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“The stars are distant as always,
still shining with the light of their grand deaths in vacant space.”
Most Vidyadhara were reborn with an unravelled string at their pinky, their soulmate long having perished since their first incarnation.
Then, they would spend the rest of their life—only one of many—wandering and wondering who could possibly have been their soulmate. Even if they were so fortunate that their other half were also descendants of Long, no more recognition or tenderness could spark between them, having lost too many precious memories. Thus, these bonds were forever lost to time.
How did people live on, knowing that they had lost someone they loved?
Jing Yuan had thought this was quite tragic since he was small. Perhaps that was why his mother had told him this, to make him feel better about his own cut string, a result of his soulmate presumably dying young.
This was all Jing Yuan could think of as he stood before the man in Stargazer Navalia.
A single thread stretched between them. A single thread extending from the frayed ends of both their red strings of fate. It looked incredibly fragile, almost as if it would snap under the slightest of breezes.
How was this possible?
Jing Yuan was no Vidyadhara. This couldn't be a severed tie from a 'past life', because no such thing existed for him. Even then, no one had the privilege of reforging lost bonds between soulmates, even to the Vidyadhara—judging by the pointed ears of the other.
"Who are you?" Jing Yuan asked in a daze.
The man's eyes were still fixed on the offending string. "I am Ren… And you?"
"Do you know me?"
"No," Ren said. Then added, "I don’t suppose I do. I don’t remember."
Every individual feature of Ren was beautiful and exquisite, neither too delicate like flowers in bloom, nor too hard like rocks. His eyes were crimson, reminding Jing Yuan of blood. His hair was blue, the colour of a darkening sky far from the setting sun. Despite his increasingly desperate search, nothing of Ren rang a bell within him.
But still, his next words were caught in his throat.
An overwhelming surge of grief and hurt and confusion caused Jing Yuan to double over. The grief over someone he hadn't lost, the hurt over something he hadn't experienced, stirred into one big pot of confusion that threatened to boil over. It was enough to prick at his eyes with warm tears of an unknown origin. And suddenly, Jing Yuan felt very acutely the cavity where his heart resided and how empty it was.
The worst part of it all was that he did not think he would ever get an explanation.
Ren looked at him with clouded eyes, mouth twitching to betray more emotions, but relinquishing eventually to stay in silence.
Jing Yuan wanted to get rid of the strong urge to run far away and hide from this, just like an immature child would, but then Ren took a cautious step backward and his resolve broke. It was not something he had confidence in handling.
He was rushing through familiar alleys before he knew it. He could hear the roaring winds, but not shouts calling after him, so he supposed Ren hadn't wanted to deal with this either.
A dim, yet stubborn, pain was nibbling holes inside him.
“Let it penetrate darkness when a beast roars a final wail.”
The next time Jing Yuan met the stranger that could hardly be called his soulmate, it was in the Artisanship Commission's delve.
It was right after his visit as a Cloud Knight. Duty was not on the forefront of his mind as he meandered his way between scattered machinery and people rushing around with stacks of blueprints in their arms. The sounds of metal and plastic being tinkered with surrounded him, as did the whirring of motors and gears.
Jing Yuan wasn't often in this delve, but surely all this ruckus was what made the Xianzhou possible at all: thousands of people that levitated Starskiffs, carved Jade Abaci and animated ingenium.
When Jing Yuan saw that man out of the corner of his eye, he was ready to turn around and head straight for the docks instead of wandering around. Part of him was ashamed—really, he shouldn't have left the other behind, distraught—and the other part wanted him to pretend that his red string of fate wasn't one strong gust away from snapping.
Jing Yuan steeled himself anyways.
There was no point in running away or hiding.
Jing Yuan walked towards Ren and his figure drew closer with every step.
"I’m sorry for last time."
One step, two steps closer.
Ren stayed silent, without a hint of turning around to face Jing Yuan, and he was afraid for a moment that the other had already committed to sweeping their previous interaction under the carpet.
"... I never did catch your name," Ren said, finally, looking up from his workbench.
"Yes. Right." He breathed deeply. This was not so bad.
"I'm Jing Yuan."
"Jing Yuan..." Ren tested out the characters on his tongue. "I take it that you're a Cloud Knight?"
Jing Yuan nodded. "Is it the clothes?"
"They make it quite obvious. Besides, I've never seen you around here and outsiders are not permitted to enter. You must be part of the squad that came here today."
"That's right..."
Jing Yuan spent the next few seconds struggling to speak up and broach the subject that had been sitting on his mind these past few days like an oversized boulder. Not even a sigh had left him though, before he was interrupted by the sound of singing metal.
A blade flashed, reducing a stack of papers into shreds.
"Ren."
The man in question was working on a guangdao, the fancy type that was fitted with Jade Abaci and advanced electronics, nothing that Jing Yuan was well-versed in, but it looked like it could help any novice swordsman slice through an entire battlefield.
"Yes?"
He wanted to ask about their shared string of fate and what it meant. He wanted to ask if Ren really remembered nothing, for Vidyadhara were rumoured to remember the most prized memories from previous incarnations. He wanted to ask if even an amicable relationship between the two of them wasn’t worth it. But all that toppled out of him was a pitiful distraction, a question.
"What is that?"
"A replica of the Devastator Glaive , with a few touches of my own. A bit of a dramatic name, if you ask me."
"Hm, I might have heard of it before." Jing Yuan fiddled with his pinky.
Well, Ren was just going to have to indulge Jing Yuan for a while longer. He was too much of a coward.
Ren balanced the guangdao in front of his eyes, its edge gleaming while he inspected it with an expert eye.
"It's one of the artefacts kept at the Seat of Divine Foresight, supposedly wielded by a former general. I can't quite remember the name, but I'm guessing he had a profound impact on our current general," Ren said, laying the weapon back down on the bench.
"General Ma Feima looked quite bereft when he commissioned me to recreate it."
"Really?"
Jing Yuan could count the times he had seen the general face-to-face on one hand. The callous man who hunted down the Abundance mercilessly was all Jing Yuan had ever known, so he couldn't imagine someone like that housing so much sentiment behind closed doors.
Jing Yuan slid his finger up the smooth handle of the guangdao lying on the working bench, just grazing the compartment where wires ran up and down the weapon. His finger hit a protrusion on the metal softly and he asked, "What's this?"
An angular piece of jade jutted out of the place where Jing Yuan pointed.
"That? Just an Abacus I'm trying to integrate into the Glaive. There used to be a tiny sparrow there in the original. I thought I’d give it another use."
"How unexpectedly cute."
"Would you mind testing it for me?" Ren asked without prompting.
Jing Yuan gave an awkward chuckle that sounded more like an exhalation. "My captain still scolds me about my skill with the sword, not to mention something that I’ve never used before."
"If not, I'm afraid that I might have to show you the way out of my workshop soon. I don’t mean to be rude, but there is still a lot to do before the deadline."
"Well, I guess it doesn't…” Jing Yuan glanced off elsewhere. “... hurt to try."
Ren nodded. Jing Yuan didn’t suppose that meant Ren was pleased, but Jing Yuan's heart didn't feel as if it was about to float off into the depths of space, never to be seen again, for the first time this week.
Ren’s acknowledgement grounded him.
The weight of a guangdao was very different to that of the common sword distributed to Cloud Knights. Jing Yuan was used to his weapon being light and even—graceful, if he tried hard enough—but the Glaive in his hands was heavier at all the wrong places and he was almost thrown off balance.
"Try swinging it in a wide arc in front of you, if you can," Ren told Jing Yuan.
And Jing Yuan did just that.
He dragged the unwieldy weapon back and swung it forth, a clean semicircular slash in front of him. The Devastator Glaive cut the air beautifully, swift and strong and almost accompanied by the crackle of lightning. Jing Yuan couldn't find it in him to stop after the first stroke, not ever having felt so attuned to a weapon. He felt as if he could brandish this weapon in any fashion, sloppily or carefully, and his enemy would still fall regardless. It felt familiar… in a sense.
It must be due to Ren's ingenious work, the guangdao calibrating itself after every move. The corners of Jing Yuan’s lips curled upwards.
This could work. A frayed string didn’t have to mean anything. The two of them didn’t have to be afraid of the story behind it. They could very well be good friends or something even more.
"Ren, this is amazing-"
And he spoke too soon, thought too soon.
His hands slipped in his carelessness. The guangdao crashed into a cabinet filled with equipment, sounding like heartbreak.
By the time Jing Yuan realised what he had done, apologies were close to spilling out of him, but he was stopped by the look of loss on Ren's face.
"Why does..." His pondering was clear as day, but the contents were all a mystery to Jing Yuan.
Then, his eyes focused and Ren looked more anxious about his damaged creation as he should. "Nevermind. Let me have a look at my replica."
"I am so sorry-"
If they hadn’t already got off on the wrong foot, then Jing Yuan was certain they had now.
"Please. Let me see it."
Jing Yuan heaved it up from the destroyed cabinet wordlessly. Ren took it to his table and examined it, smoothing his palm over the blade and unravelling the wire inside the handle.
"This part here..." Ren pointed at somewhere close to the incomplete Jade Abacus.
"I am so sorry." And he really was, but sometimes he thought that he didn’t know what he was sorry about. His pinky ached.
"No, it's not your fault. It was my own request and, therefore, my own doing. You... You owe me nothing," Ren said.
It did nothing to placate the remorse within Jing Yuan.
"But certainly..."
"I have to work now." Ren wasn't looking at him anymore, too concerned with the replica.
"I- How about this? You can contact me and I'll try to make it up to you," Jing Yuan said, offering his phone up to Ren.
Ren did not make a sound after that. Their exchange felt so suffocatingly silent despite the evening bustle of the delve surrounding them in a stiff embrace.
Jing Yuan could not see what Ren felt, nor could he guess. Was it disappointment? Anger? Something else?
He has a stranger's contact on his phone now, everything pointing to the first step in the right direction, but he knew that repairing a relationship would not be so easy.
“ Let it penetrate my heart so I can share your pain.”
"Who are they?"
Three people were left before their game of Celestial Jade, while the fourth had run out of time to kill and was leading Jing Yuan to their destination. Jing Yuan spied a complete set of tiles, but he supposed that victory would have to wait for another day. Or maybe they would never finish this game after all.
Ren answered, "My caretakers from the Realmkeeping Commission. I was brought to them the day I washed up on the shores of the Scalegorge Waterscape. They say the Pearlkeepers had no record of my origin."
"Oh, I'm sorry for you," Jing Yuan said sympathetically.
"There's nothing to be sorry for. My childhood was not very different from typical Vidyadhara children."
"Well then, where are we going today?" Jing Yuan tried to relax his tone, though he wasn't really feeling it. His pinky itched.
"I'd love to squander my time around the Central Starskiff Haven a bit more, but I'm in for another patrol tonight."
Come on. Push it aside for now. Ren wasn't bringing up anything from last time, so Jing Yuan thought he would try his best to build some bridges on the basis of being friends and nothing other than that.
"We're here," Ren stated rather emptily.
There was no need to look at any signs to determine where they were; just by listening to the storyteller's dramatic voice, Jing Yuan could tell. "The Sleepless Earl?"
"Yes. I need... No, I would like you to try something. I'll be paying."
"I didn't expect to be asked out for a drink today." Jing Yuan was feeling particularly brave, but his insides shuddered at the chance that his words might land wrong. He glanced at Ren, looking for any trace of uncomfortableness. At least he hadn’t said it as awkwardly as he had imagined.
"I was expecting something less, you know, innocent and nice."
"I’ll admit, dealing drugs sounded tempting,” Ren returned with a straight face.
"Really?" Jing Yuan chuckled. So Ren was capable of joking. The frown on his face wasn't as sombre, not like someone had just killed his cat or something.
Ren ordered two Immortal's Delights and they roamed away until they reached the bridge that connected the two sides of the delve. They leaned on the railing. Below them was the misty void, above them were the endless stars and between them lay a million uncertainties.
Jing Yuan started, "The view here is unfairly nice."
The ice was melting. Jing Yuan stirred his drink aimlessly.
"It is. Some of my colleagues who work on starskiffs come here when they lack inspiration."
The condensation was soaking Ren's bare hands.
"Hm, I wonder if they, deep inside, actually wanted to be the ones piloting them. That's what I would've wanted anyways: to see the world with my own two eyes."
Ren's gaze was unmoving as he stared at Jing Yuan and his drink.
"... You're not going to drink it?" He said with no small amount of hesitance.
"I should be, right?"
Jing Yuan smiled as apologetically as he could.
"I'm afraid I'm not too fond of sweet things."
Ren didn't respond immediately.
Jing Yuan tried to look as if he hadn't noticed, but he searched Ren's expression when he couldn't restrain himself any longer after such a prolonged silence.
Ren looked sullen, for the lack of a better word.
"Did I say something wrong?" Jing Yuan asked, very much hoping for the opposite.
Ren shook his head slowly.
"I just... I just had a feeling that you might like it, but I guess I was wrong."
Then, he stared very hard into Jing Yuan's golden eyes, almost making the other uncomfortable with the intensity. Finally, he shook his head again and Jing Yuan wasn’t entirely sure what he was denying.
"No. I suppose you shouldn't like it. It's too decadent anyways. This drink gets more and more expensive every year."
"That's true," Jing Yuan said. "I'm still going to have some of it. I doubt I can finish it right now though."
Ren sighed. "I'll treat you to something you actually like."
"Should I hold you to your word?" Jing Yuan prodded.
Neither of them continued, the pleasant atmosphere left to peter out.
Jing Yuan's heart soared with hope anyways. With his own two eyes, he saw not one, but two blood-red threads extending from his pinky to Ren's.
“If there is a way to collect and portray,
a mood that cannot be projected into words.”
The Yaoqing had a moon and, therefore, also a sun. Jing Yuan could not say that he had seen a sunset before, but it was surely the most beautiful one he would ever see.
There didn't seem to be anything else on this ship. Nothing but the summery heat, an orange sky and cicadas buzzing somewhere among the overgrown weeds that no longer had gardeners to tend to. He had been walking for a while and the place felt very lifeless sometimes, but then he strained his ears to hear the insects and knew that some things always refused to stay dead.
Jing Yuan lay his footsteps all around the crumbling remains of the Yaoqing.
"Everything useful has been salvaged a long time ago, why does the captain still insist on this expedition?" Jing Yuan asked.
He toed around an ornate handle buried in the rubble. When it dislodged itself, Jing Yuan was half hoping for a grand sword with an even grander tale—maybe even a family heirloom, the kind passed down from warrior to warrior—but all he really saw was a broken blade, its story and owner in metaphorical cinders.
"The Luofu is desperate to preserve her resources and avoid a demise much like that of the Yaoqing's. But I do think that it doesn't feel like the smartest decision," Ren answered.
Jing Yuan applauded Ren for his surface impassivity, even though he was definitely grumbling about it inside. Why was he even here when his job was to repair abandoned equipment that didn't exist?
Jing Yuan perched himself on a rock. It might have been a pillar once, because it was too tall to be a bench and had grooves running up its side, but he didn't have a way to be certain of that.
"Everything here is either dirty or hard. I wish there was a place for me to take a nap," he remarked.
"Not likely."
Jing Yuan patted the space beside him, trying on a gentle smile. "You should sit here."
Ren followed.
It was silent for a while. The cicadas had gone quiet as the sun slumbered. Life was still streaming by them like a brook.
"An outworlder told me this once," Ren said slowly, pointing at the stars. He sounded grim, as if he was announcing someone's passing instead of having a chat.
"On his home planet, he used to look up at the night sky every once in a while and he would be able to point out the 'constellations'. Do you know what they are?"
"Constellations? I'm afraid not."
"They are groups of stars that humans have ascribed myths and legends to. He said it was a shame how the Xianzhou ships travelled so frequently, such that we could never enjoy the permanence of stars. For us, the night sky is ever-changing."
Ren looked up, dragging Jing Yuan's gaze along with him. The stars were gliding right past them as they spoke.
"I guess that is true. We are going from galaxy to galaxy all the time," Jing Yuan mused quietly. "But it's not at all a bad thing. I really do like the idea of exploring the universe quite a bit."
Ren did not answer, so Jing Yuan continued.
"Being a Cloud Knight means that I have the chance to go on different expeditions to all sorts of places. I really wouldn't know what to do with myself if I had a desk job and had to deal with paperwork. It sounds pretty dull."
A sound came from Ren, bordering between a scoff and a chuckle. Jing Yuan didn't understand it, but observed the way Ren contorted his lips.
"Hm?"
"I don't know what I remembered." Ren settled on a faint smile that did not match his eyes. "Go on."
"Well, there are only a few things I don't want. I don't want to stop being a knight, I don't want to lose my friends to the mara, if that's even possible, and..."
"... I don't want to hurt you when the time comes."
His own words, wearier and desperate, echoed around him and inside him.
"... you will put me to rest…"
There was a fuzziness in his head now. Memories of ages past flooded him. The current was fast and everything rushed over him too quickly to latch onto anything—it was all water and smooth sand—but he felt it anyways: the regret, the grief and the loneliness.
His throat closed up, even though the only thing he knew how to do right now was to scream. It was all so overwhelming. The concerned questions of the present felt as insignificant as a raindrop in an ocean.
He felt his friends with no names drift apart from each other like the stars that had just been above him, which were now clouded by darkness. Minds plunged into the depths of mara, sinners who tried to defy fate and free souls escaping to the skies.
"Leave."
He felt a fleeting reunion with a meaningless date. There was only emptiness. People he no longer knew came together and left, just like that. Shattered swords and translucent horns clashed and he could only take his lofty seat, watching their paths collide and hurting each other.
"Don't come back."
And then it was everything at once. He felt an emotional hurricane well up inside him, a collection of every intense feeling he'd ever had, prodding at the very barrier that kept everything from falling apart. All that regret and grief and loneliness transformed themselves into anger, spilling out of him like poison.
"Take me away."
These recollections all sped past him.
This must be mara. An amalgamation of negativity that corrupted the mind.
It was all so vivid and Jing Yuan knew he had collapsed, because he felt Ren's hand pulling him away from the edge of the stone they were sitting on.
Breathe.
A master. A Foxian. A Vidyadhara. A blacksmith.
Breathe.
The liquid rock beneath his hands was slowly crumbling into a solid form. The sky was spiralling above him again.
"And that was all in the past."
Jing Yuan felt himself being pulled up by Ren, arms wrapped around him in a hug.
There were certainly tears tracking down his face, but he did not feel them. He had spent what must be centuries holding them back, but he guessed it was all for nothing. He buried his face in the crook of Ren's neck.
He felt winded.
"It no longer has any bearing on the living," Ren whispered to him.
Jing Yuan didn't know if he could speak—his throat was raw—but he tried anyway.
"Is it time for a new beginning?"
“If there is a way to turn back and rebuild all the long lost dreams.”
If Stargazer Navalia was the nursery of starskiffs, Cloudford was their home. But Jing Yuan realised that perhaps this would be the last time he ever saw one of these, so he touched them softly, leaving them as a memory.
"I'm still not quite sure what I remembered. It was all… fragmented."
Ren stepped on the starship, one that was many times bigger than a starskiff—the type people used to sail around the universe.
He asked, "Was it all terrible?"
“I'm sure there was something good,” Jing Yuan said, though he wasn’t really sure at all. It was said more in an attempt to comfort them both.
Ren put his hand in Jing Yuan’s, caressing his pinky.
What once was two now was three. Those red threads with a mind of their own had started to twine their way around their string of fate, not unlike growing ivy.
"Does it really matter?"
They said goodbye to the cycranes, the songlotus cakes and the starskiffs. The drifting stars would be their home, and the Xianzhou Luofu their past.
“Another branch will grow and flourish in the future.
The breeze of your world will wake you up again.”