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“There is nowhere to run—”
If he were slightly more lucid, Dan Heng still would not be able to remember how many times he has had this dream, and how many times he ran through this same darkness. The swing of a sword pierced his ears and spilt blood splashed beneath his feet. If he looked down, he would see the bodies; if he looked back, he would see the red-eyed hunter and feel his blade.
Dan Heng ran because there was nothing else he could do. Killing the apparition would not end the dream; no, it would drive the nightmare deeper, into either insane laughter or the depths of that hell full of howling mockery and teeth stained with blood and fueled by his terror. Only his own death, a pieced-together sword melted into a red-hot, icy blow rending his soul, would force him to wake in fear and agony, or, if he was fast enough, he would reach the end of the darkness and rend his own dream apart, and fly into the cloudy pocket of stars of his mind before snapping himself awake.
He was rarely lucky, in the nightmares carved to torment him.
“When will we pay the price, Imbibitor Lunae?”
He nearly tripped. Dan Heng made the mistake of looking down, to right himself, only to see that old, kind engineer from one of his first jobs, glass-eyed and slack and lifeless until his visage morphed into gray hair and dulled golden eyes, broken over the edge of train car wreckage and speared by a Belobogian lance. Red eyes and a manic grin emerged from the sea of corpses that blotted out the stars as the hunter’s ghost grabbed his ankle.
He had to run. He had to get away, before—
(The stench of Death caught up.)
Warm blood ran out of those old wounds and he heaved for breath. Warm liquid ran down his face, next, but it was…
“There is no escape!”
The voice turned wrong. Distorted. A higher pitch. Warm water hit his face again and Dan Heng faltered. That… did not normally…
The hunter turned green and round. Smaller. Dan Heng turned around, searching for Cloud-Piercer, and—
Dan Heng woke up to a ball of water hitting his face.
He sat up, heart racing, lungs heaving and inoperable. Stelle was beside him, still asleep, and—
“(H-hey! Don’t spear me! Bosssssss!)” a trilling voice begged.
Dan Heng locked eyes with his assailant. The little gray seal propped themself over the edge of the private chamber’s small pool, a glob of bath water in their rudimentary magic control. His vision swam as his pupils dilated, wide and narrow again, ensuring that the image was real, that it wasn’t—
The gray seal lobbed the ball of water. This time, Dan Heng instinctively caught it with a tug of cloudhymn and guided the Amphorean water back to its pool, dismissing Cloud-Piercer at the same time with only minimal resistance from his still racing heart. He was in the bath chamber; Stelle was here, Stelle was okay; they were both okay.
The Marmoreal Palace was quiet. The light was still softened with the tell-tale sign of Curtain-Fall hour, even though his hindbrain could not forget it was fake daylight. Stelle, unsurprisingly despite the commotion, was still face-down on her lounger bed, asleep. At peace.
It was just a nightmare.
…And a seal.
He narrowed his eyes at the small seal—the same one that had been on his last-minute team for the Seal Slammers event the previous day. Somehow, and for some reason, they had gotten into his and Stelle’s temporary quarters to…
“What are you doing?” Dan Heng asked flatly, albeit quietly, half-intentionally and half-squashed by still choked lungs.
“(You were sleeping badly),” the seal chirped, with a small note of concern behind the usual nonchalance. Dan Heng was not sure if the tone was supplied by the blessing of Cerces, or if he ascertained it from the nature of the seal’s trill with questionable accuracy. He decided not to take too much stock in it. Nevertheless, the seal was correct: he had, in fact, been ‘sleeping badly.’
In for four. Hold. Out for four. Repeat. Graciously, Dan Heng slipped out of the vice grip around his lungs and throat easily, when the interference (and appearance) of the seal thoroughly distracted him. An intentional move on their part, no doubt. These creatures could be so pure-hearted.
“Thank you for your concern, little one,” he murmured. “I’m fine now.”
“(You’re welcome!)” the seal chirped, with a short victory loop inside the pool. “(Anything for the boss!)”
Now thoroughly awake, Dan Heng wiped the water from his bangs and stretched his aching back, sorely missing his heated floor panels. There was water on the lounger and floor, now, and Dan Heng did not feel quite awake enough to muddle through the finesse required to separate this world’s highly unique water from the fabric. Ugh, he might as well drag the bed over into the direct light to dry it later… That little seal, with a name unable to be reproduced with human vocal cords, was going to make him regret giving them pointers on their Phagousa-given hydrokinetic ability, even if that skill had ultimately taken Dan Heng’s team to the finals. That skill and that other seal’s… determination.
He shivered with the reminder of the topic.
Instead, Dan Heng padded over to kneel at the edge of the pool, giving the seal his best no-nonsense look that usually worked… on everyone except small creatures (and sometimes little sisters), apparently.
“How did you get in here?” he asked, knowing full well that the seals’ caretaker had a specific set of chambers for them, where they were supposed to be at this hour.
“(Uhhhh, I was here the whole time),” they lied badly.
Dan Heng rolled his vocal cords and simply spoke their name as he had earlier learned it, a hand on his hip. The seal had enough sense to chirp apologetically. “(I slipped in when the chimera did! I am innocent!)” they corrected, not at all innocent.
Not that Dan Heng thought the situation extreme enough to warrant taking them back—the seal nor the blue chimera, whom Dan Heng now spotted hiding by the bookshelf. “Bubbles, what are you doing here?”
There was a high chance that Stelle invited them in last night, but for once Stelle had fallen asleep at a decent hour, before Dan Heng did; he would have known if the chimera was invited or smuggled in, because Stelle would have given it away otherwise.
“(The gardener said I could stay!)” they insisted, jumping out of their poor hiding place. “(Because my partner and I work so well together!)”
Yet another matter for morning, then. Er, Entry Hour.
“Don’t knock over all the scrolls, then,” he sighed. “Come over here.”
“(Yay!)” Bubbles cheered, bounding out with small paws. They then scrambled up to Stelle’s bed, looking for an empty spot with an anticipatory, excited rumble. Dan Heng would be more concerned about the activity if he did not know that Stelle could sleep through Trash Cake sitting on her face.
The matter of the room’s unexpected visitors more or less settled, Dan Heng looked at his additional phone clock he synced with an approximation of Amphoreus’ time and sighed. It was only about halfway through Curtain-Fall, and already he doubted his ability to go back to sleep. Just looking at the lounger, more bed than chair, made his spine ripple with the sensation of being trapped and chased at the same time.
There was nothing scheduled for tomorrow, aside from his offer to help Hyacine in the Twilight Courtyard. It would probably be fine on the amount of sleep he was now working with…
Dan Heng picked up his notes on Amphoreus and wondered if he would make any progress, with the way his mind frayed.
Perhippas and his seal sat on the edge of his thoughts, right in front of the nightmare they undoubtedly triggered, despite the calm way yesterday had ultimately ended. Should he have denied the man from the start, and not play into his delusions? Should he have done more for the seal to soothe their troubled soul? Was there anything Dan Heng could have done at all?
“(What are you doing, boss?)” the seal asked, and questionable translation or not, Dan Heng knew he did not imagine the sass.
Aware that he had stared at a closed notebook for several uninterrupted minutes, Dan Heng still side-eyed the seal. “Working.”
“(You’re not going back to sleep?)” the seal wondered, with all the simplicity of a child. “(I helped with the bad sleep, right?)
“(You really should. Look! My partner is!)” Bubbles agreed, also not-asleep as they bounced next to Stelle’s light snoring.
“How about you clean the mess you made of my bed, then?” he huffed, even if it was mostly an excuse. Still, the seal made the mess; they should clean it up.
“(Ughhhh, okaaaaaay),” the seal groaned, but the irritation faded when they flopped onto the ground and hummed as they gathered up the water in a reversal of their ‘cannon’ technique. As a creature blessed by this planet’s water deity, they had less issue wrangling the water, even if their technique was still crude. “(There! I did it!)”
“Thank you.”
Dan Heng realized his mistake when he was now met with the expectant gazes of a seal and a chimera, waiting for him to go back to sleep.
His lounger was pushed up against the wall, splitting his view between it and Stelle’s bed depending on how he woke up; the positioning had done a great job at keeping Dan Heng’s less sensible instincts calm, despite how it strayed from his initial preference. (This could very well be the longest he had ever successfully slept in a bed, however unconventional, in a row; unfortunately, the victory did not ease his irrational anxiety in this very moment, when returning felt like willingly delivering himself to the Shackling Prison infirmary, to be picked apart methodically in return for his continued survival.)
Tomorrow, perhaps, he would be calmer. Less inclined to jump at shadows. Less like a cornered animal in human skin.
“(Well?)” Bubbles prompted innocently. Chimeras, however, had a proven intelligence a bit higher than the seals. He feared Stelle’s furred friend was onto him.
“I’m awake now,” he tried. “No need to worry about me. Now let’s be quiet and let Stelle sleep, okay?”
The seal flopped back into the pool. Bubbles stared him down. Dan Heng blinked, yet kept the gaze. The chimera’s own competitive spirit made itself known, because they raised their head and doubled-down. Dan Heng wondered how he ended up in a stalemate with a creature that did not make it past his knees.
“(I can smell the fear on you from the bad sleep),” Bubbles said, as if it were simple. “(Want me to wake my partner up to help you?)”
He smothered his own animalistic instinct to insist that Stelle was his companion first. The chimeras were all child-like and innocent, in that regard; he knew they did not mean anything by it. “No, don’t wake her. I’m fine.”
Bubbles hovered a paw over Stelle’s shoulder. Dan Heng narrowed his eyes. “No.”
“(Your human speech is louder than mine~)” Bubbles gloated. “(You’ll wake her yourself~)”
Perhaps Dan Heng was being a little petty in his addled, sleep-deprived state, but he responded to the taunt with a low-toned warning growl, albeit one without any real bite. Still, Bubbles widened their eyes with a surprised chirp.
Then they bapped Stelle’s shoulder anyway. Little gremlin.
“(Partner! Partner! Wake up! Your chimera-human friend is being sad!)” Bubbles wailed.
“(No! Boss is a seal-human!)” the seal then chose to argue, for some reason.
“Huh? Whuh?” Stelle mumbled sleepily with a yawn. “No, Dan Heng is a frog.”
Perhaps he should just leave. Climb down the balcony and start walking. It would be the only chance to preserve his dignity, at this rate.
“Sorry they woke you, Stelle,” Dan Heng apologized. “I failed to stop them. Please, go back to sleep.”
Dan Heng wondered how out of sorts he looked because Stelle squinted at him with half-awake, golden eyes. “Nightmare?” she guessed.
Then again, it was not a hard guess. His long running membership of the “Insomnia Club,” as Stelle somewhat accurately dubbed it, was a well-known fact. Even before he and Stelle spent the last month stuck here, in close quarters.
(At least his also known, rather long repertoire of reoccurring nightmares had once obscured the fact that he had started seeing her bloodied, dead body far too often, even after she returned from the Netherworld, now fully alive once more.)
“I’m fine,” he tried, and then gestured to the seal. “The little one woke me. They were both overly concerned, that’s all.”
Stelle hummed thoughtfully, tinged with disbelief. Well. He tried. “You’re way over there,” she accused. “Too late to go back to sleep?”
“I…” He faltered. “Yes. But it wasn’t that bad. I promise you. I’m just… Rendered uneasy, that is all.”
Knowing, logically, that his various sources of traumatic stress that created this response did not always make it easier to wade through the bodily instinct of fight-or-flight in their wake. Tonight just happened to strike him worse than it had been, lately.
Perhaps because it was the first time in a while that he dreamed of being chased by Blade. Even now, while awake, some of his scars ached, and the scent of blood lingered in his memory.
“‘That is all,’ he says, like you don’t coax me into admitting a proper amount of trauma whenever it’s my nightmare,” Stelle shot back. “Anyway, you up for talking about it, or should I heckle you until you forget? You know what, I should just start heckling. I think I can do a better job than these cuties, no offense.”
“(Hey!)” the seal protested. “(I was a great heckler! Uh. What’s heckling?)”
Dan Heng sighed, long and heavy. Those were their collective go-to options, huh? Although it made sense, when they were both prone to nightmares and also prone to sometimes going silent after them.
It had been the distraction option, lately, because no matter how much they shared, slowly worming through years of Dan Heng’s instinct-built barriers, he still could not bring himself to burden her with the image of her lifeless body, because he knew without a doubt that Stelle would take it hard on herself, no matter what she promised. He did not want to cause her undue stress in that regard.
But. This was, for once, not that. With how many times he had been the one to collapse into silence since they crashed on Amphoreus… Dan Heng fought with the tightening in his gut and throat, breathing in and out systematically. His resolve would mean little if those icy claws of anxiety stole his voice away at the last moment.
“It was… Perhippas,” he began, sitting on the edge of his lounger. This way, it was a seat, not a medical cot, and he did not have to actively convince his hind-brain that he was not a child and back in that infirmary, again. “The man I helped the Twilight Courtyard tend to yesterday.”
Stelle frowned, already too knowing. “The one obsessed with winning, right? And his seal… that acted kind of mara-struck…”
“Yes, the… behavior was uncanny.” There was an interesting topic there, especially given the fact that souls acted so uniquely in this world at all, regarding whether ‘mara’ was a phenomenon truly unique to Yaoshi’s curse or if it was some other older thing, capable of appearing elsewhere. But Dan Heng’s curiosity could not quite breach his immediate experiences, this time. Particularly when the obsessive nature of the man and his seal struck a chord not entirely limited to pure mara, but rather…
“It could just be my stress extrapolating,” Dan Heng sighed, “but after working with that seal all afternoon, I could not help but wonder about the nature of obsession, truly. It is… its own mental condition, in a way. I do not think that seal could have let go of their drive even if they tried, in that state of incomplete death.”
Stelle moved to sit beside him, a knee knocked supportively in his. Bubbles jumped to his other side, headbutting his thigh and Dan Heng raised a palm to scratch their head almost unconsciously.
“Blade’s obsession with you is not your fault,” she insisted softly, correctly ascertaining the true source of his nightmare, though not today’s impetus directly.
“I know that,” he agreed, and logically he really did, even if the moments when that old mental wound, drilled into him by judges and Preceptors alike as an impressionable and scared child, tore open and made him truly believe that all of Dan Feng’s sins and consequences were solely his to atone for. But they weren’t, and Blade’s immortality—Yingxing’s downfall—could not even be placed solely on Dan Feng’s shoulders either. It had been Yingxing’s own choice, history revealed, and now Blade was just his ghost, stuck with an obsession that Dan Heng had a feeling that Jingliu similarly drilled into him, a mental scar more prominent than the myriad of ones on his skin. “But it is still… regrettable.”
Blade was a hunter and Dan Heng was forever cursed to be his prey, and he did not think that he would ever stop being scared of Blade, even if only in instinct, because of what his hunt demanded and the carnage to bystanders and companions alike that it often waged. It was hard to separate the man from the beast that descended on his teenage self, newly freed and so horribly disconnected from the world, and made him undo his vow never to cause harm. Yet… Dan Heng, as he got older and learned more, could not help but feel sorry for him too. Sometimes that meant that guilt spilled open from those old inflicted wounds, since the thing that Blade claimed would grant him salvation was something that Dan Heng refused to give him—and holding on to his name and his life, as basic of human rights as they should be, had always left Dan Heng feeling too selfish, in his irrational anxiety.
However, after today… He realized that not even his death would close Blade’s wound, would it? Perhaps only his own would, provided it was complete—and that was only because it would remove him from the ability to have that obsession at all. (And it must be torture, to be deprived of an eventual ending; Dan Heng would not wish Blade’s plight on anyone, not even Blade.)
It did not quiet the guilt quite the way he hoped it would. It just left Dan Heng rather melancholic.
“You and that big heart of yours,” Stelle sighed. “But I… I get it. If March 7th were here, she would probably set us both straight, but…” She let the statement hang as they both grappled with the missing presence by their sides. “Anyway, yeah. When you put it that way, it is pretty sad. And… Maybe this is false hope, but just because you couldn’t save that seal doesn’t mean that somebody like Blade is beyond hope, or anything. Nor does it mean that it should be you to try, after everything he’s put you through. He’s got his own companions, after all.”
Stelle wavered, and Dan Heng knew that her mind was slipping towards Kafka—her own source of complicated feelings and misplaced responsibility. (And considering sometimes he saw too much of Taoran in that woman… He really did not want Stelle to be burdened by that fabricated guilt or subject to that kind of manipulation, even if that made him a hypocrite, having taken far too long to come to that same conclusion; although this was his right as her senior, to attempt to usher her away from the pitfalls he already suffered in.)
“He does,” he agreed, while also coaxing the subject away from the Stellaron Hunters and Kafka, for her sake. Besides, the source of his troubled mind lied elsewhere. “And I do sincerely doubt I would be… of much help regardless, beyond the topic of why I shouldn’t for my own sake, and for yours. From what I hear, he’s more sane when I am not around, anyway. If just my absence would aid him, I would gladly do it, but…” Dan Heng’s gut twisted. The fur underneath his fingers distracted him from the red eyes and thus staved away the breath and voice stealing anxiety. He breathed through it. “He’s chased me for so long. I’m… I’m worried nothing will change and the chase will continue until he catches me, and then it won’t even solve anything.”
The truth of their lifespans made it worse. Blade had already lived for centuries, and with how his body avoided the physical degradation brought by mara and time, he could likely live for centuries more. And Dan Heng did not even know the height of his own lifespan, whether it would be closer to a normal high elder of the Vidyadhara or something far, far older, like the other dragons Pom-Pom told him stories about; either option seemed unfathomable, when he was not even thirty years old, yet. And… he lasted less than a decade of Blade chasing him across the cosmos, before Himeko found something closer to a shell than a person…
“Hey,” Stelle cut in, a little too sternly, and Dan Heng realized he accidentally got too close to being overly existential. This was why he tried not to release his burdens on Stelle and March, or anyone, really… But he did know that it made it worse. Really. (He was learning.) “There’s no need to think about that. You have us, remember? We won’t let him catch you at all, if he tries that again. And… And the burden of ending his immortality is not on you, no matter what he or anybody says. But if you want to try anyway, because you’re a softy like that, like the rest of us—and frankly I wouldn’t trust Elio to either—then we’re with you on that, too.”
“(I’ll kill him, boss!)” the seal interjected, startling the both of them. “(Who are we killing?)”
Dan Heng chuckled, despite himself. “Nobody,” he said firmly. “This is not a problem you should concern yourself with. Nor is it relevant, here.”
“(Okay),” this seal agreed easily. Bless the childlike attention spans of most of these creatures.
“Thank you,” he murmured to Stelle. “Though please know I would never ask something like that of you.” However consensual, that was still a declaration to have blood on one’s hands. Dan Heng may crack underneath that burden, a childhood of being too aware of all the ways he was considered more monster than human still a set of scars in his skin, but he would readily take it over forcing it on his family.
“I know,” she frowned, resolute. “And I know the rest of the Crew does too. Whether or not it comes to that, we’re still with you. Because we would never ask that of you either, and frankly it’s ridiculous that anybody is asking you at all. Yourself included.”
He sighed. “Maybe so,” he allowed. “But even if nobody demanded I amend the mess left behind by Dan Feng and his companions, I think the me of now is influenced enough by the Path of Trailblaze that I would make the same decision.” The universe would always have suffering, after all, and obsession, whether self-inflicted or outwardly cast, was just a form of it. And like with all suffering out there, that meant that there would always be a choice to help.
“So you know how hard it is to ask your fellow Trailblazers not to stand beside you?”
Stelle really had a way of driving his guilt into a corner. That, perhaps, was the only part of him that he did not mind being hunted. Dan Heng relaxed. “Okay, I concede.”
“Good!” Stelle grinned. “Another Talk successful. Who’s to say two selective-mutes can’t talk things out?”
Dan Heng huffed at the dig at herself, although his lip twitched upward at her enthusiasm. “I’ll tally this success down in the records, then, to remind you when you are hard on yourself.”
“Heh… Touche…”
“(So sleeeepyyyy),” Bubbles purred. “(Keep going~)”
Dan Heng realized that he had been petting Bubbles the entire time, and now the chimera was a pile of contentment, their goal forgotten. He smiled a bit at the sight.
“You stole my chimera partner,” Stelle pouted.
“...Perhaps.”
She stood. “Well, we got some more system-hours worth of sleep. Not to worry, I have a Trailblaze Solution. Move your legs.”
“Wait, Stelle—”
His instinctive worry (of the non-anxious, brotherly variety) faded when her bold statement only resulted in her pushing her bed next to his. “Sleep pile,” she declared. “And I’m stealing your Seal Slammer partner for it, by the way.”
“(Oo! Pick me! Pick me!)” the seal cheered, jumping out of the pool, and inevitably into Stelle’s arms.
“Wow! You’re slippery!” Stelle cheered back.
“(Wait! Watch this!)” The seal then used their improving hydrokinetic ability to dispel all of the water from their fur; unfortunately, it was with the same nearly explosive quality they utilized in the Seal Slammers tournament. As a result, their fur puffed outward wildly, and Stelle blinked at the impact, however small.
She laughed. “Good job! Now, let’s go make Dan Heng and Bubbles jealous!”
Dan Heng rolled his eyes, not quite bothering to fully hide his expression before the amusement slipped into it; Stelle grinned wider.
She ushered Dan Heng onto the combined chairs. Bubbles only moved from his arm to sleepily press themself under his hand and against his chest, still purring, while Stelle scooted beside him with an arm full of fluffy seal, nuzzling contently into her elbow. Bubbles was a small spot of warmth against him, and Stelle a larger one nearby.
It wasn’t bad at all. Under these conditions, it was almost easy to relax.
“(You don’t look like a frog to me),” Bubbles mumbled sleepily.
Dan Heng sputtered out an indignant laugh.
“Bubbles, oh my Bubbles,” Stelle yawned. “It’s not about accuracy. It’s about it being the funniest thing available to call our amphibious friend so he makes that face.” She smiled at him mischievously. “That one, right there.”
“(Got it),” Bubbles mumbled contently, too relaxed to open their eyes. “(Frog-human-chimera friend.)”
“Good night,” Dan Heng insisted.
“Niiight,” Stelle said, and as if one of her collection of Paths was under an Aeon of Sleep, she was out like a light once more.
Dan Heng nestled in, matching the purr of the chimera before he realized he was doing it at all.
They slept peacefully until morning.