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It starts like this: there is someone cradled in his arms.
It isn't always the same. Some nights, Dan Heng runs through forests, shoulders his way through crowded spaceports, sprints through twisted corridors of cargo containers stacked ten floors high - his heart in his throat, the vague sense of a pursuer behind him. Other nights, he is trapped somewhere dark and damp and cold, chains wrapped around him so tight he can barely breathe, loneliness permeating him to the bone.
But these nights - these nights, above all, Dan Heng considers the worst.
The Foxian woman he holds is not one he's ever met, but he knows her name almost as well as he knows his own - after all, her death set off the chain reaction that led to his birth. She's more wound than person, at this point: white hair matted with crimson, body littered with deep cuts and burns. Her breaths rattle exiting her wrecked lungs, the rise and fall of her chest a miniscule thing. Baiheng's mouth moves, shaping the syllables of a name that no longer belongs to him.
Dan Feng... I'm sorry.
He closes his eyes. A dream, he reminds himself. Nothing but a dream. This was decades in the past. It's not real -
He opens his eyes again and feels his stomach bottom out.
"Dan Heng." March's voice comes out in a whimper. She looks so real it hurts. There's - frost gathering on her lashes, creeping up her neck, patches of her own six-phased ice forming on her skin and expanding, what had been protecting her for years turning on her. Her fingers are turning blue. Her eyes are pleading and she is so terrifyingly, incredibly cold -
"I don't - I can't control it," she says, and he can do nothing but helplessly watch. "I don't want to forget," she begs, and he squeezes his eyes shut like a coward and thinks just a dream just a dream just a dream -
The scent of burning in his nose. Warm blood on his hands. He already knows what he's going to see, but the dream goes on nonetheless - forces his eyes wide open, forces him to take in Stelle's unmoving body, bloody and broken, guides his hand to her neck and his thumb to her pulse point and -
As always, nothing.
Grief, raw and cavernous and familiar, expands in his chest. There is a lump forming in his throat. His mouth tastes like ash.
Footsteps sound behind him. Dan Heng does not turn, but there isn't really a need to.
"Well?" Blade asks, reflected in the pool of Stelle's blood, voice oddly calm. "Can you still say you aren't the same?"
"Dannie?"
"Miss Hyacine," he greets as she flounces over, watching with curious eyes as he pulls a book from the shelves. The public library of Okhema is far smaller than the one located at the Grove of Epiphany, but nonetheless, there is knowledge to be discovered here that you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else. After all, as the last bastion of humanity, every scroll and parchment people had managed to escape with while fleeing the black tide is now gathered here.
"What are you doing? It's Curtain-Fall Hour right now."
"Research."
"Ah..." Hyacine tilts her head to the side. "Your job?"
He nods. "Among... other things."
It might be a lost cause, though. Factual texts on the specifics of the Flame-Chase Journey are far and few between, and even then often littered with question marks and guesswork. He supposes he could ask Tribbie or Aglaea, but with Trianne's passing still recent, it seems an insensitive question to pose to the former. As for the latter... well. After the incident at the Vortex, he'd rather keep her at arm's length.
"Do the 'other things' involve Greyie?" she asks, and his fingers still on the spine of the book.
He closes his eyes. "Possibly."
Even now, he can't help turning Anaxa's words over and over in his mind - can't help thinking about watching him disintegrate, about Trianne's passing, about Castorice left behind in the netherworld and Mydei holding back the black tide until he's inevitably swallowed.
Is this Stelle's fate now too? What will he do if she ends up permanently tied to Amphoreus?
What if she dies for real, this time?
Stelle's body had felt so light in his blood-coated hands. He's beginning to understand Dan Feng, and it terrifies him.
"Do you want to talk about it, then?"
Dan Heng blinks.
"I know we're not really close, and that there's a lot you've gone through that I wouldn't even begin to be able to understand, but… I can tell you're really worried, and that you care for Greyie a lot," Hyacine says, eyes soft. "Sometimes having an outside perspective helps, and I'm a good listener! Or - well, at least that's what my patients say." She winks.
He exhales. "Thank you, but I…"
"I know," she says, smile understanding. "The offer always stands, though! Good luck with your research, Dannie! I…" Here, she finally falters, the sparkle in her gaze fading, the mask cracking just a little. "I hope you find what you're looking for."
Me too, Dan Heng thinks, watching as she walks off. The colour of her hair is just a few shades off from March's, and it makes him ache all the more. She would've forced a confrontation by now, if she were here. She would've known what to do.
Aeons, me too.
Dan Heng returns to the guest suite to find Stelle awake and fiddling with March's camera. He purses his lips, approaching her where she's sprawled out over one of the chaise lounges. "It's the middle of the night. Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
She cranes her neck back to peer at him. "Since when did I have a regular sleep schedule in the first place? And anyway," she grunts, wiggling around on the chaise lounge to make space, "I've been sleeping too much lately. My sleep cycle's all screwed up. Now c'mon," she says, patting the area next to her. "You still owe me cuddles after publicly rejecting me."
"You're getting greedy, aren't you? That was weeks ago," he says with a sigh, but he's already lying down anyway.
The arrangement is somewhat uncomfortable, even with the two of them pressed close together: Dan Heng curled around Stelle, arm draped across her waist. The chaise lounge was clearly built to accommodate one person only, and while one of them and March might've fit, the two of them have bigger builds that definitely do not. He probably should've just pushed both lounges together, but he doesn't particularly want to start moving furniture around at this hour, so he stays where it is, shutting his eyes against the false daylight and listening to Stelle click through the camera. "What are you doing?" he asks.
When Stelle hums, he feels it vibrate through his chest. "Deleting duplicates. Trying to free up some memory. Might be a lost cause, though." She's - warm, in his arms. Fitting against the curve of his body. For whatever reason, he thinks of staying at the Goethe Grand Hotel in Belobog's Underworld, an eon and a few months ago: how he'd sat by the door of that tiny one-room inn, spear in hand, intent on dozing off that way until March had wheedled and cajoled him into joining them on the creaky bed, because "How're you supposed to fulfil your guard duties with a crick in your neck and an achy back, c'mon, Dan Heng, you know I'm right -"
There it is again, that creeping, suffocating fear: what will you do if you lose them? Are you really so sure you won't be like him?
"I'll be fine, you know," Stelle says, and a weighted silence settles over them, punctuated only by the faint thud of Stelle setting March's camera down. She wiggles around in his arms until she's turned over and they're face to face. At this rate, one of them is going to get shoved off the chaise lounge. "Dan Heng," she says. Feeling a rare streak of stubbornness flare up, he keeps his eyes resolutely shut. "Dan Heng. C'mon. Don't you trust me?"
His eyes fly open. "It's not that," he snaps, and what he wants to say is you have a penchant for hurling yourself into harm's way for the sake of everyone else and I am worried one day it will cost you. What he wants to say is you died from Nikador's strike because you shielded me, don't you remember?
What he wants to say is you and March tore all my walls down and I am terrified that I won't be able to protect you because I don't think I can afford to lose you, but his words clump together and knot into a lump in his throat, and what he says instead is "You can't promise that."
Stelle falters. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I can't." She laughs, and the sound is somewhat brittle. “And here we were supposed to be relaxing. Sorry. I’m just adding to your worries, aren’t I?”
Dan Heng sighs. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault, anyway.”
“Yeah, well.” Her smile wobbles, and she shifts closer, burying her face in the crook of his neck. He breathes in, breathes out, presses his chin against the crown of her head. Her hair is soft. He closes his eyes. “Dan Heng,” she says, voice muffled against the fabric of his shirt. “You might have to let me go, you know. One day.”
He doesn’t reply.
(If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s his.)
Two weeks later sees them venturing out from the safety of Okhema, on a sidequest to retrieve some scrolls from a nearby temple. A commission from some of Oronyx’s priests, apparently. Dan Heng’s just glad to be out of the city at this point – ever since Anaxa cast the deciding vote for the Flame-Chase Journey to continue, tensions have been rapidly rising between the Chrysos Heirs and the Council of Elders. Not to mention the ever-present threat of the black tide and the Flame Reaver. The whole of Okhema can feel it at this point, he’s sure: everyone waiting. Holding their breath.
The town the temple is in is relatively close to Okhema, enough so that the black tide creatures don’t pose much of a problem. Stelle takes point, smashing through their ranks with ease, baseball bat in hand and a ferocious grin splitting her face. Dan Heng mops up the stragglers, spearing any that get too close for comfort. All in all, it doesn’t take long for them to make their way into the temple, pick up what they need to and make their way back out.
They’re on the outskirts of the town when things go wrong.
The black tide creatures aren’t strong, but they are many, and they ambush Stelle and Dan Heng out of nowhere. By the time they manage to regain their bearings and get back into rhythm, they’ve been pushed close to the edge of their path – a sharp drop off the side of the winding, mountainous road, ending in the forest far, far below. Stelle takes one hit and then another, trying to wrestle back ground: a cut opening up along her cheek; an arrow grazing her arm. Dan Heng grits his teeth and swings Cloudpiercer in a wide arc, knocking a couple creatures off their feet. Droplets of water swirl in his left hand, bits of moisture pulled out of the atmosphere; too little to do any Cloudhymn magic with and uncooperative besides, the waters of this world rejecting him still –
There’s a bright, painful ‘clang’ as Stelle’s lance is deflected, surprise flashing across her face as her slash is knocked off course. The black tide creature in front of her is already swinging, its axe coming down so fast Dan Heng hears it whistling through the air – normally, a mistake easily corrected, normally, a mistake March would cover – but March isn’t here right now, she’s further from them than she’s ever been –
Dan Heng puts all the strength he has into his thrust and throws Cloudpiercer in a last-ditch effort, just managing to nudge the axe to the side in tandem with Stelle’s dodge –
And sees, too late, the nearby monster with its sword already thrusting forward.
For a moment, he’s in Herta’s Space Station again, watching this silver-haired stranger he has known for all of two hours hurl herself in harm’s way to protect his closest friend. He is in Belobog and watching her plummet from the top of the Engine of Creation with a lance through her chest. He is cradling her in the flaming wreckage of their train car, her blood on his hands, and she isn’t breathing and no, no, not again –
He doesn’t even register that he’s moved until the blade pierces through him. It might be the fastest he’s ever moved in his life.
The last thing he sees is Stelle’s distressed face, and ah, he thinks, I finally protected you.
“Dan Heng!”
Dan Heng wakes up to the sensation of warm sunlight on his face and the faint tinkling of windchimes stirring in the wind. There’s a strange, insistent throbbing through his abdomen, like a particularly hard bruise. When he cracks open his eyes, the light is bright enough to blind him.
“Ah, Dannie, you’re awake! How are you feeling?” A blurry pink blob pops into view above him, accompanied by a gentle, sing-song voice, and for a moment his heart stumbles. It takes some squinting before the shape resolves into Hyacine’s ever-cheerful face. It takes a bit more than that for Dan Heng to haul himself up, but he manages with Little Ica nudging at his back and giving encouraging trills, even if it leaves him winded.
He pauses, taking stock. He’s in what must be a private room in the Twilight Courtyard, furnished simply: a cot; a nightstand; a washbasin in the corner. The door to his left is closed, and if he focuses, he can hear the sound of footsteps and murmuring coming from beyond. Sunlight floods through the open doorway to his right, framed by tied curtains and glass chimes, leading to a balcony not dissimilar from the one in his and Stelle’s shared suite.
Stelle…
Dan Heng glances down at the bandages wrapped around his torso, then looks towards Hyacine. “Is Stelle alright?”
Hyacine’s face melts into a relieved smile. “Yep! Greyie’s hale and hearty as ever!” she says, pumping an arm. “She carried you all the way here, in fact!” She falters. “You were… in a pretty bad state, when you arrived. You’d lost a lot of blood.”
Dan Heng stares down at his hands. Someone had cleaned him up as best as they could, but there’s still bits of crimson stuck under his nails. Cloudpiercer leans against the wall next to the bed, gleaming in the eternal afternoon light, no trace of blood nor dirt nor battle. “I see.”
Well. It makes sense. He’d felt the sword go all the way through, after all. He hopes whatever powers of the Nameless that usually maintain their clothes work well enough here to mend his ruined coat. He’d hate to lose it.
Dan Heng sets that thought aside for now, asks, “How long has it been?”
“A day or so,” Hyacine says, moving over to the nightstand to fuss with the vase of flowers placed on top. “You’re surprisingly resilient, you know. Woke up faster than I thought you would –”
The door opens with a faint click and a sharp inhale. Dan Heng looks up to see Stelle’s wide eyes, and in the next moment, he gets the breath knocked out of him as she tackles him in a hug.
“Dan Heng,” she says, voice wobbling. “Dan Heng. You scared me. Don’t do that again.”
Something deep inside his sternum twists, at those words. He’s never had to be on the receiving end of her worry before, not like this, and it hurts in a surprising way – new and different, but painful nonetheless. Even so, even as he exhales and places a careful hand on her back, he can’t bring himself to lie for her sake. “I can’t promise that.”
She stiffens. “Don’t say that. You could’ve died.”
“It could’ve killed you. If I hadn’t taken that hit –”
“I would’ve been fine.” She pulls back, gripping him by the shoulders, eyes blazing. “I’ve survived worse.”
“You don’t know that,” he argues. “You didn’t survive Nikador’s strike.”
"So what?" Stelle shoots back. "You're saying it's fine if you hurl yourself into the line of fire and get hurt instead -"
"Yes!" he snaps, and she flinches.
Silence. "Um," Hyacine speaks up, voice wavering, and he jolts at the reminder that there’s a third person in the room with them. Both of their gazes snap to her, and Dan Heng immediately feels guilt curdling in his stomach when she won't meet their eyes. "I think I'd better take my leave."
"I - of course." He exhales, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Sorry."
Stelle echoes his apology. Hyacine shakes her head. "It's okay. I'll leave you to it." There's a pause as she reaches for the knob, and she adds, "Don’t… argue too much, okay? I can tell the two of you care a lot about each other." She leaves the statement hanging in the air as she quietly shuts the door behind her, punctuated by one last trill from Little Ica that sounds just a touch judgmental.
Dan Heng counts three beats before Stelle breaks the stalemate, hissing out a curse between her teeth as she drags a hand through her already mussed hair. March would’ve long since bullied her into letting her brush it out, if she were here. There are dark circles under her eyes. The pit in his stomach deepens.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and she shakes her head, face buried in her hands.
“No. I’m sorry too. I got… I just… for a moment, I thought you were going to die.” She looks up, expression crumpled with something close to grief. “Dan Heng. I’m scared. I don’t want to lose you too.”
That last statement hits him like a sucker punch to the gut – something that rips all the air from his lungs, the realization crashing into him with the weight of a starskiff as he thinks, oh. Right. He’s held the denizens of Amphoreus at arm’s length all this while; has done the same at every world they’ve ever docked at, careful to let anyone get to close and wary of potential enemies, but Stelle has never had the same reservations. Ever since he’d met her, she’d hurled herself into trailblazing with a wild and reckless abandon, helping everyone she’d come across, heart bared and full of sincerity.
Trianne. Mydei. Castorice. Even Anaxa. And before that, the life she’d left behind, the gaping hole in her memories. He’d seen the way her eyes lit up when she spoke about Firefly. The pain and longing lingering in her voice when she’d talked about meeting Kafka, all those months ago. If every loss in Amphoreus so far had stung for him, it had to have hurt all the more for her.
And yet what else is there to do? The situation is volatile. It could turn worse at any moment. They still can’t reach anyone beyond the sky to get help. They’ve lost so many people, and they’re going to lose more before this is over. Dan Heng knows it with a certainty deep-rooted in his bones.
“I know,” he says at last, soft with despair. “I know.”
It’s all he can say.
Despite it all, things come to a head anyway. Aglaea dies, and they take down Aquila, and the Dawn Device goes dark, and the city falls. The end of the world does not wait, after all. Not for anyone.
And somehow, just like he’d feared it would – just like some part of him had known it would – it comes down to this.
“Dan Heng,” Stelle says. Screwllum is gone. The Chronocognitive Anchor glows in her hands.
There’s no question of who’s staying. There’s no sword for him to hurl himself in front of this time.
And around them - around them, the world he'd sworn to protect is burning. Time marches on, ever relentless, and he has to go. He knows this. He knows.
Even so - even so, for this one moment, everything fades into the background, and it is just the two of them. When Stelle spreads her arms wide and asks, "Goodbye hug?" quirking her mouth to the side in a painful smile, he doesn't hesitate to rush forward, uncaring of the fact that there are onlookers. She smells like smoke and faint traces of Okheman bath salts, and underlying that is the familiar burnt-sugar, nose piercing scent of the Stellaron. She feels like home, and she's shaking, and he is too.
"I'll come back for you," he promises - holds her tighter than he's ever held before, memorizing the shape of her living, breathing body against his. "I'll return to the Express and explain everything and we'll all come the instant we can, I swear -"
She laughs, and her voice trembles. "I know, Dan Heng. It's okay. I don't doubt you. Say hi to March for me, okay? Tell her - if this doesn't end up working out after all, tell her - "
"Tell her yourself," he snaps, voice fraying at the edges with panic, and Stelle goes quiet.
"Yeah. Yeah, okay."
“This isn’t goodbye,” he insists.
“I know.” Another brittle laugh. “It’s ‘see you tomorrow’, right?”
“I’ll come back for you,” he reiterates. “I promise.”
“I know. I believe you. I’ll wait.”
And finally – finally – Dan Heng tears himself away. It might be the hardest thing he’s ever done, but he grits his teeth and forces himself to let go, heading for Trinnon’s Century Gate, for the Express still beyond the skies. Leaving behind a burning world. Holding onto that promise. He’ll come back, and he’ll find her, and he won’t let her go again.
(A distant day in the future, a thousand years after, he wrap his hand around hers and pulls her out of the memoria tide.)