The Tale of Psyche

Once upon a time, a king had three very beautiful children.

The king’s name was Jiang Fengmian, his kingdom was Lotus Pier, and his children’s beauty, it was said, derived from their mother, a goddess of the immortal realm. She had taken a sojourn in the mortal world, where she adopted Yu Ziyuan as her name and Jiang Fengmian as her three-year companion. What drew her to him was a much-discussed mystery among his subjects and in the neighboring kingdoms, as he was a weak-chinned man with a will to match. A handicap for a ruling king: a boon for his aspiring queen? That was one theory, that his weak will was the very draw, but when Yu Ziyuan evidenced no ambition either political or matrimonial the theories turned salacious. He can’t say no to her: maybe he lets her peg him, was one, while he wears his crown. To that, I’d let her peg me, crown or no crown, was one of the standard responses. Hell, I’d beg her for it. Look at her! In any case, whatever it was that made for Jiang Fengmian’s appeal to her, whether it involved dildos or not, Yu Ziyuan bore him his three exquisite children. How it was that the two youngest had birthdays only five days apart, and why it was that the older of them was given a different surname from the king’s, were further topics of avid speculation well-side and street-side, in taverns and in the marketplace.

Jiang Fengmian didn’t have the sense to shut the gossip down or to shape it, but Yu Ziyuan evidently and eventually had the sense to leave him. She did so three days after she gave birth to the third and youngest child. “Goodbye,” she said to her mortal consort. “I’ve neglected my heavenly duties long enough. You’ve been very good,” she added, and winked. “Keep the toys.”

So it was that Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Wanyin grew up in the care of palace nannies. They were petted and made much of and spoiled, for their beauty; if they hadn’t had each other to curb their worst impulses they would have turned out insufferable brats. As it was, the children were sweet-tempered, well-behaved, and mutually affectionate. The eldest by nine months and the only girl, Jiang Yanli was adoring of and adored by her brothers, who would have vied for her attention but that they adored each other too. Wei Wuxian, the middle child, had a playful streak, and lorded his five days’ precedence in age over his brother with such emphatic point and clever jokes as made the nannies cry with laughter. As for Jiang Wanyin, the youngest—

What was there to say of Jiang Wanyin, the youngest?

Jiang Wanyin, the youngest, was so beautiful that the nannies held their breath when they laid hands on him, to dress him or to comb his hair, for reverence.

He was so beautiful that he stopped conversation, when he was brought into a room; stopped traffic, when he was brought out of the palace.

He was so beautiful that, as he grew, and grew only more beautiful, the populace neglected worship of the goddess of beauty, whose name was Weinasi, to worship him instead. Word of his beauty spread far and wide. People from kingdoms near and far made pilgrimages to fill their eyes with his beauty, and traveled home thinking of nothing but his beauty, and returned to their families to speak hushed and awed encomiums, soliloquies, orisons, upon his beauty.

Jiang Wanyin was so beautiful that he had no suitors.

Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian were ardently courted and eventually wed to their most deserving royal admirers, who took them away to their home kingdoms and proudly installed them as their queens. The two elder siblings parted from each other and from their youngest brother with tears and avowals of love and promises of visits, and addressed themselves to their new lives and responsibilities with dedication and diligence.

But Jiang Wanyin had no suitors.

He was too beautiful and too revered.

Royals and aristocrats and commoners, men and women and all, looked on him only to worship him: such was the extent and quality of his beauty.

None dared or inclined to fall in love with him.

None dared or inclined to lust after him.

And Jiang Wanyin desponded, because he had a secret.

His secret was that at sixteen—seventeen—eighteen—he craved nothing more than he craved cock.

He yearned for nothing more than to be fucked until he screamed for pleasure.

At first he was too proud to go seek out his body’s desire. He was a princess, he was a royal. Visiting royals had dwindled since Wei Wuxian had married and gone; how could Jiang Wanyin lower himself to look for what he needed from anyone of a lesser station? So he fucked himself desperately, with hairbrushes from his sister’s vanity, with cucumbers and aubergines from the kitchens, with the biggest of the toys he found one day in the chest of drawers that stood by the bed in his father’s innermost room.

(Its disappearance caused Jiang Fengmian no small amount of anxiety. He’d never dared to get rid of the lot of the cursed things because no method of disposal seemed secure enough from prying eyes, but their walking away of their own accord was not the answer to his problem.)

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what he wanted. Jiang Wanyin wanted real cock, blood-engorged and precum-dripping, to fill him and fulfill him. He wanted a grunting, panting man on top of him, pounding him, plundering him. He wanted to be pinned and handled; he wanted to be used and abused. He lusted, violently, after the most virile of the stable boys; after the beefiest of the gamekeepers; after the slinkiest of his father’s advisors, the one whose sly eyes and clever fingers said he knew and could show you a thing or two. Lusting, violently, pride in shreds, Jiang Wanyin contrived to appear wet and half-naked before the gamekeeper; designed to approach the advisor’s bed barely dressed. The latter was no small feat, the royal counselors’ rooms being as closely guarded as his father’s, but Jiang Wanyin achieved it with graceful aplomb and breathless anticipation. To no purpose: the advisor simply exclaimed, and rose, and swathed Jiang Wanyin in an outer garment, and took a taper, and led him back to the royal apartments. Similarly, the gamekeeper had also exclaimed, and bustled away, and found a clean, capacious length of cloth, and wrapped it around Jiang Wanyin’s shoulders—Jiang Wanyin had willed those enormous hands to linger, but they hadn’t—and packed him back to the palace proper.

So Jiang Wanyin sat in his rooms and desponded. What did he have to do to get what he wanted? Strip himself naked, slick his ass, and arrange to fall onto the stable boy’s cock?

Meanwhile, the royal advisors held a colloquy.

“The princess has no suitors,” said the one Jiang Wanyin had failed to seduce, he of the sly eyes and clever fingers. His name was Wei Changze.

(Wei Changze was Jiang Fengmian’s number one suspect in the case of the disappearing dildo, because he was the only other person in the palace, in the kingdom, on the earth, who knew of its existence. The king hadn’t been able to meet his top counselor’s eyes since a long-ago night that involved Yu Ziyuan, the dildo in question, the counselor in question, and Wei Wuxian’s conception. The things that accursed woman-goddess talked him into! bemoaned the king. Good riddance!)

“Nightless City continues to make war,” said another, “and commit atrocities.”

“Wen Ruohan is the basest of men,” said a third.

“The princess is so beautiful,” said the fourth, “that he can surely reform the basest of men.”

They paused, at that, all five of them at the table.

The fifth was the king.

They paused, at that, because it sounded both very right and very wrong.

A sixth seat suddenly materialized out of thin air.

“Hello, boys,” said Yu Ziyuan. “I’m back. Sorry to steal your thunder, but this plan you’re about to hatch to marry the princess to Wen Ruohan won’t work to stop him. Fortunately, I have one that will.”

Weinasi, goddess of love and beauty, had long had a habit of sojourning into the mortal realm. For one thing, her duties bored her; for another, her son and lover Qiubite was strictly a top. He didn’t like things up his ass, in fact none of the gods did (she’d made a thorough survey before noting in the logs that heaven could use more diversity), so what’s a goddess to do when she just wants to peg someone?

During one such excursion onto the mortal earth she’d found Jiang Fengmian. His weak chin hadn’t been visible from behind; Weinasi had grown rather fond of him, and stayed with him longer than she stayed with most. She’d even given him three pretty babies, at his pretty request, though enlisting outside participation for the second one had been her own pretty idea.

(Not, as it happened, omniscient, Weinasi never knew that Jiang Fengmian had begged for babies hoping they’d keep her occupied. Alas, his plan had backfired: she’d only occupied his ass even more during her pregnancies.)

Then she had returned to heaven, because needs must, and powered through her three year–long queue of customer service tickets in a month. At inbox zero, at last, she emerged, bleary-eyed, from her office, ready to sleep for another month.

“All done?” Qiubite said, lazily.

“Let’s switch jobs,” she said. “I’ll do the archery, and you do the triaging.”

“I don’t think that would work,” he said. “You’re the brains of this outfit. Plus the bow is bespoke.”

“You do seem not to have gotten my brains, son of mine,” she said, “but I’m sure Fuergan would make me my own bow if I asked. I’d just steal the arrows from you.” She handed him a spreadsheet. “Anyway, our roles being what they are, here’s your spec chart. All the victims and locations and intervals, marked the usual way, spaced across ten years this time. Shoot ’em good, poor fools. You’d think the ones who don’t want to fall in love would know to pray to me to prevent it. I offer a prophylactic service too, after all, and the customer is always right. Unfortunately for the would-be carefree lifelong players who don’t think to look to me for help, the praying lovelorn customers are the ones who get their way.”

Qiubite whistled. “Ten years?” he said. “You want me to stretch three years of tickets across ten years this time? That’s going to be quite an extended sojourn, Mother. You might as well abdicate.”

“I don’t want to abdicate. I’m too fond of seeing flowers laid at my shrines. My worshippers don’t seem to mind the delays in my answering their prayers. Also,” she added, “those answers often lead to babies, and the mortal world could stand to see far fewer of the mewling little things. They grow up to be exploitative big things, of each other and the earth’s resources; their self-destruction via nuclear apocalypse or climate change will loom large as possibilities down the line. I’m looking out for mortal interests, really, by reducing the rate at which they fall in love. That’s the kind of beneficent deity I am. The ten-year vacay is just a bonus.”

“Beneficent, negligent, self-indulgent, what’s the difference,” Qiubite said. “I think you’re the real player in this whole situation, in more than one sense of the word, my pretty horndog. On that note—” he leered at her— “wanna fuck?”

“Mmm, yes, do me through the mattress, lick me till I scream,” she said. “Jiang Fengmian was a dear creature, but I must say that his enthusiasm in those departments rather outstripped his expertise.”

“There’s a reason I keep you around,” she said a week later, breathless, blissfully fucked out and eaten out; and then slept for the rest of the month; and then locked up her work laptop and set off for her ten-year vacation, equipped with more than a few resplendent sets of toys. Over the next decade she distributed them all, and had a grand time doing so; but when she returned to heaven, tanned and glowing, Qiubite met her scowling.

“You’re never taking such a long vacation again,” he said. “I was bored out of my mind, with so little work to do. And look, my arms got flabby.”

He flexed his perfect triceps.

“It’s nice to see you too,” Weinasi said, eyes on his muscles. “You need to learn to entertain yourself. Have you considered exercising your archery skills even when you’re not deploying them for work? We can ask Fuergan to forge you some practice arrows. You wouldn’t ever want to miss with the real ones in the line of duty, you know. That would damage my reputation.”

Qiubite laughed. “You’re so selfish,” he said. “It’s so hot. Let’s fuck.”

“In a bit. I want a look at my shrines; I’m in the mood for some floral flattery.”

Weinasi put on her glasses and went to the window.

“Hm. Not bad,” she said. “Better than I expected, given that I was away so long. My goodness, that arrangement is particularly lovely. Let me see who left it—” she peered— “ah, Xiao Xingchen. I remember that ticket: he was the one with the very pretty prayer replete with poetic allusions. He wanted a man called Song Zichen.” She paused. “Come to think of it, Song Zichen also prayed to me. Asking for Xiao Xingchen.” She paused again. “Come to think further on it, those emails had almost the exact same timestamp. And by the time I got to reading them and then took a look earthward, the lovers were already in each others’ arms. With nothing to do for either of them, I ended up just archiving both tickets.”

“Ah, true love,” said Qiubite.

She made a moue. “I prefer it when they need our intercession.”

“More flowers for you that way, though this Xiao Xingchen seems to have done right by you,” Qiubite said, and went to her and swept her up. “You’re so delicious when you’re greedy and petulant. Now let’s fuck. Yes?”

“Yes,” she said, “let’s. Ten years of new tickets can wait another ten days.”

“What,” she said, “the everloving fuck,” eight years later.

Weinasi, goddess of love and beauty, was newly returned home. She was surveying the earth from heaven, and her shrines were bare.

It was worse than that: her shrines were gone.

Qiubite joined her at the window and looked out.

“Holy shit,” he said. “Where did they all go? I don’t see your name anywhere.”

Then, anticipating her, “I shot everyone on your last spreadsheet,” he added, “exactly as you filled it out before you left. Whatever caused this, it wasn’t incompetence on my part.”

She wasn’t listening. Her eyes behind her glasses were intent on the earth.

“Who is Jiang Wanyin?” she said. “Why is that name familiar? Why is it inscribed on all the monuments where mine used to be?”

Qiubite, quicker, spotted him first, matching face to name. “Holy fucking shit,” he said. “He’s beautiful, this princess of Lotus Pier.” Then, “He looks like you, Mother. He looks like a late-teenage male version of you.”

“Jesus Christ,” she said.

“He hasn’t been born yet,” Qiubite said mildly.

“He’s my son,” she said.

Her immortal consort eyed her warily.

“The baby Jesus is your son? That would make him my brother.”

“No, you fool,” Weinasi said. “Jiang Wanyin, the robber of my flowers and shrines, is my son. And your brother.”

Qiubite didn’t take offense at the insult. He wasn’t that kind of god.

“Ah, I remember now,” he said. “Jiang Fengmian. You gave him three children, you said.”

“Jiang Wanyin was the youngest. He was a five-day pregnancy; I’d had enough of the nine-month business after doing it twice in succession. I tacked him on after the second one, and then I came home.”

“Very efficient of you,” Qiubite said. “I approve. But how did this five-day wonder devise to take over your shrines eighteen years later?”

Weinasi didn’t answer right away, peering narrowly out the window.

“I don’t think it was device,” she said eventually. “As you said, he’s very beautiful. I’m not so vain that I can’t acknowledge that my features work even better on his face. I’m the goddess of beauty, remember, and he’s more beautiful than I am. The people are worshipping him instead of me.”

“But you’re also the goddess of love,” Qiubite pointed out. “That’s your main gig; it makes for all your duties. All the prayers you answered over the last eight years—or that I answered for you when I shot the objects of your supplicants’ love— Where are those supplicants’ thanks? And where are your current lovelorn supplicants’ offerings?”

They looked at each other.

“You’re right,” Weinasi said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“I just had the oddest idea,” Qiubite said, slowly. “Do you think it’s possible we’re in a fanfiction story, and the author wrote herself into a plot hole, and decided just to lampshade it and move on?”

“Maybe she also doesn’t know anything about how Venus was actually worshipped in classical antiquity,” Weinasi said.

They looked at each other some more.

Then they both shrugged.

“Whatever the case and cause,” Weinasi said decisively, “this won’t do. I want my shrines and flowers back. I won’t stoop to filicide, but Jiang Wanyin must be removed from the public eye. The people will forget him and his beauty soon enough, and return to worshipping me.” She paused, thoughtful. “Is Lan Xichen available? I may have a job for Schrödinger’s dragon.”

“He hasn’t been born yet either,” Qiubite said. “Schrödinger.”

“Well, his cat is already half-dead,” was Weinasi’s reply, “as Lan Xichen is half-dragon. Or not exactly, not analogously, not quantally, but—”

Weinasi tapped her red-tipped fingers (Le Vernis 151, such a favorite from the future she’d invented a retroactive dye) against the windowsill, thinking aloud.

“As a dragon, he’s the most fearsome beast ever to fly the wide green earth. But as a demigod, he’s as good a creature as his alter ego is base: the very best ever to walk the plains and forests, to tread the hills and valleys, to roam the cities and backwoods. It’s the dragon I want for this project, of course, his wings and the remoteness of his dwelling. The demigod, conversely, would be an interfering nuisance.”

“The demigod seems to have no libido,” Qiubite said. “Or he’s such a gentleman he’s never acted on it. He’s a virgin. The dragon, on the other hand, rapes virgins for sport. He fucks anyone and everyone he fancies. That’s his defining feature: extreme horniness. Oh, look,” he added, noticing. “I’m playing Mr. Exposition. You were, too.”

“Concupiscence is another word for it, lover,” Weinasi said, ignoring her author’s meta-troping this time around.

“Hey, it sounds like my name,” Qiubite said.

“That’s my point,” Weinasi said with, she thought to herself, the patience of a saint. “They have the same etymology. Horniness is basically named after you, my dear, dense Cupid.”

Qiubite was delighted. “Rad,” he said. “I love it. Wanna fuck?”

“I’m going to go see Lan Xichen first. I’m sure I can—let’s say appeal—to his more—let’s say instinctive—side. Care to come with me?”

“Sure, why not,” Quibite said agreeably. “We can fuck when we get back.”

Visit paid, objective achieved—Weinasi was exultant; Qiubite, indulgent—they fucked when they got back. Just for a day: the goddess had an errand to run.

One table; six seats. One incarnated goddess. Four royal advisors; one reigning king. Five faces, stunned; five mouths, agape.

Wei Changze recovered first.

“Yu Ziyuan, immortal of the heavenly realm. Welcome back,” he said. “We’ve missed you.”

(He spoke for himself. Ever since the night of Wei Wuxian’s conception he’d had a massive crush on the king, weak chin notwithstanding, and wished that Yu Ziyuan were around so he could get it on again with said king. She’d be able to make it happen, he was sure. Wei Changze didn’t dare hit on his sovereign of his own accord, weak will or not; as things stood, the king never even deigned to look him in the eye. Had Wei Changze not pleased him? He could do better, if the king would just give him a chance and a glance!)

(Speak for yourself, Jiang Fengmian thought, annoyed, you dildo thief, at Wei Changze’s greeting. The annoyance came of the fact that upon the sight of Yu Ziyuan his ass had twitched an enthusiastic welcome of its own. It suddenly felt rather empty; it had missed her, now and again. Fine! Speak for me too! he thought, and looked toward said speaker for the first time in eighteen years in high dudgeon. But dudgeon dissipated when his gaze landed: Wei Changze—sinuous, sly-eyed, clever-fingered—was very attractive, the king realized. His ass twitched again. He darted his eyes away.)

“Yes, welcome back, you were missed, good to see you again,” the other counselors echoed variously.

(And mendaciously. None of them had had reason to mind Yu Ziyuan’s presence or absence; she’d never before intruded on their conferences or sought to influence their policies. What was she doing here now? they wondered. What was this nonsense about a plan to stop Wen Ruohan’s war-making?)

“You’re all looking extremely well,” Yu Ziyuan said. “These eighteen years have been kind upon your countenances.”

“It’s the princess’s doing, we think,” one of the counselors said. “His shining beauty seems to irradiate everyone within its ambit.”

“Well,” Yu Ziyuan said. “Everyone’s going to have to give up the glow. The princess must be sacrificed, lest Wen Ruohan’s army march upon Lotus Pier, banners raised, and the unsetting sun ever after blot out the nine-petal lotus.”

Five faces, stunned; five mouths, agape.

(Wei Changze forgot his crush; Jiang Fengmian forgot his ass.)

“I am a goddess,” Yu Ziyuan continued, “whose ken encompasses the whole of time. I have espied the future of Lotus Pier, its destruction, and I would see it averted, for your kingdom is dear to me, who was its three-year guest and met only with open hands and open hearts. Thus have I undertaken to pursue and discover the means of its salvation. The princess must be exposed on a mountain to be the prey of a dragon. It is the only way.”

Her voice rang with finality, irrefutable.

No other voice at the table sounded.

Until the king, he of the weak chin and weak will, cleared his throat.

“No,” he said.

His voice quavered; he spoke again.

“No,” he said.

It quavered less. He spoke yet again.

“No,” he said, and for the first time in his life and reign his voice resounded, kingly.

Five faces, stunned; five mouths, agape.

“The princess, my youngest son, will not be exposed on a mountain to be the prey of a dragon—unless he make the choice of his own free will.”

Jiang Fengmian, looking every inch a king, had found his hill and will.

He faced five faces, stunned; five mouths, agape; but he didn’t see them. What was filling his mind’s eye was the light in Jiang Wanyin’s eyes when, thirteen, he raised them to meet his father’s and asked, “Father, will you tell me the truth? Am I anything other than beautiful?”

“Yes,” Jiang Fengmian should have answered his son, whose beauty dazzled even his exquisite and loving siblings such that they, like all the rest of the palace and populace, made too much of it; and whose adoration for his father charmed but confounded all who noticed it—its object most of all. Jiang Fengmian’s reciprocal adoration, however, needed no justification but observation. “You’re great of heart and quick with kindness; you’re brave and strong. You’ll grow to be the justest and wisest of monarchs, and the most loving and loved of beloveds. You’re a dear soul, you’re my dear one, and it’s my joy and privilege to be your father.”

That was what he should have said, because all of it was true. Jiang Fengmian had seen it. His weakness wasn’t of the eye.

His weakness, he despaired, was systemic; constitutional.

For instead of speaking the truth to his son, he froze. He doubted his authority; he quailed at his responsibility; he cowered at his own power over this dear, impressionable creature.

Jiang Wanyin saw his father’s hesitation.

And Jiang Fengmian saw the light in his son’s eyes die.

It had been the light of hope.

Before the father could speak to repair his dreadful mistake, the son gave him a smile, a devastating thing.

“Then it’s good that I’m very beautiful,” Jiang Wanyin said. “Am I not?”

Crushed by the sense of his awful failure, by the knowledge of the damage his weakness had just wrought, Jiang Fengmian found himself helpless to find the words and wherewithal to begin remedy.

“Yes,” was all he could say.

“And you love me,” Jiang Wanyin said.

That’s why you love me, was what he believed. Jiang Fengmian knew it.

But, “Yes,” was again all he could say in reply.

Nothing he could add to it in the moment would change his son’s belief; anything he tried to say would only further cement it. Jiang Fengmian knew it. It wasn’t in him, the requisite authoritativeness; he wasn’t equal to it, the enormity of the endeavor. If he spoke the truth, it would fall flat and false—because the one speaking it would be him.

Jiang Fengmian knew himself.

He was helpless. He was weak.

“I love you too, Father,” his son said, and kissed him, and left him to himself and his despair.

It only grew over the following days, which became weeks, which became months, when Jiang Fengmian tried and failed and continued to fail to make himself redress the great wrong he had done his dear one, his dear son. The more time passed, the less possible it seemed to broach what Jiang Wanyin himself clearly thought was a closed subject. He closed himself off, not only from his father but from his siblings too, Jiang Fengmian saw, pained; despite the boy’s continued smiles and caresses, freely given to them all, a remoteness tinged until it saturated his mien and manners. He wore it beautifully, that remoteness; it became him; it rendered him so exquisite that when the first pilgrims began to arrive at the palace to lay their worshipful eyes on him, fourteen, not even the most pious of the priests disallowed their worship; not even his siblings teased him for the queenly poise with which he received it as if it were his due; and not even his father—

Especially not his father—

Could deny, looking upon him so fine and divine, that he was nothing else so much as he was beautiful.

Jiang Fengmian couldn’t deny it, because it was his fault.

It was his fault that his son, taking his silence for truth, decided not to lose heart but to harden it instead. It was Jiang Fengmian’s fault that Jiang Wanyin chose to enclose himself in splendid isolation instead of remaining vulnerable to hurt; that he determined to ward himself, high and solitary and most stern, from all feeling in order to ward off ever again experiencing the wrench of shattered hope; that he resolved to embrace the thing, the only thing, he thought he was—beautiful as a goddess—and forsake his natural humanity, and commit himself to his imposed deity.

It wasn’t self-delusion but self-definition. It wasn’t self-aggrandizement but self-effacement—the effacement of all the noble qualities Jiang Fengmian had seen in him but had failed to convey to him. Believing his beauty was his essence, Jiang Wanyin made it his identity. And if people would worship him as a deity for his beauty, then his beauty he would offer; his beauty he would espouse; his beauty he would be. Their deity he would be, and he would be the best that he could be.

He was, as the years passed.

All this Jiang Fengmian surmised and witnessed.

All this he lamented.

All this, helpless in his weakness, he was unable to forestall.

Short of self-delusion, the things we believe we are we become.

So it was that Jiang Wanyin grew ever more remote and ever more beautiful.

So it was that Jiang Fengmian grew ever more helpless and ever more weak.

Until, facing five faces, stunned; five mouths, agape; he presided, kingly; he spoke, again.

“My son,” he said, “will make the noble choice. But he must be given it. He must choose.”

“What would you choose?” asked the father, softly, of the son.

They were alone.

It was night. The morning colloquy was long concluded.

“I choose to be exposed on a mountain to be the prey of a dragon,” answered the son. “I choose to save Lotus Pier, and to spare its neighbors. And if my immortal mother in heaven would hear my prayer, I choose to entreat her, whichever one of the great goddesses she is, to confine Wen Ruohan and the armies of Nightless City within their proper sphere.”

“Well, I might as well,” said Weinasi, back in heaven, hearing her son’s prayer, and went to her laptop, and opened Emacs, and wrote a program to confine Wen Ruohan and the armies of Nightless City within their proper sphere.

“We’ll let that run over the next year or two,” she told Qiubite. “Jiang Wanyin gave himself up so meekly and sweetly, after all; there’s no harm in rewarding him for it, even if he’ll never know it. Not to mention that war is an unsightly thing, and a tearer of flowers, and a spoiler of shrines. Plus Wen Ruohan is horridly vulgar. The man has no taste. Neither did he have any intention of marching on Lotus Pier, by the way—he was making war northward—but putting him and his armies back in their box for a bit isn’t a bad idea.”

“Maersi is going to be pissed at you for locking up his toy soldiers,” Qiubite said. “Incidentally, he uses Vim.”

“Let him at me,” she said equanimously, “god of war or not. I can code circles around him, literally if need be, and I use the superior editor.”

“I’m Team Vim,” Qiubite said.

“You use Notepad,” Weinasi replied. “The last thing you coded was tic-tac-toe, and only so that you could replace the circles in the default version with hearts. You thought ‘hacker culture’ referred to lumberjacks and their plaid. You have exactly zero cred in this holy war.”

“Eh, I just said that to rile you up.” He waggled his brows. “Did it work?”

She laughed.

“You’re incorrigible, lover,” she said fondly. “You have been since you were in my womb. Yes, yes, let’s fuck. Meanwhile, I’ll trust Lan Xichen to do as I intend him to: Jiang Wanyin, princess of Lotus Pier, more beautiful even than I, the goddess of beauty, will never again be beheld upon the mortal earth by mortal eyes. The people will resume their worship of me, its rightful recipient, and my shrines will be restored to their former floral glory. I do so love red flowers especially,” she said, admiring her nails. “There’s no color like the color of love.”

“Come to bed,” Qiubite said.

“Come make me,” Weinasi said. “And make me come.”

Qiubite happily got to work.

“Would you say goodbye to your siblings?” the father asked the son. “I’ll summon them home.”

“There’s no time,” Jiang Wanyin said. “I can write them letters.”

“I can ask your mother,” Jiang Fengmian said, “by prayer as well, to bring them here sparing the travel. We know she freely traverses space as well as wholly comprehending time.”

“No, Father. It’s clear she possesses neither maternal instinct nor mortal compassion; and it may be that the more prayers she hears, the fewer among them she answers. It would be best, across all the lands, that she answer mine.”

Jiang Fengmian said the words he should have said long ago.

“My dear son,” he said. “My dear one. You’re brave and strong, and kind and great of heart. It’s my joy and privilege to be your father.”

Jiang Wanyin smiled.

“I’m not brave,” he said. “I’m not strong. I’m neither kind nor great of heart. I’m beautiful. I’m worshipped. It would be poor recompense for the people’s offerings to me to let them go to their doom. If I’m making the noble choice, that’s because it’s the only choice.” He reached out. “But I hear your words, Father, and I love you for them, and for yourself. I always have. And whatever awaits me, however much time is left me—I always will.”

What could Jiang Fengmian do but return his son’s embrace?

What could he do but let him go—him who chose to go?

I’m beautiful, thought Jiang Wanyin, and I’m a slut for cock. And I’ll die now, or worse, having known only the rewards of the one, unwanted; and not the other: what I want most in all the world.

He put his borrowed toy back in his father’s drawer, and set his things in order, and prepared himself to meet his fate—his death or worse—his dragon.

He stood, upon a midnight thereafter, upon a peak.

High and solitary and most stern, he stood and waited.

He heard the beat as of enormous wings.

The night darkened to black—the moon and stars disappeared—as the dragon approached. Jiang Wanyin could see nothing. The dragon, however, seemed to have its own means of sight other than light, because he heard it laugh a low laugh of approval, and speak.

“Pretty thing,” it said. “I’m going to have so much fun with you.”

It took him up; it flew him away. It flew him for hours, it seemed, and crooned to him a stream of filth.

“What are you hiding behind that white robe, pretty mortal, that covers you so completely? White skin, clear and soft and smooth; throat a sculpted column; collarbones like wings? Not like my wings, jointed and muscled, made to beat the air and eat the miles; but like two stylized strokes of an artist’s brush? Lower, sweeter still, are you hiding two nipples like buds, roseate and shy? I’ll want to see them, pretty one. I’ll tear that white robe off you and lower my eyes, then my mouth, to your white chest. I’ll coax those nipples pebbled; I’ll lick them red and stiff and tender with my forked and flicking tongue. Shall I pierce them, then, with needles, and run them through with rings of gold, the most delicate from my store? Shall I run a gold chain between them, and pull on it, and pull you toward me to please me? Mm. No; not, I think, until I lick the rest of you, not until I lick all of you. Not until I explore, with my forked and flicking tongue, all your dips and hollows, all your juts and angles. I’ll like the way you taste, won’t I, pretty princess? You taste good, don’t you, royal-blooded and raised on palace fare? If I, with my forked and flicking tongue, were to lick my way into your fundament, your hole, what would I taste but honeyed walls and sweet virginity? No man has had you, princess. I can smell your sweet virginity. Nothing arouses me more: a flower unplucked, a shrine unplundered. I’m going to take it, princess. I’m going to pluck it, plunder it: your sweet virginity. I’m going to lick your honeyed walls open and slick, and I’m going to plunge my dragon cock into your virgin hole. Can you see it now, princess, hardening in the air as I fly the sky? Can you see my dragon cock?”

Jiang Wanyin could, by what light he didn’t know, because there was none; from what angle he didn’t know, because he saw all of it all at once. The only thing he knew was to hold back his moan—

Of desperate desire.

The dragon’s cock was magnificent.

Black as pitch, agleam like tar, it was a ridged and spiraled thing. The shaft was formed as if a malleable substance, a square pillar, had been twisted along its lengthwise axis, round and round again, and its corners smoothed down. Larger and more widely spaced at the base, the ridges grew smaller and closer as the shaft tapered, ever so slightly, and curved, too, ever so slightly downward and then upward. At the very base, on the underside, three knobs, aligned back to front, jutted out parallel to the spiral, as if rather than continuing to wrap around the shaft as the other ridges did, they had been too eager, too early; tumescent, they stayed the course instead, straining and protruding forward. Far forward, all the way forward, conic, crowning the shaft, the head was shaped like an arrowhead. At the very tip, barely blunted, there must have been an opening, too subtle to see, because as it hardened to fullness the magnificent cock began to leak.

It was elegantly proportionate; it was meaty, monstrous. It was aesthetic; it was carnal. It was built for pleasure; it was built for violence.

It was the only thing Jiang Wanyin, staring and aching, had ever wanted.

He wanted it inside him.

The dragon seemed to be able to manipulate perception or perhaps space itself: to Jiang Wanyin’s senses, relative sizes kept shifting; size itself seemed to be an unstable quantity, or all the possibilities across its range to coexist superimposed. He himself seemed to be all sizes at once while also being only his own; the dragon, too, was at the same time vastly bigger than he, its cock an impossible fit, and also bigger not by too far than a man, its cock perfectly commensurate, and made, but made, to fit, to fill, Jiang Wanyin’s empty, hungry ass.

“Yes,” he said. “I can see your cock.”

“Are you afraid of it?”

“No,” he said.

The dragon chuckled. “Ah, royal poise,” it said. “A pretty thing, like you, and rich. Hold onto it, princess. It’ll bear you up for what I’m about to do to you—until nothing will.”

Their flight had slowed; soon the dragon landed.

And then it pounced.

It pressed him face down onto what felt like a bed of pebbles (nuggets of gold, he would realize only much later: there was no light; filling his sight was only night). He had hardly registered the discomfort, their digging into his flesh, before the dragon ripped his robe open and off that the high priests of Lotus Pier had solemnly and ritually put on him, every one of them weeping despite themselves, while his father presided, dry-eyed and regal yet loving him, Jiang Wanyin had known, and mourning him. But all thoughts of home and kin and grief were driven from his mind when the dragon seemed to skip past the first promises it had imagined were threats and made straight to fulfill only the last ones, the best ones, when it flicked its tongue against his hole. The forked thing (was it? he couldn’t tell, not yet) tested and tasted him (the dragon hummed, as if pleased), and then in one smooth movement, muscular and merciless, snaked its way deep into his ass. He cried out in pleasure that the dragon mistook for pain, if it took pleasure in inflicting pain—or was its pleasure in forcing pleasure?—because it laughed, a satisfied sound. It withdrew its tongue (no— he thought, bereft) only to plunge it in even deeper (oh—that was bliss—). Thus, and ruthlessly, and gloriously, the dragon’s tongue began—and it continued—and it persisted—to fuck his hole. Jiang Wanyin moaned; he writhed; the wet and sinuous and pistoning pleasure of it was beyond any sensation he himself had ever wrung from his body made, made, made to be pleasured; made to be fucked. When the dragon paused, and withdrew again, Jiang Wanyin moaned and writhed the loss. The dragon laughed again, sounding delighted, and said, “So my pretty little virgin is also a pretty little slut,” and as if to reward him for his whorishness plunged, once again, its tongue deep into his body. But this time, instead of fucking him, the snaky, supple tongue played in widening circles and prodding tangents (oh, oh, it was forked; he could feel the points of the double prongs against his walls) until his hole gaped, a fluttering, winking thing; until he ached, empty and craving only and desperately to be filled. The dragon yet again withdrew. Before Jiang Wanyin could keen his loss and longing, before he could cry his desperation and desire, “Does my pretty little slut want my dragon cock?” it asked, its voice teasing and knowing and indulgent. “Yes,” Jiang Wanyin gasped, “oh, yes. Please, please, give it to me.” “Beg harder,” it said. “Beg prettier.” Jiang Wanyin sobbed. “Please fuck me,” he begged. “I want your cock, your dragon cock— I need it, I need it inside me, stretching me and filling me and fucking me— Please, please, fuck me like the slut I am— Fuck me wordless, fuck me senseless, fuck me—” “Shameless,” the dragon breathed, and fucked into him in one long stroke. Jiang Wanyin screamed, wordless and senseless and shameless, and didn’t stop screaming as the dragon proceeded to do as he had begged and fucked him like the slut he was. And oh, its pleasure was in forcing pleasure, in granting pleasure, pleasure upon pleasure upon yet more pleasure, because as it fucked him it seemed to note his reactions and to adapt its strokes to them, it seemed to chase his pleasure and not its own, and as it pounded pleasure into him it groaned, and growled, and said, “You love it, pretty princess— Virgin no more, slut evermore— My slut, slut to my dragon cock— Mmm, I love watching you take it, I love watching you love it—” “I love it—” Jiang Wanyin said, finding the words before he lost his mind on the next plunge in. Mindless, he took it— The dragon’s cock— He loved it— He came, speared on it. He came again and again. His body seemed to be one single unending climax that yet crested time and again to something higher, some zenith it approached, upon which it stretched and strained and spasmed, then retreated from, just a little, just for a little while, only then to reach it again, to reach past it even higher, always and only and impossibly higher. “Never stop,” he pleaded on the ebbs, “never, please never, never stop fucking me—” The dragon laughed the first time he said it. “You have no idea,” it murmured. “No, princess. I’ll never stop. Truly, more truly than you can or care to know in this moment, I’ll never stop fucking you.” Jiang Wanyin moaned his gratification, and came. He came, and came, and came—

He kept coming—

He fell unconscious.

When he revived the dragon was still fucking him.

He was blind; he couldn’t see. The front of his body felt like a map of bruises.

But he forgot them as well as the seeming eternal blackness that was all that met his sight, as the dragon filled his ass, his body, his being, with its cock and with its pleasure. “Oh,” he said. “Never stop, never stop—”

The dragon didn’t stop.

He fell unconscious again.

“Am I still mortal?” he said the next time he came to.

The dragon chuckled. “Yes,” it said, “but changed. You don’t need sustenance with me.”

The next time, “Why can’t I see?” he asked.

“There’s no light,” it answered. “I extinguish light in my vicinity.”

The next time: “How long have I been with you?”

“Years, princess,” was the answer. “It’s been two years.”

The next time, “Will you come now?” he asked. “I want to feel you come inside me.”

“Not yet, princess,” it said, and stabbed into him, and he cried out, forgetting the question its words had answered.

Did he hear it whisper Not ever?

Princess.

Did he still know his own name?

“Wanyin,” he heard.

The voice was faint and familiar. More than familiar: it was dear.

Was he asleep?

Was he dreaming?

“Jiang Wanyin,” he heard, clearer this time, and very dear.

“Wei Wuxian,” he said.

“Oh, Wanyin!” he heard.

It was another voice, every bit as dear.

“Jiejie,” he said.

He opened his eyes.

He was in a green meadow, under a blue sky.

This isn’t right, he thought, and the green meadow and the blue sky wavered in his vision. Blackness striped them.

Blackness obscured them.

The dragon was fucking him.

He was screaming. He was begging, “Never stop, never, never stop.”

“Never,” the dragon said. “I’ll never stop.”

He sobbed his pleasure and gratefulness.

He came—

He lost consciousness.

He woke in a green meadow, under a blue sky.

He felt a hand grasp his.

“Wanyin,” Wei Wuxian said. “You’re back. Look at us.”

He did.

His siblings’ faces were exquisite.

“Jiejie,” he said. “Wei Wuxian.”

His heart was full.

“I love you,” he said.

His siblings’ faces were streaked with tears.

Jiang Yanli enwrapped him in her embrace—familiar, and dear.

“We love you too, Wanyin,” she said. “But we can’t linger: there’s very little time left in this illusion.”

“Time?” he said.

“It’s time to bring you home,” Wei Wuxian said, and enveloped him in his hug in turn—no less familiar, no less dear.

“Home?” Jiang Wanyin said.

“To Lotus Pier. To your family.” Wei Wuxian stepped back. “Wanyin: I went to Delphi; I saw the oracle of Apollo. To come home to us you have to kill the dragon. You have to take this—” he placed a flute into Jiang Wanyin’s hands and pressed them closed around it— “and stab it into the dragon’s heart.”

“Your flute,” Jiang Wanyin said. “Your passion. Your gift.”

“Apollo’s gift,” Wei Wuxian said. “I can do without it; to have you back I’d give up much more. Stab it into the dragon’s heart, in which it will bury itself as a sharp knife. The dragon will die, and you’ll find yourself at home.”

“No,” Jiang Wanyin said, “no,” as the illusion rippled and blackness striped his siblings’ exquisite faces. “Stay—”

“We love you—” Each word was fainter than the last.

“Come home to us—” The voices faded completely.

Blackness filled Jiang Wanyin’s vision.

Wei Wuxian’s flute filled his hands, pressed beneath him against—he realized—the nuggets of gold.

The dragon’s cock filled his ass.

Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure filled his body.

“Mmm, you feel so good,” the dragon crooned. “You take it so good, pretty princess.”

His body was his being.

“Am I pretty?” he said. “Am I pretty to you?”

“Princess,” the dragon said on a thrust; “precious,” on the next; “yes,” and stayed buried. “You’re the most exquisite creature I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen many, I’ve seen most, across my dragon’s life. No one and nothing has ever been more pleasing to my eye.”

“And to your cock,” Jiang Wanyin said. “Your dragon cock.”

The dragon withdrew, and plunged in, and stayed in. And it spoke, with infinite tenderness. “No one and nothing has ever felt more exquisite wrapped around my dragon cock. My pretty one, my precious one: I want to spend the rest of your life fucking you, because no creature on earth has ever taken it better. No creature on earth has ever wanted it more. Do you want it, princess? Do you want it, precious? Do you want it for the rest of your life? Do you want what I want to give you for the rest of your life?”

“Would you forsake your virgins for me?”

“I already have,” the dragon said.

“Would you forsake them even after you fuck me to death?”

“Sweet princess— My own sweet princess— Sweet virginity pales to nothing against your sweeter whorishness. I’ll never fuck again after I fuck you to death. Never again. I promise you this, my pretty, precious slut. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” Jiang Wanyin said. “You’re my dragon, for the rest of your life.”

“I’m your dragon. For the rest of my life. For the rest of my eternal life.”

“Do you—” Jiang Wanyin paused— He didn’t dare— Because he was—

—in love.

He would dare.

He dared.

“Do you love me?” he asked his dragon.

“I love you,” his dragon said. “My pretty slut. My beautiful beloved.”

“And I love you,” Jiang Wanyin said. “My dragon. My immortal dragon.”

“Let me now, beloved. Let me fuck you to death. Let me love you to death.”

“Yes. Oh, yes. Fuck me— Love me— Oh—”

The dragon had stabbed into him.

It was fucking him.

It was loving him.

Jiang Wanyin tightened his fingers around the flute in his hands.

He chose his lover instead.

He let the flute go.

He felt it disintegrate to dust.

He had chosen his lover.

“You love me,” he said to his lover, his dragon.

“I love you,” his lover, his dragon, said, and loved him.

It loved him to his climax—

He came—

And came—

He held onto consciousness. He would never lose it again, he determined, until he lost it for the rest of time.

“Come for me,” he said. “Please come for me. I want to feel you come for me.”

“Not yet, beloved,” his dragon said, and loved him more—

And more—

And ever more—

“Come for me,” he said. “Please— I want it— I want you to fill me with your come—”

Did he feel his dragon hesitate?

“Tell me, beloved,” his dragon said. “Do you love me so much you would outlive me?”

“I love you so much,” Jiang Wanyin said, “I would do anything.”

Did he feel his dragon resolve?

“And I love you so much,” it said, “I would do anything you asked of me.”

“Come for me,” Jiang Wanyin said. “I want you to come for me. I want you to take your pleasure of me—the ultimate pleasure—the peak of pleasure—”

“Then I’ll come for you,” it said. “I’ll fuck you till I come for you. I’ll love you till I fill you, overfill you, with my seed, with the fruit of my love for you.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes—”

“Beloved,” it said, and entered him gently. Jiang Wanyin sighed his pleasure. His dragon fucked him slow and sweet, murmuring endearments to which he whispered back his own. “My dragon,” he said. “My lover. My own. Oh, you fuck me so good. I want you to fuck me till you come. I want to feel you come, I want to feel your pleasure. Your pleasure will be my pleasure. Your pleasure is my pleasure.” “As yours is mine,” his dragon said, and sped up his strokes, and gave him the pleasure (he came) which was its pleasure too (he came again). His dragon stroked in ever faster (again), ever harder (again), its endearments giving way to groans (again) and growls (again). Soon—if soon it was; time had lost all meaning—it was pounding him so fast (again) and furious (again) that he felt (again—this time it didn’t end—) their bodies to be fused (it didn’t end—) into one mass— One wild, writhing, copulating mass— (It wasn’t going to end—)

“Come with me—” he cried— “Come in me— Come for me—”

“Yes,” his dragon hissed.

Then it roared.

At the first jet, at the explosion of warmth deep inside his body, his being, Jiang Wanyin’s unending climax intensified to such immensity as was the limit of his bearing— Yet still it heightened and ever heightened as his dragon’s cock throbbed and shot dragon come and dragon pleasure deep and deeper inside him and it thrust his limit forward and upward till he bore ever more pleasure—ever higher pleasure—matching his dragon’s pleasure hearable (it roared) and tellable (he knew) and tangible (he felt)— He rode it, both their pleasure, sobbing and screaming, to the stars— Beyond the stars— To heaven— He reached heaven— They reached heaven together—

Heaven was eternal—

“I love you—” he cried—

“I love you—” his dragon resonated—

“My lover—”

“My beloved—”

Heaven was the dawning of light—

Heaven was retreating—

The light was brightening—

“Oh,” his dragon said, and sighed, and breathed. “Beloved. That was worth my dragon’s life.”

Jiang Wanyin realized the truth.

“No,” he said. “Lover. Your dragon’s death—”

The dragon cock inside him smalled, and was withdrawn.

Jiang Wanyin turned.

He looked.

He looked upon the finest, noblest countenance ever beheld upon the mortal earth.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“I’m Lan Xichen,” replied his dragon, a dragon no longer. “I’m a demigod, and I’m dying.”

“I loved you to your death,” Jiang Wanyin said. “Why did you let me?”

“No,” said Lan Xichen. “It’s I who loved you to my death. It’s I who led myself to my death.”

“Will you hold me?” Jiang Wanyin asked. “Will you hold me while you die?”

Lan Xichen gathered him, infinitely gently, into his arms. He kissed him, sweetly and deeply.

Jiang Wanyin received the kiss, his first kiss, sweetly and deeply.

He drew away, slowly. “What will I do?” he said. “What will I do without you?”

“You’ll make your way back to your home and live out your mortal’s life. Your princess’s life. Your queen’s life, when you wed. You’ll love again. You’ll love your kingly husband, who will love you well and dearly, because there’s no other way to love you. Yet you’ll never forget me, who plucked and plundered your sweet virginity, and who loved you to his death. Now, beloved. Let me kiss you, let me love you, until I can love you no more.”

“I love you,” Jiang Wanyin said. “I’ll love you for the rest of my mortal’s life.”

He drew Lan Xichen’s fine and noble countenance toward his own, his beautiful, exquisite own, and kissed the lover he would love for the rest of his mortal’s life.

Lan Xichen’s mouth moved upon his, luxuriating and loving, until it moved no more.

Jiang Wanyin lay under his lover’s unbreathing body, in its unmoving embrace. Then he moved out from under it, and laid it gently upon the bare ground, and moved up to sitting, and moved up to standing.

He stood, and raised his face to heaven.

“Heaven,” he said. “Hear my prayer. Bring my lover back to life. Bring my lover back to me. Tell me how I might bring him back to me. Whatever trials I must undergo, I choose to face them. I choose to do what I must to bring my lover back to me. Heaven,” he said again. “Please hear my prayer.”

He stood in silence and stillness, and he waited.

“Ow,” he heard, and then a stumble, and a tumble. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

He turned.

A very muscular, very displeased man was clumsily rising to his feet. He managed the operation, scowling all the while, then started to dust himself off. “For fuck’s sake,” he said. “How does she do this? How does she choose to do this? Oh, hello,” he said, spotting Jiang Wanyin. “Wow. Unbelievable: you’re even more beautiful up close, and to mortal eyes. I’m Qiubite. I’m your brother, on the immortal side. Nice to meet you, Jiang Wanyin. Wow. Jesus wept. Seriously, it almost hurts to look at you.”

“Who is Jesus?” Jiang Wanyin asked.

“He hasn’t been born yet,” Qiubite replied. “Never mind him, I’m here about you. I’m here to tell you how to bring Lan Xichen back.”

“You’re here to answer my prayer,” Jiang Wanyin said.

“Not exactly. Well, effectively, I guess. Look, Weinasi didn’t know your dragon would die. She didn’t even know about the whole death-upon-orgasm thing when she stuck him in dragon mode and pointed him toward you. But she was very moved by your love affair. She got invested in it, watching you fuck. I was worried for a minute there that she wanted you for herself—she would say no! to sex with me! to watch you two go at it!—but in fact she’s perfectly happy as a spectator where you’re concerned. Good thing too,” he said. “I’d hate to have to commit fratricide.”

“Weinasi, goddess of love and beauty, is my mother?”

“Yes. None other. I don’t know why Yu Ziyuan never told Jiang Fengmian which one of the goddesses she was, but I’m not the type to interfere in my mother-lover’s life choices.” He shrugged. “Maybe she just forgot, and he was too timid to ask.”

“My father isn’t timid,” Jiang Wanyin said. “He found his voice.”

“He certainly did. He’s been ruling kingly and well, by the way, these five years. Lotus Pier is thriving, as are its neighbors, and people the kingdoms over adore him.”

“As they should. As they always should have.”

“Sure,” Qiubite said diplomatically. “Anyway, enough chitchat. Let me tell you how to bring your lover back from the dead.”

“Tell me. Whatever I have to do,” Jiang Wanyin said, “I’ll do it.”

“You have to journey to the underworld and bring back to the mortal world, in a box, the beauty of Persephone, the Queen of the Dead. Then open it, here beside your dead lover’s body, and he’ll come back to life, and you’ll live happily ever after.”

“The underworld,” Jiang Wanyin said.

“Take heart, kid. It sounds tough, but I’m here to help you. In fact, I can do most of it for you. I’ll basically pick you up from the mortal world and set you down in the underworld, right in front of the goddess’s throne, and then when you’re done I’ll lift you back. Piece of cake.”

“But I don’t understand. If I’ll be in the underworld as it is, why isn’t the task to find my lover and bring him back to the mortal world with me? What does the beauty of Persephone have to do with us?”

Qiubite shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t make the rules. In fact,” he mused, “the more I think about it, the more the fanfiction hypothesis makes sense to me. I think someone is writing everything we do, for her own purposes and toward her own preferences. For one thing, why am I here and not Weinasi herself? It’s not like she’s unavailable.” He paused. “Maybe our author likes me,” he said, preening, “and wanted to see more of me.” He paused again. “I hope her readers agree. Oh, one last thing,” he added, dialogically awkwardly. “She wants me to conclude this meta monologue by noting that the requirement of the beauty of Persephone is actually in the story she’s adapting.”

“What is fanfiction?” Jiang Wanyin asked.

“A phenomenon,” Qiubite said. “But never mind. Come on, let’s go. You’ve got a lover to raise from the dead.”

Jiang Wanyin, beautiful, exquisite, stood before Persephone’s throne.

“Goddess,” he said. “Queen of the Dead: will you give me your beauty, to place in this box, to bring back to the mortal earth, so that I may be reunited with my lover—my dragon—my demigod?”

Persephone looked at him, her gaze cool and assessing.

“You’re Weinasi’s son,” she said.

“I am,” Jiang Wanyin said. “And I’m my lover’s beloved. Will you give me your beauty, goddess, so that I may bring him back to life—back to me—his beloved?”

The goddess’s gaze had hardened to ice.

“No,” she said. “Your mother is my rival, and I won’t do her son any favors.”

Jiang Wanyin despaired.

“Please,” he said. “Please help me.”

“No,” she said again. “It’s an old rivalry, but it’s irresolvable.”

“Please,” he said, “goddess. I beg you not to visit the wrongs, however heinous they may be, of a mother upon her son.”

“Unfortunately, it is a heinous wrong,” Persephone said. “Weinasi uses Emacs, and I’m diehard Team Vim. Find another way, beautiful one, to save your lover. He was lucky, whether or not he revive to be lucky again: you’re exquisite. But you must leave me now. I won’t help you.”

In the underworld, dismissed from Persephone’s presence, the box in his hands empty of her divine beauty, Jiang Wanyin reflected on her words.

“I’m beautiful,” he said. “I’m exquisite.”

He remembered, too, Qiubite’s words.

He spoke.

“Author,” he said. “I don’t know what fanfiction is, but if you’re writing me in a story, will you help me? Will you tell me? Will my own beauty do, to be placed in this box and brought back to the mortal earth? Will it do, my own exquisite beauty, to be released from this box beside my lover’s body, to bring him back to life—back to me—his beloved?”

Yes.

“Then I choose to do this,” Jiang Wanyin said. “I choose to forsake my beauty, which is my identity and my essence. It’s all I am. It’s all I have. It’s why my father loves me. It’s why my siblings love me. It’s why, too, my lover loves me. I don’t know if any of them will love me without it, but I’ll take the risk. I don’t know who I’ll be without it, but I’ll take the chance—I’ll embrace the chance—to forge a new identity, a new essence. Beauty,” he said, thoughtful, “was always a thin thing to found a self on. If it was imposed on me, I yet had the choice to forge my own character. My father gave me the choice to forge my own character, when he gave me the choice to sacrifice myself to save the kingdom. He gave me the choice because he wanted me to see that I was more than my beauty. That I was brave and strong, and kind and great of heart. I am: I’m brave and strong, and kind and great of heart. Author,” he said. “Please put my beauty in this box, and call Qiubite to pull me out of the underworld and place me back in the mortal world, beside my lover’s body—my dragon—my demigod—where I’ll open the box, and bring him back to life—back to me—his beloved.”

Lan Xichen opened his eyes.

They met the eyes of his beautiful, exquisite princess.

“Beloved,” Lan Xichen said.

“Lover,” his beloved said.

“Did you bring me back to life, Jiang Wanyin?”

“Yes. I loved you back to life. Lan Xichen,” Jiang Wanyin said. “Look at me. Do you love me, without my beauty?”

Lan Xichen was uncomprehending.

“Beloved, you’re beautiful,” he said. “It should be impossible, but you’re even more beautiful than you were before I died.”

Jiang Wanyin smiled.

“Kind of you, author,” he said.

Selfish, really.

Jiang Wanyin smiled again, devilishly.

“Shall my lover and I repay your kindness, and reward your selfishness, now, by making love?”

…

“What’s going on?” Lan Xichen asked. “Are we in a fanfiction story?”

“Yes,” Jiang Wanyin said. “And it’s time for you to fuck me in your demigod form.” He paused. “How is it that you transform between it and your dragon form? I never asked.”

“I think I can do it by will now,” Lan Xichen said, and tried.

The world went black.

“Yes, I can,” he said, and switched back.

Light resumed.

“Handy,” he said. “It used to be much more painful, and much more random.”

“Random? Then how did Weinasi stick you in your dragon form?”

“I don’t know,” Lan Xichen said, “and I don’t care.”

He rolled on top of his beloved.

“I heard it’s time for me to make love to you,” he said.

“Yes,” Jiang Wanyin said. “Yes.”

“I’m a virgin in this form.”

“Then it’s my turn to deflower you. I’ll teach you, lover. First—”

Let’s leave them to their privacy, shall we? I think they’ve earned it.

And let’s wind the story down.

Wen Ruohan and the armies of Nightless City never again extruded their bounds: Weinasi outcoded Maersi every time he tried to free his toy soldiers.

It was such fun that she forgot entirely about her shrines and flowers.

Watching them go at it was Qiubite’s favorite form of entertainment.

Speaking of toys, Jiang Fengmian figured out the truth about his dildo thief. He was properly horrified, then properly amused, and laughed about it with his royal consort, Wei Changze.

And when his son brought home his dragon lover, Jiang Fengmian tried very hard not to imagine its dragon cock. No, he thought, Jiang Wanyin wouldn’t be missing the dildo at all.

Wei Wuxian played his flute at the wedding.

Jiang Yanli cried.

Many very happy years later, Jiang Wanyin took up his throne.

What was there to say of him, the queen of Lotus Pier?

That he was brave and strong, and kind and great of heart.

That he was the justest and wisest of monarchs.

That he was the most loving and loved of beloveds.

That he and Lan Xichen, his loving husband, his sometime dragon and sometime demigod, lived happily ever after.

That in fanfiction stories all the world over, they continue to live and love happily ever after.

THE END

Dragon cock, anyone?