[forget-me-not]
pairing: jing yuan x gn!reader
summary: he likes to meditate a lot, to calm himself and keep himself sane from all the sorrows he has been through thus far. and it seems the general has never been one to remember personal tragedies.
word count: 0.89k
author's note: i saw that one tweet about him forgetting snowmoon supposedly if you ask him about it,,, i went crazy and also lost my consciousness. bone apple teeth yall.... this was made in 30 minutes.
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jing yuan has known you since you were both in diapers. studying together, playing together, falling asleep under the tree in his parent's garden, tired from running away from your teachers to skip class together —
anything you could think of, the two children have experienced it together.
so when he announced to his family that he would be joining the cloud knights, and faced the harsh opposition, it only made sense that you would pack your things alongside him and leave with him during the night.
training was harsh and he'd often come back to the small room you both shared tired and exhausted. you were not fit for the military like he was, and frustrated with the circumstances, he had a fight and fell out with you. for the first time in his life thus far, he woke up and you weren't there.
he tells himself that he was fine, that he didn't need you to be him all the time. he wan't a baby anymore, he was a cloud knight! and cloud knights were cool and strong and capable and independent...
he wasn't really fine, spending days that turned to months and then years without you around. with no sight, no sound of you. he was wondering if you were just a figment of his imagination.
but things took a turn when his mentor, jing lu, took him to meet her friends. not really registering what she was saying about the kid her friend had taken in around his age until he was face-to-face with the person he'd thought he'd never see again.
baiheng, who had been eagerly watching this exchange chuckled gleefully, her hand slapping his back to snap him out of his daze.
ah-yuan, do you like the suprise?
he looks at her, stupified.
the foxian flashes him a lopsided grin, mentally cheering at her victory. you see, she had picked a certain lost child roaming on the streets with nothing but the clothes on their back and a small sack across their back, many years ago. the child was crying, still upset over an argument they had earlier with their best friend, and even more distraught over the overwhelming feelings of uselessness they had been feeling for a while.
baiheng's heart had ached for the little one, taking them under her wing and bringing them along her journeys as a nameless. you, who was once this lost child had now seen worlds past your skies and had long outgrown the juvenile skin you used to wear.
you stood before him, with the same face he had always remembered, but now carrying the aura of galaxies beyond his comprehension. despite this, you were still you, after all. and he talked to you like you had never left his side before.
somewhere along the way, your awkward reunion and cracked relationship was mended. the ground stood fertile for something new to bloom between the two of you. and as the vines of this new feeling wrapped around his heart, with tendrils sinking into the soft flesh, he feels that things have changed but stayed the same yet felt uncertain all at once at every turn of his relationship with you.
you looked at him a little differently too these days. and as you two toed the line of what you both were, the unasked question that hung in the air — will we or won't we cross over that line together?
jing yuan wasn't a patient man and was the first to step over the edge, falling into your space, filling your mind with his presence and taking your heart in his hands. he was yours, and maybe that was the fate that was set in stone all along, with you being the first one he chose as a baby as opposed to that sword he always told others he had picked.
your death was as sudden as it could have come. and it hurt more that you died not from age as a short-life species but from a freak accident. something, something about baiheng being turned into some chimera beast and mortally wounding you as you desperately called to whatever remnants of the woman you grew to love like a mother were left in the abomination.
when jing lu came back, a casket in tow, he could not bear to look inside it. a funeral was held for you and baiheng, and he didn't go. no one blamed him, no one looked for him either.
years pass, and more tragedies struck what was once the proud heroes of the high cloud quintet, from five to four to two and finally, it was just him that was left behind, yet again.
he's taken up to meditation, choosing to focus on better memories no matter how mundane so as to rest his heart from all that it's been through. every year as the memories mold and morph into each other, he picks out the bad ones like black spots in a bin of rice, and casts them out of his mind.
these days, there is a rumor of the general's old flame. someone found pages of a tattered exchange diary with the man in question and a nameless. though when march and the trailblazer asks him about it, he only hums and shrugs. not really knowing what they mean.
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