(Warning! Slightly graphic depictions of past violence. Traumatized Wukong here we go)
Soon they walk out of the marketplace, tightly nestled stalls give way to well built shops. Past the sight of hairparlors and tailors, past the sounds of meat being choped at the butcher's... They walk past a man carving small wooden sculptures and a women strutting out of a nearby leatherworking shop with her new boots clacking along as she moved...Only then did the sound of a hammer, repeated striking against metal, reach Wukong's ears.
He hadn't thought much of it. He had been to countless celestial forges in his lifetime, this mortal-run blacksmith was nothing to make note of...
That was however before a certain smell reached his nose, causing him to freeze in place. His entire body reacted, as if it had received an electric shock. Alarm bells rang through his mind, and his very blood cowar in recognition...
His sight becomes bombarded with flashes of his torment under the mountain... The celestial guards prying his jaws open to shove those hellish pieces of metal down his throat.
All the while his eyes burned from tears and the trauma they had endured from being burned in that godforsaken furnace. While his hands were lodged in unbreakable rock and his mind knew that he would once again be abandoned to burn in silence....
The outside world seemed to be fading around him...his knees felt weak...
Macaque sees that Wukong has come to a standstill... His eyes unfocused...hands trembling slightly...
The queen tunes out the rest of the kingdom around them in order to figure out what just happened. Seeing Wukong like this disturbs him deeply, not just because anything that managed to spook Wukong must have been nightmarish,but because Macaque's immediate instincts are screaming at him to figure this out quickly and remove whatever was causing such distress.
His ears pick up on his beating heart, fast and irrational, like a frightened rabbit... His scent alone carried more raw anxiety than the shadow demon has ever seen from him before...
And so he acted, gently moving closer to the king, careful not to be in the line of easy attack if Wukong does get frightened further. He gently guides the other into a dark alley...before opening a shadow portal and pulling him through....
On the other side is the private garden.
Wukong does not react well to the sudden change in environment, the gold of his eyes flickers wildly in and out of a sharp glow as he scans his surroundings,his tail lashing about violently.
Macaque's breath becomes shallow, his eyes flick to every part of the monkey king's form wildly, trying to figure out what's wrong.
"H-hey, hey ,Wukong, what happened? What's wrong?..."
The darker furred monkey tries to approach further. He starts to notice his own hands shake... The feel of Wukong's magic burns, as if all of that pent up fear was set a blaze...it fights viciously against anything it could find, in search of the cause of it's wielder's distress...He feels even the small shadows of his magic, left behind in Wukong's disguise, get lit ablaze...knawed at by the stressed flickers of golden light trying desperately to destroy whatever they can find in their mass panic. He quickly calls the innocent shadows back, allowing them to cover his palms as to not get burnt from what he's about to do.
He sees the Great Sage bear his teeth... His own nerves only rize further...
He allows the sade to draw away from the nearby trees and surround them,to block out the bright daylight, to dull the noise of birds chirping and attempt to bring Wukong to a sense of composure...
"Can you hear me, bud...?"
Macaque places his palms to Wukong's cheeks. The Sage's eyes pause their scanning for a second... Macaque sucks in a shaky breath...
"It's alright. Hey...look at me..."
The one thing life could never prepare this shadow monkey for...was the fear that comes with standing this close to the Monkey King... One wrong step...And he could be snapped in half like a twig... Every fiber of his body is screaming at him to flee.... He knows what Wukong can do...What Wukong is willing to do...
Most would've run for the hills by now.
The thing that makes Macaque so different...is that he's reckless enough to push closer...
He gently prods Wukong's magic to drop the disguise of the general... The frightened things hold stubborn, refusing to let Macaque near... His voice switches to a soft whisper...
"Hey... it's me...you remember me...right...?"
The queen gently let's the few words of a calming spell slip through his lips...Wukong's magic seems to freeze slightly... Their frayed edges becomming soothed over by the cool yet determined dark wisps... The king puts his fangs away, but his tail is still unruly...
"It's okay, these are the private gardens, nobody can see you here... It's alright... I'm here to help..."
After some gentle reassurance the disguise is dropped...the whisps of light untangle themselves from eachother hesitantly responding back to Macaque...
"Shh shh...that's it... You're doing so-"
The figure staring back at Macaque...doesn't look like man who arrived on his doorstep yesterday evening...
His fur looks course and stained at the edges, skin littered with scars layered over eachother like a scratched up canvas... The sight alone makes him let out a hiss.His palm almost slips from Wukong's cheek, but a clawed hand shoots up to bring it back.
Bloodshot eyes bore into Macaque's.... What...happened to him...? Those golden orbs that always accompanied a cheeky grin were gone... He looks...so tired...
The shadow demon's eyes rome over the terrifyingly strong man clinging onto his hand like it'll save him from drowning.
"Just...breathe....listen to my voice....in...and out..."
Macaque has a tremble in his voice,but he keeps speaking... every moment of silence only seems to make the king more on edge....so he continues to fill that quiet in any way he can...
"Y-you'll be alright...I'll be alright...just...just..-"
Something in Wukong's eyes draws his husband's attention...something smaller...younger..and almost naive...
He gently runs the pad of his thumb over the other monkey's cheek...
Wukong falls to his knees onto the blades of grass, pulling Macaque down with him. The queen's muscles tense up as he's pulled in... Wukong's forehead is now burried against Macaque's shoulder as his one hand cradles the palm against his cheek...and the other is pressed firmly into his husband's back.
The shadow monkey's mind races through a whole cycle of emotions, shock, fear, concern and... something he can't name...
Something deeper...burried behind years of pretending...something simpler...
Wukong's form trembles, cracks threaten to form in his composure as he holds on tightly....afraid to let go...afraid of what will happen if he does... Macaque's other hand moves without thought....pressing against the back of Wukong's head gently....
Wukong looks so...raw...vulnerable... Macaque's heart aches like he hasn't felt in centuries.... All he can bring himself to do...is hold steady...
The silence is thick...Wukong's trembling gets worse by the second... Macaque goes to speak....try and reassure him...try anything to comfort the distressed man in his arms...but all he can muster up is a weak chirp...A pathetic, primal sound, usually only still used with little cubs that can't even speak yet...
Wukong's head raises suddenly as his eyes search Macaque's in surprise and desperation... Then...the tears start to flow... painful and draining....
Soft sobs escape from his lips, the damage to his immortal body links every show of emotion with a physical pain...the strain on his throat, the scalding feeling in his eyes...it all mixes with those small non-verbal pleads...
Wukong seems so hesitant still...as if being held is some great honor he hasn't earned yet...Without another thought Macaque pulls him closer...letting the shorter monkey rest under his chin... He softly strokes that course fur...careful not to touch the circlet or cause pain detangeling the mats...
Wukong needs him...needs him to fill the silence...needs him to be here...just this once... He's incredibly heavy laying his full weight on Macaque's like this... His position is half on Macaque's lap and causing the shadow demon to loose feeling in that leg...But Macaque couldn't care less right now...
Macaque feels tears prick at his own eyes....
He gently fills the silence with quiet frazes...answering every small chirp...taking every little nuzzle and returning them tenfold...
"Shh...I'm here....I'm here...I'm not going anywhere..."
He'll deal with the consequences later...
(Part 1)...(Previous)... (Next)...
