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Looking around reveals nothing, except for the fact that you hadn't finished packing up the things you'd been using to draw or pushed the chair in. He ignores that bit since you were just a child, and the chair was meant for an adult, but is slightly irritated that no one seems to have taught you to always finish cleaning up after yourself.

Stopping at the edge of the desk his irritation melts away as he stares down at what you had been drawing, a niggling curiosity filling him as he picks up what almost looks like a blueprint for a weapon. It looks like a shuangdao yet instead of the typical half-moon design the guard and hilt look like a taijitu, the blades more similar in shape to a guandao than regular single handed dao blades.

An interesting idea to be sure, and one drawn impressively clean considering the typical unsteadiness of a child's hand. Rolling it up he takes it with him, it should be a fun challenge to see if he could make your idea come to life.

The second time Yingxing sees you is a week later, as he's melting down another failed attempt at creating those shuangdao. You're holding General Huaiyan's hand as you trot along at his side, your head turning in every direction like you weren't sure what you wanted to look at most. Like this he can see the resemblance between the two of you, the shape of your eyes and the lines of your jaw are so similar it makes Yingxing wonder how he hadn't noticed your resemblance to his Master.

Barely seconds after he thinks this, your eyes connect with his and Yingxing smiles kindly at you. For some reason you startle, tucking your face into Huaiyan's side to hide from him, the same pale orange heliobus at your side swirling in what seems to be–amusement? Reassurance? Yingxing isn't quite sure, still unused to reading heliobi despite the near three decades he has spent on the Zhuming.

"Now, now, no need to be so shy. I told you about him, remember?" Huaiyan says gently to you, who must be his daughter, because Yingxing's Master had no relatives with children for you to have been the man's niece. You peek out from behind the General's leg, face scrunched up shyly and your eyes teary as you look up at Yingxing.

Looking at you properly you have to be eight to ten years old, and Yingxing actually can't believe that it has been that long since his Master had taken paternity leave. Even for a short-life species like himself, Yingxing swears that is was barely last year that Huaiyan had set aside his duties at the Flamewheel Forge to help his wife look after their new child.

Yingxing shakes himself out of his thoughts as he sees you start to shrink behind Huaiyan again, stepping away from the anvil he'd been working at and crouching near his Master. He smiles again at you, softer, less pronounced than he had before and making sure not to show any teeth this time, his hands hanging over his knees, palms in plain sight facing you. Perhaps he is treating you similar to the stray cats he feeds, but it works; you inch out from behind General Huaiyan, a tremulous smile on your face as a meek little greeting leaves your lips.

"I'm Yingxing, an apprentice of your father. It's nice to meet you, little one." Mentioning that seems to make you perk up, blatant interest lighting your face as you stare up at him. Though the words that come out of your mouth shock him, Yingxing gaping at you in surprise.

"Oh I know you! You're the one papa says has more arrogance than common sense!" You beam up at him despite the damning words leaving your lips, the gap between your teeth on display. Mechanically Yingxing's gaze slides from your face up to General Huaiyan standing behind you, though his Master has suddenly become quite interested in the ceiling of Flamewheel Forge.

"Is that so?" Yingxing grits out, eyebrow twitching. Discounting when he'd seen you the other day he had never met or spoken to you before, just what kind of stories had his Master been telling you about him? Before he could get too annoyed Yingxing hears a quiet giggle, drawing his gaze back down to you.

"Your projects sound so cool though Mister Yingxing, can I see one?" Your eyes shine with more genuine interest than most people, and it makes him pause. Yingxing was so used to all Xianzhou Natives other than his Master judging his ambitious projects, but as you stared up at him there was nothing but honest curiosity in your gaze.

"Okay." Yingxing folds immediately in the face of such innocence, standing back up before offering his hand to you. You look utterly delighted as you grab his hand in both of yours, your little pet twirling happily at your side–at least, the chiming it lets out sounds as if it is happy.

"Reeeeeen shush!" Yingxing hears you whine at the heliobi, likely attempting to be quiet yet not aware that that made it more obvious. It amuses him slightly, the fact your heliobi must have been teasing you going by how you reacted; he can only guess that it had been your enthusiasm about getting to see his work.

He doesn't find out the real reason until several months later, through a passing remark made by Huaiyan's newest apprentice Hanguang. The young man who looks so similar to how Yingxing used to they could have been mistaken for siblings, watches in fond amusement as you leave Flamewheel Forge running after the heliobi messenger your father had sent to collect you.

"That puppy crush she has on you is rather cute you know? I can only hope that if I ever have kids, that the people they crush on are as kind about it as you are." After saying that Hanguang leaves Yingxing alone, the other man heading further into the Forge back to his own workspace.

Yingxing however is frozen in place, staring down at the mess of canvas paper you had been doodling messy weapon ideas on. A puppy crush? It made sense of course, so much that Yingxing can only blame the fact he usually never spends extended amounts of time around children on the fact he hadn't picked up on it.

Yet Yingxing also has no clue how he hadn't picked up on it, now that he's thinking about it you act so differently around him compared to the other artisans that work for your father. Your eyes are always on him even though you shy away each time he catches you staring, until he could coax you into calming down again. The heliobi always by your side laughing each time you would switch to clinging to Yingxing, attached to his hand like a vice or hanging off his back when he needed both of his hands.

He had indulged your clinginess because of the fact that there wasn't really any children around your age, whose parents would be comfortable with them being near the Flaming Heart's daughter. Yingxing remembers what it was like to grow up with no one willing to get to know you, after all half the kids he had tried to befriend still acted like teenagers.

All Yingxing had wanted to do was to make sure you had someone you could rely on, since he hadn't had that as a child–even though Baiheng had tried, she was so busy as a pilot in the fight against the Plague Author. He couldn't imagine how lonely it was for you though, not with your father being the General of the Zhuming. Lonely enough that you had gotten Ren as a pet at least, and how lonely did a child have to be to turn to a heliobus for company?

On one hand Yingxing wonders if it had been a mistake, now that he knows of your crush on him. Had he done anything to accidentally encourage it? On the other hand he doesn't want to suddenly be cold to you, such a sweet little girl who had no friends because of the position her father held.

Would you grow out of it, if he just acted like normal? If he ignored your crush without damning you to the loneliness that had Huaiyan letting you keep a heliobi as a pet? Yingxing doesn't know, he can't remember having ever had a crush on Baiheng or any other adult as a child; but perhaps he doesn't remember because it had passed so quickly?

It's possible, he thinks, that it will just take longer for you to get over due to the differences between a short-life species like himself and a long-life species like you. The thought relaxes him, there is no need to shut you out for something that will pass by anyway. Yingxing goes back to cleaning up your messy blueprints, lips quirking at the sight of a sword that seemed to be floating around the stick figure wielding it.

The next time Yingxing sees you, he really can't believe that it took Hanguang pointing it out for him to notice your crush. Little sparks of flame linger on the end of your hair, a brilliant red that matches the artisanship commission-ship uniforms rather than the pale orange of your heliobi. Not only that but you fidget with your sleeves and top, always ducking your head and glancing at him when Ren says something he can't hear to you.

"Heh," Yingxing laughs at himself once you are gone again, shaking his head with a sardonic smirk. Maybe he really did have more arrogance than common sense, too stuck in his projects and proving that he was as good as any Xianzhou Native to notice something so obvious.

Ah well, it doesn't matter. Yingxing will continue to treat you as he always does, besides his Master had never complained about your little puppy crush. On top of that Huaiyan always seemed to prefer Yingxing to be the one to babysit you, though it was hardly a chore to look after such a well behaved child like you.

During the next festival Yingxing finds himself being the one to take you, since Huaiyan is too busy with his duties as General to take you himself. It's nearing the end of the night, when Yingxing gives into your begging and lets you have drag him towards the goldfish game, when another off-hand comment gives him an idea.

"What a cute little sister you have," the lady running the stall coos to Yingxing, as both of them watch you struggle to catch a goldfish with the paper net. The sight makes Yingxing's lips quirk up, but then what the woman had called you registers in his mind and his eyes widen.

"Oh, no she is..." Yingxing pauses, rolling the idea around in his head. If he makes himself into your big brother, then surely your puppy crush on him would die faster wouldn't it? Then you could develop one on someone your own age, and someone you won't outlive by centuries.

"Don't let her cuteness fool you, she's a little devil just like that pet of hers." Yingxing says instead of denying the connection, a warmth forming in his chest. He hasn't had family since the borisin tore his planet apart, part of him feels like he should have denied it; if not due to you being unrelated, then solely because Yingxing likely shouldn't be declaring himself to be your big brother without asking Huaiyan first.

But isn't that what he is already? Yingxing protects you when you are with him from the assassins you don't know exist, he is the first one to look after you when your father is busy. He knows all of your favourite things, knows how you want to make weapons that outshine any others ever made within the Xianzhou's long history. Aren't these the types of things an older brother does and knows?

Hearing a sniffle makes him shake himself out of his thoughts, focusing back on you and tensing at the sight of your eyes tearing up. Quickly he swoops in, standing behind you and grabbing the last one of the paper nets he had bought you. Yingxing puts it into your hand and wraps his hand around yours, guiding you into catching the one you had been trying to get. It is only after you cheer and the stall owner claps, that Yingxing realises what he's done.

Ah, I'm going to have to explain your new pet to Master Huaiyan, aren't I? Yingxing thinks, and yet he can't find it in himself to worry too much about the oncoming conversation. Not when you turn to him, a wide and brilliant smile on your face, flames sparking in your hair as you carefully hold the bag containing the little black and orange fish.

"Come on little flame, it's about time to go home now." Yingxing hums, holding a hand out to you. Usually you would cling to his hand immediately, but this time he watches as you swap between staring at him and the fish in your hands. A quiet huff of laughter escapes him at the sight of you, too worried about your new pet to latch onto him with your normal enthusiasm.

"Don't want to let them go, hmm?" He says playfully, though he doesn't wait for you to respond. Yingxing steps closer to you and crouches down, before reaching out and scooping you up into his arms. Standing back up Yingxing tucks you against his chest, unable to stop a smile crossing his lips as you curl into his neck while still clutching the fish bag.

You are fast asleep by the time he gets you home, and Yingxing has long since had to take over holding onto your prize. He grimaces slightly at the faintly disappointed look Huaiyan levels at him at the sight of the fish, but Yingxing stays silent not wanting to wake you up.

After a moment his Master relents and guides Yingxing to your bedroom, taking the fish off of his hands and leaving. Yingxing tugs the blankets on your bed back and lowers you down, taking a moment to remove your shoes before he tucks you in firmly. Yingxing lingers for a moment, gently brushing your hair aside and then leaving you to sleep.

A few months later Yingxing gets an opportunity he can't refuse, not with how short his life is and yet. When he sits you down–on what is likely the last day he will ever babysit you–and tells you, Yingxing feels his chest squeeze so tight he briefly wonders if he's having a heart attack. He can't stand the sight of you in tears, sobbing and wailing at the idea of never seeing your beloved big brother again.

"Don't cry little flame, we can write letters to each other!" Yingxing blurts out without thinking, just wanting your tears to stop. Not only does it work to stop your crying, but when he thinks about it for another minute the idea appeals to him very much.

"We might not be able to see each other for a long time, but as long as we write you wont loose me. It will be okay little flame, I promise." He crouches down to your height, giving you a reassuring smile as he holds his arms out. As he expected you launch yourself at him, making him grunt slightly as you cling to him like an octopus.

Humming he picks you up, even though Yingxing probably shouldn't be indulging you so much right before he's set to leave the Zhuming. Resting his chin on top of your head he sighs faintly, he's going to miss you once he's moved to the Luofu but the chance to make his own forge is just one he can't give up.

Unsurprisingly he gets a letter from you after only a week of living on the Luofu, and it makes the stress of being looked down upon by the artisan's here melt away. More surprising is the letter he gets from Huaiyan alongside your own, but when he read it his lips twitch up. It seems his Master isn't above spoiling you either, if he's using the fact a General's correspondence is delivered faster to make sure Yingxing gets your letters quickly.

Ignoring the mass of supply invoices and commission requests that he still has to go through, Yingxing sits down to write a reply to your letter first. Before he takes it to the post office to send it back to you, he decides on a whim to make you a hair stick. Yingxing crafts flame like ornaments the same colour as your heliobi for the end, smiling to himself as he imagines how excited you'll get at seeing it.

Two decades pass like that, through letters and gifts sent back and forth between the two of you from the Zhuming to the Luofu. Yingxing wonders sometimes if he should be sending you photos, of the sights of the Luofu, of his friends or the weapons he makes; but always ends up distracted, and rushing to send his latest letter off until he eventually forgets all about it.

It comes back to bite him, of course it does. It comes back to bite him when you decided to visit him, all grown up now without needing to get your father's approval to leave the Zhuming. Reading his Master's latest letter it bites him in the ass, because he has no clue what you look like anymore but now you're apparently going to be visiting him.

The only reason he knows you intend to visit at all is a throwaway line at the end of Huaiyan's letter, two days before you're set to arrive in Stargazer Navalia. And really you are just like your father, neither of you remembering to tell him anything until the last second yet Yingxing can't help but find it charming from you as apposed to how it irritates him from Huaiyan. Thankfully it is just enough time to get the guest room ready, and hastily clean up the mess that has accrued in his home due to his long hours in the forge.

When Yingxing goes to the docks to pick you up, he's thankful that Ren is by your side letting him easily recognise you; he sees you before you see him and you take his breath away, in a manner that has to be damaging for his health. As you look around–likely searching for him–the artificial sunlight makes you look sublime, like a divine emissary from stories he half remembers his mother telling him about.

The last time he saw you, you only reached his hips but from where he's standing, he thinks that now you at least reach his shoulders. Remembering how you had declared you would be taller than him when you grew up makes him smirk, but then you turn in his direction and it's like everything else falls away.

You're the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Yingxing could craft a million weapons in his meagre lifetime, but none would ever compare to the beauty you hold.

Is this why the Knights of Beauty insist in THEIR survival? Yingxing can't help but think, but it is a fleeting thought because in the next instance your mouth opens. Those beautiful lips part and he feels what the weapons he creates must feel when they are quenched because, because through his own fault what leaves your mouth is an excited cry of "Yingxing-gege!"

It's like a balloon has popped and the sounds around him come crashing down on him, but Yingxing makes sure to plaster on a smile as you draw closer; the burgeoning regret he feels isn't something you should concern yourself with, big brothers are supposed to look after their little sisters after all.

His smile turns more genuine as you wrap your arms tightly around him, Ren swirling around the two of you chiming happily. Yingxing has missed you during his past two decades on the Luofu, unable as he was to spare the time to visit you back on the Zhuming. Having you in his arms, even with the complicated mix of emotions in his chest, feels like coming home.

"It's good to see you again little flame," Yingxing sighs into your hair, basking in holding you for just a little longer before drawing back. Setting his hands on your shoulders, he pushes you back gently so he can look over you properly.

It wasn't just the light of the artificial sun behind you that had made you look beautiful, you were just naturally breathtaking. A kind of beautiful that would make heads turn your way, the idea of other people staring at you with desire fuelled by lust instead of love infuriated him. Made Yingxing grit his teeth and glance around the docks, shooting a dark glare at a few people that were staring.

"Gegeeeee," your whine recaptures his attention, Yingxing's gaze falling back onto your face–lingering on your pouting lips for barely a second, before he forces himself to look in your eyes. "Where are your friends you always talk about? Did they not want to meet me?"

Yingxing blinks at you, it wasn't surprising you wanted to meet his friends, but you had said that like you'd expected to meet them now. His eyebrows crease slightly as he removes his hands from your shoulders, crossing his arms and giving you a familiar exasperated look.

"Why would they be here? If it hadn't been for Master Huaiyan mentioning your visit in his letter, I wouldn't even be here to pick you up!" Yingxing exclaims in mild annoyance, though he can't find it in himself to stay angry at you. Not when your lips part cutely in shock, your eyes that shine like gems filling with embarrassment.

"I… did I… did I forget to send… you the letter I wrote?" You stammer meekly, red sparks flickering at the end of your hair. Yingxing sighs in both amusement and sympathy, Huaiyan's letter had been all about you passing your artisan finals so it isn't that shocking to learn you had intended to tell him and had simply forgotten.

"I'll make sure you can get to meet them before you have to go back to the Zhuming, okay? Just remember to warn me in advance next time you intend to visit me," Yingxing relents to you, as he always finds himself doing when it comes to you. It doesn't stop him from pinching your cheek though, smirking almost tauntingly at you as you whine at him.

Releasing your cheek he snatches your bags while you rub at the spot he'd pinched, smirk turning arrogant as you try to take them back from him. Yingxing just lifts them above his head out of your reach, teasing you about your height difference.

"Aw, what's wrong little flame? Can you not reach them?" He chuckles at the way you scowl up at him in response, resisting the sudden urge to bite your cheeks as they puff up so cutely. Yingxing lowers his arm again but refuses to let you take your bags back, instead he grabs your hand in his and tugs you after him.

He can feel it when you hesitantly intertwine your fingers together, but he doesn't protest it. No, in fact it softens his smirk back into that small fond smile that he reserves just for you.

When the two of you reach his home in Aurum Alley, Yingxing is slightly nervous at the possibility he might have missed something when cleaning. He doesn't want to worry you, yet at the same time the idea of you fussing over him is strangely appealing. Yingxing takes you on a tour around his house, dropping your bag on the guest rooms bed (though if he were honest with himself, when he had bought his house he had only made sure it had a second bedroom in case you ever visited).

After that he leaves you in his living room, heading to the kitchen to make you some proper food. Yingxing highly doubts that the food on inter-fleet starskiff rides had improved in the past two decades since he moved, if it was ever improved it would likely be long after he died. Thinking of it makes him pause for a moment while washing the rice, the reminder that you will live long after he has died.

It makes him maudlin, makes him want to carve out a spot within your heart for himself that nobody else could ever fill; but no, that would be cruel of him. Yingxing has at maximum another forty years left, at best likely only twenty with the strain his craft puts on his body. You however, you will live another seven centuries at least before Mara becomes a problem for you, and if you inherit your fathers peculiar resistance to it, you could even live for millennia longer.

To carve an irreplaceable spot in your heart for himself would be the cruellest thing Yingxing could ever do, and yet. The idea is so tempting, as tempting as it is to abandon the congee he is making to go kiss you.

Yingxing lets out a slow breath and goes back to stirring the rice, trying to ignore the way his heart pounds in his chest. Are your lips as soft as they had looked? He can't help but think, getting irritated at himself for the thought. Feeling the spoon start to bend in his grip he snaps out of his thoughts, shaking his head roughly to get rid of them.

Refocusing on the rice he decides it's cooked enough, turning the heat off and moving it aside. Yingxing moves to the cutting board as the rice cools, chopping up some onion and left over chicken from his dinner last night. Grabbing a ladle he puts a generous amount into a bowl for you, nearly forgetting to grab you a spoon before heading back to the living room.

Yingxing pauses in the doorway and watches you, warmth filling his heart as he spots you curled up on his couch fast asleep. His throw blanket is pulled halfway over you, and Ren is trying to tug it so that it covers you better. Yingxing goes back to the kitchen, putting the bowl of congee in a warmer for you to have later before returning to the living room.

"You can stop now Ren," Yingxing says quietly as he circles the couch, taking care not to wake you up as he removes the blanket from you. Chucking it over the back of his couch again Yingxing crouches down, grunting slightly as he picks you up in his arms.

He freezes for a moment when you stir, letting out a slow breath as you nuzzle into his neck sleepily. A shiver runs down his spine as he moves towards the guest room, Yingxing doesn't know if it's a blessing or a curse to know that; yes, your lips were as soft as they looked.

Yingxing has to shift you into one arm to open the door, and then pull back the blankets on the bed. It is hardly a struggle though, to him you are as light as a feather. He takes your shoes off and tucks you in, thoughtlessly smoothing his hand across your forehead as you sink into the mattress. What a familiar scene this is, though back then he had viewed you as nothing more than his little sister.

If his friends could see the smile on his face right now, Yingxing is sure they would be teasing him relentlessly. He doesn't mind though, Yingxing isn't ashamed of how much he cares for you even with the complicated addition of these new emotions he feels for you.

Even with his promise that you could meet his friends before the end of your visit, Yingxing hadn't actually been sure he could manage to make it happen since Baiheng was off ship. Yingxing nearly sighs in relief when just three days before you are due to go back, he gets a message from Baiheng that she's back on the Luofu.

He doesn't tell you where the two of you are going when you leave that morning, not wanting to get your hopes up about meeting all of them–just in case Dan Feng has to suddenly cancel because of the Preceptors nagging him. Yingxing just couldn't stand to see the disappointed pout on your face, if he promised for all his friends to be there only for three instead of four to greet you.

However after he has introduced you to them all, after the two of you have sat down at the table; where you sit as close to him as possible, practically sitting in his lap as you cling to him. Obviously intimidated by Dan Feng and Jingliu, despite the fact he has heard you speak of Teng Xiao in annoyance while calling the man your uncle, and Yingxing wonders if he should regret this meeting.

Because Jing Yuan is staring at you with wide eyes from his spot next to Jingliu, it is perhaps the most unguarded expression Yingxing has ever seen on the kids face. But it burns inside Yingxing's chest, the sight of a brilliant blush erupting on Jing Yuan's face as the lieutenant stutters his way through introducing himself to you.

Why was that brat introducing himself? Yingxing had already done that barely even five minutes ago! His eyebrow twitches, a scowl briefly crossing his lips before he hastily replaces it with a reassuring smile when you glance up at him.

Yingxing wants to reach over the table and throttle the brat for making eyes at his little sister, for thinking he was in any way good enough for you. But isn't he? An insidious whisper rises in the back of Yingxing's mind, Jing Yuan is young and strong and most importantly he has a life span that could match your own.

Why wouldn't you pick him over Yingxing? He can't help but grimace at the bitter truth his mind has reminded him of, that even if you did choose him. Yingxing was just destined to break your heart all over again when he died, like he had when you'd had that puppy crush on him.

"Is something the matter Yingxing?" Dan Feng's voice brushes against his ear, making him stiffen slightly as his eyes snap between you and the High Elder. But his friend is staring at him with veiled concern, tea cup raised to his lips and no one else seems to have heard the vidyadhara speak.

"Should I ask Jingliu to reign in her apprentice?" Dan Feng's lips barely move, and Yingxing thinks: ah of course, he's using cloudhymn to speak to me. Yingxing contemplates his friend's offer for a moment, staring into sea foam coloured eyes.

Yingxing can see the concern in Dan Feng's eyes, but he can also see slight amusement. He isn't sure how he feels about it, the idea that Dan Feng must have guessed just what was irritating Yingxing and why. It is however something he can think of later, if he takes too long to respond Dan Feng will likely do whatever he thinks is best–and Yingxing doesn't need Jingliu figuring out his complicated feelings for you.

He shakes his head minutely, Dan Feng raises an eyebrow at him but tilts his head ever so slightly and concedes to Yingxing's choice. As always, Dan Feng's unwavering support makes Yingxing relax, even as it makes him wonder if it would really be so bad to give into the feelings for you that had been rapidly growing the past two weeks of your visit.

Dan Feng was rather disconnected from the normal day to day life of citizens on the Luofu, but even so the vidyadhara was best at predicting how the public would judge something out of all of them. If his friend was willing to subtly encourage Yingxing's possessiveness over you, then surely he could; but no, he cuts the thought off before it can take root in his mind.

Yingxing is like a mayfly compared to you, and he does not wish to be a scar upon your soul for the rest of eternity.

Dan Feng stares at him, likely having seen Yingxing waver for a moment but he doesn't say anything else; not through cloudhymn at least, no instead his friend inserts himself into the conversation to ask–perhaps a little too sharply–about how you got Ren. It humbles Yingxing, for just a moment. Dan Feng's willingness to not only cause potential friction with one of the vidyadhara's only friends, but to try and get to know you just because he can tell how dear you are to Yingxing.

It soothes Yingxing when he realises you don't seem to notice Jing Yuan's stuttering attempts at flirtation, even if each one sparks another flicker of irritation within him. No, in fact you seem more interested in Dan Feng, or rather; the stories about Yingxing you can pry from Dan Feng, and he ignores the look it has his friend sending him.

Yingxing doesn't know what that look means, and nor does he want to; to have false hope is the worst kind of thing he can imagine.

The next day Yingxing takes you to his forge, barely able to hold back an excited smirk as he thinks of what your reaction to his surprise will be. It is only a shame that he hadn't had time to drag you here sooner, with how you'd wanted him to show you practically every inch of the Luofu during your visit.

He watches as you look around his forge, unable to stop himself from practically preening at your starry eyed gaze. After a moment he tears himself away from you, heading into the back where he keeps all of his personal projects separated from his commissioned work. Yingxing retrieves the gift he had finally made for you, though the only reason it had taken him until this year was because of how much work he'd had since moving to the Luofu; well that, and the fact he'd wanted to make it with the best materials possible.

Stepping back into the main room of his forge, Yingxing huffs out a laugh as he spots you snooping through his blueprints. A smirk crossing his lips as you jolt and look up at him, a guilty pout on your face as the familiar chiming of Ren's laughter echoes as the heliobi swirls next to you.

"Well I had a gift for you, but now I'm not so sure you deserve it." Yingxing teases, setting the wooden case he was carrying down over top of his blueprints on the table. Crossing his arms he leans against it while listening to you stammer out excuses for a few minutes, taking perhaps a little too much joy in watching how flustered you get.

"I suppose you can still have it, it's your design after all. I just made it a reality," Yingxing says in mocking thoughtfulness, nudging the box towards you with his elbow and raising an eyebrow. He watches with a sense of almost nervousness as you open it, wondering if there was something wrong with them even though he'd checked them over several times before bringing them out to you.

You freeze after opening the box and for another moment Yingxing thinks he messed something up when forging your gift, then your lips start to wobble and tears are forming in your eyes. Yingxing tenses at the sight, panicked at the sight of what must be your displeasure at his audacity; and then you open your mouth.

"Y-you made… made these for me?" Your voice trembles but you don't sound upset, no. Yingxing relaxes as he registers the sheer delight coating your words, his smirk melting away into a fond smile. Even though the tears don't leave, he isn't panicked anymore as you pick his gift up out the box.

The scabbard containing the real gift is darkly lacquered alder wood, stained to look almost a deep black. Silver metal coats the chape, mouth and middle of it; all three in the shape of the flames you wield as easy as breathing. Just like the blueprint you'd made as a child, the guards for the shuangdao are shaped like a taijitu, each blade having one magatama.

Your eyes are still teary and your lips still tremble, but your hands are steady like stone as you remove the blades to look at them. Made of a metal so black it appeared to suck the light out of the surrounding space, and sharp enough they make a slightly ringing sound as you withdraw them. You stare at them silently before abruptly sheathing them again, making Yingxing's eyebrows furrow in confusion.

Gently you set the scabbard down on his work table, then rapidly circle around it and throw yourself at him. Yingxing grunts as you slam into him, but wraps his arms firmly around your form as you cling to him. Yingxing smiles helplessly down at you as you bury your face in his chest, able to feel the tears wetting his clothes as you mumbles endless "thank you"'s against him.

"I knew you would, but I'm glad you like them." He says smugly, belying his earlier internal certainty that you had hated them. It's not like you needed to know about that anyway, to you he was strong and unwavering and Yingxing didn't intend to do anything to change your opinion of him.

"I don't like them," you sniffle, making his heart drop instantly–had he misread your reaction twice? "I love them! I can't believe you really made me those shuangdao I drew as a kid, Yingxing-gege you're really the best."

"You made an interesting design is all," Yingxing dismisses your praise, though he feels faintly as if he'd had a heart attack. He keeps rubbing your back soothingly, huffing his next sentence out with slight irritation. "Besides, how can I trust weapons made by other people to protect you? My little sister deserves the absolute best to protect herself with."

For some reason his words make you giggle, despite the absolute seriousness he had behind them. The thought of you dying in the middle of this war, just because the weapon from some rushed artisan broke on you features in his worst nightmares. It has ever since your letter a few years ago about joining the Zhuming cloud knights, though he decides not to push the issue right now.

When Yingxing sees you off the next day, he is slightly irritated when Jing Yuan tags along without any warning. Yet the sight of his gift hanging at your side, of you clearly wanting to show it off, instead of putting it inside your quantum storage fills Yingxing with a smug sense of childlike glee.

Each time after the first that you visit him, Yingxing can feel his resolve to not be a scar on your heart forever weaken. Not helped by the way you never seem to notice Jing Yuan's increasingly desperate attempts at flirting with you, or the way Dan Feng always subtly encourages Yingxing to do something about his feelings for you.

At night he is kept up either by thoughts of you, or dreams of you, nothing but you in all your glorious splendour. Thoughts that make him feel guilty in the morning, dreams that wake him up in a cold sweat; both good and bad. Although Yingxing tries to convince himself they are all bad, in an attempt to ignore the more carnal desires he has for you.

In his mind you are pure, innocent. Unaffected by the desires of others, either because of how your father has shielded you or how you simply have no interest in interacting with new people. Yingxing doesn't know which it is, but the way you never register the constant interest directed at you makes him burn.

Yingxing wants to introduce you to desire and pleasure in all its different form, to make you feel so good that no one else will ever compare no matter how many centuries you live. Yingxing wants to make sure you stay his innocent little sister forever, so that if he can't have you no one else will ever get the chance either.

And Yingxing knows it's wrong of him to feel like this.

For him to feel so good about the attention you give him, to preen and stand taller when without fail you always search him out first even if his friends are nearby. Even if he took the title upon himself, even if there really is no reason not to give in considering a lack of blood relation to make it truly taboo; Yingxing is held back from pursuing you, due to his own morals by the role he has given himself of being your older brother.

Yet he can't help but continue standing taller whenever you look his way, always takes great effort to make sure you never see the different ways his age has started to affect him over the past decade since you've started visiting him. Yingxing wants to remain the strong, skilled, handsome man that you had once had a puppy crush on; he wants so horribly for you to still have those feelings for him despite the time that has passed since then.

At the same time he can't help but pity his young friend, Jing Yuan's infatuation with you in genuine even if it had started due to your looks. Yingxing knows that Jing Yuan would treat you well, that if you had to fall for anyone Yingxing would prefer it to be Jing Yuan. At least if you were with Jing Yuan, than you would have someone with a lifespan comparable to your own at your side who has the smarts to keep himself alive for you.

Still though the idea of you with anyone else makes Yingxing sour, so he tries to avoid thinking about it and mostly succeeds. In fact he manages to nearly put it out of his mind entirely, at the very least Yingxing doesn't worry about anyone except Jing Yuan managing to steal you away.

Hah! Steal, as if you belong to him. Yingxing really doesn't deserve the way you look at him, with such absolute trust believing that he won't let anything happen to you. Sometimes it makes Yingxing feel like he's rotting inside, twisting into a version of himself he can hardly recognise as he struggles with the ever growing urge to keep you all to himself.

Yingxing lets out a slow sigh as he realises he's thinking about it again, setting his tools aside and taking his gloves off to rub at his face. It's likely because of the fact you're on the Luofu right now, and yet he hasn't been able to see you because you're busy in meetings with General Teng Xiao on behalf of your father. Knowing that Jing Yuan has been able to see and speak to you due to his position as liuetenant, when Yingxing has been stuck waiting for your meetings to end irks him more than it should.

Taking a deep breath in Yingxing decides that he is long overdue a break, the sun is low in the sky and he has been working all day without stopping. The latest batch of devastator glaives he had been commissioned to make were nearly finished as well, so there would be no harm in him leaving the forge early today.

Nodding to himself Yingxing sets about cleaning up his workspace, putting away his tools and clearing the bench tops of all the random paper and rubbish covering them. Locking up his forge as he leaves, Yingxing chooses to take the back alleys on his way home on a whim only to stumble upon a scene from within his nightmares.

Well, that's probably an exaggeration. But it certainly feels like something directly out of a nightmare, spotting you and Jing Yuan standing across from each other underneath a gingko tree. It looks like something out of one of Baiheng's romance immersia's she's so obsessed with, and Yingxing hates it; yet he can't bring himself to leave even though he knows he should, instead Yingxing lingers around the corner listening to the conversation he'd nearly interrupted.

"Although, so far, you have either failed to notice or chosen to ignore my endeavours to sway your heart. I," Jing Yuan hesitates for a moment, which strikes Yingxing as strange. Even during outlining the most risky battle plans ever heard, Jing Yuan's voice had never wavered like it is right now.

Was there something Yingxing was missing? Jing Yuan was one of the most perceptive people he knew, which was likely why the kid was already a lieutenant, did he know something about you Yingxing didn't?

"I still wish to make sure, for my peace of mind if nothing else, that you know of my feelings for you. You, who shines brighter in my eyes than the arrows of the Reignbow Arbiter, I utterly adore you." Jing Yuan breathes out, though he sounds almost resigned to Yingxing. Even so Jing Yuan's gaze never wavers from yours, looking resolutely into your eyes as he waits for your response.

Yingxing can't see your expression–the way you close your eyes, a faint grimace crossing your lips–but he can see the way calm acceptance blooms to life on Jing Yuan's face. There is pain hiding behind the acceptance, as if Jing Yuan was anticipating a rejection; or had been rejected by you already without you ever opening your mouth.

"I'm… sorry, Jing Yuan." You speak haltingly, as if it pains you to reject Jing Yuan. Yingxing wouldn't be surprised if it did, Jing Yuan was the only person you knew that was the same age as you in a similar position as your own after all. "But I can't return your feelings."

"You don't have to answer me of course, but may I ask why?" Jing Yuan's voice is quiet, and it sounds like he already has an idea. It sounds less like he's asking you a question, and more like he's looking for confirmation.

"I…" Your voice wavers, and you cross your arms shifting almost nervously in place. It seems that now it's your turn to hesitate, though surely if you liked someone Yingxing would have noticed, wouldn't he?

"I'm still… still in love with Yingxing-gege. I know it's stupid, to be in love with someone who probably still sees me as that little girl he met three decades ago but I am." Your voice is as quiet as Jing Yuan's, but in Yingxing's ears it is like a scream. You cross your arms and straighten up, raising your chin up as you presumably look into Jing Yuan's eyes.

Yingxing feels faint, surely he must be dreaming–to hear those words pass your lips, to learn that your crush had never disappeared only that you had learned to hide it from him. Yet he also feels as if a bucket of ice water has been poured over him, wide awake as his heart rabbits in his chest.

He shouldn't be here. He really, really should have left when he had the chance because now he is rooted to the spot just waiting for the two of you to leave.

"Haa… just as I thought then." Jing Yuan sounds unsurprised, though Yingxing can barely process that fact.

No. Yingxing is still stuck on the fact you're rejecting Jing Yuan–Jing Yuan who has fan-clubs upon fan-clubs filled with various long-life and short-life species–you're rejecting him, for an old man like Yingxing. It does obscene things to his ego, and if he wasn't so shocked it would be much harder to control himself.

"Perhaps this is… crass, of me to suggest. But do you think, that after Yingxing passes." Jing Yuan pauses for a moment, staring at whatever expression that has crossed your face. He stays quiet for another moment, before clearly deciding that since he'd already been bold enough to start speaking he should at least finish his statement.

"Do you think there is any possibility, that you could grow to care for me as you do for him, after he is no longer here?" Jing Yuan asks you, in the same tone of voice he uses when playing star-chess with someone. Soft and probing, looking for doubt or any signs of giving up; in this case he was probably looking for signs of you giving in.

"That's not fair, not to either of us." You shoot him down immediately, a distraught tone creeping into your voice. Yingxing twitches at the sound of it, resisting the urge to go comfort you before you start crying only by reminding himself that neither of you knew he was listening.

"I don't know how long it will take, or even if I will ever move on from him." You stop but Jing Yuan doesn't reply, just staring at you with endless patience. "Logically I know that with how long we live, that that is unlikely but emotionally I can't see that grief ever ending."

"It's not fair for you to expect me to have an answer for something like that, and I don't think it's fair on you to be giving yourself false hope." You turn–thankfully away from Yingxing's direction–to leave, uncrossing your arms as you do.

"That's my choice though, isn't it? If I choose to wait and see if you ever develop feelings for me, it is no fault of your own and you should feel no guilt for it." Jing Yuan points out gently, reaching out and taking your hand to stop you from leaving. It stops you in your tracks, despite the fact that Yingxing can tell Jing Yuan grabbed you loosely enough you could still leave if you wanted.

"Jing Yuan…" You sigh heavily and turn back to him, and now Yingxing can see your expression. Face twisted up in equal parts love and despair, lips pressed tight together as you visibly struggled to gather the words for whatever you were thinking.

"I have loved Yingxing, I have been in love with Yingxing for three decades now. Despite," you pause and clear your throat as your voice cracks, taking a deep breath before speaking again. "Despite several attempts to like other people I… just cannot seem to move on from him, and I will likely be in love with him for the rest of his life and a significant portion of my own."

Yingxing barely processes you tugging your hand free of Jing Yuan's grip and leaving, or the almost bitter bark of laughter that escapes his friend before he too leaves. Again Yingxing tells himself he must be dreaming, he has to be; if he isn't, then he doesn't know how to shove down the feelings threatening to explode out of his chest.

There is smug pride because of course, of course you love him, Yingxing is a better artisan than most if not all that are in the Xianzhou and became so within a tiny fraction of their lifespans; why wouldn't you fall in love with someone who has proven that they can get things done.

Ah but Yingxing loves you too, loves you in every way a person can love. Like a brother who wants to protect you from every bad thing in the universe, he loves you. Like a friend that cherishes every moment spent with you, he loves you. Like a lover whose mind is always on you no matter what it is he is doing, he loves you.

Yingxing's love for you is like a brand on his soul, it is a feeling he doesn't think he could ever forget. A twisted part of him is glad that you are in the same boat.

Alongside love and pride, lust too, bubbles up. Even if he had dismissed the signs of you liking him as his own foolish delusions, Yingxing knows you are the type of person to only think about intimacy with someone you're attached too. You had said you couldn't like anyone but him, which would mean that Yingxing must be the only one to feature in any fantasies you have. The concept of it makes him dizzy, opens a gaping pit of hunger inside of him without an end.

Yingxing wants to buy you anything you've ever looked at for more than a second, to spoil you until you no longer know the concept of being unable to have everything you want in life. Only that if you want something you just have to look his way.

Yingxing wants to chase after you, grab you by the hand and take you back home. Back where he can lay you out on his bed, could take you and teach you all the different pleasures of the flesh. Somewhere he can spend as much time as he wants worshipping you, until you know that in Yingxing's eyes you are more perfect than any aeon in existence.

But he can't, he can't.

Just because no one on the Xianzhou would bat an eye, except for maybe at your differing lifespans, doesn't mean Yingxing can have you how he wants the most. At best he has another forty years, but realistically with the way he works his body he probably only has twenty. Not nearly enough time to spend with you in his opinion, which would make it like the blink of an eye to you.

It would be cruel of Yingxing, to give himself to you with so little time left.

And yet that rotten, covetous piece of his soul. That part of Yingxing that wants to carve himself so deeply into your soul, that there is no removing the stain of him from you grows stronger and even more ravenous. It eats at his insides, burns him up with a fire hotter than his forge or the Pseudo-Sun in the Flamewheel forge.

It feels as if you had reached into his soul and set it alight with your words, a fire that burns and burns until it threatens to destroy his self control completely. Yingxing wants and wants and wants. Perhaps this is the real reason he gets along so well with Dan Feng, despite not being a dragon like the other man Yingxing is just as greedy and covetous as one when you look into the meat of his soul.

But Yingxing knows self control, knows it intimately after six decades under the scrutiny of a race that judges the lofty ambitions of someone as short lived as him. All he has to do is ignore the flames of his desire, like he ignores the icy rage that blisters inside him when someone refuses to believe Yingxing make the weapons he sells; just because they think someone with as short a life as his can't create the kind of quality he does.

At the very least, he is well practised in the art of ignoring his own desires, and it is easy to ignore them the next time he sees you. As much as it pains him to do so, now that he recognises the affection in your eyes for what it really is in all its entirety. Yingxing smothers the flame inside him until it is barely an ember, until he can pretend it has gone away the same way you had once convinced him yours had.

Yingxing is just a mortal, a blink in the universe compared to the centuries upon millennia that you will continue to shine brightly for. He has to be content with the role of being your big brother, Yingxing… is content with the role he has chosen for himself, he convinces himself.

[At night the words you said haunt him, they repeat endlessly over and over. In his mind, in his dreams, they keep him up, they make him sleep in. Bit by bit that cavernous hunger within him grows and grows, and every morning Yingxing wrestles it down so that it goes unnoticed.

Dan Feng stares at him sometimes, his eyes filled with dark understanding. Neither of them speak of it, that delirious fever that lurks in the depths of their souls; mouth gaping wide as it waits for them to slip up, so that it may devour them and then everyone in their surroundings.]

Yingxing is content to get to be in your life at all, despite the way he keeps breaking your heart. Content to get to love you, to experience a life with you and his friends. He doesn't need more than that, than the company of you and Dan Feng and Baiheng and Jingliu and Jing Yuan. All of you are more than he ever thought he would have, after those wretched wolves destroyed his homeland and he was reborn in the flames of his people's pyre.

Yingxing… can die satisfied like this.

[But he can't, he can't. Baiheng sacrifices herself in the fight against Shuhu. You–who shouldn't have been on the front lines of one of the Luofu's fights–catch that reprehensible Emanator's attention, and the affection bestowed upon you by Shuhu nearly makes the mara in your blood consume you whole.

Yingxing was never supposed to outlive any of you, not him, not the poor short-lived man with dreams that extend far beyond his natural lifespan. He was supposed to be the first to go, not Baiheng who picked him up from the wreckage of his world and not you who Yingxing would destroy anything and everything to keep safe.

When Dan Feng asks him to research something that could help you two he says yes without thinking, when Dan Feng takes him to the roots of the Ambrosial Arbour and shows him Baiheng and you–covered in branches, why had nobody told him your mara had gotten so had?–laying there his heart lurches.

In the roots of that tree they commit three unpardonable sins, although Yingxing had only known the plans for two of those sins. The third sin Dan Feng's alone.

First is the creation; Dan Feng brings out something that beats like a heart and siphons power straight from the arbour, the waters of the gorge swirling around the vidyadhara as he pours it into Baiheng's corpse through the beating sphere. They don't know it yet, but they have just created an abomination that will soon destroy the Luofu's vidyadhara's homes.

Second is the alteration; the High Elder retrieves an orange flask from his robes and pours it over you, covers you in the gorge's water and Yingxing watches in dizzying relief as the branches covering you melt away. Dan Feng changes you, as long as you have oxygen you will continue to burn.

Third is the extension; is the sin of betrayal.]

You are safe, you are safe and alive and that is all that matters to Yingxing. He can die happy now, he can, he can, he can, he…

The first time Blade sees you—he is in the middle of hunting down that traitor Imbibitor Lunae once more—on the planet 216813, he stops in the middle of the busy street and stares. You look and feel familiar, the colour of your hair, the glint of your eyes; how you stand, how your hair is pinned with a stick made of flames, it all seems to tug at the back of his brain. Strange that you would, with how far 216813 is from the current location of the Xianzhou fleet and yet. And yet the flickers of Yingxing's soul flares into an all consuming blaze at the sight of you, making his breath catch in his chest.

It's strange, Blade thinks, your familiarity that is paired with nothing but an overwhelming feeling he dare not name. Not like the burning sense of betrayal that bubbles up at the sight of Imbibitor Lunae or that Swords-master that submerges him under the mara, not like the complicated mix of regret and pity that swells in his chest at the name of that General on the Luofu. The clothes you wear are nothing like the clothes of the Xianzhou, and yet you must have come from there to be so familiar to him, for your name to be on the tip of his tongue yet just out of reach.

What Blade feels looking at you from across the street, walking alongside a chattering teen with long blond hair is unlike anything he has ever felt. What Blade feels watching as you laugh at something the kid says, the way it briefly chases away the empty look that he hadn't realised was lurking in your eyes, is like a soothing balm on an irritated wound.

Your familiarity is less like a chain around his heart, and more of a gentle pressure filling the cracks of his fractured soul. Similar to the feeling that surges through him alongside revival, yet instead of agony following Shuhu's twisted gift it is a gentle warmth. Looking at you, Blade feels alive, and yet there is no pain, no suffering.

The sight of you and your smile lingers in his mind even as you disappear into the crowd, soothing the mara down until he no longer even wants to continue chasing that traitor today. You make the lingering remnants of Yingxing's soul swell with affection, and cause Blade to momentarily wonder if eternity would be bearable standing at your side.

You let another laugh and the sound rings in his ears rousing faint memories from the depths of Yingxing's shattered soul, snippets of Yingxing spending time with you like you're with that boy. In these memories your face is without the stress lines Blade had spotted around your eyes–and without the bottomless grief in them–but bare of any of the baby fat the boy still has.

Your eyes which had been so empty until the boy had made you laugh, are filled with an endless ocean of devotion in every single one of these scraps of memory. Affection that makes the heart in Blade's chest swell and twist inside him, beating faster and faster; like it wants to crawl out of his body, and go running into the tender mercy of your hands.

It makes him wonder–this feeling of this heart in his chest reaching for you across the crowd, a lingering surety that he needed to beg your forgiveness present–if Yingxing had died whilst the two of you had been arguing. Blade's mouth sours at the idea, knowing even without any memories that if you had been arguing; the chance it was because of Yingxing's arrogance, rather than something you had done was much more likely.

How foolish of Yingxing, to let his arrogance cause strife with someone that looked at him like she did. Blade thinks to himself, disquieted by the urge he has to go over and plaster himself to your side. Yet Blade is glad that you are alive, under the confusing mix of Yingxing's memories and emotions, that relief is so overwhelming it almost brings tears to his eyes.

Even stronger than the relief that you're not dead, is the relief that you have not become mara-stricken over the past seven centuries. There are no branches growing from the soil of your flesh, no golden leaves clinging to you like a second skin, no nauseating fruits that have grown ripe on your blood.

Blade thinks he would shatter completely, if he had to see you like that. The mere idea of it causes the shards of Yingxing to flare up, the mara bubbling up in a frenzy; both demanding he hunt down and destroy every single thing that might cause the mara lying dormant in your blood to bloom. This too, is another familiar feeling to him.

Yingxing would have cleaved the skies in two to protect you, would have made monstrosities beyond the pale–even more so than the ones crafted by that High Elder–if you had been taken from him so soon into your long lifespan. In fact the concept that you could have died barely a century old sets Blade's teeth on edge, the fact that at nearly eight centuries old it's a wonder you aren't mara-struck makes him dizzy with the urge to steal you away, to a place where he can watch over your every waking moment.

Usually whenever Yingxing's emotions swell inside Blade's chest thick enough to choke him like this, he would bundle them up and shove them as far down as possible until they faded. For a moment he considers doing the same with this lot, but then another memory flashes through his mind–more akin to an imprint then any tangible memory–of your eyes bright and shiny and filled with pure devotion as you hold a pair of shuangdao in your hands.

Blade melts like steel in the furnace, unwittingly moulded by the faint memories of your smile. No, this feeling is good, the feelings you inspire in Yingxing–in him, are as pure as freshly fallen snow and as gentle as a spring breeze. Perhaps it is selfish for a weapon like him to crave such sweetness, but you are the only familiar thing that hasn't brought him pain and he yearns for more of it.

Something loosens and tightens in his chest at the same time Blade decides to keep these feelings, like another chain around his heart; and yet it is one that soothes him, soothes the mara too. Letting his feelings for you in feels almost like coming home after a hard, almost endless day, as if you are the panacea to all his troubles that he has been desperately searching for all these centuries.

Someone brushes against him as they walk and it snaps him out of his reverie, blinking as his eyes automatically searched for you among the crowded street. Blade's head snaps back and forth with more urgency as he realises you aren't here, and that more importantly he can't even recall anything about you other than the curve of your lips and the sound of your laugh.

Scowling slightly he stalks through the crowd, looking for the high blond ponytail of the boy that had been at your side. Surely if he finds the kid, then he will find you, he will have you back in his arms where you belong. Blade searches for hours, and then lingers in the shadows of the only way off of 216813.

After nearly two weeks of haunting the singular interastral dock at all hours of the day, Blade is forced to admit that the day he saw you might have been the last of your travels here. This revelation agitates not only him but the mara as well, its voice clamours in the back of his head but this time it says something Blade agrees with.

If Imbibitor Lunae hadn't killed him last week trying to escape his sins, forcing Blade to wait until the mara finished healing him. Then maybe Blade could have been on 216813 sooner, would have had time to find you after that first glance of your figure had disoriented him so badly. It irks him badly enough, that when he catches a glimpse of black hair and jade green eyes slipping onto a ship; the mara manages to take over sending him into a bloodthirsty haze.

That memory again… Blade opens his eyes slowly, staring at the green light flickering over his cell's ceiling. How long has it been since he caught that glimpse of you? It must have been at least a decade now, and even though the memory of your face is blurred his feelings for you have festered like an infection inside his chest since then. Growing stronger and deeper, into an all consuming hunger that gnaws at his bones every time a thought of you slips into his fractured mind.

It swells in his chest again as he thinks of you–the faint curve of your lips that flickers on the backs of his eyelids nearly every time he blinks, your laugh that had sounded like the wind chimes Yingxing had made you to ward off bad luck–clawing up his throat not unlike the mara, but still different enough he does nothing to stop it's ascent.

A heavy sigh spills past his lips as the feeling settles in his gums, an incessant need to mark you up and mark sure everybody knew you were still his–even after all these centuries apart. Hearing the echo of footsteps down the hall, Blade shifts to sit up on the meagre cot in his cell. Rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, idly testing the strength of the cuffs on his wrists as he waits for the next scene in his script to begin.

I wonder if I'll see her while I'm here. Blade muses, watching the green lighting ripple against the wall like waves on the shore. Your name hadn't been in his script, even if he didn't recall it Blade is positive he would have recognised it regardless. He had recognised you on sight even after centuries lost in a haze after all, he is sure your name would have been the same.

If I do, will she recognise me? He decides that's a stupid thought after a moment of consideration, since in every scrap of memory he has of you. Your eyes had shone with an unwavering adoration and while he can't remember anything said between the two of you, by the feelings that felt as if they'd been growing in that endless haze only to swamp him on 216813 at the sight of you; Blade is certain you must have been lovers, and just as sure that you're heart would have never wavered.

He is drawn out of his thoughts at the sound of the door unlocking, eyes sliding over to see two cloud knights standing in the doorway. A smirk tugs at his lips, seeing how they hesitate to enter and the way their hands tighten on their glaives. How weak. Standing up he scoffs under his breath when they startle, but exits his cell silently and lets them pretend to guide him through the Shackling Prison to their General.

Stepping into the darkened hall he can hear five heartbeats besides the one in his chest, yet when Blade's gaze sweeps over the room there is only two figures visible on the dais. That blond boy who had been at your side on 216813, and the uncanny figure of little Jing Yuan; not so little anymore, now all grown up. Jing Yuan esteemed General of the Luofu, a sharp lance of grief wells from within Yingxing's memories.

What a pity.

"Yanqing." So that is the boy's name, Blade doubts he will retain the knowledge for long but it is good to know regardless. "Watch this person carefully."

As Blade draws to a stop where the floor shifts from glass to stone, stepping fully into the light of the hall. That extra heartbeat stops for a moment, only to start up again a sharp staccato that threatened to burst out of its owners chest.

"Do you remember me?" Jing Yuan asks him, and though Blade is curious about why that extra heartbeat is so erratic at the sight of him. The script demands Blade has this conversation, so he casts it aside for now and answers his old friend.

"I remember." Blade starts, unable to hold back a smirk as he sees Yanqing tense. That smirk splits into a roguish grin as his next word make the kid shift, clearly preparing to summon a weapon. "Of five people… three must pay a price."

"You are not one of them, Jing Yuan." "Yingxing-gege is… is that really you?"

You step out of the shadows from behind Jing Yuan, eyes wide and lips trembling as tears line your lashes. His chest seizes at the sight of your tears, thumps faster at your divine figure clad all in white. As Blade rakes his eyes over you, greedily taking in the sight of you; he can't help but notice that your clothes cling to your body, even that the bone white armour of yours–so similar to that of the Cloud Knight's armour–seems several sizes too small.

A slight frown tugs at his lips, because there is no way that you could find that comfortable. In addition the only colour on you is on the dao–no, the shuangdao hanging from your side. Familiar in design, a blueprint flashes through his mind briefly. Yingxing had spent a long time making those for you, and you had clearly taken good care of them over the years. The red silk wrapped around the grip is still in pristine condition, and the yellow tassel hanging from the pommel looks near untouched.

That and the sight of your face lighting up, a subdued grief lifting from your shoulders makes his heart skip a beat as a thought flickers into his mind. But it can't be, surely not. Someone would have had to notice, wouldn't they? Would have noticed that you started wearing too tight, uncomfortable clothing right after the period to continue wearing your sangfu had run out.

Yet that look on your face as you take a step towards him–only to be stopped by Jing Yuan's outstretched arm, like you hadn't even realised you'd been approaching him–says Blade must be right in his thoughts. You look like someone who has been told up is down and down is up, like someone had revealed to you that everything you ever knew had been a lie.

Yet. Yet you also look as if you have seen the sun after a long, long night, a fragile hope blooming in your eyes as your hands curl over Jing Yuan's arm. That familiar gleam is returning to them as well, that look that was always in your gaze whenever you looked at Yingxing that the artisan had always pretended he couldn't see. Blade can see your hands trembling ever so slightly on Jing Yuan's arm, and he is frankly surprised you haven't shoved it aside to throw yourself at him.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a strange expression flash across Jing Yuan's face, bitter resignation twisted together with a sort of helplessness that looked strange on the man's face. It looks so familiar, like Blade had seen it on his face before but when? A faint memory stirs in the depths of his soul, of you who have bewitched him and little Jing Yuan standing under golden ginkgo leaves, of a stammered confession and a refusal said because of him.

Blade is suddenly reminded that his script had had a divide in it, a blank space between this conversation with Jing Yuan and Blade meeting back up with Kafka that Elio had simply labelled "choose". He can remember Kafka spotting it and asking Elio about it, Blade remembers his reply despite the mara because it had disturbed him for some reason.

"Well… this is a choice Blade will never get again, so if felt necessary to point it out. He can either take it, or someone else will have their patience rewarded."

If pointing out that Yingxing was dead, if telling you he couldn't be that man again meant pushing you into Jing Yuan's arms, then Blade refused. The idea that someone else would get to hold you at night, some other persons lips would touch yours when it's all he could think of since seeing you on 216813; that your heart could possibly stop beating for him, and start beating for Jing Yuan instead fills him with an indescribable rage.

"Yes." Blade answers you, Blade decides it on the spot. Whatever reasons Yingxing had to make you treat him as your big brother, none of them mattered to Blade anymore, all he knew was that he wanted you and so he would steal you for himself.

He rolls his shoulders and breaks the flimsy handcuffs around his wrists easily, lunging forward while swinging the shard sword at the boy and Jing Yuan. Blade holds you in one arm, tucked into his chest your arms wrapping around his shoulders. He can feel your tears soaking into his coat, the same way Blade can feel your trembling lips pressing desperate kisses again and again to his neck.

Blade smirks again as he turns his back on Jing Yuan ignoring the resigned look on the General's face, ignoring too the way the boy was shouting after you in a panic. Blade may have been wrong about the fact you were lovers, but by the way you cling to him he is self-assured that he had been right in thinking your heart had never wavered from him.

Yes, even if Yingxing had been a hesitant coward. Even if Yingxing had been too scared of receiving scorn, due to the chains he had placed upon himself when making himself your older brother, to claim you for himself. You had always belonged to him, ever since that day in Stargazer Navalia when you had looked at Yingxing; eyes full of love and Yingxing had foolishly let his sensibilities make him ignore it, you had been his.

Blade has not been Yingxing in nearly seven centuries. Not since the flesh of that Emanator twisted him into this undying abomination, not since that Swords-Master killed him over and over until Blade rose from the shattered remains. Yet for the first time he is glad for it, because for all that Yingxing insisted on calling you little sister if you had been his by blood than Blade wouldn't have you in his arms right now.

Blade will keep this one, pure, thing left over from the forge of Yingxing's mortal existence for himself and cherish it. Like a sword he will take care of you, will look you over at the end of every day and make sure to wash away your sadness so that radiant gleam of happiness stays in your eyes.

All the things that Yingxing wouldn't let himself want, all the things that could have happened between you and him don't matter anymore. All that mattered to Blade was this; this cavernous want for you in his chest that kept growing ever bigger, and the desperate want with which you clung to him as if to be separated from him again would kill you.

For all that Yingxing had played the role of big brother to you, Blade can't help but think he had been a horrible one. An older brother should look after his little sister, should help her through life as she grows and protect her hearts from being broken. As your older brother Yingxing should have looked after your heart better, but that artisan had been too cowardly and had broken it so many times it must have shattered upon his death.

Blade was just… correcting a mistake is all, one that had stewed inside you for seven centuries getting worse and worse. Until the point that your heart had startled to crumble, because all your memories of Yingxing were painted with the heartache of his negligence. Seven hundred years may be a lot for him to catch up on, but for you Blade thinks anything would be worth it.

That thought is why he is sure Yingxing had been a horrible big brother, the way he had broken your heart over and over again even though he'd returned your feelings; but Blade would be better. Blade would make sure you knew he would never let you go like Yingxing had, that he would hold onto you tightly and worship you like the pious did aeons because that's what you were to him.

Holy. Sublime. Utterly divine.

Only once he's finally through the Artisanship Commission and stepping into Stargazer Navalia, does Blade let the shard sword dissipate back into his quantum storage. After a few minutes he finds an area completely devoid of cloud knights or abundance abominations and shifts his hold on you, his arm moving from under your thighs to grip your waist as Blade carefully sets you on your feet.

Blade can't find it in himself to let go as he draws back, eyes raking over your form again as if you could have been injured somehow (impossible, he had shielded you from all the aurumaton shards that had gone near you). You can't seem to let go of him either, your arms still curled around his neck your hands tangled in his hair.

Your face is twisted into a strange expression, the slightest pout graces your lips and Blade is startled to realise he can feel the heat emitting from you. There is a warmth in your face he can see, due to the way little clouds leave your mouth as you breath; a searing heat in your body that warms his hands, even through what must be three or four layers of clothes.

A frown tugs at his lips, there is no reason for you to be this warm, for the fire you wield so easily to be burning you up like this. Blade tightens his hold on you, intending to check if you had a previous injury he hadn't noticed when snatching you (surely you didn't, surely Jing Yuan wouldn't have let you follow him to the Shackling Prison if you had been injured) only for you to whimper.

Blade pauses at the sound, blurry quicksilver fragments of memory flashing through his brain. It causes that ravenous feeling inside of him–that only shows up when he thinks of you–to flare, a bestial hunger so similar to the mara yet more covetous in nature clamouring at his mind. He doubts the possibility of the scenarios his mind conjures up inspired by those memories, with how long it had been there was no way a simple touch like this would unravel you and yet he can't help but indulge in them.

You had never seen Yingxing when he looked like Blade, had only met him one when he was already half grey and by the next time you had seen Yingxing his hair had been fully silver. Maybe that didn't matter to you though, it hadn't done anything to stop you from falling in love with him after all.

Blade adjusts his grip on you again to test something, acting like he was making sure the belt holding your shuangdao and overcoat in place was still secure. It causes you to squirm and he uses it as an excuse to squeeze your waist gently, forcing you to stop moving and behave for him. Another whimper escapes you, louder this time, and Blade can feel you trembling in his hold like a scared little rabbit.

When he raises his eyes from your belt to your face, your eyes are wide and bright as you stare at him. There is an innocent embarrassment in them, in the way you bite your trembling lips as if you think he might get mad. Like Blade could ever get mad at you, his sweet little sister who had spent so much of her life stuck in grief over him.

No, the sight you make, trembling in his arms with that shy cluelessness in your luminous gaze makes Blade faint with hunger. The surge of love and lust running through him making him dizzy, causing his grip to tighten ever so slightly as he struggles to control himself. You look as if you have no idea why you'd reacted like that, and it drives him insane.

Of course, of course you wouldn't. Blade doesn't remember much but ever since he saw you on 216813, he had clung to any scrap related to you that he could. You had always been stubborn and loyal like a dog, and grief did strange things to the body–even moreso for Xianzhou Natives. It only made sense that you had never looked another person's way, not when the man you had wanted the most was dead.

There was no way you didn't know what you were feeling, that old man of yours would have never let you go without proper schooling at the very least. But you probably had no clue why you were feeling that way, if your grief had really made you completely uninterested in sex like he suspected it might've. Especially when Yingxing had never touched you, Blade is sure he would have remembered that if nothing else of you.

Yingxing had been so scared to loose you, that by confessing his feelings he would scare you away and had wilfully ignored the neon signs that you had wanted him; and then too scared to scar you, to act on them after finding out the truth. Blade however has nothing to loose, nothing except this. The feeling of you in his arms, so flustered by a simple touch yet clearly wanting more of him.

Yingxing might not have given you what you wanted, but Blade would give you everything. Every last scrap of his body and soul, it was all yours to do whatever you pleased with just so long as you stayed at his side, as long as he could bask in your presence he would welcome anything you wanted to do to him.

Cut him, kick him, kill him, if it was by your hands he would happily die a thousand deaths. It is what Blade deserves for leaving you to think him dead for so long, though he knows you are too kind, too relieved to have him back to do such things to him. You are his very own goddess in the flesh, one he will worship like a supplicant does at the altar for as long as you allow him to do so.

There are no shadows in your eyes, even though with how you had ghosted at Jing Yuan's heels you must have seen even more war over these long, long years he had been absent. Only a bright adoration directed all at him, as if Blade being here holding you meant that all the suffering you'd endured over the years no longer mattered.

It inflames him, it engulfs him. His hunger for you grows and grows and grows, the way it claws up his throat until it fogs his brain is so similar to how the mara seeps into mind except. Blade gently squeezes your waist again as he glances around, nudging you gentle until you start taking a step back for every one he takes towards the nearby stack of crates.

Reluctantly he removes his hands from you to divest himself of his coat, reaching around you to lay it out on top of the cold metal surface of the crate. His lust for you tugs at his mind, unravelling him just like the mara does. Except still when he picks you up and sits you on the edge he is careful, barely putting any pressure on your shoulder before you lay yourself down.

Blade feels half insane from lust when your thighs spread for him before he can even touch them, feels like he could choke on it as he undoes your belt just enough to pull your pants down. A low unrecognisable sound drags itself out of his throat when his eyes land on the wet spot on your underwear, a guttural growl like sound rumbling through his chest as he stands frozen by his desire.

His hands tremble ever so slightly as they hook in the waistband, the air stolen from his lungs as he watches your arousal cling to the seat of your panties when he drags them down your legs. Blade is almost scared too look at your cunt as he drops to his knees between your legs, distracting himself from it by picking your legs up and ducking under your clothes to set them upon his shoulders.

His heart pounds, hands curling against the soft flesh of your thighs as he takes a deep breath in. Groaning low in his throat as the scent of your arousal floods his nose, it makes his head spin the exact same way it does when the mara starts to take over. This isn't the mara, though it feels the same, unravels him the exact same way; when Blade brings his gaze to your cunt, his mind is as clear as glass and just as sharp.

Shiny and slick your arousal drips down onto his coat as he watches transfixed, mouth watering as his hands slide from your thighs up to your hips. Holding you firmly in place he leans in a licks a stripe up the middle, shuddering both at the sweet sound it pulls from your lips and the salty taste that beads on his tongue.

The taste of your pleasure intoxicates him like finely aged wine, making his eyes flutter closed briefly before he snaps them back open. Blade wants to watch after all, wants to see you painted in the strokes of ecstasy as he guides you through this new experience. His eyes never leave your face as he wraps his lips around your clit, sucking on it gently, his thumbs rubbing reassuring circles into your hipbones.

Supporting you, like a good older brother should. Blade thinks sardonically, a little smirk tugging at his lips. A faint sound passes his lips, partly a laugh but mostly a satisfied sigh as your taste continues to flood his mouth. It fills him with a sense of deep satisfaction as he hears your whimper, sees your face scrunch up as you try to keep quiet.

Blade adjusts his grip on you, moving so that his left arm pins your hips down across the soft pudge of your stomach. His newly freed hand sliding back down your leg, over your thigh that twitches on his shoulder, and down to your dripping entrance. Pausing for a moment he reluctantly draws away from your clit, licking the slick from his lips before bringing his gloved hand to his mouth.

Biting the fingers Blade tugs his glove off, a ripple of amusement running though him as he hears a quiet whine leave you at the sight. He sets his glove to the side of you then returns to his previous position, though this time he gently prods at your entrance with a scarred finger. You squirm under him as he slides it into you slowly, Blade being oh so careful not to hurt you with the intrusion although your weeping cunt makes it easier.

Still it doesn't hurt to go slow, no, in fact Blade would much rather be too careful with you than ever risk hurting you. Seeing your face twist into a slight grimace Blade sucks on your clit again, laving his tongue over the small nub; pleased when the discomfort melts away from you, privately ecstatic when he feels your hips try grinding into his hand.

Blade obliges you, of course he does, sinking his finger in all the way and curling it inside you. He can feel the heart inside his chest quicken at the sound that leaves you, high pitched and breathy as your cunt squeezes his finger. Enraptured as he is with the expressions on your face, Blade almost doesn't notice your hands reaching for him.

Curious he stops and waits to see what you want, if you wish to stop he will even though he thinks he would die to be separated from you without even making you cum. Only for a low groan to leave him as your fingers tangle in his hair, the sound vibrating against your wet heat as you tug his face closer to it. He can feel his pants becoming a little too tight, but ignored it in favour of focusing on you.

"Y-Yingxing-gege please!" You whine in a needy tone, staring down at him with hazy eyes and a wobbly pout. It makes him want to coo at you, so small and fragile in his grasp; yet so trusting that he can give you everything you want, even when you weren't able to find the words to ask him properly.

"Blade." He huffs against your clit finding himself slightly annoyed, the sight of you like this belonged Blade and Blade alone. Yingxing's cowardice had deprived him of the chance to ever see this, the corpse he inhabits shouldn't get to have his named called out by you.

"Wh-ah, mmn… what?" A cute little look of confusion washes over you, making him realise just how far Jing Yuan went to make sure you wouldn't find out Blade was alive. Had he been scared that you would run away to find him? The idea amuses him, especially since Jing Yuan hadn't been wrong in his fears, after all you had all but jumped into Blade's arms inside the Shackling Prison.

"Call me Blade," he draws back just enough to clarify, before flattening his tongue against your clit again. His sunset eyes boring into you from between your legs, midnight blue tresses scrunching up in your hands as you tug on them again. It sends another bolt of lust down his spine, heat pooling between his legs making his cock throb.

"If you call me that, then I'll give you everything you want," Blade adds on, even though you both know he would do so regardless. His finger inside you curls once more then stills again, his tongue a warm weight against your throbbing clit. Blade can practically see you deciding it doesn't matter what name he goes by, as long he continues with what he's doing right now.

"Blade-gege I want… I want…" You sound like you don't know what you want, or like you can't bring yourself to say it to him. That's okay though, Blade can easily tell what it is you want by the way your hips keep trying to move under his arm. He almost wants to reach down and palm himself, but to do that he would have to stop touching you; something he refuses to do unless you ask it of him.

"Good girl," he says pressing a kiss to your clit, voice a low growl as he feels how the praise makes you shiver. Carefully Blade removes his finger from your cunt, lapping at your clit again to distract you as he slips two fingers back into you. Languidly he pumps them back and forth inside you, curling them every so often as he searches for the spot that will let him unravel you.

He can tell when he finds it because you gasp and tug roughly at his hair, it makes his smirk return wider than before. Blade makes sure to rub his fingers directly against your sweet spot, bullying your clit with his tongue at the same time. Blade revels in the divine noises escaping as you give up on keeping quiet, babbling little pleas for more spilling past your lips as you writhe on the crate.

He nips gently as your clit while slipping a third finger into you, a ragged moan leaving him when the reinforced metal heels of your boots dig into his back as you buck wildly into his mouth. A faint noise echoes from down the alley but Blade ignores it, refuses to look away from you and risk not seeing how your first orgasm reflects on your face unless absolutely necessary.

"Blade-gege please, ah, feels nghh… weird!" You whine above him, fingers almost ripping out his hair with how hard you're tugging on it. Even though you say that, even though someone else might think you're begging him to stop Blade knows otherwise, can hear it in your tone of voice. It was the exact same tone you'd get when Yingxing bought you something expensive, wanting it but not wanting to seem greedy.

"That's it, my sweet little sister," he groans into you, almost dizzy as your slick floods into his mouth. "You're being such a good girl for me baby, so perfect."

Blade can feel how close you are, can see it painted across your face, hear it in how your sounds of pleasure keep rising in pitch and your breathing gets progressively more ragged. Even as you whine and babble you pull him closer to you, hands balled tight enough in his hair to hurt; your heels digging further into his back, thighs squeezing his head as you start to full on pant.

Withdrawing his fingers from your cunt Blade ignores the pitiful whimper you let out, instead dipping his head further down to lap at your entrance like a starved dog. He swiped his thumb over your clit teasingly at first, before rubbing it firmly pleased at the way it not only makes your body jerk under him but causes you to let out a pleasured sob.

You sound so divine, he is sure your sweet voice would fit right in the middle of a godly choir. Blade can't help but lose himself in you; your taste, your voice, the expressions on your face, and the pain you are unknowingly inflicting on him. It all causes the heart in his to chest race, makes his cock throb and leak in his pants.

Blade pauses for half a beat, realising just how close he is to cumming in his pants like an overexcited teenager. Yet it just makes him more eager to tip you over the edge, the idea of cumming simultaneously with you makes him pant and growl hungrily into your cunt. He goes back to devouring you, with even more enthusiasm than before, determined to bring you the rapture you were begging him for.

His tongue dips into you, a groan rumbling through him as your arousal drowns him in the taste of you, you, you and nothing else. If he were to die like this, to die suffocated by your thighs and cunt it would easily be his favourite death, because you–his precious little sister, who had waited so faithfully for so long to reunite with him–would be the one killing him. As he drags his tongue in and out of you, his fingers pinch and twist your clit.

"Blade-gege I'm ah, haa g-going to-!" His eyes are wide and unblinking as he stares up at your face, the heart in his chest stuttering and skipping a beat as he feels you tense up. Blade seals his mouth against your cunt as you shudder and fall apart, crying out his name as your release floods his mouth.

"Fffuck baby, you taste so good." Blade growls against your cunt, his hips jerking and warmth filling his pants as he messily drinks up your release. He is unashamed by the wet sounds of him feasting on you, proud of the way you moan and mewl as your hands switch between tugging his head closer and attempting to shove it away.

It's only when you slump down onto the crate, face slack your fluttering eyes closed as you pant heavily that he draws back. Blade licks his lips once, then twice as he stands up; lifting your legs up over his shoulders first, your pants and underwear still bunched around your knees. He stands in front of you, right hand rubbing your thigh soothingly as he summons the shard sword with his other.

Swish, shiiiink!

Blade glances briefly to the sound of splattering blood and metal slamming against the ground, watching dispassionately as the spying cloud knight crumples to the ground; his sword pierced right through the armour's gap over their neck. A sense of satisfaction fills him, no one should see or hear you like this but him. Especially not spying voyeurs who should have more respect for you, as annoyed as Blade is by it he is sure the Luofu assumes you are Jing Yuan's partner.

Yet this knight had stopped to watch, as if they had had any right to look upon Blade's little sister with such lust. If it wouldn't have alarmed you, if it wouldn't have risked making you feel sick that someone else had seen you in such an intimate position. Than Blade would have gone over and done more than just kill them, he would have made them regret their very existence.

"What's wrong Yi… Blade-gege?" Your voice is shaky as you ask your question, it has a rasp to it that pleases a primal part of him. His gaze drops back to you laid out on his coat, the pleasure on your face giving way to confusion, and a sense of almost panic shoots through him as your gaze starts to shift in the direction he'd been looking.

Blade does the first thing he can think off to distract you, something that he'd wanted to do since he first saw you on 216813. Leaning over you he makes sure to block your view of the corpse, angling his head slightly as he looks into your eyes. A small smile forms on his lips, the inferno in his eyes dying down into gentle embers as Blade looks deeply into your eyes.

Cupping your cheek with his left hand he leans in, Blade presses his lips against yours soft and sweet and loving. Exactly like you, exactly the kind of first kiss his beloved little sister deserves to have, a kiss from someone that adores her more than anything else in the universe. Closing his eyes he melts into the kiss, like hot metal on an anvil he welds himself to you.

Blade pulls back reluctantly when he feels your hands tugging at his hair, eyes opening to look at your dazed expression. Something warm swells in his chest at the happiness he can see shining in your eyes, nothing like that bleak emptiness that used to be there. It fills him with a spontaneity Blade finds himself unable to resist, so he presses another soft kiss to the corner of your lips.

Then one to your cheek, one on your jawline; one, two, three kisses down your neck, Blade peppers several across your collarbone before making his way back up to your lips. He can't help but smile, though it borders on the edge of an arrogant grin, as he feels more than sees the smoke leaving your lips.

"Is this too much for you, sweetheart?" Blade purrs low in his throat, smugly pleased to know he made the fire in you flare out of control. He nuzzles your right cheek gently feeling how warm it was, sunset eyes staring into yours again as you let out a flustered whine.

The sound makes the heart in his chest throb, the inside of his chest feeling just as warm as your cheeks and the smoke emitting from your mouth. Blade wants to kiss you again, again and again. Until there was no doubt in your mind that he belonged to you, just as much as you belonged to him.

"Will you let me kiss you again, my sweet little sister?" He asks almost breathless, his voice rumbling through his chest into yours. His eyes are wide and bright, filling with delight when your fingers–still tangled in his hair–tug him closer. A content sigh escapes him as your lips connect again, they were so much softer than Yingxing had ever dared to imagine, and they were all Blade's alone to kiss.

It feels good to kiss you, it feels right–makes something in his chest unwind, and soothes the mara away better than Kafka's spirit whisper ever could. Blade could spend forever kissing you and not get tired of it; of the way your lips and skin feel against his mouth, the way your skin is warmed by the fire burning inside of you that steadily grows warmer with each press of his lips. No, Blade could never tire of this.

Almost laying on top of you Blade looses himself in the feeling of you, your hands tangled in his hair and the way you kiss him back. Licks away the happy tears that trail down your cheeks, his hands moving back to your waist–his grip firm and grounding, making you melt under him in a way that causes the heart in his chest to skip a beat.

Time looses all meaning like this, nothing except for the trust and love you hold for him matters to Blade right now. So focused that he is on you, it isn't until familiar footsteps approach that he is drawn out of the haze your affections had put him in. Blade slows his kisses down at the nearby clack of heels, irritation welling up inside him at having his time with you interrupted.

"You do remember that we are on a Script, don't you Bladie?" Kafka asks him, amusement clear in her voice. A soft laugh leaving her as he stills above you and Blade grits his teeth, burning in embarrassment knowing that she'd likely already knew how redundant her question had been.

Taking a deep breath in, Blade lets it out slow sighing against your lips. Opening his eyes slow he feels his chest tighten, worried that you might be uncomfortable or scared regardless of the way his body is covering yours. Tension melts from his shoulders at the sight of your trusting eyes, he can see the embarrassment in them at being caught like this–but you are still relaxed underneath him, still trusting that you aren't in any danger because of how close Blade is to you.

He softens again at the sight, pressing another quick kiss to your lips before shifting his weight back slightly. Blade makes sure to keep you covered from Kafka's view, although he doesn't think she would be so crass as to look there without your permission. Reaching between your legs with one hand he tugs your clothes back up, his other hand sliding under your back to lift you up enough to slide them over your hips.

He gives you another soft kiss before standing up fully, ignoring the way it makes Kafka laugh again in favour of adjusting your pants. As he does your belts up Blade notices that your shuangdao are gone–liking put into your storage, making his lips twitch up at the blatant show of trust.

"Hm?" Blade blinks faintly surprised as you sit up once he's done, giving him a kiss this time. A small smile curls on his lips, though this time he doesn't return it but only because he can hear Kafka tapping her foot as if telling him to hurry up. Blade stops you as you go to hop off the crate, leaning closer he reaches behind you to lift his coat up.

Holding it up by the collar up with one hand, he uses his other to hold the sleeves up one by one for you to thread your arms through. It pleases him to see you in his coat, a primal satisfaction filling him as he tugs the strings tight and does it up. A flicker of amusement building at the way the collar half covers your mouth, though it disappoints him that you won't get to show off the marks he had left.

Picking you up by your hips Blade is gentle as he sets you down on the ground, lips twitching when he spots the hem of his coat nearly touching the floor. Feeling your hand grab his, Blade automatically threads his fingers into yours as the two of you turn to face Kafka. That cloud knight's corpse is nowhere to be seen, and Blade feels a flicker of gratitude towards Kafka over the fact you won't have to know one of your subordinates had tried spying on you.

Kafka's eyes flick down momentarily, a smirk crossing her lips that Blade ignores. Between his powers over wind and the heat that was still rolling off of you, his pants will have dried by his next appearance in the script. Shrugging she turns and starts walking down an alley, tightening his grip on your hand the two of your follow after her to where the Master Diviner will "capture" Kafka.

Trailing after her with you at his side, Blade feels at ease like he never has before during this long life he had been cursed with. So when your hand twists out of his it makes the heart within his chest seize, Blade's head snaps around to look at you; the shard sword already materialising in his other hand, ready to cut down whoever was trying to take you away from him.

All he sees is you though which makes him pause, his eyes creasing in confusion until you curl your hand into the crook of his elbow. Blade relaxes at that, his chest squeezing as you rest your head against his bicep and look up at him with pure adoration painted on your face. Mindlessly Blade tugs you along as he keeps walking after Kafka, though his eyes remain locked on yours as you open your mouth.

"I do not know what happened to change you from Yingxing into Blade, if it left you as empty I have been since he died but I don't care. I don't care if you wish to be Blade, instead of Yingxing." You whisper to him, and although your lips wobbles and tears line your lashes, your eyes are resolute. "As long as you're still my older brother I love you, even if… you do not wish to claim that title, I will continue to love you Blade."

"When you took me away, the grief that has ruled me for so long melted away like ice under the spring sun. The world without your radiance was cold and empty and colourless, and I don't want to go back to that." Blade feels a stabbing pain in his chest at your words, a long forgotten feeling–guilt?–swelling up at hearing how his poor sweet sister had suffered in his absence.

"Father might be upset when he finds out I left without telling him, but please let me stay by your side?" Your eyes stare unshakingly into his, and Blade can tell that even if for some unfathomable reason he refused you; that now that you know he exists, you would follow at his heels with the relentlessness of a Galaxy Ranger chasing their prey.

"Of course," Blade grunts out blandly, a poor attempt to hide the lump forming in his throat. A wicked gleam sparks in your eyes and fuzzy memories of a younger you overlap your face, but Blade cuts off whatever you were about to say to tease him by pressing his lips to your forehead.

Lips twitching he mouths the words he had–Yingxing has–yearned to tell you for decades–centuries–now, it soothes an aching, nameless regret he has had since Blade first woke up in Scalegorge Waterscape. Similarly it seems to settle you as a radiant smile blooms on your face, the sight entrances him. Even more so as your free hand comes up to rest on his bicep, right under the spot your head is lent on.

Blade almost misses the next turn Kafka makes, nearly having to double back as the two of you follow after her. He knows he should brush your hand off his arm, just in case any cloud knights stumble upon the two of you after Kafka is "captured". You will need at least one hand free to summon one of your shuangdao, when they attack in a futile attempt to take you back.

You must know, must be able to read it in the line of his shoulders that he has no intentions of letting you go. Blade is both gutted and made whole by it, by the unwavering trust you have placed into a bloodied weapon such as himself. He had already been resolved to keep you by his side, but now that resolution has gained a razor sharp edge; Blade thinks he might kill anyone who dares to look at you wrong, might cut down anyone who turns a covetous gaze to his precious little sister.

The first weapon Yingxing forged as a gift may have been your childhood scribbles brought to life, intending to ensure you could always protect yourself with those shuangdao he had crafted with the blood of the Pseudo-Sun. Now though it seems like he had forged an even better weapon in the dying embers of his soul, had let himself be drawn out into Blade.

You won't have to fight ever again, Blade thinks to himself. Unless you wish to fight, unless you crave the rush of battle, Blade will make sure you never have to raise your swords again. He will temper himself within the fire of your soul, draw himself out into an even sharper point; one that can cut down even the Aeons THEMSELVES.

Sharper and sharper, until his edges are sharp enough that the ones you had grown in his absence grow dull and soft. Blade will become sharp enough to slice his way through fate, all to make sure that cruel destiny can never hurt you so badly again. Maybe he shouldn't be wishing for all your edges to grow dull, maybe Blade should make sure that you can still fight even if he intends to make sure you never have to again.

Yet the idea that under his protection your skills might dull enough that you would be unable to leave him, it makes the heart in his chest pulse with a possessive desire. Unlike Yingxing who had denied himself until the very end, Blade would weld himself into every aspect of your life–until the two of your were as inseparable as your shuangdao, utterly incomplete without the other by their side.

Good older brothers were supposed to make sure to protect their younger siblings after all, and Blade would make sure you became so unfamiliar with the feeling of pain, that the word would become completely foreign to you.

you don't remember much of her other than she was your classmate. she sat next to you and exchanged conversations at some point before you knew her as phainon's girlfriend. she shared your humor, maybe that's why phainon took an interest in her.

you remember shaking her hand and jokingly telling her, goodluck dealing with him. you both laughed about it while phainon pouted in the background. you naively believed then that your infamous duo would grow into a trio, and you wanted it badly after you began slightly distancing yourself from him after his confession.

for all her credit, phainon's first girlfriend mended your awkward friendship and remade it anew. the awkward tension dissipated fast because you believed that he fully moved on, and his girlfriend tagged along to any hangouts you two had.

it was fun, however brief it was. you loved being the thirdwheel.

they broke up a week before graduation.

you asked phainon about it, and all he said was, "it wasn't working out, haha."

hardly believing him (they looked so happy together the night before!), you pulled out your phone to text his now ex-girlfriend. to your bewilderment, she had blocked you. and in class the day after, she had treated you like some stranger.

the second girlfriend was during freshman year of college. phainon came barreling into your dorm room and ignored your complaints as he loudly announced, "guess who got a girlfriend!"

your brows raised in surprise, interest piqued. "well, who is it?"

"my senior in the org i signed up for!"

you remember her the most, only because her name was an anagram of yours.

that was the only thing she had in common with you; she looked and acted nothing like you. if anything, you two were total opposites with not a single shared interest in sight. you remained acquaintances from a lack of common ground, so when phainon told you during the last semester of freshman year that she broke up with him, you hesitated in reaching out.

you're not her friend, and she most likely blocked you already just like phainon's ex.

surprisingly, she's the one who reaches out to you during lunchtime. took the seat beside you and began speaking while poking around her rice bowl,

"take care of him for me, okay? i hate to say it, but i still like phainon."

you blink, "then why break up with him?"

she looked at you for a good second. then, she sighs,

"i was giving him head when he moaned out a different girl's name. even tried to trick me into believing he was moaning mine, what a guy."

"oh, that's..." you bite your lip, suddenly embarrassed in phainon's place, "i'm so sorry, i..."

"don't be, we didn't last long anyway." she smiles, "wanna know who it was?"

"i don't think that's appropriate..."

she leans in to whisper conspiratorially, "don't worry, she's closer than you think."

because her name was similar enough to yours.

you gave phainon a good whacking that day, even threatened to ghost him if he continued acting like a jerk. he seemed sincere enough when you forced him to call his ex and apologize. in return, he promised not to pursue girls while being hung up on someone else.

the third girlfriend he got in the middle of sophomore year proves that he was lying in hindsight.

she could be mistaken as your sister, you thought when phainon flashed you the photos he had of her in his gallery. she had same eye shape as you, same skin tone, hair color, and close hair lengths. when she called phainon and you accidentally picked up the call in his stead, you were surprised to hear that her voice is similar to yours, too.

you firmly believed these were just coincidences, and a mental reach for you. it's not as if you're unique enough to be a singular copy in a world population of over 8 billion people. but when she visited to cheer phainon on during a nationwide competition, your friends validated your thoughts.

"woah, i thought you had a sister for a sec!" cipher hushed into your ear as she subtly pointed to phainon's girlfriend.

"i almost started up a conversation with her because i thought that was you, haha...!" cyrene sweatdropped, looking back and forth like she's truly hallucinating this encounter.

aglaea hummed, looking down at phainon who was playing on the field. "perhaps that is what he intended."

when phainon saw you interacting with her after the game, he was weirdly panicked and quickly steered her away from you. was he embarrassed that you'd give out silly anecdotes about him? that would be endearing of him, you'd admit.

you watched them converse together, isolated away from the friend group. they seem cute.

yet two months later, a pattern that you should have known by now, he offhandedly said, "i shouldn't have given my favorite varsity jacket to my ex."

you had choked on your sandwich in shock.

now his current girlfriend dresses up like you, but her facial features differ. if looked at from a distance, one would think you two are twins dressed up in a matching set by their parents. the first time you met her was during a group dinner alongside your other college friends.

the moment the two of them entered the restaurant, anaxa raised an eyebrow and then told you, "look at her outfit."

and you did. then you looked at your own outfit and realized it was almost a 1:1 match, save for anaxa's scarf that you were using.

"your mother had triplets, you just didn't know. first his previous ex, and now his current girl?" your friend from economics joked and people around the table laughed like they were in on some inside joke they refused to let you be a part of.

strangely, you felt uncomfortable being scrutinized, even if with no ill intent. "uhm, let's just eat."

phainon and his girlfriend joined late, yet they were also the first ones to leave. after bidding him a friendly hug goodbye, you noticed the strange atmosphere that had overtaken the table in their absence.

"what's wrong?" you picked up the tongs to put more beef slices on the grill. "i can't finish this alone, you know."

"did you not hear what i said before? her outfit," anaxa replied, picking up his set of chopsticks.

"what about it?" you frown.

"it's just like yours!" your friend pointed out, snickering behind their hand.

"...okay? people can shop at the same stores, you know."

your friend sighs.

"oh wow, you truly got your head lost in the clouds. don't you get it?" cipher huffs, teasing voice quickly replaced by utmost concern.

"get what?"

"phainon makes sure to date girls who act or look like you. you told us that he liked you during high school, right? well that dude never moved on!"

she looks behind before continuing, "tell you what, i actually know that girl from a class last semester, and she didn't dress anywhere near like that. she had a totally different wardrobe, but i noticed that she started dressing differently last month. i got curious, so then i approached her and asked."

chewing on your cooked sliced beef, you inquire, "what did you ask her?"

" "never knew you changed your style, what's the occasion?",

"oh that white-haired guy started hitting me up during class and told me i'd look hotter if i dressed a bit differently and started showing me reference photos... hey, does it look good on me? i really want to catch his attention." "