Ren's eyes narrowed ruefully as Dan Heng methodically unraveled the bandages that practically mummified his body, a few shed scales caught in the wrappings flaking off his skin. Exposure to the cool air caused his eye to twitch, but none else. His flesh burned in the constant cycle of regrowth, the skin around those scarlet, shimmery scales raw from endless regeneration. No matter how perfect Permanence balanced his immortality, a human was never meant to be a Vidyadhara, let alone the bizarre chimera he'd become.
"Well? Go on. Practice your healing," Ren scoffed as he looked away, offering his bare arm to the Nameless, skin shimmering in the low light. Well, at least they were in the Archives. It felt... familiar. Almost like instinct, but he gritted his jaw against the notion. Yet, he became lulled by the undulant floor, gradually slouching with hooded eyes as he lost himself in a feeling that was never meant for him to feel in the first place.
vidyadhara were born along the scale of visually human to a divine celestial beast. to be blessed with the attributes of their progenitor was to be closer to long. even amidst such a proud race, there was still hierarchy, and disparaging levels of disrespect dependent on whether one possessed a naturally forked tongue, whether their ears were slender and long enough, or whether the presence of scales glittered like jewels across their skin. some vidyadhara turned to cosmetic surgeries, going through the most extreme modifications to reach unattainable levels of beauty for ‘ spiritual enlightenment ’ or social acclaim. ren had wanted none of it and still paid the price.
the lights of the archive were low, lulled down to the point where most of the illumination came from the raised deck. projections of galaxies and star systems were shifted slow and rhythmic across the ceiling, moving about as casually as a screensaver so long as the monitors remained idle. even with the lights dimmed, his own reflective eyes saw the shifting blue-red scales in great detail, taking ren’s arm in both of his so he could bring it closer. he ignored the hunter’s sardonic encouragement, expression remaining neutral until it shifted, minutely, to something more like awe. he believed dan feng had dreams of scales like these ones. at least, this colour flitted between the more vivid of those reoccurring memories.
this wasn’t the first time that he’d seen ren pluck the scales out. the shape of them, meant to overlock one another in a seamless pattern, grew wild and chaotic, against the skin instead of moving with it. his own cloudhymn, instinctively, knew this ache, knew this body, even, and moved to each painful intrusion, every wound where the red diamonds had been plucked out. this spell moved over his body like mist, settled on each affected area and became denser and denser, until it engulfed the inflamed area like a numbing, cooling salve. it hurt, knowing that this was the most he could do, and that this was the true nature of one of dan feng’s debts, one it would take his entire lifetime to repay. he hadn’t cared, at all, for the one that would satiate ren until he became someone in dan heng’s eyes, instead of the twisted shadow yingxing left behind. maybe that was why it felt all the heavier, knowing that the only solution to this lie in more heinous experimentation, or permadeath. curse this bleeding heart.
the treatment coaxed out one of the loose scales, healing and fortifying ren’s skin there temporarily, at least as long as dan heng’s cloudhymn lingered. dan heng caught the jewel-like fragment, looking away while the swirling hymns reapplied themselves as if on their own, transfixed by the way the scale changed colours when it shifted this way and that.
“ beautiful … ” he breathed, and for a moment he looked a millenia older, more poised, more burdened with the weight of his race’s future. but, only for a moment.
he wondered if dan feng had ever felt this sick possessive desire, that whatever transformation had become of ren was successful, and another new vidyadhara had been born. maybe then, his scales would grow in harmony instead of dissonance, maybe then they wouldn’t hurt him, a perpetual reminder of what it meant to love with reckless abandon.
“ you’ll come back when they bother you. ”
when the pain is more than what you can withstand. when you are done contesting with your pride. when you can allow me to help beyond that which is destructive.
the dragon tried to sound authoritarian, tried to keep the request out of his voice entirely, but failed. the hand still on ren’s arm, more plea than anchor, no matter how much dan heng wished he could be that steadying presence, had he been made of sturdier stuff. the foundation on which they built this thing between them seemed to crumble at the slightest tremor, and yet they still somehow managed to keep from collapsing. the dragon’s grip tightened, the light suggestion of talons promising to dig in further than any scale.