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The Jade Emperor of the Heavens, of course, has a dragon for a daemon. Jun Wu’s dragon— her form pearlescent, magnificent— is depicted in statues and murals and temples across the three realms.
“A child with boundless fortune,” says Jun Wu, and sits on the throne, in his false form, in hers.
Hong’er always hated foxes. Before the army he’d fought with them for scraps, in the Xianle slums; vicious, biting, snarling things that wanted whatever they could take.
When he joins the army, his daemon is unsettled and nameless. It’s an asset, like it was on the streets— a daemon that can be whatever you need it to be, sharp-clawed or tough-skinned, small enough to perch on a shoulder or large enough to ride. His Highness the Crown Prince is still unsettled, the god who descended to help in their war with a tiger a falcon a horse a leopard by his side; Hong’er takes a certain amount of pride in the connection.
So of course, on Beizi Hill, it settles. Of course, on Beizi Hill, Hong’er’s nameless twisted daemon— the daemon he’s always hated— settles. Of course he settles as, of all things, a fucking fox.
Holding up the wall, Xie Lian’s daemon takes the form of an elephant. It’s useful, an unsettled daemon with boundless potential. He’s still useful, whatever they say in the imperial city about the human face disease.
It’s— days. It’s days in the sun, days in which people won’t run, they stay to watch; days in which Xie Lian smiles and smiles and smiles and tells the Queen that nothing’s wrong. Days in which Ailian, who has been taking smaller and smaller forms these days, strains and strains—
And then it collapses. The statue and the whole wall and Ailian too. And when the dust settles, he’s small and plain, unable to hold up anything at all. Certainly unable to hold up the golden image of Taizi Dianxia.
After eight hundred years of dead silence, Xie Lian returns, strange and washed-out. Ailian rests on his shoulder like he used to, pale and bright-eyed, and if Xie Lian is at all conscious of the inauspicious little gecko on his shoulder— here in the heavens, among lions and cranes— he doesn’t show it. Those first three days in the heavens, he wanders, speaks little to anyone but his own daemon.
But on Mount Yujun, he frowns out the red curtains at the trail. “Ailian, go on ahead,” he says, and the gecko does, racing down his arm and off. Xie Lian doesn’t seem to even notice as the distance grows.
Mu Qing, as Fu Yao, feels his insides go cold. What happened, he thinks, when did that happen—
But Feng Xin as Nan Feng, a guardian dog at his hip, remembers when Xie Lian left for months and then came back. He remembers afterwards, when Xie Lian’s daemon had gone nearly silent. When Xie Lian’s daemon had sometimes gone missing— and it could have been nothing, Ailian was small, but. But.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know something had happened. Fucking— obviously something had happened. Even then he’d known that. But when he’d pressed—
He’d hit Xie Lian, when he came back. He hadn’t really even thought about it. He’d been gone for months— months of Feng Xin assuring the King and Queen their son would return, months of contorting to feed three people on one barely-there income— and Feng Xin hadn’t even thought about what might have kept him away all that time. He’d just been angry. The anger had not lasted long.
Had he missed that?
They say all sorts of things about the daemon of Crimson Rain Sought Flower. They say it’s a shapeshifter, like he is. They say you can only spot it because, whatever form it takes, it’ll be as red as its master. They say it can wander as far from him as it likes. They say he wears it like an accessory— scarlet dragonflies that glitter like jewelry, a clouded leopard in crimson draped over his shoulders. Nobody knows its true form. Nobody knows if it even has a true form. They say whatever its true form is, it must be a snarling monster. They say whatever its true form is, it must be a beautiful, alluring thing.
“It’s very well made,” says Xie Lian, with his pale little gecko clinging to his wrist. He leans down to peer at Hua Cheng’s daemon— he’s a sleek, blood red bird today, sitting on Hua Cheng’s outstretched arm. The form is well made; the feathers have individual vanes. “But, San Lang, can I see your true face?”