#zero words

Dan Heng was not unfamiliar with the dark. However, he wished that that wasn't the case.

Years, decades, maybe even a century—his time spent in the Shackling Prison had not been kind to him even in the simplest of things like keeping time—spent in captivity, even before he emerged from his egg, had made the former High Elder harshly familiar with the darkness and the horrors it brought. Perhaps only because of the pain he’d suffered at the beginning of his life could he now stay calm in his current situation.

He dragged himself off of the stone brick ground, moss covering the Eras-weathered pathway, with Cloud Piercer rammed into the ground and acted as his pillar. His memories were muddled as he desperately tried to remember how he’d gotten in such a position—why unconscious (dead? Unsure, it was dark) bodies were scattered behind him, why no one from the Express was with him, why—

A flash of bioluminescent sea green had him whipping his head around. Bright blue-green serpentine eyes, dozens of pairs of them, crawled out of the abyss and lit up as they approached him.

They did not look friendly. They were not friendly, Dan Heng remembered that much. It was one against an army, and well—

The Imbibitor Lunae was infamously known for not going down without a fight.

As Archivist of the Astral Express, it was Dan Heng’s duty to make sure that any and all info in the Data Bank was as up-to-date as possible. With some worlds like Jarlio-VI, that simply wasn’t possible—the Space Anchors may have been deactivated due to unuse, or never existed in the first place. But if Dan Heng could fact-check it himself, he would.

It was on one of these solo expeditions—to a low-end yet vibrant planet named Alladonia, an entry just needing some brushing up on—when Dan Heng heard something that caught his interest.

Four men were planning an expedition to a nearby set of ruins—only revealed to them through a cryptic message delivered by an even more cryptic member of the Garden of Recollection—and were talking about hiring a Pathstrider to guard them. Apparently only one of them was a Pathstrider and a Pathstrider of Harmony in your group wasn’t very useful if none of you could fight.

His curiosity piqued, Dan Heng approached the group and asked them about their expedition. Their leader revealed that during their day-to-day life, the Garden of Recollection gave him a very strange… poem? Riddle? And that it would lead him to immeasurable power if they got there first. Dan Heng sighed inside—of course it did—but his thirst for knowledge would not be deterred. So he offered his services, simply wanting to document anything he found there and maybe a little money to cover lodgings and whatnot. The men, overjoyed, agreed.

The journey to the abandoned city was long but mostly uneventful; soon, the group had arrived at their location. Upon reciting the riddle (Dan Heng was half convinced it was a poem with the leader’s emphasized pauses at odd moments) the large stone doors cleverly disguised as mere sides of a cliff opened wide, casting light down into the city carved into two sides of a ravine, but still not enough to illuminate its lower levels.

The five of them had ventured down and down, exploring every little nook and cranny for any info they could find. The riddle/poem was not very helpful in what came next, so they brainstormed on a large platform in the side of the ravine—a town square of sorts, Dan Heng surmised. A large stone bridge crossed the ravine, where a dark river sat gently flowing.

And then the large glowing lizards appeared suddenly, soundless in the dark and attacked their near-defenseless group group and—

Oh. Dan Heng was falling off the bridge now into the river below.

It was warm and cold.

He felt like he was back inside of his egg, tightly insulated from the outside world, and yet the biting cold of the Shackling Prison(?) still seeped through, stabbing him in places he could not reach.

He tried to move his body, open his eyes, do something , but nothing responded to his calls. He screamed and yelled and begged and nothing escaped his lips; tears would fall, never to be seen since they could not be freed.

Then, in his mind’s eye, he saw a shooting star come rushing towards him—a blazing sign of hope and promises. It reminded him of the sight in Penacony, when those people from all over the galaxy had been called together just to provide a moment’s disturbance for the fatal counter-strike.

Dan Heng knew the dark well. Dan Heng did not like the dark. And so Dan Heng screamed out into the void for someone to save him.

When he finally managed to stir, he took into account all five of his sense at once:

Wrapped around his body was a thick, slightly scratchy blanket that made him feel tightly secure—like his egg or his bed at the Express. He could feel flickering heat near him, its warmth caressing his face.

Saltwater (or polluted water, unsure) hung on his tongue; he swallowed on reflex, trying to clear the mildly disgusting taste from his mouth.

The scent of fish wafted into his nose, bringing back memories of times before—good and bad, from hauntings of the Luofu to photographs of the Express.

The crackling of a burning fire filled the empty silence, reminding him of the whirring of the Archives; soon, the fire was joined by the rustle and jangle of metal shifting around and click-clacking across stone bricks to be by his side.

Finally, Dan Heng peeked his eyes open to be met by the warm, hazy glow of the fire and a body crouched next to his. Metal body, no shirt, black and white hair, and eyes that were always targeting someone or something .

“Boot… hill?” Dan Heng mumbled, brow furrowing. His vision blurred and his head swam as he tried to sit up. “Where…?”

“Take it easy there, partner,” Boothill’s mechanical voice said, a hand on Dan Heng’s chest coaxing him back down. “You’ve had quite the adventure, judging by your state.”

Dan Heng tried to think for a moment, but was knocked off his train of thought by a cup of water at his lips. He wrinkled his nose at the thought of drinking the river’s water, and Boothill’s laugh echoed through the place.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it! It’s not from that dirty old river,” the Galaxy Ranger reassured him. Dan Heng hummed hoarsely, then gratefully gulped down the offered cup—slowly, with each long gulp, his mental processes returned to him one by one.

Once the cup was finished, Dan Heng watched as Boothill rifled through a bag on the side, then looked around his surroundings. It seemed that Boothill had set up camp in one of the many lifeless homes, nondescript outside of their unique carvings on the walls.

“What happened?” Dan Heng asked quietly, his eyes flicking back to Boothill. The cyborg looked at him with a wide-eyed expression and something akin to a frown before shrugging.

“Got me beat, partner—I only just got here.”

“Why are you here?” Dan Heng immediately asked, then winced at the bite in his question. The Galaxy Ranger moved to sit next to him, watching carefully as Dan Heng sat up slowly. He pulled a cooked fish off of where it sat near the fire, and the Vidyadhara accepted the food graciously.

Boothill hummed, staring off into space for a few moments. Then, he began to speak:

“Yer a High Elder, aren’t you? Of the Vidyadhara.”

Dan Heng paused mid-chew, anxiety and panic flooding through systems. He quickly swallowed the torn piece and stammered out, “H-how did you know?”

Boothill looked back to him, and his gaze softened to one of… pity, almost. “We’re both Pathstriders of The Hunt. I’d be foolish to not recognize someone like me.”

Dan Heng looked down to the food in his hands, battling against the flood of memories that tried to breach his defenses. He had fought that battle against Dan Feng back while they were still on the Luofu; he was uninterested in fighting it again. “…I gave up the title of Imbibitor Lunae many centuries ago. At least… I tried to.”

Boothill hummed for a moment. “We’re both Pathstriders of The Hunt… and I heard someone like us crying out in despair.”

“Then we need to help them;” Dan Heng went to stand up, ignoring the throbbing in his entire body, “they could still need out help—“

He was halted by Boothill’s hand on his cheek, stilling his movements. The metal plates were cool against his warming cheeks, but not bitingly cold. The cool of a fan on a hot summer's day. Without realizing it, he’d leaned into it ever so slightly.

“I heard you ,” Boothill murmured. “I heard you begging for someone to save you and I came as fast as I could.”

“—Why?” Dan Heng blurted out after a beat, his mind muddling with every passing second. He couldn’t keep up with everything he was learning today. The thought of the motionless bodies of the other men crept into his mind, and then the lizards and the fight and the fall and the coldness—

Dan Heng was swept into Boothill’s arms suddenly; the blanket around him was left behind and his head rested on the junction between his neck and his head. Only then did Dan Heng realize he was shaking.

“You were amazin’ in that dream, y’know? Both of them. You put up a fantastic show for your friends and everyone else and even had me enraptured in your part of the show. It had me fooled, I’ll admit.

“But it’s over,” Boothill’s voice dropped to a mere comforting murmur. “It’s all okay. You can rest now.”

Dan Heng just sat there, petrified in the confusion of emotions flooding him. The cool grasp around him squeezed just a little tighter, and that was all it took for Dan Heng to bury himself into Boothill further.

Dan Heng did not like the darkness—in fact, Dan Heng hated the darkness, fearful of it even.

“It was too dark,” Dan Heng muttered into Boothill’s neck, his voice rising in hysterics as he continued to speak. “Reminded me too much of back then. It was cold, too cold, and too dark and I couldn’t do anything and—“

“Shh.” Boothill tugged the half-sobbing dragon into him ( if that was even possible, Dan Heng’s mind faintly commented). “You’re okay now. No more darkness or cold.”

“…I saw a shooting star. Near the end. It- it reminded me of when you summoned all those Galaxy Rangers in Penacony.”

“I guess the speed at which I flew over here could be compared to a shooting star,” Boothill commented, making Dan Heng snort a little in reply.

Silence lapsed between the two of them before the dragon breathed: “…I’m tired.”

“Well, your Express friends are on their way. You can get some rest before you go back with them.” The cyborg replaced Dan Heng back in the little sleeping bag he’d put him in; Dan Heng rolled himself into a cocoon immediately, much to the Ranger’s confusion and amusement.

Dan Heng glanced at him one more time, his eyes sparkling (with tears? just from relief?) as he quietly asked:

“Will you stay with me?”

Boothill understood immediately. The unspoken words between two Pathstriders of the same Path. Two hunters with too much in their pasts that always came back to them.

“As long as you want me.”

Dan Heng smiled weakly, humming in response to a hand ruffling his hair, then dozed off—not truly sleeping, but letting his mind shut down. Somewhere down the line, behind blurred and foggy memories, he felt arms pick him up and carry him a long way, never letting go until they’d arrived at the Express. Once he felt the familiar aura of the Express encircle him once more, Dan Heng truly allowed himself to fall asleep.

Dan Heng was not unfamiliar with the darkness. He did not like the darkness and was always afraid of returning to it.

But this time, no matter where he went in his dreams, a shooting star was always following after him.