on yue qingyuan and desire:
to desire, but not acknowledge it. to desire, but not allow yourself to feel it. to desire, but to ignore it. to desire, but to avoid it. to desire, but prioritize other’s desires above your own. to desire, but forgetting what desire even looks like. to desire, but remembering what your impulsivity has already wrought. to desire, but above all else: to deny.
desires are meant to be denied, after all. it’s the most quintessential teaching from your shizun. if you deny your desires, you will gain strength. power. control.
(you will stop looking at yourself in reflections, unable to acknowledge the living weapon that you’ve become. the xuan su sword does not feel regret that it is powerful. it’s sole purpose is to be useful. to be used—
—used, like you always have been. used, like you always will be. used, and yet never useful when you most need to be. you still remember how your vision blurred when you looked upon the charred remains of the qiu estate. how wooden splinters embedded into your fingers as you mindlessly dug amongst the rubble, desperate to find any clue that he was still alive. head spinning, hands shaking, and then suddenly your shizun is gripping your shoulders and forcing your meridians— if something more reminiscent of a corpse than a man, a mere wooden doll that is rotting away, can even have meridians— to quiet.)
hollow. empty. distant. barren. you stop being able to feel anything at all. this, you decide, is fine. the xuan su sword does not need to feel. it only needs to protect. to stand alone in the midst of the battlefield. it needs to be strong. it does not need to grieve.
the xuan su sword has no past.
(you can’t grieve your past.)
it has no future.
(you can’t envision your future.)
it only acts in the now.
(you can only focus on what you can do now, but your hands don’t feel like yours anymore. they haven’t felt like yours in a long time.)
you were alone, once. solitude once again welcomes you.
you can’t forget how his tiny hand felt in the palm of your hand as he snuck you a handful of scraps when he noticed you had given up your meal again. so clever, so observant, so spiteful— and yet so kind, despite all his jagged edges. you missed this kindness that stung yet soothed your heart (yes, you had a heart, once) in equal parts.
but only for a moment. after all, to miss is to desire. and you cannot desire. you must deny yourself this. to desire is to lose control. and you, who cannot be anyone— no, anything— more than a tool wearing an immortal’s robes, cannot desire. you must deny. it is all you have left.