Xie Song-jun
2022 years after The Long Night
Huibàn Lagoon
I was… somewhere. So was he. I don’t know if connecting to the roots triggered a kind of mental room to open up inside our minds, or if what I could see was physically happening. It wasn’t more than feelings. It wasn’t more than shapes. Su Lan was in the room with me, or maybe in one nearby. It was as if something was purposefully holding up snapshots of time itself for us to bear witness to. I could only take in every word and every image as they flashed in moments before my eyes.
At first it was just a voice, a man’s voice I didn’t recognise, saying;
“Did you do it?”
After a while and in no time at all, I saw the two of them lying in bed together, the blond boy resting his head on the other more familiar man’s chest.
“Mn,” the dark-haired man hummed, his expression relaxed but distant. “I did.”
That was the precursor to everything else it seemed, as I was given access to a world without time…
“No matter what, you stay close to me, okay? I can see in the dark and I’ll watch out for you. If something happens where we get separated-”
Xie Yi-jun pressed a kiss onto Wen Reian’s wrist and the boy blinked.
“What is this?”
I had never seen my father so young before, as he smiled and said;
“A secret power of the Kings of Hêi’àn City. Whoever I put this mark on I’ll always be able to find. It’s like a beacon. You’ll never be lost as long as I’m alive,”
Then Reian was dreaming, somewhere in the mountains, tossing fitfully in his sleep beside a sigil in the ground as he cried out-
“Don’t want to live… I’m… sorry.”
There was an avalanche. Snow. A woman not much older than a girl placing a baby into a basket and then into a steady flowing stream.
““It’s fate,” Xie Yi-jun says to Jin Songcai, holding Song-jun as a baby.
“She was meant for us… just in time for your return-”
A serpent. Traveling through a dying land, the only sentient creature in existence… the creatures born from his magic. The life born from his life.
“You broke your soul into a billion little pieces, and then those pieces grew to possess a power that should have ripped the universe apart. It’s a miracle that there was anything left of you at all…”
The dark-haired man, a King, repeating the same words Wen Reian had whispered in a dream, thousands of years later;
“Age, wisdom, power-”
This King, with his soul that Song-jun can recognise through time… his soul which is her father’s soul, and the threads which bind him to the ones he loves.
“Do you know what a soulmate is, Wen Reian?” Songcai says, “A soulmate is someone who inspires you to live. Not a lover, not a friend or a husband or a wife. It’s when a heart finds another heart that beats in the same way.”
The King with a child in his arms, crying tears of joy and confusion, because he has found a soulmate in the most unexpected place-
“I realized that no matter how much I adore you, no matter how much others do, nothing will ever be enough. Nothing will ever…” Song-jun watches her father cry, begging Songcai to understand just how much he loves him.
She watches the way an ancient King sacrifices everything for the very same love.
Images blur, voices overlap… pretty soon she understands more than what she was meant to, and yet everything she needs.
“The Soul-Shatter Spell,” a voice says, at the same time as another whispers;
“The King’s Mark.”
“The Last Naga. Immortal creature…”
Song-jun sees the rise and fall of magic in the world, and the ones put in places of power where they can heal what is wrong. The threads tying herself to everything, and the way that this was always where she was heading, right here. To make this decision.
To stop The Long Night once and for all… and to save someone who needs it.
Abruptly, Song-jun feels a dramatic shift in energies. Time and future freeze in the air around her as it all rests on what happens next.
From over in his other room, or from within his own mind, Su Lan offers up his life force to the creature who once lived underneath this tree. The immortality which once belonged to the first serpent himself…
Song-jun feels the amount of pure magic that is shifted, but long before she can begin to sense Su Lan weakening, she has already untethered the strings which bind Songcai’s King’s Mark to her soul.
This is right, she realizes, feeling the seal travel from her and through the veins of the tree. This is supposed to happen.
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That knowledge still doesn’t stop her from being surprised, by just how stable The Mark is with Su Lan’s energy. They stabilize each other.
This magic is sealed. It will never run out…
Su Lan’s consciousness fades from the dreamscape like sand running through a sieve, so Song-jun drops out immediately too. It’s a bit difficult to untangle herself from the web she’s mentally encased in, but when she does awaken, it is to a sense of disorientation unlike anything she’s ever felt.
The floor beneath her shifts and she only realizes moments later that she feels so turned around because she is. It takes another long moment to find her limbs and then find Su Lan, who is frightfully cold and with barely enough breath left in his body.
Song-jun feels tears track down her cheeks as she tries to cycle her energy through him to warm him up, but she feels sluggish, either from the intensity of that experience or from the King’s Mark which no longer resides on her skin.
Pushing through the dizziness, she manages to get Su Lan stable enough, but it is going to be hell trying to get him all the way back to Hei’an City for proper healing.
Su Lan is different now, it doesn’t take a genius to see that. Song-jun understands even before she gets a hand on his wrist to check his meridians…
Mortal. He’s human again.
Song-jun knows it isn’t what he wanted. Maybe he will be upset at her later for saving his life. But it isn’t just about him. Song-jun has seen and felt the way her King’s Mark slid into synchronicity with the magic in the tree. If fate exists, and now she knows it does, this is it. This is fate.
She just hopes that one day, if they’re lucky, Su Lan can forgive it.
Song-jun remembered the first time she’d seen him. Well, maybe not the first time. She supposed there could have been a time before she could recall that Su Lan had visited Hei’an City, but the first time she remembers was when she was thirteen years old.
It was her parents’ anniversary and every year they’d throw a small party, really though it was more of an excuse to drink with old friends, and for Song-jun to get to wear a pretty dress. Anyway… Songcai had suddenly bolted up right from the table and then promptly whispered to Yijun. Song-jun recalls the way her father’s expression had turned positively frightening in an instant. Leaning over, she inquired softly to Reian about what was happening but the healer also looked a bit surprised. Songcai excused himself, and after several minutes, he returned, this time, with a new guest.
This man had the brightest hair Song-jun had ever seen; coppery, and pretty, and at first glance she thought he must be a Prince from some far away land.
“Who’s that?” She asked her Uncle, who was staring with strangely fearful eyes at Yijun.
Reian had frowned, “You should probably ask your father…”
His tone made Song-jun bite her tongue, and as the evening continued, people moved back and forth between the dining room and the ballroom. The ballroom was where Xie Song-jun found her fathers conversing, somewhat heatedly, in the corner a little while later. The Prince with the red hair was nowhere to be found.
“Father?” Song-jun asked softly. Normally she wouldn’t interrupt them, but she was too curious who the stranger was, and why he was making them all have this reaction.
Yi-jun seemed to turn away, but Songcai smiled warmly at her and reached out his hand.
“Ah, sweetheart… are you getting tired? You know, you don’t have to stay the entire time if you need to get some rest. Did we say how lovely you look-“
“Wait a second,” Song-jun giggled. “What’s got everyone so nervous? Honestly, you sound as if you’re trying to send me away.”
She was mostly teasing, but then she caught a glance from Yi-jun over his shoulder, which told her maybe they really were trying to send her to bed early.
“Oh.” She frowned, “Who was that man that came in? Where did he go?”
To her surprise, Yi-jun came over and took hold of Song-jun’s shoulder gently, giving her a soft squeeze as he looked deeply, imploringly into her eyes.
“A’Jun, sometimes being curious isn’t a good thing. I need you to be okay with that. Do you understand?”
The Princess nodded. Her father seemed genuinely anxious. She didn’t like the way he smiled at her, with the sweetness not touching his eyes. Song-jun waited for him to walk away before she hurried to ask-
“What is it? You’re both… so scared. I don’t like it.”
Songcai looked conflicted. Seeing that it might cause tension between the two of them, the Princess quickly added;
“But, if father really thinks I shouldn’t know, then I suppose he’s only doing that for my sake.”
Songcai let out a long sigh, then he nodded.
“Your father… deeply wishes that the past could stay in the past. A’Jun, I know you’re old enough to understand when I say that often it is the loose ends of our story that cause us the most grief.”
Song-jun nodded, thinking she understood. So… that man, that Prince, he was someone from her father’s past? Songcai continued, very quietly;
“You remember your bedtime stories?” He smiled, “The tale of how your father and I, along with Wen Reian, found each other again?”
Songjun did, but she didn’t know why that mattered now. Songcai frowned ever so slightly and said-
“When your father told you of the curse which turned him to stone, did he ever say who cast it?”
The Princess searched her memory…
“A demon? An evil cultivator?”
Songcai nodded, “Mn. His name is Su Lan. Many years ago, he was as close to your father as family, but many things prevented them from reconciling. Unfortunately, that remains true to this day.”
“What? He… you mean, that man-“
“It’s too much for your father to talk about it,” Songcai warned gently. “The history between the two of them runs deep.”
Song-jun couldn’t believe this…
“Why is he here?!”
“A long time ago, I saved his life.”
“Wha-“
“Sometimes he requires more care. It has been a long time, so I assume he has only returned because he is in dire need of healing.”
Song-jun’s head hurt. Healing?! What could an immoral demon have any need for healing? And why had her father healed him in the first place?!
“A‘Jun…” her father said sternly. “I'm telling you this for only one reason. Because I refuse to keep any secrets from the ones I love. That being said, you know your father. You know how he is about his past, about the… painful aspects of it. I trust you to use your own best judgment when it comes to asking him about these things.”
The Princess nodded and then, because she felt immense relief that her father not only told her, but trusted her enough in this way, she hugged him tightly as he laughed.
“Ah, sweet girl. Don’t fret. Life continues on and in the end, we still have each other. What could be lovelier than that?”
Song-jun adored her fathers dearly. And yet, she couldn’t help but feel rage whenever she thought of Su Lan from then on. She hated the idea of him using her father’s generosity, their good hearts, when all he’d done for them was keep them apart. Song-jun knew that it must be complicated, she’d never seen that look on her father’s face, and she never did again. The idea that someone or something could scare Xie Yi-jun that much; frighten him, make him angry… Song-jun wanted to get rid of it and make it never come back.
Su Lan likely spent only several hours in Hei’an city that night. Song-jun gathered from Wen Reian later he’d needed healing from the two of them. Su Lan didn’t return for many years, and for the most part, Song-jun forgot about him. His appearances, however rare they were, were always accompanied by her father’s strange anxiety, and a horrible fear that Song-jun couldn’t name.
Since she could remember, she always prayed for the days to end sooner whenever the green-eyed serpent was around.