A/N: for rochu week, day 1: red
Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true;
Real becomes not-real where the unreal's real.
Wang Yao has been a Dreamkeeper for a long, long time. Longer than he remembers. He does not remember his mortal life anymore nor does he need to. He is a Dreamkeeper, and he keeps dreams from seeping into reality.
He is one among many Dreamkeepers, working under Lord Zhou [1]. Ever since Zhuangzi, the man who dreamed he was a butterfly and questioned whether a butterfly was dreaming it was him, Lord Zhou took necessary measures to reinforce that dreams stay dreams and away from reality. There is but a thin line between the two, and dreams, the fickle things they are, tend to stray across the sacred boundary.
This world is not the mortal world, and all worlds must have order.
There are foreigners and dreams of war and blood and pain. Dreams of reality. Nightmares.
There has been a lot of these dreams from the Chinese people ever since the Japanese invaded. Yao does what he can to give them peace in their dreams, the only place where it is possible. He takes away their blood and tears and remind them of happier days, where they simply worked and laughed.
He has seen the Japanese's dreams as well. They are dreams of glory and an empire with a blinding sun. These Japanese soldiers — so many of them are only young men, and young men tend to be terrible. He thinks of them with sorrow. They are cruel children who do not know wrong. They are moths drawn to the flame of glory and will surely die, someday soon.
There are newcomers now as less and less Japanese dream. (The dead do not dream.) Chinese among foreigners with ammunition and explosives, driving out the Japanese.
Here, in the twilight of non-fighting, Yao will do what he must and keep the terrors within from getting out. The soul can be deadlier than a bullet, for that is where cruelty is nurtured.
Dreams are never pleasant in times of war.
He knows and has seen his fair share of war dreams. That is why he is surprised to find himself in a splendid chamber of red from the imperial days. A few decades ago mean little to an immortal like him, but he has seen enough change. Such luxury is not something common people knew, and there are fewer aristocrats who still have their grand old houses with fortuitous crimson columns and red rooms.
"Excuse me, but do you happen to know where am I?" The foreigner is large like panda bear. His accent is a soft burr that matches his smile. He has striking purple eyes and platinum hair. He looks like snow, deceiving with its fluffiness while devastating in icy storms.
Under normal circumstances, Yao will not have understood this man. But this is a dream, and dreams are never normal circumstances. He smiles, always with courtesy,
"I am not sure either."
"Oh," the man looks surprised he can understand the words. "I see."
Yao walks around the room a little, inspecting a small porcelain doll and a half-completed embroidery pattern on the side. This must be a young lady's room. He remembers glimpses of noble girls' dreams. Pampered and polished, they giggled in their dreams the same way they did in life. They lived a dream until they were forced to wake up by the sound of war songs.
He picks up a hair ornament, gilded and studded with rubies, and looks at the foreigner, "Perhaps you know where we are."
The man looks down, thinking. Yao notices his protruding nose. It is a mark of many Westerners to have noses like that. They are odd in a way and handsome in the other.
"I think...there was a woman who told me a story about red [2] — I spent a night with her. Her name was Chun-Yan," his eyes brighten with naive hope, "Do you know her?"
"No," Yao says, but he does not check whether he has kept her dreams or not. She is another doomed blossom of China, plucked and ruined. He has no wish to further contribute to her burden by fortifying this foreigner's infatuation.
"Oh," great shoulders fall like boulders. "I thought I had made friends with her, even though I couldn't really understand her."
Disdain stirs in Yao. Friendship, indeed. He believes Chinese women are stronger than anything else. They carry more pain and humiliation than anyone else. But on the surface, he remains composed, not a stone disturbing the still expression on his face. He is raised to gentlemanly ideals, and he shall not judge another based on just one overlap of fates.
The foreigner pulls himself out of melancholy too quickly. "Perhaps we can be friends, da?" He smiles, gentle and deathly yet innocent.
Yao does not turn down the offer outright. It is impolite to. Instead, he hesitates before saying, "Why don't we talk more about that while we explore this mansion and maybe get some tea?"
The foreigner smiles wide and nods. He holds out a big, gloved hand. "I am Ivan Braginski."
Yao's eyebrows rise a millimeter, but he takes the foreigners outstretched hand, "And I am Wang Yao."
He sees Ivan for the next few nights. Recurring dreams are rare, and he is puzzled why he keeps showing up in the red chamber. A Dreamkeeper is present wherever they are needed. Why is he needed here?
Yuanfen [3] is a strange thing. Yao does not understand why he seems to have so much yuanfen with this Russian man's or this chamber of red.
He listens to the foreigner more than he talks. Ivan tells him about his childhood, cold and harsh as Russian winters. He has two sisters, Irina and Natalya, and loves them more than he has ever shown them. "But I will treat them better when I return," he swears.
Yao nods, approving this statement. "You should let them know how much you treasure them before they leave."
"Leave?" Ivan stares at him as if he cannot comprehend the word.
"Everyone leaves in the end." In dreams, in reality.
"I don't believe that, Yao," Ivan smiles. "I believe you can carry them with your dreams."
Yao feels like laughing. What an interesting perception of dreams to think of them as something to be carried in your breast pocket. Dreams are powerful. Perhaps powerful enough to keep the dead alive.
He asks to be sure, "Everyone?"
"Everyone."
"Hmm." He leaves it at that and steers the conversation elsewhere.
Yao decides flowery words and decorative phrases will be no good to finding the answer to his question. Blunter than he has ever been, he says, "You have been dreaming of the red chamber so much. Why?"
The plain question does not startle Ivan one bit. He looks like a white marble bust in one of those great Western mansions: regal and serene.
Then he laughs, smiling like a child. "Well, I said I wanted to be friends. I meant it."
"You must mean it a whole lot," Yao grimaces. He wonders what sort of man is Ivan to want friends so much he thinks of a stranger from his dreams enough to dream him again. A lonely one, he realizes and relates.
In a kinder tone, he asks, "Or is it because of Chun-yan?"
"No," Ivan shakes his head, hair like a mane of pale gold starlight. "I can barely remember her face now," he admits in a low whisper, "but I do remember her story. She said it was a story of red and ruin."
Red and ruin, ruined red. Perhaps the novel mirrors the girl's own life, the story of how a great house fell from prosperity to poverty, to disgrace, and finally, to oblivion.
"But it ends with peace," Yao finds himself saying, "and rebirth. It ends with snow covering the red stains of ruin, leaving everything clean and new."
"That sounds like a good ending," Ivan's smile is calm as frost on the window, glittering in the melancholy moonlight.
They have explored the mansion, then they explore the outside in various dreams. Each time the doors swing open, a different place is presented to them. Yao has not interfered, not even once. He lets Ivan's imagination form the dreams with threads borrowed from reality and learns about the Russian man little by little.
Ivan has not been a man for a long time, but he is a boy withered by war, another boy in uniform showered in blood and battle. He has exceptional skills as a soldier but longs to be a scientist beneath the thick cloak of national pride. He still misses his sisters, but only sometimes. He lost his squad on the Eastern Front. He can be content tending to a certain kind of flowers.
"Sunflowers?" Yao touches a blossom in a ceramic vase. They had a lesser variant of sunflowers, a medicine plant, a symbol of loyalty and morality because they always turn to the light. Yao does not mind them much, but he prefers peonies.
"They make me happy," Ivan smiles as usual, walking over to Yao's side.
The man's height can be intimidating, but Yao allows him to lean close to watch the flowers as Yao watches him. Ivan smells like iron, stale earth, and faded snow. It is not a pretty scent, but he feels oddly fascinated by it. He tenses when the distance between them shortens a little too much as Ivan reaches out to pluck out a hiding daisy, a fledging chrysanthemum [4], among the bold stalks of sunflowers.
Ivan crushes the fragile flower with an iron fist, making Yao flinch at the stray white petal that lands in the ground. "Sometimes, when I am on the battlefield, I imagine the enemy soldiers to be weeds in my sunflower field." He lets the rest of the crushed daisy fall from his hand, "They must be exterminated." His smile is ever serene, like the still yellow petals in this secluded red chamber.
And Yao understands why he keeps showing up here. Dreamkeepers are always where they are needed. Ivan is a sunflower cultivated in frozen soil and watered with blood. The Dreamkeeper must save this doomed blossom before red stains yellow forever.
Cruelty will not do. Dreams tend to magnify such human qualities until they exceed the capacity of dreams and burst into reality.
"Weeds," he says in a slow tone, "they are not. They are as much men as they are monsters." He does not feel much compassion for the enemies, but he knows their humanity clings to them like a coat of dust on their hearts. He knows it from glimpses of dreams about kind mothers and the bentos they prepare in not-so-distant schooldays, dreams of pretty girls and the prayers they pray as they wait at the ports, at the train stations, dreams of friends they will see again and have a laugh with in pubs and coffee shops.
"But shouldn't monsters be exterminated?"
Yao looks at Ivan with an even gaze, "Somerimes, even monsters have humanity."
He encourages Ivan to dream of beautiful places, list the faraway names he sees and hears in travelers' wander dreams. He tells him to dream of sunflower dreams.
"It has been a while since we first met," Ivan tells him, smiling broader than usual and with less unintentional menace, "and I have dreamt of someplace beautiful."
"Oh?" That is usually something he would know. He will let Ivan surprise him this time.
Ivan motions for him to follow, and they stand before the doors side by side. "Be prepared to be amazed."
"Should I?" Yao smirks a little because he has seen more dreams than he can remember. Breathtaking, beautiful dreams. However, he does not deny the anticipation stirring within him.
Ivan nods and push open the doors.
It is unlike anything he has ever seen: the cosmos.
Earth is no longer beneath his feet, but in front of him. He stands on silver-grey stone, dusty and crooked and imperfect. Around him are the stars, in gold, silver, white and hues of rainbow. They swirl with glittering trails by them. His eyes are wide as he surveys around him. This world seems barren, but sunflowers spring from the ground, freckling the surface. It is beautiful, and Ivan is smiling, purely smiling.
"Where are we?" Yao asks in a fervent whisper. He has seen a few paradise dreams, but this one is the oddest and perhaps the most beautiful.
"The moon." Ivan muses, "Ever since I was young, I liked to imagine I can go to the moon because the world could be so terrible in the winters. I was alone, but the moon seemed like a better place to be alone. And now it is my sanctuary."
Strands of moonlight float through his fingers. Yao's gaze softens, "You don't have to show this to me." This is a dream close to Ivan's heart, he knows. It is a dream woven with strands of soul.
Ivan places a hand his shoulder, "I thought you might like it."
Yao gives him a genuine smile of gratitude. Something stirs in his own heart. Fear of losing this man's true smile to the darkness in his heart, friendship in spite of their differences, and something else.
Ivan guides him past a gorgeous lake with strange plants growing among sunflowers and strange creatures lapping at the water. The moon is strange. There are no characters he expects to see, but this is Ivan's dream. Perhaps Yao will tell the Russian these Chinese tales another night.
They settle down at Ivan's chosen place of sanctuary, a clove overlooking the lake and a clear view of the world's horizon. The stars are even more intimate high up and closer, drawing near and far, dancing like mischievous children.
They sit in silence, the sort lovers, or friends, would share.
Ivan drinks from a flask from time to time, offering it at first. Yao refuses because the alcohol rushes up his nose and punches his mind rudely.
After a while, Ivan says in passing, "We won the war. Victory is ours, and the enemy is fleeing."
"Are they?" Yao wonders if it means something, if the people of Manchuria is finally ruled by their own kind. It seems surreal and unlikely, like waking up from a nightmare and not being able to believe it is over.
"Most of them," he replies, "Some still resist our victory."
"And how did that go?"
"So far, not so good." He does not specify for whom.
Then they don't talk until the horizon starts glowing.
"It is time," Ivan stands up abruptly then offers a hand to Yao.
He takes it, but even when he is steady on his feet, Ivan does not let go.
"You should watch the sunrise," Ivan's silhouette is becoming blurry with the first Rays of dawn. "It is beautiful anywhere." He turns to face Yao and brushes a strand of raven hair out his face, fingers brushing against cool skin. "Especially here."
In the roaring wind and proximity, Yao can only notice the scarf Ivan wears: soft as feathers, white as old bandages.
Dread drags down his starlit, moonlit, sunlit heart. "Ivan, why do you always where your scarf-"
The sun has risen, and Ivan is gone.
He does not see Ivan for three days. This absence empties a portion of his heart, and he surveys the dreams listlessly. What do dreams mean when they no longer mean anything?
On the fourth day, Yao is outside the red chamber, and the mansion is shaking, shivering with vengeance. His blood chills. He has never shown up outside of the red chamber. He flings open the door to witness a massacre.
On the bed, there is a buxom foreign woman with short blonde hair and tousled clothes and a bullet in her brain. By her side is a faceless dead soldier with belt undone and multiple stab wounds in his back. Then there is another blonde woman with paler, more silvery long hair and a black bow close to them. She has a knife loosely clutched in one hand and five bullers across her chest, just in case.
Then there is the growing pile of dead, faceless soldiers and Ivan, slashing and shooting and slitting all over the faceless army that appears from nowhere.
"No!" Yao crosses the room in quick, careful strides and attempts to restrain his...his friend. "Ivan, stop it!"
But Ivan laughs and laughs, throwing Yao off him easily, with invisible tears streaming down his face in rage and grief. His scarf flies off with Yao's grip. They reveal an ugly, infected scar on his neck, spreading down do his shoulder, back, and chest.
"They are dead, and I am going to avenge them! You can't stop me." He kills and kills, slashes on throats and bashes on heads.
Yao cannot do nothing.
"Don't," he reaches out and grabs Ivan's wrist. The knife blade has already cut through another neck and blood is about to spring out.
Instead, a sunflower blooms from the wound, growing tall as the corpse falls to the ground. And more sunflowers spring from the dead. The ever advancing army falls down and rises with sunflowers. The mansion deconstructs to its bones then to nothing then into a field of sunflowers, stretching across the horizon.
Ivan's knife is replaced by a stalk of his favorite flower. There is liquid drying on his face for the first time. In the past, tears freeze before they can fall. He is breathing heavily, but he calms as sunflowers fill his sight, hiding the bodies of his dead sisters.
Yao does more.
He reaches into Ivan's memory and gives life to his sisters and his lost squad of unwilling comrades. They rise in the distance, waving and smiling and beckoning Ivan to join them and celebrate love, life, friendship.
It costs much of a Dreamkeeper's magic to reach out of dreams and to memories, further destinations than here. He is drained but not the least bit regretful. The least he can give Ivan is peace, even if it is just an illusion, just a dream.
"Go on," he urges Ivan feebly. "This is yours."
Ivan hovers by his side, not taking a step away. "There is no paradise of mine without you, Yao." His large hand reaches for Yao's own, holding it with tenderness. His purple eyes glow softly with an emotion Yao is only beginning to read.
But Yao is fading away before he can answer to it.
He is returned to Lord Zhou's palace, where all Dreamkeepers stay when they rest from dreams. Yao knows he has broken a rule: overuse of magic. Overreaching is dangerous for Dreamkeepers, for they are incomplete immortals. They can still be suspectible to oblivian if they cross the boundaries of dreams, Lord Zhou's protection...
Yao has been Dreamkeeper for a very long time, and he is tired, so tired.
He is summoned by Lord Zhou. He does not get reprimanded as he expects. Instead, Lord Zhou requests to play a game of chess with him.
They play for hours. Lord Zhou is a master of chess. For millennias, he has played against mortals and deities alike, ever unbeaten. But this time, Yao wins and does not believe this victory.
"It is time for a new game." Lord Zhou smiles, wrinkles crinkling at his knowing eyes, "I thought you might be getting tired of this one. Better not leave with any regrets."
"You..." Yao struggles to find words, but finds immense gratitude instead. "My greatest thanks, but I-"
"Do what you must." Lord Zhou dismisses him with a wink and leaves for his next appointment.
Yao has one last duty to fulfill, the last as a Dreamkeeper and the first as himself, before he leaves the land of dreams for a place without dreams: eternal sleep.
He creates a new dream.
Meadows after meadows roll into the open with azure skies stretching across the heavens. Fluffy clouds dot the vibrant blue hues with splotches of white. Sunlight fills the empty space between earth and sky. The earth is fertile and ripe for cultivation, so he sows seeds of hope and raises sunflowers from them to fill the horizon.
Sunflower after sunflower after sunflower.
He wraps up the dream with the force of mind, carrying the precious thing in his heart as he reaches to a fragile connect of his soul, delicate as a red string, and leaves the land of dreams behind.
He passes into the mortal world messily. His presence frizzles like the end of a thread unwound. The thought of a Russian man holds him together, and he passes through to greet his friend in flesh.
He stands in real snow, bleak and grey unlike dream snow. He does not recognize this place. He has not been in this world for over a thousand years.
Yao sinks to his knees and presses his lips to the tombstone.
There is a drop of frost on his cheek. His fingers touch the unforgiving stone, trailing down. Light emits from the contact, leaving behind a scar:
莫失莫忘，不離不棄。[5]
The magic lingers and settles. Yao sits back on his heels and scrutinizes his work. Satisfied, he stands up. Without turning around, he says,
"I know why you're here."
Death is waiting.
"But I have one last errand to make." The dream he carries glimmers gold in his heart, filling him with courage to turn around.
Death looks like Ivan.
Yao smiles and walks into his embrace.
In the end, all is covered in white.
Everything is so clean.
Notes.
[1] "Lord Zhou," or more well known as "Duke of Zhou," is more or less the God of Dreams, though he was originally more revered for his governmental ideals and morality. A common expression of sleeping is "to play chess with Lord Zhou." Some also believe if there is an important incident ahead, Lord Zhou will visit them in dreams to tell or hint them.
[2] "story about red" refers to Dream of the Red Chamber by Caoxiuqing, written in the Qing dynasty and considered one of the greatest works in Chinese literature. (Chun-Yan tried to tell Ivan her favorite story in broken English after they finished business.)
[3] "Yuanfen" is a Chinese/Buddhist concept of a binding force that determines the relationship between one person and others, and objects, and events, no matter how shallow or deep. There is no exact English equivalent to this word.
[4] " fledging chrysanthemum" is a direct translation of the Chinese name for daisies because they looked like half-formed chrysanthemums.
[5] "莫失莫忘，不離不棄。" is a quote from Dream of the Red Chamber. Here is a translation:
"Never lose me, never forget me;
Never leave me, never abandon me."
Completed: 2015.9.30
A/N: I hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading, and please review. (It's my first time writing them so I hope it's not too ooc or anything.)