Selenophilia: Rebirth (ON HIATUS)

𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑖𝑥

"Excuse me," a voice crooned. "I'm a little lost. Could you show me which way it is to the harbor?"

Xiao stopped in his tracks, his guard raised immediately. It was a wonderfully black, moonless night. The perfect sort of night, because it meant Xiao could not use the talisman, and that had been the subject of many temptations since he'd been given it a week before. Without the moon, he had no way to activate the gift Chang'e had given him, the ideal, natural excuse that he didn't have to justify to himself endlessly.

Now he patrolled the marsh, it being quieter than usual. He turned around to face the speaker.

There in the middle of the path stood a young woman draped in green and gold silk that hugged her curvaceous body in ways that would make any normal man look twice. She had a sweet complexion, cheeks painted with rouge, full strawberry lips, and thin brows that angled down over her dark eyes. Her obsidian-black hair was tied in a simple knot on top of her head, wisps of it coming down to frame her face. She carried herself with the shyness of one who has been told she is pretty all her life but is too timid to agree or even notice.

Her beauty was not right.

It was not a mortal kind of beauty that lasted only a few years in its prime. It was not a godly kind of beauty that had no way to change. It was not Chang'e's beauty, bright, sweet, and so very, very quiet--though Xiao was soon to shake himself out of that comparison.

Instead, this woman's beauty was caught in between the mortal and the immortal, desperate to be vivid and at the same time dying to be gentle. A confused beauty, unsure of itself. The beauty that belonged to spirits.

The woman took a careful step forward, sinuous, confiding, seductive. Xiao noticed her feet were bare. He didn't move, even when she stopped right in front of him. A scar ran from the corner of her right eye to the edge of her mouth.

"You are familiar with this part of Liyue, aren't you?" She smiled tentatively, her lashes fluttering. Every move she made was intended to be a hesitant kind of sensual--the way she looked off to the side, how she clasped her hands. "I'm a very long way from home and...it's so dark out..." She leaned closer to Xiao, her charm wheedling its unwelcome way into his ears. The gauzy silk of her sleeve slipped down her shoulder exposing the pale, smooth curvature of her neck and her collarbone. Her hand moved dangerously close to his ribcage, then to the sash about his waist. She stopped, hovering directly where the talisman lay safely tucked. Her nails were long and pointed...like claws.

In a surge of paranoia, Xiao slapped her hand away. He saw a glint in her eyes, something that didn't belong. He'd caught the same look in his own eyes when he saw his reflection in the marsh after a weary fight.

Murderousness.

But it vanished as quickly as it appeared. "Nervous?" she tittered. "I wasn't trying to hurt you. Honest." Her voice was so honeyed, so sticky-sweet and saccharine that it was almost annoying to listen to.

Xiao knew now that she had to be a spirit. No mortal could sneak up on him like that, or feign such charisma. This was a spirit, plain and true. If he were a human, he'd be under her spell in an instant. But as an Adeptus, he was immune to the wily seductions of spirits.

"I'm scared of the dark," the woman said. Her hand fluttered close to him again. She had a jade ring on her thumb, a cord of red and turquoise tied around her wrist. "Won't you--"

She cut off with a wild gasp as Xiao grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the trunk of a tree, pinning her there. Her eyes flashed, her expression now terrible and infuriated. She knew she'd been found out, and now she flailed and scrabbled at his arm. Her throat felt unbelievably easy to crush beneath his grip.