Tortoise and Fox [BL]

Oathbreaker III

For a brief second, he thought he caught amber-speckled eyes attending to his pain with rapt concern. 

Sen awoke. His memories swam dizzying circles, slipping out of his mind's grasp as images mixed, indistinct. The coldless snow draped over the expanse. He looked up, sensing a presence surrounding him. Thick, knotted branches colored the otherwise blank papery sky and silver blossoms burst out in every direction. Some clinked together—petals more cut-ice than soft velvet. An intricate mix of silver and glassy grey. He traced the ice jutting through the deep trunk, walking to a stop as he gazed blankly at the little scene carved into its base.

A little tortoise and a nine-tailed fox snuggled together. The tortoise nipped away at a dangled tail.

"Elijah dear?"

The voice dragged silence to a halt. Sen looked up, not out of recognition of the name, but wary of the emotion directed toward him. Pointed white ears with a swirling silver-bronze crest at their base. Fluffy tails. Long silver hair that flowed past his shoulders. And a face—one he, at appearance, didn't recognize—the intense amber eyes and narrow, graceful disposition of playing lips and risen cheeks.

"Oh, perhaps not? Strange. For some reason, you remind me of him—no, more than that."

Features unlike any he knew—but his soul clamored and spun haphazardly. It was him. The General. Sen's face warmed as he shook his head.

"I'm not...who you think I am."

"No," Aisultan said, stepping forward with a curious gleam in his eye, "you are most definitely not Elijah—not Eli either. Elijah never spoke of a third...but somehow I know you are him."

Sen left the statement to float in the air. He made distance between them. The General, without his memory, closed back in. Sen didn't dislike it—guilt gnawed at him for liking it so—his close presence. He chewed his lip.

"Do you like the statues? I carved them. They're of us—one of the earliest gifts I had ever made, for you."

"I really like it," he finally said. "So much that it hurts. They're perfect."

"That's what you told me as well, back then."

Sen, turned to him, panicked. "I did? We—are you saying we were—"

"Lovers, yes. You are my partner, though I don't remember you. But I think this version of you is quite adorable. Much mellower than the usual quipping Elijah."

"Don't say that," Sen whispered with a cracking heart. Don't give me such a hope for the future. "You would never love a monster like me. The one who did so many horrible things to you."

The man's brows raised with a rolling wave of questions before they disappeared from his pupils' surface. Knowing—a clarity washed away the brief bout of confusion. Somehow in an instant, the man knew something Sen did not.

"Some things never change with you, dear. I find you are punishing yourself for something more than I ever could truly understand. You're guilty—you feel guilty about something. But I feel that I would forgive you."

"But you won't—there's a scale of atrocity that you'd never forgive," Sen said.

"Well, it sounds like this version of me is a stick in the mud and needs some convincing. But still, I feel it. After being with Elijah—with you—for so long. I think right now, I'm just waiting for a reason in order to forgive you with—that's how it's always been in the past, and I know how it will always be now. You just have to give me that reason."

Sen couldn't argue with his assured statements. The General's eyes shut tight with a pained scrunch as he leaned against the tree. Jumping off the General like a spark leaping off a wire, a pained dizziness paraded Sen's mind—the indistinct unraveled. Pieces in place—scenes aligned altogether to form the memory of past lives.

The kindness in the General's eyes cooled down from its lingering warmth to a knife-edge neutrality. Sen's shoulders tensed, as he stepped away. The General gave him a glance over. He refused to make eye contact, fixated on the ice carving at the trunk's base. Sen didn't catch the flitting waver of amber.

To converse right now—to speak at all under the weight of three lives—was too much.

"Did you two have a good conversation?"

A sing-song voice flittered out, and a woman robed in deep ocean greens and blues stepped over. Her grace slowed down the racing tension, as rich brown hands touched each shoulder in warm greeting; like sunlight gracing past bathing pines. Her cloudy, almost wispy afro pulled back behind her head, with a golden crested clasp.

Sen and the General bowed their heads out of natural habit. She laughed and told them there was no need.

"I feel the power of eternity settled on your weary backs. A hotheaded oath you've made, Winter Gatekeeper. Feng Qing—He of Autumn—has told me plenty. You two feel the dull pain, yes? The welting expansion of memory itself presses down—it's why the mortal souls in the reincarnation pool must disperse all recollection of their previous lives, for it will fracture them until there's nothing left at all. You two hold far more tenacious— as expected of beings forged in the power of Us. But you are not immune. I don't wish you two to an immortal death due to a conflict ignited by us gods."

"It's my duty to follow through in my purpose," the General cut in simply. "It matters not what happens to me if it's what He of Winter orders."

She shook her head. "No, Winter Gatekeeper. You're free from this purpose. All Gatekeepers now are—the autonomy you hold—is now yours alone to hold. A long-awaited, deserving reward for the eons of time spent assisting us in our work. And furthermore, is this how you wish it all to go? To leave things as they are? Winter Gatekeeper, Spring Gatekeeper?"

Sen clutched at his pained chest beating with regret. The unspoken anguish. The trail of blood, obedience, and tears. The Forest—their home and his abuser—obliterated by wintery rage. The comfort of His presence. And the subsequent following of the thick, muggy emptiness of Sen's eons spent in loneliness.

"No—I, I cannot disappear," Sen whispered. "I haven't yet spoken to He of Spring, I...I need to do so. At least that, for now."

"Yes," she nodded, warmly squeezing Sen's hand, "that is a perfect enough reason. And you, Winter Gatekeeper—you have your own conflicts that you must resolve soon."

The General's lips pressed into a sharp, thin line. He did not answer.

"The next world I've personally intervened to place you in—the one closest to our realm. Here you will find close connection with your power—it'll be much easier to break past the mortal shackles of amnesia. I hope you both will do what you must to live on. And when the circumstances deem it right, Feng Qing will be awaiting the moment to cut you both away from reincarnation—to return."

She clapped her hands together with finality.

"I must go now. Things are terribly busy."

"Is that why He of Winter is not here now," the General asked.

"It's why none of them are here—they're all under house arrest, so to speak. A little gesture of punishment. For leaving me to clean up even after they continued to cause a ruckus."

She stopped her laughter from ascending in volume with a flowing sleeve. Sen put a hand to the tree trunk—its cool, rugged bumps sucking out the bubbling magma heat from his skin. His head lowered, leaning against the tree as his mind throbbed with tense, taut pain—as if all his thoughts were to burst from his skin. The skip in breath didn't escape him—the General too, held brows knotted tight with his shoulder pressed against the tree.

"It seems it's about time," she said. "I wish you two well. The others will be awaiting your return."

Sen attempted to bow once more, only to wince as his limbs resisted instruction with fierce retaliation. The silvery-white faded to unconscious black. For a brief second, he thought he caught amber-speckled eyes attending to his pain with rapt concern. Sen's heart twinged like a string plucked.

He hoped...to bear twice the pain of reincarnation, so maybe General Lin would hold a more peaceful life this time.