Chapter Text
Lan Zhan first meets her at a diner.
It’s not a typical diner, of course, not in this vast, infinite space that can be in every location at every point of time, ever. Friday Jukebox Night coincides with Saturday Raves coincides with Sunday Waltzes, and people of all shapes and colours and fashion senses blur together into the same space, occupying little flickers of life that just pass each other by in the night.
Lan Zhan first meets her at the Diner at the End of the World, and thinks she’s the most beautiful creature the universe has ever created.
The girl seems to exude starlight, seems to smile brighter than supernovas. She is everything and nothing, familiar and yet a stranger. Lan Zhan doesn’t know why she’s so drawn to her. The girl looks at her, and Lan Zhan finds it impossible to look away.
“You don’t dress like you belong here,” a voice says, and Lan Zhan blinks and realises the girl has moved closer. Has approached her table, actually, with a glass of Coke in one hand and the other one jammed into the pockets of a cherry red bomber jacket. “This little joint is dressed like the 1980s AD in the United States, on Earth, and you are dressed for the Tang Dynasty instead.”
Lan Zhan stares cooly back up at her. “No one else has questioned me on it,” she points out.
“Hm. Well. Lots of people are dressed for lots of different time periods, so I guess most people here don’t seem to find it worthy of comment.” The girl swings into the booth opposite her, extends a hand. “I’m the Resurrector. Nice to meet you.”
“Lan Zhan,” replies Lan Zhan. “Likewise.”
“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” says the Resurrector, tapping at her chin with a shiny red acrylic nail. “I know that name. I’ve heard it before. But your face is different.” She pauses. “Tell me, what’s your family like?”
“We were from Earth,” says Lan Zhan, now tracing the patterns on the plastic countertop. “They were an Old Earth family. An unbroken line through Chinese history.”
“Incredible amounts of inheritance?” wonders the Resurrector. Lan Zhan narrows her eyes, and the Resurrector laughs at that. “Come on, Lan Zhan, I found you here dressed like a princess from another time; what am I supposed to believe?”
“You are not incorrect,” hedges Lan Zhan.
“I rarely am,” agrees the Resurrector. “Wrong, that is.”
“Arrogance is discouraged,” replies Lan Zhan. The Resurrector merely sips loudly at her Coke through a straw that she had plucked out of the neckline of her little black dress. Lan Zhan winces at the noise.
“Do you dance, Lan Zhan?” wonders the Resurrector after draining her bottle dry. Lan Zhan raises an eyebrow.
“Unseemly,” she replies.
“Oh, come on, forget being seemly. Let down your hair for a little while, yeah?” The Resurrector swings over to a jukebox sitting on the counter and pulls out a metal dizi from inside her jacket, blowing a couple notes at it. Almost immediately, a lively song begins to play, and she grabs Lan Zhan by the hand to drag her into an equally lively dance.
The moment their hands touch, time seems to slow down all around them. The song and the chatter of the rest of the diner dies away, leaving the world full of just her and the Resurrector, dancing together with feet as light as air, the ground as soft as clouds. The Resurrector spins her out and reels her back in, and in the moment Lan Zhan crashes into her she promptly forgets how to breathe.
The Resurrector’s lips are so close to hers, and her stormy grey eyes seem to bore into Lan Zhan’s own. Briefly, the diner flickers out, and then they’re dancing under the stars in the shade of a wisteria tree.
“Lan Zhan,” breathes the Resurrector, her face quiet with wonder. “It’s you again.”
Again? Lan Zhan blinks, and the memory pops like a bubble, the world of the diner reasserting itself solidly around them. “Where — where were we?” she asks.
“The Lan family mansion in 20th century Shanghai,” replies the Resurrector, stepping away from her. Lan Zhan misses the warmth of her proximity almost as soon as it disappears. “Lifetimes ago, on your end of things. Generations have passed. That house is now lost.”
Lan Zhan’s gut clenches with a sadness she doesn’t fully understand. “You have met my ancestors,” she states, moving back to the booth. The Resurrector makes to follow, but then there’s a sudden scream behind the counter and she rushes to investigate. Lan Zhan follows, her heart sinking at the sight of one of the servers collapsed on the ground behind the counter, flickering like static.
The Resurrector immediately sinks to her knees beside the collapsed server, pulling out a metal dizi and blowing a note over their figure. “As I suspected,” she murmurs. “They’ve gone offline.”
“No one goes offline,” says Lan Zhan, confused. “It is not time, yet.”
“Not time?” wonders the Resurrector.
“We have not yet arrived,” replies Lan Zhan before she even realises what she’s saying. The Resurrector frowns, scans her with the dizi as well.
“What do you think happens when you go offline?” she asks, tapping the dizi against her chin. Lan Zhan thinks, trying to remember the process.
“I do not remember,” she admits. “I have always lived here. This has been my existence.”
The Resurrector extends her hand. Lan Zhan takes it, and immediately the world around them begins to dissolve, atom by atom, distorting and pixellating like computer graphics left online for too long.
“Meet me in the flesh,” whispers the Resurrector, leaning over so her lips can briefly brush Lan Zhan’s cheek. “Help me find them.”
And then the world goes black, and Lan Zhan wakes up.