Chapter 9: Lose the Horse (北叟失馬)
Breakfast was a silent, awkward affair made more silent and awkward by Yanxi getting up from her seat when Daiwen sat beside her. Daiwen couldn't manage more than a few spoonfuls of porridge with the guilt and shame roiling their stomach.
Daiwen left the breakfast table with Motou and Langhai, the two horse-skull-headed mamians. They entered the final of the four small tents, whose rehearsal space looked identical to the three others. Neither the familiarity of the space nor the novelty of the script could help Daiwen get their head in the game. After three listless runs, the mamians simply called a time out.
"Alright team, bring it in," said Motou, opening their arms for a huddle.
"That was the un-sexiest thing I've ever had to stick my dick in," Langhai whined through their skeletal nostrils before turning directly to Daiwen. "Are you sure you're supposed to be here right now?"
"Yes."
The yaoguai's trial was today, but there was no real reason for Daiwen to be there. In fact, after so many citizens of Laoshi City had seen them in the circus, both Daiwen and Esquire Kang agreed that it'd be better for them not to attach the yaoguai's defense to a circus clown.
"Well, Daiwen, I think we can all agree that you're not feeling it this morning."
"It feels like I'm fucking a corpse-"
"Ok, thanks for that observation, Langhai. Daiwen, what can we do to help get you there?"
"I-yeah-you guys are great, but I really messed up with Yanxi yesterday-"
"That was yesterday! Today is today-just forget about all that stuff from breakfast."
"Daiwen, come sit with me. Langhai-"
Langhai dropped to a cross-legged seat in the dust. Motou sighed, nodded, and sat themself. Daiwen sat at the third point of their thinking triangle. Daiwen gave them the full context of their fallout with the phase spider who'd been so warm and generous to them.
"And you guys are leaving the day after tomorrow-"
"Tomorrow night."
"Shit. I don't want to leave with this between."
"So come with us," said Langhai.
"I can't. I have to get home."
"To the other Shenmen, riiight-"
Motou swatted Langhai's muscled, short-haired shoulder.
"Ow."
"Let's think. We're circus folk. We're pretty dramatic. Maybe what Yanxi needs is some grand, apologetic gesture."
Daiwen sprang to their feet with a show of inspiration.
"Motou, I could kiss you."
"I think that'd be overdoing," said Langhai, pushing to their hooved feet along with Motou.
"Do what you need to do and then bring that energy back here."
Daiwen ran through the rain to the back of the big top where they kept all the costume fabrics with their sewing kit in hand. Yanxi didn't like clothes, but there were other things that Daiwen could sew. They ransacked the discard pile for every scrap of colorful tent tarp they could find.
Three hours later, Daiwen sidled through the flaps of Yanxi's rehearsal tent with a large race sack over their shoulder. The phase spider hung at the center of the tent on a sturdy line of silk. She spun two long sheets of web, one on each foreleg. They were so fine that they were nearly translucent. Yanxi frowned at the intrusion but kept on spinning.
"I have nothing to say to you."
"I didn't come to force you to talk. I just wanted to give you this."
Daiwen set the rice sack down on the dirt floor. They pulled out a rag-stuffed doll of tarp about the size of a farm dog. They'd sewn two black, if mismatched, buttons for eyes and a whole smile's worth of mismatched, multicolored buttons for a mouth over the doll's red, yellow, pink, and green patchwork of skin.
Yanxi stopped spinning.
"What's that?"
"A punching bag shaped like me," said Daiwen, spreading their arms and legs in doll-like stiffness.
"A punching bag…?"
"I'm sorry about yesterday-"
"Daiwen, I don't want to punch you."
"Punching something like me might make you feel better."
"Trust me, it won't. Please take that thing out of here."
"But-"
Yanxi shook her head, mandibled lips pressed tight. She went back to spinning her webs.
Daiwen returned to the mamians's tent with the punching doll on their back. They leaned it in a seat against a tentpole.
"Hey, that's cute," said Langhai.
"Thanks. I'm ready to practice."
"Are you sure?" asked Motou.
Daiwen flung and kicked off their spider silk to haphazard reaches of the tent. Their jacket whacked the over-sized doll in the face. It toppled over, pudgy legs in the air. Daiwen shrugged and clapped their palms together. They didn't need its button eyes judging anyway.
"Let's go."
-/-
"There was once an old farmer, the talk of the town, because they used to read stories to their horse."
As the ringmaster narrated from the darkness, the spotlight faded in over Langhai on all fours, naked except for their natural, short-haired hide. Daiwen walked into the spotlight with an oversized book in their face, a wide-brimmed hat on their head, and wearing a much flimsier version of a farmer's simple tarp clothes.
"Evening, old friend. I'm gonna read you the tale of two runaway lovers."
Daiwen laid down in the dirt on their stomach, propped up by their elbows. Langhai came up behind them and straddled the back of their legs. They ripped a line through Daiwen's clothes from the small of their back to the bottom, cupped curve of their ass.
-/-
Explicit encounter on AO3.