open always petal by petal (ch 1)
Song Lan knows his only passenger, Cao Huan, is more secrets than truths, but he’s still the best passenger Song Lan has ever had: paid up front, self-sufficient, and silent.
It shouldn’t matter that Cao Huan plays the guqin like his heart is broken.
It shouldn’t matter that his smiles light up the darkest corners of Fuxue’s passageways.
It shouldn’t matter that he makes Song Lan curious, curious in a way he hasn’t felt in years.
It’s just an ordinary transport, a regular fare, a mostly-honest way to make a living. All they have to do is get from Sichuan Station to Caiyi Port. The galaxy may be a dangerous place, but Song Lan is very good at his job, and this should be an easy two-week trip.
The rest doesn’t matter. It doesn’t.
Notes: Rated E for Explicit.
Title from e.e. cummings’ poem “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”.
Thanks to @cirilien, @coslyons, @treemaidengeek and tucuxi (AO3) for the beta reads!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3
The papers are fakes, Song Lan thinks, but damn good ones. It’s really only the feel of the paper—a bit too clean, a bit too smooth—that tips him off. The ID badge is probably fake too.
He examines the man standing in front of him. He’s handsome in a patrician sort of way, if a bit too thin, and nearly as tall as Song Lan himself, dressed in graceful Eastern Sector robes that rustle the way only real silk does. They’re a far cry from Song Lan’s utilitarian jacket and comfortable shirts and pants in shades of constant black, only a small step up from the uniform he used to wear.
Song Lan wonders why this obviously wealthy man would need forged travel docs. He doesn’t really care, of course. Everyone has their secrets. But he doesn’t need trouble with the Goldlighters. It’s already tricky enough to be unaffiliated without drawing the attention of the galaxy’s most powerful economic cultivation guild.
With a sigh, Song Lan fishes the comm out of a pocket and holds it to the tiny neural node on the side of his head.
[Why the fake name?] the comm speaker asks in a cheerful, melodic voice that still twinges painfully in his chest. It’s been five years. He should really get the damn thing re-coded.
Instead of being offended, the man—supposedly named Cao Huan—tilts a wry, weary smile at him.
“I had hoped to be anonymous a little longer,” he says, his elegant accent denoting excessive amounts of privilege and education. “If you require my real credentials, I can produce them.”
Song Lan shrugs and shakes his head. As long as the man is legit, he can call himself whatever he wants, but now Song Lan has another question. Frowning, he lifts the comm again.
[Why not just travel on a Goldlighter transport? You’re headed for Caiyi. It’s a major port. You know it’ll take two weeks to travel through all four sectors in my ship? The trip might be more dangerous than on a sanctioned vessel,] Xingchen’s voice asks.
Song Lan is under no illusions about his typical fares. There’s usually a good reason they want to travel without questions, and usually a good reason they choose Fuxue. He might be unaffiliated, but he’s not cheap. The galaxy is a dangerous place, and he’s very good at his job. In ten years, he’s only lost one person. It was, however, the only one who mattered.
“I am returning to my family after…some time away. I am in no hurry,” Cao Huan answers, with an edge that Song Lan takes to mean the topic is closed.
Well, he’s happy to take the man’s money; he paid extra to be the only passenger. Song Lan shrugs again and motions for Cao Huan to follow him on a very short tour: kitchen, guest bedrooms, sonic lavs, the foolishly indulgent bath, infirmary, bridge, engineering, cargo bay, plus half a dozen corridors that serve as storage, computer terminals, short-term passenger seating, and whatever else Song Lan needs them to be. He’s even strung up hammocks in emergencies.
[Make yourself at home,] he says with a nod and quick, slanted smile.
“Thank you Captain Song,” the man says with a wide, genuine smile that starts in the corner of his mouth and spreads, opening like a flower across his face. It surprises Song Lan in a way he can’t quite articulate, as though neither of them expected today to hold any need for smiles. “I have been told you are the best pilot, and I look forward to the journey.”
Song Lan finishes prepping Fuxue with supplies for the two-week flight, plus extras, because it’s always better to plan for the worst. He checks to make sure his one luxury—six skeins of outrageously expensive qiviut yarn—is carefully stowed in waterproof cases. Having warm socks and something to do with his hands in the long dark expanse of space is worth any price. Cao Huan busies himself with loading his own gear, waving Song Lan away when he offers to help.
“Commander Song! Commander Song Lan!”
Song Lan turns at the familiar voice calling a half-forgotten title, but it takes him a minute to recall the person: Ouyang Ju. They had served together some ten years ago in the war that brought down the Wen High Chancellor. Fat lot of good that had done.
“Man, it is you! Haven’t seen you in ages,” Ouyang grins, slapping Song Lan on the back. “How’s it going?”
Song Lan tries not to flinch. He has never understood the need people have to touch each other when they’re talking. It’s annoying. He smiles and tips his head, the universal motion for a polite and disengaged fine, and hopes he won’t have to elaborate. It’s not that he doesn’t like using the comm. He would just rather not use it.
Alright, maybe it’s that he doesn’t like using it.
The man’s face twists with sudden, embarrassed recollection, and Song Lan knows what’s coming next.
“Sorry to hear about your partner and…everything,” the older man says with an apologetic grimace. “He was a great guy.”
[He was,] Song Lan acknowledges, giving in to the blasted voice box. [Thanks.]
“Hey, I’m XO on the Goldlight Ren,” Ouyang nods at the huge transport vessel resting in the nearby docking bay, just visible through wide banks of windows designed, Song Lan assumes, to show off the might and power of the ships that travel here. Nothing like Fuxue, who might be ninety meters if he squints just right, can be flown by a single person, and only requires a landing pad.
“Anything you ever need, you tell me, okay? I owe you.” Without waiting for a response, Ouyang strides away, whistling a fairly dirty bar song.
Song Lan watches him go, wishing it was that easy, wishing he could reduce the war to favors performed, a series of tit-for-tat exchanges that balance to zero instead of a perpetually-red loss column.
Wishes are pointless. Only the road ahead matters.
Song Lan sees his new passenger idly poking through a bag, head dipped away, back turned, and something about his posture rings a distant alarm bell in Song Lan’s mind. He has flown the route from Sichuan Base to Caiyi Port hundreds of times in his life. It should feel exactly the same as every other trip. And yet this time, he senses trouble brewing, and he does not like it.
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