Work Text:
If you have to know one thing about the oral tradition of folk tales, then know this: No matter how false, with enough faith, a story has no choice but to come true.
I. LAMENT
The sun is starting to rise.
Du Ruo is powerless against it. She knows better than anyone that fighting what must come is futile. The legendary Sun Crow bears their doom—nobody knows how to look it in the eye. Except one.
Death is the fastest way to end a myth.
Du Ruo knows this.
“Xu, don’t be a fool,” Du Ruo whispers. “Are you listening to me? You cannot stop this! Not alone!”
It’s unbecoming of a scholar, to yell. If you need something, ask. If you are denied, persuade. Compromise. When it comes to Xu, Du Ruo can do nothing.
“That’s why I need you,” Xu says, eyes looking far ahead. Her back is turned.
“What?”
“Do you believe in me?”
“No,” Du Ruo says. “I don’t want to.”
Xu’s eyes crinkle. “Try again!”
“I don’t believe in you. Not now. Turn back, Xu.”
“Du Ruo,” Xu calls. Light on her feet, she turns back minutely. Du Ruo can see the whites of her eyes. “I need you for this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What? Now?” Xu laughs.
“Try this farce some other time, Xu. Come to the shelter with me. You have been foolish since the day I’ve met you, quick to lie, impulsive, driven on by whims. Now isn’t the time to prove me right.”
Xu laughs, again. The end of it cracking. “Why, I thought this scholar is always right!”
“Not today. Prove me wrong, Xu.” There is desperation, here, bleeding and weary, begging to be noticed. Du Ruo isn’t familiar with it; the feeling makes her chest cave in, her breathing short, her hope left in the town about to burn behind Xu.
“Do you remember the day we first met?”
Irritated, Du Ruo closes her eyes. “We don’t have time for this.”
“You asked me if I had no shame, lying to everyone. I told you I weave my advice into legends, every bit of the magic false, because through them people can gain the courage to step out of their homes. I have no shame in that, Du Ruo. They needed those lies. And, even now…” Xu faces the impending flames, her back to the rest of the world. Du Ruo resists the urge to wrench this too small, too brittle of a body in comparison to the Sun Crow, back to her.
“Even now?”
“We still need one.” Xu faces Du Ruo, eyes without a shadow of doubt. “I want to tell a lie. Will you help me?”
In the end, when it comes to Xu, Du Ruo can still do nothing.
The sun rises.
Xu decides to stay.
(Death is the fastest way to end a myth.
Xu knows this, too.)
II. PRAISE
“I don’t believe in you,” Du Ruo says to Xu, one morning, apropos of nothing.
“You’ve said.”
“I know. I only want to remind you every day.”
The wind blows; Xu tilts her head at the young scholar in front of her, amused by the declaration. “You’ll come see me every day?”
“Even if I have to wait after your little fanatic meetings.”
“Do you want a chair?”
“This must be amusing to you,” Du Ruo says, sneering.
“I mean it! The lines get very long, and I end so late in the day. You should also bring a book if you’re so dedicated to me.”
Du Ruo rolls her eyes. “How riveting, attending to your subjects. I want a cushion with the chair.”
“You are the most demanding believer I’ve ever had.”
“Are you hard of hearing? I just said—”
“I don’t believe in you.”
“You sure do not,” Xu replies. She gestures to the tree shading Du Ruo. “Isn’t the shade very good during the high noon?”
“It does its job,” Du Ruo says, flippantly.
Xu sticks out her tongue. “You’re so hard to please.”
“I don’t believe in you.”
“Many thanks!”
“I don’t believe in you.”
“Of course. People are asking if you’re a friend of mine.”
Du Ruo would snort, if it weren’t unbecoming of a scholar. “I hope the words out of your mouth were a variation of Not in a millenia.”
“Well, it was a variation of This lady is my stalker.”
“My reputation will not be sullied by a con artist.” Du Ruo rises, indignant, closing her book shut.
“I jest. I said you were my fan.”
“I don’t believe in you.”
Xu sighs. “Your words! They sting. Be careful with my heart, you’re holding it.”
“I can’t possibly be holding your bleeding heart; everyone else already has it,” Du Ruo scoffs. In part it is true; this whole farce, after all, is caused by Xu’s endless insistence to spare everyone’s hurt in return for hers. Every day Du Ruo has watched her. Every day it is becoming clearer that one day it will cease to go anywhere. “Try not giving it all away.”
“Don’t be jealous,” Xu quips, but her eyes are somber, her smile tender. These intimations are directed at Du Ruo—she doesn’t know what to do with all of it.
“I don’t believe in you.”
“No one’s ever liked me this much before.”
“I don’t believe in you.”
“Yes, but I did very well today, didn’t I?” Xu asks, hands behind her back as she leans toward Du Ruo.
“Perhaps,” Du Ruo says, mouth quirking, thinking of the way Xu managed to revive an old woman’s hope to see the world beyond its possibility of doom, and a child’s hope to grow up without it hanging over their head, “for a half-baked liar.”
“That was almost a declaration of your love!”
“Why do you continue this futile, belligerent attempt at playing hero, this town’s Great Seer?” Du Ruo drawls, eyes poring over Xu’s form, clearly exhausted after attending to the citizens who came to see her, even though she’s adamant not to show it.
“Why hello again, Du Ruo. Have you started to believe in me?”
“Don’t be a fool. Answer the question.”
Xu hums. “I told you already. The people need it.”
“One day, the lies you have built will collapse on you, but…” Du Ruo trails off, placing one hand on Xu’s mask—looking around if the people have dissipated—lifting it until she can see her eyes.
Xu’s breath stalls.
“But?”
“I will be there for you when it does.”
III. SOLACE
Du Ruo finds the fact that the world didn’t end seven years ago difficult to believe. But it is the truth now.
In her brightest nightmares she can see everything as if it was yesterday: Her hand, shaking. Her ears, hearing, We need an archer who believes… Her mind, going back to the beginning and finding nothing there to help. Her mouth, saying Give me the bow. Her throat, constricting and drying and spilling out, I’ll do it. Her hope, rekindling and dying. Her Xu, gone with the flames. Her belated love, going, No one has more faith in that liar than I do. Her heart, splattering all over the ground.
After all, nothing can be done. They do not have enough resources. The assistance they need will never come. The people’s only weapon is faith. For Xu, who she has seen ugly and good and beautiful, Du Ruo has more than enough of it. If need be, this esteemed scholar will sully all her person to tell this one last lie.
The sun is setting.
Du Ruo pulls the bow back. The air is heavy with longing. She closes her eyes in prayer, wishing this futile love will reach the sun: I believe in you.
(Seven years later, Du Ruo pulls the bow back one more time. The sun sets everyday; in this hour it will be midnight forever.)