一
Summers days were always long and languorous. The heavy heat bore down on court and commoners alike, slowing minds and bodies and bureaucratic processes. It didn’t take much to work yourself into exhaustion under the unforgiving sun - to get through drills and practice, it helped to have a young body and a vigorous spirit.
And it helped to wait until nights - the air still warm as blood, but not pounding with the heat of the sun - to go on new adventures.
Xiao Jingyan and Lin Shu and Mu Nihuang would leave their elders to lounge about in lazy revelry and escape the palace and city, exploring the river and beyond by fireflies and starlight.
Tumbling through sparring matches, they were a trio of glowing spirits - moonbeams catching on threads of silk and flowing hair; motions shrouded in shadow. They missed and laughed and leapt lightly off the ground, each attempting to drag the others down if they stumbled in the dark.
None of them wanted to be the first to stop, so they would keep going - riding harder, running further, practicing side by side by side - until they’d proven that they could . Then they would seek the river, its water clear and clean and colder than the summer night. At once refreshed and exhausted, they would lie in the long grass and look up at the vast, shimmering heavens. Around them, the night would be alive with the rustle of the wind, the sweet rushing of the water, and the many-voiced cacophony that was singing bugs and frogs and nocturnal birds.
二
There was never any countdown, any shadow creeping to the final hour on a sundial or last drops from a water clock. There was simply before, and after.
Before, endless slow summer days were stretched out ahead - each one precious, but not a treasure to be hoarded like a miser’s grains. Before, they would spend those days together, or not. They would play and talk and argue and fight, night after night blending together and fading by daylight with no effort made to preserve those moments they couldn’t know would never come again.
After, there were no more days together, so what did seasons matter? Summer days were nothing but hazy memories and the weight of long, hot days followed by empty, lonely nights.
三
From Langya Hall, the river was a silent silver brush stroke through the valley far below. There was no murmuring water, no night chorus of frogs in the reeds. But there were nights as warm as blood, when countless stars blinked like fireflies in the firmament, and the song of crickets and katidyds carried up into the furthest rooms.
In his year of agony and rebirth, only the hours after summer sunsets brought his body any relief - keeping it warm, for once, with mountain winds brushing the sweat from his skin. But the respite was not always welcome. Without the pain in his body to anchor him in the present, to serve as a reminder of who he had become and the future he needed to create, his exhausted mind would drift on those sounds, carried back to another time, another place.
Another him.
Someone who groused at being used as a pillow by two tousled royal heads while his own rested on the trampled grass where they lay; who laughed and teased and talked about… What had he talked about? Had the words he said been the right ones? Would those who mattered most to him remember; would they know...? So much had been left unsaid by that young man, who had always been too impatient to settle fully into the present when he could dream about the future.
Their future.
A different kind of ache settled into his bones, and for a moment he could do nothing but embrace it. Through closed eyes he could see the myriad glittering stars of the celestial mansions, and conjured the familiar weight of bodies nudging against his; sharing a night like any other. It was a new haunting, this - the living rather than the dead come to claim him - and before he could muster the strength to fight them off, he had slipped into a sleep more restful than his body had known for a long, long time.
四
The summers were gentle in Yunnan, sweeping in on warm, fragrant breezes through the snow-capped peaks. But gentle summers meant spirited enemies, emboldened by fresh stores of water and long days for long marches. There were skirmishes and clashes and Nihuang always had to make sure to stay one step ahead of the probing southern forces.
After days spent in the saddle and evenings crammed in a tent sharing strategies and advice over maps and reports, true night was the only time Nihuang could command for herself. Instinct drove her to leave the campfire lights and laughter behind, and seek a distant bend in the river. She had no fear of enemies or predators, for her horse was well trained and trusted, and none of the Southern Chu fighters could threaten her position on the Langya list.
In the moonlight the river seemed black and still, but it tugged at her ankles and splashed the raised hem of her robes when she waded in. The chill bite of it refreshed her some, but the low croaks and high trills of frogs and crickets and the gurgle of water over rocks filled her with the same memories she had spent the year fighting off and then chasing after every time they faded. Jaw set, she trickled cold water on her face and turned back toward the riverbank - and stopped with a gasp. From behind the curtain of a willow tree dipping into the river, a solitary firefly rose into the night, twinkling hesitantly.
The first firefly.
Nihuang leapt after it, hand outstretched, hearing again the merry calls of the made-up hunt; the three of them competing to be the first to capture and release the tiny lantern bug. Only when her fingers brushed it did she freeze, feet hitting the ground with a thump. She snatched her hand back, leaving the firefly to circle higher, still alone.
Her heart pounding, she sank down on the riverbed. Those voices she just heard - they had been so vivid, as if ringing out from the darkness right behind her. For an instant, she hadn’t been here and now, but then. Before. Flung back to another summer night by a different river. Nihuang’s fingers wrapped around the hilt of her sword, as if she could draw it from its sheath and slice through the cobwebs of memory. As if she wanted to.
Looking around, she could see her moon-dappled horse grazing calmly, and hear the night birds and insects keeping up their midnight calls. Nothing to beware of lurked near. The river flowed, the wind brought the smell of Yunnan orchids and gentians from the mountain slopes. She still had time. Time to slow her breathing and her heart and loosen the grip on her sword. To lie back and stare up at the sky, trying to remember more than a hazy sense of giddy joy through her grief, to capture more than the image of twinkling stars and fireflies.
Those voices - they’d been talking, always talking. And one night, last summer - the last summer - they had said… What had that been? A year on, and so many of their words had already fled. She couldn’t recall the beginning of the conversation, or her own part in it. But the rest of it came back to her now, with the rushing sound of water and the rustle of weeds.
Promise?
It’s destiny.
We’ll have to be apart, her Lin Shu-gege had said, such excitement in his voice at the prospect of all of them gaining glory in the battlefield, doing their duty for their country.
He’d said they needed to come back there, to the river - and bring more wine.
Nihuang could remember feeling him laugh, her head resting on his shoulder, making his promise to them. She thought she had laughed, too, though it felt strange to remember laughter with her teeth grinding and her eyes stinging. She rubbed at them with her sleeve. Sighed. She’d have to wash again. But at least she had this now. One more glimpse of him, stolen from the clutches of time and sorrow. One more memory to hold on to.
Around her, the night was lighting up with fireflies. Dancing together, they glowed and dimmed as they found each other.
五
Jingyan didn’t sleep well anymore. He knew some of the men had noticed; knew the ones loyal to him worried, and the ones not… Well. They were probably writing gloating reports to his brothers, as they did about most things.
These nights, he had been blaming the heat. He wouldn’t have been the only one to find the still air sticky and oppressive, who walked silently around camp rather than tossing and turning on his blankets. Nor would he have been the only one who wished for the Heavens to bless them with rain.
But he would be the only one who avoided the stars. Who looked up at the tent above, glad for the shrouding darkness it offered. Because otherwise - with the warm air and the noisy insects and the fireflies losing their way into camp - he might do it again.
Find himself slipping into a waking dream. Stare up at the constellations and imagine he could feel xiao-Shu’s chest under his head. Hear that strong heart beating, alive, under the warm sound of his friend’s laughter.
A promise. Our destiny. To always come back together.
The words echoing in his ears as he drifted in and out of sleep, and then woke up thinking that everything else must have been a nightmare - the most terrible and wrenching dream he had ever suffered.
And he had a single perfect moment of relief before it all came crashing down on him. Everything he had lost. Everything they had all lost. And when he was in a bedroll by the fire, surrounded by others both asleep and awake - he still could not fully hide his agony from them.
So when he could, Jingyan stayed in his tent, even when it was hot and humid and he did not sleep. It was better than exposing himself to the vicious light of the stars, who could grab him by his memories and dreams, and lead him to forget the terrible ruin his world had become.
六
Mei Changsu’s world was crumbling and being made anew in an avalanche of events each started as a pebble put in motion years ago. The goal was within reach. The voices that drove him were raised in a cacophony of triumph and terror - so close, so close. Don’t let go. Don’t let go yet.
There was no time for anything but what lay ahead.
He never counted on Fei Liu’s whims and games. Never thought he’d wake up one starry night and see fireflies dancing in his garden.
七
It was an odd indulgence in those fraught and dangerous days, but Mei Changsu’s friends were such that they would gladly give him all the days and hours of their lives. One warm summer evening is nothing any of them would ever refuse. And if the invitation seemed rushed; if the festivities prepared not ones for any festival or birthday they could name, they still had no complaints.
They came - Mu Nihuang and her brother, Xiao Jingyan along with his young ward and trusted general, Yan Yujin and his father, Meng Zhi and a cloaked and shadowy figure with snowy hair - and sat around the lantern-filled garden. Last night Fei Liu had led Yujin and an admiring gaggle of the young lord’s friends on a merry, muddy riverside hunt, and there were fireflies spilling out of woven baskets placed in bushes and suspended from trees, enough of them to light the night with swirling, blinking constellations.
Lin Chen invited himself and dragged Physician Yan along, and Li Gang and Zhen Ping moved among the guests and made sure the wine kept flowing and carried compliments to Auntie Ji in the kitchen and made sure Mei Changsu had enough soft cushions to sit on and if they happened to draw guests into conversations or intercept those whose trajectories headed in the direction of Mei Changsu it looked completely coincidental. (When Meng Zhi did the same, it looked more like a startling interruption - albeit one his friends bore with good grace.)
八
There were no lanterns by Mei Changsu’s low table out on the edge of the veranda. Just the soft reflected light from the garden, and the hovering fireflies. Nihuang came to him first, her Qing-er having excused himself with a wide grin. Jingyan followed as soon as Tingsheng was snapped up by Fei Liu for some game among the rooftops.
In their corner, shadows softened all expressions, and even dry eyes glinted in the dark.
Tonight, there were no plans to share; no new desperation or distraction added to the burden they all shared. There was just this: the three of them, and wine, and a peal of laughter as a firefly chose to alight, blinking, on Mei Changsu’s open palm.
The first firefly. He cupped it in his fist - gently, as so not to do it any harm - and lifted his hand to the sky. It hesitated, it’s tiny luminous body dim - then it took off with a twinkle into the city night transformed to riverside.
And as the hours wound on and the party dwindled and lanterns dimmed, there was Nihuang’s head against Mei Changsu’s chest; Jingyan’s arm around Mei Changsu’s shoulders.
Words could not make the moment justice. A salvaged memory from their past; a shared promise fulfilled. Fireflies and starlight - and more wine, this time.
九
Maybe it was destiny. And maybe destiny needed some help. But when he had awoken to Fei Liu’s first firefly surprise, the warm night brought him back to Langya Hall. To lying awake grasping at faint wisps of memories - and following the blinking firefly trails, he finally remembered.
We'll have to be apart. But we'll always come back together. I promise.
十
And that was everything, that night in the Su Residence garden.
See? We came back together.