Chapter Text
“Who knew vendoring for a book fair could be so much work?” March 7th complained, feeling the desire to find the nearest shaded seat, pronto—preferably with a cool, sweet drink in hand. “I’m a friendly gal and all, but I am so glad that meet-and-greet was only for a few hours… I wouldn’t have made it.”
Stelle, who surely had the same desire but less qualms about forgoing a real seat, draped herself dramatically over the stack of boxes behind the (still incredibly busy) table full of copies of As I’ve Written. “Dan Heng knew,” Stelle lamented. “That’s why he abandoned us. Left us to fend for ourselves against the eager crowds and countless autographs. The adoring fans…”
“I’m right here,” Dan Heng said, the last box of books in his hands.
She threw her arm over her forehead. “Sometimes, I still hear his voice…”
“Shame. I thought I heard Stelle over here,” he deadpanned, face as straight as ever as he dropped the box on the stack—Stelle now sandwiched in-between.
She grunted under the weight. “Wait, Dan Heng, mercy—”
March giggled as the scene played out. It was good to see those two in higher spirits after… Well, everything that happened in Amphoreus. March herself finally felt more… grounded? (Real.) Better! Ah whatever, thinking about it too much was un-helpful!
The point was, she was super grateful to have some low-stakes adventures with her best friends, and now that they were done with the meet-and-greet the fair runners begged them to do in exchange for giving them a vendor spot, they could use the rest of the time to explore the fair! Which was huge! Of course, the entire place was more of a floating market than it was a planet, so it made sense that they would go all out! Sadly, Himeko and Mr. Yang were next door on the surface of the real local planet in this star system, for some last-minute meeting they requested. Probably about the effects of the Irontomb attack… For how bustling the commerce was around here, the IPC had a lower presence than normal; fortunately, from what March gathered from the locals, it wasn’t that bad, thanks to getting the vaccines on time despite it all. Which meant that March could finally relax, worry-free, and stretch her legs with her companions!
A quieter snicker reached her ears as Dan Heng relented, only for Stelle to decide to flop face-down on the ground instead of catching herself. Sunday hid his face behind his wing as soon as she looked, but March caught it nonetheless.
“You should see it whenever Dan Heng tries to get her out of bed on training days,” March said, sliding closer to the still-awkward-but-finally-relaxing passenger. “Stelle sleeps like an unmovable object. And she sleep-talks.”
Sunday lowered his wing, and while his face was still rather schooled, it was also significantly less Oak-Family-rigid as it used to be. Another success! Amusement remained visible in that subtle way of his. “From how she behaves in the mornings, I am not at all surprised. I imagine that, like now, you are comfortable remaining a spectator in these lively confrontations, Miss March?”
He got her there. “The one always standing in the real winner,” she winked. “And what did I say! Drop the ‘miss’ act! We’re in this together now. Don’t make me feel old…”
“Speakinggggg of which,” Stelle interjected, rolling to her feet effortlessly once she was done emulating a potato sack, “Sunny, what kind of books do you read? Because I totally have recommendations if we go exploring the fair.” March did not know what idea Stelle had, but based on the growing smirk, it was definitely a bad one. “I spotted a section that would put the Grove’s forbidden stash to shame.”
Dan Heng choked and did a poor job swallowing it. “Stelle. Please.”
March had no idea what exactly Stelle was referring to, being unable to read over her shoulder as a camera (not that she was stuck anymore!), but based on Dan Heng’s reaction and her knowledge of Stelle’s, erm, fearless fortitude, that was probably a good thing.
Being the awesome, heroic Nameless that she was, and also having her own motivations, she took Sunday by the arm to save him. “Orrrr, we can go see the detective novel section! You said you read some of that genre before, right Sunday?”
He blinked owlishly for a moment, but then Sunday recognized her brilliant lifeline. “Oh! Right, yes, Mi— ahem, March. It has been quite a while, however. I fear I am not aware of that many hits, much less the contemporary ones.”
“Perfect! All the more reason to go check it out.” March had a feeling that this would be the inevitable moment everyone wandered in different directions, and although she scored one buddy, she would make a valiant attempt on the others. “You two want to ignore Stelle’s idea and come along?”
“First of all, I’m hurt. Wounded, even,” Stelle said, not upset at all. “Second… Hmm… Maybe I’ll catch up to you guys. While you and I were busy talking to people and Dan Heng and Sunday were hiding behind manual labor, I heard somebody mention a section where people dump their old books that closes early.”
“There’s a few texts in particular I am hoping to find,” Dan Heng explained. “I’ll reconvene with you all after I check for them.”
“You mean so you hover nearby and then inevitably leave us for the encyclopedias?” March teased.
Dan Heng said nothing at first, which might as well be an agreement since it did not come with a passive glare. “Encyclopedias rarely are in print anymore due to size constraints. It will be reference guides, most likely.”
“Nerd,” Stelle remarked.
“Nerd,” March agreed.
Dan Heng did not care, of course, but watching his lip twitch in a mix of amusement and resignation was a treat in itself.
“It would be interesting to see what geographical records there are in a frontier star system such as this…” Sunday pondered, also a massive nerd.
“Nope! I’m dragging you to the fun section first!” March cut in. Sunday didn’t resist, thankfully—although he was sort of a gangly guy in person, so she probably would have been able to drag him regardless. “Meet back with you guys later!”
///
Okay, so truthfully, March wanted a chance to maybe clear the air between her and Sunday. In a super casual and quick and not a serious conversation way. Just in case.
While it was true that at first, after the whole Penacony thing, March had been… a little weirded out by Sunday’s boarding, to put it charitably, she trusted Mr. Yang’s and everyone else’s judgement, so March reserved hers. It turned out not to be a huge deal, because Sunday was terribly awkward in an overly polite way that became equally sad and charming after a while. After Amphoreus, things seemed to settle even more.
Except for the teeny tiny detail that they never addressed how Evernight had tried to, maybe-sort-of, fry his mind.
March 7th knew, of course, that she and Evernight were not really the same person, and Stelle and Dan Heng did not hold the whole ‘imprisoning them in a memoria tide’ thing against her, but what did Sunday think? Did he know? Sunday was too good at lying and keeping things to himself! What if Evernight injured his brain and he had been keeping it a secret?! Had she removed memories and now nobody knew about it?! There were so many things that could be lurking under the surface, it made March nauseous to think about it.
So no, she did not want to have to find out, but she also did not not want to know either.
It was harder to broach the subject than she thought, however. First, it was because the mystery books actually were super cool, and March found some that she had never heard of before, and even Sunday got caught up in reading the first few pages of one of her favorite Xianzhou thriller mysteries, and now they were totally bonding, and March couldn’t ruin the moment.
March had just determined that she should drop it for now and take advantage of the rare opportunity—after all, they were both going back home to the Express after this—when suddenly Sunday raised his head, a weirdly serious look on his face. “March,” he said, voice low. “Is it… quiet to you, too?”
“Quiet?” she echoed, and then it hit her. Beside the rustling of pages, the sound of other fair goers had gone from a din to a murmur to something even quieter. It was eerie.
March quickly put down the book she had been browsing and looked around. She still saw people, but they weren’t moving anymore.
Even if this was the opposite effect, March was way too familiar with existing on a different plane of reality now. Every nerve in her body went into high alert, and she summoned her bow without a target in sight. She couldn’t… She couldn’t get stuck again. She just couldn’t.
Sunday seemed real next to her, however, the sharp intake of his breath audible as his eyes glowed faintly with the wiggly power of the Harmony. “There’s something—”
“Wrong?” a foreign voice supplied from behind them.
March yelped and whipped around, bow half-drawn, only to still freak out at the sight of a woman hanging halfway out of literal air as if it were a mirror.
Her red lips pulled into a mean smile, inky, feathery blue hair spilling over her face. “Boo.”
She disappeared as soon as March released the arrow, and her arrow was swallowed by the freaky space barrier.
So much for a peaceful trip.
“She’s coming from the le— Agh!” Sunday’s warning broke into a pained cry, his hands snapping upward to claw at his ears.
“Good thing we prepared for the Halovian, just in case,” the evil lady remarked, stepping through the air bubble way too casually. “Atri hit gold with these curios.”
March quickly formed a shield around Sunday, but it did not stop him from whatever noise or frequency that must be messing with him. Meanwhile March quickly found out that the cube of altered space was really small, which was very bad for archery. The second time the lady disappeared into the barrier, March tugged harder and successfully summoned (thankfully) the twin swords that Yanqing had gifted her. Xianzhou weapons were made to be easier to do the spirit-attunement to, but holding multiple ones was tough!
But when March charged at the barrier, it felt like a very real wall.
“Nice try, Pinkie.”
Something sharp pricked at March’s neck. She swung around to strike at her attacker but that blasted lady disappeared again!
A golden, thorny vine shot out at the space, putting a crack in the air as it strained against the barrier. Sunday looked awful, pale and straining and ear-wings pinned against his ears and neck.
Could… she use the power of Remembrance to break this barrier? Did March, by herself and in the real world with a real body and without a Coreflame of Time to boost her, know how to?
She had to try. But March felt a sharp wooziness as soon as she reached for that power.
“March?” Sunday gasped.
And March toppled.
///
Really, there was a natural progression from the used book exchange and the nearest trash can. A very sensible progression, even.
Some people had thrown away the books deemed too damaged (and not rare enough) to save, after all. For shame! Stelle would liberate the poor texts, and maybe gain a trinket or two out of the matter. It was unfortunate that waste from the nearby food stand ended up in here too… Stelle was a guru of trashcans, but this smell was extra weird, even for her.
“Excuse me? Ma’am?”
Stelle (very elegantly, thank you) popped her head from the trash can to meet the very politely judgemental state of one of the book fair’s volunteers. The woman looked down on Stelle with pristine movement, only resulting in the slightest swish of a very straight and glossy lavender ponytail. It matched her pressed blazer and cool coal eyes all too well. Sensing the impending misunderstanding, Stelle jumped in to defend herself before the neat-freak lady caused a ruckus and Stelle had to let March gleefully put another tally towards Stelle’s ‘persecuted for trash appreciation’ count, or whatever less flattering name March gave it.
“People threw away perfectly good books,” Stelle explained, gesturing to her haul.
A slender eyebrow rose. “Perfect might be a stretch,” the woman drawled. “But I suppose I can… commend your dedication to preservation.” She grimaced and observed one of the admittedly worse off books, hanging onto the binding by a literal single thread. She almost bent down to get closer and then the grimace deepened, and she wafted the air around her nose. “Ugh. Quite the stench, however… Do not tell me you are unaffected?”
“This? Pffft, this is nothing. More weird than bad. Trust me, it could be worse.” Stelle was a bit light-headed though when she stood. Must be vinegar or something…
“Uh-huh… Right,” said Ms. Judgy. “Well, methods aside, I have the tools to fix that old book of yours. It, at least, deserves the respect.” Rude, but whatever. “Come with me to my office. Just… keep your distance.”
Stelle shrugged. She could do without the sass, but hey! Professional book expert tools! Not even Dan Heng had the full means to restore paper and bindings, usually resorting to scanning what he could salvage into the databank. Stelle could handle the snobbery. Besides, the stench always aired out with some movement.
The change of temperature or smell or whatever, moving from the open stalls to a cramped little building and office, did make Stelle feel a little woozy, but that probably had nothing to do with the smell.
“Put it on the table,” the lady ordered, shutting the door behind them. “Best to keep the pages flat.”
“So does it just need to be glued, or what?” Stelle asked, putting down the pages as requested but poking at them at the same time. “Or sewed? I still think it’s weird but cool that books can be literally sewn, by the way. How do you thread a needle through so much paper, anyway?” Stelle tried, once. She was super strong, and even she failed! Besides, she probably had the wrong kind of needle anyway.
“By breaking it up into smaller parts, and stacking them together,” the lady answered, grabbing some sort of dust mask. “Or… finding a stronger needle.”
So it was the needle? Or… was it? Stelle was distracted by another wave of dizziness. And… the smell…
Alarmed at the odd sensation, Stelle straightened to catch her bearings—or, she tried to. The room spun. The lady watched impassively, a mask too thick and mechanical to be anything but a…
Oh shit.
But it was too late. Before Stelle could even summon a weapon, she crumpled to the ground.
///
Dan Heng had a great appreciation for events such as these, no matter the unpleasant side effect of large and loud crowds. The Aether Network contained vast amounts of knowledge, yes, and available databanks were crucial for this, but there was no substitute for local literature and not widely circulating texts and files. Opportunities like these were to be cherished. Unfortunately, Dan Heng currently faced two disappointing circumstances.
First, this fair did not, in fact, have the original edition of Viridian Soul, as transcribed by the (presumed) Nameless who first wrote it. The catalogue had been either mistaken or exaggerated, and the only copy he could find was the third edition, which was better than most available (and drastically altered) later editions, but Dan Heng already had a copy of the second edition. Oh well—it was a letdown, but an expected one.
Second, he was being followed.
They were good—far too good to be a mere curious attendee who recognized a Nameless of the Astral Express, after all of the advertising March and Stelle did in this sector for As I’ve Written. No, he dismissed that theory when the movements were too quiet and too deliberate, always just out of sight.
He slipped a text to the others while pretending to browse the catalogue again, just in case. He did not hear a notification return, but that wasn’t cause for stress just yet—they were all easily distracted, after all. As of now, he had no reason to believe that this person was after anybody but Dan Heng.
Slowly, carefully, Dan Heng migrated to quieter areas, until leaving the limits (and the crowds) of the bustling market. Sure enough, his pursuer had eyes for him, and him alone.
“Show yourself,” Dan Heng commanded, Cloud-Piercer now in hand.
The figure—a tall humanoid in a plain black coat with bleach-blond hair—casually leaned around the corner, hands in his pockets and countenance unbothered. Dan Heng was not fooled.
“So this is the famous Guard of the Astral Express, eh?” he remarked. “I was skeptical when I first heard about you. Some random nobody could really claim such a position over those powerhouse seniors? As if!” He strode forward, close enough that Dan Heng could make out bright red eyes from behind his bangs. Then he smiled—all placid insincerity. “But perhaps your reputation is earned, dragon.”
On guard and alarmed, Dan Heng wasted no time in levelling Cloud-Piercer between them in warning. While his status as a ‘Vidyadhara ex-high elder,’ no matter how questionable the denotation in regard to certain definitions of the term, was not exactly a secret anymore, neither was it widespread beyond the Xianzhou. To emphasize his status as a dragon, however, was a toss-up between misunderstanding or knowing far too much. Coupled with the overly focused attention and deceptive body language, Dan Heng did not trust this man’s intentions one bit.
“Do not come any closer,” he commanded. “What do you want?”
“Plenty of things,” the man replied nonchalantly. He tapped the edge of the spear, even going so far as to letting his fingertip bleed. “But right now? A little bit of enjoyment, and… hm… Revenge.”
…of course.
“I don’t know you are,” Dan Heng said icily, more than aware that this probably did not matter, in Dan Heng’s experience. “Nor what I have done to upset you.”
“Oh, you misunderstand,” the man dismissed. “We don’t want revenge on you, specifically. We’ve never been acquainted, after all.”
That… admittedly was not how Dan Heng thought this was going to go. Whether an aggressor was after him for his past life or for his status as a Nameless, they would usually be far less nonchalant. Or perhaps that was just the man’s personality.
What he did expect, however, was that the tense confrontation would turn to violence.
The man ducked under Cloud-Piercer, aiming low. Dan Heng side-stepped the charge and swung downward, only for the man to block with a sai jabbed around his shaft.
Such short-range combats were not Dan Heng’s strongest field, admittedly, although he had his fair share of experience in grappling. The man clearly wanted to close to the distance to turn the length of a spear to a disadvantage and to utilize his dual sai, but Dan Heng did his best to avoid that outcome. Even if he were to take into account the claws within him, Dan Heng doubted he would be a match for expertly wielded pronged daggers.
However, the fast-paced fight was difficult to maintain, because his adversary was as fast as he was skilled. Dan Heng found himself increasingly losing space to the cramped passageway behind the storefronts that the fight had led to. Backed against a wall, now literally, Dan Heng had no good way to dodge the incoming strike, so he traded blows instead. The sai sliced through the edge of his left arm and Cloud-Piercer’s blade grazed the man’s torso.
The man laughed, manic and unfazed. Dan Heng had more than enough experience knowing that an opponent that did not react to pain was by far the most dangerous kind.
Dan Heng’s own scratch stung, but it was hardly enough to slow him down. He, too, knew how to ignore pain.
He used the wall and a burst of inner cloudhymn to out-speed the assailant and blow past him in a blur of green. Dan Heng could not maintain that density or speed for anything more than a moment, but it was enough to create space and momentum. He used the opposite alley wall as a launchpad to then strike at the man, fierce enough to make even him dodge and succeeding in knocking one sai from his grip.
The tables turned, though only for a moment.
Dan Heng pressed his hard-earned advantage until he lost it to a landed kick hard enough to make him stumble. Dan Heng tried to right himself quickly by stretching his tail— and then was brutally reminded he did not have it anymore. (Not in any useful way.) The delayed recovery only gave the assailant time to pounce, attempting to knock Dan Heng to the ground entirely.
His vision swayed in a sudden sense of vertigo, but the man made a mistake by trying to grab him instead of going in blade-first. Dan Heng took the man down with him and flipped their positions, pinning the man to ground and knocking his second weapon away.
“Stay down,” Dan Heng hissed, feeling light of breath. Had the fight been that long? No… Something was…
The man laughed. “What a beast! You’re still not down yet?”
“You are not in a position to say that,” Dan Heng countered. Yet, unease crept in. The exhaustion that tugged at him was not natural. Had Dan Heng not recovered from Amphoreus as well as he thought? No, it has been weeks… Whatever the cause, he had to surpass it. “What do you want?”
“Mm, right now? For that damn poison to kick in already.”
What.
Fuck, the sais—
But Dan Heng’s second of surprise was enough for the man to twist under Dan Heng’s weakening grip, hard and fast enough to swing at Dan Heng’s shoulder. The third, hidden weapon was smaller, wrapped in paper; whatever it was, the encroaching dizziness made it impossible to dodge. Dan Heng would have to tank it while prioritizing snapping at the man’s elbow to—
His body reverberated with a very familiar pain, filling his veins and mind with static. His cloudhymn, already too deeply ingrained in his body to be all that potent, screamed at the sudden return of that forced stagnancy he endured for years that had pushed it into that precarious state to begin with. How did this man—?!
The man flipped their positions, pressing Dan Heng’s doubly injured shoulder into the ground and pulling a short cry out of him.
“Damn, this dragon horn stuff really is useful. Shame it looks like you’ve already been harvested for all of yours, beastie.”
At least this mysterious man did not know everything, but to even get his hands on a fragment of Dan Heng’s molted horn sheath, refined the way the Preceptors did to use it against him… This did not bode well. Not at all.
Dan Heng tried to break free, but the poison and the pillory shard mixed into an awful combination, wreaking havoc on his strength. Even when he tried to demand an answer, his vision blurred and his voice stuttered, all of his frustration (and rising fear) coming out in a draconic growl instead, futilely telling him to back off.
“Now, now, none of that, beastie,” the man laughed. “Just be a good dragon and stay down.”
“After all…” he heard the man chuckle under the ringing in his ears, as Dan Heng lost to the encroaching darkness. “Your friends are waiting for you.”