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In the end, it isn’t the Mara that takes him, but rather a brutal blow to his abdomen.
This seems familiar, Jing Yuan thinks wryly even as agony blossoms from where a spear has pierced through him. Then, So this is how it ends.
It’s different from the battle with Phantylia all those years ago. He’d been old then, too, but he’d fought through it, forcing himself to see the battle through. Now, though, Jing Yuan staggers, tasting copper in his mouth. The Devastator Glaive slips from his slackened hand, and he knows the end is nigh.
The world is fading in and out of his vision. He hears someone scream for him, but he’s so tired…
“–Yuan, can you hear me?”
Jing Yuan’s eyes snap open with a full, sharp breath. Several blurry faces are hovering over his, the afternoon sun nearly blinding him. He screws his eyes shut instinctively, still taking in shallow breaths. His cheek stings like it’s been recently cut, his arm only slightly sore, but other than that, nothing hurts.
Someone is supporting his head, and belatedly, Jing Yuan realizes he’s lying on some sort of sandy surface; a patch of dirt? His clothing is startlingly light and loose, his armor absent, and the air smells of grass and flowers and light perfume, not of steel and blood and raw lightning.
“Is he okay?” a familiar, gruff voice asks with worry. That’s new… Blade…? “Did he wake up?”
“Can you open your eyes, Xiao Yuan?” a soft, gentle voice cajoles. Suddenly Jing Yuan’s heart aches, old grief sinking its claws into his chest. He has never been able to deny this person anything, and he opens his eyes slowly.
Bai Heng’s face, as beautiful and kind as it is in his faded memories, comes into view. It is her arm under his head, her perfume filling his nose. He almost cries, then, because it is an old scent he forgot centuries ago, one that left the market before Jing Yuan thought to save it.
She isn’t the only one knelt by his side, and a more familiar face looms overhead. Dan Heng… no. Dan Feng is studying him carefully, concern clear in his jade-green eyes. It’s startling, mistaking Dan Feng for his newest incarnation instead of the reverse.
Dan Heng. The reminder of his time, the people dear to him, sends a jolt through him, and he scrambles bolt upright, looking around wildly. He freezes when his eyes settle on the other two he should have known would be there.
“Hey, hey, relax!”
Yingxing has crouched down to his level, open concern on his face. He sounds like Blade, looks like Blade, but his hair is silver and his eyes are clear. He looks… Jing Yuan’s mouth goes dry. He looks like more than a shell of a man.
However, it is not Yingxing who has stolen Jing Yuan’s breath. Beyond Yingxing, a familiar figure stands a meter behind. Jingliu stares at him, as distant as he remembers her. Unlike Bai Heng, her visage has not faded from Jing Yuan’s memory in the slightest; she is a common visitor of his nightmares, after all.
She does not stare at him with contempt or hatred now, nor has the Mara robbed her of the light in her eyes yet. Instead, she just looks awkwardly worried, her sword still in hand, and Jing Yuan is struck with the sudden realization that she, too, is young.
“What,” Jing Yuan gasps, his lungs struggling for air, “what happened?”
He cannot help it; he touches his stomach where the spear had pierced through and finds only loose fabric instead of broken armor and blood. His arm aches a little, likely from where he had fallen, but it is nothing compared to the chronic pain Phantylia and Cloudpiercer had left him with.
“You collapsed suddenly while sparring,” Dan Feng says matter-of-factly, but his tail sweeps over the dusty ground restlessly, giving away his own anxiety. “You gave us all quite a scare. Are you feeling alright?”
Physically, Jing Yuan has not felt this good in a very long time, but his stomach is still twisting itself into knots, his mind racing as he tries to understand the situation he has found himself in. He is very old, has seen many things in his millennia of life, but this is new.
“Have I died?” he asks faintly, pulling his hand away from his chest. It comes away clean. Jing Yuan has heard of one’s life flashing before their eyes, but this isn’t it. He can feel a cool breeze ghosting over his skin, the rough dirt under his palm; it feels far too real.
“Hey, are you sure he didn’t hit his head?” Yingxing asks, and Jing Yuan twitches when he feels calloused fingers pinch his unharmed cheek roughly. “Don’t be so dramatic, brat. Jingliu didn’t hit you that hard.”
His words are harsh, but they bely the poorly concealed worry in his face and tone. Yingxing had always been bad at hiding his care for others, and it is painfully nostalgic seeing it on a face Jing Yuan has grown used to seeing contorted with hatred and agony.
“Please let go of my face,” Jing Yuan manages to say clearly enough to be understood. He must sound sufficiently pathetic because Yingxing lets go startlingly fast like he’d been burnt. “I… do not know what is going on.”
Jing Yuan does not particularly like admitting this; he is known as the Divine Foresight for a reason. Yet, surrounded by ghosts in a place he knows no longer exists, he cannot help but feel not even Fu Xuan could have predicted this.
Jingliu sheathes her sword and approaches. Jing Yuan cannot help it; he flinches and immediately sits up straighter. His weapon is just out of reach, but he can likely…
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Her red eyes are calm, human; no trace of Mara.
Jing Yuan swallows and his fingers curl in the dirt. “I was in battle,” he answers honestly, because no matter how long it has been, he still cannot lie to his master. It takes some effort, unraveling his memory of it and he falls silent briefly; it had all gone by so fast.
He had been with Yanqing and Dan Heng, he remembers this, taking care of a sudden uprising from the Disciples during a visit from the Astral Express. He also remembers the wave of exhaustion that had washed over him at the news, settling deep into his bones.
“General, are you alright?” Yanqing had asked when Jing Yuan lagged behind for a moment. Jing Yuan had lied with a smile, and…
“I was tired,” Jing Yuan admits after a long moment. “A spear struck me from behind. I heard someone call for me, and I awoke here.”
Jingliu frowns, her lips twisting downward. “A careless mistake is what got you killed?” she asks. Perhaps if Jing Yuan were the age of this body, he may have cowered, hearing displeasure in her voice, but Jing Yuan is old now, having taken a ward of his own under his wing, and he understands that she is afraid.
Yanqing… He is young; he will learn to move on from Jing Yuan. He has plenty of people who will look after him; Jing Yuan has had his will meticulously laid out for Yanqing for a century now. It will have to be good enough.
“No,” Jing Yuan says in the end, closing his eyes so he does not have to see the look on her face. “I was tired.”
“Oh,” says Jingliu, and she falls silent.
Jing Yuan’s eyes open with surprise when he feels arms wind around his shoulders, holding him close. “I’m so sorry, baby,” Bai Heng murmurs into his hair, sorrow coloring her voice, and Jing Yuan’s eyes burn.
“It’s alright,” says Jing Yuan and chuckles, allowing himself to lean into her embrace. He is much too old to deprive himself of such simple, harmless pleasures now. “I have long overstayed my welcome anyway.” Bai Heng’s embrace tightens, just a little, but she says nothing.
There’s a mutely horrified look on Yingxing’s face, and Jing Yuan’s heart breaks again, suddenly reminded of yet another he has left behind. Blade has only scraps left of his past, of Jing Yuan, yet he has never failed to gravitate to him, some kind of memory ingrained deep into his tattered soul, perhaps seeking out the last vestiges of familiarity.
Where will he go now? Jing Yuan wonders if he will turn to Dan Heng, if the two of them will destroy each other without interference.
“You’re giving up, just like that?” Yingxing snaps. The waver in his voice saves his words from being cruel, face twisted with grief. Jing Yuan almost laughs at the irony of who he is hearing it from, but it isn’t funny, not really. “Just–leaving people behind? What happened to your spirit? To your dreams?”
“Yingxing,” Dan Feng says quietly, resting a hand on Yingxing’s shoulder. It settles Yingxing nearly immediately. Not too long ago, Jing Yuan might have been wistfully envious, but that has died with Dan Feng; even if Dan Heng and Blade’s relationship has begun to slowly patch itself up with Jing Yuan’s mediation, they will never be what Dan Feng and Yingxing were. Grief for the loss of that love drowns any envy Jing Yuan might experience now, no matter his own feelings.
“It’s alright,” Jing Yuan repeats. Yingxing has the most right to say these things after all. “He is not wrong to curse me for my selfishness.”
Yingxing swears loudly. “That’s not what I’m saying, you insufferable brat,” he sighs, moving closer. Bai Heng releases him, but before Jing Yuan has time to mourn the loss, Yingxing draws him into a rough hug of his own. “It’s just–it’s sad, hearing these things from your mouth.”
Jing Yuan leans his head against the crook of Yingxing’s neck, smiling into his collarbone. “It has been a long eight hundred years,” he says. He normally isn’t this honest, but he doubts the reality he finds himself in. If this is how he will spend his final moments, lulled into the unknown by a comforting delusion, he is fine with that.
“Eight hundred…” Dan Feng’s surprise is palpable. He looks as though he wants to ask after his future incarnation, but he holds his tongue. Jing Yuan is privately relieved; he does not know how to explain the fall of their quintet. “You have every right to be exhausted.”
“That’s not an excuse,” Jingliu says sharply, walking back into Jing Yuan’s vision. “No disciple of mine will give up for his exhaustion.”
To those who do not know his master, Jingliu’s words may seem excessively cruel, but Jing Yuan can hear her voice tremble, just slightly, and he feels strangely loved.
“Don’t go out without fighting for your life, brat,” Yingxing grumbles, pulling away, but his hands remain on his shoulders. “You’re gonna make someone cry talking like that.”
Jing Yuan chooses not to point out the wetness in Yingxing’s eyes. “I may not have a choice any longer,” he says gently. It’s beginning to feel cold, and he shivers.
“You always have a choice, Xiao Yuan.” He turns to Bai Heng, who cups his cheek tenderly. “You are still here, after all. Even if we are long gone, you carry our legacy. You have people waiting for you on both sides.”
Bai Heng’s palm is warm against his cheek, but the scent of her perfume is already fading.
“Jing Yuan,” says Dan Feng, sitting serenely across from him. Suddenly, it is just the two of them, the sunny afternoon washed away with the sound of rushing water. The smell of blood and metal fills Jing Yuan’s nose. “Where do you want to be?”
Dan Feng opens his hand and offers it to him and Jing Yuan sees the promise of eternal rest in it.
But he also sees Dan Heng’s face in Dan Feng’s. It is a stark reminder that he has more than old, forgotten dreams and the broken remnants of the glory days.
Jing Yuan reaches out and takes his hand.
“We’re almost there!”
Jing Yuan is being moved. It takes great effort, but he cracks his eyes open slowly, finding his face pressed against someone’s chest. The agony follows soon after, spreading from his lower abdomen, and Jing Yuan cannot help a soft, pained whine.
“General? General, are you awake?” Yanqing’s panicked voice comes from off to the side. Jing Yuan manages an affirmative grunt through another jolt of pain as Dan Heng—who is carrying him, Jing Yuan realizes belatedly, isn’t that nostalgic—takes another swift step.
“We’ve called Bailu already,” Yanqing reports to him, his voice watery in a way that hurts more than Jing Yuan’s injury. Guilt washes over him when he is reminded of what he had almost done, and he is thankful he cannot see Yanqing’s face. “We’ve taken care of everything else! Please rest easy!”
“Sorry,” Dan Heng murmurs when Jing Yuan hisses again. His words rumble in his chest as he speaks, and it is oddly soothing. “We’ll be there soon. Just hang on.”
Just hang on.
Oddly enough, Jing Yuan thinks he can do that. He takes a long, shuddering breath, settling against Dan Heng, and thinks about a long, restful retirement.