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Yukong finds that it is terribly hard to go a single day without seeing Tingyun again.
Not actually seeing her, of course. Yukong would be in an entirely different kind of trouble if she found herself hallucinating dead people. Words dance and blur across her vision, the report on her desk a heat haze of Commission buzzwords and death toll numbers. The bright lights of the office drown her peripheral vision in clouds of roiling, oil-slick splotches. Exhaustion hangs off her shoulders, punches her cheeks in, drags the skin under her eyes down like overfull bags.
No, Yukong is not hallucinating, but she’s so tired she thinks she’s not far from it.
Yukong pinches the bridge of her nose, relishing the scrape of her bitten-jagged nails against the tender skin under her eyes. The sensation grounds her, tethers her to something more buoyant than duty and grief, if only for a moment. She opens a drawer at the side of her desk, looking for a container of eye drops she is certain have seen more use in the last couple of weeks than in the entire year she has had them before that.
Her eyes, as always, catch on the sleek body of a thin, shining fountain pen.
She remembers, vividly, the moment Tingyun had given it to her. Remembers the harsh shine of a lamp burning midnight oil. Remembers the smell of lavender as Tingyun had wrapped her arms in a loose hug around Yukong’s neck. Remembers the touch of a cold hand against her own, splaying her fingers open and slotting a pen and an ink bottle into her palm. Remembers facing up, a smile high on her cheeks that Tingyun had plucked with a chaste kiss.
‘If you’re going to make your life harder by staying up so late,’ Tingyun had said. ‘At least don’t make it harder by using a bad pen.’
And Yukong had laughed, breathy, tired, fond, and asked, ‘And how do you know this pen isn’t bad?’
And Tingyun had smiled that merchant’s smile, the one that would shine like silver and a secret, and laced her fingers through Yukong’s free hand, and replied, ‘Well, I picked it out for you. How could it possibly be bad?’
And Yukong remembers agreeing silently, quietly, with a squeeze of the hand twined with her own. And Yukong remembers.
Yukong remembers, and remembers, and remembers.
The fountain pen gleams, jade set with gold filigree glinting in the low light. The empty ink bottle beside it feels like a statement.
Yukong wants to vomit. So, she pulls the wastebasket at her side forward, tips her head over, and does.
Yukong spits a thousand memories through her lips, and remembers, remembers, remembers a thousand more.
General Jing Yuan finds Yukong at the archery range.
Dawn doesn’t mean much, on the Luofu. There is no rolling morning fog. There is no shine of dew. There are no cold winds nipping at your fingertips, needling through the thin stitch of your sleepwear.
Still. Yukong is awake. That means it is dawn. Tingyun had always made sure of that.
The bow in her hand creaks, old wood bending and groaning as Yukong slots an arrow into place, pulls back the string, holds it along with a breath.
The creak of an old floorboard. A lion’s mane flash of alabaster at the corner of Yukong’s vision. The breath rushes from her lungs, the arrow rushes forward, and another hole punches through the bullseye with a whistle. Jing Yuan claps.
“Impressive,” he murmurs, voice in that strange, barren place that lies between genuine warmth and bloodstained cold. “A part of me mourns that even after all these years, you have not allowed yourself the privilege of getting rusty. Another, though, feels heartened by it.”
Yukong sets the bow down, walking across the range to collect the arrows and target. “Heartened?”
Jing Yuan beams, “Yanqing always used to talk about how he felt that even when all you did was stare at the targets, he felt as though you’d already shot a thousand arrows in your mind. I have clearly done well with my disciple, if he is this capable of measuring your skills without even seeing you hold a bow.
Yukong scoffs, but it is a soft thing of rounded edges. She feels herself drowned in a strange fondness.
“Then, I, too, will allow myself to feel heartened by that,” Yukong says, a clutch of arrows in her hand. “My own pride as an archer notwithstanding, of course.”
“Of course,” Jing Yuan parrots with a smile, a tilt of his head, a wave of his hand.
Silence. As much silence as one can find on the Luofu, at least. Machines rumble in the distance, conveyor belts lugging boxes around, automaton guards treading troughs into the ground from walking the same, tired paths. The General does not speak. Yukong notes the lack of any kind of weapon. He has come here for her, in some capacity, but she cannot fathom exactly why. She thinks again on his mention of Yanqing, for a moment.
“It is not the same,” Yukong starts, wooden arrow shafts splintering against her palms. “But I beg of you to treasure that child, Jing Yuan.”
“It really is not the same,” Jing Yuan chuckles, a rumble of thunder in his chest. “But the sentiment is appreciated, Helm Master Yukong.”
Jing Yuan looks at Yukong. Yukong looks back.
Their little staring contest goes on, and on, and on, an eternity two minutes long. Yukong looks away, feeling herself foolish, suddenly, for attempting to lecture a man several centuries old on the importance of treasuring loved ones. As if he has not loved enough already. As if he has not lost enough.
“Why have you taken up the bow again, if I may ask?”
Yukong pauses. Picks a splinter from her palm. Thinks of the package laying under her bed, wrapped in green velvets and fresh leather.
“There is a gift I must prove myself worthy of,” is all Yukong says.
Jing Yuan stares at the holes littered around the bullseye on the target she has left behind. “You are not worthy yet?”
Yukong laughs at that. Laughs, full-bellied and empty-eyed. Jing Yuan stares.
“Oh, General,” Yukong breathes. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be.”
The last person Yukong expects to meet on her way home from getting groceries is Fu Xuan. Judging by the look on her face, however, Yukong surmises she is exactly who Fu Xuan had expected to meet.
The Divination Commission’s staff are always a little eerie, like that.
“Helm Master Yukong,” Fu Xuan calls, clipped, sharp. “Would you mind if I walked with you, for a bit?”
Yukong breathes a laugh. “I am certain I have no choice, Lady Fu.”
“You do,” Fu Xuan pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “But I would simply seek you out again at a later date.”
“How inconvenient,” Yukong muses. “For you, of course.”
A hard stare. “Quite.”
Silence. Yukong finds herself, recently, drowning in silence much too often.
She hears Tingyun in every silent moment. She hears laughter in every bell chime. It is a fickle, torturous thing. She taps her foot, filling the air with something , anything.
“Let’s walk,” Yukong says, and steps forward without waiting for Fu Xuan, who steps into stride next to her with an easy grace.
They do not speak.
It makes Yukong antsy, the way Fu Xuan’s eyes follow her every move. The way she seems to peer through every layer of plastic normalcy Yukong has draped over herself. Yukong’s shoes slam against the concrete, loud and obnoxious. The door to a nearby restaurant closes, the bell ring muffled by the rustling of clothes and the paper bag of groceries in Yukong’s hands.
“You are spiraling,” Fu Xuan says.
Yukong hums. Continues walking.
“You hear things that aren’t there,” Fu Xuan continues. “You see things that aren’t there. You snap at people. You seclude yourself constantly.”
“My work continues unabated,” Yukong argues weakly. “I have not filed a single report with a single mistake.”
Fu Xuan scoffs. “You will.”
Yukong tries not to wince.
She will.
“I am sorry.”
“I do not want you to be sorry ,” Fu Xuan sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I want you to be smart . For the sake of everyone else who depends on you, if not for your own.”
“That’s easy to ask for,” Yukong murmurs, biting back the poison in her voice. “I know I am not perfect. And I have grieved before. I am probably expected to move on faster the second time, am I not?”
Fu Xuan’s mouth clicks shut. Her jaw works around words, words, words. “...I know it is not that easy.”
“You don’t.”
Fu Xuan tilts her head. “...I don’t. But I can see, however faintly, how hard it could be. Love makes of us all fools, after all.”
Huh. Interesting.
“Then what do you wish to say, that you went so far as to seek me out on my way home?” Yukong looks around, recognizes the area, knows it is close to her home, and tries to walk a little faster. Tries not to make it too obvious.
Fu Xuan notices, but does not comment.
Silence, again. Yukong grips the paper bag harder, hearing it crinkle and rip.
“...I do not know how you could achieve it. I do not know who could give you it. I do not know where you would be able to find it,” Fu Xuan glances up at Yukong. “But you need to find something . Something that will give you closure. Something that will steel you for the future. Something that will make... everything... a little more bearable.”
Yukong swallows. Her mouth feels scorched dry. “And if I don’t?”
The two of them arrive at Yukong’s house. She does not bother with formalities or propriety, pulling a key from her bag and unlocking the door. The warmth that bleeds from inside wraps around her neck like pearl-skin arms and lavender perfume. Yukong’s breath hitches.
Fu Xuan stares.
“You will break,” Fu Xuan whispers, and Yukong knows, down to the marrow in her bones, that she is right.
Yukong finds that it is terribly hard to go a single day without seeing Tingyun again. Yukong finds that it is terribly hard to go a single day without hearing Tingyun again. Yukong finds that it is terribly hard to go a single day without feeling Tingyun again.
She is in every stroke of Yukong’s jade-and-gold-filigree pen. She is in every twang of the bowstring as Yukong sinks bullseye after bullseye, the polished marble of her new bow smooth against the rough skin of her palms. She is in every stray breeze that flits across Yukong’s cheeks, in every warm wind left behind in the wake of a starskiff engine, in every freezing drop of rain against her neck.
It is something like torture, Yukong thinks, and marks another box on the form atop her desk. It is something like torture, Yukong thinks, and sinks another arrow in the soft leather of the target. It is something like torture, Yukong thinks, and lights another incense stick, the heady scent of lavender filling her lungs.
But, well. It is better than a world where Yukong must force herself to forget.
Jing Yuan notices, of course. Fu Xuan does, too. Jing Yuan will stare at the bow in Yukong’s hands, an old, familiar grief crinkling the corners of his eyes. Fu Xuan will enter her office, take in the smell of lavender, and stare at Yukong with something like horror.
‘Have you found yourself worthy, then?’ Jing Yuan will say.
And Yukong will laugh, again, full and long and wrong, and say, ‘No. Never. But it is such a wonderful gift. I would hate to see it rust and rot, hidden away under my bed.’
And Fu Xuan will whisper, ‘I am sorry.’
And Yukong will breathe in the smell of lavender, and take comfort in this delusion, holding her together like the ugliest of welds, and say, ‘Thank you.’
And Yukong will walk back home, and remember, remember, remember. Jade pens and fish fans and marble bows and kisses under the full moon and low lantern light. She will open the door to her home, close her eyes, and let herself drown in warmth, for a moment.
And though no one ever answers, she will say, “I’m home.”
And the door will close behind Yukong, a bell chime ringing loud and clear in her ears.
It is something like torture, Yukong thinks, and she wonders how she could ever live without it.