TIP: Translations in Author's Notes at the end

The next time she sees him is during her lunch break. The day after Izumi and Sig leave, Lan Fan gets a wedding job, and she sings at a venue close to the river. After, she spends most of the reception near the side of the room, talking to a few of the bride's older relatives.

"Such a beautiful voice!" A lady trills. "And so young! Why don't your parents send you to school?"

"Oh, my grandson attends a nice college near here. Fudan University." Another old man smiles at her. "You look about his age."

Lan Fan nods and answers politely, but something in her heart clenches, hearing these people talk about their grandchildren. Fu had wanted to continue her schooling, had been putting aside money before he got sick. She remembers how all that money went into paying the bills that kept coming in even after he couldn't be saved.

Hours later, she sits on the Bund, a sandwich and drink from the store on the corner in her hands. She's throwing crumbs at the growing number of pigeons in front of her when someone sits down beside her. And Lan Fan doesn't know she's been expecting Ling until she sees a strange girl next to her instead of him, and the shock hits her in the gut.

Which is ridiculous. He had been gone for months before. She shouldn't expect him to show up only three days after she saw him last. She shouldn't expect him to show up at all, but. Lan Fan shakes her head. Since that day he'd called out to her on the busy street at noon, for some reason she's started to look for the god that she healed. It isn't right.

"And here I thought I was special. Turns out you help every ratty animal you come across."

"You weren't really an animal," Lan Fan retorts, before she hears what the girl had said. And jerks her head up to stare.

The girl smiles, a familiar smile in a stranger's face, and waves. "Yes, it's me. Tell me, are these 'bras' supposed to be this tight? I feel like I'm being given the Heimlich."

Lan Fan chooses not to argue. "Is this going to be a recurring thing? In Norse mythology Loki sometimes appeared as a girl as well."

"Do you have a problem with it?"

"No." She shrugs. "It'd just be nice to know if I should expect random strangers to come up to me and talk about gods and monsters."

The girl laughs, high and clear, and it's so different from Ling's that Lan Fan starts. "No. But I just met with el jefe, and I didn't want to show up in fancy robes again, lest you actually stop talking to me." He—she?—points at Lan Fan's head. "Your hair is down."

It drapes around her shoulders like a thick, annoying curtain. Lan Fan tugs at a lock. "Only for special occasions."

"That's a shame. It looks real nice." Ling brushes off his skirt.

In her mind, Lan Fan finds herself contrasting this girl's features to Ling's. Compared to her wide face, the god's face had been longer, more angular, with high cheekbones and a strong chin. His current nose is small and slightly hooked as opposed to his original, which had been straighter, regal. Only the girl's thin, made-up eyes look remotely like Ling's own. Lan Fan looks quickly away, startled. They had only met in person twice before this, and both times only briefly. She wonders how she'd started remembering things like the shape of Ling's face.

The god breaks through her thoughts. "Sorry about last time, by the way. You were going to be late, and I didn't have time to fly you to the station."

"Oh." Lan Fan remembers the lightning, and the almost-fear in his eyes. "They came looking for you."

Ling grimaces. "Something like that."

She raises an eyebrow, but doesn't inquire further. "You didn't answer my question before you bolted. Why did you tell me all of that?"

He smirks at her. "You asked, remember?"

"You didn't have to answer." Lan Fan tosses another piece of bread. "Especially since everything you told me was so…" Personal? Political?

"Complicated?" He waves his hand. "It's fine. I owed it to you, after I did all that snooping into your history."

Lan Fan turns to look at him. "What?"

Ling sits up, suddenly, and exhales. Almost as though he expected this. "In the Heavens, huángdì, nǚwā, and a few other deities are partly in charge of the Temple of Souls, where every mortal's past is held. We can't see anyone's future, nor can we change it. We just watch over them, and as people live out their lives their stories grow and expand and intertwine. Until they die." He takes her drink and fiddles with the plastic cover. "After you helped me heal, I went back and…and looked through your life path, trying to figure out how I could repay you." He meets her eyes. "Then I found out about your parents. Your grandfather."

Ah. Despite the sun, she's chilly, even as she holds back a scoff. What was it about people today and bringing up her family? "So. You've unlocked my tragic backstory. Only, I guess it wasn't really locked."

Her voice isn't angry, but Ling flinches nonetheless. "I'm sorry. I know it was an invasion of privacy. I just wanted to figure out how to go about settling my debt." He closes his eyes. "For what little it's worth, I'm sorry about what happened to them. To you."

She opens her mouth to say…what? That she doesn't need his pity? That she doesn't need him to help her, or keep her company as he has? That she's survived fine on her own? He interrupts before she can. "I know you don't need my pity, or my apology. But, and maybe I'm a dick for saying this, but…" He runs his hand through his hair, quickly, violently. His eyes blaze. "You shut yourself off, Lan Fan, from so many good people around you. And I don't know, maybe you think being alone is safer, or that no one needs to care about a girl who's lost her family and barely getting by. And when people start to care, because that's what they do, you don't let yourself get close enough to find out why. So the thing is, if I don't, who will?"

He pauses, and the emotion in his eyes coils. "And I know I barely know you, but if someone like me can see something like this about you then maybe…it should be said."

Silence falls, and for some crazy, dumb reason, Lan Fan doesn't feel the mix of rage and pain she expects to hit her. Perhaps she is too tired, and perhaps she appreciates that he'd acknowledged the line he crossed. Because Ling is a dick, for saying all that, but he's a dick that is right.

So she sighs, and shrugs at him. "Okay. So why? Why are you explaining yourself to me? You didn't have to tell me how you found out about my jobs, or how you found out about my family."

Ling stares at her, and the incredulity rolling off of him is odd to see in this strange girl's face. "Because I don't want to keep things like this from you. Because I'd like to be your friend." He grits his teeth. "And as much as that is true, it's…it's not the only reason."

Part of her wants to tell him to stop now, tell him that he doesn't have to answer her, that she doesn't want to know. If only that would stop him fighting to say what he doesn't have the words to. But then his dam breaks. "It's horrible, horrible to say, but I didn't want you to have hope that, when I said I'd repay you, I could somehow bring them back, or make the pain better. We can't change how anyone lives, or how they die." The look in his eyes is awful. "I explained how the godly realm worked the other day because I didn't want you to feel like…if I'd met you before this, that you could've done something about it. Had more faith. That maybe you could've prevented any of the terrible things that have happened to you. Because you didn't deserve it, any of it, and you certainly don't deserve to blame yourself for it."

It's long and dreadful, the moment that follows. And she understands what he is trying to say, she does. But she'd never once, not in all the time she'd known Ling, entertained the idea that perhaps the gods could have cured her grandfather, or stopped the muggers that killed her parents. Or brought them all back to her, safe and sound. She had not hoped. Not until now, when this god is looking her in the eye and telling her with a terrible, grim finality in his voice that it is not possible.

Lan Fan laughs, exasperated. It surprises Ling. "Give me a little credit. I knew as much already. When I first met you, you were bleeding out on the ground. You're huángdì, and you couldn't heal yourself. How could I expect any other god to be able to bring a mouse back from the dead, much less my family?" She sighs. "And besides. It wouldn't be the same, if you had."

His fists clench, and for half a second she's afraid she's offended him. But she realizes Ling is staring at her with the most peculiar expression in his black-lined eyes. It reminds her of how he'd looked at her in the park, when the lights had bathed them in gold. Then he bursts out laughing. "You are a strange mortal, Lan Fan Sheng. Well." He steals a chunk of her sandwich, and rips off pieces to chuck at the birds, and Lan Fan thinks she'll get whiplash from how fast his mood changes. "In my defense, I was a snake. It wasn't exactly an ideal form to heal myself in."

She gestures at him. "And hiding in the body of a fourteen-year-old girl is ideal?"

"Hey. She's nineteen. I'm not that much of a bastard."

"Give the god a medal, he has a conscience."

He sticks out his tongue. "And I didn't possess her or anything. I just borrowed her face."

She gives him a look. "How is that any better?"

"Well for one, the real Daisy Yin is still up and about on the other side of the river. For another, I get to see you without wearing a ridiculous get-up. Or turning into a huge, fire-breathing dragon."

Lan Fan tears off a piece of bread and rolls it between her fingers. "Why do you want to see me? Or be my friend? I stopped you from bleeding out and in return you got me a better job. Shouldn't you go back to your fickle godly duties?"

Ling, or Daisy-Ling, smiles. "How do you know this isn't part of my fickle godly duties? Looking out for your good, neighborhood waitress-turned-self-defense instructor is a crucial part of my holy regimen. In fact, I'd say it's so important I won't be able to do anything else for the rest of the day. Nay, the week." He tilts his head. "And why does anyone want to be friends with anyone else? Because I like you. And I think you like me too, despite everything."

Lan Fan turns away from the sky to look at him. Somewhere down the walkway, a child chirps along with the sparrows flying overhead. The air is strangely stiff again, as though the breeze blows in circles around her. Passerby's voices are muffled; in the distance, she hears a roar. Across from her, Daisy-Ling laughs, and the sound of it wipes all other sounds from Lan Fan's mind.

It isn't right, what he did when he tried to repay her. He had no right to violate her privacy, no right to assume she would think what she might've thought when he told her he would pay his debt. He had no right to tell her who she should be, or how she should feel. Not when he'd only known her for a week. But he had told her when she asked, had explained, and apologized. And he had been right, about a few things. Lan Fan had shut herself off, for a long time now. But she does indeed like him, despite everything. Maybe it is time for her to change.

"You shouldn't stare, Lan Fan," Daisy-Ling teases, eyes on the birds. "I know I'm supremely attractive, even for a god, but it's rude. I could smite you for insolence."

And that is another thing. No matter what she's heard him say, or seen him become, still a part of her doesn't believe it. That the girl sitting in front of her, chucking bread at pigeons and cackling when the pieces bounced off their heads, is that talking snake, that dragon. A god.

Daisy-Ling howls when a crumb lands squarely in one bird's eye, and Lan Fan chews on her straw. A young, ridiculous, boy of a god.

"Hey, want to go to Hawaii?"

"…My next job is in ten minutes."

He snaps his fingers. "Actually, it's in an hour and ten minutes."

She sputters. "Did you really just turn time back?"

"No, I just turned your boss' clock hand back. I'm not that all-powerful." He stands up and straightens out his blouse. "I'll change it back to normal later. So. What about it?"

At Lan Fan's expression, Daisy-Ling sighs. "Come on. At least bring me to a cat café. I saw one just down the street."

"If you pelt the cats with bread I'm never taking you anywhere again."

Ling's goal, Lan Fan decides, is to drive her insane with his 'friendship'.

After their day at the Bund, the next time she'd seen him he had worn the face of a popular singer on the subway back to her home, and they'd had to get off early and run the entire way back. Another time, he'd stolen the appearance of a businessman who just so happened to be having lunch with his wife in the same small café they'd boldly—and in Ling's case loudly—strolled into. When he'd finally learnt his lesson and showed up as himself in all his robed glory, they'd just so happened to be outside a movie production site, and Lan Fan had had to explain to a very angry director why the god she was talking with was not one of his extras.

It'd been worse when he showed up at work. During one of her jobs, she'd been cleaning windows outside the twentieth floor of a building, and a floating Ling had appeared beside her so suddenly that she'd nearly dropped her squeegee cleaner.

So when she's locking her front door and a pair of hands reach from behind her to cover her eyes, a teasing voice asks her to 'guess who', Lan Fan isn't amused. "I swear to the entire damn sky, if you don't stop I will knock you down onto your immortal butt with my baton. I don't care if you're wearing the face of a helpless old woman, I'll do it."

"Alright, alright. I believe you." The hands disappear, and Ling comes around to grin at her. "I've seen you take down a man twice your size, and I quite like my butt."

She doesn't mean to gape, but she does. Ling is himself, with thin eyes and a wide smile, but the robes and shiny headdresses are gone. He's wearing a jean jacket over a white band tee and dark ripped jeans. His long, dark hair is pulled into a ponytail, and she's pretty sure she could live for a week on the money his shoes probably cost. His ears are visible now, large and prominent, and probably the first classically undesirable trait of his that she's seen, but all it does is accentuate the handsome planes of his face. He looks good, and just that thought makes her heart skip a beat.

She resolutely ignores it. "Wow. You really went for the edgy look today."

"Nothing satisfies you, does it?" Unbidden, she huffs out a laugh, and he points at her. "Ha! I've seen you smile! And it was a laughing smile, too!"

"How old are you, six? I laughed that day on the Bund, too."

"Yeah, but that didn't count. You were angry."

"I wasn't." And Lan Fan means it. "I was just trying to wrap my head around it all. You didn't give me much choice, saying everything at once like that."

"This one's different." Ling's expression is soft. She's seen that softness more often lately, and she doesn't really know how she feels about it. "You might not have been angry, but it wasn't whole, then. This one's whole, and real." He crosses his arms. "And six? Try six hundred."

Lan Fan rolls her eyes. "All right, you're an antique. No need to sound so smug about it." When he starts to walk, she hangs onto his elbow. Her hand tingles. "Tell me where you want to go now, in case it's halfway across the city again."

"That was one time!" He protests. "And it didn't take that long."

"It took an hour. I was almost late to the job you got me."

"Well, this will only take half an hour. I know, I looked it up. And you're not working today, so you have no excuse!"

They end up taking two hours to get to the water town that is indeed half an hour away, and they're not there five minutes before Lan Fan has to drag Ling away from a dynastic era clothing store. And a toy shop. And an herb store. They eat at one of the many restaurants overlooking the canals, but Ling tries to entertain a small child and her horrified parents by flipping their meat through the air. Lan Fan pushes him out of there before a riot begins.

After hauling him away from a few more souvenir shops, she finally relents when he points out the river boat service, and spends an absurd amount of her savings to sail on a small canal for twenty minutes. Which is the first thing she points out to Ling when they push off.

"You've been denying me at every turn today, Lan Fan. Compromise dictates you let me have this, at least. And besides, this is part of the experience."

"You know what's also part of the experience? Paying for things you want with your own money."

"You wouldn't have had to pay for it if you'd let me use my godly gifts. One snap of the fingers and—"

"No." She points at him, stern. "I'm not going to let you trick those poor shopkeepers. Even if everything here is stupidly overpriced."

Above them, there is a sudden rumble of thunder. Then another. Then another. Lan Fan immediately shuts up, and looks at Ling. There is a crease in his brow, and his jaw locks. But he doesn't look nearly as scared as he had been in that dark park. "Is that you? Do you need to leave?"

A flash of lightning splits the sky right above their heads, and suddenly Ling is shoving her into the small shelter in the middle of the long boat. "Stay still. Don't speak."

His voice is low and terrifying, and Lan Fan knows she should do as he says, should sit and stay silent. But as she huddles there with Ling's hands on her shoulders, something in his words, his behavior, stops all thought in her mind. He'd teleported her to the station, that day months ago. What was it he said? He didn't have time to fly her. She would've made the walk to the station easily in the time she had left, and if he had been called to return he could have left as soon as the thunder hit. He didn't have to send her away from him in order to—. Lan Fan stops, backpedals. From him.

Here he is, being called to leave again but making no effort to hide himself as he scans the sky with narrowed eyes. And she realizes. "They're not looking for you, are they?"

"What?" Ling turns to look at her, and the utter terror in his eyes sends dread low in her stomach. Behind him, forked lightning dips down low above the roof of a house. Her entire arm throbs. She can taste metal in her throat again.

"They're looking for me."

Her voice is steady, and, caught in his lie, Ling nods. Lan Fan sees his throat bob. "And they will find you if I don't get you out of here soon."

"What will they do to me if they find me?" She feels oddly calm. "You never mentioned a law against gods visiting mortals." Stupid, stupid, she thinks. Of course Ling's frequent forays into this part of the mortal world would attract attention. Of course there were laws against it."

"No, I didn't." Another loud clap of thunder booms. He rubs his forehead. "Okay. I'm sorry to do this to you again, but this is the only way you're getting out of here in one piece."

"In one piece?"

"Take my hand." He holds out his hand, and Lan Fan grasps it. It's not cold and clammy, like she expects, but warm and calloused in hers. In spite of the danger in the sky, she can't help thinking that the roughness of it is so oddly human. Ling slips a brief smile towards her. "Try not to throw up on me."

Instantly, they're back at the clothing store. Before Lan Fan can even think about hurling, Ling has pushed her into an alcove between the clothing store and the restaurant next to it. She fixes him with a glare. "Okay. I'm safe for now. Explain."

His gaze darts towards the sky and back so fast it makes Lan Fan dizzy. "There's no law against gods going to visit mortals, but it draws a lot of suspicion if you do. Especially if you're me."

"Why? Because you're huángdì?" No. That isn't it. She squints at him. "There's something you're not telling me."

"Believe me, there's a lot of things I haven't told you." A loud crack of thunder strikes, and Ling curses, pressing closer to her. The space is small, and they're so close that she can feel the rise and fall of his chest against hers. "Be quiet."

But Lan Fan is on a roll. "You said you weren't that important, and you turned out to be huángdì. Now you say the gods are sending out for a manhunt because you're the one in the mortal realm. It's not like you're—"

A flash of lightning illuminates Ling's face. When he'd talked about tiāndì and his children, there had been something dark in his expression. She hadn't recognized it then, but she sees it now on his face in the brief, blinding light, and she understands. She's seen it far too many times on Paninya when she'd grumble about her family.

"You're the prince," she says, just as the sky screams.

The god curses again, loudly this time, and glares up at the sky. "If you want to live, hide here and don't make a sound. Not one, Lan Fan!"

She can't help herself. "You're huángdì and a prince. A prince. The prince of the gods. I've been snarking at you for months, and you didn't think to tell me you're also the prince of the Heavens?"

"That's not the—see, I didn't want you tre—!" Another flash seems to bring Ling back to his senses. "Okay, yes, you've been insolently rude to me, but I'd rather you were alive and rude than polite and dead. Stay here, and be silent, please, Lan Fan."

It had begun to rain a while ago, she realizes, and they're both soaked now. Ling wipes at her face, and a raindrop runs down his like a tear. She swallows. "Okay."

"I'll come back." His hand is warm and wet on her cheek. "I'll…" He shakes his head, looks at her as though he has so much more to say, and leaves. Disappears into fine smoke that quickly dissipates in the storm.

Folding her left arm to her chest, Lan Fan presses against the stone and steels herself, one hand on her baton. Through the pounding rain, she can feel something approaching; a cold, electric presence that has all the wet hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Flattening herself against the wall, she holds her breath as it draws nearer and nearer.

When it reaches her alcove, she glances at it out of the corner of her eye. It is like a moving shadow, if a shadow could be blinding white and crackle like fire. Like lightning made sentient. The air and rain around her seems to freeze, fade away, and through the wrenching ache something tickles in her shoulder. Her heart pounds deafeningly in her ears, and she's not too sure the entity beyond the wall doesn't hear it as it sweeps past. The glow against her eyelids fades, but she doesn't breathe until she opens her eyes to see nothing but sheets of rain cascading down into the canal.

She doesn't move for half an hour even after the storm has stopped.

It is so incredibly hard, when Paninya asks her a week later why she looks so pale, for Lan Fan not to crack and tell her. Explain to her the reason why she's more distracted than ever in the studio, and constantly staring at the sky, and flinching every time she sees a flash of lightning.

Somewhere along the way of Ling becoming her friend, Paninya had become her friend too.

Lan Fan lies through her teeth. "I've been feeling a bit sick. Nothing too serious."

"That's not good." Paninya sips her boba. "If you don't feel great, don't leave your house. You'll recover faster if you give your body a break."

"And you know how I'll recover fastest? If I still have a roof to live under."

"Hey, let me ask you a question. Do you know any language other than snark?"

Lan Fan smiles, and says in rapid Chinese, "Yes. I also speak 'idiot' pretty well, thanks for asking."

Paninya chucks a napkin at her. "I'm serious, Lan Fan. You've been sloppy the whole week. Izumi asked me if you've been getting enough sleep, and that woman doesn't give a flying fuck about anything."

"That is not true. Izumi is very nice when she wants to be."

"Oh, and when is that? When I'm dead?" Her friend scoffs, finishes her drink, and pushes back her chair. "I'm going to get a piece of cake. You want anything?"

Lan Fan shakes her head, and Paninya leaves. They're sitting outside a small boba shop near the studio, and even at noon there's barely anyone in sight. Sipping her own tea, she takes another long look at the sky. It's a foolish thing to do, and she knows it. He'd been gone longer, and after what happened she isn't surprised if he's gone a year. But it's only been a week, and the ache is back in her chest, and for some vapid, inexplicable reason she doesn't want to think about, she misses him. She had forgotten how annoyingly painful it was to miss someone.

It's the pain that makes a part of her glad that perhaps he had not gotten too close to her. Ling. Huángdì. The prince of the Heavens. Savior or no, one day he would grow bored of her, and leave, and she would be left here to miss him while he forgot about her. Her life is nothing, a blip in the giant, spinning record of his. She can't afford to waste whatever time she has left over this. She won't.

"Hey. You there. Miss."

People really need to stop calling her 'miss'. Lan Fan looks towards the source of the voice, irritation clear on her face, and balks. There, in the middle of the street, stands a girl of about fifteen or sixteen, her hair in a braided twist that trails down her shoulders and back in waves and wearing long, deep rose-colored robes. Silver ornaments adorn her head and ears, and she is clutching a red fan in her hands. She's beautiful, but when she stares at Lan Fan her eyes are dark and full of distrust.

Lan Fan slowly rises to her feet. "Can I help you?"

"You are Lan Fan Sheng, are you not?" The girl doesn't even blink. "The mortal my brother is so taken with."

The day is hot, but Lan Fan feels like someone has poured ice down her back. There is no use lying. "Yes. And you must be nǚwā, then? A princess of the Heavens."

"So my brother has spoken of me. Interesting." The girl cocks her head, and the action reminds Lan Fan so much of Ling that she has to suppress the urge to shudder. "He has never mentioned you to me. And as for 'princess of the Heavens', yes I was. I chose to rescind my claim on the throne." She snaps open her fan. "But you knew that already."

"What's your name?"

"I have many, but you may call me Mei." The goddess appraises her, and Lan Fan can feel the judgment rippling through the air. "You've caused quite a stir in the sky. Not many can escape the storm gods. Personally, I didn't think you were reason enough to send them in, but. My father has always been one for dramatics."

Lan Fan places her hand casually on her hip, where her baton is. "Are you here to take me to him?"

"That baton won't help you. I could turn you into a rodent before you even lift it out of your belt." Mei snaps her fan closed. "As for capturing you, I don't know yet. Right now, we will talk."

Lan Fan knows she should be more scared than she is. Nǚwā is one of the progenitor gods, and all the legends say everything of her beauty and nothing of her compassion. But something about Mei's tone, or perhaps her choice of words, has rubbed Lan Fan the wrong way a few times now. And Paninya had been right; she really doesn't know any other language besides snark.

"Then talk away, Your Ex-Highness."

Something flashes in those dark eyes. Mei sniffs. "So, who are you, Lan Fan Sheng? Are you an actress, a singer? Do you have any discernible talents?"

"Nothing that would please you." Lan Fan itches for her baton.

"Do you have qualities that could have been useful to my brother? Money, or influence, or high social standing?" Mei looks down her nose at Lan Fan. "From your appearance, apparently not."

"Look. If Ling is the gold-digging fool you seem to think he is, he's not a very good one." Lan Fan clenches her fists. "And if that is what you think, clearly you don't know your brother as well as you believe."

"And you do?" The goddess raises her eyebrow. "If you know anything of the gods, miss Lan Fan, you'd know that the relationships between the royal sibling are cordial at best. A bond that forms in such a hostile, contentious environment is easily broken and not as easily mended."

"Well. I've heard family therapy works wonders."

"But," Mei interjects, "I do know my brother. Ling Yao and I are two of the younger children of tiāndì, and we grew up together. Like most of the younger royals, I did not share the same bloodthirsty greed for the throne as my older siblings. But Ling did, and he was more ruthless than any of them." She folds her hands into the long sleeves of her robes, her expression blank as a sheet. "He's lied and killed and betrayed more of his own family than you will ever believe. When he came of age, he cut his own mother from his life in an effort to prove himself. And I have no doubt, Lan Fan, that he has lied to you. That he is using you for attention."

Lan Fan is silent, even though her heart races. It doesn't matter what this goddess says to unnerve her, or how she starts to doubt. Lan Fan won't let her know how shaken she may be. After so many years, she'd gotten good at it. Mei continues. "He doesn't feel remorse or guilt, and if you believe any apology from him, then you are the fool. Ling Yao would sooner throw you away than lose his place as the future tiāndì. So whatever feeling you have towards him, Lan Fan Sheng, I suggest you quit now. Before you are the one betrayed."

Betrayed. That's how Lan Fan expects to feel. Everything Mei has said, she's seen firsthand. Ling had lied to her, and kept things from her, and when she called him out he'd apologized. And maybe she hadn't seen his greed or his ruthlessness, but even after all these months she doesn't know him. How could she, when she's seen only that which he shows himself as: a kind, ridiculous, charming, boy-god who'd helped her even though she pushed him away. Even though he didn't have to.

Instead, she just feels angry. "I know your brother in increments. Small, hourly visits over months. I have no idea who he is when he returns to the sky. I can't claim that your depiction of him is wrong, or that he has not done everything you've said he has. But I think I know some things that you don't." She takes a step forward. "You say that he's a liar, and he is. You say that he is using me, and he might be. The last time I'd seen him, I asked him if there were laws against interacting with mortals. Ling told me there wasn't, and he left soon after. But while Ling is a liar, he's terrible at it, especially when it involves his feelings. In every lie, there are slips up, words he's said or expressions he's made that gave it all away."

His face, after she'd brought up that law. Like a cornered rabbit's. 'No, I didn't.' "Even before he left I knew that he'd lied, that there are laws against what he'd been doing. And with those laws in place, only an idiot would jeopardize his entire mission for the throne to hang out with a poor, unemployed mortal, no matter how much attention that would gain him. And I think you know that, of all these things that he is, Ling isn't an idiot."

Lan Fan takes another step. "You say he is ruthless. When I first met him, he'd been injured, and I saved him. Afterwards, he went to your Temple of Souls, looked into my personal history to find out what he could do to repay me, came back, and tricked me into finding a job that will prove to save me in more ways than I know. And then he kept coming back." She keeps moving forward. "He could've been cruel. He could've given me a pile of gold and never seen me again. He could've never repaid me. And if he wanted to be tiāndì as badly as you say, if he had sacrificed his loyalty and his compassion and his own mother for it, he would've left me to my fate that day on the boat when those storm gods had come for me, and gone to beg for forgiveness." She remembers the feeling of him pressing her into the wall, his voice hot and desperate in her face.

"You are right. Ling is a liar. But he's a bad one." Lan Fan takes one last step to stand directly in front of the goddess. The air crackles between them. "And, as it happens, so are you."

Mei raises an eyebrow. "When Ling talked about you, there was an odd look on his face. But I'd seen it before, at that new job he got me. My friend Paninya had the same look on her face when she told me her foster parents were 'monsters'. Full of exasperation and fatigue. And love." She tilts her head, as Ling always did, and tries to find his confidence in her. "I think you understand more than most how a contentious environment can twist good, kind people—your own family—into those monsters. Understand enough to accept the most painful truth that monsters or no, they remain your family. But there is nothing in your expression when you talk about the man you claim is Ling Yao."

Her heart pounds like a storm in her chest. "Whoever you were thinking of, whoever it is you were trying to describe. It sure as hell isn't your brother."

There is a terrible, terrible silence. Lan Fan swallows, her throat parched from weariness and nerves and emotion. The air hangs motionless above them, and the sun seems to shine through tinted glass. As afraid as she is, her mind flashes back to twilight and grass and gold eyes. Then, to her infinite shock, Mei smiles. "Well. Ling did say you were feisty, but you're a lot more talkative than I thought you were going to be."

All of Lan Fan's fire disappears, and she feels hollow. Relief is a cool torrent on her heart. "So Ling has told you about me."

"Missed that little lie, did you?" The goddess grins. "And, well, of course. Who do you think covered for him when he went to find you? Even now, I am protecting you in his place." She points at the sky. "They are still searching for you. But I am nǚwā, and they can't touch you while I'm here."

Lan Fan grows lightheaded suddenly. "Where is he?"

"The Heavens, of course. And you can relax. It is not forgiveness he begs for, up in the sky. He pleads for your life." Mei taps her fan to her chin. "On second thought, that's not something to relax about, is it?"

For once, Lan Fan can't bring herself to retort. She sways on her feet. Here she is, insulting him to his sister, and all this time he's spent in the Heavens is because he is trying to save her life.

"You are correct, Lan Fan Sheng, in your reasoning. My brother is not bloodthirsty, or ruthless. A liar, yes. Greedy, absolutely. He had desired the throne, but after watching all his brothers and sisters die for it? After watching the violence rage on and on, until those who still lived withdrew their claim and he was the only candidate left?" Mei shakes her head. "He'd no longer wanted anything to do with it. And now it is being thrust upon him."

"What will they do to him if he doesn't take it?"

"What have they not already done?" Mei cocks her head again. "Did you not wonder where his wounds came from? He'd been acting out, and our father saw fit to have him banished to the mortal realm, to find and defeat all the demons hiding there." The goddess scowls. "Ling wouldn't have been given such a punishment if his mother had been there."

"Why wasn't she there." Mei's earlier comment strikes her across the face. "Did Ling really never see her again after he came of age?"

Mei smiles again, but it is a bleak, mournful smile. "Yes. But not out of choice. Tiāndì had her executed before Ling could even cut his cake." She straightens and stares at Lan Fan, and this time her eyes are warm. "I did not come here to frighten you, Lan Fan, or upset you. Ling is the only family left that I can still acknowledge, and I protect you because you are important to him. But I am protecting him as well. From your response to my description, I could find out if your feelings matched those I have seen in him, and you are true."

Lan Fan manages a disbelieving laugh. "So you lied to what? To test me? To see if I was worthy of him?"

"I lied to let you understand what you've become. To my brother, from whom everything has been taken, and to the gods responsible. Whether you like it or not, Lan Fan Sheng, your lives are tangled. You can no longer go back." Mei folds her arms back into her robes. "Also, I wanted to figure out what Ling sees in you."

Lan Fan wants to argue, but a sudden thought hits her. "Wait. Paninya. What did you do to her?"

"Your friend is fine. I've stopped time around us. If you'd bothered to look around once during that speech of yours, you'd have known." In the sky, the faintest echo of thunder sounds, and Mei sighs. "That'll be my dear brother. Wanting to know how you are, no doubt. You'll be safe, even if I am not here. My power is far stronger than Ling's at the moment. I shall return."

Without another word, the goddess transforms into a swallow and soars up, up into the clouds. The breeze moves again against her cheek, and the sunlight twinkles, but Lan Fan stands frozen, her heart pounding with something like shock or rage or sadness. Only when Paninya finally comes back outside, muttering something about gawking Chinese grandmothers, does Lan Fan think to walk back to the table. She sits down and puts her heavy head in her hands.

"Squawking for ten minutes about her—Lan Fan? Hey." Paninya's hand is warm on her back. "Are you okay?"

A pressure builds behind her eyes, and Lan Fan wills herself to inhale. Somewhere, she can hear the chime of a clock, low and ringing and final. "I hope so."

A/N: Part 2! This was a long one.

TRANSLATIONS (in case you guys forgot):
Tiāndì = God/Emperor/Ruler of Heaven
El Jefe = Spanish for 'the boss'
Huángdì/Huángshén = Yellow Emperor/Deity, one of the Five Heavenly Deities and represents earth. Is considered to be the progenitor of all Han Chinese people
Nüwá = Mother Goddess, associated with the creation of mankind and mending the world order

On to the last part!

Also on AO3 (my name there is wild_and_free)