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Guan chased immortality just like Chase had. The way children tend to do.
Growing up meant making peace with transience, with a world always in motion. Neither of them would never master it. The only one of their trio who’d grown up was long gone now, and Guan still tried to immortalize some part of him through statues and slightly skewed stories. It was part of the reason Guan had never documented Dashi’s death.
Even with eternal youth, some things would be ephemeral regardless.
As Guan held the returned spear in his hand, he wondered when this too would pass.
“Now leave, and never return.”
Chase’s voice was knife-edged. Serrated. If either of them could die, Guan would think that look on Chase’s face would be enough to kill him. He spoke with a finality that neither really could believe in. They’d cross paths again, eventually. They always did, whether they wanted to or not.
Grasping onto their friendship was like clutching sand that fell down an hourglass. Hold too tight, and it would all seep away, but open your palm, and it’d all be lost too.
Guan supposed it didn’t matter. Whichever way it happened, there was nothing left of that anymore. An empty palm, poured into an endless hourglass.
He twirled his staffed and turned his back. He focused on the sharp sound of the blade cutting through the air, and not the sounds of the desperate, whimpering pleas of Dashi’s little dragon. When the gates of Chase’s lair closed behind him, Guan barely shrugged.
Perhaps Dojo would find the same peace in transience that his master once found; who could say? His heart didn’t stir in the slightest. Almost everything died, and for things that did, the matter of “when” and “how” were pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
There was no guilt, no regret, no hesitation as he left the new dragon warrior behind to discover that their companion was missing. All of it rolled off Guan like water off a duck’s back.
Until that child insulted him, at least. The smallest one, with that look on his face that reminded Guan of Dashi and those biting words that reminded Guan of Chase.
For the first time in centuries, Guan gritted his teeth in genuine irritation.
Annoying, grating, precocious child, he thought to himself, as he picked up the spear he’d just gotten back.