July 27, 1997, 12:08
Fenghuang, China
LiQin thinks this is the best day of his life, rearranging his wedding day back to the second place.
The first few hours were an absolute horror. Going from AiLin's water breaking in the middle of dinner, to the car engine refusing to turn on, to finally reaching the hospital and AiLin going into labour. Her mother arrived shortly, and she did her absolute best in calming LiQin's nerves down, almost.
"it's a boy." The nurse comes up to LiQin and delivers him the news, but quite honestly, LiQin almost forgot AiLin was giving birth to a new human to this world while he was losing his shit over AiLin's critical condition.
"My wife, is she okay?" LiQin asks hurriedly and the nurse offers him a gentle smile.
"she's doing well, the hard part is over." With that, the woman bows and leaves to another room, and LiQin lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding in.
"It's a boy!" his mother in law shakes him by the arm in utter joy and happiness, and LiQin feels as his cheeks muscles strain from how hard he's smiling at the thought of it.
Its a boy.
He has become a father.
LiQin has always thought he was unworthy of love, that he had his heart broken once and for last when his family left him behind in the woods to die. But meeting AiLin and falling in love with her? My oh my, that was one hell of a ride.
At first, he brushed it off, lying to himself, even if he believed that love from the first sight was real, he never dreamed of It happening to him, simply because he couldn't see it happening. Not with his sins and his flaws.
Then, he started denying it. God, he kept on pushing AiLin afar from him, that, until that night, when AiLin got drunk and spilled her heart out to him. The bartender called him by her phone to come pick her up, which he did, because even if he wanted nothing to do with her, he still would rather tuck her himself in bed, making sure she had enough painkillers beside the bed when she wakes up hangover, a pile of pancakes and dark coffee just how she likes it.
It was a rainy night, and it was cold. It was muddy and uncomfortable to walk down the streets. But nevertheless, LiQin travelled to the other end of town to pick her up, and it was all worth it at the very end.
She draped herself over him the moment they stepped into her apartment, asking him why doesn't he want her? Why is he pushing her away? Why doesn't he love her?
Maybe that last question is what broke him, making him fall to his knees and start screaming his lungs out, hands tearing at his hair. She towered over him through it all, staring blankly at him. She's drunk as fuck, and LiQin doesn't think it's the right time to have this conversation, but all his rational thoughts fly out of the window when he feels cold lips pressed to his knuckles.
He looks up, and there they were, the same large brown, almost black, eyes. How deep does those orbs go down? He wonders.
"Why won't you let me love you, Wang LiQin?" she whispers in his ears, head resting over his and fingers carding through his damp hair.
"I'm a broken man with a heart of ice, I think I love you, but I don't ever think I can, ever learn how to love you right."
"That's not true." She shakes her head at him, tears streaming down her flushed face.
"I'm better on my own, but I'm way too lost in your eyes and obsessed with your smile to stay away." He carries on, allowing himself to get high on the moment. She's drunk, she won't remember any of this, might as well pull it out of his system.
"Then don't, don't be alone, don't run away from me." She cups his face between her cold palms, and perhaps when he feels her lips against his own is when he gives himself a chance for love. He gets drunk on the taste of alcohol on her tounge, and it's fine, because she's drunk, because none of this will last longer than one night.
But boy was he wrong, because the next morning, the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is her dark cocoa eyes, shining brighter than they ever did, looking at him with so much fondness he doesn't think he deserves.
There were the sweethearts of their university, and LiQin takes the oath of giving up his immortality and growing old like a human the day they graduate.
From a job opportunity to AiLin's parents asking her to come back home, they ended up living together in Fenghuang, happily so. They got married shortly after settling in China, one thing led to another and now they're having their first child.
LiQin holds the baby wrapped in his blanket tightly like he is his whole world, and it might as well have become.
He's sitting next to AiLin on the bed, embracing her while she holds their child. It's not quite what LiQin expected of his life when he arrived in Ireland, but you won't hear him complaining. It's a perfect picture of everything he has separated himself from his whole life, and he thinks it was for the best, because he would have never found someone as good to him as AiLin, something as good as this.
*
July 16, 2021, 06:07
The higher vampires mounts,
Edgar clan
LiQin dreams of Evdokia and screams.
She's hung up by a wire in the middle of the room, body pierced with tens of swords, arrows and spears.
LiQin is stuck under her body on the ground, getting washed up by her blood. He doesn't think the screams are from her, but it's rather all around them. He doesn't think she's even alive. Who would be in these conditions?
He had to ask himself if it was all worth it in the end. It sure doesn't feel like it, currently.
He thinks he can hear laughs from the same space the screams are coming from. He can't comprehend if its children laughter or not, the giggles are hysterical and creepy.
He hears the wire snapping and the blades withdrawing before the body falls before his eyes with a loud throb. That look in those empty eyes, the same his wife once stared at him with the day her heart stopped beating.
Those cold eyes empty from the love and fondness they have always held.
LiQin wakes up in cold sweat, chest rising and falling rapidly.
He searches around the room for the nest of frost white hair, stained by blood and dirt. He finds it, after almost freaking the fuck out, on Jean's lap, body currled up between them both . He almost forgets his hands are cuffed behind him when he tries touching the crown of her head.
He sees she's unchained. This might be their chance, he thinks, but something about the dream makes him question if he actually wants to be out of this situation.
He has hurt her so much. No. All of them. Every single person in this room. Every single person in this world.
He looks over at YuNing, the light of his life, the point where LiQin had to question everything he has ever done in his life. Because it was never AiLin. It was YuNing's presence in his life that flipped his world upside down. It was being given YuNing that made him regret every thing he has done before in his life, every time he dirtied his hands for the sake of his own selfishness.
"I'm sorry, " he mutters, unable to contain the pure sadness and repentance eating him alive, "I'm so fucking sorry."
He lifts his head up during sobs and meets Valodya and Jean's eyes. They look confused and almost concerned. LiQin chuckles to himself, if only they knew.
"hey," Jean says, hands soothingly patting Evdokia's sleeping head, "it's okay. It's not like we're here because of you. Thomas had you all to himself but he went out of his way and reached out to us. It has nothing to do with you."
"It's not that." LiQin says, tears flowing out of his eyes. They're glittering and sparkly, they're beautiful, they're everything he isn't. Fairies are supposed to be kind delicate creatures. They're supposed to look after others wellbeing not cause their agony.
LiQin doesn't get to explain himself, as they hear metal keys clicking against the door of the cell.
They're guards with a doctor. An old friend, LiQin likes to think.
The man doesn't spare LiQin a look and goes straight up to Evdokia.
"I need to make sure her wound is generating correctly. " the man, doctor Rebal, as LiQin used to call him, says to Jean when Jean hugs Evdokia protectively from him.
Jean gives in, because enemy or not, Jean sure knows nothing regarding the spell they used and it's side effects and he's worried shit for her, because she actually still hasn't woken up.
"Don't worry too much, she's generating. She'll be up in no time." Rebal says as he gets up off the floor, "although, I don't think that will matter much to you from now on. "
"What do you mean?" Jean asks, hands clutching Evdokia.
The man shrugs it off, "you'll know soon enough." With that, the man goes by the door where the guards are waiting for him, he takes one last look towards LiQin on his way out of the door, before he turns around and faces them all.
"Did you tell her?" Rebal asks LiQin, eyes flickering between him and Evdokia.
"No." LiQin's head is hung low when he answers.
"I see. Thought you might want to, before Ivar tells her himself ." He presses his lips into a thin line, turns around and locks the door behind him.
"what was that about?" Valodya asks.
LiQin shuts his eyes and presses the back of his head to the wall. What have he gotten himself into.
"You'll know." LiQin mumbles, "one way or another, you'll know."
*
July 1, 1997, 20:08
The Higher vampires mounts
Edgar Clan
LiQin is running around the woods when he bumps into a tree and scratches his shoulder.
He fucked up. He fucked up big time and he doesn't know where to head.
He hears the howls of the wolves behind him, but it only makes him run even faster.
LiQin trips on a branch and falls onto his head. He thinks the world is spinning around him, everything sounding like a very loud white noise, but he still tries getting off the ground anyways. He tries balancing himself with his hand onto a tree truck next to him, but it barely catches him when he falls backwards, back resting against the tree.
"What have you done?! What have you done you moron?!" he screams to himself, hands carding through his hair hysterically.
He doesn't know what is he supposed to do. Is he supposed to deliver the corpse to the Edgar's household's footsteps? Is he supposed to bury it or maybe burn it and hope no one will ever ask about him.
No. That wouldn't do. Eric is the next in line of the Vampire clans after all.
LiQin loses a sense of time, hands around his head trying to recover from the blow. He feels his mind storming around his head. What can he possibly tell Ivar that wouldn't make the man slaughter him right there and then.
He can hide the corpse. Maybe throw him in the river and wait for someone to find him.
Yeah, that sounds like a decent idea.
LiQin gets up and goes back running to his laboratory location behind the mountains. The first thing he's met with is Eric's blank face, constricted with fear and desperation. He softly closes the man's eyes as he grabs a huge trash bag to wrap him in it.
No, this might be an evidence against him. LiQin discards the bag and goes to dragging Eric's body out of the lab, making sure he locks it before he starts moving.
With every step he takes, he casts a trace erasing spell, making sure he leaves no marks behind him. The river is right behind the lab, and it doesn't take more than ten minutes to reach it's side land and push the corpse into the water.
LiQin goes back to the lab, erasing everything that evolved this experiment, anything that might get him in trouble. He packs his stuff, making sure he leaves the lab somewhat busy as to not raise suspension.
He should go away from here as quickly as possible. But to who exactly? Who would take him in and protect him under their wings and won't be questioning his innocence?
One person. Only one person wouldn't.
King Artem Yún. The king of the moonfolk's kingdom.
*
July 16, 2021, 22:17
The higher vampires mounts,
Edgar clan
They don't send anyone else throughout the day, or night, LiQin can't tell.
He's left with an aching heart and a restless mind. He wishes AiLin was still there. He wishes he can burry his nose into her hair and cry it all out. He wishes he can ask her what should be done from here on. But he also knows what she'd say, or maybe that's what his mind has come to peace with.
He should let go. He has caused enough trouble. Its about damn time he pays for all his mistakes.
LiQin thinks this is it when he hear the familiar key clicking against the cell door, the same he spent eight years hearing day in day out. Before YuNing and AiLin, he has always felt like he has paid for his sins during those eight years. But he was wrong, he now realises, as he watches every person he has ever known crumble down into dust solely because of him.
He has caused all of this. He has broke the same people that once trusted him with their lives.
LiQin inhales sharply when a guard unchains him from the wall and helps him stand up. He realises he's on a death rope, and for the first time, he doesn't mind it. YuNing is going to be fine without him, he imagines, as he knows Evdokia will make sure he is.
Speaking of Evdokia, she finally wakes up. LiQin notes that the guards are a lot more gentle with her than the other three men and himself.
They walk through dimly lit hallways for a while, LiQin has to say, he did forget for a second that they're vampires and sensitive to the sun. It's dark and sad. Yes, sad, that's the best word to describe this entire mountain and it's people.
The men lead them to the main hall of the clan head, one LiQin is very familiar with. He used to come here to pick up Eric and Thomas. The memory is heart warming.
They're all set up to kneel before the stairs and throne, where sits none other the clan leader, Ivar Edgar, father of Thomas Edgar. Thomas's isn't that far away from him, standing right next to the throne, sword in hand. LiQin doesn't need to think for too much about what that sword will be used for.
"Welcome, my old friends!" Ivar says, standing up from his throne and walking down the stairs, arms wide open, walking onto the red carpet laid out for him. "I missed you all."
"couldn't say the same for us." Valodya grumbles.
"Oh, dear Valodya, that's very mean of you." Ivar fake pouts, lightly slapping Valodya's cheek from where he's kneeling on the ground with his hands clasped behind his back. "Well, the good news is, I only want LiQin out all of you, so relax."
"What?"
"What?" Valodya and Jean say at the same time.
"Yeah, the rest of you was Thomas's idea." Ivar shrugs as he walks up to LiQin, "Long time no see, murderer." He kicks LiQin in the stomach, a man holding him up for a perfect punching sack.
LiQin takes in the kick like a champ, not even flinching slightly. "I missed you too, Ivar." LiQin smirks up at the vampire.
"of course you did." Ivar chuckles darkly at that, " we have a bone to pick, don't we?"
At that, LiQin's face darkens. He eyes all the other men and Evdokia.
"If it's as you say, let them go," LiQin says, gesturing the rest of the team, "It's true, they have nothing to do with it. Frankly, they've suffered enough because of me. Let them go, Ivar. And I'm all yours."
Ivar sends an unimpressed look towards LiQin before blowing out in laughter. He starts clapping his hands and the guards and Thomas follow along. Applauding him for what exactly?
"Nice one, LiQin. Well aren't you sweet? Has the life between humans changed that narcissistic head of yours?" Ivar finally says after what seemed to be two minutes of clapping. He wipes away a tear that left his eyes from laughter.
"What exactly do you want from us?" Evdokia whines from beside LiQin. He realises she's still in pain, holding her pelvis and barely able to sit up kneel up straight.
"It's not me who wants you, your highness." Ivar flips his hair as he makes his way up the stairs, settling on the throne, lazily. "Thomas?"
LiQin is confused regards that. He did question it for a second, why would Ivar want Evdokia, Jean, Valodya, Robin and Reema? It doesn't add up.
"To be completely honest, I asked you nicely, and you refused," Thomas says, hands behind his straight back as he walks down the stairs, "So I had to take manners in my own hand."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Evdokia asks, tilting her head to the side, a habit she has had since she was a little kid.
"I'm in love with you, Evdokia, can't you tell? There's no point in hiding it anymore." Thomas smiles at her, eyes shining, and honest to god, it freaks her out, LiQin can tell.
Well that explains it.
"Come again?" Evdokia replies
"That much we know." Valodya says.
"we do?" Jean asks in confusion.
"I want you with me, is this too much to ask? You've hadJean for all your life." Thomas, honest to god, pouts.
"you lied to me. You said the moonfolk's kingdom hasn't fallen." She says instead, visibly in mental pain, LiQin doesn't think she's exactly focusing on the important things right now.
"I had to. How else was I supposed to lure you here into my arms."
"Into your what now?" Jean snorts, finding it funny even if he's currently about to die.
"Can you stay out of this for once in your life?" Thomas frowns at Jean, and jean, is baffled to say the least. "Was killing Robin and Reema not enough to shut you down?"
Thomas says before pulling the sword out of it's scabbard.
"What?! No!" Evdokia says in shock, her face changing from a wave of pain into another. She looks around, looking for the two faces missing, and she realises Thomas isn't shitting with them when she doesn't find the both the wind and winter elves. She doesn't know what to do with herself. She feels numb and breathless, like she has been thrown out into space. "why would you- why would you do that?!" she screams at Thomas, who now looks on the verge of tears.
"Because how else was I supposed to scare Jean away and break him! How else am I supposed to have you all to myself without hurting you?! It's not like I can kill him!" Thomas shouts back at her.
"You've lost your mind." She whispers to herself, hands carding through her hair. "You've lost your fucking mind!" she shouts at him.
"No. I'm in love. That's what love does to a man who was never allowed to have this love fairly." Thomas says in pain, and LiQin watches the interaction between the two, dumbfounded. But he's also boiling, because there's no way Robin and Reema just died like that for this.
Thomas walks up to Evdokia, who's breaking apart in tears, banging her head against the marbled floor.
"Don't cry, love. Everything will be okay. We'll be okay." Thomas says, patting her hair with his unoccupied hand.
"Get your filthy hands off of her!" Jean says through gritted teeth and clenched jaw, held back by one of the guards holding onto his chain.
With a smooth movement, Evdokia grabs the dagger tucked in Thomas's belt and goes to pierce his heart with it, but he's quick enough to stop her with his sword. All the guards in the room run to Thomas's side, pointing their guns at Evdokia.
"What are you doing?" Thomas utters.
"I'll never be with you, never. Even if Jean's life was on the line." Evdokia says as she takes the dagger to her own throat-
"No!" Jean screams, unable to move.
Thomas slices Evdokia's arm with his sword, throwing away the dagger from her hand.
"Are you crazy?!" Thomas yells at her.
"I'd rather die than be with someone like you!" Evdokia spits at Thomas, hand holding her bleeding arm.
Thomas whimpers. It's pathetic, LiQin thinks.
"You're boring me." Ivar says, hand swinging a wine glass -or blood, LiQin doesn't know- in his hand. "Can we get to the fun parts already, just kill him."
Thomas wipes his tears away with the back of his hand.
"Well, like it or not, you're now stuck with me for life. I'm not going to kill Jean because I don't want to hurt you."
"yeah, right." Evdokia scoffs.
Thomas puts his sword back into its scabbard.
"I see, son." Ivar says, getting up again. "Whatever makes you happy." He pats Thomas's back. "now, you." He refers to LiQin.
"Just kill me already, lets get this over with." LiQin says.
"Dad." YuNing utters from where he's between Valodya and Ufuk.
"I'm sorry son, but I do have to pay for my mistakes, we're all bound to." LiQin says, head hanging low.
"And what would that be? Huh?" Ivar shakes his head in disbelief, and LiQin knows. "Would that be all the people you were behind their death? Or is it-"
Before Ivar gets to say anything else, they hear an explosion under their feet. The ground shakes and vibrates.
"What is happening?" Ivar asks one of the enforcers in the room, and before he gets an answer, a woman barges into the room, breathing heavily.
"Sir, king Dima is attacking the mountain!" The woman says, fear in her eyes.
Ivar tenses up, "No way he is." He whispers to himself
The woman shakes her head, "He's got his army waiting at the bottom of the mountain. He has already taken over the Alastur clan walls, he's way too close."
"Fuck." He clenches his jaw aggressively. "How did no one notify us?!"
"He's way too fast, sir." The woman says, and LiQin almost feels bad for them, but to be frank, he never thought Dima would break his neutral status and actually attack.
"If he has already taken over Alastur walls, ae stand no chance." Thomas mumbles from where he's standing behind his father, who's actively freaking out.
"You!" ,Ivar calls one of the enforcers by the door, "raise the white flag, we're surrendering. " he orders.
The man and nods and runs out of the room.
Ivar fixes his suit and goes to sit on the throne, Thomas walking up to stand next to him. He's fidgeting with his fingers, and for the first time, LiQin notes the absence of his wife, Maraia.
Silence takes over the room as they wait for the horns to be blown and for king Dima to stop his attack, which happens relatively quickly, unsurprisingly so. The Atlantic empire is know for its warriors, weather they're on land or in the water. They technology is always evolving faster than the land creatures and it always gives them the upper hand in a battle. They could literally control the ocean water and drown armies and nations.
LiQin is glad they stayed neutral, he doubts anything in this world would have survived that.
"King Dima!" an enforcers by the door announces the man's arrival into the hall, pulling LiQin out of his daze.
The man in question walks into the room with so much rage and anger it sends shivers down LiQin's spine. His steps loud and heavy, yet as light as a feather.
"Ivar Edgar!" Dima shouts, stomping his way till the bottom of the stairs, "where are the kids?!"
Ivar gestures with his head to the back, making him turn around and face them instead. His anger dissolves into worrisome the moment he looks at their conditions. Dima runs over to Evdokia and Jean's side, cupping both of their faces, his face full of sorrow but also love and happiness. LiQin can imagine why.
"Oh, my dear children, you've grown up quite a lot, haven't you?" Dima chuckles, happy tears streaming down his face, "Are you alright?"
"as alright as we can be here." Evdokia whispers, leaning into the man's palm touch. "Please, just get us out of here." She pleads
Dima leaves a kiss on Jean's and Evdokia's foreheads, before getting up and facing Ivar again.
"we're leaving, or my army comes up and gets us out of here." Dima lays out the rules, plain and simple.
Ivar closes his eyes, calculating how bad it would be if he disagreed.
"I'll have to ask you, do you want them all?" Ivar asks, clearly in distress and disappointment.
"Yes." Dima says confidently without hesitation.
"If that's so, I need one last thing from them." The man pulls a gun out of his back and shoots YuNing straight in the head.
"NO!" LiQin screams, getting up on his feet and running to YuNing's quivering body, the guards allowing him to. "no, no, no, YuNing, YuNing darling can you hear me? YuNing please-"
YuNing doesn't answer, and he doesn't stop flinching in LiQin's arms either as the man hugs him, hugs the last few minutes of warmth his body could contain.
Ivar walks down the stairs, LiQin knows from the sound of his heels. He squats right before LiQin, and he knows everyone in the room tense up and are ready to jump the moment LiQin reacts. But he doesn't. Surprisingly, LiQin buries his face in YuNing's chest instead.
"An eye for an eye." Ivar whispers before straightening up and carding his hand through his hair. "you can take them now."
"But dad-" Thomas goes to say but Ivar stops him. He looks like he's about to cry, but LiQin doesn't get to it because he pulls YuNing's body up into his arms, clutching him with his dear life.
They all get their wrists unccufed, before they're walked out of the room. Jean carries Evdokia due to her inability to walk from the pain.
Dima doesn't react to any of it, and LiQin has an idea why. He deserved it, he definitely did.
They bury him in the woods by the lake, and they mourn him along with the entire Atlantic army.
Its a loss to all of them, but it has shattered LiQin and Evdokia, and LiQin doesn't think he'll be able to pick himself up from this fall.
They eventually had to leave the grave behind. By a lot of pursuing, they manage to pull LiQin off YuNing's grave. They start walking towards the other side of the forest where they'll meet with Ira, who supposedly waiting for them with the rest of the army.
They're about a mile away when they hear an explosion behind them. It's loud and soothing at the same time, with it the sky starts crying tears of joy and when they look up, there it was, in all it's glory, a phoenix born from the ashes ascends in the sky of death and loss, but also hope and love, flying out of hell and finally breaking loose.
*