Su Lan

1304 years after The Long Night

Huichâng

It began just as any other day… Su Lan took the children down to the forest and let them play in the trees. He had to keep a close eye on the three little rascals, since they would try to follow their mother to the ocean if they caught any sight of her.

Yaeon had been hunting almost daily. She was faster in the water than Su Lan and could bring enough back to the cave whereas he was still learning how to breathe through his gills.

It always astounded Su Lan just how easy it came to the babies; their tails, claws, and senses, were all in their nature. He supposes it’s a good thing. Better to be born knowing what you are than be turned… he’s finding that the learning curve is rather steep.

Sometimes Yaeon will see him struggling- his fangs won’t retract and they’re tearing up his bottom lip, or his body temperature is too hot because he forgot he’s now cold-blooded and needs to regulate it by staying in the shade. She’s patient with him as he discovers himself. He loves her so much.

That day, he herded the children back onto the sand just as their mother was surfacing. He smiled and laughed, watching them slither towards the shore, only to skitter away as a large wave nearly flattened them.

At only six months old, all three could not only swim, but walk in their human forms, albeit badly. They almost never changed. Yaeon didn’t seem to see the need to make them. Honestly, the last time Su Lan saw his own legs was… well, it was some time ago.

Yaeon was beautiful as she emerged onto the beach, her hair dripping wet and both hands full of wriggling crabs… they were the babies’ favorite. Something about their hunter instincts being activated, though he will say, seeing their eyes turn to slits as they stalk the little sea critters across the cave floor before pouncing… brutal, if amusing.

Once Yaeon is halfway up the beach and away from the water, the children clamor after her, trilling and chirping to get her attention, and Su Lan has to pick Mèizi up to keep her from climbing her brothers.

Yaeon chirps back and calmly enters the cave, the two boys following closely in their hunger. The little ones ate every hour…

“Brrh?”

Su Lan looked down at the squirming naga pup in his arms. Mèizi stared up at him and blinked, confused as to why she had been plucked from the earth. Staring at his daughter always made Su Lan think of music. About the depths of feeling in her little round eyes, how she always seems three steps ahead of them all. He would have liked to share the music of Hei’an City with her, but maybe they would just have to make their own.

Yaeon turns the crabs loose and after setting Mèizi down, all three children begin their evening hunt. Yaeon curls up in her favorite spot by the trickle of water and beckons Su Lan closer. It feels like coming home when she wraps her arms around him, pillows her cheek on his shoulder, and twines their tails together.

Skittering, cracking sounds fill the dim cave as the babies eat, and when they’re done they join them to go to bed. The boys always have to be by their mother, usually curled up half under her tail, whereas Mèizi sleeps by their heads. Sometimes Su Lan wakes up and she’s made a nest for herself inside the strands of his hair…

Sleep comes easy. It always does with his family around. Time is meaningless, and the only thing that brings it back is the soft crashing of waves on the shore just a few meters away.

What awakens him that morning is not the babies shifting, nor is it the sun rising through the cave entrance and spilling onto the floor. What awakens him is Yaeon hissing loud and sharp directly in his ear, and then her whole body going completely rigid in fear.

Even before Su Lan’s eyes snap open, he can already hear and smell them.

Their torches burn and their voices echo off the cliffs, and for far too many seconds he wonders what language they’re speaking before he remembers it is his own.

What happens then is a blur, faded behind instincts of both rage and fear. All Su Lan remembers when he comes up for air is the sound of the babies shrieking into the night and the feeling of blood and flesh dripping from his fangs.

The humans are here to kill us, that’s all he thinks as he’s pressed into the ground by seven men, the end of his tail flicking until someone also gets a hold of that.

Su Lan barely understands anything besides his own base urges to kill and protect his family, so for a long moment, he doesn’t recognise the voice of the man standing before him.

“Su Lan…” Meng Bai chuckles, “My my, how you’ve let yourself go. My little cousin will be so elated to hear you are alive. For now.”

Something cold touches his skin and somewhere close by he hears Yaeon hissing in warning. Panic thrums deeply in his veins once again as he listens to the whines of pain and protest from her, as they hold her back too.

“I don’t pretend to know what kind of magic you possess,” Meng Bai says sharply, yanking him up by the hair to meet his gaze.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

His eyes still hold the same bloodthirsty vengeance they did when they were sixteen, and for a moment, besides the fear for his family, Su Lan regrets ever leaving Xie Yi-jun out there to face this horrible man alone.

I cannot let him hurt them…

Meng Bai grins, “So just to be safe, I’ve bound your powers to me. You cannot act without my word. How does it feel to be my puppet, beast? Oh, and if it wasn’t already clear, you will use your magic for me willingly, or I will kill your entire slithering family, starting with the children.”

Everything in the world is dulled by that threat. There is nothing more important than Su Lan’s children, nothing more important than their mother. That’s what he tells himself at night in the cell, after having spent the last two weeks slaughtering fields of soldiers from Hei’an City. In the back of his mind, he just hopes Yi-jun isn’t one of the ones he’s already killed, but in his heart Su Lan knows he’s not.

Meng Bai would never make death that easy for him.

Something about the anxiety of the situation has made Su Lan’s magic explode from within, maybe another instinct to danger, but he can only use it for Meng Bai, and he locks it and Su Lan away when he has no use for it.

Su Lan lays awake at night and listens for any distant calls… for Yaeon’s chirps and the children’s cries. He misses them so much that soon, it doesn’t matter how many of his own people he’s killed. He just wants his family back.

Meng Bai promises he hasn’t hurt them, but Su Lan doesn't believe it. There isn’t an ounce of that man’s soul that isn’t rotten and cruel. Su Lan goes ahead and does his work, accelerates his plans, in the hope that the sooner Meng Bai wins this horribly unfair war, the sooner his children are back in his arms.

He wonders how much they’ve grown.

He begs Meng Bai. Begs him for any proof of their survival. It’s a night where he locks Su Lan away in the towers of The Roaran Stronghold himself. A night after another day full of slaughter. Meng Bai never hurts him. He doesn’t need to. The threat he holds over Su Lan’s family is warning enough. The only reason he begs, is because it’s begun to hurt… being without them.

His new form, the Naga, he knows so little about, but there must be something in his DNA that aches to be away from his family. His mate. His wife.

It hurts more than anything he’s ever experienced.

Makes that rockfall feel like a feather-bed.

Meng Bai looks at Su Lan as if his begging is so foreign, so beneath him, as if he doesn’t hold everything Su Lan loves in a death-grip.

It’s days before he calls for him again, and this time it is to present Su Lan with a gift. For a moment, he thinks it is one of his children, or Yaeon, and his heart soars at the prospect of getting to hold any of them again. But then Meng Bai orders a box to be brought forward, and Su Lan’s heart drops to a pit in his stomach before he even looks inside.

“Did you know that your kind can regrow limbs?” Meng Bai says casually, “It truly wasn’t my intention to test it out, but I think it might become something of a hobby for me…”

A hand small enough to fit in Su Lan’s palm lays there at the bottom of the box. It’s been cut off just below the wrist. There is still blood on it.

“The girl tries to protect her brothers,” Meng Bai says. “This is hers. If you want to see more proof of their continued survival, I suggest you keep groveling like that. If not, shut up and do your work, pet.”

It’s the fear that eats away at Su Lan. The fear that he won’t get to his children in time to save them. The fear he will never see them again. The fear that they are in pain, and it’s all his fault, for bringing them into this world and then not protecting them.

Some nights he hates himself so much he wishes he was never born.

Su Lan doesn’t remember speaking to Meng Bai again for weeks. Then one night, he brings Su Lan out of the cell again and lets him look at a pile of old scrolls. It’s nonsense mostly, as Su Lan is too overwhelmed with grief to see straight, but Meng Bai quickly explains what it is he wants.

“A curse. I know your kind is capable of that and much more… I want the kind of curse that can entomb a person forever. I am going to turn that cousin of mine into something even less than a memory-”

A snarl tears from Su Lan’s throat at the mention of Xie Yi-jun. It’s strange. He feels like he hasn't thought about that boy in ages, but maybe there’s still some love lingering for him in Su Lan’s twisted heart. It shocks Meng Bai too, who’s been so used to his obedience recently.

Meng Bai’s surprise turns into a stony glare in mere moments, and that’s when he decides to truly remind Su Lan just what it is he’s doing here.

Su Lan may be winning this war for Meng Bai, but for Su Lan, he is saving his own life.

Yaeon’s screeching can be heard even before she is dragged inside. There is nothing more to be said about it; they’ve beaten her. She is pale, her hair matted and her tail bone-thin and bruised. The spark of her life, that glow and curiosity, has been replaced by tears and rings of blood around each wrist.

Yaeon’s cries are to be let go. Su Lan can hear them, their meaning. She is so confused, she is in so much pain. When she sees Su Lan, at first she looks right through him. For a moment, she flinches away.

Then a low trilling sound spills from Su Lan’s lips and he reaches out to her. Yaeon’s eyes widen and she responds. Searching…

Su Lan doesn't care anymore if they only have seconds to live, he must hold her.

Yaeon shivers and shakes in his arms as he tries not to hurt her. There are so many bruises on every part of her body, and Su Lan makes a mental note to return here someday and skin every last one of Meng Bai’s soldiers with his teeth.

Yaeon noses at his hair, then knocks her forehead against Su Lan’s, and it’s so familiar he almost imagines they’re back at the start of this all. Back to falling in love…

Then her hands grip him hard and her claws sink in. Suddenly she is screeching again, and in her frantic calls he can hear the truth. Begging. Yaeon is begging Su Lan to put a stop to all this. One look into her eyes and he realizes she is begging him to kill her.

To see her this way and know that he’s hurt her, that he’s the one who put the tears in her eyes… there are no words to describe how much Su Lan hates himself in that moment, as Yaeon soundlessly begs him to end her life, and he realizes he can’t because he loves her too much.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her.

Maybe it’s I’m sorry for ever bringing this danger to her in the first place, or for the constancy of his love which won’t let her die even now when she’s all but lifeless… but mostly it’s I’m sorry for once being human. Horrible creatures. Su Lan wishes she’d never crossed paths with a single one.

“Excellent, well. I hope now we’re on the same page. Curse Xie Yi-jun, or I’ll kill them all.” Meng Bai waves his hand and like that, Su Lan is dragged away again.

Some part of him knows that no matter what Meng Bai tells him, the promises he makes, there is no way he will ever see my family again. Su Lan only has the smallest shred of hope, given to him by a mad man, that they will be safe if he does this…

Meng Bai will win his war, and Su Lan will put to death his entire city.

At the end of the day, it is hope that killed them all.