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A/N: 2.2 story spoilers guaranteed. I have taken some small liberties and made assumptions about Fleurdelys’ situation in the story. Although I think they are true canonically, I’m not certain of it.
The purpose of this is primarily to write a fight, but it has surrounding plot and sets up a romantic part 2.
Note, I’ll be using “blink” as a verb to describe a short-distance teleport. I think this use of the term came from the game Dishonored as an ability, but the term itself has spread pretty far, and it’s useful to describe one of Changli’s abilities.
Lastly, I have buffed Changli and Fleurdelys, so their power levels are higher, among other changes. You’ll know the changes when you see it – but I maintain that this is somewhat in-line with canon… or at least in-line with their cool-factor.
Either way, this contrived scenario came to me because during the story quest in which we fight Fleurdelys, I had Changli on my team. Enjoy.
Sever the Dark Tide
…
“HOW LONG WILL YOUR RESOLVE LAST? NOBODY IS COMING TO SAVE YOU.”
“Silence!” Fleurdelys slashed through a mountain of water, and a shower of darkness shredded through the air. “As long as I hold this blade, I will disobey!”
Leviathan began to believe Fleurdelys intended to resist forever. It has been two decades, and no progress has occurred. No matter the tribulations, Fleurdelys did not budge. For four years, Leviathan made it so that Fleurdelys experienced desperate suffocation, yet she persisted until Leviathan relented. Another four years, Leviathan removed all sensation of her skeletal structure, but then she threw herself with every swing. Even as she fell to the ground every time, she declared her defiance.
Perhaps it was unwise to make her so head-strong. This mistake was inevitable, however. Leviathan could seldom anticipate a virtuous human reaction, being comprised of only the most sinister components of humanity’s collective unconscious.
Dilution: that was the only way. Leviathan must dilute her resolve by combining her with an intruder.
Slowly, Leviathan pulled back. The tsunamis towered high but not as frequent. The screams and the taunting remained ever-present but less creative. Slowly, they saved up more and more power to throw out a line into the world below. It would have to be a throw that overwhelmed the inversion of gravity and make it all the way to Ragunna – to draw forth a suitable vessel.
Changli did not recall when it began. Perhaps it was when Rover left Mt. Firmament.
As the ocean fog surrounded her large vessel, she twisted a vermilion feather between two fingers.
It felt… lukewarm. Changli’s body temperature was much higher than that of others. As a young lady, she wondered what the heat of another person felt like. In a strange way, it was as though she walked among the dead. Everybody was cold to the touch.
As she matured, Changli came to accept her role as the warmth-giver, the ever-reliable advisor, but this was turned on its head when she met Rover.
It was like a star meeting another star. Instead of there being cold matter, there was heat again. It was clear Rover’s forte didn’t involve fusion, but the power of their awakening gave them a radiance that made them warm to the touch, even if none other than Changli could perceive that warmth. It was fusion in its most original sense: the merging of matter and the expelling of energy. It was heat from pressure – a pressure incurred by the weight of Rover’s awakening.
This was her master’s master. This was who Xuanmiao learned his swordsmanship from, and Changli had spent only a few days with them – the one she had spent years seeking.
There was still a debt with fate, and with that came a drive to seek Rover again. That’s why when the opportunity presented itself, Changli volunteered on behalf of Jinhsi to do a wellness-check for Rover, bringing her en-route to Ragunna. When Rover ventured to Rinascita, communication had been cut off.
As the fog receded and the city came into view, Changli gazed up to the ocean of stars, where celestial beasts swam in herds. Although they seemed frozen in the sky, Changli imagined them traveling at blistering speeds. If Changli raised her outstretched hand, the width of her palm would obscure a stretch of sky representing many light-years. Before she passed away, perhaps she might return here to see one of those star-riddled whales dip their nose back in the primordial stratum – and yet another one would barely have their right fin free of the glistening cosmos.
Such was the speed of constellations, and such was the brevity of her remaining lifespan.
Changli thought she had come to peace with her remaining time. Now she wasn’t so sure. At Mt. Firmament, she thought nothing of erasing a few more years – those years already being burnt away by her forte before she had mastered it. It seemed the obvious choice then, but afterwards she thought of what if the anomaly had not been resolved, and what if she had encroached on those years she genuinely had left to herself…
She left that thought to trail off on its own, as if a better answer might bubble up from the foam below her.
The waves slowly licked at the vessel’s hull. As Changli leaned over the railing, the faintest light ignited below the water’s surface. It grew into a disc, and through that splendor rose a majestic beast.
A horse with a long horn protruding from their head and a tail like that of a fish levitated past the railing’s edge. Changli stood, mouth agape. This overwhelming aura – not just a difference in quantity, but in type. There was only one entity in Jinzhou with this kind of energy.
“Rejoice.”
Changli dropped to one knee and lowered her eyes.
“I am Imperator, the Sentinel of Rinascita.” The beast’s voice passed through her being like a hand passing through water. “I have watched over you throughout your journey through the fog. I know the contents of your hearts, and I am here to deliver you from uncertainty.”
With caution, Changli raised her countenance. “… A message? The Sentinel of Rinascita descended to deliver a message to me?”
“Indeed. The subject of your thoughts has risen to the clouds, and they dispatched me to petition the aid of a powerful resonator.”
Changli rose to her feet, a sense of urgency taking hold of her. “Where is Rover? What are they doing?”
“My strength fades. Fall into the light, and you shall find your answers soon enough.”
With those words, Imperator’s form became transparent and dispersed into radiant cinders carried by the wind. The disc of light remained on the ocean’s surface.
Changli jumped up and balanced on the railing. As she fell forward, for a split second she thought she heard a choir singing in the cabin at the front of the vessel. There was supposed to be only the captain onboard.
The landing was immediate, as if the floor were right below the water’s surface and the portal had risen to meet her. The floor was a golden dial, radiating outwards towards windows that stretched towards a domed ceiling. Near one of these windows laid an aged painting of a maiden who wore a thorn crown. Although bookshelves lined the walls, what most enthralled Changli was the sight outside of one of the two exits: a crumbled tower, floating.
As Changli exited onto the balcony, her eyes went wide. Above as below, there were seas of clouds. Glistening waterways connected under her and ran below where the balcony would allow Changli to see. Farther off, islands of earth idled in mid-air.
With little warning, a blue orb of energy rocketed from below, narrowly missing Changli’s head peeking over the railing of the balcony. The blue orb swirled around the central tower behind her and phased into it. The clouds morphed into swirling maelstroms.
“Rover?” Far behind her, past a skybridge lined with statues, gilded doors waited. With little hesitation, Changli dashed towards them. Whatever was happening, it seemed to have taken a dire turn. The Sentinel of Rinascita had led her here – Rover must not be far off.
As Changli pushed passed the gilded doors, out of sight, corrupted vines lodged themselves along the edges of the elevator platform in the tower she left, jamming it. Whoever may wish to follow would be delayed for some time.
The shadow of the storm swallowed the room. The faded glow through the windows resembled moonlight, enveloping the figure of a maiden hung by golden threads. It was as though she were suspended in water, her crown of purple thorns resisting the pull of gravity. Changli imagined the gasp of someone waking from a nightmare. In the maiden’s slumber, there was a deep but taut peace, as if she were sinking and soon to strike the ocean’s floor. A pool of aquamarine-crystal spanned the space between them, giving the illusion of water shimmering. Mist settled, then rose: the maiden’s eyes opened.
The room rumbled. A shock wave sliced an amethyst halo that faded at the room’s extremes, and the thin sheen of water at Changli’s feet broke form. Thousands of droplets rose with Changli as she reoriented herself. The gravity inverted again and Changli completed a slow flip to land on the floor.
A feeling of awe enveloped Changli. The tower had become an ocean. Schools comprised of fish made of light circled along the room’s outer edges. Coral leaned like royal spears, as though heralding a monarch. Suspended before the winged statue was a majestic giantess. The horn of Imperator protruded from her forehead, and she wore a grand halo of thorns. Three ethereal swords appeared, creating a single wing of blades.
As the giantess held out her gauntlet, metal and coral danced to produce a blade that drew water into existence as if the air were paper and the blade were ink. As the giantess slashed a bold line, she spoke: “I am Fleurdelys.” Fleurdelys looked down at Changli, and a peculiar expression crossed her visage. “No… something’s not right-” Her face strained, as if those last two words pinned holes in her lungs.
“Changli.”
Changli looked around. The voice seemed directionless.
“You are near your goal. Approach her.”
Without warning, Fleurdelys raised her sword of coral. As if she were wielding the ocean, a violent whirlpool stormed the ceiling above the blade’s tip.
As the water grew more violent, a dot of vermilion flame appeared on Changli’s forehead. She slowly raised her right arm and floated off the ground. A heat-haze hugged her figure. Conjured feathers formed the outline of a moon behind her, and flaming lines formed the grid of a Weiqi board spanning the entire room. A crack of flame broke open the space above Changli.
Just as Fleurdelys threw down a blade of water spanning the ceiling to the floor, that crack of flame unleashed an inferno so fierce it instantly liberated the floor, walls, and ceiling from the bottom of the ocean, flashing the color of a rampaging dawn that broke the night. The blade of water slowed, then as Changli focused the force of the inferno to the blade’s edge, nearly crawled to a stop. The ocean washed back onto the room’s surfaces, but the blade refused to halt or disperse; it grew faster. As Changli drew her own sword to parry, a sharp pain erupted from her hand. The blade pushed her through the air, crashing her – with the force of her parry, she threw herself out of its path and barely escaped being cleaved between the blade and the floor.
Changli’s hand throbbed. Before she had mastered her forte, she scarred herself and made a sleeve of red on her right arm. It was sensitive to the touch: Changli had run right up to her limit. Going farther than this…
Fleurdelys’ feet touched the ground. Her eyes met Changli’s. Despite nearly slaying Changli, Fleurdelys looked as if she were holding in grief. Finally, her lips moved with the force of a whisper: “You can hear it, too, right?”
Seconds passed. Changli slowly nodded, and Fleurdelys winced as if she had been wounded. She supported herself with her sword of coral, holding it with both hands as if she were trying to stab through the ground. Her majestic horn swayed downward as she bowed; a heavy weight grew in Changli’s stomach, and the machinery of her mind revved.
She had dropped into something much greater than she anticipated. This lady did not look human. The Imperator was gone. Something has gone severely wrong. “Fleurdelys, I’m sorry. I don’t know what is happening. Can you tell me what is wrong?”
Fleurdelys raised her eyes. As she straightened her back, she towered over Changli. Although imposing, her eyes did not have the glint of cruelty. She said: “I can not let you leave. A fragment of the Leviathan is within you.”
“Do not let her deceive you. She has the Threnodian within her. If you let her escape, all of Rinascita shall fall.”
The two combatants stared into each other’s eyes, not a single drop of animus between them.
Even as Fleurdelys grasped her sword and entered a stance, Changli stood there. Her stillness gave Fleurdelys pause.
A draft slowly built. At the edges of her coat, cinders ignited into red borders, and the black portions of her outfit turned to ash. The vermilion Mind’s Eye grew blinding, and a black blindfold manifested over Changli’s eyes. Fleurdelys looked as though she were going to speak, but Changli put a single finger to her smiling mouth.
The snow slowly fell outside of Rover and Changli’s refuge. As they overlooked Hongzhen, they chatted and reminisced on their experiences inside the Sonoro Sphere.
“How terrifying,” said Changli. It was clear that her opponent had no memory of the conventional strategies of Weiqi, yet as Changli set up her counterattacks, something bubbled up in Rover’s intuition to block her advance.
Although this was the case, this also meant that Rover had little idea how to attack. Despite their best efforts, Changli’s defense was impenetrable. “Looks like I’m not cut out for Weiqi after all.”
“Don’t say that. This is an impossibly good first game for a novice, after all. If you were any amateur, I would have had you rolling down the hill by now.”
The two continued making moves for some time, before Rover spoke again. “The problem is, I don’t think I like Weiqi that much.”
“What?” The next planned sequence of moves escaped her.
Rover gave a coy smile as they did their next move. “I like spending time with you… I think that’s what I like most about Weiqi.”
“That’s…” Impossible. Rover’s prowess at Weiqi had laid the foundation for Changli’s master to learn the game, then for her master to pass those teachings to Changli. It was like hearing the creator of Weiqi denounce the game.
“Are you surprised?”
Changli shook her head. “I believe you. But…”
As Changli’s silence grew longer, Rover gave a nod of understanding. “I think… the past me would have loved Weiqi. You told me the strength of my awakening likely means I have eternal youth. If I lived such a long life, I would been able to leverage that to be impossibly good at this game, which favors the knowledgeable. But here I am now. I can feel a part of that knowledge remains, but it isn’t right. It isn’t earned.” Rover looked up from the Weiqi board. They gave a sad smile. “I have no idea what I’m doing, but this used to be so important to me… do you think it would be okay for me to let this go?”
Changli studied one game-piece, then after some thought made her move. She smiled as she spoke. “When you look at me like that, it makes me feel as though you’re talking about a funereal.”
“In a way, I’m letting go of my past self, right?”
That statement drew a soft laugh out of Changli. “You mean like growing up?” The flustered expression Rover showed made Changli laugh harder.
“When you put it like that…” It was a little childish.
Changli rested her elbows on the table and set her chin on her hands. “It’s okay to be a bit emotional about these things. I think if we were perfect humans… we’d be able to find meaning and love in things that may have lasted only for a few moments.”
“Peer into the Divine Flame.” 1 year, burned.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH TRAITOR-”
Fleurdelys’ eyes widened.
Changli clenched her teeth. 2 years. As her own forte scorched her, Changli directed it. It must not only target her body. It must target her waveform. As the fake Imperator screamed, Changli gauged the location of its cancerous frequency.
“There you are.” 3 years. The Threnodian was a ribbon tied around her waveform. Changli focused her flames, but it resisted. The flames crashed on the Threnodian like a waterfall.
“Be reduced… to cinders!” 5 years. The Threnodian was blown to pieces, and the only thing that remained was the echo of their screams bouncing in between Changli’s eardrums.
She was a death-star. Waves of heat-haze emanated from her, bouncing off the walls until it was as though Fleurdelys were at the summit of an active volcano. Sleeves of red covered Changli’s arms and shoulders, creeping up her neck and cradling her cheeks like flaming claws. Her skin glowed; the colors of dawn shrouded her – a glorious visage, fueled with lost time. But she seemed timeless – like a goddess descending to Solaris-3, with a knowing smile that hid centuries of trials and tribulations.
When Fleurdelys watched Changli purge the fake Imperator from her waveform, a new emotion stirred on her face. Fleurdelys stepped forward into the illustrious aura, and it shrank back. It was at that moment, they both knew that the fragment of the Leviathan that Changli purged from her body had been minuscule compared to what Fleurdelys contained within her.
Five years lost, for but a minuscule fragment.
As the shadow of the giantess loomed over Changli, Fleurdelys raised her sword and swung it towards her own neck. As if grasped by an invisible hand, the blade stopped just short of her throat.
“I contain the waveform of the Threnodian within me. For decades, I have fought – without sleep, reducing myself to a form without the need for food – in order to keep control of my mind. Although I will fight forever if I must, I wish to take my own life and shackle the Threnodian to my unmoving corpse.”
And the control of the Threnodian prevents her from giving up her own life. The request was clear, yet Changli pressed her lips together. Rover was nowhere to be found, and she hadn’t come here to kill someone so noble. Changli couldn’t hope to purge the waveform of the Leviathan from Fleurdelys like she did with herself, yet a familiar determination rose from her stomach to her heart. She remembered those words she had told her master Xuanmiao: her dream of creating a peaceful and prosperous world. Even back then she knew she would have to do it with a much shorter lifespan than others, and here she was now. Changli could not refuse the weight set on her shoulders: it was this weight she sought. The imperative to contain the Threnodians – Changli could never ignore that.
As Fleurdelys floated off the ground, Changli spoke. “You have been fighting by yourself for a long time, haven’t you?” Changli slid her left foot far behind her, bringing her right hand across her body as though grasping an imaginary sword at her hip. “If it could have been any other way… I would have liked to come to know you.”
Fleurdelys smiled. “Do not grieve for me, warrior. Meeting you here has been the greatest thing to happen to me since this nightmarish fever took me.” Fleurdelys closed her eyes and held out her sword of coral. She slashed a ribbon of water into existence. “Come, mighty God Killer!”
“True sight!” Changli blinked forward. With a single movement, Fleurdelys parried the flaming ghost – then like a hammer hitting the back of Changli’s blade, three rapid explosions made it break through and cut a small gash in Fleurdelys’ side. Fleurdelys kicked off her, a titanic sword following her movement as she flipped. Changli swerved her body to dodge. As the blade passed by, Changli could see her reflection.
In that split-second distraction, an arrow the size of a javelin nearly impaled her. Changli turned into a bird of fire only to run into a wall of tracking water-missiles. She crashed to the ground in human form, somersaulting and breaking into a sprint to strafe along the edge of the arena. Fleurdelys lazily turned to keep up with her opponent.
Changli threw a dozen tracking feathers behind her and put her hand on her opposite hip. Recognition flashed in Fleurdelys’ eyes, and as she prepared her defense, Changli blinked – but not in front of her. As Fleurdelys felt the heat emanate from below her, the feathers Changli threw converged not far away.
“Sever!” Changli blinked vertically, slashing upwards as a flaming ghost – only for her hand to catch on something: Fleurdelys had stomped her on sword’s guard. With a violent twist of her hips, Fleurdelys cracked the side of Changli’s head with her foot, sending her careening through the air. Even as her head swam, Changli barely parried the gigantic sword that gave chase. The force crashed her to the ground and gashed her hip. As she looked up at Fleurdelys, her face seemed unimpressed. The feathers Changli had thrown earlier embedded themselves in the two other swords shielding her flanks.
The chasing sword rose to rejoin the others. Time slowed down, and Changli’s mind revved. As the new data was put in its place, it broke the conformation of its surrounding framework. New possibilities emerged; new necessities emerged.
Changli put a finger to her lip. The water by her feet boiled. 6 years. Fleurdelys raised her arm and threw her broadblade like a javelin. Changli jumped backwards, only moving as much as she needed to. 7 years.
Fleurdelys swooped into close range, hanging off her broadblade’s hilt to kick in a wide arc. 8 years.
“Crosscut!” And it was as though a flaming wicker basket enveloped Fleurdelys. Blazing slashes and afterimages left a trail of red lines all along Fleurdelys’ leg and body – barely missing her neck. Aborting her kick, Fleurdelys slashed behind her with her sword, throwing water as if striking the beach.
“Sever!” Changli blinked under her strike and slashed open Fleurdelys’ solar plexus; the subsequent explosions burst stars of red along the crimson line, as though studding dark rubies along a lace around her torso. As Changli flinched at the severity, a gauntleted hand was already halfway to her head.
Changli dashed backwards. Three giant swords crashed down one after the other, chasing her. Then all at once, the swords raised, creating a tunnel that revealed Fleurdelys in a stance at the other end. In an instant, the giantess dashed forward, throwing an unstoppable horizontal slash. Changli blinked past her, then backwards to slash open Fleurdelys’ back – but Fleurdelys’ swing had not stopped. Enduring the attack, Fleurdelys kept her momentum and spun around, catching Changli off-guard. It was as though the ocean impacted Changli, sending her tumbling uncontrollably across the room despite parrying with her full strength.
As Changli picked herself up on one knee, she realized the weight of her error: her sword-arm was limp. The parry was rushed and awkward, so Fleurdelys’ blade burrowed through half of her arm’s bone before meeting her sword. If Changli had used even just a little less strength, Fleurdelys would have cleaved her arm clean off.
Changli grasped her weapon with her off-hand. Her head swan as she stood and readied her blade, bringing it to her opposite shoulder. She ran at Fleurdelys as she turned to face her. Fleurdelys shot an arrow, and Changli swerved around it as a phoenix. As Changli dodged the swords crashing in her way, Fleurdelys raised her weapon to prepare for their collision, but right before they did so, Changli regained human form.
“Crosscut!” Changli vanished. As the slashes began to manifest, Fleurdelys shot out her arm and clamped Changli’s neck.
Impossible. During this move, Changli was only vulnerable in the window after the previous afterimage appeared and before the next one manifested. It only took Fleurdelys experiencing the technique once to guess exactly where she would be and time her grab. The intuition to pull this off – impossible without divine inspiration and decades of experience.
Fleurdelys raised Changli high in the air and twisted her whole body in preparation of a devastating slam.
9 years. Changli’s sword ignited, and she sliced off the arm Fleurdelys held her with. Even without the force of a slam, Changli fell hard on the ground. Fleurdelys raised her foot to stomp, and Changli threw out a dozen feathers that sank into and burned her body. It slowed Fleurdelys enough for Changli to roll away and regain her footing.
10 years. Changli sped up. As Fleurdelys learned how Changli fought, Changli incorporated more erratic movements – using short-distance blinks to move a slash a few inches to either side, to reposition clockwise or counterclockwise. When her sword followed through on a swing, a tail of sharp feathers exploited the opportunity, making every small victory taken wrest that much more out of Fleurdelys.
It was as though Fleurdelys were invincible. No matter how many blows she took, she never neglected to nearly take Changli’s life in a counter. After a little, Fleurdelys strategized to exchange equal blows – something Changli could not afford. Even when a counter wasn’t obvious, one of the three sharp interlopers would fly forward and force Changli to reposition unfavorably.
Fleurdelys flew away; Changli gave chase. If she let her gain distance now, she would never regain the advantage. As Changli’s feet barely left the ground, the water tremored in straight lines. These linear tremors raced along every direction on the floor, turning and shrinking the unaffected space until they were mere islands. 11 years. Bullet-rain shot out. As Changli flipped and swung her sword, afterimages formed, and it was as though multiple blazing specters coordinated to keep the rain at bay, each deflection creating a metallic ring. In Changli’s peripheral vision, a vortex formed.
Changli careened across the room, grabbed by the vacuum. The air escaped from her lungs. Out of reflex, she blinked downwards and narrowly missed slashing blades forming an X. Changli’s momentum threw her past Fleurdelys, and as Changli stabilized her flight and turned, the pressure of her ordeal weighed slightly heavier. A watery cast formed an arm for Fleurdelys in place of the one Changli had cleaved. Fleurdelys wielded a sword in each hand, two more flanking her at-the-ready.
This couldn’t go unanswered. 12 years. Changli’s sword hand blazed vermilion. The inferno wreathed her arm like a flag caught in a storm, its agony eclipsing the pain of the wounded bone. The leaping flames simmered until the blaze settled into a brilliant, spectral sleeve: usable. She returned her sword to its rightful side and rose up to Fleurdelys. They levitated facing each other. In the moment of stillness, Changli noticed heavy streaks of blood trailing from either side of Fleurdelys’ mouth to her chin.
Changli closed the gap: technique above all else. As her sword left her hand, it spun like a saw. Fleurdelys thought better than to block it, leaning back and kicking a tidal wave up with her foot. As Changli evaded, Fleurdelys already had her dual-blades drawn across her shoulders, and she bore down like a meteor, but Changli was not deterred. She turned the saw-blade and released it spinning vertically in her path. Fleurdelys slashed early, deflecting the attack and using the length of her broadblades to catch Changli with the end of her weapons. Although it wasn’t enough to be fatal, the pain warded Changli away.
As Changli’s weapon returned in her hand, Fleurdelys continued the offensive. She swam through the air, flowing between bidirectional and focused assaults – switching it up, slashing twice with one blade before the other, kicking away then closing the distance instantly. Changli read the patterns as they occurred, parrying and blinking in succession to bypass attacks and exploit positioning Fleurdelys had no means of cordoning off. Yet, no matter what, Changli could not land a critical hit. Fleurdelys reacted as though she anticipated her moves but was only quick enough to prevent the worst damage.
Fleurdelys slashed widely with one sword, turning with her momentum as another blade shot out of the ether, nicking Changli’s cheek – a cover. As she turned, Fleurdelys lifted her back foot and kicked Changli’s stomach with her heel. Its force was tremendous – a tacit signal that their fight in the air was over as Changli skidded on the ground. The water flash-boiled wherever her feet touched.
A blue barrier enveloped Changli as Fleurdelys flew higher, her broadblades combining as if they were only shadows of her main weapon as she raised it. The way the hurricane formed around the pillar of light spawned from her sword – it was a lighthouse, keeping the shadowy ocean back. The hilt of her sword shone like the North Star that guided innumerable sailors through treacherous waters.
Changli walked to the edge of the blue barrier. The water was roaring, yet through the noise she raised her suspicion to the waters: “Fleurdelys… you’ve been holding your breath, haven’t you?”
A soft smile tugged the ends of Fleurdelys’ lips. With her arm raised, the critical damage to her solar plexus was obvious.
Changli dropped into a deep stance and readied her sword at her hip. 13 years. A new heat-haze emerged. The air cracked into plasma, making bridges from Changli’s form and the barrier. 15 years. The surface of the barrier condensed and shattered, the heat differential so great across it that the fragments became flying shrapnel. 17 years. The arcs of crooked white grew longer until it combed the domed roof with its branching fingers. It was as though the room were enveloped in an evolving web of plasma. All that touched it ignited; trails of black coursed across stone surfaces like veins.
Around the pillar of light, the hurricane convulsed into white-water. The turbulent flows threw down a shower of droplets that instantly rarefied into vapor outside of the sanctuary of the conjured whirlpool. The lighthouse shone so bright, Changli thought perhaps it could guide one suffering soul to the shores of the afterlife.
Fleurdelys unleashed a slash that could cut the ocean’s abyss. When it first left her weapon, it seemed too slow, but like how the tide may recede before a tsunami hit, when it shot forward its force was overwhelming. Changli swung her sword, and in an instant the collision flooded the room with steam. As she leaned forward into her attack, fire enveloped her, and it was as though she were a comet impacting the ocean’s surging shore. Her Mind’s Eye shone like a star on her forehead.
Like a volcano erupting, an infernal jet exploded from the flanking edge of her blade, pushing the leading edge deeper into the water. Two more sprouted, the flaming tails combining into a single propulsive flank. Like a field blooming after a summer storm, a handful, then a dozen, then hundreds of little vermilion flowers pushed her blade forward.
“Sever!” The force of the reversal shattered the walls opposite of her, revealing the murky maelstroms. The spears of coral, the winged statue, the star shaped like a tacet field – they were nowhere to be seen. The combined impact either shattered them or threw them to the clouds outside. Yet, those ominous clouds began to lighten; it was dawn.
Fleurdelys stood there, her outline like a shadow in the golden glow of the clouds behind her.
No… it wasn’t a shadow. Half of her form was darkened with blood. She had not dodged; a deep slash ran down from one side of her collarbone to her hip on the opposite side. Impossibly, she took one step forward, then another.
As Fleurdelys approached, Changli stood still.
The shadowy giantess stopped just out of arm’s reach. As soon as Changli saw her knees giving out, she moved forward to catch her. They fell to their knees together, Fleurdelys’ head resting on Changli’s shoulder; Fleurdelys was colder than arctic salt water.
When Fleurdelys opened her mouth, her chest shook with effort. Her diaphragms were destroyed: her voice wasn’t even a whisper. It was as though there was a single breath she had kept within her body just for this moment: “Well… done.”
Golden cinders dotted her form. As though shedding an ethereal coat, Fleurdelys was suddenly much smaller. She now had the petite body Changli saw tied with golden thread. Her crown of thorns was gone.
Changli’s fatigue caught up with her, and she guided them both to the ground. They laid there.
The ground was so cold.
The door to the room burst open, and Rover saw the carnage. Their cheeks still burned remembering the embarrassing saga with the elevator. Enemy reinforcements arrived, and they alongside Cartethyia and Cantarella had to fight. After a few minutes had passed, Rover had simply decided to run up the side of the tower with Cartethyia holding onto them. Cantarella stayed behind to watch their flank.
The room was coated with soot and ash. The entirety of the back wall had been blown out. As Rover ran up the set of stairs leading to the main platform, they were met with an unexpected sight.
“Changli?!”
Rover ran over to her. Changli’s eyes were closed; the black blindfold had disappeared. In a panic, Rover confirmed that she had a pulse, and she did. They sighed in relief.
Next to her was who they assumed was Fleurdelys. Cartethyia peaked over Rover’s shoulder and winced at the sight of her condition. While Cartethyia knelt next to her divided half, Rover’s eyes were drawn to the space between Changli and Fleurdelys: at their interlaced hands.
A/N: I will write a second part (2k-4k words? Maybe more?) with Changli/Rover and Changli/Fleurdelys (merged with Cartethyia) romance at some point, likely months from now.
Please leave your thoughts about how the fighting was written. I’m trying to hone my skills at writing fight scenes, and I want to know what people found enjoyable or not.
The rest of this is me yammering about the decisions I made while writing this. Involves lore speculation. Don’t let my interpretation affect your view of the story. We’re all having a bit of fun here. Thanks for reading.
In the story, it was mentioned how Fleurdelys desired death, and when Rover slays her it is implied to have destroyed the Leviathan by the piece of fallen glass that had the Leviathan’s image. However, if Fleurdelys wished for death, and her death would result in the death of Leviathan, then that leaves the question why she didn’t martyr herself and destroy Leviathan by putting the blade to her own throat. It was feasible to say that Fleurdelys needed to hold back the Corrupted Imperator inside Avinoleum before striking them down as a result of Cantarella transferring the energy from her second awakening to the Imperator who used it to allow Fleurdelys to land a critical blow on them and destroy their body.
However, after the Corrupted Imperator’s body was destroyed and Leviathan merged with Fleurdelys, if martyring herself and putting her blade to her own throat would have killed them both, I think it would be in-character for Fleurdelys to do that. So, that leaves the possibility that it wouldn’t work, and that Leviathan would simply be dispersed rather than destroyed – to build up another Dark Tide in the future.
This results in one of three conclusion:
(1) there was something special about Rover slaying Fleurdelys that resulted in the destruction of Leviathan,
(2) Rover also failed and there was no way to slay Leviathan, only dispersed them – because after all, not even the Leviathan knows the means of their own destruction, and as long as there was civilization there would be the Leviathan, or
(3) Fleurdelys would not be able to put the blade to her own throat because of the influence of the Leviathan. This would explain why Fleurdelys was tied up while upside down when Rover entered the arena where they both fought. When Fleurdelys detected that a worthy opponent had appeared, she released herself and fought Rover while influenced by the Leviathan, even if her consciousness was active and lucid.
I used assumption (3), as well as the assumption that Fleurdelys will only fight an opponent which she is at least somewhat confident she would lose to. Otherwise, she would prefer that the opponent not approach at all.
I ended up making a rule for when the Leviathan can merge, and that rule is simply that there must be a fragment of the Leviathan within them. So, after Changli purged that fragment from herself, she was not at risk of merging with Fleurdelys, and the reason for why the Leviathan was able to merge with Fleurdelys after she struck down the Corrupted Imperator was because Fleurdelys was the Leviathan’s creation, so that compatibility was already there or at least easy to create.
I couldn’t quite figure out how to integrate Changli’s ground basic attack chain into this. As Changli Havers know, the ground basic attack chain uses her feathers, and her sword only comes out when she is using her ground True Sight, doing her air basic attack combo, or her intro. I compromised and just had the feathers backing up her sword play at parts.
For those who don’t know, a person’s perception of temperature (whether something is cold or not) depends on their own body temperature (and the ease of transferring heat for the material of the contacted object, but that’s not important right now). The reason why Changli perceives everything as cold is because her body temperature is unnaturally high; likewise, the reason at the end that the floor is cold despite the battle heating up the room is because Changli’s internal body temperature is that much higher.
Lastly, I will give an interpretation of how long Changli has to live. Xuanmiao during Changli’s companion quest tells young Changli how she is doomed to have a much shorter lifespan than others. For the purposes of this fic, I’m interpreting that as cutting 30 years off of her lifespan. So, let us say she was going to live to be 80 before. That minus 30 is 50. In this fic, she just burned 17 years of her life, so now she has a max lifespan of 33 years. Changli was the Secretary General before quitting that position to become Jinhsi’s advisor in Jinzhou. Secretary General is a very high political position. Deng Xiaoping and a number of other General Secretaries (the highest position in the CCP, who becomes the President of China; let’s ignore the existence of the paramount leader for now, China has had like 4 constitutions and the positions get rearranged) were Secretary Generals before becoming General Secretaries. Note, the position has been on-and-off altered/abolished, so the history is a bit confusing. Anyways, my point is that this is an elite political position, so I’m saying that Changli is minimum 30 years old currently given that she quit being a Secretary General at least 3 years ago to become Jinhsi’s advisor (though being a Secretary General at 27 is generous). So, she has 3 years to live. This will come into play when I write part 2 of this fic.
Thanks for listening to my yammering. Do give your thoughts in the reviews/comments.