Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are sitting at the table together. Itās barely light outside, but Shen Yuan woke up early due to tumultuous dreams. He can still only stomach simple congee, so theyāre both having watered-down congee.Ā
At least heās recently become okay with a drizzling of golden honey over the top. It cuts across the thick steam of the bowl like a gorge, sunken into the creamy congee. Shen Jiu has his with a chopped plum, because he thinks thatās not something too enviableā and Shen Yuan doesnāt much like the taste.Ā
Or the red stain it leaves on the fingers.Ā
Shen Jiu mulls over the food. It is tasteless and gloopy on his tongue, and goes down like wet cement. He forces himself to eat, forces himself to swallow, because Shen Yuan needs to be encouraged to do these things. If he sees Shen Jiu taking care of himself, maybe itāll be just a little easier for him to do the same.Ā
Every so often the wind whistles through the House, causing the paper door to rattle a little in the threshold, but it doesnāt cause the more paranoid reaction from Shen Yuan than it did when he joined the Peak. Shen Jiu stares over at the door, glaring at the thought of having to call in a disciple to have the looseless fixed.Ā
However, when he looks back over the small round table they share, Shen Yuan has hunched in on himself and gone as still as a fawn.Ā
He looks small. Granted, he always looks small. The disciple robes he wears drown him in layers and layers of folding pale fabric until his body and arms are lost to the sea of it. Heās always been small. Thin, underfed.Ā
Now, though, his shoulders curl in and his green eyes have glazed over. Glossy and distant, Shen Jiu canāt quite tell what heās looking at. Something inobservable, something outside Shen Jiuās realm of cognition.Ā
He gets up from the low table to kneel beside Shen Yuan. His sore knees twinge a little when they hit the floorboards with a thud, but he doesnāt care much. He just reaches out, a mechanical practice to his movements.Ā
āYouāre okay,ā Shen Jiu murmurs. His voice seems to crackle like static in the silence. He knows Shen Yuan canāt hear him, but he wants to think heās helping, in some stray way. āItās okay, youāre okay.ā
He takes Shen Yuanās hands. Feels the cold, waxen skin and the minute tremble underneath. Heās always so cold. Even wrapped in layers and layers of fabric. It is as though the chill has crept through into his bones and sedimented there.Ā
Shen Yuan shudders a breath, and his eyes are overtaken by a wash of glowing blue light. He doesn't blink, doesnāt twitch, doesnāt so much as breathe. Shen Jiu searches his eyes, but canāt see his irises or pupils or sclera ā just that opaque wash of bright seafoam.Ā
The bones in Shen Yuanās hands feel as hollow and fragile as a birdās, and when Shen Jiu realises that his touch isnāt enough, he gets up to fetch a wet rag and returns with it. He lays it over Shen Yuanās hand, hoping the chill from the fabric might anchor him to the waking world.Ā
A moment rolls through the Bamboo House. Then another. The next time Shen Yuan inhales, it is sharp and abrupt, like heās just broken his head through the surface of a pool of water. He blinks. Between one flash of his eyes and the next, the blue has faded and his eyes have returned.Ā
Tucking his hands to his chest, Shen Yuan frowns furiously, taking in his surroundings.Ā
āItās you,ā he croaks to Shen Jiu when their eyes meet.
Shen Jiu shuffles a little closer until their knees almost knock. āItās me,ā he confirms, trying to keep his voice cold-pressed and calm. āYou know who I am? Where we are?ā
āYouāre Shizun,ā he says after a beat. āWeāre in the Bamboo House. On Qing Jing.āĀ
āThatās right,ā Shen Jiu confirms. When Shen Yuan finally detaches his hands from his chest and stares down at them, at the shake of his fingers, Shen Jiu reaches over the table and plants his hand in the table between them. Palm-up, unthreatening. āWhat did you see?ā
Sometimes itās mundane things: things Shen Jiu already knows. That it will snow on Wednesday, what theyāre having for dinner tomorrow night, that there is a peak lord meeting next week. Other times it isnāt as expectedā that Shen Jiu will get a splinter whilst he tries to fix the fence to the west, that Liu Qingge will come to challenge him to a duel, that thereās been a flood in a local village. All still things he can handle.
Sometimes, though. Sometimes itās different.Ā
āMe and you,ā Shen Yuan says, and the words are a balm on the prickling pressure in Shen Jiuās ribs. Then, however, he continues, āand something else.ā He frowns, āIām not sure.ā
Shen Jiu stiffens. Shen Yuan senses the motion and watches, wary. Shen Jiu forces himself to take a breath and loosen the nervous bunching in his shoulders. āDid you see who?āĀ
Shen Yuan frowns, his eyes darting astray. āIt wasā¦ a boy, I think,ā he says tersely, then his eyes flash up. He stares at Shen Jiu through his lashes, watching him like a wary cat. āI donāt know. It wasnāt clear.āĀ
Heās not outwardly fearful, and Shen Jiu hopes that he knows heād never hurt him. Even so, heās tense all of a sudden, and he watches Shen Jiu with those big green eyes, the ones that drink him in and watch his every move. āWhat did the boy do?ā
āIāve seen him before. He wasā angry. Hurt, andā¦ young, I think.ā Shen Yuanās eyelashes flutter. āCan we go outside, Shizun? I need to ā¦ check.ā
Check the world is still upright.Ā
āOf course,ā Shen Jiu replies, and his face twitches at the way Shen Yuan pushes breakfast away, but thatās another dayās problem. He offers Shen Yuan his hand but he doesnāt take it, wobbling to his feet and hurrying to the door. He throws it open and rushes down the waxed porch steps, onto the grass.Ā
Shen Jiu slowly follows him, gut churning. Everyone thinks Shen Yuanās ability is a gift. That heās some useful weapon in which Cang Qiong directs their sails into fated success, but itās not. Shen Yuanās Sight is a curse.
He watches Shen Yuan pause at the edge of the grass and bend down to thread his fingers through the viridescent blades from the overhang of the porch. Shen Yuan then looks up to the sky, cupping his hand over his eyes, and Shen Jiu watches the practised, slow rise-and-fall of his shoulders as he consoles himself. Chases the visions from the backs of his eyes.Ā
Some days he wakes up screaming. Others he spends hours with washed-over blue eyes. Sometimes he doesnāt know what has happened and what is yet to.Ā
Shen Jiu doesnāt know what the world will come to, but he knows it is not good. Based on Shen Yuanās reaction to those more potent visions, he knows that the sky will fall out of the sky, and the world will spin out from under them, and every paradigm in the world will shift.Ā
He doesnāt know what exactly will happen ā Shen Yuan sees things in scraps and silvers, and if he sees more, he doesn't tell Shen Jiu the details ā but it sounds cataclysmic.Ā
For now, though, the sun still spins across the bowl-blue sky, and Cang Qiong still stands. For now.Ā
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