Chapter Text
Once upon a time, there lived a young prince who believed he could conquer the sunset.
His name was Xie Lian, the Crown Prince of Xianle. The only child to the beloved King and Queen. He was a kind, brave, and talented child. Destined to be the best of us. And for a short time, he was.
It did not last.
As a child, he learned that the sunset is dangerous, as all children must. The Queen and the King sat at his bedside one morning, and explained that his time as a fully human child was ending. He would no longer be able to play hide and seek with his Night Guardians in the dark, or sneak into the palace kitchens for midnight snacks, or sleep peacefully until the morning, warm in his bed.
His Change came on his eighth birthday. From that point on, day and night were irrevocably bisected. Light and dark became worlds that could never meet. Whenever the sun dipped below the horizon, he became a nightform, like all of us.
Xie Lian was a curious child, and a prince at that, so he asked many questions. But his normally indulgent Guardians went still and hard of eye when he asked why no one talked about night time.
He was raised on the same tales we all hear, before he became one of those tales himself. Like the beautiful princess who let her guard down with her suitor, and told him her nightform so they could meet as lovers in both bodies. Or the talkative child who wished to boast of their night adventures. The tales all end the same way. By sunrise, they would be dead.
All of the protections and privileges of the prince’s world counted for nothing against tooth and claw. And of course, the law was ancient and absolute. It is not murder if it happens at night. It is nature.
Our Greatest Law became embedded over time through painful proving of the same rule, over and over: it is better not to know.
No one is better off if they discover that the mouse they snatched in the moonlight was their own child; if the wildcat whose throat they tore out was their own wife. After all, most cannot control themselves in their nightform. They are no longer human.
But the Crown Prince was not like us. He was just ten when he cultivated enough power to maintain human consciousness in his nightform. He was fourteen the first time he held his human form throughout the whole night. By sixteen, he was the Flower Crowned Nightgod.
He led the Forest Order: the bravest Nightgods, who battled the fiercest, wildest nightforms. He walked on his two human legs in the moonlight, protecting all of us, and wherever he walked, white flowers grew.
Back then, it was a burgeoning religion. There were not many Nightgods, but they were revered, and their power brought them exceedingly long life. Nightgods would soon become more powerful and rich than royals, for only they can escape the dark.
Humans now pray their short daylight hours away and offer everything they have in the grand Nightgod temples, hoping they and their loved ones can be protected once the stars came out. Or at least, that they not join each Kingdom’s list of the missing and presumed dead, full of names who bid farewell one sunset and are never seen in daylight again.
It is our hardship. It is our life. It is our reality, to always walk two paths: day and night.
But the Flower Crowned Nightgod believed there could be a third path.
He trusted his people. He told them what he was in the dark: a ferret, purest white. He broke the Greatest Law. He believed they would never harm him.
He was wrong.
And now there is no more Flower Crowned Nightgod, and the Kingdom of Xianle is nothing but ash.
Never tell your nightform to anyone, children. It is your lifelong secret. To tell anyone, no matter how much you love them, is to curse yourself. Just like he did.
Say it, children.
Say you will never tell.
***
Xie Lian strode happily out of the forest on an autumn day, completely naked, not knowing it was his last unremarkable day for quite some time to come.
He stretched as the sun rose, and reached for the plain white robes he stashed at the edge of town. It was an unspoken rule that if one were to see a naked human as the day began, one averted one’s eyes and pointed them to the nearest washing line. The clothes would always find their way back to their rightful owners eventually.
His first (and possibly last) meal of the day was plain rice. His first task of the day was re-patching the pesky hole in his old, well worn robe. His first words of the day were “Sir, would you permit this humble scrap collector to clear your garden of anything you no longer wish to keep?”
He saw the downturned lips and judgemental eyes of folk who saw the hand-to-mouth way he spent his days. But how could he feel embarrassed, when the daytime felt like a golden reprieve? The light was a sanctuary.
He did quite well that day, actually. He worked hard. He thanked his final client profusely, a toothless old woman who was happy for someone to clear her yard of all the useless metal and broken cart parts. Xie Lian had an eye for these things by now, and he could probably make a working cart out of what he’d gathered.
At his back, however, was the setting sun. He bade the woman farewell.
Hopefully, if he wasn’t injured tomorrow, he could come back and fetch the wheels. If he was injured, then he would simply stand, attempt to wash the night’s blood and grime off, and go on about his day. If he could not put the cart together, he’d busk, or collect lighter scrap. Enough for a warm meal.
He could hardly do much more. He could not open a business, tend a farm, or settle in one place. That would only bring more predators to his trail at night, as they became familiar with his scent. He could not work for others either; not when any of his nights could turn into a week or month’s worth of daytime recovery from brutal wounds.
So he wandered. He had for 800 years, in fact. He accepted his fate. It made his days that much more precious, after all. To raise his face to the sunlight and feel its peaceful warmth was truly a gift.
Though not for much longer, that day. The sun lowered, hovering in warning. The thick grey of the sky warned of incoming snow. He made sure he was alone as he walked to the forest’s edge, took off his robes, and watched as the sun’s last rays disappeared over the horizon.
There was no point preparing himself. Nothing he did made a difference. So he always took the time to watch. It was a small act of both penance and hope: to accept the pain that would come, and remind himself it would end soon enough when he saw the light again.
“You’ll be alright,” he murmured to himself. “And if you’re not, the pain won’t be so bad in the morning.”
He breathed in and out evenly as he watched the first stars come out, sensing the Change as it began, just like every other night.
He felt himself become small. It didn’t hurt, or feel strange. It was mundane, now. Entirely normal to swap his skin for fur, his hands for paws. He would never nightwalk again. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. That was his choice, and his atonement.
He sniffed the air and pawed at the ground, and dashed for the cover of the trees.
He did not spot the flap of silver wings in the trees.
***
Xie Lian scurried through the leaf litter, pausing to sniff the air. It was a full moon. How terrible. Predators were always wilder and hungrier on nights like these, and nothing highlighted the shine of a white ferret’s fur more than moonlight.
Xie Lian stopped at the crest of a small hill as the wind whispered through the trees.
He was starting to get very worried.
From the rise of the moon and his squinting at the blurry stars, it was midnight. Which meant half the night had already passed.
But nothing bad had happened.
That usually just meant something even worse was biding its time, potentially stalking him through the trees. Xie Lian peered around cautiously, his long neck swivelling. His eyesight was poor. But his hearing was very good, and his sense of smell.
What was strange about tonight is what he couldn’t hear, and what he couldn’t smell.
The night was completely quiet. No hooting owls, no howling wolves, no croaking frogs or hissing cats. The forest was normally alive and wild with life- both nightforms and real animals- though only experienced Nightgods could tell the difference.
It was too quiet.
Movement. The tiniest sound.
He caught a brief flash of red through a branch. Ah. There it was, his hunter for the night. Most likely formidable, given it had scared away all the more fortunate prey in the area.
Xie Lian huffed, and nosed his way under the leaves. He should at least try to disguise himself to buy a few more minutes of peace. It was damp and musty in his leaf burrow. To him, it smelled safe. Ferrets were burrowing creatures, and he always felt more secure nestling low and close to the earth.
He stayed quiet. No telltale dooking or squeaking from him tonight, since he was on someone’s menu.
Footfalls. Light padding across the hill towards him. Xie Lian tensed, ready to hiss if it got too close. Sometimes, creatures would leave him alone if they thought they were disturbing a bigger and scarier animal than a ferret.
Xie Lian could smell it. It smelled… complex. Similar to a fox, but…
If he was not mistaken, this was definitely a nightform, not a real fox. He wilted slightly. It always made fighting that much more gut wrenching if he had to injure someone he knew would turn back into a human in only a few hours.
The footfalls stopped. He could hear its fur bristling in the breeze. Otherwise, it was silent. Xie Lian moved a tiny bit, and could see red paws and a bushy tail through a sliver in the leaves.
Foxes had even better senses of smell than ferrets. Xie Lian knew he was rumbled, but he was feeling grumpy tonight, and had no intention of beginning the fight before he had to.
He let out a warning hiss. Don’t start with me, he was saying. I’m in no mood.
The fox’s tail twitched.
Then…
“Would you like some quail eggs?”
Xie Lian went very still.
Did that nightform just…
He heard the plopping of something being dropped on the leaves nearby. He poked his small head out and tilted his head, squinting to see…
The fox had a small red string bag in its mouth, from which it was shaking out quail eggs. He could smell them. They were eggy and delicious and ferrets liked eggs very very much but he certainly couldn’t accept eggs from a strange nightform, and he was getting distracted but eggs were so good-
Sometimes, in his nightform, Xie Lian found it hard to focus when his animal instincts surged. Normally it was because of fear or aggression, but in this case, the promise of a treat was very hard to resist.
He hid his head under the leaves again.
He would not be bribed, even by a nightform powerful enough to speak telepathically.
Which in itself was very strange. Even established Nightgods had trouble doing that. Communication via human consciousness was very difficult.
“I swear on my life I am not here to hurt you,” came the voice again, in his head. It was pleasant, lyrical and smooth.
Silence.
Xie Lian poked his head out slowly.
“Why are you giving me free eggs?” he asked suspiciously, one of the leaves now balanced on his head like a bamboo hat.
The fox was not the only one who could speak that way. Xie Lian never used the power anymore, so he’d almost forgotten he could. Most nightforms did not retain enough human understanding for it to be useful to talk to them, and he’d avoided Nightgods at all costs since his curse. (They reciprocated).
He observed the fox. He was quite well groomed, large for his kind with a gleaming coat. The fox cocked his head as his tail flicked backward behind him. Xie Lian could have sworn it had started to wag.
“I read once that ferrets really enjoy eggs. I also have a big duck egg.”
Xie Lian’s ears perked up as he involuntarily let out a chirp. A duck egg too? What on earth did this nightform want in exchange for such solid gold treasure?
“But why?”
The fox bowed his head. “I will go over there and wait, so you can eat them in peace. When you are done, you can speak to me if you wish, or not. Either way, nothing will harm you tonight. Oh, and I will provide you an umbrella.”
Xie Lian stared in confusion. A swarm of ethereal, silent silver butterflies materialised from nowhere, and formed a shimmering umbrella shape above the egg pile.
“What- why?”
“So you don’t get snowed on while you’re eating.”
Xie Lian looked up. It had indeed started to lightly snow. An autumn sprinkle that would evaporate on the ground, hardly something bothersome, but-
True to his word, the fox rose and padded away, resettling close enough for Xie Lian to still be able to see him, but sufficiently far that Xie Lian could probably escape with a solid head start if needed.
Well. This was certainly unexpected.
He sighed, feeling his resolve evaporate. Fine. He would be bribed.
Xie Lian warily emerged from his leaves, wriggling to dislodge as much of them as he could, though he was sure there were still quite a few pieces clinging to his tail.
He crept over towards the treats. The duck egg was already placed gingerly on the top of the quail egg pyramid. He sniffed it suspiciously. He detected nothing untoward.
He nibbled tentatively at a tester quail egg, to start.
Oh, it was delicious. Eggs were amazing.
He stood nervously up on his hind legs to check the Fox was still in the same place. It hadn’t moved. He was watching him in a beam of silver moonlight.
He nosed at the duck egg. He had not had such an exceptional treat on any of his nights for over 800 years. The smell alone had him making his dooking noises.
He made up his mind, not that his human willpower had much sway at this point. If it was too good to be true, so be it. He pilfered the duck egg and scampered back to his leaf burrow with it stuffed in his mouth.
He devoured the egg in his burrow. Incredible. He scooted back somewhat sheepishly with his eyes on the fox, and poked at the rest of the quail eggs. His small paws could not take them all with him.
The fox still hadn’t moved. A silver butterfly had actually balanced on its nose and was flapping its wings lazily, as if to demonstrate just how still and nonthreatening he was. Xie Lian looked back down at the egg pile, deciding to eat in the open.
He practically blacked out as he gulped them all down. Beyond delicious. He was in ferret heaven.
He sat up, and licked at his whiskers and paws to try to remove the egg yolk. The fox remained where he was, and the butterflies still hovered above Xie Lian, shielding him.
He gulped, attempting to swallow the majority of his burp. “Um…I finished.”
“Did you like them?”
“Very much,” he said, rump waggling a little against his will. Xie Lian tried to concentrate. It was not appropriate to let that particular ferret instinct take over (when happy, they dance).
The fox’s tail really did wag this time. Xie Lian eyed him suspiciously. Body movements like a tail wag were very hard to fake or suppress in a nightform. Animals were just more sincere than humans. Was this fox really so pleased?
“I can bring you whatever treats you like, whenever you like.”
What was the catch? He was desperately fascinated. “Who are you? What is your name?”
The fox gave a grin. “My night-name? You can call me Crimson.”
“Crimson,” repeated Xie Lian. “Alright.”
The fox eck-eck-ecked happily.
“Well…Crimson, what do you want from me?”
Crimson washed a paw as his butterfly resettled to land on his ear. Xie Lian stared at it. Now that he thought of it, they were beyond strange. He hadn’t seen any butterflies that reflected the moonlight like that before.
“Maybe I like being able to talk to someone at night. Do you mind it?”
“Oh, no,” breathed Xie Lian, tail fluffing. “It’s been so long since anyone listened to me talk!”
Crimson stilled slightly, and was quiet for a moment.
“Well. Long overdue then.” His tail twitched, this time indicating displeasure. Xie Lian probably shouldn’t have said something so awkward.
Xie Lian cast his mind around. He didn’t have a night-name. Night-names were not even something people were really supposed to have; another taboo of many. One’s human form was the real form. But Crimson had given his. Perhaps he should stick to a similar theme.
“You can call me Whiteflower.”
Crimson’s tail wagged again. “It’s very nice to meet you, Whiteflower.”
An animal roared in the distance, breaking their reverie. Xie Lian crouched low immediately out of instinct.
Crimson seemed to sigh.
“I’m sorry, Whiteflower. I have to go. But…would you like some more treats, tomorrow night?”
Xie Lian gasped. “Do you really have more eggs?!”
“I can bring as many eggs as you like,” said Crimson softly.
“Well… then yes of course, friend. But I’m afraid I have nothing to offer you but my company!”
Crimson scrunched his eyes shut in a fox smile.
“That will be more than enough.”
He was gone on a breath of wind.
The butterflies disappeared, save for the one which had rested on Crimson’s nose. It floated softly along the breeze to Xie Lian’s burrow as he resettled under the leaves, seemingly wanting to keep him company.
Xie Lian thought it was a very beautiful thing, and told it so. It rested on its very own leaf, and Xie Lian was becoming quite comfortable and warm in his nest.
“You’ll wake me if anything happens won’t you?” he murmured sleepily, scratching idly at his full belly and yawning widely to show his little pointed teeth.
The butterfly opened and closed its wings slowly, resting. Xie Lian found that watching it made him feel very calm, for some reason. He really should stay alert, but he found himself just wanting a quick nap. Just a quick one.
***
He slept until dawn. The night, most strangely, passed without incident. Xie Lian recalled that Crimson had promised it would, but surely that was beyond his power given he left so soon.
In the morning, he hummed to himself happily after he changed back to his human form. Since his curse, he had never once looked forward to the sunset. But tonight? He was curious.
After so long, he really should be less trusting. And yet, he felt in his bones that Crimson was not malicious. And he was clearly powerful enough that the usual predator-prey chase was most likely not of interest to him. He was a human, in a fox body. Maybe he’d just been lonely, like him.
Xie Lian had a bounce in his step. How wonderful, to have someone to talk to at night.
He wondered who Crimson was, in his human form. Where he lived, how he spent his days. What he looked like.
He took the usual morning rest back in the abandoned shack he’d been staying in. Most humans slept from their sunrise change until mid morning to recover.
Before noon, he made his way back to the old woman’s house to pick up the remaining parts. Sure enough, he was able to fashion a whole cart from the spare parts and wheels. It was a little creaky, and wouldn’t win awards for prettiness, but with some love and grease it should work just fine.
Delighted, he dragged it around behind him as he went to knock on some doors in the village, to see if anyone wished to buy it. A farmer on the outskirts agreed.
“Hop on! I’ll give you a ride back to town to test her out!”
“Alright!”
Xie Lian happily settled on the cart, as the farmer loaded it up with hay.
“She’s not so bad,” the farmer exclaimed, as he hooked up a harness to his ox.
“I think she still has a long life yet!” called Xie Lian, as the wheels creaked to life.
He let out a satisfied sigh as he rested against the hay. A good day’s work. Xie Lian was having such an excellent day. And the money would be able to buy him a decent sized sack of rice to last at least a month; though he’d give half to the old woman of course, as thanks.
“Maybe I can make some stew,” he muttered to himself.
“Stew?” came a lilting voice.
Xie Lian gave a start, and peered around the hay.
Who-?
How-?
A young man had hitched a ride on the cart without him noticing, reclining casually into the hay on the other side of him. Xie Lian was briefly ready to scold the youth, until he saw his mischievous, dancing eyes and lost his nerve.
Oh, it was only a short ride. Let him stow away.
“My apologies, I didn’t see you there!”
“Oh, I just hopped on. Pardon my insolence. I didn’t feel like walking.”
Xie Lian had not seen this man in the town, so far. He was very sure of that, because he would hardly forget a face like his.
He had strong brows and high cheekbones, and a mouth that seemed permanently curved in a playful smile. He was pale, dressed in a bright red tunic with a long braid.
“You live in this town?”
“Oh, no. I live all over, really. A wanderer.”
Xie Lian crooked an eyebrow. A wealthy wanderer, by the quality of his black boots and that red pearl in his hair.
“I see. What should I call you, friend?”
The man’s smile deepened. Xie Lian felt heat rising on his neck and looked away, pretending to brush some dirt off the side of the cart for a moment. He was extremely handsome.
“Me? Hmm. You can call me…San Lang.”
Xie Lian looked back, eyes darting up to his. “Alright. I’m Xie Lian.”
San Lang inclined his head. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.”
Xie Lian froze, and went hot and cold all at once.
“Wh- what did you call me?” he whispered.
***