ᵀᴴᴱ palace remains unheard so late, only a whisper is delivered on the wing of a passing crow, the yawn of sand on the breeze. ( a pin’s dropping would be heard like a scream and– in an age not long since sunsetted– would have been punished as such ) in even the shallowest of shadows, i make myself unknown, vanishing into indifference. doubtless, shangque will trail, following my scent like the dog he is, but we have time. between you and i, a promise has been unspoken: confluence. our rivers will meet again.
... beyond the tides of the desert playing moat to the palace, the dry wood of the villages lay murmuring in the waxing hour, a bustling night market. light of bonfire catches the modest curve of my ashen crown, and heads dip as i make my presence known, gliding along the wind with the scent of spiced laurels and sweet pork and incense. it has been too long since last i visited, and as few drop to a kneel, foreheads pressed to the ground, taciturn in their begging for my hand– which i bless them with until i no longer possess the patience– i feel the gentle tugs of shame behind my left lung, a land so foreign to me i haven’t a word for it.
the night i was born, there was a tree planted inside of me. i have always known it couldn’t have been a gift from my father because my father has never known love. it grew until winter, and since winter it has been dead. this moment– as in many others– i miss the empty, rootless space it once left. because now, the clouds part and the moon, with her round chin, reaches through with an open palm and her silent, boreal gaze, guiding me through the candlelit towns i’ve walked before. as a boy, my nurse told me tales of the moon as my mother. she sighs the nighttide upon him: a god has never looked so small, white in the land of penumbra, bare-faced as the saxaul crawling behind him that twists like the sorrow of his brow, and he has only looked so achingly beautiful with his blade descending upon my neck. a student of humility, a bindweed blossom in the sand. i approach, hands folded behind my back. he is a tender wound that i must not yet touch.
“ changheng. ” the brush at the edge of the village curtains the trickle of the brook. “ i could feel your call from my balcony. ” a tangle, really, woven in thorns, veil worn in the face of trespassers. “ you look miserable. ” you’ve never had trouble worming your way quietly through, when you wanted to; mortals see the bindweed as rather invasive. we’ve both had our share of infiltration. i step over the bramble.
@jishui , the god of war : " there is a twisting feeling in my chest, like cloth being wrung dry. "
far behind, my people hum a litany of kinship and break bread in cross-legged complacency, backs turned, fires dimmed. limning a thread between us, his words sit in the air, illumined by his breath. the moon is my mother and she places a hand on my shoulder, and i do not turn to meet his umbrous eye as i pass. “ who did this to you ? ”