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"Which attempt is this, then?" he asks.
"Seventy-three." Caelus sighs, running hands through his hair. It's getting long again. He might need to start tying it up, or finally get a haircut, or neither and just keep ignoring it.
"And you keep hunting me down, every single time?"
Yes, he thinks. This must be exactly how Phainon felt.
"How often do I listen to you?" asks Dan Heng. "All the other Dan Hengs that you've spoken to, have they listened?"
"Sometimes you do," says Caelus. "Sometimes you don't. It really depends. Not every cycle is the same."
They all end the same, though. He always, always, dies. He comes back over and over again, but Caelus can't even count the number of different ways he's seen Dan Heng die in front of him at this point.
He knows the exact number of times, though.
"If I listen to you," says this Dan Heng carefully, "will you find a way for me to live, this time? As myself, for once?"
"I-" can't promise that, "-will do my best."
The look in Dan Heng's eyes says that he recognizes the deflection, but chooses to brush it aside.
The mantle of the Deliverer is heavy. Caelus had known this when he'd taken it from Phainon's shoulders, and yet hadn't expected the way his knees would buckle beneath it. Without Phainon sustaining the Eternal Recurrences, he hadn't expected them to keep looping.
And yet. And yet, every friend on this planet is stuck in an endless loop of reincarnation. They live and they die, over and over and over again, and Caelus is left to pick up the pieces, loop after loop after loop.
Every single time, he tries to find Dan Heng, and every single time, Dan Heng dies in front of him. Caelus doesn't even know why. There's no Flame Reaver, no future version of himself to kill and replace, no Coreflames even being stolen. And yet, every cycle, they die, and the planet rewinds to the beginning, so Caelus can live it all over again.
"I'll try my hardest," says Caelus, like he does every time. "You'll live if I have a say in the matter." (He doesn't.)
He knows how this ends. They'll have a few more years at most. If he relaxes enough, the two of them will get to settle down together. They'll have enough time to forget the looming deadline over their heads. They'll share a room like they did when they first arrived on Amphoreus, then eventually a bed. Caelus will memorize the way the pads of Dan Heng's fingers feel against his face, lips against lips.
And then, of course, he'll die, and Caelus will be left hunting for a new version of Dan Heng that has no memory of the two of them together at all.
"I'll accept that," replies Dan Heng. "Your hardest may simply be all we have."
They could have so much more if Caelus had any clue what was causing this. He doesn't, though, and he doesn't know how to stop it. All he can do is search, over and over, and hope this time it'll end well. (It doesn't.)