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When Dan Heng first joined the express, it was surprisingly easy to hide his heritage. Masking his Vidyadhara traits became second nature soon after his exile, as his unusual appearance drew unwanted attention.
The crews of IPC ships officially didn’t particularly care, as long as he could make himself useful to the ship he was welcome. Sorting through data in the maintenance logs, aiding in cleaning duty, washing dishes in the canteen, whatever task he could do to guarantee him safe passage as far from the Xianzhou Alliance as was possible.
They didn’t care who he was as long as he was useful. They didn’t care who anyone was as long as they kept the ship running and paid their dues.
There were other passengers who were less humanoid than him, but Dan Heng could feel the stares coming from some of his fellow travelers. They weren’t resentful, not like the ones from the guards or the crowd witnessing his exile. They weren’t… nice like the golden ones.
No, there was curiosity in some. And something bordering on curiosity in others, something that made his skin crawl and gave him the urge to scrub it clean. As if their gaze was enough to stain him like a touch of greasy hands.
…and then there was his first encounter with him. A man who looked at him with nothing but hatred and a desire to kill. Who slaughtered his way through the ship’s crew and passengers, who nearly killed Dan Heng, all while screaming out Dan Feng’s name.
A monster who looked familiar, even if Dan Heng never met him.
Still, it was safer to pretend to be human. Even if the man with bloodlust in his eyes could always recognise him. Even if it was truly just a façade, an illusion of cloudhymn magic shaping his body into his desired shape.
…it felt nice, in a way. Even if he was faking it, it was a body that was his. It looked the way he wanted it to. Not like the sinner who once held the title of high elder.
It looked like Dan Heng, just a face in a crowd.
He knew the Astral Express’s crew had their questions, but they never pried into his past. They made Dan Heng feel welcome on board. They gave him food and didn’t expect him to earn it. Over time his temporary lodging in the Archive became a permanent fixture, the room officially becoming his.
His.
The feeling of owning something, of having his own space still felt strange. Not even his own body felt like it was his at times, merely the remnant of someone else, the feeling emphasized every time someone called him by Dan Feng’s name. Whenever anyone looked at him and saw the sinner that came before him, whose sins Dan Heng had to bear.
He owned very few things in his life. The clothes on his back, the spear he was told once belonged to Dan Feng. And the lion. The ratty toy given to him in a rare moment of compassion in his youth and taken away when he dared misbehave, the one he never expected to see again, the one he clutched to his chest when he finally allowed himself to cry while watching the Xianzhou Luofu disappear in the darkness of space. The same lion he had hidden in his room to make sure it would never be taken again.
His room.
When it was clear that the Archive became his room, Himeko offered to put in a proper bed. Dan Heng thanked her, but said he was perfectly alright with the mattress on the floor. He never got used to sleeping on a surface as soft as a proper mattress, for he never really had the chance to do so. And even if it weren’t for that, the vat of cooling liquid for the Archive’s servers below the floor kept the temperature just right. It wasn’t the unpleasant, biting cold of his cell. Just enough cooling to be counteracted by the warm quilt he was given by Himeko.
Dan Heng felt safe in this room, in this little corner where his bed was. Surrounded by bookshelves, covered up by servers and the railing, it provided some privacy. A place to hide when everything was just too much. Where he could just listen to the quiet susurration of the coolant and pretend it was the sea.
With what little he was taught and managed to read of Vidyadhara biology, he knew his species had a deep connection to water. He wondered sometimes if that’s why this sound calmed him so much, why it just felt right. Then again, the first thing he heard upon leaving the prison was the waters of the Luofu’s artificial ocean…
Still, the crew didn’t ask questions and didn’t expect any answers. Void tried asking once, but Welt quickly reprimanded him, saying that Dan Heng doesn’t have to share his past if he didn’t want to. They accepted his eccentricities, as he overheard Himeko refer to them one night early into his stay on board the express, they let him become one of the Nameless.
He was part of the crew. He had a place for himself here, with Himeko, Pom-Pom, Mr. Yang, and soon the two new members, March 7th and Stelle.
All of them strange, all of them unusual. Stelle had an actual Stellaron in their chest, Dan Heng not being human should not be an issue…
But he wasn’t ready for that conversation. For the change it would bring. Not now… and he wasn’t sure if he ever would be.
—
When he first joined the Express, Himeko and Welt seemed… insistent on taking care of him.
He didn’t realise it at first, too shocked by how nice they were, while he still believed his stay was temporary. They didn’t touch him without asking, not after Welt heard Dan Heng’s breath hitch when he placed his hand on his shoulder. They didn’t mind when he took non-perishable food and hid it in his bag in the Archive. He even found the cabinet was restocked with things he liked.
They were warm. That’s the best word he had for it. They were everything the Shackling Prison wasn’t. Warm and soft and caring.
They never pushed any of his boundaries on purpose.
Except for one.
Himeko, Welt, Pom-Pom, even Void to some roundabout extent, all insisted he get a medical checkup during his first visit to the Herta Space Station.
“You don’t have to tell us anything, and we will not ask.” Welt sat him down soon before they were to arrive at their destination. “We will also not force you to go, I understand if there’s anything related to doctors or your previous experiences that makes you wary of medical examinations, and I will not pry. However, you were injured when you first boarded the Express. We just want to make sure everything is alright and that your health is taken care of while you’re with us.”
“...I understand.” He answered quietly.
He agreed to go. It was nerve-wracking, the only previous experience with doctors was within the Prison’s walls, one of the very few times he had a checkup done. The longest he spent outside of his cell before his exile was in the prison’s medical office, feverish and mostly unconscious while recovering from that ear infection that forever damaged his hearing.
Welt was with him. He asked if Dan Heng would feel more comfortable if he wasn’t alone, and despite the fear of being found out, he agreed. And it was more comfortable in some way, just having someone there who swore the doctors wouldn’t do anything he was uncomfortable with.
Dan Heng said he didn’t want any bloodwork done. And none was.
Mr.Yang did find out about his hearing issues, or rather his suspicions were confirmed. It was somewhat hard to hide, with the doctor asking to take a look in his ears and having to take out the hearing aids for the duration. Welt just got a look on his face, the one he got whenever it was clear a new question about Dan Heng formed in his mind, one that would have to go unanswered due to his insistent promises not to pry into his past.
The doctor didn’t seem to catch on that he wasn’t human. Just told him and Welt that they can’t get anything specific without checking his blood, but it’s clear he had some nutrient deficiencies and was underweight. His ribs were apparently not supposed to be visible. They have been for as long as he could remember.
He was given a prescription that consisted mostly of dietary guidelines and some vitamin supplements. Without a blood analysis the advice could not fully account for the minute differences in humans across space, but it would do.
It wasn’t easy, the others would often have to coax him into eating regular meals and taking his time with them. Still, slowly his health did in fact improve. At least as far as he could guess it did. His hair fell out less, he had less headaches, more energy, and his ribs did stop being visible through the skin after a few months.
Dan Heng felt good. Nothing hurt, or at least not as bad as it often did.
Even the cloudhymn magic masking his appearance felt less constrictive. Sometimes he stopped noticing it was there.
—
Nobody knew.
Some suspected that he wasn’t as human as he claimed, but everything could be chalked up to the slight differences between humans across space.
But nobody knew.
And hiding was easy. It no longer even felt like hiding, this body no longer a mask or an illusion. Looking in the mirror, seeing his short hair and healthy skin, it just looked right. Not like the first time he saw his face, pale and gaunt, framed by long, matted locks.
The face he assumed belonged to Dan Feng. Why else would almost everyone on the Luofu call him by that name? And if they shared a face, they had to be the same person.
He avoided mirrors for a long time after first seeing it. It was easier to pretend it wasn’t him if he didn’t look.
But he liked who he saw now. The person in the mirror was Dan Heng, or as much as he could be. The disguise was part of his person, he didn’t have to fear it slipping anytime soon. He could be Dan Heng, and no one here ever had to know of his sins.
And yet there were things he missed.
When he first decided to change his appearance, Dan Heng cut his hair short. Some of the matted locks were beyond saving, and it would make him look much different, so cutting it was a logical choice.
His attempt at it was… messy, to say the least. He was between IPC ships, hiding away in a small trading outpost before it was time to board. It was chaos, what little of the crew remained following the red-eyed man’s assault already left the outpost the previous day, leaving him behind. He was in front of the mirror in the outpost’s bathroom, his meager belongings in a bag by his feet and a pair of stolen scissors in hand. With a shuddered breath and trembling hands, a long lock of hair fell into the sink. And then another. And another. Until it was short and uneven. The scissors fell out of his hands and clanked against the metal sink, a warm tear following suit. His eyes met the ones in the reflection, quivering pupils staring at the reason all those people were slaughtered-
Dan Heng collapsed to his knees, unable to breathe between the sobs that tore their way through him. He didn’t even notice when someone else entered the bathroom, an older woman who owned this building at the outpost. She let him cry his eyes out on the floor, her presence slowly grounding him through the panic.
“...You were on that ship, weren’t you? Poor thing…” He remembered her saying under her breath, fingers gently running through his hair. “...what a mess…”
She said she knew what he was going through, her hair also having been a victim of “breakdowns” in her youth. All she could offer was to even it out to the best of her ability, and Dan Heng didn’t have it in him to refuse. He felt hollowed out, an empty doll who barely reacted to whatever the old woman was doing or saying as she snipped the uneven strands.
He muttered quiet thanks when she was done and left on the next ship out of the outpost, the feeling of his neck being exposed making him uneasy.
Dan Heng didn’t particularly mind the shorter hair now, he liked the way it looked and felt, the way it made him feel different from Dan Feng. It didn’t require as much maintenance. But he sometimes missed the way he could fiddle with the long strands, the way running his fingers through them sometimes calmed him down.
But the one he missed most was his tail. Shapeshifting away an entire limb wasn’t easy, and it felt so wrong. He could sometimes feel it brushing against things, sending a shiver up his spine. Other times it felt like it was wrapped around him, sometimes a comforting pressure, sometimes constricting him and squeezing the air out of his lungs. And yet it wasn’t there.
Nobody on the Express entered his room without knocking, but he still locked the door when sleeping. And sometimes on nights plagued by nightmares he’d let the cloudhymn magic shift his appearance, letting the tail manifest. It was less tangible, a translucent phantom of what it truly was, but it was enough for him to wrap his limbs around it and curl up under the quilt.
It brought him comfort back in the prison.
It still did.
But the other Nameless would never know. For their sakes.
For his own.
—
When March first joined, Himeko took her out to pick out some clothes and coached her through makeup and all those other bits. They were gone for a whole day, just the two of them having some “girl time”.
Dan Heng remembered how March dragged him into her room some time after the shopping trip, the same one that was once offered to be his. Her main excuse for this was that she wanted to return his clothes. She didn’t have any when they found her in the six-phase ice, and Dan Heng was the only one on board with anything even resembling her size. Their builds were quite similar, although she was a bit shorter than Dan Heng and had less muscle. Begrudgingly he agreed to part with a pair of his pants and a shirt until the clothing situation was sorted. It was only right, the Express’s crew helped him when he first boarded, and he should do the same.
He didn’t particularly like parting with his things. Whether it was due to the conditions of his upbringing or a trait stemming from his Vidyadhara heritage, he didn’t know.
He knew surprisingly little about the Vidyadhara despite being one. Dan Heng wasn’t taught much directly about his people, mostly just whatever unpardonable sins Dan Feng committed and the sacred duties he abandoned through committing said sins.
Of course he knew the general information from the reading materials he was provided and the occasional question that a guard or prison official graced him with an answer for. The Vidyadhara were descended from Long, The Permanence, and it was mostly evident in High Elders such as Dan Feng due to their strong draconic traits. They were incapable of reproduction, instead returning to the form of an egg at the end of their lives, being reborn as a child. That’s how Dan Heng ended up in the Shackling Prison, hatched within its walls. The hatchlings were usually considered new people, not responsible for the actions of their predecessors… but not Dan Heng. He’d been told as much many times over by the wardens and judges, that Dan Feng’s sins were so grave even the moulting rebirth could not wash them off his soul, even if that contradicted the customs he read about.
That particular book on the Vidyadhara was never given to him again after he asked about why the custom was broken. However, there was another part of the text that stuck in his mind over the years. Another difference between him and humans.
Since they can’t produce offspring, there is no real difference between sexes among their kind, not like it is with Foxians, Xianzhou Natives and most other human and humanoid species. A distinction has developed over the millennia of their cultures coexisting, with most Vidyadhara using the linguistic and even cultural labels of male, female or neither. It was most often based on the secondary sexual characteristics displayed by an individual, but the distinction was ultimately arbitrary.
Dan Feng was male, so Dan Heng surely had to be as well, they were the same person after all. They carried the same sins, and if those didn’t change, why would anything else? Everyone always called him a he, so he must be male. Whatever that actually means.
Regardless, the issue of Vidyadhara genders or lack thereof did lead him to initially assume March 7th, like him, was male. They were built similarly, and even if she was more feminine, she displayed some similar secondary traits to him.
But no. She insisted she was a girl, and nobody questioned her on it, just like nobody questioned Dan Heng on his past. He put that revelation in the back of his mind and kept it there, letting it develop over time as new information joined.
March cared a lot about the fact she was a pretty girl, as he was reminded while sitting on her bed that day she dragged him away from his usual alone time in the Archive to return him his clothes. They were chatting, or rather she was talking at him, constantly getting off track from her search through the closet as she recounted every detail of that day with Himeko and all the nice clothes the Express’s navigator helped her pick.
“...and I mean Himeko is great, Mr. Yang is super nice, and Pom-Pom is just the cutest, but I'm so glad there's someone my age on board.” She said, with her head half-buried in the closet. “You're a terrible conversation partner, but you're really nice to me. Makes me feel less lonely when the others are discussing grown-up stuff, just knowing you're here is great. Even if you rarely leave your room.”
That's March 7th. Earnest, enthusiastic March. Even if she was a bit much for him sometimes, he appreciated her honesty and directness. No thinly veiled double meanings, she just said what was on her mind.
“Aha! Found it!” She exclaimed before he could answer, followed by an “Ow!” as her head banged against one of the closet shelves when she straightened up.
March returned his clothes with a grin, and he thanked her. Just as he was about to stand up and leave, she shot him a question.
“What eyeliner do you use? I love that it doesn't smudge. Do they make it in pink?”
He had no idea what she was talking about.
“...what? Eyeliner?”
“The red one!” She said, tracing a line with her finger under her left eye.
Oh. She meant that.
“... that's not… That's always been there.” He managed to say after an uncomfortable pause.
“Oh. Sorry.” March’s eyes trailed down in embarrassment before returning to the marking. “It still looks very pretty though, it suits you! Some darker liner around the eyes would really bring it out.”
When March offered to show him, Dan Heng realised three things.
One, it is surprisingly hard to refuse her something she is excited about when she asks nicely and acts sad after an initial refusal.
Two, while March really cared about being a pretty girl, he didn't particularly care what he was. The label of male didn't really hold any more weight than anything else to him. But that realisation soon was yet again swept into the corner of his mind to be dealt with later.
And three, he liked how he looked with the eyeliner. March gave him the eyeliner pencil as a peace offering for not returning his clothes for three weeks after borrowing, and he found himself using it enough to at some point warrant a replacement.
It was a little thing, but it's something he did for himself. For once he chose how to decorate his body, and the face in the mirror truly felt his.
—
Dan Heng locked himself in the passenger car’s bathroom.
Normally he’d have gone to his room, but he needed to just lock himself somewhere. Just a moment to compose himself, take a breather, get his mind in order, just anything to get away from what happened on the Luofu.
They saw him.
They knew.
Stelle, March, and Mr.Yang were still on board the Luofu, finishing things up. He went back to the Express the moment the Jade Gate opened to report back to Himeko. To thank her for her guidance. To get away.
The cloudhymn magic masking his appearance kept slipping. What previously fit well enough it became a part of him felt as if it was ripped apart the moment Blade’s sword pierced his chest, when the Express crew saw what he was.
He couldn’t hide. He didn’t have the energy to do so after the fight, not with all the combat that followed. Not with seeing Jing Yuan, with hearing him say he can’t see the distinction between him and Dan Feng.
He managed to keep it up when among the people. Just long enough to avoid being recognised on the streets and in the Seat of Divine Foresight. Long enough to report back to Himeko. Not long enough to disappear from her view before the mask dropped.
She didn’t know everything. Not yet. But it’s not as if he could hide anymore. She saw what he was.
Dan Heng splashed some water on his face and turned off the faucet. He looked up from the sink and at his reflection.
The face in the mirror didn’t feel like his own. Red-rimmed eyes with sharp irises stared back, puffy from tears. Long, pointed ears typical of his people stuck out from the now much longer hair. It grew out uneven, tipped with teal and streaked with red. Sharp teeth peeked out from behind his lips. His horns and tail, no longer translucent, but solid and physical and there…
All so familiar. All things he previously tried to hide and now was unable to.
Because they knew.
March almost immediately dragged him into a hug. Stelle joined in. Mr. Yang kept reassuring him that he’s still Dan Heng to them, he’s still the same person that joined the Express.
But proof to the contrary was staring at him from the mirror.
His skin felt wrong. Maybe it was the clothes.
They were… terrible. He had no other word for them. There was some aesthetic appeal to them, the fine silks shimmered with jade and golden embroidery and he could see how the craftsmanship could be considered pretty.
They were too constrictive. Loose fabric at the ends of the sleeves and coattails got in the way of his movements. They clung to his body in an uncomfortable way, many of the ornaments were heavy and bulky. Somehow despite all the fabric there were spots leaving his skin exposed. Vulnerable.
And they were incomplete. His left sleeve was held on by a belt and a prayer. He highly doubted the exposed bits of skin were a traditional part of high elder robes, and it certainly wasn’t something he’d wear on purpose.
When he transformed into his Vidyadhara form, the clothes he was wearing were also affected. Maybe it was due to the location, so close to the Vidyadhara’s sacred grounds, maybe because the clothes he was wearing, like him, were just repurposed bits of something else. The mismatched pile of spare clothes that he found on the starskiff contained some robes he had altered into something more practical. His favourite coat, the one he wore almost all the time, was one of those.
Thankfully it was in the laundry and he wore a different one when leaving for the Luofu. When cloudhymn magic warped his body to a form befitting his ancestral memories, so did it warp the fabric. But there wasn’t enough. There wasn’t enough fabric for the robes, there wasn’t enough Dan Heng for Imbibitor Lunae.
And unlike him, the clothes didn’t change back. Forever changed into the best approximation of what they used to be. What they were meant to be by design.
A terror gripped at his throat at the thought he would be the same.
Dan Heng practically tore them off himself, the robe, shoes, and ornaments all discarded in the corner. All he had left was the shirt and pants. The pale scars around his wrists stood out in the cold bathroom light.
And now he stood leaning on the bathroom sink, letting out shuddered breaths as nausea swept through his body.
He hated that his reflection looked like this. He hated that he missed some parts of this form. That it felt right in some way.
Dan Feng was staring back at him with disdain from the glass. Why wouldn't he? They were one and the same, and Dan Heng despised him for ruining his life before it even began. For staining whatever little of himself he owned with the weight of his sins, for making everyone on the Luofu see him as nothing more than Dan Feng's new incarnation.
A pair of eyes turned to dozens, a spiderweb of cracks splitting the reflection.
Dan Heng pulled his fist away as a scream tore itself from his throat.
He dropped to the ground, hugging his knees to his chest. Cool tiles pressed against bare skin like the stone of a dark cell in the depths of the sea. The cold seeped in through the fabric, through his skin, until no warmth was left in his body, nothing but the hot tears streaking down his cheeks. It was a familiar sensation, not by any means something he should or wanted to feel, but there was comfort in the familiarity. There was certainty to the cell. Just the darkness and the cruel or uncaring guards. Nothing to expect, for nothing will change.
His tail wrapped itself around his body, an old habit he developed as a child.
Or did he. Is this just another thing that predates him, that was left over from Dan Feng?
How much of himself was just the broken little remains of the man everyone wanted him to be-
Someone was knocking.
“...Dan Heng? Can I come in?...” Himeko’s muffled voice came from behind the door.
He didn’t want her to see him. Not like this. And it’s not as if she could enter, the door was locked from the inside.
“...Are you hurt?...”
There were bits of glass glimmering in his bloodied knuckles. The wound on his chest fully healed with the transformation, but it still hurt. A few cuts and burns from the fight against Phantylia.
“...You don’t have to explain anything…”
Dan Heng knew he couldn’t hide from Himeko. That he had to leave the bathroom sooner or later and that he’d find her near the door when he did.
Wordlessly he stood up and walked over to the door, hand hovering hesitantly over the lock.
He didn’t want to face her.
But he turned the lock and cracked the door open.
He saw a sliver of Himeko’s worried face through the opening. Her eyes darted over him, clearly lingering on his horns and ears.
She said nothing about them, but he could see the questions forming in her mind. The way she parted her lips to say something before stopping herself.
“...I brought you something more comfortable.” She said instead, her voice quiet and warm.
In her hands was a bundle of clothes he recognised as his own. Most likely from the laundry room, as Himeko never entered the Archives without asking him first.
Dan Heng let go of the door with one hand, took the clothes from her and they were so soft.
“...thank you.” He managed to say, forcing the words out of a throat tightened and scraped raw by his cries.
“Are you okay with me coming in after you get changed?”
He didn’t want to inconvenience her further with his little breakdown. He’s already made a mess of the bathroom, already broke something, and she’d most likely insist on treating his wounds. Dan Heng could deal with this himself… he’d be fine on his own…
His response was a hesitant nod.
“Okay. I’ll be here in the meantime.” She said, pushing the door closed.
He was finally able to take the tight shirt off, not caring how the fabric snagged and even tore in some of the thinner, more revealing spots. Looking down at his chest, he noticed a faint scar where Blade had stabbed him. A wound that by all means should have been fatal.
But not even death could be his, could it…
Shaking the thought away he grabbed a hoodie from the pile of clothes and manoeuvred it over his horns until the soft, warm fabric enveloped his body.
At least the pants were comfortable enough to keep on. He doubted the sweatpants Himeko gave him would fit properly now that his tail was physically there and in the way. All that was left was a pair of socks to cut him off from the cold surface he was standing on.
With a shuddered breath he pressed down on the door handle and let the door crack open on its own. Himeko took it as an invitation to enter.
Dan Heng wanted to sink into the floor as her gaze drifted between him, the pile of discarded clothes in the corner, and the broken mirror above the sink. Himeko was observant, of course she noticed the blood on his knuckles.
“...sorry about the m-mirror… I’ll clean it up…and pay for a replacement…” His throat was tight and he could feel more tears welling in the corners of his eyes.
Himeko just looked at him with that same worried and fond gaze she always got when Dan Heng got injured.
“Don’t worry about the mirror. Let’s clean up your hand first. The bathroom can wait.” Her voice was so full of care and Dan Heng nearly started crying again. She should be mad at him for lying to her, to the whole Express crew, for so long-
And yet he was led to the couch of the parlour car. Himeko sat next to him, picking out glass with tweezers and disinfecting the wound. It stung, and he found himself childishly hissing at the burning disinfectant making contact with his blood. His vision blurred with tears as the train's navigator wrapped his hand up with gauze.
Some selfish part of him didn't want her to leave. Didn't want to be alone. Some selfish part of him grasped the edge of her coat in a white-knuckle grip and refused to let go.
She didn't know everything yet. He could indulge in this, in her still seeing Dan Heng despite everything.
Himeko didn't say anything, just shifted her position a little and let him lean on her. He curled up on the couch, wrapped around his tail, as the events from the Luofu came crashing down on him again.
Dan Heng didn't notice when his shuddered breaths turned into sobs. Didn't notice when Himeko put her hand on his back and started rubbing gentle circles to calm him down.
He didn't even notice when he started passing out, exhaustion of the past few days dragging him to sleep.
…He was standing by an altar, surrounded by other Vidyadhara. His body and mind were exhausted by countless trials and formalities. A statue loomed over him, one that looked eerily like him. There were minute differences in the shapes of their eyes, the sharpness of their cheekbones, the lengths of their ears… But he knew it wasn't for long. With one more chant, one more swirl of cloudhymn, his face was no longer his own….
—
It took a long time before Dan Heng felt comfortable in his own skin again. Before he could truly feel like he wasn’t Dan Feng or whatever remained of him.
He had to be coaxed out of his room by the others to socialise and actually remember to eat. Even if he couldn’t stomach any food for at least a week after the Luofu. Even if he couldn’t sleep properly for weeks, his dreams filled with nightmares and misplaced memories he couldn’t remember upon waking up.
The other crew members did assure him that no matter what, to them he is still Dan Heng. No matter his past. No matter what anyone else says. No matter if he has a tail and horns or not.
He’s still Dan Heng, and only he gets to decide what that means.
It wasn’t easy. Nobody said it would be.
But the Express crew… no, his family made it more manageable.
Soon after their time on the Luofu, a few new pairs of pants on his that looked and felt similar to the ones he usually wore but could accommodate his tail appeared on his desk. Next to them was a note from Mr. Yang to let him know if everything fits correctly. Most of the time he didn’t have his tail, as he did get used to functioning without it, but it was nice to have options.
He still kept his hair short, but letting March braid the long hair of his Vidyadhara form was… surprisingly nice. It became standard practice whenever she dragged Stelle and him into her room for slumber parties. Was it even a slumber party if they all lived together? It didn’t matter. He did end up as the designated hairdressing target, but he couldn’t bring himself to complain about it.
Overall though, he looked the same as he did before his return to the Luofu, just without constantly masking his non-human nature. He let his ears be pointy most of the time, didn’t bother fully dulling his fangs, and of course let his tail sometimes be visible, either fully physically or in its semi-spectral state, but he looked mostly the same.
Because the face in the mirror belonged to Dan Heng. Whether it was the appearance he chose for himself, or the one more resembling his predecessors, he was still Dan Heng.
And it felt good to be able to say that with full confidence.