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alatushours · 8 days

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𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄.

✶ yingxing x gn. reader — wc. 4.1k

summary. existence draws a divide between that of mortals and those blessed with eternity, yet he cannot help but be enamoured by you; consuming his thoughts, his dreams, allowing you to lead his mortal soul to ruin. as for a lifetime do you remain far from his reach, shrouded by legend — and all he can do is carve your name into memory.

notes. rewrite of an old oneshot lol shoutout to my friend nova for helping me with this ily 😘

Your name echoes throughout the Xianzhou, heard everywhere — seen everywhere Yingxing steps foot.

For you dance across his mind in a way that’s almost taunting, your movements as elegant as the sword you brandish, yet as swift and fleeting as the cool breeze that blows through the windows of his workshop. It’s a gentle momentary caress across his face, a sense of almost grasping something so incorporeal, so impossible.

It’s a distraction from the purpose that occupies his thoughts, the one that tears and slowly chips away at everything he is, as sweat pours from his brow and his body shakes with exertion, swinging the hammer in his hands.

The sound of it rings against red-hot iron in a repeated motion, a crude jarring noise that sends tremors up his arm and leaves him gritting his teeth. But his eyes remain unfaltering, focused wholly on tempering the steel atop an elegant staff, wrought from the finest materials he had managed to get his hands on.

Because there remains burning irresolutely, that innate desire of his, the one that strives to be the best, and furthermore, when it comes to the subject that is you.

He thinks of you, each time it meets the metal.

He thinks of you, as he carves your name along it, and each time the tool slips from his grasp and slices apart the palm of his hand, spilling crimson blood — it’s the the same colour of the ribbon in your hair blowing in the wind, as a smile graces your lips beneath skies painted with aureate clouds.

It ripples behind you like a blazing trail of scarlet across his memories, whilst silver gleams in your hands in an almost brilliant reflection of the moon itself, crossing blades with him beneath the light of the setting sun, sweeping him up in this mesmerising dance of yours.

You’ve left him utterly entranced by your very existence, so much that he hardly notices it when you knock him off his feet, for even that fall is graceful by your doing.

However, his defeat doesn’t surprise him. Because who was he to compare to the likes of you after all? You’re the greatest swordmaster the alliance has seen in centuries, a living legend amongst those who gaze upon your image in equal fascination.

Against you, his existence is almost pitiful, reducible to a mere mortal with a bare scrap of talent in the art of craftsmanship. He’s forgotten easily, a human who presumes to walk amongst gods, a faint, fleeting existence amid the illustrious and divine.

Even at the end of your dance, when you’re smiling, beaming with the radiance of the sun itself — it’s never at him who lingers in your shadow. Your attention drifts elsewhere quickly, endlessly seeking records beyond the sky, enraptured by clouds and moonlight whilst he’s left to grasp at the fading trail of stardust you’ve left in your wake.

His eyes forever remain fixated upon your back. It’s the only thing he can behold, yourself turned to greater things. For something far more brilliant catches your own eyes.

He sees the way your eyes brighten at the sight of the Vidyadhara high elder who approaches, dark hair swaying in the breeze and piercing green irises that glisten like emeralds. You greet him like an old friend, slinging your arm around his shoulders, embracing him whilst Yingxing watches from afar.

Deep down, he knows he cannot blame him for holding your attention. Those slender, unblemished hands fit perfectly in your own divinely wrought ones — their complexion is far from his own which remain calloused and marked with faded scars. They’re imperfect, etched from the flawed creation that is mortality. He should not behold you with them.

It’s incomparable.

There are no greater existences than the ones that stand before him, when both of you seem to glow with that ethereal grace, an almost timelessness to your figures, eternal and everlasting.

And the high elder is brilliant in his own right, he’s created to be that way and nothing less, unlike the mortal craftsman who can only hold the desire to reach such heights. For in the end, as one casts their eyes to the sky, a faintly flickering star would not outshine the moon itself, no matter how brightly it burns.

But why does he still desire to burn?

Your bright figure drifts away before his eyes, further out of his grasp, as you have always been. It should kill the fire which flickers in his heart, swallowed by a void he cannot fill. You’re destined to lead great lives, its possibilities stretched before you — in fact, you shouldn’t need to spare a glance back at him.

But when you do, all it does is make him unable to move on, allowing himself to be caught up in the struggles that tether you to him once more. Because when words leave your mouth, even if it’s spun about your own woes, he’s entranced again. And the one you speak of, he knows in an almost bittersweet manner, similarly mirrored in the grim look the high elder casts his way.

It echoes a hopelessness, pokes the fire that had once been left to die, reigniting the part of him that cannot stand the pridefulness of the long-lived, tearing at him to be better.

Yingxing thinks, had he been the one blessed, he would be the one able to stand by your side, to reciprocate the feelings you hold for another. For you who is perfect in his eyes, is it not expected that you too are deserving of perfection? He would lay the world at your feet had you asked it of him.

But alas, he’s always been doomed to walk a separate path, whilst watching the greatest ones split.

He’s heard both confessions beneath the light of two moons, upon two tranquil nights.

From he who parted the sea, forged the seal of the ambrosial arbour, master of the cloudhymn art, a being equally as great as you, upheld by glory and legend — he sheds this title, this facade, before his oldest friend. His emerald eyes are clouded with a pained sorrow, his wearied emotions bared before him, as he speaks the truth upon his mind.

“I cannot love them, Yingxing. No more than any other friend.”

The high elder is not blind to your affections. But as brilliant as you are, he does not hold the same freedom as you to love. He is still the high elder of the Vidyadhara, and to him, love is nothing more than another shackle against the one that is his duty. To share in the company of lesser beings and mortals was already loath enough, in the eyes of immutable laws the preceptors hold so dear.

He admits wistfully, that he envies him, for being able to be so free — to roam the world, to speak his mind, to feel.

But Yingxing envies him, for being everything he could never be, and the object of all your attention. He doesn’t know the burden that is mortal emotion, nor the stinging pain that is love.

Because loving you hurts.

In all your greatness, you are clueless to love. Immortal beings like you do not grasp such emotions easily, brimming on an uncertainty you look to him to right. For he’s the most human out of the three of you, and the only one who could possibly understand. But he breaks, and he burns the easiest — the downfall that comes of feeling the way he does.

But you don’t know that. You continue to speak so highly of him, voice laced with awe, as you recount the events of your day to the craftsman. You describe the strange feeling that seems to blossom in your chest, and Yingxing wants to hate how you even do that beautifully, with sparkling eyes and a small smile gracing your lips.

Your love is like a gentle breeze blowing amid iridescent blooms of spring, bathed with the splendour of golden sunlight. You ask him, what flowers does the high elder like, what his favourite colour is — all the questions he wants to ask you. But he’ll never truly bask in such light, to know you in such a way.

Not when he hears you say that you think you love him.

Your words are uttered with innocent wonder, and there should be nothing more beautiful — yet they cut him in a place you don’t see, driving beneath flesh, aimed straight for his heart.

He clutches its bleeding, broken remains as you whisper of the joys of love, unburdened by the other side of it he himself is weighed down by — each utterance is like a knife digging deeper into those wounds. He can still hear Dan Feng’s words echoing in his mind, ringing in his ears, clinging to his figure like a vengeful ghost that threatens to tear him apart, to push its way past his lips.

Yet he can’t bring himself to speak this truth that has cleaved his heart in two, to dim the light that is you in his eyes. He swallows the feeling, turning away, retreating into himself, throwing all thoughts of you into his craft — the only thing he knows that remains unchanging amid the turmoil that overturns and divides his heart.

He trusts in these sheets of steel, for they do not speak of the woes that are love, able to be formed and shaped to his will, curbing his feelings. Yingxing grasps it in his hands with certainty, unlike your own faint love.

He loses himself within it, hammer ringing against metal, whittling away at the greatest pride of his fickle existence, eyes watering and blurring against the sweat that drips from his brow. He only pauses to breathe — that’s if he remembers, time trickling by him, day bleeding into night, and night fading to dawn.

And beneath its soft rays resplendent of you, does his first project form before his eyes, an exquisite bow carved in the shape of a crescent moon, your name engraved upon its edge. He ignores the wooden splinters that dig in his hands, continuing forth, the same hands forming a silver dagger that seems to reflect the light of the moon, a crown of golden laurels, a fine necklace encrusted with jewels — day in day out.

The sun is hanging high in the sky now, casting its brilliance upon the world, yet he continues to languish in its shadow. There’s a stinging pain that spreads across his hands, blistered in pink and red, but any pain is better than the one that sits heavy within him — the one that comes when he thinks of you, standing beneath such light.

All he sees is the longing you hold in your gaze, looking out at the waters of the distant sea, the light dancing across its surface reflected in your own eyes. A sigh escapes your lips as you rest your head against his shoulder, poised to utter some sentiment.

And you’re speaking of him again, of the one who doesn't love you more than a friend, whilst the one who truly does, bears witness to this. You speak of his green eyes, how you adore the colour, whilst the craftsman looks at his own cerulean irises in the water’s reflection.

(They burn with blue fire, effervescent in its own destructive way — but alas, it is the soothing gentleness of water you crave, the one which snuffs out such fires.)

A singular droplet falls down into it, casting a small, unnoticeable ripple.

His vision grows blind with this green.

He sees it everywhere, crushes it in his hands, reforming it so it will remain unforgettable by his craft, his touch — the closest he’ll ever be to you.

For Yingxing can create perfection, but he himself cannot be, the tortured poet amid pure artistry. And he mourns this, as he wipes his brow, stepping back to take in the completion of another weapon, a jade staff tipped with glistening silver, and behind the etchings of your name, lies every fragmented emotion of his heart carved onto this.

It's a weapon made for the only divine thing he’s ever believed in — you.

Yet the exalted feeling is only momentary, followed by the reminder of his mortal limitations, as it all comes crashing down again. His shoulders seem to sag, a fresh wave of exhaustion washing over him, staggering backwards, slamming a hand on the crafting bench behind him to brace himself.

A part of him wonders, how much time has he spent? The clock on the wall has stopped ticking, its hands paused on its final moments. The sky outside is painted with overcast grey, with neither the sun or moon in sight.

It’s deathly silent, the corners of his workshop a hollowed abyss he stares into, when left with nothing but his own thoughts and the heaviness that lies in his heart.

Only momentarily, is it broken by the sound of a knock on the door.

But even that is muffled — he hardly hears it, unmoving.

But the knocking continues, more persistent.

He sighs.

“Yingxing?” Your voice floats from the entrance of his workshop, as if breathing life into him, rousing him from his trance, as he finally brings himself to raise his head.

It’s you.

You seem to haunt him at every waking hour, from your physical form, to the one that exists with the recesses of his mind. He thinks he’s imagining you, as you breeze through the doorway. You look so out of place, so bright and vibrant against the bleak backdrop that shrouds everything.

His traitorous eyes trace your form, outlined by the shadows that nip at the ivory draped over your body. White has always looked divine on you. He feels as if he is tainting such a pure colour with his corrupted eyes, defiling the fabric with fantasies of his parched lips and blemished hands being granted the chance to touch you, to hold you, to worship you.

His fingers twitch. How wonderful would it be to feel your skin beneath his callused digits, so unworthy to lay upon a being such as yourself? How wonderful would it be to have your eyes set on him for more than a lingering moment, allowing a starving soul like him a minute of satiation, a second of mercy to slake the desperate hunger he has just for an infinitesimal amount of you?

But you do not grant him that reprieve. You never have. Not even for the barest moment, when he’s grasped the silk that trails in your wake, graced by the smallest sliver of your presence — it slips through his fingers just as quickly as his hopes, dashed by the condemned words that spill from your lips.

You’re going to confess, pour out your heart, devote your soul — all for folly, your brilliance soon to be consumed and faded by this failed act.

As beneath the inscrutable gaze of the high elder, this visage of yours is fated to crack.

And a part of him knows he is responsible for this, withholding the truth from you, desperate to preserve this image of you.

You don’t know this. You continue to beam, asking to practise the lines you wish to say with him, reaching out your hand in divine offering, a promise of heaven that you paint before him. You’re regretfully innocent, clueless of the things that can be ripped from you, after having peered down from a pedestal all your life.

Yingxing wonders how quickly such dreams will collapse upon itself, stricken with the truths of reality. It’s a temporary illusion he too wants to believe, to indulge in — to savour that for a moment, the eyes you cast toward him are truly meant for him, and not the ghost of another, whose words will soon haunt both of you.

He hates himself for wanting to take your hand despite knowing this. He knows he doesn’t deserve to look into such light, to take that hand, to let you be defiled by his sin of mortal existence — even when every fibre of his being burns with such desire, tempted once more by this forbidden fruit, to indulge in something he knows he is unworthy of.

It takes everything in him to flinch away at your touch.

He feels it for a moment, a cold featherlight brush against his arm. But even that is enough to leave him yearning for more — more of what he cannot have.

Your countenance shifts just as quickly, the smile fading from your face. “Yingxing…?”

You’re frozen in place, cut off mid sentence by his sudden movement, hands still suspended in the air, your gaze slowly travelling down to his own hands where bandages peel away to reveal jagged half-healed cuts and the faded scars of old wounds — so unlike your unmarred, unblemished skin.

He’s the furthest thing from the perfection you dream of. And to think you dare ask him what’s wrong?

There are so many things Yingxing could say that are wrong. Loving you is wrong, he should not hold such feelings within his heart. It’s never been anything he could handle, daring to gaze upon the true forms of such celestial beings. A mortal like him should never have even formed such thoughts of you, to entertain you within such imperfection.

He must be punished by fate, cursed to obsess over such perfection nonetheless, to strive for it until it consumes him with the same fervour that is equal to destruction, wreaking judgement upon his flawed existence, leaving him nothing more than a shell that is infinitely more broken, scattered at your feet, his own fragilities laid bare.

How he wants to say that you’re throwing yourself down the wrong path, for the wrong person — but he stops himself. For he cannot accept you are the one flawed, to correct you, for does that not go against every construct that is the universe? He cannot defy heaven, and to defy you is to go against everything he believes, to move his very faith.

He can only shake his head, in what he prays is gentle inclination. “Don’t do this.”

Your eyes narrow. “What?”

“Don’t do this to yourself.” He repeats, quieter this time.

You don’t understand the words that are coming from his mouth. They’re contradictory, so unlike what you’ve previously heard. Uncertainty laces his voice, so unlike the self-assured image he had presented to you on countless occasions, brimming with confidence — there’s no playfulness in his tone, nor the usual wry smile across his lips.

That image cracks before your eyes, dying before you in this moment of solidarity. His hands tremble, wrapping around your exposed forearm, and your head snaps up, forced to meet his eyes, watery and bloodshot, looking back hopelessly at you.

It’s traitorous, everything from his outstretched hands to his words that now touch upon your figure, in defiance of everything he had once held himself to, grappling with fate. But you’re teetering on a crumbling precipice, prepared to plummet headfirst — you leave him no choice but to leap forward and catch you, to stop both your falls. He would rather you live, cursing him forever than to lose you to the same heartbreak.

Even now he’s waiting for judgement to rain down upon him, as he watches for your reaction. Yet you still don’t understand. You don’t presume to even try.

“You must be tired. You can’t be thinking straight—”

“No.”

His pupils seem to dilate in response. It’s a blatant lie, as your gaze flickers from the bags under his eyes, to the way his hand shakes despite the grip upon you. His chest rises and falls, as if he’s struggling for words, a single utterance having left him breathless.

“Yingxing, listen to me.” You try to dissuade him, trying to pry your arm out from his grasp, which only seems to tighten, his nails digging into your skin as he drags you closer to him, your arm pressed against his chest, your foreheads practically touching.

You can hear his shallow breaths, and the rapid thumping of his heart against your own. A bitter, broken laugh escapes his lips moments later.

“Listen? What is there to listen to? You’re in love with him, I know.”

It’s a hollow admission, one you both know with an unfortunate certainty.

You’ve uttered such a fact in front of him multiple times, and he’s heard it the same amount of times. Despite the ache in his heart, he’s not blind. He can see the truth with piercing clarity before his eyes — there’s no denying the way you look at him is far different from another.

Because who was he in your eyes? He could compose a thousand eulogies on your very existence, your histories long and unforgettable. But to you, to every immortal being, whose lifetimes span a hundredfold of his own, he is someone easily forgotten and felled — even now, you’re looking at him like that, as if you pity him.

He’s incomparable to the high elder you profusely love, incomparable to you.

“So why—”

“Why…?” He echoes vacantly. “You wish to know why?”

Yingxing wants to laugh at the irony of it all. How many times has he asked that question to himself, wondering why he is drawn to such brilliance, and the desire to hold it in his hand? He knows he should not behold you in such a way, his fingers twisted around a strand of your hair, transfixed by the divine being that looks up at him so hopelessly.

But he is. He’s touching you, cradling your face as he had once dreamed, the feeling of your skin the fulfilment his rough fingers crave to grasp. Even now, you invite temptation — a part of him craves more, rearing its ugly head from being denied time and time again.

Your eyes flutter shut.

He thinks, white truly looks divine on you.

But as he leans closer, lips hovering dangerously close to your own, he sees the parts of you stained by his touch, grasped by his blackened fingers, painted with the colour of smoke and the dust that is his own hopes, snatched away by the breeze that had accompanied your presence before him.

He’s stained your cheek too, a marking of black charcoal smudged across the perfectly smooth porcelain, bled from his own hands that have greedily laid themselves upon you, in the lingering moment of almost human vulnerability you had granted him. Do you know it’s inescapable, etched into the very markings of his nature, this inclination toward sin?

He should not defile you any further — but his lips have already brushed against yours, however briefly. It’s long enough for realisation to dawn.

He lurches back at this realisation.

It takes both of you a second to come to your senses, he’s still leaning over your figure — eyes wide in horror, while you stare back at him equally dumbfounded. Neither of you can comprehend what it is he’s done.

He speaks first.

“I’m sorry.” He manages to get out, straightening himself up again, already turning away. It takes everything in him to not look back at you. He doesn’t know if he can stomach it, to see your reaction.

“Yingxing—” This time it is you reaching for him, but he’s gone before you can stop him, his figure retreating out of the door without so much of a noise, dissipating like smoke before your outstretched hands.

“Yingxing!” You call his name out again, but you know he can’t hear you.

You make an attempt to follow him a moment later, but your head is still spinning from the rush of the moment, there’s uncertainty in everything you do.

You don’t even know where you’re going. You’re stumbling over your own two feet in your desperation to follow after him, any other thoughts having left your mind.

You grasp onto a nearby table as if to steady yourself, cursing a stray object you’ve tripped yourself on, eyes swivelling around the interior of the workshop — from the door to the bench you had just been standing by.

But your eyes suddenly catch upon the weapons and intricate creations strewn across the tabletop. They’re unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, each of them more beautiful than the next, the metal glistening brightly in the light.

There’s no doubt of their creator.

Still, you think of the cost all this must be worth. You wonder who this is all for.

But you get your answer just as quickly, as you turn over the jade spear you had just picked up.

They’re all inscribed with your name.

#₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎♡ ༘ reboops !#૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა lune !#how do u manage to write 4k words omg #i can barely get out 500

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