Tortoise and Fox [BL]

Oathbreaker IV

"But General Lin—Lin Rongxue—I am you."

Leishan awoke.

He stood still, adjusting to the foreignness of youth—a form that had long left him in the old ages as the Holder. Thick hair, soft skin, non-aching bones... It was something to appreciate. Leishan had already passed on, his body turning into nothing more than dust and washed away into the rivers by the rain.

To quietly melt away and become something greater than himself,  to join Amari... it was both a sorrowful farewell to his beloved world and a joyous reunion with his Caller.

Their souls had touched. It was a brief, welcoming respite before they were brought away, flowing in the same direction, yet to different places. He could sense he was in a dream state. This realm of the mind existed as nothing more than a fragile veneer. A physical touch could tear him away from unconsciousness with ease.

Leishan surveyed the snowy plains created by his subconscious. The sight of the great plum blossom tree pulled his gaze like a magnet. Striking branches of ice and wood twisted together in harmony. Leaves clinked together like glass marbles. Plum petals scattered down alongside a faint breeze. A scorch of lightning ran down the side of the tree. It hadn't split the tree, more so emblazoning the trunk with a detailed lightning pattern.

He walked closer to the tree central to his memories.

"Your step. The flowers are unable to repair if you crush them underfoot," an even voice said.

Leishan shrunk back, apologizing sheepishly. The Ume version of himself gave Leishan a glancing look before fiddling with some of the loose petals beneath the tree. A slow trace of a smile carved sunlight into his icy composure. He spoke up with a steady note.

"Your Amari... He's two parts similar to my Li. Take care of him."

It was hard to discern, but Leishan thought he heard some sort of approval, or maybe ambivalence. This version of him seemed a bit stone-faced. Before Leishan could inquire further, Ume disappeared with a blink, replaced by another form. One with furred robes and a bundle of swaying fox tails.

Aisultan inspected the scorched marks of lightning crawling up the trunk, nodding with interested noises.

"I'd never thought to use this sort of medium on wood. Very fine work. It makes sense you'd succeed me. So you really have no fear of the noise?"

He pointed at his swiveling ears with a practiced smile. Gold cuffs adorned them.

"What?" Leishan asked, half-distracted by the shimmer of the golden ear cuffs.

"The thunder. You don't fear it?"

The memory of Amari dragging Leishan by the arm took hold.

They were running through Nanjie to their carriage, staying minutes too late as thunder shook the ground and lightning cracked the sky. Amari's laughter sang as naturally as birds fly. The thunder was nothing more than a sonorous rumbling that blended in with the rest of the experience, Leishan supposed.

"No, I don't. But there have always been things great and small that instill fear in me," Leishan admitted.
An infinite number of things, in so many unlimited combinations that it made him dizzy. Aisultan grinned at him, tails flicking with satisfaction.

"A good answer. As expected of my incarnation," his voice trailed off.

Aisultan's existence disappeared as if it were only a mirage.

The falling petals distorted and in their shadows appeared the trace of a young man with eye-catching platinum-blonde hair. He did a curious walk around the tree before yawning.

"Feels like I just got out of an all-nighter study session."

"You're a student?"

Felix raised a brow at Leishan's attire.

"And you're a cosplayer?"

Before Leishan could ask what the term "cosplayer" meant, Felix yawned and waved the line of questioning away.

"Never mind. I am a student," he continued to yawn, "though I'm playing a bit of catch-up. Was out for a few weeks and missed some critical lectures."

"If not for the circumstance, I too would have gravitated toward becoming a scholar. My disposition lends itself to that calmer sort of intellectual life."

"That's not really my aim," Felix smiled, picking out an ice leaf and inspecting it. "But in a way I agree. I guess I'm just looking for something greater than life. Stability and contentment. My place in this world... or something."

His eyelids drooped as he leaned against the tree, shoulder slumping down the trunk. As if faced with a reflection in the mirror, a wave of sleepiness rolled over Leishan, his vision blurring.

He closed his eyes, painful memories pulsing through him. His mind felt swollen—the way his stomach did when he had one too many desserts.

Time lost its way.

The pain throbbed, turbulent without warning.

At some point, it began to fade away to a tolerable level.

His thoughts trickled back to him.

When Leishan blinked his vision into clarity, a man clad in void-silver armor and long robes stood in front of him. He tilted his head upward, his mercury cloud hair tied back into a ponytail. Slitted eyes of ice and amber glared back.

Although there was an edge to the General, Leishan smiled without fear. He understood the pain. The betrayal, the distrust, the agony of losing everything—the underlying guilt of an unbearable weight.
He understood everything.

"We have forgiven him," he said, embodying the voices of four.

Felix. Ume. Aisultan. Leishan.

"I remain firm in my decision," the General coldly responded.

"Four times forgiven. An unlucky number. But General Lin—Lin Rongxue—I am you. Different lives, circumstances, and emotions, four times over. But I am still you. What do you achieve by lying to yourself in the innermost depths of your mind? Who do you truly aim to hurt? Why is it up to you... to enact justice onto another?"

"I..."

Leishan watched the toxin of rage enveloped Lin Rongxue, eating away at his reason. It was familiar to him, beckoning Leishan to return as well. To respond with cold fury—to close off any potential discussion, and let unreasonableness slip through.

But after so many years with Amari–after so many lives with Sen, Leishan knew what to do.

Leishan reached out, grabbing Lin Rongxue's hand—his other self. A swirling chill passed from one to the other. Leishan closed his eyes, letting the pain connect them both like a thorny tether. Feeding into pain was easy. It was an escape. But letting the emotions settle in, like an anchor dropped onto a sea bed, was integral in order to see a world clear of rage. 

Lucidity, awakeness.

The tree grew farther and farther away, slowly fading into the distance. The silver petals blurred, and Leishan's figure disappeared in the whirlwind.
Lin Rongxue lost stability in his footing.

His rage too, ran distant—like it was far, far away, unrelated to Lin Rongxue.

Rage, stripped away from its violence into isolation... was nothing more than the burden of his regrets.
Regret slammed down, chasing out the breath from Lin Rongxue's lungs, pressing tighter, harder—constricting and squeezing.

Lin Rongxue jolted awake.