Status Updates From The Dragon and the Sun Lotu...

His voice is as deep and smooth as the night-exactly the same as I remember it—when he speaks those same first words to me as when we met a lifetime ago.
"Do I know you?"

But this is a different life, in a time centuries later. There is no recognition on his face. Yet his gaze roves me as though he is searching for something; and when he meets my eyes again. his eyes crease in puzzled warmth—perhaps because a mem ory lingers in his soul, flitting just out of reach of his conscious mind.

In the centu nes since the Battle of the Imperial City, I have learned to stop looking for these flowers. They appeared to me after his death, and always in the accompaniment of a red and black winged butterfly, in the Imperial Palace gardens, and at times when t was traveling the realms alone. As though a part of him had never left,

I chose to wander the realms, making good on my first prom ise to myself, to the young girl I had once been. The one who had wished to see the world. I was searching for something though 1 didn't know what it was.

When Mei zi wed and began her family, when Mä's hair grew white and her skin wrinkled, when my children grew past my mortal age—I held the same countenance of the young woman I had been the night i became immortal.
And, inevitably, when all those I loved in my mortal lifetime were swept away by the currents of time into the gentle after of the Nine Fountains, I remained.

I promised you,Yu chén mumbles,that I'd do everything it my power to give you what I can of the world you wanted. Warth slides down my cheeks.I feel cheated:I thought our farewell in the immortal realm meant severing whatever we once felt for each other.That we'd both chosen our families and our kingdoms over each other.
Knowing he is choosing me after all feels like a betrayal. A debt I’ll never be able to repay.

He pauses, and I swear, no one has ever held me in their eyes like he does in this instant. "The mó do not have souls, but I'd like to think if I did, mine would be carved through with memories of you.

Softly, he continues: "The truth is, I also came to say good-bye, Àn'ying. The day I met you was the day I learned what it means to be truly alive. You showed me what makes a mortal human, how it feels to be afraid and to be brave in spite of your fear; to want to risk everything to protect those you love."