The depth of the night, the music filling in the air, the fading chatters, and increasing distance from the people brought Bai Huiqi a strange sense of discomfort. It could not quite be called fear or paranoia, and he did not have a na suitable enough to give it yet.
Still, silently and carefully, he followed after the older fox spirit as he led them both away from the fair and more towards the sprawling landscape covered in forest, trees, and silence of the slumbering animals.
As he stepped on a twig, causing a faint noise, Bai Huiqi raised his head to look at the nine-tailed fox spirit’s back. It was straight, proud, and strong. Yet again, Hu Lijing had nearly all the qualities he wished to possess. Biting his lower lip, the fox spirit of winter carefully swallowed, his lips moving as he spoke quietly.
"This is not the way to the Lantern Dance." Cautiously, he said, expecting the older fox spirit to reprimand him or perhaps ignore him. He knew they were down a different path, away and distant from their supposed destination.
Uncomfortably, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Where are we headed?" He asked again, voice softer and even less assured.
With every mont of silence slipping by him, his dread grew. Hu Lijing’s silence was as unnerving as it ca. Especially in the dark loneliness of their surroundings.
He was not oblivious to Hu Lijing’s harboured dislike of him. Nor was he, in any capacity, blind to the carefully hidden resentnt he knew not the cause for.
He was younger than Hu Lijing, weaker than Hu Lijing, and certainly more faint of heart than Hu Lijing. If the older fox spirit were to decide to act upon his negative feelings, Bai Huiqi was uncertain if he was strong enough to even make an escape.
"Follow closely," Hu Lijing looked at Bai Huiqi over his shoulder and snapped his fingers to light a fire on his fingertips. "Don’t fall behind." He added before, inevitably, he sped up until the latter could not even hear the sound of his steps.
Bai Huiqi flinched at the sudden change of pace and rushed to follow after him. He feared that Hu Lijing would really leave him behind.
There were a lot of things he could not understand, and he was not sure if he would ever be able to.
...
After what felt like a maze of chasing the beacon of flas flying through the forest, the trees, weaving through the dusk veiled greenery of the wild, Bai Huiqi finally ca to a halt.
Although he was barely out of breath, he still found his breath hitching at the sight that unfolded in front of him.
A few good feet ahead of him a gentle stream flowed, gracefully cutting through the thicket of trees and shrubs. Water-cut smooth rocks lined the bank of the flowing water, and few tall shrubs swayed in the gentle breeze. The sound of running solace was pacing leisurely through the wind.
The noise teased the ears of anyone who listened, invisible, it danced in the quiet surrounding whilst it waited for so to fall through the bustle of life and into its placid embrace.
Bai Huiqi slowly stepped towards the stream, eyes dancing between the flowing water and the amber-haired man standing at the bank of it. His speed ebbed and breath lightened as he took in the nature burgeoning all around him.
Peace, he noted, was not a hard earned rarity in this place. It was quiet, distant from the hubbub of life, and so, so precious.
Without his own awareness, the four-tailed fox spirit drew in a deep breath, silent and cool in his lungs as he padded over to stand by the older fox spirit.
Breaking the silence seed like blasphemy, shattering the blanket of peace, the delicate harmony of solace and disordered thoughts—it felt likened to a sin far too heavy to shoulder.
The mont Bai Huiqi stood beside the nine-tailed fox spirit, Hu Lijing dropped down, giving the forr a start so potent he all but jumped to look at the man beside him, eyes wide.
Bewildered, he saw the nine-tailed fox spirit sit by the water, flas on fingertips and eyes cast down. He swallowed, ignorant of what to say.
Should he just stand and watch or was he to take the initiative to break the persisting quiet?
He didn’t know.
Bai Huiqi blinked a few tis, considered speaking up yet more. But in the end, he chose to remain silent and watch whatever his older companion was doing.
The wind blew through the trees, kissing the rustle of leaves, and teased the two n amongst them.
Their hair swayed, likened to silken curtains, glimring faintly under the moonlight. One remained standing whilst the other knelt by the water, a beacon of embers dancing on his fingertips.
Hu Lijing moved, with ease of his own and grace of a scholar. He subrged the flas alight on his fingers in the water, watched the embers die down with a soft hiss as tendrils of smoke slithered in the air around them.
"I owe you a few too many apologies," he began, cadence low and smooth as silk. His eyes did not move away from his hand dipped into the stream. "You do not owe forgiveness, however."
Hu Lijing pulled back his hand, carefully observing the swiftly drying water before he turned to look up at Bai Huiqi.
"I’ve done too many, behaved quite disgracefully for a creature of my age." His eyes flickered downward once more, lips pursing together.
"I knew my anger, my resentnt towards you was all but misplaced. But again and again, I could not admit it to myself. I knew, yet chose to ignore it because... because" —suddenly, he laughed, it was a low, derelict thing that sent an involuntary shiver down Bai Huiqi’s spine— "because a resentnt rooted in decades does not go away, does not disappear or vanish in the face of cold, unforgiving logic. I am sorry."
He bowed his head, falling silent only for so long. "I am older than you. I’m stronger than you. I ought to be wiser than you." He looked up once more, amber eyes shining under the dark veil of night.
"I ought to understand your plight. Yet I couldn’t. I... I failed you" —with wry force, he turned his head away, eyes screwed shut, almost as though disgusted with himself— "I failed you as the leader of our kind, I failed you as a senior who has lived beyond your years. I... I failed you as the last survivor of our clan."
Bai Huiqi froze, ice filling his veins as a sharp ring blared in his ears, his blood still in his veins. He almost forgot to breathe.
Last surviving mber?
"Last survivor?" He all but whimpered, disbelieving of himself and his own hearing. He swallowed. "What do you an?"
Was this so joke? So twisted jest jabbed at his ignorance?
Hu Lijing stayed silent, turning to look up at him. In his eyes, was a grief so sharp and cutting that Bai Huiqi could feel himself bleed.
The longer the silence reigned, the more he found himself doused in frigid ice.
The nine-tailed fox’s eyes, his very deanour held no lies.
This was the truth. One he did not know.
So long— for so long he had thought himself forsaken, abandoned and forgotten. Cursed and shunned and unwanted. He had thought himself unfortunate and unworthy.
But this— this was the damning truth?
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