STARDUST ✶ honkai star rail.

fainted love ◞ ‎ yingxing

Existence draws a divide between that of mortals and those blessed with eternity, yet he cannot help but be enamoured by you; consuming his thoughts, his dreams, allowing you to lead his mortal soul to ruin. As for a lifetime do you remain far from his reach, shrouded by legend — and all he can do is carve your name into memory.

***

YOUR NAME ECHOES THROUGH THE XIANZHOU, heard everywhere — seen everywhere Yingxing steps foot.

For you dance across his mind in a way that's almost taunting, your movements as elegant as the sword you brandish, yet as swift and fleeting as the cool breeze that blows through the windows of his workshop. It's a gentle momentary caress across his face, a sense of almost grasping something so incorporeal, so impossible.

It's a distraction from the purpose that occupies his thoughts, the one that tears and slowly chips away at everything he is, as sweat pours from his brow and his body shakes with exertion, swinging the hammer in his hands.

The sound of it rings against red-hot iron in a repeated motion, a crude jarring noise that sends tremors up his arm and leaves him gritting his teeth. But his eyes remain unfaltering, focused wholly on tempering the steel atop an elegant staff, wrought from the finest materials he had managed to get his hands on.

Because there remains burning irresolutely, that innate desire of his, the one that strives to be the best, and furthermore, when it comes to the subject that is you.

He thinks of you, each time it meets the metal.

He thinks of you, as he carves your name along it, and each time the tool slips from his grasp and slices apart the palm of his hand, spilling crimson blood — it's the the same colour of the ribbon in your hair blowing in the wind, as a smile graces your lips beneath skies painted with aureate clouds.

It ripples behind you like a blazing trail of scarlet across his memories, whilst silver gleams in your hands in an almost brilliant reflection of the moon itself, crossing blades with him beneath the light of the setting sun, sweeping him up in this mesmerising dance of yours.

You've left him utterly entranced by your very existence, so much that he hardly notices it when you knock him off his feet, for even that fall is graceful by your doing.

However, his defeat doesn't surprise him. Because who was he to compare to the likes of you after all? You're the greatest swordmaster the alliance has seen in centuries, a living legend amongst those who gaze upon your image in equal fascination.

Against you, his existence is almost pitiful, reducible to a mere mortal with a bare scrap of talent in the art of craftsmanship. He's forgotten easily, a human who presumes to walk amongst gods, a faint, fleeting existence amid the illustrious and divine.

Even at the end of your dance, when you're smiling, beaming with the radiance of the sun itself — it's never at him who lingers in your shadow. Your attention drifts elsewhere quickly, endlessly seeking records beyond the sky, enraptured by clouds and moonlight whilst he's left to grasp at the fading trail of stardust you've left in your wake.

His eyes forever remain fixated upon your back. It's the only thing he can behold, yourself turned to greater things. For something far more brilliant catches your own eyes.

He sees the way your eyes brighten at the sight of the Vidyadhara high elder who approaches, dark hair swaying in the breeze and piercing green irises that glisten like emeralds. You greet him like an old friend, slinging your arm around his shoulders, embracing him whilst Yingxing watches from afar.

Deep down, he knows he cannot blame him for holding your attention. Those slender, unblemished hands fit perfectly in your own divinely wrought ones — their complexion is far from his own which remain calloused and marked with faded scars. They're imperfect, etched from the flawed creation that is mortality. He should not behold you with them.