#xianxia with african flavor

[sickandtideeeee]

(title in progress) - Prologue

Synopsis: (also in progress) Centuries have passed since two immortals from opposite ends of the heavenly realm fell in love. Crown Prince Jin has spent centuries searching for his other half who disappeared into the mortal realm without a trace. He may have found her, but she has no recollection of her past life, of who she once was or who he is. Is their story worth rebuilding or have they finally run out of forever? 

---

Those curls, springs and coils.

That laugh like wind chimes.

The gleam of her smile, the one that reaches her impossibly dark eyes.

It’s been thousands of years since I last saw her, but I would know her anywhere, anyhow, anytime. I catch a glimpse of her in the corner of my eye and the world around me stops. I forget how to breathe.

She’s here. She’s really, truly here.

She blends into the sea of tourists crowding the streets of the capital and I keep track of her by the bounce of her cloudlike ponytail. She walks with long strides, rising every so softly on the balls of her feet as if she’s walking on bubbles. That fairylike gait was but one of the many things that drew me to her the day we met.

She’s walking alone, but smiles to herself with not a care in the world. The early afternoon sun lights her brown skin aglow and I myself feel like I’m on fire. I have waited centuries for her to reappear.

My bodyguard says something unintelligible as I break off from my entourage. He tries to grab me by the arm, but I shake him off and take off running. Every muscle and tendon is activated as I narrow the distance between her and I. I cannot miss this opportunity. The idea of risking spending another thousand years without her is unthinkable, unbearable. 

I thought I had finally let her go, finally stopped searching, but I realize now that I had only just let a part of me wither. For the first time in millenia, I feel fully alive, brimming with hope.

I bump into and stumble over pedestrians, not bothering to apologize. These mortals are merely obstacles in the space between us. What could they possibly understand about eternal loss?

In mere seconds, I’ve reached her. My fingers grip her shoulder lightly, but firmly enough that it conveys my fear of ever letting her slip away again. My love turns around slowly and her eyes flick up to me, wide with emotion: shock, confusion, curiosity, a million feelings. But what is missing in her gaze that I search for frantically is that which is critical for me, for us: recognition.

My heart stops and I freeze, my eyes still locked with hers. I know what is about to come, and I don’t want to hear what she’ll say next. I don’t speak. I’m too afraid to utter a single word.

Her voice is soft and timid as she whispers, ever so politely, words that cool every fiber of my being.

“I’m sorry sir, have we met before?” 

Something inside me seems to shatter. Her voice is no different than I remember it, but Mandarin tumbles out of her mouth clumsily now, not as smoothly as it was when I taught her eons ago. She doesn’t exactly shrug my hand off her shoulder but she takes a small step back, and that simple motion cuts into me sharply.

I feel my bottom lip begin to tremble, but I hold it together. She is wary now, of me of all people, and her eyebrows furrow in concern. I want desperately to hold her tight - hoping just maybe she’ll remember what my arms feel like around her. Instead, I cover up my heartbreak and flash her the smile I’ve used to seduce countless women over the centuries.

I hope this works. It usually does, but she was always strange.

“Pardon my boldness, but allow me the pleasure to get to know you, beautiful.” I proclaim theatrically, clasping one of her hands in both of mine, ensuring that my bodyguard who has finally caught up as well as the ever-present paparazzi can hear me.

Her complexion darkens, and now she looks somewhere between mortified and perhaps a little angry when she realizes onlookers have begun to surround us. Her mouth opens, then closes and no words come out. I think instead about her hands that are still the same as I remember them, small but firm, worn with acts of service. 

Lights flash as endless pictures are snapped of us in this moment suspended in time. It’s a funny sight even for those who don’t know our history. Me, a notoriously single international celebrity boldly declaring interest in an ordinary-seeming girl, an obvious foreigner at that. A story of love at first sight. A teenage girl’s dream, something born alive on the many fanfiction websites my manager warns me not to visit.

My hands continue to hold on to hers tight as I maintain soft eye contact, hoping, pleading that maybe she’ll snap out of this daze and remember who I am. She is furious now that I am embarrassing her, and her eyes burn with rage. I’m thankful for her anger, because it will distract her from the sting of the small bit of internal essence I’ve now slipped into the flesh of her palm. I ignore her fury selfishly because I know I will explain myself in time. As long as we’re together, we have time.

“I… I um.. I..” She stammers. 

Then she yanks her arm away and turns on her heels, and I am anxious once more. I don’t stop her. But I am reassured; my love still exists in a realm where i can reach her after all this time, and I will see her again, soon. That is enough.

——

Am I being pranked? What the actual fuck is happening? My heart pounds in a frenzy, like talking drums in my chest warning of danger to come.

This beautiful stranger accosts me with eyes that are warm but demanding of something I cannot offer him, and now hordes of people are watching and taking pictures, and suddenly it’s… It’s all too much for me. I have to escape.

I slip my fingers out of this stranger’s hold and back away slowly walking and then running once he calls after me. I’m sure I’ll pass out, my heartbeat is irregular, both fluttering and thumping and now I’m lightheaded and feel like my brain won’t perfuse. I dash away without looking back, making it all the way to my hotel room, which was thankfully only a few blocks away anyway. I run immediately to the shower, suddenly feeling dirty and different, and only the warmth and stillness of a hot bath will calm me down. The hand he held now feels strange, like it is full and weighs more than the rest of my body.

I recall the facts of the past hour as I submerge myself in the almost-scalding water.

I was walking home from a series of lectures set as a primer of traditional eastern medicine I’m learning as part of my mission trip. My co-resident invited me to an early afternoon coffee but I made up an excuse. My day is busy - I have quite a few people to call at home in the States, and an evening language course to take, so I’m pretty short on time. Not to mention, I’m still incredibly jetlagged. Then, on my way back, some exquisite looking stranger grabs me, stares into the very depths of my soul and tries to… what exactly?

I sink deeper into the bath so that the water covers my shoulders. I’m so confused.

What he said seemed like a particularly bold pick-up line, but there was something, some bigger meaning, some emotion behind those words. It scares me.

Does he know me from somewhere? Something is familiar… Is that wishful thinking? 

I’m stupid, I’m stupid, I’m stupid.

That man was quite frankly the most beautiful person I've ever met. In all honesty, I don’t think I could forget a face like that even if I was 100 years old. My own face warms up just thinking about him, but maybe it’s just the heat of the bath that has me so flushed.

I let out a long exhale and begin to scrub my body clean. I’ll call my mother in an hour and take a nap. It’ll be like nothing ever happened.

Except now the palm of my right hand continues to throb.

If anyone reads this, tell me what you think!

[sickandtideeeee]

Rise with Me - Chapter 1???

A/N: I came up with a title!!! I’m also post a night shift!! Maybe I’ll write installments or I’ll write blurbs. A little different from By Bast since it’s more OCs and less fanfic. Tell me what you think!

--

Approximately 746 years ago, without warning, it was proclaimed in the stars that the Heavenly Empire to the East had lost its sole male heir.

The official story was as simple as it was tragic: the youthful prince had contracted a grave illness during one of his many expeditions through the uncharted lands between the main dominions. A truly terrible affliction, the curse had slowly eaten through his internal essence over decades, making his corporeal form increasingly unstable until he was entirely consumed and faded into the wind. 

A short mourning period of 10 years was instituted and thereafter, to merely utter the name of the perished would-be King was a crime punishable by death. And this execution would not be a short-lived mortal death, but the shredding of your soul into thousands of pieces, each sliver doomed to try desperately to reunite over the millenia to come. 

Despite the intensity of this punishment, there were many rumors outside the lands that could not be quashed. They essentially boiled down to the following: 

The prince had been poisoned not by a celestial beast but by a woman.

The prince could only been subjected to such an attack because he had been actively seduced by her.

The woman he was so enamored with was a foreigner.

The last point was the greatest scandal for two reasons: not only was she a foreigner, she was rumored to hail from the Southern chiefdoms, which almost certainly meant she was a political spy sent to destabilize the Eastern realm.

These rumors were both surprisingly close and alarmingly far from the truth.

Unfortunately, this version of events was what the Golden Emperor, the prince’s cherished father, decided to believe. 

The only caveat was that his son was very much alive.

However, this did not matter so long as the Emperor had decided that as he was, his favored son Jin was now a liability to the throne and dead to him.

To further the dismay of the rest of the royal family and the empyrean palace, the crown prince had long since returned the sentiment and absconded from Heaven without a word.

—

Jin…

Yes, my love?

Do you think we can be like this, together, forever?

Why wouldn’t we?

Our love is… a little bit strange, don’t you think?

Maybe, but we’ve always been a little bit strange.

She is satisfied by this answer and she snuggles into the crook of my neck and I kiss the top of her forehead. She smells earthy and sweet as though she too sprouted from the meadow we lay in, as if she’s one of the many wildflowers that dot this landscape. The sun’s rays are soft and gentle and we drink deeply of each other. I wrap my arms around her and she smiles and rolls over so that she is on top of me. She pecks at my face playfully, and I am entranced by her smiling face. 

Then, a harsh wind picks up and like dandelion fuzz, her form disperses into the air. I wake up with a start.

——

“Mimi? Mimi!” Jin’s voice called out. Then his eyes opened to partial darkness and cold, damp sheets. Moonlight streamed in rays into the room and he realized it was still nighttime.

He turned over several times in his oversized bed to squint at his digital alarm clock. A few minutes past 3. Fantastic.

His head throbbed as he sat up. These headaches were getting all too frequent, he thought, rubbing the sides of his temples. He’d get his agent to buy a humidifier… or maybe some essential oils. Whatever would work. He’d let Annie figure it out later in the day. There was a busy schedule ahead and he was not going to even entertain the wish of getting any more sleep.

For the young immortal who went by the alias Lin Xiao Jin, stylized as ‘jin’ professionally (always in lowercase for flair), this lifetime had already proven to be his most challenging one yet. While Jin had played the role of feudal lords, military generals, and mortal emperors, this time he had wanted a change, and decided to try his hand at a life with a different type of power. The power of fame and celebrity.

It was truly taxing, and this week in particular his schedule had been almost impossible to manage. Sometimes he considered disappearing in a freak accident and becoming a ‘gone too soon’ story, forever immortalizing himself in the course of human history and starting anew as a chaebol kid. But he had to admit, he liked this model/singer/actor triple threat he had going on. The constant attention and adoration was nice, and the steady stream of women who came in and out of his lavish high-rise was nicer. He wasn’t exactly being worshipped as a god, but it was pretty damn close. 

Jin, for once, was less worried about how he was going to fit in hours of filming, two meet and greets and a bulking session with a physical trainer into the mere 24 hours a day. Instead, he relaxed his tense muscles and closed his eyes, focusing on tracing the pearl of energy he had parted with several hours earlier.

Moments passed… and nothing. He sighed, letting his body fall back into his messy bed in defeat. He hated the feeling of powerlessness he had in this muted mortal body, and no amount of physical fitness would change that. She was probably too far now to sense. His heart ached to reunite with her, but he had to bide his time. If there was something he always had more of, it was time.

He rolled over to the side and picked up his phone laying on the countertop. 12 missed messages from three hours ago, 6 of them from the same person.

He didn’t bother to open the messages from his not-quite-girlfriend Faye, knowing she’d probably already seen the tabloids, as well as the other girls he was casually dating. Instead of explaining himself, he deleted all her recent  messages, gave it a moment of thought, and then proceeded to delete her number too.

——

For the first time in her life, Mya dreamt about a man she had just met.

She sprang up in bed with her heart racing and face warm with shame as the X-rated images ran through her mind like a fast forwarded cassette. She threw off her covers and held her face in her hands.

When did I become so thirsty?!!!

Her whole body burned with embarrassment. She had a boyfriend! Okay, she had to admit calling boyfriend was a stretch. Rather, she had a longstanding crush on a family friend who had finally acknowledged her enough to go on a couple dates. 

No matter what her situation was, she could NOT be dreaming about strangers. Even if they were hot and apparently really damn famous.

Speaking of fame, what was she supposed to do now in a foreign country, now that she essentially lost all anonymity and benefits thereof? What is the etiquette in a situation like this?

Not only she had decided to order in and barricade herself in her room for safety to come up with a plan, she had also decided to avoid the internet lest she find unflattering pictures of herself on Baidu or worse. However, now that it was early morning and she was feeling brave, she pulled out her laptop, took a deep breath and opened it up. She placed her fingers on the keys, then froze.

What was she looking for exactly? She did not even know this man’s name. And no one knew her name. What would she even search up?

Instead, she turned on her vpn to access Facebook and sent a short message to her friend.

Just letting you know I’m alive lol… something weird happened, i’ll call you a little later to give you deets, it’s still super early here.

She then went through her feed and when she got bored of that, looked up her not-quite-man on Instagram. Christian still hadn’t posted any pictures from their dates, nothing to suggest they were together. This nagged at her a bit but she sighed and turned off her computer. She had enough to worry about in the morning, no need to get anxious about anyone overnight. He was just a man, after all. 

She turned over and went back to sleep.