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Stelle dances with death twice in Planarcadia.
Dan Heng hates that he has to specify in Planarcadia, because unfortunately for them all, Stelle almost dying is not that uncommon of an occurrence. It’s happened on quite literally every planet bar the Luofu, and each time Dan Heng’s heart stutters, stops for a few minutes, and then carries on beating in relief when she manages to spring back from the death.
He’d have hoped though, that he would’ve been… stronger, on Planarcadia. Better. Able to protect Stelle from harm.
That hope dies the instant he watches Stelle fall from the edge of Seafeld TV Tower.
“Stelle!!”
Dan Heng forgets Fulwish, he forgets his companions, he forgets the enemy right in front of his eyes and sprints towards the edge. Thorns from Shuhu’s flesh slam down into the ground, cracking the concrete beneath so it splits and groans. He’s forced to jump back, spear in hand. His heart races and slams in his throat as he white-knuckles Cloud-Piercer.
All he can think is: Fulwish – no Shuhu? – injured Stelle. Stelle fell off the roof.
It’s a long, long way down to the ground.
Dan Heng knows what a dead Stelle looks like already. His mind has no trouble supplying a lifeless version of her: limbs askew, eyes unseeing, a purple-gold wound smeared across her chest as blood ekes out of her once again. Dan Heng can’t let that happen again, he can’t.
He sprints to the edge of the roof, weaving around Shuhu’s branches. He braces and takes reckless stabs to his arms and legs, stabbing with his spear like its a machete cleaving through hostile jungle, he gets right to the edge of the tower and leaps–
A large hand grabs onto his collar and roughly swings him back into the fray. Dan Heng skids onto the ground, winded, watching as Sunday and Ashveil try their hardest to hold up against Fulwish (well, Ashveil looks more like he’s trying to hold up against himself – rather, his arm – as well).
“Dan Heng! You’d turn your back on the enemy?!” Blade spits at him, before slicing through two more of Shuhu’s arms himself.
“Forget the enemy!” Dan Heng shouts back, scrambling to his feet. “Stelle is–!”
“There is no use jumping off a cliff with no way back up!” Blade hisses, and if it were any other time, Dan Heng would laugh at the irony that this guy is lecturing him on this. “Eyes in front, Dan Heng!”
Dan Heng grips his spear and bites down on his tongue so hard he tastes blood. There’s a tightening pain in his chest. He thinks his heart might be actually wrenching apart.
And then, all of a sudden, the top of Fulwish tower burns a bright, blinding gold. Dan Heng holds his breath, ignores Blade’s warnings entirely and runs to the edge of the tower again.
There, in full, spectacular glory, stands Stelle with her raccoon mask painted and sculpted afresh.
“Are those glowsticks?” Sunday asks as he struggles against a vicious branch.
“What happened?!” Ashveil says, “I thought the little lady fell?”
“Well she’s back,” Blade growls. “Finally.”
Dan Heng says nothing, he just exchanges a look with Stelle. Can she see the panic disappearing from his gaze? Can she see the way his heart soars and he grips onto the shaft of his spear, ready to fight alongside her again?
He doesn’t even know why he’s asking – he already knows the answer.
Stelle winks at him.
“Hey Fulwish!” she shouts. “Eat glowstick!”
And she cleaves her two new weapons right through Fulwish-Shuhu’s sickly purple flowers, grinning as they crash to the ground.
The battle is over quickly after that – Stelle leads the battle and Dan Heng follows her moves, bringing up the rear and covering all her blind spots. Neither of them mention the fact that he’s fighting the battle with more ferocity than strictly necessary. For every scream of Shuhu’s dying flesh, he gets a small surge of vindication, and then stabs the thorns even harder with his weapon.
Sunday, Ashveil and Blade make quick work of the rest of the beast. With the five of them, (including one emanator and one immortal whatever-Blade-is among them), it isn’t much of a fight. Especially when Stelle stabs Fulwish through the heart in retaliation for her now-healed wound.
Of course, it doesn’t end there. There’s extra complications. Blade ends up burying Shuhu’s flesh, Sunday single-handedly holds off the mara and Silver Wolf aether-edits the tree into oblivion.
Dan Heng puts the past to rest.
When all is said and done, and the Stellaron Hunters leave with Yao Guang, the Nameless reconvene. Sunday and Stelle are already talking, sharing carefree smiles as Stelle congratulates him for being ‘the MVP of the match!’.
“I was unaware this was a game,” Dan Heng teases, walking over. Stelle rolls her eyes but no amount of sass can describe the softness in her gaze. There’s a new spark there too that Dan Heng is glad to see. It seems whatever happened during this battle was good for her.
“It all depends on how you look at it,” Stelle tells him, waving a hand. Sunday smiles, puts a hand on his chest.
“Thank you too, Dan Heng, for helping restrain Blade at the end.”
“Couldn’t have done it without him,” Stelle adds. “And even better – I got to steal another glance at your hot dragon form too.”
Sunday coughs, trying and failing to suppress a laugh, and Dan Heng mutters something along the lines of ‘I wasn’t even expecting to enter this form’. Stelle laughs again, teasing him for getting so flustered. Stelle is always going to be Stelle after all.
His chest swells with love again. He’s missed her so much.
Eventually Sunday ends up excusing himself to talk to Himeko, and Stelle and Dan Heng are left to themselves (the still-fresh corpse in the background kind of ruins the ambience, but they’ve held reunions at worse places). Dan Heng steals a glance at the other two, making sure they’re too busy in conversation to be paying any attention.
Stelle opens her arms, a sheepish look on her expression.
“So, uh, yeah, guess who didn’t die–?”
He’s stepping forward and cutting her off with a kiss that’s more desperate than he was intending, threading his fingers through her hair, careful not to catch the strands on his wedding ring he ended up wearing before the battle. They’d both agreed to leave the rings off during Planarcadia to prevent suspicion, but he couldn’t resist slipping it on an hour ago as a good luck charm.
(It’s not like the Stellaron Hunters don’t know about the marriage already, thanks to Ashveil and his obnoxious reveal).
It worked anyway, he thinks with a smile. Stelle’s alive. I don’t know how she managed to do it, but she’s alive.
They break off eventually, a blush and a smile racing to spread across Stelle’s face. She clears her throat, scratches the back of her calf with a foot. The happiness in her eyes is unmistakable, even as she tries to play it cool.
“I missed you,” she admits.
“So did I,” Dan Heng says easily. It’s not like it was a secret after all. “I’m relieved to see you’re unharmed.”
“I got a little scratched up by Fulwish, but it’s nothing Evanescia couldn’t handle.”
“Evanescia?”
She winks. “I’ll tell you later.”
He looks forward to a story when they’re all back and safe on the Express. But for now…
“When I saw you fall,” he admits quietly, “I thought it was all over. Thank goodness you’re back.”
If it wasn’t for Blade’s quick intervention… he might have done something stupid. But luck or fate, or whatever it is that determines their intertwined destinies had been on their side today, and now Dan Heng feels that familiar blend of love and hope and relief, crashing and breaking on the shores of his soul.
“You always come back at the critical moment!”
“Of course,” Stelle says. While her words are cocky, her tone is not. “I couldn’t just leave you alone to fight, could I?”
She takes a breath, rummages in her coat pocket (the coat I gifted, Dan Heng thinks with a surge of pride) and pulls out her ring. She slips it on and reaches out for his own hand so both rings wink in the sunlight.
“Never again,” she mutters. “I made a promise right? I’m sticking with you.”
Dan Heng smiles, and plants a kiss on her fingers. “Same here.”
The heavy emotion is broken as Dan Heng looks at Stelle once more. Even after these hellish games they’ve been thrown into, it looks like a weight’s been lifted off her shoulders.
“You… seem a little different now.”
She preens and flexes her muscles. “You noticed huh? I embarked on a new path. No prizes if you guess which one.”
The toothy grin spreading from ear to ear is some hint at least. Dan Heng raises an eyebrow.
“Please tell me the ‘Akivili’ comment by Nous was a mistake and Aha didn’t gaze upon you hoping to see the soul of their long-dead Aeonic friend.”
“Maybe not a friend… but a lover?” Stelle says, waggling her eyebrows.
“Even worse,” he groans. “I would sincerely not like to fight the Aeon of Elation over you.”
“You’ve got an Aeon as a rival now,” Stelle cackles. “Better step up your game, Cold Dragon Young!”
“Perhaps Aha just gazed upon you because you were their favourite participant in the games,” Dan Heng tries to reason.
“Hm, I am very charismatic,” Stelle agrees, taking pity on him. “Don’t worry – in any case I’m not Akivili. Akivili was never in love with a very pretty dragon man who’s decided to lash out and fight in his very pretty dragon form.”
“I was intending to use this power sparingly as well,” Dan Heng despairs.
“Hey, if it works, it works. We all had to give it our all in this fight.”
Stelle begins to walk and he follows, gaze lingering on the dragon curling around her back. It clutches onto a precious jewel, the most beautiful treasure. It’s fitting.
“Be grateful I didn’t have to ask the Stellaron for help!” she says. At that moment, Dan Heng had laughed off her comment and jogged a little to keep pace beside her.
Now, he realises her words were an ugly premonition.
Stelle dances with death twice in Planarcadia… and the second time was infinitely worse than the first.
“You can’t protect them!” Asat Pramad shouts. “You can’t protect anyone!”
The words are addressed to Stelle, but Dan Heng feels them resonate like a mourning bell chime deep within himself too. It doesn’t help that he’s in the form gifted to him by Terravox solely for the purpose of protection.
And they’re losing.
“Stelle!” he shouts, but his words are lost among the din of the battle.
“I will erase them, one by one, before your very eyes!”
Dan Heng needs to stop him, before he says something Stelle can’t ignore. He’s half tempted to switch to his other form – Cloudhymn is more powerful than Souldragon after all – but the urge to protect his family is too strong, and if he doesn’t keep throwing up shields, someone's bound to get hurt.
He runs in with his spear, dodging attacks as Sunday and March tag-team to provide him cover. The cracks in between the Lord Ravager’s limbs are the softest and most vulnerable – if he can get to an elbow he could render the entire arm limp and useless.
Asat Pramad is still talking to Stelle. Dan Heng grits his teeth and surges forward with Souldragon–
The Lord Ravager doesn’t even spare him a glance, and out of nowhere a hand comes in from the side and swats him away like a fly. Sunday shouts as Dan Heng coughs out spit and bile, soaring through the air and colliding roughly against the ground. Souldragon has gone to protect Stelle, as it always will.
“Dan Heng! Are you ok?” a voice shouts – Welt, maybe.
He can’t even muster up the breath to reply, pain and panic snaking around his lungs.
It’s only now that Dan Heng realises how outmatched they truly are.
He staggers to his feet, using his spear as a crutch as March runs forward to help him. His eyes snap to Stelle. She’s breathing heavily, standing stock-still and Dan Heng’s heart lurches with fear.
Painted on her face is an emotion he’s never seen from her before. Defeat.
The Express comes at Asat Pramad from the side, but just like with him, the Lord Ravager intercepts before it can even get close. Smoke, fire, Dan Heng runs in front of March and begs Souldragon to get to Stelle (the last time the Express went up in flames, Stelle ended up– Stelle was–!), just as the shockwave smacks into him and he’s thrown like a ragdoll away from the enemy again.
The second collision is worse than the first, blinding pain spearing through his ribs. A bruise, or a break? Dan Heng rolls over and coughs and spits, reaching out a hand for March who’s unmoving on the floor.
Get up! He screams to himself, but his legs won’t move.
“You’ve failed,” booms that voice filled with demonic revelry. “The game ends here.”
In the corner of his eye he sees Stelle doubled over, clutching desperately onto her shirt, face contorted with pain. Through the gaps in her fingers, the light of the Stellaron claws and breaks. She screams.
Dan Heng struggles to his arms as the sound dislodges some long-forgotten, primal terror within him. The Stellaron… it’s going to explode.
But no – before he can even move there’s another figure that shields Stelle from Asat Pramad’s ire. Dan Heng’s heart skips a beat as he sees Himeko bring Starblazer to the forefront. Those shields are stronger than March’s or his and for a second he allows himself to hope.
Until the Ravager’s attacks break through Himeko’s defences. The imagenated mech shatters like glass, once, twice, Himeko’s lying on the floor with her chest heaving from exertion and Stelle is screaming in both terror and pain.
The Stellaron reacts to her fear, and Dan Heng grabs March, throws up Souldragon around Sunday and Mr. Yang and braces for impact–
The explosion crashes against his defences. His shield creaks and groans from the blast, cracks spiderwebbing across the gold and Dan Heng has never, never been afraid of Stelle… but he is afraid now.
Through eyes that sting and water from the smoke, he tries to pinpoint Stelle and Himeko in the haze. He spots Mr. Yang first and it causes his breath to catch like a broken record on the phonograph – Mr. Yang’s face is full of naked terror. It’s so alien that it shocks his system, saps the strength from Dan Heng. His forearms weaken and he crashes back to the dusty ground.
And then he sees them – Himeko and Stelle. They’re enveloped in a hug, the Stellaron crackling and sparking between them.
Dan Heng blinks, and then it hits him all at once.
Himeko is going to die.
She tilts to the side, falls back and brings up another of Starblazer’s shields. It’s not enough. It’s not going to be enough.
Get up, Dan Heng, calls the voice within his head that has felt loss before. Is it Dan Feng or his own inner voice speaking?
Does it even matter?
While Dan Heng is alive, while he can see Stelle trying so desperately to control her Stellaron, and March stirring where she lays beside her, and Sunday and Mr. Yang struggling to hold their own and Himeko still fighting, he will not succumb this easily to the enemy. Dan Heng is the guard of the Astral Express. He’s a member of the Astral Express crew… and he’s Stelle’s husband.
He has to get up and support them all. March struggles to her feet and lends him a hand that he gratefully takes. They walk forward together. Stelle steps forward in front of Himeko and channels her own wishpower (the wishpower of the Stellaron, Dan Heng notices) into a shield.
Dan Heng is the first one that walks forward and offers up his own power, filled with renewed vigour. His gaze meets Stelle’s own. There’s no need to exchange words when they’ve lived over a thousand years connected by memories and dreams, but Stelle still flashes her familiar, feral grin at him. He sees no helplessness there any longer, just ferocity and determination and spite.
The Nameless link their wishpower together. Himeko guides them starward like always.
Ace, thinks Dan Heng, and they win the battle together.
When Asat Pramad is finally defeated, the Nameless reconvene like they always do, dismissing their weapons and breathing through the adrenaline that slowly exits their bodies. Dan Heng nurses the bruises on his arms – they’re going to leave a mark – but there’s nothing sharp or stabbing, and he can’t sense anything broken.
“Thanks for Souldragon,” Stelle says, walking up to him. “I would’ve probably broken an arm if it wasn’t for your defence,”
“I’m your shield,” Dan Heng says simply, his words soft. His racing heart resumes its normal pace; Stelle came too close to Destruction this time. If it wasn’t for Himeko…
He can sense his own anxieties reflected behind Stelle’s eyes. She’s worried about something. Dan Heng doesn’t know how he knows this, but something happened during the Stellaron’s near-explosion that only Stelle knows about.
“I’ll tell you later,” Stelle mutters, as if reading his mind. He settles for that, and yet…
“Are you ok?” he asks. “Just now…”
“That was the Stellaron inside you, wasn’t it?” Sunday finishes.
Stelle doesn’t speak, placing a hand over her chest as if she can quieten the constant force that rages inside of her. It’s not active right now, but what if something like this happens again? What will Dan Heng do if Stelle’s ripped from the inside by that… that Destruction?
The last time it happened, Stelle was a stranger to him. A fateless girl from the Space Station, just another passerby. But now... now Stelle is his everything. He sees the Stellaron for the volatile cancer it is, and it dries his mouth and sends his heart skittering into a panic.
We’ll find a solution, Dan Heng tells himself, because it’s all he can say.
“I don’t know what happened,” Himeko says. “But I’m sure Stelle took a lot of the heat for me in that battle.”
Stelle smiles weakly. There’s a story behind that, but as Himeko speaks to Sunday, and Asat Pramad interrupts their reunion (because of course he does), Dan Heng resigns himself to waiting once again.
The Voracity’s husk stirs and Dan Heng realises just how long his wait might have to be.
Dan Heng dies a thousand times in her dreams.
That’s not a new sentence. In fact, it’s so old that Stelle would have thought she’d become familiar with it by now. Nightmares where she destroys everything, where she kills everyone she loves, have never been uncommon, not since all those years ago when she almost exploded on the Space Station.
But planet by planet, the Stellaron’s dreams had quietened. With time came the erosion of memories and after Amphoreus, those dreams where the Stellaron took over and transformed her into… a monster, were few and far between. The familiarity left her and became a distant trauma. Dan Heng no longer died in her nightmares, but lived and breathed in her sweetest dreams.
At least, until Planarcadia happened.
Stelle wakes up from another dream where the Stellaron explodes her family into bits, crimson blood staining her hair, her fingers, her feet. The post-nightmare fear kick-starts her heart into a roaring thunder. It fills and swells in her ears as Stelle kicks off the sheets and stumbles to the ground.
Calm down, she begs herself, reaching out a hand to the empty mattress. But there’s nothing there.
Stelle snaps her head around and tries, fails to swallow. Her bed’s gone. Her room’s gone. There’s just black surrounding her, a void that echoes with simply nothing.
If Stelle wasn’t afraid, she certainly is now.
She stumbles to her feet and tries to summon her weapon; the aether portal won’t open. She’s still in her night clothes. Where is Dan Heng? Wasn’t he sleeping beside her?
She tries to open her mouth and scream, but the words stick in her throat, stealing the air from her lungs. She coughs, chokes.
Wake up! she screams in her mind. Dan Heng, where are you?!
“I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.”
Some of her oh-so-familiar fear morphs straight into anger. Stelle can’t summon her weapon so she goes straight for her fists instead and makes a beeline for the new voice.
“Get lost!” she shouts. Deja vu.
Her future self sidesteps her attack instantly and kicks her away, square to the back. Stelle stumbles and falls, planting her hands on the ground so she doesn’t kiss the ground face-first. She has some dignity at least… even if she is still in her nightclothes.
Her alter-ego – or whatever he is – is also in the same set of nightclothes, with slight deviations to make it more masculine. Stelle tries not to dwell on that for too long.
“You’re upset,” says her future self. Oh, Stelle sincerely hopes that she never becomes like this guy, because if she ends up being such an insufferable aura-farmer in the future she might actually let the Stellaron explode her guts. Surely there’s a limit to how much you can be enraged by yourself?
“No shit,” Stelle snarls. “What are you doing here?”
She barrels on before her future-self can reply, her mind still caught up in fight-or-flight mode. The adrenaline pulses through her veins and coats her words in venom.
“Is it you who keeps planting these nightmares in my head?! Killing the Express Crew over and over again; is that what you meant when you said I had to get used to loss?”
She scrapes her fingers through her hair. “Hell, are these dreams a premonition? Is the Stellaron showing me the future… your future?!”
Her alter-ego just stares coldly back at her. “These questions are irrelevant.”
“How?! I’ve become an insomniac! I haven’t even had one good night’s sleep after Planarcadia, and that was after I’ve started sleeping in my own bed again!”
Stelle’s chest heaves with anger, even more when the alternate version of her(?) doesn’t even take a step. He just looks at her with a silently seething expression, as if the very sight of her is disgusting, and then heaves a sigh.
“I told you before that you have to get used to loss on this journey.”
“I won’t accept that!”
“Stop being juvenile and listen,” her future self spits. “It’s still up to you to choose how to experience that loss.”
Stelle falters. “...what?”
“If you’re so afraid of hurting the people you love, then make the decision to stop loving them. Distance yourself. Leave. That way even if you do kill them – even if the Stellaron does explode – it won’t tear at you like it does now.”
Stelle can’t even process his words. The anger inside her simmers like poison.
“If you didn’t care for Himeko, the Stellaron would have never spiralled out of control,” says her alter-ego. “And the crisis would have been averted.”
“Are you–” Stelle swallows– “are you even hearing yourself? Leave the Express? Distance myself from my family? How could I ever even think of doing that?”
“It worked with the Stellaron Hunters, didn’t it?” her future self points out.
“That’s different!”
She thinks of the way Himeko taught her how to use oil paints, encouraging her as she tried to map the stars. She thinks of Welt playing Mech Wars II with her, his eyes lighting up with delight. She thinks of March dragging her along to spacewalk, and flower-pick, and chase Ditings on the Luofu streets for a sneak chance to pet them. She thinks of Pom Pom humming in tune with her, and Sunday offering her a bite of his pastry, and Dan Heng–
She thinks of Dan Heng and her heart thuds in her chest. Dan Heng building a sandcastle with her on an unnamed beach, laughing as she made little blobby figures and named them after him and her. Dan Heng sitting beside her after another late-night sobbing session about Amphoreus (“I want them back, Dan Heng. I miss my dromas. I miss my friends.”) reassuring her with dates and promises and new updates from Herta.
Dan Heng just holding her hand as they walked down the streets of Planarcadia, twin wedding rings glinting in the sunlight. I am you.
“I can’t,” Stelle tells him. “I just can’t.”
“I know,” says her alter-ego. “That was the same conclusion I, and many others, have come to before.”
Stelle knows there’s a secret hidden in there somewhere, but she’s too sick and tired to care. She’s had enough of everyone dragging her to mindscapes and dream-worlds and planets that don’t really exist. She just wants to be back home.
“Take me back,” she growls under her breath, and her alter-ego raises an eyebrow.
“Why are you asking me?” he says. “All you have to do is wake up.”
Stelle wakes up.
The fear from the nightmare has long since morphed into ugly anger, the simmer coming to a boil. She sits bolt-upright, her heart thud-thudding with confusion and pain.
Calm down, she thinks, gritting her teeth but it’s no use, the Stellaron’s thrashing angrily in her ribcage and as she looks over to the other side of her mattress, she notices it's cold and empty. The anger reaches a swelling point.
Crash!
By the time Dan Heng walks back into the room, rubbing his eyes with one hand and holding a steaming mug in the other, Stelle has already hit the first thing in her line of sight with enough force to crack Asat Pramad’s obnoxious die in two (again).
“...is that our bed?”
“...maybe,” Stelle says quietly.
Beneath her feet is the sad wreckage of broken wood. Her bed-frame’s been cleaved in two, and there’s an upturned mattress thrown somewhere near the desk. Stelle’s chest heaves up and down like she’s just run a marathon, the anger fizzling out, the Stellaron satiated for now. Cold shame settles like a stone in her gut.
She turns to Dan Heng, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
“I, uh… had a bad dream,” she mumbles. It’s so quiet, he’s probably not even heard her.
Dan Heng sets the mug down on the desk and takes her hand in his. She doesn’t dare to meet his eyes – of course this had to happen now, just after Planarcadia, she can’t even control the Stellaron’s anger, just like she couldn’t control it back then: you almost lost Himeko, Firefly, everyone, yourself, you have to get used to loss in order to move forward–
“Want to walk on the river?” asks Dan Heng.
Stelle’s snapped out of her thoughts instantly.
“...what?”
Dan Heng’s already holding up his phone, calibrating the warp devices so they’re set to Dovebrook. The blue light from his phone illuminates the dark circles under his eyes – it must be a bad night for him too. He shows her his screen, offers up a small, weak smile.
“Dovebrook,” he explains, his sentences not really making sense. Is Stelle still dreaming? “I wasn’t really planning on sleeping tonight anyway.”
Stelle nods before her brain has time to fully process what they’re doing. Anything’s better than here. I keep seeing my future self in the shadows of the room.
Dan Heng clasps her hand a little tighter, and they warp to the edge of Dovebrook river. Stelle’s bare feet meet the cobblestones. She looks at Dan Heng. His hair is tousled in just the way that she knows he barely slept a wink tonight. In the light of the moon, she can see his eyes are rimmed with red.
“I want to show you something,” Dan Heng explains, and as if this night couldn’t get any weirder, he suddenly morphs into his Imbibitor Lunae form.
Stelle laughs. “What’s going on?”
He lays out her hand for her to take again, teal eyes gleaming in the dark. Stelle notices that this patch of the river is completely bare of people – and for good reason! It’s the middle of the night!
“Do you trust me?” Dan Heng asks, his hand still outstretched.
Stelle has half the urge to roll her eyes. What kind of question is that? She trusts Dan Heng with her everything. She trusts him a thousand times more than she trusts herself.
“Of course,” she grins, taking his hand. For the first time since Planarcadia, the spark in her chest isn’t the Stellaron, but her own excitement instead.
Dan Heng nods… and then drags them both off the banks and into the river.
“Hey, wait–!”
No, not into the river.
On the river.
Stelle almost falls face-first onto the water, saved at the last moment by Dan Heng dragging her weight back. Her feet meet the surface of the river, Cloudhymn magic keeping her afloat. Dan Heng takes a small few steps, and Stelle follows like a newborn fawn, clutching onto his hand like a lifeline.
He stifles a laugh. Stelle catches it. She grumbles.
He’s so getting added into the grudge-book for that.
“Do you like it?” he asks, as Stelle takes another few steps. Ripples fan out from beneath the soles of her feet and a giddy laugh escapes her throat. They’re literally walking on the river. “It’s a trick I was experimenting with back on Amphoreus.”
Stelle spins around, still holding onto his hand.
“Like it?” she exclaims. “This is insane! Dan Heng, you’re incredible!”
She glances down at their reflections and laughs at the soft blush on his face, visible even through the water.
“How long have you been able to do this?! I can’t believe you kept such an awesome secret from me,” she teases.
“In my defence,” Dan Heng says, the smile hidden behind his words, “I only really perfected it here on Planarcadia. You would not believe the amount of times I’ve lost my balance and fallen into the water.”
Stelle stifles her own laugh, and it's Dan Heng’s turn to look mock-offended.
“I was also waiting for the opportune time to show you,” he admits.
Stelle snorts. “You and I have very different ideas of an opportune time.”
“What better than a moonlit stroll along the river to chase away our bad dreams?” Dan Heng replies and, well, Stelle can’t really fault him for that logic.
They walk down the river together, Dan Heng explaining the ins and outs of how Cloudhymn affects water tension, balance, and weight. Stelle listens with rapt attention – March always groans at how Dan Heng can make the most exciting adventures sound like she’s reading from a factbook, but Stelle likes the way Dan Heng explains things. It’s so… Dan Heng.
“So in the end, I realised it was less a conscious effort and more an innate ability I had to unlock from Dan Feng’s memories.” He hesitates. “...I’ve never tried it with another person before now.”
“So you didn’t know it would work?!” Stelle laughs. “I could be soaking wet right now!”
Dan Heng makes a sound of indignation. “I had a hunch. I wouldn’t have let you fall in the river anyway.”
Stelle knows that already, but it's still fun to tease him.
“And to think,” she laments to the cold night air, “I trusted my Master Dan Heng.”
Dan Heng rolls his eyes and materialises his tail solely so he can whack her across the arm with the fluffy end. Stelle nudges him, and he nudges back with a laugh. At this rate they’re both going to fall in the river.
“So,” Stelle says after a few more minutes of walking. “Bad dream?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I should be asking you that question.”
“Hey, I asked first.” Truthfully she doesn’t want to reveal her dream – and whatever happened after – just yet. Not because she doesn’t want to tell Dan Heng, her heart wants to tell him so badly she thinks it might just burst, but because she doesn’t want to worry him unnecessarily. Her husband is a worrier after all.
“Alright,” he acquiesces. A shadow passes overhead as they pass under the arc of a small bridge. “...you died. Again.”
“Snap,” Stelle mutters morbidly. “How many deaths does that make this?”
“That depends,” Dan Heng sighs. “How many days have we been on this planet?”
Stelle does the mental maths, but all she can hear is her alter-ego’s voice echoing in her mind: 8 days… She sighs and shakes her head.
“My nightmares are becoming predictable,” she sighs. “Can the Stellaron spice things up a little? Make me a Galaxy Ranger or something. Show me the fourth apocalyptic Aeon. Anything but–”
Her breath hitches slightly at the memories of her family strewn in pieces across the floor, blood seeping into the cobblestones. She shivers.
Dan Heng notices (he always does). With a gentle hand he guides them onto the concrete bank, where a bench sits under a streetlight. Stelle sits on the wood and shakes the water off her feet; Dan Heng takes off his dressing robe and wraps it around her shoulders.
“You’ll get cold,” Stelle argues. The ferocity is significantly dampened by the fact she’s chattering through her teeth as she speaks. She tucks her legs underneath her as Dan Heng sits down.
“I have a heater beside me,” he points out. Stelle snuggles closer to him, the Stellaron searing up.
How does he manage to win every argument? she thinks with a smile. At this rate there’s no point in even trying to argue with him.
At this point, she might as well…
“This will probably sound crazy,” Stelle says.
“Tell me anyway,” Dan Heng answers.
She takes a deep breath… and then she does.
Dan Heng’s no stranger to her weird and terrifying warps to places that realistically probably only exist in her own head. He listened with full attention back on Amphoreus, where she told him about the non-existent memories of the Stellaron Hunters. He went over the events of Penacony with her when Dahlia returned their stolen memories (both of their memories – she’d taken Dan Heng’s as well).
Now he listens again as Stelle tells him all about her alter-ego – their meeting back on Amphoreus where she’d been totally convinced she was hallucinating and then their second talk back when Himeko almost died, which made her realise he was very, very real.
“He said he’s going to stop me,” she mutters. “Whatever that means.”
“Like Khaslana,” Dan Heng says, which is exactly the same conclusion Stelle had.
She tells him about the dream she had tonight and her alter-ego suggesting she forces everyone away. Leaves the Express.
“Don’t listen to him,” Dan Heng says instantly. A weight lifts off Stelle’s shoulders: she knew her future self was talking crazy, but it’s good to hear Dan Heng confirm it. “Pushing those you love away is the worst possible outcome.”
“Yeah,” Stelle agrees. “I thought the same.”
After a moment’s silence she says: “So did he.”
Dan Heng’s frowning, a finger tapping against his thigh. It’s the look he has when he’s thinking hard about something, a look Stelle’s memorised.
“I don’t know who this other you is,” he sighs. “For all we know, he could be someone completely different to you. He could even be the Stellaron’s own desires.”
“The Stellaron’s Voice sounds different,” Stelle points out.
“True,” Dan Heng replies. “But whoever this guy is, his words don’t have to be the truth. Even if he is the future you. General Yao Guang said it herself – you’re an Īśvara. Your decisions aren’t set in stone, otherwise Kafka would have never given you that piece of advice.”
“When you have the chance to make a choice, make one you know you won’t regret.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ve also managed to change our destinies before,” Stelle says, hope lighting like a candle within her. “I did it back on Penacony… with Firefly. Or, actually, Terminus did.”
“If Terminus was able to save you from losing Firefly, who’s to say they won’t do something similar again? And on Planarcadia, the Stellaron made sure that Himeko didn’t die in that last fight against Asat Pramad. Even if I hate the idea of relying on the Stellaron as much as you do, it’s still an option we have.”
He’s right. I’ve faced loss before and come out on top. Maybe my alter-ego really is living in a different reality to me, and my version of events won’t be as doomed.
“And if all else fails,” Dan Heng mutters darkly, “I suppose we always have the Transmutation Arcanum.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Stelle says, looking over at him sharply. Dan Heng’s eyes gleam like blue flames in the night, a certain look passing through them. It’s both possessive and desperate.
“It’s our last resort,” he says.
“It’s not a resort at all,” Stelle shoots back. She doesn’t even mention that his half-baked, crazy plan won’t even work if it’s him that ends up dying in the future her alter-ego’s lived through. The thought sends chills down Stelle’s spine. She has to make sure it never comes to that – no matter how many deals she ends up making with the Stellaron.
Alright, maybe it’s a little hypocritical of her to be saying this to him – but she really, really doesn’t think committing an unpardonable sin is the way to change their destinies. They already know how that went last time.
“I just,” Dan Heng makes a frustrated sound in his throat, which was probably supposed to come out as a growl, but ends up becoming more like a sob. “I can’t have you die again, Stelle.”
Stelle’s thoughts finally quiet enough for her to actually hear him.
“...what was your dream about?” she asks again.
Dan Heng doesn’t look at her as he says: “The fight against Asat Pramad.”
Oh.
It’s only now that Stelle’s truly realising how horrific it must have been for the others to see her almost explode. What did Dan Heng think when the Stellaron was bursting out of her skin? What if she had actually killed them at that moment? Dead by her hand instead of the Ravager’s. Doesn’t that make her just as bad as they are?
She curls up even smaller by his side. Dan Heng puts her tail around her and heaves a heavy sigh. They both have nothing to say.
She can’t promise him that it won’t happen again because she’s stuck with the Cancer in her chest until someone finds a way to wrench it out. He can’t promise he’ll save her because in the fight against Asat Pramad, he was too far away to even reach. They’re stuck at a stalemate.
What empty promises can they even give? What will the future be like for them?
“Stelle,” Dan Heng says, his voice low. “Whatever fates are written in store for us – whether that be by Destiny’s Slave or Terminus or even that alter-ego of yours – we can rewrite them.”
Stelle opens her mouth, to argue? To shut him down? but Dan Heng barrels on.
“Remember how Herta said that Amphoreus was the sandbox of the universe? If that’s the case, that might make you Phainon and your alter-ego Khaslana. Am I right?”
“...I guess so,” Stelle answers.
“And what happened to them in the end?” Dan Heng asks.
Stelle’s finally catching on, and she sits up a little straighter. “We wrote them a new ending. Phainon’s code exists in As I've Written.”
Dan Heng nods. “Exactly. What’s to say we can’t write ourselves a new ending as well? In fact, I’m counting on it.”
“I still have Cyrene’s pen,” Stelle replies. Dan Heng’s expression matches her own – determination and hope.
“And I still have Terravox’s coreflame. I don’t believe for one second that our destinies are irreversible.”
Dan Heng gives her a small smile. “After all, you changed my destiny.”
Stelle’s eyes shine. She takes the fluffy end of his tail, dragging it into her lap and plays with the end as she says: “And you changed mine. And besides – I’m always telling you to let go of the past, and you’re always saying to not worry about the future.”
That leaves just one thing left.
“It’s about time we started to live in the now. The battle’s over. We’ve finally got some down time.”
Dan Heng nods. “No use in trying to predict what tomorrow holds. It’ll arrive when it arrives-"
“For now I'm glad you're here,” they finish in unison.
They both look at each other, the exhaustion in their eyes clear. Dan Heng's gaze is no longer filled with lingering panic from his bad dreams, but instead full of adoration like usual. He plants a kiss on her lips.
"I thought you were going to die," he admits. "Back then. Against Asat Pramad."
Stelle shudders. "So did I."
"But you didn't," he reassures to both of them. "And you're here now."
"I missed you," Stelle admits, her voice breaking ever so slightly. Her smile is watery. If she starts crying now, she might never stop.
But... there's no need to cry anymore. It felt like an eternity, sure, but it was only 8 days. And now the crisis is over and they're back together again. For now at least, that's where they're going to stay.
"I missed you too," Dan Heng replies, and it feels like a weight has been lifted at last.
Stelle yawns. Dan Heng stretches. Their phones ping with a notification to announce the warp anchors have finally cooled down.
Dan Heng gets up first, switching back to his regular form and running a hand through his hair. Stelle will never get used to how beautiful he is, especially under the light of the Phantasmoon. All soft lines and a look reserved just for her.
She slides her arms through his robe as he holds out a hand once again.
“Shall we go home?” Dan Heng says.
Stelle intertwines her fingers with his and smiles. Their rings glint again in the moonlight.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
"..."
"We forgot about the bed."