, but—Jing Yuan holds a hope for her that no one else does. Before anyone comes to accept her, he already trusts her.
That dream is useless if she doesn’t make it.
She wants to scream, still. Scream for the sake of screaming, because she is vexed and pissed and terrified and overwhelmed over the thought of losing him. Not because she is not confident she can play a better general than him, but because—
Fu Xuan cannot say it.
She has no viable reason to be screaming at him. And if she can’t explain herself, she has no right to lose her temper. She must rein it in—she must exercise patience, hold herself back—refrain from spilling out her entire heart on a platter.
There is no room for the rawness of their hearts here.
Everything is secondary to the Alliance, to the people.
This is, she realizes, the key to her circumstance. If she has been able to keep her heart under wraps this entire time, then surely, she can do the same for wrath, for irritation, for anxiety, for fear. Nothing, after all, should be harder to hide than desire, than affection.
Many things in life demand choice. Fu Xuan’s job as the Master Diviner is to sift between the branches of fate, to pick the best path among countless others. It is to sacrifice certain outcomes for better ones, picking futures that will not, in the far distant future, become an iceberg of its own. She is no stranger to the conundrum that comes with a deterministic choice—a choice that lasts for ages, spans the fates of many lives.
For her own, too, she must make a choice—which goals to reach for, which ropes to let go. He who chases two rabbits catches neither.
Fu Xuan’s ultimate goal is, has always been, the truth—to understand the makings of fate and future, of how destiny is written in the stars. To become General is one step towards understanding the questions that have plagued her for decades, and everything else… everything else, she must let go of.
For once, she lets go of her anger. For once, she lets out a sigh instead.
She watches as Jing Yuan’s eyes twinkle with understanding, with pride.
Still, I will fight—that the both of us shall get our happy endings, Fu Xuan vows, unwritten. As the observer of fates, the symbol of wisdom, we must work our way towards the best outcomes for our lives—even if we cannot see them as they are prewritten.
FU XUAN STOPS asking. In fact, she stops coming to see Jing Yuan at all.
It is not born out of any specific sentiment—not annoyance, not avoidance, not arrogance of any sort. She’s simply decided to refocus her efforts in the job she already has. Divination itself is a pretty daunting task to most, and there are always a shortage of diviners available—she’s always having to work overtime; she shouldn’t waste her remaining energy on trying to fight a moot point with someone with a rock for a skull. Lady Bailu’s been complaining about sugar expenses, too, no doubt thanks to her constant replenishment needs.
Perhaps, too, because Fu Xuan’s made less of an effort to bother Jing Yuan, that he’s the one who comes for her nowadays—not so often, because they hardly get free time, let alone breaks that coincide. What he does more, really, is send her things—snacks, wine, books, the occasional jewelry. Indulgences, mostly, for her to relax with during her free time, the time they can’t spend together.
Gifts aren’t a particular hassle when you have people to do your bidding, cranes to deliver your packages. But even through simple things like the bittersweet balance of the coffee-based pastry and the latest release from an author she highly favors, Jing Yuan’s attention is heavily apparent—that he is watching, even when they are far apart. That he knows what she needs, even when she does not say it.
That he knows her, and he cares—he still cares, amidst silence.
TIME TICKS ON, years flying by. Frankly, should you ask her, Fu Xuan would not consider herself to be any more patient than she was decades ago. She’s tried—really, she has—to sheathe her temper, but that only ever seem to make things worse for her. At some point, she stops doing just that, casting the snarky retort when someone says something unpleasant, yelling at the diviners slacking, complaining if something’s not served to her properly.
This will not help her case, as Jing Yuan’s often reminded her. But something must have happened over the years, a change so gradual she cannot pinpoint its start: her librarian comes to her one day and points out, “You’ve become calmer as of late, Master Diviner.”
Calmer? Fu Xuan stares at the youngster with much incredulity. “That’s the last person anyone would say, were they to see me,” grumbles Fu Xuan. “The irony is almost offensive.”
“Were they to see you at a glance… perhaps,” Qingque shrugs. “But we know you, and we can see you’ve been easing up on yourself.”
Rarely has Fu Xuan ever found someone else’s words so perplexing, to the point she has difficulty comprehending. “Easing up on myself?”
She waves her hand lazily in the air. “More comfortable in your own skin. Slaying your heels. Yada-yada. You’re less tense, so you’ve been staying late less often, yelling at people less violently. It’s a good thing, Diviner Fu. Almost had me believing you might even indulge me in a game of Celestial Jade or two.”
Comfortable is hardly a word Fu Xuan would use to define herself—no matter how confident she can be, no matter how easy things become to her, she has always been burdened by what’s to come. The weight on her forehead, on her shoulders, is no light matter; she sleeps tormented by possibilities auspicious and tragic alike, wakes to another day of woe and weal. “I have never been particularly against Celestial Jade, though,” Fu Xuan corrects. “There is simply a time and place for everything, and you’re doing all of those wrong.”
“But you’ve been reprimanding me less for it, because you know I’m working my pay’s worth. You wouldn’t have done that years ago. I’ll take you up on that offer, by the way—see you at the game parlor after work!” Qingque remarks, already walking away from her—truly, that girl herself isn’t one to waste time—only, she believes her time is better spent wasting away. Fu Xuan shakes her head in exasperation.
For a while, her mind can’t help wander back to Qingque’s words, plain and unembellished.
In the end, is it really just time itself that had tempered her?
Is Jing Yuan, unsurprisingly, right all along?
Fu Xuan can only let out a lifeless chuckle upon the thought—no rage, no bitterness to it.
IT’S NOT TRUE to say that she’s stopped caring about whether or not she gets to become General, nor that she’s okay with waiting. Fu Xuan has learned to hold her tongue before him, yes, but the unease lingers in the back of her throat, in the pits of her stomach; the constant anxiety that nags at her, the tiny bud of hope—Will it be today? Have I been patient enough? Do you still believe in me?
Same questions, different homes. They live deep in the crevasses of her mind now, buried under aloof gazes and dismissive hums.
Jing Yuan, she knows, is still carefully observing her, perhaps ticking through his mental checklist of what makes a fitting Arbiter-General. The most important virtue, they know, is not whether or not one has a certain trait—it’s whether this trait will persist, should times and conditions change, for better or for worse. This is why time is the ultimate test, to Jing Yuan.
Fu Xuan would never have liked to admit it, but truly, there are certain things that only time can prove—just like it took her centuries to see that her teacher’s prediction had been correct, that their fates have been drawn from before she’d even come to live their pasts. Whether or not she will turn out fit for the throne, too, is something time alone can show, something she could never have rushed to begin with.
She fears time would have dulled her at some point, but she knows, from the way restlessness washes over her every time she attends a meeting of the Six Charioteers, that this dream has yet to die. That her ambition has yet to wane.
That her heart yearns still for the ultimate question—of whether fate can be altered.
Jing Yuan has always been keen to her mannerisms more than anyone—he’s taken it upon himself to bring her reassurance, reminders of his promise. During such meetings with the other Commissioners, he’d massage her shoulders, a gentle reminder to take a break, to lie down after a long day. When they are out for dinner, he picks their meals for them, so she’s never eating an unbalanced meal. When he cannot be with her, he’d send her quotes from random books, sometimes ones she’s read, oftentimes foreign ones; they’d be vaguely ridiculous quotes that would serve its purpose sometime later, containing uncannily hidden wisdom.
He makes the days less dull—sets apart today from tomorrow, this year from the next—reminds Fu Xuan of the life they fight to live, to preserve, as attendants of the nation.
He is, in many ways, the centerpiece of Fu Xuan’s life—a mentor, an aspiration, a motivation, a friend—
A cherished friend, deserving of an unbridled smile, of a carefree life.
I will repay your countless gifts one day, Jing Yuan, she swears for the umpteenth time. One day, and towards the boundless future.
It is this thought that keeps her going, keeps her holding onto this idealized promise, a promise whose future she can’t yet see, a true blindness.
JING YUAN RETURNS in an unkempt state—tears in his outfit with blood that won’t stop gushing out, limping on one leg, and he crashes. It brings up a painful memory, and she opens her mouth to yell—
But that is not the issue. She runs first toward the cupboard, looking for gauze, anything that can hold the blood, cover the scar. Autopilot—a trait that has benefited humans over evolution, yet Fu Xuan hates nothing more than that dissonance between her body and her mind; she is spiraling, seeing the blood that covers him.
She wants to yell, but her throat is clogged. Even if this is not intended as a test—even if this is all real, which she’d rather hope it isn’t—
The hammering of her heart is too loud for her voice to overpower.
Fu Xuan loses herself, either way.
“I’m okay,” Jing Yuan forces through his grunts, taking the cloth from her hand, wiping his own blood off him. “I’m okay, Fu’qing. It was—a friendly spar. Just—with a ruthless woman. I haven’t sparred with the Marshal in a while.”
… The Marshal?
“You’re telling me the Marshal would put you through so much injury? You, the leader of one of the Hexafleet? Don’t fuck with me,” Fu Xuan mutters. “I don’t care if you don’t want to tell me the truth. But don’t even try to—”
“Do I look,” Jing Yuan utters, so slowly it forces her to look at him—his golden eyes, those beautiful eyes—they shine so much warmer under the warm lights of his living room, so much more tender— “like I’m lying, Fu Xuan?”
“… I don’t believe you,” Fu Xuan repeats, because no friendly spar should leave one so bloodied—
Jing Yuan lets out a grin that disappears with another wince. “Quick-witted, as expected. She beat me up, the Marshal.”
Dread rises from deep within her stomach. “What did you do?”
“Fought.”
“… You fought her?”
“I wouldn’t… say that exactly.” Jing Yuan hisses when Fu Xuan accidentally spills a little too much disinfectant, gripping her arm so tightly it burns. “Sorry. Fought—I fought for what I believed in. Argued, mind you—I’d never land the first blow against the Marshal, although that might’ve been an easier way of getting me demoted and banished. She disagreed with my brilliant idea, hence the beating; changed her mind after a bit of back-and-forth.”
Getting demoted and banished?
Getting beat up until the Marshal changed her mind?
“I think you know,” Jing Yuan lets out a most unnerving smile, “why I called you here tonight.”
The hexagrammatic readings from the morning warn her of something that can’t be handled lightly, an event that brings both glee and anguish altogether.
She does not want to worry about what is inevitable, but now that it’s in front of her—now that there’s nowhere else to flee—
With brazen confidence, Jing Yuan declares: “I lodged my resignation a while ago. After I’ve wrapped up the rest of my work, the Seat of Divine Foresight will be yours to have, Diviner Fu.”
Fu Xuan’s hand acts before she can think—she slaps him across the face.
“You are insane, General.”
“Get used to calling me by my name, General—”
Her hand moves again, but Jing Yuan catches her wrist with ease, smile dwindling—he knew well, Fu Xuan’s sure, when she was going to slap him the first time, and allowed her only out of pity. “You idiot,” Fu Xuan is seething now, strings tightened, close to snapping. “You could have told me—”
“Neither of us could have predicted how she would have responded to my request, and I wasn’t going to let you face the worst of those possibilities,” Jing Yuan says sternly. “I may be resigning, but I am not incapable—I vowed I would vouch for you as my successor until you are ready to own the title. That is all I did.”
“You always do this! Make your own plans, do your own things, claiming it for the sake of others—”
“There is no reason to further burden you with trials of no practical worth. The Marshal is powerful, but she doesn’t know you better than I do—”
“That doesn’t mean you have to be the one to stand up for me,” Fu Xuan yells. The exasperation is consuming her—she feels all that ‘patience’ unraveling in an instant, her limbs growing increasingly numb. “You can’t claim to trust me with power and keep coddling me—”
“This’ll be the last time,” Jing Yuan cuts. “The last time I’ll ever be able to coddle you at all, with my remaining power as a general. Can you accept that, at least?”
“Not at the expense of yourself, Jing Yuan!”
The bolt strikes—first, Fu Xuan sees it in Jing Yuan’s eyes, then feels it through her skull.
“Fu Xuan,” he says, a lot more quietly, a lot more slowly: “I am not going to die. I am not… going to die.”
She tries avoiding his eyes, but cannot bear to look away—cannot bear to lose this fragile moment, no matter that the vulnerability threatens her own carefully guarded heart.
“And what if… what if you never managed to convince the Marshal?”
“You know better than to worry of what-ifs, Diviner.”
A moment of silence stretches between them, before Jing Yuan extends his hand.
“That title won’t be yours for any longer—get up, now,” he gingerly calls. “Be mad at me all you want, but remember you cannot let the rest of the fleet bear your temper.”
Fu Xuan doesn’t take his hand. She doesn’t want to. She’s defying him irrationally, she’s well aware, but she cannot bring herself to let go of this. Not yet, at least.
What if your judgment was flawed? nags at the the back of her mind, but she does not voice it.
Even if she is suffused with hesitance, she must not let Jing Yuan bear it, just as she must not let anyone else bear her temper—because this has always been the oath she swore.
It should have never mattered how early or how late, how prepared she is for the job—when the end dawns, it dawns, and she must take over the new beginning.
Fu Xuan takes the General’s robe from Jing Yuan, setting him free—
His promise fulfilled, role concluded; so does her lifelong recompense begin.
SHE ONCE ASSUMED the day of her ascension would be the most memorable day of her life, her single greatest treasure over the many centuries she’ll come to live.
She remembers little of it.
They let out fireworks in honor of the festive celebration—she remembers because they are blinding, fleeting. They brought plenty of sweets, local specialties, dishes unique to each fleet—she did not get to eat plenty of them, but the librarian diviner tried her best to sneak some for her, in the name of “keeping her energized throughout the dragged out ceremony”. Despite considerable time having passed since the announcement—a whole year, to be precise—not everyone had come to accept the overwhelming change, the stepping down of the inimitable Arbiter-General.
She remembers his smile, though. He gave her plenty of smiles that day, but she remembers two most vividly:
The first, early in the morning. He came before the sun even rose, knowing she would not have been able to catch much sleep, knowing nerves kept her awake. He arrived, unsurprisingly, bearing a gift—a ledger.
“What are these?”
“Fan mail,” he replied. A few flicks through the papers showed that they were correspondence—with the Six Charioteers, with the Vidyadhara elders, with the heads of the other fleets. “I’m sure you’re not foreign to the job?”
She rolled her eyes at him, but it did ease her nerves. He really always knew what she needed, and ever so generous with his expressions of care. “Thank you,” she drawled.
The smile he returned was heavy with sentiment. There was hesitation, she saw, from having to release something that had anchored him for so long, a bitterness contrary to his heart’s yearning. And yet, that very excitement outshone the lingering threads, the anticipation of a sun set to rise after endless dark. Whether it was the light that came with his freedom or her ascension, it didn’t matter—they were, in essence, one and the same.
“You’re very welcome, my darling diviner.”
The second, at the end of the day, when all was said and done. When the title had officially been conferred to her, and the applause has dimmed, the curtains dropped. She was sure he knew she was doing alright—not that she could be dismayed after an entire ceremony hailing her new position, her bloom.
He came anyway, and said, “Congratulations once again, my general.”
“Stop that already,” she grumbled, trudging her way over to her seat, leaning against the mighty pillow. “I’ve had enough flattery for a decade. I would much rather be getting to work already.”
“A huge part of becoming a leader is keeping up appearances, you know,” he teases—his hand is reaching for hers, but they don’t quite touch. “Not that you have to worry about your appearance at all—just your expressions, perhaps.”
“Ha. I’ll bear that in mind.”
When she brought her eyes to his once more, she was met with a well of bittersweet pride—of watching the lantern leave your hands, wishes flying to the sky; of letting a bird soar its wings beyond your reach. A change that required plenty of courage to enact, irreversible once the deed was done.
It was of the most beautiful of partings—and the sentiment was most beautiful indeed, in his golden eyes, his tender smile.
“I’m truly proud of you, Fu Xuan,” he whispered, leaving the rest of the sentence unspoken. She knew there was more, because she, too, had more to say. There was more to how she felt than jubilance, than relief. “Thank you, for holding up, no matter that time seemed so daunting. But I hope, looking back, you could see that it was all worth it?”
Looking back after the final chapter of her time as a diviner, of his time as a general—looking forward to the chapters she’d come to write as a general, and he, as a retired man, free to roam the skies.
How could she say otherwise?
“Of course,” she whispered in return, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
All else faded amidst the sea of her subconscious. Perhaps the Matrix can be utilized to fish these memories, but she reckons she doesn’t need to, anyway—the ones that mattered have been written, safely locked inside the drawer of her mind.
“WHEN ARE YOU leaving?”
“Not even four months into your job that was, might I remind you, generously handed down by yours truly, and you’re kicking me out already? What a ruthless lady,” Jing Yuan shakes his head, but he lets out a smirk so boyish, it sends Fu Xuan reeling a little.
“I—you make it sound like I only ever stuck by you to be here,” she mutters. “I was obviously asking because I wanted to see you off.”
“I’m not leaving for at least another month, Lady General. Rest assured you won’t be missing out on my face for a while.”
“A month is…” not a long time, she’d like to say. Once upon the past, she would argue otherwise, but those days where she mourned time’s slow passing are long gone. One of those things you realize as you age, Fu Xuan assumes, even though she’s always thought herself privy of wisdom for all the ages.
She can never truly know everything, can she?
“In any case, I’m making stops to the other fleets before I traverse into the unknown,” Jing Yuan informs, poking on the neatly arranged files on the desk. “Starting with your hometown—gotta tell your parents you’ve been causing a storm in the office… see, see, would you look at that—Qingzu’s grinning ear to ear, having so little to do with your unforgiving supervision. No more mountains of paperwork must make the office a beautiful scenery, huh?”
“Truly the best decision you made in your endless career as General, Jing Yuan,” she easily replies. Even Fu Xuan lets out a scoff.
“Please make sure she’s at least eating and sleeping. I can trust her to carry the universe on her back, but not quite to keep herself healthy, unfortunately.”
Jing Yuan’s eyes dart to every corner of the room; there is no doubt he’s noting every single change she’s made, which, really, isn’t much, aside from rearranging and updating outdated catalogs, because Jing Yuan has already been, by nature, an organized person. Fu Xuan’s eyes linger on him, her hand playing with the fabric of her shirt.
She heaves in a breath, lets it out.
Her eyes flit in and out of focus, and she waits until she can see Jing Yuan clearly once more.
“Jing Yuan.”
He turns to her, head tilted innocently. “Mhm?”
“Thank you,” she says quietly, no matter that there is significant distance between where they stand. Fu Xuan knows Jing Yuan sees what she is saying even if he can’t quite hear it. “Thank you… for fulfilling your promise. Even if it took years, decades, to get here.”
“I really should be the one thanking you,” he says, intrigue lacing his tone. He smiles mirthfully nevertheless. “You’re doing, quite literally, Aeons’ work, Fu’qing. Not everyone wants, let alone manages, to take on such a colossal mantle, yet you persevere even when the world tries to hold you back.”
“I have not managed to do anything,” Fu Xuan points out. “Everything up to this point has been a result of your patience, of your efforts. I am not so blind and greedy as to discredit you for everything you’ve done, for the Luofu and for myself. My work… begins here, now. So…”
She has to take in another deep breath. The words are harder to force out than she imagines it to be.
“… it is my turn to give something back to you.”
“Give something… back?”
Fu Xuan lets out a sigh. “I… promises don’t come easy to me. It is mortifying—the idea of vowing something that I am not certain will happen, a future I cannot see. And because this is a personal matter, it is not something I have peered through with my third eye, not something I consulted the Matrix of Prescience about. But I make this promise purely from my heart, with conviction only of a resolve that I will not break. A debt, a repayment, of sorts. One I cannot break.”
“Fu Xuan,” says Jing Yuan, now looking a lot more serious. “You don’t owe me anything. You don’t have to repay me anything—”
“I want to.”
Jing Yuan sees her stare. He closes his mouth, holding back whatever thought, whatever sentiment he holds.
“For the centuries over which you’ve guarded the Xianzhou Luofu, for all the wars you’ve won and crises you’ve averted, for all the pain you’ve had to bear wordlessly—I will work twice as long, twice as much, to repay them. I will make sure you have no reason to worry about the Luofu under my leadership, that you can truly take your leave, your journey to the stars, at your peace. I know… I know blind trust is not one of your virtues, nor is it mine—but I know you would not have allowed this to happen at all if you had any doubts about my government. I only ask that you hold on to that—that you can hold on to this promise of mine, to you.”
He continues to watch her silently. Not, perhaps, because he is waiting for her to say more—Fu Xuan sees him, and in that shared gaze, sees instead a mirror image of her heart.
“And if the Matrix of Prescience shows you a different fate? Tells you that your promise cannot be fulfilled?”
She turns, averting his gaze, but not so much that Jing Yuan is completely out of sight. “You understand what I seek to answer through this job, do you not?”
“To see if ‘destiny’ can be challenged.”
Fu Xuan nods. That is all the explanation he needs. Jing Yuan’s eyes melt, and she feels it again—the loosening of his grip, coming from understanding. The paper crane, growing smaller in its marvelous flight.
“You have given me many gifts, most of which I never knew how to repay. Have always… found a way to express yourself, when words would sound too raw,” she forces, her voice cracking at the edges. “And you have given me the grandest gift of all—this opportunity, this fortuitous fate. Let me give you this one last gift, in return.
“Go, Jing Yuan, and please, find your happiness. Live all the lives you have lost—live among the stars in my stead, and tell me how it feels when time allows.”
Finality dawns between them like the morning dew, fresh and wistful. Fu Xuan only steals one last glance at Jing Yuan, his uncommon somberness—the glistening golds—before turning her back on him, staring into the empty skies. “That’s enough for today,” she dismisses, as curtly as she can manage. “My work will not finish itself—I have no time for entertaining idlers.”
She does not hear anything from Jing Yuan, only the sound of the door opening and closing shut.
And when tears escape the corners of her eyes, the first in what feels like eons, Fu Xuan does not stop them from streaming—even though there is no need for tears, no need to mourn over a happy ending crafted by their very own hands.
Relief floods out of her like waterfalls, and she buckles just by the Seat she’s worked so hard to earn.
In any case, she has always been a stargazer, a lover of the sky.
I will watch your flight across the galaxy from afar, Jing Yuan.
Please—take my heart with you, if nothing else.
The secretary does not make a rage out of the scene, letting it settle before she chooses to speak: “If defying fate is your goal for being here, why… why not challenge this, too?”
“What is there to challenge?” asks the young Arbiter-General, already back to her work, reading through the reports with astounding speed. “You make it sound like we’ve lost.”
“Perhaps it is beyond me to understand the workings of giants,” the secretary mutters. “I can never be happy in a world where I cannot be with the one I love.”
“Perhaps we all write different definitions for joy,” is the only response she gives her.
“And what is your definition, exactly?”
The general sighs. “Jing Yuan, long ago, once told me I take everything too seriously—that I should find a little joy, learn to smile a little. I am quicker to temper than to find joy in things, I admit. But I, plagued as I am, do not seek happiness as most mortals do. In fact, I don’t think joy is what he is seeking, either.”
The counselor hums in genuine contemplation. “What is he seeking?”
“Freedom from past chains, from unending torment. In other words…” Her hands pause only for a split second, before picking up the seal once more. “Peace. He, I—we look for peace.”
Her peace comes in the form of an answer, an answer that might take a lifetime to find—a fight she is willing to lead, even if she dies trying. Jing Yuan’s peace is simple: to be freed, unburdened of the responsibilities in atoning his pasts.
They could, perhaps, hold hands, indulge in embraces that have them believe such love is worth living for, to find solace in a soul equally as broken. But the burden of time latches on to Jing Yuan by the ankle, and the future haunts Fu Xuan every time her eyes fall to a shut.
There is no peace to be found in ignorance, and they would not fool themselves like so.
Yet that is not to say they do not love—because what is the point of living a peaceful life, if one has no reason for life? Jing Yuan fights because he knows, this, too, will grant her leverage towards her dream—she fights because she knows, this, too, will grant him freedom, at the end of days.
“We’ll keep fighting,” she says—a promise to their presents, “as long as time allows.”
Perhaps one day, many years later, once we’ve found our peace, we won’t be scared to admit it—
admit, that we’ve always loved.