Chapter Text
Sizhui has arrived at the door of a sorcerer. Scared, but steadfast.
However, he still can’t quite make himself go inside.
A decision should be made fast, though. For one, Sizhui has been walking most of the day at increasing elevation, and he is nearing exhaustion. These high reaches are bitter with snow and howling wind. Not to mention, there must be ghouls and demons about.
Perhaps there is never a good time to go tracking down a renegade sorcerer in the Wilds. But winter is, perhaps, the worst timing possible.
He thinks of the little riverside town below and its excitement around New Year festivities, coming up in just a few months. Decorations are already being made, cheery and bright despite the war plaguing their kingdom's border. He thinks of the scent of steaming dumplings and fragrant rice, the red paper, and the thick, woolen shawls and fleece-lined coats…
His stomach growls. His frozen toes ache, standing in the snow. Even beyond a sixteen-year-old’s limited ability to withstand such exposure… his curse poses an even more vulnerable scenario.
And still, he stares at ‘Ghost’s’ moving castle. He’s witnessing the fruits of sorcery, here.
It’s towering and strange to someone used to the compact, earth-bound homes of human beings. It’s currently still, standing on the legs of a giant rooster, like a dragon might. Starlight blazes out here, silverishly illuminating a beautiful, meandering mess of what look like many temple towers, complete with sloping tiled eaves—but in the different sizes and heights he associates with a clump of mushrooms growing out of something dead.
Sizhui gulps, seeing now why the orphanage monk-mages say sorcerers like Gui—Ghost—were more demon than human.
Gui, for the demons and ghosts he is said to command. Gui for the dark magic he wields.
Mages deal in the light, harnessing the natural strengths from physical training, meditation, diet and herbs, and deeply devoted art practices—orthodox qi cultivation.
But sorcerers… Gui’s dark magic is everything Sizhui has been taught to abhor. He’s also the only person in the world Sizhui can think of who can maybe help him…
Suddenly, the castle’s wall closest to him lets down a hatch. Wooden stairs appear, unfolding for him to use. They reveal a blood red door, illuminated by a torch that flares to life.
When Sizhui does not approach, the moving castle actually moves. Creaking and groaning, it rises—and then sets off. Those cockerel legs are walking the castle away!
Each great stomp shakes the Wilds and rattles Sizhui’s teeth. Still, he dashes forward, not wanting to lose sight of that vivid door. He can feel the curse creeping up on him—if he transforms now, he’ll die. So he sprints through the snow, despite the pangs in his transforming body. His legs are definitely growing shorter, but he’s still very fast.
“Wait!” he calls (voice high and sweet, to his dismay). “Are you letting me in? Please let me in!”
Ahead, the stairway hangs like a turtle tail behind the great magical dwelling. Each one of those dragon leg steps are fifteen of Sizhui’s. He can’t keep up—
But then the castle moves itself in a way that scoops him right up on those stairs, and the door opens inward—and he tumbles right through, sprawling on a set of recessed indoor stairs.
He’s little again. As little as he gets. So now, having landed in a strange place all alone with a lot of new bumps and bruises, he simply starts crying.
Where are my parents? he’s thinking—and he finds he can’t remember them, not at all—
“Oh hey now, who are you?” Another child, dressed all in black and gray and who seems his age, has appeared next to him. They look strange, with big eyes, one wild tuft of inky hair on top of their head, and a wide, almost toad-like face. “Are you hurt?”
He ages enough to say, “No… no I’m alright. Thank you.” He stands, feeling wobbly but relieved. It’s warm. Palming his tears and snot away, he cranes his neck to look around.
There’s a big, dim room up beyond the stairwell, which his head only barely reaches over while standing at his current height. All he can make out are the beams of the ceiling, the shadows beyond, and the warm glow of a fire.
He turns back to the other person—who is gone! Someone else is standing there now—an androgynous teenager around Sizhui’s true age. Somehow, Sizhui just knows this isn’t the master of the castle. Could they be an enslaved soul? They’re gaping at him with the widest, black-lined eyes. “ No way! Me too!!”
Sizhui frowns in confusion, and also hugs himself. He’s shivering mightily. “You’ve got the same one? From who?”
The other person contorts their expression in confusion—but is interrupted by a low, male voice from somewhere above. “Xuanyu. We have a guest.”
Gui, Sizhui thinks with foreboding. That voice doesn’t sound friendly.
Xuanyu jumps as if shocked, looking very abashed. “Oh, my apologies! No social skills, heh heh, I’m working on that… Please come inside, I’ll put the kettle on…”
Xuanyu dashes away, seeming very healthy for a teenager enslaved by dark magic. Sizhui follows more slowly. Tall and strong enough now that he’s confident in his curse’s remission, he climbs the polished wooden stairs, looking around what seems to be a kitchen and common area with stacks of books and big, cushy furniture. It’s surprisingly… cozy, feeling ‘lived in’ (what the monks call their rooms when they get very messy). Standing at the top, he slips off his shoes at the tiled entryway and accepts soft, fleece-lined slippers from Xuanyu. They’re mysteriously cute, for a sorcerer’s home. Where is Gui?
Once he slips them on, Sizhui gets his second taste of sorcery: Xuanyu summons two slices of crimson paper etched with spells in the air before Sizhui as if it were nothing—catches them between two bony fingers—and plants one on each of Sizhui’s slippered feet. Strange symbols mark the magical paper in shining silver. Lingfu, they're called.
The lingfu flare, then disappear: and Sizhui’s fleece warms immediately. The relief in his frozen toes is exquisite.
Now on the wooden floorboards, he bows. “Thank you. I have barged in here uninvited.” He’s never seen lingfu magic like this… and used in such a cavalier way, just to make him more comfortable…
“Oh, it’s alright,” Xuanyu sighs, rolling their eyes and traipsing over to the kettle, swishing their escaped bangs from their eyes. “Strange things are always happening in this castle. Although we don’t often get wandering mountain boys.”
“I’m from Alpine Town below.” A huge, creaking yawn interrupts Sizhui’s words, as Xuanyu hurries past him again, leaving the water pump with a sloshing kettle for the large, handsome hearth. “I came looking for help…”
That low, serious voice sounds again. “You’re cursed.”
Sizhui has been yearning to move toward the fire, but now he freezes up. That man sounds like he’s in the room… but there’s no one else here…
“Hanguang!” Xuanyu exclaims. ‘Noble Bright One.’ Is that an exclamation sorcerer’s use? Stranger and stranger, this place is…
Xuanyu sets down the kettle on brass grills over the fire, and looks down into the flames to speak. “How bad is it??”
And now Sizhui sees… The flames are alive.
Golden eyes—long, slender, achingly beautiful golden eyes are blazing in the fire as if it were someone’s head. There’s the line of a mouth also, and this is even less human, lipless and rippling in the movement of the flames.
Those elemental eyes are looking right at Sizhui, and he feels pinned in place by their power and allure. He could be compelled by them, he’s quite sure. They say Gui’s heart was stolen by a demon of some kind…
The fire speaks again, and Sizhui shivers at the mirage-like mouth moving in the flames. “His curse could be deadly. But it is fresh.” Though he speaks the same tonal language as everyone else, his voice is just almost flat. Cold, despite his fiery nature. As if he were a distant star, neutrally observing.
Xuanyu starts pummeling Sizhui with questions that Sizhui doesn’t understand, pushing a mug of hot water in one of his hands and a piece of bread in the other.
All of this has Sizhui reeling. Before he can think to eat or drink, he bows to both of them (hands full, it’s awkward).
“Humbly—my name is Sizhui. I know it’s a lot to ask, and I apologize for my rudeness, but… do you have a place I could sleep tonight, in exchange for work? I’ll work hard, I promise. I must speak to Gui to learn how to break my curse, but… it’s too cold out there for a toddler, and I can’t control my cursed transformations.”
“It is too cold for any human.” Hanguang’s eyes are hard on him, and he feels a little foolish. “You will stay.”
“My deepest gratitude. I’ll do whatever tasks are needed in the castle,” Sizhui vows, bowing again to the face in the fire.
“Sit here,” Xuanyu says, loudly pushing one of those modern sitting furniture pieces—a chair, Sizhui remembers—right up next to the stone and tile hearth, just a mere reach from the fire demon.
A sound comes from the fire that makes Sizhui jump: Hanguang hisses, eyes narrowed at Xuanyu. “Noisy.”
Sizhui is even more frightened than when he sat down, despite the warm relief, but Xuanyu doesn’t seem to be—they’re fussing with a curtain under the stairs, asking that otherworldly being in the hearth about mundane things like bedding and pillows…
Careful, Sizhui observes the supernatural face in the flames. Hanguang’s supervising Xuanyu, but notices him watching and looks back. Again, there is something pure and elemental to his gaze, but Sizhui gets a little flicker of something else. He’s not sure what. But his fear does recede. It’s like dropping a heavy burden he’s been carrying, once finally reaching home.
Bread and hot water rounding his stomach, warmth blanketing him… Sizhui’s focus is fading fast. An avalanche of exhaustion slams into him. He also notices that, frustratingly, he’s slipping into a younger body yet again.
But, then… what better time to transform than now, secure and sleepy in front of the most perfect fire? Maybe he’s falling under this demon’s spell, but he feels… safe.
Embodying a three-year-old again, Sizhui curls up in the chair and swiftly falls asleep.
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