It was spring. The days were warm and lazy, blooming flowers covered the landscape and mother animals were busy raising their young. Though this particular spring morning a cold morning mist was blanketing Flower Fruit Mountain. Rain was falling ever so lightly, covering grasses and leaves with the smallest beads of water that sparkled like a million tiny diamonds. Fragments of sunlight peered through the clouds, a sure sign that the rain would let up soon.
Despite the calm and peace of this particular morning, the night before was a completely different story. Late in the afternoon of the day prior, the sky grew dark with clouds and within only a few minutes the heavy winds, rain, thunder and lightning began. The winds were so strong you could hear their shriek for miles around as they rattled even the oldest of trees of the mountain. Unfortunately some of the younger trees were uprooted from the gale, startling much of the wildlife of the vast mountain and destroyed many nests.
Even with the storm, it was much calmer within Shuilian Cave. Within the depths of the mesmerizing cave stood a single room cabin that was lucky enough to avoid blunt force of the storm. Had the cabin been built anywhere else, the storm surely would have at least rattled the cabins foundation, if not completely blown the quaint home away. The couple that lived within the cabin didn't say much as they prepared for the worst, unplugging any electronics and getting several candles placed on the coffee table.
They had flashlights in hand, ready to turn them on at a moments notice. With a rumble of thunder and a crack of lightning, the cabin instantly experienced a power outage. The first of the two grumbled, lighting the candles on the table. "This is the third storm we've had this month. I have half a mind to go up to heaven and knock some sense into Nezha and those celestials. The damage they're causing to our home is getting ridiculous." His golden fur and eyes seemed to sparkle in the candlelight.
His partner rolled his eyes. "If you go rushing up there, I'm not coming with you. We both know what happened the last few times you went up to heaven and I came with you." His fur a silvery white, reminiscent of the moon gleamed as well, though his most noticeable feature in the dark came from his luminescent six ears that lightly glowed a soft pink, blue and green. "I don't feel like getting more heaven related injuries for you." He chuckled.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." The golden monkey rolled his eyes back at his partner before throwing a pillow at his partner, hitting him square on the chest. "I know. You don't need to remind me."
"You say that. But you know I'm going to continue to remind you until the end of time." The silver monkey picked up the pillow that was thrown at him. "All that aside, we really should go to bed early. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of damages to Flower Fruit that are going to need to be taken care of and a lot of your citizens in distress. It's you job as 'King' to take care of your realm, Wukong." He threw the pillow at his husband and managed to hit him in the face.
Wukong glared for a brief moment at his partner. Not because he was hit in the face by the soft pillow but because his partner, Liu'er spoke of waking up early. "What's the point of waking up early? You know as well as I do that I'm always the one dragging you out of bed because you stay up until stupid-o-clock in the morning and then complain about it."
"I won't." Liu'er insisted. "I'm a changed monkey. I've turned over a new leaf. Hell I'll even be up and ready before you."
"Oh that's rich coming from you. But fine, how about a bet on it? If you're up, dressed and ready to go tomorrow morning before I am, I'll do all the dish-washing for a year. But if you're still asleep by the time I'm up and ready to go, then you're gonna have to do all those nasty dishes … by yourself for the entire year."
"Oh it is on!" Liu'er said with a smug smirk. "It's going to be so much fun holding bragging rights over you for the next twelve months."
The two competitive monkeys glared at eachother, albeit it was a playful glare, each determined that he would be the one to win the competition and be free of doing their least favorite household chore for a while.
Wukong sat down on the couch while Liu'er grabbed a quilt blanket from the corner of the room. He sat down leaning against Wukongs shoulder and relaxed. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and pulled up a tv show the two had taken a liking to recently. They would usually watch an episode or two before bed. Well it was more or less that they'd start the episodes, Wukong would fall asleep at some point and then Liu'er would continue to binge the series, recalling exactly where Wukong fell asleep, then the next night he'd start from where Wukong left off. And when Wukong eventually fell asleep, he'd skip forward to where he'd gotten to the night prior. It was a strange system but it worked for them.
Eventually Liu'er heard Wukongs soft snores, which came hardly three episodes into the show. He smiled and snuggled closer to his partner, turning the audio down on his phone as to not bother his sleeping hubbie.
It was nearly 4AM by the time Liu'er began to yawn. He shut his phone off, and closed his eyes. He felt safe and content despite the storm that raged outside, and in that moment that was all that mattered to him. In that exact moment the ground began to violently shake. This startled both of them awake as a porcelain vase fell to the ground and shattered. They looked at eachother in shock. There hadn't been a earthquake on Flower Fruit for hundreds upon hundreds of years.
As soon as the quake began, it stopped suddenly, leaving behind an eerie silence, before the sound of rain slowly pattering picked up again. With a silent look they both knew they'd have their hands full in the morning, discovering how much damage the earthquake caused. Little did they know that this earthquake uncovered something spectacular just waiting for them to find it.
The hours passed by with the two sleeping in eachothers company. Around the time the sun would normally rise a pair of sleepy golden eyes slowly blinked open. He looked down at his partner who was still dreaming peacefully away. In a moment of tenderness and with a gentle smile he kissed Liu'er on the forehead. Liu'er stretched in his sleep before turning on the couch and nuzzling his head into Wukongs' shoulder.
Wukong carefully adjusted his partner, so that way Liu'er would be be laying on the couch. He put a pillow under Liu'ers' head and pulled the blanket around him before getting up to prepare breakfast. Between the two of them, Liu'er was definitely the better chef, but upon living with eachother full time, they agreed to split the chores evenly. Since there was now enough light in the home for him to see fully, he carefully picked up the fragments of the vase and swept over the area twice, making sure to get every little bit of it, so neither would end up with a nasty surprise of porcelain in their feet.
He took his time in preparing their breakfast. He knew all to well that Liu'er had a difficult time falling asleep ever since they were younger. Truth be told, he was more than happy to let Liu'er sleep. While there was the slightly selfish reasoning that he won their bet, he knew that there were some nights where Liu'er couldn't sleep due to the nightmares that plagued him. It seemed as this was a time where those nightmares were far from his mind and he was getting a pleasant rest and Wukong would have felt badly to wake him up from such a peaceful and deep sleep.
His ears twitched when he heard Liu'er mumble "Wukong, please stay with me." in his dreams. Wukong looked over his shoulder. It wasn't uncommon for Liu'er to talk in his sleep, and on the rare occasion, sleepwalk. Wukong smiled softly. He had just finished cooking and plating the food for the two of them. He walked over to the couch and chuckled. In the time he had left Liu'er, Liu'er had managed to toss and turn so much that he developed a messy bedhead.
Wukong carefully shook Liu'er awake. Liu'ers eyes fluttered open slowly and he sat up and stretched with a large yawn exposing his fangs. He looked around sleepily and dazed. Wukong laughed. "Come on. Food is ready."
"Food?" Liu'er repeated back, as if the word and concept were foreign to him. He yawned again and blinked lazily. He looked at Wukong, who just pointed at the table. He then stood up and stumbled over to the table where a fresh warm plate of pancakes sat waiting for him. He grabbed a banana, slowly peeled it and cut some slices onto the pancakes before adding butter and a healthy dose of syrup to the stack.
Liu'er took several bites before he fully had woken up, but once he was awake he began to scarf down the breakfast stopping only to drink the fresh juice he'd prepared a few days ago. Wukong on the other hand ate slowly and several pancakes less than what his beloved ate. Despite the different speeds at which they ate, they still finished around the same time.
Liu'er frowned, he had lost the bet and he began to plot of a way to get out of the dishes for the entire year. He grabbed his and Wukongs plate and walked to the sink. He ran water over them before he began to scrub them. While the water was running, Wukong 'snuck' up on his partner. Wukong began to fuss with Liu'ers fur, straightening it and taking care of any knots that had formed. Liu'er made several delighted chirps at the display of affection from his partner.
It didn't take long for the two monkeys to be ready for the day, though Wukong had to tease Liu'er about how shocked he was that Liu'er didn't make a fuss that morning about getting an extra hour or two of sleep. He punched Liu'er playfully in the shoulder, and while Liu'er winced from pain, he did punch Wukong back before laughing.
The two set off, trekking the vast jungle. They helped the odd animal who asked for help, and together replanted many of the trees that blew over in the wind, surveying the damage from the night before. As they walked through the mud, eventually the ground gave way under Wukongs feet and he tumbled down a small cliff roughly landing in the grass below.
"Wukong!" Liu'er shouted in horror. He climbed down the muddy side and rushed to Wukongs side. Wukong sat up, completely covered in mud. He winced in pain, for as useful as his immortality had proven to be, he still wasn't immune to pain. He landed awkwardly and had sprained his foot. He tried to shake it off though his leg gave out when he put weight on it. Liu'er caught Wukong from falling to the ground again just in time. Liu'er sighed and with a swift movement picked the taller monkey bridal style.
"My hero!" Wukong said dramatically as he wrapped his arms around Liu'er and kissed him on the cheek. Liu'er smirked and rolled his eyes at his lovers theatrics. Though he wasn't one to speak since he was just as dramatic, if not more so than Wukong.
"Let's just call it a day. You need to get off that foot." Liu'er said. Wukong nodded in response. While both were equally stubborn, he wasn't going to argue. His beloved turned and began to walk away. They had gone a small distance before Liu'ers ears twitched. He turned his eyes to where Wukong had fallen initially, as a puzzled look washed over his face.
"What is it?" Wukong asked, extremely curious as to what his partner could possibly be listening to.
"I thought I heard crying." Liu'er said thoughtfully. It almost sounded like … there was a brief moment of silence as Liu'ers' ears twitched again. "Someone I've never heard before is crying."
"Do you want to investigate?" Wukong asked. He looked at his partner who only nodded in response to the question.
Together they returned to the spot where Wukong fell and slowly began searching. To make things easier for Liu'er, Wukong summoned a cloud to rest on. It took almost an hour before the found a giant moss covered boulder that they had passed by many times before on their patrols was now shattered into hundreds of smaller rocks. To their surprise, all this time the boulder had been blocking the entrance to a cave. Long vines with flowers budding on them covered the entrance to the cave like a bridal veil. From his cloud, Wukong pushed the vines aside and peered inside.
The entrance to the cave smelled sweet, like the fragrance of … peaches? This fascinated the curious duo and with a silent nod they entered the cavern. The walls of the cavern were covered in bio-luminescent moss that lit the way for them. It was hard to tell how long they had been wandering and there were many branching paths but Wukong trusted Liu'ers ears to lead them in the right direction.
As much as he hated to admit it, given everything that happened after the Lady Bone Demons revival it almost felt like destiny or something similar was leading them forward. Like whomever was in this cave was someone that they were supposed to meet. His heart lurched in his chest. He could hear it. The lonely mewling that Liu'er had been hearing.
They could see sunlight ahead as to cave widened into a rough circular shape. There was a large pond and in the middle of that pond was a grassy island with a singular peach tree in bloom. The roof of the cavern was long gone and the natural light filtered through filling the room with a soft glow. Peach blossoms fluttered around on a soft breeze. The area was breath taking and deserved awe.
They looked around before their eyes settled on a figure moving at the base of the tree. It was small, covered in soft brown fur that faded into a darker brown on its arms and legs. The creature had golden eyes that twinkled like a million stars in the night sky. It sniffled and its lip quivered, alone and scared. The creature let out another pitiful mewl, begging for someone to find them and comfort them. Tears had stained its face as it paused, listening with four ears for a response. When none came, more tears streamed down its face as it looked around.
The little one stopped crying for a brief moment as a peach petal fell on its nose and caused it to sneeze. Then they shook their head causing petals and blossoms to fall off of its head and fur. The infant was then distracted by a ladybug crawling in the grass. It's tail waved in excitement at the prospect of a snack. However with the babys clumsy hands, it was unable to catch the ladybug before it flew off, which caused it to start crying and mewling again. If Liu'er had a heartbeat it would be racing. He looked at Wukong who had a similar expression as his own.
Wukong was the first to approach, floating with his cloud hovering close to the ground. Liu'er came up behind him. When they came closer the baby monkey looked up at the two of them. The tears that were pouring stopped as the infant hiccuped a few times and reached its arms up, demanding to be held. Liu'er slowly reached down and picked up the child whose small hiccups turned to giggles. Liu'er turned to face Wukong, babe in arms and sat on the cloud next to his love. Wukong gently stroked the childs cheeks as it had now taken to stuffing its feet in its mouth and babbling incoherently. It was hard to explain, it was just something they both knew. This was their child. Their own flesh and blood. And the child was perfect.
Wukong looked at Liu'er. "Let's name them Mengtao."