Work Text:
When Hong’er was a child, he’d learned that martyr was a word used for soldiers who died defending their homeland, and he’d sneered at it. In his eyes, Xianle was worth no protection at all.
Then, God catches him, holds him, tells him kind words, and he revises: to be martyred would be a kind fate. Against Yong’an, he fights until he spits up blood, eats his fill, imagines a scimitar in his hand as he swings.
To be felled by an arrow, for the sake of His Highness—only after, does he realize that martyrdom is not the end.