[ kiss me under red skies. ]
A musician knows his instrument like an extension of his body, and Xiao knows the battlefield like an extension of his. All his life, he had found comfort in the polearm within his grip, he found purpose in the nameless, faint scars across his skin, and he found meaning in his duty. Destiny had written his life, aeons before he came into being, so who was he to defy the path carved out for him?
He would meet his end on a battlefield. Surrounded by fallen flesh and blood, blood and red, red-painted skies, a torn sunset. Perhaps his weapon would lie, fallen as he had, a few metres away, in grass blades that sported the spoils of war. He would gaze into the stained sky above, and he would think that it was the ending he deserved, for all he owed to the world, for all he could never repay.
Xiao would die, alone, in a field of fallen comrades and enemies, accompanied by nothing but a weak wind, the remnants of a fierce, raging storm that tore across the lands, minutes, hours, days ago. A flute sings, mournful, the harmless blade of music cutting across the air like the same tune that had saved him, years ago.
A gentle hand caresses his cheek, and the wind kisses him, briefly, softly, lovingly. He doesn’t deserve such mercy, he thinks. He should’ve died on a snowy mountain, brittle cold piercing his skin like a rain of arrows, like water slamming into his body at the bottom of a waterfall. Or perhaps he should’ve died in a scorch, burning like all that had burned before him— yes, that would be proper karma— he would have to suffer for the lives that he gave suffering to.
His lungs constrict, his ribs struggling like weakened soldiers on scarce rations. The soldiers’ legs tremble, and their shoulders shake from weight they cannot carry. They try anyway, they try, and they fail. His ribs sink, and he thinks death is near.
He opens his eyes to see the blood-soaked sky once more, and he finds a headful of tousled strands, a weak gaze that rises, like a baby bunny beaten down before its very first breath. He finds the lips that serenaded him with the flute, he finds the body of his saviour, his lover.
Xiao expected to die alone.
“This is it,” Venti whispers to him, and his face is streaked with blood— blood of their enemies, and blood of his own. A brush, dipped in red paint, swipes a thumb across Venti’s cheek, and with a weak startle, the yaksha realises the stroke was drawn by his very own hand. “Xiao.”
The wind carries his name with grace, uncaring of its meaning, and despite being moments from his end, Xiao feels the burden on his shoulder lift, brushed away by the same breeze that rustled the barren, wilted trees that surround them.
With his very last breath, he catches Venti’s, and he catches the lips that serenaded him, the lips of his saviour, the lips of his lover.
