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Chapter 4 // Little Moon

He’s so small.

The longer he stares as this minuscule pale body in his arms, shivering in grief, hiccups and cries slowly stifling away as their owner gives into the exhaustion, the more Wukong’s mind spins, topples to the side and shatters.

Was he supposed to be this small?

Was he always this small?

To Wukong, Mihou always felt this small.

(He’d felt so small back then -so small and quiet and still in his arms, once the red haze fades away, once Wukong’s frazzled mind takes a step back and realizes what he’s done. Who the body at his feet is.

How he’s not coming, no matter how much Wukong shakes him, how much he cries and begs and howls for the universe to bring him back, to give him back to him, to return the Six Eared Macaque to him because he was just his little brother, just his little brother Liu’er was just trying to get him to come home and he didn’t listen, Wukong had been a fool he didn’t listen and he didn’t-

-he didn’t stop.

But no one answered. The world watched in silence, a detached audience to the inconsolable king, no matter how much he cried.

Liu’er felt so small, then.

A tiny, broken little thing.

His little brother, his little moon -shattered by Wukong’s own two hands.)

He skips the idea of going to his nest altogether; it feels too raw, too familiar. Instead, Wukong heads for the couch, shifting Liu’er in his arms to quickly unlatch his armor and toss his scarf aside.

The cub is a limp, tired little mass of limbs in his hold, so small Wukong has no issue holding him like a baby using one arm. It reminds him of times long past, easier times, nicer times where Wukong had been a fool and Liu’er had been alive.

It hurts.

But he can’t tear his gaze away.

Sitting down on the couch slowly, as to not make his precious bundle stir, Wukong’s eyes jump from the ears to the small fingers, counting each and every one with growing reverence, remembering the first time he ever did this, fresh after chasing his own shadow across half of Flower Fruit Mountain.

He remembers that day all too clearly.

The taste of the mango he had that morning, the ever present drone of his elder council as they wrangled him into a meeting, the taste of blood when an assassin broke ranks to leap upon his exposed back. The fight that ensued destroyed half of the room and left the palace needing heavy repair.

Yet instead of focusing on dealing with the aftermath, on making sure his people were alright and that it would never happen again, he cast off that responsibility to his Generals. Wukong remembers how fascinated he became with the now dead assassin's shadow magic -how it had kept the demon one step ahead of the king, always saving the creature before Wukong could land a blow on him. Only Ma’s surprise attack had allowed Wukong the opening to finally finish the demon -and from that frustrating experience, Wukong became fascinated.

It was not too long before he went on his quest for true immortality and learned Taoism. He’d been young for a demon, especially a demon king, and any scrap of power he could add to his -at the time- meager arsenal meant everything. Cue the yearning to learn shadow magic. He'd wanted that; and as the foolish, arrogant King he used to be, Wukong went straight to trying to mimic that power and take it for his own.