#( 2k words of caelus' feelings on living too long / not long enough? Yes )

[decoysouled]

unprompted asks // always accepting // @astrcls. the sun hangs low in the sky, painting the horizon in all hues of pinks and purples and oranges. dan heng sits on the banks of the ancient sea, knees pulled up to his chest, the look in his eyes faraway. every now and again he reaches out and dips his fingers into the seafoam, seemingly lost in thought. ( one day, when he's at the end of his time, he is going to come back here and step into these familiar waters. he is going to sink into them and go to sleep, and when he wakes he'll be someone else but yet still himself --- and he might not remember all of this. he might remember only echoes, faint memories of places and things and people, that will tug at his reincarnation's heartstrings and yet still be unable to be placed. a senseless samsara, a neverending cycle of karmic debt. it's all so unfair. dan heng rubs at his eyes, furious at himself for being so worked up over it. the others want to go explore, now that the worst of the threat is over, and yet here he is --- ) --- it's not until he feels a familiar presence at his side that he slowly emerges from his reverie, fixing jade-green eyes --- deep like endless pools, tinged with a certain sort of sorrow --- on caelus. "do you think," he starts, swallowing thickly around the lump in his throat that refuses to quit, "that you ... are going to ... live a long time ?" ( --- like me ? )

A LONG LIFE WAS NEITHER A BLESSING NOR A CURSE — despite his lack of knowledge on the nature of it ( all the ways a person can be made to live beyond what should be considered natural ) Caelus has seen far too many times, in such a short period, what immortality can do to a person. A life that is far too long was not unkind, but that did not make it appear any less cruel.

He does not want to live like the people he has met, who wish for better times to last forever or who do not seem to recall them at all. He wants to live like his loved ones, who are undeniably mortal, yet treat the universe as if it is a gift — Caelus is uncertain, in the end, of whether he would be loved the same by someone with a long life.

Dan Heng has always been the exception to that rule.

& he can see the way a long life is a person's downfall. He can see a longing for days gone that can never return in Jing Yuan's words & a deep mourning for people who stand before him, not the same as they once were. He can see the rage in Blade's eyes before they settle into something far more troubled, especially when he was roped into helping Kafka during an ordeal that lead to far more questions than it did answers.

& he can see it in Dan Heng — in the way he wars with a past he does not wish to claim, for it is not necessarily his & yet it is in all the ways that matter. He sees it in the nightmares that haunt him, in the figures that do so as well. He sees it in the questions he asks, even now, in which he seeks answers that Caelus does not have to give & comfort that he is not skilled enough at to offer.

He sees it in the way that his companion returns to the shores of Scalegorge Waterscape, to a past that is not quite his own, & grieves for something beyond Caelus' own understanding.

He cannot answer in any way that matters, in any way that will bring Dan Heng comfort, other than the way he does now: kneeling to sit by his side, head resting on the other's shoulder, with arms wrapped around his chest as if to keep him close, hidden apologies written into the ways that Caelus has learned to be gentle as if it is an art rather than something that should have been innate.

For a moment, Caelus wonders when everything will come naturally to him rather than being a skill that must be learned. He wonders if it would if he were to live a long life, if he were to learn enough that everything became second nature rather than a struggle between what he knows should be right & what he isn't certain ever has been.

Sometimes, he is almost glad that his two closest companions do not recall pasts that aren't theirs, too. Sometimes, he feels guilty for that. Sometimes, Caelus wonders if his past is worth remembering or if his memories being taken away is a punishment for something. He wonders, in the end, whether Kafka would tell him if he were to ask.

He wonders if it would be worth it to know.

❝I don't know.❞ Caelus says eventually, his voice far too level & filled with a feigned peace he has perfected, the sort that one may hear on a night during which he cannot sleep because his dreams have never been kind. When trailblazing, they have become memories of distant pasts that do not belong to him. Otherwise, they are the manifestation of fears he did not realise he even had, drowning him beneath waves or sorrow, choking him like a noose.

Some nights, he dreams that the stellaron within him is out of control & everything he touches turns to ashes, almost as if it never existed at all. Those nights, he awakes slowly, the world around him feeling as if it is not quite real, his emotions feeling as if they are not quite his own. Those nights, he lays alone, gazing at the ceiling, & wonders if he will one day become the monster that he dreams of being.

Some nights, he dreams that his friends are dead & he remains alone, or that none of them existed at all. He dreams of a reality in which he did not join them, in which each & every one of them met fated deaths at the hands of aeons, regardless of their success in their goals. Those nights, Caelus awakes with tears in his eyes & the urge to cry. Those nights, he rises from his bed & wanders the express, wishing to check on the others but never daring to do so.

Those nights, he is afraid that he will be the one to kill them. That he will be the one to turn the express into a relic of an ancient past, into halls of ruins that no one would ever see again.

Some nights, Caelus dreams that he is someone else — that he has lived a different life as a different person, that he himself did not exist any longer. Those nights, when he wakes up, he sits & writes in a journal that would never see the light of day, that would never meet the gaze of another soul, & he writes until he has convinced himself that he is still Caelus, that he is still a trailblazer.

( those nights, they wonder if the person they claim to be exists at all, or if they are simply a puppet created to be controlled by the scripts the stellaron hunters claim are written in the stars. )

❝I don't think I would want that, even if I had the option.❞ Caelus says, albeit it lacks conviction, for he knows that a long life may not be worth the end results, but he knows that a short life is not what he wishes for either. There is a beauty in the way life can be fleeting, in the way nothing remains the same forever, but there is also a dread in never knowing when one's last day will be.

To live a short life means never achieving everything he wishes he could & dying with regrets, regardless of what choices he makes & what the ending of his story is. To live a short life would mean leaving behind those he loves, forcing each of them to say farewell to someone who will be dead for longer than he was known by them — it would be immensely unfair of him, he knows, to expect otherwise.

Some nights, he hopes that he will be the one to say goodbye to everyone he has ever loved, to immortalise them in memory like a tapestry of everything they have ever taught him. Some nights, he wonders if he could handle the grief that would come with it, but he knows that should the day come, he must learn to live with it.

He is tired of learning to live with things that are out of his control.

Caelus is afraid, he finds, of a life cut far too short — of not having spent enough time with friends & loved ones, of not having the ability to say farewell before death's jaws snap him up & devour everything he ever was. He does not want a life filled with uncertainty of how long it will last. He does not want a life so short that those he loves do not truly feel loved, for what point is there in adoration from someone whose life had only just begun?

❝The idea of a life that's too long scares me.❞ He finally confesses, although these are the words that will only ever be said to Dan Heng, for there is no one else that he treasures enough to truly bare his soul to — if only because he does not wish to burden March & Himeko & Mr Yang, for they have so much else to focus on that Caelus should not be a priority.

Perhaps it is selfish to demand that Dan Heng treats him as one, but he has always been an exception to the way Caelus tries not to intrude on other people's lives, regardless of what the end result is.

❝I think... It's because I don't know how long the stellaron will keep me alive for.❞ Or whether it will kill me altogether. & he tries his best not to let his voice tremble in the same ways as his hands seem to. & he tries his best to hide the tears that threaten to form in his eyes by hiding his face in the crook of Dan Heng's neck, albeit it is more of an attempt to seek whatever form of comfort the other would allow him to.

Dan Heng tends to let him get away with far too much, these days. Caelus can never ignore the way it warms his heart, differently to the feeling of the stellaron in his chest.

❝I don't want to live for a long time & lose everyone. I don't want to- forget myself & everything I love now.❞ I don't want to forget you goes unspoken, & Caelus wonders if Dan Heng understands the words that hang in the air between them, remaining forever unsaid. ❝I don't want to mourn the life I have now.❞ Even if it may be inevitable. Even if it may not be at all.

❝But I also don't want a short life.❞ & perhaps it is this that does not make sense: that he wishes to live a long life, but not so long it is noticed. That he does not wish to live a short life nor to live longer than he must. The two, he knows, make little sense & are ideas that are juxtaposed, but they are his feelings all the same. Conflicted, but his nonetheless.

❝I don't want to burn from the inside out.❞ Like the stellaron threatened to once, back when they had all first met & he tried to protect March only to become more of a threat than the beast they were fighting. ❝I don't want to live a life so short that I don't have enough time with the others. With you.❞ He does not want to live a life filled with regrets only to never have time to regret them.

❝A long life... A short life... I don't want either of those.❞ He murmurs, as if he has come to some sort of epiphany, as if he understands the secrets of a universe that remains unknown to him. ❝I want my life. To spend the time I want to with the people I love.❞ I wish to spend it all at your side, he doesn't say. He thinks, for a moment, that perhaps he does not need to.

❝I want a life that is long enough that you're content & don't need to mourn me, but I don't want to live so long that I forget myself. Do you think that's fair, Dan Heng?❞ He asks, softly, as if his words have been any comfort throughout the moments he has spent ruminating on the future. ❝I want to die when I've lived enough & when I'm still myself.❞

( but i know it will not be my choice. )