10: Snowfall
Upon reflection, he finds he wishes he had spent the few days of his visit to his boyhood home doing something other than reminisce. There is something in the high walls, in the bare stone of the cobbled streets that once rang with laughter that seems to him crumbling and derelict, in need of the renewal that he sought when he turned his stallion's feet this way. It almost saddens him, he must confess, that he finds he can do so little for the place that has given him so much. After all he has endured, is there still nothing he can stop long enough to care for? Nothing he can forget the rest of the world to protect?
He knows he shouldn't do this, shouldn't cling to the permanence of his past in the face of an uncertain future, seeking an escape that he always finds too little of, too late. He has soaked in his fill of the battlefield, dyed dark crimson with the blood of friend and foe alike, the voices of the dying clashing in dissonant chorus with those of the ones who remain all too alive.
Where are your brave words, Little Dragon? Your pretty, selfless acts of valor? Is the burden weighing you down so soon, Zhao Yun? Zhao Yun?
"...Zhao Yun?" In the labyrinth of his weakness, her voice is a lifeline. His mind wraps around it and refuses to let go, though outwardly he gives no signal. "Haven't you slept?"
His lips form a smile of their own accord, a wan ghost of the gleeful abandon he can still remember. Still, it does a little to abate his worry; he can only hope it does the same to the concern sketched across her face.
"I had an hour or two. It's enough." He moves slightly, to make room for her on the window seat. "Would you believe that sometimes one can be too tired to sleep?"
"I know that feeling well," is all she offers, leaning over to stoke the fire in response to the first frost that's already begun to blanket the world outside. The glow throws a strange light on her face, and beneath the shadows of her hair he has to note that her features have become anything but nondescript, even as he tells himself this isn't the time for such things. He can sense the sudden rift the years have drawn between them; it's perturbing to think that there are places that one can go now where the other will not be able to follow.
"You were right, you know." His smile widens a hair's breadth. "You are different."
She returns her attention to him with a politely inclined head, inviting him to continue. Her eyes are calm, betraying nothing, with familiar composure he has always admired alongside a touch of envy.
"What I mean to say is… what happened?"
Thin shoulders shrug almost imperceptibly. Despite the stillness, her gaze is always wandering, never resting on a single thing for more than a heartbeat.
"I don't think it's what has happened, Yun," she tells him, slowly, "but what has not. I haven't had to endure what you have."
"Be glad of that." The words are out of his mouth before he can think about them, clipped, curt as he never knew himself to be. The strange smile lights her face again; he can't discern whether she means it to be an apology or a gentle admonition.
"You chose it."
"…Yes, I did, didn't I?" He shakes his head, tasting the sound of his own words, acquainting himself with them. "I chose it."
Her hand settles on his arm. He likes to think that one gesture could bridge the rift, a little. "Do you regret?"
"I? Regret?"
After a few moments' pause, he amends, "No. No, forbid that I should ever think that." He takes her hands, holds them there in between his own for a long while, as he did in the days when it was she who retreated so deep into herself that he feared he would not be able to find her again. A part of him is glad that she has not changed so much that she would turn him away.
"But Xiang." He hangs his head. His voice has gone soft and confessional, almost penitent. "Li Xiang, forgive me. Please forgive me. I'm so tired."
A light laugh escapes her, and his heart both lifts and sinks to hear the same silver sound.
Outside the window, the first frost comes down quiet and cold, a few flakes settling starkly on the dark wood of what was once known as their peach tree. The bare, tangled branches reach up to score the lightening sky, like strings of broken lyres.
"That's hardly a sin," she says at last. "You're such a silly boy, still."