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Dan Heng isn’t sure if he is free.
Officially, he is… pardoned, for lack of a better word, from his past sins and from banishment. But it’s impossible to be pardoned from the surge of memories, which surface like seafoam across the tide. The longer he remains on the Xianzhou Luofu, the more he remembers. It makes him anxious.
“I didn’t know you could climb up here!”
March 7th also makes him anxious, but for vastly different reasons.
“I didn’t either,” he says. It came to him slowly, then all at once: the nostalgia of scaling the walls that overlook the shore of Scalegorge Waterscape, of shoes scraping against stone and hushed laughter in the night. Perched atop the highest spire, both he and March look down at the statue of the High Elder. March dangles her legs, swinging them back and forth as she takes in the view. The salty spray of the sea cools their backs, the roaring of parted waves in the distance.
“It’s so beautiful,” she gasps in awe, clutching her camera.
If Dan Heng closes his eyes, he can almost submerge himself beneath the memories. Answering the call of the abyss, he can sink even deeper. There’s the warmth of someone’s hand in his, the brush of soft hair and a secret kept, a flower hairpin glinting in the moonlight. He thinks that his past self must have brought someone very dear to him up here, once upon a time.
Click. The sound of a photo being taken. Dan Heng opens his eyes to find March staring.
“You okay?” She asks softly.
No. I think I’m suffocating. “Just wondering if you got my good side.” He deadpans.
She laughs, giving him a playful shove. It’s too easy to be around March-- she acts as if nothing has changed. As if he isn’t currently bearing the weight of shimmering horns, silk robes, and a long overdue sense of duty. “Now I’m not telling,” she teases, waggling the newly-developed polaroid in her hand. “You’ll have to bargain for that information, mister!”
He sighs, something in his chest so readily willing to entertain her. He’s never been good at denying March. “What do you want?”
Her smile falters for a moment, like she really didn't expect him to give in so easily. There’s an interesting expression that crosses her face: something that’s a mix of panic and eagerness. “I want to know more about you.” It falls out in a rush, like he’ll rescind his offer if she’s too slow.
“If it’s a bargain, you should pick something more valuable.” He mutters sullenly.
“It's valuable to me.” She tells him.
Dan Heng looks at her. March takes a renewed interest in his photo, holding it tight as it flutters in the breeze. “But you don’t have to say anything if you don't want to!” She laughs nervously. The paper creases under her fingertips.
The Imbibitor Lunae’s memories are not a topic he feels comfortable breaching right now. They are phantom pains of the heart, aching just beneath the skin, a kind of sadness he doesn’t have the bravery to fathom yet. His childhood is no better, the better half of his life spent in darkness, isolation and dreams. But March is trying to understand him so that he doesn't have to suffer the burden of doing so on his own.
Eventually he sighs. “I can’t… tell you.”
She deflates, wistfulness caught in puppy-dog eyes. Regret squeezes him in an instant. It’s just not fair for him to accept her overwhelming kindness without anything in return. He has to give her something. He wants to.
“But,” he blurts. “My horns… and my tail. You can… touch them.”
March stares at him. And then, her face lights up in that all too familiar way, brightened with curiosity and absolute glee. “Seriously?!” She beams like she’s won the galactic lottery.
“Seriously.” When he looks at her, there is something other than phantom pain in his heart. He doesn't have the bravery to fathom that, either. Not yet.
March scoots closer to him, giddy. She tucks the photo under her thigh so as to not let it fly away, and Dan Heng pulls his feelings back beneath the depths before they all bubble out of him. With delicate hands, she reaches up and begins trailing her hand down the length of one of his horns. She gasps almost reverently at the sensation.
“It’s like a glass of cool water,” she says in complete fascination. “Smooth, but slippery.”
“Mhm,” he hums, eyes fluttering. Without thinking, he finds himself tipping towards her for easier access, craving more of her touch.
At his subtle encouragement, she continues her quest along his features, pausing briefly at the golden band that wraps near the bottom before continuing downward and finally meeting the base where scale meets flesh. Dan Heng nearly can’t suppress the full body shudder that overtakes him as she brushes across tender skin. She strokes her thumb along the prominence of cheekbone, gently tilting his head to face her directly. “Did you know your eyes glow now?”
“I have no idea how they do that,” he answers honestly.
She giggles, trailing her finger down his jawline. She drops it across his shoulder, down his arm and all the way down to the thick coil of his tail. She pets it gently, feeling the fine detail of scales and the softness of fur. Traitorously, it sways back and forth in a display of happiness he’s glad she doesn't know about yet. There’s a sudden and overwhelming instinct to wrap his tail around her wrist, around her waist, pull her close and indulge in her attention that he barely suppresses.
March, for her part, remains oblivious. “I knew it,” she murmurs to herself, voice so soft that he almost doesn't hear it. “You’re beautiful. You always are.”
Dan Heng swallows. He wills his voice not to come out breathy. “Is that how my photo turned out?”
She blinks, as if coming out of a trance. After a moment, her face turns an intriguing shade of red. “Oh! Yeah, let me—”
The moment she tugs the photo out from under her thigh, the wind grips it tight and yanks it from her grasp, sending it fluttering rapidly through the sky.
“Noooo!” She cries. Frantically, she tugs at Dan Heng’s silken sleeve. “Dan Heng! We have to hurry and catch it before it flies into the ocean!”
He watches as the small white square shrinks into the distance, and for some reason, feels oddly at peace. At least one version of him has felt release. “It’s okay,” he says. “We can always take another one.”
“But I really liked how it came out!” She whines. “The sunset lit your face perfectly— we’d have to wait a whole day to retake it!”
She says it as if a day is forever and not a mere drop in the bucket. Strangely enough, the thought doesn't make him feel sad or lonely like it logically should; it makes him smile. He thinks that he could spend that tiny forever with her, over and over and over again.
“I don’t mind.” It's the closest to an “I love you” he can get for now, and he turns away to hide his grin as she shakes him by the shoulders, lamenting her lost masterpiece.