The moon was big and bright and round and beautiful tonight…. like the way the ladies of the night were when they got all dolled up to pull in clients. No. That wasn’t it. The moon was beautiful and round and shiny, like… like a well formed rear at sunset, the kind that’s somehow both firm and soft, and catches the light just right, and is connected to strong legs… and with good healthy skin of course. Nevermind. Parna was no good with pretty words. Not how Ren was.

That kid could talk all day, every other sentence was a metaphor or some kind of witty observation most people would miss. In fact, the words poured out of his mouth so fast that it was like a dam had just been broken, and they’d all been waiting for ages to spill out. Yes. That one worked.

He wanted to get better with his words. How you talked was important. It was how he sorted people, after all. He wanted to talk like one of the warrior poets of old.

“After that, Saram the Clever dropped his blade, and watched it melt to nothing in the blood of the mountain,” said Ren. “He picked up a plow, pledging never to spill blood with his hands again. At least that’s how Osai said the story ends. The version I read before said that he was invited up to the Heavenly Palace as a reward for his deeds.”

“Osai is that old guy from Katarn, right?” Parna asked.

“Ya.” Ren looked around, as if anybody but the poor sods with night patrol duty would be out and about. “He’s actually a powerful cultivator. Or he was. I don’t really know. My uncle was an immortal. I think I told you that. But he barely aged at all, and Osai was old and weak, but I’m also pretty sure he’s way more powerful.”

“Your uncle was an immortal?” Some people were just born with more than others. Parna usually hated spoiled rich kids, dripping in privilege, but Ren wasn’t actually that bad. “How’d you end up on the streets then? If your uncle was so powerful. And aren’t cultivators all obsessed with honor and duty. No way he’d let his family disgrace him like that.” Now that he thought about it, maybe the kid was making rat stew and calling it beef.

Ren’s breath caught visibly, and he paused before answering. “Well, he isn’t my real uncle. Just a family friend. And he was gone traveling for a bunch of years. And…”

“He’s dead now,” Parna guessed.

Ren nodded.

“So what about this Osai guy?”

Then Ren told him a story that was too ridiculous to be a lie. How he’d traveled with the old man, then out of nowhere a beast came and killed the caravanahri, and the man turned into lightning and slew it. And how when Ren had been missing from training those weeks, he’d been with Osai, an awakened badger, and the Flame-Blade herself! It was all a bit ridiculous. But Parna was good at spotting lies. Came with surviving on the street. The only one who’d been better was Canny-Kadyn–before he got caught by the watch, at least. Anyway, Ren wasn’t lying so far as he could tell.

“You know,” said Parna, “you’ve been through some hard stuff, but if you think about it, you’re pretty damn lucky. I wish I’d had a kindly innkeeper to take me in or a cultivator to teach me.” What he really wished was that his mom was still alive, and the pain came through as an extra bite in his voice.

Ren reddened and looked down. The silence was heavy, and Parna was glad it was broken when the kid asked, “So, did your family have any cool stories? It might be childish, but I love stories about the Age of Heroes.”

At least the kid knew how to read a room. Knew better than to ask him about his own family directly.

Parna wouldn’t have let someone talk to himself how he’d talked to Ren. But the kid reacted a little like a kicked puppy. Just taking it and trying to make peace. Parna had always had a soft spot for puppies. A weakness that had gotten him in trouble before. But he wouldn’t bend for the world. You started to bend, you’d soon break.

He itched at his elbow, thinking. It probably wouldn’t do any harm to tell him his favorite story. The Hungry Blade.

Footsteps echoed lightly between the buildings of the military training base. Time to move. They didn’t really mind if you stayed up and sat by one of the sentry fires. The captain always said more eyes was better and the punishment would be the natural consequence of exhaustion and getting your ass handed to you in training if you didn’t know your limits.

But if he was going to share this story, he needed more privacy.

“Let’s head somewhere quieter. You have enough layers to sit away from a fire?”

Ren looked down at his heavy grey cloak and nodded.

“Good.”

*******

Ren followed his friend away from the fire.

Into the darkness, weaving between the barracks for squad A and the southeast kitchens.

Where had Parna learned to move like that? He stuck to the shadows like he was one. The faint scuff of his boots on the earth melted into the wind, just a whisper in a sea of whispers. The way his pace changed imperceptibly between slow and fast, just barely missing several different patrols without any apparent effort.

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It wasn’t like they weren’t allowed out at night. But he moved like an alley cat, a creature born for the night. Even Ashy-Ari hadn’t been so subtle in the way he walked the alleys. And he was the best Ren had ever seen. Until now.

He wanted to know more about Parna. How had such a smart, thoughtful boy ended up on the streets? What had happened to his family? How long had he survived alone? How had he survived?

He sensed a deep pain in his friend. The kind of wound that needed walls and spikes to keep it safe. That’s why he never asked. Some day he’d earn enough trust, and he could wait.

*******

They finally reached the little square between the four granaries. A lone tree sat there in the center. The kind that spread out and reached for the sky in every direction. Parna always liked this tree. Somehow out of place in the camp. Like him.

But the tree was just a perk. The best thing about this square was that the patrols never bothered coming in here. A private space.

“Okay, we’re here.” He sat against the tree and gestured for Ren to join him.

“Is this a cherry tree?” asked Ren, looking up through the branches.

“I don’t see any cherries.” He wasn’t exactly proud of his lack of knowledge, the Hungry Blade had been a warrior poet, but he was just an uneducated street kid. How was he supposed to know? There were no leaves. Bleeding light, it was winter, after all.

Ren chuckled. No doubt taking what he said as a joke. But he settled in and waited.

Parna heaved a breath.

It didn’t take long for his mother’s words to come back to him. Her voice was lost to the years that had passed. And he could barely remember her face. But she had eyes that sparkled, and full lips that always looked playful when she smiled.

“It is said that before the Red Dragon Empress ascended to the heavens, entrusting the empire to her advisors, the whole of the world was a place of peace and purpose and progress.” He always liked how his mother phrased that first line. She was like a poet with simple language. The way she would sound out sentences like she was speaking a song.

His friend nodded, and Parna continued. “It was in this great age, this Age of Heroes, that a lone man rose up to shake the bedrock of the heavens. He was a poor man. A poet in a nameless village in the foothills of Mount Huasha to the East. His love for words was great. It is said that he sought out the names of all things. He devoted himself solely to this task, surviving off the joy of his art and the generosity of the local villagers.

“In time he came to know that there were some things that had no names. Some feelings and concepts that could not be contained by a single word. He wrote many poems about these mysteries of life—much to the delight of the villagers—in his quest to find the names for all things. And yet, he was unsatisfied, for while he had found the name for each and every tree, and blade of grass, and voice of wind, he could not name the essence of life itself. Even his own true name eluded him.

“His words inspired the people of his village, earning him great respect and drawing many visitors from afar. It was said that his words could blunt a knife, melt snow, mend a broken heart, heal a wounded spirit, keep a flower blooming beyond its season.”

Ren was leaning toward him, chin cradled on his knees, eyes wide. Parna smiled. Maybe Mom could live a little through this story? At least that was what he wanted to believe. Some day he’d make her proud. He’d be the hero, not the villain. Not his father, may he rot.

“A great general came to the village to meet this man and ask for his words of healing. His son’s spiritual channels had been ruptured by a great beast and the boy was dying. It is said that the poet’s words taught the son the nature of his very spirit, and with that knowledge and understanding his channels were restored.

“The general and the poet became great friends, the kind that drink and dream together. They would often debate the secrets of life, the purpose of living, the nature of truth. ‘You cannot name the mysteries of life because you have not lived them,’ claimed the General. ‘Your words are great and powerful indeed, but the deeper truths are those that are not contained by words. How can you taste a wine you’ve never drunk? A man’s life can be better sung by the song of a blade, than a thousand poets and their lyres.’

“The poet was greatly upset, but came to see the truth in the words, and so he followed the general away from his village to see the world, to train as a warrior, to learn this song of the sword, and taste all the fruits of life.”

*******

Ren felt as though he lived a thousand lives in the span of that story. So entranced was he that he became the poet.

It was he who learned blade work alongside his greatest friend, the general.

It was he who learned of pain and trust and brotherly love in fields soaked by blood. Whose blade could cut through the very essence of a thing, and un-name it.

It was he who was raised up as a hero, venerated, adored. He who slept with a different woman every night and ate meals that kings would sell their daughters for.

And it was he who found love in a baker's daughter, learned what it was to be a father.

And it was he who came home one day to see his friend, the great general, standing over the corpses of his wife and child, eyes alight with the sigil of the god of War.

And it was he who sought vengeance. Slaying the snake before he could utter a word. Waging war against the heavens themselves, soaking every step along the way in blood. Each of his enemies had not just their lives severed, but their names, until he himself lost his own.

“And in the years of fighting,” said Parna, “he and his blade became not one and another, but a thing entirely new. It is said that he became the distillation of a sword himself, ever hungering for blood, and his enemies knew him as the Hungry Blade.

“His conquest brought him to the very gates of the Heavenly Palace, where jade and gold glimmer as ripples on an ocean, gems of the sun itself. And though he was cut down, a piece of his soul was saved in his sword. Honored by the very gods he sought to destroy. And in a sheath that shimmers crimson, he rests to this very day within the palace of the gods waiting for a worthy warrior to pick him up and finish his conquest.”

Ren’s eyes were rivers by the end, and even Parna’s glimmered wet in the silver light of the moon.

“What a beautiful story,” said Ren. Beautiful and tragic.

“My mom used to tell me that story. It was her favorite. I’ve… always wanted to be a hero, like him. She loved heroes.”

It wasn’t like Parna to be like this, he was finally opening up. Ren decided to meet him in that space of sharing. “I used to think it was childish, but I’ve always dreamed of being a hero, too.”

His friend smiled, clearly relieved.

After a silence, Parna said, “Let's walk that path together.”

Warmth spread in Ren’s chest and something opened.

He wasn’t alone.