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When Dan Heng opens his eyes, it is not to darkness and dampness and cold chains around his wrists, but instead a long corridor with smooth metal walls, harsh fluorescent lights, and three people staring at him.
His breath snags in his chest – he scrambles back, palms slapping against the cool floor, trying to take stock as he goes. The world around him whirls, bright and overwhelming and new. Where is he? How did he get here? Who are these people? While the man dressed in green clearly looks like someone from the Xianzhou, the other two are unlike anyone he’s ever seen: one with eyes like molten gold, the other with pink spun-sugar hair, both wearing odd clothing. All of three of them – Green, Gold, Pink – carry weapons.
Weapons. Dan Heng goes still. Is this it, then? Have the Ten-Lords Commission and the Preceptors finally decided to get rid of him instead of letting him rot in prison?
There’s a distinct “clink”, and Dan Heng pauses, looking down at what his hand has appeared to knock against: a pocket watch made of some strange, obsidian metal, its face shattered, its several clock hands – more than what he’s sure a normal clock is supposed to have – stopped dead. A low hum emanates from it, something that travels through his pinky finger and up his arm into his body, vibrating through his bones.
“Oh my Aeons,” says Pink. There’s a delighted look spreading over her face as she claps both hands to her mouth. “He’s a baby.”
“Oh,” Gold says, with the horror of dawning realization. “Oh no.”
A handful of minutes later sees a brown-haired girl with doll joints come striding down the hall towards them. She comes to a stop in front of Dan Heng, looks him up and down, and then heaves a great sigh. “Really?” she asks, turning to Gold, hands on her hips. “You called me all the way out here for this.”
“And what else were we supposed to do?” Gold asks.
“He’s so cute,” Pink promptly cuts in, voice half a wail, sounding like she’s on the verge of tears. She looks towards Green, says, “Can I – can I pinch his cheeks –”
“No.”
“Not even just a little?”
“Absolutely not,” Green says flatly. His spear is gone – dismissed somewhere into the ether – and he stares at a fixed point down the corridor, arms crossed, refusing to look at Dan Heng. Beside him, Pink has her lips pressed together and appears to be vibrating on the spot, gaze trained on Dan Heng with a terrifying, single-minded intensity. The noise that escapes her is concerningly akin to a tea kettle at boiling point, and Dan Heng is beginning to feel like cornered prey.
“Case in point,” says Gold. “And it is your curio, you know. We don’t even know how this works.”
“What is there to know? The curio pulled someone forward from your pasts. That’s all there is to it.”
“You left something like that just lying around?” Gold asks, incredulous.
“He’ll go back to the same point in time once it wears off, and he won’t remember anything. The body’s only a recreation by the clock too, so damage isn’t going to transfer. As far as curios go, it’s honestly not that powerful, so.” The doll-jointed girl shrugs. “He should be gone in a week or so. Bring him onto the Express, dump him with the Xianzhou Luofu, get Arlan to look after him; I don’t care. Your problem now.” With that, she turns and strolls off down the corridor at a leisurely pace, waving as she goes. Her footsteps echo against the steel floor and fade in seconds as she rounds the corner.
Gold watches her go, and says into the silence that settles: “Well. That just happened.”
Three pairs of eyes turn to Dan Heng. He shrinks back. They haven’t been hostile so far, but the doll-jointed girl mentioned the Xianzhou Luofu – and if they know the Xianzhou Luofu, there’s a good chance they know about Dan Feng’s sins, especially the man with the spear.
Dan Heng’s horns are still out.
Pink falters. Green purses his lips. Gold trades hesitant glances with them both, then lets out a careful exhale and steps forward, dismissing her baseball bat to kneel down in front of Dan Heng. Her hair flutters with her movement – it’s long and a pretty, shiny silver, almost glowing under the fluorescent lights. It reminds Dan Heng of the stars, not that he’s seen them before.
“Hello,” she says, voice gentling. “I’m Stelle. I’m a Trailblazer part of the Astral Express. This is the Herta Space Station – we stumbled across you while we were clearing monsters out from these halls. Would you like to join us?”
“Oh – I’m March 7th!” Pink volunteers, raising a hand in the air and waving. She claps the Xianzhou man on the shoulder, adds, “And this here’s Dan – um. Dan. Hhhhsheng. Yep. Dan Sheng.” She pats him several times for good measure. “Your names sound kinda similar! Isn’t that funny! Haha!”
Dan Sheng facepalms. “He hasn’t told us his name yet.”
“I mean! I was saying wouldn’t it be a wild coincidence if your names did end up sounding similar! Since you’re both from the Xianzhou! And all!” March lets out a peal of nervous laughter. Dan Heng can only stare, wide-eyed.
“Ignore them,” Stelle says, though there’s a fond quirk to the corner of her lip. She extends out a hand. “Well? How about it? Or if there’s somewhere else you want to go, we can take you there too. We are an express, after all.”
Dan Heng hesitates, hands twitching. These people probably know who he is and what he’s done. He can figure out that much, in the way the Xianzhou man – Dan Sheng – refuses to meet his eyes. Even so, he’s a long way from everything he’s ever known, and there’s something about Stelle and March that feels safe, feels warm in the way the prison guards and Preceptors never were.
“I…” He falters, and finally gives a single, wary nod. “Okay.”
“My, what’s this?” The instant they board the train Stelle and her companions call the “Astral Express”, there’s already someone making their way over. Dan Heng shrinks back behind Stelle as the woman approaches. She’s tall, red-haired, dressed in a white gown and black coat. Everything about her seems to exude elegance.
“Himeko – ah.” Stelle looks down at Dan Heng, then back at ‘Himeko’, whose mouth is open in an “O” of surprise. Stelle scratches awkwardly at the back of her head. “Um.”
“It’s okay. I understand.” Himeko waves her off, then crouches where she is so she’s eye-level with Dan Heng but a good few paces away from him. She smiles. “Hello. I’m Himeko. I’m the navigator for the Astral Express. It’s good to have you with us.”
“Hello,” Dan Heng says in return. He looks up at Stelle, who tilts her head to the side, eyes softening, then back at Himeko. “Um. It’s nice to meet you too, Himeko… jiě-jie?”
“Ah!” From behind him, there’s a sharp exclamation from March, and he jumps and whirls around to find her pointing at him with a hand clapped to her mouth. “He called you jiē- jiē! Why doesn’t he call me jiē-jiē?”
“Maybe because you’ve been scaring him off,” Dan Sheng grumbles. “You’re intense even on your best days. And it’s jiě-jie, not jiē-jiē.”
“It’s called passion!” she argues back. “Someone has to have it between us.”
Stelle raises a hand. “I have passion.”
“Digging through trash cans doesn’t count!” Stelle pouts. Dan Sheng’s mouth twitches. Despite himself, Dan Heng feels something like a laugh bubbling up in his chest. “And anyway, my point –” March strides over until she’s right in front of Dan Heng, squatting down in front of him. Her eyes are narrowed with a single-minded, laser focus that has Dan Heng ducking behind Stelle again. “Dan Heng. You know you can call me March jiě-jie, right?”
“Uh… sorry?” His tail flicks behind him. “March jiě-jie?”
It’s an understatement to say that her face lights up – she clutches at her chest with a gasp, then buries her face in her hands. “Oh my god. Oh my god, he’s killed me. He’s too cute.”
Dan Sheng lets out a heavy sigh, starting forward. “March –”
“Hold on.” She stretches a hand out. “Hold on. I need to process this, give me a moment. You have no idea how happy I am right now.”
Himeko lets out a chuckle. “He is rather precious, isn’t he?”
“I know, right?” March cries, before leveling Dan Sheng with an accusing gaze. “You never told me you were this cute as a baby! The baby pictures! Where are they?”
“I don’t have any.” He crosses his arms, looking off to the side. Dan Heng tilts his head in confusion. “I was in prison, remember?”
The silence that comes is sudden and awkward. March falters, says, “Ah. Right. I…” Dan Heng shifts, feeling like an outsider. He’s not sure where this conversation has gone anymore, but it doesn’t feel like something he was meant to hear.
It’s Stelle who interjects, in the end. “Well,” she says, smiling, “good thing we can take a lot now, right?”
All of a sudden, the atmosphere seems to brighten again. Dan Sheng warns, “Hey”, and March’s face lights up with a positively devious grin as she lifts up her camera.
“Hey, Dan Heng? Smile for March jiě-jie, alright?”
“Uh,” Dan Heng says, backing away. The feeling of being cornered prey has come back – he looks around wildly, looking for anyone, anyone at all to save him, but all he gets is an amused smile, a ‘what can you do’ shrug and a facepalm respectively –
Until his eyes land on the fluffy figure dressed in a red coat and top hat staring at him, just a few paces away, eyes blown wide in shock. The shout that comes next seems to rock the entire train car.
“Ahhhhhh! Passenger Dan Heng, why have you shrunk?”
Despite all his fears and uncertainties and worries, despite the tension still in his shoulders and his stomach only now beginning to unknot itself, the instant Dan Heng’s head hits the pillow, he sinks into dreamless sleep. When he wakes up again, Stelle’s room is dimmer than before – not completely dark, but enough that everything around him is nothing more than vague shadows and shapes painted in faded colours.
He sits up in his futon – feels the blanket pool around his legs, his hair pool around his waist. It’s quiet. The two futons to his right are empty, the giant bed to his left devoid of a person-shaped lump. One look at the clock says it’s eight in the night, system time, and it – it makes sense. The Astral Express crew are all used to this time cycle. None of them would be sleeping this early. Even so, the room suddenly feels unbearably big. His chest tightens.
The door outside is cracked open a sliver, golden light seeping in, stretching across the floorboards: warm. Inviting. He hesitates, the sudden need to make sure he’s not alone warring with the fear of the unknown. The former wins out – he gets up and pads towards the door.
He’s halfway down the stairs towards the party car when the murmurs reach him.
“Oh, this one’s nice.” Stelle’s voice – low, amused.
Dan Heng freezes, hidden in the shadows of the stairs. Very carefully, he lowers himself until he’s sitting securely on the steps, then turns around to peer through the spaces between them. Curled up on the couch, almost directly below him, are Stelle, March and Dan Sheng. The former two are peering at March’s camera together as she flicks through photos, Stelle leaning against her shoulder. The latter is pressed equally close against March with a book in hand, occasionally shooting glances at the pictures before looking back at his novel.
“I know, right! Dan Heng and Pom-pom in one picture – it’s practically cuteness overload!” March’s voice pitches up, excited.
“Careful,” Dan Sheng warns. “If you’re too loud, you’ll wake him up. He’s a light sleeper.”
“Ah – right.” March falters. “Right. I forgot.” Stelle’s brow wrinkles. Silence settles over them: sudden and thick and heavy, and for a while there is nothing but faint clicking as March swipes through pictures. When she speaks again, thumb stilling on the ‘next’ button, her voice is quieter, subdued. “He really is… very small, huh.”
Dan Sheng shrugs, the gesture curt and nonchalant. “I did tell you it was from birth.”
“I mean – I knew that, but still –” Here, March’s voice gets all wobbly and frustrated. She puffs out her cheeks, says: “It’s just – it’s just so unfair. No one should have to – you shouldn’t have had to –”
He exhales, setting his book down, and reaches out to place a hand over hers. “I know. But it’s – it’s in the past, now. At least there’s that.”
“I – yeah,” she sniffles. “I’m glad you’re here with us now.” She offers him a smile, something still somewhat tearful but bright nonetheless, and he nods back, giving her hand a squeeze.
Stelle straightens up, leaning forward before tilting her head to the side. “And what about him? Will you talk to him?”
Here, Dan Sheng pauses, expression twisting into something unreadable, and Dan Heng realizes: they’re talking about him. Dan Sheng shakes his head, says stiffly, “You and March take care of him.”
The second part goes unspoken, but Dan Heng knows enough to read the words that haven’t been said aloud in the silence left behind. To Dan Sheng, at least, Dan Heng is nothing but an unwelcome intruder.
It makes sense. He’s ruined so many lives, after all.
Something in his heart squeezes. Digging his nails into his palms, he stares at his warped reflection in the metal steps of the stairs, wishing he had any face other than this.
Quietly, he retreats back upstairs.
Dan Heng meets the last member of the Astral Express the next morning, when he goes downstairs to the party car for breakfast, trailing hesitantly behind Stelle. He spends a few minutes staring at the unbrushed rat’s nest of her hair as she exchanges words with the man she calls “Mr. Yang”, before she steps aside and gently taps him on the shoulder to bring him forward and introduce him. Welt Yang is smartly dressed, all glinting glasses and neatly combed through, greying hair, and the aura he gives off is… stern, to say the least. It would be a lie to say Dan Heng isn’t intimidated, but when Welt kneels before him to shake his hand, there’s something in his careful grip that feels warm and reassuring, and something inside Dan Heng relaxes just a little.
Then Pom-pom waddles past with a plate piled high with food, and Dan Heng’s stomach growls embarrassingly loud.
“Um,” he says in the ensuing silence, cheeks coloring. Welt chuckles. Stelle grins.
“Hungry?” she asks. “C’mon – Pom-pom’s cooking is the best.”
Welt takes a seat next to Himeko at the dining table, who’s scrolling through a tablet and sipping a concoction that Dan Heng can, rather concerningly, smell from where he is several feet away. She greets them with a smile and a “Had a good night’s rest?”, which Stelle returns with a nod. Beside her, March brightens up and waves enthusiastically. There are tiny braids running through her hair today, halfway finished – sitting next to her with a blue rubber band in his mouth, Dan Sheng grumbles for her to stop moving, fingers moving deftly as he attempts to tie off his handiwork. Pom-pom hops up into a stool, which gives a whirr and then starts extending upwards till they’re level with the table. “Passenger Dan Heng!” they call, gesturing at the seat next to them. “Here – you can use this one.”
He hesitates – looks towards Stelle, who nods – and carefully lowers himself into it, gripping the armrests. There’s a small jolt, a hum, and then he’s rising up and up till he’s above the dining table, staring at the spread before him, wide-eyed.
There’s a lot of food. A lot. Some of which he knows only from memories, but most of which he’s never seen before. It’s actually really scary.
“Take whatever you like,” Stelle says, passing him a plate. “Except for Himeko’s coffee. Always, always pass if she offers.” Her expression darkens, gold eyes turning intense. “It’s a matter of life or death.”
“D-death?” he stammers, shrinking back. Himeko laughs.
“It’s just a little on the stronger side. Don’t worry, even I wouldn’t offer coffee to someone this young.”
“March spent an entire day stuck in the toilet last time,” Stelle stage-whispers, eliciting a cry of “Not at the dining table!” from the girl in question as she slides into the seat next to Dan Sheng. The latter gives the tangled mass of Stelle’s silver hair a once over, clicks his tongue, and grabs the pink pastel hairbrush off the table. Stelle is already turning around with a sheepish grin, not a word exchanged between them.
It's – odd, to be sitting here, this place suffused with so much warmth and laughter. Dan Heng watches the way everyone chatters and passes dishes to each other, thinks of what he had seen last night, and feels something twist in his chest. This entire moment almost seems like a pocket of space and time carved out just for this crew – private and familial and domestic – and he’s not sure he fits in it. Can someone like him even belong in a place like this, after all he’s done? Does he even deserve it?
“– what do you think?”
Dan Heng jerks, looking up to meet March’s eyes, overbright. “What do I… think?” He looks around the table, desperate for a clue – locks eyes with Dan Sheng for a brief few seconds before the man shifts his gaze away. March nods, enthusiastic.
“Yeah!”
Well, that didn’t give him a clue. “Sounds… good?” he says, tentative. March gives a cheer, Himeko a nod.
“Well, that settles it, then. Stelle, Dan – Sheng, would you mind –”
“I have work in the archives today,” he interjects. A brief, awkward pause settles over the table.
Himeko closes her eyes, acquiesces, “Alright. Just the three of you, then. Please behave.”
March salutes. “Got it! I’ll make sure she doesn’t dig through too many trash cans.” Stelle pouts. Dan Sheng sighs, and the corner of Welt’s lip twitches.
Himeko laughs again. “Have a nice trip, you three.”
“Um… you really don’t need to buy this much…” Dan Heng says, staring as March heaves another basketful of items onto the counter. He can count at least fifteen sets of clothes in there, plus toiletries, stuffed animals and other knick-knacks. A plush toy balanced precariously at the top – looking somewhat similar to a tuskpir – topples off. It squeaks as the cashier catches it, unfazed, and begins scanning the items.
“Nonsense!” March says, waving him off as she whips out her credit card for the seventh time that day. “If you’re staying with us from now on, you’re gonna need your own set of belongings, and that’s everything from clothes to room decorations! It’s important to make your bedroom a safe space for yourself, y’know – something that expresses your interests and personality but lets you kick back and relax!”
“Even so, this is…” he trails off. By his side, Stelle – carrying four different shopping bags all filled to bursting, but somehow not even breaking a sweat – just offers him a smile.
“March is just like this with everyone. You’ll get used to it,” she promises. “You should’ve seen the shopping trip she took me on when I first became a crew member.” She laughs. “She made Dan H – Sheng the pack mule, and by the end of the day he was carrying so much we couldn’t see his face. He nearly ran into a wall.”
Somehow, he can visualize Dan Sheng’s displeased face perfectly. The image is just a little bit funny. “Uh… will you be okay, though?” he asks, concerned.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Stelle says, thumping herself on the chest with an air of pride. “I’m stronger than him. Digging through trash cans is excellent for muscle training.”
Dan Heng isn’t even sure how to begin processing that statement.
By the time they leave the shop, the sky is beginning to turn orange. If Dan Heng cranes his neck back all the way and squints, he can see the three moons orbiting this planet lining up perfectly, their shapes faint and obscured by clouds dusted sunset-pink. “Head back now?” Stelle asks. “It should be dinnertime soon – Pom-pom says they’re making lasagna.”
“Ooh, lasagna!” March exclaims, eyes sparkling. She tilts her head to the side, thinks for a moment, then nods. “Yep, gotten everything we need for now. Let’s go.”
And so they do – strolling back through the streets towards the spaceship dock, March in the lead and humming a cheery tune, Stelle with her arms full of shopping bags bringing up the rear, Dan Heng sandwiched between them. They’ve just barely made it through the entrance of the docks when Dan Heng feels his stomach bottoming out: a little way ahead of them is a Xianzhou militant skiff.
They might not be here for him. There’s no reason for them to think he’s here, on this small planet in this random galaxy, as far away from the Luofu as could be. They’re probably hunting down some other criminal or here for diplomatic reasons or – or – but what if on the off chance they’ve been alerted that he’s escaped and they spot him and –
“Dan Heng? Dan Heng, can you hear me? Dan Heng, c’mon, breathe –”
The feeling of cold hands wrapping around his own is what brings him back, in the end. He flinches violently, looking up to see March crouched in front of him, eyes wide with concern. To her left is Stelle, brows pinched, gaze filled with the same brand of worry. She glances over her shoulder and then shuffles her position a bit more, angling her body so that it blocks the entire Xianzhou skiff from view.
“I don’t – I don’t wanna go back.” Dan Heng’s voice cracks. “I can’t. Please.”
Stelle and March trade glances. Stelle nods. “Okay. Let’s run, then. March – you wait here. They won’t bother you if you’re on your own. Get Dan H – Sheng to carry these back with you later.” And then with a grunt, she promptly dumps every single shopping bag on March.
“Ehhhh?” March’s voice cuts off into a yelp at the combined weight of all the bags. “And what are you planning to do?”
“The space anchor isn’t far, right?” Stelle says, rolling back her shoulders as if in preparation for a fight. “I’ll carry him and sprint there. If I’m fast enough, they might not even notice me.” She catches Dan Heng’s eye and grins. “Don’t worry – if it really comes to it, I still have my baseball bat. If you run up against a barrier, you go ahead and get it pulverized! All in the spirit of trailblazing, right?” Stelle whirls to Dan Heng. “I’m gonna have to pick you up, though. Sorry in advance.”
And then without further warning, she reaches forward and lifts Dan Heng clean off the ground, hoisting him into her arms. He lets out a yelp, wobbling before tipping forward and latching his arms around her neck. “Is this really –”
“And now,” Stelle yells, voice cheerfully manic, “we run!”
The last thing Dan Heng sees before they take off is the look on March’s face, torn somewhere between fondness and exasperation.
It must not even be a full minute before they reach the space anchor. Stelle sets a dizzying pace sprinting through the docks, vaulting over cargo and swerving around people with shouts of “Excuse me!” and “Coming through!” that elicit startled yelps and “Watch where you’re going!”s, all of which she just ignores with breezy laughter. The wind tears through Dan Heng’s hair, and with every step Stelle takes he bounces against her shoulder. His eyes are squeezed so tightly shut they hurt. It’s terrifying.
It's exhilarating.
Stelle skids to a sudden stop, and then there’s a whoosh and a rush of cold air. The world around him spins, and then the next moment they’re in the parlor car and Stelle is lowering him to the floor – cheeks flushed red with exertion and hair a windswept mess, but otherwise barely even winded. “Well?” she says, fisting her hands on her hips somewhat proudly. “Told you I was fast!”
“Stelle? What…” Dan Heng looks up: Dan Sheng is striding over, a book in hand and his brows pinched. Dan Heng turns his gaze to the window instead, studying the distant stars. No Xianzhou ships suddenly warping into sight, no warrants blasting over the Express intercom for his recapture. Just the blues and greens of the tiny, peaceful planet below them, and the glimmering light of faraway galaxies. Dan Sheng asks, “Did something happen?”
“There was a Xianzhou skiff in the docks,” Stelle explains, “so I just grabbed him and sprinted here.”
“Why…” Dan Sheng trails off, then looks over Dan Heng. For one uncomfortable second, their gazes meet, and then Dan Sheng says, “Ah.”
“I’m sorry.” Dan Heng lowers his gaze to the floor. “I um… know it’s a lot of trouble. Me being a – fugitive, and all.”
There’s a laugh. “If you’re trouble, I don’t know what Stelle is.”
“Ah – Himeko!” Stelle protests as the woman strides over. She rubs at the back of her neck, mutters, “I mean, it is kinda true, but… oh, that’s right!” She hits her open palm with her fist. “I left March stranded with the shopping.”
Dan Sheng sighs. “I’ll go get her. You… do whatever you need to.” He gestures in their general direction, and in a couple of strides towards the space anchor and a blink, he’s gone. An obvious attempt at a hasty getaway. Not that Dan Heng can blame him.
“Well, how about joining us at the dining table, then?” Himeko asks with a smile. “Dinner’s nearly ready, and I’m sure you must be starving.”
“Hey, Dan Heng – can I braid your hair?”
Dan Heng blinks, turning to March, sitting two futons to the right with a pink box on her lap and a determined look on her face. Upon meeting his gaze, she gets up onto her knees and waddles closer, plopping herself on Stelle’s futon instead. Stelle doesn’t look up, just shuffles slightly to make space for her, attention wholly fixated on her phone and tongue sticking out of her mouth as she navigates a particularly difficult battle. Dan Heng says, “Uh… why?”
“I mean – it’s so long and pretty!” March wheedles. “It’d be a shame not to try at least once, don’tcha think?” She opens up the box with a wooden ‘click’, and an abundance of hairties and clips spill out, most of them glittery and brightly colored. Her eyes are sparkling. She leans forward. Dan Heng leans back. “Please?”
“O…kay?”
March moves slowly – cold, deft fingers combing through his hair, carefully braiding section by section and occasionally pausing to pick out ribbons and fake flowers from the box. Once in a while, Stelle looks up from her game to offer suggestions. It’s a strange sensation, the feeling of his hair tugging at his scalp, and it makes him unexpectedly sleepy. It’s not like he doesn’t know how it feels at all – he has memories of Baiheng pinning Dan Feng’s hair up into complicated styles, Yingxing carefully sorting through it when its tangled, Dan Feng himself pulling it into a simple ponytail – but the memories are blurry as they always are, and somehow, they pale in comparison to the real thing.
“Done!” March says, sitting back in satisfaction. “Hang on, lemme just –” There’s the click of a shutter, and then March is passing him her camera. “Here! What do you think?”
He stares. There are flowers. There are a lot of flowers. It’s garish and glittering and pink and Dan Feng probably would have hated it.
“… I like it,” he decides, and finds that he actually does.
March lets out a crow of victory. “Ha! I knew it! Wait till Dan Sheng hears this, he always says I have no eye for it and I practically have to beg him to do his hair –”
“Do you think he secretly likes it, then?” Stelle pipes up. The two girls exchange glances, and a devious grin splits March’s face.
She rubs her hands together. “I’m gonna find out.”
“Doesn’t Dan Sheng gē-ge have short hair, though?” Dan Heng tilts his head in confusion.
“Ah! I mean –” March trades looks with Stelle, then says, “He cut it short, you see, so I don’t get to do it anymore.”
“Oh.” Dan Heng falters. “Dan Sheng gē-ge, he… doesn’t like me, does he?”
Stelle puts her phone down. “It’s – not that, exactly. You just… remind him of something. He’s trying to work through it.” Her voice softens. “Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll come around eventually.”
“…right,” Dan Heng says, unconvinced – but both Stelle and March look happy with that response, so he doesn’t press the issue any further.
It’s odd how quickly time seems to pass when he’s on the Astral Express. Back then, in the Shackling Prison, there had only ever been the dark and the cold and the slow drip of water for him to keep track of the days passing, seconds stretching out into hours and months stretching out into years. But now – now, even with the way Dan Sheng avoids him and the constant fear of the Xianzhou Luofu catching up with him, Dan Heng’s days are bright and full of laughter and packed to the brim. He helps out with meals and chores and supply trips, visits planets he’s never even dreamed of, never mind heard of, and most nights he’s so exhausted he falls right into bed and a dreamless sleep in the quiet of his own room. As the days pass, he finds himself looking out the Astral Express’s windows with his breath held less and less, no longer tensing for the sudden appearance of a Xianzhou skiff every few minutes.
Of course, he should know this by now: good things never last. Especially not when he’s involved.
Six days after Dan Heng wakes up in the space station, the Astral Express is attacked by space pirates.
“Listen – just hand over all the credits you have, take us where we want to go, and the kid doesn’t have to get hurt. Simple, innit?” the leader of the hijackers asks, arm wrapped around Dan Heng’s midriff, a knife pressed to his throat. At the other end of the train car, past scuff marks on the marble floor and an overturned couch, Stelle takes a step forward and hesitates, shifting her grip around the handle of her baseball bat. Her eyes are wide. There’s a cut on her cheek welling up with gold blood; a lucky hit from one of the hijackers during the initial scuffle. Four of them flank Dan Heng and the man now, carrying blasters, machetes and knives slung at their hips. There are more behind him, and probably a handful still on their skiff.
Stelle takes another step forward. The man holding Dan Heng snarls, “Drop. The. Weapon.”
Dan Heng says, voice shaking, “Stelle jiě-jie, it’s okay – I’ll be fine –” but then the man presses the knife closer, close enough that his throat stings and –
Stelle drops her baseball bat to the floor with a reluctant clatter.
“Good,” their leader says. “On your knees. Tie her up,” he says, jerking his head towards one of his men. Dan Heng feels his stomach sink.
Look. Because of you, someone is going to get hurt again. If you weren’t here, she wouldn’t have to surrender just to ensure your safety. Always such a burden. Always such a liability. When are you going to learn? No matter where you go, danger will always chase you. You will always bring ruin to everything you touch.
To their left, a flash of movement, and a clang. There’s a grunt of surprise. The leader shifts, just enough for Dan Heng to catch sight of the tipped over pail that they use for mopping, water pooling on the floor. There’s a chunk of something glittery dissolving into the air, blue and pink and somewhat see-through, oddly familiar –
“Dan Heng!” Stelle shouts as one of the pirates approach her, cuffs in hand. Her voice echoes loud throughout the train car, enough for the pirates to jolt, and Dan Heng hears more than sees the eyes of the hijackers’ leader narrow.
“I’m warning you, you better not be scheming anything –”
Dan Heng meets her gaze: bright and gold and reassuring. She beams. “It’s gonna be okay.”
The next moment, all hell breaks loose.
Right in front of Dan Heng’s eyes, the leader’s entire arm ices over. He lets out a yelp at the sudden bite of frost, instinctively flinging his arm away and shaking it to get rid of the forming ice, in turn dropping Dan Heng –
Right into Dan Sheng’s waiting arms, who has somehow materialized right in the middle of the crowd of pirates. There’s a shout of “Go, I’ll cover you!”, and he lets out a “Got it!” in return, spear forming in his right hand to sweep through the crowd in an arc, a sharp and deadly buffer. There’s the crackle of more ice forming, the twang of a bowstring and a “Take that!” followed by a cry from one of the hijackers, and in one two three strides Dan Sheng has made it across the car to where Stelle is – currently getting to her feet and cracking her knuckles, the pirate who’d been sent to tie her up knocked out cold on the marble floor.
“So?” She grins. “How was my distraction? Not bad, huh?”
There’s a long pause as he considers, setting Dan Heng on the floor. “… a tad dramatic,” he decides, picking up her baseball bat and tossing it to her. The two of them survey the carnage before them, carnage wrought almost entirely by March 7th’s hands. The door behind March opens to let in Himeko and Welt, who trade looks and then promptly join in, adding a drone and a cane to the already terrifying mix of six-phased ice and arrows. “Do we even need to join in at this point?” Dan Sheng asks.
“Probably not, but I’m going to anyway,” Stelle says, giving her baseball bat a handful of test swings. “You watch him. I’m gonna make them pay for trying to hurt our adorable Dan Heng!” She sounds far more delighted about it than she should.
Dan Sheng just sighs as she charges into the fray. The battle (if it can even be called that, at this point) doesn’t take long to resolve after that.
It takes them the rest of the day to clean up the Express. Himeko and Welt move all the hijackers back onto their own ship, all tied up and knocked out cold, and disconnect the passage between their skiff and the train before calling in the IPC to take them away. Meanwhile, the others scrub the scuff marks off the floor and move all the furniture back into their rightful places, directed by a rather huffy Pom-pom, indignant at the fact that space pirates had tried to attack them in the first place. All in all, though, they’re none the worse for wear, save for a couple of bruises and cuts here and there, but Dan Heng’s exhausted enough that he doesn’t realize Dan Sheng has disappeared until well over dinnertime.
Himeko catches him on the way to the passenger car. “Looking for someone?” she asks, smile knowing.
“I – yeah,” Dan Heng says, nodding. His tail swishes behind him. “Um… do you know where Dan Sheng gē-ge is? I wanted to thank him, but…”
“He’s in his room. Come along – I’ll take you there.”
The short walk there is spent in silence. When they stop in front of a nondescript door, Himeko crouches to face Dan Heng, placing a hand on his head. Her eyes are soft and somewhat sad. “He’s in there. Good luck, alright?”
The door opens with a pneumatic hiss. Dan Heng nods, takes a deep breath, and walks in.
He’s not sure what he’d been expecting Dan Sheng’s room to look like, but it’s somewhat unsurprising that he finds himself standing in a library of sorts. There’s a digital star chart displayed on the wall on the far side of the room, and bookshelves line the walls, crammed to bursting with various manuscripts that are neatly arranged nonetheless. There’s a futon on the floor, glowing with a display of cool blue waters, and it’s – odd, but Dan Heng feels the tension leaching out of his shoulders as he takes the room in.
Dan Sheng looks up from where he’s standing at a console by one of the bookshelves, eyebrow raised. “Yes?” He meets Dan Heng’s eyes, and stops. An awkward silence settles between them.
“Um,” Dan Heng starts, voice wavering. Every word he’s rehearsed goes out the window, and instead of saying “Thank you”, he ends up blurting, impulsive, “Why?”
“Why…?” Dan Sheng trails off, questioning. Dan Heng looks down at the floor. Well, he’s said it. No going back now.
“Why did you… save me, I mean. Um. Not that I’m not grateful, of course! It’s just – I’d already gotten Stelle jiě-jie hurt, and it was so much riskier to attempt to rescue me, and – and surely you know that when Vidyadhara get injured enough we’d just enter the cycle of rebirth earlier –”
“You would’ve died.” Dan Heng looks up. There’s a pinched look on Dan Sheng’s face, and his brows are furrowed. “Cycle of rebirth or not, the current you would have ceased to exist. If I didn’t save you, you would have died.”
“But… but I remember,” Dan Heng says, and his voice comes out small and ashamed. “I have all of Dan Feng’s memories. And – and I know you’re Vidyadhara, I saw you use cloudhymn magic earlier, and you keep avoiding me so I must have done something terrible to you too, so why – after everything I’ve done –”
“Because you didn’t do those things.” There’s an exhale, and then footsteps and shifting fabric as Dan Sheng kneels in front of him, placing both hands on his shoulders. “Listen to me,” he says, voice firm but gentle, and Dan Heng looks up, eyes hot. “His sins are not yours, because you are not Dan Feng. You have never been and will never be, no matter what you do, even if you have his memories and his face and his powers. You are your own person. I know it’s hard to believe right now. It’ll be hard to believe for a long while. The Preceptors needed someone to blame, and because of that”– Dan Sheng pauses, takes a fortifying breath – “because of that, many terrible things were done to you and will be done to you still. That doesn’t mean you deserve any of it.”
“Dan Sheng gē-ge…” Dan Heng falters. Something seems to slide into place, then, like the final piece of a puzzle he’s been missing for a while. Then again, maybe he’s known all along, somewhere in the back of his mind, ever since he opened his eyes in that space station. There’s no logical explanation for how he managed to get there, after all. “I’m not supposed to be here, am I? Am I going back soon?”
Dan Sheng – if that’s even his real name – hesitates, and finally admits, “No. But they’ll come for you in the future. I promise you this much. Again, and again, and again, beyond the limit of what’s reasonable, they’ll keep on reaching their hands out for you even if it seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Even if you feel you haven’t done anything to earn it, they’ll give it to you anyway. You will be loved more than you know what to do with. So wait, alright? And someday… someday, we might even leave the shadow of Dan Feng behind entirely.”
And it’s strange, but as Dan Heng looks at his tomorrow and gives an uncertain nod, he finds that the weight on his shoulders is gone. Something deep inside his core understands that this promise rings true – that there is a future for him, that there is love waiting for him there.
For once, he is no longer afraid.