Chapter Text
Gēgē is due for a scare.
That is the thought running through the little monkey’s head first thing in the morning.
His brother is already gone, as usual. Wukong has long mastered the art of leaving the nest they end up sharing most of the nights without waking him up in the process, leaving Mihou fast asleep while he goes about his kingly duties. He does not mind, of course; Mihou is not a morning person, and anyone trying to make him stir before he is ready to do so will be awarded a bite at the very least, even if it is his brother. Those are no joke because his fangs are even sharper than the King’s.
So, his brother has made the right decision, in the grand scheme of things. That does not mean he has to like it, hence the oncoming prank. Wukong hates it when he hides, gets twitchy and flits around the entire island like a madman until his little shadow is found and is back in his arms. It’s great. He gets extra attention for a few more days, his brother hesitant to let him out of his sight until he feels it is safe to leave him be once again. After that, Mihou cannot repeat it for a few months, lest he makes the older monkey have a heart attack — not that he is ever at true risk of it. Not only is Wukong immortal, but he’s never been even close to having one. Yet. Mihou can tell, he can hear the other’s heartbeat after all.
Mihou gets up very slowly. If there are things he has to attend to, as Huaguoshan’s Prince, he will see to them later. Whenever there is stuff for him to do, it is normally only after lunch. His brother’s Generals are well aware he will not properly function until after a certain hour, they have figured that out long ago — and so, they do not waste their time trying to get him to cooperate any earlier than that. Once again, it’s great. He gets to mess around to his heart’s content for a few hours on the daily. Those are usually spent trying to find a quiet place to spend time in amidst the very alive, very loud mountain that is his and his brother’s home — he does it so he has a space to use whenever he tries to figure out his ears.
Ones that pop out with enough force to bounce when he tries to force the collar of a tunic over his head. It’s the one that’s been left out for him, along with pants and a dark sash. And shoes, that he will not wear. Why should he do so when Wukong doesn’t do it either? It is only fair that he forgets to put them on since there was no one to supervise him and force him into it.
Mihou lounges in the messy nest for at least half an hour after he is done. Only then he rises to find his first victims for the day. The Generals might be busy, only making time for his occasional training in the afternoon, but that does not mean they will be spared from his pestering for even a day.
With a snicker, he leaves the room.
There are way too many sounds in the Palace for him to be able to distinguish where exactly specific monkeys will be, but it is not a problem. The Generals have a daily schedule written on enchanted silk parchment that can be changed on the daily. All he has to do is get a hold of one of them to check where each one of them is supposed to be. Mihou knows just where to find one, too.
No one stops him when he tears down a hallway, running full speed. The court and servants are well acquainted with the Monkey King’s little brother, knowing he is as much — if not more — of a trickster as his older brother. They do not try to stop him, shaking their heads (some with fondness, others with disapproval) as he runs past. Mihou eventually reaches a dead end, a corner with two half pillars that lead into the ceiling. Climbing up one of them is easy with his claws, and its surface full of grooves and carvings. On the very top, there is a hole that leads into the hollow space on the ceiling, one that he has long been using for sneaking around and will continue to do until someone notices his little secret passage. Something the little monkey doubts will happen anytime soon.
From up there, is easy to get to the Generals’ quarters, and even easier to break into Ma’s room. She usually leaves her scroll behind, not because she forgets about it (which she totally does) but because she argues that Liu is there to remind her anyway. It’s fair enough; they’re never too far from each other, one way or another.
Mihou finds the silky parchment on top of her messy desk. He only has to touch it to activate the spell, watching words pop out on the off-white background. The macaque reads it thoughtfully before stalking off without a care. There is no one around to stop him from having his fun.
He finds Ma still inside the Palace. She is meant to head for the orchards outside and supervise the monkeys there while they stock up on fruit for the next few days. They can do that alone, sure, but it is a lot easier when there are no petty fights breaking out — something the marshal will be there to ensure does not happen. For now, though, she is pestering Liu as he makes his way to whatever assignment he has for the morning.
“Oh, come on! Don’t be such a sourpuss,” the gibbon teases, a long arm reaching for her fellow marshal’s shoulder. “That will take what, half an hour? Then you can come join us outside!”
“I would rather not.” For all his stoicism and presence, Liu’s voice is surprisingly soft. It’s almost funny to hear him speak.
Mihou can understand his hesitancy. The orchards are loud. Chaotic. The unpredictability of it bothers the little monkey enough that he usually forgoes even passing by the place if he can avoid it. Liu is much the same in that regard. He sympathizes, but that does not matter now; there are more important things to attend to. He runs full speed at the marshals’ turned backs, leaving them little time to react. There is only the clicking of his claws on old marble flooring before he jumps up Liu’s back and crawls all the way to the monkey’s shoulder where he sits himself comfortably. Mihou eyes the older monkey’s red, flowy cape all the while. The day he manages to steal this thing, he’ll be unstoppable.
“Hello,” he chirps as innocently as he can muster.
Ma laughs in delight. Liu frowns.
“Mihou!” the gibbon exclaims. She is loud, but he loves her too much to actually make a fuss about it. Mihou lets her run a hand through his growing white mane, not even biting her in the process. That’s how much he likes Ma.
“Marshal Ma.” He answers in mock seriousness. She matches his tone perfectly, face smoothing into a serious one in the blink of an eye. Liu doesn’t need to do the same. His face is like that naturally. “Marshal Liu.”
Liu mutters a it’s too early for this before engaging, “Should you not be attending to your duties, my Prince?”
“What duties?” He asks seriously, moving his head so his ears bounce up and down. He sees Ma do the same out of the corner of his eye, sans ears. “You know very well I don’t have anything to do until the afternoon.”
“How could I have forgotten.” Liu’s tone is completely flat. He is the one supposed to train him in some basic self-defense today.
Mihou giggles.
“Is there anything we can help you with, Mihou?” Ma’s offer is genuine.
“Ugh,” he flops over Liu’s shoulder. The monkey is quick to wrap a hand over his torso so he won’t completely roll backwards. Mihou slips a little white lie, “I can’t find gēgē. Have you seen him?”
“Wukong’s in a meeting,” Ma chirps.
“The Monkey King,” Liu corrects, ever formal even when the situation does not call for it, “is supposed to be meeting with the Archivist about how to organize his more recent… findings.”
Wukong does love to bring unexplainable junk back to the mountain whenever he steps away for even half an hour. It’s entertaining enough, if bothersome when it all starts to pile up. That is why they have the Archivist now. And the vaults. His motivation for asking lies beyond the innocent request to know where his brother is, though — he had some idea of it after pestering Wukong the previous night, but knowing it was a meeting did not help him. Now, Mihou knew where it was being held, and would do his best to avoid that part of the island thoroughly as he searched for the perfect hiding spot.
“Hmm. That… could take a while, right?”
One look at both of the marshals’ faces is enough of an answer. Great. He has time.
“You could accompany one of us if you wish to?” Ma offers. The suggestion is welcome, but he already has other plans in mind.
“No, thank you.” Mihou jumps to her arm, a great halfway point to the ground, before completely jumping off. “See you later!”
He does not linger to see Ma’s mild disappointment or Liu’s apparent relief, too busy running off the same way he came in.
Huaguoshan is many things. Paradisiacal is one of them. Fantastical is another. Home, above all.
A mess, at the moment.
This is mostly Wukong’s fault, really. He knows he is not supposed to bring any more stuff he finds back to the mountain, but it cannot be helped. The one thing that stands out about mortals when in comparison with long-lived demons is their endless creativity. They’re always creating new objects, new artifacts that evolve and change much more often than demonkind’s own. They are just as valuable as ancient weapons and various spell scrolls that he finds in his short adventures just beyond the island’s boundaries. When he manages to get a hold of one of those new things, of course he brings them back home; it is the one logical step, after all.
The Archivist does not seem to agree if this meeting is any indication. He is a fiercely motivated monkey — that much the King had always known — and has always had a knack for organizing things, which is what made him be offered the position in the first place. He was organizing the ‘random junk’ Wukong brought before he even asked, one way or another. But the issue is, he is not even close to figuring out the layout of the whole extensive collection the Monkey King has amassed over a few centuries... and that is without Wukong bringing in any more finds.
“My King,” the spider monkey sighs, massaging his temples as if dealing with a massive headache. “At this rate, another vault will be needed. There is barely any space left on the two existing ones as it is.”
Behind the Archivist — he does have a name, and it is Zimo — a little monkey yaoguai sits by a pile of harmless-looking artifacts, sifting through it and jotting down information on a scroll that looks strangely oversized in her hands. She makes serious, hilarious faces at each new discovery, muttering under her breath as she does. That little girl is Zimo’s daughter, which he is slowly teaching to appreciate his newly found craft as well. Watching her work is immensely more entertaining than listening to her father’s scolding words if he is to be honest.
“You have not heard a word of what I have just said, have you?”
Wukong blinks, suddenly aware again. “Uh–“
Zimo sighs again. The King wonders how the Spider monkey manages to do it so many times in a row.
“Yingyue!” He calls, and the little monkey in the background perks up. He does not say anything else, but whatever expression he has on his face makes the girl nod determinedly and scurry off somewhere else.
He scoffs, “You are no fun.”
“This is not supposed to be fun,” Zimo scolds him as if he were the child.
The Monkey King frowns, crossing his arms over his chest as he settles up to give the amount of attention deemed acceptable to the Archivist’s words. His thoughts linger on the girl —Yingyue — for a moment more. She is a young yaoguai, still a child as far as he is concerned, and around the same age as his little brother, if he recalls correctly. It was strangely rare to see a demon this young around the island, as there were very little monkey yaoguai that had lived long enough to really consider being parents living at Huaguoshan. Maybe he should nudge Mihou her direction so he would make a friend? Gods know he could use some more of those, instead of following Wukong everywhere like a shadow.
Mihou runs through treetops, wades through shallow streams, and scrabbles through silky, lush green grass as he makes his way across the island. He has been at it for an hour or so, and by now he’s very far out from the main peak where the Palace and vaults are located. He ran into many other monkeys in his path, many of whom had asked where he was heading, none of which he answered. His tendency to run and hide is well known amongst the Monkey King’s troop, but then again, is not as if any of the monkeys can stop him from doing it. Not after the marshals have been fooled, which means all the generals will be as well.
After around half an hour of more swinging through trees (and rolling through dirt, to make shiny white fur less visible), he finally stops to take in his surroundings. This is a part of the island he has never been in: there are tall, old trees that grow around a clearing perfectly in the center. Most of them have what looks to be big, ripe fruit blossoming on their canopies, emitting a sweet scent that has Mihou’s mouth watering. The old bark is more difficult to climb than the trees in the orchard closer to Shuilian Cave, but manageable, and the rewards are sweeter than anything he would have gotten there.
There are oranges and plums, and cherries and pears, and apples and peaches. That last one, he sort of despises, to gēgē’s great despair. If there is one fruit the Monkey King is known for loving, it’s peaches; that his little shadow could not care less for them had nearly been a cause for plenty of mental breakdowns during the first few years Mihou had been around. Wukong has told him the story many times, of how he kept attempting to make Mihou enjoy the overly sweet fruit to no avail until he had been forced to tell the king of his dislike himself.
(“I swear, Mihou!” His brother exclaimed, looking out at the distance while he recounted the tale for the hundredth time. “I tried everything: I gave you the peaches mushed, pureed, even as juice. You wouldn’t give it even a chance!”
He giggled from his spot in his brother's arms as they cuddled to sleep in the mostly shared nest. With his ears near enough to his brother's heart when he laid his head on the heart-shaped patch of fur on Wukong’s chest, he was very close to snoozing even without the story. “What, then?”
“Well, I kept trying,” he snorted, “obviously.”
“Mhm.”
“Until one day, when I brought you a plate of sliced peaches. Something was telling me that it was going to be my last attempt, you know?” Wukong continued, gesturing animatedly. Despite that, Mihou’s eyes were slowly sliding closed. “You looked right at me, this little frown on your face, and you know what you said?”
“Hm?”
“Why must you insist on feeding me something I despise, brother?” He mimicked a smaller, higher-pitched voice. “Word for word! And you were only a cub! It was insane, I thought I was going crazy.”
Mihou chuckled, now more than ready to surrender to sleep. “I know.”
“Of course you do,” his brother teased, in a way he could almost see the way he rolled his eyes in his mind’s eye. “You remember it, don’t you?”
He wasn’t sure if he would call it a memory, exactly, but he had no better way to describe it. He could hear the words in his head, and imagine the situation, but it was as if he was seeing it from some point outside his body, instead of through baby eyes. It was around that time that Wukong realized his sleepy state, hurrying to finish his tale.
“Never tried to give you peaches again, even though it pains me. Ugh!” He held a hand against his forehead in mock distress. “Still not over that.”
“I know. You cried.”
He felt Wukong splutter underneath him. “That’s just a rumor!”
“Mhm.”
“Mhm.”
“Mhm,” he rumbled, more than drifting off by this point.
Seeing that, Wukong exhaled fondly. “Good night, xiǎoyǐngzi.”
“Hm. G’night.”
The last thing he felt was a hand rubbing circles across his back. That and a soft kiss pressed on his mane right as he teetered at the edge of unconsciousness.
It was a good memory.)
Mihou leaves the peaches alone. There are more interesting fruits around for him to gobble up. And that he does. When he is done, he lounges in one of the taller branches, under the sunlight that filters through the leaves, leaving mixed shadowy patches in their wake. Soon, he will go up the nearby cliff to find a little cave to hole himself up in, but he can wait here for the time being.
“No,” Wukong vetoes. “That stays.”
Another sigh. By now, he is keeping a tally of it: 23 in the span of three hours or so. It is not looking so good for him. They are not even two piles in, and it’s already been hours of an insufferable back and forth. All that, after the longest, most mind-numbing lecture the monkey has ever had to sit through. He cannot blame the spider monkey for it, as much as he wants to; he is only doing the job he has been asked to do, and he is doing it well. Wukong is the one who does not really value the intricacies of the archival process — of the surveying, the arrangement of the seemingly never-ending material he keeps bringing back, of creating a system for categorizing the items… of the preserving of it all. He shudders. The Archivist has ranted about that part for a long, long while, criticizing the state he leaves his finds in; questioning why he even bothers bringing some of the stuff that is beyond saving. Just hearing about it is exhausting, enough that it makes him wonder how the other monkey stands it.
Well, maybe he does not, considering he has called for this meeting turned lecture.
He feels as though Zimo is instants away from kicking him out of the vault. It does not have much of an order right now, but he remembers the Archivist saying something about eventually organizing it by danger risk — for that, he will need a whole other one anyway, so Wukong isn’t sure why he is complaining so much.
Although, maybe he is starting to understand the need for more space… there are piles of artifacts that reach ceiling high all over the expansive room, and by the rate his evaluation of what Zimo can and cannot get rid of, getting through them is not going to be a fast (or easy) task. Unless he gives the monkey complete freedom over it all, which… does not sound that bad. There is still a whole library of scrolls to be looked through as well, and although Zimo has already started on that one and is well on his way to sorting it out, Wukong really does not want anything to do with that particular pickle.
“My King,” the Archivist starts, putting an item (a cool-looking rock he found on the continent shores when taking a Nimbus stroll) back into the pile with unnecessary force, “at this rate, I will never be able to finish organizing this vault. Or any other.”
“Yeaah,” he drawls, reaching for the rock to slip it into his pocket. Why did he dump it here, anyway? “I am starting to see it. Maybe it will be best if I let you decide this by yourself.”
Zimo cocks his head, a gesture so uncharacteristic that Wukong almost bursts out laughing. “How so?”
“It will be probably faster — and easier — to let you decide what should stay in the vaults and what can be thrown out without my interference,” he explains. “You are the expert, after all. And I will probably not even remember something is missing after you get it done.”
If Wukong has to be honest, half of the things he dumps in the vaults are harmless little trinkets that he might as well take with him to put in his room in the Palace. They are being a nuisance here but will not be one for him. Probably. And his brother complained about the King’s room needing more stuff in it just the other day — in the little shadow’s own words, it was ‘just too plain’.
The Archivist hums. “That might be the best solution.” He ponders the piles around with a newfound light in his eyes, and just like that Wukong knows this is the best decision he could have made. As much as he does not care for the state of the artifacts, he very much cares for his subjects’ contentedness. “Do I have your full permission to organize the vaults as I see fit?”
Wukong nods, “Go ahead.”
Zimo smiles to himself. Yup, definitely a good decision.
There is indeed a cave on the cliffside. It’s carved on a nearly sheer rock face, a waterfall coming right from the rocky opening and falling many meters below to a big pool of water. It is voluminous, but he is pretty sure a fall is survivable. There are no rocks at the bottom. And Wukong has made sure he is immortal as well, anyway.
Mihou scales up to it with trepidation. This one cave is a lot different from the ones he has holed up in before. The water is new, of course, but there is more inside. Moss-covered stones that he can use to cross the water, little shiny bugs, and some sort of mushroom that seems to faintly glow in the dark. It’s amazing, almost better than his own room in the Palace. Mihou could live here happily.
He wastes no time before he starts playing in his newfound hidey hole. There are tasks for him to do in the afternoon, yes. He does not care. It’s not like Liu will not be glad to skip a day training him, either way. No matter what he does, the snow monkey never seems to really enjoy his company.
So, this is as good a distraction as any. Soon enough his brother will be here to panickily collect him, and then there will be a few more days of a break for the generals and marshals, too. Nothing will go wrong.
Mihou plays on the waterfall — skips across stones and splashes on freezing cold water — until he is tuckered out, at which point he finds a convenient crack in the rock face and squeezes himself in there for a nap. Straining his ears, he can hear gēgē’s heartbeat growing faster, far away. It is enough to reassure he will soon be there.
Mihou lets himself drift away into a dreamless slumber.
He is barely out of his meeting with the Archivist when Liu finds him.
“Your Majesty, may I have a moment?” The red-faced monkey calls, pleading for his attention. Wukong almost wants to dismiss him, but the concern on his face makes him pause.
“Yes, Liu?”
“Have you seen the little Prince? He asked about your whereabouts earlier and I directed him here, but it seems he is not with you anymore.”
Just like that, Wukong knows it’s one of those days. Sometimes, Mihou deems it amusing to simply hide away as if he’s playing a funny game all across the island. He suspects it is his brother’s way of asking for more attention, but it stresses him out immensely whenever it happens.
“He’s not been here at all today.” He answers, seeing Liu frown as well. “Have you looked anywhere else?”
“Not yet, my King.” The Marshal seems to have come to the same conclusion. “Do you wish for me to call for a search?”
His heart wants to say yes, but he understands the generals are busy with other assignments. Mihou will most likely be easy to find as usual, so there is no need to pull them away from it.
“Not yet,” Wukong answers instead. “I will look for him myself.”
“Allow me to help you, my King,” Liu pleads. “He was to be my responsibility for the afternoon.”
Wukong feels a flare of anger at the soft admittance but is quick to smother it down. It is not Liu’s fault; his little brother is a very slippery individual when wants to be, and possesses a boundless curiosity and energy that might as well be an inherited trait. He was just as bad as Mihou at that age, only less fragile, most likely due to his nature as a stone monkey.
“Very well,” the Monkey King agrees with a nod. They do not linger for a second, all but storming off in search of Mihou.
He has high hopes that the little shadow will be easy to find, as he usually is. Mihou has a few preferred hiding spots that he cycles between, and he rarely deviates from them. But then, after he looks at every place he can think of — a few smaller caves inside Shuilian Cave, a few holes in isolated trees, the King’s own wardrobe, and even a cave carved on a cliff — until the sun has set, and neither he nor Liu have found a sign of the little white monkey, he starts getting desperate. His heartbeat pounds against his own ears as Liu calls Ma, Ba, and Beng to aid in the search. They guess ‘the Little Prince’ has ventured out further this time.
They ask the monkey troop first thing. The Suns point King and Generals to the south of the island, and they stop every once in a while to ensure they remain on the right track. Wukong apologizes profusely to each and every monkey that is disturbed during their nightly routine, but they all claim not to mind — they are all fond of the little monkey and more than used to his antics. It settles something rattled in his chest, but it does not take away all the anxiety over his little shadow. This is the longest he has been missing, ever.
By the time they reach the last monkey settlement in the region, Wukong is starting to feel a little faint. He sits heavily upon a rock, disconcerted. Ba takes it as their cue to look for anything that can help. They come back with an off-white monkey perched on their shoulder.
“Suyin believes she might be of help,” they announce as they make eye contact with the King. The perched monkey chitters.
“Of course. Let’s hear her out.” His voice sounds steadier than he feels. Wukong does not even try to get up, in fear his legs will not hold him if he does.
Suyin clambers off Ba’s shoulder, leaving the orangutan in the dust. She bows deeply at his feet, standing on all fours once she is done. In the chittering language of the original troop of mortal monkeys, she explains how she was the one living the furthest out on the isolated settlement, and had heard a commotion across the trees during the afternoon. She says she saw a white monkey swinging across the treetops but had not thought to stop him, believing him to be a fully grown adult — an understandable mistake, seeing as Mihou was big compared to other cubs of an age equivalent to his. Being a celestial primate, it was just how it was.
“I saw him go that way, King,” she points in a general direction. In the distance, he can make out a cliff. There seems to be a waterfall spilling from somewhere on the side, which means there most likely is a cave there.
Odds are, his little shadow is hiding there.
“Thank you, Suyin.”
She lets out a happy chirp, bowing again before she is dismissed. Wukong has to restrain the urge to just fly to the distant cliff before she can even turn away. It is decided that he will go to the cliff on his own first to see if Mihou truly is hiding there while the Generals stay behind to cover the ground leading up to it.
He zips away on a somersault cloud before the generals can get their last words in. There simply is no time to lose.
When Mihou wakes up, he knows he is going to be ill very soon. The tiny space he has holed himself into is uncomfortably damp, and he can do nothing but tremble with a cold that seeps into his bones. Putting a hand against his own forehead accomplishes nothing, of course; if he does have a fever, he is not the one who can measure it. The back of his throat tickles like it does whenever he is about to get a cough — something that happens a lot more than he cares to admit.
Maybe playing in freezing cold water and then laying down to sleep in the wilderness has not been Mihou’s brightest idea, but it is too late to cry about it now.
With a grumble, Mihou pokes his head out of his hiding spot, unfurling luminous ears. The fast heartbeat that he heard far away a few hours prior is now rapidly approaching. He can hear the whoosh of wind that accompanies it, which means Wukong is most definitely riding his Nimbus to get there faster. Reassured, he tucks himself back into the hole to wait until his brother arrives. He has the energy for a little chase before he surrenders, but he has to maintain the element of surprise until Wukong gets there if he wants to have the slightest chance of escaping a few times. It will be fun, at the very least.
He closes his eyes for a minute, and the next thing he knows, he is startling awake from the sound of something heavy stomping at the cave’s mouth. There are splashing sounds as the newcomer wades through shallow water, forgoing the moss-covered stones that lead across the river. Mihou lets his ears flare out to confirm the intruder’s identity, although there is not much of a need to do so — the frantic heartbeat is clearly his brother’s.
“Mihou?” Wukong calls, sounding almost out of breath.
He remains silent, but his clothes rustle as he moves within the crack in the wall, seeking to get a better position for a running head start. This kind of sound, while easy for him to detect, would usually be completely missed by beings with a more usual hearing range like gēgē. In the stifling silence of the cave, it all but echoes like the explosion from a spell that backfired. Wukong is approaching in no time, steady footsteps stopping right in front of his hiding spot. A shadow falls upon it, and just like that Mihou knows he has been found — there is no way he is going down quietly, though.
“Mihou,” his brother repeats, tone between relieved and scolding. “I know you’re there. Come on out.”
He slowly peeks out of the hole, extricating himself from there while keeping an eye on the golden monkey right outside. Wukong looks as panicked as usual, but his frown twitches into a little smile as soon as he sees Mihou emerge. His brother opens his arms in a clear invitation–
Mihou dodges it, weaving between the older monkey’s legs as he tries to make a grab for him. He emerges on the shallow river behind Wukong, dipping his almost-dry fur back into the cold water. It forces a sneeze out of him. His brother narrows his eyes, more likely already seeing how this is going to end: with him having to play nurse for an ailing Mihou for a few days as he gets back on his feet. He does not look happy, but that is not going to deter the little monkey. He jumps from stone to stone nimbly, taking advantage of his smaller, lighter frame and the fact that his brother is weighted down by full king regalia he had been wearing, now slightly soaked by river water. He nearly slips a few times, yet that is not enough to aid Wukong in his capture. Mihou laughs and laughs as he sees his older brother fumble with something he should have grown long accustomed to. It’s fun.
The not-quite game of chase lasts more than Mihou expected, Wukong missing him by inches many times, his lunges as lightning quick as always, but unsteady — likely because of the nervousness of the previous search. By the fourth miss, his brother’s temper looks like it is flaring up.
“Mihou.” He hisses. “Stop.”
The command is spoken in the tone that leaves no rule for arguing. One Wukong usually only uses when he needs to be the Monkey King instead of just his big brother. It makes him falter, and the next jump between stones comes out wrong. He lands crookedly on uneven, slippery ground, hears a snap, loses his footing, and–
Everything feels as if it’s frozen for a moment. The sounds are muffled, bouncing off of his ears instead of driving themselves in as usual; time seems to slow to a crawl, every moment stretching indefinitely in front of wide, golden eyes. Mihou hears splashes, faint and almost distorted, hurry to the place he has just slipped out of.
“Mihou!” yells the faraway voice of his brother. He is reaching a hand out to him, splayed as if he is trying to grab onto anything that can slow his descent.
He misses.
Mihou tumbles backwards, past the mouth of the cave and into the voluminous lake below.