You've seen your future, known of the disasters that are to come, with you yourself left to fade into obscurity amidst it all. And of the souls left behind, they grieve, looking to the heavens in askance of even a little more time. But alas, even the greatest amongst your number cannot rewrite this prophecy, rendered helpless as it unfolds before your eyes, the inscriptions of the stars detailing your final movement.
***
YOU COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE DIFFERENT.
Momentary passing words, from honey soaked lips and the bearer of eyes shimmering with the incandescent glow of a thousand splendid suns — to the one who had once gazed upon such stars in wonder, discerning the destiny entwined across its celestial atlas.
You've traced his path across it, holding visions to glory and eternal brilliance as imbued in past incarnations, forever meant to be the brightest and nothing less. Countless others are sure to follow in his footsteps, youthful spirits bursting with life and heated fervour, himself but a star to whom you are all drawn toward, to bask in his radiance.
General Jing Yuan, you had once mouthed upon the tip of your tongue, almost tangible — standing at the pinnacle of the alliance, with the image of silvery hair and the metallic glint of a blade in the light.
But now, you are unable to form even those words on your lips.
You're stopped once more, choked by decay and every vile reparation that is woven into your flesh. Crimson splatters across the hardwood floor in front of you, its ugly blotches swimming before your eyes, twisting and morphing into crude shapes that reenact the same scenes over and over in your mind.
It's a reminder of the price you pay to gaze into the very abyss where the light fears to tread, encompassing the stars in its entirety. You can never be free from fate, burdened with its knowledge of a despairing world. You know all too well that every word, every movement is upon a tipping hourglass, the grains of sand falling into place as its motions play out across history.
And as death and bloodshed overlap with one another, scarlet red dyeing your vision, you know that time is running out. Your prophesied end grows closer. The shadows that dance before you are no longer unnamed, marked with familiar faces twisted in agony, their once ghostly presences now more real than ever. They're taunting you almost, being close enough to observe, but never to touch, to change what unfolds before you.
Your trembling hands grasp at nothingness, led on by the haunting echoes that permeate the air.
He's so far away.
His blurred form swims before your eyes. It's as if he himself is a distant star you are unable to reach, shrouded in silvery moonlight and imbued with eyes of the brightest living gold, glistening in the shade of divine ichor itself. Perhaps you may have walked among them once with your peerless mind, but now you're reduced to a mere scrap of existence that the famed general looks down upon in pity.
Nothing lasts forever. The stars are constantly plummeting, and one day the heavens will fall too. It is the harsh, embittered truth you face — that against what is inevitable, even the greatest will crumble, torn apart by their own minds which had once birthed such brilliance, felled by its predilections that tend toward madness.
You just happened to fall first, as but another victim to this perpetual eternity, this eternal samsara of the sins from those who had come before, its curse etched upon your flesh from the moment you had opened your eyes to this world.
"Y/N." The utterance of your name is both strained with anguish and this hollow realisation. He echoes what you already know with certainty.
"You're sick."
YOU ARE READING
stardust • hsr & gi oneshots
Fanficdoubt the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move; but never doubt my love.
