Work Text:
All is fair in love and war.
…Or so it is said.
In a story centred around 'well-born and witty' Euphues, who betrays his friend Philautus, to pursue the love of Lucille. It is righteous when Euphues gets burned by the selfsame fire he started; a cyclical tragedy of betrayal and loss.
Except there is no Euphues.
There is no Philautus or Lucille either.
There is only Shi Qingxuan, He Xuan, and a dead fiancée.
It turns out that all is fair in love and war and heaven.
Because despite his ill-born circumstances, He Sheng had been so very humane—abiding by law and order and sticking to the rules.
And yet the fate of Philautus was thrust upon him all the same. Betrayed. Caught in the in-between.
As shocking as some officials would like to make it seem, had there been some sort of fairness in the world, had there been some sort of heavenly judicial system, He Xuan would have been the most eager participant in it.
The most lawful Supreme.
But there was no fairness in heaven. And there was certainly no fairness in love or in war.
And so the fate of Eupheus was gifted to Shi Qingxuan, bestowed all the glory and good of life upon them before delivering a taste of fate's bitter medicine.
Yet a taste of medicine was still a taste of something and He Xuan had had nothing to taste. Starved and hungry, even the poignant bitterness of injustice eventually lost its flavour.
They kept him hungry because what good was a starving dog?
They kept him angry because what good was a complacent villain?
They kept him weak because what good was a scholar in the face of corruption?
Good, as it turns out, is relative.
In fact, it turns out a lot of it is relative.
Brothers, they were. At least, had been.
Not brothers anymore.
Not brothers any more than He Xuan and his sister were still siblings. Not brothers any more than He Xuan was still human. Not any more than He Xuan was.
Not anything more.
There is a cavern in the underbelly of his domain, carved out of soft opal mineraloid, that mimics the stars a lifetime below the ocean surface. It's not a home per se, but it's something more than a cavern, and He Xuan keeps it to himself.
Not that it’s hard to keep things to himself now.
‘Vengeful. Murderous. Cold.’ He Xuan is many things, but unjust is not one of them.
Unjust had, and never would be, one of them.
So often had He Xuan's life been unjustly stripped away and delegated to any which bastard who twisted into his fate with prying fingers. Torn apart until the tendons of his life was pulled back and glistening, served steaming on their plates of privilege which he could never have afforded.
So often stripped of his agency, his own family, his own hunger, his own life, his own mortality, his own.
This was his, and his alone.
Despite the boundless ocean, there is a hollowness in him that cannot be quenched.
It is thirsty, always wanting more.
And that is exactly how Philautus shall remain.