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Caelus shivered, straining against the ropes binding him to the chair. They were rough and tight and their hard contours dug deep into his flesh at the slightest movement. He could feel bruises forming beneath his clothes, but he still couldn’t help himself from testing his bonds.
The light overhead was dazzling in its singular intensity. It made the shadows at the perimeter of this cell stretch longer and the reflecting glare off the floor made his eyes hurt.
“We’re certain this is one of the insurgents? He looks like a baby bird.”
With his constrained position, Caelus could only see up to the stomach of the man standing right at the edge of the circle of light bathing Caelus and his ropes and his chair. But he didn’t need to look to understand who this was, when this man had strolled into the cell with all the languid grace of an apex predator who had nothing above it in the food chain.
His voice carried with it a natural weight that only people who lived for a very long time were capable of. They called him General when he first arrived, drawing the attention of every person in the room the moment he stepped through the door. The presence he brought with himself was almost a physical thing, like gravity, filling up all the empty spaces with ease.
A shattered lance of the Erudition made its crackling path across his broad chest, starspun shards spiraling outwards in jagged streaks.
He was big. Caelus stared at the man’s boots in front of him and imagined fitting both his feet into one of them.
Caelus bowed into himself, feeling himself being studied beneath a gaze heavy with ancient inquiry. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to shrink so small he could melt away. He wished he could evaporate into a cloud of bubbles and float out the window.
A large hand cupped beneath his chin and yanked his face up.
The light blinded Caelus for a moment, making his eyes water. He tried to squint through the brightness. What little details he could catch were dizzying and fuzzy: a fluffy mane of dove-grey hair, the fluttery edges glowing in the backlit illumination, glints of molded metal alloy, a crimson ribbon. The man’s face was shrouded in shadow with the way he towered over Caelus’s cowering form.
“What a pity that a face this pretty belongs to a terrorist,” the General sighed. The grip tightened. “But I never could appreciate it when uninvited guests decide to make a mess in my Luofu. Pretty songbird, it would do you a lot of good to begin chirping out your secrets to me.”
The authoritative laze in the tone of the General’s voice made Caelus’s breath stutter. “I’m not,” he protested softly, “You’ve got it wrong… I’m not who you’re looking for!”
“No? Well, your face looks so very similar to the images we’ve captured on surveillance,” here was a contemplative pause, which did nothing but make Caelus want to squirm more, “And we have several eyewitness accounts about a certain silver haired, boyish youth running around causing mischief… I don’t suppose you know who that is?”
“I didn’t—I-I didn’t do anything—!”
Over Caelus’s clumsy protests, the man continued, “Then there’s the question of identification… You see, we here on the Luofu expect every law-abiding citizen and temporary visitor to be registered in our databases, as it serves as a way to quickly identify who is who and who belongs and who doesn’t. We just can’t seem to find a match for you. That doesn’t sound like a good guest, does it?”
“I… I, um…” Caelus didn’t know how to lie to save his life. He was as transparent as glass. This really was the most unsuitable situation he could be placed in.
He squeezed his eyes shut in panic. “N-no! I don’t know! You’re w-wrong! I’m not telling you anything!!”
The hand let go. While it was a relief to be able to let his neck out of its uncomfortable craned position, Caelus could still feel the fingers on his face, lingering heat in the chilly air of this cell.
The man chuckled. “Well if you say it like that, then I’ll have no choice but to believe that you’re guilty of something. Little insurgent, you sure are making this easy for me.”
With a gasp, Caelus opened his eyes just in time to see the man turn away to the narrow table off to the side.
“Here is what we confiscated from him in our initial inspection, General.”
The grey-maned general lifted a hand to his chin in thought, while his other rifled through Caelus’s pitiable smattering of belongings they had shaken from his pockets. “Oh? Let’s see. Bubble gum, energy bar wrappers, disposable tissues—that’s cute. No weapons? Ah, a cellphone, how novel.”
Caelus pulled on his ropes, sensing the air in the room shift dangerously as soon as his cellphone was placed into the focal of the General’s interest. “You have the wrong person! I’m… I’m not a criminal! I don’t have anything to tell you! I don’t know where the Luofu insurgents are.”
“Hmm.” The General suddenly leaned forward and Caelus flinched away as the man’s face, previously blurred from distance and darkness, was suddenly very close to his own. The General smiled, gleam of pale teeth in the shifting shadows. “You are a bad liar, aren’t you? Offering up information so easily… We never asked you if you were connected to the other intruders.”
Caelus clamped his mouth shut so fast his teeth clacked together.
He was making so many mistakes! Every time Caelus tried to speak, it felt like the General was just placing chess pieces around him, so many steps ahead Caelus couldn’t even see where he was going. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to say something wrong and get everyone in trouble.
Caelus decided he wasn’t going to talk again from now on.
“Now you have to tell me about your friends.” A blunt finger tapped at Caelus’s cheek, poking the tender flesh there. “What’s wrong? Come on, open up. Why don’t we start with an easy question––Where do you think your comrades are right now?”
Caelus shook his head mutely, cheeks puffing out adorably as he focused wholly on keeping his mouth closed and not saying a single word. The playful and indulgent way the General acted with Caelus, like an elder teasing an endearing child, was unsettling when it was offset by his powerful presence, the unyielding core beneath his words. Like this, he was a little mouse in the jaws of a bored cat that was still too sleepy to bite down yet. Caelus dreaded to imagine what the General would do to him once he got tired of Caelus’s silence and decided to wake up fully.
“Was that too difficult a question? Then how about telling me what you and your fellow insurgents plan to do with a stellaron on my ship?”
The finger prodded harder at Caelus’s face. “Mm-mnn,” his brow furrowed in protest when the General switched to pinching his cheek like a chewy piece of rice cake. It made him try to squirm away, which only made the ropes dig in harder.
Finally, the General relented and sighed. “Well then! If you’re not going to answer my questions obediently, perhaps we could ask your friends?”
Caelus let out a gasp when he saw his phone being picked up from the table by the General, before he remembered his promise to himself to keep his mouth closed. He had no choice but to watch in silent alarm as the screen lit up at a tap of the man’s finger.
“A picture of your friends as the lock screen, how very adorable. You three seem like bright young people. It’s truly a shame to see such youth being wasted on a life of crime…”
A large hand descended upon Caelus’s head, wrapping almost tenderly around the swell of his skull. Caelus shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the General’s fingers thread through his hair, nails lightly scratching his scalp as one would do to a pet. “Little lost intruder, won’t you tell me your passcode?”
It was all Caelus could do to keep quiet, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth with fear. He shook his head as much as he was able. Being in the grip of the large General like this, feeling the warmth of his palm seeping into his scalp and the palpable weight of his strength so close, made Caelus feel like a teacup about to be shattered into pieces.
“It doesn’t matter either way, I suppose. Our abacus processors can get through this level of technology in a mere few moments. I merely wished to give you another chance to endear yourself to me.”
The hand gave a little squeeze, drawing a fragile little whimper out of Caelus. A thumb pressed against the distressed furrow in his brow and rubbed slightly.
“You should start singing, pretty bird, while I’m still being nice. You wouldn’t get this treatment on any other ship of the Xianzhou. They would likely go directly ahead in tearing through your psyche to rip out all your secrets without even talking to you. You’ll become an irreparably broken vegetable in the end, but at least we’ll have our answers.”
The General took a moment to pause and observe Caelus, watching almost scientifically the way this new information sank into the boy’s heart.
“In fact, if your cute little comrades get captured, wherever they went, I can almost guarantee you that is what will happen to them. We only need one of you to speak on trial, after all.”
“No!” Caelus couldn’t help the outburst, imagining something as horrible as what the General described happening to March or Welt.
“Have you ever seen that kind of thing happen? It looks peaceful from the outside, as though the subject is simply closing their eyes to take a nap… When they wake up once more, however, you’ll no longer be able to recognize them as the person they used to be. They’ll struggle to even recognize themselves. The mind is such a delicate thing, and forcibly rifling through memories tends to destroy it entirely.”
Caelus gasped, trembling and his eyes growing wider in horror with every sentence he heard as the General narrated the terrifying fate that would befall his friends if they ever got captured like Caelus had. But he didn’t know what he could say! March and Welt didn’t know he was even on the Luofu with them, but it sounded like Caelus was going to be the reason they got caught anyway.
“If you tell me where your friends are, I can find them first and none of that will ever happen,” the General offered, sounding like he was dangling a treat in front of a panicking puppy. “I’m the nicer one, remember? I’m sure they will appreciate the mercy you’re buying for them.”
Tears stung at his eyes. Caelus didn’t know this would happen after he just tried to follow his friends, wondering where they were sneaking off to without telling him. Dan Heng had stayed back on board the Express, but Caelus couldn’t help being curious and he had snuck out on his own. Regret and guilt filled him now, thinking of Dan Heng still on the train looking for Caelus.
Even if he wanted to cooperate, he didn’t know why March and Welt came here or where they were headed. To top it all off, his phone had lost connection as soon as he’d gotten onto the ship, so he hadn’t even been able to call anyone for help once he got lost almost immediately after landing.
He let out a little sniffle, missing his Astral Express friends terribly. They’d probably know what to do in this situation. They probably wouldn’t be tied up in a chair in the first place. He wanted his keepers here to take care of him.
“But I d-don’t know where they are,” Caelus’s words came out small and pitiful. “Please believe me… I don’t know anything, I promise.”
He could sense the heavy disappointment in the General before the man even began to reply. “Still keeping with the oblivious story, hm? That won’t do you any favors, dear.”
“I-I’m not––!”
Caelus’s little protest gets cut off as his phone in the General’s hand suddenly unlocked with a staticky beep, its defences finally torn down by an unseen hacker in the background.
“That took more time than I expected,” the General remarked, paging through the phone’s interface idly. “We can restore the signal as well, not a problem. Let’s see what we have here––ah, another photo of your friends, hm?”
Caelus could barely see from his angle the General scrolling through the recent chat history in his messages. The people he had in his contacts were very sparse considering how sheltered within the station he usually was, so he didn’t have a lot there. But the idea of the General somehow finding a clue to catching his friends by looking at Caelus’s clumsy messages caused anxiety to clog up his throat.
“Having these kinds of photos, it seems that you and your comrades are very close to each other. You all probably care about each other very much. What do you suppose they would do if I sent a picture of your bruised and bleeding face to them? Would they come immediately running to your aid?”
Caelus tried to pull his head out of the General’s grip with a frightened noise. “Please,” he whispered, “Don’t...”
The General leaned in, refusing to let up on the pressure. “If that isn’t enough, perhaps we can call them while we’re beating you and let them listen in. How long do you think you can scream for your friends before they run right into our hands?”
Caelus let out a scared little whine, chin wobbling dangerously. “I–I don’t know––! I––w-won’t…”
“You won’t be bait for your comrades? How deeply loyal of you. I can admire that. By the time we start breaking your bones, it would be less work to simply break your mind to get your secrets out anyway.”
“Stop!” Caelus wished he could cover his ears and not listen to all the terrifying things the General was saying to him. “Stop it, you’re not listening to me!”
His voice cracked and his eyes were wet, his vision blurring into smears of lights and shadows. But the General didn’t seem to care. Caelus whimpered when the hand buried in his hair gave him a rough shake like he was a misbehaving pup.
“You’re only making things harder for yourself the longer you make this drag on,” the General’s voice had gotten louder. Harder. He sounded like the relentless man his position indicated to be, the long-lived guardian of a star-sailing civilization, tempered by centuries of history and experience. “I am on a timeline, and there is a dangerous entity on my ship threatening the safety of the people I have sworn an ancient oath to protect. I have done ugly things to keep that oath, many of which you could not even imagine. Start talking—or face the consequences.”
“I don’t know, I really d-don’t…” Caelus keened in panic. “Please…! I’m not lying––!”
“Do you possibly need more encouragement? Perhaps I should capture one of your friends and torture them in front of you? Or should I go ahead and call for one of the mind rippers after all?”
Caelus tried to shrink away on instinct. It just made his scalp hurt. “N–no,” he whispered, shaking so badly he couldn’t use his voice properly. “No––I’m s-sorry. P-please don’t––don’t hurt my friends.”
His heart squeezed in his chest. His stomach clenched. He could feel something in himself cracking painfully. The ropes on his body hurt. The light above still stung his eyes. There was a giant man who was yelling at him, loud and mean and––and scary. He was so scary. He didn’t believe what Caelus was saying even though Caelus didn’t know how to lie at all.
“Please,” Caelus whimpered out through his blurry vision, voice small and airless. “I’m scared.”
It was too much. He just wanted to go home. The corners of his mouth turned down.
Caelus burst into tears.
Big teardrops rolled down his cheeks in collective blobs and plopped from his chin. His cries were loud and unrestrained, his breathing ruined by hiccups and sobs. His nose instantly congested and every sniffle became wet and messy.
When Caelus cried, he was as honest as his words. He wailed and keened out his distress in high, despairing notes. His tears spilled into his open mouth, his eyelashes soaked with saltwater and clumped together. He didn’t have a single notion about shame or restraint, crying for Welt and Himeko like a child searching desperately for his guardians.
“W-Welt,” he warbled pitifully, voice thick and quavering, “Himekooo… wh-where––where are you––I wanna go home…!”
The hand left his hair.
Caelus continued to cry. He couldn’t see anything now. He’d sagged into his binds, the ropes becoming the only things keeping him upright in the chair. His head hung low on his shoulders and he simply let his tears and snot soak into his lap.
Every sob was a visible jolt through his body, and every inhale was a panting gasp, wet and shuddering. He was crying so hard he was struggling to breathe. His soft, hitching breaths quickly started to devolve into hyperventilating.
On his next shivering, gut-wrenching sob, Caelus choked and dry gagged on his own inhale.
Panic welled up in his throat like he was going to throw up.
Suddenly the ropes were loose and falling in pieces to the floor, no longer chaffing his skin. A large hand pressed to his chest, stabilizing him as he coughed wretchedly and sniffled and tried to remember how to draw in oxygen.
“Easy, easy, just breathe,” came the deep voice, but it sounded like Caelus was hearing it underwater, distant and wavering in and out of focus. “Take a deep breath. Can you do that?”
He shook his head desperately, completely blind as dark stars began to eat up his consciousness. Big blobs of tears kept spilling down his face without pause. His head was spinning as his coughs sputtered out, no strength to maintain the fit.
When Caelus was frightened into crying this bad, it made everyone within his vicinity want to rush to his defence. His distress and helpless, full-bodied sobbing made him look like an unforgivable tragedy, lost and confused as his trust in the world was betrayed. Caelus’s tears were a sight no one could ever resist, unless they were a completely soulless demon.
Jing Yuan was old and the centuries-long protector of the Xianzhou’s largest warship, and he was many other things, but he wasn’t soulless.
Arms descended around Caelus and tugged him out of the uncomfortable chair. Caelus fell blindly forward and found a broad torso, and immediately pressed himself into this embrace. He sought out shelter from the nearest available source while still trembling and crying, keening brokenheartedly into a sturdy shoulder. His helpless sobs made him boneless and almost completely limp, placing himself utterly at the mercy that whoever was holding him wouldn’t let him fall.
He was so, so painfully obvious. This type of innocence couldn’t be manufactured. Caelus was so trusting and pure it hurt to witness.
The side of his head was pressed to a warm surface.
“Listen to my heartbeat.” This time Caelus heard the words directly in his ear, a calming voice reverberating through the chest his ear was pressed against. “Focus on it. Can you hear that?”
Caelus––could. It was a strong, steady rhythm, brimming with vitality. The pulse of a powerful life. The black spots receded somewhat.
“Good, well done. Now follow my breaths. Copy what I’m doing, can you do that?”
Caelus tried to, but his lungs wouldn’t cooperate and he was still crying, completely unable to stop the hiccups from clawing out of him. He clung harder, burying his face into the man’s shirt to try to muffle his pitiful coughs. He felt useless and miserable for not being able to follow directions.
There was a hand rubbing his back, wide palm and long fingers almost spanning across the entirety of his shaking shoulders. It was warm and gentle and Caelus couldn’t help leaning into it for more.
“That’s alright. You don’t have to do it perfectly, just do your best. Now, I’m inhaling… in… hold…” Caelus breathed in, stuttering and jolting with involuntary gasps. He let out a sob, squeezing his eyes shut as fresh tears fell down his cheeks.
“Good, good. And out, slowly…” Caelus released the air in his lungs explosively, shuddering and failing to regulate at all. “There we go, dear. And again, in…”
They repeated it a few more times, and it worked, miraculously, easing Caelus’s breathing down to a more normal pace. Caelus couldn’t stop his eyes from leaking out more tears, but he was at least beginning to feel less faint. He brought his hands up to scrub the tears away from his vision, trying to see around him. Through his swollen, watery eyes, he found the General gazing back down at him with a slightly perplexed and concerned expression.
The sight of the man’s face brought fear automatically welling up in him. Caelus let out a cute squeak as he, rather contradictorily, tried to hide by burying himself deeper into the chest of the very man that had terrified him to this degree.
With this movement, he suddenly registered how they were arranged currently—collapsed on the ground and practically sitting in the lap of the General, crumpling the front of the man’s robes between his clinging fingers.
Sweet, innocent Caelus looked so deeply mortified and panicked at his situation that even the nearby soldiers stationed around the perimeter of the cell couldn’t help taking pity on him. His face grew even redder, already flushed from his crying, and the embarrassment made new tears start rolling down his cheeks. He made a little hic sound, looking completely overwhelmed.
Caelus began crying again, soft little hitching sobs, trying futilely to wipe at his tears and runny nose with the back of his hands. He rubbed his poor eyes until they were red-rimmed and irritated.
Soft fabric was pressed to his face, blotting the mess on his face.
“Don’t rub your eyes so hard. You should wipe them softly when you tear up, or else you’ll hurt your skin.” A big, warm hand settled over the side of Caelus’s face and tilted it upward. All he could do was sniffle piteously and hold still, obediently letting the General mop up his tears and help him blow his nose.
“You really were telling the truth, weren’t you?” Jing Yuan murmured, gently thumbing away another crystalline tear.
Caelus nodded jerkily, brows knitted together and eyes adorably swollen.
Caelus looked unbelievably like a heartbroken baby angel, with his cheeks blotchy with blush, his red sniffly nose, and his teary, trembling expression. Anyone who saw him right now could not prevent their hearts from softening at least a little.
“I w-wa-as,” the choked words came out clumsy and fragmented, interrupted by inopportune hiccups. Caelus was trying so hard to speak, shaking like a leaf while swallowing down his sobs. “Pl––e–ease––believe m-me… I don––don’t know h-how to make you believe me-ee-e…!”
Having reached the limit of his energy, Caelus let out a little despairing wail, slumping against the General’s shoulder. He keened his sorrow into the fabric, dampening it with his rejuvenated crying. He looked like his whole world was falling apart around him.
Something crumbled in Jing Yuan’s core. “Hush, songbird, I believe you,” he said, trying to ignore how his heart jerked at the sound of the boy’s inconsolable sobs. “Deep breaths. It’s going to be alright. I know you were trying to tell me the truth.”
“Please don—onn-n’t hurt my-y friends…” Caelus begged, muffling his sad, tragic mewls into Jing Yuan’s shoulder.
Jing Yuan rubbed his back and tried not to hate himself for saying those words to Caelus. Jing Yuan had never seen anyone else as pretty as this boy in tears, nor as honest and sweet, when he clung so tightly to Jing Yuan’s clothes in his blind search for someone to protect him. He had already cried so hard and for so long…
“Look at your poor face,” the General murmured softly, practically cooing at the red, irritated skin around the boy’s eyes and nose.
It was impossible to imagine someone like this being capable of hurting others or malignant scheming. His behavior made him seem even younger than his delicate features already implied; he had burrowed into Jing Yuan’s chest without hesitation as soon as he was set free, as though the thought of struggle or escape didn’t even occur to him.
His vulnerability was painfully obvious and strangely inviting. He was so defenceless, unthinking in his actions as he sought comfort in his own assailant when his caretakers were absent.
Even now, despite Jing Yuan’s efforts, more tears kept trickling out like a neverending fountain, as the boy sniffled and shivered in his arms and trembled helplessly like he was about to cry himself into a fever.
When the General scooped Caelus into his arms and rose from the floor, Caelus instinctually nestled into the carry. He sadly snuffled his way underneath the man’s chin and let his leaky tears absorb into the fabric at the uniform collar. Caelus fit into Jing Yuan’s arms perfectly, pliant and portable and cute in comparison to the man’s large frame.
Feeling how Caelus went boneless in his grip, Jing Yuan couldn’t help feeling another twinge of guilt at his previous actions. Caelus seemed to place his entire wellbeing straight into the hands of whoever held him. It was like the boy could not imagine anyone capable of malice, helplessly trusting everyone he saw. Endlessly forgiving no matter how much he had already been hurt.
It had been so easy to scare him—too easy. Jing Yuan arrived on scene prepared to interrogate a conniving terrorist and he’d been met with a soft, fragile youth instead. He crumbled at the slightest threat. He believed all of Jing Yuan’s words, even the ridiculous lies about the so-called mind rippers. The Xianzhou had no such thing. He was responsive when Jing Yuan changed his tone of voice, when he raised his volume, and even to Jing Yuan’s feigned disappointment.
It was so easy to influence him and the General had pounced on that as soon as he noticed that about him, using it to break down who he thought at the time to be a danger to the Luofu.
Caelus practically melted when Jing Yuan petted a hand through his hair. The callouses on his palm, roughened after a lifetime of discipline, caught on strands of hair so unimaginably soft and fluffy they could have been found on a baby’s head.
Lords. What was this boy doing wandering the ship alone? Forget the intruders currently scurrying around the Luofu, Caelus was so completely defenseless he was going to get gobbled up by the first person to take a closer look at him.
He was too open and unreserved, and he was totally unaware how his vulnerable, sweet and adorable behavior attracted flies in swarms. Jing Yuan was almost glad he’d gotten to him first, even if it did result in Caelus soaking Jing Yuan’s shirt with his tears.
“Let’s get you something to drink, mm?” Jing Yuan said, ferrying Caelus out of the cells and trying to get them away from the dreary place as fast as possible. “We must resupply those tears after you’ve worked so hard crying them all out. How about a warm cup of tea?”
He heard the boy sniffle into his neck, felt the flutter of eyelashes against the exposed strip of skin above his collar. Caelus had somehow found all the ways to fit himself tighter against Jing Yuan’s body so they were practically a single unit, like he couldn’t bear to confront the world without the general there to help him. The worst of the tears had petered out by this point, leaving a listless, watery-eyed Caelus who was only hiccuping occasionally and mainly contending with his runny nose.
“…I want milk,” came the response, so soft and meekly spoken Jing Yuan almost felt it more than he heard it.
“Milk?” the General parroted, blindsided by this adorable request.
“Welt puts h—honey in it,” Caelus whispered haltingly, burrowing into Jing Yuan’s neck afterward like he had gotten too shy after that confession.
Lords, just how young was he? Jing Yuan suddenly felt all the years he’d lived, seven hundred and still rising. He tried to think of the last time when his apprentice, the youngest fixture in the General’s life at the moment, had asked for warm milk sweetened with honey. He couldn’t remember. He was a long-lived species that counted the passing of time by decades, not days. Jing Yuan had attempted to interrogate someone like this?
“…no?”
It was almost too much to endure, hearing that fragile little question like Caelus had already resigned himself to the rejection and was waiting for the punishment of asking for too much.
Caelus shrunk into Jing Yuan’s arms with a scared whimper. Jing Yuan stroked his hair comfortingly. When he was as old as he was, it wasn’t uncommon to be facing down opponents who were comparatively babies in terms of years lived. Age never had an influence on how Jing Yuan carried out the duties of his position as Divine Foresight.
But Caelus flipped that philosophy on its head. Having Caelus in his arms felt like he was holding a bullied cherub, wholly undeserving of whatever had happened to make him shed tears.
“Of course, dear, that’s not a problem,” Jing Yuan said, continuing to pet Caelus’s head. The boy was such a warm, precious bundle in the cradle of his arms. He fit in Jing Yuan’s hands perfectly.
His friends were going to have to be very, very persuasive if they wanted to convince Jing Yuan to let go.