Undying Love (Honkai Star Rail: Dan Heng x Fem! OC)

Prologue: Final Regrets

    There was nothing but darkness around me.

    Some may argue that there is never a true void, that even the darkest of night has a lone star to guide a lost traveler to a new world. Some may regale a passerby of the small flickers of life that lie beneath closed eyelids, imagination and memories floating in that deep abyssal black. Idealists with their blathering of dreams in themselves being a product of the blissful lull of numb slumber, a shining light to chase for the rest of their insignificant lives.

    Darkness has never shown me true light. I have seen stars shine with the blaze of a thousand universes. I have seen blinding sparks of light that disturb my rest when I close my eyes to escape my reality. I have seen countless dreams of worlds that may not even exist, of people whom I cannot discern is real or a figment of my wistful thinking. The void that I speak of is not one that may be seen with the mortal eye.

    It is a way of life.

~~~

    Once, a very long time ago, I made the grave mistake of trusting someone with my life. We were very close... you could almost say that I loved him. Being with him gave me happiness beyond my imagination, and I honestly believed that he was the one to break me from my endless wallowing in self-hatred and destruction. We ate together, fought together, laughed together... even if I wasn't the closest one to his heart, I was content with holding him close to mine. Even as he embraced a woman with intimacy unknown to my battle-worn body, whispering sweet nothings into her untainted, accepting ear, their elated laughter made it difficult for me to hold any hard feelings towards the ease in which she drove a wedge between him and I.

    I was fine with friendship. I accepted my place in his life, so long as I had one. I protected their happy life by staking my own against those who may threaten the peace, and in doing so I believed that I was also happy.

    I was foolish. Such happiness is unsustainable, mere seafoam to fade away into the ripple of the tides.

    One night, I held a small cup of spirits within a gentle hand, the light scars racing through my skin catching the moonlight in a morbid embrace. The warmth within my heart was falsely induced, a drunken haze tinting my cheeks as my breath whitened the air in front of me. The ocean waves crashed into the rocks below with a vengeance, the anger within each blow an emotion that I refused to let settle within my weak heart, lest it fester and drive me to a mental no-man's-land. I perched upon the rocky cliff jutting out over the water like a tightrope dancer without a net, the thrill of imminent death behind a single false move a buzz within my heart as I took a sip of the strong alcohol. I gazed up towards the tauntingly smirking moon, tiredly holding my cup into the air as a toast of sorts. A toast towards what, my memory has not retained. Perhaps a toast towards a battle won, towards a change of heart, towards a new acceptance? No matter. Senses dulled as they were, the ocean waves drowning out all but the most noticeable of sounds, I didn't notice the footsteps creeping towards my vulnerable back. Or maybe I did? Maybe I noticed, yet paid indifference towards them. My eyes upon the glowing beacon of the night sky, surrounded by the endless dreams, souls, and gods that people associate with the gargantuan masses of burning gasses that flood the universe, my lips shaped the name of someone, a name that I had decided to let go of for my own sake.

    As soon as that name left my lips, I felt a sharp, familiar pain rip through my torso, starting from the small of my back. I remember trying to turn my head to see the face of the culprit, to see whose ire I had inflicted upon myself for the thousandth time. I remember a calloused hand forcing my head forward so that I couldn't see him, then pushing me forward. With that single touch, I knew everything. I knew him better than I knew myself; the sound of his rough voice, the weather-worn shards of calloused skin peppering his fingertips, and even the peppermint scent of his favorite tea. To this day, I pondered over many reasons why he did such a pointless action, knowing who I was. Perhaps he wanted to make it abundantly clear as to what my place in his life was: a nuisance. Perhaps his lover, who was unaware of my lineage, urged him to do away with the one woman who had the potential to knock her off of her precarious perch. No matter. As I fell towards the beckoning embrace of the surging tides below, sea spray making it impossible to tell whether or not the salty water on my cheeks were from the sea or myself, I gazed blankly towards the boundary between sky and sea, a seamless transition between the stars and their reflections. I suppose that I was grateful that my last moments in this life, the life of a self-sacrificing, innocent friend, were of sights this beautiful, this vast, this... awe-inspiring.

    My only regret was not killing those ungrateful bastards while I still had the chance.