Chapter Text
7. I can...
So...
...I suppose I just... pray?
Okay. O god of freedom, hear me if thou will. This is a form of prayer in most worlds; may it be received in the intended spirit.
Unless it was you who tore us apart. In which case, I... I wish you aeons of suffering, so that you might know a fraction of my pain.
...I’m sorry. It’s probably not you. I’m just... lost, you know? This body is so lumbering and fragile. It feels pain in a way I never have before, and I don’t know how to make it stop hurting or stop crying, and... and I’m literally lost. I don’t have the slightest idea where my twin was taken, or who or what the Sustainer is, or where I’m supposed to look... Khaenri’ah is pretty clearly gone, but the land doesn’t look... particularly war-torn. I don’t know how long it’s been. The closest thing I have to a map is drawings Paimon helped me make in the sand. I don’t know where or how to start looking.
I don’t know what I’m doing, I guess is what I’m saying. And so this is a prayer for guidance. But if you can spare it, this is also a prayer for power, for allies, for... anything I can use. I need options. There are too many things I can’t do anymore.
Most of my old powers are... I don’t know. Not gone, exactly, but they may as well be. I can’t sense where my twin is. I can’t fly any more, either. There’s a lot I can’t do right now.
But I can look for answers. This world is full of mysteries. Maybe if I solve the right one—
“Oh no.”
Too many people. Way too many people. Three clan soldiers in front of her, moving to flank. The footsteps behind her numbered at least three more, including a samurai in heavy armour if the metallic clanks were any indication.
She was already out of breath from her scrape with the pair of lieutenants in the bathhouse. It had been a close, ugly thing, the floor just slippery enough to send them sprawling as she changed direction on them. Her satchel of blinding powder and smoke pellets had been torn off in the scuffle, its contents ruined by the water, and she hated herself for her carelessness. She’d discarded the slippers—the attendant disguise had been perfect, she was sure it had been perfect; how had she been made?... no, no time for that—for better traction, but running barefoot through the rock garden and outside into the gravel hurt and she was nowhere near out of trouble.
Staying still was death. (So many years of training, to curb this exact instinct to freeze up, to stop and take stock.) She feinted, running for a gap between two soldiers, swerved out of their grasp at the last minute. Another soldier dive-tackled at her direction; she ducked low and - ow, her ribs - he tripped over her.
The treeline was just ahead; scant cover but better than none.
(The good news was she had proof the Ishida clan were corrupt, laundering bandit money through their bathhouse operation. The bad news was that if they caught her they would interrogate her and she would not hold out for more than a few days, if she was being totally honest.)
Her ears picked up the whistle of a crossbow, and years of practice kicked in: she shifted into an erratic zigzag run, alternating long and short strides, the footwork from Dragonfly Kata-bunkai but adjusted to her shorter frame. The first bolts missed by miles but the subsequent ones were steadier, landing where she otherwise would have been. She passed the treeline.
Her strides were fast, but... not fast enough to outpace half a dozen grown adults pursuing her in a straight line.
She was not going to outrun them. No smoke pellets. The trees were not thick enough to hide in.
She felt woozy at the thought. There was only so hard she could push herself, and in a competition of sheer brute force...
No. Keep running. Ignore the sound of them closing in behind you, just keep running you useless little runt.
(Nakanishi would scold her for being so harsh on herself. Nakanishi could stuff it, she was doomed, she was allowed to hate herself a little right now.)
She stumbled over a branch, caught herself, kept running: her speed hadn’t dipped but her ankle felt wrong, wobbling each time her footfalls put weight on it.
She was not going to outrun them.
She bit down tears. Crying would impede her breathing and she needed all the oxygen she could get.
The next time she tripped, she fell, forearms scraping raw as she landed. She clambered to her feet, knowing her pursuers were only moments away, and, and...
And her eyes stung.
Her lungs ached.
It was suicide, but... but she allowed herself two seconds. Two seconds for a world of thoughts to race through her head.
She wasn’t supposed to give up. She wanted to so badly, but she wasn’t supposed to... and she had a mission. She had people counting on her. She had a stupid, awful, corrupt minor clan to expose, and so it didn’t matter, couldn’t matter.
Yes, this was an endurance contest against people twice her size (ugh, lucky assholes). Yes, they were too fast to outrun, too strong for her to take in a fight. Yes, yes, ‘never get into a contest of brute force’, great advice. But Sensei Nakanishi had always said that wasn’t the point: soldiers, samurai were strong; ninja found a hint of weakness and tore into it.
The chances of escaping from here were slim, but it was still possible... that’s what she’d trained for, wasn’t it?
It had been two seconds. No time left to waste. She stumbled to her feet—
—and something in the wind changed, and—
—she was no longer there.
To her pursuers, scarcely thirty feet away, it looked like she had disappeared like dust in the wind.
She woke up in a bed in the Kamisato estate with no memory of how she had gotten there. A cup of ginseng-rhizoma tea, her sensei’s signature brew, sat on the dresser, still warm. Her skin was purple and black with bruises. Attached to her thigh, where her powder satchel had once sat, was a little teal trinket she’d never seen before.
He was wounded, but such pain was nothing new. He paid it no mind.
Opening eyes that were his for the first time in—no, why remember unnecessarily?—opening eyes that were his, he surveyed the two creatures standing before him.
General and lieutenant, unmistakeably. They looked like humans, but that was not what they had been in battle just minutes prior.
The general: A geometrical construction like a hypostasis of soil, if a hypostasis was a puzzle box was a palace, its cubes of cubes folding apart to reveal gears churning through sands. In battle it wove contraptions that themselves wove contraptions, shuffling platoons around the ground like plates on a table, its calculated moves slowly trapping the opposing army in a pincer formation. With the battle concluded, it had taken a human form: a woman of indeterminate age whose sleeves were endlessly disintegrating into dust in imaginary winds.
The lieutenant: A dragon, of the long, snaking breed common to these lands. Its scales were of rock, its talons gleaming gold, its roar reverberating through the landscape. In battle it had breathed not fire or thunder but sigils, glowing constructions of glyphs and runes that weighed down on foes, suffocating their options until they may as well have turned to stone. With the battle concluded, it had taken a human form: a man of indeterminate age whose white robes glinted with promised wealth and foreboding weight.
They did not speak, had not spoken since the inexplicable cruelty of sparing his life.
The wounded adeptus said: “I cannot repay this debt. You will come to regret saving me.”
“Perhaps.” It was the lieutenant, the man of glyphs and runes, who replied. “But your freedom is a gift, not a debt. I give gifts with no expectations besides the quantum of goodwill they often evoke. If you owed me a debt, there would be no such ambiguity.”
“...hmph. I suppose.”
“After centuries in chains,” said the woman whose sleeves were disintegrating into dust, “we wonder if you seek purpose. Join us, until you tire of us, and reconstruct yourself as something that builds.”
He bowed his head—Celestia above, he bowed his head of his own free will. “I thank you for your offer of... purpose. But I must decline. Your faction speaks of gods and mortals living in harmony. Even before my bondage I was not a creature fit for such a world. I cannot offer more than death, and memories of tyranny.”
“Is it truly tyranny in your heart?” the woman said, her eyes unfolding, sliding apart, reassembling, as she regarded him.
“I have no heart. I can offer only my blade.”
“So long as the thrones of Celestia are contested, we will have need for your blade,” she acknowledged. “But that blade has been your life for so long now. Should we not tend to the soils of your soul?”
“Do you ask this of every recruit who would join you?” he said, more derisively, he knew, than was warranted. “Does every soldier need a spiritual cause?”
“No.” The man in white took the woman’s place, a motion so smooth the adeptus wasn’t certain when it had happened. “Although my liege would cultivate our army like a garden, united in ambition, this war oft makes us creatures of circumstance and necessity. Unlike my liege, when I extend a hand of cooperation, it comes with promises and warranties.”
“Debts,” said the adeptus flatly.
“Indeed. But I, too, am sentimental. I see an Adeptus who has spent centuries trapped in a yoke he never asked for, never agreed to. And to my heart, such as it is, it seems cruel, seems wrong, to once again bind such a creature to war and death, after mere moments of freedom.”
Wrong? Wrong? What would they know of wrong? The lives he had extinguished, the dreams he had snuffed out at his master’s bidding...
“You... you cowards,” said the wounded adeptus. And now that he’d said it, he noticed he didn’t care if they smote him on the spot for his insolence. “You sentimental, stupid cowards.”
The woman and man regarded him passively but said nothing.
He went on: “Look at me. Look at me. Whatever I might have been thousands of years ago, I am not that. I am an instrument of death. That is all I exist for. There is no past, no future; there is only the blade. You are the victors of this battle, but you do not have the authority to dictate meaning, purpose, false hope, unto me. Your petty sentimentality is worthless to me.”
His vision was swimming. He took a deep breath, carried on.
“Strike me down if you must. But I don’t want your sentiments of freedom. I cannot—willnot—live my life adrift just to warm your hearts.” His fist clenched. “I cannot be ally to your fanciful dreams of prosperity. But I can kill for you. Take it or leave it.”
A sudden gust of wind went by, kicking up dust and carrying the stench of blood and death with it. The lacerations on the adeptus’s body cried out in pain, then—
—went silent.
His hand went to his ribs.
The wound had closed. The pain had eased.
When the wind passed, there was something shining in the air before him.
The adeptus stared, incredulous. He had seen enough Visions granted to know what this was.
“This...” He looked to the general and lieutenant. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”
The man and the woman did not outwardly show any shock, but with his Sight beyond sight, the no-longer-wounded adeptus heard the soil-hypostasis’s panels-and-gears rotating into new configurations, felt the weight of the dragon’s nonplussed blink.
(“Could it be?” the man muttered. “Decarabian, still alive?”
“Doubtful,” the woman replied. “His mark was similar, but... Observe the negative space between the threefold wings. This is a Vision granted in Barbatos’s image.”
The man’s hand went to his chin. “But the boy’s words... they were of servitude and tyranny, not freedom...”
“I am no philosopher”—(“Yes you are.”)—“of freedom. But I suppose we might ask... what does freedom mean if demanded of him by us? What is tyranny if freely requested, time and time again?”)
The woman turned back to face the wounded adeptus. Her eyes gleamed like a thousand specks of dust.
“This was not how I expected this conversation to go,” she said. “But on the subject of freedom, there are more learned authorities than either of us. Our sentimentality may not be assuaged, but our virtue, at least, is satisfied.” She turned to her lieutenant. “Morax. Take my words and cast them in stone for me: Our new ally—no, vassal—serves our cause. He smites our foes and protects our friends. But... if he ever tires of the agreement, it is over.”
The adeptus, tired and lost as he was, found it within himself to nod. “Acceptable.”
“A simple contract enough,” the man said. “Will you sign with your birth name, or, if it pleases you, shall I grant you a new one?”
“Trial one hundred and fifty-nine,” she said aloud.
(1) There was no phonograph recording her, and (2) she’d already written these words in her logbook. Therefore we conclude that (∴) saying the trial’s number out loud was technically unnecessary. We conjecture this was simply a matter of habit.
She hoped this would succeed. At a younger age, she might have prayed for the trial’s success. However, subsequent empirical tests had failed to demonstrate any effect of such prayer upon experimental results. Instead, as she measured out her solvent into a flask, she said:
“Please work.”
Verifying that she’d measured the seeds out correctly, she dropped them into the flask and mixed.
She was worried because this was the last of her personal dandelion seed stash and if this didn’t work she would have to go out to get more which would mean pausing her experiments which was unacceptable when there was research to do and so she was worried.
Now, now... be optimistic. She could deal with complications if and when they arose.
If this works, she thought, as she poured the solution into to her cauldron, then this constitutes a foundational result in bio-alchemy, from which I could create the literal seeds of a paradise.
She lit the cauldron. Almost immediately, it reached a full boil.
The rest, although not ‘history’, is meticulously logged elsewhere.
A house laid to ruin
Swallowed whole by forest’s shade
Slumbering in rot.
Stoic, a boy mourns
dreams of honour that, he knows,
were never his own.
Summer storms; a maple leaf
plucked from cradle-bough.
Wind guide you, my friend.
Seasons come and go.
Rainy roads and seas:
Traversed, one foot at a time.
Seiza on these windswept cliffs.
The pine-song ripples
as red leaves billow.
His gaze, at last turned inward,
finds, ’midst thunderstorms,
unexpected peace.
Home long since buried,
our lone maple leaf may drift
anywhere at all.
“Foolish Knights... Step aside, and you will leave here alive!”
(Aside:) “Hold firm. The cavalry will be here any moment.” (Out loud:) “I might ask the same of you, mage. Retreat, or you will learn firsthand just how sharp Mondstadt’s teeth are.”
“O-hoh. Such pride, such bravery! Truly an exemplary knight you make, Lionfang.”
“...”
“What, you thought we didn’t know of you? Silly girl. The Abyss knows everything—”
(“Sir, behind you!”)
The clang of metal parrying metal. Seconds later, a resounding thunk as an axe plunges headfirst into the dirt, ownerless.
“Evidently the Abyss doesn’t know to leave visiting diplomats alone.”
Cackling. “Hah! We know all about your diplomat troubles. The carriage you so valiantly protect carries Fatui envoys, does it not? The very same Fatui that laid low your Order, not so long ago. You would truly die for these people?”
(“Sir? Is that true?”
“This was in my damned briefing. Hold firm, Knights.”)
“I’ll ask you again, Lionfang. Have your men step aside. We only want the Snezhnayans, tonight... (You two, flank her!...) We promise to see justice done for their crimes... more than you could ever achieve with all your honour tying you down.”
Three footsteps, light-light-heavy, the ring of a blade through the air. “You creatures know nothing of justice.” Another footstep, another singing cut. “Mondstadt protects its guests. Back off.”
"Do you really think your lump of a city can hold itself together and withstand the might of the Abyss?
“Not another step closer, mage.”
“Do you think you can shoulder even a fraction of that burden, girl?”
Spit. “You know nothing of burden.”
“Ah, then you already know, don’t you...? You cannot. The task will crush you, night after night, until you surely crumble beneath its weight.”
“You’re wrong. It’s my duty. I must serve Mondstadt. And so, no matter the burden, I can.”
From out of nowhere comes an avalanche of noise, a drone of wings and lyres and out-of-tune choirs, like a host of angels singing out of tune after one too many, a beautiful cacophony that lasts only a split second—
—before silence resumes its place.
The wind has picked up slightly.
The voice that had been cackling now sounds dumbfounded. “...what!?” Then, after a moment’s pause: “All of you! Seize her! Don’t let her use the...” (Steel and rising wind, in concert.) “...wait, no, you fools, don’t run at her with torches, can’t you see she’s got...” (Heat, blessed heat.) “...augh, never mind, retreat!, retr—”
There is the sound of a bubble popping, and the speaker hits the ground with an oof.
Many other noises follow: a foregone conclusion of a battle, then the carriage window opening, then endless, endless dialogue.
About ten minutes afterwards, hooves thunder then slow. A new voice says:
“Well, well, what do we have here? Unless my eye deceives me, our esteemed leader seems to have rediscovered her childhood love of jewellery. What a pretty bauble you’ve got there!”
And a very tired woman replies:
“A medal of honour to whoever gets the Captain to shut his mouth.”
6. ...and I will.
Hi...?
...hi. Hello. God of Contracts, know that I come in peace and kinship; hear my prayer.
This land is so much more dazzling than Mondstadt. (Wait, do you all talk to one another? Don’t tell Venti I said that.) I’ve been walking through a literal swamp for hours with water getting in my shoes and it is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in centuries. And the inn up ahead? A giant tree? Oh, how I love discovering new places.
...but to more serious matters.
I’m looking for my twin. We were torn apart by... by what I suspect were the forces of Celestia. A Sustainer of Heavenly Principles, a Choir of Order, black-and-red heartbeats sealing our path. We’ve—we’d never encountered a force so powerful before, one that could bind us to a world... or maybe we’d never encountered anything that wanted to.
She tore us apart. She tore us apart. That should be impossible! She stripped away our wings. She sealed me—us, I assume—in these mortal forms, sealed away our powers.
She would not let us leave. We were leaving. We had done our duty—I know this, even as this joke of a brain fails to remember what our duty was... we had done our duty and we were leaving.
Morax. I am told that you are hard and unyielding, but not unkind. I entreat you for your aid in my journey, to right a past injustice, to reclaim a bond severed.
Morax. I am told you are the God of Contracts and Stone. Then you must know the weight of a promise, made by one such as I, whatever it is I am.
Hear my promise. We remember kindnesses. Aid me and I will remember your aid, yes, even if you are the Sustainer herself. I promise not forgiveness, but whatever we once were, we repaid generosity in kind. I still will.
Hear my promise. This injustice shall pass. Days or years or centuries it may be, but sooner or later my power will return. My twin and I will be together again. Whatever we once were, I know this to be inevitable, a fundamental fact of the universe, though I know not why.
Hear my promise. Rain or shine, divinity or damnation, I will not rest in my search. We will be reunited.
Oh my goodness, she saluted back. She saluted back. She... she saw me.
Sir Acting Grandmaster, maybe that was a small gesture for you, but as far as I’m concerned... thank you. Thank you for reminding me I belong here. Becuase, oh, I really feel like I do. I really do think so. And I swear that next time—eighth time’s the charm—I’ll prove it beyond a doubt.
Oh... Knights, all of you, please just give me another shot. I have what it takes, I promise. One day, soon, I’ll make you all proud. I’ll be Mondstadt’s shield and sword. I’ll help people, and help keep people safe.
I will protect you. All of you. I swear it.
(Inexplicably, she catches a whiff of jasmine, with undertones of amber.)
Oh... what’s this? A... a Vision?
Then... maybe the Gods believe in me too.
Well! I daresay today is turning out to be quite alright, after all.
The candle burned low. This did not matter yet: its light remained adequate for note-taking.
The starry void above, the primordial depths below. Seemingly chaotic, yet only on the surface. For the World’s processes must be known to the World itself.
There was a part of him that feared this final assignment, that shirked from the notion of an intractable problem. Intractability was stasis; stasis, the absence of change, was the true death, the kind he would always fear.
Change is the observable component of Time. Time is the unit of account for Form. To not change is to no longer exist within Time, to have Form rendered irrelevant.
The other kind of ‘death’, decay and decomposition, inspired only a transient fear. Such death was a natural part of the world. From putrefaction came the possibility of reuse, reinvention, re-cycling. One day he would be unmade into his constituent pieces, and those pieces would come to constitute other forms, other stories.
What he feared was an intractable problem.
There are no intractable problems. These were her words. Only intractable solutions. False beliefs, false hopes, and false revelations filter our perception of reality, prevent us from understanding. In this way, comfort is the enemy of enlightenment.
The candle burned low. His desk was neat, golden-ratio rectangles of parchment tiling its center, carefully stacked notebooks sitting behind them. To the side, in arm’s reach, a mug of tea, leaves in cloth bag still oversteeping fourteen hours later. Bitter or not, he intended to drink it anyway, perhaps an hour past midnight when tiredness typically found him. (He had not yet learned to drink ‘for hydration’ where people might otherwise see and fret; besides, his first months had demonstrated that he was generally alone in this workshop. It would be a few seasons yet until his new employers took enough of an interest in his spare-time projects to have people come by to ask about his ‘invention’ work or ‘intellectual property’; more seasons still until either he or they thought to hire assistants for him.)
There was a part of him that feared this final—final—assignment, that feared disappointing her, that feared stagnation (the true death, the absence of change), that feared an intractable problem.
What he feared was an intractable problem. No truth or meaning to be had, or more accurately, none to be had by him and his mortal limitations.
The candle burned low.
False beliefs, false hopes, and false revelations filter our perception of reality, prevent us from understanding. The first step then is their death, equally false.
To accept the false death—decay and decomposition—of our theories is an act of bravery. To purify their remains—to find the iota that mattered—is an act of madness and genius.
That was what he was built for: to purify, to ablute, to see the nucleus of truth amidst putrified dreams, to prepare the vital for the unforgiving light of the sun.
Countless have tried before me and failed. This is irrelevant. As surely as life blooms and decays, I will find the truth and meaning of this world.
One moment, there wasn’t a Vision on his desk, the next, there was. His mouth formed into a pleased smile.
He would inspect it later. There was work to be done yet.
The candle burned low. 🜂
The 🝌andle b̷̛u̶̘̙̽r̷̪̾̓n̴͔̈́ẽ̵͈̹͆d̸̰̥͒ l☉w.
The candle—
“...but it could easily be worth ten times that if I can establish its historical owner. That... is certainly worth the gamble. Very well, I’ll set aside a weekend for the task.
“I wonder if the Ministry of Civil Affairs keeps records of Vision holders from centuries past?...
“A couple more sales like this, and then if I get that end-of-year raise, I’ll be able to afford carpenters on retainer, five hundred thousand a month. An architect to advise on load-bearing patterns, perhaps twenty hours over three months if I’m a fast learner... call that another two million pro forma. That’s... eight million this year, then rent and food of three, one left for emergencies, the rest to invest...
“Heh... All that Mora, drawn from tax, paid to me in wages, and I’m just throwing it straight back into the harbour. Again and again and again. But why the hell not? Just as I will flourish, so too will Liyue flourish with me...
“What?... oh, archons, please tell me it’s not fucking glowing.”
(You break it, you buy it: how many times had she told this to someone else? A blessing from the heavens is good fortune indeed, but oh, the opportunity cost of it all...)
In his dream, when the bigger kids came for him with jeers and insults, he had the perfect comeback every time. It was a dream, so the words in the comebacks didn’t really matter: what mattered was that those stupid oafs stopped grinning, went red in the face, got mad, lost their cool. His pals didn’t scatter because they were his pals: they were safe whenever he was around.
“Back off,” he told the bigger kids, the jerkface ones, “don’t you know who I am?”
And they knew who he was and they squirmed in fear because while he was a nice guy he was also the biggest, and the toughest, and the smartest, and they all knew it.
The dream segued and they were challenging him: an arm-wrestling contest with a hulking menace of a kid, but he won it anyway; a game of marbles where it was them not him who put too much strength into their rolls and messed it all up. After a jump rope contest that lasted two days and two nights, all the bigger kids conceded, but there was no anger or scorn left in their eyes. Instead they looked at him in the eye with newfound respect; begged to join his crew. How could they not? In every respect he was simply the best.
“That’s right, doesn’t matter what anyone thinks at first,” he said to the rising sun, “I’m gonna be the best, coolest, most winning guy in Hanamizaka... nah, in all of Inazuma.”
The rising sun seemed to agree; it twinkled gold, and hummed. Somehow, when he woke up, it was still there.
“Well, Captain?”
Her Excellency’s voice was like summer sunsets, waves over glittering ocean carrying fresh life. Her Excellency’s voice scared him, made every fur on his body stand on end: Relax, it seemed to say, a beacon of calm like the light on a deep-sea anglerfish. You are in no danger, relax, come bathe in moonlight’s glow. Every time he had a private audience with her, his instincts told him to run, run, run; every time, she smiled beatifically and pat him on the head like a schoolchild. Every time she praised his instincts, he couldn’t help but suspect she could sense his fear, like this was what pleased her: that he knew enough to be afraid.
“Your Excellency,” he said, saluting. “You asked me why I wanted to be stronger.”
“Mm,” she said. “Yes, I remember. I recall I asked you to spend a few days thinking about whether it was the right want.”
He nodded. “Yes... that.”
“What have you concluded?”
“That...” He opened his mouth, closed it, willing the right words into his head. He knew this, he’d practised this in the mirror for half an hour... “That the stronger I get, the less... um, the less difference it will make each time. That is... there’s a point where me getting stronger won’t make us any stronger on the field.”
“Mmm,” she hummed. “And so your squad must train hard too?”
Even without the hint of mirth in her schooled expression, it was clear he wasn’t expected to agree. She watched him, barely blinking, as he considered his response.
“No, Your Excellency,” he said. “Certainly we must all train, but... that isn’t what I meant.” Deep breath. “I meant... if I want to have a greater impact in the field, it won’t be by my or my squad’s strength alone. I need to make my squad stronger as a whole.”
“Sophistry, dear Captain! What is the whole if not the sum of its parts?”
More riddles, but one he was more confident about. “Two forces, each of ten strong men— ten strong warriors, pardon me...”—(“Pardoned.”)—“...fighting head to head. One force is ten individuals each working to their own cunning. One force is a team, ten working in unity.”
“Mm. Unity of tactics?”
“Unity of... Just, unity. Trust. Feeling part of a whole.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Very good.”
He warmed at the hint of pride in her voice.
“When you promoted me,” he said, “you told me that my duty was to be ‘ruthlessly loving’.”
“And?”
“And I have been trying. But I think now I understand better. I will continue my martial and tactical training, but getting stronger won’t be my main focus.”
“No? And what will that be?”
“Learning... whatever it is that makes a team trust one another in the most dire of straits... Leading by strength, leading by inspiration... I don’t know the right words for it yet. But I... I see where I must go, what it us you’re asking me to become. I will make everyone stronger... if that pleases you, your Excellency.”
“Yes,” she said, and there was a curious note to her voice. “Yes, I believe you will.”
He followed her gaze to the table between them, on which sat a Geo Vision, pulsing with gentle strength.
Had... had that been there a second ago?
“Whose Vision is that?” he said. “Did someone leave it behind? I should—”
“It appears to be a gift from abroad,” she said, “for my first General. Take it.”
Take it? “You... surely you don’t mean...”
“Oh, not yet. But within three months’ time I expect you to have earned that title, not only in my eyes but the entire army’s.” She clapped her hands. “But that is a future concern! You have some homework. Tomorrow evening, I want a report on what that Vision can do. Focus on... focus on what you were saying, on tactics and morale. Consult with Shizuru, she’s well-read on combat applications for Visions.”
He took the Vision, and it glowed in his hands. “I... do we need Generals? In peacetime?”
“Dismissed, Captain,” she said, and her voice was the glow of an anglerfish, warm and lulling, the safest thing in the world.
Largo (♩=48)
“This,” a tiny part of her thinks. (The rest of her is trapped in biting snow, a woman who has lost her way home, who has forgotten where, exactly ‘home’ is.) “This is what I was missing.”
Step. Sweep... step. Lift... knee... and... step. Sweep...
“Ordinary.”
(One small part of her mind, meditating on this; nine parts, knowing the next eight steps, the exact points on stage where her leap will take her; ninety parts trapped in biting snow, a woman who has lost her way home, in the throes of despair.)
She leaps, leading with the rib cage, soaring, a plaintive cry on her lips. She lands on her left leg in pin-drop silence, an arm’s length from the stage’s edge. Linear momentum into angular, her right leg leads her into a spin, skimming across the ground five-eighths of a circle counter-clockwise, ending with her facing forward again in an exaggerated curtsey. The back of her fingers trails across her brow, dabbing at imaginary tears. There, she settles into perfect stillness.
The stillness lasts for three measures: fifteen seconds. It is a practised stillness: no tell-tale wobble to reveal the strain in her quadriceps and abdominis. Her clothes flutter and settle with gravity’s weight.
“She is ordinary. Her torment is ordinary. As we all are... And so, her torment is mine. Yours. Ours.”
Step, reposition. Both feet are on the ground again. Nine parts of her mind, satisfied with her endurance; ninety-one parts, the universal experience of being lost.
From shoulder to fingertip, left arm opening like a petal— but no, improvised, left arm opening but with a measured tremor, only perceptible by the shimmering silk of her sleeve. An ache in her little finger that stretches along her heart meridian and her persona’s at the same time.
“Melodrama and heroics have their place, but those are not the stories I was brought into this world to tell.”
(The calculated imperfection is felt more than it is seen. She will never know of the ripple effects: the teahouse waiter realising, mid-pour, that he wants to serve his perfectly-brewed silver needle tea somewhere where the patrons savour every sip; the young couple in the back understanding in unison that they don’t have to make it work if they don’t want to; the sharply-dressed man in the front row’s epiphany that for the past decade he has been as adrift in his Yuheng role as is the maiden on stage.
Sometimes self-reflection begins with the right story told the right way.)
Her thoughts have their own weight now, a crescendo that cannot be held back.
“Tens of thousands of people, passing each other by in the streets, never knowing each others’ stories. Stories of true emotions, of real people. These are the songs crying for my voice. These are the stories I will tell.”
Ninety parts of her mind in character; nine parts minding the steps of the dance; one part in the joyous rapture of meeting oneself for the first time.
(An old woman in the audience sheds a single joyous tear, with a silk cloth she dabs at wrinkled, amber eyes.)
The newfound conviction is firm ground beneath her feet, fertile soil between her toes. “These are the stories I will tell,” she repeats in her mind.
She catches the Vision in her outstretched hand, in a motion so smooth it surely must have been a part of this dance from the very beginning. Too caught in her joy to consciously notice it, she cradles it to her chest, where it secures itself on her lapel; then, she sweeps her knees low to prepare for a five-hundred-and-forty-degree twirl.
(The audience will later say they saw the vision appear, that it was beautiful, that it shone like the morning sun cresting over mountains. In fact, they do not see it either, too captivated by the performance. When they hear of the Vision they will mistake the shared rapture of audience and artist for the gods’ attention.)
(The exception to this is the old woman. She sees the woman onstage catch the Vision, but never speaks of it. She stays to the end of the performance, finishes her tea, and departs, a smile in her heart, never to wear this face again.
Opera has had so many meanings to Liyue over the years; today, it has found a new one.)