[Fic] The Tree
Title: The Tree
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun (with background Siwon/Hankyung, Kibum/Donghae, Tablo/Eunhyuk)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, fantasy
Warnings: angst
Summary: Prequel to The Life I Live.
***
The story of their first life together was not a happy one. Or, he thought it was their first life. It could have been their first, or their third, or their tenth. They could have met and stayed together a hundred times before that one life.
But the point was, that life had not been meant to be.
When Zhou Mi was born into the human world, his element was fire. He was born in the year of the tiger, to the sign of the sun that was made of fire. In every way, he had been born as he had been in the forest except for his striped coat. It was in that life that he was meant to find Kyuhyun smudged in toner ink, and to stay with him the long length of their lives, until they could find each other again.
But not that first life.
Kyuhyun was grounded, he was fluid, earth and water. The leopard, with his pool of spots. And through that world, he ruled beyond the cliffs in little glens and trees with wide limbs that he could pulled himself onto and stretch out on. To go into another spirit’s territory was not taboo. Their animals, the extensions of their souls, roamed as they pleased. The whole of the forest was their home, and the spirits cared for every creature in it.
They were alike, he and Kyuhyun, and they were different. Kyuhyun was the spots to Zhou Mi’s stripes, the lazy flicker of a tail at midday when Zhou Mi found him. He inevitably found him because Kyuhyun napped for the sheer pleasure of it, whether he was leopard or in human form. The cloth at his hips was dark black, but not darker than his hair, or nearly his eyes. Unnerving eyes, Zhou Mi felt.
He should not have been unnerved. He was one of the biggest of the cats in the forest. Han Geng’s jaguar, Siwon’s lion. Had they not been so alike, brothers but for birth, they might have fought. Instead, there were nuzzles as they passed in the dark, chuffs as they surveyed the land from high cliffs. Their language was pure, and it was for them alone. Not even the animals knew it.
But Kyuhyun was different. He was not a brother to Zhou Mi. He had not woken in his skin when Zhou Mi had, not far from Siwon and Hyukjae and Donghae. He had not arrived there before Zhou Mi, as had Han Geng or Daniel or Sungmin. He was after, after Kibum and Ryeowook. But those all were very dear to him, alike to him.
Not like Kyuhyun.
Every animal in the forest had a mate, an other, but for the young. To them, they were never alone because looking back at them was one they had chosen.
But for the spirits, there was no other, no mate. They looked after their territories and cared for their animals and nurtured the forest, but of their kind, their heart, they were the only one.
“This isn’t your part of the forest, tiger.”
“But it’s yours,” Zhou Mi said. “Come walk it with me?”
He should never have been lonely, with his brothers, with the tigers.
A leopard male, one Kyuhyun cared for, was in one of the low branches and watched them pass with impassive gold eyes.
“Something has changed,” Kyuhyun said, looking up at Zhou Mi as he sank down beside a stream.
Zhou Mi traced markings made into clay, hardened over time in the sun. Markings they had made, so they would not forget their brothers.
“Do you remember them? Youngwoon…”
He could barely bring himself to say their names, the spirits that had come before and had faded for reasons they did not understand.
“I remember,” Kyuhyun said, his voice soft. “The tree took them. The forest weakened.”
“Why do the animals have an other when we do not?”
“We protect the forest. We heal the animals. The animals, they bond, and raise young.”
“Spirits are brought here, born here, fully formed. We have no need of young. No need of…”
And Kyuhyun inhaled, as Zhou Mi’s fingers trailed against his arm, ringing his wrist, catching against his palm. Zhou Mi sagged, his eyes closed tight.
“I thought it would be like that.”
It was not taboo to touch, but they were so often in their animal skins it was of no account. The way his arms tingled, and his breath came short.
Kyuhyun scrambled up, reclaiming his pelt. “I must think on this.”
Zhou Mi watched the water ripple over his feet, pushing a tiny crocodile away with his toes, and thinking as well.
***
It started with just that, a single touch. Kyuhyun’s pelt slid down his back and he pressed his fingers to Zhou Mi’s. The press of skin was delicious and right, the brush of shoulders and wrists. With their pelts between them, sometimes only their ankles brushed, and their voices were quiet, as though someone would see.
But time found them bold, hands tracing through hair, over neck and shoulders. They napped against each other for the first time, Kyuhyun spread against his back, thigh between his, breaths soft against his neck. He tasted Kyuhyun’s skin, felt him moan with his lips against Kyuhyun’s throat.
They laughed together, tracing reddest berries against each other’s skin. “I write my name on you,” Kyuhyun laughed.
“Why do I need your name when I have my own?” Zhou Mi teased back, but he smeared his name across Kyuhyun’s skin and pulled Kyuhyun atop him.
“Kuixian,” he breathed into Kyuhyun’s hair, and held him tight. He smiled, drinking in Kyuhyun’s beauty. Their touches were sometimes unsure, but they did not falter. And together there, they found their pleasure, finally as one.
***
The sound of danger woke Zhou Mi from his sleep, feeling Kyuhyun rouse beside him. Long weeks they had spent, sheltered in the cave or in the trees of Kyuhyun’s territory. Long weeks of hands brushing.
He pushed himself up, in front of Kyuhyun at Han Geng’s growl.
“This is not allowed.”
“It is not wrong! We are alone here. The animals have their mates. Should we not also have ours?”
“Do you think I have not thought that as well? Jungsoo, Heechul, Youngwoon, they are all gone. I have… I have told myself it is for our protection to keep ourselves separate from each other. Daniel… I see him walk with Hyukjae.”
“They are gone, but we cannot live for them. The tigers are pleased. The forest grows. What harm is there in it?”
“We are alike,” Kyuhyun said, his hand curving around Zhou Mi’s arm. “We understand each other, as no one else can. He is the life in me. He strengthens me.”
“Do our animals not mate for life?”
But Han Geng turned from them.
“I would choose only you,” Zhou Mi said, kissing Kyuhyun’s shoulder.
“My amulet heats when I think of you,” Kyuhyun confessed.
“And mine.”
And Zhou Mi let the ghost of worry fade, the wondering of what that might mean, when Kyuhyun pulled him close.
***
“Zhou Mi!”
There was fear in Kyuhyun’s voice, and Zhou Mi ran, branches parting against his arms. He found Kyuhyun on the ground, his two arms holding him upright, and shaking from the effort.
“I changed, and I stood,” Kyuhyun said, his voice weak as well. “And I fell?”
He crouched with Kyuhyun, let Kyuhyun rest against him.
“I am here,” he murmured, though he did not know what it was that he could do for Kyuhyun. “Perhaps, the tree…?”
Kyuhyun nodded, and Zhou Mi stood, expecting to help him. But Kyuhyun clung. “Don’t leave me.”
“No. No, we’ll go to the tree,” Zhou MI said, holding both Kyuhyun’s hands. “Together.”
Kyuhyun stood, steadied against Zhou Mi. With their hands linked, Kyuhyun followed him, the gentlest route to the tree, no ledges or hills. He looked back, seeing how pale Kyuhyun looked, and kept his face forward so that his worry would not leech into Kyuhyun as well.
Against the great tree, Kyuhyun sank, and they rested together, to feel the power there.
“It’s angry,” Kyuhyun said, resting his head against Zhou Mi’s. “I can feel it tremble.”
By nightfall, Kyuhyun felt strong enough to leave, and they walked their forest together, Zhou Mi’s arm around his shoulder or hand in his hand. Morning’s rays seemed almost to make Kyuhyun shimmer, as though he were a ripple on the water, something fleeting. He slept deeply on against Zhou Mi’s neck, and Zhou Mi crooned to him, the leopard male’s head in Kyuhyun’s lap. And Zhou Mi dreamed, the forest sweet and cool, morning and nightfall, balance among all things. He saw the great tree, saw Kyuhyun resting inside of it, color blooming into his cheeks, strong again.
And Kyuhyun dreamed that same dream.
He carried Kyuhyun on his back, and their pelts and faltered to see Han Geng by the tree, Siwon resting in the shade of it.
Zhou Mi let Kyuhyun down and he nearly stumbled, and there was nothing but fear on Han Geng’s face.
“Did we do this to them?” Han Geng asked.
Han Geng’s anger before had been because - in Siwon - he had found an other too, and he had been afraid.
“I dreamed that he was made better by the tree,” Zhou Mi rasped, holding Kyuhyun against him.
“So did we all.”
Daniel, weakest, was carried into the tree, and Kibum beside him. Siwon held only Han Geng’s hand, his face ashen and body bent. Spirit after spirit, weakened, until Zhou Mi took Kyuhyun’s hand and rested him in the hollow. Their noses brushed, and Kyuhyun smiled for him.
“Soon,” Kyuhyun said.
Soon.
Zhou Mi crouched with the others, as the day grew brighter, shadows longer. The amulet against his chest pulsed, as Kyuhyun’s hand closed around his own. Joined. Mated. He would wait outside of the tree as long as it took. As long as Kyuhyun found his strength so they could run again, curl together in the dead of night again.
Zhou Mi blinked, and blinked again, when all he could see was the swirling grains of the tree. Kyuhyun was-
The others beside Kyuhyun.
They were all gone.
“No!” he screamed, as though the sound would not penetrate the air.
On an inhale, the spirits felt the forest contract. Land the spirits they had carried into the tree falling empty and without care.
They pressed their hands against the wood, against the tree where their mates had rested. The promise of strength, of life. Gone.
“Kuixian,” Zhou Mi said. “Where did he go? Take me to him.”
They did not leave, even at the urge to go, to walk through the forest. It felt as though he could not breathe, reliving the moment Kyuhyun had closed his eyes and in his world, cease to exist.
“Were they sent, like we send the animals?” Han Geng asked.
Hyukjae shook his head. “In that other world, would they survive? They were growing weaker. I could see through him-“
Donghae said nothing, his head against the wood where Kibum’s head had rested.
Perhaps it was because of their mates they grew weaker. Perhaps it was because of themselves. Kyuhyun had not been weak. His leopard had leaped the tall cliffs, stood beside him as Zhou MI’s equal. He would have to send the leopards. Without Kyuhyun, they would be alone.
He would be alone.
His face was wet, water from his eyes as he stared up into the tree.
“Do not leave me here without him,” he begged. And to Kyuhyun, “Do not leave me here!”
His voice joined with the others, sorrow strangling him. Kyuhyun should have lived. The tree should have given him strength. The tree could have sustained him.
The anger was a living thing inside him, clawing at his chest, the amulet searing against his skin.
The loneliness, the want of the touch of one hand, one smile. The life he knew had changed, the world he knew was empty. Kyuhyun had trusted him, and he had brought death to him.
Zhou Mi reached for the others. If they could combine their strength…
But his breath left him, arm dropping limp to the floor. His eyes stared up into the tree, darkness that did not end. Inhale. Exhale. The anger cooled and hardened. The grief congealed, loneliness wrapping around it like a vine. And it lifted from him, formless and black, leaving him dizzy and weak. It lifted and joined with that of the others, a dark cloud that seemed to lift on the wind until it could not be seen.
A black feather was all that was left of it, fluttering down, brushing his cheek, and his eyes closed.
Nothing.
***
Zhou Mi woke among the others, shrugging into his pelt and needing to move.
He wandered the forest for what seemed an eon, days and nights, weeks and months formless, stumbling over tree roots, splashing into streams and out. The tigers nosed him, passing like a shadow.
He walked, his fur matted and muddy, and he climbed the cliff face and felt as though he had nearly found what he was looking for. In the craggy outcropping that formed the cave, he shed his pelt, leaning against the stone as though it would bring him warmth. But there was no warmth. Day faded to night, and night into morning, and he left the cave again as the tiger. He rubbed shoulders with the forest tigers, felt their anxiety in his state, but he could not help them.
He went to the tree, resting his head against it. It had brought him solace before. Not even resting inside in its shadow, did it bring him peace. It felt as though he looked for something, but what it was he could not say. One by one he found his brothers, and slipped away more dismayed than before. Han Geng rested, and did not greet him. Donghae floated on the river currents. They were all…alone.
He walked his territory in solitude, rubbing against the trees and watching birds and butterflies on the wing. It was quieter, somehow, as though the animals had gone, but he did not remember sending them. And at the edge of all things, he growled against the barrier. What was beyond was forest, black and crumbling, red dust blown on too-hot wind. His whole body jerked at the sound of a branch crashing down and nearly disintegrating against the earth. The forest beyond had died. Perhaps there had been a spirit that had looked after it, lured there and killed. But he turned back from the barrier, satisfied at its security.
On a ledge below, just out of his sight, dark wings flexed, tail winding around a rock. A heavy beak clicked together, testing. “Kuixian? Kuixian!” it seemed to laugh, as it flew into the desolation.
***
Night by day by night Zhou Mi settled into the cave. The tiger’s nostrils twitched at smells on the wind. He had found contentment, and yet was unfulfilled. From the tree he took a piece of the broken base, and with a sharp rock, he formed it.
(A baby was born, squalling,)
The line of a back, rise of a head took shape, and Zhou Mi watched the tigers play with a smile.
(A boy left for school for the first time, smiling at his mother’s face.)
Legs emerged from the wood, a tiger’s strength. The curve of a tail.
(A young man received a diploma, the first step of his education done.)
It was last that Zhou Mi carved the tiger’s face, roughly shaping eyes and nose and mouth.
(The first day of work, and the young man was proud.)
Zhou Mi built a fire by the tree, life and destruction at once. It had scarred the tree once, but it was not a fire to destroy - it was a fire to feel. The crackling heat of it made Zhou Mi’s heart race, the power of it. He wondered that it did not lift high into the sky at the drum beat inside of him. But he slept beside it and dreamed, dreamed of the tigers, of fire, of dappled sunlight on spotted hide.
(He did not dream alone.)
From the coals he drew a half burned stick, still glowing hot, and on the wooden tiger’s side he scored dark marks. They were not straight, not even, as the tigers marks were not.
There was a feeling of such sorrow, as he bent over it, as though he mourned. He carried the tiger in the pouch around his neck.
***
The dead places grew, and the barrier weakened. He swam with Donghae to a rock overlooking the waterfall, where they could see the dead place beyond the base of it, where the river stopped, a dry, dead snake of land stretching out, red and cracked like a scar on the ground. They could still feel the forest growing smaller, as though spirits were falling, more and more of them.
“How could anything survive?” Zhou Mi rumbled, scenting the air.
“Something does. Han Geng has seen birds flying, big ones. None like them are in the forest. They hissed at him, tried to get at him through the barrier. He thinks they killed the spirits that cared for the forest beyond.”
“We could not see the forest’s end from this waterfall once,” Zhou Mi said. “The forest grows smaller. How do we stop it and protect ourselves against these birds? Did we know those spirits, as we know each other?”
“I don’t know,” Donghae said, and slipped sleek into the water.
Not even the tigers could tell him, unconcerned of the dead places, the birds Zhou Mi had not seen. The female would have her young soon, and the male was sunning himself alone as Zhou Mi found them.
“You are together, always,” Zhou Mi told them. “We send you from this place when you are too many, to the other world. You are together, and yet we are alone.”
There were many things a spirit was not meant for. Spirits were weak. It whispered through the forest at him, written on vines, and drifting on scattered leaves. To protect himself from those thoughts, he went to the river, to the marker of spirits gone. It was curious, as he looked at marks he had carved, marks Han Geng had carved, and Hyukjae, and he could not remember why. Spirits gone from the forest. Spirits he could not remember.
“A spirit who mates is unnatural,” Han Geng said from beside him. “But these spirits, this marker? I try and I try to remember, but I cannot.”
“Nor I,” Zhou Mi said. “And what of the others? The forest bordering my land is dying.”
“Perhaps that is our fate. To fall from memory like the others.”
Such a fate was too horrible to be imagined. But still he considered the marks, and the legends Han Geng had spoke of. They felt familiar, like turning over a smooth stone he had touched before. No, spirits could not mate. It was only strange stories, far before they were born.
“Do you feel alone?” he asked.
Han Geng stared at the river. “What do I lack? There is nothing for us here.”
And it felt wrong.
To protect himself, the forest, his tigers, he lacked something so essential he could not put it to name.
Again he built a fire, but it was not to mark the wooden tiger, but to mark himself and make his plea. From the ashes of the previous fire, he made a paste, and basked in the heat as he drew lines across his sides, his hips and thighs.
“I am the tiger,” he said, to the wood in his his hand, the tiny and crude representation of the animal he both could become and cared for. “This place I care for is dying and I cannot leave it. I can save my animals but not myself or my brothers. There were others once, others like us. There must be someone to help.”
As the tiger had her mate, he knew there was someone out there. With gentle hands, he rested the wooden tiger in the fire, and backed away. It took only the space of a breath, before it caught ablaze, ashes lifting into the sky, into the tree, and disappeared from his sight.
He became the tiger, gold and black in the fire’s light. The tree had taken something from him. Perhaps it would bring him something in return.
So he crouched in the tree, and prepared to wait.
***
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun (with background Siwon/Hankyung, Kibum/Donghae, Tablo/Eunhyuk)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, fantasy
Warnings: angst
Summary: Prequel to The Life I Live.
***
The story of their first life together was not a happy one. Or, he thought it was their first life. It could have been their first, or their third, or their tenth. They could have met and stayed together a hundred times before that one life.
But the point was, that life had not been meant to be.
When Zhou Mi was born into the human world, his element was fire. He was born in the year of the tiger, to the sign of the sun that was made of fire. In every way, he had been born as he had been in the forest except for his striped coat. It was in that life that he was meant to find Kyuhyun smudged in toner ink, and to stay with him the long length of their lives, until they could find each other again.
But not that first life.
Kyuhyun was grounded, he was fluid, earth and water. The leopard, with his pool of spots. And through that world, he ruled beyond the cliffs in little glens and trees with wide limbs that he could pulled himself onto and stretch out on. To go into another spirit’s territory was not taboo. Their animals, the extensions of their souls, roamed as they pleased. The whole of the forest was their home, and the spirits cared for every creature in it.
They were alike, he and Kyuhyun, and they were different. Kyuhyun was the spots to Zhou Mi’s stripes, the lazy flicker of a tail at midday when Zhou Mi found him. He inevitably found him because Kyuhyun napped for the sheer pleasure of it, whether he was leopard or in human form. The cloth at his hips was dark black, but not darker than his hair, or nearly his eyes. Unnerving eyes, Zhou Mi felt.
He should not have been unnerved. He was one of the biggest of the cats in the forest. Han Geng’s jaguar, Siwon’s lion. Had they not been so alike, brothers but for birth, they might have fought. Instead, there were nuzzles as they passed in the dark, chuffs as they surveyed the land from high cliffs. Their language was pure, and it was for them alone. Not even the animals knew it.
But Kyuhyun was different. He was not a brother to Zhou Mi. He had not woken in his skin when Zhou Mi had, not far from Siwon and Hyukjae and Donghae. He had not arrived there before Zhou Mi, as had Han Geng or Daniel or Sungmin. He was after, after Kibum and Ryeowook. But those all were very dear to him, alike to him.
Not like Kyuhyun.
Every animal in the forest had a mate, an other, but for the young. To them, they were never alone because looking back at them was one they had chosen.
But for the spirits, there was no other, no mate. They looked after their territories and cared for their animals and nurtured the forest, but of their kind, their heart, they were the only one.
“This isn’t your part of the forest, tiger.”
“But it’s yours,” Zhou Mi said. “Come walk it with me?”
He should never have been lonely, with his brothers, with the tigers.
A leopard male, one Kyuhyun cared for, was in one of the low branches and watched them pass with impassive gold eyes.
“Something has changed,” Kyuhyun said, looking up at Zhou Mi as he sank down beside a stream.
Zhou Mi traced markings made into clay, hardened over time in the sun. Markings they had made, so they would not forget their brothers.
“Do you remember them? Youngwoon…”
He could barely bring himself to say their names, the spirits that had come before and had faded for reasons they did not understand.
“I remember,” Kyuhyun said, his voice soft. “The tree took them. The forest weakened.”
“Why do the animals have an other when we do not?”
“We protect the forest. We heal the animals. The animals, they bond, and raise young.”
“Spirits are brought here, born here, fully formed. We have no need of young. No need of…”
And Kyuhyun inhaled, as Zhou Mi’s fingers trailed against his arm, ringing his wrist, catching against his palm. Zhou Mi sagged, his eyes closed tight.
“I thought it would be like that.”
It was not taboo to touch, but they were so often in their animal skins it was of no account. The way his arms tingled, and his breath came short.
Kyuhyun scrambled up, reclaiming his pelt. “I must think on this.”
Zhou Mi watched the water ripple over his feet, pushing a tiny crocodile away with his toes, and thinking as well.
***
It started with just that, a single touch. Kyuhyun’s pelt slid down his back and he pressed his fingers to Zhou Mi’s. The press of skin was delicious and right, the brush of shoulders and wrists. With their pelts between them, sometimes only their ankles brushed, and their voices were quiet, as though someone would see.
But time found them bold, hands tracing through hair, over neck and shoulders. They napped against each other for the first time, Kyuhyun spread against his back, thigh between his, breaths soft against his neck. He tasted Kyuhyun’s skin, felt him moan with his lips against Kyuhyun’s throat.
They laughed together, tracing reddest berries against each other’s skin. “I write my name on you,” Kyuhyun laughed.
“Why do I need your name when I have my own?” Zhou Mi teased back, but he smeared his name across Kyuhyun’s skin and pulled Kyuhyun atop him.
“Kuixian,” he breathed into Kyuhyun’s hair, and held him tight. He smiled, drinking in Kyuhyun’s beauty. Their touches were sometimes unsure, but they did not falter. And together there, they found their pleasure, finally as one.
***
The sound of danger woke Zhou Mi from his sleep, feeling Kyuhyun rouse beside him. Long weeks they had spent, sheltered in the cave or in the trees of Kyuhyun’s territory. Long weeks of hands brushing.
He pushed himself up, in front of Kyuhyun at Han Geng’s growl.
“This is not allowed.”
“It is not wrong! We are alone here. The animals have their mates. Should we not also have ours?”
“Do you think I have not thought that as well? Jungsoo, Heechul, Youngwoon, they are all gone. I have… I have told myself it is for our protection to keep ourselves separate from each other. Daniel… I see him walk with Hyukjae.”
“They are gone, but we cannot live for them. The tigers are pleased. The forest grows. What harm is there in it?”
“We are alike,” Kyuhyun said, his hand curving around Zhou Mi’s arm. “We understand each other, as no one else can. He is the life in me. He strengthens me.”
“Do our animals not mate for life?”
But Han Geng turned from them.
“I would choose only you,” Zhou Mi said, kissing Kyuhyun’s shoulder.
“My amulet heats when I think of you,” Kyuhyun confessed.
“And mine.”
And Zhou Mi let the ghost of worry fade, the wondering of what that might mean, when Kyuhyun pulled him close.
***
“Zhou Mi!”
There was fear in Kyuhyun’s voice, and Zhou Mi ran, branches parting against his arms. He found Kyuhyun on the ground, his two arms holding him upright, and shaking from the effort.
“I changed, and I stood,” Kyuhyun said, his voice weak as well. “And I fell?”
He crouched with Kyuhyun, let Kyuhyun rest against him.
“I am here,” he murmured, though he did not know what it was that he could do for Kyuhyun. “Perhaps, the tree…?”
Kyuhyun nodded, and Zhou Mi stood, expecting to help him. But Kyuhyun clung. “Don’t leave me.”
“No. No, we’ll go to the tree,” Zhou MI said, holding both Kyuhyun’s hands. “Together.”
Kyuhyun stood, steadied against Zhou Mi. With their hands linked, Kyuhyun followed him, the gentlest route to the tree, no ledges or hills. He looked back, seeing how pale Kyuhyun looked, and kept his face forward so that his worry would not leech into Kyuhyun as well.
Against the great tree, Kyuhyun sank, and they rested together, to feel the power there.
“It’s angry,” Kyuhyun said, resting his head against Zhou Mi’s. “I can feel it tremble.”
By nightfall, Kyuhyun felt strong enough to leave, and they walked their forest together, Zhou Mi’s arm around his shoulder or hand in his hand. Morning’s rays seemed almost to make Kyuhyun shimmer, as though he were a ripple on the water, something fleeting. He slept deeply on against Zhou Mi’s neck, and Zhou Mi crooned to him, the leopard male’s head in Kyuhyun’s lap. And Zhou Mi dreamed, the forest sweet and cool, morning and nightfall, balance among all things. He saw the great tree, saw Kyuhyun resting inside of it, color blooming into his cheeks, strong again.
And Kyuhyun dreamed that same dream.
He carried Kyuhyun on his back, and their pelts and faltered to see Han Geng by the tree, Siwon resting in the shade of it.
Zhou Mi let Kyuhyun down and he nearly stumbled, and there was nothing but fear on Han Geng’s face.
“Did we do this to them?” Han Geng asked.
Han Geng’s anger before had been because - in Siwon - he had found an other too, and he had been afraid.
“I dreamed that he was made better by the tree,” Zhou Mi rasped, holding Kyuhyun against him.
“So did we all.”
Daniel, weakest, was carried into the tree, and Kibum beside him. Siwon held only Han Geng’s hand, his face ashen and body bent. Spirit after spirit, weakened, until Zhou Mi took Kyuhyun’s hand and rested him in the hollow. Their noses brushed, and Kyuhyun smiled for him.
“Soon,” Kyuhyun said.
Soon.
Zhou Mi crouched with the others, as the day grew brighter, shadows longer. The amulet against his chest pulsed, as Kyuhyun’s hand closed around his own. Joined. Mated. He would wait outside of the tree as long as it took. As long as Kyuhyun found his strength so they could run again, curl together in the dead of night again.
Zhou Mi blinked, and blinked again, when all he could see was the swirling grains of the tree. Kyuhyun was-
The others beside Kyuhyun.
They were all gone.
“No!” he screamed, as though the sound would not penetrate the air.
On an inhale, the spirits felt the forest contract. Land the spirits they had carried into the tree falling empty and without care.
They pressed their hands against the wood, against the tree where their mates had rested. The promise of strength, of life. Gone.
“Kuixian,” Zhou Mi said. “Where did he go? Take me to him.”
They did not leave, even at the urge to go, to walk through the forest. It felt as though he could not breathe, reliving the moment Kyuhyun had closed his eyes and in his world, cease to exist.
“Were they sent, like we send the animals?” Han Geng asked.
Hyukjae shook his head. “In that other world, would they survive? They were growing weaker. I could see through him-“
Donghae said nothing, his head against the wood where Kibum’s head had rested.
Perhaps it was because of their mates they grew weaker. Perhaps it was because of themselves. Kyuhyun had not been weak. His leopard had leaped the tall cliffs, stood beside him as Zhou MI’s equal. He would have to send the leopards. Without Kyuhyun, they would be alone.
He would be alone.
His face was wet, water from his eyes as he stared up into the tree.
“Do not leave me here without him,” he begged. And to Kyuhyun, “Do not leave me here!”
His voice joined with the others, sorrow strangling him. Kyuhyun should have lived. The tree should have given him strength. The tree could have sustained him.
The anger was a living thing inside him, clawing at his chest, the amulet searing against his skin.
The loneliness, the want of the touch of one hand, one smile. The life he knew had changed, the world he knew was empty. Kyuhyun had trusted him, and he had brought death to him.
Zhou Mi reached for the others. If they could combine their strength…
But his breath left him, arm dropping limp to the floor. His eyes stared up into the tree, darkness that did not end. Inhale. Exhale. The anger cooled and hardened. The grief congealed, loneliness wrapping around it like a vine. And it lifted from him, formless and black, leaving him dizzy and weak. It lifted and joined with that of the others, a dark cloud that seemed to lift on the wind until it could not be seen.
A black feather was all that was left of it, fluttering down, brushing his cheek, and his eyes closed.
Nothing.
***
Zhou Mi woke among the others, shrugging into his pelt and needing to move.
He wandered the forest for what seemed an eon, days and nights, weeks and months formless, stumbling over tree roots, splashing into streams and out. The tigers nosed him, passing like a shadow.
He walked, his fur matted and muddy, and he climbed the cliff face and felt as though he had nearly found what he was looking for. In the craggy outcropping that formed the cave, he shed his pelt, leaning against the stone as though it would bring him warmth. But there was no warmth. Day faded to night, and night into morning, and he left the cave again as the tiger. He rubbed shoulders with the forest tigers, felt their anxiety in his state, but he could not help them.
He went to the tree, resting his head against it. It had brought him solace before. Not even resting inside in its shadow, did it bring him peace. It felt as though he looked for something, but what it was he could not say. One by one he found his brothers, and slipped away more dismayed than before. Han Geng rested, and did not greet him. Donghae floated on the river currents. They were all…alone.
He walked his territory in solitude, rubbing against the trees and watching birds and butterflies on the wing. It was quieter, somehow, as though the animals had gone, but he did not remember sending them. And at the edge of all things, he growled against the barrier. What was beyond was forest, black and crumbling, red dust blown on too-hot wind. His whole body jerked at the sound of a branch crashing down and nearly disintegrating against the earth. The forest beyond had died. Perhaps there had been a spirit that had looked after it, lured there and killed. But he turned back from the barrier, satisfied at its security.
On a ledge below, just out of his sight, dark wings flexed, tail winding around a rock. A heavy beak clicked together, testing. “Kuixian? Kuixian!” it seemed to laugh, as it flew into the desolation.
***
Night by day by night Zhou Mi settled into the cave. The tiger’s nostrils twitched at smells on the wind. He had found contentment, and yet was unfulfilled. From the tree he took a piece of the broken base, and with a sharp rock, he formed it.
(A baby was born, squalling,)
The line of a back, rise of a head took shape, and Zhou Mi watched the tigers play with a smile.
(A boy left for school for the first time, smiling at his mother’s face.)
Legs emerged from the wood, a tiger’s strength. The curve of a tail.
(A young man received a diploma, the first step of his education done.)
It was last that Zhou Mi carved the tiger’s face, roughly shaping eyes and nose and mouth.
(The first day of work, and the young man was proud.)
Zhou Mi built a fire by the tree, life and destruction at once. It had scarred the tree once, but it was not a fire to destroy - it was a fire to feel. The crackling heat of it made Zhou Mi’s heart race, the power of it. He wondered that it did not lift high into the sky at the drum beat inside of him. But he slept beside it and dreamed, dreamed of the tigers, of fire, of dappled sunlight on spotted hide.
(He did not dream alone.)
From the coals he drew a half burned stick, still glowing hot, and on the wooden tiger’s side he scored dark marks. They were not straight, not even, as the tigers marks were not.
There was a feeling of such sorrow, as he bent over it, as though he mourned. He carried the tiger in the pouch around his neck.
***
The dead places grew, and the barrier weakened. He swam with Donghae to a rock overlooking the waterfall, where they could see the dead place beyond the base of it, where the river stopped, a dry, dead snake of land stretching out, red and cracked like a scar on the ground. They could still feel the forest growing smaller, as though spirits were falling, more and more of them.
“How could anything survive?” Zhou Mi rumbled, scenting the air.
“Something does. Han Geng has seen birds flying, big ones. None like them are in the forest. They hissed at him, tried to get at him through the barrier. He thinks they killed the spirits that cared for the forest beyond.”
“We could not see the forest’s end from this waterfall once,” Zhou Mi said. “The forest grows smaller. How do we stop it and protect ourselves against these birds? Did we know those spirits, as we know each other?”
“I don’t know,” Donghae said, and slipped sleek into the water.
Not even the tigers could tell him, unconcerned of the dead places, the birds Zhou Mi had not seen. The female would have her young soon, and the male was sunning himself alone as Zhou Mi found them.
“You are together, always,” Zhou Mi told them. “We send you from this place when you are too many, to the other world. You are together, and yet we are alone.”
There were many things a spirit was not meant for. Spirits were weak. It whispered through the forest at him, written on vines, and drifting on scattered leaves. To protect himself from those thoughts, he went to the river, to the marker of spirits gone. It was curious, as he looked at marks he had carved, marks Han Geng had carved, and Hyukjae, and he could not remember why. Spirits gone from the forest. Spirits he could not remember.
“A spirit who mates is unnatural,” Han Geng said from beside him. “But these spirits, this marker? I try and I try to remember, but I cannot.”
“Nor I,” Zhou Mi said. “And what of the others? The forest bordering my land is dying.”
“Perhaps that is our fate. To fall from memory like the others.”
Such a fate was too horrible to be imagined. But still he considered the marks, and the legends Han Geng had spoke of. They felt familiar, like turning over a smooth stone he had touched before. No, spirits could not mate. It was only strange stories, far before they were born.
“Do you feel alone?” he asked.
Han Geng stared at the river. “What do I lack? There is nothing for us here.”
And it felt wrong.
To protect himself, the forest, his tigers, he lacked something so essential he could not put it to name.
Again he built a fire, but it was not to mark the wooden tiger, but to mark himself and make his plea. From the ashes of the previous fire, he made a paste, and basked in the heat as he drew lines across his sides, his hips and thighs.
“I am the tiger,” he said, to the wood in his his hand, the tiny and crude representation of the animal he both could become and cared for. “This place I care for is dying and I cannot leave it. I can save my animals but not myself or my brothers. There were others once, others like us. There must be someone to help.”
As the tiger had her mate, he knew there was someone out there. With gentle hands, he rested the wooden tiger in the fire, and backed away. It took only the space of a breath, before it caught ablaze, ashes lifting into the sky, into the tree, and disappeared from his sight.
He became the tiger, gold and black in the fire’s light. The tree had taken something from him. Perhaps it would bring him something in return.
So he crouched in the tree, and prepared to wait.
***